Food In The Fort

I remember the last time I tried to make real fudge. It was a long, long time ago. It involved a candy thermometer, a jar of marshmallow fluff and a nasty burn on my right forearm. I can’t remember if it was good; I just remember that it hurt. Coming back from an experience like that ain’t easy, but when my mom was good enough to share this “fudge” recipe with me, I knew I had to put the past behind me and give it a go. You don’t need a candy thermometer, you don’t need fluff and (knock wood) I haven’t burnt myself making this yet.

Fake Fudge

Ingredients

• 2 king size Snickers bars
• 1 tub (container? jar?) of chocolate frosting
• 8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

Preparation

1. melt everything together over a low flame (some purists might insist on using a double-boiler, I say “why bother?”)
2. pour into a 8 x 8 pan and allow to harden

Sure, it isn’t exactly fudge, but it’s so good and so freakin’ easy! Thanks to Jo Baird via my mom for this gem.

I mentioned on the Cherry Clafouti recipe that I made for our book club’s dinner discussion of Sarah Vowell’s The Partly Cloudy Patriot that we met on Bastille Day (July 14th), thus the rustic French custard cake. Well, to tie in with the whole patriotic theme, Catherine made this red, white and blue jello that was absolutely the hit of the party. In fact, it’s safe to say that the jello, or rather the unmoulding of the jello, was the night’s entertainment. It stuck in the mould, so Catherine and our host Sophie tried running warm water over the mould, but to no avail. Then Sophie’s husband, the physicist, suggested strategically deforming the mould by squeezing on the edge. After much manipulation the bottom three layers disgorged themselves with a resounding plop!

I think it took another fifteen minutes for the final two layers to appear, but happily they all came out intact and more or less aligned with their recently liberated bretheren for Sophie and the rest of the guests to properly admire. Indeed, there was much ooh-ing and ah-ing over Catherine’s jiggly creation. It was quite the work of art. I’m sure Bill Cosby himself would have shed a tear at its sheer beauty.

While It’s hard to imagine the housewives of the ’50s and ’60s (when jello moulds were king) had this much fun, but it was worth the wait. And surprisingly delicious! The sour cream in the white layer made for a creamy, tangy counterpart to the sweet berry flavors. While I can’t see us making this very often, it was a thoroughly enjoyable creation. I know I have a lot more respect for gelatinous desserts after all this. Too bad we only have a crumby cell phone pic of the half-eaten jello to illustrate this recipe. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Bastille Day and our book club is meeting in a few minutes to talk over Sarah Vowell’s Partly Cloudy Patriot. Catherine made patriotic jello, so I think we’ve got the book covered, but how can we not celebrate Bastille Day in some way? So I decided to make Cherry Clafouti, a wonderful rustic French custard cake.

In the oven it will rise way up, and then collapse back in on itself. Some dubious websites I’ve read seem to think that French peasant moms used to entertain their kids by, apparently, parking them in front of the oven to watch the rise and fall of the clafouti. Either 19th C. French children were way too easily amused or there’s something fishy about this story I think.

It’s terribly easy to make, assuming you have a soux chef to pit all those damn cherries for you. Just be sure to avoid my mistake and buy tart, dark cherries. I swear I reached into the bin with the dark cherries but when I went to make this the bag was clearly labeled “sweet cherries”. Also, gauging by how my clafouti came out, if your cherries are extra juicy, you’re probably going to want to add an extra 1/4 cup or so of flour. You’re just going to have to eyeball it, but then that’s the joy of rustic peasant dishes… it’s hard to screw them up too much.

I’ll let you know how everybody liked the clafouti (I love saying that word) later, but right now it’s time to go be literary.

Updated: Well, the clafouti was a huge hit. There was barely a spoonful left. An even bigger hit though was Catherine’s patriotic jello, which I’ll get to posting in a little bit.

Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

I don’t know who Patty is, or how she could cram such insane levels of yumminess into one recipe, but her Ricotta and Chocolate Cake recipe is so good that we made it twice in as many days. Of course, when a recipe starts with ricotta cheese, sugar, chocolate chips and not one, but two sticks of butter you pretty much know right away that you have a winner.

Catherine made the first instance of this cake for the students she advises in the International Student Organization meeting at Canterbury School. After sampling it for breakfast, and then seeing the way it was devoured by the students we decided we absolutely had to make it again for ourselves. Despite our springform pan deciding to suddenly fall apart just before putting the cake in the oven (don’t worry — all was saved) it was not a decision we regretted. Read the rest of this entry »

Oh, Bisquick, is there anything you can’t do? Whether it be your namesake quick biscuits, hangover-easy chocolate chip pancakes, or any one of your myriad of Impossibly Easy™ creations, Bisquick seems to be the baking mix of a thousand recipes. Except everything comes out with the taste and texture of Bisquick. This browine recipe I found on the web is no exception.

Now don’t get me wrong; I love Bisquick. It’s an essential ingredient in any bachelor’s apartment or hurried household’s pantry. In fact, if you don’t have any Bisquick in the house, I recommend you run out right now and buy a 5lb. box. Believe me, it’ll last you forever and assuming you have eggs, water and milk on hand you’ll never be at a loss for a crumbly bread-like side or dessert. Just resign yourself now to the fact that you will never make anything with Bisquick that quite resembles whatever-the-hell it’s supposed to be. Read the rest of this entry »

My dad put this frosting atop the “Surprise Carrot Cake” and it was the perfect complement. The original recipe below produces more icing than you’ll probably need unless you really like to spread it on thick (I do, when it comes to frosting, my dad, not so much). Dad also cut way down on the sugar (I have to agree that a pound of powdered sugar is pretty crazy). I’ve italicized his changes in parentheses after each ingredient.

Where Daddy dearest and I really disagree, though, is on the necessity of making frosting from scratch at all.  For my money, Betty Crocker and her friend Poppin’ Fresh do a splendid job for about $2.50 a canister and it beats the hell out of having four cups of confectioner’s sugar flying every which way. But I’m a lazy slacker who’s always looking for the quick ‘n’ easy way and Dad’s a true cook who actually sifts flour and performs other labor-intensive procedures.

In short, homemade’s better, but Betty’s fine in a time-crunch. I certainly enjoyed every bite of the carrot cake and cream cheese frosting and wished I had been there to lick the spoon! Read the rest of this entry »