Obsessed

I took a walk around Montrose Harbor today. The sky looked like this.

Granted, it was twenty degrees out and my fingers fell off into the frozen lake, but the sky looked like spring. Spring! Real, live spring. As I watched the gigantic scavenging geese snatch up the last bits of my fallen fingers, I was distracted by not only this blue, blue sky, but by something greenish. There. Was. Something. Green. Something in the world was green! I leaped over to inspect my findings. It was this:
Upon seeing this head of celery on the ground at a public park, I didn't think, ewww or iccckk or what the hell? Okay, so I did think what the hell, but I also thought mmm, salad. That's right. I am partially embarrassed, partially confused, by my own reaction. But listen, it's like this.

Winter has got me obsessed with salad. Obsessed. Every winter I long for the bright, real colors of the produce at the farmers' markets, the vibrant tomatoes and luscious lettuce, the sweet, real smells of earth and sun and living. And every winter I try to make do, yadda yadda yadda. I buy the produce at the stores that looks bearable and not too withered, hanging my head as to avoid the wrath of the locally-grown-vegetable gods, vowing to make up for it as soon as I can, as soon as the earth (in these parts) starts to produce real things again. Then, when I can't stand to rummage through the limp zucchini and bruised kale anymore, I resort to frozen bags of spinach, peas, corn, and green beans. At least they have color and look fresh, compared to the flaccid jicama and celery root that I encountered at the grocery store today. (Uh, yes. Flaccid jicama. I, like you, didn't know that jicama could actually become flaccid. But it did. These are rough times, folks.)

And after a bunch of this fussing about, and telling myself what a brat I am because at least I have flaccid jicama, which is better than no food at all, I decide that winter is certainly not going to hold me back any longer. And that's when I go salad crazy. My annual salad lunacy just hit a few weeks ago, and I predict it will stick around until, oh, say, May, when it will probably still be 20 degrees and snowing. But that's neither here nor there! We're talking about salad days here.

Salad in the winter is like dancing to Ricky Martin or dusting under the bed. It feels a little silly, but then, when you really get into it, you realize it's just the greatest thing ever. In addition to my celery inspiration today, I also saw some lettuce that really got me in the mood:
Mmmm. Lettuce core. Speckled with sand and surrounded by dirty patches of snow. And, no, I did not take these items home. I left them right where they belonged and I did what any normal, salad-obsessed girl would do. I went to the store and bought the most stable vegetables I could find.

The salads I am into these days are not lettuce salads at all, actually. My mom loves lettuce salads (well, any salad at all, really!) and she's very good at eating any salad you throw her way. She is the queen of pulling leftovers out of the fridge, placing them on top of a bed of greens, and declaring it salad. I'm not talking about dumping out the lasagna and the bean soup onto the lettuce, I'm just talking about using other leftover salads, as well as other odds and ends -- nuts, fruits, beans, maybe some cheese. My mother, she is very good at the salad construction because she doesn't overthink it. Me, I plan for weeks the way I'm going to cut the fennel bulb. So, this makes my mother way more easygoing then me. Officially.

Not only do I overthink, but I also have a slight, uh, problem with one very certain salad ingredient. This ingredient happens to also be my mother's very, very all time favorite salad ingredient. Raw onion. I know, I know, something is wrong with me. Especially considering how terribly picky I am about it. I won't eat raw red or white onion (in my defense, raw red onion truly does not sit well with me, intestinally speaking). I will, however, happily eat raw scallions, or small raw bulb onions -- the latter of which should be diced, not sliced. I will happily eat leeks and caramelized onions of any variety. And I love garlic. Shallots are okay, but not when they are raw. I even went so far this summer to eat a white onion raw, but only because it was so much less potent and acidic and scary than a regular white onion from the store. Okay, so you the idea (and more on this onion topic later, because this issue has been with me my whole life).

My point is that my mother loves raw onions with all her heart, and I do not, and we still love each other a whole lot. See? Things really can work out. We can overcome our differences, you warmongers out there! So, we both love salad, all the time, just in slightly different ways. She and my dad eat salads most nights with dinner, but I am not quite as diligent. I tend to eat salads a few times a week, but mainly because I am obsessive (do you see a theme here?) about the ways in which I prepare them. It has to be just right. But, alas! I am trying to become less crazy, less particular. This way, you see, I'll be more like my mother, which is, in case you don't know, a very good thing.

Tuesday Salad
Peas, scallions, fennel bulb, fennel tops, feta, radishes, olive oil, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, lemon juice.

Thursday Salad
Cabbage, scallions, carrots, radishes, fennel bulb, red pepper flakes, lime olive oil, pineapple balsamic, salt, pepper, garlic.

Sunday Salad
Jicama, cilantro, cabbage, scallions, peanuts, lime juice, rice vinegar, olive oil, pepper, salt, red pepper flakes, jalapeno, and, of course, chow mein noodles.

Oh, winter salad, please be my valentine!

Easy As Pie

Be honest. How do you feel about phyllo dough? If you say, "calm" or "cool" or "collected," then I will think you are lying! Or, at least, I will think that you have never read a phyllo dough package or dealt with phyllo at all! Which, actually, makes me admire you. You are smart! There is, in fact, a part of me that wishes I'd have never tried to bring phyllo into my life. It's arrogant! Finicky! And it's astoundingly delicate for something that claims to be a wrapper, a harness, a sheath. For crying out loud, this is a protective layer that is, well, the neediest, most delicate protector I have ever encountered.

For those of you who are new to the scene (and, again, you are far wiser than me), I'll give you an update. It's these dough sheets, these thin, thin sheets of unleavened flour dough. "Phyllo" comes from the Greek word for "leaf" or "sheet," and the translation is appropriate. Imagine the thinnest sheet of dough in the universe, thinner than typing paper but sort of the thickness of tissue paper. But much less durable. Imagine deciding to make, say, a pie, and you decide that, instead of using pie crust, you will use twenty kleenexes that have been soaked in water. Okay, get the idea?

Phyllo is used for making the outer wrapping for Greek, Turkish, Middle Eastern, and other regional snacks. Okay, so not always snacks, but usually. And here's where my reasoning comes into play. Phyllo makes things delicious. When all the layers are stacked together, wrapped around something, and baked, they become delectable. If you've ever had baklava or borek or spanakopita, you know what I mean. They end up flaky and buttery and golden. They crunch on the outside, and yet the inner layers of dough take to the filling and become slightly chewy and just perfectly divine.

There's all this hype with phyllo's delicate nature, though. It seems like no one ever wants you to use phyllo. Recipes will tell you things like BE CAREFUL! USE CAUTION WHEN USING THIS PRODUCT BECAUSE IT WILL TEAR AND YOU WILL DIE INSTANTLY. And the phyllo package itself (yes, I am totally a phyllo package person, and no, I don't foresee myself actually making homemade phyllo dough anytime soon) is equally as frightening and intimidating. Approximately half the words on the package directions are in caps. DO NOT OPEN THE PACKAGE YET! COVER THE DOUGH! HOLD ON! NOW WORK QUICKLY! FOCUS! DO NOT TOUCH THE TOP LAYER! HOLD STILL! NOW MOVE, DAMN IT! FASTER! GO!

Just reading all this makes you so nervous that you have to really have to take some Valium before you start. In order to psyche myself up, I found myself saying things like, "It's just dough. It's just dough," kind of like the first time I ever dealt with a whole turkey, and I had to pull it organs out of its inside, er, region. That time, though, I think I was doing some sort of reverse psychology, telling myself, "it's not really a bird, it's not really a bird." But I got through that, and I've gotten through phyllo endeavors, and so will you!

The thing with phyllo is that it is, in fact, just dough. It just happens to dry out faster than other kinds of dough because it is so, so thin. So once it exits its plastic wrapper, time is of the essence. I am living proof that the phyllo experience is worse when you are a nervous wreck. This means that you need to have a martini and then calmly remove the dough from its plastic. Then, calmly unroll it, calmly pull off the amount of sheets that you need (guess, don't actually count!), calmly roll up the sheets you don't need, calmly place them in an airtight bag, then calmly plow through the assembly process. You can do it!

I made spinach pies yesterday. They are a lot like spanakopita and a lot like hand pies. (Seriously, isn't that they best-sounding thing? Hand pies. Portable pie. Brilliant.) I had this package of phyllo dough in my freezer for a very long time, and there it was, with its expiration date of March 1984, staring up at me every single time I opened the freezer. Ha ha!, it would say to me, you can't handle me today! You're not ready! And every time, that dough would be right. Until yesterday. I was digging through my recipe files, looking for my cream puff recipe, when I came across this old spinach pie recipe that I had urgently and excitedly copied down at a party after having been served these most savory spinach pies. I made them obsessively at home after that party, and had since forgotten about them. It was time for spinach pies. They were, after all, easy as pie to make. Right?

The good thing about this phyllo business is that it forces you to have all the ingredients prepped before you begin. What you'll do with this phyllo dough, which is rapidly drying up and turning into the consistency of chicharrones, is fold it into a book. Then, you need to lube up all the layers. Once they are lubed, they will be much less sensitive to the air, so you'll feel better. So, you make your book and then, starting with the second sheet, apply either spray oil or brush on oil or melted butter. The brushing-on seems to take me quite awhile, although I know some cooks who can fly through beautifully through that procedure in mere seconds. For this reason, I usually will just use a spray cooking oil or spray olive oil. After you've oiled your layers, oil up the top one and then start assembling. Many recipes and advice columns will tell you to cover the dough that you aren't using as you go, but I think this takes too much time, so I just try to work fast instead. To me, this "covering as you go" is the equivalent of setting down your pen between sentences, or setting down your knife after each spread of the butter on your toast. Just go for it, I say. Plus, at this time, your sheets of dough will be properly lubed and much less susceptible to the moisture-sucking air.

Working with a few sheets at a time, plop some of your filling in and wrap it up. You can try to be fancy, and go for the triangle shapes of traditional spanakopita, or you can aim for perfect squares, but keep in mind that they will be delicious hot pockets no matter what. Just make sure that they are wrapped in tight packages (okay, not super tight, but just makes sure they seem secure) and you'll be good to go.

Alright, here we go, then! Spinach pies. You can do it!
Keep in mind that you might want to buy a couple packages of phyllo dough, so you can have one for back-up. There is absolutely no shame in trying until you get it right! I have been known to throw out some sad, dryed-up sheets of phyllo in my day, and I think that's just part of the learning process. Once you decide to not be afraid of the phyllo dough, you will be a champion!
Once you move beyond the stress that the phyllo might bring to you, they are extremely easy and very simple. And afterwords you will not be afraid of anything!

Spinach Pies

8 oz frozen spinach, thawed and drained really well
2 scallions, sliced and then chopped
6 oz feta cheese, cut into small cubes
1 egg, beaten
1 T dill, either fresh or dried
1/2 t black pepper
half a package of phyllo sheets
olive oil for brushing or spray oil

Mix the first six ingredients. Preheat your oven to 375 F. That's it! Now you're ready.

Do the book thing with the phyllo and then, working with one full folded-in-half sheet at a time, fill with the spinach mixture and fold it up. I usually make about 7 or 8 hand pies from this recipe, but you could also make them smaller and it would make more. Place your creations on a cookie sheet and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the tops are as golden as Poseidon's crown. Eat immediately, burning your mouth and grinning blissfully at your incredible talents.

I Promised You Pie

I did. I promised you pie. Remember all that talk about key limes and Florida and neighbors and everything? Well, it's a day late, but here you go. (Okay, so I'm sure no one has actually been tapping their toes, waiting for this recipe so that their life could actually go on. But it's nice to pretend that people need pies urgently, as I sometimes do.)

I spent a long time searching for the perfect key lime pie recipe. It's one of my dad's favorite desserts, you see, so I couldn't possibly offer him some sad, pitiful, mediocre pie. It had to be perfect. Now, there are a lot of key lime pie recipes floating around out in the world, and a particularly large amount swarming in the internets (yes, internets -- I just really like the way it sounds like I have better things to do than spend all my time staring at a computer screen, living in some cyberworld, which is clearly untrue). And there are some pies out there that don't even deserve to be called key lime pie, due to the fact that they either A.) have green food coloring inside, trying to trick the eater into believing that it's actually lime juice that made it that color or B.) have innards consisting of primarily Cool Whip or something else that is similarly light and fluffy. Those pies need to call themselves something else, because it's just mean. The real key lime pies out there have officially had their feelings hurt, and it's time we fixed things. It's time we set things straight. And you, dear reader, are hereby invited to help with this revolution.

The perfect key lime pie needs several things. One, it simply must begin with a perfect crust. Not crumbs out of a box, but real actual graham crackers, crushed up. I won't lie. Sometimes I get a little obsessive and I make the graham crackers myself, although there is something a little devastating about demolishing the crackers right after you make them. Second, it must have real key lime juice, squeezed from actual key limes. No other kind of limes will do! Juice from a bottle won't do, even the fancy kind from Whole Foods or Manhattan brand. Those prepackaged juices end up tasting like metal, and no one likes metal pie. Third, that juice must go into a pie filling that is custard-like and pale yellow. Fourth, it must have a top layer of real whipped cream. I'm not a total freak here, begging you for organics and please-milk-your-own-cow and refine-your-own-sugar-from-the-sugarcane-you-grew-in-your-backyard. I'm just saying, follow these four basic bits of advice and you will have a pie that makes you proud to be from the Florida Keys. Or, um, Illinois. Or wherever.

So let's cut to the chase here, shall we? Okay. Get your apron on. You've got a pie to bake!

Key Lime Pie
adapted from Gourmet magazine, May 2003

Make yourself a crust:
1 1/4 C graham crackers (from 9 crackers)
1/2 C raw, unsalted almonds or macadamia nuts (or a combo of both!)
2 T sugar
6 T unsalted butter, melted
a little ginger powder or finely minced crystallized ginger (optional)
1/4 C shredded coconut, unsweetened (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 F.
In a food processor, whiz up the graham crackers and nuts. You don't want this stuff totally pulverized, so do it in short pulses. If you are using the coconut, whiz it up now. Pour the crumbs into a bowl and add the sugar, butter, and ginger (if using). Stir with a fork until well combined, and then press the mixture into the bottom and sides of a 9" glass pie pan. Bake crust in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes. Cool on a rack. Leave the oven on!

Make yourself some filling:
1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
4 large egg yolks
1/2 C plus 2 T key lime juice (this will be approximately 1 whole bag of limes)
lime zest from about 4 of the limes (more, or none, if you are so inclined)

Whisk together the condensed milk and yolks in a bowl. Add juice and whisk some more until combined well -- the mixture will thicken up a bit as you go). Pour filling into crust and bake for 15 minutes. Cool pie completely (filling will set up as the pie cools). Then chill the pie, covered, for at least 8 hours. The hardest part is waiting this long. It will be in everyone's best interest if you put this pie into the fridge and then go directly to bed so you can forget about it even existing.

Make yourself some topping:
3/4 C heavy cream
Just before serving, beat the cream in a bowl with a hand mixer until stiff peaks form. Apply to your delicious pie and serve to the people you love the most.

Apologies to the photo-lovers. I have not baked this pie since October of last year and I didn't manage to make one today. Sheesh, what is wrong with me?! I know, I know, I am worthless.
I'll see if maybe I can pull it together and make one sometime soon. See? Even more incentive to go make one yourself -- so you can finally see what it looks like!

They Say It's Your Birthday

Birthday cakes are important.

Yesterday, my colleague and friend Barbie had a birthday, and, when I asked her last week about her cake choice, she picked a carrot cake. So carrot it was, and I love it when people request carrot cake. Not to sound, um, high and mighty, but my (well, my family's) carrot cake recipe is just the absolute best. Okay, so that sounded pretty high and mighty. But, wait. Just stick around and this recipe will soon be yours. Then you can say that your carrot cake recipe is the best on earth. You will like everything about it.

To start with, it's just the easiest thing. Eight ingredients in the cake! Four ingredients in the frosting! That's twelve, friends, a mere twelve items. And chances are pretty good that you already have these ingredients in your fridge and pantry. If you are a bunny, you are even more likely to have all the ingredients on hand. If you are a human, though, you will be way more interested in actually eating the cake.

When I was growing up, we had magnificent birthday cakes. They were special because we pretty much only had cake on birthdays, so they were even more delicious because they were few and far between. As with many families, the birthday boy or girl got to pick their own type of cake, and then, on the birthday morning, it would seem to magically appear on the kitchen counter.

When I was little, I'd pick complicated cakes in the shapes of things, like a cat or a crayon, and my mom would order them from a local cake baker. They'd come with hundreds of pointy icing dollops, all applied carefully to create the final layer. I remember loving these cakes because they looked fancy, but I honestly have little memory of actually eating them, possibly because I blocked it all out. I was, actually, quite sad to deal with the part where we had to eat these sorts of cakes because, to me, they were art, and I couldn't understand why anyone in their right mind would willingly, decidedly eat art.

As I got a little bit older, I became less interested in cakes that looked like they had jumped out of a cartoon. I learned that fancy cakes are not always the best tasting, and I used this knowledge to pick my birthday cakes from then on. I loved, I mean loved, this cake that we called Jell-O Cake. I had this as my birthday cake for years, and, almost as much as I liked eating it, I liked watching my mom make it. It was fascinating! Lime Jell-O in hot, liquid form inside the yellow-ish cake, and lemon pudding integrated into the icing. It was like a science experiment, the creation of this cake. The cake would be made in a 9" x 13" Pyrex cake pan, and then, when it had cooled, holes were poked all over the top with a toothpick. Then, into those holes went the thick, green Jell-O concentrate, which, later on, would show itself as emerald green streaks in the cut cake. The topping was essentially pudding, which, because I've got my daddy's good sense, is one of my favorite foods, still. The whole thing would go into the fridge and then be cool and creamy when it came to the table after my birthday dinner. It was the perfect kind of cake for a warm birthday evening at the beginning of summer, when the world has just come back to life. Oh, how I loved that cake, with its gems inside and silk on top!

I got a bit older still and became more interested in branching out (or at least trying to -- I might have tried several others and then gone back to that Jell-O Cake). I chose a fresh strawberry layer cake one year, with pink-tinged insides, and frosting like swooping snow. That was the year, I think, when three friends came over to celebrate my birthday and we, somehow, were all wearing outfits consisting completely of blue. I experimented with choosing other kinds of cakes, and I did some research, copying potential birthday cakes recipes out of books at the library.

I did also get a lesson in what not to choose as my birthday cake. My brother always chose angel food cake for his birthday cake, and, honestly, I couldn't wrap my brain around it. (Was this actually cake? It was so light and airy! Where was the density? The colors? The depth?) To me, it was the perfect cake to have as a snack, but not the cake to have as The Annual Important Dessert. In my mother's defense, it was a delicious cake. It just wasn't ever my choice, and I remember when she'd ask my brother every year about his cake choice, I'd brace myself, hoping that he'd have come to his true cake senses. I waited, anxious, hoping to hear him say, I think I'll mix things up this year! Or How about something new this time? Or even just an unhesitating Chocolate! or Coconut! or even Plain Vanilla!

Now, in his defense (and I, a tenacious little sister, will certainly defend and protect him until the end of the earth) I will tell you that he has never had much of a sweet tooth at all. As an adult, he has a terrific palate, but still won't eat sweets unless it's required (not sure what kind of folks force-feed sweets to grown men, but I suppose anything is possible). So, I really do think that perhaps he chose the angel food cake because it was the cake that was the least like, well, cake. Think about it. It's not terribly sweet, and the consistency is closer to that of a summer cloud than an actual cake. If he would have had his druthers, it it entirely possible that he would have just chosen a cake crafted from blue cheese and Triscuits. We'd eat this angel food cake, though, for his birthday and sometimes also my dad's birthday, and I loved it because it was their cake. I also loved the pan that my mom made it in -- the false bottom, the center hole-maker -- and I really loved the way that it would sit upside-down on an empty Coca-Cola bottle after it came out of the oven. For everything that this cake (in my humble opinion) lacked in cake-ness, it did manage to redeem itself by doing circus tricks on the kitchen counter. And, as far as angel food cakes go, it was most certainly the best in town.

The cake that I remember my grandma always making for birthdays was a carrot cake. My mom, with the incredible good sense that she has, chose the carrot cake for her birthday (although perhaps there was never really a choice in the matter, considering my grandmother's strong will). When I got older, and turned into a real adult with exceptionally good taste (ha ha), I started choosing the carrot cake, too. Sometimes, I will even make it for myself for my own birthday, which makes me laugh, because who on earth (besides me) actually enjoys making their own birthday cake? I mean, mama's cake is always the very best, but when she's not nearby on my birthday, it's sink or swim!

When I ask friends what kind of cake they'd like for their birthday, I feel happy and proud. I'm happy because I love making cakes, and, no matter what anyone says, everyone needs a birthday cake. It's crucial. It's more important than presents or streamers or those tiny pointed cone-hats. It's not just sugar disguised as something fancy, and it's not just about eating the cake with people you love. It's bigger. It's the best part of any birthday. It's the candles and it's the wish. I mean, come on! We only get one cake-wish a year, and you've got to have a cake or it just won't work.

Also, I feel proud about cake baking. I feel like my mama taught me something. If someone chooses, say, a German chocolate cake, or a caramel cake, or a raspberry-basil upside down cake, it's an opportunity to find a new recipe, like how I did at the library when I was little, thumbing through the pages of the stained cookbooks, copying down the recipes on notecards because it felt so much more real than using the xerox machine. And even that, I think, I got from my mom, who wouldn't ever just settle for a cake that might be okay. It had to be perfect, and for that I am humbled. And if someone mentions that they might like a carrot cake for their birthday cake, I feel a secret little rush of joy. It is, after all, my specialty. It's the simplest, most satisfyingly rich cake you'll ever eat. The consistency is amazing. The color is astounding. It can be a round cake, a 9x13 cake, or even cupcakes. You can double it, triple it, make it into an Easter bonnet. You will love this cake. This cake, you'll see, was invented just for you.

Carrot Cake

2 C sugar
2 C flour
2 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 C canola oil
2 t cinnamon
4 eggs
3 C grated carrots

Mix dry ingredients in a big bowl. Add oil, then add eggs one at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon. Stir in carrots. Batter will be thick. For the love of all that is holy, please do not add nuts or raisins. There is no faster way to ruin a perfectly good carrot cake!

Grease (with butter) the bottoms and sides of two 9" round cake pans. Cut parchment to fit in the bottom, then grease the parchment and flour the entire inside of the pans. Bake at 350 F for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If you bake it in a 9x13 pan, plan on baking it for a little bit longer. If you're doing cupcakes, bake for much less time. Remove pans to cooling racks and let cakes cool in their pans for about 15 minutes, then gently remove them and let them cool the rest of the way, flat side down on the cooling racks.

Make the frosting:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 lb powdered sugar
1 t vanilla

Cream the butter and cream cheese. Add sugar and vanilla. Mix well with hand mixer or upright mixer until creamy and delicious.

Here's the deal. If you are serving a lot of people, make the two 9" cakes separately so that you end up with more slices. If you only need to serve 12-16 people, then do the layer thing.

For layers: smear a little icing on your cake plate for glue and place one cake down on it (flat side up). Spread a layer of icing on top, then place next cake round down, flat side down. Frost the rest of the cake with the remaining icing. Try really hard to not eat it right away -- the birthday girl or boy might not be as understanding about cake-holes as you might like.

Coming tomorrow: birthday cakes are not always cakes. If you have a tropical sense about you, then you may choose to have a birthday pie, which is certainly acceptable and even encouraged in my world. In fact, my dad just had a key lime pie for his birthday in October, and it worked out just fine! Today, Jenna (friend/colleague/neighbor/incredible baker extraordinaire) asked for a key lime pie recipe because -- get this -- key limes are a buck a bag at this little market in our neighborhood. So, she's got the limes, I've got the recipe, and the weekend is waiting! Stay tuned, as they say. Stay tuned.

Alien Egg

Meghan's mom got this very special egg in a regular ol' box of eggs from a regular ol' grocery store! Then it was blown out, no one got salmonella, and now it's a pretty little wrinkly eggshell. How on earth did it happen?? Maybe it wasn't from earth! Maybe from an alien hen? To increase the alien-ness, we combined with it a Snuggie light. That's right, a Snuggie light! Have you always wanted a Snuggie but you just didn't think the purchase was worthwhile unless it came with a tiny blue alien light? Well, you're in luck, because this compact light can be yours with the purchase of just one Snuggie. Then you, too, can light up your foods with an eerie outer space glow.

Standing Room Only

In my household, dinner can be a million different things. Dinners with our friends tend to all fall from a similar (though lovely) mold -- drinks in the kitchen, dinner in the dining room, then all of us sprawled out on the living room floor, moaning about having eaten too much. Last, we pull ourselves back up to the table, stumble through coffee and dessert, and decide what tomorrow will bring. When it comes to dinner at home with just the two of us, though, there is no standard, no "usual." Frankly, when a dinner-ish sort of time rolls around, anything goes. Anything could happen. And this is something that I love.

If you've read the collection of short food memoirs, Alone In the Kitchen With an Eggplant, then you've already lost all your qualms about eating a dinner of oyster crackers, American cheese, and Nutella over the kitchen sink. And that is a good thing. I didn't always feel good about disorderly dinners. Just the fact that I regarded them as "disorderly" is a sure sign that I didn't think that it was okay to break away from structured mealtimes and, well, structured meals.

I grew up eating amazing meals. I mean, amazing, folks. My mother was (and still is) the queen of the Square Meal. I'm not talking about the boring square meal, the meat + potatoes + vegetable every single night meal. I'm talking about specially crafted and very delicious meals which represented all of the food groups in the proper way. Oh, and to boot, the rainbow was always very successfully represented. My mom was the one who taught me to use as many colors as you can on a plate, and to use a variety of textures and consistencies. She taught me about flavors and how to make them work together. These tutorials weren't always formal (although sometimes they were -- she did teach me how to cook, after all) because they were the kinds of things that she taught by example. The dinner plates always taught me something, like miniature cooking lessons. Little, delicious crash courses.

When I think about raising children, and all of the strength that it takes, I always think about dinnertime. When I cook dinner at home, I wonder, is this a good family meal? And then I ask myself, what in the world does that mean? I think I ask myself these questions because I want to do as good of a job as my mom did. I want it to look and feel effortless. I want to offer not only nutrition, but also comfort and safety and deliciousness. I want my weeknight meals to feel like events, though, too. Not events with formality, but family events. A time and place where it all goes down -- stories, woes, news, opinions, dialogue. Oh, and food. The meal will be there like our mediator, holding us up.

We ate in the kitchen when I was growing up. Two different houses, two different kitchens. I lived in the first house until fourth grade, and the kitchen was small and perfect. It fit a table that just fit the four of us, and it had two leaves that could fold up or down. I remember running my thumbnail through the leaf-seams while waiting for dinner. When I was older, I got to pour the milk. Sometimes I liked to have ice in it, and I liked to drink it before the ice started to melt and the water stood in a glassy layer on top. We had all sorts of things for dinner. My mother was adventuresome in the kitchen. There was a little, brown, paperback cookbook with silly drawings of huge-nosed men called Foods Men Like. I remember that we thought it was funny and odd, that little book, but it had the best goulash recipe. Or maybe that's to say, my mother made the best goulash using that recipe.

There was pizza with homemade dough and mozzarella that we'd eat in chunks as stuck the pieces into the cheese grinder, cranking the little red handle, and watching the long, thin cheese strands fall onto the pizzas in soft nests. There was chop suey with crunchy rice noodles (which I still am in love with, to this day) and sweet and sour chicken (pineapple can go in the dinner?, I wondered), as well as basics, like spaghetti, hot beef sandwiches, pork chops, pot roast, and hamburgers. There was a creamy chicken-stuffed manicotti, ravioli, tortellini, stuffed shells, and lasagna. There were tacos (always served with baked beans) and macaroni and cheese (always elbows, always homemade) and sometimes ham. There was chicken and dumplings, stew meat and dumplings, vegetable soup, and sometimes stew. There were horseshoes (an insane Springfield tradition which involves toast, meat, french fries, and cheese sauce) and chicken a la king (I was nervous about the pimentos). There was split pea soup, ham and bean soup, potato soup, taco salads, and Swedish meatballs (always served with mashed potatoes, always homemade). There was chili and chicken wings, meatloaf and pot pie. There were stir-fries, roasted chicken, sandwiches, and, sometimes (when Dad and I got our way), breakfast-for-dinner, replete with waffles or pancakes. Mom has never done more than just suffer through breakfast. She likes to make it quick so that she can move on to thinking about her favorite meal of the day, lunch, when salads abound. Certainly the last thing she wants to ever do is re-live breakfast in the evening, right when she's starting to forget about it even existing in the first place. All this, yet she'd cook it happily. We'd douse things in syrup (Log Cabin syrup, thankyouverymuch) while she, more than likely, consumed something else, something that more so resembled an actual vegetable.

My dad might have liked breakfast-for-dinner because there was no way to weave a vegetable into it, but I think I liked it because it felt crazy. If someone were to stop by while we were having this dinner, and they were invited in, I imagined them gasping in surprise and confusion as their eyes swept across the dinner table. What are you people DOING? Don't you know? This is dinner time, not breakfast time! You must have lost your MINDS! I think I loved doing something strange, something different. Here we were, me and my wacky family, doing something so funny, so interesting, so completely special.

As a teenager, I was, in fact, jealous of my friends who didn't have to be home for dinner, the friends who were allowed (encouraged, really) to graze the kitchen, putting together their own semblance of a dinner. I imagined what it would be like. A can of soup, two grapes, and seven cookies? Yes please. A popsicle, a pickle, and a cup of Kool-Aid? Bring it on! Cereal, Ritz crackers, and a leftover piece of chicken? Indeed. A glass of Tang, cold pizza, and a handful of peanuts? Dreamy. While this was never my reality, and, honestly, I didn't actually want it to be, I still just lusted after it because it was, well, different. And what is more appealing to a teenager than something different, something strange, something taboo? And since it wasn't enough to have two teenagers complaining about everything in existence, my parents got this, these dinner complaints. Oh, and my super-tired, growing-so-fast, adolescent brother, who usually fell asleep at the dinner table within eight seconds of sitting down. What a pair the two of us were. Honestly. If my parents would have had any sense at all, they would have opened the door, picked up our pitiful bodies, and plopped us down on the curb. Then, just the two of them could have headed back inside to the quiet kitchen for a cocktail and conversation that didn't involve whining. That would've been quite smart!

I think --well scratch that -- I know that all the memories of my family's dinner table shaped me and my brother immeasurably. Not only am I exultant about the manners that we were taught at the table, but I am just so grateful that we spent so many six o'clocks at the dinner table, learning about food and each other and the world. When I think of growing up, I think of a million things, but I always go first to the smells of dinner cooking, of watching my mom cooking with fluidity and happiness, of pouring the heavy, blue-capped gallon of milk, of setting the table, of watching the clock's minutes tick slowly tick by until it was six o'clock, which meant I would hear dad's tires on the driveway, and in he'd come, not missing a beat. With the same fluidity and happiness that my mom had in cooking, my dad would scoop us up in hugs and love, and, finally, it would be time. The table waited patiently til we soared in for dinner, collecting each other, filling our plates, and letting that food and those narrow wooden legs hold us all up.

These days, dinner is rarely at six o'clock. Our schedules are so different from one another! I work until the early evening, and Matthew works during most evenings, so, on weeknights, it's usually 9:oopm (at least) by the time he gets home. I feel sometimes like I'm the family dog, pacing around until he gets home, then pouncing on him with hugs and questions and pure bliss when he walks in the door. I cook when I get home, and get things ready, but when I hear the sound of his key in the door, then I know it's really dinner time.

We sometimes have a snack or a drink in the kitchen first, but sometimes we gravitate immediately to dinner. If we're both really tired, then we'll eat in the living room at the long coffee table (an old wooden locker room bench that is the perfect height for floor-eating). We'll watch something we've recorded, usually chatting so much that, at the end, we don't even know what the program was about. Sometimes we feel more civilized and we eat at the dining room table, me on the end and him just around the corner on my right. I love both of these ways to eat -- at two different kinds of tables, next to each other, reviewing the day and plotting our weeks, passing the salad or a sauce, sometimes sharing a glass of iced tea. I inevitably will not finish my plate, and he'll always -- always -- finish it for me. That's a perfectly good piece of chicken!, he'll gush dramatically, stabbing it with his fork as though it is the last piece of food on earth. Or, You'd better let me eat that crust so that it doesn't feel left out!

As much as I like these two dining stations, I must confess that my all-time favorite involves not sitting, but standing. Not forks, but fingers. Not napkins, but a shared kitchen towel. It's us, standing at the kitchen counter or around the red kitchen table, having snacks-for-dinner. It doesn't always start out as this. Sometimes we think that we will have a snack before dinner, and we just like the snacks so much that we don't even get to the plates-and-dinner part. Sometimes one of us hasn't eaten lunch and this, too, affects our dinner method.

Typically, things are pulled out of the fridge willy-nilly -- some chunks of feta cheese, salami, pickles, oranges, leftover ham, grape tomatoes, olives, fennel, some mustard -- and paired with whatever sort of vehicles we have in the cabinet. Tonight was one of those nights. I came home from work and errands, and he was getting ready to leave for work in an hour. Enough said! It was leftover chicken sausages, some wheat bread, pickles, radishes, and carrots. So here we were, standing at the counter, eating these things from the cutting board, discussing the pros and cons of the day, and I realized something.

One, I'm thrilled to live with this person who is so endlessly easygoing. Dinner and martinis downtown? He's in. Pub food and beer? Take out Thai? He's in. A strangely elaborate six course dinner at home? He's in. A thrown-together meal-snack that we eat together at the kitchen sink, mango juice dripping down our arms? He's in. In fact, he doesn't even judge me when he sees me eating soup from the pot. He just laughs and deems it the best moment of his day.

Two, I know that I appreciate all these dinner methods because they are so real. No matter what we have argued about that day, no matter what else has happened, there is always dinner. Dinner is always honest, and it's always just us, being us.

Last, and most comforting of all, I know that things have come back around. My family passed down to me the importance of the dinnertime connection, and now I, too, have passed it along to someone I love. Pass the peas, pass the rolls, pass the magic of dinner togetherness. Even if it means radishes, crackers, cheese cubes, and slices of sausage over the kitchen sink.
My invention of the evening, lovingly coined sausage stacks. For all of you out there just itchin' to fix some of these for yourself, I suppose I can part with the recipe just this once. That's one square of wheat bread (the grainier the better), one slice of jalapeno chicken sausage, yellow mustard, and relish (for crying out loud, sweet relish!, not dill). That, my friends, is dinner.

Home On the Range

These cookies plunked themselves right down in the middle of my childhood. They showed their pretty little faces at many Girl Scout meetings, and I recall the first time I had one. I was in love with the little bit of salt that I could taste in them, and it was then that I first realized sugar could be so much more productive when combined with salt. I realized that salt didn't exactly taste like anything, but it shaped the flavors of the things it touched.

Last weekend (oh, you know, during Sausage Time) we started talking about ranger cookies, and the sheer joy on Matty's face when he thought about them was enough to convince me. So, somehow it took me an entire week to buy a box of Rice Krispies, and then it was time. Last night became ranger cookie night. Today, the cookies belong to Matty. He has officially sailed back to his childhood on the wings of oatmeal goodness.

Here's what I have to say about these cookies. They are, first of all, really delicious. They are also insanely easy to make. There's this strange abundance of 1- and 2-cup amounts in the recipe, which makes it even quicker. Plus, they have this overnight trick of turning chewy but also crispy as they wait for you to come back and retrieve them from their tupperware the next day. They are oatmeal-y, and also sort of butterscotch-y. Some folks add cornflakes, coconut, or other silly stuff, but I like to keep it simple.

Ranger Cookies
Forest ranger? Park ranger? Ranger Rick? Who knows?

2 C AP flour
2 C oats
2 C Rice Krispies
1 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 C white sugar
1 C brown sugar
1 C butter, softened
2 eggs
1 t vanilla

Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
In a big bowl, cream the butter and sugars. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
With a wooden spoon, mix dry ingredients into butter mixture.
Yep, you're already done!
Roll tablespoonfuls into balls and place on parchment-lined cookie sheets.
Using a small, flat-bottomed glass, dip into sugar, and press down to flatten each cookie.
Bake at 350 F for about 11 minutes per tray, or until brown around the edges.
Cool for a few minutes on cookie sheets and then remove to cool completely. Makes about 50 cookies.
Now go find some Girl Scouts and give 'em some cookies so you don't end up eating all of them yourself!

One last note:
For those of you who have heard about my attendance at Sausage Academy today, I will indeed confirm at this time that yes, I did attend ye old sausage school, and it was amazing. Delicious, porky details to come.

Bread and Circuses

Recognize this? Of course you do! You are such a devout reader, after all, so it stands to reason that, upon seeing this image on a flashcard, you'd be more than likely to shout out, "BREAD DOUGH!!" In which case, you'd be right. If you really do play with flashcards in your free time, I commend you on being quite dedicated to your own personal growth. Great work. Weird, but great work!

So, you'll see here the results of another round of bakery effort. This is Perfect White Bread (or so I called it on my recipe card). I ran out of all-purpose flour last night, and had to swing by the grocery store today (which, in a city such as this, means I had to spend many, many painful hours pushing my way through throngs of people who, from the looks on their faces, are actually aliens who have just been deposited by a spaceship and have no idea what a grocery store is or what they are supposed to do there). I got the flour, though, and -gasp!- I also saw...bread flour! That's right. Bread flour. Long lost bread flour. Remember once upon a time when I was hunting and hunting for bread flour so as to make sausage rolls that weren't the consistency of cinder blocks? And it was nowhere to be found? Well, they've decided to ship it to Chicago again. Ridiculously enough, I didn't actually buy the bread flour -- oh, no. That would have been too easy. Somewhere in my mind I was thinking that A.) flour was really heavy and two bags of it would be, um, SO much heavier than one that I couldn't possibly bear to carry it around and B.) it would just be so easy to 'swing by' the store next time I needed it. Right. Brilliant. I really need to become one of those people who special-orders flour from those fancy flour places that Jeffrey Steingarten likes to talk about. But, honestly, where am I supposed to store a 100 lb. bag of flour? In my special flour locker that is built into my sugar silo? Honestly. I think I will stick to suffering at the grocery store.

Moving right along then. Perfect White Bread. Basic, basic, tried and true. If you are like my father, and you consider anything other than white bread true sacrilege, then this is the bread for you. If you, like him, like to compare "other breads" to tree bark, roots, or other leathery pieces of the natural world, then you will like this bread. It's like the white bread you remember, but it's just a little more grown up. It's like Butternut bread and Wonder bread had a baby and sent her to reform school.

Perfect White Bread
recipe origin quite unknown
dedicated this time to Dad, my white bread king

1 pkg yeast
1/4 C warm water
2 C milk, scalded (this means put it in a real pan, not the microwave, and heat til almost boiling)
2 T sugar
2 t salt
1 T butter, melted
6 C sifted AP flour (give or take)

Soften yeast in warm water. Combine hot milk, sugar, salt, and butter in a non-reactive bowl. Cool to lukewarm (this is about long enough to watch one episode of pre-recorded Ellen, with fast-forwarding through commercials). Stir in 2 C of flour and beat well with a wooden spoon. Add the softened yeast mixture. Add enough of remaining flour to make (yes, again) a moderately stiff dough. Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead until smooth and satiny (aim for 8-10 minutes), adding little amounts of leftover flour as you go. Shape into a ball. Place in lightly greased bowl (ceramic or glass) turning once to grease surface of the dough. Cover. Let rise in a warm place until doubled (about 60-80 minutes). Punch down.
Cut dough in two. Shape each into a smooth ball; cover and let rest 10 minutes.
Shape into loaves; place in two greased loaf pans. Cover and let rise until double (45-60 minutes).
Bake in 400 F oven for about 17-20 minutes, but keep an eye on it. If the tops start to get too dark, tent with foil. When the loaves sound hollow when thumped and feel lightweight in their pans, it's time! Cool for a few minutes in the pans, then turn out onto a wire rack. You did it!
Eat it up! You can put one in the freezer and pretend like you're going to eat that first loaf gradually, but chances are good that you'll pull that freezer loaf out within the next 24 hours. I'm just saying...this could happen. I want you to be prepared.

Cast Your Bread

Once upon a time, I was nervous about bread.

That was, mind you, before I actually made bread. Before I ever baked my own bread, I felt like it was a looming, fierce mountain that I needed to climb. I'd taste an amazing bread and feel simultaneously thrilled and furious. Thrilled about the sheer bliss of consuming this perfect cloud, and simply furious that, well, I hadn't made it myself. And, as with all of my true goals, lofty or not, I proceeded to drive myself mad as I thought more and more about actually doing it. And I was right. I was driving myself crazy, putting it off.

Suddenly, when I least expected it, I found myself sprinting through the aisles of the grocery store (this was Kroger, in Ohio) scooping up ingredients. Yeast. My first yeast! Before I knew it, I was up to my elbows in flour and delicious bread muck, happily kneading away. Immediately, my mind rocketed back in time, as I remembered where this all began. Amelia Bedelia. You know, those quirky books with that black-and-white clad character who never slowed down, ever. Everything she did was funny because her actions were all results of misunderstandings.

There's this one book in the series in which she bakes bread, and, reading it, I was in bliss. I don't remember thinking it was funny, exactly, because I was nervous for her. It simply wasn't funny that the bread might not work out! I was rooting for her. I wanted that bread to turn out! It just had to! I adored those bread-making words and the way they rolled around in my mouth. Knead, punch, rise, stir, smooth, elastic, turn, double. I had never punched anyone or anything in my life, nor had I wanted to, but I was giddy with the prospect of making a food that one could punch. Being so utterly intimate with a food as to knead, twist, shape it, and, er, punch it -- well, that was fascinating.

Later, I took polaroids of my first bread, which still live in that purpled-spined cookbook that I cooked my way through during college. Recently I looked back at those bread pictures, and remembered that moment when I first tasted my first loaf. I felt like an explorer who had just imbedded a flag on top of the mountain. It was world-changing. It redefined the way I viewed food, and it explained the intense alchemy, the sheer science, that goes into building everything around us. It's the simplest thing, bread. It's, well, the staff of life and all, and when you make it and eat it, it's like swallowing history.

Honestly, it's not even necessary at this point to tell you that one of my very favorite things on earth is bread. Think about it, if you haven't yet done so. Toast! A world of its own! Sandwiches. Baguettes. Pita. English muffins. Foccacia. Bagels. Croissants. Rye. Pumpernickel. Sourdough. Ciabatta. Buns. Rolls. Challah. Biscuits. Monkey bread! You get the idea. So many categories under this one name, bread.

I remember all the breads I've ever eaten. All the memories are lined up in my head, like the solid spines of books on shelves. All the same, but all different. There was my first real French baguette in Paris, and my first taste of the perfect ciabatta at Stonehouse Bread in northern Michigan. There was the healing, incredible toast that my mom has always made me when I'm sick, and the burnt English muffins that my dad has always eaten on weekend afternoons when he gets home from work, topped with butter and peanut butter, which is simply brilliant. You must try it right away if you haven't; this guy is truly onto something. It reminds me of the amazing egg sandwich at a local coffeehouse here in Chicago, where they spread butter on the bagel before adding the scrambled egg and cheese. Whew, it is amazing.

I remember the bagel shop where I worked in high school, and how I wished desperately that I could be the baker, not just the sandwich-maker. My favorite part of the job was when the oven opened and the bagels came out; the aroma would sail around that shop like some sort of elated angel. We'd slide the bagels off their parchment paper and into the wire bins, catching delicious steam in our eyes and noses, and we'd half-joke about eating the whole tray, just the three of us. Three teenage girls, a bin of hot bagels, and a hot, hot love affair that had nothing to do with boys.

There was the first time my family discovered Texas toast (seriously, what's not to love about a family that gets insanely happy about extra-wide bread slices?), and there was all the french toast that my parents would make for my brother and me, always perfect and delicious because they just wove magic into every single thing they did for us (and they still do weave that magic).

I remember the cinnamon-raisin toast that I'd eat for breakfast before getting on the school bus; I was mesmerized by the cinnamon swirls, circling around until they reached the center, which was where the very best bite was. I always imagined the bread factory where it was made, with tall machines, and rooms filled with cinnamon smells. I longed to see the way the swirls were shaped by those machines, and I wanted so badly to know how every single loaf could end up having the exact same swirls and identically-random raisin pattern. If I burned my toast accidentally, my dad would always eat it for me, and I've always felt so lucky to have that black-toast safety net. I remember the strange, urgent smell of singed raisins, too -- the ones that fell out of the bread while it was toasting.

There was the little rye bread that my mom would serve sometimes, and I would eat it delicately, pretending I was the doll in a dollhouse, nibbling on tiny food, sitting in my tiny chair in my tiny kitchen. Recently, I walked past the baby-loaf rye bread factory here in Chicago, and I felt like I should be ushered in by gracious arms and allowed to have a special tour, all just because I have memories of those tiny loaves. Memories are perfect tickets for tours, right?

There are all the sandwiches, too. Do you think about your favorite sandwich? Do you know which one it would be? Often, when I am waiting around for something or other, I'll try to think of my favorite one, and I can never quite decide. But, no matter what, the ones that come out on top are always the ones with the very best bread, the most luxurious and perfect vessel for transporting all the items into your mouth. My friend Susan, one of her very favorite foods is a sandwich, and, see? Why wouldn't I love her? Sandwich lovers are smart. They know that it's little things that matter the most; that it's all the little things that add up to make something amazing. Needless to say, I think of her every time I eat a sandwich.

Oh! And another amazing thing. It's what Matthew and I have coined "road sandwiches," and it's, um, you guessed it, the stack of sandwiches that I build the morning that we leave for a trip. Usually, there's turkey for me, and ham for him, plus maybe some hummus and cucumber ones for both of us. They are insanely simple sandwiches, just meat and mustard and black pepper, but they are magical. Maybe it's the whir of the ferocious city that we're happily leaving behind, or the quiet comfort of each other, or the ecstasy associated with vacationing mode, or maybe, well, maybe it's just the depth and comfort of the bread.

So, back to that first loaf that I made twelve years ago. I recently decided to try and replicate it, and I based the recipe on a funny little recipe that I pulled out of a mini-cookbook that comes in the mail. I think that it's perhaps an example recipe from a mail-order cookbook series? Anyway, I loved it because it's called Mom's Bread, and, since that first go at it, I've made it three or four times, and it's good. There are some completely odd things about this recipe (you'll see what I mean), and I've rearranged a few parts of it to make it even wackier, but I think you'll be entertained at the very least. If you're into grainy sorts of voluptuous, earthy bread, then this is the loaf for you. It's like cereal, sort of. In bread form. It sounds involved and a little intimidating, but it's really not so much of a hassle. As with all bread, you've gotta stick around with it for part of the day to keep it company, so make sure you have the time before you begin.

a new variation on
Mom's Bread
Adapted from an unknown source. Thank you, mystery inventor!
Dedicated to my mom, because it contains her favorite cereal.

1/2 c bulghur
2 1/2 c AP flour
1 pkg yeast
1 1/4 c milk
1/4 c honey
1/4 c butter
1 egg
1 3/4 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c oats
1/2 c crushed Total cereal
1/2 c wheat bran or wheat germ
1 egg white

Place bulghur into a small bowl. Add boiling water to cover. Let stand 15 minutes and drain it well. In a big bowl, combine two cups of the AP flour and the yeast; set aside. In a medium-ish saucepan, heat and stir the milk, honey, butter, and 1 t salt just until warm (aim for about 125 degrees F, or until butter almost melts). Add milk mixture to flour mixture. Add egg. Beat on low to medium speed for 30 seconds, scraping down sides of bowl. Beat on high for 3 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the bulghur, remaining AP flour, 1 C of the whole wheat flour, oats, the 1/2 cup of Total, and the wheat bran.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured counter.
Knead in just enough of the remaining whole wheat flour to make a moderately stiff dough **if you're like me, you'll be a little paranoid, calling out to yourself (or rather, calling out to the dough): "Is it moderately stiff yet? Is THIS stiff? Are you stiff? What does moderately stiff even mean? Is this too stiff? Is it stiff enough? Are you done? Now? Now? How's this??"** that is smooth and elastic. Aim for 6-8 minutes of kneading. Shape into a ball.
Place in a greased bowl (opt for glass or ceramic here), turning once to grease the dough. Cover. Let rise in a warm place until double in size (about 1 hour). Punch it down! Pretend you're Amelia Bedelia!
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; divide in half. Cover; let rest 10 minutes. Wash some dishes, or pace around the kitchen, staring at it. Grease two bread pans. Shape dough into two loaves, and put 'em in the pans. Combine egg white and 1 T water; brush on the top of both loaves. Sprinkle with crushed cereal. Turn on the oven to 375 F. Cover. Let rise on top of the stove for about 30 minutes, or until doubled.
Bake about 30 minutes or until loaves sound hollow when tapped.
If the tops start to get too dark, tent with foil. Remove from pans, let cool on wire rack. Sit back and inhale all the intoxicating smells that you've just created. You did it! Now go eat that bread and make some blueprints for your new bakery.

Off You Go

You know how muffins are just so dreadfully sweet sometimes, and much too much like cake? Now, not that I have an opposition to cake or anything, but sweet things in the morning seem to really botch up my mood. Okay, okay -- sweet things are okay, but not sweet foods in the morning. To fix all my problems, I decided to invent the perfect bran muffin. A little sweet, but not too sweet. A little delicate, but also substantial. So, here you go! You will be especially enamored by these muffins if you are the type of person who gets awfully nervous about getting the amounts right in baked goods. You can't mess these up! Well...I'm pretty sure you can't.

These Choose Your Own Adventure muffins (aka Off You Go muffins) were made in a triple batch this morning for my co-worker's last day of work. I found out that they are not only delicious and (semi) nutritious, but also really good at catching the tears that result from losing your terrific office mate. Thanks for all those, um, French moments and impressive (yet impromptu!) dance acts, D!

Keep in mind that this recipe is really flexible. You can mix and match all the fruits and nuts and spices to find the combo that you like best. Honestly, ALL the ingredients can be mixed and matched. Try all wheat flour, or whole oats rather than ground ones. Add fresh ginger, crystallized ginger, or cardamom, or any other spices that you have laying around. Swap the apples for pears, or swap monkey tails for the bananas. As long as you have approximately these same amounts of wet and dry ingredients, you'll be fine!

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl:
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup white flour
1 cup bran
1/4 cup ground flax seeds
1/2 cup ground oats
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 t baking soda
2 t baking powder
2 t cinnamon
1 t nutmeg
1 t allspice
1 t ground ginger
1 t ground cloves
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup walnut pieces
1/2 cup pecan pieces

Mix wet ingredients in another bowl:
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 cup pumpkin or butternut squash puree
3/4 c applesauce
1 or 2 bananas, chopped or mashed
1/3 cup canola oil
1-2 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped

Add dry ingredients to wet. Mix it up! That's it! Then, into the muffin tins. (Optional: top with oats/brown sugar mixture.) Bake at 400 degrees, for about 17 minutes per pan. Cool for a bit in the pans, then take them out of the tins and cool them while simultaneously scarfing down a few. These store well in the fridge, but they also freeze pretty well. One batch makes about 16 muffins.

My Celery Froze

The Sausage Factory, Pt. 2

Today, we had another go at it. Sausage Sunday #2.

This time, it would be chicken sausages. The involved parties were Colleen, Matty, Meghan, me, and, naturally, Tug Chamberlain. The first three humans hunted down the meatpacking supplies while I traveled to Meghan's (a.k.a. Sausage Town).

Now, let me just say that butcher shops aren't so good at being open on Sundays around here.
M, M, and C went to three butcher shops, all of which were closed. We were feeling a bit dismal until we discovered that the magnificent Gene's (that's Gene's Sausage Shop, thankyouverymuch) was open. We were saved.

After a moment of sheer panic at the meat counter (Me: "Do you have casings?" Butcher: "I don't think so." Me: "Really?" Butcher: "Mm, no. I think we're out." Me (feebly): "Ohhhggghhh!" Butcher: "Well, let me check in the back."), I was offered a very large bag of casings from The Back. Ah! Brilliant. Casings bliss. $13 dollars worth of casings bliss! Weeks and weeks of casings bliss. Also, 3 pounds of ground chicken, sausage rolls, special green apple water, housemade apple bratwurst (50 cents apiece is all!), and some chocolates that look like bees. Perfect. All a splendid deal, and I must just say that Gene's is just the loveliest place. Rush right over! The sausage (and everything else) will blow your mind!

Anyway, the important part is that sausage babies were on their way. So let's cut to the chase here, shall we?

Miles and miles of delight:


Our sausage mascot, armed and ready to be a special helper. See that tooth? It's especially good for eating sausage with.



The mixture. Okay, are you ready for this?! Ground chicken. A handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped. Two sweet potatoes, diced and lovingly sauteed in curry powder by Matty. Half a fennel bulb, diced. Onion powder, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes. One hot pepper, minced. Doesn't it sound a little divine? These sausages made their way into our hearts with no problem at all. Colleen (with the bun-buns on her shirt) was the first pusher:



Matty was the first, um, meat catcher. The both did a great job, right off the bat.

Sometimes this happened:


Sometimes this happened:



Then, all of a sudden, THIS happened:


Then this! (P.S. These suckers were grilled on a real, live, summertime grill! Outdoors. In winter. Thank you, grillers, for sacrificing, um, whatever it was that you sacrificed.)


We served them with aioli, fennel-pea-feta-macadamia nut salad, halloumi cheese, and "desert patties" (oh, sweet, patient, vegetarian Colleen, how we love you).

Then, well, we were ready for a little rest.