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Where Aunt Toby tells you to give up canned goods for the holidays

Dec 9th, 2011
by htwollin.
2 comments

In the Northern Hemisphere, right now is the coldest, darkest, most depressing time of the year, which is why we have people doing everything from lighting bonfires, stringing electric lights, and entertaining anyone who wanders by with food and drink. All in the service of bringing back the sun (or the spring, or whatever belief system you ascribe to). And since most of us do not have time to do much of anything at this time of the year, what with all the bonfire lighting and light stringing and carol singing (who WAS Carol, by the way? Why aren’t these songs called “Barbara” or “Ermentrude” or some other woman’s name?), any ideas which will help in the time saving area are worthy indeed. Here is one.

Slow cooker. (more…)

It doesn’t always work the way you think it should

Dec 6th, 2011
by htwollin.
2 comments

This, my friends, is an empty plate (now there’s a ‘no duh’ if I ever saw one, right?). It was supposed to be filled up with a favorite cookie, rugelach (which is technically speaking just a crescent shaped rolled up cookie filled with various fillings).

But it’s not. Those went out to feed the chickens, frankly, an experiment that went really…really wrong. Sometimes, it’s just not worth trying. Recipes ARE, after all, recipes, but I figured what the heck. I wanted to see if I could make a rugelach with no gluten in it. Gluten is the form of protein found in wheat and many other grass-based grains. All proteins are not the same; nor are they created equal.

Now, I could make a rugelach with LOWER gluten in it by using cake/pastry flour (this flour uses a totally different wheat which has lower gluten in it, which is why cake/pastry flour is absolutely worthless for making things like breads; it’s the gluten which holds everything up in breads. It’s also, for some people, what gives them celiac disease and Crone’s Disease and makes their lives a living hell, with semi-permanent residency on the toilet, but that is another topic for another time). But, I did not want to make a LOWER gluten product; I wanted no gluten at all. Zippo. And I have to admit that I have absolutely no experience with no gluten baking; there are many people out there in Blogland and in the commercial baking business who have come up with recipes and baking mixes and Xanthem gum and arrowroot flours and all sorts of amazing stuff so that people can bake things that are fairly edible but which will not send them racing for the bathroom.

I, on the other hand, am a woman who is willing to throw caution (and a block of cream cheese) to the wind to see if, oh what the heck, I can substitute something for the flour.

And I can tell you for certain sure — you cannot substitute garbanzo bean flour (aka chickpea flour, aka gram flour – not to be mixed up with ‘graham’ flour which is an entirely different beast altogether) for wheat flour in cookies and come out with anything that looks, acts, crunches or tastes like a cookie, much less the cookie you were trying to bake. I basically ended up with something that was crunchy but had the taste of burned dried beans covered in nuts and cinnamon.

A waste of good nuts and cinnamon, I might add.

So, from the position of ‘first principles’, here is the basic recipe for Rugelach:

Dough:
4 ounces cold cream cheese, cut into 4 pieces (that’s the small square block)
1 stick (8 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
1 cup all-purpose flour

So, you can see that if you want to double that, it’s easy-peasy – you use the big block of cream cheese (Neuchatel cheese will work just as well), 2 sticks of butter and 2 cups of flour.

You cream the butter, mix in the cream cheese, mix in the flour until you get a ball of dough, then wrap it up and put it into the fridge to chill. Then cut it into 2 (or 4 if you doubled it) pieces, take out one (leave the rest in the fridge), roll out on wax paper as thinly as you can without it tearing, into an oblong, cut it into triangles and then cover with whatever filling you want. The traditional ‘my sainted aunties used this’ filling is chopped walnuts, sugar and cinnamon, with added chopped raisins if you want to go crazy. So, you cover the triangles with the filling, roll them up wide end first, put on a greased cookie sheet, and bake for 20 minutes (plus or minutes 5 minutes)until crispy and browned. Some people go so far as to refrigerate the cookies on the cookie sheets before they are baked; I always figured that if my great aunties could turn out great ‘ruggies’ without modern technology, then I could too.

But then again, they never tried to substitute chickpea flour for regular flour…

So, why doesn’t this work (besides the Baking Gods not wanting anyone to break any of the rules?)? Let’s look at the nutritional info:

All-purpose commercial white wheat flour……….vs……….Chickpea flour
1 cup……………………………………………………………1 cup
Calories……………455……………………………………….356
Fat………………….1 gram…………………………………..6 grams
Carbs……………….95 grams………………………………..53 grams
Fiber………………..3 grams………………………………….10 grams
Sugars……………..0…………………………………………..10 grams
Protein……………..13 grams………………………………….21 grams

The carb to protein ratio in the white wheat flour is almost 7.5 to 1; for the chickpea flour, it’s about 2.5 to one and that’s the deal in a nutshell. Now, that is not to say that a baker who wanted to put a little oomph (or more protein bang for the buck so to speak) couldn’t substitute a couple of tablespoons of chickpea flour for a couple of tablespoons of wheat flour. That would work. Or even use something like dried dairy whey to do the same thing, but 100% one for one will…not…work. Not from a baking aspect and not from a taste aspect (these actually tasted quite horrible; I was surprised at how dreadful they really tasted, even covered quite completely with chopped nuts and cinnamon). The dough also did not behave well, even chilled – it stuck to everything because it did not have the stretch that gluten gives.

So, a colossal failure. But educational, nonetheless.

Don’t Cry – Grow an onion

Nov 13th, 2011
by htwollin.
Comments are off for this post

At this point in the gardening year, for our area (Upstate New York), things have actually shut down. We’ve had night time temperatures of 16 degrees F. (which is a killing frost in ANYONE’S book), the soil temperatures are now in the low 40s and though we have been getting some daytime temperatures in the high 50s and low 60s (F), soil temperatures trumps all. The little cabbage family seedlings (gardening chores) are still chugging along (though they are not getting any larger, which is probably their way of hunkering down for the winter).

I’m starting to think that one of the reasons those seedlings are still alive is their location, which is in the path between two beds. The DH, when he cleaned out those beds, added compost and dug everything into two long humped up beds, so those seedlings are actually rather protected. But that is not the reason for this post.

Very few of us have heated greenhouses at our disposal, so the best we can really do between now and when we can get back out to start gardening again, is a sunny window sill. There are a few things that actually are grow-able under those circumstances. Leaf lettuces are one type of thing if you have been able to hold onto some of your seeds from the warmer gardening season. Another thing you can do is to save onions (or their cousins, shallots, garlic, and so on) that might have sprouted in the bag in your closet or drawer, and put that into a pot. What you are seeing in the photo at the top is a cluster of something which is referred to as ‘multiplier’ onions. When we got these from the nursery (I am almost sure I got them from Territorial Seed), we planted the onion sets just like regular onions. As you go along with multiplier onions, they will start to throw off more bulbs. These will form green leaves which you can use as green onions or you can let them all mature, and then split the bulbs up and replant the smaller ones for next year. Multiplier onions are winter hardy, so literally you can plant them right after you dig them up, at the same time you would plant garlic cloves.

In this case, though, when I dug up one cluster, it had already started to grow green shoots, so I figured this would be a good way to get some green onions over the winter and have something growing on the window sill. At the moment, that pot is out in our unheated greenhouse at the back of our house (this one actually has the short side facing south, so it is not exactly the most solar-effective unheated greenhouse going, but I can tell you that once the sun turns the corner in February, that sunroom will get warm enough for us to open the windows and door into the house and it is extremely pleasant) and I’ll be bringing it in fairly shortly for a stay on a sunny window sill in the diningroom.

So. Check your onion bag or the drawer in the fridge – if you have onions, shallots or garlic that have started to sprout, don’t throw them away. Pull out a pot (or even re-purpose something like a big yoghurt or cottage cheese container with a couple of holes punched in the bottom with a knife), put in some potting mix, put in the bulb, cover with more potting mix and put it in a sunny spot.

Instant winter garden!

Kale, Kale – The Gang’s All Here

Nov 8th, 2011
by htwollin.
2 comments

Confession Time: Aunt Toby has tried…Lord knows I have tried… to like kale. Kale is one of those veggies that everyone writes glowingly about. It’s great stuff, full of B-everything, anti-inflammatory as all get out. Everyone should eat a boat-load and so on.

I have never, until this past weekend, made a kale dish that made anyone in the fam roll their eyes and make yummy noises. I admit it. I have always tried to be a good role model and would put it into my mouth and chew appreciatively. And I hated every bite. (more…)

Fall Gardening Chores

Nov 6th, 2011
by htwollin.
5 comments

Good afternoon, my little cheese puffs – it is time today to talk about ‘putting things off,’ or procrastinating. This year, in late October in the Mid-Atlantic states, we got a little lesson in how Mother Nature can flex her muscles. We can’t really complain up at Chez Siberia – all we got out of the storm was a couple of inches of light fluffy dry snow. Folks at the coast from Pennsylvania to Connecticut got hammered (I think I saw a measurement of 19″ in northern New Jersey. That is serious snow, people) and many of them still do not have power. I am sure when people looked out into their gardens, they were reminded that they needed to do some tidying up before ‘real’ winter comes. (more…)

Dinner for One: Vegetarian Style

Oct 23rd, 2011
by htwollin.
3 comments

One more time into the kitchen my friends! And this time, we are going hard core vegetable, with lentils. (ok…all of you heading for the doors, just give us a moment to go over this, please)

Something I learned recently is that for those of us who have been discouraged from making dried beans because of the ‘sort/rinse/rinse/rinse again and again and again and then cover with water overnight and boil up and drain and replace the water’ stuff, lentils are the one exception to that rule. (more…)

Dinner for One: Chicken Pot Thighs

Oct 22nd, 2011
by htwollin.
3 comments

OK..so are we ready, my little starving artisans? Ready for good, yummy, mmmmmmmm good food for just you? With maybe a little bit of leftovers so that you have something for tomorrow or a couple of days from now?

Well, you have come to the right place.

I think one of the barriers to good eating for folks who are living on their own is perceived lack of time. They get up. They are late already. They jump into work clothes and run out the door, grabbing something on the way that will pass for breakfast and the rest of the day, nutritionally speaking, goes downhill from there. And then they get home and stare into the fridge and see what’s left from a take out or whatever and it’s just so damn depressing.

Well, Bunkie, Aunt Toby is here to tell you that it does not have to be this way. As a matter of fact, you can make sure that it is not this way. (more…)

It’s a Dinner For One Weekend!!!

Oct 21st, 2011
by htwollin.
Comments are off for this post

One of the special parts of doing the recent poll were the comments that people included about things that they would find useful. One person commented about smaller recipes for one or two people, things that would be easy to make and so on. So, mystery visitor, this weekend is for YOU!!

That’s right, this weekend is ‘Dinner for One (or two) Weekend’ (cue trumpets). And, as is my wont, the first recipe is dessert (in holding with the ‘life’s too short; eat dessert first’ philosophy). I can’t think of any dessert other than dipping into a box of ice cream which is easier than this one but it has a twist: You will end up with something in the fridge which will enable you to make other versions of this several times over into the future basically whenever you feel the urge, as long as you have some fruit someplace (because this works with fresh, frozen, or canned fruit). (more…)

In more hot water

Oct 14th, 2011
by htwollin.
2 comments

In our last episode, it was all about simmering water and softboiled eggs. Today, we’re going to continue the discussion about heat and eggs with boiling water, hard boiled eggs and then eggs that are baked, shirred eggs.

One of the major differences about applying high heat to the protein in eggs (that is, producing ‘hard boiled eggs’) is that unlike soft boiled eggs, where the white becomes solidified but the yolk is still in at least a semi-liquid state (the better to dip pieces of buttered toast in, my dear), raising the temperature and the time spent in that temperature solidifies everything but again, the egg cooks from the outside in. This produces (and you all know this – I’m sure there are people who are already hitting themselves in the forehead figuratively and saying, “No duh!”) something that can be sliced, diced, mixed up with tasty bits like pickle relish and mayo to produce socalled ‘devilled eggs’ and so on. So, let’s look at boiling water:
(more…)

In Hot Water

Oct 9th, 2011
by htwollin.
Comments are off for this post

As Promised! We Deliver! A cogent discussion (with audio-visual aids, even) of heating up water and how to make some eggs with it. But also – a visual example of what simmering actually looks like. A pot of simmering liquid looks basically the same, whether it is water, soup, or sauce. First, know your simmering water:

Next, how to get that egg to the soft boiled stage:

And then, how to serve it up.

So, the point here is two-fold:
First, what simmering actually looks like so that image can be stashed in your brain for the future.
Second, how to cook a soft-boiled egg and how to serve it.
There you go.

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