Ottolenghi Granola

Well, it's been a while!  I had a terrible cold for the entire month of February up to this point and I am now ready to get back to my life.  I don't have many posts to catch up on, because I didn't do any cooking while I was sick - it's been a takeout-heavy month.

I made this granola, from the Ottolenghi cookbook, before I got sick.  I don't typically like to put dried fruit in my granola, but I wanted to follow the directions as closely as possible and so I decided to give it a try.  It's actually grown on me quite well - I've been eating it with plain yogurt.  The one thing I don't love about it is that it sticks together in the jar, but on the plus side, it's a little clumpy.

This granola is quite different from my usual one - in addition to the dried fruit, there are sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds, which make it even more colorful, and many different nuts (cashews, brazil nuts, almonds).

This recipe called for maple syrup - a lot of it - and I had only about a tablespoon left, so I added in agave nectar instead.  I also don't have dried blueberries, so I used extra cranberries instead.  The recipe called for 3 Tbsp water to be added to the wet ingredients, which I did, but probably wouldn't do it again - it was a little too watery and I had a bit of extra liquid left over.

Coconut Macaroon Pancakes

I don't get much natural light in here - all our windows are on one side of the building and it's a side that never faces the sun - but I think I've managed to get good shots overall.  I think this lead photo may be my best shot so far.

I was looking for a recipe that would use the remainder of the coconut milk that I had opened for the roasted banana bread, but I wasn't able to find anything that would use ALL of it.  So, I adjusted a recipe for Coconut Macaroon Pancakes to use the amount I had left.  I used 1/2 cup or 4 ounces of coconut milk for the banana bread, so I had 10 ounces of coconut milk left.  I used a ratio to change the amounts in the recipe to be appropriate for the amount of liquid I had.  I had to round in some places but tried to stay as close as possible to the original ratios without adding any insanely precise measurements.

Coconut Macaroon Pancakes
10 ounces of coconut milk
1.5 Tbsp agave nectar (or honey)
2 Tbsp plus 2 tsp whole wheat pastry flour (I expect you could use any type of flour)
2 cups unsweetened dried shredded coconut
1/4 tsp fine grain sea salt
1.5 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs whisked in a medium bowl
2 Tbsp plus 2 tsp natural cane sugar or brown sugar (I omitted this the first time around)

Follow the instructions here.

I attempted to do a banana-muscovado variation here which I encourage you to try if you make these.  I put a small pat of butter in my pan along with a small spoonful of muscovado sugar.  As the butter melted I mixed them together.  Then I put banana coins down in the bottom of the pan and spooned the pancake batter over top.  This would have been successful if I stuck with a pancake small enough to flip, but I tried to make a bigger one, and now I'm eating caramelized-banana-coconut-macaroon-pancake-crumble.

Baby Bran Muffins

I love baking. I have had my eye on the Baby Bran Muffins from 101 Cookbooks for months now. YUM. I bought yogurt today, the only ingredient in the recipe that I didn't already have, and went straight to it.

I used light brown Muscovado sugar instead of the natural cane sugar. I intended to use the full 1/2 cup of honey called for in the recipe, but I only had about 1/4 cup (oops). I topped it off with just under 1/4 cup of agave nectar. I had read in the comments that the muffins were under-sweetened, so I figured it would work out fine (and it did).

The batter was light and fluffy - it was really very interesting. I used my small scoop (Pampered Chef - get one) to put the batter into the mini-muffin tins, which resulted in mostly the perfect size baby muffins. The recipe says it will yield 2 dozen mini muffins, but I ended up with 4 dozen, and batter left over (I ran out of mini muffin tins).


The one, sad problem was that I believe I slightly over-baked them. They were still beautifully crusty on top and moist on the inside, but they stick right to the paper so you almost end up with a mini muffin top instead of a whole muffin. I baked them for 11 minutes. I left them in one minute longer after the toothpick test and I should have followed my instincts and taken them out instead. Next time I might also try them without the muffin papers. I like muffin papers, but not when they stick. I might also try making full-size muffins. The baby muffins were super cute and adorable, but I also ate about 7 straight out of the oven. A full-size one (as long as it doesn't stick to the paper) would be a little more satisfying, I hope.

Peach and Fig Crisp

For my birthday, my mom got me a book called Clean Food. I love reading cookbooks, which is kind of weird. It makes sense to me because I like TV shows but not movies, and I like magazines more than books. I like cookbooks because I can read one recipe at a time if I want. I don't have to remember a plot next time I pick up the book, and I'm not obligated to go back to it later. I also use my cookbooks as a reference when I have something that I have to use (or just really want to use) without any idea what I'm going to do with it.

I had fresh figs from my Nonna and I wanted to make something with them. My mom and sister are perfectly satisfied just eating them right out of the tupperware, but I wanted to MAKE something with them. We were going over Ken's for his birthday and I thought I should bring a dessert. Looking through all my books, I found nothing for fresh figs and I was getting frustrated. I don't like to use the internet for recipes too often, because I can't connect with and develop a trusting relationship with the internet the way I can with a cookbook (and sort of the author). So I finally came across ONE fresh fig recipe in Clean Food. Finally. I was relieved. And lucky for me, it sounded REALLY good - Peach, Fig and Bourbon Crisp.

It turned out not to be too "crisp," but it was tasty. I had a fun time explaining agave nectar to the victims of this experiment (I wouldn't allow it to be counted as a dessert option until I tasted it to make sure it wasn't horrendous) and it turned out to be a pretty big hit. Next time I will try harder to find better peaches (although it is the middle of October, so I shouldn't be looking for peaches at all) but I can't wait to make this again - next year, maybe.

Unfortunately, my camera battery is dead and I cannot find the charger for the life of me, so there is no picture of this little masterpiece. Maybe next year :)