tuscany

in

hi, tuscany is no joke. there really are rolling vineyards everywhere you look, the focaccia does have grapes in it, and people actually do sit outside for beautiful timeless lunches with wine and prosciutto and dreamy conversation. that stuff's not just in the movies, it's all real. and really tasty.

my tuscan days began with crisp morning walks through the vineyards with alana or hilltop pilates class with rebecca and ended with pitch perfect 2 c/o brandiego (and his pitch perfect 2 obsession which gives me inspiration in my everyday). in between, we harvested grapes, visited montalcino for a vertical davinci brunello tasting and a gelato photoshoot, stood in the birthplace of leonardo da vinci, ate tons and tons of pizza, blended chianti, and made friends with some cows and their cheesemaker owner. note to self: make more friends with cows and their cheesemaker owners. we slept in a handsome yellow casale that was built in the 1600s.

on our last day, alana and i ate tuscan rice pastries with the wonderful emiko before zooming off to malta!

it was so magical and exactly what i imagined tuscany would be. i arrived craving pizza and pasta and left with, yes, a belly full of pizza and pasta, but also: enough wine knowledge to not look like a complete doofus when i taste a new wine, a deep affection for cannellini beans, farro and panzanella goals, and new amazing blogger friends.

every day since returning i've wondered just how expensive it would be to take up a wine hobby. so there's that. does anyone wanna coach me through this?

-yeh!

as a davinci wine storyteller, this post was created in partnership with davinci wine! davinci was started in vinci in 1961 when 30 winegrowers created a farming co-op. today, davinci includes 200 winegrowers in tuscany whose grapes produce varietals like chianti, chianti riserva, pinot grigio, and brunello. 

bacon caramel apples + pumpkin slice and bake cookies

in ,

happy back to the future day, everyone!!! on a scale from monday to birthday, i am registering at thanksgiving-level excitement right now because the back to the future trilogy have long been my favorite movies. i have even been rooting for the cubs this year because how crazy would that be if they won the world series after the movie predicted it?!?1?!!! i made a list of ways to celebrate back to the future day and here is another list about my favorite back to the future food scenes because they are my favorite food scenes in the history of movies. i'm probably going to have huey lewis and the news on repeat today. how are you celebrating?!

i've just returned from my quick trip to austin where i crammed in so many social situations that i barely recognized myself. or maybe that was because of the fake eyelashes that were glued onto my face (that i very clumsily yanked off at the dinner table in front of jeanine and jack because i left my tact in minnesota). i had surprise drinks accompanied by very intense cookie conversation with kristen and sarah, the most amazing vegetables and sprinkle ice cream sandwiches at launderette with jeanine and jack, brisket bourbon (!!!) with amy, and the loveliest breakfast at texas french bread with landen. and a bunch of chocolate on set for the super secret chocolatey video that i made with whole foods that'll be on the internet soon!

now that i'm back, i am ready to think about halloween. i am ready to plan our costumes, take advantage of the pumpkins that magically appeared on their own in our garden, and pick all of the apples from our trees which are bursting with glee! i have lots of excitement.

i recently developed two halloweeny recipes for le creuset and their line of metal bakeware. the first is a little savory twist on a caramel apple that involves candied bacon because caramel should always be salted (right?) and bacon is a great way to eat salt (right??). you can find that recipe over on le creuset's site.

and the second recipe is pumpkin slice and bake cookies! they make me wanna put on footie pajamas and turn on full house because slice and bake cookies were the cookies of my michelle tanner-ed youth. you too? excellent. 

these take a little bit of added effort to make, but they are so much fun. essentially you make one long orange oval with a stem on top and then wrap it in chocolate dough, so when you slice a cross section of it, you've got a pumpkin shape! the orange dough in this recipe is vanilla flavored, but if you'd like to throw some pumpkin spice in the mix, that would be super tasty too.

pumpkin slice and bake cookies

makes 16-18

ingredients

For the orange center:

1 c all-purpose flour
3/4 c powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla
20 drops red liquid food coloring
20 drops yellow liquid food coloring

For the outer chocolate section:

3/4 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 c powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla

clues

First, make the dough for the orange pumpkin center. In a food processor, pulse together the flour, powdered sugar and salt. Add the butter and continue to pulse until it is a mealy texture.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolk, vanilla and food coloring. With the food processor running, drizzle in the egg yolk mixture and process until it becomes a dough. Turn it out onto a clean work surface.

Shape the dough into a 9-inch long round log, then flatten slightly so it becomes an oval shape. Slice off a small bit of the dough on the end, and roll it out into a long skinny snake. Place this on top of the oval so that in a cross section, it becomes the pumpkin’s stem. Place the dough in the freezer while you make the chocolate dough.

To make the chocolate dough, pulse together the flour, cocoa powder, powdered sugar and salt. Add the butter and continue to pulse until it is a mealy texture.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolk and vanilla. With the food processor running, drizzle in the egg yolk mixture and process until it becomes a dough. Turn it out onto a clean work surface.

Roll the dough into 9-inch long skinny snakes. Stick these snakes around the perimeter of the orange dough, then roll the entire log a bit to smooth it out. Wrap the log in plastic wrap and freeze 20 – 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350ºF and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Slice the log into 1/2-inch-thick disks, and place them on a baking sheet one inch apart. Bake for about 15 minutes. Let cool slightly on the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. enjoy!

this recipe is part of sara's virtual pumpkin party!!! check out her blog for all of the other good lookin pumpkin recipes that populated the internet today! i am especially excited about the savory recipes, like steph's pumpkin and pork stuffed shells and sarah's harissa pumpkin gnocchi.

-yeh!

thank you for sponsoring this post, le creuset!!!!

pistachio milk + some other things i'm loving these days

in

hello from austin where i am in bed at 8 and living my best life, eating a room service quesadilla, extra guacamole, extra unidentified white sauce, and hoping with all of my might that pitch perfect 2 is on demand. i really really really wanted to go out tonight and eat at all of the restaurants in jeanine's austin guide but i am completely pooped after this weekend because i have been in chicago, busy celebrating (wait for it) mum's 60th birthday!!!!!!!! it was so fun. relatives came from out of town, stoopie cooked a middle eastern feast, i made a chocolate mint cake, and we showered my mama with love!! i miss everyone so much already.

now i gotta get *in the zone* for a fun video i'm shooting with whole foods tomorrow! but first, let's talk about some stuff i'm loving these days:

-the bulk pistachio bags. making things with pistachios is fun, but making things with pistachios without ever feeling like you're going to run out is infinitely more fun. i've been working on a pistachio cake for my book, and i just learned how to milk a nut! it is so great, i can't believe i went this long without milking nuts before. (see below for gena hemshaw's nut milk recipe!)

-homemade halva. i don't think i ever really told you about my homemade halva struggle, but there was a very long and hard one and a lot of tahini was lost but finally the new york times posted michael solomonov's recipe and it worked and i feel like i can accomplish anything now. even a juice cleanse. no, just kidding, not a juice cleanse.

-this lauren winter jumpsuit. my friend lydia introduced me to lauren's work and i am so obsessed with this jumpsuit for one main reason: it is a beautiful elegant dinner-appropriate garment that completely disguises the fact that you feel like you are in your comfiest pajammies. i love it so very much.

-pilates. ever since rebecca led a mat class for alana and me last month, i have been hooked. it makes me feel sooo good and tall. i've been trying out a bunch of different youtube videos but have yet to find a clear winner... do you have a favorite online pilates video??

-sitting at the town coffee shop. ok! i've been leaving the house more and more these days. about once a week, i go to the town coffee shop, sit on my computer, and type up recipes/eavesdrop on conversations about the town gossip and what not. it makes me feel so alive. and then after that i sometimes stop at the co-op to look at the farro and pet the squash.

-fresh's cocoa body exfoliator. it makes me feel like a tootsie roll from head to toe.

-this is ground's mod laptop case. until I found this is ground, I thought that my days of organizing school supplies with such systematic glee was just a thing of my Hello Kitty pencil case past. but now! i get so much more pleasure out of bringing my work on the road, to the coffee shop, to my couch, etc. there is a designated spot for everything i need and it looks so darn cool.

-how to get away with murder. it's borderline scary for my taste, so i can't watch it without eggboy but we love it.

-quin candy. i had my first taste in portland the other day and since then i have not been able to stop. i feel like a monster when i eat it because no matter how forcefully i tell myself that this is the last piece, it is never the last piece. i've had their pretzel chews, mint chews, and fruity chews and they are all the best.

-my chickens. duh. we're ready for them to start laying eggs though. come on, macaroni!!!!! hurry up!!!!! 

here is the recipe that inspired me to try making nut milk! i've seen recipes for it many times before, but after looking through gena hemshaw/food52's new vegan cookbook (and picking up a nice big bag of pistachios), i finally got to work! it is such a tasty treat. it's like a milkshake but better because you can have more of it without feeling like butt afterwards. i like the weird sensation of drinking unstrained nut milk, it almost feels like you're drinking milk after having dunked a bunch of oreos in it and the oreo crumbs are at the bottom. but if you'd like to strain it, go ahead! i also like adding a little splash of almond extract. thank you, gena, for inspiring me to try this new tasty thing!!!! 

pistachio milk

makes 3 cups

ingredients

1 c pistachios, soaked in water for 8-12 hours and drained

4 cups water

1/4 c maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

pinch of salt

clues

put all the ingredients in a blender and blend on high speed until completely smooth, 2-3 minutes.

cover the mouth of a large container with two layers of cheesecloth, leaving a well in the cheesecloth (a new paint strainer bag or a nut milk bag will also work well). Secure with a rubber band, then pour in the blended mixture. you might need to do this in batches, gently pushing some of the pulp to the side or spooning it out and discarding it. after pouring all of the mixture in, let it sit for about 10 minutes. loosen the cheesecloth from the rim of the container and gently squeeze to extract as much liquid as possible.

stored in an airtight container in the fridge, it will keep for 2-3 days. shake well before using.

-yeh!

glazed apple cider donuts

in ,

i went to portland for 1.5 seconds this weekend! what a neat-o, beautiful place. i had only been to the pacific northwest once before, a very very long time ago for like the 1997 eugene bach festival or something, so my clearest reference point for what the pacific northwest looks like was actually that zach efron movie, charlie st. cloud. it is a very weird movie but it has a wildly hunky dark moody forest-y hilly scenery, and i got to experience that in person this weekend! i totally now get why my entire instagram feed is so in love with the p.n.w. 

and it was the loveliest backdrop for the hello sessions, a new blog conference that i hope was the first of many because joy and melissa did such a great job with it! when i wasn't food styling and schmoozing with the hello sessioners, i was snooping around the pearl district, touching all of the cookbooks in the middle eastern section of powell's, eating tasty quiche, and searching for the perfect full body sweater. i found an ok one, it was just a little bit too wooly scratchy.

and then! on saturday night, i ventured out into oregon wine country for an amazing meal hosted by chelsey and maggie in the newspaper printing warehouse that's been in chelsey's family for four generations. it was so cool. and tasty (thanks to letumeat!) and local. i loved it.

now i am back on the farm, adjusting to post-harvest life and working on my hotdish skills. 

how was your weekend?!

i have some big news i need to share: i've surrendered to baked donuts. for quite some time, i was on the fence about them: are they really donuts? or are they just donut shaped muffins? are they hiding something? or are they real, honest desserts?

my skepticism was more or less 100% brought on by the fact that i didn't yet own a donut pan, so even if i wanted to, i couldn't join in on the fun. but all of that has changed, thanks to the good people at king arthur flour. i'm a new woman. and i have found that the shape of a donut, the ratio of surface area to glaze, and the instagrammability (😂 sorry, i had to) indeed makes the experience of a baked donut different than that of a muffin. so to begin this new baked donut phase of my life, we have a classic soft apple cider donut that goes the non-traditional route of having a white glaze. nothing against the traditional cinnamon sugar coating, i just love the texture and sweetness of a glaze and its ability to keep the sprinkles on.

glazed apple cider donuts

makes 10-12

ingredients

1/2 c sugar

1 1/4 c all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp kosher salt

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tb apple pie spice

1 large egg

1/2 c whole milk

1/4 c flavorless oil, like canola

3/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 c boiled cider or thawed apple juice concentrate

glaze:

1 c powdered sugar mixed with 5 tb heavy cream

decorations:

sprinkles + cinnamon sugar

clues

preheat the oven to 375ºf. grease a 12-cavity donut pan and set it aside.

in a large bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients. in a separate medium bowl, whisk together all wet ingredients. add the wet ingredients to the dry mixture and stir to combine.

Fill a piping bag with the batter and pipe the batter into the donut pans, filling each cavity halfway.

Bake for 12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a donut comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Remove to a rack and cool completely.

To decorate the donuts, dip them halfway into the glaze and then allow excess glaze to drip off. Sprinkle the tops with sprinkles and/or cinnamon sugar and enjoy!

i used the following king arthur products in this recipe: boiled cider, all-purpose flour, apple pie spice, donut pans, vanilla extract, cinnamon vanilla sugar, caramel sugar, rainbow sugar, and perhaps the quirkiest sugar i ever did taste, butternut sugar! these are all ingredients that i would recommend and i am so excited to be partnering with them on this post and on some upcoming posts! thanks so much, king arthur! 

-yeh!