Some days you get to bedtime and you’re trying to soften the blow of how your kids are far too out of their gourds, too busy wrestling up and down the stairs and have refused to get their pajamas on. So there’s no chapter of The Land of Oz, but maybe some silly animation will stop them from completely whining their heads off. You know how it is.
Though I don’t have a winter CSA, I do know enough generous people who do that I find myself occasionally over-run with winter vegetables.
It’s hard to call this a problem, but the presence of two entire Napa cabbages did require some sort of plan. And since we’re down to two jars of last summer’s pickles, kimchi seemed to make sense.
First, if you have any interest in Korean food, you must immediately go and visit Maangchi’s site. She is so adorable and is a one-woman empire of amazing food over there in her virtual kingdom. Plus she has a hot pink wig.
I was fascinated by her instructions, but actually followed this recipe. Both start with brining the cabbage for 12 hours, and then straining it. (Hey look – midway through the brining I got an email that my camera had turned up at the Y! Yay! Cabbage pictures!)
Then I made the spice mix, and mixed it in with the drained cabbage. I so wish I had checked for paprika on hand so I could have tempered the heat to mimic the much milder Korean pepper that’s usually used for this. I consoled myself that the jar of cayenne I pulled out was at least 4 years old … but the mix was still pretty darn hot.
Then, because I had made something like a triple batch, I packed it into two 1/2 gallon jars, topped it with the reserved brine, and then used brine-filled freezer bags as tops.
Now they’re off to the basement to lurk in a cool corner for 3 – 6 days before it’ll be decanted into smaller jars. Actually, I know that it will be precisely 4 days, since that’s when we’ll be back from our quick trip to NYC and I’m sure I’ll be dying to test it as soon as we walk in the door.
Want to try it too? Leave a comment here on the blog (or on Facebook Networked Blogs) if you’re here in Burlington, and I’ll pick someone at random to give one to on, oh, March 15.
In the morning, the boys climb into bed with me for a snuggle and some surreal conversation. The other day, I looked over at E. and he was patting his chest with his hands. When I asked what he was doing, he said, “Oh, I’m just looking at where my new hand and arm are going to grow.”
Last week, he told me a new evil queen was going to be arriving. “Her name is Revengella [rhymes with Angela], Mommy!” When we told Greg about it, he said, “Sounds like a dessert.” We thought this was a bang-up idea. I said I thought that Revengella would be a dessert that was so delicious it would make your enemies weep with jealousy. E. corrected me.
“Listen, Mommy. We’re going to make the cake and we’re giving a piece to 10 people. It’s going to be SO DELICIOUS that they’re going to tell all their friends about it, and they’re going to be so AMAZED that they’re going to give us BAGS OF GOLD and we’re going to be SO SO RICH!”
We talked about what its parts would be. It turned out to be a cake with a fudgy filling. Lots of chocolate, obviously. White frosting. Cherries. E. said, “eight layers,” but I was able to talk him down to four. He says you people can decorate it any way you want (I think that the imminent bags of gold are making him feel generous), but that we had to put a big circle of chocolate on it.
What we ended up with was a sort of cross between Diplomatico and Black Forest Cake, with layers of cocoa angel food cake, semi-sweet chocolate ganache-y filling, cream cheese frosting on the outside, a center filled with black cherries and the ganache, and coarse-chopped chocolate chips on the outside.
There are a few steps, but none hard, and they’re fun for kids. Plus, of course, there are those bags of gold.
Revengella
(all component recipes from Joy of Cooking)
12 servings
Cocoa A
ngel Food Cake
1. Preheat oven to 350 and set aside an ungreased tube pan.
2. Sift together 3 times:
Set aside and keep the sifter handy.
3. Place in a large bowl:
Beat on low speed for one minute (set a timer to help you out, especially if you’ll have to wrestle the mixer away from your kids). Then increase speed to medium, and beat for about 2 minutes, until mixture increases in volume 4 – 5 times and looks foamy. Measure:
Increase beater speed to high, and add sugar very slowly, about 1 T. at a time, taking 2 – 3 minutes to incorporate.
4. In 8 parts, sift a fine layer of the flour mixture over the top of the egg whites and gently fold in without beating or stirring. Fold just until it’s all incorporated, then pour into pan, and spread evenly.
5. Place in oven and bake for 35 – 40 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. (By the way, I use a thin metal skewer for this because I hate to use disposable things unnecessarily.) Once it’s in the oven, get a bottle ready to invert the pan over once it comes out. After baking, quickly and carefully place the pan upside down on the bottle’s neck to prevent the cake from collapsing. Let stay there and cool for a full 1 1/2 hours.
In the meantime, make Chocolate Filling:
In top of a double boiler, or in a small pan placed inside a larger pan with an inch of lightly simmering water in it, stirring frequently just until thoroughly melted and combined:
Set aside to cool.
Make Cream Cheese Frosting. Beat together on medium speed just until blended:
Add in 3 parts and beat just until blended:
Keep at room temperature until ready to frost cake.
Prepare final ingredients for finishing cake:
1. Thaw frozen, or pit fresh:
2. Coarsely chop:
Construct cake once the chocolate filling is cooled but still fairly fluid and the cake has cooled for an hour and a half:
1. Remove cake from pan by running a knife between cake and pan all around. Push bottom through, gently, then run knife along the bottom. Place cake on one plate and have another plate ready. With a long, serrated knife, cut cake into four layers.
2. Place one layer on the second plate, and spread thin layer of chocolate filling. Place other layers on top, spreading chocolate filling between each. Don’t worry too much if the layers break a little bit – angel food cake is not as crumbly as most cakes and can be patched back together.
3. When top layer is in place, spread a thin layer of the cream cheese frosting over the outside of the entire cake. It’s okay if it pulls up crumbs and looks crappy. This is the crumb coat. Set by cooling for a few minutes. Spread the rest of the frosting on top.
4. Scoop or pour the remaining chocolate filling into the center of the cake and put cherries on top of the chocolate.
5. Using your hands, gently pat the chopped chocolate around the outside.
Enjoy, and send all bags of gold right to our house. E. is going to be terribly angry if you don’t.
I’ve been so mad at bread. I wanted to make it and have it be great and I couldn’t.
I became obsessed with Gerard’s incomparable European style sourdough and its slow risen, gently tart taste, its big, open, custardy crumb. Perfect crust. I wanted it at home. I tried one thing after another, a friend gave me starter, and I made a variety of slow sourdough loaves. I followed the one recipe I found, with no success. I spritzed to get crisp crusts, I baked at high temperatures, I baked in loaf pans and on baking stones and on half-sheets. I’d marvel at the transformation of powdery flour and water into a ropy, bubbling mass, and then a crusty dense loaf. I wavered, wanted Gerard’s, but instead made the no-knead. And I made a quite lovely straight-rise pumpkin-flax.
And every now and then I’d buy a loaf and be reminded what the best bread was like.
Damnit.
So I gave up. I let the starter sit and grow more and more forlorn under its layer of questionable grey liquid on the top shelf of the fridge. I’ve baked up a cyclone of cupcakes and all manner of sweet treats. But no bread, because if I couldn’t get it right, why keep trying?
I didn’t make bread, but I’ve been busy of course. I’ve been working to adjust my ideas about myself, my capabilities, what I should expect of these wild little people who bless my life, who are so brilliant and fierce and energetic that I finish the day in a breathless heap. I’m trying to keep my creative juices flowing, to do good work for the folks I’m working with, to be some kind of friend and girlfriend and daughter and neighbor to the people who matter,to keep the bills paid and some semblance of a clear path through the craziness of my house. Perfect bread? Forget it. How about perfect exhaustion?
Then I picked up an issue of Family Circle at the doctor’s office the other day. I liked the big bodacious lasagna that was on the cover, plus figured maybe middle America could give me some coaching on how to get my home organization skills on (it could happen!). I was flipping through the pages, musing on how it’s come to pass that this most-mainstream of publications includes recipes for arugula salads and recommends yoga and alternative therapies.
And there on the last page, written by a self-described novice baker on the staff, was a no-knead bread recipe. I scanned it, interested in how it addressed some of the problems I’ve had with the no-knead results I’ve gotten, like the sort of half-assed sour flavor that’s neither here nor there. And how the standard recipe doesn’t really seem to give the dough quite enough time to transform. I made some changes and I gave it a whirl.
Perfect? No. But it slices terrifically and makes great toast. It’s delicious, and certainly good enough for now.
If you want to give it a try, just remember to give it the day it needs to do its slow and amazing rise.
No-Knead Everyday Bread
Adapted from Family Circle, February 2010
1. Mix together in a large bowl:
2. Add and stir until dough comes together in a ball, about 2 minutes:
3. Cover and let sit and room temperature for 18 hours. Place dough on lightly floured board and knead a few times. Return to the bowl and let it sit for 2 hours, or until doubled in size.
4. 30 minutes before the 2nd rise is through, place a Dutch oven and its lid in the oven, and preheat to 500.
5. When the dough has completed its rise, carefully slide the dough into the heated pan by sort of pouring the batter right in. It should sizzle in a satisfying way. Put the lid right on and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid, turn the heat down to 450 and bake for 15 minutes more. Let cool in the pan for a bit, then complete cooling on a wire rack.
1.
Breakfast: a matcha-coconut-goji berry vegan raw pastry from Amai Bijou.
But first there were samples of really delicious hot sauces from Benito’s. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a sauce from a bottle that tasted fresher.
[Update 3/3/10 - this was featured in some extremely delicious company on Photograzing. Cool!]
I love Lynne Rosetto Kasper, and was happy for her emailed recipe for an oven-roasted chicken cacciatore this week.
But when it was finally time to make it, and I started grabbing things from the freezer and fridge, there were all sorts of things to use up,. So dinner evolved into a roasted hybrid of Chicken Cacciatore and Puttanesca ingredients. Based on dishes named for hunters and prostitutes, I restrained myself from coming up with a much racier name. Still, this is a pretty shamelessly seductive dish.
In the foreground, that’s slab bacon (from the wonderful Boucher Family Farm, by the way). Look at that glisten! More Vermont goodness made this whole dish shine: Misty Knoll chicken, Intervale tomatoes and potatoes, that outrageous bacon. It’s so nice that mid-winter local doesn’t have to mean root vegetables at every meal.
Sultry Oven-Roasted Chicken Cacciatore with Bacon & Polenta
Serves 4-6
Preheat oven to 400.
Lightly oil 2 rimmed baking sheets.
Place on the sheets:
Roast for 30 – 35 minutes (start the polenta after you get the chicken going), rotating the trays after 15 minutes unless you can fit them on the same rack. The chicken is done when its skin is crisp and golden and its juices run clear. Use a slotted spoon to scoop the chicken and vegetables into a bowl. Toss in:
Polenta
Bring to a boil:
Mix together until free of lumps:
When water in pan is at a full boil, pour in the water-corn mixture slowly, stirring constantly and thoroughly. But watch this – now you don’t have to stir it constantly! Turn the heat down to very low, give a few firm stirs and let cook gently with no lid for 25 minutes or until done (it will be very thick and will not taste granular or at all raw if you give it a try).
Top with the chicken mixture and serve.
Is it just me, or did the food world have brownies on the brain this week?
First there were these out there, frankly the food-sluttiest thing I’ve ever heard of, though I’m softening my original flat refusal.
Then last night I came across My Baking Addiction solving a brownie problem I didn’t know I had. But I liked her quest to find a fudgy brownie that had crumb and structure balanced with gooeyness.
In the meantime, a friend called in the throes of preparations for a trip out of town. Her daughter had just been diagnosed with lactose intolerance and was craving milk chocolate. She wondered if she could hire me to make a pan of dairy-free brownies she could take on their trip for snacks. Of course I said yes.
Normally, I’d be doctoring this with something. There would be spices, at least ginger and orange. Probably some pureed greens or butternut squash, some flax. But I didn’t want to mess with brownies for this poor kid who’s just missing her beloved chocolate. So I went to the good old Joy of Cooking and got out the Brownies Cockaigne recipe, which was easy to adjust.
Dairy-Free 100% Stealth-Free Brownies
20 bars
Preheat oven to 350.
Prepare 9 x 13 pan by greasing and placing a piece of foil or parchment so that it’s hanging over at each end.
In a medium saucepan, melt together:
Set aside to cool completely, then stir in:
Mix in just until blended:
Pour into prepared pan and spread to the edges. Bake about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with just a few crumbs.
And off on my own perfect brownie quest I go.
* There’s a chocolate-loving benefit to choosing chocolate that doesn’t have milkfat. Cocoa butter melts at 37 C., or 98.6 farenheit – just the temperature of the human body. That’s what gives that sensuous immediate melt as soon as it hits your tongue. But milk fat, which much chocolate contains, melts at a slightly higher temperature, resulting in a less pleasant film in your mouth.
I’ve run into a few things in the food world that made me happy this week, and I want to share.
* We are dedicated to eliminating world hunger.
* We are dedicated to serving organic unprocessed food.
* We are dedicated to feeding and including all members of our community.
* We are dedicated to eliminating waste in the food industry.
* We believe that we can trust our customers to be inspired, honest and fair in their exchange of money and/or work for the fresh, gourmet, organic food we prepare both mindfully and in a heartfelt way each day.
Burlington friends, wouldn’t this be amazing here? I picture a hybrid of the Food Shelf, Sugarsnap, and Montreal’s Commensal. Amazing. Anyone? Anyone?
Last, thank you again to the good folks at Special Olympics Vermont, who sent me this hat in thanks for the penguin cupcakes. They were so much fun to make. And the hat has a pompom. I’m happy, or will be once I steal it back from E.My delightful and amazing friend showed up a few weeks ago with a duck and a goose for our freezer. I had last met the birds as cute little fuzzywumps who were making a temporary stop in her condo on their way to the farm where they were to be raised.
Better, more interesting, and more thoughtful writers have written about the contradiction of loving specific animals and eating them. But not all of them have a 7- and 4- year old to stage impassioned debates on the issue.
The boys asked what I was bringing down to the basement freezer and I told them. Z. blanched and said, “But that’s TERRIBLE!” And he started crying and telling me he wouldn’t eat them. E. said, “Oh, I want to eat them, Mommy. I’ll eat their … HEADS!” So while his brother sobbed, I explained that birds usually don’t have heads by the time they get to someone’s freezer, and we trooped downstairs to peer inside the plastic bag at the birds. E. nodded. Z. announced that he was going to be vegetarian.
As the boys continued to loudly process their quest for ethical eating, I wanted to plan a meal around the birds. Then, before I knew it, Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year’s were about to coincide and we turned it into a little party. I started thinking about traditional good luck New Year dishes and Valentine’s fun.
I planned on a sort of mock Peking duck, with the overnight approach of steaming the bird and then roasting it with a glaze on the skin. But when I went to start them: NO SKIN! I gasped and started scratching my head, saying something that rhymed with, “duck,” over and over. What was I going to do? What possible substitute for skin could there be? Duck, duck, duck, f …
Then there it was: bacon.
So it was on to plan B. and making a sort of frosting with palm (unhydrogenated, organic, non-saturated) shortening, molasses and sambal oelek, and rubbing it all over the birds before draping them with lots of thick-cut bacon. Then I roasted them in a clay-pot cooker to keep as much moisture in as possible.
I cooked them for about 1 3/4 hours at 475, which was when faces began to appear from all directions, asking to snitch a piece or two of bacon. We then carved the meat and served it with:
There were tea eggs. Here are Sara and her lovely daughter peeling them (and Kim laughing at my silly picture-taking ways):
And General Tso’s Seitan with broccoli, with homemade seitan made with Post Punk Kitchen’s excellent and reliable recipe.
My mom brought the unpictured but delicious Beets with Star Anise from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and made sauce for Sesame-Peanut Noodles (long noodles are a traditional celebration food because they’re associated with long life).
Dessert was truffles, plus Sweet Rice Cake. I love this dish, but I adore sticky gooey things made with glutinous rice. Besides being a really endearing texture, it’s auspicious for New Year’s because it’s round, signifying family union, and sweet for a sweet new year, and its name in Chinese is a sound-alike for a sort of good wishes expression.
But there were children to consider, so a Western-style dessert was in order. In the morning, I had thrown together a vegan orange batter for cupcakes, then realized I had left out the baking soda, which I hurried in right before baking. That was when I had a first-hand experience with what happens when you over-activate your leavening agent.
So I baked the rest as a cake, which worked better for some reason. Then after dinner, while the children were acting completely insane and were all past their bedtime, a 10-year old guest and I made our silly piece de resistance, which involved the cake, neon-colored 7-minute frosting, black icing gel, and heart sprinkles. It was a Tiger’s Valentine’s Cake (about which my assistant made sure to remind guests, “No actual tigers were harmed in the making of this dessert”).
And then we sent guests home with cupcakes and collapsed in a fit of sugar and food and good conversation.
Cheryl Herrick's brave Vermont quest to bring together food-love and mom-life. All original content (written, graphical, recipes or other), unless otherwise noted, is © and/or TM Cheryl Herrick. All rights reserved by the author. Want to reprint a recipe? Just get in touch and ask.
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