A Baking Story

Life lately has been...stressful.  That's ok.  It's made me realize how much I appreciate when life is slower and I have enough time to stop and think about all the little things that make it interesting.  Like cookies, for example.

Part 1:  When I was younger, my mom heard from a friend that you can make cookie dough, scoop it into ready-to-bake balls, and then put the dough balls in the freezer.  That way, you can have fresh baked cookies whenever you want, and you can control the portion size so that you don't have a whole batch of cookies that you could never finish by yourself.  (On second thought, perhaps you could.  I've never tried).

Part 2:  I usually eat two out of three meals per day at work, and the toaster oven across from my is often filled with toast, leftover pizza, or whatever else people like to bring for lunch.

Part 3:  Discovery: toaster oven at work + frozen cookie balls = fresh baked cookies at work.  Easy to bake, easy to share, available to whoever wants them whenever they want them.  The hallway smells amazing.

Here's what to do:

A)  Mix up your cookie dough the night before the day you want to eat them.  Limitation: if you want them to be easy, they need to be of the variety that you make from dough balls and don't require extra toppings (i.e. frosting, hershey kisses, filling, etc.).

B)  Scoop your cookie dough on to cookie sheets.  It's easier to clean up if you cover the cookie sheets with wax paper beforehand, because then you don't even have to wash the cookie sheets.

C)  Freeze your cookie dough balls overnight, and place them all in ziplock bags in the morning.  Bring them to wherever you plan to eat them (as long as the place has a freezer).  Obviously, you can leave them at home if you feel so inclined...

D)  When you feel like eating cookies, preheat your oven/toaster oven to whatever temperature the cookies bake at.  Bake them for 5 - 10 minutes longer than the recipe calls for to account for the fact that they're frozen.

E)  Let them cool awhile and then eat them.  Make everyone jealous of the fact that you're eating fresh cookies, and if they ask where you got them, tell them they can make some too!

F)  Achieve fame for out of the box thinking and tasty baked goods.

Cookie recommendations:

Toll House chocolate chip
Chocolate mint chip
Chocolate chocolate chip
White chocolate chip macadamia nut
Oatmeal chocolate chip
Oatmeal raisin
Peanut butter
Snickerdoodles
"Chunky Chocolate Gobs"
Any of the Betty Crocker mix cookies
Funfetti cake mix cookies
...pretty much anything else you can think of that goes on a cookie sheet in a ball...

Next office dessert project?  Microwave cake.

First Prize?

For the first time in my life, I have a secret recipe. I guess it really isn't incredibly secret - more of a hybridization of three other recipes - but I have managed to create the world's greatest cinnamon rolls, according to the only cinnamon roll judge that counts. Considering his great love of cinnamon rolls, this is no small feat.

 Sorry. No pictures. OF COURSE it's not because we didn't take any...it is solely to add to their appeal and mystique.

 But really. They were so good. Come visit me and I'll make them for you!

Breakfast Frustration

In honor of Shakespeare, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Purcell, Guy Fawkes (?), Richard the Lionheart, John Dowland, Francis Bacon, John Lennox, Charles Dickens, and (of course), Kate Middleton, I have eating tea and crumpets for breakfast every morning for the past several days. At work, no less.

They're delicious. They're a little like a hybrid of English muffins and sugarless pancakes. I'm sure they're not the REAL deal...but I quite like them. They remind me of our apartment Royal Wedding Extravaganza.

In any case, this morning I went go to heat up my crumpets in our office toaster oven. The kitchen is conveniently directly across from my office, which is great because then I can work while they toast instead of standing there watching them. I set the timer, walked away, and waited until the bell rang.

I was hungry. I couldn't wait to eat them...all covered in butter and jam, warm and slightly crispy, complemented by my steaming mug of chai. I reached into the toaster oven and started to take them out.

They were cold.

So logically, I reset some settings, put them back in, and did it again.

Still cold.

And a third time! This time making sure that the heat came on before I walked away.

STILL COLD.

I finally gave up and walked to the other toaster oven in our other kitchen. (Yes, we have two. Yes, one of them is chock full of awesome snacks. Yes, you're allowed to be jealous.)

Then I realized that the first toaster oven temperature was set to...oh...75 degrees.

Oops.

Baked Goods

One night, far too late for my own good, I decided to bake cookies.  Because who doesn't like cookies?  

They turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.  By the end of the next day, they were gone.  

(Fear not; there were at least 20 people eating them.  I only had four.)

The Joy of Cooking

Well, glory hallelujah. I forgot how AMAZING it is to have a functional kitchen!

This evening I had the opportunity to make a full dinner for three people, myself included, and all of a sudden I remembered that I basically haven't cooked anything real for eight months. Between student teaching and the gross summer living situation, cooking just wasn't an option.

That's all changed now.

This evening's dinner included rice (with thyme, bay leaves, chicken stock, and butter), breaded chicken, asparagus, hollandaise sauce, and a very nice Riesling wine. Nothing very complicated, of course, but it was good nonetheless. Also, I've never made hollandaise sauce before. Turns out...it's pretty good! I took pictures, but my USB cable is currently buried in a bin in the back of my car and is therefore inaccessible. I'll do it later.

A note that I'm absolutely positive I've made before: butter is the key ingredient to making anything taste good. I will stand by this statement until the day I drop dead from an artery blockage, which, given my views on the substance, is entirely probable.

Food for the Future

I will have to be moving out of college dorm housing very soon now - quite exciting, if you ask me - which naturally means that I will have a KITCHEN! Clearly I need to plan what I'm going to be making right now. Right now, I say.

Which, obviously, brings us to the the Master of French Cooking herself,

JULIA CHILD.


[source]

Wasn't she grand?

So here are some recipes with...sexy...French titles. (OMG, I just used the word "sexy" online. There goes my credibility as a moral person.)

Quiche Lorraine - cream and bacon quiche

Pièce de Boeuf Braisée - beef braised in red wine

Poulet en Cocotte Bonne Femme - casserole-roasted chicken with bacon, onions, and potatoes

Poulet Sauté aux Herbes de Provence - chicken sautéed with herbs and garlic, egg yolk, and butter sauce

Purée de Pommes de Terre à L'Ail - garlic mashed potatoes
(P.S. The French word for potatoes, "pommes de terre," literally translates as "apples of the earth." Now you know something new. Maybe.)


I guess that's enough for now. I'm drooling too much to keep this up.



Oh, and you can be sure that I will be avoiding the section entitled "Brains." No.

Suggestions, please...

I got this fantastic pair of forest green tights at Gap for - check it - $1.18. Yeah. Best Gap deal ever, minus my favorite dress that cost me $13.99. My dilemma?

I'm not sure what to wear them with.

Suggestions, please?

Oh, and I'm sorry to have neglected to mention any food-related things here recently. I haven't been cooking at all. Instead, I eat cafeteria food. Or in rare cases like this morning, I have been lazy enough to eat a bowl of uncooked oatmeal sans any sort of topping. I promise to mend the error of my ways when it isn't so hot.

Omnivorous Antipescetarian: Confirmed

I hate fish. Whoa.

Like the kind you eat, not the kind you keep in a bowl or a tank or whatever.

I had thought that maybe if I tried some again, maybe my last fish experience would have been long enough in the past that my taste buds would have matured and I would magically think that the taste and texture were the grandest things in the world. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

Last night, our choir had a very fancy end-of-the-year fête, including a gourmet meal with four courses: (hors d'oeuvres), soup, (palate cleanser), entrée, cheese, dessert. I took a lot of risks at this dinner. I ate both pea soup - the greenness of which has always perturbed me a bit - and foie gras. If you didn't know, that's made out of goose livers. Like I said...RISKS. (Good risks. As it turns out, pea soup is pretty tasty!)

But then came the salmon wrapped in bacon, covered with oyster sauce.

Dread came over me. What should I do? I resolved to try it. Be brave. Show the world that you are not intimidated by your food. It sat like a lump on my plate. Why is it so pink? I like red meat...but red fish? I cut off a large bite. No sample sizes here. Whole hog. I put the fish in my mouth and chewed. This texture is different then I imagined.

Then I tasted it.

Oh gosh. It's getting fishier...and fishier...and FISHIER! AHHHHH!!! IT'S LIKE EATING CAPE COD!!! QUICK! DRINK WATER! EAT BACON!! MUST. EVICT. FISH. FLAVOR. IMMEDIATELY.

At this point, I knew that I could not subject myself to eating another bite.

I know without a doubt that it was not the fish that was bad. Everyone around me was saying how splendid it was, how finely prepared, how flavorful, etc. I commend the cooks and servers for their top-notch cooking and serving. I wanted for nothing, and the evening was delightful. With the fish came green beans and mashed potatoes, which I ate with great appreciation and rapidity.

I did, however, discover that I really, really can't handle seafood. It seems to be anathema to me. Be forewarned, those of you who dine with me regularly.

Mini Bread-Muffins

Hey, hey, it's been a pretty long while since I posted anything about food! That's terrible. I love food. But I'm living in a regular dorm again, so cooking food is no longer as easy as it was in The Apartment.

Today, however, I was babysitting, which meant full access to a usable kitchen!

(Aside: doesn't grammar dictate that you should use "an" before a word that starts with a vowel? Why don't words that start with u count?)

I decided that bread-baking sounded like a good plan to do with kids. They can mix everything together, and THEN!! they get to mush the dough all around with their hands! It was perfect.

I used the following recipe for Crusty White Bread:

2 packets of yeast
2 cups of warm water
2 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. salt
1/2 c. vegetable oil
6 - 6 1/2 c. flour

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Follow instructions on the packet.

Mix the sugar, salt, oil, and 3 cups of the flour together, then mix with the yeast mixture.

When it's well blended, add more flour until the dough is easy to handle.

Place the dough on a floured board (or counter) and knead for 8 - 10 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic.

Place dough in greased bowl, cover, and let rise for 45 minutes.

After dough has doubled in size, punch it down, separate it into two loaves, place in greased and floured bread pans, and let rise for one hour.

Bake for 35 - 40 minutes at 400 degrees.


That's a pretty simple recipe, so I decided to make it more exciting. When we were mixing up the first ingredients, I dumped some cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves into the dough until it looked spicy. (For this type of thing I don't use measurements. Eyeball it...whatever looks good is probably right.) Then, instead of separating it into two loaves, I decided that we should make mini-bread, and we baked it in a muffin pan! I made a mixture of some butter, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves and brushed it on top of each mini bread-muffin as a sort of glaze. Since they were smaller, I cut the baking time down to 20 minutes.

They turned out great!



And they're highly kid-friendly. Seriously. Beyond the kneading fun, the kids get to mix things, watch the dough "grow like a plant," smell the wonderful aroma of baking cinnamon, and feel accomplished that they made something. Also - IT'S HEALTHY! I mean, let's face it...even with the glaze it has no more than a total of 4 tablespoons of sugar. What's not to like?

Everything

Today I'm presenting you with a smorgasbord of things. Maybe you'll find it boring, but I think it's all interesting.

The Sartorialist became one of my favorite blogs to read (slash look at) since my apartment buddy Michelle made me aware of it several months ago. I've never been the most fashionable person in the world, but I think the people in the pictures he takes always look so in style. I don't always like what they're wearing, but at the very least they're all extraordinarily chic. Today he posted my favorite picture yet, and so I'm going to put it here so you can appreciate it too.


I'm also going to give you a few more examples of the fantastic-ness just so your eyes can feast on things that are aesthetically pleasing.

("Aesthetic" has been my word of the day. I've used it about four times already in conversation.)




[The Sartorialist]


Secondly, here is another aesthetically pleasing thing.

LOOK. AT. THIS. CAKE.


[souce]


Thaaaaaaaat's it.

Appreciate its glory.

Revel in its presumed deliciousness.

Anticipate the day when it will be on my counter ready to eat...because it certainly will be.


Thirdly, the Unnamed Denominationalists are here again, which essentially means that it feels like all of Gordon came back for the week, except that everyone has aged thirty years and is wearing what could only be categorized as "mom clothes." (Sorry, Mom. For the record, your clothes don't look like that.) Problems with the Unnamed Denominationalists being here include ZERO PARKING on campus during the day, long lines for food, and odd worship music. Odd is not an understatement; we're talking piano, two saxophones, hand percussion, and lyrics along the same lines as the "Jesus is my Friend" video.



Actually, I think the video is a pretty good overall representation of the Unnamed Denominationalists. Intriguing.


Fourthly, I FINALLY turned in all the paperwork involved with student teaching today, which means that I can get a teaching license! Woo! I will be an official music teacher now. Scary thought, eh? I could be teaching your children how to sing do.

And re.

And mi.

And so on and so forth.

"DOOOOOOOO, a deer, a feeeeemale deeeeeer...." Except not like that at all. No one learns to sing that well that fast.


Fifthly, I've bought some new clothes recently. Would it be a good idea (and/or not vain idea) to do an outfit post sometime? Opinions, please!


Finally, I need a good book to read. Any suggestions?

Cake Pops!

CHECK IT.

I discovered this book at Target the other day, and while I didn't buy it immediately - though perhaps I should have - I've decided that I need it.

[source]

They's so cute! So the next cookbook (bakebook?) I buy will be this one. Without question.

Turkey Burgers of Awesome

Be forewarned: this is not for the faint of heart or the vegetarian, because you have to both eat meat and handle it raw with your hands. However, if you are not a coward and you are an omnivorous antipescetarian like I am, or even if you're just a carnivore, it's well worth the grossness.

I'm going to have to rewind a little bit here. I've babysat for this one family in the area since last summer. (I had some adventures babysitting which have been logged here somewhere. I don't feel like going to find them now, but they're there.) The three kids are really cute - all redheads - and they all really like hamburgers.

I don't really know how to cook hamburgers minus a grill.

So I improvised. I opened the ground beef, shaped it into patties, put some olive oil in a frying pan, and fried the burgers until they were no longer very pink in the middle. They turned out ok, but they were kinda bland. The next time, I put salt and pepper on them, and they were only slightly improved.

This went on for the rest of the year...UNTIL THIS WEEK. I made a discovery. So here you go: how to make awesome turkey burgers (though it would probably work with beef too. We only had turkey this time around.)

-In a bowl, pour in some amount of shredded cheese. I don't use recipes, so I don't have specific amounts. Sorry.

-On top of the cheese, throw in some spices. I used Italian seasoning, garlic salt, thyme, basil, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper.

-Open your ground meat and dump it in the bowl along with the cheese and spices. Mush it all together with your hands.

-Make patties that look slightly larger than the burgers you want to end up eating, since they shrink in the pan.

-Pour a little olive oil into a frying pan and turn it to medium high heat. Once the oil crackles when sprinkled with water, it's hot enough. Put the burgers in the pan.

-Fry until they look done on one side, then flip them. When they're no longer pink in the middle, they're done.

So they're not traditional burgers, and they're not something you'd find in a restaurant, and I still don't know what the official kosher way to cook a burger is. That's just what I did, and they turned out pretty well. You should try it and report back here to say if they met your expectations or not.

Hopeless Romantic?

I think I've begun a new love affair with tomatoes.


This is a little weird, because I wouldn't even come close to touching one while growing up. But now I find myself putting them on everything and loving every bite...maybe the apocalypse is coming sooner than I expected.

A Riddle

I've had the lyrics for a rather clever riddle song bouncing around my head for the past several days. Thank you, elementary school. Can YOU figure out what it's talking about?


As I was walking in a field of wheat,

I picked up something good to eat.

Neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor bone,

I kept it till it ran alone.

Makeshift Food

It's somewhat amazing what sorts of things you can come up with when your food supply is severely limited by budget constraints. (Yes. Severely. At least for the rest of this week.) As it turns out, butter, milk, flour, and eggs can make an astonishingly wide array of food, as can cinnamon and pizza dough.

My first success was cinnamon pizza. That sounds nasty, I know, but it wasn't. Probably because there were no normal pizza toppings involved. I remembered late last night that I had a roll of pre-made pizza crust in the fridge that I needed to use very soon. However, I didn't have any pizza sauce or tomatoes, so it seemed like it was doomed to a miserably, rotten death until I remembered that everyone loves apple crisp. Problem number one: Lent. Problem number two: no apples. Now, dessert isn't dessert if not all the pieces are there, and you can't have pizza for dessert. Therefore, problem number one was solved. On to problem number two. I think we can all agree that the best part of apple crisp is the topping, so that's what I made. No recipe involved, just experimentation. It worked, too. It came out of the oven looking like this...


...the apartment reaction was something like this:


...and 10 minutes and six people later, it looked like this:


I will be making that again next time I have pizza crust.

After school today I ate some eggs, but then I decided I wasn't full yet. After perusing the Williams and Sonoma website for things I could make with the above-listed ingredients, I came across a recipe for rosemary popovers. Now, I didn't really want to make them with the parsley and rosemary that was called for, because I wanted to put butter and jam on them. Parsley and jam, in my opinion, don't make the best combination. So I just left them out.

If you've never made popovers before, they might seem kinda weird. The batter is lumpy and quasi-viscous, and you put them in a cold oven to start. But if you make them right, they are the most delicious little biscuitlike things you can imagine. They're not sweet at all, even though they look a little like muffins.


(Yes, they are supposed to be that crispy-looking. They're crispy on the top and squishy in the middle.)

One of mine came out looking a little lopsided, but it tasted the same.


Then you put on your butter and jam - I am particularly partial to jam of the raspberry-minus-the-seeds variety - and you have an excellent after-school snack.


Lauren and Diana ate some too...and I ate four...

I'm slowly exhausting my supply of not-so-renewable-by-me resources, so I'm going to have to become even more creative for the rest of the week. But given my success so far, the outcome should be pretty good.

Microwave Cake, take 4

Ok. I've decided that microwave cake is the PERFECT thing for a college student, either during break or during the most hectic time of the semester. I happen to be enjoying the former of those two options, which is much more relaxing than I anticipated. Thank goodness. Moving on. I think I've conquered microwave cake. Secret magic ingredients? Hot fudge and peppermint extract. And powdered-sugar-and-milk frosting, preferably made in a plastic cup to add to the charm. Drink it with a cup of milk, if you're into drinking milk. If you're not into drinking milk...maybe with water? It requires a drink, in any case. I highly suggest that you go make it immediately. If you can't, come visit my home and I will make it for you. Even if you come at 3 am.

Sunday Afternoon

Context: Sunday afternoon, between church services

Available time: approximately 3 hours

Project: chocolate chip cookies

Apartment reaction: YUM.

Photo:

YES.

This afternoon, Sarah and I went to Pinkberry on Newbury Street in Boston. Oh dang. It's so tasty! Tart frozen yogurt with toppings? You'd have to be crazy not to like it.




(And it's healthy too!)

Fajitas!

I made dinner for my family tonight in the form of fajitas and salsa. They turned out very well! I was excited. I'd never made steak by myself before, and I did! It was tender and marinated and delicious. Then I made some onions and some peppers and some salsa and some rice, ripped up some lettuce, poured some grated cheese into a bowl, and put it all on the table. It was quite successful, if I do say so myself....Chipotle, homemade style.

More cookies!

My brother and I made some more cookies tonight. Apparently, trips home are synonymous with baking so much that by the end of the time, we're all close to diabetic shock. My guide was this recipe, but instead of using pre-made pie dough, I made my own. Homemade stuff just tastes better, no matter what. I altered some of the ingredients in the pie dough - I added some vanilla, left out the salt - and instead of using Hershey kisses for the filling, I used these things:


Tasty!

Because I made mine a different shape than those in the guideline recipe, I decided to drizzle some chocolate on top to make them look a little nicer. This is how they came out: