Thinking Green

I'm sitting in the tire store thinking about what to serve for St. Patrick's Day.

I do all my best thinking in the tire store.

Just kidding, that's not true. Or, it might be true, but I have no proof that it's true.

I'm thinking Shepherd's Pie. Because I don't really like Corned Beef and Cabbage, and google assures me that Shepherd's Pie is more authentic.

Google is good that way. Always validating my decisions. Have I mentioned I like google?

And, I can make up for missing Pi day. Which is one of Kami's favorite holidays. She would be disappointed by our lack of observance.

Shepherd's Pie with beef, of course. I think recipes calling for lamb are a bit wrong. Do you really thing a shepherd would eat lamb? I wouldn't if I were a shepherd. Or, if I were me.

I found a recipe online. I googled it.

I will also make Irish Soda Bread. The really delicious, inauthentic kind we made at the bakery.

Here's the recipe if you want to have delicious, inauthentic soda bread like me.

It makes two 8 or 9 inch loaves.

Ingredients:

4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
2 cups sour cream
1 cup raisins

This is a simple recipe that can be mixed in one bowl! Hooray! No crazy instructions.

Just stir together all the dry ingredients, except the raisins, in your mixer. Add the wet ingredients and stir just until combined. Stir in the raisins. No intense beating required. Or allowed.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Bake in two 8 or 9 inch loaf pans sprayed with cooking spray.

Bake at 325 F for about an hour. It should test clean with a toothpick.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Hull, Mass.

If life gives you lemons, make cake!

I made lemon poundcake yesterday. Lots and lots of lemon pound cake.

And, several pints of lemon curd.

To round off a perfect day, I whipped a gallon of cream.

No, I was not treating bakery withdrawal, I was helping prepare for Stake Relief Society Conference.

I originally planned to bake 3 or 4 cakes a day.

Then, I started, and made a HUGE mess, and decided I might as well just keep on baking. For several hours.

And, although I won't mind if I never see lemon poundcake again, I realize you might not feel that way.

So, bake your heart out. But you might want to stop at one. Or two. Or, you might want to make 10, like me!

Ingredients:

Cake,
1 cup butter, room temperature
3 cups granulated sugar
6 eggs, room temperature
Lemon zest from 1 lemon
5 tablespoons lemon juice (I supplemented with bottled juice)
1 teaspoon lemon extract (optional)
3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt (1/2 teaspoon if you use unsalted butter)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/3 cup sour cream, room temperature

Lemon curd,
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
Zest of 3 lemons
1 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup whipping cream

Cake:

Remember all those pesky details in the chocolate cake recipe? They still apply! Have all ingredients at room temperature. Beat the heck out of your butter and sugar, but when you get to the flour, don't over mix!

Okay, here we go.

1. Beat 1 cup butter and 3 cups sugar in stand mixer until light and fluffy at medium speed. About 5 whole minutes!

2. Add room temp eggs, 1 at a time. Beat well after each addition.

3. Add lemon zest, juice and extract and beat until well combined. Remember this is your last chance to beat the mixture at medium speed, so make sure the mixture is smooth. It might look a little curdled because of the lemon, but just mix well.

4. Whisk flour, salt, and baking soda. Add half to butter mixture at stir speed.

5. Add 1/2 sour cream and continue to stir.

6. Repeat using remaining ingredients. Stir just until combined.

7. Stir with a spatula to make sure everything is combined.

Bake in a greased and floured bundt pan at 350 F.

It will take about 60 to 75 minutes. It should test clean with a toothpick.

Let sit five minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Lemon Curd:

This is a magical microwave lemon curd. It works well for this purpose, but doesn't have the same smooth consistency as a more traditional curd.

1. Whisk 1 cup sugar and 3 eggs in a microwave safe bowl.

2. Whisk in lemon juice, zest and melted butter.

3. Cook in microwave, stirring after each minute, until it coats the back of a spoon. Mine took about 5 minutes. After the first 2 minutes, I did 90 seconds at a time. Because I'm impatient. It worked fine.

4. Cool completely in refrigerator.

5. Whip cream until stiff peaks form. I flavored with 1/4 cup powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla, but that is optional.

6. Fold 1 cup of lemon curd into whipped cream. (you will have additional curd)

Serve sliced cake with a spoonful of lemon cream.

Yum!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Hull, Mass.

What to have for dinner . . .

. . . when you forgot you were having guests, you need to bake 5 loaves of artisan bread and 10 lemon pound cakes, and you have 3 pounds of organic chicken thighs in the freezer.

Butter chicken!

How can you not want something named that?

I admit to being a very casual cook. That is the only advantage of cooking to a baker like me. You don't have to do all that weighing and measuring.

As in most instances where I forget I am entertaining, I did not have everything I needed for anything. Have you seen those McCormick spice commercials? They speak to me.

Unlike the Cambell's Beef Stew commercials, which also speak to me, but only to say Yuck!

I am a dedicated substituter. Even with Indian food, which is relatively new to my culinary skills.

So, it might not be super cool to call it butter chicken because I made some emergency substitutions, but I did use butter, and chicken, so I'm sticking with it

I will even tell you what I used as substitutions so you can see your options and be a cooking cheater like me.

This is what I did:

1. Dice 1 onion, and cook it with 1 tablespoon minced garlic in 2 tablespoons melted butter over medium low heat until golden brown. This will take about 15 minutes.

2. Melt 1/2 cup butter in a large pot (you will need a lid later) with about 1/4 cup tomato paste from the squirty tube (substituted for 1 can tomato sauce) 1 cup cream, 1 can evaporated (not sweetened condensed) milk (substituted for additional cream), 1 teaspoon curry powder (substituted for garam masala, see step 3), 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper.

Bring to a simmer, turn heat to medium low and cover. Cook for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Mixture will thicken slightly.

3. Once you get your sauce started, cut the boneless, skinless thighs (substituted for chicken breast) into bite sized pieces. Tossed them in a tablespoon of vegetable oil and three tablespoons of my tandoori masala 'like' mix of spices. I am going out on a very small limb here to say that you can go ahead and use curry powder if you don't have or want to mix tandoori masala.

Who knew all those Indian spice mixes that cost a fortune in the store are just a combination of all the expensive bottles of spice in my cupboard that I can never use completely? Google did, that's who! Valuable information from google once again.

4. Put the chicken on a baking sheet and bake at 375 F for 15 to 20 minutes or until baked through.

5. Drain fat, and add chicken to sauce with onion mixture for last 10 minutes of cooking time.

6. Start cooking basmati rice (or any other kind you have) about the time you put the chicken in the oven and everything will be done at the same time. More or less.

Serve this to your forgotten guests. Do not tell them they were forgotten. This is a very important step.

I can feel safe posting this because my forgotten guests were missionaries who cannot read blogs. Even mine.

They LOVED this. And, even though they are missionaries and not that picky, I wanted to share with you because I loved it too.

And I am very picky!

Easy plus yummy equals a lucky save.

The end.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Hull, Mass.

Private Milo

Milo started bootcamp today.

I think he was a little bit nervous. Or maybe that was me.

It's very stressful having a household member join the military. It's a dangerous world. Dogs are eating dogs all over the place. Or that might just be a saying. You can never be sure about these things. Sayings come from somewhere.

The good news is it's day bootcamp,

And, his drill sergeant is a peppy twenty-something girl that thinks he is the best behaved and most beautiful dog she has ever met,

And, at the end of it we can change his nickname from naughty puppy to good puppy,

And, he is learning that he never needs to worry about anything because his people will always take care of him . . . (hmmm, I might want to enroll myself),

And, he can stay here when Tagg goes off to college because he will be perfect,

And, Dave will take him for walks,

And, he won't end up dislocating my shoulder,

And, he doesn't have to clean kitchens or latrines . . . Although let's be honest and admit that if there was a dog training course that taught those things I would pay any amount of money to get Milo enrolled.

But, still. It was a pretty rough day.

Just look . . .






No, he is not on the furniture. Who said that? That would be very bad dog ownering.

And I have leather cleaning wipes, so if you are coming over, there is no need to worry about sanitation, even though he is not on the furniture.

I promise.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Kingston, Mass.

Oh, Fluff!

So, there's something about Sunday that makes me want treats.

Basically every week I come home from church and start thinking about baking. Who wants pot roast if you can have pie? Oh, everyone but me? Okay.

This week I decided I should make Whoopie Pies.

Whoopie pies are amazing little chocolate cakes with a creamy filling. Especially if you find a good recipe that doesn't use shortening. Which I finally have. Hooray!

They can be pretty much any flavor cake, really. But chocolate is traditional.

Whoopie Pies are local to New England you know. Maybe that's why I needed to make them.

In an effort to connect with my new place.

Anyway, they are in some way associated to a Broadway play, where an actor threw these little filled cakes into the audience, and the play was named after the cakes, or the cakes were named after the play, or something like that.

Don't get me started on the decline of live theatre. I go to Broadway shows as often as possible, and no one has thrown any delicious cakes my way.

I'm just saying.

But, my point is, that in order to make real Whoopie Pies you need Fluff. Also an East Coast thing. Marshmallow cream would be your best substitute if you live on the other side of the country.

The problem was, I did not have any Fluff. There are no fluffernutter eaters in my house any more, and fudge season is over.

If that is possible. I feel like fudge shouldn't really be restricted to a season.

So, being the dedicated baker I am. And really, really wanting a Whoopie Pie, I decided to make my own Fluff.

It wasn't the most logical decision of my life. It might have made more sense to make brownies, but that's not how I roll. I'm very committed to a good craving.

There are no recipes for Fluff online.

No matter how creative you are in your googling.

And I am a very creative googler.

So, I decided to just make marshmallows, and use the mixture before it set up.

It was very promising up until the part where I just used the mixture before it set up. It went downhill pretty quickly after that.

This is the extra marshmallow mixture I did not need for my Whoopie Pie Cream:





It became perfectly respectable marshmallows by morning.

My homemade fluff, however, just disintegrated into my butter and powdered sugar when I beat it together.

It was very thin. Perfectly delicious, but in no way capable of providing beautiful pictures of perfectly filled Whoopie Pies.

Oh, Fluff!

But, do not despair. In my best professional baker mode, I have diagnosed the problem.

I will try again.

Recipe and pictures will follow soon!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Hull, Ma

Ah, now I remember . . .

This is Nantasket Beach.


Today. The sun is shining and it is 54 degrees.

This is my back yard.



With more of Hull in the distance

This is also our backyard.



With Boston in the distance.

Ditto sun and temperature.

This is why we moved here.

The last 5 months of unfortunate weather had me confused.

But now I remember . . .

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Hull ma

I'd like to thank the Academy . . .

Actually, I'd like to like to thank The Academy.

I think I've lost my fascination with celebrity.

When I was a young'n, I loved watching the Oscar's.  I hoped all the actor's I was half in love with would be presenter's.  And, many of them were.  It made the whole occasion so exciting!

Now that I have apparently outgrown being half in love with actors, it seems so much more boring.

And, the hosts seem so much more boring.  And not hilariously funny like they should be.

And the actors I used to be half in love with are possibly sporting facelifts, which I find horrifying.

Let's just all grow old together people.  It would make life so much easier.

There are a lot of beards this year.  Which I am not convinced is a good idea.

And, why are the women so SKINNY?  Really!  It's disconcerting.

But, encouraging that there are relatively few breast implants.

Which is a huge relief because they are always a mistake on anyone under size zero.

And the acceptance speeches don't seem as thankful as they used to be.

Although I admit to forwarding through some (okay most) of them.

Maybe it's the fault of dvr.  Or reality tv.  But celebrity isn't the same for me.

Sigh . . .

Maybe I'm the one who's changed.

I'm old!


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