The Rise and fall of the Whole Wheat Oatmeal Loaf

Elise,
You are the bread baker in the family and that is both fact and metaphor. I've generally been daunted by bread. I was told early on that bread is sort of like the kitchen's mood ring. If you approach it with any negative emotion, even if that emotion isn't about the bread, you're just feeling cranky, discouraged or dysthymic, the bread will sense this and turn dark gray. No it won't, but it won't rise. And if the negative emotion is about the bread, then like a dog, the bread can sense your fear and it will bite you, by not rising. And after a failure or two, a few loaves that could be used as weapons and then to weight the body down after you have bludgeoned it to death, well, who isn't afraid of bread?
The first bread we made was Mother Sawyer's Oatmeal loaf from Mrs. Bently. This was a loaf to soothe all fears. No kneading, and yummy every time, if a bit holey and homely. I think it won a prize at the Grant County Fair. Our award winning bread.
The first time I made that bread for someone else was at that camp in Canada where I was junior counselor. There was a woman there who helped me with the cooking. As junior counselor I was put in charge of all the cooking. She introduced me to beans and miso and cold drip coffee enemas. (The cold drip coffee enemas she only told me about, I didn't actually experience them. She felt bad about this but she had only brought so much cold drip coffee with her and to my staggering relief, didn't have enough for me.) I had made the bread dough and left it for it's first rise when she discovered it. She assumed it was a sponge, or maybe she just thought I was as hopeless with bread as I was with tempeh, and she wanted to help. She added loads more flour and kneaded away and it made a beautiful round tight loaf. Nothing like our award winning bread but still good. I should have taken comfort in that experience, seen how forgiving bread dough can be, more of this, less of that, it all still ends up as bread. But instead, I just decided that despite the awards, I knew nothing about bread and I stayed away for years.
But it's February and I want to bake and I'm trying to limit the amount of white sugar I inhale every day so I thought a week away from cake baking would be a useful exercise. Instead, I could bake bread. I found a whole wheat oatmeal loaf recipe. It is actually partial wheat, about half white flour, but that seemed safer so I went for it. The recipe warns against adding too much flour, advises 10 minutes of kneading and admits that the dough may be sticky. Well, I added nearly an extra cup of flour and only kneaded for 8 minutes and the dough was too sticky to knead any more.
I have an electric oven and a kitchen that stays about 65 degrees, so in order to have a warm place for the bread to rise, I heated the oven briefly and then put the bread in there. This worked well for the first rising, but for the second, I left it too long and it rose and then collapsed.

I baked it anyway and it probably could have taken more flour. It was good, but very soft and holey. I might gird my loins and try again. Maybe if I have a specialty cocktail before I start, I could mask my feelings and the bread wouldn't know.
Or the next time you visit we could do it together.
Love, M

There is a lot of bad meatloaf out there

Hi Elise,
Yesterday was Chris's birthday and we had a small, (10 people) casual, (plates on laps) party. He loves meatloaf, or he loves my meatloaf. And I've adapted that Marion Cunningham recipe almost enough to call it my own. I used to make it with sausage instead of the ground pork, and before I became concerned with how commercial pork is raised (if you can call it that) and produced, I used Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage and that made a great meatloaf. But I obviously can't do that any more and I have found the Whole Foods sausage to be of inconsistent and dubious flavor.
(I've recently been rewatching the first season of The Sopranos and at one point Tony's mother comes to a bbq at Tony's house, and as she walks up she says, "Oh, he's using mesquite. That makes the sausages taste peculiar.")
I think WF sausages taste peculiar, and can also have an off putting mouth feel.
So now I try to duplicate the Jimmy Dean sausage flavor with the WF humane ground pork.
For my famous meatloaf, I use 1.5 lbs ground pork, 1.5 lbs ground veal and about 3 lbs ground beef. I saute some onion, fennel and carrots, chopped fine in the Cuisinart. I skip the celery because basically, I'm against celery.
Then in a large bowl I mix these sauteed vegetables, the meat, about 2 C fresh bread crumbs from some good quality dense ww bread, some fennel seeds and sage (to mimic the sausage), salt and pepper, a couple TB of Worcestershire and about 1/2 C of ketchup and a cup of water. I mix it with my hands, which is sort of gross but does the job. Then, like MC I turn it out into a roasting pan, form it into a loaf and I cook it at about 425 and 1.5 hours or longer. It is really, really good.
So I plan to serve this meatloaf. The guests arrive and inevitably ask what's for dinner. When I say meatloaf, a pallor comes into the cheeks, a slight stammer develops, as they say, "m-meatloaf?" They all take a big swallow of whatever they are drinking and reach for the cheese and crackers. They are terrified of meatloaf.
I serve the meatloaf, and everyone insists an tiny pieces, "Oh, no, just a sliver for me." You would think I was serving blood sausage or scrapple. Then of course they like it, and what comes tumbling out in their heady rush of relief, is a lifetime of meatloaf trauma. Just about every guest's mother made a perfectly dreadful meatloaf. Part of me wants to ask how that is possible, but I have to admit that after a few crushing disappointments, I rarely order meatloaf in a restaurant any more. It is such an easy thing to make, the distance traveled between the taste of the ingredients and the flavor of the finished loaf is very short. I don't see how it can turn out so bad, grainy or sour or bland. Yet it does.
But not this one.
And if there are leftovers, which with 6 lbs of meat is likely, I make meatloaf oatmeal soup. I take some home made chicken broth, add some already cooked steel cut oatmeal and crumble some meatloaf in it. It is gruel of the Gods.
Love, Margaret

a very sad sight

I don't miss the bows
nor the chilly snows
I can do without the reindeer
and I've had it with the cheer
but dear god
how I miss the egg nog

Christmas Eve Dinner

 Hi there, i wrote this on the 27th but didn't get the pictures into it til now...

Hi Marg,

hope you had a merry Christmas. Ours was a bit melancholy, being all alone with no family around, but we made the best of it. Dressed up fancy for Christmas Eve dinner and set the table with crystal and silver. Then we went xc skiiig on Christmas Day, which might have been better if we hadn't almost run out of gas and had to turn around 2 miles from the ski track to drive 17 miles down the mountain for diesel. And then back up.

Christmas Eve dinner was very good. We had ham (of course we are now onto the "definition of eternity" stage of the ham).

We had a wonderful potato kale gratin. The recipe came from Alison's co-car-pool mom at her blog Cooking SF. It was AMAZING. Creme fraiche, gruyere, potatoes and kale, what's not to like?

Braised leeks and steamed broccoli rounded out the vegetable part of the meal. 

I also made Eggnog Panna Cotta from the same blog, and when I read the recipe I knew it wasn't right. I've never seen a panna cotta with yogurt in it, and now I know why. It makes it taste like yogurt, which is not what I'm after in my panna cotta. I put it in beautiful little tea cups from Aunt Pat and it looked lovely which made up a little for the exceedingly mediocre taste. I like the idea of Eggnog Panna Cotta (I know, there are two kinds of people in the world) but next time I'm sticking to the basics.

Speaking of which, can you send me the homemade recipe that your friend makes?

Love, Elise

It's a good thing she can cook

Dear Elise,
I know you are a fan of Nigella Lawson. As far as I'm concerned, she is the Devil's Spawn. But she can cook, so I still occasionally consort with her.
I was trying to decide what to make for Christmas Eve dinner dessert. The traditional Buche de Noel seemed too show off-y and the Nantucket cranberry pie seemed not show off-y enough. I have had some of Nigella's cakes with you, a really amazing chocolate orange one stands out. And I have been circling around the plum pudding/fruit cake class of desserts for a few years now.
When I was little, hard sauce was my favorite food.
Nigella has a recipe for chocolate fruit cake. It is all prunes, raisins and currants with a little bit of candied orange peel. No glaceed cherries or brandied dates. No brandy whatsoever. Sounded like a possibility.
At first I thought I'd make a practice one, just to be sure. Well, Nigella, helpful as always, says of the recipe, "The hardest thing you have to do for this recipe is wrap the pan with brown paper." She goes on to admit that, "it is the sort of task that makes a klutz like me hyperventilate." But then reassures you that, "I find that there is nearly always someone around who can deal with that part with magnificent ease." Nigella cooks in a TV studio so I'm sure for her there is always someone around. The only thing around me are dogs and they don't have opposable thumbs and other than moral support, are no help whatsoever.
Forty-five minutes, a roll of parchment and 3 paper bags later, I had wrapped the shit out of the fucker, but there was no way this was going to be a practice cake.

Then I need some candied peel. Well, it being Dec. 23rd, there is about as much chance of buying candied peel as there is of finding some cranberries. So I have to make my own.
This is the point in the process when I start wondering what's wrong with a nice pound cake.
But I make the candied peel and I mix up the cake, which compared to what's come before, really is pretty easy. I'm not sure why the pan needed to be wrapped in eighteen layers of different sorts of heat proof paper. The batter doesn't even reach the top of the pan.
I pop it in the oven and it bakes and bakes and bakes. The Devil's Spawn, Nigella, says that the cake should be firm on top, with the center still gooey. Well, how gooey? It's not uncommon for my cakes to fall apart completely and this when I believe they are really cooked through. So "a little bit gooey" is quicksand territory for me. Eventually I have to go to bed and the center of the cake is still gooey so I take it out of the oven and leave it to cool overnight.
It actually unmolds and it doesn't fall apart. Still not sure why I needed all that wrapping, cake didn't rise above the sides of the pan.
Now I want to spiff it up a little, some top dress. The Devil's Spawn suggests marmalade, marzipan and fondant. Of course she does. She also shows it plain with just a sprig of highly poisonous holly on top. I opt for some of the home made candied peel, affixed in place with the remains of some caramel sauce I made a month ago.

It was delicious.
Love, Margaret

Christmas cookies

Elise,

I baked


and baked



and baked.















Yet somehow, on Dec. 23rd there wasn't a cookie in the house.














Thank God for Maison du and the best mother in the world.



love, Margaret

Why I knit Christmas presents

Dear Margaret,

I am reminded again that you are the one who bakes Christmas cookies. Every few years I succumb to the fantasy of delivering plates of cookies, heaped high with fudge, delicate gingerbread snowflakes, rich buttery rugelach, dense nutty caramel bars, wrapped in tastefully decorated cellophane and topped with a bow and a card with a picture of a dog in a Santa hat on it.

This year I admit that I was more than a little swayed by your enthusiasm and stream of photos and texts about the process. The final blow to my resistance was dealt by the wonderful staff at the vet's office, all of whom know Stella by name and give her hugs and treats. Yes, I thought, these are people worth baking for!

So I threw myself into the weekend bake-a-thon.

Wednesday and Thursday - obsess about what to make, comb through cookbooks, wonder if the molasses cookies I used to make are still a good recipe and did I really like a cookie made with Crisco? Consult with you. Make lists of contenders and strike cookies off it. Make master shopping list.

Friday - shop

Friday evening - make molasses cookie dough

Saturday - make chocolate chunker cookie dough. Congratulate myself on how well it is going, and the care I am taking with measuring and following directions, knowing that the cookies are destined to bring happiness to others. Think smug thoughts about my own worth and how the people at the vet's office will really love me now.

Sunday morning - Make Linzer dough. Decide that it really doesn't take all day to bake up 3 enormous batches of cookies including one that has to be rolled out and cut and a batch of turtle bars. Really going skiing is the best thing I could do. Better to start the bake-a-thon with a good dose of fresh air. Congratulate self on being so organized and skilled that I can go skiing in the midst of a bake-a-thon.

Sunday afternoon - Begin baking molasses cookies. Feel tired after skiing. Have a cookie. Still tired. Have another cookie. Realize that chocolate chunker dough is very hard and not coming to room temperature. Get chisel out of basement and chisel chocolate dough into cookie forms and bake. Still tired. Have another cookie, or two.

Sunday evening - roll out linzer dough, cut out shapes, mutilate shapes, rechill dough, repeat.Eat some dough. Not bad, considering that it has 1 cup of cornstarch in it. I think this is why you test drive the recipes.

Sunday night - make a batch of Turtle Bars. Wonder why honestly I didn't just give the vet's office a batch of Turtle Bars in the first place and call it done?

Late Sunday night/early Monday morning - sift powdered sugar over linzer cookies and floor. Cut the Turtles into bars. Eat crumbs. Arrange all on plates, top with aforementioned cellophane. Have a cookie.

Monday morning - start to wonder if anyone even likes cookies. I mean, don't we all get too many sweets over the holidays, and just end up putting most of them in the compost? And isn't half the Seattle population gluten free nowadays? Maybe some one at the vet's will poke Stella extra hard with a big needle because they feel slighted that I didn't include any gluten free ones.

 Monday afternoon - deliver cookies to the vet's office with a urine sample (pee and cookies, anyone?) and go have a mammogram for respite. Then come home and do dishes.

Hope your bake-a-thon solidified your role as The One Who Bakes Christmas Cookies, love, Elise

P. S. Look what I got from my neighbor - cookies!