Cold and Hot

I woke up this morning feeling pretty sick with the beginnings of a cold. I got through about three hours of school before downing a bunch of Ibuprofin, which got me through the next three hours, and as soon as got home I decided I needed to nip this cold in the bud.

The people in my neighborhood swear by green onions as a cold cure, so I decided to try it. Their philosophy is to eat the entire onion raw, and do it again to a few other onions. However, when my roommate tried it out a few months ago, she said she made a soup and just ate them that way. I decided that sounded a lot more appetizing, so I went and bought some green onions and chicken bouillion, and made a lovely soup!

Basically I boiled a little water in a pot, put in about five finely sliced green onions (cut down to about an inch or so above the root), then added two buillion (chicken flavored) cubes into the pot and stirred until the cubes were dissolved. I made sure to inhale the steam of the soup as it cooked, since that's part of the cure apparently.

I was afraid it would taste nasty, or not be salty enough, or some other thing, but it was actually fine just as it was, which was very surprising to me, because I don't like onions hardly at all. I didn't even need to add any salt! I just sipped the hot, hot soup and munched on the onions. Of course, a few saltine crackers didn't hurt.

After eating it all, I feel loads better (although I've downed so much of it I feel like popping), and I think it may have done the trick. So if you're feeling sick, try this out, and let me know if it works for you.

Note: I think there are a number of colloquial grammar mistakes in this post, but I'm chalking it up to being sick :)

Apple Pie

When I made my first apple pie, I used basically this recipe for the filling, and everything turned out perfectly. That was five or six years ago. I made a few more apple pies since then, but they all turned out pretty gross, to the point where no one wanted to eat them. Mostly it was a problem with the crust, and undoubtedly my focus on that part of the pie made me neglect the filling. In any case, it's been ages since I've tried to make a good pie, but when a pie-making contest was announced for my ward this past Monday, I was motivated to try again (and if it turned out well, I could contribute to Thanksgiving at my sister's).

I mulled it over, and decided that to try to fix the crust would be the best approach. I thought of all the reasons I didn't like pie crust, and determined that (aside from the time I attempted to create a whole-wheat crust-- which you should probably never do) the problem was always that it tasted dry and flavorless. I thought of the crusts I've made for quiche, and how they are flaky and buttery and wonderful. And then I realized butter might just do the trick! Up until that point I'd been using Crisco (and off-brand Crisco at that), so I decided to opt this time for the more flavorful and much-easier-to-work-with option.

Another thing that helped was that I let myself relax. If the pie didn't turn out, that was fine. If it didn't win, that was fine. Don't follow a recipe, just go with your instinct. Luckily I had that background of attempts to build on. In any case, it turned out perfectly. It didn't win, because the winner's crust was crumbly and interesting and amazing, but I heard I had the best filling. And it was the best (read: only) apple pie at Thanksgiving when I made it again yesterday. So I'll keep trying with the crust, and then the pie really will be perfect someday! Hey, I can dream.

Too late for Thanksgiving, but this will work well for Christmas, or for any day of the year, really.

Apple Pie

filling modified from some clipped-out recipe I found when I was fifteen; crust modified from Good Housekeeping

Crust

2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour

a couple of pinches of salt

3/4 (one and a half sticks) of butter/ vegetable equivelant (or shortening, if you want to go the traditional route)

water

1. Mix flour and salt.

2. Get your butter out an hour or two beforehand to make sure its soft, or leave it on top of the oven while its preheating (but not for too long, or it will melt). Do not microwave the butter!! Not only does it make it too liquidy, but it separates the parts. Just make sure your butter is soft, because if it's too hard, it will be difficult to work with.

3. Cut the butter into little chunks (about 1T each) and plop into the flour mixture. Work in with a fork or pastry cutter until the chunks are considerably smaller, then work in with your hands. This will guarantee the butter is worked in properly.

4. Add water, a tablespoon or two at a time, and work it in. Use your hands to tell when it's ready. The dough should be a little past the point where it's just coming together. Work into a ball.

5. Separate the ball into two parts, one ever so slightly larger than the other. The larger ball will be your bottom crust. Pound and roll out the larger ball into a circle and drape over a 9-inch pie or cake pan lightly dusted with flour on the bottom. Pour in filling.

6. Repeat process with smaller ball. Drape over top of pie, pinching sides together, making the edges look fluted if you so desire. Cut a few slits in the center of the top crust so the filling can breathe and seep as it cooks. Sprinkle with a bit of cinnamon-sugar if you like.

7. Place a cookie sheet under the pie to catch any drippings. Put in oven pre-heated to 425 degrees. Cook for about 40-45 minutes (this will depend on your oven, of course). Pie will be done when the crust is golden brown and apples are tender.

Filling

6 medium red delicious apples (not too tart, not too sweet)

lemon juice (it's better if you use the bottled kind in this case, that way you're not limited to what a lemon will give you)

2 T flour

3/4 c white granulated sugar

pinch or two of salt

2 T cinnamon

1/2 T nutmeg

1. Peel the apples (I found that using a peeler, and not a knife, makes this part far less tedious), cut out the core (make sure you get off all the hard parts of the seed center), and cut into little chunks about the size of a section of your finger (you know...where the joints separate...nevermind). Do it one apple at a time, and sprinkle with lemon juice after each to prevent browning of the apple pieces.

2. Mix the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The original recipe called for far less cinnamon and nutmeg, so if you don't like flavor, reduce it all you like. Actually, the measurements I gave you for those two ingredients are more of my estimate. You should go more by what you think smells and looks like enough.

3. Pour the "spice mix" into the apple chunks, and mix up with your hands (or a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. Don't bruise the apples.). Pour the mix into the pie crust, and don't forget the leftover goop at the bottom of the bowl!

Gluten Free Thanksgiving

Every since I did my challenge last year, I've tried to be conscious of that (rather large) group of people out there who love to eat, but are limited by food allergies of various sorts. Anyway, so since Thanksgiving is coming up (and even though I don't know if there's anyone that reads my blog that has needs like this), and everyone has something to be grateful for (like regular foods that don't set off your allergies), I thought I'd direct you towards a couple of blogs that have highlighted gluten-free Thanksgiving foods. Enjoy!

Guten-Free Girl and the Chef

And here

And here

Cannelle et Vanille

Both those bloggers live gluten-free lives, so all (or nearly all) their stuff fits that profile, so you can be safe just searching their blogs for a particular food.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm glad this blog has been going for over a year now :)

Black Bean and Pumpkin Chili

Last night I had some of the best homemade soup I've ever tasted. What surprised me was that it had so many things I usually hate in food (ironically, I'm one of the pickiest eaters you'll ever meet): chili powder, tomatoes, onions, and pumpkin. Don't get me wrong, all those ingredients are perfectly fine for adding flavor or visual excitement, I just don't like to eat them. Anyway, all of my preconceived notions flew immediately out the window when I tried this soup my friend (not sister) Megan made. It was delicious! I even went back for seconds (and wouldn't have been opposed to thirds...).

I asked Megan to send me the recipe (sorry, no pictures), as well as the changes she made, so here it is for your enjoyment. This is a perfect fall soup/chili, so get on it!

Megan says: "So I actually used a green pepper because the yellow peppers at the store were gross. Also I only used a small can of chicken broth (cause that's all I had) and then added about a half a can of water. I also added more salt at the very end to add more flavor."

Black Bean & Pumpkin Chili

From Taste of Home

Serves: 10 (yields about 2.5 quarts)

1 medium onion, minced

1 medium sweet yellow pepper, chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 cups chicken or vegetable broth

2 cans (15 oz each) black beans, rinsed & drained

1 can (15 oz) solid pack pumpkin (make sure it's not the pumpkin pie kind, just the pumpkin puree) Megan also says she isn't sure that hers wasn't pie filling, but at least it wasn't spiced.

1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained

2 teaspoons dried parsley flakes

2 teaspoons chili powder

1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon salt

In a large skillet, saute the onion, yellow pepper & garlic in olive oil for about 2 mins. Add the ground turkey and cook until brown. Transfer to a 5qt slow cooker/crock pot; stir in the remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 4-5 hours or until heated through.

Madeleines

A couple of months ago I found a madeleine pan at DI (huge thrift store) for $2. Ever since then, I've been wanting to make the yummy-looking scalloped French cakes. Are they cakes? I think they are.

Madeleines

Anyway, this morning I finally got around to it. I gave them to a friend of mine who needed them, but not before my roommate and I tried one (that's the good thing about making not cakes for people-- you can have some and they will never know). They were very lemony, soft, airy, moist, and otherwise delicious. There are a couple of kinds of food I usually have trouble with, and one of them is French pastry. So if this counts as pastry...I'm finally getting the hang of it!

The key flavors in madeleines are butter and lemon, but the key ingredient is egg. The eggs have to be whipped into lighter-than-air goop, otherwise you won't get the airiness. The recipe calls for 4 minutes of high-powered whisking, but since I'm still using my muscles to mix things, it was a little harder to do, and I was worried that they wouldn't be fluffy enough. But I think all this manual labor is paying off, because I got the egg pretty frothy (and my upper arms have been a little sore lately from it all...yay?).

Adding butter to the froth

As for the butter, I'd completely forgotten to restock when I was last at the store, so I used tub butter (or margarine, whatever), and microwaved it (there's a recommended process for the butter in this recipe to melt it on the stove for a while, allowing it to become golden and "nutty," then straining it) and it still turned out okay! I also didn't think there was enough lemon in the zest, so I also squeezed in a bit of the juice (plus I'm focusing on not wasting, so win/win) into the batter, which made it better. Yep.

Zested lemon

Also, the batter only made enough for barely 11 madeleines instead of 12, but I found out after they cooked that it's because I probably put way too much in each form/mold/whatever.

Filling the pan molds

Anyway, now for the recipe. I don't remember where I got it, and usually I'm really good about writing it down, but a good guess would be Smitten Kitchen, or maybe Tartelette. Check 'em both out.

Classic Madeleines [Madeleines Classiques]

adapted from Patisserie Lerch, via Paris Sweets

3/4 cup (105 grams) all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon double-acting baking soda

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 cup (100 grams) sugar

Grated zest of 1 lemon to zest a lemon, you basically use the skinny bumpy part of your cheese grater to scrape off the rind. The grated rind is the part you use. Check out the picture if you don't know what I'm talking about.

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces; 70 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1. Sift together the flour and baking powder and keep close at hand. Working in a mixer fit with the whisk attachment, beat the eggs and sugar together on medium-high speed until they thicken and lighten in color, 2 to 4 minutes. Beat in the lemon zest and vanilla. Switch to a large rubber spatula and gently fold in the dry ingredients, followed by the melted butter. Cover the batter with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap against the surface to create an airtight seal, and chill for at least 3 hours, perhaps longer–chilling helps the batter develop its characteristic crown, known as the hump or the bump. (The batter can be kept tightly covered in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.)

2. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). If your Madeleine pan is not nonstick, generously butter it, dust the insides with flour and tap out the excess. If the pan is nonstick, you still might want to give it an insurance coating of butter and flour. If it is silicone, do nothing. No matter what kind of pan you have, place it on a baking sheet for easy transportability.

3. Divide the batter among the molds, filling them almost to the top. Don’t worry about smoothing the batter, it will even out as it bakes.

4. Bake large madeleines for 11 to 13 minutes, small ones for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the cookies are puffed and golden and spring back when touched. Pull the pan from the oven and remove the cookies by either rapping the pan against the counter (the madeleines should drop out) or gently running a butte knife around the edges of the cookies. Allow the madeleines to cool on a cooling rack. They can be served ever so slightly warm or at room temperature.

Let Them Eat Cake

As promised, here are some tips on making your cake as near to perfect as I've been able to get it from dear old me:

1. Line your pan with wax paper or parchment paper. Grease both below and above the paper. This will make it so your cake comes out nice and clean and never sticks. And you just peel off the paper, it's so easy. This is especially important for softer or fluffier cakes.

2. Let the layers cool completely. By this I mean you should probably put them in the freezer, but only if it's a soft cake! If you have a really hard cake (why would you?) don't do this. But generally I like to freeze my cake for about twenty minutes prior to frosting. It just makes it alot easier to work with. You can leave it in the pan or not.

3. Level the layer(s) before frosting. It makes your cake a lot easier to frost because you don't have gaps where the flat part of the top layer meets the dome of the bottom layer. Plus your top layer won't crack because it's uneven. Get a long, serrated knife and level off the top of the bottom layer so that it's flat enough. It doesn't have to be perfectly flat.

4. Shape the cake. Obviously you only do this if you're making a special shape (heart, star, monkey, whatever) or if you're like me and you burn the outer edges of the layers. Use a long, thinnish knife for best maneuverability, especially if you're making a circle.

5. Before frosting, line the outer edge of your plate/platter/whatever with strips of wax paper or parchment paper. Try to layer them so that they overlap a little on the edge. When you're done frosting the whole cake, pull them out at an angle so that frosting goes with it. Now your plate is spotless! (This took some practice for me, and I still mess up sometimes.)

6. Don't use a butter knife to frost. I've found that the best thing to frost with is a rubber spatula, preferably one of the smaller kinds. If you don't have one of those, then any other wide, flattish tool will do just fine. It's a lot easier to frost large areas, and I find that fewer crumbs end up in the frosting. Plus the finish is a lot smoother. Perfect!

7. If your cake is really soft, do a crumb layer of frosting first. I find that this isn't always necessary, but it does help if your cake is crumbly, or if you just want to be a perfectionist, or whatever. Put a thinnish layer of frosting on your cake (it should have crumbs in it, if not, you don't need to do this) and let it refrigerate for a few minutes. Then take it back out and finish frosting, and no more crumbs will get mixed in. Ta da!

P.S. I have no idea why my pictures have been so grainy/pixelated lately. It's quite bizarre.

Dark Chocolate Cake

Last week was my friend/neighbor/home teacher Eric's birthday. So to thank him for being all of those things (yes, even the neighbor thing, because I really do have to borrow cups of milk sometimes, and neighbors are so obliging), and to wish him a happy birthday, I decided to bake him a cake.

I have several cakes on my list of recipes to try, and this one was next. It's a dark chocolate cake recipe I pulled from Martha Stewart's website. After this experiment, I don't think I trust Martha Stewart anymore (there, I said it. Now all the Food People can lynch me). Why? Well, a lot of reasons. Maybe she just doesn't have a dinky basement kitchen with a terrible excuse for an oven at a relatively high altitude. Because I really don't think my exchanging part of the semi-sweet chocolate required for the 100% stuff I found at the farmer's market really should have made that much of a difference, and I don't know what else it could be!

Black label: The Good Stuff.

The batter turned out to be more like dough, even after adding a little extra buttermilk, and beating the mixture as hard as I could (who needs an electric mixer? I'm getting buff!).

Cake Dough?

Anyway, the edges and bottom of each cake layer burned (I made it a three layer cake instead of a two layer one, and no, I don't think that created a problem because the dough was still very stiff). I was quite sad. But I was able to try out a bunch of things that will make your cake look pretty (I think I will do a separate post on those tips, so look for that in the future), and they worked pretty well. I did end up wasting the edges of the cake by cutting them off, though, even though they were burned. I just wish that hadn't happened, especially after I spent the money on the chocolate (hoo boy).

I'm also trying to find uses for leftover ingredients, so I don't have to waste as much. I have a whole half carton of buttermilk left (pancakes? waffles? biscuits?) and a ton of frosting (cupcakes? cake?), so that should be fun for me :)

If you're curious about how the cake ended up tasting, Eric and my other friend Kevin (the two who tried the cake while I was around) say that it is delicious-- way better than boxed mix cake, and you'll need a gallon of milk to get through a small slice. I sort of wish I'd been able to try some, but I think it's weird to ask for part of what you just gave someone. And it was such a tiny cake in the end... But hey! At least I got all that extra frosting, right?

Decorated with almond slivers to make it pretty, and distract you from the fact that it is half the size it's supposed to be.

Dark Chocolate Cake

from Martha Stewart

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans

1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa (spooned and leveled), plus more for pans -I'm in the market for free Dutch Process cocoa, just fyi!!! But if you don't have generous donors, go ahead and use regular cocoa, that's what I did

2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups packed light-brown sugar

2 large eggs plus 2 large egg yolks, room temperature

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted -Or mix in some darker stuff if you can find it, and if you feel up to the richness!

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup low-fat buttermilk

Dark Chocolate Ganache (recipe below)

Preheat oven to 350. Butter two (or three if you're like me and you wanted a second chance after the other cake) 8-inch round cake pans; dust with cocoa, tapping out excess. Line bottom of each pan with a round of parchment paper; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer (or your Governator arm strength), beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition; beat in chocolate and vanilla. With mixer on low, alternately add flour mixture in three parts and buttermilk in two, beginning and ending with flour mixture. -Like I mentioned earlier, I had to add extra buttermilk and my "batter" still turned out like soft bread dough...weird)

Divide batter between prepared pans; smooth tops. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of a cake comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes -Mine only had to cook for about 30 mins, and like I said, they burned! So keep a close eye on them, especially if your batter ends up like mine did. Cool in pans 15 minutes; run a knife around edge of each pan, and invert cakes onto a wire rack to cool completely. -I usually refrigerate/freeze my cakes pre-frosting for about ten to fifteen minutes so they're nice and firm for the frosting process, but that was probably a bad idea in this case, because the edges got nice and hard-- as in too hard to allow for a cake I was giving to someone else.

Set a rimmed baking sheet upside down on a work surface -Yes, thank you Martha, that seems excessive. But go ahead if you want to. Place one cake on sheet, and spread top with 1/3 of ganache. Place second cake on top, and spread remaining ganache over top and sides of cake. Using two wide metal spatulas, carefully transfer frosted cake to a serving platter.

Dark Chocolate Ganache

2 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 pound bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped

In a large saucepan, bring 2 cups heavy cream, 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon salt to a boil. Remove from heat; add 1 pound bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped, and let stand, without stirring, for 1 minute. Whisk just until combined. Refrigerate, stirring occasionally, until spreadable, about 1 hour. -You can pop it in the freezer to speed up the process, but make sure you keep a VERY CLOSE eye on it so it doesn't get too hard, especially around the edges. This WILL happen. Trust me. If you neglected it (hum...like me...) and it gets a bit too hard, let it sit out for a while, or maybe put it in a warm area until it softens. But don't let it soften too much, or you've begun a vicious cycle.

P.S. Please pardon the grainy pictures. Even with my super-fancy $100 Cosco camera that serves me so well, I live in a basement with no light, and it was after dark anyway. So there.