Category Archives: 50 Recipes

April 2, 2012 · 6:30 am

Easter Nests

The Easter Bunny has been rather busy the last few weeks. Dusting off the plastic eggs, hunting down the best tasting jelly beans (taste testing a few along the way), searching for the right things to go into everyone’s baskets, and sending happy mail* with an Easter flair. The other day Ms. Bunny came across the most adorable chocolate nests filled with candy eggs.

Those chocolate nests made her think of Grammy Thompson’s Scandinavian Cookies. The cookies are shaped like little nests which you fill with jam instead of eggs, but they’re equally cute and rank very high on the adorable scale. I guess you’re getting a pretty good idea of how my brian functions seeing how I jumped from chocolate nests to sugar-coated cookies which somewhat resemble nests.

Grammy T. usually brought us these cookies every year at Christmas time** and the tin she brought them in was full! My Mom was sweet enough to give me the tin after Grammy passed away, along with a hand-written recipe card for these particular cookies. I think of Grammy every time I make a batch and put them into her tin. With a week to go until Easter there’s a batch of these adorable cookie nests coated in pastel colored nonpareils waiting for Ms. Bunny to drop a dollop of jam in each.

There should be several other treats Ms. Bunny will be making for Easter this upcoming week including a ginormous batch of Peeps & Kisses as well as some fun Easter shaped sugar cookies, so stay tuned.

Scandinavian Cookies

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

2 egg yolks (save the whites and freeze for later use)

2 cups sifted flour

colored sugars, non-pareils (or sugarettes as my Mom called them), and/or finely chopped nuts

seedless jam or jellies for filling

Preheat the oven to 300ºF. Cream the butter, shortening, and brown sugar until smooth and no streaks of butter remain. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating until the batter has lightened. Blend in the flour (if you don’t sift the flour before measuring these cookies will be too dry and crumbly). Roll the dough into small balls, then roll the balls into the sugar or non-pareils, or nuts and place on a cookie sheet that has been lined with parchment paper. Make a depression with one of your fingers in the top of each cookie and bake 5 minutes. Quickly press down the centers again and bake an additional 10 minutes. Cool. Do not fill with jam or jelly until you are ready to serve the cookies as it will make the cookies soggy. If you are giving these as gifts I suggest you find a teeny tiny jar to put in the cookie box or you can use one of those plastic containers for dressing you get at a salad bar. Barring either of those suggestions slip in a note suggesting they spoon in the jam of their choice.

Makes about 47-60 cookies depending on how small you roll the balls of dough.

Here is one of the HappyMail eggs I sent out. Turns out if you’re willing to put first class postage on something weighing 13 ounces or less you can pop it in your mailbox or one of the big blue mailboxes found all over the U. S. Pretty cool. So far I’ve mailed Easter eggs, flip flops (one at a time), plastic water bottles, and plastic sushi boxes (not filled with sushi of course).

**For Christmas I roll these cookies in red and green nonpareils or colored sugars.

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Tagged as Easter, Grammy Thompson, Scandinavian Cookies, thumbprint cookies

March 25, 2012 · 3:03 pm

Breakfast Sundaes

I am worried about the future of real maple syrup in my life. Between wonky winters like the one we just had and the invasion of Asian longhorned beetle I am in a bit of a panic about whether or not there will be any pure maple syrup to pour over my pancakes, waffles or on top of a bowl of yoghurt in twenty or thirty years. Seriously, what is there that can take the place of maple syrup? Nada, niente, rien.

Maple Sugaring by Paul Sample. Courtesy of a private collection.

I grew up in maple sugaring country. I didn’t even know what Aunt Jemima’s was until I was in high school. To me and mine maple syrup tastes like liquid gold and costs nearly as much (prices across New England range from $34-$70/gallon in 2010). Part of the expense is the 40-50 gallons of sap which are needed to make one gallon of maple syrup. Someone has to collect it and then spend hours as well as cords of wood boiling it down until it reaches maple syrupy perfection. If you were to figure in the labor and fuel costs it’s actually cheap, even at those treetop per gallon prices. To justify buying it I tell my kids to make sure they lick their plates clean so none of the syrup goes to waste. If we have company we surreptitiously use our fingers to swipe up every last drop.

In our town of 1600 there are at least two sugar shacks and several families who boil-there-own. It’s a five-mile drive (one way) to get a gallon of milk, but a ten minute walk to buy a gallon of syrup. Our neighbors up the road have been making maple syrup for over forty years. They started off just boiling enough for their family, collecting the sap with a pair of oxen and cooking it down on a fire outside. Over the years they built a sugar shack, changed from collecting sap in buckets to gravity fed plastic tubing, and finally a few years ago switched from heating with wood to propane. Occasionally they celebrate the maple syrup season by inviting the neighbors over for a free pancake breakfast. On those days the line to get into the sugar house can snake half a mile or so down the road with everyone bundled up against the cold and mud which inevitably heralds the running of the sap. To help keep the folks waiting warm Mrs. Bean would send out paper coffee cups filled with Maple Syrup Sundaes.

The first year I gobbled up three maple syrup sundaes they were so good. By the time I got into the sugar shack I was too full to eat any pancakes. Maple Syrup Sundaes are brilliant in their simplicity. Thick and creamy oatmeal drizzled with fresh maple syrup, a handful of dried fruit, and a dollop of whipped cream.

Since I ate my first MMS I’ve played around with the idea and added chopped nuts and wheat germ to my offerings plus I’ve expanded from raisins to a variety of mixed dried fruits (I especially like dried tart cherries and slivers of apricots). The kids root around in the fridge to see if there are any maraschino cherries left over from my food styling jobs so their morning sundaes can look like the ones they get at the local ice cream parlor. I’ve also brought a crock pot full of cooked oatmeal* into winter-cold morning meetings along with a basket full of plastic containers filled with different toppings so people can make their own sundaes. Everyone is always thrilled to have an alternative to bagels and donuts. It doesn’t really matter how you dress it up maple syrup sundaes are a great way to start any day.

Maple Syrup Sundaes

Cooled Oatmeal

Pure Maple Syrup

Dried Fruit (raisins, currants, apricots, blueberries, cherries, craisins, etc.)

Chopped of Slivered Nuts

Toasted Wheat Germ

Whipped Cream

Maraschino Cherries

Ladle some oatmeal into a bowl and top with your favorite toppings. Enjoy.

*I put steel cut Irish oatmeal into a crock pot the night before to cook on low. Pack up all the fruit, nuts, maple syrup and other toppings along with some spoons and bowls and the next morning you simply need to unplug the crock pot, load it all into the car, and go.

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Tagged as breakfast, maple syrup, oatmeal, oatmeal sundaes

March 10, 2012 · 11:47 am

Recipe Card Winners!

I am so impressed with how organized my readers in respect to how they organize and keep their recipes – bravo to all of you. This morning I wrote out everyone’s name who entered the recipe card contest and picked two winners – Jessica N. and Vickie S. Congratulations! I will now be putting pen to paper and sending each of you all the recipes (to date) from this blog.

This past week NPR did a piece on how blogs (and the internet) have replaced “your grandmother’s recipe box” as the place to get ideas for what to cook. It was amusing to consider the irony of my blog which is focused completely on recipes that come from my grandmother’s recipe boxes (yes that is plural), my kitchen drawers, and the many bookshelves in our house, that I then share with folks through the wonderful world wide web. Of course the winners of this contest will receive their prizes the old fashioned way – via the U.S. Postal service.

Some of our family's recipe card boxes

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February 26, 2012 · 9:05 pm

Perfect Nooks and Crannies

Pre Ash Wednesday there was a flurry of postings on my church’s facebook page. People were excited about the youth group’s Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper but I posted wondering why it couldn’t be Shrove Tuesday Waffle Supper? Cause if someone threatened to upend a bowl of batter over my head I’d have to tell the truth and say honestly that I prefer a plate of waffles to a stack of pancakes any day. In my opinion waffles rule (though I make an exception for cottage cheese pancakes).

Shrove Tuesday is intended to use up all the butter and eggs in your pantry so you’re ready for a lean and light forty days of Lent but what I don’t understand is who chose pancakes over waffles? Both batters use many of the same ingredients, while waffles have the added bonus of all those wonderful squares that you can pour maple syrup into or plunk in some fruit. The one pancake-y exception I hope to make someday is entering a pancake race. Can’t you just see me running down the street, saute pan in hand, flipping as I go? I’m sure my altar guild would sponsor me.

Despite the wonderful pancakes served up by our youth group (yes, we went traditional) by the time the weekend rolled around I was hankering for a plateful of waffles. I made a double batch of buttermilk waffles because (please don’t tell the Lenten police) I hadn’t use up all the butter and eggs in my kitchen pre Ash Wednesday.

Nooks and crannies for syrup and fruit

Look at the picture above to see how perfectly one raspberry fits in a single waffle square (at least in the squares formed by our waffle machine). After I’ve fruitified I fill the other squares with maple syrupy goodness. Of course the extra bonus is that if you double your batter you can always make extra waffles to freeze and have later for a quick breakfast (think homemade eggos). If you don’t have any extra freezer space simply cut the batter recipe below in half and make enough to eat in one sitting.

Double batch of waffle batter

Buttermilk Waffles (double batch)

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 stick butter (1/4 pound), melted

6 eggs

3 cups buttermilk (plus a little more if necessary)

Preheat your waffle iron. I make the ones for eating right then a little darker and crispier than the ones I intend to freeze and toast later.

Waffles ready to freeze

Separately mix together the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients, then and combine together and whisk until almost all the lumps are gone. Waffle batter tends to be a little thicker than pancake batter, but if the batter seems too thick to pour you can thin it down with a little more buttermilk. Spray the waffle iron with vegetable oil before the first waffle, then pour into preheated waffle iron and bake until crisp. You shouldn’t need to respray after the first waffle. Yield will vary depending on the size of your waffle iron. Serve with maple syrup and fruit.

If you’re making extra to save for later cool them on racks before bagging them to freeze.

Waffle-y goodness with fresh raspberries and maple syrup

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Tagged as buttermilk waffles, shrove tuesday

February 6, 2012 · 6:23 am

Can she make a Crêpe?

I loved the movie Julie & Julia, well I loved the half of it featuring Meryl Streep as Julia Child. The other half grated, as did the book the movie was named after. One of the things that really tweaked the cook in me was Julie Powell’s inability to consistently make a crêpe. She’s right, the first one can sometimes be a bit wonky, but after that they should sail along. Batter in, tilt the pan, cook till brown and speckled then flip. Next. In and out of the pan, being eaten by the hungry hoards in your kitchen who line up at the first sizzle of the crêpe pan. However, Powell is hopeless with crêpes, and not only is she hopeless she whines about it. It made me want to slap her and inquire about her cooking IQ. Julia Child is a good teacher, I remember learning to make Chicken Kiev from watching Julia demo it on tv. When I was 13! We’re talking boning a chicken breast, making the herbed butter, the whole 9 yards. So don’t tell me crêpes are too hard because they’re not. Sorry for the rant, just had to get that off my chest.

Basic crepe

My earliest memory of eating crêpes was I first visited Paris. You could buy crêpes on the streets of Paris much the same way you can buy hot dogs and pretzels on the streets of New York. The vendors always made their crêpes with little paddles that smoothed the batter into a giant crêpe. Filled with Apricot jam, Nutella, Sugar and Lemon it was hard to choose what to have them put inside before they folded it up and wrapped it so you could stroll and munch. I don’t make my crêpes as large so I figure I don’t have to decide on one single filling I can have one small crêpe of each flavor!

Three at a time

Crêpes

1 cup milk

1/2 cup water (warm seems to work best)

4 eggs

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour (or you can use all white)

pinch salt

4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

2 Tablespoons sugar (optional)

Whisk together milk, water, and eggs. I like to do this in a pitcher so later I can just pour the batter into the pan. Whisk in flours, salt and sugar if using. Then whisk in melted butter. The batter then needs to rest for a few hours.

I experimented with several different pans to see if one worked better than another and found that the plain metal ones browned better than the non-stick pan, however all worked. The trick is to have your pan medium hot before you pour your first crêpe and swirl a small pat of butter in to get things going. Then it is simply pour, tilt the pan to swirl the batter evenly along the bottom, wait till the first side is browned and flip. I like to flip with my fingers, though that is too hot for some people. A flexible spatula works well if your fingers aren’t singe-proof. I find that after the first crêpe is cooked I don’t need to keep re-buttering the pan because I never let it cool down. If you were to shut off the burner to eat a crêpe or two you might want to add a dab more after you reheated the pan before making more crêpes.

Once your crêpe is cooked it’s time to decide what to put inside. Jam is always a good choice. As is the classic French combination of sugar with a squeeze of lemon juice. A smear of Nutella and sliced bananas is divine because the warm crêpe melts the Nutella slightly into a chocolate-hazelnut ooze. Likewise honey spreads itself when drizzled over a warm crêpe. Fresh fruit thinly sliced is good. I’ll occasionally saute some apples with a little cinnamon sugar. The choices are only limited by what’s in your kitchen. Once you’ve chosen a filling it’s simply a matter of rolling up your crêpe and eating.

Raspberry jam and powdered sugar

Sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice

Banana and nutella

Category Archives: 50 Recipes

Easter Nests

Breakfast Sundaes

Recipe Card Winners!

Perfect Nooks and Crannies

Can she make a Crêpe?

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