Gadgets: Getting too fast?

When I was a little girl, helping out in the kitchen was one of the most fun “help mama” activities (topped only by sewing, of course). My memories contain remnants of the sensory experience: sticky hands, brown sugar-coated tongue, sunlight streaming through the windows, fresh-baked cookie scents, and, of course, the steady ka-chunk noise of the Kitchen Aid mixer. My mother swears by her Kitchen Aid, and has promised that my kitchen will never be incomplete because my own mixer will be her first gift to me on my wedding day.

The Kitchen Aid is an extremely useful tool. Its heavy base and thick gears manage to spin the densest doughs, and the plethora of attachments available simplifies many daunting cooking and baking endeavors. In our home kitchen, it stands out no more than the toaster, blender, or microwave. But where do gadgets cross the line from useful helpers to overachievers?

This New York Times Article explores the recent evolution of appliances, citing a toaster that poaches an egg as the bread is toasted. The NYT refers to America as a nation of “index-finger cooks”, and says that we enjoy the satisfaction that comes from making something, even and especially when that something requires little to no effort.

Housewares sales have been dropping in recent times, but small kitchen appliances have been selling very well lately. Microwave meals and frozen pizzas are convenient while retaining at least a scratch of that “i made it myself” feeling. But what are we losing when we give up being able to lick the batter off the beater?

One-button cuisine offers ready answers for cooks with not much time to spend in the kitchen and not much of a clue about what to do once they get there.

The orange Kitchen Aid mixer of my future kitchen might save my arms some strain, but it is by no means a one-button machine. I will still be measuring, sampling, and modifying during every bit of the baking process. And I most certainly will have a clue about what I’m doing, because I can hear my mother’s guidance right along with that distinctive Kitchen Aid stirring noise.

There is a boundary between those appliances that make kitchen tasks more enjoyable and those that take all of the work, pleasure, and process out of them. If more people started with Kitchen Aid mixers than toaster ovens complete with the “pizza bump”, I think we’d be witnesses to an entirely different food culture.

photo credit: http://www.squidoo.com/kitchenaid-artisan-mixers

[Via http://casefoodcraze.wordpress.com]

Yumeiro Patissiere Episode 24

What’s wrong with Kashino?

That’s the question all Yumeiro Patissiere fans asked themselves when they saw the preview to the new episode. Now, they will finally find out and I’ll just be here giving you little hints=). First of all it’s the semifinals of the Cake Grand Prix and Team Ichigo(the A group) is up against Kashino’s nightmare, the Heiresses’ s team. The good part though is that they’re supposed to make a chocolate cake with the theme of love which Kashino is supposed to have a high advantage in…..right? WRONG! Ever since Kashino heard of the theme for the A group’s next competition he’s been acting really weird and to make matters worse he’s even started fighting with Hanabusa-kun!

Find out if Team Ichigo passes or fails by watching it online now!

[Via http://sweettaffy.wordpress.com]

Home Cookin'

I like cooking, actually, but not every day.  That would make for too many dishes.  I like finding new recipes and trying different variations of old ones.  One thing that’s also great about home cooking is that I get to make things how I like them.  Everyone has their own style when it comes to making food.  Most of the people in my family (and extended family) cook too simply for my tastes.  A “spice rack” was a strange and foreign concept to me as a kid.  My parents’ cooking wasn’t terrible as I remember, and it certainly kept me sustained, but theirs is not a style I want to emulate.  I don’t consider myself a great chef by any means, but I think I’m a darn good one.

And if you’re interested in renaissance foods, why not pay a visit to Renaissance Fare, a blog my friend of mine made, dedicated to foods from ye olde times.

[Via http://anobi.wordpress.com]

My Grandmother's Galettes

The food: small iced cakes

The story:

My French-Canadian grandmother Alice lived with – and baked for – my family in Toronto during my tween and teen years, when my favourite after-school treat were the small, iced, cookie-shaped cakes she called galettes.

Oddly – or perhaps not, considering the complicated relationships, ties and connections between the English and French, especially when it comes to baking – the only place I ever found a cake similar to Alice’s galettes was in a small post office/shop in the English village of North Cave, in Yorkshire. During the summer of 1975, I spent a week or two there, working on a rescue excavation of a small archeological site – a sojourn I fictionalized and gave as back story to the main character in my novel The Restoration of Emily. A real-life detail I didn’t include in the novel was that the postmistress/proprietor of the store baked a few galette-like cakes every morning, so every morning my two dig mates and I stopped in at the shop so I could buy (and eat) some, which meant enduring her questions about how the three of us were related to each other, exactly, and what our sleeping arrangements were in the camper van we shared.

Years later, long after my grandmother had died, I tried and failed to find a recipe in books and online for her galettes, until I thought to check for French-Canadian recipes, written in French, and came across a site called Recettes de Quebec.

A search of the word ‘galettes’ at Recettes de Quebec yielded 109 results, mainly for cookies, including oatmeal, chocolate chip and pumpkin (pumpkin?). Nothing in the photos accompanying the recipes looked similar to my grandmother’s galettes except for the one that came with a recipe called Galettes à la crème sure submitted by one Claude Guertin.

I didn’t remember my grandmother using sour cream but the galettes in M. Guertin’s photo looked right (though they were not iced) so I translated the recipe, baked up a batch, iced them with a simple lemon vanilla glaze, and as Alice used to say, Voyons! – I had me some delicious, light, white, and moist galettes that might taste even better than the ones I once loved.

Lemon Iced Galettes, adapted from a recipe by Claude Guertin

2 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened

3/4 c. sugar

2 eggs, beaten

3/4 c. sour cream

1 tsp. vanilla

3/4 tsp. baking soda

3 tsp. baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

2. In large bowl, cream butter. Add sugar, egg, vanilla and sour cream. Mix.

3. In another bowl, mix flour, baking powder and baking soda.

4. Mix dry mixture with wet mixture. (Mixture will be sticky)

5. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, leaving room between each for the galettes to spread.

6. Bake at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes, or until a fork inserted in cakes comes up with no crumbs attached.

7. Let cool.

8. Ice with an icing made by mixing together 2 c. icing sugar, 4 – 5 T. milk, 1 tsp. vanilla and the zest of one lemon (or orange).

9. Serve with berries or cut-up orange sections.

Makes 16.

[Via http://hungrynovelist.wordpress.com]

Leek and Sorrel Custards

We were lucky to find ourselves with some of spring’s first vegetables from Persephone Farm, and I wanted to make something interesting to honor the eggs and ingredients. This recipe is loosely adapted from the delicious Local Flavors. It looks and tastes awfully fancy, but it was astoundingly easy to make! I think that it could be very flexible, as well. Stick with 1 cup sauteed vegetables and 4 oz of leafy greens and the dairy proportions. Let me know what you come up with!

serves 4, individual portions

1 cup chopped leeks

3 tbls. butter

4 ounces sorrel, chopped coarsely

1 kosher salt

1/2 cup cream

1/2 cup whole milk

3 eggs

ground white pepper

crumbled bacon for the top (optional)

1. Preheat your oven to 350F. Set a teapot of water on to heat.
2. Melt butter in skillet over medium-low. Use this melted butter to brush the insides of 4 half-cup ramekins.
3. Add the leeks to the remaining butter in the skillet. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for about 5 minutes.
4. Add the sorrel and 2 tbls. of water to the skillet. Stir around and cook until wilted, about 3 minutes. (The sorrel will begin to loose some of its lovely green color, but it will look fine in the end.)
5. Add milk and cream and stir. (You just want to heat this a little.)
6. Using an immersion blender, puree the mixture until it is your desired level of ’smooth.’ Add in the eggs and blend for just a tiny bit more. (I found it easiest to use the cylindrical container that came with my immersion blender.)
7. Set the ramekins in a glass baking pan. Fill with mixture. Pour hot water into the baking pan so that it comes almost to the top of the ramekin.
   
   
8. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the ramekins carefully with tongs.
9. Garnish with bacon.

Serve with fresh bread and garden salad with potato croutons.

[Via http://eatingsmallpotatoes.wordpress.com]

Dinner #4: Dirty Rice with blackeyed peas and cornbread

Today was another long day. Work until 4:30 then to Mom’s to make her some soup and check in on her. (She has bronchitis and is staying home tomorrow to hopefully get better!) Then home around 6:30. So, it was another quick meal night.

For the main dish I followed the boxed directions for Zatarain’s New Orleans style Dirty Rice Mix (30 min meal from a box). I did not add ground beef, I added a can of black eyed peas instead.

Of course you can’t have a rice based meal with black eyed peas and not make cornbread! (We do live in the South!) So I made cornbread. Not your everyday run-of-the-mill cornbread but cornbread with…you guessed it: fried onions!

2 cups White Lilly self-rising cornbread mix

1 egg

about 1 1/2 c. of buttermilk (I didn’t have buttermilk so I added 1 1/2 TBSP white vinegar to regular milk…let it sit for 5 min and you get clumpy sour milk…YUM)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp oil

1/2 cup of crushed fried onions

Heat your oven to about 425, and grease your cast iron or muffin pan.

Mix all ingredients together and  pour in. Cook for 20-30 min till browning on top.

Tonight it was served with a Mango Smirnoff Ice in the bathtub with Andy Stanley’s Choosing to Cheat.

Absolute perfection!

Happy Cooking!

[Via http://tamishields.wordpress.com]

Green Peas with Feta

Green Peas with Feta Ingredients:

• 1kg green peas
• 2-3 eggs
• 200ml cream
• butter
• 250gr feta cheese
• salt
• pepper

Instructions:

• Wash the green peas and boil in water with salt.
• Stray then put in a tray with butter
• Mix the cream with the eggs and raze feta cheese over it
• Put pepper and salt
• Mix everything and put in the oven 350C for 20 min.

[Via http://coooooking.wordpress.com]