Lauren: Summer Break is Over and We’re Officially One Year Old

Hello, and welcome back to Cooking with Copy. Our blog baby is celebrating its first birthday, so please help us blow out its imaginary birthday candle!

It has been a whirlwind/tornado of a summer and I’m glad to be back here with you. There were birthdays, and birthdays, and oh, did I mention birthdays? There were big family dinners upon big family dinners. There were holidays, anniversaries, baby showers, births, bridal showers, retirement concerts, parties, weddings, Blogshop, Ravinia concerts, trips to Portland, OR,  New York, NY, St. Louis, MO, Holland, MI, Madison, WI, and several trips to South Bend, IN, there were conventions (the National Stationery Show and the American Library Association Annual Conference), internships, and interviews, there were visits from friends and sisters and nephews and brothers-in-law, from my brother’s Argentine mothers-in-law and even from California cousins, and, most recently, there were weeks upon weeks (upon weeks, we’re still going) of packing and moving my grandparents into their new condo.

With only two weekends without plans, visitors, or travel from May until now, it’s no wonder my room looks like I’m the one moving. In between all of the plans this summer I found way too many pockets of time during which I made way too much food. This actually worked out for the best as there was almost always a guest, a workman, a party, or a special event that benefited from the food, but let’s just say I’ve met my butter/sugar/chocolate/carb quota for the year.

So, now that summer is coming to a close, are you ready to get this show back on the road with an epic 5-month-in-the-making recipe roundup? Great, let’s go!

Note: I didn’t take a photo of everything, but all of the recipes here link back to their original posts which do include beautiful photos.

Birthday baking:

• Confetti Waffles

Make the batter according to the directions on the box and throw sprinkles in right before pouring the batter into the iron.

• Cupcake Puppy Chow

Cupcake Puppy Chow (pre-powdered sugar coat) comes together in 10 minutes.

Notes: Omit butter, and add 1/4 tsp. salt and 1 tsp. vanilla extract to the melted almond bark/extract/heavy cream mixture

Grandma’s visits:

• Martha Stewart’s Crisp Coconut and Chocolate Pie

Notes: This is just an ENORMOUS chocolate bar and would be better with twice the coconut and 1/3 the chocolate.

Father’s Day:

• Martha Stewart’s Pigs in a Blanket (with poppy seeds) – also excellent for small children and were served at the baby shower as well

Baby shower:

• Smitten Kitchen Classic Sangria(s)

Things I learned this summer: Nothing makes women as thirsty as a baby shower. We had to refill the container twice.

Family dinners:

• Gourmet’s Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad with (Toasted) Fresh Walnuts and Pecorino Romano
• Red Kale and Pomegranate Seed Salad – self explanatory, just add an apple cider vinegar and olive oil dressing
• Sprouted Kitchen’s Citrus Polenta Cake with Stone Fruits (or in my case, peaches)
• Shutterbean’s Raspberry Peach Buckle

Make sure the buckle is THOROUGHLY cooked when you remove it from the oven. You may need to bake it longer than Tracy specifies. The first one had to be thrown out because it was totally raw, adding baking time saved the second one though.

• Golden Graham S’mores Bars via Celebrations at Home

I CANNOT STOP EATING THESE AND IT’S A PROBLEM BECAUSE THEY ONLY TAKE FIVE MINUTES TO MAKE

Note: Make sure to freeze the chips until the last possible second so they don’t melt. Major, major bonus points if you use Guittard Milk Chocolate Chips. Can’t say enough good things about Guittard, every chip I’ve tried has been fantastic. I am totally willing to be a brand ambassador. Guittard, get at me.

• Momofuku Milk Bar Confetti Cake

Momofuku Milk Bar’s birthday cake elevates the typical confetti cake to new heights with a richer and more complex flavor than boxed versions.

• Momofuku Milk Bar Confetti Cake Crumb

THIS IS CRACK. Consider yourself warned.

Notes: I bet a combo of confetti crumb and the confetti cake above would make kick-ass mix-ins in a homemade cake batter or vanilla ice cream…just saying.

• Thai Beef via Orangette via the book, Thai Street Food

Thai beef (here without the fried egg) has yet to meet a hater.

Notes: This recipe is easy, fast, and unique. It’s my fallback for nights when I don’t want to think about what to make.

• Two Peas and Their Pod Mini M&M’s Cookies

Let’s face it, these were just an excuse to ingest a LOT of mini M&Ms. Don’t look at me like that.

• Martha Stewart’s Peanut Butter and Marionberry Jelly Thumbprint Cookies

My sister brought us a jar of marionberry jam from Oregon which I was dying to use for these, but you can use any kind of jam/jelly you’d like.

• Quaker Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
• Smitten Kitchen Zucchini Parmesan Crisps – these turned two sworn zucchini haters into zucchini lovers, but then, what doesn’t Parmesan improve?
• Smitten Kitchen One-Pan Farro with Tomatoes
• Smitten Kitchen Kale Salad with Pecorino and Walnuts – which I made sans raisins or panko crumbs
• Alice Medrich’s Ultra-Thin Chocolate Chunk Cookies – crunchy, caramel-y, and full of 70% cacao Sirius Icelandic chocolate (my favorite bar chocolate), these guys are beloved. Leite’s Culinaria is also home to the entertaining podcast, Talking With My Mouth Full
• Kale and Cheese Scrambled Eggs

1. Sautee the kale until slightly soft and brighter green.
2. Finish cooking and scrambling your eggs (or in my case, egg whites) and put into a bowl.
3. Sprinkle cheese (I like mozzarella) on top.
4. Get Excited.
5. Eat.

• Smitten Kitchen Peach Shortbread

Butter with peaches, what’s not to like? Plus I’m a sucker for this red/orange/yellow color combo.

• The Barefoot Contessa’s Roasted Brussels Sprouts – Make sure there aren’t any wee worms hiding near the bottom of your sprouts, I encountered this problem frequently this summer, perhaps because the sprouts aren’t a summer vegetable. Either way, peel some of the layers away to ensure no accidental worm ingestion.
• Sprouted Kitchen Granola Protein Bars
• Rachel Ray’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Chewy Granola Bars

A little too sweet, but worth a try with brown rice syrup instead of butter. They’re also perfect for shipping across the country.

• Martha Stewart Living Blog: {Wild Maine} Blueberry Muffins – really, REALLY GOOD. I used dark brown sugar exclusively and they were excellent. Not the prettiest muffins on the block that way though.
• Edible Perspective’s Grilled Kale-and-Cheese-Stuffed Tortillas (quesadillas) – These guys need a lot more cheese, like maybe double the specified amount. Her measurements will give you a leather-like quesadilla where the crispy kale just falls out. I know, I know, cheese is mega-caloric/full of cholesterol and fat, but we used low-fat cheese, and if you’re going to have a quesadilla, you might as well have a GOOD one. I’m definitely willing to try these again with double the cheese because the flavor is fantastic and, well…
• Martha Stewart’s Chicken, Chickpea, and Pesto Salad with Celery and Cucumber
• Middlewest magazine’s Buttermilk-Cinnamon-Poppy seed Coffee Cake

Very poppy seed-y, kinda too sweet.

• Pumpkin Cookies via My Baking Addiction

It might be 93 degrees outside but I pretended it was fall with these frosted pumpkin cookies/cakes. They’re really just glorified muffies, not cookies, and the frosting is too sweet and doesn’t fully set, but they received recipe requests from people at my dad’s office so here you go.

Happy September and welcome back.

Caro: Blueberry Bagels

Guys, I’ve been in such a reminiscent mood lately. Considering all that has yet to be scratched off my current to-do list, it’s sort of troublesome that all I want to do is think back to times past. Not necessarily long-past, though… for instance, I’m pretty sure I’ve spent a total of, like, 100 hours in the past week daydreaming about the trip to New York City I got back from just two Saturdays ago.

I fall hard for NYC every time I’m there, and this was no different. One thing did make this trip extra-special, though! It was the first time I’d ever eaten a bagel in New York.

(Cue gasps and “WHAT?”s and “Who are you?!”s.)

Yeah. The last time I was there, I was too distracted by promises of sweets at Levain Bakery and Momofuku Milk Bar and Baked by Melissa and Jacques Torres to think of… bagels. But, whatever. No big. I get it now.

The friend I was visiting took me to Brooklyn Bagel and Coffee Company in Chelsea for my first city bagel—a humble, untoasted plain mini bagel with plain cream cheese. I can’t say whether it was anywhere near the best bagels New York has to offer (I hear those are over in actual Brooklyn)… but I’ll be darned if that wasn’t the BEST bagel I’ve ever had. It was no simple Einstein Bros bagel, guys. It had a crisp exterior and was dense and chewy and fragrant and just beautiful. I made sure to go back before leaving New York.

So, what does this have to do with blueberries? Well, not much. My typical trains of thought make little to no sense. Sorry. I have a point; I promise! (10 points for the reference.)

Ok. I was sitting in Starbucks a couple of days ago, pretending to watch “Michael Clayton” on my laptop but really just thinking about potential blueberry recipes for this post. I wanted to use blueberries really in just about anything other than a muffin (surrendering to the sad realization that I’ll never ever make one like Otis Spunkmeyer can).

First, I thought of making some sort of blueberry salsa to go on chicken, but I was quick to remember that I’ve never been a fan of sweet + savory at the dinner table, and I didn’t want to make something I wouldn’t be super excited to eat.

Next, I thought of making a blueberry pie/crumble/cobbler/buckle/crisp/something or other, but I felt: 1. overwhelmed by the number of baked-good options and 2. uninspired by how kind-of similar they all seemed.

Then, I got distracted by a particularly intense scene of “Michael Clayton.” The music was really dramatic.

Then, out of nowhere, I thought of the bagels I had in Chelsea. (I told you… I canNOT get New York out of my mind.) So warm and delicious and satisfying. And dreamyyy, and…—no more distractions!  I told myself to snap out of it and return to blueberry-brainstorm mode, and then… “That’s it! BLUEBERRY BAGELS!” I realized I’d never ever had one that I actually enjoyed, and I wondered if I could draw upon the internet to find a recipe for a bagel (that would rival the one I had in NYC) and later bastardize it via the addition of oodles of blueberries. Done. And. Done.

So, I made these blueberry bagels.

top: bagels before boiling; bottom: bagels after baking

For me. For you. For everyone who believes the road to bagel bliss ends at the refrigerated Lender’s bags at your grocery store. I can now assure you, dears, that it does not.

And forget the cream cheese… I topped them with cinnamon blueberry butter. Because, as you’ll soon learn, I can’t leave well enough alone.

Just look at that butter. Oh, baby.

My WORD, are these DELICIOUS. They were so perfectly crisp and chewy, just dense enough, and pillowy-soft on the inside without being “bread-y” or fluffy. Does that make sense? Substantial in the best way (and good-looking to boot). I ate two (in five minutes), and I don’t know if I can ever go to Einstein Bros again. Make them; thank me… I think we’re going to be friends.

Edit: These definitely lost some of their textural glory by day two. They were great toasted… but if you want them at their prime, pure untoasted best, eat them the day you make them.

P.S. Have you ever heard of/used this iPhone app called Halftone? Lets you make a comic strip frame out of any picture. Like so:

Super fun. I love it.

Anyway…

Lauren: Blueberry Buckle

I’m not going to lie. When we chose blueberries for this week’s theme, I did not break out into even one of my giddy, food-related dances (chickpea salad anyone? herbs?). Sorry blue, but I’d pick a rasp-, straw-, or blackberry over one of your tart, seedy, smushy little siblings any day. But that is not the point.

The point of this post, and this blog for that matter, is to provide us with an excuse and a deadline to explore the world of food in more depth than we ever have before in our short 22 years of life. It’s a weekly discovery of vegetables we didn’t know existed, dishes we’ve never thought to make, and cooking (oh hell, you know it’s going to be mostly baking) techniques far from mastered. Hop in, guys; it’ll be an interesting ride. And a tasty one.

We hope.

You say blueberry; I say buckle. BLUEBERRY! BUCKLE! BLUEBERRY! BUCKLE! But seriously, you’ll be screaming about it, too.

The first delicious thing that popped into my head at the mention of blueberry was muffin. But I wanted to move beyond my mind full of muffins and delve deeper. Hours into my research and about 15 tabs on my Chrome browser later, I returned to one of my original favorites from the list: King Arthur Flour’s blueberry buckle (but NOT the one you can find online) by way of The Food Librarian. While this is probably the second-most-common blueberry baked good that comes to mind when brainstorming “what to do with blueberries,” I didn’t care. I wanted streusel.* In case you were wondering what a buckle is, it is, according to a website called wiseGEEK, a dessert which combines the holy trinity of dessert baking: seasonal fruit, a rich batter, and, the best part, a streusel topping. It looked good, if a little undercooked in the photo, so I resolved to cook it longer than specified in the recipe (which I tend to do with everything anyway) and began prepping.

I had two helpers in the kitchen for this baking adventure: my mom and my grandma. Both donned their aprons and got to work. Grandma rolled up her sleeves and commenced the pan-buttering. My mom was in charge of the streusel, and I just sort of ran around the kitchen mixing things.

It was easy; mix the dough, fold in the blueberries, pour into an 8×8 Pyrex glass dish, cover the top with streusel, pop it in the oven. In the end, though, I’m pretty sure I ended up cooking it for 10 extra minutes because the sugary topping WOULD NOT BROWN. When the edges of the buckle started browning, though, I decided to just take it out. I’ve had bad luck overcooking cake-like things lately, and I didn’t want to ruin this, too. I set it on our stovetop, and we left for dinner (meaning it had a chance to cool for around three hours).

My complaint with this recipe: It didn’t specify which kind of butter to use (I used unsalted to ensure I didn’t over-salt the recipe)—one of my eternal laments—and I ignored the Librarian’s note about butter usage, although in retrospect it probably would have been a good idea, since I found the topping just a tad too buttery. The recipe says to crumble the butter with a fork, a knife, or your fingers, but that just seemed inefficient and like unnecessary butter-touching (well, that sounds dirty), so we broke out our pastry knife to combine the streusel ingredients.

The buckle was much better once it had cooled completely than it was with a bit of oven warmth still on it. While I found the topping slightly too buttery, I did enjoy the little blueberry jewels studding the cake and the taste of lemon with every bite thanks to the rind in the topping. The crisp top combined with a very crumbly cake meant that I could not capture a good-looking piece of this baby, but just know that what it lacked in structural integrity it made up for in deliciousness. The buckle got rave reviews, and everyone who tried it went back for at least one more piece. It was gone in two days.

Looks like I’ll need to give blueberries another try.

*Confession: What I REALLY wanted to make was a golden brown, almond-topped vegan blueberry coffee cake by Hungryface, but spending on (and finding, for that matter) coconut oil and soy yogurt wasn’t going to happen, so I went with plan b(uckle).