The Bibliophile Baker

Quirky Bookworm

2011-11-14T14:32:00.000-08:00

If you happen to stumble across this blog, and wonder "whatever happened to Jessica?"...

the answer is I'm now blogging at Quirky Bookworm!

Go check it out.

Best Books of 2010

2011-01-08T07:55:00.000-08:00

I really love this man.

In case you don’t know who he is, he’s Bill Bryson, arguably my favorite nonfiction writer. I always swore that I would name my first son Bryson after him, and actually I seriously considered putting Bryson on the boys’ list when we were coming up for names for Eleanor, but it joined the annoyingly trendy Jaden/Braden/Bryson/Mason crowd, so it had to go.

Anyway, Bryson finally had a new book out last year, At Home: A Short History of Private Life, and it is hands-down my pick for best nonfiction book I read in 2010. It’s quite different than other books of his I’ve read— it’s a sampling of an astounding range of topics, Victorian poorhouses to the 17th century spice trade to 18th century wigs to American millionaires to why British people don’t use ice cubes to how many dust mites live in your pillow. The book is grouped into chapters by rooms in his house; “The Dining Room” is a history of food, crops, and dishes. “The Stairs” is a history of architecture, “The Bedroom” a history of social interactions and sexual mores, etc. A fantastic book.

Other honorable mentions for nonfiction: The Know-it-all by A.J. Jacobs (he decides to read through the entire Encyclopaedia Brittanica in one year—hilarious factoid overload ensues) and The Imperial Cruise: A True Story of Empire and War by James Bradley (a history of American expansionism into Latin America and Asia. A fascinating read, but the rampant racism of Roosevelt and Taft is hard to stomach sometimes).

Fiction is a lot harder to pick for me, probably because 84 of my 105 books were fiction. The most engrossing book I read all year was definitely The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson; I read it all in one day, and then promptly ordered the next 2 books in the trilogy on Amazon as soon as I was done. Lisbeth Salander, the main character, is a tattooed, antisocial, bisexual, 4’11” hacker who rides a motorcycle and has a photographic memory. She’s one of the most amazing and unique fictional characters I’ve ever encountered. But, I hesitate to make it my book of the year, because the language is really rough, and the sexual violence described is horrifying.

Hm. Ok, I’m gonna call it a four way tie for best fiction of the year.

1. The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson (see above).

2. False Colours by Georgette Heyer (this feels slightly like cheating since it was a re-read, and Heyer is my favorite author, but I hadn’t read it in more than five years, so it counts!). Set in Georgian England it tells the tale of Kit and Evelyn Fancot, who are twins. Evelyn is engaged to Cressida, a lovely young lady, Kit has returned from serving as a diplomat because of unease about his twin, and the twins’ mother has run up a lot of debt. Hijinks ensue, Austenesque minor characters abound, and the dialogue is Heyer at her witty best.

3. Speaking of Austen, Emma by Jane Austen is third on my list. (Somehow I had never read this—or I read it so long ago that I don’t remember it). Miss Emma Woodhouse is a schemer, who has the best intentions of matchmaking those around her…although somehow her plans always go awry…

4. The Shetland Quartet by Ann Cleeves. Raven Black, White Nights, and Red Bones are the only 3 published so far. These are excellent mysteries, starring the emininently likeable Detective Jimmy Perez, who goes about solving crime in the tiny, insular society of the Shetland Islands. The imagery in these novels is so vivid that I really want to visit the Shetlands now. I can’t imagine living somewhere so far north that it never gets dark in summer, or somewhere where there are no trees for that matter.

All right, there you have it, my book picks for 2010. If you’re only going to read one off each list, I’d say go for At Home and False Colors.

Baby oh baby

2010-09-23T12:40:00.000-07:00

I haven't done much baking since I last posted. I have a tiny excuse.

I'm still reading a lot though (since I read while feeding the tiny excuse, and she eats A LOT). So maybe one of these days I'll get around to writing some more book reviews. In the meantime, hope you can find some delicious recipes elsewhere!

Hiatus

2009-05-26T17:16:00.000-07:00

The blogging thing has felt like more of a chore to me than anything else lately. So I think I'm gonna give it a break. I may pick it up again, I may post recipes or book reviews here and there, but for now, don't count on new posts!

If you're looking for other food blogs to read, I really enjoy Orangette, The Wednesday Chef, and Everybody Likes Sandwiches.

Or if you're looking for book reviews, I recommend Goodreads, it's really easy to create a profile and then review/read other reviews of books.

My latest book recommend, by the way, is A Homemade Life, by Molly Wizenberg, the genius behind the aforementioned Orangette. A Homemade Life is basically a collection of essays, similar to her blogposts, that chronicle Molly's journey through childhood, adolescence, the death of her father, and the meeting and marrying of her husband. Food has always been integral in her life (she even met her husband through her blog!) and so each chapter involves a description of foods that she remembers being enjoyed at various points of her life. At the end of each chapter is a recipe--some of which sound completely delicious! I highly recommend the book, and some of the recipes! Her lemon yogurt cake has become a staple of mine.

Good reading and eating!

Taco Pizza!

2009-05-14T20:03:00.000-07:00

As you've probably noticed, pizza is my favorite food. But running a close second (or third, if you count doughnuts as a food) is tacos. Mmmm....tacos....

So tonight I decided to combine the two to make Taco Pizza! Ok, really, it was kind of like a Mexican Pizza from Taco Bell, but much tastier. And probably much healthier now that I think about it. Basically this was a result of my having leftover taco meat and leftover lavash bread on hand. But it worked really well, and it was a really quick dinner. So give it a shot!

Taco Pizza

2 lavash flatbreads (mine were about 10 x 7 inches)

1/2 lb lean ground beef

1/4 cup diced onion

1/2 cup diced bell peppers

2 teaspoons garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon cumin

salt to taste

1 cup shredded cheddar or jack cheese (I used 2% fat and it worked really well)

1 cup fat free refried beans

1/4 cup salsa

2 tablespoons Catalina dressing (or taco sauce if you want to go spicier)

Place the lavash on a large cookie sheet and bake for about 5 minutes at 350 degrees, or until lightly crispy.

I used leftover taco meat to make these a speedy meal, but if you're starting from scratch cook the bell peppers, onion, and beef together in a medium skillet until the beef is no longer pink and the veggies are slightly soft. Season the beef/veggie mixture with the garlic, cumin, and salt.

Meanwhile microwave the refried beans in a small bowl for about 30 seconds until they're warm. Stir in the salsa and dressing/sauce to thin the beans out for a more "sauce-like" consistency. Spread the bean/salsa mixture over the lavash, evenly covering them in a thin layer. Sprinkle each pizza with 1/4 cup of cheese. Then divide the meat and veggies evenly between the two pizzas. Finish by sprinkling the top of each pizza with another 1/4 cup of cheese.

Bake the pizzas at 350 degrees for about 7-8 minutes, or just until the cheese starts bubbling. Cut into squares, and enjoy! Serves two...or maybe four people with small appetites!

Confessions of a TV Addict

2009-05-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. I haven't read in almost 2 weeks. I made 3 birthday cakes--but forgot to take pictures of any of them.

They were delicious though: one cherry garcia chocolate cake (mentioned in the last post), one blackberry-lemon yogurt cake, and one vanilla pound cake with chocolate ganache. I'm pretty sure the blackberry-lemon cake was the best, but you'll just have to use your imaginations because I have no pictures to prove their deliciousness. Well, not that pictures can really prove taste anyway, but I feel that pictures help at least.

There is one reason, and only one, for all my distractedness/ lack of reading attention span. It's called Battlestar Galactica. I love love love love love it. I have no qualms with admitting that I am completely addicted. In the last 3 weeks Noel and I have watched more than 30 episodes of it!

In case you haven't ever watched it, the basic plot is this: humans created Cylons (robots) who rebelled against them, and launched a nuclear attack which wiped out all but about 50,000 people. These people are in a fleet of spaceships, attempting to evade the Cylons, under the protection of the Battlestar Galactica.

Oddly enough, when I type it out that way, it looks ridiculous. But I promise that it's not really about the aliens, or the spaceships. It's about the struggles of the humans attempting to survive: their alliances, their problems, their struggles, their attempts to survive. And plus, I'm kind of in love with one of the Viper fighter pilots! So anyway, at some point I may read a book again, or remember to take pictures of something I baked, but in the meantime I still have forty-odd episodes of Battlestar Galactica to enjoy. I'll keep you posted.

Noel's Birthday (again!)

2009-05-02T18:10:00.000-07:00

It's Noel's 28th birthday today!

I made him this cake.

And I realized that I blogged about Noel's birthday last year. Which means that I've been doing this blog for more than a year! I obviously failed to take advantage of my opportunity to write a year in review post. Oh well, I think I'll manage just fine with another slice of the cake and another episode of Battlestar Galatica with my 28 year old husband...

Happy Birthday!

Butter and Sugar Galore: Jam Filled Butter Cookies

2009-04-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

Growing up I loved these sugar cookies that my grandma would make. They were big and sweet, and had a little thumbprint filled with jam right in the middle. I would nibble around the edge of the cookie closer and closer until I got to the delicious jammy part right at the end.

I tried to recreate those cookies this week, but they didn't come out quite the way I was expecting. Before being baked they were soft and round, like in the picture below, and I was expecting them to come out kind of the same, judging by the pictures on the recipe I found. But instead they came out flat and thin, like in the picture above. They still taste really good though--they're so buttery that they literally melt in your mouth.

They were also a little fragile though, they kept crumbling away if you tried to pick them up by the edges, so you had to kind of balance the cookie on your palm while nibbling at them. I solved that, however, by keeping them in the refrigerator--which was really an excellent decision I think, because they were still flaky and buttery, but much sturdier, and the central jam part tasted better cold. I think that the next time I make these though I'll try one whole egg instead of 2 egg yolks, and see if they come out a little less crumbly.

I had fully intended to do half strawberry and half grape cookies, but when I opened the jar of grape jelly it had lots of little white and green lumps, so I decided to chuck that, and stick with strawberry!! They are really easy to make though--with only a few ingredients, and the thumb-printing, jelly-squeezing part is kind of fun. I don't recommend telling people how much butter is in them though, you wouldn't want people to feel guilty about eating such delicious treats!

Jam Filled Butter Cookies

adapted from allrecipes.com

3/4 cup butter (either use salted butter, or add about 1/4 teaspoon salt if using unsalted butter)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 egg yolks

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup fruit preserves/jam

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla. Mix in the flour a little bit at a time (and the salt, if using) until a soft dough forms. Roll dough into one inch balls; if the dough is too soft to work with at first refrigerate it for 15 to 20 minutes. Place the balls two inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Use your thumb (or maybe a spoon, I tried that though, and the thumb worked way better) to make a well in the center of each cookie.

Fill a ziploc sandwich bag with the jam, and squeeze all the jam into one corner, making sure to let all the air out of the bag. Snip the very tip off the corner of the bag, and use the bag to pipe the jam into the well in the center of each cookie.

Bake for 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees or until the cookies are golden brown around the edges. Let them cool on the pan for several minutes before attempting to move them, they're very fragile! Remove them to wire racks to cool completely, then store refrigerated in an airtight container. Makes about 40 cookies.

Look, this one came out as a heart! Noel and I split it! Awww....

Saved by the Rice Krispie Treat

2009-04-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

A year or two ago I bought some adorable Easter cookie cutters...bunnies, carrots, and the like. The problem is that now I feel like I have to make butter cookies every Easter, so that the cookie cutters don't go to waste. But since I already make butter cookies at Christmas and Valentine's Day, by Easter I'm pretty much ready for a change.

For the last few weeks I've been eyeballing the cookie cutters in frustration, trying to ignore the little voice telling me that I needed to make cookies in order to use them. Last weekend we were having an egg decorating party on Saturday morning, so I figured I should make something dessert-like, and I felt like the cookie cutters were going to mock me if I didn't use them. (Ok, maybe my imagination was running away with me, but I swear they were kind of staring at me from the corner of the counter where they'd been sitting.)

I thought about gingerbread, but that seemed weird and un-seasonal. Jello-jigglers crossed my mind, but while I was reading the back of a jello box to figure out how many packets of jello I needed I accidentally caught a pan of oil on fire and almost burned my house down, so I was too scarred by the memory to mess with the jello. In desperation I started digging through the recesses of my pantry--and found two bags of marshmallows leftover from my Rocky Road Chex Mix extravaganza at Christmas time. In a stroke of genius I decided that bunny shaped Rice Krispie treats it would be--much to my eventual delight, because they were a huge hit!

The marshmallow bag said to use more butter and marshmallows and less rice krispies, and the rice krispie box said to use more cereal and less marshmallows; not surprising I guess since they're each trying to market their own product. Anyway, I combined the two recipes, spread the mixture into a cookie sheet instead of a 9x13 pan, and cut away. I ended up with 20 adorable bunnies, plus a small tupperware full of the delicious scrap bits that the cookie cutter left behind, which Noel and I ate while sitting on the kitchen counter later that night. The rice krispie treats were perfect--sticky, sweet, and a little bit crunchy, plus adorable. And really, who doesn't like have something bunny shaped to bite the ears off of?

After the egg party I made another batch to take to Easter dinner the next day, and then later in the week I made another batch for my work potluck. The last batch was less successful, for three reasons really, (1) I used strawberry flavored marshmallows--no good, stick to the original! (2) I forgot that marshmallows aren't vegetarian, so a lot of people couldn't eat them, and (3) they were competing with homemade angel food cake. Not gonna lie, I totally ate the angel food cake instead of my own cookies!

But, if the competition isn't too stiff, these are the perfect little cookies; both easy and adorable, which is the best of both worlds I think.

Rice Krispie Treat Shapes
courtesy of the cereal box and the marshmallow bag
4 tablespoons butter
10 oz marshmallows (4 1/4 cups of the little guys, 40 individual bigger ones)
6 cups crispy rice cereal

In a large saucepan melt the butter over low heat, and stir in the marshmallows until they're melted and smooth. Meanwhile spray a 14x16 inch baking sheet with cooking spray, and spray a large spatula or wooden spoon (or wait and spray your hands). Once the marshmallows and butter have melted together, remove the pan from the heat, and stir in the rice krispies until they're thoroughly coated. Spread the mixture out in the pan using either a greased spatula, or your greased palms. It's kind of hard to spread the mixture out in a pan that big, so you may have to work at it for a minute to get it all evenly spread out. Once it's evenly spread out, refrigerate the pan for about 10 minutes or until the mixture is lightly set.

Spray a cookie cutter with cooking spray, and cut the shapes out, pressing firmly. With bunnies I got 20, with flowers 22, so you should get between 20-24 I'd say, depending on the size of your cookie cutter. Place the cookies between layers of parchment paper in an airtight container, and let them sit another hour or two to harden a little more, unless of course you like to eat them while they're all gooey and soft. And hey, feel free to eat all the scraps yourself...your family and/or guests will never have to know...

Sex and Intrigue: Circa 1984

2009-04-10T10:51:00.000-07:00

Shooting in the Dark by Carolyn Hougan

This is the second Carolyn Hougan book I've read in the last few months--again a reprint of one of her books from the early 1980s. I think that's what I liked about this book, looking back with a 25 year perspective makes you realize how right she was in a lot of ways. The book tells the story of Claire Brooks, whose husband of 8 years announced he was leaving her as she got ready to go to the dentist. Claire can't face him, so on a whim she buys a plane ticket to Amsterdam. Unbeknownst to Claire, international intrigue is centering on Amsterdam, where a shadowy group of spooks, bankers, and heads of state called Circle Group is meeting to plot the assassination of the Shah.

Claire is stunned by her husband's betrayal, and spends her time drinking too much, and having a sudden affair with a reporter named John Stenner. What neither she nor John Stenner realizes is that life is about to get even more complicated. Stenner is slipped a tape that includes a secretly taped session of the Circle Group meeting, and he and Claire are thrown into a race for their lives as they try and figure out who made the tape and why.

The references in the book are really quite funny--all the Dutch characters keep talking about how inept Carter is and how the USA isn't going to be the dominant world power anymore, and the spy and reporter characters all bemoan how Aghanistan and Iran are not going well, and how it looks like the Soviets are winning. Given some of the countries in the news lately, it seems like Carolyn Hougan was a bit prophetical.

The surprisingly thing about this book is that it's written by a woman. It kind of reminds me of a Tom Clancy book, except that Claire Brooks is obviously not a well-trained spook or anything. It's like Tom Clancy meets chick lit or something--torture, guns, sex, too much alchohol, one night stands, misery over the betrayal of a husband, it's a bit of weird combination, but surprisingly believable. Claire's dazed attempts to figure out who she is without her husband while protecting herself and John Stenner from the mysterious baddies who are after them, actually doesn't seem all that far-fetched. It was a quick, enjoyable read, and if you like Cold War era intrigue I'd definitely recommend it.

Snacker Snocker Snucker: Snickerdoodles!

2009-04-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night we had tickets to the symphony for "Bugs Bunny on Broadway"--a concert where they show Bugs Bunny cartoons on a big screen and the symphony plays the score of the cartoon. It was SO much fun, and I went around all day Sunday singing, "What's up, Doc?" I think maybe this is what inspired me to make Snickerdoodles on Sunday evening, some sort of connection between a childhood pleasure, the Saturday morning cartoons, and a favorite childhood taste, the one, the only, the snickerdoodle!

But before I share my snackable sneak-between-meals snickerdoodle recipe I have to digress for a minute, and ponder the name of the snickerdoodle. At some point in the era of cookie prehistory did someone snicker at the squiggly lines on the tops of the cookies created by the cracking sugar crust? Or did someone just doodle away one day and produce the recipe, which made someone else snicker, because after all, who puts cream of tartar in a cookie? Or because the cookies just taste so good that people snicker joyfully as they eat them?

My encyclopedia of word and phrase origins tells me that 'snicker' is a word meaning 'to laugh', originally from an Essex dialect of English, but sadly there is no entry for snickerdoodle. According to wikipedia though, it might be a corruption of the German word Schneckennudeln, which means "snail dumpling". Since "snail dumpling" sounds like a horrifying creation to me, I think I'll stick with my own etymological ideas.

These cookies are pretty standard as far as snickerdoodles go, I found three different recipes on allrecipes.com that were actually all the same, so I decided it sounded like a nice safe bet. You mix up the dough, which is soft and a little fluffy, roll the dough into little balls, and then the roll the little balls in cinnamon sugar until they're brown and sparkly. After a few minutes in the oven they come out puffy and pale, but after a minute or so out of the oven they deflate and turn a little bit golden brown, leaving a thin, chewy, melt-in-your mouth cookie with the distinctive tang of tartar balanced by the spiciness of cinnamon and the sweetness of sugar. I think maybe it's the faint tartar aftertaste that lingers in your mouth that makes it so impossible to eat just one cookie, because you keep wanting to recreate that irresistible taste in your mouth!

Snickerdoodles
from allrecipes.com

1 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon salt

2-3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375. In a small bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt, and set aside. Cream together the shortening and sugar until well-blended, then beat in the eggs. Add the flour mixture to the shortening and egg mixture in small increments until all ingredients are well-incorporated and the dough is smooth and fluffy. In a small, steep-sided bowl combine the cinnamon and remaining sugar. Roll small pieces of dough between your palms until they make walnut sized balls, then roll the balls in the cinnamon sugar. Place the cookies at least an inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet, and bake for 7-8 minutes at 375 degrees F. The cookies will be quite puffy and still pale in color when you remove them from the oven. Let them sit on the pan for another minute or two until they deflate, then remove them to wire racks to cool completely.

Once they're cool, store them in an airtight container, preferably with a slice of bread or apple to keep them moist. Keep changing the bread or apple daily, and the cookies should last for up to a week, unless of course you eat a dozen or two while you're baking them, which is easy to do when they're warm and fragrant! This recipe makes about 65-70 cookies depending on the exact size though, so you should have at least a few left.

Superfluous Lemon Bar Pictures

2009-03-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

I realize that just the other day I said that more lemon bar pictures would be redundant, but I forgot that I took these. And I just couldn't let such luscious pictures go to waste! I do have a handy suggestion though, which justifies the superfluousness (superfluosity?). Follow the lemon bar recipe that I gave before, but substitute lime juice and lime zest for 1/3 of the lemon juice and lemon zest. It looks a little creepy at first with the lime zest, like tons of tiny caterpillars in your lemon curd, but once it bakes you can't see the green bits anymore, and it adds a nice zinginess to the lemon bars that lemon juice and zest alone doesn't add. So enjoy looking at these pictures (careful not to drool on your keyboard)--I hope they inspire you to make some lemon bars of your own!

Unmotivation

2009-03-26T17:26:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling rather unmotivated about blogging lately...as you've probably noticed. At some point in the last couple of months it turned from "ooh, fun, I should blog about that" to "it's already been a week since I last blogged, gotta come up with something". I think it's perhaps because I've been in a bit of a culinary rut.

Not that I haven't been making good food...I have...it's just a lot of it is food I've already talked about! Offering pictures of more veggie tacos or more lemon bars or another batch of those addicting crackers just seems redundant.

And I haven't read anything particularly inspiring lately...mostly because I have started watching way too much tv again! But I figure that tv will be over in another month or two, and I'll have all summer to catch up on reading....

So anyway, I apologize for the lack of interesting reading around here lately. I'm going to try to get myself out of this rut...I think I'm going to make biscuits this weekend, and hopefully sometime in the next week or two I'm going to attempt falafel, which I'm pretty excited about! So bear with me...and my overabundant use of ellipses...and hopefully I'll have some new and exciting recipes to try soon!

Favorites: Georgette Heyer

2009-03-18T17:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in the book-snobbish world in which I work, I try to pretend that I don't love Georgette Heyer as much as I do. I mean, after all, she mostly wrote romances. How stultifying and non-intellectual! And the romance part I can't deny, probably 3/4 of her books are romances, with a few mysteries and a few non-fiction histories of Britain's royal family thrown in for good measure. But the thing is, they're good romances! No heaving bosoms or throbbing manhoods or any of the other cliches of the modern bodice-ripper genre, these are much more Jane Austen-esque.

They are true to their era, so much so that some people have a hard time reading them because Heyer uses so much 18th and 19th century slang. Her historical accuracy means that the characters follow the strict rules of propriety that held sway among the members of the ton in the Georgian era so you don't have to worry about what I term "awkward bits", and that as a bonus after reading several of her books you will know all of the answers on the "Georgian Era" category in Jeopardy! I also like how casually Heyer throws French words around in several of the books, apparently writing under the assumption that of course her readers will understand French.

Heyer's books are characterized by a plethora of minor characters who are hilariously annoying, main characters who are witty and erudite, and a convoluted plot that generally ends with two people getting happily married. There are a couple of exceptions to this: in one book the "True Love" marries someone else, and he settles for next-best, and a few of the mysteries and historical books don't have a love story, but generally speaking the books follow a predictable, but still delightful pattern.

This is a list I wrote a couple of years ago on amazon.com, which attempts to sum up my favorite Heyers. The Grand Sophy and False Colours are probably what I would call my two favorites, but it's really difficult for me to narrow it down. Every year I re-read two or three of her books though, and then once I've read them again they usually temporarily shoot up to the top in my estimation for a few weeks.

Speaking of re-reading old favorite Heyers however, brings me to my exciting Heyer news. There is one, and only one, of her historical novels that I have never read. Heyer tried to suppress The Great Roxhythe in the later years of her career, because she was dissatisfied with it. As a result, this Charles II era novel is veeeery expensive online. Two years ago the cheapest one I could find was $250. But luckily a lot of Heyer's books are being reprinted right now, and a relatively cheap hardback edition can now be found for less than $40, hurrah!

So The Great Roxhythe arrived in the mail yesterday, and I greedily opened the package and read the first chapter. And then I had to put the book down because I want to savor it. After all, it's been 14 years since the last 'new' Heyer for me, and this is the last new one ever! Unless she starts publishing from the grave, but since that seems unlikely I'm going to read this slowly. At least that's what I'm telling myself, but I have this Friday off of work, and somehow I'm suspicious that I may end up devouring it all. But either way, I'll let you know how it was.

Lemon Bars: Citrusy Fabulousness

2009-03-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

I adore lemon bars. Lemon desserts are among my favorites: lemon meringue, lemon sorbet, lemon icebox pie, I love them all. But there's something special about lemon bars. Maybe it's because I lived in Texas for so long, I think lemon bars are more of a southern thing, but I really love them. They're sweet and tangy and flaky on the bottom, with just enough powdered sugar on the top to drift all over your lap if you happen to laugh while eating one. They're good warm and sticky, but I love them cold. When they're cold something magical happens: the lemon curd part is still sticky, but it melts in your mouth along with the flaky crust. I highly recommend that you make yourself a pan of these, stick them in the fridge and wait about half an hour, and then devour them!

Lemon Bars

adapted from the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook

2/3 cup butter

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 cup all purpose flour

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

4 tablespoons all purpose flour

1 teaspoon lemon zest

6-8 tablespoons lemon juice (to taste)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

powdered sugar for dusting.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl cream butter and powdered sugar. Beat in the flour till crumbly, press the mixture evenly into a lightly greased 9 x 13 baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 18 minutes, or until lightly golden.

Meanwhile, in a medium mixing bowl combine the eggs, the granulated sugar, the flour, lemon zest, lemon juice, and baking powder. Beat two minutes, until smooth. Pour the filling over the baked layer (while the baked layer is still warm). Bake for 20 minutes, or until center is set and top is just starting to brown. Cool on a rack, dust with powdered sugar, store in refrigerator. Makes 2-3 dozen bars, depending on whether you like them ginormous or regular sized.

Murder in North Korea: Bamboo and Blood

2009-03-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

Set in North Korea in 1997, this book tells the story of Inspector O, a thoughtful and introverted man, trying to maneuver his way through the complicated politics and silences of the North Korean Ministry. The bleak winter reflects the bleak attitude of most of the people in North Korea, who are struggling merely to stay alive while O struggles to discover who killed a woman, when he doesn't even know where or how she died.

His mysterious assignment to discover who killed the unknown woman leads him to New York and Geneva. I feel like the plot gets a bit too convoluted in Geneva, where O's fellow North Koreans diplomats and the Israeli who has been following him are joined by Swiss intelligence, and then the three groups proceed to chase each other in circles while they all try to figure out what O is up to, and he tries to figure out what they're up to.

The glimpse of the poverty and hardship of life in North Korea was gripping though, as was the stark imagery of the winter in Korea and Switzerland. O's obsession with wood, and the feelings that different types of trees can create in him are a part of his thoughtfulness and his careful attention to detail. This attention to detail is reflected both in O's knowledge of what makes a beech different from a maple, and in the way he can see himself in the shoes of those around him, whether they be fellow Koreans, or foreigners. I liked how the characters rarely had names, and those who did have names merely had one, 'Pak', 'O', etc. It made O's humanity in the midst of the obedient North Korean legions all the more apparent.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with "Cream Cheese" Frosting

2009-03-05T18:21:00.000-08:00

So here's the deal. I'd already gone to the store specifically to buy apple cider vinegar, tofu "cream cheese", and soy milk for the vegan cupcakes. I'd then made the cupcakes, and they were merrily baking away while I started mixing the frosting. Then, to my chagrin, I realized I'd used up almost all of the powdered sugar on the lemon bars from the day before. I contemplated going back the store, but I was already in pj pants, and since I can't go to the store without running into nine thousand people from church, I would've had to get dressed again, and well, I decided to experiment.

My handy dandy American's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook told me that I could substitute one cup granulated sugar + one teaspoon cornstarch + a little spin in the blender for one cup of powdered sugar. The cookbook politely said, "Works well for dusting over cakes, less so in frostings and glazes." But did I listen to the cookbook? Nooo....I thought it would totally work to grind up my sugar and cornstarch and then make vegan sour cream frosting with it. Oh well, at least the cupcakes looked good in my cutesy new cupcake caddy.

And the cupcakes themselves weren't that bad, once you got over the crunchiness of the frosting. They were moist, in an almost gummy way, like the other vegan cupcakes I made. I prefer a finer crumb, but they were still had a nice chocolatey flavor. I got mixed reviews about them at work, but the people that didn't like them were merely indifferent, and the people that liked them really, really loved them. So I think all in all, I'd give them one thumbs up.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with "Cream Cheese" Frosting

from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

Cupcakes

1 cup soy milk

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

3/4 cup granulated sugar, preferably raw

1/3 cup canola oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract, or more vanilla

1 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Frosting

1/4 cup vegan margarine, softened

1/4 cup vegan cream cheese, softened

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. For the cupcakes whisk together the soy milk and vinegar and let it curdle for a few minutes. Add the sugar, oil, and extracts, and beat until foamy. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients and beat till no large lumps remain. Pour batter into a lined muffin tin, until cups are about 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into one comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes, then remove the cupcakes to a wire rack and cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting, cream together the margarine and cream cheese until just combined. Beat in the powdered sugar until frosting is smooth and creamy, then mix in the vanilla. Keep the frosting refrigerated if you're not going to frost the cupcakes right away.

This will make one dozen frosted cupcakes, plus an extra few tablespoons of frosting...which you can probably snack on if you actually use powdered sugar, and don't have gritty frosting!

Long Time No Blog: North Korea, Vegan Cupcakes, and Lemon Bars

2009-03-04T06:36:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

Sorry, long time no blog! It's partly a result of procrastination, and partly a result of internet issues at home. And blogging at work seems a little questionable! :)

But I'm reading the book above: it's a mystery set in North Korea in 1997. It's really good so far, I'll keep you posted on my final opinion.

And I made some more vegan cupcakes, which did not turn out so well. The vegans ate them anyway, but they were less than impressed.

I did, however, make some excellent lemon bars with which I have been gorging myself all week, because Noel is out of town and isn't there to help me consume them.

More details will be forthcoming, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die. Bisous!

The Age of Innocence

2009-02-23T20:39:00.000-08:00

Oh Edith Wharton, how I love you.

The Age of Innocence is pretty classic Wharton: amazing characterization, a love story that goes awry, heartrending sadness mixed with satirical observation. Set in high society in New York in the 1870s, The Age of Innocence tells the story of Newland Archer, an up-and-coming young lawyer, who was recently engaged to the fair, serene, and always proper May Welland, and May's cousin, the dark, complicated, and rarely proper Countess Olenska.

Newland Archer was a bit wishy-washy as a main character for my tastes, I thought the two women were much more interesting characters. But by far my favorite parts of the book were the descriptions of May and Ellen Olenska's obese grandmother, old Mrs. Mingott, which were strikingly vivid.

For example, these sentences are taken from a scene where Newland Archer goes to visit Mrs. Mingott shortly after she has had a stroke.

"She merely looked paler, with darker shadows in the folds and recesses of her obesity; and, in the fluted mob-cap tied by a starched bow between her first two chins, and the muslin kerchief crossed over her billowing purple dressing-gown, she seemed like some shrewd and kindly ancestress of her own who might have yielded too freely to the pleasures of the table.

She held out one of the little hands that nestled in a hollow of her huge lap like pet animals, and called to the maid: “Don’t let in any one else. If my daughters call, say I’m asleep.”"

How can you not love someone who can write like that? I feel quite happy that Edith Wharton won the Pulitzer for this book. I must say, so far so good with catching up on the classics I've missed; I've really enjoyed both The Great Gatsby and The Age of Innocence.

New York, New York

2009-02-21T19:15:00.000-08:00

Well we're back. Tired, with a lot of dirty clothes, and a lot of great memories, and more than a lot of pictures.

We did the normal touristy stuff, and ate at some of the normal touristy places, and a few local off-the-beaten path spots as well. We ate cheesesteaks in Philadelphia, hummus in Yonkers, Chinese in the Bronx, hotdogs and pretzels from vendors, and pizza pretty much all over Manhattan. Sadly it didn't occur to me to take pictures of the food we were eating for most of our trip, because I was so busy taking pictures of touristy hotspots. Plus, navigating mittens, food, and camera would have been a lose-lose situation for me. But I did take a few, so here you go:

This pizza is from Lombardi's, supposedly the best in New York according to some sources. It was good, but not great, and the lighting in the restaurant was terrible, making for this not so great picture. The crust was a little bit too dry for me, but the mozzarella was fantastic, which made up for a lot. Besides, it's pizza, and I love pizza in almost any shape or form.

This omelet was from An Beal Bocht, an Irish pub/cafe in the Bronx. It was pretty much amazing, and my plate went from the above picture to the below picture in record timing. The eggs were perfectly fluffy, stuffed with cheese and ham and peppers and onions, and accompanied by tasty home fries and perfectly toasted toast. Just don't expect them to actually serve breakfast at 10 when they open...we definitely beat the cook there by about 20 minutes. The food will totally make up for the wait though.

And last, but most definitely not least, is the wonderful, the amazing, the magnificent (cue trumpets) CREAM PUFF from Beard Papa's Sweets Cafe. Noel and I first discovered Beard Papa's on our honeymoon in San Francisco, and I had been salivating for another one ever since. These creampuffs are seriously the creme de la creme (ok, I know, that was a terrible pun, but really, you should've seen it coming). My memory was not wrong....they were just as excellent as I remembered. The choux pastry was flaky and only mildly sweet, and the cream was, well, creamy--with a sublimely rich vanilla flavor. Now if only Beard Papa's would open some locations in states besides New York and California...

Veggie Tacos, Wheat Rolls, Apple Pie, Macaroni and Cheese and Molasses Cookies

2009-02-13T10:00:00.000-08:00

I'm in New York on vacaaaaation! When I get back, hopefully I'll have some fantastic pictures and stories to share! But in the meantime, I thought I would leave you with the links to some of my favorite recipes.

I don't recommend eating them all at once, you might die of delicious over-indulgence. But if you split them into two meals, I think you might have a couple of tasty dinners on your hands!

Bon appetit! I'll be back in a week!

Emily of New Moon

2009-02-11T18:06:00.000-08:00

Since my middle name is Anne (most definitely with an 'E'!) I was always a fan of the Anne of Green Gables series. I love almost all of L.M. Montgomery's books though. The Blue Castle, Kilmeny of the Orchard, and the Pat of Silver Bush books are all excellent. I had forgotten how wonderful the Emily novels were till I recently picked them up again on a whim. The Emily novels consist of three books: Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, and Emily's Quest.

Emily of New Moon starts out when Emily Byrd Starr, aged not quite eleven, is not yet Emily of New Moon. She lives with her father, who is estranged from her late mother's family, the Murrays of New Moon. After the death of her father, the orphaned Emily is taken to live with Aunt Elizabeth, Aunt Laura, and Cousin Jimmy at the New Moon farm.

These books are classic L.M. Montgomery. Emily is a serious, curious, occasionally pert little girl, who generally means well, but often gets in trouble with the aunts because of the things she says that they just don't understand. She loves nature, spending hours with her friend "the Wind Woman", and various trees and flowers and cats and gardens. Emily's other great passion is writing: she starts by writing letters to her dead father, which soon progresses to writing stories and poetry. In Emily of New Moon Emily meets Teddy, a semi-invalid with a jealously possessive mother, Perry the hired hand at the farm, who is also an orphan, and Ilse, whose mother is dead and whose father is neglectful. The four of them have many different adventures, and Emily learns to love New Moon in spite of her sorrow over the death of her father.

Emily Climbs continues as the four children go to high school in nearby Shrewsbury. Emily has to board with the unlikeable Aunt Ruth, and sufferes many misadventures as she attempts to get an education, continue her writing, and yet not disgrace the Murrays. Emily, Ilse, Teddy, and Perry are all about 14 when this book starts, and 17 when it ends, at an age when romance is beginning to blossom. Emily receives a fantastic career offer, and must decide whether or not she is ready to leave New Moon.

Emily's Quest continues the story after high school. I read it once in fourth or fifth grade, but I haven't re-read it yet, so I can't give you any details. I'm planning to take it with me when we go to New York this week though (that's right! I said NEW YORK) so I'll fill you in on how it ends later!

I highly recommend giving these books a read: if not for nostalgia of a bygone era, just because Emily is a likeable, stubborn little girl. I think you'll like them, especially if you liked Anne of Green Gables.

P.S. And if you don't like reading...there have been both a Canadian television series and a Japanese anime series based on the Emily books, so you can always watch the story instead of reading it....but you'll miss out on L.M. Montgomery's moralistic but entertaining prose.

Tempera Painted Butter Cookies

2009-02-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

So (for now) my five favorite things in life are:

(1) Noel
(2) pizza
(3) reading
(4) butter cookies
(5) chocolate

It's a bit embarrassing that 3 of my top 5 are food items, but hey, I can't lie, I like eating! And, I'm pretty sure I have perfected #4 on my list, so I have to share my new technique.

I've been making these cookies for years in various shapes and formats. I make bunnies and ducks at Easter, Christmas trees and stockings at Christmas, leaves in the fall, which I've talked about before, and for Valentines Day I always make hearts, which normally I frost and decorate like those candy hearts with little sayings on them. This time, however, I decided to experiment with the tempera technique that I used at Thanksgiving time last year, and it worked beautifully.

Before you bake them the cookies look a little odd, the tempera is thin and yellow-ish, and it seems like they won't turn out. But both times I've done it they've come out in bright jewel tone colors, and they're very festive looking. The tempera technique is also really a cinch to do. My one word of warning is that you need to make sure that whatever brush you use to apply the tempera doesn't lose its bristles easily. Last time I used some little kid water color type paintbrushes, and they kept losing bristles on the cookies. (And on a total sidenote, later I noticed that the brushes were made out of horsehair! Ack!!! So I checked all the cookies again, and threw away two that looked like they might've had a bit of a brush bristle on them, but I'd already given some away. Sorry to those of you who ate those...hope you weren't vegetarians...)

So anyway, this time I used a basting brush to brush the tempera on, and it went pretty quickly since I was doing hearts. I think it would be a little tricky to use a basting brush if you wanted to do more intricate cookies, but it might still work. What's brilliant about using tempera instead of frosting is that since you apply the tempera before baking there's no need to wait for cookies to cool before you frost them, or for frosting to harden before you can stack them. I rolled out, cut, painted, baked, and cooled them all, and had them in a container less than an hour after I started pre-heating the oven, which isn't bad for almost seven dozen cookies!

Because the tempera lends a bit of crustiness to the top of them they taste more like a shortbread cookie than a butter cookie, but I kind of like that, because I think you can taste the actual buttery, flaky cookie more than when you smother them in frosting and they become just another sweet treat. My valentine definitely likes them this way, that's for sure!

Egg Tempera
(makes enough to top about 40 two-inch cookies)

1 large egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon water
2 drops vanilla extract
3-5 drops food coloring

In a small bowl stir together the egg yolk, water, vanilla, and food coloring until it's all evenly colored and slightly fluffy. Brush a thin layer over the top of butter or sugar cookies, sprinkle with sugar, and bake as directed. The tempera doesn't expand a lot, so don't use it on cookies that rise substantially, it will just crack. Also make sure that you only put a very thin layer on the top of the cookies, if you get it too thick it'll run off the cookies while they're baking and smell eggy, which is just weird! Let the cookies cool for a minute or two after they come out of the oven, then stack and store them in an airtight container. I also wouldn't recommend the tempera technique if you're trying for pastel shades, because the egg yolk is so bright to begin with that you have to put quite a bit of food coloring to dilute the yellowness.

P.S. Before I get any comments from the peanut gallery...Noel is definitely staying in my top five! It's the cookies/pizza that might be negotiable!

2009-02-03T19:34:00.000-08:00

Daughter of Fortune: A Novel by Isabel Allende

Daughter of Fortune tells the story of Eliza Sommers, a young orphan who is raised in Valparaiso, Chile, by Jeremy Sommers and his spinster sister Rose. Eliza is cared for by Rose, and the family's cook, Mama Fresia, who is a bit of a medicine woman.

Although Eliza is raised as a proper Victorian young lady by Rose, she falls in love with a young Chilean named Joaquin Andieta, and when Joaquin leaves for California to try to find gold, Eliza follows him. She is helped along her way by Tao Chi'en, a young Chinese doctor who worked for Captain John Sommers, her uncle.

I liked that this book, although mostly about Eliza, also delved into the past history of other characters, particularly Miss Rose Sommers and Tao Chi'en, plus a host of minor characters. These detailed characterizations lent validity to the plot, which was admittedly farfetched, but didn't actually seem so. It seemed quite believable that a spunky orphan could meet the challenges that Eliza had to face in Chile and California, and not be fazed.

Allende vividly portrays life in mid-nineteenth century Chile and gold rush California. She paints a picture of a very rigid and stratified society in Valparaiso, and a wild, lawless society of men and prostitutes in California.

My two caveats are: there are a few love scenes, which was awkward since I was listening to this on audio book in my office. I should've learned my lesson with the last Isabel Allende book I listened too, but I kind of forgot till the 'awkward bits' rolled around! So I'd recommend just reading the hard copy, or listening to the audiobook in your car! Secondly, the book ended a bit anticlimactically for me. I felt like a story that I was so invested in should have finished with more of a bang.

But the very likeable characters and interesting (if sometimes predictable) plot made up for my two small complaints. I would definitely recommend this, and I think I'll give some more Isabel Allende a try.

My Superbowl Un-Victory

2009-01-31T19:06:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I got Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, and although I've drooled over the photographs several times I hadn't yet made anything out of it. Today I was flipping aimlessly through some cookbooks looking for something inspirational to make for a Superbowl party tomorrow. I came across a recipe for One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes, which sounded (a) easy, and (b) decadent...pretty much my favorite combination when it comes to desserts. So I pulled out my canisters of flour and sugar--and the sugar canister promptly proceeded to crack across the bottom and spill about 3 cups of sugar all across the floor of the pantry.

Slightly demoralized, I decided to press on, and mixed up the cupcakes anyway (while my super awesome husband cleaned up the sugar fiasco). I'm pretty sure that I should've taken the sugar explosion as a warning shot across my bows, because the cupcake batter was suspiciously runny. I gave it some shifty looks out of the corner of my eye as it was mixing, but decided that now I'd already invested 2 1/2 cups of sugar (plus the 3 on the floor) more than a cup of cocoa powder, 3 eggs, and a silly amount of milk and oil in them, that I'd better just try baking them.

Sadly they came out looking like this.

And they left my pans looking like this.

So, Martha Stewart, you definitely let me down this time. I went ahead and baked some basic toll house chocolate chip cookies for tomorrow. After I made them I remembered that I usually substitute shortening for part of the butter so they come out softer, but oh well, at least they taste good. And they didn't destroy my muffin tins/oven racks. Hrmph. Oh well, if I'm lucky I can talk my husband into cleaning the oven too!

Miscellaneous Reporting

2009-01-24T15:31:00.000-08:00

Warm and sunny here in Tucson stop.

Made brownies the other day stop. Put walnuts in them stop. Made me feel like a murderer for killing perfectly good brownies stop. Did not eat brownies stop. Made me feel virtuous so maybe the walnuts were a good idea stop.

Caught another mouse in trap in garage this morning stop. Made me feel more like a murderer stop. However pantry supplies are still intact thanks to mousetraps stop.

Made the blueberry cake again stop. Used buttercream frosting this time since it was for a birthday party stop. Recommend sticking with powdered sugar stop. May go into sugar coma soon as result of frosting stop. Nothing virtuous about this cake stop.

Finished Joseph Ellis's biograpy of George Washington's stop. It was pretty good stop. Did you know the King of Spain sent George Washington a prize jackass to start a new line of superior jackasses in the United States after the Revolutionary War ended query. I mostly wrote that last sentence just so I could put 'query' at the end stop. Started reading World War Z and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle stop. Weird juxtaposition stop.

Time for nap stop. Warm, sunny day and delicious tacos and enchiladas and cake combine for sleepiness stop. Tired of writing the word 'stop' stop.

Berries Were on Sale! Therefore: Blueberry Cake

2009-01-18T18:20:00.000-08:00

Last weekend Sunflower had 6 oz containers of blueberries and blackberries on sale for 88 cents each, so I bought 8 containers and have been happily gorging myself all week. I love love love berries, and these are particularly good ones: the blackberries are sweet and incredibly juicy, and the blueberries are plump perfection. On Friday night we were having another game night with the McWheatyPantses, and I was supposed to take a dessert. I almost took chocolate chip cookies, because you can't ever go wrong with those, but I decided to try and put some of the berries to use. I debated making a tart, but those are best warm, and I wanted something that wouldn't be difficult to transport. So I checked out some recipes online, and decided to adapt a recipe from Orangette's blog, which I have adapted before in the form of lime cupcakes. The original recipe calls for a lemon glaze, which I left off, and I substituted lemon extract for the lemon zest it calls for, because I didn't want an overpowering lemon taste.

This time I added blueberries and made a blueberry/blackberry sauce to drizzle over each slice. The end result was pretty much a tea cake: not too sweet, with a fairly fine crumb and a nice lemony, yogurty tang. The warm blueberries on top drizzled down through the cake, and I dusted each slice with powdered sugar to add a bit of extra sweetness. Considering I think I ate half the cake by myself, I can vouch for its deliciousness. I think it would be equally good with strawberries, or raspberries or blackberries that have small seeds.

Blueberry-Lemon Cake with Blueberry and Blackberry Sauce

adapted from Orangette's blog

1/2 cup plain or vanilla yogurt

1 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp lemon extract

1/2 cup canola oil

4 oz fresh blueberries

2 oz fresh blueberries

2 tbsp blackberry or blueberry syrup

1 tbsp water

powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prep a 9 inch cake pan by lining the bottom with parchment paper and lightly greasing the whole pan.

In a large bowl cream together the sugar and yogurt, then beat in the eggs. Once these three ingredients are thoroughly combined, mix in the flour, baking powder, and lemon extract. Add the oil and stir to incorporate it. I did all the stirring with a wooden spoon, it just takes a minute or two of elbow grease to completely incorporate the oil. In a separate bowl toss the blueberries in about a half tablespoon of flour, until they're all lightly coated.

Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan. Dot the surface of the cake with the blueberries, then top the blueberries with the rest of the batter. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40-45 minutes, or until golden-brown on top. Let the cake cool at least 15 minutes in the pan, then remove it carefully to a wire rack to finish cooling. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.

In a small saucepan over medium heat combine the rest of the blueberries, the syrup, and the water. Bring to a boil, then let simmer at fairly high heat for about 5 minutes. Turn the heat down to low, and let it simmer and thicken for another 5 minutes or so. I poured the sauce into a small tupperware container, and took the sauce and cake separately. Then just before serving I microwaved the sauce for about 30 seconds, and then drizzled the top of each slice. Bon appetit!

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things: Steak Tacos

2009-01-15T20:25:00.000-08:00

These definitely aren't as veggie friendly as my last taco recipe. In fact, they're pretty much loaded with meat, so if you're vegetarian, avert your eyes!

This is one of those meals that sort of randomly came together based on what I had lurking in my fridge and pantry. Since I basically made it up as I went along my recipe is not very specific, but the end result was completely delicious! So think of this as more of a set of guidelines than a recipe...and have fun with the leftovers in your fridge! Besides, how can you go wrong with tacos in any shape or form?

I made chicken ones for the boys too, since they're not as picky as me, but the steak still won hands down. I got the shells at La Mesa Tortilla Factory, so they were golden and tasty, and crunched ever so satisfyingly ever time I took a bite. The steak was maybe a little too well done...I got a little distracted, but it was garlicky and limey, and when topped with a little cheese, a little lettuce, and a little salsa, was pretty much sublime.

Now that you're hopefully droolingly ready to make these for yourselves, here are the aforementioned guidelines:

Steak (or chicken) Tacos

about 1 lb meat, sliced into about 1 inch strips

1 lime

1-2 tablespoons salad dressing or oil

1 small onion, roughly chopped

4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

10-12 corn taco shells (or small flour tortillas-I used those for the leftovers and it was equally fantastic!)

about 2 cups of shredded jack or cheddar

about 1 cup of salsa

about 1-2 cups of lettuce, roughly chopped

The night before you plan to make these, get a large ziploc bag, and throw in the meat, the lime (juice it into the bag, then just chuck the rest in), the onion, the garlic, and the oil or dressing. I used vegetable oil for the steak, and balsamic vinaigrette for the chicken. Make sure the bag is securely closed and then pound the meat for a minute or two, making sure that all of it gets coated and the garlic and onion are pretty evenly dispersed.

The next day bust out your handy dandy George Foreman grill (or a grill pan or even a large skillet) and cook the meat for about four minutes on each side, or until cooked to your satisfaction. I discarded the lime pieces and the biggest chunks of garlic so that the garlic breath issue wouldn't be too scary.

While the meat is cooking toast the taco shells in a 300 degree oven until warm. Shred the cheese, chop the lettuce, prep the salsa, open your container of sour cream...etc. Once the meat is done let it rest for a minute or two so that you don't boil your fingertips off, then quickly shred/cut it into bite-size pieces. Place a layer of meat in the bottom of each taco shell, then top it with the toppings that your heart desires. Mmm....tacos.....

Oh and p.s. you will probably have some leftovers, which I can testify will probably taste even better the next day!

Plain Old Fashioned Indecisiveness

2009-01-08T15:51:00.000-08:00

I had such good intentions when I blogged about Word Play last week. This week I didn't have any major plans, so I thought, hey, good plan, I'll read a couple of books this week...and have plenty to blog about. But Sunday night Steve Carell's hilarious facial expressions seduced me into watching Get Smart (I seriously almost fell off the couch during the tiny-harpoons-in-the-airplane-bathroom scene). Then Monday night the #@!*#@! MICE were back, so I spent my evening frantically cloroxing everything in my kitchen while swearing under my breath (sorry mom). Tuesday we continued the Alias marathon (although I don't know how much longer Noel is going to last) and then we watched the season premiere of The Biggest Loser. That's kind of the one that worries me actually. Since when am I the person that watches ridiculous voyeuristic reality tv shows instead of reading??

Then last night I got sidetracked with Wii games and blog-reading, and so, almost a week later, I still haven't managed to finish a book.

I am listening to His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph Ellis at work, and it's pretty good. It's not life-altering or anything, but it's a pretty solid biography. I started Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery in a fit of nostalgia on Sunday night, but then haven't picked it up again. Last night I started A Beautiful Blue Death (pictured above) which I bought because the cover was so appealing. And now I suddenly think I might want to start Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks because I liked People of the Book so much.

So here's my plan. I'm going to stop blogging....and start reading. Je lirai! Maintenant!

Word Play

2009-01-03T14:38:00.000-08:00

I apologize for the alarming paucity of book reviews around here lately. I hate to admit that I only read four books between Thanksgiving and New Years. And actually two of those were audiobooks, which means I only read two real books in a whole month! It's so embarassing! Ah well, what can I say...the sugar high induced by my unending consumption of Christmas cookies apparently precluded any sort of attention span for books.

But it's a new year, and my resolution was to eat less sugary stuff, so hopefully there will be a few more book reviews and a few less cookie recipes in the near future! Although I do have about eight pounds of chocolate chips in my freezer...so we'll see.

One of the two books I read in December was Word Play, by Peter Farb. Word Play is an intelligent (but still fun) look at how people talk. Basically adhering to Chomsky's universal grammar theory, this book discusses the way that children learn languages, the similarity between all languages, and why humans are the only creatures that have a real 'language'. I particularly liked the chapter on paralanguage and the section that discusses how 'baby talk' in the majority of the world's languages is very similar. The chapter on "black" english and how it is essentially a separate dialect from "standard" english was also very interesting.

I also was struck by Farb's explanation that about half of all conversation is actually made up by pauses, so silence has a much more important role than we think it does in our speech. He mentions that actually 'chatterboxes' don't talk more, they just pause less than the average person. So to all of you who may have referred to me as "Motor Mouth" or "Talkica" in my youth--I am vindicated! You all just pause too much!

This excerpt on baby-naming from Word Play was one of my favorite sections, and gives you a good sense of Farb's intellectual yet approachable (and sometimes inadvertently funny) style of writing:

"...the style of giving names to children, which in most American speech communities is quite standardized. A child is usually given the first name of a parent or grandparent, the family name of the mother or some ancestor, or one of a limited number of quite common names like Thomas, Richard, Harold, Jane, Carol, or Elizabeth. But in certain speech communites in the South and Midwest, where most of the members belong to fundamentalist Protestant sects, the style is to bestow curious, folksy, or amusing first names--not as nicknames but as official birth-certificate names."

Farb then goes on to give examples of "this curious style of child-naming" such as Honey Combs, Coeta, Phalla, Buzz Buzz, Nicy, Sugie, Dilly, Skeety, Quince, Prince, Earl, Orlando, Tennessee, Savannah, Paris, Oleander, Fawn, Charme, and Rose Bud. And (this is the part I love) he finishes by saying, "When name-giving is not a part of the sacrament of {infant} baptism--and consequently a clergyman with a sense of decorum has no say--individual style may run wild, as it often does in areas of the United States where members belonging to these Protestant sects are concentrated."

I feel that Peter Farb would find most names given nowadays decidedly indecorous! But this books makes for a good read, as long as you can get past the dated examples of slang, and the references to the unportability of computers. For a book written 35 years ago though it's still remarkably applicable and a fun introduction to language development if you haven't read much in this genre.

Minty Perfection: Peppermint Bark

2008-12-28T14:42:00.000-08:00

Noel and I looked at each other in dismay today when we realized that we were down to our last two pieces of peppermint bark. See, I had decided that the 591 cookies were not enough, because I wanted to keep at least a few for ourselves (um, and by a few I mean about 75) and I had so many people I wanted to give food gifts to this year, that 500 or so for giving away just wasn't going to cut it. So after a few days of recuperation from the cookie insanity, I decided to tackle some more recipes; most notably this recipe for peppermint bark.

I feel that calling the bark a success is probably justified, because it tastes AMAZING. It's mostly soft, but a little bit crunchy, and it's cold and minty and chocolatey and delicious! I gave most of it away layered in between sheets of wax paper in cute little red and green buckets, and it was kind of ridiculously adorable. Noel and I rationed the few squares left for us sparingly, but sadly they didn't last as long as we wanted them to.

However, it was a pain to make. Now that I know how much time is involved, I'd probably still give these another shot because they're so devourable, but I will admit that I was quite grumpy at them the afternoon I was trying to make them. I followed the recipe exactly, but my first batch came out really soft, and all the layers smeared together as I was trying to spread one atop the other. So with the second batch I allowed twice as much cooling time for each step, and it worked a lot better, resulting in the photogenic version that you see in these pictures, but also resulting in me being in the kitchen for several hours.

All in all, I'd recommend making them, especially if you're a peppermint-chocolate lover, but just be prepared to spend almost double the time that her recipe suggests. Oh, and I highly recommend putting all the unwrapped candies in a large, thick ziploc bag, and letting your husband smash them with a hammer. It's a lot faster than trying to crush them with a can or jar as suggested, and plus it made my husband happy to be allowed to smash things.

2008-12-24T08:45:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Eve!

If you have some last minute baking to do I recommend the following recipes because they're all simple and don't involve any cookie cutters or frosting!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares

Peanut Blossoms

Molasses Cookies

Christmas Cookie Baking: The Saga Continues

2008-12-17T15:44:00.000-08:00

Christmas cookie baking is a BIG deal for me! It really doesn't seem quite like the holiday season has fully arrived unless I'm on my feet for at least eight hours, frantically rolling and cutting and sugaring and cooling and frosting and....you get the picture. I blast Christmas music (probably much to the dismay of my neighbors now that I think about it) and bake and bake until the house is fragrant, I've 'sampled' enough dough to potentially give me salmonella, all my tupperwares are full, the tile grout is full of jimmies and sprinkles, and there is flour on literally about 90% of the surfaces in my kitchen.

I try at least one new recipe every year, but there are a few varieties that I always make: most notably the peanut butter kiss cookies and the butter cookies that I've blogged about before (and that are pictured above). But for me the most important are the gingerbread cookies. If it isn't Christmas till I've baked, it definitely isn't Christmas baking until I've made the gingerbread cookies. They're sweet and spicy, fragrant and toothsome, and, most importantly, adorable. I bake them just enough to where they're firm to the touch but still soft to the bite. Covered with a dusting of sugar, they're the perfect accompaniment to a tall glass of milk or a warm cup of cinnamon tea.

The genius thing about my baking this year is that for the first time I was able to make cookies using my new stand mixer. Normally the gingerbread is pretty hard to mix because the dough is too stiff for a hand mixer, which means a lot of elbow grease is involved. But (much to Noel's relief since it's usually his elbow grease) the stand mixer was completely up to the challenge. I mixed the dough up Friday, refrigerated it overnight, and Saturday rolled out about 90 beautiful gingerbread men and bears in no time at all.

Gingerbread Cookies
5 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening
1 cup white granulated sugar
1 egg
1 cup molasses
2 tablespoons vinegar

In a medium bowl combine the flour and spices (first six ingredients) and set aside. In a large bowl (preferably of your stand mixer) cream the shortening and sugar together. Then beat in the egg, the molasses, and the vinegar, making sure to incorporate each thoroughly before adding the next. Once the the wet ingredients are well combined, add the flour slowly, beating well, until all flour is thoroughly combined into the dough. Scrape the dough onto some plastic wrap, shape into a log, and wrap tightly. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours, or for up to 2 days.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll out small portions of the dough on a well floured surface (keep the rest of the dough in the fridge while you're rolling so that it doesn't get too soft). Roll until about 1/8 inch thick--or up to almost 1/4 of an inch if you want softer cookies. Cut into the desired shapes, place the cookies at least an inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet, and sprinkle with sugar. You can re-roll the scraps, just make sure to add a little bit of cold dough each time so that you're never re-rolling only scraps, because the dough will be too warm, and they'll roll out really thin.

Bake the cookies on the center rack of your oven for 6-7 minutes. The cookies will still be soft. Let them rest on the baking sheet for a minute or two to firm up, then carefully remove to a wire rack to continue cooling. They're delicious while they're still warm, but be careful--they're sort of deceptively cool on the outside and then molten in the middle! They will keep for about ten days in an airtight container. After a few days they may get a little dried out, but if you put a slice of bread or a slice of an apple into the container they will soften up again in a few hours.

Christmas Cookie Baking

2008-12-13T19:10:00.000-08:00

Before....

After...

Recipes to follow later...I'm going to put my feet up now...

Veggie Tacos aka See Mom, I Do Eat Vegetables

2008-12-09T17:55:00.001-08:00

I've made this vegetarian friendly meal several times since we went to Apple Annie's in September. I like it for three reasons: (1) it means I eat a lot of vegetables in one meal, (2) it only takes about 20 minutes or so to make, and (3) it's delicious! Not as delicious as Valarie's potato tacos, but still, quite tasty.

Basically you saute a bunch of vegetables together for a few minutes, blister a few corn tortillas, put the veggies in the tortillas, sprinkle with cheese and salsa, et voila! Veggie tacos! I don't think I could ever totally be a vegetarian because I would really, really, really miss bacon, but sometimes meals like this make me think twice. It's the perfect meal to serve if you're serving a crowd of both omnivores and herbivores, and it wouldn't be hard at all to make vegan if you just make sure to buy vegan tortillas and skip the cheese. It's also a pretty flexible meal--I use potatoes and bell peppers and onions because that's what I always have on hand, but some zucchini or jicama or tomatoes could also be quite tasty in these. So have a veggie taco party, and experiment with the flavors a little bit!

Veggie Tacos

1 medium baking potato, cubed

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced
1/2 medium onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (or one serrano pepper, minced)

1/4 tsp cumin

1/4 cup corn

1/2 cup black beans

8-10 (six inch) corn tortillas, blistered

shredded cheese and salsa for garnishing

In a large skillet heat a tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat, toss in the potato cubes, coating evenly in oil. Cook the potatoes, lid on, for about five minutes. While the potatoes are cooking, dice the bell peppers and onion. Take the lid off, toss the bell peppers, potatoes, and onion together. Cook for another five minutes or so, stirring often. Once the potatoes seemed cooked through, but the other veggies are still a little bit crisp, add the spices, black beans, and corn. Cook for another minute or so, stirring constantly, until all vegetables are hot through, but don't let it go too long, at this point they get mushy fast.

While the vegetables are cooking, place a small empty skillet over very high heat. Working quickly (but carefully!) place one tortilla at a time in the skillet. Let it sit for about 30 seconds on each side, or until the tortilla blisters slightly and no longer looks uncooked.

Place a few tablespoons of the veggie mixture into the center of each tortilla. Sprinkle with cheese, top with salsa, and enjoy!

Nacho Fondue

2008-12-07T16:20:00.000-08:00

I love fondue, but the real thing can be both finicky and pricey. This recipe is a cross between fondue and your basic nacho cheese. It's super easy, and another one of those recipes that I feel isn't really a recipe at all, since there are only four ingredients and a little stirring involved. But the end result is warm and melty and a little bit spicy, and no one will know it was that easy to make!

The nacho fondue is a nice contrast to the exorbitant amounts of sweets being served this time of year. Served with chips and veggies for dipping it makes a nice salty snack, or dolloped on some tortilla chips with beans and guacamole it could be a fast meal. I found this recipe in a Sandra Lee cookbook a few years ago, and it's become one of my go-to recipes for easy entertaining.

Nacho Fondue

adapted from Sandra Lee

1 (10 3/4 oz) can cheddar cheese soup

1 can milk (about a cup I think)

about 2 cups of shredded cheese, cheddar or jack

about 2/3 cup of salsa

In a mid-sized saucepan heat the cheddar cheese soup over medium heat. Refill the soup can with milk, add to the soup, whisk until there aren't any lumps. Stir in the salsa. I start with about 1/2 a cup at first, but I just eyeball this whole recipe, so it may be a little more. Stir in the cheese a handful at a time until the cheese is melted and thoroughly combined into the mixture. If the mixture seems too thick for optimum 'dippability' add a little more salsa and stir until optimum thickness is achieved.

This makes enough to fill a small fondue pot twice, or the recipe can be doubled and served in a crockpot. Serve with fresh veggies, and tortilla chips or bread for dipping. The flavor can be easily adapted by using a milder or spicier salsa, or using a combination of cheeses--have fun with it! Leftovers will keep for a couple of days in the fridge, and can be quickly reheated in a saucepan.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Mini Muffins

2008-12-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

My Thanksgiving cooking this year was remarkably simple. I made a couple of breakfast casseroles for brunch at my one set of grandparents, and carted along seven loaves of Amish bread that I had hanging out in the freezer. Then for the other grandparents all I made were sweet potatoes and some mini butterscotch pumpkin muffins from this recipe. The original recipe wasn't bad, but I thought that the spices and butterscotch completely overpowered the pumpkin flavor, which is not what I was looking for. Plus the butterscotch chips completely stuck to the muffin tins, leaving little empty holes all over the muffins when I pulled them out, so I definitely did not take pictures of them!

Today I made another batch of them, halving the spices and using mini chocolate chips instead of butterscotch chips, and they are awesome! They are moist, evenly spiced, and they have a rich delicious pumpkin flavor interspersed with little bits of chocolate. I highly recommend using the mini chips, it spreads the chocolate flavor out more evenly, and it makes for much less mess--this batch came out of the pans beautifully.

The muffins are ridiculously easy to make. It took me maybe five minutes to mix them up, another five minutes to spoon them into the muffin tins, and then just ten minutes to bake. They're a beautiful orange color before they bake, and they come out orangey-brown and fragrant. I think they'd be perfect for anything from brunch to a late night snack with a glass of milk, especially this time of year. There's just something particularly satisfying about pumpkin and cinnamon and ginger flavors during the holidays....I can't wait to start baking! Stay tuned for TONS of cookie recipes!

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Mini Muffins

adapted from allrecipes.com

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup canned pumpkin
4 oz mini chocolate chips (about 2/3 cup)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease mini-muffin pan with cooking spray. I got about 40 muffins the first time, the second time I filled them a little bit more full and got 36, so make sure you have enough space for 36, or plan to make these in two batches.

In a large bowl, sift together the first nine ingredients, set aside. Whisk together the eggs, butter, and pumpkin in a separate bowl. Stir the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. Spoon the batter into the mini muffin cups, just slightly less than a tablespoonful into each cup.

Bake in preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 10 to 12 minutes. If your pans don't all fit on one shelf of your oven make sure to rotate them halfway through. Let cool in pans for about ten minutes, then carefully remove muffins to wire racks to completely cool. Store in an airtight container.

People of the Book

2008-11-29T19:57:00.000-08:00

I just "read" People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (by "read" I mean I listened to it on audiobook) and was pleasantly surprised. I've heard good things about March, but I had never tried any books by Geraldine Brooks before, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

The book tells the story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illustrated Jewish manuscript from the 15th century that needs authentication from Dr. Hanna Heath, an Australian rare books expert. Hanna flies to war-torn Sarajevo in 1996, and is entranced by the beauty of the Haggadah. According to Jewish tradition, images of the Scriptures are not allowed, but this book proves the exception to the rule. Hanna finds several small clues hidden between the pages of the book: such as a wine stain, a salt stain, and a white hair, that set Hanna on a quest to find out who created this unusual Haggadah, and why.

I liked that People of the Book revealed the secrets of the Haggadah in reverse order, starting with the story of a young Jewish girl running from the Nazis in WWII, and the Muslim family that protected her and the Haggadah. The story progressed from WWII back to turn-of-the-century Vienna, then back to sixteenth century Venice, then back to Spain during the Inquisition, and finally back to the source of the book. The book is told in alternating chapters, flashing back and forth between the story of Hanna in the present day, and the other people who helped protect the book over its long and varied history.

The audiobook version I listened to was fun; the narrator was Australian which gave Hanna's character a vivid, realistic flavor. My one irritation was that the older Jewish characters all ended up sounding the same in the narrator's voice--even though some of them were male and some were female.

This book could have easily fallen into the same silly historical-quest type mold as Dan Brown or Steve Berry or all the other copycats out there, but it didn't at all. There was no big conspiracy, just a story of an intriguing young woman, the complications in her personal life, her love for beautiful books, and this one particularly beautiful book that had touched so many lives over so many centuries. The plot was a little bit predictable, the huge surprise that Hanna is blindsided by was pretty obvious about six chapters earlier; but that's not a huge complaint, I didn't mind seeing exactly how the characters were going to get to that point of the story.

If you're looking for an enjoyable historical fiction book, I'd highly recommend People of the Book. And I'm going to read March soon I think, so I'll keep you posted on whether or not Geraldine Brooks stands up to the second-book test.

Deliciously Addicting Butter Cookies

2008-11-25T19:14:00.000-08:00

First of all, don't say I didn't warn you. Since I'm going to share the recipe I can testify that there is no crack/other addicting substance in them, but somehow, once I start eating them I just can't stop. But several other people had the same problem today, so I feel slightly less perturbed about my inability to refrain from eating them.

Anyway, this recipe comes from my grandma's sister Hazel, and is simple but fantastic. It only has six ingredients, so make sure to use the best--I like using organic sugar and unbleached flour and unsalted butter. Martha Stewart tells me that I should use local artisanal brands or quality imported butter, but I don't go quite that far.

My new best friend the kitchen-aid mixer mixed this up in about 4 minutes flat, then the dough has to refrigerate for at least an hour, then you roll it out, cut, and bake. They are quick-baking cookies (only six minutes a pan) so you have to either work fast to have a new pan rolled and cut before the last pan was done, or you're going to have to waste some oven heat. Which, if you live in somewhere other in Tucson, might not be such a big deal; but in my case I semi-frantically rolled and cut and brushed and sprinkled and baked, and got about 80 cookies done in 45 minutes or so, thus avoiding any smidgen of superfluous warmth.

Speaking of brushing and sprinkling--I tried a new method to decorate these, using an egg tempera instead of frosting, and it turned out quite well. But this post will be ridiculously long if I try to talk about both the cookies and the decorating method, so I'll save it for another post.

These cookies are basically a sugar cookie, but a little more buttery and a little less sugary (hence the "butter cookie" name). They're kind of a cross between shortbread and a soft sugar cookie. They melt in your mouth, and on their own aren't too sweet--what makes them sweet is the frosting or sugar that you top with them. I probably wouldn't recommend them plain, unless you're the type who prefers less sweet desserts. I roll them out in various thicknesses depending on my mood. For thin, crisp cookies roll out to a scant 1/8 inch. For thicker, softer cookies, go for closer to 1/4 of an inch.

These butter cookies are also quite possibly the most photogenic cookies ever. Whether they be glazed, frosted, or merely dusted with sugar, they're always cute. I make them seasonally whenever there's a definitive shape (ie snowmen and trees at Christmas, hearts at Valentine's Day, etc) to the holiday or season. This particular batch was a nice assortment of leaves and acorns, perfect for one last autumnal hurrah before the Christmas insanity.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Aunt Hazel's Butter Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

1 unbeaten egg

2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt (only if using unsalted butter!)

2 2/3 cups flour

plus additional sugar for decorating, if so desired

Sift together the flour and salt, set aside. Cream together the sugar and butter for about three minutes, or until smooth and well-combined. Beat in the egg and then the vanilla. Add the flour/salt combination in half cup increments, beating well after each addition. Once all flour is absorbed, shape the dough into a ball, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll the dough on a well-floured surface to about 1/8 inch thick for thinner, crisper cookies, and 1/4 inch thick for thicker, softer cookies. Place cookies one inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets, sprinkle with sugar or glaze if desired. Bake for 6-7 minutes, or until just firm. Carefully remove cookies from pan and place on wire racks to cool. (They'll still be a little pale and soft, but they'll harden as they cool, and in my opinion they don't taste as good if you bake them till they're golden-brown).

Alternately you can make drop cookies without refrigerating the dough for as long. After mixing the dough, refrigerate for about ten minutes, then drop by teaspoonful onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Using a fork dipped in water make a criss-cross pattern on the top of the cookies, flattening them as you do so. Sprinkle with sugar if desired, then bake as directed above.

Let rest on wire racks until completely cool, then frost if desired (and if you didn't previously sugar them). Makes about fifty regular sized cookies, I got eighty using half miniature cutters and half regular cutters. They'll keep for a week, or even ten days, in an air-tight container.

P.S. In the last picture the cookies are on one of a set of pretty nifty glass plates that my grandma got as wedding present fifty-one years and two days ago. Happy Anniversary Grandpa and Grandma!

Crankiness: Failed Quiche

2008-11-22T08:12:00.000-08:00

The other night I thought I had a genius plan. I was kind of in the mood for chile relleno, and I was kind of in the mood for quiche, so I decided to combine the two. I basically made a quiche lorraine, but instead of bacon and onions I used red peppers, green chiles, and onions.

I ended up baking it for an HOUR and TEN minutes, and then gave up and ate it soggily anyway. The flavor was pretty good, but I couldn't get over the terrible texture.

And then yesterday I tried making marshmallows again. This time instead of fluffy pillows of perfection I got sticky lumps of gooey flatness. Sigh.

Better Than White Rolls

2008-11-17T17:10:00.000-08:00

As you may have noticed by now, bread is one of my favorite things. White, wheat, sweet, sourdough, cheesy, salty, I'm really surprisingly un-picky about my bread, considering how picky I am about everything else. But normally a slightly sweet white bread is definitely my favorite, and I found a good recipe for white rolls a couple of years ago, so I usually stick to those when I want hot rolls.

But last night we were taking mac and cheese with us for game night, and I didn't want to go totally overboard with the white flour, so I decided to try a recipe for wheat rolls that I found more than two years ago, but had never gotten around to trying. I think part of the reason that I had avoided it was that it wasn't my usual type of bread recipe--I usually use a bread machine for the kneading/rising part, and then just shape the completed dough. This recipe, however, called for actual kneading (gasp!) but I decided it was about time I try making bread by hand, so I tackled it...

...and discovered that it was really easy. I should've done this years ago! The only part that worried me a little bit was the part where you're supposed to heat the water to 110 degrees. Since I don't have a candy thermometer (hey Mom--you can add that to my Christmas list by the way) I used the decidedly unscientific method of microwaving the water in ten second intervals and periodically sticking my finger in it till it felt like what I thought 110 degrees probably felt like. I was scared that I might've gotten the water too hot and inadvertently killed my yeast, but it seemed to work out ok.

The rolls were hearty and wheaty, but still sweet and buttery. They tasted amazing last night, and today I took two to work for lunch, and they tasted really good again after about ten seconds in the microwave to soften them a bit. They're good with or without extra butter, and I think they'd really go with just about any meal. So if you're scared of yeast/kneading--don't be! These are so good and so easy that you'll be very, very proud of yourself for making them, and you can feel slightly virtuous about consuming large quantities of them since you just burned calories kneading them!

My only warning is to make sure you have enough time to make them. You're only actually working for about 20-25 minutes, but there's so much rising time in between the steps that you need to allow a little more than three hours from start to finish. But hey, you could go exercise while they're rising, and then feel even more virtuous. Or you could make the aforementioned mac and cheese and eat some chocolate chip cookies to tide you over till dinner. Whatever you prefer.

Soft Wheat Rolls

(from allrecipes.com)

2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
1 3/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F)
1/2 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 egg, beaten
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup butter, melted

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let the yeast stand until creamy, about 10 minutes. Mix the sugar, salt, 1/4 cup melted butter, beaten egg, and whole wheat flour into yeast mixture. Stir in the all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl (I ended up using a few tablespoons more than the 2 1/2 cups called for).

Turn dough out onto a well floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. Lightly oil or butter a large bowl, place the dough in bowl, and turn the dough to coat with the oil. Cover with a damp cloth, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

Punch down dough, cover, and let rise in warm place until doubled again, about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile grease 2 dozen muffin cups. Punch down dough, and divide into two equal portions. Either roll each portion into a 6x14 inch rectangle, and then cut the rectangle into twelve 7x1 inch strips, or split the portion into thirds, and then divide each third into twelve small balls of dough. (For a total of thirty-six balls from each portion. Not thirty-three like I did because I can't count.)

If you choose the strip method, roll strips up into spirals, and place into muffin cups. Brush tops with melted butter. Let rise uncovered in a warm place 40 minutes, or until doubled in bulk. If you choose the ball method, place 3 small dough balls into each muffin cup, brush tops with melted butter, and let rise in the same manner.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven, and brush again with melted butter (I skipped this final buttering, I felt like they'd had enough already, and the rolls were served with butter, so I didn't want to unnecessarily clog anyone's arteries.)

I did one portion of my dough in the strip method, resulting in rolls that looked a bit cinnamon-roll-ish, leaving a long curl of softness on the inside, with a crispy edge around the first ring. I did the other portion in the ball method, making for rolls that pulled apart easily and that I think were a little softer than the cinnamon-roll way. Both were delicious though, and it's kind of fun to have both shapes in the bread basket, it makes things look more festive. Oh yeah, I totally forgot to take a picture of the bread basket. Next time....

Mug shots....no, actually mug CAKE!

2008-11-13T19:43:00.000-08:00

Nowadays when I want a souvenir I buy a Christmas ornament. They're small, portable, and it's ok if they're tacky, because most Christmas ornaments are anyway. And then there's the great night where you play Christmas carols and decorate the tree, and then all the ornaments remind you of all the places you've been.

But there was a time when my souvenir of choice was a mug--mostly notably during my travels in Europe. (Which, looking back on it, was one of the dumbest things I could pick! They are bulky, heavy, and easily broken, I'm not sure what I was thinking. But I digress.) I have mugs with Shakespeare on them and mugs with the London tube map and mugs from Greenwitch and Harrods and mugs with the Eiffel Tower and mugs from Annecy and I did have a mug from Brussels until it broke...

The problem with this collection is that I don't like coffee or tea, and I can only drink so much hot chocolate. So ninety percent of the time the mugs just sit uselessly in the cupboard, waiting to be broken. Until yesterday, when Ben emailed me a wiki for making CAKE in a mug. That's right. You mix the cake in a mug, microwave it, and 3 minutes later have a tasty, brownie-ish cake.

The end result is rich and chocolatey, a little bit chewy, and best devoured when warm. I wouldn't think it would keep very well, but I'm pretty sure the only reason you would even make a mug cake would be to consume it instantanesouly, so you should be safe. If you're having a frantic chocolate craving this will definitely fit the bill! It's possible I guess that you could eat the whole thing, but I'd recommend sharing, it's a substantial amount for one person.

One small note before sharing the recipe: make sure your mug is microwave safe. And if it was made in France, it probably isn't.

Chocolate Mug Cake

One large microwave safe mug
Cooking spray
4 Tbsp flour
9 Tbsp hot chocolate mix
1 egg
3 Tbsp water
3 Tbsp oil

Spray the mug with cooking spray. Mix the hot chocolate mix and flour in the bottom of the mug and stir in the egg until well combined. Stir in the water and oil, making sure that there aren't any pockets of dry ingredients.

Microwave on high for 3 minutes. Use hot pad to take mug out of microwave. Let sit 1-2 minutes, then spoon/scrape cake out into a bowl. I think it would be better topped with ice cream, but you could try it plain.

I used peppermint flavored hot chocolate, which added a flair that I liked. I think maybe adding a couple of drops of orange or mint extract to the batter would be a nice touch if you just have regular hot chocolate.

P.S. I just realized when I typed up this recipe that I only used one tbsp each water and oil instead of three. Which (a) explains the chewiness, and (b) means I'm totally going to have to try this again!!

Ruminations and Juxtapositions or How I Judged a Book by Its Cover

2008-11-11T16:07:00.000-08:00

Unless I'm completely engrossed and can't put a book down, I tend to like to mix several books to keep things interesting. Usually I have one at home, one audiobook in my office, and another book to read on breaks or when I have to wait somewhere when I'm out and about. This way I can read fiction and nonfiction simultaneously, so I don't get burned out on either.

Currently I have a fairly typical juxtaposition: two mysteries and a history. The mysteries are The Old Wine Shades by Martha Grimes and The Smoke by Tony Broadbent. The history is How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill. I just finished The Old Wine Shades, and have a few chapters left in each of the other two.

The Martha Grimes I grabbed to listen to in my office. I tend to be less picky about my audiobook selections than my regular reading selections: my two requirements are that the book be unabridged and that the narrator's voice be unannoying. This book fit these two requirements, so although I wasn't particularly intrigued by the mystery I decided to keep listening. It gives me something to do while I'm a-counting out the money.

Even though I wasn't loving the plot I was trying to work with it, until the book started being told from the dog's point of view. Yup, Mungo the dog's point of view. Mungo not only solved the crime, he also planted evidence, and saved some victims that the murderer had locked up. Nope, not kidding. It really happened. I wouldn't have been so irritated by this if I had known that it was going to be dogtective type book. I mean if I had picked up a Susan Conant or Laurien Berenson book I would've known what I was in for. But Martha Grimes seemed respectable. Her detective works for Scotland Yard for pete's sake!! Sigh.

Then there's How the Irish Saved Civilization. I feel like this title is a bit misleading. Ok, maybe more than a bit. It should be called How St. Patrick Was Different from St. Augustine and Created a Christian State in Ireland That Although It Differed Greatly From Roman Christianity Still Retained Enough of Roman Theological Thought To Make Sure That Some Texts Were Copied and Therefore Saved, Meaning That Not Everyone Was Illiterate During the Middle Ages and That Christianity Managed to Hang On In Pockets of Irish Civilization Called Monasteries. Because really, saying that the Irish saved civilization is a bit melodramatic. Really what Cahill is trying to say is that they saved some Greek and Roman texts and some tenets of Christianity that we probably wouldn't have otherwise. I understand choosing a catchy title though, I probably wouldn't have picked it up if it was called How Some Irish Monks Kinda, Sorta Saved Some Parts of Civilization. It isn't a bad book, some of the chapters about how the monks copied manuscripts and the tools that they used were actually quite interesting, but the title is definitely the best part of this book.

And then, the surprising gem: The Smoke. The premise is preposterous: Jethro, a successful London jewel thief is recruited just after WWII to help MI-5 break into the Soviet Embassy and spirit out some important code books and a young Russian woman who wants to defect. But what makes this book is how real the voice of Jethro is: uneducated, yet ruminative, profane, yet hilarious, and surprisingly insightful. Jethro is a fantastic character. And, he talks in the rhyming cant popular among London's criminals, which makes his conversational wit that much more authentic and entertaining. (If you're not familiar with rhyming slang a common example is calling gloves 'turtles'. This is because turtledoves rhymes with gloves, and then is shortened to turtles). The Smoke itself is slang for London. And as Jethro 'creeps' around the smoke, I continue to be interested, entertained, and pleasantly surprised.

So I guess my new methodology is not going to involve picking books based on authors that I think are respectable (e.g. Martha Grimes) or that have catchy titles (e.g. How the Irish Saved Civilization). Nope, I'm going to do what I did with The Smoke. I'm going to pick 'em based on their covers.

False Advertising: Amish Friendship Bread

2008-11-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

So this picture isn't actually Amish friendship bread, it's banana bread. I did make some more friendship bread: the two loaves in my fridge and the two more loaves in my freezer can attest to this! But, Noel left the camera at work, so I couldn't take any pictures. Personally I feel like the pictures are what make food blogs though, so I couldn't just leave you pictureless. In fact, maybe I'll share another of my favorite pictures:

Those are the chocolate ganache cupcakes I made for Noel's last birthday, and looking at that picture I think it might be about time to make them again.

But, first, I was here to talk about Amish friendship bread...which does look a bit banana bread-ish, so the picture isn't too far off. I tried two new variations this week, and they both came out nicely.

The first was butterscotch: I omitted the cinnamon from the original recipe, and used butterscotch pudding mix, and then added about 1/2 cup of butterscotch chips. This one isn't my favorite, it's a little too butterscotchy, but Noel is kind of in love with it. I made it in an 8x8 square pan though (plus a loaf pan), so the bigger one came out a little more cakey, and it had a nice consistency.

The second variation was lemon: I again omitted the cinnamon, substituted lemon extract for the vanilla extract, and then used lemon pudding mix. The loaves came out cheerily yellow, and have a light, bright flavor. The lemonness reduces the sugar a little I think, so it doesn't taste quite as sweet as the other variations I've tried.

I highly recommend any of the four variations of the friendship bread I've tried so far...once again, if you want a starter just let me know! Just make sure your camera is handy before you start baking!

P.S. I took all four variations to a brunch on Thanksgiving day (lemon, cinnamon, chocolate, and butterscotch) and the original cinnamon recipe was by far the most popular.

SQUONK

2008-11-03T19:06:00.000-08:00

Maybe a year or so ago Ben (one of my co-workers) and I discovered a book on cryptozoology. Immediately entranced, we decided that someday we were going to be cryptozoologists. Bookmans is fun and all, but hunting down mythological beasties would beat Bookmans any day!

I had kind of forgotten about the cryptozoological quest until Ben found another book, which was even better than the last one. This one is a field guide for North American monsters, and in addition to the usual culprits such as Sasquatch and El Chupacabra, this book includes the SQUONK.

The squonk is a sad little monster. It's very, very ugly: descriptions vary slightly, but it's generally agreed that it has loose folds of warty skin, and is a bedraggled, lumpy little creature. The squonk (who hails from Pennsylvania) is so ashamed of its appearance that it hides in forests and swamps and quietly sobs to itself. When seen by humans it becomes so distraught that it weeps itself away--it literally dissolves into a puddle.

Now since we're not murderous/sadistic types, we don't want the squonk to see us, because we don't want to kill one of the poor little creatures. But I'm thinking that sneaking up and taking a picture of the back of one could be a good beginning place for the career of a soon-to-be-renowned cryptozoologist.

So if you've seen any inexplicable puddles, or you've had a boring day at work and hunting down crypto-creatures sounds good, or you haven't cooked anything interesting in a week, and the only books you've read aren't worth writing about, and you need a new obsession; I highly recommend the squonk. Especially if you're having a bad day--at least you know that you won't end up crying yourself to death!

Gracious Grandmothers Club, part two

2008-10-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I talked about a cookbook that I inherited from Noel's grandma. Today at work I was looking at that "Gallery of Regrettable Foods" cookbook, which includes dozens of horrifying food pictures like the one above. Inspired by those images (well inspiration may not be quite the right word) I decided that it was time to revisit the Gracious Grandmothers Club, and their litany of fabulous recipes.

I don't know exactly when this book was written, but judging by the type-setting and the plethora of disgusting jello recipes, I'm going to guess late sixties, maybe early seventies. Noel's grandma lived in Middletown, Ohio for most of her life, and these recipes seem pretty appropriate for a town named "Middletown". There are endless pages of suspicious sounding casseroles, fried things, heavily buttered vegetables, and actually some quite delicious sounding cookie recipes that I think I might actually try. If there's one thing midwestern grandmas get right, it's cookies.

Anyway, here are a few more gems for you to enjoy:

Salmon Squares

2 cups cooked rice

2 eggs, beaten

2 cups cottage cheese

1 (1 lb) can salmon, drained, flaked

1 small onion, chopped

1/4 cup chopped green pepper

2 tsp soy sauce

1 cup cracker crumbs

Combine all ingredients except crumbs. Spoon into a buttered 12 x 7 inch baking dish. Sprinkle cracker crumbs on top. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes. Cut into squares.

Ok, I give this one some props for the soy sauce, which was a pretty unique ingredient in this book. Tess Young was trying to be creative I think. But cottage cheese and salmon mixed? This sounds gross to me, and I feel like the consistency is probably unnervingly wobbly. I do however like the specifity of calling it "Salmon Squares" and then also including "cut into squares" in the directions.

English Muffin Pizzas

1 lb ground beef

2 tbsp chopped onion

1 tsp horseradish

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 lb sharp cheddar, grated

1 tbsp catsup

1 tsp ground mustard

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp chilli powder

english muffins

Mix all ingredients, refrigerate. Slice English muffins. Spread mixture on untoasted side. Brush with melted butter. Put under broiler until done.

First of all, I'm normally a fan of English muffin pizzas--in my dorm days they were a pretty common staple. But this does not sound like pizza to me at all! It sounds like a weird meatloaf mixture, spread on a muffin, and then topped with BUTTER! Bleh. Plus, it doesn't specify whether or not the hamburger is supposed to be cooked, which is not reassuring. Kind of a midwestern steak tartare maybe? Because "put under broiler until done" doesn't sound like any kind of extensive e-coli-killing is occuring.

And here's what you've been waiting for: the prerequisite disturbing jello recipe.

Cinnamon Red Jello Salad

2/3 cup red cinnamon candies dissolved in 1 cup hot pineapple juice

Add 1 pkg lemon jello

and 1 1/2 cups crushed pineapple

Pour half into 8x8 pan, let set until firm.

Cream together:

8 oz cream cheese

1/2 cup chipped nuts

1/2 cup finely chopped celery

and enough mayonnaise to moisten.

Spread over set jello, pour remaining cold jello on top.

Pretty and red for Christmas.

No, I didn't add the last sentence. It was really there. In the recipe. Along with the pineapple, mayonnaise, celery, cream cheese, lemon jello, and cinnamon candies. Yum.

Starters: Amish Friendship Bread

2008-10-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

When I was little I loved loved loved sourdough stuff. We had a sourdough starter that my mom kept in the back of the fridge, and I thought that "feeding" the sourdough was the coolest thing ever. Plus, my dad made some pretty awesome sourdough pancakes, and we often had sourdough bread and rolls. Somewhere along the way the sourdough vanished....I'm not sure if it got left behind in one of our many moves, or if my mom just decided it was too much work, but the sourdough pancakes just stopped appearing on Saturday mornings.

I've been thinking about trying to start a sourdough of my own, and I'd bookmarked several recipes, but then one of Noel's co-workers gave me an Amish Friendship Bread starter, and I figured I might as well give this a shot since I already had the starter.

Basically you "feed" the starter once, on day six of its cycle, and then on day ten you bake two loaves, and get four more starters out of it. You're supposed to pass the new starters on to friends (a culinary chain letter of sorts), hence the name. The starter itself looks a little disturbing, it's very bubbly and lumpy, and it smells awful--somewhere between sour milk and really strong beer. But at least you only have to smell it twice, when you feed the batter once, and when you mix it into bread at the end.

The final result is a very sweet, soft quick bread, with a faint sourdoughy tang in the background. The original recipe calls for a lot of cinnamon, I've made it that way twice, and it's really good warm. One time I tweaked the recipe to make a chocolatey version, which didn't quite taste right warm, but was delicious cold. I'm thinking next time I might try butterscotch, or maybe lemon. It's been fun having new tasty bread every ten days though, and I've been giving one of the loaves away each time, which makes other people happy too, so I figure it's good all around. Except for the horrendous smell of the starter....

Amish Friendship Bread

1 cup amish bread starter

3 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 cup oil

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda
2 cups flour

2 small boxes vanilla instant pudding

First--don't use metal bowls or spoons when making this. I'm not sure why, but it was in CAPITALS in the instructions I got. Combine the last six ingredients, set aside this dry mixture. Mix together the wet ingredients, then stir in the dry. Lightly grease two 8 x 4 inch loaf pans. Mix an additional 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon, dust the pans with half of this mixture. Pour the batter into the pans, and sprinkle with the rest of the cinnamon sugar. Bake for 50-60 minutes at 325 degrees. Cool on wire racks until bread loosens from the pan (about 10 minutes), then carefully remove loaves to cool further. Wrapped well in foil this will keep for up to a week.

Variation: reduce cinnamon to 1/2 tsp, use chocolate pudding mix instead of vanilla, substitute one tablespoon of flour with one tablespoon of cocoa powder, and stir in 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips. Sprinkle the loaf with just plain sugar instead of cinnamon-sugar, and bake as directed above. (Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of the chocolate loaves, but they actually turned out better than the regular ones, they rose better.)

So if you want a starter, let me know. I've got lots!

Ridiculously Addicting Crackers--don't say I didn't warn you!

2008-10-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

This kind of feels like I'm cheating at the whole blogging thing, since this 'recipe' doesn't require any cooking, or even much assembling. In fact, it's quite possibly the easiest snack to make, ever. But what it has going for it is that it's enormously tasty, the crackers look cute, and then if you take it over to someone else's house when they ask you to bring a snack, at least you put some effort into it. I mean, you could've just bought a bag o' Nacho Doritos, but you made at least a tiny effort, and produced these delicious little crackers. (Plus these don't turn your fingers orange, or give you funny Dorito breath afterwards.)

I found a few different recipes for these on allrecipes.com, and this is my version, which takes elements of several of them. I'm pretty specific about what brands to use, mostly because since there are only 4 ingredients, I think that you need the best ingredients. Plus, I've tried them with several different brands and sometimes they definitely turn out better than others. If you get it right, they're salty and crunchy and tangy and spicy all at once. (Ooh, I almost said Yum-O right there, and I got annoyed and quit watching Rachael Ray more than a year ago!) So, um, Yum-EE!

Ranch 'Firecrackers'

1 (14 oz) box of oyster crackers

(the Trader Joe's version is the best--I use two 8 oz boxes and they turn out perfectly)

1 (1 oz) packet ranch dressing mix

(the Hidden Valley Dips brand is best)

1 - 2 tsp red pepper flakes

(depending on whether you want just a little heat, or 'firecrackers')

1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp vegetable oil

In large bowl gently stir 1/2 cup oil into the crackers. Once the oil seems fairly evenly dispersed, gently stir in the ranch dressing mix and the red pepper flakes, trying to avoid breaking the crackers. Stir carefully for a few minutes until the spices seem evenly appied. If you used the TJ crackers you won't need more oil. If you used say, the generic Fry's brand, stir in another tbsp of oil at this point.

Let the crackers sit for about half an hour, giving them another stir every five minutes or so, to make sure that the ones at the bottom don't get soggy. Once all the oil is completely absorbed you can either rapidly devour them, or store them in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. I'd just give them a gentle shake before serving them again.

Vegan-friendly Baking: Cupcakes

2008-10-18T13:34:00.000-07:00

I bake a lot (in case you hadn't noticed the title of this blog) and I end up taking a fair number of baked goods into work, since it's a really easy way to make sure that nothing gets wasted. There are several vegans at work who always look hopeful, until I have to disillusion them by informing them that there are eggs or milk in whatever it is they were hoping they could eat. So, this week I was taking cakes into work again, and I decided that it was about time that I attempted something vegan.

I have a cookbook called "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. (In case you're wondering why I own such a book, I tried going dairy-free last year, but I couldn't quite hack it. I missed cheese too much.) I hadn't made any of the recipes yet, although I had drooled over several of the pictures, so I decided to start with the very first recipe, Golden Vanilla Cupcakes, for my first foray into the world of vegan baking. I went and bought soy milk and soy creamer and even organic raw sugar, since I vaguely remember someone saying something about processed sugar being non-vegan.

The cupcakes were really easy to make once I had the proper ingredients assembled. They came out a pretty pale yellow color, and once topped with a little powdered-sugar frosting, they were quite delicious looking. They had a nice sugary vanilla flavor, I didn't miss the eggs at all in terms of taste, but the cupcakes had a slightly odd texture. The crumb was very coarse, and they were almost spongey, which I wasn't quite sure about. But, since I'd never made anything vegan before, I figured I'd just take them to work and see how it went.

They got rave reviews, from vegans and non-vegans alike. One person actually told me that it was the best day of his life to be able to eat a cupcake again! So, if you're vegan they apparently might change your life. If you're not, you might find the texture a bit odd, but the end result is still quite tasty.

Vanilla Vegan Cupcakes

from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

1 cup soy milk

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

2 tbsp cornstarch

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup canola oil

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp orange extract (or almond or caramel)

1/4 cup soy creamer

1/2 tsp clear vanilla extract

1/4 tsp orange extract

2 - 3 cups powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk the soy milk and vinegar together and set aside to curdle. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Beat together the curdled soy milk, oil, sugar, vanilla, and other extract. Sift in the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix until mostly smooth.

Using an ice cream scoop or large spoon fill each cupcake liner until about 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. They don't brown much, so stop baking when a toothpick comes out clean, don't wait for a color cue.

Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack before frosting. In a small saucepan warm the soy creamer over medium heat. Remove from heat, whisk in the extracts, and enough sugar to reach the consistency you want. I used just about 2 cups of sugar, which made for a thin glaze-like frosting. If you want a thicker frosting just keep whisking in the sugar. Once the cupcakes are fully cooled, spread with frosting, then refrigerate to set frosting. Makes 12 cupcakes.

Mysteries are my favorite!

2008-10-16T16:50:00.000-07:00

I've always loved mysteries. In second grade we had this day where we got to change our name, and the teacher called us by our fake name all day. I was Nancy...as in Nancy Drew of course... although I also adored Trixie Belden. I was convinced that when I grew up I was going to be a detective/ballerina when I grew up. I figured that ballet would offer me an entree into high society, and I could solve crimes among the important types who thought they were above the law.

In about fourth grade I became obsessed with Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and his silly little "moustaches". And I got paranoid that I was going to get hit by a car and die, and no one would be able to identify me since I didn't have a drivers license yet, so every morning I wrote my name and phone number on the bottom of my shoes, just in case. (Sad but true. Just ask my mom!)

Then came middle school, and a sudden adoration of cheesy suspense: Mary Higgins Clark, John Grisham, Tom Clancy, I read 'em all. In high school I tried cozies: Jill Churchill, Elizabeth Peters, Dorothy Gilman, etc. In college I went for the more classic British type mysteries: Georgette Heyer, Patricia Wentworth, Joyce Christmas, and company. But really, I was slightly saddened by the fact that I couldn't find anything I loved as much as I had loved Nancy Drew.

Then, however, I started working at Bookmans, and found shelf upon shelf of awesome books. Fred Vargas, Henning Mankell, Donna Leon, Arnaldur Indriðason, Ian Rankin, Peter Lovesey...I could seriously keep listing for a while. I fell in love with these authors, all of whom happen to be either European or ex-pats. There are certain similarities that most of them share:

(1) Cynical, quirky, humorous detectives, who are usually divorced, or alchoholic, or both. The characterization is believable, and while admittedly sometimes a bit stereotypical, still interesting. And, importantly, all of their detectives are actually detectives...not caterers or housewives or cats or craft shop owners who just happen to solve crimes on the side.

(2) A vivid sense of place. Each writer conjures up the locale of their respective detectives with accuracy and ingenuity, whether it be Ystad, Venice, Bath, Paris, Edinburgh, or Reykjavik. These books are all glimpses into other places and cultures, which adds additional interest to the policework that forms the main part of the story.

(3) An intriguing crime, where the detective's mental prowess is important--none of these authors write books that are what I call "CSI-ish" or "forensic". That's what I hate about most current American authors that I've read, the importance of the detective has been lost, it's all about the science of the crime, and I find that much less enjoyable. These books require the detective to actually detect, sometimes successfully, and sometimes not. They aren't the type of books that always have a happy ending, sometimes the criminals get away with their crimes, and sometimes the detective can't even figure out "whodunit".

(4) They are well-written. Don't look for mid-air collisions of bullets (yes I'm talking to you David Baldacci) or other ridiculously improbable plotlines. Don't look for two page chapters or huge margins (yup, James Patterson, your secret is out). Expect to have to actually read (I realize I'm still talking about genre fiction here, I'm not saying it's War and Peace or anything, but most of these are very well-written books). Expect quirky characters, fascinating sub-plots, bizarre crimes, political subtexts, and surprisingly beautiful moments, particularly if you try Fred Vargas.

I highly recommend any of the European authors I discussed. So if you haven't read a mystery in a while, give one of these authors a shot! (No pun intended. Since they're European there are very few handguns in these novels anyway.)

Miniatures

2008-10-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

The other day Amy rescued these tiny white bowls out of dreck, and now I can't quite decide what to do with them.

My first thought was condiments....some sort of meal where you need dipping sauces. Fondue? Tapas? A french fry smorgasbord?

They look quite cute holding grape tomatoes, and I'm sure olives or smallish artichoke hearts would look equally appealing, but the more I look at them, the more I think desserts....miniscule ones. Tiny ice cream sundaes? They'd be adorable, but unsatisfying I think. Itty-bitty shortcakes? Again, delicious, but insubstantial. Small puddings? Although only a gluttonous Borrower would be able to finish one, I think I'd want to eat three, which sort of defeats the whole purpose.

Then I thought about how at Montana Avenue they have those sugary, cinnamony, puffily ginormous doughnuts that come with a little pot of creamy sweet dipping sauce. Everytime I eat one I end up with sugar all over my chin and sauce all over my fingers, and a smile of contentment on my face.

So I think maybe I might have to have a doughnut party. I figure items needed: deep fryer (check), tiny dipping bowls (check), doughnuts (must find good recipe), dipping sauce (ditto), and people to eat the doughnuts (that's you guys!). Mmm....doughnuts!

What To Do With Black Bananas

2008-10-08T16:19:00.000-07:00

I got home from work yesterday to discover that the bananas on the counter were really yellow, ok almost black, and smelled supremely banana-y (banana-ish?). Considering that the Amish bread starter that is proofing on the counter is making my whole kitchen smell like I'm brewing beer, I really couldn't handle the beer/banana combination that was occurring, so I decided that the bananas would have to become banana bread, pronto.

I have several 'fancy' banana bread recipes I've been wanting to try...two from Orangette's blog, a Martha Stewart one, an Alton Brown one...but since I was rushing I decided to go to the tried and true Betty Crocker Cookbook, the 3 ring one with the red checker-board cover. It had exactly what I wanted, a basic banana bread recipe that was super easy. I went from yellow-black (yack? blellow?) bananas, to golden-brown banana bread in less than an hour, including 45 minutes of baking time!

The end result was just what I wanted: simple and delicious. The sugary top crust is slightly crunchy, but the rest of the bread is smooth and moist, with an occasional lump of banana goodness. The bread also makes your kitchen smell tantalizingly fresh and cinnamony, and will totally smother any overpoweringly yeasty smells, I promise.

Betty Crocker Banana Bread
Slightly tweaked

4 large overripe bananas

2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 1/4 cups white granulated sugar

3 cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon

dash ground cloves

1/4 cup white sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves, set aside. In a food processor puree together the bananas, eggs, oil, and sugar, until mostly smooth (or mash the bananas with a potato masher and stir in the rest). It's ok if there are a few lumps left.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients all at once, stir until just combined. DON'T overmix! Divide the batter between two lightly greased 8x4 inch loaf pans. Combine the additional sugar and cinnamon, sprinkle over the tops of the loaves.

Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes, then rotate and cover loosely with foil if necessary, because the sugar makes them brown quickly on top. Bake an additional 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool on a wire rack for at least 20 minutes before attempting to take the loaves out. Carefully remove them from pans to a wire rack to continue cooling, and for best results let the bread rest until the next day before slicing. But you can dig in right away; a slice of warm banana bread makes a lovely snack!

Makes two loaves, about 24 slices, and should keep for about a week if well-wrapped.

Bad Guys: Aaron Burr

2008-10-05T16:46:00.000-07:00

I've been reading "Fallen Founder: the Life of Aaron Burr" by Nancy Isenberg, which attempts to portray Aaron Burr as a midsunderstood man, who really wasn't such a bad guy. While I will admit that Burr was obviously tainted by the duel with Hamilton and that his tarnished image was unfair, I kind of feel like American history needs him as a bad guy. If all the founding fathers were really that great, then it just makes the current political leadership in this country even more depressing. We need to know that Hamilton picked fights and Adams was bad-tempered and that Jefferson could be petty, and that Burr was a murderous, lecherous, possibly treasonous man. I'll give us George Washington as a paragon of perfection, I think it's just as necessary to have a "good guy" to look up to, but I think Burr is needed as the archetypical antithesis of Washington's persona.

This is partially Isenberg's point of course, she points out that Burr has had popular biographies, movies, and even pornography (!!!) written about him, but up until now there was never a serious intellectual biography about him. Most historians of the founding era have been content to let him remain the bad guy, the scheming counterpart to the others' nobility. It seems like Isenberg has gone too far the other way though; her attempts to show that Burr's shady land deals and frank sexual affairs were just part of his era, or at least no worse than any of his other contemporaries on the New York political scene don't make him seen any less sketchy; they just make all the politicians, including the Clintons and other big New York families seem equally tarnished. I don't think that badmouthing everyone else is the right way to go about making Burr look less bad, but it is original, I'll give Isenberg that.

The two things that I learned about Burr that really interested me were (1) that he was Jonathan Edwards' grandson. (How did I miss this?!?) and (2) that he was pretty much an early feminist. His wife Theodosia was ten years his senior, a well-educated, articulate, political hostess, who was actually married to a British officer when he met her. He and Theodosia exchanged very intellectual letters discussing the educational philosophy of Rousseau and the feminist philosophy of Wollstonecraft. Their daughter Theodosia was educated in Greek and Latin, highly unusual for a woman of that era, and Burr treated both Theodosias as his intellectual equals, a refreshing mindset in a man of his status.

I do think that Isenberg brought up a good point here; that both Theodosias died young, and therefore Burr didn't have numerous progeny polishing his image for posterity the way that Adams and Washington and other founding fathers did. But all in all, I got the vague impression that the book was as much about Isenberg trying to resolve a crush on Aaron Burr as it was about revamping his image. If you're looking for an unusual lens for viewing early American history through, this book will fit the bill. Otherwise, I'd stick to David McCullough or Joseph Ellis, they're much more readable.

Sugar Free "Icebox" Pie

2008-10-04T16:22:00.000-07:00

Given that we know about sixteen people that are diabetic (and I'm related to at least half of them) I've been thinking that I ought to come up with some more sugar free recipes. We celebrated my father-in-law's birthday last week, and since he was one of the diabetic people that we know, I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to test out a sugar free recipe from my mom. It's super easy, a no-bake pie, but it's delicious and refreshing, and you really can't even tell that it's sugar free.

I did make my own graham cracker crust, which makes it not quite sugar free, but you can easily buy pre-made sugar free crusts. I just like the taste of homemade crusts a lot better.

All it takes is sugar free jello, sugar free whipped topping, some ice and some boiling water, and a few add-ins if desired. I made two with orange jello, and split a small can of well-drained mandarin oranges between them. I made another with raspberry jello and added 3 oz of chopped sugar free dark chocolate. Both were really good....one of my mandarin orange ones came out with a slightly soggy crust, but the other one was fine, so I'm not quite sure what happened there. But each pie was creamy, cold, sweet, and quite pretty looking. I decided to forgo blowing out candles, since I was afraid that the heat of the candles might melt them a little bit, but they were festive in their own candle-less way. The raspberry chocolate one came out looking especially pretty. So make a diabetic happy, go make a sugar free pie!

Sugar Free "Icebox" Pie

one (9 inch) sugar free graham cracker pie crust

one (0.3 oz) pkg sugar free jello

one (8 oz) pkg sugar free whipped topping, thawed

2/3 cup boiling water

2 cups ice cubes

optional: 3 oz sugar free dark chocolate, chopped

or one small can no sugar added fruit, well drained

Dissolve the jello in boiling water, whisk till completely smooth. Whisk in 2 cups ice cubes, stir for 2 minutes, or until jello starts to quick-set, remove any remaining ice cube pieces. Fold in whipped topping. Fold in fruit or chocolate if desired. Spoon into graham cracker crust, refrigerate at least one hour before serving, serve cold. Refrigerate any leftovers.

Salssssa

2008-09-26T17:16:00.000-07:00

I took the remainder of the veggies from Apples Annies...

grilled the heck out of them...

took the grilled veggies and put them all in the food processor...

et voila....

Homemade Salsa
3 tomatoes
1 large onion
4 bell peppers
3 green or red chiles
3 jalapenos
15-20 cloves of garlic (to taste)
1 1/2 tsp salt (to taste)

Grill all of the above, peel off the blackened skins, pull the peppers and tomatoes into largish pieces (after grilling the veggies are so soft you don't even really need a knife, just a nearby garbage can to catch all the skins and seeds). Scrape the seeds out of the peppers, and squeeze the extra seeds and liquid out of the tomatoes. Squeeze the garlic cloves out of their papers, put all of the tomatoes, peppers, onion, and garlic into a food processor and pulse until you reach your desired consistency. Add salt, pulse in, and add more salt and garlic if desired.

I saved one of the grilled red chile peppers, peeled off the skin, and then sliced it into thin strips. I combined those strips with freshly grated cheddar cheese to make some awesome quesadillas for dinner--topped with some delicious garlicky salsa of course.

Ooh la la, apple pie

2008-09-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

That's right, there are four apple pies in that picture. Let's just say that I was a little busy last Sunday afternoon! Thankfully Noel peeled all the apples for me, so I just had to slice them, and make the crusts, and make the caramel/glaze. It also makes me happy that I was able to use up most of the apples (and in the nick of time too). Sadly I let the pears wait too long...they started making some sort of fermented pear liquid on the floor of the pantry, so I had to throw them away. (And then two days later at Fry's I overheard two women talking about how fantastically sweet and juicy the Asian pears they got at Apple Annie's were! Argh!) But enough about that failure, back to the deliciousness of the apple pies!

I used a recipe I found on allrecipes.com last year called "Grandma Ople's Apple Pie" (variation of Opal? but I think Opie is funnier) which I adapted to suit my purposes. You make the pie crust, slice the apples, mound the the apples in the crust, and then pour a rich, buttery, sugary caramel over the apples, top with another crust, and brush that crust with a little of the caramel as a glaze. The original recipe called for doing a lattice-crust over the apples, and then just pouring the glaze over the whole thing, but the crust is usually my favorite part of the pie, so I did a whole top crust.

The end result is crazily sweet and deliciously appley. The crust is soft and flaky just under the surface, and then crispy and sugary right on the top where the glaze has baked on. The Apple Annie's apples were perfect, they held up to the heat, and became tender but not mushy.

My one caveat is that I actually wouldn't recommend trying to make four pies at once using this method. The caramel thickens really fast, which means that you need an extra person to keep stirring it while you're putting on the top crusts, and in the rush to get everything done at the same time I ended up burning Noel with the caramel. (Sad face) So I'd only use this to make one or two pies at a time in the future.

But we took the hot apple pies and delivered one to our neighbors, one to our pastor, and one to the elementary director from church, and still had one warm apple pie left for us at home. With a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream this is a la mode gloriousness!

Jessica's version of Grandma 'Opie's' Pie

2 nine-inch prepared pie crusts

1/2 cup unsalted butter

3 tbsp flour

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup white granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla

5-6 granny smith, or other tart apples, peeled, cored, and sliced into 1/4 inch segments

Roll out the pie crusts, press one crust in a nine inch pie tin, chill for about fifteen minutes. Then chill the other one while preparing the apples and caramel. Once the apples are all peeled, cored, and sliced, pile the apples fairly evenly in the prepared pie crust.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. In a medium saucepan melt the butter over low heat. Whisk in the flour to form a paste, stir in the water to thin it back out, and then stir in the sugars, spices, and vanilla. Keep stirring constantly, this thickens up quickly. Pour almost all of the caramel over the apples in the pie pan, reserving a few tablespoons to brush over the top. At this point it's helpful to have someone else stir the caramel, unless you're super-coordinated, which I am most definitely not.

Place the second crust over the apples and caramel, crimp the edges of the two crusts together, and cut slits in the top, in a decorative pattern if you're so inclined. Then brush the remaining caramel over the main part of the pie, don't worry about the crimped edges, it makes a nice contrast actually if they're not coated with the glaze.

Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake an additional 30-40 minutes or until the non-glazed crust is golden brown, and the apples seem soft. (I poked a toothpick in through the slits in the crust to check this, and mine were perfect at just about 32 minutes).

Eggplant Parmesan, le deuxieme

2008-09-21T19:05:00.000-07:00

So the tomato sauce was a success, but now came the actual eggplant parmesan. I was pretty worried about it since I've never cooked with eggplant before, and we were having people over for dinner, but I since the eggplants were also creepily watching me, I decided to take the plunge.

First I peeled and cut the eggplant into 1/4 inch slices. I salted the eggplant and laid it out on paper towels to dry. After fifteen minutes or so I flipped them, salted the other side, and let them dry out for another fifteen minutes. Then I rinsed the salt off and patted them dry. After they were dry I dredged them in egg substitute and then Italian bread crumbs. I baked them at 350 degrees for fifteen minutes, flipped them and baked another fifteen minutes til they were crispy on the outside and soft in the middle.

Then I layered the eggplant with the tomato sauce from my last post, ricotta cheese, extra breadcrumbs, and shredded mozzarella cheese. I baked it all together for about 25 minutes until the cheese got all melty. The end result was creamy, crunchy, garlicky, cheesy and kinda messy, but served over home-made egg noodles (yes I did go all Martha Stewart this weekend!) it was fantastic.

Eggplant Parmesan

(from Chef to the Rescue by Cat Cora)

2 large eggplants

1 cup egg substitute (or 3 beaten eggs)

2 cups italian bread crumbs

1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

3-4 cups tomato sauce

2 cups shredded cheese, mozzarella or provolone

1 cup ricotta cheese

Slice, salt, and dry the eggplants according to the directions above. Place the egg substitute in one shallow dish, and the bread crumbs in another. Dredge the eggplant slices in the egg and then in the bread crumbs, coating both sides. (Save any remaining breadcrumbs). Bake the eggplant slices for fifteen minutes on each side at 350 degrees.

In a medium-sized casserole dish ladle 1/3 of the tomato sauce. Top with half of the eggplant slices, overlapping slices slightly if necessary, then top with half the ricotta cheese, half the remaining bread crumbs, and half the shredded cheese. Repeat layers, ending with the shredded cheese again.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until the cheese is all melty and golden and perfect. Serve with pasta.

Eggplant Parmesan, la premiere

2008-09-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

I've been slightly stressed out by the abundance of produce in my fridge and pantry. Every time I eat something else, I feel a little bit guilty. I swear that every time I open the fridge the tomatoes are watching me, saying in tiny tomato-ey voices, "Eat us. We will go bad soon. You will have wasted us. Eat ussss....." It's pretty creepy really, so I decided today to get a jump on using stuff.

I'm saving some of the tomatoes to combine with all the jalapenos and garlic and bell peppers that have also been staring at me, and make a batch of superb salsa. Plus two of the tomatoes are still totally green, which I don't quite understand since we picked them a week ago, but they're really tiny, so maybe I just picked them too soon and they won't ever ripen.

Anyway, I started with two big tomatoes, dunked them in boiling water for a minute or so till their skins started splitting, and then I plopped them in an ice bath and peeled off their skins. Which, if you think talking tomatoes are creepy, wait till you touch skinned tomatoes! Eww!

Once they were skinned I quartered them, squeezed out the seeds, and then set them in the food processor to hang out. In the meantime I heated two tablespoons of olive oil and two tablespoons of butter in my largest saucepan. Then I sauted one small onion, roughly chopped, and six cloves of garlic until they were golden brown.

I tipped the whole onion/garlic/oil mixture into the food processor, and pureed it with the tomatoes until it was mostly smooth. Then I returned this mixture to the large saucepan, and added one 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes, since two tomatoes wasn't going to make enough sauce for the eggplant parmesan later. Normally this would probably smell really good, but since I was simultaneously baking the chocolate cake below, the aura was bizzare to say the least. So I recommend that you do not bake a cake while making this sauce. Unless of course you think garlic, chocolate, and tomato is a good combination.

I brought the tomato sauce to a boil and then let it simmer at a pretty high heat for about 30 minutes (with the lid on--it spits like crazy). Then I took the lid off, added 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, and another tablespoon or so of olive oil, and reduced the heat to low. I let it calm down a little, and then once it stopped spitting so much I put the lid back on and let it simmer for another two hours or so. I didn't even add extra spices or anything because I didn't want it to conflict with the eggplant, but the sauce came out quite lovely: thick, tomato-ey, and a vibrant red.

Tomato Sauce

2 large tomatoes, skinned, with the seeds squeezed out

1 small onion, chopped

6 cloves garlic

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes

Saute the onions and garlic in the butter and olive oil. Puree the tomatoes, onion, and garlic until smooth, then simmer on medium-high heat in a large saucepan along with the can of crushed tomatoes. After about half an hour remove the lid, stir in the salt and sugar, turn heat down to low, and simmer for an additional two hours.

Peppers, Apples, and Eggplants, oh my!

2008-09-16T19:21:00.001-07:00

This is the apple tree...

from whence came these apples...

and these are the peppers, which made delicious veggie tacos last night.

More good things are coming (including les aubergines)--I promise. And I'll try to remember to take pictures next time. But just so you know, if you dice and saute one large potato and one small onion for a few minutes in a little canola oil, and then you add in two diced red bell peppers, one finely chopped green chile, three pressed cloves of garlic, and a can of black beans and saute a little longer, and then fold this sweet and spicy mixture in a warm flour tortilla and sprinkle with a little shredded cheese, you just might think about going vegetarian. Mmm....

Sugar-pie honey-bunch, you know that I love... cookies...

2008-09-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

I really like cookies. Mmm.... Chocolate chip cookies, perfection. Molasses cookies, to die for. Snickerdoodles, butter cookies, butterscotch cookies, swedish heirlooms, all up there. But sugar cookies, not my favorite. I often feel like sugar cookies have a soda-y, almost bitter aftertaste that I do not enjoy. Maybe it's because they're so sweet to start with, that the aftertaste can't possibly stand up to it, it's bound to be less sweet, I don't really know. But I've decided that there have to be some good sugar cookies out there, so I started looking around on allrecipes.com.

I found a recipe called "Soft Sugar Cookies IV" which I decided to give a shot. The cookies ended up being quite tasty, and the aftertaste was much less pronounced than in many other varieties I've tried. I don't think that sugar cookies will ever be my favorite, but these cookies are quite tasty in a sugary, sweet way. You might possibly hear your arteries give a small whimper as you eat them, but feel free to disregard this. Especially while warm, these cookies are almost perfect--sugary, fluffy, warm, melt-in-your mouth good. And even now, a week later, the leftover still aren't half bad. They're a little drier and a little bit more crumbly, but still an acceptable date for a cold glass of milk.

Soft Sugar Cookies

2/3 cup shortening
2/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups white granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup granulated sugar for decoration

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl cream together the shortening and butter for several minutes. Beat in the sugar and cream until sugar and fats are well combined. Beat in the eggs and vanilla, set aside. In a medium bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients in small increments, beating thoroughly after each addition.

Fill a small bowl with granulated sugar--I used a mix of white and colored sugars. Roll the dough into one inch balls, roll each ball in the granulated sugar to coat, and space out the balls of dough on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until cookies are mostly firm on top and lightly golden brown on the bottom. Remove carefully from pan with a thin spatula so they won't break. Let cool on a wire rack, then store in an airtight container.

According to the original recipe on allrecipes.com this made 24 cookies, but I got closer to 60 out of it, so I guess it all depends on how big you want to make your cookies. If you're making them bigger definitely let them bake an extra minute or two.

Fred Vargas

2008-09-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

J'aime Fred Vargas--elle est completement superbe! Her books are well written, engrossing, at points hilarious, and just generally "unputdownable," to borrow a phrase from a publisher's blurb. Her latest book, This Night's Foul Work, is no exception to the general rule. It is the fourth book in the Commissaire Adamsberg series, and the most recent to be translated into English. Vargas is at her quirky best in this book and Commissaire Adamsberg is at his fantastic, vague, whirling-minded tricks again. I think he really might be my favorite literary detective ever. Although the book is indisputably a police procedural, Adamsberg is in no way a typical detective. His mind wanders in ways wondrous to behold, and yet somehow his rambling thoughts always manage to slip through criminals' protections and unravel the case from within.

In This Night's Foul Work Adamsberg's usual team is back--the stressed out, increasingly alchoholic Danglard, the imperturbable Violette Retancourt, the constantly eating Froissy, and the other 24 officers who report to Adamsberg--plus a new character, Veyrenc, who, like Adamsberg, comes from the Pyrenees. Veyrenc speaks in twelve syllabic verse, which lends even more poetry than usual to Vargas's writing. Veyrenc also complicates Adamsberg's personal life, which is already just about as convoluted as Adamsberg's mind.

The book begins with the bodies of two young men. Adamsberg is convinced that he should keep the bodies, but the drugs division wants them, because they think that it was drug related. A new pathologist, Ariane, confirms Adamsberg's murder suspicion and informs him that the murders were committed by a woman. Adamsberg knows that the "angel of death" (a nurse who has killed thirty-odd patients) has escaped from jail, so he sets out to stop the angel of death before she can kill more people. As the bodies begin to pile up Adamsberg becomes increasingly anxious to find the "third virgin" before the angel of death finds her first.

The case is complicated by Adamsberg's attempts to bond with his nine month old son Thom, and to re-ignite the flame between Thom's mother Camille and himself. Adamsberg is also struggling to maintain his grasp on the case in spite of his fellow Parisian officers and the Normandy officers who want him to let it drop, the taciturnity of the people of Normandy, Adamsberg's attempts to placate some Norman men by investigating the 'murders' of two stags, the appearance of a centuries old recipe for eternal life, and the irritation of some of Adamsberg's own team members, who think that he is on a wild goose chase. This is an excellent mystery with fantastic characters, an improbable yet oddly believable plot, and the lyrical language that is so quintessentially Vargas. Je vous dis que vous devrez acheter ce livre sans hésitation, c'est magnifique!

Breakfast for Dinner!

2008-09-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

Growing up we ate pancakes for dinner fairly often. My favorite was the "pancake taco" (a pancake held taco shell style, filled with applesauce). Something about a warm, crispy crusted, soft pancake, filled with cold, sweet applesauce was irresistible for me. I still can't resist breakfast for dinner sometimes. Breakfast burrito night is a pretty common standard around here, and sometimes nothing but a good bacon or broccoli omelet will fulfill my dinnertime cravings. I have a standard brunch/breakfast casserole that I use pretty often when we have people over for brunch, but I just made it for dinner today, and it might be one of my new favorite breakfasts for dinner. Since you make it ahead of time you can assemble it in the morning before work, or even the night before, and then just pull it out of the refrigerator and bake it after work. All it really needs on the side is a bowl of fruit to make it a nice well-rounded meal. I use 1% milk and 2% cheese, so it's relatively non-bad for you (I feel that saying "good" for you might be going a bit far, so I'm going to stick with "non-bad"').

The original recipe I found on allrecipes.com called this a breakfast strata, and called for the ingredients to be layered. I've made it this way, which produces a creamy custard on the bottom, and a meaty-cheesy layer on the top. It's pretty good this way, but I prefer to un-strata it, and jumble the bread and sausage and cheese all together, so that you get creamy custardy bites intermingled with the cheese and sausage; and some of the bites of bread end up on top, so they get crunchy and golden brown. I think it has better texture all jumbled together, but hey, give it a shot both ways, you really can't mess this up. The recipe is also really flexible for adding different ingredients. You can substitute bacon or ham for the sausage, or even a mix of mushrooms and onions if you're making it for some veggie friends. You can also use different kinds of bread and different kinds of cheese to play with the flavors a little. And, on a sidenote, this is a rare dish that actual reheats quite well in the microwave, so you can easily have a tasty breakfast (for breakfast) the next morning.

Sausage and Egg Casserole

1 lb ground pork sausage
6 eggs
2 cups milk
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 tsp onion salt
1/2 to 1 tsp italian seasoning (or dry mustard, or even paprika, whatever really, I'd go heavier on italian seasoning, closer to 1/2 tsp on the other two)

Crumble and cook sausage in a large skillet over medium heat until well-browned, drain any extra grease. Cut the slices of bread into cubes. Lightly grease a large casserole pan (I used an oval 2.8 liter pan which works perfectly, but I think a 9x13 would work too, you'd just have to watch it a little because it might cook faster). Toss the bread cubes, 2/3 of the cheese, and the sausage together in the pan. Then sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the top of the mixture.

In a medium bowl slightly beat the eggs, then beat in the milk and seasonings. Pour this mixture over the pan of sausage, bread, and cheese, trying to saturate all portions pretty evenly.

Cover the pan with foil and refrigerate at least 8 hours, or overnight.

Half an hour prior to baking remove the pan from the fridge to rest on the counter. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake (uncovered) for 50-60 minutes, or until the casserole puffs up slightly and the cheese on the top is golden brown. Let rest for 5-10 minutes after removing from the oven, then enjoy!

Muffin Challenge Update

2008-09-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

I made some muffins for the book club meeting last week that came out pretty well, a tad dry, but I think I'm getting closer to my goal. I had a nice bunch of bananas ripening on the counter, and I was planning to make another batch yesterday, but Noel's been sick all week, and I think I caught it, so I'm spacier than normal. And sadly the bananas totally rotted, I'm actually kind of scared to pick them up and throw them away; they're seriously disgusting.

But we bought a Wii, and we have The Wire to watch, and the semi-finals and finals of the US Open are this weekend. So I think that I'll manage to have an excellent weekend in spite of my lack of muffins. Go Federer!

Book club books

2008-08-29T18:00:00.000-07:00

Over the last few months I've been participating in a book club at work. I've never done a book club before, and wasn't quite sure if I'd like it. I have been enjoying myself, but it does lend a certain homework-y vibe to my reading that I don't really like. Since I tend to read several books at once, and switch around depending on my mood, it's difficile to settle on reading one book at a certain time every month, especially if it's a book that I'm not really enjoying!

So far we have read Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon, Julie and Julia by Julie Powell, and The Pesthouse by Jim Crace.

I really liked The Yiddish Policeman's Union--a detective novel set in an alternate history where Sitka, Alaska is a city of two million Jews. As a mystery it wasn't the best plot ever, the ending was vague, which is always annoying, and Detective Meyer Landsman is very stereotypical: a divorced, alchoholic, bitter man, who solves his crimes based mostly on hunches, and of course, continues to stay on cases even after being ordered to shelve them by his commanding officer/ex-wife. But it's the minor characters and the yiddish-sprinkled language, and the whole intriguing idea of Jewish Sitka that made this book for me.

Julie and Julia was pretty much awful. There were a few moments where I was hoping for more, but it just kept disappointing me. The main character/author, Julie Powell, undertakes the task of trying to cook through The Art of French Cooking by Julia Child in one year. The premise was interesting, but Julie is a whiny, self-preoccupied person, who tries to hard to be funny and frankly by halfway through the book I just wanted her to stop. I did really like the chapter on lobster recipes though; her descriptions of trying to kill the lobsters made me laugh out loud.

The Pesthouse is harder to define. I didn't really like it, and I didn't really dislike it. I just read it. It tells the story of two people, Franklin Lopez, and a girl named Margaret, who are both separated from their families in post-apocalyptic America. Franklin left his family willingly, heading for the east coast and a ship to Europe in hopes of a better life. Margaret was ostracized by her family, and sent to a pesthouse because of her illness. Franklin and Margaret end up traveling along a ruined former highway together, and their experiences include marauders, attempted rapists, religious fanatics known as Finger Baptists, and a small child called Bella. Somehow the book never really grabbed my interest though. My description of their experiences makes them sound much more exciting than they really were; the story itself plodded along, and nothing much seemed to happen.

So the book club picks have been mixed so far, but I have high hopes for the next few months. This month we're reading assorted short stories, next month is Revolutionary Road, the month after that is In the Woods, and then we're finishing out the year with Lavinia. Should be good!

Enchiladas Part Three: The Beef

2008-08-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

Shredded Beef

1 two lb pot roast
2 tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp chile powder
1 tsp onion salt
3-4 cups water
1 tbsp oil

In a large pan heat the oil to a pretty high heat, and brown the roast slightly on all sides. Once the roast is browned remove it to a crockpot. Sprinkle the meat with half of each of the spices, pour in 3 cups water, and cook on high for about 2 hours, turning the roast over occasionally. If necessary add another cup of water during this part (you want the water to cover most of the roast). After the two hours use two forks to pry the meat into a couple of smaller chunks. It may still be hard to separate, but you should be able to break it into three or four pieces. Also cut off any huge fatty pieces that are obvious. Then place the lid back on, turn the heat down to low, and cook about eight hours, or overnight.

The next part is a little weird, but I am totally grossed out by fatty meat, so this is my method for getting most of the fat out. In the morning I take the hot crockpot, stir the meat around a little more, put the lid back on, and put the whole crockpot in the fridge while I go to work.

When I get home from work, I take it out, and the fat rises to the top in chunks once it gets cold. If it was a really fatty roast you may be able to just lift the pieces of fat off the top with a fork, because they'll be pretty big. The one I used the other day was leaner, and just had dots of fat floating, so I put a big bowl in the sink, put a strainer inside it, and then drained the liquid off the meat into the bowl, so the strainer caught all the fat.

Return the meat and about 2 cups of the liquid back to the crockpot (or a large saucepan). You want the liquid to be just about at the top of the pieces of meat, so you may need a little more or less than 2 cups. Add the remaining half of the spices, and cook the meat on high for about 1 1/2 hours. Every few minutes stir the meat around and use two forks to pull it apart into small shreds. Once the liquid has been absorbed, and the meat is all shredded, turn the heat down to low, and then use the meat to make some fantastic enchiladas or flautas.

With this amount of meat you could make two pans of enchiladas according the method I described in my previous post, or you could make a pan of enchiladas and about eight flautas. Delicioso!

Enchiladas Part Two: Finally a Happy Ending

2008-08-24T12:28:00.001-07:00

Irritated by my enchiladas fiasco a week or two ago, I decided to go back to my standard shredded beef/green enchilada sauce recipe, and was relieved to discover that I could in fact make bueno enchiladas! Granted the sauce may not be completely authentic, I'm pretty sure that adding milk is not exactly standard, but it tastes yummy, and it's the perfect complement to the shredded beef. The beef is garlicky and tender, the sauce is creamy and spicy, and then fresh, pliable tortillas, and shredded cheese are added--how could it not be fabulous?

And the leftover meat made some pretty awesome flautas too, to which our Friday night guests and my sister would probably both attest. Noel and I finished off the last two enchiladas for lunch today, and I'm already wanting to make it again, just talking about the taste of these makes my mouth start watering! The one small downside is that while the beef is cooking your house will pretty much smell like some sort of weird meat factory, which is really unappealing first thing in the morning (I cook it overnight in a crockpot), but don't worry about what your neighbors might think of your strange odours and emanations, you can take them some of the finished product, and all will be forgiven.

Shredded Beef Enchiladas with Salsa Verde

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup flour

1 cup + 3 tbsp milk, divided

1 cup chopped onion

2 (4 oz) cans of chopped green chiles

7 oz spicy salsa verde

dash of salt

7-8 10 inch flour tortillas

the shredded meat from one 2 lb roast

(sorry, I didn't think to measure how much meat I got as as the finished product)

2 cups shredded cheese, preferably cheddar or jack

In a large saucepan melt the 1/2 cup butter over medium heat. Saute the chopped onion in the butter for 2-3 minutes, until the onions begin to soften. Add the green chiles, and keep stirring for another minute or two. Then add in the flour, stirring quickly to keep the flour from scorching. It will soon turn into a bunch of weird green lumps as the flour sticks to the onions and chiles, but keep stirring the lumps around until all the flour is absorbed. Increase the heat slightly, and slowly add in one cup of milk, stirring constantly, until the milk combines with the lumps and makes a fairly smooth sauce. It'll never be completely smooth because of the chiles and onions, but just try to make sure that there are no flour lumps. Add a dash of salt if desired.

Once the sauce is pretty smooth, stir in the salsa verde. Let the sauce thicken for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, then remove one cup of the sauce to a microwave safe cup or bowl. Add the shredded beef to the saucepan with the remaining sauce, stirring until the sauce and beef combine into a sort of paste (which sounds gross, but will taste great!)

Spread about 1/2 a cup of the meat mixture along the edge of a tortilla. Sprinkle the meat with about 2 tablespoons of cheese and roll the tortilla up. Place the enchilada into a lightly greased 9x13 pan. Keep repeating this until you've used up your tortillas, and your pan is full of enchiladas (you should only use about half of the meat mixture.) Take the cup of sauce that you set aside, and stir in an extra 3 tbsp of milk to thin it slightly. Microwave it for about 20 seconds to re-warm it if necessary. Spread the sauce over the top of the enchiladas, then sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes, or until the cheese on the top is crunchy, and the enchiladas seem hot through.

One, two, buckle my blueberry

2008-08-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

At the risk of sounding a bit Janet Evanovich-ish, the name "Blueberry Buckle" makes me think of "one, two, buckle my shoe, three, four, shut the door." I was trying to make it rhyme...."One, two, buckle my blueberry, three four, shut the funerary/ dromedary/ Londonderry..." but I'm having trouble thinking of appropriate words ending in "erry" or "ary"... so let's just stick with Blueberry Buckle.

In case you don't know: a buckle (in baking terms) is a coffee-cake like item, almost always made with blueberries, and always topped with a deliciously decadent streusel. It's closely related to the crumble, and falls in the same family as pandowdys and Brown Bettys. (I must say, I really like the names that American settler-types came up with for their desserts. The list that includes the desserts I just mentioned also includes grunts, slumps, and sonkers...which all sound a bit like the noises a messy eater might make while stuffing their faces with some fabulous blueberry buckle or apple pandowdy). The buckle gets its name from its streusel topping, which 'buckles' in the oven while it's baking.

Blueberry Buckle tastes like a sweet, cake-like blueberry muffin that traded tops with its friend the dutch apple pie. The buckle is loaded, completely stuffed, with fresh blueberries, bursting with juiciness all through the sweet cake batter. Then the top is cinnamon-y and spicy, crunchy, and sweet, and the whole thing is absolutely perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect. The dough is spiked with spices like nutmeg and cloves (whose ridiculously deep smell always strikes me as redolent of faraway places, conjuring up images of camel trains laboring across the Silk Road to bring such delicacies to the not-so-good-smelling Europeans), and its enticing aroma will make you impatient to slice in right away, but resist! I promise, it's actually better when it's closer to room temperature, or even cold. You can't properly appreciate the sweetness or the crunchiness when it's piping hot. The buckle is not necessarily the prettiest baked good on the block, it cannot compare in tidiness with a muffin, but a slice of this for breakfast is heaven.

Blueberry Buckle
adapted from mi madre's recipe

3/4 cup white granulated sugar
1/4 cup shortening
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries

1/4 cup white granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, slightly softened

In a medium bowl sift together flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cloves, set aside. In a larger bowl cream together the white sugar and shortening, then beat in the eggs and milk, until mixture is smooth and mostly lump-free. Gradually stir in the flour mixture, again until mixture is smooth. Then gently fold in the blueberries. Spoon the batter into either one nine inch square pan, or two smaller loaf shaped pans (either way the pans need to be lightly greased on the bottom and sides). The batter won't be very thick, so don't worry if it doesn't seem like quite enough at first.

In a small bowl (or that medium bowl you used for the flour) mix together the sugars, cinnamon, flour, and butter, until the mixture is fine and crumbly, and there are no big chunks of butter. I used a pastry cutter for this part, which worked really well. Then sprinkle this topping evenly over the batter, making sure to get all the way to the corners!

Bake in an oven that was pre-heated to 375 degrees for 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, and the topping is firm and brown.

Then cool on a wire rack for at least half an hour, maybe a bit more, until the buckles have cooled. Carefully remove to a cutting board, slice, and devour.

Five reasons I want to move to Scotland

2008-08-18T20:02:00.000-07:00

1. It's socially acceptable to eat scones for breakfast AND tea.

2. I'm pretty sure I'd giggle forever if Noel ever put on a kilt.

3. I could say words in indecipherable English. Things like "awae wi ye"!

4. Edinburgh sounds like an amazing place to live--full of spectacular architecture, a varied history, and a hilariously dour population.

5. I'm kind of in love with John Rebus. In the last month I've read six Ian Rankin books. I read one a few months ago, without realizing I started with the 18th in the series or something like that. I liked Rebus's character at that point, but I wasn't particularly hooked until I started with book one, Knots and Crosses, and am now through Mortal Causes, book six. Reading them in order makes Rebus come to life. You catch the little references about the fringe characters in his life that carry on from book to book. It's also possible to watch his character change, often as a result of the changing women in his life. His ongoing battles with 'whisky' and cigarrettes make him real, a little bit depressing, and a little bit funny, in a very Scottish sort of way.

I'm definitely hooked! So awae wi ye, I've got more Ian Rankin books to read!

Absentmindedness

2008-08-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

Normally I'm a fairly precise baker. Messy, but an accurate measurer anyway. But in the last week I have made two batches of muffins, in my quest to find a yummy, healthy muffin, and both times I have left out key ingredients.

On Monday night I made banana muffins, not the fat free version I tried before, but a low-fat version which seemed to be coming together nicely. Then right after I had scooped all the batter into the muffin tins I licked my finger, and realized I'd left out the sugar. So I scooped what I could back out into the bowl, mixed in the sugar, and put it back in the tins. Surprisingly they actually tasted pretty good, but they looked totally weird! The remants of what I hadn't been able to scoop out were dark and crusty, so while the main part of the muffins were good, they had these bizarre crispy lumps and bumps all over the outsides. Needless to say, I did not take pictures of this batch.

Then last night I made some blueberry banana muffins, mostly because I had tons of blueberries and one sad and blackened banana still hanging out. This time I completely forgot to add the egg--and I didn't realize it until they were halfway through their baking time. They came out looking ok, and they don't taste necessarily bad; but kind of odd. The word that comes to mind is flat, which doesn't really make sense in a muffin, especially since they didn't fall flat, but there's just some sort of flat flavor to them.

So I'm working on the muffin challenge. But before I post more recipes I think I'd better actually make one completely. Hopefully sometime this weekend, once I've escaped from my Olympics-induced stupor and caught up on sleep a little bit I'll be able to make some really delicious (and accurate) muffins!

Grandma-Inspired Macaroni and Cheese

2008-08-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

For the last few days I've been craving some luscious home-made macaroni and cheese, and so the other day I headed for Trader Joe's to get some good cheese. This in and of itself would amaze my mother. As a child I invariably complained whenever my mom made macaroni and cheese, or hesitantly took teeny portions of my grandma's famous macaroni and cheese. But Kraft Mac and Cheese? I LOVED it! For some reason my childish tastebuds were a big fan of processed food (I also preferred those mashed potatoes where you just add water to the flakes to real mashed potatoes, much to the bewilderment of my family). Although I am still a fairly picky eater, I have broadened my horizons, at least as far as macaroni and cheese anyway!

Therefore I was on my cheesy quest when I spied some packages of already cubed pancetta; and the rest, as they say, is history. Indeed, visions of pasta and cheese were dancing through my mind last night as I sleepily stared at the tv during swimming and women's gymnastics.

So tonight, giddy and tired with Olympic joy/lack of sleep from staying awake "late" to watch said Olympics (yes it makes me feel like I'm about 62, but 11:30 does feel late nowadays); I decided that a big dish of comforting mac and cheese would be the perfect thing to hopefully accompany another night of Olympic glory. Maybe it seems like an odd thing to make on a 100 degree day, but hey, it's southern Arizona, if I only made baked dishes on cold days, I'd only get to eat mac and cheese about twice a year.

I boiled the pasta and shredded the cheese and pan-fried the pancetta, and stirred and mixed it all together into a pan of fantastic, delicious, gooey perfection. I hate to brag on myself (kinda) but this really was the best macaroni I've ever made. I loosely adapted the recipe for my Grandma's mac and cheese, substituting rather more decadent ingredients than she normally uses. It really did come together beautifully, and even though it's a little bit time-consuming to shred all the cheese and assemble everything, it was kind of therepeutic to take my time and let it all meld together. I used half swiss cheese to give it a tang, and half cheddar, to give it the stereotypcial mac and cheese glow. The crispy bits of salty pancetta were the perfect complement to the warm cheese-engulfed pasta, topped with extra cheese and some Italian breadcrumbs for extra crunch on the top. Et voila, bon appetit!

Swiss and Cheddar Celentani with Pancetta

1 lb hollow pasta, such as elbow macaroni or celentani

1/2 lb pancetta, cubed

(you could probably substitute regular bacon for equally good taste)

1 1/2 cups swiss cheese, shredded

1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

1/2 cup shredded or grated parmesan cheese

1/4 cup Italian breadcrumbs

1/3 cup butter

1/3 cup flour

2 cups milk (I used 1%)

salt to taste

In a large pan bring 4 quarts of water to boil. Salt the water, and boil the pasta just until al dente, about 6 minutes. Drain the pasta, and place in a large bowl with a few cups of very cold water, to stop the pasta from cooking any more.

While the pasta is boiling, pan-fry the cubed pancetta on medium-high heat until it is crispy and dark brown. Using a slotted spoon carefully remove the pancetta to a paper towel lined plate to cool and drain. (These little suckers spit like crazy, watch out!)

Once the pasta is cooling, pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees F, and in a large pan [tangent alert! my grandma's recipe specifically says to use a different pan than the one that the pasta was boiled in, I guess because there may be starch residue in the pan? But I hate washing dishes, so I always just use the same one once I've drained the pasta]. To resume: in a large pan melt the 1/3 cup butter over medium heat. Once the butter is melted whisk in the 1/3 cup flour, whisking constantly to avoid lumps and keep the flour from scorching. Once a smooth sauce has formed slowly whisk in the milk, until the mixture is smooth and thin.

Then switch from a whisk to a spoon, and begin dropping in the shredded swiss and cheddar cheese in small handfuls, stirring thoroughly to combine. While you are stirring, increase the heat slightly until the sauce begins to bubble and thicken as you stir. Once all the cheese is incorporated and the cheese has thickened, salt to taste and turn the heat down to low. Quickly drain the pasta again, making sure that there is no water remaining in the large bowl. Return the pasta to the bowl, and pour the cheese sauce over the pasta. Stir it all together, then stir in the pancetta cubes, and spoon the mixture into a lightly greased 9x13 baking dish.

In a small bowl mix together the parmesan cheese and Italian flavored breadcrumbs. Sprinkle evenly over the top of the pasta. Bake the mac and cheese at 325 for about 20 minutes, or until hot all the way through. I always broil it for about 90 seconds at the end too, to make the topping extra golden and crunchy. Serve hot! And be prepared to eat a lot. No really, a lot. Theoretically this could feed a lot of people since it is a big panful, but three of us definitely ate more than half of the pan tonight. So I'd estimate that it'll feed about six people, unless they either hate cheese or have bird-like appetites. Or are lactose intolerant. Or vegans. Anyway, you catch my drift. Enjoy!

Well, here's the recipe I complained about in my last post

2008-08-10T14:33:00.000-07:00

I figured I'd include the recipe for the enchilada sauce anyway, since it really was a lovely color and consistency. If you just cut the chile powder in half (or maybe even less) I think it could actually be quite tasty. I think if I make this again I would also use a spicy tomato sauce, such as El Pato, to give it a bit more of a kick.

Enchilada Sauce
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup flour
2-4 tbsp chile powder (to taste)
1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce
1 cup water
1 tsp cumin
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion salt

In a medium saucepan heat the oil over medium-high heat. Stir in the flour and chile powder, whisking to prevent lumps, and cook until lightly brown. Gradually stir in the tomato sauce, water, and spices, and stir until smooth. Let the sauce cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about ten minutes, or until the sauce thickens slightly. Taste, adjust seasonings if necessary, (I would definitely not use more than 2 tbsp chile powder, and I might even increase the garlic powder and onion salt a little bit). Once the seasonings are to your liking, cook for another minute or two until all spices are blended in, and then use to make enchiladas, burritos, or whatever else your little heart desires.

Gringo Enchiladas (or why I hate chile powder right now)

2008-08-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

Inspired by a recipe I found on allrecipes.com, I decided I was going to make my own enchilada sauce. I stopped at that section of tiny plastic bags in the Mexican food aisle at Fry's, and bought both New Mexico chile powder, and California chile powder, since I wasn't sure which was better. Eagerly I headed home, mixed up some enchilada sauce, and made a pan of beautiful rolled red beef enchiladas. Sadly however, they tasted kinda blah, and I blame the chile powder.

The sauce wasn't spicy at all, just overwhelmingly chile powder-ish. Granted, I'm not the biggest chile powder fan, I usually use it sparingly, but I feel like this result was not just me. It was the gringo recipe's fault! :) Anyway, the enchiladas themselves were pretty good, the consistency was nice, the sauce-to-meat-to-cheese-to-tortilla ratio was perfect, and the meat and cheese part was quite tasty. And the best part was, from first heating the oil for the enchilada sauce, to eating the finished product was only about 45 minutes, 20 minutes of which the enchiladas were baking, meaning that I got the dishes done before eating! So I've decided to come up with another enchilada sauce, and then I'll remake these, since the method was good.

Easy Ground Beef Enchiladas

7-8 ten-inch flour tortillas

1 lb lean ground beef

1 cup chopped onion

7 oz can peeled green chiles

4 cloves garlic, peeled, minced

salt to taste
2 cups shredded cheese (jack, cheddar, or 'mexican blend' would be fine)

3 cups enchilada sauce (I used red this time)
cooking spray

In a large skillet brown the ground beef with the onion, green chiles, garlic, and salt to taste. Once the meat is fully cooked and the onion is soft, microwave the tortillas in ten second intervals until they're warm and flexible. Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Take each tortilla, place about 1/3 of a cup of the ground beef mixture in a line down the center of each tortilla. Top with about 2 tablespoons shredded cheese and two tablespoons enchilada sauce. Roll the tortilla up and place seam side down in the 9x13 pan.

Repeat these steps, smushing the enchiladas toward one end of the 9x13 as you add more of them. I only used 7 tortillas, but I actually had closer to 1 1/4 lbs of ground beef, so with only 1 pound I think 8 enchiladas should fit in the pan. Once all the enchiladas are lined up, spread the remaining enchilada sauce over the top of them, and sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes, or until cheese is melted and enchiladas are hot.

And by the way, I like the ground beef in terms of simplicity and rapidity, but I think these would be even better with shredded beef or maybe shredded chicken (for those silly people that eat chicken anyway).

Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares

2008-08-04T18:50:00.001-07:00

Noel and I have been watching the HBO mini-series production of John Adams, and this episode is making me very sad. I won't give it away if you haven't watched the series or read the book that I referenced earlier, but it's so good and yet so sad at the same time. All in all, I have to say that it's an amazing production, I feel like the casting was generally excellent, it's well-acted, and the few historical inaccuracies are minor enough that I can overlook them. It does drag a bit in the middle (much like McCullough's massive biography did as well) but all in all it's fantastic. In order to distract myself from the sadness though I decided to start blogging while watching, so here's the new recipe I tried today.

I feel like I ought to introduce these the way book blurbs introduce new authors "if you like Mary Higgins Clark you will love Wendy Corsi Staub" etc. So, "if you like peanut butter, you'll love these chocolate peanut butter squares". I myself love a good spoonful of peanut butter, but somehow peanut butter desserts just aren't my cup of tea. I guess I think of peanut butter as more of a savory item than a sweet item? But anyway, I took a plate of these to a church function and another container to work, and they got rave reviews. They are super sweet and rich, and you definitely should not think about the number of calories they contain, but they taste quite a bit like Reese's peanut butter cups, so "if you like Reese's, you'll love my chocolate peanut butter squares".

Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares
adapted from allrecipes.com

1 3/4 cups fine graham cracker crumbs
4 cups powdered sugar
2 cups peanut butter
1 cup butter
2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons half and half

(I did mention that you don't want to think about calories right?) Ok, first of all put the cup of butter to melt over a low heat in a medium saucepan. While the butter is melting, crush enough graham crackers to make 1 3/4 cups crumbs. They need to be really, really fine, I highly recommend using a food processor to get an even crumb. It can be a little time consuming, since I had trouble eye-balling how much 1 3/4 cups was, and had to stop and measure, and then crush some more, and then stop again....but they came out perfectly. Then in a large bowl stir together the powdered sugar and the graham cracker crumbs and set aside.

Meanwhile--back to the melted butter. Remove the melted butter from heat and stir in the two cups of peanut butter until the mixture is smooth and completely peanut butter colored. Scrape this out of the pan and into the powdered sugar and crumb mixture. Then stir a lot. Once your arm is exhausted and/or the whole mixture is well-combined pat the batter into a lightly greased 9x13 inch pan and refrigerate to cool.

While the peanut butter batter is cooling, in a heat-proof bowl over a pan of boiling water melt 2 cups chocolate chips. Carefully stir the chocolate while it's melting. Once it's mostly smooth, remove the chocolate from the heat and stir in the half and half. Then spread the chocolate over the peanut butter batter. At first it won't seem like enough to cover the whole thing, but as the chocolate cools a little bit it will spread out better, and you will have enough to cover the whole pan in a thin layer of chocolate.

Then refrigerate the pan for at least half an hour before cutting into squares. I cut mine into pretty tiny squares since they're so rich, I got about fifty out of this. I think they taste a little better cold, you might want to store them in the refrigerator all the time. I'd imagine that they'd keep for several days if refrigerated, I can't really say since mine didn't hang around that long.

I think if I make it again I might spread the peanut butter thinner, into say a 10x15 pan instead, and then melt an extra 1/2 cup or so of chocolate, it would give it a higher chocolate-to-peanut butter ration, which would be fine with me. Oh, and on a total side note, if you just happen to have some homemade marshmallows sitting around, and you tried dunking one of them in the melted chocolate from this recipe, and then sandwiching it between two of the un-blitzed graham crackers you might have left, it would probably taste pretty good. I mean, I can't say for sure, but I'd imagine it would be (a) decadent and (b) irresistible and that (c) you might have to make another one. Fair warning.

Ooey Gooeyness: Homemade Marshmallows!

2008-08-02T15:44:00.000-07:00

My beautiful stand mixer has been sitting in its box on the kitchen counter for 3 days, partly because I wanted to make something really awesome first, and partly because I was kind of scared to open the box since I've been wanting a mixer for so long that it seemed like if I opened the box there might not really be a mixer there. So this morning, ingredients in hand, I tackled the box. I opened it and had a brief meltdown when I realized that it was empire red (aka bright red) and not, as I had thought, cinnamon (aka dark red). But I looked online, and realized that it would cost me about $40 and two weeks to get the other color, so I decided that I'm ok with empire red, even if it's pretty much glowing from the corner of the counter. Once I started making things however, I forgot this petty grievance, as I did a happy little I-have-a-mixer dance around the kitchen.

So? you ask. What did you make first? What is that pile of beautiful, fluffy, not quite perfectly square objects? Oh those, I answer nonchalantly, those are homemade marshmallows of course! And really, I have to say, they weren't all that hard. A little sticky, and a little time-consuming, but definitely worth it! They come out soft and delicious and addicting, and oh so much better than storebought marshmallows.

A couple of caveats before sharing the recipe: First, I think a stand mixer is pretty much required. Either a stand mixer, or an incredibly powerful hand mixer and some really strong arms, because the marshmallows take a looong time to mix. Second, the syrup that you start with (which gradually turns into the marshmallows) is incredibly sticky. Not just a wee bit sticky, but amazingly so. Kind of like the melted butter/marshmallow combo that you use for rice krispie treats, but more cement-like. I accidentally got a few drops on the bottom of my pan and didn't notice, and then set the pan in the window ledge to cool. When I picked the pan back up, the sticky syrup and a good chunk of paint from the window ledge were stuck to the bottom. And third, at the end what you put the sugar/starch combo on the outside of them, the powder gets EVERYWHERE. You're pretty much going to have to plan to sweep afterward, especially if you have a husband who already shakes his head in bewilderment over how you manage to coat the whole kitchen in flour (or sugar or cocoa or milk or....) when you bake. Calling the end process messy would be a bit of an understatement. But I promise, as soon as you sink your teeth into one of these bites of delectably sugary goodness, you'll realize it was all worth it!

Homemade Marshmallows

(from Molly Wizenberg's recipe in July 2008 Bon Appetit)

Nonstick vegetable oil spray

1 cup cold water (divided)

3 1/4-ounce envelopes of unflavored gelatin

2 cups granulated sugar

2/3 cup light corn syrup

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup potato starch (aka potato flour)

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Pour 1/2 cup cold water into the bowl of stand mixer with the whisk attached. Sprinkle the envelopes of gelatin over the water. Let this stand at least 15 minutes, until the gelatin softens and absorbs the water.

In a medium saucepan (one that you don't mind getting sticky) combine the granulated sugar, the corn syrup, salt, and the remaining 1/2 cup cold water. Stir this over medium low heat until sugar dissolves, brushing down sides of pan with a wet pastry brush. Increase the heat until the syrup comes to a boil. If you have a candy thermometer, boil the syrup (without stirring) until it reaches 240 degrees F. I didn't have a thermometer, I boiled mine for 8 minutes, and it seemed nice and thick and hot.

Start the mixer on low speed, and then carefully pour the syrup into the gelatin, making sure that you don't splash since the syrup is very hot. Gradually increase the speed of the mixer to high, and let it beat until the batter is very stiff and thick, about 15 minutes. The mixture will gradually thicken and turn opaque as it stiffens. Add in the vanilla at the very end, and then beat it for about 30 seconds longer.

Carefully scrape the marshmallow batter into a 13x9 inch pan that is lined with foil, and has had the foil lightly sprayed with nonstick spray. Smooth the top of the marshmallow with a wet spatula, let stand uncovered at room temperature until firm, about four hours.

In a small bowl mix the potato starch and powdered sugar. Dust a large cutting board or pastry cloth with a generous amount of the starch/sugar combo. Turn the slab of marshmallow-y goodness out of the 9x13 and onto the starched surface. Carefully peel off the foil, and dust the top of the slab with the starch combo too. Coat a small sharp knife (or cookie cutters) with nonstick spray. Cut the marshmallows into squares or other shapes. Toss them in the bowl of remaining starch/sugar combo so that they're coated on all sides. Transfer the marshmallows to wire racks (with pans beneath to catch the excess) and shake them a little, but be careful--the powder goes everywhere.

Transfer the marshmallows to an airtight container--preferably with parchment between the layers if you're not planning to eat them right away. I cut mine into cubes about 3/4 of an inch square, and got about 75 or so.

The vanilla ones are pretty perfect, but I'm already envisioning ones made with peppermint extract floating in a large mug of cocoa, and Noel says that he thinks that coconut ones would be delicious. I forsee lots of marshmallows in our future!

Two Years?!? Really?!?

2008-07-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

So yes, we've been married for two years. Well technically two years and one day, which is craaaazy. Time really does fly when you're having fun!

We decided for our anniversary to buy useful sorts of things, and then just go out to dinner a couple of times instead of taking a trip or anything. So we bought a grill for Noel, and today we just bought a stand mixer for me!!!! I'm so completely and totally excited....expect lots of fun new baked items soon! (At first I put "fun new naked items" but I think I'll stick to talking about baked items, or else I'll make Noel blush...)

Anyway, last night we went to Buddy's, since it's the first sit-down sort of place to open in Rita Ranch, except for the horrible Casa Bonita....and sadly, Buddy's followed the Rita-Ranch-has-no-good-restaurants trend, it was a definite thumbs down!

Tonight we went to 1702, a pizza place by campus that we'd heard good things about---and yeah, the slice of pizza was about a foot square. It was a tad bit difficult to actually eat, but quite delicious, and pretty darn cheap!

And then tomorrow is the fancy schmancy night...we're going to Melting Pot, which we've also heard good things about. I haven't had real fondue in years, so my hopes are high!

But yay for marriage, and for marriage anniversaries, and my funny, loveable husband, and my shiny new stand mixer, and wonderful excuses for splurging a little!

Deceptively beautiful...

2008-07-30T20:33:00.000-07:00

I've been enjoying some muffins we bought at Costco--the ones that are pretty much big enough to feed a small village. They're so sweet and moist that they don't even need butter, which is probably because they're loaded with butter inside...which made me think that maybe I could create a healthier muffin that I would like just as much. Besides, normal human-being sized muffins as opposed to muffins big enough to feed Fezzig and Inigo Montoya seem much more approachable. It's much more satisfying to eat all of a regular muffin than only part of a big muffin for some reason.

These muffins are attempt #1, and they were sadly unsuccessful. I started with a recipe for "Lighter Banana Muffins" that I found on allrecipes.com. The recipe called for no butter or oil--the moisture and fat were provided by water, eggs, and the bananas themselves. I read a couple of the reviews, which said that the muffins came out dry, so I added 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce, 1 tsp vanilla, and 1/2 cup chopped bits of strawberry, thinking ooh--strawberry banana muffins, that sounds good.

So first of all, the strawberries were a big mistake, the bits left open spaces that were all mushy as the strawberries baked and shrunk. But besides that, the muffins were really, really, REALLY, chewy, and they stuck to the papers really badly. Maybe I added too much liquid? I'm not quite sure. They taste pretty good, but the consistency is so odd that I just couldn't get over it. I will give them this though---they look really pretty! I got some great pictures, so I decided to go ahead and post about them and begin my challenge: to find a delicious, beautiful, and healthy muffin. I'm not going to include the recipe for these, because they weren't worth it--but I'll keep you posted if I find a good one! Allons-y!

Arizona Sunsets

2008-07-21T19:42:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I'm a little bitter about living in Tucson. First of all, I always had this vision of myself living somewhere amazing like Paris or Prague. Then, I always swore that wherever I lived I'd never live here because I have approximately nine thousand relatives living here [ok only 34 or something like that, but I swear I'm always bumping into someone who can tell embarrassing stories from when I was six]. Plus in the summer it's about nine thousand degrees, which means that (a) I'm in a state of perpetual faint stickiness and (b) I avoid living my air conditioned house and (c) I'm kind of cranky about the whole thing.

But then there are those summer nights in the middle of July, when we've been getting the fantastic monsoon storms, and the air is clear and not quite so hot, and the sidewalks are less dusty, and there's that faint tangyness in the air that you only understand if you've smelled rain in the desert. And the bushes in my yard that are normally kinda scraggly and weedy suddenly produce these amazing purple flowers and the sweet smell of them blends in with the sharp rain smell, and then my house and the mountains behind us are bathed in a pinkish glow from the fabulous sunset that spreads miles across the sky. And then I feel happier about living in Tucson.

The Dark Is Rising

2008-07-16T16:46:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been on a big children's fantasy kick. Perhaps because I found the last Harry Potter a bit underwhelming, perhaps it's summertime nostalgia, I'm not quite sure. But this last week I've re-read the Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper, and I love them almost as much as I did as a kid.

There are five books in the sequence, a bit unusual in the fantasy trilogy world, but I think it's the perfect amount of books for the story that Cooper has to tell. Each of the books stands up pretty well by itself--in fact a movie was made out of the 2nd book a few months ago, which I may try and watch soon since I've liked the books so much.

The first book: Over Sea, Under Stone, tells the story of three small English children, their oblivious parents, and their mysterious great-uncle who are all vacationing for the summer in Cornwall. The children (Simon, Jane, and Barney) accidentally discover a mysterious old parchment, which seems to be a map to a treasure of sorts. Then they discover that Great Uncle Merry (Merriman) is of the Light, and is fighting the power of the Dark, and he needs the children to find the Arthurian treasure in order to stop the Dark from rising. Mysterious visitors appear in the village, and events which seem to presage the success of the Dark start to occur. Jane meets a mysterious man who wants the document badly, and Simon and Barney both also have interactions with the Dark that come a little close for comfort.

The second book: The Dark is Rising, feels much older and darker than the first. In this book we meet Will Stanton, who although is not quite eleven is also an Old One, born to fight on the Light's side in the battle against the Dark. Will Stanton learns that he must complete a quest to find the Six Signs of Light, and link them together in order to make an object of power for the Light. He is hindered by the Dark Rider, and by the inclement weather--England is suffering from the worst blizzards in a century. As in the first book the rest of the family is oblivious to the drama unfolding under their noses, as they all merrily prepare for Christmas. Will is assisted in his quest by fellow Old Ones--including a man named Merriman.

The third book: Greenwitch; unites Simon, Jane, Barney, and Will, who are all spending Easter together with Merriman in Cornwall. The three children aren't quite sure what to make of Will, and some bickering and snobbery ensue. Jane is allowed by the village women to watch the making of the Greenwitch, a Cornish tradition that will greatly affect the outcome of the unfinished quest from the first book.

The fourth book: The Grey King, takes Will Stanton to Wales. It's October, and Will has been ill--the grey mountains of Wales reflect his grey mood. He meets a mysterious albino boy named Bran, who has a special dog, and maybe some more special talents. Bran and Will are trying to solve the riddle of the Grey King to find a special harp that the Light needs for its quest, but they are hindered by a man named Caradog, who is out to get Bran's dog, and by the Grey King himself, who wants desperately to keep the treasure in his mountains.

The fifth book: Silver on the Tree, is the end of the series. It begins in summer, with the appearance of a mink--a menacing, evil creature, at Will's house in the Thames Valley. Will is taken back in time to the time of the first rising of the Dark--during the reign of Arthur. The ultimate battle between Light and Dark ensues, and each of the five children: Will, Simon, Jane, Barney, and Bran must play a pivotal role to assist Merriman in the battle.

I don't want to give too much away, so these reviews are a bit vague, butthe books really are superb. The children are normal: sometimes bratty, sometimes clever. While the themes of the book aren't particularly original, they rely a lot on Welsh mythology and the typical Light v. Dark aka Good v. Bad struggle, they are presented in an original way, and are still very enjoyable. I highly recommend all five books, but I particularly like The Dark is Rising, I think it best captures the drama and intensity of the series.

Mmmm...cupcakes...mmm...

2008-07-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

I think mini cupcakes might be my new favorite thing. They're adorably small, you can eat a couple without feeling guilty, and they fit in tupperware a lot better than bigger cupcakes.

The second kind of cupcakes that I made for Nathan and Krista's rehearsal dinner were Yogurt and Lime, adapted from a cake I made earlier, which was in turn adapted from a recipe from another blog.

I personally prefer these to the chocolate ones--they're still sweet and moist, but the lime gives them an extra kick, which keeps them from being too sweet. Plus, they look perfect with a dollop of lime frosting (almost the same frosting I used for the banana cookies a few weeks ago).

Yogurt Cupcakes with Lime Frosting

For the cupcakes:

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup canola oil

2 tsp. lime zest (if desired)

For the frosting:

3 (ish) cups powdered sugar

juice of 2 limes

2-4 tbsp milk

1 tsp orange extract

In a large bowl stir together yogurt, sugar and eggs until well combined. Add in flour and baking powder, and lime zest if desired. Then add the oil, and keep stirring hard until the mixture stops looking oily, and comes together in a smooth batter. [The lime zest does add extra lime flavor, but also gives the cupcakes funny looking green flecks. I think the frosting is lime-y enough, so you may want to leave the zest out.]

Place in mini paper-lined cupcake tins, and bake at 350 degrees for 15-17 minutes, or until the cupcakes are lightly golden on top. Do not overbake, these are fairly delicate. Remove them from the pans as soon as they cool slightly, and finish cooling on wire racks.

While the cupcakes cool, whisk together the powdered sugar, orange extract, and lime juice. Start adding the milk one tablespoon at a time, and continue stirring until the frosting comes to a fairly thick, but spreadable consistency. Spread the frosting on the cupcakes, then store in an airtight container for up to a week, although they're better within the first day or so, they get a little dry later. Enjoy!

Going to the chapel....and we're gonna make cu-uu-uupcakes.

2008-07-06T12:26:00.000-07:00

My younger brother got married yesterday. I keep wanting to say my little brother, but that hasn't been true for about eight years, so anyway, congrats to my younger brother and his new wife! But on the downside, on the way there Noel sang, "We're going to the chapel and we're gonna get married...." and it has now been in my head for more than twenty-four hours. Not fun.
I assisted with the food for the rehearsal dinner on Thursday night--several different flavors of meatball subs, lots of salads and fruits, a salsa bar, and then my favorite part--dessert. I made two kinds of mini cupcakes, one called "Black Bottom Cupcakes" on the website where I found the recipe, henceforth to be known as "Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes" because I find "Black Bottom" a little weird. The other cupcakes were Yogurt Lime, adapted from an earlier yogurt cake that I made.

Ryan and Abby came over and helped frost the cupcakes, and Noel took pictures, so it was a group effort all around. And, of course, we sampled a few (shhh...don't tell the bride and groom!)

But here is the recipe for the Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes, which are a cinch to make, and look cute in a squiggly way. They're also dense and delicious--mostly chocolatey but with a nice smooth tang from the dollop of cream cheese mixture.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1/3 cup white sugar
1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a medium bowl cream together the cream cheese and sugar, then add the egg and stir until the mixture is smooth (but don't over-mix it). Stir in the mini chocolate chips, and set the mixture aside.

In a large bowl sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Then make a well in the center of the dry mixture, and add the water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla extract. Stir until there aren't lumps any more, but again, do not over mix.

Meanwhile preheat oven to 350 degrees, and prepare mini muffin tins. To assemble the cupcakes fill the mini muffin papers about half full with the chocolatey mixture, then place a dollop of the cream cheese mixture on the top. Abby and I tagged teamed it, I filled them with chocolate and then she dolloped, and it went really fast.

Once all the cupcakes are filled [I filled all sixty spots in my muffin tins, and then tossed about 1/2 cup of batter since I didn't have more papers] place them in the preheated oven. Bake for about 17-20 minutes, or until the cakes are solid to the touch on the top, and a toothpick comes out clean. Don't overbake them though, or the cream cheese part will crack and separate from the rest.

Place them on a wire rack to cool, then store in an airtight container. I also recommend refrigerating them--ours tasted good for two days, then the third day they were kind of funny, I think because I hadn't refrigerated them and the cream cheese started tasting weird.

But they don't need frosting, and they still look cute--the perfect easy, portable dessert!

Gracious Grandmothers Club

2008-06-29T15:22:00.000-07:00

I found this picture after googling "weird funny jello." It depicts a "Deviled Ham Jell-O with Carrots". Recently several cookbooks have been published that include really funny, weird, or dated recipes like this one, and I accidentally just inherited such a cookbook from Noel's grandma. "Favorite Recipes by the Gracious Grandmothers Club of Middletown, Ohio" didn't mean to be funny though, which is what makes it even more spectacular. I think Food Network ought to have some sort of stand-up cooking comedian competition, where you either (a) tell jokes while cooking, (b) make humorously disgusting recipes or (c) tell jokes while making humorously disgusting recipes. The recipes from this book fall into all of these categories--here are a few of my favorites:

Corned Beef Salad

To 1 pkg. lemon Jello add 1 1/2 cups hot water. Let jell slightly.

Fold into Jello:

1 cup celery
1 mango or pimento chopped fine

3 large boiled eggs, diced

1 small onion, chopped

3/4 cup miracle whip salad dressing

1 12 oz can flaked corned beef

Mold Jello.

I can't quite decide what is most disturbing about this recipe. Obviously any sort of savory jello is creepy in the first place, but the inclusion of canned corned beef, and the bizarre combination of eggs and mangoes in the same recipe also seem like disasters waiting to happen. I am absolutely not brave enough to attempt this recipe!

I could maybe see myself trying the recipe for Grandmother Wetzel's White Sugar Cookies, which seems relatively innocuous. The funny part of this recipe is the instructions: "Roll out on floured board to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut with 3 1/2 inch cooke cutter. Bake at 350 degrees 12-14 min. Moisten with pastry brush, sprinkle with sugar; decorate with three raisins only." That's the part that gets me. "Three raisins only". Was Grandmother Wetzel a Raisin-Nazi? If you have more raisins will it taste bad? What happens if you only put two raisins? Or leave the raisins off altogether???

And, last but not least, the artery-clogging recipe for

Italian Meat Balls:

10 small cans tomato paste

2 cans water to each can paste

Bring to a boil, lower heat and cook slowly for two hours.

Mix together:

3 pounds hamburger

1 clove garlic

2 1/2 cups bread crumbs

6 eggs

1 1/2 cups Italian cheese, grated

1 tsp basil and parsley

Roll into small balls; if not smooth, add more eggs. Fry meat balls and four pounds Italian link sausage cut in small pieces. Add tomato paste with half of grease from skillet. Serve on prepared spaghetti.

Recipes like that make me glad that people now know words like "saturated fat" and "cholesterol".

Yes, we have no bananas....

2008-06-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

The last time I went to Costco I was puzzled by my inability to find bananas, but decided I'd get them elsewhere, and fought my way through the crowds to the check-out line. The guy in line in front of me was buying Costco-sized--aka gargantuan--portions of approximately fifteen different kinds of fruit (was he going for world record for largest fruit salad? does he have a fruit-only restaurant? or fifteen children that each love a different fruit?) and I was staring in some awe at his collection when I realized that he was querying the cashier about the lack of bananas. I chimed in that I was unable to find them either, and the cashier paged someone to look and see if there were any in the back. A lady radioed to the back, listened to the response, then came over and said quite seriously, "Yes, we have no bananas." Then she chortled for a while, and explained that she's always wanted to say that. The fruit guy and I both smiled politely, and then wended our way out of the warehouse, bananaless.

But luckily I had some really ripe bananas stashed in my freezer, so I had plently of banana goodness to make banana cookies. I think these tasty little treats might surprise you. They're not an attention grabbing cookie: they are a teensy bit lumpy, and a rather boring shade of brown. Also, the combination of a banana cookie with a citrus frosting might sound odd at first, but trust me, these are completely delectable. The banana mixture is spiced and dense, yet still light and moist, the perfect bite-sized banana bread. Then a creamy, blindingly sweet lemon (or lime) frosting is dolloped atop them, making them slightly resemble tiny snow-capped mountains. I cannot resist them with the frosting, it makes them the perfect combination of sweet, spicy, tangy, smooth and chewy. However, they're also quite good (and probably a little better for your dental hygiene) without the frosting; a little bit crispy on the edges, and moist and banana bread-like in the middle.

Enough raving: here's the recipe, enjoy!

Banana Cookies with Lemon Frosting

For cookies:

1/4 cup shortening

1/4 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 cup mashed ripe bananas

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

For frosting:

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 tsbp lemon (or lime) juice

1/4 tsp orange extract (optional--but adds nice depth)

2-3 tbsp milk

In a medium bowl sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cloves, and cinnamon; set bowl aside. In a large bowl cream together shortening and butter until well-blended, then cream in brown sugar until whole mixture is light and fluffy. Blend in the two eggs, adding them one at a time, then add bananas, and mix until well-combined.

Slowly add flour/spice mixture to wet ingredients, mixing well after each addition. Scrape batter out of bowl onto a sheet of plastic wrap, wrap it tightly, and place in fridge for at least one hour, up to 24 hours.

When ready to bake the cookies, preheat oven to 375 degrees F, drop the chilled batter by rounded teaspoonfuls onto parchment lined baking sheets. (Leave a little space between the cookies, they don't spread too much, but they do need a little growing room). Bake the cookies for 8-9 minutes at 375, or until set on top and slightly brown underneath. Carefully transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool.

While the cookies are cooling, get a medium bowl and add the powdered sugar, lemon or lime juice, and orange extract. Begin adding the milk 1/2 tablespoonful at a time, until the mixture has reached a smooth, spreadable consistency (if it's too thin it makes a big mess--if it's too thick it'll make the top of the cookies crumble when you try to spread it, just eyeball it, and stop with the milk when it looks nice and spreadable).

Spread the frosting on the cookies and enjoy! This recipe makes 40 cookies, and enough frosting for about 35 cookies (I like to leave a few unfrosted. If you want to frost all of them, or fewer of them, make more or less frosting accordingly.) They'll keep for about a week in an airtight container. Mmm.....bananas.

My Favorite Language Books

2008-06-12T19:44:00.001-07:00

Here are a few of the better books I've read on language. They're sort of ranked, but it's difficult to do accurately since they discuss widely different aspects of language.

(1) The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention by Guy Deutscher

"A fascinating look at how languages have evolved and become more complex throughout human history. I liked this book because it includes a wider array of languages than most of the books I've read--examples include obscure African, Semitic, and Asian languages."

(2) Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages by Mark Abley

"A look at some of the rapidly vanishing languages in the world, from Aboriginal tongues, to Manx, to Yiddish. Abley aptly conveys a sense of loss at the disappearance of many minor languages, and a sense of hope that perhaps some of them, such as Welsh, can be revived."

(3) Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States by Bill Bryson

"Bill Bryson at his best: both informative and hilarious. An excellent look at English words that were (you guessed it) Made in America. Bryson discusses the effects of immigration, revolution, democracy, and innovation on creating American English as a very distinct entity."

(4) The Story of French by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow

"An overview of the history of the French language that neatly ties historical context into the development of the language. It gets a bit redundant toward the end with its insistence that English is not taking over as the only global language, but the first two thirds of the book are great."

(5) Talk Talk Talk: Decoding the Mysteries of Speech

"Less about words, and more about the brain: a layman's guide to how the brain processes language. Clear, concise, and with interesting case examples from "wild" children to churchgoers who speak in tongues."

(6) The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way

"I realize that I already have another Bill Bryson book on this list, but I feel that he can't be beat for informal yet erudite looks at the etymology and history of the English language."

(7) Word Watching: Field Notes of an Amateur Philologist by Julian Burnside

"A fun look at some of the more unusual words in the English language. I especially liked the chapter on Australian slang, since that is the 'branch' of English with which I am least familiar."

(8) Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages by Ammon Shea

"I haven't finished this book yet, but so far it's awesome. Ammon Shea undertook the amazing feat of reading the entire OED in one year, and then wrote this book about some of the more unusual or memorable entries. As he put it in his introduction, "I read the OED so you don't have to.""

Summer "blockbusters"

2008-06-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

Whilst movies may not precisely fit into my general books v. baking dialogue, I have in the last few weeks gone to see 3 movies, which is pretty amazing, considering in the last five months before that I'd only been to see one. First was Iron Man, which was fun, but nothing spectacular. My boss is bewitched by all things comic book-y, and obsessively loved Iron Man, even going so far as to say it had "no flaws". I quickly found a flaw: near the beginning there's a scene lauding Robert Downey Jr's character, and magazine covers praising him are spiralling across the screen. One says "He takes the REIGNS". So I went back to work, and pointed this out to my boss, in front of several people, so after a small argument about how maybe it was a pun and they meant to use the wrong reins/reigns, he conceded that ok, maybe the movie did have one small flaw. Then, to my chagrin, the very next week in the employee bulletin that I put out, I had not one, but two typos. :( It was immediately pointed out to me....by someone who had heard my mockery of Iron Man's editors....so with all due humility, I will admit that we all make typographical errors from time to time. Although I'd like to point out that I don't have a budget that exceeds $100 million dollars....

Then came Indiana Jones, which was also fun, but even less spectacular than Iron Man. I was never a huge fan of the old Indiana Jones though, we didn't watch a lot of movies growing up, and I apparently missed out on the Indy obsession that my husband suffered from. So maybe that's why I didn't feel the magic, I mean I liked the old ones, but I thought those were just ok, and then the new one didn't seem up to par with those, so my vote was less than ok. But to Noel and his sister, who adored the old ones, this one was still quite good. I guess it's all relative (ha-that was a pun!) Anyway, there were some nifty car chase scenes, and the prerequisite snake jokes [SPOILER ALERT: Why didn't Indy just use his whip to get out of the quicksand???? why was the snake necessary???] and Indy-is-so-old jokes, and the ever-fabulous Cate Blanchett made a hilariously awesome dominatrix-type KGB queen, which pretty much sums up the good points for me. All of that couldn't make up for the end of the movie, however, which I thought was DUMB.

In a change of pace from the action offerings, Nicole and I went to see Sex and the City for her birthday. Again, it was fun, actually laugh out loud funny in some spots, and the characters were as superbly costumed as they were in the show, but it just didn't have the same panache. I disagree with the critics who thought it was too long, I felt like really only Samantha's plot line dragged a bit, and I would actually liked to have seen more of Charlotte's story, I feel like she got shorted. So while I liked it, and it was totally fun to have a girls night for the first time in a looong time, I still wasn't totally satisfied.

I can't decide if the problem is me or the movies. Maybe the fact that I didn't go to the movies for several months means that I have lost some of my movie joy? Or maybe I'm expecting too much from summer movies, they're supposed to be disposable? Or perhaps movies really are that much dumber than they used to be? Sigh....je ne sais pas...I think I might stick to books.

Insanity, oh the insanity!!

2008-06-03T16:35:00.000-07:00

This weekend I got to hang out with Nicole and we pretended that we were in college again and went out to eat and went to a movie and had a fun girly time. Then I got to go to the Keith Urban/ Kenny Chesney concert in Glendale, which was awesome since it was free because [my new best friend] Jessica won tickets. And plus, Keith Urban is both as pretty and as talented as ever. The drunk guy serenading me during Kenny Chesney killed that part a little bit, but c'mon, you can't beat a free concert!

But then VBS started Sunday, and now I'm short on sleep and short on time. So I haven't done any reading or any baking or really much of anything besides work, VBS, and sleep. I am listening to Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson, and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, which are both fun on two drastically different levels. Anyway, at some point, when I get to sleep again I'll review them! Till then I'll be getting grass-stains and eating goldfish crackers with the munchkins.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

2008-05-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

Well I finished The Road today. Or maybe I should put the road, since Cormac McCarthy wouldn't put capitals anyway. Hrmph. Anyway, I liked the overall premise of the book, the post-apocalyptic world was dark and real, but I just couldn't get past the pretentious style and the lack of punctuation, and then the last paragraph really irritated me. I was trying hard to like the book, but then the ending was underwhelming, and that pretty much cinches my lack of interest in reading more McCarthy. Sorry Noel.

But today we had the book club meeting about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, which I did enjoy. I didn't like it as much as the rest of the people in the group, but I would still say it was a funny, quick, literate read. Oscar, a lonely, overweight, nerdy Dominican boy wants to be the next Tolkien. His sister Lola clashes with their mother Beli, who had a rough life of her own back in the DR before she came to New Jersey. The story flashes back and forth between Beli living in the Dominican Republic under the brutal dicatorship of Trujillo, and the present day lives of Oscar and Lola in New Jersey. Oscar desperately wants to be cool, and to have a girlfriend, but he can't lose weight, and he can't help his love of sci fi and RPGs.

Diaz's narrative is strong and persuasive; although the characters are over the top they're still believable somehow, and you want to root for them to succeed. I also really liked the footnotes in the story, which give some of the back story on atrocities commited by Trujillo and his "minions". There are also tons of sci-fi references though, the Tolkien ones were easy enough to follow, but some of them were a little too obscure for me. The part of the book that I found most frustrating was that there is a lot of Spanish (or perhaps more aptly Spanglish) in the book. Usually it's restricted to pejorative exclamations, so although you may not know exactly what's being said you can get a pretty good idea of the context. Sometimes, however, there are whole sentences in Spanish, which made me feel like I was occasionally missing the punchline. I'd give this book a 7 because if you can get past the distractions of the Spanish and Nerd languages, the characters are funny, and the book itself is charming in a helter skelter sort of way.

Award Winning Molasses Cookies

2008-05-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

I really like chocolate chip cookies. And butter cookies with brightly colored powdered sugar frosting. And snickerdoodles. And sugar cookies. Really, I like pretty much any cookie that doesn't involve nuts or raisins. But to my tastebuds' way of thinking, nothing compares with molasses cookies. They're like the friendlier, more comfortable cousin of a gingersnap. Spicy, chewy, sweet, and satisfying, these cookies are like crack for me. Well not that I really know what crack is like, but they're addicting, to say the least. The recipe was originally my great-great grandma's, and has been handed down through the generations in our family for the enjoyment of all. Some forty-odd years ago my grandma even won a ribbon at the Pima County Fair with these cookies.

They are perfect warm out of the oven but they also make quite a nice little breakfast when accompanied by a big glass of ice cold milk. (Hey, it's no worse than a bowl of sugary cereal!) So when I got a hint that cookies might be an appropriate graduation present for someone, I decided that it was going to have to be the molasses cookies. Time to share the addiction with a whole new audience!

Grandma Dale's Molasses Cookies

3/4 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt

approx 1/4 cup granulated sugar for rolling

Start with all ingredients at room temperature. In a medium bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Set aside.

In a large bowl cream together the shortening and sugar until smooth. This can be done with a mixer or with a wooden spoon and a little elbow grease. Add the molasses and egg, and mix until all the ingredients are incorporated and the mixture is smooth and evenly brown. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in small increments, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

Once the mixture is well combined and evenly light brown; press the mixture into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least one hour, and up to twenty four hours. Let the dough rest on the counter for a few minutes while the oven is pre-heating to 375 degrees F. Place about 1/4 cup granulated sugar in a small bowl, and breaking the dough into small pieces roll the pieces between your palms until you have 1/2 inch balls. Place a few balls at a time in the bowl of sugar, and gently shake the bowl until the cookies are covered on all sides. Place the cookies at least 1 inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake at 375 for 7-8 minutes or until the cookies are darkening in color and the tops are cracking, but they're still a little soft to the touch. Don't overbake them, or they'll come out crunchy like a gingersnap, and the goal here is soft and chewy. Remove them from the pan carefully, they will still be soft and can break easily. Let them cool on a wire rack. Then store in an airtight container for up to a week. If they start getting a little dry put a slice of bread in the container with them, and they'll soften up again in a few hours. With 1/2 inch size cookies (pre-baked) you'll get seventy cookies about the size of a gingersnap, but oh-so-much better. Or, you can make the balls bigger, and get fewer big, thick, soft cookies--just make sure to add an extra minute or so of cooking time if you make them bigger.

The cookies were a hit at the graduation party. And it was pointed out to me that the sugar on the cookies glistens prettily in the moonlight, which makes these cookies not only delicious and relatively low-calorie, but also beautiful in their simplicity.

A Brief Tale In Which I Am Influenced In My Eating Habits By An Audiobook

2008-05-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to Mark Kurlansky's Salt on audiobook in my office. It has been fairly interesting, better than The Basque History of the World, which I just couldn't get into. The thing that is frustrating me about the book though, is that whenever I listen to it in my office I get crazy cravings for salty foods. Monday it was pretzels. Yesterday it was Cheez-its. Today it was Goldfish crackers. I'm not even really hungry, but after listening to that book for an hour or two, I can't help myself, I have an intense urge to devour anything salty that can be found in the break room. After indulging myself, I am of course very thirsty, which leads to drinking lots of water, which leads to bathroom breaks, which leads to pausing the audiobook, which leads to my computer freaking out and refusing to play the audiobook, which leads to me having to restart the disc I'm on and skip through to where I was; meaning that I get to listen to even more information. About salt. And more salt. Salted cod and salted herring and salted anchovies and salted (corned) beef and ham and pickles and lots of other salty foods that I don't even like!

Then this afternoon there was a headline on the MSN homepage for an article about sodium-heavy foods, and in the Bill Bryson audio book that I was listening to in the car on my way home, he took the "Salt Way"--a path from Winchcombe to some Roman ruins, named the Salt Way because it was a path used by (you guessed it) salt traders. Salt, salt and more salt.

I think it's time to go get some Cheez-its.

Why doesn't Cormac McCarthy like apostrophes?

2008-05-19T14:34:00.000-07:00

Noel has been on a big Cormac McCarthy kick lately, and has been hinting, with an increasingly wounded attitude, that I ought to give him a shot. (This all stems back to my habit of generally disliking the movies that Noel wants me to watch...now he's paranoid that I hate everything he recommends.) Anyway, I've been meaning to give McCarthy a chance; after all he's won a lot of prizes, and is fairly well respected, so it can't be that bad (even if Noel likes it).

Then last night Noel and Marshall were talking about which McCarthy books they prefer, and I decided that it was time to finally start one. The only ones we actually own are The Road, and No Country for Old Men, and Noel said that of the two he preferred The Road, so I started reading it in spite of my prior resolution to never read an Oprah Book Club pick.

I have to admit that so far it's pretty good, but I'm only on page 90, so things could change. I like the grim imagery of the book, and how McCarthy doesn't explain too much, he gives his readers some credit for logical deduction, which is nice. What really irritates me is his apparent aversion to punctuation. For a while I was trying to decide why some words deserve apostrophes, and others don't, but I think I finally figured it out: he puts apostrophe's for contractions of words + had, but not words + not. i.e. He'd use some markings, but he didnt use others. This to me is both annoying and pretentious. First of all it's annoying because every time he doesnt use an apostrophe, it totally distracts me from the sentence...much as typos in a book always do. Secondly it's pretentious because I don't understand why McCarthy seems to think he's above the normal rules of punctuation. Why not use the apostrophe? It wouldn't be that much harder. I wouldn't even object to the lack of quotation marks if only there were more apostrophes.

Cherries, chocolate, and more cherries

2008-05-17T20:28:00.000-07:00

For Mother's Day I decided to try and use up some of my stash of cake mixes. I have a cookbook called The Cake Mix Doctor, and I found a recipe in it for an ice cream cake, using a boxed cake mix and melted ice cream. It sounded intriguing, and since I had a quart of Jerry Garcia ice cream in the freezer I decided to give it a shot. The resulting cake was fluffy but rich, dense, moist, and absolutely irresistible! The only flaw was that it sort of caved in on the top while it was baking, but since I baked it in a bundt pan I inverted it onto a serving platter and the formerly caved in top now became the bottom, and the new top was golden and perfect, even more perfect once it was covered in chocolate and cherries. A ridiculously easy, delicious cake, which I highly recommend.

Chocolate Cherry Garcia Cake
(adapted from The Cake Mix Doctor)

For Cake

1 18.25 oz box yellow cake mix

2 cups melted ice cream (this is approximately 1 pint of unmelted ice cream, it gets much more dense as it melts and it loses air)

1 egg

For Glaze

Equal parts semisweet chocolate and heavy cream

(I used about 4 oz of chocolate chips and 4 tbsp heavy cream for this recipe. If you want the glaze to cover the entire cake you'll need to make a little more).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a ten inch bundt pan. In a medium size mixing bowl stir together cake mix, melted ice cream, and one egg. The batter will be extremely thick. Pour and scrape the batter into the bundt pan, bake for approximately 30-35 minutes, or until top of cake is puffed and golden, and a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Let the cake sit in the pan and cool for about 15 minutes, then carefully loosen the edges of the cake from the pan with a spatula and gently invert the cake onto a wire rack to cool.

While the cake is cooling, heat the heavy cream in a small saucepan over medium heat. Once the cream is slightly bubbly and hot through, remove it from heat and stir in the chocolate pieces until the glaze is dark brown and shiny. Let the glaze cool for a few minutes until it has slightly thickened, then pour it over the top of the cake and let it drizzle down the sides. Top the cake with fresh cherries right before serving, and enjoy!

Books, books, books!

2008-05-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

It's official: Barbara Nadel is too creepy for me. I finished Harem, and in spite of the appeal of Inspector Ikmen, the weird sexual predilections of the minor characters disturbs me. Plus I feel bad for poor Inspector Ikmen, overwhelmed by the combination of his nine children and his duties on the Istanbul police force. While it's nice to have a detective with a family for once (as opposed to the usual divorced, moody, alchoholic types) I think I'll stick with Donna Leon and Commisario Guido Brunetti when I want a contented detective.

Speaking of divorced, moody, alchoholic detectives, I finished Ian Rankin's The Naming of The Dead. While I think the end was a bit obvious, and the whole G8 Summit setting dragged a bit, I enjoyed the character of DI John Rebus, and his interaction with DS Siobhan Clarke. I appreciated the fact that not all of the loose ends were tied up at the end, and that although Rebus is rather stereotypical in a lot of ways, he's still funnier than most other alchoholic detectives.

In The Naming of The Dead Rebus and Clarke are working to try and simultaneously solve the murder of a bouncer-turned-rapist that appears to have been killed by a serial killer, a possible suicide of an MP, and an attack on an innocent woman in a protest of the G8 in downtown Edinburgh. The city is in chaos, with thousands of extra cops and special service guys called in to help with the G8 and the ensuing protests. Rebus and Siobhan (pronounced Sha-vonne) have to deal with traffic snarls, secretive special forces, a Chief who wants them to lay low on the murder(s) till the G8 is over, and complications in their own personal lives. It felt a bit like I'd read parts of it before in some other mystery, but parts of it were really funny, and I liked the character of Rebus. I'll definitely give Rankin another shot--but try an earlier book in the hope that it will be a little more original, I'll keep you posted on the results!

On a non-mystery note, the first book club pick was Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. I think perhaps the reviews I read of this book were a bit inflated. I was certainly expecting more than what it was after reading other reviews. By and large I thought it was pretty good, but it definitely had some strange "schmaltzy" moments, and a few odd plot holes. Since I knew that Nemirovsky died at Auschwitz, and thus was unable to edit or finish the novel, I think I kept reading more into it than was really there, ie "Well this part is a bit far-fetched, but she probably would've fixed it if she'd had a chance."

Nemirovsky did an excellent job of showing how the German invasion affected many different people, and gave brief evocative glimpses into their lives. The term "Suite Francaise" is, however, misleading--really the book is two short novellas that were published together. The first novella, Storm in June, gives rapid looks at about twenty different characters who are all fleeing Paris into the countryside, trying to stay one step ahead of the Germans. Some of the characters, such as Maurice and Jeanne Michaud are very likeable, some such as Charles Langelet are eminently non-likeable. The confusion brings out the best in some people, and the worst in others.

The second novella, Dolce, gives a more in depth look at the lives of villagers in a German occupied town. Lucile Angellier, a young French wife whose husband is a POW in Germany, finds herself with conflicted feelings for the German officer stationed in the Angellier home. Some other villlagers have much more confrontational reactions with the Germans, while some are content to collaborate. The two books are very different, and in our book club some people preferred the second, but I preferred the first. I liked the short chapters, and the quick glimpses at people that suggested the whole history condensed into just a few paragraphs. The second book was good, but seemed to drag in some spots. All in all I'd give it a B+, I can forgive the weak spots due to Nemirovsky's beautiful prose, and the amazing history behind the book and the survival of the manuscript.

Noel's Birthday Part 3

2008-05-05T18:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is getting a little silly, I admit it. But I made a bunch of good recipes, and I want to share them! Here's the last one:

Yogurt Berry Cake
(adapted from Orangette's blog, again. Thanks!)

1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup frozen berries, cut into small pieces, not thawed

3 tbsp. berry jam
2 tbsp. granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large bowl, combine the yogurt, sugar, and eggs, stirring until well blended. Add the flour and baking powder, mixing to just combine. Add the oil and stir to incorporate. Pour half the batter into a lightly greased 9-inch round spring form cake pan (I enclosed a circle of parchment paper in the bottom of the springform pan before greasing). Sprinkle the berry pieces onto the batter, top with the remainder of the batter. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Do not overbake.

Cool cake on a rack for about 15 minutes; using a spatula gently separate the edges of the cake from the pan, then gently unlatch the springform, and turn the cake out onto a plate to finish cooling. When the cake is thoroughly cooled, flip it right side up onto another plate. Combine the rasberry jam and granulated sugar in a small saucepan, and heat just until it bubbles and thickens a little. The glaze will be a little gloppy, spread it carefully over the cake, and if serving immediately sprinkle it with a little powdered sugar for some extra panache. (If you're not serving it immediately, the sugar will absorb into the glaze and you won't be able to tell it was there--learned that one the hard way!) Then enjoy a delicious slice of this moist, tangy cake!

P.S. Here's the tupperware I caught on fire while trying to fit all the pasta/burgers/cake/cupcakes in the fridge--and not paying attention to exactly where I set things on the countertop in the process. It was kind of exciting for a second there.

Noel's Birthday Part 2

2008-05-02T14:28:00.001-07:00

So since I had the whole day off work, I went a little nuts with the cooking. But I now have casserole pans full of pasta and sauted onions and mushrooms, a plate full of cake, and a platter full of chocolate ganache topped cupcakes. Mmmm....I can't wait for the barbeque tonight! The burgers should be fantastic and since Vanessa's making mac and cheese and potatoes to accompany them, it should be a perfect meal all around. Then we'll finish it off with some cupcakes and home-made ice cream sandwiches, and maybe a round of Settlers of Catan. Happy birthday Noel!

Three days later: we're still eating leftovers! The burgers were delicious, Vanessa's mac and cheese was a golden, messy, goopy hit, and the cupcakes and cake and ice cream sandwiches disappeared awfully quickly! No Settlers of Catan, but I did kick Aaron's butt at Jeopardy on the 64, (gotta love the graphics!) and then we had a big round of Apples to Apples.

Then Saturday the cheesy, sweet pasta casserole vanished equally quickly (possibly due in part to the fact that Nathan's kind of a piggy--I think he ate half a pan by himself!) and the sweet butter cupcakes with the shiny chocolate ganache looked super cute with stripey candles in each one. I preferred the yogurt berry cake though, it wasn't as pretty, but its tangy, sweet flavor and delicate moist crumb were superb! I snacked while I totally won Qwerkle (yay! I lost miserably last time!) and then lost at Blokus, but it was all good, since I had delicious cake to keep me happy. So here are the rest of the recipes from the birthday insanity: then I think I need to go walk off a little more cake!

Ice Cream Sandwiches

First of all--make chocolate chip cookies.

Then, place a little scoop of slightly melted vanilla ice cream between two similarly sized cookies. Press the cookies together till the ice cream squelches toward the edges. Place the cookies in ziptop baggies or airtight containers, and get them back in the freezer stat, they'll melt fast! Keep them in the freezer until you're ready to serve them.

Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache

(Adapted from Orangette's blog. She in turn adapted it from Flo Braker)

1 3/4 cups sifted cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon orange extract
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 one oz. square unsweetened baking chocolate (optional--it gives the ganache a darker flavor, but you'd be fine with just chocolate chips)

1/2 cup heavy cream

Bring all ingredients to room temperature. Preheat oven to 350°. Get out cupcake liners for 20-24 medium sized cupcakes. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter in a large bowl at medium speed until it is smooth and creamy. Maintaining the same speed, add the sugar in a steady stream. When all the sugar is added, stop the machine and scrape the mixture clinging to the sides of the bowl into the center of the bowl. (I don't have a stand mixer, so I used a hand mixer, and just kept scraping the bowl with a spatula with my other hand, and it worked fine.) Continue to cream at the same speed for 3 minutes, or until the mixture is light in color and fluffy in appearance. Add the extracts in the final moments of beating the butter and sugar. (The original recipe called for 1/2 tsp lemon, 1/2 tsp almond, and 1 tsp vanilla--I just used what I had on hand).

Mixing on medium speed, add the eggs, one at a time, incorporating each one thoroughly into the mixture before adding the next. When the mixture appears fluffy, reduce the mixer speed to low. Add the flour mixture in three additions alternately with the milk in two additions. Scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally, and mix until smooth after each addition. Using an ice cream scoop, fill each cupcake liner about 1/3 of the way. (Don't overfill, otherwise the tops of the cupcakes will puff out while baking, and then the ganache won't spread evenly.)

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center of one of the cupcakes comes out free of wet batter. Place the pan on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Carefully remove cupcakes from pans, and leave them on racks until they are fully cooled.

Meanwhile--in a small bowl over a pot of boiling water stir together the chocolate chips and the chocolate square until they're mostly melted. Then turn heat off, and stir in heavy cream, mixing thoroughly till there are no chunks of chocolate left. Carefully spoon the ganache over the cupcakes, spreading it to the edges of the paper liners. Cool in fridge so that ganache hardens a little, then serve at room temperature.

Makes 20-24 cupcakes, with 160 calories each (including the ganache).

Noel's Birthday Part 1

2008-05-02T12:05:00.000-07:00

Well the fun of the blog thing wore off a little bit. And then of course there was the computer virus, which limited internet availability for several days. Add in family stuff, and just normal life--and here we are, two weeks later! But today I've made a bunch of delicioso food, so I thought I'd give it another go. Besides after all that cooking, and after washing three piles of dishes like the one above, I need a reason to sit down for a little while!

Today is Noel's birthday! We're celebrating with his family today, and my family tomorrow. So today I'm doing hamburgers with all the fixings, ice cream sandwiches, and butter cupcakes with chocolate ganache for 10. Then tomorrow it's my "famous" pasta casserole with homemade tomato sauce, a berry yogurt cake, and probably some leftover cupcakes, for 15 people this time.

The butter cupcake recipe and the yogurt cake recipe were both adapted from Orangette's blog. The tomato sauce and pasta casserole are both entirely my own creation....

Tomato Sauce

56 ounces canned diced tomatoes
45 ounces canned plain tomato sauce

1 cup diced onion

4 cloves garlic, finely minced

4 tbsp butter

1 cup fresh basil, chopped

2 tsp salt

salt and pepper to taste

In a large stockpot combine tomatoes, tomato sauce, diced onion, garlic, and half the basil. Simmer uncovered over medium high heat until it starts to bubble, let it bubble for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in 2 teaspoons salt and the four tablespoons butter, once the butter has melted in turn heat down to low. Put on the lid, let it simmer on low heat for about ninety minutes, stirring every ten minutes or so. At this point add salt and pepper to taste, and add the other half of the basil. Simmer uncovered for about twenty more minutes, or until the stockpot is about 2/3 as full as it was to start with, and the sauce is thick and shinily red.

Ladle sauce into glass jars or other containers, let them sit uncovered on counter until they've cooled off before putting the lids on. Seal jars tightly, then refrigerate. It'll keep for about two weeks in the fridge, or can be frozen for up to a month. I filled three 24 oz jars all the way, and one jar three quarters of the way with this amount.

Pasta Casserole

1 lb pasta, such as elbow macaroni or mini penne

2 lbs sweet italian sausages, casings removed

3 bell peppers, preferably three different colors

1 medium onion

40 oz tomato sauce (that's one and 3/4 jars from the above recipe)

8 oz fresh ricotta cheese

12 oz shredded mozzarella cheese

3 oz shredded parmesan cheese

Boil pasta just until al dente. Drain immediately, place pasta in a very large bowl and set aside. Meanwhile, dice bell peppers and onion into half inch pieces, spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray, bake vegetables in oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, until slightly blistered. While the vegetables are cooking cut the italian sausages into half inch pieces. Place in large skillet, cook covered for about six minutes, then remove lid and cook for an additional two to three minutes, stirring often, till sausage pieces are browned on all sides.

Add the tomato sauce, ricotta cheese, half the mozzarella cheese, and the parmesan cheese to the bowl of pasta, stir until well combined. Stir in sausage pieces and diced vegetables. Divide the pasta mixture between two 9X13 baking pans. Sprinkle the casseroles with the remaining mozzarella cheese.

Bake the casseroles at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until the cheese on top is melted and the casserole is hot. Eat hot! (Or refrigerate, and then reheat in the oven the next day--it's always better the second day, after the flavors have had a chance to meld.)