The Pleasure of a Simple Supper.

Somewhere in the past month, things have drastically changed in my kitchen.  Just after the first of the year, I contemplated doing the "21 Day Sugar Detox", and even read the book when my library hold came in.  But I decided my diet really isn't all that in need of a complete overhaul, and perhaps making things with sugar is on par with actually eating things with sugar.  It's probably an addiction, but such a satisfying one that I can't give it up completely.  Instead, I just scaled back.  You can't expect a baker to just stop baking.  I've baked a little, but haven't gone overboard because I realized that I was wrongly using sugar in bribery form to get my pickiest kid to eat his suppers of actual food.

Somewhere in there, my new baby began his lifelong journey of solid food eating and he recalibrated my enjoyment of the simplest things in life.  I worried as I soft boiled him his first bites of egg yolk that he would make the ugliest of faces and refuse to eat warm, golden egg bellies.  But he didn't.  He had the most beautiful look of excitement when tasting real food, real food that wasn't the tiniest bit sweet.  I went on to serve him single vegetable purees of sweet potato, carrot, butternut squash, and all were similarly enjoyed.  Strangely the sweeter fruits I tried to feed him took more of an effort for him to enjoy.  But whenever I sit him in his brand new spot at the table, he appears really excited to eat!  And he eats all of his little portions, causing me to wonder consistently if I should offer him more or exercise restraint.  This in itself was the biggest encouragement for family suppers.

At the same time, I just stopped talking about supper.  Here's dinner, here's your bowl of soup or your plate of food, and I am not going to mention how excited I am that it is sitting in front of you, or that I was planning it for days.  I'm not going to mention what steps I took or what secrets I added to it, I'm not going to appear so excited to be able to feed you real, nutritious food that I made from scratch with my own hands.  I know I am overzealous to have the privilege of feeding my family.  When I stopped talking about how the food appeared on our plates, the food started disappearing off of them.  Without questions.

 

You can add 1/3 cup barley to just about any soup during the last 30-45 minutes of simmer I've found.  It grows overnight, sometimes making your soup into a stew for the next day...

Maybe it's just me expecting that the food will be eaten, but dinnertime now seems a mystery of epic proportion.  Since last December, I found that if I add barley to a soup, any soup, it will get eaten.  I talked about this with a few people:  apparently, men (and boys) love barley.  I also stopped worrying about serving leftovers.   Even the ones who I thought didn't really care for leftovers are eating leftovers regularly, and this makes me smile enormously.  These short, bitter cold days are taking it out of me in the housekeeping department, and there always seems to be a shortage of time to get that beginning-of-the-year organization done (let alone time to knit and/or read at the end of the day).  My spice cupboard is still crying out for a thorough deep clean.  Leftover dinners seem to be a welcome cheat when I need a day to have coffee with a friend or just need to make a dent in the laundry.  And I no longer feel bad about it!

I think I used to run my kitchen like a diner, everyone getting more or less a customized meal.  Part of this came from when my Husband used to be at work over the dinner hour.  I'd feed the kid first, then myself, and finally my Husband later in the evening.  In retrospect, that is probably how I got myself into the mess of cooking to order.  I also was pretty proud of the fact that I could actually juggle that many pans to wrangle customized suppers out pretty dang efficiently.  I took short order to mean that I really had some really honed kitchen skills.  I didn't realize what a pleasure it is to cook simply, eat together, and eat all of what was leftover.

I spend less on food now than ever, despite the extra family member, and in spite of insisting on truly quality ingredients.  It's a great feeling not to have much kitchen waste.  It is also inspiring to appreciate things for their simpleness.  I roasted the butternut squashes for the baby, but when I pureed them in the Vitamix with a good amount of butter and a pinch of salt and pepper, I was shocked that it didn't need anything else to satisfy me as well.  It was just pure, good food that tasted perfect all on its own.  (Well, maybe it was a touch better when I added a bit of cilantro-chile paste that I made to spice up our chili the other day...) 

 I saw a nice cilantro swirl on some black bean soup on Food52 last week: I made mine by pureeing a whole bunch of cilantro with a seeded jalapeno, a splash of cider vinegar, and a pinch of salt.

I am reading a record number of new and complex cookbooks, but there is nothing more pleasurable than not needing to leave the house during these endless cold snaps, and finding joy in simply prepared, just plain good food.  Busting my own sweet tooth isn't nearly as difficult as busting the one of my picky 7-yr-old son, but progress is coming - especially with a brand new excited eater in the house.

Brandy Bread Pudding

I remember the first time I ever tasted a hard sauce.  My Dad had taken me west, and I was completely charmed by the idea of cowboys and Indians and Wild Bill Cody.  We had come through the Badlands in 100 degree heat, me perched on the back of his motorcycle and we were hot.  We had intended to stay at Cody's Irma hotel, and had even checked in.  On the second floor, I plopped myself flat on the bed and looked up at the skylight which was cracked, the ceiling looked as parched and wrinkled as I felt myself.  The A/C was broken, and the rooms were so hot, I did feel like we had stepped back in time to the old west.  Every room on that floor had their door open, and people were lounging, talking, and otherwise downright communal.  My Pop and I discussed it, and decided that the lure of air conditioning in a smaller hotel across the street was better.  (There, the A/C was coming into our room through a transom over the door, it was some relief after a long day on the bike...)  

But we did go back to the Irma for breakfast, where we sat in the antler-lined dining room and ordered buffet breakfasts.  I doused my bread pudding and pretty much my whole plate in whisky hard sauce, which was boozy and sweet, and as good on the ham as it was on the pudding and pancake.  It was hard work journeying west, and I overate in anticipation.

Maybe I really like reminiscing about that hot, late summer trip because of all of the snow and sub-zero temps lately.  Right now I can barely remember the sun it seems, or the sunburn that blistered my skin after days on the road.  But I do remember that hard sauce, and my long food memory was good for rekindling some of that warmth for our New Year's Eve dessert. It's become somewhat of a tradition to go cajun on New Year's Eve, most likely because I leave the menu up to my Husband, and that is usually his request.

This year I acquired the Heaven on Seven cookbook from my thrifting-genius friend Donna.  That Chicago restaurant is one of my Husband's favorites, and the book has plenty of their menu staples.  Of course, I generally use cookbooks as templates - which works good with heavy southern food.  The recipe for bread pudding was so laden with sugar, I could tell I could slash it by 3/4 and no one would be the wiser.  Before this book came into my life, I'd all but given up making bread pudding, since I was the only one to eat it.  A New Year's Eve menu picked out by my beloved, and he wasn't sure he'd ever actually tried bread pudding... Finally, an excuse to do it up right!

I started the day before by making a challah from Peter Reinhart's recipe.  I forgot how marvelously simple his recipe is, and how perfectly burnished and beautiful the loaf ends up.  For an enriched bread, it's not too sweet or heavy:  perfect for transformation into bread pudding. Unlike that first loaf I made without a stand mixer, I mixed this one up using the KitchenAid and it was even easier than I remember.  I made a braid of three fat portions of dough, and came up with a nearly round loaf.  4 good size slices made the 8 cups of cubed bread needed for the bread pudding, with plenty leftover for toast and french toast.

Jimmy Banos' bread pudding is served with a heavy caramel sauce, but like I said - I couldn't get a hard sauce out of my head.  I took a cue from Nigel Slater and made up a boozy version of my own.  Hard sauce, it seems, is generally made with softened butter, and is not at all melted like the small vat of whisky sauce I once poured over my plate in the American West.  The heat of the pudding is supposed to melt the semi-solid, gritty sauce; I lopped a few spoonfuls into a saucepan and melted it for old times sake.  

Use the same small saucepan throughout the preparation to cut down on dishes.

Brandy Bread Pudding (adapted from Jimmy Banos)

yields 1 8x8 pan, about 6 servings of modest size

• 1/2 c. raisins
• 3 T. brandy (more for the hard sauce)
• 8 c. day-old challah (or other enriched bread), cut into 3/4 inch cubes
• 2 oz. butter (4 T.)
• 1 t. cinnamon, divided
• 1/2 c. granulated sugar, divided
• 2 c. heavy cream
• 1/4 c. whole milk
• 1 1/2 t. vanilla extract
• 1/2-1 t. freshly grated nutmeg
• 4 eggs

 Bring brandy to a bare simmer in a small saucepan.  Pour over the raisins in a small bowl, and let stand for 30 minutes to soften.

Place the bread cubes in a large bowl.  Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat, then drizzle it evenly over the bread cubes.  Mix 1/4 t. cinnamon with 1/4 c. granulated sugar in a small bowl and sprinkle it over the buttered bread cubes.  Toss gently to combine.

Crack the eggs into a medium bowl; beat to combine.  Heat the heavy cream, whole milk, 1/4 c. granulated sugar, 1/2 t. cinnamon, and as much nutmeg as you like in a small saucepan until just warmed through and the sugar is dissolved.  Slowly beat the warmed milk mixture into the eggs and beat well to combine.  Pour over the bread cubes along with the soaked raisins and their brandy, tossing gently to combine.  Let stand at room temperature for 30-45 minutes until the bread soaks up most of the custard.  Stir gently one time about half way through the rest.  Preheat oven to 350.

Butter an 8x8 glass baking dish, pour in the bread pudding, and place it inside a larger baking dish.  Carefully pour in boiling water to come about halfway up the side of the pan (You can do this in the oven if you aren't too steady).  Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a thin knife inserted in the center comes out clean.   Remove from the oven and cool a bit before removing from the hot water.  Serve warm, room temperature, or cold - preferably with hard sauce.

Brandy Hard Sauce (inspired by Nigel Slater)

Mix equal parts by weight of soft, unsalted butter and dark brown sugar.  (I used 90 g. of each.)  Beat well with a hand mixer until fluffy.  Add a pinch of salt, and brandy by the tablespoon until it has the kick you are after - this was about 4 tablespoons for me.  Store in the refrigerator, and serve on warm bread pudding or other warm kitchen baked goods.  Or, melt some in a small saucepan for a pourable sauce.

This bread pudding, despite the richness of ingredients, wasn't too rich or sweet.  The quality of the ingredients let me appreciate each mouthful.  It was room temperature by the time we cut squares out of it for our dessert; I poured melted hard sauce over, letting it pool a bit on the plates.  Because it was New Year's Eve.  Because is there any other way to enjoy bread pudding?  Because even in the blanket of winter I like to think of the summer I was so hot and happily riding west, free from all worry and responsibility, with my Dad - who also loves bread pudding.  It was the perfect sweet ending to the year.

Christmas Cookies.

What makes a Christmas cookie a Christmas cookie?  I ask myself this question every year as I prepare to bake.  Since I became a full-time homemaker I usually organize my thoughts and baking pantry in November, beginning with a thorough detailing of my kitchen.  That didn't happen this year - for some reason the time is flying much faster than I can fathom.  But I'm nearly done with my baking for the season, using my method of batch-a-day baking, which I pretty much have always done around Christmastime since setting off on my own.  It might be hard to make 12 kinds of cookies in a single day, but 12 types over a couple of weeks, even when holding down a couple of jobs is surprisingly easy.  Or maybe just surprisingly easy for someone who loves to bake.

Frequently I end up with more than 12 types of sweets, but 12 is my goal for a nice selection for a cookie plate or tin.  I like to choose naturally long-lasting things to bake first like biscotti, and then move on those that freeze well after baking, leaving any more perishable types for last minute.  But I'm not so much an icebox cookie fan; the slice and bake notion is appealing, but requires some finesse that I can't always muster.  (But, I did make time and patience enough for these Cinnamon Pinwheels from King Arthur Flour.  The dough was a bit tricky and soft, but they paid off.)

I have no rhyme or reason for Christmas cookies, what makes my cookies Christmas cookies is baking them around Christmastime.  It's unfortunate that I never make decorated sugar cut-out shapes.  My Mom makes dozens and dozens of sugar cookies at Christmas.  For the bulk of my youth, visions of wax paper lined countertops with drying cookies decorated by our family signaled that Christmas was almost here.  My Mom would spread the icing and my brothers and I, armed with sprinkles and colored sanding sugar, and red hot candies (not to mention the silver dragees that were not intended to be eaten but always were), would take turns making miniature, edible artworks.  I don't think I'm exaggerating that some years there were upwards of 70 dozen when we finished.  They were stored in big plastic bowls on our old-fashioned, naturally frozen back porch, and given freely to nearly every friend and neighbor.

I can't say that I have many traditions of my own like that.  I make different cookies every year, ones that catch my attention here and there, ones that might require slightly more dedication than a non-holiday event cookie.  Some are just plain, however.  One of my favorites happens to be this one from a decade-old Martha Stewart Magazine:  Grammy's Chocolate Cookies.  I do make this cookie nearly every year, so I suppose in a way it has become my tradition.

These cookies don't seem remarkable, until you pop one in your mouth.  They are definitely the cookie that you swear you remember sitting at your grandmother's table eating too many of... along with a glass of cold milk of course.  They store well in the freezer and at room temperature, and the recipe makes a lot.  I like to use coarser raw sugar for rolling them in; it makes them sparkle a bit more. 

I always make the dough the day before using it, or at least several hours before if I'm in a hurry.  If you rush it, the butter-heavy dough melts into a big mess when you attempt rolling it into balls.  I know from experience.  I adapted the way I store the dough to allow for less mess.

Grammy's Chocolate Cookies (Martha Stewart Magazine - but this recipe differs from the in print version)
yield about 6 dozen

• 2 cups + 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup Dutch cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 10 oz. butter (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted, butter room temperature
• 2 cups granulated sugar (additional granulated or raw sugar for dipping)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl.  Set aside.

In a large bowl (or the bowl of  a stand mixer with the paddle attachment), beat the butter with the sugar and eggs until fluffy, at least 3 minutes.  Add the vanilla, and beat another minute to combine.  (Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.)

Reduce mixer speed to low and add the sifted dry ingredients slowly until just mixed.  Spread a sheet of parchment (or cling film will work too) out on the counter, and transfer the dough onto it.  Use a knife to spread it into a flattish rectangle, and top with another sheet of parchment (or cling film).  Put the dough in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and up to 2 days.  (Make sure the dough is well covered so the air doesn't get at it.)

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350, and line sheet pans with parchment paper.  Use a bench scraper to portion the dough into 1 inch squares, and roll each between your palms to make balls.  Drop them into a bowl of raw sugar (or more granulated sugar) to coat, and place them about 2 inches apart on the baking sheets.  (If the dough softens too much at room temperature, pop it back in the fridge as you are waiting on the batches.)

Bake for 10-12 minutes, rotating pans halfway through the baking time.  Let the cookies stand on the pans for 5 minutes after baking before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

When I was back home visiting for Thanksgiving, I picked up the most gorgeous raw sugar from one of the Amish bulk stores that dot the countryside near my parents house.  I was disappointed that trying to take a picture of it proved so tough.  It was some of the prettiest, sparkly sugar I've ever seen.  Even though it was an off-white color, I used it to coat my frosted cranberries.  The recipe is from Heidi Swanson at 101 Cookbooks, and I've been making them since she first introduced me to them in 2009.  I've found that using half the amount of simple syrup (or twice the amount of cranberries, since they are so addicting) works fine.  I also save the pink syrup to use in other things.

I've all but wrapped up my baking for this year.  There is a bowl of jam thumbprint dough chilling that I'll need to attend to, and just this morning I decided to make the world's easiest (and tastiest!) peanut butter fudge.  All that remains is double checking the list I keep on the counter to make sure I don't forget any varieties that are stashed throughout the house, and matching plate or tin sizes to recipients.  I don't plan to give out a ton of cookies, really, but I bake in December for the sheer joy of baking.  Believe it or not, I don't end up eating very many myself (except for those cranberries: I usually have to make a second or third batch of them).  Whatever cookies you made or wish you made for the season, I wish you all a Merry Christmas! 

Bearing Witness.

It seems I have an unusual amount of guilt over not making a priority of writing things down here lately.  I went the whole month of November with one solitary post recanting my canning season. November came and went much too quickly, but during that month, I really hit my stride with getting our new family member into a solid routine.  I also got quite good at getting supper on the table in a timely fashion, at the same time nearly every evening.  Food waste is at an all time low, with meals recycling into the "never-ending meals" that Tamar Adler so adequately wrote a book about.  I still hear her voice in my head when I bring a pot of water to a boil, and always make more rice than I need, because it will always find a use.

 I also seem to have been hearing the term "bearing witness" around quite a bit lately.  The notion that our existences depend on others noticing us.  In the food writing world, maybe that means that for one split moment we have been first to entice or discover (or more appropriately, rediscover) the next most excellent thing that everyone wants to make, or written the next most beautiful book that seems to be on everyone's shelf...  For me, it's the tree falling in the forest phenomenon:  if I disappear from the world of this intricately woven Internet fabric, will anyone notice or was I actually ever here at all?  If I choose to live in the small moments of the day without much interaction from the web of computer voices, will the people I know forget me?

We went out to the farm for Thanksgiving, where we had far too few family members to eat the 17 pound turkey that was raised down the road from my Parents house. The sheer quiet of the land in that part of our state always gets me.  In this time of year in particular, when the birds are near silent, and the trees absent of leaves, crispy air hits your vocal chords and there is no echo; it's just quiet and clear.  My Mom found a little box of silverware that belonged to my Great-Grandmother, and I found that I couldn't stop thinking about it.  Little silver plated coffee spoons and pickle forks, because people needed such things in the world years ago.

I've had my children too late in life for them to know much of their Great-Grandparents, but I grew up in the kitchen of my Nana, some of my most vivid memories of food are her old-country ways of doing things.  The way of doing things that is so truly wholesome and handmade it makes anything I do now pale in comparison.  I told my Mom how I love my Vitamix so much (she doesn't even have a blender right now) and how I used it to chop everything lickety split for my salsa this year, and in a later conversation she said how she can remember her Grandmother chopping her vegetables for her soup.  Chop, chop, chop.  In that little northwoods kitchen with no one to see or hear, no one to photograph or bear witness to that supreme act of love she lived out by nourishing other people.  Thinking about that on my trip home almost made me want to get rid of my Vitamix.  Almost.

It takes about 3 hours to drive back to our house on the southside of Milwaukee.  When my 7 year old boy was chatting with me in the car about when he moves away from me someday it kind of  hit me hard.  "Well I hope you won't move too far away, " I said.  "I won't."  "But you might!  You never know." I tried to remember than I have at least 10 years before worrying too much about such things.  But that dear boy just said that he wouldn't be far, he'd be in the country.  He wants to live rurally, maybe just because I let him play outside unattended there, but I think he really likes it deep down.  

I am pretty cautious about letting him into too much technology.  Most of his classmates talk about things he doesn't have any idea about, video games and iPads and stuff that I just don't want him to concern himself with, in part I think because I wish I never got involved in it myself.  But therein lies the double edge:  I have met real people that I truly like; I have a part in bearing witness to the lives of others in a real albeit virtual way.  But if I choose to watch the little babe try and roll over for too many minutes, if I don't feel like setting up the tripod to capture the tarts or the cupcakes or the non-photogenic foods that sustain us (the turkey carcass now boiling down on the stove that is too large to fit fully in my pot), or if I choose not to poetically conjure my next meal, does that mean I slip hopelessly from the consciousness of others?

At least until the new year, I am choosing to not worry too much about it.  I want to always remember to live in the small moments of the everyday, not to jump up at the signals of my phone that notify of a text or email or a repost of something that will fade fast into the virtual world without much help from my anyway.  I want to remember every second of my little boys before they grow into big men  who sometimes have a hard time making it home for Thanksgiving.

I'm not disappearing just yet, but maybe just making myself a bit more scarce.

Reflections of Preserving Season

I keep saying I'm done, that I will not can any more this year.  I went so far as to send home all extra paper grocery sacks of clean pints and quart jars with my Mom when she last visited, an attempt at organizing my basement.  But maybe now I know I'm a true preservationist when the work is never fully done, maybe the nature of doing for yourself is a drug of sorts that I just can't kick.

Last week, a neighbor gave me some gorgeous seckel pears from a tree discovered in her parents yard.  I said I'd take some just for eating, but they were so good and they had so many that I ended up getting a few pounds to preserve.  Seckels seem to ripen faster than less petite pear varieties, and I set them up on a sheet pan for a few days to monitor their process.  I decided to try pickling some using Marisa's method over on Serious Eats, a pretty quick endeavor since the pears keep their stems and skins.  I used some raw sugar because I was out of granulated, but then made a series of errands to pick some up along with another flat of pint jars and some fresh pink peppercorns, star anise, and vanilla beans from the Spice House to do up a batch of Mrs. Wheelbarrow's spiced syrup version in the New York Times.

Marisa's pickled pears on the left, Mrs. Wheelbarrow's syrupy ones on the right.

The pears in syrup took awhile, especially with interruptions from the baby who would not succumb to sleeping.  More lessons in patience from the peeling of diminutive pears, trying to daintily finagle a 1/4 teaspoon to hollow out their seeded bellies - but worth it when I tasted the spiced syrup - which actually tastes exactly like a visit to the Spice House.  I didn't even mind that my 24 seckel pears only filled 3 pint jars and I had 3 pints of syrup that I canned up assuming that my pal Alanna would have a good idea for me on how to properly enjoy drinking it.

Prior to pear preservation, I made myself contend with the last 4 quinces that I was still debating what to do with.  This was the first year I've tasted quince, and I am completely hooked.  For some reason, I could hardly bring myself to do anything with the few of them I had, I so much enjoyed looking at them and smelling them, and really just living with them on my hutch counter for a few weeks...

(On the left there is a pawpaw!  The first one I've ever tasted... more here.)

Instead of deciding on any proper preserving of them, I ended up doing two batches of them the same way:  roasting them in a 320 degree oven for a couple of hours until the skin blistered, cooling them to the touch, then peeling, coring them, and carefully slicing them into fat pieces.  I made two piles on my counter, one of the sliced pieces that maintained their shape, and another of those that were too mushy to look attractive.  Then I made a syrup of equal parts sugar and water (600 g. of each, which was plenty).  The nice slices simmered away in the syrup for 30 or 40 minutes until they turned a more uniform color (the roasting left them unevenly colored) and were infused with sugar syrup.  The mushy pieces I put into a smaller sauce pan and simmered with ladles of the ample sugar syrup.  I mashed casually every so often with a potato masher, and added syrup as it was needed, all the while sneaking spoonfuls of hot quince for myself which felt as autumnal and comforting as adding another down blanked to the bed.  (I found the idea here.)

While I didn't bother canning this proper, I'd imagine 10 minutes in a hot water bath would do the trick.  So far, I'm having some really good morning snacks of toast, a pretty amazing grilled cheese with havarti and quince slices, and last week I made David Leibovitz's whole wheat croissants - which I'm pretty sure these quince preserves were born to marry.  I was also left with a bottle of quince syrup when I strained out my slices.  I'm not sure what to enjoy it with first... maybe rice pudding or some vanilla bean ice cream?  The quince was so delicious that I couldn't bring myself to add any aromatics at all to the simmering pots; these are all made just simply of quince, sugar, and water.  Similarly, I think I could almost just enjoy this by the shot glassful.

Monitoring the simmering quince left me plenty of time to think about all of the free fruits and berries I found close to home this year, not to mention the beginning of a relationship with a wonderful, old-fashioned orchard (Klee's Out on a Limb).  There were sour cherries from a friend of a friend, and more from neighbors who dropped them off when the baby was just weeks old.  Pints of mulberries from trees walking distance from my house, and the happy discovery late in the season of a white mulberry tree that I'll keep my eye on for next year.  Tart crabapples found on a walk just a week or so ago that made their way into applesauce and the more than one neighbor who offered me pears.  When farm markets were more difficult for me to visit at the peak of the season this year, there were also neighbors with ample vegetables to share.  (An amazing end-of-season green tomato sauce courtesy of plentiful green tomatoes from across the street.  Click here and read the comments to find a simple but delicious recipe.)  All in all, so many delicious things gracing my shelves to be thankful for as we head into the most thankful part of the year!