Easy Sticky Buns

I have fond memories of my paternal grandmother’s pecan sticky buns.  She used to make huge batches of them around the holidays so that there were enough for others to take home. I’ve never made my own sticky buns from scratch, and while these Easy Sticky Buns from Ina Garten were not quite from scratch they were super easy (as advertised) and quick to make.

Instead of making your own dough, you start with frozen pastry dough and spread it with brown sugar, raisins and cinnamon.  You roll them up and put them in muffin cups that have a layer of pecans, butter and brown sugar.  And once they are baked and you invert the rolls onto a plate, they are topped with a buttery sweet caramel sauce. This Barefoot Blogger selection was made by Melissa of Made by Melissa. Melissa selected this recipe after seeing Ina Garten make them on the Today Show and several other programs.

Easy Sticky Buns

Makes 12

• 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1/2 cup pecans, chopped in very large pieces
• 1 package (17.3 ounces/2 sheets) frozen puff pastry, defrosted for the filling
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 cup raisins

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place a 12-cup standard muffin tin on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the 12 tablespoons butter and 1/3 cup brown sugar. Place 1 rounded tablespoon of the mixture in each of the 12 muffin cups. Distribute the pecans evenly among the 12 muffin cups on top of the butter and sugar mixture.
3. Lightly flour a wooden board or stone surface. Unfold one sheet of puff pastry with the folds going left to right. Brush the whole sheet with half of the melted butter. Leaving a 1-inch border on the puff pastry, sprinkle each sheet with 1/3 cup of the brown sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the cinnamon, and 1/2 cup of the raisins. Starting with the end nearest you, roll the pastry up snugly like a jelly roll around the filling, finishing the roll with the seam side down.
4. Trim the ends of the roll about 1/2 inch and discard. Slice the roll in 6 equal pieces, each about 1 1/2 inches wide. Place each piece, spiral side up, in 6 of the muffin cups. Repeat with the second sheet of puff pastry to make 12 sticky buns.
5. Bake for 30 minutes, until the sticky buns are golden to dark brown on top and firm to the touch. Allow to cool for 5 minutes only, invert the buns onto the parchment paper (ease the filling and pecans out onto the buns with a spoon), and cool completely.

 

Talking with my Mouth Full

Talking with My Mouth Full: Crab Cakes, Bundt Cakes, and Other Kitchen Stories by Bonny Wolf


rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

 Bonny Wolf works as a food correspondent for NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. In Talking with My Mouth Full, Wolf shares food memories and stories through a series of essays. It is a charming collection that makes a leisurely read for foodies. Wolf takes us on a nostalgic journey through the United States and its different regional foods. The essays focus more on comfort foods than on haute cuisine you find at upscale restaurants.  There are essays about Bundt cakes, Jell-o, popovers, Texas Barbecue, and Thanksgiving Dinner.

In each essay, Wolf relays her own experiences along with those of her friends and NPR listeners.  Wolf includes one or more recipes with each essay. The recipes are for foods that were mentioned in the essay. The recipes range from a simple recipe for basic toast to recipes for chili and roasted chicken. These are recipes that were passed down in someone’s family, or from friend to friend, or clipped from a newspaper.

As Wolf talks about her  folder of recipes clipped from magazines, I thought of my own folder of recipes, which is completely out of control. At least the advent of the internet has allowed me to search for and bookmark recipes instead of clipping them all from magazines. Sure, this has resulted in my epicurious.com recipe box having over 650 recipes in it. These are for the most part recipes that caught my eye while flipping through copies of Bon Appetit and Gourmet.

Bonny helps bring home the true connection between food and sentiment. Many of my own memories are related to food. I remember the bunny-cakes my Nana and great aunt Winnie used to serve every Easter when I was little. Bonny’s essay about Chicken a la King, made me want to call up my mom and ask for her Chicken a la King recipe. It was one of my favorite home cooked meals growing up.

I’ve made one of the recipes from the books so far and will be posting the results soon.

The book made me want to gather together recipes from my mom, from her mom, and my own and compile them all in a family favorites cookbook. Maybe that will be a new project for me this year.  It would make a really nice gift for Christmas, especially with family photos thrown into the mix.

I read this book as part of the Food for Thought book club. Check out the links on the blogroll there to see what other foodie-readers thought of Talking with my Mouth Full.

Bonny Wolf’s Website: http://www.bonnywolf.com/book.htm

View all my reviews.

Last Night at the Lobster

Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Last Night at the Lobster is Stewart O’Nan’s eleventh novel, but the first of his that I’ve read. We recently selected it as a book club read since it takes place in New England in the winter…and we just happen to be living in New England and it’s the middle of winter. Last Night at the Lobster is a simple, charming story about the final night of business for a New Britain, Connecticut Red Lobster.  This particular Red Lobster is located in the parking lot of a mall just off the interstate. Lobster big-wigs have decided that this particular Lobster is not meeting expectations and should be closed. The restaurant’s manager Manny DeLeon and his bare-bones crew show up for the final day of work at the Red Lobster.  It is a few days before Christmas, a day that is usually busy due to all of the shoppers at the mall. However, on this particular December day, a huge snow storm blows through town.

The novel is a minute by minute account of the last day and night at the Red Lobster. It gives a realistic glimpse into a day in the life of hard-working folks in middle America.  I have only eaten at a Red Lobster once (there really aren’t any in the greater Boston area…we have plenty of seafood restaurants without them!) and have never worked at a restaurant but have always been curious about behind the scenes “dirt”. The interactions of the staff at the Lobster is similar to the dynamics between co-workers at any job that I’ve worked at. There are tensions between some and more developed relationships between others. Manny’s ex-girlfriend Jaqui works at the Lobster and Manny still moons over her even though they’ve both moved on to new relationships.

At just over 140 pages Last Night at the Lobster is a short yet worthwhile read.  At its heart, the book is about the trying to get by in America and striving to make yourselves a better future even while you have one foot stuck in the past.  Manny finds himself asking questions such as: why are they closing my Red Lobster? What went wrong? Where did my relationship with Jaqui go wrong? What will my crew do for work now that the Lobster will be closed?  O’Nan treats his characters with respect, he doesn’t make the reader look down on them.

In my opinion, Last Night at the Lobster is the perfect book to curl up with while you are stranded inside during a winter storm. If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant or wondered what it is like to work in one, this book is a great way to get a peek inside the day in the life of a restaurant crew.

Looking for something to munch on while you read or discuss Last Night at the Lobster. How about some Cheddar Bay Biscuits, find the copycat recipe for the “famous” Red Lobster biscuits in my post here.

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Cheddar Bay Biscuits

 After reading the novel Last Night at the Lobster, which is about the closing day of a Red Lobster restaurant, I decided to bake up a batch of the biscuits that so many folks rave about. I’ve only been to one Red Lobster and that was when I was around 10 years old and I don’t remember the biscuits, but word on the street is that the Cheddar Bay biscuits are the best thing about Red Lobster.

I found the following recipe and tried it out. As I don’t know how the real Red Lobster biscuits taste, I can’t comment on how close to the real thing these biscuits are. I found them to be a bit too heavy in the garlic department.  The garlic flavor overpowered the cheese flavor. I rarely use garlic powder and this recipe called for it in both the dough and the “glaze”.  We like garlic but we usually use fresh garlic. Next time I make these, I would either use crushed fresh garlic or reduce the amount of garlic powder.

I used white cheddar so the cheese isn’t quite visible in the biscuits, but its in there!

Cheddar Bay Biscuits

From the Cookbook: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 

(6-8 biscuits)

• 1 1/4 cups Bisquick mix
• 1/4 cup + 3 tablespoons cold whole milk
• 2 tablespoons cold butter
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted
• 1/8 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• Pinch of salt

1. Preheat your oven to 400°F.
2. Combine Bisquick with cold butter in a medium bowl using a pastry cutter or a large fork . You don’t want to mix too thoroughly. There should be small chunks of butter in there that are about the size of peas. Add cheddar cheese, milk, and 1/8 teaspoon garlic. Mix by hand until combined, but don’t over mix.
3. Drop approximately 1/4-cup portions of the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet using an ice cream scoop.
4. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the tops of the biscuits begin to turn light brown.
5. When you take the biscuits out of the oven, melt 1 tablespoons butter in a small bowl in your microwave. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder and the dried parsley flakes. Use a brush to spread this garlic butter over the tops of all the biscuits. Use up all of the butter.

The House Of Mirth

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton


rating: 4 of 5 stars

House of Mirth is a social satire about hoity-toity New York city society in the early 20th century.   The title of the novel comes from Ecclesiastes: The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.  Lily Bart the protagonist of the novel may just dwell in the house of mirth. She is a social climber who cares more about rising in society than her own happiness and well-being.

Lily Bart is a stunningly beautiful, 29-year old socialite who is financially dependent upon a wealthy aunt.  Most women her age in her social circle are already married but Miss Bart has yet to find the perfect suitor. Lily’s primary goal in life is to rise to the tip top of New York society. Her planned method of achieving this is by marrying a prominent, rich & powerful man. However, she is torn between marrying for wealth and marrying for love.  She comes close to being engaged several times, but in the end sabotages her chances.  Lily gets over her head in debt from trying to keep up with the richer members of her social set and struggles to maintain her position. Through her desperation to achieve independence and rid herself of her debt, Lily makes several poor decisions that tarnish her reputation.

It is less mortifying to believe one’s self unpopular than insignificant, and vanity prefers to assume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness.

 I thoroughly enjoyed this novel of manners. Observing Lily’s downwards spiral was painful at times. I often felt like reaching into the pages and shaking some sense into her. Is it really so much worse to be married to a dull man or a not-quite-wealthy man than to be alone and a social outcast with no income?  House of Mirth is a downer of a book but a very good read. Wharton’s descriptions of society are spot-on. After you finish reading it, cheer yourself up by going out and splurging on a new pair of shoes!

View all my reviews.

LOST Books Challenge

Three facts:

1. I LOVE the television show LOST.
2. I enjoy a good challenge.
3. I read a lot.

So, why not combine all three and participate in the LOST Books Challenge hosted by Amy.

LOST is a show that features many literary references. They often have characters read a book and some of the plots and themes of the show are inspired by literature.  The goal of the challenge is to read 5 books that have made an appearance on or inspired something on the show.  The deadline for this challenge is the series finale in 2010.

I’ve already read a bunch of books (okay, 15 of them)  that are on the LOST reading list including A Wrinkle in Time, Lord of the Flies, Watership Down, and Slaughter-House Five.

The five books that I plan to read for this challenge are:

1. An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce
2. The  Turn of the Screw by Henry James
3. The Third Policemanby Flann O’Brien
4. Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov
5. A Brief History of Time by Stephen W. Hawking

Have you read any of these books?  Are you a fan of LOST?

Eats: Stix

Stix

35 Stanhope St.

Boston, MA 02116

617-456-7849

website: http://www.stixboston.com/

 

My book club read (or at least some of us did) Supercapitalism and we met at Stix to dine and discuss. None of us had ever eaten here before. I had dined at the restaurant, Bambara,  that formerly occuppied the space a couple of times and gave it mixed reviews.  Stix is owned and operated by the same folks who ran Bambara and 33 Restaurant (which is nextdoor).

To be honest with you, when I originally heard about Stix right around when they opened (Fall of 2007 ) I thought it sounded like an interesting place that I would like to try. Their “shtick” is that they have a selection of small plates that feature various things served on flavor-infused wooden skewers.  But then…. I started hearing bad word-of-mouth reviews, and reading mediocre or bad reviews on Chowhound and Yelp.  I went to my book club dinner with an empty stomach and an open mind.

The decor at Stix is modern and trendy, but nothing that bowled me over. The space is long and narrow. One wall is lined by a bar that had a cool color-changing light wall behind it. The tables ran the length of the room on the opposite wall.  There is supposedly a lounge area downstairs, but I didn’t check it out. The walls are exposed brick with blonde wood panels that match the tables.

We all ordered one or two small plates each. I ordered the tuna sashimi ginger mango Stix ($9)and the pickled shitake potstickers ($9). The Stix came out first.  There were 3 skewers of tuna sashimi with soy sauce for dipping. The tuna was coated with togarashi (red chili peppers), wasabi, and tobiko (fish roe). I found the tuna to be WAY to salty.  If the tuna was infused with any of the ginger mango flavor from the sticks it was completely masked by the saltiness. One of my fellow diners also got the tuna and felt that they were too salty.

The Shitake Potstickers were the best part of the meal for me. The wonton wrappers were filled with chopped shitake mushrooms, topped with scallions and served with a ginger dipping sauce. The wontons were flavorful and thankfully didn’t have the salt overload that the tuna had.

 A couple of my fellow book clubbers ordered the mini lobster tacos. When they were brought out to the table, I had a moment of envy and thought “I wish that I ordered those!”. They were so cute and looked to be little tasty bites. Turned out that I had nothing to be jealous about. The lobster tacos were bland, bland, bland.

We were the only party in the restaurant for about the first 40 minutes of our meal, which even in these times of economic downturn was a bit odd. At least we had the $10 off coupon from their website. (Our waitress told us that there was a $25 off coupon available on restaurant.com). We all left hungry,  but firm in the knowledge that our book club will not be returning to Stix.

 

rating: 3 out of 5 mangoes

Rasputin’s Daughter

Rasputin’s Daughter by Robert Alexander

rating: 3 of 5 stars

View all my reviews.

I like to throw the occasional work of historical fiction into the mix of my reading list. Rasputin’s Daughter is set during the eve of the Russian Revolution in the early 20th century in St. Petersburg.  It tells of the final days of Rasputin’s life & the eve of the Russian Revolution told through the eyes of his 18-year old daughter, Maria.  Maria waffles between being in awe of her father’s abilities as a mystic and spiritual leader and of doubting if he is truly a great man.

Never before tonight had I questioned by father. Never before this evening had I doubted him. But staring at this man with the beastly hair on his head and that thicket on his cheeks, this crude man with bits of food hanging from his mouth and from his filthy, greasy fingers, how could I not?

The novel was a quick & easy read, but in my opinion it bordered a bit on being cheesy and contrived.  I didn’t find Maria’s “relationship” with a young man named Sasha at all believable.  She meets him on a boat and develops a crush on him almost immediately. And despite all signs that point to him not being quite what he seems, she continues to be infatuated by him. At the same time, Maria hears rumors of people plotting to kill her father and tries to protect him and find out more about the plot against him.  I would have like the novel to delve a bit more into the intrigue that was occurring in Russia at that time in history. I felt there was too much focus on Maria fretting about her Sasha-crush and her confusion and concern for her father.

My book club chose to read Rasputin’s Daughter since it was included on Indiebound’s List of Reading Group Picks.  I can’t wait to hear what everyone else thought of the book. If your book club reads Rasputin’s Daughter, you can use the Reading Group Guide to give you discussion topics.

Looking for something to munch on while you read Rasputin’s Daughter?  You can eat lot of white fish like Rasputin or how about some sauerkraut cakes…

Berry Surprise Cake

Mary Ann of Meet Me in the Kitchen had her turn at the center of the Tuesdays with Dorie stage this week. She chose the Berry Surprise Cake. Reading this recipe, it sounded like one of my husband’s favorite cakes from a local bakery. I was excited for this week to roll around so that I could make it. and then…. (ominous music plays) … I read the P&Q discussion at TWD about this particular recipe. It seemed as if lots of folks were having issues with this cake. Their genoise wasn’t rising enough or was collapsing a lot after it had risen.

So, I proceeded with caution. I followed the recipe very closely and followed the tips from the P&Q but, alas my genoise collapsed..not just a little collapse, it lost a lot of height and ended up with a well in the center. EPIC FAIL! 

I opted to just go with the flow and instead of cutting the cake into 2 layers as instructed (since that would result in 2 very thin layers), I kept it as a single layer and used the well to my advantage… I brushed the entire top of the cake with Chambord syrup, filled the well with a layer of the cream cheese based filling, added a layer of raspberries, topped that with another layer of filling then frosted the whole cake with the fresh whipped cream topping.

The cake was quite dense but it still tasted incredible. MrMango said to me “You can make this again, but next time make sure it doesn’t collapse.” ha!  try, try again, I guess.

If you are interested in trying this out yourself, you can find the recipe on Mary Ann’s blog.  You can also check out how other TWD Bakers fared with this recipe that foiled me.

Savory Corn & Pepper Muffins

I’m a week late with these savory corn muffins. (imagine me hanging my head in shame)  Frankly, they were worth the wait. These muffins contain juicy bits of corn, jalapenos, and red bell peppers.  They went perfectly with the 8-Alarm Chili that I made on the same evening. It was the ideal meal to spice up a blustery January night. We could pretend that we didn’t have 8+ new inches of snow outside and that we wouldn’t have a morning of shoveling and clearing off the cars.

The muffins were very easy to make. My husband, who is not usually a corn bread fan, stole a few bites of mine off my plate while I was serving up the chili and he called me a genius. Any of the genius credit needs to go to Dorie Greenspan, since the recipe came from her cookbook Baking: From My Home to Yours.

The Savory Corn & Pepper Muffins recipe can be found on Ezra Pound Cake. Rebecca from Ezra Pound Cake selected this recipe. To see what other TWD bakers have made lately, check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll.