~ Pumpkin Ravioli

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

To-day our culinary senses are focused upon the Pumpkin Ravioli. "Last Morning" as our favorite 5-year-old would say, our Girl made a moderately delicious pumpkin ravioli with homemade egg pasta and filling of only Pumpkin and a particularly expensive sheep cheese. She ate a very large plate of it (4 servings' worth) which was boilt, and I, the Gute, polished off the equivalent amount in the kitchen which was still waiting to be boilt. I didn't mind. It was all fresh and delicious. (The Girl was displeased and today has not fed me full servings due to how my rib cage was stretched to nearly the girth of my brother Elias in my fullness.)

Today, with remaining pasta dough that we reserved, we improve upon Martha Stewart's pumpkin ravioli recipe. We start with canned pumpkin, not fresh, as it is zero degrees and the Frost is on the Pumpkin to say the least.

Guthrie's  Pumpkin Ravioli
14 oz. pumpkin puree
1 tsp. brown sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup hard cheese, grated. lightly packed (such as Asiago, Parmesan, Romano)
1/2 cup minced nuts (walnuts or almonds)
1 tablespoon minced onion
2 tablespoons coconut (we used organic which is drier)
1 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
salt and pepper

fresh sage leaves (we only had dried)
1/2 cup butter
balsamic vinegar

Mix together first set of ingredients. Lay out a fresh sheet of pasta (4" wide). Drop a tablespoon of filling every 3 inches on the sheet. Moisten area around the filling if sheets have been drying (or purchased at the store. Cover with another sheet of pasta, pressing around the filling. Cut into 3-inch squares with fluted pastry wheel.

Line a baking sheet with parchment and sprinkle with semolina flour. Spread ravioli on sheet and freeze for 30 minutes.

Drop into rapidly boiling water. Cook 3-4 minutes, just til it floats. Drain.

In frying pan, melt butter, add sage and cook one minute over high heat. Remove from heat. Whisk in balsamic vinegar and toss over Ravioli.


Eli's Notes: This ravioli was as much as we had hoped. The coconut and walnuts made it much more interesting and complex than yesterday's pumpkin and cheese alone. The sage butter drizzled over was visually pleasing and flavorful. We used walnut pieces - not as small as minced - and liked the crunchy texture they gave. We dogs shall retire tonight with another winning recipe in our caps. Now we shall work on how to freeze this and give as Christmas presents....

- Pumpkin Date Bread

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

We dogs recommend pumpkin for whatever ails you. To-day we are thinking of something that is good for the elders health-wise, but also extremely tasty and this is where we came to make Pumpkin Date Bread this morning. We again started with Betty Crocker, who also needs fiber, and made it our own.

We never use soy or canola oils for this reason: they are genetically modified (unless they are organic).  They are also not a friend of the Artery. Instead, we use grapeseed oil or extra virgin olive oil. Here, we choose walnut oil as as we had bought some on sale and had not tried it yet. Also, finding ourselves sorely out of cloves, we replaced the spices in this recipe with 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice.

Pumpkin Date Bread

1 cup sugar
2/3 cup grapeseed oil
2 tsp. vanilla
4 eggs
15 oz. pumpkin
3 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon (generous)
1/2 tsp. cloves (generous)
1 cup chopped dates

Oil bottoms of four or five mini loaf pans. Move oven rack to a position in the bottom 1/3 of the oven so that the loaf-tops will be in the center of the oven.

In large bowl, mix sugar, oil, vanilla, eggs and pumpkin. Mix dry ingredients together and stir in, saving dates for last. Fold in dates and pour into loaf pans. 

If desired, sprinkle tops with a mixture of 1/3 cup walnuts or pecans, 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1 tablespoon oil or butter.  

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, until toothpick poked in center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes before removing from pan. 


Notes from Guthrie: We dogs feel it is important to make sure your oils and your nuts are not rancid. A dog can tell with just a whiff, but you people will need to take a taste of oil or of nut and make sure there is no bittery or acidic aftertaste on your tongue. If there is, they are no good and can't be salvaged and must be thrown away. Rancid oils will ruin the taste of a thing but are also full of free radicals which cause ill health and cancers. Never eat rancid oils.

- Cream of Asparagus Soup

Fellow Q-linarians,
This is a reprise of a recipe from Sept. 2008 which we came across today and cannot help but make. 
Sincerely, 
King Guthrie 


Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

I, King Guthrie, Gute of Gutes, have made a smooth and warming concoction of asparagus soup for our lunch which Elias, my brother and alpha, calls "Asparagute Soup." We have an amicable relationship.

Here's how I made it before I returned to my chair for my afternoon of sleep - and watching the perimeter for any sign of threat or danger, of course.

Creamy Asparagus Soup
Me's Independent Rating: 3 of 3

Oil (grapeseed or coconut)
1/2 pound white onion
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 tablespoons arrowroot or flour
1/2 pound asparagus
4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 teaspoon dried sage or savory
1/2 cup nonfat plain yogurt
chives for garnish

Heat up your favorite cast iron (you'll see why later) pan with 1 tablespoon oil. Chop the onion and saute with the garlic about 3 minutes. Add arrowroot or flour and saute 3 more minutes. (We used the leftover flour from the other day's breading of eggplant. We saved it in the freezer since it was seasoned and still worthy. So it had some salt and pepper in its midst, as well as a possible eggplant overtone. ) Gradually pour in the broth. Bring to a boil and add the asparagus, trimmed and all broken into pieces (see "Preparing Asparagus" post), and sage or savory as your herb. Simmer until asparagus is so tender as to fall apart.

With a slotted spoon, transfer asparagus and much of the onion out of the pan and into a blender. Puree with 1/2 cup plain yogurt. Stir the puree back into the remaining broth and season with sea salt and fresh ground pepper. At this point, if you did what I said and used a cast iron pan, you can turn off the heat and let the soup gently rewarm in the heat of the pan while you go out and snip chives from the garden to top it off. You don't want to overheat the yogurt - just warm it to eating temperature.

Ladle into bowls, sprinkle with chives and serve with crackers. We use warm stoneware bowls for a soup like this that is not boiling hot when you put it in the bowl. The stoneware will retain what heat there is in the soup and give you time to leisurely eat it (or wolf it down like us) before it gets too cold.
I, Guthrie, presented this to my girl, Me, and met with her warmest approval.


Tips from Elias: The soup smells utterly salivacious, though I did not cook today.  I was very busy keeping an eye out the window for any foul play as the neighborhood came home from school.


Tips from Guthrie: Always strive to undersalt so that the eater, especially a salt hound, can add some at the table where it will make most impact on the tastebuds. Also, I wouldn't suggest this to just anyone, but say you had cooked asparagus the night before and had the foresight to save the water off said asparagus in the refrigerator. A person could actually use the leftover asparagii  from that meal and the flavorful water in this soup. If you were so inclined. A dog would do it. Dogs don't mind leftovers.

- Cranberry Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

We went over to the elders to run in the Wood yesterday and brought some of our Cranberry Orange Streusel Bars only to be rebuffed by the elder woman who said that the cake-like cranberry bars of previous weeks, slathered in cream cheese frosting, were her favorites. We think this morning she will come to her senses and have one of the Streusel bars for breakfast and realize its uncommon, nearly carmely, goodness. But just in case, we are preserving the other recipe here. This one is like cake, the Other One is like cookies. They do not replace each other but happily coexist on a plate of cranberry pleasures.

Sincerely, Eli for Elias and The Gute

Cranberry Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting
Me's Independent Rating 3 of 3

1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup sugar
1-1/2c flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups cranberries, chopped
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

Cream butter, eggs, vanilla and sugar. Mix in dry ingredients. Fold in cranberries and nuts. Spread in greased 8x12 (or so) pan. Bake 40 min @350 degrees. 

Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 cup cream cheese (room temp)
1/2 cup butter (room temp)
1 tsp. milk
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Blend frosting ingredients together. Slather frosting over cooled bars. Desserts with cream cheese frosting should be refrigerated if not eaten within a few hours.

Notes from Guthrie: We make up the frosting and freeze the bars and frosting separately. Thaw both, frost and serve. 

- Molasses Krinkle Dough for Freezing

Dear Fans of Hounds who Cook,

Here we are on 1 December, the launch of the Christmas season and we dogs are cooking. At present we have made a marvelous roll of Molasses Cookies that we have frozen and will bake up later. In this way, we can have a supply of molasses cookies anytime at all throughout the Season.

We started with Betty Crocker and worked our way from there to here:

Molasses Krinkle Dough for Freezing
Me's Independent Rating: 3 of 3

3/4 cup Wisconsin butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
1 egg
2-1/8 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
white sugar for rolling

Mix butter, brown sugar, molasses and egg thoroughly in a large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients except white sugar.

Lay out a 14-inch to 16-inch length of waxed paper. Turn dough out onto waxed paper and work with the paper to form into a log about 12-inches long. Wrap tightly in waxed paper. Then wrap in plastic wrap. Before sealing tight, write a note with cooking instructions for the dough:

Whole Wheat Molasses Krinkles - 350 degrees - 10-12 minutes - Shape dough into 1-1/4-inch balls, roll in white sugar, sprinkle with a few drops of water on the top. Bake until set, not hard. Cool on wire rack.

Tuck the note inside the plastic wrap and seal it up with freezer tape (or we used twist ties at both ends and left it at that).

When you go to make the cookies, put the dough in the fridge overnight to thaw. Or, if you are in an incredible hurry and only want to cook some of them, leave it on the counter a short while and then slice the partially thawed pieces from the ends (which thaws sooner), form and bake. Return partially frozen dough to the freezer.

- Cranberry Orange Streusel Bars

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

We have been on sabbatical due to the Rabbit season and our Girl had a prolonged trip to Africa where she ate things like matoki and curries and meat upon skewers. We dogs were on vacation in Minneapolis where we did not have access to a computer but communed with our dog pack instead.

Now as it is Christmastime, we are back in a hound frenzy to make the best of all possible Christmas cookies. I had a morning nap whilst it snowed large flakes and woke up with a great desire for cranberries. We dogs love the cranberry first because it pops between our teeth and second because of its healthful antioxidant properties.

We started with a recipe our Girl read in the Mazda shop whilst they replaced her engine coils. It was a Bobby Flay recipe in Good Housekeeping. We have houndified it and consider it our new favorite recipe for Christmas so far.

Due to the recipe using only the Yolks of the egg (our favorite part), this would be a very good day to make a batch of coconut macaroons as well, as they use only Whites. 

Cranberry Orange Streusel Bars
 Me's Independent Rating: 3 of 3

12 oz cranberries
1-1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
2 clementines (for zest and juice) or an orange
14 oz sweetened condensed milk
2 egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup pecan pieces
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Rinse the cranberries and pluck out any withered or blackened ones. Leave them to thaw slightly on paper towel in a single layer on a cookie sheet. With parchment paper, line a 13x9 cookie sheet with sides and let the paper overhang every side.

Mix flour, oats, sugar, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Cut butter into pieces and work into flour with your fingers. Set aside 3/4 cup to 1 cup of the crumbs for topping. Press the rest into the parchment-lined pan. Bake at 350 degrees until light golden - 12 minutes.

Zest the clementines with a microplane grater. (It's the only kind we find that will work on a clementine. Or use an orange with a regular zester.) Get 1 tsp. of zest and 1/3 cup juice from the clementines. Whisk sweetened condensed milk with yolks, vanilla, zest, and juice til well combined.

Sprinkle cranberries over hot crust. Pour orange mixture over cranberries and crust. Sprinkle with pecans. Sprinkle with remaining shortbread crumbs. Bake 30-37 minutes until filling is firm and topping is golden brown.

For powdered sugar option, cool on rack one hour, then lift bars by the parchment paper, sift powdered sugar lightly over bars. Cut and serve.

For icing option, blend powdered sugar with 2 tsp. water and drizzle over hot bars. Return to oven for a few minutes til icing is bubbly. Remove from oven and cool on rack for one hour. Remove from pan using parchment paper edges. Cut and serve.

For freezing option, omit powdered sugar for now. Cool on rack one hour. Wrap and freeze up to 3 months. Use powdered sugar or icing option when thawed.

Notes from Elias: We like to cut the bars up before freezing because the likelihood of wanting one for a small evening snack here or there is very high. Then you don't have to wait for it to thaw, if it's already cut. Or you can wait.

~Strawberry-Banana Cream Pie with Cinnamon Meringue

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

We are sorry dogs for not posting any of our good recipes since February. We could hardly believe it when we signed on to see that Blueberry Cobbler (the world's best) was our last electronic culinary exploit. Without further explanation of why dogs who discovered Facebook would dwindle in their blogging disciplines, we will announce our next great triumph: Strawberry-Banana Cream Pie.

You see, the girl and her Elder went over to the river (we could tell as dogs have extraordinary senses of smell and memories for smells and we have camped on that river with Our Girl more than once, so we know she was there) and picked strawberries. A box so long it hardly fits in the refrigerator.

In addition, the girl had received a whole gallon of milk free with other purchase at the store, so we had strawberries and milk aplenty and, then, three organic bananas which were in their absolute prime. From here on it would be downhill for them. What came to our small canine minds was homemade pudding filled up with bananas and strawberries. We found online a clever and delicious recipe for Banana Cream Pie and turned it into this wonder: STRAWberry Banana Cream Pie with CINNamon Meringue. Get out your pudding pot, you most assuredly want to make this recipe.

I, Elias, will do the telling as it is after 10 p.m. and Guthrie prefers to go to bed around the 7s. (7 p.m. to sleep for the night, to wake up at 6 for breakfast, and then 7 a.m. again to sleep off breakfast.)

Strawberry-Banana Cream Pie with Cinnamon Meringue

The Pudding Filling
 3/4 cup Sugar (+ scant stevia for herbal sweetness, or you can do without)
1/2 cup Unbleached Flour
1/2 teaspoon Salt
2 cups whole milk (Guthrie calls it "melk" since we moved to Wisconsin)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (we made our own at Christmas)
1 tablespoon real butter
4 egg yolks
1-2 perfectly ripe bananas
1 pint strawberries, washed and hulled and sliced
1 graham cracker crust pie shell

The Meringue Topping
4 egg whites, at room temperature
5 scant tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 - 1 teaspoon cinnamon


Crafting the Pudding Filling
Combine the sugar, flour, and salt together and set aside.

Break up yolks in a small bowl and set aside. 

Pour the milk into a pot for the stovetop (hereafter called your pudding pot) and scald it over medium high heat. It is scalded when the surface forms a wrinkle - a bit of a skin. You can lift it (the bit of milk skin) off with a fork and let it cool upon a plate before giving it to your pup or, as a last resort, the cat.

Pour a little stream of the hot milk into the egg yolks while you stir the yolks briskly. About 1/3 or 1/2 cup will do. Then pour the egg mixture into the hot milk, stirring briskly again til blended. (This whole exercise is to keep bits of yolk from cooking into lumps as it hits the hot milk.) Now, while over medium heat, blend in the flour mixture little by little.

A whisk is our favorite tool for stirring pudding as its mission is to break up lumps and even out thicknesses. So we whisk nearly constantly while cooking the pudding. When it starts to thicken (it may come to a boil, ours did not, but if it does then turn down the heat), add the tablespoon of butter. (If you don't have butter just skip it, don't substitute margarine, and I don't just say that because we are from Wisconsin.)

While that's going on, hopefully you've already cleaned your strawberries and sliced them up. Slice your bananas right into the the graham cracker crust in a single layer. Cover with strawberries.

When the pudding has reached pudding consistency, pour it over the fruit in the pie pan.

Note: Our elder woman would say Not to pour hot pudding over the fruit because it cooks it and that is less pleasant. She says let it cool first. However, we let ours cool some first and felt it was an error. That the better Presentation of Pie would be for the yet-runny hot pudding to slather and fill between the fruits in the pan and be in position straightaway to set. If it sets first in the pudding pot and then is poured into in pie, it seems like one increment of smoothness of the pie is lost. So follow our radical example only upon personal reflection of these different outcomes.

Set the pie aside and make the meringue.

Embarking on The Meringue
Measure sugar, cream of tartar, and cinnamon into a small bowl.

Place egg whites in a medium-sized mixing bowl and whip them with an electric mixer. When they are frothy, slowly add the sugar mixture as you continue beating. Watch them thicken up and beat them until you have stiff peaks. This means when a spoon is dipped in to the meringue and pulled out, it leaves a peak like a mountain or an ocean wave. That's perfect.

Dollop meringue onto the pie in spoonfuls, swirling and peaking it to your artistic pleasure. Be sure the meringue is sealed to the crust all the way around. That's best.

Put the pie in a 375 degree oven (on broil if you can, without using a high heat) for about 15 minutes until meringue peaks are only lightly browned.

Remove from oven and serve. Leftovers needs be refrigerated and the bananas will look less appetizing the second day, but will still taste heavenly, so just close your eyes. We pups aren't as concerned with the looks of our food.  I, Elias, will eat nearly anything no matter how unappealing if it tastes good.


Notes from Elias:
Here is the tricky part. We are in a house where our pudding pot and every pot has been burnt more than once. So it is a bonafide art not to burn pudding. We have a second pot at the ready in case the bottom begins to stick in pudding pot #1. We Don't scrape the bottom with the whisk, lest a burnt lump of pudding should be dislodged. Instead, at the first sign of a browned bit surfacing, we Transfer it all to the pudding pot in waiting and thicken it up without further incident, since the new pan has no pudding residue at the bottom to begin to burn.

~Caramel Sauce

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

Our girl made Hot Fudge Sauce this weekend and now is fairly cocky about any type of sugary sauce being a cinch to make. For instance, just now she took out an apple to eat and had a great desire to dip it in caramel sauce. So she made some. Right in the middle of her deadline, with the kitchen all clean as it was, she put three ingredients into a double boiler and just let it double boil to her desired thickness. It was crazy good. Here's how she did it:

Crazy Good Caramel Sauce

1 cup brown sugar (or white)
6 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup half and half (or cream)

Whisk all together in double boiler. When sugar is dissolved and texture is smooth, cook for five minutes on high, or as long as needed for desired consistency.

~ Grilled Chicken Sandwiches with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Goat Cheese

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

Prepare yourselves for a taste sensation. This is so good that we made it Friday night and already we are cooking it up again for tomorrow's guests. We have taken to buying whole chickens when they are on sale for less than $1 per pound. Our girl removes the skin, cuts out the breast for her cookery and we dogs and the cat share the legs, wings and back for dinner. It's a very equitable arrangement since we hounds went to an all-raw diet.

We started with a recipe from Epicurious.com and went hound wild from there.

Grilled Chicken Sandwiches with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Goat Cheese
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon extra vigin olive oil (use the oil from the sundried tomatoes below)
3 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons fresh rosemary leaves

2 onions
4 french bread rolls
1/2 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes - drained of their oil
arugula
goat cheese (we used feta)
mayonnaise, if desirous

Put vinegar, olive oil, garlic and rosemary in a casserole pan and marinate the chicken for at least an hour.  Grill the chicken breast til cooked through or cook on the stove top and slice cooked breasts into diagonal strips. Layer cooked chicken with other sandwich ingredients into cut rolls. These were so yummy we'll make them again right away.

- Blueberry Cobbler

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

Tonight we have made a luscious blueberry cobbler and found, as it claimed, that it was the best cobbler on earth. (We cannot speak for cobblers elsewhere.)

We used less sugar and we Still thought it was too sweet but the elder woman loved it just fine. Everyone did.

Here it is with our sugar adjustments and a few other tweaks.
(Originally found at: www.allrecipes.com)

Very Best Blueberry Cobbler

• 2 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 - 3 Tablespoons lime juice
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon oil (we used grapeseed)

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 5 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup milk
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 3/4 Tablespoon cinnamon

1. Lightly grease an 8-inch-square pan. 
2. In a small bowl, mix blueberries with vanilla and lime juice. Sprinkle with 3/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of flour. Stir in the oil. Turn out into the prepared pan. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, stir together 1 3/4 cups of flour, baking powder, and 6 tablespoons sugar. Cut in the butter using a fork or pastry blender until buter is in small pieces. Make a well in the center, and quickly stir in the milk, mixing just until moistened. Let sit for 10 minutes.
4. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Spoon the batter over the blueberries, leaving a few small holes for the berries to peek through. Mix together the cinnamon and 2 Tablespoons sugar and sprinkle over the top.
5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the topping comes out clean. Cool partially and serve warm with ice cream. Keeps refrigerated two.