I followed the same recipe as the avocado fries, using Panko for breading, and they turned out great!

We first tried these in New Mexico using panko and this week I tried them again with corn tortilla chip crumbs. I prefer the panko version but these weren’t bad either.

• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp salt, sea salt is best
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 1/4 cups panko or standard breadcrumbs, or get creative and crush some tortilla chips, corn flakes or whatever else comes to mind
• 2 firm-ripe (still relatively green works best) medium avocados, pitted, peeled, and sliced into 1/2-inch wedges

Preheat oven to 450.

Coat avocado slices in the flour (I have found that you can easily skip this step and they are just as good), then dredge in the egg, then toss about in the crumb coating of your choice.

Arrange on a cookie sheet.  Some people arrange on a greased cooling rack and place that on top of a cookie sheet in order to get the undersides crispier but my experience is that they turn out just fine if you plop them down directly on a cookie sheet.

Drizzle the wedges with olive oil and sprinkle with salt

Bake for about 20 minutes at 450, or for as long as you like until they are golden brown.

Pour one of these and enjoy!

Makes 12 muffins

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp grated blood orange zest – I zested two blood oranges, next time I will use more, I want a bit stronger orange flavor.
• 2 cups fresh blackberries
• 1 stick butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk – I used whole milk because it was left over from making ice cream.

Preheat your oven to 375.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredient, except the sugar, and blood orange zest. Add the blackberries and toss gently so that all the berries are coated.

In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar together. Add the eggs, one at a time, until fully combined, then add milk and blend.

Pour wet ingredients over dry ingredients and fold in carefully, try not to crush the berries. Spoon batter into 12 greased muffin tins sprinkle sugar over the tops.

Bake for 20-30 minutes until the tops are golden. Cool for about five minutes then remove from tin and allow to cool completely on wire rack.

This seemed like a good inaugural run of my 1950′s General Electric Betty Crocker stand mixer, a $24 Gypsy Caravan find from last year, and it worked perfectly!

The finished product is as rich, if not more so, than frozen custard and has a slightly different texture than standard ice cream, but it’s oh so good!  We put most of the batch directly into the freezer after the ice cream maker, the photo below was taken just prior to this step so it still looks like soft-serve.  Then we whipped up some fresh blueberries, blueberry preserves and lemon juice on the stove and folded it into the remaining ice cream still in the machine.  It was equally divine and a lot more sweet!

Lest you get the impression this trip was only about hiking, snowshoeing and shopping, feast your eyes on this… Cheryl and I made impromptu, no recipe required, banana rum bread pudding.

Take some bread, a banana (the more ripe the better), half/half, eggs, cinnamon, brown sugar. Heat up the liquids/spices, temper the eggs, pour it over the bread and banana in a large ramekin and bake until nice and crispy on top.  Heat up some rum and brown sugar for a sauce.

It’s as easy as… bread pudding.

P.S. Special thanks to CJH for the post title. He’s “too clever by half.”

This is sometimes called a grunt, an upside-down pie, a skillet pie, or a skillet cobbler. Thanks to Alton Brown for the general recipe, although I tweaked it slightly and cheated a little by using a method I found in another recipe that called for pre-made biscuits.  I am providing the original recipe and below that an explanation of what I changed.

Biscuits

• 9 1/2 ounces all purpose flour, approximately 2 cups
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled
• 1 cup buttermilk

Filling

• 1 pound 3 ounces fresh or frozen blackberries, approximately 4 cups
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Tweaks:

• I used a 12 inch cast iron skillet so I needed more filling.
• I used 6 cups blackberries, 2 cups raspberries, even this only filled the skillet halfway after cooking down.
• I increased to 1 tsp ginger but kept the sugar the same.
• The 1 cup of water was way too much liquid so I ended up draining at least 3=4 cups of juice back out of the pan as the filling cooked down.
• I used 11 Target brand, jumbo buttermilk biscuits, these are sold in rolls of 8.
• I sprinkled a little brown sugar on top of the biscuits before placing the pan in the oven.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place a piece of foil on the bottom rack of the oven to catch any drippings.

Place the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda into the bowl of a food processor and process for 3 to 4 pulses. Pour the mixture into a large mixing bowl and, using your hands, work the butter into the flour mixture until about half of the fat disappears and the rest is left in pea-size pieces. Make a well in the center of the mixture and add the buttermilk and stir with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon just until it comes together. Turn the mixture out onto a piece of parchment or waxed paper that has been lightly dusted with flour, shape into a ball and wrap and store in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

Combine the blackberries, sugar, water and ginger in a large mixing bowl. Pour the mixture into a 10-inch cast iron skillet and place over medium heat. Bring this to a simmer decrease the heat to medium low and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes, or until the liquid is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Retrieve the dough from the refrigerator (or biscuits from roll) and gently drop (or arrange) it on the fruit mixture using a 1-ounce disher or large spoon, evenly distributing it over the top.

Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the top is just starting to brown. Remove from the oven and allow the grunt to cool for 15 to 30 minutes before serving.

The flavor and sweetness turned out perfect.  I prefer berry pies to be a little tart and draining the excess liquid took out just the right amount of sugar.  The consistency is still quite loose and more like a berry topping than cobbler.  I think this recipe really needs potato starch or tapioca to thicken it up.  Will add some next time and skip the water.  Overall, I’d say this was a baking success.

First you start with about 1 million pounds of apples.

Okay fine, more like 10 pounds. Core them, chop them, toss them into a crock pot.

Add 2 cups of sugar, 2 cups of apple cider, 2 sticks of cinnamon and 1/4 tsp of cloves. Turn it on low for 10 hours or until mushy. Put everything in a food mill and puree out the skins. Put back in crock pot for however many hours it takes to get to the consistency you prefer. Put it in jars and either process for canning or refrigerate and use within a few months.

I’ll update this tomorrow with the outcome… until then, I’m off to the store to pick up a food mill!

Update:

All of the above happened at 2:00 PM.

9:30 PM:

Something they don’t tell you in school… food mills are from hell.  My advice, do not choose any apple butter recipe that encourages you to leave the skin on at first and mill it out later.

Second pearl of wisdom… when picking up that hot crock pot insert to rinse it out before putting insanely difficult milled apples back in for the final stretch, do not drop it in the sink.

Apple butter is now in a pot on the stove, on low, with a lid set ajar to allow it to cook down.

Is this the universe telling me I’m not supposed to make apple butter?

Update 12/20/11  6:00pm:

The result is sort of the consistency of apple jam and is probably in the top three best tasting things I’ve ever made.

Nutella Peanut Butter Cookies:

• ½ cup Nutella
• ½ cup creamy natural peanut butter
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 whole egg
• 2 or 3 tablespoons water
• Additional sugar for dusting

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Mix all ingredients together.  Fair warning this is a very thick batter,  it’s best to mix everything except the water and then add the water one tablespoon at at time and add just enough to make the batter bind and easy to work with.

Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.  This stuff is a godsend.  Greatest baking invention ever.

Form 1 inch balls of dough, flatten on sheet with spoon.

Dust heavily or lightly, your choice, with sugar. I did a little of both

Bake for 12-16 minutes.  You will need to gauge your own oven on this.  My oven is dead accurate and I started and 12 minutes.  Baked 4 sheets, some cooked a little longer than others.

Allow to cool slightly on sheet then transfer to rack.

They are a nice light Nutella chocolate peanut butter flavor.  I ran out of Nutella but next time I will add more than 1/2 cup and see what happens.  You can also make these without the peanut butter and just double the Nutella to 1 cup.