Cooking

A Sunday Night Recipe: Tahini Walnut Rolls

by TaMara| January 20, 20196:15 pm| 22 Comments

This post is in: Cooking, Open Threads, Recipes

I’m taking a hiatus from politics for a while. Here’s a recipe I played with this week. Love the people in my life who look forward to me experimenting with new recipes and are willing taste-testers.

I have a bunch of Food in Fiction recipes on the cooking blog, I love finding or recreating recipes in novels I’ve read. One of my very favorites was the Lane Cake from To Kill A Mockingbird. So when I started writing, I wanted to include foods in my books that match recipes on my blog.

In my newest endeavor, I have included a little Turkish Cafe as a part of the local color and I wanted to try out a few pastry recipes to use in the book. This was one of the simpler (and not deep fried) that I decided to give a try.

This is not the definitive recipe – if you Google Tahini Rolls you’ll find dozens of variations. Everyone’s grandma must make her own version. This one seemed the easiest to replicate.

These are much different than I expected. Light, crisp, flaky and not too sweet, they go great with coffee. I really liked them. This recipe makes about 2 dozen:

Tahini Walnut Rolls

4 tbsp butter
½ cup oil
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 pkg instant dry yeast
4 cups flour (480 g)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup tahini paste
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tbs roasted sesame
1 cup finely chopped walnuts
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp roasted sesame seeds to sprinkle over buns

Warm milk, butter, oil and sugar to 90 degrees (F). Add packet of yeast and mix gently.

Mix together flour and salt and add, 1 cup at a time, to the milk mixture. Blend thoroughly and mix until it forms a soft ball. Knead gently for 2 minutes.

Remove to a lightly oiled bowl and let rise until doubled.

Meanwhile, mix tahini and sugar together until smooth. Chop walnuts.

Divide dough into two balls. Roll one of the balls out until very thin (but not thin enough to tear).

Spread ½ of the tahini mixture over the rolled dough. Sprinkle half the walnuts and 1 tbsp of sesame seeds over the dough. Roll up into a jelly roll. Slice into one inch thick pieces. Lay flat onto a baking sheet. Gently flatten.

Repeat with second ball of dough.

Mix egg yolk with a bit of water and brush over rolls. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes, or until golden brown.

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Open thread.

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Saturday Night Recipe Thread: Holiday Treats

by TaMara| December 22, 201810:44 pm| 23 Comments

This post is in: Cooking, Open Threads, Recipes

From my recipe blog:

I was doing some recipe searching for a project I’ll post about later and sesame seeds were heavily featured. That put me in mind of Sesame Brittle. I thought it might be nice to have it to crumble over ice cream on the Sundae Bar on Christmas Eve.

Such a simple recipe. No candy thermometer needed. I always use oiled wax paper, but I’m wondering if oiled parchment would work better. The heat of candy on the wax paper melts it in places. Difficult to peel off.

Sesame Brittle

½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
salt

saucepan, wax paper (or parchment) and baking sheet

In the saucepan over high heat, melt butter and sugar and stir to combine. Without stirring, cook until mixture becomes a light to medium caramel color, about 3-5 minutes, then add sesame seeds and stir in.

Pour mixture onto a well-oiled wax paper or well-oiled parchment paper covered baking sheet and spread into an even, thin layer, about 1/8 to 1 /4-inch thick, with a wooden spoon. The shape will be irregular but don’t worry, you are just going to break it into pieces after it cools anyway.

Immediately shake a bit of salt over top of mixture and lightly press into caramel using the spoon. I used less than a 1/4 tsp for the entire mixture and that was plenty, though your mileage may vary. Allow to set-up for about 10-15 minutes.

When brittle has hardened and cooled, break into pieces and enjoy. Store in an air-tight container. And then hide or it won’t make it to the party.

Top: Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies, Spritz Cookies, Russian Tea Cakes (Pecan Cookies)

We skipped the annual cookie baking party – but the recipes for the cookies pictured above and below are here.

Fruit-filled shortbread

BTW, for those who were waiting breathlessly on what movie we chose for this year’s party – the winner is: Speed. A feel-good Christmas tale of two star-crossed lovers racing to fix Santa’s sleigh before the big night and realizing, as Santa takes off with his eight tiny reindeer, they were meant to be and share a first kiss as the credits roll. (I may or may not have watched one too many Hallmark Holiday movies this week)

Open thread

(Has Betty Cracker done her annual drunken auntie cookie bakeoff?)

Saturday Night Recipe Thread: Holiday TreatsPost + Comments (23)

Thanksgiving Files: Turkey, Sides and Desserts

by TaMara| November 18, 20189:05 pm| 105 Comments

This post is in: Cooking, Open Threads, Recipes

I’m not cooking this year, so it gives me some time to put together a list of recipes links for Thanksgiving.

Starting with the turkey here are some of my favorites:

Spatchcock Turkey is the only way I make it anymore and you can find the recipe here.

show full post on front page

For just about every other way to cook a turkey, click here.

I have quite a few non-traditional side dish recipes, including Wild Rice Stuffed Mushroom pictured above and recipe here.

You can find Roasted Butternut and Apple Soup, Winter Squash Soup, Brussels Sprouts Au Gratin, Roasted Brussels Sprouts w/Pancetta and Grilled Onions, African Sweet Potato Salad, Cajun Sweet Potatoes, and Sweet Potatoes and Apples all here.

For more traditional sides, No Boil Garlic Mashed Potatoes, recipe here. JeffreyW does Oven Baked Stuffing step-by-step here. And of course, Cranberry-Apple Sauce, one of my favorites picture at top and recipe here.

Here are all the Thanksgiving recipes in one link, you can also search What’s 4 Dinner Solutions blog by ingredient to find a recipe.

I’m trying to decide between two desserts this year, since of course, I cannot arrive empty-handed. Here are the two I’m wavering between, Buttermilk Pumpkin Bundt Cake or Cranberry Upside-Down Cake, both recipes below:

Very moist, very flavorful And if you’re creative, you can make it look like a pumpkin.

Pumpkin Buttermilk Bundt Cake

2-1/4 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
4 Tbsp buttermilk powder
3 tsp pumpkin spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
15 oz can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
3/4 cup butter, softened
1-1/4 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup water

Icing:

1 -1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tbsp milk (more or less as needed)
1 tsp vanilla

bowls, bundt pan

Butter and flour bundt pan generously. In bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until fluffy (about 3 minutes), add eggs, beat 1 minute. Add pumpkin and vanilla and beat on low until incorporated, scraping sides frequently. Alternate adding the flour mixture and water until all are incorporated with the pumpkin mixture and batter is smooth.

Spoon into the bundt pan and gently tap pan on the counter to remove any bubbles and even out the batter.

Bake at 350 degrees until a wooden skewer comes out clean, about 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes, then invert on a plate and remove from bundt pan. Let cool completely before frosting.

Icing: Add vanilla to powdered sugar and then slowly add milk until mixture is smooth. Pour evenly over cooled cake. (I added yellow and red food coloring for some Hallow

Cranberry Upside Down Cake

½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 cups cranberries, chopped*
½ cup walnuts, finely chopped
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp orange zest (rind)
1 ¼ cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
½ cup milk

Topping

½ cup powdered sugar
1-1/2 tbsp orange juice (more as needed)
2 tsp butter, softened

8×8 glass baking dish & mixing bowl

Preheat oven to 350°

Melt 3 tbsp of butter and pour into baking dish, spread to cover bottom and up the sides. Add ½ cup sugar, mix with butter on bottom of pan. Add cranberries & walnuts, spread over bottom of pan. Cream remaining butter & sugar, add vanilla, egg, orange zest, mix well. Add flour, baking powder & milk, mix until well blended, don’t over mix. Pour batter over cranberry mixture. Bake for 1 hour, or until golden brown and center bounces back at the touch. Invert on plate. Let cool.

Topping: Mix together butter, orange juice & powdered sugar, pour over cake and serve.

* if you don’t have a food processor, you can leave cranberries whole.

That’s pretty much all I have, LOL. What’s your favorite Thanksgiving recipe?

I absolutely despise the whole marshmallow sweet potato dish. Any dishes you would love to never see again on the holiday table?[

Open thread

Thanksgiving Files: Turkey, Sides and DessertsPost + Comments (105)

Friday Recipes: Multi-Pot Bourbon Beef Stew and Cookies

by TaMara| November 16, 20189:00 pm| 97 Comments

This post is in: Cooking, Open Threads, Recipes

Wow, what’s got into the food goddess? Another recipe? Quick someone check her for a fever.

I’ve posted this recipe before, but wanted to update it for the instant pot. (You don’t need to use the slow-cooker feature after pressure cooking, I had the time and it was easier than trying to find room for it in the refrigerator until dinner that night). You get a bonus Gabe photo, too. From What’s 4 Dinner Solutions:

I used the multi-pot to cook up a big batch of Bourbon Beef Stew (recipe here) for dinner guests. I sauteed the beef in the multi-pot, along with the onions and then added the remaining ingredients and used the soup/stew feature to pressure cook for 20 minutes. I then used the slow-cooker feature to let it cook for the rest of the day.

I have been using potato starch in lieu of flour for gravies and thickening. It makes for a satin texture and I really like it. Bonus, gluten-free.

The bread was not gluten-free and we had two loaves of it. Using this recipe and my new KitchenAid.

Sure looks like someone nicked a cookie before I got my photo

And for dessert, Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies (recipe here) – again using the new KitchenAid. I’m enjoying it and can’t wait for the big Christmas cookie baking session in December.

Bonus Gabe supervising the cooking:

I am not cooking Thanksgiving this year (though there still seems to be a 12lb turkey in my freezer). I’ll be traveling instead. That means I will have time on Sunday to put up a post with some Thanksgiving recipes, links to many more and be around to answer any pressing recipe questions.

Have I mentioned I love Thanksgiving?? Also, I know we are going to have 52 different versions of beef stew in the comments, claiming to be the best. So let me say this now, “Yes, yes, yours is the best, what were we all thinking with our inferior offerings?” ?

What’s on your plate this weekend? Open thread.

Friday Recipes: Multi-Pot Bourbon Beef Stew and CookiesPost + Comments (97)

Memories From Youth

by John Cole| August 4, 20187:47 pm| 191 Comments

This post is in: Cooking, Open Threads

Interesting thread by Stephanie McKellop on twitter:

What are things y'all who also came from lower class associate with Middle Class™? And not like "a salary" or "owns a house," but the little, more symbolic things?

For ex, my list:

Gets desserts at restaurants
Has a specific hairdresser
Real butter
Fresh picked flowers

— stephanie (@mckellogs) August 3, 2018

Quick sidebar- if her name sounds familiar, it’s because she was briefly the target of all the alt-right lynch mob for engaging in a pedagogical strategy that is so widespread that you would probably have to explain to most educators why exactly it is “controversial.” They failed to get her fired because, well, SHE WAS JUST DOING HER JOB.

At any rate, the one on the list of things that surprised me was butter. I never realized that it was considered a luxury, and I honestly don’t remember it being a thing when I was a kid. I guess it is- I thought all the margarines and all that other stuff were for people with special dietary concerns and had no idea it was because of the price. I guess I never use butter for anything other than cooking (meaning I don’t do toast or butter bread, etc.) so it just wasn’t something that stood out to me.

One thing I have noticed recently is that all of the cheap cuts of meat that I used to use frequently when I was in undergrad and beyond to cook in bulk are now some of the most expensive cuts. Things like a good bone in pork shoulder or corned beef or beef brisket used to be dirt cheap. Now it’s expensive as hell. Reliably, the cheapest cut of meat in the store is a pork tenderloin or pork loin, which used to be super expensive. Beef is all over the place, but it seems that ground beef and premium cuts of beef like tenderloins, t-bones, porterhouse, etc., all command a premium price, while what used to be lesser cuts like brisket command a high price. The sweet spot seems to be cuts like sirloin.

At any rate, I thought it was interesting.

Memories From YouthPost + Comments (191)

Recipe: Electric Pressure Cooker 4-Minute Potato Salad

by TaMara| July 21, 20184:44 pm| 79 Comments

This post is in: Cooking, Open Threads, Recipes

I have a house full of people. I’ve sent them off to the movies to cool down. It is uncharacteristically hot here this week. I’m having a whole-house attic fan installed, but it wasn’t a rush because I wasn’t expecting an unprecedented number of 95-100 degree days. So we sweat.

Luckily, I did buy the new grill/smoker, so meals have been a breeze. Yesterday I decided since I dug up potatoes, we needed potato salad. And since I have a Multi-pot electric pressure cooker I could do it without heating up the house. For something I was so skeptical about originally, I’ve found I use it multiple times a week.

Photo of course by JeffreyW. Yum

Here’s the recipe I used, but you could easily adapt it to your favorite potato salad recipe if you have an instant pot style cooker.

At the last-minute yesterday, I decided we needed potato salad at our cookout. Luckily, electric pressure cooker to the rescue. Four minutes cooking time, about 10 minutes prep. I left potatoes and eggs in the fridge to cool while we ran around. Added mayo, mustard, some dill pickle juice just before dinner and served with grilled hamburgers and corn. Yum.

Perfect Picnic Potato Salad

6 large potatoes, peeled, cubed

4 large eggs

1/2 small yellow onion, finely diced

mayo and yellow mustard to taste – I used less than a cup of mayo and about 1/4 cup mustard – but I know some people like a lot more. I added a 1/4 cup of dill pickle juice

salt and pepper to taste

Add the steaming basket to the pressure cooker. Add cubed potatoes (and you don’t need to be too fancy with cutting the pieces – just relatively same size for uniform cooking). Place washed eggs on top of the potatoes. Close the unit, set to steam for 4 minutes. When finished, use the rapid release method to ensure eggs don’t over cook and potatoes stay firm.

Add eggs to a cold water ice bath. Remove potatoes and drain excess water. Add to large serving bowl. Peel eggs, wash and cube. Add to potatoes. Let cool completely before mixing so as not to turn the potatoes into mush.

Once cooled, add remaining ingredients and fold until well mixed. Let sit for about 10 minutes before serving.

Serves 6 easily

Open thread!

Recipe: Electric Pressure Cooker 4-Minute Potato SaladPost + Comments (79)

If You’ve Got ‘Em, Smoke ‘Em (The Chicken Chronicles, Chapter [N])

by Tom Levenson| July 15, 20185:42 pm| 64 Comments

This post is in: Beer Blogging, Cooking, Food, Open Threads

Some of you may recall I have a roast chicken obsession. Been a while since we’ve talked about my problem here, but now’s the time.

Yesterday I mashed together a couple of recipes to come up with this:

That would be Peruvian/beer can chicken, smoked on Weber grill.

The Peruvian stuff is here. Doubled the marinade for the two chickens. Spooned it all over under the skin; rubbed the left-overs on the outside.

Took two beer cans, drank half the contents of each,* and proceeded as directed here: putting the half-empty cans in the cavity, and setting both chickens upright, using the legs to make a tripod. (Forgot this bit: I let the chickens rest (not vertically) for about three hours coming up to room temperature from the fridge before shoving the beer can up their butts and getting ready to sit them on the fire.)

Then: about a chimney full of good charcoal (lump hardwood), a few more chunks once I dumped the chimney out. When the coals were red with just a grey rim, I tossed on two handfuls of soaked wood chips; made sure the whole smokey mass was to one side of the grill; placed the cooking grated and set the chickens on the cool side of the Weber with their backs to the coals.

Next, I covered the Weber, with the air holes in the lid almost completely open, and let ’em go. I checked them first at about 15 minutes, and again ten minutes later, when I shut the air vent down a little — maybe to two-thirds open — in a probably feckless gesture at getting a little more smoke. About ten minutes after that, they were done — in the state you see in the photo above.

I also made the cilantro-feta green sauce from the first link, which I can’t recommend too highly; it’s kind of like a creamy chimichurri. The other minor note: it’s worth picking up the Peruvian chile pastes. I tried doing this with substitutes and it just doesn’t come out with the same pop.

In any event, when we got the chicken to the table it was, by general consensus, simply the best chicken we’d ever had. The Peruvian flavor was present, but not overwhelming; ditto the smoke. The thigh meat was perfect and yet the breast was not overdone. It was as moist as any bird I’ve ever had — I’m guessing the combination of the vertical cooking position and the moisture from the beer does some kind of magic.

In the midst of the holy hell that is daily life, I have to say it was a pure pleasure to try something new (to me) and have it come out just right, better than imagined.

(We were cooking for very good friends, and the rest of the meal was not shabby either. I’ll save the salmon bacon post for later.)

Anyway, the thread is open, but I’d like to know if any of y’all want to share any of your similar experiences: something you cooked or ate that gave you inordinate pleasure.

Over to you, jackals-with-bibs.

*Of the two, the Snaggle Tooth Bandana IPA was really nice.

If You’ve Got ‘Em, Smoke ‘Em (The Chicken Chronicles, Chapter [N])Post + Comments (64)

WTFGhost on Open Thread: Good for Rep. Jeffries (Jul 9, 2025 @ 3:26pm)

LAC on Goebbels In, Goebbels Out (Open Thread) (Jul 9, 2025 @ 3:25pm)

Betty Cracker on Open Thread: Good for Rep. Jeffries (Jul 9, 2025 @ 3:23pm)

Trollhattan on Open Thread: Good for Rep. Jeffries (Jul 9, 2025 @ 3:23pm)

BlueGuitarist on Open Thread: Good for Rep. Jeffries (Jul 9, 2025 @ 3:23pm)

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Optimism opens the door to great things.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

How stupid are these people?

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

We will not go back.

A Sunday Night Recipe: Tahini Walnut Rolls

Saturday Night Recipe Thread: Holiday Treats

Thanksgiving Files: Turkey, Sides and Desserts

Friday Recipes: Multi-Pot Bourbon Beef Stew and Cookies

Memories From Youth

Recipe: Electric Pressure Cooker 4-Minute Potato Salad

If You’ve Got ‘Em, Smoke ‘Em (The Chicken Chronicles, Chapter [N])