Writing Up an Appetite

Cooking to Feed Your Creativity

2012-03-06T03:49:00.001-08:00

by Lisa

Writers know to consider all the senses when describing a scene. What are the colors? Sounds? Smells? Textures?

When it comes to food, though, we often focus on taste (or haste) to the exclusion of other sensual delights. I am aware of this most keenly when I visit a good restaurant, as I did last week in Chicago: Bombay Spice on Clark Street. My husband and I ordered appetizers of lentil cakes and seared eggplant, and a couple of "Create Your Entree" dishes. When the plates were set on our table, I remembered why I originally fell in love with vegetarian cooking. The lentil cakes were garnished with a colorful tomato mixture and tangy sauce, the eggplant was seared to dark perfection on the outside and impossibly creamy in the middle, and the entrees offered a colorful feast of tofu, vegetables, rice, and noodles. The experience was as aesthetically pleasing as it was delicious.

One of the more intriguing options on the menu is the Bombay Sampler, where diners pick a couple of favorite ingredients and the chef prepares a personalized meal. Giving ourselves these kinds of artificial constraints, whether in writing (what would happen if I combined this character with that setting?) or cooking (what can I make with black beans and oranges?), is good divergent, creative practice, forcing us to make new connections. For me, the lure of meatless meals is not so much health or ethics as it is the potential for creativity. And the more creative I am in the non-writing parts of my life, the more I seem to be able to engage creativity on the page.

Of course, nutrition and efficiency matter, too, which is why the following recipes are healthy, fast, and festive, with tastes, textures, colors, and aromas to fuel your creative appetite from plate to pen and back again.

What kind of cooking makes you more creative in your writing life?

Black Bean and Orange Salad

1 15-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
3 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced
3 stalks celery, trimmed and sliced on the diagonal
1 green bell pepper, trimmed and diced
2 Tablespoons light sesame oil
2 teaspoons dark (toasted) sesame oil
2 Tablespoons rice vinegar, white balsamic vinegar, or lemon juice
1 Tablespoon honey
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
4 fresh oranges, peeled and cut into chunks
2 Tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

1. In a medium bowl, combine beans, sliced scallions, celery, and diced pepper. Set aside.
2. In a smaller bowl, whisk together oils, vinegar or lemon juice, honey, cumin and salt. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.
3. Pour dressing over bean mixture and toss to combine.
4. Add orange pieces and cilantro. Toss gently to combine.
Makes 4 servings.

* * * * * *

Spinach and White Bean Farfalle

1 pound farfalle (bow tie) pasta
2 Tablespoons olive oil
3 large cloves garlic, minced
1 large carrot, trimmed, peeled, and diced
1 large bunch fresh spinach, rinsed well and large stems removed, coarsely chopped
1 15-ounce can firm white beans, such as great northern or cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1. Boil pasta until al dente
2. While pasta boils, saute garlic and diced carrots in olive oil in a large sauté pan for about 5 minutes. Add spinach and beans, cover, and cook until spinach is wilted and beans are heated through. Add salt to taste.
3. Drain pasta. Toss cooked pasta with spinach and bean mixture. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.
Makes about 6 main dish servings.

* * * * * *

Lentils, Rice and Broccoli with Peanut Butter Sauce

1/2 cup dry brown lentils, picked over and rinsed
1 cup white or brown rice
4 cups fresh broccoli florets
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
2/3 cup hot vegetable broth, or more as needed
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 Tablespoon soy sauce

1. Bring 3 cups water to a boil. Add lentils, stir, and simmer until lentils are cooked through but still firm, about 20-25 minutes. Drain.
2. While the lentils simmer, cook rice according to package directions.
3. Steam broccoli for 5 to 10 minutes, until desired tenderness.
4. To prepare sauce, whisk together peanut butter, vegetable broth, ginger, red pepper and soy sauce. Taste and adjust seasonings. If needed, add more vegetable broth or peanut butter for desired consistency.
5. To serve, arrange cooked rice, cooked lentils, and broccoli in any way you'd like on a large, shallow serving plate. Drizzle with peanut butter sauce.
Makes 4 servings.

My love affair with coffee.

2012-02-28T04:30:00.000-08:00

We met later in life, coffee and me, at a bakery shop, and what attracted me to him was a hint of cinnamon in his mix. Some would say that cinnamon masks the flavor of a bold, straight-up cup of coffee and that our first date didn't count as a proper introduction. Coffee knew me, though. From the very beginning. Knew that my tastes were a little more refined. That the only way I might be tempted to sit with him a while was if he dressed himself in the sharp smell of a comfort spice.

Come on over, he seemed to say. Take a sip.

As we got to know each other, we mixed it up a bit: hazelnut, colombian, a bold, french roast. Once or twice, a cafe mocha. He spoiled me. And, soon enough, I let him move in. I bought my own coffee maker, then a french press. I couldn't wake up in the morning, unless I knew he would be there. I needed him.

Like any relationship, we had our ups and downs. Taking a break here and there. It was usually me trying to call things off, citing health reasons. He always balked at that, and I always went back. Always had my sights on the what we had in the beginning: cinnamon sweet.

The illusions of a first date can never be repeated, though. Besides, I had changed. Some days I needed more than he could give. Other days, he gave too much. I was distracted, irritable, on edge. Finally, the unpredictability of it all took a toll. My body ached, my moods sunk low enough that I knew. It was time. And, like all bad break-ups, it happened quick. Overnight. No explanations. Just a tossing of remaining grinds into the trash can, and a knife-to-the-heart visit to a tea store.

"Loose tea." he said. "You'll be back. You'll see."

That was over a month ago.

I think about him sometimes, sure. Once I passed by him in the grocery store, and I saw him out of the corner of my eye, watching, pushing his cinnamon blend to the front of the shelf. Cinnamon in loose tea just isn't the same. He knows it.

What he doesn't know is that loose tea can grow on a person. Add a little honey, mix in a dash of cream, steep it for five minutes. That five minutes of quiet is all we need sometimes, just to settle into each other. And the best part is, there's no drama. No caffeine, no drama.

It's over, Coffee. I've got a new man...Earl. He's rich and smooth and, when we're together, he makes me feel like a real lady.

Coffee. Could you quit?

Pass the baklava, it's time for tea

2012-02-20T21:04:00.000-08:00

by Rose Deniz

A Muted Palate

I left behind the comforting, familiar Midwestern foodstuffs - slowly simmering pot roasts, Friday Night Fish Fry’s, hearty casseroles, pre-baked pie crusts - for the tangy and rich cuisine of the Turkish sofra in late spring of 2005. The Turkish table may be thought of as stuffed grape leaves, fragrant rice pilavs, and baklava, but to me, the flavors are as varied as the regions of my adopted country. Stepping into Turkish culture and cuisine transformed my taste buds, as well as my creativity as a writer.

Turkish food, if you are from the Black Sea region like my husband’s family, relies heavily on olive oil dishes, hamsi - or anchovies, and fresh baked bread. As much as I loved the soupy bean dishes, the pan-cooked spinach and rice, and the crunchy rolled dough baked to a crisp, the first few years I lived in Turkey, I craved steak, hamburgers, peanut sauce, curries, and things much less simple in flavor. In my first apartment as a newlywed in the city of Izmit, on the Gulf of Izmit that leads to the Aegean Sea, I experimented as best as I could. I started a notebook of renegade recipes for perfect pancakes, fudgy brownies, and egg drop soup. Whenever a much-longed-for ingredient showed up on some supermarket shelf, I noted the discovery with glee, but my taste buds were left wanting.

My Orient Express

As any Madisonian knows first hand, the spicy Taiwanese noodles, soft squash curry, and veggie smoothies of the food carts in Library Mall can catapult your taste buds to parts of the world you may have never seen. It was there, in Madison as an undergrad, that I discovered I had a taste for Indian food. It was also there, after a 10-credit Hindi intensive, that I bemoaned the fact that I was terrible at learning languages. At that time, I could have never imagined that not only would I be living in Turkey and raising two bilingual kids, I would be writing my first book, a futuristic young adult novel.

Fast forward to today and the amassed binders full of short stories, the two tentative attempts at a memoir, a painting and design practice, and a vocabulary of Turkish words in my stash. Now, working full time on my book, I often turn to my kitchen to unwind, use my hands, and think through story problems. Somehow, as the food becomes alive, so does the part of my brain that wrangles with words.

At the end of seven years of living in Turkey, turning the corner on my eighth, I am not a Turkish national like my duo-citizen children are, nor am I a Turkish food connoisseur, but I can talk börek and döner like the best. Hours of sitting in my mother-in-law’s kitchen before I could say more than a few sentences in Turkish taught me what kind of olive oil to use for salads, which vegetables are best bought from the local bazaar in which season, and how to serve impromptu guests that knock on your door at all hours. Her delight at hosting taught me that true comfort comes from good company, and endless cups of tea.

Turco-American Fusion

Born to a Jewish-American mother and a German father, and raised in a mostly Norwegian corner of Wisconsin, my culinary tastes were not inspired by my upbringing. My father, for years after my mother died when I was a child, did the best he could with hunger-filling roasts, split pea soup, and the occasional La Choy Chow Mein. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I discovered Mediterranean food and Middle Eastern food, and later in college, sushi. The only Turkish food I knew I adored with certainty before I moved here was chewy, bitter Turkish coffee.

When Turkish people ask if I can cook Turkish food, I say yes without hesitation. If they are to press further and ask me what I make, they are often surprised to hear that I like Turkish food more than my husband. I’ve grown to love the tomato-based bulgur dishes, the simple salads of cucumber and tomato, the uncomplicated Aegean and Black Sea flavors that highlight one or two ingredients rather than many. Of course, there is adventure to be found in the spicy Adana region, and I see a growing awareness of international food that was missing a mere seven years ago, but my insatiable craving for foods I missed has passed now that I feel more confident as a cook.

I hope to impart the sense of pleasure and delight in good food to my children. In our hybrid household, on most Saturdays, you can find us whipping up good old fashioned chocolate chip cookies, testing out pizza dough, or eating cake batter out of the pan. I tie on the apron my third-generation Belarusian mother made, with a nod to her domesticity and that pinch of history that shows up even in my kitchen in Turkey. I entertain the idea of opening a gourmet pizza place, of offering a lunch only daily special at a corner cafe, or inviting friends over for impromptu Thai food. I pour myself a glass of Turkish tea into a little fluted cup, and hands coated in flour, watch as my children sprinkle the kitchen with that something special that makes food, wherever you are in the world, taste so good.

Perfect Pancakes, For Real

After trying nearly every pancake recipe under the sun, I swear by this recipe. The yogurt I use is full fat, Greek-style, preferably homemade. Nonfat would probably work, but the fat in the yogurt makes it possible to go light on the oil or butter.

Ingredients
1 banana, mashed
2 tablespoons plain, full fat yogurt
1 tsp baking soda
¼ cup wheat flakes
2 tbsp flour (I like whole wheat)
1 tsp cinnamon
2 lg eggs
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp oil or butter
1 tbsp real carob molasses, or pine honey

In bowl, mash banana, add eggs, milk and yogurt. Mix or blend by hand. Add dry ingredients and oil or butter. I like to puree this so it is not lumpy, but mixing works just fine. In a non-stick, ungreased pan at medium heat, ladle pancake batter, and flip when it bubbles up nice and right. Drizzle with molasses, pine honey, or real maple syrup. If you’re feeling adventurous, add a drop of tahini to the molasses for a real Turko-American treat.

Serves four hungry people, two big, two small, for Sunday morning brunch.

***

Rose Deniz is a Wisconsin-born writer nesting abroad in Izmit, Turkey, where she is finishing up the first draft of her futuristic young adult novel. Happy to say she grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, she always seems to venture back to Wisconsin when there is a blizzard. Rose has a BA in Art from The University of Wisconsin, and an MFA in Painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art. You can find her on her website, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

The St. Valentine's Day Kitchen Massacre

2012-02-14T12:23:00.000-08:00

It starts with extraflour in a mixing bowl, a wooden spoon and the inimitable imaginationof a child. Adding a splash of water, she becomes the mommy. Hersister shakes in colored sprinkles and takes the form of anotherlittle girl trying on a different voice, slightly higher and moreexcited. Here's to an exploratory afternoon in the family kitchen.

My husband likescinnamon rolls. Weeks ago my daughters and I worked up a plan to makeheart-shaped cinnamon rolls for Daddy's Valentine's Day breakfast.I've never made them before, so that set out a challenge and Irarely, if ever, back down from myself.

Whathappened first was a mistake in calculation. I chose an overnightrecipe from the Food Network's website that says, clearly andexplicitly, “Inthe bowl of a stand mixer.” I do not have a stand mixer, but I havemad juju with my hands and I stand when I mix.Anyway, bad idea. The doubling in size after two and a half hours wasmore like a sigh. I tossed it without even rolling the dough.

Thenknowing I'd be up before the dawn mixing and scraping, I found these recipes, and, for sake of time, opted for the yeast-less variety.

OHMYGODTHEYARESOGOOD.

Ieven managed to shape them like pretty little hearts that turned intopretty little squarish hearts in the oven. I have to say, the recipemakes WAYtoo much frosting. I don't even know what to do with all this creamcheese frosting. Something inside me is saying, “Bake a cake.”But that's just nonsense; where would I put a cake?

MaybeI should just give my kids another mixing bowl filled with flour and water,some dry rice and salt and pepper. They know just how to cook up aproper St. Valentine's Day massacre.

Putting a Fresh Face on Leftovers

2012-02-07T17:42:00.000-08:00

by Lisa

Leftovers. We love them when we’re pressed for time and energy. We quickly grow tired of them. We often don’t know what to do with them. Like death and taxes, leftovers are one of few things in life of which we can be certain.

Now that I am cooking for only two, we seem to have a lot of leftovers, and I'm not complaining one bit. Last night we enjoyed leftover vegetarian chili that I supplemented with okra. Tonight we ate leftover ravioli on a bed of freshly sauteed chard.

The secret to making leftovers your friend instead of your enemy is to dress them up in something new—chopped herbs, dried or fresh fruit, or whatever vegetables are in season. Here are some creative ways to use up yesterday's meals. How do you put a fresh face on leftovers?

Note: Ingredient amounts are approximate. Don’t worry about making a mistake! If something seems too thick, too thin, not enough or too much, simply adjust the amounts as needed. Creativity, experience and flexibility are the keys to using leftovers successfully.

• Italian Bread Salad. Do you have a slice or two of bread or pita that is threatening to turn moldy at any moment? Tear the bread into bite-size pieces (if you want to get fancy, you can grill the bread first until it is a bit toasty). Rub a salad bowl with a cut clove of garlic, then combine in the bowl the bread pieces, some fresh tomatoes, red onion slices or scallions, any other leftover raw or roasted veggies you have on hand. You can add fresh herbs and Romaine lettuce, if you’d like. Toss gently with oil and vinegar dressing.

• Garbanzo Confetti Salad. This salad is a fast, easy, and pretty way to use leftover crudités and garbanzo beans. Dice a good handful or two of leftover crudités (raw slices of celery, carrots, green onions, zucchini, bell pepper, etc.) into small, uniform pieces. Combine with 1 can (14-15 ounces) garbanzo beans (chickpeas), rinsed and drained, or 1 1/2 cups cooked garbanzo beans. Toss with oil and vinegar dressing. You can also sprinkle in some chopped fresh herbs or grated cheese. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

• Vegetable Quesadillas. This is another good way to use crudités or cooked veggies, as well as extra flour tortillas. Quesadillas can be served for breakfast (see below), lunch or dinner. Simply heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add a large flour tortilla. Top half the tortilla with chopped raw or cooked veggies, some salsa (optional) and shredded cheese or soy cheese. Fold tortilla in half to cover the filling, and cook until underside is browned. Flip and brown the other side. Covering the pan hastens the melting of the cheese. Cut into wedges and serve with guacamole or sour cream.

• Breakfast Quesadillas. Prepare Vegetable Quesadillas, but add a scrambled egg or mashed, leftover tofu, and perhaps some soy sausage.

• Gourmet Hash Browns. My son could eat this dish morning, noon and night. Grate or finely dice some leftover boiled potatoes. Add minced shallots or scallions, and some chopped parsley. Heat a thin coating of olive oil in a non-stick pan, and sauté potato mixture until golden brown. If desired, stir in a little sour cream, soy sour cream, soy-based mayonnaise or grated cheese before serving.

• Lone Shepherd’s Pie. Keep this recipe in mind when you have leftover mashed potatoes, and cooked veggies or chili. Fill a small, oiled casserole dish with cooked or roasted vegetables (or leftover chili). You can add some canned or frozen corn, or some canned beans if necessary. Fluff up mashed potatoes with a fork, and add them as a top layer. You can add some grated cheese or parmesan cheese to the potatoes, if you’d like. Sprinkle top potato layer with paprika. Bake until potatoes are browned and bottom mixture is bubbly, about 30 minutes.

• This and That Asian Soup. When you have leftover rice- or noodle-based Asian dishes (for example, Pad Thai or stir fry), you can easily make a single-serving soup to enjoy for breakfast or lunch the next day. Just heat a big spoonful or two of the leftovers in about a cup of vegetable broth or miso broth. Add some fresh chopped scallions or grated carrot for freshness. Serve hot.

• Béchamel Sauce. This recipe doesn’t use leftovers (except milk), but it is a fast and tasty way to dress up leftover vegetables, pasta, potatoes, or almost any other foods that are not already heavily seasoned. Heat 2 tablespoons butter in a small saucepan over low-medium heat. When the butter is melted, sprinkle in 2 tablespoons flour. Whisk constantly for about 2 minutes, until flour loses its raw quality. Slowly pour in 1 1/2 cups warm milk or unsweetened soy milk, whisking constantly. Simmer on low until sauce is thick. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg (optional) to taste. You can also add some chopped fresh herbs.

• Vegan Béchamel Sauce. In a blender, combine 1 1/4 cups unsweetened soy milk with 1/3 cup silken tofu and 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil. Blend until very smooth. Heat in a small saucepan over low heat. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg (optional) to taste. You can also add some chopped fresh herbs.

• Rice Pudding. This is my favorite way to use leftover rice (white or brown) and, if I have it, a bit of leftover boxed silken tofu. Simply combine in a saucepan cooked rice with enough soy milk—regular or vanilla—just to cover (if you have a little silken tofu, first blend it with some of the milk until smooth for some extra creaminess). Add some cinnamon, raisins, and honey or maple syrup. Simmer, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes, until thick and creamy. A yummy breakfast treat!

A Very Liebster Morning

2012-01-31T04:23:00.000-08:00

Earlier in the month, Linda Cassidy Lewis presented us with the Liebster Blog Award.

Linda says "Liebster" is a German word for dearest or beloved. Blogs awarded the Liebster are to pass it along to five blogs with less than 200 followers each (something we can't really know, so we ran with it).

Since there are three of us here at Writing Up an Appetite, we thought it would be fun to each choose two, coming up with a total of six. There's plenty of cake for everybody.

Lisa awarded the Liebster to a mother and daughter team:

Hannah Voss of Alimental

and Stephanie Voss's photo journal

Christi chose Savvy Housekeeping. Christi says of Savvy, "... this Savvy gal always pulls together links to great projects or dishes or desserts or...you name it."

Christi also awarded Celiac in the City who appeared here in October with her recipe for "Pumpkin Spice Cookies with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting". I made them. They are so good.

Finally, I couldn't help but point your attention to Jean Guidone Wyse, a self taught artist living down the road. To me, art and Jean are one in the same, and I covet the charms she sells on Etsy. (See that? My name is even on this one.)

For a laugh, check out Annie Off Leash. I guess she's already gotten the Liebster once before, but one night she made me laugh so hard I could barely read through the tears in my eyes. That deserves some extra loving, don't you think?

Pulling Summer From the Oven

2012-01-24T05:05:00.000-08:00

Strawberry Shortcake Snake from Disney's Family Fun

At the end of June, the Masons make strawberry shortcake. Three long tables line the east wall where buckets of sugar strewn strawberries, crates of cake and barrels of whipped cream are presided over by women in plastic gloves. Four dollars a plate for a heaping mound of summertime.

Families sprawl across the lawn, their bodies curled over clam shell boxes, dipping plastic spoons like sea birds diving.

***

In my January kitchen, I unpack high priced, organic strawberries from a green bag and stuff them between the bread and portobello mushrooms. I shouldn't have spent the extra money, but winter is long in Wisconsin and fruit is just so good.

When morning comes, my daughter begs for berries in her cereal. I can't bear to toss them in. We have apples, after all. We have pears and mango. Strawberries are meant for bigger things.

We barter, my "later" hardly matching the passion of her "please."

"Later," I say. "For dinner. I'll make something special for dinner." Then I'm stuck inside a promise I can't unglue.

An hour and a half before dinnertime, I'm reminded of my half-awake word.

Thank you, Universe, for the internet!

I scoop flour and baking powder into a bowl, cut in butter and tablespoons of sugar. I fold and mound and kneed, but I don't overwork. I pat. I biscuit cut. I brush with milk. I bake.

I make some delicious strawberry shortcake.

When we eat, all I hear is, "Mmmm."

What is your favorite thing to do with strawberries?

Guest Post by Nina Badzin: Grandma Suzie’s Brownies

2012-01-17T07:06:00.000-08:00

We are happy today to feature a guest post by Nina Badzin, a published writer whose delightful and informative blog reflects her writing life, her take on parenthood as a mother of four, social media tips, and whatever else she feels like discussing. Enjoy!

Read and Subscribe to Nina Badzin's Blog: http://ninabadzin.com/
Follow Nina on Twitter: @NinaBadzin

Grandma Suzie’s Brownies

by Nina Badzin

I'm going to ruin every other brownie for you. Those cake-like brownies; the frosted ones; the busy ones with nuts, caramel, marshmallows, or cream cheese—you won't stand for any of those chocolate charlatans once you've tasted Grandma Suzie's Brownies.

Ironically, my Grandma Suzie (of blessed memory) was not known for her cooking. She didn't fit the stereotype of the Jewish mother or grandmother busy cooking up feasts and sneaking schmaltz into meals. My mom tells of her mother forgetting about food in the oven until it burned. Of my grandmother's entire cooking repertoire, my mom remembers a rice dish "that was decent," the occasional turkey, and the now-about-to-be famous brownies. I only remember the brownies.

In my mom's words, her mother was unlike any of the other mothers. Grandma Suzie (originally from Buffalo, New York) was an artist who majored in illustration at Syracuse University in the early 40s. She did mechanical drawings as part of her program and was a tool designer in Syracuse until she had children and moved to Rochester, New York. In later years, she dabbled in sculpture and painting. I'm proud to have one of her more abstract pieces hanging in my house. Grandma Suzie was an excellent seamstress, too. My mom remembers receiving a handmade wardrobe for one of her dolls including a coat with a fur collar. And whenever the synagogue put on a play, Grandma Suzie took charge of the costumes and make up.

Given my grandmother's passion for art and design, it's no surprise she always set a gorgeous table, but paid little attention to the food. The only guaranteed delicious treats to come out of her kitchen were those brownies. And they were perfect. According to family legend, she got the recipe from a childhood friend she only saw in the summers at the family lake house in Canada.

The ingredients for the brownies are simple and the directions are delightfully specific. Be sure not to overcook them, and you'll end up with a brownie with just the right amount of gooey-ness. They won't have the too-cake-like properties I find in other brownies. They're rich, but not too rich. Fudgy, but not too-fudgy. I'd describe the texture and taste as fudge's cousin. My husband's cousin, Andrea, and her husband, Jacob, who live in Iceland, made the brownies recently and swear I'm not exaggerating. We're talking international seal of approval, folks.

As for the ingredients, I'll share one piece of advice straight from my mother's mouth: "If you're not going to use real butter, don't bother messing up your kitchen."

I give you Grandma Suzie's Brownies. You can thank me later.

Ingredients:

2 sticks butter
9 squares bitter chocolate
3 cups granulated sugar
1.5 cups flour
6 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
11 x 15 jelly roll pan

Exact directions as handed down from Grandma Suzie (Special thanks to my sister, Lisa, for sending me the recipe card in our grandmother's handwriting):

Melt butter and chocolate together over water on low heat. Mix flour, sugar, and salt in large bowl. Add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla. Pour in butter/chocolate. Mixer is nice, but not necessary. If using mixer, stop and scrape sides and bottom of bowl at least once. Spread in well-buttered and floured jelly pan. Bake about 20-25 minutes in 350 degree pre-heated oven. Remove from oven while still slightly under baked. Cool completely before cutting into squares. Keep in fridge or freezer. This is a big batch!

My mom's addition to the directions: "I bake mine for 22 minutes.

The Proof of What Matters

2012-01-11T05:12:00.000-08:00

by Lisa

Perhaps no food is as ancient, humble, sustaining, valued, adaptable, or taken for granted as bread. Bread is the staff of life. We break it, cast it upon waters, leave it as a trail of crumbs when pursued by witches. We eat it plain, with butter, as sandwiches, in salads, as puddings.

Bread is a cultural identifier as well: think of the Mexican tortilla, Middle Eastern pita, Jewish Challah, Irish soda bread, French baguette, Native American fry bread. We use bread to celebrate, to praise and to mourn. In Mexico, Pan de Muerto—“Bread of the Dead”—is shaped into skulls to mark the Day of the Dead.

“How can a nation be great if its bread tastes like Kleenex?”
- Julia Child

When I was young, our small town grocery store offered one kind of packaged bread: sliced, white, fluffy and tasteless. Even so, my brothers and I thought it was delectable, especially toasted golden brown and topped with butter and cinnamon sugar. Sometimes we would squish it together and roll it with our fingers into firm tiny bread balls. The wonder was that an entire slice of bread was reduced to the size of a small marble.

The town bakery sold less processed loaves than the grocery stores, but the varieties were limited to white, rye and, as the 1970s ushered in a more health-conscious approach to food, the occasional whole-wheat. For many years, we were all fooled into thinking that the phrases “whole-wheat” or “multi-grain” ensured a fiber-rich, healthful alternative to white bread. Now we know that a very good white bread—made with unbleached flour and no unnecessary additives—may be a better choice than heavily processed, caramel colored “wheat” loaves.

Today when I shop for bread, I stand in awe before the choices. I can choose from honey wheat, Asiago, pesto, country rye, seven-grain, and dozens more varieties. I can buy wheat-free bread, sugar-free bread, salt-free bread, and fat-free bread. The kinds of sourdough alone are too many to remember, and new bakeries that specialize in high quality breads seem to be in every neighborhood.

To learn more about bread making, I talked to Tim Thomas, owner of The Panary: An Artisan Bread Shoppe, a European-style sourdough bakery in West Bend, Wisconsin. The Panary’s breads are edible works of art, made from carefully developed recipes and with simple, natural ingredients.

Tim opened The Panary when he was “downsized” after 22 years of work in the telecommunication field. Rather than look for another telecommunications job, he decided to embrace the opportunity to follow his lifelong passion: food. He says simply, “I decided to do what I want to do.” Although he hasn’t always made a living from baking, he has always “dabbled in the culinary arts.” During college he participated in an apprentice program with Chef Louis Szathmary of the famous “The Bakery” restaurant in Chicago. His interest in bread began in earnest during travels to Eastern Europe and the Middle East, where he “saw many cuisines and learned a culinary vocabulary.”

Years later, the seeds of The Panary were sown when Tim made his first traditional sourdough bread: an olive rosemary loaf. Speaking of it, his blue eyes widen with child-like delight and he rises taller with excitement. “The smell was intoxicating,” he says. “From there I began experimenting, devouring, practicing with my family.” He eventually created about 25 bread recipes of his own, all using the sourdough process.

“The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight.”
- M. F. K. Fisher

For Tim Thomas, making bread is no less than a passion, as well as an ongoing pursuit for perfection and a synthesis of art and science. On the day I visit, he frowns at the “bloom” (decorative slashes) on the tops of some of the loaves (loaves that, to my untrained eye, looked flawless), and explains that if the bread is underproofed, the dough breaks out the sides of the loaf during baking. Each day he evaluates and modifies his baking process, based on his careful observation of the breads’ bloom, the shapes and sizes of the air holes inside the loaves, and many other factors. “It doesn’t matter to anyone else,” he says, shaking his head, “but it matters to me.”

When asked which of his breads is his favorite, he looks puzzled. “That’s hard to say. It’s like asking who is your favorite child.” He does say that he eats only the whole-wheat and rye loaves, and admits that the whole-wheat recipe has been the hardest to perfect.

Baking with rye is also a challenge, because rye flour lacks a component for proper gluten formation (making rye bread a good choice for people with gluten intolerance) and needs a strong “sour” (mixture of starter, flour and liquid that ferments overnight). The right proportions are also important. Tim uses about 60 percent rye and 40 percent wheat flour in his German rye, and he mixes the sour very stiff.

The Panary’s Whole Wheat Sourdough, Potato Bread, Peasant Bread, Olive-Rosemary and Alsatian Herb Breads all require overnight fermentation before the loaves are shaped and baked. This process reduces the breads’ acidity and, because the long fermentation is a precursor to germination, improves the nutritional value and digestibility.

Although I’ll never turn down a slice of warm, fresh-from-the-oven bread, the joy of baking bread lies more in the process than the product. There is something comforting and ritualistic in the time necessary for yeast to work, dough to rise, loaves to bake. We can artificially speed things up with quick yeast or shortened rising times, but, in the end, the product suffers. A good loaf of bread reminds us that in our culture of downsizing and outsourcing and instant results, some things in life just can’t be rushed.

The following video shows how to create artisan-style bread shapes in your very own kitchen:

What's New in Your Kitchen?

2012-01-03T04:52:00.000-08:00

When the calendar flips to another year, it's difficult to resist tossing out the old and zooming in on the new, whether we're replacing last year's favorite book bag or a worn pair of gloves or even the preferred kitchen gadget that grew rusty after too many cycles through the dishwasher. Bring on January 1st, and I want all things shiny and clean and in tip-top shape. New. But, if you think about it, "new" is a relative term. Sometimes, the one thing that's been sitting around a while, gathering dust, proves just as exciting.

Take my copy of Cook's Illustrated Special Collector's Edition All-Time Best Recipes. Given to me last year, I admired it from a distance for, well...months, flipping through the pages here and there, but still not breaking the binding. But last week, I decided I would attempt the recipe for "Soft, Chewy Molasses Spice Cookies." Finally.

I love Cook's Illustrated (if I could slip in one day and hang out a while in America's Test Kitchen...oh the joy!). The articles inside are written in such a way that I don't feel snubbed as a novice chef, nor do I feel overwhelmed. I learn from them every time, like with the cookies. When the recipe says to use butter that's "softened but still cool", there's a reason for that. Don't brush over a simple word like cool if a Master Chef mentions it. Butter that's too soft makes for flat cookies. Butter with a slight chill promises a full-bodied cookie just like the one in the picture. I made this recipe twice: the first time I hit gold, the second time I got sassy, poo-pooed the "cool", and ended up with molasses pancakes. They still tasted good, mind you, but they didn't look as pretty.

My point here is not so much about my rise and fall in the kitchen, but that, in a world where almost everything is disposable, so much is worth keeping. And, worth trying again. We've talked about it before; remember those old cookbooks with the yellowed pages? I bet you have a gadget in your kitchen that marks the ages but still works like a charm.

What do you think? Did you revisit an oldie but a goodie this Holiday Season and make it new?

* Photo credit: Calendar image by danielmoyle on Flickr.com

Here's pie in your eye!

2011-12-26T22:47:00.000-08:00

My freezer is still filled with cookies. For every box, bag and plate I handed out they returned two fold accompanied by baklava, caramel layer cake and Maui Caramacs. Ah... if only my muse would be so forthcoming.

But the cookies are a relatively new addition to my holiday Huzzah. Until now I have slid softly through the Wisconsin winter in a warm pan of sweet potato pie.

(It's how I got my in-laws to love me. I am not above bribery.)

Just after Thanksgiving of this year, I caught a morning show on public radio that was discussing holiday baking. I'm going to cut to the best part: Vodka in the pie crust.

According to the guest and several online sources that could not be wrong, ice cold vodka in place of water adds a necessary ease to the pie crust rolling process. Once the pie is baking, the vodka evaporates away leaving a flaky, tasty crust.

It had to be tested.

Julie Jeff's Oil Pie Crust

One crust pie:

1 C + 2 t. Flour
1/2 t. Salt
1/3 C Oil
2 t. Ice Water (Don't forget to substitute some chilly vodka)

Mix flour and salt, blend in oil with a fork (it ends up looking like a bowl full of pea sized crumbles). Sprinkle water (vodka) over mixture and mix well (till it holds together). Roll between pieces of wax paper.

For a pre-baked shell, prick thouroughly with fork and bake for 12-15 minutes at 400 degrees.

It rolled out beautifully

Now I have to tell you something important. I first tried this nifty vodka trick on Christmas Eve about three and a half hours before an engagement. Just as I was ready to roll out the dough I realized the damn cookies used up all the wax paper. I tore my kids and husband away from the new microscope where they were concentrating on candy cane shards and cat whiskers and sent him off to the store. In the time that it took it seems all the precious vodka had done evaporated away and I was left with a crumbly heap of oily flour.

So if you try this at home, remember to roll the crust out right away, or you may just end up drinking the vodka.

Have you tried vodka in your crust, and if so, how did it turn out? When have you been surprised by an unlikely ingredient and how did you feel about it?

Far beyond the moon and stars

2011-12-20T16:14:00.000-08:00

by Lisa

“Hello, Beautiful,” whispers Max, as he gazes at a cupcake with pink frosting. Anyone already familiar with the bunny named Max and his older sister, Ruby, the lovable creations of children’s book author and illustrator Rosemary Wells, knows that Max has a sweet tooth. In Max and Ruby’s Midas, Ruby tries to teach Max some lessons about good nutrition, in the guise of a somewhat revised but famous Greek myth:

Once upon a time in Ancient Greece there was a little prince named Midas who hated his fruits and vegetables.

The prince Midas scorns such foods as his mother’s olive loaves, prune whip, spinach soup, and carrot muffins, even though his mother warns him, “You must eat a good breakfast, my little pomegranate.” Soon he finds that by focusing “laser-beam eyes” on the detested dish and muttering some magic words, such as “hot fudge sundae,” he can turn the food into sweets. Unfortunately he also turns his mom into a cherry float, his dad into lime Jell-O surprise, and his sister Athena into a slice of birthday cake.

Midas learns his lesson, but does Max? You’ll have to look carefully at the last page of the book to find out.

I still remember the day when our children’s librarian introduced our family to Rosemary Wells, nearly twenty years ago. Throughout our son's childhood, both he and I enjoyed the emotional depth of her characters, the warmth of her illustrations, and the beautiful simplicity of her stories. Of her extensive list of works, which includes several Max and Ruby stories, our favorites were her Voyage to the Bunny Planet Trilogy (First Tomato, The Island Light, and Moss Pillows), all of which feature in some way food as a source of comfort and emotional healing.

In First Tomato, Claire begins her morning by spilling her cornflakes and having her shoes fill with snow on the way to school. At school, she endures two hours of math, and lunch is her “least favorite—baloney sandwiches.” In gym class, she is the only girl unable to do a cartwheel. As Claire sits on a bench in the snow, waiting for a late school bus, we are told that Claire needs a visit to the Bunny Planet:

Far beyond the moon and stars,
Twenty light-years south of Mars,
Spins the gentle Bunny Planet
And the bunny queen is Janet.
Janet says to Claire, “Come in.
Here’s the day that should have been.”

The second half of the book is written in delightful verse, as Claire spends a slow and peaceful summer day picking fresh garden vegetables for her mother, who uses them to make First Tomato Soup.

Each of the other two Voyage to the Bunny Planet titles follows the same pattern. In The Island Light, Felix suffers through being “sick in front of the whole art class,” getting a shot from the doctor, and having his parents forget to kiss him goodnight. On the Bunny Planet, he and his father spend the day together on their lighthouse island, his mother prepares apple pancakes and gingerbread, and Felix falls asleep holding his father’s hand.

Introverted Robert is the featured bunny in Moss Pillows. He is forced to visit his Uncle Ed, Aunt Margo, and their four boys, who all pile on top of Robert at once. He is served cold liver chili for dinner and is forced to hide in the bathroom to be alone. On the Bunny Planet, he is by himself in his

house in a sweet-gum tree,
Where I sing to myself in the whispering woods,
And nobody’s there but me.

He makes a secret recipe for toasted tangerines and lies on a pillow of “emerald moss.”

What foods help you or your children to have the "day that should have been"?

Novels and Cookbooks, We Love Them the Same

2011-12-13T01:00:00.000-08:00

On the shelves or in the kitchen, favorite books are easy to spot, with their tattered covers, marked pages, and hand-written notes stuffed between pages.

On our shelves, certain books take up permanent residence because the stories inside grabbed us and lingered, or because their words burned their way into our psyches at pivotal times in our lives. A cracked binding proves the books have been read again and again, and still, we never tire of them. Pages are earmarked, passages are underlined, notes are scribbled in the margins.

Cookbooks in our kitchens often hold the same affections. At least, they do for me. The recipes themselves may not hook me the way a good novel will, but the stories that revolve around each book or each favorite dish listed within are enough to keep those books front and center in my cabinet.

Absolutely Delicious! A Collection of My Favorite Recipes,

written and illustrated by Linda Allard

The Story: Me, living on the East Side with my good friend living in the apartment building next door. She lived alone, and my boyfriend (to-be-husband) worked second shift. We decided dinners alone were ridiculous, so we shuffled our pantry items together and met up a few times a week to make, and eat, a meal. Communal cooking, except she did most of the cooking. After a while, our meet-ups grew less frequent, but she knew I needed more direction. She gave me this book, with the inscription, "I'm counting on some good meals." I wanted to cook and bake well, if only for her.

My favorite recipes: Basic Tomato Sauce (so easy, I should be cooking some tonight), Marianne's Brownies (I've never found another brownie recipe even close to this good), and Jill's Favorite Pancakes (now our signature dish on breakfast-for-dinner nights).

Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day, by the Moosewood Collective

The Story: Me, twenty-five years old, newly married, working in a small office, still struggling in the kitchen. A Sales Associate, who was new to the office and older than me, wanted to talk one day. She asked me questions about cooking and favorite dishes and such. She must have recognized the look in my eye, must have known that I fumbled in the kitchen most nights. Maybe she remembered her own self and what it was like to want to cook a meal from scratch but not know where to begin. I barely knew her when she gave me the book at that year's Christmas exchange, but she knew me all too well.

My favorite recipes: Honey Mustard Vinaigrette (I feel fancy with my homemade dressing in a glass carafe), Curried Chick Peas and Tofu (a recipe good for sharing), Lemon Date Bars (it's just about time to whip a batch of those babies up again).

The Stuffed Griffin,

presented by the Utility Club in Griffin, Georgia

The Story: Let's just say this book is near and dear to my heart. In the early years of our marriage, my husband and I played dinner hosts to a couple of bachelors from time to time. Our friend Greg brought this book over one night and said his mother gave it to him. "I don't cook, but you're pretty good. I'll loan this book to you if you invite me over for dinner." Pretty good was good enough for me, flattery at its best. I took him up on his offer, promising to give the book back to him when he got married. Years later, after his "announcement," I panicked. I had loved this book dearly, spilled batter on the pages and accidentally torn a few from the binding. I searched online for a replacement, willing to pay $100 if I could only hold on to the book I had. Lucky for me, those ladies in Georgia still kept the book in print.

My favorite recipes: Pumpkin Bread (three whole loaves made from one can of pumpkin, best tasting bread ever), Banana Bread (now affectionately named "Bottom Bread", after the year I added chocolate chips to the mix for my husband's hunting trip and all the chips landed in the bottom of the pan for some strange reason. I've only been able to duplicate that baking feat on purpose), Snickerdoodles (full of butter, so easy, substituting for eggs in this recipe only makes them taste all the more de-lish).

Now, tell us about your favorite cookbooks.
What's your story?

"Cooking is more than preparing food. Cooking to sustain those you care for, cooking a favorite dish for a favored person, cooking special foods for special occasions -- all involve thoughtfulness and love." ~ Linda Allard, in Absolutely Delicious!

Bonus to the Giveaway: A Guest Post by Sandra Beasley

2011-12-08T19:14:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, I gave you a sneak peek at Sandra Beasley's memoir, Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life. Today, I have something even better: a guest post by Sandra herself, in which she gives us a taste of her poetry, more of her memoir, and a glimpse into her life on the road.

THE VAGABOND DIET

photo credit: Matthew Wordman

I love to eat. And I love to cook. Please trust me on those two things before I tell you the rest: I have severe and lifelong allergies to to milk, goat's milk, egg, soy, beef, shrimp, mango, cucumber, some tree nuts, mustard, some melons, and swordfish. So while yes, I love to eat--and yes, I love to cook--my palate and my recipe book might be a little different from yours.

Since spring 2010, I have been on an endless if exhilarating book tour. Anyone who travels will tell you how merciless it can be on the belly. But when you're traveling with food allergies, the risk goes beyond the realm of gaining five pounds. Whether in New York City (this week), or Madison, Wisconsin (last week), or Miami, Florida (the week before that), I am constantly talking business over lunch or joining hosts for a dinner before a bookstore reading. There is often pressure to try a local specialty or share a plate. In these moments I live in fear of being reduced to a hivey, wheezing, anaphylactic mass. Where will the nearest hospital be? Will my health insurance cover me there?

In "Allergy Girl," a sequence that appeared in my first poetry collection, Theories of Falling, I describe the helplessness my parents felt in trying to feed a newborn while on the road:

My parents agree on one rule: Don't break the baby.
They pour quarters into the arcade game of adulthood,
working the mechanical claw right, left, right, back,
aiming for the stuffed bear, missing. A clutch

of cheesecake. A buttermilk biscuit. Each time
my lips swelling, breath skipping. They pace the E.R.
Did we break the baby? My mother dissects labels:
casein, protein, lactylate. Easier to cook from scratch.

Later, revisiting the incident in Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, I filled in the narrative details:

Take the Biscuit Incident: On a trip through Nashville, after hours of
driving with a squalling, hungry three-year-old, they checked into Opryland
and tried to figure out how to quell my growling stomach. My
father’s plate came with a plain-looking biscuit on the side.

“You barely had a crumb,” my mom said, still defensive after all these
years. “We didn’t know it was buttermilk.” I began wheezing and hiving,
spluttering at the liquid Benadryl they tried to ease down my throat. They
waited, watching closely, unsure what to do. After an hour, I calmed
down—probably as much from exhaustion as recovery—and fell asleep.

The next day my father was tied up in a conference, and my mother
would not drive in an unfamiliar city. “The worst part was going back to
that same hotel restaurant the next morning,” she admitted, “and having to
try again. We didn’t know where else to take you.”

Over the years I've developed my collection of short cuts for eating meal after meal after meal on the road. Make sure the server knows "tree nuts" includes pine nuts and pestos. When in doubt, order the french fries. Don't even step into a pizza joint. I've accepted that my cravings might have to yield to my common sense, and I've gotten used to paying full price for an entree stripped of the chi-chi garnishes that justified the $5 upcharge in the first place.

I've spent the last four days in New York. On one level, my index of the trip's adventures reads...

-Food Allergy Initiative's ball at the Waldorf Astoria;

-Meeting with my editor at Crown;

-Date on Cornelia Street;

-Meeting with my assistant editor at W. W. Norton;

-Meeting with my literary agent;

-Interview for TRIP CITY, an online Brooklyn-curated arts salon.

On another level, my mind indexes...

-safe halibut, fancy dessert fruit plate (picked around the cantaloupe);

-hijiki and salmon maki (success!);

-pasta with mussels (convinced the kitchen to switch out an egg-y pasta for linguine);

-quinoa salad (sent back for de-cucumber-ing);

-fried plantains (the Cuban equivalent of my standby, french fries);

-hummus & carrot sticks (good but for $11, I wish I'd been able to eat the pita).

Soon I'll be home, this time for a month. That is an eternity in the vagabond's world. I can't wait to fill my refrigerator with arugula, peppers, avocados, roasted chicken, wild rice. Breakfast? Almonds, bananas, orange juice. Every day: the simple and the Sandra-friendly.

My favorite meal of the last month on the road was not in New York at all. It was actually a bowl of potato-leek soup at Mother Fool's Coffeehouse in Madison, Wisconsin. Not because it was exotic or rich; it was rustic and, if anything, it could have used a little salt. But before ordering I got to look at the hand-lettered index card where the vegan chef had written down the handful of ingredients. I felt taken care of with each hearty, safe spoonful.

Sometimes, your appetite is not for what's exotic or rich. Sometimes, it's the comfort food you need--the comfort that, wherever else the day takes you, it won't be to the emergency room.

Don't Kill the Birthday Girl was a finalist in the 2011 Goodreads Choice Awards: Best Food & Cooking, and Publisher's Weekly calls it an "intelligent and witty memoir." Sandra Beasley is an award-winning poet and the 2011 Writer-In-Residence Howard County's Poetry and Literature Society. Check out her website here, follow her on Twitter, or like her page on Facebook.

And, for you Readers...We're still giving away a copy of this excellent book, but you don't have to go clicking around town to enter. To make it easy, leave a comment here if you haven't already dropped your name in the comment section on Tuesday's post. We'll draw for the winner on Monday, December 12th.

How's that for hospitality?

On Food Allergies: A sneak peek at a memoir, a chance to win the book.

2011-12-06T07:05:00.000-08:00

"...[Food] allergies can be a mere footnote to life -- not the title of the story."

Me and Sandra Beasley at Mother Fool's cool Coffeehouse.

That's what Sandra Beasley wrote in her message to me when she signed my copy of her memoir, Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life. We'd only just met last Saturday night, but she must have recognized something familiar in my eyes: the angst expression of a mother who's child suffers from food allergies.

Mention birthday party, pot luck, or small-town diner, and my heart skips a beat, in a panic sort of way. Parties, tables of mixed dishes, and a one-griddle restaurant mean one-on-one time with the hostess or the cook. On occasion, I've been known to interrogate a waiter or two, shooting off question after question about menu items and ingredients. I'm still learning the art of being a proactive mother with an air of collaboration. I can learn a lot from Sandra Beasley's calm, "let's work together on this" kind of attitude. I already have.

Don't Kill the Birthday Girl mixes memoir with science and the history of food allergies. I saw myself in passages where she describes her mother ("My mother, the lab scientist. . . . My mother, the detective."), and I so appreciated seeing life with food allergies from the perspective of the person dealing with them directly. When I heard that Sandra would be in Madison, Wisconsin to read at Mother Fool's Coffeehouse, I knew I'd go. It didn't matter the distance, the babysitter fees, nor that nasty rain storm.

My husband and mother-in-law came along, and we met up with (fellow blog author) Victoria. Before Sandra took to reading, she sat down with us, and we shared experiences. Sandra said that she's beginning to meet with camps to help them find ways to meet the needs for kids with food allergies in a way that moves beyond just playing it safe and focuses more on those kids feeling completely a part of...well, everything. I love that. I want my son to go to camp, and he doesn't want me to tag along.

Later, on stage, Sandra read from her memoir and even gave us a sneak peek into her poetry. I was reminded that 1) I will be reading her book again and again, and 2) writing about life experiences helps us see them in a new light, understand them better, and move through the discomfort that sometimes surrounds those experiences.

Here's an excerpt from the introduction in her book:

Don't kill the birthday girl. Leftover omelet clings to the edge of a breakfast plate. Butter greases the stir-fry. Walnuts go commando in an otherwise tame brownie. There's a reason they're call allergy "attacks"; you never know where a food can be lurking.

But those with food allergies aren't victims. We're people who - for better or for worse - experience the world in a slightly different way. This is not a story of how we die. These are the stories of how we live.

I love this book, so much that I'm giving away a signed copy (not my copy, mind you. I barely let my husband hold my copy long enough to read it...). Just drop your name in the comments below and I'll choose a winner on Monday, December 12th. So easy. This book is one you'll want to have on your shelf -- if you're a writer, a person with food allergies, that person's parent or partner, or if you're a cook.

And, we're all cooks, right?

NaFoCooMo

2011-11-28T20:56:00.001-08:00

I had fully intended to participate in (and win) NaNoWriMo for the second year in a row. But I didn't. Or won't.

Instead, I cooked:

I baked bread

Soup and corn bread. Curry. More soup. Snobby Joes on Honey Wheat bread. Spiced Sweet Potato and Rutabaga Gratin with Chile Cornmeal Crusted Tofu and Green Pumpkin Seed Mole...

But since I have such a sweet tooth I had to make Hot buns hot buns. Peanut Butter Cookies. Pumpkin Spice Cookies with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting. And Apple Galette with Fresh Cinnamon Whipped Cream.

Tomorrow I tussle with yogurt.

It is November, after all. The comforts of home and the warmth of the oven are infectious. And as much of a thrill as I get out of spattering empty white space with the frantic black stain of words, there is just something wonderful about feeding my family a plate full of healthy, good tasting food.

What have you been cooking up this month?

***

As a special (nondeadly) treat this Saturday evening, some or all of us here at Writing Up an Appetite will be in attendance at Mother Fool's Coffeehouse where Author Sandra Beasley will be reading from her book Don't Kill the Birthday Girl.

The following is taken from the book's website:

When butter is deadly and eggs can make your throat swell shut, cupcakes and other joys of childhood are out of the question–and so Sandra’s mother used to warn guests against a toxic, frosting-tinged kiss with “Don’t kill the birthday girl!” Tackling a long-marginalized subject, this book intertwines a cultural history and sociological study of food allergies with humorous and sometimes heartbreaking real-life experience. From a short-lived gig as a restaurant reviewer to the dates that ended with trips to the emergency room, step inside the story of a modern young woman coming to terms with a potentially deadly disorder.

We hope some of you will be able to join us for this Free event.

Ms. Beasley has an upcoming guest post featured on our blog in December.

Time for a Little Something

2011-11-22T17:43:00.000-08:00

by Lisa

Christopher Robin said:

"What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?"

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best?" and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. And then he thought that being with Christopher Robin was a very good thing to do, and having Piglet near was a very friendly thing to have: and so, when he had thought it all out, he said, "What I like best in the whole world is Me and Piglet going to see You, and You saying 'What about a little something?' and Me saying,' Well, I shouldn't mind a little something, should you, Piglet,' and it being a hummy sort of day outside, and birds singing." ~ A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

Our fondest memories of food are often inextricably bound with our memories of people, of having “a little something” in the company of friends and family. On of my fondest food memories is of my mother’s breakfasts, made at a time before microwave ovens and drive-through restaurants. Those bygone mornings somehow never felt rushed, although we had school and work and a full slate of tasks ahead of us. The farm was very quiet early in the morning, and in our small house I easily heard my mother opening the refrigerator, turning on the stove, cracking eggs, whisking batter. Before I opened my eyes, my nose was tickled with scents of pancakes and eggs, or waffles and bacon, or French toast and sausage. We always ate breakfast together, at least before my brothers and I started high school. Breakfast and supper were the bookends to our days, gathering us in together between times of being apart.

When I was very young, on Sundays I walked to my grandfather’s house for a late breakfast of cold, lumpy oatmeal sprinkled with sugar and laced with fresh-from-the-cow milk, a delicacy only the two of us appreciated and no one else in my family seems to remember. Afterward we played canasta or took a drive to the east pastures or we sat together and sang songs.

Almost none of my memories have to do with eating alone or of particular food apart from the person who made it. My grandmother’s “leftovers with the gravy on top,” as a cousin called it, would win no culinary awards, but the fact that she made it and served it in her tiny kitchen with her loving hands gave it four stars in our reviews.

Like the philosopher Pooh, we are wise to realize that our anticipation of food—and all good things—as well as our memories of it, are often even better than the thing itself. Just for a moment, imagine preparing a special dish for someone very special in your life. Think about choosing the recipe, buying the ingredients, making preparations, setting the table, sitting down together, sharing the food. The joy has already begun and will last much longer than the actual meal.

Our memories work in the same way. They last as long as we choose to hold on to them, and they are as sweet now as—maybe even sweeter than—when they occurred. All of this is to say that we needn’t worry too much about preparing fancy meals to show our love. Expensive groceries and gourmet techniques do not guarantee lasting memories. The secret ingredients are time, care, and togetherness.

This month I want to share a recipe that makes it easy to share your time and care with those you love. Package this yummy granola in big glass jars and tie with a pretty ribbon, perhaps with the recipe included.

It's time for a little something, don't you think?

Holiday Granola

Dried cranberries and chocolate chips dress up otherwise ordinary granola.

1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup honey or pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
5 cups rolled oats (not the quick kind)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. In a small bowl, combine orange juice, honey or maple syrup, and vegetable oil. [addendum 11/23: warm the mixture if necessary to soften the honey.] Stir and set aside.
3. In a large baking pan, combine oats, sunflower seeds, chopped nuts, and cinnamon. Stir to combine. Pour in liquid mixture, and stir to coat ingredients evenly.
4. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, stirring every ten minutes or so to prevent sticking. When finished, the granola is lightly browned.
5. Remove from oven. Cool completely before stirring in dried cranberries and chocolate chips.
Makes about 8 cups.

Lentil Soup, Writing and Commiserating

2011-11-15T03:51:00.001-08:00

I am very pleased to welcome Tricia and Siana of 2GirlsOnaBench to our humble kitchen this morning. Get out your Dutch oven and a well rounded bottle of wine--we're making soup!

TRICIA
I’m on day three of not washing my hair and it’s not looking good.

SIANA
Cut these potatoes.

TRICIA
You can do that, you can not wash your hair for three days, but I can’t. But I don’t care I’m just hanging out with you.

SIANA
Stir this wine in. And drink some too.

We’re making lentil soup. We haven’t seen each other in weeks because we’ve been quarantined from colds and then busy, and then family weekend events and then whatever.

We should be writing but, well, we’re making soup instead. This soup recipe has been handed down from Spain to us, which we have modified from college dorm room to apartment to house. In that order.

TRICIA
Remember in our first apartment when you made this and then left the chopped bell pepper in the fridge for like three weeks. It smelled and then everything tasted like bell pepper. Even the butter, the butter tasted like bell pepper. And it was all your fault.

SIANA
Yeah, well, remember when we made it in our dorm room and you put it in the crockpot and it boiled over and was a mess on the floor because we didn’t have a kitchen. It smelled and you left it there for three weeks.

We love lentil soup, Siana got the original recipe from her host mother when she studied abroad in Spain and we’ve been modifying it for the last many years. We always make it together because our spouses don’t really like it so we just make a lot and share it.

Here’s the recipe:

1 bag of dried lentils
1 carton of chicken stock (vegetable stock works too)
2 cups of water (add more if needed)
2 potatoes diced (Yukon golds or red potatoes work best)
2 ribs of celery diced
½ onion chopped
2 carrots diced
1 green bell pepper diced
3 cloves of garlic chopped
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon pepper
½ cup red wine
2 Tablespoons olive oil

Saute onions, celery, carrots and garlic in olive oil in a dutch oven or big soup pot.

Add potatoes, bell pepper, lentils, chicken stock, water and salt and bring to a boil.

Simmer for at least 1 hour, maybe more. You may need to add more water if it starts to look like it’s getting dry or thick. Towards the end, add the wine and then drink the rest. It may also take more than one hour, monitor the simmering process, it seems to have taken us a long time to make this, but we’ve also been talking and drinking wine while we’re simmering.

Serve soup with crusty bread and enjoy. You can add a drizzle of olive oil on top if you feel dangerous. Just do it, we’ve been inspired by Barefoot Contessa, she always does that with soup. Go crazy.

TRICIA
Mmmmm

SIANA
Yum

So we didn’t write anything except this recipe. But we decided that’s better than nothing. We’ll tackle our script next week. Or maybe after Thanksgiving. Or after Christmas. Oh hell, after New Years, who are we kidding?

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From Marie Callender to homemade, there was always Chicken Pot Pie.

2011-11-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

My love for cooking waxes and wanes.

In the beginning, when I first moved to Wisconsin and shared living space with three bachelors (one of whom I had dibs on), any time spent in the kitchen was more cumbersome than fun. None of us really wanted to cook, but we all wanted to eat. So, our meals came frozen from Marie Callender or vacuum-sealed by Ramen or boxed up and tossed into a paper bag marked with the name of the restaurant on the corner. We cycled through the pizza oven, microwave, and one saucepan but rarely paid attention to the dishes in the sink, which would explain why the kitchen was low on the list of places to hang out.

Later, my husband and I married and moved into a one bedroom apartment, and I marveled at the sight and size of the oven: fit for a kid but with a real working gas range and oven space just big enough to tease you into thinking you were really cooking. I tried my hand at formal dinners, removing all but one oven rack to squeeze in a turkey for our first Thanksgiving, and later sweating over the miniature range to cook chicken and carrots. It took a long time to learn the art of getting every dish onto the table at the same time, warm and well...done.

After a few years, a bit of confidence, and a subscription to Martha Stewart Magazine and Cooking Light, I delighted in a little cooking glory. I baked brownies to die for, cooked a Mexican Casserole made with green chiles and chicken that had to be doubled when family ate over, pureed Creamy Asparagus Soup that looked just like the photo and was worthy of a repeat. I discovered an easy Chicken Potpie recipe that could be prepared the night before and thrown in the oven for dinner the next day, giving the appearance that I spent hours on the meal. My Pecan Pie didn’t rival my grandmother’s but elicited oohs and ahhs just the same.

Life in the kitchen was full.

Then, tiny hands graced our breakfast island, and finicky taste buds resulted in too many leftovers. Wanting my kids to "just eat something," I fell victim to the boxed food aisle at the grocery store again. We cycled through fish sticks and tacos and breakfast for dinner (I write that in past tense, though often our weekly menu still rotates through these dishes). We survived on quick, easy, and bland. Making dinner, and eating it, was a chore.

But as my kids grow older and become a little more willing to try new things, I feel the pull towards bigger, brighter, and more exciting menu choices. Maybe not Creamy Asparagus Soup (yet), but I might bring back some old standards like Chicken Potpie -- dishes that say "easy" and "gourmet" at the same time.

I mean, who can resist the pie?

OLD-FASHIONED CHICKEN POTPIE

(ripped from the pages of an old Cooking Light issue over ten years ago)

Crust (in a pinch, which is often, I use a store-bought crust, and that works just as well).
1 cup all-purpose flour, divided
3 tablespoons ice water
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup vegetable shortening

Filling
3 cups Chicken Stock, divided
2 1/3 cups cubed red potato (about 1 pound)
1 cup (1/4 inch thick) sliced carrot
2 teaspoons butter
1/2 cup chopped shallots or onions
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups diced cooked chicken
1 cup frozen petite green peas
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
Dash of black pepper
Cooking spray

To prepare crust, lightly spoon 1 cup flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine 1/4 cup flour, ice water, and vinegar in a small bowl. Combine 3/4 cup flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a large bowl; cut in shortening with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add vinegar mixture; stir, just until moist. Press mixture gently into a 5-inch circle on heavy-duty plastic wrap; cover with additional plastic wrap. Chill for 15 minutes. Roll dough, still covered, into a 13x10-inch oval. Place dough in freezer 5 minutes or until plastic wrap can be easily removed.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
To prepare filling, bring 2 1/2 cups Chicken Stock to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add potato and carrot, cook 2 minutes. Drain mixture in a colander over a bowl, reserving cooking liquid.
Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add shallots; cook 3 minutes. Lightly spoon 1/2 cup flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup Chicken Stock; stir with a whisk. Add to skillet. Stir in potato mixture, reserved cooking liquid, chicken, peas, 3/4 teaspoon salt, thyme, and pepper. Cook 10 minutes. Remove from heat; cool slightly. spoon chicken mixture into a 1 1/2-quart casserole dish coated with cooking spray. Removed 1 sheet of plastic wrap from dough. Place dough on top of chicken mixture pressing to edge of dish. Remove top of plastic wrap. Cut 5 slits in top of crust to allow steam to escape. Gently brush crust with milk. Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes or until golden. Let stand 10 minutes.

What’s your favorite throw-together, toss-in-the-oven, feel-fancy and gobble-it-up kind of dish?

(Below, the Hillbilly Gypsies perform "Crow Black Chicken")

“Easiest work that ever I done was eatin' chicken pie.”

American Stew Pot

2011-11-01T06:24:00.000-07:00

Home is where one starts from. T.S. Eliot

Growing up there wasn't anything I wanted more than to move to New York or LA and live a ferocious life. After High School I read "On the Road", dreamed technicolor dreams of what it meant to be free and writing out the poetry of unhindered travel--a wild-eyed bard in a VW bus heading away. I went to Colorado for a time, got smacked out of my reverie, and came back to Wisconsin six months later.

There's something to be said about having a home base, a thing that gets overlooked in the wide eyes of America's road hungry dreams. Since capsizing in Colorado I've traveled back and forth across the country's bumps and bridges--thrilled at the outset, exhausted at the end. Every time I've come back home I've felt lucky for my walls and bed, and thirsty for the familiar.

My husband and I have settled our nest in a small town south of Madison, a place from where we stretch and return with a yard and side walks and trees and snow. We revel in our Main Street holidays, and our stew pot nights. We eat soup by the ladle full paired with a very fine beer.

Winter Squash Corn Curry Soup

1 Butternut and 1 Acorn Squash (Winter squash of your choice or squash and sweet potato!)
1 Cup fresh or frozen corn kernels 1/2 Medium onion, finally chopped
2 Cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 T Curry Powder Garam Masala, Salt, and White Pepper to taste
1 1/2 Cups Heavy Cream, Evaporated Milk, Milk or Milk substitute

Preheat oven to 400. Halve and seed squash. Lightly grease baking pans (have some kind of edge to hold juice in) and place squash cut-side down for roasting. Bake 25-35 minutes, until squash is tender to poke with fork.

Meanwhile, prepare onion and sweat on low in soup pan with butter and corn. When squash is tender, cool and scrape into onion mixture.

If you have an immersion blender, add milk and curry at this time and blend until smooth. If you do not have an immersion blender, add milk and squash mixture in batches to blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Return to soup pot.

Add stock and warm on stove, but don't bring to a boil. Season to taste.

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Five Little Pumpkin Recipes

2011-10-25T06:14:00.000-07:00

by Lisa

It is pumpkin season! As we learned last week, October's favorite orange fruit (yes, it is a fruit!) is good for more than just carving. Here are some other facts about Jack you might not have known (from the University of Illinois Extension):

Around 90 to 95% of the processed pumpkins in the United States are grown in Illinois.
Pumpkin flowers are edible.
The largest pumpkin pie ever made was over five feet in diameter and weighed over 350 pounds. It used 80 pounds of cooked pumpkin, 36 pounds of sugar, 12 dozen eggs and took six hours to bake.
In early colonial times, pumpkins were used as an ingredient for the crust of pies, not the filling.
Pumpkins were once recommended for removing freckles and curing snake bites.
The largest pumpkin ever grown weighed 1,140 pounds.
The name pumpkin originated from "pepon" – the Greek word for "large melon."
Pumpkins are 90 percent water.
Eighty percent of the pumpkin supply in the United States is available in October.

And then there is the singing:

Of course, if you insist on cutting into these fat little darlings, do it in Death Star style (thanks to my friend Jane for the tip!).

Finally, I want to share some of my favorite pumpkin recipes, all egg-free and most sweetened with the season's maple syrup, to take you from breakfast to dessert, adapted from an article I first published in Vegetarian Gourmet. Enjoy!

Mini Pumpkin Johnnycakes

Top with extra maple syrup or warm cinnamon applesauce. Makes 20 small pancakes.

Dry Ingredients:

1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1 Tablespoon powdered egg replacer (or omit, and replace 1/4 cup of the milk, below, with one medium egg, beaten and added with the pumpkin)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon salt, optional

Wet Ingredients:

2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 1/4 cups milk or soymilk
2/3 cup cooked, pureed pumpkin or canned pumpkin
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
1 Tablespoon canola or other oil

1. Whisk dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Set aside.

2. Whisk lemon juice and milk together in a small bowl. Let sit for 5 minutes.

3. Stir remaining wet ingredients into milk mixture, then pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients, and whisk lightly until just combined.

4. Heat a lightly oiled large skillet. Drop batter 2 Tablespoons at a time onto skillet. Gently flip pancakes when the underside is browned. Serve.

Not-Overly-Sweet Pumpkin Banana Walnut Bread

Makes one loaf.

Dry Ingredients:

2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients:

2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup cooked, pureed pumpkin or canned pumpkin
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup canola or other oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or chocolate chips)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil a medium loaf pan. Set aside.

2. Sift or whisk dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Set aside.

3. Whisk remaining ingredients (except walnuts) in a bowl until smooth. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in walnuts or chocolate chips.

4. Spoon batter into prepared pan. Bake until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 50-60 minutes. Cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Pumpkin Miso Soup

Makes four servings.

2 Tablespoons mellow white miso
2 Tablespoons water
3 scallions, finely chopped
1 Tablespoon minced gingerroot
2 teaspoons peanut or sesame oil
2 cups cooked, pureed pumpkin or canned pumpkin
2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup water (or, for a creamy version, milk or unsweetened soymilk)

1. Mix together miso and 2 Tablespoons water in small bowl. Set aside.

2. Sauté scallions and ginger in peanut or sesame oil in a large saucepan for 3-5 minutes.

3. In a blender or food process, blend pumpkin with sautéed scallions and ginger until smooth. Transfer back to pan.

4. Add broth and water (or milk). Whisk until smooth, and simmer for about 10 minutes. Stir in miso mixture. Serve immediately.

Easy Halloween Pudding

Black and orange stripes make this pudding a treat for kids of all ages. Makes four servings.

Pumpkin Pudding:

1 10.5-ounce package firm silken tofu
1/2 cup cooked, pureed pumpkin or canned pumpkin
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Spiced Cocoa Pudding:

1 10.5-ounce package firm silken tofu
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
2 Tablespoons cocoa (or carob) powder
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of cardamom

1. To make the pumpkin pudding, blend ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Transfer to another bowl, and rinse the blending container.

2. To make the cocoa pudding, blend ingredients in a food processor until smooth.

3. To assemble, spoon about 1/8 of pumpkin pudding, followed by 1/8 of cocoa pudding into each of 4 parfait glasses. Continue alternating until each has four stripes. Chill for at least 4 hours of overnight.

No-Bake Pumpkin Peanut Cheesecake

Makes 10 servings.

2 Tablespoons peanut (or almond) butter
2 Tablespoons melted butter
6 ounces graham crackers
2 cups cooked, pureed pumpkin or canned pumpkin
1 10.5-ounce firm silken tofu
2/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup peanut (or almond) butter
1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
pinch of salt
1 cup water
1 1/2 Tablespoons agar powder (or gelatin)

1. Lightly oil a 12" springform pan. Set aside.

2. Mix together 2 Tablespoons peanut (or almond) butter and 2 Tablespoons melted butter in a small bowl. Set aside.

3. Grind graham crackers in a food processor or blender until they form very small crumbs. Transfer crumbs to a mixing bowl and mix in peanut butter mixture until coarse crumbs form. Press firmly into bottom of prepared pan. Set aside.

4. Puree pumpkin, tofu, maple syrup, peanut or almond butter, pie spice, and salt in a food process or blender. Do not transfer mixture. Set aside.

5. Simmer one cup water and agar or gelatin in a small saucepan for 3 to 5 minutes, whisking constantly. Immediately add to pumpkin mixture, and blend until smooth.

6. Pour filling over crust and smooth the top. Chill overnight.

Day trips and pumpkins lead straight to the kitchen.

2011-10-18T05:17:00.000-07:00

This blog is the perfect venue to introduce you to a dear friend and a food confidante: Sarah, author of the blog Celiac in the City. Sarah and I work our day jobs together, but during our off times - or during a spontaneous coffee run - we talk food. Food allergies. Food substitutions. Food frustrations. I'm the mom of a child with egg and nut allergies, and Sarah faces her own personal food challenges. She doesn't let it get to her, though. In fact, she's embraced the challenge by starting up a blog of her own and converting recipes like a pro.

Who am I kidding, she is a pro. She's my go-to person. And, if you're looking for gluten-free recipes, or restaurants with gluten-free menus, or some gluten-free fun (she organizes a get-together every month in our area), then Sarah should be your go-to person, as well.

Today, Sarah dresses up her guest post with some lovely photos and teases our tastebuds with a dee-lish recipe.

*****

Hello, Writing Up an Appetite friends!

Happy to be hanging out over here today – honored that Christi asked me to stop by and do a guest post. My home territory is over at Celiac in the City – A girl. Gluten free. Loves food. Will travel. That pretty much sums up who I am. Feel free to stop by sometime and check in on my latest adventures.

Two weekends ago, we were out on the Harley, in short sleeves. Warm rays on our faces. Camera strapped securely around my neck. Snapping pictures of the changing season.

As I edited the photos, I found this one, at the very end of them all.

Not only did it make me smile – watching the kiddos run around at the pumpkin farm, on a mission to find THE best pumpkin, but it also gave me an idea for today’s post.

It was nearly 80 degrees that day. And although I loved every minute of that weather, as the heat kicked in this week, I was reminded that fall has arrived (with high heat bills to follow).

One way I ease my summer-lovin’ self into fall is baking.

And lots of it.

These pumpkin spice cookies will heat up your place and make it smell heavenly. You will be tempted to eat one right out of the oven. As an experienced baker ~~the girl who burned her tongue eating one straight from the oven~~, I will tell you this is not the best idea.

They are moist cookies. Very moist. So you don’t want to put them in a sealed container to store them. Just leave them out or drape a towel over the tray.

You’ll notice the recipe uses gluten-free flours. It’s how I roll. Because I have Celiac Disease, my baking world has seen some changes over the last three years. If you are able to eat regular, all-purpose flour, then by all means you sure can. Just use 2 ½ cups of all-purpose flour instead of the GF flour blend and xanthan gum.

Let’s warm up your kitchen.

Pumpkin Spice Cookies with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes approx. 36 cookies

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Unless you bake using a Silpat, (or other baking mat) you will need to grease your baking sheets.

12 oz gluten-free flour blend: 4oz each of sorghum flour, sweet rice flour & tapioca starch (or 2 ½ cups of all-purpose flour)

*you can use a mixture of any gluten-free flours/starches: white/brown rice flour, millet flour, potato starch, cornstarch, etc.

1 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if using all-purpose flour)

1teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

*you can play with the spices, use nutmeg, allspice, etc. instead of the pumpkin pie spice, or use a mixture of both, as I did here)

½ cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar

1 egg (see egg substitutes here)

½ cup butter softened

1 ½ cup pumpkin puree

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine flour mix and xanthan gum with baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices. Set aside. Cream sugars and butter. Add in pumpkin, egg, and vanilla. Beat until nice and smooth. Slowly add in flour mix, until well blended. Drop by tablespoons onto baking sheets.

Bake 15-18 minutes, or until bottoms are lightly browned and cookies are firm enough to hold their shape. (I used a 1 ½ tablespoon scoop for mine, so they took around 18 minutes) You might like yours baked a tad longer. Go for it. Let them rest a few minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to cooling racks. When cooled completely, frost.

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

The thing about frosting is that you can make it any way you’d like. So take these measurements as a guide. Throw it all in a bowl and beat ingredients to your desired texture.

2 cups powdered sugar

1 package cream cheese
1/4 cup butter

2 tablespoons real maple syrup

1 teaspoon cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice, or skip it if you’d like)

Maybe frosting isn’t your thing (it shocks me when people say this). That’s okay too, you can serve them up with just a sprinkle of powdered sugar.

Now grab a cup of coffee or a chai. I recommend eating at least two.

Read more from Sarah, “Celiac in the City,” on her website, www.celiaccity.com, like her page on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter @celiacinthecity.

When Cooking Takes You to the Dark Side

2011-10-11T05:16:00.000-07:00

Some days, nothing about cooking is fun. Maybe you've been there, when the day runs long and complaints pile high and you shift from refrigerator to pantry, and back again, and repeat the "tired momma" mantra: I got nothin'.

Oh, I've got refried beans, I think. And a box of noodles. And a big bag of rice.

Blah. Boring. Boo.

Not even that open package of Oreo Cookies induces excitement.

It's that same feeling I get when I stare, long and hard, at the opening paragraphs of a story I'm sweating over: there's promise in the skeleton ingredients on the page, but the energy is missing. I need a shake-up. Some spice. A little action.

Or, action figures.

I could learn a lot from cookbooks like this one:

"...and other Galactic Recipes"...I love that.
The official book, as seen on Amazon.

Who knew Jawas liked milkshakes?

This gem of a book was discovered by my son in his school library, and it's filled with spice and action. Recipes range from Greedo's Burritos to Jawa Jive Milkshakes to Chewbacca's weakness -- Wookie Cookies. I'd love to tell you that we started cooking with Greedo's Burritos or Boba Fett-uccine, but I cook for kids. Certain days, we cut right to the sugar. Right to Chewbacca.

WOOKIE COOKIES

(The official recipe from The Star Wars Cookbook, by Robin Davis)

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs (or the right mix of Ener-G if you need an egg substitute like we do)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Put the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Stir with the wooden spoon until well mixed. Set aside.
Put the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar in another mixing bowl. Using the electric mixer set on high speed, beat together until well blended and creamy, about 3 minutes. (You can do this with a wooden spoon, but it will take longer) Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and stir with the wooden spoon until blended. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Scoop up a rounded tablespoonful of the dough and drop onto a baking sheet. Repeat until you have used up all the dough. Be sure to leave about 1 inch between the cookies because they spread as they bake.
Using pot holders, put the baking sheets in the oven. Bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes.
Again, using pot holders, remove the baking sheets from the oven. Lift the cookies from the baking sheets with a spatula, and place on cooling racks. Cool completely.

Eat heartily.

And remember, don't get too serious, whether you're standing at the pantry door or staring at a story's first draft.

Keep the pilot light burning

2011-10-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

I spent the summer of 2001 watching two little boys during the day and waiting tables in a 50's era diner in the evening. It was the completion of my first year of college, though I was already in my mid twenties, and I had reached a point of utter confusion--the English Composition class I was required to take made me start writing again. My pilot light was lit. My journals were uncovered. My passion was stoked.

That was the first time I considered writing a memoir about my family. While the boys played King of the Suburban Backyard I scribbled questions and anecdotes across pages of flimsy spiral notebooks. I had no starting point, no frame of reference and no story, but I wrote and wrote.

For the entire I summer I questioned my motives. I had started out studying interior design and I loved it completely. I relished architecture and art history. I fell in love with space and light. But still, writing was what made me burn.

Before the fall semester commenced I had changed my area of focus.

I've never been a practical girl, I believe all too much in the finite nature of life and the frailty of dreams. Forget fortune. Forget fame. It's the ticking that keeps me going, the beat and hum of one word following another.

***

In the summer of 2001 the boys had a visit from their Florida grandfather. He was taken with notion of my vegetarianism and raved about a black bean taco recipe his wife liked to make. A week after he returned home he sent the following recipe. I've used it many, many times.

Black Bean & Veggie Tacos

Taco Shells (Sprouted Wheat if available)
2 T Olive Oil
2 T Fresh Lime Juice
1 t Ground Cumin
1 t Minced Garlic
1 t Ground Red Pepper

1 Can (16 oz) Black Beans
1 Can (7oz) Whole Kernel Corn, Drained
1/2 C Coursely Chopped Carrots
1/2 C Diced Celery
1/3 C Diced Red Onion

Part 2

2 C Shredded Lettuce
1/4 C Sour Cream
4 oz Shredded Cheddar

Prepare taco shells. Whisk together first five ingredients. Add next 5 ingredients. Stir to mix & coat. Layer lettuce, cheese, Viggie mix & sour cream on hot taco shells.

Back of the Kitchen Cupboard Door Recipes

2011-09-27T06:38:00.000-07:00

by Lisa

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My mother used to tape copies of her most-used recipes, usually clipped from newspapers and magazines or handwritten on index cards, on the inside of a kitchen cupboard door. The recipe I remember most clearly was for pancakes, probably because it was one of the first dishes I prepared all by myself. I remember standing on a chair, opening the door, and reading through the list of ingredients. I measured and mixed the flour, broke the eggs, heated the skillet. Everything went smoothly until we took the first bites. I had used a full tablespoon of baking soda instead of baking powder.

Most of us have a handful of recipes we can rely upon and make again and again, ones we can eventually make without much thought or measure, with ingredients we have on hand. This summer, I had the pleasure of teaching some of those recipes--scaled down to single portions--to our son, who just began a study abroad term in London and is, for the first time in his life, responsible for cooking for himself.

As my husband and I left him in his apartment last week, I couldn't help worrying about all the recipes and techniques and tips we didn't get to. But it is no small comfort, as I imagine him walking each day to class over Waterloo Bridge with a spectacular view of Big Ben and the London Eye, as he looks to a future he is just beginning to create, to know that he feels enough at home in the kitchen that he won't have to rely entirely on sandwiches from Pret a Manger or Sainsbury's. I had originally planned to send with him a fistful (or Kindleful) of detailed recipes, but as the summer days wound down, it was clear he did not need them. While we didn't get around to all of the dishes I wanted to show him, we did enough.

How do I know? When we were shopping for apartment necessities and I suggested measuring cups and spoons, he said he didn't need them, that he could guestimate using drinking cups and regular spoons.

He'll be fine.

Below are two of the dishes-for-one now taped to his mental kitchen cupboard door, each requiring only one saucepan. Pasta, Peas, and Peanut Butter Sauce is a family favorite he has enjoyed since toddlerhood, filling, tasty, and easy to make. The second, which I'll call Ramen Rivero, is his own creation, after several experimentations with easy, low-cost vegetarian ramen dishes (sans salty and usually non-vegetarian seasoning packet).

What are your back-of-the-kitchen-door recipes?

Pasta, Peas (or Broccoli), and Peanut Butter Sauce

2 - 3 Tablespoons creamy peanut butter (or half peanut butter and half tahini)
1 -2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
several drops of toasted sesame oil
water as needed
1/2 cup dry elbow macaroni or other pasta
1/3 cup frozen peas or 1/2 cup chopped fresh broccoli

1. To make the sauce, combine in a medium bowl the peanut butter, soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil. Stir or whisk until smooth. The sauce should be the consistency of tomato sauce; if necessary, add a little water a teaspoon at a time. Set aside.

2. Heat 3 cups water to boiling in a medium sauce pan. Add pasta, and cook for about 2-3 minutes. Add peas or broccoli, and cook until pasta is soft enough to eat but not mushy.

3. Drain pasta and vegetables and add to the sauce. Stir to combine. Add more soy sauce or vinegar to taste and a little more water if necessary, and eat straight from the bowl.

Ramen Rivero

1 Tablespoon hoisin sauce
1 teaspoon low-sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1 single-serving package ramen noodles (seasoning packet discarded)
1/2 cup packaged broccoli slaw or cole slaw mix (shredded cabbage, carrots, etc.)
1/4 pound homemade or packaged baked and seasoned tofu, such as White Wave baked Thai-flavored tofu, cubed
1/4 cup fresh bean sprouts
a sprinkling of chopped peanuts and scallions, optional

1. To make the sauce, combine in a bowl the hoisin sauce, soy sauce, and vinegar. Stir or whisk until smooth. The sauce should be consistency of tomato sauce; if necessary add a little water a teaspoon at a time. Set aside.
2. Heat 3 cups water to boiling in a medium sauce pan. Add ramen noodles and slaw vegetables, stir, and cook for 2 minutes. Add bean sprouts, and cook an additional minute.
3. Drain pasta and vegetables and add to the sauce. Add cubed tofu, and stir to combine. Add more soy sauce or vinegar to taste, and sprinkle with peanuts and scallions, if desired.

Pad Thai-style Version: Add a chopped, scrambled egg when you add the tofu.

It's the eggs that bring me down.

2011-09-13T05:37:00.000-07:00

When I answered the phone, the doctor sounded grim.

"Well...hello," he said. Then, he let out a deep sigh. At that point, I knew.

A week before he called, I had taken my son in for another blood test to see if maybe - hopefully - my son's allergy to eggs was beginning to wane. This was his third blood test, and my son (then seven years old) bragged to the phlebotomist about how he had cried the first time but hardly at all the second time and this was his third time and it might pinch a little but he probably wouldn't cry at all. Then he watched her every move.

He was very brave.

And, it was all for naught.

His numbers were still high, the doctor told me -- those mysterious numbers that to me as a parent mean little but to our doctor meant his growing out of this allergy was not likely.

I told my son about the news, and he fell quiet for a moment. Then he went back to his business of riding his big wheel up and down the block. He moved on, as kids are known to do, but I didn't.

I wanted to keep talking, shed some tears together, curse the egg.

Now, at almost ten years old, he's still highly allergic, to eggs and nuts. While the nuts prove to be more life-threatening, the egg allergy is just as hazardous, because it's more difficult to circumvent and more frustrating to explain. Especially during a call to RSVP for a birthday party or a playdate.

"So...he can't have butter?" the party host asks.

"No, no. I mean, yes. Butter is fine. That's dairy. He can't have eggs," I say.

"So...no eggs. But cake is good, right?"

"No. I mean, sure, it's good. But not for him. There are eggs in the cake. Unless it's a cake baked without eggs."

"...Right. Is there such a thing? A cake without eggs?"

"Well, sure," I say, and I go off into a diatribe about egg substitutes and my own failed experiments and Depression Cake, which is - by design - absent of eggs but barely big enough to feed a horde of sugar-hungry boys, and I might mention Vegan cakes, which are again really small, but by this time the other end of the line has gone quiet and all I hear is my own manic voice, so I go back to, "Generally, cake is out."

I fall back to the old standard. "You know what. I'll pack some cupcakes for him. It's no problem. I'll pack two, in fact, so that he's sure to get his sugar fix even without the birthday cake." We laugh, both of us relieved. Then, I hang up the phone, and I curse the egg.

Most days, I'd like to forget about the eggs.

So, that is exactly what I propose right now.

Forget the eggs.

Instead of offering you a recipe with some fancy concoction of a substitute (and know what I typically use is a concoction, all white and chalky -- mmm, yes?), I give you a recipe absent of egg, completely "friendly" for all those who must do without.

It's also kid approved, which pleases this mama even more.

Lasagna

1 jar spaghetti sauce (if you make your own sauce, you're my hero)
1 box lasagna noodles
1 medium container of plain Greek yogurt
1 medium container ricotta cheese
Shredded mozzerella cheese
(other cheese depending on your taste - parmesan, provolone)
1 cup of water

Mix yogurt and ricotta. Add a teaspoon of oregano or other herbs.

Starting with uncooked noodles, layer each section - noodles, sauce, yogurt mix, cheese. You can do two or three layers, depending on the size of your baking pan. End with cheese.

Add water to corners of lasagna, about 1/4 cup in each corner. You'll think it's not enough liquid to bake the noodles, but it works.

Bake covered for 1 hour at 350 F. Remove cover and bake for another 15-20 minutes until cheese is browned. Take out of the oven and let stand for 20 minutes. Without going into the chemistry of baking (because, what do I know about chemistry anyway?), this dish holds together well. Even without the you-know-what.

(Thanks to my sister-in-law for passing on such a yummy recipe.)

Your turn. What ingredient would you like to forget?

Griddle Cakes

2011-09-05T22:22:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting on a hotel room floor in the dark listening to my family snore with one ear and a very mellow Joseph Arthur sing "The Real You" in the other. This is the end of our time in Arkansas hours after Dad's famous spaghetti dinner when I'm thinking about the real him and I'm left, again, completely confounded.

I'm thinking about how we know our parents, or rather, how we don't know a thing about them. I'm thinking about how everything they are to us comes from what and how they give. Everything I know about my dad comes down to these generic things: He loves big breakfasts and natural things; he's always enjoyed fishing and hunting; he cheated on my mother; he remarried when I was 11; and when I was in high school, he moved to Arkansas where I would avoid and ignore him for nearly ten years.

He's not so simple. Nobody is. Yet I still don't know his story, what turned him from my work-a-day, joke-telling dad to the man I shot with silent anger for so stupidly long. That is a bravery I don't know that I have. But outside of today, we never know the time there is.

Here's to pancakes and dads with layers--

My Old Fashioned Griddle Cakes (Tested weekly)

Sift together into a medium bowl:
1 1/2 Cup white flour
1 1/2 Cup whole wheat flour
6 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Make a well in the center and add 2 1/2 cups cold lowfat milk, 4 tablespoons melted butter, 2 beaten eggs. Whisk well, making sure to scrape sides and bottom of bowl.

Add 1 tsp. vanilla extract, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1 cup fruit of choice (berries, mango, banana)

If the batter is too thick add more milk until you reach the desired consistency. Although lumpy with fruit, I like the batter to be similar in consistency to heavy cream, as the cakes cook they will puff.

Ladle onto hot griddle or pan and flip when cakes bubble. I use an electric griddle set at about 320 degrees.

These are very forgiving pancakes, the more you make them the more you may feel like messing around with the ingredients--mango ginger, pumpkin (don't use too much pumpkin or the cakes will be too thick and heavy, add pumpkin spice), banana coconut almond, pumpkin chai, eggnog...

Serves: 4+

Update: I've been making these cakes for months from memory and I have to admit, I don't often measure out the milk. It seems the above 2 1/2 cups is far less than what this recipe needs. I'll give you my standard measure--pour a bunch in, stir, and pour more if you think it needs it.

Today we're eating raspberry cakes. What's your flavor?

Three-Course Book Giveaway and Eggplant Dip to Die For

2011-08-30T04:41:00.000-07:00

by Lisa

Hungry for books? We at Writing Up an Appetite are giving away not one, not two, but three books to a lucky new follower who joins us here before midnight of September 5th (click on "Join this Site" under "Followers" in the right sidebar), but only if we reach at least 100 followers overall. The winner will be drawn at random and announced in next week's post.

The Books:

Rebecca Rasmussen's lyrical novel The Bird Sisters (if you haven't already read Rebecca's guest post here from last week, do so NOW)
Table of Contents: From Breakfast with Anita Diamant to Dessert with James Patterson - a Generous Helping of Recipes, Writings and Insights from Today's Bestselling Authors
Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook: 100 Great Recipes, Photographs, and Voice

Be a follower to win these books!

Now on to this week's recipe, one of our family favorites. Children who turn up their noses at eggplant cooked any other way may be willing to try this dip, which you can serve either hot or at room temperature or straight from the fridge. I love it on sliced fresh ciabatta.

Creamy Sesame Eggplant Dip

Are eggplants sexy?

3 Japanese or baby eggplant, or 1 medium-large eggplant
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon sesame oil (not dark)
1/2 medium sweet onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup tahini (sesame paste)
1/2 teaspoon dark roasted sesame oil

1. Cut the ends off the eggplant, and peel and discard skin. Cube in 1/2" pieces.
2. Sauté eggplant, onion, and garlic in olive and sesame oils. After about 5 minutes, add salt, cover, and sauté until eggplant is very tender and lightly browned, about 20 minutes.
3. Transfer sautéed eggplant mixture to a food process container. Add tahini and dark sesame oil, and blend until smooth. Makes about 2 cups.

Cooking Her Way Back Home

2011-08-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

Today we are thrilled to bring you a guest post by Rebecca Rasmussen.

In June, my family and I moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles so my husband could go to graduate school out here. I’m not going to lie to you: the adjustment has been difficult for me. We’ve been thrust out of our little midwestern world into a world we aren’t familiar with, a world where half the people we meet are actors or screenwriters or “working in the industry.” People honk a lot out here. They arrive late to lunch because they are visiting their therapists and taking in a Pilate’s class. They’re thin and tan and look more alive than people anywhere else I’ve lived. Los Angeles is a world away from my pie making Midwestern roots, and I find myself missing even the things I despised about home—the grit, the humidity, the heat—for the simple reason that those things feel like home and home makes me feel safe.

I live in a gated apartment building (everything is gated); I couldn’t be safer, but for some reason the sprinklers jolt me out of sleep in the middle of the night and then I’m awake, ambling around the apartment trying to get my bearings back. Here you could be living in a slum and the placard on the gate would say luxury. In my estimation, there are two LA’s, one for the rich and one for the poor.

Don’t get me wrong. There are beautiful things too: the ocean, for one thing, and the palm trees and jacarandas, which work at my psyche daily to make me feel like I’m on a perpetual vacation, though another part of me is always keenly aware that I’m not. And my apartment building is filled with wonderful international families, whose kids my daughter loves to play with and whom I admire because they are even further away from their homes and still manage to smile on the stairwell. They cook wonderful things too, which reinvigorated me for a while. Maybe I could cook my way home.

At first, I tried my usual comfort fare: pies, quiches, nifty spins on old-time casseroles, but those things just reminded me of how far away I was from the apple orchard and spray of rhubarb on my father’s land in Wisconsin. So I turned to something unfamiliar to my typical culinary routine. I surfed the Internet and came across in Indian woman who posts You Tube videos of herself cooking traditional Indian dishes in her apartment. She’s sweet and precise and convinced me to try something new. I wrote down a list of ingredients and carted my daughter to an Indian market in my neighborhood.

We were the only English speakers in the store, but the two clerks were very friendly, even when I butchered the names of some of the spices I was looking for. Apparently, most Americans new to cooking Indian food attempt to cook one of two things: tikka masala or korma. I was attempting to cook korma, which I admit embarrassed me a little bit.

My daughter and I came away with coriander powder, mango powder, cumin seeds, turmeric, asafetida, hot green peppers, ginger, bay leaves, paneer, garam masala, and basmati rice. I’m telling you: that plastic bag of spices smelled so rich and lovely for a minute I forgot where I was and was back in an Indian restaurant in Fort Collins, Colorado, where my husband and I went on one of our first dates over a decade ago. I remembered the mango lassi I was drinking when he reached across the table for my hand.

This was all very promising, indeed.

My husband agreed. When we got home, he offered to help cook the meal, but all I let him do was mince the ginger. I wanted the ingredients to transport me somewhere else (where I didn’t know), and though the meal turned out just the way my Indian You Tube friend said it would, it didn’t take me back in time. But it did something more important: it took me forward, and my family too. We were making future memories in our small kitchen that night. We were listening to the radio. We were laughing.

My hope is that one day we will look back and remember our first days in Los Angeles with both kindness and a little humor.

“Remember when we thought everyone in LA was part of Hollywood. Remember when we didn’t honk our horns. Remember when palm trees still enchanted us. When we didn’t think we deserved all of this good weather.”

Maybe we’ll be sharing a bottle of wine. Maybe our cheeks will be warm.

“Remember that great Indian dinner we made.”
(You made, my husband will say.)
(You minced the ginger, I’ll remind him.)
“Remember when we didn’t know if we were going to make it.”

And I’ll say: yes, yes, I do, a little too quickly, and I’ll reach across the table this time and hold my husband’s hand and maybe we won’t live happily ever after, but we’ll be happy just then.

***

Rebecca Rasmussen is the author of the novel The Bird Sisters (Crown/Random House 2011). You can find her at www.thebirdsisters.com

Three Keys to Success in the Kitchen (and with your writing)

2011-08-15T23:07:00.000-07:00

I learn a lot about writing a novel when I watch my husband, Bill, work in the kitchen. He doesn't cook often, but when he is called to the stove, he arms himself with determination, sharp tools, and an apron. A recipe acts only as the structure for a dish that he makes his own, and he rarely experiences (what I like to call) "Dinner Fail." Maybe he's always lucky with a chef's knife and a wooden spoon, but every time I watch him, I see him incorporate the same three techniques.

1. Focus.

When my husband is in the kitchen making dinner, everyone else is out of the kitchen. There's a look in his eye that says, "talk to me if you must, but don't expect a response." He has a plan, and he knows that success depends on his own execution of the plan. Rambunctious kids in the hallway won't pull him away, and status updates or tweets never cross his mind. In fact, he isn't even on Facebook (oh, the horror!).

When he's cooking, he's just cooking.

And, he never walks away from a recipe in the middle of measuring ingredients.

2. Clean as you go.

So, I guess I should clarify that "just cooking" bit: when he's cooking, he's all about the whole process of meal-making. "Clean as you go" is a given. Let the dirty dishes mount while you chop, stir, and simmer, and the whole process becomes overwhelming. You run out of counter space; the recipe goes missing; chaos ensues.

Welcome, Dinner Fail.

3. Spice it up.

I mean, Really. Surprise your audience.

Once, when my husband was in charge of making chili, he threw together more than just onions, meat and beans. He searched the cabinets and the pantry for something totally unexpected, because what's a cook if he isn't inventive? That pot of chili melded together the flavors of cayenne pepper, Tabasco sauce, coffee grounds, and maple syrup.

That's right. Coffee grounds. Never mind the syrup.

It was a "Bill" original, and, well, we're still talking about that chili.

But cooking dinner and writing a novel aren't exactly the same, you say. A novel doesn't get written in two hours or less, and it's much more complicated than "chop, stir, and simmer."

Okay, but there's still plenty to take away here.

When I sit down to write, I could shut down the internet, focus on my task at hand -- be it word count or page edits, filling in plot holes or looking at structure. And, while shitty first drafts have a definite place in my writing process, there is some planning I can do, before I sit down and after my writing time is finished, that may help me organize my limited time more efficiently. Also, I don't need to be afraid to spice up the story with whatever I imagine. As James Scott Bell says in his book, Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure, cooking - like writing - is "a formula [with] a whole range of outcomes. . . . You still have to add your spices, your skills, your talent" to make the story your own and a success.

And, that's what I'm after, in the kitchen or in writing: a "Christi" original.

Are there techniques you use in the kitchen that you could be using at your writing desk?

* photo credits: 1. Good enough..., Thierry Draus on Flickr; 2. Spices, Maks Karochkin on Flickr

Slow Food or Quick Food, It's All Dessert To Me

2011-08-08T22:16:00.000-07:00

I've become a desert curmudgeon. Unless I need a quick treat, I'm a stickler for home baked desserts from scratch. No cake mix. No Bisquick. It's slow rise or no rise. I do it because I know what's inside, and really, there is nothing better than straight from the oven to the basket Hot Buns Hot Buns*.

Growing up, Ma had different ideas on food. What I ate as a kid came from a can (fruit and veggies), a box (cake, pudding, Stove Top Stuffing), a freezer (pork chops and hamburger) or the woods (Bambi and his little fishy friends). I don't fault her for this, mind you. She had nine kids and a spit-spot home.

My way can take over a person's life. Slow food takes time and enormous amounts of patience if something doesn't turn out how you anticipated. It can mean waking up at incredible hours should you be entertaining for breakfast or brunch. Kids, though they may revel in the final product, often don't have the wherewithal to withstand hours in the kitchen waiting, waiting, waiting. This is the part of Ma's plan that really makes sense and I'm glad I at least took notes.

Since revisiting my childhood home last week I've been steeped in memory and memoir. I'm still not sure what to make of it, but I've been reminded of the many hours on my knees hunched over the breakfast bar watching Ma stir and blend and bake. One of my favorite deserts took no time at all to concoct--Dump Cake, a classic.

There are a lot of Dump Cake recipes online, but this is the way Ma made it.

1 Can of Cherry Pie Filling

1 Can of crushed Pinapple

1 Package yellow cake mix

1 Stick of butter, melted

Sweetened, shredded coconut

Chopped nuts

Here's what you do: Grab one of those 9x13 inch baking pans and grease it up a little bit around the bottom and the sides. Pour in the cherries and spread them all around. Glop and spread the pineapple over the cherries. Pour the cake mix over the fruit. Then pour the butter over the cake mix as evenly as you can. Top with as much coconut as you like, then add nuts. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Enjoyed best with a cup of hot coffee

*Orange Hot Cross Buns is another one of my coffee shop "literary" foods that has been aptly renamed by my youngest fledgling. I urge you to take it for a spin on a slow food kind of a day.

If you like food, writing, writing about food or simply the happy banter here at Writing Up an Appetite, take a quick click over yonder to the right and Follow along. We're glad to have ya!

Poor Man's Cake

2011-08-02T05:47:00.000-07:00

by Lisa

It’s early June of 2003, and I find myself standing alone in my grandmother’s kitchen in rural South Dakota on the Rosebud Sioux reservation, leisurely flipping through recipe cards in a dusty cabinet drawer. Each time I travel from my current home in Milwaukee to the farm where I grew up, I am drawn to walk the gravel road to my grandmother’s house as if called on a pilgrimage.The house has been uninhabited for almost twelve years at this point. My grandparents—my father’s parents—lived on the same farm as my parents, so this kitchen is as familiar to me as my own. As I walk through the front porch and hear the screen door whap shut behind me, I can still smell fresh bread and cinnamon rolls and cakes and cookies. The memories greet me like friendly ghosts, swirling just beyond my reach, triggering simultaneous Proustian joy and longing.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for as I finger the jumble of recipe cards. Some are handwritten. Some are typed. Some are written in my grandmother’s young, steady hand, others in her older, shakier script. I also recognize my mother’s handwriting, an aunt’s, my maternal grandmother’s, a neighbor’s.

Mixed among the recipes are envelopes yellowed with age and carefully slit along the sides. I take them to the Formica kitchen table and sit on one of the red-cushioned chrome chairs. Inside the envelopes are more handwritten recipes. These must have been requested by my grandmother at various family gatherings and then mailed to her when the relatives had returned home.

Most of the letters include a brief greeting or suggestion for adapting the recipe, but some are just recipes, with no signatures, no introductions. One for Poor Man’s Cake, written in the handwriting of one of my aunts on my mother’s side, ends with a personal note:

Poor Man’s Cake

Into an 8x8x2 inch pan, or use a bowl, sift 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 3 Tablespoons cocoa, 1 teaspoon soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Add 1 cup cold water, 6 Tablespoons oleo [butter], Tablespoon vinegar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Mix ‘till smooth and bake for 20-25 minutes at 325 degrees to 350 degrees. Makes 1 small cake.

“This is an ideal recipe when eggs are scarce and milk, too. Your family needn’t go without the all-time favorite, chocolate cake. I substitute carob powder for cocoa, and it works fine.”

Poor Man's Cake, 2011

These voices are telling me something.

This particular visit is in honor of a wedding reception for my father, who at age 72 has re-married. Our extended family is strewn around the country—from Wyoming to Florida, Arizona to Wisconsin—and this is one of the few times when most of us have been in one place at the same time. I especially enjoy the presence of my aunts, my father’s sisters, whom I haven’t seen together in many years.

One morning I listen to the two of them reminisce over morning coffee about how, when they were young, coffee or tea was never served without something small to eat--cookies or cake or some other homemade dessert. They say that, even today, they like to keep cookies on hand in the event a guest pops for a visit.

For them, coffee was more than just coffee. Coffee was an excuse to serve, to share, and to connect. For my generation, coffee is an expensive gourmet roast to be slurped from a disposable paper cup while we keep one hand on the steering wheel.

I am a mother and wife but also a writer and teacher and volunteer who, like almost all of my friends, struggles to juggle several responsibilities and interests. The busier I get, the stronger my need to feel grounded and connected in some way to the women whose lives gave rise to and shaped my own.

Of course, my life is quite different from that of my grandmothers. They had little choice as to how much or whether they baked or cooked. Their day-to-day lives were filled to the brim with the not so simple task of putting food on the table. They baked bread because it was expected of them, to save money, and because home baked bread was better than the single brand of soft white bread available at the grocery store. When I bake bread, it is a luxury, a choice, a way to relax and forget about deadlines and details. I know that the quality of breads from local bakeries probably surpasses that of my own and that I can choose to buy rather than bake whenever I want.

Yet the very availability and variety of year-round produce and excellent baked goods and deli items can lead to a disconnection from food’s significance and from the role that food plays in human relationships. True scarcity is, thankfully, not something most of us must deal with. We struggle instead with abundance, even in our current economic climate. Rather than find a way to serve the family favorite chocolate cake without eggs or milk—imagine what a treat that cake must have been!—we must plan for ways to come together for meals, to appreciate what we have, to stop long enough to taste our cake before we’re off and running to the next appointment.

I return to Milwaukee with the recipes in hand, listening for what they have to tell me.

Notes: A version of this post was first published in Outpost's Exchange food and wellness magazine and later reprinted in Country magazine. I am now revising it for use in a book about family diaries. The secret to fluffiness when making Poor Man's Cake is not to skip the sifting, even if you use pre-sifted flour. Melt the butter and add it to the cold water, vinegar, and vanilla before combining liquid ingredients with the sifted dry ingredients. The baking time that works best for me is 25-30 minutes (test carefully with a toothpick to avoid cake collapse). Cool for a few minutes before slicing with a very sharp knife.

Too Hot to Cook?

2011-07-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

This week we are pleased to host a guest piece by Wisconsin writer Pam Parker. Pam's short stories and poetry have appeared in The Potomac Review, The MacGuffin, Grey Sparrow Press, The Binnacle and other print and electronic venues. She is pursuing a non-MFA MFA by attending writer’s conferences, such as the Tin House Summer Writer’s Festival and the New York State Summer Writers’ Institute, where she’s studied with incredible faculty. If she wins the lottery, she may one day pursue an actual MFA, but she’s not holding her breath, so don’t hold yours.

Please read Pam's blog and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Too Hot to Cook?

by Pam Parker

“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.” One variation of an old German saying.

Sweltering July heat has created issues for many family cooks. I live in suburban Milwaukee, in a post-WWII home, which, like many has no air conditioning. For the number of days we actually require air conditioning here, my husband and I have opted not to put it in. So, while we’re being good to the environment in terms of energy usage, we have our uncomfortable times. And, though there’s a window unit in the kitchen, there are days when cooking inside seems foolish, and when the heat index is 105, grilling outside seems just as foolish. What’s a cook to do? Fire up the microwave? Put something in the slow cooker in the morning and let it go? Microwaving and slow cooking work as metaphors for writing, and there’s more on that in a post at Pam Writes , but they’re not the solution to please a harried, heat-stroke-approaching writer/cook.

Instead, I turn to a German tradition called abendbrot, which is an elegant way of saying, open-faced sandwiches are wunderbar. Milwaukee happens to be a city with strong German roots, but my family was introduced to this marvelous tradition when we lived in Marburg, Germany for a year. The big meal was served and eaten at lunchtime, a lighter meal for supper. So, how to prepare and serve a satisfying abendbrot?

The traditional offerings are simple:

Crusty, whole grain breads
Several choices of deli meats and cheeses
Butter, mustard (in our house, usually mayo too)
Pickles

And, that could be it. It would not be unheard of in Germany, or in my house, to add some type of side salad – here, it’s often cole slaw. I recall a rotkohl (red cabbage) salad sometimes in Germany. When tomatoes are in season and available, they’re often served, too.

Enjoy with a nice German beer, perhaps a German chocolate bar for dessert.

Guten appetite.

Yeast: We're Still Getting to Know Each Other

2011-07-19T05:15:00.000-07:00

"Have low expectations of each experiment but high expectations of yourself to keep at it."

~Yuvi Zalkow, from "I'm a Failed Writer #1: Revisions"

I'll be honest. I'm no gourmet cook. But, in another life, I would be a master baker. I would dive into culinary classes, learn the art of cream puffs and petit fours, tease my friends and family with a loaf of freshly baked bread that I whipped up, on the fly.

Yeast would be my friend.

But, I studied literature in college; I rarely thought about baking. The closest I came to rising dough was during my junior year, when I worked behind the counter at a bakery shop. It was only after I married and had kids (i.e., two finicky eaters, one of whom is allergic to eggs) that I dreamed of making everything from scratch and discovered that baking, like writing, is a mixture of chemistry and art.

Especially when it comes to yeast.

Talk about finicky.

I've made Easy Bread Dough from my Betty Crocker cookbook, attempted a more difficult recipe for Whole Wheat Molasses Bread, and subjected my family to several experiments in pizza crusts. What I've learned is that "easy" is a relative term, whole wheat bread can rise like a boulder (and weigh the same in the end), and pizza dough can taste like cardboard.

But, I keep at it. Working with yeast is like writing for me. Victoria said it well in her post here last week, when she paired crafting a story with the art of the pastry:

...[R]ewriting and reworking a recipe is the same thing--it comes from the desire to make something good and finding out you need more practice, more poetry books, and a lower oven temp.

Practice. And, persistence. After I read her post, I donned my apron, pulled out my most recent pizza dough recipe, and then approached a sack of flour and a handful of yeast with determination.

The early work of measuring and mixing went well and yielded a pretty ball of dough.

I covered it and let it rise, knowing that Yeast doesn't like me to hover. Later, I rolled out the dough and created a near picture-perfect crust. Look at that, I thought.

I celebrated by loading up the pizza with extra cheese.

Then...
Into the oven.
Bake.
And, pray.

I won't lie. It wasn't the best-ever, but this crust was better than the last. And, that's all that matters.

Do you have a special brand of yeast that works every time? I need to know.

Topfenkolatsche: My perfect metaphor

2011-07-11T22:10:00.000-07:00

Canterbury Booksellers broke me in—cheese danish and a cappuccino, random books of poetry with pretty covers and narrow spines, and my journals dotting, dashing in a downtown rain. This was my idea of a literary lifestyle. I was hardly 16.

I wanted to tear books from the shelves and roll in them. I said this out loud, “I want to tear books from the shelves and roll in them!” I thought the ink would seep in leaving the coffee and sugar to fuel me. “I'm going to be famous one day.”

For years into early adulthood the order stayed the same--cheese danish and a cappuccino, poetry books and pens. Write. Write. Write.

And so it seemed, I should begin in cheese danishes with a recipe for Topfenkolatsche—traditional cream cheese (Topfen) danish. And like writing, the only way to begin is to begin.

I practically planned the day around mixing the pastry dough (1 ½ hours to rise); creaming the cheese, butter, eggs, lemon zest; rolling the pastries; anointing them with lather; folding them into neat packets to rise again (45 more minutes); and baking (30 minutes at 400 degrees).

The process was systematic and ritualistic. I followed the recipe to the letter.

Then they burned 15 minutes into the 30 minute bake time and I demanded we order a pizza.

I thought this, though--that failing at my first made-from-scratch cheese danish is just like finding that first rejection in the mail slot. That rewriting and reworking a recipe is the same thing--it comes from the desire to make something good and finding out you need more practice, more poetry books, and a lower oven temp. It comes from taking what you can from the masters then tossing it out and starting from scratch.

I recently received my first acceptance from an online literary magazine. To celebrate, I'm going to buy some puff pastry dough and make a not-so-traditional cream cheese danish.

Your turn: Tell us what food means "literary" to you. Or what were you so excited to cook, but ended up needing to remodel? There are no mistakes in cooking or writing, only new tastes to be explored.

Perfect Sauteed Tofu Cubes Every Single Time

2011-07-05T04:01:00.000-07:00

By Lisa

Just a little over a week ago, E. Victoria Flynn and Christi Craig and I were tossing around the idea of a group blog over hot-from-the-brick-oven Flying Cow Pizza from Oconomowoc's Farmers Market (I ordered one with artichokes and olives and left not so much as a crumb) and coffee/tea from Whelan's Coffee and Ice Cream. Thank you to the kind worker at Whelan's for documenting our day (we took it as a good sign that we arrived color-coordinated):

Lisa, Christi, Victoria

The result of our conversation? Writing Up an Appetite: Wisconsin Writers in the Kitchen, and I am delighted to start us off with the answer to a question I hear often, both from seasoned cooks unfamiliar with tofu and from young adults who want to learn to make more vegetarian meals: How does one cook tofu so that it's not a flavorless, unappetizing blob?

The secret to crispy tofu that will absorb the sauce of your favorite dish is a three-step process. First, a towel soaks up excess moisture. Then the intense heat of sauteing browns the tofu. Finally, the dry heat of baking firms it up. Time consuming? A little, but the result is well worth the wait. If you thought all tofu had to be bland and mushy, you are in for a real treat.

1. Start with one pound extra firm tofu. Remove from package and drain.

2. Cut in half to form two blocks, then slice each block to halve the width.

3. Lay the four slices evenly on a clean, non-fuzzy kitchen towel.

4. Wrap the towel around the tofu.

5. Weight down with a heavy bowl or pan for at least 30 minutes. The towel will absorb excess moisture from the tofu.

6. Unwrap the tofu and cut it into cubes.

7. In a wok or large skillet, heat a thin layer of peanut or other oil (I like a garlic-flavored stir-fry oil). When oil is hot (and not before!), add tofu cubes, salt lightly, and saute until golden brown, stirring occasionally. (After this step, if you wish, you can marinate the sauteed cubes for 20-30 minutes in your favorite marinade or sauce.)

8. Transfer cubes to a baking dish, and bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes, until firm and a little "puffy." You can make these ahead of time and refrigerate for later use (warning: very high snack-ability factor, so you might want to make extra). This is another point in the process when you can marinate the cubes, if you wish.

9. Add to stir fry, pad thai, kung pao, spaghetti sauce, or whatever catches your fancy!