Respite

In the midst of packing craziness and needing something to take my mind off the mountain of boxes that has taken over the apartment and the even more upsetting mountain of small, oddly shaped, random things that don't pack easily but rather reside in slumping piles.

Dinner tonight - skirt steak marinated in lemon juice, olive oil and garlic. Cold artichokes. Leftover mashed sweet potatoes. And wine. Possibly lots.

vegetables are good for you, right?

I've been sick a lot this winter so am turning my attention to things that putatively increase health. Fruit, kumbuchu, cruciferous (that always makes me think of a brocoli stalk splayed out on a cross) vegetables and ginger tea.

When a friend introduced me to the blog Orangette the first thing I latched onto was a recipe for Sweet Potato Pound Cake. Have your cake and eat your vegetables too. The sweet potatoes at WFs have been super good, so I baked a few and banged out the cake pretty quickly. The directions were a bit odd. It's a basic cream the butter and sugar together, add the eggs one at at time, beating well after each addition kinda cake, but when you got to the part where you were alternating the dry ingredients with the milk, she only wants you to mix until just combined. I should have followed my instinct and beaten well, cuz the texture is a little odd. Not a great crumb.

If i'm feeling generous, I say it's good, but a bit sweet. Next time I'd use 1/2 c less sugar and make it all dk brown to increase the brown sugar taste. If i'm not feeling generous, I'd say that it's not really heavy enough to be a pound cake. And no matter which way I'm feeling I'll definitely have a piece after dinner. Gotta eat my vegetables.

A little more about What I baked

OK, Wyatt got lost the night before New Year's Eve, so if I baked anything, it has been blotted out with the rest of that dreadful 16 hours, the way a person can't remember the time leading up to or after a severe head trauma. I probably made more brownies, just "to keep ma strenth up."
We had the eight days of Chris. Chris is training in earnest and only wants protein and vegetables. I wanted a coconut cake. His party was party por deux. Martha Stewart has a very involved and well reviewed coconut cake. It involves, a coconut custard filling-- corn starch based, and a simple syrup and 3 layers that are each sliced in half for a six layer cake. There is a cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut. It is a show stopper as well as a time suck extraordinaire. Elise said, Its a lot of time to put in and then be disappointed. I thought that was sound advice and went with the cake bible all butter cake and cream cheese frosting and mounds of sweetened shredded coconut between the 3 layers. I made 1 1/2 times the recipe for 3 9" layers. I added some coconut flavor to the cake and the frosting. It was a little crumbly but definitely improved with age and also, too was a perfect balance of cake and frosting, not always easy to achieve.
Then, we had a dinner party and I made the Cake Bible dense flourless chocolate cake. Only bittersweet chocolate, butter and eggs. Baked for 20 minutes in a water bath. The baking was dodgy but it was actually done, although who knew from how it looked and only 20 minutes. The raspberry sauce overflowed the measuring cup in the microwave and I was forced to reduce it on the stove which Rose LB warms will impart and off flavor and she was right. Essentially a butt load of work for a strangely flavored raspberry sauce. Again, whipped cream is a cover for a multitude of off flavors, time and temp misjudgments and ill advised "experiments." Cake was actually good that night, although maybe it was the vodka combined with all the adrenaline that had flooded my system in response to the roast that refused to stop mooing. It was not good the next day.
As a consolation, I baked a winter spice cake with caramelized apples. Apples cooked and then put in pan, caramel sauce made (one cavil is that caramel sauce is better with just sugar and cream, the addition of butter to the caramelizing sugar, makes the whole thing greasy, but I was brave about it) dribbled over apples, spice cake baked on top of that, whole turned out for an upside down apple topped cake. And it was just right.
Now we are on to super bowl-- ham, chili, biscuits, and probably more OMG brownies.

Christmas, New Years, The 8 days of Chris, and What I Baked

Christmas eve dinner and we needed something red. I have made the Nantucket cranberry Pie a few times, even once with tons of ginger, to gingery was my feeling. This time I had Sister Abigail to help so actually chopped the cranberries. For all of Laurie Colwin's Whateverishness, she wants you to chop cranberries and they go all over and it turns out a raw cranberry is the one thing Spaniel Duquam will not eat. But since Ab was here, she chopped them and we did it in batches in a mini prep. Turns out if you chop the cranberries, the whole thing looks a lot less like cranberry vomit. Ab doesn't like almond so she skimped on the almond extract. I think almond is something of which a person wants the exact right amunt and i could have gone wit a 1/4 tsp more. But lots of whipped cream and what's not to like?
Because Ab was visit I also made OMG brownies, forsted brownies that are just stunningly good, no matter how many times I have them, the first bite is always earth moving. And because it was Christmas and I baked for "gifts" I made Rugelah, Loro Brody's Rugelach. These are also a revelation, that something can be so consistently GOOD! Chris wanted some and I said, OK, but I'm giving them as presents, so just eat the unnatractive ones. He said, They are all unattractive.

Evolution of an Idea

It all began, as so many things do, in Whole Foods. Last week I saw candied orange peel there. The real stuff that they had made, not something in a can or jar. I was focusing on making chocolate bark, so noted it but didn't purchase. The first round of chocolate bark was not bad, and the second round was better. By then I had managed to change the instant-read thermometer from centigrade to farenheit which helped with the tempering significantly.

In the spirit of innovation I decided to try chocolate bark flavored with orange oil and spiked with candied orange peel. Alas, I was not the only one to note the candied OP at WF, and it was all gone.

How hard can it be to make this stuff?

thanksgiving already

First major holiday w bf's family. He is deep frying a turkey and I am in charge of making gravy for said turkey. 3 prt process, first make the chicken broth, and it has to be from scratch b/c first major holiday w bf's fam. Then I have to brown some parts for an hour or so, add some turket fat, onion, celery and thyme, brown more, add sage and the premade chicken broth and cook it all for another hour or so. This makes the gravy base. On the day, I'll roast a free standing turket breast and maybe a thigh or two and use those drippings for the final step. Calls for a lot of turkey fat in the roux for the gravy. Hope my parts yeild some fat.
Also making wild rice with butternut squash and two pecan pies. I told him I didn't really like to share the pecan pie bc there is never enough left over for me. He said "make two." So that's what I'll do.

Cookies, sorta

Made the gingerbread men from The Desert Bible. B-o-r-i-n-g. The commentary at the beginning of the recipe said that he (Christopher Kimball) had tried many other recipes and found them to be overly spiced. Well, he certainly corrected that.