So, in honor of the Oscars, I’m cooking up the Best Supporting Dinner throughout much of my adolescence.  Hamburger Casserole!  I’m using all store-brand ingredients to maintain the spirit of the original dish.  But because of my aforementioned budding snobbery, I’m making some upgrades.  First and foremost:  ground bison instead of ground chuck.  All you have to do is brown the bison with some onion.  I’ve decided to add some minced garlic and (what goes perfect with bison?) fresh rosemary.

While that’s cooking there are two other jobs.  First, you have to unroll crescent roll dough and line a baking dish, like a pie crust.  An important note:  remember the corner where you ended up with too much dough and had to double up.  That corner is the best corner.   The other job is that you have to shred two cups of cheese.

You then need to whisk an egg with one cup of the cheese and spread it across the bottom of crescent roll dough.  It looks terrible, and I’m not sure what purpose it serves, but I shall not deviate from the plan.

a bad picture born from a bad idea

After the bison is browned (which is also the title of my new book), you need to mix in a can of tomato sauce.  When that is warmed through, you’ve basically made spaghetti, so it smells pretty good.  Dump that into the baking dish and cover with the rest of the cheese.  325 degree for 25 minutes.  Casserole!

What, you may ask, would one serve in addition to this main course.  Well, I grew up hating most vegetables.  This is nostalgia food, so in honor of nostalgia, I will eat no vegetables with this!

How did it taste?  Quite good, actually.  The rosemary definitely added to the meal, but it was sort of like eating meat sauce on top of crescent rolls.  But, hey, that sounds delicious.

I’ve made a cake from scratch before, though never by myself.  The recipeseemed simple enough, though.

It looks like a real cake!

When I hear ‘beet cake’ I can’t help but think it being fairly healthful.  That’s not weird, right?  Well, there seems to be a lot of sugar in this.  Also, my chocolate was old and I didn’t know how much I had.  There were no context clues to help me out, and I don’t have anything that could weigh the chocolate.  I understand you aren’t supposed to wing it when you bake, but too bad.  Because I wasn’t sure of how much chocolate I had, I augmented the recipe and added a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg just to make sure this didn’t end up tasting like dirt (which is what I thought it would taste like anyway).

The batter looked like red velvet cake batter, but it actually came out looking like a regular cake.  Wonders never cease.  The hardest part of this whole thing?  Probably figuring out how to grease and flour the bundt pan.  Then getting the shortening off my fingers (soap is the answer for those playing at home).

sugar and eggs and chocolate and butter and beets

And, you know, I wasn’t sure about the taste at first.  It’s definitely a bit earthy.  But, really, it tastes like a spice cake.  The chocolate is good and the cinnamon/nutmeg tag team do it up just right.  The first floor neighbors said it was both ‘fantastic’ and ‘excellent.’  And they have absolutely no reason to lie to me.

Beet cake.  There you have it.

The baking the past few months has not been particularly inventive or exciting, but it has been delicious.  And in my young life, I have learned that often the most delicious things are not the most inventive.  Something simple with a few good ingredients can go the mile.

So for your baking and viewing pleasure, some of our recent baking ventures:

Hubbard Squash Pie (from the Joy of Cooking)

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven.  Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Building up a high fluted rim, line in a 9-inch pie pan with half a recipe of your favorite pastry dough.  Glaze the crust with 1 large egg yolk.
2. Bake as directed and decrease the oven to 375 degrees.
3. Whisk thoroughly in a large bowl: 2 to 3 large eggs.  (3 eggs gives you a softer filling.)
4. Whisk in thoroughly 2 cups cooked squash puree, 1.5 cups heavy cream or evaporated milk, .5 cup of sugar, 1/3 cup packed brownsugar, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, .5 teaspoon grated or ground nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves or allspice, 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
5. Warm the pie crust in the oven until it is hot to the touch leaving the filling at room temperature.  Pour the squash mixture into the crust and bake 35 to 45 minutes, until firm.  Cool completely on the rack.

The sacrificial squash

Asparagus and Potato Tart (from Jamie Oliver)

Ingredients:

1 pound potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
Sea salt
1 pound asparagus spears, woody ends removed
8 ounces filo pastry
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup freshly grated Lancashire Cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated Cheddar
3 large organic or free-range eggs
1 (8-ounce) container heavy cream
1/4 whole fresh nutmeg
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Put your potatoes into a pan of salted boiling water and cook for 15 minutes. Meanwhile blanch your asparagus in a separate pan of salted boiling water for 4 minutes, and drain in a colander.
2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
3. Get an ovenproof dish – I’ve used many different shapes and sizes. Layer the sheets of filo pastry in the dish, brushing them with melted butter as you go and letting about 1-inch hang over the edge. You want to get the pastry about 5 layers thick. Put a clean, damp kitchen towel over the top and put aside.
4. When the potatoes are done, mash them with the cheeses. In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs and cream and stir into your cheesy mashed potato. Grate in the nutmeg, season well with pepper and mix together. Spread the mashed potato over the filo pastry, then bring up the sides of the filo and scrunch them together to form a rim. Take your blanched asparagus and line them up across the filling, making sure you cover it all. Brush all over with the remaining melted butter and pop into the preheated oven for around 20 minutes, or until golden and crisp. Allow to rest for 10 minutes.

Vegetarian Pasties with Gravy (of Young E. William’s own invention)

For the Pasties

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup shortening
1 cup cold water
½ c. green peas
½ c. cooked lentils
1 onion, chopped
½ c. rutabaga, cubed
1 carrot, diced
salt and pepper to taste
6 tablespoons margarine

1. In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Cut in shortening until
   mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in water until mixture forms a
   ball. Shape into a ball. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate.
2. Preheat oven to 350˚F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. In a large bowl, combine vegetables. Season with salt and pepper.
   Divide dough into six pieces, and shape into balls. On a lightly floured
   surface, roll each ball into a 6 inch round. Place approximately 1 cup
   filling on one half of each. Dot each with 1 tablespoon margarine. Draw
   the other half of the pastry over the filling. Crimp edges to seal in
   filling. Prick with a fork and place on prepared baking sheet.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour.

For the Gravy

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup chopped onion
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon dried sage
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic until
soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in flour, nutritional
yeast, and soy sauce to form a smooth paste. Gradually whisk in the
broth. Season with sage, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat,
and simmer, stirring constantly, for 8 to 10 minutes, or until
thickened. Serve the pasties hot with gravy over the top.

Dems some good eats.

First of all, I did not make the dough.  My friend Toastmaster took on that responsibility.  I don’t have the skills or the trust in myself to kneed my own dough.  It all seems so scientific, and I’m not sure I have the mind for or the desire for the mind for that sort of thing.

The instructions said to roll the dough out into a 18×24 square.  I find this whole rolling out dough thing comical.  My pizzas are more of a trapezoid than a circle.  Maybe rhombus, on a good day.  I took the whole 18×24 thing with a grain of salt (baking pun!) but I did approximate those dimensions.  The dough was almost square-like as well.  Wonders never cease—next thing you know, I’ll be kneading my own dough (baking rhyme!).

Then it was time to spread an unseemly amount of butter and sugar and cinnamon on this nearly-square of dough.  I recently made the switch to fruits for desert instead of things like brownies and cake and ice cream and chocolate.  I had crazy withdrawls.  When I mixed the sugar and cinnamon together, it sorta disgusted me.  The instructions said to roll the dough tightly, like a jellyroll.  Does anyone know how African Americans in the 1920s used the term jellyroll?  Anyway, I had a good chuckle.  Also, I have no idea what a jellyroll is except how African Americans in the 1920s used it.  That wasn’t helpful for this particular step.

We got these trash bags that are supposed to eliminate food odor in the trash.  They seem to be working pretty well—though they don’t hide thrown away minced, roasted garlic that well.  Baking cinnamon rolls really takes advantage to that neutralized odor.  It smells so good in here.

Well, I baked most of them too long.  I hate the instructions, or the oven.  They were just a little too brown for me.  They didn’t turn out too bad, though.  How do they taste?  Like God is rubbing my tummy.  Why would you even need to ask?

Somehow my luck has turned though.  I just won a fantastic print from this fantastic Etsy artist.  And what fantastic timing as well!  I’m working on a mini-makeover of our guest room which will include, what else but food photos.  Obsessed much?  Pictures to follow.

Making the lemon bars wasn’t particularly difficult.  I consider myself competent in the kitchen.  I am not, however, a good baker.  It’s contradictory:  I like to have exact recipes but be able to riff off them.  Perhaps that is why the curry from the other day ended up so hot.  With baking, apparently, you have to be exact.  I have a difficult time being exact.

But we did it.  I put ingredients together, forgetting to give S. a job.  I stopped doing what I was doing as soon as I got frustrated and let S. take over (it just didn’t seem logical to me that you’d get a smooth batter from just butter and that much flour and sugar).

And then it happened:  we put the crust in to bake after a short debate on how many beans needed to be put on wax paper (and the placement of said beans) to be effective.  Then we started making the custard.  That’s when my leadership skills took off and suddenly came crashing down.  They took off in that I, rather quickly, delegated the task of egg-work to the wonderful S.  Eggs make me gag; I wanted nothing to do with them.  In the meantime, I handled the lemon juice and zest.  You know what I know about lemons?  Not a lot.  One of the things I don’t know is how much juice is in a lemon.  The lemons we had could fit in a one cup dry measuring cup.  We had four of them.  To me, that says we will have extra lemon juice.  Like all ill-considered theories, this fell apart in practice.  Those four lemons yielded just over one half cup of lemon juice.  Now what?

Perhaps I should mention there was also a snow storm that shut down the entire city.  I’ve seen snow here before, but it’s never stuck to the ground.  Now we have several inches.  The store wasn’t an option unless I was to strap tennis rackets to my shoes and trudge.

Um.

Here’s one difference between S. and I:  in considering the possibilities on how to proceed here’s what I thought:  we halve the custard part and we cut the still-baking crust and fit it into a smaller pan, then cut out one of the side pieces as a patch.  I didn’t say this out loud, thankfully; instead, I said we should just make a new crust and put it in the smaller pan.  Even though S. tries to refuse to make decisions, she does well under pressure.  Her solution wasn’t absurd, nor did it try to bend rules of physics.  She suggested me turn these into a frozen dessert.

One layer of whipped topping and a trip to the freezer later, these were some perfectly decent lemon bars.  I’m glad we didn’t have enough lemon juice; those things are lemony.  Way too tart for these old taste buds.  You add that layer of whipped topping though, and you have a tangy, refreshing treat.  S. doesn’t care for the crust.  The only thing I don’t like about it is it’s hard to get out of the pan—another job I should have delegated—and it’s hard to cut while frozen.

So this is what I learned from the lemon bar experience:  1) I do much better in a support role; 2) Even though she doesn’t want to make decisions, S. has a brain that is much more reasonable than mine; and 3) Whipped topping really is a cure-all for most baked goods.

The recipe was copied from Annie’s Eats which was adapted from Proceed With Caution which was adapted from Good Housekeeping.  Did you follow all of that?  The recipe yielded 18 cupcakes (contrary to the 24 promised by the recipe).  The cake batter contained sour cream, an interesting addition.  While it certainly made for a moist cake, it also made for a thick batter which I may have over-mixed.  However, with the filling and frosting it didn’t seem to do too much harm.  I also halved the frosting recipe, predicting that these little puppies would be rich enough that a little dab will do ya.  And boy am I glad I did.  These are some pretty intense cupcakes.  They were a little much in regular cupcake size, so I think next time I might venture some mini-cupcakes or at least make sure there is plenty of cold milk handy.

And those are chocolate crowns or tiaras.  Whatever blows your skirt up.  Because every diva needs a sparkly topper.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Ingredients:
For the filling:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
¾ cup creamy peanut butter
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ tsp. vanilla extract

For the cake:
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 cup sour cream
2 tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups sugar
2 large eggs

For the frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
½ cup creamy peanut butter
3¼ cups confectioners’ sugar
1 cup frozen whipped topping, thawed

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350° F.  Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.

To make the filling, combine the confectioners’ sugar, peanut butter, butter and vanilla extract in a bowl.  Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until well combined.  Roll the mixture into 1-inch balls (at least 24) and set aside on a baking sheet.

To make the cake batter, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl; whisk together and set aside.  In a liquid measuring cup, stir together the sour cream, milk and vanilla extract.  In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter and sugar, and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl as needed.  With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the dry ingredients and the sour cream mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.  Mix just until incorporated.

Spoon a tablespoon or two of batter into the bottom of each cupcake liner.  Place a ball of the peanut butter filling in each cupcake well and top with the remaining batter so that all the cups are filled.  Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Allow to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting, in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the cream cheese, butter and peanut butter until smooth.  Slowly mix in the confectioners’ sugar, beating until smooth and well blended.  Mix in the whipped topping until smooth and fluffy.  Frost cooled cupcakes as desired.

Happy Birthday, Diva!

And she’s always been that way – been my grown-up hero.  When we were little she taught me how to color during the sermons at church with a minimal amount of noise.  I wore her hand-me-downs until I got too tall.  I wore all of her Halloween costumes the year after she did.

And as an adult she has kids and helps run a family business and has hobbies and does mission work and can hold adult conversations that don’t revolve around movie quotes and fart jokes (though I’m sure she could also hold the other kind of conversation if needed) and makes amazing cookies.  No really.  Like the best sugar cookies you’ve ever had.  And she makes them in to all sorts of incredible shapes.  She builds whole trees out of them.  When my mom got her PhD, she made sugar cookies shaped like brains.  And when I finally figured out that I might like to spend my adulthood with another person but didn’t want anything resembling a wedding cake, she made me wedding sugar cookies.  While I will inevitably never have fabulous hair, and when I do have children they will inevitably not be as well behaved and groomed as hers, I can aspire to her domestic goodness in other ways.  I can bake!

So, for this month’s Easy Bake Coven recipe, I got to take that sugar cookie recipe and trick others in to thinking I was a domestic goddess.  If they only knew that I just steal others’ genius.  And genius these cookies are.  Sugar cookies are pretty basic and standard, but the addition of sour cream in the dough  makes them extra chewy with the right amount of tart.  And the cream cheese frosting.  Oh I could eat tubs of that stuff.  So basically, I could have spooned globs of dough on a cookie sheet and they still would’ve been magic, but instead, I made these cute little things for everyone at work.

Because we have lots of mermaids in Norfolk.

Like over 100.

And we’ve got two at my library.  Aren’t we special?

And I made some orange elephants and Stars of David and baked some other delicious things and impressed my non-work friends.  Doesn’t that practically make me a grown-up?

But before I brag too much, I must admit that while passing out these little suckers to my coworkers I bit it after tripping over a library stool therefore breaking about a dozen cookies.  A domestic goddess would never trip.  And if she does, she would certainly sacrifice her body for the cookies.  I blame the unruly hair.

So, I apologize for forsaking you, Easy Bake Coven, but there was mom-pie involved.

We made three pies this year: pumpkin pie, cherry pie, and the Big Cheese – chocolate chip pecan pie.

I think the simplicity of those three pies is part of their goodness.  No fancy tricks.  See those crusts?  Those are mom-crusts.  Just the right amount of ice water and not too much sugar.  There’s nothing worse than an overly dense, sugary pie crust.  Ok, there are a few worse things, but in the world of mom-pies, this is a bad thing, a very bad thing.

And the fillings.  It’s pumpkin puree and spices.  It’s cherries and sugar and cornstarch.  And then there’s that pie that causes fights.  It’s about a lot of things.  A gooey center.  Pecans.  But mostly that chocolately layer at the bottom.  And all the recipes come from cookbooks that almost certainly are older than you.

In the grand tradition of making E work with the ingredients he likes the least, he was on cherry pie slurry duty.  I attempted to not screw up the pumpkin pie, and we left the tricky parts to mom.  After all, I promised to do this blog post in exchange for mom-pies.  Our job was to cause the least amount of damage in order to ensure good mom-pie results.

That’s a little dough car on the pumpkin pie.  Not a crab.  Not a lobster.  Not a turtle.  It’s a car.  It’s creative.  Like it.  And that was about as creative as we got.  Because mom-pies are about sticking to what works for 20 years.  You can save the creativity and fancy pants recipes for the other 51 weeks out of the year.

That’ll do, mom.  That’ll do.

I’m pretty sure I’ll remember this guy forever for many reasons, but mostly because he said in a not-so-tactful way what people say to me all the time.  “It must be nice to have a job where you get to sit in the quiet and read all the time.”  “I thought about being a librarian, but it just seems so boring.”  I don’t even know what to say to people after such comments.  This doesn’t describe my reality at all.  My day is never quiet and relaxing.  I actually spend very little of my day thinking about books let alone having a quiet corner in which to read them.  My job is very often chaotic and even sometimes dangerous.  My job is more politics than book lending, and am charged with the very serious business of empowering people through information.  And while most of you know me as someone who isn’t very serious most of the time, I am serious about this.  I am trying to be the best librarian superhero I know how to be, and it’s not easy.  And sometimes that means I have days like yesterday where I feel stressed and grouchy and I don’t want one more thing to do.  But I promised cupcakes for our monthly work potluck.  So I make cupcakes.

Well, E and I make cupcakes.  I’ve been wanting to try these Apple Pie Cupcakes for some time now, mainly for the cuteness factor.  So when Lovely Lady Baker called us up to the Big Time and let us pick October’s Easy Bake Coven recipe, I took advantage.  After all.  What’s not to love?  Almost a pound of butter and more sugar than one person can safely eat.

We followed the recipe pretty exactly.  I had grand ideas of fresh whipping cream instead of frosting, but with the impending potluck I needed something that would hold up over time.

The end was a lovely sweet cupcake with a bit of spice.  And boy howdy were they pretty.  Just take a look-see.  E was skeptical about the tartness of the Granny Smiths, but I promised that with the amount of butter and sugar we’d be putting in, it’d all be ok.  By the way, if you pass E on the street, you might just let him know what a fine dice he got on those apples.  I’m just saying.  He’s pretty happy with his knife skills.

So we made cupcakes instead of me checking my work email for the 50th time that evening, instead of me trying to catch up on the back log of collection development I need to be doing, and instead of E grading more papers.

Sometimes having one more thing to do at night is a good thing., because I get to worry about sugar and eggs for a while, and because I work with people that looked like this when they were wee babies:

And they like my cupcakes.