How Dana got her bake back

The first quarter of 2013 wasn't - let's say - the highlight of the past few years.  Challenging for many reasons, it's meant in part that consciously or not I've not been baking like I used to.  With the start of April and the beginning of spring I am pushing myself out from the cold winter blues and trying to just get on with some good stuff.

Last weekend was a cathartic start and realisation of this.  While limiting my typical over-planning (I only had 3 sets of plans as opposed to blocking out most of my days and evenings as per normal) I had the most productive weekend I've had in a while.  It's amazing - getting ones hands on some nice (dough) balls can make you feel like you've conquered the world.

RUDE. I know where your filthy mind just went.

So while I tidied away all of my bank statements / work / stock / insurance papers and started my spring clean* I also managed to bake 2 of the 3 items on my baking to-do list.  The only reason I didn't make the 3rd? Well, something for you to look forward to next week when I write it up.  Also, the recipe says it takes about 24 hours from start to finish - I'm about halfway through and shall report back in due course. Not a low maintenence one, this third bakeroo.

So what did I crank out? One savoury and one sweet.  My favourite? And the winner if I need to pick - the savoury.  But I'll leave it to you to decide.  Truth be told I ate them both all weekend long.  Only managed to scrape together a few leftover crumbs for my co-workers on Monday.

So yes, I was a glutton, a piggie, cochon. Oinker if you will.  Baking 2 different treats and scarfing most down all on my own.  To that I have 3 replies:

1.  I packaged up some of the baked goods to give away to the friends I saw last weekend. Ok, I forgot them on my counter and didn't realise until I saw them upon returning home, but I still get credit don't I??

Fine, be like that.

2. And well, I did also manage to toss together a "mango slaw" which was a healthy combination of mango, cabbage, carrots, beets, cilantro, mint and vinaigrette - so that neutralises the butter + sugar + bacon + caramel + chocolate + blue cheese right?

3. Ok, for real.  I DID manage 2 runs and a third cardio workout, each with an additional 15 minutes of weight bearing exercise.

Righty-o now on to the good stuffaroo - what did I bake?

First out of the oven was a bacon, blue cheese, garlic, ranch "pull-apart" bread.

Inspired by a recipe I saw online I quickly kneaded up some pizza-dough. Once proofed and ready to go I rolled it out in a long rectangle, like so:

The foodie equivalent of rolling out the red carpet

Onto the dough I slathered ranch dressing, blue cheese, crispy bacon, chopped scallions and ridiculous amounts of blanched garlic.  Once laid out, I cut out little squares from the rectangle and stacked them right on top of each other, before flipping it on it's side and putting it in a loaf pan to bake. Voila:

The result? An insanely addictive savoury bread stuffed to the gills with lots of delicious naughtiness and par-fay for sharing as you just pull it apart piece by piece.

Please note I did very little sharing.

The best crispy outer bits

Right, well liking to balance things out fairly, I knew my savoury bread fancied a pas de deux with a sweet partner in crime. I pulled up one of my favourite food blogs, David Lebovitz, and found his recipe for peanut butter and salted peanut caramel cookies.  Well HELLO SAILOR was my reaction when I saw them.

Not completely done, somehow there's already one missing.  Can't imagine how that happened.

Basically a straight up peanut butter cookie, you make caramel sauce and then stir in salted chopped peanuts.  Once the cookies are baked and cooled you spoon the caramel into your "thumb print" hole in the middle of the cookie.

The chocolate on top is meant to be "optional" but it's like saying you want the burger without fries or the Herve Leger dress without the 30% discount.  Some "options" aren't really options at all.

I am officially branding myself the Jackson Pollock of cookie making. Spread the word.

* My spring clean usually starts late winter and finishes by mid-summer.  It's a rather thorough and laborious exercise of going through all of my crap and making piles and more piles and then because I don't have enough, more piles.  My current piles include:

1. Winter clothes to be dry cleaned
2. Charity shop shmatas (broken down into clothing type - so about 5 different piles here)
3. Sell on ebay / at Bang Bang stuff (same sub-piles as the shmatas)
4. Winter clothes I'm keeping (same sub-piles - you get the picture here)
5. STUFF that I don't wear or want but has nostalgic value and want to keep (HOARDER)

East-Over

The recent influx of biting winds and snow ridden days seem to be nearly gone for good.  Rightly so considering it's mid-April and the last time I saw the sun was back in 2012 when I picked up a drawing made by my friend's 3 year old. Remember that big yellow crayola circle with the lines coming out of it? Yeah, that's what I remember of the sun too.

But with the turning of the seasons we always get those springy-est of holidays, Passover and Easter.  Complete with lots of greenery, fresh foods, and of course massive amounts of chocolate eggs. I believe the egg bit technically doesn't sit with either of the holidays but somehow has ended up as Easter's raison d'etre (well at least for those non-practicing Christian and Jews I know). As far as my extensive research goes there appear to be no citations of the Easter bunny or little marshmallow chicks peeping around during Jesus's time. I do wish someone could prove me wrong here.

During the East-Over break I had the added pleasure of a last-minute visit from Mama Cupcakes. Needless to say our daily schedule revolved around where our next meal might be coming from and debating the best places to get cake in London.  This alternated with visits to Paul Young's Chocolate shop in Soho where we visited almost daily.  Delicious, the choccies in this shop are made of fun and unusual flavours.  Marmite or PB&J anyone?  He also sells a chocolate brownie with caramelised pecans that even Mama swooned over, even if it WAS a "store bought one"which is not something we typically go for. For those of you thinking you might go pick one up, be warned that at only 3 x 3 inches it's nearly £5, but it's also pretty amazeballs.

We certainly didn't stick to the Passover menu of no leavened products (our week included lunch at the Ivy for our favourite salmon fish cakes and complimentary bread basket). We also made an impromptu 48 hour trip to Venice where we scarfed down spaghetti with clams, Prosecco, gelato and an assortment of chicheti. All whilst fighting a constant internal battle, "must not buy the gorgeous _____" (frock, jacket, necklace, bag).  You can imagine how this turned out. Let's just say I need to work on my willpower.

All of that aside, the night Mama arrived I thought I'd try for a little Passover "tradition" and after whipping up some haroset I also managed a spinach and feta matzo pie.  It was a surprise but it was quite tasteriffic and (shock!) possibly a Passover recipe I could arguably make year round.

The recipe served 8 and with Mama and I eating it for two nights, I decided to freeze the second half.  Of course I was a little concerned. I mean really, has anyone frozen matzo before? Probably - but it just sounds wrong.

Anyway, low and behold I've been enjoying it defrosted from frozen even MORE than I did when it was fresh from the oven.  Who knew matzo could be such a dark horse?

Adapted from http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Spinach-and-Matzoh-Pie-242019
I substituted skim milk for the whole milk and added a fair bit of garlic.

Happy to report that we also stuck to some secular Easter traditions.  Mama made her way to Leonidas Chocolates after Easter Sunday in order to buy two large chocolate stuffed Easter eggs.  50% off naturally.