Lollipops and Beer

While you may hear about how hard it is for small businesses to survive, there is one small business that is never going away: the local liquor store. Why?

LOLLIPOPS

Yea, you read that right. Lollipops.

Those of you without kids have probably never noticed the small bucket of DumDums next to the cash register (at every liquor store in Boulder, is it just a Boulder thing?). Even if you have, it probably didn't occur to you that it is a brilliant marketing strategy.

My son was about one when they started asking casually, "Does he want a lollipop? Still a bit young? Maybe next time."

I resisted for a long time. After all, I didn't want him eating candy/corn syrup/anything before dinner. Or worse ... would he know what to do with it? What if he bit the candy off the stick (choking paranoia scene plays in my head).

Around his 2nd birthday, I caved. "He's been so sweet today. Everyone likes a lollipop now and then, it can't hurt anything." Little did I realize how amazing is the memory of a two year old for the taste of lollipops, the word lollipop, the word beer and the direction of the liquor store down the street.

Life has changed a little since then. The first words out of his mouth in the morning are, "Lollipops and beer?" When I pick him up at day care, he doesn't say, "Go home, see daddy?" anymore, but rather "Lollipops and beer?" If we go for a walk, he pulls and pulls on my hand to head towards, you guessed it, Lollipops and Beer.

It's hard enough to resist having a beer on a Tuesday night. It's even harder when your kid has a vested interest in you buying beer. Like I said, brilliant.

It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't say it in public. It's incredibly embarrassing, especially in Boulder. I mean, what kind of parents are we, giving our kid lollipops on a Tuesday night?

I Can't Make Marshmellows

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

After that intro, you may be wondering why I don't have a mouth-watering picture of chocolate-dipped marshmallow cookies. Or perhaps you were expecting crispy delicate Milanos. The answer is quite simple ... there aren't any.

How exactly did this experiment go down? I decided to go for the harder, more interesting, cookie: the mallows.

I knew things were going awry when I couldn't roll the dough to 1/8 inch. It was warm here, and the dough started to melt. I did improvise my way out of the mess by rolling the sticky dough into logs, freezing and then cutting off thin slices. I have to admit that I was a little puzzled as to how a recipe for approximately two dozen cookies yielded over 100, but I decided to push onward.

The marshmallows. Geez, from reviewing the posted pictures, I must be the only Daring Baker that can't make marshmallows, but there is absolutely no doubt that mine were a failure. When I attempted to mix the hot sugar syrup with softly whipped egg whites, the whole thing immediately deflated, leaving me with a sticky, sugary, egg white mess. This went the only place it could, down the drain.

I debated dipping my tiny, naked cookies in chocolate, but at this point I was batting so low, I thought I probably shouldn't waste the chocolate.

Not every daring challenge can be a success. Maybe next time!

Easy Summer Salad - Peaches, Almonds and Brown Rice

Inspired by the recent Mark Bittman article 101 Simple Salads for the Season, today I invented a summer salad of my own. While I can't remember every combination in Bittman's long list, I'm pretty sure that this combination is original.

Like most experimental successes, this one sprang from a combination of desperation and what meager ingredients I had in the fridge.

Desperation: What to give a two year old for lunch? I know it is a healthy meal, but as a responsible parent, I don't think I should give my son whole wheat penne mixed with chopped tomato and drizzled with olive oil for the 100th time in a row. I'll do rice instead. Now I just need to add something fresh.

What's in the fridge? Peaches from the farmer's market. Hmmm, peaches and rice sound a little weird, but here we go!

By the way, this salad is so easy to make, that I'd recommend waiting to prep the fruit and vegetables until after the rice has cooked. From that point, it should take about 10 minutes.

Peach, Almond and Brown Basmati Rice Salad

• 1 c. brown basmati rice
• 2 c. + 2 Tbs. water
• handful beet greens or other dark greens, washed and thinly sliced
  
• 2 spring onions or scallions, washed and thinly sliced
  
• handful almonds, toasted in a pan on low heat for a few minutes, then coarsely chopped
  
• 2 peaches, diced
  
• salt, pepper, white wine vinegar and olive oil, to taste
  

Bring water to a boil in a small saucepan, add the rice, then cover and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 45 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the rice stand, covered, while you prepare the fruit and vegetables.

Put the sliced greens and onions into the rice pan and re-cover for a few minutes so they wilt.

Add the peaches and almonds to the rice. Drizzle with vinegar and olive oil to taste, then check for salt and pepper.

Daring Bakewell Tart with Fresh Colorado Cherries

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

Anyone reading this may have noticed that I've been slacking lately. Yes, it's true. Not for lack of wanting to write - I just have other things going on right now, so my cherished blog has taken a back ... burner, you might say. But I am going to try to keep up with one thing - the Daring Cook and Baker challenges. I am always in the kitchen anyway, so I may as well take some input, inspiration and ideas from others instead of always sticking with the usual suspects.

So, I apologize ahead of time if this entry seems like I phoned it in. (Actually my husband took the camera out of town, so I did actually phone it in). Some people might think that shorter entries are better...what do they know.

What was I talking about? That's right, Bakewell Tart. This tart consists of a slightly sweet, shortcrust pastry, spread with a thin layer of jam and topped with a golden puffy layer of frangipane. Check out the hosts' blogs for an interesting history of this dish.

As cherries are in season in Colorado, and delicious right now, I decided to attempt homemade cherry jam. I was a little worried that I didn't have fruit pectin* on hand, a common ingredient in many jams (I read a lot of labels). I decided to risk it and followed a pectin-free recipe on Jasmine's blog for a simple blackberry jam, subbing cherries for the blackberries. Although delicious, the jam unfortunately never set. It would have made a delicious sauce for something else (a frangipane tart, perhaps?)

The frangipane (a sort of dense custard of eggs, powdered sugar, butter and ground almonds) was easy to make and delicious.

The verdict on the crust? Hmm. I must have missed something in the instructions, or my jam (sauce) was simply too wet for the crust, because the cooked tart had a soggy and almost completely uncooked crust, while the frangipane on top was close to overcooked. I think a simple fix for this would be to blind bake the crust before filling and baking again.

But a soggy crust can be ignored - I have suffered through many a mediocre crust before... All in all, I enjoyed this challenge, especially getting to use the seasonal fruit. The almond taste definitely brought out the cherries and vice versa. I will make this again with the blind bake modification. Thanks to Jasmine and Annemarie for a very original suggestion.

* Pectin is a gelling agent that occurs naturally in many fruits (apparently not cherries) and is sold in various extracted forms, usually having been obtained from apples and/or citrus peel.

Vegan Spring Veggie Potstickers

This month's Daring Cooks' challenge was from Jen of use real butter to make Chinese Dumplings from scratch.

I won't go into the ins and outs of how to make the dough, as there is a great blog post here, and it was pretty straightforward. Just mix flour and water, rest, knead, press into balls, and then roll into thin circles. Fill, press edges together, fry in a pan to make potstickers or boil in water. That's it! And it all worked seamlessly. Actually, quite an easy recipe.

So where was the challenge? Well, the recipe allowed you to get quite creative with the filling. The two provided filling recipes were for pork and shrimp filling. Given that I have recently been trying out not eating meat (I haven't had meat in over a month now), I realized that I needed to get a little creative with the filling.

Jen suggested that a good vegetarian filling would be easy to make but gave no recipe, just saying that the veggies would need to be of uniform shape and stick together.

So... I modified the pork recipe by trying to roughly substitute the same amount of stir-fryable vegetables.

Hang on - last minute edit... I got spanked for not giving a shout out to the peeps that consulted, tasted, rolled filled, and ate - Ciaran the Rhymenocerous and Jen the Hiphopopotamus.

Vegan Spring Veggie Potsticker Filling

• 3 carrots, grated
• 3 medium turnips, grated
• 1/4 c. ginger, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 spring onions, minced
• 6 leaves mustard greens, other strong green, or cabbage, minced
• large handful cilantro, minced
• 3 Tbs. soy sauce
• 2 Tbs. sesame oil
• 1 Tbs. wine rice vinegar
• 2 Tbs. all-purpose flour
  

Create dumpling dough according to the following recipe, let rest. Create the filling by mixing together all ingredients listed above. When making the dumplings, use a spoon to scoop filling, pressing filling against side of bowl to drain excess liquid. After filling all the dumplings, you'll have a lot of extra liquid. Use this to create a dipping sauce by adding a few drops of mustard and a little chili paste or cayenne pepper.

How Many Cookbooks is Too Many?

I believe there comes a time in life when every adult begins to question how much stuff is really necessary for leading a happy life. Obviously you need basic food and shelter, and I'm fortunate enough to have that. I remember a time when that was all I thought I needed. Then you graduate college, get a job, start getting paychecks, and start buying stuff. Car, nicer clothes, house, Kichen Aide mixer (ahhh!). And that's great. But then you hit a point in your life when you start to think about the bigger picture (college education for your son, retirement, paying off your house, traveling, starting your fantasy bakery/vegetarian catering business), and all of the material things seem, well, immaterial. And that's where my family is.

Which is great. Life seems simpler. We're saving money, thinking about the future. And I don't miss the things that used to seem so essential.

Except for one thing - cookbooks. I did pretty well for a while. I think I went almost a year without buying a new one. But recently I'm having a bit of a relapse. For Mother's Day, my husband bought me one I'd been resisting for months (Alice Water's Chez Panisse Vegetables). I figured I probably deserved a little Mother's Day present to myself, so I also bought Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian the same day (awesome). I thought that had done it.

Every time I think I've got enough books, the worst happens, I go to someones house and just happen to see a great looking book lying around in their kitchen. This book is just a little different, has something I haven't quite seen before, and fills me with a yearning that I thought I was over.

How bad is the problem? I've got 39 cookbooks total.

• Purchased: 18. Ok, maybe 7 of these don't count. They are 7 of a 12 volume Woman's Day series published in 1966 (missing volumes 1, 6, 7, 10, and 11).
• Gifts: 15. My family is well aware of, and exploits, my addiction.
• Borrowed: 2
• Hand me Downs: 2
• No Idea: 1
• Loaned out: 1 (I never forget)

Which are my favorites? These are books that make me well up with emotion. If I could only take you by the shoulders, look you in the eye, and passionately tell you about the change in my life brought about by these books. Ahhh, but instead, a list will have to do, in chronological order of impact on my life (anyone seen High Fidelity? )

• The Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver
• Happy Days with the Naked Chef (my sister waited in line to get this signed by Jamie for me)
• The Joy of Cooking, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Rombauer, Irma S. Rombauer
• The Omnivore's Dilemma (not a cookbook, but nonetheless a life changing book about food), Michael Pollan
• The Art of Simple Food, Alice Waters
• The Ballymaloe Cookery Course, Darina Allen
• How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman

Am I done? I should be. But there are just a few more. I'm sure that once I get these six, I'll definitely, absolutely, certainly be done.

• Bread, Jeffrey Hamelman (Could it take my bread to the next level?)
• Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child, Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle (Classic, I'm reading My Life in France, so inspiring)
• The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook, Nancy Harmon Jenkins (the casually placed book that sucked me in today)
• The New Moosewood Cookbook, Mollie Katzen (the classic vegetarian cookbook)
• Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Deborah Madison (strongly recommended from two respected sources!)
• The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, Judy Rodgers (I simply have to know what all the fuss is about)

Crispy, Delicate Apple Strudel

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

When I first read the challenge, I couldn't actually remember what a strudel was. Apparently, it consists of a gently spiced apple and raisin filling, rolled in a crispy, flaky dough. As I read further, I thought, "this really IS daring." Instructions like "gently stretch and pull the dough", it "will become too large to hold", and "stretch and pull the dough until it's about 2 feet wide and 3 feet long, it will be tissue thin by this time" were beginning to worry me. Anyone that remembers my many unsuccessful attempts at pie crust probably knows why - a Daring Baker I may be, but a gentle, delicate baker, I am not.

Well, I guess this must have been beginner's luck ... I found the instructions and tips provided by the hosts to be spot on. I had no trouble stretching the dough, and the final product was so thin you could see through it.

This dough seems completely foolproof. It was malleable, elastic and smooth. I can't remember exactly how I did it, and hey, anyone up for some fun should try it out for themselves anyway. All I can say was that it was incredible to work with. I stretched it over my arms, over a counter, moved it around on the sheet I used to cover the counter, lifted, pulled, dangled, swung, and coaxed this dough. It was tactile, experimental but ultimately easy and successful. Like play-dough for food snobs!

And the result was delicious. I simply can't believe such a flaky, buttery dough can be made by hand. Oh yea, the apples inside were pretty good too. For the full recipe, check out either Linda or Courtney's blog above.