Food Odyssey: Winter 2020 – 2021

What’s up fellow believers? Happy spring! I hope the new year has been treating you well. I hope you all are still holding on to your faith in our wonderful Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It has been a little while and life has been busy. Nothing like being in your third year of a PhD program. But while I have been crying and complaining about my research, I have also been trying new recipes.

For a little while, I was doing a Food Odyssey post every month. Turns out, that doesn’t work well for my current schedule. Now I will be doing a Food Odyssey post for every season. I realize that this post may not do you much good for cooking and baking in the spring, but maybe you can keep some of these in mind for the next winter season…or just cook them anyway. Comfort food is always in season.

If you are new to the blog, let me introduce you to this series. When I started college, I hardly knew anything about cooking or baking. Since I have been out on my own, I have made an effort to learn how to cook, bake and find dishes with unique combinations of flavors and textures. This is me sharing part of that journey with you. Nothing in this post is sponsored. I have no affiliations or connections with any of these bloggers, influencers, or authors whose recipes I am sharing with you. I am just here to give you my honest thoughts and I would love to hear yours. With all of that being said, let’s get started.

I absolutely love breakfast, but it one of the hardest meals for me to make exciting AND healthy. I would love to have a syrup-y, refined carb-filled breakfast everyday, but my body would hate me. On the other hand, I think I would rather jump off a cliff than eat turkey and egg whites every morning. All that being said, I made a sweet potato and bacon frittata in an attempt to make breakfast interesting and somewhat healthy.

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The sweet potato makes it hearty; the parmesan and thyme give it a warm, inviting flavor; and the goat cheese makes it a little more interesting. Honestly, I wouldn’t think to put sweet potatoes into a frittata, but it isn’t half bad. The recipe just has you saute them, but I think next time I would boil them a little before sauteing to make them a little softer. Throw in your favorite hot sauce and maybe some toast and you have yourself a nice winter breakfast…or spring breakfast if you can’t wait.

Keeping with the breakfast theme, I tried a baked oatmeal for the first time.

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Why not throw a little bourbon in it? It just adds another dimension of flavor. It’s only a 1/4 cup of alcohol, so I promise you won’t be tipsy after eating it, but of course I understand if you want to skip the alcohol. Overall, I liked the flavor of this dish, but I don’t think I care much for the texture. I am a fan of really creamy oatmeal. I would love to run with these flavors for a more traditional bowl of oatmeal.

Next for breakfast, we have some shakshuka! Not just any old shakshuka, but lamb shakshuka.

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To be honest, I have never had shakshuka before making this. I have only heard of it and thought it sounded great. I have been planning to make it for months now. When I saw this recipe in, what is now one of my favorite cookbooks, Eating Out Loud, I was motivated to finally make it. I have found that toppings and sauce can really take a dish from, “Yeah, it was alright” to, “Dude, that was amazing!”. Other shakshuka recipes, maybe they serve it with some fresh herbs and hearty bread. This recipe served the shakshuka with toasted pine nuts and lemony yogurt, just to add to the complexity of the dish. I really liked this recipe. I would definitely add this into my regular rotation. I’m sure you could try it with other sources of protein or could probably omit the ground meat altogether. It’s your kitchen. You do what you want.

Ok, we are going to steer away from breakfast slightly. Banana bread. Maybe you eat this for breakfast, but it usually ends up as a snack or dessert for me. Everybody and their mother has a banana bread recipe and I have probably tried like 5 or 6 of them. My rule of thumb is that the recipe has to have at least three bananas in it. This banana bread recipe from America’s Test Kitchen has six bananas in it. Six!

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How do you incorporate six bananas in one loaf of bread without it being too moist and mushy? Well, you take five bananas and microwave them for five minutes, until they have released their liquids. After separating the liquid from the bananas, you set the liquid in a saucepan and reduce it. The last banana is used as a topping, along with some extra granulated sugar. It is a topping that I put too close to the wall of the pan. I knew not to do that and I did it anyway and you can see the caramelized edges in the photo. Don’t be like me. So, is this really the ultimate banana bread? Is it worth all the trouble? To be honest, probably not. Don’t get me wrong. The flavor and texture of this bread is great. It’s not too moist and it’s not dry and you get all the banana flavor you want out of a banana bread. I just think that a three banana banana bread is good enough for me. Why take an extra 20-25 minutes microwaving, straining and reducing when you could smoosh three bananas in a bowl and be just as happy? But if you’re dissatisfied with your banana bread or you have an excess of bananas that you need to use, I would say to give this one a shot and let me know what you think.

If you thought we were done with the topic of banana bread, you were WRONG. We have yet another one to discuss from the same cookbook as the lamb shakshuka recipe.

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Here we have a date banana bread variation with a coconut crumble. You hate coconut you say? Well, then clearly this isn’t the banana bread for you. But if you’re a lover of coconut and the natural sweetness of dates, give this a try. This banana bread was much more of a treat for me than the ATK ultimate banana bread. There is just more flavor to it without it being too much or overly sweet. I also made the simple date jam, which is what is smothered on the bread in the picture above. Do make that too. All the toppings she suggests you serve it with make the bread a dream. So if your taste buds are similar to mine, skip the ATK banana bread and make this one if you want something a little different.

Oh my, we still aren’t done with the topic of bread. Let’s talk about one of the superior yeasted breads: brioche. Beautiful, rich, buttery brioche. But no, I couldn’t stop there. My friends, you know I had to be extra. I attempted a brioche braid with an almond cream filling. I have an unnatural love for almond fillings and bread. How could I not try it?

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Isn’t she pretty? She’s so pretty that I gave her a name, Patricia. I can’t say I’m happy with that name, but it’s the first one I thought of and I couldn’t be bothered to think of another. Patricia is a true beauty, but she wasn’t everything I dreamed she would be. Guys, settle down! I know! How could I say something like that?! Let me explain. The brioche itself was great. The filling made me very confused. The almond cream recipe called for a tablespoon of lemon zest and a tablespoon of orange zest. I love some orange and lemon zest in my baked goods, especially almond fillings, but MAN was it powerful in this recipe. You cut open the bread and you would have thought I filled it with an orange curd or something. I gave some to my friends and they said the bread was delicious, but you know how that goes…people are too nice to hurt your feelings. But who knows, they could have really liked it. We’ll never know. I will say that I used a meyer lemon instead of a traditional lemon because that was all they had at the grocery store that was walking distance from me. I was too lazy to jump in the car and drive down the street to Walmart. The meyer lemon had an interesting smell to it, so that could have been what ruined it for me. Also, the recipe in my Kindle version called for 2 tsp of cinnamon, but it never mentioned it in the instructions. I thought it was weird to put cinnamon anywhere in this recipe, so I just treated it as a mistake. Either way, if I were to make this again, I would probably use the almond filling from Laura in the Kitchen’s almond croissant recipe. But for the amount of time and work that I put into this recipe, I would rather just make an almond croissant. Almond croissants are the greatest of the almond pastries.

Ok, now we can stop talking about bread and breakfast. Let’s talk about something more fitting for lunch or dinner. Chicken pot pie…soup.

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Chicken pot pie is a winter’s dream, but for some reason, I decided to settle for the soup. Overall, I liked this recipe, but it wasn’t anything amazing. I would have like it to have had a thicker consistency like the filling in a traditional pot pie, but the flavors were all there. The biscuits were pretty good too, but I messed up and made them too thin. If I had made them any thinner, they would have been buttery crackers. It was all good, but nothing to write home about. Next time, I’ll just make the pot pie.

Speaking of biscuits, I have found my favorite homemade biscuits thus far.

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Everything in this recipe was so good. The biscuits are freakin’ huge and everything I wanted in a simple homemade buttermilk biscuit. They weren’t too flaky, crumbly or dry and every bite is filled with buttery deliciousness. The chicken was surprisingly flavorful too. I find some chicken marinades do not do too much for the flavor of the chicken, but this one was great. If you are looking for comfort food and love biscuits as much as I do, try this recipe.

Last, but not least of the savory recipes, is a fluffy dumpling.

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I loved these dumplings. They are more like a bao with a simple ground pork and chicken filling. The allure of this recipe is the crispy bottoms. I tried making this with my cast iron skillet and it was a disaster. I ended up using a deep non-stick skillet for the rest of the dumplings. I did not expect these to hit the spot like they did. I will definitely be making them again. Also, do make the simple dipping sauce for these: soy sauce + vinegar + chili oil.

Ok, on to the desserts. I have a lot to share with you, so I’ll try to keep my opinions brief. First up: red velvet cake.

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I decided to make one for the first time on Valentine’s Day weekend. I thought it would be perfect to soak up my tears as I sat alone on the couch while other people celebrated their love. Sally knocked it out of the park, again. Moist, soft and that signature red velvet cake taste. I learned that it is actually just a buttermilk cake with some cocoa to cover up the taste of the red dye. I don’t know if that’s true, but it works.

Next up: cinnamon rolls. I find that most homemade cinnamon roll recipes do not meet my standards. Cinnamon rolls are something I eat once every year or two, so they have to be perfect. They should not look like they have a sprinkle of cinnamon with thick layers of bread-y pieces. The cinnamon filling should be gooey and all over the place!

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Joshua Weissman put out a recipe for a Cinnabon copycat recipe and it was just ok. I have definitely had fresh Cinnabon rolls that were better than these. I feel like these were grocery store quality cinnamon rolls. Bread-y, a cinnamon filling that did not exhibit top tier gooey-like behavior and not enough icing. Don’t get me wrong, these were still good. My family ate the whole pan during the holidays. It’s just that we ate them thinking that something was missing. If you want the ultimate indulgent experience for a cinnamon roll, try the recipe from Stove Top Kisses. You will go through a pound of butter and maybe a heart attack or two, but it might be worth it for that one bite.

We are sticking with rolls for a second. Salted tahini-chocolate babka buns. Let that sink in for a minute.

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I had never really tried the tahini-chocolate combination before, so I decided to try these. The flavor of these buns/rolls confused me so much. I think the flavor combination that confused me the most was the orange and tahini. There is a little bit of orange zest incorporated into the dough of these rolls and I really had to sit down and think about if I liked it or not. After much deliberation, I decided I didn’t care for it. Although I really appreciate the thought that Eden put into these rolls to make them a unique and balanced flavor experience, they just weren’t for me. Maybe one you might like them.

Now, on to the cookie portion of the desserts. In particular, let’s start with cookies of the Polish variety.

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The first and only time I have tried kolaczki cookies are from Fresh Thyme a while back. For some reason, I was craving them and Fresh Thyme was not selling them, so I had to make them myself. The dough is simple and rich; it is made with butter, cream cheese, flour and salt. It’s similar rugelach dough, which is a cookie that I will have to share with you all soon. The blog gives a recipe for the apricot filling, but I just used jam and preserves. It works better with preserves. These are nothing amazing, but if you want a nice, simple buttery cookie that will really show off the flavors of your favorite jam/preserves, this is the recipe.

Speaking of simple cookies, butter cookies are perfect for the holidays.

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These have a little more flavor than the kolaczki cookies because it incorporates vanilla and almond extract. They are also fun to make because you can do quite a few different variations and decorations. Sally gives you some ideas like dipping them in chocolate. Obviously, I did the least here and my piping skills are absolutely horrendous. Don’t judge these cookies from my picture. Go to Sally’s blog and make your final decision there.

Now let’s talk cookies with chocolate chunks. Apparently I didn’t have enough of the tahini-chocolate combination from the babka buns, so I made tahini-chocolate cookies.

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The original recipe uses bittersweet chocolate chips, but I am a fan of using chocolate bars. The cream colored gooey stuff on top is halvah. I had never heard of halvah until this recipe. It is a sesame fudge. It has a flaky consistency and an interesting taste. If you can’t find it, the recipe allows you to substitute with a tahini-honey mixture. I found it at my local Middle Eastern market and purchased the vanilla flavor. In retrospect, I wish I had purchased the vanilla chocolate flavor, but I thought the extra chocolate would be too much. I think it would have been just fine because I can hardly taste the halvah anyway. Overall, it’s a good cookie. The tahini-chocolate combination is an interesting one and it tones down the sweetness of the cookie.

A cookie that does not tone down the sweetness is a classic white chocolate chip cookie. Guys, I have a special place in my heart for white chocolate and white chocolate chip cookies. There are a lot of haters out there, but it doesn’t matter. The only thing that could separate us is, maybe, diabetes. But let me share with you one of the greatest homemade white chocolate chip cookie recipes I have found thus far.

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This recipe by Shelly is amazing. I think what stands out to me the most in this recipe is that you use a tablespoon and a half of vanilla extract per batch of 36 cookies. It really makes a difference. She also uses 20 oz of coarsely chopped white chocolate instead of white chocolate chips. Now you could use white chocolate chips, but if you want an extra bit of indulgence, grab a couple quality white chocolate bars. The recipe is also easy to cut in half, which is great because ya girl don’t need a whole batch of 36 cookies.

The last thing I want to share with you in this post is a beverage: chai tea. But this isn’t just any chai tea, my friends. This is a creamy cashew chai tea latte.

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Cashews in tea?! Indeed. Don’t knock it until you try it. I had a huge container of cashews from Costco that has just been sitting in the pantry, so I had been looking for ways to use them. Lo and behold, I found a chai tea recipe that surpasses all the other chai teas I have ever had. For this recipe, you need a decent blender. I have tried the recipe with and without soaking the cashews, and with a high-powered, I don’t think it makes a huge difference; they both turn out pretty creamy. I have also tried two different brands of chai tea: Zhena’s Gypsy Tea (caramel chai) and Tazo (organic chai). I preferred the Zhena’s Gypsy Tea brand, but I think it’s more expensive and harder to find. The Tazo brand, and I am sure many other brands of chai, would work just fine for this recipe. I have seriously been making this non-stop for the past couple weeks. It is great as a cold beverage. Just make sure to always give it a good shake if it has been sitting for awhile because all the solids will settle quickly.

Friends, that is all I have to share with you for this Food Odyssey. I hope you are somewhat inspired to try new recipes and expand your food horizons. I am going to now try to make the most of spring and all of the in-season produce. If you have comments, suggestions or recipes to share, please do so in the comment section below. On your way down to the comment section, please enjoy pictures of puppies. Lulu is my sister’s naughty little chihuahua mix. You all know Hunter by now, my pride and joy. Kobe is my dad’s giant schnauzer puppy with a lot of personality. He’s almost as big as Hunter now and he has these big paws that he likes to smack people around with. God bless!