Our friend Danny showed us this cartoon about words for the internet. Sorry for our brief hiatus from the intertubes. We haven’t had much time for the blogonet since leaving Penn. We headed to Alex’s home in Connecticut and did some cooking, but we’ve been pretty lazy about getting the recipes to the webosphere. Enough.

Really though: We are officially on winter break, which will likely mean very few posts over the next couple weeks. Keep checking though, happy holidays, and we’ll be back full-force during the second week of January.

In the meantime, here’s a favorite salad that we conjured up for Alex’s family. The warm pears make it perfect for winter, and the way we cut them makes the salad look really, really pretty. The dressing is unique and light, so this works well as a first course. The recipe is a four-star from Epicurious, and we offer some slight modifications here.

Ingredients:
(salad)
3 bunches fresh thyme sprigs
4 bartlett pears (about 2 1/2 pounds), halved and cored
1/4 cup honey
8 oz. spring mix lettuce (or your fave, butter lettuce works well too)
6 ounces blue cheese, sliced
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted

(dressing)
4 tablespoons white grape juice and 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup grapeseed oil
1 large shallot, finely chopped
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400. Place thyme sprigs on a baking sheet. Place pear halves, cut side down, on work surface. Starting 1/2 inch from stem and leaving pear half intact, cut each lengthwise into scant 1/3- to 1/2-inch-wide slices. Press pear to fan slices; place on the thyme sprigs. Drizzle pears with honey, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 15 minutes until pears are tender. Let cool on baking sheet. To make the dressing, whisk ingredients together. Plate the lettuce, top with cheese and nuts, place pear alongside greens. Drizzle with dressing.

Nothing like the end of the semester to throw you into an existential crisis. Studying, the material seems brand-new, and suddenly we’re forced to think: Oh my God, what did I actually do this semester? And before you know it: Why am I doing this? Then the kicker: Who am I?

But back to the first question. Finals are finally over, which allowed me some time to consider the question in a broader sense, not just in the “what did I do this semester that apparently erased all recollection of this concept I’m supposed to know” sense. Upon consideration, I’ve concluded that something that I did quite well this semester was learn to bake muffins. We did Peanut Butter & Jelly, Vanilla and Chocolate Chip and Apple Cinnamon, as well as Chocolate Pumpkin cupcakes. Muffins are my thing! I can make them — even without Alex’s help — and they always taste delicious! Proud, I couldn’t help but do a final muffin hoorah of the semester.

I adapted a recipe from my Muffins Galore cookbook, and it turned out incredibly. As I know from my favorite bath products, coconut and lime are a miracle duo. The crumble topping lends a sweet and delicious crunch, and the rasberry filling adds a surprisingly good contrast. We served these little darlings to friends while watching the season-finale of A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. It made me feel good about life.

Ingredients:
(muffins)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 cup coconut
1 cup superfine sugar (I used half superfine, half granulated, it worked)
3 tsp lime zest, grated
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup (we used 1 percent)
1/4 cup coconut milk
7 tbsp butter, melted
rasberry jelly

(topping)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup coconut
1 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp butter, cut into small pieces

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 375. Put muffin tins into the muffin pan. Make the topping first by putting all the ingredients in a bowl and rubbing the butter into them until it forms a coarse meal. For the muffins, mix flour, baking powder, coconut, sugar and lime zest in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, milk, coconut milk and melted butter. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix (the batter will seem somewhat thick like cookie dough, it’s okay). Spoon batter into muffin tins, halfway up. Add about a tsp of jelly, and fill to top with batter. Bake for about 20 minutes, until well risen and golden. Cool and serve.

Some things go with eveything. The color black, for example, hummus, pesto.

Here’s another for the list: tunisian eggplant, which consists of small eggplant chunks cooked with onions in tomato paste and red wine vinegar, then tossed with olives and marinated artichoke hearts. Serve it as hours’devours on endive leaves or crackers, or for a main course over pasta or rice, or in a sandwhich with melted provolone. I could go on.

Our recipe is a minimally-adapted version of one we found in Alex’s new vegetarian cookbook, The Vegetable Dishes I Can’t Live Without, by Molly Katzen. It’s simple and delicious. Unbelievably versatile.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups onion, minced
1 1/2 lbs eggplant, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic, minced
2 tbsp tomato paste
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 cup green olives, pitted chopped
1 small jar (6 oz) marinated artichokes, coarsely chopped
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
more salt, pepper to taste

Instructions:
Heat the olive oil. Add onions and cook for 5-8 minutes until soft. Stir in eggplant, salt and garlic, cover the pan and cook for 15 minutes, or until eggplant is very soft. Add small abouts of water by the tbsp if eggplant appears to stick. Stir in tomato paste,vinegar, basil and oregano, and cook for another 5 minutes. Remove from heat (do not let boil for more than a few seconds) and add olives and artichokes. Season and serve at any temperature on anything.

Two days of exams remain, and it’s getting to us. You know your brain is shot when you can watch the three-hour season finale of Survivor without realizing it. That happened. But some good came out of our study lapse as well — in the form of a sweetly moist and richly-flavored gingerbread loaf.

We were all set to bake ourselves a cake, but the second we found this recipe we knew it had to be. Like when you walk into a party with one person, but fall in love at first sight with another and ditch the first. It’s not that you didn’t like them, it’s just that the alternative looked SO much better. Gingerbread recipe: You had us at … something. Butter? The best part was that at the end of the night, we knew we made the right choice. Our mouths watered at the aroma, and it tasted perfectly spiced and festive.

The recipe is from 101 Cookbooks, which posts amazingly-adapted recipes from a vast cookbook collection. We love it. We wish we had that many cookbooks. We modified the recipe again slightly, owing to what we had around the kitchen. I’m posting exactly what we did below, but check out the original recipe here.

Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup dark molasses
3/4 cup honey
1 cup dark brown sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice (we ground ours with the mortar and pestle!)
3 large eggs,
1/2 cup milk (1 percent)
1 tbsp fresh ginger root, grated

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 325. Lightly grease 9 x 9 baking pan and line the bottom with a piece of parchment paper, cut to hang over two opposite edges. Combine butter, water, molasses, honey and brown sugar in a medium saucepan and place over low heat. Stir until the butter is melted and ingredients are combined, then pour into a large bowl and set aside. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon and all-spice and set aside. When the molasses mixture feels warm to the touch, add the eggs one at a time and beating well. Add the milk and stir to combine. Fold the dry ingredients into the batter a bit at a time. Stir in the grated ginger. Pour the batter into the pan and bake in the centre of the oven for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, or a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes, remove from the pan using the parchment. Cool entirely before cutting.

Growing up, Wednesday was Cream of Broccoli Soup Day at the local Giant food store. I loved the huge chunks of broccoli swimming in milky, cheesy broth. Now, anything with that much dairy would subject both of us to a killer night of cramping and indigestion. And while you’d think that would turn me off the stuff, I sometimes can’t help but crave that salty, creamy bowl of deliciousness. Yesterday was one of those days, and I wondered whether it was possible to recreate the smoothness of a real cream-based broccoli soup without actually adding dairy. Alex convinced me that we could, and we came up with a great recipe that satiated my craving and caused zero sickness! In fact, it’s super healthy.

There are millions of recipes for broccoli soup, and we probably read a good number of them yesterday. I once heard that Gordon Ramsay makes his by simply pureeing broccoli with the water in which he cooked it, and then seasoning and serving it just like that. But we wanted to acheive the creaminess of my favorite grocery store version, so we decided to add some potatos for a thicker consistency. From there, we brought in leeks and carrots for a more complex flavor, and mustard seeds and lemon to lighten it up with a touch of tang. We added a dollop of fat-free sour cream for garnish, but you could also likely stir some into the soup just before serving.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lb. broccoli, cut into florets
1 carrot, sliced
2 leeks, sliced
4 small potatoes, cut into chunks
1 cup onion
5 cups chicken broth (or 4 cups broth and 1 cup water)
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp mustard seed
juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Heat the oil in a large pot. Add onions, potatos, leeks, carrots and mustard seed, and cook for 5-7 minutes. Add the broccoli and the broth, and simmer for about 20 minutes. By this time, the vegetables should be cooked. Working in batches if necessary, blend the mixture (in a blender) until smooth. Add the lemon juice, season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with sour cream or parmesean cheese if you like, and serve.

Bread scares us, it relies too heavily on conditions beyond our control. Is the room too hot? Too cold? Is the yeast still active? And even if the dough seems stringy and flexible and it’s risen considerably — is there any way to really know whether the lump of wet flour will become into a fluffy and beautiful loaf?

We suffered a fright yesterday. Our recipe said that the dough would rise in two to three hours, but it didn’t. With no clue what to do, we guessed, kneading it down and then letting continue to rise for another four hours after that, until it had sufficiently doubled in size. Miraculously, it turned out. This always happens to us; disaster looms until the last minute and then somehow it all works. How? To quote a favorite movie: I don’t know, it’s a mystery.

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp instant or rapid-rise yeast
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup cranberries
1/2 cup walnuts

Instructions:
Pulse flour and yeast together in the food processor for 5 seconds. Add water and pulse again until the dough forms a shaggy, sticky ball. Remove from the food processor, and add the nuts and cranberries. Place the dough ball in a bowl and cover lightly with plastic wrap or a towel. Let sit for 2-3 hours, until the ball has doubled in size. If yours doesn’t seem to be rising well, consider punching down or kneading it (requires more flour) and letting it continue to rise — don’t rush it into the oven. 30 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450. Bake for 20 minutes, turn the oven to 350 and bake for an additional 25 minutes, till the crust has lightly browned. Remove, cool, slice, serve.