Hey! I’m alive.. just crazy busy with my relocation and whatnot. I’m staying here in Kansas City with my folks for a bit while I transition and of course, that means plenty of gentle nudgings and offhand mentions of how such-and-such dish sounds so good and oh wouldn’t it be nice to have this for dinner. In other words, being home is being my mom’s personal chef, and tonight she suggested quiche so I just happened to make it.

I know this is extremely similar to the goat cheese tart, but I’ve said before how I a) love breakfast for dinner and b) love the ease of dishes like this, especially when you use a prepared pie crust. And, well, I was going nuts not posting anything! So enjoy!

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Caramelized Onion & Sun Dried Tomato Quiche

Serves 8

Ingredients

• 1 prepared or store bought pie crust, at room temperature
• 4 eggs
• ½ cup half-and-half
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 medium yellow onion (not sweet)
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• ½ cup sun dried tomatoes packed in oil, chopped
• ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese, plus more for sprinkling
• Salt
• Pepper

Directions

1.) Preheat oven to 450° F with rack set in lower third. Roll out the pie crust to fit a 10” tart pan, fit into shell, and prick the bottom and sides with a fork. Bake until golden but not too done, about 7-8 minutes.

2.) Lower the oven to 375° F and let the crust cool while you prepare the filling. Slice the ends off the onion and slice thin. Heat a medium-sized skillet over medium heat and add the oil.

3.) Once it’s warm, add the onions, brown sugar, and a good pinch of salt. Give everything a good stir to coat the onions in the oil and sugar, and then cook until caramelized, about 20 minutes. Don’t stir too often otherwise you won’t get good color.

4.) Remove the onions from the heat and set aside to cool slightly. Once they’re cooled, chop the onions up a bit and sprinkle over the bottom of the prepared pie shell. Add the sun dried tomatoes, and the parmesan cheese.

5.) Beat the eggs in a large bowl, seasoning with a bit of salt and pepper. Add the half-and-half and milk, and beat everything together. Pour into the prepared shell and give it a little jiggle to settle everything. Sprinkle a bit more cheese over the top and pop in the oven.

6.) Bake until cooked through and set, about 30-35 minutes. If the edges start to get too brown, crimp some aluminum foil around them until the filling is baked. Enjoy with a nice salad or fresh fruit.

© Jessica J. for jonesing for..., 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: breakfast, dough, eggs, savory, tomato

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I don’t know about you – but I am so over winter. The snow has been beautiful, the root veggies have been great, the sweaters comfortable, but I am dying for sunlight and sandals and summer produce!

Thankfully, spring is en route, and these lemon bars are a perfect transition into the season. Using good winter citrus and a buttery shortbread crust, but still getting that zing found in fresh fruit desserts, they toe the line perfectly between the seasons, as we are doing right now.

My special addition here is limoncello, a traditional Italian digestif made from steeping lemon zest in alcohol and then adding sugar. We used to make it in-house at Lidia’s but you can find it at any liquor store. However, if you’re trying to save money, just sub the limoncello with lemon juice and they’re still molto deliziosa.

Bright and sunny!

Such an odd measuring spoon, but I love it.

Baked.

Thiiiiiiiick!

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Lemon Squares

Based loosely on the recipes from  Epicurious, Ina Garten, and CHOW.

I prefer my lemon squares to have a closer crust-to-curd ratio than many out there, so they’re not as thick as many you may see. When the filling is tart and ooey-gooey rich enough as it is here, however, I think you’ll warm to the idea!

Ingredients

For the shortbread crust:

• 1½ sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into cubes and kept very cold until used (reserve the wrapper to grease the pan)
• ½ cup powdered sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ tsp kosher salt
• ½ tablespoon lemon zest (be sure to scrub and wash your lemons before zesting)

For the filling:

• 4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 1¼ cups granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons grated lemon zest (be sure to scrub and wash your lemons before zesting)
• ½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from about 4 lemons, depending on size)
• 3 tablespoons limoncello
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• About 1/3 cup powdered sugar, for sprinkling

Directions

1.) Preheat oven to 350° F with rack set in center of oven. Grease a 9x13x2-inch baking dish with the reserved butter wrapper and set aside.

2.) Prepare the crust. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse together the flour, salt, sugar, and zest. Get the butter out of the fridge and add to the bowl, pulsing a few times until incorporated. The dough will be very loose, but stick together when clumped.

3.) Dump the dough out into the prepared baking dish, jiggle to evenly distribute, and using either your floured hands or a drinking glass with the based dipped in flour, spread and press the dough into the pan. Bake until stiff and fragrant, about 15-20 minutes. The dough will not brown. Remove and make the filling while it cools on a wire rack.

4.) Make the filling. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, limoncello, and flour. Pour over warm (but not hot) crust and bake 25-30 minutes until set, but still slightly jiggly.

5.) Let cool completely on wire rack before sprinkling with more powdered sugar. Cut into 24 squares and enjoy!

© Jessica J. for jonesing for..., 2010. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cookies, dessert, dough, lemon

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This all started innocently enough. I had just seen “Crazy Heart” and after watching Jeff Bridges make “Bad Blake’s Legendary Biscuits,” I had a hankering I couldn’t ignore. So I turned to my usual goddess of southern cooking, Edna Lewis, and followed her recipe. Unfortunately… this happened:

Wah wah wahhhhhh. They don’t look too good do they? They tasted alright, but obviously they’re small, flat, and well, not very biscuit-y. Every recipe can’t be a winner, even from a trusted cook or source, but you can’t let it get you down. So, like with any challenge, I began to research and play with recipes. Butter vs. shortening, salt amounts, homemade baking powder vs. store-bought. And as always, altitude challenges. Finally, four rounds later, I made these gorgeous things today:

Victory! They taste even better than they look, too. I ended up using salted butter (just gave better flavor), homemade baking powder (from Edna), and just the right ratios to make sure they rose nice and proper here in the mountains. Nice crisp top and bottom, airy and moist on the inside, just begging to be slathered in more butter and strawberry jam.

Nice shaggy dough mess.

Ignore my chicken scratch.

Ready to bake!

White on white on white.

Golden brown.

I recently acquired this huge box of plates from an elderly couple who passed away. They traveled for 40+ years and got a plate from every place they went including Egypt, Monaco, Australia, Jerusalem… they were a cool pair. This one is from Denmark and I now have a huge boxful with others like it, plus so many other neat styles/shapes.

Half buttered, half jam, please!

—

Buttermilk Biscuits

Big ol’ note – I made this for high altitude and have no version for sea level. My suggestion is to play with it yourself, first by reducing the liquid and increasing the baking powder. Then just have fun!

Makes about 7-8 biscuits.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons salted butter
• 1 tablespoon homemade baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk, plus extra for brushing

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 450° F with the rack set in the middle of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
2. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the dry ingredients with the butter a few times until the butter is pea-sized. Pour everything into a mixing bowl and add the buttermilk. Stir until just combined.
3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead 2 or 3 times. Roll out or pat the dough ½” thick. Using a 2-inch round cutter or anything else that’s 2 inches and round, stamp out biscuits as close together as possible. Transfer the biscuits to a baking sheet. Pat the dough scraps together and cut more biscuits until everything is used. Pierce the top of each biscuit 3 times with a fork.
4. When ready to bake, brush with extra buttermilk. Bake until golden brown, about 15-17 minutes. Serve immediately with jam and more butter, because it’s right.

© Jessica J. for jonesing for..., 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bread, breakfast, dough, savory, sidedish

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Isn’t it funny how you can feel a food trend starting to build? Okay, maybe I’m one of those hyper-aware people and notice it more than most, but I can tell you one thing: monkey bread is so hot right now. I’ve seen it pop up more than a handful of times in the past month or so on the 30+ food blogs I read daily, most notably with a full-on expose from the LA Times, and I couldn’t be more excited!

I love monkey bread. Adore it. For those who haven’t encountered it, monkey bread is a sweet yeast-y pull-apart breakfast bread made in a bundt pan, covered in ooey-gooey cinnamon-sugar butter, and baked. You pull it apart (like a monkey? the name origin is debated) in sticky, awesome pieces and enjoy with coffee in the morning. Or hot chocolate. Or both. I first experienced monkey bread when I stayed with my friend’s grandparents in Tulsa, OK for a couple weeks when I was 12 or so. Meagan & Casey’s grandma would get up at a (no doubt) ungodly hour and almost every other day have hot monkey bread waiting for us when we woke up. It was such a treat I looked forward to every morning, and then would happily nibble on every evening when we would play Mexican train dominoes.

So when I read yet another blog entry about the scrumptious breakfast bread, I got a hankering I couldn’t ignore. And it only made sense to get the recipe for the original I fell in love with, which thankfully Meagan’s grandma was more than happy to share. Even better, the recipe uses pre-packaged dough and is so easy, you literally could whip this together in the morning, especially since she has the trick of putting it in a cold oven and cooking it as it heats up.  Sugary and sticky and warm and spicy, this is the ultimate breakfast pastry and would conquer any cinnamon roll any day of the week!

Betty Shaddox’s Monkey Bread

Makes 1 very large bundt pan full (96 pieces).

Ingredients

• 3 cans refrigerated biscuits (I used Pilsbury Grands! Buttermilk, do NOT get the flaky layers kind – they don’t bake properly!)
• 1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter
• 1 cup, packed, dark brown sugar
• 2 TBL cinnamon
• 3 TBL sugar

Directions

1.) Toss the cinnamon and sugar together in a large bowl. Cut each biscuit into quarters and roll each piece in the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

2.) Butter or spray a bundt pan with non-sticky spray. Pile the the dough bits in the bundt pan, but don’t press down (this allow the butter to get in the cracks and coat everything).

3.) Melt the butter in a microwave-safe bowl or on the stovetop and then stir in the brown sugar. Pour all over the dough bits, jiggling them slightly so it can drip down the sides and into the cracks.

4.) Do not pre-heat oven! Put the pan into cold over and turn to 350° F for 30-35 minutes.

5.) Let cool a few moments and then invert onto a large plate. Eat warm (or boiling hot if you can’t wait like me) with coffee or hot chocolate on a cold autumn morning!

© Jessica J. for jonesing for..., 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: breakfast, dough, sweet

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I firmly believe that everyone can cook. Sure, we all have varying degrees of difficulty we pursue and reach, but I don’t think there is some weird, innate quality which renders people unable to cook. Most of the time when I hear people grouse about failing to produce something in the kitchen, it involves being unable to follow instructions or read things carefully – not some curse which causes culinary failure.

I know personally, baking and desserts is the area I am still working on and attempting to better myself at. Savory cooking can be so much easier – you toss things in, taste for seasoning, add more of this, more of that. Baking and pastry is a science. With careful measuring, following of instructions, etc. Which is why I love this idea to death because it throws all of that out the window and is quite possibly the easiest dessert (and breakfast pastry!) I have ever made.

All you do is take puff pastry, thaw it, slice up an apple, toss it with lemon juice and brown sugar, lay it out, and bake it. That’s it!  Practically no measuring, no leaveners, no stand mixer or double boiler – seriously, anyone can make this dessert. (Trust me, try it – I have faith in you!)

Crazy Easy Apple Tart (and Strudel)

Based on the recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks.

When I was making this I realized I had leftover apples and the syrup was so good I sliced up another and made the strudel on the fly.  I had the dessert for myself and brought the strudel into work on Monday morning because we all know everyone needs flaky pastry and sweet fruit inside to get them going at the week’s start. The strudel is a bit fancypants compared to the tart just because I use an eggwash and fold the dough over, but seriously, it’s still crazy easy too.

Makes 1 apple tart and 1 apple strudel (or 3 apple tarts).

Ingredients

• 1 sheet puff pastry, thawed at least 20 minutes and then unfolded
• 2 apples of your choice (I love honeycrisp or pink ladies because of their tart-to-sweet ratio but feel free to use whatever you like or have around), cored, sliced thin
• ½ cup packed brown sugar (dark or light)
• ½ lemon
• Dash of salt
• Optional: 1 egg beaten with 1 TBL water (for egg wash)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Spray 2 baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray or line with a Silpat if you have it.
2. While the oven preheats, toss the sliced apples with the lemon juice, brown sugar, and salt.  Use your hands to toss them and make sure they’re evenly coated.  Let sit a bit and they should produce a good amount of liquid which becomes syrupy.
3. Cut the puff pastry into 2 sections, following the seams so you have a piece that’s 1/3 and the other is 2/3 the sheet.
4. Lay the apples out in a neat row on the 1/3 sheet, layering them on top of eachother as you go. Drizzle some of the syrup on top and pop in the oven.
5. Bake 18-20 minutes or until the pastry is puffed and toasted and the whole kitchen smells of apples.
6. Serve with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, powdered sugar, a sprinkle of cinnamon, or all of the above.

For the strudel: Do the same thing you did for the tart, only this time, fold the other half of the puff pastry over and pinch the edges so it’s closed. Brush with the egg wash and bake the same amount of time.  Enjoy for breakfast with some good coffee.

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Uploaded on September 29, 2009
by jonesingfor

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	crazy easy apple tart and strudel (Set)

© Jessica J. for jonesing for..., 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: autumn, breakfast, dessert, dough, fast and easy, sweet

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