Posts Tagged Baking

Autumn Apples in New York

Nov 1

Posted by Jessie in Jessie Bea Eats! | No Comments

Autumn is by far my favorite month.  The leaves, the apples, the squash, the cooler jeans and sweater weather is the best.  Upstate New York sometimes gets a bad rap for the harsh winters and clouds, but for me, autumn makes up for all of that.  My favorite fall activities are those that combine the outdoors and food (duh!) so apple picking is right up my alley!

Beak &  Skiff is a great place for apple picking, and I’ve gone several times in the 3 years I’ve lived in Syracuse.  The apples aren’t organic, but they are local and it’s fun, so I happily wash off the skin and it doesn’t bother me.  The cheap price makes that easier, too.

I have used my apples to make these muffins, which I are also posted on Fresh Cracked Pepper.  I’ve also eaten them in my morning oatmeal, sliced thin on sandwiches, and just munched on them as a snack.

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Homemade Granola Recipe

Oct 10

Posted by Jessie in Jessie Bea Eats! | No Comments

Granola is so easy and cheap to make.  It costs a ton of money at the grocery store, which boggles my mind.  I’m sharing my “recipe” for granola in the style of my bruschetta recipe from this post.

Homemade Granola

Ingredients:

  • Organic rolled oats
  • Almond butter or peanut butter
  • Maple Syrup
  • Vanilla extract
  • Soymilk
  • Oil
  • Cinnamon
  • Sliced almonds
  • Coconut
  • Dried fruit (I like cranberries and raisins)

Directions:

Preheat toaster oven to 350.  Place a big scoop of almond or peanut butter in a large mixing bowl.  Add a few tablespoons of maple syrup, tiny bit of oil, a capful of vanilla extract, and a few drops of soymilk.  You’re making the glaze here, so it should be sort of thick, but not too thick that it won’t easily coat the oats.  Next add in 3-4 handfuls of rolled oats, a handful each of coconut and almonds.  Add a sprinkle of cinnamon.  Stir until all of the oats are coated with some of the glaze.  Add more oats if the glaze pools at the bottom of the bowl.

Before baking

Before baking

Place in a baking dish, spreading as evenly as possible.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes.  Watch it like a hawk, as it tends to burn easily.  Once everything looks golden and it smells divine, remove to cool.  Stir in dried fruit.  Store in an airtight container.

Baked granola

Baked granola

Notes:

I have found that granola is more a method than a recipe.  Don’t stress about the amounts of ingredients.  As long as you don’t completely saturate the oat mixture (it should not resemble cooked oatmeal at any point in this process), it’s going to turn out fine.

Experiment with the wet to dry mixture ratio.  Some people like clumpy, sweet granola, some people like it more crispy and individual pieces.

Have fun playing around with different flavor combinations!

Oats are really cheap, so even if you burn it or it comes out weird, you’ve learned something from the experience and aren’t out much $!

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Know Your Limitations

Aug 2

Posted by Jessie in Jessie Bea Eats! | No Comments

I love cooking and making good food.  I think I’m decently good at it too, most of the time.  I do have my limitations though, and I’m pretty quick to point them out.  I’m pretty bad at baking and making things that require patience and math.

Like when I tried to make rhubarb pie.  I tried to go easy on myself and used a store-bought crust. Easy, no problem.  I’m really good at unwrapping packages.  The filling is where I headed into trouble.  I can make  a decent apple pie because basically you toss some apple slices with flour, sugar, and cinnamon, throw the top crust on and bake.  Pretty hard to mess up. Well, apparently you have to be more careful with rhubarb pie.

First mistake- subbing the 2 cups of strawberries in the recipe I didn’t follow with 1 cup of raspberries and 1 cup of sliced peaches.  I mean, I measured!  I just took a liberty I shouldn’t have.  I also eyeball measured the 3 tablespoons of cornstarch needed.  This was probably the biggest mistake.  Raspberries and peaches are apparently juicier than strawberries.  I also made a crumb topping instead of adding a top crust.  Third mistake.

Well, as you can see, aside from the river of juice flowing through the pie, it looks great!  It actually tastes pretty good too, minus the soggy bottom crust that couldn’t possibly firm up with all those juices soaking through it.

It doesn’t help that I have the apartment stove from hell- after burning everything I tried to bake, I bought an oven thermometer.  The thing ranges from 50 degrees below the set temperature to 100+ degrees above without any rhyme or reason.  Moody oven.  I doubt my landlord will spring for a new one anytime soon, so I pretty much just keep opening the door to cool it down or turning the nob up when it gets too cool.  Classy.

Moral of the story: with so much against me, I really, really shouldn’t bake.  I’m bad at math, take too many liberties, and have an evil oven.  This won’t stop me from trying though, I actually have plans to make some of the kale bagels from Have Cake, Will Travel tonight.  Since it’s finally hot outside, I’ll make a batch in the toaster oven and try really hard to use measuring devices.

I did managed to make some really tasty cookies last week.  I totally made up the recipe after seeing a tasty sounding recipe in Veganomicon, and baked them in the toaster oven and they were a hit at my firm.  Oatmeal, raisins, dried cranberries, coconut, and almonds.  They were healthy and chewy and delicious and I barely measured and absolutely didn’t follow directions!  Take that!

Edit: Just made the bagels- they were great!  No final product pic, but here’s the awesome dough.  Make these!

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