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.

christmas eve dessert or things that make you go Hmmm

Maybe I wasn't supposed to make dessert for Christmas eve. What with the ossu bucco and not eating til 9:30, probably a clementine and a glass of water would have sufficed. But there is Christmas day and Boxing day to think about and so dessert has to perform triple duty. I was going to make steamed persimmon pudding, but the persimmons didn't ripen and the recipe takes pains to insist that they Must Be Nearly Over-Ripe. So I decided to copy my sister and make a cranberry upside down cake, but by the 24th all the stores are sold out of all cranberries, fresh and frozen. At this point I am in the jostling, delirious and slightly nerved up crowds of shoppers in the local supermarket and wondering if this is a sign, and I should just not have dessert. How much more clear can the higher power be? Go home, ice your knee, see what Jack Bauer is up to. I think actually that was the voice of id, so I pressed on, pressed past the people wearing antlers and santa hats, even though they are shoppers and don't have to be wearing silly hats. And I decided to make apple walnut cake from Silver Pallet. My sister had written "maje fave" next the recipe so I knew it would be good. I got apples and, light headed and trying to stave off incurable crankiness, assumed I would have everything else. I couldn't have been more wrong. The recipe calls for vegetable oil and I only have olive oil. It calls for whole wheat flour which I threw out in the move. (it had sat untouched in my freezer for several years and thru one previous move.) I called my sister who transferred me to her friend Matthew who happened to be in her kitchen preparing a Beef Wellington. I felt I was in good hands. Apparently you lose some acidity if you substitute butter for oil and you also lose some liquid. We decided I could use a cup and half of butter and a third of a cup of butter milk. Matthew called back to tell me to melt the butter but be sure it was not so hot that it would cook the eggs. I decided that since I was melting the butter I might as well go on and brown it. Then I added half a cup of white flour and half a cup of wheat germ in place of the cup of ww flour.
Other than sticking to the pan and coming out in pieces, it was perfect and perfectly delicious. The cracks didn't matter, better to absorb the apple cider glaze. We had it for Christmas breakfast.

because there is more to do in a kitchen than bake

For Christmas eve dinner I made osso buccu, (it's important to pronounce this in your best Spicolli from Ridgemont High accent) Awesso Bewcco, Dude. I followed Marcella most of the way, supplemented w/ a Gourmet recipe. White wine and chicken broth, and no cheese cloth for the bouquet garni so just put herbs in loose, made the gremolata bc the woman who sold me the veal shanks said it is the best part and adds freshness etc. Marcella doesn't bother w the gremolata but she puts lemon zest in the bouqet garni. I agree w the woman who sold the veal shanks. Everyone seems to agree that the veal has to be in a single layer with the liquid only half way up the sides of the shanks. I did that and I only had a cheap pot that would accommodate all those shanks, but cheap seemed to work fine for this. Marcella says shanks should be cut no more than 1 1/2 inches thick. I went with 2 inches and they were perfectly well cooked. Served it w risotto Milanese. I am not a saffron fan, but used slightly less than called for and it was delicious and all that stirring is a good activity for company.
Now between the osso bucco and the risotto there is lots of home made chicken stock and then the veal which is rich rich rich, so the whole thing was delicious but not something you necessarily want to eat very often. I make a similar dish with turkey thighs and prefer it. Use the veal if you want to show off.

Pumpkin Flat Bread. Unintendedly So.

The other day, which happened to be my birthday, I happened to be talking to my sister on the phone while making pumpkin bread. Now this is a recipe I play pretty fast and loose with anyway. It's the basic nut bread recipe from, get this, Breads. You can do anything with it and it always comes out tasting great. Even what I did.

So there I was, phone in one hand, whisk in the other, working and chatting like I knew what I was doing. I was adding crystalized ginger to the recipe and doubling the spices and using WW flour instead of white, throwing in some molasses bc it amused me, you know, stuff like that. Came time the batter was ready to go in the oven and it didn't look right. It hadn't taken all the flour it was supposed too, and it was still kinda stiff. I asked the sister on the phone what she thought. This is not the sister that cooks. This is the sister that races bikes. She can eat pumpkin bread as good as the next bike racer, but she didn't have any suggestions as to why the batter looked so... odd.

When the timer rang and I checked the bread, I knew why it looked so weird.


NO BAKING SODA!!!! Doh.

more spice cake

After the blackberry jam debacle cake, I tried a spice cake bundt cake. Started w an M. Stewart recipe, but she wanted cake flour and I only had all purpose. You can substitute bleached flour and some corn starch, but I didn't have bleached flour. Apparently the bleaching is important as it makes the whole thing more acidic. I just used all purpose flour and hoped for the best. I also couldn't be bothered to separate the eggs and beat the egg whites and fold them in at the end. Just added whole eggs. Also doubled or tripled the spices. It worked well. Tasted good, moist enough. I topped it with the penuche icing, which was runnier than before and not a good complement. Whipped cream would have been better.
Then I made an oatmeal cake, also with spices. Topped with a brown sugar, butter, coconut and pecan topping that you put on the warm cake and then place under a broiler until it bubbles. Over time the topping sort of seeps down and permeates the body of the cake. Worth waiting a day before devouring it. Now that is a good and popular cake.