Cookbook Create

We love Throwback Thursday. Vintage family and childhood photos have become a social media staple, and the more questionable the hairstyle, the better. People love sharing and seeing Throwback Thursday pictures because it gives us a way to preserve our favorite memories and moments in the digital era.

So, in honor of Throwback Thursday, we’re giving you a sneak peek of some accomplished South by Southwest speakers’ favorite recipes from back in the day. These recipes, all featured in The Official SXSW 2014 Interactive Cookbook, demonstrate the role that food plays in our personal histories.

Douglas Rushkoff: Emergency Lactose-Free Vegan Cheesecake Squares

Douglas Rushkoff, one of the world’s leading media theorists, spent most of his childhood sick to his stomach. He was lactose intolerant, but at the time, no one really knew what that was or how to treat it. Finally, in college, Douglas discovered dairy was the culprit—so he stopped eating it.

But then there was cheesecake. He really didn’t want to give up one of his favorite desserts, so he got his innovator hat on and engineered a recipe for lactose-free vegan cheesecake squares.

Total time: 5 minutes

Serves: 16

Ingredients:

1 14.4-oz. package graham crackers

1 8-oz. container Tofutti “cream cheese”

1 12-oz. jar blueberry or strawberry fruit spread

Directions:

1) Remove the crackers from the package and break into individual squares.  Spread a 1/4-inch layer of cream cheese on each cracker and top with a tsp. of your fruit spread of choice.  Repeat ten times, placing each mini-cake onto a plate in an attractive arrangement.  Consume in two bites with your eyes closed.

Kathryn Minshew & Alex Cavoulacos: Bootstrappy Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

In 2011, Kathryn Minshew and Alex Cavoulacos launched The Muse to help job seekers discover companies with a great culture fit. The thing about starting a company is that it can be very hard to find the time to eat, especially during the early bootstrapping days. So Kathryn and Alex relied on a staple from Alex’s mom—warm, filling, and easy-to-make Bootsrtappy Butternut Squash and Apple Soup.

Active time: 15 minutes

Total time: 1 hour

Serves: 8

Ingredients:

1 lb. butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and chopped

3 Granny Smith Apples, peeled, cored, and quartered

2 10 and 3/4-oz. cans condensed chicken broth

1 1/2 c. water

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. rosemary

1/4 tsp. majoram

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

4 oz. heavy cream (optional)

Directions:

1) In a large pot, combine the squash, apples, condensed chicken broth, water, salt, rosemary, marjoram, and pepper.  Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 45 minutes.
2) Blend the soup with an immersion blender or in batches using a blender.  If using the cream, stir it in just before serving.

Meredith Scardino: Scardino Softies

Being sick is never fun, but when you’re a kid it has its benefits, like not having to go to school and getting to watch movies all day. For The Colbert Report writer Meredith Scardino, the major benefit of staying home from school was her mom’s softies. Every time Meredith was sick, her mom would make these yummy, buttery, gooey eggs, a recipe she learned from her father.

Total time: 20 minutes

Serves: 1

Ingredients:

3 large eggs

Pat or 2 of unsalted butter

Pinch of salt

Pinch of ground black pepper

2 slices wheat or rye bread

Directions:

1) Fill a medium saucepan halfway with water and bring to a boil over high heat.  Reduce the heat to a simmer and gently lower the eggs into the water with tongs or a slotted spoon.  Cover and let simmer for 4-6 minutes, depending on how runny you like your eggs.  Remove from the heat and run the eggs under cold water for about 30 seconds.
2) This is the fun part: take a serrated knife and cut each egg in half.  Use a spoon to scoop out the runny insides into a bowl, and smash them into small pieces.  Add the butter, season with the salt and pepper, and server over toast.  Some like the toast cut up into pieces and mixed in, but I’m a purist.  Eat and moan in agony until the pain stops.

See? It’s not just Instagram photos. Sharing recipes from our past is a great way to get nostalgic and reminisce about important life moments.

Share your #TBT recipe now!

The Official SXSW 2014 Interactive Cookbook is available here.

At Cookbook Create, we believe there’s a story behind every recipe. We also believe that South by Southwest Interactive speakers tend to be some of the best storytellers around.

That was the thinking that inspired us to create an official festival cookbook with the help of the SXSW team.  How awesome would it be to hear the stories behind the favorite recipes of the best & brightest in interactive technology? As it turns out, pretty awesome.

Over 100 former SXSW speakers shared their original recipes, including Randi Zuckerberg (Zuckerberg Media/Facebook), Dennis Crowley (Foursquare), Baratunde Thurston (Cultivated Wit/Comedian/Author, How to Be Black), and Frank Warren (PostSecret). From cocktails that glow in the dark to cookies shaped like eagles, the book’s recipes are innovative, diverse, and creative—much like the South by Southwest community itself.
This has been a true labor of love and we’re SO excited to share it with you. The cookbook is now available for pre-order and will also be sold at the SX Bookstore during the festival (March 7-14).  In the meantime, follow us on Twitter and Facebook where we’ll be giving you sneak peeks of some particularly inventive dishes (Ben Parr’s Angel Hair Pasta Eggs Benedict, anyone?).

For as long as I can remember, my mom has made an amazing pumpkin bread. The soft loaf, akin to a pound cake, is studded with dried cranberries and chocolate chips. Eaten as dessert, a snack, or alongside breakfast, this bread is a family favorite. Though I’d love to share that specific recipe with all of you, my mother closely guards that recipe. This year, I’m co-hosting a Halloween party this week with my boyfriend, and need to make a dessert that is finger-food-friendly. So I came up with this “cookiefied” version of my mother’s recipe, and the Pumpkin, Chocolate Chip, and Craisin Cookie was born, a ‘Frankenstein’ cookie, if you will.

Pumpkin, Chocolate Chip, and Craisin Cookie

½ cup unsalted butter
¼ cup dark brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup + 2 Tbsp pumpkin puree
1 and ½  cups all-purpose flour
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
½ Tbsp ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
¼ cup dried cranberries

Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl, minus the chocolate chips and craisins, and sift. Set aside. Melt butter in the microwave, or over low heat on the stove. Combine melted butter with sugars, and stir until there are no lumps. Fold in the pumpkin puree, and mix the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients using a rubber spatula.

Let the batter rest in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes. Using a small scoop or spoon, make small rounds of dough and place an inch apart on a greased cookie sheet.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10-14 minutes. Cool and enjoy with a glass of milk or hot chocolate!

When I think of summer snacks, I am often drawn to dried fruit. I’ll eat it whether it’s mixed with nuts and chocolate for the campy trail mix or on it’s own. My love for dried fruit blossomed when I was around 7 years old. My grandmother would give me fruit leather to chew on after a long day of swimming and running around in the sun and I thought this was the most novel treat to ever be created.

As an adult I monitor sugar for my own benefit, so I switched out leathery goodness for plain dried fruit. It’s just as delicious and I feel a little less jittery after consuming it. One of my personal favorite dried items are currants. They’re almost like mini raisins and they’re very versatile. They go well with yogurt, cereal, and basically any baked good. Taking my basic scone recipe, I added some dried currants I had and a little orange zest for a citrusy kick.

Cream Scones

1/4 cup heavy cream
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
1/4 cup dried currants
1 orange, zested

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir in cream, egg, and vanilla until barely mixed.

Add the butter, and blend with a pastry cutter until it comes together. Hand mix the currants and orange zest in. Be sure not to over-work the dough so your scones aren’t tough. Roll out the dough to a 1/4 inch thickness, and cut to desired shape. I did 1×2 inch rectangles because they’re the easiest shape. Put the scones on a greased baking sheet and brush them with cream, and sprinkle them with sugar.

Bake the scones in the middle of a preheated 350°F. oven for 15 minutes, or until they are golden on top.

As summer rapidly approaches, I get the urge to go blueberry picking. This fruity expedition was a summer staple growing up in my small Massachusetts hometown. My mom and I would charge into the rows of blueberries armed with tupperware containers and scouring for the perfect bunch to pick from. We would emerge a few hours later slightly sunburned, stuffed with blueberries, and feeling highly successful. Usually, with over seven pounds of total berries, we would use half for baking and freeze the rest.

Now that I’m a bit older, I’m usually not around for the annual pick. Luckily, my mom visited me at my apartment recently and brought up a bursting bag of frozen berries and a gorgeous loaf pan. I was so anxious to use my new presents and was definitely craving blueberries. I pulled up an old berry cake recipe and added a few twists. The result is this scrumptious Blueberry Cake. Enjoy!

Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 lemon, juiced and zested
5 large eggs
2 cups cake flour
2 cups blueberries, washed and dried

Place the butter, sugar, lemon juice, and zest in mixer and beat on medium speed with the until light and fluffy. Add in vanilla and eggs in small additions and mix until smooth. On low speed, mix in one-third increments of the flour, beating until smooth after each addition. Scrape bowl with a spatula and beat in the last of the flour. Use the rubber spatula to fold in blueberries. Pour into a 9×13 greased loaf pan.

Bake for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees, or until the cake is well risen and a toothpick removes clean. Cool the cake in the pan for a few minutes, then unmold it onto a rack.

Brown Butter Icing

8 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoons milk

Heat butter in small sauce pan and keep on low heat until a nutty aroma and light brown color occurs. Do not stir the butter, as this will cause it to foam over or splatter aggressively.

Let butter cool. When butter is cooled but soft, add the remaining ingredients and pour over blueberry cake.

Summer is such a perfect time to make memories with food. Do you have any summer activities that you’re really looking forward to this year? What about a recipe you’re excited to make?

The Official 2014 SXSW Interactive Cookbook, produced by Cookbook Create, will be available for sale at the 2014 SXSW Interactive Festival at the SX Bookstore. “SXSW Interactive celebrates massive creativity,” says SXSW Interactive Festival Director Hugh Forrest. “Cooking is one of the many areas where this innovation manifests itself. So compiling a cookbook featuring recipes from some of our most interesting speakers is a great way to show what SXSW is all about.”

This is the first cookbook of it’s kind to celebrate the SXSW community, and it will include recipes from notable speakers who have made major contributions to the development of the SXSW community and interactive technology.

Who Will be Featured in the Cookbook?

The Official 2014 SXSW Interactive Festival Cookbook will include more than 100 exclusive recipes curated from SXSW Interactive’s 8900+ notable past speakers. The cookbook will tell the story of how the SXSW community has evolved to the vibrant festival it is today. Some of these contributing speakers include:

• Tara Hunt author and entrepreneur
• Marc Nager CEO of Startup Weekend
• Lisa Stone co-founder of Blogher
• Baratunde Thurston author of How to be Black
• Amy Webb author of Data A Love Story

When will the SXSW Official Cookbook become available?

The book will be availble for pre-sales on July 1st, 2013, and will also be availble for sale at the SXSW Festival bookstore in 2014.

I have a confession to make. I’m obsessed with brownies. Specifically, warm brownies with an ice-cold glass of milk, and brownies swirled in with my ice cream. They’re a great pick-me-up after a bad day, a delicious snack, and a party dish that will make you the favored guest or host. They even make a great breakfast if you’re into that sort of thing, because I am.
This past weekend, I went out to Long Island with a friend with big plans of kayaking, horseback riding, wine tastings, and nights spent around a fire pit. Instead, mother nature treated us to days of cold and wet weather. After making a brownie batter, I decided I wanted to add something a little tart. I whipped up a basic cheesecake base and added dollops of it to the brownie mix and put it in the oven. As the warm smells of chocolate and cheese filled the kitchen and I began to dry off, I felt better about the rainy day.
Happy eats!

Cheesecake Brownies

Brownie

1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 ounce bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup all-purpose flour

Cheesecake

8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Melt butter and chocolate over a double boiler on the stove or gently in the microwave. Transfer to a larger mixing bowl and stir in sugar, and then gradually the eggs and vanilla extract. Mix until smooth. In two additions stir in the flour, mixing well. Pour into a greased pan.

In a mixer, whip together all ingredients for cheesecake, mixing until smooth. Make sure there are no lumps. With a spoon, dole out cheesecake batter on top of the poured brownie mix.

With a knife or toothpick, swirl the batters vertically and horizontally, creating a pattern. Bake in an oven at 350º for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick can be inserted and removed cleanly.
Cut into whatever sized pieces you desire and enjoy!

These are definitely my favorite pick-me-up and they’re a great last-minute treat! They also travel well, so they’re an ideal picnic dessert.
When it’s raining out or your stuck indoors, what dish do you crave the most? It is savory or sweet?

On May 22, as a part of Internet Week NYC, Cookbook Create hosted a Food Tour which brought a selected set of East Coast bloggers on tours of the test kitchens of Bon Appetit, The Daily Meal, and Food52.

These 13 lovely ladies who joined us were:

Alejandra Ramos
Amie Valpone
Caroline Hurley
Carrie Vibert
Daina Falk
Diana Kuan
Heidi Bayer
Jennifer Farley
Kimberly Coleman
Lisa Scotto
Mary Frances
Melinda Strauss
Sloane Miller
and Jennifer Pelka from Tumblr got the chance to not only view these kitchens, but also speak with key members of each staff. Some of the speakers included Adam Rapoport, the editor-in-chief Bon Appetit, Amanda Hesser & Merrill Stubbs, the founders of Food52, Jackie Stone, Senior Vice President of Marketing at The Daily Meal and Spanfeller Media and, Colman Andrews, Editorial Director at The Daily Meal and Spanfeller Media
They even tasted a few recipes that were being worked on in the kitchens.

As part of Internet Week, KitchenAid and The Daily Meal generously donated a shiny, new 7-quart KitchenAid stand mixer to be given to one of the bloggers.

As a contest, we asked the bloggers who attended to submit their top post from the event that had the highest amount of engagement with their readers. Everyone was busy all day tweeting, live-blogging, Instagraming, and Facebooking about their experiences in each kitchen.

Although it was a close call, the winner is Kimberly Coleman of Foodie City Mom!! Here’s her winning post!

Congratulations Kimberly, and thank you to every single blogger who shared in the great day with us!

If you could tour one food publication’s kitchen, which one would it be? What would you want to see the most there?

Roasted Eggplant with Bulgar Salad adapted from “Chermoula Eggplant with Bulgar and Yogurt” via the Jerusalem cookbook.

There’s lots of reasons to love spring like enjoying drinks at sidewalk cafés or strolling through parks in the late afternoon. But, my favorite springtime ritual is trying out new seasonal recipes.

Mediterranean dishes are the perfect springtime meal because they’re full of flavor but not dense enough to weigh you down. The combination of citrus and herbs gives it tons of flavor and the meatiness of the eggplant makes it hearty enough to serve for dinner. However, if you’re the type of person that cringes at the thought of eating a meal without some type of protein, you can always make the bulgar salad as a side dish and serve it with any meat of your choice.

The salad will last a few days, but it’s best to serve the eggplant immediately. Make it for a few friends and then have the leftover salad for lunch the next day. The salad is even better after the flavors meld overnight.

Roasted Eggplant with Bulgar Salad

Eggplant

2 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 tsp. cumin
½ tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. chile flakes
1 tsp. cardamom
2 tbsp. preserved lemon peel, chopped
1 cup olive oil
2 eggplants, halved lengthwise

Bulgar Salad

1 cup bulgar
1/3 cup currants
1 handful cilantro, chopped
1 handful mint, chopped
1/3 cup green pitted olives, chopped
1/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted
2 green onions, sliced diagonally
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
½ cup Greek yogurt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. To make the chermoula sauce, whisk together first six spices along with 2/3 of olive oil and preserved lemon. Prepare the eggplants by scoring each half so that the sauce can soak into the flesh.

Place the eggplant on a sheet pan with the skin side facing down. Pour the chermoula sauce evenly over each half so that it gets into the scores. Roast for 40 minutes or until eggplant is easily pierced with a fork.

While the eggplant is roasting, place the bulgar in a large bowl and cover with 2/3 cup of boiling water. Let sit for 10 minutes.

Add the currants, 1/3 cup olive oil, herbs, olives, almonds, green onions and lemon juice and season with salt and pepper.

Spoon the bulgar salad over each eggplant half, leaving a small border around the edges. To finish, add a few dollops of yogurt to the top and sprinkle with cilantro and mint.