Weekend Baking

What do you usually do the week before New Years? It’s a strange feeling week for sure, with the highs of the holidays over, feeling all the feelings, looking forward while also looking back. Hopefully though, you are getting some time to take some time and do you. And what better way to spend some time then in the kitchen!

Think about it, you can throw on your new footed pjs (I don’t have footed pj’s but I would wear them if I didi!), turn on some tunes, and dance around while making cookies. Or maybe you fancy up your hair, get dressed all nice, throw on an apron, and bake up some scones? (Again, I don’t fancy anything up, but you do you) Do whatever the heck you want. We have had a year and this weekend, just do what makes you happy. Just don’t get hair in the food!

Here’s a handful of some of the favorites from the site. Make it nice!

-A cake for breakfast is always gonna win. Cranberry Coffee Cake

-Apple Spice Donuts are baked so no crazy fryer needed!

-Pomegranate Orange Poppyseed Muffins Make them little and snack on them throughout the day!

-Sones are a favorite around here. These are prefect for the holiday season. Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Gingerbread Scones

- Heart Shaped Soft Pretzels Or any shaped pretzels. Fun to make.

-The citrus is in full swing and it is good. Clementine Cake

-Cinnamon Star Bread Another favorite and is so so pretty!

-Bread. Never can go wrong with bread. Cinnamon Cardamom Swirl- Orange And Sweet Potato Bread

-Crushed Oreo Peanut Butter Cookies And these cookies are one of the most popular recipes from the blog. Cookie cookies. You people know what you like.

Have a great, happy, restful, and safe holiday!

-C

Spinach and Mushroom Lentil Bake

A week out to the big holiday!

How are you doing? Are you making all the cookies and cakes and all the things? Are you getting all the cookies and cakes and things given to you? And are you eating all the cookies and cakes and things?

That is cool because that is what is suppose to go down right now. But one thing we all need to do is make sure we are eating some decent food (not cookies and cakes and things) as well.

Like lentils with some veggies. You really can’t go wrong with lentils because they are the best and don’t you dare say otherwise. This bake here is packed with lentils, mushrooms and spinach, is creamy and crispy, hearty and warming, and tastes so freaking good. A no fuss, easy peasy meal that can be thrown together fast and when you are eating it, you are feeling good. And once you start eating it, you probably won’t be able to stop (that was me anyway…)

So make yourself something nice to go along with all the cookies, cakes, and things. You need it.

To the lentils!

The stuff. Red and green lentils, a few big mushrooms, a couple handfuls of spinach, an onion, crushed tomatoes. dill, thyme, sage, and red pepper flakes, chick pea flour, a couple cloves or garlic, water, oil, and and pepper.

Start with the lentils. Just dump them all into a pot with the water. Place on stove and bring a boil.

Now chop up onion into small bits, mince garlic, and slice the mushrooms thinly and in half.

Add a splash of oil to a large oven safe skillet and place on stove on medium heat. Once skillet is hot, add in the garlic, onions, and mushroom. Start to cook, adding in all the spices once they start to sizzle. Cook until the onion starts to become fragrant and translucent and fragrant and the mushrooms are slightly browned.

Once the lentils come to a boil, let cook for another minute or two then remove from heat. (If there is a bunch of foam on top of pot, just scape it off.) Add in the chickpea flour, the tomatoes, and all the spinach. Season with sat and pepper too.

Dump the lentil mixture into the skillet with the mushrooms and onion and mix everything all around until its all incorporated. Level off top and then stick the whole thing into the oven. Bake covered for 30 minutes then remove cover, give the whole thing a (careful, it is hot) good stir, re-level off the tope, and keep baking for another 30-35 minutes or until the top of the lentils are nice and crispy ans the inside is nice an creamy.

The crispy top lentils are everything.

Scoop into bowls, add some fresh chopped something of another if you want ( I had fresh dill and parsley) and eat away.

What is not pictured here is the yellow mustard I had in waiting. Mustard on this… AMAZING!

-C

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Spinach and Mushroom Lentil Bake

feed 3-5 people

• 3/4 cup each red and green lentils (or 1 1/2 cups of either)

• 1 cup crushed or diced tomatoes

• 1 small onion

• 2 cloves garlic

• 2 tablespoons chickpea flour (can sub with cornmeal or oat flour)

• 1 teaspoon each dried sage, thyme, and dill

• 2 large handfuls spinach (about 3 cups)

• 2-3 large white or cramini mushrooms (about 1 1/2 chopped)

• 2 1/2 cups water

• splash of olive oil

• salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400

Dump lentils into a pot with the water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, let cook for a minutes or two then remove from heat. If there is a bunch of foam on top, just scrap it off. Mix in the chickpea flour, tomatoes, and spinach. Season with salt and pepper

While lentils are cooking, chop onion into small pieces, slice mushrooms in half, then the halves into thin pieces and mince garlic. Place a large oven safe skillet on stove on medium heat. Add a small splash or oil and once heated, dump the onion, garlic, and mushrooms to the hot skillet. Cook for 5-7 minutes or until the mushrooms start to brown and the onions and garlic are fragrant. Add in the spiced and stir around.

Take skillet off heat and carefully dump in the lentils mixture and mix around with the mushroom and onions. (if you don’t have a large enough oven safe skillet just dump it all into a casserole dish) Level off mixture and place in the oven, covered for 1 hour, removing cover 1/2 way through and giving he whole mixture a mix ad re- leveling it off.

Once baked and nice and crispy (the longer you bake it, the crispier it gets) remove from oven and serve immediately. Toss some fresh dil and parsley on top if you have it. Also mustard as a condiment goes amazingly with this!

Chocolate Covered Olive Oil and Orange Shortbread Cookies

It is getting so close to Christmas (less them 2 weeks! AAHHH!!) which in my house means it is officially cookie time.

Starting my cookie baking binge on a quick and easy cookie. Shortbread. Made with few ingredients, one bowl, one sheet, in and out and done. To spice up the flavor a little I added orange and for ease of not having any non frozen vegan butter, I used olive oil instead which I think, judging by the reactions of the mr and sister, was a great idea. (I had to hide the cookies from mr.. he couldn't stop eating them)

ll sorts of flavorful and crispy, these are a good cookie to have and to share. Just the right amount of cookie to get into the cookie season.

And because I am nothing if not a stickler for aesthetically pleasing things, look at the shape. Most cookies are round. It’s nice to have a long and rectangular cookie around for a change, am I right? Am I weird? Yeah, a little.

To the cookies!

The stuff. Flour, salt, mild olive oil, brown sugar, an orange, and some chocolate chips.

Sugar and oil go into a bowl and mixed until completely combined. Add in a few tablespoons of juice from the orange, mix, then add in flour, salt, and zest from orange. Mix until it all comes together into a dough that is a little crumbly.

Gather dough and place on a cookie mat or parchment paper and gently roll out into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Place on a baking sheet and pop into fridge for about 1/2 hour. Preheat oven. Then once oven is preheated, pop the baking sheet into the oven.

In the meantime, rough chop up the chocolate into smaller pieces.

After about 18 minutes, the cookie should be a light golden brown. Pull it from the oven and working fast, take a sharp knife, pizza wheel, or bench scraper and cut the giant cookie into smaller cookies. Long strips look nice, but whatever shape you want, just do it fast and gently and don’t burn yourself.

Then pop the cookies back into oven again for another 5-6 minutes until a little darker brown.

Once cookie is a nice golden brown, pull it from oven and sprinkle the still hot cookie with the chocolate. Wait a minutes or two until it starts to melt, then with a knife, smear it around. Sprinkle with sprinkles or fancy gold dusting sugar if your feeling festive.

Now you should let them cool so gently slide them onto a wire rack. Just until the chocolate sets.

Then it is cookie time.

-C

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Chocolate covered Olive Oil and Orange shortbread cookies

make around 2 dozen

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

• 2/3 cup brown sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 cup olive oil

• 1 tablespoon orange zest

• 1 tablespoon orange juice

• !/2 cup chocolate chips either smashed or cut into little pieces

• 2 tablespoons sprinkles (optional)

Garb a bowl and mix the oil and brown sugar together until completely incorporated and there are no chunks of sugar. Add in orange juice and mix. Then add in the salt, flour, and orange zest. Mix until a slightly crumbly dough forms. Gather dough into a ball (use your hands) and place on a large piece or parchment or a splat mat. Roll out into a rectangle-ish shape about 1/2 inch thick. Slide the whole thing still on parchment or mat right onto a baking sheet. Stick the baking sheet into the fridge to rest for about 20-30 minutes.

In the meantime, preheat oven to 350

One giant cookie has chilled a bit, place it it the oven and bake for for 18- 20 minutes or until a light golden brown. Remove from oven and right away, very carefully, cut the large cookies into whatever shape and however many pieces you want using a knife, pizza wheel or dough scraper. And don’t separate them yet. Once cut, pop back into oven for another 5-8ish minutes or until cookies are a nice golden brown.

Remove from oven and while still hot, sprinkle the chopped chocolate all over the top. Let it melt for a few minute then with a knife, carefully spread the melted chocolate all over and sprinkle with sprinkles of course. And now you can separate them.

Transfer cookie to a wire rack and let cool completely.

Now eat them.

These cookies will last a week, if not more on counter in a air tight container. They also ship well!

Cranberry Orange Soda Bread

One of my go to things to do when I am feeling feelings of stress and or anxiety (or angry , or happiness, or sad… all the emotions really) is to bake. I have a feeling that I am going to be baking quite a bit in the next few weeks. And due to the fact that when I went to go buy my usual 25 lb bag of flour the other day and all the flour, at multiple stores, was sold out, I think some of you might be planning on some baking soon too? I sure hope so because I am gonna be pissed if I find out that people are just hoarding all the flour and not using it. 😁

Anyway, soda bread. This bread is not like a soft and fluffy yeasted bread. It is thick and hearty and this one is full of orange zest and dried cranberries to give it just a little more flavor. Of course I was thinking of St Patricks Day next week when I made it because we all know that Irish soda bread is well, Irish, and St Patricks Day is an Irish celebration, but I was also thinking that the mr was coming home for lunch and my sourdough was only about an hour into it’s 8 hour ferment and I had no back up bread for lunch food. So soda bread is what I made. Quick to throw together, bakes within an hour, and is every bit as fantastic as any yeasted bread. The mr was very much pleased to have a nice sturdy, fragrant, hunk of a this bread situation when he came home for lunch and I was a little less crazy stressed because of it. Plus, as usual when baking nice things, the house smelled so good! I think I sometime just bake things just for the smell that lingers for the day. I love it when my hair smells like bread. HA!

Now go grab that flour your hoarding and get at this bread!

The stuff. All purpose and white whole wheat flour, some oats, baking soda and powder, salt, soy milk, brown sugar, oil, dried cranberries, a bit of apple cider vinegar, and an orange.

First add vinegar into milk and stir it up.

Zest the orange into the bowl with the dry stuff, add in the sugar, and give it a good stir to fully combine it all.

Add in the cranberries. Make sure they are not all stuck together and stir them in.

And lastly, add in the milk and oil and stir until a dough forms.

The beauty of unbaked bread dough.

Turn the dough out onto a well floured baking sheet and knead it a few times. Then shape into a big ball and score the top with a big X. Then you just pop it into the oven to bake.

There she is. A big, beautiful loaf of bread. And guess what, you don’t have to wait forever to cut into it. Just 15 minutes of so.

Now you got what you were waiting for. Warm fresh bread, maybe some buttery spread, and a plate (if you a civilized). You eat, you feel better.

Stay well folks!

-C

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Cranberry Orange Soda Bread

makes 1 loaf

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

• 1 cups white whole wheat flour

• 1/2 cup old fashion oats

• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 1/2 cups plant milk

• 1 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

• 1/3 cup neutral oil

• a large orange for zest

• 1/2 cup dried cranberries

preheat oven to 375

Mix together the apple cider vinegar with the milk and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together both flours, the oats, the brown sugar, the baking soda and powder, the zest of the orange, and the salt, until full incorporated. Then toss in the cranberries (make sure they are not all stuck together) and mix them in. Lastly, add in the oil and milk and vinegar mixture and stir until completely combined.

Turn out dough onto a well floured surface and knead a few times, adding more flour to keep your hands from sticking then place on a well floured and parchment lined baking sheet. Form dough into a ball and then score the top with a big X that is about a third of the way deep. Place into oven to bake for 50-55 minutes or until bread is a deep golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Once bread is baked, allow to cool for at least 15 minutes or so on a wire rack before cutting into it, but you can cut while still slightly warm.

And then eat

Store uneaten bread in an airtight bag at room temperature for up to 3 days, but it is actually better to eat it within the first 2 days. It does great when sliced and frozen and then tossed back to life.

Clementine Cake

It’s not too late to get in a little end of the year baking. It is actually the perfect time to bake. All the holiday hub bub is still going on so there is usually still people all around still willing and able to eat your offerings (if you were so inclined to share), the days just feel more slow and of need of warmth and lovely smells. Plus we need something to do while while waiting for New Years, because we are just all sitting around waiting for that ball to drop, right? HAHAHA. No.

Anyway, I have been wanting to make some version of a boiled clementine cake for a while now. I love that fact the the whole clementine goes into the cake, that there is no peeling or zesting or juicing. It is just boil the clems for a little while to get the bitterness out and you are good to go. And it doesn’t hurt that right now is citrus season so I have a humngo bowl of clementines, plus a shit load of other oranges and other citrus to go through so the thought of tossing a good few clementines into a cake, well it was just what needed to be done.

And the family is coming over to eat and trash my house so I needed another dessert besides the half eaten ice cream cake left in the freezer from Camereon’s birthday/Christmas. So I baked that they will eat. And there we go. Win win.

Now to the clementine cake.

The stuff. Flour, baking powder and soda, salt, sugar, oil, cinnamon, vinegar, clementines, and powdered sugar.

First you need to boil the clementines. Big pot, fill with water, place clems inside, bring to a boil, then simmer for 2 hours. Seems like a long time but just do it while you are making and drinking coffee or doing laundry or whatever. You don’t need to keep an eye on them, other then to check that the water hasn’t evaporated, and it smells so nice.

After the 2 hours are up, remove clementines from water and let cool enough to handle. Cut in half. If there are giant seeds, remove them.

Place the clementines into blender and blend until silky smooth.

Now the other stuff. Flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda, and cinnamon. All into big bowl.

Whisk together until incorporated then add in the clementine puree, the oil, and the vinegar. Whisk together until it becomes a uniform batter.

Unbaked cake.

Scoop batter into a very well greased bundt cake pan and bake, 50-60 minutes, until tester comes out clean.

The big revel…. And it went perfect! Now time to let this sucker cool a bit on a wire rack.

While the cake is cooling, make a simple glaze. Just powdered sugar and fresh (not boiled) clementine juice. Mixed unit glaze consistency.

Once the cake is pretty much cooled, pour on the glaze.

And now it is cake time.

-C

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Clementine Cake

Makes one bundt cake

• 2 1/4 cups all pupose flour

• 1 cup white sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 tablespoon vinegar

• 1/2 cup any neutral oil

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• 6 clementines (you need 2 cups pureed)

  For the glaze

• 1 cup powdered sugar

• 1 clementine

To start, place 6 clementines into large pot and fill with water. Place on stove and bring water to a rapid boil then reduce heat and continue to simmer clementines for about 2 hours.

Once clementines are cooked, cut in half and check and discard any large seeds. Place the clementines into a blended and blend until smooth. Should have about 2 cups puree. If you are short on volume, add water to make up the difference.

Preheat oven to 350

Grab a large bowl. Dump the flour, baking powder and soda, salt, cinnamon, and sugar and whisk together until completely incorporated. Now add in the clementine puree along with the oil and the vinegar. Mix until completely incorporated. Scoop batter into a well greased burnt pan (at least 10 cup capacity) then place into oven on middle rack and bake for 50-60 minutes until a tester (or a fork) stuck in to the deepest part of the cake comes out clean.

Once baked, remove cake from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes in pan, then flip the cake out of pan, gently of course, and hope you greased it well enough for it to just pop out. Once removed from pan, allow to cool on a wire rack.

While cake is cooling, make the glaze. Powered sugar into a bowl along with the juice of a clementine. Mix together. If the glaze is to thick, add more juice (or water), to thin, a little more powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency (pourable but not runny is good) and once cake is cooled, pour glaze all over.

And then eat cake.