Thanksgiving Dinner:

Turkey: brined a la Alton Brown. Next year: use Sunset’s brine, it’s easier.

Stuffing: from Sunset. I used a stick of butter instead of a tablespoon and then drained it off and made the gravy with it later. I used sage instead of rosemary. Next year: use half as many shrooms, cube bread and allow to dry out for a few days, don’t forget to season. More sage!

Rolls: Grandma Ruby’s “Cloud” recipe, in the shape of a turkey. Next year: Same.

Cranberry Sauce: Back of bag recipe with 1.5 cups of pomegranate seeds. Next year: Same.

Veggies: Sweet Potato Beet Stacks and Green Beans with Bacon. I made a casserole instead of the individual stacks. I really liked the beets with the sweet potatoes, but no one else touched them. I missed the shallots and lemon, so it was just green beans with bacon. Next year: Just roast the beets and sweet potatoes, save the rest of it. Use shallots and lemon next year with the green beans.

Mashed potatoes: Same as usual. Next year: Same.

Gravy: Made a roux with the mushroom butter and flour, added turkey stock and pan drippings. Next year: Need a gravy separator, and don’t forget to season!

Pies: Pumpkin, apple (traditional), Walnut. I made the Chocolate-Walnut as a tart instead of a pie. Regular crust, 2 eggs, 1/2 c sugar and corn syrup, 1 T butter, used base of chocolate chips instead of melting. Next year: Same for pumpkin and apple, try 2/3 c sugar and corn syrup for the walnut.

Mix fruit, flour, sugar, salt. Pour into prepared shell. Dot with butter. Cover with lattice top, bake 20 minutes at 450 F, reduce to 350 F for another 20 minutes until GBD.

Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

1 batch favorite brownie recipe (I usually use the Baker’s One Bowl recipe, this time I cheated and used Trader Joe’s; see, I told you it was a love affair) for 9×9 or 8×8 pan

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Melt peanut butter and butter in microwave safe bowl. Add remaining ingredients, stir until mixed. Spread 1/3 brownie batter in bottom of greased 8×8 or 9×9 pan, drop tablespoon-fuls of peanut butter mixture onto brownie batter, about an inch apart. Gently spread the remaining brownie batter over peanut butter layer, top with tablespoon-fuls of remaining peanut butter. Using a butter knife, gently swirl the batters together, holding the tip of the knife on the bottom of the pan. Bake according to brownie recipe directions (mine was 350F for 30 minutes).

Makes excellent quilting fuel.

As I was eating them, they reminded me of a Dutch New Year’s Eve tradition, olibollen. The texture was different, and the olibollen contained raisins (which I would probably leave out next time) and apple, but they were both fried balls of nutmeg-y dough-y goodness tossed in a paper bag with some sugar. I don’t get all of my validation from wikipedia, but in the above-referenced article, it mentions olibollen as a paczki variation.

Paczki
(original/quartered recipe)
1 1/2 (3/8) c milk
1 (1/4) tsp salt
3 egg yolks (omit)
1 (1/4) tsp vanilla
1/2 c (2 T) butter
2 cakes (1 1/4 t) yeast, 1 oz. each
1/2 c (2 T) sugar
1 whole egg (1 yolk with ~1/4 of the white)
1/2 tsp (pinch) nutmeg
4 1/2 c (1 c + 1T) flour

Scald milk and allow to cool to lukewarm. Break up yeast into lukewarm milk. Beat sugar and butter together until fluffy. Add eggs, salt, and flavorings. Mix well. Add flour and milk gradually, beating well. Let rise in warm place until double in bulk (about 2 1/2 hours). Punch down, knead, and let rise again. Place dough on lightly floured surface and stretch towards you. Cut with a glass dipped in flour. Place on lightly floured surface and let rise again. Cover with dish cloth to hold warmth. Fry in deep hot fat, turning only once. Paczki should have a very dark color before turning to ensure that they are thoroughly fried. Drain on soft, absorbent paper. Roll in powdered sugar while hot.

——
Shelly’s notes:
- Don’t underestimate the time it takes to make paczki; with three rises, this takes the better part of a day.

- When cutting out the paczki, instead of turning out the entire bowl of dough, pull off pieces, stretch flat with floured hands to ~1/3″-1/2″ thick, and cut, placing the paczki on cookie sheets or trays to rise.

- Use blocks of lard, melted in the frying pan (we use the electric frying pan), for frying the paczki. It’s part of what makes the flavor. Depth of fat should be about half the height of the risen paczki. Turn when the half in the fat is medium caramel-colored.

- Paczki can be filled! Traditionally, they’re filled with prune, but anything you’d fill a donut with can be used. Fill after frying and sugaring.

- Don’t crowd the frying pan! The paczki can expand even further in the hot fat.

- Eat them while they’re still warm; this is when they’re absolutely the best. And whatever you do, don’t inhale the powdered sugar! This is a rookie mistake.

She made these today with her dad, and they made 107 paczki! I knew I didn’t need that many in the house, so I quartered the recipe (in parentheses). They were DELICIOUS, and this is one Polish tradition I’m happy to adopt! After rolled and cut and rerolled and cut, I took the scrap dough and wrapped it around a dark chocolate Hershey kiss. That was one darn fine paczek, if I do say so myself!

I also got a mini-lesson in Polish pronounciation:
one is paczek (poonch-eck), many are paczki (poonch-key)

I always knew I would be That Mom who agreed to make cookies for school functions. Tomorrow is “Friendship Day” and PJ Day (I’m not sure if I or the kids are more excited!), and they’re going to exchange Valentines and get hopped up on sugar, apparently.

We hit Michael’s to correct the lack of heart shaped cookie cutters and enjoyed the sunshine for a bit. I attempted to make cookies before the “helpers” went to bed, but there wasn’t a whole lot of patience and cooperation, so I held off until after bedtime. I used Robin’s Sugar Cookie recipe and baked up enough cookies for Tweety’s class, as requested. I got sucked into watching more of the Grammys than I normally would, but finally got them rolled, cut and baked. Now it’s after 11 and I’m going to bed.

I am not a football fan. I did not marry a football fan. And yet, here I sit, married to a football fan. I spend a lot of the season listening to football … things and watching football on Sundays. The Super Bowl Party at the end of the season makes it all worth it, though. We were invited to a friend’s house with 4 other families, all with kids aged 3-11. We had ribs (2 kinds!), tri tip sliders, stuffed potato skins, asian lettuce wraps, and I brought a salad and carrot cake mini-cupcakes. I’ve posted the carrot cake recipe before, and the salad I got from Haute Apple Pie, but I modified the dressing recipe, using a bottled poppy seed salad dressing with fresh lemon juice. It was still too sweet, so I’ll have to tweak it some more, but I really enjoyed the combination of ingredients in the salad.

The carrot cake was a big hit, and all 72 (!) of them were eaten. Gosling remarked the cupcakes looked like roses as I was icing them, but they needed pollen in the middle. Then he suggested the platter of cupcakes looked like a rose and the one in the middle should be the pollen and not have any frosting on it. Not icing the center one was a lot easier than putting sprinkles on the rest of them!

I couldn’t help myself. She cried for an hour after we pinned her down to brush her hair today. It’s a major battle every day, but we actually got braids today. They were stinkin’ ADORABLE.

They WERE lemon bars!

Tonight we had a Parent Education meeting at school, and the director asked me last week to make lemon bars for the event. I made them last year for another event and she took some home to her husband, who said they were better than hers. Forty years of marital bliss, undone!

Lemon Curd Bars Cockaigne
Crust

1. Mix together in bowl of standing mixer or with a pastry blender or fork until the butter is the size of small peas.
2. Gently and evenly spread crust over bottom and about 1″ up the sides of a 9×13″ pan. Once it’s even, press crust into place.
3. Bake at 325F until GBD, 20-30 min.

Filling

1. Mix first 4 ingredients in standing mixer or by hand until combined.
2. Sprinkle flour over batter and stir until combined and smooth.
3. Pour batter over crust.
4. Bake at 300F until set, 35 minutes.
5. Cool, cut into bars, dust with powdered sugar.

On my way home, I stopped in to visit the knitting group I used to meet with weekly. I haven’t knit anything in a LONG time, I think the last time I picked up needles was last summer. It was fun to visit and see everyone, and I got to share the rest of the lemon bars!

1 large onion, caramelized

8 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled

1 head broccoli, chopped and steamed

4 oz sharp cheddar cheese

Pastry Dough

Mix 1 c flour with 1 t salt. Add 1/2 c butter (or 1/4 c butter and 1/4 c shortening), cubed. Mix with pastry blender until chunks are no larger than small peas. Add 1/4 c ice cold water, stir to make dough, knead ~5 times on edge of bowl to make cohesive ball. Chill.

Roll out dough to 1/8″ thick on lightly floured work surface. Using a round bowl, cut out circles approximately 6″ in diameter (Note: I used the ugly 70s orange Tupperware bowl). Gently press each disc into 10 muffin tins.

Fill dough cups with caramelized onion, broccoli, bacon and cheese.

Crack 4 large or 5 medium eggs into a bowl. I used eggs from our CSA. Delicious! Add 1/2 c half and half (or milk). Whisk. Season with salt and pepper. Gently pour egg mixture into each muffin tin until nearly full, wiping up spills on pan.

Bake at 350 for 40  minutes, until GBD.

Peach Crisp

4-5 lb peaches, picked fresh from backyard tree, skinned, sliced, frozen in vacuum seal bags, removed from vacuum bag and placed in 9×13″ pan. Warm slightly in 350F oven while making crisp topping.

Mix 1/2 c flour, 1 c whole wheat flour, 1/2 c sugar, 1/2 c brown sugar, 1 t salt, 1 c oatmeal, 3/4 c cold diced butter in mixer bowl. Mix with paddle on low speed until butter is pea-sized. Remove peaches from oven, spread topping evenly over the top, and return to the oven for 1 hour until GBD.

Enjoy some after-dinner entertainment. Yellow Submarine by the Beatles.

The perfect chocolate chip cookies have eluded me for years, but I’m slowly chipping away at it, and I’m pretty darn close now. They need to be chewy, flavorful, not cakey, not flat and not greasy.

The Cookie Company has some darn fine cookies (the [chocolate] and [ginger] crinkles are divine), but their chocolate chip don’t do it for me. There’s no crunchy exterior, and all too often, the middles are just too far south of done to be perfect. Nugget’s are the only grocery store cookies I’ll consider eating, but they don’t have that… something… that makes a cookie perfect to me.

I’ve had some problems with batches I’ve cooked up recently, and due to some recent testing I’ve determined the butter I was using was different than what I’d used in the past and its higher water content gave me some problems with flatter than usual cookies. It did cross my mind to do a side-by-side comparison to determine exactly how much water each had, but then somebody took something from someone else and reality came biting back.

It started with Alton Brown and an episode on Good Eats, Three Chips for Martha. Then I realized the cookies of my youth were different than anything I’d made because of differences in butter:shortening, cooking times and chilling.

I’ve tinkered with the bag recipe, used some of his hints, taken some from Cook’s Illustrated, and lots of experience, and I’m getting there.

It’s a darn good thing my physical therapist cleared me this morning to ride my bike again. I see more testing in my future!