Homemade Pop Tarts = Delicious

Someone on eGullet posted a recipe for making your own pop tarts. A lot of pop tart recipes just have you use a regular pie crust dough, but he tried to develop a crust that was akin to the original (although much tastier). So I decided to give them a try, and the result was delicious!

	First batch ready to go in the oven.
	First batch out of the oven: chocolate, blueberry and strawberry.
	The "money shot." This one is blueberry - my favorite. The filling is homemade blueberry jam I received as a gift.
	For the second batch, I had some friends over, and we made a bunch of mini-tarts, all in different flavors. I frosted them in different colors so I'd be able to tell them apart.
	L to R: caramel, apricot, raspberry, thimbleberry, blackberry. All from random half-jars of preserves, jam, etc hanging out in my fridge.
	To tell them apart while they were baking, we docked the top pastry with a letter to represent the filling. These are two of the three savory ones we made - the P is pesto & parmesan, and the M is mango chutney. There was also a sundried tomato & parmesan one. We thought tapenade would be great, but didn't have any - next time!

One of the things that makes pop tart dough different than you'd expect is that it's not sweetened. There's just 1 tsp of sugar to 3.5 cups of flour in the recipe. This makes it perfect for playing with savory fillings as well as sweet. And I love the visual fun of having a savory that looks sweet. To really play the trompe l'oeil card, I just need to figure out how to mimic the frosting and sprinkles in a savory application.

I've been pretty staid in my sweet fillings so far, just because I have so many jars of jam in my refrigerator. But there's lots of possibility for creative applications there too.

The other thing that's different about pop tart dough is that it's kind of dry. So you'll want a glass of milk to wash them down - it's the perfect pairing.

Scalloped Potatoes

Made an excellent batch of cheesy scalloped potatoes tonight. Scalloped potatoes are very much something I make by feel - I don't usually use a recipe. Sometimes they turn out really well, sometimes I use too much milk and they're too watery. Since tonight's were a winner, I thought I should try to transcribe the recipe while I could still remember the rough quantities.

Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes (serves 4-6)

2 onions
butter
2.5 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes
salt
pepper
3 tbsp flour
2 oz sharp cheddar, grated
1.5 cups milk, warmed

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Slice the onions and saute in butter with a pinch of salt until lightly caramelized. Meanwhile, peel and slice the potatoes about 1/4 inch thick. When the onions are ready, place a layer of potatoes (about 1/4 of the total amount) in the bottom of a casserole dish. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, 1 tbsp flour, 1/3 of the onions and 1/4 of the cheese. Repeat twice - you will have used up all the onions and all the flour. Top with the remaining potatoes, sprinkle with salt, pepper, the remaining cheese and a few dots of butter. Pour the milk over it all.

Cover and bake at 350 for 3o minutes. Remove cover and continue to bake until potatoes are soft - at least another 30 minutes. If you like a crusty top, increase the heat to 400 degrees for the last 15 minutes or so. Let stand for at least 10 minutes before serving to allow it to cool and set a little bit.

Booty from Canada

So, in a previous post I wrote an ode to the Canadian McChicken Sandwich, but that's not the only thing I miss from the old country. The chocolate bars (note: not "candy bars") are also generally superior to their American counterparts. The milk chocolate is similar to British milk chocolate, and doesn't have that waxy chalky Hershey's flavor. That's why the Reese peanut butter cups are pictured above - sure, you can get those here, but the Canadian ones taste completely different because of the superior chocolate. And I think the peanut butter filling is a little less sweet. Note that they are "Reese" not "Reese's" and that they come in a pack of 3 as their standard size.

Above the peanut butter cups is Coffee Crisp. My husband tells me that they have these in the vending machine at his office building, so perhaps they are available in the US now. (Just checked, and according to coffeecrisp.org, Nestle began marketing them nationally in the US in July of 2006.) But for a long time they were the number one chocolate bar people requested for me to bring back from Canada. According to its Wikipedia page, Coffee Crisp is "a combination of coffee cream, cookie wafers and milk chocolate coating." I like them alright, but my husband is the real fan in the family. He especially likes eating them frozen.

I've saved my favorite for last. Crunchies. A Crunchie is sponge toffee covered in milk chocolate. The sponge toffee has a nice bitter edge that makes for a perfect counterpoint to the chocolate. The only downside is a tendency to stick to your teeth. But they are definitely one of my all time favorite chocolate bars. I understand that sponge toffee isn't very hard to make, so I may try my hand at making a homemade version.

(Not pictured: the Crispy Crunch I ate before I thought about this blog post. As described in the link, it's a lot like a Butterfinger - the same flaky crunchy kind of texture - but the flavor is different and much better. Butterfingers always taste really artificially flavored and nasty to me.)

My Dirty Little Secret

Every time I go to Canada, I have to stop at McDonald's and get a McChicken Sandwich. I almost never go to McDonald's in the US - preferring Burger King or Taco Bell when my only option is fast food - but as soon as I cross the border, the craving sets in.

Although it may look like any crispy chicken sandwich served at lots of fast food restaurant in the US, it is a different thing. I remember as a teen ordering a McChicken sandwich from McDonald's while on vacation in the States, and being horrified that it was not the same.

Unlike most chicken sandwiches, it is not all white meat, but a mix of white and dark in a fabricated patty shape. Mmm - doesn't that sound good already? The sauce is not mayonnaise, but McChicken sauce, which is somewhat closer to Miracle Whip. Same sesame seed bun as the rest of McDonald's products, and the same shredded iceburg lettuce (of which I would have appreciated a more generous handful on the pictured example). I don't know what the flavoring mix in the coating is, but there's something about it that I love, and the combination of it all is just inherently satisfying.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, it's not a tremendously popular item. Popular enough to keep on the menu, but not so much that they're being cooked fast enough to always be fresh. If you're lucky they'll cook yours to order - and there's nothing better than a McChicken sandwich than a McChicken sandwich that's piping hot from the fryer. Well worth the wait. But if you're there at the wrong time, you can end up with the one that's been sitting in the warming drawer for the full duration of its 20 minutes lifespan, and the quality does decline.

I should note that I worked at McDonald's for nearly 5 years as a teenager, so I suppose I imprinted on them at an impressionable age. But if you find yourself in Canada and need to grab a quick lunch, you could do much worse than a McChicken.

Saturday Morning Pancakes

Nearly every Saturday morning since my son was able to stand on a chair, he and I have made pancakes together. Or "cakies" as he called them until just recently. I measure, he dumps and stirs. We cook up the whole batch at once, and put the leftovers in the fridge. They reheat well in the microwave or toaster oven, and he'll eat one a day for breakfast all week long.

I figure by the time he's 3 or 4, he should be able to make them all by himself.

Pancakes
(adapted from the Joy of Cooking)
1 c whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 c all-purpose flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp butter, melted
1 1/4 c milk
1 egg

Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl.

Stir together butter, milk, and egg. If your milk is cold from the fridge, add it slowly to the hot butter and mix constantly with a fork to prevent big chunks of butter from forming.

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix to combine. Add extra milk if it's too thick.

Drop scant 1/4 c portions onto a hot, lightly oiled (or non-stick) griddle or frying pan. Cook until dry around the edges and bubbles appear in the center. Flip, and cook just until done, about 30 seconds to 1 minute, longer.

Makes about 10 4-inch pancakes.

The power of stock

I'm recovering from a stomach bug, which has made me - unsurprisingly - not very interested in eating (or reading or writing or thinking about food). But woman cannot survive on saltines and applesauce alone (at least, this woman can't), so I decided it was time to try eating something a little more challenging.

It's moments like this that I'm most glad to have some stock put away in the freezer. I went on a flurry of stockmaking activity last winter, then promptly abandoned that many containers of beef, turkey and chicken stock that had filled up the small freezer compartment of my refrigerator.

Under gentle urging from my husband to clear out some room, I've started finding reasons to use up stock these last few weeks. The pressure cooker risotto experiment. That great light summer pasta. And today - what better panacea for a hungry but tender stomach than a bowl of homemade beef stock with carrots and pasta stars?

The freezer is almost empty now. There's just one container of beef stock left - about enough for a batch of French Onion soup. Empty just in time, perhaps - because we're about to come up on stockmaking season again!