A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Blackberry & Cherry Cobbler--Just like Mom's!

When I was a kid I was the oldest of five. With being the oldest and the oldest daughter I quickly became my mother's sergeant at arms in the kitchen.  Growing up, we planted an acre garden across town on some land my dad owned that also came with enough raspberry and blackberry brambles to sustain us with fruit throughout the summer, and frozen, through the winter.  We also canned apples from my Nannie's three trees in her backyard.

This made for the most common winter desserts at our house being apple crisps and berry cobblers. Guess who was in charge?  Yep, me. Even at nine or ten years old I could whip together the family dessert and move on to helping mom with the rest of dinner.

Fudge and Fruit Bread: Another look at Christmas Desserts

I've already told you about the cream cheese cookie press cookies and the cranberry bread on the dessert table that was such a hit this year but one of the biggest surprise hits was the fudge.  Our family tradition is all about the peanut butter fudge. No one in my family even gives a flying flip about chocolate fudge, weird as that makes us, just peanut butter.  However, I was feeling a little lonely for MY favorite flavor and decided to make a go at it:  white chocolate maple.  Yum.

Thought I'd share a couple more pics from Christmas:

This is the kids all cracking up but I couldn't figure out why until Sydney signed to me that Suzanne (my sister) was making finger signs behind my head.  Duh.  I'm so slow on the uptake!

January 2nd, Already?

Where did New Year's Eve and New Year's Day go?  Oh yeah. I was at work!  Which wasn't too bad, by the way.  We had a full staff that night and threw together an impromptu party.  Of course we didn't think the night before to actually PLAN a party but I got up early that afternoon and made spinach dip and pulled some chips and salsa out of the pantry. Then when we got to work Steve found a couple of leftover 2 liter sodas and ordered pizza. The best part was having time to eat and relax for a few minutes around midnight. Yay!

So now we're up to Jan 2nd and guess what? I haven't already blown my diet yet this year. That's sort of a record for me but it didn't haven't much to do with self-control. Since I slept all day yesterday I didn't have time to stuff my face!  (There's always today since I don't work tonight.)

Back to the photo above. That is a little cherry pastry that I've been making for Gene for Christmas or New Year's mornings for several years. Out of all the holiday baking, it's one of the easiest and one of my favorites.  Plus I love watching Gene pick up the plate and fork and tuck into it even though he doesn't eat the whole thing at one time. It just tickles me the way he does it and how much he enjoys home-made sweets for breakfast with a cup of coffee.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Happy Christmas Eve and I'm just barely started!  I was a big slug yesterday and laid around most of the day watching Stephen King's The Stand, okay well I've read the book so I watched and napped while Gene watched--all four parts in one afternoon!  Felt good to slug out especially since my knees have been killing me.  Whine whine.

But today I will bake in earnest and post all weeks about the things I've learned and succeeded and failed at.  Hee hee.

I did have great luck with a new cranberry bread recipe from "The New Best Recipe" cookbook from Cook's Illustrated.  We had a smaller party of just my brothers and sister and their kids on Saturday night and that was a huge hit with requests for more for the big family Christmas evening party. I think it's the combination of the orange zest with the cranberries that really swings that recipe into something special.

Since our Mom died many years ago, it's a big thing with us kids when i make the old-fashioned cookies and dishes we grew up with--it's the memories that help make our holidays special so in the depths of the closet I finally found the cookie press I bought years ago and reworked Mom's recipe for cream cheese almond star cookies like we grew up with.  Our mom would make dozens of a dozen kind of cookies every year but but I'm not quite that motivated! They'll take what they get and they'll like it. :-)

I'm also a day late and a dollar short so I will be making the Daring Bakers Yule Log but not until today and, unfortunately, not in accordance with the directions.  I told my family about it and they were all excited except they didn't like the flavors in the challenge and whined and cried until I promised to make the yule log as a pumpkin roll, something my sister used to do every year until she lost her favorite recipe, and they want the pumpkin to be topped with maple instead of cappuccino buttercream.  Nothing like the folks who are going to be eating it making their desires known, eh?  :-)  But in the meantime (I'll be baking today) check out all the lovely yule logs already having been constructed by Daring Bakers all over the world:  Daring Bakers Blogroll

And now for those recipes for today...

Daring Bakers: Milk Chocolate & Caramel Tart

I found this challenge to be just that: challenging.  While I have an extensive background in baking cakes, tarts I'm not as familiar with so this was fun in a slightly stressful way, let me put it that way. I've never before made my own mousse or caramel. I've always wanted to do both but yesterday was a first for both. I learned a lot, mostly from my mistakes. But that's the whole point of being in the Daring Bakers group. I wanted the challenge of exploring new baking territory.

For a list of all the challengers, click on Daring Bakers for links.

Not to continue complaining about my knees but I'm going to anyway. Still having problems with them. Still miserable at work (from my knees only) and had a doc appt yesterday about them.  We're going to try a new painkiller that's non-narcotic, thank God, and maybe some joint fluid therapy.

In the meantime, I admit, even though cooking is still relaxing for me, I have to be careful on my days off not to spend too much time standing or it makes it worse for work.  This little project was four hours in the kitchen!  I'd put off making the tart until right at deadline time so there was no doing one little thing a day crap. It was a straight on onslaught with putting things that needed cooling into the freezer and cutting out all the middle man of time I could.

Let me walk you through my experience with this little recipe.  For one, the first thing it says is that the shortbread pastry will make three tarts. Well, I didn't need bulk, I needed ONE.  But instead of dividing everything by three, since dividing two eggs into three parts, gets dicey, I divided everything in half and went from there. I think I ended up with a little too thick of shortbread crust but it's good and we'll survive the trauma of having a thicker crust, you know?

I did make two alterations to the recipe. We're supposed to run the recipe as is but I had a couple of problems. For one, this really was a hit and run this time so it was one trip to one grocery store and one afternoon. So when I couldn't fine the hazelnuts on my pass through the grocery store, I chose to read "hazelnuts" as "almonds".  And I left the cinnamon out of the crust completely.  My husband, Gene, hates cinnamon and since I'm counting on him to eat a goodly portion of this thing, it made no sense to alienate my audience from the beginning.

Peggy Hill's Apple Brown Betty

Ever since Kyleen, the Texan New Yorker, pointed out that to me that if you Google "Peggy Hill's Apple Brown Betty" a link to a post on my blog from almost a year ago shows up as the number 1 link, I've been feeling a little guilty.  The post that got me up there on Google was a post for Frito Chili Pie and only mentioned Peggy Hill and Apple Brown Betty.  I feel like a bad girlfriend who's led all those people on without putting out.  But today is the day we remedy that. 

By the way, that happened a couple of months ago.  Since then I've dropped to number 3.  Which is a little strange considering that ever since that post, I've been getting fairly regular traffic from people looking for Peggy's Apple Brown Betty, but recently I've gotten a half dozen or more google searches for that every single day!  It makes me wonder if one of the episodes that features the Brown Betty has aired ln syndication lately. 

Happily on my part, for all of you "Peggy Hill's Apple Brown Betty" searchers on Google and Yahoo, here's your recipe.

I'll be honest.  I had never made or eaten it before. I looked at several recipes, all with variations on a theme but in general the dish seemed to be a cross between a crisp and and bread pudding.  I chose a recipe from Epicurious because I wanted to get something representative but also something from a site I felt pretty comfortable trusting.  I like all the recipe sites where anyone can upload recipes but a couple of times I've been disappointed in the past.  Not this time.  This Brown Betty turned out to be a simple, straight-forward, fresh-apple tasting dessert with a crunchy topping like crisp, but with a soft, comfort-carby mouth feel like a bread pudding. It wasn't nearly has heavy as I thought it would be which was a plus for these hot summer days.

Do you ever stop and think about how much our food is influenced by pop culture?  When I say Apple Brown Betty, everyone who watches King of the Hill immediately knows what I'm talking about.  Does the beverage Romulan Ale conjure up a memory?   How about Carmela's ricotta pie that bribed the reference letter for Meadow's college application or the baked ziti we drooled over for six seasons?  In Las Vegas, several of the 7-Elevens have been temporarily changed into Kwik-E-marts for the summer, selling "good Squishee", Krusty the Clown cereal, and Homer's pink donuts.  If you had the opportunity, would you go in?  I would. 

Food is so much a part of our culture in every facet: celebrations, family time, snacks, and even driven by our pop culture or there would be no market for the Star Trek Cookbook and Entertaining with the Sopranos and Artie Bucco's Sopranos family Cookbook. I suppose one could look down from one's nose and call it a travesty.  I call it fun.

Excuse me. I'm off in search for a recipe for Vulcan Plommuck soup.  Since Vulcans are vegetarians, it will probably be good for the diet...

Fairly heavy on the cardamom and nutmeg, Peggy's Brown Betty is my contribution to Weekend Herb Blogging this week. Created by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen, WHB is hosted this week by Susan of Food Blogga.  Sunday evening, Susan will have a list of all the herby spicy dishes cooked this week.

It was an All Bread kind of weekend

First, Gene and I had a late lunch on Saturday so when it came to be dinner time and I was in the mood to make homemade donuts but not in the mood to make dinner....We're adults, right?  We don't have to follow the meal rules so we had donuts for dinner.

Then Sunday, I put a roast in the crockpot and threw bread dough into the bread machine, fully intending to make mashed potatoes and the whole Sunday all-American dinner but by dinner time the bread was ready but the roast wasn't even close.  Hmmm...what to do, what to do.  Thankfully, Corbin and Jennifer called to see if we wanted to run out for sushi before the Soprano's finale came on so we ditched the roast and ate sushi.  Jenn's going to email me some pics. It was YUMMY!

The roast finally got tender about 10pm so I guess we'll be having roast, potatoes, and bread Monday night.

UPDATE: Recipes are posted now. Click below.

Ahhhhh... Look what my sweetie made for me last night

My knee is much better, finally cruising into recovery but last night it was throbbing a bit so Gene made me a little treat while we watched The Weatherman.

"A&W Rootbeer's got that frosty mug taste...A&W Rootbeer's got that frosty mug taste..."

Yeah, except it was IBC but that doesn't sing as pretty. IBC and Hildand French Vanilla...yum! That made my knee feel better, Uncle Generino.  Everybody say ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

When you get the chance watch The Weatherman with Ncolas Cage, Hope Davis, and Michael Caine.  Great movie. Not what I expected but I really liked it a lot. I think most of us can relate to it.

Blueberries, Rich in Antioxidants and Vitamins

     

For Cate at Sweetnick's ARF--Antioxidant Rich Foods weekly food event, I'm working with blueberries which are number one antioxidant rich food.

Let me tell you a little story.  I got an email several weeks ago from a gentleman who had read my blog and asked if I would be interested in reviewing a product he sells.  Let's call this man Dan, because that happnes to be his name.  I told him I'd be happy to as long as he realized that, of course, I'd be honest about my impressions.  He said he wasn't worried.  That intrigued me. 

Let me say up front that Dan was generous with his product but I'm not being paid to play around with the juice or review it, it's not readily available in my area, and I'd never heard of it before so my impressions are completely off the cuff.

Blueberries are well known to be on the top of the good-for-you foods list and the juice Dan sent me was mixed with pomegranate which is supposed to be as beneficial to heart disease as grape juice, or even more so.  My husband has heart disease and he's really tired of me pushing grape juice  on him, so if I could find something new...you see my thinking here.  If I could find a way to incorporate the juice in with some recipes Gene already likes, on top of having him drink it, this could be a score in my house. 

So I played around.  I created the blueberry/lime squares you see above, although with the amount of butter in them they're much more delicious than they are heart friendly. But hey, sometimes in life you have to eat a little butter. Just be prepared to share the bars with friends so you won't be tempted to eat the whole pan yourself.  The recipe is loosely based on Cook's Illustrated Lemon Bars recipe. I also made sauce for cheesecake, syrup for Gene's waffles, and blueberry lollipops by simply cooking the juice down to thicken it.  All with excellent flavor, I must say.  Gene (me too!) was very impressed.

Click below for additional pics, impressions, and recipes.

 

My Peeps, Let's Have Some Fun

This is what a normal row of Peeps looks like:

This is what a row of Peeps look like after I've torched them with a longline lighter:

Roasting plain old marshmallows is all fine and good but Stay-Puf doesn't compare to a blazing Peep.  I love the way they get all gooey on the inside but the sugary outside creates a crunchy caramelly coating, sort of like a white trash creme brulee on a fork of sorts.