On Being an Adult

Being an adult (who lives alone) means you can eat cinnamon rolls for supper.

In my case they were Cook's Illustrated Quick Cinnamon Buns with Buttermilk Cream Cheese Frosting. I'm still contemplating dessert.

Sacrifice, as in Brownie

Today is the annual Christmas luncheon at work. I abandoned my usual Fish Eye Salad (which no one ever eats except me) in favor of BYU Mint Brownies*. This is the first time I've made them, and I'm sorry to report that the brownie itself is less than special. 

I think that with all the frosting, however, few will notice the inferior brownie.**

*The recipe I have includes the specifics for the chocolate frosting, which is essentially the same as the mint frosting, with the addition of 1/3 cup of cocoa and the deletion of the mint extract and 1/3 cup of sugar.

**While cutting the above sacrifice piece in my office, I learned that you can't cut these with a plastic knife. Fortunately, I have sturdier implements I'll use to cut the rest.

Today's Question

Is the sourdough starter still alive?

I've been thinking about making whole wheat sourdough bread, and finally got up the energy to try it tomorrow. I realized, however, that the starter is surely hanging on by only a spore, and needs to be fattened up before I make bread. Sorry little starter, for being so neglectful. Food is on the way!

Watch Out, Rachael, or, Accomplishments

Recent Accomplishments

Made it to work on a Monday without once thinking about how I didn't want to go to work.

Almost made it through the Thanksgiving dishes (yes, I know this is disgusting).

Made a leftover turkey casserole. No recipe. All from my head. Quite tasty. If you know me, you know this is QUITE an accomplishment.

Did not eat a fast-food lunch today (baked oatmeal. yum!).

Adage Proved?

I decided to do a Thanksgiving roll run-through today. The rolls are in the oven rising and I have a stomach ache.

Perhaps eating raw dough really DOES give you worms!


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image: W. H. Comstock, Proprietor. (nd). Comstock's dead shot pellets for worms [card]. Advertising Ephemera Collection - Database #A0383. Emergence of Advertising On-Line Project. John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History. Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa.A0383/

Party Food

For your next party, or perhaps just for your next snack, consider this spread/dip I made Saturday:

Orange Pecan Cream Cheese Spread

Combine in a bowl and mix until smooth:

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 C finely chopped toasted pecans
• 1/4 C orange marmalade (I used closer to 1/3 cup)
  
• 1/4 tsp salt

This is the first recipe from The Joy of Cooking 75th Anniversary Edition that's actually turned out for me. This tastes best on Ritz crackers.

1 2 3 Finish

I spent yesterday thoroughly cleaning the kitchen and then undoing the whole thing by cooking.

First Place: Fresh Strawberry Sorbet, the maiden outing for my KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment.

Second Place: Grandpa's White Cake. This strong contender missed out on first place for lack of the seven-minute frosting, which I was too lazy to make. I ate it with lime curd instead.

(Distant) Third Place: America's Test Kitchen's Everyday Light Mac and Cheese. Ugh. I'll probably finish it anyway, since I can't bear to waste that much cheese.

Judges' Choice: Strawberry Freezer Jam (made on Saturday)

Priorities

I love visiting in Utah with my mom and aunt (Auntie lives there, Moth visits at the same time I do).

The reasons I love this trip are plentiful, but include my aunt's arctic basement, being able to legitimately listen to all the "adult" talk and being able to ask questions (can't do that when you're an eavesdropping child), perusing the cookbook collection, and doing the crossword puzzle every day (everyone gets her own photocopy).

One of the other reasons the trip is so enjoyable is that these two women have their priorities straight. The agenda above proves my point.

I must mention that the written list is missing several things we did while I was there (root canal, burnt sugar marshmallows, sugared peanuts, See's Candies, Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House, Sundance, Hires Big H, Rubio's) as well as a few things the other two have done since I left (Julie and Julia, bookclub, Fleming's). But the list gives you the general idea. Can't wait for next year!

Try This

Tonight I made Black Forest Cookies from a recipe off the back of a package of cherry flavor Craisins. They turned out pretty well. I baked them on the lower middle rack, but they perhaps would have been better baked on the upper middle. I added 1/4 tsp salt to the recipe.

If you want to try for yourself, here's the recipe:

BLACK FOREST COOKIES

Ingredients

1 11.5-ounce package milk chocolate morsels, divided
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 6-ounce package Ocean Spray® Craisins® Cherry Flavor
Sweetened Dried Cranberries
1 cup pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350º F.

Pour 3/4 cup morsels into an uncovered large microwave-safe bowl. Set remaining morsels aside. Microwave morsels for 2 minutes on high. Stir until chocolate is smooth.

Stir in brown sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla. Add flour and baking powder, mixing until thoroughly combined. Stir in remaining morsels, cherry flavor sweetened dried cranberries and pecans.

Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 12 minutes or until cookies are puffed and set to the touch. For a firmer cookie bake for 14 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely. Makes about 2 1/2 dozen cookies.

Chocolate and More Chocolate

My new chocolate brown Mary Jane Crocs


The Chocolate Fluffernutter Cake we ate at work the same day

(any of my MI readers recognize the WS towel? They're still going strong, and are much loved.)

Dreaming

I had a roommate in college, the same one who said she was going to choose a graduate school based on whether they would let her wear sweats to class, who would look at the cookbook when she was hungry, as a way of satisfying herself.

Spread out on the bed next to me, and on the stool and floor next to the bed, are the following:

• Baking with Julia
• A Potful of Recipes
• Small-Batch Baking
• Maida Heatter's New Book of Great Desserts
• Quick & Healthy Volume II
• The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Book of Desserts
• Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book

Why, then, am I still hungry?

Culinary Successes

I finally managed to make real food in my new kitchen--english muffin batter bread and cream of broccoli soup.

Both turned out rather well, if I do say so myself. The bread has a few cosmetic problems, but it tastes fine and makes for a fine piece of toast when topped with the strawberry freezer jam I made last week. You can see a picture of the bread, and a short description of the bread itself, at the Bakingsheet blog (now known as Baking Bites). *

The soup recipe comes from Julia Child's The Way to Cook, and uses a base of pureed rice and onions, rather than the traditional roux, to achieve the cream part of the soup. More work, but hopefully less fat.



*More info for those interested: I used the original King Arthur Flour recipe that is in turn adapted in Bakingsheet. The only thing I can see that she adapted is to change one cup of milk for one cup of water. She also says to heat the liquid to 110 degrees. I thought that wasn't warm enough if you had mixed the yeast into the rest of the dry ingredients before adding any liquid. Anyway, I followed the original recipe and was perfectly happy.

The Pizza that Auntie K Made

You may know that I aspire to be a baker, along with aspirations to be a knitter, a well-organized neat freak, a physically fit runner, blah, blah, blah.

Well, I occasionally venture out of the theoretical realm and into reality. In January, I tried my hand at pizza. I think it turned out tolerably well. Probably not the best looking pizza ever made, but the Pizza Margherita was quite tasty, if I do say so myself. Especially for a first attempt (OK, actually a second attempt. I made pizza once before when I lived in prisontown).

Here are the pics:

Dough, not so expertly formed.

Pizza Margherita, pre-baking

Pizza Margherita, fresh out of the oven