Category: cooking

Birthday Week, Parts Three and Four.

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Friday was Pat’s actual birthday.  Usually, when I am canning peaches every summer, I whip up a few pies while I’m at it and stash them in the freezer. I found out one year that peach pie is his favorite, so to be able to just pull one out of the freezer and call it day has been glorious.  One of those things I really love about myself, you know?   This year, for reasons that I can’t remember why now, I didn’t.  I think after spending 2 weekends back to back canning peaches and tomatoes and everything else in sight, I didn’t feel like making a pie crust.  And then Pat told me it was okay, because he wasn’t sure he wanted a peach pie this year anyway.  Phew.
However, that meant that I had nothing to pull out of my sleeve on his actual birthday.  And true to form, I was getting weary of cranking up the oven and baking a treat.  I still have a good bit of canned peaches on hand, so I knew it had to be something that used them up.  Thank you internet, for inspiring this:

Peach Pound Cake.  I cut the recipe in half, and used the other half of the jar of peaches I popped open to make a glaze.  Super easy, super good.  Even better the next morning with yogurt on top for breakfast.

Saturday night was the big slumber party.  Edie had 5 friends over.  Why do I think it’s easier to host a slumber party than to just spring for a party at the bowling alley or Bounce & Play or any of the other places around town that cater to this sort of thing?  Oh that’s right, I find paying for it harder than cleaning my house and dealing with 6 little girls for a night.  I am that cheap.

We went with cheese pizza for dinner and I outsourced it to Mona Lisa Pasta.  Well, at least the dough part.  For $2.50, you can buy a dough ball, bring it home, roll it, top it and bake it yourself.  And since all the mommies but one decided to stay and have a glass of wine (or 4), Pat stepped up and took care of making dinner.  (He’s a total keeper.)

Dessert was the Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache Centers from Cooks Illustrated.  So, so easy and so, so good.  And they looked divine on the pink depression glass cake stand Allison found for me.  (I need a new butter dish please, a round one.  Preferably old lady looking china.  Thanks.  Your thrifting luck has been better than mine lately.)  Moms stayed for that too.  I think we may have a reputation for serving good food.

Breakfast was chocolate waffles, topped with your choice of strawberries or cherries (canned by me last summer of course), fresh whipped cream and sausage from Tom & Michele’s pigs over at Open Gate Farm.  Last summer when we went to visit,  we got to watch some piggies being born, so when I told Edie I got some sausage from them, she asked if it was made from those pigs.  No, they’re not quite old enough yet.  “Oh, then it must be from the ones I helped feed.  That’s cool too.”
That’s my girl.  On a first name basis with her food. 
So, birthday week, with all of it’s baking and celebrating is over.   We finally get to settle into the winter doldrums. I spent a week pulling out all the stops and making sure everyone got their favorite food for their birthdays.  The chocolate waffles are by far, the most requested breakfast whenever Edie has a friend sleepover.  I came up with the recipe myself after a few experiments and I’ll share it below.  The tally of baked goods for the week?  6 dozen cupcakes, 1 cheesecake, and 1 peach pound cake.  Also made were lasagna, pizza and creamy shrimp & spinach stew.  Yum.  I think we need a week of beans & rice to recover.
And I’ll admit, after all the girls left Sunday morning, I crawled back into bed with a book and stayed there until it was time to make dinner.  I’m currently reading Life by Keith Richards.  Who knew he loved being a boy scout?
Chocolate Waffles
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar (or more, to taste). 
Whisk dry ingredients together in a bowl.    Separate 2 eggs.  Beat  yolks and combine with:
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 cups buttermilk
a heaping spoonful of yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
Add to dry mix.  Beat remaining egg whites until fluffy and fold in.  Cook according to your waffle maker’s instructions.
They are good served with fruit and whipped cream, but syrup and butter work just fine too.

Birthday Week, Part Two.

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You’re supposed to make a big deal about birthdays in my book, so having only one child means it’s probably a little bit excessive around here.    First, there are the required cupcakes for the class.  My child is quite vocal about how she doesn’t like storebought cupcakes.    She says it’s the frosting, she doesn’t like what passes for buttercream.  Can you blame her? 

 

 
So, for the class, I made Red Velvet cupcakes from my 1956 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook.  I frosted them with Cook’s Illustrated Creamy Chocolate Frosting.  This is the first time I’ve paired the two recipes and they work well together.  That cake definitely needs a big, fluffy frosting to go with it and this one does it.
 
Then, for her family celebration, we had what has become tradition – carrot cake from The New Basics Cookbook, complete with their cream cheese frosting recipe.  I know they say that cupcakes are on their way out and are being replaced with pie, but in this house, cupcakes are still pretty popular.  Perfect portion sizes AND you can pop the extras in the freezer.  They pack much better in a lunchbox than a piece of pie (or cake for that matter). 
 
 

I tend to follow baking recipes pretty religiously.  It’s all chemistry and since any variation can throw a recipe off, I don’t try to get funky with it.  The one exception to that rule are those carrot cake cupcakes.  I substitute half a cup of applesauce for oil and I use a cup of wheat flour.  They are also made from carrots that Edie plants herself in the garden every spring (or at least reminds and then supervises my planting of the seeds).  It’s one of the healthiest treat I bake and so, so good.   The only thing I throw in carrot cake are raisins – we’re not fans of nuts in our baked goods, so they don’t get thrown in, nor do I add anything else, like coconut or pineapple. 
For dinner, I made lasagna, but it didn’t quite turn out.  I may have used too much sauce, or cheese or both, with not enough noodles.   I used the no boil noodles and I guess I thought they would spread out more than they did.  It still tasted good, but it wasn’t quite lasagna….oh well.  It was edible and no one minded and the cupcakes more than made up for it.
Tomorrow is Pat’s birthday.  He has yet to request a dinner or a dessert, leaving it up to me to surprise him.  No idea what I’m going to throw together yet.  Saturday night, we are hosting 5 of Edie’s friends for a slumber party and our menu has been planned for weeks.  There will be more baking of course, and then I’m looking forward to NOT baking and NOT entertaining for at least a week.  I get burned out on it right about this time every year – I’ve been baking since November after all and even though I love baking, I’m pretty sure that 6 dozen cupcakes, a cheesecake and a yet to be determined treat is a bit much for a week’s worth of baking.
Thankfully, we’ve shared a good bit of it, so it’s not like we have it lying around the house.  Forget the holiday gain, I’ve got January birthday gain.  I’m soooo hitting the gym next week…..

Birthday Week, Part One.

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The other people who live in my house have their birthdays this week.  Edie came home from the hospital ON Pat’s birthday actually.  I’ll admit, I milked that for a few years.  I still struggle with pulling off celebrations for both of them.  After all, they are two days apart!

This year, Edie’s birthday falls smack dab in the middle of the week.  It was decided that her party would be the following weekend.  Since Pat’s birthday is actually on that weekend, I decided to have his celebration first, so it wouldn’t get swept under the rug, as it seems to be every year.  So, Saturday night, we had a few friends over for drinks and cake.

 To start off the baking, I mean, birthday week, I decided to go with a cheese cake.    I topped it with peaches I canned from our tree in the front yard.  I cooked them just a wee bit, added some corn starch to thicken it and voila.

The recipe is my treasured, handwritten copy of Mrs. Van Popple’s cheesecake.  I think I was about 8 when I declared this the best cheesecake ever and my Aunt Loretta made it for me every chance she got.  I’m not really sure who Mrs. Van Popple was, I think she may have been married to someone my Uncle Peter worked with, for?  Whomever she was, she had one incredible cheesecake recipe. Andoreda, as we kids called her, fought a long, hard battle with cancer.  The last time I saw her, she said, oh, let me get you that recipe, and I knew she knew, this was the last time I was ever going to see her.  There was no way she would just hand that recipe off.  Anytime I asked about it before, she would just bake me the cheesecake.   She had a brain tumor at that point, for years I had gotten letters from her with gibberish in the middle that I knew was caused by it, and sure enough, there is some gibberish in the recipe.  I had to learn to bake before I could decipher it.

And so, the best way I know to start my week of baking for loved ones is to start with the recipe that got me going.

It was good.

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Fried Sage Leaves, with goat cheese and Sea Salt.


Pickled Watermelon Rind. Crunchy and slightly sweet, with a nice savory undertone, no doubt the work of the cloves, ginger and cardamon. Definitely worth the effort and the wait. I will be making them again.


The loaded table. Turkey and all the trimmings. Many of which got sent home in a second cooler purchased just for us to bring it all home in. Our freezer is officially stocked for weeks to come….

And my dessert contributions. The pecan pie was declared perfect looking as it came out of the oven Wednesday night. The pumpkin pie came from the volunteer pumpkin from our garden. Both were quite tasty if I do say so myself.
And now to gear up for the next round…..

Obnoxiously productive.

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I do realize that my sense of productivity is a bit higher than most, but still, not anywhere near some folks. I like to call myself the underachiever of the overachievers. I can spend an entire weekend curled up with a book, but yet still find myself doing things like baking loaves of bread because that’s not really being productive and wouldn’t some nice hot fresh bread be good while I’m curled up reading? But I still don’t get near as many things done as I’d like to. Or really probably could….

Today, however, is one of those days where I’m totally amazed with myself. I didn’t even realize until I was halfway through the process that I was baking 2 cakes at once. I mean, I had a gameplan, but then all of a sudden it hit me that I was being obnoxiously productive.

Cake one is to take with us this weekend to Oysterfest. It’s super easy and the only cake I make with a box mix. Counting the steps on the back of the box, it has 5 steps. Seriously. Use a box mix of white cake. Follow the instructions, but pour the batter into the biggest, shallowest pan you have (like a rimmed cookie sheet or a jelly roll pan). Bake until done, about 20 minutes. Immediately dump a jar of peanut butter on top. Let it sit at least 10 minutes, until soft enough to spread over the entire cake. Then, sprinkle a bag of chocolate chips on top. Let them get soft and spread. Voila. It tastes like the old Tastykake’s Kandy Kake treat. Perfect to take to big parties.

The second cake is a flourless chocolate torte. I discovered it a few years ago in my Green & Black’s Chocolate Cookbook. I wanted a quick & easy cake for Betty’s birthday and this one had exactly 5 steps. And I discovered I can skip one – grinding almonds – because I use cocoa powder instead. Butter, sugar, chocolate, eggs, a pinch of sugar & a pinch of cocoa powder. Seriously gooey good.

That cake is for the Caregiver’s Appreciation Day at JABA, my employer, on Saturday. I was asked to make a dessert for it and figured I’d make something really yummy, as being a caregiver to a family member dealing with a long term or degenerative disease isn’t easy and doesn’t always come with alot of thanks. A gooey chocolate cake is really a small token of my respect.

All in all, making both cakes took less than a hour. Leaving me plenty of time to do laundry, pack and heat up some leftovers. Because after baking 2 cakes, I’m definitely not cooking dinner. That’s just a little too productive for me.

Bea’s Pie

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Dear Bea,
I promised you that when I got around to making myself an apple pie, I’d do a tutorial for you. Here it is. Just for you.

That is my pastry blender. It is essential for making a crust by hand.

Cut your shortening into your flour with that thing until it looks like this:


Fine crumbs. It took me years to figure that out. (That’s what biscuit dough is supposed to look like as well by the way. Amazing how learning one small trick makes all your cooking that much better, isn’t it?)

When it looks like that, add the water until it forms a nice dough, but not too sticky. Then, you move on to rolling it out.


Admittedly, I am not the best roller. I tend to get Edie to do it for me, but lately she’s been making me do it myself. I’ve learned that it doesn’t have to be perfect, as long as the crust is uniform in thickness and big enough to cover the bottom of the pan. You can sort of fudge it from there.

And then, dump your apples on top. I put extra apples in my pie because that’s the way I like it. Cover with the top crust, poke a few holes in the thing and bake. Since my crusts never quite perfectly fit over the top of it, I don’t bother too hard with sealing edges, which means putting a cookie sheet under the pie in the oven. Otherwise, you will smell burning apple pie for weeks on end when you turn the oven on.

And done. Serve hot or cold, plain, or with ice cream or yogurt. It’s quite suitable for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

And I have a few in the freezer for you to taste when you visit in December. We can’t wait. Maybe we can get Edie to teach us how to roll out sugar cookies. She’s wicked good at those.
Till then….
xo

I love apples.

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For me, the best part of fall besides college football season, is apples. I am, and have been as long as I can remember, an apple a day gal. You can drop one in your bag and carry it around with you for days without it going bad. When you pick 40 pounds at the orchard, you don’t have to go home and deal with them immediately, you have a few days, weeks even. They bake, stew, fry and cover themselves in caramel quite beautifully. They are, hands down, my most favorite food. I always, always have apples on hand. Always. They are one of the few foods I break my usual must eat local rules for. This past year though, thanks to the Local Food Hub I was able to eat local apples through spring without having to store them myself. They are the best though, and you get the best selection of them, when they are fresh and in season.
As a kid, red delicious was the way to go. Somewhere along the way, I discovered the fuji, and from there, it became the stayman, the pippin, the ginger gold, smokehouse, and the best of all, the Arkansas black. I stumbled across the Arkansas Black (sometimes also called black stem) one year and have been in love ever since. So many apple varieties, so little time. If I see a variety I’ve never heard of before, I need to buy a few to try them. Other than the grocery store Red Delicious, a childhood favorite now throw to the wayside, I have never met an apple I didn’t like.
Currently, I probably have close to 40 pounds of apples laying around my house – 4 different varieties. Last Friday night when I didn’t feel like cooking dinner, I made an apple crisp. Sunday after picking? Baked a pie and made one for the freezer. Tonight I made caramel apples with homemade caramel. The first time I’ve ever made my own caramel – who knew it was that easy? And that good? I want to get a few more pies in the freezer. And a batch or two of apple butter made.
I love apples. They are low maintenance, easy to travel with food you can eat right out of hand. How can you go wrong with that?

End of the Season.

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Since last spring, I have had the distinct pleasure in having that view right there, looking out from Leni’s front porch, while I have enjoyed the most lovely, lively and inspirational conversations every Second Wednesday of the month.

I had met Leni once, while assisting her first canning class at the cooking school, but otherwise, showed up at my first Wednesday knowing not a soul, nor what to expect. Over the months, I have met a number of lovely people, who all share a love of food, real food and alot of respect for knowing how to do things by hand, yourself. In short, I have found a world of kindred spirits. I met Rowena, who’s magazine I have picked up for years, completely inspired by her monthly meal planner. I have gotten to know Leni, my hostess.

The first time I met her, it was apparent she had this amazing knowledge of cooking and gardening that I really, really wanted to be able to tap into, but she is also charismatic as hell. I was, and still am, completely in awe that she invites me to hang out. I’m really not sure what I can offer. I like me, and I think I’m a good time, but I’m always slightly touched when other people think that about me too. Call me slightly humble.

Every second Wednesday, we have sat on the porch and discussed cooking, canning, raising children and livestock, gardening, we have toured the gardens, we have tasted each other’s treats from the garden and oven. It has been something I have looked forward to every month. Every month, I have driven home, feeling completely inspired, like anything I want to do is possible. I just need to figure out WHAT. But I also sense that will come in time. The universe has put this in my path, it will put whatever it is I’m supposed to do next in my path too. It has a habit of bonking me over the head with things.

Last night was the last Second Wednesdays of the season. They’ll resume again in May and I don’t think I can wait. Rowena mentioned she might be agreeable to some sort of winter plan….in the meantime, I will miss my Second Wednesdays. And I am already, even more than usual, anxiously awaiting the arrival of next spring already.

Highlights from yesterday.

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The Fall Fiber Festival and Sheepdog trials at Montpelier.
More of those luscious ultimate chocolate cupcakes from here.
Stewed okra & tomatoes with brown rice.

A batch of cinnamon raisin bread & english muffins for breakfast this week.

Not shown: Planted some seeds for late fall and (maybe) early spring greens. Spent some quality time going through boxes of stuff I keep meaning to go through and purge at some point. (Finally!) While I was good and didn’t buy any yarn for future projects for myself at the Fiber Festival, I did buy Edie some angora yarn for her first knitting project, at her request, so there will be knitting lessons in our future. And I think I’m starting to resign myself to fall and winter coming. Sigh. I’m not really a cold weather fan, but it is more conducive to baking. And I do love to bake….

It’s all one big experiment.

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A friend gave me two of these ground cherry tomatillo plants. Not only have I never grown them before, I’ve never even heard of them, let alone tried them.

The first salsa I made with them was so-so. The second? Could have used alot more hot pepper. But I did notice they have a natural sweetness to them – similar to a mango. So, today’s experiment is to use them in a mango salsa recipe instead of the mango. I think it will be pretty tasty. Here’s hoping…

I look at gardening as an experiment. I try something and see what works. Growing different vegetables leads to experimenting in the kitchen – another favorite thing to do. It’s all just one great big experiment really.