tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12783852027787934652024-03-14T01:21:07.478-07:00A Peek into the PantryGwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.comBlogger370125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-85733059393419213442024-02-27T09:37:00.000-08:002024-02-27T09:38:01.396-08:00Nicki and Isabel's "Jelly Filled Doughnuts"<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0VLsJR_CtsPWR_V2VNmtOdUxXkE3SzARkj04mX61r-Ja5ct9KP6LeTkx1nBjaOKm87A-yzVOsYzh0BdBpD-s9jLzJgJaOCqKyTpNHv0PQV7YKEU-LPzEelgQCNTAPFZ2XIPqXiL2FnJBk2TSLqPn1iRli3Xut2lskm6TICZW9TB4sKzswwbTBfdH6QjHG/s4513/Photo01.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3621" data-original-width="4513" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0VLsJR_CtsPWR_V2VNmtOdUxXkE3SzARkj04mX61r-Ja5ct9KP6LeTkx1nBjaOKm87A-yzVOsYzh0BdBpD-s9jLzJgJaOCqKyTpNHv0PQV7YKEU-LPzEelgQCNTAPFZ2XIPqXiL2FnJBk2TSLqPn1iRli3Xut2lskm6TICZW9TB4sKzswwbTBfdH6QjHG/w400-h321/Photo01.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">Happy Pokémon Day! February 27th is the anniversary of the first two Pokémon games’ release in Japan, and it’s a minor holiday in my house, as a fun excuse to make Pokémon inspired food, watch some Pokémon shows or movies (we’re going to watch Netflix’s new <i>Pokémon Concierge</i> this year!), and get excited about upcoming games and releases. This year, we’re making a Pokémon Sword and Shield inspired burger-steak curry and I’m making a dessert from the <i>Pokémon Cookbook</i> by Victoria Rosenthal. It’s one of my favorite fandom cookbooks – all the recipes are vegetarian or vegan, to get around the awkward question of where does the meat in the Pokémon universe come from? </p><p style="text-align: left;">But that’s not all we’re making! Ever since Nicki and Isabel were released, I’ve been dying to do a post about them and Pokémon’s infamous “Jelly Filled Doughnuts”, better – and more accurately! – known as onigiri.
</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRFDTqn_k9JiXGsEFRGiFUy4DXKnV-Kwxy8y1J0S_nIV2OiLC6U2HchE77KEdKEGKvmD7o3b7YDcaQ4NJfmSR7JNZJFk0SF_0R0uknvdRJpkF5bZOOXipDRmTxJV5Ke5J4KGM4wvYrLbtESY33LdBtVR3B-R7EDe_xd5rDwyslOeHsvTxfqL6qDtfjl5wB/s5568/Photo02.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3712" data-original-width="5568" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRFDTqn_k9JiXGsEFRGiFUy4DXKnV-Kwxy8y1J0S_nIV2OiLC6U2HchE77KEdKEGKvmD7o3b7YDcaQ4NJfmSR7JNZJFk0SF_0R0uknvdRJpkF5bZOOXipDRmTxJV5Ke5J4KGM4wvYrLbtESY33LdBtVR3B-R7EDe_xd5rDwyslOeHsvTxfqL6qDtfjl5wB/w400-h266/Photo02.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>Pokémon was released in the United States in 1998 via two Gameboy games: Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue. The games quickly caught on to be one of the biggest pop culture phenomenon of the late 90’s and early 00’s, and as a kid at the heart of this explosion, I can’t overstate how much of a big deal it was. One of the great things about Pokémon – and probably why it has such lasting, widespread appeal – is that there are so many ways to interact with the franchise, and the marketing doesn’t skew hugely towards one gender or the other. Cool, tough Pokémon like Charizard got pretty similar billing to cute, pink Pokémon like Jigglypuff, and there were so many options for potential favorites that it was easy for any kid to find some creature to attach themselves to. </p><p>One of my petty complaints with Nicki and Isabel’s collection and books is the almost complete lack of mention of Pokémon and other anime that was really popular among kids in 1999. I know AG probably didn’t want to shell out for licensing deals with Nintendo or The Pokémon Company, but their stories just don’t feel accurate without discussing their prized binder of Pokémon cards or begging their parents to take them to see the Pokémon movie in theaters. Maybe the authors were just a little too old to get caught up in Pokémania? </p><p>I’ve also always thought its close overlap with the Beanie Babies crazy helped get millennial children like me very into the “gotta catch ‘em all” aspect of the franchise. Is this why I’m such a crazy toy collector as an adult? Who knows. </p><p>The Pokémon anime was one of the main ways kids like me got hooked on the franchise, because not everyone was allowed to have a Gameboy of their own (me), and not everyone liked video games, but even if you didn’t like video games, the cartoon might appeal to you. Although it was far from the first Japanese cartoon to air on US television, Pokémon was one of if not the first truly mainstream favorites of the 1990’s. 4Kids, the company in charge of dubbing the show into English, decided that American kids wouldn’t understand or be open to certain aspects of the show that reflected its Japanese roots, and so made a lot of strange choices in rewriting the script. One of the most notorious was deciding Brock’s rice balls were actually jelly filled doughnuts:<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2zCncyQxCW7RLA8_EA1JX3CRo9YLj30Y3XhlkfYX2fYQBpVylxBGAHGDFZ4eT9ucz5TOqQD-QSiqRbMQhlU9gsZL_GlhebTBNWlEYcDdel8XcYPv2SLmvm3AXPiuOxZbG5sw9MJGiLc-msy08jRojWKRqNBgXJDxoSvSJVIgm2qhC2bP9KX39ERReusI2/s600/d88f69f5dda69f0ed882b89d4ae60721.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="600" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2zCncyQxCW7RLA8_EA1JX3CRo9YLj30Y3XhlkfYX2fYQBpVylxBGAHGDFZ4eT9ucz5TOqQD-QSiqRbMQhlU9gsZL_GlhebTBNWlEYcDdel8XcYPv2SLmvm3AXPiuOxZbG5sw9MJGiLc-msy08jRojWKRqNBgXJDxoSvSJVIgm2qhC2bP9KX39ERReusI2/w400-h210/d88f69f5dda69f0ed882b89d4ae60721.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>Onigiri – also known as omusubi or nigirimeshi – are balls of rice with a variety of fillings inside. They’re often compared to sandwiches, as an easy, quick, cheap meal or snack that combines carbs and other ingredients. While the concept of taking a rice ball and stuffing it full of other tasty treats goes way back to ancient Japan, the triangle shape became popular in the 1980’s thanks to a new machine that automated the filling process. Further developments over the last 40 years have created unique ways to prepackage onigiri without making the nori wrapping sticky. The ones we made were an attempt at recreating the “Hawaiian” (spam and pineapple) rice balls from our favorite food hall back in DC. One of my favorite pandemic indulgences was getting take out from the food hall, which often included a sampler of some of my favorite onigiri, and I haven’t been able to find anything close to similar where we are now. One of the many reasons I’m excited to move! </p><p>Even as a kid, I wasn’t convinced the food in the anime was fried dough with fruit jelly inside, because they sure look like rice. I also think 4Kids didn’t anticipate that Pokémon’s widespread popularity would inspire many of its fans – including me – to become absolutely obsessed with Japanese food and culture. I would’ve been <i>more</i> excited if they’d just been straight with me and shown more Japanese food on the show, and then probably begged my parents to make it or take me to a restaurant that made it. While I can’t confidently cite numbers of how many other people were first exposed to Japanese culture and food through Pokémon and franchises like it, I do think it’s a bit of a missed opportunity to highlight how things like this exposed kids like Nicki and Isabel to parts of a culture outside their own!<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM5cUfDO87TfQKfRZbgeBDSKUI-V5lNpHmw4S0e15kDCYmWpiAEqbgdRRdLcz0yGX6tVSS48fgnNt8ghZIy_fbPSC5LoKd2rEbBLrrd6fEAZn9oFyJ9YCASfz0YAIJbjaSWLx7oZAeJJFVw6zEW83D1CFLueN3CT-LQ9fmvpW3b2KfZm926e7VNwg6rB-Y/s5568/Photo03.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3712" data-original-width="5568" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM5cUfDO87TfQKfRZbgeBDSKUI-V5lNpHmw4S0e15kDCYmWpiAEqbgdRRdLcz0yGX6tVSS48fgnNt8ghZIy_fbPSC5LoKd2rEbBLrrd6fEAZn9oFyJ9YCASfz0YAIJbjaSWLx7oZAeJJFVw6zEW83D1CFLueN3CT-LQ9fmvpW3b2KfZm926e7VNwg6rB-Y/w400-h266/Photo03.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-36469752506793522402023-05-22T14:59:00.002-07:002023-05-23T07:32:36.126-07:00Nicki and Isabel's Unofficial Simpsons Feast<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq-_qyqtIhAE6YCjEPMK574mZv1EPDk7-TBDWsBpatiuN4MBqRyYdeqQ3KOWLt8YRW_SjDtlfK7IUyxjivtn7c1PMaiRBY01CFhImxrjrIQbxp0KvMjf3xRMSkRwLJ4Sch4ZdG6tjZcjsdWqA-XImYWufH51ud-vkSKcohAY9nhTM2ffQ8PONG5j-AvA/s4032/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq-_qyqtIhAE6YCjEPMK574mZv1EPDk7-TBDWsBpatiuN4MBqRyYdeqQ3KOWLt8YRW_SjDtlfK7IUyxjivtn7c1PMaiRBY01CFhImxrjrIQbxp0KvMjf3xRMSkRwLJ4Sch4ZdG6tjZcjsdWqA-XImYWufH51ud-vkSKcohAY9nhTM2ffQ8PONG5j-AvA/w300-h400/1.jpg" width="300" /></a></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Long time, no see! To put it bluntly (and to get some of the
where have you been, and where are you going? Out of the way), Covid really did
a number on my enthusiasm for continuing this blog. Between needing to cut down
on trips to – sometimes multiple – grocery stores for specialty ingredients and
being locked inside with only Jess to help me eat stuff, not to mention a truly
awful apartment and everything else that came along with the pandemic years,
any enthusiasm I had for exploring food history pretty much shriveled and died.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">And then
we – finally! – moved back to New England so I could take a job as a museum
curator at a small institution on Cape Cod, so that obviously took up quite a
bit of our collective brainspace.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I didn’t
do much with my doll collection during the last few years either, even with the
introduction of the 1980’s Courtney Moore and 1920’s Claudie Wells, but an
announcement about some even more recent historical characters got me excited
about firing up my stove in a way I hadn’t really felt in years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I’m
talking, of course, about fellow Millennials Isabel and Nicki Hoffman.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<a name='more'></a>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfijhmU3eMcYtQttdWKxPCAle8eWsrcJvaiS-WHjhG-D5eBqo3l6Yu3PQZAufZnYGSgRFN9nwv5p9_kQgt-R79J-pNo8GcXwkZ9KK3IrqBHsTzXc9Ojv4URpwsaUvTC5MDjS6j6m79yUc04e9ivIDXQmVcdakk4Kfb2lq5I0GqYMcr7jC6EFOon9vFVQ/s4288/IMGP6167.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2848" data-original-width="4288" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfijhmU3eMcYtQttdWKxPCAle8eWsrcJvaiS-WHjhG-D5eBqo3l6Yu3PQZAufZnYGSgRFN9nwv5p9_kQgt-R79J-pNo8GcXwkZ9KK3IrqBHsTzXc9Ojv4URpwsaUvTC5MDjS6j6m79yUc04e9ivIDXQmVcdakk4Kfb2lq5I0GqYMcr7jC6EFOon9vFVQ/w400-h266/IMGP6167.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Controversially,
I don’t mind that AG has ventured into the 1990’s/early 00’s. If anything, I’m
excited to see what else the years will bring for these two collection wise –
assuming the company doesn’t imminently go out of business, which is never a
sure thing with AG these days. One thing I will say is that this period in
history is not really the most exciting food history wise. A lot of the things
Nicki and Isabel would’ve had for dinner, enjoyed for a special birthday, or
packed in a school lunch are very similar to what we eat today, give or take a
few brands that’ve been discontinued.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">But this
period is in so many ways THE pop culture decade. The 90’s and early 00’s have so
many iconic TV shows, movies, video games, book series, and toy trends that I’m
usually dying for an excuse to talk about, and so it’s through that lens that I
decided to kick off what will – hopefully! – be a series of posts about some of
the IMHO definitive pop culture sensations of the period, while recreating some
of the food we watched our favorite characters chow down on, because who hasn’t
wanted to enjoy a cup of coffee from Central Perk, or try out some of the Giant
Omelet in Tyrannia?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">To
kickstart this, I was inspired by one of my favorite iconic shows of the 1990’s:
The Simpsons.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIGYS59AyPM531P7imU3ovjlcqdlMU5cC85TleY97JC-2_ZNwZCUUuUz_CPjY2XybbKNi0m98afHdNV5dwQCGXmgyO7rEMQipttlN4N91tAI43iCx13uQFXij9HuCrhyS02qkBvf9e7uHuHuhy_2nPa9Kl400OPJ_SXYWItCSi3oE83NQuaFpCnQB_Gg/s1031/the-simpsons-feature.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="1031" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIGYS59AyPM531P7imU3ovjlcqdlMU5cC85TleY97JC-2_ZNwZCUUuUz_CPjY2XybbKNi0m98afHdNV5dwQCGXmgyO7rEMQipttlN4N91tAI43iCx13uQFXij9HuCrhyS02qkBvf9e7uHuHuhy_2nPa9Kl400OPJ_SXYWItCSi3oE83NQuaFpCnQB_Gg/w400-h225/the-simpsons-feature.webp" width="400" /></a></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I was
born in 1991, so I was a little young during the peak years of <i>The Simpsons’</i> run, but sometimes I feel like I need to really convince folks who are younger
than me that the show used to be hands down the funniest thing on television.
My dad was a big fan of the show from the start, back when it was just a segment
on the <i>Tracey Ullman Show</i> until it got its own series in December of 1989. He
would meticulously record episodes on blank VHS tapes so we could revisit
favorites long before executives saw money to be made in releasing official home
video copies of your favorite tv shows. When my sister and I were little, it
was considered a huge treat to be allowed to stay up a little later and watch a
carefully curated, nothing too rude or too violent episode with our parents. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">While
modern viewers – or some of my younger colleagues – might not think the show’s
anything special, given how common adult oriented animated series have become, <i>The
Simpsons</i> was groundbreaking when it first hit the air waves.
Immediately acclaimed for its irreverent and often extremely clever humor, <i>The
Simpsons</i> in its early years boasted an extremely talented group of
writers (including some names you might be familiar with even if you’re not a
fan, like Conan O’Brien or Brad Bird) who managed to draft episode after
episode packed full of jokes, social commentary and pop culture references
alongside genuinely human stories with mature and thoughtful themes. One of my
favorite episodes is Season Five’s “Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy,” which addresses
then-contemporary criticism of Teen Talk Barbie, a Barbie whose voice box
famously included the phrase “math class is tough.” With the help of Stacy
Lovell, the original founder of Malibu Stacy (<i>The Simpsons’</i> version
of Barbie), Lisa creates a doll to be a better role model for young girls.
While the doll is unsuccessful thanks to the aggressive marketing tactics of
the bigger company, Lisa witnesses another girl buying her doll and remarks
that “You know, if we get through to just that one little girl... it'll all be
worth it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">To which
Stacy Lovell remarks. “Yes. Particularly if that little girl happens to pay
$46,000 for that doll.” So, you know, punchline, but it’s still a very strong
episode with strong feminist themes, alongside a lot of slapstick humor
courtesy of the other members of the family.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Many of
my favorite episodes involve Lisa, who in the early years was and is a very
relatable figure to this quirky, too smart for her own good writer. But Bart
was the one who really caught the public eye and became a break out pop culture
sensation in the early 90’s, when a period of “Bartmania” hit the United
States. As is usually the case, this meant it became cool to complain about how
oversaturated the character and the rest of his family had become, something
that was parodied in Season Three’s “Treehouse of Horror II”, which first aired
in 1991.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Unsurprisingly,
it also caught a lot of flak from conservatives worried that its popularity
represented the corruption of the American family. In 1992, President George
H.W. Bush famously said "We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the
American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a
lot less like the Simpsons." The series writers wrote a letter as Marge
Simpson to First Lady Barbara Bush criticizing similar comments, to which First
Lady Bush responded with a letter expressing her apologies. This feud was later
referenced in the Season Six episode “Two Bad Neighbors,” when George and
Barbara Bush become the Simpsons’ new neighbors.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Anyway,
I’m a fan. And, unsurprisingly, given the humor of the show and the fact that
one of the main characters is a notorious glutton, you won’t be shocked to hear
that I have many iconic meals I’ve always wanted to make myself from the show’s
run.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">So
imagine how excited I was to discover <i>The Unofficial Simpsons Cookbook!</i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjethwXF_WBfrN1rXv_nx378wfleRH5ghrcttYZoUQuloqCmnNY0712H0hb_nvgBEyGpQdV4XzlAuVC-DJOjF1YjHxqy4uhIrZkzRj5DAZcxKRphkmSrknZu3WjoEVsPGbziYXu3jArpCqImC4UNlekdAXOns6lEoWX1rwpqVCWvFBs_LQy5J0RwmRBSg/s4288/IMGP6169.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4288" data-original-width="2848" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjethwXF_WBfrN1rXv_nx378wfleRH5ghrcttYZoUQuloqCmnNY0712H0hb_nvgBEyGpQdV4XzlAuVC-DJOjF1YjHxqy4uhIrZkzRj5DAZcxKRphkmSrknZu3WjoEVsPGbziYXu3jArpCqImC4UNlekdAXOns6lEoWX1rwpqVCWvFBs_LQy5J0RwmRBSg/w266-h400/IMGP6169.JPG" width="266" /></a></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Pop
culture themed cookbooks are something that have always, always fascinated me,
and I have quite a lot of them in my personal collection. They run the full
gamut of quality, from sketchy self published books with no photographs to
absolutely gorgeous, glossy printed hardbacks with amazing themed photographs. The
latter is what we’re seeing a huge influx in these days, and I am so here for
it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>The
Unofficial Simpsons Cookbook</i> is written by Laurel Randolph, who
managed a Simpsons themed blog not all that different from this one for years before
writing this book. This is a book written by a fan, for fans, and while it’s
unofficial, the food stylist did an excellent job of making the photographs
look like <i>The Simpsons</i> without getting Fox or the Mouse’s
legal team knocking on the door. Every single recipe is something from a
specific episode of the show, while also being something feasible for a home
cook to make in their own kitchen. There are so many jokes and references
tucked in here, it’s really a must have for any Simpsons fan.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG3nslsXi-XdFN3xqCIyvyL6Zy7bFDRdjC6tHXi7NF8zi8tPoeMJ3RfVghkyeUarcT6oKiTQ_L-Zkh8RzGnqkQ4C6HnGPbkHLYuZz1G2YTQ1O_qPo18tLdqzgJQWokhgAPipNKZRpsYaTdFWLSPhXEoZP36pfzWqWM9CS3EHo6SI3iyXzjGUkmfv1NtQ/s4288/IMGP6172.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2848" data-original-width="4288" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG3nslsXi-XdFN3xqCIyvyL6Zy7bFDRdjC6tHXi7NF8zi8tPoeMJ3RfVghkyeUarcT6oKiTQ_L-Zkh8RzGnqkQ4C6HnGPbkHLYuZz1G2YTQ1O_qPo18tLdqzgJQWokhgAPipNKZRpsYaTdFWLSPhXEoZP36pfzWqWM9CS3EHo6SI3iyXzjGUkmfv1NtQ/w400-h266/IMGP6172.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">While I’m
not sure Nicki and Isabel would’ve wanted their May 22<sup>nd</sup>, 1999
birthday to be Simpsons themed (side note, I’m essentially 364 days younger
than the twins!), I’d like to think maybe they were like me in 1999: a fan of
the show thanks to her parents, in a family who has turned references and quotes
from the show into our common vernacular. My wife Jess and her siblings are the
same, and it’s so much fun to be able to quote our favorite lines back and
forth to each other!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">We
decided for our first ventures into this book, we were going to try our hands
at Lemon Tree Lemonade (S6E24: Lemon of Troy), Little Meatloaf Men (S3E1: Mr.
Lisa Goes to Washington), Circus Tent Mashed Potatoes (S6E15: Homie the Clown),
and my personal favorite A Special Cake for Homer to Ruin (S5E21: Lady Bouvier’s
Lover.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLOUA6L7hB1DG_4WjGcQKjKRKLu-928JpDfYNAekDsRrn5gcNllLSQjqeOWEi9zFa2UgXbrTguOP82dNYnyueWi-UnNhfwRgEgIsylqbJERgzy1_beF0Rk7KWN7J5bThYZ5uYUNsRzOKJOLs8NJ3PdMN7NhsMkKDQPdflN2EEonoDrbLg5V3nSyAnJmA/s4032/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLOUA6L7hB1DG_4WjGcQKjKRKLu-928JpDfYNAekDsRrn5gcNllLSQjqeOWEi9zFa2UgXbrTguOP82dNYnyueWi-UnNhfwRgEgIsylqbJERgzy1_beF0Rk7KWN7J5bThYZ5uYUNsRzOKJOLs8NJ3PdMN7NhsMkKDQPdflN2EEonoDrbLg5V3nSyAnJmA/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOEHY5BF1iHmtsdlRgb_kaMuJx5q9lZiAqONKyccoc8__4bGvPklAkt7C-9KRQ-7wle-rY0e2RVn9SSRlEsdxtTMHD3pLRUrxX7J8Y2nyuiseFClKu_7hg1mG--ZtL-_9HJgdZOn1aKfSrKTqpVlrCDpCb3KNEy8HGKR3VKXIEvmRt37tCiWMgc80SCA/s4288/IMGP6155.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2848" data-original-width="4288" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOEHY5BF1iHmtsdlRgb_kaMuJx5q9lZiAqONKyccoc8__4bGvPklAkt7C-9KRQ-7wle-rY0e2RVn9SSRlEsdxtTMHD3pLRUrxX7J8Y2nyuiseFClKu_7hg1mG--ZtL-_9HJgdZOn1aKfSrKTqpVlrCDpCb3KNEy8HGKR3VKXIEvmRt37tCiWMgc80SCA/s320/IMGP6155.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWC4SzCb_AgovmfEXmtKwnSUebVc2wzJycONQM1LKtaGI_fsnkOeRdUXZ_Xw9xA0KpXAoIHC6ttZCZhsHZMd0EcsEBYt3CERWEorFQ8VAmEe1AYtjbUzpuam_sJ-5yrDjOgigASYB7IAyb_7SxKn_9tzYf2UbtonG-evfourWLcZeAijRqQYRVuOFTpw/s4288/IMGP6156.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2848" data-original-width="4288" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWC4SzCb_AgovmfEXmtKwnSUebVc2wzJycONQM1LKtaGI_fsnkOeRdUXZ_Xw9xA0KpXAoIHC6ttZCZhsHZMd0EcsEBYt3CERWEorFQ8VAmEe1AYtjbUzpuam_sJ-5yrDjOgigASYB7IAyb_7SxKn_9tzYf2UbtonG-evfourWLcZeAijRqQYRVuOFTpw/s320/IMGP6156.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBa5TW2fJA_HKidBU27s7UA1vVpZui49iQ4uK9dkaOm7Oi4PTuoDLoXHmreWO62Gs9_ryUa2TUuUmS5mEsU6q8KqkHuzpjUkp1ViEZCEOhff9nMF3VtBmtrcR_YVPxXi-dUx95rfTloMwMnJVMpjobRvxDGpQNbRFQ03yKrb5r6oZu3QvKteVjzxSuxQ/s4288/IMGP6159.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2848" data-original-width="4288" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBa5TW2fJA_HKidBU27s7UA1vVpZui49iQ4uK9dkaOm7Oi4PTuoDLoXHmreWO62Gs9_ryUa2TUuUmS5mEsU6q8KqkHuzpjUkp1ViEZCEOhff9nMF3VtBmtrcR_YVPxXi-dUx95rfTloMwMnJVMpjobRvxDGpQNbRFQ03yKrb5r6oZu3QvKteVjzxSuxQ/s320/IMGP6159.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Let me
tell you, I had a lot of fun putting this all together. Molding the mashed
potatoes into the circus tent like Homer does – in a parody of the scene from<i> Close Encounters of the Third Kind </i>- and decorating the cake
with hand made marshmallow fondant letters was a lot of fun. Excitingly, all four
recipes also produced a product that didn’t just look good, but it tasted good
too. Nothing more disappointing than whipping out a new cookbook only to discover
the thing you labored over wasn’t worth the effort.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The
Special Cake for Homer to Ruin was especially fun to make because it’s one of
my favorite food related gags in the show. For your benefit, here’s a clip
showing the full joke. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mQLf4DrN0LI" width="320" youtube-src-id="mQLf4DrN0LI"></iframe></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">My
letters came out a little too big, but they were hand cut from homemade marshmallow
fondant, so I am trying to be kind to myself that this doesn’t look 100% screen
accurate.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUNuVwHTxhBU4ij1SkStNXR6b8BcvKO5bc_Q7FMFGPjBRY35OrWAY4H7rHm6EUklgMc1eyVy5mjHcZZKdNGe_d61ttbiIAJOGDzwRjNCC9JlJ-P0VDg_tt53jbcvr8A84LGMun53Sid6zMGDY68s0E9vNj7jbpkgcBYqtZWVFQxS496GBTMn40yzFDUA/s4288/IMGP6163.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2848" data-original-width="4288" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUNuVwHTxhBU4ij1SkStNXR6b8BcvKO5bc_Q7FMFGPjBRY35OrWAY4H7rHm6EUklgMc1eyVy5mjHcZZKdNGe_d61ttbiIAJOGDzwRjNCC9JlJ-P0VDg_tt53jbcvr8A84LGMun53Sid6zMGDY68s0E9vNj7jbpkgcBYqtZWVFQxS496GBTMn40yzFDUA/w400-h266/IMGP6163.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3qYtZVorNTeni1xXghrCxHYPg9iAQczSCDh5HlaMzV5Lqryb2RKDCw10qe0jj0fMZAUz-9-IGj6-vL3Bf-Iq6LV0UBXTH-3sPgvcbVyp11HEwHIO-3jAJAsq-gJOr1ujCZ_rSjsZiVAddOf7X6N9FrHXL-eF7aDl8t5tN8d84IWj3GjmTDBvEbPfPkQ/s4288/IMGP6164.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2848" data-original-width="4288" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3qYtZVorNTeni1xXghrCxHYPg9iAQczSCDh5HlaMzV5Lqryb2RKDCw10qe0jj0fMZAUz-9-IGj6-vL3Bf-Iq6LV0UBXTH-3sPgvcbVyp11HEwHIO-3jAJAsq-gJOr1ujCZ_rSjsZiVAddOf7X6N9FrHXL-eF7aDl8t5tN8d84IWj3GjmTDBvEbPfPkQ/w400-h266/IMGP6164.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">While I
very much agree that the show has really declined in quality since the millennium,
its influence on pop culture goes beyond how much the characters are a
household name. Without <i>The Simpsons</i>, you wouldn’t have <i>King
of the Hill, South Park, Family Guy, Futurama, American Dad, Bob’s Burgers, Bojack
Horseman</i>, or even some live action properties like <i>Malcolm
in the Middle</i> or <i>The Office</i>. It creates an
interesting record of pop culture and current events and their long term
influences, and the original ten seasons or so seriously hold up both humor and
heart wise even thirty plus years later. If you haven’t given it a shot before,
I’d recommend throwing on some of my favorites:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">- Lisa vs.
Malibu Stacy<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">- Marge
vs. the Monorail<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">- Homer’s
Barber Shop Quartet<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">- Lisa’s
First Word (this episode was actually used by my parents as an icebreaker to
tell my sister and I that we were going to have a baby brother or sister!)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">- Itchy
and Scratchy Land<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">- Bart
Sells His Soul<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">- Deep
Space Homer<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">- I Love
Lisa<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">- Lisa’s
Substitute<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">- Homer
at the Bat<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Jess
recommends, in addition to the above:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">- Homie
the Clown<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">- You
Only Move Twice<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">- 22
Short Films About Springfield<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">If you’re
already a fan, and you don’t yet have a copy of this cookbook, if you haven't
already run to your parents begging to buy it, do it now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You won't be missing anything funny: I'll
just be sitting here reading this grownup's newspaper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Go now!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Stay tuned
for some more iconic foods from our favorite fictional worlds of the 90’s and
00’s. Here’s a hint about one I’m very excited about: it’s from one of the only
shows Jess and I successfully binge watched all six seasons of during the
pandemic and is famous for its attention to detail in on set catering.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKw3HKFNkHqVADL3_ypMPiVv8Q4iTFwg7g6wiE-EC80mUELprdvXXb5ylyEQ77n7zin1aDkKmJ8WEuOHsSLTz6yf74ca_vxo6GzJy2eerUeSHPZA5K1ovwu_2J40SEp4Y6x0ry8VG42r2BCEV2Z_nmOya3XYYsLaXMitRo3fin9DG9msziuOYECBARgw/s4032/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKw3HKFNkHqVADL3_ypMPiVv8Q4iTFwg7g6wiE-EC80mUELprdvXXb5ylyEQ77n7zin1aDkKmJ8WEuOHsSLTz6yf74ca_vxo6GzJy2eerUeSHPZA5K1ovwu_2J40SEp4Y6x0ry8VG42r2BCEV2Z_nmOya3XYYsLaXMitRo3fin9DG9msziuOYECBARgw/w400-h300/2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p>Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-17828400749336315232020-05-15T03:00:00.000-07:002020-05-15T03:00:07.298-07:00Caroline's Hasty Cornmeal Pudding<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The breakfast of choice for most of your favorite historical characters!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Some recipes are so incredibly simple that they can stick around as a staple on family tables for generations. Take hasty pudding for example: this simple hot breakfast would've been an easy option for Caroline's mother or grandmother to whip up for breakfast, and it's something Caroline could learn to make herself as soon as she was old enough to be trusted near an open fire. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But this dish has a much longer history, and is an appropriate breakfast for characters well beyond Caroline's time. Read on to find out more about the history of this breakfast staple!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The earliest hasty puddings were made with wheat flour in Britain, and were so called because it was an easy dish to make quickly. As an added bonus, it didn't involve many ingredients, making it simple to prepare and pretty budget friendly. The flour would be cooked in milk or water until it had a porridge like consistency, and if you were lucky, it could easily be topped with syrup, spice or fruit as a way to make a fairly boring dish a little more interesting. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Unfortunately for early British colonists to the Americas, flour was in short supply, so this traditional way to start the day became tricky to make... that is, until they were introduced to corn meal by indigenous populations. Corn quickly became a staple grain for European colonists, and dishes like hasty pudding were adapted to use less flour, or omit it entirely in favor of corn meal. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Corn based hasty pudding has some similarities to Indian pudding - <a href="http://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2015/11/janes-indian-pudding.html">a dish I've made before</a> - and it's very similar to polenta, but at its simplest, it's just cooked corn meal and water. To make your own hasty pudding at home is very easy: mix 1/2 cup of corn meal with 1 cup of cold water. Boil two additional cups of water and add the corn meal mixture. Cook it over medium heat until the mixture softens and thickens, about 10 to 15 minutes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You can serve it hot - coated with fruit, syrup, molasses, or other topping of choice - or you can pour it into a greased loaf pan and let it chill in the fridge (or on the counter if you want to be more period correct) overnight. Slice the congealed log up and fry it in butter until browned on all sides and again top with something tasty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hasty pudding is - as you may have guessed - pretty boring. I mean, it's just cooked cornmeal. It's also definitely not the healthiest of breakfasts when it comes down to it, even before being fried in butter and slathered in syrup as I've done. Corn isn't exactly totally nutritionally garbage, but it's definitely not the most valuable breakfast cereal you might choose to enjoy, as it's lower in fiber and higher in sugars than a lot of other options. Having a heavily corn based diet can also be pretty nutritionally damaging, as seen in many boarding schools or monasteries where white settlers fed corn products to Indigenous populations because corn historically was cheaper than wheat flour. This would have needed to be well balanced with other foods to provide Caroline with the energy she needed to help out around the house, farm and shipyard. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Frying it definitely helps improve the flavor and texture, and it likely helped make it an appealing option for busy post colonial families like the Abbotts because leftovers could be spruced up into something a little different, rather than being a pale imitation of the first round or something you needed to eat all of in one sitting. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All that said, not sure this is ever going to enter into my regular breakfast rotation, but it's an interesting look at something that would've been a familiar breakfast item for most of the American Girl historical characters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Have you ever had hasty pudding?</span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-14270093928522862022020-05-08T03:00:00.000-07:002020-05-08T05:45:35.834-07:00Emily's Wartime Berry Shortbread & VE Day Tea Party<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">It's the 75th Anniversary of the end of the war in Europe!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Happy VE Day! Today marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, and I've been looking forward to this day literally all year. Longer than a year, because what a good opportunity to revisit some of my favorite wartime recipes with a celebratory party with historian friends! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Unfortunately, the party turned into me, my wife, and our cat (and Molly and Emily), but I think we still managed to make it a nice occasion. Read on to see more pictures, and learn how to make this simple, ration friendly twist on shortbread.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">VE day is one of the only holidays I've actually consistently celebrated on my blog, probably because May is usually a pretty low key month, and because I love having an excuse to try out new wartime desserts and treats. Since it's a big anniversary this year, I thought the best way to celebrate would be throwing a tea party that spotlighted a new recipe, but also revisiting some of my favorites of the past. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The menu had to be whittled down some since the guest list had to be slashed, but my obvious choice in favorite VE Day treat of years past was the <a href="http://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2014/05/mollys-chocolate-war-cake.html">chocolate war cake</a> I made way back in 2014. I've made this cake countless times in the last six years. It's my go to whenever someone asks me to bring a treat to a party, or when I'm in the mood for a treat of my own. It's super easy to make, as you mix everything together in one pan, and it's also vegan, meaning you can eat the batter without worrying about raw eggs. It's moist, incredibly chocolatey, and has always been a crowd pleaser. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My favorite Emily themed recipe was my <a href="http://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2015/05/emilys-celebration-trifle.html">celebration trifle</a>. It was incredibly time consuming to make, and you'll see in the post, I was extremely frustrated with it at several points in the process, particularly because my taste testers kept insisting that no one was going to like it because they weren't fans of British trifles. In the end, everyone really enjoyed it, happily demolishing the whole thing, and I remember it fondly as one of the most frustrating, but ultimately rewarding things I've ever made for this blog. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This year, I decided to make individual trifles for two reasons: with it just being me and Jess, it seemed like a bad idea to make a massive trifle, and because pre-stay at home order, I was going to borrow my friend Megan's trifle bowl, as we don't have one of our own. I think the final result came out pretty cute! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But I bet you're curious about our new recipe! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This recipe has been on my to do list for a long, long time, thanks to one of my favorite wartime cooking blogs <a href="https://the1940sexperiment.com/2012/10/18/wartime-berry-shortbread-no-98/">The 1940's Experiment</a>. I've mentioned her work before, and her blog remains a great resource for British wartime recipes that are usually pretty tasty. Carolyn is still updating, and even has some resources for people who are looking for things to cook and bake during the pandemic, so definitely check her out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This shortbread is very easy, and uses few ingredients. To start, you want to take 4 oz of melted margarine and combine it with 4 oz of sugar and 8 oz of flour. If you want to make this more accurate to the British wartime experience, you'll want to use about 80% whole wheat flour to 20% white flour. Carolyn points out that this recipe uses quite a lot of your weekly ration, so you can reduce the sugar if you'd like, but that she prefers to make the recipe as is for special occasions. What better a special occasion than VE Day? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Blend these ingredients together and then knead them to form a dough. Flatten, and add a handful of small berries. I used raspberries and blueberries, hoping for a patriotic looking final product, but my raspberries liquified basically immediately as I folded them into the dough, so it was more like a tie-dye pink shortbread with blueberries... Still added some nice bursts of flavor, though! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Press your dough into a tin, tart shell, or baking dish, and bake in a 355 degree oven for about 20 minutes, or until golden. Cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then cut into smaller shapes and set aside to cool. I used a tart pan with a removable bottom for mine and cut them into rough triangles. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The final result is a pretty nice shortbread, honestly. Mine was a little soft and probably could have done with another few minutes in the oven (I hate our oven), but it was still a good bite. The berries added a really nice tartness, and the recipe makes enough to share without creating an unmanageable amount if you're having a small gathering. I definitely think I'll be making this again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Unsurprisingly, this pairs well with a hot cup of tea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At least Molly and Emily get to celebrate the day with a friend...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But Jess and I made do! I popped on one of the 1940's playlists Jess assembled for our wedding, put on some of my 1940's inspired lipstick and my WAVES service uniform dress, and Jess threw on the paratrooper jacket she got at WWII Weekend last year, and we sat down on the floor to have an indoor picnic to celebrate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(Also yes, technically we did this yesterday, because I wanted to get the post up on the day. It's the thought that counts!) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Obviously I would have preferred doing this with our friends, but it was still nice to have a little party indoors, especially as it's been a bad week for both of us at work and in general.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">75 years ago, streets around the world exploded with impromptu parties, dancing, and singing. This year, we're all stuck inside feeling pretty worried about what the future might bring. When I'm feeling down about how my plans have changed, I try to take comfort in the fact that even on a day like VE Day, there were Americans worrying about friends and family serving in the Pacific, where the war would continue for three more months of brutal fighting. For some families, VE Day was a bittersweet occasion, as the war was over, but they'd already lost loved ones in the conflict. Many servicemen and women dealt with similar feelings, juggling relief and sorrow after everything they'd seen and experienced. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'm lucky that my family and I are healthy, I've still got my job, and I'm able to communicate directly with the people I'm missing instead of waiting weeks for a letter. Times are difficult now, but it will get better at some point, and until then, I hope I have the opportunity to do more things like this to keep our spirits up. I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe, and has found some things to keep joy in their lives during this deeply weird time in our history.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when...</span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-49500664051891651922020-04-09T12:17:00.000-07:002020-05-08T05:47:40.909-07:00Addy's Cherry Pie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">You weren't the only one who had to celebrate their birthday in quarantine this year...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Alright, so, my plans for this post are definitely not what they originally were. Actually, my plans for this entire <i>month</i> (and the rest of the foreseeable future!) have been really thrown off, and I bet we all can guess why. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(COVID-19, for anyone who's reading this years in the future, or jumping forward in time to 2020 and wondering where everyone is.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I had grand plans for this month, with lots of cool historical recipes to share, and then grocery stores started emptying of the supplies I needed, my job was threatened by closures of repositories and libraries we use to conduct research for our clients, and everyone got a little worried about going outside for any reason, meaning last minute trips out to get one or two niche ingredients seemed ill advised at best and generally really, really irresponsible. Needless to say, I've also been pretty bummed out, and mental health struggles makes doing stuff that requires a lot of energy - like making content for this blog! - hard. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But I'm lucky that I'm still healthy right now, currently still (fingers crossed) employed, and am quarantined with my awesome wife, who made Addy this awesome birthday pie I'm going to take a minute to share with you. Read on to see some more pictures and some pie facts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Addy enjoys a cherry pie in <i>Happy Birthday, Addy!</i> to celebrate her tenth birthday. While she was enslaved, Addy wasn't allowed to celebrate her birthday, and her mother wasn't allowed to mark the day, so the best approximation she had of her daughter's age was that she was born in early spring. Addy chooses her birthday as April 9th, the day Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the Civil War. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The pie was included in two accessory sets, and the original version with the pie slices and ice cream as separate pieces has been on my wish list since I was a little kid. The revised one is nice too, but I've never been one to turn down more doll food.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A fruit pie would be a special treat for any kid growing up in the 1860's, and its filling would often be homemade using fresh or canned fruit for kids who grew up in more rural settings whose families had orchards. For city dwellers like Addy, pies could still be made with fresh or personally preserved ingredients, but commercially canned products were becoming more common and affordable for the average person. We went this route for Addy's pie, as Jess bought a tin of cherry pie filling a while ago and we'd never had reason to use it. When I mentioned I was feeling bummed because so many of my blog ideas were shelved for the time being, she kindly offered to make the pie using the can and with a new recipe for pie crust she'd been wanting to test out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Addy's pie has a lattice top. This technique has a long history in pastry, and could be extremely ornate and beautiful. It's suggested by food historians that creating a knotted or layered pattern for pastry dates back to the 16th century, when architecture fell in love with trellises and baking followed soon after. Although these really ornate designs didn't really catch on with the average home baker, it remains a common technique for many American fruit pies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Besides looking beautiful, it allows the filling to vent without exploding or oozing too badly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have to admit, I prefer pies with more pastry up top, as does Jess, but we're sticklers for authenticity when making people sized versions of AG food.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So this wasn't exactly the same happy occasion as Addy's tenth birthday, but it was a bright spot in an otherwise pretty depressing spring. The pie crust was particularly successful this time, as Jess found a recipe that encourages making the dough in your stand mixer to prevent melting the butter in your hands and resulting in a more delicate pastry. That's always something I'd love to time travel to talk to someone about: how did you make tasty pie and pastry when you weren't working in a fancy kitchen with an ice box or fancy marble slabs to help control the temperature of your fat when making pastry? Maybe next time I'm visiting a living history museum I should try to hunt down an interpreter baking something and pepper them with questions, although right now that feels very, very far away. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hope everyone is well and finding ways to keep themselves sane during this incredibly frustrating and depressing time!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Pie and historical fiction has definitely been a help for me!</span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-29247198774990895942020-03-14T07:47:00.000-07:002020-05-03T18:46:33.008-07:00Nellie's Corned Beef and Cabbage<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Name a more iconic March dinner. I'll wait.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is probably one of the stranger St. Patrick's Day I've ever celebrated, but fortunately I managed to get out and get my hands on a brisket to share this traditional favorite with all of you well in advance of panic buying and social distancing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Corned beef and cabbage is one of the most iconic holiday dishes, but many people are quick to claim it's not "authentic" Irish cuisine. Much like spaghetti and meatballs and chop suey, corned beef and cabbage is rather an American spin on a traditional Irish dish. That doesn't make it less authentic, just that it's a staple of a community that isn't centered in Ireland itself. Read on to find out more about this tasty dinner I wish I got to enjoy more than once a year!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Corned beef and cabbage was adapted from bacon and cabbage, a traditional Irish dish that would've basically very familiar to Nellie's family before they immigrated to the United States. Many Irish families had their own vegetable gardens and reared their own pigs, and while many families would not have been able to eat this every single day, it offered an important variety in a diet that - for the most vulnerable parts of Ireland's population - all too often involved potatoes and milk, with not much else. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Much like Italian immigrants to the United States realizing that meat was less expensive, leading to the popularity of meatballs in many dishes, Irish immigrants realized that beef was cheaper than pork in the United States. Corned beef was sold at Jewish delis and other Jewish run businesses, and as Jews and Irish immigrants lived in similar neighborhoods, newcomers to the States quickly realized their neighbors had created a delicious treat that was similar enough to Irish bacon to easily substitute it, and so the dish was adapted. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It goes without saying that corned beef is a popular deli meat and has many iconic adaptations out there, but eating it with boiled cabbage and other veggies is definitely emblematic of Irish American cuisine in the United States. It's likely this was something the O'Malleys would have enjoyed and shared with their children as a familiar, nutritional dish that reminded them of home. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When St. Patrick's Day rolls around, many people choose to go to their closest deli to buy corned beef, but we live in a sadly deli-challenged part of the world, and so we picked up our corned beef at the grocery store. You can corn your beef from scratch, but it's a bit of a process and requires a decent amount of time. I am lazy at heart, and so we got pre-brined corned beef. We added this to a pot, covered it with water, and added several tablespoons of pickling spices. Most pre-brined corned beef comes with its own packet of spices, but we'd splurged on some new ones at Penzey's with the help of a gift card. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The beef cooks for about three hours, at which point you want to add in a couple potatoes and carrots to the pot. Cook them until they're tender, and then add your cabbage, which has been quartered... or cut up more depending on how much space you have in your pot. Pull out your beef and let it rest before you add in the cabbage. Everything's ready to be eaten once the cabbage is wilted, so start plating it up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Much like pasta fagoli, this was a traditional dinner at my grandmother's growing up, but only on St. Patrick's Day. My grandma always insisted on making corned beef and cabbage on the holiday, or as close to it as we could get everyone together to enjoy it. Between that and her festive decorations, for the longest time, I figured my grandma must be partially Irish like I was because of how into St. Patrick's Day she was, but it turns out, she just knows how to celebrate a holiday. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And much like pasta fagoli, I really didn't like corned beef for a long time. I have no idea why. Everything about it is theoretically something I'd enjoy, and I like it a lot as an adult. The meal I've got plated here - along with the leftovers - was quickly gobbled down by Jess and I, with our cat begging for scraps because he's a bit of a pest about the forbidden human food. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If done right (and it's hard to do wrong), corned beef and cabbage is a really satisfying meal. It's easy to imagine the O'Malleys sitting down to a meal like this and telling their daughters stories about their homeland, or Nellie trying to keep the tradition alive once she and her sisters were adopted by Uncle Gard and Aunt Cornelia. It might strike Gard and Cornelia - and even Samantha - as a strange, common dish, but I like to think these forward thinking characters would've quickly been convinced that this was a tradition worth keeping alive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Hope everyone is staying safe!</span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-24133346484024297212020-02-28T17:34:00.000-08:002020-02-29T18:13:17.633-08:00Gabby makes President Obama's Favorite Chili<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">An unusual but tasty spin on chili!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our final entry in our Black History Month series comes from the personal archive of the Obamas! To share it with you, I brought out Gabriela McBride, AG's first Black Girl of the Year character. Gabby runs for student body president in her third book, so besides being a modern girl who would have grown up during the Obama administration and probably been incredibly excited to see girls like her living in the White House, she felt like a good fit to share this unique but tasty recipe for one of my personal favorite foods. Read on to see what's for dinner with Barack and Michelle!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Everyone has their opinions about what makes a good chili, and Barack Obama is no different. As I've discussed before, Americans have almost always been fascinated by what food our presidents or presidential hopefuls might be eating. It's an easy way to build a rapport with the public, making them feel more human and "just like us!", and it's often been a way for people to feel just as fashion forward as the families living in the White House. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">During the 2008 campaign season, several different media outlets published Barack Obama and John McCain's personal favorite recipes. McCain's was a recipe for barbecue ribs, saying barbecuing for guests was one of his favorite ways to relax. Obama's recipe was his personal recipe for chili that he says he's been making since college. He warned readers that he wasn't revealing all the secrets, but "if you make it right, it's just got the right amount of bite, the right amount of oomph in it, and it will clear your sinuses." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Chili is one of my favorite go to meals, so of course I was interested to see how this would turn out. It's also not the first presidential chili I've ever sampled, although Lyndon Johnson's doesn't include beans, and I'm a bean chili girl, so Obama's recipe already had that going for it. But one of the coolest things about chili, in my opinion, is how different my vision of a good chili might be from yours, and there were frankly a few eyebrow raising ingredients in President Obama's recipe. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To start, you need to chop up one large onion, one green pepper, and several cloves of garlic. These get sauteed in one tablespoon of olive oil until they're soft, and then you're to add one pound of ground turkey or beef. As Jess and I figured the turkey was a suggestion from Michelle as part of her campaign for cleaner eating, I decided to use beef to be truer to colleged aged Barack. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Once your meat is fully browned, add a mixture of 1/4 of a teaspoon of cumin, 1/4 of a teaspoon of ground oregano, 1/4 of a teaspoon of ground turmeric, 1/4 of a teaspoon of ground basil, and 1 tablespoon of chili powder. This is a really different mixture of spices than I usually use - particularly the basil and oregano! - but it did smell nice, especially when it started combining with the meat and veggies in the pan. Confusingly, next came three tablespoons of red wine vinegar, and then finally a large amount of chopped tomatoes. Let the tomatoes cook down, which can take a while, but it's a pretty vital step to the end product. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Finally, add one can of red kidney beans, and then let everything cook for a few minutes longer. The President suggests serving it over white or brown rice with shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, and diced onions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Despite my hesitation about the addition of some distinctly Italian flavors and the red wine vinegar, I was really pleasantly surprised by the end result. It definitely was recognizably a chili, and the flavors all harmonized nicely. It's definitely not the chili I'd make you if you came over to my apartment for dinner, but I'd happily eat this again. If you like a spicy chili, I do think the published version of the recipe toned the spices down to be more palatable to the less adventurous eater, so feel free to add more if you prefer a hotter chili.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But one of the things I liked the most about trying this unusual but tasty chili was thinking about how much this totally felt like something a college kid could make with ease as long as they had access to a stove. The ingredients are cheap but filling, the final product is totally tasty, and it makes enough to have leftovers for days. It's also good for if you're having a party because it serves a crowd easily, and the President says he does, in fact, bring it to potluck parties. Or at least he did. Maybe being a former president is like a get out of potluck free card for the rest of your life? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I hope you've enjoyed this look at four dishes Cécile, Addy, Melody and Gabby might have enjoyed! I definitely had a good time making them. It's always great seeing how food and history intersect, and this was a great opportunity to pick out dishes that fit the character's stories and historical moments in time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Happy Black History Month!</span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-57265580019205373282020-02-21T17:34:00.000-08:002020-02-29T18:00:44.860-08:00Melody's Pecan Pie<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Enjoying a classic Civil Rights era treat!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Pecan pies have always been something of a mystery to me, as they're completely not my family's tradition when it comes to baked goods. Admittedly, maybe that shouldn't come as a shock: they are, after all, pretty iconically a southern food, and my family has lived in different parts of New England since they immigrated here. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But because pecan pie is such a staple of southern comfort food, it shouldn't come as a surprise that it would have been a popular treat among Civil Rights leaders and activists. Soul food was an important part of the movement, as African Americans encouraged members of their community to embrace and celebrate their heritage by cooking things like collared greens. Martin Luther King Jr.'s favorite dessert was reportedly pecan pie, and so it seemed like a perfect choice for our Melody recipe this February. Read on to find out how to make a historic version of the pie in your own kitchen!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">During the Civil Rights movement, activists pushed to find new ways to elevate and celebrate Black culture and history. They - rightly so - wanted to show people that Black culture was unique, special, and something to be proud of. Soul food was an important part of this, and many activists fondly remember being well fed at Black owned businesses like Paschal's in Atlanta, Georgia, chowing down on treats like catfish, collared greens, and mac and cheese. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Pecan pie was reportedly one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s favorite desserts, and considering Melody got to see the man in person, it felt fitting to think she might be inspired to try making his favorite food herself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Pecan pie can likely trace its early roots to New Orleans, where it was reportedly developed soon after early French settlers were introduced to pecans by the local Native communities. The pie was originally made with molasses or other dark sugars, and thus predates the invention of corn syrup. By the midcentury, recipes for pecan pie adorned bottles of Karo syrup, and the recipe I tried out is their 1952 version. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To make the filling, you combine two beaten eggs, 1 cup of dark KARO Syrup, 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1 cup of sugar, and 2 tablespoons melted butter or margarine in a bowl. Once it's well mixed, add in 1 cup of whole pecans. Pour the mixture into a nine inch pie pan which has been lined with pastry. The pie then bakes in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes, and then about 35 minutes in a 350 oven. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, having never made a pecan pie before, I did make something of a crucial error: I used a frozen pie crust. This is apparently a big no no, because the extra moisture from thawing out the pie crust in the oven means the filling won't set the way its supposed to. I <i>hate</i> making pie crust, so I I've taken to using frozen, but I think in the future, I'm going to try this out with fresh pie dough. My pie took about 40 minutes longer to set up, and while it fortunately didn't burn, I was definitely worried the whole way through. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With all due respect to the Reverend King, I'm really not a fan of pecan pie. It's too sweet, so I tend to get overwhelmed after a bite or two. This pie was no different, but it did score well with my coworkers who are bigger fans of this iconic dessert, so I guess I did something right! It's also a really basic recipe that did make a good filling, so I'd absolutely recommend it if you're curious about trying it out yourself. If you aren't lazy like me and stay away from the frozen pie crusts, you'll probably end up with a treat you could have proudly served to MLK and his colleagues. And wouldn't that be cool?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Maybe Melody and Val should bring one to the next march!</span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-82280186848866164662020-02-14T17:33:00.000-08:002020-02-20T05:50:59.016-08:00Addy's Alphabet Cookies<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Bringing the books to life!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've talked before about how Addy's mom is one of my favorite American Girl characters. Ruth Walker is an extraordinarily brave woman who always seems to make the best of a bad situation in a way I - an eternal worrier and pessimist - really admire. Her embarrassment about not knowing how to read and Addy offering to teach her by shaping dough into letters in their small room over Ford's Dress Shop is one of my favorite scenes in the series, and Ruth tucking specially made cookies that spell "love" in Addy's lunch pail as a treat on the day of her spelling bee is a really sweet (literally and figuratively) end to <i>Addy Learns a Lesson</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To recreate this moment, I wanted to find the perfect period recipe, and finally tracked down a good one that's great for leaving creative notes to friends and family. Read on to find out how to make them yourself!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Going into this, I was a little worried I would need to try out a few recipes before I found one I really liked and produced a good final product. Shaped cookies can be frustrating to make if you're not using the right dough, and can cause some trouble for beginning bakers. Many rolled cookies require you to chill your dough before rolling it out, cutting it into shapes, and baking them, like the recipe for pepparkakor featured in <i>Kirsten's Cookbook</i>. Skipping this step can mean your cookies just immediately lose their shape in the oven, turning into formless blobs instead of flowers or Christmas trees. Other recipes expand too much in the oven even despite your best efforts. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Since Addy and her mother wouldn't have had a fridge in their first home in Philadelphia - or for many, many years afterwards, considering the first refrigerators for home use weren't available until the 1910's - I wanted to find a cookie dough that was sturdy enough to hold its shape and wouldn't expand too much without needing to be chilled. I finally found a passable recipe in a cookbook that claims to be full of Civil War era recipes, and while it doesn't cite where this recipe came from, it's a simple enough list of ingredients that it does feel period authentic... in that it could work for just about any period after people figured out how to refine sugar and flour. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To make these cookies, you need 5 cups of flour, 1 cup of butter, 2 cups of sugar, 3/4's of a cup of milk, and 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and a teaspoon or so of nutmeg or another similar spice if you so desire. I halved it to make a more manageable batch of cookies, and as you can probably tell from the simple list of ingredients, it's not complicated to make. Cream your butter and sugar, add your milk, stir in your dry ingredients in batches until everything is incorporated. It's a nice, sturdy dough, perfect for rolling out whatever shapes you want to make. They bake in the oven for about 20 minutes at 375 degrees.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The final result was an extremely, extremely crunchy cookie. I'll admit I might have overbaked mine a little, and they had a texture that reminded me of biscotti more than a traditional sugar cookie or shortbread, but they tasted great. I'd just maybe recommend dunking them in some tea or coffee before going for a full bite of them, or under baking them if you want a softer finished product. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That said, a crunchy cookie like this probably would have been an asset in 1860's America, as they wouldn't go stale as quickly as a softer baked good and it's not like you had an air tight Tupperware to store them in. They'd also be extremely sturdy to pack in a lunch tin, so Ruth wouldn't need to worry about Addy opening her lunch pail to find a bunch of crumbs. I'd definitely make these again, and the dough was fun to work with. This is definitely a good option if you're looking for your own mother-daughter (or parent-child, grandparent-child, etc.) bonding time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Or best friend bonding time!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, I want to address the ever present complaint in the AG fandom: Addy and her mother are poor. How could they afford to make something extravagant like cookies when they were just starting out in their new home? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yes, Addy and her mother were definitely financially finding their footing, but that doesn't mean cookies were a completely inaccessible luxury. Ruth Walker had a full time job and seems to be making a decent wage with Mrs. Ford, and as Philadelphia was a major commercial hub in the 1860's, sugar was probably less expensive for the Walkers than say, the Larsons in rural Minnesota. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Also, just in general, it's pretty lousy to think that someone being poor or financially struggling means they're never allowed to enjoy nice things. Addy and her mother enjoyed sweets just as much as the next person, and Ruth making a special treat for Addy after she worked so hard for the spelling bee is perfectly historically correct. These cookies might not have been an every day treat, but they're a simple enough recipe that it would have been a pretty inexpensive option for a special occasion. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Overall, these were a really nice, tasty cookie. Sometimes the simplest desserts can exactly hit the spot, and it's nice to imagine Addy and her mom making these together talking about what Addy learned in school or giggling about funny customers who came into the dress shop.
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">What message would you hide in a loved one's lunchbox?</span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-86635298403000034082020-02-06T17:33:00.000-08:002020-02-18T19:34:17.027-08:00Cécile's Chicory Coffee<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Bringing New Orleans to your kitchen!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Happy Black History Month! Ever since I started the blog, I wanted to try and do a Black History month feature, but AG's less than perfect track record when it comes to spotlighting Black characters meant for a long time, that would mean just Cécile and Addy themed recipes all month. Not a lot of period diversity there. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After Melody came out, things looked a little better, but the plan still didn't happen for various reasons (namely, grad school), and we're off to a slow start this month for reasons I won't bore you with. But I promise I have a recipe lined up and ready to go for Cécile, Addy, and Melody, plus a surprise character whose tastes are a little more modern. Any guesses as to who it might be? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today we're going to be looking at something I've been wanting to feature on the blog for a long time, but wasn't sure I'd be able to get my paws on it without a trip down south or paying ridiculous shipping for something I don't actually like drinking: coffee. More specifically, chicory coffee, a New Orleans specialty that can be hard to find outside of Louisiana. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The combination of having a coffee drinking wife and stumbling upon the real deal in our very own grocery store meant I could finally justify sharing the interesting history of this regional favorite with all of you. Read on to discover why people decided to pair coffee with this unusual root.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Chicory has been cultivated by humans since ancient Egypt, and was often consumed alone or brewed into tea by itself as a medicinal herb. Like a lot of traditional medicines, it was believed it could help people suffering from liver problems to gout. Coffee didn't make it to Europe until the 17th century, but it quickly became an extremely popular beverage. While I personally hate the taste of coffee, even when smothered in milk and sugar, I do understand why the drink has captured the hearts and minds of so many people, particularly in an era where anything that could kill the bacteria in your drinking water was a matter of life and death. (Yes, I know germ theory wasn't even a twinkle in the eye of the scientific community in the 1600's, but people did know drinking bad water could make you sick.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's believed that chicory and coffee were first partnered sometime before 1801, when it became a popular drink in France. France quickly became a huge producer of chicory, and the mixture enjoyed similar popularity in other parts of Europe. Coffee culture was already a big deal in the New World at this point, as many Americans turned to coffee over tea during the American Revolution, and New Orleans was an important bridge between French, Caribbean and American businesses. Coffee houses were a valuable part of the city's fabric, as they were convenient places for business owners to meet and discuss transactions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By 1840, New Orleans was the second biggest importer of coffee in the United States, meaning Cécile and Marie-Grace's parents could all have been enthusiastic consumers of the beverage. But would their coffee be mixed with chicory?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Possibly. Like a lot of historical food trends, it's difficult to make a 100% definitive claim one way or the other without more concrete evidence, but it's commonly accepted that chicory coffee's popularity in New Orleans postdates the Marie-Grace and Cécile series by a few years. Louisianans - and many other people in the Confederacy - turned to chicory to help extend coffee supplies during the Civil War. Chicory was a particularly popular candidate over other ingredients like beets or parsnips because it has a similar look and feel to coffee grounds. During the Great Depression, folks would again turn to these ingredients to help extend the life of real coffee. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But chicory coffee enjoys a special popularity in New Orleans, and for many tourists to the city, there's nothing more satisfying than enjoying a café au lait and beignets at Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter. I know I had a good time there when we visited a few years ago before trekking off to the National WWII Museum! At the time, I didn't think to get any of the coffee grounds to feature on the blog because of my aforementioned aversion to coffee, but couldn't help myself when I found a canister of it at our grocery store, alongside mix for their beignets. Jess fried up some beignets to have our own little staycation to New Orleans last weekend. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, what does chicory coffee actually taste like, really? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It still tastes a lot like normal coffee, but it does - according to Jess, anyway, as I really can't tell the difference - have an earthiness to it that adds another dimension to the average coffee taste. If you're looking for something a little different that's hard to find anywhere else, I'd definitely encourage you to give it a shot next time you're in New Orleans, or wandering your grocery aisle. It's a great way to get a taste of an unusual historical beverage that won't require any weird experiments in your kitchen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">I'm not sure Cécile should have ordered this double venti...</span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-65982644761829880792020-01-22T18:21:00.000-08:002020-01-30T18:22:14.064-08:00Felicity's Hot Chocolate, or "The American Nectar"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">An adaptation of one of the oldest recorded recipes for hot chocolate!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We've done a lot of talking about hot chocolate on this blog, as well as chocolate in general. I've provided a review of <a href="https://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2015/02/felicitys-colonial-hot-chocolate.html">American Heritage chocolate,</a> tried out the official <a href="https://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2016/01/josefinas-champurrado.html">Josefina approved recipe for New Mexican hot chocolate</a>, <a href="https://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2014/02/mollys-smores-hot-chocolate.html">toasted marshmallows on top of hot chocolate</a>, and even tried out <a href="https://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2016/01/josefinas-champurrado.html">champurrado</a>, a recipe with links to some of the earliest ways human beings have enjoyed chocolate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The recipe we're trying out today is one of the recipes featured as part of the Folger Shakespear Library's First Chefs exhibit, <a href="https://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2019/03/first-chefs-and-seed-cake-with-jane.html">which I've also shared with you guys before.</a> All the recipes featured online and as handouts at the exhibit were adapted from historical recipes by Marissa Nicosia, a food historian who experiments with recipes from the 1600's through the 1800's. You can read more about her work on her website <a href="https://rarecooking.com/">Rare Cooking</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, what makes this recipe different from the ones we've tried before?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, first off, most of the other recipes I've made don't really result in something that can be packaged up and gifted to people as part of a very late holiday gift swap, which was part of my motivation for trying it out. I've never made my own hot chocolate mix before, and I was eager to see if this could become a standard gift to offer people, as well as something handy to have around when you have company in the winter. (Theoretically, anyway. It's been so hot this winter that hot chocolate has been the furthest thing from my mind on most days.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The other reason I was intrigued by it is the very flashy history the Folger Library and Marissa Nicosia uncovered in this recipe. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The original recipe that inspired this adaptation isn't exactly a recipe at all, but rather a description of traditional methods of preparing cacao for consumption as a frothy, thick beverage by Native communities in the Americas. It was described by William Hughes in his 1672 book <i>The American Physitian</i>. Who was William Hughes? A botanist who also happened to be a pirate. Or a pirate who happened to be a botanist. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hughes first visited the Americas in the 1630's or 40's, and his book offers readers one of the first eyewitness accounts by an Englishman of cacao planting and production. He provides descriptions of plenty of other edible plants in the book, but his section on cacao is the longest section by far. Until this point in history, most of England's upper classes had regarded chocolate suspiciously, but his engaging description may have helped them warm to the idea of the interesting drink. By the time Felicity was growing up, hot chocolate was becoming more and more affordable for the British, and hot chocolate became an important substitute for tea when American Patriots refused to drink tea in protest of England's new tax laws. George Washington even enjoyed drinking hot chocolate, and Martha Washington was fond of steeping cacao shells in hot water to make a more tea-like beverage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nicosia's adaptation of William Hughes's recipe is my favorite kind of recipe: toast your cacao nibs, dump all the ingredients in one bowl, mix together, blend, serve mixed into hot milk. Very little fuss, and not too much by way of clean up, especially if you've got a dishwasher safe blender. Early hot chocolates frequently featured spices we find either strange or exotic in chocolate today, like nutmeg or hot peppers, and Nicosia encourages readers to tweak the flavor profile depending on what your personal preferences are. I'm in agreement with her, as although the standard recipe is definitely nice and flavorful, I wanted more spices in it to make it taste closer to the chocolate produced by American Heritage Chocolate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you're interested in following along, the recipe is <a href="https://www.folger.edu/exhibitions/first-chefs/recipes#william-hughes">available on the Folger Library's website</a>, or you can just toast 1/4 of a cup of cacao nibs until they're shiny and smell very chocolatey, then add them to a bowl with a 100 gram 70% dark chocolate bar which has been roughly chopped, 1/2 of a cup of cocoa powder, 1/2 of a cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1/4 of a cup of plain bread crumbs (this will make the drink authentically thick), and 1/2 teaspoon of chili flakes. I also added two teaspoons of cinnamon and nutmeg for some extra spicy flavors. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Pulse this in a blender until they're combined "in a loose mix" per the recipe's instructions, and you're ready to start making hot chocolate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The recipe makes approximately two cups of mix, and recommends you use three tablespoons per one cup of hot milk. You should be able to get a good amount of servings in with your batch or be able to adjust accordingly pretty easily if you're planning on hosting a big crowd, or otherwise need a lot of mix to distribute to folks. Or yourself. No judgment here. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My only complaint is that the chocolate bar melts with the heat of the blender whirring, so it can get kind of lumpy even if you're making your best attempt at blending everything equally. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Otherwise? This is a really great recipe, and I'd definitely recommend giving it a try yourself!
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Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-56520919137703628772020-01-15T18:23:00.000-08:002020-01-30T18:44:03.454-08:00Mrs. Ling's Special Ginger Pancakes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A treat straight from Ivy's family cookbook! Sort of...</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In Julie's stories, it's mentioned that Mrs. Ling is famous for making ginger pancakes, and often treats Julie to them when she stays over at their house. I've been trying to make more historical recipes mentioned in the books themselves, and decided I needed to give these a whirl. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There was just one problem: my favorite (and currently only) 1970's cookbook with breakfast recipes in it told me to just make my pancakes with Bisquick, and that wasn't good enough for me. So I had to turn to a slightly unconventional source to find my base recipe for ginger pancakes. Read on to see how <i>Alice's Brady Bunch Cookbook</i> came to my rescue!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Bisquick is admittedly a very iconically 70's ingredient, but it's also a little lazy to share their pancake recipe with you on this blog. While <i>Alice's Brady Bunch Cookbook</i> was actually published in 1994, it's very much in keeping with the 70's flair of the original show. The recipes go from simple and stress free, to trying-to-be-healthy, to what passed for fine dining in 1974. There's nothing in the cookbook that'd be unfamiliar to Ivy and Julie, and it's definitely something I could see one of them gifting the other when they're in their 30's and looking for a fun present to surprise the other with in 1994. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The other reason I was excited by this recipe was that the pancakes in here are extremely, extremely basic, and so they're a great template to add your own spices, flavors, or fruit to the batter. I very specifically didn't want to make "gingerbread" pancakes, as the pancakes described in Julie's books are just ginger, not nutmeg or cinnamon, so I pulled out a big jar of powdered ginger and got ready to go to work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To make these "Groovy Old-fashioned Pancakes", you'll need to beat two eggs until they're well blended. Add 5 tablespoons of melted butter and 1 cup of milk and mix everything together. In a separate bowl, whisk together 1 1/4 cups of flour, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 4 teaspoons of baking powders, 3/4 teaspoons of salt, and a couple heaping teaspoons of powdered ginger. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Add the wet ingredients and mix everything together until it's just combined, then cook them in a greased skillet as you would any pancake. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Voila! An interpretation of Mrs. Ling's famous ginger pancakes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The recipe makes about fourteen pancakes, although I had a terrible kitchen accident and burned my thumb pretty badly in the middle of flipping a pancake, so we ended up with about a dozen instead of fourteen. The other two were total losses after my accident. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When the batter was wet, the ginger was very subtle, but it was definitely noticeable when the pancakes were warm and fried. If you want an even more intense flavor, fresh ginger would also probably work, and I'm very curious about what candied ginger might bring to the table. But this was a pretty good first attempt, so if you too have been wondering what it might be like to have a special breakfast at the Lings' house, this is a simple way to bring that vision to life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">And is there any better way to spend a Saturday?</span></span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-59771892217506820652019-12-31T11:15:00.000-08:002020-01-08T10:52:15.864-08:00A Peek into the Pantry on the American Girls Podcast!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Listen to us in the kitchen where the blog first got started!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As many of you probably know by now, Jess, Kirsten and I got to do something very special a few months ago, and I'm so excited to finally get a chance to share it all with you guys! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Allison and Mary of the American Girls Podcast were kind enough to trek down to my parent's house after Thanksgiving to interview us while we made pepparkakor cookies from <i>Kirsten's Cook Book</i>. Long time readers might remember we've made these before, and you can see the recipe <a href="http://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2015/01/kirstens-pepparkakor.html">on this blog</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Or! You can hear all about it along with my true opinions on Molly McIntire, the 2001 monstrosity <i>Pearl Harbor</i> and being a professional historian wherever you find your podcasts. Here's a link to the episode on Stitcher: <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/american-girls/e/66164009">A Peek Into the Past, A Peek Into the Pantry</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was so much fun collaborating with Allison and Mary and I hope we're able to do it again sometime soon! Happy listening!</span></div>
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Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-26714367620016398122019-12-26T08:09:00.000-08:002020-01-08T12:40:06.304-08:00Florence's Pavlova<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">An airy treat as delicate as a ballet superstar!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our last holiday treat of 2019 is the pavlova, a signature dessert of my wife's homeland. Most people who have seen pictures of the "pavs" Jess has made for our family and friends ask if it's a cake, whipped cream, or some other strange concoction, maybe an unbaked Alaska? An ice cream cake? Something else entirely? And the answer is simple: it's a meringue topped with a lot of whipped cream and fruit. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You can have big pavs, little pavs, in the medium pavs... doesn't matter. When done right, this is a really delicious, refreshing dessert, perfect for celebrating Christmas in Australia because - as many of you know - Australia (and the rest of the southern hemisphere) is actually experiencing summer right now. Australians still enjoy traditional Christmas treats like Christmas puddings and gingerbread, but the high temperatures make things like this an appealing alternative to "traditional" Christmas fare, which is often quite heavy or spiced. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The pavlova can trace its history back to the 1920's, when Russian ballet superstar Anna Pavolva toured Australia and New Zealand. Both countries claim to be the first to create this dessert in her honor, but as I've married an Australian, I think you know which country I need to support in the debate. Australia also has the slightly stronger argument - in my opinion - because similar dishes spotlighting meringues and whipped cream date back to the early 1900's, meaning my Florrie Girl Florence might have enjoyed a treat similar to a pavlova in her childhood known by a different name. Other similar Australian recipes appear in the early 1920's, still under a different name, and the first known dish to bear the name Pavolva comes from an Australian cookbook published in 1926. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Sorry, New Zealand.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To make your pav, you need to start with a meringue base. Jess's go to recipe calls for 4 egg whites, 1 cup of (superfine, if you can get it) white sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar, and 1 teaspoon of cornstarch. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To make a bigger meringue, you can adjust the recipe with more sugar and egg whites, but be careful not to go too big. Jess has had issues with some pavs where too many eggs have been added and there's a definite eggyness to it that shouldn't be there. It's not unpalatable that way, but certainly less yummy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Beat your egg whites for about five minutes, or until soft peaks have started to form. Add half your sugar, beat for 30 seconds, and then add the rest, beating for another 30 seconds, then beat on high for two minutes or until stiff peaks have formed. Add the vanilla and beat for one more minute. The peaks should be very stiff and glossy, and basically not move at all when you take the mixer out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Fold in the cream of tartar and cornstarch, then spread the meringue on a silicone baking mat or parchment paper on a baking sheet. This gets baked in the oven at 350 degrees. As soon as you put the pav in the oven, drop the temperature to 200 degrees and bake for 90 minutes. It's important for it to bake nice and slowly for a long time to fully dry it out, and you can leave it to cool in the <i>turned off</i> oven overnight if so desired. The finished product should be lightly browned with some cracks. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To top the pav, whip up enough heavy cream and powdered sugar to give it a generous top layer of sweet whipped cream. Jess also likes to flavor her whipped cream with vanilla, and prefers vanilla bean paste for a really intense vanilla flavor, but regular extract will do as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You can top your pavlova with any fruit that strikes your fancy. Jess used canned peaches, fresh kiwi, strawberries and blueberries for this pav, but also likes to use raspberries, particularly when doing all berry variations. The dessert is meant to look pretty, so most bakers arrange the fruit in nice patterns rather than just slapping it on randomly. Get creative!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To get the right texture, it's generally recommended to let the pav sit for about an hour or two before serving to let the meringue absorb the moisture, but it's important not to let this sit too long before consuming it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When you cut into it, you should be getting a meringue with a nice, almost marshmallowy texture in the center, lots of whipped cream, and bright fruit. A really refreshing mouthful!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I think my whole family was a little skeptical of this dish the first year Jess made it just because it's so far out of the ordinary for the treats we usually have on Christmas, but the pav disappeared in probably fifteen minutes flat. You know that awesome moment when you realize people really like your food because a room full of people suddenly goes quiet, and they're too busy eating to talk to anyone? That's exactly what happened, and there were demands for another the following year immediately. It's light, sweet without being too sweet thanks to the fruit, and honestly a really nice compliment to other heavier dishes you have on Christmas even if you live in the northern hemisphere. If you're looking for something a little different to add to your Christmas or holiday table, I'd thoroughly suggest borrowing this one from my in-laws and giving it a try yourself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To end on a much sadder note, I can't do an Australian recipe and not mention that it's been a tough end to 2019 (and start to 2020) for Australia. Jess's family and friends are fortunately out of range of the brushfires for now, but it's still been very difficult to hear and see what's going on in her homeland. What a lot of Americans don't seem to realize is this is just the beginning of summer in Australia, and it's going to be a long, hard one even if these fires are put under control. If there's anything you can do from where you are, be it donating to the Australian Red Cross or voting for political candidates who support protecting our planet, please consider doing so. We're very lucky that our loved ones are safe for the time being, but the scale of the fires is really terrifying and tragic and will be an ecological disaster regardless of when they're put out.</span></div>
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Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-20120756726918395002019-12-19T07:09:00.000-08:002020-01-01T09:19:35.098-08:00Molly's Sticky Buns<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Celebrate Christmas like the McIntires!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In a sharp contrast to Maryellen's Christmas story, <i>Molly's Surprise</i> is all about how traditions have changed for the McIntires because of the war. With Dad overseas - and no letters from him in weeks! - things were always going to be different, but Mom doesn't have time to decorate, and Molly's grandparents can't come thanks to a flat tire. With a little help from her siblings - and a surprise from Dad - Molly manages to find a way to make the holidays special even with things so different. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A traditional holiday snack for the McIntires are sticky buns, a cinnamony treat usually smothered in caramel and pecans. As this Christmas was apparently the year I wanted to practice baking with yeast, and I wanted to revisit some of the American Girl books for baking inspiration, I thought these would be a fun thing to try.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Sticky buns are not exactly ration friendly, meaning the McIntires might not have been able to enjoy them during the war, and they're actually noticeably absent from most of my wartime cookbooks. I looked under cinnamon rolls, Schnecken, and finally just paged through the bread and pastry portions of my cookbooks looking for a good recipe. I finally found something that could pass for them in the same cookbook I got my coffee cake recipe from: <i>The Modern Family Cookbook</i> by Meta Given, which, as a reminder, was originally published in 1942 and enjoyed a reprinting in 1953. Although this recipe calls them pecan rolls, they do offer Schnecken as an alternate name. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Somewhat ironically, sticky buns trace their history to German settlers to the United States. By the 1940's, they'd had a lot of time to settle as a staple of American pastries, dropping their Germanic sounding name, so it's possible Molly and her family wouldn't have been aware that their traditional snack had ties to one of the countries they were at war with. Molly's mystery books make it clear that she doesn't discriminate against German Americans, but it's still interesting to think how other families who did carry prejudices towards Germans would be enjoying these snacks without realizing their origins. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Again, this is a fairly involved recipe because it relies on yeast to get the dough to rise, and again, I really feel for Mrs. McIntire thinking that this would be something she'd be slaving over in the kitchen in addition to making Christmas dinner, wrapping presents, going to church, and generally running the house while her kids make a mess. Hopefully Dr. McIntire and Mrs. Gilford help her out, or she makes these well in advance and keeps them in the fridge. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To make sticky buns like the McIntires, activate two packets of yeast in 1 cup of lukewarm water with 1 teaspoon of sugar and let stand for five minutes. Scald 1 cup of milk and let it cool before adding the yeast. Cream 1/2 cup of shortening (or butter, but wartime rationing makes shortening an appealing option) and add 2/3 of a cup of sugar. Add 2 eggs, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg and beat everything together. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In a separate bowl, measure in 3 cups of flour and add the yeast mixture. Mix it together, then add your shortening mixture, beating it until smooth. Add 3 1/4 cups of flour, and mix in well. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Turn out your bowl onto a floured surface and knead it until smooth. You can add up to 3/4 of a cup of additional flour if the dough is too sticky, and prepare to knead for a while if you're me and add too much packed flour in. Turns out, sifting does come in handy when working with bready recipes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Once the dough is smooth, roll it into a ball, place it in a greased bowl, cover it with a damp cloth, and put it somewhere warm to rise. After about two hours, it should have doubled in size, and be ready to get rolled out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Divide the ball in half, and roll into a 16 inch by 18 inch, 1/4 inch thick rectangle. Sprinkle each rectangle with a mixture of 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon. Roll the rectangle up like a jellyroll, and cut into twelve 1 inch slices. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Grease two muffin tins and put one tablespoon of the following mixture into each cavity: 1 cup of brown sugar, 1/4 of a cup of melted butter, 2 tablespoons of white corn syrup, and 1/2 cup of whole or broken pecans. Place a slice on top of each, cover the trays, and let them rise a second time for about 45 minutes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Finally, place them in an 375 degree oven and let them bake for 25 minutes or until nicely browned. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The results should look something like this...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But most of mine were kind of a disaster. They baked through and tasted great, but about 3/4 of the rolls I baked in the muffin tin ended up unspiraling as they baked. Instead of nice, tight rolls covered in gooey caramel and pecans, I had giant towers of pastry unfurling in the pan, with most of the caramel stuck on the bottom of the pan. I had some better luck with the rolls that I placed in a round cake pan, cramming them in the way you do with cinnamon rolls. The caramel stuck to them, but they did come out looking a little less pretty than the weird, Elsa's ice palace looking ones. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Also, right out of the oven, the caramel felt like it might actually rip a tooth out if you weren't careful. It softened up considerably when you left the rolls out, covered overnight, and made for a much more enjoyable eating experience. There are a couple different reasons this could have happened, from my muffin tin being too small, to the dough having risen too aggressively, to this just being a bad recipe, but I think if I were to make them again, I'd try baking them in a round pan again instead of a muffin tin. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Taste wise, these were very yummy. They were quite sweet, but not overwhelmingly so necessarily, and well spiced. It also made a lot of buns, so it's a good recipe if you have a lot of people to feed. They kept pretty well after being baked too, so you might be able to get away with making them in advance of serving them if you have a lot of other stuff on your plate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While I'm not sure this will become a Christmas classic in our household, I had a lot of fun making them and thinking about how excited Molly, Jill, Ricky and Brad would be to come downstairs on Christmas morning to dig into these tasty pastries. I hope you had fun reading about them!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">What's your favorite Christmas food tradition?</span></span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-4095906396742211542019-12-12T07:08:00.000-08:002019-12-26T13:17:27.123-08:00Maryellen's Coffee Cake<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A recipe straight from the mid 20th century with a long, long history.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Although American Girl has snipped Maryellen's Christmas story from the most recent edition of her books, they sure do seem to like giving her a lot of winter and holiday releases. For those not in the know, Maryellen's Christmas adventure focused on how Maryellen is growing frustrated with her non-traditional Christmas in Florida. Every movie and holiday card depicts Christmas as a day full of snow, with an evergreen tree, sledding, ice skating... you get the idea. She gets it in her head that she wants to have a "real" Christmas, and ends up going to visit her grandparents in slightly colder Georgia. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After enjoying some of her solo adventure, and getting an opportunity to ice skate, she realizes she misses her family's traditions and wants to go home. The whole story is meant to tie into one of the major themes of Maryellen's series: the 1950's was a period of conformity, but you should follow your heart instead of the crowd. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One of the traditions the Larkins enjoy is eating a coffee cake on Christmas morning, and I've been contemplating trying my hand at making my own pretty much since her books were released. The recipe I'm going to share with you might not be exactly what you're thinking a good coffee cake should be - and very well might not be the exact kind of coffee cake the Larkins cut into while opening presents - but it is an authentic recipe from the period that made a very tasty final product, and got me doing some research into the history of coffee cake. Read on to see what we discovered!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">People have been pairing coffee and cakes pretty much since coffee was imported to the western world. It's generally agreed that the earliest recipes for coffee cake came from countries like Germany and the Netherlands that already made sweet yeasted breads and cakes, and it was simply common sense to pair a sweet cake or bread with a strong cup of coffee in the morning or afternoons. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, when I think of coffee cake, I tend to visualize the variety that's really more of a crumb cake: a soft white or yellow cake with a lot of lightly spiced crumble on top. When I started thumbing through my vintage cookbooks looking for a coffee cake recipe, I definitely expected to find instructions for a similar cake, and instead discovered that most of my 1940's and 1950's cookbooks had recipes for a very different kind of coffee cake. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Instead of the crumb cake I was expecting, these cookbooks offered instructions for a yeasted cake that sounded a lot more like the coffee cakes of old than the ones you'll pick up pre-packaged at the grocery store. I have a sneaking suspicion that Valerie Tripp might have intended the Larkin family recipe to be a crumb cake, but I was so intrigued by these bready sounding treats that I decided I had to give one a try. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The recipe I ended up taking for a spin comes from <i>The Modern Family Cookbook</i> by Meta Given, which was originally published in 1942 and enjoyed a reprinting in 1953. It was gifted to us by our friend Sarah - thanks again, Sarah! - and I haven't made anything from it yet, so I was eager to give it a shot. I also liked the idea of trying out a recipe from a book that would have been published when Maryellen's parents were young adults that was still popular in the 1950's, as this could easily be a cookbook they were gifted years before Maryellen was born, found the recipe, liked it, and turned it into a family tradition. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To make this coffee cake, you want to soften one packet of yeast in 1/4 of a cup of lukewarm water with 1/2 teaspoon of sugar. In a separate bowl, combine 4 cups of flour with 1/2 teaspoon of ground mace or cardamom (or a different spice if you're not a fan of either of those.) Scald 3/4 of a cup of whole milk on the stove and add 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt. Let the milk mixture cool before adding the yeast and two beaten eggs, mixing it well. To this mixture, add 2 cups of flour and mix well before adding 1/2 of a cup of cooled melted butter. Add 1/2 cup of raisins to the rest of the flour, mix them in well, and then add the flour and raisins to your dough. Remember, it's important to flour your fruit so it doesn't sink to the bottom of your cake. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Once your dough has come together, put it on a lightly floured surface and knead the dough until it's smooth and elastic. The recipe warns not to add too much more flour as you knead the dough to keep it light, and we had good luck with it coming together, partially aided by my mom's stand mixer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When it's finished, roll it into a ball and place it in a greased bowl. Let it rise in a warm place (the cookbook recommends somewhere that's at least 85 degrees) for an hour and a half to two hours or until it's doubled in size. If your house is cold, Jess recommends turning your oven on as low as it can go while you're making your dough. When you're ready to let it rise, open the door to the oven and put the bowl on the door. Once the oven has cooled down, place the bowl inside and close the door. This will create a warm environment for your yeast to do their thing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Once it's risen, divide the dough in half and roll out both to fit in two well greased loaf tins. Cover them again and let them rise for about another hour. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While they rise, make your struesel topping: mix 1/3 cup of brown sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and a pinch of salt together, then cut in 3 tablespoons of butter until the mixture is coarse and crumbly. Toss 1/3 of a cup of pecans in and the topping is ready to go. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Brush the loaves with melted butter and sprinkle the struesel over both loaves. The cakes bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then a further 15 to 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Our cakes took a while to cook all the way through, and annoyingly were very difficult to check because taking them out of the pan would have meant losing a lot of the struesel, but the dough was too doughy to insert a skewer or cake tester inside to see if the middle was raw. We ended up sacrificing the second, less attractive loaf to see if it had cooked all the way through, and wound up putting them back in the oven for an additional fifteen minutes. But the end result was quite pretty!
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Jess insists that this technically qualifies as a cake and not a bread because it has too much fat in it to be bread, but the texture and flavor is definitely more of a bread than a cake. Fortunately, we managed to keep the dough nice and light, so it wasn't super dense, but it definitely wasn't as sweet at the crumb cake version of coffee cake.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Overall, I'm really glad we tried this, and the end result was definitely tasty - not to mention a hit with my Connecticut based taste testers, who admittedly don't get to try out my treats as often as they did before I went to grad school - but wow, this is a lot of work. Yeast is a tricky beast, especially when you're not overly familiar with what temperature things need to be at, or if you're not as familiar deciding if your dough is done based on touch and texture. It also just takes a <i>lot</i> of time, and for that reason I have a hard time imagining that Mrs. Larkin or her mom would be really excited about rolling out this specific recipe every year for Christmas breakfast. A crumb cake is a lot easier to throw together quickly, and requires less baby sitting. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Still, the final product was very tasty, and I thought it was fun trying my hand at something that was a little closer to what the coffee cakes of old would have been like. I also think it's really interesting that these more traditional coffee cakes made it into these cookbooks from the midcentury, a period characterized by its tendency to rely on pre-packaged materials, time saving techniques, and general corner cutting. Maybe next year, we'll look into when crumb cakes began to overtake these sweet yeast cakes as the coffee cake of choice and give one of those a try.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Did you try out any new recipes this holiday season?</span></span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-62859794370664237652019-11-29T14:50:00.000-08:002019-12-12T05:42:29.720-08:00Blaire's Hug in a Bowl<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Or broccoli cheddar soup!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Blaire's time as Girl of the Year is coming to an end, and before she rides off, I wanted to try my hand at at least one more of the recipes American Girl released to celebrate her time in the sun. She might make the occasional appearance around these parts the same way Grace does, but the odds of American Girl producing any other Blaire content moving forward is pretty slim, and I have to admit, this recipe caught the interest of this cheese loving blogger from the moment I read her books. Read on to learn how to make Blaire's famous Hug in a Bowl yourself!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've already talked at length about Blaire's struggles with her new diagnosis of lactose intolerance, and how American Girl hasn't always been amazing at tying that in to their marketing campaign, to featuring <a href="https://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-blaire-wilson-tea-at-american-girl.html">plenty of lactose heavy treats at the Blaire Wilson Tea</a> this past summer to <a href="https://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2019/04/blaires-dairy-free-chocolate-chip.html">spotlighting a brownie recipe in her second book</a>, which - while story relevant - are often lactose free anyway, and therefore not especially exciting for kids looking for new treats that won't upset their stomachs. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">However, there were at least two recipes that were available on the hard to find, and not well advertised American Girl Explore page. Geared towards parents who are looking for more ways to get their kids eating healthy, getting involved in activities, or being a better friend, this page also features the occasional recipe. Some of these are just repeats from old cookbooks or American Girl Magazine articles, but others are entirely new content, like this <a href="https://www.americangirl.com/explore/articles/how-to-adapt-family-favorite-recipes">recipe for Blaire's Hug in a Bowl</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hug in a Bowl, or broccoli cheddar soup, is featured in Blaire's series as one of Blaire's signature dishes, something she enjoys making for her family and eating herself. Since her diagnosis, it's another recipe she's had to adapt to meet her new dietary needs. It's also one of the recipes she provides to the food pantry to encourage kids to eat more vegetables, and is part of her inspiration for making <a href="https://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2019/08/blaires-awesome-sauce.html">Awesomesauce</a> to donate to the pantry. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The recipe offers three different ways to make broccoli cheddar soup: one with dairy, one with cashew milk and vegan cheese, and one that's completely dairy and nut free. Each version of the soup starts with the same base: chop up 1 1/2 pounds of broccoli and set it aside. Heat 5 cups of chicken broth until it boils, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large sauce pan and add 1 finely chopped yellow onion, stirring often, for about eight minutes before adding 1/4 of a cup of flour, coating the onions well and cooking for one more minute. Add the broth, broccoli, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, and 1/2 teaspoon of thyme to the sauce pan and bring the mixture to a boil. Finally, reduce it to a simmer and let it cook for about 20 minutes, covered, until the broccoli is tender. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Take the pan off the heat and let it cool before transferring it in batches to a blender to blend it smooth. I used my immersion blender, which saved a lot of time and hassle, as well as clean up, and didn't require me to wait for the mixture to fully cool down because I wasn't transferring it to a plastic blender. This is one of my favorite kitchen tools, and I'd definitely recommend doing it yourself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Once it's blended, it's time to add your cheese. The dairy version calls for 2 cups of whole milk, and 1/2 pound of grated sharp cheddar cheese, as well as salt and pepper to taste. I'll admit, despite my own dairy sensitivity, I made this version, because I really like cheddar cheese and am not a fan of nut milk or vegan cheese. If you are, you can also make it with 2 cups of cashew milk, 1/2 pound of shredded vegan cheddar, salt and pepper, or 2 to 4 mashed Yukon Gold potatoes, smoked paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The recipe instructs you to mix in your milk, then half of your shredded cheese, and serve the remaining cheese over the top of the soup.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The final product was somewhere between pretty good and just okay. I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed with it, because the soup was incredibly runny and not thick the way I like broccoli cheddar soup to be. It also didn't really taste like cheddar at all, which makes me think maybe it would be better to add some other cheese to bring out the salty, creamy flavor, the way a really good home made mac and cheese does. But I still ate all the leftovers and would probably make it again. It's a relatively involved recipe, especially if you don't have an immersion blender, so I'm not sure if this should be the first recipe an aspiring young chef should try on their own, but a responsible kid who looks up to Blaire could probably do it with a little help from an adult, and it's a simple enough way to bring Blaire's books to life for a parent, AG Club or home school group. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Overall, I enjoyed the potential of Blaire's stories and collections, but was kind of disappointed in the actual execution this year. It's fun to see that AG did in fact research and design recipes that match Blaire's series, but disappointing to see it tucked away on part of the website that not too many fans seem to be aware of. In the future, I hope they make more of an effort to get interested readers supplemental materials in a more in your face way, instead of hoping they stumble upon them because they're a historian who's always on the hunt for more official company materials for various research projects. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Anyway, I hope this was of interest! Can't wait to see what next year brings us from the Girl of the Year line.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Although I'm not sure it'll have quite as many tasty offerings as this year's did...</span></span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-17443788894555617122019-11-27T14:50:00.000-08:002019-12-11T13:17:38.771-08:00Jane's Cranberry Cornbread<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A cornbread that could have been served at the first Thanksgiving!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I swear I intended to have Jane represent the experience of settlers in Jamestown, but let's be honest: it's hard to ignore Plymouth as a source for early colonization and interactions between Europeans and Native communities, particularly when it comes to exchanging food. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This corn bread is very different from the corn bread you've probably enjoyed alongside chili and fried chicken, but if you're looking for something that can pass as authentic for your Thanksgiving table, this really fits the bill. Read on to find out how to make this yourself!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Despite its important role in modern American understandings of our country's early history, there are very few first person accounts of the first Thanksgiving held in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and it was not immediately established as an annual event. As food historian Joyce White <a href="http://atasteofhistorywithjoycewhite.blogspot.com/2017/11/discover-first-thanksgiving-and-recipe.html">explains in a blog post from 2017</a>, the tradition is actually derived from the British tradition of Harvest Home, held only when it was felt God had blessed a community in a particularly special way. After nearly starving to death during the first winter of 1620 and 1621, it's pretty obvious why the community of European settlers would feel that they'd been blessed with a much better outlook as 1621 came to a close. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Although the exact day wasn't recorded, the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth was celebrated in early fall of 1621 and lasted for three days. We know that several English settlers went out to hunt for fowl, 90 members of the Wampanoag community were invited and brought venison to share, and the colonists held games and other celebrations to mark the occasion. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This leaves quite a bit of interpretation for anyone looking to recreate an "authentic" menu for the first Thanksgiving. I've seen people hypothesize that anything from oysters to moose could conceivably been on the table, although it's a pretty safe bet that dishes using the three sisters (corn, beans, and squash) would have been involved. Many dishes may have been fully inspired by Wampanoag dishes and customs, while others might offer a blend of English and Native traditions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Joyce White offers a recipe for corn bread inspired by ingredients the early settlers and Wampanoag would have had access to in 1621, adapted from a Narragansett recipe she found via the Tomaquag Museum located in Exeter, Rhode Island. As I said above, it's a weird corn bread by modern standards, as it's very dense and not at all fluffy because - of course - it doesn't rely on chemical leavening agents. If you make it really authentically, you can even avoid using milk and eggs, both of which wouldn't have been available to people in Massachusetts until 1624. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To make this corn bread, whisk together 1/2 cup of water, 1/2 cup of milk, 1/4 of a cup of melted butter, 1 egg, and 1/4 of a cup of maple syrup in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, combine 1 1/4 cups of corn meal, 1 cup of flour, and 4 ounces of dried berries, making sure the berries are well coated in the flours so they don't sink to the bottom of the pan. You can use any dried berry you prefer. Although Joyce White notes that there's no evidence the early colonists would have been eating cranberries at this point, I like cranberries and had already decided to use milk and eggs, so the final product wasn't going to be wholly authentic anyway. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Combine the wet and dry ingredients until the dry ingredients are just incorporated. It'll be a really thick batter. The bread bakes at 400 degrees in an 8 inch oiled pie or cake pan for about 25 minutes, and is finished when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The end result is an extremely dense slice of corn bread.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Like most recipes I've made for Jane that claim to be at least somewhat authentic to the early 1600's, this corn bread was definitely a little weird, but absolutely not bad. It's much less sweet than modern corn bread even with the berries and maple syrup, and I found it to be generally very bland. Inoffensive, but bland. The texture was also a little weird, somewhere between dry and gummy, but very dense either way. While I'm happy I tried it, and while I see how this would probably be a huge treat to someone like Jane, who isn't used to the sugary, fluffy cakes we enjoy today, I'm not sure I'd make it again, or if it's earned a permanent spot on our Thanksgiving table. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On the other hand, Jess really enjoyed it, and happily took charge of the leftovers. I do think she has a point that it's a good breakfast snack, as eating it alongside a cup of tea or coffee kind of helps with the slightly boring flavor. Without the berries, I'm not sure it would be worth eating at all, though! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So that's a look at an interpretation of historical corn bread. As always, check out the rest of Joyce White's blog for other interesting peeks at historical recipes. She's one of my favorite bloggers and a big source of inspiration to continue peeking into the very distant past for other strange recipes to try out!</span></div>
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Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-60651327601677162522019-11-15T14:49:00.000-08:002019-12-10T07:45:31.432-08:00Caroline's Molasses Pie<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A pie that's really more of a cake, but tasty either way!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Molasses is one of my favorite ingredients to use in dessert. I'm a big fan of chocolate and boring old vanilla (which really isn't that boring) as well, but anything with molasses and spice in it tends to win my heart pretty quickly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This unusual pie might not be entirely authentic to Caroline's time period - and actually has its roots in the 1870's, and you may know it as shoofly pie - but molasses would have been so much a part of her life that it just felt fitting to give this one to her. Besides, American Girl doesn't seem that inspired by the 19th century these days, so if you want something done at all, let alone right, I guess I'd better do it myself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In all honesty, I think I'm going to hold off on deep diving into the history of shoofly pie - a pie that's actually more of a crumb cake that can trace its history back to the Centennial of the United States - and talk specifically about its primary ingredient: molasses. Molasses is a byproduct of processing cane sugar, and was the most popular sweetener in the United States up until around the 1880's, when producing white sugar became more affordable to the average American. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Molasses was sold to the U.S. colonies from sugar plantations in the Caribbean, where enslaved workers were forced to work incredibly brutal jobs processing sugar cane. It's hypothesized that an enslaved man was the first person to realize that fermenting molasses created rum, and a fair amount of the molasses imported to North America would be distilled into my personal favorite alcoholic beverage. The United States and particularly the northeast, had a long history of rum distilleries that were effectively killed off by Prohibition, and it's only relatively recently that American rums are coming back into the scene. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As Caroline's family was comfortably middle class, they likely could have afforded white sugar occasionally, but molasses would have been a staple ingredient in their pantry. The ginger cookies in her rescue kit would no doubt have been sweetened with molasses, and there were likely many nights Caroline split a cauldron of baked beans flavored with molasses with her mother, father, and grandmother. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Molasses is usually associated with fall and winter recipes for two reasons: its rich taste compliments other seasonal spices really well, and because molasses was not available during warmer, summer months in the years before refrigeration. Being a New Englander who's very much used to molasses being incorporated into our traditional foodways, I'm just too excited to tell you all about how to make this pie. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Turns out? It's super easy. In a mixing bowl, mix 1 1/4 cups of flour, 3/4 of a cup of packed brown sugar, and 1/2 of a teaspoon of salt together. Then, using a pastry cutter, butter knifes, or a fork, cut in 1/2 of a cup of cold butter until the mixture is nice and rough. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In a second bowl, mix together 1 teaspoon of baking soda with 1 cup of warm water, then add 1/2 of a cup of molasses, 1 egg, 1/2 of a teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/4 of a teaspoon of nutmeg, and 1/4 of a teaspoon of ginger and mix everything together well. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Using an unbaked pre-made pie crust (or if you're brave or more into making pastry crusts than I am, you can make your own), pour 1/3 of the dry ingredients into the crust and top with 1/2 of the wet ingredients. Add another 1/3 of the dry ingredients and the remaining wet ingredients, then top with the remaining dry ingredients to form a crumb topping. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The pie bakes in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 or 50 minutes, and is finished when a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Shoofly pie can have a wet or dry bottom, and mine was definitely wet. You can see the top 3/4's of the pie have more of a cake or brownie like texture, while the remaining 1/4 is pretty damp.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The final product is very tasty... so long as you like molasses! Although this recipe is known as a pie, the filling is really more like a crumb cake, and is pretty solid and not too sweet. Because of the dark color, a few of my tasters were curious if it was chocolatey, or said they thought it did taste like there was some cocoa in it, but it's just straight molasses. Traditionally, this treat would have been enjoyed as a breakfast snack, and putting it in a pie crust made it easier to eat with your hands, perfect for a day when you were running out the door or drinking a cup of coffee with your other hand. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, is this an authentic treat Caroline would have enjoyed? Not until she was an elderly woman with grandkids of her own! But I still had a lot of fun making it and trying it out. Somehow I've never actually had shoo-fly pie before or anything similar to it, and while it's pretty unusual, it's also definitely right up my alley, and I've been enjoying eating the leftovers instead of being reasonable and dropping it off at work for my coworkers to help me devour the rest. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I hope you enjoyed this brief look into the history of molasses!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Now if only AG would make an 1870's character so we could explore more of those recipes...</span></span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-83343442655256473352019-11-01T14:48:00.000-07:002019-11-26T19:09:16.873-08:00Felicity's Raleigh Tavern Cookies<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A trip down memory lane via the oven!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A fun part of starting this blog has meant I've discovered how easy it is to find recipes replicating treats you might have thought you could only enjoy on vacation to places like Disney World or Colonial Williamsburg. These might not always be authentically historic, but I still like giving them a shot because whipping up a batch of Brunswick stew in your kitchen is a lot cheaper than driving all the way to Williamsburg... or hopping on a plane to enjoy Le Cellier's beer cheese soup in Epcot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The recipe I'm going to share with you today is a staple of Colonial Williamsburg, and a treat that I always eat at least one or two of on my visits to the museum: Raleigh Tavern ginger cookies. You can smell these fluffy cookies whenever you walk by the bake shop, and Williamsburg even offers to ship them to you via their online store. But if you're hoping to make your own, look no further.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The recipe was posted in the comments section of Colonial Williamsburg's historic foodways blog, and is not historically authentic so much as historically inspired. Fine by me, as the cookies are still really tasty regardless. They're also very easy to make, which felt like the perfect way to ease back into actually posting on the blog again. I didn't mean to take the entire month of October off, but here we are. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I didn't end up taking any in progress photos, because the cookies are pretty straight forward: combine 6 cups of flour, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda, 2 teaspoons of ginger, 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1 cup of sugar in a large bowl. Add 1 cup of molasses, 1/2 of a cup of evaporated milk, and 1 cup of melted butter and mix everything together to form a dough. The dough should be stiff enough to handle without feeling gunky on your fingers and doesn't need to be chilled before you roll it out. I had to add a little more flour to get mine workable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Roll out the cookies to 1/4 inch thickness and cut them into round shapes. They bake in the oven for about 12 minutes, and then they're ready to eat!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Mine didn't come out as dome shaped as the ones I've eaten in Williamsburg before, and I had to use blackstrap molasses so they're definitely a little darker than they should be, but they still were tasty. If you want a more cakey cookie like the ones you buy in Williamsburg, I'd recommend rolling them out a little thicker and maybe even just forming them by hand. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Regardless, these definitely tasted pretty similar to the cookies from the museum, and they were so easy to make that I'd definitely like to make them again. The recipe also divides in half very easily if you don't want a kitchen full of cookies, and the cookies come out so uniformly that you could easily make an impressive Colonial stacked tower with them if you so chose.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's funny, after I finished taking pictures, I ate a couple cookies and drank the rest of my tea sitting on the floor with Felicity and the scene I'd constructed for photos. Something about the combination of eating the familiar cookies, drinking out of Colonial Williamsburg authentic china and staring at the lovingly recreated version of one of Williamsburg's shops made me feel more like a little kid playing with dolls than I have since I started doing this blog. It was a fun, nostalgic way to spend a Sunday morning, and if you're looking for a similarly comforting trip down memory lane - or just an easy spice cookie recipe - I'd definitely recommend giving this a shot for yourself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Maybe they'll end up making an appearance on our family's holiday cookie tray this year!</span></span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-64717153378983389422019-10-22T06:43:00.000-07:002019-11-24T15:51:06.015-08:00Kit's Appalachian Apple Stack Cake<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A cake that could be a real community effort!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Sorry again for the delay. My life post-vow renewal/reception has surprisingly meant even less time and energy for the blog than before, and as much as I miss it, it's kind of been nice to have some time to get the rest of my life back on track. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What better way to get back in action than to try out this cake that - allegedly - would have been enjoyed at wedding celebrations in Depression-era Appalachia? Read on to see how this unusual, slightly involved cake may or may not have been the hit at weddings from time gone by.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've been enchanted by this cake since I first learned of its existence, but it's slightly high maintenance assembly instructions have always had me shying away from making it myself. The story goes that these cakes originated in Appalachia and were big hits at weddings for brides who didn't have much to spare on fancy wedding cakes. Instead of splurging on ingredients, the bride's female relatives and friends would each bake a layer of cake and bring it to the wedding, slathering each layer of cake with apple butter and stacking them one on top of the other. Popular brides had very tall cakes. This unique tradition helped people be thrifty while showing their support for the new couple, something Kit's Aunt Millie would no doubt approve of. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There's a decent chance this story is just that - a story. Isn't that the way with so many fun recipe origins? Anne Byrn of <i>American Cake</i> notes that a cake assembled and eaten on the same day would be dry and kind of unpleasant tasting. You need to let it sit at room temperature for at least a day or two to let the apple butter fully seep into the layers. Not exactly ideal for a day of assembly, right? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But I think it's still possible there's some truth to this maybe folktale. In communities where family and friends lived close by, it's totally not out of the question for the volunteer bakers to be able to swing by and drop off a cake the day or two before a big event. The layers I made were also small enough that I would think a particularly close friend or relative could swing making a layer or three instead of just the one, so who knows? Maybe the story's perfectly true. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Either way, on to the recipe. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Again, I cracked open <i>American Cake</i> to guide me, although I cheated quite a lot by totally ignoring her instructions on how to make my own apple butter. We went apple picking with our friends and picked up a jar of homemade apple butter from the orchard that I figured would be equally tasty and save me quite a bit of time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The cake batter in <i>American Cake</i> is pretty simple, and ends up with a really thick end product. Mix together 5 cups of flour with 1 teaspoon each of baking soda and baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Set this aside, and in a separate bowl, combine 2/3 of a cup of shortening, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 cup of molasses. Blend this together with a hand mixer and add two eggs, one at a time. Finally, alternate the dry ingredients with 1 cup of room temperature buttermilk. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Divide the batter into six layers, and add them to as many nine inch cake pans as you can which have been greased and lined with parchment paper.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The layers get baked for about 16 minutes at 350 degrees. Once they're done, let them cool in the pan for three minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool. As soon as they're on the wire, slather them liberally with apple butter and start stacking.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is where the recipe started to lose me. I only have two nine inch cake pans, so it took a long time to get the cake baked, and working with the batter and the parchment paper was really difficult. It was so thick, it kept peeling the parchment paper off the bottom of the pan. After they were done baking, the layers were uneven, and definitely not the pancake shape or texture I'd been told they should look like. Stacking uneven layers lead to some cracking, that while not completely catastrophic to the construction of the cake, was still annoying to have to deal with. By the time I had all six layers out of the oven, slathered in apple butter, stacked, and dusted with powdered sugar, I was definitely ready to just put the cake dome on and let it sit for a while instead of fussing with it more. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, what did it taste like?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Just okay. This cake wasn't one of my absolute favorites I've ever made, which is admittedly sort of not fair because I've made quite a number of cakes since starting this blog. I have to admit, I think that assessment might also have more to do with my frustration with getting the batter in the pans and the fact that the cake started to crack, plus I was trying to organize a Halloween party and just feeling super burnt out on the blog in general, so when I finally bit into the cake and discovered it was a little dry and not super sweet, I was just underwhelmed and kind of eager to move onto the next thing. I'd be interested in trying it again, or maybe experimenting with a different recipe, but probably not for a while. The odds of me cycling back around to a dish and trying a different version is pretty slim when I've got so many other things I'd like to try out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The cake was a little dry, although the apple butter did ooze into the layers the way it was advertised and offered a nice moistness and apple flavor. The cake itself had a texture that definitely reminded me of a soft gingerbread cookie rather than a real cake, but that was to be expected after handling the cakes when they came out of the oven. A couple folks tried it at the party, but considering how many half eaten pieces I ended up throwing out and the fact that most of the cake remained untouched, I feel like it wasn't really a fan favorite either. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Which is fine! Not every recipe can knock it out of the park, and I'm glad I gave this a try anyway. Let's just hope the next adventure is a little more worth the hassle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Until then, we have a lot of cake to dole out to folks!</span></span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-81078637680024991382019-10-04T06:38:00.000-07:002019-11-24T15:38:59.179-08:00Nellie's Dublin Coddle<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A hearty meal that is definitely not Weight Watcher friendly...</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With temperatures finally dropping into a reasonable fall range, Jess and I have been breaking out some soup and stew recipes. They're a great solution to the age old question of "what am I bringing to work for lunch?" but they're kind of frustrating to make when your building shuts off the air conditioner when it's still in the upper 80's and super humid until the sun goes down. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This simple but extremely hardy soup probably isn't going to make it into our regular rotation because it's just not healthy at all unless you're working a very physically demanding schedule, but it is very on brand for Nellie and her family before and after immigrating to the United States. Read on to find out more about this traditional Irish favorite.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Coddle is the perfect dish to make use of leftovers, and is extremely popular in Dublin. The above photo is a picture of a bowl I enjoyed while on vacation there with my family a few winters ago! You can read <a href="http://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2018/01/nellies-trip-to-dublin-plus-irish-beef.html">all about that trip on the blog, alongside a really yummy recipe for a Guinness chocolate cake.</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Traditionally, coddle is a very, very simple soup, and it's popular because everything is either pantry staples, or leftovers from other meals. My recipe came from <i>The Irish Granny's Pocket Recipe Book</i>, a little souvenir I picked up from our trip to Ireland. It's somewhere between charmingly tacky and genuinely a nice little cookbook, with a lot of different fun recipes I've been wanting to try out. That's one of the problems with this blog and my ever growing cookbook collection: there's never enough hours in the day to get everything done. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Coddle is cooked in layers, starting with potatoes. Cut up four pounds of peeled potatoes, add some of them to the bottom of your pan, and season them with salt and pepper, then layer them with a pound of sausages, a pound of bacon, and two diced onions. Season each layer with more salt and pepper, and end with a final layer of potatoes. Add a few cups of water, bring it to a boil over medium heat, reduce the heat to let it simmer and let it cook for an hour.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, what did I think?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Honestly, this was pretty tasty going down, but I felt insanely guilty for eating it. I know that's silly, because at the end of the day, I can eat whatever I want and can offset a more calorie dense soup by eating salad for days afterward, but it still just felt like "wow, I am not going to be expending enough energy to make eating this bowl a worthwhile calorie investment." That said, it was also so filling that you really didn't need a big bowl of it to feel satisfied, which also was probably handy if you were an Irish mill worker or domestic server like Nellie and her family. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Additionally, fat is a good preservative, so this soup could probably keep for a good long while so long as you could keep it cold. Not a bad thing if you were looking for ways to stretch meals or get a lot out of your leftovers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The coddle I had in Dublin I remember feeling less heavy, but I also don't really remember what was in it besides sausage and potatoes. If you're looking to make a slightly less traditional version, you could add barley or carrots, which at least gives you some fiber along with your literal pound of bacon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">I think I might add some in to the leftovers!</span></span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-47089914138818549992019-09-30T06:49:00.000-07:002019-10-04T10:19:02.766-07:00Angela's Pasta Fagoli<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A family favorite, perfect for feeding a crowd!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This recipe comes straight from the family archives. I've said before about how my great-grandmother (the same lady behind our delicious family meatball recipe) was hands down the best cook in the family. She'd make pasta and tomato sauce from scratch, and my dad didn't even know he liked Italian food before he tried her cooking. Like many talented cooks, Nana didn't write down any of her recipes because she worked from taste and touch rather than specific measurements, so if you wanted to learn how to make something, she had to walk you through it herself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Unfortunately, this means quite a lot of her specialties have been lost to history, but my mom learned how to make this tasty, hearty soup that's served as the main course at countless family gatherings, and she very kindly took the time to show me how to make it myself. If you're looking for a really east, very tasty dish, definitely consider giving this one a try!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Pasta fagoli was considered a peasant dish in Italy, and different regions have different spins on the dish. Some are less like soup and more like traditional pasta dishes, while others might have a thicker, stew-like consistency. Nana's is definitely more of a soup, and has very simple to follow instructions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To make your soup base, you're going to want dry, rinsed navy beans, an entire thing of celery, chopped including the leaves, a large can of diced tomatoes, a few cloves of minced garlic, extra virgin olive oil and about three or four packets of GWashington Golden seasoning. The latter was the only thing I had an issue finding at our grocery store, so I had to make do with a similar product. Any chicken flavored seasoning should probably do the trick. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Fill your cooking vessel with a fair amount of water (again, eyeball it), and let it cook for a good long while to develop the flavors. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Once you're satisfied with the way your broth tastes and your navy beans are nice and soft, add assorted pasta and cook according to their directions. If you've got half empty boxes of pasta you're looking to get rid of, this is the perfect recipe to use it up. If the broth starts getting too thick, add chicken or vegetable broth to thin it back out again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When the pasta's cooked, spoon it into a bowl and sprinkle liberally with parmesan cheese!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I can't say enough how big a part of my life this soup has been. My mom often hosts my grandparents, my aunt, uncle and their kids at our house on Sundays, a tradition that started before I was born and has continued even after most of the kids have left their respective nests. It's perfect to feed a large crowd because it makes <i>a lot</i>, and it's a very filling, comforting soup without being too heavy or too complicated to prepare. After prepping your ingredients, you're essentially just letting it cook undisturbed until it's done. Hard to argue with that! Taste wise, it's also just a genuinely nice, slightly salty, very veggie flavored soup. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Funnily enough? I <i>hated</i> it growing up. I would groan and whine when I found out we were having it for Sunday dinner, because I felt like we had it <i>all the time</i> (which we didn't), and I thought it was boring and definitely not as good as say, take out pizza. I'd totally smother it in cheese and salt in an attempt to save the flavor, and often just picked out the pasta. When I got a little older, I still didn't like it, but I at least choked the whole thing down. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Then I went to college, and when I heard that's what was for Sunday dinner back home... I got jealous and wished I had some! When I was home on break, I was delighted when my mom made it, even when my siblings and cousins were like "what is wrong with you?" because none of them liked it either. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Except then my cousin went to college, and then my sister, then my other cousin, and finally my brother, and we all independently realized man... we didn't know how good we had it as kids! It's so funny to me how we all went from hating pasta fagoli to really loving it after we left home, and I'm excited I've now been able to make a passable version of my mom's recipe for myself. I hope you enjoy it too!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Now to get to work on all these leftovers...</span></span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-88422020788174755892019-09-18T06:48:00.000-07:002019-10-02T10:13:41.541-07:00Rebecca's New York Cheesecake<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A New York classic you can make far from the Big Apple!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My wife loves cheesecake. I'm not sure I would go as far as to say she's a cheesecake fiend, but she's certainly close. I, however, am not as big of a fan (which is not to say I don't like them, just to be clear), so I haven't actually made very many of them in my time learning to bake and exploring historic recipes. I made one for her birthday based on Perfectly Preserved Pies from Fallout (which you can see on my Instagram), and I've made a <a href="https://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2016/03/janes-cheesecake.html">very historic cheesecake</a> that the Pilgrims might have enjoyed, but I'd never tried my hand at a very basic, classic New York style cheesecake before. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, now I have, and it was a lot easier and more fun than I expected it to be. Some of that might be because I once again turned to <i>American Cake</i> by Anne Byrd, my favorite cookbook of all time, for guidance, but I think between this and my attempt at Perfectly Preserved Pie have encouraged me to try out a few more cheesecakes down the line. Read on to see how it turned out!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cheesecake has a long, long history, some of which I already discussed in the <a href="https://apeekintothepantry.blogspot.com/2016/03/janes-cheesecake.html">very old fashioned</a> cheesecake I made using a Plimoth Plantation recipe three whole years ago now. Cheesecakes, as <i>American Cake</i> explains, has always been popular with Jewish people because it was the perfect dessert for religious holidays like Shavuot. They originally were made with ricotta (like the Plimoth cheesecake) or other soft cheeses, but by the turn of the century, cream cheese had firmly entered the American market and was extremely popular with Jews. Soon, cream cheese companies were promoting more and more recipes featuring their product, including Philadelphia's "Philadelphia Cream Cake". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As cream cheese was popular in New York City, and just about every Jewish deli made their own cheesecakes, there's no one true originator of the New York style cheesecake we all know and love. A legend claims that Arnold Reuben, owner of the legendary Turf Restaurant at 49th and Broadway in New York City, tried an early version of New York cheesecake in a friend's home, and loved it so much, he recreated it for his restaurant with cream cheese, becoming the first establishment to sell the cream cheese based product to customers in the late 1920's. A competing restaurant - Lindy's - hired away the baker from Reuben, and Lindy's quickly became the most famous cheesecake maker in America. The Lindy's recipe for cheesecake, which Anne Byrne adapted for <i>American Cake</i> has been in circulation since the 1960's thanks to two different food writers who asked for the recipe. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As Rebecca is Jewish and a native New Yorker, she definitely would have had the chance to watch this drama unfold, and probably would have gotten to try a lot of really delicious cheesecakes over the course of her life. As the cream cheese based recipes became more popular, she might have learned to make it herself for a special treat, or adapted her mom or grandmother's recipes to use the new ingredient for a modern spin on a family favorite! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Of course, she could also just go to any number of delis or diners and get a slice without needing to turn on the oven. The possibilities are endless! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To make a Lindy's style cheesecake, you first need to bake the crust. Being a bit of a cheesecake newcomer, I was totally surprised to find out that originally, most New York style cheesecakes had cookie crusts instead of graham cracker, which is definitely the more common option these days. Using a food processor, combine 1/4 of a cup of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla, 1 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of cold butter until the mixture is nice and crumbly. Spread it along the bottom of an ungreased, unlined springform pan and bake it in the oven at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Let the crust cool completely, and then get to work on your filling, which should take long enough to let your crust cool off completely. You'll also want to increase the temperature of your oven to 500 degrees. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To make the filling, you need a whopping 2 1/2 pounds of cream cheese (that's 5 eight ounce packets!), 1 3/4 cups of sugar, 3 tablespoons of flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon of orange zest, 1 1/2 teaspoon of lemon zest and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. Beat this until the cream cheese is nice and fluffy. After scraping down the bowl - seriously, make sure you do this! - add 5 large eggs and 2 egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Finally, add 1/4 cup of heavy cream and a 1/4 teaspoon of salt, beat it a final time, and you've got your filling. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There was quite a lot of it, and I know cheesecakes don't rise too too much during the cooking process, but I was still nervous about filling my pan up to the top. I gave it a little bit of wiggle room, discovered I still had quite a lot of filling left over, and pulled out some ramekins to make tiny cheesecakes with the rest of the batter. I didn't get any photos of these, but I had enough to fill five relatively deep ramekins, so either my springform is smaller than average or this recipe makes quite a bit of extra filling. Keep that in mind when trying it yourself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cheesecakes often require some interesting techniques to make sure they don't crack or get weird lumps in the oven. This recipe doesn't call for a water bath, but it does require wrapping the pan with aluminum foil to make sure the sides don't burn. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Many cheesecakes also involve being cooked briefly at a very high temperature, and then for a very long time at a much lower temperature. This one is no exception, and it needs to stay in the oven at 500 degrees for about ten minutes, or until the top of the cheesecake has started to brown. Once that happens, you need to reduce the oven's temperature to 200 degrees and bake it for at least another hour. My oven, unsurprisingly, took significantly longer, but it did ultimately come out looking perfect.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Unfortunately, cheesecakes are often not really same day desserts. To make sure your filling sets up correctly, you want to let it cool on a wire rack. Then, cover it in plastic wrap and allow it to cool for at least eight hours, if not overnight. I never mess around with this and always chill overnight just in case, because I have had a few accidents with jello molds and didn't want to risk it after taunting my wife with her favorite dessert all Saturday. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Finally, after chilling it, the moment of truth: getting it out of the ring mold. After some wiggling with a knife and an anxious moment where we thought we were ripping big chunks off, the collar of the ring mold slid off, and we were able to start cutting slices!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, I might not be the best person to review this cheesecake because I'm not sure I've ever really had a truly authentic Lindy's cheesecake before, but I think the final product was pretty good. The filling was very lightly citrusy and tart while still being sweet, and the crust was honestly really tasty. I like graham cracker crusts a lot, but I was worried the cookie base would be a little boring or bland, and it really wasn't. Texture wise, this was a lot less dense than I thought it would be. Most of the commercial cheesecakes I've had have had a much more dense, almost fudge like consistency, and this was definitely on the fluffier side. Not a bad thing by any means, but not exactly what I was expecting when I first looked at the recipe and the pictures in the cookbook. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Jess, the more qualified of the two of us, really liked it and ate it for breakfast for several days after I baked it, so if that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is. She experimented with adding some fruit compote to a few of her slices, using up the rest of the blueberry compote I made for my carrot cake and some cherries in juice she brought home from our trip to New York. If you're a fruit and cheesecake person, this is definitely a good base recipe for that and seems to pair well with most jellies, compotes, or fresh fruits. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Overall, I think this can definitely be called a success, and I'm pleased it worked out. After all, five packets of cream cheese and seven eggs went into this, so having it taste gross would have been pretty disappointing!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Hope you enjoyed!</span></span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1278385202778793465.post-28325320132879407592019-09-14T06:47:00.000-07:002019-10-01T11:31:43.223-07:00Emily's Oslo Lunch<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Keeping British kids fighting fit during World War II!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I feel like September has always been a really rough month for the blog. I'm usually in the middle of moving, starting a new job, finishing grad school, or recovering from planning a wedding. 2019 had been especially unkind motivation wise, so this post is one of three that probably should have gone up way sooner, and will end up being backdated. Whoops. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Anyway, one thing I've also been trying to do this September is eat better. As I've discussed before, historical recipes and eating "better" by modern standards often aren't really compatible. What was considered healthy for a pioneer family in 1854 is vastly different for an office worker in 2019, because I'm not getting up at the crack of dawn every day to do backbreaking labor like every member of the Larson family would have been. One period that does have surprisingly healthy - and often surprisingly not that bad, if not good - recipes to offer is World War II, especially when looking into British dishes, where rationing was a lot more intense than it was in the United States. Read on to see an experimental meal that helped British school kids stay healthy in spite of food shortages!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Oslo Meal was pioneered in the 1930's as a way to make sure school kids were receiving nutritionally beneficial meals at school. During World War II, many schools in the United Kingdom decided to try out these very easy to prepare meals as a way to ensure their students were getting healthy food. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The concept of the Oslo Meal is very simple: load up a plate with lots of vegetables for a salad, and provide a small block of cheese, a glass of milk, and two slices of bread, which can be buttered (or margarined, as the case may be in war time.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Vegetables weren't rationed in Britain during the war, meaning schools could use whatever was available to fill kid's plates. As they were so veggie heavy, they're filling as well as pretty nutritionally decent for growing kids. Housewives also took to the concept for an easy to prepare cold dinner. These lunches remained popular in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world until they were swapped out for hot lunches in the post-war period. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'm a very lazy meal prepper, so they only thing I don't like about this is chopping the vegetables and making sure you have it packed up to take to work. But that's a me thing, not an Oslo Meal thing. If you're looking for a veggie heavy packable lunch that's historically inspired, you could definitely do worse than this! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What are some of your favorite lunches to take to work or school?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Time to eat!</span></span></div>
Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08239226134505976077noreply@blogger.com2