Category Archives: food and cooking

Buttery Week with Cats

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Springtime, and the cats are caterwauling. Jim has a cute little girlfriend. Last week they were sporting together on the patio as we ate dinner, but this week he ran away when she came to eat the food I put out for him. She was stalking him at the dish today, so I went to get my camera. When I came back it appeared he was sharing his food with her. How sweet!

I was cooking while they were eating. For Orthodox this is the week before Lent proper, and we start the Great Fast on Monday. But as we like to ease into things, we already are fasting from meat as of last Monday. Some call this Butter Week, and some say it is a fun time. Perhaps I’ve always been on a trip or otherwise distracted before, during Cheese-fare Week; this is the first year I have enjoyed it this much. But anytime you highlight butter, for me that is fun.

Oh! Jim lifted his head, and it wasn’t Jim at all. It looks like Girlfriend’s sister….maybe Jim has two girlfriends! I wonder if he ran away from fright or just to be gentlemanly. Mr. Glad doesn’t really want me feeding all the cats in the neighborhood, so after I took their picture I brought the food inside until Jim comes back. It was the second time today I tried to feed only Jim and he got chased off.

My husband is o.k. with butter, and even cookies. He just told me that if a cookie is really good, he will even eat two in one day. This moderation on his part doesn’t jive very well with my own Cookie Monsterish behavior and the fact that there are only the two of us here now. So I rarely bake cookies.

But, two of my friends revealed their Freezer Cookie Ball method. I thought it would be the perfect solution to the alternate problems of me eating up all the cookies before Mr. Glad could get to them, or the cookies going stale on him. I can bake one sheet full, and freeze the rest of the dough for baking later.

I forgot that I also like to eat the dough. I’m a little shy about admitting it to the world, because my husband thinks it is the most base behavior, something like eating cat food, maybe, only more repulsive.

My sisters and I ate cookie dough as children, but I consumed the most ever in one summer between college semesters, when all three of the girls in my apartment agreed on our favorite cookie: mint chocolate chip. And we all liked to eat half the batch before it went into the oven or was even dropped on the cookie sheet.

I know that in modern times, we are cautioned against this because of the raw egg in cookie dough, but as this is nearly the only risky behavior I indulge in, and that rarely, I hope you will allow me.

 
So I confess that just freezing the dough doesn’t ensure that my man will have a cookie when he needs it. Luckily I also had the bright idea of freezing already-baked cookies, one to a waxed paper bag, so when he is so inclined he can defrost one in a jiffy.

Butter Week is still here for now, so I made a fresh batch of these cookies. I baked nine and crowded the rest onto a sheet to quick-freeze. It’s an adaptation of the Oatmeal Scotchies on the Nestle butterscotch chips package. I think it might be improved by doubling the recipe except for the butterscotch chips. Even though I left out half the sugar, the cookies are plenty sweet because of the high density of chips.

Buttery Week Cookies
(Oatmeal Butterscotch)

1 1/2 cups spelt flour, white and/or whole-grain (if you use wheat, use only 1 1/4 cups, because wheat flour absorbs more moisture.)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 sticks salted butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar (I just left out the white sugar)
1 large or extra-large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups regular rolled oats
1 2/3 cups (1 package) butterscotch-flavored chips
about 1 cup chopped walnuts

Mix as usual for cookies, adding nuts and chips at the last. Bake about 10 minutes at 375°F.

Chinese Tea Eggs

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For more than 20 years a photograph of Chinese tea eggs sat in my recipe folder along with instructions for making them. By the time I got around to the project I couldn’t find the original article clipped from a magazine, and was inspired by reading on the Internet. One traveler said that in China a typical hiker will take along a sack full of these eggs the way American backpackers might put granola bars in their pockets.

Probably what stalled me was the thought that making hard-boiled eggs beautiful was only an aesthetic endeavor, and my creative efforts were applied elsewhere. But now I know that the interesting decorations on the eggs instill enough flavor to make them a complete snack without further additions.

 

I found lots of recipes, with few to many ingredients. The only constant is some tea leaves and salt. The first time I added orange peel, and used what seemed like an extravagant amount of soy sauce, but after perusing enough recipes and eating the results of that first batch, I decided that I could make a nice tea egg while using up some things that I have sitting neglected in the cupboards.

The flavor is so subtle, I’m pretty sure any elaborate recipe and combination of spice would be wasted on me. I don’t see how you could go wrong adding too much or too little of anything, except for the salt. Some spices that were included in many recipes were star anise, cinnamon sticks, peppercorns, cloves, and ginger root.

I used less soy sauce and more salt, and to make up for the loss of color from the soy, I added more tea leaves, because I had some loose black tea sitting around. Jasmine green tea is on my mind to try in the future. Instead of the cinnamon stick and star anise that I used the first time, I added a simple spice combination that I haven’t needed for anything else lately.

Here is the current recipe:

Chinese Tea Eggs

–One dozen large to extra-large eggs – but however many you can fit in one layer in your pot, they will all get the same benefit of the flavors in the broth. One can make a smaller batch in a smaller pot, and reduce the amounts, but I personally didn’t want to bother with fewer than a dozen.
–enough water to cover eggs
–4 tablespoons soy sauce
–1 teaspoon sugar
–1 tablespoon salt
–2 tablespoons Chinese 5-spice powder
–4 tablespoons black tea leaves (or use some tea bags)

Put the eggs in a pot in one layer, and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to simmer for 3-4 minutes. (Most recipes cooked the eggs firm at this point, but the first recipe I read interrupted here, so I am following that practice, though it can’t be crucial, as the eggs will be overcooked by most standards by the end. Yes, they will have green on the yolk!)

Remove eggs from heat and allow them to cool a bit before handling; you can run them under water to speed cooling. Take the back of a knife and crack the eggs as evenly as possible all around.

Put the eggs back in the pot and add all the other ingredients. Bring to a boil again, then simmer for 1-3 hours, adding water if the level gets too low. The color and flavor will deepen with longer immersion. Remove from heat and serve as a snack or as an addition to rice or noodles.

If you have room, you can also leave the eggs soaking in the broth in the refrigerator overnight.

Last time I went on a road trip, I took along a couple of hard-cooked eggs to have when I stopped for lunch. But because I had forgotten to bring any salt to add, I didn’t eat them after all. I know, too fussy. Now that I’ve learned how to make these pretty eggs that have the flavor and just the right amount of salt all locked in, I’ll be more ready for picnics, and have an elegant alternative to the rustic method of salt sprinkling.

A gift becomes a bisque

food and cooking, other gardens,

Two weeks ago I was given a hunk of very orange volunteer squash by the nuns at the monastery. After I baked it in the oven I wanted to eat it all just plain, because it tasted that good, and as sweet as candy.

But I had in mind to make soup using the same recipe that Kate (new nickname for my youngest) had found at Epicurious and cooked for us when she was home for Christmas. We collaborated on the soup, actually, and I’ll post here how we made it, not quite as the recipe instructed.

For example, the recipe told us to take two 2# butternut squashes, bake them, measure out the flesh and use three cups of it, then “reserve any remaining squash for another use.” If I did that sort of thing the remaining squash would get moldy in the fridge or sit in the freezer for a year or two and dry out. So we used all our squash (when Kate made it we used the true Butternuts from my garden, and they don’t come in even pound weights, by the way) and increased some other ingredients proportionally.

Curried Orange Squash Bisque

3-4# orange winter squash
olive oil
2-4 tablespoons butter
1 onion, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1 peeled apple, chopped
2-3 teaspoons Thai red curry paste (ours was Thai Kitchen)
about a quart chicken broth
2 bay leaves (optional)
1/4 to 1/2 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon honey (or more if your squash isn’t sweet)
1/2 cup or more sour cream, stirred smooth
chopped fresh cilantro
salt and pepper to taste

Brush or spray the cut side of the squash with olive oil and place cut side down on a baking sheet. Bake at 375° for about an hour or until tender. Scoop out the squash and measure it if you care to know how much you ended up with.

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrots and apple. Sauté 5 minutes. Add curry paste; stir 2 minutes. Add broth, bay leaves and squash. I used the bay leaves but Kate didn’t, and I liked her soup better, though I don’t know if it had anything to do with the bay. Maybe it was the variety of apple, or some other slight difference in our preparation.

You have to accept this degree of inconsistency when you cook — well, I do.  If it’s not the amounts of ingredients that affects the finished product, it’s the differences between one squash and another, or the change from 1/4 to 1/3 teaspoon of pepper that wasn’t measured. We are aiming for a hearty pot of soup, and not to become epicureans, even if we do like to search that website.

Bring the soup to a boil; reduce heat to medium and simmer uncovered 1 hour. Now, we couldn’t figure out any reason to cook it for an hour unless it was to get the flavor of bay into it, and when Kate made it we didn’t have time for that. You really only need to cook it until the vegetables are tender.

Discard the bay leaves, and purée the soup in batches in the blender or food processor. Return to the pot, stir in cream and honey and sour cream. Season with salt and pepper. Rewarm over medium-high heat. Divide among bowls and sprinkle with cilantro.

I forgot to take a picture with the cilantro on top….

I just now noticed that the sour cream was for drizzling over the top of the soup after it is already in the bowls. That would be pretty! But we mixed ours into the soup, and it was very tasty. The sour cream and curry gave the bisque just the right amount of zip, though I suspect that some brands of the curry would add more heat than Thai Kitchen did. If you want something spicy you’ll need to add more curry paste.

Even my husband, who despises squash, liked this soup!

Around the Internet World

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More odds and ends from the virtual library or discovery museum out there in digital space. Some of these I found a couple of months ago and then forgot to tell about. My collection has grown to such a size….I better pass these along NOW:

**I probably already told you about the The Poem Farm, which blogger Amy says “…is my poem-playground, a place to share teaching and writing ideas, and a cozy spot to highlight poetry in classrooms. If you are a teacher or a student, please consider sharing here on an upcoming Poetry Friday.” A recent Poetry Friday post is at right.

**Yay! Vindication for my wooden cutting board. Since my wedding I have been using the lovely one my brother made in high school wood shop, and our family always seemed to be healthier than many, so I wasn’t worried. I didn’t dream, though, that wood is actually safer than plastic.

**A performance of Beautiful Bach was the kind of pleasant surprise one gets on Facebook sometimes. I understand the performer made a foot pedal for the chromatic button on his harmonica in order to play as he does here.

**Who couldn’t use help on keeping the family car looking better? I was charmed and inspired by the practical and literally refreshing ideas Sobe Organized gives in these Steps toward a cleaner car.

** The Candy Professor shows us what a variety of real food ingredients was in candy in 1926, compared to what she calls our current “over-chocolated” world.

**Wayside Wanderer posted a thought-provoking sermon excerpt on what makes a truly Strong Woman.

**One of my favorite learning resources that I have mentioned many times in individual blog posts is The Mars Hill Audio Journal. It just occurred to me that I have failed to pass on to my readers an easy and free way to get a taste of what is available through this audio magazine. Though they don’t provide bonus CD tracks any longer on the bimonthly journals, the old listenable tracks are online and ready for anyone to hear at the click of a mouse. Some of my favorite authors and thinkers are on this list, discussing everything from Ents, Mozart, and Hawthorne to Ritalin, reality TV, and Wendell Berry. Maybe someone reading this will get sparked into a discussion after listening to one of these short interviews. Tell me if you do!

Probably no one has time now with holiday or holy-day preparations going on,  to actually look at these pages, but they will keep.