CakeWalk

When I asked my son what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, he said "vanilla.  with chocolate icing."  I should have stopped right there, but oh no...when it came up again, I couldn't help myself, "what about a chocolate and vanilla cake?" 

"Yeah!"  he liked that.

"And we could do it in an alternating pattern!"  (and yes, that's the sound of me, beginning to get carried away)

"Uh, okay." 

"And it could look like a checker board!"  (yes, officially carried away)

"YEAH!"  (he really likes this)

"Uh, okay.  okay!"  (that's me, realizing that I have managed to turn his simple request into a major saturday-filling task for myself.  I may never learn.  sigh.)

Saturday morning finds me in the kitchen, breaking out the chocolate, mixing up cake number one.  As I poured the batter into the pan, I thought to myself this is not going to release when it's baked.  Sure enough, it stuck to the pan in a major way.  So cake number one landed here:

Cakes number two (vanilla) and three (chocolate) were both baked in pans that were greased, lined with parchment and re-greased.  They released.

I didn't do a very good job trimming the tops or measuring the pieces (but I did a great job of keeping my panic in check as the hours flew by faster and faster....)  The structure was looking a little lop-sided, but some extra icing helped hold it together.  Luckily, both cakes were pretty structurally strong, somewhere between a layer cake and a pound cake, so they did hold their shape when stacked.  I once tried to make a "red barn" built-up cake using cake-mix cakes - might as well have been using marshmellows!  I think the candles got blown out before the roof came off that one!

Turned on it's side, iced and full of candles, it met the test of being a pretty tasty birthday cake.  For now, I've decided to postpone auditioning for any of those fancy-cake reality TV shows.



Fish Packets on the Grill

We had a good time making this dinner, the kids love eating anything that comes in their very own packet, and nothing's easier than packet-clean-up!

We set up the food processor and grated carrots and parsnips using the shredding disk.  Then we switched to the slicer for the zucchini and yellow squash (since they cook faster, they needed some extra heft!).

The veggies made a colorful bed for some fish filets (we used cod, but any firm fish would work), and we wrapped them in aluminum and parchment paper packets, folded over and well sealed on the top and sides.  The only seasonings were salt, pepper, olive oil (on the parchment paper and drizzled over the fish), and some thyme.

The packets sat directly on the grill over a medium heat for about 12 minutes.

The carrots and parsnips got sweet and everything stayed really moist and flavorful.  Salmon also works well this way.  With the food processor rinsed while we waited for the fish to cook, clean up was a snap.

The only real secret is to get the veggies sized so they'll cook as quickly as the fish - julienne, grated, thinly siced etc.  From there, it's all about experimentation with flavor combinations and seasonings. 

Can you freeze leftover spaghetti?

The world is full of unanswered questions.  Why?  Why me?  Why do cats do that?  Will it burn?

The kitchen, microcosm of the world, is also full of unanswered questions, such as "can I freeze this?"

Not nearly as deep, but when you're worn out, staring at the kitchen and thinking "I really don't want to cook tonight," you're not after deep, you're after fast and easy.

I had this giant bag of frozen spaghetti and sauce from a week or two ago that I'd tossed in the freezer when it was apparent that I'd made way too much (it was a crock-pot recipe) and we weren't going to eat it before it spoiled.

I wasn't sure the spaghetti would hold up, but since there are lots of frozen noodle dishes in the instant-dinner aisle of the grocery store, I figured we'd give it a try.  What could we lose, right?

I had put the freezer bag in the fridge that morning.  Around 5:30, I turned the block of frozen leftovers into my pan. 

Needless to say, that would have taken a l...o...n...g... time to thaw.  So I pulled it out of the pan and put it in the microwave to defrost (we used the meat defrost setting).  About 9 minutes later, I put it back in the pan, brought everything to a simmer for a few minutes and served it with a salad.

It actually held up pretty well!  Of course, we were hungry, and the pasta had lost any claim to al dente but the sauce was good and the noodles were softer than usual, but not mushy.  We had used the multi-grain spaghetti, and I suspect that helped it hold up.

So, can you freeze leftover spaghetti?  Yes.

Orange-Strawberry Quiche

Have you ever had a dessert quiche?  I hadn't until Talia invented one.  We were talking about healthful options for her class project and she suggested this one - entirely her own invention.  I was pretty impressed with the creativity, and entirely unsure how we would go about making such a thing, but serendipity showed up and voila:

It's a pretty basic little quiche, with strawberries as the filling.  Just after she'd first suggested this combination, we were at the grocery store and saw a tart recipe with an orange custard filling.  Borrowing from that idea, we added orange zest to the cream, heated it a bit and added it to the filling.

The recipe, as with most first tries, is not yet ready for prime-time, but there was quite a deal of pride in preparing this dessert for her grandparents.  Confession?  I was not really sure this would be good.  But it was.  We'll probably try it again soon, with a slightly sweeter crust and see what comes of it.

Here's to invention: the necessary ingredient.

Ca-Zukes!

Hats off to Cohn's Crew - 22 second-graders and two fearless leaders who managed to put together four dozen ca-zukes as part of their nutrition unit!

First of all, those kids were much better behaved than I remember being in the second grade!  They measured flour and wheat germ as if their lives depended on getting exactly the right number of flakes in the scoop, and they were all about mixing, mixing, mixing, mixing.  Those were some of the best-mixed muffins ever! 

If you want me to run a meeting or do something work related for you, no problem.  But figuring out how to orchestrate this event so each kid would get some of the action without creating major chaos?  Well, that was a new challenge!  I'm happy to report that there were no significant disasters or oversights.  Except one, but we'll get to that.

We set up an ingredients station in the back and the kids carried up their bowls to read, measure, scoop and crack....

I lean slightly toward the over-compusive side when it comes to planning through something new like this, so we'd tested a batch at home, I'd figured out how many measuring cups and spoons of which size to have, stashed extra bowls and spoons in my bags and had sticky notes for the morning-of, so we wouldn't forget anything.  Of course, I forgot something.  Baking soda.  Not exactly an optional ingredient when it comes to baking, right?  So, supressing panic, I hurried down to the cafeteria.  The first lady said "no, we don't have any."  But she went to look while I tried to figure out if my mom could dash back to the house and grab mine before we got to that step....  But, lucky for us, the art of cooking at school lives on - I have never been happier to see a box of baking soda before! 

The kids measured and scooped, mostly neatly, but there was bound to be a little variety in the final products....and some flour in my wheat germ, but hey, that's just like home.  I had anticipated cracking the eggs into their bowls, to limit hand washing mid-recipe.  Can you tell me, what was I thinking??  They all wanted to crack their own eggs, of course.  Duh.  And I have never seen kids wash their hands so eagerly!

And with several adults around (thanks, mom and dad, for spending some of your vacation at school!), the kids mixed and scooped and got their gloppy muffin batter into the cups for baking.  We entrusted them to those wonderful cafeteria ladies,

Enjoyed some heated debate about whether something that contained such significant quantities of vegetables and 'eewwey' things like eggs and oil could possibly be good, but my daughter reported back that they turned out better than the test batch we'd made at home.  Must have been all that extra stirring!

The last question of the day was asked by one of the girls who looked up at me very seriously and said "but what IS a ca-zuke?"

Here's how you can find out:

Ca-Zukes! (Carrot-Zucchini Muffins)


3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons wheat germ
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
2 large eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
4 medium carrots, grated (about 2 cups)
1/2 cup grated zucchini (about half a small zucchini)

Note: This recipe requires 12 muffin liners and a muffin tin (or 12 stand-along muffin cups)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350* degrees F. Line twelve 1/2-cup muffin cups with paper muffin liners.

Peel and grate the carrots in a food processor. The zucchini can be grated with the peel on. Set the vegetables aside.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the flours, the brown sugar, wheat germ, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a medium bowl or large measuring cup, lightly mix the egg with a fork, then mix in the vegetable oil and vanilla extract.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients with a rubber spatula or large spoon. Stir in the carrots and zucchini until everything is mixed. The batter will be very thick with lots of visible vegetables. Using a large tablespoon, scoop the batter into the muffin cups. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Turn muffins out of the tins and cool on a rack. Serve warm.

Makes 12 muffins.

Wish us Luck!

Tomorrow, we're taking on a new challenge - 21 of them, actually!  Talia and I are going to don our aprons and attempt to bake Ca-Zukes! with her second grade class.

It should be interesting...we've been trying to find the right recipe and figure out how to give everyone a piece of the action without a) turning the classroom into a certified disaster zone or b) being asked to consider relocating to a new district!  Lucky for us, the grandparent tech-team is visiting and they've offered to photograph this event.

Check back tomorrow for photos (or not, if it proves to be an utter disaster!)

Here's to Sunday planning!

Cauliflower Bake

We served up a pretty white dinner the other  night - chicken, onions and cauliflower.  Not the prettiest dinner, but it was mighty tasty.  We used a poulet rouge chicken - they're locally grown and although I was a skeptic at first, it was one of the tastiest chickens we've ever had.  The onions were roasted with the chicken so they had picked up a great caramelized flavor.  The cauliflower, however, was the main star of this particular evening's dinner. 

For a long time, I was a failure at making a white sauce.  For whatever reason, it seemed like an unattainable pinnacle of cooking.  The first break-through was making soufflee.  Following the recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking made it easy.  So when I saw a cauliflower in white sauce recipe on a cooking show, I figured we were ready to tackle this dish.

Equal parts flour and butter are the key, along with having your milk ready to go.  I heat the milk (1 cup) in the microwave, simple and quick.  Then it's ready to be stirred into the butter and flour (2 TB each) after they've cooked for a couple of minutes.  It thickened right up, see?

It cooked for a couple of minutes, then we turned off the heat, stirred in some grated swiss cheese, pepper, salt, nutmet and red pepper flakes, and poured it over our cauliflower.

The cauliflower had been microwaved ahead of time until it was mostly cooked.  Sauce and store-bought breadcrumbs topped the florets and we put it in the over for about 20 minutes, along with the chicken, to bubble up and brown.

As you can see, there were no leftovers on this one!