The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Evidence of My Mania

For the record, I was asked to bring an Italian rice pie or a cheesecake to Easter brunch at my cousin's house.

AN Italian rice pie or A cheesecake.

And this is what I baked today:

 

Pardon the mess.  I like to bake.  I don't so much like to clean.

Anyway.  Yes, that's eight of them.  Now, granted, they're ONLY 8" tarts...so...you know...that's not really a lot, now, is it?

Four are rice, by the way, and four were made with barley.  I'd found a recipe for a Neopolitan Easter Pie, and you could sub barley (which I had) for the wheat (which I didn't have), so that's what I made, and then I subbed rice for the wheat/barley in the recipe and made it that way for the others.  And so yeah, I have 8 Easter pies. 

Well, okay, now I only have 6.  I gave one to our neighbor next door, and one to the older couple across the street.  I also keep spying on our friends' house across the street so that as SOON as I see the other car pull in to the driveway, I can rush over and force a pie on them.  And that'll leave me with only 7.  If I keep one (which I have to - I already cut a slice to make sure it didn't taste awful.  It doesn't) then that'll leave me with 4...and I could just bring all four and "forget" to take the leftovers home with me.  There's a thought.

Anyway, I MIGHT be back later with the recipe for this pie, but I figure you've already got your plans all set for Easter, if you celebrate Easter, that is, and so my last-minute pie isn't going to change things.  At least I hope not.  You'll be baking all night!  Don't do it!  Resist!

I'm tired.  I'm pied out for now.  Talk to you later.

Saturday in the Kitchen

Well, I needed to make bread, first of all.  And I also needed to bake for the upcoming week's Tuesdays with Dorie post.  And, because the week AFTER that is "my" Tuesday - my recipe selection - and because I wanted to be sure to have THAT recipe made well in advance, just in case there were any problems and also so I could be sure to have the post and photos ready in plenty of time, I decided to do that TWD recipe as well.  And since I was making bread, why not make more bread.  I'd cooked the last four russet potatoes in preparation for the potato bread I'd planned to bake, and I also had three big sweet potatoes on the counter that I decided to bake, mainly to clear some space and to cook them before they started to get soft.  And, hmmm...if I'm going to make potato bread...I wonder what it would be like if I used sweet potatoes?  Do I have a sweet potato bread recipe? 

I had no idea.  I poked the sweet potato skins with a knife and popped them in the oven to bake while I flipped through a few bread books.  There were SWEET sweet potato breads - mainly quickbreads and other sweet items.  Nothing savory.  Not in the books I checked, anyway.  And no, I didn't check all of them.  I wasn't in a book-perusing mood.  I was in a cooking and baking mood.  So I made up my own sweet potato bread recipe.  And I'll post that later, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow.  I'm happy with how it turned out, I will say that.

So I made a total of four loaves of bread, a coffee cake, a batch of cookies, and - for dinner - gnocchi.  I only needed one potato for the bread, so I had three left to play with, and gnocchi sounded perfect.  Easy to make, comforting to eat.

Julia had helped a bit with the cookies, and when she saw me peeling a potato, she grabbed a chair from the dining room to stand on and demanded that I let her help.  Once her hair was in a pony tail and an apron was tied around her little waist, she was ready to go.  (Hands washed, too.  Yes, Mommy, with soap!)

She watched me scrape skin off the potatoes, and then helped me put them through the ricer.  She spooned salt, I scooped flour.  She cracked eggs.  I poured olive oil.  We both tossed everything together, taking turns with a fork.  Once the dough was just combined, it was time to make ropes.  Or worms.  She's nearly five.  She's quite familiar with worms.

I didn't take pictures; I've photographed the process before for this site, and I just wanted to get the gnocchi made so I could get dinner ready.

I did, however, ask Bill to take a couple of pictures while Julia and I were working. 

We were standing at the counter - me, barefoot on the floor; Julia, barefoot on her chair.  We wore aprons, our hair was pulled back and out of the way.  Our hands were dusted with flour, and we were intent on our work as we rolled sticky blobs of potato dough into long "worms" of relatively uniform thickness. 

As we worked together, mother and daughter, I had this feeling, as I sometimes do while working in the kitchen, of...of being more than just myself.  And of how, while I am "me" the whole time; I am always "Jayne" no matter how old I am or what my position is in the family - daughter granddaughter niece sister aunt wife mother - I am also NOT the same person. 

The view changes and overlaps and rewinds.  I see things through different eyes and from different perspectives.  It's disconcerting.  I am me, but suddenly I am not just me, watching my daughter's small, slightly awkward, determined hands manipulate dough in an imitation of mine.  I am also my mother watching me, her small daughter.  And I am also her mother, my grandmother, watching.  And one day, perhaps, Julia will be the mother, and she will step into this spot, standing where I am now and feeling the same sense of multiple selves that I do on occasion, while she watches her own daughter try to be a big girl. 

A Closer Look at Meringue

Just because.

Feeding the Boys

Last night we had some college guitar students over for dinner after their juries, or final performance exams.  I think there were 7 of them - not the 12 I had been told originally.  Plus the other classical guitar teacher - that made 8 extra mouths to feed. 

But it was more like 16 or 20.  Doesn't anyone feed these people?

I had some of the food out on the table by the time they started arriving, and Bill, who had zipped home after the juries, was grilling up the flat iron steaks and corn and chicken. 

I took a few pictures of the table before everyone arrived, but that was it.  I'll upload them at some point before the weekend is out. 

I love doing this sort of thing.  Well, I don't enjoy cleaning the house.  But I like cooking for a crowd.  And this crowd was special. 

For one thing, I didn't know any of them, except the other teacher.  And these kids had just finished up the semester by performing in front of both guitar teachers and maybe one other teacher (I think), after working on their performance pieces and scales and finger exercises, and they were, I know, just so glad it was all over with.

Last Sunday, most of the guitar dept (students and teachers) gave a small concert at a church and rather than write a check for the performances, the tradition at this church is to pass the hat.  Bill had thought that it would be nice to take that money and use it to buy the food and have this dinner for the students.  So that's how it all came about.  And we decided after last night that we'll make this a tradition.

They clearly weren't expecting the kind of spread we put out.  I don't know what they did expect, but I don't think it included brie or crab and roasted corn and cheddar quesadillas.  They were actually whispering "wow" when they saw the food.  It was cute. 

And they ATE.  Seconds, thirds.  Good thing there weren't 12 students last night because we wouldn't have had enough food.

Oh - and my kids - especially Julia - were a riot.  Not at all phased with all these strangers coming into the house, eating from out table, playing darts and fooseball in the basement.  Julia, in particular, rose to the occasion as 2nd hostess, sometimes showing the guys where the food was (though they already knew), and directing them to the type of cheese they should try.  "You can cut some of THIS one!"  She knows her foods.  Earlier in the evening, while students were still arriving, she was hungry, and took a plate and said she just wanted "some of this" and helped herself to a small piece of prosciutto.  That was it.  A minute later she was back.  "I'm still hungry,"  she told us.  "But I only want this."  And there went about a quarter of the remaining prosciutto.  Girl knows what she likes.

It was a really nice night.  The guys were polite, appreciative, and nice to (and extremely tolerant of) my kids, which scores the most points with me. 

Anyway, that was last night.  Today I will be attending the Mother's Day Tea at Alex's kindergarten, and I am SO looking forward to that.  He's been wiggling with the job of keeping all the little planned events a secret - not easy for a kindergartener.  He's let a few things slip, but that's okay.  It's like watching the trailers for a much-anticipated film.

Anyway, that's where things are at the moment. 

And here, since I haven't uploaded yesterday's food pictures, is another flower for your viewing pleasure.

Have a good day!

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!

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....

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!

Valentine's Day Ideas to Resume Shortly

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

We Interrupt This Photo Essay on Last Night's Dinner Preparation...

So yesterday Bill (mainly Bill - I was soft shell crab fry cook, dishwasher, and photographer) prepared this absolute FEAST of Japanese food.  Primarily sushi - related things, but not just that.  I'll post the recipes separately, because there are too many to cram into this one post.

But after the meal, and after the clean-up, I uploaded the pictures I'd taken while the meal was being prepared, and what struck me funny were not the pictures of the food, but the unexpected pictures that showed up here and there in between the chronology of the food prep.  Basically what happened was while Bill was making the soft shell crab maki rolls, and I was taking pictures of them, Alex yelled from the other room "Mommy!  Come quick!  The sky is pink!"  And so I just peeked out the kitchen window, saw that yes, the sun was setting and pink clouds dotted the sky, and took a quick step outside to take a few pictures before the pinkness was gone.  Alex knows I will to this, so he is vigilant.

So here's an example of my viewing experience...

Thai Spring Rolls, Green Chicken Curry, Sesame Noodles, and Rice Noodle Soup with Shrimp and Banana Blossoms

Before we had kids, Bill and I used to cook meals together a lot.  When we had kids, that kind of fell by the wayside for a while because someone usually had to tend to a baby or a small toddler or a baby AND a small toddler or two small toddlers...until now.  Now, we've got a kindergartener and a preschooler, and they are amazingly tolerant of their parents' desire to both work on something AT THE SAME TIME. 

So we've started doing that, mainly on weekends.  Sometimes one of us does more of the cooking, and the other one is kind of the assistant and will maybe take charge of one dish.  But still - it's nice to be elbowing each other out of the way and fighting over burner space on the stove top again.

The weekend before last, we did up some Asian dishes.  Now, sometimes we'll stick to a particular country, like Japan or Thailand, when we pick recipes.  Other times, it's just whatever sounds good to us or whatever we have ingredients for.  Bill actually planned ahead for this meal, and went to one of the local Asian markets on Saturday so we'd have everything we needed to cook on Sunday.

Here's some of the haul:

That brownish bud-shaped thing to the right of the limes is a bud from a banana tree.  You peel away the petals and underneath are little skinny banana blossoms that (obviously) haven't bloomed.  They're a couple inches long and the same color as the outer petals.  They don't taste like much, but you can detect a little sweetness.  You could use them like lily buds, though lily buds, to me, have a distinct apricot flavor.

Anyway.  That's what Bill likes to do - he'll pick a couple of items he's never seen before (usually labled "Fresh Vegetable" in English and something in Thai that he can't read.  And sometimes he'll ask what it is, and other times he won't.  It's fun.

He did most of the cooking that Sunday.  My job was the spring rolls.  We got our ideas and actual recipes from two books:  Keo's Thai Cuisine, by Keo Sananikone and published by Ten Speed Press, and Classic Oriental Dishes, edited by Lisa Dyer - a bargain book put out by Smithmark years ago.  We've had these for about ten years - along with a couple of other Thai and Japanese cookbooks we bought one day.  They all bear the splatter stains from frequent use. 

One of the nice things about having a garden (and growing a variety of hot peppers) is that we can make up batches of green and red Thai curries and freeze them in ice cube trays, to use all through the winter.  (I say "we," but this is really Bill's territory.)  So one of the easiest things to do for this meal was the green curry Chicken.  (Extremely easy for me because Bill cooked it.)  All Bill had to do was take out a couple of cubes of the green curry...

 

thaw them, and cut up some chicken,

and throw the whole thing together.  (Those skinny brown things in the upper right are the banana buds, which he used in his soup.) 

It's a delicious, hot/spicy, fragrant dish, and the recipe actually calls for shrimp, but you can use chicken, pork would work, and we've also used tempeh, which is a fermented soybean and grain product that's got a nice non-meat but meaty texture.  For this meal, Bill also added in sliced red chilis (hot), mushrooms, scallions, cilantro, and baby corn.  Here's a little glimpse of the final product....

Bill also made sesame noodles, primarily because if the kids didn't like any of the other stuff, sesame noodles are a sure bet.  He's made these so often he doesn't use a recipe.

And the soup...it was kind of a thrown-together noodle soup using rice noodles and shrimp, cilantro, scallions, banana blossoms and a chicken stock.

I made the Thai spring rolls, as I mentioned, which I've put up in a separate post so it's easier to find later.  But for now...some snapshots of the evening...

Bill at his "station" - the wok and the pot on the back burner are his.  He'd already made the sauce for the sesame noodles, and the noodles themselves were in the warming drawer of our stove.  Those bowls over on the right, near the glass of beer, are all his too.  I have to juggle all my stuff in order to deep fry the spring rolls.  He hogs the whole place....

 

This is the green curry chicken coming together in the wok.

And these (above) are some spring rolls just after I put them in the oil. 

   

Time to eat...

We serve the soup in this...with some sterno in the center to keep it hot and to scare the heck out of Alex when the flame flares up.  Heh heh.  Dinner should be exciting, we say. 

And speaking of exciting, we always put out chopsticks for the kids to use when we have any kind of Asian meals.  Their techniques vary a bit....

They do love their sesame noodles...

They both tried a spring roll and some of the soup.  Julia liked the mushrooms in the soup.  Alex didn't like the soup or the spring rolls - he's a sesame noodles guy, and that's that.  Julia also tried one of the baby corn from the green curry chicken dish, but didn't like the heat from the chilis.  We don't force them to eat everything, especially the spicier dishes, but they can try anything they want.  Sometimes if we don't put something on their plate, they'll want to try it, which is nicer for us than if they just see something odd we've put on their plates and they reject it without even knowing what it is.  Alex will sometimes take a look at a new dish and just tell us he doesn't like it.  But as long as it's not spicy, he has to try it.  Just have a taste.  If he doesn't like it, fine.  But the point is to always try new foods.  To be adventurous. 

For your entertainment

Alex REALLY REALLY wanted to make gingerbread men.  Not just any - he wanted to duplicate the gingerbread man from (what else) the Shrek movies.  So last night we made a batch of gingerbread dough and cut out some cookies, and the kids decorated two each before bath time.  Here they are:

Complete with gumdrop buttons.  Alex's, that is.  Julia's...gumdrop goiters, perhaps.

Was That All??

Well, the other refrigerator repair person came out yesterday.  Bill and I were prepared for more headaches.  Bill has actually been saying he hates the fridge, which I think is a bit extreme for an appliance, but whatever. 

So anyway, the guy comes out and takes a look in there...(I had just brought the kids home and I was taking coats off and herding them downstairs so they wouldn't insist on helping the repair man)...and he told Bill maybe the part they'd replaced the other day was defective or something...so he starts looking in there, and - AHA. 

The wires weren't connected.

That's it.

So he connected the wires, and that was IT. 

I think what probably happened was that the guy-in-training last week had installed the baffle but hadn't connected the wires, and the teacher-guy didn't check that.  Simple oversight.

I'm so glad that's all it was.  And sure enough, once the wires were connected, the arctic air stopped pouring from the little vent thing up in the top back of the fridge, and this morning - ooh!  aah!  the kim chee isn't frozen any more!  My sister's pickled peppers aren't frozen!  The apple juice!  The leftovers!  The grapes!  The brie!  NOT FROZEN!

Bill brought the other foods and the milk and half n half up from the fridge downstairs, and yay, all is right with our little world today.  At least in the fridge.

And now, I've got to get the kids ready to go, and myself.  I had started a post about the other birthday cake I did last week, but I don't have enough time to do it properly, so that will just have to wait until tonight, I think.

Have a lovely day! 

Pizza Making

Well, even though the repair guys from Sears came out on Thursday to fix the fridge, over the weekend, things have gotten WORSE - now in addition to random things freezing in the fridge, now things on the door are freezing too.  And supposedly everything is fixed.  HA!  And also - the water line in there is frozen (I assume) because while the icemaker is working just fine, the water won't come out now.  It was working Saturday.  It did not work on Sunday.  Bill called the repair center on Saturday to get someone out here and Wednesday was the first available appointment.  I called again this morning, because of the water line, thinking that maybe I could get someone out sooner, but NO.  Wednesday is apparently the first available date.  Lovely. 

So instead of continuing to rant and rave about that, I'm just going to put up a few pictures of the kids from when we made pizza a couple of weekends ago. 

There.  That's better than my annoying refrigerator stories.

Mission Accomplished

I spent the majority of yesterday making birthday cakes.  Well, technically one was a pie, but it was for birthday purposes.  I'll post pictures tomorrow probably.  I haven't uploaded them yet, and right now I just want to SIT.  I need to get some kind of cushiony matt or something for the kitchen floor.  Tile just isn't all that comfy after a while.

Yesterday was also fun because I had to have Sears send someone out to figure out why items in our refrigerator were frozen solid.  Not all of them, mind you.  Which was pretty weird.  A jar of my sister's pickled peppers was frozen, but a bottle of water on the same shelf wasn't icy at all.  Weird. 

But thanks to the wonders of computer technology, the men figured out the problem, and after hacking off my left arm and right leg and giving them Alex (my firstborn), they replaced the broken part (a baffle wasn't working in the cooling thingy and so it wouldn't close when the fridge was too cold.  Just kept blowing the cold air in.) and went on their way.

So yes, it was a day of many events. 

I'm tired - forgive me if I make no sense.

Tonight is dinner at my parents' house - the double birthday dinner for my sister and her son.  Two of the cakes are for them.  I wouldn't post pictures of those today anyway, because they're surprises.

I'm so glad it's Friday. 

Summer's End Lasagne

I started making dinner around nine this morning.  After yesterday's summer-like heat, this morning there was a very chilly breeze shaking up the leaves and cooling things down.  The perfect day to make a sauce...

First thing I did, after breakfast, was to slice up tomatoes and roast them in the oven, drizzled generously with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper.  I had two 13 x 9 pyrex baking dishes and a slightly smaller le cruset pan.  I roasted them for a couple of hours, maybe three, in a 325 degree oven.  The smallest pan had cherry tomatoes and yellow grape tomatoes - they finished up first.  The other two pans stayed in another 45 minutes or so. 

When they were done to my liking, I dumped them in a pot, making sure to scrape in all the oil.  Here's what it looked like:

Then I added half a medium yellow onion, chopped, and a big tablespoonful (or two) of the roasted garlic I made recently:

(The roasted garlic had been in the fridge, so the olive oil was kind of solidified and looks like chicken fat - but it's not.  It's olive oil - the HEALTHY kind of fat.  So be not afraid!)

Next - I poured in a slug of red wine and about a quart of beef stock.  I'm shooting for a darker, richer kind of sauce, not a bright, fresh, summery sauce.  Just so you know.  Anyway - the liquids added:

I brought this mixture up to a slow boil and then dropped it down to low and simmered it for a couple hours, stirring it every now and then.

After the first hour, it looked like this:

Can you smell that????

Go ahead, lean closer...

Hungry yet?  I hope not, we're not even close to done.

After a couple of hours, shut off the heat and let it cool a bit.  Then move the tomato mixture into a large bowl and put your Stainless Steel Foley Food Mill on top of the original stock pot like so:

And ladle in about half the tomato mixture.

Now crank that handle around - clockwise - to smush all the cooked-down flesh and the liquids out of the mixture and into the pot.  You want to leave nothing behind but seeds and skins and bits of onion.

And the sauce now lookes like this:

So, next thing I did was to add another pint or so of the beef stock a good slug or so of more red wine.  Set the pan on low heat.  And then Julia and I went outside to raid the garden.

I called this "Summer's End Lasagne" because originally I was going to make Eggplant Parmesan.  Bill said there were several eggplants out in the garden, and I didn't bother to actually look at them.  I just figured there would be enough.  Which, of course, was silly of me.  For one thing, we didn't grow BIG eggplants anyway.  And I knew, somewhere in my disorganized head, that "several" really wasn't going to amount to much.  But I didn't feel like shopping for backup eggplants, so I just figured I'd do SOMETHING with whatever I had.  And I knew I had plenty of lasagne noodles (and other pasta shapes) kicking around, so the sauce would not be made in vain.  Anyway, so instead of eggplant parm, this became more of a gathering of whatever was still growing out there in the garden.  In October.

Here's what I collected:

Some vegetables and some herbs.

First - the eggplant:

Three little skinny little Japanese eggplants, and three plump little Italian eggplants.  Not really enough for eggplant parm.  But that's okay.  I took off the green and sliced them up into "coins."  I left the skins on - the fruit is too young for the skin to be tough. 

Side note:  BEWARE OF THE THORNS!!

The Italian eggplant has nasty little thorns at the stem end - like little needles.  And yes, they hurt.  See how sharp and vicious they are?  Steer clear of them!

Anyway, in addition to the eggplant, I found two little baby zucchini:

Adorable, huh?  I trimmed the stem ends off and the blossom, and cut these into coins as well.

I also decided to add some fresh herbs to the sauce.  So I picked these:

They are, starting at 12:00 - sweet basil, arugula (okay, not an herb), parsley, summer thyme, oregano, and a little sprig of rosemary.  The arugula is nice and peppery, and it's still growing out there, so I plucked some.

I cleaned all the greenery and picked leaves off of stems and put all the leaves into the food processor, ladled a bit of olive oil from the tomato sauce in there too, and processed them til they looked like this:

I suppose I could have chopped it all with a knife, but to be honest, I was making this whole thing up as I went along, and I wasn't sure how I was going to use my herb mixture yet.  I think maybe I was thinking it would be a sort of pesto texture.  It wasn't, by the way.  And I ended up just scraping it all into the sauce.

Like so:

I let that simmer while I got the rest of the ingredients ready.  Which wasn't much.  I hadn't really shopped for this meal, so I went with what I had.  We had sliced provolone and sliced muenster cheese, so I took that out of the fridge.  My parents were here this morning and brought bagels and cream cheese from Dunkin Donuts.  There were five little single-serving portions of plain cream cheese left in the fridge.  I took them out, too.  I mixed the cream cheese with two eggs and some grated romano cheese.  I took the boxes of lasagne noodles down from the cupboard above the stove, got one of the 13 x 9 pyrex pans from the morning's tomato roasting, preheated the oven to 325, and started assembling.

I spread a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of the pan, then a layer of lasagne noodles.  I used the no-bake kind, but really, if you cook it long enough and have enough liquid, you can just use regular lasagne noodles - the heat and moisture will cook the noodles, and they'll absorb the sauce as they cook.  On top of the noodles, I ladled a little more sauce and then a third of the cream cheese mixture.  I spread the mixture across the tops of the noodles, and then added half the eggplant and zucchini coins.  Then some slices of provolone, sauce, noodles, sauce and cream cheese, eggplant and zucchini, cheese slices, sauce, noodles, sauce and cream cheese, the remaining slices of provolone and muenster, and the last of the sauce.  I spread the sauce out over the cheese so it would all be covered, and here's how it looked:

I covered it with foil and put it in the oven.

45 minutes later, I took the foil off and it looked like this:

I let it cook for another 45 minutes or so, and then it looked like this:

The edges of the lasagne noodles and cheese were dark and almost crispy - which is how I like noodles and cheese.  The inside was all melty and oozy and the vegetables were soft.

The result is a dark and intensely tomatoey sauce, lush with the earthiness of the olive oil.  It's sort of the goth twin of a marinara.  Or maybe not at all.  I don't know.  I'm stumbling here - I can't really describe it any better than that.  So just go ahead and make the stuff and make some lasagne with it, or eggplant parm, or serve it over spaghetti with a side of meatballs.  But try it.  And let me know what you think.

Cupcakes with the Kids

Last week at this time I was in the process of making a birthday cake for the boyfriend of a friend of mine.  In order to keep the kids from trying to grab bits of cake off the final product, I told them we'd make cupcakes on Saturday.  So we did.

I used a regular boxed cake mix, and just for kicks I substituted a 14 oz can of pumpkin puree for the oil called for in the recipe.  And I shook in some pumpkin spice mix too.  We all took turns stirring the batter until it was nicely blended, and then I spooned the batter into mini muffin tins.  The kids had had the task of putting all the mini paper cupcake liners in each pan.  I think we made about five dozen of them.  And they were pretty good too - more moist than usual, due to all the pumpkin puree in there.  I think I put a bit too much of the spice mixture in, though.  But no harm done.

I let the kids each eat one once they were cool enough, but then it was time for Julia to go to bed.  After she was tucked in, Alex and I frosted about a dozen of them and decorated them with mini M&Ms and little sugar Harry Potter-themed decorative shapes.  Alex proudly showed Daddy his work, and we all had a little chocolatey pumpkiny goodness before Alex had to go to bed.

The next morning, both kids finished frosting the cupcakes and sprinkling additional colorful sugar on them.

Here's the end result:

They had fun.  Which, really, is the whole point.

Stir-Fried Fish with Ginger

Bill made a fabulous dinner on Friday - all Asian dishes.  We used to cook a lot of Asian dishes when we were first together. 

(Interruption:  Bill and Alex are fishing this morning off the rocks and Bill just called to tell me Alex caught the first scup - a keeper - about 12 inches long.  GO ALEX!  Bill caught one too.  They're going to fish for another half hour or so and then go swimming and then come home.  Yay!  Fresh fish for dinner!)

Okay, back to the program.  Anyway - a lot of our big marathon cooking sessions kind of petered out once we started having kids.  Not as much time and also we couldn't really bombard them lots of the spicy Thai curries and other hot foods we like.  But now - now they try things if they're a little spicy...and also, since the kids are 5 and 3, they don't need the same kind of hands-on attention they did when they were babies.

So here's one of the dishes Bill made the other night.  It's from the book Hot Sour Salty Sweet, by the fabulous writing/photography team of Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid.  They travel all over the world with their sons, immersing themselves in every culture out there, photographing and writing about the food and the people.  Their books are always huge, gorgeous, and incredible.  I want to be them.

Anyway - here's this recipe for "Stir Fried Fish with Ginger."  It was so good I had it for lunch the next day - cold, straight out of the fridge.  Serve it over some rice to soak up the liquid - it's fabulous.  The ginger loses some of its fiery, peppery personality during the cooking, mellowing out a bit, but still providing plenty of flavor.  Bill used Tilapia when he made it - the book recommends "catfish or snapper or any other firm-fleshed fish."  Here goes:

Stir-Fried Fish with Ginger (traey cha k'nye - Cambodia)

1 pound fish fillets

1/2 pound fresh ginger, preferably young ginger

3 tablespoons vegetable or peanut oil

1/2 cup minced shallots

4 scallions, trimmed, smashed flat with the side of a cleaver, sliced lengthwise in half, and then cut into 2-inch lengths

2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

Slice the fish fillets into strips about 2 inches long and less than 1/2 inch thick.  Peel the ginger, then cut into fine matchstick-length julienne (this is most easily done by cutting thin slices, then stacking these to cut them into matchsticks).  You should have about 2 cups loosely packed.

Heat a wok over medium-high heat.  Add the oil and, when it is hot, add the ginger.  When the ginger is starting to turn golden, after about 3 minutes, toss in the shallots.  Stir-fry until the ginger is golden brown, 2 to 4 minutes.  Toss in the scallions, reserving a few shreds for garnish, and stir-fry briefly, pressing the scallions against the hot wok to sear them.  Add the sliced fish and stir-fry gently for 1 minute, using your spatula to separate the slices and to expose them all to the hot wok.  Add the fish sauce, sugar, and salt, stir gently, and cook for 3 minutes, or until the fish is just cooked through.  Add the lime juice, taste and adjust the seasonings if you wish, and turn out onto a platter.  Garnish with the reserved scallion shreds and serve hot.

Serves 4 as part of a rice meal.

Try it!  

Two Cucumber Recipes

I don't know about you, but we've got a bumper crop of cucumbers.  Fortunately we all like them.  And fortunately we have two tried-and-true recipes to trot out when we feel like showing off.  Actually - I can't lay claim to either of these.  Bill's the one who found them and who usually makes them.

The first is from a The Book of Curries & Indian Foods published by HP Books.  Bill had picked up a copy before we met, when he was getting into cooking all kinds of Asian cuisines. 

Here's the recipe:

"Cucumber and Chiles"

8 ounces cucumber

salt to taste

2 green chiles, seeded, finely sliced

1 small fresh red chile, seeded, finely chopped

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon superfine sugar.

(my notes: today we had neither variety of chile pepper - Bill picked a green cayenne from the garden and we used a dried thai bird chile for the red.  Also, I just used regular old granulated sugar.  May take a tiny bit longer to dissolve, but not THAT much longer than the superfine.)

Here's what you do:

1.  Very thinly slice cucumber.  Place in a colander and sprinkle with salt.  Drain 30 minutes, then rinse thoroughly under cold running water.  Pat dry with paper towels and arrange on a serving plate.

2.  Sprinkle chiles over cucumber.  Put vinegar and sugar in a small bowl and mix well.  Sprinkle over cucumber, then cover and refrigerate 30 minutes.  Serve cold.

Simple, huh?  We leave the peppers off for the kids - they're okay with some spice, but not this much.

And here's what it looks like:

Next up we have "Chilled Cucumber Soup," from my falling-apart copy of The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook.  Mine was published in 1980.  A Christmas gift from my Mom one year.  She wrote, on the inside cover: "Christmas 1987  For Jayne - I hope this book brings you as much pleasure as I think it will.  I hope, too, that in years to come favorite pages will have as many drips on them as mine do.  With love, Mom"

Well, the book has been so well-used that the entire picture section falls out.  The spine is broken in numerous places, and there are lots and lots of drips on the pages.  Thanks, Mom.  You thought right.

Anyway - Bill found this recipe a year or two ago, when, again, we had a surplus of cucumbers and he was looking for something different to do with them.  It's kind of like a vichyssoise.  Here goes:

"Chilled Cucumber Soup"

1/4 cup butter or margarine

4 cups chopped, peeled cucumbers

1 cup chopped green onions

1/4 cups all-purpose flour

4 cups chicken broth

salt and pepper

1/2 cup half-and-half

cucumber slices for garnish

1.  In 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat, in butter, cook cucumbers and onions.  Blend flour well into the pan juices.

2.  Gradually add broth, stirring; cook until mixture thickens and begins to boil.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

3.  Cover; simmer over low heat 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Refrigerate until chilled. 

4.  In covered blender container at medium speed, blend some of the mixture until smooth.

5.  Strain blended mixture through sieve into bowl; discard seeds.  Repeat with rest of mixture. 

6.  Stir in half-and-half.  Pour into chilled individual bowls; garnish with cucumber slices.

(my notes: instead of running this through a food processer or blender in batches, Bill used an immersion blender, which got the whole batch done in one shot.  He also used a pot instead of a skillet - something you might want to plan on doing if you're going to use the immersion blender.  Less splatter.)

(Speaking of splatter and soup...memory from my childhood...we used to have the washer and dryer in the kitchen, and we'd sit on them while my mother made dinner.  One day she had made pea soup, and she was running it in batches through the food processer because immersion blenders hadn't been invented yet, or if they had, we didn't have one...and all of a sudden, the lid of the food processer flew off and pea soup shot straight up into the air like a geyser.  It was all over the ceiling, cupboards, washer, dryer, counter, and us.  (I'd been sitting on the dryer next to the counter where the food processer was.)  Apparently a bone from the ham hock had broken off in the pot, and she hadn't seen it.  The bone jammed the blade that somehow forced the green soup up and out.  It's a very fond memory - still makes us laugh to this day.)

Anyway - back to the soup...oh - one other fancy-schmancy suggestion - instead of blending the half-n-half in BEFORE you serve the soup...ladle the soup into your chilled bowls, and then drizzle some of the cream onto the soup and swirl it with a knife or spoon.  Then garnish with the cucumers.  Ooooh.  Aaaah.  Very pretty.  Like a cold, green cappucino.  Sort of.

And here's the result:

The cucumbers used for garnish in that photo were actually from a batch of the cucumber and chile recipe above. 

The soup is creamy and comforting - even without the cream - and it's particularly yummy, we discovered, when you have some warm rosemary and garlic focaccia handy to dunk in the soup.  Gluttony doesn't begin to describe our behavior in this situation...

Anyway, I hope one or both of these recipes comes in handy if you've got a surplus of cucumbers this year.  Enjoy!

Surf n Surf n Turf n Turf (sort of)

Or, my Mother's Day lunch, cooked and served by my husband.

He'd asked what I wanted for dinner on Mother's Day, and I said I'd rather have "The Meal" at lunch time, so the rest of Sunday could be just relaxing and we could putter around doing whatever we wanted (like laundry and dishes and getting ready for Monday). 

I asked for steamers (steamed clams) and something done on the grill.  I'm not picky, and he's a good cook.

So we went grocery shopping that morning and in addition to 4 pounds of steamers, Bill picked out some Dungeness Crab legs and some flat iron steaks.  Flat irons are a wonderful inexpensive cut that's very tender - you grill it quickly and you want it rare to medium rare and, as they say, it's like BUTTAH. 

Bill seasoned the flank steaks with one of Emeril's Essences...I think it was something kind of Cajuny.  Cooked them JUST SO and pulled them off the grill to rest.  He also grilled up some asparagus from the garden - I wish we could eat that all summer, but you have to stop picking it so it can grow tall and go to seed and get stronger and produce EVEN MORE asparagus the next year. 

Earlier, while the coals were getting hot, he'd cracked the crab legs and pulled the meat out - got about a cup of crab meat, I believe.  And while the steamers were cooking, he made a simple Hollandaise sauce. 

So.  The stage is set.  When the steamers were done, they went into a bowl and onto the table.  The kids each got a little bit of steak cut small, some crab meat, and some asparagus drizzled with Hollandaise.

For me - some thick slices of steak, topped with a few stalks of asparagus and drizzled with Hollandaise.  On top of that a little of the crab meat.  It was loverly.

Alex mainly consumed steak.  He's on a "Madagascar" kick, and while at the table, he became Alex the Lion..."I dream of STEAK!"  He didn't like the sauce or the asparagus IN the sauce.  He liked the crabmeat and the steamers, but mostly he wanted STEAK.

Julia didn't like the fact that Bill had cut her asparagus into small pieces.  She wanted the WHOLE stalk, so I gave her one of mine.  She swirled the end of it around in the hollandaise and ate it that way, bite by bite.  She ate a few steamers and most of her crab meat and a bit of steak.

The meal was delicious.  The flat iron steak was cooked perfectly and the whole blending of flavors - yum.  And I ate more than my share of steamers.  (No hard task for me - years ago, when we had a boat, Bill went out and dug thirteen pounds of steamers.  We ate them ALL that night, with some Rolling Rocks to wash them down.  One of the best meals ever.)

We had a whole steak left over.  As we were clearing the table after the meal, Alex announced that he was still hungry, and he wanted more STEAK!  Bill went into the kitchen and came back a moment later and handed something to Alex. 

Julia had a bite or two, too.  But it was mostly about Alex.

Alex the Lion.

But seriously...

What self-respecting carnivore could resist?

But wait!  There's more!

Flour Children

Haven't had a lot of time to write lately...it's cookie season...

   

 

and we've been a bit busy.

Yes, but

I may, at times, be a fool...but at least today, I'm a cooking-baking fool.

Springerle will be baked off before I go to bed.

I'm baking oatmeal cookies now - two variations - one with chopped pecans and golden raisins, the other with crystallized ginger and bittersweet chocolate.

And I made a basic sugar cookie dough, too, which, tomorrow, will be transformed into hissing cats, bloodthirsty bats, and pumpkins. 

The timer's going off - I must go now.

Mail Therapy

So I've been feeling overwhelmed and stressed and depressed and lots of other awful things lately.  Mostly while I'm at work.  Yesterday was particularly bad, actually.  There were moments throughout the day when I just wanted to say "you know what?  I just can't do this any more.  See ya."  but I didn't because I did the math and I don't think we could afford it, plus I really should discuss that sort of thing with Bill first. 

Finally the day finished and I went and got my kids and the day began to improve.

For one thing, on the ride home, out of nowhere, Alex announced "You're a banana sandwich, Mommy!"  He said it like it was some secret I'd been hiding and he'd figured it out and thought it was pretty amusing.

Later on, after we'd been home for a while, and the kids were settled down doing something relatively safe, I got the mail.

And there it was.  My "House on the Hill" catalog.  (I'd link to it but my computer's being weird and I could lose this post so I'll do the linking later...)  House on the Hill is a company that makes and sells springerle molds, among other things.  I've posted a recipe for them somewhere in my recipes category.  I need to restructure that section, now that I'm thinking about it.

Anyway, it brought me a much-needed change of focus.  Here it is, October, and guess what, it's time to start planning the Christmas cookie baking.  YAY!!!  I don't know how to explain how happy that made me, and then, the more I thought about it, mentally planning who I need to bake for, and how many batches I'll need of the different recipes...and I realized, this year will be BETTER than the previous years!!!  I can do MORE!!!  I can go back to doing some of the more time-consuming decorated giant cookies that I used to make YEARS ago!  I can make those really cool gingerbread cookie BOWLS like I did about, oh, probably ten years ago....I HAVE TO START MAKING LISTS!!!

I couldn't sleep last night.  I know I sound nuts.  It's just cookies, after all.  But no, it's way more than cookies.  It's creativity, for one thing.  It's COOKIES, for another.  It's traditions.  It's the holidays.  It's me showing off, probably.  But none of those things compare to the biggest thing of all - the thing that makes all the other elements so VERY possible this year:

My kids are toddlers. 

Both of them. 

I loved both of their babyhoods - I'm not dismissing that section of their lives.  I sort of miss it, when I see little tiny baby clothes at the stores.  But.  Now.  They can play by themselves.  I don't have to carry either one of them everywhere all the time.  They mostly sleep through the night, which means so do I.  In short - I have more time and more freedom.  I need a little of that right about now. 

And another fun thing - Alex helped me last year, cutting out the almond stars.  He will help again.  And maybe Julia can help too...though I can just see her just ignoring the whole "helping" aspect and grabbing blobs of dough off the table and shoving them into her gaping maw as fast as she can....

But still.  I am wound up now.  If I didn't have to work today, I would have stayed up last night making my lists - of cookies, of ingredients, of people I'll send these to or bring them to, of other stuff I need (cookie tins, for one thing...)...ah, the bliss of lists.

We'll bake some cookies this weekend, me and Alex.  You know, for practice.

The Perfect Day

...for roasting a chicken and making mashed potatoes and gravy with mushrooms and caramelized onions and white wine to go along with it...and stuffing too...and roasting the 3 remaining acorn squashes from our garden...kind of a mini-Thanksgiving.  I can smell it in my head.

It is cold and rainy and raw - my favorite weather.  Perfect weather for going to Barnes & Noble to buy something new to read...perfect for sitting in the store's cafe, with a biscotti and a latte, reading a chapter or two of this new book, whatever it turns out to be. 

Perfect weather later tonight, after the kids are in bed, finally, and dinner is over and the kitchen is cleaned up, for me to take a nice, hot, bubble bath and read more of my new book, whatever it is, and sip a glass of chardonnay and just relax.

Perfect weather this morning to bring the kids to my parents' house, meet up with my sister and her kids, and hang out drinking coffee and eating asiago bagels and watching Julia strut around grabbing breakable things in the no-longer-childproofed house....

I am just waiting for Bill to finish the clean-up work (he brewed beer this morning - a drizzly cold brew day means a good batch of beer) and then I can leave the house and go to the book store and the grocery store and who knows where else...my afternoon of solitude in the cold and drizzle. 

I love October.

Fresh Corn and Soybeans

I'm making dinner...fish tacos and roasted diced sweet potatoes and a cold bowl of shelled edamame and corn sliced off the cob.  Sort of a succotash, only cold.  Not exactly a salad.  It doesn't need anything else. 

As I stood slicing cooked corn off the cobs a few minutes ago, I was whisked back to when I wasn't tall enough to wield a knife or work at the counter.

When we were little kids, my sister and I (and whatever friends happened to be at the house that day) were pressed into labor in August to shell peas or snap beans or shuck corn. 

My mother was one to can things in tall mason jars that were stored upstairs in the glass-front cupboards of the "back kitchen."  The kitchen had once been a functional kitchen but eventually it became the laundry room and storage room and gateway to the place to hide the Christmas presents  (the hiding place - at least one year - was in what we called "the back bathroom" - a room mostly used to bathe the dogs - in a glorious free-standing claw-foot tub.  I wish I could have taken that tub before the house was sold, but, of course, where would I put it here?) 

Anyway, I remember rows of canned peaches and tomatoes up on the shelves - high up where my sister and I couldn't reach them. 

My mother was also one for blanching and freezing things.  That's what I remember her doing with the peas and beans and corn.  Especially the corn.  I wasn't nuts about the green things...but I liked it when she did the corn.  We'd shuck the corn and pile it onto platters for her, and she'd drop a few ears into a big pot of boiling water, just for a minute or two, I imagine, and then once they'd cooled, she'd stand an ear on end on the cutting board and slice off the kernels in long bands.

I loved those.  I'm sure my sister did too.  We'd probably hang around hoping to either steal or be given a little section of kernels before being shooed out of the kitchen.  Then after all the corn was sliced off the cobs, Mom would pack freezer bags full of broken sections of kernels, twist the tops of the bags and tie them (back in the days before ziploc bags...when we lived out on the prairie...heh heh heh) with the little twist tie things...and Dad or one of us would bring them down to the big freezer in the basement and place them on the shelves with all the other frozen produce.

We didn't grow all these - Mom would go to one of the local farms and buy things in bushels.  We groaned about the work at the time - the shucking and the snapping and the shelling...but I think back to how good that corn tasted when she opened up a bag of it in January, and I tell my complaining younger self to shut up.  It's worth a little effort in August.

And so, to a lesser degree, I'm doing the same thing.  I've roasted tomatoes in olive oil, salt and pepper until most of the water is gone and all the fresh tomatoey sweetness is condensed and mixed with the oil...and I've frozen these in batches to make sauce with this winter.  We've roasted beets as well, and they are frozen too.  Eggplant as well - I sliced it up and baked it, and now I can throw together some eggplant parmigiana pretty fast too. 

I figure each year we'll put away more...and when the kids are older, I'll probably go buy a bushel of corn for them to shuck, and I'll blanch it and pack it away for the winter too. 

Stocking Up

I've had a pretty happy day for myself.  We went grocery shopping this morning and got stuff to have on hand so we can throw meals together quickly during the week...especially the days when Bill works late and I'm throwing food around and juggling children at the same time.  It's like Iron Chef only there's no competition and I'd really like to see Bobby Flay try to do much of anything carrying a baby in one arm and trying to keep the older child from touching the stovetop. ("That very, VERY hot, Mommy" he says, pointing at the burner not in use and coming within a milimeter of touching it.)  (Oh, and why is he even that close to the burner to begin with?  Because we're STILL waiting for our stovetop to be fixed, so we're using the two electric burners in the basement...and so while I'm making dinner with one hand and holding Julia (who longs to dive into pasta sauce, apparently), Alex pushes a chair over and decides he's going to help me.  That's why.)

Anyway...where was I going?  Oh, yeah, stocking up.  So what I most wanted to accomplish today was to roast a whole bunch of garlic and have that on hand to add to things here and there.  So I cut 12 heads of garlic in half, dumped some olive oil on them, and wrapped them in foil and baked them at about 350 degrees or so for around an hour.  After they'd cooled a little, I squeezed out all the garlic into the food processor, poured in a little olive oil, and pureed it all.  It's stored in a little ceramic container with an airtight lid and I am so pleased about it that I'd sound like a crazy person if I continued to go on about it.

I also diced 4 big green peppers and froze them.  And julienned 5 big red peppers and froze them too.  And sliced 5 pounds of onions (in the food processor, otherwise I'd still be weeping) and froze them.  That's what I wanted to do, and it's done.  Dinner is in progress - I've got a tray of cut up beets roasting away, and also a pan of cut up potatoes roasting too.  Bill will be grilling salmon steaks in a little while, and I'll also saute the beet greens and my newest favorite vegetable - broccoli rabe - in a little olive oil with a little salt and pepper and a grating of romano cheese at the end.

So my day has been all about food, which is fine with me. 

It's also been about the garden...seeds for the early crops (HA - like we'll have acres and acres...) have been planted - Bill is in charge of the garden, pretty much, though I participate in planning what we'll grow every year.  Still, he is the master gardener.  I just pick stuff and cook it when it's ripe.  He's planted arugula, swiss chard, broccoli rabe, peas...and other things - I don't remember what his chart said.  But he's very organized about it.

And now I must go, because Julia has just realized that being in a playpen isn't half as much fun as crawling all around the living room...and she's sobbing brokenheartedly about it, which I can't ignore.

No - wait...oh, here is why I am happily married even though I will occasionally need to vent about little things about my husband...there is silence now, because he and Alex are in the living room building things with blocks, and Bill took Julia out of the playpen and Alex gave her a wooden block to gnaw on, and so there is peace.

Wow.

Tastes of Summer

Tonight's dinner was the following:

Smoked salmon (that we brined yesterday and put in the smoker this afternoon) and potato salad.

Here's how we ate it...chunks of smoked salmon on a Ritz cracker with a small dollop of sour cream - trust me, it's a fabulous combination of flavors and textures.

The potato salad was this:

About a dozen small-ish red-skinned potatoes, cut into 3/4" cubes (approximately), boiled until just barely fork tender, then tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, smashed garlic (about 6 cloves), and fresh thyme and sage leaves. I put this mixture on a small metal pan and popped that into the smoker while the fish was going, and left it for a couple of hours. Just before we ate, I tossed in a quarter of an onion, minced, and some fresh mixed baby greens from the garden and a little mayo to bind it all together. It was really, really good, if I do say so myself.

And we had some wine - a Kendal-Jackson blend of Zinfandel and Shiraz. All-in-all a rather (okay, I almost wrote "gusty" as an adjective to describe the meal...I am still trying to figure out what I really meant to write...but actually "gusty" kind of works....) boldly flavored meal. It was yummy.

Also - we have fresh baby peas ready in the garden (whatever Alex has not consumed already)...and a few strawberries, too. And (please try to contain yourself) - little baby tomatillos have appeared!

The tomatillos are a big deal to us - last year our friend John was in charge of starting all the plants from seed and he somehow FORGOT to start the tomatillos. (Not that we didn't have dozens of other things growing, but still...) So we're particularly excited to have them now.

That's about it. Julia's waking up from her late afternoon/early evening nap. Hopefully I can keep her up for an hour and a half or so, then give her a good feeding and maybe, just MAYBE, she'll sleep for a whole 3 hours straight after that...of course, now that I've said something, it ain't gonna happen.

But I've got hi-igh hopes, I've got hi-igh OH SHUT UP JAYNE!

Okay, bye.

Hot Sour Salty Sweet - the website

In my last list of recommended cookbooks, I mentioned the book Hot Sour Salty Sweet, by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. They recently came out with a new book, entitled HomeBaking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Tradition Around the World, which our friend John gave to me for Christmas. It's a gorgeous book, as are all of their books.

Anyway, I was reading the back flap of the dustjacket last night and discovered that Alford and Duguid have a website which I urge you to take a look at. It's pretty cool. They link not only to book and cooking related matters, but to quilting restoration, to the farm they are restoring, and they even have a selection of tongue-twisters. Go take a look.

More Books I'm Recommending

Well, I meant to introduce new books every other week, or something like that, when I put the first 5 books up...and that was what...two months ago or something?

Anyway - finally - here's a new list of books I've put out there for you...not so much cookbooks this time (though there are recipes in almost all of them) but books about the people who cook...or about wine. That just happens to be where my interests lie this time around.

A few more thoughts that didn't make it into the "notes" sections of some of these...

Julia is here again, only this time the book is about her rather than by her. Whenever I feel like I am running out of time to do "something" with my life, I think about the fact that she was older than I am when she became "The French Chef" and the first really big food tv personality. As I've said before, I grew up watching her old shows on PBS. I can hear the theme song from "The French Chef" playing in my head right now. And yes, "Julia" is actually a name we are considering for our daughter...

And Jacques - I remember watching him on PBS (sounds almost like it's pledge season and this is my subtle way of getting you to call in and give your support, huh?) years ago - and he made this Bavarian Wheat Cake (if I find the recipe I'll post it) - it was kind of a custard-based cream-of-wheat cake - very different...but the thing that impressed - and inspired - me was the decorating he did. Very simple - just piped some melted chocolate into a design of a vase with some flowers coming out of it...then filled in the flowers and sections of the vase with apricot jam that had been thinned a bit and tinted red and green (and a batch was left apricot-colored). The effect was like a stained-glass window. Very simple and very beautiful. I made that cake - right down to the vase-and-flowers design - for my mother's birthday that year.

Anyway, sorry it took so long for me to post some new books - and I hope you get acquainted with at least one of them.

Oh well.

Maybe I was trying to accomplish too much.

I was up til almost midnight baking, and one of the last things I did was mold the very last of the springerle dough. I had bought a few new molds - and for these I was using a hen and a rooster. Very nice detail in the molds, and in the cookies, when I pressed the dough deep enough.

But I was getting tired (up and in the kitchen since 6:30 or so)...and frankly getting sick of cookies by that point. But - I got them done, placed them in their pans and cleaned up the kitchen and went to bed.

My body hurt. I think I'd spent the greater part of the day slightly hunched over bowls or pans or the oven or the sink.

Alex woke up shortly after I'd unkinked myself and was attempting to relax and fall asleep - he's got a cough, and I looked at the clock and realized he was probably due for another dose of cough medicine. So I (VERY RELUCTANTLY) rolled myself out of bed.

My feet hit the floor and I was immediately brought back to two periods of time in my life - when I waitressed, and when I went to culinary school full time on weekends. That awful swollen-soled pain that you feel after you have spent an entire day on your feet and haven't necessarily been wearing the best shoes, either. (In my case yesterday - no shoes at all...on a tile floor...)

And to make it even better - I felt this lightening bolt of pain shoot up the back of my left leg all the way to my butt. I couldn't move my left leg without feeling it again. Which was going to make it hard to get downstairs to where the bottle of cough medicine was.

And hopping wasn't going to work.

The only thing that worked, until everything finally loosened up, was to turn my feet out and plie. And walk in that position. Knees bent. Feet turned out. Out of our bedroom, down the stairs, to the kitchen.

This morning when I finally got up (Bill got up earlier with Alex - thank you, Honey!!!) my feet still hurt but I no longer needed to walk like a frog on my hind legs.

My first order of business was to bake off the springerle.

And you know what? I burned them. Well, burned half and overcooked the others. They are all in the trash now.

Oh, yes, and the two batches of stollen that I baked came out less than glorious too. I was impatient. It's a heavy dough, and I should have just left it alone so it could rise at its own pace.

But I didn't. So I have 3 1/2 loaves of very dense stollen. Still tastes okay, but I won't be giving it as gifts as I'd planned.

My parents were here for coffee this morning and sampled some. My mother and I had already discussed the flaws and the reasons behind them. My father and Bill came into the room a bit later, and my father said, approvingly, that it wasn't overly sweet.

I remarked to my mother that it wasn't overly airy either. We laughed.

I am glad I can laugh about this. There was a time (probably last weekend) that I would have taken this way too seriously, pulled my hair out and torn my clothes over it.... So if I have evolved in no other way, at least I take myself a teeny bit less seriously than I once did.

Gotta go finish the glazing of the lebkuchen....they turned out fine, at least.

Note to Self...

Next year, make some of these doughs ahead of time - like, early November - and freeze them.

It will make your life much, much simpler.

Mise en Place

Mise en place (pronounced "meez-en-plahs") is a French phrase which means, basically, "to put in place," - and what it refers to in professional (and not-so-professional) kitchens is getting all your ingredients measured (or scaled) out, prepped, and ready to go, so that when you actually start cooking or baking, you don't have to suddenly search frantically through your cupboards for the bottle of ground cloves that you could swear you saw up there the other day.

It means being organized. It also keeps your work area tidy, since you aren't stopping to separate eggs in the middle of mixing your dry ingredients because you suddenly realize that you will only be adding the egg yolks to the sugar and butter at first, then incorporating your dry ingredients, and then the whites are whipped separately and folded into the rest of the mixture...and so since you didn't plan ahead for this, you've suddenly got egg white dripping down your arm and a bit of shell in with the creamed butter and sugar.

Tonight, while Bill brewed up an extract batch of Stout, I did my mise en place for 4 more batches of cookies. A double batch of the lebkuchen, and one batch each of almond stars, farmer hats, and butter cookies. Tomorrow throughout the day I'll put the doughs together, and bake them off tomorrow and Sunday. And then we can ship them out on Monday to Bill's brothers and uncle.

I also plan/want to make stollen, which is a German bread studded with raisins and candied orange peel (yes, studded, like they say in restaurant reviews or in cooking magazines) and marzipan...and topped with a heavy dusting of confectioners' sugar. I remember a good friend of my Mom's family, who was Aunt Hilda to me, used to make this and I loved it. With butter on it.

I also want to make shortbread...and a couple of batches of biscotti...my sister-in-law, Nina's recipe, and another recipe that a friend at work handed to me a few weeks ago.

Also want to make chocolate croissants or cinnamon rolls or something like that for Christmas morning...

I still have a little bit of time, I think...

I'll be fine as long as I mise en place...

Okay, this is way past my bedtime...goodnight....

Where to Begin?

Well, let's take it in order...

Thanksgiving went very nicely, with the exception of my husband's migraine, which finally eased up around 3 in the afternoon...

Other bits and pieces from that day

...not sure which of them it was, but someone in my family taught Alex to say "Cheers!" and clink his sippy cup against another person's glass...he went around the room, from person to person, saying "Cheers!" and clinking cups...

...my first Thanksgiving turkey came out JUST FINE, thank you, and none of it dry OR undercooked. And the stuffing, which my mom came up and helped with, was - as always - very yummy. My sister was the first to sample it, when the bird was barely out of the oven - she was over there, trying to look innocent...

...my son likes turnips....

The next day - my mother's birthday. We hosted that, too, and my husband did the cooking - (I had to work) - roast leg of lamb...brussels sprouts...baby carrots...and leftover mashed potatoes and turnips from the day before. Very yummy. I made kind of faux Napoleons of puff pastry circles layered with lemon pie filling and whipped cream and garnished with candied lemon peel.

...it's not a whole lot of fun having a sinus infection through the holidays...

Over the weekend we got a lot done around the house, and I've started decorating for Christmas a bit. I figure I'll do a little of something every day - a little pre-Christmas gift to myself because I always feel like I don't get enough time to do the fun pre-Christmas things...I always feel rushed.

So - my Nativity scene is up, and I've hung the cutesy snowman advent calendar up AND filled all the compartments with cookies for Alex and my husband to share.

And speaking of pre-Christmas things - I've got more springerle dough (made a triple batch this time) on the counter warming up a bit and tonight I'll form a ton more cookies...and bake them tomorrow.

So - must go. Also made a batch of pfeffernusse - they're kind of like spicy little rocks...good with tea.

That's it for the moment!

Two Quick Happy Birthdays...

...before I go...

Happy Birthday to my friend, Janice, and Happy Birthday to my friend, Sheila.

I'm sitting here trying to decide just how much time I have to write about either of them (and it's not much)...they are friends who came into my life at vastly different times, and what has suddenly occurred to me is the incredible determination each one of them possesses.

And so, since time is limited, I will share one memory of Sheila...

This was back when she and my sister and our friend Dolores and I were making our "The Troubled Days and Nights of Husbands, Wives, Lovers and Children in Hope and Despair" movie. Production took place on two or three weekends - spread out over a couple of months - we had to time it so we were all back in town at the same time.

Anyway, it was winter. And we had a day of filming (videotaping, really) planned, at my parents' house. So my sister, Meredith, and I were already there, video camera and VCR rented (so yes, this is a while back), and Dolores was probably already there, since she didn't have far to come...and we were just waiting for Sheila to arrive, by bus, from a town or two away.

We waited, and waited...impatiently, I'm sure, because we probably only had the "equipment" rented for the day, and my parents had very likely been kicked out of the house for the day as well, so time was both limited and precious...and where was Sheila???

My sister called Sheila's parents' house...no one was home. Okaaaaayyy...so...she should have been here by now.

I don't remember how long the wait was. But we were sitting in my parents' kitchen, and suddenly, trudging through the snow, walkman on and (Irish) cheeks bright red with the cold, wearing her high tops, which must have been soaked by that point, came Sheila.

The bus never came. So she walked. I just looked it up...it was 4.4 miles. In the snow...(this sounds like something that would start out "in my day, we didn't drive to our friends' houses to make insane movies, we walked there! Through the snow! Wearing no hat! And no boots - just high top canvas sneakers!")

She could have called - one of us could have come to get her.... I don't remember why she didn't. I think it might not have even occurred to her, at least not right away. I think it was probably more like after waiting and waiting for a bus that didn't come, she said "fine, I don't need the bus - I can get there under my own steam" - and so she did.

...of course, as I'm writing that, other little stories come to mind...but - it's almost 6:00 and I really have to go become productive before the afternoon arrives and the turkey is still shivering, naked, in my fridge.

So Happy Birthday, Sheila, and Happy Birthday, Janice!!

So I've Made Some Springerle

And I learned a few things, which I added to my notes in the recipe I posted last week.

I baked them this morning, and the house smells wonderfully of anise seed.

Next weekend I'll make more, and try a different recipe.

But this week is now devoted to Thanksgiving preparations and also preparations for my mother's birthday, which is Friday. We're having leg of lamb that night.

Gotta run now and get ready for work. You know, if I didn't have to go to work, I'd get so much more done around here....

The Cookie Tradition, Continued...

I have been given a welcome nod and a nudge, as well, from Sheila regarding my post the other day about my mother-in-law's traditional cookie baking. I inherited that role in the family after her all-too-soon passing last November. One might say the spatula has been passed.... (or one might not, depending on one's sense of humor).

Anyway, I had promised to post a cookie recipe, and I'll probably post more than that - we'll see how it goes tonight. But before I do that, just a quick little link to the website for a company that sells many, many cookie presses and springerle molds, and other cookie-making books and supplies. My mother-in-law had purchased one, possibly two, springerle molds in recent years, and I have just recently ordered a few as well...to build the collection.

The place is called House on the Hill, and if you're at all interested in making springerle, or just interested in cookie-making in general, you should check them out.

With that little reference made, I'll be right back with a couple of recipes...

Chef John and Chicken Provencal

(FYI - I had a whole long post in the works, and my computer froze and I lost it. Grrrrr.)

Tonight - our friend John cooked Chicken Provencal for dinner for us.

I got home at about 5:30, opened the door and was nearly bowled over by the intoxicating aromas that filled the kitchen. Bill got home a little bit later and was equally mesmerized. Onions cooking in fat...browned chicken thighs...white wine...thyme...oregano...everything braising together for over an hour and then...tomatoes...lemon zest... chopped parsley...served up with a chewy, crusty baguette.

John - it was heavenly. Many, many thanks. Tonight was like going out to eat - only better, because we didn't have to drive home after.

John and my husband have been friends since high school, and they are each armed with a relatively equal number of embarrassing stories about the other. This, and beer, are the foundation of their friendship.

I met John shortly after Bill and I started dating, and over time we became friends. Not just Bill's best friend and Bill's girlfriend friends...but genuine friends. We have had many great conversations, and many great verbal sparring matches. I think he respects me because I can eat a hop pellet and not wince. (A hop pellet, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of trying one, looks kind of like rabbit or hamster food and is made up of dried hop leaves compressed into this bitter little nugget. Hops are the bittering agent in beer, and also contribute to the aroma. They taste awful (as pellets, especially) and are really not meant to be a snack food. But I was encouraged (dared) to try one. So I did. It was clearly some sort of tribal initiation, and as the new girl, I couldn't say no. So I ate a hop pellet. And the tribe began to accept me....

Anyway, John is more family than friend. He was best man at our wedding...he has helped us move...he helped build the deck on the back of our house...he has co-hosted numerous parties...and he loses dart game after dart game to my gloating husband - and keeps coming back for more. He is an endlessly good sport. In fact, they are downstairs playing now....

OH! And - John predicted the sex of our baby when I was pregnant with Alex.

We were down in the basement, and I was around 7 months pregnant or more. John and Bill had been playing darts and drinking a few beers (really?) and for some reason, John decided to predict the gender of our baby.

He came over to where I was lying on the couch. He knelt down beside me and stared, unblinking, at my mountain of a belly. He stared...and stared...through layer after layer of synthetic maternity-wear fabric...through stretched skin and loosened muscle (okay, and fat)...stared and stared until he could see the unborn child in my womb. Stared...and stared...and stared...until suddenly he leapt to his feet and announced, with finality: "Girl."

I could go on...there are many John stories, and many good things to say about him. But it would start to sound like I was trying to get him a date. So I won't go on about the fact that he likes to cook...he's got a great sense of humor...he's learning to play classical guitar...he is not afraid of babies...he is an organic gardener...he is well read...he has an inquisitive mind...he chews with his mouth closed and knows how to behave in polite company...

Oh, and next time he's making me a cheesecake.

From My Book Shelves to Yours...

I've added a list of recommended cookbooks over there on the right - there are 5 books, with comments, and my goal (heh heh) is to change the list every week or two...we'll see how it goes.

The books are from my own collection, and since that is rather large already and continues to grow at a delightfully alarming rate, I see no end in sight to the possibilities for this list.

Please feel free, by the way, to send me other recommendations. I'm always happy to look at something new!

I'm currently reading TheAll American Cheese and Wine Book by Laura Werlin. I'd bought this and some "wine course" books over the summer because I wanted to expand my understanding of wines. But right now, pregnant as I am, I can't really taste the wine (unless I want to spit it right back out, and there's not much fun there), so I'm just going to read and read and read...and since I can eat most of the cheeses out there, I can educate myself more about them as well. (Like I really need a reason!)

So anyway...I only just started reading this one, so I won't let myself recommend it. Yet.