Random Thoughts on a Friday

1. Sometimes having a migraine is good for you. In my case, I had a massive headache yesterday and when I lay down to rest a bit, I got the most brilliant idea for a new story! A day later, the idea is still a good one so I know it will “take.”

2. Sometimes letting go of your ego is good for your work. Since my last book was published three years ago, I’ve written five complete manuscripts, two of which have gone out on submission and failed to spark enough interest to be purchased. My pride was bruised, admittedly, and I only wanted a third book published. But now I want an awesome book published, not just good but great. I want to break out and be noticed, not merely “acquired.” Therefore I will not rush this book to my agent but take the time to craft it and if she thinks it needs more work, then I will do that.

3. Sometimes putting cocoa powder in the mix is good for your muffins. While baking banana nut muffins for a co-worker (and Mo), I added several tablespoons of cocoa powder (the unsweetened kind not hot chocolate mix) and they turned out yummier than ever! This happens to be fantastic recipe that I got from Saffron Hut's blog. Here's the link so you can make them yourself. Don’t forget to add cocoa! And be generous with the nuts.

"Would you ever eat one of those cakes?"

"Oh heavens no..."

One of my favorite shows is The Simpsons, long may it reign on Sunday nights, and one of my very favorite episodes involved Bart sitting with Mrs. Skinner after he's done a chore for her and is waiting to be paid. I think she pays him in ribbon candy. Anyway, she's showing him an album of photos of cakes that she's cut out of magazines and cookbooks. He asks her if she ever ate any of those cakes and she replies, "Oh heavens no..."

This is a long way of saying that I loooooove reading recipes in magazines, cookbooks, newspapers, and online but I never make any of them. I love pictures too, especially when the cooks show the ingredients and steps they take, not merely the finished product. I love watching cooking shows on television, especially PBS which has loads of old Julia Child-Jacques Pepin episodes. I love travel shows that involve cooking like Anthony Bourdain and Man Vs. Food. I love Gordon Ramsay's shows like Kitchen Nightmares (the British version is best) and Hell's Kitchen and I love reading restaurant reviews, even for places in cities and countries I will never visit. Ever. In my life.

But I rarely make anything more sophisticated than pasta with vegetables. I don't eat meat or cream sauces or dessert. And most nights of the week, I have a salad because I get home from class very late and don't want anything heavy before bed.

So why on earth am I a voyeur when it comes to food? I don't know. But here is a link to one of my very favorite recipe blogs, Smitten Kitchen. I actually did use a recipe from this site, a muffin recipe, I believe, and they came out great. Love the pictures, too.

Thanksgiving = Pie Time

A holiday of giving, yes? So my gift to you all is a brand new pie crust recipe. Please, please, your thanks is enough, no need to send me money...

I really only cook one thing well. Fortunately, it's an apple pie and who in their right mind doesn't love apple pie? Even I love it and I am not a sweets person (some would even say I'm not a sweet person either but that's kind of a mean thing to say, don't you think?).

I have used the same pie crust for years...years, I tell you! My mother gave me the recipe and it involves white vinegar and eggs and refrigerating for hours and although it does come out deliciously well, it's also time-consuming and fraught with danger.

So imagine my huge, happy surprise when I found a very, very simple pie crust recipe in my old Betty Crocker cookbook, one my late grandmother gave me when I got married. I didn't have nearly the right ingredients for my mother's recipe so this one seemed a decent attempt. I had a couple of people taste test it for me (thanks to HH and Yooli who volunteered their taste buds) and it was declared a winner!

Here I am making the pie:

And what it looks like before it goes in:

And what it looks like when it's finished:

Flaky and light and so very yummy. I was so impressed with this recipe and I'll use it again today to make a second one for my Thanksgiving guests (since my testers polished off half of it last night! Guess that means it was pretty good!).

So here it is. Use it for a 2 crust pie and fill with apples or other fruit or maybe banana cream or chocolate pudding. The possibilities are endless!

2/3 cup plus 2T shortening (like Crisco but I used an organic kind)
1t salt
2C flour
5T cold water

Cut shortening into flour and salt until coarse and crumbly. Add water by T until dough pulls from sides and can be formed into a ball. Then evenly split into 2 balls, roll out, and voila, you have 2 crusts for a pie.

Home Ec Flashbacks

At the first junior high I attended back in the Stone Age, both girls and boys were required to take home ec and shop classes. At the second one I attended, I was in the gifted program and we didn't have anything like that. And at the third, only girls took home ec while only boys enrolled in shop.

What strikes me odd about this is that the first school was in a very rural area of Pennsylvania, the second a suburban town near Philadelphia and the third was in a fairly progressive and liberal-minded town in Connecticut.

So I did learn a bit of wood and metal shop techniques but I spent most of my time in home ec, learning how to measure things in cups and ounces while the the rest of the world was using liters. I also learned to use a sewing machine and follow a pattern in that third school, which was fine and fun until I chose the same material for my final project that the most popular girl in my class did and everyone thought I had copied her.

(Ah but where is Popular Girl now? Last time I saw her she was drunk and flirting with my husband at our high school reunion...wear that dress well, sweetheart.)

The best part of home ec was the cooking. Remember, this was education for the public school students; nothing fancy, nothing complex, no super-costly items in the recipes. Everyone had to be able to cook something. I was reminded of them recently at a writers' group I attended when a woman showed up with a batch of cookies that caused me to go into flashback mode. So I thought I'd dig up some old recipes.

Forgotten Cookies
2 egg whites, room temp.
1 (6 oz.) bag mini-chocolate chips
2/3 c. sugar
1 c. chopped pecans (can add more if desired)

Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Slowly add sugar and beat until sugar is dissolved and mixture is stiff. Fold in chocolate chips and pecans. Drop by teaspoonfuls on aluminum foil lined cookie sheet. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put cookies in oven, close door and turn off oven. Leave cookies in oven overnight and do not open oven door.

And in the morning, you have cookies!

Marshmallow Crescent Puffs
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
16 marshmallows
1/4 cup margarine
2 cans crescent dinner rolls
powdered sugar icing
1/4 cup chopped nuts

Combine sugar and cinnamon. Dip marshmallows in melted margarine, roll in sugar and cinnamon mixture. Wrap a crescent roll triangle around each completely covered marshmallow and squeezing edges of dough tightly to seal. Dip in margarine; place in muffin pan. Put on foil and bake at 375 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately remove. Drizzle with icing. Sprinkle with nuts.

Perfect for Thanksgiving!

Random Thoughts on a Friday

The easiest and yummiest brownies ever!

My gift to you on this Friday morning is a semi-homemade recipe for brownie muffins. Ever watch that show on Food Network, Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee? I don't have cable but whenever I'm visiting my family or staying in a hotel, I'm always happy when her show comes on. She does things like making Turkey Tacos with Kraft Mac-n-Cheese or Corn Bread Stuffing with a bag of seasoned frozen veggies. Complete awesomeness!

Anyway, in that vein of food goodness, here is my very own semi-homemade brownie recipe:

1 package No-Pudge Original Fudge Brownie Mix
1 container Raspberry Soy Yogurt (smooth, no fruit bits)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 handful of raw pecan bits

--Heat the oven to 350 degrees (do NOT preheat the oven as this makes no sense; you either heat it or you don't).
--Spray muffin tin with butter-flavored nonstick cooking spray (like Pam or something).
--Mix up the ingredients in a large bowl until the batter is shiny.
--Spoon batter into cups evenly.
--Bake 25 minutes.

After cooling, the brownies will slide easily from the tin after you loosen them ever-so-slightly from the tray with a metal spatula. Enjoy warm or cooled, with ice cream or plain. They have a slight raspberry flavor and are supremely moist and chewy. HH loves them! The only thing I never liked about the basic recipe was that they were so difficult to cut into; the moistness actually prevented them from being sliced properly so using the muffin tin solved that problem! Just remember not to cook them for as long as you would a pan of brownies or else they will be too dry on the edges. Makes one dozen.

Happy eating!