Happy Holidays- Have a Rumball.

We never had a lot of holiday traditions, and of those, many have slipped away as our children grew older. I don't remember when we started making rum balls, but even when we don't put up a tree or decorate the house, we still make rum balls. This is Chuck's project from start to finish, and he gives them as gifts to neighbors, family, friends and co-workers, all of whom start asking about them in the fall.

Chuck uses the recipe from the Joy of Cooking but modifies and expands it. There is not a single local ingredient in them, but enjoy them anyway. Happy Holidays.

Bourbon Balls
(Joy of Cooking)

About sixty 1-inch balls
Sift together into a medium bowl:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
Whisk together in a small bowl until well mixed:
¼ cup bourbon or dark rum
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
Stir into the cocoa mixture and set aside. Combine:
2 ½ cups vanilla wafer crumbs
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
Stir into the cocoa mixture.
Roll the mixture into balls between your palms (the balls do not have to be even). Roll in:
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
Place in fluted candy cups. Store between layers of wax paper in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 weeks.

Chuck's Changes to the recipe:
The past couple of years, Chuck has used 151 rum. He has also used Kahlua, and a Godiva chocolate liqueur. I prefer the Kahlua or the Godiva, and I think the 151 is much too strong. But I am not fond of alcohol in general, and he tells me everyone else loves them.

Also, he has been using a 1:1 mixture of ginger snaps and vanilla wafers instead of straight vanilla wafers. One new tradition- EunJee, a foreign student from Korea has been making the rum balls with Chuck for the past 5 or 6 years.



Mixing the "batter".

Rolling the dough into balls

Rolling the balls in powdered sugar.

Winter Comfort Food

Happy Winter Solstice! Starting tomorrow, the days will get a little longer as we start the long climb back out of the depths of winter into spring. Regardless of that, most of us probably see winter stretching out before us long and dark and very cold.

While I am not overly fond of the cold and dark, I like the foods of winter- I like one-pot meals and dishes with lots of complex carbohydrates. I like the things that are harvested in the fall and store well into the winter- sweet potatoes, apples, winter squash. The inspiration for this wintery side dish came from a wide variety of places; my friend Julia, Iron Chef America and my mother.

I've been reading about the health benefits of barley recently. According to World Healthiest Foods (read about it here) barley is better than oatmeal for lowering cholesterol, is good for intestinal health, terrific for heart health AND it's low glycemic index is perfect for those with Type 2 Diabetes. Breakfasting on barley may help regulate blood sugar spikes. I was trying to figure out a way to breakfast on barley, and came up with the idea of making a sort of granola like substance out of it that I mixed into my morning yogurt. Then my friend Julia mentioned that her husband Robert made excellent barley, "light and fluffy, like good rice" she said. She went on to tell me that they had eaten warmed over barley with a fried egg on top for breakfast. I was entranced- this would never have occurred to me. Usually I am the one eating something that has everyone else peering and commenting. I determined to do something more with barley than put it in soup.

How did Iron Chef America and my mother come into this? Well, the other night I watched Battle Cranberry on Iron Chef, and I dearly love cranberries. And my mother told me that if I put a acorn squash in the microwave for a minute, it would peel more easily. I figured, if it works for an acorn squash, why not a butternut.

This recipe is adapted from one on Grouprecipes.com.

Butternut Squash Barley Risotto with cranberries
1 small butternut squash
1/2 cup apple cider
1 onion, chopped
2 TBSP olive oil
2.5 cups chicken broth (vegetable broth is OK too)
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp rubbed sage or 1 TBSP chopped fresh sage
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
1/3 c pearl barley (you can use unhulled barley, but it does not release starch like the pearl barley does and may not be as creamy)
4 oz crumbled goat cheese
2 TBSP dried cranberries

Put the butternut squash in the microwave for 2 minutes. This makes it very easy to peel and chop into 1/2 in chunks.

Pour the apple cider into a skillet, add the squash chunks, cook covered until the squash is not quite fork tender. Remove 1 cup for the recipe, and reserve the rest for another time.*

In a small saucepan, add the broth, the sage and the bay leaf, bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover.

Put oil in a skillet, saute the chpped onion until transparent. Add squash and stir briefly. Add the barley, stir for about 2 minutes.

Pour 1/4 of the broth into the barley and stir until it is absorbed. Be sure the bay leaf stays in the pan with the rest of the broth. Add remaining broth, 1/4 at a time, stirring after each addition until it is absorbed. Cover and cook on low until the barley is tender but not mushy. Stir occasionally and be careful not to burn.

Add the goat cheese crumbles and stir to melt. Dried cranberries may be added now, or may be sprinkled on top as a garnish.

This was relatively sweet. You may prefer to skip the apple cider cooking step, adding the uncooked squash to the onion, cooking until fork tender before adding barley.

*The left over squash can be mashed and used in a pumpkin muffin recipe. Here's a good one. Or try it mashed like potatoes with a little butter.

Latkes with Applesauce

My friend Dorothy makes the best latkes. I had them once, more than 12 years ago at a homeschool Channukah celebration, and I still remember how wonderful they were- warm, crispy, with applesauce and sour cream. She generously shared her recipe with me, which was sadly and irrevocably lost in the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2008. But I think she must have had some latke magic that she didn't share with me, because even with her recipe, mine were never as good.

We made 2 batches from the recipe found here. One batch was the traditional kind made with white potatoes, and the other batch was made with sweet potatoes. (All potatoes from our garden, by the way!)

White potato latkes
Sweet potato latkes
Latke "batter"- white potatoes

Despite the recipe statement that we could make "palm-sized" latkes, I think these were too big, certainly too thick. Next time we'll go thinner. We also thought we would reduce the fat content by cooking them on the non-stick griddle- BIG MISTAKE! We had to move them to the cast iron skillet. They really need the oil to make them correctly.







white potato latkes in the cast iron skillet.



Latkes are best served with applesauce and sourcream, as in the top picture. Since my days of eating sour cream and living through the experience are over, I had non-fat plain yogurt. The Greek yogurt is an almost acceptable substitute. (They are also good as leftovers, with applesauce and pepperjack cheese melted on them.)

Joy of Apples

Braeburn and GoldRush
I am very fortunate to live in the midst of Pennsylvania's "Fruit Belt". In fact, on my daily drive to and from work for the past year I have watched the beautiful progress of apples, peaches and cherries from the first blush of color in the spring, when the buds begin to swell, through the all-out extravagance of the blossoms into the heavy abundance of the ripening fruit. Even this time of year, empty of leaves, the trees form interesting shapes on the hillsides.

The apples were good this year. We started with a few Gingergolds in August, then Honey Crisp in September. The Jonagolds, from Toigo Orchards, came in October, and were spectacular. Tart with a sweet follow-up, and crisp, I bought bushels to dry for later use*. I also made gallons of applesauce.


*To dry- I used the peeler-corer-slicer for uniformity. I saved the peels and cores in the freezer, and will make apple jam out of it.

When the Jonagolds were gone, I tried Braeburns, good, but not as marvelous as the Jonagolds.

My new favorite, Goldrush- a Yellow Delicious variety, tart, crisp and an excellent keeper, came in November. Toigo is the only place I know that carries them around here. A trip to St. Louis over Thanksgiving gave us an opportunity to buy some Arkansas Blacks- a very late heirloom variety. And finally, Granny Smiths and Romes were a gift from my friends at the Lady Apple Orchard. I had never seen a Granny Smith with a red blush; Jon Lady said that's because they are usually picked green. He left them on until they were riper. They certainly were good, and his explanation may be why I have never cared for Granny Smiths. They are always too tart for me. I like a tart apple, but I want some sweetness.

From top, clockwise- Goldrush, Rome, Arkansas Black, Granny Smith.

I like to use more than one variety of apple in applesauce- it gives it a more complex flavor. I also like the applesauce very chunky. I chop the unpeeled apples coarsely until my 8 cup Pyrex measuring cup is full. Then I add about 1/4 cup sugar and some cinnamon, and put them into the microwave at 50% power for 20 minutes, covered. When it comes out of the microwave, I mash a little bit, and if it is too firm, put it back in for another 5 minutes at full power.

For information about the health benefits of apples, go here

It appears that an apple a day really might keep the Doctor away!

18 months later....

Well, 18 months ago I wrote that I was blanching asparagus and getting ready for a trip to visit my children. What I didn't write was that I was also waiting for a job change: the organization for which I was working at the time was re-structuring. It was painful and stressful and blogging was the way I handled the stress of not know how my job situation was going to resolve. To my great relief, I was rehired, to do a job I was very pleased and excited about doing: writing curriculum and designing online courses. (Another really good part was that for the first time in our married lives, my husband and I would be making enough money to make ends meet at the end of the month.)

The only downside was a hour long commute at the beginning and end of each day. Adding longer hours due to going from 3/4 time to full time, this meant that for the past 18 months I have barely had time to breathe, much less cook or blog about food.

During that 18 months I loved my work, I did it well, my office-mates were delightful people and, despite not actually having much of a life outside of work, things were good.

Sadly, because of the downturn of the economy as well as other economic factors, the organization has had to make structural changes again. It was decided that an on-staff curriculum and online development person was a luxury, not a neccessity. My job was eliminated, and I have joined the 4.4 million people who are unemployed in this dark and stormy time. Little did I know when I voted for change on November 4, the change I got would be so immediate and so personal!

But here's the upside- For a little while, I will have the time to do the stuff that fell to the side when I was pouring all of my creative energy into my job. I will get to take leisurely walks with my dogs, and chat at the dog park with all of the other dog parents. I will be able to eat meals with my husband.
Best of all? I get to cook, and blog about it!

Asparagus now, asparagus later

The statistics of our life: Chuck and I are leaving on Friday, to drive the 1006 miles to visit our children. Before that, he will drive 500 miles roundtrip to pick up the college student who will be house sitting while we are gone. There is a lot to do, the packing, cleaning the house, shopping for road food as well as making sure there is some food here for the house sitter. Which might lead one to wonder, then, why I was blanching and freezing 115 spears of asparagus this evening. (One might also wonder why I am sitting here blogging, but hey, there has to be some mystery in life!)

Well, the statistics of local food- the asparagus is ready now, and it won't wait for me to get back from gallivanting about the country.

My sons tell me I am the weirdest woman in the world when it comes to food texture. Not only do things have to taste right, they also have to feel right in my mouth. I've been known not to eat things that have a fine flavor but a disturbing texture.* Asparagus is definitely on of those things. I've always felt that asparagus is one of those things that is perfect when fresh, lightly steamed or sauteed so there is a satisfying crunch when you bite into the stalk. Frozen asparagus is tolerable IN things like stir fried vegetables, but not eaten by itself like fresh. Canned asparagus is vile, good only for things like asparagus quiche, where the soggy green spear can vanish into the whole- the texture of canned asparagus is so very creepy, even though the flavor is acceptable. I have a jar of pickled vegetables made by my brother-in-law in the cooler, and I can see asparagus spears lurking in there. I have to admit, it's the main reason I haven't opened the jar- I can't quite get my mind around pickled asparagus. I'm afraid that neither the taste nor the texture would be quite right.

For the same texture reason, I was rather put off when I saw a recipe for roasted asparagus. Sure, the drizzling with oil sounded good, the balsamic vinegar and the sesame seeds sprinkled on top. But the texture? How could asparagus be good if it wasn't crisp, and how could it be crisp if it were roasted? I rolled it over and over in my mind, and finally decided to give it a try. On Mothers day, no less, because asparagus always reminds me of my mother- she is the one who taught me to love the first thin stems of spring best.

Wow- It was terrific! It was soft, but the roasting gave it a crispyness different than but not inferior to the crispiness I was used to. I used an olive oil infused with a hot red pepper, so there was a little bite, and I added garlic. This is definitely something we will have again.

And now we have come back to the 115 stalks of asparagus. They cost, all told, $20.25, which is $0.18 a stalk. I washed them, blanched them, and lined them up in layers in my 9 by 13 inch cake pan to freeze individually. Tomorrow I will parcel them up into my vacuum sealed bags, and will seal them up. My hope is, if I put them in the oven still frozen, that I can approximate the yummyness of Sunday's dinner.

115 stalks of asparagus will give us about 10 asparagus meals. And at each one, I'll remember this evening. That's one of my favorite parts of eating local- I love the connections.

There really is no recipe for the asparagus- I washed about 20 stalks, snapped off the woody parts on the ends, put it in my 9 by 13 inch cake pan. Drizzled a little (a couple of tablespoons, if that much) over the asparagus, chopped some garlic cloves fine, and sprinkled that and some sesame seeds. I heated the oven to 400 degrees F, and left them in for 10 minutes. Cooking for Engineers has a slightly more hands on method, and Kalyn, at Kalyn's Kitchen has a slow roasted asparagus I may try with some of the larger of these frozen stalks.

Rhubarb

Rhubarb is one of those things that you either love or hate. At least one, perhaps more, of my sisters loathes it. Understandable- back in the early 70's my mother was always on the look out for diabetic friendly foods. Rhubarb, sweetened with the nasty artificial sweeteners of the day, was one of those foods, and she served a lot of it. It was, in fact, pretty loathsome. Slimy and stringy.

However, while I developed an intense dislike for artificial sweeteners, I never developed an antipathy for rhubarb, and it's a HUGE favorite at our house. My husband and sons like to eat it raw, right out of the garden, and while I don't like it quite so fresh, I still enjoy it many ways. We've had it stewed, roasted, made into jam, muffins and pies. I've dried it, frozen it and canned it to eat later. I even tried making rhubarb ice cream. And I proved my "good mom-ness" by sending each of my sons a rhubarb cobbler kit- a bag containing some dried rhubarb, another bag containing the correct amount of sugar and flour for the pie, and directions calling for refrigerated crescent rolls as the crust. All they had to do was buy the rolls, add water and cook! (Did they make it? No. Crummy kids.)

I thought rhubarb was native to the US, but the Rhubarb Compendium tells me that the earliest written reference to Rhubarb was in 2700 BC in China. It also mentions that the name is derived from the Rha River, an early name for the Volga in Russia, because rhubarb grew along the banks. The Rhubarb Herbal at Botanical.com lists 3 kinds of rhubarb; Turkish, English and Monks. It describes the medicinal uses of the plant.


Finally, for those who REALLY enjoy rhubarb, there are the Rhubarb Festivals. The Wakefield Rhubarb festival in the UK is over for this year, but the festival in Intercourse PA is next weekend, May 18th and 19th. I'll have to put it on my schedule for next year; Intercourse is just a hop skip and jump over the mountain for me. Alas, I'll be in Kansas City that weekend.

I'm not the first to write about rhubarb for Weekend Herb Blogging- Writing at the Kitchen Table did a savory mutton in saffron and rhubarb sauce. Food Lover's Journey made a rhubarb streusel loaf, while Delectable Victuals did rhubarb scones. They all sound wonderful- especially the scones. While not a weekend herb blog entry, this rhubarb and custard sounds divine, and the photos are stunning.

This recipe for rhubarb tea sounds appealing, although it calls for strawberries and citrus along with the rhubarb. This tea is more basic, just rhubarb and sugar, with a strawberry for garnish if you desire.



I love my rhubarb plant- it takes little or no care from me, just a dressing of compost in the fall. I think it is beautiful- the long red stems, the deep green enormous leaves. I love the way they smell when I cut them up. Like my grapevine, it was planted by the previous owner of the house, and every time I harvest the stalks (by the way, the leaves are poisonous, eat only the stalks) I am so happy I bought a gardeners house!

Weekend Herb Blogging is being hosted by Up a Creek Without a PatL this weekend. I am terribly envious of her lovely visitor mentioned on the May 5 entry- go check this out! And, of course, see the round up of other Weekend Herb Bloggers.