Sunday, December 26, 2010

Christmas Dinner

 


My goose is cooked!


For our first Christmas dinner at our house, I attempted to make a goose. My dad had successfully cooked a goose before, so I used his recipe.

 


The full spread.


 


The recipe is from Great Recipes from the World's Greatest Cooks by Peggy Harvey. The goose recipe is credited to Allan McNab. He comments: "The author of many of our cookbooks have a tendency to feel that they have discharged their obligation to the goose if they accord it the same treatment they advocate for the duck. This is not the way to respect the bird which was held sacred by the Romans because a wakeful goose had warned the city of the impending invasion of the Gauls. [The Christmas goose] should be young and should weigh between 10 to 12 pounds. A goose more than 18 months old should not be eaten but kept as a watchdog.

Our goose, raised on a local Amish farm, was indeed a 12 pound goose.

Christmas Goose with a German stuffing

10-12 pound goose
1 bottle of decent port (we used Sandeman Reserve)
1 pound of prunes
1/2 cup of coarse bread crumbs
6 apples, peeled and chopped fine
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1/2 pot of coarse grain French mustard
1 orange, zested
2 lemons, zested

Rub the goose with at least one tablespoon of salt. Prick the skin all over with a sharp knife. Moisten the cavity with some port. Fill the cavity with stuffing (see below.) Add a cup of boiling water to the roasting pan before putting it in the over. Cook for 25 minutes per pound at 375 degrees. Baste often. You will need to remove the goose fat from the roasting pan regularly so you can baste as you do that. I got about 10 cups of fat from the goose. We cooked the goose in a covered roasting pan and it still browned nicely.

The goose has a huge cavity. This recipe makes a lot of stuffing, but you will be able to put all of it in the goose. Soak a pound of prunes overnight in enough port to cover. Cook slowly to remove the stones. (I used pitted prunes, but I did cook them some to soften them further.) Add the breadcrumbs, chopped apples, brown sugar and melted butter. Mix well. Stuff into goose.

McNab comments, "You must serve a sauce with this goose." Heat 2 cups of port, mustard, zests, salt and pepper in a pan. Thicken with cornstarch if desired. I didn't need to thicken the sauce.

The recommended side dish was thinly sliced cucumbers lightly sauteed in butter. I made these, although my cucumbers were not thinly sliced. It was disgusting. Much tastier were the potatoes roasted in goose fat. (Boil potatoes in salted water until tender. Chop and toss with goose fat and roast until crispy.)

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Best Comments of 2010

A highly subjective list of the best comments on this blog in 2010.

Best Comments of 2010
1. All of Mark Scarbrough's comments to the Cookie of the Month posts.
It's not just because he's the co-author with Bruce Weinstein of The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book: From Chocolate Melties to Whoopie Pies, Chocolate Biscotti to Black and Whites, with Dozens of Chocolate Chip Cookies and Hundreds More (crickets from Martha Stewart's camp even after 12 months featuring her cupcake book. . . a zillion interns and crickets). In January he shared some tips about butter temperature. In February he said he'd "send Bruce back to the kitchen" to work out the case of the fractured cookies. In March he was charmingly gracious about the comparison to the New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies. In June he gave the backstory behind why he included what I snarkily referred to as a "filler" recipe in the cookbook. Hopefully my unjust snarkiness didn't put him off and he just got too busy to comment the rest of the year. So if you buy your cookbooks based on what you think of the author personally, I highly recommend any of the works in Mark Scarbrough's oeuvre. And as a year of baking his cookies has demonstrated, his recipes are well written and yummy, to boot. Now that I've read his bio on Amazon, I like him even more. Ooo . . . and he and Bruce have a book on pizza: Pizza: Grill It, Bake It, Love It! . . . .

2. Friends Who Bake
Starting with my very first Cupcake of the Month post Tina_Bakes and Jenny_Bakes shared their enthusiasm for baking in general and more specifically baking cupcakes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat. Reading their experiences with the cupcakes helped me prepare for my own attempts at these sometimes harrowing experiments. Tina_Bakes even invited me to another bake-along over at My Domestic Bliss, but, overwhelmed by cupcakes and cookies and the wee bairn, I totally flaked out. Now Jenny_Bakes is in pastry school in Paris! Is that not inspirational?

3. Zed's comment directing me to the best cupcake carrier ever: the Snapware Snap 'N Stack 2 Layer Cookie, and Cupcake Carrier. Best food gadget purchase of the year.

4. Recipes posted in the comments to CSA posts. Kinda like the idea behind AskMetafilter, the CSA posts seem to be like an open call for recipes using the items in the baskets and the recipes are what makes reading the post and comments worthwhile.


5. The comments to November's Cupcake of the Month: Marshmallow Turkey Cupcakes. I also got a few phone calls of support from friends who read of my death defying cupcake catastrophe. I'm trying to line up an adjunct position at the university as an instructor in the new writing genre "adventure cooking at home." Meanwhile, I, like Thalia, will hope merely to "remember to put pants on myself."

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Saturday, December 25, 2010

December's Cookie of the Month: Whoopie Pies

I figured for my last Cookie of the Month I should make one of the cookies in the subtitle to the book The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book: From Chocolate Melties to Whoopie Pies, Chocolate Biscotti to Black and Whites, with Dozens of Chocolate Chip Cookies and Hundreds More. Having made a version of Whoopie Pies from the New York Times back in March of 2009, I thought that would be a solid choice.

The cookie part was quite easy, though I might have made the cookies a little more messy than necessary. Using the back of a spoon to smoosh the dough into 3 inch circles might make a smoother sandwich. But they bake up the PERFECT consistency for Whoopie Pies.

The Whoopie Pies I made back in March of 2009 used a buttercream filling. This made them more appealing to the slightly less sweet of tooth. These Whoopie Pies use a less fancy pants, more accessible filling. However, I had a bit of vanilla trouble. The recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract, but that was pretty overpowering. But 1 teaspoon might be too little, so it doesn't seem like a typo. Maybe my vanilla extract is too alcoholic. I think I saw an episode of Family Ties about that. But really, it almost tasted like my Mom's hard sauce. Which is cool, if that's you're thing. Actually, a pumpkin or gingerbread version of these with a hard sauce filling might be the perfect substitute for a plum pudding, which Mom only made as a hard sauce delivery substrate. Ponder this for December 2011.

Whoopie Pies adapted from The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book: From Chocolate Melties to Whoopie Pies, Chocolate Biscotti to Black and Whites, with Dozens of Chocolate Chip Cookies and Hundreds More by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough

Ingredients
For the Cookies


  • 2 C all-purpose flour
  • 1 C cocoa powder, sifted
  • 1/2 t baking soda
  • 1/4 t salt
  • 1/2 C solid vegetable shortening (4 oz.)
  • 1/4 C granulated sugar
  • 1 C packed brown sugar
  • 1 large egg, room temperature
  • 2 t vanilla extract
  • 1/2 C buttermilk (regular or low-fat, but not nonfat)
For the Filling

  • 1/4 c solid vegetable shortening (2 oz.)
  • 3 T unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1 C confectioners' sugar
  • 1 T vanilla extract (add one teaspoon at a time and taste it - or maybe give it a breathalizer test - before you add more)
  • 1/8 t salt
  • 1/3 C Marshmallow Fluff

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl.

2. Beat the shortening, brown sugar, and granulated sugar in a large bowl, using an electric mixer at medium speed, until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the signs of the bowl, then beat in the egg and vanilla. Beat in 1/4 C of the buttermilk until smooth. On low speed, stir in half of the prepared flour mixture until just combined, then stir in the remaining 1/4 C buttermilk. Finally add the rest of the prepared flour mixture and stir until just combined. The dough will be thick and wet. Do not overmix.

3. Scoop up 1/4 C of the dough and place it on a baking sheet lined with a non-stick mat. Use your fingers or a wet rubber spatula to flatten it gently into a disk about 3 inches in diameter and 1/2 inch high. Continue making these disks, spacing them about 3 inches apart on the two baking sheets. You should have enough dough for about 16 unbaked cookies - make an even number so you can turn them all into sandwich cookies.

4. Bake for 8 minutes, then rotate the baking sheets top to bottom and back to front. Bake for another 7 minutes, or until the cookies are dry on the surface but still soft to the touch. Cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

5. Once the cookies are cooled, make the filling: beat in shortening and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until uniform. Beat in the confectioners' sugar until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Beat in the vanilla and salt. Finally, scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat in the Marshmallow Fluff.

6. Place 2 T of this filling in the center of the flat side of one cookie. Drag the icing toward the cookie's edge using an offset spatula, taking care that the cookie is completely coated with the filling. Top the iced cookie with a second cookie, flat side down. Continue until all the Whoopie Pies are made, placing them on a wire rack for about 30 minutes, until the filling firms a bit.

Previous Cookies of the Month:
January's Cookie of the Month: Soft Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
February's Cookie of the Month: Chocolate Cream Sandwich Cookies
March's Cookie of the Month: Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies
April's Cookie of the Month: Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies
May's Cookie of the Month: Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Cookies
June's Cookie of the Month: Honey Chocolate Chip Cookies
July's Cookie of the Month: Big Soft Chocolate Cookies
August's Cookie of the Month: Viennese Chocolate Pepper Cookies
September's Cookie of the Month: Potato Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies
October's Cookie of the Month: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
November's Cookie of the Month: Chocolate Caramel Pockets

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Friday, December 24, 2010

All-Time Top Ten Posts

All-Time Top Ten Posts really means the posts with the most page views since we installed Google Analytics back in May 2008.

All-Time Top Ten Posts
1. Color Theory: Completed Munsell Color Charts
2. Pieced Quilt Backs
3. Barack and Michelle, freewheelin'
David has posted three, count 'em three, times ever . . . and one of his posts is one of the most popular of all time. On December 1 it got an extra boost from Wonderwall, which linked to it as the definitive source for the idea that the New York Times front page photo by Doug Mills of President Obama and the First Lady walking to the White House after the inauguration resembled the album cover to "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan."
4. Product Review: Kiehl's Abyssine Cream +
5. Product Review: Clinique repairwear intensive night cream
6. Product Review: gDiapers versus GroBaby
The top post from 2010, made so by the militant, if somewhat misguided, supporters of gDiapers.
7. Color Theory Index
8. Spanish Lemon Cake
9. Color Theory
10. June's Cupcake of the Month: Flock of Sheep Cupcakes

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Thursday, December 23, 2010

Top Ten Posts of 2010

Top Ten Posts of 2010 really means the posts we wrote from January 1 to December 20, 2010 with the most page views. Please tell me we thought about more than diapers and cupcakes this year.

Top Ten Posts of 2010

1.Product Review: gDiapers versus GroBaby
Over 200 views on one day, most from the gDiaper army. These moms will defend gDiapers with their very lives. If you want to get your mean mommy fix for the day, just read the comments to that post.
2.June's Cupcake of the Month: Flock of Sheep Cupcakes
While quite a few cupcakes made it into the top 10, this one was leaps and bounds above the rest. Not sure why, as I'm pretty sure they were my least favorite tasting cupcake of the month.
3. Fullerton Voting Guide?
Poor, poor blue voters in this red, red town have very few other places to find lefty voting tips for local races.
4. Product Review: Ecosmart LED Lightbulbs
I am really happy this post did so well. LED lightbulbs rock!
5. July's Cupcake of the Month: Lavender-Iced Brownie Cupcakes
I'd like to attribute the relative success of this post to my insightful analysis of the lavender culinary trend.
6. May's Cupcake of the Month: Strawberry Cupcakes
7. January's Cupcake of the Month: Streusel Cupcakes
8. February's Cupcake of the Month: Martha's Meyer Lemon Cupcakes
9. Product Review: bumGenius One-Size All-in-One Diaper
10. Product Review: FuzziBunz One-Size Pocket Diaper

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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

November's Cookie of the Month: Chocolate Caramel Pockets


Long time no cookie. If you want a quick crowd pleaser that you'll be serving straight from the oven, this is the cookie for you.

I could not for the life of me find plain chewy caramel cube candies. I distinctly remember them as about the same size as a bullion cube and individually wrapped in clear cellophane. Eventually I settled on Dove Caramel Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate Promises which are chocolate candies with a center of liquid caramel at room temperature. Not ideal, but still yummy. I can totally see how the straight up caramel would make these a much better cookie. That's why I left the instructions for the caramel cubes instead of what I used. But like the authors' suggest in the More Choices section at the end of the recipe, you could use this chocolate cookie dough to wrap up pretty much anything, like all those yummy chocolate covered whatnots Trader Joe's stocks.

I used too much dough on my early cookies, so I ran short of the 36 cookie yield. Towards the end I was using well less than the one tablespoon of dough per cookie recommended in the recipe and all but the thinnest two held their caramel contents well. I would go with the littlest amount of dough per cookie in the future.

Chocolate Caramel Pockets adapted from The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book: From Chocolate Melties to Whoopie Pies, Chocolate Biscotti to Black and Whites, with Dozens of Chocolate Chip Cookies and Hundreds More by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough

Ingredients


  • 36 chewy caramel cube candies
  • 2 1/4 C all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 C cocoa powder
  • 1/2 t baking powder
  • 1/4 t salt
  • 1/2 lb. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cool, cut into small pieces
  • 1/2 C granulated sugar
  • 1/2 C packed brown sugar
  • 1 large egg, room temperature
  • 1 large egg yolk, room temperature
  • 2 t vanilla extract

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut the caramels in half; set them aside. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl.

2. Soften the butter in a large bowl, using an electric mixer at medium speed, about 1 minute. Add both kinds of sugar and continue beating until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Beat in the egg and egg yolk, then the vanilla, until smooth, about 30 seconds. Stop the mixer, pour in the prepared flour mixture, then beat at low speed just until a soft, pliable dough forms.

3. Scoop up one tablespoon of the dough, set it in your palm, and flatten it slightly into a squat puffy disc; set two caramel halves side by side in the middle of the disk. Wrap the sides of the disk over the caramels, taking care not to smoosh them together. Then continue pushing the cookie together until you can seal it into a squat ball, like a deflated basketball. Place this onto a large baking sheet lined with a silicone mat, spacing about 1 inch apart.

4. Bake for 12 minutes, until the dough is set but still slightly springy to the touch. Cool on the baking sheets for 2 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Cool the baking sheets for 5 minutes before baking further batches.

Previous Cookies of the Month:
January's Cookie of the Month: Soft Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
February's Cookie of the Month: Chocolate Cream Sandwich Cookies
March's Cookie of the Month: Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies
April's Cookie of the Month: Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies
May's Cookie of the Month: Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Cookies
June's Cookie of the Month: Honey Chocolate Chip Cookies
July's Cookie of the Month: Big Soft Chocolate Cookies
August's Cookie of the Month: Viennese Chocolate Pepper Cookies
September's Cookie of the Month: Potato Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies
October's Cookie of the Month: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Monday, December 20, 2010

December's Cupcake of the Month: Cookie Monogram Cupcakes

Nothing can top the drama of November's Cupcake of the Month: Marshmallow Turkey Cupcakes. December's Cupcake, while less dramatic, is significant in that it is the last of my Cupcakes of the Month and in some senses we have come full circle. You may recall that this all started when my friend Leah gave me Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat for Hanukkah/Christmas/Solstice/Kwanzaa/New Year 2009. My goal for 2010 was to post once a month about my experience baking a recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. I felt like I needed some sort of structure and deadline to keep me on the blog and in the kitchen while I was otherwise occupied with the wee bairn. Said wee bairn just turned one. Fittingly, I made these cupcakes for her birthday.

Technically, the recipe calls for 24 Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes, but if you recall from October's Cupcake of the Month: Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes, the cupcake recipe says it yields 36, but I only squeaked by with 30. My intention back in November (when I made October's Cupcake of the Month), was to freeze half of the cupcakes for use in this recipe. So instead of 24 cupcakes, I was supposed to have 18 cupcakes, but then it was really 15 cupcakes. Then, you may recall, our dogs ate most of the cupcakes as they were cooling on the dining room table. That left 13 cupcakes. Then due to unexpected visitors . . . I wasn't able to do the fancy frosting presentation until we'd eaten almost all the cupcakes. So in the end, there were 3 cupcakes properly decorated as Cookie Monogram Cupcakes.
Actually I made the Swiss Meringue Buttercream ahead of time as well. I made a double batch when I made the fateful November's Cupcake of the Month: Marshmallow Turkey Cupcakes. Then, as indicated at the end of the recipe, I froze half of it in an airtight container until I needed it. Then I thawed it out and put it in the mixer with a paddle attachment on low for five minutes before scooping into my piping bag. That worked out very well. I used the same tip, Magic Tip 1F, as I used for May's Cupcake of the Month: Strawberry Cupcakes to apply the Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

Why lavender for the royal icing on the cookies? Because it was left over from July's Cupcake of the Month: Lavender-Iced Brownie Cupcakes. I kinda wish I had made the royal icing with water spiked with lavender because the cookies were bland and I really liked the lavender in the Lavender-Iced Brownie Cupcakes. But even vanilla might have been an improvement. I haven't tried it though, so it might go horribly wrong.

For Hanukkah/Christmas/Solstice/Kwanzaa/New Year 2010 my friend Leah gave me Eleni's Taste of New York Holiday cookies.
Eleni's is known for its amazing use of royal icing.
Eleni's makes it look easy. It is not easy. Maybe I shouldn't have rushed. Maybe I shouldn't have worked standing up at the counter. I don't know. But I could not manage to outline each cookie and letter cut out successfully. Either the frosting dripped off the edge or wasn't parallel with the edge. So where Eleni's can use royal icing to make magic, I can barely get one color onto one cookie neatly. I am humbled . . . and totally inspired to play with royal icing in the future . . . maybe even flavored royal icing.
Another problem with icing the cookies, I followed the instructions too literally. The instructions say

Pipe icing to outline each cookie and then outline letter cut out. Fill in with a thin layer of icing, using a toothpick to spread evenly.
But if you outline each cookie and each letter cut out on every single cookie before you fill in with a thin layer of icing, the icing looks uneven. You can see it in the cookie hiding in the back of the above picture . . . and that was the third best cookie out of 24. You have to totally finish both outlining and filling on one cookie before moving to the next cookie for the frosting to be smooth. I revised the instructions accordingly. In return for that tip, please post a comment with your suggestions for how to pipe icing outlines more neatly.

Cookie Monogram Cupcakes adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat

Ingredients:

Procedure:
1. Tint royal icing with gel-paste food color. Transfer icing to a pastry bag fitted with a small plain tip (#3), pressing out air and sealing top of band with a rubber band to keep icing from drying out. Pipe icing to outline one cookie and then outline its letter cut out. Immediately fill in with a thin layer of icing, using a toothpick to spread evenly. Repeat for each cookie. Let stand until icing is set, at least 3 hours (or overnight).

3. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a Magic Tip 1F with buttercream, and pipe in a spiral pattern onto each cupcake, starting at the edges and ending with a peak in the center. Cupcakes can be refrigerated up to 3 days in airtight containers; bring to room temperature, and place one iced letter cookie upright in the buttercream on each cupcake before serving.

Sugar Cookie Cutouts adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat

The recipe in the book says it yields 4 dozen 2-inch cookies, which is twice as many as you'd need if you made 24 cupcakes, so I halved the recipe for you. This makes well over 24 cookies.

Ingredients
  • 2 C sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
  • 1/2 t baking powder
  • 1/4 t salt
  • 1/2 C (1 stick) unsalted butter
  • 1 C sugar
  • 1 large eggs
  • 1 t pure vanilla extract

Procedure
1. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, and beat to combine. Reduce speed to low. Gradually add flour mixture, beating until just combined.

2. Flatten dough into a disk and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour (or overnight). Dough can be frozen, wrapped tightly in plastic and placed in a resealable bag, up to 3 months; thaw overnight in refrigerator before using.

3. Let dough stand at room temperature until soft enough to roll, about 10 minutes. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to just under 1/4 inch thick, adding more flour as needed to keep dough from sticking. Use 2-inch cookie cutters to cut out 12 rounds and 1 1/2-inch cookies cutters to cut out another 12 rounds. Reroll scraps and cut out more rounds as needed. Transfer to parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing them 2 inches apart. Freeze until firm, about 15 minutes.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with racks in the upper and lower thirds. Use mini letter-shaped cookie cutters to cut out letters from centers of rounds (if dough begins to soften, chill in freezer 5 minutes). Brush off excess flour. Freeze until firm, about 15 minutes.

5. Bake until edges turn golden, 15 to 18 minutes, firmly tapping down sheets once and rotating them halfway through. Let cool completely on sheets on wire racks before decorating. Cookies can be stored up to 1 week at room temperature in an airtight container.

Royal (Pain in My) Icing adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat

Ingredients
  • 1 lb. (4 C) confectioners' sugar, sifted
  • 1/4 C plus 1 T meringue powder (or powdered egg whites)
  • Scant 1/2 C water, plus more as needed

Procedure
1. With an electric mixer on low speed, beat all ingredients until smooth, about 7 minutes. If icing is too thick, add more water, a little at a time, beating until icing holds a ribbon on the surface for a few seconds when beater is lifted. If icing is too thin, continue mixing 2 to 3 minutes more.

Previous Cupcakes of the Month:
January's Cupcake of the Month: Streusel Cupcakes
February's Cupcake of the Month: Martha's Meyer Lemon Cupcakes
March's Cupcake of the Month: Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes
April's Cupcake of the Month: Tres Leches Cupcakes
May's Cupcake of the Month: Strawberry Cupcakes
June's Cupcake of the Month: Flock of Sheep Cupcakes
July's Cupcake of the Month: Lavender-Iced Brownie Cupcakes
August's Cupcake of the Month: Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes
September's Cupcake of the Month: Devil's Food Cupcakes
October's Cupcake of the Month: Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes
November's Cupcake of the Month: Marshmallow Turkey Cupcakes

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Monday, December 13, 2010

Cheese Fondue in a Pumpkin

 



I made this for the department party. It was awesome. We had leftovers that we ate for several days, which was delicious. I could only find a 4 pound pumpkin, so I didn't end up putting bread in the pumpkin but rather I served bread on the side. You definitely need to bake this on a rimmed cookie sheet as there was some bubbling over.
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Sunday, December 05, 2010

Last Farmer's Market

 



Yesterday was the last farmer's market until the spring. Very sad. I consold myself by buying giant black radishes and tiny white sweet potatoes (and spinach and broccoli and cauliflower and apples.) The radishes are white on the inside and are a nice radishy flavor. I'm not sure what I'm going to use them for, but they are cool looking.
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Dinner Party Menu

Nothing says insanity like hosting an end-of-the-semester party before the semester has actually ended.

In order of popularity:

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

CSA Basket 18


This week's basket contains: Beets, Carrots, Chard, Parsley, Kale, Beans, Leeks, Persimmons, Broccoli, Romaine and Red Leaf Lettuce, Apples, Onions, Potatoes, Eggplant, Valencia Oranges, Winter Squash. I traded the beets for another persimmon and the chard (which was actually really gorgeous this week - orange stemmed to go with the orange colors of the persimmon, oranges, and carrots) for another onion. I think a grilled chicken salad tonight will polish off the red leaf lettuce. Other than that, I'm so busy thinking about my menu for the dinner party I'm hosting Friday I haven't even begun to ponder this basket. Maybe I'll just rinse and trim everything and set it out on the buffet.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

November's Cupcake of the Month: Marshmallow Turkey Cupcakes


As the flames licked the underside of my kitchen cabinets I thought, "This is going to be the most exciting Cupcake of the Month post I have ever written."


The One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes which form the bodies of the turkeys are the chocolate equivalent of October's Cupcake of the Month: Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes. They baked up with beautiful, even, dome tops. They aren't so amazing that you'd eat them without frosting. They're pretty much like a store bought box chocolate cake mix, which isn't a bad thing. I'll probably end up making these cupcakes again and again because they're a safe bet especially for younger pallets.

The assembly instructions state, "Press 5 gummy fish into each cupcake to make tail feathers." This is a lie. Gummy fish pressed into a cupcake will fall over almost instantly. Five gummy fish pressed into one edge of a cupcake will rip that cupcake apart as they fall over almost instantly. The only way to get a gummy fish to stand up on a cupcake and not destroy it is to carefully insert a toothpick into the tail of the gummy fish as shown below.

The full feathered turkeys are pretty huge and constitute a choking hazard. Only Martha Stewart would decorate a cupcake in a way that primarily appeals to an age group that is most likely to suffer injuries from the toothpicks necessary to hold said decorations in place. I left the tail feathers off half of my turkeys, making turkey hens. I also ran out of turkey heads (see discussion of turkey heads below), so the remainder just got chocolate sprinkles.

The recipe in the book and the title of this post uses marshmallows. More specifically, you're supposed to use Kraft Jet-Puffed Toasted Coconut Marshmallows to make the turkey heads. I am more than capable of tracking down food-quality, organic lavender, but I'll be damned if I can find Kraft Jet-Puffed Toasted Coconut Marshmallows. I tried dusting regular marshmallows with cocoa powder, but they were way too big relative to the size of the cupcake. I feel like the ideal proportions for a turkey are a funny little head on a great big bird.

Moreover, the original instructions indicate that the gummy fish head beak could be attached simply by pushing it into the marshmallow. I tried that and the gummy fish head beaks did not stay attached to the marshmallow heads. The only way I could affix the gummy fish head beaks to the marshmallow heads was to score the marshmallow where the beak was to be applied, dip the gummy fish head beak into melted cooled chocolate, and then stick the chocolate coated gummy fish head beak onto the scored area of the marshmallow head. And even after all that, the marshmallow head was just disproportionately huge relative to the cupcake body. So I substituted the elusive Kraft Jet-Puffed Toasted Coconut Marshmallows with Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Nuggets from the bulk candy section of Henry's. I attached the gummy fish head beaks by dipping them in melted cooled chocolate and resting them on the Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Nuggets. I had to balance the candies beak-up to cool, but that was the least of my troubles.

Which gets us back to the fire. Turkey feathers. 12 oz. (4 C) sweetened shredded coconut, . . lightly toasted. Now, I knew that toasting coconut was not something I should try while watching my baby by myself. I knew that. In fact, I planned my day around that very fact. A friend was coming over to watch my baby while I did some tasks around the house and errands. On my list of tasks: toast coconut. And I did. I spread a thin layer of coconut over a cookie sheet and popped it under the broiler, started talking to my friend, and then smelled smoke. "Fire!" I hear you cry. But no. Just charred coconut. So I scrapped that batch and tried again. This time cracking the oven door and ignoring my friend while I watched the coconut like a hawk. As soon as it showed the slightest sign of toastedness I took it out of the oven. The area directly under the broiler was beautifully golden. But when I poured it into my clear bowl, it all looked too white still. But my friend wasn't feeling well, so I bid her adieu and put my coconut away . . . .

Until later that evening, when I thought, "That coconut is just not toasted enough." The baby seemed contented playing on the kitchen floor while I was cleaning up after dinner. So I thought, "I'll just spread some on the toaster oven tray and toast it a little more to see how it turns out." Not heating up the whole oven, so not endangering my baby, right? RIGHT?!? As I depressed the broken toaster lever which never ever pops up like normal toaster levers, I thought "This is the sort of thing that could burn the house to the ground if I forget about it." Then I proceeded to strain raw milk and boil it to make yogurt.

Yes, I make my own yogurt from raw milk that my friend brings me when she's not making cheese with it. Yes, she has a cow share. She milks Guinevere, that's the cow, every Tuesday evening and every other Friday evening. I know, isn't that cool? Don't you want to become an artisanal cheesemaker with your own goat farm? Me too! Yogurt is so easy. It's easy to sort of check on it every once in awhile while you're doing other things, like, say, watching Tina Fey: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize on PBS. Don't you just love Tina Fey?

And that's when I smelled smoke. "Damn!" I thought as I put the baby in the pack 'n' play, flung open the kitchen door, and saw the thick, thick smoke, "I knew I'd forget this coconut in the toaster oven. I bet the coconut is totally charred." Then I turned and saw the toaster oven . . . on fire. Not the coconut inside the toaster oven. No. The entire toaster oven in flames. Knowing this could go from bad to worse quickly, I pulled the power cord out of the outlet and opened the cabinet where the fire extinguisher is . . . still in its unopened box.

Cut to close up of fire extinguisher box.

Cut to close up of my face completely devoid of knowledge of how to operate a fire extinguisher.

Cut to close up of flames licking the bottom of my kitchen cabinet.

Cut to medium shot of me slamming the cabinet shut and running for the big box o' baking soda.

Baking soda saved my life. Or at least my kitchen cabinets. It put out the flames sufficiently that I could use potholders to get the toaster oven closer to the sink. Then I used the detachable faucet sprayer of my fantastic Grohe faucet to spray the inside of the toaster that I couldn't reach with the baking soda . . . at which point the glass front and handle of the toaster oven exploded. It was a minor explosion and without spreading flames, so I was undeterred. Once the sooty water started spreading over the counter and onto the floor I decided the risk of water damage had become equal to or greater than the risk that the toaster would flame up again, so I put the toaster in the sink and continued running water over it while I used all of my dish towels to stem the tide of sooty water. Once I was sure the fire was out (because the toaster was submerged in my sink) and the flood waters were receding, I listened for the cries of my baby. But there were no cries. WTF? I go out to the living room and there she is, giggling away at Tina Fey.

So this Thanksgiving I am especially thankful for Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, Grohe faucets, and Tina Fey.

You're a Turkey Cupcakes adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat

Technically, the recipe calls for 24 One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes, but the recipe for One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes only yields 18. I wasn't about to multiply the One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcake recipe by, what, 1 1/3 to get 24 cupcakes. My flock is only 18 turkeys.

Ingredients:

  • 18 One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes (see recipe below)
  • Swiss Meringue Buttercream (see recipe in June's Cupcake of the Month: Flock of Sheep Cupcakes)
  • 5 T semi-sweet chocolate chip, melted and cooled
  • 18 turkey-head shaped chocolate candies, such as Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Nuggets from the bulk candy section of Henry's
  • 1 lb. gummy fish
  • Toothpicks
  • 12 oz. (4 C) sweetened shredded coconut, LIGHTLY toasted


Procedure:
1. Using a flexible spatula, fold melted and cooled chocolate into buttercream. Use an offset spatula to spread buttercream over cupcakes in a smooth layer.

2. Cut the heads off of 18 orange gummy fish. Attached the gummy fish head beaks by dipping them in melted cooled chocolate and resting them on the Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Nuggets. Balance the candies beak-up to cool. Press candy heads onto cupcakes.

3. Gently insert toothpicks into the tails of sixty gummy fish. Press 5 gummy fish into each cupcake to make tail feathers. Sprinkle LIGHTLY toasted coconut over cupcakes to cover completely. Decorated cupcakes can be stored up to 1 day at room temperature in airtight containers.

One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat

Ingredients
  • 1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 C unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
  • 1 1/2 C sugar
  • 1 1/2 t baking soda
  • 3/4 t baking powder
  • 3/4 t salt
  • 2 large eggs
  • 3/4 C buttermilk
  • 3 T vegetable oil
  • 1 t pure vanilla extract
  • 3/4 C warm water

Procedure
1. Preheat oven to 350. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. With an electric mixer on medium speed, whisk together flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Reduce speed to low. Add eggs, buttermilk, oil, vanilla, and water; beat until smooth and combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.

2. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each about two-thirds full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 10 minutes. Turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months in airtight containers.

Previous Cupcakes of the Month:
January's Cupcake of the Month: Streusel Cupcakes
February's Cupcake of the Month: Martha's Meyer Lemon Cupcakes
March's Cupcake of the Month: Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes
April's Cupcake of the Month: Tres Leches Cupcakes
May's Cupcake of the Month: Strawberry Cupcakes
June's Cupcake of the Month: Flock of Sheep Cupcakes
July's Cupcake of the Month: Lavender-Iced Brownie Cupcakes
August's Cupcake of the Month: Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes
September's Cupcake of the Month: Devil's Food Cupcakes
October's Cupcake of the Month: Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes

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Friday, November 19, 2010

CSA Basket 17


This week's basket contained: Lettuce (red leaf and romaine), Broccoli, Chard, Basil, Green Beans, Parsley, Eggplant, Winter Squash, Carrots, Cucumbers, Beets, Apples, Grapes, Celery, Herb Mix (sage, rosemary, and thyme), Yam, Potatoes, Onion, and Grapefruit.

I traded the chard, cucumber, beets, apples, and grapefruit, for a bunch more eggplants, green beans, and grapes. Broccoli, green beans, eggplant, winter squash, carrots, grapes, yam, and potatoes are all going to be baby food. I've got a ton of potatoes and some frozen dark greens, so I think I'm going to make some of Mark Bittman's Green Mashed Potatoes. Basil is going to be pesto.

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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

October's Cupcake of the Month: Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes


I know, I know, it hasn't been October for awhile now. But in addition to having an overwhelming October I have a good excuse: I have two occasions for which I need to make cupcakes in November. This occasion: my birthday. In the interest of sanity, I kept it simple by choosing Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat.

Much like September's Cupcake of the Month: Devil's Food Cupcakes, the cake part of the cupcakes baked up with beautiful, even, dome tops. Unlike the Devil's Food Cupcakes, the Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes aren't so amazing that you'd eat them without frosting, but that may be an expression of my bias towards chocolate baked goods. The buttermilk flavor isn't noticeable. They're pretty much like a store bought box yellow cake mix. This isn't a bad thing. People spend hours of their lives trying to perfect the homemade yellow cake that tastes like a box cake. But after nine months of interesting cupcake flavors, I'm jaded. Like the preamble to this recipe states, I'll probably end up making these cupcakes again and again because they're a safe bet especially for younger pallets. Also, they'd be a great base for frosting experimentation as they don't impose their flavor too strongly.

The frosting that Martha Stewart's Cupcakes pairs with the Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes, Fluffy Vanilla Frosting, is as basic as you can get: butter, confectioner's sugar, and vanilla extract. That said, my cake decorating guru/coblogger Rebecca uses something like this instead of Swiss Meringue Buttercream as her go-to decorating frosting as it takes color well and holds up to intense piping. It serves as an excellent base for sprinkles, as shown above. Much like the cupcake, the frosting isn't anything to write home about, but it will certainly not offend a wide range of pallets.

Two quantity caveats: First, the cupcake recipe says it yields 36, but I only squeaked by with 30. Second, the frosting recipe is probably insufficient to frost 36 cupcakes. I'd double or maybe even triple it, just to be safe. I can't tell you for sure how many cupcakes the frosting recipe can cover because our dogs ate most of the cupcakes as they were cooling on the dining room table . . . but I can tell you the frosting recipe will amply cover five cupcakes with plenty left over.

Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat

Ingredients

  • 3 C cake flour (not self-rising)
  • 1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 t baking soda
  • 2 1/4 t baking powder
  • 1 1/2 t salt
  • 1 C plus 2 T (2 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 2 1/4 C sugar
  • 5 large eggs plus 3 egg yolks, room temperature
  • 2 C buttermilk, room temperature
  • 2 t pure vanilla extract
  • Fluffy Vanilla Frosting (recipe below)
  • Candy sprinkles for decorating (optional)

Procedure
1. Preheat oven to 350. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Sift together both flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to medium. Add whole eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add yolks, and beet until thoroughly combined. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and beating until combined after each. Beat in vanilla.

3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 10 minutes. Turn out cupcakes onto rack and let cool completely. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature or frozen up to 2 months in airtight containers.

4. To finish, use a small offset spatula to spread cupcakes with frosting. Refrigerate up to 3 days in airtight containers. Bring to room temperature and decorate with sprinkles before serving.

Fluffy Vanilla Frosting adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat

Ingredients
  • 1 1/2 C (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1 lb. (4 C) confectioners' sugar, sifted
  • 1/2 t pure vanilla extract

Procedure
1. With an electric mixer, beat butter on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.

2. Reduce speed to medium. Add the confectioners' sugar, 1/2 C at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as needed; after every two additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds to aerate frosting, then return to medium. This process should take about 5 minutes. Frosting will be very pale and fluffy.

3. Add vanilla and beat until frosting is smooth. If not using immediately, frosting can be refrigerated up to 10 days in an airtight container. Before using, bring to room temperature, and beat on low speed until smooth again, about 5 minutes.

Previous Cupcakes of the Month:
January's Cupcake of the Month: Streusel Cupcakes
February's Cupcake of the Month: Martha's Meyer Lemon Cupcakes
March's Cupcake of the Month: Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes
April's Cupcake of the Month: Tres Leches Cupcakes
May's Cupcake of the Month: Strawberry Cupcakes
June's Cupcake of the Month: Flock of Sheep Cupcakes
July's Cupcake of the Month: Lavender-Iced Brownie Cupcakes
August's Cupcake of the Month: Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes
September's Cupcake of the Month: Devil's Food Cupcakes

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Saturday, November 06, 2010

Meta T-shirt


Wrap your brain around this. On NPR's Planet Money Tuesday Podcast they're doing a series about making a Planet Money t-shirt. They've settled on a design - a QR code containing the story of making the t-shirt - and a color palette - green and gray. Their first installment "explain[s] why ripping off other people's fashion ideas is a good — and, for the moment, perfectly legal — strategy for us to pursue." So what is this t-shirt? If you scan the QR code you will get the link to the Planet Money Tuesday Podcast about stealing other people's fashion ideas. Get it?

I just used that handy free QR Code Generator, plugged in the URL for the podcast, took the resulting .png file into GIMP and changed the black to either gray or green, and then popped it into Zazzle.

Definitely check out the podcast and the links on the page for the podcast. Lots of cool information about the intellectual property issues surrounding fashion.

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