Yeast Crescents

Yeast Crescents

These are based on a recipe which won first place in the Indianapolis Star cookie contest, with some improvements I made, especially to the filling. Some people might prefer to call these "Christmas Crescents," but I see no point in calling them that, since the truth is that they are good all year round! Call them whatever you like, and make them whenever you feel like it!

Makes 40

4 cups of flour (500 g)

1 cup (2 sticks, or 250 g) of butter at room temperature

2 packages active dry yeast (20 g)

2 tablespoons of sugar

1 teaspoon of salt

half cup of milk

2 eggs

Powdered sugar (approx. 1 cup)

For filling: one small jar( 300-400 g ) of apricot jam mixed with 4 ounces ( 100 g) of ground walnuts.

Pour the milk in a microwave safe bowl and heat it for 30-50 sec. The temperature should be around 100° F (37° C). If you do not have a thermometer, you can stick your finger in it - don't worry, all chefs do that! It should be warm, not hot. If it is hot, then just let it cool down. Add the yeast and a tablespoon from the flour and stir it. Let it stay in a warm place around half an hour or until it looks frothy. Add the rest of the flour, eggs, salt, and sugar. Stir it and add the butter. Now you need to knead it for at least 5 minutes. I use a stand mixer (if you don't already have one, these are well worth the investment). Let it sit in a warm place for at least half an hour. It should double in size. Divide the dough into 5 even balls. Roll each ball on a hard surface (you can put a little flour on the work surface to keep it from sticking) into a 12 inch (30 cm) circle. Cut circle into 8 wedges. Place half a teaspoon of filling in the center of each wedge and then spread it. Starting from the widest point, roll each wedge to form a crescent (slightly curving the sides). Bake at 350° F (180° C ) for 20-25 minutes or until light brown on the bottom. Let the cookies cool and then roll them in powdered sugar. 

Quince pudding

Very few people in the United States are familiar with quince. Some have heard of it, but few have seen one and even fewer have tasted it. In my native country of Romania, however, quince trees are very common, especially in the south of the country, and the fruit is a staple of our diet. The fruit feels rather like a hard apple, but with a hint of fuzz on it almost (but not quite) like that of a peach. The taste is slightly like pineapple, and if you eat the fruit straight off the tree it might be too tart for your taste. But it is a fruit which, if you stew it, has a flavor that is simply exquisite. And so even if you have tasted a quince, but never tasted quince pudding, you should still give this recipe a try. I would be very surprised if you don't fall in love with its distinctive and delicious flavor.

As long as you actually have quinces (you can buy them seasonally in supermarkets like Meijer and sometimes even Wal-Mart), making quince pudding is fairly straightforward. You will need:

500g quince (or 1 lb) cut in cubes

100g sugar (or 4-5 oz)

1 cup water

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons cornstarch

100g butter (or 4-5 oz)

Vanilla essence (a few drops)

After cutting the quince into cubes, use a food processor for just a few seconds to turn it into smaller chunks and pieces. Chop it, but do not turn it into a pulp. This can be done by hand if you wish.

Pour the chopped/diced quince into a saucepan or pot. Add the cup of water and boil it for 10 minutes until the fruit softens. Then add the sugar and boil for a further 2 minutes. Then add the butter, cut into cubes, and stir continually for another minute until the butter is melted.

Separately in another dish, mix the milk and cornstarch. Pour this over the quince mixture in the saucepan and boil for another 2 minutes or until it thickens. Remove from the heat and add the few drops of vanilla, mixing it evenly into the pudding.

Allow the pudding to cool, but (although it is good even when served cold) it is best served warm, ideally with some fresh cream (whipped) on top. This recipe makes about 4 generous portions, and can be refrigerated and reheated the next day.

Sarmale

Sarmale is the Romanian word for stuffed cabbage, and it is considered our "national dish" more than anything else is. Even though people all over the world take meat and rice and wrap a cabbage or vine leaf around it, the Romanians have cultivated this recipe into an art form, and the results are really special. The version here aims to be both healthier and simpler than other versions that you will typically eat in Romania (and find explained in cookbooks and online tutorials), containing less saturated fat and leaner meat than most Romanian cooks tend to use. I prefer to buy my own pork meat and mince it myself at home, so that I know how much fat is in it, and can buy a leaner cut of meat to mince.

In the winter we use pickled cabbage, but in the summer we use green cabbage, and the latter is what I'll be using here.

Image from Pixnio

Choose a cabbage with loose outer leaves, because you will need to be able to detach each of them individually without tearing the leaf itself. For this recipe you need 10-15 leaves. If you happen to have several cabbages of this sort, you might just use the outer leaves from several cabbages for the sarmale. The inside of the cabbage can then be shredded for use later in this recipe, or used for a different recipe like coleslaw.

Place a large pot with water on your stovetop and bring it to a boil with the lid on. Place two or three leaves at a time into the boiling water for about 10-20 seconds each, until the leaves are softened slightly, to make them more flexible and easier to roll. After you have done this with all of them, allow them to cool before continuing.

A tightly-wound cabbage is much harder to use because leaves tend to tear. But if that is all you have to work with, you can proceed in the following manner. Place the whole cabbage in boiling water. Remove it every 15 seconds or so (using protective gloves so you don't burn yourself) and cut or tear off the outer leaves which have been loosened through boiling. Repeat this process until you have enough leaves.

Ingredients for the filling mixture:

• 1 lb (1/2 kg) minced pork 
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 green bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 2 tbsp rice or 1 cup boiled rice
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp dry dill
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• Optional: 1 tsp paprika 

You will also need cabbage (obviously) from the beginning of the process. Later in the process, you will need the following additional ingredients (listed separately from the filling mixture above to avoid confusion): 

• 4-5 oz tomato paste or 2 cups of diced tomatoes
• 2 bay leaves
• A dash of thyme
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• salt
• Optional: crushed red pepper 

Reminder: these do not go into the filling mixture! 

Mix the ingredients for the filling mixture together in a large bowl.

Then proceed to take cabbage leaves one at a time. Place a spoonful of the filling mixture on a leaf and roll it up tightly, as shown in the videos below.





Repeat until you run out of filling and leaves. This quantity of ingredients should produce about 20 sarmale.

Stack the sarmale inside a slow cooker for the best results. (You can also cook them in a pressure cooker or even an ordinary pot. But the procedures in those cases are very different and not those described here.) Add water to cover all but the top layer of sarmale, plus 1/2 cup oil, the 2 bay leaves, a dash of thyme, salt, and crushed red pepper if you want them a bit spicier. 

Set the slow cooker on high until it starts boiling, then turn it down to low and leave for 4 hours.

After 3 hours, remove the lid and add the tomato paste (or tomatoes). It should be spread evenly across the top, without stirring or disturbing the sarmale that are already in the slow cooker. The best way to do this with tomato paste is to spoon out a little of the liquid from the slow cooker into a small bowl and mix it together with the tomato paste. The result can then easily be poured back into the slow cooker. Replace the lid and turn up the temperature to bring the contents back to a boil, and then turn it down again. 

When they are ready, they can be served with sour cream on top and bread or mamaliga (polenta).

Poftă bună!

Squash soup

Ingredients

2 pounds of squash cut in squares 

2 big potatoes

1 carrot

4 celery sticks  

1 red, or orange pepper

1 medium onion

Half a teaspoon crushed hot red pepper/chili 

1 small bay leaf 

8-10 medium basil leaves or 1/2 tsp of dry basil

Fresh parsley to garnish

Salt and pepper 

2 liters of water

8 oz (225 g) heavy whipping cream 

Instructions

This is not a Romanian recipes, but it can be adapted to Romanian squashes (what we call dovleacel). I discovered this wonderful kind of soup in the United States, and not long after I learned just how many delicious varieties of winter squash there are in this country, each with their own distinctive characteristics that make it hard to choose just one favorite. But that actually makes winter squash soup all the more delightful - you can choose a different variety of squash each time and never get bored!

Take the squash (in this case I used butternut, but turban and other varieties of winter squash also work well), cut it in half, and remove the seeds and stringy parts from inside, discarding them. Cut the rest into squares (roughly 5"x5") and cook them in the microwave (in mine it is 6 minutes per square of squash, but different microwaves will require different cooking times). If you have room, you can cook the two potatoes at the same time.

If you do not have a microwave, you can do this step in a regular oven at high temperature for an hour or so.

Chop the vegetables, then combine all the rest of the ingredients except for the cream and fresh herbs in a pot with a capacity of at least 4 liters. Boil them. I use a pressure cooker because it is faster - this step can be done in 5-10 minutes including cooling time. 

When the squash and potatoes are cooked, remove them from the oven and allow them to cool off. Scoop out the soft parts, leaving the peels behind, and mash them with a potato masher or similar utensil. 

When the vegetable stock is finished cooking, put it in the blender to turn it into a cream. Then combine the creamy stock and the mashed squash and potato back in the large pot. Add the cream and the fresh basil and parsley (chopped).

Homemade Vanilla and Strawberry Ice Cream - No Ice Cream Maker Required!

Once you make your own ice cream at home, using only natural ingredients, store-bought stuff with lots of artificial flavors and sweeteners will seem unappealing. On a hot day that you have to spend inside, why not make yourself an ice cold treat? This can be a great fun project, and it is easy to involve your family in the process. In order to make it, you will need 2 large plastic or glass bowls for mixing and freezing, space in your freezer, a mixer, and for the strawberry ice cream, a food processor. 

Ingredients (to make about 2 pints each of two different flavors, vanilla and strawberry):

4 eggs 

450ml/1 pint heavy whipping cream

300g/1 pint strawberries

250g granulated sugar

16g/2 packets vanilla sugar (or 1 tsp. vanilla extract)

Separate the eggs. Add 50g sugar to the egg yolks and stir them in a bain marie. If you do not have one per se, you can just put a saucepan with water, which you bring to a boil, and then another saucepan placed on top (and into the lower one) with the ingredients, as in this picture:

Stir continually for a few minutes, until the sugar is dissolved and the egg starts to thicken slightly. This will pasteurize the eggs. Don't leave it until it gets lumpy! 

While the egg yolk and sugar mixture is cooling, beat the cream until it is stiff. In the second bowl, beat the egg whites and gradually pour in the rest of the sugar (as if you were making meringues, for those who have done that). When the egg yolk mixture is cool, add it to the egg white mixture and stir it in. Then add the cream and stir it in, until it is homogeneous. Finally, add the vanilla sugar or vanilla essence.

That is the basis for all ice creams, and it is only from this point that they diverge as you may wish to add different flavors, whether chocolate, rum and raisin, crumbled Heath bars or Oreos, or anything else. 

For the strawberry ice cream, the next step is to chop them very finely in a food processor. 

Obviously raspberries, cherries, and other fruits may be substituted. Take half of the base ice cream mixture and mix it gently together with the strawberries. 

 

You now have a batch of vanilla ice cream and a batch of strawberry ice cream ready to go in the freezer.

After an hour and a half or so, take the bowls out and stir them, before returning them to the freezer. This is crucial to ensuring that they freeze evenly and preventing ice from forming that will make the ice cream's texture less smooth.

Stir them again every hour. The last time I made it, the strawberry ice cream was ready in about 3 hours, and the vanilla in about 5 hours. The difference in time is because of the different compositions (the strawberries contain water) and probably also the different material the bowls I used were made from.

Before they get very hard, transfer them to plastic containers with lids, and they can now stay in the freezer until you are ready to eat them. They shouldn't stay in the freezer for more than a month - not that it is likely that you could wait that long before eating them in their entirety!

Your teenager can help, even with their cellphone in their hand, which is good news, because participating in making ice cream for the first time is precisely the sort of thing they will want to share on Snapchat!

Cold Brew Coffee

I discovered cold brew coffee somewhat by accident. I like to drink iced coffee in the summer, and once at Starbucks I was asked whether I wanted regular iced coffee or cold brew. I hadn't heard of the latter, and so gave it a try, and found I really liked the flavor, which has a smoothness and richness to it, without any of the bitterness that coffee brewed hot and fast sometimes has. It took a while, but I eventually decided to try making it at home, and I have been very pleased with the results - both the flavor, and the fact that I can simply pour myself a coffee in the morning rather than having to make it then.

The procedure is simple. Just use the amount of coffee and water that you usually do for your own tastes. The big difference is that you will not heat the water. When I make it, I grind 2-3 scoops of coffee beans coarsely, and put them in a French press that makes 3 mugs of coffee. I then add cold or room temperature water (depending whether I have filtered water or am using tap water) so that the French press is 2/3 to completely full, corresponding to how much coffee I put in (the recommended ratio is roughly one part coffee to six parts water). I stir it to make sure that all the grounds are wet and hopefully most are submerged. Finally I turn the top so that the spout is closed, and leave it to brew at room temperature for 24 hours.

If your French press has a really good filter, you might not need to use a coffee filter, especially as the grounds need to be coarse. But if your French press has seen better days and tends to let particles through, then filter the coffee through a paper coffee filter (note the way to fold the bottom and side so that it opens conveniently so as to fit in the filter holder).

You can enjoy the coffee then, or put it in a jar in the fridge to enjoy on a later occasion. Cold brew is served diluted - I drink it 2/3 cold brew and 1/3 milk and the taste is exquisite!

May Memory

I hope you won't mind me sharing another holiday story rather than a recipe. This one is very precious to me...

I remember lining up with other parents who were waiting for our children to be released from preschool, quite a number of years ago now, when my son was only 4 years old. I heard a lot of kids' voices through the door, all of them sounding eager to see their parents. The teacher was trying to settle them down. At some point I overheard my son saying to the teacher that his mom's birthday was coming up in May, and the teacher told him that her birthday would be in May as well. I and the other parents were surprised, since I did not think that he knew when my birthday was. When he came out, I asked him how he knew when my birthday was, and he said that he saw it written on the calendar in the classroom. Now I was really surprised, and puzzled! And so I went to take a look, and saw what he had seen: the words "Mother's Day," which he assumed meant his mother's birthday, and not a day celebrating all mothers!