Food In The Fort

Well, here I was ready to blame Krusteaz for all my problems in making lemon bars (or perhaps it’s “barz”), but it turns out that I just can’t make the dang things for love or money. Not for love, anyway. And I do love them, which is why I hit up my colleague and roommate (we share a classroom at school, not at home) for her awesome lemon squares recipe. She gave me the recipe, written out in her incredibly tidy handwriting, along with little pictures of lemons which she drew (she’s artistic!) and she even made us a batch. Thanks, Marjory!

(Funny story: my daughter Rachel ate almost all of said lemon squares on the way to the Panic! at the Disco concert and then became completely hyper. I’ve never heard a human talk so fast before.)

So I know that this recipe works, it just doesn’t work for me. When I made them, they turned out like lemon brownies - which isn’t really a BIG problem - lacking the stratification of the more traditional lemon square. I think that the problem was my failure to press the crust down firmly before baking it. So, press firmly and enjoy. Read the rest of this entry »

Rest assured, you’ll never catch Catherine or me separating eggs this way. Even if we’re making something complicated*, we’re firm believers in the KISS method. I’ve always been one to do the shell-to-shell toss method, and for all I know, Catherine simply plops the eggs in a bowl and then scoops out the yolks. It’s true that if you get yolk, which is mostly fat, into your egg whites then you’re not going to get those pretty Eiffel Tower-shaped peaks out of your meringue, but believe me, cooking isn’t this unforgiving. You don’t need to wear one of those white bunny suits and make all your meals in an isolation lab to have really good results.

I read slowly. I make changes in my life slowly. When the occasion arises and, happily, it’s not very often, I run VERY slowly. So I don’t know why it always take me by surprise that I cook slowly as well. It takes me forever to cut things up, I read the recipe over a million times, I search through the spices for an eternity and dinner is usually ready about an hour later than I originally thought. But maybe that’s okay; maybe food should be lingered over in the preparation as well as in the eating. (Don’t worry, I’m not going to launch into a slow food movement rant at this point.) Maybe I need to embrace my slow cookery because things have a tendency to go wrong when I don’t. Not tragically, just sadly.

A case in point is this wonderful Self-Saucing Chocolate Pudding Cake which comes from Jumbo Empanadas.

This was one of the first things that Leo and I ever made together, back in his apartment in Cherry Valley, NY. It was delightful. Despite the fact that we had to use his downstairs neighbor’s oven because his didn’t work. (He’s moved up in the world and now has a functional oven and some of the burners on his stove work as well.) The last time that I made this, however, I was in a rush and it fell far, far short of that original delight. Looking at the recipe now, I’m not sure how I could have screwed it up. It seems foolproof: a simple batter and an even simpler sauce; the toughest step is boiling the water. But screw it up I did. It was okay - I mean, it was still made of chocolate cake - but I know that I can do better if I take it slower and you, dear reader, can too. So relax, make sure that you have about twenty minutes for prep time and forty five minutes for baking, and then enjoy. Read the rest of this entry »

I just about completed upgrading Food In The Fort from WordPress 2.6.2 to WordPress 2.7.1, along with any plugins that needed upgrading too. Why? Because that’s just the kind of crazy ass thing I do for fun. Oh, and I want to start taking Food In The Fort to the next level so it’s nice to be on the current codebase. WordPress 2.7.x is much improved over previous versions, and WordPress 2.8 is just around the corner. Of course, it meant saying goodbye to a couple of old favorite plugins (farewell Flexible Upload, we hardly knew ye) but I’m sure we’ll find adequate replacements. Anyhoo, there’s still some kinks to work out, mostly in CSS but I’m not going to fret over them too much because I thoroughly intend to build a new theme for FITF, sometime in the next year.

Catherine and I stumbled into this wonderful little non-academic book club. The premise is simple. Each month we all read the same book and then have a pot luck supper at one of the members’ homes to talk about it. Sort of like dinner theater, but for books.

Since this month’s selection was Dune, it was perfectly obvious to me that nothing but spice cake would do. However, as one might expect, Melange is incredibly hard to find locally. Luckily, I found this recipe from Maxie’s Supper Club at Chow and decided that fresh grated ginger, while less trippy than melange, would be an adequate substitute.

Maxie’s recipe did not disappoint! The flavor was rich, intense and the black pepper added just the right bit of bite. The freshly grated ginger was a delight not only for the taste buds, but also provided a springy, almost meaty, texture not unlike carrot cake. The result is a heady, earthy treat with a decidedly old-fashioned^* feel.

In short, this is pure comfort food. Perfect for enjoying a a cup of tea while enjoying your favorite book. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re in the mood for a meal fit for a king, er, I mean, President then you’ll want to be sure to grab the recipes [PDF] used for Obama’s Inaugural Luncheon from the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. Perhaps one might think the luncheon recipes were ornate, decadent dishes drenched in heavy creams and sauces. Surprisingly, they’re really quite simple dishes with understated esthetic touches. So perhaps we don’t all have pheasant in our freezers, but I suppose one could substitute cornish game hens and be equally happy. Here’s what was on the menu at this afternoon’s luncheon:

• Seafood Stew
• Duck Breast with Cherry Chutney
• Herb Roasted Pheasant with Wild Rice Stuffing
• Molasses Whipped Sweet Potatoes
• Winter Vegetables
• Cinnamon Apple Sponge Cake

The Cinnamon Apple Sponge Cake looks as if it’s absolutely delish! I’ll try to convince Catherine that we should make it this weekend and if we do we’ll let you know how it came out. H/T Lifehacker.

Somewhere, perhaps deep in a mountain lair or maybe hidden away in an abandoned missile silo, there are scientists who speculate that should Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup disappear from store shelves tomorrow it will herald the end of civilization as we know it. Oh, I didn’t say they were the sort of scientists you’d want running the Large Hadron Collider or even tinkering underneath the hood of your Ford. I’m sure they exist though simply because no matter how ridiculous a proposition someone makes, you can always find somebody who will support it. Witness Scientology.

Whether you believe that Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup was the foundation of modern civilization, you have to admit that it’s pretty handy to have around. How else do you explain almost 80,000 recipes using it on Google? Today I have an un-recipe for a yummy pasta sauce taking advantage of that mushroomy miracle in a can.

It’s an un-recipe because I’m a little light on the measurements. The truth is, I wanted pasta with a meat sauce for dinner and I didn’t have any tomato sauce in the cupboard. So I just made this up on the spot with what I had lying about. My suggestion to you is just that… take this un-recipe and any measurements as only a suggestion of what you might want to do. Everybody’s tastes are different and who knows what you have in your pantry. Besides, it’s not like I wrote anything down. I was hungry! Read the rest of this entry »

These muffins are an exercise in simplicity which will help you attain that ineffable state where all desire and suffering shall be extinguished and you break free from the chains of karmic bondage, finally achieving enlightenment and wisdom.

Oh, alright. So it’s probably unrealistic to expect that from any food but these muffins are pretty tasty. And I’ve been making variations on this recipe, on and off, for a few months now trying to get the perfect vanilla muffin. I don’t think I’m there yet, but these will do. They have a delicate flavor that will go well with your morning coffee and they are pretty easy to make to boot. In fact, if you’re organized, you can probably whip up the batter in the time it takes your oven to preheat.

I also like to think these are versatile little quick breads in that the basic recipe serves well as a base for other muffin varieties. Throw in a handful of blueberries, or chocolate chips or perhaps dial back the sugar and throw in some Asiago cheese and suddenly you’ve got a whole other biscuit. So maybe these muffins haven’t reached nirvana, but when they’re this simple and good who cares? Read the rest of this entry »

This is really old, so forgive me, but I thought that it was kinda cool: our lumpy garlic mashed potatoes recipe got linked to by the WBlog. They did a post on Ross’ from Friends fondness for having his potatoes lumpy and linked to a couple of recipes, ours among them!

At this point I must confess that it is part of my vast ignorance of popular culture that I have never seen an episode of Friends. I have only watched bits of Seinfeld (although I like his wife’s cookbook), haven’t seen the X-files (although agent Scully and I both have an ouroboros tattoo) or the West Wing (sorry, no clever parenthetical for that one). But I have certainly heard of Friends and I even recognized that Ross was a character’s name. See? I’m not hopeless.

So this is sort of like knowing a relative of someone famous. Like the time that Philip Seymour Hoffman’s sister babysat my daughter…

Just because you can’t imbibe in the middle of the day doesn’t mean your crustacean friends can’t. It’s a little known fact that shrimp love their rum. It makes them happy little decapods, and if you make this recipe you’ll be happy too. It’s simple enough that you can make it for lunch with no trouble at all, especially if you do the marinade the night before. It might seem a little steppy for a midday meal, but it all goes together very quickly and took me just about a half hour total. The taste, texture and wonderful aroma will beat the pants off a sandwich and chips any day.

I adapted this recipe from several I found around the net, adjusting the ingredients to our tastes. As I made it, the shrimp have a very strong flavor to them and not everybody likes that so feel free to make your own adjustments. And for heaven’s sake, enjoy it with a small shot of rum. We won’t tell your boss. Read the rest of this entry »