Blue cheese is one of those things that either you love or you hate. Good quality blue cheeses have a strong flavor, to say the least. Smoked blue cheese has an even stronger flavor still, with the tanginess of the cheese and the strong, smokey flavor that I associate with barbecue. I have had a package of smoked blue cheese sitting in my fridge for quite some time (courtesy of Harry and David, and well-wrapped for fairly long term storage, as cheeses go.) and, while I like blue cheese, I haven’t been tempted to eat it on its own. While preparing a batch of chili - which had a nice smokey flavor itself - the idea to incorporated the smokey, smelly cheese into some cornbread.

Cornbread has a mild flavor that buffers the strength of the cheese nicely. You can still taste the cheese clearly, but you also get a nice flavor of corn and butter, thanks to the buttermilk in the recipe. I really like the crumbly and slightly rough texture that this cornbread has. I think it provides a nice contrast to the creaminess of the cheese (especially when the cheese is still slightly warm). It also means that the cornbread, while it slices easily, it crumbles well into chili and soups.

If you don’t have smoked blue cheese, you can use regular blue cheese. You can also use a smoked, non-blue cheese if you prefer to start with a slightly less stinky cheese to begin with.
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Once zucchini come into season, they try to take over. They overrun gardens, markets and refrigerators. Fortunately, they are very versatile and can be prepared in a variety of ways. You can add them to all kinds of savory dishes, from sides of roasted vegetables to soups. And, just like carrots (and lettuce!), zucchini has a mild enough flavor and texture that it can be a great addition to sweet dishes, too.

Zucchini adds a lot of moisture to a sweet quick bread like this Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread. To be honest, even though this is considered to be a quick bread because it is loaf-shaped and doesn’t really need any frosting, this is more of a cake. It is just sweet enough and has loads of chocolate flavor. One of the advantages to calling it a “bread” is that you can get away with serving it at breakfast or brunch, with tea or coffee, and don’t have to feel guilty about getting a chocolate fix early in the day. That said, it makes a great, easy dessert, too.

I like to throw a bunch of chocolate chips into this bread, as they make it even more chocolaty. If you’d rather have a little more texture, you can also stir in some walnuts or pecans, too.

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One of my favorite quickbread recipes is the Coconut Bread from bills, Bill Granger’s restaurant in Sydney, Australia. It’s one of those recipes that works so well as-is that I am never really tempted to stray from making the recipe just as it is written. So, when I had the idea to add some lemon flavor into the bread for a really bright and spring-like loaf, I had to give myself a little pep talk. I knew that the lemon and coconut combination would be delicious, I just didn’t want to miss out on the original. I solved my problem by making both.

I added lemon to this bread in two ways: fresh lemon juice and lemon zest. There is enough to give the loaf a really fresh taste, but not so much that it overpowers the flavor of the coconut. The bread is somewhat dense, primarily because of the large amount of coconut in the batter, but it is still tender and not heavy at all. The coconut also contributes a nice chewiness and moistness to the bread. You can use sweetened or unsweetened coconut in this recipe. I usually use sweetened, shredded coconut, and the finished loaf is never too sweet or cake like, so don’t worry about ending up with something too sweet with the use of sweetened coconut.

This bread is excellent on its own, but it also slices and toasts very well. I think a thick, toasted piece with butter is a great breakfast or snack - and this just happens to be the way that the original bread is served for breakfast at bills.

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A simple biscuit is such a great addition to any breakfast or dinner. Most biscuits I come across are made with white flour, either an all purpose flour or a cake flour (or other low-protein flour) in the hopes of producing the most tender biscuit. While I would never turn down a perfectly made biscuit, it is nice to know that you can still make delicious biscuits using whole grain flour without sacrificing taste or texture.

I used white whole wheat flour for these biscuits. It is much closer to all purpose flour than regular whole wheat flour, which tends to produce heavy and somewhat crumbly biscuits. I used plenty of butter and buttermilk, and came out with a biscuit that had a great buttery flavor and lots of flaky layers. It was still a little bit heartier than a plain biscuit might be, but the fact that it is made up of whole grains makes up for it.

The best way to make biscuits is to rub in the butter by hand, using your fingertips. This gives you lots of control over the size of the chunks of butter. Aim to have most of them around the size of large peas. Larger butter pieces (not huge, of course, but quite a bit larger than “wet sand”) result in a flakier biscuit. After you stir in the buttermilk, knead the dough on a floured surface a few times to allow some gluten to develop. This helps the biscuit to rise up nicely. And finally, don’t forget to add a bit of sugar into the mix. All whole wheat flour, including white whole wheat, can have a very slightly bitter taste that makes the biscuits taste a little bit too healthy, even with all that butter. Brush the biscuits with a little milk or melted butter before baking to give them a nice golden brown color.

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Soda bread farls are flat breads that are made from the same dough as Irish soda bread, but are cooked in a skillet or on a griddle. They’re triangular and made by shaping the bread dough into a disc and cutting it into quarters before cooking, then cooking each piece individually. The idea is that it is easier to whip up a bread at a moment’s notice if you don’t need to use the oven.

These breads, cooked in this style, are also known as skillet scones, since they tend to look (and taste) like scones. Like scones, they should be served with butter, jam, cream or any other topping you can think of. The name might not ring a bell to some, but it’s actually a pretty common food to encounter if you ever spend some time camping and swapping campfire recipes with other travelers. Just about all camp cooking is done in a skillet, so skillet scone recipes can be quite popular.

The dough is very easy to make, with just a few ingredients: flour, buttermilk, salt and sugar. The sugar can even be omitted if you want a very plain bread, even though there is only a small amount included. While it’s traditional to cut up the scones and the farl dough before cooking, I find that it is much easier to cook the dough whole and cut it up once it is done. This makes it much more tender and moist inside, while  the smaller pieces can sometimes dry out as they cook. It is also a little easier to tell when the big bread is done, as you can easily press the sides to see if the bread springs back into place before taking it from the heat. It takes about 8-10 minutes on a side, and the only thing you need to look out for is over-browning should your pan get too hot. Medium-high heat generally works the best.

The finished bread has a good buttermilk flavor and there is just the right amount of salt and sugar to make it interesting. It is a little on the dense side, like all soda breads, but has a nice tight crumb and a relatively tender crumb. The top and bottom crusts turn out to be crisp when the bread is fresh and make a nice contrast to the moister, softer interior. I think the bread is best on the first day, but if you store it in an airtight container, it’s still good the second. Usually if I have leftovers, I end up slicing the bread in half crosswise and toasting it before eating.

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Most muffin recipes make a dozen muffins. Sometimes I can get through the whole dozen - with a little help, of course - and sometimes I just can’t. Leftover muffins are usually good for a day or two, but most don’t hold up well longer than that. One solution is to freeze them when they are fresh and defrost them when you want to eat them. Another solution is to make muffin biscotti with the leftovers.

I made these by slicing up muffins thinly and baking them at a low temperature until they were dry and crisp. They don’t  get quite as crispy as regular biscotti, but still crisp enough to dunk into a cup of coffee! The center slices make the best biscotti, but you can slice the ends and toast them up to get the most bang for your muffin.

This little trick works best with muffins that don’t have too much fresh fruit in them - especially if that fruit is some type of juicy berry - simply because they will crisp up better that way. It’ll still work with fruitier muffins, they just won’t have quite the same finished texture as those that are without.

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