Wild Beasts

I recently took on a project that I've been meaning to do for a while and I've been putting off and putting off, mostly because it's kind of high maintenance and I'm kind of a low maintenance type of girl. The project was to grow a wild yeast culture using the organic grapes that grow in our P-patch. 

This year the grapes were ripe right before we were due to go out of town for a week, so I picked them and then froze them, hoping that it would still work but setting my expectations fairly low in case it didn't. I figured with that handicap and the fact that our house is almost as cold as it is outside, I wasn't sure any yeast could survive, let alone thrive.

The starter in it's early home, by the oven.

I'm using the method from Nancy Silverton's Breads from La Brea Bakery. I was given a copy of this book as a wedding gift (I think?) and haven't had a chance to use it at all since every recipe in the book calls for a starter of some sort that I just didn't have the time to set up until now. The recipes in the book are fairly technical, so it's not the best book for beginning bakers, but since I've baked a bit before I feel comfortable with the way she talks about the bread. I take it all with a gain of salt because she's way way more into bread baking than me, but even us amateurs like a good loaf now and then. She does a very good job explaining all the steps and giving tips for how to do each part of the bread making process. 

So I went ahead with all the steps. It wasn't too complicated, just sort of messy and delicate, also requiring a heaping helping of patience. The process takes about 2 weeks, from the day you crush your grapes to the day you bake you first loaf.

The first 9 days were simple. You make a mixture of flour and water, crush the grapes and add them, all secured in a clean airtight container. You check it every day, but you don't have to do anything else very often. 


After those first 9 days is when it gets a little more time consuming. You have to feed the mixture 3 times a day--breakfast, lunch and dinner--with a rigid schedule of how long the bread can go without being fed. And you have to dump out a ton of mixture and start over with just a little over a pound every morning. This was the part I had the hardest time with. It's not in my nature to throw away pounds and pounds of perfectly good flour. One, we're pretty frugal around here, and two, I'm a pastry chef. Food waste is a huge sin in professional kitchens. 


So I set out on a mission to use up as much of that dang starter as I could. I also tried to give a lot of it away, by offering starter batches to friends and people in our farm co-op. I think I ended up giving away 4 batches, and using the starter in an equal number of unexpected projects in the kitchen. 

I made lots of cracker dough to freeze for entertaining over the holidays, with cayenne and olive oil. I used some to make sourdough waffles with apple cider. Eating those was like a little preview of heaven for foodies. And I made crumpets. Dozens of crumpets, two days in a row. Some of which we ate and the rest of which maxed out what was left of our freezer space. 

I can't share the recipe for any of these things, since I made them all up on the fly. I guess my baking and cooking knowhow came in handy here, because I was able to just add enough of ingredients X, Y, and Z to make stuff work. 


What I can share is a very simple recipe for a salad. On Friday after making crumpets for what seemed like hours, we used them as our "challah" for a Shabbat dinner with our friend Aviva. Dinner ended up being sort of rushed, as she needed to be at the airport at 6:30, but it was still good to see a friend and share a meal, and to be able to enjoy some of the fruits of my hard work in the days leading up our meal. 





















The salad had endive, warm roasted beets and goat cheese and a dijon vinaigrette. That's it, the entire recipe. Really. I think it would be equally good with some butter lettuce or blue cheese. And I suppose you could really use any vinaigrette that you like. Whatever you have lying around really. The secret is that the beets should still be warm, so the cheese and the dressing really meld all together. That's what made it so fantastic.


I did finally get around to actually baking some real bread on Saturday--a rustic white bread, which I shaped into rolls for dipping in the minestrone I made that night. (More crust is totally better, right?) The bread was great. It rose slowly but had great oven spring, so I know my yeast is happy and healthy. Onto real challah this Friday!

Easy Dijon Vinaigrette
makes about 1 cup


1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup champagne vinegar
1 Tbsp or so sugar, honey or my favorite, pomegranate molasses
1 Tbsp good dijon mustard
1-2 cloves crushed garlic
salt and pepper to taste


Shake all the ingredients in a jar, adding more mustard if necessary to achieve a very smooth, emulsified texture. Taste for acidity and add more sweet if you like. I tend to like my pretty acidic and low on the oil. Keeps in the fridge for 2 weeks.

The Goodies

Recently I decided that my plate wasn't quite full enough and that I should take up a new hobby. One that people get obsessive over and do for ever and ever and love.


Knitting.

Yeah, I know. It's kinda cliche and all that, but honestly, I have this little cutie who totally deserves to have all kinds of awesome things knitted for her, but not too many people to knit them but me. Things like this. Or this totally awesome berry pie hat, which by coincidence was just gifted to Lilli the same day as knitting club, a late birthday present from our friend Meghan.

The knitting club I joined is pretty low pressure if you can ignore the fact that we usually refer to it as a cult. It's with people I was already well acquainted with, so I knew I would fit right in and be comfortable getting help. So far I've been to just 2 meetings, but there's only been 3 since this group even started, so I'm off to a good start with the socializing part. The knitting part is going to take some time. At this Wednesday's circle I discovered that I was actually knitting totally wrong but somehow came out with the right result. What can I say? I've got skills.


Last week there was some delicious white chocolate covered popcorn with cranberries that I ate way too much of. Especially considering that I was eating caramel corn every day. And the fact that it was covered in sticky melty white chocolate. Not exactly the best thing to have coating your fingers when you are trying to use them to hold onto yarn and knitting needles, but that did not stop me from eating too much anyway. There was also some ginger cookies made by the friend who started the group, and they too were addicting.


It's a good thing I finally started that sit-up challenge this week, because I have been eating too much.

Anyhow, for this weeks meeting I decided that I should make a treat, since that's what I do best. To get into the spirit of the season (most everybody else's season, that is) I made delicious brownies. With, you guessed it, candy canes. 

Normally my go to brownie recipe is the one from the cookbook put together by the founders of Chocolate Bar in New York, but I wanted to make a double batch and that would have required more eggs than I was willing to spare (eggs are in short supply around here lately, as most of the chickens are molting so they aren't laying much).

I did a little searching and ended up basing them off of a recipe from the book Bittersweet instead. They are pretty much the perfect brownie, even without the addition of candy canes. If you like your brownies fudgy but not too moist or sticky, these ones are right on target, with an ever so slightly crackly crust and the right amount of chew.

I made them with Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa which I purchased out of curiosity. It's responsible for the deep rich black color of the brownies, which I absolutely love. Somehow it just makes them taste better knowing that they look like a galaxy of candy cane stars.

In the end, I had to pull apart my scarf about 3 times over the course of the evening. One time for each brownie I ate. Oh well, at least I'm good at baking.

Peppermint Galaxy Brownies
adapted from the book Bittersweet by Alice Medrich
makes 16 roughly 2"square brownies, easily doubles


10 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup sugar (original recipe calls for 1 1/4 cups)
3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, any type is fine but I used this
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup crushed peppermint candy canes, plus extra for the top


Preheat oven to 325ºF, with a rack in the lower third of the oven. Line an 8" square baking pan with parchment paper, letting it overhang on 2 opposite edges.


In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter without browning. Remove from the heat and add the sugar and salt and stir until well combined. Add the cocoa powder and vanilla and combine till it forms a thick paste. Add the eggs one at a time, and beat with a wooden spoon or a spatula after each addition. Add the flour and stir until you don't see any streaks of flour, then beat for an additional 40 strokes. About 20 strokes in add the crushed candy canes, and finish combining. 


Spread batter in pan. Sprinkle on some more candy canes, as many as you like. Don't go too heavy--you want there to be a balance of chocolate and peppermint. Bake about 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with some batter stuck to it, but not totally glopped on. 


Cool completely on a wire rack. Use the edges of the parchment paper to remove from the pan. Cut with a sharp knife, wiping clean on a damp rag before eat cut.

Cookie Day

For Thanksgiving, most everyone has traditions related to food. Usually they are related to the Thanksgiving meal itself.  For me it's to go over the top and make some fancy dessert. For Joe it's the unfulfilled desire for marshmallows on the candied yams (because I refuse to make it that way). But for my friend Jacey the best part of the holiday is the day after. In her family they have been baking cookies that day, all day, for...I dont even know how long, but it's a long time.

Jacey and I used to be housemates, and cookie day was something that was looked forward to pretty much as soon as the weather got cold and talk turned towards the holidays. The cookies probably never lasted more than a week. Tops. More like only a couple of days.

The best were the peanut butter buckeyes. Those things are awesome.

Anyway, this year I got invited to cookie day. So, I headed down to Jacey's parents' house in Olympia for the afternoon last Friday to hang out, eat cookies and let Lilli work her magic on a grandpa just out of the hospital.  On the way I had a road buddy, Copper, who was also our housemate back in the day. We were pretty excited to see the magic in action.

Once we got there it was immediately clear that I would not be baking any cookies, but instead that I would be following Lilli around while she dismantled all their Christmas decorations. It worked out OK though, since I was totally unprepared and didn't actually bring any cookie recipes to make. I had been thinking of chocolate crinkles, but I'll have to save that recipe for another day.

Copper however, was very well prepared. After a recent trip to Germany, she had been inspired to get traditional wooden cookie presses. She made a dough and kneaded it for a while, then painstakingly pressed each cookie, dusting the press each time. She manually cut around each one, placing them on baking sheets to dry for a bit before baking. In the end I had to leave her there to get a ride back with another friend who was coming back to Seattle a little later than I. The cookies took longer than expected to bake and I had to leave kind of early to attend another Thanksgiving dinner. 

Even though I left early I did not return empty handed. The rest of the ladies had been busy since 8 o'clock that morning and there was lots of things to sample and bring home. I ended up the proud owner of a box piled high with goodies and a whole batch of peanut brittle. (If you ever find yourself with a whole batch of peanut brittle and some vanilla ice cream, please mix them together. You can thank me later.)

Just before leaving, I did finally help by make royal icing and even managed to decorate a couple of sugar cookies, but then had to go back to toddler corralling. 

Today, Tuesday, we have only a few cookies left of what I brought home, and about 1/2 of the peanut brittle. Lilli is partial to the peanut butter blossoms and the ginger cookies, but my favorite are the cardamom crescents, which come from a recipe in a magazine that Jacey's mom had saved. 

We might have drunk a little champagne, discreet tumbler style.

I'm a sucker for cardamom, and they were at once buttery and light. I didn't see how many the recipe made, so you'll just have to make them for yourself and find out!

Cardamom Crescents

2 ½ cups flour

¾ tsp ground cardamom

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp kosher salt

1 ½ cups powdered sugar, divided

1 cup pecans

1 cup unsalted butter, room temp

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350ºF. 

Whisk 1^st four ingredients in a medium size bowl and set aside.  In a food processor, pulse the pecans and 1/2 cup of the powdered sugar just until a coarse meal forms, and set aside.

Cream the butter with the vanilla. Add nut mixture, blending until just combined.  Add dry ingredients, blend well (dough will be moist but still crumbly).  Transfer to a work surface and knead until the mixture forms a ball, about 4-5 turns.

Measure 1 rounded tbsp of dough, and form into a ball. Roll into a log about 1½” long.  Gently bend into a crescent shape, pinching ends to taper (cookies may crack slightly).  Repeat with remaining dough, spacing about 1 inch apart on cookie sheets.

While baking, be sure to rotate sheets halfway through. Bake until bottoms are golden, 12 – 15 minutes.

Sift remaining 1 cup powdered sugar into a shallow wide bowl.  Working in batches of about 8 cookies each, roll warm cookies gently in powdered sugar to coat and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Having Given Thanks

I have vivid memories of being at the kids' table when I was a little girl. This would have been at my Grandma Vernice's house for holiday dinners, probably Christmas because we mostly spent Thanksgiving with my mom's family. But still, a holiday dinner nonetheless. 

I remember feeling very grown-up getting to sit in a totally different room from the real grown-ups. We even got out own butter plate. How cool is that? There were probably times when I wished I could be part of the larger group, but thinking back, those feelings are overwhelmed by how special it felt to sit with just my older cousins in charge. 

Our Thanksgiving Day hummingbird visitor.

But now, I can't even remember the last time I was at a family event that had a kids' table. That thought prompted me to set places for the boys this year that were a little apart from the grown-ups, but not too far. I hope they liked it. Even if Nanna sat with them. 

This year was my last small Thanksgiving for a while. While it was nice to have complete control over the food, I've decided it is time to go back to going big. I used to have family thanksgivings that were probably at least 15-18 people, and I kind of miss that. The last couple of years we've had just 5-8. That's a pretty big difference. I guess I'm just cut out from a bolder cloth than that.

As you can imagine, having fed only 8 people this year, 3 of them under 10, we had a lot of food left. So this week I have been using it up and spreading it all out. I wanted to pass on my favorites, just in case you still need some ideas for creative ways to use up those leftovers. 

• Fried dressing cakes. Just press out some thin patties of leftover dressing/stuffing and fry it up on the griddle or in your favorite skillet.
• Rose's amazing leftover pizza, which I didn't get to try but did sound pretty swell.
• Creamed corn with pumpkin puree added to it. Seriously. Just make creamed corn but add pumpkin puree. 
• Turkey Pot Pie. I made one of these and put it in the freezer. Instead of cream of whatever soup, use gravy and pumpkin puree, and replace the traditional crust with leftover mashed potatoes. Thaw overnight before baking.
• Turkey Enchiladas en Mole. I used store bought mole sauce, and in our house we omit the cheese and use fake sour cream. Just put some avocados on there and you will never ever know.
• Turkey Shawarma. This one is tomorrow night's dinner. Joe just about fell over when I suggested this as a meal. I think he would move to Israel just to eat shawarma everyday. No joke. It might be how he convinces me.
• The obligatory turkey stock, to be used later to make soup or risotto or whatever I can dream up.

To aid in the making of shawarma, pot pie, etc. I shredded all the meat that was leftover as I made the stock. That way I was able to get all the bones and bits into the stockpot, and have all the leftover meat ready to go for making dinners this week. 

I hope your Thanksgiving was something special, no matter how many people were there or what you ate. And now on to the end of the year!

Filming their "Thanksgiving Special"

One for every year

Our family wrote lists of the things we are grateful for, one for every year you have been on the planet. Here's my list. It's not complete, but at the same time it's really hard to write a list like this without adding a whole bunch of little silly things.

I hope you all have lots of things to be grateful for, because the world sure is full of beauty.

1. Joe, who’s my best friend and whom I love more than I ever thought was possible.

2. Lilli, who has inspired me to be the best I can be, for her.
3. The rest of my family, for being quirky and keeping me on my toes.
4. My and my family’s continued health. 

5. The full use of my body, especially my hands and eyes.

6. My sense of taste, so I can make others happy.
7. Our home.
8. Having enough and then some.
9. My chosen family--they are some of the best friends around.
10. Scourge, who loves me unconditionally and brings us presents.

11. The chickens. Especially Effie, who was such a hero even though we didn’t know it.

12. To live in Seattle, where we have access to fresh and clean anything we need.
13. The ability to travel freely.

14. People who are willing to enact change.
15. To be left unpersecuted for choosing Judaism.
16. Small farms, food artisans, and food advocates.

17. Neighbors who mind their own business.
18. Hummingbird visitors.
19. Accurate histories of important world events.
20. The internet.
21. My sense of humour.
22. Other people’s recipes.
23. Art and music to make our lives more brilliant, and to help us think outside the box.
24. Free speech.
25. The ability to learn from my mistakes.

26. The natural world.
27. Science.
28. Changing seasons.
29. People who are more patient than I am.

Not Your Grandma's Caramel Corn

I am unabashedly in love with popcorn. It's pretty much a perfect food. It's sorta plain on its own so it can be flavored like anything. It's always crunchy. It's easy to make. It's easy to make totally fattening with loads of butter, or it's easy to make very healthy with just a little olive oil.


I also am pretty sure that gingersnaps are another perfect food. They're spicy and sweet, chewy and crispy. They're all pretty and crackly, and the flavor is very complex. They're probably my favorite cookie.


So what happens if you get a totally genius idea. To set gingersnaps and popcorn up on a blind date?

Well, if you add a bottle of champagne, like I did, then they have a love child that is pretty much the most perfectest food in existence. At least, this week.


And then if you have leftover popcorn from making that not-too-big-there's-no-such-thing batch of caramel corn, you make something that is even better. Because you have the ingredients, and a buddy who is willing to get a little crazy with them. You know, the buddy whose idea it was to add rosemary and maple syrup to her caramel corn, because she's also a genius.

It will also be spicy and sweet, and sorta floral too. That's the cardamom talking. But when you taste the chipotle, then you know you have a winner. The chipotle is like a ninja.

You can put in all in bags if you want, but chances are it won't last long enough to get stale. Consider that your warning.

If you have a stash of popcorn kernels and some brown sugar and butter, you too can make a delicious snack that will make your house smell good until the next day. 


Variations on Caramel Corn
makes about 8 quarts

Old Fashioned:


8 or so quarts air or oil popped popcorn, plain
2 cups light brown sugar
1 cup butter
1/2 cup corn syrup
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla


Preheat oven to 250ºF. Bring the sugar, butter, corn syrup and salt to a boil while stirring. Once it's really going, let it boil undisturbed for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add the baking soda and vanilla. Stir well (careful, it might foam up) and pour over popcorn. Coat completely and spread over sheet pans. Bake for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Let cool, break up any big chunks, and devour store in an airtight container.


Gingersnap Caramel Corn:


Replace the corn syrup with blackstrap molasses.
Replace light brown sugar with dark brown.
With the baking soda, add the following:
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
Omit vanilla.
For extra ginger kick, add a cup of finely diced candied ginger to the caramel just before pouring over the popcorn.


Cardamom Chipotle Caramel Corn:


Follow the recipe for Old Fashioned, but add 1 (heaping) tsp cardamom and 3/4 tsp chipotle when you add the baking soda.


Rosemary Maple Caramel Corn:


Replace the corn syrup with grade B maple syrup.
When combining the popcorn and caramel, add about 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh rosemary as you stir, or more to taste.
Omit vanilla.