The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Leek and Potato Soup

I love leeks.  I love everyone in the onion family, but I have a special affection for leeks.  I tried to describe why, but it sounded like really bad middle school creative writing, so I deleted it.   So we'll just skip that and move on to the cooking part.

I bought a couple bunches of leeks at the store earlier in the week, and potatoes, so that at some point this week I could throw together the soup.  It's one of the simplest things to make, and it's warm and comforting on a cold wintery evening.

The recipe I followed is from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I., by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck.  It's the first entry in Chapter One - Soup.

Potage Parmentier (Leek or Onion and Potato Soup)

"Leek and potato soup smells good, tastes good, and is simplicity itself to make.  It is also versatile as a soup base; add water cress and you have a water-cress souop, or stir in cream and chill it for a vichyssoise.  To change the formula a bit, add carrots, string beans, cauliflower, broccoli, or anything else you think would go with it, and vary the proportions as you wish."

~~~~~

Here's what you need:

3-4 cups or 1 lb potatoes,

peeled,

and sliced.

 

3 cups or 1 lb leeks,

 

thinly sliced, including the tender green

* A few things to keep in mind about leeks - first of all, you want to trim the darkest green parts away - easiest way is to cut them on an angle while you rotate the leek on your cutting board.  You can see that inside the darker parts the green is lighter and kind of yellowish - this part is okay to use.  The darkest part tends to be drier, kind of like the skin you peel off of an onion, only not AS dry. 

Also, leeks tend to have dirt or sand in between their layers, and the best way to get rid of that is to slice the leek cross-wise

and soak it all in a deep bowl of cold water.

Swish the leeks around in the water to help loosen the dirt.  The leek will float, and the dirt and sand will sink to the bottom.

And you'll also need

2 quarts of water

1 T salt

And that's IT.  How simple can you get?

Place everything in a 3-4 quart sauce pot

and bring to a boil. 

Drop the heat down, partially cover the pot and simmer for 40-50 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.

Mash the vegetables with a fork or run them through a food mill - or use a food processor an immersion blender to puree everything.

Taste it, and add more salt if you think it needs it, and add pepper to taste.  Ta da!  You're done!

Now, if I had thought ahead, I would have picked up a baguette to serve with the soup.  But I didn't think that far ahead, and I didn't have time to make bread, so I found a recipe for a Quick Onion Flat Bread in a little cookbook called "Fast Breads!" by Howard Early and Glenda Morris.  It was published in 1986 and I think it's now out of print.  I've posted that recipe after this one, in case you don't remember to get a baguette while you're buying the leeks.

Oh - and below - I swirled in some half & half to make it look pretty.  The book calls for whipping cream or sweet butter stirred in before serving, and a sprinkling of parsley on top, but I didn't sprinkle parsley.  Sorry. 

   

Quick Onion Flat Bread

I tried out this recipe to accompany the Leek and Potato Soup I made the other night.  It's pretty simple to make, it cooks quickly, and is pretty tasty.  It's more like a biscuit than a bread in texture, and I think an improvement to the overall flavor would be to mix some of the the minced, sauteed onion into the dough in addition to scattering it on top.  That's just my opinion.

Okay, here's what you'll need to do.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees F.

Mince 1/4 cup of onion.

Saute onion in 2 tablesoons of butter until golden.  Set aside.

Combine the following dry ingredients:

1  1/3 cups unbleached flour, 1/4 tsp salt, and 2 tsp baking powder.

And combine the following wet ingredients:

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water and 2  1/2 T vegetable oil.

Add the wet mixture to the dry and combine to form a rough dough.  Knead it on a lightly floured board for about a minute,

then pat it out to about a half inch thick on a greased pizza pan or a parchment lined baking sheet.

Beat an egg with a tablespoon of water and brush the surface of the bread with it.

Distribute the onions over the bread and then sprinkle with a teaspoon each of poppy seeds and sesame seeds.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. 

Serve right from the oven.  Perhaps accompanied by a bowl of Leek and Potato Soup.  Just a thought.

    

Happy Scholar

I could gaze at him all day.  I'm so unbelievably lucky.  A thousand times over.

Little Thinker

Knock, Knock. Who's There? Julia's Face.

Here she is, and see how nicely she's healing?  Thank goodness it was all surface scratches and  nothing worse.

I also like that look on her face. 

She has many looks, as those of you reading this blog may have noticed over the past few years. 

Yesterday I brought her to the doctor's to make sure she didn't have strep.  She didn't really have symptoms, but since Alex had it, I just wanted to know for sure, one way or the other.

I had to bring Alex, too, because Bill was at work, and my biggest fear was that he would tell Julia what was coming.  The strep test.  Throat culture.  Spanish Inquisition.  You know.

But, amazingly, he didn't. 

The three of us sat in the waiting room with another mom and her little girl.  The girl was somewhere between one and two, very cute with dark blond hair parted on the side and swept into a little braid on one side. 

She was a little leery of Alex and Julia, both bigger kids who were playing with the toys like they owned the place.  (It's so funny to think of Julia as a "bigger kid.") 

The waiting room is this little rectangular room with chairs that line one wall beneath the windows, and two chairs on the opposite wall, right next to the large window into the receptionist's area.  A couple of other chairs are at the other two walls, and there is a low table with 4 kid chairs and some toys in the middle.

I was sitting in one of the chairs near the receptionist's window.  Alex and Julia were playing, and the other mother and her little girl were over to my right.

At one point Julia came over to me and leaned on my knee.  She gazed toward the receptionist, a hopeful expression on her face, and asked, "Mom, is it okay if I ask her if I can have some of what she's eating?"

The other mom burst out laughing. 

I told Julia no, and she accepted this like she knew the answer all the time but figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

When it was our turn to go into the exam room, of course the nurse took one look at Julia's face and asked about that, so I told her and Julia told her version of it and Alex chimed in a bit of detail as well.  Then I told her we weren't there about the face, and I explained the whole strep thing. 

Let me just say right now - the nurses, like the doctors, at this place rock.  They just do.  I love them.  They are kind and THEY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING.  I had anticipated all sorts of struggles with Julia once she realized the strep test would involve sticking things into her throat.  I figured, knowing Julia, it would be worse than dealing with Alex the day before.  So I was poised and ready.

The nurse got the little swab kit out and told Julia "I'm just going to tickle your throat" as she peeled apart the plastic wrapping and took out the evil tongue depressor and the giant double Q-tip.  She had Julia sit on my lap, and I wrapped my arms around Julia and held her hands, ready for the writhing.  The nurse moved in quickly, asked Julia to stick her tongue out (on went the tongue depressor) and to say "Ah," and basically as Julia opened her mouth, the nurse stuck the Q-tips in and even though Julia flinched and tried to turn her head, the nurse moved right with her and kept the swab in there until she hit pay dirt and pulled them back out.

It was over in seconds.  Julia sat there not quite knowing what just happened, not liking it, but not saying much either, because it was over and what was there to say?  She swallowed several times and looked unhappy, maybe she whimpered once, but that was IT.  The nurse left to run the test, and I sat there marveling at how nicely it all went.   

While we waited for Julia's strep test result, my kids decided to tell knock knock jokes.  And I wrote them down.  Yes.  I have a little notebook for scribbling stuff like pictures I want to shoot and, yes, stuff my kids say.  I can't remember everything, you know.

So here they are.  My kids made these jokes up right there, on the spot.  Geniuses, they are.  Geniuses.

Knock Knock Joke #1

Alex:  Knock knock.

Julia:  Who's there?

Alex:  Light!

Julia:  Light who?

Alex:  Light, can ya go to the doctor and let me through?

Knock Knock Joke #2

Julia:  Knock knock.

Alex:  Who's there?

Julia:  Telephone.

Alex:  Telephone who?

Julia:  Telephone's gonna...go to the doctor and let open our tongue and be sick.

Knock Knock Joke #3

Alex:  Knock knock.

Julia:  Who's there?

Alex:  Knock knock.

Julia:  Who's THERE?

Alex:  NO - it's "knock knock!"

Me:  You mean Julia needs to say "Knock knock who"?

Alex:  Yeah.

Me:  Julia, say "knock knock who."

Julia:  Who's there?

Me:  Never mind.  I'll say it.  Knock knock who?

Julia:  No, I want to say it!

Me:  Then say it.

Julia:  Knock knock WHO.

Alex:  Knock knock we're sick, we need your help with something, too.

~~~~~

I love when little kids make up their own jokes.  I seem to remember my niece doing that for a while at some point, years ago. 

Anyway, the test was negative, and I was hugely relieved.  So today - both kids are at school/daycare - and I have time to myself!  The house is quiet!  No one wants juice!  No one is screaming because the other one "took that (insert toy name here) and I wanted to play with it"/"won't be quiet"/"won't share"/"won't play with me"/"wants me to play with her but I don't want to"/"said I was stinky" and so on.

Okay, well, that's it for now.  I can't think of a graceful exit line.  Have a good day!

Cakes - Scottish Meringue Castle - Mom's Birthday - 1996

Let's see, where to begin...well, I'll start with the platform - that's my painted-with-thinned-royal-icing version of the Anderson tartan, our clan tartan on my mother's side, on her father's side, and on up the line.  Here's a picture for comparison, though this picture is, I believe, the Modern tartan, and I think I was copying a blanket or scarf that was either Ancient or Weathered.  I didn't make notes on it.

Anyway.  I painted the colors on a piece of foam core, which you can get craft supply stores. 

The actual cake was lemon, and I used lemon frosting for the grass, and for what I believe is supposed to be a perfectly round rocky island down in the bottom front.  The written part is more royal icing.

The castle itself, and the little "stones" or whatever they are leading from the drawbridge across the tartan water to the perfectly round rocky island, are made of Swiss meringue that I piped onto parchment paper and allowed to dry.  I piped each little stone individually and then used royal icing as the mortar when I built the castle.  I think the drawbridge was the only thing I piped directly onto the parchment whole.  My notes also say that I formed the towers of the castle around paper towel rolls, which explains how I managed to get them all a uniform size and round, rather than amoeba-shaped.

Swiss meringue is a cooked meringue, which means it is heated while you're making it and therefore you don't need to bake it like you would meringue cookies.  The whites are safe to eat, and can remain perfectly white. 

Why the little rocky island?  I needed a place to write "Happy Birthday" to my mother.  Plus it made the whole thing more interesting than just the castle sitting dead center all by its lonesome.

My notes also say that I got the idea (in some form) from Martha Stewart's magazine, but I don't remember what she made out of meringue.  Hmmm.

Anyway, that's the cake for this week.   

   

A Few Little Things

My left eye feels like morning has come too soon and the light is just way too bright for it.  My right eye is fine, however.  Eye strain?  Should I sit facing the other way on this couch on alternate days so each eye is exposed to the vast brightness of outside equally, and the left eye won't be so exhausted?  Perhaps an eye exam.  But then, the last time I was there, the doctor cheerfully told me that when you hit 40, your eyes start to get drier or something and you start to need glasses for reading (or typing on the laptop?).  I was not as cheered by all this as he seemed to be.

~~~~~

I brought Alex to the Dr yesterday because this cough he's had is not going away, and he's congested and snores so loudly the house shakes.  Okay, that last part isn't true.  But his voice has started getting all raspy, and his tonsils looked like little moons in his throat, and so I figured we should check it all out. 

Our appointment was mid-afternoon, after Bill got home from work, so it was just me and Alex, and Julia stayed home with her father.  Alex is fun to hang out with.  Plus he's very sweet and affectionate and cute and my son and my firstborn and an interesting and sensitive little person.  He is generous with hugs and I Love You, Mommy, and I am greedily inhaling and absorbing all of that, because I know the day will come when these things will not be dispensed with such abandon.

Anyway, we hung out in the waiting room for a while - Mondays are busy, especially Mondays after school vacation weeks.  We watched other bits of families come and go...saw a couple of little babies...he's kind of obsessed with babies at the moment.  He wants me to have another one.  I tell him over and over that we want two, we have two, and we're not planning to go beyond two.  I remind him good friends of ours have a baby that he sees on a semi-regular basis.  That should be enough.  But still.  He suggests names for this fictional third child of mine.  He has clearly given this a lot of thought.  Perhaps we should get him another pet.

Finally we were called into the examining room, I told the nurse what was going on, Alex contributed his five cents' worth (he is my child - he has more than two cents' worth of input), she took his temp (normal) and said the doctor would be in shortly.  We played "I Spy" and he showed me how he could hoist himself up on the exam table all by himself because he's a big boy. 

The doctor came in - she's not our regular doctor, but all of the doctors where we take the kids are fabulous, so I don't mind seeing someone different now and then - and looked in Alex's ears, listened to him breathe, and peered at his throat.  He's got some congestion in his right lung, and yes, his tonsils ARE big. 

She decided she'd test him for strep.  His sore throat is gone, and he hadn't had a fever.  But might as well rule it out, since it's prime time of the year for strep and related adventures.  She left the room to get the tube with the giant Q-tips, and when she came back she explained to Alex that she just needed to tap the back of his throat with these things. 

"Will they take the red off it?" he asked.  I love this age.

Well, I guess anyone reading this has most likely had a strep test.  I think I'd rather have a needle in my arm than have giant Q-tips jabbed into my throat.  Just for the record. 

Alex was sitting up on the exam table, and the doctor tried to hold his tongue down with a tongue depressor so she could poke his throat, but he didn't like that tongue depressor.  Not one little bit.  He kept pulling away, or shutting his mouth...lips firmly pressed together, eyes fearful and suspicious.  Need a plan B.

Plan B was to have him sit on my lap and have me hold his hands so he couldn't grab the instruments of torture from her hands.  That worked fine, except his head was still free of restraint, and there wasn't much I could do to keep him from pulling his head back or clamping his teeth down on the oversized popsicle stick and not letting go.  The doctor finally had to emphasize that she couldn't take it out of his mouth until he let go of it.

All this gave me horrid flashbacks to a bright, high-ceilinged office, a huge red high-backed leather chair, a kindly doctor with a big flat wooden paddle that he needed to stick down my throat (it seemed), and the fact that it took my mother and the nurse to hold me in that chair so he could take a look.  The perfume of rubbing alcohol filled the air, and I can't smell it to this day without the urge to gag.

I suggested to Alex's doctor that maybe without the tongue depressor she'd have better luck.  I told him to say "loud" really loudly (* over the weekend he was demonstrating "LOUD" and "soft" and that's when I happened to get a REALLY good look at his throat).  Eventually that worked, and I felt the tap of cotton swab in my own throat when he jerked back from the nice doctor and her giant Q-tips.  He looked betrayed and annoyed and kept swallowing, trying to get rid of that poked feeling.  I told him a lollipop would help.  I told him he deserved two.  The doctor said she'd be back in five minutes with the results.

Five minutes later.  He has strep.  Antibiotics are prescribed.  He can't go back to school til Wednesday. 

As we were leaving, the doctor told Alex he could go get his two lollipops, and he told her they weren't both for him. 

"One is for me because I'm sick and I was a good boy, and the other one is for my sister because she has a bloody face!"  The doctor looked at me but before I could say anything, Alex launched into a lengthy recap of Julia's "agony of defeat" moment on Sunday.  I tried to condense it, but Alex actually waved a hand at me, stepped IN FRONT of me and told me he could tell it because he was there and I wasn't.  The doctor listened intently to the story and then confirmed that yes, Julia did deserve a lollipop after that.

~~~~~

Julia's pink elephant has gone missing.   

Yesterday we were "doing a big clean up" in the kids' bedroom, because I am just so sick of the coughing and congestion and dry air and dust and closed windows and germs and all that.  A part of me wanted to just set all the toys on fire, as that would be the quickest way to get rid of them and whatever stray germs had colonized in the fake fur.  But instead we stripped beds and dusted and cleaned doorknobs and gathered all the stuffed animals into a pile so I can wash them in vats of boiling bleach water batches over the next couple of days, along with all the sheets and blankets and all that.  As we sorted stuffed animlas (I am washing them by size), I put Julia's elephant on her stripped bed because I just washed it the other day.  I didn't want it mingling with the germy toys.  I didn't think about it again until after dinner, when I remade the beds and the elephant wasn't on the matterss any more.  I thought she'd probably been playing with it while Alex and I were at the doctor's.  But Bill didn't know where it was.  Julia didn't.  And it wasn't in any of the obvious or usual spots. 

Last night Julia woke up several times and after searching around in the dark on her bed, would start whimpering because she couldn't find her elephant.  I'd explain that we would find it the next day, and she would cry, so I'd bring her into our bed til she fell asleep and I fell asleep and then I'd wake up when she started grinding her teeth, so I'd bring her back to her own bed and wait for the next round.  Maybe that's why my left eye is so tired.

As I've been typing, the kids have been searching, giant flashlight in Alex's hands, for this missing pink pachyderm.  No luck so far.  I have a feeling I'm going to spend my entire day looking for this thing.

~~~~~

And it occurred to me this morning...Julia had a bit of a sore throat last week, AND a low fever.  So I am thinking I need to get her in to see the doctor today so she can have her throat swabbed too.

That should go well. 

~~~~~

Update:  I found the elephant.  I started loading the first batch of germy stuffed animals into the washing machine and there it was.  I would have SWORN on all sorts of holy publications that I hadn't put the elephant in there.  But clearly I was mistaken.  Or Julia stuffed it in there to be helpful.  Or I am just losing my sanity. 

That last one seems the obvious choice to me.

Cherry Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

This was one of the two cakes made for my husband's birthday last week. 

My husband loves fresh cherries, and I had a bag of frozen cherries, so I thought I should incorporate them into something.  At first I was going to mix them into cake batter...but then I thought...cheesecake!

I didn't have a specific recipe - I kind of winged it with what I had in the fridge and the freezer and the pantry.  I had some cream cheese...I had an 8 oz container of mascarpone (that I hadn't needed when I made the Chocolate Tiramisu for one of my Valentine's Day posts...and frozen cherries...and chocolate chips. 

Now, personally, I'm a plain cheesecake kind of person.  I like some other flavors or toppings now and then, but if I could only have one kind ever?  Plain, NY style cheesecake is what I'd want.  But it wasn't my birthday.

So here's what I did.

First, I made a crust for the cheesecake.  Actually, not a crust.  I didn't have (oddly enough) ANY cookies or biscotti or anything like that to pulverize and mix with melted butter to make a typical cheesecake crust.  So then I thought - I just won't make a crust at all.  And then I thought that might not be socially acceptable, so I thought...hey, I've got sliced almonds...and sugar...and melted butter...that would taste good.

So I took about a cup and a half of sliced almonds and toasted them in a pan until they started to turn golden, and then let them cool a bit.

I melted about 2 tablespoons of butter.

I put the cooled almonds in my food processor, added about 2 tablespoons of sugar,

and pulsed to combine them and grind up the almonds a bit.

Then I poured all that into a bowl

and combined with the melted butter.

I used an 8 inch springform pan, and I wrapped a couple of sheets of foil around it (underneath and up the sides) so that water wouldn't get in later.  (Cheesecakes are often baked in water baths.)

I poured the almond mixture into the cheesecake pan,

spread it around so it covered the pan evenly, and patted it all into place.  Then I put the pan in the fridge while I made the batter.

When I decided to make cheesecake, I took out all the possible cheesecake components so they could start to come to room temperature.  (Those that were in the fridge, that is.)  Here's what I ended up using:

12 oz neufchatel cream cheese

8 oz mascarpone

2  6-oz containers of yogurt (one was blueberry, one was strawberry - both were Stoneyfield Farm, lowfat).  (Why yogurt?  Because I didn't have any more cream cheese or mascarpone, didn't have sour cream, and knew this cheesecake would need a bit more of something in the dairy dept.  Why blueberry and strawberry?  Because that's all that was left in the fridge.)

1/2 cup sugar

3 eggs

zest of one lemon

1  1/2 tsp vanilla

12 oz frozen cherries (thawed)

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

I also got a large cake pan (larger in diameter than the springform pan I had prepped for the cheesecake) and set that aside.  I also set the oven to 350 degrees F.

Okay.

First thing to do, if for some reason (like, oh, not planning ahead) your cream cheese and mascarpone aren't softened yet, is to put them in your mixing bowl and beat them until they are smooth and soft and creamy.  If you don't, you'll have lumps of cream cheese or mascarpone in the cheesecake.  It doesn't ruin it, but it's not necessarily desirable.

Once you've got those two softened, add the yogurt...

and then the sugar...and the eggs

and the vanilla.

When the batter is nice and smooth,

stir in the cherries and lemon zest

and the chocolate chips

and combine well.

Pour the batter into your chilled springform pan and set that in the center of the larger cake pan.

Pour about an inch of water into the pan and place in the center of your oven.

Shut the oven door, set the timer for an hour, and go find something to occupy your time.

After an hour, go ahead and look at it.  It's not ready yet, which you can see if you jiggle the pan ever so gently.  There's still a lot of motion in there, right?  Not done.  So shut the oven door and check it again in about 30 minutes.  It's probably getting closer, but it's still not there, I bet.

Since you're using a rather gentle cooking method (the water bath), it's not going to suddenly be overcooked in another five minutes, so go ahead and let it cook another fifteen minutes or so.  Keep checking until the center barely moves (or doesn't at all), and then carefully take it out of the oven.   If you bring the whole thing - cake pan with VERY HOT water and springform pan - work slowly and carefully and set the whole thing down somewhere flat as soon as you can, just to avoid spilling any hot water on yourself.

Next, remove the springform pan from the water and set on a rack to cool. 

Remove the foil, too, by the way.  You should probably put a towel or paper towels under the rack - there will be drippage.

It's going to take a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time for the cheesecake to cool.  In fact, unless you're up early in the morning making this, don't plan on eating it until tomorrow.  After it comes to room temp, then you need to refrigerate it for a good long time - 6 hours or so, or overnight.  Yes, it was silly of me to make this ON Bill's birthday as a birthday cake...but I wasn't really thinking that far ahead when I started in.  I just thought - CHEESECAKE! - and I was off and baking.  Fortunately we had that other cake to eat on Bill's actual birthday. 

Anyway.  You've let the cheesecake cool to room temperature and you've refrigerated it for at least several hours or overnight.

When it's time to serve, the first thing you'll need to do is run a knife around the cake to separate it completely from the sides of the springform pan.  Then pop the hinge on the pan

and lift it off.

   

The easiest way (well one of them) to slice the cake is to run your knife under hot water before you make each cut. 

Wipe the knife clean in between cuts as well.  This way the cake won't stick to the knife and pull against the rest of the cake.

Not that it will taste any different.

Now some feedback...

Bill liked it a lot, and since I'd made it for him, that's really all that mattered.

Alex bravely tried a bite, but he didn't like it.  It's a texture thing.

Julia liked it.

My sister, her family, and some of her husband's friends who tried it also liked it.

My parents liked it.

And me?

Overall, I was surprised and happy with how well it turned out.  The "crust that's not a true crust" was fine, but it's a different texture from a traditional crust, so there's a bit of mental adjustment needed.  (Or not.  I think I'm the only one who had any mental adjusting to do.  Figures.)  The texture of the cheesecake was creamy and light, and the cherries added a nice burst of juicy fruitiness throughout. 

I'm not sure if I'd put the chocolate chips in again.  I guess I just don't like hard bits of things in my cheesecake, but that's just me.  I used mini chips, which I think was a better move than using the standard size, but maybe if I did this again, I'd make the following changes - I'd make a cookie crust, and then melt a layer of chocolate over the crust, chill that til it's hard, and then pour the cheesecake batter over the top and bake it.  Or...I'd serve it with a drizzle of chocolate ganache.  A healthy drizzle. 

Or maybe I'll make something without cherries...maybe steep toasted hazelnuts in some cream for a while and add that to the batter...with a ribbon of ganache running through it and more chopped, toasted hazelnuts on top...or in the crust...or both...and some whipped cream. 

Or maybe I'll just satisfy my purist heart and make a plain one.

Sigh.

To borrow from Sondheim, "so many...possibilities."

 

Face First

(Let me know if you see a pattern...)

When she was oh, a little over a year old, I think, and still getting her sea legs, she took a digger going from the kitchen step at my parents' house onto the rug on the porch.

And for a little while, she looked like this:

 

And then...let's see, when was it...around a year later, she was jumping on Alex's bed - the one that has the iron headboard and footboard with the pretty scrollwork (used to be mine) - and she dove face-first into the footboard, split her lip and ended up with 4 stitches and looked kind of like this:

And then...a couple of months ago, she was diagnosed with Lyme disease, and one of the symptoms was the partial paralysis, or palsy, in her face, as evidenced here:

Granted, she looks kind of cute with that crooked grin above, but still...a three year old child doesn't need palsy.

Fortunately that disappeared and she went through her antibiotics and all that, and apart from a cold this week, she's been doing pretty well.

So anyway, today, being the last day of winter break, Bill thought it would be nice to take the kids sledding over at City Park.  He bundled them up in their snow pants and hats and boots and jackets and mittens, and off they went, bound for adventure.

I took a leisurely shower, puttered around a bit and was putting the coffee cups in the dishwasher when the car pulled in the driveway, and Bill came in the door carrying Julia.  I took her and brought her into the bathroom, sat her on the edge of the sink, peeled off her winter outerwear, and examined her little face.

And right now?  It's looking something like this:

I Say Dumb Stuff

Yesterday the kids were playing outside in the snow.  Well, the ice-encrusted snow.  And of course, they were eating snow and munching on shards of ice like they were eating doughboys at a fair. 

Irrational things pop into my head - not just because I have kids - my head has always been like this.  I jump way ahead to disaster scenarios.  I'm the original mountain-out-of-a-mole-hill-maker.

So I'm watching them happily licking and gnawing on rough-edged sections of backyard ice, their little cheeks and noses red from the cold.  And isn't that ice cold?  You're cold...the ice is cold...isn't that kind of reducing the amount of fun you're having out there?  But you're kids...and you pay no attention to extreme cold, because it's too much fun to eat great pieces of ice and great scoops of snow, because it's there, and you're kids, and that's what kids do...

But I am (in theory) an adult, and more sensitive to the cold, and more aware of things like, oh, frostbite!  But of course they don't know what frostbite is, and how can I explain it without graphic pictures that I'm sure I could download if I just did a quick search....

So I open the window over the kitchen sink and yell out to my foolish, fate-tempting children the following:

"STOP EATING SO MUCH SNOW AND ICE!....YOUR MOUTHS WILL FALL OFF!"

They glance at me for a moment, then go back to their snacks.  I close the window.  I tried.   

And from behind me, downstairs, where Bill is changing water in the fish tank, he says, "your mouths will fall off?"

As I said.  I say dumb stuff.

Broiled Salmon with Honey-Mustard-Almond Topping

This is what I made for my husband's birthday earlier this week.

We had gone in search of whole snapper, but no luck there, so Bill picked out a nice piece of Wild Caught Alaskan Salmon and a dozen oysters, and I took it from there.

For the salmon - I combined the last of some nice grainy mustard, several generous spoons of Gray Poupon, and a bunch of honey.  Pretty easy.  Just tasted it as I went along to make sure the ratio of honey to mustard was good.

Later on a also added some crushed sliced almonds, because I thought they'd add a nice crunch.  They did.

Next, I measured out some black rice into a pot and added water according to the package directions. 

Here's what it looks like - it's pretty cool.

And here's how it looks while it's cooking -

While that was simmering (the rice took the longest to prepare - bring to a boil then simmer 30 minutes), I put together a simple salad of mixed lettuces and crumbled bleu cheese and raisins.

Then it was time to cook the salmon.

I got my honey/mustard/almonds mixture...

And slathered it on top of the salmon.

 

I cooked it on a grill pan on top of the stove for a few minutes while the oven heated up, and then I put it under the broiler for about 5 minutes at the most.  When it came out, it looked like this.

Pretty soon the rice was ready, too...

As were the oysters Bill shucked while I was cooking the other food.

And then it was time to eat.

A pretty simple meal, but quite good.  The thickest part of the salmon was medium-rare, and the rest of the fish was moist and tasty.  Try it!   

 

Got Kale?

Super-Easy Mango Upside-Down Cake

Bill's birthday was earlier this week, and I ended up making not one, but two cakes for his birthday.  Why?  Because Alex doesn't like cheesecake.  Simple as that.  Plus, I was feeling creative and two cakes just seemed like a perfectly normal thing to do.  I also made a rather yummy dinner.  More on that in a later post.

Why is this cake "Super-Easy?"  Because a) I used a boxed cake mix in the pantry, and b) I had a bag of frozen mango on hand and didn't have to go shopping for anything special.

Here's what you need:

A 12-oz package of frozen mango chunks, thawed (or you can cut up some fresh mangos if you feel like it)

2 T unsalted butter

2 T white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

a box of golden cake mix

2/3 cup of water, 1 stick of softened butter and 3 eggs (for the cake mix, per the package instructions)

zest of 1 lime

2 cups confectioners sugar

1 T vanilla

hot water

Tablespoon or two of sweetened shredded coconut (optional)

an 8" square cake pan with 3" sides (or, if you want to, you could use 2 8" or 9" round cake pans and have one layer be the "upside-down" part and the other just a plain layer)

Got all that?

Okay, first, you put the 2 T of butter, 2 T white sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar in a pan and melt everything together.  When it starts to bubble, add your mango chunks to the pan.

Stir together and let it simmer a bit. 

While the mangos simmer, grease the sides of your cake pan.

After a few minutes of simmering, pour the mangos and caramel mixture into the cake pan   

and, if necessary, rearrange the pieces of mango so they are distributed relatively evenly across the pan.

You can let that sit while you mix up the cake batter per the instructions.  Also - preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Pour your cake batter on top of the mangos and smooth it out with a spatula so the batter completely covers the mango layer.  Be gentle - you want the mangos to stay on the bottom of the pan.

Now pop that in the oven and bake until - you know - a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  This will take a while, as you're cooking more cake batter in the pan than if you were baking two layers.  Figure on 45 minutes to an hour.  But make sure you check with the knife. 

(you can see a couple of my stab marks in the picture above)

Let the cake cool on a rack for 20 minutes at least.  Pick out a serving plate.  Run a knife around the edge of the cake to make sure it's all separated from the sides of the pan.

Now the fun part:  Place the serving plate upside down on the pan. 

Hold the plate and cake pan together and after saying to yourself "nogutsnoglory," flip them over and set them back down on the counter.  The cake pan should now be upside down and on top of the serving plate, and more importantly, you should have felt the cake release from the pan and land on the plate.

Carefully lift the pan straight up... 

and there you go.  You can see a few stray cake crumbs up in the middle of the top of this cake (in the picture above) - a few pieces of mango stuck to the pan and I had to put them back on top, but you know what?  They'll still taste the same.  And it's not all that obvious unless you're self-critical like I am and you actually point it out to people. 

Let the cake finish cooling.

Now, my son wanted to decorate this cake, but it's not really something you want to cover up with frosting.  Not when it looks like this on top:

So I figured we could make a glaze and Alex could drizzle that over the top and that would constitute the decorating. 

So I grated the zest from a lime.  Why?  I was thinking mango...tropical...lime... and so that's why.

I put about 2 cups of confectioners sugar in a bowl and gradually added hot water while Alex stirred it together.  I wanted a relatively thick glaze, and I added a bit too much water at first and had to add a bit more confectioners sugar to thicken it up.   Then I added in the lime zest, vanilla and the shredded coconut and had Alex give it a final whisk.

At that point Alex decided he didn't feel like decorating the cake after all.  He said I could handle it, and hopped down from his chair and left the kitchen.

I just drizzled the glaze back and forth across the top of the cake on a diagonal, and decided that was enough. 

Here's how it looked from the side:

 

A few candles...a round of Happy Birthday (which we sang the way Alex's kindergarten class sings it - "Happy birthday to you, cha-cha-cha, Happy Birthday to you, cha-cha-cha...and so on...with accompanying hip-wiggling.  It was kind  of fun.)...and dessert was served.

Alex didn't like the mango part.  Julia wasn't really feeling well so she just had a little taste and said she was full.  But Bill liked it, and so did I.  Some of the caramel part baked up into the cake, and the whole thing had a slightly dark, cooked sugary taste.  Pretty yummy.

And, like I said, super easy.

Cakes - Thomas the Tank Engine - Calvin's Birthday 1996

My nephew was a huge Thomas the Tank Engine fan when he was little.  I remember him saying it like this - "Thomas the Tank-gen" - for a while.  He knew all the names of the engines, and had a bunch of the books...and for his birthday, he wanted a Thomas cake. 

Now, even back then, I had become a bit of a creative snob and didn't want to use a character cake pan, but my I guess I realized Wilton had done a better job of creating the pan than I might do freehand, so when my sister handed it to me, I used it.

And then - horror of horrors, when it came time to decorate the cake, I was suddenly reliving a 6th grade oil painting class I took...

I had taken painting lessons and art classes since I was nine or ten, I think.  But all the painting I had done was in acrylic.  So this class in oils was a huge culture shock.  Acrylics dry fast, oils don't.  Acrylics are thin, oils are thick.  Acrylics liked me, oils most certainly did not.

One of the assignments in that class was to find a picture of either an old person (lots of wrinkles) or an "ethnic" person.  I swear, that's how I remember it being phrased.  So in some magazine with pictures of the old west (I think), I found a portrait of a Native American gentleman.  His skin was aged by the sun, and he wore these fur wraps around his two braids.  He had a somber and interesting face, so that's what I chose.  He seemed "ethnic" enough for the assignment.

I had no problems with him, for the most part.  Until I had to do the eyes. 

Now, in my acrylic experience, I actually did a pretty fair job with eyes.  I have (somewhere) a head shot of a leopard or jaguar, and the eyes look really good.  Or they did when I was eleven.  Glassy and real.

So it came as quite a horrible surprise to me to discover that I wasn't so good at it with the oils.  With acrylic paint, if I screwed up, I could just paint over it.  With oils, more paint meant more layers, and oil layers are thick layers.  Now that I think about it, I also hadn't done a lot of human eyes, either, and that could have contributed to the problem.  But mostly I blame the oils.

My somber and dignified Native American gentleman had Marty Feldman eyes when I finally gave up and flung my brushes at the wall.  Really.  Three-dimensional eyeballs bulging from this otherwise not awful - and flat - portrait. 

It haunts me still.

And so, when I was doing Thomas, I did fine with all the little train details - I just copied the picture that came with the pan.  Got his little bulbous nose and his innocent smile okay. 

But the eyes.  The eyes...

I just could not get them to look, well, Thomasy.  I hated the eyes.  Hated them.  Insipid, popping, Thomas eyes.

I finally had to give up and put the icing down.  My sister was probably pulling it away from me while I was still trying to make the eyes look correct.  I cursed my lack of skill.  I cursed Thomas.  And I cursed oil paint, too, just because.

Well, the birthday party took place - the cake itself, by the way, was strawberry, per Calvin's request, with chocolate frosting underneath all the decorative stuff - at my sister's house.  Kids and balloons and parents and cameras.  Calvin sitting in the birthday boy seat at the head of the table in my sister's dining room.  I brought the cake in while everyone sang Happy Birthday, and I swear those horrible eyes were looking right at me, mocking my lack of talent and skill, laughing at me...

I set the cake down in front of Calvin, and he said these magic words:

"That's the best Thomas I ever saw!"

Did I tell you he's my very favorite human on the planet? 

And here's that cake:

Stop looking at me, Thomas.  Just stop it.

Onion Rings

These are the sort of onion rings I mentioned in yesterday's post - the ones I made to go with my Buffalo Ball sandwiches.   I had one onion left over, so yesterday afternoon I cooked up another batch and took pictures so I could show you how little what I did to make them.

For a small batch you will need:

One large sweet onion - Vidalia if they're in season, otherwise, just pick the best looking sweet onion in the store.

Buttermilk.  Easiest is to buy the quart size, but if you can't do that for some reason, you can also find powdered buttermilk in the baking section of most grocery stores.

Each package gets mixed with a cup of water, so if you're going to go this route, you'll need at least two cups, and three would be better.

This powder is easy to use, and you can just buy some to have on hand.  When you need it for the onion rings, just whisk the powder with the water...

and ta-da!

Buttermilk.

Now, peel the onion and trim the ends a little bit...

And then slice the onion into rings approximately half an inch wide. 

Separate the rings and place them in the buttermilk.  Soak them for an hour or so in the fridge.

When you're ready to make the onion rings, fill a large pot about half full with vegetable oil and heat to about 350-360 degrees F.

While the oil is heating, pour some flour in a shallow bowl or pan, add salt and pepper, and whisk together to combine.

You'll also need a slotted spoon or tongs and a plate with several layers of paper towels. 

Set up your bowl of onions and buttermilk, the bowl of flour, and an empty bowl (the on-deck circle, so to speak) near your hot oil.  Take the onion rings, a few at a time, out of the buttermilk, dredge them in the flour and pile them on the empty plate.

Fry in small batches, turning the rings over about halfway through, until they are crisp and dark golden brown.  Remove from the oil, place on the paper towels to drain, and sprinkle with salt immediately.  Transfer to another plate in a warm oven, if desired, until all are cooked and ready to serve.

These come out crisp and light.  My husband said last night that he likes these better than the heavily coated ones you get that are basically thick, fried batter with a little string of onion running through the middle. 

To accompany the rings, I made a sauce of mayo and sriracha and lemon juice - you could also use a hot chipotle sauce mixed with the mayo as well.  Just a thought.

Whatever you do, serve the onion rings as soon after cooking them as you can.  Fried foods don't stay crisp forever, and these are definitely meant to be eaten the day they are cooked.  They don't reheat to the same degree of crispness. 

Enjoy! 

Printable Recipe!

Play Date - Times Two

Yesterday I barely looked at a computer or a camera.  Instead, I spent my day hitting the grocery store early and coming home and cooking for the menfolk.  And the kidfolk, too. 

Yesterday was a Brew Day at our house.  My husband, in case you aren't aware, brews beer as a hobby, and he's pretty damn good.  He and his friend John have been doing this for years.  They hadn't been at it more than a year or so when I came into the picture, so I've observed and experienced many of the ups and downs as they have fine tuned their process.

Currently most of the brewing equipment is kept at our house, so this is where Brew Day takes place.  Yesterday they made 25 gallons, which will be divided among the 5 guys in total who were here to help (and eat.  and play darts.  and drink beer). 

Bill had asked me to make Buffalo Ball Sandwiches, so I picked up roughly a ton of ground beef and pork and veal at the store (okay, more like 6 lbs) and torpedo rolls and additional hot sauce.  I made a ton of meatballs and put about 2/3 of them in the buffalo sauce and the other third in regular (and yes, canned!) spaghetti sauce for the kids. 

Ah, yes, the kids.  In addition to my husband's friends, we also had, at long last, a little playmate for Julia.  One of the guys brought his 3-year-old daughter and Julia was beside herself with joy because she finally had a little GIRL to play with.  Sure, she can hang with the boys, but it's nice to be with your own kind at times, too. 

I have to back up for a minute about the whole girl thing.  Initially there were going to be two girls coming over - the 3-year old and an 8-year-old daughter of one of the other guys.  On Friday when I shared the news with Julia and Alex, I naturally got two responses.  Julia gasped, her eyes got wide, and she was speechless with joy.  Alex rolled his eyes and groaned, and said "Two ladies?  Now I won't have anyone to play with!"

(Excuse me while I laugh again at that.  "Ladies."  hahahahaha)

So I said, "Alex, there have been a lot of times when your friends come over and Julia doesn't have any girls to play with."

And he said "Yeah, but ladies and boys can't play together!"

(where does he get this "ladies" thing???)

I said "Sure they can!"

"Not this boy!" my man's man boy-child replied.

So that was the plan.  And since he has had a sore throat for a few days and hasn't felt all that great anyway, if he wanted to spend the day just lying on the couch, that's fine with me.

Anyway, back to the show. 

The guys all arrived at different times.  John first, and then Peter (who was going to bring his 8-year-old daughter, but she didn't come after all - probably to Alex's great relief), and eventually the others.  David and his 3-year-0ld daughter arrived late morning, and she was adorable - dark hair, dark eyes, serious little 3-year-old face.  She was eager to meet Julia, and headed on downstairs like she'd been here before. 

Now, the reason David brought Jackie (or Jakey, as Julia called her) over was partly because he said Julia was a lot like Jackie.  And we all thought it would be interesting to put two headstrong three-year-old girls together for a day just to see who survived it.  Amazingly enough, they got along very well.  I think at first, Julia was just SO happy to have a girl her own age to play with, she didn't care who decided what.  Bill was downstairs when the two girls first started playing together, and Julia handed her beloved pink elephant to Jackie in an instant sign of friendship.  She was pulling out toys for them to play with, dumping everything all over the floor - a vast smorgasbord of Playskool people and animals.  Alex stayed on the couch and tried to ignore them.

There were little flare-ups here and there, but the girls managed to sort things out with no hair-pulling, biting, or hitting. 

Jackie was definitely Julia's kindred spirit.  She said what she thought with no hesitation.  At one point she pointed at a napkin Alex had left on the table.  It had a purple blueberry-applesauce stain on it.  She said to me - and she speaks in a rush - "Could you take that nakkin away - it's freakin me out."  I was too busy trying not to laugh to realize I was now being bossed around by two preschoolers instead of just one.

I fed them their lunch before I fed all the menfolk - mini meatball grinders and french fries.  They all ate the fries first and just nibbled at the meatballs.  And then they were done.  And off and playing.

Toward the end of the visit, you could see little cracks starting.  Jackie was pushing Julia's little princess baby stroller around the house (and around and around and around) and finally Julia wanted to play with the penguin (who had been strapped into the stroller the whole time).  Julia reached for the penguin and Jackie immediately pulled the stroller back and said "No!  I'm playing with it!"  "But I want to!" "No!"

I intervened - "Maybe you can SHARE.  You know, TAKE TURNS." 

So that almost worked, until Jackie said "You can borrow it (the stroller) but you have to give it back because it's mine."

And Julia roared back "NO IT'S NOT, IT'S MINE!  I GOT IT FOR CHRISTMAS!"

Hey!  Do you girls want to play with Play-Doh?

War averted.

And when it was time to go home, Jackie DID NOT want to go.  I told her we'd love to have her come over again some time.  But she was tragically heartbroken and inconsolable as only a 3-year-old can be as her father put her coat and hat and mittens on and led her dejected little form out the door.

They were really very cute together - those little girl voices.... And the little girl screaming.  Bill played an impromptu game of hide and seek with them - he was a roaring monster of some kind and whenever he found them he'd ROAR and the two of them would SCREEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAMMM with terror and glee as they raced to another room to escape. 

Cuteness abounded.

So that was the junior edition play date.  Very successful.

Grown men version went well too.  The beer was made without any major problems - which was nice because Bill's had a sinus headache since Thursday night and woke up in such horrible pain Saturday he didn't think he's be able to participate at all.  I said I thought the cold outside would actually help matters, and so he went and sat with an icepack on his head to jump start the recovery process.  And it worked.  (yay, me!)  Abrupt weather changes will bring about these headaches, I've noticed, and we've been going from wet and warm(ish) to cold and dry over the last couple of days. 

Anyway, the beer-making went well, and lunch was a hit.  And not just the sandwiches.  I asked Bill the day before what he wanted along with the buffalo balls, and he came up with onion rings.  So that's what I made.

And they were the hit of the party.  Not a one left.  Well, no, I take that back.  There was one left - Julia had tried it and didn't like it and threw it back in the warming drawer while I was taking the rest of them out for lunch.  But that doesn't count.

I also made a spicy sauce to dip them in - a mixture of mayo and sriracha and lemon juice.

For the onion rings, I bought some large, sweet onions - a perfect onion ring shape.  And I'd read a recipe somewhere about soaking them in buttermilk, like some people do when they make fried chicken.  So I sliced the onions into half-inch wide rings and soaked them in buttermilk while I was shaping the meatballs.  Then all I did was dredge the wet onion rings in a mixture of flour and salt and pepper before frying them in 350-360 degree oil.  Cooked them til they were crispy and golden brown, and kept them warm til I'd fried them all.  Simple as anything.

I have another onion.  I'm almost thinking of making them again today, just so I can take pictures.  Well, that, and so I can eat them again, too. 

Welcome!

An enormous welcome to all of you who have come to my site via the photo and link of my Poached Pears on Tastespotting.  Wow!  I'm stunned at the huge influx of visitors.  That made my whole morning!

Haircuts

Alex's hair had been getting rather shaggy lately, so last week I brought him to my sister's house so she could trim it.  To save time, she was just going to use the electric clippers on the longest setting (so he'd at least HAVE some hair left at the end) and, knowing how expressive Alex's face can be during these events, I sat there and took pictures through the whole thing. 

If you're interested, here's how it went....

Low Key

Okay, so we didn't get McDonalds food last night.  I cooked chicken and rice with canned tomatoes and onions and garlic and white wine, and Bill liked it, Julia ate a bit of it, and Alex didn't have any because he's got a sore throat and wasn't interested in food.  Today he's home from school.  He's downstairs on the couch watching cartoons, and Julia is here on the couch, "reading" to me and occasionally glaring at me because I told her I was busy at the moment and would read to her in a few minutes. 

I don't have a whole lot to report today. 

Tomorrow Bill and some friends are brewing something like 25 gallons of beer (to be divided among the 5 of them) and I said I'd make Buffalo Ball sandwiches for them all.  He also asked for onion rings, and somewhere I have a great recipe for the batter, so I need to find that today, too.

Gotta go in a moment.  Alex wants to make a "surprise" valentine's day card for Bill and me, so I need to make sure he has all the right art supplies.  He was too wiped out yesterday to do it.

So that's about it - a rather thin post this morning, I'm afraid.  Perhaps I'll have something more entertaining to say later on.

I'm Valentined Out

I hope you enjoyed the little Valentines Day Ideas food series I did for the first part of this month.  It was fun, and boy did we eat pretty well around here during the past few weeks!  All the recipes are over on the right in my "On the Menu" list, in case you're looking for them at some other point in the year.

If anyone out there made any of these recipes - let me know how they came out, if you think of it, ok?  I'd love the feedback - good or bad. 

And so today is actually Valentine's Day.  Both Alex and Julia have Valentine's Day parties at school and daycare, respectively.

And for us, tonight, for dinner?

I think we'll get McDonald's.

Valentine's Day Ideas: Chocolate Tiramisu

 

I made Tiramisu for the first time about...um...maybe 9 years ago for Bill's birthday.  I wasn't new to the family any more, but I still felt self-conscious about some things, like making dessert.  Anyway, Bill requested tiramisu, so I found a recipe and did my best.  I wasn't happy with how it turned out - it was too liquidy - but there was no time to make something else, so that's what was served.  Bill's nephew Joe got the first serving.  He was oh, maybe 15 or something at the time.  He took one bite and sang out "RUMMMMM!" and I cringed.  No wonder it was so runny.  But everyone loved it - probably because of the rum. 

I've made it a few times since over the years, and if I can give any advice to you out there, it would be this:  USE THE CRISP LADYFINGERS IF AT ALL POSSIBLE - THEY'RE CALLED SAVOIARDI.  And I put that in all caps because it makes a huge difference in how liquidy your dessert turns out.  I also put it in all caps because I actually did NOT use them when I made this dessert, and while it came out nice - tastewise and all, it was seeping coffee.  And why?  Because I used the soft, cake-like little ladyfingers the bakery at the local Stop & Shop makes, and they are like starving sponges when you dip them into the coffee...and then they are like mush .0000002 of a second later.  So it is worth it to take the time to FIND the Savoiardi if you possibly can.  I shouldn't have been such a slug.

Anyway.  That's enough of that. 

One of the issues with making Tiramisu is the whole raw egg thing.  Traditional recipes call for egg yolks, that are just beaten with sugar but not cooked, when making the creamy filling part.  Other recipes avoid the eggs completely, which solves the salmonella worries, but takes a few too many steps away from tradition for me.  The best compromise I have seen is to make a Zabaglione, also spelled zabayon, which is a smooth, light, custardy sauce made of egg yolks, sugar, and Marsala wine.  When you make the zabaglione, you place the yolks, sugar and wine in a double boiler, or a bowl set on a pot of simmering water (the bowl must not touch the water, however, or it will cook the eggs too much.)  Anyway, while the mixture is over the water, you whisk and whisk like there's no tomorrow, and what you're doing is incorporating some air in the mixture, which lightens it, and you're also very, very gently heating the yolks and killing any pesky salmonella critters that might be hanging around.  The texture of the final product is soft and foamy and voluptuous. 

So.  First thing you need to to is make the zabaglione.  Oh, and since it's for Valentine's Day, how about a chocolate zabaglione?  (If you don't want chocolate, leave out the cream and chocolate in this recipe.)

Chocolate Zabaglione:

You'll need...

4 T heavy cream

1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate (either chips, or chopped up)

6 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar and a pinch of salt

1/3 cup Marsala wine

In a small saucepan, scald the cream (heat it to almost a boil) and stir in the chocolate chips

until they are melted and the mixture is smooth.

Remove from heat and set aside.

Combine the yolks, the wine, and the sugar and salt in a bowl

and set the bowl on a pot of simmering water. 

The water should only be about an inch deep, and the bowl must not touch the water, so the shape and size of the bowl you use is rather important.

Whisk the egg yolk mixture constantly for about 4-5 minutes.  The texture of the mixture will change - it will thicken and increase in volume a bit as well. 

Remove the mixture from the heat, and stir in the melted chocolate/cream mixture. 

When combined, pour into a shallow pan (I used a glass pie plate) and cover with plastic wrap.  Place in the refrigerator until completely chilled.

While the zabaglione is chilling, you should assemble the following:

8 oz mascarpone (an Italian cheese similar to cream cheese) (room temp if possible)

1/2 heavy cream

2/3 cup sugar (separated into two 1/3 cup amounts)

2  1/2 cups espresso (warm, not hot)

1/4 cup dark rum (optional)

25-30 crisp ladyfingers (Savoiardi)

Place the heavy cream in a mixing bowl and beat until it starts to thicken.  Slowly add in 1/3 cup sugar and continue beating until firm peaks form.

   

Fold the cream into your mascarpone.  (* It's helpful if the mascarpone is soft, otherwise you're folding a soft texture into a rather firm texture, and you could end up with lumps of mascarpone if you're not patient and careful.)

   

Then fold the chilled zabaglione into the cream and mascarpone mixture

and set aside.

Add the rum (if you're using it) and the other 1/3 cup sugar to the espresso and stir until the sugar has dissolved.

You'll also need an 8 x 8 inch baking pan, or a standard sized loaf pan, or, if you want to be Valentine-silly like me, you can use an 8" heart-shaped cake pan.  Whatever shape you decide on, you want to line it with plastic wrap so that the plastic hangs way over the edges of the pan.  (Why?  Because you're eventually going to unmold this onto a serving plate of some kind, and the plastic keeps the tiramisu from sticking to the walls of the pan.  That's why.)

Okay.  Now, one at a time, dip the ladyfingers in the coffee mixture and arrange on the bottom of the pan. 

Spread one third of the zabaglione

on top of the ladyfingers.

Continue with more ladyfingers,

zabaglione, ladyfingers,

and the final layer of zabaglione.

Cover with the ends of the plastic wrap

and chill for 6 hours.  Yes, 6.  Okay, 5 will work, too.  But if you are going to unmold this dessert, you need to give it plenty of time to set first.

(The spatula is yours to do with as you wish.)

   

When you're just about ready to serve, get about half a cup of heavy cream, some sugar (maybe 2 tablespoons) and orange extract if you have it.  If you don't, vanilla is fine.  Whip the cream like you did earlier, adding the sugar when it starts to thicken, and stirring in a few drops (use it very sparingly, you just want a hint of flavor) of the orange extract at the end.  If you want to get fancy, get a piping bag with a large star tip and fill that with the whipped cream.  If you don't want to bother with that, you'll just need a spatula to spread the cream with.  Also, you'll need some cocoa powder in a sifter, and either shaved chocolate or mini chocolate chips. 

Take the pan of tiramisu out of the fridge.  Have your serving plate ready. 

It should be bigger in diameter than the pan.  Carefully peel back the plastic wrap covering the tiramisu. 

Place the plate upside down on the pan. 

Slide your hand under the pan, and hold the plate in place with your other hand.  Now, in one quick, bold, fearless motion (I always say "No guts no glory" at moments like this - I know, I'm weird.  But it's my way of psyching myself up.) flip the plate and pan over.  Set them down on your work area and if the pan looks like it isn't nicely centered (if you care about that), now is the time to gently slide it where it needs to go. 

Then, remove the pan. 

And then carefully peel away the plastic wrap.

Now if, like me, you end up using the softer ladyfingers (you can also use pound cake if you can't find any sort of ladyfingers), and you find the tiramisu is seeping coffee onto your plate, set a few paper towels around the plate so the edges of the towel are touching the coffee.  They'll soak up whatever liquid is there while you decorate the top.

Yay - you're almost done!  Now, either spread or pipe the whipped cream on the top of the tiramisu.

(You can do the sides, if you want to, but I like the look of the layers.) 

Then dust with cocoa powder

and sprinkle your chocolate shavings or mini chips on top and - TA-DA!! - you did it!

Now serve some up...

and, of course,

enjoy.

 

Cakes - Coffin Cake - 1996

And of course there's a stoy behind this one, too.

Actually, this (now that I'm thinking about it) was my original idea for a Halloween birthday cake for some coworkers, but then after I came up with the idea, someone affiliated with our company drowned while attending our company's annual convention, which, that year, was maybe in Mexico or somewhere - some place on a beach, anyway.  It was awful.  Horrible.  And making a cake in the shape of a coffin was suddenly not a very tasteful idea.  So that was when I came up with the Spider Cake idea. 

I'd already made the coffin lid out of gingerbread, though, and I'd bought the other decorations for it, so I made it up and gave it to the son of a friend of mine, whose birthday was right around Halloween somewhere.  He was turning 10, if I remember correctly, so something creepy and gross was perfect for him.

The cake was a 13 x 9 cake.  The cake mix was for a white cake - I'd mixed in a lot of food coloring to make it red.  Bwa ha ha ha. 

Anyway.  I covered the cake (cut in the same shape as the coffin lid) in chocolate frosting. 

I had painted the coffin lid with brown royal icing and my cake notes (yes, I have index cards with the cake pictures) say "woodgrain w/royal icing."  I am not sure if that means I used some kind of comb or something to create a woodgrain directly in the icing, or if I'd painted the woodgrain pattern on with another shade of brown.  And when I look at the picture, either or both of those ideas could have been used.  I don't remember.

To assemble it, I placed the cake in a shallow, disposable aluminum foil pan.  I had a few gummy worms crawling out of the coffin - they helped prop up the coffin lid nicely.  I surrounded the cake with crumbled chocolate cake "dirt," and added more gummy worms and some little black plastic house flies here and there.

The worms go in...the worms go out...

Sunday Morning Shots

 

Valentine's Day Ideas: Poached Pears with Syrup and Creme Anglaise

For many reasons, the poached pear is one of my favorite desserts.  First, just look at it.  The color, the jewel-like tone - very elegant.  Second - it's fruit!  It's an ordinary pear, transformed.  It's Cinderella at the ball.  Okay, that's a bit overboard, but still.  Poaching takes the pear to a new level.  The pear's natural sweetness is enhanced by a long, leisurely bath in sugar and water and wine and spices, and at the same time, the pale color is replaced by this rich purpley hue.  The fruit is juicy and light - a satisfying, but not bloating, way to end a meal.

Have I rhapsodized enough?

Okay.  To make the whole display you see in the picture above, you'll also need (in addition to the recipe I'm about to share) the following two recipes:

Creme Anglaise

and

Florentines.

Now.  Let us poach.  Oh, and before I forget, you either want to make these in the morning to serve in the evening, or make them the day before. 

You will need:

3 cups dry red wine

3 cups water

1 lb, 8 oz sugar

1 cinnamon stick

3 whole cloves

A large sauce pot

And - 4 pears - ripe, but firm, with no bruises (if possible), and, also if possible, stems intact.

(Now, depending on the size saucepot you have, you may need to increase the other ingredients in order to cover the pears while they're in the liquid.  Just increase proportionately, as best you can.  It doesn't have to be perfect.)

Place the water, wine, sugar, cinnamon stick and cloves in the saucepot and bring to a boil.

While the poaching liquid is heating up, you'll need to peel the pears.  You need to peel every little bit of skin off, but leave the stem on.  (It's also a good idea to remove the core carefully through the bottom of the pear.  And slice the bottom of the pear so it stands up nicely, if you are planning to serve the pear upright on the plate.  In this photo session, I COMPLETELY FORGOT to core the pears.  This is what happens when your mind is not entirely on the job.)

Anyway, once you've peeled your pears completely...

here's a swell trick I learned.  Get a brand new nylon scrubby thing - those green ones you use to scrape stuck-on food off your nonstick pans.  And by gently scrubbing the surface of the pear, you can remove those "peel lines" so your pear will look like this:

Oooooooooh!

Pretty cool, huh?

Do that with all of your pears, and then core them and level off the bottom if you want to. 

Once the poaching liquid reaches a boil, place the pears in the liquid.  This is when you need to make sure the pears can be completely submerged.  Yes, they'll float to the top if you let them, but just check by pushing them under a bit.  If there's space, you're in good shape.  If not, add at least some more water.  If you need a lot more liquid, also add some more wine and sugar.

In order to poach (and color) the pears evenly, you need to keep them submerged.  The poaching liquid is too hot for you to stand there and do it manually, plus you'd be standing there for a really long time, so the best things to try out are items like pot lids or pie plates or cake pans.  I had an 8" cake pan that fit perfectly in the pot and kept all four pears under the level of the liquid.

Let the pears simmer while you do other things, like wash the floors, or do all your laundry, or watch your car or something.  Really.  Just check on it periodically.  As the liquid reduces, the temperature will creep back up, so you'll have to lower the temperature a bit from time to time.

And while you're checking on the simmer status, it's also interesting to check the color of the pears every now and then.

Early on, they'll start to absorb the color of the wine, and they'll begin to turn pink.  But after a few hours...

They'll look like this.

Once they achieve the color you're looking for AND they are soft but not mushy, shut off the heat, remove the cake pan from the liquid, and allow the whole mixture to cool.  Put the cooled pot of liquid and pears in the fridge for either several hours or overnight.

The pears, at this point are done.  You've still got all this liquid, though, and it'd be a shame to waste it.  So...what should you do?

Make a syrup!  Follow me...

Remove the pears from the liquid and place in another container in the fridge.  Put the pot of liquid on a burner and heat it back up again.  If you want to, you can add other spices or flavorings as well.  I put raisins in mine. 

Heat the liquid to boiling and then reduce to a simmer.  Simmer and simmer and simmer until the liquid has reduced by at least half.  As it cools, the liquid will thicken because it is now - voila! - a syrup. 

And now, if you want to be fancy, pour some syrup on your plate, and some creme anglaise, add your pear, garnish with some raisins and a florentine (or other cookie, if you prefer).

And beware.  If you're not careful, someone will try to swipe some.

 

How is it, Julia?

And really.  Who's more honest than a three-and-a-half-year-old about her likes and dislikes?

No one. 

(P.S. To see another poached pear recipe idea, click here.)

Valentine's Day Ideas: Duck Breast with Reduction of Port, Shallots, and Figs

I made something like this sevaral years ago for either Valentine's day or for Bill's birthday (also this month) - it was part of a larger menu that included Napoleons of goat cheese and asparagus...um...slices of baguette with oil and garlic and brie...wines...and I don't even remember what I made for dessert.  Best (I use the term with a heavy splash of irony here) of all, I had a horrible cold at the time, and couldn't taste a thing.  Not a thing.  In fact, the only time I COULD taste anything, was if I had just sneezed and my sinuses were clear for a second and a half, and I sort of breathed the taste of the food up into my nasal passages through the back of my throat.  I know, it sounds rather strange and disgusting.  But it was kind of thrilling the two or three times I could actually taste what I'd cooked.  Bill seemed to enjoy the food, at least.

Anyway, I figured I'd make less food this time around and just focus on the duck as the "showpiece" of the meal. 

This recipe serves 4.

You will need:

4 duck breasts, skins on

6 dried figs, stems removed

4 shallots, quartered

3 cloves of garlic, smashed

1 T oil

zest of one lemon

1 T sugar

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 cup port wine or other red

3/4 cup chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

2 bunches of broccoli rabe

1 cup mixture of brown rice/wild rice/assorted grains

Okay. 

First, measure out the, figs, shallots, garlic, lemon zest, sugar, wine, and chicken stock.

 

Hm.  Okay, I'm going to tell you one way of doing it - the way I did it when I took these pictures, and then at the end of the post I'm going to give you an alternate version that I believe will actually be better, and it's how I SHOULD have done it, but for whatever reason, I didn't.  Confused?  Great!  Let's continue.

Warm a tablespoon of oil in a pan on medium heat.  Add the shallots (or ask your assistant to)

and cook for about 5 minutes, or until they start to soften.  Add in the garlic and cook for another couple of minutes, and then add the rest - wine, chicken stock, sugar, zest, cloves, and figs.  Bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat and simmer for about half an hour.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

While that's simmering, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. 

Start cooking the rice according to the package directions.

Rinse the broccoli rabe and trim off the ends of the stalks.  Chop the rabe stalks into thirds and set aside.

Now, smash a few garlic cloves and peel the paper off.  Place these in a large saucepan with a few tablespoons of olive oil.  Heat the pan until the oil is warm, but you don't want to cook the garlic.  Once the oil is hot, shut the heat off, and just let the garlic sit there and soften.

Now, rinse off the duck breasts and pat them dry with paper towels. 

You need to get a sharp knife, and score the skin in a grid pattern - just cut around halfway through the skin and underlying fat - don't cut into the meat below. 

Place an oven-proof pan over a medium high flame, and when the pan is hot, place the duck breasts, skin side down, on the pan.  Cook until the skins are golden brown and crisp, and the fat has been rendered.  Spoon the fat out of the pan as it accumulates.  This should take about 5-8 minutes.  At this point, turn the duck breasts over in the pan and place them, uncovered, in the hot oven.

Cook until the internal temperature registers 165 F with a meat thermometer.  Actually, I'd take them out sooner, like when it's around 160.  They'll continue to cook a bit more after that.

While the duck is in the oven, heat the oil and garlic back up again and place all the broccoli rabe in the pan, too.  Stir or toss to coat the rabe with the oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Place a lid on the pan and let it cook a while on medium until the rabe wilts.  Remove the lid and cook, stirring occasionally, until the stalks are tender, about 8-10 minutes.

By this point the rice should be done cooking.  Now all you need to do is warm up the fig/shallot mixture and serve.

Now.  I think a better way to do this, if you feel like it, is to make the following changes:

FIRST, brown the duck breasts in a large pan.  Remove them and set aside on a plate. 

THEN, saute your shallots and garlic in the oil, add the rest of the ingredients for the fig/shallot mixture and cook together for about ten minutes or so. 

AND THEN, place the duck breasts, meat side down, in the shallot/fig mixture and cook on medium until the duck breasts are cooked through.

Everything else would be done the same way as described above.

I think if you cook the duck in the sauce, it will absorb some of the flavors and it just seems to me you'll get an even better flavor.

 

Valentine's Day Ideas: Bananas Foster Napoleons

I like Bananas Foster, but to me it's lacking something.  Maybe I was too strongly influenced by my 5 trimesters at Johnson & Wales.  When plating desserts, we were taught that the dessert needed 4 components:  the main item, a sauce, a garnish, and - my favorite - a crunch component.  Which is probably why when I wrote up that idea for Boca Negra Hearts it also included a sauce (actually two), a garnish (the raspberries) and a crunch component - the florentine heart.  (Of course, I ignored that whole 4-part thing with the Creme Brulee and the Cannoli, but hey, rules are made to be broken.  At times.

Anyway, for me, Bananas Foster needs something else.  So here's what I came up with:

You will need:

1 package frozen puff pastry dough

2 ripe bananas

Good vanilla ice cream

2 T unsalted butter

2 T white sugar

2 T brown sugar

4 oz banana liqueur

2 oz rum

Ready? 

Okay, either in the morning or the day before, make the puff pastry hearts.  (Or circles or rectangles if you prefer - I just thought, you know, hearts...valentine's day...)

You want to thaw the puff pastry dough in the fridge the day BEFORE you plan to use it - I mean, say you are going to make this dessert this Thursday.  Take the puff pastry dough from the freezer and put it in the fridge on Tuesday so you can make the hearts on Wednesday. 

Once the dough has thawed, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Unwrap the dough and dust your work surface with a little flour.  Roll the dough out to help smooth out any creases.  Cut out whatever shapes you plan to use, and place them on your baking sheet.  Place them in the fridge for half an hour.

When you're ready to bake them, first, brush with an egg wash (1 egg + a tablespoon of water, mixed together) to give them a nice shine.

Slide them into the oven and shut the door.  Unless you meant to take a picture of them first, in which case, just open the door, crouch down, and snap a picture.  Like this.

The package of puff pastry dough should tell you how long to bake them for - I believe these cooked for 20 minutes.  You want to make sure they are cooked through - not just pretty on the outside.

Allow them to cool completely, then put them in a ziploc bag until you need them.

Now for the bananas. 

First, place your butter and the two sugars in a pan and set your heat on medium. 

As they start to melt, stir them together to blend.

While that's going on, peel and slice your bananas.  Traditionally, the bananas are sliced lengthwise, and then cut in half cross-wise.  But I cut them into "coins" instead.

When your butter/sugar mixture is nice and bubbly,

add the bananas,

and add in the banana liqueur and the rum.  Now, usually when Bananas Foster is made tableside in a restaurant, the waiter will flambe it with the rum.  I wanted to, but I hadn't thought about it when I selected this pan, and I couldn't tilt the pan into the flame without the banans and sugar spilling out.  So I just put the rum straight in and let it all cook on medium low while I got the rest of the dessert ready.

First, get out your ice cream so it can soften a bit.

Next, with a sharp knife, separate the top from the bottom of each of 4 puff pastry hearts.  Place the bottom of one heart in the bottom of a bowl.

Top that with some ice cream...

and then top that with a second bottom slice of puff pastry heart.

And then...when the bananas are soft and look kind of like this...

Spoon half the banana mixture on top of the puff pastry and ice cream...

and finish with two top halves of the puff pastry hearts.  Like so....

Repeat with the other two split puff pastry hearts, some more ice cream, and the rest of the bananas.  Serve immediately.

Now that I think about it, this would also make a pretty yummy breakfast, too.

 

Valentine's Day Ideas: Littlenecks and Lobsters

I think this is my personal favorite of all the meals.  I love seafood, first of all, and as far as preparation goes, a boiled lobster is pretty easy. 

Littlenecks on the half-shell are easy too - especially if you're not the one shucking them.  Bill usually does that here, which is good because I can't take pictures and shuck a clam at the same time.

Anyway - get nice-sized lobsters - the ones above were a pound and three quarters - plenty of meat per person.  We had two dozen littlenecks, but we also had to share with Alex.  Julia doesn't like them yet.

As far as side dishes, well, we didn't have any.  Bill and I had some cheese and a baguette after the meal, but if you require a vegetable, I'd suggest something else easily eaten with your hands - corn on the cob, while ideal, isn't as readily available in the winter.  Edamame would be my choice.  Or you could start things off with a salad.  But really, it's okay to just have an entire meal of seafood once in a while. 

Oh, and why littlenecks?  Why not the obvious choice - oysters?  In this case - because the place we buy our seafood from was out of them, oddly enough.  But I actually think I prefer littlenecks anyway.  Keep them cold until you're ready to shuck them, and don't shuck them too far ahead of time, either. 

 

Once shucked, keep them on ice.

Here's how you do it -

Hold the clam in one hand, your clam knife in the other.  Insert the knife right near the hinge of the clam and gently but firmly and with authority, twist the knife until the shells separate.  Hold the clam level, so all the liquid doesn't spill out, and scrape the meat from one shell into the other.  Discard the empty shell, and run your knife under the meat in the other shell so you don't have to fight with it when you try to eat.

If you don't like the briney, oceany taste, you can squirt with lemon juice or top with a bit of hot sauce or cocktail sauce...but if you have to cover up the taste, why are you eating them at all?

Okay.  For the lobsters.  Half fill a pot (large enough for however many lobsters you have) with water and bring it to a boil.  Add salt, and then put your lobsters in.  Some people don't like this part, and yes, it's a little unpleasant, but hey, guess what, if you're going to eat fish or meat or chicken - anything that was alive, well, guess what - it had to die before it was cooked.  Sorry to sound harsh, but, well, that's reality.

So, remove a lobster from the bag it came home in.  Hold it by the carapace, or body.  It will probably arch and splay out all its claws and legs and tail - basically to intimidate you - but it will relax this pose in a moment and then you plunge it into the water, head first (somehow that seems more humane to me - I don't know) and get the next lobster.  Get them in quickly and put the lid on.  Cook them for about 15 minutes.  This may sound pompous, but I can usually tell if they're cooked enough by the smell.  Keep in mind that the more lobsters you have, the longer it will take for the water to come back up to temperature, and therefore the longer you will need to cook them.  I cooked these 4 lobsters for 17 minutes, and they came out perfectly.  Like all seafood, you don't want to overcook the meat.  But with lobsters, you don't want them undercooked, either, because the meat will be kind of mushy.  I think the rule is something like ten minutes for a pound, and then another minute for every quarter pound beyond that.  But again - the number of lobsters in the pot will also be a factor.

I just serve boiled lobster with melted butter, plain and simple.  And I don't even use that at times, because the lobster meat is so sweet it doesn't need anything else.  If you prefer to get fancy, chopped tarragon is a nice addition to the butter.  Or minced garlic.

Okay, now a word about the colorful stuff inside the lobster body.  First of all, I know some people who DO NOT eat anything but the claw and tail meat.  The rest is just too much work to get at.  While I may love these people as friends, I shake my head at them in private because there is so much meat they're missing out on.  And where do you have to be in such a rush, anyway, that you can't hang out and pick meat out of the body or squeeze it with your teeth out of the skinny little legs?  That's part of the whole lobster experience, in my book.  And so are the coral (eggs, or roe) and the tomalley (exploded liver).  The coral is the red stuff - and not every lobster will have that, obviously, since only the females carry the eggs.  Every lobster will, however, have that soft green liver pate-like stuff and okay, maybe it looks gross, but it tastes divine.  I think it's my favorite part of the lobster, truth be told.

And, I discovered, it's really good on a warm slice of baguette.  (There's a little of the coral in there, too.)

The main point, I think, is not to rush through this meal.  Take your time, and take the time to get every bit of meat from that lobster. 

Linger over a good bottle of Chablis. 

Talk. 

Connect.

Valentine's Day Ideas: Steak and Potatoes

This was one of my husband's suggestions.  And he grilled the steaks for the "photo shoot" aspect of this post.  Like most of our best meals - this one we cooked together.

First, the steaks.

Well, actually, let me back up and say ORIGINALLY, when I went shopping whatever day this was last week, I had planned to get duck breast for another meal idea I have for this series.  But the store I went to didn't have any, so I bought some steaks instead.  These were inch thick sirloin strip steaks, a little over half a pound each.  My husband had a rub already mixed from a previous grilling session, so he coated the steaks with that and let them stand while he started the grill.

Meanwhile, I got going on the other food.

First - had to get the potatoes going.  I cut up about 6 red potatoes - skins on, into cubes or chunks around an inch in size, give or take.

 

And I thawed some tarragon in olive oil that I'd frozen last fall.

I combined this with the potatoes, a bit more olive oil and some salt and pepper, and put the whole mixture in a 13 x 9 baking dish.

And I popped that pan, uncovered, into a preheated 400 degree oven.  You could use another kind of potato if you want to, or a different herb, or a blend.  Whatever you like.

Then I got out two packages of sliced, mixed mushrooms (again - use whatever you like in the mushroom dept.)

And I minced up a couple of shallots...

And I melted some butter in a pan.  I like the flavor of butter with mushrooms, rather than oil. 

In went the shallots and the mushrooms.  I raised the flame to medium high and put a lid on the pan for a couple of minutes to soften everything, then removed the lid and added in 3 cloves of garlic - whole, skins on.  Just for flavor.  I also poured in around half a cup of Marsala wine left from the cannoli I made recently.   Sprinkled on some salt and pepper, gave the mixture a good stir, turned the heat down to medium and let it all cook down. 

By the time the steaks were ready - let's see, the grill took about 20 minutes to get going and then the steaks cooked for a total of 14 minutes I think - this is how the mushroom mixture looked.

Before serving, I removed the garlic.  It hadn't cooked down enough to mash it in with everything else.

And while the mushrooms were cooking, I also made a salad of red leaf lettuce, arugula, tomatoes, orange bell pepper, cucumbers, and mung bean sprouts that we sprouted ourselves.  Oh, and some crumbled bleu cheese on top.

And when all this was nearly ready, the steaks came in the house and rested a bit.

And here's the end result:

Not bad at all.

Valentine's Day Ideas to Resume Shortly

Friday and Saturday - I just didn't put up any Valentine's Day food posts.  Friday, well, too many other things going on.  And Saturday...I was taking pictures with Julia and then I just...oh, I have no excuse.  I just didn't do it.  So now...I'm going to try to catch up.

Mini Me

When I take all my backyard nature photos of squirrels and assorted birds, I set up my camera (w/telephoto zoom attached) on a mini tripod on the kitchen counter just to the left of the sink.  That's the spot for the best view of the back yard, including the shelf on the deck rail that was originally constructed as outdoor counter space but currenly is the winter feeding station. 

Anyway, Julia likes to sit on the counter and take pictures, too.  I've let her look through the viewfinder of my camera and snap pictures.  That's the lovely thing about the digital camera - she can shoot as many pictures as she wants and if they aren't any good - I can delete them. 

Anyway, last weekend she and I actually had a tug-of-war with the camera because she wanted to take a picture and so did I.  The thing was, there was a male cardinal in the cherry tree and THAT was what I wanted to shoot.  But Julia wanted to take a picture of the bluejay in the same tree.  And so she is trying with her little fingers to pry the camera out of my grip, and I'm trying to fend her off, focus on the cardinal, and prevent my nice shiny equipment from slamming into the sink in the process.  Ultimately, the possessive big sister of my personality reared up and shouted (I'm kind of ashamed) "It's MY CAMERA!"  At which point Julia burst into tears and the cardinal flew away.

So.  Yesterday, in order to avoid all of that, I went digging around in camera bags and found this:

My father gave me this for Christmas in 1984 and I've shot zillions of rolls of film with it.  The majority of my adult life has been viewed through that lens.  Or through the other two lenses I have for that camera.  With that camera, I've photographed my sister's kids as newborns, and also my own. 

Anyway.  I got this camera out and found a couple rolls of film and another mini tripod, and I set Julia up next to me at the window.  I taught her how to focus (sort of - she doesn't really have that down yet) and how to crank the film over IMMEDIATELY after taking a picture.  (This is a big deal for me - it drives me INSANE when someone - like my husband - doesn't crank the film over.  SO frustrating.)  Anyway - my children will be brought up right, in this respect at least.  I quizzed Julia this morning - Julia, what do you do after you take the picture?  "Crank it!"  That's my girl.

During a lull in the backyard wildlife activity, we went to take a look out the front window, to see if the birds or squirrels were doing anything there.  No.  But Julia took several shots of our truck, which was parked in the street.  And then we sat on the couch and took pictures of each other.  It was really fun....

Okay, now see my delicately extended pinky in the shot below?  (She and I switched cameras.)

Now look at her equally delicately raised pinky here:

She has decided the camera is hers.  I try to explain the concept of borrowing, but she ignores me.

She shot two rolls of film yesterday.  It'll be interesting to see how they come out.  At times she would also say "Let's trade!" so she could snap away on my digital at lightening speed for a while.  I'm not going to show you ALL the pictures she took.  But there are about twenty that look almost exactly like this one:

Eventually the squirrels and birds ate all the food or at least became too bloated to eat any more.  So Julia turned to family portraits.  She used the last couple of shots on her second roll of film up, and then asked to borrow my camera. 

Because you know how it is when you're trying to do a group photo.  Someone blinks in one or someone's not smiling - you have to shoot a bunch just to get one or two good ones.

Here are hers....

Introducing...

Reddy. 

A fish of his very own.

Gearing up for Spring Training

Shortly before I left to get Alex from a field trip today, I looked outside and saw 6 crows in the yard.

One in particular caught my eye.

 

Chillin

The one on the left is named Dinoraptosaurus.

The one on the right...he's the newer guy.  He's had a number of names, and we can never seem to remember any of them.  Currently, Alex has named him Cricket Catcher.  Which is pretty accurate.

They're both males, and when Cricket Catcher arrived on the scene, they did NOT get along.  The were constantly doing all sorts of macho lizard posturing at each other.  But at some point that changed, and now they're pals. 

Which is good, because Cricket Catcher has grown to be a much bigger lizard than when we got him (he was the same size as Dinoraptosaurus) and he could probably make himself an only lizard if he were so inclined.

And wouldn't that be an interesting bit of reality for the children to experience.

Valentine's Day Ideas: Warm Honey-Mustard Tofu Salad

I know, you're thinking - Huh?  Tofu Salad?  For Valentine's Day?

Hey, I'm just writing about my own experiences and thoughts here.  And what can I say.  My husband and I both L-O-V-E, LOVE this dish.

It comes from the book The Smith & Hawken Gardeners' Community Cookbook, which was compiled and written by Victoria Wise, and, if I remember correctly, was a bridal shower gift from my sister's neighbor.

This recipe was contributed by one Matthew Marquis from Ohio, and he explains how he came up with this dish:

"When, as a college student, I needed an inexpensive, healthful, one-plate meal that was not pasta or rice I concocted this dish.  It has become my most widely requested garden recipe.  Even if you haven't cared for tofu before, try this and I guarantee it will change your mind.  And don't be shy or light-handed with the herbs."

Anyway, it had been a while since I made this, and I was thinking about it a few weeks ago, and thought it would be something different I could include in this "Valentine's Day Ideas" series.  It makes a good lunch or dinner.  For dinner, you could round it out with a baguette and a bottle of white wine - something crisp and light.

Anyway, here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 large head butterhead, Boston, or Bibb lettuce, washed and spun dry.

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 pound firm silken tofu, cut into half-inch cubes (I actually used more - the packages of tofu are usually 14 oz for some reason.  I bought and used two of them.)

1 medium green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and thinly sliced

1 small red onion, thinly sliced

1/3 cup mixed chopped fresh herbs, such as basil, oregano, thyme, sage, marjoram and cilantro

Freshly ground black pepper

1  1/2 tablespoons honey, preferably clover honey

 

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard (and okay, in the picture, that's also the oil there)

And here's what you do:

1.  Place the lettuce leaves in a large serving bowl or platter and set aside.

2.  Heat the oil in a large heavy skillet until beginning to smoke.  Add the tofu cubes

and cook on medium-high heat until beginning to brown, about 3 minutes.  (Actually, it took longer than 3 minutes, partly because the pan I started them out in was too small, and also because tofu has a lot of water in it which takes time to cook out.  And I was using nearly twice the tofu called for in the recipe.  But no matter - it still worked.

Add the green pepper and onion and stir to mix. 

Continue cooking until the pepper is well wilted, about 3 minutes.

3.  Turn off the heat, leaving the pan on the burner.  Add the herbs, black pepper to taste, honey, and mustard and stir vigorously to combine. 

While still warm, spoon the mixture over the lettuce leaves and serve right away.

Really - try it.  It's delicious.  You don't have to be a vegan or a vegetarian to like it, honest.  And one of the reasons I enjoy it so much is because I like warm salads.  I like the contrast between hot and cold, and I like how the warmth of the tofu mixture wilts the lettuce a bit.  And the combination of flavors - the herbs (I used frozen-in-oil herbs from last summer's garden - basil, mostly, and I think some parsley), the honey and mustard, the textures - the soft tofu and the softened-but-still-firmer-than-the-tofu peppers and onions. 

It's just...yum.

"When I Get a Turtle"

He wants a pet of his own. 

We have a cat, two lizards, and some fish. 

He wants a pet of his own.

He and his sister now are responsible for providing the cat with food (Julia's job) and water (Alex's job) every day without griping about it.  They're doing well.  Probably because they don't have to deal with the litterbox.

He wants a pet of his own.

Bill just gave Alex permission to squirt water into the lizard tank when it looks like they need it.  He can't feed them their crickets yet - he's too short, really.

He wants a pet of his own.

Alex tried to feed the fish one time and dumped most of the contents of the little can of fish food into the tank.  Boy, was Bill mad.  He had to do multiple water changes to get all that cleaned out.  I explained to Alex that too much food would kill the fish.  But I knew he meant well.

He wants a pet of his own.

Yesterday when I picked him up from kindergarten, he told me he would feed it and if it was sick, he'd bring it in bed and take care of it. 

He wants a turtle.

I told him if he had a pet of his own, it meant HE alone would be responsible for taking care of it, all the time, no matter what.  He was fine with that.  I said I would need to discuss it with Daddy.

He thought maybe he might want a turtle AND a guinnea pig.

I told him one at a time - IF we decide he's ready for a pet.

When Bill got home yesterday, Alex bee-lined straight for him.

He wants a pet of his own.

I mouthed "All.  Day.  Long." at Bill as he escorted Alex into the living room to talk.

Alex wanted a turtle.

Bill told him a turtle was very expensive (all the stuff we'd need to set up the tank for it) and that right now Alex isn't really ready to take care of a turtle, and it's expensive.  (Yes, twice.  Like a five-year-old can really, truly grasp that.)

And Alex shot one unexpectedly out of the park - "Isn't the money in my piggy bank so I can buy whatever I want with it?"

Um.  Yeah, but....

So we said he can save for a turtle.

In the meantime, he can have a betta. 

"They're also called Fighting Fish," he informed me while I was putting salad together for dinner.

Yes, I know.

So that's the plan for now.  And we'll see how it goes.  He understands that he has to prove he is responsible before he gets anything bigger or more interactive than a fish. 

But it will be HIS fish, at least.

Because he wants a pet of his own.

Valentine's Day Ideas: Grilled Sockeye Salmon with Asparagus and Wild Rice

I hadn't even planned on this "menu" but I was in the grocery store and saw some beautiful Sockeye Salmon filets and at that point I had no choice any more. 

So I bought a filet that was a little over a pound,

(look at that gorgeous color!)

and a couple bunches of asparagus,

and this blend of rices and grains:

Bill actually did most of the cooking on this - he is the Grill Master.  I cooked the rice (according the the package directions, only I used chicken stock instead of water) and annoyed him by taking pictures, especially while he put together the marinade:

First some of this heavy-duty soy sauce....

                                                              And some of this lighter soy sauce...

A little olive oil...

                                                                                                      A little honey...

Some sesame oil (yum!)...

                                                                         A splash of rice wine vinegar...

A shallot, minced...

                                                                                A clove of garlic, minced...

 

And a little knob of ginger, peeled and minced.

                                                                                   Now, whisk it all together,

And there it is.  No measurements - just a splash of this and a bit of that, all done to taste. 

And then you just pour it over the salmon, which I'd placed in a 13 x 9 baking pan.

Flip the fish over so the flesh side is down in the marinade. 

And while this sat, I got the rice started and Bill got the coals going outside.

And while we waited for the coals to heat up, we had a bit of this:

 

I'd never had it before - it's carp roe in a sort of mayonaise-like spread.  A bit more mild than I'd expected, but it was nice on these little rye crackers.

After about fifteen or twenty minutes, Bill started grilling the fish, and I prepped the asparagus.  And that consisted of rinsing them off and cutting off the ends of the stalks...

and then coating them lightly with a mixture of olive oil, salt and pepper.

Now, you don't want to over cook fish.  Ever.  So basically what you really want to do is under cook it just a bit - or however undercooked you are comfortable with.  This salmon is hard to judge for doneness if you're going by color - the gorgeous red color doesn't lighten all that much when it cooks.  I go by feel - it should be soft and springy to the touch, and just starting to flake if you check it with a fork.

Ideally you should serve it straight from the grill, but the rice wasn't done yet and the asparagus hadn't been done either.  So the best thing to do with fish is to cover lightly in foil to retain the moisture.

The fish cooked for about 8 minutes, I think, and the asparagus for about the same length of time.  Once the rice was ready, it was time to dish it up.

 

And there you go.  Very simple and very healthy.  And, of course, delicious. 

Cakes: Autumn Cake #1 - 1996

Another birthday cake for a coworker.  I did a lot of them during this period of a year or two.  And actually I did three versions of this cake - another one for a friend of mine, and the third was for a bake sale raffle at work.

Anyway - basically with this one I was still learning how to play with fondant and food coloring, and also how to make decorations with royal icing.

So for this cake, I colored some lumps of fondant ("lumps" - yeah, all these technical terms...) in different colors - autumn leaf colors, basically.  green, yellow, orange and red.  And then I smushed them together into one lump and rolled them out into one big patchwork piece of colors. 

Looking at it now, it strikes me as kind of garish.  I'd do something different.  But it was fun.

Anyway, so that was the background for the other stuff - the royal icing leaves.  I had bought a little set of cookie cutters that included 4 or 5 different leaf shapes and a pumpkin.  I traced the leaf shapes to use as templates.  Then I placed the templates under parchment paper (which is translucent) and piped the outline of the leaves with royal icing directly onto the parchment.  (Royal icing won't stick to parchment when it dries.)  And then, I filled the leaves with thinned royal icing in a different color.  (I was using the same colors I'd used for the fondant, with the addition of brown.  I also cut out leaves from the scraps of fondant. 

When the royal icing leaves were dry, I glued them all over the cake with dots of royal icing.  (Royal icing is so handy!)  And I surrounded the cake with the fondant leaves, probably to hide my less-than-perfect trimming of the fondant that covered the cake.

And this is what it looked like:

Oh, yeah, and inside, the cake consisted of two layers of lemon cake alternating with two layers of yellow & chocolate marble cake.  The frosting between the layers was chocolate.

Valentine's Day Ideas: Chocolate Hearts with Raspberry Coulis and Creme Anglaise

Here's something to make if you've got time to prepare for it and if you really want to strut your culinary stuff this Valentine's Day.  It's got chocolate, it's got Valentine's Day colors (red, white, and, um, chocolate), and it's very, very, very yummy.

There are four recipes you will need to make in order to put this whole thing together.  All of them can be made a day or two in advance.  And, just to make it nice and easy, all of them are listed on this site.

You'll need to make:

Boca Negra

Raspberry Coulis

Creme Anglaise

Heart-shaped Florentines (see the pictures in my post).

(All these recipes are posted below, just keep scrolling.)

Once you've made all of those, here's what you do.

First, have your coulis and the creme anglaise nearby, with a small ladle or spoon ready for each.

Have one of your heart-shaped chocolate-filled Florentine "sandwiches" nearby as well. 

And a few fresh raspberries are a nice addition as well.  I used a few of the frozen ones that didn't fall apart once they thawed.

Get out your Boca Negra out of the fridge, and, using a heart-shaped cookie cutter or a knife, cut out a heart about 3 inches wide. 

Now, on your dessert plate...

1.  Ladle some of the raspberry coulis first.  Swirl it gently to cover the center portion of the plate.

2.  Place the boca negra heart on the plate so that the two curved parts are at about 10:00 and 12:00.  (Symmetry is uninteresting on a plate.)

3.  Ladle some of the creme anglaise so it is draped across the right side of the heart.  Don't cover the whole thing.  Think scarf, not shawl.

4.  Lean your florentine heart cookie against the boca negra heart so the right curve of the cookie is at about 2:00.

5.  Garnish with the raspberries.

6.  Step back and marvel at your creation.

7.  Now go and get the utensil of your choice and dig in.  After all, you should make sure it tastes good before you serve it to anyone else, right?

Florentines (Almond Lace Cookies)

Florentines are crisp, delicate cookies that are pliable when taken from the oven and may be cut with cookie cutters or formed into shapes while they are still pretty hot.  They are often used as a garnish, or "crunch component" in plated desserts, and that's what I've used them for in a couple upcoming posts. 

Anyway, without further chit chat, here's how you make them.

You will need:

3 oz flour (pastry flour is suggested, but you can use AP as well.  I did - it's what I had on hand.)

3 oz granulated sugar

3 oz softened unsalted butter

3  1/2 oz corn syrup

3 oz blanched almonds, sliced and crushed

Combine the butter and sugar in a mixer,

Then add the flour.  And then the corn syrup.  Beat until creamy.  Then add in the crushed almonds and mix until the nuts completely incorporated.

Scrape the dough out onto a piece of parchment paper

and form into a log, lengthwise on the parchment paper.

Roll the parchment over the dough log and tighten, using a bench scraper to help squeeze the parchment against the dough and tighten the whole thing so there are no air bubbles and the log lengthens and its diameter becomes uniform - about 1  3/4 inches or so.

Then twist the ends and tie them to seal, and place in the freezer or fridge until the dough is firm.

When the dough is cold and firm, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and get out a pan and line it with either parchment paper or a silpat, if you have one.

Cut 1/8 inch slices from your log of dough (though in looking at the image below, obviously I cut them thicker.  I wanted large circles for my recent purposes).

Place on the baking surface, with plenty of space between them, as they spread quite a bit as they cook.

You only want to do a few at a time, if you're planning to shape them in any way, as once they start to cool they will become less pliable.  If that happens, you can put them back in the oven briefly to warm (and soften).

You want to bake them until they are completely golden brown.  The ones you see below are only just starting to brown around the edges.  See how much they spread when they cook?  That's why you want a lot of space between them.

Ah, this is better:

Now, when you first take them out, they will be way too hot and way too soft to work with. 

In the picture above, I'm trying to lift up the edge of the cookie with a spatula - it's too soft to hold together with the rest of the cookie - if I continued to lift, the cookie would tear. 

Wait about a minute once you take them out of the oven, and then try.  They should come off the parchment or silpat easily.  They will be hot, there's just no getting around that if you want to shape them or use cookie cutters. 

If you want to cut out specific shapes, place the soft cookie on a cutting board and press down HARD with your cookie cutter.  The nuts make it a little harder to cut through than you might expect.  Once you've pressed the cutter in to the cookie, pull or cut away the outer excess cookie and then lift the cutter.  (The trimmed edges are great crumbled up and sprinkled on ice cream.  Or you can just eat them while you work.  Or feed them to the birds.)  Set the cookies on a rack to finish cooling.  Keep in mind these are very, very brittle, so handle them gently.

Another option is to shape the cookies - the whole cookies, right off the silpat - into a thin cylindrical cookie.  This can be filled with whipped cream, or dipped in chocolate, or just left plain.  Anyway, here's what you do:

Get a few wooden spoons with straight handles ready.  Lift a hot cookie up and drape one end over the handle of the spoon.

Working quickly, roll the rest of the cookie around the spoon handle and set on a rack to cool.

Once the cookie has firmed up, remove the wooden spoon.

Another option - something I didn't do this time around, so I don't have a picture - you could press the cookie into a ramekin or a small cup or a muffin tin to form little cookie cups.

You can also wrap them around metal cone forms to make little cookie cones.  Or just shape them by hand into something free form.  Have fun!

Here are a bunch that I did recently, in preparing for this post and some of the "Valentine's Day Ideas" posts:

Now, another thing you can do is melt some chocolate

You can microwave it if you want to, but just nuke it for short periods of time - 30 seconds - and then stir, then 30 seconds and then stir - so you don't burn it.

 

When it's all melty and smooth, one thing you can do is take one of your heart cutouts (or whatever shape you did) and spread some of the chocolate on one cookie and then sandwich that with another cookie.  The chocolate will seep through the holes of the cookie a bit before it hardens.  Here's what you get:

Or you can spread it just on one half of a cookie...

Or drizzle some chocolate over the cylinders...

 

Or dip the ends of cylinders (or cones, in this case) directly in the chocolate...

Be creative!  Have fun!  And remember - you get to eat your mistakes!

Creme Anglaise

Also know as English Cream or English Sauce.  It's the base for vanilla ice cream, too. 

This is a cooked sauce - you make it in a pot on the stove - and is thickened only with egg yolks and cream.  It can be used, like I said, as a base for vanilla ice cream, and you can also give it other flavors, either by infusing it with nuts, or adding extracts or spices, fruits, etc.  It's basically a great launching pad.

Here's how you make the basic sauce:

First, assemble the ingredients -

4 oz whole milk

4 oz heavy cream

2 oz granulated sugar

a pinch of salt

2  1/4 oz egg yolks

vanilla extract - to taste

You will also need the following (and it's best to have everything measured out and in the right bowls, with the right tools, before you begin, as things will happen rather quickly once you get under way):

a sauce pot

a small bowl and a whisk

a ladle

a rubber spatula

a wooden spoon

a candy thermometer

a medium bowl

a second spatula

an ice water bath (a big bowl with half ice and half water)

a mesh strainer

a third bowl

Okay.  Once you've got everything measured out, place the milk, cream, about half the sugar, and the salt in the sauce pot. 

Set the pot on a burner but don't turn it on yet.

In the small bowl, put your egg yolks and whisk them together to combine.

The vanilla won't be used until a bit later - set that aside along with the water bath.

Have everything nearby while you are at the stove.

Okay, ready?

Turn on the burner to medium high and scald the milk mixture (which means to bring it to ALMOST a boil - you want to see little bubbles around the edges of the milk in the pot, but you don't want a rolling boil.

Now shut off the heat. 

Have your bowl of egg yolks and sugar next to the stove, with the whisk in one hand.  With the other hand, ladle out some of the milk mixture

and - while you whisk the yolks with the first hand, slowly pour the milk mixture into that same bowl with the other hand.  Do that once more with another ladle of the milk, still whisking.

Now pour the egg mixture from the bowl into the pot with the rest of the milk and stir continually with the wooden spoon.  (Turn the heat back on to about medium.)

 

(That whole drama was what's referred to as "tempering" the yolks.  You're gently and slowly warming them up with a bit of the milk so that they don't become scrambled eggs when you pour them into the pot on the stove.  Don't be discouraged if you see little bits of coagulated egg in there - it takes a while to learn to do this perfectly.  I haven't made this in ages so I'm very rusty.  And besides - that's what the mesh strainer will be for.)

Okay, now it's a good idea now to put the candy thermometer in the pot with the milk mixture now if you haven't already.  Another bit of drama when you're making this is that the mixture MUST NOT be heated beyond 180 degrees F.  If it does, you've cooked the eggs too much and you might as well fry up some bacon and have breakfast.

So - stir with the spoon and stare unblinkingly at the thermometer.  When it gets to 175, go ahead and take it off the stove, as it will keep rising quickly and you might cook it too long.  Pour the sauce directly into the medium-sized bowl and place that on the ice bath RIGHT AWAY to stop the cooking process.  Stir the sauce with your SECOND spatula to help bring the temperature down as quickly as possible.

(Why two spatulas?  No one likes extra dishes to wash!  It's because you were using the first spatula to scrape the UNCOOKED egg yolks into the pot, and now you have to use a SECOND spatula because you are working with a COOKED product and you don't want any contact between the raw and the cooked.  You know, like you wouldn't place your fully roasted chicken on the same unwashed board you had used for the raw chicken when you were patting it dry with paper towels, would you?  I didn't think so.)

Okay, so the mixture has cooled somewhat.  At this point, if you feel it needs to be strained, go ahead and strain it into that third bowl I mentioned earlier. 

Or a measuring cup like in the picture.  (And look at that lovely mess in my sink.  I need to frame these shots better.) 

And look - this is what might be left in your strainer -

See?  Little teeny dots of cooked yolk.  Not big at all, but not desirable in your finished sauce.  Which should look like this:

And once that's done, add some vanilla, stir it in, and taste the sauce.  Need more vanilla?  Add some.  Once you've got the flavor straightened out, put it back in the ice bath if necessary and keep stirring it until it's completely cooled.  Now you can cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until you need it.

And I'm sure I can come up with a couple of ideas for you.

Raspberry Coulis

A coulis, prounounced "coo-LEE," is an uncooked fruit (or vegetable) puree.  Very simple, and very bright, fresh, alive in taste.

I'm using raspberries in this one, but you could do the same thing with any other berries, or other fruit.  I haven't done a vegetable coulis, so you're on your own there.

Okay, I used a package of frozen raspberries, which I thawed in a bowl. 

Raspberries are wonderful for fruit sauces served with dessert.  Their tartness is a nice contrast to the sweetness of the main dessert component, whatever that may be.  And the color is gorgeous. 

Once they've thawed (if they were frozen), you need to strain the.  Place a mesh strainer over another bowl and pour the raspberries into the strainer.  With the back of a spoon or a rubber spatula, scrape and press and stir the raspberries around until you've strained all the juice out and into the bowl below, and all you have left are seeds and maybe some of the bits of skin from the berries.

Here's what you've got left:

Beautiful color, huh?

So now you taste it.  And depending on how the puree tastes, you may want to add a bit of sugar to sweeten it a little, and maybe some lemon juice, which will give the raspberry flavor just a bit more oomph and brighness.

And that's all there is to it.  Put this in the fridge until you're ready to use it.  Serve it with ice cream or with something...something chocolate, perhaps.

Boca Negra

Boca Negra means "Black Mouth" and refers to the dark, dark chocolate of this nearly flourless cake.  The recipe is from Baking With Julia.  Here goes...

*****************************************************************

12 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (use your favorite)

1 1/3 cups sugar

1/2 cup bourbon (or any alcohol - I used Grand Marnier most recently.)

2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into 10 pieces, at room temperature

5 large eggs, at room temperature

1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Lightly butter a 9 inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment or waxed paper; butter the paper.  Put the cake pan in a shallow roasting pan and set aside until needed.

Put the chopped chocolate in a medium bowl and keep close at hand. 

In a 2 quart sauce pan mix 1 cup of the sugar and the bourbon

and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and the mixture comes to a full boil.

Immediately pour the hot syrup over the chocolate and stir with a rubber spatula until the chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is smooth. 

Piece by piece, stir the butter into the chocolate mixture. 

Make certain that each piece of butter is melted before you add another.  (note - you might need to put the bowl of melted chocolate over a warm water bath, just to keep the whole thing warm enough to melt all the butter.)

Put the eggs and the remaining third cup of sugar in a medium bowl and whisk until the eggs thicken slightly.  Beating with the whisk, add the eggs (slowly) to the chocolate mixture and whisk until well blended.  Gently whisk in the flour.

Pour and scrape the batter into the prepared pan, running your spatula over the top to smooth it.  Pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to come about one inch up the sides of the cake pan.  Bake the cake for exactly 30 minutes, at which point the top will have a thin, dry crust.

(You can also bake this in a springform pan, as you can see in the pictures I've included here - just be sure to wrap foil around the bottom and sides so the water from the water bath won't seep into the cake.)

Remove the cake pan from its water bath, wipe the pan dry, and cover the top of the cake with a sheet of plastic wrap.  Invert the cake onto a flat plate, peel off the parchment, and quickly but gently invert again onto a serving platter; remove the plastic.

     Serve cake warm or at room temperature.  You can serve with whipped cream...a fruit sauce...whatever appeals to you.

     Once cooled, the cake can be covered with plastic and kept at room temperature for 1 day or refrigerated for up to 3 days; bring to room temperature before serving.  You can also freeze it for up to a month.

*****************************************************************

You can also bake this in an 8 or 9 inch square cake pan, and after it's cooled, chill it until firm, then cut it into 1-inch square bites. 

Enjoy!

100th Day

Last week we got a notice that today Alex's kindergarten class would be celebrating "100th Day" - their 100th day of school.  There was to be a party, and would anyone be interested in making a cake.

Well.

PICK ME, PICK ME!

So I got the "job" and my brain started in on the design.  I was thinking I could somehow incorporate little images to represent all the different topics they'd covered since September...like space and the Arctic and Farm Animals and all the other weekly themes.  It would be a tour de force of a cake, I imagined.

For 18 kids.

And then I asked Alex for ideas on what it should taste like...and he said chocolate and strawberries.  (Not strawberry flavor - REAL strawberries.  He was quite specific.)  And then he said he wanted to help decorate it.

Um.  Okay.

I started trying to figure out what he could do that wouldn't interfere with my cleverly rendered images of nocturnal animals and autumn leaves.  Maybe he would be happy just to help with baking the cake.

Nope.

So yesterday we baked the two cake layers - one chocolate with chocolate chips.  One white cake with fresh (well, frozen) strawberries, sliced, and strategically placed all over the batter before it went into the oven.  Both layers smelled really good.

The strawberry layer...half of it broke when I was trying to gently slide it on top of the frosted chocolate layer.  But I patched it back together.  Still.  I admit I was getting...um...tense.

I managed to talk Alex out of helping with the frosting of the strawberry layer - it was just going to be too difficult to let him help, what with the cake all torn and patched together.  My blood pressure went up just imagining it.

So I applied a coat of white frosting to the top layer, and it looked all lumpy because of all the breaks in the cake.  So.  I put more frosting on top of that.  To make it more even.  There's logic for you.

So then I had to cover the whole thing with fondant.  Because kindergarteners will appreciate the flawlessly smooth surface...my canvas. 

Either I have become a weakling, or the fondant was stiffer than usual, or I was just cursed yesterday, but it took me A LONG TIME to roll it out thin enough and big enough to cover the cake.  I felt myself growing more and more frustrated and anguished (back of the hand to my brow - I fear I shall faint!) and plain ol' pissed off about EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THIS CAKE.  Me and my idiot ideas.  THIS WAS THE MOST STRESSFUL CAKE I HAD EVER DONE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!!!!

When Bill got home from work I had managed to get the fondant on and trim it, and I stood there at the counter, glaring at the cake and at a sheet of paper on which I was trying to design something that Alex could help with.  Because he still wanted to.  So my elaborate artistry was out. 

I asked Bill, through clenched teeth, if he could take the kids to swim class so I could work on this...this...THING.  He shrugged and said fine, and so of course I said "Fine, never mind, I'll go too."  And he looked at me and watched my eyes spin in opposite directions and said "No, really, it's no big deal."  And I said "No, no, I'll go.  If you could just keep Julia occupied after we get back so Alex and I can do this...cake."  "Sure.  Jayne, are you okay?"

I glared at him.  What was THAT supposed to mean?????  "I'mfineIjustneedtogetthiscakedoneandit'sbeenoneofthosedayswiththem" I spat out.

Anyway.  We went to swim class, and he tried to chat with me while we watched the kids swim, but I would have none of that, because I needed PEACE AND QUIET for a few moments, WOULD YOU??? 

When it came time for the kids to jump in - it was great, truly.  Alex wanted to go first - me me me me!!!!! And when he jumped in, he leapt with everything he had and jumped far enough to reach the first line in the pool.  YAY ALEX!  And he did it a second time, too.  He will be moving up to the next level - our son will be...an EEL!  We are quite proud.  So is he.  Julia will remain a Pike - she's still too busy socializing at times to move up.  But she can move through the water pretty quickly when she wants to.  She just needs to want to more often.

Anyway, dry off the kids, come home, I threw dinner together for everyone else and then started glaring at the cake again.  And finally I came up with an idea.  Something Alex could really do. 

My grand and glorious ideas would just have to sit on a shelf.  After all, it was HIS 100th day, not mine.

And here's what the cake looks like:

I painted swirls on the fondant with water, and had Alex sprinkle colored sugars all over.  They stick to the wet surface, and we blew them off the rest of the cake.  It's colorful and festive, I think. 

Most importantly, Alex thinks it's wonderful. 

He can't wait to bring it to school this morning.

And that, really, is the point, after all.  Not my showing off.  Duh.

So now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go get dressed and cover the cake with plastic wrap.

Because, of course, it is raining this morning. 

Figures.

Happy 100th day, Alex!

Valentine's Day Ideas: Roast Chicken with Onion Mushroom Gravy

Again - comfort food.  You walk into the house while the chicken is roasting, and you want to stay for a while.  At least, that's how it should be.

I don't do anything ultra-fancy - no herbs, no lemon cut up and inserted in the chicken...mine is very basic.  And I think that's why it's so good, if I may toot my own horn on my own site.

Here's all I do.

First, preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. 

Cut up a couple of large onions - just in chunks - and put them in an oven-proof pan of some kind. 

Then wipe off 20 oz (2 10-0z pkgs) of white button mushrooms or baby bellas.  You want whole ones, not the sliced ones.  Put them in with the onions.

Next, clean out a good-sized roasting chicken - rinse it with cold water and pat it dry with paper towels.  SAVE THE PACKAGE OF INNARDS!!  Tuck the wings under the back - as if the chicken is leaning back in an office chair, fingers interlaced behind his head - well, if he still had one.  Basically you want the tips of the wings tucked under the chicken's back.  Place the chicken on top of the mushrooms and onions.

Oh - and that package of innards?  Actually, it's not just innards - it contains the liver, heart, gizzard and neck.  Place them all around the chicken on top of the mushrooms and onions.  Flavor, folks.  Flavor.

Now, in a little bowl, combine kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper - either half and half or about 2/3 salt to 1/3 pepper.  Sprinkle this mixture liberally all over the chicken and the liver, neck, etc.  You want most of it on the chicken's skin.

All set?  Now, place the chicken in the middle of your oven, and set the timer for an hour.  No - it might take longer, but this is when I want you to start checking on it.

At the hour mark, turn the pan so that the side of the chicken facing the back of your oven is now facing front.  Ovens have hot spots inside, and you want the chicken to cook evenly.

When the skin is a gorgeous dark golden brown, and when the legs are very wiggly when you shake one, and when the juices run clear when you slice into the thigh, remove the pan from the oven.

Take the chicken - carefully - off the mushrooms and onions and put it on a platter - and don't touch it.  Don't cover it with foil either - the skin is crackly and crisp right now - if you put foil over it, you'll basically be steaming the skin and it will lose its cracklyness. 

Now, take a look at the onions and mushrooms.  Are they nice and dark, or are they still kind of light in color?  If they aren't dark, put the pan back in the oven and check on it in fifteen minutes or so.  Now they should be nice and dark - if they aren't, then put them back in again for another ten minutes or so until they are well cooked.

While the onions and mushrooms are finishing up in the oven, take about half a stick of room temp butter and an equal amount of flour, and mash them together with a fork until the flour is completely incorporated in the butter.  Also you want to have available some chicken stock (home made or not - whatever works for you - and some dry white wine.

Okay, once the mushrooms and onions are nicely cooked, place their pan on a burner of your stove and remove the onions and mushrooms for now - just put them in a bowl nearby and keep them handy.  Same thing with the various chicken parts.  In with the mushrooms they go - we're not done with them yet.

Now add the butter/flour mixture into the liquids left in the pan.  Your flame should be about medium.  Whisk the butter/flour mixture (or beurre maniere, I believe) until it basically melts into the other liquids in the pan.  Now pour in a couple of cups of chicken stock and a cup or so of the wine.  Whisk together and now add the mushrooms and onions and giblets back into the pan.  Cook on medium, stirring occasionally, until the liquids thicken and reduce a bit and the alcohol in the wine is not longer noticeable when you taste it.

I add about a teaspoon or so of dried thyme to this while it's cooking, and salt and pepper to taste.  Remember, some of the salt and pepper you sprinkled on the chicken and giblets at the beginning will have ended up in this mixture - you don't want it to be over-salted.

While this is bubbling away, you can cut up your chicken if you want.  I find it's easiest to remove the wings and legs, then cut each side of the breast along the breast bone and cartilage so you have two big chunks of breast meat. 

And just so you know, when I was cutting this chicken apart, the wings and legs practically fell apart.  And the breast meat - not a hint of dryness.

What to serve with this?  I made mashed red-skinned potatoes - with milk and cream and horseradish and some roasted garlic I had in the fridge.  And salt and pepper.  I was going to make another vegetable, but I...well, I forgot.  Still - mushrooms and onions are vegetables...

Oh, yes, back to the gravy simmering away on your stove top.  I actually mashed up the liver and stirred that into the gravy too.  I like chicken livers, and my husband has come to like them since we've been married.  But if you think that idea is revolting, then go ahead and remove all the chicken parts - liver, heart, gizzard and neck - and discard them.  You can also, at this point, remove the mushrooms and onions and put them in a separate bowl from the gravy.  Or, you can just serve them in the gravy, which is what I usually do.  OR, you could even puree them with the gravy to thicken it and intensify the flavor.  Your choice.

Here's what a plate of it looked like.

Flavor, upon flavor, upon flavor.  Serve with the rest of the wine you used for the gravy, if you like. 

Carolina Wren

We had two of them Saturday morning.  One who came to get something to eat on the little platform on our deck, and the other who perched briefly on the tire of our truck and then disappeared. 

 

Valentine's Day Ideas: Cannoli

I love Cannoli.  The creamy not-too-sweet filling, the crispy shell....It's one of my favorite pastry/desserty foods.  And unless you go to a good bakery, the stuff you find (or at least the stuff I've found) is kind of...well, it's not good. 

My kids wanted to know what Cannoli was, actually, though I know they've had it before.  They were watching an episode of Curious George, and apparently Curious George loves Cannoli, and lucky for him, there's a restaurant owner in town who will make some for him at any time.  Fortunate little monkey.

So I told the kids I'd bring home some cannoli, but neither one of the two big grocery stores had any, and the smaller, better grocery chain actually DID have some - mini cannoli - some of the shells dipped in chocolate, some not - so I brought some home one day and the kids and I each had one after lunch.

Alex decided he didn't like cannoli at all.  And I'm not surprised - he's got a thing about certain textures, especially if they're at all white.  (Like mayo, sour cream, cream cheese, mashed potatoes, and - cannoli filling.)  Julia kind of liked it but abandoned the small thing instead of finishing it.  Of course, they both had the ones with chocolate dipped shells and colored sugary dots on the ends instead of chocolate chips or pistachios, so I thought that might be it.  But I had one of the plain ones - and I didn't like that either.  I don't know what the filling was made of, but it just didn't taste right.

So I thought - dammit - I'll make my own! 

I went online and found some cannoli recipes - which included recipes for the shells.  I know you can buy the shells, but if I was gonna do this, I was gonna do it all the way.  And I actually have a set of metal cannoli tubes, so why not? 

I found a Mario Batali recipe that sounded good, but actually, there must have been a typo in the instructions for the dough for the shell because it didn't come together as a dough should.  So I messed around with it and was moderately successful.  I didn't exactly make his filling, either.  I modified it based on what I thought the kids would like - so no candied fruit in there. 

And you know what?

They came out pretty good.  My husband loved them.  So did Julia.  Alex?  Not really.  It's still a texture thing with the filling. 

Ready?

Like I mentioned, you'll need a set of metal cannoli tubes. 

Or can also buy cannoli shells if you'd prefer.

For the dough, you will need the following:

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp sugar

2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder

4 T cold, unsalted butter

12-14 T marsala wine.  (Or more - the humidity or lack of it will affect how much wine you need, so add it bit by bit.)

Whisk together the flour, cinnamon, sugar and cocoa powder in a mixing bowl.

Add in the butter in small pieces, and cut it in as you would if you were making a pie crust - either with two knives, or a pastry cutter, or in a mixing bowl or food processor by pulsing again and again until the mixture looks like coarse sand. 

You want some small lumps of butter remaining - you don't want it all perfectly combined.

   

Next, you add in the marsala wine, a little at a time, and continue to pulse until the dough starts to come together if you squeeze it in your hand.  Work the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic.  Refrigerate for an hour.

Now for the filling:

2 lbs ricotta cheese

1 cup superfine sugar

2 T vanilla

1/2 cup (or more) tiny chocolate chips

zest of half a lemon

Combine all of these ingredients in a bowl

and mix well.

Now comes the exciting part.

Heat 2 quarts of oil in a pot to 350 degrees F.

Make an egg wash using only the white and a bit of water.  Keep nearby.

While the oil is heating, remove the dough from the fridge, cut it into quarters, and roll out one of the quarters of dough on your work surface as thin as you can.  Ideally - about 1/16 of an inch thick. 

Cut out 4" circles and, with the rolling pin, roll each into an oval shape.  Wrap the dough around a cannoli tube, brush one edge with some of the egg wash and overlap with the other edge.  Press together a bit so they adhere.  Next, flare the dough at the ends of the tubes a bit to help keep them from curling back over the ends of the tubes while frying.

They should look sort of like this.

* (I say "sort of" because the dough ends really should overlap a bit more than they do in this picture.)

Anyway, once the dough has reached temperature, gently place a couple of the cannoli tubes in the oil.  They will sink to the bottom.

Now, I was expecting that, just because a lot of foods initially sink to the bottom of the oil and then rise as they cook.

So I also thought it perfectly normal to see this after a minute or so:

And then I realized that the dough had opened (because it wasn't overlapping enough - lesson learned) and the tube was still at the bottom of the oil.  The same thing happened with the other one a moment later.

So my first batch of shells looked like this:

Misfits, all of them.  Even that one in the back that almost looks okay - isn't. 

So - I tried again.  And this time I made sure to overlap the ends by about 3/4 of an inch and to seal them well.

I got better as I went along.  And fortunately the ones that looked funny still tasted good - that hint of chocolate and hint of cinnamon is wonderful.

Anyway - when you're ready to serve them...

Put some of the filling in a piping bag with a wide round tip or in a zip loc bag with one of the corners cut. 

Pipe the cannoli filling into each shell.

Now pour some mini chocolate chips in a bowl (you do have some left, don't you?)  You could also use chopped pistachios.

Press each end of the cannoli in the chocolate chips. 

Dust the cannoli with confectioners sugar.

And serve.

Baby Buffalo Ball Sandwiches - Updated

Originally I used the Buffalo Balls recipe I'd posted years ago on my old blog.  The other night I made them without the Gimme Lean component - instead, I used 2 lbs of a blend of beef, pork and veal - sold as "Meatloaf Blend" or something like that - can't remember what was on the package.

Anyway, I used the 2 lbs of meat, about 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs, an egg, and a minced shallot.

Then I shaped this mixture into meatballs about an inch in diameter:

Then I browned them in a small bit of vegetable oil - didn't cook them all the way through, I just browned them on the outside.

Meanwhile, in a sauce pot big enough to contain all the meatballs with space left over, combine a stick of butter and two cups of hot sauce - I used Frank's Red Hot, but use whatever you like.

 

When the meatballs are all browned and the butter has melted, add the meatballs to the hot sauce.  If you need to, add some beef stock to the liquid so that the meatballs are all submerged.

Simmer until the meatballs are cooked through.  You can also put these in a crock pot on low and let them go.  The longer they sit in the sauce, the more heat they'll soak up.

When you're ready to serve them, place 3 in a small finger sandwich roll and top with crumbled bleu cheese.

Enjoy!

Cakes - Patriots Cake - 1997

I've been trying to keep Wednesdays as "Cake Day" but it seems appropriate to post this one today.

A coworker (back in 97) asked me to make a birthday cake for her husband, who was, clearly, a huge Patriots fan.  The cake was chocolate, and the frosting was made with peanutbutter.  I used royal icing for the "artwork." 

I have a little note to myself on the index card that accompanies this picture:  "Note to me...peanutbutter frosting has to be refrigerated - it is heavy - pulls cake while being applied and droops.  Fine between layers, but not very aesthetically pleasing on outer layer."

Here it is:

Valentine's Day Ideas: Grilled Cheese Sandwich and Tomato Soup

I know, what's so special about a grilled cheese sandwich and some tomato soup?  Anyone can make that.  It's kid food.

Well, yeah.  Kid food, perhaps.  But it's comforting, isn't it?  Kid food?  Something your mom might have served up on a winter afternoon, after you spent the morning playing in the snow until your cheeks were red and your fingers were wet and numb inside your mittens after throwing snowballs at your friends, and you were cold to the core, but you still groaned when your mom called "Time for Lunch!"  because kids are hardy individuals, able to play happily in frigid cold and scorching sun.  And despite your reluctance to stop playing, there was something very warm and cozy about a melty sandwich and a bowl of soup, steam rising above the rim.  Warmed up your body and your soul at the same time, didn't it? 

Yeah, but okay, we're talking ostensibly about Valentine's Day here, and grilled cheese may be many things, but "romantic" doesn't leap to mind as one of them.  Okay, the tomato soup is red...but other than that...

To be honest, I'm not thinking of romance, per se, with these foods I'm writing about.  Not romance in the heart-shaped-box-of-chocolates and the dozen-long-stemmed-way-over-priced-roses way.  That's not really romantic to me; it's too...too enforced.

This is much simpler.  Much more basic.  And it's not just on Feb 14th - it's whenever.  It's an "I love you, by the way" for your spouse, your kids - even yourself.  It's a small gift.  But aren't big things supposed to come in small packages, or whatever that saying is?  So there can be a whole lotta love in a simple little meal.

So here, for your entertainment, is how I make a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup for my husband.  If the way to his heart is through his stomach...then my heart is a frying pan and a can opener.  Kind of.

Okay, here's what you do:

Assemble the sandwich ingredients:  white bread, American cheese slices, yellow mustard of some kind, and some butter.

And for the soup: 

- and an equal amount of milk.

Open the can of soup and place the contents of the can and an equal amount of milk (see?  I told you) in a pan on the stove.

Whisk them together and heat on medium low, so you don't scorch the pan.

Stir the soup periodically while you make the sandwich.

Meanwhile...melt a good chunk of butter in a nonstick frying pan:

While the butter melts, assemble your sandwich.

Place one slice of bread face-up on a plate. 

Add mustard.

(The mustard is optional.  So is the vaguely heart-shaped squiggle you see above.)

Next - the cheese.  Like I said - American cheese slices.  Two or three, to taste.

And finally, the top slice of bread.  (Additional mustard is optional.  I usually only apply one coating of mustard to Bill's sandwich.)  Note - it is EXTREMELY important that both slices of bread are "facing" the same way.  Aesthetics are important - remember, we eat with our eyes first.

By this time, your butter should be nicely melted in your pan.  If it cooked too long and burned, wipe the pan out and start over. 

Carefully lay the sandwich in the center of the pan and press down to help mush all the layers together a bit.  It will taste better if you do that.  Really.

Now let it cook there for a bit, with your heat on medium to medium-high (depending on how heartbreakingly hungry your loved one is).  After a couple of minutes, take a peek to see how the face-down side is doing.

Hmmm...getting there, but not ready just yet. 

Let it cook another minute or two and check again.  When that side is nice and golden brown, remove the sandwich from the pan and get another chunk of butter.

Toss that in the pan to melt and turn the heat down a little, as the pan is pretty darn hot at this point and you don't want to burn the butter.  Once the new application of butter has melted, flip the sandwich over - being careful to not let the layers slip apart in the process.  If they do, carefully and quickly slide everything back in place.  Be careful not to burn your fingers in the process. 

One technique I use for the second side is to drop the flame to low and put a lid over the sandwich.  This keeps the heat circulating all around the sandwich and keeps the other side from browning too quickly (or burning). 

When the other side of the sandwich has turned a lovely golden brown, and the cheese is melty, remove the sandwich from a pan and put it on a plate.

Now get a knife (the butter knife works fine for this, or you can get something sharper if you are more comfortable with that) and slice the sandwich as desired.  My husband likes his sandwiches cut on the diagonal, like so:

Be sure to cut all the way through the sandwich so there is no pulling and tearing of the bread.

Arrange the slices attractively on the plate.

By now the soup should be ready - bubbling gently around the edges and some motion in the center.  You don't want a full boil, because the milk can scorch. 

Ladle some soup into a bowl, and voila - a warm and cozy meal for someone you feel warm and cozy about.

When You See An Animal, Start Clicking

We took the kids to the zoo today, and I picked up a disposable camera for each of them.  They've used them before, so they just needed a quick refresher once we arrived.  I told them both that they only had 27 shots, so choose carefully. 

Alex was very selective - only one photo per animal.  I don't have the pictures back yet, so I don't know how he did, but he was very aware that he had a finite number of shots.

Julia, on the other hand, informed anyone within earshot "When you see an animal, start clicking."  A motto not unlike my own early philosophy.  And the current one, to be truthful.  As a result, once we passed the elephants and were looking through the class at the seals, Julia tried to take a picture but couldn't.  Bill checked her camera and sure enough, she'd finished the roll.  (For comparison's sake, Alex had about 15 shots left at this point.)  Anyway, this bad news did not sit well with our young nature photographer.

She stood there, near the seal tank, staring at the ground and refusing to follow Bill and Alex as they headed toward the giraffe house.  I half followed them, half coaxed her.  And I promised her I'd take pictures of anything she wanted me to.  But still, she was reluctant to smile.  She wanted her OWN camera, so she could take her OWN pictures. 

Ah Julia.  I understand completely.

Thank goodness you were born in the digital age.  I think you'll enjoy a nice big memory card one day, when you have a camera of your own.

She wants pink.