Lots to Love

This weekend I'm pretty much having a nervous breakdown due to worry about my comprehensive exam essays which are due on Tuesday and my Chet who's moving in not weeks, but days now. He's trying to make it up to me with homemade cinnamon rolls. I think I'll let him.



The first time Chet and I talked on the phone after we met, he told me that he made really great bread and cinnamon rolls. I remember that conversation. He said that he was an aficionado of baked goods. I was cheering inwardly, glad that he wasn't one of those guys that doesn't like sweets, and thinking I could win him over with my desserts. Well, his cinnamon rolls can definitely stand on their own. They're out of my league.

He also let me borrow The Office, Spaced (five years, eight months, and three days!), and 30 Rock DVDs. I want to be Tina Fey when I grow up. Sigh. Back to work.

Local Fare

I never pass up an opportunity to heap praise on myself, so I'll divulge the news that I got first place for my white cake entry in this year's fair. I still think that white cake is far inferior to just about any other cake - chocolate, lemon, pound, coconut - except Angel Food cake, which is a cake at which I'll turn up my nose. It's another cake you make when you're stuck with some egg whites you need to use.



I did have one more fair entry. I made a batch of peanut butter cookies. Not much makes my PB cookie recipe different, except for the addition of extra peanuts and their jumbo size. The dough was delicious, but I was disappointed when they came out of the oven. They had run together on the baking sheet, which is the disaster of all disasters when it comes to baking cookies, right? They weren't very beautiful.

On top of that, when I went to turn in my cookies, the volunteer noted the jumbo size of my cookies and told me that next year the cookies cannot be larger than 2" in diameter. "Otherwise, we'll give you a knife so you can cut them down."

I would sooner take my cookies back and go home. "Great," I thought, "the judges have a preference for smaller cookies, and here I am with cookies on steroids. I should have used an alias."

My fears were unfounded. Maybe the judges are waiting until next year to decide that size matters. Maybe the bribe worked. Anyway, I got first place for the cookies. Here's a shot of almost all of the peanut butter cookie class. Mine are at the bottom right, looking very disheveled on the plate.



That's the end of my win streak at the fair, though, because if I'm still in Lubbock at this time next year, I'm going to throw myself off the Ferris wheel.

Last Saturday I went to Apple Country Orchards in Idalou for the annual Apple Butter Festival. It started out as a date idea for Chet and me. Then we decided to invite our moms. I called Mom Saturday morning to make sure she was still going. Yes, she was, and Dad wanted to come, too. She called back a few minutes later and said that everybody wanted to go. Hopefully that wasn't too much family time for Chet's mom.

I have good memories of going to the orchard to pick apples when I was younger. Mom picked us up after school in the Suburban, and we'd drive out. You have such a different concept of time when you're a kid. That drive to Idalou seemed so long, but it was probably only twenty or thirty minutes. We drove up FM 400 which passes through a canyon, which was exciting to us. Mom would get lost, and I'd probably be the only one of the kids who hadn't dozed off, so together we figured out where we missed the turn. While you pick at the orchard, it's all you can eat apples. Mmmm. The apples peeked out at us from underneath the tree leaves. We probably had to be told more than once not to pick the wormy ones. The autumn sun cast its inimitable shadow and the fall air remained cool. It made this farm girl think of harvest time. We would get apple cider slushes, and they also had a soft serve machine that dispensed an apple yogurt that was amazing. I haven't seen that in years, but they still have their fabulous bakery and delicious cider. A few years ago, I had a job in Idalou. There were a few times when I would drive to the orchard during lunch, buy a loaf of Apple Cake, eat the whole thing, and take a nap.

The orchard was already pretty crowded Saturday when we arrived. Lots of young marrieds and toddlers. Pretty WASPy. Different crowd than the fair, for sure. We grabbed some buckets on wheels and started picking apples. We found a few varieties. There were some pretty Holly apples. Other than that, the highlights were seeing a Horny Toad and me standing in an ant hill for a couple of minutes until I realized I was getting bitten by red ants. Farm girl, indeed.

Where the Competition Is Stiff but Sweet

It's time for the South Plains Fair to come to Lubbock again. I jus can’t not tell you how excited I am to git one of those fried cheese on a stick things. And slash or one of those fried Snickers or cheesecakes on a stick with the powdred sugar that gits all over you. I am super excited about gitting a turkey leg and a couple 32 oz. lemonaids for lunch everyday next week.

The only thing better than fair food is fair shopping. I can’t not wait to git a salt lamp and a T-shirt with that gangsta writing on it. Last year I spent all my mad money on a carikature of me playing baseball. A T-shirt will be way more useful than that.

I made a cake for the judging contest this year. Last year I made a german chocolate cake and got a prize so can’t do that cake again. I really thought about making a pound cake (Elvis’ favorite) or prune cake then I decided to make a white layer cake. Chocolate and butter are sooo expensive that it is almost crazy to think of making a cake these days. Eggs too. But 1st prize for white cake is $10 and that will buy a fried apricot pie and a super stuffed baked potato.

Maybe you are like me and think that white cake is BORING unless you poke holes in it and pour JellO over it or Hershey’s syrup or something. Or maybe you don’t like to waste all those egg yolks. But the best thing to do with egg yolks is make ice cream! It might not be as yummy as Blue Bunny Mouse Tracks with the peanut butter – yummo! – but it is still good. A lot of people won’t take time to make a cake. Cake mixes are easy and delish but there banned at the fair (except for the cake mix division which is for weenies!!!).

I had to scope out a good recipe for the white cake. I compared a few. I didn’t trust Martha Stewarts’ because she’s a Yankee. So I used a recipe I’ve tried before. It has almond extract in it which gives it a good flavor. Unfortuneatly, one of my cakes did fall in the middle when it came out of the oven. But I disguised that with frosting. I made a merangue butter cream frosting and put jus a little rum in it. I don’t think this cake is my best ever. But maybe I can at least git a Participant ribbon.

I can’t not wait to go to the fair. I am super excited about the hypmotist show. One time I saw someone get hypmotized and act like Britney Spears so I am a beliver. I want to tell the hypmotist to hypmotize me off of cake and cigarettes. The fair rides are even more fun than the Joyland ones. Because Joyland doesn’t have the big strawberry tilt-a-wirls. Plus It’s a good place to hang out with my friends that are working at the sausage stand and git free funnel cakes. And I always can git ideas for what my next tat should be and where I should put it.

Foreign to me

The last few weeks I've been staggering through my routine, a little shell-shocked by a crazy schedule, family upheavals, and the anticipation of my Chet moving to the Big Apple without me. I've been mopey and whiny and hitting the ice cream too hard. I recognize that when you don't have the direction, drive, or focus it takes to complete a stupid blog entry, it's time to get help. I thought tonight I would polish my rusty old html coding and complete multiple entries I let languish as unpublished drafts. Excuse a personal indulgence.



I came across an SD card of photos from the Hong Kong trip in March. I can't believe that was six months ago. It was pretty cool to see the sights of Hong Kong again in The Dark Knight. In filming, they had to cut a scene where Batman jumped into Victoria Harbor because of its polluted state. I found that Hong Kong was absolutely as polluted and disgusting as you would imagine from hearing that. I still don't believe that you can ever completely see the sun through the fog.

An interesting thing I learned in Hong Kong is that each finger on your left hand has an important meaning. A ring on your thumb means you are looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend. A ring on your pointer finger means you have a boyfriend or girlfriend. A ring on the middle finger means that you are engaged. A ring on the ring finger means you are married. A ring on the pinky means you are divorced or do not want a boy/girlfriend or do not want to get married.

Speaking of trips (in every sense of the word), I went on my first outta town trip with Chet's family. I got to go to San Antonio and see Gordo on tour with Shooter Jennings. That was one highlight of a fun weekend. Other highlights:

• Sea World
• Chet's iPhone getting stuck inside the door panel of his parents' car, having to stop at Dollar General in Big Spring to buy a screwdriver, dismantling the door to retrieve the phone, with me watching and laughing hysterically the whole time
• Hanging out with the niece and nephews
• Eating sushi on the ride home - my favorite was the "Heat Attack": spicy tuna and cream cheese inside a jalapeño - but we also got some flaming eel or something

Back in Lubbock, for Friday dinner, Chet and I tried a couple of spicy Indian entrees, Lamb Vindaloo and Paneer Tikka Masala. For dessert, I made Alton Brown's Indian Rice Pudding. It was such a cinch to make, I had it again today for breakfast. The only substitution I made was swapping ground cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg for the ground cardamom. At $13.99 for a small jar of the cardamom, I figured I'd use what was on hand.

I Love New York

Chet's friend Andrew that we met in New York recommended a creamed spinach recipe by Emeril to us. I checked out the recipe and it sounded yummy, and spinach being one of my favorite veggies, I thought that I should try it. The other recipes from that particular Emeril Live episode sounded delicious, too. Not to be outdone by Andrew, I told Chet to rub it in with Andrew that I would be making the whole Emeril meal. "I scoff at your spinach. Bam!" The episode was called I Love New York and featured:
Emeril's Blue Cheese Waldorf Salad
Hash Brown Potatoes
Creamed Spinach
New York Strip with Beurre Maitre d'Hotel
New York Cheesecake with Caramelized "Big Apple" Topping
The Blue Cheese Waldorf Salad was very good. It has a mayonnaise and buttermilk- based dressing with blue cheese and yellow onion. You toss that with some apples, grapes, celery, and walnuts, and serve the mix over a bed of Bibb lettuce. With the addition of some chicken breast pieces, this salad would be a hit at a luncheon as the main course.



The hash brown potatoes were pretty standard but had the addition of Emeril's Essence. I've made better before. The creamed spinach was very good indeed. I took about half the shallots called for out of the pan before adding the spinach. I always need to double or triple recipes that serve four when the whole family is over. I can't remember if my ingredient estimates (who needs measuring cups?) were off or the recipe was. The New York Strip with Beurre Maitre d'Hotel was pretty good. I underseasoned the roast. The beurre maître d'hôtel is a parsley butter with lemon juice, salt, and pepper. I have some left that I want to put on a salmon steak or a filet mignon or something else I can't afford these days.

Emeril doesn't know his cheesecake, or more likely, the recipe on the site is missing the correct instructions on cooking it. I read the directions which said to cook the cheesecake at 375º for an hour and thought, yeah, that's definitely going to burn. I was right. The top was very brown and the cheesecake looked like the Grand Canyon with all the cracks it had in it. I usually do cheesecakes at 450º for 10 minutes and then drastically lower the heat to about 200º for the rest of the long cooking time. There's also the water bath option, which is risky. You have to baby the cheesecake when it comes out, too, because cooling it too quickly will also cause it to crack. I read a secret for fixing cracked cheesecakes. Unmold the cheesecake from the springform pan, wrap a wide ribbon around the cake's perimeter, secure it with a binder clip, and leave for a few hours. That helped a little, and luckily, the apple topping masked imperfections.

The flavors in this cheesecake were perfect. I liked it even better than my usual New York Cheesecake recipe. What sets Emeril's apart is the addition of orange and lemon zest to the filling. The caramelized apple topping was good, though I never got the sugar to caramelize. After prepping and cooking this meal for ten people, I lost patience with the dessert.

And then I forced Chet to play the accordion, despite his "No means no" pleas.


When Chet moves to New York, he could always play the accordion in the subway terminals and make a pretty good living. Newcomers adjust, eventually, to New York.

Midnight Confession

Something about the wee small hours of the morning makes confessionals seem like a great idea. I'll go first.

I like the name Herb. It sounds like the name of a 1950s heartthrob with perfect hair, who wears a tuxedo to breakfast, smokes like a chimney, and still has perfect white teeth that sparkle when he smiles. I really like the Herb Alpert song "This Guy's in Love with You." I can't decide which video clip of the song I prefer. I mean, the first has all the classic elements of a music video: meadows, waterfalls, ocean breezes, and kisses on the beach at sunset. But the second has a charming, clad-in-black Herb singing while seated on a giant, Sesame Street-sized letter H, and literacy is important.





The neighborhood association won their suit, and I had to mow my lawn this weekend. Front yard only, though. I'm baby steppin' it.

It’s unfortunate that I let things get this bad with the neighbors. It used to be that Carmen and I would take evening walks and criticize all the houses and lawns in the neighborhood. We’d get back to my house and agree that my house was one of the best looking on the block. Now when Chet and I ride bikes around the neighborhood, he’s kind enough to point out the rare, “Honey, that lawn actually looks worse than yours!” It’s okay. I got him back by anonymously ratting him out for breaking the water restriction ordinance.

I discovered something awesome. You're supposed to fertilize the lawn on Memorial Day, the 4th of July, and Labor Day, but if you don’t fertilize or water your lawn, it won’t grow, and then you don’t have to mow it. If you don't plant flowers, you don't have to water them either. No reason to weed. The mower will cut those weeds down to size, then they'll probably constitute the only green spots in the lawn. Or let the weeds grow and call it xeriscaping. That is brilliant and has the appearance of environmental-friendliness, which is admittedly canceled out by the fast food wrappers and beer cans littering the yard. Perhaps I should just fill in my lawn with gravel or pave it to make an extra large driveway. Driving past that always signals that the homeowner has thrown in the towel.

The next house I buy is going to be an apartment. With a 500 sq. ft. kitchen and maybe a living room and bathroom.

Remember the good old days when people communicated sarcasm in writing without peppering the text with those stupid emoticons? :p Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.

Raw milk: Panacea or Poison?

Selling raw milk is illegal in many states. That's the government at work protecting us from the real dangers in the world.

Alton Brown on unpasteurized milk, via the Good Eats Fan Page:

"Holding the milk at 145 degrees for 30 minutes [pasteurization], nukes the nasties while preserving some of the body, the character, the flavor of the milk. Heating milk to 161 degrees for 15 seconds [ultra-pasteurization] kills everything, good, bad, and indifferent... It also shuts down enzymes, and knocks off a bunch of nutrients. In other words, it kills the milk. But since that method is a hundred times faster...it's the one most often employed by the dairy industry. Which is why most American milk tastes like [a] shirt."

I have two quarts of unpasteurized cream left over from the wedding cake. I'm trying to find just the right starring role for that stuff before it spoils. What higher calling is there for dairy than ice cream? Tonight I experimented making ice cream with unpasteurized milk and cream. Oh. My. Gosh. I don't know if this was just a good flavor combination, or if using raw milk makes that much of a difference, or whether I was just really really hungry, but the ice cream tasted delicious.

Coffee Heath Bar Ice Cream
Makes 1 quart

ingredients

1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
5 ounces evaporated milk
2/3 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 tablespoons Kahlua
1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
1/2 cup toffee bits

preparation

Stir together all ingredients except toffee bits with whisk until combined. Pour into ice cream maker to freeze. While machine is running, put toffee bits in freezer to chill. Near the end of machine cycle, add toffee bits. Mix for an additional 1-2 minutes, or until toffee is evenly distributed. Transfer ice cream to plastic container and freeze until firm.

I think those measurements are right. I added ingredients incrementally to taste. Might need some more espresso powder. Adding some chopped semi-sweet chocolate would be good. The vanilla bean is totally optional. I have at least a dozen beans left over from the wedding cake, which had vanilla bean frosting.

Next up: I bought some pre-made cannoli shells, ricotta, figs, and pistachios to make Emeril's Cannoli.



Too much espresso. I'll never get to sleep.

Zao Gao

One of my favorite Chinese expressions that Katie has taught me is "zao gao" (rhymes with wow), which means "messy cake." The Chinese use the expression as a substitute expletive of sorts: darn, what a mess, too bad, etc. I said Zao Gao many times while making Katie's wedding cake, but I think it turned out alright in the end.



The thing I wasn't happy with were the little piped white pearls at the base of each layer. Unfortunately, I didn't cut the support pillars short enough, and I had some air space between the cake tiers that I had to hide with frosting. That made it difficult to pipe uniform and level pearls.

Everyone's favorite part of the cake seemed to be the ganache filling. Ganache has only two ingredients: chocolate and cream. It obviously makes a difference if you use good chocolate. Good cream, on the other hand, is hard to come by around here. The grocery store I frequent just stocks one variety: ultra-pasteurized heavy cream. Mom has been buying milk from a local milkman who sells raw milk, which has a much better flavor than pasteurized. He hooked us up with some cream. You have not seen cream like this before. It is so thick you have to stir it with a spoon, and it pours out of the jar like syrup, not like milk. It's got a slightly yellow tint to it. It tastes like sweet butter, instead of a flavorless fat glob like regular cream. I credit the success of the ganache to said cream. More on that later...



This is the only mishap of the wedding of which I'm aware. After Katie and Porter cut and fed each other their ceremonial cake slices, the lady that was hired to cut the cake and plate it for the guests came over. She reached up to remove the top tier, which is traditionally the tier that the bride and groom save and eat on their first anniversary, and when she moved it, the bride and groom cake topper toppled off and crashed. Both the bride's and groom's heads broke off. I couldn't see it all from my vantage point, but apparently heads were rolling.

Happy Wedding!

Cooking with Kimberly

What should I name my Food Network show when I'm the next Food Network star?

Tonight I made the final round, two rounds actually, of chocolate wedding cake. I'm also still working on cleaning out the fridge and freezer. Tonight I tossed some unused raspberry frosting that somehow got relegated to the back corner of the fridge. It was originally pink but was now white and brown and fuzzy. Also found a lime that rolled to the back of the fridge. It had turned brownish yellow and concave.

A great recipe to make when you need to clear out your fridge and freezer is homemade ice cream. I made two batches Sunday. First, I made a batch of vanilla ice cream, recipe courtesy Auntie, then another of raspberry. That used up some dairy, plus cleared the freezer of two Cuisinart ice cream freezer bowls. And if you have frozen fruit on hand as I did, you can mix it in to the ice cream, or boil it down and make a sauce.



Raspberry Ice Cream
Makes 1 quart

ingredients

1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
5 ounces evaporated milk
2/3 cup sugar, plus 1-3 additional tablespoons
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 1/2 tablespoons Chambord, separated
fresh or frozen raspberries, optional

preparation

Stir together milk, cream, evaporated milk, 2/3 cup sugar, vanilla, and 2 1/2 tablespoons of Chambord with whisk until sugar dissolves. Pour into ice cream maker to freeze. While machine is running, combine fresh or frozen raspberries with remaining tablespoon Chambord and 1-3 tablespoons of sugar to taste. At the end of machine cycle, add raspberries and any accumulated juice to ice cream mixture while machine is still running. Mix for an additional 1-2 minutes, or until fruit is incorporated throughout. Transfer ice cream to plastic container and freeze until firm.

**For vanilla ice cream: use only 2/3 cup sugar total, increase the vanilla extract to 2 teaspoons, and eliminate the Chambord and raspberries.

Other late great adventures in cooking with Kimberly:

For Father's Day dinner, we had Grilled Tequila-Lime Chicken Breast, for which I used a Lawry's marinade of the same name. I don't grill outdoors. My Le Creuset Square Grill Pan substitutes perfectly. Also had Mashed Potatoes and Fire-Roasted Corn Salsa. For dessert: Key Lime Pie served with Whipped Cream flavored with Coconut Rum.



A rather weak addition to the many pies collection: Banana-Caramel Coconut Cream Pie. I had a homemade pie crust that wasn't doing nothing, so I filled it with a bunch of stuff that was easy to throw together. I filled the bottom of the pie shell with caramel, then layered sliced bananas, vanilla pudding, and whipped cream flavored with dark rum on top of that. I sprinkled the top with toasted pecans and coconut.

We had Gul and Matt over for dinner. We had Caesar Salad and Chicken Marsala, and I thought Tiramisù would be great on the menu. Tiramisù is Italian for "pick me up," and it's one of my absolute favorite desserts. It's comprised of Savoiardi lady fingers soaked in espresso and rum, layered with a mixture of mascarpone cheese, egg yolks, sugar, and rum, cocoa powder sprinkled on top, garnished with dark chocolate shavings.

Arrosto di Maiale Al Latte (Milk-Braised Pork): This one is probably worth a post by itself. The photo you see is from Adam Roberts of Amateur Gourmet. Get thee over to his blog immediately. I saw this recipe on his blog last September and have wanted to try it since then. I ended up doing a mashup of Adam's recipe and this one from Kevin Weeks. The recipe uses butter, flour, olive oil, a huge pork loin, whole milk, garlic, sage, and lemon. As Adam said, "How could that taste bad?" You need to know that I chopped 20 cloves of garlic for this recipe. My house smelled like garlic for a week and the neighbors filed complaints. It was delicious.