Food Gifts, Part 2

So what happens when someone or a family has a nut allergy and I can't make my famous spiced nuts? I make my second favorite food gift, maple popcorn. The recipe is vegan and nut free, so it is great for people with allergies or with specific food restrictions. Though if you desire, you can always add nuts to it (my friend Paige - who is the source of this recipe - likes to add buttered almonds).

I first had maple popcorn at the end-of-the-season CSA potluck picnic. In the food tent was a large brown grocery bag with maple popcorn written on it, full of yummy looking popcorn. I put a large handful on my plate, alongside my other food choices, and brought it back to our picnic blanket. I think I only ate one or two pieces, because Ely devoured the whole pile in less than a minute. I had to go back for more (and probably for more again). Next year at the same picnic, we arrived at the same time as my friend Paige, and I saw she was carrying a large brown grocery bag with maple popcorn written on the front. "Did you bring that last year?" I asked. She replied that she did, and that maple popcorn is one of her family's favorite treats and something she often brings to potlucks or parties. Needless to say, I procured the recipe from her and it has become a favorite of ours too. When dinner is skimpy or a letdown, maple popcorn is a must. Trader Joe's has very large, inexpensive glass bottles of maple syrup and there is always one in our fridge.

Maple Popcorn

I've found that 6 Tbsp of popcorn kernels will fit nicely in a 6 quart lidded saucepan. This is the perfect amount for an afternoon or evening treat. To make larger quantities, double or triple this recipe and pop your kernels in a large, lidded stockpot. The recipe below is light on the maple syrup - if you want every piece of popcorn coated, then increase the maple syrup to 1/2 cup or more.

-6 Tbsp popcorn kernels (buy small amounts frequently because popcorn dries out quickly and won't pop as nicely, I've also found that the cheap grocery store brand is usually tastier and pops better than anything organic or in the bulk bins)

-3 tsp canola oil (or whatever vegetable oil you like to use)

-1/3 c. maple syrup (I use grade B, but whatever you like best will work)

-1-2 Tbsp of water

-ground sea salt to taste

-optional toasted nuts like peanuts, almonds, pecans, etc.

Pop your popcorn in a heavy, lidded saucepan or stockpot on the stove over medium heat, shaking the pan frequently. Dump the finished popcorn into a brown paper bag and season to taste with sea salt. If you want nuts in your maple popcorn, add them to the paper bag with the popcorn. In a small heavy, lidded saucepan, bring the maple syrup and water to a boil. The syrup needs to reach soft ball stage, so either use a candy thermometer or keep checking to see when a tiny drop of syrup forms a ball in a glass of water. The syrup heats slowly at first, then progresses rapidly at the end so keep your eye on it. If the mixture gets too hot and reaches hard ball stage, the popcorn won't turn out quite right. When the syrup is candied, drizzle over the popcorn in the bag, close the top and shake vigorously to mix everything together. Let cool before eating or storing. For gifts, package up in bags or tins.

Food Gifts, Part 1

It's that time of year again. Yesterday, I spent part of the afternoon compiling my various gift wish and gifts given lists on my computer from last year's and from the random notes in the blank book I carry in my purse. I really try to keep everything simple and handmade (by me or someone else), but I do like to give a little something to neighbors, friends, and of course the many teachers in my children's lives.

This is when I turn to food gifts, and my absolute favorite treat to make and give are spiced pecans. Everyone always raves about them, and I've given out the recipe at least a hundred times. They aren't a dessert, so you don't have to worry about the guilt associated with cookies or fudge, and they will keep for a while in a sealed container (though not in my house, as Will wrecks havoc on the spiced pecan stash). They are good to eat by themselves, and I always have a bowl of them at any party I throw. One of my favorite salads is spinach with apples or pears, thinly sliced red onions, goat cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette topped with spiced pecans.

Ely's school has their Winter fundraiser on Saturday and we are having our business's 3rd anniversary party that evening. This morning I made 6 lbs (24 cups) of spiced pecans for the two events, and it only took me 45 minutes. For the baked goods area or for friends, I package one cup amounts in labeled cellophane bags tied with ribbon.

If you buy big bags of pecans (like at Costco) or nuts in bulk, you can easily double or quadruple the recipe below. I've found that 8 cups of nuts (a 2 lb bag) will fit on one half sheet pan.

Spiced Pecans

Adapted from Southern Table by Frank Stitt; makes 4 cups

-4 c. pecan halves

-1.5 tsp kosher salt

-pinch of freshly ground pepper

-1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

-1 Tbsp dark brown sugar (if you only have light like I seem to, add a tiny bit of molasses)

-1 Tbsp freshly chopped rosemary leaves (do not substitute dried or leave out)

-1 Tbsp melted butter (if you need these to be vegan, you can just add extra olive oil)

-2 Tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 350. Place pecans on a baking sheet and bake for 12 minutes. Mix the rest of the ingredients together in a large bowl. When pecans are done, add to bowl and toss together until thoroughly coated. Return pecans to baking sheet and bake for 2-3 more minutes until toasted and fragrant. Watch carefully, because the pecans can burn in a matter of seconds.

Garden Notes, End of July

It's been 3 months since our plants went into the ground, and we've been able to harvest tomatoes for about 2 weeks now and okra for maybe 3 weeks. This has been the strangest July. Usually it is beastly hot (upper 90s or even 100) and the last two summers have seen us in a severe drought by this time, but this year we get rain at least 2-3 times a week and the temps have been in the 70s and 80s for almost a month. I am definitely not complaining! All the rain has kept everything growing so well, and it's been nice to see green instead of brown.

Both Will and I regret not planting more okra, as each plant has about one pod ready to pick at a time. This has made it hard for us to cook the okra immediately, and we've been letting the pods collect in the fridge for a few days to give us a larger serving. Our favorite way to prepare the pods is to cut them crosswise about 1/2 inch thick, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and a handful of cornmeal, then saute them in a skillet with a little olive oil until they are golden brown. This is my mother-in-law's "fried okra" and it is delicious. I think the super fresh pods make it even tastier than usual, and I've noticed that the okra from our garden are completely slime-free. Roasting, grilling, sauteing, or frying okra usually gets rid of any sliminess, but our pods have been different than what I've had before, even the fresh okra I've gotten from our CSA or the organic farmer's market. We try to pick the okra small, about 3 inches in length, but even when we accidentally let them get past that point, they have still been very tender. We planted a second batch of seeds about 4-6 weeks after the first, so we are hoping our production increases soon so we are able to blanch and freeze some.

The tomatoes have all come from the same plant, the Hawaiian Currant. All of our other plants (the heirlooms and the volunteers) have lots of green fruit, and we are not-so-patiently waiting for them. The currant tomatoes are grape sized and so tasty and sweet. The plant literally has thousands of fruit ripening, and it's been a chore to stay on top of them. We've picked some at the dark orange stage instead of leaving them to reach the red stage, and the orange tomatoes have been just as good as the slightly more ripe, red ones. A bunch of these get eaten in the garden, but mostly I've been putting them in a bowl with some tiny balls of fresh mozzarella cheese and drizzling them with tiny bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper, then scattering basil chiffon over everything. I would be happy if this was my entire lunch or dinner. The only negative thing about this tomato plant is that it is huge! It grew the fastest, and quickly got bigger than all the other varieties of tomato. Now it is growing on top of everything else in the garden, so there are Hawaiian Currant branches on all sides, and I'm afraid it is choking out the other tomatoes and okra. Next year, this plant will get a wide birth.

We've also been getting a few yellow pear tomatoes from the plant at the office. They are coming in a few at a time, so I haven't eaten enough to report on them yet.

A few other thoughts at the end of July:

- we definitely planted too many things in our little garden plot; when the plants are tiny, it is hard to realize how big they are going to get; next year the plot will have to get much bigger to match our eagerness

-all of the tomato plants need to be planted further apart; while I read that 18 inches is permissible, 2+ feet would have been much better for us

-okra gets huge and the leaves get huge! we needed the maximum spacing specified on the seed packet; Will actually tells me he pretty much ignored the specified spacing altogether so that might be part of the problem

- the Florida weave tomato trellis method has worked great; you must stay on top of it, but it wasn't hard for us to do that since our plot was small; the only negative I see with this method is that the plants become very dense which makes picking the tomatoes in the interior of the plant harder; I think spacing the tomatoes further apart next year will also help with this problem

I'm curious what my end of August report will say. With a garden, so much happens in four weeks.

Ely and Julia

My four year old son is obsessed with Julia Child. It's all my fault, really.

While I wouldn't call myself a huge Julia fan, I do like her. A lot. When I lived in Alabama, I picked up a remaindered copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking for $2 at the place where we liked to buy new but slightly damaged books. In Austin, before I had kids, I would spend the morning shopping at Central Market and the afternoon cooking coq au vin and the special mushrooms and onions Julia says you must serve with the dish. After my mother recalled how my brother and I loved the French hamburgers she used to make us from MTAFC, I tried them myself and quickly found a new family favorite. Nowadays, I'm happy if I only spend 30 minutes a few times a week making dinner for us, as it's not too much fun with the baby hanging on your legs, and the four year old chasing the dog in circles around you, as you try not to get yourself or anyone else burned by the hot stove.

One of the best food nights is Sunday, as we usually go to my parents' house for dinner. They always cook a feast with cheese and wine beforehand, to keep us coming back with their grandchildren, and to give them leftovers to eat for the week. A few weeks ago, I was perusing my parents' bookshelves while eating grilled figs drizzled with honey and cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto and drinking our favorite prosecco when I spotted My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'Homme. I didn't realize my parents (actually my Dad I think) owned this book. I seemed to recall that several of my friends had read it and loved it. I also knew the upcoming movie Julia and Julie was based on Julia Child's memoir as well as Julie Powell's book and blog of the same title, both of which I had already read a few years ago. I quickly put My Life in France in my bag to bring home.

I finished the book in four days. It was that good. My Life in France is the type of book you hate to finish because you worry there aren't any other books out there as good as this one, but you also can't put it down because the voice is so perfect and you have to know what happens next in the story. I knew a little of Julia's life before I started, but I hadn't realized all the hard work and determination and luck and support by her husband that made her life and love of cooking possible.

Of course she talks about her tv series, The French Chef. I can remember watching it as reruns on PBS as a kid, but I don't think I'd seen her cook in 15 or 20 years. I checked Netflix and sure enough there are two series of The French Chef on dvd. My local library had the first, so I requested it immediately. I know I mentioned before that my son and I like play games after his rest time is over but while the baby is still sleeping, but once The French Chef dvds were at our house, we started watching Julia make onion soup gratinee, roasted chicken on a spit, tarte tatin, french fries, and many many other dishes. Ely was entranced. He loved to watch her show off Big Bertha, a 45 pound lobster covered in seaweed she has on "The Lobster Show", that takes a good 45 minutes to cook. He began to tell me the difference between a roaster chicken and a fryer, or what Julia uses to make sausage casing (lamb intestines). He would wake up in the morning and ask for Julia. He would want to watch Julia after lunchtime, and of course once he was up after rest time. If I let him watch Julia while I was trying to get dinner together, I had one less kiddo (possibly two) in the kitchen. I finally had to put my foot down at more than two episodes per day, and a few tears were shed when the dvds had to go back to the library.

What I realized myself, is that so many of her dishes aren't the complicated, all day affairs I thought they were, that most of her bases and sauces are made from simple, easy-to-memorize formulas, and while Julia knows all the traditional methods she would rather - just like most people - beat her eggs whites with an electric mixer than by hand in a copper bowl. While I don't see myself making tripes a la mode or pate de campagne any time soon - if ever! - I definitely want to make a cheese souffle, and sandwich bread, and a spinach tart, and mousse au chocolat, and I haven't even finished watching the second series yet. When I make these dishes, I know I'll have a special four year old sous-chef helping me out. I guess I'd better start sewing him an apron.

Mint Patch, Part 2

There is another very important reason why we have a mint patch - mojitos. I can't think of a better drink for a warm evening.

We make ours with gin, as my husband will not do rum. Now that I've made them with gin for several years, the rum ones taste a little funny to me. I won't turn one down though.

I've tried several recipes, and the two below are my favorites. The first one - a regular mojito recipe where I simply replaced the rum with gin - is great because you don't have to prep anything ahead of time, as long as you have superfine sugar (also called castor sugar). I can find castor sugar locally at Whole Foods or Fresh Market, though any gourmet kitchenware/food store should carry it.

The second recipe is a recent discovery in Frank Stitt's new cookbook, Bottega Favorita. I was thrilled to see a mojito made with gin - he calls it a Southside - in the Cin Cin! and Cheers! chapter. When we lived in Alabama, we drove the hour to Birmingham as often as we could to eat at one of Frank Stitt's restaurants, Chez Fonfon. He owns three others, and I've eaten at Highlands Grill (we received a gift certificate here as a wedding present and it was the best present ever!) and the cafe side of Bottega. Not only does Frank Stitt make wonderful food at all four restaurants, he uses local Alabama and Georgia food purveyors and has done so for a long time. The Southside is delicious, but you do need to have simple syrup which is, of course, simple to make but needs to be cool before you use it.

Gin Mojito

serves 2

- 3 oz. fresh lime juice (about 3 limes)

- 2 Tbsp. superfine/castor sugar

- 6 sprigs of fresh mint

- 3 oz. gin

- seltzer or water to taste

1. In a small pitcher, combine lime juice, sugar, and mint. Stir and muddle the mixture until the sugar has dissolved.

2. Add the gin and stir until combined.

3. Fill glasses with crushed ice. If you want, you can run a wedge of lime around the rim and dip each glass into granulated sugar.

4. Pour cocktail (you may strain if you'd like) into the glasses and top with seltzer or water to taste. Garnish with a mint sprig.

Southside

adapted from Bottega Favorita by Frank Stitt; serves 2

- 4 lime wedges

- 2 oz. simple syrup (recipe follows)

- 2 oz. fresh lime juice

- 4 mint sprigs

- 3 oz. gin

- splash of club soda or water

1. Squeeze the lime wedges into a small pitcher or cocktail shaker, then drop the wedges in.

2. Add the simple syrup, additional lime juice, mint, and muddle with a spoon or muddler to bruise the mint and extract the oils from the mint and lime peel.

3. Add the gin and stir to combine.

4. Fill two glasses halfway with crushed ice; pour the cocktail evenly between the two.

5. Add a splash of club soda or water to taste.

Simple Syrup

The recipe for simple syrup is very basic - add equal parts sugar and water and heat on the stove until sugar is dissolved and mixture has thickened slightly. You can store extra in a tightly sealed jar in the fridge for several weeks, or if you have a tiny saucepan, you can reduce this recipe. If I find I'm not using my syrup up fast enough with mojitos, I make lemonade or limeade as a special treat.

- 2 c. sugar (I use natural cane which makes the syrup an amber color, but works and tastes just the same)

- 2 c. water

1. Combine sugar and water in a small heavy saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat.

2. Simmer for 2 minutes, then remove from heat and let cool.

I think I'm going to make some gin mojitos this afternoon for our impromptu Memorial Day grill fest.

Mint Patch, Part 1

At the beginning of last Summer, my husband got a few sprigs of mint with roots from his mother and planted them so we'd have our own mint patch. Since mint grows very enthusiastically (to put it mildly), We chose an ugly and unused long strip of grass between our ugly driveway and even uglier backyard fence. My husband is a true Southerner - he was born in the South, grew up in the South, and comes from many generations on both sides of Southern born and bred people. While I often call myself a Southerner, it's only because my parents moved here right before I was born. My husband's favorite beverage is fruit tea, also frequently known as tea punch. There are a few food and beverages unique to the part of the South we live in - one is hot chicken, the other is meat and 3, and the last one is tea punch. While you may find these three in other parts of the South, you don't find them with the same frequency and intensity as you do here. I am a huge fan of all three, but while I only eat hot chicken at Prince's and meat and 3s at Arnold's, I will make fruit tea at home.

Most people associate sweet tea with the South, but I have never been a fan. It is just way too sweet. I like my tea, both iced and hot, nice and strong. I might like sweet tea better if it was just a little sweet, instead of the all too common sickening sweet. I feel the same way about lemonade; tart is much preferable to sweet. There is only one place I know of where I like sweet tea, and that is Interstate Bar-B-Q in Memphis, where they serve a wonderful peach sweet tea I've never seen anywhere else.

Fruit tea is basically ice tea with fruit juice added to it. There are so many variations of fruit tea. Some recipes use pineapple juice besides orange juice and lemonade. Other recipes call for the addition of mint while the tea is steeping, or extra sugar. My mother in law likes to add Mountain Dew to hers. I'm sure there are many other secret ingredients I don't know about. When I moved to Alabama almost ten years ago (the real South, I thought, as opposed to the South I grew up in), I was determined to figure out how to make fruit tea.

This is what I came up with:

Fruit Tea

I like fruit tea strong and if I have mint, then I absolutely want to add it, as it adds another lovely, nuanced flavor to the brew. I think the juice makes it sweet enough on it's own, but if you are a sweet tea fan then you may want to add extra sugar. You can also play with the proportions of juice to tea.

- 6-8 black tea bags

- 4-5 mint sprigs

- half of a 12 oz. container of frozen oj concentrate (I buy mine at Trader Joe's because there is no added sugar or high fructose corn syrup; your Whole Foods or natural foods store might carry a similar product but mine doesn't for some unknown reason - don't let me get started here...)

- half of a 12 oz. container of frozen lemonade concentrate (again I buy mine at Whole Foods to avoid HFCS)

1. Boil 8 cups of water in a tea kettle.

2. In a large pyrex or stainless steel bowl, add the mint and 6-8 tea bags. I usually tie or clip the tea bags together, so they don't fall into the bowl and are easier to remove later.

3. Once the water is boiling, add it to the bowl. Let the tea steep for the recommended time.

4. When the tea is ready, remove the bags and the mint. Stir in the oj and lemonade concentrates. Since you only use half of a container, you have enough leftover to make another batch in a few days. I find that fruit tea disappears quickly in my house.

5. Chill in the refrigerator, then pour into a pitcher.

6. Serve over ice and with a mint sprig.

I learned a neat trick at the Savannah Tea Room for making any tea decaffeinated. The caffeine in the tea leaves is released in the first minute of brewing. If you want to decaffeinate any tea, discard the water after a minute of steeping, then add new hot water. The resulting tea will be decaffeinated. I use this trick a lot since I don't like to have caffeine after my much needed one cup of coffee in the morning, and I also like to avoid any chemical process that decaffeinates tea or coffee.

Nashvegas Snow Day

I woke up to freezing rain and an email from Ely's school saying it was closed for a snow day. A snow day for rain doesn't impress me, but strangely enough within 10 minutes huge sticky flakes were pouring from the sky and actually starting to pile up on the wet grass. We seem to be having more and more preemptive snow days here ever since a couple of years ago the weather got really bad around 10 am and quite a few students were stranded at school late into the night because the buses couldn't go out and their parents couldn't make it to school. The heavy snowfall was a good sign for a real snow day, and it was nice to have a morning where I didn't have to rush everyone out the door, even if the first task of the day was to drag two kids to work with me for the am catalog review. By the the catalog review was done and the Polar Express was watched, the snow was gone and the rain had stopped. Unless it gets colder and the rain starts again, I think the winter weather is over for today.

It's not a real snow day without baking cookies or making hot chocolate in a warm kitchen. I've made several batches of homemade hot chocolate lately (basically heat up some milk or cream with a chopped up dark chocolate bar, add a pinch of salt and enough honey or sugar to make it slightly sweet, then let it cook until it thickens), so I think cookies are the better option. One of my favorite chefs, Martha Phelps Stamps, who owns and cooks at Martha's at the Plantation included a recipe for snickerdoodles in her food column in today's local newspaper. Snickerdoodles aren't my favorite cookie in the world, but I do like them a lot and they are easy to make. Will loves them and Ely loves anything that is even remotely sweet, so the boys will be happy. And since it is a recipe of Martha's, I know the cookies will be delicious. As soon as my two sticks of butter are soft and the kids are awake, we'll get started rolling our little balls of dough in cinnamon sugar.

And maybe, just maybe we'll get a chance later on to roll little balls of snow.

Post Christmas Cookies

This is what happens when you never find the time to bake and decorate the sugar cookie dough you made.

They tasted just as good after the holiday, we had the freedom to use some of our non Christmas and Hannukah cookie cutters, and we had an activity to do this week of winter vacation.

November Birthdays

November is a busy month for fetes in my family. My Dad's birthday is this week, my Mom's is the week after, and mine is the week after that. Plus with Thanksgiving, it means we have a lot of celebrations and big dinners in November.

The only problem with all these November birthdays is coming up with enough gift ideas for November and December. We don't exchange Hannukah gifts anymore, but between birthdays and Christmas I still need several good ideas.

One of my favorite birthday gifts, is to bake a special homemade birthday cake. I bake only from scratch. I like knowing everything that goes into the food I make for my family, and I can easily avoid transfats and HFCS this way. We may have fewer baked goods in our lives, but they are much tastier and better for us. I've found it only takes about 5-10 more minutes to bake most things from scratch and the extra time is worth it.

My long time favorite birthday cake is the Chocolate Buttercream Cake from Ina Garten's The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. If you own the book, this cake is the one pictured on the back cover. It's a delicious chocolate layer cake with chocolate buttercream icing. Once you make a really good buttercream like this one, all other icings fall flat (even buttercream using powdered sugar). Ina's chocolate buttercream calls for raw egg whites, which I have used in the past, but now I like to use powdered egg whites, especially if young children are eating the cake. Powdered egg whites are also a lot easier, neater, and cheaper to use.

The cake can be a little time consuming, but it's easy to make the cake one day and the icing the next. You can even make the cake several weeks in advance, and freeze the two layers in the freezer. The cake also doesn't have to be a cake. I turned them into cupcakes for Ely's 3rd Birthday party this year. To make them fun for children (and adults), I added sprinkles and a plastic dinosaur on top:

There was not a single one left over.

Splendid Shortbread Tart

It's no secret I'm a huge fan of The Splendid Table and Lynne Rossetto Kasper. The weekly podcast of The Splendid Table is my constant companion on my walks, and I've been known to cook meals for dinner that night I heard about on the show or stop at the liquor store on the way home to buy a recommended bottle or box of wine. Long before I knew about her radio show, my family and I loved her cookbook, The Italian Country Table. Many of Lynne's recipes are staples in the Wolff households, especially her chocolate torte. Lynne's most recent cookbook written with Sally Swift - How to Eat Supper - came out in the Spring and I've been dying to read it ever since. I'm not allowed to buy books*, so I was thrilled to spot it in my library's inventory last week.

I flipped through the book over the weekend, and immediately saw what I wanted to cook first, the rustic jam shortbread tart. I avoid sugar while pregnant, so I've been enjoying my post pregnancy sugar binge for the last 8 months and love easy desserts whose ingredients I have in my pantry or refrigerator. The shortbread tart fit this category. In my first attempt on Sunday, I left out the almonds and lemon zest since I only had walnuts in the freezer and non-organic lemons on the counter. The tart, which I topped with raspberry jam, was very good, though I overbaked it trying to get the jam to the bubbly stage. I also only have a 10 inch tart pan instead of a 9 inch, and the extra room made the crust a little thin. Today, I made the tart again with almonds, lemon zest, and wild blueberry jam and adapted the ingredient amounts for a larger pan. I usually don't have dessert with lunch, but I did today. So did Will, who probably didn't realize how lucky he was this morning when he ran out of time to pack his lunch.

*In Spring of 2005, Will and I decided we would only get books from the library and not buy any no matter how cheap we found them used. We did this to cut down on unnecessary spending and to limit the number of books in our house. It's worked well, and put us in the mindset of buying books is wrong. We are allowed to buy something we can't get at the library or something we can't live without, but we've gone from buying several books a month to buying only several a year.