Blessings Darlings!
Last week the festival of Purim started, Wednesday night at sundown. It's a Jewish festival that celebrates the salvation of the Jewish people as recorded in the book of Esther. It's a fun holiday, where folks dress up, drink heavily, etc.
I'd probably celebrate it even if my son wasn't Jewish for the party aspects.
But since 'Esther' and "Mordachai" there are probably revised versions of the Pagan Gods Isthar and Marduk, and nothing like the events in the book were actually recorded during the reign of the king mentioned in the book (Xerxes 1 or 2, I've forgotten which it was supposed to be), I figure it has it's roots in some pre-Judeo/Christian/Islamic Pagan spring festival anyway.
So I figured I'm make Hamantashen, one of the traditional foods eaten then. It's a 3 cornered cookie with a fruit or seed filling. But I had pie on my mind*** so figured I'd try making them with pie crust instead of with a cookie base.
It didn't work well. The pie crust was GREAT. I used the all-butter pie crust recipe from America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book, known around our house as "Big Blue". However, the pie dough didn't hold the shape, so flopped over into a circle topped with the blueberry filling. NOT at all Hamantashen.
OTOH, they tasted GREAT, and were a lovely dessert. But I had to have the Spawn pick up REAL Hamantashen on the way home.
Failure still tasted good.
Frondly, Fern
*** This COMING Wednesday is Pi Day, March 14, as in the mathematical Pi, which is 3.14(etc). I was working on figuring out what Pies to have for dinner that day - Should the main course be Shepherds? 4-can? Pizza? Pasties? Pot Pie? And what sweet pie for dessert?
Showing posts with label America's Test Kitchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label America's Test Kitchen. Show all posts
Monday, March 12, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Spaghetti Sauce Search
Blessings Darlings!
Once upon a time, I used to make my own spaghetti sauce from scratch. That was 30 years ago. I've long since lost the recipe.
But our finances being as they are, I've got to go back to making that from scratch instead of buying even sale priced jarred sauce. So we're trying on recipes.
This morning I made Alton Brown's Pantry Tomato Sauce. Thick, layered flavors, zesty - too spicy for us to use on pasta for every-day use. OTOH, we think it will rock in lasagna where we've found that most pasta sauces don't bring enough to the party.
This afternoon I made America's Test Kitchen's Quick Pasta sauce, from the Big Red "Family Cookbook". That's a fine and simple recipe with a bright fresh flavor, but not as much layered flavor as I'd like. I'd probably like wine added at the very least, and probably more basil and some oregano. I think it will make a banging 'pink sauce', with the addition of some heavy cream. If I could afford heavy cream. And I wasn't on a diet.
I might mix the two sauces for our spaghetti dinner tonight as well as do the official comparison test.
Do y'all make your own spaghetti sauce? If so, is the recipe online? Or do you buy jars?
Frondly, Fern
Once upon a time, I used to make my own spaghetti sauce from scratch. That was 30 years ago. I've long since lost the recipe.
But our finances being as they are, I've got to go back to making that from scratch instead of buying even sale priced jarred sauce. So we're trying on recipes.
This morning I made Alton Brown's Pantry Tomato Sauce. Thick, layered flavors, zesty - too spicy for us to use on pasta for every-day use. OTOH, we think it will rock in lasagna where we've found that most pasta sauces don't bring enough to the party.
This afternoon I made America's Test Kitchen's Quick Pasta sauce, from the Big Red "Family Cookbook". That's a fine and simple recipe with a bright fresh flavor, but not as much layered flavor as I'd like. I'd probably like wine added at the very least, and probably more basil and some oregano. I think it will make a banging 'pink sauce', with the addition of some heavy cream. If I could afford heavy cream. And I wasn't on a diet.
I might mix the two sauces for our spaghetti dinner tonight as well as do the official comparison test.
Do y'all make your own spaghetti sauce? If so, is the recipe online? Or do you buy jars?
Frondly, Fern
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Cupcakes
Blessings, Darlings!
Being broke is one thing - feeling deprived is another. The Chubby Hubby is happy that I'm making sure he doesn't feel like he's broke AND on a diet. Instead, I'm 'medicating' our stress by baking nummies. Lots of nummies. From scratch.
But now that we're several weeks into Even Harder Times, my recipes are changing. Last week I had to decide if I was going to buy butter or shortening for baking with. I went with shortening. In recipes that call for butter I'm now using half butter and half shortening. For recipes that call for shortening, I'm using shortening.
The shortening container (all vegetable shortening, BTW) does creative measuring, using a serving size just small enough that they don't have to say it has trans fats in it. I'm not falling for that trick, but I'm still buying the stuff. Even if I wasn't using it in the baking now, I'd still use it in pie crusts, because having been raised Jewish I just can't do leaf lard crusts.
Back to the baking at hand: the first cupcakes I baked to perk him up was from a recipe, probably from America's Test Kitchen. It called for four eggs and two sticks of butter, among the other ingredients. The Chubby Hubby LOVED them. The spawn and I found the distinct egg flavor and stiff - even rubbery - texture off-putting.
To keep the baked goods going, and keep all of us happy, I'm switching cookbooks. Farewell, America's Test Kitchen, hello Betty Crocker!
The Betty Crocker cookbook is probably the oldest cookbook we own. The Chubby Hubby bought it when he was still single (along with some Sunset Cookbooks). We still use it heavily. It contains the duct tape of cooking - the standard recipes that hold a kitchen together.
From Betty, I decided to do the One Egg Cake recipe, in cupcake form. Only one egg, not four eggs, only 1/3 cup of 'soft shortening' (that means regular vegetable shortening to you and me), not two sticks of butter. The recipe DID make 3 less cupcakes than the other recipe, but the taste and texture made the Spawn and me happier, and the Chubby Hubby was content if not ecstatic.
Neither recipes cupcakes needed any frosting, BTW. They rocked standing alone.
Oh, the Spawn has made his first yeast dough baking - soft pretzels - and he did a WONDERFUL job. He followed Alton Brown's recipe.
Next, we will either bake brownies (both America's Test Kitchen and Betty Crocker have easy cheap ingredient recipes) or I'll add chopped semisweet chocolate to the one egg cupcake recipe.
On a TOTALLY unrelated note - I've dropped 3 pounds since moving. I think it's all the stairs. It's certainly not my diet....
Frondly, Fern
Being broke is one thing - feeling deprived is another. The Chubby Hubby is happy that I'm making sure he doesn't feel like he's broke AND on a diet. Instead, I'm 'medicating' our stress by baking nummies. Lots of nummies. From scratch.
But now that we're several weeks into Even Harder Times, my recipes are changing. Last week I had to decide if I was going to buy butter or shortening for baking with. I went with shortening. In recipes that call for butter I'm now using half butter and half shortening. For recipes that call for shortening, I'm using shortening.
The shortening container (all vegetable shortening, BTW) does creative measuring, using a serving size just small enough that they don't have to say it has trans fats in it. I'm not falling for that trick, but I'm still buying the stuff. Even if I wasn't using it in the baking now, I'd still use it in pie crusts, because having been raised Jewish I just can't do leaf lard crusts.
Back to the baking at hand: the first cupcakes I baked to perk him up was from a recipe, probably from America's Test Kitchen. It called for four eggs and two sticks of butter, among the other ingredients. The Chubby Hubby LOVED them. The spawn and I found the distinct egg flavor and stiff - even rubbery - texture off-putting.
To keep the baked goods going, and keep all of us happy, I'm switching cookbooks. Farewell, America's Test Kitchen, hello Betty Crocker!
The Betty Crocker cookbook is probably the oldest cookbook we own. The Chubby Hubby bought it when he was still single (along with some Sunset Cookbooks). We still use it heavily. It contains the duct tape of cooking - the standard recipes that hold a kitchen together.
From Betty, I decided to do the One Egg Cake recipe, in cupcake form. Only one egg, not four eggs, only 1/3 cup of 'soft shortening' (that means regular vegetable shortening to you and me), not two sticks of butter. The recipe DID make 3 less cupcakes than the other recipe, but the taste and texture made the Spawn and me happier, and the Chubby Hubby was content if not ecstatic.
Neither recipes cupcakes needed any frosting, BTW. They rocked standing alone.
Oh, the Spawn has made his first yeast dough baking - soft pretzels - and he did a WONDERFUL job. He followed Alton Brown's recipe.
Next, we will either bake brownies (both America's Test Kitchen and Betty Crocker have easy cheap ingredient recipes) or I'll add chopped semisweet chocolate to the one egg cupcake recipe.
On a TOTALLY unrelated note - I've dropped 3 pounds since moving. I think it's all the stairs. It's certainly not my diet....
Frondly, Fern
Monday, January 10, 2011
Too Sweet?
Blessings, Darlings!
The Chubby Hubby and I aren't into desserts that hit you with intense sweetness and nothing else. We prefer desserts with lots of flavor and moderate amounts of sugar. The Spawn rather despairs at my habit of cutting the sugar in half in chocolate chip cookies and pies.
So I make things like well-spiced Oatmeal Raisin cookies typically, which we all enjoy.
But this holiday season, when every time the Chubby Hubby planned to make the Crescent cookies that I gave the recipe for last week something came up and he had to abandon the plan for that day, I hit the cookbooks to look for a cookie to make myself. Having moved 3 boxes of cookbooks (yes, I DID get rid of some before we moved!), that took a while. And deciding which recipe to try took a while, too.
I ended up making America's Test Kitchen's "Best Chocolate Butter Cookies", and they SO totally rocked that they seem destined to be a family favorite for years to come! They take little sugar in the recipe, which is well to our taste, I could form them into a roll and slice and bake them which suits me better than rolling and using cookie cutters, and a simple glaze (or a dusting of powdered sugar) kicked them up for presentation.
The recipe is in America's Test Kitchen's "Family Baking Book" - we've nicknamed that one "Big Blue" (we call their "Family Favorites" cookbook "Big Red"). I love all their cookbooks, most of which we even have autographed by Christopher Kimball! And all of which we bought ourselves, since ain't no one sending me review copies of ANYTHING for this blog. Alas.
Frondly, Fern
The Chubby Hubby and I aren't into desserts that hit you with intense sweetness and nothing else. We prefer desserts with lots of flavor and moderate amounts of sugar. The Spawn rather despairs at my habit of cutting the sugar in half in chocolate chip cookies and pies.
So I make things like well-spiced Oatmeal Raisin cookies typically, which we all enjoy.
But this holiday season, when every time the Chubby Hubby planned to make the Crescent cookies that I gave the recipe for last week something came up and he had to abandon the plan for that day, I hit the cookbooks to look for a cookie to make myself. Having moved 3 boxes of cookbooks (yes, I DID get rid of some before we moved!), that took a while. And deciding which recipe to try took a while, too.
I ended up making America's Test Kitchen's "Best Chocolate Butter Cookies", and they SO totally rocked that they seem destined to be a family favorite for years to come! They take little sugar in the recipe, which is well to our taste, I could form them into a roll and slice and bake them which suits me better than rolling and using cookie cutters, and a simple glaze (or a dusting of powdered sugar) kicked them up for presentation.
The recipe is in America's Test Kitchen's "Family Baking Book" - we've nicknamed that one "Big Blue" (we call their "Family Favorites" cookbook "Big Red"). I love all their cookbooks, most of which we even have autographed by Christopher Kimball! And all of which we bought ourselves, since ain't no one sending me review copies of ANYTHING for this blog. Alas.
Frondly, Fern
Friday, April 16, 2010
I'm a KitchenAid Slut
Hi. My name is Fern, and I'm a KitchenAid slut.
For years I eschewed getting this tool. I kneaded all my bread by hand. I mixed my batters by hand or with cheap, small, underpowered hand mixers. I was hands on! I was ecologically minded! I avoided using electricity and tools where they weren't needed!
Being .... me .... that is, cheap .... I go to a lot of garage sales (after mapping the newspaper listings out using a map, to save gas going from one to the next). A few years ago at a garage sale near city hall .... there was a Kitchenaid standing mixer for sale. With most of the most important part - the blending paddle, the dough hook, the whisk, the pouring shield. Wish it had the meat grinder, but.... Anyway, it was $70. I NEVER spend that much at garage sales. I tried to pass it up. I even called the husband, who said I was nuts if I DID pass it up.
How good a bargain is this? A friend of my friend Jess found one for Jess, sans the pouring shield, for $100, and Jess got teary over THAT bargain.
The Kitchenaid came home with me.
But it didn't get used.
I guess I was intimidated. Again, I had spent a LOT of money. But I had a history of doing my hand made foods .... literally by hand. It was new to me. It wasn't my tradition.
Fortunately, my son didn't have my history. He took a look at it, and took a look at a few episodes of America's Test Kitchen (ATK), and started baking. Chocolate cake, of course. With chocolate frosting (but for that he used the $6 garage sale food processor, that I also use).
I kind of snuck up on the idea of actually USING the thing by watching my son use it. And by watching Alton Brown use them on Good Eats, and Christopher Kimball use them on ATK.
It was the ATK recipe for Pizza Bianca that drove me to actually start using the mixer. Not that I exactly followed the recipe (forgive me, Christopher Kimball, for I have sinned. And I sinned beautifully). I used the mixer for the pizza dough, but did the toppings for the Chicken Flatbread pizza from our favorite (and now dead) restaurant, the Pomo Grill.
It rocked. It rocked unbelievably.
Today, I have two types of bread rising, both batches started in that Kitchenaid stand blender. Mixing and kneading is done in a fraction of the time of doing it by hand, and I'm never tempted to underknead.
I've become 'easy'. I'm just a Kitchaid Slut.
Frondly, Fern
For years I eschewed getting this tool. I kneaded all my bread by hand. I mixed my batters by hand or with cheap, small, underpowered hand mixers. I was hands on! I was ecologically minded! I avoided using electricity and tools where they weren't needed!
Being .... me .... that is, cheap .... I go to a lot of garage sales (after mapping the newspaper listings out using a map, to save gas going from one to the next). A few years ago at a garage sale near city hall .... there was a Kitchenaid standing mixer for sale. With most of the most important part - the blending paddle, the dough hook, the whisk, the pouring shield. Wish it had the meat grinder, but.... Anyway, it was $70. I NEVER spend that much at garage sales. I tried to pass it up. I even called the husband, who said I was nuts if I DID pass it up.
How good a bargain is this? A friend of my friend Jess found one for Jess, sans the pouring shield, for $100, and Jess got teary over THAT bargain.
The Kitchenaid came home with me.
But it didn't get used.
I guess I was intimidated. Again, I had spent a LOT of money. But I had a history of doing my hand made foods .... literally by hand. It was new to me. It wasn't my tradition.
Fortunately, my son didn't have my history. He took a look at it, and took a look at a few episodes of America's Test Kitchen (ATK), and started baking. Chocolate cake, of course. With chocolate frosting (but for that he used the $6 garage sale food processor, that I also use).
I kind of snuck up on the idea of actually USING the thing by watching my son use it. And by watching Alton Brown use them on Good Eats, and Christopher Kimball use them on ATK.
It was the ATK recipe for Pizza Bianca that drove me to actually start using the mixer. Not that I exactly followed the recipe (forgive me, Christopher Kimball, for I have sinned. And I sinned beautifully). I used the mixer for the pizza dough, but did the toppings for the Chicken Flatbread pizza from our favorite (and now dead) restaurant, the Pomo Grill.
It rocked. It rocked unbelievably.
Today, I have two types of bread rising, both batches started in that Kitchenaid stand blender. Mixing and kneading is done in a fraction of the time of doing it by hand, and I'm never tempted to underknead.
I've become 'easy'. I'm just a Kitchaid Slut.
Frondly, Fern
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