blue artichoke

Yesterday was a day for wrapping up loose ends. I threw out the yucky cookies, the rest of the oozy cranberry jellies, and also the bottoms of the crème de menthe bars that weren’t looky enough to give away. These bars sounded neat: a bottom layer of chocolate-graham-nut, topped with a sugary crème de menthe layer, topped by a chocolate layer. This was the recipe that I made my own powdered sugar for, and it wasn’t as genius as I proclaimed. It had an odd texture. The best layer was the top layer, because I used Andes crème de menthe chips. The problem was that the chocolate layer hardened too much to cut through without sending cracks through the rest of the layer. There were a few pieces that looked good enough to give away on cookie platters, the rest we’d have to eat. We have so many failed goodies right now that we’d be huge if we ate them all, so I kept the top hard mint-chocolate layer and threw the rest away. Trim the fat, cut my losses. There have been more failed recipe attempts this holiday baking season than ever before. Maybe I’ve lost the Christmas spirit.

I’m making a few snack mixes (three) to give away as presents. I made the first two this morning. One is a berry-nut mix, the other is a harvest apple mix. Both are of my own creation. The berry-nut mix is totally awesome; the harvest apple had a few setbacks. I now know why trail mixes never call for corn or bran flakes cereals; they just get soggy and clumpy. You need the crosshatch, double layer of Chex or Crispex to withstand the coating and the baking. I never appreciated this fine cereal engineering. Now I add it to my list of great underappreciated inventions, along with armrests. Anyway, I picked out the pretzels and nuts and remade the cereal part this morning. And I made three batches of Chex Mix. It just isn’t Christmas without Chex Mix.

So, there’s the throwing away of food, the snack mixes, and finally, the Fifth Gingerbread of Christmas. This has a super flavor, but is still lacking a bit in texture. The flavor was so great because I ran out of powdered ginger, about ½ t. shy of a tablespoon, so I added in a bit of ginger juice from a jar of grated ginger I have in the fridge. Wow! What a difference. This leant a sharp, bright ginger flavor, in a good way. This recipe won’t win the Snackdown, but I’ll add this trick to whichever one does win, just to boost the flavor a bit. So, that was the baking part of the day. There’s more.

I got a new fridge! Finally, no more biweekly shifting food from freezer to cooler on the porch, then quickly back again as the temperature outside warms up. This fridge is sweet. It’s not a new one, but is bigger, roomier and brighter than the old one. And it keeps a steady temperature and doesn’t leak water all over everything inside. The only drawback is that it’s louder. I haven’t had a dishwasher for years, but every time I walk into the living room, I think the dishwasher is running. Then I remember that GC is the dishwasher, and it’s the loud fridge and I smile, because I have a new fridge.

And, finally, I test drove two cars yesterday: Mazda 6 and a Hyundai Sonata. The Sonata wasn’t on my original list, but I liked the look, and because it’s sort of an off-brand, I can get lots of bells-and-whistles for the same price as a base package in the other cars I looked at. Tempting, and it sure throws a wrench in my car buying research. I also really liked the Mazda 6. It’s really comfortable and is a bit more hip and fun than, say, another Camry, which is totally practical and reliable. I’ve spent hours today printing out specs and reviews; I don’t know when I’ll have time to read them, but I feel better with data at my fingertips.

So, holiday baking officially comes to a close. Cookies have been made, arranged on trays and distributed; snack mixes have been made and will be given away on Christmas; and the Chex Mix will be munched until it’s gone. I’ll be a-travelin’ for a while, so merry holidays!

Getting to Know All About You: What’s the worst gift you’ve ever received?

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Yesterday's baking went much better than Monday’s. The failed cookie dough that I refrigerated overnight baked up into normal-looking cookies, though still a bit moist in a sticky sort of way, not an underbaked sort of way. Weird. But the best part of the day was that I learned how to make my own powdered/icing/confectioners’ sugar! I swear I bought a bag of icing sugar a few months ago when all I really needed was a tiny bit of what I already had in a nice canister, carefully labeled “Powdered Sugar” on the shelf over the fridge. Was it a box or a bag of icing sugar I bought? I wish I could remember, because one of the recipes I planned to make today needed 2 ½ cups of icing sugar, and I had only ~1 ½ c. in my carefully labeled canister. Doh! Where could the extra bag-box be? I looked in the cupboard in the wall (There’s an odd 3-4’ door in the top half of the wall in the living room; behind the door is a nook, with shelves. In here I keep my overflow supply of icing sugar). None. Dang. I already ran out to the grocery store once today because I ran out of molasses and cinnamon. I looked in my book o’ cooking substitutions and it suggested 1 cup of icing sugar is well represented by 1 cup of granulated sugar plus 1 T. of cornstarch, blended until powdery. Genius! It was still quite granular, but powdery enough to do in a pinch.

I also made the fifth of the Ten Gingerbreads of Christmas. This one included lots of spices and cocoa. It’s good. Really good, but not as good as the First Gingerbread of Christmas and in a different way than the understudy (the Fourth Gingerbread of Christmas). It’s difficult to describe in words. It’s nod your head as you chew good, but not stab the hand of the one who tries to take the last piece good. Does that help?

In the midst of all the baking and chewing, my landlord came by to take another gander at the ol’ fridge to verify my report of continued dripping water and steady freezer temperature. We took out all the food in the freezer, took out the false bottom and back, used a hair dryer to melt the sheet of ice that probably shouldn’t be there, nodded and agreed that something was indeed wrong and put it all back together again. I thumped the side of the fridge for good measure. We’ll go through this routine again, probably this afternoon.

Getting to Know All About You: Seen any good movies lately?

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New York City recently banned the use of trans fats in restaurants. Trans fatty acids are naturally occurring unsaturated fats found in small quantities in meat and dairy products from ruminant animals. Everyone but vegans and vegetarians know how delicious meat and dairy products are, but why limit our trans fatty food intake to natural sources? Food scientists developed a way to make industrial trans fat, as a byproduct of partial hydrogenation of plant oils. This type of trans fat has no health benefits, and is thought to appreciably raise the levels of bad cholesterol (LDL) and slightly lower the levels of good cholesterol (HDL). We die a little bit inside with every bite of Little Debbie. Trans fat is used in food products to increase shelf life and decrease refrigeration requirement. It is used primarily in fast food, snack food, fried food and commercially baked goods. So, trans fat is bad for you, and so are the products that use trans fat. Instead of banning junk food, legislators in NYC have banned the use of trans fat, in what seems to me a gross overstepping of government bounds. I know that I benefit from many government regulations, like clean water, food labels and a regulated meat packing industry, but I still think these regulations are outside the proper realm of government. Why not just declare a Punch Trans Fat in the Face Day, and allow all New Yorkers to line up in Times Square or Central Park and punch mounds of shortening in the face? It seems just as effective, and less invasive and paternalistic.

I suspect that few people in NYC have been passing on the chicken-finger-and-fries platter because of the trans fat used in the frying oil; now, after the ban, they can crunch fried foods with abandon. No trans fat! Why, it's downright healthy now! While New Yorkers may have a few fewer heart attacks, I predict they'll get fatter. And probably still have lots of heart attacks. Have you ever been to New York City? Just navigating the sidewalks and avoiding distracted and harried moms who jam their baby carriages into your ankles is enough to raise your blood pressure. The only way I can understand how those people avoid hurling baby strollers into traffic is that they bottle up their rage, which increases blood pressure, which increases their chances of having a heart attack. NYC legislators would do more good if they outlawed baby strollers. Anyway, watch out, Chicago. You're next.

What will this mean for kosher Jewish delis and bakeries? Kosher establishments will be hit hardest by this new legislation, as they rely on margarine and shortening to stay on God's good side. This will make for an interesting showdown between religious law and municipal law.

Another piece of legislation, overshadowed a bit by the trans fat ban, requires NYC restaurants to provide caloric information for the food on its menu. This bill is a little bit confusing, because it applies only to restaurants with standardized menus that already provide this information to the public, such as fast food restaurants. From what I understand, many fast food restaurants provide caloric information on their websites or on pamphlets tucked away in dark corners of the bathrooms. Now they must provide this information on their menus. This puzzles me, because most fast-food restaurants don't have menus, but a huge board above the cash registers. That is, unless fast-food chains in NYC are classier than here in the Midwest. This bill is stupid, and will end up harming more than helping. Not only does it discourage restaurants from providing nutritional information, but it punishes those restaurants already making a good-faith effort to provide nutritional information so the consumer can make informed decisions. I suspect that many chains will pull down nutritional information on their websites and remove pamphlets before this legislation takes effect. This law will make us dumber.

In slightly-less politically-charged news, I made what is perhaps the worst gingerbread. This was the third of the Ten Gingerbreads of Christmas, and what little I could scrape off the parchment paper-lined pan tasted pretty good, but looked terrible. It was flat, sunken in the middle, greasy on the bottom and stuck to the parchment paper. I peeled off the bottom half of the gingerbread with the paper. How can something so oily be so sticky? This is the gingerbread to put out for the Grinch. I've got to step up the gingerbread-testing. Only 11 days until Christmas and 7 gingerbreads to go!

Getting to Know All About You: If you could make up any law, what would it be?

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Ah, yes, Red Momo, that is the age old question. Did you know that the world's oldest profession isn't prostitution, but cooking? Makes sense. And those cave women, I'm sure, sat around the fire grumbling about sifting the flour they've just gathered and milled.

The answer is to read the recipe carefully. If it says, for example, 1 c. sifted flour, it is important to sift the flour, then measure it. This is because flour gets packed in tight when sitting in the bag or in a container on the shelf. 1 c. unsifted flour is a significantly more flour than 1 c. sifted flour.

But, when the recipe says, for example, 1 c. flour, sifted, you can use your discretion. Sifting the flour with the leavening agents and the spices makes sure they are evenly distributed. I'm not sure how important this is, because all of the mixing will surely distribute those small amounts of powder. The amount of flour or the distribution of leavening agents and spices aren't really the issue here, it's the resulting texture. Sifting aerates the flour and makes for a lighter texture. If this is important to you for that particular recipe, sift! If not, skip the sifting. For this particular recipe, I'd sift. One reason why I liked this gingerbread was it's light, spongy texture.

I made the second of the Ten Gingerbreads of Christmas last night. This recipe didn't ask me to sift anything, though it did ask me to stir spices into the molasses and add baking soda to coffee, which seemed a bit unorthodox. This gingerbread was really good, but not nearly as good as the first. Why? The texture was a bit heavy (no sifting!) and the flavor was borderline too molasses-ish. The first was light and spicy; this was dark and heavy.
Scorecard: First Gingerbread 1-0-0.

Gingerbread is so versatile. It's great for dessert with a scoop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, but it's also great for breakfast, with a little bit of butter. Yum.

Getting to Know All About You: What's your typical breakfast? What's your favorite breakfast?

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Happy December!

We got quite a bit of snow dumped on us last night. Before the big snow, Gentleman Caller and I went outside to play in the sleet. We ran and slid down the street and had a hop-down-the-sidewalk-backwards contest (I won the first time; GC the next). We took Fat Larry outside; he ran around for approximately 1 minute, then high-tailed it to the porch and yowled at the front door. Not a SnowCat, that one. I took him out again today (he wanted to go) and dropped him in a big snowdrift, taller than he is. He scrambled back to the front door. He'd never survive a night on his own in the wild.

So, back to last night, after our romp in the sleet, I made some gingerbread. It seemed the right thing to do. I noticed that I have 10 recipes for gingerbread, so this begins the Gingerbread Snackdown, aka The Ten Gingerbreads of Christmas! 'Tis the season. And though this is only the first recipe, it's tops! The molasses flavor, which I find overpowering in many gingerbreads, was subtle and took a backseat to the spices. And the texture was so light and spongy and moist. Oh, yes, M.F.K. Fisher's mom knew how to make a good gingerbread. You can't go wrong with this one, but, mind you, a better one may be forthcoming:

Gingerbread

Recipe of M.F.K. Fisher’s mother. I thought it kind of strange to stir baking soda into molasses, but whatever. I did it. And it was awesome.

1-¼ c. flour, plus extra for pan
1 t. baking powder
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. ginger
1 t. ground cloves
½ t. salt
¼ c. butter, plus extra for pan
¼ c. sugar
¾ t. soda
½ c. molasses
1 egg, lightly beaten

Sift together first 6.

In a separate bowl, combine butter and sugar until well mixed.

Beat ½ t. of the soda into the molasses and mix well. Add to the butter and sugar. Add remaining ¼ t. of soda to ¾ c. boiling water and stir. Alternately with the sifted dry ingredients, add the water to the butter mixture. Fold in the beaten egg and pour into a greased and floured 8” square pan. This mixture will seem much too thin to make a cake but do not increase flour.

Bake in a preheated 325 oven for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Eat as is or top with whipped cream, ice cream or wine sauce.

Bonus: if you don't have a real Christmas tree, gingerbread will make your house smell like Christmas. Guaranteed.

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