Gourmet Gilmores

An edible guide to the Gilmore Girls. Recipes every Wednesday.

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Gilmore Girls Ep18 S1: Trix’s Brown Sugar and Za’atar Spiced Nuts

Who needs Emily Post when you have a slew of formidable Gilmore matriarchs ready to teach you how to act at the table? Trix is in town, and when she’s not spiking Emily’s blood pressure, she’s schooling the Gilmore girls (and us) on her particular flavor of etiquette.

“When one is told dinner is at 7:00, people expect dinner at 7:00.

Reasonable. 

“Tomorrow I shall plan the menu. When you’ve lived in Europe, you learn a thing or two about food.”

Sure.

Bring your own rabbit. 

Trix brings her own rabbit to dinner. In fact, she flies with that rabbit, packed in dry ice, because she believes that “London has the best game.”

Maybe we can edit this into don’t show up empty-handed? 

Nah. Bring your own rabbit. Not to eat, though. I’d prefer that you bring an enormous snuggly bunny as your plus one. I think this guy is available for dinner party appearances:

CAPTAIN SUBTLE/ [CC BY 2.0], VIA FLICKR

Trix isn’t the only one doling out a slightly bizarre code of conduct. Rory is putting out various social fires with the elegant power of donuts and edited small talk. 

“A clown just isn’t a clown without a hat.”

Translation: Nothing soothes social discomfort like a slew of coffees and a box of clown-shaped donuts. (Agreed.) (But imagine this scene with clown donuts, coffee, AND that giant fuzzy rabbit.)

Leave your small talk note cards at home! And whatever you do, don’t talk about the Spanish Inquisition.

I will totally make Spanish Inquisition small talk with you...as long as we have a giant bowl of these slightly sweet spiced nuts. 

While lingering in the Gilmore sitting room, Trix makes the outrageous decision to turn down a cheese plate in favor of a bowl of spiced nuts. Turning down a giant platter of cheeses? A cheese plate that definitely features a rich person array of fancy crackers and spreads? Ludicrous! 

...unless it’s for these spiced brown sugar and za’atar nuts and pumpkin seeds. Sweet, spiced, and faintly sour with a toasted sesame crunch---this spice blend is dangerous and I want it on absolutely everything.  

Brown Sugar and Za’atar Spiced Nuts

Ingredients 

1/2 cup brazil nuts

1 cup roasted unsalted almonds

1 cup raw pumpkin seeds

2 tablespoons melted butter

2 teaspoons light brown sugar

1/4 cup za’atar 

2 fat pinches of salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. In a bowl, toss nuts with melted butter, then sprinkle za’atar and brown sugar on top. Let the buttered nuts and spices rest for one minute. Stir. 

Spread nuts out on a lined or greased cookie sheet. Sprinkle on salt. Bake for 20 minutes. Turn oven down to 250 degrees and bake for 40 minutes; check nuts after 20 minutes. Sprinkle one additional tablespoon of za’atar and a few pinches of brown sugar over the nuts and bake for 10 more minutes. Let cool. 

I ate several bowls full of these beauties and I recommend them for your cocktail hours, Netflix binges, and all-snack lunches. For a slight twist, they add some solid crunch and flavor to salads, roasted veggies, and sautéed kale. 

Throw on your best terrible turtleneck and head over to @gourmetgilmores. I want to hear your favorite Trix advice, snack recipes, and Lorelai hair moments. Go!  

[gourmetgilmores]

Gilmore Girls Ep17 S1: Melted Lemon Ice Cream Pancakes

Have you recently been dumped by a floppy-haired beau who thinks cars are an appropriate gift for 90 days of dating (expect a San Francisco condo when you hit the one year mark)?

Are you battling a case of the midweek blues? The post-Super Tuesday reds? 

Do you live with someone who made the following joke all day yesterday: “If forced to choose, I choose soup.”

(I’m that someone. And episode 17 Lorelai is on my side)

Or maybe you woke up like this…

...cranky and exhausted and somehow still super gorgeous.

You deserve a good old fashioned wallow of the “sitting in the dark eating junk food and not shaving [your] legs” variety. Take it from Lorelai Gilmore, and take it from me: Treats help. Especially when you pack them all onto one plate.

Enter: Melted ice cream pancakes.

In Episode 17, Rory’s fresh heart break is treated with two dishes: a warm stack of flapjacks and a bottomless pit of ice cream.  

The food portion of this episode kicks off with an early morning breakfast at Lukes. “Do you think you could make those really crazy chocolate chip pancakes and go extra heavy on the chocolate?” is Lorelai’s clandestine break-up curing pancake request, and Rory is treated to a pile of chocolate chip pancakes topped with strawberries (We actually never see these pancakes, but the breakfast ordering bit goes on for a while, and culminates in Luke wrestling a sixteen year old Dean for wanting a coffee. You know, like all grownups would.)(The level of obsession the town has with a breakup between two sixteen year olds is…disturbing. Like Dean in the previous episode, I think we’re supposed to read this obsession as sweet and loving, but it just comes across as creepy.)

In between pancakes and ice cream there are parties, stolen kisses, Max reunions, and a shot of spring style inspo courtesy of Louise and her circa 2000 party look.

Be still, my maribou-trimmed-cardigan loving heart.

But the episode ends with Rory on the couch, surrounded by tubs of ice cream, tearfully announcing “I think I’m ready to wallow now.”

Be like Rory. Embrace a mini-wallow. Turn your ice cream into breakfast. Even better? Turn it into pancakes.

Melted Lemon Ice Cream Pancakes are a snap to make and even a tiny bit sophisticated thanks to their tart lemon and dark chocolate flavor pairing. They look and taste like springtime and pack a walloping wallow punch if you need them to, because they combine the carby splendor of breakfast with a baked milkshake. What a world.

Maybe pair these with a fancy French soda, the obvious preferred drink for unaccompanied and unsupervised teens in a party mansion.

Rory Gilmore’s Melted Lemon Ice Cream Breakup Pancakes

Ingredients

1/2 cup melted lemon ice cream (full fat)

1/2 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup room temperature water

1/4 cup chocolate chips 

Beat flour, salt, and baking powder with a whisk until fully combined (about 30 seconds). Stir in egg and melted ice cream. Slowly add water until the batter thins and loosens into a recognizable pancake batter. Stir in chocolate chips. Cook in a greased pan or in a griddle over medium heat. You’ll know the pancake is ready to flip when tiny bubbles rise on the surface. Give each side two to three minutes.

I’m a sucker for all twists on the typical pancake recipe. I’m starting to think that if you combine any mush with flour and egg, you can produce a glamorous short stack. If you’re not in the mood for baked ice cream [absurd!] here are a few more of my favorite pancakes:

Two Ingredient Sweet Potato Pie Pancakes

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes, with Rosemary, Pluot, and Chocolate

Almond Meal Pancakes

Throw on your matching shearling coats and head over to @gourmetgilmores on Twitter where we’re talking Gilmore Girls, pancakes, and breakup cures. [Hair dye, people. Always a box of hair dye and a vat of macaroni and cheese.]

[gourmetgilmores]

Gilmore Girls Ep16 S1: One Lion's Head Meatball To Go

Dear Rory (circa Episode 16: Star-Crossed Lovers And Other Strangers), 

I don’t know how to tell you this---and you won’t believe it, because you’re heartbroken and vaguely manic, in those early throes of your first breakup where the shock outweighs the devastating gloom.

But based on Dean’s behavior tonight, you’re much better off without him.

I know, what am I saying? He gave you a car! He let you order three kinds of pasta so you wouldn’t have to choose! He told you he loves you! You’re a major fan of the 3 month anniversary---I’ve heard. And it’s all swell, really. Except that by giving you an elaborate gift that ended in a major ultimatum, he showed you that he has no idea what love is. 

No one gives you a guide that makes any sense when you start dating. Every article tends to be misogynistic trash, your friends are just as clueless as you, and you’re usually working with someone who comes to the relationship with their own poor information on how relationships work. So you get this opportunity to learn together. You make mistakes. You say things you don’t mean. You test stuff out. And in the process, your boundaries get tested over and over and over again. It’s how you learn that you have boundaries. It’s painful and enlightening and a process you will go through in every corner of your life---friends, work, the list is never ending. 

And it’s a process that you handled really elegantly. A guy that you’ve been dating for three months---the first person you’ve ever dated---gives you an enormous over the top gift and then tells you that he loves you. This is a very reasonable situation in which to have some red flags. And you’re totally honest with him---you remind him that you were abandoned by your dad, that you grew up with a single mom who got pregnant at sixteen, the age that you are now. You tell him that you feel really overwhelmed because this is so unexpected, that you need some time to think. You’re respectful and kind. And he in turn mocks you and your relationship with your mom, saying “You don’t get pregnant from saying ‘I love you’” and “What are you going to do, go make a pro and con list about this? Talk it over with your mom?” He turns icy. He rushes you out of the car. And then he breaks up with you. 

Look, no one is going to be thrilled when you don’t respond to “I love you” with the same words. But if they really love you, and they really know you and the things that you’ve been through, they do owe you some compassion. Even if what that compassion looks like is “Hey, I need some time to think too, lets end the evening and talk tomorrow.” Wow, that is hard to say. But that’s love! Being kind and compassionate to someone you care about is love. Respecting boundaries and learning how to understand them---that’s love. Love is not massive gifts paired with ultimatums. Love is not “You’re not performing the way I want you to, so this is over.”

Listen---you don’t know this yet, but this guy who claims to love you is going to stay broken up with you for MONTHS. He’s not going to call tomorrow and say something along the lines of “I’m really sorry, I overreacted” or “I love you but I’m so confused right now, what was that last night?” or whatever other sentences could open up the lines of communication between you. He is going to shut you out until you say I love you too. And you are inexplicably going to date this guy for several more months, and reunite with him later in life, and he will never apologize for putting you in a vulnerable and overwhelming situation and choosing that moment to break your heart. While some of his behavior in this moment can be chalked up to him learning too, he gets older and gets more life experience and continues to behave callously with your feelings. Over and over again, he treats your feelings like something he can manhandle and mock.

It sounds cheesy, but your heart is precious. Try to give it someone who will treat it accordingly.

Love,

Claire (aka girl who writes a food blog about your life, don't worry about it.) 

P.S. What teenager gives another teenager a car?! And why was your mom so cool with that, when we all know that in high school a car is basically a bedroom on wheels?! Come on now.

Before the night goes south, Rory and Lorelai have a running joke about meatballs that leads Rory to get one to go for her mom. If you’re only going to have one meatball, it better be pretty superb. Enter: Lionshead meatballs. Sweet and salty and incredibly filling, these are a delicious way to turn meatballs into an entire meal. 

One Lion's Head Meatball To Go

Adapted from Two Red Bowls 

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon white sugar

1 tablespoon shaoxing cooking wine

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 green onion, finely chopped

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 large eggs, beaten

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 pound bok choy, stems trimmed and chopped into large pieces

Combine everything but the bok choy, corn starch and eggs with your hands. Add cornstarch---mix in with a fork or spoon since the meatball batter will become sticky. Now mix in the beaten egg. 

Pour vegetable oil into a wok or wide pan. Adjust flame to medium and wait a few minutes, then begin putting 1/4 cup balls of the meat mixture into the oil to brown. Brown on all sides and remove with a slotted spoon. You will need to do this in two shifts since this recipe yields about 10 meatballs. 

Line a large pot with bok choy leaves and place meatballs on top. Set heat to medium low and steam for 30 minutes or until leaves have wilted. If you have a steamer, feel free to use that instead. Serve with rice. 

So do you agree with my take on the Dean debacle? Wildly disagree? Have your own love advice or terrible date stories to share? Send them my way at @gourmetgilmores on Twitter. 

[gourmetgilmores]

Brunch like a Gilmore this weekend. Don't forget the coffee. 

Dark Chocolate and Chocolate Covered Caramel Biscotti: Rory and Lorelai's favorite movie night sweets, in a dippable breakfast cookie. 

Lorelai's Favorite Apple (Pop) Tarts: Emily Gilmore's famous Christmas apple tarts, with a Lorelai twist. 

Emily Gilmore's Broiled Cinnamon Banana Toast: Emily Gilmore, queen of treats and skirt suits. 

[gourmetgilmores]

Gilmore Girls Ep15 S1: Martini Roasted Green Beans

Christopher: So handsome. So charming. So much chemistry with Lorelai.

…such a terrible father. 

No matter how hard you ship the Chris and Lor pairing, the facts of his subpar fatherhood are all here in the first ten minutes of “Christopher Returns.” Rory is 16 and buzzing with excitement because this is the first time her dad has ever come to Stars Hollow. Which means he has never seen her house or met her friends or gone to any events at her school. He has never peeked in her room or checked out her town or met the other adults in her life beyond her mom. He is completely detached from the most important corners of her life, and he comes roaring into town on a motorcycle announcing that he’s ready to be involved with his kid now. His kid who can legally drive and will be an adult in two years. He’s lucky that kid, and her lovely mother, didn’t just slam the door upon his arrival. 

  When it comes to delusional people, Christopher isn’t alone. Emily is at her most heartbreakingly bananas when she decides that Friday night dinner should include Chris’ parents. Though Strobe is clearly the worst, his announcement that “this whole evening is ridiculous” is true. 

  Instead of anyone eating any dinner, the following exciting events transpire: 

Ed Herrmann delivers. The scene where he throws Strobe out of his house and defends Lorelai? The scene where he aggressively revisits the past with Lorelai and tells her that her mother was bedridden for a month because of her actions? Chills. Just, breathtakingly good.

Lorelai and Chris have sex. Thanks Jose Cuervo.

Chris proposes. Go away. Stop this.

Lorelai wears these perfect pajamas.

Sex and yelling and critiques of The Offspring and somehow no one pauses and says “Hey, all of this adrenaline is making me hungry, lets go devour something great.” Sure there’s a biscotti and another pop tart reference in “Christopher Returns,” but we’ve been there. And Rory eats some sad looking leftovers while drinking a soda, but I get the feeling that none of us need a recipe for that meal.

This is not a food episode. It’s a booze episode. It’s a bottle of tequila and several rounds of martinis. But what if you could eat a martini? 

Hear me out: Everything you could possibly put into a classic martini is delicious (and you know that the Gilmore estate is not pumping out non-classic martinis, unless it’s Rory’s 21st birthday cocktail). Olives, lemon peel, blue cheese (typically stuffed in an olive), olive brine, bitters---all delicious, all flavor packed, all waiting to elevate a heap of roasted veggies to something transcendent and deeply classy.

Don’t be an Episode 15 Gilmore: Eat something with all those drinks. “I Love Lucy” pajamas can’t prevent hangovers---real food can. These would be delicious alongside Max Medina’s Osso Buco, or served with a towering Fiesta Burger.

Martini Roasted Green Beans 

Ingredients 

1 pound of green beans

¼ cup crumbled blue cheese

2 tablespoons lemon zest

½ cup green olives

¼ cup olive brine

Dash of angostura bitters

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper 

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. This is the only hard and fast rule of this recipe---a 400 degree oven produces a superior roasted vegetable. It’s what gives them those crisp caramelized edges.

  Wash the green beans and snap the tips off of each side, preferably while eating vast quantities of olives and cheese. Place them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Drizzle on olive oil and olive brine, then cover with a big pinch of salt and pepper. Top with 1 tablespoon of lemon zest, cheese, and olives, then add a dash of angostura bitters to the top. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Top with 1 tablespoon of lemon zest.  

Recipe notes:

I used a few different green olives, including some with pimento filling. I sliced about half of them to add some texture. Use your favorite olives here. It doesn’t matter if you slice them or leave them whole, they will come out of the oven warm and salty and sublime.

I baked the cheese on top the green beans so that I could have big disks of crunchy cheese. If you prefer a more melty, less crunchy cheese experience, add them in the last 5 minutes of baking or immediately once the green beans are out of the oven.

I’ve been converted---after many many years of blue cheese hating, I might officially be a fan. I used a Black River blue cheese for this recipe and it was really mild on the funk, heavy on the salt, insanely delicious. To really replicate this recipe, I recommend eating a gross quantity of it smashed on Josie Baker Bread while the green beans bake. Turn on Season 7 of Gilmore Girls to complete the experience.  

That 400 degree rule isn't mine! It comes from An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler, which has become one of my all time favorite books about food. 

Cool kids and hunky dads follow @gourmetgilmores on Twitter. Tweet me your Gilmore Girls musings and recipe requests, I wanna hear 'em all. 

[gourmetgilmores]

Gilmore Girls Ep14 S1: Rory Gilmore's "Donna Reed Night" Cheese Topped Potatoes

I've never understood "That Damn Donna Reed.”

It starts so strong: Lorelai and Rory heckle “The Donna Reed Show” in front of Dean, yelling out gems like “I must sublimate my impure thoughts by going into the kitchen and making an endless string of perfect casseroles.” Dean defends Donna’s casserole love and is subjected to some withering stares. And later, like all 16 year olds in 2000, Dean and Rory get into a fight about the Donna Reed Show that kicks off with him snarkily referring to “oppressed housewives shopping for their husband’s dinners” and informing Rory that she has no opinions of her own and that her beliefs are hand fed to her directly from her mother.

And how does our favorite brilliant feminist kid respond to these attacks on her character? She throws on heels and makes him a retro feast, of course!

Huh?!

WTF Rory:

You don't give your wildly disrespectful boyfriend a multi-course smorgasbord while decked out in heels and pearls. Just, no. And this isn't because he thinks it's nice to come home to a homecooked meal. I like homecooked meals too, my floppy haired friend. It's the fact that in one scene we see you reacting to the truly disrespectful thing he just said to you with anger and frustration, and in the next we see you announcing "Honey, you're home!" while doing a twirl in your retro dress.

While Donna Reed being an undercover feminist icon is a cool discovery, it has nothing to do with the boyfriend who just insulted your intelligence. Put away that lime Jello! Take off that headband!

And another thing…

WTF Lorelai:

For someone who just reacted with a hysterical wail of "you're going on birth control! You are NOT getting pregnant" a couple episodes ago when Rory and Dean spent the night together, Lorelai's super chill "Well I expect you to have your boyfriend over while you're housesitting all alone in this giant house" response is downright bizarre.

Just like her response to the car. WE'LL GET THERE. Oh, we'll get there. 

So, what would a sixteen year old with minimal kitchen skills (we're not talking culinary wunderkinds like Top with Cinnamon or Nosh To Meet You) make for a retro feast? 

Mashed potato casserole, of course! Donna Reed's famous impure-thought-sublimating casseroles come up over and over again in "That Damn Donna Reed." The menu Rory rattles off to Dean includes mashed potatoes, along with a host of other classic foods. They're the easiest dish on the list to upgrade, and I think that if she was let loose in the kitchen, she'd probably test some new tricks for this fancypants dinner. 

This is barely a casserole. Delicious mashed potatoes are baked under a layer of salted and peppered cheese. The crusty topping frames the warm buttery potatoes, while slivers of roasted onions add an extra pop of flavor and texture. It's not the world's most beautiful dish unless your ideal color palette consists of several shades of brown, but it's delicious. And it's National Cheese Lovers Day! Go celebrate with cheesy potatoes. 

Rory Gilmore's Crispy Cheese Topped Mashed Potatoes

4 potatoes, scrubbed clean

1/3 cup cream

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

1 onion

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Salt

Pepper

Olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut onion to strips and lightly oil the strips. Place them on a cookie sheet and add light salt and pepper. Bake for 30 minutes. 

Turn oven up to 425 degrees. Oil the outside of your potatoes. Bake on a cookie sheet for one hour to one and a half hours, until soft enough to mash. Stir in butter, cream, onions, and cheddar cheese. 

Place in a deep casserole dish and top with parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. Bake for 20 minutes. The top should have a burnished, crispy look. This is a great side dish for Rory's chicken dinner, or an oddly delicious brunch when paired with eggs (personal experience---don't forget the hot sauce). 

The best part of the episode? This endless chemistry. Don't worry---it's not here for long. Next up: Christopher Returns. 

Retro Rory Gilmore would follow @GourmetGilmores on Twitter, and you should too. Send me your recipe requests! 

[gourmetgilmores]

Channel kitchen goddess Sookie St. James for this week's Sunday supper:

Sesame Roquefort Biscuits

Parmesan Risotto with Prosciutto and Pumpkin Seeds

Mud Pie Cheesecake 

[gourmetgilmores]

Gilmore Girls Ep13 S1: Choose Your Own Savory Pop Tart Adventure

You try. You fail. You listen to The Bangles. You, hypothetically, succeed at something completely different. 

The Gilmore Girls and I are on the same page in Episode 13, "Concert Interruptus." Rory tries to make friends. Lorelai tries to facilitate that friend making. And I try to make a fancy sweet potato pop tart appetizer for your next soiree.

We all fail. Sort of. 

CONCERT INTERRUPTUS: Or How Not To Make Friends to the Strains of “Hero Takes the Fall”

Paris and her cronies traipse over to Stars Hollow to do some debate planning with Rory. Lorelai, in possession of four tickets to see The Bangles, thinks “Hey, what do teen girls today really want? To see 80s girl bands, of course!” She buys two more tickets for her and Sookie and hands over the primo seats to Rory’s Chilton coven. But after sitting through the greatest hits, throaty voice girl and her slightly nicer friend run off with future-Superman-Brandon-Routh to a party at his apartment in New York City.

Lorelai tracks them down! Parents are called! Friendship dreams are dashed! And in the midst of all of this, there’s a town yard sale that gives us a hearty headwear round of the Lorelai’s Outfits Drinking Game:

POP TART INTERRUPTUS: Or How This Post Was Doomed From the Start…

…because they don’t eat. Anything. Barely. Cheese is mentioned, an ominous college cocktail in a red Solo cup is slurped, but the closest we get to a potential recipe is Lorelai arranging some pop tarts on a plate and announcing “Pop Tart Appetizer!” 

The idea: I just made pop tarts two weeks ago. So I’ll make the dough myself! And I can take the little tricks I learned and make them look more like a real pop tart. They’ll be elegant and flakey, an adorable twist on an appetizer! Every food blog I read is doing some f++king party guide right now like the holidays weren’t two weeks ago and no one needs a break. So here you go! Party food! Dig in!

Nope. Just nope. It didn’t work. But, like Rory unexpectedly bonding with Paris, this baking experiment had an unexpected and delicious outcome. 

These are not fancy delicate tarts that you can pile up on a plate and hoist in front of you with a big grin as someone snaps your host-with-the-most photo. But I can tell you exactly what these are, and it’s still good, I swear:

It’s Sunday/Thursday/Saturday. You’re lying on your couch watching too much Netflix. You’re on the verge of hungry but can’t or won’t order crap again, and maybe you’re even feeling a little ambitious, and the hunger is building and you want some interesting snacky thing to show up in your living room within the hour.

So you get up and make this dough. And you’re worried it will be hard but it’s not, and you’re totally allowed to screw it up because the screwed up version of pastry dough is either a biscuit or a cracker, both delicious. You start to roll it out but instead take the shaggy dough and kind of flatten it with your hands. You stuff it with cheese and some cooked veggies from your fridge and whatever spices you have around. Or just cheese. You throw in some pesto or you don’t. You drizzle some hot sauce or you don’t.

You seal each lopsided tart with another piece of dough, put a little olive oil on top and sprinkle on some salt. 25 minutes later, you’re eating a salty buttery savory pop tart. They are not pretty but they are delicious and you haven’t spent any money and you can claim you did something today because you basically made a batch of pastries. Congrats! Don’t forget to share.

Here’s how I made mine. I think you could also put an egg on one of these and call it brunch.

Sweet Potato and Spicy Pickled Lime Savory Pop Tarts

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients

Pastry Dough:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 large egg

2 tablespoons almond milk 

Filling:

One roasted sweet potato, peeled

1 cup roasted carrots and garlic

2 teaspoons spicy pickled lime relish

1 teaspoon cumin

½ teaspoon coriander

1 teaspoon harissa

Outside

¼ cup chopped green onion

1 tablespoon olive oil

Flaky salt

Kosher salt

Cumin

Whisk together flour, sugar, and salt. Cut the butter in with a pastry cutter or add it slowly with your hands. You'll know that it's full incorporated when then dough can stick together as a large ball. Whisk the first egg and milk together and stir them into the dough, mixing just until everything comes together. If you're not going to use this immediately, stash it in the fridge.

If you are---roll it out into a long sheet of dough. Mash all of the filling ingredients together in a separate bowl. Tear or cut dough into squares. Add one heaping tablespoon of filling to the middle of the square. Top with a second dough square and seal the edges. This should make 6-8 pop tarts. Once they're all sealed, mix olive oil with chopped green onions and spread it on the surface of each tart.

Add flaky salt, cumin, and sesame seeds to the top. Dust the edges with with kosher salt. Bake for 25 minutes, or until dough is a golden brown. 

P.S. If you're not following Gourmet Gilmores on Twitter, you're missing gems like this:

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Gilmore Girls Ep12S1: Sookie St. James' Mud Pie Cheesecake

Image via Vanity Fair 

Julia and Paul. 

Image via Instagram

Ina and Jeffrey.

Sookie and Jackson!

"Double Date" is the beginning of one of the great food love stories of our time.  Okay, completely fictional food love stories. But still! They're delightful. Even more delightful than Sookie's first date 'do that clearly follows the wisdom that "the higher the hair, the closer to God." Oh holy baby-beehive:

So, Sookie and Jackson. A farmer and a chef. They chat. They squabble. They have weirdly animated conversations about blueberries and squash blossoms. And in the midst of snipping and talking and crates of veggies and kitchen adventures, they start to fall for each other, culminating in a deeply awkward first date chock full of food talk in Episode 12. Jackson maligns the current carrot harvest and wants to track down the restaurant's carrot vendor. Sookie seeks out fresh mussels but informs the table that they need to be fresh, or they just end up lying around in their own excrement. Charming times! 

The one failed attempt at food chitchat that is truly precious is Sookie's description of an eight year old Rory's legendary mud pies. Even though Sookie's pies were brimming with chocolate cookies and bittersweet ganache and Rory's were made of, well, mud, they were identical. This memory haunts Sookie. 

And me too. Because damnit, I want that Sookie St. James fancypants mud pie. And I want you to have it too. And now we can!

Rejoice, kids. We're bringing back a childhood classic and giving it the old Sookie twist. 

The crust? Crushed chocolate cookies. The topping? A dense semisweet chocolate ganache with halved Oreos plopped across the top. And the mud? A goat cheese cheesecake spiked with coffee, creamy and sweet with a slightly bitter tang, balanced by handfuls of chocolate chips. 

Let me be the bearer of good news here: cheesecakes are pretty easy. They always intimidated me because, much like risotto, I had heard so many cheesecake horror stories. Surprise---it's a pretty minimally labor intensive dish that always impresses. And because of it's ganache topping, it's a cheesecake that you don't have to fuss with too much. I personally enjoy cracks in the top of my cheesecake, but they're a non-issue when they're under a layer of cookies and ganache. 

Speaking of fuss---I never mess with water baths or foil wrapped springform pans. I'm not opposed to these tips or tricks, and I'll probably use them one day. So far I haven't needed them though. This might be blasphemy, but I always make my cheesecakes in a deep pie pan.

Add whatever cheesecake wizardry you like to this recipe! Just make sure that you make it. Because it's outrageously good. 

Sookie St. James' Mud Pie Goat Cheese and Ganache Cheesecake

 Ingredients

Cheesecake

1 (11-ounce) log mild goat cheese, room temperature

1/4 cup white granulated sugar

1/2 cup (4 ounces) full-fat sour cream, room temperature

2 tablespoons honey

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

3 large eggs

1/4 cup room temperature coffee 

1 full size package Oreo cookies

1/2 cup chocolate chips 

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Chocolate Ganache

1 cup (8 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon instant coffee granules

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Put aside 10 Oreos. Remove the cookies from the rest of the Oreos and crush them in a food processor. If you don't have a food processor, double bag them in Ziploc bags, seal the bags, and smash the cookies with a hammer. Be careful. And have fun. This should make about two cups of cookie crumbs. 

Mix the cookie crumbs with the melted butter in your pie pan and smush the buttered cookie crumb mixture against the pan until it resembles a crust. Don't just stick to the bottom---have the mixture go up a bit around all of the edges. Bake for 10 minutes. 

While the crust bakes, combine goat cheese and sugar in a stand up mixer for two minutes. Add sour cream, honey, vanilla, and salt and mix until fully combined---about two minutes. Add eggs one at a time as you mix. Once eggs are fully combined, add coffee and fold in chocolate chips. Pour the mixture into the baked crust. Bake for 50 minutes, or until center only moves slightly when lightly shaken. Refrigerate for 90 minutes. 

After 90 minutes, it's time to make Ina Garten's famous ganache! Cook the chocolate, heavy cream, and coffee granules in the top of a double boiler over simmering heat. Occasionally stir. You'll know it's ready when the chocolate is fully melted and the ganache is thick and glossy. Pour it over the top of the cheesecake.   

Break remaining Oreos in half and place in the ganache. Refrigerate for 3 hours.

This delicious bit of chocolate cheesecake chaos was inspired by two of my favorite cheesecake recipes. Check them out! 

Gina's Pumpkin Cheesecake

Goat Cheese, Honey and Pistachio Mini Cheesecake with Meyer Lemon Cream (read my modifications to make it a full size cheesecake here) 

Have a favorite Sookie and Jackson moment you're dying to share? Send them my way. Drop me a line at @gourmetgilmores on Twitter. 

[gourmetgilmores]

Gilmore Girls Ep11S1: Max Medina's Easy Osso Buco for Two

Osso buco is date night food. It’s red meat falling off the bone, an apartment that smells like flesh and herbs doused in broth and wine, slowly unfurling over low heat. It’s tucking into that secret pocket of marrow with a fork or stale crust of bread, prying out the melting tender glob and eating it slowly, scraping every edge for another morsel. It’s dinner for two, with low lights and an oven-warmed house and the funny romance of decadent foods consumed simply, easily, steps away from a bedroom. 

Max Medina knows this, because Max Medina is good at dating. He’s a grownup. He probably picked up those veal shanks from a butcher who knew him by name. He probably brought them home wrapped in waxed paper and set them in salted, peppered flour, then hauled out a stained and beloved dutch oven. You can imagine him opening the wine and putting on a record, grading a stack of papers while he waits for Lorelai to come over. 

And when she does, she's so overwhelmed that for the first time in history she can barely eat a bite at the table, but instead devours their leftovers scraped into a pot propped on her lap, turning a romantic meal into a decadent slop bucket.

The way they handle this meal hints at the very different ways they handle their relationship for the rest of “Paris Is Burning.” Max is committed, ready to move forward. To quote a later Lorelai love interest, he's in. He's all in.

And Lorelai? Well, she's so terrified that every interaction turns bizarre. She stops calling. She insists he take back his copy of Swann’s Way. She, who claims that Rory’s feelings are her primary concern, makes out with Max at Rory’s school and is caught by a scheming Paris. And when Lorelai is finally ready to eat at the table, to commit to the relationship, to get on board, it’s too late. We say goodbye to Max Medina for the next couple episodes. See you soon, Christopher and Rune. 

Max lends Lorelai a copy of a book that contains one of the most quoted and referenced passages on food. But since we’re on rich meats and not on madeleines, and we’re bidding a five episode adieu to our favorite English teacher, I’ll leave you with this---a poem I haven’t read since high school that ran through my head on a loop as I made Max Medina’s Osso Buco for two: 

I love the sound of the bone against the plate and the fortress-like look of it lying before me in a moat of risotto, the meat soft as the leg of an angel who has lived a purely airborne existence. And best of all, the secret marrow, the invaded privacy of the animal prized out with a knife and swallowed down with cold, exhilarating wine.

--Billy Collins, "Osso Buco"

Osso Buco is romantic. It's also outrageously easy. And fancy! And exciting! And marrow! As always, feel free to substitute like crazy. The substitutions you can make here are:

Different wines

Different vegetables

Different broths 

Why does my osso buco have a giant handful of kale stems instead of celery? Because I save every little bit of everything and turn it into something else. These were a delicious surprise--they practically melted in the rich broth. Everyone serves osso buco with risotto which I'm sure would be delicious, and if you're looking for a good risotto recipe, Sookie St. James and I have you covered. I served this with rice, roasted kabocha squash, and pumpkin seed parsley pesto, mixed together and topped with bread crumbs and parmesan and baked at 375F for 20 minutes.

Max Medina's Easy Osso Buco for Two 

Based on Fine Cooking's Slow-Cooker Osso Buco

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Two 1-1/2- to 2-inch-thick veal shanks  

Kosher salt and black pepper

1 Tbs. unsalted butter

1/2 cup white wine

One cup canned diced tomatoes

1/2 cup lower-salt chicken broth

1 large shallot, chopped 

1 medium carrot, cut into small pieces

1/2 cup chopped kale stems

1 tablespoon dried rosemary 

Pour flour, salt and pepper on to a wide shallow plate. You want enough space to dredge both shanks in the flour mixture. Dredge the shanks on both sides and shake off the excess flour. 

Heat butter in a 12 inch skillet on medium heat until it foams. Add meat and brown both sides of each shank---this should take about 10 minutes.

Transfer shanks to your dutch oven. Add wine to the skillet and scrape any yummy burnt bits off of the pan. Pour the wine and bits into the dutch oven. Add tomato, broth, rosemary and veggies.

Cover dutch oven and put on your burner on low heat. Cook for three hours. The meat should be so tender that it falls off of the bone. 

Max Medina's Osso Buco is our second reader request---thanks iscahmckrae.tumblr.com for the idea! Do you have a Gilmore Girls recipe request? Drop me a line at @gourmetgilmores on Twitter. 

[gourmetgilmores]

Gilmore Girls Ep10 S1: Lorelai's Favorite Apple (Pop) Tarts

“Forgiveness and Stuff” is already a real “Get out your Kleenex and get ready for FEELINGS” Gilmore Girls episode.

After Emily and Lorelai’s post-Chilton-dance squabble, Lorelai is uninvited from her family’s Christmas party. But Lorelai’s absence is overshadowed when Richard collapses halfway through the party and is rushed to the ER. The Gilmores, and Luke, gather at the hospital to sort out their family relationships and face their patriarch’s mortality and track down a cup of vending machine coffee. It is wrenching stuff, made more wrenching by the passing of Edward Herrmann (the actor who portrayed Richard Gilmore) last week.

“Forgiveness and Stuff” features two of my favorite Richard Gilmore scenes. They are brilliant, and they will momentarily shatter you. So get out the Kleenex, and don’t worry---we’re skipping the culinary disaster that is the Santa Burger and heading right to comforting buttery apple (pop) tarts.

I swear, they’ll put you back together.  

1. Richard is trying to tell Emily where she can find his will, where she can find everything she would need to find if this whole terrible evening doesn’t work out. Richard is trying to tell her he might die, and she is refusing the whole concept. A woman who needs her candlesticks six inches apart and her cheeses bagged separately is not going to let something silly like mortality or health run the show. She insists that she gets to go first, and his big stoic face turns tender. “Yes Emily," he says. "You may go first.”

2. He’s lying in the hospital bed with his eyes closed and Lorelai is hovering, wanting to say whatever hasn’t been said yet, whatever might need to be said before he’s gone. To say it of course, to have a conversation beyond perfunctory small talk and mild snipping, is to admit the possibility that he’s not going to make it. He opens his eyes. They stare at each other and his face softens, shade by shade, waking up and changing and acknowledging what’s happening, what has happened, what could happen. Emily and Rory bustle in. He smiles. So does she. He breaks your heart in half with no words. 

Throughout this truly heavy Gilmore Christmas, there is one shining light: apple tarts. Emily Gilmore's famous apple tarts are the highlight of every Christmas party, the one thing Lorelai looks forward to all year...and misses because she's banned from Christmas. Man, this is a tough episode. Did I mention Jane Lynch shows up halfway through?

Fun. 

These are buttery, cinnamon-laced, warm apple stuffed tarts that even kitchen-inept Lorelai could whip up in the face of lost family Christmas invitations. And in honor of the apple tart lover who missed her favorite treat, I made them into pop tarts, a Gilmore Girls breakfast/snack/movie night staple. 

Lorelai's Favorite Apple Pop Tarts

 Ingredients

Two Braeburn apples

Two tablespoons ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon blood orange juice

1 package puff pastry, defrosted

1 pinch of salt 

Lets make this easy and start with a couple recipe notes:

You don't have to use a Braeburn apple, but use something crisp and flavorful, and preferably a little sweet. This recipe uses a minimal amount of sugar because a good apple, especially when combined with cinnamon and cooked, will release its own natural sweetness that tastes way better than gobs of sugar (as much as I love gobs of sugar). 

Feel free to replace the blood orange juice with any citrus juice---orange or lemon would work nicely here. You can also substitute brown or white sugar for the dark brown sugar. 

Since so much of the tart is puff pastry, I like to splurge on DuFour, which is super buttery and has a great texture. But, come on---puff pastry is always good. Use whatever you like.

Preheat your oven to 375F. Chop your apples into small, thin pieces. You don't have to be too precise and don't worry about keeping the pieces uniform. Cook the chopped apples, cinnamon, dark brown sugar, citrus juice, and salt over medium heat until the apples soften---about 10 minutes. Remove apples with a slotted spoon so that they're separated from the leftover liquid.

Place the puff pastry on to a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and divide it into eight even pieces, as pictured above. Divide the apple mixture between the top four pieces. 

Close the pop tarts and seal the edges with a fork.

Drizzle a little citrus juice across the tops of the tarts and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Bake for 15-20 minutes. You'll know that they're ready when the tops are golden and puffy. 

Send me your favorite pop tart flavors and favorite Richard Gilmore moments at @gourmetgilmores on Twitter. 

[gourmetgilmores]

Ed Herrmann’s combination of pure charisma plus his distinctive voice lit up any room he entered. He had a gentlemanly manner, a wicked sense of humor, and a sharp wit. He was well-read, interesting, and just plain fun to be around. He had deep respect and love for the craft of acting and led by example. You wanted to be better prepared, or just plain better, because he always was. He brought such humor and humanity to all his work, but I know the character of Richard Gilmore had a special place in his heart. He loved our show and was touched by the enthusiasm of its fans.

--Lauren Graham's tribute to Edward Herrmann

So sad to hear about the passing of Edward Herrmann, our favorite Gilmore patriarch. A talented and brilliant actor, an incredible loss. 

[gourmetgilmores]

There are big, snazzy, pop tart filled things in store for Gourmet Gilmores. We'll see you on January 6th for the apple pop tarts of your dreams/my dreams/these two red-blazered ladies' dreams. Til then, HAPPY NEW YEAR! May your 2015 be as delightful as Rory Gilmore's Season 6 bangs. 

P.S. Cooking up a storm for NYE? Try out one of these beauties:

Mini Chocolate Raspberry Cakes

Pizza Crust Breadsticks 

Pomegranate and Dark Chocolate Winter Shortcake

Sookie's Famous Parmesan Risotto with Prosciutto and Pumpkin Seeds 

Sesame Roquefort Biscuits 

Warm Chocolate Pudding with Toasted Coconut Ginger Granola 

Stars Hollow's Famous Fiesta Burger 

And our frequently-linked-to friends over at Always Order Dessert and Smitten Kitchen are posting lots of splashy NYE recipes too---check them out! 

[gourmetgilmores]

Gilmore Girls Ep9S1: Emily Gilmore's Broiled Cinnamon Banana Toast

How bad could a mashed banana on toast possibly be? In "Rory's Dance," we learn that it's Emily Gilmore's speciality and she makes one for an injured Lorelai. They both have a bite and are disgusted by that little plate of banana smothered carbs---but why wouldn't it be delicious? It looks like childhood food---sweet and comforting. The kind of snack you need for "Rory's Dance" because this episode?

This episode is an emotional rollercoaster.

The Good:

Lorelai and Emily! The moment Lorelai calls her "mommy"! The Barbara Stanwyk bonding!

Rory's impeccably soundtracked first high school dance where she fulfills two of my teen dreams---

Slow dancing to “Fade Into You”...

...and getting walked home by a cute boy while “Thirteen” by Big Star plays. 

The Gahhhh:

The entire last five minutes. Excruciating. Every line between Lorelai and Emily crackles with the kind of anger that can only be sparked by deep, core-shaking fear. And when Rory finally does come home after that dance (but, come on, HOW DID THEY JUST FALL ASLEEP? This whole plotline seemed really unbelievable to me this time around) and Lorelai tells her she's going on birth control? CHILLS. Every time, chills. I sincerely contemplated skipping this whole last bit and just watching the first 45 delightful minutes instead. But then I wouldn't be thoroughly trained for that incoming Richard-in-the-hospital Christmas episode...

Exhausted by "Rory's Dance"? You and me both. This caramelly broiled cinnamon toast, covered in sweet banana slices and toasted coconut, will turn that rattled mood around. 

Emily Gilmore's Broiled Cinnamon Banana Toast

1 thick slice of challah

1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Room temperature butter

Half a banana, thinly sliced

1 teaspoon shredded coconut

Pinch of salt 

The secret to good toast is scoring your slice of bread before you top it. Put small cuts throughout the slice---it doesn't need to be precise, but you could aim for three horizontal lines. 

Spread an even layer of butter across the top of your scored slice of challah, then evenly distribute sugar and cinnamon across the top. Add a pinch of salt. 

Top with banana slices, coconut, and a pinch of brown sugar. Put this in the broiler for six minutes. Check on it at the three minute mark---all ovens are different and while you want this toast to have a bit of a dark, caramelized crust, you don't want it to burn.

Weird fun fact: A mashed banana on toast was also Roald Dahl's specialty. He made it for his grandchildren and the banana was mashed with a tablespoon of olive oil. Sophie Dahl calls it "an acquired taste" in her cookbook Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights.

Drop me a line--send your fancy toast recipes and "Rory's Dance" musings to @gourmetgilmores​ on Twitter. 

[gourmetgilmores]

Gilmore Girls Ep 8, S1: Stars Hollow Fiesta Burger

Before we get to the all important Stars Hollow Fiesta Burger magic, lets play a quick game of Remember When.  

Remember when Dean liked Nick Drake and Hunter S. Thompson and dabbled in a little Jane Austen, instead of just saving up for a motorcycle and having floppy hair and being the anti-Jess? 

Remember when Jenji Kohan, creator of Weeds and Orange Is The New Black, was a Gilmore girls producer?

Remember when Stars Hollow had a mayor, before Taylor Dose became town dictator? 

Remember when Emily Gilmore had a sister named Hopie, who lived in Paris and worked as a professional Marion Cotilard look alike, who we never hear about again? 

Remember the Fiesta Burger? 

The Fiesta Burger! The outrageously tongue-numbingly spicy third wheel on Lorelai and Max's first date. Doled out of a tiny window where it seems to be the specialty, served up to a happy snow-covered Max and Lorelai, devoured and incessantly remarked upon for the rest of the episode. It's here. It's delicious. It's our first reader request!

@gourmetgilmores - if you take suggestions, i submit for your approval: the fiesta burger.

— jeshface (@jeshface)

December 10, 2014

It's a hot Italian sausage burger, flecked with peperoncini and peppadews, and stuffed with gooey melting Monterey Jack cheese. The whole operation is topped off with caramelized onions spiked with harissa and cayenne, served on a lightly pan fried bun.

Warning: it may get this song stuck in your head. Or set off the fire alarm for your whole building. Or both, if you're me.    

Stars Hollow's Famous Fiesta Burger (Serves 4)

Caramelized Cayenne Harissa Onions

1 red onion

1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon harissa

1 teaspoon olive oil

Salt

Cut your onion in half vertically, then slice each half into thin crescent moon pieces. The shape is not important, but the thinner and more petite your onion slices, the quicker it will caramelize. 

Put the onion, olive oil, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and salt in a covered pot over medium heat. Stir the onions with a fork every two minutes. When they start to reduce and get sticky, turn the heat down to low and stir in the harissa. Briefly stir the onions every two minutes for the next 15 minutes, or until the onions are completely sticky and reduced. Turn off heat but keep covered until you're ready to use them. 

Fiesta Burger

3 hot Italian sausages, casing removed

2/3 lb. ground beef (I used 85/15, but you could go leaner)

5 peperoncinis, sliced thin

5 peppadews, sliced thin

2 tablespoons Monterey Jack cheese per burger

4 hamburger buns

1 tablespoon of Greek yogurt or sour cream per burger

Hot sauce

1 avocado

1 tomato

Salt 

Combine ground beef, italian sausage, sliced peperoncinis and sliced peppadews. It will resemble this peppered raw meat mixture in the picture above. 

Divide and flatten the meat mixture into eight patties. Layer the cheese on the center of the patty, then cover it with a second patty and pinch the edges so that the cheese isn't visible. 

Cook hamburgers on a greased pan or griddle. Or grill them if you live somewhere that's not rainy and cold and you have a grill, you lucky kid. I cooked mine on a griddle, about six minutes each side. DON'T FLIP MORE THAN ONCE says every hamburger recipe ever. 

Guys, I flipped more than once. 

Don't judge me. 

I also added a little salt to both sides of the burger so that it had this out of control salty sausage crust texture. Then I split open the hamburger buns and swooshed them around in the hamburger cheese grease and briefly fried them. It looked like this:

Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Then I loaded it up. I topped that salty spicy burger with a glistening tangle of spicy caramelized onions. I slathered the other side in greek yogurt with a drizzle of hot sauce and piled on avocado and tomato. 

At some point during all of this I set off the fire alarm for my entire apartment building. 

Worth it. 

Do you have a reader request? Do you know what happened to Hopie? Are you secretly flipping your burgers more than once? No judgement here. Drop me a line at @gourmetgilmores on Twitter. 

[gourmetgilmores]

Ep7, S1: Dark Chocolate and Chocolate Covered Caramel Biscotti

So, want to reduce drama in your life? Want to improve your relationships, or just maintain the ones you still have? Want to act like a normal considerate semi-adult and not like a sneak with something to hide?

Tell people stuff. Not everything, sure. But some things. Things that you don’t need to hide. Things that become problematic only because you’ve hidden them.

Start here: Tell your mom about your totally reasonable and appropriate boyfriend.

No one follows this rule on the Gilmore girls. But if they did, we’d see some mother/daughter relationships thaw fast. Lane, tell your mom about Henry Cho! Lorelai, tell your parents that you’re engaged to Max Medina! And that you’re dating Digger Styles! And…we could go on with this Lorelai list for the next several recipes,  so lets stop here and get to the daughter with something to hide in Episode 7.

Rory, tell your mom about Dean. You live in a town the size of a thumbtack. You kissed in a super public place (and in a good aisle). You tell her everything. Everything! And maybe if you'd told her...

...your mom wouldn't invite that brand new boyfriend over and chaperone your first date...

...he wouldn't get harassed by your wacky neighbors, and then...

...sit through a harrowing Lorelai lecture where his safety is threatened and his lemon handling skills are questioned. (Also Rory can't get on his motorcycle, but he can give her A CAR? More on this...way later.) 

So get back to basics! Tell people perfectly reasonable things that you would probably tell them anyway, or suffer the weird consequences. And if you need a get-back-to-basics guide, Mark Bittman is your man. 

He's my go to whenever I have an idea for a recipe, but need to figure out the basic backbone of the dish. At the end of this episode, after an epic movie binge, Lorelai complains about eating "too many Caramello bars." That complaint lodged in my head. I wanted to pack something with caramel and chocolate and candy. A cookie? A brownie? A little too back-to-basics. I wanted something different. Something that would give you permission to enjoy a morning sugar rush, something that you could pair with the most Gilmorsian drink of all---endless coffee. 

Enter: biscotti. 

Biscotti is fairly easy, very impressive, and--unlike the delicious results of most baking adventures---it lasts for weeks and gets better as it ages. It's also a fun holiday gift. Pawn it off on your friends and neighbors, or horde it for several weeks of AM caffeine and sugar. 

Dark Chocolate and Chocolate Covered Caramel Biscotti

Adapted from How To Cook Everything 

8 tablespoons softened butter

1 1/2 cups of white sugar

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 1/2 cups of all purpose flour 

4 teaspoons baking powder

Pinch of salt

1.5 cups dark chocolate chips

1.5 cups Rolos (or other chocolate covered caramel candy)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine butter and sugar with an electric mixer, then add one egg at a time, followed by the extracts.  Mix flour, salt, and baking powder in another bowl; add slowly to wet batter. Add chocolate and Rolos (don't cut the Rolos in half---they will naturally smash and create a delicious chocolate-caramel-Rolo-ribbon throughout the biscotti. 

Butter and flour a baking sheet. Shape dough into four loaves and bake for about 30 minutes, or until loaves are golden and cracked on top.

Turn the oven down to 250 degrees. Remove loaves from the oven.

When they’re cool enough to touch, slice into 1/2 inch slices with a serrated knife. Be gentle when you're slicing so that the pieces don't split in half. I find that putting the blade on top of the loaf and then applying swift pressure to the top of the blade helps. You don't want to saw here, you just want the knife to go through the loaf quickly and evenly. 

Bake slices for 15 minutes, flipping them once halfway through. Cool on wire racks. 

Have biscotti questions or Dean concerns? Don't we all. Drop me a line at @gourmetgilmores on Twitter and tell me about it. 

[gourmetgilmores]

Ep6, S1: Warm Chocolate Pudding with Toasted Coconut Ginger Granola

Lets just get this out of the way---who else flashed to Jenny Humphrey’s birthday face cake while watching "Rory's Birthday Parties"? Just me? 

Moving on. A couple days ago I got interviewed about this here blog and the reporter asked me about my favorite part of the Gilmore Girls. Ack! Much too hard to choose. As any binge watcher knows, "favorite parts" change with every rewatch, and new gems are uncovered. This time around, my favorite Gilmore bits so far are: 

a) Sookie St. James (when she tries to force a recipe on Lorelai in this episode and is cruelly rebuffed? My lifestyle.) 

b) Lorelai and Emily’s relationship, which consistently breaks my heart and brings me to tears

This episode celebrates Rory’s sixteenth birthday. Sixteen years have passed, Rory is universally adored, Lorelai is doing alarmingly well, and yet the Emily/Lorelai relationship seems to be frozen at the point where a teenage Lorelai moved out with her infant. It’s a two way street---Emily continues to parent Lorelai as though she’s an adolescent who needs constant lessons on manners and breeding, while Lorelai reacts by being petulant and secretive.

I know this is flashing forward, which I’m trying not to do, but I love that they actually lay this all out in “There's The Rub” in Season 2 where Emily explains that she wasn’t raised to be friends with her kid and that’s why they can’t connect. Also a couple episodes before that there's a picnic basket that’s actually ONE BIG GOAT CHEESE FILLED PRETZEL and I’m making that cheese filled pretzel basket, damnit.

If you want a good cry, watch these two scenes from"Rory's Birthday Parties":

Lorelai getting the last word as she leaves Rory’s first party…

 …and Emily’s quiet last words as she leaves Rory’s second party. 

This episode starts with a chocolatey peace offering from Emily to Lorelai: Pudding. She remembers that they like pudding, she serves them pudding even though she hates it, and Lorelai revels in all of the affection and acceptance tucked into this crystal bowl full of chocolate goop.

While there’s no easy fix for that mother daughter relationship, there’s a very easy fix for the lack of pudding in your life because homemade pudding is so easy. Seriously. It is as easy to make homemade pudding as it is to make pudding from a mix, and it’s infinitely more delicious. If your Jello days are over, I’ve just found your new best friend.

  See that glowing amber bit of sticky something floating on top of this bowl of pudding? That is a failed almond and pumpkin seed brittle. I don’t know what it is, I just can’t make candy. It always turns out to be a sticky mess that won’t properly set. If you have good luck in the candy department, here are the two recipes I attempted that could be a great topping:

Cereal brittle via Food Network

Pumpkin seed brittle via Bon Appetit

If you, like me, are tired of wasting perfectly good butter and sugar but still want something crunchy to stir into your warm bowl of chocolatey deliciousness, embrace another hilariously easy recipe: Toasted Coconut Ginger Granola.

I’ve embraced granola on top of sweets ever since I read an offhand mention of granola on ice cream in Cherry Bombe. Now I serve good vanilla ice cream with seedy jam and homemade granola at dinner parties and it’s always a hit. Warm pudding with a crunchy granola topping is a wintery version of this treat. Feel free to mix in whatever you like---I wanted to embrace two of my favorite chocolate pairings here, ginger and toasted coconut. Dried cherries would also be nice. 

Warm Chocolate Pudding (based on Smitten Kitchen's "Best Chocolate Pudding")

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips*

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/8 teaspoon salt

3 cups whole milk

Combine cornstarch, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan on medium low heat. Slowly add milk, one quarter cup at a time. Once the mixture has thickened, add chocolate. Stir for about ten minutes---until mixture has a pudding-like consistency. Serve warm.

Don't be afraid of lumps! There may be a few, but it's okay. Little cornstarch lumps give this pudding more of a rice pudding consistency. I served it to  five people who enjoyed it thoroughly, but if you absolutely hate pudding lumps, you can run this through a fine mesh strainer. 

**Because chocolate chips make up so much of the flavor, it's good to use a high quality chip here. I used a Guittard. Use whichever chocolate chip you trust the most. 

Toasted Coconut Ginger Granola (based on A Cozy Kitchen's "Olive Oil Granola")

Ingredients:

3 cups rolled oats

1 cup shredded coconut

3/4 cup chopped candied ginger

1/2 cup dried currants

1 cup sliced almonds

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup agave

2 tablespoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and stir until dry mixture is lightly coated in agave and olive oil. Bake for 35 minutes on a lined cookie sheet, stirring every ten minutes until granola is toasted and golden.

Throw some on top of your pudding. Eat it for breakfast the next morning. Give it away as a holiday gift (it definitely has a Christmas-y taste). Enjoy!  Let me know how it goes---drop me a line at @gourmetgilmores​,