Simple Strawberry Syrup, Homemade Strawberry Milk!

~ Katherine ~ 2 Comments

IMG_0788This is simple.  This is delicious.  This will take you home to the summer days of your childhood.

  • 2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and quartered
  • 1/2 cup agave nectar
  • 1 cup of water

Put all ingredients in a 4 qt. pot, bring to a boil, remove from heat, allow to cool to room temperature.  (Use this time to hang some laundry on the line, take a quick bike ride or fix the hole in the screen that’s been letting in the season’s first mosquitoes.)

Next, line a strainer with a double fold of cheese cloth and place over a medium size bowl.  Slowly pour the strawberry mixture into the strainer.  Then with a rubber spatula, gently press down on the strawberries releasing as much of the juice as possible.  Fold up the cheese cloth with the strawberry mash and, I hate to say “throw away” even though that’s what I did, so I welcome any ideas – strawberry muffins, maybe?

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Put the jar of this very pretty, sweet, early summery concoction in the fridge until you are ready to have an ice cold glass of homemade strawberry milk.  Pour as much or as little of the syrup into whatever milk you’d like, drop a colorful, striped-straw in it, take it outside, put your feet up, and sip, sip, sip, ahhhh!

*This recipe was inspired by Homemade Snacks and Staples by Kimberly Aime.  A big Thank You, Kimberly!, for offering over 270 tried-and-true preservative-free recipes!  Be inspired at: www.learntocookbadgergirl.com.

Rhubarb Blueberry Mint Kissed Jam

~ Katherine ~ 3 Comments

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I am working at this blog thing a little more earnestly.  Trying to post once a week – every Tuesday-ish.  The post deadline is getting me organized, schedulized.  I am becoming the baker, cook of this family I have wanted to be.

I am getting on top of the piles of laundry.  There is harmony overflowing in my home.  My husband and children are eating well, all from my labor and creativity and resolve….

No, I’m just kidding!  The laundry is not done, there are dishes piled in the sink, papers scattered all over the kitchen table – I just shoved them just now to the side to set up my lap top.  And my husband and children have been living on hot dogs, cheese sticks and grilled cheese sandwiches for the past few days.

But I have been baking!  And it is Tuesday and look at that – Boom!  Here I am!!

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I made my first ever batch of preserves on Saturday after I picked up fresh rhubarb from the farmers’ market and the most beautiful mint ever!  I had blueberries in the fridge and my first thought was, of course, pie, however, I am the only one in this house who will eat rhubarb and honestly, I just cannot allow myself to eat a whole pie.

Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.

So what to do, what to do….oh hell, give this jam thing a go is what I thought, even though I was sure I wasn’t prepared for what I was getting myself into.  Actually, I did have some sort of idea.

A long time ago, I watched my parents and I think a couple of grandmothers, maybe an aunt or two, make batches of concord grape jelly in our kitchen.  It was hot, messy, sticky!  I mean sticky everywhere – the kitchen table, the counters, the floor, the handle on the refrigerator, the dog, the bathroom door knob, the top of my head.

Even from a kid’s perspective (of whom wasn’t allowed to touch anything and had to be reminded again and again to stay out of the kitchen – Please!  We have angry fruit spewing scalding juice in here!) it looked like a lot of work.

But it sure did smell sweet in there and with so many adults all working together in such a small space, bumping elbows and laughing out loud at times, it looked like a party.  And the end result was the prettiest, darkest, be-jeweled, sparkly-ist shade of purple you ever did see!

Now thirty-plus years later I have given it a shot on my own.  And I’ve learned first -hand that making jam is fun!  It’s quick- cut up some fruit, add sugar, stir and freeze some of it for later.  You can create your own flavors and I guarantee even the worst jam you make yourself will still taste better than what you will find on the shelf at your grocery store.

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P.S. After I made my first batch of Rhubarb Blueberry Mint Kissed Jam, I went to the book store and bought The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook by Rachel Saunders, a beautifully, if not hefty – it’s over 300 pages, crafted compilation of everything jam, jelly, marmalade.

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And though this book is a complete delight and an amazing source of creative inspiration to me, it has made my husband a little nervous.  Are you making your own jam now?  was what he said.  What he was thinking was Here she goes again.  And my oldest son, Will we still have grape jelly from the store for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Mom?

All I can say to both those questions is Maybe Darlings, we’ll see;)

Here’s the recipe!

First, place a saucer with five metal teaspoons on a flat spot in your freezer.

Next, into a 4-quart, non-reactive pot, place

  • 3 cups of fresh rhubarb, rinsed, then chopped into 2-inch long pieces
  • 2 cups of fresh blueberries, rinsed
  • 3 oranges and 1 lemon halved crosswise, quartered lengthwise, and then sliced crosswise, resulting in quarter-circle slices (leave the rind on)
  • 3 cups of granulated sugar

Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until the juice begins to run from the fruit.  Then increase the heat to high.  Continue to cook, stirring very frequently, until the mixture boils. Once it reaches a boil, cook it for 10-15 minutes more, stirring frequently, and decreasing the heat slightly if the jam starts to stick.  Begin testing for doneness after 10 minutes.

Put a scant teaspoon-full of jam on one of the frozen metal spoons and place it on the saucer in the freezer for 3-4 minutes, then remove and carefully feel the underside of the spoon.  It should be neither warm nor cold; if still warm, return it to the freezer for a moment.

Take the spoon back out and tilt it vertically to see whether the jam runs; if it does not, it is ready.  If it does, cook the jam for another few minutes, stirring and test again as needed.  When ready the jam will look glossy and gorgeous.

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These Are Your Momma’s Pancakes!

~ Katherine ~ 3 Comments

IMG_0558I made these pancakes this past Mother’s Day for my family and for me – mostly for me.  My husband was ready to show me love and appreciation by taking the kids with him to the bagel shop to pick up warm bagels, the Sunday paper and hot coffee.  That would’ve been nice, but I had an even better idea.  I asked him would he run to the market to buy fresh blueberries instead?  Bagels are fine, but I wanted to eat something really good for breakfast on Mother’s Day.  I wanted homemade blueberry pancakes and I wanted time in the kitchen.  Most of all I wanted him and the kids to eat them and not say a single critical word about them.  I got almost everything I wanted.

After the first bite, my younger son screwed up his face and said, “I taste eggs.” and then demanded, “Mom, are there eggs in these?  Because there aren’t eggs in the blue pancake box that you usually make.”  And that freaked my baby girl out who folded her arms and refused to eat them and had to be threatened by her father that he would cut off all her doll’s hair if she didn’t finish the one pancake that she was given.  She didn’t seem phased by this in the least, rolled her eyes and shoved the few bits of maple syrup-soaked pancakes into her mouth.  And without so much as a gag, I might add.  My older son asked me, “Why would you make homemade pancakes when we have that blue box of pancake mix in the cabinet?”

I just smiled and said to all three of my little angels, “Because momma loves you so much she’d rather make you a homemade breakfast then pour some white powder out from a box and add some water.”  And then I turned around and said under my breath, “How ’bout we all just shut up now and eat the pancakes?!”  I mean it is Mother’s Day after all.

IMG_0557These pancakes are salty-buttery-maple-syrupy sweet.  They are fried crisp around the edges and will do nothing to help you shed those last five pounds.  If pleasure is what you seek, then these are the pancakes for you.  I recommend you eat these with family or friends you love, plan to serve fresh fruit on the side, brew a pot of very good coffee and let the happiness begin.  Oh, you might want to plan some form of exercise to work these off for later in the day.  And plan to eat a lot of salad for lunch and dinner as well.

  • Warm your pan or griddle slowly on low.
  • Melt a stick of unsalted butter (in the microwave – begin at 30 seconds, you may have to do 10 seconds more – one minute is way too long) and let cool to room temperature.
  • Separate two large eggs – whites into one bowl, yolks in another.
  • Whisk together a cup of milk (I used 1% but know in my heart whole milk is the better choice, however not having to run to the store just for a pint of whole milk is an even better choice), the egg whites, a tablespoon of vegetable oil and a teaspoon of vanilla*.
  • Slowly pour the cooled butter into the egg yolks and gently whisk**.  Add the yolk and butter mixture into the milk mixture and give it all a good whisk.
  • In a small bowl whisk a cup of flour (all-purpose) with 4 teaspoons of baking powder, 4 teaspoons of sugar (I used demerara straight from the sugar bowl because it was what I had in front of me at the time) and a teaspoon of kosher salt.  Whisk that into the milk mixture just until it’s combined.  Add a little more milk (teaspoon at a time) if you think it’s too thick.

Add a generous handful of fresh blueberries, chocolate chips, pumpkin puree or whatever you like.

Wipe the pan with a pat of unsalted butter, turn up the heat to a low-ish medium, and using a 1/4 cup dry measuring cup, scoop (make it so it’s not quite a full 1/4 cup) and pour the batter onto the pan.  Watch carefully and when the bubbles rise, pop and disappear, it’s time to carefully flip.  Continue cooking until golden brown.  Serve these pancakes right away with real maple syrup and/or powdered sugar.

* I added the vanilla because the kids think it makes the pancakes taste more like sugar cookies.  And so, we compromise.

** I learned this trick from Molly Wizenberg’s memoir A Homemade Life.  It’s from her recipe for Buckwheat Pancakes.  Adding the yolks to the butter first helps the butter incorporate into the batter more smoothly.  Ms. Wizenberg credits Cooks Illustrated.  Her blog Orangette.blogspot.com is delicious!

I’d like to thank themuddykitchen.com for bringing Ruth Reichl’s World’s Best Pancakes to my attention when she gave the recipe as part of her March 12, 2013 post Down at the Sugar Shack.

Ruth Reichl is the author of Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise, Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table and Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table.  I have read the latter and it is part of my cookbook/food memoir collection.

P.S. I am happy to report that my children have adapted to our family’s new Sunday pancakes.  They have not only survived the transition but they are actually asking me to make them again this Sunday!

P.S.S. No dolls were harmed in the making of these pancakes.  All dolls at our house still have their hair.

Banana Cake with caramelized bananas & cream

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

IMG_0568My family doesn’t diet.  When it comes to food, I was deprived, sheltered from the latest fad from the grocery store.  In our house, I never saw a jar of low-fat mayonnaise, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! – no artificial “spreads” of any kind come to think of it, nor did I ever see that pink packet of Sweet’N Low anywhere near a steaming cup of coffee or tea. Today I can guarantee there is a gallon of whole milk in my parents’ refrigerator next to a squeeze bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup and a jar of Miracle Whip.  Real butter – firmer in the winter, softer in the summer, keeps company with the dinner plates in the cabinet above the kitchen sink.

I grew up in an extended family who believed in gathering regularly at the table to eat well and laugh loud.  The argument my father had with my grandfather that day about who should move who’s stuff out of the garage didn’t matter by dinner time.  By six o’clock in the evening, all differences were put aside in order to make room for dessert.

Dieting and exercise of any kind (other than walking to the local butcher and market) could wait another day.  The only time I can remember a hint of a contemplative exercise routine was when I found the brand new box containing Jack LaLanne’s Glamour-Stretcher exercise cord in my grandparents’ basement, tucked deep into a cabinet behind the green and gold Tupperware containers of flour and sugar.

What’s all this have to do with this week’s recipe?  I started out really trying to give you an honest-to-goodness low-fat banana cake recipe and on its own it is really good.  However, by the time I got through with it, well, I’d built it into something really far from the original healthful intent.  I guess it’s just not in my upbringing to serve the ones I love a reasonable, almost-good-for-you cake.

IMG_0521I do have to say that because it begins as a healthful dessert alternative, I don’t feel one ounce of guilt having a slice of it for breakfast with a cup of coffee.  It has unsweetened applesauce in place of the butter and most of the oil.  There’s a surprising exotic, floral taste to it thanks to the cardamom.  Overall, the cake is moist, light, has a beautiful blonde color with just the right amount of sweetness.

Banana Bundt Cake (adapted from the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites)

  • 2 1/2 cups cake flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
  • 3/4 cup light brown sugar
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1 cup lightly mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium size)
  • 3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil (or expeller-pressed canola oil – can be found at Whole Foods stores)
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 4 egg whites

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare a 10-inch Bundt pan (if you have a dark pan you should reduce your oven temperature to 325 degrees) with vegetable shortening, cooking spray or a light coating of oil.

Sift the flour with the baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cardamom into a large mixing bowl.  Add the brown sugar and whisk it by hand until lumps of brown sugar are broken up and all is mixed well together. (I used my fingers to lightly break up the brown sugar and then finished it by whisking again.)  Set aside.

Combine the egg yolks, bananas, applesauce, oil and vanilla and mix well.  Add the banana mixture to the dry ingredients and stir (use your whisk) just until evenly blended.

Beat the egg whites until soft but not dry.  Gently fold the egg whites into the batter and pour it into the pan.

Bake for about 60 minutes, until the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool on a rack for 10 minutes and then invert onto a plate.  (My oven must run hot, because this cake was done in 35 minutes!  As a general rule, whenever I bake, I begin testing for doneness as soon as I can smell something delicious.  It usually only takes 5 minutes more from this point.)

Now let’s have some fun!

IMG_0567Caramelized Bananas Sauce (I got this recipe idea from brennansneworleans.com.)

  • 1/4 cup (half a stick) unsalted butter
  • 1 cup dark or light brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 4 bananas sliced into coins
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)
  • 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
  • 1 teaspoon Kosher salt

In a pan over low heat, warm butter, brown sugar and cinnamon until the sugar dissolves.  Add the bananas and pecans (if using) until soft and brown.  Drizzle the maple syrup on top and sprinkle on the salt.  Stir gently and cook for 3 more minutes.  Remove from heat.

Real Old-Fashioned Whipped Cream (Thank you, Rose Levy Beranbaum, The Cake Bible)

  • 1 liquid cup heavy cream
  • 1/4 cup (half a stick) unsalted butter, softened*
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 tablespoon sugar

*The reason for the butter is that today our heavy cream lacks the original amount of butter fat found in olden days.  You can make whipped cream without it, but give this one a try….it’s good!

Refrigerate the mixing bowl and beater(s) for at least 15 minutes.

In a small saucepan melt together 1/4 cup cream and the butter, stirring constantly until the butter is fully melted.  Pour into a small heatproof measuring cup and cool to room temperature.  Add vanilla.

In the chilled mixing bowl beat the remaining 3/4 cup cream and sugar just until traces of beater marks begin to show distinctly.  Add the butter mixture on low speed in a steady stream, beating constantly.  Beat until stiff peaks just form when the beater is raised.

Note:  Whipped cream is smoothest when the butter mixture is added gradually.

To serve:

Take a slice of banana cake (if cool, warm slightly in microwave 15 seconds) and spoon warm caramelized banana sauce on top, finish with a generous amount of whipped cream.  Take a moment to have a little something sweet!

Just a Bowl and a Whisk Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

~ Katherine ~ 4 Comments

IMG_0031I promised you chocolate cake back in February and at the time, it was a bribe to get you to read the second and final post of Sensual, Earthy Roasted Beets.  It’s been awhile, I know, but I’ve been doing some prioritizing in my life and I’ve come to realize that baking desserts, talking about desserts, writing about desserts are top on the list of what I enjoy doing when I’m not mothering, wife-ing and home-making.

Truth is, I’ve been thinking about chocolate cake for a long, long time.  Every girl has a coming of age story usually centered around puberty with all the wonderful, awkward, physical changes that go along with it.  My entrance into womanhood began with a Bundt pan, a box of Duncan Hines Devil’s Food cake mix and a promise from my mother that I could bake this cake alone.

I was bestowed full reign over the kitchen all afternoon along with every pan, spatula and spoon in it.  That sacred day I received my mother’s trust and encouragement as well as her acknowledgment of how important it was for me to bake something on my own.  I am forever grateful for that moment with her, for it set me on my path, not only to becoming a woman who can bake, but a woman who knows chocolate cake.

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I firmly believe we should eat more chocolate cake.  And although Duncan Hines will always keep a tender, sweet crumb inside my heart, there’s nothing like homemade.  I know it’s not always that easy to find the time to make a delicious cake from scratch, however, the following recipe couldn’t be quicker, more moist and wickedly rich.  This recipe does not require a stand-up mixer, nor a hand-held.  Just two 9-inch cake pans, a large bowl, a medium bowl, a whisk and a rubber spatula.  Go gather up your cookery gear and ingredients, Darling.  You are on your way to having your cake in no time.

The Cake:

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 3 eggs, room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
  • 1 1/2 cups strong coffee, cooled
  • 1 1/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Butter two 9-inch round cake pans and dust the interiors of the pans with flour; tap out the excess.

Put the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, and baking soda in a large bowl, and whisk just to blend the ingredients.  In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, coffee, vegetable oil, and vanilla.  Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir with a whisk until you have a well-blended batter with no lumps.  (The batter is meant to be stirred, not beaten.) Divide the batter evenly between the two cake pans, smoothing the tops if necessary.

Bake for 20- 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.  Transfer the cake pans to a cooling rack, let cool for about 5 minutes, then turn the cakes out of the pans.  Invert the cakes so they cool right-side up.  If you wish to turn this cake into a four-layer cake, when the cakes are completely cool, slice each layer with a bread knife or other large serrated knife in half horizontally to make four layers.

Frosting recommendations: Seven-Minute Frosting (for an old-fashioned look, use the back of a spoon to pull the frosting into points.) Or you may wish to leave the cake in two layers and enjoy one layer at a time with a simple dusting of powdered sugar just before serving.

As this cake freezes well, simply wrap the other layer air-tight in clear wrap, followed by aluminum foil, date it and  freeze it for up to two months.

Cake recipe adapted from “Zefiro’s Chocolate-Buttermilk Cake”, Diversion magazine April 1998.

Seven-Minute Frosting (from The Lily Wallace New American Cook Book, 1945)

  • 2 1/4 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons white corn syrup
  • 7 1/2 tablespoons water
  • 3 egg whites
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine all ingredients, except vanilla, in a heatproof bowl (I use a medium-size glass Pyrex bowl) and mix well.  In the meantime, fill a 4- quart size pot about half-way with water and bring to a boil, making sure the water doesn’t touch the bottom of your bowl when you place it on top.  Cook over boiling water 3 minutes.  Remove from fire but leave over hot water and beat with a rotary beater 7 minutes, or until of a consistency to spread.  Add vanilla and blend well.  Let cool completely before frosting.  You may have to give it a gentle whisk to fluff it back up first.

IMG_0040Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!;)

Red Velvet Cupcakes and Delicious Blogs

~ Katherine ~ 8 Comments

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There is so much snow on the ground.  Reason and experience tells me that just beneath all this white, lies grass green and patient, but I’m not so sure.  Late morning, I sit here on the couch next to my eight-year-old  son warm with a winter’s fever and resting after a long night of wakefulness.  Laundry tosses around and about in the dryer while clean clothes sit folded neatly in piles on the overstuffed chair next to me.  The dryer exhales into the chilly air outside and I can see its Downy-fresh breath rise up and swirl in the window before me.

It may be early March but I haven’t properly said farewell to February.  I spent the better part of the month studying the how’s and why’s of cake baking using Rose Levy Beranbaum’s The Cake Bible and Cookwise by Shirley O. Corriher as my text books.  I tested out a few different chocolate cake recipes and one yellow cake (post on these to follow – I didn’t forget that I promised you chocolate cake), but mostly I spent time with Red Velvet – two recipes, three tries.

I didn’t know much about Red Velvet cakes until last month.  I’ve had a Red Velvet cupcake before, so I knew that it wears a cream cheese frosting and that it takes a lot of red food coloring for it to live up to its name.

But underneath the red, what type of cake is it?  Yellow? Chocolate? And what exactly is it suppose to taste like?  I did learn that most Red Velvet cakes are oil-based and I will say that one of the recipes I tried called for one and a half cups of vegetable oil.  I wasn’t afraid to use so much but when the cupcakes had finished baking and cooled, I released them from the pan onto a cooling rack only to be shocked by puddles of oil left behind in the pan.

And my before-mentioned son got it right when with his first bite, he exclaimed, These taste just like corn muffins!  He really thought I had made him red corn muffins and I let him think for a moment that his mom is A-Ma-Zing!! But as soon as he left the kitchen table, into the garbage went twenty-two oily corny- cupcakes.

The oily recipe only included 1 teaspoon of cocoa.  That’s just silly to me.  Why bother?  The second and winning recipe I’ve included here calls for 1/2 cup of cocoa powder – now that’s more like it!  And butter instead of oil – it had gotten my attention.  Because butter makes things better.  Having a bad day?  Slather some butter on a warm piece of bread, take a bite – soon you’ll be feeling better, you’ll see.

The first time I made this recipe I used a scant teaspoon of Super Red food coloring gel instead of the one-ounce (liquid) food coloring the recipe called for.  I admit, I was trying to be fancy.  The first batch was a little dry and a little off-tasting so when I made the next, I lowered my oven to 325 degrees and switched to McCormick’s red food coloring – the whole one-ounce bottle.  The cupcakes were now moist and light and a very pretty shade of red.

The frosting is so, so good. After you frost with a basic cream cheese frosting, you chill the cupcakes for 30 minutes and then dip them in melted white chocolate!!  With the first bite, these cupcakes whisper: chocolate, sweet cream cheese frosting and decadent white chocolate.  There is no guessing – vanilla?  Chocolate?  What?  Or hmm, I guess this is what Red tastes like…..

For me and from now on these Red Velvet Cupcakes are what Valentine’s Day tastes like or Friendship Day as is celebrated in my childrens’ elementary school.  And so, in the spirit of love and friendship, I’d like to express my gratitude to the authors and creators of the following outstanding blogs for they have brightened my winter days. Please stop by and check them out.

Visit Badger Girl Learns to Cook http://learntocookbadgergirl.com/ for advice in the form of recipes on whole food cooking, clean eating, and my favorite mantra: Mistakes will happen in the kitchen…no big deal!  Just keep on cooking good food!

Travel. Garden. Eat.  http://travelgardeneat.com/ The photos of Kat B.’s travels are breathtaking.  Her musings of busy family life along with inspiring quotes help me stay centered.

Peri’s Spice Ladle http://perisspiceladle.com/ Indian-inspired flavors and colorful photography help me get over my fear of trying new spice and food combinations.

And now for Red Velvet Cupcakes from Tastes of Italia June 2011 issue:

  • 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 1 ounce red food color
  • 1 ounce red wine vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.  Set aside.  Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed for 5 minutes or until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs one at a time.  Mix in sour cream, buttermilk, food color, vinegar and vanilla.  Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until just blended.  Do not overbeat.  (Seriously, don’t overbeat.)

Spoon batter into 30 (I got 27-ish) paper-lined muffin cups, filling each cup half full.  Bake 20-25 minutes (I always begin around 12 minutes and continue to check every 3 minutes thereafter.) or until a toothpick inserted into the cupcake comes out clean.  Cool in pans on wire rack for 30 minutes.  Remove from pans; cool completely.  Frost with vanilla cream cheese frosting.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

  • 1 (8-oz.) package of cream cheese, softened
  • 1/4 cup butter, softened
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 1 (16 -oz.) box confectioner’s sugar
  • 8 ounces melted white chocolate

Beat cream cheese, softened butter and vanilla extract in a large bowl until light and fluffy (I used the wisk attachment on my stand-up mixer).  Gradually beat in confectioner’s sugar until smooth.  Place your frosting into a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip (all I had was a large star – it made a pretty swirl).  Pipe frosting onto the cupcakes in a curly pattern.  Chill your cupcakes for 30 minutes or until the frosting is firm.

Now for the best part:  Remove from the fridge and gently dip the tops of the cupcakes into the melted white chocolate.  Allow the cupcakes to warm to room temperature before serving.

And finally, remember:  life is short, make time to have a little something sweet!

Sensual Earthy Roasted Beets Part II

~ Katherine ~ 5 Comments

After my last post I was surprised how many comments I received from followers who really don’t like beets at all – canned or fresh.  Many of you wrote that I will never be able to change your mind.  One of you likened the taste of beets to dirt!  (I happen to agree, but let’s at least call it soil – nutrient and mineral-rich-fresh-tasting-after-a-gentle-spring-rain soil.)  Still, I feel like I have to at least finish my canned-beets story because believe me, no one hated beets (canned beets) more than I.  But it’s only because beets and I got off on the wrong foot.

If I can find some love for this jeweled, bedazzled vegetable, well, then, maybe one of you might change your mind too.  So if you promise to just hang tight, follow me back to my childhood home, back in time to my early disgust of this rat-tailed root, I promise you cake next time.  A deep, rich, chocolate cake for which you don’t even need to pull out the heavy equipment.  Truly, all you need is a bowl, a wooden spoon and some light mixing.  Ok? Deal? Here we go……

Back to that night at the dinner table, winter 1978-ish….

I sat there at the round, wood table while my mother dried and put away the last of the pots and pans.  The colonial-style chair back went way above my head – its’ dowels pushed into my spine.

Leaning back against that chair, I watched my legs dangle and I was enjoying myself for a bit – swaying them from side-to-side, bumping the insides of my heels together.  I was making my own fun pumping my legs out and back in as if I were outside, on the other side of the back door, just a few feet away, in the backyard, on my swing going higher and higher.

Every once in awhile she’d bring me back to the darkness of the kitchen table, to the red-ringed thick slices of what appeared to have once been part of a gummy, Alice-in-Wonderland-type-tree-trunk stiffening on my plate.

C’mon Kat.  I’m almost finished with the dishes.  Do you really want to sit here all night…all by yourself?

I shrunk my body as best as I could, trying to hide somewhere deeper into the chair where every time I shifted from one butt cheek to the other, the small bones in my spine rubbed themselves raw against the spindly spines of the chair, which, by the way, had grown even larger at this time, I’m pretty sure.

She hung up the dish towel on the oven door, clicked on the light in the hood above the stove, made her eyes big at me as if she were going to try one last time to will me to cooperate, to cave, to shove those beets into my mouth at last.

She turned out the light and left quietly – I had to strain to hear her footsteps meet the couch where my father sat at one end – his end by the lamp.

And then I heard it.  The opening song to the Muppet Show.

It’s time to play the music/It’s time to light the lights/It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight.

Only it was louder than usual!  My legs began to pump in my chair faster and faster.  I fidgeted and felt myself growing wild!  The chair was beginning to feel hot!  I was the marshmallow at this twisted camp fire!

It’s time to put on make-up/ It’s time to dress up right/ It’s time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Show tonight.

It was Tuesday night!  I had to see Miss Piggy karate chop the live grown-up guest!

Oh they were really playing dirty this time!

It’s time to get things started on the most Sensational! Inspirational! Celebrational! Muppetational!

Without thinking, I stabbed a beet with my fork, the butter had turned into little hard chips of greasy yellow!  The blob wriggled. It was all so cold…so gross!

I grabbed the bloody purplish mound of ick and pulled it off the fork with my teeth and with my bite’s first puncture into its flesh, it throbbed, it pulsed…it had a heartbeat!

This is what we call the Muppet Show!!!!!!

I gagged and threw myself down on the floor and sobbed and kicked at having been so broken!  Mom came running in only to find her five-year-old daughter in a pile of plaid and embroidered bell-bottom jeans on the orange and brown linoleum floor.  She picked me up and cradled me in her arms.  It was over.

And now I really like fresh beets!  Especially over a small plate of mixed greens with the following Orange Dressing adapted from Michele Scicolone’s The Italian Slow Cooker cookbook:

  • 1-2 navel oranges
  • 2-3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • salt and freshly ground pepper

Grate about 1/2 teaspoon of orange zest into a medium bowl. Halve the oranges and squeeze until you have 1/3 cup juice.  Add the juice to the bowl along with 2 tablespoons of the vinegar, the oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Whisk until blended.  Add the leftover sliced beets to the bowl and toss well.  Adjust seasonings as you like.  Crumble a little soft goat cheese over the top of the greens then pour the beets in the orange dressing over both greens and cheese and go grab a fork because lunch is served!

Sensual, Earthy Roasted Beets

~ Katherine ~ 3 Comments

Part I

My first experience wasn’t so great…

Mushy, deep red-purple, they stain the white Corningware bowl a bright pink.  Sitting there in a pool of iridescent melted butter.  How could the crimson contents inside a small salad bowl cause a young child such dread!  And how could the voice of ones’ own sweet mother invoke so much panic as she utters Tonight your father and I would like you to try your beets.

Oh no!  I’d managed to avoid these horrible roots many, many times but this dinner was going to be different.  My parents had had enough of my avoidance and outright disgust of the red, red, red! bleeding all over my plate.  It wasn’t even Halloween and I was not in the mood to pretend I was a starving vampire.  Eat your beets.  C’mon.  Let’s go.  Chop! Chop! 

I needed to stall them.  Katherine, you will sit at this table until you try them.  Oh I just needed one more minute to figure out if they were bluffing!  How far were we going to go with the game this time – before they’d fold and walk away in shame?  I shook my head back and forth real slow as I stared at my plate, leftover bits of meatloaf beginning to crust.

My father gently pushed his chair back from the table.  I could feel frost begin to stick to my eyelashes from the coldness of his stare.  I would not look up.   I knew by his silence they were clearly in this together.  It was all planned.  She’d work me over until my spirit was weakened and then Dad would come in and say See that wasn’t so bad.  You got your mother all upset for nothing.

As I grew more mature, I learned to take my time….

If you’re like me and have only experienced beets dropped out of a can, then this recipe may make you too a beet lover.

To Prepare

  • Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
  • Figure one medium-size beet per person.
  • First cut off the green tops leaving an inch of stem attached (later on, you can rinse these, chop and saute with a little garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper).
  • Cut off the tapering root (the tail).
  • Wash and scrub with a vegetable brush under running water to remove loose soil.

To Roast

  • Line a baking pan with aluminum foil and set the beets on the foil.
  • Into the oven for about 1-1 1/2 hours.
  • The beets are done when they are soft to the touch and when you gently give a squeeze and the skins collapse (an indication the beets have shrunk away from the skins).
  • Allow them to cool for 15 minutes.  Then peel the skin away by pulling back a little bit of the flesh from where the inch of stem was left.  This opens up the skin and you can peel the rest easily.

Note:  Do I really have to tell you to be careful when testing the doneness of the beets and/or peeling them?  Hot! Hot! Hot! (By the way, I am told my very first word was Hot!  Why didn’t I go to culinary school?  Why? Why?  The signs were there!)

And finally, saute

  • Slice your beets into 1/4 inch rounds.
  • Warm a saute pan on the stove.  When it’s hot, add a pat of butter, then swirl the beets around until they are shiny and sexy.
  • Add salt and pepper to taste.

Recipe from The Organic Cook’s Bible – How to Select and Cook the Best Ingredients on the Market by Jeff Cox

Part II is on the way: Leftover beets for lunch!

Granny Smith Apples with Orange, Lemon and Cinnamon

~ Katherine ~ 5 Comments

IMG_9059In the late afternoon of a short winter day, my grandmother  would peel an orange for my sister, brother and me hoping to hold us over until dinner.  So patient and so focused on the bright citrus ball in the palm of her hand, she would slowly peel back the thick rind in long vertical pieces taking care not to bruise the shimmering fruit inside.  The mist released by the orange would spring into the air in leaps of excitement, vitality and joy!  An offering so simple.  It was love.

It is January and cold with over a foot of snow here in the Midwest.  The holidays are over and it is time for simplicity.  It is time to celebrate good health, to delight in the scent of citrus fruit, take comfort in the warmth of cinnamon; and in our sleepy winter heads, feel the crunch of the crisp white flesh of a Granny Smith apple.  It’s time to be present with our family and friends — to offer up simple foods, to stay at the table and share an orange together.

Granny Smith Apples with Orange, Lemon and Cinnamon

  • Wash, core, then slice each apple; place in a serving bowl.
  • When you have enough for everyone, halve a lemon and squeeze the juice from both halves over the apples, taking care to catch any pits.
  • Halve two oranges, squeeze the juice of the three halves over the apples (careful of the pits).
  • Sprinkle cinnamon lightly over the apples.
  • Mix gently with your hands.
  • With the fourth half of the orange, thinly slice and lay rounds of orange on top of the apples.
  • Lightly sprinkle more cinnamon on top, cover and put in the refrigerator for 30 – 60 minutes.
  • Go take a walk outside, look for paw prints in the snow.  When you return, make a pot of tea, place a few apples on a small dish.

Sit down for a moment.  Breath and enjoy.

Sitting Still for a Moment

~ Katherine ~ 1 Comment

I am re-organizing my priorities and like so many of you out there feeling the squeeze of the holiday season, I am finding there is simply not enough time to do the many things I enjoy.  While I sit with what should remain, and what must go in order to get enough rest and remain healthy, I humbly offer you a haiku.  Writing in this concise poetic form each morning at my kitchen table is just what I need to keep centered and still.

True Warrior

It’s not the outcome

Draw back your arrow again

Fearless precision