Daring Bakers: French Yule Log

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il enFaut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen the French Yule Log by Flore from Floriege Gourmand.

This one is sure to break any New Year's Resolution. It contains lots of chocolate and almost 2 cups of whipping cream. I won't tell the taster's at tonight's New Year's Eve party. I'm excited to try the end result and even to see the inside, especially since I occasionally felt like I was baking without a net -- the recipe just left me with questions at times, and a big runny slurry for the supposed chocolate mousse.

Like most, I'll start my diet tomorrow...

TWD: Black and White Cheesecake

When it's Christmas dinner for 4, you know that one dessert will cover an entire week of special and not-so-special feasts. As cheesecakes go, this one was pretty darn good, especially with the lower levels of guilt provided by subbing reduced fat cream cheese and sour cream for the full flavored versions.

With only the 4 of us, though, half of the cheese cake is in the freezer for a later occasion. Dorie didn't mention this technique, so we'll see if it tastes better or worse than frozen wedding cake.

This chosen by Anne of Annestrawberry. Thanks for picking a winner

TWD: Buttery Jam Cookies

In 5th grade, we had our first experience with science fair. (I added yeast to bottles of apple juice, trying to determine if the amount of yeast impacted fermenting time and CO2 output. GEEK!) My classmates projects were a bit more "normal" -- along the lines of "which detergent produces the most suds?". I distinctly recall participating in Kelly's experiment, which tracked food color preferences. Using dyed cream-cheese and crackers, she learned that people generally don't care for purple food.

Do you know what? People still don't care for purple food, even in cookies. Even if it is purply-pink food, and the proposed eater is a 4 year old who LOVES all things purple and pink. I made these cookies, chosen by Heather of Randomosity and the Girl with raspberry jam, and some minced crystallized ginger.

I'm feeling a bit love-lost on the cookies. Just two weeks ago, I had the ugly-but-loveable sugar cookies, and I've followed them up with the ugly-and-can't-get-anyone-to-eat-them-if-there-is-homemade-fudge-in-the-house cookies. Ugly cookies are ok when they're filled with chunks (like those granola ones), but here, not so much.

TWD: Butterscotch Pudding

Smooth, cold, creamy pudding. This butterscotch pudding is so different from any other butterscotch I've had. Must be the combination of butter, and scotch. Oddly enough, there wasn't a bottle of single malt in the cabinet, so I substituted some Irish Whisky. Bushmills-butter pudding. While I was feeling all United Kingdom-y, I skipped the topping of pecans and sliced a Lion Bar for the top. I did not, however, wear a kilt. (Sorry Beegee.)

What Christmas List?

I spent the afternoon wrapping Christmas gifts. All manner of toys requested by my children and purchased by their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Yet, as I write this, there are 4 kids in the house (each child has a friend over) and between the 4 they are playing with 10 chairs, a sofa, two blankets, a bunch of yarn, and some scrap paper that's being turned into paper airplanes.

Who needs toys?

TWD: Grandma's Sugar Cookies

In 1999, when I was pregnant with J., I craved sugar cookies. Turns out, the ones I craved the most were sold at work and tasted remarkably similar to these cookies. Almost every afternoon, for weeks on end, I treated myself to a sugar cookie. Fortunately, I still enjoy sugar cookies, which is more than I can say for the other food I craved in that pregnancy -- Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

Aesthetically though, I tried the slice and bake version. My cookies looked quite forlorn and tube-like, even with Christmas sugar sprinkled on top before baking. Oh, well.

Note to Self

When doing the laundry of nine-year old boys, it isn't necessary to check all of the pockets. The markers are washable, and it is a well-established fact that candy and string cheese wrappers weather the washer and dryer in near perfect condition. Paperback books, on the other hand, don't do so well in the washing machine. It seems that J. had been doing quite a bit of bathroom reading and decided to hide a book about the World Series in the hamper. The soaked book is now in the garbage, with the exception of several bits of cover, which have adhered themselves to the washer tub.

Fortunately, the book came from our collection, not the library's.

R2R: Squash Soup

There it is -- winter in a bowl. When the weather turns cold (or just cool, really), I will eat pretty much any oven roasted veggie around.

My squash soup stayed pretty close to the original recipe from Top Chef, although I halved the recipe and still had well more than four servings. When it came time to season the soup, I added a substantial about of Hot Curry Powder (from Penzey's spices) and some salt, to cut the sweetness a bit.

Since I was trying to pass this soup off as dinner, and a special one at that, for my kids, I drew upon a recipe that I intended to make earlier in the year for a dinner party that fell through. I found a recipe for Roasted Squash Soup with Saffron Vanilla Ice Cream in The New Spanish Table. So I broke out a pint of vanilla Haagen-Daaz and set a small scoop on the top of each serving. I liked the soup better without the vanilla flavor. My kids, they preferred the soup without the squash flavor.

This month's challenge was hosted by Meg of Joy Through Cooking. Check the Recipes to Rival Blogroll for other tasty versions of this soup.

The mind of an almost 9 nine year old

J. would like to play travel baseball this summer. He tells me its important on his trajectory to becoming a MLB player. He also informed me that only one other MLB player wears glasses. Therefore, he'd like to know what his other options are besides contact lenses. Given that contacts seem creepy to him, my explanation of Lasik wasn't appealing either. I asked him to think about the number of MLB players compared to the number of kids who play baseball. He agreed that it isn't time to give up on a backup career plan just yet.

Daring Bakers: Caramel

(An open letter to my sister)

Dear Liz,

I know that Jared's birthday is coming up in a few weeks. You always make that caramel cake that he loves, but it's time for a new recipe. No more gummy caramel frosting that is sometimes a bit too granular. This month, the Daring Bakers have been experimenting with caramel.

I made the Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting by Shuna Fish Lydon (http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006/12/24/caramel-cake-the-recipe/). This month's challenge was hosted by http://culinarycuriosity.blogspot.com/, with Alex of http://blondieandbrownie.blogspot.com/, Jenny of (http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/) and Natalie (http://glutenagogo.blogspot.com/). I also made the Golden Vanilla Bean caramels from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, Artisan Press, Copyright 2007, ISBN: 978-1579652111

The cake was wonderful. Moist, great crumb and a really nice depth of caramel flavor. I added some orange peel to the frosting recipe to change up the taste just a little bit. I drizzled the cake with some of the caramel sauce that I made from the caramels.

Now those vanilla bean caramels. 2/3s of the pan is sitting in a hard rock on my kitchen counter. They were tough to cut, despite cooking only to the softer caramel stage. By serving them, I felt like I was asking my friends to plan for future dental work. The caramels had great flavor, and I think that they'll melt down nicely with some butter and cream into a caramel ice cream syrup. If you've been nice instead of naughty, you'll get a jar for Christmas :)

Later,
Whit

TWD: Thanksgiving Twofer Pie

I'll call this a looks terrible, tastes great experience. I used Dorie's crust recipe, which my husband really enjoyed last time I made it. After a partial bake, my crust, which had more than covered the edege of the pie pan had shrunk down well below the lip. I added my fillings, expecting them to rest in layers, (similar to the chocolate pudding cake, where you pour the hot water on top of the brownie base and it forms a pudding on the bottom). The layers tended to blend together-- leaving me with an almost mocha colored pie filling.

But it did taste good... slightly crunchy pecans, without the cloyingly sweet filling that often marks pecan pie. And the fabulous pumpkin custard was as good as always.

TWD: Yin and Yang

I can't claim that my rice pudding sculpting abilities are well honed. It also seems that after 4 years of cooking on my current stove, I don't really understand how to regulate it's heat. MY pudding, while tasty, took close to two hours to cook down. I'd turn the heat up to get a simmer, and lower it as it simmered to briskly. Each time I turned my back for a moment, the whole pot boiled over the stove. In the end, both flavors were delicious, although not worth the extended simmer and lengthy stove cleaning that followed!

TWD: The slacker edition

I had ideas of making this. In fact, Baking... sat open on my counter all week long. I bought some regular rise yeast. But as I trolled the P&Q, I'm just not too sad that this one didn't happen. Next week, for certain.

TWD: Results and Rugulach

The first polls are closing... pull the dough disks from the fridge.

melted jam ...New Hampshire

the first round complete and rolled... Pennsylvania

into the oven...Alabama, Wisconsin

cooled and ready to photograph... Ohio

Which will take longer --- eating the rugulach or awaiting the projections?

Halloween and Election Day

There's a real sense of excitement about the election among the neighborhood kids. They've voted in school, and they've seen the yard signs. A. and I took the kids to vote with us this morning -- in line by 6:15am, out the door at 7:10 as voters #10 and #11. J. wants to stay up to watch the returns tonight.

I did my share of campaigning this weekend with the jack o'lantern. It was awfully validating when parents of trick-or-treaters broke out their cell phones to photograph the results.

Now, how do I dispose of this?

Daring Bakers: Fall Harvest Pizza

It's hard to have a bad day throwing pizza dough in the air. It really is. That said, tossing pizza dough isn't really a job to give your 8 year old (it ended up on the floor, with tears.) Photography isn't the job to delegate to the 4 year-old either...

Topped with roasted pumpkin puree, carmelized onions, sauteed portabella mushrooms, swiss chard and fresh mozzarella, it was fall on a flatbread.

Delish!

Our jack o lantern

Pardon my partisanship. Living in a area that's as blue as any, I really can't resist joining the fun. Triangle noses will wait for '09.

TWD: Pumpkin Muffins

I intended to make these all week. But that would have required the trip to the grocery that I've been delaying. Our cereal shelf, which normally looks like it was ripped from the set of Seinfeld, is nearly bare of it's yummy TJ treats. The kids have been eating (organic) pop tarts for breakfast on occasion. My avoidance has reached new heights.

Last night, I was planning to drop J. at lacrosse, zip over to the bank and then make a quick stop at the new Whole Foods for the missing pumpkin and a few lemons. By the time we were ready to go, the 50 degree air had given over to cold, steady rain. We stopped at the lax field, determined that there was no practice and headed to the bank. In the parking lot, I started searching for my pen the checks that I needed to deposit. In our mad dash to ensure mouthguard, shoulder pads, water bottle, gloves, elbow pads, jersey, helmet, and stick we forgot ---wallet. Back home, I was wealthier for skipping the stop at "Whole Paycheck" .

Once home, I began adjusting the ingredient list. I microwaved a baby pumpkin from the CSA box. It provided a scant 1/2 cup pureed pumpkin. I augmented that with some TJ's pumpkin butter. Given our fondness for ginger, I also minced some crystallized ginger and added it to the batter. "Fake" buttermilk (milk + vinegar * 5 minutes) stood in for the real thing.

In the end -- a nice muffin. I enjoyed the sunflower seeds on top. A. wished for a stronger pumpkin flavor, which I might have gotten from canned pumpkin or by oven roasting the fresh instead of microwaving it.

TWD: Lenox Almond Biscotti

There, would you like a cup of coffee and some biscotti? It's that kind of day.

Honestly, I would never buy a biscotti. I generalize them as tasteless, rock hard, calorie wastes. While, no doubt, there are bakeshops all across America that have delicious biscotti, I'm not willing to take the chance. I feel the same way about chocolate layer cake -- it's often dry and simply disappointing.

I've made biscotti before, from a Cooking Light recipe that a friend made several years ago. Not too bad. But with a constant influx of recipes, biscotti never made it into the permanent rotation. Under the wire, on Tuesday night (hence the Wednesday night post) I decided to whip up a batch of Lenox Almond Biscotti. I roughly divided my batter in half before adding black pepper to one batch and orange rind, cointreau flambeed orange flavored dried cranberries (from TJ's) and almond extract to the other.

After I cut them, I experienced similar problems to other TWD bakers. After multiple tries and some newly-half sized biscotti, I gave up on the marching soldiers baking technique, lay the biscotti on their sides and moved on. All in all, these were delicious. I'd add more pepper than the eyeball that I used. My best intentions called for dipping the fruit ones in dark chocolate. By the time I was ready to do that this afternoon, there were too few remaining to make it worthwhile. Next time? Yes... these will make the rotation for a while at least.

Those crazy gas prices...

I bought gas today for $2.94/gallon. While my wallet relishes the (probably temporary) reprieve, I can't help but hope that it doesn't change newfound habits to conserve fuel. Among other things, I've been playing a game during the drive to J.'s school -- can I use my accelerator perfectly in the glide uphill to the stop sign?

Sometimes the pessimist, A. would call the falling gas prices a republican conspiracy to influence the election.

TWD: Creme Brulee

Cold custard + Crackly sugar crust + chunks of milk chocolate. Oooh, creme brulee must be one of my favorite desserts. Of course, I have about 50 other "favorites" but this one is good. I borrowed the blowtorch, used the heart shaped creme brulee dishes from the Target Dollar section 2006 (?) 2007(?). I baked these for well more than an hour, but appreciated the absence of the water bath. White sugar torches better than brown. Yum!

First Day of Fall

According to the calendar, fall began at around 11am this morning. Living in Michigan, that means, of course, TODAY IS THE DAY TO ORDER WINTER COATS and HATS and BOOTS and GLOVES. It might be sunny and close to 80 today, but it's going to be gray and cold within weeks.
I sent the kids to bed having ascertained coat and shoe sizes. I forgot about glove sizes though. Harnessing my desire to obtain free shipping by ordering tonight, I crept into their rooms with a tape measure and flashlight to record the length of their hands -- fingertip to wrist.

In just a few days, we'll be all set.

The Evil Eye

My fourth grader has started giving me the evil eye. You know, the "get-out-of-here-mom-you-are-totally-embarassing-me" look. I'm not sure which behaviors I have induce this. I don't try to kiss him goodbye in front of others... Certainly this is only the beginning, and I don't really like it.

TWD: Chocolate Chunkers

Old wives tale or not, I was told that one's taste's change every seven years. Since I celebrated my 35th birthday this week, perhaps that explains why I enjoyed this cookie so much. I've only recently acquired a taste for nuts -- of any kind. Peanuts still aren't my thing, but otherwise, I'm game. My chocolate chunkers contained some toasted walnuts that I found in the freezer. Raisins, well they haven't been my thing for years either. It took Dorie's French Chocolate Brownies to sell me on the raisin/chocolate combination.

I did a double take in reading this recipe. Did it really contain only 3 tablespoons of butter? Was that a typo? 3 tablespoons + cocoa powder+7 oz. chocolate+1 cup semisweet chips+1 cup milk chocolate chips. I guess the cocoa butter makes up for the lack of regular butter... I would have liked to add the dried apricots to this recipe, but couldn't find them at Meijer.

Thanks to Claudia of Fool for Food for selecting this week's recipe. You can find the recipe on her blog, and check out Tuesdays with Dorie for those who made the apricot variation

TWD: Malted Chocolate Whopper Drops

At least one, and possibly 4 years ago, I found a recipe that required malted milk powder. I searched high and low for malted milk powder and never found it. Some time later, in one nameless, nondescript grocery experience, I found the malted milk powder. Given the time that had elapsed between my initial search and my success, it should come as no surprise that I couldn't, and to this day, can't locate the original recipe. Boy, was I psyched to find that Dorie had a use for my heretofore unopened can of malted milk powder. (I know, you're thinking to yourself, why doesn't she just up and make a "malted!" Well, that would be too obvious, and besides, there are other recipes just begging to be made.)

One of those recipes is clearly this one-- malted chocolate whopper drops, chosen by Rachel of Confessions of a Tangerine Tart. I once OD'd on the whoppers that my boss kept in his office, so the name-brand option was scratched off my list. While shopping last week for a cup of basil to make tomato sauce , I ended up at By the Pound. While cruising the aisles, I noticed that they had four, yes, four different kinds of malted milk balls. If you've been following my tale, you are well aware that I left the peanut butter malted milk balls right there in their bin. I brought home traditional milk chocolate, espresso dark chocolate, and triple dark chocolate.

I made one batch of the dough according to the recipe, divided it into three portions and added one type of candy to each of my bowls. I baked each type on its own cookie sheet and cooled them in separate corners of the cooling rack. Then, the cookie hordes came, ate them with vim and vigor and a vengeance. Va, va, va, voom! By the time I went to enjoy my cookies, it was tough to distinguish by their cocoa-brown exterior. So I tried one, delicious. Tried another in search of a different candy. Yum. They were all good. In not too much time, they were all gone. Mostly enjoyed dunked in cups of milk.

TWD: The back-to-school cookie

8:12am: J., K., and I leave the house to take J. to new school for first day. After playing "Christmas-season-at-the-mall-parking-garage", taking requisite photos, and being subtly evil-eyed away by a too-cool 4th grader, K. and I head home.

8:34am: K. and I pull into the driveway just in time to see the school bus take her neighborhood friends to the first day of kindergarten. Miss Preschool has, of course, another 2 weeks of summer break.

8:35am: Tears roll down the face of Miss. Preschool as she thinks about a day where "school is fun and home is sooooo boring."

8:36am: Mom replies, "let's go make cookies!" K,. "that sounds great." Tears stop.

3:30pm: Everyone's eaten the cookies and we've even delivered a plate to the neighbors. Still more dough in the fridge.

I don't eat peanut butter, so at least this one's good for me. While the school calendar says fall, I'm still thinking summer. I've got a bushel of tomatoes on the counter waiting to transform into sauce.

Omnivore's 100

I found this posted on several other TWD blogs. It seemed like an interesting experiment. I've eaten 2/3 of the list, and only ruled out a few foods that I really wouldn't want to try. As food often makes the memory, I've commented to myself where applicable.

If you'd like to play along:1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold or Italicize all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Highlight in red the foods that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
Without further ado...The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros: a weeknight staple
4. Steak tartare: My mom used to make it with plain ground beef from the store – very 1970’s
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht: USSR, 1988. It was so much tastier than the “American” food that Intourist tried to serve.
10. Baba ghanoush: With Marieke at the Starving Chef, Exeter NH. No one’s made it better since.
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich: Once, as a toddler. I’d have to be a contestant on Survivor to consider it again.
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns: From Phil’s, in college
20. Pistachio ice cream: Ah, spumoni
21. Heirloom tomatoes: the best of summer…
22. Fresh wild berries: I have memories of Portland last summer
23. Foie gras: Le Cirque 2000, Feb 2001
24. Rice and beans: Another weeknight staple
25. Brawn, or head cheese: I see it in the case weekly. Never tried it.
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper: yes, but not a whole one
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters: I grew up in the SC Lowcountry
29. Baklava: I now live not far from Dearborn, MI
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Saurkraut: For good luck in the new year.
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel: Unagi
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut : hot from glaze line
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi: They go really well in the Japanese rice porridge
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips: Beegee’s mom used to offer them for dessert
61. S’mores: It wouldn’t be a camping trip without them
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis: For breakfast in the diner outside Edinburgh. Never made to Burns night at the St. Louis Brewery
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho: It’s chillin’ in the fridge right now
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Daring Bakers: Chocolate Eclairs

I made the eclairs -- with a cointreau pastry cream filling. I sure don't feel like writing about them, though. Funny thing... I enjoyed each of the parts alone more than the completed project.

TGIF

I SO need this weekend. I went directly from my Olympic hangover to my DNC hangover. I don't think that I've watched this much TV in say...4 years. Thankfully I have the weekend to decide whether I think Palin is Hillary-enough to consider watching. In my mind, Biden is a hard act to follow to the VP stage.
But I digress. It's cloudy. It's muggy. Only members of my house were actually in my house. I desperately wanted a nap. After 15 minutes of relative silence, it was broken. There is currently a large fly in my house and he's capable of inducing sleep-ending hysteria.

TWD: Banded Ice Cream Torte

Note to self: This is not the recipe to make for a camping trip.

Since ice cream doesn't travel well for tent camping. This is obvious. I can't wait to give this one a try, but it will have to be another week.

Relationship Troubles

During a momentary hallucination of true cash liquidity in June, A. and I decided that we would have someone else come and restain our deck this year. Three+ years ago, I stained the flat surfaces. We haven't touched the railings or the 10ft high arbor that spans 250 sq. feet in the four years that we've lived here. For me to take on that project, I'd end up essentially ignoring the kids for a week.

Normally, we are DIYers. Tile or Pergo? check. Landscaping? check. Painting? check. Plumbing? of course. We don't do electrical, because as A. puts it "risk of death is too high."

Now deck staining isn't rocket science. It shouldn't cost as much as a vacation to contract it out either. Through mutual acquaintance, I found my man. Our relationship proceeds as follows:
day 1: time to power wash. Deck-man arrives on time, but power washer breaks and needs to be repaired.
day 4: Power washer still isn't repaired, but deck-man borrows from a pal and cleans off the old paint.
day 5: Car trouble
day 6: More car trouble - needs to buy new car
day 7: Needs to register new car
day 8: Stains some of deck. After one hour, needs to take child to doctor appt.
day 9: Tries to stain arbor. tells me that the stain isn't right. I go and buy new stain.
day 10: It might rain. It doesn't rain.
day 11: Ditto.
day 12: Against our agreement, he tries to spray the arbor. Of course, gray stain splatters everywhere-- on the siding, the already stained deck, the BBQ grill cover.
day 13: I alert deck-man to the splatter problems. He agrees to come and fix them.
day 14: He arrives to try and fix problem. Stain comes off of house no problem. Gray stain doesn't pressure wash off of natural stain colored deck.
day 15: Deck-man needs to rent a sander.
At this point I head out of town. It doesn't surprise me to return home after three weeks and find that nothing has changed in deck-land.

Week 6: We break up. Deck-man tells me he's working a new job. Offers to return the portion of the job already paid for in installments.

Day 41: Kids in basement watching second movie of the morning. I'm finishing up the sanding and staining of the deck. I sanded off all of the large gray blotches. A. and I have decided that the spray splatter gives the deck "character."

When I do the job myself, at least I can take responsibility for my own mistakes. I'm back to DIY.

(Left) Deck with character.

Mom of the Year?

5:56pm
At one point today, there were 7 kids at my house: 6 boys, 1 girl -- ages 9,9,8,4,4,4,3 -- and me.
They all got along really well.
Interestingly enough, the mess level in the house is about the same now as it is when just three of us are home.
I've already cracked open a beer (Lagunitas IPA, to be precise, hoppy yumminess) and discovered in the process that one of MY children left the remainder of the milk gallon inside the tupperware cabinet for the past 3+hours.
I haven't much thought about dinner other than to concede that it needs to be made and that it won't contain milk.
My children are hiding because they might be asked to empty the dishwasher or set the table.

TWD: Granola Grabbers

Dorie thought of these cookies as the ultimate afterschool cookie. While my southern friends send their kids off to school, backpacks in hand as early as the 7th of August, my kids don't start until September 2nd and 15th. For now, though I'll grab a cookie and dream of a bit of peace and quiet. Come the first week of October, I'll bake another batch and think longingly back to the "lazy days" of summer, when I didn't spend so much time in carpool.

These cookies, chosen by Bad Girl Baking, were just awesome. I found some granola flavored with some orange oil at the grocery store and it added a really nice aroma to the cookies. Since I'm not a fan of peanuts, I left them out, adding some extra almonds and golden raisins. There is a sad looking half bag of chocolate chips in the pantry, which I thought of including, but forgot by the time I started mixing the chunks together. These cookies didn't miss the chocolate.

I had two cookies for breakfast, and given their addictive nature, sent most of the remaining ones with A. to work.

TWD:Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream

I'm often hesitant of ice cream recipes. The 5 to 7 egg yolks often included are just too rich for me. This one, which I made for the second time this week, has no eggs. The creamy texture and tang from the sour cream are reminiscent of cheesecake.

While in the mountains, I made some blueberry lime jam. The opening steps of this recipe made me wonder whether I could add a bit of jam to the dairy and blend away. I'm also debating other flavoring options -- fruits? chocolate? I'm going to play with this one a bit in the future.

It's a keeper!

TWD: The vacation edition

Vacation...5000+ feet of elevation, lots of greenery and mom and dad's company. It's always great fun. So much so, that I didn't get around to last week's recipe until tonight. Using fresh South Carolina peaches and the blueberries I picked on Tuesday, I made the summer fruit galette. As the jam, I spread some of this afternoon's blueberry jam on the crust, instead of graham crackers, I subbed a piece of sugar cookie. Aside from the custard that creeped out of the crust, this was great.

Given the 5000+ feet between mom and dad's and sea level, I'm opting out of next week's recipe. After more than a decade of this, neither my mom nor I have truly mastered altitude corrections.

TWD: Cherry Rhubarb cobbler

Ah, to have a use for the cup or so of leftover rhubarb that I froze in May. Fruit desserts are great in the summer and this one was no exception. Break out the cherry pitter, the cuisinart and not too long later, there's cobbler in the oven. I added to crystallized ginger to my fruit mixture, as well as pressed one piece into the top of each "cobbler ball".
Overall, I'd prefer crisp, in part because I thought this was so odd looking when it came out of the oven. I had assumed that the balls of dough would sort of spread into each other, forming a loose crust. But they didn't... round cherries, round biscuits, square pan -- it didn't work for me aesthetically. I didn't even end up with a photo of the finished product.

A2 Art Fair Shopping Spree

It's a face only a four year old could love!

After two half days at the art fairs, we came home with:

- one painted face

-two water bottle holders

-three Popsicles/smoothies in bellies

and

-four pairs of Wii Fit demo socks.

While I would love to have made some bigger (much bigger) purchases, this simply isn't the year.

Like mother, like daughter

My kids were all over each other today. Every last thing was a fight. After J. left with a friend for the afternoon and evening, I asked K. what she would like to do. Currently, we have two types of banana bread in the oven, marbled and coconut with lime glaze. While starting dinner, I asked her to turn on the Red Sox game so that we could check the score. The TV was on public TV, so she's currently glued to Lawrence Welk.

As a 3 year old, my great-grandmother was my only babysitter. I used to spend Saturday evenings at her house, watching Lawrence Welk and earning a penny for every pea I ate. K. has taken me right back to the big old house on Live Oak Road.

Free Rice

Look! Over there on the left. The green box, the one that says free rice. Go ahead, click on it and spend a few minutes.
It's a great vocab game, which you can adjust for difficulty. By answering correctly, you will generate donations of rice for the UN World Food program. The rice is paid for by the ads that scroll (unobtrusively) at the bottom of the site. It's addictive.

Allen's turn: Shaken not stirred

Each member of my family has a lot to contribute to what we eat. J. is an avid reader of my cookbook collection, adding his suggestions to the week's menu. K. is less adventurous, but is always willing to eat, well Macaroni and Cheese. (Major victory: she ate both zucchini and bok choy tonight, and appeared to enjoy them.) A. will eat and is a willing sous chef if time permits. Sunday night, he opened the July Bon Appetit and was drawn to the Raspberry-Thyme Smash. We had all of the ingredients on hand and enjoyed this intense refresher two nights in a row!

TWD: Chocolate Pudding

I'm a regular with pudding. When there isn't any ice cream in the house and I am craving something sweet, I often stir up a batch on the stove. Store bought mixes taste like chemicals, and the whole process is easier than most believe it to be.

I put off making Dorie's Chocolate Pudding -- it was simply another pudding, but with more dirty dishes. A few days ago, I picked up a 3.5 oz chocolate bar at Trader Joe's. When I referred to the recipe again on Monday night, I realized that I would be short an ounce and a half. While I was out this afternoon, I zipped into TJ's, picking up milk, almonds, brown rice, Organic Morning Light... at my next stop, picking up the CSA box I realized that I had forgotten my chocolate. Well never fear, Morgan & York carries chocolate -- Callebut 60.4% bittersweet. I paid a pretty price, but it sure is a pretty 1.18 lb block of bliss (and antioxidants, right?)

The Cuisinart technique really does make a smooth pudding, and without the standard 15 minutes of non-stop stirring. I served it in wineglasses. A took one bite, without knowing the chocolate saga and remarked, "this pudding ROCKS!"

This recipe will become the gold standard in my house. When I haven't the time for full fledged pudding making and dish washing, however, this recipe from Cooking Light beats the box hands-down.

Microwave Chocolate Pudding

6 tbsp sugar

1/4 c. unsweetened dutch process cocoa powder

2 tbsp cornstarch

1 1/2 c. 2% milk

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Combine sugar, cocoa, and cornstarch in a one quart glass measure. Gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until well blended. Micorwave on high 3 minutes, stirring after 90 seconds.
Microwave on medium high (70%) 90 seconds or until thick. Add vanilla, stir well with a whisk, Serve warm or cover and chill. Yield 3 servings.

Gut Check: 5 things I'd never do as a parent

Before kids (BK), it was easy to parent. When A. and I were dating, and not even specifically talking about kids, we did agree that we simply couldn't do "hockey or horses." For hockey and horses, we felt that the demands of the sports imposed too much on the lives of the rest of the family. I was a competitive swimmer growing up, and at this point in my life, with the equivalent of a hockey team or two living on my street, I'm not sure how hockey is much different from serious swimming in that regard. That said, I swore I would never do the following:

1) send my child to school with hair sticking straight up.
2) be a hockey family
3) own a horse
4) look at the framed art in my house and find that it is all crooked.
5) short order cook

8+ years later, #2 and #3 still hold. #1 lasted until kindergarten, and the arrival of child #2. We all eat the same dinner if we are eating together, which is most nights. Lunch-- that's another story. I'm not much for sandwiches myself, and often I find myself putting together a separate version of lunch for each member of the family -- and more often than not, it's all "hot" lunch.
Saturday night, I was sitting in the dining room and there was #4, of the 10 pictures hanging on the wall of the stairway, 9 were decidedly crooked. Oh well.
I'm holding firm on the hockey and horses.

bb: Jalepeno Cheddar Cornbread

On the menu tonight:
Crock pot Calypso Beans from Rancho Gordo. I made these with caramelized onions and served them with raw onion, sliced avocado and BBQ sauce on the side.
Watermelon Salad: greens and basil from Needle-lane, watermelon, feta, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Barefoot Contessa's cornbread

The beans were the highlight, the salad refreshing on a hot day, and the cornbread... well it was fine, rich cornbread. I halved the recipe to fill a 9x9 pan and added the kernels of one corn ear. The cornbread was better after cooling than before, certainly buttery and quick to make. I might turn to this recipe again when I feel compelled to make cornbread. For serving with Chili, however, I recommend Cooking Light's Sour Cream Cheddar and Green Onion Drop Biscuits.

I don't cook like my mother

My mom is a very good cook. When A. and I got married, she typed up all of her standby recipes and had them bound into a book at the copy shop. Since she is an eyeball kind of cook, they time she spent eyeballing and then measuring her ingredients in order to pass along the recipe was a real gift of time and love.

I don't think of my mom as a "convenience cook." She uses relatively few processed ingredients of any kind. As I mentioned yesterday, she makes a killer pie crust. She's never served Green Bean Casserole. Somewhere along the way, the rise of the convenience food in the 60's and 70's really infiltrated her psyche.

One time, I baked Tomato Pie from Mom's Cookbook. For the intervening decade between it's debut and today, it has stood solo at the top of the "flops" list. The recipe contains canned biscuits ( a product I would never use today), tomatoes, onions, peppers topped with the winning combination of warm mayonnaise mixed with cheddar cheese. I think the only dish I could serve to A. that would be less popular would contain beets.

For me, childhood would not have been complete without hamburger stroganoff. Not beef, hamburger. When I was a kid, it was made with canned mushrooms and Minute Rice. I've freshened it up some, and I no longer need to crack Mom's Cookbook to make it, but the skillet sauce still contains a can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken Soup and some sour cream. And some nights, there isn't any dinner I'd rather eat. K. thinks so too. She (who delights in loving mushrooms, since J. doesn't eat them), pronounced last night's rendition of the stroganoff "perfect dinner".

Hamburger Stroganoff

1 onion, chopped
1 clove minced garlic
1 lb ground beef
salt and pepper
splash of sherry or vermouth
1 lb mushrooms, sliced
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream

Saute onion, garlic and ground beef. Add mushrooms, salt and pepper, and saute until mushrooms are tender. Stir in soup and sherry wine. Simmer 10 minutes. Stir in sour cream and heat through on low. Serve over rice.

What's in the Fridge

in the fridge 1
Originally uploaded by whitneyjbruce

I posted this to a group on Flickr. For more detail about the contents, click on the photo to link to Flickr. If you have any ideas about what I should do with the turnip greens, please let me know!

TWD: Ode to the Blueberry

orbs of blue tart and sweet,
my favorite fruit -- can't be beat
tossed with sugar and flour
and rolled in a dough
served with vanilla ice cream
the best of summer, don't ya know!

Ok, so poetry isn't my strong suit. Amy of South in your mouth selected double crust blueberry pie as this week's TWD recipe.

I've been the pie lady in our circles, both friends and family, as I'm not intimidated by pie crust. Over time, I've covered every holiday classic and all the fruits in between, including the cherry lattice pie after the 27lb cherry sojurn of 2007. I followed Dorie's recipe as written, with solid, consistent results. A. liked Dorie's crust. I prefer the piquancy of my mother's pie crust recipe, which contains many of the tricks found in other crusts, but is unlike any other recipe I've seen.

Mom's Pie Crust

5 c. flour
1tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp salt
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 ½ c. shortening
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp vinegar
Water

Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Add shortening, and cut into mixture until it resembles coarse meal. Put egg in a measuring cup and add water to make ¾ cup. Stir in vinegar. Pour mixture over dry ingredients and toss lightly with a fork until moistened. Divide into two balls, flatten into disks, wrap in wax paper and chill at least 30 minutes.
Yield: 2 pies

Daring Bakers: Danish Braid

There it is. In all of its ugly glory.

I've never studied French and I've never made laminated dough. I'll admit to feeling rather proud of myself as this became buttery and puffy in the oven. My danish was filled with a sweet and tart combination of fresh goat cheese and homemade blueberry orange jam from last summer. I absolutely love this combination, as the sweetness of the jam is well tempered by the cheese. It's getting closer to blueberry season here in Michigan, and I'll be picking, and freezing, and jamming before I know it.
So I made the dough, omitting the cardamom for lack of a desire to shop. The dough came out well and was much easier than I had anticipated. Then I got to the filling and braiding--this is where the wheels fell off the cart. I tried to make mine hold together as in the photos. The more the braid rose, the less it stayed braided. I intervened several times, trying to stretch and tuck it back together. During the baking, it split entirely in two, leaving dry, flaky danish-y pieces and thick, moist filling-y bites. Both were good, but they would have been so much better together.
My perfectionist side would like to conquer the Danes, but my other half really prefers so many other baked goods to Danish.

I love the smell of garlic in the morning

5:15am run 3 miles with a dog walk as cool down


6:00am aahh, the first cup of coffee


6:10am The house is quiet, so I might as well break out the cuisinart and make some garlic scape pesto.

Our CSA box includes garlic scapes in with the cool season veggies. These curly little stalks look cool and smell great, but I've always been a bit perplexed as to how to use them. This time, I ground them up with pine nuts, parmesan and olive oil. I've added dabs to sauteed Kale, pasta, and spread on a sandwich.


6:45am "Mom, can you make pancakes this morning?"

BB: Parmesan Chicken

Meal planning is easy when others tell me what to cook. I've got several of Ina Garten's cookbooks, so adding a few of her dishes to my repertoire is easy. I've made the Parmesan chicken before, always with good results, and this dish travels well. Rather than pounding out my rather large chicken breasts, I sliced them in half horizontally, creating thinner pieces. I also dredged them in panko bread crumbs, which create a super crispy crust. To the greens, I added some avocado slices .
Alongside, we had our favorite watermelon salad: watermelon, basil, goat cheese, salt, pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

TWD: Mixed Berry Cobbler

Yum! A. prefers crisp, but there is something about cobbler, with its less sweet crust that really appeals to me when we have loads of fresh berries.
I stuck to the recipe, combining blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and some frozen cherries from last year's 27 lb pick your own extravaganza.
One of my bites contained a distinct pepper taste, which I really liked and might increase next time.

The Best Day of the Year

I think my favorite day of the year is the day of the first CSA delivery. We joined Needle-Lane Farms three seasons ago from a desire to eat a greater variety of local produce. I now feel like it's my birthday every Tuesday, as I get to open the box and figure out how to use the bounty. My kids try a greater variety of veggies, and J. likes to help cook them. Three years later, I've also added to my list of people who enjoy the beets which I can't get my family to enjoy.

It's somewhat of a guilty admission, but one of the best parts of our CSA is the pickup spot. Heading into a wine and cheese store on a weekly basis can be a dangerous proposition for our budget. So much so, that on weeks where I'm feeling poor, I actually leave my wallet in the car to avoid temptation. The folks at Morgan & York are super friendly and knowledgeable, that the impulse purchase, or four is just too easy.

What's cooking this week:

From Morgan and York --- fresh ricotta cheese, K.'s requisite slice of the caliente salami, a small bottle of delicious Olive Oil, and a bag of Ann Arbor Tortilla Factory Tortilla Chips. On a sleepless evening, A. broke into the chips and made a deep dent, I'll have to go back for more this afternoon...

From Needle-Lane---lots of herbs: basil (yum!), dill, garlic scapes, chives. Sugar snap peas, bok choi, onions, chard, spinach, lettuce, kholrabi, kale and collards.

The huge bag of sugar snap peas started to disappear out of hand. Many of the herbs and the spinach went into this Bon Appetit pasta recipe. I did wilt the spinach by draining the pasta over top of it, and I skipped the radicchio.

Still on deck, a type of kale quiche, a few more salads... With all of these veggies to eat, it is easy to eat at home rather than out.

And since I was hanging out in the kitchen on Tuesday cleaning and putting away all of these good veggies, I also made two loaves of whole wheat English Muffin bread. (Maybe I need a real job?)

How do you respond when...

A. brought home a pile of old National Geographic Magazines from a colleague. This morning, they were stacked neatly in the corner. Just a moment ago, K. was laughing. I went in to see what was up. She's opened one of the NG magazines, and is squealing over a picture of a beheaded monkey (discerned from my quick glance at the caption). Her comment: "Oh look! It's a person pretending to be cut up like a chicken."

I replied: "Let's look for another picture."

It's been a while since I've read National Geographic. Seems to be more of a PG-13 publication.

TWD: A Pile of Profiteroles

Cream Puff Ring -- what fun! Prior to this week, I had never tried to make cream puff dough, asssuming that the stuff of Paris bakeries was a bit too tough for my skill level. Maybe I was right? The dough seemed easy enough, smooth and silky as it came together in the mixer. I piped it out onto the parchment circle no problem. With the remaining dough, I made a number of individual cream puff shells.

About halfway through the 425 degree baking time, everything started to look really brown. swapped the upper and lower trays and proceeded to lower the temp. In the end, my cream puff shells looked beautiful, all puffy and golden. My cream puff ring, well it looked like this:

A frisbee? A flying saucer? A fancy letter "o"? It didn't rise at all, in fact it may have been more flat after baking than before baking.

I parted ways with the ring and worked only with my puffs. I found them delightful when filled, although my 8-year old pronounced the filling as "kind of like chewing on a mint leaf." He ate them, so I'm not sure whether or not to call it a positive or a negative.

Not Yet Tuesday: Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream

It was hot. I was cranky. I've entertained thoughts of passing along the old Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker. I have the freezer space to keep it chilled, but the pantry space to store a one use item? The other night I was glad that I had it around. Blueberries were on sale at the grocery, and while I didn't have whole milk, or sour cream, I subbed with skim and plain low-fat yogurt. A refreshing dessert on a hot summer evening!

The lower fat content did result in a super-frozen ice cream a day later, but still delicious. Many of the ice cream recipes I find are too rich for my taste -- 5 to 7 egg yolks. I'm much more a Breyer's kind of gal, and this fit the bill.