Free Range

I learned most of my cooking skills under the tutelage of my mother. On special occasions, when she had a lot of cooking to do, she’d hand me a recipe card and put me to work. We’d work alongside one another, and I’d occasionally ask her what was meant by words like “sift” or “fold.” Now, making those foods reminds me of her, and the time we spent together.

In various holiday seasons, we made sugar cookies with decorative frosting, chocolate candies, and toffee. Many of these delicacies were meant to give away as gifts. One of my favorites was the toffee, so this weekend I endeavored to make some myself. I couldn’t find her recipe, so I searched online and found one called, modestly, “Best Toffee Ever - Super Easy.” I based my cooking on that recipe, but what follows is my adaptation.

Ingredients

2 cups (4 sticks) butter

2 cups sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

5 Hershey’s chocolate bars

1 cup finely chopped roasted almonds

Directions

In a large saucepan (I used non-stick), combine the butter, sugar and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring until the butter is melted — then stop stirring. Allow to come to a boil, and cook until the mixture becomes a dark caramel color, and the temperature has reached 285 degrees F.

While the toffee is cooking, cover a large baking sheet with aluminum foil. Break the chocolate bars into small pieces. As soon as the toffee reaches the proper temperature, pour it out onto the prepared baking sheet and spread it with a spatula. Sprinkle the chocolate over the top, and let it set for a minute or two to soften. Once it is melted, spread the chocolate into a thin even layer. Sprinkle the nuts over the chocolate, and press in slightly.

Place the toffee in the refrigerator to chill until set. Break into pieces.

Interesting piece from Time magazine’s Cheapskate blog on a couple of schoolteachers who set out to eat on a dollar a day. They got the idea from discussing how much of the world eats on a dollar a day.

Pizza is one of those things that people grow accustomed to eating out or getting delivered. Pizza places are just so ubiquitous and it’s unbelievably easy (by design, of course) to call Dominos or Papa Johns, so even folks who regularly cook at home don’t bother trying to concoct their own. However, doing it at home can not only produce delicious results, but can also be extremely economical.

My mom introduced me to pizza-making. She’d make huge batches of sauce and freeze it in plastic containers (I think they were containers from store-bought cake icing, I’m a little embarrassed to admit — but they were the perfect size). Each container was enough for a single pizza.

I recall my husband’s surprise the first time I made pizza at home. He loved it. Now, the kids feel the same. It has the added advantage — like quiche — of having endless variations, so you can throw something new together depending on what kind of meat, veggies and cheese you happen to have on hand at the time.

I know foodies talk about pizza crust that you have to make the day before, and, to be honest, I’d love to have that luxury. Maybe someday I’ll give it a shot. But I’m usually cooking for two hungry boys and my husband (not to mention myself), and I’m always trying to balance delicious results with efficiency. There’s only so much time between getting home from work and the dinner bell. So my pizza dough takes about an hour and a half — using my bread maker. The “recipe” I’m sharing today was what I used on a recent evening. Pictures are from that night, too. I made three variations on that night — two smaller veggie-oriented pizzas for myself and the hubby, and a larger tomato-sauced one for the kids.

Start with the crust - about an hour and a half before you plan to serve.

Pizza Dough (for the bread machine)

• 1 13 cups water
  
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
  
• 3 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
  
• 1 tablespoon sugar
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  
• 2 teaspoons SAF yeast or 2 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast
  

Place all the ingredients in the bread machine in the order recommended by your machine’s manufacturer. Program for the dough or pizza dough cycle and press start.

When the cycle is done, turn the dough out on a lightly floured work surface. Divide into the desired number of portions and flatten each portion into a disc. Rest for 30 minutes. Then roll out and shape the dough into the desired number of pizzas. I use cookie sheets — sprayed with cooking spray — and either stretch the dough out to cover two small sheets (for “grandma” style deep dish), or work them into vaguely oval shapes.

Olive oil, zucchini and carmelized onions

While the dough is making or resting, work on your toppings. Before you do, pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees. Toppings should always be placed on the dough in this order:

1. Tomato sauce or olive oil (I usually use Classico brand jarred spaghetti sauce)
   
2. Veggies and meat
   
3. Cheese
   

Here are some of my more common toppings and how I prepare them before putting them on the pizza.

• Onions: slice into rings and sautee in a little olive oil until they are super soft and caramelized. This takes quite a long time but be patient. It is worth it.
  
• Zucchini: slice very thin and sautee in olive oil until they are soft and browned a little.
  
• Sliced ham or turkey (for us, usually from the deli and originally intended for sandwiches): cut or tear into pieces and sautee until it browns a little.
  
• Chicken sausage: cut into small pieces and sautee until it browns a little.
  
• Mushrooms: slice thin and sautee in olive oil until they’ve given up all of their water.
  
• Part-skim mozzarella: grated.
  
• Parmesan: freshly grated.
  

Put it all together. Put it in the oven and bake for 15 or 20 minutes. Just keep a good eye on it and remove when the dough is golden brown and the cheese in the center is melted. Enjoy!

I’m a bit of a lazy cook. Or maybe a lazy cleaner-upper. So, when I make things that require measurement, I try to use as few measuring implements as possible. Like, if a recipe calls for 1/2 cup of oil and 1 cup of flour, I’ll re-use the 1/2 cup measure twice to parcel out the flour.

It was this habit that helped me notice certain things about the recipes I make all the time. Like with quiche, it was 5 eggs to 5 half-cups of milk. And with pancakes, it was three of this, three of that, and three of another thing.

That’s what has me fascinated, and eager to read the new Michael Ruhlman book, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking.

After years of cooking, and following recipes, I have begun “cracking the code,” and gaining more freedom to improvise. Hope to do much more of that with the help of the Ruhlman book.

Of all of the things I make at home, I probably get the most practice concocting pancakes. As our 3-year-old has become a pickier eater, pancakes (not surprisingly) are one thing of which he has never tired. “What do you want for breakfast?” we ask, and the answer, invariably, is “pancakes!” So I’ve had plenty of time to try different approaches and tweak them to my liking. I prefer to make them with whole wheat flour, but there’s a tendency for such recipes to result in hard, stiff and dense pancakes — even with the more versatile white whole wheat flour. And once I got a taste of the delicious basic pancake recipe from “The Joy of Cooking,” it has been difficult to sacrifice light buttery fluffiness for healthiness.

Then, I was watching The Minimalist (Mark Bittman) in a NYT video, and I learned about the “separate the whites from the yolks and beat the whites” trick. So, this morning, I decided to give it a shot. It turned out fantastically. Recipe after the break.

(more…)

I made pizza last night and figured that while I was heating up the oven, I might as well break out the chocolate chip cookie recipe. (Great rationalization, eh?) Anyway, I’d bought some Ghirardelli chocolate chips a few weeks back with the intention of making a few batches, so it was time. I just followed the recipe on the back of the chip bag, but I wanted to document it somehow because they turned out so delicious. Hence, this blog entry. I love crisp cookies and these really do the trick. It must be all the butter.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 1 tsp baking soda
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
  
• 1 cup butter, softened
  
• 1 cup sugar
  
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
  
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
  
• 2 large eggs
  
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli)
  
• 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans, chopped (optional - I didn’t have any in the house)
  

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Stir flour with baking soda and salt. Set aside. In large mixer bowl, beat butter with sugar and brown sugar at medium speed until creamy. Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time. Mix on low speed until they’re mixed in. Gradually blend in dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt mixture) into creamed mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. Drop by tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 4 dozen.

Yum!

If any of these last the weekend — they likely will, as they’re so rich and there are so many — I’ll bring them into the office on Monday.

UPDATE:

Recipe courtesy of Ghirardelli. (Interestingly, this recipe isn’t on their Web site.

It’s 8:27 p.m. the night before Thanksgiving. My husband is peeling sweet potatoes and my feet are throbbing from standing up in the kitchen for hours. I hope I’m not speaking too soon in saying we’re in good shape for tomorrow. Here’s what’s on the menu for my very first Thanksgiving as chef:

• Fresh young 10 lb free range turkey, currently brining in the fridge
  
• Cranberry, apple and sausage stuffing (to be put together tomorrow). Based on this recipe.
  
• The classic green bean casserole, but with fresh (no cans!) ingredients (mostly assembled already)
  
• Candied sweet potatoes, complete with toasted marshmallow topping (This may be the only way our 3.5-year-old eats it.)
  
• Whole berry cranberry sauce (from a can — I can’t do EVERYTHING)
  
• Homemade dinner rolls (already ready, to be warmed tomorrow)
  
• Homemade vanilla ice cream, to be served with a pie that one of the guests is bringing (batter is ready for freezing tomorrow)
  

Wish me luck!

Few things evoke a more universally positive reaction than the smell of baking bread. It hits humans somewhere very basic and instinctual, comforting us.

As anyone who reads this site and/or follows me on Twitter/Facebook knows, I’ve been on a bit of a baking kick lately. I’ve tried basic French bread, honey whole wheat, and experimented with a variety of flours and methods recently — all in the bread machine. So far, my very favorite has been a 1 lb brioche loaf — one of which just came out of the oven and is perfuming the air in the apartment.

Here’s the recipe (based on one in Beth Hensperger’s The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook):

1 lb Brioche Bread

• 2 egg yolks and enough water to total 2/3 cup
  
• 4 tbsp softened butter, cut into pieces
  
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (original recipe calls for bread flour)
  
• 1 tbsp sugar
  
• 1 tablespoon wheat gluten (original recipe calls for 2 tsp.)
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
  
• 1 1/8 tsp SAF yeast
  

Place all in bread machine according to manufacturer’s directions. In my case (Williams Sonoma machine), it’s liquids first, then solids, with yeast last. Bake on basic cycle. When it’s finished, slice up and slather with butter. Enjoy!

Making sugar from sugar cane. Rounding up hogs. Making clothes out of flour sacks. These are some of the skills that helped my father’s family through the Great Depression on their ranch in TX. One of my favorite things to do is ask him about those days, and hear about how self-reliant the family was, back in the day. Not to be a gloom-and-doomer, but it’s struck me that there are a few skills I’d like to polish (or pick up) so I can feel more confident in advance of the coming depression/end of oil/global food crisis, etc.

1. Growing organic food.
   
2. Animal husbandry.
   
3. Baking bread. (Been working on this one lately.)
   
4. Sewing.
   
5. Knitting. (Or maybe I should leave this one to my husband.)
   
6. Making cheese.
   
7. Canning.
   
8. Salting meat.
   

Any other ideas?

Update: Another thing to keep in mind… “Cooking on a Budget” suggestions from Simply Recipes.

UPDATE: To add to the list — butchery!

UPDATE: More on keeping old skills alive from Simple Mom.

Robert Rosenthal, the former president of TBWA/Chiat Day, in an AdAge column, writes on the virtues of getting tipsy and setting aside responsibility for a little while….

“Drink responsibly.” Talk about an oxymoron.

Haven’t we already got enough responsibility in our lives?

Kids. Job. Clients. Decisions. Paying bills. Making deadlines. Watching your weight. Mowing the lawn. Filling the tank. Initiating foreplay. Then there’s moral responsibility, civic responsibility, fiduciary responsibility. Don’t you just want to say “Screw responsibility” sometimes? Those times were made for drinking.

I love the three specific prescriptions for what ails us. And, in the comments: “Sounds like someone is looking for a liquor account. ”

via Chasnote.