where she admits Spring is here

What a disappointing winter...

The height of DC's snow: Shaw Recreation Center on Feb. 12th

I repeatedly humored the so-called winter weather, preferring to think that all the mild December and January temperatures presaged a violent dumping of snow to occur in mid-March or *gasp* end-of-April (birthday). But the climate appears not to have heard me. I think I can finally declare to myself that Spring (and temps in the 80s) are here to stay. Cue groaning about DC humidity here...

Unfortunately this gives me a good excuse to gripe about my running schedule as well. Progress in training this week has been irregular, and I am comparing myself to the early-peaking cherry blossoms in reproach. It's not ME! It's the CLIMATE!

That's okay, though. If I've learned one thing from my mature years, it is that one dip does not mean the end of the streak. No, we shall just go bumping along, like many other fearless creatives who are risking it all for their happiness.

Well, folks, it's been a tough week, with the runs falling a bit short, and having to face several goals that are not being met (pages written, healing accomplished, enlightenment achieved). One morning, I woke up decidedly against running. Daylight savings had it completely dark outside during my usual run time, and I was tired from the time change. I didn't want to run, so I decided...

To Bake.

That makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Maybe not. Well, it's like this: my body didn't feel like running, but my mind craved the satisfaction, the sense of accomplishment, that come from putting in the effort toward a worthy goal. So I made these cookies, from the blog, Coconut & Lime. They were pretty good. And I got to conduct a science experiment.

Ingredients:
6 oz semisweet chips

3/4 cup dark brown sugar
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats
4 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoon five spice powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, at room temperature*

Preheat oven to 350. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg, beat until fluffy. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, the spices and oatmeal. Mix until well combined. Fold in chips. Place tablespoon-sized blobs of dough on the lined cookie sheet about 1/2 inch apart and bake for 12-14 minutes or until they look "set" and the bottoms are just golden. Carefully remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

The experiment was this: you know how some cooks recommend you squash down the tops of drop cookies before baking? What's that about? Instead of Googling it, I did half spheres and half smooshed spheres of cookie dough and observed their behavior in their natural habitat.

Squished on the left, Round on the right

The smooshed spheres of cookie dough burned on the bottom faster than the regular spheres, which even got an extra minute in the oven. After combing the Googels extensively for 20 minutes, I found this article that stresses the amount of baking soda as key in how much a drop cookie will spread when baking (more soda, more spread). However, I'm having difficulty finding the cause of the tradition of flattening the drops of dough. Does anyone out there in Blog Land have an idea? Please let us know in the comments- your help would be much appreciated!

The cookies were gobbled up to general satisfaction, but it will be good to get back to running.

3-2-1...Cast-Off!

Well, hello there.

If this is your first time visiting, you might want to catch up before you continue reading. I fractured both of the arm bones in my right forearm while ice skating in January, which curtailed some of my adventurous living for a few weeks, but now I am back.

The date for the Cast-Off, as I liked to call it, was Valentine's Day, and it was as good a distraction as any... plus a big positive step in the right direction! Now I've got a removable brace and physical therapy exercises, which aren't too bad at all.

This being my first time with a broken bone, it was pretty cool seeing how the process went. It was painfully obvious that the technician did a dozen of these a week, but it was new to me, and fascinating. So of course I took pictures. Cackhanded.

 First he used this mini-circular saw, powered by what looked like a shop-vac (see top picture) to cut through the fiberglass part. It tickled a bit, and gave off some heat. Me? Worried?

 

Then he used a pair of surgical tongs to widen the strip, and then surgical scissors to cut through the under-layer of gauze. I had been wondering what kind of super-sensing machine could saw through it all without nicking your skin for 4 weeks, so I was somewhat relieved that there were graduated steps to this process.

 When the cast came off, my skin felt weird. Old. And that makes sense, when you think that skin under a cast doesn't have a chance to slough off in its natural course, so I needed to exfoliate it. Ick.

What was surprisingly painful was the range of motion. I was kind of assuming that when the cast came off, I would be able to move my arm normally again, if carefully and with caution. Nope. What you see here is as far as my wrist would go backward and forward, on its own. Whoa. They said it would feel 'stiff,' but this was nuts! It got much better after 24 hours though, and now I'm chipping away at it with the PT. I'm very grateful it was a clean break and I didn't need surgery. Whew!
Now I am pretty much back to my old tricks...

Yaki Soba noodles and spice packet, but with pre-chopped vegetable mix from Trader Joe's (new item, and not something I would buy with two good hands)

Linguine with Smoked Trout, with fennel and onion broth (using up leftovers, frugal foodies can rejoice!)

Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies

What's not to love? I was having fun with the microwave reflection in this as well. Because if you can't have fun with your peppermint chocolate chip cookies, what can you have fun with??

More to come on those action steps from the Tea Klatsch, including social connections, skill cultivation, and balance. Do any of those jump out at you as something you're working on, or might need to focus on? Leave a comment and join the group!

Oatcakes and Orange Flower Water

Greetings, Friends.

The ship may no longer be going Full Steam Ahead, BUT it is not idling away in dry-dock, either.

For all you non-nautical types out there (including me), please refer to my disclaimer about overworked metaphors. While I do have a broken right arm, I'm planning on sneaking my way around that obstacle at least a few times over the course of the next 3-5 weeks. Probably with the help of my friends.

As for my two main goals for the beginning of 2012- training for the 10-miler and increased pace of writing- they will both be put on hold. Tuesday I get fitted for my cast, and I plan to pepper the orthopedic surgeon with questions about what I can do to promote healing and what I shouldn't do to prevent further problems. I dunno, team, do we think I can ramp from nothing to 10 miles in 5 weeks?

Since I am right-handed, typing cack-handed severely slows down the flow of words. I suppose I could still invest the same amount of time and just get half the anticipated output, but I kind of don't want to slog through that. Or am I really just scared that nothing will come if the spigot isn't all the way open? Could be.

I guess we'll find out in the coming weeks!

But now to think back to a time when I had two working arms, when I could multitask like nobody's business, when I could pump out three recipes a night... 

That's right, more Scottish food! I actually made these the week before Christmas, as a balance to all the Cookie Swap sweetness. I found a link to the Leftover Queen's recipe, and found that she was quite the blogging queen, coming much belatedly to that party. The dough was quick to come together, easy to manage, simple to scale. The oatcakes' texture was nubbly, toast-y. The flavor was mild and wheat-y and heartland-y, if that makes sense. Pretty great! It made me think more on what a culture's food says about its people... fascinating speculative exercise...

The same day, I thought I'd better get my mojo going on the cookie swap recipes I'd bookmarked. Two that I was closest to having all the ingredients for shot to the top of the list: HungrySquirrelCakes' Chocolate Orange Chunk Cookies and Mrs. Galvan's Dark Chocolate Cafenelas. Here I've got the first one, which got more oooh's and ahhh's from the officemates (even though they were both fab, I think this one was more unique).

Standard mix-and-drop cookie, with one out-of-the-ordinary ingredient (orange flower water, which can be found in Middle Eastern/ Lebanese groceries or near syrups and jams in a Whole Foods), and the need to keep a close eye on the oven exposure- you want to nab these guys before they're fully cooked to avoid going to the Crispy Side.

**Helpful Note for Americans looking to convert this recipe from metric measurements: 225g = ~3/4c butter; 200g = 1 1/4c sugar; 175g = 5/6c sugar; 350g = 3c flour; 175g = ~5/6c dark chocolate; 170 deg C = ~338 deg F ** I think.
Yum. Next up: Cafenelas and what to do with Black Radishes!

Many Good Things

I am still working on that list of favorites for the Repertoire, so don't worry, any of you who were hanging in suspense from the last post-- it will come soon! For today though, I have something very special to report.

Cookie-Mas has arrived!

In the form of the First Annual Food Bloggers' Cookie Swap- yay!

The Cookie Swap combined many good things that I like: boxes in the mail, surprises, pen pals, new food blogs to explore, and of course, COOKIES!

For my end of the bargain, I made a double batch of a favorite recipe from iPoL, and tweaked it just a smidge:

1 3/4 c. flour

2 c. old fashioned oats
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. white sugar
1 ts. baking soda
pinch salt
3 tsp. instant espresso powder
2 cubes (1 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 egg and 1 egg yolk
1 ts. vanilla
1/2 bag semisweet chocolate chips (Can add more if you want)
1 c. coarsely chopped dried apricots anything you can get your hands on, in this case, prunes, apricots, and raisins

Preheat oven to 350. In medium bowl, combine flour, oatmeal,sugars, salt,baking soda, and espresso powder. Add egg, egg yolk, melted butter, and vanilla, stir once or twice, then add chocolate chips and dried apricots. REFRIGERATE DOUGH for at least 30 minutes to firm it up. Place balls of cookie dough on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, and bake for 9-10 minutes. Take them out while they still the tiniest bit underdone. Once they sit for 15 minutes, they’ll be just right.

I packed up the pretty, plump ones and shipped them out the day after I made them. I ate the evidence that there were any that were not uniformly plump. (Again, here's a butter-spreading-related question- what did I do wrong in the first photo? Both batches were refrigerated for the same time, and rolled out approximately the same size.)

The double bacth yielded enough for the 3 dozen I sent out to Madeline of Munching in the Mitten, Karen of SoupAddict, and Leah of So, How's It Taste?, plus plenty to satisfy my sweet tooth (more on that later) while I awaited the other end of the bargain- 3 different dozens coming to ME!... The first box I received was from My Life as a Mrs, which were delicious: Soft Frosted Cookies, recipe here. Soft, moist, cakey, and vanilla-sweet. Kept very well, and such cute presentation!

My next mystery box was from Kiss My Whisk: Salty Sweet Cookies, which came with a cute recipe card (which is how I did mine too!) and wrapped like a present-- recipe here. It was hard to keep to my self-imposed rule of 'eat two, and pass on the rest' here, but I did, and my coworkers raved about these.

My last box was the most elaborate, presentation-wise (glass jar! I know how heavy-therefore-expensive those are to ship! Thanks, Girly Obsessions!), and the cause of my abandoning my self-imposed rule. But really, it was for practical reasons, since despite the wax paper, the glass jar, and the bubble wrap, a good third of the cookies crumbled when I tried to take them out of the bag. At which point someone may have started scooping up these Dark Chocolate Wafers with Almonds and Sea Salt with her bare hands and popping them into her mouth. When I- mean The Someone- regained consciousness, there were 6 mostly whole cookies left, and some crumbs, which I used the next day as a dessert topping. So I couldn't have brought in six cookies to offer my twelve coworkers, could I? That would have been just mean.

In conclusion, this was a great idea. Many good recipes, many good people. Thank you to the Amazing Organizers, and if you want to participate next year, sign up here for notifications! Happy Cookie-Mas, everyone.

A Favorite and a Newbie

Often, when I tell people I like to cook, they'll ask "Oh, what do you like to cook?"

Damn.

Why is it so hard to think of anything when people ask this? So I am going to think up some answers, write them down here, and hand people cards when they ask in future (I'm sure this will be a hit).

Now, um... er...

Good thing I have my iPhoto library. Using it as I do to see what's next for this blog, I see I have a favorite. I really like cauliflower- not raw, but roasted. Actually, roasted OR blanched and sauteed, they make very easy targets for any kind of spice/ flavor profile you want to lay over them.

My first foray into cauliflower was plain and easy: oil, salt, roast. As time went by, I added paprika, or herbes de Provence, or coriander and curry. Still very easy.
After some time, I tried recipes that tried a different tack: the blanch-and-saute method. A little more labor-intensive, but not yet Gulag territory. It requires a pot that doesn't even get dirty, so it's still in my comfort zone. And what I liked about it was that you can add a little more zazz with other ingredients. Don't get me wrong, I like one-main-ingredient dishes, but sometimes I like to add greens, or a protein, etc. I've recently been adding more eggs to vegetable dishes, and let me tell you, it's a much better meal than the one-ingredient dish, which is sometimes all I have in me for the night.

Mmmm.....

This second entry is, by contrast, a complete newbie, inspired by Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Almond Laceys, a cookie which I tried once and got hooked on! (Well, my coworker definitely got hooked; I liked them very much, thank you.) I thought I might try to see if I could make them, where I could control how many I had access to at a time (ahem).

I'm not sure how to regulate the butter spreading as it melts, but it did so in very unique ways...

I guess if I was going to enter these in a Cookie Beauty Pageant, I would have to figure that out...
Suggestions? Chill the dough? Comments welcome!

The recipe I had found in my Moosewood Desserts cookbook. I like it when I have a dozen books to search through for a recipe inside my head, instead of just Googling it. Where's the fun in that?

  

I would give them a 7.5 for taste, a 10 for fragility, a 6 for looks. Oh, and a 10 for talent.

And you never know, these might become a favorite.

After a few more tries.

Showing Early Signs

I have folded sheets. I have arranged towels. I have set out folders with information. I am baking banana cookies as we speak.

You may think that I am the proprietress of a bed and breakfast, but you're wrong. I am, however, showing early signs of heading in that direction.

No, I am all a-flutter with anticipation that my sister, her husband, and their two kids should have a wonderful vacation here in Our Nation's Capital, with me as their Hostess with the Most-ess.

There are some that might gape, incredulous: "But you live in a one-bedroom apartment; how is't possible?" Well, it's been a lo-o-o-ong time since I went camping, but here's my chance!

Haha. I'm borrowing an AeroBed to sleep in the living room while the other four take my pretty spacious bedroom which, in all fairness, is almost the size of the hotel room they might have paid for.

And what do I get out of this? Besides the quality time with a sibling, Martians from the planet Childhood, and a tall guy to help hang stuff on the wall? I get to be a tour guide! I love being a tour guide. :-)

Plus, these Banana Cookies are nothing to sneeze at... nom nom nom...(and I love the story that goes with them)

A fudge cookie with a case of meringue

What a treat you are in for today!

The same day I resolved to make something with those mushrooms, I also got the hankering for something less virtuous and more instantly smile-inducing. Enter: Fudge.

I had seen this lovely recipe for Chocolate Espresso Fudge Cookies on a favorite blog, and it looked like exactly what I wanted. Crinkly, crackly, but way fudgy, not a dry cookie all the way through. And it delivered-- SO much so that I had to mail out a few dozen so I didn't end up eating them all (which would have been very sad and awful in its repercussions)!

I didn't fiddle with the recipe, since what I wanted that day (as you saw from my mushroom post) was not tinkering but honest-to-goodness comfort food. Although the batter was quite wet meringue-like in its soft peaks, it wasn't too difficult to make it into tantalizing, wispy-but-substantial, cookie forms.

This is one of those times where I might wax scientific about the outside ingredient creating a crinkle texture, while the heat ratio contains and preserves the the gooey center, etc. But really? Just make them and enjoy. And thank Lindsey for posting the recipe!

Christmas 2009, Sacramento-style

So there I was, chilling in California at my sister's place for Christmas. It's in Suburbia. We were entertaining ourselves... which is why we came up with such great food! I serendipitously got a recipe for what Real Simple called Chocolate Chip Meringue Kisses, but what we all knew were really Surprise Meringues that my Grandma Pinard used to make- what a find! So I bookmarked it and brought the idea with me to Cathy's, where we were able to make a good-sized batch with her mixer (which I don't have). They were delicious! They started out SUPER crispy, then got more chewy as they sat on the stove and absorbed moisture, just like I remember.

And I loved the wonky shapes! It looks like a class of meringues doing yoga, no?

Cathy made her contribution as well- cranberry bread, tart and flavorful, which we had to bring to the family dinner with the Owenses (but we kept half at home for toast and snacking).

We had a lovely dinner cooked by Jan with others contributing- towering mounds of culinary goodness! Also, there was a little white elephant gift exchange which turned out to be a riot. Just gotta have it with the right people- in this case, Corey and Jim!

And then of course, there was the Wii Bowling Tournament to get through. Watch out for that furniture- it'll getcha!

Turtles at work

Turtle Bars!

This is another one of the recipes from Real Simple's holiday cookie calendar, and a quick, easy path to scrumptiousness! And I don't know why they are called turtle bars, but maybe someone will be inspired to get to the bottom of that mystery and let me know... I fudged and futzed with the recipe, mainly because I didn't want to pay the price for all the Heath bar pieces. It still came out well, and it was drop-dead easy: crust, sweetened condensed milk (that was leftover from the sweet potato pie whirligig), and candy goodness!

(what was left an hour after I brought them into work...)

Earl Grey Tea Cookies

Now we get into the good stuff! I decided to tackle Real Simple's calendar of cookies this year. Their idea, and it is a fun one if you've got the time and some mouths to feed, is to present a different recipe each day during the holidays (Nov-Dec). I decided I would subscribe to the cookie emails and try out the ones that appealed to me (halving the recipe, of course). So far, I've done: Chocolate Chunk and Almond Cookies, Earl Grey Tea Cookies, and Turtle Bars. There are 4 or 5 more I've seen and would like to try but haven't yet, so maybe I'll get up to those as a break from packing.
Yes! I'm moving! 2 blocks away, to be precise. End of December. That may disrupt the baking project a little bit...
As I said, I halved the recipe, but other than that, made no changes. It was ridiculously easy. I used the food processor, as it says. It took a little time to cut up the cold butter into manageable pieces, but then the dough was an easy consistency to stick in plastic and stick in the fridge overnight to chill. (Not like some batters/ pastries I've known!) Then I baked them the next morning and brought them to work warm. They have a delightfully light flavor, come out somewhere between underdone and overdry, and have a very different essence to them from most cookies. Yes, delightfully different.
Here's Real Simple's cute photo if you need more urging...

Victories, in Threes

1) This morning, in one hour, I made 66 cookies of the cinnamon oatmeal chocolate chip with walnut variety. Before work.
2) Yesterday, I both wrote my Morning Pages and exercised to my bhangra video at home for 40 minutes. Before work.
3) The day before, I delighted in a second viewing of the trapeze artist school that has popped up 10 minutes away from my house in the parking lot used by NY-DC buses. Nets and cables and everything- so random and so fun!
This is an effort to prop myself up from 1) Verizon the Devil Spawn screwing me over again 2) having to cancel my trip to NYC this weekend, messing up my schedule and 3) seeing the dentist and having him tell me that my lower wisdom teeth are actually coming in backward. I believe this to be incorrect and exaggerated. But we'll see.
I will have to come up with a lot more victories to fortify me this weekend, because next week I have an eye dilation (invasive), a teeth-cleaning (hygienist with no bedside manner), and who knows what else.
And I really have to choose my library movies more carefully, by the way. The last two viewed- Chinatown and Tess of the D'Urbervilles- were utterly depressing and not adventure stories as I thought they would be. Bring back Happy-Go-Lucky!