AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

public relations and cookies

So, I had a good post and Typepad ate it when it decided I wasn't logged in. Grr!

So, here's a recap of what was in the post.

About 2 weeks ago, Komen Foundation defunded Planned Parenthood over what appeared to be reasons chosen to guarantee defunding. There were reasons to be unsupportive of both sides, but the vast brunt of the public opinion came down on the side of Planned Parenthood. They received thousands of dollars of funding to make up the shortfall from Komen and shortly thereafter Komen rescinded its decision.

In honor of this PR fiasco (and at my husband's suggestion) I made cookies.

(my photo color correcting is way off)

Clusterfucks and penis For the Cure cookies.

Clusterfucks are a standard nut and chocolate/candy melt candy. Mine are 1/2 each of almonds and walnuts with a handful of pecans and chopped up and toasted then mixed with a melted bag of pink candy melts and 1/2 cup of chopped pistachio nuts (red pistachio nuts, green pistachio nuts). Then you drop them in small scoops onto a parchment covered cookie sheet and chill. They're a snap and are pretty tasty. You could use any non-melting, non-wet foods as long as you have about 2 cups of fill ins.

The cookies on the other hand were more work. I went to iParty and got a penis shaped cookie cutter (bachelorette party staple apparently). The booklet that came with the cookie cutter is horrific in its punniness. It also was more racist than I was expecting. Not something I would have bought if I had known.

The cookies are a standard sugar cookie recipe made with almond extract (from Cookie Craft), so they would too be filled with nuttiness. I then made a small batch of chocolate royal icing. I decorated the cookies in 3 stages: first I piped the outside and then I thinned the icing to change it to a flood consistency and flooded them. After they were dry I then used pink candy melts to write For the Cure on the cookies. I'll admit that I was in a bit of a rush, so the piping is not the best I've ever done.

I only made about 9 cookies, but I have dough frozen to make other cookies later.

Of course, doing this made me remembering how much I enjoyed decorating cookies, though it is always more fun with it is silly like this.

Happy almost Friday!

amateur food porn (marmalade)

Last week via Twitter I read RWW's articles on food porn. Amateur food porn specifically. Smartphones with cameras have made it easy for many people to take a photo of their dinner from the food truck, the dimly lit restaurant or their own home. Most of these meals are pretty ugly on camera though they probably look delicious in person.

So, like any right thinking geek with a bit of tech and some time to kill, I sent them amateur food porn (Twitter link). It was my breakfast: slices of blood oranges with plain yogurt with lemon-kumquat ginger marmalade. It was delicious, but the photograph from the iPad was not stellar.

But the marmalade is amazing.

I looked at a number of different recipes when I decide I was going to make marmalade. In the end, I used the general formula: cups water equals cups sugar. Boil till gelled.

Meyer Lemon - Kumquat Ginger Marmalade

Ingredients
2 pounds meyer lemons
8 ounces kumquats
1-inch ginger, peeled and minced
water to cover
sugar to taste

Method
First peel the lemons. Cut the lemon peels into long thin strips and set aside. Peel as much pith as possible off of about half of the lemons and discard. For the remaining lemons, cut into thin slices and remove seeds. Add to a large non-reactive pot (I used my enamel-lined dutch oven). Cut the kumquats into small rounds. Remove seeds and add kumquats to the pot. Add the peeled and minced ginger (I could have used more ginger).

Add water to cover and then sugar to match. For me that was 6 cups each of water and sugar.

Boil over medium heat, stirring on a regular basis. Check the marmalade for gelling at 45 minutes and every 15-20 minutes afterwards. To check for gelling put a small amount of the marmalade onto a plate. If it is not runny after about a minute of cooling then it is ready.

This made about 3.5 pints of marmalade. I canned mine in my smallest pot (sadly, that made it a lot slower).

But delicious!

Yup, spread it on english muffins, add it to yogurt, put between in layer cakes. Everywhere!

homemade Japanese-style veggie burgers

So, last year I found this veggie burger recipe on angry chicken. I've been using it off and on since then, because veggie burgers are affordable, tasty and full of wholesome tasty ingredients. Mostly I've been making my own veggie burgers, because homemade veggie burgers cost less than $4.00 for ingredients to make anywhere from 12 to 20 burgers depending on size.

Ingredients:
3 strips wakame, soaked, drained and chopped
1 10-oz bag shelled edamame, thawed
1 15-oz can cannelini beans, rinsed and drained
3 scallions, chopped
1 inch ginger, peeled and chopped
1/4 cup sesame seeds (mine were hulled)
3 large carrots, peeled and cut into 3-inch pieces
2 TBSP gluten-free tamari
1/2 cup rolled oats (for GF, try Bob's Red Mill)

Preheat the oven to 400° Fahrenheit (about 205° Celcius).

Wakame is a bit expensive, but it lasts for a really long time and no recipe really uses that much. Pull out 3 strips and put in a large bowl with cold water to cover. Let sit for 5 minutes. Scoop the wakame out of the bowl, leaving the soaking water behind and then chop and set aside.

Using a food processor, shred the carrots. Set about half of them aside in a large bowl. Change blades (at least I have to on mine) and add the edamame and beans. Puree until mixed, but you can still see some texture. At this point I pulled out about half the mixture, so I could retain more texture, but that is not completely necessary.

Continue adding the remaining ingredients including wakame, pulsing to further chop and combine. Lastly add oats to the food processor and pulse. If the mixture in either the bowl or the food processor is very wet, add more oats until it clumps but is still moist. I shape into patties. These ones are slider sized, and I got 20 slider sized patties. Place on a silpat, greased cookie sheet, or parchment paper.

Bake for 10 minutes, flip the burgers (they will be a little fragile) and bake for 15 minutes more.

These were really tasty. Neither my husband nor I are afflicted by Celiac, so the slider buns are generic flat buns from the supermarket and are not gluten free. With the tamari and wakame they are definitely salty enough without just screaming salty.

Of course we ate these with some weird (but tasty) chipotle, cheddar potato bites. Not a meal that went together at all even though each piece was good to eat.

a quick dinner

Tonight's dinner was chips and dip. So healthy sounding! My husband has been getting these pumpkin seed chips from the Whole Foods near where he works. I made pumpkin ice cream last weekend and I didn't want to the remainder of the can of pumpkin to go bad. I cannot be the only one who puts partial cans in the fridge only to find later that they have been fuzzy monster cans later.

So, I made pumpkin hummus. I know the picture isn't the most attractive. It's a dip!

Ingredients:

1 cup pumpkin puree
1 15 oz can navy beans, drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons tahini
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
freshly ground pepper
dash of chipotle powder
liquid smoke
1 tablespoon of demera sugar
juice of one lemon
1/4 cup olive oil

Add all of the ingredients except for the lemon juice and olive oil in a food processor. Before adding the lemon juice and olive oil, adjust the seasoning to taste. With the processor running, slowly pour the lemon juice and olive oil into the food processor. Makes about 2.5 cups of dip.

This is not nearly as thick as normal hummus, but it is very tasty. It is both sweet and salty, and worked really well with the pumpkin seed chips.

I'm planning on having some of the leftovers with the roasted butternut squash and beets from earlier this week. Yum!

a weekend in the kitchen

Oatmeal cookies with chocolate covered pomegranate arils, what is oldest from the CSA soup, and grapenut ice cream. I raked the front yard, and played on the internet.

It has been a good weekend, especially with squeaking out a win in this week's game. Of course, Mr. Victor has taken to having dreams about mail squirrel men in his sleep, and keeps waking us up at 1:30 barking and growling in his sleep. Last night we brought him (the husband) downstairs to his other crate and bed, so we could sleep through the rest of the night.

Grapenut Ice Cream (based on Epicurious recipe)

7 egg yolks (mine were tiny yolks from CSA eggs, so you can probably get away with 4-5 yolks)
1 cup whole milk
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup Grape Nuts

In a pot add the milk the milk and sugar. Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla bean and add those and the vanilla bean to the milk and sugar. Heat over medium until the milk starts to steam.

In a separate bowl separate the eggs. Whisk the egg yolks until thick and pale (well, paler). It should only take a minute or two.

When the milk is steaming, slowly ladle some of the milk into the eggs, whisking constantly. Pour the tempered eggs into the milk mixture, continuing to stir constantly with a wooden spoon. Cook until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Add vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, place the heavy cream. Pour the egg mixture through a fine mesh strainer. Discard the vanilla bean pod and stir to mix. I usually press the egg mixture through, but not enough to force any of the "scrambled" egg through. Chill for at least two hours or until the mixture no longer feels warm to the touch.

Process in an ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions. Add the Grape Nuts in about halfway through the processing time. In my machine last night, I added the Grape Nuts at the beginning and it took about 30-40 minutes to finish processing.

yesterday was a soup kind of day

Ah serendipity (and unrelated books I loved in early childhood) was the order of the day. The latest recipe from Smitten Kitchen popped up in my reader late yesterday. It combined with a well stocked farmer's market and food from my CSA. 2.5 pounds of tomatoes later, and a baguette later I was on my way home.

Tonight's dinner: roasted tomato soup with broiled cheese

A few changes I made.

I didn't have stock, so I used a teaspoon of Better than Bouillon in 4 cups of water.

I added 3 carrots, peeled and chopped into rounds.

I cut the kernels off 3 ears of corn and added it after pureeing the soup with an immersion blender.

I used a 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme instead of fresh.

I used a ton more garlic

The soup takes a fairly long time, but most of it isn't active time. Cut some tomatoes in half, add salt pepper and oil. Add unpeeled garlic to foil and roast it all for an hour. Puree and cook for almost 30 minutes. And then French Onion soup those tasty rounds of bread and cheese.

There is enough soup for probably about 4 or 5 more servings. Some of the soup will be probably get the cheese and bread treatment, but the soup is delicious without it.

It was too hot to eat for a while, but I did anyway. Yum!

When I make this next I think I will add harissa to it. I loved the harissa and carrot salad (also from Smitten Kitchen) and making this into a harissa tomato soup. It would be awesome. Instead of cheddar I would add a tablespoon of feta to each bowl.

Now my CSA includes only some old items: cabbage, cucumbers and eggs. I love knowing that I am keeping up with the produce. We'll see how long this lasts with my rehearsal schedule.

using up a CSA

This past week was a smorgasbord of vegetables, including more corn - a potential problem when you have not used up all the ears from the previous week. So, I planned for a light dinner of salsa and chips. Maybe not the healthiest meal by far, but it was laden with vegetables!

CSA Salsa

4 ears of corn
2 medium tomatoes
1/2 bell pepper (red in this case)
1 small onion
2 hot peppers
1 cucumber
 4 cloves garlic
1 lime or 2 smaller limes

Using a gas stove or outdoor grill, sear each ear of corn until it has grill marks or the ears of corn have been lightly blackened. Take off the burner and once cooled cut the kernels off of the cobs.

Cut the remaining vegetables into a small dice and mix with the corn. Finely mince the garlic and add to the vegetables.

Cut the lime in half and squeeze the juice over the vegetables. Scrape out some of the lime flesh and mix to combine.

While this would probably be tastiest if you waited for the flavors to meld, it was still really nice to eat right away. We used the bowl style tortilla chips, so we could use more salsa and added an ounce or so of cotija cheese for our pseudo Mexican feast.

(and to those who commented yesterday, I got to work, talked to my boss for maybe five minutes and went back home to sleep.)

regretting the coming dawn

Yup. I'm up. It's raining, and I'm sitting in the living room with Saru-chan and reading the Hyperbole and a Half archive (I'm here). I woke up at 1 a.m. and I am fine, but might almost be tired enough to sleep soon.

Also, I made cake.

A buckeye cake.

Yesterday I intended to make chocolate cupcakes with a peanut butter ball inside, sort of like a reese's peanut butter cup only in cupcake form. I made the chocolate peanut spread from Smitten Kitchen and a fairly standard buckeye recipe. However, I made one of the chocolate cupcakes from the Cupcake Bakeshop, and that was where things went all wrong. I crammed her batter into 12 cupcakes instead of 14. I put the peanut butter balls in them and they might have wanted more liquid, because what is OK for candy is not really OK for something heated to 350 degrees for 20 minutes. They also either sunk to the bottom or were pushed into the batter too much.

Of course, I don't know that those are the reasons the cupcakes went all wrong. I've been out of baking powder for over a week. Now, if you don't bake frequently, then this really isn't a big deal. I found a substitution "recipe" and made up enough to tide me over for a couple of weeks. The substitute involved cream of tartar, baking soda and cornstarch, all things I had in relative abundance. It seems to work well enough, but I have no idea if it is equivalent to double acting baking powder or single.

Suffice to say that between that and a temperature issue, I had a batch of cupcakes that didn't dome but also spread out to cover most of the unsprayed surface of the cupcake pan. As they weren't going to come out pretty, I now have dessert for Chris and I for the week (or two). And buckeye cake became my second choice.

I use the Nestle buckeye cake recipe (with a few minor changes), because I happened to have the premelted chocolate on hand (and regular baking chocolate squares if I had run out). This cake doesn't involve leavening, so there is no worry about it rising too much.

I added a little extra butter (2 tablespoons) to the basic buckeye recipe I had made earlier in the day and a little over a 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract to make the buckeye "peanut butter filling" more pliable. I couldn't make the one in the Nestle recipe, because Sunday was a day of using stuff up. I ran out of confectioners sugar and had to break open another box of unsalted butter.

I haven't had heavy cream in a while, and made the chocolate peanut spread with the idea of using it like a frosting.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ganache

(I eyeballed this, so consider the measurements below as a grain of salt)

1/3 cup chocolate peanut spread
1/4-1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup whole milk

Heat the ingredients over a double boiler on medium heat, stirring frequently. As the chocolate chips melt, whisk (or any other stirring implement - I was lazy and used my "not an offset, but meant for cake decorating" spatula) vigorously until the milk is completely incorporated. If it is not easily spreadable (you want it to be somewhere between peanut butter and hot fudge sauce in consistency), add additional whole milk a tablespoon at a time until it is as liquidy as you would like it.

Theoretically I could have made it with the chocolate peanut butter spread from the store, but my recipe of the smitten kitchen used extra peanut oil, because it felt very hard to spread. With a store bought spread, you might need extra milk.

Because I'm not going to cut the cake to take a picture of it, instead have a picture of my husband before we went to see Harry Potter yesterday posing with Snuffles.

The sweater was not worn out of the house, because it was 80. But it did get to see the movie with us.