Have you been encountering articles online about how it’s a great idea to get into cooking and baking during the coronavirus shutdown? Make bread! Make cookies with your kids! Etc. And while I’m all for positive family activities to hold everyone together during these long days, I’d sound my usual note of caution about discretionary eating. It’s all too easy to binge/gorge on food as well as Netflix. Neither choice is going to have a good end result.
I mentioned last week that I had a head of Napa cabbage in the fridge (that’s the stuff in the lower right-hand corner of the picture) and was looking forward to having lots of salads with it, but after a few days it started tasting bitter. I couldn’t force it down. Then I thought, ‘I know! I’ll make that recipe from Smitten Kitchen again!’ But going back and looking at her post reminded me of how ridiculously complicated it is, with totally unnecessary steps. I’m not going to re-write the entire recipe, though.
So . . . this past Friday, March 6, was the Irish concert by the Cherry Creek Chorale, a great, great occasion. And afterwards was the reception (which, thankfully, is held only after the Friday-night concert, not the Saturday-night one.) I made three items: my Spicy Cheddar Cookies, Guinness Brownies, and Pistachio Cupcakes. Follow the links to the first two recipes if you’re interested. And for the wonderful frosting I made, go here. I’m giving the recipe for the pistachio cupcakes below. For the Guinness Brownies I’m linking to the post over at Sally’s Baking Addiction. Note, though, that I ended up just using the white chocolate-cream cheese frosting linked to above for those as well as for the pistachio cupcakes. I had made a double batch of the frosting and realized that I had plenty for all of them. I
I’m not a vegan myself nor do I plan to ever become one, but it’s an interesting challenge to have a vegan guest for dinner. My friend Aubrey had made some vegan chocolate tartlets last year for our church Christmas party and I just about passed out when I ate one of them. Astonishing! I couldn’t believe that it didn’t have any butter or eggs in it. So I set out to reproduce this experience as part of our desserts for my sister-in-law’s birthday dinner on Dec. 30 since a vegan friend of hers was coming, and I found one online that sounded pretty good. The original was also gluten free, but I had no need for that and didn’t want to buy tapioca starch and sweet rice flour. I can’t stand being told that I need some specialty ingredient but only a small amount! The original called for only two tablespoons of the tapioca flour, so I’d be buying a whole bag that would then sit on my pantry shelf. But one item that the recipe does call for and which you should always have on hand is tahini, that is, sesame-seed paste. I’ve bought high-end tahini through the mail (and paid a pretty high-end price), but actually I like the stuff you can find at the grocery store just fine. Tahini and chocolate are an inspired combination.
Hi folks! Today is Christmas Day. I started this post two days ago, but company and outings and cooking interrupted me. Probably no one is going to read this post until tomorrow, but if you do get to it today—Merry Christmas! You can think of this as a holiday grab-bag.
First, an idea articulated by my husband, one of those blindingly-obvious statements that never occurs to anyone:
One of the reasons why you had less trouble with your weight as a child then you do now as an adult is that children aren’t in control of what food is available. Adults are.
Great breakfasts around here this week! Remember the principle that you frontload your day, eating a hearty breakfast and then a lighter lunch and an even lighter dinner, with no evening snacking. This morning I threw together a rather complicated crustless quiche that used up most of a container of spinach that I had foolishly bought last week and the rest of an opened log of goat cheese. I will point out that soft goat cheese is richer and tangier than regular cream cheese—as well as being more expensive, of course. But I buy mine at Costco, and although it comes in a two-pack I think the unopened log will stay good for a while. So I found a recipe this morning for “Quick and Easy Spinach Quiche,” using fresh spinach instead of frozen (because that was what I had) and goat cheese for the cream cheese (ditto). And I didn’t have a pastry shell sitting around, all rolled out and ready to go, so that wasn’t in the mix. I just sprayed the pie pan with Pam and sprinkled panko breadcrumbs into it, sautéed the onions until browned and then added the chopped-up spinach and cooked until it wilted, let that cool while I crumbled up the goat cheese into the pie pan, mixed up the milk and eggs, and grated the cheese (which happened to be Gouda but could be cheddar or any other flavorful grating cheese). Everything went into the pan and it baked for about 45 minutes at 3250. I realize that not everyone has that kind of time in the mornings, but I like to get up early and can put together somewhat elaborate breakfasts. Jim and I ate about half of it.
There’s been a friendly rivalry of sorts going on at our church between another woman and myself over who gets to do what food events. Neither one of us is actually running a business per se, but we both enjoy(?) putting on big meals. I had done our church Christmas party dinner (60-75 people) for about three years, then I said it was just too much. So my friendly rival (henceforth designated FR) took it over and did a spectacular job. I stayed out of the fray except for making desserts and my famous pink eggnog for several years, but then I sort of missed it. Last year I asked the woman in charge if I could do it. “Oh, I’m so sorry, but FR already asked if she could do it again this year, and I said yes.” So I stuck with my usual role. FR had also done the food for our annual women’s retreat for a couple of years, with the 2018 one being especially good. She made her grandmother’s green chile (chili? I can never remember when to use which spelling), and it was awesome. Plus she made this cold strawberry soup for dessert. Man! Plus, she made some little chocolate tarts that were . . . vegan. And in spite of that drawback they were honestly one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth. So rich!
Saturday night we had the annual Cherry Creek Chorale picnic. I’ve been in charge of this event now for six or seven years and every one has been a learning experience. This year, as for every one except the first three, we’ve had the event at someone’s house and those people did the setup and drinks. Whew! The first picnic I did was pretty traumatic, back six or seven years ago, as it was held at a park. The amount of schlepping we did was a sight to behold. I said, “No more of this!” So for the next two years we had it at our house, which cut down on the schlepping but meant that we had to do the setup. We borrowed tables and chairs from our church and I made most of the
I’ve decided that I will be making two pies a year from now on, the Brandied Butternut Squash Pie from the peerless Melissa Clark that I made for Thanksgiving last year and this apple pie for July 4th. (I don’t think pies count as “massive.”) While I’ve made apple pies in the past, and I liked them okay, there were problems:
1. The apples always seemed to be partly raw.
2. The crust tended to be soggy on the bottom.
But in spite of these drawbacks I wanted to make an apple pie sometime during the July 4th weekend. This desire was mainly fired by a Sally’s Baking Addiction post in which she demonstrated how
We are mildly obsessed with homemade pizza at our house. (But not as obsessed as Kenji Lopez-Alt, who carried out a monster experiment in his monster cookbook The Food Lab about whether or not the mineral content in the water has anything to do with crust quality. You can read all about it in the Kindle sample available on the Amazon page linked to above.) My son regularly makes the complicated recipe for deep-dish Chicago-style pizza from Cook’s Illustrated, and I’ve been on a kick