Madhu Knits and Cooks

Recipe, knitting, and sewing project notes

Tag: Cooking — Snacks

  • Eggs, Eggs, Eggs! Herbed Deviled Eggs – Likely Not a Recipe Repeat

    Inspired by my deliciously herby egg salad, I decided to try some Herbed Deviled Eggs.  Unfortunately, as it turns out, chopped herbs aren't as wonderful in deviled eggs.

    Herbed Deviled Eggs - Front

    I found their texture to be displeasing in the otherwise smooth filling.  And unfortunately, I also found the mayonnaise in this recipe to be too overwhelming, and it also washed out the flavor of the herbs.  So not great texture and not great flavor. 

    Granted, I didn't have sour cream on hand to cut the mayonnaise flavor, and I also didn't bring the eggs to a boil on high enough heat, so the yolks were also overcooked.  Combination of user error and a recipe that didn't match my tastes.  On to the next!

    Herbed Deviled Eggs - Close Up

  • My First Egg Salad – Sans Mayonnaise, Slightly Tart, and Full of Herbs

    I don't know if I had ever consumed egg salad prior to a few years ago.  Why?  I wasn't a big fan of cooked eggs growing up (hence 2018 for my first hard boiled eggs attempt), and I also have similarly never been a huge fan of mayonnaise.  So you can tell why egg salad hasn't been that appealing.

    How did that change?  Well, ever so slowly, I have been trying egg salad sandwiches, largely because vegetarian sandwich options can sometimes be very limited.  This includes during a driving trip we took to Nova Scotia last summer.  As it turns out, limited options can lead to great discoveries, including a truly marvelous, herby egg salad sandwich at the Bread Gallery in West Hants, Nova Scotia.

    While tasting that remarkable egg salad, not heavy on mayonnaise and very heavy on fresh herbs, I thought I was a full egg salad convert.  Sadly, in the months that followed, I largely ate mushy, bland, and too mayonnaise-filled egg salads.  So when I finally decided to make an egg salad at home, I searched for recipes that would be heavier on the herbs and light on the mayonnaise.

    I was quite surprised to ultimately find an entirely mayonnaise-less, herb-heavy recipe on Milk Street.  Thankfully, the result was great – not quite what I remembered from the Bread Gallery, but very good with tarragon, chives, parsley, red onions, and ground turmeric.  And the best part – some light tartness from some champagne vinegar.  

    Herbed Egg Salad

    Halving the recipe was great for 3 – 4 servings. The only modifications I would make moving forward are to chop the eggs a bit smaller than the recipe calls for and perhaps experiment with a bit of vegenaise for slightly more creaminess.  Otherwise, I loved that the eggs weren't pulverized into a mushy, dry paste like too many egg salad sandwiches and that the fresh herb flavors came through.

  • Ovenly’s Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

    For a short spell over the holidays, we adopted a fully vegan diet.  As longtime blog readers know, much of what I already cook is vegan so this wasn't too dramatic a change.  However, it did affect some of our standard at-home preparations, notably desserts.  

    The only sweet snack I made during this vegan stint was Ovenly's great vegan chocolate chip cookies.  I've had this Brooklyn bakery's cookies in person, and they are truly wonderful.  A bit heavier and thicker than the chocolate chip cookies I generally prefer, but very moist and rich with sugary cookie flavor.

    Ovenly Vegan Cookies

    At home, these cookies turned out similarly though were softer and underbaked than what I've had compared to the bakery.  I baked the cookies for a few minutes longer than the recipe 12-13 minute baking time, but many were still very soft in the middle.  I did rotate the cookie sheets, and wonder if I should have used the convection setting?

    Regardless, these were a solid thicker and moist cookie.  It's not generally my favored outcome for chocolate chip cookies (I like crisper cookies), but I will make these again if I want a vegan cookie!

    Ovenly Vegan Cookies 2

  • Hetty McKinnon Obsession Continues – NYT Silken Tofu with Spicy Soy Dressing

    As recent posts have shown, I've been on a true Hetty McKinnon kick the past few months.  The latest?  Not from one of her wonderful cookbooks, but instead a NYT Cooking recipe.  

    I slightly freestyled this recipe for Silken Tofu with Spicy Soy Dressing because I was using a partial block of leftover silken tofu, but the result was really wonderful. 

    McKinnon NYT Cold Tofu Salad

    Salty from the soy sauce, savory from the sesame oil, slightly sweet from the sugar and rice wine vinegar, spicy from the chile oil, and crunchy from the scallions – yum. 

    A benefit of using a partial leftover block of silken tofu is that it had naturally drained in the fridge, making prep that much more of a cinch. 

    The tofu I used had been out of the fridge for an hour or two, so slightly more room temperature than cold, which I liked a lot.  

  • My First Chia Pudding – Matcha Chia Pudding by Hetty McKinnon

    I finally bought some chia seeds and made my first chia pudding, despite having rarely, if ever, eaten chia pudding before.

    I think part of my hesitation of jumping on this health food favorite is my worry that the consistency may not be to my taste, similar to rice pudding.  I prefer smoother textures (e.g., smoothies or yogurts) to moist and dense grain-filled dishes. 

    However, the pictures and description of Hetty McKinnon's matcha chia puddings in her To Asia, With Love cookbook were so delectable that I put my hesitations to the side and embarked on this (quite simple) journey.

    Matcha Chia Pudding - Served

    I stirred together the ingredients, chilled the mixture, and as promised, the oat-milky mixture congealed and became a thicker pudding within a few hours.  The slightly bitter and herbal flavor of the matcha was quite pronounced in the pudding, but nicely offset by the sweet maple syrup. 

    However, I ended up not eating the entire amount that I prepared because ultimately the textures were not to my taste.  I just don't enjoy  tiny, slightly mushy seeds working their way through my mouth sadly.    

    I do have a whole package of chia seeds in my cupboards, so I'll need to try something with them again – any reader recommendations welcome!

  • My First Crumb Coffeecake – A Brunch or Tea Time Must Bake!

    I checked out the King Arthur Flour All-Purpose Baker's Companion bake book from the library on a whim, and to be honest, I am not sure what my logic was.  When I saw the book, I thought that it was likely was just a compendium of KAF's online recipes. When I took it off the shelf, it was also relatively heavy, so not sure why I thought lugging the print version home would make more sense than their easy-to-navigate website.

    KAF Crumb Cake Full

    Well, despite that mystery of my intentions, at least one of my assumptions was proven wrong in that the bake book does contain recipes that are not found on the website.  How did I find this?  Through making their Crumb Coffeecake, which does not appear on the KAF website (though the cake base itself is within this recipe).  

    This recipe resulted in what may be the perfect first crumb cake attempt in history – deliciously moist, slightly savory, and pleasantly multi-textured.  And super easy to prepare at that (I halved the recipe for one 8-9 inch round cake), with the texture and flavors remaining intact in the days that followed.  A bit of almond extract in the crumb mixture added a nice, unexpected almost-floral element as well.  

    KAF Crumb Cake - Sliced

    KAF Crumb Cake - Sliced Other Side

    I look forward to making this simple and delicious cake over and over again in the years ahead!

  • Guittard’s Original Chocolate Chip Cookies – Doesn’t Replace My Favorites

    I have returned to my pre-pandemic behavior of getting a cookbook – or three – on a whim when I pick up books from the library.  One of the latest is the Guittard Chocolate Cookbook.  This cookbook has been a ton of fun to flip through, but after renewing the book for the maximum three times, I have only made one recipe – the Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies (called the "Original Chocolate Chip Cookies" on their website).  

    Guittard Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

    The cookie recipe wasn't the best or the worst that I've ever made.  I would have preferred the cookies to be slightly crispier and more buttery, like my King Arthur Flour go-to recipe.  A few modifications to the original recipe – I used the convection session on my oven, and as such, reduced the temperature to 350.  I baked the cookies for 11 minutes.

    One important difference btwn. the online and cookbook recipes – the flour cup measurement is the same (2.5 cups) but the online recipe states that is 382 grams whereas the cookbook recipe states that is 300 grams.  That's a pretty big difference!  I followed the cookbook recipe.  

  • Lisa Fain / The Homesick Texan’s Salsa Tatemado – Mild, Smokey Tomato Salsa

    With Cinco de Mayo fast approaching, I decided that I wanted to up my salsa game and turned to the excellent Homesick Texan for advice.  I settled on Lisa Fain's salsa tatemada recipe because it seemed sufficiently different from other salsas that I've made.

    Salsa Tatemada

    The salsa ended up being quite easy to prepare, even with my substitution of tomatoes on the vine for plum tomatoes and my use of a foil-lined quarter baking sheet instead of a skillet.  You basically roast the heck out of the ingredients before blending the ingredients with salt and water.

    The result was smokey, mildly spicy, and had an unexpected herbiness from the fresh cilantro blended into the salsa.  I added extra salt to to get more of the ingredients' flavor to come out, and moving forward I will likely play with the cilantro ratio.  There was something  unpleasant I found about the fresh cilantro blended in with the roasted ingredients, even though I otherwise like cilantro. 

    Regardless, this will likely be a recipe repeat this summer!

  • Simple Same Day Bread – A Great Use for Bread Flour

    I haven't used my bread flour in several months as I've fallen in love with the King Arthur Flour pizza flour blend.  Looking for an excuse to use up my remaining bread flour, I found King Arthur Flour's "The Easiest Loaf of Bread You'll Ever Bake" recipe and to the kitchen I went. 

    Unlike most of my bread and pizza go-to recipes, this bread can be made the same day with just two short rises – 1-2 hours and then 45 minutes after shaping.

    Bread Flour Bread - Ready for Baking

    The recipe also seems to be pretty flexible as well – I halved the recipe, potentially messed up the amount of bread flour that I measured (oops), and baked the bread seam side up instead of down.  After 21 minutes of baking, I held the oven open with a wooden spatula for 5 minutes as directed.

    Bread Flour Bread - Wooden Spatula for Cooldown

    Bread Flour Bread - Baked Whole

    The bread was very good – not as great as my longer fridge rise doughs, but definitely a bread that could be served to a crowd (or myself!) the same day.

    Bread Flour Bread - Cut

  • My First Yeasted Crackers – KAF Soda Crackers

    I keep ordering King Arthur Flour (KAF) flour, which means I have needed to use up my existing flour to open up pantry space!  Enter the KAF Gourmet Soda Crackers recipe to use up the last bits of my KAF Italian-Style Flour Blend.  

    Soda Crackers - Baked Crackers Close Up (1)

    This recipe had the added benefit of being my first attempt at yeasted crackers.  The dough was incredibly easy to construct, just whisking the dry ingredients together and then adding melted liquids.  I did end up using approx. 30g of all-purpose flour because I ran out of the Italian blend (yay – mission accomplished!).

    Soda Crackers - Dry Ingredients

    Soda Crackers - Dry Ingredients Mixed

    Soda Crackers - Melted Butter

    Soda Crackers - Dough Together

    Then let the dough rise in fridge overnight before resting and rolling out.

    Soda Crackers - Dough Rising

    Soda Crackers - Dough Ready for Rolling

    Soda Crackers - Dough Rolled

    I didn't get the dough as thin as called for in the recipe, perhaps because I used a tapered rolling pin instead of one of my (many) flat pins.  I also didn't have pizza seasoning or smoked / seasoned sea salt, so subbed instead mostly Italian seasoning, dried thyme, and Maldon sea salt (approx. 1 tsp. total of seasonings).  I probably could have added a lot more flavoring as the baked crackers seemed like they could have handled more bold flavors.

    Soda Crackers - Dough Rolled with Herbs

    Soda Crackers - Dough Rolled and Cut

    I baked the crackers for approx. 8 minutes instead of 10 because I was worried about overbaking them after they became golden.  That amount of time was perfect for the smaller crackers, but not the larger pieces, which ended up slightly soft post-cooling.

    Soda Crackers - Crackers Baked in Oven

    Soda Crackers - Baked

    However, I would definitely make these crackers again.  They were flavorful with a nice yeasted flavor lightly complemented by the salt and herbs.  I also bought some herbes de provence which I think will be great on these crackers.  And the prep was super easy to boot!