The CCC and Oven Debacle

Who does not love chocolate chip cookies? I know a handful of people who don't like chocolate (can you even imagine?) but all of them still eat chocolate chip cookies.

My mother allowed my sisters and I to putter about in the kitchen from a very early age. We made dinner, we baked, we helped her with canning. I don't know when the first time I made cookies all by my lonesome self would have been - 8? 12? somewhere in between? - but by the time I was a teenager, I was an old hand at baking. Chocolate chips were always a favorite.

For a long time, I used the recipe on the back of the bag of Nestle Toll House cc's. I wasn't always satisfied with the results, but they were OK. Sometimes they were too flat, sometimes they were too hard; but back then, things like exact measurements and careful processes....well, they weren't high on my priority list, y'know? I made CCCs in Sweden for my host family. I took a Pyrex glass measuring cup and Nestle's with me on the plane, smuggled in my luggage. I'm sure that container of chips looked odd on the X-rays, but no one tried to stop me! The results of the CCCs in Sweden were a crapshoot. Sometimes they were better than others. Using a liquid measuring cup for a solid, like flour....eh. Not the wisest. And once I ran out of cc's, I used big bars of chocolate from the grocery store, chopping them into big chunks. Usually milk chocolate, which I really don't like much. My host family enjoyed them, and once I learned how to read Swedish, I could distinguish milk from dark chocolate.

After I came back to the States, I continued to use the Nestle recipe.

Food Network made its appearance on our local cable system somewhere in the late 90s. And then I discovered Alton Brown. Oh, AB! My geek heart goes pitter-patter when you explain how and why things work. Complete with diagrams. AB's recipes for CCC's show you how to make puffy CCCs. How to make chewy CCCs. How to make thin CCCs. My favorite of the three is the chewy variety, the recipe can be found here. I've happily used that recipe for many years now.

But.

Earlier this year, my oven broke. One of the electric coils gave up the ghost, and we were forced to admit that purchasing a replacement coil would be foolish when the entire unit - oven and stovetop - were vintage 1978, plus I've never liked the stove, and hey, we found a brand new one for $100.

I haven't used the new one much. But I got the urge for some CCCs, and baked a batch of AB's best. Except: they were flat. Flatter than a pancake flat. Still chewy, but flat flat flat. Well! I couldn't have that, now, could I? No. So I began doing a little research and I decided (in my infinite wisdom) that using my stand mixer and allowing it to run for a little longer than normal had incorporated too much air into the batter. I can make CCCs without a stand mixer, so I did. Super-carefully measuring, and I got a new box of baking soda, thinking (incorrectly) that maybe my baking soda was old and not giving its appropriate ooomph to the cookies. I also bought a new thermometer for the oven, from a restaurant supply place, to make sure the oven was at the right temperature. (It cost all of $2.52.) I have a nifty new scale (which was NOT $2.52!), and I measured AND weighed everything with the scale, noting down the metric equivalents so that I can make CCCs the next time I'm in Sweden. But. The second batch? Was as flat as the first. Still tasty, but UGLY. Well, that meant war, now, didn't it?

In all the time I've made AB's cookies, I've never altered the recipe a whit. Followed it to the letter, with the exception of adding more chips than it calls for - I always do that when making chocolate chippers - or using chunks instead of chips. Sometimes pecans or macadamia nuts, too. I decided the time had come for me to step back from the master, and wing it.

So the next batch was again made without the mixer, and careful measuring. But I added a half cup more of flour. The secret to the chewy cookies is using bread flour rather than AP flour. Something about gluten and chemical reactions and AB does a much better job of explaining it than I do; hop over to foodtv.com to watch him do so. But why I needed to suddenly use 2-3/4 cups of flour rather than the recipe indicated 2-1/4....I have no idea. None. Nothing except my oven changed. Remember, please, that I have a brand new thermometer in there to make sure the oven is at the right temp. Is it the size? The new oven is bigger. Is it the single rack instead of the 2 I'm used to? I just don't know.

Batch # whatever was finally the result I was looking for. I was back to "my" chocolate chip cookies. Just in time, too, as the holiday baking season is about to begin. I couldn't give flat CCCs in the tins of cookies that I give to so many people as gifts!

The new oven is kind of obnoxiously annoying. It came with one oven rack. One!! My old oven had 3. I removed one of the racks from the old oven, finding 3 too many most of the time. I kept it next to the refrigerator, handy but not exposed. When we got rid of the old oven, the rack was forgotten, so it wasn't hauled away with the rest of the scrap that the old oven had become. Of course, that leftover rack does not fit into the new oven. In fact, NO oven rack on the planet seems to fit that new oven. As noted above, we got the new oven for a steal. $100. From a "closeout" type store, so of course it was either discontinued by the manufacturer, or it had some minor cosmetic damage. At the time, I thought nothing of it. My mistake. Because while the brand name on the new range/oven is one recognized easily all over the US, it apparently is a one-of-a-kind. It is a Sunbeam. I know, right? You recognize this name, yeah? You probably have a small appliance (mixer, food processor, toaster, toaster oven) that has their name on it. Sunbeam divested themselves of their major appliance division in early 2009, which is how my $100 oven ended up in a closeout store sometime in March. Their website has an ever-so-NOT-helpful memo suggesting that you contact a company called AP Wagner for replacement parts.

There is a local appliance parts shop that has been around since probably the 20s, and so I took the oven rack out of the oven, wrenched my back (seriously, still hurting from that) when I pulled the oven out from the wall for the model number on the rear of the oven. The model number is an odd one, not following the pattern of other Sunbeam model numbers. Hm. When I walked in to the appliance repair place, I had both rack and model number in hand and I had every confidence in the world that they'd have what I needed. That store is a blast from the past type of place. No shiny showroom, no uniformed/name-tagged employees, stacked to the rafters with all sorts of junk, refurbished appliances of every stripe all over the place. There's a front counter, and you tell the person behind the counter what you want. They wander away into a maze of shelving units, disappear for a while, and return carrying your item. Invoices are written by hand. An adding machine calculates the sales tax on your item, and and old-fashioned cash register that makes a loud audible ringing noise when the till is opened is where your money goes.

The person behind the counter did a double-take when I carried my rack in. "What is THAT?" he asked me. Bad sign, if the appliance repair man / parts person does not recognize it right off. I told him it was an oven rack, and he punched the model number in to the computer - for inventory only, and the sole concession to the modern age in that place - and you know what he got back? Bupkis. He told me my model number wasn't a Sunbeam model number, and that the rack in my hand was the largest he had ever seen for a home oven. He didn't think he could even find something that was close, when I told him I didn't care who made the bloody thing, I just wanted it to fit the oven. {GROAN}. Strike out!

I called the 800 number for AP Wagner, and went through the same rigmarole. The model number printed on the sticker on the back of the oven isn't a Sunbeam model number, they say. Oh, FFS. The person on the other end of the phone tried inputting partial numbers, did her best, but you know what she got back from her computer, don't you? Bupkis. She did suggest to me that I call back when I was standing in front of the oven, and that possibly there's a serial number or some other thing that she would be able to track down. Have I done that yet? No, I keep forgetting, thinking about it only when I'm at work or it is 3:30 AM. Not. Helpful.

I called Sunbeam directly, and they were even less of a help, in fact they were curt, trying to blow me off by pawning me off on AP Wagner within 15 seconds of me telling them the problem. I explained that I'd already spent a half hour on the phone with AP Wagner, and then they suggested my local appliance parts place, after asking for my zip code. Been there, I said. They couldn't identify the model number either. Then they gave me a phone number for an appliance parts store in the state capitol. Not. Helpful. The state capitol is a 3-4 hour drive from home, not exactly around the way. I got snippy in return, and then they were apologetic, but firm. They couldn't help me.

Help me, interweb!! How, oh how in the world, am I going to bake 20 dozen cookies with ONE measly oven rack??? On my way home from work each day, I drive past a decorative ironworks business, and I'm frustrated enough, and desperate enough, to stop there and ask if they could make me one. The thought of the price tag for that being triple what I paid for the oven is the only thing that is stopping me from doing just that.

Where did I go wrong?

One of my all-time favorite foodie blogs is Smitten Kitchen.  I like to read her recipes.  I haven't made a bunch of things she's written about, not because they don't sound awesome, they do.  I just usually don't print whatever it is out, and baking with my laptop in the kitchen?  Bad, bad, bad idea.  So I'll read something she's posted, courtesy of my feed reader, in the early AM, and think, "wow, yeah, yum." and then I never make it, because the laptop isn't usually hooked to the printer and that is more than I can handle doing in the early AM.

I read about her home-made Oreos several times, clicking back on the link frequently, re-reading, and thinking, hmmmm, I'd like to try those.  From the way she writes alone, I think she'd be someone awesome to have a few drinks with; she's sarcastic, self-deprecating, and hilarious.

Finally, I copied the recipe to a Google Document and printed it.  The day I planned to make it, I actually did read through all 150+ comments, and I was forewarned that they might get super obnoxiously puffy and large.  So I used my smallest cookie scoop, a #100 disher.  I don't think this thing holds more than a teaspoon of matter.

Since I am going to blather on about the recipe for a while longer, I'm going to copy and paste the ingredients here so that you can refer to them (should you care) without clicking back and forth and back and forth between tabs.

Homemade Oreos
Retro Desserts, Wayne Brachman

Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies

For the chocolate wafers:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375 degrees.
2. In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. While pulsing, or on low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass.
3. Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately 2 inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.
4. To make the cream, place butter and shortening in a mixing bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2-3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.
5. To assemble the cookies, in a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch, round tip, pipe teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream. Dunk generously in a large glass of milk.

The ingredients include dutch-processed cocoa, which if you live anyplace with any sizable population and some culture, isn't hard to find.  Since I am living in the Midwest in a very small place, we don't need none of dat furin cocoa.  I found Hershey's Special Dark cocoa, though, and thought that since it says it is a blend of dutch-processed and regular cocoa, it should be close enough.  

Or - not.

They got huge.  And the 9 minute baking time is too much in my super-hot oven, they were some crispy critters after 9 minutes.  Instead of being the size of Oreos, or just ever-so-slightly larger, these things were the size of a whoopie pie, or a moon pie, or a lunar pie, depending on where you hail from.  If you're not a yank....they should have been about 4 cm in diameter, and instead were 10 cm in diameter.  

So that didn't end well.

If we're going to be scientific about the whole thing, you could theorize that since baking soda doesn't react with the alkali used to process "dutch-process" cocoa, and I didn't have the right cocoa, that having both baking powder AND soda made 'em huge.  Or that the longer oven stay made them bigger, as the butter continued to melt.  I'm not entirely sure.

The frosting for them was excellent, tasting exactly like I remember Oreos from my childhood.  With the frosting and cookies combined, though, it wasn't the heaven I was expecting.  The cookies tasted scorched, and were apt to fall apart with a bite instead of holding together.  But I could see how they'd be fantastique if they were done properly.  

The nagging mystery of what exactly went wrong, however, will continue to bother me until I get it figured out.

Edited 12/19 to add:

HOLY HOLY HOLY &*#%!!

After allowing the cookies to sit out in the open for about a day and a half, on my dining room table on cooling racks, I was contemplating trashing them all.  But maybe there was one that wasn't burnt, and the cream filling was yummy, so I poked around and picked one up and bit into it and O. Mi. God.  Other than over-baking most of them, and the fact that they were larger than they should have been, a day or so to cure was all these things needed to become amazing.  As in Ahhh-Maz-Ing amazing.  They taste like oreo cookies.  They taste like the oreo cookies I remember as a kid.  Yum.  Hey, Luce: just don't burn 'em next time, k?

Time to make the cookies!!

Remember the Dunkin' Donuts commercials from the 80s, where the poor guy got up every morning at an ungodly hour, with the tag line, "Time to make the donuts."?

It has been 'time to make the cookies' for several weeks now, and I've been busy doing just that.  I don't feel like the Dunkin' Donuts man, though, I truly enjoy making the cookies.

There was a cookie exchange earlier this month, and I pulled out my Swedish cookbooks in search of that elusive something different.  I found a great recipe (yes, I'll share, but not in this post, sorry) that translates to the unfortunate-sounding Nut Logs.  I made a test batch, and figured out quickly that those suckers couldn't stay at my house.  Way too buttery, way too good, way to get fat!  

I took them in to work, along with every other cookie I've experimented with this season, and I should have been prepared for the consequences.  Take the cookies, and everyone moans about how I'm ruining their diets.  Don't take in cookies, and they're annoyed that there is nothing to nosh on along with that all-important 3 o'clock cup of coffee to keep you going through the late afternoon.

Either way, they make me laugh.  The whining and moaning and complaining about how I'm ruining their diets mean that they're eating and, better, enjoying the cookies, so I take that as a compliment.  The whining that there are no cookies in the office kitchen (horrors!  whatever shall we do?)  also means that they like 'em.

There are 2 standbys for holiday cookies for me.  Coffee Cookies, which I have written about pretty extensively in the past, and Rose's Crescents, which I don't think I've written about before.  

In an attempt to at least stay awake until after 7 PM on Sunday night, I made the dough for the crescents, but they require a stay in the fridge, so I wasn't going to actually bake them that night.  Monday morning, I realized that it was Monday, and for about the last 6 weeks, I've taken a batch of cookies in on Mondays.  Uh-oh.  

When I take in cookies, I don't want to take just a dozen; first of all, that isn't enough and secondly, that isn't enough.  So I shaped and baked two dozen mini crescents at 6:30 in the morning.  Clearly, I'm nearly as insane as the author of the christmas cookie cookbook from which the crescents come.  The gingerbread house in the back of the cookbook is the Cathedral of Notre Dame, for heaven's sake.

Worth it, sure, for the happiness the crescents give anyone who eats them, but silly to fire up the oven and bake during the six o'clock hour.  I mean, really.

The crescents use ground almonds in place of some of the flour, and the resulting cookie is buttery, crumbly, and ohmigod delish.  This is good cookie to make if you're looking to impress someone, and actually have the patience to shape the crescents.

Almond Omigod Crescents

(adapted loosely from Rose's Christmas Cookies)

2/3 c finely ground almonds

1/3 c sugar

1-2/3 c flour

2 sticks of butter, cut into small cubes

1/4 tsp salt

Her directions spell out the way to make these either in the food processor or with a mixer.  Go with the food processor.  Trust me, easier.

I buy blanched slivered almonds, and grind them up in the food processor.  Add the sugar, and process until it is crumbly looking.  Add the butter (using the food processor, it doesn't necessarily need to be softened) and process again, briefly.  If you allow the dough to come together in a big ball at this stage, you will have to spend considerable time kneading in the flour by hand.  Again, trust me.  So minimal processing on the butter.  Take the lid off of the food processor, and sprinkle the flour over the top, along with the salt.  Process again, and this time, it is OK to allow it to come together in a ball.  Run it too long, though, and your food processor's motor will be unhappy with you.

Dump the contents of the working bowl out onto a big sheet of plastic wrap or wax paper, and shape into a large round flat disc.  You might have to knead in some of the bits no matter what you do, so if it looks like panko breading, allow the warmth of your hands to help it become more cohesive.  Spend 10 minutes or so just patiently kneading it until it has a consistent texture.  Let it hang out in the fridge for about two hours.

I use a small ice cream scoop (I think it is a #100 disher, to be exact) and use that to make little balls of dough.  Then I shape them into crescents by rolling them into a short snake between the palms of my hand.  I make it crescent shaped by draping it over the back of my index finger.  The book says 325F for 12-14 min, and even making them much smaller than the book's instructions with my #100 scoop, they still need just about that much time.  They should be only lightly browned on the bottoms, and hardly even golden on top.  The final pain-in-the-ass step can't be avoided, and perhaps makes these even fussier than they need to be.  You roll them while they're still warm in cinnamon-sugar.  Gently.  Really gently.  They're still kinda fragile.  Cool on wire racks.  Eat.  Rinse & repeat.

The recipe claims that it makes 5-1/2 dozen 3-inch long crescents.  I don't know how the heck that happens, because when I make them following the directions to the letter I still don't get that many.  And people, I never follow directions to the letter.  Ever.  Recipes and patterns are a starting point, a road map, but not the be-all end-all.  The recipe directions say to shape 3/4 inch diameter balls into 3 inch long crescents; but the picture in the book shows big, big fat-looking cookies, and making them 3 inches long makes for skinny puppies.  To illustrate how much I followed the directions to the letter, I even used a ruler for a few of them.  Finally, in the end, I threw up my hands and decided I'd make them like I want them to look.  Really you could skip all the fussy-fussy shaping and just make them round.  They won't work as cut-out cookies, but you could make them any shape you cared to.

Food Meme of Sorts

I wrote about searching for a cranberry quickbread recipe a few days ago, bemoaning the fact that my improvised recipe hadn't turned out quite the way I intended.  The recipe I was trying to re-create was something that I knew I had made in Girl Scouts many years ago as a Christmas project.  I don't really remember why we made cranberry bread; maybe to give to a nursing home?  Or to earn a kitchen safety badge?  Skit samma, as we say på Svenska.  Doesn't really matter.

My mother reads my blog from time to time (hi Mom!) and she saw the post.  She has the recipe with her at their warm and sunny winter residence (as to that...we have snow on the ground and are forecast about 5 more inches of snow by tomorrow morning, so I say :ppppp) and she e-mailed the recipe to me.  I went wrong in not including butter, not using enough baking powder, and, of course, not using enough sugar.  I'm always trying to figure out ways to cut granulated white sugar out of things, and the resulting end product is usually a little....tart.  Duh.

As I recall, though, this cranberry bread wasn't tart, and was not usually what you'd expect from any recipe with fresh cranberries as an ingredient.

(Don't worry, I'll share the recipe at the end of the post.)

That's item #1 to make for the (count them) TWO Thanksgiving dinners I am going to.

Next I had to call my mother's sister, my Auntie B, to get her recipe for a potato casserole; when we were kids, we always called it "Cheesy Potatoes," and looked forward to it each holiday season.  I suspect that this is a recipe she got off of the back of a package of one of the ingredients, but I've never asked about the origins.  I've never made it myself, either, but it isn't hard.  That would be item #2 I'm making for Thanksgiving.

Finally, in a mostly vain attempt to banish that icky cranberry glop that comes out of a can from the Thanksgiving table, I'm going to make a cranberry relish.  I made that for the first Thanksgiving I shared with DH's family.  Unfortunately, I can't remember where I got the recipe, and I haven't had time to look for it yet.  That'd be item #3.

Thank the gentle goddess that *I'm* not making the entire dinner, because I'd really rather not.

So here's the meme part; what is an unexpected essential part of YOUR Thanksgiving dinner?  Not the traditional turkey, dressing, mashed 'taters, sweet potato, green bean casserole.  Post it & share the recipe.  

Grandma's Fancy Cranberry Bread

1 loaf 9X5  greased pan

 

Bake for 1 hour 10 min @ 350

 

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 t Baking pwd

1 t salt

1/2 t baking soda

1/4 cup of butter

1 egg beaten

1 t grated Orange peel

3/4 cup O juice

1 1/2 c yellow raisins

1 1/2 cup fresh cranberry chopped

 

Sift flour all dry ingredients cut butter into mix until crumbly; add egg, OJ, and orange peel.  Fold in raisins and cranberries.  DO NOT ADD NUTS (n.b., apparently, nut oils react badly chemically with one of the ingredients, and it ruins the bread.)

Pour into prepared loaf pan & bake.

Can We Fix It?

I don't have children, so don't ask me why or how I know the theme song from the children's show Bob The Builder, but the song asks, "can we fix it?"  and then answers itself at top volume with a "YES WE CAN!" and is very cute in the way that annoying children's shows can be.

I made some muffins from scratch, and they didn't turn out quite the way I would have liked.  Not quite sweet enough; didn't rise as high as I wanted them to; stuck to the muffin tins because I was out of paper liners (horrors!!); and perhaps in general too....busy, I guess...flavor-wise.  But not un-fixable, not at all.

When I was in Girl Scouts, many years ago, we made a cranberry-orange quick-bread that everyone who tasted, loved.  I have no idea where the recipe is, but were I to guess, I would guess that it is with my mother's stack of hand-written recipes, in her closed-up-for-the-winter Ohio house.  Not impossible to lay my hands on, but we all know how much I like to bake and play in the kitchen, so of course I decided I don't need a recipe.  Recipe-schmecipe.  The half-hour drive to the parent's Ohio house is a deterrent, too, with gas at the current price.  If I'm not out that way to begin with....well, I'm not running out there just to fetch a recipe.

Fresh cranberries are here, and while I hate, despise, and detest that icky cranberry glop that comes out of cans and shows up on many American Thanksgiving tables, I like fresh cranberries and enjoy making things with them.  So I gave in to temptation at a farmer's market yesterday and bought some.

I used lemon zest and golden raisins too, and when I get that recipe to where it ought to be, I'll share.  In the meantime, I've got to make another batch.  Darn.

Pommes Galettes

Yet another link that's missing from my sidebar is Smitten Kitchen. I don't always want to run right out and make whatever she's making (really, most of the time I'd rather she just delivered it straight to my belly! ;-) but I am always inspired.

I don't remember reading a recipe for Apple Galettes on her site, but I'm sure there's something just like what I did today, somewhere. Or, perhaps, I just feel like this is something she might do.

According to The Joy of Cooking....

(Were I to have a holy book for the kitchen, Joy would be it. My go-to for any term, fruit, vegetable, technique, or direction for things I am unfamiliar with.)

A galette consists of a flat crust of pastry or bread dough covered with sugar, pastry cream or a thin layer of fruit. Most galettes are simply made (check) and rustic in look. (definite check plus there)

Thanks to the inventive re-engineering of my apple peeler-corer-slicer by someone with a weeee bit more of a clue when it comes to, oh, reassembling stuff than me, I've been anxious to bake either an apple pie, or apple dumplings. I don't bake cherry or peach pies, and I'm not into the extreme fussiness a meringue pie takes, but apple? Sign me up. The problem with dumplings, though, is that I want to eat them. More than one of them, which would constitute the entire sugar intake for a small country for a year. Pies are problematic, too. I want more than a slice. Since it is just DH and me in our house, unless we're having company, no pie. Too much temptation.

Galettes can be as big or as small as you like, so I decided I'd use the peeler-corer-slicer (thanks F!) and make a bunch of individual little pies. One or two for DH and I, and the rest would be taken straight to work, where my co-workers are the lucky recipients of most of what I bake. I like to think of that as a win-win...I get to bake, which I enjoy, and they get to eat it, which they enjoy. The only downside is that they complain about their expanding waistlines. (Hello? Why do you think I take it to work? I don't need that at my house!!!) Truth is that I don't bake, knit, or cook for people I don't like, so draw whatever conclusions you like about that.

Pommes Galettes avec gousse de vanille

Apple galettes with vanilla bean

Oven 350/makes 16

For the filling:

16 apples, any variety that bakes well, peeled, cored, and sliced

2 cups sugar

1 tbsp cinnamon (more or less to taste, I like A LOT)

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 vanilla bean, sliced lengthwise and seeds scraped out

1 stick butter

zest of 1 lemon

juice of 1 lemon

For the crust (adapted from Joy)

make 2 batches

2-1/2 cups flour

1 tbsp powdered sugar

1 tsp salt

1 cup lard, or butter, cold or frozen

1/3 cup ice cold water

Because the dough works better when cold, make the crust first, and stick it in the fridge while making the filling.

I make pie crust in the food processor, because I am lazy and impatient. Sue me.

In the working bowl of the food processor, place flour, sugar, and salt, and pulse for 10 seconds to combine. Add the fat cut into small pieces, and pulse for just seconds at a time, until the dough looks like pea-sized crumbs. Pour water over dough, and pulse briefly again. Do not allow the dough to come together in a big lump in the food processor, it isn't good for the motor.

Dump the contents of the working bowl onto a large piece of plastic wrap, and shape into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate until needed.

Peel, core, and slice apples. Use the lemon juice to keep them from turning brown, a little sprinkled over the slices as you add them to a big bowl works well. Add zest, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and vanilla seeds, mixing well to combine. Taste a slice....add sugar or seasonings as appropriate if needed.

Separate each disk of dough into 8 equal portions, and roll each out to about an 8 inch diameter. Spoon sliced apples into the middle, and fold corners up to form a little tart. Dot tops of each tart with butter.

I placed them 4 to a cookie sheet, and baked them for about 45 minutes. When the crust browns a little and the apples are tender, they're done.

Maybe the reason I've never written a cookbook is because my directions are too vague...bake until done....that's priceless, Luce.

Remove from cookie sheets as soon as they're out of the oven (carefully!!) and cool on wire racks. The galettes are very fragile, use caution as you transfer them to the racks. They're going to present a challenge to get them to work intact.

Anywho, Joy says galettes are best served on the day they're made, but who in the bloody hell has time to make something like this on a weekday morning to take in to work, where you need to be at your desk before 8? Not me. So I'll have to let you know how they were the second day, because I can tell you that right out of the oven they're A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. And slightly dangerous...the caramelized sugar/butter mixture is a bit like napalm on the tongue.

The vanilla bean is an expensive indulgence, but I liked the note it added to the galettes. It is optional. I would have liked to add chopped pecans to each galette, too, but there are a few people in the office that can't do nuts, so I left 'em out. If I was making these for a dinner party, I'd add about a tablespoon of chopped roasted almonds or pecans to each galette, because I like the crunch, too.

Hmm, maybe the challenge won't be getting them to work intact, maybe it will be getting them to work at all. They're really good. I may have to lock them up or hide them so they don't get eaten before tomorrow morning.

Dessert Fiend

I am a sucker for a well-written recipe. I admit it. My geek-factor knows no limits. Yes, I will read a cookbook, cover to cover, just like a novel. The result of years of this behavior is that I don't really need a recipe to construct something, because of the enormous amount of trivia that resides in my head. Want to make a quickbread? (Muffins, cornbread, banana bread & the like) I know the basic formula, and can toss it together with little trouble. Likewise just about anything else. So, sure, there are practical applications to this knowledge.

But I also find that I'm a sucker for the recipes on the back of packages of anything; the oatmeal canister lists recipes for oatmeal cookies, the bag of coconut has macaroon recipes, heck, even the tinned tomatoes I toss in all sorts of things for dinner have suggestions about what to use them for.

Lest we think this is a uniquely Yankee sort of thing, I have to point out that even the Swedish stuff that I buy from IKEA-land's little grocery store (products produced in Sweden, things that are hard to find here, like Vanilj Sas, {vanilla sauce} Nippon Soppa {rose-hip soup} and various other things) have recipes on the back of the boxes. One of my favorite "wow" desserts comes from the back of a box of vanilla sauce, which is perhaps best described to the American palate as a kind of thin vanilla pudding that's used as a sauce for all sort of desserts, notably Swedish Apple Cake.

The instructions were simple, perhaps three lines of Swedish text printed next to a picture of a skinned, baked pear, with the top cut off and almonds spilling out of the hollowed-out center, the little cap balanced rather precariously back on top of the nuts.

"Hollow out and core a pear," it suggested, "and stuff the hollowed space with a mixture of almond, cinnamon, and corn syrup. Bake at 175'C for 15-20 minutes or until the pear is tender. Serve warm, with vanilla sauce."

Simple. Elegant. I first noticed this at about 20 years old, and made it for a family gathering of DH's, back when he was The Boyfriend. DH's brother raved about it, as did almost everyone who tasted it. So I've kept the recipe and pulled it out over the years when I've needed a wow kind of dessert. I've made a few changes, though, feeling as I do these days that corn syrup is right up there next to the teevee laugh track on the scale of evil things on this earth. Honey is a more-than-acceptable substitute, and is even (gasp) good for you.

Shortcuts for this would be to use canned pears, but I must point out that canned pears are canned in heavy syrup 99.99% of the time, and even rinsing the pears does not remove the ridiculous amount of sugar that resides in them after being canned in that nasty stuff. Use fresh pears unless you have no other alternative.

Ingredients

6 ripe pears, peeled, cored, and centers hollowed out, tops cut off and kept for presentation
3/4 to 1 cup almonds or pecans, or a mixture of the two, roughly chopped (the amount needed will depend on how large your pears are)
1/3 to 1/2 cup honey
2 tsp cinnamon
1 packet vanilla sauce (substitute sugar free instant vanilla pudding, thinned out so that it could be poured out of a gravy boat)

Instructions

Make the vanilla sauce/pudding, and set aside in the refrigerator.

Mix nuts, honey, and cinnamon in a bowl. Spoon into hollowed out pears, overstuffing them. Put the caps back on. Place the pears in a lightly greased 9x13 glass baking dish, and bake at 350'F until the pears are tender. (about 15-20 minutes) For additional flavor, spoon a small amount of honey over each pear during the baking process. Serve warm, with chilled vanilla sauce.

A wee bit of a sugar buzz, just the thing to combat the creeping crud and the blahs. Honestly, though, this is not an unhealthy dessert. A serving is ONE pear, and although nuts are high in fat, you're not getting an overdose of them here. Likewise honey is high in sugar, but again, better for you than refined sugar or *shudder* corn syrup. Since vanilla sauce isn't widely available, using skim milk to make sugar free vanilla pudding, and adding about two tablespoons of it to each pear isn't adding anything miserable either. So relax. Eat one. Savor it.

O NO GMO

I was watching a bit of Headline News this morning, and adorable-as-hell Robin Meade did a tease for a story about cloned cattle being one step closer to being on your supermarket shelves.

WTF? No, wait, seriously. What the fuck?

The Washington Post has an old piece slanted in the pro direction; even though they quote a survey that says 63% of respondents were opposed to serving cloned milk and meat at their tables.

Then there's this vid from CNN itself that warns against the possible health risks.

Gentle Goddess, this is horrifying news.

The FDA isn't even going to label things as being cloned; the CNN bit quotes someone from the FDA as saying "Cloned products will be so similar that there will be no need for labels."

How about because you don't want to eat that shit, how's that for a reason? A damn good one, too, if you ask me.

I don't eat red meat; not because I'm vegetarian, but mostly because I really don't like it. A perfectly cooked steak holds absolutely no appeal for me. The reports are talking about cloned cows, and pigs, but not yet chicken. I'm sure that's next on the list.

Fortunately, I do know where to get both chicken and beef from local producers, folks who use organic methods and I can trust. It isn't convenient to buy from either of them, but I'll take the inconvenience over not knowing where the hell the food on my plate comes from.

What is next?

Y'know what...I don't really want an answer to that.


Speaking of being vegetarian, I baked a vegan cake the other day for DH's birthday. My nephew is allergic to eggs, so I'm always looking for recipes for baked goods that don't have eggs. The holiday cookies that I bake with the kids can't have eggs or nuts in them, which makes finding recipes tough. I thought DH's birthday cake would be a good place to experiment, because I had no butter, no eggs, no sour cream and no cream cheese in the house, so a cheesecake was out.

Adapted from The Joy of Cooking

Bouncing Banana Birthday Cake

Makes 1 8x8 square cake. For layers, or bundt cake, double the recipe.

Oven 350

Whisk together in a large bowl
1-1/2 c unbleached flour
1 c turbinado sugar (sold under the brand name Sugar in the Raw)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

In the food processor, combine
2 bananas
1 c water
1/3 c oil (or unsweetened applesauce, or a combination of the two)
1 tsp vinegar
1 tbsp vanilla
1-2 drops banana creme candy flavoring (completely optional)

and blend until smooth. Dump the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients, and mix well. Pour into a greased and floured 8x8 pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30-35 minutes. Cool on rack in pan 10 minutes and remove from pan. Allow to cool completely before frosting or decorating.


I didn't bother to frost it either time I made it; once, in the square pan just for DH, and the second time in a bundt pan for his family's celebration of his birthday. I used all oil the first time and mostly applesauce the second time. It was definitely more dry the 2nd time around, which just means I've got to tinker with it to find the right mix of oil and applesauce to lower the fat but keep that cake texture. Another change that I made the 2nd time around was to use 1/2 Splenda instead of all turbinado sugar, for my diabetic M-I-L's sake.

I have to say, it turned out far better than I expected. It ages well, too, becoming more moist the 2nd day.

Good for you....and...Tastes Good!

A comment left the other day that jokingly suggested that next on my health kick I was going to start eating bran for breakfast reminded me that I've wanted to share this recipe.

These muffins are delish. "Good" carbs as opposed to bleached, enriched white flour. Natural sugars only, no refined sugars. You have to store them in the fridge 'cause there are no preservatives. I think of them as breakfast food only because of the cereal, but they make good snacks, too. They're very filling. About the only "improvement" that I want to make is to add some protein powder.

I use whey protein in a breakfast/lunch/snack smoothie I make often; (1 cup strawberries, 1 banana, 1/4 c organic low-fat vanilla yogurt, 2 scoops protein powder, blend until desired consistency) but I've never baked with the powder and don't know how it would react with the heat of an oven. Plus, here's a chemistry question; does it still count as protein once all the chemical reactions take place?

I don't like using an 'artificial' protein source, but neither do I like the idea of grinding up some chicken for my smoothie. Likewise raw eggs kinda squick me. Whey powder isn't too terrible on the scale of artificial ick, but the ingredients do list artificial flavors. There's an un-flavoured version, but it adds something, an undercurrent of taste or an aftertaste that I don't care for, so I use the vanilla flavour.

Adapted from The 8-Week Cholesterol Cure

Breakfast Muffins
2-1/4 cups oat-bran cereal, pulverized in the food processor until as fine as sand
1/4 cup coarsely chopped almonds
1/4 cup golden raisins or chopped pitted Medjool dates
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 cup organic honey
1-1/4 cups skim milk
2 egg whites
2tbsp olive oil
2 mashed bananas

Oven 425F

Combine the cereal, nuts, baking powder and raisins/dates. In a separate bowl, whip the egg, milk, honey, and oil together and blend it into the cereal mixture. Line a muffin tin with paper liners, and fill with batter. Bake 15-20 minutes. They are done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out moist but not wet. Store in refrigerator.

This recipe has so many possibilities. Add blueberries (in season) to the muffins instead of or in addition to the bananas. Use a chopped apple; play with the combinations of dates or raisins with other fruit. They freeze well, too.

So, yes, bran for breakfast. :-)

Baker's Dozen

I read cookbooks as if they were novels. (Funny how they all end the same, no? Those gripping indices!) One shelf of my library is solely cookbooks. Several Swedish cookbooks in both English and Swedish, several ethnic cookbooks, including Greek, Thai, Indian, more than ten about eating and cooking healthy, tasty food. But the preponderance of cookbooks on the shelf are dessert cookbooks. Cookies, cakes, one dedicated only to chocolate, half a dozen that contain recipes for "celebration desserts" for any sort of themed party you would ever care to throw.

With so many of them, you'd think I'd never notice if one were missing. And were it any other time of year, you'd probably be right unless I was searching for a specific recipe. This time of year, however, the cookie cookbooks get pulled off the shelf and scattered about the kitchen and sometimes around the entire house as I attempt to decide which cookies to bake for the holiday gift-giving madness.

I give cookies to people that I want to give a gift to, but don't want to get into the habit of buying something for. My friend who does my nails. My hairdresser. Co-workers. Business colleagues. That makes it sound as if I give them away casually, but such is not the case. My hairdresser has been my hairdresser for more than a decade. My manicurist friend is as close as if she were family. I bake between 12 and 16 dozen cookies annually. Last year, I didn't think I'd be able to resist the urge to eat the dough and hundreds of baked cookies if they were in my house, so I didn't bake at all. This year, I've tasted one of each of the three varieties I've made thus far, and don't want any more. I suppose it helps that I've got a stuffy head and everything tastes "off" due to that, but I don't think I'd want more than that in any case.

For the first time ever, I'm participating in a cookie exchange this year. When the invitations went out, I told the hostess that I'd be bringing Coffee Spice Cookies and Pumpkin Cookies, two standbys on my holiday list. The pumpkin cookies are so easy that I could recite the recipe from memory; I usually bake them throughout the fall in addition to Christmastime. They're so evocative of the season, being made primarily of pumpkin, that I can't resist. Plus, bonus, they're egg-free, so my nine-year-old nephew who is allergic can make and eat them with me. The coffee spice cookies, on the other hand, are more complex and time-consuming. But they make the whole house smell like Christmas, with their allspice and cinnamon and nutmeg.

Unfortunately, the cookbook that contains the coffee spice cookies (and the almond crescents, and the molasses crinkle cookies and about 6 other kinds that I like to make) is missing.

Horrors!

Where could it have gone?

I called a friend and asked if I'd lent it to her; no. I searched the house, even our room dedicated to storage. It isn't on the bookshelf in the bedroom, nor in any of the drawers under the end tables I inherited from my maternal grandparents, the cubbyholes in which turn up the most unlikely things. Every likely hiding place was sussed out, and I even enlisted DH's help, showing him a picture of the cover from Amazon. "Oh, I remember that one," he said. "Do you remember seeing it recently?" I asked, hopefully. "No," he said, looking crestfallen. Then he got a crafty look on his face and disappeared for a few minutes; he admitted to stashing several of my books in cabinets in the library when picking up around the house. Unfortunately, Cookies: A Cookie Lover's Collection was not among the books he hid away.

Amazon and eBay both have the out-of-print book available. Talk about adding insult to injury, I can't just walk in to any of the area's mega-bookstores and replace it. Yes, I've placed an order, but it won't come in time for the cookie exchange.

No one would be the least bit upset if I didn't bring the coffee spice cookies to the exchange; but I want to make them. A search of the rest of the cookie cookbooks turned up a kinda-sorta-not-exactly similar recipe, or at least the picture looks alike. I read the recipe, and thought, "That could work." and set to making it.

Experimentation in the kitchen is one of my greatest pleasures. But you can't mess too terribly much with the recipes for baked goods unless you're prepared for unusual results. See Pie Crust, whole wheat for an example. Baking is chemistry. Mix the wrong stuff and, well, you could end up looking like Wylie Coyote after an explosion.

I didn't alter the chemical parts; kept the sugar/flour/butter ratios the same. But I added a whole lot of spices and flavors, doing my best to re-create the original. There are two minor problems with this. One, we're supposed to bring the recipes of the cookies we bake to the exchange. Two, the base recipe came from the 1963 edition of the Betty Crocker Cooky Book. (That isn't a typo, that's the title on the cover. Google it yourself.)

The first is a problem because for the first time in forever when tinkering, I didn't keep detailed notes. What? Yes, I'm that anal. I'm a Capricorn; we practically come out of the womb as organized, mature little adults. I'm also the oldest of three children; if you tell me that birth order doesn't matter, I'll....I'll...I'll tell you that you're wrong, that's what.

The second is a problem because apparently any baker worth her or his salt in 1963 must have had homemade cookies by the bazillions on hand at any given time. Even halving the recipe after noting the ridiculous yield in the initial read-through of the recipe, I've got about 20,000 of these things. If no one likes them...I'll be stuck with thousands of them. They taste fine to me; but that aforementioned head cold might be helping me fool myself.

So, anyone for a cuppa and a few hundred cookies?

Pie

Much like I think about the passage of time in the fall, I only bake pies in the fall. Apple, mostly, because the apple harvest has come in, but sometimes a pecan pie too. I'm not a big fan of cherries, so I don't make cherry pies in the summer, and I'd rather eat peaches whole or made into ice cream than in pies, so apple it is.

DH is a huge fan of apple pie or apple dumplings, which are actually a lot less trouble than a whole pie. But, y'see, I'll eat just one small slice of apple pie to see how it turned out; if I make apple dumplings, I'm going to eat at least 2 of them.

Surprisingly in someone so enamored of working in the kitchen, I've only rarely bothered to make pie crust from scratch. I have a weakness for Jiffy's pie crust mix left over from my childhood. My mother isn't a big fan of baking, so that's what she used. All you do is add water.

Lately, however, that hasn't been good enough for me. Last weekend I made two apple pies, one for a neighbor and one for us. When I tasted it, the crust was dry. Dull, lifeless, and dry. DH rarely complains about any of the baking I do, knowing as he does that I'll offer sweetly to let HIM bake next time. We'd wait for the next ice age before he would bake something, and since he likes his baked goods....well, he just doesn't complain. But when I asked for his honest assessment, he agreed with me that the apples were perfection, the filling was wonderful, but the crust was dry.

I collect cookbooks like other people collect art or knick-knacks. Of course I have a cookbook dedicated solely to pies. It was a gift from a friend, and while I've read it cover to cover, and been fascinated by the types of pies I've never heard of, I've yet to try my hand at any one of the sweet or savory pies that are on its pages. It has a whole section on pie crusts, so when I decided that I was going to make a pie crust from scratch, that was the first place I went for research.

Over the years, I have heard anecdotal evidence that suggests the best pie crusts are made with lard. Which, I've got to say, squicks me out to the nth degree. The book seemed to suggest this too, so I picked up lard at the grocery store, all the while thinking, 'ewwww' and 'I resolve to not eat one single piece of this pie. Bad for you. Bad. See this lard? See your thighs?'

I experimented with the pie crusts by using several different types of flour. Two kinds of whole wheat flour, pastry and regular, and one crust with the last of the all-purpose bleached enriched flour in my pantry. Never again, that stuff, now that I have discovered unbleached and unbromated flour.

The recipe that uses lard calls for vinegar, too. That bothered me a bit; who wants vinegar with their apple pie? But I stuck with it, adding all 4 teaspoons of vinegar that the recipe called for. Mistake. Not a big mistake, but in the finished pie, I could still taste the vinegar. I had hoped that the flavor of it would diminish with baking, because the smell of it was pretty pungent when I was working with the raw crust. It added something interesting to the taste of the crust, interesting as in 'what the heck is that,' not as in 'mmm, wonder what that is.' Next time, lots less vinegar. A teaspoon. Perhaps two. No more.

DH was not thrilled with the whole wheat crust. I've got to admit that I wasn't either. Its texture is tougher than the AP flour, the color of the finished product is lots less satisfying, and somehow, it seems wrong to have a pie crust made with lard (how much worse for you nutritionally can you get than LARD, ffs?) and trying to balance out the bad by using whole-grain flour.

There is no doubt at all that the lard crust was much more flaky, had better flavor, and was far richer than my old standby box pie crust mix. But I don't think I can ever bring myself to buy that stuff ever again. Icky. Really icky. When I was working with it, I tried to imagine that it was shortening, since it has a similar color and texture. I even turned the container of it around so that the side printed in Spanish was all I could see. Funny those little things you learn; Spanish for lard is manteca. Next time it will be butter. And better, too.

Kitchen

While I'm off, I've been able to do more things in the kitchen than I ever have; making dinner nearly every night instead of heading to a restaurant. I love to cook. I love to bake. I hate to clean the kitchen. Today's Tuesday Brain Dump is all about last night's dinner.

Yesterday I indulged in both the baking and the cooking, along with my strong desire to experiment and tamper with recipes that I've been wanting to try for years.

Chicken Paprikas is something that I last had in Budapest, Hungary about 15 years ago. I loved it, and have wondered for years if I would be able to duplicate it. The recipes I've seen over the years aren't difficult or particularly time-consuming, so I'm not sure why I've never tried to make it before.

My go-to guides for things I'm not sure about in the kitchen are the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook and The Joy of Cooking. I'm enough of a geek to actually read cookbooks, just like you might read a novel. Joy lends itself well to that. BHG not so much. But I read both recipes, along with another recipe on the back of the Kaluski noodles that I picked up to go along with the dish. The commonality to all of them is the chicken, the paprika and onion.

DH hates onion, or claims to, anyway. His favorite thing to eat is the lasagne that I make from scratch, and the very first thing that goes in the pot? Onion. I mostly disregard his opinion in this matter, therefore.

In order to disguise the onion, however, I need to be creative. All of the recipes called for thinly sliced sweet onion. Instead, I chopped it fine and then dumped it in the food processor until it was nearly paste. One of the huge Emperor's New Cloves garlic cloves that I got at Trader Joe's was added to the paste. I love those garlic cloves, but they're tough to chop, so after a rough chop into the food processor it went.

I have some hot Hungarian paprika in my pantry. The recipes for the Paprikas all call for between a tablespoon and a quarter cup of paprika. After having made and tasted the finished product, however, I strongly advise that you don't use all hot paprika, rather a mix of hot and sweet would be the way to go. My version was far too spicy, and I love hot food. I had to add a can of tinned tomatoes and a can of tomato paste to cool it down enough to eat. An addition that I'll continue to use, I liked it.

Chicken Paprikas

1 Emperor's New garlic clove OR 3 cloves regular garlic, chopped fine
1 large onion, chopped fine
2 to 2-1/2 pounds chicken pieces, skinned. Bones are OK. I used two breasts, a bit of a thigh, and a drumstick with the thigh still attached.
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon hot paprika
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
salt
pepper
1-1/2 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
1 cup fat free sour cream
3 cups hot cooked noodles

Heat the olive oil in a large heavy skillet and add chicken pieces, browning on all sides. Remove chicken from skillet and add onion, garlic, and paprika and cook until onion is translucent. If you grind them up as I did, about 10 minutes at a medium temperature is fine. Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper and return to the skillet, turning to coat with onion/paprika/garlic mixture. Add chicken stock and wine, bring to a boil. Add tomatoes and tomato paste. Reduce heat and cover, allowing to cook until chicken is throughly cooked, about a half hour.

Remove chicken, chopping and removing the bones. Return chicken to skillet, add sour cream and stir well. Mix in noodles and serve immediately with crusty bread. Yummy. And not even bad for you.

I also made a pound cake yesterday, rich and wonderful, with a whipped chocolate ganache filling. Very yummy. But I need to avoid spending my days baking, especially baking with chocolate, because then? I want to eat it. Not a bad thing until I can't make myself stop.

I'm off to the gym to work that off.

Bloo-berries

I've always said that if I wasn't working full-time, I'd bake and bake and bake, and end up being 300 pounds. I'm not 300 pounds, but I did spend the day baking. After my usual workout, of course, so I'm not too worried about gaining more than 100 pounds in a few days.

It is blueberry season in Oh-hi-ia. I don't like many, many things about living here, but one thing I do like is the availability in the summer time of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. A friend and I visited a farm market last week, and I bought far more blueberries than I actually needed. I'd eat blueberries morning, noon, and night if they were available all the time. So they were about to be past their prime in my fridge, and today I decided to use them up.

I have an old, old recipe for blueberry muffins, from the matriarch of a big clan that my family has been friends with for a very long time. She was 90 the first time I met her, when I was 12. She lived to be over 100, and was a wise woman. The recipe was taped inside the kitchen cupboard of the cottage we used to visit, and one year, I remembered to copy it down before we left for the summer. Over the years, I've not been satisfied with the results, because the blueberries sink to the bottom. I'd like my blueberries evenly distributed through my muffins, thank-you-very-much. They taste great, but presentation is important to me, and so I've tinkered with the recipe, but until today, have not been able to get the berries to co-operate. A friend suggested sprinkling the berries on top after the muffins were in the oven for a few minutes, and I couldn't resist trying just one more time to get it to work properly.

As I said, this is a very old recipe, and so the format is a bit odd. My alterations to the original recipe appear in italics. But bear with me, it is well worth the trouble. Use a stand mixer, if you have one.

Whole-Wheat Blueberry Banana Muffins

Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Beat 2 eggs until foamy (I beat the eggs until they doubled in volume, which takes about 5-6 minutes at top speed on a stand mixer. It would take for-freaking-ever by hand.)
Add 1 cup sugar, and combine well.
Add one heaping tablespoon shortening, mixing until distributed evenly. (I think softened butter would work well here, but didn't have any to try.)
Add 4 mashed bananas
Mix in 2 cups flour, (whole wheat) alternating between folding in 1 cup milk (skim) with the flour. Finish by adding 3 teaspoons of baking powder.

At this point, if you're using a stand mixer, remove the bowl from the machine and mix by hand. Fold in 1 cup four-dusted blueberries, scraping the bowl down to ensure even mixing. Fill 12 regular sized greased muffin tins 3/4 full. Sprinkle an additional 1/2 cup blueberries (NOT flour-dusted, they'll look moldy) over the filled muffin tins.

Avoid over-mixing because the finished product could be tough if you do. The muffins will need about 20 minutes in the oven and will get huge, because of the amount of baking powder. I checked mine every five minutes after they'd been in the oven for 10 minutes, my oven runs far too hot and does not heat evenly, so constant vigilance is required. I had over 4 cups of blueberries, so I tripled the recipe, and made some regular size and some mini muffins. They're yummy. The banana addition was because I have about 6 pounds of over-ripe bananas in my freezer. I buy them, I eat a few, and before I know it, the rest are nearly black, so in the freezer they go, with plans to use them for banana bread or....something...but they end up staying in the freezer until inspiration like this strikes.

Whole-wheat flour is tricky, sometimes not working at all as I plan for it to. If you don't like it, at least use unbleached, un-bromated flour. I might also try turbinado sugar, because I don't really care for processed white sugar, but I was out.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I've read all of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which in case you live under a rock was released on Saturday. I plan to write about it tomorrow.

The Full-Fat Version

My sisters being home means many things, not least of which is the chance for the three of us to catch up and be very silly together. We'll all be at my parent's place, with its lake and pool, plus all the water toys you could ever want. There's enough room for the whole fam there, and we have a great time. But it also means that there's lots and lots of good food around this weekend.

I made chocolate chip cookies on Wednesday night, not the usual hearty cookies that I'll make for DH and I with whole-wheat flour and all kinds of other things tossed in that make them more like trail mix. No, I made the two-sticks-of-butter that go straight to your thighs chocolate chip cookies. Not good for you. I can't resist the dough, but I'm better at resisting the baked cookies. Usually.

I also made lasagna. And when I tell you that I made lasagna, I mean all day in the kitchen and everything from scratch. I learned the recipe from a wise woman in Europe, and it is well worth the effort. Instead of using the ricotta cheese that you usually find in lasagna, this variation, probably northern-Italian influenced, uses a white sauce not unlike an Alfredo sauce for pasta. You can make this white sauce with skim milk and reduced fat cheese and margarine, but since I make it so rarely, why the heck would I do that? No, this was the hefty version.

It starts with a stick of butter, and a half cup of flour. You make a basic blonde roux, and then in a very long process, you add whole milk and cream, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, asiago cheese, Romano cheese, and fresh mozzarella cheese. This takes nearly an hour, and must be stirred constantly. Burn something in the bottom of the pan and you've got to start over, because you'll never get rid of that burnt taste, no matter how much doctoring you attempt. Add the cheese when the sauce is the wrong temperature and you're left with a stringy mess. Been there, done that, more than once.

It is, of course, a labor of love, I pull out the lasagna only for special occasions because of its pain-in-the-ass factor. But I won't eat more than a few bites of it myself, because it is much too high in fat to indulge in more than a wee bit.

Then there's the bratwurst that will be boiled in dark beer with sweet onions and garlic and whole black peppercorns, then tossed on the grill to sizzle. They're eaten with those onions removed from the beer bath and fried in butter. I can't resist one of those, some of the very very little red meat that I will eat.

Not to mention the potato chips that are not in MY house, ever, the scratch-made guacamole for the tortilla chips, the apple wood smoked bacon (um, bliss, I promise) and you've got a recipe for completely destroying the healthy eating that I've been doing for the past six months.

Fortunately, reason prevailed a tiny bit, and there are vegetable and fruit trays, I made my quinoa salad, which is really good for you. I brought boneless skinless chicken breasts to toss on the grill that are already in a tasty but not bad for you marinade, and I insisted on two cases of water to combat the temptation to drink soda and beer.

I don't know anything that will stop me from drinking mojitos, those will be around as well. And sangria. But we do usually wait until at least late afternoon....yeah, nothing I say here is going to help the impression you're getting right now, that we're all full-blown alkies. We're not, I promise.

I can work out at my parent's place, the community where they live has a nice exercise room. I'm not sure I'll take advantage of it, but I'm pretty sure that the potato chips I ate today while listening to babysis tell our dad stories of island life will end up coming back to haunt me unless I get on the elliptical and do my usual routine.

Middlesis gets here on Friday, and it looks like the three of us will have lots of time entirely to ourselves without anyone else around, and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that.

Listening to: Incubus, Light Grenades

Perhaps baking as a form of therapy.

I was channel surfing yesterday and caught a few minutes of "Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee" on Food TV. I wasn't fully focused on the telly, having the laptop in my lap and reading fan's accounts of Jensen's new movie Ten Inch Hero from the Newport Beach Film Festival. Lucky, lucky, lucky fangirls who attended the screening!!!! Part of the cast, including Jensen, was there. So since I was more engrossed in reading about how one fan got to take his picture and hear his voice in person, ('scuse me while I swoon!) I missed exactly how Sandra Lee made the cookies that I thought looked good.

I don't like most of what she does, because I vastly prefer to make my own stuff instead of doctoring box mixes or using some of the other shortcuts that she uses. Yes, she makes homemade cooking more accessible to folks who think the kitchen is a scary place, but for the rest of us who really enjoy the process, the chemistry, the end result, her recipes are usually a "pass". Besides, pre-packaged mixes are always full of the worst things for you, bleached flour, white sugar, tons of salt, high fructose corn syrup, even tBHQ. If you are trying to avoid those things, as I am, you've got to read the label on positively EVERYTHING you pick up in the grocery store, because you never know what you're going to get in that box of Hamburger Helper, or sugar cookie mix.

I've been so weighted down by the depression which I've been trying to work my way through that I haven't made anything from scratch, or created a new recipe, or even fussed much in the kitchen over about the last two months. Y'know things are not good when the food writer isn't working in the kitchen, doesn't want to eat, and can't focus enough to make dinner, right? Something about these macadamia nut cookies made me want to get in there and bake something, though, so today I went rooting through the cupboards and discovered that yes, I did have an unopened container of macadamia nuts. I'll take the spark of inspiration wherever it comes from, I'm not picky.

I next went to my cookbook shelf, which takes up an entire section of my library's built-in bookcases. I was looking for a sugar cookie recipe that didn't require rolling out on the countertop (more mess than I could currently handle having to clean) or chilling in the refrigerator (I want COOKIES and I want them NOW).

Much like collecting shoes is an issue for me, collecting cookbooks is a habit that I can't break. I will actually sit down and READ a cookbook, just like I'll read a novel, learning new techniques or getting an idea for a concoction of my own. I own somewhere around 70 cookbooks, at last count. Go ahead, point at me and say, "Lucy, you're a complete geek." Yes, I know that and am OK with it. I have, at a minimum guess, about 10 cookbooks that are strictly cookies, and several of the old standby all-purpose cookbooks, like the red and white checked gingham covered Better Homes and Gardens, the Joy of Cooking. I couldn't find a recipe that I wanted to use, and even leafing through the huge three-ring binder full of things I've clipped out of magazines, printed from the web and photocopied out of library cookbooks didn't bring any inspiration. Dejected, I put the books all back on the shelf and went to lie down for a bit.

Christ, how ridiculous is it that something like that will put me into a tailspin? The anti-depressant seems to be helping a bit, but not enough, yet, to bring me out of that horrible funk. In my defense, I did only sleep about 3 hours last night, from around 3 am until about 6:30, so perhaps a short nap was just what I needed.

After napping for about a half hour, I thought about the bag of chocolate chips that I'd seen while hunting for macadamia nuts, and I decided that instead of a kind of sugar cookie with macadamia nuts in them, I'd make macadamia nut chocolate chip cookies. There are any number of good chocolate chip cookie recipes out there; I'm fond of the original Tollhouse recipe, with a few small modifications such as using all brown sugar instead of white, and the addition of a little bit of milk, but in about the last two years whenever I've made chocolate chip cookies, I've used Alton Brown's recipe for "The Chewy" which seem to stay soft after baking. I don't like rock-hard chocolate chip cookies. It is very much a personal preference.

A quick second of OT gushing...I heart Alton Brown's show Good Eats. Love how he explains the chemistry of cooking and baking, love his insistence that the only tool in your kitchen that only does one thing should be a fire extinguisher, love how he shows unique ways to accomplish complicated kitchen tasks with things that you already own.

When I'd finished mixing the dough, I looked at the lump of it sitting in the bowl, and was overwhelmed at the idea of scooping out four dozen cookies. (I make them much smaller than Alton recommends.) Just more than I could handle, I guess. So instead I put the whole thing into a round 9-inch cake pan and baked it for 30 minutes, and now cooling on the countertop is what looks like a cookie pizza.

I certainly don't NEED these cookies in the house. One of the problems that I have with food is that I can't eat just one cookie, I want a dozen. I don't want just the recommended serving size of potato chips, I want the whole bag of them. So I don't normally have things like that in my house to avoid temptation. I know this and can plan for it so it doesn't become a problem. When I am testing recipes, or working on a foodie article, I will give whatever it is away after reserving a small portion for myself.

This cookie pizza is cute, though, and I won't cut into it until DH gets home so that he can see what it looks like. And then it will go with me to work tomorrow, so my staff can eat it instead of me. They love it when I'm testing recipes.

Progress, however, in that I was able to get the house cleaned up today, I made something in the kitchen, did some laundry and I'm on the computer looking for story ideas for posts next week. The sun's out, birds are singing, distantly I hear lawnmowers chugging along as people cut the grass for the first time. My house smells like cookies and clean laundry, good, homey things that are sure-fire spirit lifters.


If only baking wonderful things was the answer. Wouldn't it be nice?

Alterations and Altercations

There will actually not be any disagreements in this post, I just liked the alliteration.

MotherMe posted a muffin recipe the other day, and upon reading it, my first thought was YUM! And my second thought was a wistful, (sigh), I haven't baked anything in forever, due to my self-imposed weight loss program. I love to bake. But cookies, muffins, cakes and quick breads are not the stuff that weight-loss dreams are made of, so I've been abstaining from doing much in the kitchen besides making dinner. Dinner is usually boneless, skinless chicken, or grilled fish. And yes, that can be rather dull, but the idea of becoming a Type 2 diabetic is terrifying enough that I've been highly motivated to stick to the program of gym, every single day, and eating right, making big changes that must be lifelong changes if I am to avoid the traps that my genes have set for me of obesity, diabetes, knee replacement, heart disease and osteoporosis.

Yet again, however, I'm wandering off topic. Boy, I'm good at that.

Back to the muffins. These appealed to me because they have both carrots and zucchini in them, and I have a tough time getting all of the servings of veggies that I need each day.

Here's the recipe as MotherMe posted it.

• 2 cups unbleached, unbromated white all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 T ground cinnamon
• 2 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 20-oz can crushed pineapple, drained well
• 2 cups grated carrot (approx 6 medium)
• 1 smallish zucchini, grated (approx 1/2 to 1 cup)
• 3/4 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup canola or vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla

Butter or grease 18 muffin cups, or line with paper liners. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix dry ingredients thoroughly together in a large bowl. Add pineapple, vegetables, raisins, and nuts and stir well. It will look a lot more like a pasta salad than a muffin mix, but trust me on this.

In another bowl, beat the eggs well and stir in the oil and vanilla. Add to the vegetables and fruit and mix well. Forget that stuff about mixing muffins until “just combined”. It doesn’t apply when you’re making muffins out of cole slaw.

Spoon the slaw batter into the muffin tins or papers. They won’t rise a whole lot, so fill them fairly full.

Bake approximately 30-35 minutes until a knife or toothpick poked into the center comes out without any goo on it. Let the muffins cool on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes before eating. Pineapple chunks will be very hot.

Here are the changes that I made....

• 1 cup unbleached, unbromated flour
• 1-1/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup turbinado sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce and 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 cup zucchini
• golden raisins (because regular raisins are icky.)
• I omitted the salt. I almost always do in baking recipes. You get enough salt from other sources...ahem. Let me get off my soapbox.
  
• I omitted the vanilla. Not because I intended to, but because I forgot about it until filling the muffin tins.

Now since I haven't tasted MotherMe's version, I don't know if my alterations made a significant difference in the texture of the finished product, but I'm guessing that it might make the muffins a bit more coarse-textured with more whole wheat flour. But it gives them a higher whole grain content, too, which means fewer simple carbs.

Turbinado sugar is just a fancy way of referring to what is sold commercially as "Sugar in the Raw" and I have a bunch of it from the health food store, so I used it instead of white sugar. It is less 'processed' than white sugar. Again, this may make a slight difference in the final texture, but the benefits, IMO, outweigh those minor consequences.

My prep time was reduced as well, because I purchased matchstick carrots instead of grating my own. I'm pressed for time in general this weekend, so while I the grocery store I took the opportunity to purchase chopped nuts and shredded carrots, making this one of the easiest quick bread recipes I've ever thrown together.

The taste? Delicious. I couldn't resist them straight out of the oven, being wildly curious about how cole slaw turns into yummy muffins, so yes, I ignored the caution that the pineapple chunks are hot and burned my lip. Worth it, though. They're good cold, too, I've been munching a second one as I've written this post. The cinnamon is a nice touch, the nuts an unexpected crunch here and there, and the carrots are not so cooked as to be mushy and gross. (I despise cooked carrots.) These are nearly ideal breakfast food if you ask me, a nice veggie addition to my usual 2 hard-cooked eggs-and-a-banana breakfast.

Further experimentation will probably be in reducing the amount of sugar, as that's important to me. I also might try adding a scoop of soy protein or wheat germ to see what happens.

I'm pressed for time this weekend because somehow, the family gathering for Easter dinner is at my house. I'm not sure how the only pagan heathen in the family ended up hosting the most important Christian celebration on the calendar, but that's life for you sometimes. So I've been busy cleaning and cooking, and will probably not have a second to spare to be on the computer tomorrow at all. Let's not talk about how traumatic I think the withdrawal will be, OK?

Listening to: The washing machine. As it spins endlessly, sounding like a small jet is going to take off from my kitchen.

Last full NY Day

Which was actually Sunday. We got up around 11, having been out far, far, far past my usual bedtime. Had brunch at a nice place named...wal, don't remember the name. I had a bloody mary for breakfast, if that tells you anything.

We walked through a huge portion of Brooklyn to return to thesister's place, having a wonderful chat along the way. Once 'home', I posted the entry that went live on Sunday, and then read for a while. Thesister and I baked some banana nut bread, cleaned her apartment, did laundry, went to the grocery store...all in all, the things working people end up doing on their days off.

We spent the whole time gabbing, gabbing, gabbing, catching up. Thesister is the only person on the planet who has read my book besides me, so we talked a bit about that as well. I am relieved to know that she thinks it is not rubbish. And that she wants to know what happens next. So I am encouraged enough to keep writing.

We watched "Thank You For Smoking" and started to watch "Hurly Burly", but I fell asleep before we were even a half hour into Hurly Burly.

Yesterday was the stress of trying to get to the airport without a car and with my miserable sense of direction, trying to figure out the trains and freaking out over making the plane or not making the plane. Which was delayed. I fell asleep on the flight, something I haven't been able to do for about 10 years, sleep on a plane.

By the time I got back to suburban hell, I was so exhausted that I couldn't think beyond putting my dirty clothes into the washer and lying down. Today is back to work...and my usual routine. I'd be lying if I said I was overjoyed about that. But it was nice to sleep in my own bed last night. Thanks to a combination of a nerve pill and my sleeping pill, I slept from about 5 pm to 9pm, then from about ten pm until 5 am, so I feel ready to face the day. Bring it on!

I'll write and post The Tuesday Brain Dump later today.

Egad, has it been so long then?

Every day I come across things I want to write about. Things from commentary about a report from NPR to the strange leaf I saw to new music that The Summit shares with me to tangents that spring from a myriad of other bloggers like Scary's, Misty's, Zoe's, and Dooce's blogs, how what I read about makes me want to say something else. Unfortunately, I live in the real world, where I have a full time job, a home to care for, a daily commute to and from work (won't someone PLEASE invent a Thought-Writer so I can write blog entries in the car?) and a plethora of other things that I do each day. So it has been about 13 days since I posted anything new. Which is a bummer, because I love the writing process and I take incredibly silly pride in this project, wanting to share my wit and wisdom (or lack thereof) with the world.

So! What’s been happening? Well, I’m watching the Foley scandal unfold with barely suppressed glee. Heard Newt Gingrich on NPR on my way into work this morning talking about “liberals” forcing this into the news 5 weeks before the election, and Newt annoys me on so many levels, but honestly, Newt, could you not have complained without sounding like “Everyone’s out to get MEEEEEEE”? Barely suppressed glee, of course, because the Republicans could well end up losing some House or Senate seats over this whole mess, and that would be a SPLENDIFEROUS thing, people. Dan Savage has had some wonderful things to say about Foley, and you ought to check that out.

There’s Scary and Misty’s new project, Done a Poo which although tacky, gross, and possibly completely inappropriate is the funniest thing I’ve seen since the first time I caught “The Osbornes” on MTV. Maybe you have to be completely fucked up to appreciate it, but Misty’s photos of Dubya are priceless. (I think they’re both geniuses, myself.)

Then there is this lunatic, who thinks that the recent school shootings in America are due to (wait for it) THE HARRY POTTER BOOKS. Can you believe this? Ban HP, ladies and gents, and you’ll have the end of school shootings in the US. Right, cause we never had school shootings BEFORE Harry came along, and all the OTHER countries where Harry has been printed (notably ENGLAND) have sooooooo many school shootings due to the popularity of Harry Potter. To pull a quote from one of the HP books, “Load of old tosh.”

Which brings me to my Halloween costume. I love Halloween; it is possibly my favorite holiday. I have never stopped dressing up for Halloween. My sainted mother made many of my costumes growing up; a Native American Princess, a clown, a really cool pilgrim, and she helped me make over a costume purchased from the local theater’s production of Evita so I could go as a Flamenco dancer one year in my teens. I only stopped going Trick-or-Treating after my sophomore year of high school. In my defense, I do have a sister who is 9 years younger than me, and I took her with me. But I’ve been a witch for about the last 10 years, in the sense of the Wicked Witch of the West. And I’m tired of that witchy costume, so I’ve put together a fantastic HP-esqe costume. I’m a random Gryffindor student, not any one character in particular. At a local thrift store, I picked up a long sleeved white button-down shirt, a grey sweater vest, and a burgundy and white striped tie, which while not authentic WAS a dollar and fifty cents, so it will work just fine. From eBay I got two embroidered patches, one that says “Hogwarts” and one that says “Gryffindor” (no, I have not decided which patch will go where yet) and from Whimsic Alley, I got a FABULOUS cloak/robe/whatever you want to call it and a pin that says “Prefect”, because if I had been born a Brit or an Aussie, I would have been a prefect in school. I had to exchange the cloak for a smaller size (WHOPEEE, the extra-large was way too big) but the new smaller one will be here any day. And why, pray tell, am I gushing to the interweb about my Halloween costume? Of course, so that I can tell you that I’m throwing a Halloween party!!!

I’m getting a t-shirt for DH that says, “This is my fucking costume. You got a problem with it?” If you know him IRL then you will know that’s so perfect it isn’t even funny. We’re such opposites; I would dress up for a costume party any day of the year and he would do it on the 10th of never.

I haven’t determined the menu in its entirety yet, but I think I’m going to have candy, (can’t have a Halloween party without CANDY), pumpkin cookies, caramel apples with nuts, pumpkin mousse pie tarts (more about those in a minute), and I’m stymied about what else to have. Fall favorites round these parts tend to be apple dumplings (no, not for a party of 40+, I’m NOT making 40 apple dumplings), apple cider (yah, maybe, but only if I can find some way to booze it up, cause the cider I’m talking about is not hard cider, and my last party’s non-alcoholic punch was wasted on my boozy friends), pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pecan pie….and there’s nothing really of substance there. I would make some big pot of hot soup, but then there’s the problem of serving it in small quantities….

The pumpkin mousse pie tarts are something that I came up with all on my own, and I’m really excited to share this. In the interest of full disclosure, this is a recipe that started its life in my recipe book from a friend who had done Weight Watchers. But I don’t like the texture of the original recipe, and I messed with it until it became something not at all like the original. The recipe will make maybe 60 bite-sized tarts, or you could also put the filling into a 9 inch graham cracker crust and have a nice big pie instead. This tastes better and the texture is better too IF you make it a day ahead of time. Being low in sugar and low in fat, it is an excellent substitute for pumpkin pie, which is really actually quite bad for you.

Pumpkin Mousse Tarts

Ingredients
1 (3oz) box fat free sugar free pudding, vanilla
1 cup fat free milk
1 (8 oz) small tub fat free non-dairy whipped topping (such as Cool Whip)
1-1/2 cup pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling, just pureed pumpkin)
1 tsp pumpkin pie spices (or a like-sized combination of cinnamon, ginger, & allspice)
60 fillo dough shells (like these)

Equipment
1 LARGE bowl
whisk
icing decorating bag or a large zip top bag
star tip

To Make
Whisk the pudding into the milk in large bowl until it thickens. Add spices, then pumpkin and mix well. Gently fold in the whipped topping until well blended. Fridge overnight or at least 8 hours.

Place star tip on icing bag. Fill icing bag with mousse and pipe into fillo shells. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve. Could be garnished with a dollop more whipped topping, but I don’t usually bother.

Eat lots of them. They’re mostly fat free and mostly sugar free too.

What’s been going on in YOUR world?

Soundtrack: Jonny Lang’s new CD, Turn Around