póg mo práta...s'il vous plait

I'm actually Irish so I am entitled to be extravagant, with food that is. I'm still too young to drink, nor do I have the so called "contacts" and I don't much like beer. So I'll stick with the green tinted lemonades. When I was younger St. Patrick's day was almost a bigger event than, say, Christmas! More food, more lounging, more festivities, and sometimes ridiculous amounts of time at a plant/music/book store. The night before we would leave the windows open so as to obtain that chilled floor effect that we thought synonymous with Irish homes. Upon waking I would pop in my Irish bagpipes tape, yes tape, and wake the family. We would have hot tea and biscuits, but then again biscuits are a norm in the Hysizzle family. Green was worn, sometimes including undergarments, Irish themed movies were watched, or our medley of Drop Kick Murphys, the Pogues, Sinead O'Connor and "the Guinness Song" would be played. We might work in our garden, since we also found that a particularly Irish hobby. We lived in a sort Celtic liberation for the day, which included Irish stout for Da and brown bottled root beers for Garrett and me. One year, who knows why exactly, Garrett and I came up with this ridiculous song called "Old Tad MacFaddie" which was sung to the tune of "Molly Malone". Each year another randomly concocted verse would be added and then bellowed all day long. We also had another song about King Lear but that had nothing to do with St. Patrick's Day. But one year, something magically delicious happened...



After the family had drifted off to bed, two little leprechauns left a glittering trail throughout the house and porch. Little green footprints dusted with gold glittering flecks and folded up bits of tanned paper with clues. When the boys woke up they followed the trail from their bed to the porch, to our English neighbor's flag pole, to nearby Thomas park, back to the house, curiously under the toilet seat and various other places. Finally, back where they had begun, underneath their bed sat a little dutch oven stuffed with fresh potatoes, bottles of brew(Guinness and otherwise of the root recipe), books, gold coins and bright green head of cabbage. They ran with their pot of gold back to the living room to examine their find properly. When one of them decided it was too hot in the room and decided to turn on the ceiling fan they were surprised yet again. From each blade poured cupfuls of gold glitter that stuck to every surface and every inch of skin or hair exposed.

Needless to say, the surprise scavenger hunt was much appreciated but the fan-attack not. Those two little leprechauns had glitter duty the rest of the afternoon.



But, no worries, colcannon was in the making!

So that is what I made this St. Patrick's Day: Colcannon, oatmeal coated flounder and fresh ginger honey carrots.



The fish and the colcannon are undoubtedly Irish, although my ancestors would not have had ginger in their cabinets, carrots or any root such as parsnips, would have been staple.

Colcannon is sauteed cabbage and a few cloves of garlic mixed with mashed potatoes. Make the two separately, mash the potatoes add bit of cream, salt and pepper (I used spicy white pepper) and butter. Hand stir in the wilted cabbage. Top with pool of melted butter.

For the flounder I simply cut the filets into strips and then patted them into an oatmeal and flour (salt and pepper) coating. Bake at 350 degrees. Dab with a bit of butter or oil at the end, let the outsides golden, then flip and repeat. Serve with lemon.

I used a peeler to make the carrots into long ribbons, I felt fancy and they took almost no time to cook. You could roast them in a glass dish in the oven with a bit of oil, salt, pepper, and freshly sliced ginger, or on the stove top in a skillet. Mix in a tablespoon or two of honey just before serving.



I tried to sing Old Tad MacFaddie again, but I couldn't remember the lyrics, I'll try again next year Garrett.

Pink Lemonade Miniature Cupcukes

It was First Friday Around the Cookie Jar again, a monthly occurrence in the Plan II office on campus, though last time my peers proved inadequate and shamed themselves by not showing up or empty handed! This week our theme was Spring Break, since all the students are buzzing about it.

I don't normally use cookbooks or recipes but this time I borrowed my roommate's Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. The simplest, and quite possibly smallest, recipe I've ever used can be found on page 174 and it is aptly called "Busy-Day Cake". I dressed the recipe up with the zest of a lemon and some pink lemonade icing and cute little lemon heads. Although the seemingly lemon of a cookbook proved fruitful in the end, and although life did not hand me lemons, I had to run to the store for lemons, butter, milk and eggs, I was able to make some damn fine lemonade (cupcakes).




Cake: makes 1 1/2 dozen MINIATURE cupcakes/ this recipe should make 6-10 normal sized
1 1/3 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup unsalted butter (softened)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
zest of one whole lemon
yellow food colouring (optional)
Icing:
1/4 cup unsalted butter (softened)
3 tbs shortening (if you would rather exclude this ingredient just substitute more butter or some other solid oil like coconut!)
juice of one lemon
1-2 cups powdered sugar
red food colouring (optional)

Depending on how big/juicy the lemon is the amount of sugar will vary.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix sugar, butter, vanilla, zest till creamy. Slowly add egg and milk. In increments, add flour and baking powder till complete mixed. Add desired amount of yellow food colouring. I really wanted people to know these were LEMON cupcakes so the colouring was a necessity.

Pour consistent amounts of batter into baking cups (about 1/3 full) bake for 5-12 minutes. Stay close to the oven, these little lemonades don't take long to cook.

While the lemon babies are cooling mix all icing ingredients together until desired consistency, I was trying for lemonade-butter cream. I piped out little swirls of pink lemonade icing with a ziploc baggie snipped at one end and topped each little gout with a lemon head.



Zesty, Indeed!

Je suis le petit chou...

Most hate it when their parents reminisce about the "cute" things they used to do as children. Fall asleep on the potty, drink out of the dog's water bowl, take baths with the neighbor kids, the usual. Well mine is a story of a true slow food foodnik. My Da loves to talk about how he would come home and find me sitting on the front porch with a half eaten head of raw cabbage in my lap. Then, we lived in Anderson, Texas a little mustard seed of a town where a kid could safely sit on her porch eating produce. We had a backyard full of dewberry bushes and a little path that led to our neighbor's prize winning garden. I felt sort of like Peter Cottontail sneaking things out of his garden, little did I know that he and my parents had a secret pact allowing me to pick things on my own. I would come back from his garden with a giant head of cabbage or lettuce, and from what my parents swear, whole onions that I would eat whole like an apple. Ah, the good old days. (Can I even say that yet, I mean I'm not even two decades old yet?!)

Look Ma I can make coleslaw!


3-4 cups purple cabbage (the best cabbage)
2 "shaved" carrots
1 tsp whole celery seeds
1 tsp whole yellow mustard seeds
1 tsp whole brown mustard seeds
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper
1/4 cup white vinegar
2 tbs mayonnaise
1 tbs sour cream
2 tsp sugar (you can add more to taste)

Wisk together all spices, vinegar, sour cream and mayonnaise like a dressing. You can use the bowl you are going to serve in! Add shredded cabbage and carrots, toss and eat. In your face Chick-fil-a.

I've got a case of the cranberries

My secret wish, besides the one about being a librarian, is to visit a cranberry bog. Not any one in particular, I just want to be up to my waders in cranberries. Since that is my "happy place" I often go there when the world gets me down and I tend to eat/drink anything cranberry when I'm depressed. It's kind of like my "chocolate" or "fried chicken"; they are my comfort food yet secretly they boost my insides so I don't sick too. Philistines, I love them little bouncy berries! While I was in one of these sour moods I perused smittenkitchen.com like one might Google "fluffy kittens". There I found something that could lift the moods of a landlocked sea dog (don't ask): Cranberry Vanilla Bean Coffee Cake. And...it just so happens I have a three-pound bag of cranberries in my tiny freezer. Why, you might ask, would I keep so many cranberries on hand? Well why would you, oh never mind, I was reaching for something clever. You see, this is why I needed these cranberries.




If you need more convincing that cranberries can be an anti-drug, legal form of crack and oh yea antioxidant healthy superfood you should talk to the people at The Cranberry Institute. Yes it really exists, almost as exclusive as the MIB, or the CIA( that would be the Culinary Institute of America).

Of course you could Google "cranberries", if you needed a visual pick-me-up. Just looking at pictures of those little crimson candies does it for me. Then again your search might yield some unwanted materials, such as the semi-popular musical group "The Cranberries"; who knows they might be able to cure a urinary tract infection with their magical voices.

Anyways, I was quite upset this past week and one night I had just enough, even the vocal chords of Dolores O'Riordan couldn't make me happy again. So I bogged out my bag of cranberries and made myself a cake. Cranberry Vanilla Bean Coffee Cake.




Cranberry Vanilla Coffee Cake
Gourmet, December 2008

1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 cups fresh or thawed frozen cranberries (6 ounces)
2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened, divided
2 large eggs
1/2 cup whole milk
*1/4 tsp nutmeg
*1/2 tsp cinnamon
Confectioners sugar, for dusting

*These ingredients I added of my own volition, add them if you'd like.

Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle. Generously butter a 9- by 2-inch round cake pan.
Line bottom with a round of parchment paper and butter parchment.

Scrape seeds from vanilla bean into a food processor with tip of a paring knife
(reserve pod for another use if desired). Add sugar and pulse to combine. Transfer to a bowl.

Pulse cranberries with 1/2 cup vanilla sugar in processor until finely chopped (do not purée).

Whisk together 2 cups flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Beat together 1 stick butter and 1 cup vanilla
sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time,
beating well after each addition. Scrape down side and bottom of bowl. Reduce speed to low and mix in
flour mixture and milk alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour, until just combined.

Spread half of batter in pan, then spoon cranberries over it, leaving a 1/2-inch border around edge.
Spoon small bits of the remaining batter over the top of the cranberries and smooth them with as gentle
of a hand as possible.

Blend remaining 1/4 cup vanilla sugar with remaining tablespoon each of butter and flour using your
fingertips. Crumble over top of cake.

Bake until a wooden pick inserted into cake (not into cranberry filling) comes out clean and side
begins to pull away from pan, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 30 minutes, then remove from pan and cool
completely, crumb side up.

Do ahead: Coffee cake can be made 1 day ahead and kept, tightly wrapped, at room temperature.

The roomate's away, lets make some fish...

It's not that she is allergic or anything along those lines, she just doesn't like fish. So the minute she leaves town I head down to the market to buy some. My goal: Texas Gulf snapper, but no (in an embarrassingly drawn out fashion). They didn't have it, or at least the real Gulf snapper. They did have the thick marble-scaled red water breathers, though they were selling them under a false name! I know this because I have people on the inside (not inside the ocean) that know whats up. What's up? A terrifying over-fishing fiasco! My insiders (Grandmum and Grandpa) tell me that due to years of large limits and loose restrictions the red snapper has been banned, forbidden, unfishable! You get caught with snapper in your rig you get cuffed. A pretty decent reason for jail time in my opinion, but hey I also want to be proposed to in Whole Foods. So these contacts of mine, they live on the coast, a short yellow-jeep drive from the Island, my little Island, South Padre Island. Ever since my Grandpa, who later realised his monetary mistake, introduced me to snapper, flounder, shrimp and crabs, I have been quite particular about where my sea fodder is found.

...dream sequence...

I was walking back home the other day from Toy Joy, the kooky nostalgic toy store across from my house, when I paused at the light to wait for the cross-walk sign. There was a Texas-sized white truck in the front of the turn lane, patiently waiting for their arrow, and for some reason when it changed they lunged. Their mistake. As they turned the tell-tale ice chests started rolling out of the bed and toppling out of the truck, slashing their contents in the intersection. Now, some of you might understand my interest in these particular ice-chests. They are a certain breed that are only used when transporting fish, or perhaps the ones I was used to when my grandparents brought home bag after bag of fresh fillets. Focusing back on the mess interrupting traffic I had a mild panic attack, as did the woman who rushed out the doors of Toy Joy behind me who yelled "That's SNAPPER!" It was a voice that knew. She knew as did I, the value that lay in the filth of the upper drag, the stark red lips and tail of a raw snapper. Okay, I know its lame that for a few seconds I considered putting myself in danger to rescue the already dead fish. Before I threw myself into traffic I realised how pathetic I might seem and pictured the headline on tomorrow's newspaper: Hook, line and sink-her. Girl in critical care due to fish rescuing attempts. So I waited for the light to change and walked across the street and up to my apartment. Later I re-examined my actions and thought that it would have been a perfectly acceptable hospitalization, my father and grandparents might actually have been proud.


...end dream sequence...



So back in the market I had to settle for tilapia, my wallet couldn't fathom Chilean sea bass this month. With the roomie gone, the boyfriend and I made fish tacos with Havana style coke and lime, oh and garlic green beans. He saw them in the market and decided that fish tacos paired perfectly with my garlic green beans. I know he really loves me: true love=love of garlic green beans.

Baja style tacos:Grilled Tilapia with Lime, Scallions and Green Peppers

February: Endless Month of Cheescakes

By endless I mean continuous,you know, like birthday week that slowly turns into birthday month. The roommate and I have decided February is now officially Cheesecake month and we will attempt as many flavours of cheesecake possible on a college students budget and with two lazy girls' lovehandles. So far we've had Chocolate Chip Animal Cracker Cheesecake and a Chocolate Orange Ganache (a little flawed so unworthy of earlgreytruffle-dom). Our most recent concoction: Brownie-bottomed Blackberry Cheesecake. Crowded around our little oven we peeked in the smudgy window at our creamcheese baby bubbling away. This particular cheesecake is quite rustic with cracks and crevices and a few browned edges. Though these flaws should not be taken so seriously of course, as nothing should when considering cheesecake in general.




Ingredients:

Crust

half of a pan of old baked brownies (any kind, brand, flavour)
break into pieces and freeze before putting in food processor

When pulsing in food processor add a tablespoon of flour or so to reduce sugary stickiness.

Filling:

2 packages cream cheese
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
pinch of salt
1 package blackberries



Press crust mixture into tart tin or parchment padded spring form or cake round.
Freeze.

Mix filling together, taking care not to "over froth".
After completely mixed together you have two options:

fold in blackberries by hand for full blackberry effect
whip in blackberries with mixer to make pretty dotted lavender creation
(this is what I did, it looks nice)

Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes, but do watch for over browning.

Cool on wire rack and then in fridge for an hour or until your roommate just can't stand it.

Add a dollop of roommate's amaretto whipped cream (which she made for a dainty little angel food cake with strawberries) and enjoy.




The whipped cream maker:



The food fan:

cinnamon roll in my cupcake, say what!?

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes marries the two niceties of cupcake batter and caramel like cinnamon swirl.

Batter:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tbs baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup butter( 1 stick)
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Cinnamon Caramel Swirl:
5 tbs brown sugar
3 tbs standard sugar
2 tbs cinnamon
8 tbs water
(I always add nutmeg and cardamom to anything that involves cinnamon, but these are completely optional)

Frosting:
1/2 package cream cheese
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tbs shortening
1/4 tsp vanilla
splash of milk (if necessary)



PREHEAT: 350

Blend sugar, salt, baking soda, vanilla. Slowly add bits of butter and let cream together. Add one egg at a time. Slowly add flour in 3-4 parts. Blend in milk. Do not over mix!

On stove top, boil down sugars and cinnamon in water to make caramel. Do not over boil, you do not want a hard candy state. Use a candy thermometer if necessary.

Let caramel cool slightly and hand stir into the cupcake batter. You want to see the swirls after baking.

Bake for 15-25 minutes(do not over bake, rather underbake to preserve moisture)

Top with Extra Cream Cheese Frosting

Combine all ingredients in mixer, looking for texture of traditional buttercream. Only add splash of milk if frosting needs thinning.

Dust frosted cupcakes with a little shower of cinnamon.

Now you can have breakfast all day long!