…Posts Tagged ‘Smitten Kitchen’…

Smitten Kitchen’s Corniest Corn Muffin

My friend Christina was entering a chili cook-off for the second year in a row and invited me over to taste test one of her batches.Verdict = delicious. No wonder it won THIRD PLACE at the chili cook-off. Woot!

I figured the perfect accompaniment to chili was obviously a corn muffin. So I moseyed along to my go-to food blog Smitten Kitchen and found the Corniest Corn Muffin recipe. It was easy, delicious, and actually had corn kernels in it.

I won’t re-post the recipe since I followed it exactly.

Perfection!

Onion Flatbread

Have you not told me about the wonder that is fennel seeds?!? Seriously. Shame on you.

They make everything taste like sausage. Now, we all know I’m not a big meat eater, but I do love me some spicy sausage. And now, I can add fennel seeds to EVERYTHING to give it that lovely sausage-y taste. That is what you call “winning”, folks.

I had a couple friends over the other day and was looking for an appetizer I’ve never tried before. Naturally, I gravitated towards Smitten Kitchen and found this amazing onion tart with mustard and fennel seeds recipe. It’s a bit time-consuming but I had most of the ingredients in my pantry so it was low-cost. The only thing I needed to buy was onions to supplement the stash my mom had generously given me

Smitten Kitchen’s recipe called for 3 pounds of onions but I had no idea how much that actually was and also couldn’t be bothered with looking it up so I ended up with an enormous amount of onions. FYI – 1 1/2 large onions would do the trick.

Here’s Deb’s recipe:

Ingredients:

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (a 1/4-ounce package)
1/2 cup warm water (105 to 115°F)
1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 large egg
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided
2 1/2 teaspoons salt, divided
2 teaspoons fennel seeds
3 pound yellow onions, halved and thinly sliced
2tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Directions:

Stir together yeast and warm water in a small bowl and let stand until foamy, about 7 minutes. (You’re supposed to start over if it doesn’t foam, but for whatever reason, my yeast never does! And I buy new packets all the time! Curious, curious)

Put 1 1/2 cups flour in a medium bowl, then make a well in center of flour and add yeast mixture to well.

Stir together egg, 1 tablespoon oil, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt with a fork. Add egg mixture to yeast mixture and mix with a wooden spoon, gradually adding flour, until a soft dough forms. Transfer dough to a floured surface and knead, working in additional flour (up to 1/4 cup) as necessary, until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.

Transfer dough to an oiled bowl and turn to coat completely. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. I put mine on top of the radiator. Is that safe?

Again, my dough never really doubles, maybe grows 50%, but I’m too impatient to wait longer than an hour and a half. It’s probably because the yeast didn’t foam but I figure, it all tastes the same anyway. I’ve made this recipe twice now, and it’s been delicious both times, and both times, the dough didn’t rise much…

While dough “rises”, you’re going to want to slice up your onions VERY thinly. Again, don’t be fooled by this picture. You only need half of the onions shown here. Unless you’re a huge onion lover, then you can pile it on

You know what helps when you’re slicing up onions for 10 minutes?

Lord of the Rings.

Heat the remaining 1/3 cup oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat, then sauté fennel seeds until a shade darker, about 30 seconds. It’s going to get lovely and toasty!

Stir in onions, remaining teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper, then reduce heat to medium-low and cover onions directly with a sheet of parchment paper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are very tender and golden brown, 1 to 1 1/4 hours.

The first time I made it, I waited until the onions looked like the above picture and put it on the bread. But the second time around, I carmelized them (the heat was medium-high) and while it basically tasted the same, it looked much better. So, you can do either but I wanted to throw it out there.

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Pat out dough on a large heavy baking sheet  into a 15- by 12-inch rectangle, then brush mustard evenly over dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border around edge. Spread onions evenly over mustard, then sprinkle evenly with cheese.

Bake until the crust is golden brown, 30 to 35 minutes.

Cut into manage-able pieces and consume!

Again, I loved this recipe so much, I made it the following week. It’s a great accompaniment to salads and it’s DELICIOUS cold. But, I’m someone who enjoys cold pizza, so maybe you’ll not want to eat it that way.

Smitten Kitchen calls this a “tart” but it’s really more of a pizza. But again, maybe it’s because my yeast didn’t foam and it’s actually not how it’s supposed to be… I should change the post name to… “What you get when the yeast doesn’t foam.”

Okay, I’m done writing.

Spinach and Chickpea Crostini

Okay, I think this is the last of my chickpea recipes for a while so hold tight. (I’m sick of them. Bleh) However, I would like to say, that I am making a real dent in eating things in my pantry Double woot!

We had a potluck at work so I searched the internets for a simple, healthy, vegetarian, and CHEAP dish that wouldn’t taste simple, healthy, vegetarian, and cheap Enter: Smitten Kitchen. I swear, I can never go wrong with Deb’s recipes.

I used her spinach and chickpeas recipe thinking it would be easy since they are basic ingredients, but finding paprika ended up being quite a challenge. I finally found it at a tea and spice store on the Upper West Side.

I made some modifications, so here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bag of spinach (baby spinach works, too)
1/2 cup canned tomato sauce
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Pinch of red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 baguette, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
kosher salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put sliced baguette on baking pan and brush with some olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.

Place a large saucepan over medium heat and half the olive oil. When it is hot, add garlic and cook until nutty brown. Then add the spinach with a pinch of salt (in batches, if necessary) and stir well. Remove when the leaves are just tender, drain in a colander and set aside. A lot of moisture may come out so you can just throw that away.

Add other half of the olive oil to the pan, heating over medium heat, and add the chickpeas and tomato sauce. Throw in the cumin, red pepper flakes, and red wine vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.

If the consistency is a little thick, add some water. Add the spinach and cook until it is hot. Check for seasoning and serve with paprika on top, or on crostini.

Dunzo!

This is a great appetizer but can also be made as a side to a protein dish.

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