A Mouse in the Pantry

Chocolate Peppermint Spritz Cookies and bitterness

There is nothing quite like the holidays to bring out the best in everyone.

This last weekend we got our tree.  A grand 7-foot beauty with one massive ring around it's middle with no branches.  My son chose it because it had excellent places to stash large objects. I laughed all the way to pay for it and all the way home.  It's a sight.

So this last Sunday we invited our dearest little friend over to help us decorate the tree while her mom was out and about. Bea (as we'll call her) was very helpful in unpacking and organizing the ornaments on our floor.  How exciting to look through someone else's life history, particularly when so much of it is glittering and full of snowmen.

I watched as I lost control yet again over our tree. Yes, this is a very debbie-downer moment in this blog.  I am a tree control freak and my husband takes time to point that out every year.  He accuses me of micro-management.  I fuss and fume and reject this notion that I am overly involved. And then, on schedule, I surrender control and feel horrible. Hmm, I have begun to think this is his ploy.

And this year the accusations turned into small arguments, into tussles, into an all out family brawl in front of little miss Bea. She watched in amazement. There is no dad at her house to argue with mom. We were like some strange alien family who took christmas ornaments way to seriously.

"Oh 1978! Look Mr. Coast Guard, another of YOUR ornaments, why don't you find a place for it!" I said.

Bea watched.

"Whats your problem Grumpy Wife? Throw them out if you don't like my ornaments" He said

Bea eyed the 1978 ornaments to see if there were any keepers to score.  Any with glitter were definitely NOT going in the trash on her watch.

"I'm not throwing them out, I'm just saying, this is YOUR tree every year.  What about US, what about OUR kids." I say.

Bea leans in close to whisper to me, "He's not in a very good mood, is he?". Three points to Bea for joining my team.

"Look, sweetheart, why are you riding me about this?" he throws out there.

Bea looks at me.

"Oh, oh, oh... WHY am I riding you? WHY? you ask" I'm now fuming.

And here's where it hit me. It dates back to the first year we were married.  We were wed four days before Christmas and in all the hustle and bustle and joining of families and traditions and travel, we still managed to get a tree up in our little apartment. When all the ruckus had ended and January was at our doorstep, we went to put our ornaments away and drag the tree outside with the wedding gift boxes and holiday leftovers.

I picked up one foreign ornament after another, examining them carefully, breathing in my husbands childhood. His Mom kept him well stocked with bits and baubles from his past. Happy memories he took with him from coast to coast with his job.  I had only a few ornaments of my own.  I was young and probably only needed a small shoebox to hold them all.

"What are you doing?" he asked when he walked in the door of our apartment.

"Putting the ornaments away" I said as I wrapped each one and tucked them into a tupperware I had picked up.

We had been married for 11 days.

"Oh" He said.

"What?" I said.

"Well, I was thinking, maybe we could wrap my ornaments  up separately? You know, store them in their own box." He said this so casually that you might not have seen the dart that flew from the tree and pierced my heart with a tiny drop of poison, if you didn't look carefully.

I cried. I unpacked the box and put mine into a the old shoebox.  I, after all, had very few in comparison to him and he needed the space.

We fought. We fought long and hard. I called his mother to tell her what he had asked, and she gasped in pain for me.  I love her.

Back to 2009.  We have since stopped putting the ornaments away separately.  There have been too many Christmas that he missed completely while away on one of his big ships. I mostly handle the clean up and tucking away, and I ran out of energy for all this stubborn doing it just because.  But each year, when I begin to decorate our tree, and this year in front of Bea, I am a little hurt. And we get a little mad. And I think we better find some more ornaments just for us. Perhaps, just perhaps, I need to give one ornament marked 1978 to a certain 6 year old girl I know (if my mother-n-law doesn't mind too much).

Chocolate Mint Spritz
Makes 5 dozen

1 ¼ cups unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon mint extract/flavoring
¼ teaspoon salt
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup crushed candy cane
Confectioners sugar for dusting

 
Preheat oven to 375°F.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment cream butter and sugars at medium high speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add vanilla and mint and beat briefly.
Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add flour mixture gradually to butter and beat well.

Scoop a small amount of the dough from bowl and form into a small log.  Place in cookie press. Press cookies onto cool ungreased baking sheets. Sprinkle carefully with a few bits of candy cane – making sure not to get any on the baking sheet!

Bake for 9-10 minutes, or until just beginning to turn golden brown around the edges. Remove from sheet and cool. Dust with powdered sugar.

Copyright 2009 Meloni Courtway.  All rights reserved.  Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Homemade cranberry sauce - because you can!

Oh come on, you know you want to make it this year. If you feel any love for Mouse in the Pantry, PLEASE put away the canned sauce and whip out a bag of real berries!

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

2  12ounce bags fresh cranberries
2 oranges 1 zested, both juiced
1 stick cinnamon
3 cups sugar
1 cup water (maybe a bit more if you are going to let it simmer for several hours)


In a medium sized pot combine cranberries, cinnamon stick, sugar the zest of one orange and the juice from both oranges. You can also add the whole leftover skins of the zested and juiced oranges to the mix at this point and just remove them after the cranberry sauce is done. Stir mixture and turn on  low on the back of the stove and cover.  Let simmer until berries begin to pop. You can turn it to a very low setting at this point and let it simmer till it thickens.  Or, just turn it off and let sit on the back of the stove for a few hours.
Enjoy

Pumpkin Pie from scratch

It wouldn't be the holidays without a few recipes.  So if you're out their searching for a little thanksgiving flavor, here is a great (and completely from scratch) recipe for Pumpkin pie - but you better get started today roasting those pumpkins!

Roasting Sugar Pumpkins

1 to 2 sugar pie pumpkins
Double layer cheese cloth
Rimmed sheet pan

*Select firm dark skinned sugar pumpkins.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly grease a rimmed baking sheet with olive oil.

Slice each pumpkin in half.  Remove seeds and pulp.  Lay pumpkins open side down on pan.  Place in oven, and pour water around pan until it is 1/2 inch deep.
Bake for 35-50 minutes or until pumpkin can be easily pierced with a knife.

Cool pumpkins before scooping meat from skin. 

Using a double layer of cheese cloth, wring the pumpkin meat out over a large bowl to remove excess fluid.  Puree drained meat in a food processor for 2 minutes to make smooth.

Store pumpkin in refrigerator for two days or in freezer for 3 months.

Each small sugar pumpkin will provide 1-2 cups pumpkin meat

Sugar Pumpkin Pie
By Meloni Courtway

2 cups fresh pumpkin (or 1-15oz can pumpkin puree)
3 large eggs
½ cup heavy whipping cream
½ cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1-teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
Pinch of salt

Egg Wash: 1 egg white & two tablespoons cold water whisked together in a small bowl.

 


1.    Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2.    Grease and lightly flour a 9-inch pie tin or dish.

3.    In a large bowl whisk eggs slightly. Add pumpkin, milks and spices and whisk again.  Set aside while preparing dough.

4.    Working on a lightly floured surface, roll out ½ recipe pate brisee in a ¼ inch thick round.  The dough should be roughly the width of a #2 pencil eraser.

5.    Working with cold hands, lift the dough into your prepped pie dish. Press gently into dish, making sure to make contact all over tin.

There are several ways to address the edges of your pie:

6.    Fluted edge: Trim dough, leaving 1½ inches of overhang.  Again working with cold, and lightly floured hands, fold the outer edge of the dough under itself and tuck into edge of dish.  Using your thumb and index finger of one hand and the index finger of the other hand, crimp the entire edge of the dough into fluted shape.  Chill dough for 10 minutes to firm up.

7.    Decorative edge: Trim dough to edge of pie tin, only leaving a ¼ inch overhang.  Using various dough cutters, or mini leaf shaped cutters make several cutouts (This ca even be creatively done with the edge of another larger cookie cutter). Using an egg wash, lightly brush edge and firmly apply cutouts.

8.    Pour pumpkin mixture into dough, only filling to just below fluted edge, as the custard will expand.

9.    Using a pastry brush, brush entire crust with egg wash.

10.    Bake for 40-50 minutes or until crust is browned and filling is set.  A knife inserted in center will come out clean. Chill completely before serving.

Serve with homemade whipped cream:

1-cup heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
1-teaspoon bourbon vanilla
In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine all ingredients. Whip on medium high speed until stiff peaks form. Keep chilled until serving.





Copyright 2008 Meloni Courtway.  All rights reserved.  Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Real Sour Dough!

Success!
Three weeks and several bags of flour later, a success! 
It's all in the sponge folks.  You know, the sponge! Oh come on, I'm sure you've scoured cookbooks looking for a deeper understanding of bread baking, right? Oh, well, let me enlighten you then.

It all starts with some yeast.  Wild yeast.  Wild yeast that I captured on my counter top using my best wrangler moves.  It was smelly yeast, but you already knew that.

Then the yeast wanted to become bread.  But the bread, it was eluding me.  Oh I made loaves.  I made loaf, after loaf, after loaf. Each a little bit more bread like then the one before. I wasn't sure what the magic trick was to making bread from wild yeast, but I could see this little glimmer at the end of the tunnel.  It was out there I could get it.
And then, on Sunday night last, I mixed up one more sponge.  The sponge is the like the incubator for yeast.  With  about 1 1/2 cups of starter, 3 cups of warm water and enough flour (maybe 3or 4 cups) of flour to make a pasty dough, it sits, for hours,and hours...and hours.  This sponge, sitting near the pilot light, loosely covered in saran, begins to bubble and move.

On Monday morning I should have been adding more flour, oil and salt, and beginning to form loaves.  Instead, life happened and the sponge sat too long.  Or did it? 12 hours later (24 after beginning the sponge), I successfully pulled off a bonafied sourdough bread!!!

I'm not done.   Oh no, success is too sweet.  I am feeding and growing my starter in the fridge, creating new sponges. I'm still baking.

On that note, if anyone has some information on forming a good bubbly blistery crust, I'm looking to make some leaps and bounds in that area!
Below are some fo my triumphs, however small (and a lot of failures).

Start: Phase 2

The first stage of my homemade sourdough starter was easy enough.  I mixed one cup whole wheat white flour with 1 cup water.  Stirred with a wooden spoon until a dough began to form, added a little more flour and needed my little ball of dough for just about two minutes.  That's it.  Then, I carefully made evil eyes at my significant other, who was already eying my latest bread creation.  "Don't touch it!" I said clearly, as I put the dough in small bowl and covered it in a wet cloth.  "Now, we wait.  Do you know what waiting is?" I said snidely.

Two days later I checked the dough.  There was a thick brown crust on top.  When I pulled it back, there was this stringy mass of smelly bubbles (pictured here).  It was ready to be fed.  A little hand full of flour, and some water to reform another ball of dough.  The smell immediately began to get better and it was back to the counter with the wet cloth to wait for more action.  I was capturing wild yeast.  "How exciting and scientific" I thought.

Yesterday when I got home, with kids screaming, dog pouncing, mail waiting, floor looking suspiciously dirty, garbage over flowing, laundry spilling forth, lunch pending, emails piling,  and then..."Oh God, who stepped in Dog doo!"

The smell was atrocious.  I looked around from the computer?  "Not under my feet."  Over by the door? (the first place it would have been trailed in) Nope.  I made the boys prop up their feet for inspection.  I made the dog prop up his feet for inspection.  All clear.  Ugh, it was here somewhere.  Did the dog do "it" in the house???

Like a hound I traced the smell from room, to room, to the kitchen.  "It's in here!" I proclaimed victorious. I checked the overflowing garbage can, the fridge (well, you never know?), my feet again...  The starter? 

Oh yes, my sweet "yeasty" dough had actually more of a gym sock/dog dookie aroma going on for it.  According to the recipe I had been following - it was ready.  "Holy cow, how did the Gold Miners rely on this?" I said with my nose turned up to the hubs who was thrilled with my disgust.  "Because they had too!" he so smartly pointed out.

And so it was, San Francisco Sourdough putrid enough to feed a whole camp of gold miners, may have been born by some cowboys checking the bottoms of their boots.

Let's hope that the next phase brings a little more of what I like to find at the bakery!

Start

There is something about wintertime that gets the mixing bowls buzzing in the kitchen.  It could be the oven roaring to life and the soothing hisses of its gas.  It could be the instinctual need to pack on the pounds, avoiding death by gaining weight??? (wouldn't it be great if a nice hearty farm wife stature was still appreciated?).  It may be that gardening is not really "seasonal" and so we are left with tending to our pantry and not our soil so much.

Bread is big around our house.  Usually it's the hubs who gets a hankering for some hand-turned dough.  I often avoid anything risen, because frankly, it takes too much time.  This last week though, loaf after loaf has come steaming hot from the oven stone, baking pan, or loaf tin, and dinner time has been rich with heavy yeasty conversation.

There have even been incidents of starter dough being stolen by a spouse.  A project intercepted.  Like a toddler can't avoid sticking their hands in the gallon of wet paint, one of our homes bread bakers could not resist putting their own twist on the bread! Oh well, maybe i'll get to bake something by myself soon.

Pictured above is the beginning of this years first sourdough starter.  Lucky we are to live in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Here a strain of special yeast, indigenous to this area, swarm through the air.  The process of sourdough may have a bit of long drawn out start, but with the help of the local winds, you too can have that yummy sour goodness right in your own home.

For those who don''t live in or near San Francisco, sourdough can still be delightfully rich and tangy.  The recipe on this web-site (follow this link), calls for yeast as a bit of a kick-start, and your dough too can evolve to greatness.

What's up with all the cupcakes?

I am all about cute.  Cupcakes are cute. In fact according to just about every food blog, magazine and TV show right now cupcakes are the cutest darn things that ever were born.

What is the deal? Honestly, I hate to be a doubting Thomas, but are cupcakes really so phenomenal that they will hold a specific period claimed as their own in culinary history?

Really? Because if I'm not mistaken cupcakes have been around for a long time and only by a slight chic renovation are they so popular currently.  They are cake. Tiny cakes to be sure, but cake with a blob of frosting, and if you've ever tried to transport a tray of cupcakes, you know they are not particularly friendly to the backseat of your car! And that my friends, is what is not so cute! Over-saturation and a mess.

I am calling the cupcake bluff once and for all. I give them one more year, tops, as the cream of the culinary sugarfied crop. Did you hear that cupcake authorities? A year.

Look, I have no problem with a cupcake or two in my life. I have even been known to make batch in my time, but what raises them to this obsessive new bar? Why?

As I have pondered the cupcakes new found celebrity over the last week or two (this may be because of a certain five year olds pending birthday party) I have also began researching.

Who's making them? Everyone.

Who's photographing and talking about them? Everyone and their mother!

This week Martha Stewart's live show has dedicated itself to the art of cupcake making, including showcasing some cupcake bloggers on air. This screams huge to me, the obsession is real, people want to master cupcakes.

But, just as we have mastered the perfect chocolate chip cookie (thanks Neiman Marcus), obsessed over gelato when it first hit it big, frolicked in a fondue wonderland in the 70's, and were dazzled by ice cream cakes in the 80's (don't lie, you know you thought Baskin Robins 32 flavors were hipper than your bad self), cupcakes are just that - cake. Fondue is just cheese, and gelato - dare I say it - is just ice cream.

Ok, so in the past I have admitted that I am not the hugest cake fan on the face of the earth, much more of a pie girl myself. But cupcakes lend themselves to the worst qualities of a cake. They can have too much frosting, or too little. They are often left a bit dry, as timing is never quite perfect when paired down from the original 9 inch round, and excuse me, but did I ask for lavender in my cupcake? I think not.

I must walk away from this blog with an understanding with you dear readers that I don't hate cupcakes, no, in fact I've had a good one or two in my life. But cupcakes are not french pastries, their not delicate Thai custards, their cake, plain old, served up with macaroni and cheese, and side of baby carrots, cake.

And as long as we can call a spade a spade I'm in.

Once in a Blue Moon

I have four siblings. Three brothers, one little sister, one longtime sister-n-law and a gaggle of nephews and a niece. Birthdays tend to sweep in during the year and grab hold, often when everyone has little time.  This last week, the youngest of our brood celebrated the passing of another year. Sadly it fell on a night of work for her and the same for the rest of her sibs.

So we postponed until the weekend, even though we usually do try to throw a birthday dinner the night of! (Dad thankfully swept her up midweek!)

"So, Muffin (her nickname), what kind of cake do you want?" I asked as the days drew nearer to the big night. As resident family baker, I do feel obliged to inquire.

"Safeway  cake!" She proudly proclaimed.

"No, really, I have time, what kind of cake? Chocolate, vanilla, banana...?" I replied. Must stop this Safeway business in its tracks.

"No, really Melon (my nickname), I want Safeway cake!" she said.

Safeway cake? Safeway cake...Was she kidding?

I am not a snob, or at least I try not to be, but Safeway cake? I am a baker for goodness sakes, the insult, the injury, but no! I was not offended, no, no, no, I was thrilled, one less thing on that weekends schedule!  But SAFEWAY CAKE!!! Ughhh....My least favorite naughty sweet in the entire world (next to twinkies and ho-hos) is the dreaded grocery store cake. All covered in shortening thats been whipped up with a nice dollop of corn syrup, and then given a shake or two of preservatives. Aghhhhhh.....

"A white one with vanilla frosting and those colorful sprinkles and stuff!" She dared to go on.

"No chocolate?" I said, but it was too late.

So, once in a blue moon we must do that which we don't agree with. We must give up our ideals for the sake of those we love. We must budge.

And I did. Big time!