Peach Crumb Muffins

July 22, 2023July 20, 2023 by akc

These weren’t on my longlist of recipes for this project, but at around the same time I had some peaches to use up, the Peach Crumb Muffins recipe from Smitten Kitchen Keepers floated across my radar. I know some folks don’t like to turn on the oven in the summer, but I didn’t really have a plan for those peaches. I could make jam, but that also heats up the kitchen plus adds humidity. And I still have peach jam on hand from the last time I made some anyway.

These are very easy to make; the hardest part is making neat and even slices of peach to go on top of the muffins. I didn’t worry about it too much and just did the best I could without getting obsessive about it. For the filling I used some peaches I’d stuck in the fridge a few days prior because they were bruised and on the verge of going bad. I cut those into smallish chunks for the filling. I used ripe peaches in better shape for the slices. All told I used 5 peaches, but they were not particularly big. I recommend starting with getting your 1.5 cups for the filling, and then just slicing up enough pieces to get two or three on the top.

I almost went off book and sprinkled these with turbinado sugar, a la the Perfect Blueberry Muffins, but decided not to. In the end I wish I had. These are not very sweet at all, but weirdly they also aren’t very peachy, which means there isn’t a lot going on except the occasional sugary bite of crumb. It could just be my peaches, but who knows.

A muffin tin with a lot of brown and yellow patina on it is full of lightly golden brown muffins. Each of them is topped with slightly wrinkled pieces of yellow peach, with pieces of the orange skin, and some beige crumble topping. — The Peach Crumb Muffins from *Smitten Kitchen Keepers*

Double Shallot Egg Salad

July 12, 2023June 22, 2023 by akc

I’m not typically a huge fan of egg salad (or chicken salad, for that matter) but I figured the Double Shallot Egg Salad from Smitten Kitchen Keepers was worth a try for lunches. It makes two servings, which is pretty perfect for me as most weeks there are leftovers I can enjoy at least a couple of days.

The name comes from the fact that Deb has you make two toppings for this: diced and lightly pickled shallots, and fried shallot rings. I’ve fried shallots before and it’s not hard, it’s just one of those things where you have to stand by the stove and keep a close eye out. (Usually I make them in a larger batch for this Summer Corn, Tomato, and Salmon Salad with Za’atar Dressing.) As they fry, I recommend trying to pull out the shallots that finish first, otherwise they may burn while you finish the rest. When I make a big batch I hang onto the oil and use it while cooking other veggies; it adds a nice savory note. Just know that your house will smell like fried onions when you make these. Could be worse!

Anyway, the only thing we don’t typically have on hand is shallots, and I figure it would be easy enough to sub regular pickled onions and just take a pass on the fried shallots. (Or get some store bought ones for the pantry.) So the base of this is a pantry meal for me.

I’d meant to prep this the day before I wanted to have it for lunch, but forgot. I ended up hard-boiling the eggs and making the pickled shallots on a break a couple of hours before lunch, and then making the fried shallots and the egg salad itself right before eating. That worked out well for me, but normally I’d prefer to have the fried shallots ready to go.

This is a light lunch, which works well for me as long as I have snacks available for the afternoon. It would also be a great addition to a brunch spread or as a filling for finger sandwiches.

A close up or light yellow egg salad on top of two large rectangular crackers. It's been liberally dusted with red smoked paprika, and topped with brown fried shallots. If you look closely you can spot pink bits, which are diced and pickled shallots. There's a tiny red tomato out of focus in the back. — The Double Shallot Egg Salad from *Smitten Kitchen Keepers*, shown here with a lot of smoked paprika.

Easy Drop Berry Shortcakes

June 22, 2023June 19, 2023 by akc

Every year when strawberry season rolls around, the first thing I want to make with them is strawberry shortcake. For the last few years the Rich and Tender Shortcakes with Strawberries and Whipped Cream from Cook’s Illustrated has been my go-to recipe, but this year I wanted to try one of Deb’s. So, I made the Easy Drop Berry Shortcakes (also in Smitten Kitchen Keepers).

The shortcakes came together very quickly and without a lot of fuss. I substituted the cream for an (unsweetened, unflavored) coconut milk creamer that I’ve been using in my tea, and it seemed to work fine. They are a sticky mess to shape and cover in sugar though, so be prepared. I got six out of the batter, and had a hard time getting them roughly evenly sized. Next time I’ll portion them out before I start coating them in the turbinado sugar.

I checked them at 10 minutes and they weren’t done, at 13 they weren’t really browned at all. At 16 they looked just about right. I did find they stuck to the silicon baking mat I used, even once they’d cooled. Nothing a spatula couldn’t solve but I was a little surprised.

I used all strawberries for the filling, and I mixed them with the sugar the day before, right after bringing the berries home from the farmer’s market. They sat in the fridge overnight, and I took them out to add the lemon juice and let them come up to room temperature when I started making the shortcakes. This is a bit different than what Deb calls for in this recipe, where there’s less juice drawn out of the berries, and they’re mostly kept whole. But if you’re doing all strawberries I don’t see why you wouldn’t want that excess liquid, which your shortcake will sop right up.

We prefer our shortcakes, crumbles, pies, etc. with vanilla ice cream, so I skipped the whipped cream. The shortcakes are not very sweet, which made them a perfect companion to the sweet berries and ice cream. There were not quite enough berries for my taste — looking at the photos you can kind of tell Deb’s not using a ton of berries — so I chopped up some more for the second night, and put the remaining two shortcakes in the freezer for another day.

A shallow white bowl contains, front right, a craggly, golden-brown shortcake studded with large sugar crystals. At the back left is a scoop of vanilla ice cream flecked with vanilla bean bits. The top right and bottom left are filled with halved strawberries, and you can see a little puddle of strawberry juice gathering underneath it all. — The Easy Drop Berry Shortcakes from the Smitten Kitchen blog (and *Smitten Kitchen Keepers*)

Sesame Asparagus and Carrot Chop

June 7, 2023May 23, 2023 by akc

The beautiful colors of the Sesame Asparagus and Carrot Chop stood out to me as I paged through my copy of Smitten Kitchen Keepers. This is essentially a big pile of chopped veggies dressed in a sriracha mayo, so I figured it’d be a good side dish early in farmer’s market season, when I could get asparagus and carrots at the market.

This is really easy to put together, you just chop the asparagus and carrots, and let them sit in some rice vinegar while you make the dressing. Mine came out dressed more heavily than Deb’s did, and I’m not sure why. But you could easily enough serve the dressing on the side and add however much you like.

I served this as part of a tofu bowl, which I based on the Sesame Rice Bowls with Tofu, Quickles, & Peanut Sauce from Julia Turshen’s Simply Julia. I made the rice, tofu, and quickles (quick pickles) as she directs, but skipped the peanut sauce.

The Sesame Asparagus and Carrot Chop was great. Very fresh and light, with a good, but not overwhelming, flavor from the sriracha mayo. The other elements were not as much of a success. You include some sesame oil when you prepare the rice for this dish, and I think things just tasted too much the same. It needed a contrast of some sort. My husband thought chopped scallions on top, I think it would have been better with plain rice.

A white bowl holds a pile of white rice, which is almost entirely obscured by a pile of fried, irregularly shaped tofu at the back. At front is a salad of carrot and asparagus coins with cubes of avocado, coated in a light, beige-colored dressing. — The Sesame Asparagus and Carrot Chop from *Smitten Kitchen Keepers*, served on top of some sesame rice and fried tofu.

Toasted Ricotta Gnocchi with Pistachio Pesto

June 2, 2023May 28, 2023 by akc

It was the pistachio pesto part of the Toasted Ricotta Gnocchi with Pistachio Pesto from Smitten Kitchen Keepers that caught my eye. We like pistachio and it struck me as something that would potentially be pretty flexible for other uses.

I planned this meal and then it got rescheduled a couple of times — while it’s not hard, it is a little time-intensive. I think it took me about 90 minutes start to finish. I did try to overlap various parts of the prep but there is just a lot to do with this one.

Making the gnocchi was surprisingly easy. Typically gnocchi is made with potatoes, but these use ricotta which saves quite a bit of time in and of itself. You start by wicking some of the moisture out of the cheese, and then you mix it with flour, parmesan, and an egg. Then you roll out some logs and cut off little pillows of gnocchi. Deb has you put them in the freezer briefly so they’re a little less delicate when you cook them.

The preparation itself is very simple, these are just pan fried in olive oil. I think I let mine get a little too dark but no harm was done. The hardest part of making the pesto is shelling all the pistachios, but if you have a helper or do it ahead of time it’ll come together really quickly. We ended up only using about half of it, so if you don’t think you’ll have a use for the leftover pesto I’d recommend halving it. (We used the leftover pesto on handmade ravioli I got at the farmer’s market, so if you like the sounds of the pesto but not making gnocchi, a high-quality fresh, stuffed pasta will do nicely.)

This was absolutely delicious and I’ll definitely make it again, though it isn’t really a weeknight meal. It would be an easy special occasion dish, or just something for a day when I have the time and feel like cooking.