Apple-Cinnamon Wontons

Back in the old dieting days, I printed off a bunch of Weight Watchers recipes from their website with the grand idea that I would try them all and they would be delicious and good (or better) for me. I did try a few and some were rather amazing, while others were just…very diet-y. One that I did discover and love are these apple-cinnamon wontons. They look pretty fancy and are not a lot of work, especially if you have a food processor.

I brought these over to my friend’s house and while they weren’t as popular as I had hoped, Carrina’s husband couldn’t stop eating them. So that’s a very positive review. I think they’d be a little crispier and maybe a bit better tasting if melted butter/coconut oil or the like were used instead of cooking spray. Again, this is a WW recipe and they look to cut corners wherever they can. The original recipe calls for them to be served sprinkled with powdered sugar and with ice cream. While I don’t usually do anything with powdered sugar, these really are nice with a good vanilla ice cream.

Apple-Cinnamon Wontons from weightwatchers.com:

Serves 6 or works great as part of a dessert platter

Cooking spray
2 medium apples, peeled, cored, and minced
1 Tb. packed brown sugar
1 tsp. lemon juice
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
24 wonton wrappers, about half of a 12 oz. package

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a large baking sheet with cooking spray.



In a medium bowl, combine apples, brown sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon; toss to coat apples. Place wonton wrappers on a flat surface. Drop apple mixture by teaspoonfuls onto center of each wrapper. Moisten edges with wet fingers, fold over old corned to make a triangle, and press side together to seal. You may have to push down a lot and press in the center. Be careful not to overfill. When it says teaspoon, that’s just about perfect. Transfer filled wrapped to prepared baking sheet and coat surface with cooking spray.



Bake until wontons are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Serve with ice cream if you choose or just gobble them up.

Mighty Sausage Scalloped Potatoes

Yesterday, while drilling my brain with math drills and vocab, Aaron went out shopping and came home with far too much food, including lots of cheese (which was on sale). So he took it upon himself to find a cool recipe for the copious amount of cheese we have and Zenner’s sausages. While I still don’t eat a lot of meat, I find these to be pretty dang tasty. I first had them over at my friend Carrina’s house (she has a blog now too! Go check it out here) and really, really enjoyed it. It’s spicy, but not too spicy, and adds a great amount of flavor to the food.

Anyway, this was the recipe my dear husband found. What I really like about it was how versatile it is. You can skip the sausage altogether and just add some of your own herbs if you’re not into meat. Or replace it with chicken sausage, something I usually prefer. After eating it, Aaron and I came up with lots of ideas of how to modify it. Shredded chicken, for example, would be a great substitution. I think adjusting some of the herbs to taste would be great and maybe a little bit of garlic. Ah, who am I kidding? Yes garlic. In any case, I’m glad he made this and it’ll work its way into our rotation.

Mighty Sausage Scalloped Potatoes from zenners.com:

Serves about 4-6 dinner portions or 6-8 side/appetizer portions

Five Russet potatoes, peeled, boiled, thinly sliced (ours were huge, so we used two huge ones)
2-3 Zenner's Sausages of your choice, thinly sliced on the bias (just the two)
1 ½ c. cheese (1 c. Monterey Jack and ½ c. medium cheddar)
1 c. milk
2 Tb. butter, oil or margarine (butter works very well because you’re going to make a roux)
2-3 Tb. flour
1 Tb. dried parsley
Salt and Pepper
1 cup frozen green peas (optional. We did not go with this)






Begin to simmer or low grill any uncooked sausage. Peel and boil potatoes until just cooked, then cool and thinly slice. The just cooked part takes about 10 minutes, depending on the size of your potatoes. Melt butter in sauce pan, then whisk in flour, turning heat up to medium or so until cooked, then slowly whisk in milk, salt and pepper and parsley until slightly thickened. Using square or rectangle glass or non-stick pan, layer potatoes, thinly sliced sausage, sauce and cheese, reserving half cup of cheese for top.





Bake 40-50 minutes at 375 degrees; broil top if a more rustic crust is desired, cover with foil until last ten minutes if less is desired. 45 minutes is just about perfect in our oven. The top sausages did get a little crispy, but it was all good and very delicious. We had ours with steamed broccoli (with all that cheese and such, you need some greens) and again for lunch with mixed greens.

Raisin Pine Nut Sandwich

I’d like to apologize for my sporadic posting lately. I’m studying for the big, bad GRE and that’s coming up February 7. As a result, I seem to be less interested in cooking or rather less interested in cooking fun, new things. After that thing is done, though, I will hopefully be doing this more because cooking meals and eating food are much more fun activities than analogies and quantitative comparisons. Trust me. Anyway, so here’s a sandwich post because I haven’t made anything interesting in days. But it has a fun story behind it!

Most of my childhood involved Rainbow Foods. My mom worked there for years and on Take Your Daughter to Work Day (when it was still just daughters), that’s where I went, pricing gun in hand. At 14, I started working there and did so until I moved down here to Portland in 2002. I loved that place. One of my very favorite things, besides all the fabulous people, customers, and atmosphere, was the deli. There was always an incredible array of salads, hot dishes and sandwiches for me to choose from on my lunch break. One of my very favorite sandwiches in my final year at Rainbow, was one made with dark, chewy bread, pine nuts, cream cheese and raisins. When I made the dark pumpernickel bread the other day, this was the sandwich I had in mind.

As it turns out, the bread wasn’t quite right for it. I will have to try again with another dark bread. I do think the big problem was, as I mentioned back in my post about the bread, that the cocoa flavor is a bit overpowering. While it was tempered a bit by the cream cheese, it still wasn’t quite what I was looking for. Still, it wasn’t a bad sandwich. I’d eat it again. It just didn’t get me back to those days when I’d grab a sandwich from the cooler at Rainbow and then race out to the university for classes. I’ll keep trying though. And if you’re ever in Juneau, Alaska for whatever reason, go by Rainbow. It’s pretty awesome.

Raisin Pine Nut Sandwich from Rainbow memories:

Handful of pine nuts
Handful of raisins
Plenty of cream cheese (~1/4 c.)
Two slices of dark, chewy bread

Toast the pine nuts briefly in a 400 degree oven. Do this only for a couple of minutes or they will burn.



Cut slices in half. Spread cream cheese over both sides. Sprinkle toasted pine nuts and raisins. Enjoy alone or with veggie spears.

Buttermilk and Applesauce Blueberry Pancakes

There are some nights when you just can’t wait to go to sleep, wake up the next morning and make breakfast. When that sort of mood strikes, pancakes are always at the front of my mind. I won’t be knocking pancakes mixes here because I know there are some good ones out there, but I never use them and my parents didn’t either. Making pancakes from scratch really doesn’t take a lot of extra work and the results are worth it.

I have two varieties here, but they come from the same place. I first mentioned SACO Buttermilk powder back in this entry. It has the best pancakes recipe I have ever used and now it’s the only one I ever use. I made up a stack of pancakes for Aaron and then mixed in some extras for me. The results of that second stack were the applesauce blueberry pancakes you see here. Both are fantastic, especially with a side of turkey bacon.

Buttermilk Pancakes from the SACO Buttermilk tin:

Makes enough cakes for at least 4 people, depending on what you serve it with.

4 Tb. buttermilk powder (or use a ¼ c. buttermilk if you have it)
1 c. all-purpose flour (whole wheat is great here, replacing half of the all-purpose)
1 Tb. granulated sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1 egg
1 c. water
2 Tb. vegetable oil

Add the following for the applesauce blueberry pancakes:
¼ c. applesauce
¼ - 1/3 c. fresh, frozen or wild dried blueberries (like from this recipe)

Mix the buttermilk (if powdered), flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. If you are not making any straight buttermilk pancakes, add the blueberries if they are dried.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together egg, water, vegetable oil and buttermilk (if using liquid). Add the applesauce and fresh or frozen blueberries. If you are making regular buttermilk pancakes first, hold the applesauce and blueberries. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry until well combined, taking care not to over mix or overbeat. It should still be a little lumpy. If you are making a half and half mix of pancakes, make the buttermilk ones first and then mix in the applesauce and the blueberries just before making the next set of cakes.





Heat a greased medium pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Drop batter in whatever size you’d like your pancakes to be on the pan once it is hot. You may need to turn the heat down as you make more pancakes. Watch it and you won’t have any burned cakes. When the edges have browned a bit and the top is covered in small, breaking bubbles, flip it and cook for about 1 minute more.

Be careful with the applesauce ones. They will spread a little more than the buttermilk ones.




Serve immediately and enjoy.

The batter keeps fairly well for a couple of days. It won’t be nearly as fluffy though. Take it out and let it warm up a bit while you get everything else ready. Mix it a bit and continue as above.

Dark Pumpernickel Bread

Of all the breads I have made so far, none have been the dark, chewy loveliness that is pumpernickel. I got the idea in my head the other day to make a dark bread for a particular sandwich I had thought of, so I went through me new cookbooks (isn’t that always the way?) and found this one. I remove the caraway seeds and ignored the onion because although the savory/bittersweet combo sounded very tasty, it didn’t really go with what I was making it for in the first place. This bread is recommended to be eaten with ham and mustard, a selection of good cheeses, and some fresh fruit. However, so far I’ve only had it with butter fresh out of the oven and for my sandwich. It’s still pretty dang good though.

Dark Pumpernickel Bread from The Fiddlehead Cookbook:

Makes 1 free form loaf/regular loaf or two cocktail loaves

1½ c. warm water
6 Tb. molasses
1½ Tb. dry yeast (1½ packages)
3 Tb. unsweetened cocoa
1¾ c. rye flour
1 c. unbleached white flour
¾ c. whole wheat flour
1½ Tb. oil
1½ Tb. caraway seeds (I did not use these)
¾ Tb. salt (I used kosher)
2 Tb. finely chopped onions (optional. I also did not use these)
1/3 to ½ c. unbleached white flour as needed
Cornmeal
1 egg
1 Tb. water

Place water in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook and dissolve molasses in it. Add dry yeast and allow to set, or “bloom”, for 3 to 5 minutes, until it is bubbling and active.



Stir in cocoa, then add rye flour and 1 cup white flour. Beat until smooth and allow to rise for 30 minutes in a warm spot. Add whole wheat flour, oil, caraway seeds (if you’re using them), salt and optional onion. Knead for 10 minutes, until dough forms a smooth, spongy ball, slightly sticky to the tough. I didn’t need the full 10 minutes. It responded very quickly. Add additional white flour only as needed to bring dough together. Place in a large well-oiled bowl (clean out your mixer bowl and just use that), turning dough so that it become lightly oiled on all sides. Cover loosely and let sit in a warm spot until doubled in bulk and dough does not spring back when lightly touched. This should be about 1½ hours.

Punch down. If you have time, allow dough to rise until doubled again. (It will take half the time of the first rising).

Turn dough out onto a very lightly floured surface and knead into a smooth ball. Cover loosely and let rest for 5 minutes.

Lightly oil a large cookie sheet. Sprinkle with cornmeal. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

I did not shape the dough with the following directions. Rather, I shaped it into a large ball and left it as a free form loaf. I have some issues with shaping anyway, but I do like the way free form loaves look. If you do decide to shape it, this it what they said: Roll or pat dough into a 12-by 8- by 1½-inch-thick rectangle. Beginning from the narrow end, roll up tightly, tuck in ends, pinch seams together, and roll lightly to even out the load.

Place loaf, seam down, on cookie sheet. Cover loosely and let rise in a warm spot until double in bulk (about ½ hour).





Beat egg with water and brush over loaf. Using a very sharp knife or kitchen shears, make 3 diagonal cuts in top of loaf. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until loaf is crusty and hollow sounding when tapped on bottom. Remove from oven and place on a rack to cool. Wrap lightly and store at room temperature or freeze to eat later.

As I did modify this, I do have a couple of things to add. If you do it with the onion and caraway seeds, it may be better to reduce the cocoa powder by half. Without the contrast, the cocoa takes on a nearly overwhelming flavor. It just goes to show that you can’t always win when you modify something before you try it. However, this bread did still turn out very well and I will have to try it the way it was meant to be made.

Kitchen Sink Sauce

Ever have one of those nights where you’re planning on making dinner and just have no idea what to do? Yeah, that was me last night. So I just grabbed a bunch of stuff out of the fridge and starting making things up. I tend to do this with a pseudo-Italian bent and it often consists of many of the same things. I decided that this is my kitchen sink sauce, which means I throw everything into a sauce except for the kitchen sink, and just go crazy from there.

This time around it came out really good. I did it with fusilli, but this would work well over grilled chicken (minus the sausage) or alongside potatoes. You can very easily just not use chicken sausage and go all veg with it. Go crazy. Add stuff, take stuff out. Use what you have. It’s fun.

This is what I did:

Makes at least 4 portions

5 cloves garlic
Handful fresh parsely
½ tsp. lemon juice
Large head of broccoli, cut into florets
1 small green pepper, cut into strips (any color will do. Mix it up and make it pretty!)
½ large sweet onion, cut into rings (Walla Walla, Vidalia, Maui)
2 cubes (about 3 oz.) vegetable stock (I used some I had already made and frozen into ice cubes)
2 chicken apple sausages, sliced
Olive oil
Parmesan cheese
Fusilli noddles (or penne)

Mince garlic and parsley together. Sprinkle with lemon juice and set aside.

Boil water and cook pasta. Drain and set aside, keeping it warm.



Place onions in a medium saucepan, toss with olive oil and cook over medium-low heat until transparent, but not browning, about 5-10 minutes. Add the green pepper and cook for about 5 minutes more, until onion is beginning to brown. Add the broccoli, vegetable stock and garlic-parsley mixture and cook, covered, for about 10 more minutes, or until green pepper has softened. If you want to broccoli less firm, add it sooner. Add the chicken sausage and cook for another 5 minutes or until sausage is warm.



Toss with pasta and parmesan cheese.

I think the veggie stock gave the sauce a nice depth. If I had had more stuff in the house, snap peas would’ve been a great addition. Just use lots of complimentary vegetables and you’ve got something great going on.

Honey-Yogurt Scones

The Fiddlehead Restaurant, which I mentioned back in this post, had a fantastic bakery. The food there was also very good, but the bakery was where it was at. In particular, their scones were to die for. When my good friend Hannah (she also gets credit for the Moosewood Cookbook from the Broccoli-Cheddar Pie post) sent me their cookbook for the holidays, I flipped right to the baked goods section to make sure it was there. Sure it enough, there they are. I made two batches, the first without anything extra and the second with wild dried blueberries instead of currants. The first set didn’t have anything in it because I just wanted to make them so badly and didn’t have any of that stuff available. The second batch was made a little later when I realized that the 6 I had made were not going to make it over to my friend’s house and I wouldn’t be able to share.

These are ridiculously easy to make. All told, it takes about half an hour and then you have warm, yummy scone goodness to eat. I will be making these in a bunch of new varieties soon. They are that good.

Honey-Yogurt Scones from The Fiddlehead Cookbook:

Makes 6 scones

4 Tb. butter
1 Tb. honey
½ c. plain yogurt (substitute sour cream or buttermilk if necessary. I used Nancy’s yogurt because it’s just so good)
1 egg
1¼ c. unbleached white flour (for delicious nutty flavor, decrease to 1½ c. flour and add ¼ c. graham flour. I did not do this)
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
¼ c. dried currants, dried cherries, pecans, or raisins. Or wild blueberries! Thank you Trader Joe’s!
1 egg, beaten (optional. I didn’t do this because I don’t like my scones shiny).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and place rack in center of oven.

Melt together butter and honey in a small glass bowl in microwave, or in a small pan on stove over medium heat. Remove from heat and whisk in yogurt and egg. I did the latter as I don’t have any glass bowls and I like doing stuff on the stove anyway.



In a medium size mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt (or just mix them together…I don’t have a sifter.) Stir in blueberries. Pour egg mixture over flour mixture and, using a fork, very gently cut together until dough is beginning to come together but is not quite completely combined.



Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and gently pat into a 6-inch circle. Fold dough in half and pat out again. Repeat two or three more times, taking care not to over work or knead the dough. Pat into a 1-inch thick circle (about 6 inches in diameter) and cut into 6 wedges. Place on an ungreased baking pan. Brush lightly with egg (optional) and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until puffed and golden brown.



Remove from oven and serve immediately with lots of butter and homemade jam. Try not to eat them all at once.