The incredible, edible egg custard!

Trying to get back into the Friday night routine.  I’ve missed spending time here, but work has been very busy, so it has been difficult to get my brain to sit quietly here and write. 

But a couple of days off has helped restore some creative energy as well as some sanity (what little I possess).  ;o)

Last weekend was Mother’s Day, a day when the Mom in the house gets a day off.  In a house with two moms, that proves a bit of a challenge, but since we wouldn’t have G if Nancy hadn't given birth, I figure that gives her a bit of an edge. 

So I decided that on Mother’s Day (or Mothers’ Day, if you prefer), I would set out to cook some yummy meals for her. 

How did we celebrate?  With egg custards, of course!  

First, there was French toast for breakfast.  In my family, there wasn’t really a recipe with measurements, there was a demonstration and a lot of practice.

This will do it for 6-8 slices of bread.  We like to use the spelt bread from Trader Joe’s. 

For starters, two or three eggs get cracked into a pie plate.  Splash in a good bit of milk (probably ½ a cup), add a healthy dribble of vanilla, a generous sprinkling of cinnamon and a dash or three of nutmeg.  Beat with a fork or whisk until well combined.  Keep that fork handy to keep mixing the custard…the cinnamon will float to the top and then get used up by the first two slices of bread if you don’t mix between dunks.

Now I like to fry my French toast on an electric griddle.  It will hold 6 slices of bread easily (instead of two in my 12” skillet) and there are no sides to get in the way of your spatula when you turn your slices. 

Dunk your bread, one slice at a time, in the egg mixture and transfer each slice immediately to the griddle.  Fry on the first side until brown, turn and let cook until brown on the other side. 

Keep warm in a 180 degree oven if you need to, but if you’re only making 6 slices and you used your griddle, you should be done in one. 

Serve with butter, maple syrup (and peanut butter if you’re from my family). 

It was delicious…French toast is so easy to make and makes people so happy.  It makes me wonder why we don’t do it more often. 

But the custard celebration wasn’t over.  When I asked Nancy what else she wanted to eat that day, she said, “Quiche.” 

I’d never made quiche before, but how hard could it be, right?  Especially if I was going to use pre-made pie shells.  (Shut up…I have a two year old and have been working a lot of overtime.  I am allowed a shortcut here and there.)

What surprised me about the recipe I chose was that there were only two eggs in the whole thing.  For a ten -nch quiche, only two eggs. 

The examples I had tasted before couldn’t have been that light on the hen fruit.  In fact, I have been turned off quiches before because they were way too eggy. 

But really, Julia Child can’t be wrong about something as beautifully French as Quiche Lorraine, now could she?

My answer to that is not only no, but hells to the no.  It was the most simple, exquisite thing in a crust. 

Technically, it came from Saveur Magazine, but it was adapted from the recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child.  Close enough.  Here, check it out.

1.5 cups heavy cream, a half teaspoon of salt, two eggs, a dash or two of nutmeg and about 6 ounces of bacon is all that was needed to make this gorgeous treat.  Someday when I have more time and energy, I will make the pastry from scratch, but now is not that time. 

Dice the bacon and fry until crisp.  Drain on paper towels and sprinkle in the bottom of the pre-baked crust.  Combine the cream, eggs, salt and nutmeg and pour into the crust.  Bake at 375° for 30-35 minutes or until top is golden and puffed and the middle is just set (if you stick a sharp knife in the center, it will come out clean).

Let it cool a little before serving.  Otherwise you will end up with pieces of delicate crust and filling all over your kitchen counters. 

Be patient, because the end result is well worth the wait. 

This quiche surpassed any other I have ever eaten.  It was light, creamy, melt-in-your-mouth delicious.  It was sublime.  It made us weep with joy. 

We finished the leftovers today for lunch.  It was just as good the second time, though it was challenging to warm up in the microwave without destroying it.  But we managed.  And I am very sure we will manage again.

So Happy Mothers’ Day!  Because there are lots of mommies in the world and the day belongs to all of us!  

SHOES!!

It’s a Monday Night Special Edition Blog Night!

When it comes to athletic shoes, I admit to being rather picky.  I come by it honestly.  Someone I know got me hooked on quality shoes a long time ago.  :o) 

New Balance makes some of my favorite sport shoes.  I have a pair of slides that I wear around the house.  I have my pair of Country Walks that are my favorite hiking/walking shoes. 

There’s a shoe of theirs that really should have its own legend. It’s the 990, a shoe so special that New Balance made a special pair just for President Obama.

It is partially hand constructed right here in the USA.  Well, not here, here, in Washington, but over there here, in Maine. 

They come in Men's, Women's, and Kid's, so the whole family can get in on the fun.

By the way, there has been no confirmation that Mr. Obama has actually worn the shoes.  But New Balance did have his name put on the soles, so maybe he’ll have them mounted and displayed or something. 

But seriously, if you’re in the market for a running shoe, check them out.  Invest in your feet and invest in yourself. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think my Country Walks and I are going to bond over a nice little stroll. 

            

The comfort of someone else's kitchen...

It feels like forever since I’ve posted here. It’s been a busy few weeks, musically, which hasn’t left much time for writing or for fabulous food.

However, a couple of weeks ago, we were inspired by the time crunch to indulge in some really good take-out.

One Friday night, while I was off singing at the Wine Walk in Issaquah, Nancy ordered one of our favorite pizzas from Amante Pizza and Pasta.

The House Special is an eclectic pie, with Canadian bacon, roasted garlic, feta, black olives, spinach, sunflower seeds and shredded pepperoni. It also comes with green peppers and red onions, which we tend to leave off.

Oh, it’s delicious. Their crust has a nice flavor and isn’t too thick. The sauce is tasty, but not obtrusive. It adds to the pie without being too pushy. There’s a lot of stuff, including loads of sweet, creamy roasted garlic and tangy, salty feta.

I’m not sure why I was surprised that those two things balance each other so well. They are really delicious together. There’s the spicy pepperoni, the smoky ham. There’s the surprising crunch of the nutty sunflower seeds. And you feel kind of healthy about eating it because of the spinach. :o)

It’s a hearty pie with generous toppings and balanced flavors. An awesome Friday night special.

Now, because of some friends at work had leftover Chinese food for lunch that week, I had a craving for our favorite, Snappy Dragon.

We actually didn’t get our usual, the jao zi, Salt and Pepper chicken, and Snappy Dragon fried rice (best fried rice outside of my mother-in-law’s).

We decided that veggies would be good, so we got mu shu chicken. We also got potstickers (larger than the jao zi with a thicker wrapper) and the Snappy Dragon chow mein with the hand-rolled noodles.

Heaven! The homemade noodles are divine, with a light sauce, beef, chicken and shrimp, and some veg. The noodles are just so good! I don’t know that words can do them justice. They are toothsome, savory. And they are amazing cold! It’s really hard to stay out of the leftovers to save them for lunch or dinner the next day.

The only complaint I might have is that their pancakes are a little thick, but they are also homemade, so I really can’t complain.

There is something comforting in having those fall-back positions of favorite take-out meals. Not only comforting to eat, but comforting just in knowing that they are there when you need them.

A Love Affair with the Forbidden Fruit

I have to admit, it’s been a tough week, food-wise. Two days after returning from vacation, I came down with a horrid stomach virus.

Nothing like a day on watered-down Gatorade to make one appreciate how wonderful the simple things can taste.

That first, clean, bright taste of applesauce on Wednesday evening after coughing up the contents of my stomach not once, but twice that morning and then taking 5 hours to drink a single 16 ounce glass of water was pure Nirvana (the spiritual plane, not the band).

Pure, unadulterated cooked-down apples. No sugar, no ascorbic acid to help it retain its color. Just apples.

Have you ever taken one of those single-serving plastic cups of applesauce and put it in the freezer? Then you take it out once it’s frozen and scrape the top with a spoon so you get something like an apple-y sno-cone. I used to love doing that when I was a kid. Well, really a teenager and 20-something. I don’t think they had those little plastic cups of applesauce when I was a kid. Someone out there who knows my age correct me if I’m wrong. ;o)

Come to think of is, the apple is probably my favorite fruit to just eat. I grew up eating apples when all you could reliably get were Red Delicious and Golden Delicious. But back then, the Red Delicious were pretty good. We’d buy them in five pound bags and they’d be gone within the week. The apples were small and sweet and juicy almost all the time. Every once in a while you’d get a mealy one.

But as I got older, the Delicious apples started getting bigger and less yummy. They were almost always mealy, not the tasty little gems I’d grown up eating.

Mom and Dad would sometimes get Braeburns or McIntoshes (as opposed to mackintoshes). They’d talk about Gravensteins or Winesaps or Jonathans or Pippins.

I’m pretty sure that Dad would make applesauce from McIntoshes. Maybe Jonathans. Not sure what he put in apple pies before Granny Smiths came around.

I fell hard for the Granny Smith apple in my teens. It was always crisp, fabulously tart, gorgeously juicy. I loved them. But then they started to come up dry and flat-tasting. They, too, got larger and more mealy.

Nowadays it seems like new varieties come around all the time. Now there’s Fujis (which, granted, have been around for quite a while), Galas (okay, they’ve been around a while, too), Pink Ladys and Honeycrisps. So many wonderful eating apples, I can hardly count them all.

My current favorites have to be the Honeycrisps. The flavor is delicate, sweet and tart at the same time, beautifully crisp and juicy.

I know someday I will have a Honeycrisp apple that is past its prime, that has grown too big and gone mealy, and I will fall out of love again.

But for now, they are, to me, the best eating apple there is.

Apparently it’s too watery for applesauce, so maybe I’ll grab some in-season Galas this Fall and make some then. Mmmm...stay tuned....

Vacationing in the back of beyond

Okay, really, where we are has all the modern conveniences. And you can get cell service in town. But not once you get out of Winthrop proper.

On vacation with friends in Mazama, WA, we come here because the cell service is nil and the silence is so complete it has weight and mass. It is a way to escape our everyday lives and yet still have internet when we want it. :o) It’s kind of like ‘roughing it’ going camping by the Metolius River. You can go to the Camp Sherman store where you can only get domestic brie. And the best BLT on the planet.

This tradition (annual for some, occasional for others) started several years ago with just a handful of us and it became almost sacred time to me in subsequent years. That first year, it was a get away I desperately needed, with people I knew wouldn’t judge me while I contemplated one of the most difficult decisions of my life.

There is something about this place and the people with which we share it that is soul-reviving. Some of those people are not with us this year and we miss them. But then N and I have missed the last two years because we just weren’t able to get away.

Not only has this pilgrimage east of the mountains been a way to recharge batteries, but it has also been about great exercise (including snowshoe badminton) and great food and wine.

During that first trip over with M, E and T, I grabbed a bottle of wine from the local grocery. It was local wine from a winery not far from where we were staying. I’d never heard of Lost River Winery, but I loved the wine so much that I went back for a couple of additional bottles that I saved for the following year’s trip. That’s when the love affair started. A friend who came over the next year bought two cases of wine from their new (at the time) tasting room just outside Winthrop.

Then they only made a cabernet sauvignon, a merlot and a white blend called Rainshadow. I think maybe they were producing their first batch of syrah that year as well. I was happy to see, seven years later, that they still produce the Rainshadow. It’s a wonderful white blend.

So it wasn’t a surprise that when I went to the Winthrop grocery store, I made a beeline for the wine section. And found a nebbiolo that I decided was the wine to try this year. Delicious!!

When we do this vacation, we also tend to try and make meals special. There are a lot of people I know who are amazing cooks and we like to all try and show off our skills a little when we get together.

This year, because we are only two small families with two small children, there is a lot more convenience food and much less fanciness. But still some very excellent food.

Last night we decided to go out to dinner. I had been curious about a place off highway 20 that we’ve passed every time we come over here called East 20 Pizza. I looked at their menu online and thought the variety of toppings and the ingenuity of pairings was definitely work checking out.

So we packed up and headed into town where could get dinner and let our phones connect to the cell network. :o)

Let me tell you, we were not disappointed!

It’s a tiny place…a total of 6 4-tops and counter space for maybe a dozen more people. You can also call ahead and take out a hot pizza or a take-and-bake. Their business is definitely set up to serve as many people as possible, even with limited dine-in space. They have some table out on the front porch, but this time of year is not conducive to outdoor seating.

The Papa Dan’s graced our table. A pie with thin crust, a blend of their red sauce and their cream sauce (I requested this modification…their menu version comes with the red sauce), pepperoni, sausage, canadian bacon and extra mozzarella.

It was a phenomenal pie. Even the two-year-old inhaled most of a large slice. We had a couple of pieces leftover. I’m really looking forward to lunch.

At the other table in our party, individual pizzas were the rule. Each person got their own. We had shied away from the little 8” pizzas because personal pizzas, in our experience, tend to be all crust and no topping. But these were just as thin as the 16” my family shared.

There was a pesto chicken, a chicken royale (minus sun-dried tomatoes) and a mozzarella & feta pizza for the four-year-old. All were rated exceptional by their consumers.

Their red sauce is bright and fresh tasting and they apply it to the crust judiciously. To me, the perfect pizza must have the right balance of crust and toppings. And nothing turns me off a pizza more quickly than too much sauce.

The pesto was a vibrant green, which tells me it had to be pretty fresh, too. Basil oxidizes quickly, which is why jarred pesto sauces are a dark, deep green.

The cream sauce is thick and redolent with garlic, which added a wonderful richness when blended with the red sauce. Those two sauces and some pasta sheets and they’d have a killer lasagna!

One of the things that makes East 20 Pizza very Northwest is that they locally source as much of their pantry as possible. Including their wine.

Not only was I very pleased by the food, but they had Lost River wines on their menu. So I had a glass of the Community Red with my pizza last night. It was what I wanted to buy at the store the other night, but couldn’t because they were sold out.

Since we’re hoping to get back into the annual swing of this vacation trip, we are already planning to call ahead our first night back next year so they have a couple of take and bake pizzas ready for us. We can pick them up on the way through town to whatever cabin we stay in.

We can also stop at the grocery store and pick up some Lost River wine and we’ll be set.

I, for one, am already looking forward to next year!

Cinnamon, take 2 (they're small)

Oh, there’s so much to write about! There’s been so much cooking in this house since I last posted! Soups and stews and tuna casserole (oh my!).

However, I fear there would be riots if I didn’t write about my baking adventures of the past couple of weeks.

And by that I mean the sticky buns.

This will be another case of food blogs colliding. I Googled “sticky buns” and this was the first thing that came up. A recipe for Cinnamon Sticky Buns at SimplyRecipes.com.

I read quite a few recipes, but I kept coming back to this one. It had all the elements I was looking for: an egg-rich dough that was supposed to sit in the fridge overnight, plenty of cinnamon-sugar filling (with brown sugar, not white) and an ooey-gooey, sticky syrup mixture loaded with pecans in the bottom of the pan that ooze all over the baked buns when they were turned out of the pan.

I also loved that, for those who aren’t used to working with or proofing yeast, it had a link to a picture of what the yeast was supposed to look like when it was done proofing, all bubbling and foamy. Nice detail!

There are some out there, I’m well aware, who believe the pecans get in the way of all the yumminess, but I’m here to tell you they are necessary for the yummy. The provide a richness and a slight bitterness that balances all the sweet. I honestly don’t think I could handle all of that sweetness without the balance of some nuts. Walnuts would probably also be fine, but I really love the butteriness of the pecans. It’s really perfect, in my opinion.

The dough was easy to work with…dense and smooth because of the egg yolks. There is nothing quite like the feel of a yeast dough when it’s just right. It gets slightly shiny, it’s moist without being sticky, it’s almost velvety. It's really kind of sexy.

I did things a little out of sequence from the recipe. Because of timing, I put the dough in the fridge after the first rise and let it set there overnight. Then I took it out the next day, let it rise a couple of times, punching it down every couple of hours, before I rolled it out, prepped the goo for the baking pan and baked the rolls.

What did that extra rising time get me? A little more fermentation time, which means a little more flavor to the dough.

There were two things that annoyed me. First, the dough wouldn’t stay on the dough hook of my mixer and I’m not sure why. Maybe it wasn’t sticky enough. It was a rather dry day…the dough didn’t even take the minimum amount of flour the recipe called for. Maybe my egg yolks weren’t large enough. Or maybe it just wasn’t terribly humid.

That’s the thing about yeast doughs…you kind of have to play it by ear when it comes to adding the flour. Too little and your dough will be sticky; too much and your dough will be tough.

While they were baking, the house filled with this gorgeous, sweet, yeasty, cinnamony smell. I couldn’t help myself when they came out of the oven. As soon as they were cool enough, I had to try one. To my credit, it was one of the ends from the pre-cut roll, so it was kind of small.

The other thing that annoyed me…well, maybe annoyed is too strong a term. It just wasn’t quite what I was expecting even though it did taste wonderful.

The ooey-gooey syrup had a pronounced honey flavor. It certainly didn’t keep me from eating them. They were delicious! But I found as the week went on that it wasn’t quite the flavor I remembered from my mom’s rolls. So I need to experiment with the sticky topping. Maybe less honey or no honey at all and dark Karo instead of light.

All in all, it was a really tasty treat. Nice and chewy from the sticky syrup, plenty of cinnamon, a nice, tang to the bread and the crunch from the pecans.

I guess I’ll just have to keep experimenting till I get it right!

Seriously Cinnamony for the very first time

As many years as I have been baking (and we’re talking in the 30s here), it’s really quite amazing that I had never, until last weekend, made cinnamon rolls.

I have friends who don’t consider themselves bakers who have made countless batches of the delightful treats. I think my friend Bryce might know his grandmother’s recipe by heart. I saw him make them once and I don’t remember seeing a recipe.

I remember when my mom made cinnamon rolls, it was an overnight process. She made an enormous amount of dough, letting it rise a couple of times, then she’d roll and cut and then refrigerate them overnight, then take them out in the morning, let them rise again and then bake.

If I remember correctly, she would put a mixture of Karo syrup, butter and nuts in the pan, too. (A conversation with my friend Marty last weekend jogged that memory loose.) Which would technically make then sticky buns, not cinnamon rolls.

What’s the difference?

Well, both cinnamon rolls and sticky buns start with a rich bread dough rolled with butter and cinnamon sugar, but the similarities end there.

Cinnamon rolls are baked in a fairly naked pan (with a little butter, Crisco or cooking spray), allowed to cool most of the way and then drizzled or spread with some sort of vanilla frosting. Some use cream cheese to give it richness and a little tang. Some go with a simple milk and powdered sugar glaze.

Cinnamon rolls will sometimes contain raisins.

Not in my house.

I’m not against raisins in baked goods. I love a nice, chewy oatmeal raisin cookie (unlike a good portion of my friends). I will not turn away an offered cinnamon roll if it has raisins in it. However, if I have the choice, I will go sans raisins.

Cinnamon rolls might have some nuts going on. Usually walnuts, because walnuts go well with raisins. Not many of the rolls I’ve eaten in my lifetime have walnuts in them because, as I mentioned, I prefer my rolls without raisins.

Sticky buns? That is a horse of a different color altogether.

Sticky buns are baked in a pan of which the bottom has been prepared with a mixture that has many variations, but most often includes cinnamon, dark Karo, some butter and some pecans.

Here’s the thing. The pecans are important. They define and set apart the sticky bun from it’s white-coated cousin. There are probably buns that have walnuts or hazelnuts or macadamia nuts (oooh….that sounds good!).

But to me, pecans are the definitive nut for a sticky bun.

So you make this concoction of sugar, syrup, butter and cinnamon, you pour it into the baking pan, sprinkle that with nuts and then you lay the prepared rolls on top of this elixir and you bake it all together.

Not only do you have to goo at the bottom of the pan, but then you also have the butter and cinnamon sugar from the inside oozing out a bit.

When you bake these, it’s crucial to turn them out of the pan almost right after they’re removed from the oven. If you let them cool in the pan, you might as well say goodbye to the rolls and the pan. You’re never going to get the rolls out of the pan.

The hardest part is waiting for them to be cool enough to eat without burning several layers of tissue off the roof of your mouth.

Of course, last weekend, I made cinnamon rolls. They turned out pretty good. The recipe I found on epicurious.com was simple, yet tasty.

But apparently what I was craving was sticky buns. So I gonna have to bake again. Soon.

Thanks for stopping by, y’all. Eat something fabulous this weekend!