What I've been up to

It's been a month, and I haven't written to y'all, for which I apologize. In my defense, there was overtime involved. My roommates weren't sure I still lived here; they only saw the remnants of my breakfast dishes. But I have been doing fun and crafty things in my slight spare time. I made this:

It's a cracked wheat bread. Verdict: extremely tasty with a fine crumb. But it's incredibly dense. Mine did not rise properly at all.

See what I mean about the nice crumb? It was sweet, but not too sweet, and perfect with what we in the house have termed to be failjam. Failjam was created by my roommate out of fresh Louisiana strawberries. For unknown reasons, it failed to set properly. But it's delicious. Seriously delicious. And when dripped on this, it was heavenly.

 I also made a schawarma roasted chicken. I love shawarma. I first ate it at Lebanon's here in New Orleans, and it remains one of my favorite things to eat in this city. They make a lentil soup that my mom is still talking about. I should go back and beg them for that recipe. As far as the chicken goes, I sprinkled the spices on the whole chicken, then coated it in the yogurt and tahini. It was the most moist roasted chicken I've ever eaten.


I leave you with this:

The master of ceremonies wearing part of my Luigi costume from Halloween. It amuses me greatly. I hope to have kilt hose to show you in the near future as well. I get to see the Gentleman in Question next weekend, where we'll have the final fitting.

Fake Girl Scout Cookies

Hello everyone! Where have I been, you ask? At work, of course. For 13 hours per day. I went in yesterday too. I was supposed to go in today, but there's only so much I can take. So on the one hand, money. On the other, I haven't posted in a while, and I made these cookies last week.

I love girl scout cookies. I love both Samoas and Thin Mints, though for different reasons. The Thin Mints are refreshing, while the Samoas are decadent and delightful. I only bought one box this year, which was a shame. The cookie sale is now over, so no more cookies for us. But then! My roommate found this recipe. So I decided to make them.

Verdict: they're a huge pain. Delicious, certainly. But a giant pain in the ass. Our kitchen is too hot to temper chocolate properly, and caramel is finicky like a two year old. I burnt the first batch of caramel and had to start over. I also can't seem to temper chocolate correctly. You're supposed to heat it to 120, cool it to 80, add some more chocolate, and heat it to 86. Here's my issue though: at 120, it's not all melted, and when you add the extra at 80, it never melts. I don't understand. I am doing it wrong, but I don't know where my mistake lies.

But whatever, they were still amazing, and the only drawback was that I had to keep them in the freezer. They were so delicious in fact that I forgot to take a picture of the finished cookie. Whoops.


Ingredients:

For the cookies:
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), chilled and cut into small pieces


For the caramel:
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
6 tablespoons water
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
6 tablespoons heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract


For the chocolate and coconut:
1 pounds semisweet chocolate, separated into 1 (14-ounce) portion and 1 (2-ounce) portion
1 1/2 7oz bag sweetened, flaked coconut, toasted


Directions:

Make the cookie base first. Mix together the egg and vanilla and set aside. Mix together the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Using a pastry blender, cut in 1 stick of butter. It works best if it's cold, and you'll have to work at it for a while. Build some muscle! Pour in the egg and vanilla, and mix it up with the flour. Your hands work best. Once it's all combined, flatten your dough into a disk and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 375. Roll out the dough (I used a pint glass for this.) to 1/8" thick, then put it in the freezer so it can get hard again. Once it's firm, remove it, and cut out 2" circular cookies. I used a Jäger shot glass for this. Then use a smaller circular cookie cutter to cut out the centers. I had do to it freehand with a knife. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes. About 30 fit onto a sheet; they don't spread.

Once the cookies are out of the oven, spread the coconut on the cookie sheet and toast for 10, minutes, stirring once or twice. Turn off your oven and go do something else while the cookies and coconut cool.

Now, it's time for caramel. The original recipe didn't call for a thermometer, so I didn't use one. Mix together the sugar, water, and salt in a small saucepan. Bring it to boil over medium heat, stirring once. Boil for a further 15-20 minutes, swirling the pan occasionally. Don't stir! Once it turns the color of caramel, remove it from the heat and pour in the cream and vanilla. It'll sizzle a lot. Stir until it's smooth and pour into a heat proof bowl. Now go do something else. You can make the cookies and caramel at the same time, then take your break.

Once your caramel is cool enough that you can stick your finger in it without burning yourself, you can temper your chocolate. Using a double boiler, melt 14 oz. of chocolate to 120 degrees. Remove the chocolate from the heat and use an ice bath to cool it to 80 degrees. Put it back over the water, which should be at a simmer, add in the other 2 oz, and heat to 86 degrees.

Time to assemble the cookies! Dip the cookie bottoms in chocolate, then cool them in the fridge or freezer. Dip the cookie tops in the caramel, then in the coconut. Cool them again. Take the remaining chocolate and drizzle it over the cookies. Cool them again, and you're done!

Like I said, these were a pain to make but delicious to eat. They lasted less than 24 hours. One of my coworkers offered me money to make another batch and give them all to her. When I get my life back, I will!

Being Responsible is Not Much Fun.

I'm kind of failing this whole craft/food blog thing. And that's because I got a job. The trade off is that now I have money to pay for the craft habit, but I have much less time to indulge in crafting. I know, I should go eat some cheese with my whine, but such is life.

This isn't to say that I haven't been making things. I have! I started working on a case for the hookah the Gentleman in Question and I made, but discovered that I don't really possess the skills to make it. That whole endeavor was permeated with failure. My fatal mistake was trying to make a mock up with stiff paper. I'll try muslin next. But there was much swearing at the sewing machine.

I also made faux Girl Scout cookies. I have no pictures because it was labor intensive and required both hands. If I'd had a third, it would have been perfect. First, you make the sugar/shortbready cookie. Then you top it with peanut butter and sugar. Then you dip the whole shebang in melted and tempered chocolate. Tempering chocolate in our kitchen is incredibly difficult. I need a better thermometer. And a colder kitchen. The temper wasn't perfect, but it was good enough for the office.

So I brought them into work, and got decidedly mixed reviews. Apparently, the people I work with are sugar fiends. I used semisweet chocolate, and the main complaint was that the chocolate was too bitter. My baking style does not match with the office at all. I've never used milk chocolate as a baking ingredient in my life! And I certainly don't think of semisweet chocolate as bitter. These folk should taste the 54% chocolate I have hanging out in my cabinet. It's super bitter. I'm supposed to make fake Samoas this weekend. Those are even more labor intensive, so a roommate is definitely going to have to help. And while I think they'll be delicious, I'm not thrilled with the fact that my office mates won't like them.

The theme of this past week: under-appreciation of homemade things, and also failure at creating them. The bright spot: I got my Netflix for Wii disk in the mail, so I should be getting some more knitting time in. And there will be pictures.

Chocolate Sourdough Cupcakes

It's been a while since I worked 40 hours a week. It's been very easy to come home, sit down, and not move again until bedtime. I've tried to be social, and so far succeeded, but the morning after I inevitably oversleep and have to rush off to work again. My crafting time has seriously dwindled.

And that's my own fault. So, I resolve to make more stuff. In that vein, I present cupcakes. These were made with a purpose in mind. My roommate goes to a weekly potluck/supper club, and offered our house to host it. I decided that my contribution to the evening would be cupcakes, since I only had two hours between work and the start of the event. I'd seen a sourdough chocolate cake recipe and was intrigued, but rejected that particular iteration because it seemed awfully liquidy. But the concept stuck, and a quick Google search yielded this recipe. I didn't make many changes, and the first one was borne of procrastination. You're supposed to leave the starter out for 12 hours or so. Mine sat out for 2 days before I made the cake the day of the potluck.

Sourdough Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 cup thick sourdough starter
1 cup sugar
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup skim milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
½ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp baking soda
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

Directions:

Leave the starter out overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350. Cream together the butter and sugar till it's light and fluffy. Add in the eggs, and mix thoroughly. Stir in the milk, starter, vanilla, cinnamon and melted chocolate. At this point, beat the batter for a few minutes. Then sprinkle in the salt and baking soda. Finally, add the flour in slowly.

Pour into a prepared cupcake tin and bake for 20-25 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool for 5-10 minutes, then remove from pan and let cool completely. They'll be pretty soft, so be gentle.

Frost with your favorite frosting and enjoy!

A real strawberry pie

I came home from work on Wednesday, and was delighted to discover that my roommate had cooked. Now I understand a bit of what it was like to be a 1950s husband. It was wonderous! The food was tasty and delicious.

But I'm here today to talk to you about the pie. He made strawberry pie, using berries he'd picked up at the farmer's market. Unlike my pie approximation, his was truly a pie, and even used some of the damnable graham crackers! (Yes, they persist. No, I don't want to talk about it)

I have no recipe to share, just a pretty picture of pie, one that was much more coherent than my own. Oh, and for the record, I'm team cake.

Setback!

Well, the Gentleman in Question came to visit this past weekend. We had a lovely time! There was much eating. I highly recommend Jaques-Imo's, Camellia Grill, and Cafe Freret. The last is where we had Easter Brunch. A tasty, laid back brunch I might add. Crafty plans were hatched, which you'll get to see as they unfold.

But, the setback. The kilt hose are too short in the foot. I will have to unravel and lengthen them. I'm disappointed, because I wanted to send them home with the Gentleman. But, they require more work. I have a job now, so production may be slowed.

Meringues (sometimes with coconut!)

I have never liked meringue. It was dry and crumbly, and stood between me and the best part of whatever pie it was sitting on top of. I hated the fact that it tasted like nothing. But a few months ago, my opinion changed. I had made something requiring egg yolks (I don't remember what), and had the whites left over. I hate wasting food, so I found a cookie recipe for the whites only and gave it a shot. Those cookies were ok, nothing to write about for sure. The roommates offered feedback, and wished for something...fluffier.

So I bit the bullet and made meringues. And I loved them. It was a complete shock. I think the key with these particular meringues is the chocolate. You don't need much cocoa powder because there aren't any other flavors to compete. They also come out nice and chewy. They dissolve in your mouth a bit, leaving a nice, robust chocolate flavor.

This particular batch was made for a passover Seder. My friend  hosted, and required a non-dairy desert. Since eggs aren't dairy, these would do. I thought about cake, but non-dairy, non-floured cake is hardly worth the effort.


Recipe

Ingredients:
3 egg whites, room temperature
3/8 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 c sugar
2-3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 300.

In a stand mixer, beat egg whites until they are nice and frothy. Add in the cream of tartar and the vanilla, and continue beating.

Once they are stiff, add in the cocoa powder and the sugar a tablespoon at a time.

Beat the egg whites a lot; you want to go well past stiff. If you've ever made something like this, you make think you've over beaten the egg whites. Nonsense!

Drop the egg white batter onto a cookie sheet in one tablespoon increments. Bake them for 35-40 minutes.

You can do a lot with this basic recipe, like stir in chocolate chips or dried cranberries. For the Seder I made one plain batch, but we ate them all. So I made another batch with coconut.