Panini and a New Cookie

So last night it was more panini for dinner. This time, cheesesteak panini. We had some steak leftover in the freezer from doing fondue on Christmas Eve – not enough to make a meal out of it alone, but definitely enough to make sandwiches. I used the Griddler to grill the steak – about 4 minutes using it as a contact grill. For the sandwiches I added provolone cheese, horseradish sauce, and sautéed mushrooms and onions. Easy and very good. DS commented that the steak wasn’t right for an authentic Philly Cheesesteak – I told him that’s because this was “real” steak – not the lower quality, though admittedly tasty, shaved steak they use for a real Philly variety.

I’m trying not to bake as many sweet treats, but I couldn’t resist this recipe that I found over at the CLBB. Val posted a recipe for whole wheat chocolate chip cookies and I was very intrigued. Val bakes a lot, so I really trust and respect her opinion, but I was still skeptical – I’m so picky about chocolate chip cookies. Skepticism aside, I had to give them a try. They were everything Val said they would be – delicious. This recipe is very much like the Toll House recipe, both in ingredients and in taste. The white flour is replaced by regular whole wheat and reduced to 2 cups, there is only 1 egg instead of 2 and the salt is reduced to ½ teaspoon.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

If I were doing a blind taste test between these and Toll House, I’m sure I would pick up on the texture differences – these are not quite as tender as a Toll House – the whole wheat definitely adds texture – and they are a little crisper. Other than that, though, the taste is amazingly similar – with that wonderful buttery dough that I love so much. I love this dough so much that I don’t even want chocolate to interfere with it, so I reduced the chocolate chips to 1 cup and it was just right for me.

As Val said, these cookies still can’t be considered exactly healthy with all the sugar and butter, but it does move a step in the right direction by using whole wheat flour instead of refined white flour. I might try these with raw, unrefined granulated sugar in an attempt to make an even more wholesome cookie. Unfortunately, for my tastes, there’s no cutting down on the butter – it’s what makes these cookies taste so darned good.

First new recipe of 2007!

The first new recipe of 2007 comes from my new King Arthur Whole Grain Baking. As much as I loved baking over the holidays, I've decided that my baking needs to turn away from cookies and all that saturated fat, to something more healthful like whole grain breads and muffins and such.

Thumbing through this cookbook, I saw that it called for quite a few types of flour that I don't keep on hand, so on my last trip to Wegmans, I stocked up on a few that seemed to pop up in quite a few yummy-sounding recipes. I don't generally like to get a lot of specialty ingredients that end up being used for just one recipe and then sit around, but there were enough recipes calling for barley flour, oat flour, whole wheat pastry flour and buckwheat flour, that I felt comfortable buying them, at least as a start.

Peanut Butter Muffins

So many recipes caught my eye that it was hard to decide what to try first, but I settled on peanut butter muffins. I tried a PB muffin a while back and while it was a beautiful muffin with a nice crown and light, delicate crumb, it just didn't have much flavor. I was hopeful that this recipe would turn out better - to keep it healthier, I skipped the chocolate chips and the glaze.

The muffin rose beautifully, but unfortunately, it turned out a tad dry, but I think there is still hope. The recipe describes this as a very moist muffin, which mine as not, so I decided to weigh the flour. KA gives both cup and ounce measurements for flour and I remember reading that flours can vary greatly among between brands. Sure enough, I reached 7.5 ounces at 1 3/4 cups instead of 2 1/4 cups. So, I'm not giving up on this recipe yet - I'll try it again with less flour - and I will weigh my flour from now on - at least when a recipe provides a weight measurement.

Last night we used the Griddler to grill up some more panini. I made a sandwich version of a Caprese Salad with fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, fresh basil and a bit of olive oil and balsamic vingar. DH and the boys loved them (me too!) and were looking for more. They wanted me to make them again tonight! Sorry, the sandwich was calling my name, so there was no time to check photo quality, so I was stuck with what I got and it wasn't great. What can I say? Sometimes you have to sacrifice a good photo to actually get a chance to enjoy the food...........well worth the price.............

Playing with my new toy!

We stuffed ourselves silly last night at the Japanese restaurant. They serve sushi and have the hibachi-style grills, so we did both only no one kept track of who was ordering what kind of sushi and we ended up ordering almost a meal's worth in sushi rolls alone! We may have saved ourselves the effort of cooking and cleaning, but we didn't save ourselves from over-eating!

I'm still feeling blah today - nasty sore throat and congestion that just doesn't let me get a good night's sleep. I don't really feel all that terrible, but lack of sleep is definitely wearing me down. My dad was convinced it was the stress of having guests and although I definitely don't agree - my parents and brother are very easy to have around - it probably will be easier to lounge around and get a little more sleep now that it's just the four of us again.

But on to my new toy, the Griddler. I tried it out the other morning and was very disappointed when I couldn't turn out a decent pancake. The pancakes were limp, lifeless and pasty looking - ugh. I couldn't decide if it was the pancakes or the griddle. There are some design elements of the Griddler that could be better, but, no way could it be a complete flop - the trusted folks over at the CLBB would never steer me wrong!

To prove it was a bad batch of pancakes and not a failing of my eagerly-awaited new toy, I decided I would make another batch of pancakes this morning. It took me a while to find a recipe that did not call for buttermilk, but I finally found one. (I did not want to use the milk and vinegar method because so far, that's not turned out very well for me - and it may well have been the reason the last batch failed.) Anyway, I finally found a very basic recipe that called for milk alone and woohoo - success! One of the keys is to heat the Griddler to at least 400º, maybe even 425º, not 350º like the booklet claims. The pancakes were light and fluffy and very good. I tend to prefer a whole grain or heartier type of pancake, but sometimes a plain old, no-frills pancake just hits the spot. No pictures though - they were gobbled up too quickly for that!

Basic Pancakes

As I mentioned before, The Griddler does have a few things that could be improved upon. First, the heating element runs only along the outer edges of the plate, causing somewhat uneven heating. Snaking the coil back and forth across the area under the plates would have been a better way to go, IMO. I also think that the plates could have a little more heft to them - this would help them retain the heat better. As you use the Griddler, the plates tend to lose heat pretty quickly and take a while to come back to optimum temp. Still, now that I've had a successful run, I think these are things I can work around. The cleanup is really simple - one of my main reasons for putting the Griddler on my Christmas list.

The next test for the Griddler was grilling chicken and making panini. Making sandwiches for dinner not only allowed me to take a bit of a break from cooking, but it also allowed me to play a little more. Eventually I'll get around to trying new recipes, but for tonight, I stuck with a tried and true, the chicken, goat cheese and bacon sandwich that I modeled after a sandwich I had always enjoyed from Biaggi's. First I grilled the chicken on the Griddler, closing the griddle so as to grill on both sides at once. The chicken breasts cooked up in about 6 or 7 minutes (they were huge) and were nice and moist. I was tempted to try the bacon on the Griddler too, but decided it would be too messy, so I did that in the microwave.

Checking on the panini as they get nice and toasty............

Next I assembled the sandwiches, brushing the outsides of the bread with a bit of EVOO. I put them on the Griddler, closed the lid and minutes later - about 5 - delicious, toasty panini. Wow, I really liked the results. Grilling the bread like this gives it a great texture and I love the way pressing gently on the lid for a few seconds smooshes the sandwich down, making it much easier to eat. Doing these on the griddler was much easier than trying to toast them in a pan - flipping them without losing any of the filling was quite a challenge and they take twice as long to cook - in a regular pan, you're only cooking one side at a time. I can tell we'll be making good use of the Griddler for panini.........yum!

Mmmmm....panini.....

Next up, appetizers! When we're home for New Year's, we like to make a variety of appetizers to munch on all day - DH and I enjoying some wine and later on, champagne, the kids enjoying some sparkling cider. The hardest part? Deciding what to make!