Daring Bakers Caramel Cake

This month the Daring Bakers were hosted by Delores of Culinary Curiosity, Alex of The Blondie and the Brownie, Jenny of Foray into Food, and the lovely Natalie of Gluten a Go Go helped with the alternative Daring Baker side of things. We made a Caramel Cake created by Shuna Fish Lydon. Her recipe can be found here.

I wanted to like this cake. I mean brown butter and caramel sounds amazing. I was excited to make this cake and it's been done for weeks. But as reports from other Daring Bakers trickled in about it being mighty sweet, I got worried. Then I started thinking that maybe if I made tiny little bite sized petit fours I could handle the sweetness. Unfortunately no. These were far too sweet for me of the Brain and eventually most of it went trashward bound. The frosting was simple, and the salt made it excellent, but it was super sweet and on top of a sweet cake it was a bit of overkill. I even tried pouring some very dark chocolate over the top to cut how sweet they are a bit. But that only made them seem sweeter in contrast.

I think I would make the cake again. And I probably would make the frosting again, but I wouldn't make them together.

Make sure you check out the rest of the Daring Bakers!

Thanksgiving Cupcakes

So today is the last day to get a cupcake in for October's Cupcake Hero: Squash. So I made pumpkin spice cupcakes with molasses cream cheese frosting and toasted pecans. That would make far too long of a name. So I'm calling them Thanksgiving Cupcakes because on Sunday, in my never ending quest for turkey leftovers, I'm having my mom and stepdad, sister M., and Grandma down for a Dinner of Giving Thanks. Dinner of Giving Thanks should not be confused with Thanksgiving Dinner. This is just a small dinner with a big turkey so that I can have my favorite November lunch: A turkey sandwich on white, nutritionally negligible, bread, with Miracle Whip. Yes, it's plain. It's also the only time of the year where I will buy either Miracle Whip or fluffy white bread. I'm so excited.

Oh my, I've gotten way off track here.

So my little cupcakes. It's been sort of a hellish week. I've had something due in every class. One class I had a test AND a paper. So yesterday afternoon, the project due in that class was something we were doing in class, I whipped up these cupcakes. They were yummy! The molasses complimented the pumpkin cupcake and the toasted pecans just took it over the top. My class really enjoyed them.

Meanwhile the Brain stayed home and passed out Halloween candy. Why would our little town, and lots of other little towns across the Ohio, celebrate Halloween on the 30th? Because the 31st is a pagan holiday and they don't want to celebrate it. Does this make sense to anyone? I celebrate Christmas on the 24th. Does that mean I'm not celebrating Christmas? Ugh.

Thanksgiving Cupcakes

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature, cut into small pieces

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

3/4 cup Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter

1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 16 muffin cups with paper liners.

Mix together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves in a small bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer beat the butter until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the sugar and continue beating until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla and pumpkin butter. Add the eggs one at a time and allowing each one to be absorbed before adding the next one. Beat in the milk. Then slowly add the dry ingredients, making sure they are fully incorporated.

Divide the batter evenly among cupcake wells. Bake for about 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center shows a few moist crumbs. The center should also spring back when lightly pressed.

Cool pan on rack for 5 minutes, then remove cupcakes to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Molasses Cream Cheese Frosting:

8 oz. package cream cheese

3 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp molasses

4 cups powdered sugar

Beat together the cream cheese and butter. Beat in the molasses. Slowly add the powdered sugar. If the consistency is to soft, add more powdered sugar.

Pecans:

1/2 cup pecan chips

Place the pecans in a dry pan over moderate heat. Toast the pecans just until they start to smell.

Assembly:
Frost the cooled cupcakes with molasses frosting. There will be leftover frosting. Sprinkle cupcakes with toasted nuts.

Barefoot Summer Borscht

Tonight I do my first peer teaching. Pretty exciting. Nerve racking really. I've created a worksheet. I've thought about what I'm going to say. I've found a nifty SOHCAHTOA video. I've got the Mt. Sohcahtoa poster all finished. And although I'm only teaching for 10 minutes, I'm nervous. Do I have too much content for 10 minutes? What if it all goes over my classmates' heads? What if I get a smartass in class who decides to ask questions that I don't have the answer for? I'm sure it will be fine, but these questions have me nervous.

Unfortunately, I can answer what black bean soup tastes like when you add cinnamon instead of cumin. It tastes like dirt. So there will be no black bean soup recipe posted today. Instead, I give you a delicious soup I made this summer instead. It's Ina Garten's Summer Borscht as printed in her cookbook The Barefoot Contessa at Home. I checked the book out of the library and now I understand what all the fuss is about the Barefoot Contessa. Ina's recipes were easy to follow and totally delicious. I'm adding this particular cookbook to my Christmas wish list, but I'd be happy with any of her cookbooks. Hint. Hint.

And because it's such a beautiful pink color I'm entering it in Cilantro & Lime's Baking For Breast Cancer, even though it's not actually baked. I believe it was so hot outside when I made it that I was baking, but that's a stretch really. But seriously, breast cancer awareness is important to me. I just spent part of the weekend at a party for a close family friend who is now a survivor of breast cancer. The good news is that when breast cancer is detected early then there is a 98% 5-year survival rate. So remember to give yourself a breast self exam at least once a month! (I got my information from the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc.)

Summer Borscht

adapted from Barefoot Contessa at Home

Serves 6

5 medium fresh beets (about 2 pounds without tops)

kosher salt

2 cups chicken broth

16 ounces sour cream

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1/4 cup sugar

2 Tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp cider vinegar

1 1/2 tsp black pepper

1 English cucumber, seeds removed and diced

1/2 cup chopped scallions, white and green parts

2 Tbsp chopped fresh dill

Place the beets in a large pot of boiling salted water and cook uncovered until the beets are tender, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove the beets to a bowl with a slotted spoon and set aside to cool. Strain the cooking liquid through a fine sieve and also set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk together 1 1/2 cups of the beet cooking liquid, the chicken stock, sour cream, yogurt, sugar, lemon juice, vinegar, 1 Tbsp salt, and the pepper. Peel the cooled beets with a small paring knife or rub the skins off with your hands. Cut the beets in a small to medium dice. Add the beets, cucumber, scallions, and dill to the soup. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 4 hours or overnight. Season to taste and serve cold.

Black Currant Jam from Norway!

This week I received a fabulous package in the mail from Siri of Transplanted Baker. Siri sent me some gorgeous and delicious black currant jam. I don't think I've ever had a non-dried currant before and I can honestly say I love this jam. It's almost a molassesy tasting fruity jam. And it's absolutely delicious on Zingerman's farm bread. Which I also love and pick up pretty much every single time I go anywhere close to Ann Arbor.

Siri also sent me a Norwegian candy bar, but I have no photos because I ate it immediately and oh my it was delicious too! It was a Kvikklunsj and it was like a Kit Kat, except it was so much better it was almost not in the same category.

So why am I the lucky recipient of the jam? Well it was Molly at Batter Splattered's Jam and Jelly exchange. This was a totally fun event. Megan over at Megan's Cooking got the jam I sent just in time for her birthday. Hooray! Go check out Transplanted Baker and Megan's Cooking and Batter Splattered. This was a fun way to get to "meet" new bloggers! And try new jam in the process!

And just in case you wanted to know what it feel likes to be a total math geek, go to your local college campus and carry a poster like this around for a while.

Anyone know a good way of getting kids to spell SOHCAHTOA without using Some Old Hippie Caught Another Hippie Toking On Acid? I'm aiming it at 9th graders for crying out loud.

My Fridge, of A Place to Hang Things

So Wendy over at A Wee Bit of Cooking had a Fridge Door Competition. And she's posted the roundup today. And I am just plain goofy sometimes, because although I managed to send my photos in on time, I did almost forget to post about the roundup today. So go over to Wendy's at check out some really neat looking refrigerator doors. Apparently most people do not plaster their fridges with junk like I do. Wendy also has a really cool blog so you may want to poke around on it too.

Here are the photos I sent.

The top photo is actually the side of my fridge. It is plastered with the photos of the many many nieces and nephews and godchildren the Brain and I have. There's also a couple photos of us up there. And one of Han Solo and Princess Leia. There's also our engagement announcement from the paper, a letter from a nephew, a timer, a love voodoo doll, and a sourdough starter recipe.

The bottom photo is the front of our fridge. Here you will find another photo of a nephew, a drawing made by a very sweet little girl at our wedding (which I love because in the drawing I tower over the Brain and I'm skinny, and he's got hair). There's also some artwork of a different nephew and a godson, the menu plan for the week, a schedule of when assignments are due in classes, some save the date cards, and a religious card given to me by my 6 year old niece.

I didn't show the other side, there's just spare magnets over there. Actually what's really frightening would be what's on TOP of the fridge. Or even what's behind it. But I"m not taking photos of that.

Plum Ginger Jam

I have a confession to make. I have been a horrible student so I've been having a terrible time with graduate school. I'm not dumb. It's not that I don't understand the subject matter. It's just that for the first time since 5th grade I'm actually doing homework. You hear that mom? I'm doing my homework. Actually my mom knows I'm doing my homework because I keep calling her up because I don't really have too good of a memory of what happened when I was in school. I probably would remember better if I participated in class, went to class, or did the homework.

But what can I say? I was bored. I found the majority of subjects uninteresting, or only interesting enough to hold my attention for the 45 minute class period. In searching for my SAT scores this week (yeah I have NO idea where we put those 20 years ago), I came across a giant stack of progress reports. They all said the same thing. I'm a gem. I'm really good at class discussions. I really need to remember to bring my books to class and get there on time. Oh and it would be great if I wasn't so sloppy and unorganized. And by the way, effort has disappeared and if I don't turn in the 17 missing assignments I'm going to fail the class.

oops.

You would think I would learn to do homework in college when I got to study subjects that were more interesting. Well, I would think that to. But nope. See in college although the material got more interesting, life outside school got way more interesting too. So yeah, I didn't really get any better at doing my homework. I think the statistics professors figured it was a statistical improbability that I could pass the class without doing the homework (we didn't have to turn it in). But I had this great friend Robin, and right before every exam I'd spend the night at her house drinking beer and eating pizza and she would help me learn the important stuff and we'd study together. So yeah, I graduated with my statistics degree after a lot of beer and pizza. And very little actual homework.

Finally, at the tender young age of 36, I'm doing homework. I'm not very good at it. And I agonize over every paper. Agonize. Seriously. But I'm doing that homework. My classes are really interesting and I'm learning a ton, but this homework thing is brutal.

So what does this have to do with food blogging? Well, I am going to be letting Legume Wednesdays slide a little bit. I do still cook with a lot of legumes and you will see many recipes here still that include beans. But lately I've been using the crock pot a lot and although it provides tasty food that's ready for the Brain when he comes home from work and still warm when I get home, the legume recipes for the slow cooker don't look that appetizing and frankly when I get home at 10:00pm, I'm too tired to remember to photograph dinner before eating it and I don't have any good light to work with either.

Molly at Batter Splattered is hosting the Jammin' Jelly Exchange, and in the spirit of going back to school and the delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich that used to be a school lunchroom staple (although now because of the increase in peanut allergies it is frequently banned from schools), I have made jam. Yummy Plum Ginger Jam. My mom used to make batches upon batches of jams when I was a kid. our fruit cellar was lined with jars of jam. And we'd eat them all up. 6 kids eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches kills a jar of jam pretty quick. In fact I'd never had store bought jam before moving away to college. Store bought isn't the same. And homemade is so easy. And fairly cheap too!

So there's no recipe. Buy a box of Sure-Jell and tear it open in the store. Don't worry, everyone does it. There's a piece of paper inside that will tell you exactly how much fruit and how much sugar you need to use. I believe this jam called for 4 pounds of plums (bought on sale for $0.88 a pound) and 8 cups of sugar. The cool thing I did, is once I followed the regular recipe for jam on the piece of paper inside the box of Sure-Jell, I stirred in 1 cup of chopped up crystallized ginger. Then into the sterilized jars and processed for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. I got 10 jars and a bowl left over. There is nothing as delicious as freshly made jam. On good bread. Unless it's that peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I'll be munching on tomorrow while I'm working on my homework. It's like being in 5th grade all over again.

Spicy Spice Cupcakes

Yes. It's time for Cupcake Hero again. Laurie over at Quirky Cupcake is still taking a break from hosting the Hero, so this month's guest hostesses are Rachel of Tangerine Tart and Teri of the 90/10 rule. And oh boy, they did pick a challenging theme. Jalapeno. Yes. Those green hot peppers.

Actually, this Cupcake Hero was a learning experience for me. It turns out that all along I'd been using Serrano peppers instead of jalapeno peppers when cooking. I just didn't know the difference. Now I know that Serrano peppers are skinnier and hotter and jalapeno peppers are fatter and still pretty hot.

This Cupcake Hero was hard because I kept coming up with different sweet tastes that go well with jalapenos, but couldn't come up with how to put them into a cupcake and make it taste great. I finally started thinking about Indian food and how some sweet curries have raisins and cinnamon along with the curry powder. That's when it occurred to me that a spice cake may be the way to go. And frankly I just love molasses.

I also decided to mince the jalapenos so that they're tiny little morsels in the finished cupcake. I felt sort of like I was being an Iron Chef at this point because I felt like I wanted to keep the integrity of the jalapenos rather than hide them as a single hot (spicy) element in the cupcake. I really think the jalapeno flavor comes out here. I seeded mine and cut out the ribs, but I think they'd be even better if the ribs were left in, but they were still seeded. Oh and the creamy frosting with it's twangs of buttermilk and molasses is the perfect complement to the Spicy Spice Cupcakes, but if it's too creamy for you add some more powdered sugar or chill it to thicken.

Spicy Spice Cupcakes

an original Shazam recipe

cupcake:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup pumpkin butter

3/4 cup applesauce

3/4 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup olive oil

3 large eggs

2 Tbsp unsulfured molasses

1/2 cup golden raisins

1/2 cup dark raisins

1 jalapeno pepper finely minced

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, combine pumpkin butter, applesauce, buttermilk, olive oil, eggs, molasses, raisins, and jalapeno. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Divide batter among muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes or until tops bounce back when gently pressed.

frosting:

8 oz cream cheese

4 Tbsp unsalted butter

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1 Tbsp unsulfured molasses

1 Tbsp buttermilk

Blend cream cheese and butter together. Add powdered sugar, molasses and buttermilk. Whip until fluffy.

to assemble:

Once cupcakes have cooled completely, frost with frosting and keep in a cool, dry place.

Red, White, and Blueberry Cupcakes

This month, the Cupcake Hero competition is guest hosted by two of my favorite bloggers, Clara at I Heart Cuppycakes has got fun tidbits, creatively decorated cakes, and seriously delicious cupcakes. She's cohosting with the equally wacky and delicious Nikki of Crazy Delicious Food. And wouldn't you know it. For two such fabulous food bloggers, they came up with what I think has been the hardest yet Cupcake Hero challenge. Red, White, and Blue. Ah, you scoff, how hard can that be? Well maybe I should add they didn't want us to use food coloring for the whole thing.

Then it hit me. No food coloring means that I would have to, gasp, use fruit. Mostly because blueberries are the only naturally blue food I could think of. Good thing I like blueberries. In case you're new here, I don't like the majority of fruit. I'm trying very hard to eat it lately. I figure it's not a good idea to completely dismiss an entire food grouping. Unfortunately, the red fruits posed a problem. I tried some cherries and discovered that I didn't completely mind them fresh. Fresh cherries are way better than that gross super red kind of cherry flavoring type pseudo cherries. But still they had pits. Raspberries are ok, but I had a feeling they'd bleed on the frosting, and call me a little nutty, but I just couldn't deal with that. I thought about maybe a raspberry sauce, but I really wanted to limit the amount of heat going around in my tiny little house. So I started thinking about semi sturdy red fruits and came up with the dreaded strawberries. blecch. (Yeah, I'm probably one of the very few people in the world that doesn't like strawberries.)

So for this month's Cupcake Hero I decided to go way simple and scream summer. I made my favorite basic yellow cake cupcake recipe, topped with an easy meringue buttercream recipe and decorated with fresh fruit. That's red and blue fresh fruit. Well, I made some just with blueberries, because that's how I would like them.But then I packed them all off and gave them away. I figure although cupcakes definitely enhance the taste of fruit, it's not the best way to get some fruit in my diet.

Red, White, and Blueberry Cupcakes

Yellow Cupcakes (from A Baker's Field Guide to Cupcakes)

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1/2 cup milk at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350°F. Place paper liners in 16 muffin cups.

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl to aerate and combine; set aside.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar gradually, beating until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl once or twice. Beat in vanilla extract. Beat in eggs one at a time, scraping down after each addition, allowing each egg to be absorbed before continuing. Add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternately with the milk. Begin and end with the flour mixture, and beat briefly until smooth on low-medium speed after each addition.

Divide batter evenly among cupcake wells. Bake for about 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center shows a few moist crumbs. The center should also spring back when lightly pressed. The cupcakes might color a bit around the edges, but they will not brown.

Cool completely.

Easy Meringue Buttercream (The recipe is on a recipe card that is mighty well loved and I have no idea who to attribute the original recipe to. Sorry!)

4 large egg whites

1 cup sugar

pinch of salt

12 ounces (3 sticks) unsalted butter very softened

Place egg whites, sugar and salt in medium sized heatproof mixing bowl over a pan of simmering water and whisk gently until egg whites are hot (140°F.) and sugar is melted, about 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from heat and whip by machine until thick and cooled, about 5 minutes. Beat in butter and continue beating until buttercream is smooth and spreadable.

To Assemble

handful of blueberries

handful of strawberries

Frost cooled cupcakes with a layer of buttercream. Decorate the tops of cupcakes with an assortment of blueberries and strawberries.

Sicilian Penne and Sausage ala Batter Splattered

Today was a standard busy Monday. I had physical therapy, where they finally let me on a stationary bike for a whole 6 minutes. Yay! Then I helped my fabulous mother-in-law learn some fun tricks in Word. And it's been rainy and fairly cold today. So I decided to finally participate in Ruth over at Ruth's Kitchen Experiments' weekly blog event Bookmarked Recipes (every Monday).

Molly at Batter Splattered posted this recipe for Sicilian Rigatoni and Sausage in late April and I've been waiting for the opportunity to make it ever since. I didn't have any rigatoni so I substituted some penne. And I only had 2 large ripe tomatoes so I added a can of petite diced tomatoes. This pasta was worth the time it took to cook. It was rich and delicious. I think next time I make it I'll do it exactly as she posted it because it was so satisfying that I can't think of a way to improve it.

Also, the always lovely Amanda over at Mrs. W's Kitchen has awarded me the Arte Y Pico Award for creativity, design, interesting material, and contribution to the blogging community. I am so incredibly honored.

I am very happy to pass this award on to these other deserving bloggers:

1. Jennie of Straight From The Farm because she not only informs about interesting plants and gardening, but also creates tasty recipes for a variety of vegetables and herbs.

2. Speedbump Kitchen who is extremely informative about cooking for children with allergies. I like to peek on her site when I need to figure out how to be careful about cooking for people with food allergies and intolerances.

3. Clara over at I heart Cuppycakes who consistently makes a better cupcake entry for Cupcake Hero than me. And who has some fierce skills in decorating.

4.Courtney of Coco Cooks because she lives an exciting and glamorous life and the diversity of dishes on her blog reflect it.

5. Janna, The Honeyed Hashette, who creates beautiful desserts and dinners. Her Paula Deen Chocolate Cake had me drooling!

Here are the rules for this award:
You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award, creativity, design, interesting material, and also contrubutes to the blogger community.
Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
Each award winner must display the award along with the name and link to the blog that gave it.
Winners must link to the "Arte Y Pico" blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.
Winners must display these rules

Marshmallow Walnut Chocolate Ice Cream

So I'm procrastinating on making my Daring Baker challenge for this month. I've cleaned the house some. Watched the Brain do some serious housework. Taken my Focus in to see what's wrong with it this month. Played on a parked Vespa, imagining myself to be scooting around Nowhere, Ohio in a kicky skirt while speaking fluent Italian. And learned about Ford Escapes. The Brain has left to run some all day errands and I really need to get my butt in gear and make this challenge.

But instead I decided to finish the ice cream that I made this week and tell you about it. Remember last month's cocoa Cupcake Hero? And how the theme ingredient was cocoa and we were supposed to highlight Askinosie cocoa and those lovely people at Askinosie Chocolate sent me some of the cocoa. Well, I decided that probably I should use it again because my habit of sneaking into the kitchen just to sniff it was starting to get a little weird. That and there's this ice cream blogging event going on at Mike's Table called You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream for Frozen Desserts.

The flavor of the Askinosie Cocoa comes out so clear and luscious in this ice cream. I had a hard time not just eating the custard before I even got started freezing it. That and I also learned that I can not be left alone with fresh mini marshmallows. I apparently love them. So yes, this recipe makes smooth and velvety chocolate ice cream studded with crunchy walnuts and springy marshmallows and over the course of the week I ate it all. And I'm not sorry that I didn't share.

I did tell the Brain that I will make him a milk-free sorbet this week though. I didn't tell him that I was going to use some of my donut frying money to order me some more of that cocoa powder. I'm not addicted or anything. I can quit whenever I want.

Marshmallow Walnut Chocolate Ice Cream

adapted from The Ultimate Ice Cream Book by Bruce Weinstein

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 cups milk

1 cup heavy cream

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup mini marshmallows

1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Place the sugar, eggs, and cocoa in a food processor and blend until smooth.

Bring the milk to a boil in a heavy medium saucepan. With the food processor running, slowly pour the hot milk into the food processor feed tube. Process until well blended. Pour the entire mixture back into the pan and place over low heat. Stir constantly with a whisk or wooden spoon until the custard thickens slightly and reaches 170 degrees F. Be careful not to let the mixture boil or the eggs will scramble. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the hot chocolate custard through a strainer into a large, clean bowl. Allow the custard to cool slightly, then stir in the cream and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate until cold or overnight.

Stir the chilled custard, then freeze in 1 or 2 batches in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions. While the machine is running and the ice cream is semi-frozen, add the marshmallows and walnuts. Allow the machine to thoroughly mix them in. When finished, the ice cream will be soft but ready to eat. For firmer ice cream, transfer to a freezer-safe container and freeze at least 2 hours.

Summer Cantaloupe Cupcakes

Yeah, it's Cupcake Hero time again. This time the Cupcake Hero Staff are on summer vacation and the lovely April of Abby Sweets is hosting the event. The theme for June is melon. Any kind of melon we want. The sky's the limit. There's only one small problem.

I don't like melon. Any of it. It all falls squarely on the I'm Not Eating It list. This was going to provide one heck of a challenge for me. So I started thinking of which melons I don't dislike as much as the others. Honeydew ranks at the bottom for me. And I'm not at all a fan of watermelon. I'd rather go hungry. But I did have a cantaloupe salad once that I sort of thought was okay. So I narrowed down the melon theme to cantaloupe.

Then I started thinking some more. There's a small town in North Central Ohio, not far from over here in Nowhere, Ohio. And every Labor Day Weekend they have the Milan Melon Festival. Mostly they pack a lot of food vendors in the town square, they have a 5k race and it's your standard small town festival. The thing about the Milan Melon Festival though is that Toft's Dairy out of Sandusky makes a cantaloupe ice cream specifically for the festival. And if you get there on Labor Day, chances are they've run out. And they don't make it any other time of the year. The crazy thing is that I actually really like the cantaloupe ice cream. Bizarre.

So with the melon salad I had once and the ice cream in my head, I called around to see what other people like about melon. My sister, Super G, told me that "even people who like melon, don't like it warm". She was a little put off by the idea of a baked melon cupcake. She told me she liked melons that are cold, juicy and sweet. The Queen Geek, told me she likes that melons have very few calories. She sees them more as a vehicle for berries in fruit salads.

Thus the Summer Cantaloupe Cupcake was born. I tried to keep the lightness of the melon and not overpower it's subtle flavor by making it a white cake with just a hint of ginger. I knew from that one salad the one time that ginger and melon go well together. Then I decided to get fancy and create a melon curd. I didn't know it could be done. But I did it. Hooray! It's actually pretty good. And adding that to the center of the simple white cupcake contributes to the juicy factor of melon that Super G likes. Then I topped the whole cupcake with a cantaloupe cream cheese frosting which has a subtle flavor that reminds me of that ice cream at the melon festival.

I have a feeling if you like melon you will really like this cupcake. Because I don't think it's too bad.

Summer Cantaloupe Cupcakes
an original Shazam recipe

Cupcakes:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground ginger
3 large egg whites
3/4 cup milk, at room temperature
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place paper liners in 16 cupcake wells.

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl to aerate and combine; set aside.Whisk egg whites and milk together in a small bowl to combine; set aside.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium high speed, beat butter until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar gradually, beating until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl once or twice. Beat in vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternately with the egg white and milk mixture. Begin and end with the flour mixture and beat briefly until smooth on medium speed after each addition.

Divide batter evenly among cupcake wells. Bake for 20 minutes, or until edges turn light golden brown; a toothpick inserted in the center will show a few moist crumbs. Set aside to cool completely.

melon curd:
1/2 cantaloupe peeled, seeded, and chopped
1/2 cup sugar1 Tbsp lemon juice
pinch of salt
4 large egg yolks
1 Tbsp unsalted butter

Puree the first 4 ingredients in processor, scraping down sides of work bowl occasionally. Add yolks; puree 15 seconds longer. Strain through sieve set over large glass bowl, pressing on solids with back of spatula to release as much puree as possible. Discard solids in sieve.

Set glass bowl over sauce pan of simmering water (do not allow bottom of bowl to touch water); whisk puree until thickened and thermometer registers 170 degrees F, about 12 minutes. Remove from over water. Whisk in butter. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

frosting:
4 cups powdered sugar
1 stick unsalted butter
1 (8oz.) package Neufatchel cheese
6 Tbsp Cantaloupe curd

Cream together butter and cream cheese. Add powdered sugar and beat well. Add cantaloupe curd and beat well.

to assemble:
Once cupcakes are cool, with a paring knife cut out a cone from the top of each cupcake. Level off the top of the cone to create a space on the inside of the cupcake. Fill the space with a teaspoon to a teaspoon and a half of curd. Replace the cupcake top. Pipe the frosting on top. If the frosting is soft chill for 20 minutes or until firm enough to pipe.

Crack Beans

So Rosie over at Rosie Bakes a Peace of Cake and Pixie at You Say Tomato are having this Putting Up event. I believe I've already mentioned it and provided my family's favorite Chili Sauce recipe. I don't normally enter twice into a food blogging event. In fact, there's a whole bunch of really cool food events that I don't participate in. Usually because I'm not terribly creative sometimes, or because I just don't have the time, or because if I made that many baked goods in one month I may need Richard Simmons and a forklift to come rescue me. But this event is different. Not only are my Crack Beans already made and canned. Last summer. But I hear there's some interest in the recipe.

I love these beans. I snack on them. I know my sister Super G polished off a whole jar with one friend in one sitting. They are addictive and a little spicy. They are the kind of pickly bean that my friend Bethany's family used to make when we were wee tiny little children. Well kindergarteners anyway. She's gone on to become important and founding foundations and everything. So I will assume that regular exposure to these in childhood leads to very intelligent, hard working, and caring adults. Either that or she was always like that. I think it's a marvelous excuse to have these beans on hand anyway.

The beans are relatively simple to make, in that it's your standard prepping of the jars followed by stuffing them prettily and pouring the syrup on top. Simple yet hugely gratifying. And have I mentioned they're addictive? That's why they're called Crack Beans. They're originally called Patti's Dilly Beans from The Food Lover's Guide to Canning (excellent book), but that's a pretty silly thing to call them when I have no idea who Patti is and when asked I'd probably make something up about her anyway. I'm not sure what it's like to be addicted to Crack, but I'm assuming that if it's anything like these beans it could become a real drug problem. Perhaps I should have named them Meth Beans (I knew a meth-head once), but I wouldn't want people to think there's a risk of the kitchen exploding.

Crack Beans

yields 4 pints

2 pounds green beans

2 cups water

2 cups distilled white vinegar

3 Tbsp salt

4 sprigs fresh dill

4 garlic cloves, peeled

4 tsp red pepper flakes

Snap the stems from the beans. Then cut the beans so that they are 3/4 inch shorter than the pint jars. Place 1 sprig of dill, 1 garlic clove, and 1 tsp of red pepper flakes in the bottom of each jar. Fill the jars with beans such that the beans are standing straight up. Set aside.

Combine the water, vinegar and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Ladle the boiling mixture into the jars and seal with lid and ring. Process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Cheesecake on a Stick!

It's Daring Baker Challenge time again! This month it was Cheesecake Pops from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O'Connor. Now I happen to love cheesecake, but the Brain and a significant portion of his family are lactose intolerant so I knew that I needed to find a place to give these babies away or I would really become Jaba the Butt. As it so happens, last Wednesday I was cleared by the physical therapist to be able to drive up to Michigan to go to the opera. My best friend T. and I have season tickets and La Rondine by Puccini was playing and it hasn't been performed in 37 years. It was I think my favorite opera so far and the people at the Michigan Opera Theater were really great about moving my balcony seat to a box seat and letting us have a primo parking space. They were really terrific about the challenges I faced on crutches.

Conveniently my friend T's son, my godson, is turning 2 on Tuesday (yes, this is an old photo) and he had a big birthday party yesterday. So I merely transported these babies up to her (and about 10 to my family) and minimized the risk of me eating the entire batch of cheesecake pops by myself. And trust me it was a real danger. They were delicious! And my track record for sampling as I was making them was pretty sad.

The batter went together super easy. Although I sort of shuddered at the 5 8oz packages of cream cheese, I figured that there's no butter in it and if you only eat one pop it wouldn't be so bad for you. That's one pop. Not 4 pops that you run out of chocolate coating for. I licked the beater so I knew the cheesecake was going to be good, the batter is good. And for the first time I actually put the cheesecake in the water bath. My cheesecake baked in about 55 minutes and was nice and solid.

The recipe says to scoop the cheesecake into 2oz balls. So I got out my little scooper. I'm sure it has a fancy name, its a little ice cream scoop that I use for portioning out cookie dough or frosting. Anyhow, I was scooping away and eating the scraps of cheesecake, which turned out about as yummy as I imagined, when I decided to stick one of the little buggers on a scale. It was 3/8 oz. Crap. They looked good though. Just a nice bite. But I am a direction follower so I got out the big ice cream scooper that I use for portioning out cupcakes. And I scooped one and weighed it. It was 1 1/4 oz and they looked pretty big. I started thinking that 2 oz was about the size of a softball and the cheesecake was far to rich for that.

So once I had all my little 3/8 oz balls rolled and scooped out and my tummy was seriously hurting from eating too much cheesecake ("What did you have for dinner?" "cheesecake"). And I somehow managed to rearrange my freezer to be able to have all these cute little balls on sticks fit, I froze them. I should mention here that lollipop sticks can be found at Walmart. I just happened to conveniently have some bright orange candy melts in my pantry. Don't laugh, my sister Super G discovered she had a can of Jamaican sardines in her cupboard this week. It happens. So I melted those up and coated my little cheesecake lollipops. And it was a kitchen of orange. I have an orange Kitchenaid and orange plastic mixing bowls and my favorite spatula is orange. And somehow these candy melts were the exact color of orange. Which thrilled me. I am easily thrilled. Even when my stomach is hurting from eating far too much cheesecake.

I did have a little trouble getting them to stay on the stick when they were thawed out so I did have to keep sticking them in the freezer. My sister M when she tried hers at home fell of the stick too. I think they'd be almost as fun just without the stick. As like tiny little bon bons. This was definitely a challenge for me. I'm not sure if it was just complicated for me to scoop them out and roll them into a ball and then dip them in chocolate or if I was just at the point in the day where standing becomes uncomfortable and I'm pretty much done. I don't think I'd make this again for a weekend dessert or a casual birthday party, but probably if I was going to a bridal shower or baby shower I would. They're a lot of work, but they're really impressive.

Thanks to the wonderful Deborah at Taste and Tell and Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms for picking a recipe that I probably wouldn't have picked myself. It was a good challenge. Also make sure to check out all the other talented Daring Bakers. And if you'd like the recipe, you can either buy the book, or check out Deborah's blog. And I'm headed back to the couch.

Cooking to Combat Cancer 2

Oh cancer. As I mentioned in my cornbread muffin post for A Taste of Yellow, I worry about cancer. It's a little unnerving to realize that I've hit the mid-thirty somethings and I've already predisposed myself to some cancers. Besides the smoking and the damage I worry that I've done to my lungs, I come from the pasty white people of the north. My mom says I'm allergic to the sun. I can burn through baby sunscreen. And I've already had one suspicious spot removed. Fortunately, it was nothing. But skin cancer does run in my family. On both sides. I like to think that maybe when my ancestors came over in 1640 and just kept marrying other Germanic type people that if they had known the risk factors they were setting me up for they might have tried to get to know an Italian, or a Greek or somebody with a little tiny bit of melanin. But they didn't.

SO dutifully, every time I go out in the sun I slather on some Neutrogena SPF 70 (with Helioplex) sunscreen. I wear a hat. I wear big sunglasses. At the beach I wear a swim shirt. And I wear a beach cover up. I look like one of those crazy old ladies that is completely covered up. But I haven't had a tan, or a massive burn in 3 years. 4 years ago is when I discovered that I burn through baby sunscreen on my first annual family vacation to Hilton Head Island. Bad burns happen, but I do try to prevent them.

But as careful as I am now, most skin damage is done before you're 18. Crap. I think I had one or two or three bad burns a year before I turned 18. My grandma had a cottage on Lake Huron and just for me she kept a massive jar of Noxema. Out of 19 grandchildren, I'm the one that burns bad. My cousins used to peel the flaking burnt skin off my back. My sister doesn't burn. She tans. It's highly annoying.

So what am I bringing this all up for? Because Chris at Mele Cotte is hosting a Cooking to Combat Cancer 2 event to raise awareness of cancer fighting foods. This Spicy Chicken and Greens is packed full of cancer fighting foods. There's the Mac Daddy of all leafy greens Kale. Kale has been shown to slow growths of cancers in laboratory animals. It helps reduce the risk of lung, stomach, colorectal, prostate and bladder cancers. Kale is also high in folate which helps combat breast cancer. Then there are scallions, which are from the garlic group. Scallions contain diallyl disulfide which protects against skin, colon and lung cancer. There's even some soy sauce. I don't know if soy sauce counts as a soy because it doesn't have the soy protein that my body just can't digest, but I purposely kept it in for soy's cancer fighting properties. Soy's isoflavins protect against cancers of the bladder, cervix, lung and stomach. And then if you serve this lovely (and unfortunately not terribly spicy) dish over brown rice as I did, you've just added the cancer fighting properties of whole grains, which when eaten as part of a balanced diet works to combat most types of cancer.

So there you go. Have some of this not very spicy Spicy Stir Fried Chicken and Greens with Peanuts and battle away your potential cancer risks! Also make sure to check back at Mele Cotte for the roundup!

Spicy Stir Fried Chicken and Greens with Peanuts
from Bon Appetit

2 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce, divided
2 Tbsp dry Sherry, divided
3 tsp sesame oil, divided
2 tsp brown sugar, divided
1 1/4 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut crosswise into 1/2 inch wide strips
2 Tbsp peanut oil, divided
4 green onions, white parts and green parts chopped separately
1 chopped serrano pepper, seeded
1 large bunch kale, thick stems removed, cut into 1 inch strips
1/4 cup chopped roasted salted peanuts

Whisk 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon Sherry, 1 teaspoon sesame oil, and 1 teaspoon sugar in medium bowl. Add chicken and marinade 20 to 30 minutes.

Whisk remaining 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon Sherry, 2 teaspoons sesame oil, and 1 teaspoon sugar in small bowl and reserve.

Heat 1 tablespoon peanut oil in large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add white parts of onions and chiles; stir 30 seconds. Add chicken; stir-fry just until cooked through, about 3 minutes. Transfer chicken mixture to bowl. Add 1 tablespoon peanut oil to same skillet; heat over high heat. Add greens by large handfulls; stir just until beginning to wilt before adding more. Saute just until tender, 1 to 6 minutes. Return chicken to skillet. Add reserved soy sauce mixture. Stir until heated through, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper.

Transfer to serving bowl; sprinkle with green parts of onions and peanuts.

LiveSTRONG Day 2008

I am lucky. I may be on pseudo-house arrest. I may not be able to get into my pantry. I may have the world's squeakiest brace and sound like a demented version of the tin man. I may wake up sometimes in the middle of the night with a weird pain in my knee. And I may have resolved that it's possible that this isn't my last knee surgery. But I am lucky. This is all temporary. Eventually, and it's a certainty, I will be able to ride my bicycle again. I will be able to play and jump and maybe run (I've never been very good at running). I will heal one hundred percent. I don't have cancer. My body isn't mutinying against me. I am lucky.

My mom's friend Pam wasn't so lucky. She had lung cancer and finally succumbed to it two years ago. Pam had her flaws like everyone else, but she was a pretty cool lady. She taught school, but I really have no idea what grade and what she taught. I know she loved to swim. But mostly I remember driving her to the hospital when she wasn't allowed to drive anymore and listening to her talk about how when she got better she was going to have adventures. She had this attitude up until the very end. It was pretty inspiring really. And Pam's gift to me was showing me what would happen if I didn't quit smoking. That sounds so Machiavellian of me, but it's true.

The fear of lung cancer sometimes keeps me up at night. I used to smoke. I used to smoke a LOT. Some people will tell you that I survived in college on Diet Coke and cigarettes. And pretty much I did. Cigarettes became a way for me to stop myself from saying things I would regret. Cigarettes allowed me to pause and think before I spoke. Cigarettes allowed me to step outside and take a deep breathe when I got completely stressed out. And yes, I'm not from a generation where I can claim that I didn't know they were bad for me. I didn't care that I smelled bad. I didn't care that I couldn't smell anything. I was only mildly perturbed that my teeth were starting to yellow and that I'd probably get those scary lines around my lips. I had smoked for 15 years. Half of my life. And I loved it.

Those horrible photos of blackened lungs didn't do anything to break the grip that cigarettes had on me. I was addicted. What finally did it was watching Pam. Was knowing how Pam had all these adventures left in her that she wouldn't get to take. I didn't know Pam too well. But when Pam needed rides to the hospital, I didn't feel I could say no. After all, I have had far more than my share of people driving me around because I couldn't do it myself. And in the end, I was on the receiving end of these trips. Because I had a new appreciation for Pam and her unconquerable spirit. And I will never be a smoker again. How lucky I am that I had Pam in my life!

Winosandfoodies is having a Taste of Yellow blogging event where bloggers make yellow food to show their support for LiveSTRONG Day 2008. I spent a long long time thinking of a good food to make for this event. I wanted to make something that not only was yellow, but was also appropriate. For example, Saveur magazine had a recipe on how to make butter. Butter is yellow, but it doesn't seem right for a we can beat cancer type event. It's more of a oh hell let's all get fat kind of an event food. (If there is such an event please let me know!)

So I did loads of thinking and found this recipe for delicious corn muffins studded with cranberries and walnuts. Both of which have HUGE cancer fighting properties. According to work done by Catherine Neto at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and her colleagues, cranberries have chemicals called proanthocyanidins, which originally were thought to help prevent urinary tract infections. They have found that they inhibited the growth of human lung, colon and leukemia cells in culture without affecting healthy cells. I think that's pretty promising and you can read the whole article here. Walnuts contain an antioxidant compound called ellagic acid that supports the immune system and appears to have several anticancer properties and you can read all about walnuts here. So I think these little cancer fighting yellow muffins are perfect for this event. That and they're damn tasty too!

There will be a complete roundup of entries on May 13th here. Make sure you check it out. Last year there were 149 entries and it's been accepted by the Lance Armstrong Foundation as an official LiveSTRONG Day event. And if you'd like to see the rules for the photo contest or how to submit an entry check them out here.

Dried Cranberry Black Walnut Corn Muffins

from The Cornbread Gospels

Vegetable oil cooking spray

1 cup stone ground yellow cornmeal

1 cup unbleached white flour

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 Tbsp white sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup black walnuts, toasted and chopped

1 egg

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1/3 cup grape seed oil (or other mild vegetable oil)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Spray 18 muffin cups with oil. Set aside

Combine the cornmeal, flour, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Toss them together well, breaking up any lumps of brown sugar with your fingers. Set aside.

Combine the dried cranberries and walnuts in a small bowl. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the dry cornmeal mixture over them and toss well. Set aside.

Whisk together the egg, buttermilk and oil in a small bowl.

Pour the egg mixture into the cornmeal mixture and, working with as few strokes as possible, combine the two. When they are moistened but not quite incorporated and the batter is still far from smooth, stir in the meal dusted cranberries and nuts.

Scoop the batter into the prepared cups and bake until the muffins are golden brown, slightly crusty around the edges and test clean with a toothpick, about 15 minutes.

It's Gold in my Family

There's an exciting blog event going on co-hosted by Pixie over at You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato and Rosie at Rosie Bakes a Peace of Cake. It's called "Putting Up" and it's about preserving foods, canning, also known as "putting up".

I may be a fairly large dork because my mom and my grandmas all canned and I just followed in their footsteps. Next thing you know I'll be doing things like quilting and making soap from bacon grease. I doubt it, but if I wanted to to really go back to my roots, I guess I could. So even when I was living in apartments in Kansas City and Ann Arbor I happily made preserves and pickles and chili sauce and what my sister calls "crack beans" (they're that good).

And last year I finally moved into a house and I had a garden and I went completely bezerk at "harvest time". So which recipe should I blog about for this putting up event? My chunk pickles are really good, but I'm planning on entering them for the county fair (I'm a HUGE dork) and it's a secret recipe that my mom won third prize at the Michigan State Fair many many years ago. Honest. I'm not lying on that one. I do love my canned tomatoes and there's tons of uses for them, but really they're super simple and nothing more than canned peeled tomatoes with salt. I can't reach the recipe book that has the "crack beans" recipe or the salsa recipe in them. It's in the bookshelf on the side of the pantry and although I'm now down to one crutch around the house (Hooray!) I'm still forbidden from attempting the pantry.

So that leaves us with the very old and very delicious Chili Sauce recipe. Chili Sauce is a tomato preserve that sort of resembles a homemade chunky ketchup. It's sort of like a tomato relish I guess. It's also treated like gold in my family. For Christmas one year my mother gave us kids all a jar of Chili Sauce and the family's secret fruitcake recipe and we were a bunch of happy clams. Yeah anyone who says they hate fruitcake has never had my mom's fruitcake. Unfortunately, the recipe makes far more than my little family of the Brain and I could possibly eat in a year and it's a lot of work, so I'm mostly reduced to begging my mom to make some every year. Oooops sorry, got off track there.

So Chili Sauce (and the secret family fruitcake recipe) is guarded in my family. It's saved and stored until the perfect moment for using. Well unless you make it yourself like I do and then you can lavish it on top of hamburgers or mix it with Miracle Whip for some very tasty salad dressing. My sister Super G makes short ribs with it. My vegetarian brother once said it's tasty on a bean loaf. It's fabulous in Beef Brisket with Beer, which I'm giving you the recipe for, but no pictures because I can't go down those scary basement stairs. And I really really like it when making Sloppy Joes. See I never grew up with Manwich because there was always Chili Sauce in the house. And frankly, now I think Manwich is icky. But I have it in my pantry because I am a good wife. But if you want a sloppy joe, go with the chili sauce.

Chili Sauce

Family recipe courtesy of Caroline Fritz my great grandmother

2 red and 2 green bell peppers

1 cup celery

1 cup onions

1 peck tomatoes, peeled

pickling spice bag

1 pint vinegar

2 cups sugar

1/4 cup salt

pepper

1 Tbsp dry mustard

Grind vegetables and put all ingredients in large pot. Boil. Stir often as it scorches easily (and once it scorches the little black floaty bits are hard to get rid of.) When the chili sauce is thick (probably 3+ hours later) seal in jars and process 5 minutes in boiling water.

Pickling Spice Bag:

1 stick cinnamon

1 Tbsp celery seed

3 Tbsp pickling spice

Tie all the ingredients together in cheesecloth (or in the cut off toe end of a new and very clean pair of panty hose).

Beef Brisket in Beer

Family recipe courtesy of Dorothy Hunter my grandmother

3-4 lb brisket

1 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup chili sauce

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1 12 oz can beer

garlic salt

Trim excess fat from meat. Season with salt, pepper and garlic salt. Put in roaster. Mix onion, chili sauce, and brown sugar with some beer and pour over meat with remaining beer. This cooks down to almost nothing. Cover and bake at 350° for 3 -3 1/2 hours. If not brown, bake uncovered for 10 minutes. Let stand a few minutes before carving. Add water and 2 Tbsp flour for thick gravy.