Hey!

Remember me? Nice to see you again. Just wanted to send a note letting you know I'll be baking tomorrow. Meet me here Friday night to see what I made.

It's Coming

Are you looking forward to holiday baking as much as I am? I've already started thinking about it. What will I make? How will I package it? Who will I give it to?

Last year, Brian took boxes of cookies, caramel corn and peppermint bark to all his buddies at work. We gave boxes to teachers, neighbors and friends, too, and I'm anxious to do it all again this holiday season.

I'm no Alexis Stewart (Martha's daughter) so if you want to be impressed, check out her blog. She just made some cinnamon rolls that look sinfully delicious. All through the year she's baking pies, cookies, bars, cakes, and even her own doughnuts, bagels, pop tarts and graham crackers! She gives it all away; she doesn't eat any of it. I don't know how, either. She just doesn't. And at Christmas time, her production line is overwhelming. I'd love to do what she does but darn those time and money constraints.

Happy Birthday, Erika!

After months of staring at the beautiful desserts featured on Smitten Kitchen, I finally found enough confidence to try one of her recipes. If you haven't already noticed, I'm easily intimidated. When I saw the Pink Lady Cake, I knew my friend Erika would love it. And not just because it's pink, even though she is such a girly girl. Erika's favorite cake is strawberry and she also likes cheesecake. And, the timing couldn't have been better; Smitten Kitchen posted this cake a few days before Erika's birthday.

I had to make her a two-layer cake instead of three because I have only two 9-inch cake pans. I put the leftover batter in an 8-inch cake pan for us to try. Hey, if I'm going to make something from Smitten Kitchen for the first time, I want to try it, too! Well, I don't know if I did something wrong or if the frozen strawberries weren't quite right, but the cake wasn't as moist as I would have liked. Also, the cream cheese frosting was decent, but not as good as Barefoot Contessa's. That is the best icing ever (but what would you expect with nearly 2 pounds of cream cheese and butter?).

Poor Erika. She said she loved it, but I'll have to make it up to her somehow. Feliz Cumpleanos, Erika! (That's happy birthday to my English-speaking friends.)

Thumbs Down on Bobby Flay

Everyone knows I love the Food Network, but there is one chef I could really do without. His name is Bobby Flay and I'm sure you've heard of him. He's everywhere now. He even sells blenders at Kohl's. Whatever. I'm sure he can cook; he is one of the Iron Chefs afterall. But why, oh why, is he so cocky and smug and arrogant? How do I know this? Because he has a show called Throwdown with Bobby Flay and here's the concept as taken from Food Network's website:

Chef Bobby Flay is on a secret mission: to challenge the absolute masters in
different kinds of cooking – award-winning BBQers, bakers, pizza makers and
more. In each episode, one of these cooks thinks Food Network is shooting their
profile for a show. What they don't know is that Bobby is going to drop in for a
surprise visit and challenge them to an unexpected cook-off. Since they're in
their element and Bobby's out of his, prepare for an exciting, tension-filled
competition.

Have you seen it? It's as bad as it sounds. He tricks these masters into believing they're being honored by Food Network (which I admit they kind of are, but it's so much more complicated than they think) and then he pops out of nowhere and challenges them to see if he can do what they do...only better. These are locally loved restauranteurs, chefs, and cooks who've been doing what they've been doing all their lives. Some use family recipes that have been passed down through generations. And as the size of the audiences at these throwdowns would indicate, they all have a loyal following among the locals. Imagine Bobby Flay challenging Alex Damianos at Jim's Drive-In in Pittsburgh or Chris Bianco at Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix.

It could be all in fun, but sometimes Bobby Flay actually wins the challenges. In other words, there are times when he de-thrones the independent mom and pop business he is honoring on his show. He probably laughs the whole way home on his private jet back to New York while they're stunned, embarrassed and distraught. Who does he think he is?

But, oh how I love it when he loses.

Preschool Bake Sale

You may remember me complaining a few days ago about the store bought baked goods needed for the cake walk at Elizabeth's school. It turned out to be not so bad. I ended up getting a lot of donations from grocery stores like Bashas', Fry's, Safeway, and Fresh & Easy. I did my part...even if it didn't require my stand mixer or oven.

Thankfully, Matthew's preschool isn't as strict as the elementary school so we could donate homemade baked goods for the bake sale at their fall festival. I made a half batch of caramel corn (I was short on time). It yielded only 8 bags worth, but it was better than nothing. It was a unique item at the sale, and people grabbed them up. When I visited the booth about halfway through the festival, they were all gone.

This is Brian's grandmother's recipe. I like to add raw almonds to the popcorn and then pour on the caramel mixture and bake. The almonds cut the sweetness of the caramel corn. Unfortunately, the school is nut-free so I had to skip that step. Oh well. Christmas is coming soon.

GiGi's Baked Caramel Corn
1 c butter or margarine
2 c light brown sugar
1/2 c light corn syrup
1/2 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 t vanilla
6 quarts popped corn (usually comes from 1 cup unpopped popcorn--I air pop it)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Melt butter and stir in brown sugar, syrup, and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil without stirring for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in baking soda and vanilla. Gradually pour over corn. Mix gently. Turn into a large shallow baking or roasting pan (or two...or three) and bake for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Remove from oven, cool completely, and break apart. Store in an airtight container.

The Great Cookie Election

I'm no politico, and I admit that I had to do my fair share of research the past fews months to get caught up on the buzz words of this election. My poor, patient husband had to field all the stupid questions I was too embarrassed to ask anyone else. Like, "Does pork barrel spending have something to do with pork belly futures contracts?" And, "What exactly is a Libertarian, anyway?" What? I told you I had some catching up to do.

So, in an effort to avoid having my children grow up to be just like their uninformed mother (and after reading an article that stated children have correctly predicted the last few presidential elections), I wanted to hold a mock election for kids. I looked online for ideas on how to stage an election for preschoolers, but didn't come up with much for that age group. Then I thought of the chocolate chip cookie tasting I've been wanting to host. I combined the two ideas and came up with Decision Cookie '08.

I think it went well. I don't know how much the kids took away about the political process, but everyone got to eat cookies so I think everyone went away happy. I picked three recipes that I was sure would produce distinctly different cookies, came up with some questions that would help preschoolers compare them (Is the cookie flat or fluffy, chewy or crunchy, etc?), and designed a tasting placemat so they could circle the cookie they liked best. (Underneath each of the cookies above is a clip art cookie.)

The recipes were Nestle Tollhouse (the one from the back of the chocolate chips bag), Cooking Light, and Alexis Stewart's Brown-Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies. My personal favorite was the Cooking Light recipe, and I based my decision on both taste and looks. Nestle Tollhouse tastes and looks like a chocolate chip cookie, but the Cooking Light cookie dough makes such a good-looking, fluffy, chunky cookie. On the other hand, Alexis's cookies are U-G-L-Y and, as Jennifer pointed out, would probably be a better cookie without the chocolate chips. In the end, the Nestle Tollhouse recipe received the most votes from both adults and kids, but not by much. Cooking Light's and Alexis's recipes tied for second, but they lost first place by just one vote. It was crazy close.

Perfect Pumpkin Seeds

Every year we try to roast pumpkin seeds and they never turn out quite right. This year I am happy to report that my pumpkin seeds are so yummy. And if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be able to keep my hands out of the kids' candy bags.

The recipe we found online (Brian did the research so I don't know the link) said to clean the seeds, let them dry on the baking sheet overnight, mix them with a little olive oil and salt, and then roast them at 250 degrees for 40 minutes. I set my oven to 225 degrees (because of my dark, nonstick cookie sheets) and put them in to roast. Then I put Matthew down for his nap. Then I folded some laundry. Then I looked on the computer for a little bit. Then I took a little rest. Two hours and fifteen minutes later, I walked into the kitchen and briefly wondered why the oven was on. I gasped and then pulled the pumpkin seeds out of there.

I've finally found my technique for perfectly roasted pumpkin seeds.