Mid-carb crisis: I'm doing just peachy, thanks

Politely decline the bread basket at lunch and explain, also politely, that you are on a low-carb diet, and your table companions tend to have two reactions: sympathy or thinly-veiled horror, as though you might club the lowest-moving server and eat him raw. I can understand it. It sounds like a bleak existance. No noodles. No fries. No doughnuts. No joy. Just...meat.

My husband started it first. He just wanted to try it, and he did it! He really did it! Despite the proof that you could go on living without potato chips, I dug my heels in for a year, siting the well-documented psychological benefits of chocolate as possibly the only way to get through the year we were all having. But get through it we did, and I jumped on the wagon with him.

The reality is that I'm not actually doing the "low-carb thing" really. I like to think of it as "mid-carb," because while I might be able to give up bread and rice and french fries, grudgingly, this Mommy cannot live by bacon alone. So while breads, rice, pasta, potatoes, and sweets are off the menu, pretty much anything else is fair game. I am too lazy and too averse to pain to quibble over whether that cooked carrot is grounds for dietary self-flagellation.

The biggest challenge, of course, is that I simply cannot live in a world without sweets. One of the things I hate about low-carb diets is the whole sugar substitute question, and you can use Splenda all you want, but you have to be better at self-deception than I am if you don't think it tastes a little like tires. So I experiment with baking. Like, a lot. And as I've said before, when you use recipes as only a guideline, you cannot be afraid to fail. Because you're going to. 

So when I bought a box of gorgeous late-season peaches at Costco only to discover that they were California (blah) and not Eastern (Hallelujah!), I found myself with a golden opportunity to experiment with a low-carb cobbler-type thing. I decided to go with a few spoonfuls of Truvia sugar blend for the filling, which combines the real stuff with some sugar alcohols and other things not made of Splenda. Yes, it does have carbs, but only 1/4 of what regular sugar has, and it's also magically sweeter, so you use less. Also, it doesn't taste petroleum-based.

For the crumb topping, I used ideal brand brown sugar sweetener and almond meal, which is just peeled, blanched almonds ground into a powder. You can buy it already prepared or you can do it yourself (...if you're a masochist). There are other low-carb flour alternatives out there, but many of them either taste super weird or turn your large intestine into the Hindenburg. Or both!

Materials:

• 6-7 ripe peaches, peeled and sliced (or about 4 cups frozen. I think this would also be great with blueberries)
• 3 tbsp Truvia baking blend 
• 1/2 teaspoon apple pie spice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/3 c. ideal brown sugar sweetener
• 2 cups almond flour
• 1 stick butter

Method

• Preheat oven to 350.
• Spray a 9x 9 dish with cooking spray
• Add sliced peaches and sprinkle with Truvia, apple pie spice, and ginger. 

• In a large bowl, with a pastry blender or your fingers, rub together the almond flour, butter, and ideal until it looks kinda like wet sand. 

• Sprinkle almond mixture evenly over peaches and bake for about 30 minutes, until it gets brown in spots.

Conclusion

I was very pleased with how this turned out! It's not too sweet, but when you haven't eaten sugar in 2 weeks, it's dreamy. Add some sugar-free vanilla ice cream and you can almost, almost forgive it for not having more carbs. But at least it has butter, right? 

Hat Trick

I do cakes for love, not money.

I truly, truly respect anyone who does this stuff for a living. I usually take on a project for a friend or family member, get all excited about it, spend countless hours plotting out the details in my head, then inevitably, the cake cracks, the piping bag bursts, the "goldenrod yellow" food coloring is more of a "traffic cone orange," I can't find my leaf tip ANYWHERE and the fondant cracks every time I look at it. In short, I am always up at 3am the day the cake is "due" doing absurd things with duct tape and Ziploc bags.
Which is why this cake was such a wonderful, refreshing surprise. It went...fine.

The hardest part was deciding on the color (lemon yellow is a much closer approximation of its packaging). This is a cake that I think anyone could reproduce with the right tools, a little patience, and a handful of YouTube videos.

Materials

You can pick up all of the equipment listed here at Michael's or your local craft store. I've linked out to Amazon just so you can see what everything looks like.

• Cake turntable or Lazy Susan put on top of a box or a big cake pan or something.
• Icing comb
• Ziploc freezer bags, any size larger than the snack version*
• Cake pans: ideally, two 8-inch round pans, 1 12-inch round pan, and an oven-safe bowl with a diameter of 8 inches at the rim.** 
• Cake plate or 12 to 14 inch round cake board
• 1 8-inch round cake board
• 1 6 inch round cake board
• Icing tip 104
• Piping bags
• Food coloring (your choice-I used leaf green, lemon yellow, and sky blue)
• 2 large batches of buttercream frosting (you can make whatever you like, you'll just need a LOT of it. Like, 4 pounds. I used the same recipe as my Cupcakeasaurus, just double it)

Method

• Bake your cakes in the pans or sizes indicated. You can use any recipes you like; for this cake, I used an entire recipe Kentucky bourbon butter cake for the 12-inch layer (the "brim" of the hat) and a 2 chocolate box mixes (gasp!***) for the 8-inch layers (which, when stacked, make up the "crown").
• Now it gets fun! Put your 12-inch cake on the cake plate. If the top is "domed," level it off with a bread or cake knife or even some dental floss! (If you have NO IDEA what I am talking about, watch the video.)

• Give it a nice crumb coat (that's just a thin layer of frosting over the whole thing-don't worry about the cake showing through, you're going to add so many ruffles to this thing!)
• Tint 1 whole batch of buttercream frosting the "base" color (lemon yellow, in this case)
• Fit a large piping or freezer bag with the 104 icing tip and fill 'er up with yellow frosting. (For more than you ever wanted to know about piping bags, watch the video.)

• Starting at the bottom of the layer and working in concentric circles, make ruffles using the method in this video until there's roughly an 8-inch circle of unadorned cake on top.

• Stick the whole thing in the fridge.
• Stack, fill, and crumb coat your 2 8-inch layers on the 8-inch cake board using untinted frosting and/or filling of your choice.**** 
• Put the cake on the turntable, if you haven't already.
• Place a 6-inch cake board on top of the 8-inch layers.
• Place the bowl-shaped cake flat-side down on the cake board.
• Do a crumb coat.
• Using the yellow icing, generously frost the assembled "crown" of the cake. It's doesn't have to be perfect, but it should be thick.
• Holding the icing comb perpendicular to the cake, "drag" the teeth through the frosting, while slowly turning the turntable. You'll need to wipe off the comb fairly regularly, and it might take a few tries to get the hang of it, but eventually, it should look like a nice striped texture.
• Put this cake in the fridge.
• While both cakes are chilling, grab your untinted icing and divide it into 3 parts. Tint one part green (for the leaves), one part whatever color you want the ribbon to be (I did sky blue), and either leave one part the untinted color (for the flowers) or color it however you like.
• Take the cakes out of the fridge and gently put the "crown" of the cake on top of the "brim." Bad things can happen during this process. Just go slow, and remember that you can always fix whatever you mess up.It's only frosting.
• Using whatever is left in your yellow piping bag, add a row or two of ruffles around the base of the crown part of the cake, just to make the "hat" look seamless.
• Using an icing tip or just a Ziploc bag with the corner clipped off, create a "band" around the base crown of the cake (mine is sky blue, and was done with a large petal tip, because that's what I had).
• Watch this video, and then create your choice of flowers.

• Watch this video, and add the leaves.

• Add any additional ribbon "streamers."
• Pour yourself a glass of wine - you've earned it! AND YOU'RE DONE!

* I say this as a brand name because in this case, it matters. You don't have to get the fancy zipper-topped ones and definitely DO NOT get the pleated bottom ones. The good old-fashioned, square baggie will work fine, but it must be strong, or bad things WILL happen.
**You can size up or down, just do so proportionally, and if all you have are square or rectangular pans, you can carve out circles of the right sizes - what happens to all those lovely cake scraps is your little secret.
***Box cake mixes, especially chocolate, are not bad, when you doctor them appropriately. I always add a Starbuck's Italian Roast Via to chocolate cake and brownie mixes. It really brings out the chocolate.
****I added a few tablespoons of cocoa and a packet of Via to some of the basic buttercream and used it to fill and crumb coat this part of the cake. Yummy!

When life gives you leftovers, make a casserole!

There are times in life when you have to make do with what you have. My extremely supportive and patient family has learned a lot about that in recent years, as I was trying to take care of my Dad and hold down a job and basically just keep body and soul together for all of us. 

Sometimes after a not-so-hard day, I just wasn't in the mood to cook (thank God for the 24-hour diner across the street). And sometimes, around dinner time but long before the end of an excruciating day, I decided right then was an excellent time to cook something new and involved. 

So eventually, I learned that more than any other dish, the casserole is the one where you really can just open the fridge, grab whatever odds and ends you have floating around in there, and add them to the ingredient list.* That said, there are certain staples I am not allowed to run out of, because in a pinch, you can use them to make a casserole out of darn near anything. 

Those things are:

• Shaped pasta and/or rice (We are trying to reduce carbs, so Dreamfields it is)
• Wine (duh!)
• Frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts and/or thighs
• Frozen diced onions
• Frozen vegetables
• Cheese
• Some kind of shelf-stable goo ("cream of" soup, gravy mix, onion soup mix, etc.)**
• Various herbs and spices (I keep a tubes of garlic and basil in my fridge at all times)

Method

If you are lucky enough to have the ingredients already precooked (or scavenged, whatever), skip to this part.  If you're starting from just the ingredients in your always-on-hand-stash, here's the easiest way I've found to do everything with the least number of dirty dishes.:)

• In a large stock pot over medium-high heat, saute about 1/2 cup onions and a clove or two of garlic in olive oil for a few minutes (they don't have to be done done, and in fact, you can skip this step if you want). 
• Add a cup or so of wine, and roughly the same amount of water. Add some salt, but don't go nuts - you'll be adding cheese and goo later.
• Add 2 good-sized chicken breasts or 4 thighs to the pot (if frozen, don't worry about thawing it), cover, and bring to a boil. Cook for about 20 minutes.***
• Remove the chicken from the pot and shred when it is cool enough to touch. 
• Add enough water to the pot to cook pasta. Bring to a boil.
• At about the halfway point of the noodle cooking process (if package says 7 minutes, do this at 3), add a couple handfuls of frozen vegetables. Bring water back to a boil; when pasta is done, drain the whole pot.
• This is the easy part. Mix it all together! Be sure to include the goo, seasonings (basil works well with chicken!), and cheese.
  Important rule of thumb: mix the cold or room-temp stuff together first, then add the hot.
  If the mix looks dry, you can use some reserved cooking liquid or wine. 
• Pour into a casserole dish and cover with cheese. 
• Bake at 350 until the top is browned in spots. See?

*For instance, we went to a pumpkin patch thing last weekend and were able to pick out a "free" pumpkin on the way out. Well, right alongside those adorable little pumpkins were acorn squash! Hello, casserole!
**Goo is important, otherwise the casserole can be dry. If you don't have any (or don't believe in it on principle), you can always use wine or broth. I actually prefer a dry packet of gravy mix mixed with wine (instead of the water it calls for).
***I never time anything, I just check it periodically to see if it's done yet. Also, if your chicken has bones in it, it takes longer.

Cupcakeasaurus

I love a little girl who's just as willing to play dinosaurs as princesses. I am always kind of proud when my daughter puts her wee fists in the air and says "I'm a superhero!" while wearing plastic high heels and heart-shaped sunglasses (because that's a mask when you're 3).

I threw my share of feminist punches when I was young, but as I have gotten older I've come to realize how much I enjoy being able to be both a woman and sometimes kind of a badass. One does not diminish the other. So when it came time to say goodbye to a little friend who was moving away, I was faced with an interesting challenge - how to make an easy cake that would adequately reflect both her adventurous and girly sides? And the answer came to me through Pinterest (like many good answers do). A dinosaur cupcake cake. With pink toenails. And pearls. And eyelashes.:)

When I say easy, folks, I mean it. All right, not always, but this time, I swear. I made a box cake mix into 14 regular sized and 6 mini cupcakes, smooshed them together, and slapped some frosting on it. The instructions that follow are what I did, but really, you can just go with store-bought frosting and decorate it with Skittles and your kid, I swear, will love it every bit as much.

Materials

For cake:

• Box cake mix in favorite flavor. For children, you can never, ever go wrong with Funfetti.
• Eggs, oil and water for the mix
• 14 reular-sized cupcake liners
• 7 mini cupcake liners

For frosting:

• 4 cups powdered sugar* (the equivalent of 2 boxes or 1 plastic bag)
• 1 cup Crisco
• 1 cup butter, room temp**
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• Generous pinch of salt
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup whipping cream

For decorating:

• Green food coloring (I used Wilton Moss Green gel coloring)
• Pink food coloring (I used Wilton Rose Pink gel coloring, but a few drops of red food color would work)
• Sugar pearls (they totally have these at grocery stores now, but if you can't find them, just reserve about a 1/2 cup of plain frosting)
• Candy eyeballs or black frosting (I just buy the tubes at the grocery store on sale; I'm pretty sure they'll keep in the fridge until the end of time)
• Some sort of edible triangular-shaped candy. I found gummy sheets at the store; fruit roll-ups would work fine
• Ziploc or piping bags. If you use a Ziploc bag, make sure it's not pleated; freezer bags are strongest; cheap bags will burst when piping.
• Parchment paper or Viva paper towels (yes, brand matters here) 
• Fondant paddle*** 
• Offset spatula***

Method

• For the cupcakes: Mix and bake the cupcakes according to the directions on the box, using at least the number of cupcake liners specified (you may have extra).
• For the frosting: Cream butter and Crisco. Incorporate the sugar a little at a time (will be very stiff when you're done). Add 1/4 whipping cream slowly (or you'll be wearing it) and turn the speed up to medium-high for about a minute. Test the consistency; if it seems too stiff, add a little more cream and beat it again.
• Remove 1 cup frosting for accent colors, and dye the rest a satisfying shade of green.
• Dye a little over half the reserved frosting pink.
• Arrange your cupcakes like this:

(Totally ripped off from this site, which has a great tutorial)

• Fill a Ziploc or piping bag with green frosting. I find it easiest to put the bag in a big plastic cup, then fill it up. You'll need to snip about 1/2 inch off one of the corners of the ziploc bag; piping bags already have a hole.
• Cover the tops of the cupcakes and with frosting, putting extra in any cracks between cupcakes. Cover the whole collective surface with frosting.
• Spread frosting evenly over the entire shape using an offset spatula, back of a spoon, or butter knife. It will not be smooth yet, so don't panic.
• Walk away for 15 minutes to let the buttercream "crust." If it doesn't stick to your finger when you touch it lightly, it's ready.
• Lay a piece of parchment paper or a Viva paper towel on top of the frosting. Using a fondant paddle or your hand, carefully smooth the surface of the frosting by rubbing lightly over the paper towel or parchment, using a circular motion. Lift up the paper frequently to keep it from getting sticky.
• Once the frosting is smooth, you can add details with frosting and candy, like flowers, eyes, outlines, scales, etc.

This is what my dino looked like:

Conclusion

 All told, this cake took about an hour of hands-on time, which is light speed for cakes (for me, anyway). I encourage you to check out this tutorial, which is what I did, as well as the web site. If you like to bake cakes, and especially if you want to start doing "fancy" cakes, you should totally follow them on Pinterest. And if you aren't yet hooked on Pinterest, please do ask me how!

*Theoretically, sugar really shouldn't go "bad." Powdered sugar, though, does tend to take on funky smells as its very own, which translates into weird tasting frosting. So, don't stockpile the sugar, or if you do, put it in a couple of layers of foil or bags or something to keep it from tasting strangely like cumin.

**If you don't have the time or foresight to bring your butter to room temp, try 30 seconds in the microwave at 50% power. Unless your microwave is crazy awesome, in which case, 15 seconds might do it.

***These tools aren't necessary if all you have time to do is hit the market on the way home for a boxed cake mix and a tub of frosting, but if you're going to do this kind of thing often, they are inexpensive and totally worth the trip to Michael's. (Unless you're my husband, who hates the place. He might go in there if our daughter's life were at stake, but otherwise, I'd be on my own.)

Mommy saw that! Movie review: Nothin' but the rain...

Since becoming a mommy, there are a few things I miss about childless life.* Sleep is #1. Somewhere on this very short list** is movies. In a theater. With my husband. And a huge thing of soda and possibly popcorn. Every. Single. Weekend.

I am pretty sure that I could count the number of movies we've seen in a theater in the last three years using only my fingers. So this past week, on a glorious vacation full of naps and carbs, we went to see two. TWO MOVIES IN ONE WEEK. In order of ridiculousness, here they are:

and...

Top of the questionable heap is Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. I am not proud of this fact, but I admit to reading all five of these books. I know the twist. And can't decide if I am appalled that the movie gave it away, or relieved that if there are more of these cinematic gems, the unenlightened audience won't have to sit there thinking "Ewwww." If you've read the books, you'll know what I mean. Or just email me and I'll tell you.

The characters are much more endearing in the books, in a "you are such dumb kids but you're sort of cute and clueless and I am now attached to you in spite of my own better judgement" kind of way. In the movie, they're just being pretty in front of the green screen. But I enjoyed it anyway, because we were at the movies, and the unintentional comedy factor of this one is pretty high. Case in point: the highlight of the experience was when my darling husband pointed out that the "hero" of the story, half-angel, demon-hunting, Shadow Hunter Jace, was a dead ringer for an older celebrity. He's not wrong.

See?

So next we have Riddick: Rule the Dark. It was icky (like, lots of goo) and mysogynist and it's kind of expected that it is not a chick movie. And it's not. But it did remain true to the series. Vin Diesel quips and doesn't have to change his expression at all. There was a dog thing in this one, and it was by far the most likeable character. But the best part was getting to see Starbuck again. Starbuck! From BSG! Let's all take a moment to remember one of the greatest moments in scripted television:

So say we all!

You may be wondering, then, if I knew going in that I wasn't going to find these movies especially, well, good, why did I pick them? There were only two theaters on the island where we were vacationing, and they each had a paltry four screens. Showing the same four movies. Which might explain these choices.

These are the kinds of theaters many of us remember from childhood. The ones where they take your ticket up front, and when you go to sit down, the metal chairs squeak and rock and don't have cupholders, and the whole place smells like old popcorn and mildew, and there are drip stains on the screen where somebody threw God only knows what when noone was watching.

Which kind of made it all the sweeter. Two movies in one week with my husband and it felt a little like high school and old times. That said, true to our changed circumstances, we were both a little melancholy when we got home and the Bit was already asleep. Movies in a theater are awesome, and I'm glad we got to go, but real life, in yoga pants on the sofa trying to play Candy Crush while also pretending to be a My Little Pony, is kind of awesome, too.

* Lest someone out there think I don't adore my child, rest assured that I do. She has a tutu for every day of the week, an unlimited supply of hugs, her daddy wrapped tight around her wee little fist, and we couldn't imagine not having her as part of our little family. I know you're attached to your own children, so please don't take offense, but my kid is better.;)
** 1. Sleep. 2. Swearing. 3.Movies. 4. TV shows with swearing. 5. Sleeping late.

Smells like Hawaiian Tropic

My grandmother only made coconut cake on special occasions. To my understanding, they were the confectionery equivalent of Botticelli's Venus in both difficulty of execution and aesthetical beauty. I've come to find out that that supposition wasn't necessarily wrong.

I've made quite a few cakes over the years - not like pro-level or anything, but enough that I'm not usually intimidated by a recipe. Still, there's this one element of a coconut cake that scares me - the icing. My grandmother always made Seven-Minute Frosting for this one cake, so in my mind, there simply isn't an alternative choice. Still, I confess to trying others - the Cook's Illustrated Baking cookbook (indispensable because it's awesome) version is basically a Swiss buttercream with coconut, which I guess if you like that kind of thing, works fine, but it's just too heavy and greasy for me. And tastes kind of like non-dairy coffee creamer. The American buttercream/cream cheese hybrid was fine, but just too heavy. And it crusts, so add coconut to it and it turns into concrete after about 20 minutes.
There's no way around it. The only real option is seven-minute frosting, the white whale of my baking career.
In celebration of my sister- and father-in-law completing an epic bike trip from Pittsburgh to DC, I decided to face my fears and create this cake. For the cake part, I followed (sort of, anyway) a recipe I found online for a sheet cake poached in sugary coconutty goo, even though I fully planned to make layers (and did. And it took 4 drinking straws the hold the darn thing together). As for the filling and frosting, I made one batch of this (whatever you may now think of Paula Deen, the woman does know her way around fat and sugar).
To my surprise and delight, it was perfect. Glossy, thick, fluffy goodness. I had conquered. I had overcome. Call me Ismael.
You knew it wouldn't be that easy, right?
My nephew fell in love with this cake, so much so that he requested me to teach his mom how to make it for his birthday. I had drawn a few conclusions based on the first creation about ways to change the cake part, since the frosting was so perfect.
I should have quit while I was ahead.
Coconut cake 2: The filling didn't penetrate. Not even in the fridge. Part of the cake was dry and part was swampy. And then, there was the heartbreak of the frosting,which instead of the pillowy and silken glory of its predecessor batch, turned out to be a foamy conglomeration of air and egg whites and despair. I tried again, and this time, it was okay. Not the gloriousness of that first try, but not the epic fail of the second. Not willing to do a third batch, we slapped it on the cake before we could change our minds and coated it with coconut, and with the addition of a few candles, it was done.

For the cake

1 boxed yellow cake mix (better results with one that uses oil as the fat rather than butter), prepared as directed, plus
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
1 can (or bottle) of Cream of Coconut (usually found near the Margarita mix in the grocery store)
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Prepare the cake mix as directed, adding the coconut extract. Pour into pans and bake as instructed. 

In a bowl, combine the cream of coconut and sweetened condensed milk. When the cake is done, remove from the oven and cool for a few minutes, then remove the layers from the cake pans and let them cool for a few minutes. Do not wash those pans yet. Put the cakes back into the their pans and poke holes in them with a straw. I made the mistake of using a fork on the second cake and the filling just would not sink in all the way. 

Use a straw. Pour the cream of coconut and milk mixture over the cakes. If it looks like it's too much, it probably is. I would say use about 3/4 of the mix. I used half on the second cake and I think it suffered for it. Put the pans in the fridge and leave them for at least 2 hours. Overnight worked well.

For the frosting

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar or 1 tablespoon white corn syrup
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup water
2 egg whites*
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Place sugar, cream of tartar or corn syrup (I used both!), salt, water, and egg whites in the top of a double boiler. Beat with a handheld electric mixer for 1 minute. Place pan over boiling water, being sure that boiling water does not touch the bottom of the top pan. (If this happens, it could cause your frosting to become grainy). Beat constantly on high speed** with electric mixer for 7*** minutes. Beat in vanilla.

Finally

Stack your layers, using some frosting and coconut as the filling. Cover the entire cake with frosting 

and immediately slap coconut all over it. Refrigerate any leftovers. Or send them to my nephew.

Wait. What happened to the first batch of frosting?

Humidity? Metal vs. glass bowl? New mixer? A butterfly flapped its wings in Africa? Really, I don't know, and I'm not sure I ever will. The only thing I can offer in terms of advice for anyone who sets out to make this frosting is to follow the recipe to the letter, and always have enough materials on hand to make another batch. Good luck.

* I buy the ones in the carton - they totally work!

** If you can do this without giving yourself third-degree burns, then your mixer is powered by dying hamsters. Put a mixer on high in this stuff and it will fling the culinary equivalent of napalm all over you and your entire kitchen. Medium. Stick to medium.

*** Yeah, right. It takes me between 9-12 minutes. Just beat it until it's spreadable and not drippy.

The apple of my pie

Today, I have been thinking a lot about my Dad, who passed away in April after a long illness (take care of your liver, people). He loved to cook, although really, he loved for people to eat his cooking. He was a wizard with charcoal.
My father, however, hated cooked apples. It was probably for this reason that prior to going to college, I had never really tried apple pie, and despite an early love of baking, had certainly never made one. So when cooler fall air (finally) started pouring into my unairconditioned dorm, I decided I wanted to try to make one. The trouble was, of course, a communal kitchen (crusted with all sorts of unidentifiable things-including this God-awful dish one girl used to make that involved pasta alfredo and cans of tuna), and the fact that the only measuring device we seemed to be able to find consistently was a 1/3 cup measure. That, and the Internet was still in its infancy, so the days of finding a recipe in .2 seconds were still a couple of years away.

Ultimately, I made a crumb-topped apple pie that came out pretty well, and eventually, grew to have a bit of a fan base with family and friends. I have never, however, really managed to capture the precise measurements of it, probably because of that cursed 1/3 cup measure. So it is actually my intrepid sister-in-law you can thank for pinning me down in the kitchen, shadowing my construction of, and finally committing to printed word the recipe, although I understand that it was not without some trial-and-error. Here is the recipe, as she wrote it.

Crust

Refrigerated pie crust (Mommy: Shut up, all you pie crust elitists)

Filling

1 c sugar

5-6 Tbsp flour

¼-½ tsp nutmeg

1 bag Granny Smith apples

(Mommy: I guess I forgot to tell her that I also add cinnamon here. About a teaspoon, I guess? I always have to lick my finger, stick it in the filling, and taste it to see when it's okay. I know, gross, right? And a pinch of salt. It should look roughly like this:)

Topping

Leftover filling

Add sugar – up to 1 cup

Add flour – about 2 Tbsp

1-2 tsp cinnamon

3-4 Tbsp butter

1.       Put pie crust in pan

2.       Layer filling and apples, starting and ending with filling

3.       Place 2 Tbsp butter on top in small chunks (Mommy: I forget this step all the time)

4.     (Mommy: As the British would say, "rub" all of the topping ingredients together in a bowl with your fingers until the mixture forms crumbs roughly the size of peas.)  

Crumble topping all over pie - Important: Crumble with hands!! 

5.       Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes

Although you will never master this pie until you can throw out the timer and just smell when it’s done.  Alas, I am not a master. (Mommy: Hmm. This is doubtful.)

Conclusion

I think one of things that makes this pie fun is that the normal "rules" of baking are kind of suspended. You don't have to weight out the grams of anything. You just stick a finger in, and if it tastes right, it probably is. The lesson to be learned from this pie, kind of like my Dad, is to trust yourself, and make do with what you have. Dad never did anything half-way, and never apologized for it, either. It doesn't matter if you get things perfect, it matters that you tried anyway knowing it might not turn out like you were expecting.

So give this recipe a whirl, and make it yours a little bit. Just don't make it with blueberries - I tried and it was wretched.

If at first you don't succeed...you can always put it on your blog

So a couple years back, I decided to enter the Pillsbury Bake-off. At the time, I had a one-year-old and about 3 weeks to come up with original recipes and, as it happened, had temporarily lost my senses of smell and taste. So the Bake-off prep was really in the hands of my tasters, because all I could discern of what I put in my mouth was sweet, salty, spicy, sour, or bitter. It was a great diet plan, as I figured that while I couldn't enjoy anything, I might as well just eat salads. It was very surreal, though, and even after a CAT scan, the ENT wasn't sure why it had happened, but eventually the senses came back, although I still don't think they've ever been as sharp as they were before (rest assured,though, they are plenty good enough to know the difference between salads and brownies - I know you were worried). Weird.
Anyway, I came up with three entries, all of which my tasters thought were pretty good. Once I had my smell and taste back, the standout for me was the cupcake recipe. Plus, it involves an element of danger and option for use of open flame - who doesn't love that?
Pillsbury, apparently. Alas, I did not win, but I won't let that stop me from sharing the losing recipe! Please ignore the brands - that was a requirement for the contest. I've also editorialized it a bit from the original submission.

Materials

1/2 cup shortening

1 1/4 cups white sugar

2 LAND O LAKES® Large Brown Cage-Free eggs

1 teaspoon McCormick® Pure Vanilla Extract

½ teaspoon banana flavoring

1 cup mashed ripe (not brown or over-ripe) bananas (seriously, this makes the difference between a cupcake and a muffin)

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark rum (or more if you're not into measuring)

2 cups Pillsbury BEST® Unbleached Flour

½ teaspoon McCormick® Ground Cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 can Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk

⅓ cup heavy cream

1 jar marshmallow cream

Method

1. In a medium sized bowl, combine dry ingredients. Preheat oven  to 350. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar using an electric mixer. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Add ¼ cup rum (can substitute with ¼ cup buttermilk and 1 teaspoon McCormick® Imitation Rum Extract - BUT WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO???), flavorings and bananas and blend until just incorporated. Add flour mixture in two batches and beat until incorporated. Using a ¼ cup measuring cup, fill a lined regular-sized cupcake tin with batter (it makes about 18 cupcakes, so you may have to work in two batches). Bake for 18-22 minutes, until tops spring back when touched.
2. While cupcakes are baking*, pour the contents of 1 can of condensed milk into a large microwave-safe bowl. Cover with plastic wrap; make a small slit in the top to allow steam to escape. Cook on 50% power for 2 minutes; stir with a wire whisk. Cover and microwave again for 2 minutes on 50% power. Stir with wire whisk. Repeat this procedure in 2.5 minute increments for 10 more minutes. Mixture should foam each time it is stirred and should be caramel-colored and thick near the end. Meanwhile, heat cream in a small saucepan until hot but not boiling. At the end of the 10 minutes, immediately add hot cream and 2 tablespoons rum (or 1 teaspoon rum extract); whisk until smooth. Set aside to cool.
3. When cupcakes are cool, take a measuring spoon or apple corer and remove a small (no more than 1 teaspoon total) section from the center of each cupcake. Put the cooled milk mixture into a heavy-duty plastic zip-top bag; seal the bag and snip off one corner (about ½ inch). Fill the hole in each cupcake until mixture is even with the top of the cake.
4. Preheat your broiler** and place all of your filled cupcakes on a baking sheet. Top each cupcake with 1-2 tablespoons of marshmallow cream (I find it is easiest to put it in a piping bag or zip-top bag with the corner snipped off). Try to center the marshmallow cream on each cupcake but don’t worry about spreading it out. Once all cupcakes have been iced, put the baking sheet in the oven until the marshmallow cream browns on the top, resembling a toasted marshmallow. This process happens very quickly, so be sure to check your cupcakes every 30 seconds or so. Serve immediately for the gooiest experience.:)

*If you like to live dangerously: The way I originally learned to make this wonderful caramelly-goodness was from a terrific book called Southern Ladies and Gentlemen. The author, Florence King, referred to this as "Danger Pudding." All you do is take a can of condensed milk, peel off the label, put it in a large stock pot full of cold water, and then boil it for an hour and a half. Take the pot off the heat, pour off the water, and leave the can alone until it cools completely. I guess bad things can happen if you open the can too soon. Like caramel on the ceiling. And your hair. And shrapnel.

**If Danger is your middle name: You can also accomplish this with a kitchen torch (the kind you use for creme brulee). Just watch your eyebrows.

Mommy Read That! Review of the Grisha Trilogy, Books 1 and 2

So I know I'm kind of cheating by writing a book review, but I've been working on another cake post for 2 weeks and it's coming, but slowly, and I needed a break, so, yeah, book review! And of course, it is YA, although it is one of those YA books that I am not sure just how young the adult should be to read it.

Books 1 and 2 of the Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

 and 

And because I am nice, I am going to provide you with quickie review, in case you just want to know if you'd even be interested before wading through my rambling.

One-sentence summary

It's like Harry Potter crossed with the Hunger Games, set during the Bolshevik Revolution.

Disclaimers*

• There are two criteria I have for liking a book: It must have an interesting plot or be well written, extra points for both!
• I like trashy books. I don't necessarily mean "50 Shades of Grey" trashy, although I have read that masterpiece of misogynist porn modern love as told through erotica, you just won't see a review of it here. Okay, maybe you will, here goes: Save your money, people. There, all done!

On with the show

I think I can endorse the Grisha series (the first two books, anyway) for both interesting plot and decent writing. With some reservations, of course. The prose isn't flowery or moving or anything, but it is dramatic and clean and throws in random Russian words, which I really like, because I took Russian for two years in college, and while I can't speak it or really understand it, I can pick out the random phrase (phonetically spelled, of course,"Oo menya nyest kaniga" means "I have a book." Technically, it means "At me there exists a book." Thank you, communism!). It makes me feel smarter.
The plot is absorbing, if somewhat familiar in the genre. These novels are YA fantasy, but thankfully free of werewolves or vampires. They are chock-full of magic and monsters, though, which is great if what you're looking for is escapism.

The basic premise is not unfamiliar: an ordinary orphan girl, Alina, and her life-long friend and fellow orphan, Mal... 

...are scraping by as conscripts in the First Army of what is essentially a feudal society, with the "haves" being the King, of course, and his court, and also, the Darkling, who commands the Second Army. This army is comprised of Grisha, who are basically wizards whose magic seems to lie mostly in controlling certain elements. Everybody else is a "have-not." That includes the entire First Army.
The big "bad" in the first book is an entity called "the Fold," which is this enormous gash of a wasteland that sprung to life a century ago as a result of the former Darkling using some kind of bad ju-ju and is full of man-eating versions of these guys:

The first real "action" in the book is when Alina, a cartographer, and Mal, a tracker, have to cross the Fold. They know going in that not everyone will make it, but there's no choice, and they have a few flame-thrower Grisha to help them with the beasties.
I don't think I'm spoiling anything by telling you that not all goes smoothly on this journey, and just when it looks like our heros are done for, something.Magical.Happens.

I'll stop there. The rest is up to you to read. There are epic quests, adventures, kidnappings, ships, gruesome deaths and maimings, smooches, coups, and fun little wisecracks. I will say that the first book is better than the second in terms of plot tightness, but the second is no freaking joke at the end. The middle drags a bit, mostly with relationship and political stuff, but the end is kind of brave of the author, I think. It ain't pretty, in many ways. But I'm interested in seeing where #3 takes us. In other words, if you hated books 2 and 3 of the Hunger Games, well, you've been through this before.

What I liked 

I really enjoyed the wintry, gothic feel of these books, and I liked the world, although I wish there'd been a little more focus on the mechanics and training of the Grisha, and a little more about the history of Ravka.  In this arena, Harry Potter, it ain't.

What I didn't like

There's, like, 3 love interests. But not really. It's lame. Also, Alina is kind of Katniss-like in her grouchiness, although noone really has to twist her arm to get her to step up to the hero plate. Still, there are moments when I had to remind myself of why I was supposed to like her.

What I am on the fence about

Alina and Mal's relationship. In the beginning, it's kind of like this:

But without this:

And eventually is also like this:

What I liked about it, though, was that the real problem in the relationship is not another character (not really, although there are a few thrown in there) or even that Alina is *super special* and Mal isn't, it's the way the world treats those two roles, and the ideologies that the two of them grew up with that they can't quite shake. And also, they are young and stupid. I say this with absolutely humility - I was the former once, and am the latter frequently.

All done

So there you have it! A good couple of reads for the beach or the lake or staying up late into the night. And maybe next summer we can all read the thrilling conclusion, Ruin and Rising. I hope we find out a lot more about Alina's early history, why she was orphaned, why the Grisha Screening Committee totally failed, if Mal has super powers, and if Alina ever gets her hair fixed. Ah, the anticipation.

*Disclaimers subject to change at any time. I have actually read and enjoyed books just as trashy as 50 Shades, but probably with fewer sex toys.

Taking care of business (cards)

You know that thing about pride goeth-ing before a fall? Yeah.

A friend asked if I could help her Mom (a very VERY talented lady) do some business cards on VistaPrint. I said sure, no problem, I'd never used them before, but I could do the design. I promptly opened up a Word template, and within a few hours, had a decent prototype. No sweat. Design was finalized, everybody's happy, woop!

I offer to set it up on Vistaprint's site, and get to work. It was bad, y'all. Every which way I could do it, that preview looked awful. Word, my old friend, was no longer good enough. Photoshop, I discovered in short order, makes me feel incompetent is an elitist and I refuse to associate with it (read, I gave up, in tears, after it took me two weeks to figure out how to draw a dashed line, and I still couldn't get it right). Illustrator, luckily, came to my rescue, and the finished product turned out well, I think! Plus the name of the business is genius (alas, not mine). Check it out!

I then did some for another friend, and I think these turned out pretty good, too!

Materials

• Adobe Illustrator
• You Tube (God bless you, Internet!)

Method

I can't tell you how long it took me to figure out this stuff, because it's kind of embarrassing, but I will share with you the wisdom of others.

• How to make a fancy frame shape (here)
• How to make a chevron pattern (here)

Conclusions

I failed at using Word and I failed at using Photoshop with both of these projects. I hate failing at anything, but especially when it feels like I'm being held back by my own ignorance. What I learned, though, was that sometimes you have to stop beating the dead horse with the same stick, and either get back on the horse or beat it with a new stick. Sort of like that right there. I am going to walk away from that horrible head-on collision of equine metaphors and instead refer you to this video, which is sweet and inspiring and if you've ever failed at a project or had it rejected, you should watch, because you aren't alone. My horse and I are with you.

(After) Party Chicken

We've had a couple of cookouts lately, and while the leftover plates and cups can be applied to the next party, there are a few remaining bits of flotsam that must either be used immediately or trashed. For example,  that half sleeve of crackers and 1/4 bag of potato chips. Could you eat the latter in one sitting while watching "Marriage Boot Camp: Bridezillas Edition?" Why, yes, you could (I have scientifically tested this one for you-ain't I sweet?), but then what is everyone else gonna eat for dinner?

Potato Chip Chicken Parmesan!

Aside from breading the chicken in the potato chip bag, my favorite part about this recipe is that you only get one pan dirty. Well, and I guess one pot, too, for the noodles (unless you have a microwave pasta cooker thingo, which I tried and...major fail).

Materials

1. 1/4 bag of potato chips (Whatever is left over. That little bag of tortilla chips from the Mexican place would probably work, too.)
2. 1/2 sleeve of crackers (I've used Town House and saltines. Both worked fine, but I am partial to Town House because, well, butter.)
3. 2 tbsp Italian Seasoning or whatever your go-to blend is. Just nothing with salt, unless you really really love salt.
4. 6 Boneless skinless chicken breasts and/or thighs
5. 2 jars spaghetti sauce
6. 1 cup of wine (whatever is left over. Or is left in the box.)
7. 1 8-ounce bag of Parmesan or Italian blend cheese
8. 1 1lb box of noodles (whatever you like best)

Here are last night's ingredients:

Method

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a 9x13 baking dish with foil (for easy cleanup).
2. Dump the 2 jars of sauce in the dish, along with the wine. You can stir it up a bit if you want, it doesn't really matter.
3. Dump the crackers in the potato chip bag, hold  the bag closed (you can also clip or fold it), and pulverize. I use my rolling pin, you can use whatever makes you feel the most catharsis.
4. Add the Italian seasoning.
5. Hold the bag closed and shake to combine.It should look like this:
6. Rinse off your chicken, then drop it 1 piece at a time into the potato chip bag. Shake.
7. Place the piece of chicken on top of the sauce in the pan. DO NOT STIR.
8. Repeat for the rest of the chicken pieces.
9. Sprinkle remaining crumb mixture on top of chicken. It should look like this:
   
   
10. Put it in the oven for about 40 minutes. This sounds like a long time, but really, your chicken is half-drowned in sauce and covered in potato chips. It'll be fine.
11. Remove the dish from the oven, cover it in cheese, and put it back in for another 10 minutes (while the water for your noodles is boiling?).
12. When the cheese is all lovely and melted, it's done! Spoon the chicken and sauce over noodles and eat up!

Everything's A-OK

We took the Little Bit to Sesame Place last weekend. She's been fighting a cold for a week or so, but we'd had the tickets for months (due to a personal appearance by "Kindi Rock" superstar Laurie Berkner), so we were going, snot be damned. Plus, it was the first unGodly hot weekend of the year, where else would we be but a theme park full of pre-schoolers?
The trip there was miserable. Normally a little under 3 hours, it took us 5. I now hate the following cities, ranked in order of worst driving experience last Friday to best.

1. Philly. Eva started puking around Hour 9000 and we couldn't get off the highway for 3 miles.  HATE.
2. New Jersey. Toll Plazas. That is all.
3. Baltimore. Because apparently they drive tanks up and down the pavements all night long when noone is looking. Pot holes the depth of the axles. Luckily, we were only going 3 MPH so it didn't do anything permanent. I hope.
4. DC. Yes, you read that right. The new 695 interchange is much better than turning right at a traffic light on Pennsylvania Avenue and trying not to hit the curbside flower vendors. Plus, traffic was heavy but at least it was flowing. At 12:30 in the afternoon.

All this said, we had a great time once we got there. My child is not threatened by any ride, any height, any spray of water, or any adult-sized costumed character.
So, how does all this rambling tie in to something Mommy made? Well, I finally got to see a scale model of the brownstone where Maria, Big Bird (he roosts on the roof), Bert and Ernie (in the basement), and Oscar the Grouch (in the trash can outside) live.
This would have been helpful to me when I re-created it in cake form for a birthday party in February.

I'll spare you most of the details, so if you really want to know, email me and I'll bore you with minutia. Some more.

Materials:

• 2 12-inch cake layers
• 4 8-inch cake layers
• About 5 pounds of this frosting
• Cake plate (mine was a nice pedestal that promptly broke)
• 10 lbs of chocolate fondant*
• 2-3 pounds gum paste and/or white fondant
• Paint brush
• rolling pin
• sharp knife
• confectioner's sugar
• Crisco
• blue food coloring
• green food coloring
• food coloring pens
• fondant cutters of your choice - I used this but it's more trouble than it's worth
• 15-20 hours of your life

Method (deep breath. I promise I'll only hit the high points)

1. Using the chocolate fondant and the gum paste, I rolled it out and cut it into shapes to use for the trim on the house (windowsills, doors, windows, etc.)*
2. Stack, fill, and crumb coat the square layers.
   Like this (please ignore the yogurt and turkey)!
   
3. Stack, fill, and crumb coat the round layers, then dye some of the icing blue and do a smooth coat.
   Like this!
   
   
4. Cover the "cube" cake with chocolate fondant. If you can. 
5. Smack the House cake on the round cake. This part is not fun and can go terribly wrong.
6. Use water and a paint brush to attach all the doo-dads to the house and the sign to the round cake.
7. Use leftover icing for details on the cake.
8. Get someone to help you carry the thing, because it is seriously heavy.

*If there's a word stronger than "hate" here, that's how I feel about Wilton's chocolate fondant. I hate fondant, anyway, but this stuff is the weirdest, stickiest, driest, cracki-est, meanest lump of sugar dough I have ever worked with. Seriously, I had a humidifier cranking next to it and it still cracked. Next time I'll just take my chances with chocolate buttercream. Wait, I am never doing this again. Nevermind.

Whine into Water

So, I swear not all of these posts are going to have to do with gardening, because my current garden is on my 5x10 balcony. There just isn't that much I can do out there. That did not, however, stop me from producing this (the strawberry, the penny is just for scale. In my defense, the first strawberry to come off the balcony was, like 1/4 this size):

Or rather, to be more accurate, stop me from purchasing the plant that produced it. Which I almost killed because I have a strict policy of Benign Neglect when it comes to my plants. Which doesn't work so well since I forget to water them for days on end.

Problem: Plants dying because they would probably get more water in Arizona than they do on my balcony
Solution: Water Globes! You know those pretty round glass things that you buy and stick in potted plants that slowly leak water into your soil as it dries out?
2nd problem: Paying money for them seems like a waste. I mean surely, I can find something that will work just as well lying around my house, right?
My solution: Booze.No, really!

Materials:

Empty wine and cider bottles. If you don't partake, any glass bottle will most likely work, or you can just sneak into your neighbor's recycle bins.

Method:

1. Water your plants first. Otherwise they'll just gulp the water out of your bottles and you'll need to refill, like, immediately.
2. Rinse bottles
3. Fill them with water
4. Go outside, quickly invert bottle and shove into soil of plant. I find that if you act like you're screwing in a lightbulb, it works a little easier.
5. Neglect away!

Caution:

If the water in your bottle is all gone in about 2 hours, either you didn't water the plants well enough to begin with, or the bottle wasn't shoved in far enough. Once you've gotten the bottle to a good depth, it should be easy to refill and re-insert in the same spot in the plant.

The wine bottles last a few days in a large plant. I use the cider bottles for flowers and smaller pots, they last a day or two. There is some debate on the Internet that you should somehow cap the bottles and make small holes in the cap, such that it's more of a drip-irrigation thing. I found that just leaving the tops off and making sure the bottles are firmly inserted works just fine, and is easier to refill. I don't actually enjoy getting dirty, so this is an important feature.

Good cages make good tomatoes

Or so I have been told. And this year I am finally heeding the advice. In previous seasons, I always grew patio or some other compact variety of tomato that looked cute but only yielded about 10-15 tomatoes total. This year, I decided to get adventurous and grow two regular-size Roma tomato plants (I was suckered in by the Heinz label! I could make my own ketchup! Curse you, Home Depot!) in two of the pots that I brought over from the old apartment.
When I bought these darling little things, I wasn't even thinking about how to support large, luxurious limbs heavy with fruit, I was mainly trying to keep them from death-by-sandbox at the hands of my daughter. They beat the odds, survived, and got big enough that they started to list. Being that storm season is upon us, it occurred to me on the way home from Sesame Place yesterday that they needed a cage, which I do not own. I thought it through as mile after mile passed and finally settled on coat hangers. It could work. It should work. I could twist them and bend them into something totally usable with adorable curly-ques and then paint and distress them so they look like something you'd buy in a store in Old Towne called Ye Olde Farmhouse Crappe and I would be a DIY goddess.
Well, one out of four ain't bad, is it?

Materials:

• 6 wire coat hangers (the full wire ones, not the cardboard tube ones. Extra points if they are all the same color)
• Regular pliers (I'm sure they have an official name, but mine came in a tool kit from Ikea. "Ikea pliers?")
• Needle-nose pliers

Here's a shot of my supplies spread out on my couch, where I sat comfortably while creating this masterpiece.

Method:

1. Untwist all of the coat hangers and straighten them as best as you can. Step on them, pull them, use the pliers, a mallet, a hammer, whatever makes you happy. You're going for relative straightness here, don't worry about it too much.
2. I used the needlenose pliers to curl one end of three of the hangers. I was hoping for attractiveness here, but the real goal was to keep my kid's eyes from getting poked out when she invariably smacked herself in the face with one.
3. Using the same three hangers, about 12 inches down from the curl, I used the needlenose pliers to make a small loop, and then another loop about 12 inches down from that. (This sounds nice and simple on paper. It actually involves some elbow grease and a little swearing. I recommend, as with most DIY project, a glass of wine or a bottled adult beverage of your choice.)
4. With the remaining 3 hangers, try to form them into something of a circle. I freely admit that I skipped this part, and other than unwinding the hangers, basically left them to their regular triangular shape. You will see the results later. Do the circles if you have the time and/or patience.
5. Make a curl on one end of each circle with the needlenose pliers.
6. Lay your three long hangers (that you added curls and loops to in steps 2-3) next to each other, with the loops and curls all facing the same way.
7. Thread the non-curled end of each circle (that you made in step 4) through the bottom loop of each straight hanger. 
8. Using your needlenose pliers again, curl the other end of the circle, and then "link" that curl to the one you made in step 5. This should complete a circle that runs through all three bottom loops of the straight hangers.
9. Repeat steps 7-8 on the middle loop and top curl of the three straight hangers.
10. Go outside and spread the three straight hangars out such that they form the points of a triangle. Holding each straight wire near the bottom, shove them into the ground around your plant. The circle hangars should keep the upright straight ones stable enough to support the whole contraption, unless you are growing  watermelons or something.

And here is my hot mess finished product!

Conclusions:

I think the next time I will actually make the circular hangars actual circles vs. warped triangles. The reason for this is that the straight hangers tend to drift until all of them are in one corner of the "circular" ones (which are actually "triangular" because I am "lazy") and that...just isn't helpful. I've had to do a little retro-fitting with my pliers.

So, there you have it. Not gonna make it into Ye Olde Crappe Shoppe anytime soon, but hopefully they will give the plants the support and encouragement they need.