Category: Recipes
Monday, Oct 20, 2008 | Kids, Recipes |
Apparently doubling the recipe changed the proportions for those Ginger Snaps yesterday, and I have to confess, though they weren’t a flop, they were not the usual slightly cakey, chewy cookie that recipe usually turns out for me. Instead they should have been called Ginger Thins. Still very tasty (butter, sugar, molasses–which is cane syrup or sugar beet syrup, apparently; thanks, Nath!). But flat. I could have draped them over something, hot out of the oven, and they would have taken on that shape. I could have made Ginger Cups and filled them with daubs of whipped cream for a fancy dessert. But instead, I filled my cookie jar and freezer with loads of paper-thin flat cookies.
It’s nice to type. I can’t really talk. A cold has been creeping up on me for days and last night I felt it settling in. Do you know that sensation? Sliding down your throat to your lungs, settling in like a damp fog. My voice is particularly vulnerable to colds, and I’m often hoarse for days or weeks–once it was months–at a stretch.
We got to school early this morning. A wanted to play with his friends before the bell. I was able to drop them at the playground and walk home a bit earlier than usual. Today is storytime at the library, but first I’m enjoying a cup of coffee and will hang laundry, change a diaper, nurse the babe, and make a little grocery list because I’m craving orange juice. I also need ginger for my stalwart ginger-garlic tea, which I make whenever I’m sick. Here’s the recipe: a good whack of peeled ginger root, the cloves of a bulb of garlic, peeled and crushed, the juice of one lemon. Boil together in about 4-6 cups of water, then drink with lots of honey. You can also add cayenne pepper for a real kick (I don’t). Or steep a bag of peppermint tea in the mixture at the end to make it a little more palatable. But the weird thing is, it is very very palatable., even without the peppermint. Could be the honey. Don’t breathe on anyone after imbibing, however.
Okay, by my calculations, we have 15 minutes till departure time, and, some mmoments having elapsed since the above was written, I’ve accomplished hanging the laundry, feeding the baby, and (nearly) drinking the cup of coffee. We also read a story while feeding the baby. Who is obligingly filling his pants now, pre-diaper change, rather than waiting till storytime. Go CJ!!
Sunday, Oct 19, 2008 | Recipes |
“Slow as molasses.” It’s funny trying to explain to the kids some of the phrases I use often, but this one is evident as soon as one has any dealing whatsoever with molasses (by the way, what the heck IS molasses??). I’m making a monster batch of ginger cookies, and getting that 1/2 cup of molasses out of the container took, oh, about five minutes. No exaggeration. Drip, drip, drip. And yet the flow was also relentless and difficult to stop, once started.
This is a really good recipe, and makes the most perfect-looking, sugar-studded cookies. My friend Zoe gave it to me, and I thought I’d post it here. It’s been awhile since I posted a recipe. Today, I doubled the recipe below, and plan to freeze about half.
Ginger Snaps
3/4 cup butter
1 cup white sugar, plus extra for rolling
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tblsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
Cream together sugar and butter, beat in egg, add molasses (Patience, please!). Sift together flour, soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon. Stir flour mixture into butter base and mix together thoroughly. Make small balls (about one teaspoon) and roll them in sugar. Place on pan, leaving enough room for spreading, and bake at 350 for 8-9 minutes.
It’s the most gorgeous fall day and Kevin and kids are outside raking leaves. We didn’t do much yesterday and this morning I found myself fantasizing about hiring a cleaning company to come in and scrub my bathrooms … but instead did a quick clean-up in both, up and down, and left with the girls for Sunday School. The boys stayed home and picked up the living-room (lots of new piles added on top of old ones) and vacuumed downstairs. So the state of the house could be worse. The only task I’ve really set for myself this afternoon is to bake these cookies and make the kids’ lunches for tomorrow. My mom is having us over for supper tonight and I’m very very happy not to have think of what to cook. The thinking of it occupies almost as much time as the making of it.
Oh dear, the smell of freshly baked cookies is being forcibly blown out into the backyard via the stove vent and has attracted the attention of several small people, who are now clamouring and drooling at the door.
Sunday, Sep 14, 2008 | Kids, Recipes |
Hurricane rains, and it’s ridiculously steamy here in Southern Ontario considering the autumn leaves already rotting on our sidewalk. It feels like we’re living in the middle of a tropical jungle, not waiting for that nice killing frost that will put a happy and natural end to my food gathering and preserving efforts.
I feel tired today and not ready to start up a brand new week. That dreaded Sunday evening feeling. Spent most of the afternoon preparing food, including a superb grape/rhubarb cobbler using the cooked grape pulp leftover after the juice was strained for the jelly-making. This has to be one of the simplest desserts to bake, with the basic cobbler topping coming from my Joy of Cooking: 1 and 1/3 cups flour, 2 tbls sugar, 1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, mix together, then cut in 5 tbls butter (approximately) and add 1/2 cup of milk. This makes a biscuit dough that you can cut or shape to lay over the sugared fruit of your choice in the 8×8 greased pan. I used the grape pulp, plus some frozen rhubarb, added 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tbsp flour. The biscuit dough needed a bit more flour to make it easy to work with. Bake at 375 for 45 mins. Eat plain or with milk over top.
So don’t throw out your grape pulp! Except this only worked because the grapes I used were next thing to seedless. Too many seeds would have made the pulp inedible.
I also baked cookies for school lunches, and made supper. And did piles of dishes. And spent 45 blissful minutes on the couch reading Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which I recommend highly. I keep picking it up at bedtime and then being unable to stop reading and as a result getting to sleep way too late. The kids didn’t know what to make of mommy reading on the couch. F was sure I was reading the hymnal and kept wondering why I wasn’t singing the book.
To update on the grape jelly: it appears to be jellying! Thanks to Nath for commenting on the last entry and letting me know her saskatoon berry jelly took two months to turn to jelly. I was certain I’d failed and would be using the pretty purple liquid as grape syrup for pancakes, or something, when I happened to pick up the jar I’d stuck in the fridge (half-full; I ended up filling 5 and 1/2 half-pint jars) and saw that the liquid was gelling. I literally ran up the stairs calling, “The jelly is jellying!” This qualifies for high entertainment in our house, I guess, because the kids and Kevin were just about as excited as I was. They should really inform you of this timelapse jelling effect somewhere in the recipe. I had the candy thermometer out, to ensure I’d reached prime jelling temperature (220 degrees, in case you’re interested; hmmm, I guess that’s Celsius), and kept lifting the wooden spoon staring at it with faint hope of seeing some “sheeting” action. Kevin was hauled in to evaluate: “This looks like dripping to me–does it look like dripping to you?” “Yes, it looks like dripping.” Finally, thinking I’d misunderstood the instructions, I just gave up and poured the hot syrup into the jars.
Long story, not short, I’m afraid.
I write these posts in the kitchen, and am beginning to suspect that’s skewing the content. I should be running a kitchen show. A kitchen show for people who want to learn how to cook from someone who doesn’t know what she’s doing.
That’s my time. Baby CJ’s livid in the living-room, and the kids are still upstairs pattering about on not-so-innocent little pittering feet.
Saturday, Sep 13, 2008 | Recipes |
Alright, so I’m trying out the casual canning thing, putting to use those just-in-case lids. Last night I spent about two and a half hours making two canners of grape juice–14 quart jars. Grape juice should be put into larger jars, but I’m working with what’s kicking around the basement, and we can dilute it later. This necessary canning was put into motion by Nina’s spray-free local grape offer, and her suggestion that canning grape juice is particularly easy (which it is, in the realm of things canned). You wash the grapes, scald the jars, drop a cup or so of washed grapes into said jars, add a bit of sugar (1/3 cup, in my case; I would have preferred to go sugar-free, but couldn’t find a google or Ball Book answer on whether the sugar brings important preservative qualities to the mix). Pour boiling water over grapes and sugar, leave 1/4 inch space, screw on lids, process for 10 minutes. Repeat. Till jars run out or weariness overtakes you. It was the latter last night. I couldn’t believe how many grapes were still left by midnight.
Woke this morning, having dreamed of jars and grapes all night, resolved to fill the rest of the quart jars in the basement; but even after achieving this, the grape piles had scarcely abated. So I looked up some grape jelly recipes; I’ve got loads of half-pint jam jars. It looks easy … Take three-and-a-half pounds of grapes, wash, remove stems, toss into pot with 1/2 cup water, crush, simmer for 10 minutes, strain out juice. That’s how far I’ve gotten this morning. My Ball Book recipe calls for clarifying the juice over a 24-hour period, but I’m skipping that step. Next up, I’m going to boil the juice (about 4 cups) with 3 cups of sugar (!!!) till it gels, then pour into the hot, sterilized jars, and process for 5 minutes. Makes about 4 jars, apparently. But how will I know when it gels?
Ah, when it “sheets” off the spoon. All is made clear.
Dubious gelling intelligence aside, when this stage of the project is complete, at least I’ll have cleared the counter and fridge of grapes. And anything with that much sugar will appeal to small children regardless of texture. And the grape juice jars look particularly pretty, all jeweled fruit and rich-coloured juice. But I still have the Saturday chores to get to … the vacuuming, the bathrooms, the general pick-up, the odds and ends Kevin wants a chance to get to. Nothing pressing, however.
Except maybe a cup of coffee. Yes, be it resolved: while the jam gels, and the baby naps, and Kevin and the kids “clean” the basement, Carrie shall enjoy a cup of coffee.
I must also report that canning definitely feels more casual this second time around. I’ve got the tools, I know the timeframe. I’m realizing it would have been almost as easy to have canned my homemade ketchup and saved some room in the freezer. One person could can a heck of a lot just by setting aside two to three hours every evening during the peak harvest season. I’m not saying it would be fun or anything, and let’s not bother to calculate the time-cost, but a lot could get stuck into jars quite efficiently during those 2-3 hours … if one had the inclination and the fortitude and one’s children were not early-risers and one didn’t have a baby waking to nurse all night long. I’m a night owl anyway, so I foresee this as a future occupation. Late-night canning.
Wednesday, Aug 27, 2008 | Kids, Recipes |
So the tomatoes arrived. And I dealt with them. That’s the short story. The longer version involves me questioning (on multiple occasions yesterday) why the heck I’d ever thought to pre-order two bushels of tomatoes this past April. In my defence, I’d just given birth. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation.
Despite imagining myself prepared to can, I discovered almost immediately upon returning home with these masses of tomatoes that I had no new lids; or, more precisely, the new lids that I did have (see–I knew I had lids!) were an odd size, which is probably why they were hanging around unused in our basement. My knowledge of canning is admittedly limited, but I do know the lids need to be new. So after a fabulously delicious and simple supper of hamburgers (local), sliced tomatoes, and corn on the cob (CSA), I sent Kevin and kids on a walk uptown to find lids. And bottled lemon juice, which I also discovered I lacked. While they were out, I washed the dishes, and the jars, and set up the canner on the stove, along with another large pot of simmering water for loosening the tomato skins, a small pot of simmering water for the lids, and a pot of cold water nearby for cooling the tomatoes before removing their skins. And I filled the kettle. And started washing the tomatoes. Our kitchen renovation makes all of this set-up ridiculously easy. There’s room for everything, and I didn’t even have to clear the island of the day’s extra collected junk (A’s pocket flashlight; receipts; two containers of driveway tomatoes, et cetera).
By the time Kevin and kids returned home, I’d already filled several jars with whole and halved, skinned and cored tomatoes. He’d found one packet of lids in the entire grocery store. So that put a limit on the amount I could can. I wasn’t that sad, actually. Also, the store had no bottled lemon juice, so he’d brought home some lemons. In fairly short order, I filled seven quart jars, topped each with a teaspoon of salt and two tablespoons of fresh lemon juice (hope that’s okay), attempted to remove air bubbles (huh??) with a rubber spatula, fished the hot lids out with a magnetic thingamabob made precisely for this one purpose, screwed on the lids, and stuck the jars in my simmering canner. I followed directions in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Home Canning and Freezing, and canned the jars for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, I filled another seven jars. That makes it sound effortless. How can I conjure for you the mess this was making of my kitchen. Note to self: do not wear a white shirt while canning tomatoes!!! (Noted far too late in the process to bother changing).
The kids were about, of course, and decided they would like a sleepover in A’s room. They admired my work and chattered endlessly, and I nursed baby CJ off to sleep while Kevin handled virtually all of the bedtime prep: snacks, baths, flossing. I knew I’d do two canners-full and freeze the rest, so basically I just kept on skinning and coring, skinning and coring. I had the skinning down to a science. The skins really do slip right off after the tomato’s been dunked in hot water, and this saves skimming the skins off whatever you’re cooking at some later date.
The kids refused to fall asleep. Baby CJ woke up screaming. As a result, the first batch was in the canner much longer than the suggested 45 minutes. What was I thinking?? Do we need these tomatoes? Yes, they’re organic, and yes, they won’t have to sit in cans lined with bisphenol-A plastic; but. So baby CJ eventually nursed back to sleep. It was after 10pm by that point, and I was still faced with a bushel and a quarter of raw tomatoes. Kevin stayed up painting with me, and on and on we went at a positively feverish working pace. I spent the last hour or so fantasizing about sitting down on the couch with a beer. Or even just taking a quick bathroom break. My heart sank at every squeak from the baby monitor. But twelve large freezer bags later, I was done! I decided to stuff the freezer bags completely full and resolved to make giant batches of fresh tomato sauce this fall and winter. If I hold myself to one batch per week, I’ll have enough in the freezer for close to three months. And with the fourteen jars (though one didn’t pop) … well, it’s something.
Sitting on the couch with Kevin after midnight, I decided this would be my last canning attempt of the season. First and last. Yes, I’d love to make pickle relish, and can peaches, but I have to accept that I have a not-quite-five-month-old baby, and therefore that I cannot be up past midnight very often and live to tell the tale. The only concentrated time I have available to do this kind of work is after the kids fall asleep. So next year. I still intend to continue filling the freezer (one is already full, thank you tomatoes), but in smaller batches. For example, yesterday I also packed a pile of chopped fresh basil into an ice cube tray, which took a matter of minutes.
So, on this note–do I order the half bushel of peaches I’d been planning to from Nina’s buying club? I think I will anyway. Do peaches freeze? Or maybe peach freezer jam?
Yesterday afternoon, the kids were playing “Little House,” a game based on the Little House series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder which we are reading right now (we have gotten to Little Town on the Prairie). AB was Laura, leading around her older brother, who was blind Mary. At one point, Laura demanded that “Ma” give her some work to do, so I suggested she get the clothes off the line for me. I didn’t have time to check up on that project, which got derailed at some point by a million crows who were “attacking, attacking!” (“Mary” was most enthusiastic about this plotline). It was past midnight when I remembered the two loads of clothes still hanging outside; but when I went out to check, here my little Laura had gotten every stitch off the line and into an overflowing basket. So there you go. She was entirely helpful, and it was one less chore I needed to do last night.
Now it’s nearly time for swim lessons. Off for my daily run. “Mommy might not be able to talk to you when we get to the end of this block,” I told the kids yesterday. “I’ll be puffing like an old train engine.” A told me at the end of the block that I was indeed puffing, but not like a train engine; he did not elaborate.
Tuesday, Aug 19, 2008 | Kids, Recipes |
Another late night. Kevin and I decided to watch the men’s triathalon in full, and were we ever glad we did. Simon Whitfield won gold for Canada in this event in Sidney, but that seems like awhile ago now (I still remember watching the replay of his win, sitting on our tiny green Ikea couch in our miniature cat-hair-infested apartment near the Danforth in Toronto; pre-children). Our commentators had built up Simon as a medal hopeful for these games, but I tend to take these Canadian medal hopeful predictions with a big grain of salt. (“If she performs a personal best here, she’s got an outside chance at a medal, Ron.”)
We saw the race from beginning to end. According to the commentators, Simon has really improved on his swim since winning the gold in 2000; after winning gold, do you really need to improve on anything? In the bike race, there was a huge pack, but fortunately no crashes, and no one really got away. It’s the running race where Simon excels, and every step of the way, he stayed with the leader pack. The male commentator kept counting him out, doubting him: “I don’t like the way Simon’s running right now. His shoulders look stiff. He’s falling behind here. He can’t let these leaders get away from him or his race is over.” Et cetera. And every time Simon would push on and there he’d be–up with the pack again. The pack gradually dropped people till it was only four. “Oh no, not fourth,” Kevin said (we’ve seen a few great performances that ended in Canadian fourths). With a kilometre left, Simon fell off the pace and it looked completely impossible. And then–there he was again, and pushing into his sprint, past all of them and into the lead! Kevin and I were on our feet trying to run the race for him. He was overtaken by a big young German in the last 50 metres, but crossed the line in second, and looked like he couldn’t have taken another step. It was sure hard to get to sleep after that. Midnight, and baby CJ had another rough night. But totally worth it.
Just as I was writing this, I got to watch Alexandre Despatie win silver in diving. AND a daring 21-year-old Canadian trampolinist win silver. AND an unknown, unexpected Canadian hurdler win bronze: Priscilla Lopes-Schliep (sp?). Okay, so the medals are exciting. I’ll admit it. But why? And why claim these athletes as my own? Somebody’s done a thesis on this, I expect.
Yesterday I made paste for an art project. Thought I’d include the recipe here. I haven’t let the kids use glue for ages because inevitably the bottle gets emptied in one crazy “project,” like “Glue Lake on Blue Construction Paper.” This homemade paste is supposed to last forever. I’m keeping it in the fridge. I didn’t have the oil of cloves (what is that??) the original recipe called for.
Paste for Children’s Play (from MCC’s More-With-Less Cookbook):
Combine in a double boiler: 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 4 cups water. That’s it. Stir and cook till thickened, then stir in 1 tbs alum to preserve.
Mine came out lumpy, but there were some distractions while preparing it, the main one being I was trying to make paste for an art project that was already in full swing, so impatience was a factor. It worked, though. Things got stuck together.
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