From Scratch

Broccli and Cheese Quiche

So you know how I said I'd share the pie crust yesterday. I wasn't lying. So there.

I like sweet pie and I like savoy pie. And by savoy pie, I mean quiche. Preferable with broccoli and cheese. Lots of cheese.

Because, why not?

Also, a note about cheese: for this quiche I used Gruyere cheese. Raise your hand if you have ever bought Gruyere...

Ok. So since I'm on the internet I can't really see if you are raising your hand or not...moving on to my point. This was the first time I ever bought/used Gruyere.

It was easily the most expensive thing in my cart, well, except for a bottle of wine I was also buying. But I was pretty curious since it was the most expensive cheese I'd ever had.

And I was not disappointed. Oh, oh yum! It's great for baking and is slightly salty and nutty. 

Like me. 

Ok, that was really lame. Sorry everyone.

Bottom line, I think it's my new favorite cheese. Wait, no I still LOVE Brie. Wait, no Gruyere...

Man my life is hard.

Broccoli and Cheese Quiche.

For the crust: 3 cups flour, 1 cup cold butter, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 cup very cold water

Sift together the flour and salt. Add the cold butter in small cubes or use a cheese grater to grate it in, either way. Blend together until crumbly, then slowly add in the cold water. Form a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for a hour (or over night if possible).

By the way, I did not make up this pie crust recipe. It's from Martha.

Roll out the crust in place it in a well greased pie pan. Bake, covered with parchment paper and pie weights, at 350 F for 12-14 minutes. Then remove and fill with quiche filling.

For the filling:

3-4 cups chopped broccoli, 2 cloves minced garlic, 2 tablespoons oil oil, salt and pepper to taste, 6-7 ounces shredded Gruyere cheese, 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup cream (I used half and half) and 3 eggs.

Saute the broccoli and garlic in the olive oil for 4-6 minutes over medium heat, adding a bit of salt and pepper. In a separate bowl whisk together the milk, cream and eggs. Fill crust with broccoli then pour over the egg and milk mixture and top off with the shredded cheese. Bake for another 10-12 minutes until cheese is bubbly.

Devour with a large fork. :)

xo. Emma

A Thanksgiving leftover post: Apple Pie with Hard Sauce

I was not in charge of the whole Thanksgiving, thank goodness! And to all you ladies (and gentlemen) who pulled off the whole thanksgiving feast on your own-my hat is off to you!

All I made was: a green bean casserole, a loaf of bread (using my dutch oven) with honey butter, and an apple pie with hard sauce.

My mom and I ran out of regular pie pans, so my pie was in a square dish. Unconventional, cutting edge, and delicious. Or at least I thought so:)

But I pretty much always think I'm cutting edge. I just really think I'm cool....

What's hard sauce? Oh. My. Goodness. This way my first experience with it and I just about died! Every pie should have this on top. Period. Let's take a closer look...

Hard sauce is basically a butter cream frosting made with a little bit of hard liqueur. I think that's why they call it "hard" sauce. But I'm not totally sure.

But what I am sure of is it melts into your warm piece of pie-and it's divine.

More butter and sugar on top of pie? Yes, darling. If you are on a diet or have special dietary needs that prohibit you from consuming vast amounts of butter and sugar...well...I'm so sorry but this recipe just isn't for you.

Emma's Thanksgiving Apple Pie.

1 pie crust (I'm gonna share this recipe later this week).

For the filling: 3-4 large granny smith apples, 5 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons flour, 1/2 cream (I used half and half), 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar.

For the topping: 3 tablespoons butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts.

In a small bowl make the filling by combining the melted butter, flour, cream and sugars, set aside. Peel, core and thinly slice those apples, then coat them with the filling batter. Pour the coated apples into the uncooked pie crust. Combine the topping ingredients, this time leave the butter cold or room temperature. This will be a crumbly, coarse mixture. Pour it over top of the pie. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 375 F for 1 hour (remove the aluminum foil for the last 20 minutes).

Hard Sauce.

Cream 1 stick of butter, slowly add in 1 1/4 cup powdered sugar and continue to cream. Then add 2-3 tablespoons hard liqueur (I used spiced rum, but whiskey or bourbon would be great too). Stir to combine. Then just let guest spoon the sauce right onto their warm slice of pie.

I first learned about this mythical hard sauce recipe here.

What was your greatest success story from Thanksgiving?

xo. Emma

Recovering...

I hope you are all recovering nicely from Thanksgiving.

I ate WAY too much. Then took a nap. Then woke up and ate some leftovers.

I wasn't even hungry, I am just a sucker for apple pie. Anyway....

Let's talk books!

I was really excited about this novel. It's the first by Miss Julia Holmes, who I believe is an editor at Rolling Stone magazine. And it had a very unique writing style, and such an interesting idea behind it. The premise is this world where the men sort of have to play a social game to win the honor of marriage, otherwise they become laborers. It sort of made me think of The Bachelor gone literary. But in the end I just found it too wordy and difficult to follow. Sorry.

Lucy was an absolutely marvelous read. I truly loved this book! It's almost like a modern-day Frankenstein, if Mary Shelley had decided to make her monster a teenage girl and the narrator of her own story. Gonzales' novel centers around the life a young girl who is half human and half ape, and explores what might happen if such a being were living in modern America. If you read this, you will absolutely fall in love with Lucy, she is charming and witty and is stuck with a life that she did not choose.

It is no secret that I love the Hunger Games  series by Suzanne Collins. I believe it to be one of the most addictive young adult series, like, ever. :) I adored the final book in the series, and in case you too are a fan and have not had the pleasure of reading this yet I won't say anything about how it all ends. I will say that Collins ties up a love triangle as well as a war with such grace and honesty. It's quite bitter sweet. But if it wasn't I think we would have missed one of the main points driving this work of fiction, and that is that war is awful and in the end it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys because war makes us all do terrible and sad things to each other.

So that's what I've been reading lately. I'm in the market for any good recommendations you might have, so please, comment away.

Also, if you like book reviews or recommendations (or just rants:) then click on the little button that says "Books" in red below this post to see some of my past reads.

xo. Emma

P.S all images found via amazon and google image search.

Pumpkin Pie Pop Tarts

I don't want to toot my own horn here. But. I'm a genius.

This idea came to me in a dream. It's a completely original idea. So you have to give me all the credit.

Oops. You weren't suppose to see that...

Ok, ok, so I ripped this idea off of the good folks at Kellogg's. So sue me.

Actually they probably could...

On second thought I just want everyone to know that this recipe was inspired by Kellogg's Pumpkin Pie Pop Tarts. They came up with the idea, I just made the homemade version.

Whew. That was a close one. Emma narrowly avoids jail time once again. :)

Now that we got all that legal jargon out of the way, let me tell you a secret: These are SO SO yummy. And they are SO SO easy to make. I mean like, too easy.

I feel a little guilty about it.

But don't worry-there is a harder way. If you are a glutton for punishment. I'm only a glutton for homemade pop tarts (turns out). But I'll share the difficult way-but first the easy way out:

Pumpkin Pie Pop Tarts, the easy way. Makes 6 rather large tarts:)

For the crust: buy premade puff pastry. It's in the freezer section. Any brand, I like Pepperridge Farm (they did not give me any money to say that;)

For the filling: 3/4 cup canned pumpkin, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 large egg, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/8 teaspoon cloves, 1/8 teaspoon all spice.

For the glaze: 1/3 cup softened cream cheese, 2-3 tablespoons cream or milk (I used milk) and 3-4 tablespoons powdered sugar.

The puff pastry I bought came in two sheets. Using a pizza cutter, cut out 12 rectangles from the puff pastry sheets. Place six of the rectangles on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Combine all the filling ingredients, place a heaping spoonful in the middle of each rectangle.

Now place the other six rectangles on top, and using a fork crimp the edges. Bake at 375 F for 16-18 minutes.

While those are baking, combined (very) softened cream cheese, powdered sugar and milk and whisk to create the glaze.

Once the pop tarts are out of the oven, place them on a cooling rack and drizzle with the glaze.

Devour!

That's a command.

Easy right? So if you feel that was just too easy, well darling you can always make your own puff pastry first. That's right, you can make your own instead of buying it-and I hear it's pretty labor intensive so you can feel pretty proud while filling your face with these pop tarts.

You can see how Annie of Annie's Eats makes puff pastry-and then apple turnovers!

Or you see how the Brown Eye Baker does it-and then makes her own pop tarts:)

Happy baking! xo. Emma

Harry Potter Party

My darling niece had her first birthday party yesterday! The theme was Harry Potter. I am a huge fan of my niece, Penelope, and of Harry Potter-so it was a good day;)

Penelope's mom, Sarah, made lots of cute Potter-themed decorations! It was so so adorable, and as a die hard fan myself, I was totally blown away:)

Penelope had a great time-and got lots of new toys and clothes. You can see more pictures of the party over at Elsie's blog. We are the aunts who never put their cameras down. Ever.

Also I finally got a chance to use my new Instax Camera . I am so smitten!

xo. Emma

Oatmeal and Berry Muffins

I haven't made muffins in a very, very long time.

I make cupcakes...most days. So pulling out my cupcake pans on my day off hasn't appealed to me lately.

But here are some reasons why muffins are worth it: easier to make than cake (literally, because you don't have to make any frosting), they BEG to be eaten with massive amounts of coffee (I mean they nearly always sell muffins at coffee shops for a reason-it's a conspiracy!) and a muffin a day keeps the doctor away.

What? You think that last one isn't quite right?

Shows how much you know.

Oatmeal and Berry Muffins, makes 12-15 standard size

Ingredients: 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour, 1 1/4 cups oats, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 cup apple sauce, 1/2 cup buttermilk, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, 1 large egg and 1 cup fresh berries (I used raspberries).

In a large bowl combine flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt. In a separate bowl combine beaten egg, applesauce and oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry mix, stir to combine. Add in the buttermilk and stir until just combined. Fold in the berries.

Fill generously greased muffin tins 2/3 full with batter. Bake at 375 F for 16-18 minutes.

xo. Emma

P.S. What's your favorite berry?

Movies, Soup, and the weekend.

Today is my sister's birthday. You should wish her a happy birthday.

That's what I'll be doing today. Right after I skip work and go to the movies.

Yep. Got my tickets for a noon showing. I would have went and seen it at midnight last night, but who am I kidding.

Night time is for sleeping. Don't let any of the cool kids tell you different.

Other than my sister's birthday, and a new Harry Potter movie-I wanted to wish you all a happy weekend. And share a new soup recipe with you.

Curried Lentils Soup.

It was pretty good, but I realized something...I could have just made hot coconut milk with toasted curry mixed in and called it a day. I didn't really like the lentils. Maybe I made it wrong.

Not that I ever, ever have a mess up in the kitchen.

Oh no, not me.

But the flavor truly was out of this world. The soup on the other hand, was not. So I will spare you this recipe. But if you are really intrigue I will say that I was trying a pretty loose adaptation to this Coconut Red Lentil Soup recipe. So you might try that if you are feeling daring:)

Have a happy weekend!

xo. Emma

Make Chocolate, Not War:)

Thank you to everyone who chimed in during Chocolate Throw-down. I bet you are wondering how it all played out...

Dark Chocolate came in with 28 votes while Milk Chocolate finished with 12 (as of 8:55pm tonight).

Some people voted for both, I allowed it. Some people used some pretty serious language to vote for their team, I also allowed that. Bottom line-my team won.

But in the the spirit of good sportsmanship, and to say thanks for making me laugh with all your fun and spirited comments, I'm giving away an Askinosie chocolate bar to one lucky commenter.

Lucky comment #19-you are the winner!

If this is you then contact me to claim your winnings: emma AT redvelvetart DOT com

xo. Emma

Chocolate Throwdown

First of all you should know, I love my mom.

But sometimes we disagree about very important issues. Like chocolate.

My mom seems to think milk chocolate is best-like better than dark chocolate. I disagree, with all my heart.

We were having this debate earlier this week. We both still have bruises from the discussion.

Just kidding.

But I was wondering...which side are you on? Dark vs. Milk chocolate?

xo. Emma

P.S. chocolate images from here and here.

How to bake bread in a dutch oven

Baking bread in a dutch oven is nothing new. People have been doing for a long time. If you count clay pots as dutch ovens, then really they've been doing it for, like, all of bread baking history.

Can you tell I totally researched all this. Fact checked everything. Yeah...

But I had never baked bread in my dutch oven before. Until now.

And, it was GLORIOUS.

Turns out, that if you bake bread in a dutch oven, it traps the steam in during the baking process. Resulting in a crustier crust.

My mom and I fought over the heels of this loaf.

We both won. Thank goodness. Otherwise someone could have lost an eye.

It would have been her. I'm ruthless. ;)

What's that? You want see that divine crust again?

So here's the skinny: to make this bread you need a dutch oven (I think it's also sometimes called a french oven). I have a red one and I am smitten with him. It's a bit of an investment, and there are all sorts of brands out there. I won't endorse any specific brand (but I do love my Le Creuset ) but you might think about getting a dutch oven if you don't already own one. They have many many uses.

Like baking bread.

Crusty dutch oven bread. Makes one medium sized loaf.

Ingredients: 1 package active dry yeast, 1 1/3 cup warm water, 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour, 2 teaspoons salt and a pinch or two of sugar.

Proof the yeast by mixing it with the warm water until dissolved. In a large bowl combine flour, salt and sugar. Stir in water until a dough ball forms (you can use a mixer with a dough hook for this, but I do it by hand because I don't have a mixer with a dough hook. I spent all my money on a dutch oven.) Knead the dough for 3-4 minutes. Then place the dough ball in a large bowl that has been lightly coated with oil, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise for 1-2 hours (until doubled in size).

Punch dough down, turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead it a few times and then put it back in the bowl and let it rise again (for another hour).

Place some parchment paper in the bottom of your dutch oven. Place the dough ball in the center and using a sharp knife, make a few slices down it's belly.

Slices down it's belly-this is brutal stuff.

Cover with the lid and place in a preheated oven to 400 F. After 15 minutes remove the lid but let it continue to bake for another 12-15 minutes. When its nice and brown take it out and let it cool. Then eat the heels off before anyone else can get to them. :)

xo. Emma