No, I don't drink coffee

I sort of like coffee now. Before my sister starts to do a dance in the barista area of her favorite independent coffee shop, I need to explain. I still don't drink coffee. I find the taste of coffee bitter. Or, I should say, I now find
the taste of coffee by itself bitter. This week, I have learned something new - coffee WITH quality chocolate wrapped in something else (like a coffeecake, perhaps) doesn't taste bitter. In fact, it tastes amazing.
I can't explain why I didn't figure this out earlier. I know that everyone and their neighbor's neighbor has discovered the world of dressed-up coffee drinks with shots of flavorings, foams, steamed milks purveyed by Starbucks and kin. But, I don't drink coffee. (Do you sense my incredulity?)
My first exploration of coffee in baking this week began with a kids' sleepover. The usually demanded breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes spongy with syrup and ignored fruit made me nauseous. The kids don't mind repetition,
but it makes me feel tired. So, while the charming-while-asleep room of girls slumbered on, I thumbed through one of my favorite all-things-before dinner brunch cookbooks and found a coffeecake with chocolate chips. (Chocolate chips make almost anything palatable to children ages 2 to 22.) It wasn't just chocolate chips, it was chocolate coffee cake with chocolate chips. No, it was mocha chocolate coffee cake with chocolate chips. Mocha? That's java code word for coffee and chocolate, right?
The kids were initially suspicious of the coffeecake, but after the first bites, I took the silence in the dining room to indicate approval. Score one! With sleepovers, you learn that not only are your kids ridiculous in their rejections of all things orange or green or smelly or fishy or simply unusual because they have never heard of it in their short lives palate-challenged, but so are other people's children. The coffeecake, baked in a bundt pan I've owned for 21 years and bought at an honest-to-betsy yard sale in New Hampshire when first assembling my (then tiny) newly married kitchen, was moist, with good volume and a not-too-dark not-too-milky coffee chocolate flavor that actually made me think there was a reason coffeecake could have coffee in it. In a word, it was yummy.
Later this week, I needed to bake a cake. Yes, needed. I'm taking part in a wonderful informal cake decorating class on Saturdays offered by a woman who has travelled the world with her considerable Wilton cake pan collection, teaching friends, work associates, orphanage children, strangers and people like me to decorate cakes. The class is wonderful and a challenge for a traditional bread baker who never wants to be a pastry chef in her life type person. Yet, after four or five weeks of making cakes and frosting (lots and lots of frosting), I start to balk and look for something a little different.
The normal frosting for a Wilton class is shortening-based. Yes, the stuff you get on kids' cakes everywhere around the world. Why? It is ridiculously easy to make--you don't have to turn on a burner or pull out a pan--and it is temperature-stable, which means newbie student tolerant. This is not the frosting used by most professional bakers in Europe and the more rebellious in the US. Yes, it has that Crisco-coating tendency, but you can dress up the flavor quite a bit with chocolate powder, butter flavoring, vanilla, orange, lemon, etc. It benefits from one or more of these additions. I've faithfully creamed pounds and pounds of it (sounds better if you say the number in kilos as it is lower) over the last month.
Not this week, I said in my head. I had made a lovely devil's food cake recipe in the shape of a cat (it was shaped cake class day) and, even though I sruggled to get the moist, heavy cake out of the pan, I couldn't bear the
thought of putting Crisco on it. Instead, I found a seemingly-easy recipe for French Buttercream icing, the one with the boiled sugar syrup and egg yolks and a pound of real BUTTER. I wanted my icing to be dark because my cake was dark and I had already learned about the chocolate crumb issue with light colored frosting from an earlier class debacle. (I don't care what “they” say about a crumb coat, you really should just decide on anything other than chocolate cake if your design vision calls for white frosting.) The deceptively-short, not telling the whole truth recipe had some side notes, including one for chocolate and then one for mocha. I'd learned in class that both chocolate and coffee are great ways to make dark icing colors.
The buttercream was amazing, but temperamental. The heating of the sugar syrup requires some patience and then thin stream of the syrup into the egg yolks requires a skill I have not quite perfected. The result was a not-so-temperature stable, but truly lick-the-spoon fabulous frosting. (I can state this because at the decorating class, my classmates kept licking the spatulas I had used to mix in colorings or scoop the frosting into pastry bags.) I had to repeatedly re-freeze the blasted wicked wickedly good frosting and my efforts partly melted into a smooth-coated, instead of shaggy, cat during the 15-minute car transport back to my refrigerator.
I'll post up the recipes soonest. Or, maybe not as we are to begin the wonderful, but incredibly long trek back to the US this week. A piece of the kitty cat mocha buttercream-frosted devil's food cake will probably be desired around hour 20 of the journey. Who knows? By hour 30, I might be ready for an actual mocha.

Cake Pudding

Spring blasted in on us with a week of sun and warmth and then crept back to its more normal rainy self this week. The rain suits me today as we enter Passion Week before Resurrection Sunday. I grew up saying "Easter," but my short trip to Uganda taught me this new term: Resurrection Sunday.

I had forgotten until yesterday in church as a lady came in a bit late and sat next to me. She was suffering from allergies even more than I was with tissues and an inhaler and a process of excusing herself every now and then to go outside and blow her nose more loudly. After she sat down, as the kids started a processional in the aisles with their palms waving, she asked me
"Is this Resurrection Sunday?"

"No, Palm Sunday."

Easter, for those who want to know, comes from Middle English which itself comes from Old English and then goes back to Germanic Ostern, which surprising (or not?) is the name of a goddess and her festival, derived from the cardinal point east. What? I think I will use Resurrection Sunday from here out. It is obvious, in-your-face, blunt, which explains why Americans don't use the term much. Being obvious about faith isn't in favor.

Even though it is still Lent, I have been researching breads and other goodies traditionally served on Resurrection Sunday and that has made me hungry. Yesterday we made petit fours for the egg hunt at church (eggs = new life, no bunnies needed). I had leftover sponge cake cubes from that effort sitting in the fridge this morning. I had read somewhere that leftover cake could be used for bread pudding. A revelation - cake is rich bread, right? I freaked out momentarily when the cubes dissolved quicker in the custard base, but then calmed down when I saw how it all baked together. It's Monday, but Sunday is coming.

Sponge Cake Pudding
Leftover cake cubes, 4 cups (mine were roughly 1.5 inch squares--I would say 1/3 of a 9 x 13 sheet cake)

2 eggs

1/2 cup buttermilk (because I had it leftover)

1 1/2 cup milk or vanilla soy milk

3/4 cup pecans, chopped fine

1 cup frozen blackberries (from this last summer's picking--lovely!) or any kind of berry

1. Crumble the cake in a bowl. Add the pecans.

2. In a small bowl, blend the eggs, buttermilk and milk with a fork.

3. Pour the egg mixture over the cake crumbles. Add in the frozen berries and stir just until combined.

4. Pour mixture into a 9 x 9 square baking dish that has been sprayed or oiled.

5. Bake at 375 until firm and browning on top.

We enjoyed it with a spoonful of Greek vanilla yogurt on top. The younger daughter rejected the berries, but I consider that a personal preference issue.

Banana Bread for Kids of All Ages

This morning, I found myself staring at three bruised and blackened bananas. This was not my first, or even hundredth, encounter with the rejected fruit. My otherwise wonderful husband and oldest child both refuse to consume any but the most perfectly yellow bananas. Any that have browned even a little are passed over during snack time. This preference for only yellow results in quite a few extra bananas, past their prime as the time from green to yellow to a few tiny brown spots can happen almost overnight (or at least it feels like it).

In the past, I've done a variety of banana bread recipes with or without nuts of all kinds. I've made banana muffins, peanut butter banana bread, Amish banana cake and many many banana yogurt smoothies. I adore banana breads both fresh and toasted. Is there anything more delightful than toasted banana bread with cream cheese or butter? The children have not exhibited my fondness for banana bread unless I throw in some chocolate chips, and even then, they manage to often eat out the chocolate chips and leave most of the bread. Muffin shapes they accept a little more readily, even if the same recipe. Form appears to be important to them in ways I would not have been able to articulate pre-children.

Today though I had a picky child recipe success with the bananas no longer fit for direct consumption. I'm out of chocolate chips (and vanilla, as you will see the omission in the recipe), but really wanted a bread that girls would eat willingly at lunch tomorrow. I did, however, have some King Arthur double dark cocoa powder (decadent stuff!) and chia seeds I had bought a few months ago on a fit of health after reading about them in a running book. I borrowed the base of the recipe from Bernard Clayton's wonderful bread book (I have the older version) and improvised from there.

The result: a success even with the most pickiest eater in the house. They even asked for more. Wow. Chocolate really does make everything better and, as I found out, when you make the whole bread chocolate, they can't pick it out. I got them now.

Chocolate Banana Bread for Everyone

6 Tbsp butter at room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (about 3 bananas)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 Tbsp chia seeds (optional, but yummy little crunch--or try poppy seeds)

3 Tbsp cocoa powder (the dark King Arthur is wonderful)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1. Preheat over to 350F.
2. Grease a medium (8 x 4) baking pan. I use Pam.
3. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together and ad the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Mix in the banana puree.
4. In a second medium bowl, mix the flour, seeds, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt with a whisk until combined.
5. Using a rubber spatula, mix in 2/3 of the flour mixture into the butter mixture then once combined, add the remainder of the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Do not overmix or the bread will be tough.
6. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50-60 minutes--until firm on top (not jiggly). Cool on a rack for five minutes in the pan and then turn out and finish cooling.

Not too fairy, but lots of dairy

For Maiya's birthday, we had a fairy themed party. I had planned on a fairy birthday cake...but it turned out to be more of a flower cake. Mom made all the gum paste flowers and I made a devil's chocolate layer cake with marshmallow fondant (loved it) and chocolate malt filling. Yum.

The grandfathers approved.

Eating on the Cheap

I met a woman yesterday who complained about the high price of healthy food here in the capitol. She had just found out she was pregnant and was told to stop eating all the junk and fried food she regularly consumed. She is young, newly married, carrying a mortgage back home and a rent here. She said she just couldn't afford the healthy food. She has a valid point - if you don't know how to cook or aren't willing to spend some time in the kitchen, buying and preparing healthy food can hit your budget harder.

Of course, Pollan and other food researchers have discussed the total cost of all that prepared, processed food and fast food--think government subsidies and poor health costs.

But, if we spend a little bit of time in the kitchen, we can make some wonderful, mostly healthy, fresh food out of basic product. Yes, the fresh veggies and fruits are expensive, but they go a long way usually. A $8 box of mandarins this time of year gives our family five or six days of lunchtime and snack treats. Think Italian, Mediterranean, Chinese, Indian and you will see how well you can eat on about the same as you spend on the cheap, boxed foods and much less than going out, even to McDonalds.

This weekend we bought bok choy at a Chinese food market--tender, green, sandy-as-could-be bok choy. Price: a ridiculous $2. At a local supermarket the same bok choy would have cost me three times as much. I don't know why--supply/demand volume?

Boy choy is usually quite sandy and needs to be washed. Trim off just the very bottom, seperate the leaves and put them all in a colander for some really good individual washing or float them in a sink of cool water.

Greens Frittata

*You can make this with spinach, kale, bok choy or whatever greens you have. You could make it into a Spanish torta if you wanted to flip it. I find flipping a large fat omelette a bit intimidating so I go the frittata route.

1 Tbsp butter

As much greens as you like, cleaned well, drained and chopped in 1/2 inch pieces

1/2 onion (mild), diced fine or quickly pureed in mini-blender

Dash of white wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar or rice vinegar depending on your mood

6 eggs

1/3 c. milk

1/2 to 1 c. shredded cheese - I used a mild goat cheese we had in fridge. Gruyere, cheddar or any other nice melting cheese would work

In a medium stock pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the greens and onion. If too dry, add a Tbsp water. Cook over medium heat until greens are wilted and to your desired degree of softness. Towards the end of the cooking time, sprinkle in a dash of vinegar and some salt.

Place 2 paper towels layered in a colander. Drain the greens in the colander.

Mix eggs and milk together, hand-beating until smooth. Stir in cheese and greens. Add salt and pepper. You can also add spices at this time. Nutmeg is a nice addition. Or, try oregano or basil.

Heat broiler and position a rack under broiler.

Heat a large (10" or greater) pan over medium-high heat. Spray with cooking spray or rub with oil. Pour in egg mixture. Tilt back and forth a bit as it sets up. Run a spatula round sides to loosen. Let it cook slowly. Once bottom is set and top is soft-set, place pan in over under broiler. Watch it carefully! You want it to puff a bit, set all the way and brown, but not become dried out.

Slice the frittata and serve warm or at room temperature. It packs well for lunch.

Cakey Comfort

Rainy days drive me to the kitchen for comfort foods. Comfort comes in the form of carbohydrates for me, apparently. A few days ago, I had some fresh cranberries (adore them) that needed to be used so I slipped them into a modified KAF coffee cake recipe. The original recipe called for dried cranberries and almond slivers. I like almonds, but seldom by them slivered. I do however keep a quantity of almond flour in the freezer at all times. I find it is a good way to slip in a depth of flavor AND protein to just about any quick bread, muffin, scone or pastry. The coffee cake was good, so good that Maiya managed to eat around said-offending, but brightly staining cranberries so she could enjoy the cake.

Today, the bananas demanded attention. Mike likes bananas, but only before any brown appears, so I am often making banana dishes with the overripe ones. I once again decided to go with KAF's recipe with some variations. I've used many other recipes, but I think this might be one of the best. This cookbook may be one of the ones making the trip next year with us.

KAF's Banana Bread with Modifications

*First, I doubled the recipe because I had 6 overripe bananas. Banana bread freezes well and keeps in the fridge so consider a straight doubling of below.

2 large eggs

3/4 c sugar

1/3 c vegetable oil

1 c mashed banana

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 to 1 tsp nutmeg (take the time to fresh grate/pound--so much better!)

1 2/3 c unbleached, all purpose flour

1 c whole wheat flour

1 c yogurt, buttermilk or sour cream (I used Stonyfield Low Fat vanilla tonight)

optional: 1/2 c chocolate chips and/or 1 c chopped walnuts (I have kids, so in went the chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In medium sized bowl, beat together eggs, sugar and oil. Blend in the mashed bananas and vanilla.

Whisk together the all the dry ingredients from baking soda to wheat flour, then sift to incorporate well. I don't sift much, but I do here as you don't want to mix the batter too much (it gets stiff and then creates a drier texture) so you want those leaveners well incorporated. My shortcut is to put everything in my big sifter and sifter through and then mix a little.

Add the flour mixture all at once to the banana mixture. Stir in quickly but thoroughly. Now, stir in the yogurt until just combined. Finally, stir in quickly the chips and/or walnuts.

Pour batter into a greased (spray it well) 9 x 5 loaf pan. Bake for about 1 hour, until knife/cake tester comes out clean from center. You can tent it with foil after 40-45 mins if it begins to brown to much. I like my bread a bit brown.

Place on rack and cool for a bit, then turn out of pans and cool more. It is a very moist bread and slicing warm can be challenging, but warm banana bread is worth the effort.

*Photos by our oldest. The first is from the Smithsonian exhibit on First Ladies. Mrs. Coolridge had a pet raccoon which the young photographer thought was worthy of a picture.

Back home

Yesterday, our CSA provided us with two green tomatoes. I couldn't help myself, even if I seldom fry anything now in an attempt at healthy eating. I sliced them about 3/8 inch thick. I felt they needed a little more liquid before breading so I sprinkled some white wine vinegar over the slices and then dredged them in a mixture of white flour, white cornmeal, salt and pepper. I then pan fried them in my cast iron skillet a few minutes on each side.

The taste: crunchy light fry outside with warm tomatoey inside. I sprinkled the slices with a bit more sea salt before eating. One daughter declared it so-so after one bite. The other daughter (the "may no veggies except edamane willingly pass these lips" one) managed one bite without too much gagging and a quick grab of the juice cup. But, Mike and I didn't care--we ate the rest.

Now, various recipes suggest buttermilk or even egg as a wash before coating. I suspect you would get a thicker coating with these approaches, but I think the thin coating works out just fine and you don't have to use as much oil. I've seen some recipes that dress up the fried green tomatoes with remoulade sauce, marinara or a parmesan/cheese approach. I do think a sauce could be nice, although tomato on tomato might be too much. Next time I might try a thin basil pesto sauce. Sorry, no pictures of the tomatoes today.

Can't cook?

My sister-in-law often sends me news clippings. The latest story explained the recent boom in simplified cookbooks as well as cooking schools and new here-are-the-basics cooking shows. Apparently, we have a whole generation from the 1970s on that can't cook. This generation is now grappling with tightened pocketbooks and wants to use the farmer's market product to actually make a meal.

Now, I hadn't actually realized we had a culinary knowledge generational gap. Yes, I had heard about the loss of many home cooked meals, the ever-growing reliance on boxed mixes as cooking and the rise of fast food/take out/take and bake/take and eat. I do have a microwave and think it makes excellent popcorn and bacon with minimal fuss.

But, I had no idea that my friends couldn't cook. Actually, my friends can cook--at least I think they can. I may be selective, only pairing up with people who can cook or they may be particularly adept at buying pre-made and swapping containers. Hmmm, I've only actually cooked with a few of them.

My youngest and I spent a cool and drizzly day at the zoo. After reading the article and trekking the hills of the zoo with several kindergartners in tow, I decided tonight's meal must be a basic soup, one of those soups everyone should know how to make, but maybe they don't.

Bacon Corn Potato Chowder

Adapted from Barbara Kafka's lovely book Soup and my mother's 1970s Velveeta Cheese Bacon soup (w/o the Velveeta now)

1 1/2 lb of baking potatoes, peeled and 1/2" cubed

1 medium onion, chopped fine

1 1/2 cups water

Corn cut from 4 ears of corn

1 celery stalk, chopped fine

1 1/2 cups milk

1 cup shredded Fontina or Gruyere cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Roasted peppers (I had broiled some pepper from our CSA - a mix of sweet peppers - I love the colors)

Hot sauce to taste

1. Place the potato and onion in a medium saucepan and add water. Bring to boil and then simmer, covered, 10 minutes.

2. Add in corn, celery, milk and cheese. Stir and bring almost to a boil. Partially cover and simmer for another 10 minutes.

3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

4. Serve with roasted peppers on top and hot sauce to taste for the adults. We had pitas, sprayed first with an olive oil spray before a short time under the broiler to make them crispy, as a side.

Rushed but Blessed Bread

I make bread. I have for 10 years now, maybe more. Every week, sometimes more than once a week, I feed a starter or levain by mixing in warm water and flour. The mixture bubbles and grows, sometimes to the top of the container and over onto the counter (if I have rushed and not dumped it into a bigger bowl even though I know it needs the space). If you are seeking a fake concrete, flour and water dried to an almost impossible hardness is your answer.

After feeding the starter twice, I separate a cup or so back into a Tupperware that then hunches down in the back of the refrigerator until I remember to feed it again. The remainder starter I use for bread, rolls, pizza dough, even on occasion waffles or cake.

Two days ago, I began this ritual again with one difference: my long-awaited, can't-even-believe-it-even-thought-it-is-sitting-on-my-counter Cuisinart food processor is here waiting to be used for the first time.

Now, given my past professional life and bibliophile nature, I really should be expected to read the operating manual prior to using the processor. I had glanced through it, but was more interested in the recipe section than the details on order of assembly, locking mechanisms and such. You can see where this is going, can't you?

I was rushed (ha! like that is a surprise), trying to help the girls with homework before the babysitter came, needed to take a shower and dress for the dinner. Yet, I really wanted to use my starter and get some bread dough made AND I really really wanted to use my new gleaming super-clean-never-will-be-that-clean again processor. I'll save you the floury details and simply state that I did every single step wrong the first time and had to redo. All this in a rush. My husband's comment later: "You were in a rush and you tried to use the new processor?"


To top it off, I of course had no time to actually bake the bread loaves, asking the babysitter to put them in the oven, push the timer button and take them out (like I ever use the timer?).
In the end, the bread didn't rise as much as it could have if I hadn't rushed it. Its squatty shape and tight crumb tell all. And, yet this morning we had fresh bread for breakfast.



Rushed (or Not) Bread via Cuisinart
Adapted from the Cuisinart recipe book

4 c white flour
2 c wheat flour
1 Tbsp salt
2 Tbsp sugar
4-6 Tbsp butter, cut into little cubes
2 c of starter mixed with 1 cup warm water (or 2 1/2 tsp yeast with 1 tsp sugar and 1/2 c warm water proofed for 10 mins and then 1 c of cool water added)

1. With the large (11 cup!!) bowl of the food processor and the dough blade (note to self: put the dough blade in before the ingredients), process the flours, salt, salt and butter on the dough setting for 15 seconds. (Isn't this amazing--15 seconds!)
2. With the processor running on dough speed, slowly pour in the starter/water or yeast/water mixture until the dough forms and pulls from the sides of the bowl. Process for 45 to 60 seconds longer.
3. Pull out your amazing dough--I really can't imagine this. I actually think you should knead it a bit by hand to continue to work the gluten or process a bit longer. As I rushed my poor loaves, I can't say for sure what caused them to be a bit short. I'll experiment and get back to you.
4. If you used proofed starter, shape two loaves and place in greased loaf pans to rise for 1-2 hours or until almost at top of pan. If you used yeast, place the dough in an oiled bowl, let it rise 1-2 hours until doubled, punch down, shape into loaves and let rise another hour before baking.
5. Bake at 400 F for approximately 30 minutes or until light golden brown on top. Turn out of pans. Bake for another 5 minutes, then cool on rack or just slice open and enjoy with lots of butter and perhaps some local honey.

**The cat is not rushed and found sunbeams today.

The 6:18 am Coffe Cake Wake Up

Sleepovers for younger girls can be frantic. They try to squeeze every minute. So, even though during the week I drag growling grumpy grinches out of bed at 7 in an effort to be to school on time, this morning I heard their voices drift up the stairs, whispering and planning before 6 am.

Despite my desire to hide, being the only adult in the house meant that a less than decent time later up tromped two of the three actually dressed with hair styled. Their inquiry: when would the requested-the-night-before coffee cake be done? As the child sleeping over was not one of the two that came up, I grunted something less than kind to my two, told them coffee cake takes time and I would get up in a little bit. At least, I think that is what I said.

Two hours later, the promised coffee cake is done and ready to be consumed. We only need to push all the color staining window craft and slumber party scrapbook sheet making stuff off the table. Oh, and the kids have gone back to bed. More for me.


The Classic Cinnamon-Nut Coffee Ring recipe, from King Arthur Flour (KAF) Baking with some modifications:
KAF products are incredible and worth the pricey investment. I had lusted after this cookbook for ages and finally found it used. I should use it more (but, how many baked goods can we eat?).

For the cake:
4 Tbsp butter, softened
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 c. white sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 1/4 c unbleached all-purpose flour (yes, I used KAF)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 c. ground golden flax seed meal
1 c. low-fat plain yogurt (use a good quality--I like Stonyfield)

For the filling/topping:
1/2 c. chopped walnuts or pecans
1/2 c. mini semi-sweet chocolate chips (this is for kids!)
1/3 c. white sugar
1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
3 Tbsp melted butter

Preheat oven to 350. Grease or spray with cooking spray a bundt or tube-pan. I use an ancient two-piece pan that I bought at a garage sale 20 years ago. It is a thin metal, maybe aluminum?

For the cake:
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, beat together the butter, oil and sugar until fluffy. I use my Kitchen Aid so I have free hands. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the salt and flavorings and beat until evenly incorporated.

In a seperate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking power, baking soda and flax seed meal. Add the flour mixture to the butter-egg mixture alternately with the yogurt, mixing on low speed just until blended.

For the filling:
In a small mixing bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and pour the melted butter on top, mixing with a fork until well-incorporated.

Spoon half the cake batter into the prepared pan. Smooth the batter to level it and sprinkle with two thirds of the filling. Top with remaining batter and sprinkle with remaining filling.

Bake the cake for 45 to 55 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean (without dough as it will have chocolate on it). Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes (if you can wait). Turn out onto a wire rack carefully. The recipe says to cool completely and then sprinkle with confectioner's sugar before serving. Nothing ever cools around here.

This is a good coffee cake, with rich swirl of chocolate and cinnamon through it and fabulous on its own without any extra butter or adornment.

We dream of gourmet and then reach for the can

It was evening, 30 minutes until bedtime for the girls. I'd been browsing lovely food blogs and King Arthur's Flour website, but had no ambitions tonight. The result: Rita's vegetarian re-fried beans (seems an oxymoron almost) with (gasp!) Velveeta that had been purchased just this week for a cheese broccoli soup for the kids.

And still the littlest one made faces. Sigh. I think we should all fast for a day or two. Two more days--give me strength. Oh, and the brownies are calling out to me all the way from another room. Dang.

So simple, so good

As is often said, the best ingredients make dishes fabulous. Tonight, we found ourselves at 7:10 pm, with bedtime looming at 8ish for the girls and all of us hungry. The girls were also a bit questionable on cleanliness, but we decided to opt for washing the most important parts and doing real baths tomorrow.

On hand: some decent (but not great) thin asparagus, a new bottle of olive oil from Spain, one heirloom tomato and some eggs and bread.

The result: over-easy eggs in butter; asparagus with the buttery mild Spanish olive oil, California balsamic (quite good, really) and salt and pepper; buttered sourdough toast just like Mercy Watson would demand and a sliced heirloom tomato adorned only with salt (which only I ate).

The girls added strawberry milk (I know, but they liked the combination) and I had a glass of a quite drinkable inexpensive red from S. Africa. Satisfying.

Muffin' Mornin'

It has been raining here--a much needed rain--and all the stores and catalogs are boasting fall clothes. (Why they think any of us want to put on long sleeves when the average temperature is over 90, I do not know.) So, my mind turns to muffins. I love muffins because I can pack them full of nutrition for the family while still making a moist, flavorful bite.

As it is a Sunday, I can bake muffins today, freeze half of them for the school day breakfasts and still enjoy them this morning. I decided to modify (shocked, aren't you?) the Bran Flax Muffin recipe on the back of the Bob's Red Mill package of ground flax seed I bought yesterday. I don't have oat bran right now, so swapped in almond meal and some soy flour. The girls would spot shredded carrot a mile away and neither has the fondness I do for baked goods with plump raisins. Like 90% of the children in the world, they eagerly eat almost anything with chocolate. I figured I could sneak in the dried apricots chopped up finely.


1 1/2 c. unbleached white flour (when I have it, I use King Arthur)
3/4 c. flaxseed meal
1/2 c. almond meal (also Bob's Red Mill)
1/4 c. soy flour (ditto--they provide so many flours)
1 c. brown sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 apples, peeled and shredded
3/4 c. semi chocolate chips (I used Ghiradhelli today)
1/2 c. dried apricots, chopped fine
3/4 c. milk (I used Silk Soy Vanilla as dear hubby has problems with cow dairy)
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp. melted butter
1 tbsp. Demerra or other similar coarse brown sugar, like Turbinado

Mix together all dry ingredients (from flour to cinnamon) in a large bowl. Stir in the apples, chocolate chips and apricots. Combine the milk, eggs and vanilla in a small bowl. Pour this liquid mixture and the butter into the large bowl and stir until just combined.

(Dear Bob did not include any butter, but I can't imagine muffins without any butter at all, so I added it in.)
Fill greased or sprayed muffin tins just to the top of each well. Don't mound. Sprinkle them with the coarse sugar. Bake at 350 F for around 20 minutes. You want a springy top, but not too dark. Bob's recipe says it yields 15 muffins--which is absurd. Who has a 15 muffin tin? I found that it filled my 12 muffin clay form quite nicely (I believe it is from Pampered Chef? It does not stick though and is lovely. I don't like paper forms--they never seem to work.)


The result: a nutty-flavored, brownish muffin with melty chocolate. The girls loved them, although the little one picked out most of the apricot and the older ate the innards, leaving most of the "crust," but I'm counting it as a success.

One-Up Guac

Today, I had our oldest making guacamole with me. We had an avocado that was ready and some lovely local heritage tomatoes. Also, secretly, I thought that if she made the concoction, she might try it and even like it.

Smashed avocado, lime juice, diced tomato and cilantro with salt and pepper. So far so good. She dipped in the corner of a chip to "coat" it (she doesn't like the chunks), she declared "yummm" but then passed on a larger try. I had been cleaning out the fridge to make room for new purchases and had just pulled out some blue cheese crumbles. Perhaps a good add-in? To understand my jump in recipe logic, you would need to know that our seven-year old is insane about all things cheese and particularly blue cheeses.

We added it in to a small amount of guac and stirred it up quite a bit. She thought it was better, but still declared the chunks too much. I ate it and declared this to be the new party guac. And, next time, I'm going to puree the whole thing for the little one. I just know I'll get her eating it soon.

Collision of Forces: Peach Tart

Three forces collided today. First, I saw the movie Julia & Julie last night. Of course, it made me want to cook (and I realized, shock, that I do not own one single Julia cookbook). Second, I happened to have the last of some lovely freestone peaches from the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia. Third, my sister keeps sending me postings from smittenkitten.com, an amazing food blog with amazing photography.

The result: a freestone peach tart.

As I am sans Julia's spirit or her recipes, I thought I would stay French and in roughly the same time period. I grabbed my seldom used, but fun to read Real French Cooking by Savarin, published in 1956 by Doubleday. This Savarin is not the Brillat-Savarin of the 18th century, but rather a Robert J. Courtine, nicknamed "Brilliant Savarin," according to the dust jacket. Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, published in 1970, must have indeed been a breakthrough in its level of detail and illustration.

Savarin's book is more a collection of directions, aphroisms and instructions. Reading his "recipes" recalls times when I watched my grandmother cook, no true measuring cups or spoons in sight and a casual demeanor that came from decades of experience and much confidence.

In his foreward, he admits his approach is "unusual" and then says that first efforts at recipes "should be strictly succesful".

In the chapter on Cakes and Confections, he provides five basic pastry mixtures, including a "Short Pastry for Pies, Tarts, Etc." To appreciate the task, I will give you his directions in entirety:

Put your flour on the pastry board--half a pound for a decent-sized tart or flan--and work into it half as much butter, with a pinch of salt. (It is better to mix with a silver fork than with the fingertips, which soften the fat too much.) When the blend is satisfactory, pour on a little cold water, stirring with a spatula. As soon as you have a homogeneous mass, roll it out with a rolling pin. Leave it to 'settle' for a short while before lining the greased tart- or pie-dish with it. Prick here and there with a fork, to prevent puffing-up.

Later he directs the cook to bake it for 25 minutes in a moderate oven.

I'm more of a baker than a pastry chef. Bread requires emotion and feel, passion and warmth. Bread baking, despite the dire warning of many break cookbooks, does not require exact measurements or thermometers. Pastry I have had less success. As much as I want to be, I'm just not the exact, measuring, perfectionist type. Savarin's recipe, therefore, appealed to my personality.

I've made tart pastries before and I know about chilling for hours, rolling out, being gentle. Today, I didn't have the time or patience to follow such exacting ideas. And, after all, the French have been making tarts much longer than they have had freezers or even refrigeration, right?

(Now, at this point, I should admit that one other reason I am more a baker than a pastry maker is that I seldom follow a recipe exactly, even one as vague as Savarin's.)

I didn't have as much unsalted butter as I would have liked, so I subsituted some light cream cheese. My scale does not work as I've yet to go to a store to buy the right little shiny round battery since it died in California. I used my German measuring cup for 400 ml of flour, which meant I wasn't exactly sure how much butter/cream cheese to use. I went with about 4 oz of cream cheese and 4 Tbsp butter.

My 20-year old blender/processor combo no longer works (and the bowl would be too small anyway). I'm in the market for a new processor. As a result, I followed Savarin's instructions on using the silver fork on my wooden bread board. The dough just didn't come together like I wanted and I added more water than I expected to get it to meld.

The peaches were more succesful. I sliced them uniformly and cooked them down in a large pan with some Riesling (maybe 1/3 cup?) and a little sugar. I purposefully didn't stir much as I wanted the juice to cook down without loosing the form of the peaches.

I "lavishly" buttered my tart pan, per both Savarin's instructions and in honor of Julia's fondess for butter. The buttering definitely worked and beat any spray I've used. I baked the tart pastry at 350F for about 30 minutes. It didn't brown as nicely as I would like and tasting of the trimmings found it a bit tough (need to get that processor soon), but that extra bit of durability helped the tart hold the juicy peaches in the end.

Savarin says,

Appetite is bred by variety as contempt is bred by familiarity, kitchen-lore thus resembling love. And the woman at home, mistress of many arts, must know that table-ties are powerful ones, perhaps, in the long run, the strongest of all. Good tables are indeed the centres of happy homes, the lure and the sustainer of loving hearts.

We also grilled pizza tonight, a yummy learning experiment, but more on that later.

Eat what you want as long as you cook it yourself

For those interested in seeing the outside of the girls' bento boxes:First Friday Bento 1: pears in the ziplock, gummies in a heart silicone, a Z-bar. Then noodles, asparagus tips and a cheese omelet.
Same but with dried pineapple instead of the bar.

Pollan is at it again, getting us to think about what we eat, why we don't cook, what the consequences might be -- read his latest essay.

Sticky buns

Breakfast this morning..thanks to King Arthur Flour's recipe and some help from Maiya last night.
Very yummy.

Ode to Humble Tomato Soup

Conspicuous consumption is out, according to the NY Times. Certainly this is not a surprising statement in itself, given the economic malaise and the apparent public disdain for anyone sporting an over-the-top gown at a charity function. And, even though I love to eat and eat well, I believe that we can rejoice in a return to simple foods.

This weekend I made a simple tomato soup with cheese toast and salmon cakes on the side--a homey meal that would not show up on most restaurants with cloth napkins. But, it was good. And frugal. Total cost for a meal for four: $5 (including the canned Trader Joe's salmon).

Tomato soup is deceptive. It can be an elaborate concoction with fresh tomatoes, prepared by poaching, skinning and de-seeding and calling for any number of base herbs, minute quantities of shallots and onions, cream or milk, butter and other rich coatings of the tongue. Yet, I believe these recipes mostly go astray. When tomatoes are in season and fresh, it is hot, not the time to serve a warm soup. Garden-fresh tomatoes are best eaten as they are, sliced with some salt and perhaps a sprinkling of green olive oil or balsamic.

Tomato soup is for cool days when you feel a bit down and need that extra astringent pick-up. Canned tomatoes of good quality work wonderfully well and make for fast preparation. Here is my recipe this weekend. It owes to my mother, who often made a similiar soup with or without noodles. With the younger children, I find my pureed version more accepted.

Humble Tomato Soup

• Pour 1 28 oz can of good quality diced or whole tomatoes in a 4 quart pot over medium heat.
• Add in 1 1/2 cups of either rice milk, soy milk or 2%/skim milk. Do not use whole milk or cream--these are wonderful, but not in this soup. You want a light taste. I prefer rice milk as it gives just enough richness with no additional change in flavor to the tomatoes.
• Sprinkle in 1 Tbsp or more of dill. If you have fresh dill, wonderful. If you don't, good dried dill will do.
• Heat the soup until just bubbling.
• With a immersion blender, blend in the pot until smooth. If you don't have an immersion blender, you may process in a blender and then return to the pot.
• Add in a good seasoning of salt .
• Taste and serve with broiled cheese toast and salmon cakes or add in some cooked noodles (smaller varieties or ABC-shaped for kids).