Have a Vampire Problem?

.... then boy, do I have the answer for you!

Things have been pretty stressful around these parts, I'm not gonna lie. So, I'm trying to take advantage of the small things that can make life a little easier. One of those things is grocery delivery... I've never done that before, but there's a service around here that lots of my friends use and I figured, why not.

So, Sunday night I went shopping online and was all excited to get all these things (I'll post the recipe I actually made later in the week). And, one of the things that was there was peeled garlic cloves. I thought, hey, I want life to be easier, why do I need to waste precious time peeling my own garlic (the correct answer to that question is actually something like "because it only takes about 30 seconds, you lazy lazy person"). So I ordered a package and continued happily clicking off boxes and picking out veggies.

Then, it came! And, in amongst everything else was my garlic!

Now, the first thing you might be inclined to say is something along the lines of "wow, now that is a crapload of garlic". I've been watching obscene amounts of old 30 Rock episodes, so I probably said "what the what!" and channeled my inner Liz Lemon.

Anyhow, it's a lot, but whatever, that seemed fine because I'd use it eventually. Until I saw this:

Yes, my friends. It says November 6, 2012. I am a single lady, living alone, and I have less than one month to consume an entire pound of garlic. Help!

Turkish Delight, a Cooking Disaster from the Archives, and a Big Location Change

Since my last post I have had a MAJOR change of location... new job, new city, and a new coast. I'm still up to all the same old things though, so, no big changes around these parts.

BUT, one thing that has changed is that my new location comes with the most amazing, awesome, exciting grocery store I have ever seen (did I just call a grocery store exciting? yes. yes I did). It's like every little ethnic grocery store I used to go to in LA is combined in to one place. I probably could have browsed for hours. Among other things, I got cactus fruit (3 for a dollar! how do you eat it? I don't know yet!), ripe plantains, fresh feta, fresh pita, giant Peruvian corn, some Peruvian chile purees (now I just have to make my sister-in-law teach me to use them!), amazing tabouli, AND freshly made Turkish Delight.

Now Turkish Delight has a special spot in my heart, dating back to the days when I first read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and Edmund was lured by the White Witch with huge amounts of Turkish Delight (yes, I read those books many many times. No, I did not see the movies- I watched just a few minutes of the first one, saw the witch had the wrong color hair, and decided to turn it off in case it ruined the books for me). Anyhow, I had no idea what it was, but it sounded so mysterious and amazing. To be honest, in my head, it was basically exactly like the inside of a Butterfingers bar. Who knows where I got that idea, but when forced to come up with the most delicious thing I could think of, that's what I got (mmmmmmm, Butterfinger)

So, a year or so ago, I heard about someone MAKING Turkish Delight, and was completely intrigued. I found out, at that point, that it's NOT even remotely Butterfinger related, but it's a delicate jelled sweet cut into cubes and dusted with powdered sugar. See how it is smooth and almost gooey?

I was excited to try it, so I proceeded. The recipe I found called for:
- 4c sugar (granulated)
- 1.25 c cornstartch
- 1 tsp cream of tarter
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- rosewater (which I didn't have)
- 1 c powdered sugar
- a bit of vegetable oil

The recipe ALSO required a candy thermometer, but mine was broken. This was my first mistake. I have been making English Toffee, peanut brittle, fudge etc for years, and am at the point with those that I can actually do a pretty good job even without the thermometer. So, feeling like I had a good handle on the cooking stages, I proceeded anyways. This might have been ok if I had ANY idea what texture I was going for.

You can see the recipe I followed here, but given my results, I'll leave it to you to find the recipe you want to use (of course, all mistakes are mine and don't reflect on the recipe at all). Essentially you cook the water, sugar, and lemon juice until it reaches 240, then combine with a lightly cooked cornstarch mixture. Easy-peasy, right?

This was mine. I used food coloring to try to get a delicate pink color, but as you can see it just turned red (second mistake).

Looks ok, right? it just poured right in! At this point I was pretty pleased with myself.

Now, you are supposed to let it cool for 24 hours. With intense anticipation, that's what I did. Then you're supposed to invert it and slice. Mine would not invert. I pounded, I banged, I ran hot water over it. There was no way it was coming out of that pan on it's own. So, I decided to slice it in the pan.

As you can see, I finally managed to hack out a corner. In case you didn't notice, this does NOT look like the stuff I bought today.

At this point, I realized I'd gone astray, so I decided to toss it and start over. HA! I don't know what I made, but whatever it was, it took THREE DAYS to soak it out of the pan. Maybe it was the cornstarch, I don't really know, but I truly believe that that stuff could be adopted by the government to make shields, or buildings in war zones, or bomb proof boxes.

Not to be thwarted, once the pan was finally clean, I tried again.

This time, as you can see, I cooked it a little less and got a substance with a little more mobility- it would at least bend, but it was very very hard. This one could have been adopted by the American Dental Association as some kind of magical filling/crown remover- I was afraid to even chew on it.

I finally gave up. I always meant to try again, and never posted these pictures because I wanted to wait until I did it right (kind of like one of my other cooking disasters, the infamous Dulce de Leche) Now, fortunately, thanks to my move, and to the magical grocery store, I don't have to! I can't say I'm not relieved.

So, Turkish Delight. If you manage to make it work, let me know- best of luck, I'll finally be moving on!

ps. If you're want some evidence to back up my strong feelings about the Witch's hair, here it is ;-).
The real witch:

This is from my (probably 'vintage' by now) book, which I unearthed while moving. It's night, so I couldn't get the overall color right, but you can see the hair is clearly black.

The movie witch:

The amazing Tilda Swinton. With the wrong color hair.

Scones: Not for the Faint of Heart

Here is another recipe that got buried in the depths of my iPhoto. THIS one dates way back to when I decided that the most appropriate food for watching the Royal Wedding was clearly English Scones (I'll note, I watched the wedding on DVR the next night, not having the stamina to stay up until 3am on the actual day) . I found a recipe on the internet (over at Delicious Days), and promptly realized I didn't have half the ingredients. Not one to let that stand in the way, I persevered.

Unfortunately, perseverance does not always pay off. At the Royal Wedding, Kate Middleton looked fresh, sophisticated, and absolutely beautiful.

At the time I watched the Royal Wedding, my scones looked and tasted like deformed, flat, burnt, rock hard cow patties (with a lovely decorative sliced almond topping).

I decided that kind of turn of events was best coped with by drinking a large glass of wine and settling in for hours of dress ogling, which I'm still pretty sure was the right decision. But I woke up in the morning bound to set things right. And oh, I did. This was batch number two. So good!

First I'll give you the good recipe, then let you know where I went astray.

What you need:

200g WHITE all-purpose flour, plus more for when you deal with the dough
1.5 tsp baking powder
2.5 tbsp white sugar
.5 tsp  salt
60g cold butter (yes, butter)
140-150g milk (I used almond milk)
some kind of fruit- raisins, cranberries, (I used dried cherries).

You'll notice that these measurements are in grams, which isn't normal for me, but that's how the recipe I found was, and part of going astray was not just sticking with it. So, I used my trusty food scale and did things right.

What to do with it:
Preheat your oven to 425, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. I used my food processor for this, but if you go back to the original site, there are directions for doing it by hand.

Put in the flour, the baking powder, the sugar and the salt and pulse briefly until well mixed. Make sure your butter is really cold, and cut it in to small pieces. Pulse that in with the dry ingredients until it forms a crumbly mixture with no large chunks of butter. Toss in whatever fruit you decide to use, pulse some more until it's chopped up and mixed. Distribute the chopped dried fruits and pulse once or twice, then add the milk of your choice and pulse again. Do this just until the dough comes together and the flour is incorporated- don't over mix. It can be a little wet, but you can always add a little more flour.

Dump out the dough onto  a well floured board. Sprinkle with more flour and knead it with your hands a bit, just enough for it to come together into a real dough. Now, smush/lightly roll the entire thing out so it is about 1.5 inches thick. You need something round to cut them- I just used a juice glass, but probably a cookie cutter is what's called for. Put each piece on the tray. Bake 13-15 minutes until golden brown.

Mine were delicious with butter and jam, but do with them whatever you like! They kept well in a ziplock baggie for about a week.

NOW... where did this all go so sadly wrong. My mistakes were:
1. wax paper can NOT (not not not!) be swapped out for parchment paper. Don't even try it. If I wasn't desperate for scones and already in my pajamas, I wouldn't have done it either.
2. apparently in this recipe, wheat flour is not a good thing. it just made it too dense- the difference in how well they rose in the wheat and white versions was remarkable. If you have some major baking mojo and know other ways to adapt this recipe around the wheat flour (I did add a bit more milk), it might work.
3. apparently, also in this recipe, Earth Balance (my butter substitute of choice) is vastly inferior to good old butter. (Julia Child would be proud)
4. I didn't trust the dough, and added too much flour. Then, I decided not do bother with using a cookie cutter or anything, and just cut them into triangles, which involved a little sawing, which apparently interferes with even rising.

What is the take home message? Basically, when baking, you have less leeway. Also, when something like Royal Wedding treats are on the line, just follow the recipe! Best of luck to you, may you learn from my mistakes!

Public Service Announcement: Puffed Brown Rice

In case you are ever wondering, putting brown rice in your air-pop popcorn maker (circa 1985) will not, in fact, result in homemade puffed rice. It will, however, result in a hurricane of hard dry rice flinging itself into every nook and cranny of your kitchen and into your face.

I'm just glad I didn't start this experiment with the quinoa, which was going to be Phase 2.

Braised Cucumbers- Not All They're Cracked Up To Be.

Ok, I saw Julie and Julia, I'm sure I've mentioned this before because I absolutely loved it. Now, in that movie I distinctly remember Julie saying "braised cucumbers are a revelation".

So, for some reason I got it in my head this week that I was going to make them. I had a cucumber, why not! When I googled it, I realized that not only had half of the people writing food blogs had the same idea I did, but that I was also pretty late to the party. And, as I read, things came up like "heaven on a plate" and "amazing" and "a classic". I have to say, I don't know WHAT these people are thinking.

This was not the grossest thing I've ever made- that prize goes to the Dulce de Leche I screwed up a while back (newly filed in my growing "disasters" category). But, it was, lets just say, not good.

Here is what everyone says to do....

1 big cucumber (or 2 regular sized)
1 tbsp butter
1 dash salt
1 tsp lemon juice
1 pinch dried mint
squeeze lemon juice

Peel cucumber, cut into quarters and remove seeds. Then, cut it into 1 inch pieces (note: mine were bigger. I have no even remote inkling that cutting them smaller would have helped). Melt butter (note: I used Earth Balance. it does make them vegan, which only matters if you actually eat them. I don't think butter would have saved these things, I really don't) in a pan and add the cucumber. Cover and cook about 10 minutes on medium heat. Stir in salt, lemon, and mint. Cover and cook another 2 minutes.

 Looks so promising, right? At this point I was wildly optimistic and fantasizing about this becoming my new secret recipe.

 Now, I'm not even going to TELL you about the chicken, which was a mediocre mustard crusted chicken tender concoction. I will tell you about the cucumbers, but let me tell you- I ate the mediocre chicken (hey, a girls gotta eat something, and everything can't be perfect), and I only ate 2 cucumbers (one to see how it tasted, another to verify, and the rest weren't long for this world).

They tasted like hot soggy cucumbers. That is all. They weren't transformed, they weren't magical, they were exactly what they sound like if you imagine slowly cooking a cucumber. Sadly, they are not my new secret recipe, to say the least.

To rescue this, if you want my ACTUAL favorite cucumber recipe, it is super easy, and here you go: very thinly slice one large English cucumber. Sprinkle on either seasoned rice vinegar and salt and pepper OR seasoned rice vinegar, a little sesame oil, and red pepper flakes. That on is good, I swear.

Moving on to Peppermint...

So, today I saw this recipe in the New York Times that according to this article is a recipe originally published in 1879. What is it for, you ask?

Well... I gave it away already, but its for Old Fashioned Peppermint Candy. It has 3 ingredients and one of them it water, so obviously I had to try it immediately. The article makes it sound sooooo easy... just add 2.25 cups sugar, some amount of water thats not totally clear, and 1 tsp peppermint extract. Being the prudent sort that I am (ha), I decided to start with a small batch. I used 1 cup sugar, .5 cup water, and .5tsp extract. I got going, and it all was going swimmingly- it boiled really well, it just took FOREVER and wouldn't turn brown. Then things started going downhill fast. In pretty much no time, it looked like this:I really have no idea what made it stop being clear and melted and start being a giant mass of hard crystalized sugar, but obviously this does not look like pepperminty goodness at ALL. Instead it more strongly resembles my last kitchen disaster, the infamous sweetened condensed milk debacle.

Never one to be deterred, I got right back on the horse and tried again. This time, I used less water- maybe 1/4 cup water to 1 cup sugar. And..... (*DRUMROLL, PLEASE!*)... it totally worked! As you can see here, it poured out nicely looking remarkably like the stuff in the article:
(by the way- that is a teeny cookie sheet, not an enormous batch of stuff).

In addition, if you are impatient for it to cool, like me, you can bend it into cool shapes, like this:

And then it shatters- it is seriously super hard and the edges are very sharp:

Generally speaking, this is my review of the situation- I recommend it, because it needs almost no ingredients and is kind of fun. But, if I were doing it again, I would add more peppermint (maybe 1 tsp for 1 cup of sugar) to make the flavor stronger. Its not really minty enough to do much, but it is tasty. I would also put in food coloring at the end when you add the extract- its just not that cute the way it is now. Unfortunately, I used up all my red food coloring making red velvet cupcakes, and all I had left was the empty bottle. And finally, I would capitalize on the phase where you can bend it around- you could make something cool. This stuff tastes pretty good, but there might be some fun garnish kind of thing that could be done with it for some other dessert (I'm thinking chocolate).

Anyways, now you try!

Tragedy Strikes

This is... very sad. I went out to my balcony, and what did I see? My poor little lime, who I have charted from his early planting babyhood to his penny sized adolescence, to this... the final demise :(

R.I.P. Little Lime

Delicious dulce de leche... ummm.... yeah...

So, usually if I post about food, its because I'm all psyched that something turned out really well. Well, not today. Today, I would like to introduce you to one of the nastiest things to emerge from my kitchen in quite a while.

It all started when one of my co-workers picked up a can of sweetened condensed milk and told me that you can boil it (the can) and make caramel. (as a side note, what kind of job would involve cans of sweetened condensed milk but not kitchens? thats another story). He claimed you just stick the can in a pot of water, boil it, and end up with a can of caramel. I am a huge giant sucker for things that have very few ingredients and yet produce that "no way, I made that!" feeling (see, pitas) so of course I had to try it.

I consulted the internets, and it was even better than I hoped, you seriously just take the label off a can of sweetened condensed milk, completely submerge the can, and either simmer or boil it for 4 hours (there was conflicting info regarding simmering vs boilin). Now, on the face of it, heating up a closed can full of molten sugar seems like an insane prospect. And, it turns out, you need to be very careful to avoid acquiring a new dulce de leche colored kitchen paint job and hair-do (also, to be serious, being burned by a projectile boiling sticky substance would be no joke). But, people the world over seem to have done this without too much damage to life and limb, so I gave it a shot.

Here are my ingredients:

I submerged the can, and since I was kind of concerned about this whole thing, decided to go with a simmer rather than a boil (this was the first mistake). I also read that you can cook it from anywhere from 1-4 hours, with the main difference being the thickness of the resulting caramel (pourable vs scoopable). So, after 3 hours I decided to be done mainly because I wanted to go to bed (second mistake).

All the info said it has to be really cool before you open it, or it explodes (this was a lot more drama than something like, cookies). So, I let it cool over night, and woke up this morning all excited to see what I made.

Now, this is the kind of delicious looking item people have made (they also frost cakes with it, top ice-cream with it, make cookie sandwiches, etc, etc):

This is what I made (little did I know, this was the pinnacle of what I would produce)... a can of under-cooked yellow goo:

I remembered reading that if this happens, you can just submerge the open can most of the way to the top in a pot and cook it for a while. I started to do that, but, I had things to do and places to go, and got bored. I had also read that you can cook it in a pan, on the stove, and it'll do the same thing. So, that seemed reasonable. And, it was initially promising:

That era of promise lasted 3-4 minutes tops... when it reached the phase you can see below, I finally decided to pull the plug on the whole debacle... as you can see I generated a pot of chunky goo that was simultaneously burnt and undercooked and in no way resembled delicious caramel. Julia Childs, here I come!

Now, the upside is, I am a stubborn lady, and now that I am more confident that the can won't explode, am definitely going to try this again... so, I'll keep you posted.

(The real irony here is that when I went to get the milk, strawberries were on sale, so I also made this super awesome strawberry pie inspired by Lauren over at Love Your Oven, but I didn't even get to take a picture because the camera batteries died (or maybe, the lens was burnt out by the hideousness of the chunky goo?). Anyhow, it is spectacularly delicious.

UPDATE: http://yellowfishblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/victorious-return-of-la-leche.html