Daring Cook's September Challenge

Hiya! This is Debyi from http://www.healthyvegankitchen.com I am so excited to be your host for the September 2009 Daring Cooks challenge. It took almost a month to decide which recipe that I wanted to do. I wanted to choose something that could be easily adapted for our GF'ers and other Alternative Cooks, as well as still being tasty for everyone else. So, I finally decided on Indian Dosas from the refresh cookbook by Ruth Tal.

The recipe is here.


Ooh, yum! Fabulous Indian bean burritos with sauce.  My friend A made the filling and brought over some riesling.  I made the sauce and some rice and roasted cauliflower to round things out.  A and I made the pancakes together.  C & R brought cake.  M took pictures.  Speaking of pictures, my computer has a virus right now (I accidentally let my antivirus lapse...how embarrassing), so I don't want to download pictures until that gets sorted out. 

The filling was too salty on its own, but together everything was wonderful!  We watched Dhoom, a wonderful action movie/musical Bollywood film (not as hilariously fabulous as Dhoom II, but still a rollicking good time).

Ciao!  I hope to upload the pictures shortly.  

My First Daring Bakers Challenge!

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

Go here to see what I’m talking about:
http://thedaringkitchen.com/

Yay! My first Daring Bakers Challenge! And, since I have a birthday party to go to, I can spread the calories around! I’m still going to try to make a slightly healthier version by using whole grains, though.

I had intended to take lots of pictures as I went, but I am a very messy cook, and I didn’t want smears of flour and teetering piles of pans in background of every picture. So, I wound up not taking any except this one just before we dashed out the door to the birthday party. As you can see, my cake will win no beauty contests. But the taste! Gosh, the taste! Wish there was a taste-hosting site, because you would be licking your screen right now.


I baked the cake and made the icing on Tuesday:

Instead of the sponge recipe listed, I used the “Peach Melba Jelly Roll” from Whole Grain Baking by King Arthur Flour. I scaled that recipe up from 4 to 5 eggs to better match the buttercream & caramel.

1 ¼ c. whole wheat pastry flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
5 large eggs
1 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
¼ c. + 1 T. vegetable oil
¼ c. + 1 T. buttermilk

I followed the directions from the book for mixing:
1. Mix dry ingredients together.
2. Mix eggs and sugar until fluffy and pale.
3. Whisk oil and buttermilk together.
4. Fold dry ingredients into eggs and sugar until only slightly lumpy
5. Fold in oil & buttermilk.

Since, fortunately, both recipes called to be baked at 400o F, I felt comfortable following the original instructions for baking:
1.Position the racks in the top and centre thirds of the oven and heat to 400F (200C).
2.Cut six pieces of parchment paper to fit the baking sheets. Using the bottom of a 9" (23cm) springform tin as a template and a dark pencil or a pen, trace a circle on each of the papers, and turn them over (the circle should be visible from the other side, so that the graphite or ink doesn't touch the cake batter.)
* * *
5.Line one of the baking sheets with a circle-marked paper. Using a small offset spatula, spread about 3/4cup of the batter in an even layer, filling in the traced circle on one baking sheet. Bake on the top rack for 5 minutes, until the cake springs back when pressed gently in the centre and the edges are lightly browned. While this cake bakes, repeat the process on the other baking sheet, placing it on the centre rack. When the first cake is done, move the second cake to the top rack. Invert the first cake onto a flat surface and carefully peel off the paper. Slide the cake layer back onto the paper and let stand until cool. Rinse the baking sheet under cold running water to cool, and dry it before lining with another parchment. Continue with the remaining papers and batter to make a total of six layers. Completely cool the layers. Using an 8" springform pan bottom or plate as a template, trim each cake layer into a neat round. (A small serrated knife is best for this task.)

Three things I would, in hindsight, change in step 5 for my recipe:
1. Fold ingredients back together before pouring each layer, as the buttermilk tends to separate and form a puddle beneath the batter.
2. Get one heaping cup of batter and plop it in the middle of the circle. Place the cup on a plate. Don’t worry about scraping out the cup or the plate until the last circle.
3. Tilt the pan from side to side until the batter fills the circle instead of spreading it with a spatula.

I realize now that I missed the directions on removing the paper from each layer as it cools. I just let the layer cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then moved it, paper and all, to a plate. I’ll find out later if this is a great labor-saving step, or a recipe for tragedy.

I used the buttercream recipe provided because healthy buttercream just sounds wrong. I guess I could mess about with gelatin and canola oil, but…let’s not. I made it just as the instructions said, except that I wasn’t sure what “4oz (110g) bakers chocolate or your favourite dark chocolate, finely chopped” meant, since “bakers chocolate” makes me think “unsweetened baking choolate” and dark chocolate is an entirely different animal. I wound up using Baker’s Chocolate brand German’s Sweet Chocolate Bar, which tastes like dark chocolate to me. In retrospect, I should have used bittersweet or semi-sweet. I haven’t tasted it on the cake yet, but it’s pretty sweet and doesn’t have a real chocolate punch.


On Saturday, I made the caramel and assembled the cake:

I bought some cardboard cake rounds and covered one with foil. I’ve never done this before and it makes assembling the cake so much easer. I placed one layer on the round, peeled off the paper, covered it with buttercream, and then added the next layer. After I had added all the layers, I placed a 9 inch cake pan on top and trimmed around that. The trimmings were delicious (of course, they make my calorie count, later, inaccurate)!

I have vague memories of making a torte like this from a recipe in a magazine for Christmas when I was in junior high or high school. From what I remember:

1. The layers looked wonky (this is a chronic problem I have with layer cakes).
2. The cake texture was rubbery (although I seemed to be the only person who thought this—my dad liked it, and he’s very honest about his culinary likes and dislikes).
3. The sour flavor of the caramel was weird.

I decided to make a trial run of caramel to make sure I didn’t run into the problems. First, I cut the caramel recipe down to sample size:

¼ c. caster sugar
3 T. water.
2 tsp. lemon juice
¾ tsp. canola oil (for oiling a knife to cut the caramel)

I cooked it in a small saucepan according to the directions and spread the result on (whole wheat, of course!) toast. Ick! It’s exactly as weird as I remember.

So I decided to make a classic toffee instead. After a little experimenting and one burned batch, I used this recipe:

1 stick (1/2 c.) salted butter
¾ c. sugar
½ c. water

1. Cook on medium, stirring occasionally until the candy reaches soft ball (235F/113C) stage.
2. Cook, stirring constantly until the candy reaches soft crack (275F/135C). Make sure to scrape every bit of the pan as you stir so that you don’t wind up with any burned spots.

Next time I do this, I’ll up the sugar to 1 c. because the toffee didn’t quite cover the top layer of the cake and I had to cover the edges with more buttercream.

Because it was hard to peel the paper from some of the layers, I was worried about pouring the toffee on the layer and then transferring it. So, I just cut the cake into sixteenths (I don’t need an eighth of this cake!) and poured the toffee on top. I wouldn’t do it this way again. First (duh!) the toffee strengthens the cake layer, so I don’t need to worry about it breaking in transit after the toffee is added. Second, when I went to cut the cake, the toffee shattered, and the cake kind of smashed, so it wasn’t a very pretty presentation.

The calorie breakdown is pretty brutal, which makes me glad I divided the cake into sixteenths:
Cake:
1 ¼ c. whole wheat pastry flour 550
1 ½ tsp. baking powder 4
½ tsp. salt 0
5 large eggs 375
1 c. minus 1 T. granulated sugar 697
1 tsp. vanilla extract 12
¼ c. + 1 T. vegetable oil 600
¼ c. + 1 T. buttermilk 31

Buttercream frosting
4 eggs 300
1 cup caster sugar 774
4 oz. bakers chocolate 544
2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 1824

Toffee
1 c. sugar 774
1 stick (1/2 c.) salted butter 810
1/2 c. water 0

Finish
1/2 c. peeled chopped hazelnuts 361

7656 calories / cake
478 calories / serving for 16 servings

Note: the calories per serving will actually be less if you have a significant amount of trimmings.

Note 2: that this is not the calorie breakdown of the cake exactly as I made it, but as I will be making it next time (maybe for Thanksgiving). I will definitely be making this cake again because, ugly presentation notwithstanding, it was enormously popular and got loads of compliments.

I Love My House at Sunset, Part II

I'm renting my parents' weekend house from them, at an outrageously good price.  Sometimes, I feel a little conflicted about this.  For months, it felt as though I were living with my parents again (not a good feeling) and that they had just stepped out for a bit.  It doesn't feel like it's really mine, the way my old apartment did.  On the other hand, this house holds a lot of good memories for me--a lot of days spent playing board games because there's no TV reception; a lot of time roaming the empty lots next door (now filled with houses--the interlopers!) picking wildflowers; a lot of time sitting on the porch with the extended family, doing nothing but chat and listen to the crickets, and knowing, even at the time, that there was nothing better to do in the whole world. 

I grumble at the lack of storage, the deep cracks in the wood floor from a burst pipe a couple of years ago, and the sieve-like nature of the aged cedar exterior, which lets in bugs large and small.  However, I keep an alarm on my cell-phone set to 15 minutes before sunset, so I can go out each evening and fall in love with my house all over again. 

Once upon a time, this house sat on a cattle ranch.  The owner dammed up a stream to make a watering pond for his cattle.  Oddly enough, there were two ponds--a large one and a small one--with a road in between.  In wet months, the smaller pond overflowed into the larger through our yard, and in dry months it dried up and filled with interesting weeds.  This summer, the neighborhood association drained both ponds, dug the large one deeper, and used the dirt to fill in the small one to make a park.  It will almost certainly be too manicured for me, but see...someday, I want to be married between these two trees, at sunset, with the pond blazing pink behind me.

Just left of the picture above, they're building this pavilion:

And I want to have my first dance there, looking out on the starlit lake.

                   

I Love My House at Sunset

Daring Cook's August Challenge

Oy. This is my first cooks' challenge. I did it on time, wrote it up, then lost it in a computer freeze, and never got around to re-writing it. Bad, Bad Yummy Nutter. Well, here's the super-truncated version.

This challenge was for a paella with cuttlefish and mushrooms. The recipe is here here.

We don't have cuttlefish in these parts, so I made it with scallops.

Here's the sofregit, bubbling away on the stovetop.

Here's the parboiled brown rice. I wanted to mix brown rice and white rice, but they cook at different rates, so I parboiled the brown rice first. Unfortunately, they still cooked unevenly. I cooked until one kind of rice was no longer crunchy, and another kind came out a little...squishy. More experimenting needs to be done.



I made the allioli in a blender.
It tasted bitter, so I added another 1/4 cup of canola oil, and then it was lovely.



Here's the final mix on the stove.


And here it is, "plated"...err...Ziplock containered...pre-portioned for dinners and lunches to come.

This is so sweet and so sad.

It literally made me tear up. Okay, let's be honest...it made me sniffle a little too.

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

I Want to Be a Pretty Princess!

Dear Mom,

I know that, when the invitations to child beauty pageants came in the mail (as they often did), I would gasp over the idea of getting to go someplace that required a ball gown. A ball gown! Like Cinderella! And I know that I would drop little hints like bricks in your path of "gee, wouldn't it be cool to go somewhere and wear a ball gown?" And I know that when you said, "You don't want to do that," I said, "Yes, I do," and I thought that you were just being a stick-in-the-mud because you preferred jeans.

But I could have been one of these girls:
http://jezebel.com/tag/living-dolls/

And instead, I wore old prom dresses and bridesmaid dresses that you picked up at garage sales and tailored to fit me. Because, even if the powers that be had seen fit to drop a budding princess in your jeans-bedecked lap, you were going to save money to put that princess through college.

Thanks, mom. Thanks a lot.

You Nauseate Me, Too

I went home from work early because I felt nauseated. Speaking of which, the phrase "I feel nauseous" is one of my pet peeves. See "nauseous" = "nauseating". The word they're looking for is "nauseated". It's like the difference between "disgusting" and "disgusted". I mean, I guess you could say "I feel disgusting" to mean "this feeling is disgusting me", but it comes off sounding more like "I am disgusting myself".

I realize this is a silly battle because it's already lost. Everyone says "nauseous", not "nauseated". Still...stop insulting yourself.

Love for the Mighty God-King

My boyfriend and I have a strict look-but-no-touch policy, so I have no problems with admitting that this guy's insight and snarkiness make me a little hot.

Mighty God-King Snarks Internet Nice Guy

New Star Trek Movie

I wasn't intending to see the new Start Trek, but it got 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. 95%!

Rotten Tomatoes

I tried to lower my expectation before I went. I know that action movies are not meant to make sense--they're meant to be big and pretty and fun. I knew better, but still...95%! I hoped.

Unfortunately, they lost me when a man didn't remember the primary noticeable feature associated with a historical date on which he WROTE HIS DISSERTATION!

I mean imagine this exchange:

Smart Alec Kid and Man Who Wrote a Dissertation on the Tsunami of 2004 stand on a beach in the Pacific, watching the water retreat.

Smart Alec Kid: Remember the Tsunami of 2004?
Man Who Wrote a Dissertation on the Tsunami of 2004: Yes.
SAK: Remember how the water rapidly retreated before the tidal wave hit?
MWWaDotTo2: Yes.
SAK: The water's retreating now! That was a warning sign for the tsunamis of 2004!
MWWaDotTo2: Omigosh! You're right!

Intended effect on male audience members: I want to be SAK! He's the only competent person in the entire universe!

Intended effect on female audience members: I want to sleep with SAK! The only competent person in the entire universe!

Yummy Nutter: Aaaaargh!

I Love You, Code Monkey

Okay, I said that I was going to give tips on weight loss, but that doesn't sound interesting, so...later.

In the meantime, I love Jonathan Coulton. I love this amateur music video. I love the guys who made it, in a platonic, they're-much-too-young-for-me kinda way.

Hair Cut

For almost as long as I could talk, I’ve aspired to a waterfall of shining hair waving down my back. Long hair was beautiful, glamorous, sexy, and magical. Barbies had long hair. So did Lady Lovely Locks (of course), Polly Pocket, and the Fashion Star Fillies (showing my age here). A little later, Jo March, Anne Shirley, and Rapunzel all regarded the shearing of their luscious locks as a small (at least) tragedy. I am now an avid student of belly dance, a subculture where long hair is very common. In fact, long, thick hair is such an important prop that in Cairo (the New York of belly dance) nearly all professionals have extensions or wear a wig when performing.

I realize, of course, that other people think differently. My own boyfriend prefers short hair on women (though he’s never pushed me one way or the other). A quick internet search reveals plenty of people (male and female) who agree with him.

But, to me, short hair seems practical and, at best, cute. Short hair is what happens when you’re a tomboy who just doesn’t care, or when you have a baby and want something they can’t pull, or when you start suffering from female-pattern baldness. The one exception is for women with divine bone structure like Natalie Portman or my cousin, M. When M cut her thick, wavy, shiny hair into a buzz, it only better revealed her large eyes and high cheekbones. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

However, genetics are not on my side. Long hair stretches my already-long face. Also, my hair is naturally thin and wavy, and tended toward frizzy or see-through when long. I tried all one length. I tried layers. I tried curling with pin curls, foam curls, and hot curls. I tried a variety of products and washing methods. Heck, I even tried not washing my hair with any form of cleanser (that lasted three days, until my hair took on the solid sheen of a piece of varnished wood). No dice. It just never looked right. The only time I was really comfortable with my hair was when I had it up in a bun. My hair sticks looked interesting from the back, but made my hair almost a visual non-player from the front.

So, I took the plunge and asked my sister to bob it—my first major cut since 2003. And it looks…cute. I got one “aw, I liked it better long” and a whole bunch of “oh, it looks great!” at work. Fortunately, my natural waviness works well with short hair, so it’s wash-and-go. And, I’ve thought of a variety of ways to fix it when “wash and go” isn’t good enough.

I’ll never have long, shining waves down my back, I’ll never be a ballerina when I grow up, and I’ll never again subject my feet to the agony of strappy slingbacks. Instead, I’ll take my cute butt (fed by engineering, shaped by belly dance) on the town in my cute-but-sensible ballet flats and my cute bob. I won’t be a fairy princess. I’ll just be cute and young and having fun. Oh, well.

How I Lose Weight—Part I: General Principles

I tend to gain weight when I’m stressed, so I’ve had to develop a strategy for losing the weight again when the stress goes back down. There are too many diet plans out there anyway, but here’s what works for me.

General Principles
1. Don’t make yourself unhealthy to make yourself look good! Therefore, no pills, no powders, no crazy, nutritionally unsound diets. The Harvard food pyramid seems sound and unaffected by special interest groups (e.g., cattle ranchers) or a desire to sell a quick, easy diet as the “next big thing.”



Definitely check out their website for more information.
Harvard Food Pyramid

2. Also, don’t try to lose weight too fast. It’s stressful on you and it’s stressful on your body. In fact, if you lose weight very, very fast, you may develop gallstones and have to have your gallbladder surgically removed! Furthermore, crash diets, don’t really teach you how to eat. A sound diet for slow weight loss can easily be tweaked into a maintenance diet. If your diet basically consists of “swear off food”, then after the diet you will probably go back to the old ways of eating that made you gain excess weight in the first place.

Personally, crash diets are not an option to me because my body is sensitive to low blood sugar. I can handle a little hunger but nausea, weakness, and stupidity don’t work for me.

3. Accept and manage your hunger. You’re going to be hungry. Not very hungry, but a little hungry. Because healthy weight loss is a long process, you’re going to be hungry for a long time. Even after you switch to maintenance, you may not be hungry, but you will have to deny yourself some. Your body has already proven that it likes more cookies or cakes or cheese or crackers or whatever your weakness is than is really good for you, so you are going to have to get used to saying “No,” or “Okay, but just a little bit”.

A book I read on natural childbirth pointed out what seems to me to be a very useful concept, namely, that there is a difference between pain and suffering. If you are in control of your pain, you do not suffer from it—it’s just an annoyance or a reminder that you are doing the difficult work necessary to achieve your goals. When you feel that pain is out of your control, you suffer. Remember that, while hunger is painful, it is also a sign that you are in control.

[Note: this is a dangerous concept, as many eating disorders arise from an effort to control one’s life and an addiction to the “pain = control” concept. Before you start on the dieting path, be on the lookout for this particular addiction. If you find that being in control of everything you put in your mouth is becoming more important to you than your health, please discuss it with someone who has your best interests at heart.]

4. Try to diet out of self-love, not self-hatred. Dieting is hard work, and it’s very hard to summon the mental energy if you’re berating yourself over the size of your tummy. Instead, remind yourself of your positive qualities—including the physical ones. Also, try to pick a time when you have the mental energy to do this hard work--no time is perfect, but the day your dog died is probably not the best day to start a diet. Sometimes, it's just better to be kind to yourself and wait for the storm to pass or the wounds to heal.

5. The first week is the hardest.

Next post: more specific tips.

Yay! Whole Grains! No, really, yay!

For my birthday, I got Whole Grain Baking by the King Arthur Flour company, which is exactly what I wanted. I've tried replacing regular flour with whole wheat flour and been rewarded with dense, gummy breads and a strange, slightly bitter taste, so getting tested whole wheat recipes is wonderful. I had leafed through the book at the library, and been intrigued by the novel idea that the bitter flavor of whole wheat flour can be negated by a little orange juice, without making the bread taste of orange juice at all. After that little idea turned out a batch of very tasty 50% whole wheat kolaches, I knew I had to have the book.

What I'd like to do is go through and try all of the recipes that don't contain butter (as in, none of the biscuit or pastry recipes) and don't sound repulsive. It would be fun to try to commit to one/week, but I’m way too busy to definitely commit.

Karo Syrup is My Drug of Choice

It is true, as the commercial says, that corn syrup really isn't any worse for you than sugar, because it IS sugar--heavily subsidized sugar that's used to plump up many foods where it has no business (I'm talking to you, jarred marinara) because it's so danged cheap.

But it is DELICIOUS. Especially on pancakes with yummy, creamy, hydrogenated-oil peanut butter. Drool. Also, if there's anything in this world that is yummier and easier than a Karo syrup sandwich on whole wheat bread with a light sprinkle of salt, I don't want to know about it, because it's probably illegal, and will most likely turn my innocent little ova into VAMPIRE BABY seeds.

I apologize for all the run-on sentences. I think in run-on sentences.

I Love My Love

"'I love my love with an H ... because he is Happy. I hate him with an H, because he is Hideous. I fed him with -- with -- with Ham-sandwiches and Hay. His name is Haigha, and he lives--'

'He lives on the Hill,' the King remarked simply..."
Through the Looking Glass

The version of this game that I first heard was a parlor game portrayed in a stage version of A Christmas Carol, which went something like this:

I love my love with an A because he's adorable. I hate my love with an A because he's awful. I took him to the sign of the Ambling Anteaters, and there I served him Apples."

Of course, the point is to try to think of appropriate words while under time pressure, but that hasn't stopped me from "playing" by telling my love 26 ways I love him over 26 days, via text message:

I love my love with an A because he’s artistic
I love my love with a B because he’s breath-taking.
I love my love with a C because he challenges me.
I love my love with a D because he’s dependable.
I love my love with an E because he’s entertaining.
I love my love with an F because he’s a fanboy.
I love my love with a G because he’s good to me.
I love my love with an H because of his hands.
I love my love with an I because he’s intelligent.
I love my love with a J because he’s a jewel.
I love my love with a K because he’s kind.
I love my love with an L because he’s laid-back.
I love my love with an M because he’s [name that starts with an M]!
I love my love with an N because he’s naughty.
I love my love with an O because he’s organized.
I love my love with a P because he’s passionate.
I love my love with a Q because he quells my fears.
I love my love with an R because he’s responsible
I love my love with an S because he satisfies me *sigh*
I love my love with a T because he’s trustworthy.
I love my love with a U because he’s uplifting.
I love my love with a V because he’s venturesome.
I love my love with a W because he’s wise.
I love my love with an X because he’s exciting.
I love my love with a Y because you’re you!
I love my love with a Z because he’s zabaglione-sweet.

I love my love more than letters can express. C’mere, baby, let me show you how I love you! *Kiss*

Great poetry it is not, but it was fun. Since I'm in a semi-long distance relationship, I miss the little sweet things one can do for one's love.

Dita von Teese

Dita von Teese has lovely concepts, and scrumptious costumes, but she always leaves me wanting more. I suppose that's the point, of course, but...I mean...in an interview, she was once asked whether she had been influenced by vintage strippers. She said that she was influenced by still pin-up images of the 1940s and '50s, but that the moving pictures of the time struck her as amateurish. The influence is clear in her performances, as she gracefully moves through a series of poses. Still as someone who loves dancing (both watching and, in my own, amateurish way, doing), I can't help but feel teased by the toe shoes that she uses for a first-rate sashay, but no actual dancing. And not necessarily teased in a good way.



Of course, I suppose I might as well cry over a butter cookie that it's not a tequila sunrise. Sure, it's not, but it's a damned good cookie, and that counts for something.