Outsourcing my blog, episode IV: Mom finally takes her turn

The long and patiently awaited blog post about sourdough bread!

One of the few good things to come out of the pandemic was my learning how to make sourdough bread. The bread was so well received by my family that I have continued to make it weekly. It’s the least I can do for my wonderful husband, who made sure our children didn’t go starving when they moved out on their own by developing this wonderful blog. He’s wonderful in multiple other ways too, but this blog is an amazing illustration of how he managed his worries about his kids in a non-obtrusive yet incredibly effective way (a skill I have yet to develop). 

Anyways, back to the sourdough.

Request hour, episode VI

Dylan came to UaKS recently looking for the recipe for these Peanut Butter Blossoms and was surprised not to find it, since it's a "family favorite" that Mom has been making for years (another speciality!). That may be true, but it's not one of this blogger's favorites, what with the peanut butter. But Dylan convinced me that I have to "cater to my audience," such as you are. So here's the recipe. Enjoy, while I make myself some Katherine Redford's.

 

Dylan went off script and used half dark chocolate squares to good effect

 Peanut Butter Blossoms

Adapted from Hershey’s and The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion (2004)

Time:

48 Hershey’s chocolate kisses (200 grams)
113 grams (4 ounces/1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened
200 grams (¾ cup) creamy peanut butter
67 grams (⅓ cup) granulated white sugar, plus more for rolling dough
67 grams (⅓ cup) packed light brown sugar
1 large egg (~57 grams still in the shell)
30 grams (2 tablespoons) milk
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon (5 grams) vanilla extract
180 grams (1½ cups) all-purpose flour

    1. Place racks in the center of the oven; heat to 375 degrees. Line two 13-by-18-inch half-sheet baking pans with parchment paper (if you don't have parchment, it’s not necessary to grease the baking sheets). Unwrap the chocolate kisses.
    2. In a large bowl or using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and peanut butter together until well blended.
    3. Add the sugars and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy.
    4. Add the egg, milk, baking soda, salt, and vanilla, and beat well.
    5. On the lowest speed, gradually stir in the flour.
    6. Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Place about ⅓ cup granulated white sugar on a dinner plate. Roll the dough balls in the sugar. Place the balls on the baking sheets about 1½ inches apart.
    7. Bake until lightly browned and the cookies look set in the center, about 10 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven. Immediately place a chocolate kiss in the center of each cookie, gently pressing it in; the cookie will crack around the edges.
    8. Transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool completely. Store at room temperature, tightly covered, for up to a week. Makes 4 dozen cookies.

 

Happiness is a wool blanket

I've been reading, and taking much delight in, The Book of Delights (2019) by the poet Ross Gay.* It's a book of 102 "essayettes" that Gay wrote over a one-year period between his forty-second and forty-third birthdays. Each essay describes one or more, usually small, things he took delight in that day. His practice is a good example of the happiness-enhancing activity of savoring life's joys, which is high on my list. 

 

Now that the nights have finally turned cold, I have been taking particular delight in the wool blanket that Leen and Clint gifted me last year. I only need about half of it to keep me warm most nights, but when it's really cold, I pull the blanket up under my chin and that's all I need to feel warm and cozy as I'm dozing off. Mom and I grew up on the Peanuts comics and TV shows, but you mostly missed out on that. They kept making the television specials after Charles Schulz died in 2000, and one of the newer ones is called "Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown," in which Linus searches for his beloved blanket that his sister Lucy hid to try and break his dependence on it. (You can watch the whole show on the Internet Archive.) I think Linus definitely got that one right.

Mom recently had occasion to count her own blessings when, after the presidential election, I decided that it was safe to start watching The Daily Show with Trevor Noah again. Mom was so happy she shouted that Trevor Noah brought her more joy than anything else in her life, followed by her Fitbit and her new floors. Then the implications of that statement dawned on Mom and she hastened to add "and my husband and my children, of course." Of course. No offense, but at least I'm above you nugs in the pecking order.

 

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*Laugh-out-loudest line so far: Mitch McConnell's visage, which is what Gay would call an "alarmed smile/frown," is "of someone whose penis is in a vise."

 

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Summer lockdown project

Over the past year, Cassie followed Dylan's lead and really took to climbing. After making regular trips to a climbing gym in Tallahassee, Cass was bummed when going to the gym was ruled out. So she started researching home climbing walls and put together a fancy PowerPoint presentation to convince Mom and me that it was feasible in our house. After we signed off on the project, Mom and Cassie ordered and got in all of the necessary materials. With a huge hand from Adam on the construction parts of the project, we now have a really cool climbing wall in Dylan's old room:

Before

During

Adam doing the heavy lifting on the project

After

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My preciousss popoversss

The renovation of Dylan's old room led to some Marie Kondo-style consideration of what to keep and what to trash. One of the desk drawers turned up this treasure:

Press the button on the base and see what happens. Go ahead, I'll wait:

This little Gollum has been sparking much joy in these circles since it was unearthed. Despite what a creepy toy it is, Carter even liked it when she came over recently to play with her Great Auntie K while Adam did the heavy lifting on the climbing wall part of the renovation. Talk about the anti-Barbie!

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Wahoowa, episode II: Mom's new job

Not only does Mom never miss one second of a UVA basketball game, but she often watches certain figures around the court with envy, wishing she could be closer to the action. For example, Mom has wondered if she should be a cop so she can sit behind the UVA bench guarding Coach Bennett, or maybe even just one of those people (little kids usually) who run out and towel sweat off the floor when one of the players takes a tumble. But now I think I've found a way better job for Mom than sweat-wiper-upper: President of the University of Virginia. Check out this photo of Jim Ryan from the National Championship game:

Jim not only got to go to the game (and to the semifinal), but he also got to hang out with many of the greatest players ever to suit up for the Cavaliers, including Ralph Sampson, Joe Harris, Justin Anderson, Devon Hall, and maybe our all-time favorite, Malcolm Brogdon (who walked the Lawn with Dylan in 2016). Of course, Jim also had to deal with the football coach having his arm around him while sporting a shit-eating grin, but that's a small price to pay for the other perks of being right there in the thick of things in Minneapolis. Yup, it's definitely time for Mom to throw her hat in the ring to be the second female President of UVA, especially since it worked out so well for the first one.

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The dud parent: episode I reboot

No one will ever forget the genesis of "The Dud Parent" series, in episode I of which Mom and I took Brad and Cassie to the oral surgeon to have their wisdom teeth extracted. Mom accompanied Cass into the operating room, leaving me to take Brad in, with the specific instruction not to leave Brad until he had been put under. The surgeon who was doing Brad's procedure wasn't going for that, so when Mom got back to the waiting room, she was horrified to see me already there engrossed in a Bon Appétit magazine. In my defense, it was a fettuccine Alfredo recipe that looked promising enough that I tore it out of the magazine and brought it home (together with Brad and Cass once their procedures were over). Even though the recipe has, in fact, become a family favorite, the incident has forevermore earned me the "dud parent" moniker.

Fast forward a little over two years. Last month, Mom drove me to Northridge to get an epidural steroid injection to try and relieve the pain I've had in my arse for about 18 months now (no such luck). While I was getting prepped for the procedure, Mom thumbed through a Real Simple magazine, where a recipe for black bean posole caught her eye. Sure enough, she tore it out of the magazine and brought it home (along with me once my procedure was over). 

Last weekend, Mom made the posole, which substitutes black beans for the usual pork, and it was really pretty good—good enough, in fact, that Mom is thinking about adding it to her list of "specialities." Oh, the irony.

Black Bean Posole

Adapted from Real Simple (December 2018)

Time: ~6½ to 7½ hours total; only 20 minutes to get everything into the slow cooker in step one

8 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
3 poblano chiles, chopped
1 large yellow onion, chopped
4 medium garlic cloves, minced
53 grams (¼ cup) extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons chili powder
15 grams (1 tablespoon) tomato paste
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 pound/454 grams dried black beans, picked over and rinsed
1 (28-ounce) can white or golden hominy, drained
60 grams (¼ cup) fresh lime juice from 2 limes
1½ teaspoons kosher salt, more as needed
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper

For serving

Choose among:

minced fresh cilantro

sour cream (or plain whole-milk yogurt)

sliced plain or pickled avocado

thinly sliced radishes

crumbled cotija

tortilla chips

    1. Combine the vegetable broth, poblano, onion, garlic, oil, chili powder, tomato paste, oregano, and black beans in a 6- to 7-quart slow cooker. Cook on high until the beans are tender, about 5 hours.
    2. Stir in the hominy, lime juice, salt, and cayenne. Cook on low for another hour or two, until you're ready to eat. Taste for seasoning. Serve with your choice of toppings, with tortilla chips on the side. Makes 8 servings.

Scrooge

Tis the season for holiday despair. You'd think there was nowhere to go but up from when we lost Grandma Pina five years ago during the Christmas That Wasn't, which also included a flu-induced trip to the ER for me and Cassie's record-breaking pukefest. But it never seems to get any better for me.

It's impossible to watch TV or listen to the radio after Halloween without being bludgeoned by the neverending consumerism that drives this country, and to which we are certainly not immune. My apologies to Dr. Seuss, but it sure seems like Christmas comes from a store, in lots of boxes with big stylized smiles on them, unless someone swipes them off your porch first. And to make this year extra special, we can add President Tweety Bird's "big beautiful tax cut" for himself and his ilk to the list of Christmas abominations, while the sycophantic Republicans line up to kiss his Narcissistic ass. (Too bad Mitch McConnell (T.W.–Ky.) didn't bludgeon the ego-in-chief with that Louisville Slugger he gave him to celebrate their tax "victory.")

Every year, I hope this will finally be the year I go from "Bah! Humbug!" to knowing "how to keep Christmas well," but it hasn't happened yet. And this year I feel extra guilty as the holiday darkness descends again even though you are all here for a few weeks, and I can't help but think it could be the last time we'll all be together in one place for this long. I don't know, maybe I just need a little hot yoga to cheer me up.

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Mom's specialty, episode II

364 days a year Mom’s culinary specialty is her Lasagna with Spinach and Cottage Cheese. But every year on Thanksgiving, Mom’s contribution is her special “yam-apple casserole.” The recipe calls for cooked chestnuts to be sprinkled over the sweet potatoes and apples before baking, but she never does that because it’s hard to find the chestnuts. This year, I saw Trader Joe's Peeled & Cooked Chestnuts the week before Thanksgiving, but they were nowhere to be found the week of Thanksgiving. When I went to do my regular Trader Joe’s shopping trip this week though, the chestnuts were back. So I picked up a package, and we had a special treat when Mom made her other specialty for us the second time in 10 days, this time with chestnuts. Now it’s only about 350 more days until we can have it again.

Rum-Glazed Sweet Potato, Apple, and Chestnut Gratin

Adapted from Gourmet Magazine

3 pounds sweet potatoes, pricked several times with a skewer
3 Golden Delicious apples, peeled and cut lengthwise into eighths
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup (5¼ ounces; 150 grams) vacuum-packed roasted chestnuts, halved (can substitute pecans)
6 tablespoons (3 ounces; 85 grams) unsalted butter
½ cup (3½ ounces; 100 grams) packed light brown sugar
½ cup (6 ounces; 170 grams) honey
2 tablespoons dark rum
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground mace

    1. Place rack in center of oven. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 14-inch gratin dish or 13-by-9-inch lasagna pan.
    2. Bake the sweet potatoes, on top of a piece of aluminum foil, until tender, 45–60 minutes. Let them cool. Peel potatoes and cut them diagonally into ¼-inch slices.
    3. In a medium bowl, toss the apples with the lemon juice, then arrange them neatly in the prepared pan with the sweet potato slices. Sprinkle with the chestnuts (or pecans).
    4. In a small saucepan, cook the remaining ingredients over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. Spoon the mixture over the sweet potatoes and apples.
    5. Bake the gratin, basting occasionally, until the apples are just tender and the sweet potatoes are heated through, about 30 minutes. (The uncooked gratin can be assembled 1 day ahead and kept, covered, in the fridge. Bake, uncovered, basting occasionally, for about 40 minutes.)
    6. Put the gratin under a preheated broiler about 4 inches from the heat until the edges are browned lightly. Serves 8. 

Mom's specialty

I know that love is life’s best work.

-- From "Yes!" by William Matthews (collected in Search Party (2005))

Mom's food "speciality" has become this lasagna, which she makes for family gatherings. I think gluten-free pasta is generally hideous (sorry, it's my heritage), but we discovered that the Tinkyáda Brown Rice Pasta Lasagne are actually good, as opposed to just palatable, so now Mom can make one batch of lasagna that we all can eat. And this lasagna is healthy and relatively easy to put together, so we can have it fairly often, instead of just on special occasions.

Outside of the kitchen, Mom's specialty, and her life's best work, is love. Love for her family, love for the kids she helps in her job. During the school year, Mom pours her time and energy into the kids she works with. It's not easy sometimes, but when I see Mom interacting at school functions with some of the kids, who clearly adore her even years after they've graduated, I understand completely. Even with that, she still always has something left for giving whatever is needed to our family, often at her own expense.

Summer is usually Mom's time to recharge, but this year she went on two physically and emotionally draining trips to help Auntie Leener and Uncle Clint and Dylan get to their new homes. It was hard seeing people she loves so much move far away, but she did it enthusiastically, and with a smile on her face, as always. I don't express my gratitude for what a great wife and mother (and sister, daughter, etc.) Mom is often enough, but she is definitely loved in return for all the love she dispenses on a daily basis.

Lasagna with Spinach and Cottage Cheese

Adapted from Martha Rose Shulman in the New York Times

Mom's time from start to finish: 1:09

The picture above is a double recipe, which you can make in a 13-by-9-inch baking dish.

1½ cups (12 ounces) low-fat or nonfat cottage cheese
1 (24-ounce) jar good tomato sauce, preferably not too chunky; or 2½ cups of good homemade sauce
10 to 12 ounces baby spinach
salt
freshly ground black pepper
~½ pound lasagna noodles, regular (not no-boil); or homemade; or Tinkyáda Brown Rice Pasta Lasagne for gluten free (you need at least 12 good noodles)
½ cup (1 ounce) freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons bread crumbs (you can use gluten-free bread crumbs if you can find them, or you can skip the bread crumbs if you can’t)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

    1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 2-quart baking dish. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
    2. Place the cottage cheese in a food processor fitted with the metal blade, and process until smooth. Add ½ cup of the tomato sauce, and process again until smooth. Scrape the mixture into a medium bowl. Don’t wash out the food processor.
    3. Wash the spinach, but don’t dry it. Place the spinach in a large skillet over medium- to medium-high heat, and cook until the spinach is wilted. Transfer to a colander, rinse briefly, and squeeze out the excess water. You may have to do this in batches. Transfer the spinach to the food processor and pulse to chop fine, but don’t puree. Stir the chopped spinach into the cottage cheese mixture. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
    4. When the water comes to a boil, add 1½ teaspoons fine sea salt and stir to dissolve. Add the lasagna noodles and cook just until the pasta is flexible, about 4 to 5 minutes for regular lasagna noodles. For brown rice lasagne, boil for 1 minute, then take off the heat, cover, and let sit for 7 minutes. Carefully remove the pasta from the water, trying not to tear it (tongs work well here), and place on a clean dish towel.
    5. Spread a thin layer of tomato sauce on the bottom of the baking dish. Top with a layer of noodles. If three noodles don't quite fit along the bottom, you can trim one noodle lengthwise with a sharp knife to help them fit better. Top with a third of the cottage cheese/spinach mixture, using a spatula to spread it evenly over the noodles. Top with ½ cup of the tomato sauce, and spread in an even layer. Sprinkle on 2 tablespoons of the Parmesan.
    6. Repeat these layers two more times, using up the cottage cheese/spinach mixture, but saving tomato sauce and Parmesan for the top layer. Cover the top layer of lasagna noodles with the remaining tomato sauce and Parmesan. Sprinkle on the bread crumbs, then drizzle the olive oil over the top.
    7. Cover tightly with foil, and bake for 30 minutes until bubbling. If you want to brown the top and get some crunchy parts, remove the foil, and bake until the top begins to brown a bit, about 5 minutes more.
    8. Remove from the oven, and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving. Serves 4.

To make ahead: Assemble the lasagna through step 6, then cover with foil and refrigerate for up to a day, or freeze for up to a month, before baking. Increase the baking time as needed for a cold or frozen lasagna.

Tinkering, Part I

Jacques Pépin says that home cooks must make a recipe at least once, and preferably twice, exactly as it is written before they understand it enough to improvise the third time around. And Judy Rodgers said in The Zuni Cafe Cookbook that

[m]aking even a simple dish three times in two weeks can teach you more about cooking than trying three different dishes in the same period of time. Pay attention to the process of making it, and to the small and large differences in the results.

I kept their advice in mind as I set out to find an alternative to the recipe for pumpkin muffins I had been making. If variety is the spice of life, you can't have blueberry muffins in your lunch every day. And Brad and especially Cassie love pumpkin muffins. But I wasn't crazy about the one we'd been making, which is a little dense and squat and wouldn't spring if you gave it a hot-foot.

One day I happened across a recipe for pumpkin bread that intrigued me by using a little bit of rye flour like a pain d’épices (French spice bread). I wondered about using half a teaspoon of ground cloves but it wasn't overpowering and the bread was good, so I started to work.

The first problem was converting from bread to muffins. Since muffin-making is part of my weekend baking, I'm not about to get out the mixer to use the creaming method to make the batter, as the original recipe does. So the biggest change in switching from bread to muffins was using the muffin method instead. (They don't call it the "muffin method" for nothing.) Also in the spirit of making things easier for weekend baking, I used oil instead of the softened butter that you need if you're mixing by the creaming method. And there's not enough flour in the original recipe to make enough batter to fill a standard 12-cup muffin tin so I bumped it up to 2¼ cups total of flour. With the amount of spices in this recipe, it was easy to use ¾ cup of white whole wheat flour without appreciably changing the taste. Finally, I increased the oven temperature to 375 degrees to insure some oven spring to get a domed top on the muffins.

All of that worked fine but I wasn't there yet. The muffins were a little too sweet for our taste so I dropped the sugar by ¼ cup. I also left out an egg because I think 2 eggs are enough for a muffin recipe. But that meant less moisture, and the muffins were already on the dry side with the increased flour, so I added in some plain yogurt, which also helps to tenderize the muffins. We like some texture in pumpkin muffins, too, so some kind of nuts were a must.

The last change was more one of convenience. All of this experimenting occurred over a six-week period (after which Brad and Cass may like pumpkin muffins less than they used to). The original recipe called for a cup of canned pumpkin, which is about two-thirds of a 15-ounce can. That means you have to make three batches of muffins to use two cans of pumpkin. I decided to cut it back to half a can so I only have to make two batches to use one can of pumpkin. It's a little less pumpkin flavor, but I like it that way and I think it's a pretty good muffin.

This is a long-winded way to say make a recipe as it's written at least once, then you can start tinkering. Pay attention the first time you make it: Is it worth making again? What did you like? What didn't you like? Could the method be streamlined or improved? Take notes as you go through the recipe, and after you make it, and it will be easier to figure out what changes, if any, are needed when you start working with it.

Pumpkin Muffins 1.5

 

Time: 37 minutes until the muffins are out of the tin (15 minutes active)

In the end, I decided there was enough going on here that the rye flour that caught my eye in the original recipe wasn't really adding much so I left it out. If you want to try it, substitute 30 grams (¼ cup) rye flour for an equal amount of the all-purpose flour. You can also use as much (even 100%) or as little whole wheat flour as you like, without having to make any changes to the recipe. You can use 1½ teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice in place of the cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Use canned pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling. I highly recommend Trader Joe's Organic Pumpkin. It's only available in the fall so I buy a lot of it then and store it to use the rest of the year.

Version 1.5 switches to a one-bowl method to streamline the process.

2 large eggs (~57 grams each still in the shell)

212 grams (½ can/~⅞ cup) canned pumpkin puree (see note) 

150 grams (¾ cup) granulated white sugar

120 grams (½ cup) plain yogurt or buttermilk or kefir 

½ cup olive oil (106 grams) or unsalted butter (1 stick/113 grams), melted, or a combination 

1 teaspoon (5 grams) vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (see headnote on spices)

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

½ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon xanthan gum (for gluten-free only; see variation below)

150 grams (1⅓ cups) regular or white whole wheat flour 

125 grams (1 cup) all-purpose flour

60 grams (~½ cup) walnut or pecan pieces

Coarse sugar such as turbinado, for sprinkling (optional)

 

    1. Place a rack in the center of the oven; heat to 375 degrees. Spray a muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.

    2. Crack the eggs into a large bowl and whisk to break them up. Add the pumpkin, sugar, dairy, oil or butter, and vanilla, and whisk until smooth.

    3. Sprinkle over the baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, cloves, and nutmeg (and xanthan, if using), and whisk until smooth. 

    4. Add the flour(s) and nuts. Using a silicone spatula, gently fold everything together until just combined and no streaks of flour remain. Don’t overmix. (You can combine everything more thoroughly if you're using a gluten-free flour blend.)

    5. Scoop the batter into the muffin tin. A rounded #16 scoop (¼ cup) works well for this job. There should be about 80 to 85 grams of batter in each well. Sprinkle each muffin with coarse sugar, if desired. (Skip the coarse sugar if you're not eating the muffins the day you make them as the sugar gets soggy by the next day.)

    6. Bake until the muffins are golden brown, springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the muffins comes out clean, about 18 minutes.

    7. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin set on a wire cooling rack, then turn the muffins out onto the rack to cool. These are best eaten the day they’re made, but they also keep fine in a ziplock bag in the fridge for a week's worth of school lunches.

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins
Substitute 275 grams gluten-free flour blend for the flours, and add ¼ teaspoon xanthan gum in step 3.