The Twelfh Cookie of Christmas: Marge's Star Sugar Cookies

I’m sorry to say that the cookies I’m sharing with you (metaphorically, at any rate) today are not my finest work.

There’s nothing wrong with the recipe, I assure you. But some cookie batches—and days—don’t turn out QUITE the way we hope they will.

Yesterday was my birthday. We weren’t planning a family celebration until tonight due to the Washington Capitals’ nefarious habit of scheduling hockey games on my birthday every year.

My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew love me, but they are die-hard Caps fans, and I don’t want to ask them to choose between hockey and me. I don’t think I’d be happy with their choice.

I had only two simple goals for the day. I wanted to buy some peppermint-stick ice cream, my annual birthday treat. And I wanted to post my last cookie recipe for this year.

The day started out nicely with phone calls, emails, and Facebook messages wishing me a happy birthday. At about 10:30 in the morning it went downhill.

It wasn’t an awful day by any means.

I wasn’t hit by a truck.

I didn’t start a fire in the new apartment–unless you count the little melt down on one of the stove burners. (I really HATE electric stoves.)

My near and dear remained reasonably hale and hearty.

I did spend an awful lot of the day cleaning up after a slightly sick mother, however. I won’t go into details, but the clean up involved back-to-back laundry that lasted well into the night and a lot of on-my-knees scrubbing.

When she wasn’t being sick, the mother was longing to go for long walks in the open air—until she actually felt the wind blowing on her face.

I popped her into the car to search for the ice cream. She enjoyed the ride, but the frozen treat didn’t materialize. We found egg-nog ice cream and gingerbread ice cream. For some reason, peppermint stick was impossible to come by.

Luckily, my brother showed up in the middle of the afternoon to visit with the mother so I could work on the cookies.

Nevertheless, the baking process got a bit muddled. First I put too much milk in the dough (the recipe below gives the correct, not the Tinky, amount of milk).

Then I sprinkled sugar everywhere and spilled dough on the kitchen floor.

I couldn’t find my cutting board so I tried rolling the cookies out on a plate. They were a bit misshapen.

Finally, I tried to answer the phone while measuring vanilla and ended up with very pungent icing.

After all this I just plain didn’t have the energy to color and pipe the icing. I simply slathered icing onto the cookies, took advantage of the wonderful holiday sprinkles Wilton recently sent to me (really, I think sprinkles could save the world), and threw the things onto a plate.

As you can see from the photo above, I let the setting sun do its thing and dapple the cookies; I figured the light was nature’s decoration. And who am I to mess with nature?

Luckily, the cookies still tasted amazingly good—and brightened the day considerably. My mother also brightened up after a dose of sugar and sprinkles. She tried to feed one to the dog, but I explained that Truffle wouldn’t be able to fit into her Santa suit if she ate cookies.

My birthday wasn’t a perfect day, but it ended with laughter and good flavors. And I consoled myself with the thought that I will get a redo next year when I turn 39 yet again.

Merry Christmas to all. And remember, a loving family, sprinkles, and a cute dog can get you through just about any minor disaster.

Star Sugar Cookies

This cookie recipe was given to me years ago by my friend and fellow thespian Marge Matthews. It’s simple and tasty. What more does one need in a Christmas cookie?

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter (1-1/2 sticks)
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
4 teaspoons milk
2 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

Cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Add the egg and milk, and beat until light and fluffy. Blend the dry ingredients and stir them into the creamed mixture.

Divide the dough into manageable pieces (2 or 3; it depends on how comfortable you are rolling out dough). Cover the dough, and chill it for at least one hour.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Cut into shapes and bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 5 to 8 minutes (if you roll them out clumsily you may have to wait 10 minutes), or until the cookies begin to turn golden around the edges.

Decorate with icing and/or sprinkles. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

A Christmas Carol and Christmas Gingerbread

Like me, Charles Dickens liked to read aloud from his works. Unlike me, he got paid for it. (Image Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

My mother and I are staying with my brother and his family while waiting to move into our new winter apartment. (Warning: we will move in the next few days so this will probably be the week’s only blog post!)

A few nights ago I began reading A Christmas Carol to my nephew Michael at bedtime. To say that the ten-year-old boy is enjoying the story is an understatement. He is devouring it.

This short novel penned by Charles Dickens in 1843 is so familiar to me—as it is to much of the English-speaking world—that experiencing it as utterly new through Michael’s eyes and ears gives me special pleasure.

A Christmas Carol is the sort of text that scholar Tony Bennett (no, not THE Tony Bennett) describes as layered with encrustation.

In the essay in which he introduced this concept, Bennett talked about the ways in which the public perception of Ian Fleming’s James Bond has changed with each successive reinterpretation of the character—from the original books to Sean Connery to Daniel Craig.

Bennett likened the changes in our view of Bond to encrustation on a shell or a boat, explaining that re-visionings of a text attach themselves to and reshape the original so that we can no longer see it without them.

A Christmas Carol is one of the most encrusted texts around. Not only has it been adapted more or less as is into play and film form; its basic plot has also been used for numerous theatrical and television films (who could resist Bill Murray in Scrooged?) and holiday episodes of regular television programs.

Such familiar characters as Mr. Magoo, Yosemite Sam, and Oscar the Grouch have taken on the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, whose “bah humbug” attitude toward Christmas and his fellow humans sets the plot of A Christmas Carol in motion.

Each of these characters, like each of the actors who has played Scrooge (from Alastair Sim to Susan Lucci), has left his imprint on our mental picture of Scrooge.

The upcoming Doctor Who Christmas special, set to air on Christmas Day on BBC America, is also rumored to play with the story of Scrooge.

I can’t wait to watch it!

I have to admit that I take pleasure in Scrooge’s story pretty much every time I read or see it. In that sense it is well named. Like the carols we sing to celebrate this season, it resonates—even improves—each time we repeat its cadences.

And despite the tale’s sentimentality, it always behooves us to listen to and learn from A Christmas Carol’s message of charity, good will, and redemption.

Naturally, Michael and I have to nibble on something as we enjoy Dickens’s story of Scrooge, the Cratchits, and the ghostly visitors. (We’re willing to share both the story and the food with the rest of the family.)

I made gingerbread Sunday because I couldn’t think of anything more wholesome and Christmasy than this dense, lightly spiced treat. We ended up with two complementary aromas in the house—the warm gingerbread and the fresh new Christmas tree. Heaven!

My regular cakey gingerbread has been a bit dry lately so I played with the recipe here. You’ll find this version is quite moist, almost brownie like in spots. It has the traditional gingerbread flavor, however.

I should probably warn readers that my gingerbread (including this version) almost always sinks a bit in the middle, hence the use of the word “swamp” in the recipe title. Every bite is delicious, including bites from the swampy section.

God bless us, every one.


Christmas Swamp Gingerbread

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup sweet butter, melted
1/2 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8-inch-square pan.

In a bowl combine the flour and spices.

In another bowl whisk together the remaining ingredients in the order listed. Stir in the flour mixture. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until the cake tests done—from 30 to 45 minutes, in my experience. If it starts to look dried out before it is done, cover it with foil for that last few minutes. If your gingerbread collapses a bit in the middle, ignore it!

Serve with whipped cream or applesauce.

Serves 8 to 12, depending on appetite.

And now … a small reminder to all holiday shoppers that copies of my Pudding Hollow Cookbook are available for you to give your friends and relatives! I ship priority mail within the continental U.S. so there’s still time for Christmas delivery. If you’d like a copy, please visit the Merry Lion Press web site.

Bagels

Tomorrow, December 11, is National Eat a Bagel Day.

I spent much of my childhood in New Jersey, where finding a decent bagel was never a problem. I now realize that I was spoiled by the bakeries of my youth.

In my current haunts—western Massachusetts and northern Virginia—bagels are much harder to come by.

The other day I recalled that when I was a teenager living in India another American expatriate, Jane Abel, used to make her own bagels. (She made her own gefilte fish, too, but I’m not that brave!)

I decided to ask Jane for her bagel recipe.

Unfortunately, Jane has been back in the U.S. long enough to have lost her magic bagel formula. She did send me another recipe to try. She said it looked similar to the one she remembered.

The bagels I made looked far from perfect. Frankly, my shaping skills need a lot of work. The end products tasted much better than the bread-like substances that often masquerade as bagels, however.

As connoisseurs know, a true bagel is twice cooked—first boiled and then baked. Think of it as a baked dumpling. The double cooking creates a firm crust and a chewy interior.

These are indeed true bagels. If they look a little odd, please blame the cook and not the recipe. Actually, my friend Deb thinks I should call them “Bagels Rustica” and pretend I WANTED them to look this way!

The only change I might make another time (other than getting someone more talented to shape the darn things) would be to halve the sugar in the dough. These bagels are a tad sweet.

My nephew Michael was home sick from school yesterday and was thus able to sample a bite of bagel when the first batch emerged from the oven. He pronounced the bagels “awesome.”

They are best eaten fresh and warm with a dab of butter, but they are also terrific toasted the next day and smeared/schmeared with cream cheese.

Almost Jane Abel’s Indian Bagels

Ingredients:

4-1/4 cups bread flour
2 packages instant (rapid-rise) yeast
4 tablespoons raw sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1-1/2 cups lukewarm water

Instructions:

In a mixing bowl stir together 1-1/2 cups of the flour and the yeast.

In a separate bowl combine 2 tablespoons of the sugar (you will use the other 2 tablespoons later), the salt, and the water.

Stir the water mixture into the flour and yeast. Combine thoroughly at low speed on your electric mixer, scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula from time to time.

Turn up the mixer and beat the mixture for 3 minutes.

Next comes the kneading. The bread flour makes the dough very stiff so if you have a dough hook on your mixer it is best to use it rather than knead by hand. In this case add all of the remaining flour. Mix on medium speed with the dough hook for 4 to 5 minutes, stopping from time to time to redistribute the dough.

You will have VERY stiff dough—but don’t worry; it will loosen up as it rises.

If you don’t have a dough hook, add the remaining flour gradually as you knead. Kneading by hand will take 8 to 10 minutes. Again, expect very stiff dough.

Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover it with a damp dish towel, and let it rise in a relatively warm place until it puffs up a bit, 1 to 1-1/2 hours.

Divide the dough into 12 (I actually had 14) small balls, and roll them as smoothly as you can. This is not my specialty so my balls—and my bagels--were ragged. If you are good with shaping, however, you’ll do better than I did!

Use your index finger to poke a hole in the center of each ball. Gently work to make the center a bit bigger—the bagels tend to close up as they cook—and smooth the rounds into bagel shapes.

Cover the bagels again and let them rise for at least 1/2 hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a wide 8-quart pot bring 4 quarts of water to a boil, along with the remaining sugar.

Carefully place a few bagels in the boiling water. You should be able to boil at least 4 at a time. Not being a patient woman, I tried 7 at a time, which overcrowded them a bit so I don’t recommend it! The bagels expand as they boil.

Boil the bagels for 6 minutes, turning them with tongs halfway through; then drain them briefly and place them on a cookie sheet covered with parchment or a silicone baking mat.

Bake the bagels until they turn golden brown in spots, about 30 minutes. Repeat the boiling/baking process with your remaining bagels.

Makes 12 to 14 bagels.

Carlatkes: Carrot and Potato Pancakes

I’m not always precisely on time, even when it comes to holidays.

So it took me until yesterday to start hunting for the menorah and thinking about Hanukkah presents and food.

Naturally, I wanted to make the traditional potato pancakes IMMEDIATELY. We had only one potato in the house, however.

So I decided to try making latkes with half potato and half carrot, creating something I call a Carlatke.

The experiment was a rousing success. The carrots lent a sweet touch (and of course their lovely color) to the salty pancakes.

Here’s my new recipe. You still have a couple of nights of Hanukkah left to make them. (You could start a new tradition and make them for Christmas as well!)


Carlatkes

Ingredients:

1 medium baking potato
2 large carrots
1 medium onion, more or less finely chopped
2 eggs, beaten
6 tablespoons flour or matzo meal
1 teaspoon Kosher salt (a little more if you like)
several of grinds of your pepper mill
canola or extra-virgin olive oil as needed for frying

Instructions:

Wash and trim the potato and carrots well. Peel the potato if you want to (the skin is nutritious so you don’t have to). Grate everything using either a box grater or the grater attachment of a food processor.

Wrap the grated vegetables in a dishtowel or paper towel while you assemble the remaining ingredients; this will make the veggies a little less wet and a little more inclined to cohere into a pancake.

In a medium bowl, combine the potato and carrot pieces, the onion, the eggs, the flour, and the salt and pepper. In a large frying pan, heat a couple of tablespoons of oil until the oil begins to shimmer. I prefer to use a nonstick pan as this minimizes the amount of oil needed.

Scoop some of the potato-and-carrot mixture out of the bowl with a soup spoon, and flatten it with your hand. Pop the flattened mixture into the hot oil. It should hiss and bubble a bit; if not, wait before you put more pancakes into the oil.

It’s just fine if your latkes are a little ragged around the edges. If they don’t hold together and are hard to turn, however, you may want to add a little more flour to your batter.

Fry the pancakes a few at a time, turning each when the first side turns a golden brown. Drain the cooked latkes on paper towels; then pop them into a 250-degree oven to stay warm until their cousins are finished cooking.

Serve alone or with applesauce or cranberry sauce. Makes about 12 smallish pancakes.

Una Voce Poco Fa: Turkey and Tetrazzini

Luisa Tetrazzini in Her Prime (Library of Congress)

This coming Sunday, December 5, is National Comfort Food Day. I’ve recently been using up some of our Thanksgiving-turkey leftovers in one of my favorite comfort foods, turkey tetrazzini.

Tetrazzini the dish (also made with chicken, salmon, tuna, and for all I know tofu) was named after Tetrazzini the singer.

Luisa Tetrazzini (1871-1940) was a coloratura soprano known as the Florentine Nightingale. She allegedly first took to the stage at the age of three in her native Italy. In her prime she was the toast of opera lovers in both Europe and the United States.

Although she was involved in a number of contractual lawsuits, La Tetrazzini was by all accounts a good natured woman.

Small of stature but by no means small of figure (calling her stout would be kind), she adored glamorous gowns, jewelry, and hats.

Library of Congress

Like other many other sopranos (including me!), Luisa Tetrazzini had a weakness for comfort food. The precise provenance of the recipe named after her is in doubt; a number of different chefs and restaurants claimed to have invented it. It is clear, however, that it was created in Tetrazzini’s honor.

Whoever originated it, turkey tetrazzini is my second favorite thing to make out of leftover turkey. (First on the list comes the humble turkey sandwich.) The bell pepper in my version isn’t traditional, but I appreciate the note of color it adds to this otherwise pretty much white dish.

To hear Luisa Tetrazzini sing “Una Voce Poco Fa” (“A Voice Just Now”) from Rossini’s Barber of Seville click here.

To taste the dish named after her, follow the instructions below.

Tinky’s Turkey Tetrazzini

Ingredients:

for the cream sauce:

2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1-1/4 cups robust turkey stock, warmed
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup milk
Creole seasoning to taste (you may use just salt and pepper, but I like the zip of the seasoning)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (plus a bit more if you like)
1/4 cup dry sherry
a handful of parsley, chopped

for assembly:

1/2 pound thin spaghetti, cooked
butter as needed to sauté vegetables (try to keep this to a minimum)
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1/2 bell pepper (I used an orange one most recently), diced
a light sprinkling of salt and pepper
2 cups pieces of cooked turkey
1 recipe cream sauce plus a little more milk if needed
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
a sprinkling of paprika

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

First, make the sauce. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat, and whisk in the flour. Cook, whisking constantly, for 2 minutes.

Whisk in the turkey stock and bring the mixture to a boil. Boil, whisking constantly, for 2 minutes more. Turn off the heat and stir in the milk and cream. Heat the mixture until it is warm; then remove it from the heat and stir in the seasoning, cheese, sherry, and chopped parsley. Set aside.

Next, create the casserole. Place the cooked spaghetti in a 2- to 3- quart casserole dish. Cover it with about half of the sauce.

Melt a small amount of butter in a frying pan and sauté the ‘rooms and bell-pepper pieces until they soften. (Add a little more butter if you absolutely have to.) Dust them with salt and pepper.

Place the turkey on top of the spaghetti in the dish. Cover it with the sautéed vegetables. Stir the mixture just a bit to make sure everything is moistened. Top the mixture with the remaining sauce.

If the tetrazzini looks a bit dry, add a bit more milk. Sprinkle the cheese on top of it, and throw on a little paprika for good measure.

Cover the casserole dish and place it in the oven for 20 minutes; then uncover and cook until bubbly, about 10 minutes more. Serves 4.

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Cranberry Key-Lime Squares

Just in the nick of time here is my November recipe for my Twelve Cookies of Christmas series!

It combines two of my favorite flavors, cranberries and key lime. If you’re not a fan of tart foods, you may skip the cranberries and just make key-lime bars. The cranberries lend lovely holiday color and flavor, however.

One could also counteract the tartness by adding a tad more sugar. I like my bars tart, however. And I did put LOTS of confectioner’s sugar on top of the bars; they looked a bit like the ground after a dusting of snow. (The cranberries represent our hardy New England rocks!)

Until December……

Ingredients:

for the crust:

1 cup flour
6 tablespoons cup confectioner’s sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

for the middle:

1/2 to 2/3 cup cranberries

for the filling and top:

2 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons key-lime juice
2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons flour
confectioner’s sugar as needed for dusting

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Butter an 8-inch-square pan.

First, prepare the butter crust. In a small bowl combine the flour, confectioner’s sugar, and salt. Cut in the butter.

Press this mixture (it will be crumbly!) into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake for 25 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to cool for 5 minutes. Press the cranberries into the crust (they may or may not press down effectively; if they float up, they will be just fine!).

Move on to the key-lime filling. In a bowl whisk together the eggs, sugar, salt, and key-lime juice until they are thoroughly combined. Whisk in the milk, followed by the flour.

Pour the filling over the crust and cranberries, and return the pan to the oven. Bake until the filling sets and the edges are just a little brown. In my oven this took about 45 minutes.

Allow the bars to cool in their pan; then cut them into squares.

Makes 16 squares.

Cranini

My quest to use cranberries goes on.

This post uses items many of us have in the house on this day after Thanksgiving—turkey and cranberry sauce. (I also have a tuna variation for those who are sick of turkey but still want to use cranberry sauce!)

Lately, my mother will only eat warm sandwiches. So we have been making lots of panini. We don’t have a panini press, but my brother’s George Foreman grill works just fine. In a pinch I have even used two cast iron pans, one under the sandwich and one pressing down on top.

It took my cranberry-obsessed brain only seconds to come up with the concept of CRANini.

Variations on these themes are up to you. My nephew Michael wasn’t crazy about the idea of cranberry-chipotle mayonnaise so he made a turkey sandwich with turkey, cranberry sauce, and Swiss cheese. He didn’t bother with any mayonnaise at all, using the cheese and the cranberry sauce to bind his sandwich.

Anyway, here are my two variations. The turkeyberry sandwich takes a little forethought since the cranberry-chipotle mayo tastes best made in advance.

By the way, readers who love to bake may want to take advantage of King Arthur Flour’s Black Friday sale to stock up on baking essentials. The sale ends today, but it’s worth a look. (No, King Arthur Flour didn’t pay me to tell you this; I just happen to love its products!)

If you’re interested, click here.

Happy shopping—and eating…….

Cranberry-Chipotle Mayonnaise is VERY pink!

I. Turkeyberry Panini

Ingredients:

1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup whole-berry cranberry sauce
1 chipotle in adobo, finely chopped (less if you don’t like spice)
1 pinch salt
two pieces of bread (we used soft French bread)
sliced turkey
the cheese of your choice (we used Swiss)

Instructions:

First, prepare the cranberry-chipotle mayonnaise. In a bowl stir together the mayonnaise, cranberry sauce, chipotle pieces, and salt. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Put a small amount of the prepared mayonnaise on each side of the bread. On one side of the bread, cover the mayo with turkey and then the cheese.

Pop on the other piece of bread and press the sandwich together while cooking. Serves 1 spicily. (You will have leftover mayonnaise for several more sandwiches!)

II. Tunaberry Panini

Ingredients:

two pieces of bread (we used soft French bread)
a small amount of mayonnaise for binding
a simple tuna salad (tuna, as little mayonnaise as you can get away with, finely chopped celery, lemon juice, salt, and pepper)
whole-berry cranberry sauce
the cheese of your choice (we used cheddar)

Instructions:

Put a small amount of mayonnaise on one side of the bread, and spread tuna salad on top. Cover with a little cranberry sauce (too much will spread all over your pan while cooking), the cheese, and the other piece of bread.

Press the sandwich together while cooking. Serves 1 happily.

Upside Down in the Kitchen with Cranberries

Expert baker Nancy Baggett recently wrote on her blog that the U.S. cranberry yield offers a challenging message to cranberry lovers:

EAT CRANBERRIES OR THEY WILL DIE! (The cranberries, that is, not the lovers.)

Apparently, growers have gotten so good at cultivating cranberries that they produce more and more of the things every year. If they can’t sell these tiny red pearls, the growers are told by the U.S.D.A. to let them rot in their bogs.

I was taught by mother that wasting food is a crime so naturally I have to help any crimson beauties doomed to end their lives in the bog like some pathetic monster in a horror movie.

I hope readers will do their part as well. Make cranberry sauce to accompany your turkey for Thanksgiving tomorrow, of course. Also please consider serving it with hamburgers, garden burgers, ham, fish, and eggs. Its flavor is as perky as its color.

See how many baked goods you can create with cranberries or dried cranberries this holiday season—muffins, cookies, scones, pies, cakes, breads.

Finally, think about cranberry-based main dishes and appetizers. I am working on a cranberry pot roast for Christmas Eve. If it tastes as good as I think it will, I’ll share that recipe here.

In the meantime, here is a simple cranberry recipe suited to Thanksgiving or any other day in the next month or so.

Regular readers may have noticed that I have a positive passion for upside-down cakes—pineapple, rhubarb, peach. The other day I got to wondering how cranberries would work upside down.

Of course, they were fabulous. The berries provided a tart contrast to the brown-sugar topping.

Enjoy … and happy Thanksgiving to all………

Cranberry Upside-Down Cake

Ingredients:

for the upside-down topping:

1/2 stick butter (1/4 cup) plus a little more if needed
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 cups fresh cranberries

for the cake:

1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 pinch salt
1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

My mother Jan and nephew Michael toast the holiday with a nonalcoholic cranberry cocktail.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

First make the topping (which goes on the bottom).

Melt the butter in a skillet—a 9- or 10-inch cast-iron skillet, if possible. Stir in the brown sugar and cook, stirring, until it melts and bubbles—3 to 4 minutes.

If your brown sugar is old, it may have trouble melting properly, in which case you’ll need to add a little more melted butter to it. Try to avoid this if you can; the cake is rich enough without it! I was recently stuck with old sugar, however, and had to punt.

If you’re using the cast-iron skillet you may continue with the recipe at this stage and cook the cake in the skillet. If not, transfer the brown-sugar mixture into a 9- or 10-inch round cake pan. Spread it through the bottom of the pan. Arrange the cranberries on top as artistically as you can.

In a separate bowl cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the baking powder and salt.

Add the flour and milk alternately, beginning and ending with the flour. Stir in the vanilla.

Spoon the batter over the cranberries in the cake pan or skillet, and place the pan in the oven. Bake until the cake tests done (in about 40 minutes).

Let the cake stand for 10 minutes; then invert it onto a serving plate. You may need help with this if you use the cast-iron skillet as it feels a bit heavy during the inverting process.

This cake is best served slightly warm with or without a little whipped cream.

Serves 6 to 8.

Loyce’s Flu Season Emergency Chicken Soup

This recipe comes from Loyce Cofer of Tyler, Texas, a loyal reader of this blog.

Loyce is 70 and lives in East Texas with Don, her husband of 51 years. I asked her about her life, and she replied that the pair had sometimes had to struggle to make ends meet. “We’ve managed with a lot of perseverance,” she added.

Loyce can’t cook or get out as much as she used to since she suffers from diabetes and neuropathy in her feet. She is also a seven-year survivor of breast cancer. Despite her aliments she is grateful for every drop of rain in her dry area and for the gifts of life, friends, faith, and family.

“My life as a stay-at-home mom was rewarding in a way as I loved our sons so much and strived to make it warm and welcoming,” she wrote. Obviously, this chicken soup—perfect for the cooler weather and the season of colds and flu –would contribute to the literal and figurative warmth of that home.

“I’m a recipe hound as you know and do love to cook with herbs and spices, even wine occasionally but not a gourmet,” Loyce told me. She sounds like a woman after my own heart. “I make this for my husband and myself since our sons live out of state but I would make it for friends that are feeling poorly.”

Loyce makes her soup with a tablespoon of Wyler’s chicken bouillon granules. I had the bones and leftover meat from a small chicken leftover in the house so I added them to the soup instead of the granules. If you don’t have leftover chicken, do try her method. (Of course, this coming week most of us will have leftover turkey.)

The recipe may be increased or decreased as needed.

Here’s a tiny photo of Loyce with her husband Don taken during the spring flower display in Tyler, a town famous for its azalea trails.

Ingredients:

1 chicken carcass with some leftover meat (or 1 tablespoon bouillon granules)
enough water to cover the chicken (plus a little to spare)
garlic to taste; Loyce used minced dried garlic, but I used 2 cloves of minced fresh garlic
1 onion, diced
2 medium diced carrots, diced
1 stalk celery, peeled of fiber and diced
parsley to taste and other herbs like thyme and rosemary (fresh or dry; I used fresh parsley but dried thyme and rosemary)
salt to taste
pepper corns to taste

Instructions:

Place all the ingredients in a stock pot and slowly bring them to a boil over medium heat with the pan covered. Watch the pot so it won't boil over.

When the water comes to a boil reduce the heat and cook the soup, ALMOST covered, for 3 hours, adding water if needed.

Loyce skims the fat from the soup as she cooks. I’m not very good at this so I waited until it was done (see below).

Remove the ingredients from the pan and strain the stock away from the sold ingredients. Save the pieces of chicken (without skin), carrots, and (if you like) the onion and celery bits; mine had given their all so I discarded them.

If you haven’t skimmed the fat off, refrigerate the stock and other ingredients until the fat solidifies at the top of the stock pan. Remove the fat, add the saved bits of chicken and vegetable, and bring the soup to a boil again. Let it cool slightly before pouring it into bowls.

Serves 4 to 6, depending on the size of your chicken pieces and the amount of water you added. Loyce likes to serve this with cornbread.

Cranberry Salsa and Procrastination

Regular readers may have been wondering, “When the heck is Tinky going to get around to Thanksgiving?”

I’m a last-minute girl in a last-minute family, I’m afraid. So we’re only now starting—and I do mean starting—to talk about the menu for next Thursday.

In case you can’t wait until Wednesday night at midnight for suggestions, here are a few posts from the past to enhance your Thanksgiving plans (many more can be found on this blog!):

Cyndie’s Cheesy Corn Pudding
Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Cider-Maple Vinaigrette
Cranberry Waldorf Salad
Parker House Rolls
Hush Puppy Pudding AND Cranberry Chiffon Pie
Cranberry Apple Crumb Pie
Pumpkin Gingerbread Pudding
and my personal favorite, Cranberry Cream Puffs

As we contemplate contemplating Thanksgiving my family members are enjoying a combination of two of our favorite foods, cranberries and salsa.

The salsa below is quite mild. At one time, I thought all salsas had to be ultra hot. Lately, however, my palate is craving subtlety.

You may of course add more jalapeño—even more lime and cilantro if you wish.

We’re enjoying this version right now on chips and on crackers with cream cheese. We may even throw it on the Thanksgiving table next to the turkey and see what happens.

By the way, dear readers, I’d love it if you’d take just a moment to support this blog. It’s a finalist in something called the “Blog of the Year” competition. Just go to the voting station at the Blog Revue and click on “In Our Grandmothers’ Kitchens.”

This is a simple vote; you don’t have to register or anything weird like that. I’ll let you know if I win. Thank you—and now here’s the salsa recipe.

Cranberry Salsa

Ingredients:

2 to 3 scallions, chopped (white part and some green)
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and diced (more if you like spice)
1 handful fresh cilantro, chopped
the juice of 1 lime
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups homemade whole-berry cranberry sauce (I could give you the recipe, but honestly it’s on the side of most bags of cranberries; just add a pinch of salt to the basic formula)

Instructions:

In a medium bowl combine the scallions, pepper, cilantro, and lime juice. Stir in the salt, then the cranberries.

Mix thoroughly. Chill, covered, for at least 1 hour before serving.

Makes about 2-1/2 cups.

Miss Mogli is not sure what to make of cranberry salsa. The human members of the Weisblat family love it.

First Try Butternut Squash Pizza

Neighbors returned recently from a dinner at the Charlemont Inn with tales of being fed squash pizza.

As a fan of both squash and pizza, I was intrigued. It was only a matter of time before I fed a version of this dish to my family.

My success was mixed although generally positive.

As I note in the recipe below, I think the squash needed more spices to offset its sweetness. And it DEFINITELY needed the thinnest crust possible.

On the other hand, the color was pretty gorgeous, and we definitely ate the slightly sweet/slightly spicy combination. So I have decided to post the recipe.

If any of you try it (and/or adapt it), please let me know what you think! I’ll probably make it again next fall and post an update.


Ingredients:

extra-virgin olive oil as needed for sautéing and roasting
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 onion, finely diced
1-1/4 pounds butternut squash (cut into chunks)
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon cumin seed (I will increase this next time!)
1 teaspoon chili powder (ditto)
3/4 cup water
more water or cream to thin the squash as needed (I used a couple of tablespoons of cream, but I think water would do as well)
1 pizza crust
grated extra-sharp cheddar cheese as needed (I used about 1-1/2 cups)
1/2 bell pepper, cored and cut into thin strips (I used a yellow pepper because I had it, but green or red would make a prettier contrast with the squash.)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. If your pizza dough is refrigerated, take it out of the fridge so it can come to room temperature while you are doing the rest of the work.

Place a Dutch oven on the stove top, and heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in it. Toss in the onion and garlic and sauté until they begin to brown.

Toss in the squash, salt and pepper, and seasonings, and stir to coat the squash with spices and oil. (Add a little more oil if necessary.)

Place the pan in the oven, uncovered, and cook for 20 minutes, stirring from time to time. Stir in the water and continue to cook, covered, until the squash is very soft—about 1/2 hour longer.

Remove the pan from the oven, and mash the squash and remaining water together. Preheat the oven as indicated in your pizza dough instructions.

Mash in a little liquid to make the squash puree spreadable. Next, roll and/or stretch the pizza dough out gently (this may take a few tries) so that it forms a 14-inch circle (or a rectangle to go onto a cookie sheet if you don’t have a pizza pan). Use a little flour to help with this if necessary.

Spray your pan lightly with cooking spray and oil it even more lightly. Place the dough on the pan. Spread a very thin film of olive oil on top.

Spread the squash puree on top of the crust, and top that with the grated cheese. Arrange the pieces of pepper onto the cheese topping.

Bake the pizza until the cheese is nicely melted and the bottom of the crust turns golden brown. With my crust (from Trader Joe’s) and my oven this took about 20 minutes.

If you are using a thicker pizza crust, you may want to cook the crust a bit before you spread the toppings on so that the pizza cooks all the way through.

Serves 4 to 6.

Tinky's Apple-Pumpkin Scones

I know I’ve been a bit fixated on warm breakfast foods lately—probably because of the chill in the air.

These scones are so seasonal that I had to keep up the breakfast trend for one more post!

I have seldom met a scone I didn’t like, but even to my sconophilic taste these are special. You can taste and feel everything in them—the apples, the pumpkin, the spices, and of course the butter.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking power
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold sweet butter
2 small apples, cut up
1/2 cup (generous) pumpkin puree
2 tablespoons sweet cider
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
additional sugar as needed

Instructions:

Combine the sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, and spices. Cut in the butter, but be careful not to overmix. Stir the apple pieces into this mixture.

In a separate bowl, thoroughly combine the pumpkin, cider, egg, and vanilla. Add this mixture to the dry mixture and blend just to moisten the dry ingreidents. They won’t ACTUALLY get completely moist at first.

Transfer the ragged dough to a board, and knead it a few times to make the ingredients start to hold together. Shape it into 1 or 2 slightly flattened rounds (1 for large scones; 2 for small). Using a serrated knife, cut each round into 6 or 8 pieces.

Place the wedges of dough (your future scones) on a cookie sheet covered with a silicone baking mat. Allow the sheet to cool in the freezer for 1/2 hour.

While it is cooling preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Remove the scones from the freezer, sprinkle sugar generously over them, and bake them for 15 to 18 minutes, until they are a nice brown on the bottom.

Makes 6 to 16 scones, depending on size.

Mystery Apple Pancakes

The sleepy child can barely manage to pour syrup on his pancakes.

In my continuing celebration of apple season I decided yesterday to try putting apples into pancakes. My nephew Michael was sleepy when he got up for school but endorsed the idea as well as a drowsy child could.

Michael’s mother Leigh had to go run an errand as I was preparing to throw the pancakes together. I found most of the ingredients in her kitchen, but the flour was a mystery. I had NO IDEA what Leigh had in her flour bin.

It looked like plain old flour—but Leigh has been known to use white whole wheat flour and even gluten-free flour in her cooking. The child was stirring in his bed so I decided to take a chance and use whatever it was.

When Leigh returned home she informed me that I had in fact made the pancakes with King Arthur Flour’s gluten-free multi-purpose flour blend. This blend worked like a charm. I’m a little fussy about consistency, and I had nothing to fuss about here.

Young Michael—and everyone else—pronounced the apple pancakes a roaring success. He even finished the meal looking much more perky than he does in the photo above.

Ingredients:

1 cup gluten-free flour (or the flour of your choice)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon sugar
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 medium apple, finely chopped
butter as needed for heating

Instructions:

Using a whisk combine the flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and sugar.

In a separate bowl whisk together the egg, buttermilk, and melted butter.

Gently stir the wet ingreidents into the apple mixture. Do not overmix. Stir in the apple pieces.

Heat a frying pan or skillet to medium heat (375 on an electric skillet), and melt a small amount of butter into it.

Dollop a generous serving spoon of batter onto the pan for each pancake. Do not crowd the cakes in your pan.

Turn the pancakes after a minute or two, when they are nice and bubbly on the surface and easy to lift. Add a bit more butter as needed to prevent sticking. Remove and serve with butter and warm maple syrup.

Makes about 12 pancakes.

Easier Than Pie Apple Fritters

The first weekend in November in our corner of western Massachusetts is reserved for Cider Days, our annual celebration of the end of the apple harvest.

Events are scheduled all over Franklin County this year. They will include a special tribute to the late Terry Maloney of West County Cider, who started this festival in 1994 with his wife and business partner Judith.

Local food lovers should plan on attending some of the events on Saturday and Sunday, which include orchard tours, cider-based meals, and (my personal favorite) a cider salon.

I am lining up some cider and apple recipes for the West County Independent. They will doubtless find their way onto these pages eventually.

Meanwhile, here is a preview to get you in the mood.

These apple fritters are the brainchild of Sheila Velazquez of Pen and Plow Farm in Hawley, Massachusetts.

The recipe couldn’t be simpler. If you slice the apples quite thin and make sure the batter is spread throughout the apple pieces, you get a lovely combination of sweet and tart, crispy and slightly soft. The fritters can be used as an accompaniment for pork or stew—or as a simple dessert or breakfast treat.

Sheila says she omits the sugar and uses this same recipe for corn and zucchini fritters. I can’t wait until next summer to try those. The apple version is absolutely addictive.

Sheila’s Apple Fritters

Ingredients:

1 cup flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar (I actually couldn’t find confectioner’s sugar and used regular sugar, which worked just fine!)
1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional--Tinky’s addition!)
1/3 cup milk
1 egg
2 cups thinly sliced apples (try for a relatively crispy apple; I used galas)
canola or vegetable oil as needed for frying

Instructions:

In a bowl whisk together the flour, the baking powder, the salt, the sugar, and the cinnamon (if you are using it; I loved it). In a smaller bowl whisk together the milk and egg.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and stir just until they are blended. If your batter is a little too wet, add a tiny bit of flour; if it’s dry, add a small amount of milk.

Toss in the apples, trying to coat them lightly but thoroughly.

Cover the bottom of a nonstick frying pan with oil and heat it until the oil shimmers. Pop in a few apple pieces at a time and reduce the heat so that the fritters won’t cook too quickly. Fry the apple fritters on one side; then the other.

Keep the fritters in a warm oven until their relatives are ready to serve. Or just dole them out to those waiting eagerly at the table as they are ready.

Serves 4 to 6.

Laurel's Squash Risotto

This recipe was inspired by Laurel Ritmiller Lucrezia of Boston. I “met” Laurel on Facebook when she informed Mass Farmers Markets (and therefore all of that organization’s friends!) that she was getting ready to make some butternut squash risotto. I was taken by the idea and asked her for her recipe.

Of course, being me and having the ingredients I had in the house, I changed the recipe! (Laurel said I should feel free to do so.)

I had just used up my butternut squash so I tried a delicata instead. The butternut would probably provide squashier flavor and require more chicken stock since it’s larger. The delicata was lovely, however. Its flavor was subtle, and it lent a gorgeous seasonal color to the risotto.


Ingredients:

1 medium delicata squash
4 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) sweet butter plus another 1/4 cup later if desired
2/3 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1-1/4 cups Arborio rice or long-grain rice
1 cup white wine
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup finely diced carrots (optional)
4 teaspoons chopped parsley
several sage leaves, finely chopped
I small fresh tomato, diced
grated parmesan cheese to taste (start with 1/2 cup)
1 6-1/2 ounce roll of chèvre cheese (optional but what a great idea)

Instructions:

Peel the squash. Cut off the ends and scoop out the seeds and the goop in the middle.

Cut 3/4 of the squash into small cubes. Cut the remaining quarter into tiny julienne strips and set them aside.

Pour the chicken stock into a saucepan and pop in the cubes of squash. Cover and cook until the squash softens, about 20 minutes. Let the squash and liquid cool for a couple of minutes and then puree them. I used a potato masher for this, but you could also employ a food processor or blender.

Put the squash stock into the saucepan and keep it on low heat as you make the risotto.

In a heavy saucepan over moderate heat melt 1/4 cup butter and add the onion and garlic. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add the rice. Cook for 1 minute.

Add 3/4 cup of the wine plus the bell pepper and carrots (if you’re using them), and stir. Add 1 cup of squash stock and keep stirring.

As the mixture cooks and the rice dries up, add the remaining squash stock a bit at a time. Cooking will take quite a while–somewhere between half an hour and 45 minutes. (In my experience, the only sure-fire way to know whether risotto is done is to taste it and decide whether the rice has cooked.) If you run out of squash stock, add a small amount of water.

About 20 minutes into cooking your risotto, add the small pieces of squash.

Just before serving, add the tomatoes, the herbs, the remaining wine, the last bit of butter (if you want an extra rich risotto), and the parmesan.

For extra deliciousness, top each serving with a wedge of chèvre. I didn’t have any in the house so I omitted this, but I’m trying it next time!

Serves 6.

Claire's Spooky Whoopee Pies

A few months ago my sister-in-law Leigh came home from her friend Claire Bradshaw’s house with several delectable whoopee pies.

The first thing I did was eat one, of course!

The second thing I did was call Claire and ask her for her recipe.

These pies are versatile. They can be filled with a marshmallow filling or a peanut butter filling. For Christmas I’m thinking of trying peppermint! I’m sure you’ll hear about that experiment.

Meanwhile, a plain butter frosting with a little spooky topping will stand me in good stead for Halloween.

Claire suggested the spider-web design, and I’m sure she would do it much more neatly than I did (not a hard feat!).


Claire’s Spider-Web Pies

Ingredients:

for the pies:

1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
5 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup milk

for the filling:

1 cup (2 sticks) sweet butter at room temperature
confectioner’s sugar as necessary to achieve desired consistency (I used about 2-1/2 cups)
2 teaspoons vanilla
milk or cream if necessary to stir

for assembly:

candies and/or sprinkles if desired


Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease 3 nonstick baking sheets. (You may use silicone or parchment, but I found that these particular cookies stick less on well greased sheets.)

In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar until they are creamy. Beat in the egg, the soda and salt, and the vanilla.

In another bowl combine the flour and cocoa. Add this mixture to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk. Combine just until smooth.

Drop tablespoons of the dough onto your cookie sheets 2 inches apart. (I used a little cookie scoop I got from King Arthur Flour to make the cookies as uniform as possible.)

Bake the cookies until they are firm when lightly touched (about 10 minutes).

Remove the cookies from the sheets as quickly as you can and put them on racks to cool completely.

When the cookies are cool make your filling. Beat the butter until it is soft; then add the confectioner’s sugar a little at a time. It will be a bit lumpy, but the vanilla should make everything adhere nicely. If it doesn’t, stir in a little milk or cream.

Spread a small amount of filling on the bottom of one cookie and top it with another cookie to make a little sandwich. Continue until all of your sandwiches are complete.

For extra Halloween fun, pipe a little filling on top of some of the pies in a spider web pattern and put a little candy spider in the web. I gave up on this project fairly quickly because I’m hopeless at making things like spider webs. You could also spread a little filling on top of some of the pies. Or just enjoy the chocolaty goodness without any adornment.

Makes about 20 pies.

Truffle was not allowed to sample these particular treats, but she still hopes for some kind of Halloween handout.