Random Recipes

Last night I made chicken picatta for dinner. I did not take a photo of it, so you'll have to use your imagination. But imagine it was hot and tender and a bit lemony, and you'll have the gist of it.

I used a random recipe I found online from Giada De Laurentiis. It was good, very good. I will likely make it again.

Lately I have been making a lot of random recipes. Sometimes they're recipes I come across on Pinterest or on my favorite food blogs. Other times they're recipes I seek out because I'm looking to use certain ingredients—the chicken breasts in the freezer, as was the case last night, or some leftover bacon, or produce from our weekly CSA delivery that I don't normally cook with.

Some of the recipes I've tried recently include mashed potatoes and turnips with greens; grilled garlic scapes (yum); a slaw with fennel, cabbage, and kohlrabi from a weekly CSA email; a gluten-free version of strawberries and cream biscuits (a failure once they baked, though as you can see above they were pretty pre-oven; but the original version from Smitten Kitchen looks divine so please make them for me!); black bean sweet potato flautas (below); cheese papusas; huevos rancheros; and beef with snow peas from The Pioneer Woman. Most of these recipes were good. Most of these recipes I'll make again.

Along with those random recipes I've been making recently, though, I've also been relying on a couple of cookbooks.
The first is Gluten-Free Girl Every Day by Shauna James Ahern. She writes my favorite gluten-free cooking blog, which I reference frequently here, and also wrote the first gf cookbook I ever purchased. That first book, Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, tells a lovely story and includes some delicious albeit rather aspirational recipes—most aren't the kind you'd have the time or ingredients to make on an the typical night. (Well, maybe you do, but I sure don't.) That's why I picked up the new book. Because it's made—as the title says—for everyday cooking.

One of the things I like best about the new cookbook is that it doesn't just give you recipes. It tells the story behind them and includes the hints and tips and tricks that make cooking easy and enjoyable for the Aherns. I appreciate knowing what substitutions I can make or how I can modify a recipe if, say, I don't want to include dairy.

So far from the new cookbook I've made waffles (though not the fried chicken that accompanies them—cross your fingers I have time for that soon!), the browned butter peach buckle (above), a chicken recipe that involves lemon and raisins and pistachios called "everyday chicken," and a nice loaf of bread (which I'll share with you someday).

I've also been cooking—a lot—from PrairiErth Farm Cookbook by Katie Bishop. This one has a special place on my countertop because it's actually the cookbook written and published by PrairiErth Farm, which is where we get our wonderful fresh organic produce each week.

The recipes are divided up by type of produce, which makes it easy to find something to make with our loot. If I want to make something with leeks or fennel or kale, I just flip to that section of the cookbook. A lot of the recipes come straight from Katie; others are from other CSA members. I have yet to try a recipe I didn't like. So far this year we've had roasted beets with rosemary, scalloped potatoes with fennel, and garlic scapes hummus (below).

As I write this, I'm pretty sure I've made more than just those few recipes, but now I need to get out the cookbook and check. You should probably just go order a copy and try them out for yourself anyway.

So there you have it. A random roundup of some of the many recipes we've tried recently. I welcome any suggestions you might have on other recipes I should add to my "to try" list.

Fruit Pizza

Hello. How was your long 4th of July weekend? I hope it was filled with fireworks, fun in the sun, and good food. That about sums up ours.

Since we went to Georgia for Memorial Day weekend this year, we stayed home for July's big patriotic holiday. It was rather quiet around here, but there's something nice about a long weekend that moves at a slower pace.

Conservative Hubby golfed five days in a row, the last two of which were a tournament he plays in each year. That left plenty of time for Little Man and I to take walks, dig in the dirt, go swimming, and generally run around seeing what trouble we could get into. I took Little Man back to daycare this morning covered in scrapes and bruises from all of his debauchery outside (and looking rather tan despite liberal applications of SPF 50+). This, to me, is the sign of a good weekend.

On Saturday night we had some friends over for a low-key BBQ. Conservative Hubby requested a fruit pizza for dessert, so I went on the hunt for a recipe, as it had been a few years since I made one.

I decided I really wanted to find a fruit pizza that Little Man and I could eat too. Since most fruit pizzas have what is essentially a sugar cookie crust, I figured I just needed to find a decent gluten-free sugar cookie recipe.

Let me tell you, I spent a long time looking at and dismissing gluten-free sugar cookie recipes leading up to Saturday. For one reason or another, none of them seemed right to me. For one thing, as I've made clear here before, I'm a bit of a sugar cookie snob, so I was reluctant to try recipes that seemed incredibly different than my old standby or that included a ridiculous amount of random ingredients (because trust me, with gluten-free baking, sometimes the number of ingredients is downright insane). I was also being cautious because I really wanted to find a cookie that wasn't "good—for gluten-free." I wanted it to be just good. Good enough that no one else eating the fruit pizza would know it was gluten-free in the first place.

But after quite a bit of searching I realized I was going to drive myself mad trying to find the perfect recipe. So I just decided to try one that looked like it had potential—and if it didn't turn out how I wanted, I'd go buy premade sugar cookie dough to slap in the pan and bake at the last minute.

The recipe I tried is from The Gluten-Free Homemaker. One reason I picked it is because she says it's not an overly sweet sugar cookie. (The big fluffy grocery store bakery sugar cookies are so sweet my teeth literally hurt when I bite into them—not what I wanted for my fruit pizza crust or what I want when I make my own sugar cookies.) The other reason I decided to give this recipe a try is because it seemed pretty manageable and not that far of a cry from my usual sugar cookies, aside, of course, from the substitution of flours.

This recipe involves butter and coconut oil, sugar, egg, vanilla, a touch of milk, baking powder, then rice flour, potato flour, and a bit of xanthan gum to replace the wheat flour. I creamed the butter, coconut oil, and sugar, mixed in the vanilla and milk, then combined the dry ingredients in a separate bowl before adding them to the liquid mixture. Once everything was mixed together, I refrigerated the dough for an hour before spreading it in my pan to bake for about 15 minutes.

I had enough extra dough to make three cookies, which I baked beside the fruit pizza crust. I figured this would give me a chance to try the crust without cutting into my (hopefully) pretty fruit pizza.

The dough baked up well. Light, golden, looking very much like my sugar cookies I usually make. And although they of course didn't taste exactly like my go-to recipe, the cookies I ate were good. Nice, subtle flavor. Not too sweet, as advertised. I ate all three cookies just to be sure the crust would work (sometimes this baking stuff is hard work) and decided it would make a great fruit pizza base, no "for gluten-free" addendum required.

Just before the BBQ, I mixed 8 ounces of softened cream cheese with 1/2 cup powdered sugar for the "frosting" on the pizza. Some fruit pizza recipes use less sugar, some also use a bit of vanilla. There are plenty of variations out there. But I decided to go ahead and use the sugary version since the sugar cookies weren't all that sweet. Then I cut up some fruit to place atop the pizza and voila! it was ready to serve.

Conservative Hubby loved it. In fact, he said it was "unreal." So there's your assurance that this version is, in fact, worth serving to the masses.

P.S. The lady in charge of photos around here sure stinks at her job. She didn't even bother to snap a pic until after she cut into the pie and people had already eaten a few pieces. Oops. Might have to fire her. Then again, the pay is pretty lousy, so what do you expect?

Sponge Cake with Whipped Cream and Berries

Once I finally got settled in our new kitchen, I was overcome with the serious urge to bake something. Anything. Preferably a cake or pie. It had been a long time since I'd bothered much with baking since our old oven was so unpredictable.

Although my first choice is always a pie, since it was Father's Day weekend I decided instead to make a cake to celebrate. But I didn't want something heavy, like the German chocolate cake Conservative Hubby suggested at first. I wanted something light and fresh and springy.

So I decided to make this sponge cake with whipped cream and strawberries.

Admittedly, I was a little nervous about tackling this recipe. For one thing, I don't bake cakes all that often. For another, I was trying out our new oven for the first time. And—this was the big one—I decided to be brave and try a gluten-free sponge cake recipe.

The recipe I used, from Gluten Free on a Shoestring, looked easy enough. Eggs, granulated sugar, freshly squeezed lemon juice, cornstarch, kosher salt, vanilla extract, and a gluten-free flour blend. (She includes a link to her preferred blend with the recipe, but I used my usual mix instead.)

Mixing together the ingredients was easy. (There's something I can't quite describe about how lovely a bowl of cake batter can be. Perhaps someday I will try to put it into words for you, when I'm feeling a bit more poetic and my stomach isn't growling at me.)

Pouring the batter into the pan was easy.

Waiting for the cake to bake—and praying it would turn out OK—was excruciatingly hard.

Fortunately, the cake turned out beautifully. Golden and spongey, just as it should.

Once the cake cooled, I made some homemade whipped cream. (Nothing fancy. Just 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 cup heavy whipping cream, mixed and mixed and mixed some more until I had a bowl full of sugary-white peaks. This, by the way, made more whipped cream than I actually needed. But there's nothing wrong with having some leftover whipped cream.)

I cut the cake in half, generously slathered the top of the first half with whipped cream, added cut strawberries, placed the second half of the cake on top, and repeated the slathering and placing. Easy as can be.

And the results? Absolutely delicious. No one would have been the wiser that it was gluten free, except that both Little Man and I got to enjoy a rather large piece of cake—and otherwise, we would've passed on it.

(He said "mmmm" after each and every bite and ended up with whipped cream from his chin to the top of his head. That, in my world, is success.)

I'm thinking of making this cake again this week, in fact. With some blueberries thrown in alongside the strawberries, I imagine this would make for a rather festive Fourth of July treat.

Strawberries

Let's talk strawberries for a moment, shall we?

I'm rather smitten with berries of all sorts lately, but most especially strawberries.

I'm not the only one in the house who's smitten. In fact, given the choice, Little Man would eat only berries all day every day. I'm quite sure of it. Can't say I blame the kid.

So we've been eating a lot of berries, not only strawberries but also blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries. Yet the strawberries have taken a particularly important place in our diet lately.

Mostly, we've been nibbling on the strawberries picked from our front-yard patch. Or buying strawberries from the grocery store.

But this past Saturday at the farmer's market, there were plenty of local strawberries for sale, so I brought some home. And promptly set to eating them plain, making strawberry and cream biscuits (more on those later), and whipping up buckwheat pancakes with roasted strawberries (more on that coming, too).

I had a few store-bought strawberries lingering in the fridge when I brought home the fresh local ones, so I cut the last of those up too. Here's a bowl with a few of each. Bet you'll never guess which is which.

Can you believe the difference? The store-bought berries, probably shipped from California and sitting in the store for close to a week before I bought them, are on the left. They're firm, almost a bit dry, mostly white on the inside. The ones on the right are the fresh local berries. They're a bit soft, incredibly juicy, and bright red all the way through.

Bet you'll never guess which ones taste better, either.

And this is why, whenever I can, I try to buy local. Because whether it's just-picked strawberries or fresh-from-the-vine tomatoes, it doesn't get any better than something grown right here near home.

Failure

I love reading food blogs. If time allowed, I'd spend hours gazing at them. All those striking photos of decadent cakes, divine dinners, and everything in between are like porn for food lovers.

My cooking and baking life is nothing like those food blogs. Sometimes, when I have a success with a recipe I try, I think I may be getting there. But you know what? I'm not even close.

In fact, I've determined recently that my success ratio in the kitchen is about 3:1. For every three tries that work out beautifully (or at least reasonably well), I have one failure. Usually an epic failure.

(Here's one—some flourless banana muffins, a popular recipe on Pinterest. They were the most hideous things I ever made and didn't taste all that great either. They actually looked a lot worse than this in real life.)

The failures happen for any number of reasons. Sometimes I just pick a dud of a recipe that is rather lackluster even when I follow the instruction to a T. But often it's user error. I don't quite have the right ingredients so I leave something out intentionally. Or I just plain forget something that was vital to the recipe's success. Sometimes I fail to measure things out precisely enough. Or I get distracted by Little Man and my timing is off. There are lots of reasons I fail and fail often in the kitchen, and I'm realistic about my abilities being middling at best.

Case in point: Recently I made homemade graham crackers for Little Man. I tackled it, as I do with most baking these days, once he went down for a nap, excited that he'd have fresh, warm graham crackers for his afternoon snack. Only I decided to throw in a load of laundry and handle a few other minor household to-dos before I started in on the recipe, and alas, as he's wont to do anytime I'm baking, he woke up earlier than usual from his nap, while the just-mixed dough was still sitting on the counter.

By the time I was able to get back to rolling it out, the dough was incredibly sticky and hard to work with, so I wasn't able to roll the crackers as thin as I should have. Needless to say, the end result wasn't all that fantastic. Fail.

Fortunately, I followed up that failure with a couple of successes. Some decadent chocolate-caramel-shortbread bars I'll share with you soon, the crepes I posted recently, and a Father's Day sponge cake that also will make an appearance here before long.

That was three, so I was bound for another failure. And this one was a doozy, as it resulted in the complete ruination of dinner. Usually my failures are of the "well, it's not the best but it's edible" variety, but this one was just plain bad. And it was pizza, by gosh. How does one mess up pizza that bad?

I'm not sure what happened, but I knew something was off with the crust after it rose (very little) for an hour and fell apart when I picked it up. I thought it was maybe just a little dry but, on the bright side, that meant it wouldn't stick so much when I rolled it out. So I proceeded to make the crusts and then load the pies with toppings and bake them some more. The end result looked good, but it was so chewy and hard we couldn't even really eat the pizza.

(I forced myself to eat some so as not to waste all that food, Little Man devoured his toppings but left the crust alone, and Conservative Hubby had to scrounge around for something edible to substitute for dinner.)

Big disappointment. Big. Huge.

Now I have to figure out how I'm going to redeem myself.

All-Purpose Gluten-Free Flour

It's hard to believe it's been nearly a month since I quit eating wheat. Honestly, it has been a lot easier than I imagined—in large part because I researched what my baking options were in advance and stocked up on a great selection of gluten-free flours to get me started.

You know I can't possibly give up baking in the name of my health.

I know there are plenty of gluten-free all-purpose flours available, but I've heard mixed reviews about most. I knew if I was going to make going wheat-free work, I needed to find not just an okay alternative to wheat flour but a great alternative. So, mostly, I've been relying on the advice of experts, like Gluten-Free Girl and a few others.

So far since I ditched wheat I've made all the things I'd normally make—chicken and dumplings, pancakes, snickerdoodles, peanut butter cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, flourless chocolate cake, pizza crust (multiple recipes—you know I have to have my pizza), all sorts of muffins. And I've yet to find anything I didn't like or wouldn't make again, in part because I've been so selective of the gf recipes I'm willing to try.

One thing that's really helped me in my new baking endeavors is a recipe for all-purpose flour from Gluten-Free Girl. I mixed up a big container of it and used it to make all sorts of cookies and as a thickening agent in recipes on occasion. I'm about out, in fact, so I need to make up another batch. I really do think a good gluten-free AP flour recipes may be the key to my survival.

Here's what my recipe of the moment includes:

• 200 grams superfine brown rice flour
• 150 grams sorghum flour
• 50 grams potato flour
• 250 grams sweet rice flour
• 150 grams potato starch
• 100 grams arrowroot powder
• 100 grams cornstarch

Wait! Stop! Come back! Please don't freak out by the huge list of items that you don't have in your kitchen and the fact everything above is written in grams.

That stressed me out a bit, too. So, yeah, it's a big list. But once you get the hang of working by weight rather than volume, it only takes a few minutes to measure things out and toss them in a container. This lovely little scale I bought makes the process a breeze.

If you live in an area with a decent health foods/natural foods/whatever store, you can probably find all these ingredients locally. Naturally L-Town doesn't have a big demand for these things (yet), so I ordered mine online from Vitacost (free shipping—yay!). I stocked up on the flours I thought I'd use the most, including what's listed above plus a few others. I'll probably place another order again before too long, but my initial order is lasting me quite a while given how frequently I bake.

If you're still a bit alarmed about the idea of mixing your own AP flour, check out this Gluten-Free Girl blog post on the topic. It even includes a video to show you how easy it is. And it includes a list of all the options, because you can even make your own special, personalized gluten-free all-purpose flour combo. All you do is follow the recommended ratios she explains in the post.

Come on, give it a try ...

Or, if you're a wheat-eater, just stick to what you know. No peer pressure here. But expect to try some delicious wheat-free baked goods if you come to visit me.

Ditching Wheat

For breakfast, I love a fresh, fluffy biscuit or a nice, crumbly muffin. If you stop by here very often at all, you already know that I'll take a cookie with my coffee or for an afternoon snack with my tea any day. Few things make me swoon like a flaky pie crust. And a warm, crusty slice of bread with dinner? Don't even get me started.

And yet, about two weeks ago, after a pizza and breadsticks binge, I gave up wheat.

Why?

Because a few years ago, when I had surgery to remove a giant cyst from my ovary (which also resulted in the removal of my ovary, too), I learned that the cause of that darn cyst was endometriosis.

To make a long story short, once the cyst was gone, I was pain free for a while. But a few months later, all sorts of symptoms that I soon found out were related to endometriosis started cropping up. Then, I got pregnant, and for my entire pregnancy and most of the time I was nursing Little Man, I was once again symptom-free.

But now, in the past few months, my symptoms have come back full force. I'm not going to bore you with an explanation of endometriosis or the many symptoms it causes, but if you're so inclined, you can learn the basics.

Please note: I don't tell you this to make you worry about me or feel sorry for me or anything of the sort. Endometriosis is a chronic illness that affects a lot more women than you might realize. In fact, odds are you know more than one woman who has it, although it's not the sort of illness most women talk about openly. (Which is actually something I'm hoping to help change, by the way.)

Fortunately, although there is no cure for endo, there are a variety of ways to manage it. And one of the natural ways many women are able to keep symptoms somewhat in check is through diet.

Guess what's at the top of the list of foods to avoid if you have endo? Yep, you guessed it.

Wheat.

I'm not going into all the details on why here, but needless to say there is quite a bit of evidence—scientific and anecdotal—that for many women with endometriosis, eliminating wheat from their diet has a positive effect.

I'm not interested in trying the different drug therapies that are out there for endo, because most of them are only somewhat effective and come with some nasty side effects. (Uh, no thanks on the excess facial hair or starting menopause at age 30—although I know these treatments are very necessary for some women.) And I'm hoping to avoid having surgery again, although laparoscopy is often a woman's best chance at obtaining relief from endo.

So that leaves natural treatments, one of which is diet.

Perhaps giving up wheat will help. It's too early to really know for sure. Maybe it won't. But either way, it's worth a try.

I can tell you that if it doesn't seem to make a difference, I'll be back on the wheat train. I don't think wheat is something to deprive yourself of unless you have a medical reason to do so. An increasing number of people are hopping on the gluten-free bandwagon just because they've heard it makes you feel better or because celebrities do it. That's crazy. Sure, everyone should probably eat wheat in more moderation than most Americans do (the same with pretty much everything Americans eat). But to cut it out completely just because it's trendy is nuts—and it may even have unintended health implications.

Anyhow, random soap box again. I keep jumping up on those darn things.

For now, my goal is to make going wheat-free as easy as possible. I'm not going to be nuts about it. If I slip up a few times, it's not the end of the world. I'm going to be as low-maintenance about it as I can—skipping the items that contain wheat when eating out or at someone else's house, but not freaking out if I have to eat something with wheat on rare occasions. (Trust me, if you've seen me in need of a snack, you will understand that eating something with a bit of wheat is preferable to a hungry Julie.) I don't have celiac disease, in which case any exposure to wheat can be incredibly harmful. So a little wheat here and there, if absolutely necessary, won't be the end of the world.

Fortunately, it's a lot easier to skip wheat than it was even a few years ago when I first starting investigating natural endo treatments. (At that point, the thought of actually giving up wheat never even crossed my mind because I didn't see how I'd survive!) Now, there are fabulous blogs and books devoted to making incredibly delicious gluten-free meals and even baked goods to rival those with gluten. There are also some pretty darn good gluten-free breads, snacks, cereals, you name it available at many grocery stores.

I knew all of this well before my no-wheat diet began two weeks ago, because over the past few months an increasing number of gluten-free recipes and products have been sneaking into our house anyway. That's because there's a chance Little Man has a sensitivity to wheat, too.

I know, I know. Now you think I really am nuts. It's OK. This one is a bit more of a stretch. It isn't really grounded in any research or trials, like ditching wheat for endo is.

The thing with Little Man is totally different. You see, around the time he started eating solid foods beyond his introductory all-fruit or veggie purees, he developed one cold after another—and every single on turned into a sinus infection that required at least one, sometimes two, rounds of antibiotics. Within a week of clearing up one sinus infection, his runny nose would be back, and we'd start the cycle all over again.

I started to do some research, talked to some other moms, and heard of other kids that had similar issues. Eventually, in a few cases, it turned out wheat was a culprit. I was desperate for anything that would prevent our almost-monthly trips to the doctor's office and the pharmacy, so we took Little Man off wheat to see if it would help.

Since the wheat was finally out of Little Man's system, he hasn't had a sinus infection. Not a single one. He's had a few colds (but who hasn't this winter?). None of his recent colds has turned into a sinus infection like every single one used to.

Is wheat the culprit? Who knows for sure. It could be an environmental allergy or a seasonal allergy that's the problem. Kids can't really be tested for allergies until they're three (I guess their bodies don't really respond to the tests until around then), so it's going to be quite some time before we know for sure. But as long as he keeps doing well sans wheat, I'm not going to mess with what's working.

And so now, after I'm pretty sure no one is actually still reading, I get to the point of this long, rambling post. Which is this: I'm probably going to be trying all sorts of gluten-free recipes in the near future. And I'll probably post them here. But I promise not to turn this into a gluten-free cooking and baking blog. I promise to post lots of things you wheat-eating people will still like.

And if I do post gluten-free recipes? It will be because they're just plain good. And because they've gotten the ultimate endorsement from Conservative Hubby: either he liked them enough to eat them knowing they were gluten-free, or they were good enough he never realized they were gluten-free in the first place.

That's how you know a recipe really is fit for the masses, or at least a couple of loyal blog readers!

(I also promise not to really post about endo on this site at all, or only very rarely. I'll save all that info for my fellow endo sufferers over at this blog, which is a work in progress but the beginning of a bigger project I'm actually pretty excited about. I'm not expecting most of you will read it, but if you have endo or know someone who does, perhaps you'll be interested in checking it out.)

Baked Oatmeal Casserole

I love oatmeal.

I love regular oatmeal with brown sugar. I love oats with nuts and fresh berries or dried cranberries and a touch of honey. I love fancy, schmancy oatmeal combos, like baked pumpkin steel cut oatmeal.

I love cookies with oatmeal (particularly homemade Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies, in which the ground oats are a super-special secret ingredient, as well as these loaded oatmeal cookies). Not long ago, I discovered I also love no-bake energy balls which, naturally, contain oatmeal, too.

So it should come as no surprise that I have a whole list of must-make recipes that include oatmeal. One, which I tried a few weekends ago, is a baked oatmeal casserole.

I knew I'd love it because it has a lot of my favorite things in it: chocolate, bananas, raspberries, cinnamon, walnuts. And oats! (Of course.)

The result was so rich I almost felt guilty eating it for breakfast. Almost.

I ate it for days afterward, too, so it was a good thing I liked it.

(Conservative Hubby, on the other hand, wasn't a fan, but then again after I made him eat a piece he told me he hates oatmeal. I don't understand how you can hate oatmeal. It's delicious. But, alas, lesson learned on that one.)

I think next time I make this, I'll use fewer chocolate chips. And maybe try adding a bit more fruit. And a bit less sugar.

Gasp.

No, my blog wasn't just taken over by an alien from another planet posing as me. I really did just say I'd reduce the amount of chocolate and sugar. Don't worry. I'm feeling OK. It's just sometimes I like my breakfast a little healthier.

Unless, of course, there are Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies available to eat with my coffee. Or sugar cookies. Or snickerdoodles.

(See? It's still me!)

Honey-Rosemary Shortbread Cookies

I realized tonight that I have more than 10 things I want to share with you--furniture moving and farm dinners and flower photos and recipes and little nursery tidbits and other such nonsense.

So why the heck am I posting so infrequently?

I promise to get back to you more often.

No, really. Seriously.

Come on guys, listen.

I mean it this time.

I digressed before I even began, didn't I? Anyway. Back at the ranch.

A few weeks ago, when the urge to bake finally returned, I decided to make the honey-rosemary shortbread cookies I stumbled upon in a recent issue of Midwest Living.


Good choice, because: They were relatively easy to make. They required some of the rosemary that has been growing unchecked in our front yard all summer. And they're a rather light, summery cookie. What's not to love about all that?

Oh, and did I mention that as good as they are plain, they're pretty darn delicious with a little lemon sorbet too?


You can check out the recipe by clicking here.

Getting Back Into Baking

A couple of weekends ago, while Conservative Hubby was away at a bachelor party, I took advantage of a quiet weekend to finally--finally!--start baking again. I made cookies one night and cake the next.

The cookies I will share with you later.

This is the cake.


It's a whipped cream cake, the recipe for which was sent to me recently by Grandma P. I decided to top it with a no-cook fudge frosting, even though I think I was supposed to use a 7-minute icing.

My Mom and I had been talking cakes one day and she said the whipped cream cake was absolutely amazing. (So amazing, I learned later, that my Grandpa Charlie used to eat it for breakfast. But then again, if you knew Grandpa Charlie and his sweet tooth, that wouldn't surprise you. What sweets didn't he eat for breakfast?)

I decided that I had to try the recipe. Not because I expected to each much of it myself, given my general disinterest in cake, but because I knew Conservative Hubby would probably love it.


The only problem is, our oven is darn finicky. I have it down for cookie baking, but forgot that it would cause problems with cake, too.

So, sadly, because I did not adjust the baking time as I should have, the cake was a bit too dry. That didn't stop Conservative Hubby from eating it, mind you, but it did stop him from swooning over it like I expected he would.

I guess I'll just have to try again one of these days, eh?

Summer Pie

I realized last weekend that summer isn't officially summer without a strawberry rhubarb pie. So I did what any sane person would do in such a situation. I made one.

Key Lime Pie

Key limes are hard to come by in this part of the country.

So when a little bag of them showed up at Kroger, I couldn't resist snagging it. I had to make Conservative Hubby a key lime pie, of course. It's one of his favorites.


This pie was the first thing I'd baked in months ... possibly since I made those "we're pregnant cookies" to announce the big news to Conservative Family.

And it was also one of the first sweet things (aside from the occasional bite of ice cream) I ate in months, because for some strange reason when I got pregnant I lost my sweet tooth.

Who would've thought that could happen to me, of all people?

Cinnamon Rolls

If you've ever walked by a Cinnabon in an airport (and if you've ever been in an airport, odds are you have), you've probably experienced that moment when you are so overcome with the scent of the cinnamon rolls that you momentarily forget about how bad they are and begin salivating on the spot.

It can be hard to resist temptation, I know.

You should try making Cinnabon cinnamon rolls in your own home and then try to resist temptation.


It's even harder. Especially because the hit to your bank account is considerably less than it would be in the airport. And the cinnamon rolls are much more accessible.

Then again, when you see just how much butter is in this recipe, you may have a bit more willpower to resist. If it's possible to suffer death by butter, then this recipe will get you dangerously close.

But the thing is, life's too short not to try these ridiculously over-the-top goodies.

That's why, armed with a recipe My Sister sent me, I set about making these cinnamon rolls a couple of weekends ago.

First came the dough, with 1/3 cup butter as one of the ingredients. Then came another 1/3 cup softened butter, which I spread on top of the flattened dough.


After that, on went cinnamon and brown sugar. At last! A reprieve from the butter.


Then I rolled up the dough.


Next, I sliced the rolled dough and placed the individuals rolls in the pan.


Then, while baking the rolls, I whipped up the icing, which included (naturally) another 8 tablespoons of butter.

On went the icing, and then the rolls were ready to serve. I promptly took some down to the basement for the boys, who were hard at work.



(We'll pretend I was being nice and generous, but really I just knew I had to get those darn things out of the kitchen so I couldn't overdose.)

On a side note, I realized after I ate one of the cinnamon rolls that for all the butter in the dough and on the dough and in the frosting, my granddad Charlie still would have slathered the top of the frosting on the cinnamon roll with butter. No joke.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

In honor of a very important day (that would be Conservative Hubby's birthday at the beginning of the month), I made a very important treat.


Red velvet cupcakes.

To make these red velvet cupcakes, I used Paula Deen's recipe. (Except I skipped the toppers, because why would anyone mess up cream cheese frosting by topping it with nuts or berries?)

The cupcakes turned out pretty darn good. At least the birthday boy thought so.

And he should know--he ate nearly the entire batch himself.

But if you make this recipe, please be warned: It makes copious amounts of cream cheese frosting. I don't think I was stingy when I frosted the cupcakes, but I still had half the batch of frosting left. No joke.

So go ahead and cut the frosting recipe in half.

Or not. I discovered it's awfully tasty sans cupcakes.

Chocolate Peppermint Snowflake Tart

Sometimes the recipes I try are pretty good. Sometimes they're not that great. And occasionally, they're really great.

The really great recipes are the ones I mentally star, the sort of recipes I undoubtedly will come back to time and again.

I wasn't expecting this recipe, which I cut out of the newspaper one day last week, to be in the really great category.


Only it was. It is. It's on the hit list, I think.

It's a chocolate peppermint snowflake tart. The recipe, courtesy of the AP, goes a little something like this:

Crust ingredients:
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
½ cup sugar
¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into chunks

Ganache ingredients:
1 ¼ cups heavy cream
8 ounces semisweet chocolate
1 ½ teaspoons peppermint extract
Powdered sugar, for dusting

Directions:
Heat the oven to 375 F. In a food processor, combine the flour, salt, cocoa powder and sugar. Pulse to combine. Add the butter and process until the mixture forms a dough, about 30 seconds.

Remove the dough from the processor and break off about a third of it. Set this aside.

Press the remaining dough into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch tart pan with removable bottom. Use a fork to prick the bottom of the crust all over. Freeze for 15 minutes, then bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the center of the bottom feels firm.

Meanwhile, make the snowflake cookies.

Roll out the reserved dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper to 1/8 inch thick. Move the dough to a baking sheet, including the parchment paper, then refrigerate until firm, about 15 minutes.

Use 1- to 2-inch cookie cutters to cut out 8 to 10 snowflakes (of multiple sizes, if desired). If the dough becomes too soft, you may need to chill it in the refrigerator as you work. Once all of the cookies are cut, transfer them to a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and refrigerate for 10 minutes.

Bake the snowflakes for 10 to 15 minutes (depending on size of the cookies), or until firm. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet.

To make the ganache filling, in a small saucepan over medium, heat the cream until simmering. Add the chocolate and let sit off the heat for 2 minutes. Stir until smooth. Stir in the peppermint extract, then pour into the baked tart shell. Refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.

When ready to serve, dust the snowflake cookies with powdered sugar, then arrange them on the top of the tart.


If I remember correctly (I was in a food haze when she said it), Kid Sister called the tart "Andes mints on steroids." I like this. Or perhaps it was the Girl Scouts' thin mint cookies on steroids. That might be even more fitting, with the bit of crunch the tart crust and cookies provide.

Either way, it's rich and festive and oh so yummy.

Appeasing the Cookie Monster

Before my annual Christmas cook-making extravaganza, I did some holiday decorating. A friendly, festive little cookie jar is among the things I set out each December.

Only this year, the little cookie jar wasn't quite as festive as in years past. In fact, when I came home from work one day I discovered he'd gotten rather demanding.

How do I know he'd gotten demanding?

Because he left me this note.


I didn't want to deal with a cranky cookie jar all month, so I obliged. I filled the cookie jar to the brim with Conservative Hubby's favorite Christmas tree cookies.


I thought this would appease the cookie jar.

Little did I realize that he'd be overtaken with a sugar high from all the sweets I left him and would go off the deep end.

Case in point: A few days later, I came home from work to find this:


Poor cookie jar lost his mind (and, apparently, his face).

Then again, I can't help but wonder if it was the cookie jar that lost his mind or some other character in my house ... perhaps the character that actually consumed all those cookies?

The world may never know ...

Cookies

Tonight Conservative Hubby and I bundled up and embarked on a mini adventure that has become a tradition since we have lived in L-Town: Cookie deliveries.


We took cookie plates (plus a special surprise you'll learn about tomorrow) to many of our neighbors and a few other friends in town. (And yesterday, we took the same cookie plates to Conservative Family dinner to share the love with Conservative Mom and Dad and Kid Sister and T-Bear.)


Of course the cookie plates included the old standbys: sugar cookies, candy cane cookies, Christmas trees, peanut butter blossoms, and fudge.


But of course, as I did last year, I added a few new treats to the plates. This year, that included toffee and candy covered pretzels. Yum.


If you'd like a few treats yourself, stop on by. We have plenty of cookies left.

No, really. Please come over. Don't MAKE me eat all of these myself.

Monkey Bread

Most days, this blog could be called Cooking with Julie. Occasionally, it's Extreme Cooking with Conservative Boy.

But today we have a new guest star: Kid Sister.

In the first-ever episode of Cooking with Kid Sister, the lady of the hour is showing you to how to make her world-famous Monkey Bread.


Before I began dining with Conservative Family on Turkey Day, I hadn't ever heard of this creation called Monkey Bread.

(Although I have since learned that there are a few other people in the world who have been making this tasty treat in their families for years.)

And somehow, in the time I've become acquainted with this delicacy, it has gone from relative obscurity to mainstream appeal. Can you believe the recipe is now printed on the wrapper of bulk packages of Pillsbury biscuits during the holidays?

Kid Sister is a trendsetter. That's all I can say.

So anyway. The thing about this year's Monkey Bread is this: You won't find the recipe for it on any wrappers.

That's because this year Kid Sister got innovative.

And you're witnessing it right here.

You see, usually Monkey Bread involves little pieces of biscuit dough, of course. And lots of butter and cinnamon and sugar. But that's it. Just throw it all in a Bundt pan and bake.

But this year, stealing a page from her brother (or not), Kid Sister went EXTREME.


First, she sprinkled mini chocolate chips among the layers of dough. And then she poured a mixture of melted butter and brown sugar on top.


It was an experiment. Sometimes experiments fail.

For the record, this one wasn't a failure.


In fact, it was so delicious a fight almost broke out at the dinner table about which side should get to keep the pan of Monkey Bread by them.

It was so delicious we wondered why we even bothered with pie.

It was so delicious, I'm pretty sure Kid Sister is going to have to make the exact same recipe again next year.

And in the meantime, she really should tell Pillsbury to stop stealing her ideas.

Carrot Cake

Yesterday was my birthday. For my birthday, I made myself a cake.


But not just any cake.

This was a carrot cake.

And not just any carrot cake. It was my grandma’s carrot cake.

I hadn't intended to make a carrot cake. Although just a few weeks ago I told someone how I always used to request Grandma's carrot cake for my birthday, I thought I'd probably have an apple pie or cookies or something like that for my birthday treat instead.

But Wednesday, the day before my birthday, Grandma Collins passed away. She decided it was time to go join her "boyfriend," as she so lovingly called my grandfather.

Grandma made sure she waited for all 11 of her children to gather at her side. And then she decided it was OK to go, that it was time to go see the husband she'd been missing dearly for just over a year.

And so, because Grandma's carrot cake was the only kind of cake I’ve ever truly liked and ever requested regularly, I baked a carrot cake in her honor.

And with each ingredient that went into the bowl, I added a memory of Grandma Collins.

Naturally, my memories began in the kitchen, not only with her carrot cake but also with the amazing fried chicken she’d make. With the bright red hot dogs she’d boil in a pot on the stove for us kids when we stayed at her house. With the tin of chocolate chip cookies she kept on the counter—always with a slice of white bread to keep the cookies soft.

There were the colorful plastic mugs she bought so each grandkid would have his or her own special cup for drinking water or Squirt or milk whenever we’d come to visit. The countertop dishwasher she’d hook up to the sink after dinner was done. The big pantry full of surprises just outside the kitchen in their little apartment.

At the kitchen table, we played board games (Scrabble, naturally, was a favorite) and twisted colorful string together into friendship bracelets.

Some of the items from the kitchen found other uses in our visits to Grandma—particularly her mixing spoons, which always served as our microphones as we performed along with Lawrence Welk in the living room.

In that living room, Grandma’s wooden rocker with the soft cushions always sat to the right of Grandpa’s big recliner. On her footstool, which also rocked, without fail you would find a crossword dictionary and a folded, half-finished crossword puzzle.

In that living room, I remember spending many afternoons watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and the news with my grandparents. I remember the hard candies—Werther’s and peppermints and those little bright yellow butterscotch disks—she kept on an end table for whoever needed a treat.

Grandma was always kind and generous when us grandkids visited (which was often)—letting us whip up magic elixirs with her lotions and creams and perfumes in the bathroom, allowing us to take over their bedroom when we were older so we could sprawl across the bed and watch first Nick At Nite and later whatever music videos came on MTV. She watched over us while we played recklessly in the backyard, hopping over the creek and squealing at snakes.

Grandma was the one who encouraged Grandpa to show us just once more how he could squeeze water from a rock. She was the one who would turn around in the front seat of the car and remind us kids—always, without fail, no matter our age—that the car wouldn’t start until all seat belts were buckled.

Whenever things went wrong, Grandma was there with a hug. Or a cookie. Or a piece of her carrot cake. Even when things went well, she was there with the same.

But here’s the thing about carrot cake. You can’t have carrot cake without cream cheese frosting.


And that’s the thing with Grandma—you can’t have Grandma without Grandpa.

Grandma was a strong-willed, independent woman until the end, with a feisty streak she shared with all the Collins women. But in my memories, whenever Grandma is there, Grandpa is there too.

So, as hard as it is to think that she’s gone, it’s OK. Because now she’s back with Grandpa, where she's happiest.

And she’s left us all more memories than we can count ... and, of course, the recipe for her carrot cake.

Aprons

If someone had told me 10 years ago that at 27 I would spend my spare time baking and would get incredibly excited about a new apron, I would have laughed.

No way. No how. Not a chance.

Yet here I am, ecstatic about my most recent purchase and the mixed berry pie I made the other night. And I'm not the least bit ashamed.


Many of the mothers that raised my generation somehow, miraculously, juggled the demands of full-time work with the challenges of raising a family and maintaining order in their house.

They—my own mother included—did so with grace. And while they did it, they taught us that we can do anything we want. That our lives are what we make of them.

We can have a family and a successful career. We can travel the world if we want, all alone or with a companion. We can go ahead and not get married—ever. We can "settle down" and live a happy, traditional life. Or we can live a life unlike any that's been lived before. There is no formula. There is no right or wrong way. It's up to us.

We can do it all, these mothers told us. We listened.

And so, young, motivated, empowered (stop rolling your eyes, Conservative Boy), we set out to make over the world. To do anything and everything we set our minds to.

We went to college. We jumped into jobs that excited us, that energized us, that we loved.

Along the way, we're finding that sometimes our dreams have changed. The original career path we envisioned for ourselves (for me, being an investigative reporter the likes of Woodward and Bernstein) has moved in a new direction.

Our aspirations shift and change over time, but are no less important and relevant and possible. We have discovered that things we never thought we would be interested in—gardening, cooking, marrying—aren't something to be feared and shunned as the antithesis of who we are and ought to become.

Rather, some of those actions are to be embraced. Not because society tells us it's what we are supposed to do, that being domestic goddesses is our calling and all we were made for in this life.

But because there's something wonderful and relaxing and, yes, even empowering about spending time with your hands in the earth, about tending to a garden and watching the seeds you have planted grow into plants producing food that fills your own belly.

There's something worth rejoicing in the process of learning how to transform raw ingredients into a dish to be savored. There's something strangely exciting in finally finding the perfect pie crust or discovering a cookie recipe that makes everyone who tries it swoon.

It's a bit selfish, in fact, this love of all things domestic. It's another challenge to conquer, another new activity to try. It's something to succeed at and, when we fail, to keep trying to improve.

But there's also joy in making good food to be shared with loved ones. There's something satisfying about planting a garden that can be enjoyed not just by the people who harvest its fruits or cut its flowers, but by everyone who passes by.

And so I forge ahead, finishing up my master's and still figuring out what I'm going to be when I grow up. Dreaming about writing novels and somehow making a difference in the world.

And when I need a break from all that work, I find a moment of absolute joy by donning a cheerful apron.


When I'm bleary eyed and worn out, I find solace and strength and enjoyment in the kitchen, baking pies and trying new recipes.

I find happiness and serenity in the garden, playing in the fertile soil.

And that's OK.