The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Mini Blueberry Pies

My kids have been, well, clamoring for blueberry pie.  Not because I make such a fabulous blueberry pie, mind you, but because they watch Noggin.  And on Noggin, when the main program of the half hour time slot is finished (about 7 minutes before the half hour is actually up) the rest of the time is filled by the songs and antics of Mr. Moose A Moose and his sidekick, Zee, a sort of Harpo Marx in blue feathers.  One of the little filler bits involves a search for the right number of blueberries to make someone's (Moose's aunt?  I don't remember.  Or I've blocked it out.) famous blueberry pie.  And, since this is geared toward preschoolers, the number of blueberries the recipe calls for is...four. 

While that may seem a rather skimpy amount of fruit for any size pie, Moose sells it so well that any time they see that little bit, my kids develop an overwhelming desire for blueberry pie.

So when Julia and I were at the grocery store on Monday, we got a bunch of frozen blueberries - I use Wyman's frozen wild blueberries pretty much exclusively, unless I'm buying (or picking) fresh, local berries.  Wyman's are the wild berries - tiny and bursting with flavor.  And I know I sound like a commercial, but I just really like them.  And so do my kids.

I decided it would be more fun and cute (yes, that's influential at times) to make mini pies.  Initially I was going to use very mini tart pans - each little bitty pie a perfect mouthful of crust and fruit.  But then I decided to go with standard sized muffin tins instead.  Not a perfect mouthful, but a very nice little serving size.  And cute.

So here's what I did.

First of all, I made it quite clear that if they wanted pie, my kids would have to help.

Sorry, kiddo, but you gotta earn your blueberries.

She saw my point and set to work with a better attitude.

Alex helped, too.

 

We measured out ingredients for the pie crust.  Again, I used the "American Pie Dough for Fruit Pies" from Cook's Illustrated Magazine's book The Best Recipe.

2  1/2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

2 T sugar

12 T unsalted butter, chilled, cut into 1/4 inch pieces

8 T vegetable shortening, chilled, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

6-8 T ice water.

I put the flour, salt and sugar in the food processor and pulsed a few times to combine.  Then I added the pieces of butter and pulsed 5-6 times.  Then I added in the shortening...

And then my kids were singing and dancing on their chairs.

Must have been the anticipation of pie.

Yeah, that was it.

Despite the distraction, I managed to finish the dough.

I wrapped it in plastic and put it in the fridge to chill, and then we started in on the filling.

I used 4 cups of blueberries, 1/4 cup of tapioca, 1 cup of sugar, and a little lemon zest.

While Alex combined the blueberries and lemon zest...

Julia whisked the sugar and tapioca together.

Then they took turns blending the sugar mixture with the blueberry mixture.

The blueberries needed to sit for about fifteen minutes - to allow the tapioca to soften.  So while things were sitting in that bowl, we got the dough out and made our little pie crusts.

I used a 4" round cookie cutter - it's the largest circle I have -

and the circles of dough fit nicely in the muffin tins.

I also cut out little scalloped-edge circles to use as tops.

By this time, the children were exhausted from all the hard work, and they had gone downstairs to rest their weary bones.

I filled up the little pie shells (20 of them) with the blueberry filling and topped each with a little bit of butter.

And because I thought the little round tops would cook faster than the rest of the pies, I didn't put them on the pies initially.  Instead, while the mini pies started out in a 400 degree oven, I put all the smaller dough circles on a cookie sheet, brushed them with a wash of egg yolk, and sprinkled them with sugar.

I put this tray in the fridge while the pies cooked.

After 20 minutes, I turned the oven down to 350 and cooked the pies for another 30 minutes.

I took the pies out, then baked off the little lids, and then set them on the pies.

And I'll admit it - these aren't the prettiest things I've ever made.

A few changes I'd make next time around (and as long as Moose A Moose is counting blueberries, there'll definitely be a next time) would be these:

I would drain the juice from the blueberries before mixing them in with the sugar and everything else.  If this was for a standard sized pie, it wouldn't have mattered so much, but with these, I think there was just too much liquid.

I would also just go ahead and put the little lids on from the start. 

I'd also make the bottom crusts larger, so they'd come up higher than the rim of the muffin tin. 

However.

All those mistakes acknowledged, I will say, these were pretty yummy little pies.  Julia ate one.  And Alex ate two of 'em that night - warm, not long out of the oven.  He polished the first one off, a look of bliss on his little purple-stained face.  "Mom?"  He asked.  "Could I have another one?"   

And that was really the whole reason for baking them in the first place. 

Off Course

I still stay in touch with a bunch of people I used to work with, before the emploment ended back in December.  Some of them also read this site. 

Yesterday morning I got a call from one of them.  It was early, on a Sunday, and the news was shocking.  A woman who had also worked there - for the past 10 years - she'd started less than a year after I did - this woman had died.  On Friday.

I knew she'd been out on an extended medical leave since some time after I left.  But no one I asked seemed to know why.  Apparently she kept it to herself, or swore people to secrecy.

I liked her.  She was upper management, and hers was not always the easiest position to hold in a company.  But she was always kind and pleasant.

Over the years I learned tiny bits about her - little tiny things she'd share in conversation, but to the best of my knowledge, she pretty much kept her personal life personal.  Which is fine.  Some people share way too much of their lives with their coworkers.  Less, I think, is more.

I know she and her husband were foster parents for many years, and she adopted her teenage son right around the same time I gave birth to my biological son.  She mentioned this to me when we were going over my maternity leave paperwork, and she told me she was eligible for it as well, because of the adoption.  Just a little thing, just a little peek in the window, but in some way it was more personal than all the other pregnancy and childbirth stories I'd previously heard from friends and family.  She didn't have to tell me anything.  But she did.

To borrow a commonly used phrase, cancer sucks.  It's a gross understatement, especially for those who battle cancer and the loved ones who watch and pray and hold close and hold their breath every minute of every day. 

This woman died of cancer.  Another one of those many instances where your heart just screams out "She was too young!  It's not fair!"  Too many instances.

So since yesterday morning, my brain has been turning this news around and around, checking it out from all angles, like it's a Rubik's cube, trying to line up the images of a fit and healthy person I last saw three months ago, a woman not young, but not old by any stretch of the imagination, with the phone call I received and the obituary I read online.  The squares aren't matching up.  I can't get the colors in the right places.  I can't solve the puzzle.  It doesn't make sense.

Cancer, as everyone knows, doesn't make sense.  Not a sense that you can reluctantly nod and say, yeah, okay, I see why.  I understand.  It's not like, oh, a car accident.  A car slams into a tree, okay, yeah, you can see the car is wrecked, you can see why, even if the driver was wearing a seatbelt, they could not have survived.  Maybe.  It's not a nice comparison, but, you know, there's an "if A then B" bit of logic to it.  Not emotionally, no, but cause-and-effect-ly.

Not so now.  I'm having trouble with this. 

Of course, I was not a part of her family.  Not a close friend or anything.  Perhaps she had been battling this for some time.  So maybe her passing came at the end of a much longer battle.  Like my late sister-in-law, who had been fighting cancer for 4 years before it attacked her brain and put an end to the fighting. 

This one was - at least from my view on the sidelines - so sudden. 

I am saddened by it.  I am so sorry for her family and close friends.  Her son.  Her husband.  This line from her obituary lingers in my thoughts.  "She was the wife, lover, best friend and partner..." of her husband of 25 years.  There is such poignant beauty in that line.  Such love.  Such loss. 

I am so sorry.

It's not fair. 

The Thunderous Threes

I don't remember if the twos were this hard.  I don't think they were. 

Yesterday while I was making dinner, the kids were playing upstairs, as I mentioned in last night's post (below). 

One of the fun things they did was bring a whole bunch of stuffed animals into my bedroom and pile them on the bed.  On the cat.  They thought this was hysterically funny.  The cat was tolerant, but not thrilled.

Well, later on, after dinner, I told them they needed to get all their stuff off the bed and put it back in their rooms.  They had also added other, non-stuffed-animal things like the two ukeleles we have...a box of crayons...and a couple of baseball hats from where they usually hang in the kitchen.

Julia said she would do it "all by mySELF!" so I left her to it.

A bit later, when nothing had been brought back downstairs, I asked Julia if she was done.  I thought maybe she'd just put everything in her bedroom.

She said no...hadn't done it yet.  And I told her to get to it.  NOW.  So she went upstairs again and stayed there for a while.

A bit later, she came back down to the kitchen.  I asked if she was done, and she said no.  So I escorted her back upstairs and started to point out (like she didn't already know) what I wanted her to put away.

And then I saw what she had been doing earlier. 

She had brought magic markers upstairs along with the crayons.

There's a big blue blob - around the size of a quarter on the sheet...and this on one of my pillows:

And how did I know Julia did it?  That Alex hadn't done it earlier?

Because she signed her work:

Princess of the Damned

Earlier this afternoon.

I'm in the kitchen prepping a chicken for dinner.

Julia and Alex have been playing upstairs - wonderful child-play - with lots of shrieking and gurgly laughter.

Julia comes into the kitchen.  The way her heels hit the floor is very businesslike, no-nonsense, and could be intimidating if she wasn't so short.

"Mom."  She stated.  "I gotta tell you something."  Something that cannot wait, by the tone.

"What is it, Julia?"  I ask, still busy with the chicken.

"Mom, look, I got blood."

When she speaks the word, blood has about three syllables.

I look down to see what's bleeding.  She's not crying, so it can't be too bad.

She holds up one tiny finger; her other hand squeezes the finger tightly so that a tiny line of blood appears just beneath the nail.

"How did that happen?"  I ask, turning back to my chicken.

"I don't know" she says, unconcerned now.  Her shoulders shrug in this new tone of voice.

She pauses a bit.

"But it's good to lick!"

Cornish Pasties

Comfort food at its finest.  Cornish Pasties (pronounced "PASS-tees") are simply meat pies you can hold in your hand to eat.  As I understand it, they probably originated in Cornwall, in the south of England, as something miners could bring with them for lunch, as they could not come out of the mine shaft mid-day.  The pasties were portable, and the filling would stay warm for hours.  And they can be made with other fillings, but traditionally it's cubed beef, potatoes and onions. 

My Dad's mother was from Cornwall, and came here when she was - if I'm remembering this correctly - sixteen, to live with her married sister.  Anyway, fast forward to after she was married and a mother, she would make these for my dad and his younger sister.

And then when my parents were married, she taught my mother to make them.  I use the word "taught" in a rather loose sense.  In the "For Days of Auld Lang Syne" compilation of recipes that my mother put together for me when I was engages, here's the story:

"Leek Pasties"

(my mother writes) - "This recipe was sent May 3, 1970 to us from...Grandmother Wilke, after they moved out west.  Their first intention was to locate in California but then opted for Arizona, where they stayed for a number of years.  This pasty was not the more readily made beef and potato one, but a variation from Cornwall."

In her (my grandmother's) words:  "Thought I'd start off and tell you about the leek pasty - You make that in one big one, so roll out pastry as big as you want.  (Usually a 9-10 inch pie plate).  Slice up a bunch of leeks into 1/4 inch slices (3-4 leeks).  Lay pastry into pie plate and add sliced leeks.  Beat together 2 eggs, some chopped ham or bacon then pour over leeks.  Cover with top layer of pastry.  Bake at 325 degrees for 30-40 minutes until nicely browned.  May be served hot or at room temperature."

That's the recipe.

Oddly enough, I don't remember having the leek version as a child - I remember the meat ones.  I remember my mother rolling out the dough, standing at her floating work island in the kitchen (actually it was the dishwasher - it had a thick cutting board on top and she used it for most of her baking projects- and it was on wheels, so when she needed it she could roll it into place closer to the sink and stove and fridge).  I also remember her chipping the potatoes - cutting them into little pieces as she made each pasty.  She made one for each of us, and cut slits in the top crust to form our initials.  This was also so that no one would get hers - she liked a bit of turnip in there besides the meat and potatoes. 

Pasties were often specifically dinner for Dad's birthday.  And the way I remember eating them was this - you'd slice open the top of the pasty, right around the curved part, just above the crimped edge.  Then you'd put some butter on each side, and pour a little milk on it.

Yeah, I can see some of you cringing.  Huh?  Pour milk on it?  No, it's not traditional.  But according to my father, when he was a boy, his mom did that to cool it down for him.  So that's how HE ate them, and that's kind of how we learned to.   But it's not required. 

To my horror, my husband puts ketchup on his.  I can't watch that.  Although I'm sure people put all sorts of things on them - HP sauce comes to mind.

The first time I made them on my own was for my father's birthday.  My mother wasn't available to do it that year, so I decided to do it myself.  And for some reason I was a nervous wreck about it.  But I was often a nervous wreck back then, so I guess it's not all that surprising.  But pasties are pretty forgiving things - and mine came out fine.

I made them last night for part of our dinner, and I must say they were the best ones I've ever made.  I don't know how that happened, but I'm not complaining.

Here's what you do:

Make the pastry dough.  Now, you can use any pastry dough recipe you want to use - whatever you're comfortable with. 

I wanted to make a lot of them, so I used the following:

4 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons salt

1   1/2 cups chilled vegetable shortening, cut into approximately 1/2 inch cubes

8-12 (or more) T ice water (it will vary depending on the humidity in your kitchen, the time of year, the hour of the day, whether you part your hair on the right or the left, and so forth.)

Combine the flour and salt and either put them in a food processor (my new favorite way) or in a large bowl. 

Add the cubed shortening

and either pulse about 5 times in the processor or cut the shortening in with a pastry cutter or two knives or your hands.  You want the dough to have some lumps of shortening around the size of peas, and the rest to look look like coarse sand.

Next - add the water a little at a time.  If using the food processor, pour in a few tablespoons, then pulse.  Add another tablespoon or two, then pulse.  If you're working in a bowl, then drizzle in some water, and toss the flour/shortening mixture with a fork.  Then more water, then toss again.  The idea is to GENTLY incorporate JUST ENOUGH water to bind the flour/shortening mixture.  You don't want it soggy, you don't want it too dry, and you definitely don't want to overwork the dough because it will activate the glutens in the flour and the final product - the pie shell or pasty shell - will be tough.  For pies and so forth, and pasties, you want flaky and tender.

Once the dough JUST comes together, pat it into a ball, press down into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least half an hour.  While the dough is chilling, you can prepare the filling ingredients.

You will need:

About a pound of stew beef, either  cut in chunks or not.

   

4-5 medium red potatoes, or any other kind of potato you want.  You want about the same amount of potatoes as meat, once it's all cut up.

1 small onion

Salt and pepper

two egg yolks mixed with a tiny bit of water (to glaze the pasties with)

Cut the beef into small pieces - about 1/4 inch thick and about 1/2 inch to an inch wide.

Cut the potatoes into pieces about the same size as the beef, except you want them about 1/8 of an inch thick.

Dice up the onion into 1/4 inch pieces

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. 

Get out a couple of baking sheets and line them with parchment or foil.

Okay, now take the dough out of the fridge, unwrap it, and cut it into eight equal pieces.  (They don't have to be perfect - just eyeball it.)

Roll out four of them into rough circles about 1/8" thick.

Place some potatoes on one half of each dough circle, leaving about 3/4 inch of an edge for sealing the pasty. 

Next, place some meat on top of that, and then a healthy sprinkling of onions.  Do all 4 this way, then sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.

Now, carefully, fold the other half of the dough over the filling and press down along the edges to seal. 

Curl the dough over on itself to keep it sealed, or press with the tines of a fork, or crimp it - whatever you want to do to make it pretty. 

Place on one of the baking sheets.  Cut a few holes in the top with the tip of a knife to allow the steam to escape, and the brush with the egg wash.  Do the same with the other three you just made.

And now repeat the entire procedure with the other 4 pieces of dough and the rest of the filling ingredients and place on a second baking sheet.

Place sheets in the oven and set your timer for 15 minutes.  When the timer goes off, rotate the pans so all the pasties bake evenly.  Set for another 15 minutes, and then check again every five minutes or so if they still aren't done.  Pasties should be golden brown and steaming hot.

Serve with a salad if you want to.  Do the butter and milk thing - or not.  They're fine without that.  I added just a bit of butter because hey, it tastes good, it adds a bit more moisture to the crust, and because I'm a creature of habit.  But mostly because it tastes good.

Enjoy!

Family Portrait

I know I post a lot of pictures of my kids, and some of my husband.  Not much of myself.  I don't really like having my picture taken - probably that's part of the reason I like TAKING pictures - I can hide behind the camera.

But still, my kids and husband don't see my through my own hypercritical lens, and there should, from time to time, be pictures of all four of us as we go through the years.

So, much as I'm reluctant to have my face out there for all to critique see, for my children, I'm posting a recent picture of the four of us.

Subdividing

Hi.  For a while now I've wanted to better organize all the recipes and things that were originally just grouped under "You Look Hungry" for the most part.

So that's what I've spent the past couple hours doing, more or less.  I'm not done with it - there are other sub-categories I want to include, and some of the recipes belong in a couple different headings...but for now, this is what I've done.

Have to put the laptop away.  The kids and I are making miniature blueberry pies.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Egg in a Nest

Had your breakfast yet?  You should - most important meal of the day, they say. 

Weekday mornings it's usually a quick affair for the kids and Bill - oatmeal or cereal, or sometimes scrambled eggs or even a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

But it doesn't really take that long to do something a bit more fun with the eggs, and my kids love them this way.

Egg in a nest - goes by other names as well.  The fun part about this is if you've got cookie cutters (and we all know I do) you can vary the theme from time to time.  Trust me - it's a little thing, but it's a big deal to the almost-4 to almost-6 year old set. 

This morning I decided to cut out bunny shapes.

All you do, is get a piece of bread and a cookie cutter that will cut out a shape and still leave a sturdy outline of bread all the way around.

Cut out your shapes, being careful to get all the little corners and crevices if you can, so the cut-out looks like what it's supposed to.

Heat up a griddle or frying pan and melt some butter in it (butter adds flavor)...then lay all your bread pieces down (if they all fit - you can also work in batches.  If you are, do the inner shapes first.)

Once they start to brown a bit on the underside, pour in your eggs.

Once the bread starts to brown...

Flip them all over - use care when you're flipping the egg-filled bread so nothing falls out and breaks.

Cook just enough to set the white on the other side (we're an over-easy family here) and then serve.  When you plate them, you want to flip them back over so the "prettier" side is face-up.

(You'll note the darker bunny on the left, the lighter bunny on the right - I sometimes forget to lower the setting on the power burner in the front part of my stove - things above it cook faster.)

Anyway - success this morning - happy, breakfast-eating children!

Breakfast can be fun!  (Okay, yeah, I sound like a nut.)

Observation

You know, I love my kids. 

They are beautiful and fascinating and funny and smart and fun. 

But they're kids, and they can wear on a person. 

And that person would be me. 

And there are days when I think if I hear another ridiculous shrieky squabbly "he - no, she - no, he - no, she"-fest I will just gouge my ear drums with sharpened popsicle sticks. 

And I make this known. 

And for a while, there is silence, peace, and harmony. 

And then I hear the soft but intense tones of a dispute over something - who had that book first...who gets to play with spiderman...who gets to hold the remote...who gets to sit on the couch. 

And then it builds...and builds...and soon I hear it - a high-pitched, primal, animal-with-its-leg-in-a-trap screechy, eye-popping scream that threatens to weave into my head through one ear, chew up what's left of my brain and then scoot out the other ear. 

And I take a breath so I can holler effectively at the kids --

And then I realize that this horrible sound is actually coming from me.

Who is this crazy lady I see in my mirror? 

And why do her eyes spin in opposite directions like that?

And when was the last time she had her eyebrows waxed? 

Too long ago.

Mutton Kari (Lamb Curry)

What do you do when you have leftover lamb?  You make curry.

Actually, you really should buy lamb SOLELY for the purpose of making curry.  I know I should.  That's how this recipe is written, actually - it's to be made with raw lamb.  But.  We had about 3 pounds of lamb meat left, and we wanted to make a curry with some or all of it.  Bill took a look through a few cookbooks, and he liked the sound of this one, so this is what I made.

It's from Charmaine Solomon's The Complete Asian Cookbook - and it's incredibly comprehensive.  She covers India, China, Cambodia, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesian, Korean, and more. 

This recipe for Mutton Kari, or Lamb Curry, calls for Garam Masala, a blend of toasted spices.  You can find the recipe I used here.

And though we used cooked lamb, I plan to make this again with raw.  The cook time in the recipe is for raw lamb - you cook the mixture for over an hour - and I think the flavors need all that time to blend together and soak into the lamb.  Just my two cents.

Here we go.  First - what you'll need:

2 T ghee or oil

2 large onions, chopped

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 T finely chopped fresh ginger

2 T curry powder

3 tsp salt

2 T vinegar or lemon juice

3 large tomatoes, chopped

2 fresh chilies

2 T chopped fresh mint leaves

1 tsp garam masala (see here) 

3 lb boned shoulder of lamb

1 T chopped fresh coriander or mint leaves

Cut lamb into cubes.

(Okay, she's not cutting the lamb herself.  But she was most definitely helping.)   

Heat ghee (or oil) in a saucepan and gently fry onion, garlic and ginger until soft and golden.

Add curry powder, salt and vinegar, stir thoroughly.

   

Add lamb and cook, stirring constantly, until lamb is coated with the spice mixture.

Add tomato, chilies and mint.

(Okay, here's where I took a little detour.  Since the lamb was already cooked, I didn't want to put it in this early in the game.  So I just added the tomatoes and mint.  Also, I left the chilies out for now.  I made a separate curry sauce with the peppers, just for Bill and me, because they were too hot for the kids to eat.)

So this is the tomatoes and mint going into the onion and seasonings...

Cover and cook over low heat for 1  1/4 hours or until lamb is tender, stirring occasionally.  The tomatoes should provide enough liquid for the meat to cook in but, if necessary, add a little hot water, approximately half a cup, just enough to prevent meat from sticking to pan. 

(I cooked the mixture with the tomatoes and mint added for about 20-30 minutes, simmering with the lid on.  At that point, I ladled out some of it and put it in a small saucepan and added one of the chiles, seeds removed, and sliced thinly, to the mix. 

I let that simmer while I finished up the rest of the meal.)

Here's how the original onion mixture looked after simmering a while...

Add garam masala (and the lamb!!) and chopped coriander leaves for the last 5 minutes of cooking time.  (and I didn't get coriander - I'd planned to use the rest of the fresh mint - and then I forgot.  Sometimes I do that.)

I stirred all of that together and heated it gently until the lamb was warmed through.

I also added some coconut milk to the separate onion mixture that I'd added the chile pepper to.

I served the lamb over a blend of whole grain and wild rices, with some of the hotter curry sauce for Bill and me.

We both agreed that it was very good - but would be WAY better done without using leftover, already-been-cooked lamb.  So I will definitely be trying that some time.  And I'll let you know.

Garam Masala

Garam Masala is a blend of spices individually toasted to release and enhance both flavor and fragrance.  There are many varieties of Garam Masala - sweeter, hotter, and so on.  You can change the amounts of ingredients to suit your own taste.

Below is "No. 1 Garam Masala" from Charmaine Solomon's The Complete Asian Cookbook.

Here's what you'll need:

4 T coriander seeds

2 T cumin seeds

1 T whole black peppercorns

2 tsp cardamom seeds (measure after removing pods) (I used about 3-4 tsps of the pods, and that gave me the 2 tsp of seeds after toasting) 

4  3-inch cinnamon sticks

1 tsp whole cloves

1 whole nutmeg

(Top row:  coriander seeds, cinnamon sticks, cumin seeds.  Middle row:  black peppercorns, whole nutmeg, whole cloves.  Bottom:  cardamom pods.)

In a small pan roast separately the coriander, cumin, peppercorns, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves.

As each one starts to smell fragrant, turn on to plate to cool. 

After roasting, peel the cardamoms, discard pods and use only seeds. 

Put all into electric blender and blend to a fine powder.

Finely grate nutmeg

and mix in. 

Store in glass jar with airtight lid.

Hungering...for an E

I was working out in the garden this afternoon, and when I came in a little while ago, Alex greeted me in the kitchen, holding this sign in front of him and grinning proudly.

So I said "Well, I'm glad someone did." 

And I went back outside.

I know it was harsh of me, but dammit, if he's going to get into a good college one day, he needs to stop making these childish mistakes. 

He's nearly 6, for pete's sake!

Casting Practice

He practiced casting that line out over and over and over and over yesterday.

And he caught a salmon and a tuna, among other things.

Who knew such creatures could be caught in our back yard?

We ate quite well last night.

Cakes - Candy Bar - 1997

Not a whole lot to tell about this one.  The person I made the cake for worked for Nestle.  I don't have any other notes with this cake, but I was rather pleased with how it looked.

I started to write "I don't even remember what flavor the cake was" - and then I thought - this is eleven years ago!  Why should I remember??  I set odd standards for myself.  Fortunately I have come to accept my mommyhood-and-sleep-deprivation-induced-senility and I no longer get upset when I can't remember some trivial thing from over a decade ago.  I shrug now, and say "oh well" and go on with what I was doing.  While distressing at first, I've found it to be rather liberating.  If I don't remember something, doesn't that free up other space in my head?  And also, if I can't remember something, I also can't remember if it was something upsetting, like a rude person from another country openly criticizing an Easter dessert I'd spent a great deal of imagination, time and effort on and she was a guest in my family's home and she just blurted out her rude observation with no regard for how it might come across or how I would feel or what manners were or how to behave politely when you are a guest, and interestingly enough it was like everyone else disappeared and tumbleweeds blew by while the townspeople hid in the saloon and I hissed something sharp and sarcastic and bitter in reply and then let the matter drop because for one thing the sarcasm thing just went right over her head, and because there were other guests - nice ones -  and I didn't want to cause a scene, although the general consensus later was that it would have been understood if I had.

I'm sorry, what?  What were we talking about?  I don't remember.

Anyway, that's the cake this week.

Coffee and a Ball Game

This morning, approximately 6:30, we were thus assembled:  Bill, with coffee in his travel mug.  Julia, clutching her pink elephant.  Alex, and me, with coffee cup in hand as well. 

And we are all watching the Sox play Oakland in Japan.

Interesting trying to explain to Alex that this game was actually taking place at night, far, far away.

And Julia knows who Big Papi is.

We're trying to raise 'em right.

I'll be back later.  We're ahead in the 10th, and now Oakland's up, Pap is pitching.  I need to watch.

Some Pictures from Sunday

  We went to my cousin's house for Easter brunch, as we've been doing for the past bunch of years.  They have two Easter egg hunts, actually - one for the little kids, and one for the older kids. 

The number of little kids has been dwindling - there were 3 of them this year - my two and another little boy around Alex's age.  So each kid makes out pretty well in the candy department.

And we all make out well in the overall eating department, too.  My cousin's wife, like me, I suppose, cooks with the notion that too much is not really quite enough, so better to make more.  Other people contribute food, too, but even if they didn't, we'd have more than enough to eat.

Anyway, here are some random shots taken throughout the day yesterday.

Ravioli Dolci

I was originally planning to make a Ricotta Pie or Rice Pie for Easter, but when I was perusing recipes, I found this one for sweet fruit and nut pockets, or Ravioli Dolci, and I decided to make them instead.  They sounded interesting, they didn't require refrigeration, and, best of all, I had everything I needed and wouldn't have to go to the grocery store.

The recipe is from Lynne Rossetto Kasper's book The Italian Country Table. 

The recipe is actually called "Apricot-Pistachio Pockets" and I really thought I had dried apricots in the pantry, but I didn't.  So I've made one change - I've substituted golden raisins for the apricots. 

There are two components to the cookie - the pastry and the filling. 

Here's what you need for the pastry:

1  3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1  3/4 cups cake flour

1/2 cup blanched whole almonds, finely ground

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

shredded zest of 1/2 lemon

shredded zest of 1/2 orange

2 T light corn syrup

2-3 large eggs

And for the filling:

Generous 1/2 cup (1/4 lb) dried apricots (or, in this version, golden raisins)

2 T sugar, or more to taste

Pinch of salt

Shredded zest of 1/2 lemon

2/3 cup water

1/4 cup dry Marsala (I didn't have dry.  I used sweet.)

3 generous tablespoons shelled salted pistachios, coarsely chopped

And you'll also need

1 large egg, beaten for glaze

1/3 to 1/2 cup Galliano or grappa di Moscato (optional) (I'm not using either - I don't have 'em)

And here's what you do:

In large mixing bowl, thoroughly blend the flours, almonds, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Add the softened butter and citrus zests and with your fingertips, rub together the ingredients until they resemble coarse meal. 

In a small bowl, beat together the corn syrup and 2 eggs.  Using a fork, toss with the flour mixture until the dough is moistened and clumps together.  (I did everything in my stand mixer.)  If it seems dry, beat the remaining egg and toss with the dough to moisten.  Gather the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic, and chill 30 minutes to overnight.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, combine the apricots, 2 T sugar, the salt, lemon zest, water and Marsala. 

Cook over low heat, covered, until the apricots are soft and the mixture is thick, 20 to 30 minutes.  If mixture is still very liquid,

uncover and cook down.  Taste for sweetness, stirring in more sugar if needed.  Remove from the heat and cool.

Puree the apricot mixture in a food processor. 

Stir in the pistachios.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper, or butter it.  On a floured surface, roll out the pastry 1/16 inch thick. 

Cut into rounds with a 2  1/2 inch scalloped biscuit cutter, or a drinking glass. 

Place half of the rounds on the cookie sheet (you may need to do this in 2 batches) and top each round with 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of filling.  Moisten their rims with water.  Top with the remaining rounds and seal the edges.  Brush with the beaten egg.

Bake 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown. 

Lift off the sheet and cool on racks. 

Store the cookies up to 10 days in a sealed tin in a cool place.  To finish with liqueur, sprinkle each cookie with about 1/4 tsp liqueur just before setting out.  (I didn't do the liqueur part.)

These are delicious.  I've never made them before, but I am definitely adding them to my cookie repertoire.  They're sweet (clearly) and crunchy and lemony and a bit chewy.  Alex, in particular, loves them.  The book said the recipe would make about 40 cookies - I made 48 and a half.  (I miscounted and had one extra round of dough left at the end.)

So go on and give these a try.  Trust my son - he knows his cookies.

Slow Roasted Leg Of Lamb

Mmmm...can you smell it?  And the garlic?  And the rosemary?  The triumverate of deliciousness in springtime dinner-making.  If that makes sense.  Well, if you could smell it, it would.

And, of course, lamb doesn't have to just be a springtime thing.  But we often had lamb for Easter in my family, so in my mind, it IS a springtime thing.

Anyway, enough dithering.

I bought a 7.74 lb leg of lamb the other day and cooked it for dinner on Friday.  Ordinarily I would roast it at about 325 degrees F, but since slow-cooking roast beef has been such a success for the last few Christmas dinners, I thought I'd try the slow-cooking method with the lamb.

If I were to do this again, I'd either roast the garlic ahead of time, or cut it into much much thinner pieces before inserting the slices into little cuts in the meat.  The garlic didn't cook enough, and still had that kind of sharp taste garlic has when it's raw.

But other than that, everything else about it was great.

Here's what I did.

First, I peeled a bunch of garlic cloves.

Then I sliced them in half, lengthwise, and in quarters, depending on the size of the clove. 

Next, the leg.

I trimmed away a lot of the fat, very slowly and carefully.

Maybe not perfectly, but I got the job done.

Then, with a sharp little paring knife, I jabbed little openings in the lamb

and slid the garlic pieces in.

(sorry about the blur in that shot - I'd like a third arm at times like these)

Next thing to do, before the meat goes in the oven (which, by the way, go ahead and set for 225 F), is to sear the lamb in the same pan you'll be using to roast it.

Get the pan nice and hot first, and then gently lay the meat down. 

You should hear a great loud sizzle, and you should LEAVE THE MEAT ALONE for a good five minutes or so.  Don't keep checking it.  For one thing, if you aren't using a non-stick pan, and you keep trying to lift up the leg to check the brownness, if the meat isn't ready, it'll still stick to the pan and tear away from the rest of the leg.  You don't want that.  Best to leave it.  A trick I learned, I think it was from watching Sara Moulton on the Food Network, is to shake the pan now and then.  If the meat sticks to where it is, it's not ready.  If it slides around, go ahead and flip it over.

Now, you don't have the same problem with an non-stick pan, so just let it go for five minutes on high heat before you even think of checking it.  Let the heat do its job.

Before it goes into the oven, sprinkle generously with dried rosemary and salt and pepper.

You want to cook the meat til the internal temp (insert the thermometer into the thickest are of the meat, but don't touch the bone) should be 14o for rare, 160 for medium, and 185 for well done.

When the meat is cooked the way you want it (and keep in mind - the thinner areas will, of course, be more "done" than the thickest part - and if you want to eat shoe leather, go to a shoe store.  Just saying.), take it out of the oven and let it sit for 15-20 minutes so the juices can settle back into the meat.

We served ours with cous cous and fresh asparagus sauted in butter and lemon juice.

And I cooked our lamb rare/medium rare. 

Number one, we like it that way.  And number two, that's a big leg of lamb for two adults and two small children in one meal.  So we'll be doing something fabulous with the leftover lamb, and if it's rare-ish, then it can withstand a second cooking without becoming tough.

WARNING:

The smell will torment you while it cooks.

   

But it's well worth it.

Second Site

Hi!

I've spent the morning creating a separate site for all my gardening posts (beginning with this year's.  I'm not going to move everything from past years to the other site).

It's called - Barefoot Kitchen Witch - In the Garden (really original, I know), and I've moved the few 2008 gardening posts I'd done here over to there, along with adding in some new posts that I hadn't gotten around to putting up anywhere.

I've got a link to it in my left sidebar as well.  Hope you'll stop by!

Free

Yesterday when I was almost about to doze off for a few minutes while the kids were watching something educational on Noggin, a girl banged on my kitchen door and spoke in a friendly and rapid manner so well that all I heard was "free carpet cleaning" and I was completely under her spell.

A little while later, after she'd made a phone call to someone roaming the street in a van and then left to bang on other doors, a gray van pulled up in front of the house, a guy got out and opened the back doors and pulled out a few boxes.

Ah.  Duh.  Free carpet cleaning WITH DEMO.  Oh well, whatever.  Free carpet cleaning, after all.  So I let him in the back door and showed him the carpet in the basement.  The kids were sitting on the couch watching something educational about sea creatures...I think one of the creatures was something called a "Sponge Bob," whatever that is...but when the guy with the boxes came downstairs, they were ready for some new entertainment.

I went upstairs to shut the back door, which I'd forgotten to do when I let the guy in, and as I ran up the stairs I heard Julia, my timid and reclusive child, say "You have dark ears!"  He laughed and said "Yep, and the rest of me's dark, too!" 

He was actually a very nice, polite guy who told me he's got a wife and two daughters - one's five, one's eighteen months - back home in NH.  The Kirby sales force goes on selling field trips about three times a year to other states - each trip is for about a month at a time.  Yikes.  Not the life for me, but he said he really loved his job.  I don't know if that was somehow part of the sales pitch, but he really seemed pretty genuine. 

Years ago we agreed to a free demo by a water filtration system company (for which we were to receive a case of orange juice, so initially we thought it would be worth it), and the woman who held us hostage did the demo was horrid.  At some point during the torture, I stopped being polite.  I just wanted her to finish up and go.  She had this annoying habit of saying a little something and then turning on a gaudy three hundred kilowatt smile that wasn't the least bit happy or friendly or benevolent.  It was a hungry shark smile, and she had visions of commission checks dancing in her head.  She very nearly stepped across a line when she said something about us willingly bathing our son in poluted water (from the unfiltered tap in the tub) - in a guilt-inducing "you're pouring raw sewage on your year-old child" kind of way.  She didn't CROSS the line, or I'd be blogging from a prison.  But she stepped right up to it and dangled her toe on the other side.  The best part was when she knew she'd lost us but had to continue on with her presentation because it was her job.  We just glared at her while she flipped through her ring binder with filtration information and flashed her slightly dimmer smile at us out of habit.  The best part was when she called her boss to report that "They aren't interested in improving the quality of the water they use" or something like that.  HAHAHA.  Like we're suddenly going to realize we're terrible and irresponsible parents, letting our son bathe in filth and doing our dishes in water that has a mineral or two in it.  Just give us our juice and be on your way, shark lady. 

Anyway - this guy with the Kirby all-in-one vacuum/carpet cleaner/hardwood cleaner/air filter/chimney cleaner/sink unclogger/dishwasher and diaper changer - he was nothing like smiley shark lady.  So I listened to his sales pitch, and he actually sounded pretty sincere and not pushy at all.  Like we were just hanging out waiting for a bus, and he was telling me about his vacuum cleaner/carpet cleaner.  Just because he was excited about it. 

Anyway, he got on with his job and I sent the kids out to play (and to leave him alone).  Julia had had a couple unpleasant bouts of diarrhea earlier and wasn't her entirely happy self, but that seemed to change when the sales guy showed up.  So she and Alex played out there for a while, and when they came in, the carpet had been vacuumed twice (once with ours and then once with the Kirby - just so he could show me how much dirt my old (it's around 20) vacuum cleaner leaves behind and how fabulously the Kirby dirt sucking action is - and then spots were pre-treated and then the whole carpet was doused with cleaner and he was letting that soak in for a few minutes before letting the Kirby loose to slurp it all back up again.

He spent a lot of time and did a great job.  When he finished up, the kids and I were in the living room and Alex was reading to us from a little book they put together in his kindergarten class.  They're working on rhyming words, and families of words that end the same, like the "an" family - dan, can, man, fan, etc.  So he was reading from the book and Julia was half listening, half trying to distract him.  I was listening and trying to keep her from pissing Alex off.  I really didn't want to have to break up a fight while there was a stranger in the house.

He came up the stairs with the tray that catches the dirty, gunky water and debris from the carpet cleaning process, and he headed into the bathroom to dump it down the toilet. 

Bored with Alex and his book, Julia followed the more interesting, dark-eared man to the bathroom to see what he was up to.  She stood in the doorway for a moment, just observing.

And then she said

"Guess what! I had the dropping poops today!"

There was a full second of complete and utter silence in my house, and then both the salesman and I burst out laughing.  For quite a while.  Thank goodness he has small kids, for one thing. 

And at least if he wasn't going to get a commission from his visit, he got some entertainment out of it.

Spring Training

The family that plays together...

We signed Alex up for T-ball this year - play starts in May.  He needed a glove, so we went shopping for that this morning.  His is the black and gray one on the bottome right.  And if you look to the left of that, you'll see a very pink and purple glove, smaller.  And you would be right in guessing that we got that for Julia - initially so she wouldn't feel left out.

Funny thing.  Bill was showing Alex how you keep your index finger out of the glove...and when we gave Julia her glove to try on at the store, her tiny little index finger was poking out too. 

And Bill figured he needed a glove, because he hasn't had a glove since he was twelve, and this way he can play catch with Alex and really show him how to catch with the glove, etc.  His glove is the one above Julia's.  And then I was feeling left out (never mind Julia - what about ME??) and so I got one as well, since my old glove upstairs is also a relic from when I was around 12 or so, too.  Mine's pink and black... both serious and girly at the same time, I suppose.

They're pretty supple as-is, but they still need some breaking in.

We also got Alex a batting tee so he can get used to that as well. 

 

Meanwhile, Julia was waiting her turn...

To be continued....

Dangerous

Alex has recently become aware that zippers pose a potential threat to his, um, delicate areas.  It's on his mind a lot, for some reason.  Not sure what started it, but I know I'm not going to ever let him watch "There's Something About Mary" - it would traumatize him for life.

Anyway.  He has concerns.  He will ask - "What if I got my pee-pee caught in a zipper?!"  And I cringe, and Bill curls up in the fetal position, and we tell him if he's CAREFUL, it won't.

So anyway.

Last night when I brought the kids to bed, Alex pointed out that there were holes in the soles of his feetie-pajamas and he needed new ones.  Which he does, but I don't want to buy new feetie-pajamas at this point in the year, since he'll need NEWER new ones next winter. 

So I said "I could cut the feet off," and he looked at me in fear until I said "the feet of the pajamas," and he thought that was a good idea, so I cut the feet off and gave the pajamas back to him so he could put them on.  Julia was dawdling in the bathroom, so I went in there to urge her along, and then Alex called to me from the bedroom.

"Mommy...it's kind of hard to zipper this up because the legs won't stay down."  Ah, true.  The feet parts aren't there to offer resistance when he pulls on the zipper. 

"I'll do it," I said, "just get your arms in."  I held the bottom of the zipper taut and began to zip up, and then, as the zipper traveled north, Alex cautioned me:

"Be careful zippering, Mommy.  I have a dangerous pee-pee."

He's such a cute little male.

In Which I Wax Rhapsodic About Manure... And Other Little Stories

I hope it stops raining today at some point so I can go out and take pictures of the gorgeous compost on some of the gardens.

I know - oooooooh!  Sounds thrilling!

On Tuesday I picked up the kids after school/daycare and got them Happy Meals to eat on the ride to get a yard of compost.  Not just ANY compost, either.  It's the "Raised Bed Mix" - one of several types of compost you can get from Earth Care Farm.  The place (if you're into this sort of thing) is awesome.  Huge mountains of compost...good stuff, with - well here's an excerpt from their website:

COMPOST INGREDIENTS

We start with farm animal manure, such as horse, chicken, cow, sheep, goat, and rabbit manures. These we gather along with whatever bedding material was used, such as sawdust, wood shavings or straw. We also mix in elephant, camel and other exotic manures from Roger Williams Park Zoo.

Other raw materials added include: clean gurry (fish scraps), shell fish, seaweed, paper, wood chips, spent bark mulch, wood ashes, mulch hay, flower, vegetable, and shrub trimmings and also food scraps. Our major bulking agent is leaves which we receive from local towns. These ingredients are lended, mixed, and turned in an aerobically managed compost system on our certified organic farm. It takes approximately 18 months before the ingredients are properly cured and considered mature, finished compost.

Nice, huh?  So the owner loaded up the bed of our truck and away we went. 

Then I spent the afternoon clearing out dead leaves and other debris from most of the flower gardens in the front yard.  Mainly the irises, as their rhizomes need sun and dryness to flourish.  I transplanted a few that weren't doing all that well - hopefully they'll improve this year in their new spot.  The kids helped for about 3.4 minutes and then grew tired of all that manual labor.  So they played in the back yard or drew with chalk on the driveway.

When Bill got home he was all excited about the compost and got that truck bed cleared out pretty quickly.  Julia "helped" by standing near a wheelbarrow while he shoveled compost into it.  I would have taken a picture, but my hands were too muddy to touch the camera.  I really need to remember to wear gloves.

Anyway, Bill distributed the compost to the raised bed and to the other vegetable garden areas in the yard, and I added some to the windowboxes as well.

Eventually, it was too dark and too cold to do any more outside.  But things are looking really good.  Nice black compost out there...ready for planting.

~~~~~

So...what to do with leftover vegetables after having a huge Corned Beef Dinner?  I'd already used the potatoes in the hash, but there were still turnips, carrots, parsnips, onions and cabbage left. 

After a bit of thought, I decided I could use some of it in lasagne. 

I was in a lasagne and eggplant parmesan mood anyway, so I got an eggplant, some mushrooms, ricotta cheese and fresh mozzarella at the grocery store.

I mashed up the turnips, carrots and parsnips with some oregano that I'd frozen in olive oil last fall, and some salt and pepper.  I set that mixture in a collander to drain off some of the water, but in retrospect, a better choice would have been to cook that mixture a little in an open pan, to get rid of more of the moisture.  Ah well, live and learn.

I also sauteed mushrooms in butter and marsala til they were dry...and I made a bit pot of sauce, with a lot of the frozen oven-roasted tomatoes I packed away in the fall, and a little container of pureed basil and olive oil...and a cube of oregano/olive oil...and one of parsley.  I'm trying to use up a few things from last year's garden.  Not that I'll freeze anything again til next fall, but still.  It needs to be used.  Oh, and I threw in some garlic, too.  And some chianti.  Let that cook for a while and then put it through a food mill to get rid ot skins and seeds.  Then back onto the stove to simmer some more.

I mixed the ricotta with salt and pepper, two eggs, and a thawed, squeezed-dry (in a dish towel) package of frozen spinach.  And I sliced the mozzarella.  And ate a few slices.  Just the small ones.

Oh, and I peeled the eggplant, sliced it very thin, dredged it in flour and fried it til it was nicely browned.

From all that, and, of course, lasagne noodles, and grated parmesan, I made two pans of lasagne.

ALSO, I made meatballs.  My original plan was spaghetti and meatballs for the kids (I knew Alex, at least, wouldn't want the lasagne - the ricotta mixture alone would turn him off), but when I mentioned that to Alex earlier in the day, he thought a moment, and then said "How 'bout this?  How 'bout you make Sesame Noodles and meatballs?"  And you know...that sounded like a pretty good idea.  So Bill mixed up his tamer (no chile peppers) version of Sesame Noodle sauce while I cooked the pasta, and so that was our weird dinner.  Sesame Noodles, meatballs, and vegetarian lasagne.

Weird, maybe.  But everyone was happy and full when they left the table.  And that's kind of the goal, right?

~~~~~

It's supposed to clear up at some point today - I hope. 

Indoors...I'll be moving the trays of seedlings to their next home at the south-facing dining room window.  Not that it will make much difference in their lives today, if it stays gray like this.  But eventually they will soak up the warmth of the sun and grow strong.  Then we will plant them outside, where they will continue to grow tall and strong.  And then, one day...we will eat them.

The End.

Cakes - Alligator on a Golf Course - 1997

Wow.  I'm looking at the delivery dates for this cake and the previous two (the snowmen cake and the wedding cake), and all three were delivered within a two week period.  I realize this is nothing for a bakery, but this was just little ol' me, working at night after my real job, in my tiny kitchen.  I was a busy little bee.

Okay - of course there's a story behind this one.  The recipient had gone on vacation for a week in (I think) South Carolina, and he spent most of his waking hours playing golf.  And yes, an alligator showed up on one of the golf courses while he was playing.  He showed me a picture.  So I used that for the cake. 

If you look closely, you can see that the alligator has just chomped on the pole of the flag that had been marking the hole. 

The cake itself is chocolate, with chocolate icing between layers.  The grass is green royal icing piped with a #233 Wilton multi-opening tip (the same one I used for this Spider cake).  And I sprinkled light brown sugar on top of a thin layer of wet royal icing to create the sand.

The gentleman I made the cake for kept the little alligator in a little case with his other golfing stuff.  At least that's what he told me.  I have no reason to doubt it, especially since he would mention from time to time that he still had it.      

Overheard

"Camping is like...having a sleepover in the woods!"

Happy St. Joseph's Day!

I made a bunch of mini-zeppole for my husband to bring into work this morning.  I was a bit surprised to discover that I didn't have enough pastry cream for the amount of pate a choux shells I'd made.  The shells were about 2" or so in diameter, by the way, and the recipe I posted made about 54 shells.  So, if you're going to make these, I would either reduce the size of the pate a choux recipe or increase the pastry cream. 

Personally, I'd go for the pastry cream increase.  There's never too much pastry cream in the world.

And what, you may ask, am I going to do with the remaining shells?  Well, even though I've got pate a choux listed under "Desserts" over on the right, you can use them for sweet OR savory items.  You can add herbs or grated cheese to the pate a choux and then fill them with some sort of cheese mixture, like goat cheese or a smoked salmon and cream cheese and chive mixture.

Gotta go.  I'm getting hungry.

Update:  ACK!  I forgot a little dollop of whipped cream on top - something for the cherry to perch on.  See what happens when you don't plan well?  At least they taste pretty good.

Zeppole - One Version

 

Depending on who you ask, this may or may not be the correct kind of zeppole with which to celebrate St. Joseph's Day (March 19th).  I've read that traditional zeppole are actually fried dough tossed in cinnamon sugar.  Sounds good to me, actually. 

But here in Rhode Island, the zeppole we looked forward to are crisp pate a choux puffs usually filled with pastry cream or ricotta cream and topped with powdered sugar and a maraschino cherry. 

So that's what I've made.  Sorry I'm getting the recipes out so close to the wire.  But zeppole taste just as good on March 20th, or any other day of the year. 

To make the versions I made, you'll need recipes for Pastry Cream and Pate a choux, which, coincidentally, are the two posts previous to this one.  Funny how that worked out, huh?

If you're doing this all in one day, make the pastry cream first so it has time to chill while you bake the pate a choux. 

When you have the batter made for the pate a choux, place a large star tip in a piping bag and fill with the batter.  Pipe little rosettes on your parchment-lined paper.  Keep them level as much as possible, so they puff up evenly.

Here's a quick tutorial on piping rosettes...

Kind of down and around and around....

Once the rosettes are baked (brown on the outside, dry inside), take them out of the oven and allow them to cool completely before you fill them.

Next, fill a piping bag with pastry cream and use a narrow round tip.

(The tip in this photo is too big for the size zeppole I made.  Use something smaller.)

Next, make a little hole with the tip and fill the pate a choux with the pastry cream. 

(See what I mean?  That tip is way too big.)  (Sorry.)

To finish - dust with powdered sugar and top with a maraschino cherry.

If you're not going to serve them until later on in the day, refrigerate them. 

But, of course, it's important to sample one, at least.  You know.  To make sure they came out okay.

Pate a choux

Here's what you need:

8 oz unsalted butter (2 sticks)

1/4 oz salt

1/4 oz sugar

1 lb (one pint...two cups) milk or water

10.5 oz flour, sifted (bread flour preferably, or all-purpose if you don't have bread flour)

1 lb whole eggs (about 8-9 large eggs)

Here's what you do:

Place the butter, salt, sugar, and water/milk in a pot.

Bring to a boil.

Add all the sifted flour at once.

Stir with a wooden spoon

for about 5 minutes or until the mixture forms a ball that does not stick to the inside of the pot.

At this point, cook for an additional 3 minutes, stirring so nothing burns.

Remove from the heat and place the mixture in a mixing bowl.

Mix on low speed until cooled slightly.

Add the eggs gradually; mix on low speed; make sure each egg is fully incorporated before the next addition.

After about 2/3 of the eggs have been incorporated, check to see if the dough needs more.  Run a finger deeply through the mixture; if the trough does not close, add additional eggs (still one at a time, and check again after each addition). 

If the trough closes quickly, too many eggs have been added.  The trough should close slowly.

When enough eggs are fully incorporated, pipe into desired shapes on parchment-lined sheet pans.

Bake at 400-425 until brown on the outside and dry on the inside.

Pastry Cream

Here's what you need:

2 lbs whole milk

8 oz granulated sugar

pinch of salt

1.25 oz cornstarch

1/3 oz cake flour

4 oz egg yolks

2 oz whole eggs

2 oz unsalted butter

vanilla extract to taste

Here's what you do:

First - make sure you have the following items -

a large heavy-bottomed stainless steel sauce pot

a wooden spoon

a ladle

a wire whisk

two rubber spatulas

an ice water bath (a large metal bowl with equal parts ice and water - large enough for the sauce pot to fit into - and not so much ice water that it will overflow when the pot goes in.

Okay, now, here's what you do with everything:

Place 3/4 of the milk, about half of the sugar, and all of the salt, into the stainless steel pot. 

Stir to distribute sugar and salt.  Bring to a boil.  Do not stir.

(Before the milk comes to a boil) Place flour and cornstarch in a bowl.  Add remaining sugar

and milk.  Whisk together to get rid of any lumps of cornstarch.

When smooth, add eggs and yolks, and whisk together.

When milk mixture has come to a boil, shut off the heat and - whisking constantly with one hand, ladle half the milk mixture a little at a time into the whisking egg mixture.  This is called "tempering" - you're slowly bringing the eggs up to temperature, slowly so they don't become scrambled.  Once about half of the milk has been whisked in, pour the mixture in the bowl back into the remaing milk in the pot - still whisking.  Turn the heat back on and switch to the wooden spoon.

If you've used a rubber spatula to scrape any of this, toss that in the sink and use a clean one going forward.

Cook the mixture on medium heat, stirring CONSTANTLY.  The mixture will be very liquidy at first,

but gradually it will thicken. 

Once the mixture is pretty thick,

start tasting it.  (Don't stop stirring).

Pay attention to the taste and mouth feel - if you taste or feel any chalkiness, keep stirring.  The chalkiness is the uncooked flour. 

Once there is no longer any chalky taste or texture, remove the pan from the flame (and shut the flame off), stir in the butter until melted completely.

   

At this point, place pot in the ice water bath and keep stirring.

When the mixture cools a bit more, stir in vanilla to taste.

Once the mixture has cooled, scrape it into a bowl or other container

and place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pastry cream.  This prevents a skin from forming.

Refrigerate until needed.

 

Greatest Show on Earth

We went to the circus last night.

It cost twenty cents per person, and for that we each got a green construction paper ticket and a seat on Alex's bed.  As we entered the arena we could see animals of every kind perched and poised and ready in their designated spots throughout.  This was not your run-of-the-mill Barnum & Bailey deal.  This was different.

Alex was the ringmaster.  He shut off the bedroom light once we were seated and switched on his flashlight.

All animal acts - no clowns or acrobats or things like that.

"And now!" our ringmaster boomed "The giant teddy bear will do A SOMERSAULT!"  And sure enough, that giant teddy bear executed a perfect forward roll.  We applauded enthusiastically.  The ringmaster blinded us for a moment with his flashlight as he moved over to where the next act was.

"And now!  The lion will roar THE LOUDEST ROAR!"  "RRROAWWWRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!"  It was terrifying, I'll tell you.  We applauded again.

A flash of blinding light, and then

"And now!  The cow...will do a stampede...WITHOUT THE OTHER GUYS!"  And sure enough, that little holstein stampeded across the floor all alone.  We were so amazed that we forgot to appload, so we had to be reminded.

"Clap!" Alex ordered, breaking out of his ringmaster role for a moment.  But then, with a retina-damaging wave of his flashlight, the ringmaster returned.

"And now!  Those two animals...the leopard and the chameleon...will walk on a type rope (tightrope) walk WITHOUT FALLING!"

We watched, holding our collective breath, as the leopard moved forward from one end of the multi-colored construction paper bridge/tightrope, then, at the other end, the iguana inched forward.  Our view was partly obscured by the ringmaster, who was standing between our seats and the tightrope, bent down, encouraging his animals along, unaware that his jeans were slipping down over his skinny hips, affording us a partial view of his Sponge Bob Square Pants underwear.  Eventually, as tension mounted, the leopard and the chameleon met in the middle and we wondered how they would manage this.  Would the chameleon hang by his tail so the leopard could pass?  Would the leopard eat the chameleon?  Wrong both times.  With grace and amazing balance, the leopard leapt majestically over the chameleon and landed safely on the other side.  Both brave creatures made it to the opposite ends without falling. 

More applause.

There were about 367 more acts, and really, it was a wondrous event.

The only annoying thing - and this happens no matter where you go - was this girl seated next to me.  She's brought her baby, and every two seconds the baby whispered "I have to go potty."  So the girl would sigh or groan - not again! - and wiggle from her seat, out the circus door, and into the bathroom.  At one point, I heard the toilet lid bang against the tank, and heard "psssssssssssss" as the baby was apparently held above the toilet.  Shortly after that the overworked little mommy returned, baby in tow, to her seat.  Moments later I heard a baby-voice whisper something and the little mommy asked, incredulously, with a sigh of resignation, "Again?"  And out they went again.  This happened at least 5 times and then apparently the baby was dehydrated enough to stop.

But apart from that, it was a glorious evening.

Two Easy Bean Dip Recipes

Didn't feel like putting much effort into dinner last night. 

So I made some baked chips out of leftover soft tortillas...and some crisp cheesy garlic toasts out of a leftover half loaf of ciabatta...cooked some shrimp...some edamame...put out the leftover small blocks of various cheeses in the fridge...crackers...smoked oysters...cucumbers...and these two bean dips.

There was something for everyone, and it was very peaceful to have a meal where no one complained about not having anything to eat.

Why two bean dips?  Because I couldn't decide if I wanted canneloni beans or black beans.  So I used both.  But separately.  With different flavors.

First up, the canneloni beans.  I used a 15.5 oz can and rinsed the beans well, drained them well, and put them in the food processor.  I added some dried rosemary...salt and pepper...olive oil...and a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

That seemed like a good start, so I put the lid on and pulsed a bunch of times until I had a slightly lumpy paste.  I tasted it, decided it needed a bit more rosemary and of course! some garlic.  (I had garlic warming in a bath of olive oil and butter for the aforementioned garlic/cheese bread, so I just took about a clove's worth of the garlic from the pot and added it to the bean puree.) 

Pulsed this mixture a couple more times, and poured it in one half of a crystal two-sectioned bowl perfect for the occasion.

Next up, the black beans.  Rinsed and drained them and into the (also rinsed) food processor they went.  To start off, I added some olive oil...lime juice...salt and pepper...ground cumin...and ground coriander.  Oh, yes, and half a shallot.

 

Pulsed everything until nearly smooth, then tasted it.  It needed more of the cumin and coriander, so I added a bit of them, and a bit more salt.  Then into the bowl it went.

Ta-da!  Pretty simple, no?

I didn't measure anything, so I can't tell you how much of anything to put in.  I would just say - start small.  You can always add more - you can't remove it once it's in there.

And don't feel obligated to do what I did.  My point, really - not that I had planned to have one - is that canned beans are really handy things to have on hand - a few additions and a whirl or two in a food processor and you have instant yumminess. 

Looking for a Japanese Leprechaun

Alex's kindergarten teacher asked the kids what they would ask for...and this was Alex's answer. 

Corned Beef Project: Day 11 - Corned Beef Hash

There's a small restaurant in Chepachet, RI called, simply, The Harmony Restaurant.  My husband discovered it years ago when he was teaching part-time in the area, and I remember he was very impressed with their breakfasts (though not so much with the coffee, or the heavy smoking that was allowed in the restaurant back then.)  I've been there with him a number of times over the years, and I have to agree - they really do breadfast up right.  Generous portions, fluffy pancakes, eggs done perfectly, and amazing corned beef hash.  Corned beef hash that someone there actually made.  Someone spent a bit of time and care on this dish, and it shows.  Their corned beef hash has a creamy texture, as opposed to the stuff you get in a can (and at some other restaurants). 

I wanted to make corned beef hash like this.  Or better.  And I don't know - I'm not all that good at self-promotion - but I think I make a mean corned beef hash.  You could ask my husband, but he had some (too much) for breakfast this morning and he's still in a blissful coma.

Anyway, here's what I do.

First - I make corned beef a day or two before.  It's kind of essential.  And potatoes - cooked with the corned beef if possible.  Or baked.  But cooked before the morning you plan to make the hash.

Also, a green bell pepper.  And an onion.  Some butter.  Salt (not a lot) and pepper.  That's about it.

Here's how I make it:

Preheat the oven to 375.

Cut up the green pepper.

Chop up an onion.

Heat a large pan on medium high and melt some butter in it, and then toss in the pepper and onion and saute

until the onion starts to brown a little bit.

While that's happening, get out your leftover potatoes from the Corned Beef and Boiled Vegetable dinner you made a couple of nights ago and dice up the potatoes.

When the onions and peppers are looking good, add in the potatoes and sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper.

Let that cook while you slice and shred the corned beef.  Then add the shredded beef to the vegetable mixture.

When everything has been heated through, shut off the heat and remove about half of the corned beef and vegetable mixture and - in batches - run it through a food processor until it's approaching the consistency of mashed potatoes.  Add that all back to the pan.

If you look at the picture below, you can see the pureed portion on the top/left...and the rough cut portion on the right/bottom.

Now work the two sections together with a wooden spoon or fork or spatula until well blended.  You should see smooth areas and chunky areas.

Press all that down evenly in the pan and top with about a tablespoon of butter, broken into bits.  Put the lid on the pan and place the whole thing in the oven for about 15 minutes.  When the timer goes off, remove the lid and let it cook a bit more while you cook the eggs (if you're having eggs with your corned beef hash, and really, I can't imagine why you wouldn't, as they are meant to be together). 

We usually have the eggs either over easy or poached.  Today I went the over easy route.  I also warmed up some leftover bread from the Corned Beef dinner extravaganza and served that, too.

Like so:

 

This is not a breakfast to have on a day you need to bustle about and accomplish a lot. 

This is a breakfast for a day of leisure. 

A day of reading the paper and making some more coffee or tea.

 

And maybe a nap, if you can get away with it.

Corned Beef Project: Day 9 - The Meal

Was it worth it?  Definitely.  I'll say that right off the bat. 

First off on Friday, I took a look at the packaged, pre-brined corned beef that I picked up for comparison purposes.  And then I looked up at the clock and realized I needed to get a move on.

"Simmer approximately 50 minutes per pound...." Um...okay, this brisket was 4.74 lbs, so that means...um...about 4 hours.  Okay, we'll put that one in first.  I cut open the package and took a look at the contents.

Very pink, and rather fatty on that side, huh?  Into the pot it went

covered with water, lid on, burner on high to bring it to a boil, and then down to a simmer.

Once I'd got that started, I took a look at the briskets I'd brined.

Not as bright pink as the other one, but that's okay.  They're not gray, at least.

Time to check in with the magazine article....

Remove brisket from brine.  Rinse with cold running water.  (Can be made 2 days ahead.  Wrap corned beef in plastic, cover with foil, and refrigerate.)

I just covered them with plastic wrap and put them back in the fridge, since I'd be cooking them in a few hours.

Time to get everything else ready.

You'll need the following:

4 bay leaves

1 T coriander seeds

2 whole allspice

1 dried chile de arbol, broken in half (I used a dried Thai bird chile - we have tons of them.)

cheesecloth (we have some, somewhere.  I used a plain piece of muslin instead.)

1  12-oz bottle Guinness stout or other other stout or porter (I used a porter my husband made.  And I used 2  8-oz bottles, so a pint instead of 3/4 of a pint.)

12 baby turnips, trimmed, or 3 medium turnips or rutabagas, peeled, quartered (no baby turnips to be found.  I bought the smallest I could find and halved them.  I used 8.)

8 unpeeled medium white-skinned or red-skinned potatoes (about 3 lbs)

6 medium carrots, peeled (I cut them in half as well)

2 medium parsnips, peeled, cut into 2-inch lengths (I used 4.  I like parsnips.)

4 medium onions, peeled, halved through root ends

1  2-lb head of cabbage, quartered (For some reason, I doubled the amount of cabbage.  Not sure what I was thinking at the time.  Probably wasn't thinking at all.)

And here's what you do:

Place corned beef in very large wide pot. 

Add stout (or porter)

and enough water to cover by 1 inch.

   

Wrap cheesecloth around bay leaves, coriander seeds, allspice, and shile, enclosing completely, and tie with kitchen string to secure.  Add spice bag to pot with beef;

bring to boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until beef is tender, about 2  1/4 hours.  Transfer beef to large baking sheet.

Okay - here's a picture of the pre-packaged corned beef when it came out of the pot...

And here's a picture of the ones I brined and cooked according to Bruce Aidell's recipes in Bon Appetit:

I covered both pans with foil and put them in a 200 degree oven to keep them warm.

Add turnips and all remaining vegetables to liquid in pot;

bring to boil.  Reduce heat to medium and boil gently until all vegetables are tender, about 25 minutes.  Using slotted spoon, transfer vegetables to baking sheet with beef.  Return beef to pot and rewarm 5 minutes.  (I didn't need to rewarm the beef, as it was already staying warm in the oven.)  Discard spice bag.

While the vegetables were cooking, I put out a few things for people to nosh on when they arrived.

Here we have an assortment of Carr's crackers, a piece of smoked Sockeye salmon, a wedge of Wensleydale cheese with cranberries, and a block of aged Irish cheddar. 

Bill also bought oysters - 2 dozen - but I was too busy chatting and then slurping down the oysters once he'd shucked them to take any pictures.  Sorry.

Cut beef against grain into 1/4-inch thick slices.  Arrange beef and vegetables on platter.  Serve with Horseradish Cream and Guinness Mustard.

Starting with the potato at twelve o'clock and going clockwise, we've got some of the cabbage, carrots, a half of a turnip, half an onion, the Guinness mustard, the corned beef (the one I brined), Horseradish cream, and parsnips.

People sampled both versions of the corned beef and based on verbal feedback and evidence when the table was cleared, everyone preferred the home-brined corned beef. 

 

It has a distinctive, more complex, spicier flavor than the pre-packaged one.  It was just more interesting to eat.  I'll definitely make this again.

To recap, here's a shot of everything I'd made for this meal:

Brining the Briskets

Irish Whiskey Soda Bread

Royal Hibernian Brown Loaf

Horseradish Cream, Guinness Mustard

Lemon Sponge Pie with Chocolate Pastry Crust

I heartily recommend making this corned beef some time.  Sure, it's too late to make it for this year's St. Patrick Day dinner, but so what?  It'll taste good any day of the week.

And the leftover beef (and you should plan on making enough so that you DO have leftovers) will be nice in sandwich form,

or, my family's favorite - as corned beef hash.

Come back later for that one!

Lemon Sponge Pie with Chocolate Pastry Crust

For our Corned Beef Dinner I made a double batch of this Lemon Sponge Pie recipe, but instead of a standard pie crust, I made one with cocoa powder.  Chocolate and lemon go nicely together, so I figured I was onto something with the flavor combination.  The other nice feature is visual - the dark crust frames the golden yellow filling - it punches up the lemony yellow by providing contrast.

I made 2 tarts and 2 pies, and I should have just done 3 items.  On one hand, I wanted to make sure there would be enough for everyone.  (We were a total of 9 on Friday  night - and 3 were children.  I'm not sure WHY I expected us to go through that much dessert, but I just knew I didn't want to run out.  It would have been bad form, I suppose.) 

I made the dough for the crust on Thursday.  I'll give you the measurements I used, but if you've got a favorite pie crust recipe, I would say you're probably safe just adding some cocoa powder to the flour.  I used a quarter cup of cocoa powder for a 2-crust pie recipe, and it worked out nicely.  I like cocoa powder because you get a rich, chocolate flavor without any added sweetness.  You might have a bit of sugar in your crust recipe, and odds are the filling is pretty sweet, too, so you don't need any additional sweetness.  Just the rich chocolate flavor is fine.

Enough babbling.  Here's the chocolate crust info:

Oh - the recipe I used this time was from The Best Recipe, by the editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine.  Cook's Illustrated approaches recipes from a test kitchen point of view.  Very scientific in the way their cooks sort through all the possible ways to make something - like a pie crust - and explain what happened as they tried various proportions, cooking times, and processes.  It's a great magazine for people that like to know why.  The book is a compilation of all of these experiments and explanations. 

I have used their method for cooking roast beef (seared brown on the outside and the slow-cooked in a 200 degree oven - it's sublime) and I've tried various recipes from Cook's Illustrated over the years.  I trust them. 

So here's the pie crust they have designated "The Best."

American Pie Dough for Fruit Pies

(For one double-crust 9 inch pie)

2   1/2 cups all-purpose flour,

plus extra for dusting dough and work surface

1 tsp salt

2 T sugar

12 T unsalted butter, chilled, cut into 1/4-inch pieces

8 T all-vegetable shortening, chilled

6-8 T ice water

(and for my chocolate crust - 1/4 cup cocoa powder)

And here's what you do:

1.  Mix flour, salt, and sugar (and cocoa powder) in food processor fitted with steel blade.

Scatter butter pieces over flour mixture, tossing to coat butter with a little of the flour.  (Because I had doubled the recipe, I didn't have room in my food processor to cut the butter in.  So I put it all in my larger stand mixer.)

Cut butter into flour with five 1-second pulses.  Add shortening and continue cutting in until flour is pale yellow and resembles coarse cornmeal, with butter bits no larger than small peas, about four more 1-second pulses.

Okay, I need to interrupt here because at this point I stopped following the Best Recipe's method.  Their recipe says to pour the flour/butter mixture into a bowl and sprinkle the ice water on top, and use a rubber spatula and a folding motion to work the water into the flour without overworking it.  I didn't do that. 

Also - with the cocoa powder in there, your flour isn't going to be pale yellow.  It's going to be brown with flecks of white (shortening) and yellow (butter).

To continue - I added the ice water, a couple of tablespoons at a time, to the flour mixture.

Drizzle water, then pulse.  Drizzle, pulse.  It really didn't take much water or many pulses to achieve a workable dough.

Form the dough into a ball

wrap in plastic,

and refrigerate at least half an hour before rolling it out.

Okay, now let's say some time has passed.  In my case, a day, as I made mine on Thursday and baked the pies/tarts on Friday (with help from my petite assistant, Julia).  Before you mix up the filling, you need to roll out the dough and get it into your tart or pie crusts into their pans and back in the fridge so the dough can stay chilled.  (If the dough is room temp when it goes into the oven, the already-warm fats will quickly and your crust will be kind of gummy beneath the filling.)

Take the dough out of the fridge and divide it in half if you're making two pies/tarts, or in quarters if, like me, you're making four.

Lightly flour your work surface and flatten one portion of dough slightly with your hands,

and then roll out your dough to the desired shape.  (One of my tart pans was rectangular, the other one and the two pie plates were round.)  Use flour sparingly to prevent the dough from sticking to your work surface or the rolling pin, and turn the dough in between rolls to keep the thickness and the shape uniform.

I rolled my dough out to about a quarter inch thickness or so.  The dough is rather fragile, so once you've got it the right size and shape, you can roll the dough back onto the rolling pin

and then unroll onto your pan.

Gently fit the dough down into the inner corners.  If it's a tart pan, trim off the excess right along the edge of the pan...

and if it's a pie pan, trim the dough to a uniform length of excess along the edge of the pan.  Tuck the dough edge under and press together.  Crimp the edges with your knuckles or fingers...or press down with the tines of a fork.  Whatever makes you happy.  I like to practice my crimping.

My assistant thinks my crimping still needs some more practice.

Okay - now get those pans back in the fridge and make the filling....

I've posted the recipe for Lemon Sponge Pie before, but what the heck - it's worth repeating. 

My mom got this recipe from a friend years and years ago, and for a while it became my birthday cake - because although I like to decorate them, I don't really like to eat them all that much. 

Here's what you need:  (keep in mind that in all the pictures, you'll be seeing a doubled version of this recipe)

3 T unsalted butter

1  1/4 C sugar

4 eggs, separated

3 T flour

a dash of salt

1  1/4 C milk

Grated rind of two lemons

1/3 C fresh lemon juice

And here's what you do with it:

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Beat in the egg yolks,

flour, salt, milk, lemon peel and juice. Set aside.

In separate, VERY CLEAN, dry bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff

but not dried out.

Fold the meringue

into

the lemon mixture

and pour into your pie shells.

Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

Lower the oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake until golden on top, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. This will be about 45 minutes or so, depending on your oven.

Let cool on a rack, and then put it in the fridge for a few hours or overnight.

A little story for you from last night.  We served up the lemon sponge tart with some fresh whipped cream (a half pint of heavy cream whipped with about a teaspoon of vanilla and two tablespoons of sugar), and someone said it was delicious, or very good, or something along those lines.

And Julia, without looking up from her plate, said "Thank you very much." 

"I made it all by myself," she added. 

Corned Beef Dinner - Briefly

It went really well. 

Just wanted to start off by saying that.  People really seemed to like the corned beef - the one I've been working on one way and another since last week and have been posting about just as long. 

I've got a bunch of pictures to go through so I can put these last few corned beef-themed posts together, and I thought I'd be able to do it this morning, but other things came up and I've barely made a dent.

I will say, just as an FYI, that if you have the inclination, brining your own brisket is the way to go.  The final product was so much more aromatic, so much more flavorful, than the pre-brined one I bought at the store.  I'm so glad I did this.  Sure, I had to start it over a week ahead of time, but for most of the time, the brisket just hung out in the fridge, brining away all by itself.  (Or themselves, since there were 4 briskets.) 

And the Horseradish Cream and the Guinness Mustard?  Dee-licious. 

I've got leftover corned beef also, and tomorrow morning I'll be serving hash.  Probably start putting that together tonight.

But for now?  I've still got some dishes to clean up from last night.  And Julia wants a snack.  And Alex has a friend coming over in a little over an hour.  And so on. 

Be back later.

Taking Five

Yes, it's Corned Beef day today.  I've got lemon sponge pies and tarts in the oven - Julia helped measure ingredients for the filling earlier.  And in a moment, I'll be taking the briskets out of their briney baths and wrapping them in plastic til a bit later this afternoon.  I've got vegetables to prep and some tidying up to do...a table to set...serving plates and so forth to decide upon...and then about mid afternoon the cooking will begin.

I'm in heaven.

I've got the camera nearby and I'm taking pictures of all these food-related processes, and my goal is to get that all posted in the morning. 

But for now - I think it's time to put the laptop in the other room. 

I'll be back tomorrow to let you know how everything turned out. 

Wish me luck!

Corned Beef Project: Day 8 - Royal Hibernian Brown Loaf

This one is from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads, but I found this sort of recipe - a brown soda bread - in just about all of the bread books I was looking through.  I didn't find the American version until I checked in with King Arthur.  And it makes sense - raisins would be more likely used for special occasion breads, holiday breads.  And I don't even know if raisins were all that common an ingredient in Ireland long ago.  I kind of doubt it.

Here's what Mr. Clayton had to say about this recipe:

     "The Irish national loaf is brown soda bread, and this version from the Royal Hibernian Hotel in Dublin is one of the best - and richest.  The hotel serves the bread warm and thinly sliced.  Its richness comes from a generous portion of butter and eggs.

     It is a striking loaf when it comes from the oven, unfolded like a giant blossom along cuts across the top."

So anyway - this is not a particularly sweet bread, although there is a bit of sugar in it.  The rather coarse texture reminds me of cornbread, and the flavor is dark and hearty and no-nonsense.

Ready?  Here's what you will need:

2   1/2 cups whole wheat flour, stone ground preferred

1 cup all-purpose flour, approximately

2 T sugar

1   1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, room temperature

1 egg

1   1/4 cups buttermilk, room temperature (I used a tablespoon of white vinegar plus enough milk to bring it up to a cup and a quarter)

And here's what you do:

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F twenty minutes before baking.

(Directions for using food processor follow, because that's what I used.)

Attach the steel blade.

Place the whole-wheat flour in the work bowl and add the sugar, soda and salt. 

Pulse to blend.  Drop in the butter

and pulse 2 (or more, if needed) times to cut it into small pieces.

In a bowl beat the egg and buttermilk together.  Pour the mixture through the feed tube.

Turn the machine on briefly to allow the flour to absorb the liquid.  Let stand for 3 minutes to allow the flour to fully absorb the buttermilk.

Add 1/2 cup white flour through the feed tube, and turn on the processor only long enough to mix in the flour.  The dough is not to be kneaded.  Remove and feel the dough.  If it is wet, add more flour, but frugally.  Scrape from the bowl and pat into a ball with the hands.  Sprinkle with flour if necessary to control the stickiness.  (I used about 3/4 of a cup of the flour.  It will vary, depending on temp and humidity in your kitchen.)

Shape into a plump round ball. 

Pat down the top slightly, and with a knife or razor blade cut a half inch deep cross on the top.

Place the loaf on the baking sheet, and bake until it has browned and has opened dramatically along the cuts, about 45 minutes.

Remove the bread from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool before cutting into thin slices.

 

Although it can be frozen, it is better freshly baked. 

Like I said, it's not all that sweet - but it's flavorful with a hearty texture, and I think it will make a nice accompaniment to out dinner tonight.

Corned Beef Project: Day 8 - Irish Whiskey Soda Bread

Could also be called American Irish Whiskey Soda Bread, because of the addition of carroway seeds and raisins (or in this case, because I was feeling wild and daring, I used half currants and half golden raisins).  The recipes I found for Irish Irish Soda Breads didn't have these extras.  I'll post one of those recipes as well.

Soda breads (which use baking soda for leavening instead of yeast) are quick and easy to make, so if you're new to breads and hesitant to mess with yeast (which you shouldn't be), give something like this a try.

Anyway - I made two breads yesterday during my prepping frenzy.

First up, this recipe, which I found in The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook on page 79.  The notes say

"Here's another American version from Michael Jubinsky.  This one contains baking powder to help with the leavening and is flavored with Irish Whiskey."

The first recipe I'd looked at (on page 78) was for "American Irish Soda Bread" - and the only reason I didn't make that one is because it calls for cornstarch, and, surprise surprise, I'm all out.  So I went with the other one.  And I'll be perfectly happy to stick with this one, because it is delicious.

Here's what you need:

4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

3 T sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

4 T (1/2 stick) butter (cut into small pieces)

1   1/2 cups raisins (or in this case, half currants and half golden raisins)

1 tsp caraway seeds (optional)

1 T Irish whiskey (or water)

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk (or, if you're brain-dead like I am at times, and you don't HAVE any buttermilk, you can substitute the following - put one tablespoon white vinegar

or lemon juice in a measuring cup and add enough milk to bring it to one cup. 

Let it sit for about five minutes so it can curdle slightly - yes - that's kind of what happens when you sour milk - and you can use this in place of buttermilk.  It's not an exact match, but it will suffice.)

And here's what you do:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Combine and blend thoroughly the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda in a bowl.  (I used my food processor.)

Cut or rub in with your fingers (or pulse), the butter

until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.

In another bowl, mix the raisins with the whiskey or water. 

Blend these and the caraway seeds (if you choose to add them) with the flour mixture.

Beat the eggs and stir all but one tablespoon (reserve in a small bowl) into the buttermilk.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir onlly enough to combine the two.

Place the dough on a lightly floured surface.  Knead it 8 to 10 times until it comes together as a whole.

 

Form the dough into a round ball and place it in a well-greased, 8 inch round cake pan or casserole dish.

Brush the top with the reserved egg.  Cut a 4 inch cross in the top of the dough with a sharp, floured knife.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove the loaf from the pan and cool on a wire rack. 

I wish you could smell this. 

I really do.

Slice thin and serve with butter and jam.

Go make some.  You know you want to.

Corned Beef Project: Day 8 - The Condiments

We're getting close to the finish line.  A week ago I prepared the brine according to the directions by Bruce Aidells in the March issue of Bon Appetit Magazine.  This past Monday I turned the pieces of brisket over in their brine for the other half of their 8-day brine soak.  Tomorrow night I'll be cooking it - and an assortment of vegetables, including, of course, cabbage.  I've also purchased a pre-packaged, pre-brined corned beef brisket to cook at the same time, for comparison purposes.  We've got some people coming over for dinner to help with the whole eating part of it.

Today I made the two sauces provided in the same article.

First up -   

Horseradish Cream

1 cup sour cream

6 tablespoons prepared white horseradish

1 T finely chopped dill pickle

1 T chopped fresh chives or green onion tops

(Alex volunteered to pick early chives for me from our garden.  He didn't pick enough the first time, so I sent him back for more.  Still not enough, but I didn't want to send him back again, so I added some minced shallot instead.)

Whisk all ingredients in small bowl to blend. 

Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.  Can be made 2 days ahead.  Keep refrigerated.

Pretty easy, right?

And here's the second one:

Guinness Mustard

(oops - I just realized I goofed this one up a bit.  See my italics below.)

1/2 cup coarse-grained Dijon mustard

2 T regular Dijon mustard (not paying attention - I used half a cup)

2 T Guinness Stout or other stout or porter (I used a porter that Bill made)

1 T minced shallot

1 tsp golden brown sugar

Whisk all ingredients in small bowl to blend. 

Cover and refrigerate.  Can be made 2 days ahead.  Keep refrigerated.

(The additional Dijon doesn't seem to be a problem - it tasted pretty good when I tried the mixture.)

And so those are the recipes for these two condiments.  I also have a selection of mustards, including a cranberry mustard that is particularly yummy.  So I think I'm all set in this department.

Risotto with Artichoke Hearts, Crabmeat and Shrimp

I made this last night.  I first made risotto about 4 years ago, I think, and kicked myself for not making it sooner.  It's ultimate soft starchy comfort food, and once you've got the basic procedure down, you can be as creative as you want.

My favorite risotto is with mushrooms.  But Alex doesn't like mushrooms, and I was trying to make something he would like.  (It didn't work.  He's not big on starchy comfort food.)  So I thought he'd like something with seafood.  I also had a can of artichoke hearts and thought they'd go nicely with the seafood.  They did, and would have gone even better if I'd used fresh.  Same with the crabmeat.  Ah well.  It was still pretty yummy.

Here's what I did...

I got 3 cloves of garlic

and cut them into skinny slivers.

And I cut a chunk of red onion

into small pieces, but not too small.

I got the rest of the fresh basil that was in the fridge

And gave it a rough chop.  And I opened a can of artichokes - plain, not marinated -

rinsed them,

and quartered them.

Next up - two cans of lump crab meat. 

I dumped the meat and the liquid in a measuring cup.  Next time I think I'll leave out the liquid - it tasted of can.

I also got out some chicken stock and put it in a pot on the stove over a medium flame to keep it warm.  I used about 6 cups of the chicken stock (roughly)

and 2-3 cups of dry white wine (just grabbed something I had on the rack)

and - no, this is not traditional, but I had some left and wanted to use it up - some of this (inexpensive) caviar spread -

it's got a nice mild salty fish taste.  I had about 2-3 tablespoons of the stuff, and I used all of it.  Obviously this isn't required.

I used two types of cheese - asiago and aged parmesan.

some butter (which I didn't photograph), and, of course, olive oil.  Extra virgin.

2 cups of Arborio rice

salt and pepper (to taste)

and about a pound of shrimp - 51/60 size.

I put the shrimp in some water to thaw (so I could peel them)...

Then I got out my big 14 inch saute pan, put it on the power burner on my stovetop, on medium high, and drizzled on some olive oil.

Once the oil was hot, the first thing I did was partially cook the shrimp.  I wanted some of the shrimp flavor to infuse the oil.  I didn't want to cook it all the way, because I wanted it to finish cooking in the risotto, but I also didn't want to leave the shrimp in there for the whole cooking process, because it would get tough.  So I went the half now/half later route.

I cooked the shrimp until they were just pink on both sides (I'm about halfway there in this picture)

Once the shrimp were where I wanted them, I removed them from the oil and set aside in a bowl.  Then I added my onion and garlic to the oil and sauteed til they were soft.

Next, I poured in the rice

And stirred it around in the oil until the rice was translucent.  (Below - almost there!)

Next up - a ladle of the chicken stock, that has been warming in a pot on another burner.

And I stirred and stirred until the liquid was just about absorbed.  Next up - a cup of the wine:

And more stirring. 

(Making risotto (at least, this way) is kind of like that song

"To ev'ry thing (turn, turn, turn)

There is a season (turn, turn, turn)"

Only the Making Risotto song would be more like this:

"Pour in your stock (stir, stir, stir)

Then add some wine and (stir, stir, stir)")

Um, yeah.  Anyway...

Next, I thought I'd add my artichokes.  I wanted them to absorb flavor from the wine and onion and garlic.  So I moved the rice to the edges of the pan and sauteed the artichokes in the middle for a little bit. 

I'm not sure if I'd do the same thing next time.  For one thing, I'd go with fresh artichokes or leave them out.  For another, maybe I'd sautee the artichokes with some onion in a separate pan and add it in later.  Just some thoughts.

I stirred the artichokes into the rice and then, what the hey, I thought, I added another cup of wine.

More stirring until the liquid was just about absorbed...

And I took a look at the rice to see how it was coming along. 

You can see the rice is still partly translucent in the above picture.  I chewed a few grains, just to see how far along things were, and the rice was still pretty crunchy.  So - more chicken stock and more stirring.

It's a slow process; a labor of love.  It really doesn't take an eternity, and to me, there's something meditative about stirring the rice and watching (and feeling) it change.

Here it is a little later - very little translucency at this point.  It's still not finished, but it's more than halfway there.  Oh, and I added in the basil, too.

I figured this was a good time to stir in the caviar spread.

Once the rice is al dente - or softer if you prefer - it's time to finish things up.  Turn the heat off and stir in some butter (I used 3 tablespoons) (the butter is optional)...

 

And finally, the cheeses.  I didn't measure. 

I'm guessing I used about half a cup each of shredded asiago

and parmesan.

And that was it.

Next time - nothing canned.  Or I'll find a way to rid the canned items of their canned taste.  But otherwise the risotto came out just fine - creamy and comforting.

Swoon-Inducing

Hi again.

I have a loaf of American Irish Whiskey Soda Bread that I got from the King Arthur Flour Baking book - and oh, my, god, is this smelling ever good. 

I'm also going to make aNOTHER loaf of bread - this one a Royal Hibernian Brown Loaf, which is made with whole wheat flour (mostly) and has neither raisins nor carroway seeds in it. 

I'm thinking that risotto recipe may not get finished til the weekend - I have so much else to post - hopefully tonight. 

In the meantime, pardon me - the scent of bread is overpowering - I don't think I can type any more now.

Update:  Surprise!  I finished the risotto post.  Woo - hoo!

Today's List of Things to Accomplish

(As if I write such lists on a daily basis!  Ha!)

Anyway, in an attempt to organize my scattered thoughts, here goes...

1.  clean out the fridge (to make some space)

2.  Make chocolate dough for lemon sponge tarts

3.  Make American Irish Soda Bread (why the distinction?  Because I bought carraway seeds, dammit, and I need to use them somewhere.  The traditional Irish Irish Soda Bread doesn't contain carraway - and I don't even LIKE carraway seeds, but since I bought them, I need to use them.)

4.  Make Horseradish Cream and Guinness Mustard from the recipes in Bon Appetit to go with the Corned Beef dinner tomorrow night.

5.  Prep the vegetables for tomorrow - peel, chop, slice, dice - whatever they need.  Except the potatoes, because they'll get brown.  And I don't need to peel them anyway.  So never mind that part.

6.  Finish that risotto post.

7.  Tidy up the dining room.

8.  Tidy up the kitchen.

9.  Is that all?  I thought I had more to do.  Hm.  Oh well.  Since the list isn't so bad, perhaps I'll actually get it all done!

I'll be back a bit later....

Running Around a Bit

This morning I bought just about all the extra things I'll need to make the corned beef dinners tomorrow night.  And dessert.  And some cheese and crackers to start with.

And all of a sudden my sluggish brain remembered another idea I'd had - I'll make Irish Soda Bread, too!  Glad I remembered. 

AND...I've got a risotto recipe that i'm nearly done with, but what with the lizard funeral and my stupid digital self-mutilation yesterday, I just haven't finished it as quickly as I'd wanted to.  And the shopping. 

I know.  If I spent less time whining...

Anyway, I'll be back later. 

A Little Tip

You know how on TV those really good chefs hold an onion and slice away really fast?  And the hand that holds the onion in place has the fingertips curled under so the side of the blade slides down the knuckles, and no blood is shed?

I really need to work on that. 

Oh, I've got the fast slicing down, but the curling the fingers under part...not so much.

I was slicing away at a cucumber and then off came several layers of the tip of my left index finger.  I found the bit of skin stuck to a slice of cuke.  I tossed it, in case you were wondering.

Now I have a Curious George bandaid on my finger and it's really hard to type.

For example.  Here's how this post would have looked if I hadn't looked at the keys and fixed things as I went along:

"You know how on rc rhose eaally good cheds hold an onion and slice away eeally dastr?  And rhe hand trhat holds thw onion in place has rthe dingertips cuerled under so ther side od the blade slides down thw knuckles, and no vlood is shed?

I ewally need to woek on thatr."

I think you get the picture.'

In case you don't - here's one:

Learn from me:  Work on those knife skills!!  Or suffer my fate!

Circle of Life, Part 2

After we brought Julia to daycare this morning, Alex and I set about the business of mourning Dinoraptosaurus.  Alex had the day off from school because the teachers have a professional development day, and the timing couldn't be better in light of last night's traumatic event.

Alex wanted pictures of Dinoraptosaurus (henceforth to be known as D because it's quicker to type) "so I can always remember him," so we went through the digital stuff I had on flickr and on this site, and printed up about 10 pictures.  Not just of D, but also of the gecko we had briefly (I don't remember his name.) and the two frogs that we had before we got the other anole...the remaining anole...the vicious killer anole.

Anyway, while the printer slowly spit out the pictures, Alex said he wanted to draw a picture of ALL the lizards and frogs, so he did that while I waited for the photos.  I cut the photos apart, and Alex showed me the picture he drew.  Sort of a fantasy amphibian/reptilian family portrait.  We put that picture on the wall near the lizard tank.  So the other lizard can look at it.

Brief detour for a moment:

It's a darned good bet that the other lizard, whom Alex has named Cricket-Catcher but I prefer to call Brutus, couldn't care less about the recently deceased D or any of his predecessors.  He just wants to eat.  He does not miss D, or think about D at all.  But if Alex wants to believe that CC (or B) is grieving, then so be it.  I'll play along. 

Okay, back to this morning.  Next project was for Alex to put up the pictures we'd printed.  I told him he could hang them on walls, but not on furniture.  His thing was he wanted to put them in the rooms he usually is in, and in places where he could see them easily.  To remember.

He started in the dining room.  There is one picture on the back of the pantry door.  Alex faces this door when he's in his seat at the dinner table. 

Next - two in the kitchen.  One on the fridge, and one taped to the back door.

Two in the living room.  One on the wall next to his bed.  One in the basement on the wall near the light switch.

And, my favorite, one in the main floor bathroom, on the wall next to the toilet, about eye-height for anyone who might be spending some quality time in there.

I'd say he covered all the bases.

At one point during the picture hanging, Alex had to put them down and watch cartoons for about fifteen minutes, just to compose himself.

And the last thing we needed to do was the burial.

I told Alex I'd put D in a box and we'd bury him in a flower garden.  Alex wanted to make a sign.  A marker.  So I had to figure out how to go about that.

Oh, and it was pouring rain all morning. 

We started with the coffin.  Alex took the ziploc body bag out of the fridge (I've been re-reading Patricia Cornwell lately - it seems fitting) and I removed D from inside, and set him down on the table, on his tissue. 

Alex cried and said goodbye and cried some more while I taped a Children's Tylenol box together for a coffin.  I wrapped D in a sheet of paper towel, slid him inside - perfect fit, by the way - and taped the box closed.

Alex cried some more and I tried to figure out how to make some sort of marker that wouldn't disintegrate in the rain. 

I melted a popsicle under hot water so I could use the stick.  And I used D's ziploc body bag to cover the construction paper marker (which I glued to the popsicle stick).

Alex dictated the words to me and I wrote them down as he spoke.

The marker (in case you can't read it clearly) says:

"Bye, Dinoraptosaurus.

I'm gonna bury you at my house.

You had wonderful friends.

I am crying."

I wrote "Love," and Alex signed his name.

Beside the marker is D's coffin.

D was laid to rest outside in front of the sunken boat in the big garden in our front yard.  Alex held the umbrella while I dug cold mud with a trowel and my fingers.  I placed the box in the hole and covered it back up with dirt (okay, mud), and stuck the marker behind the mound.  We placed a stepping stone that Alex made last summer on top of the mound, and once again we bade D farewell.

There have been more bouts of crying as the day has gone on, but already they are coming with less frequency and for a shorter duration.

In between the tears, he wants to know when we can get another lizard - "another friend for Cricket Catcher."  I'm leaving that timeline up to Bill.  He's in charge of all the fish, frogs and lizards in the family.

I'm in charge of their funerals.

Circle of Life, Part 1

Bill got home later than usual last night.  He'd worked all day and then met with a flute player to rehearse for a couple of upcoming concerts.  So he arrived here around seven thirty and I reheated some dinner for him, and after Alex showed off the tooth in the zip loc bag and the gap in his mouth, Alex went back to watch Max and Ruby on Noggin and Bill and I sat in the living room and rehashed events from our respective days.

Bill sat in the oversized chair and I was on the loveseat by the window.  Bill had finished the risotto I made and had taken his brown socks off and draped them over his shoulder.  Quite the fashion statement.  The lizard tank and the betta tank are over in the corner to the right of Bill's chair, and during one lull in the conversation he glanced over at the tank and asked "Do we still have two lizards?"

See...we have two anoles (Beth - that aNole, not that other spelling.  heh heh), and the second one that joined the family started out roughly the same size as the first, but over time he has grown. 

I've been calling him Brutus lately.

Ever since that one morning when the kids were at school/daycare, Bill was at work, and I had a couple hours of absolute peace and quiet to myself.  I was sitting on the loveseat (my home office), probably typing up a post, when all of a sudden there was a lot of rustling and commotion in the lizard tank.  I saw what looked like something falling or rolling, and then the motion stopped.  I figured one of the lizards had gone after a cricket they'd missed when Bill fed them earlier (if he had - I wasn't sure), but no...as I peered intently at the tank from my spot halfway across the room, I realized that something disturbing was going on.

Big lizard guy had little lizard guy in a head lock.  In other words, big lizard guy had little lizard guy's head in his mouth.  They were frozen like that, like something you might encounter on Animal Planet right before a commercial break. 

I hurried to the tank and tapped rapidly on the glass, but big lizard guy did nothing.  So I grabbed the spray bottle we use to "rain" on the plants in the tank, and sent a tsunami at the little lizard tableau. 

That worked - they separated and went to neutral corners.  Well, little lizard guy scurried away and hid somewhere and big lizard guy sullenly ambled up to a leaf near the top of the tank and glared at me.  I dumped a few crickets into the tank to keep him busy and immediately told my sister about the drama.  She'd had a similar experience with the two anoles at her house and had to separate them WITH HER BARE HANDS and now that tank is divided into two chambers by a tight-fitting piece of cardboard.

Eventually my heart stopped racing that day.  But ever since then, there has been a look in big lizard guy's eye....

So back to last night. 

"Do we still have two lizards?"  Bill asked casually, looking over at the tank.  Sometimes it's hard to find the lizards, as they blend in with the leaves, or sometimes with the chunk of bark glued to the back of the tank.

"Yeah, I saw the little guy earlier..." I said, squinting and trying to find his tail somewhere in there. 

And then I could see the shape of little lizard guy - it looked like he was moving up the side of the bark, maybe to sit on top of it. 

"There he is," I said, and before the words were entirely out of my mouth, Bill was out of his chair, brown socks in his hands like sidearms pulled from hidden holsters.  "Hey!" he yelled at the tank, and attacked the tank with his socks.  Next minute, the socks were on the floor and he was taking the heat lamp off the top of the tank and pulling up the screen top. 

"Well," he said grimly, "now we only have one."

What I'd thought was the little guy going up the bark was actually big lizard guy dragging little lizard guy (who was now dead little lizard guy) up the bark - most likely to eat him. 

We have small children.  We don't need THAT much reality going on.  So Bill removed the still-intact corpse of little lizard guy from the tank.  Little lizard guy - also known as Dinoraptosaurus - was still green and fortunately not in bad condition.  Big guy hadn't done anything to him yet.  One of the little guy's legs was bent under his body at an unnatural angle, but otherwise he could have been sleeping.  Bill placed him on a tissue and called for Alex.

I thought - oh, let it wait til tomorrow, he's had such a good day with the tooth falling out and all....  But it was too late.  Alex came upstairs.  Bill told him, without preamble, that Dinoraptosaurus had died.  And he held out the tissue so Alex could view the body.

Alex, naturally, burst into tears.  He bawled.  And just when he seemed to finish and collect himself, he would start in again.  It was the first time he really and truly felt that kind of loss.  We've had a couple of deaths in the family (people, I mean) in 2007, and he knew the people who passed away, but this was different.  This was a pet he'd had as long as he could remember.  And now it was dead.  And that's a sad, sad thing.

Bill started to bring the lizard into the kitchen, and Alex hollered out frantically, through tears and drool, "I don't want you to throw him in the garbage!!!"  Bill assured him he would not.  He was just putting him in a plastic bag in the fridge, and I told Alex we would bury him in the morning.   

What got to Bill and me the most was when Alex (who was not a witness to the ugly drama earlier and will not know anything about it until he's, oh, in his thirties, if I have my way) went over to the tank and spoke to big lizard guy. 

"I'm sorry your friend died..." Alex said.  "I'm sad, too - " and then he started crying again.

It wasn't the first time a lizard pet has died, but the other one (Razzcake - we let Alex name that one too, and Alex was probably two at the time) died when Alex was younger and it just didn't hit him the same way.  Julia, for instance, did not cry last night.  She's just not at that age yet.  It didn't hurt.

Bedtime went later than usual last night.  Alex took his stuffed animal lizard to bed with him "So I'll always remember Dinoraptosaurus" and tried to settle down but the tears kept resurfacing.  I let him come downstairs to hang out with us a bit longer, but then Julia came down too, so they didn't get to bed until eight thirty. 

Finally, they were asleep, Alex's tooth in a ziploc bag under his pillow. 

This morning, Alex found the dollar that the tooth fairy left for him, and he was a bit more...comfortable...with the fact that Dinoraptosaurus had gone to that great tank in the sky. 

But a little while ago, after Bill left for work, I was sitting on the loveseat, checking email on my laptop, and Alex was about to go downstairs and hang out with Julia for a bit, but then he stopped, and I looked up.  His lower lip was trembling, and he said, in a shaky voice, "I wish there was no such thing as the "die" word.  'Cuz then Dinoraptosaurus would still be here."  He started to cry a little bit.  Not much, but some.  Because even in the morning, when the day is new, the sadness does not just disappear.  Not when you love something, or someone, and they are gone.   

"Come here," I said to him, and patted the cushion next to me.  He sat down and snuggled up next to me.  I put my arm around him and rested my cheek on his head. 

"I know, honey.  I know."  I said.

Cakes - Wedding Cake - 1996

 

This one was a project and a half. 

Someone I worked with asked me to make her wedding cake.  I'd never done one before, and frankly, I was scared I'd mess it up somehow.  It's one thing to do funny cakes for peoples' birthdays; quite another to do something serious like a wedding cake.  (Unless it's a funny wedding cake, in which case I'd probably still have been scared of messing up.  Because it's a WEDDING cake.)

Anyway.  The wedding (as you probably have guessed) took place around Christmas time, hence the holly berries and leaves.  The two round white things on top, spewing forth bits of tulle and thin ribbon tongues are actually two bells made of sugar (same process as the snowmen in last week's cake).  If you look at it from the top, they are angled toward each other, with that red bow perched where they meet.  If I were to do it now, I'd figure out a way to have the bells stand up - just so passersby would know that they were, in fact, bells. 

Now, those holly leaves - they were made of gum paste.  Gum paste is a mixture of confectioners sugar, glycerin and gum tragacanth.  It's similar to fondant, but stronger, so you can roll it out very thin and make delicate things like flowers.  It dries hard, like porcelain.  It's edible, if you're starving and on a deserted island and all you have are gum paste flowers that never made it onto a cake before your ship sank...but it's not really meant to be eaten. 

Anyway, I had read about this stuff, and I'd been waiting for an opportunity to work with it.  And what better opportunity than the first wedding cake I'd ever made?  I can't think of one. 

I have a whole batch of little flower petal and leaf cutters that I'd bought back then, for the sole purpose of making something with gum paste some day.  One of the cutters was a holly leaf shape, fortunately, so I didn't have to do every single one with a knife.  The little red holly berries are gum paste, too.

The cake itself was white, and (deja vu all over again) white frosting mixed with strawberry jam lies between the layers and beneath the fondant.  The top part is a two-layer 6" heart, and the bottom is a two-layer 12" heart.  I used royal icing to do all the white decorative work.  And the base is a piece of foam core with (I think) a red foil wrapping paper.

I can remember standing in my tiny kitchen, making those holly leaves.  I did a lot in that little space.

"It just...POPPED OUT!"

He ran down the school steps with his backpack over his right shoulder and a ziploc bag in his left hand, and I knew.

He lost it not long after I'd dropped him off this morning.  He was waiting in the hallway with the other kids, waiting for the bell to ring, waiting to go to his classroom.  He sat there absently pushing the tooth with his tongue.  Back and forth.  Back and forth.  And then "All of a sudden it just POPPED OUT!"  He told me this as we walked past the hopscotch outline on the blacktop.  I swung his hand back and forth, fast, and we hurried to the car.

Laughter and joy bubbled up inside of me and I felt nearly giddy.

I don't know why. 

It's just a tooth.

By a Thread

Alex told me this morning that his loose tooth is VERY wiggly and "it feels like a sharp thing is in there" - and I confess I felt a surge of excitement because I REMEMBER that sharp feeling.  It's the bottom of the tooth, it's poking his gum when the tooth is wiggled, and that means it is SO close to coming out.

I took a look and oh it was so hard NOT to just - Oops! - pull the tooth right out.  It is SO close.  I think it will fall out today.  If I don't lose control and yank it out myself. 

...I don't know why I'm so anxious to pull it out. 

It's not like the tooth fairy's bringing anything for ME....