Spinster Homemaker Falls in Love

I won't presume to pin my extended absence on anything or anyone other than myself. But I will say that not too long after my last blog post, I met the love of my life. He's white, with an athletic build, enjoys the outdoors, is a carnivore, looks good in red, is faithful to me, and sleeps in my bed almost every night. My cat isn't that crazy about him, however, but she seems to tolerate him. Although he is always kind and attentive to me, he can be haughty and dismissive of others, and possesses a definite sense of entitlement. He weighs about 70 pounds and has black spots on his ears. He likes to urinate on flowers and shrubs, sniff new acquaintances' asses, and prefers to take his meals from a bowl on the floor and ambulate on all fours.

I adopted Peli (formerly "Roger") from a local rescue organization. He was at a high-kill shelter and was scheduled to be euthanized when the shelter rescued him and put him in a foster home. Was it love at first sight? Let's not get carried away..... I will say, though, that I was immediately drawn to his winsome smile, brawny build, and his one blue eye and one brown eye.

Since his ancestors hailed from the Basque region of Europe—he is half Australian shepherd ("Australian" being a bit of a misnomer) and half Great Pyrenees—I thought he needed a Basque name. I chose "Peli," the Basque version of "Felix," as we are both "happy and fortunate" to know each other.

And all this time I thought I was a cat person... (no offense, Minky).

Homemade Hobnobs

In an episode of the Vicar of Dibley, Geraldine (the vicar) asks Owen to help her unload groceries from her car, and offers him eternal salvation in return. To paraphrase the rest:

Owen: Got anything.....more unnebulous?
Vicar: Chocolate Hobnobs?
Owen: Let's do it!

I've enjoyed McVitie's Digestives before, but when I was in the British food section of Hiller's market a week ago, I decided to try another McVitie's cookie: Hobnobs (the plain ones, not the chocolate ones). They had a lot of oats and whole wheat and nothing too terrible in them.

And they were delicious. Crispy, "grain-y" (by which I mean the flavor of the oats and wheat were prominent), substantial and satisfying.

I should make my own, I thought.

But, of course, when I googled "homemade Hobnobs," someone else (well, scores of other people) had beaten me to it. So no points for an original idea, but it does mean I have a couple recipes for Hobnobs at my disposal! And I found neat-o blogs in the process. Here are links to the recipes from Cookie Madness (cool blog!) and from La Recette du Jour (be sure to read Judy's comments under the blog post--pretty interesting).

Sweet Potato and Pecan Pancakes

Thur. eve., 2/4/10, 9:30

Sometimes, you just want a pancake. You don’t want the organic turnip greens sautéed with chopped garlic and Italian-sausage-style seitan over artisanal organic whole wheat pasta blah blah blah. You just want to sit on your rear in front of the TV, watching the BBC drama from Netflix (Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now), holding on your lap a plate of bready, ghee-slathered, syrup-soaked pancakes and drinking a cup of tea. For dinner. In your pajamas.

So that’s what I did. Sure, the whole process took longer than the braised-turnip-green rigamarole, because I decided they should be sweet potato pancakes with pecans (why do I make things complicated?), and the kitchen was full of dirty dishes that had to be washed before I could even start cooking, and now I’m here typing this instead of watching my BBC corset drama, but were they delicious? Yes, they were.

Drawing on proportions from my favorite pancake recipe, which I carry around in my head like a Bee Gees tune, I mixed up some flax meal, spelt and whole wheat flours, powdered buttermilk, baking soda, kosher salt, coarsely chopped (OK—“hand-squished,” if you must know) pecans, cinnamon, nutmeg, and (my new favorite spice) cloves in one bowl, and a glob of mashed boiled sweet potato, two eggs, and expired sour cream thinned with water (always save the turned dairy for pancakes or muffins—this probably breaks a rule of ayurveda) in the other. Added the dry to the wet ingredients.

I put the heat diffuser (from the Vermont Country Store) over my gas burner, and my grandma Rita’s cast-iron skillet over that. When drops of water danced on it, I knew (as Rita had instructed me) that the skillet was the right temperature.

The rest was the typical pancake waiting game: pick a done one up and eat it plain while you’re waiting for the next batch to brown, pace the kitchen with a pancake turner in hand, take a sip of tea, step out of the kitchen and stare at the TV (whose screen does not yet show the BBC drama), realize, 14 pancakes later, that some will need to be frozen, perk up at the prospect of having frozen pancakes handy.

Enough of this!—I’m going to fit in an hour of 19th-century drama before bed.

From Sushi Shirt to Sushi Tie

I've always been a fan of the hand-me-down, as well as the whimsical clothing find (case in point: my signs-of-the-zodiac, oh-so-acrylic vintage poncho). When a friend's friend was getting rid of clothing, I couldn't resist his sushi-print shirt: I didn't plan on wearing it, but I loved the fabric. So it sat in a closet for a few years (with a cat on top of it most of the time).

Finally, the opportunity arose to use it, to make a birthday gift for my sushi-loving, clothes-recycling, tie-wearing friend and coworker, Alex, whose birthday was back in December.

The shirt and its dismantling:

de-seamed and re-pinned (had to line up the sushis):

re-stitched and cut out:

 

 

sewn and pressed:

I chose a navy-blue polka-dot with daisies for the lining (I used a lightweight, knit interfacing [not shown] for the tie, and didn't fuse it to the fabric, but tacked it to the lining):

given, received, and modeled!:

I used the Power Tie pattern included in the book S.E.W.: Sew Everything Workshop by Diana Rupp (a fine book with lots of good detail, especially for beginning sewers).

Alex loved it...
But wait, there's more!:
Alex is very allergic to cats!

Although I removed accumulated fur, washed and dried the shirt before starting the project, sewed most of the shirt at my sister's (catless) house, and, when I finished it at my house, kept my curious (sinister?) cat away from it, it still carried enough traces of feline-generated allergen residue to get Alex sneezing and sniffling by about 2 o'clock the day I gave it to him.

oh, the humanity (or, in this case, felinity).

A Darned Fine Cookie

I'm not a rabid fan of them, but I certainly enjoy a good chocolate chip cookie now and again. Usually, however, they are too: cakey (which I don't mind too much), brittle, dry, or greasy. (Or, you know, if it comes from a vending machine, underbaked, stale, and sucky.)

When the May/June 2009 issue of Cook's Illustrated arrived (my sister and I both have subscriptions), my sister was eager to try their recipe for "Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies." And oh, boy, were they tasty! A rather gigantoid cookie, it was both browned and still chewy, with a lovely nutty flavor that came from--no, not nuts or nut flour--pre-browned butter! Releasing the rich, nutty, carmelized flavor of browned butter before mixing the butter with sugar mimics toffee (whose ingredients are cream, butter, and sugar). What a concept!

What I also like about this recipe is that it uses a flour/sugar/butter ratio that results in cookies that are not too greasy or brittle, nor too cakey. And it calls for two teaspoons of vanilla, which adds a depth and richness of flavor, and one teaspoon of salt, which lends just the right salty foil to the sweet cookies.

Over the weekend, to treat my sister and brother-in-law, who are going through the stress of moving, I made a batch of these beauties. After patiently following the recipe--which calls for four rounds of stirring a butter/sugar/egg/vanilla mixture, then letting it sit for 3 minutes (to better incorporate the sugar and butter)--I collected my scrumptious reward. The flavor of the cookie itself is so good, I looked forward to bites without chips, and I am seriously considering making a batch of the cookies sans chocolate chips.

Here's the recipe, with full credit given to the alimentary acrobats over in Brookline, MA:

"Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
Published May 1, 2009.   From ATK Books.

Makes 16 [ed. note: big-a**] cookies.

Avoid using a nonstick skillet to brown the butter; the dark color of the nonstick coating makes it difficult to gauge when the butter is browned. Use fresh, moist brown sugar instead of hardened brown sugar, which will make the cookies dry. This recipe works with light brown sugar, but the cookies will be less full-flavored. For our winning brand of chocolate chips, see related tasting.

Ingredients

1 3/4	cups unbleached all-purpose flour (8 3/4 ounces)
1/2	teaspoon baking soda
14	tablespoons unsalted butter (1 3/4 sticks)
1/2	cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
3/4	cups packed dark brown sugar (5 1/4 ounces) (see note)
1	teaspoon table salt
2	teaspoons vanilla extract
1	large egg
1	large egg yolk
1 1/4	cups semisweet chocolate chips or chunks (see note)
3/4	cup chopped pecan or walnuts, toasted (optional)

Instructions

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 large (18- by 12-inch) baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.
   
2. Heat 10 tablespoons butter in 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat until melted, about 2 minutes. Continue cooking, swirling pan constantly until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, 1 to 3 minutes. Remove skillet from heat and, using heatproof spatula, transfer browned butter to large heatproof bowl. Stir remaining 4 tablespoons butter into hot butter until completely melted.
   
3. Add both sugars, salt, and vanilla to bowl with butter and whisk until fully incorporated. Add egg and yolk and whisk until mixture is smooth with no sugar lumps remaining, about 30 seconds. Let mixture stand 3 minutes, then whisk for 30 seconds. Repeat process of resting and whisking 2 more times until mixture is thick, smooth, and shiny. Using rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in flour mixture until just combined, about 1 minute. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (if using), giving dough final stir to ensure no flour pockets remain.
   
4. Divide dough into 16 portions, each about 3 tablespoons (or use #24 cookie scoop). Arrange 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets, 8 dough balls per sheet. (Smaller baking sheets can be used, but will require 3 batches.)
   
5. Bake cookies 1 tray at a time until cookies are golden brown and still puffy, and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft, 10 to 14 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking. Transfer baking sheet to wire rack; cool cookies completely before serving."

And a helpful tip, which I also followed:
"Don't Bake in Batches
Baking two trays at a time may be convenient, but it leads to uneven cooking. The cookies on the top tray are often browner around the edges than those on the bottom, even when rotated halfway through cooking."

Slow Rice Cookin'

After visiting Uncle Scotty in Harrisville for New Year's Eve, I have been fantasizing about his high-tech Zojirushi rice cooker. He makes a lightly spiced mixture of brown and white rice, and can leave it to warm in the rice cooker for several days. It's tasty, and so convenient!

Given my current ayurvedic diet, rice—especially brown rice—has become a staple. Brown rice takes forever to cook, however, and I'm pretty sure that resorting to Trader Joe's precooked frozen brown rice is thumbing my nose to a host of ayurvedic principles.

Until I have a spare $439 (that's how much this one costs),

I must resort to other means of preparing brown rice with as little hands-on time as possible.

I've therefore been researching methods of preparing rice in a slow cooker. Slim pickin's out there on the interwebs, but I think  it's possible. This page of recipes had the note "Rice is tricky in the crockpot and brown or converted white rice works better than regular white rice." I read that one or two other places: that white rice in a slow cooker can get too mushy. I've also been reading that it's good to add butter (probably ghee, in my case) to the rice and water, or to grease the crockpot with butter/ghee before cooking, to prevent the rice from sticking. And look at this slow-cooker blog I found while researching!

An about.com page had this recipe, calling for converted rice, and a Google Books search rendered some info. from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Slow Cooker Cooking.

I am not convinced there it one easy/common/accepted way to do this, so more research and some experimentation are in order.

Suggestions welcome!

Post-Holiday Stupor

Nothing too creative going on here at the moment! There are some holiday crafts I gave and received that I'd like to write about (I gave pajamas to my sister and pajama pants to my brother-in-law, and received a delightful holiday-themed catch-all bag, and an oak spool rack for my thread), but I have yet to photograph and/or download photos of them.

So I'll leave you with this, a dress I think it'd be nifty to sew. I found it on the BurdaStyle projects website, via the BurdaStyle Best of 2009 images (which I found a link to on Angry Chicken today).

Burda Wool Dress 119B