Goodies for the Feast of St Nicholas

Chocolate Stout Cake made up as mini-cupcakes. I finally made the recipe that I found on the King Arthur Flour website last spring. The Guiness stands out in the raw batter. (I always have to taste the dough or batter--before the eggs are added.) After baking the stout disappears and simply acts as a subtle underscore or amplifier for the chocolate. A very moist cupcake. Yummy. three dozen minis and nine full sized cupcakes. I will definitely make this again. This recipe and the beer batter bread make it more than worthwhile to give Guiness "housespace" as my great-grandmother used to say. (Drinking it is good too, but I can't really do that because of the neurological problems that I already have.)



Above, a Christmas tray full of cappachino flats awaits visitors for St. Nicholas Day. This is a fairly standard recipe for these delicious cookies, but I have ramped up the chocolate by adding about 1 T of dark Ghiradelli unsweetened cocoa powder. Very, very good and they don't need the extra dipping in chocolate, although that would make them look prettier.

It was a lot of work, but I had fun. I hope that it will entice folks to come to my little Open House--something that the big box stores definitely won't be offering. But then I can't compete with them in so many, many other ways.

We are having some very cold weather, unseasonably so for so early in the year and I am worrying about how the plants will fair and my heating bill. The gas and electric are the one thing that we don't know the cost of until after we have used them and I have wondered for years what it would take to change this system.

I am grateful tonight that I have a warm house and a warm electric blanket. Grateful for the goodies, which I have enjoyed making and will enjoy sharing.

Blogs I Have Found Recently

While searching cyberspace for the perfect lemon cupcake recipe, I found a number of interesting blogs and recipes. The most interesting--I was looking for a blueberry frosting recipe that I had found when I first began the cupcake search--is this one
http://shazaminthekitchen.blogspot.com/2008/05/lavender-cocoa-cupcakes-with-blueberry.html .

This is definitely on my list of must try recipes. (I will probably use either Dagoba or Ghirardelli cocoa because that is what I have on hand.) I will order my food grade lavender flowers (along with tomato powder, chocolate extract and at least two kinds of pepper, white and black, from the Spice House in Chicago. The Spice House has wonderful, wonderful spices and recipes on their site).

After my friend shared her lemon recipe find, I went looking for a beer bread recipe. This was inspired by a mystery novel that had a recipe at the end for a beer bread with three ingredients--beer, self-rising flour and sugar. I didn't want to add self-rising flour to my flour collection. (Whole wheat, white whole wheat, all-purpose, corn, spelt, buckwheat and probably some other flour take up space in my refrigerator. There is a box of cake flour on the pantry shelf too, but it's been there for so long that I can only guess at what it was used for. (I think it was either the lemon Madelaines or the Julia Child chocolate ginger cake that my sister made when she visited. Two different visits.)

King Arthur Flour gives the formula for converting self-rising flour to regular ingredients and they also have an absolutely spectacular looking recipe for a Chocolate Stout Cake--which I have had on my list for some time, actually. (I think since St. Patrick's Day.)
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/chocolate-stout-cake-recipe I think they blog about this too.

Finally, searching for the beer bread led me to this wonderful blog and wonderful sounding very simple recipe that I will definitely make soon. (Unless we get a Truly Horrible Heatwave, and then it will be postponed to later.)

http://foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/2005/11/beer-bread-update-whole-wheat-version.html

Then a friend who is on Facebook with me pointed to a tea group that she had joined and followed to a link to this blog post on making homemade tea bags. (Kind of fits with the cupcakes, I think.)
http://lillyella.blogspot.com/2009/05/crafting-tea-bag-gifts-and-favors.html

I hope that all of the links work. Wish you could come join me as I experiment with these goodies. I am grateful for the friends who share what they are finding and for the blogs. I can hardly wait to try more of these goodies.

Happy Sunday. (And to those who get this twice, I heartily apologize. If I could just learn to proofread in preview instead of hitting post and then looking at it. Well, I always did cook and bake better than I type!)

Vacation Reading

I've spent the week on something of a reading vacation, polishing off two China Bayles mysteries back to back. Not good for blogging--or other work. Fortunately, I had no pressing deadlines this week so I could do this. Wednesday I spent the entire day away from the computer and found myself completely engrossed in the second book. I haven't done this in years and it was difficult to get back on track the next day, as difficult as though I had been away on a trip for reading a good work of fiction is a kind of trip to another place.

This book includes a recipe for a cookie that I am going to try soon--a sugar cookie with the addition of Habanero powder. So that was the next part of the vacation reading--searching online for Habanero powder. Ah, ha, found it! The Spice House in Chicago has it along with a number of interesting things.

Then I topped off the week by adding Chipotle powder, which I already have from Mountain Rose Herbs, to my chocolate. One tablespoon of Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa, about one tablespoon of sugar, and a smidgin of Chipotle powder, probably 1/8 teaspoon with enough water to make a frosting like consistency. Very good, very soothing, got the endorphins going and I felt much better than I have in some time. Next I will try the cookies. (Maybe lavender and Chipotle powder, or would the flavors simply fight it out? Lavender is not a hot spice--er, herb--but it is a very pronounced flavor.)

I am also wondering what the addition of chile powder would do to my favorite cappuccino flats. Chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg and espresso powder are there already. Last year I made a batch with Chinese Five Spice and a hint of orange zest. Very good, but I have misplaced the recipe.

I remember reading one of Robert Farrar Capon's books in which he says that cooking is an intellectual endeavor. That rang a bell. Cookbooks are another kind of favorite read, but that is another post. (Maybe I should add a few to my books list!)

I am grateful for the time off, for the fun of reading a good mystery and for the friend who brought the books to me from the library.

Success!

With St Patrick's Day just two weeks away, I have been adding new products to my Cafepress store. (Click on the cafepress link in the links list to the right and there are sections for "St Patrick's Day" and "Everything Irish" to see the array of products.)

The slideshow that wouldn't load the other day, loaded beautifully just now and I am especially pleased to see the steins showing up. They look like they are pretty and I am tempted to buy one to use as a flower vase--I no longer drink beer, or much of anything alcoholic for that matter, since the neurological disorder of post-polio syndrome is enough to cope with.

So far the design that is selling best is Feliz dia de San Patricio!

Another success that has pleased me very much is that my friend C, she who is a professional organizer, found my small metal bowl that had lost itself in the kitchen cupboard. I don't know how it put itself there (and I was quite put out with it for hiding) but it is good to find it again.

I am thinking about two recipes from King Arthur Flour, one of my all time favorite businesses. One is for Chocolate Stout Cake. The other is for a carrot cake that needs a sour dough starter. Oh the calories! Oh the temptation! What to do with the leftover Guinness, which Safeway online does carry? Maybe these will stay in the day-dreaming stage--it is Lent after all--and I will settle with satisfaction for pumpkin muffins.

It is so easy to come up with more projects than I can possibly do in a day or week, or what is left of my life, for that matter, that sometimes I wish I could just wiggle my nose and see the projects materialize.

After a goodly amount of rain, the sun is trying to poke through. More rain, more rain, we need and want more rain.

I am grateful for the rain. (I would be even happier if I could remember to use the preview feature and catch my more egregious typos before I publish them. I never did much like typing.)

Rainy Day Projects

Rain has changed from plinking on the roof and the kitchen stove fan to actual, steady pouring. Water has pooled in the depressions in my patio concrete forming puddles and we are receiving a rainfall that will finally be measurable. Hurrah. It is a good time to be indoors and to do indoor projects.

Friday I made chocolate cupcakes for Valentine's Day using my oldest, old time favorite chocolate cake recipe, Hershey's Chocolatetown Special Cake. It makes two layers or twenty-four cupcakes. The recipe used to be printed on the side of the cocoa container, but isn't there now. It can be found on the web though and when I googled I found a number of links.

Only when I went to put the cupcake liners into the tins did I discover that I had no paper liners. Since I can't just run out to the store, I had to be creative. I had a can of non-stick spray a friend had passed on to me so liberally sprayed the tins and put in the batter. The cupcakes are good, released well from the pans, but I think the flavor is negatively impacted by the vegetable spray and the spray left an oily film where it hit the pans in between the muffin cups. Here is a picture of cupcakes before frosting.



Today I finally frosted the cupcakes which I had not already eaten as shown in the photo.



Here is one cupcake looking almost photogenic.



Wish I could share them with everyone. I have a long way to go as a food photographer, but I think that this is one time in my life that I will not buy a book to teach me how to do it better! Too many books already, way too little time.

Today the mystery of the last Amaryllis finally revealed itself. It is definitely red. Definitely gorgeous too and difficult to photograph because it is above my head!



I would love to know why blogger always puts the photo above the text and not below it. Below seems so much more logical to me, since we write text from the top down.

I am grateful for the rain, which is truly a benediction in our lives today and for the cupcakes and the flowers, including the daffodils which are looking chilled and lonely outside today.

Cold and Thursday

It feels cold enough to snow and snow is actually being predicted as part of the new storm brewing our way. We should see measurable precipitation this weekend and I am rejoicing, even if I am also shivering.

I took this picture of the last amaryllis this afternoon



I can hardly wait to see it open because it is so much redder than the others have been. I hope that it doesn't simply fall over, because it seems taller and more top heavy than any of its earlier counterparts. It doesn't seem to like being cold any more than I do!

With Valentine's Day only two days away, I want to bake chocolate cupcakes. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. It is a lot of work and time, the kitchen is cold and then there will be a lot of cupcakes--I think the recipe makes two dozen. It may be easier to daydream about them and find something else to do to celebrate Valentine's Day.

Last night I heard rain on the roof and decided to go to bed early to read figuring that the rain would be so soothing. By the time I had settled down to reading the rain had stopped. More to look forward to.

I am grateful tonight that there will be more rain, that I have heat and electricity and that the bills are paid for this month. Praise God.

Mother's Day, 2008

Today I miss my mother even though she has been gone for twenty-five years. It is a day for remembering and giving thanks for mothers. And for grandmothers. I think of my great-grandmothers too.

For the last few days, gratefulness.org, one of my favorite web-sites, has been featuring a link to the proclamation of 1870 by Julia Ward Howe for a Mother's Peace Day. This is the beginning of Mother's Day. I like this concept of a Mother's peace day even more than our current, rather commercial one. She urged women to come together for a gathering to "take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace."

The link to her entire proclamation can be found here

http://www.chiff.com/a/mothers-day-origins.htm

Julia Ward Howe also wrote the lyrics to the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Let's think of having a Mother's Peace Day. Peace activities could include planting flowers, sending money to CARE, making sure that everyone has health care that includes dental and eye care (as our current Medicare does not); making sure that seniors are not consigned to lives of poverty.

Tomorrow is nurse's day. It is fitting for me to remember my Mama on that day too for she was a nurse. Her beautiful graduation picture taken of her in her starched white uniform and cap, hands folded in her lap sits on the buffet across the room from where I sit typing on my laptop. She was a care-taker and care-giver par excellence and I remember her competence and service to others, as well as her love and laughter.

She would enjoy the flowers that I have been reveling in these last few days and the chocolate cookies I baked this morning.

Requiescat in Pace, Helen Rose, and Agnes Elizabeth, Mary, Rose, Marguerite Ann, Margaret Ann and Rose. Mama and my grandmothers and great-grandmothers who rest from their labor now. I hope you are all, starting with Mama, rejoicing in heaven and that flowers bloom all the time there. I am grateful for you all, for the memories of your lives, good cooks all, devout women and mothers without whom I would not be here enjoying modern technology--and flowers and chocolate cookies.

Homemade Luxuries

I was sixty before I discovered the immense pleasure of using a hand-knitted washcloth to wash my face. Now I don't want to use any other! I am spoiled.

Knitting washcloths is easy, rhythmic and mindless knitting--until the middle row when one has to remember to "reverse engineer" the thing and start making decrease rows. After that it goes back to being automatic. I can see why women made washcloths in bygone days--they weren't swamped with mail order catalogs advertising sales, couldn't drive to the outlet mall and needed something to do with their hands that would soothe their minds.

Washcloths are the epitome of "mindless knitting" and would occupy time while waiting. Women have always waited, for children, for husbands, for sailors to come home from the sea, for wars to end, and just for pots to boil.

Now I knit to wait for the news to get to the weather so I can turn it off and go to bed. I knit because it's there to pick up and soothe. I knit to experiment with different yarns and eventually I plan to design and knit a sweater to keep me warm.

Hand-knitted items are homemade luxuries. So much nicer than store-bought. So much more personal than mass-produced. I wear hats all winter and I hope to venture into socks eventually--but I think I really do need a teacher for that.

Chocolate fudge is another home-made luxury. That is another post! I am grateful to make something mundane into something extraordinary and to make it for myself.

Remembering Mama

Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of my mother, Helen Rose. A petite woman, she had more than sufficient energy and fire to make up for her small stature. I remember that she was pretty, had a ready smile and a lilting laugh. Her complexion was perfect, "peaches and cream" or rosy like her nickname. Her eyes were large and brown and both her daughters inherited them.

Her hands were always busy and once when I was small I commented that her hands were beautiful--I had been watching her ply a needle deftly and quickly into blue fabric she was transforming into doll clothes for one of my dolls. She looked down at her hands and was startled. "These hands?", she said. "These are dish pan hands." But she never failed to keep her nails neat and I also remember sitting at her vanity watching her put on lipstick and wanting to be old enough to do the same.

My mother graduated from a Catholic girls school, in fact the same school that decades later her granddaughter, would graduate from, Notre Dame in Toledo, Ohio. The depression came soon after; Mama put aside her dream to be a music teacher and instead of going to a four year college went to nursing school at St. Vincent's School of Nursing. It was a boarding in school, so even though she lived within walking distance of home, she "boarded in". She told wonderful stories of how strict the nuns were (the nun who taught dietetics threw things if the students got the material wrong), mutton cooking in the cafeteria and smelling so bad that she never again ate either mutton or lamb, and of hiding with other girls in the walk in closet, a blanket carefully stuffed along the bottom of the door so that no lights from their flashlights would show as they devoured a goodie basket someone had received from home, or studied after lights out for exams.

Her graduation picture in her starched uniform is on the buffet in the dining room and I can look over as I write this. The formal uniform with its cap speaks of her accomplishment and professionalism that I totally took for granted growing up. Mama described herself as "just a housewife", in today's terms a "stay at home Mom". How blessed we were!

She taught us to cook and bake, to sew, to sing, to pray, to laugh, to believe, to serve others, to hope and to love. She made the best birthday cakes--mine were usually chocolate with chocolate frosting and I still have her recipes. I remember that when a bad thunderstorm threatened she would unplug the tv (after we got one in 1952) and put the kitchen stool in the middle of the living room floor with her little statue of St. Anne de Beaupre and kneel and say the rosary that the storm would pass.

In fact, so far as I know, the only real vacation trip she ever took before she married was to the shrine of St. Anne in Canada. The statue was her souvenir and she bequeathed it to me.

Her piano still sits in my living room, virtually unplayed now for twenty-five years. It will find a new home soon,again and a voice with someone who will play it.

I miss her today and remember her with love, gratitude and joy.

St. Valentine's Day

Red hearts, pink hearts and flowers. I love red and pink and flowers so that may be part of the reason that this holiday seems so much like fun for me. Of course, the association of chocolate with the day is good too, although since it is Lent I resisted the temptation to make chocolate cookies and told myself I should keep on writing! Last year I made a Squidoo lens with information and links about St. Valentine, so here is the link

http://www.squidoo.com/saintvalentine

A favorite cookie recipe is linked there.

Of course, See's chocolates are always good. (The best actually.)

E-valentine's are also great fun now. They are more ephemeral than cards, but that is good. Throwing out pretty cards is so hard that I tend to accumulate them in shoeboxes and after twenty or thirty years of doing that the shelves that aren't full of books are full of boxes.

Twenty years ago I made a beautiful Valentine that was part calligraphy and water color and part sachet. The paper was sewn to another sheet of paper to make a pocket, filled with lavender and then sewn across the top. I still have a few of these and they are still pretty and still smell faintly of lavender. It is good to see that something that I made endures.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone, especially my sister, my niece, my friend in Indiana and everyone who may find this post.

Tuesday's Glory

Today I got outside for the first time since well before Christmas to look at and photograph my daffodils. They are almost all blooming at once this year as though they couldn't wait any longer and had to spring up and shout! Their bright yellow, the color of sunshine itself, is so cheering and beautiful. Five had flopped over onto the ground and when my housekeeper, who is also my dear friend, came this afternoon she cut those for me so that now they cheer up the end of the kitchen counter.

So I have been indulging myself all day, first in being outside and taking pictures--not as good as the ones that M takes, but they don't all have to end up on cards and mugs--and then in reading favorite blogs.

My friends who blog in frozen Minnesota make me glad I live in California. Seraphic is fun to read and I am eagerly awaiting her book which should arrive tomorrow.

I glued more Valentines and sent out a bunch and am resisting the temptation to end the day with chocolate--maybe Thursday, on Valentine's Day.

Not much, certainly not world-shaking, but it was a good day.