Tag Archives: cooking

Do you know The Muffin, Man?

Perfect Muffin,
I’ve been hunting for you. I’ve been dropping serious dime in cafés everywhere to find out where you are. What makes you so dangerously irresistible? I’ve been asking around, and I’ve been tipped off by professionals in your kind of business.  I’m on to you, Muffin. I’m on to you. I finally know what makes you tick. And I’m about to expose you for the greater good of all muffin lovers everywhere. Consider yourself found.
~ Gal Foodie

For years, the perfect muffin has eluded me. I don’t consider myself a prolific baker. I tend to shoot from the hip when I’m in the kitchen, and baking is so, well, safe. But to be able to wake the house up on Sunday morning with the smell of perfectly moist, fresh baked muffins? I’ll risk playing it safe. Sort of.

I have used mixes. I have used recipes from Joy of Cooking, Fannie Farmer, Stonewall Kitchen, the Internet… the list goes on. I had yet to make a muffin that wasn’t flat on top, with the consistency and taste of dry cardboard. And then my friend Jean Kerr gave me a copy of her cookbook Windjammer Cooking: Great Recipes from Maine’s Windjammer Fleet, and after I was done deftly identifying all the schooners I had sailed or worked on in my “former life,” I discovered the recipe on page 82 for Orange-Chocolate Muffins.

I didn’t make them.
But the recipe intrigued me because unlike other recipes, it required very little butter, the liquid was orange juice, not milk, and it had very few other ingredients. It also didn’t have “penalty of death” warnings of over-mixing, although I will tell you that through trial and error, over-mixing muffin batter usually does result in lead-like muffins that are better suited for Tom Brady-style practice throws off my deck.

I decided to use this muffin recipe as my baseline, and  started switching things up, experimenting with different liquids and measures and ingredients. I shared an almost perfect batch of the modified muffin with Jean and the cookbook’s co-author, Spencer Smith, and both gave it a resounding  “Delicious!” But I wasn’t done. It still wasn’t right.

Batches later… Victory was mine. I captured the Perfect Muffin.

Strawberry Banana Peach Muffins

Strawberry Banana Peach Muffins
Makes 5-6 Jumbo Muffins

2 cups Flour
1/2 cup Sugar
1 tbsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
2 Eggs, beaten
1/2 – 3/4 cups Peach Juice
3 tbsp Melted Butter
1 tsp Vanilla
1 Very Ripe Banana, mashed
2 cups Sliced Fresh Strawberries
Sugar In The Raw for sprinkled topping

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400. Lightly grease a jumbo muffin tin – I use jumbo muffin cup liners to make it easier to clean.

2. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl, making sure to mix well.

3. In a separate bowl, mix together all wet ingredients, including the banana.

4. Combine all ingredients in the large bowl, add strawberries, and hand mix until just combined. The batter should be wet but not runny. If it seems too dry, add touches of juice until it is mixable. Do not over mix unless you want to practice your football passes later.

5. Fill muffin cups completely to the top. This will result in a nice round top. Sprinkle with raw sugar.

6. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until centers are firm to the touch, and tops are just beginning to brown. I have found that this particular recipe yields about 5 jumbo muffins. Smaller muffin cups can be used, just reduce the cooking time, but still fill cups to the top edge for a full muffin experience.

Variations on a Theme:
I have used 1 cup of fresh chopped cranberries with orange juice – just add a little extra juice to accommodate for the missing moisture the banana would provide – or add a banana! I have also used 2 cups of Maine blueberries. I added them frozen right to the batter. I used milk but preferred using orange juice. Banana nut? Carrot raisin? What’s your poison? The key is making sure the batter has enough liquid, but isn’t runny.

Light, moist, sweet deliciousness is all mine.
Now that the hunt is over, I plan to sleep in next weekend.
~ Gal Foodie

P.S.  There’s still time to enter the Dishin’ Up Love Recipe Contest!

P.S.S – Still need a sweet treat for Valentine’s Day? Check out last year’s blog post For the Love of Cheesecake.

Happy Birthday! Love, New Zealand

What I love about old family recipes is that there is usually a story. Over time, the story inevitably gets diluted. The handwriting gets smudged, the facts get a little flour on them, the names become a mystery. But the story always ends the same. “This is a food I know.” And with time-traveling delight, these are the recipes that keep our traditions strong, and the tale of the person who made it before us, tangible. In my family history book, there is a cake. And you can be sure there is a story.

Marjorie Catley, Melrose, MA 1940

My Grandmother, Marjorie Cattley, 1940

New Zealand is a far away, mythical place for most of us. For my Grandmother, it was home the first few years of her life. While I don’t know the whole story, I know the parts that have helped me understand who I am and where I get my strength and independence. It is the story of Great-Grandmother Lucretia Cattley, who alone, in 1919, packed up her 4 children and a few keepsakes, and crossed a giant sea from New Plymouth, New Zealand, to a small town called Melrose, in the State of Massachusetts. Without a husband to speak for her, she convinced a local bank to lend her enough money to buy a house. With a meager income from odd jobs, she made payments of 50 cents a week to the man at the bank, and alone, she paid for that house, and in it, she raised her 3 daughters, Amy, Eleanor, and Marjorie and her son, Henry.

I love that story.

Surviving the adventure across the sea is a recipe for New Zealand Birthday Cake. My Grandmother’s handwriting on an otherwise neatly typed card in her recipe box states that this is her Grandmother’s recipe. How many women in my family wrote that recipe down, or recited it in a kitchen far away to be made on someone’s special day? That’s a lot of years in one cake pan. At least five generations of my family, and nary a birthday has been celebrated without it.

Birthday Cake

Happy Birthday to us! November 27th, 2004

My beloved Grandmother is gone now, but for 32 years she and I shared a birthday. Every year she made the two of us the New Zealand Birthday Cake, and never once, did she forget to tell me where it came from. Everything, including the recipe, had been committed to memory, and the most important task in making the cake was telling the story. Last night, for my father’s 63rd birthday, my sister made the cake and the story was shared again. And all of those women were sitting with us for a slice.

There are no directions on this recipe card, save a scribble from my Grandmother that tells me to cream the first 3 ingredients together, and that 3/4lb of something equals 1 1/2 cups. I have always used my Grandmother’s 9×13” pan. The comment from my Mother is that this is one of the driest cakes she’s ever had the “pleasure” of eating. At the risk of altering the story, I am experimenting with cooking times – thinking that if I increase the temperature and significantly reduce the time in the oven, it may not be so “pleasurably” dry. No matter what, this story always ends with gobs of plain white frosting and homemade vanilla ice cream.

Grandma Cattley’s New Zealand Birthday Cake

¾ lb butter or shortening (1 ½ cups)
¾ lb sugar
4 eggs
4 cups sifted flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp mace
1 tsp salt
¾ cup milk
1 jar of citron and ½ cup nut meats
Bake at 340 degrees for 1 ½  to 2 hours.

Find your recipes and share their stories.
Happy Birthday, Dad!

Love, Gal Foodie

Gal, Interrupted.

I’ve been away awhile. Well, I’ve actually been right here all along, but just this morning I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain to you the analogy between life and running a restaurant. How they are so frighteningly similar, that I wonder why I ever bothered with a restaurant at all, when I already had a life.

Every day is defined by who walks through the door, both in and out. The people who run the place and the people who are just passing through looking for a little comfort, and a little sustenance. Someone quits and there’s a scramble to make up for the lost set of hands, and sometimes something you need doesn’t show up, but something else arrives in it’s place, and you make do with what you have because that’s the best you can do on short notice. Sometimes it’s a perfect night, and sometimes the morning comes way too early. You put your whole heart into it. And then something important breaks and you have to let it all go until you can figure out what it’s going to take to fix it. You stand up, you show up, and you go to your station and begin again every day, because there are expectations to be met and things that need doing.

You just do.
And that is where I have been.
I couldn’t have guessed that I would have had the life or the experiences that I’ve had in my short 36 years, and I couldn’t have seen the life I would be living these last few months for all the tea in China. But it happens, life. And restaurant or not, there’s always someone coming, or going. And there’s always something to do. And plenty to write about.

To begin at the beginning would be a story far too long for a blog post, but to begin at the end, well that’s something I can wrap my head around, because it’s as fresh as today’s bread, and all the stuff between then and now has caused me to take a lot of notes. So here’s what happened next…

I moved and it started to rain. It rained so much that Summer barely had a chance to get here before the Fall. And in the torrents, the love of my life left for greener grass. Even coated in fresh paint, my new kitchen was too dark and depressing to feel good in. I ate by myself, and I cursed the rain. And then I decided that there was too much to be missed, rain be damned, and I ventured out into my new food world and instead of cooking, I met the people who cook. I visited restaurants and started asking questions. I was asked to be a judge for the IMG_3741State BBQ competition, and in so doing, met a wonderful group of very accomplished chefs and restaurant owners who opened more doors. (Not to mention I learned that oysters and BBQ sauce don’t mix) I became the co-host of a radio show about food with a gal I had imagined would be a soul mate if only I could meet her. I ate fried olives and fluke ceviche with yuzu ver jus, pickled fresno chili, and sea beans and wondered where they had been all my life. Kitchens were bustling in my presence and tables were filling up. And Gal Foodie was getting her gazpacho back.

And then a phone rang with the horror – a child had been killed in a terrible car accident, and my world screeched sideways all the way back to my beloved Mount Desert Island. The only thing I knew how to do to make it all better was to cook. And cook, and cook. Until everyone at least had a decent meal in their stomachs even if their hearts were bleeding out of their chests. It was that same child that I had fed in my old kitchen for so many years whom I had already said goodbye to a few months earlier. Goodbye to my island, the life I’d built, my sweetest love – No – this eclipsed any farewell I’d ever known. I kissed the tops of their heads and fed their souls but the child was gone, the kitchen was gone. No amount of food could fill that hole. With all the heartache-encrusted strength I could muster, I headed once again from the old to the new, determined to find the recipe for moving on.

I made cheese for the challenge of it. I spent time on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and made crab cakes with the real thing and drank cheap beer at a place called Lucky’s Last Chance. A cookbook idea led to fairgrounds across the Northeast, where I consumed foods with names like the Craz-E-Burger. Despite the implied calorie count (who was counting?) IMG_4200there was a story there and so I grabbed for extra napkins and I kept eating. As a judge at the local chili festival, I met even more people who cooked, and people who published magazines about it. I learned how to make bean hole baked beans for 1,000 people, and roast an ox on a spit. I was recognized in public. And I finally started cooking in my new kitchen.

There is no recipe for this. There is no one way it can go. Sometimes you get lucky. You keep trying new things, testing new ingredients and hoping it turns out OK. And you don’t always get to decide who stays and who goes.  You can only trust yourself to keep showing up and doing what needs to be done –  the rest is left to Chance.

Life is so short,

~ Gal Foodie

Cheese Curd. Everywhere.

The cheesemaking process is something that has always fascinated me, despite my aversion to hot milk. As I would stroll through Pike’s Market in Seattle, my destination was usually the fishbowl that is Beecher’s cheesemaking room, to marvel at the SHOVELS full of curd that 2 men in oompa loompa suits were pushing around in a giant stainless vat. It wasn’t something I ever saw myself trying though, since the joke on the gal from the dairy farm is that she’s lactose intolerant…

But.

A mad scientist friend of mine suggested we try making fresh mozzarella this weekend and I jumped at the chance. I had no idea where to start, and was given a simple list for shopping. Buy a gallon of pasteurized whole milk and lots of tomatoes. Yup. Tomatoes.

You can probably guess that there’s more to making cheese than milk. And that tomatoes probably don’t have much to do with making cheese. And you’d be right. The mad scientist showed up with citric acid and rennet, 2 ingredients instrumental to creating cheese curd. He also makes a mean tomato sauce.

Mozzarella Cheese Curd

Mozzarella Cheese Curd

After a bottle of homemade Elderberry wine was uncorked, poured, and partially consumed, we set to making cheese. We probably should have waited to open the wine, as our first batch of curd, well, didn’t really “curd” the way we needed it, because we were too busy being silly, and not busy enough watching the thermometer. In fairness to the scientist,  I should note that as we were reading the directions online, the guy switched from Fahrenheit to Celsius, and this critical after-the-fact find isn’t helpful if you have a sensitive concoction on the stove. So I won’t blame the mad scientist for either mishap. I enjoyed the wine and we didn’t let the first batch of curd go to waste.

The mad scientist went to work quickly on our mishap, straining and draining and squeezing and kneading, and the result was a boursin-like cheese that with a little roasted garlic butter (which we had made a few days earlier to put on our flat irons) and some basic herbs, became a delectable spread that tastes amazing on just about anything.

Solid Mozzarella Cheese Curd

Solid Mozzarella Cheese Curd

So, did we actually make mozzarella? Yes! After another trip to the store for more milk, and another glass of wine (or 2), we went through the whole process again, and the curd formed a nice solid chunk that we were able to cut with a knife. We then proceeded to go through the strain, reheat, strain, reheat, knead process and the result was cheese curds everywhere and an incredible full-size ball of fresh mozzarella.

Mozzarella Success!

Mozzarella Success!

And it TASTED like mozzarella. It actually sliced much cleaner than what you would buy in the store, and because it had not been sitting in a brine for weeks, our palettes were expecting it to be  little more salty, and so we decided that next time, we would add just a touch more.

Homemade Pizza

Homemade Pizza

What we ultimately created was a wonderful afternoon full of good food, wine, laughs and lots of dishes. The mozzarella landed on grilled pizza where the sauce, caramelized onions and the dough were also made from scratch, as well as a few fresh sliced tomatoes with basil and vinegar. We hatched a plan for more cheesemaking in our future, that included buying a few goats (ok – maybe that was the wine talking), and we’ll share that whole experience with you too! For now, see a quick list below of what you’ll need for making your own mozzarella, as well as a link to the instructions we followed.

Tools:

  1. Large stainless or enamel stockpot
  2. Large mesh strainer
  3. Candy-making thermometer
  4. Stainless measuring cups & spoons
  5. Microwave safe bowl

Supplies:

  1. 1 gallon of Pasteurized milk (NOT Ultra Pasteurized)
  2. Sea salt
  3. Unchlorinated water (we used Pelligrino)
  4. Citric acid
  5. MALAKA BRAND Liquid Vegetarian Rennet, 0.5 Ounce Bottle (Pack of 2)

Kneading the Cheese Curd

Kneading the Cheese Curd

Pointers:

  • It is extremely important to watch the heat and the time. Don’t let the milk get above 90ºF.
  • Have lots of towels around as making cheese curd is messy business.
  • It really helps to have 2 people. The straining process is a lot of back and forth, and it really helped to have one person holding the big pot, while the other holds the strainer and kneads.
  • We used this website as our basis for the recipe/process. I suggest you read it through carefully from start to finish because timing and heat is crucial to success.

Grilled Pizza

Grilled Pizza

Pizza Suggestions:
For our grilled pizza, we made 2 batches of  basic white pizza dough ala Cuisinart, and then topped the first with the mad scientists amazing homemade tomato sauce, fresh basil, and dried Italian salami. The other pizza was half BBQ sauce, my homemade caramelized onions, blue cheese, and the other half more red sauce, mozzarella,

Grilled Pizza

Grilled Pizza

Greek olives, basil and salami. We heated the pizza stone on the grill, but would suggest pre-cooking the crust for about 5 minutes before adding the toppings and putting it back on the grill. Watch the bottom! It will burn fast if the heat is too high. Add a couple of cold beers, and a great view and you have yourself a really nice afternoon.

Happy Cheese Curding!
~ Gal Foodie

Banana Bread from Far and Away

Can you find us?

Can you find us?

My friend Darcy and I have known each other since we were 9 years old. We met every summer for a week of camp on Lake Cobbosseecontee, in West Gardiner, ME. All the way through our senior year in high school we looked forward to that week of late night giggles, days of swimming and singing, and building friendships that grew stronger as we grew older.

Eventually we moved away, formed new lives and new friendships. When I made the move from Seattle back to Mount Desert Island in 2005, where Darcy grew up, I wasn’t sure if she was still here, or if any of my friends were still here. It had been nearly 15 years since I last saw most of my camp friends. As I sat reading the local paper one morning, I came across an article about an artist on the island named Darcy Stillman. She made mirrors out of the island’s rocks and shells. Could it be her? An artist? There was an email address at the end of the article, and sure enough, a reply came back… “Yes! It’s me!! Let’s go swimming!”

Ali & Darcy aboard the O'Day Tempest Curlew

Ali & Darcy aboard the O'Day Tempest Curlew

How does this have anything to do with food, Gal Foodie? Well, it has a lot to do with food. As our friendship rekindled, so did the opportunity to share our talents as adults with each other. Darcy had become a teacher at the local high school, and an avid baker and artist. She was forever delivering loaves of bread, homemade granola and the like to my doorstep. When I had surgery, she showed up in her pajamas early my first morning home alone and stayed with me, nursing me back to health with her homemade chicken soup, breads, and smoothies. When she bought a motor boat that summer to island hop for her art-rock-hunting endeavors, I got a very excited call to meet her on the upper town dock with sandwiches for an island picnic. And when I finally bought my own sailboat, it was Darcy who brought lunch for the inaugural sail. We spent many an afternoon cruising the harbors and inlets of Mount Desert Island – a treat for anyone who loves this place as much as we do.

Darcy filled out an application for the Peace Corps and was accepted. She was headed to South Africa for 2 years. I received a frantic call her last day on the island. She was in panic mode. I had lived in Ecuador and traveled all over the world, and remembered well this feeling of sheer anxiety. I packed up breakfast and proceeded to pack up Darcy. As we sorted clothes, I recounted the story of the The Poisonwood Bible
, one of my favorite books – reminding her that no matter what you bring, it’s going to be the wrong thing so get over it quick, and be prepared to adapt. I couldn’t think of a better candidate for this kind of experience. I cried all the way home that day. I was really going to miss my friend. And I was scared for her too. However, Darcy can jump into anything with the gusto and enthusiasm of a pack of church ladies preparing for a Sunday supper. She was going to move mountains over there no matter what she did.

Aletuke, South AfricaThanks to the internet, she and I chat daily via Facebook IM. I am always prying her for info on what she is eating, cooking, seeing and doing. The customs and traditions there are so rich, and like our own, often revolve around the camaraderie of cooking together. She has fully immersed herself in it, and in true Darcy form, is bringing her own traditions to her village as a way to bridge the cultural divide and make new friends. When I asked her to send me a recipe from her village of Aletuke, she sent me way more than that. This recipe is Darcy in all her glory – baking, teaching and sharing.

Over the years, living through many a Maine winter, I have grown to love the joy of baking, especially bread. I could say that one of my signatures as a friend is showing up when least expected with a wonderful loaf of bread. Why bake one when you can bake two and give one away?

Now I’m a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa. I live in a rural village and continue to fascinate the people around me with my baking. There are no fancy flours or seeds to drop into my bread so I find myself baking a lot of banana bread. Why? Because the ingredients are few, cheap, easy to find and there is never a shortage of old bananas. So I continue to bake an extra loaf and give it away. There is no better feeling then showing up at someones home and handing them a fresh baked loaf of banana bread. Their smile and energy are all the thanks I need.

Now I’m teaching the people I work with how to bake and they are teach the orphans we work with how to bake. But we are teaching them to make two, not one loaf at a time and we decide as a group who to give the extra loaf to. It’s a beautiful process to be a part of.

Far and Away Banana Bread
Makes 2 Loaves

Cream together:
1/3 cup shortening (or margarine, I can’t get shortening here in SA)
2/3 cup sugar (I usually use a 1/2 cup)
Beat In:
2 eggs
Add:
1 3/4 cup flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
Mix most of the way then add:
1 1/4 cup mashed banana.

Banana tip:  When you have ripe bananas beyond eating throw them in the freezer. When you have enough, make banana bread.  Bananas from the freezer are juicier.  Drain off most of the extra water and add a little extra flour to thicken batter.  This will make a little extra batter to add to your mini give away loaf.

Grease an 8X4 in. bread pan and a mini loaf pan.  Divide batter appropriately and bake at 350 for 50-60 min. Check the mini loaf after 20-30 min. for it will bake faster.

From childhood to adulthood, life experience teaches us a simple lesson: Make two and share. One is silver and the other is gold.

~Gal Foodie

Darcy Stillman’s Blog of her Peace Corps Adventures can be read at http://darcystillman.blogspot.com/

Another Foodie Joins the Blogosphere…

I have been meaning to start a food blog for a long time, and while lots of other “foodies” have done a great job of providing content to the blogosphere, there is still room for another blog about the trials and errors of the test kitchen foodie. A little background on why I may be able to contribute something to this online world of food lovers: I own a restaurant. I have an incredible kitchen in my house where I try all sorts of amazing recipes, new and old. I have a pantry the size of most people’s first floor living space. I have many friends who blame me for gaining pound after pound because they can’t stop eating (or I won’t stop inviting them over to “test” food with me). I am a graphic designer by trade, and have many specialty food clients. I read cookbooks like novels. And basically, I just love great food…and I love to cook it. So begins my journey into blogging about my love, my passion, my food.

So what can you expect beyond this first post? I intend to use this forum to show you what I’m cooking, where I’m shopping, what kitchen gadgets I love, what and where I’m eating, how I’m making things, how I’m screwing them up, and what I’m doing right. Recipes will always be found here, and I plan to share my many pages of notes I take every time I’m in the kitchen. I have many friends in the food biz, and I have asked them all to think about how they would like to contribute to this blog as well.

Most of all, I’m looking forward to sharing all of my culinary experiences with you!