Weekend wind-down 9.9.2012

Okay, I have to admit that I'm totally stealing this idea from my friend Kayte, who often posts a Sunday Snippets on her blog as a summary of what's been going on during her week.  I have a whole bunch of odds and ends that I can talk about, but nothing that I want to write an entire post about.  I thought about doing a Wordless Wednesday-ish sort of thing, since I have some pictures, but I realized that I do have some words to share as well.  So here we are. =)  If I like the way this works out, it might even become a weekly thing.

Above is my dessert from tonight.  I'm trying to will autumn to come to Central Texas sooner rather than later.  Summer is my least favorite season.  I dislike the heat, I don't really grill, and summer meals aren't the ones I really enjoy making.  We had a brief taste of fall weather this weekend--the highs were still around 90 (I can hear my northern friends thinking, how can she say that's fall weather?), but the low this morning was about 60, which we haven't felt in months.  We might get one more run of temperatures around 100, but maybe we'll get lucky and avoid it.

I've been craving fall flavors big time, things like apples and pumpkin and warm spices.  I had a short day on Friday, and spent part of my time at home making spice cupcakes.  I tried a recipe that I hadn't made before.  (It's from the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook.)  It was originally for a 13"x9" pan, and I made it as cupcakes.  It was a mixed success.  The flavors were great, but the batter spread too much and the cake's crumb was too delicate in cupcake form.  It did give me a chance to use my new cupcake papers from my recent KAF order, though.  I took a bunch of the cupcakes to work, where they got rave reviews.  The rest got crumbled up and layered with some homemade applesauce (I found some enormous Paula Red apples at Central Market the other night) and whipped cream.  Yum!

My other major baking activity for the week was the Nectarine Upside-Down Chiffon Cake for Tuesdays with Dorie.  I actually made it on Tuesday, but ran out of energy to post about it.  The verdict?  I like the cake, but I'd make a few changes next time.  The main thing would be to use a tarter fruit, either regular nectarines (I used white ones) or maybe plums.  The cake was also at its best the first day; it got soggy after that.  Thanks to Marlise and Susan for hosting this week.  And everyone else's results can be found on the Links page.

Getting back to fall flavors...  Gillian was quite concerned that Central Market had Halloween stuff out this week.  At least they waited this long.  Most of the candy I can take or leave, but I do have one notable weakness.  I can resist the regular candy corn--I don't buy it, because if I do, I'll eat it without really thinking about it and then wonder, "why did I do that?" when I end up with a queasy stomach.  But a few years ago I discovered caramel candy corn.  This stuff is awesome.  Tooth-achingly sweet, which isn't usually my thing, but so tasty.  

I'll leave you with some kid news.  This picture is actually from last weekend.  Gillian was pretty happy to lose the second of her top front teeth, since it had been pretty loose and annoying.  This way she still can't bite into a lot of stuff, but she doesn't have a wiggly tooth in the way, either.  Both girls were a bit under the weather this weekend.  Both were in daycare from a very early age, so we dealt with a lot of germs and built up their immune systems early.  But G is at a new school this year for kindergarten, with lots of new people and their different germs.  Plus she's been really tired from the adjustment to a new schedule.  So I'm not terribly surprised that she got a cold already (and shared it with her sister).  Here's hoping things improve as we all get into the new routine.  

Well, that's all I have for now.  My goals for the next week include figuring out some new ideas for school lunches as well as some new easy dinner ideas.  (I'm open to suggestions if you have them!)  I'm also reacquainting myself with Pinterest.  A bunch of my blogging/tweeting friends use it, and I'm starting to see why.  I've had an account for quite a while, but haven't spent any time with it.  We'll see how it goes.

Handmade loaves (a seasonal blogging event)

Time for another blogging event!  I mentioned in my Sundae Sunday post back in July that I was going to start hosting this sort of round-up about once per season.  Today we have the Autumn event.  I had a few different ideas for the theme.  I thought about going with a specific fall ingredient (kind of like my friend Phyl's pumpkin round-up).  My only hesitation was that not everyone likes the same things, and I wanted a theme that would appeal to everyone.

Then it hit me--loaves!  Lots of things can be made in a loaf shape--yeast breads, quick breads, pound cake, terrines, even meat loaf. =)  Now that we're getting some cooler weather (even here in Texas), it's much more appealing to turn on the oven, so loaves seemed like a perfect idea.  Be on the lookout for a bunch of loaves this weekend, either from pans or freeform.  Don't worry about missing some--I'll have a round-up of all the posts later this week.

If you'd like to join us in future events, you can leave a comment on this post or email me at diskitchennotebook at gmail dot com.  Next up will be our 2nd annual Virtual Cookie Exchange, in early December!

Measure twice, bake once

I realized recently that I might have a problem.  It seems that I've become dependent...on my kitchen scale.  The biggest clue was a couple weeks ago when my scale started acting crazy, and I started going through withdrawal. By crazy, I mean that I would put something on it, and the scale would say that it either weighed nothing, or weighed 8 pounds.  Not good.  At first I thought it was just that the batteries were dying.  So I figured out what kind of batteries to get (and where to find them, thanks Nancy).  I went out the next morning and got some, came home, figured out how to get the old ones out, and put the new ones in.  I held my breath as I placed a handy mug on the scale, watched the display, and sighed in disappointment as it once again registered over 8 pounds.  I had to face facts--the scale was broken.  Now what?

I tried to make one recipe without it.  I had to use a dry measuring cup for flour.  I don't remember the last time I didn't weigh flour.  It was enough to send me running for the computer to investigate new scales immediately.  I have an online subscription to Cooks Illustrated, and quickly found a report on scales.  I discovered that since I bought my scale, OXO had come out with one.  It had all the features of my scale, with some cool additions.  I've liked all of the other OXO tools that I've acquired (like the rolling pin I love), so I decided to give it a try.  I scouted online for places to buy one, and went out and got it.  Okay, not exactly.  It's worth noting that the scale comes in two versions--5 pounds and 11 pounds.  First I bought the smaller one at Target because I was able to run in and pick it up on my way to work.  My thought was that I never make batches of dough that are more than 4 or 5 pounds.  What I didn't think about was the fact that you have to take into account the weight of the bowls, too.  One of my favorite bowls is glass and weighs at least a couple pounds...  So I figured out where to get the other one, went and bought it, and returned the smaller one.  Total elapsed time from when I first noticed the problems with the old scale until I had the new 11-pound one? Less than 48 hours, even with all the drama.  Like I said, I think I have a problem.  =)

By now you're probably wondering, what does all this have to do with this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe?  This week's recipe is Cran-Apple Crisp, chosen by Em of The Repressed Pastry Chef.  It's very straightforward to make, using the food processor to combine the ingredients for the topping.  Flour, oats, brown sugar, pecans (since I despise coconut), cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg (because I love nutmeg), butter, and salt (because I tasted the topping and thought I forgot the salt--turns out there isn't any in the recipe?!).  My usual method is to put a container on my scale and add the ingredients, taring the scale after each one.  The recipes in the book don't include weights, but I've had success using a weight of 4.5 ounces for each cup of all-purpose flour.  For other ingredients, I use tables in a couple of my cookbooks  that give weights for common baking ingredients.  I've found brown sugar listed as either 7.5 or 8 ounces per cup.  I split the difference, going with 1 7/8 ounces for a quarter-cup.

After I prepared the topping, I cut up apples (using up three Jonamacs that were sitting in my fruit drawer, along with one Macoun), tossed in fresh (frozen) and dried cranberries, and added some vanilla sugar (I cut it back to 1/2 cup, or 3.5 ounces), a bit of flour, and a pinch of salt.  I put the fruit in my oval gratin dish, added the topping, and baked the crisp for 45 minutes.  The recipe says to let the crisp rest for about 20 minutes if you make a single large dish, but we didn't wait that long.  The crisp was definitely on the juicy side because of that, but the juices just mingled nicely with the vanilla bean ice cream that I had made to go with it.

The verdict?  Jamie and I really enjoyed the crisp.  I love apples and cranberries together, and fruit crisp is a favorite of mine.  It makes an excellent breakfast, and the filling thickened up a bit as it cooled overnight. =)  But as we were eating it the night I made it, something seemed off with the texture and taste of the topping.  Hmm.  Then I figured out what it was.  Remember my note about the weight of the quarter cup of brown sugar?  Even better than deciding what weight of sugar to use would have been noticing that the recipe call for half a cup of brown sugar...  Good news is, the crisp was still quite good.  And when I make it again, I think I'll add more of the sugar, but maybe not the full amount.

If you'd like to try this one for yourself, with the correct amounts of ingredients, head over to Em's blog for the recipe.   And check out the TWD blogroll to see what everyone else made this week.  Laurie has given permission for us to post the recipes out of order this month, so there are several tasty things out there for your viewing pleasure.

End of summer

Where has this year gone? I can hardly believe that it's already the last day of summer. I'm ready for fall, though. It seems like this has been one of the hottest summers we've had in the ten years I've lived in central Texas. It was really nice being in Pennsylvania for a week--much cooler weather, for the most part.

I was still on vacation for a couple of days after we got back from PA. Thursday, I didn't do much of anything, since I wasn't feeling all that great. I seem to have caught whatever Gillian had for the first couple days of our trip (just a cold, I think). On Friday I did get out, because I really needed to take my car in for some routine maintenance. While that was being taken care of, I had a chance to go do some window-shopping. Borders, Sur la Table, Williams-Sonoma--all fun places. =) I actually got out of all three without buying anything (though I did some pricing of kitchen torches in anticipation of the upcoming TWD crème brulée).

Our Williams-Sonoma store used to be a lot smaller.  In fact, when I first moved to Austin, I was surprised that a city this size didn't really have a good kitchenwares store.  Not too long ago they expanded it to about three times its previous size.  Coincidentally, that was about the same time that Sur la Table opened up. =)  I shop both, but one thing I like about Williams-Sonoma is that they often have samples out in their store.  You can tell they're into fall already, since the stuff I tasted on Friday had an autumn theme.  But while Friday started off pretty nice and cool (well, relatively), it still got up to almost 90.  So even though I'm more than ready for some fall desserts, the weather really isn't cooperating yet.  What to do?

Make pumpkin ice cream!  I love pumpkin desserts.  Well, not pumpkin pie (it's a texture thing for me), but pretty much anything else.  I checked online and found a recipe (from Williams-Sonoma, as it turned out) that I used to make changes to my usual vanilla ice cream base.  The end result is smooth and creamy and tastes very much like frozen pumpkin pie.  

Pumpkin Ice Cream

(inspired by this Williams-Sonoma recipe)

1 cup + 1/2 cup heavy cream

1 cup 1% milk (what I usually have on hand--other milk would be fine)

3/4 cup light brown sugar

4 egg yolks

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspooon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon table salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

8 oz pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Whisk together one cup of the cream, the milk and the brown sugar in a large heatproof bowl. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is hot. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk the yolks until smooth. Whisk in the remaining 1/2 cup cream along with the cinnamon, ginger, salt and nutmeg. Still whisking, drizzle in about a third of the hot liquid to temper the yolks. Then whisk the the yolk mixture back into the remaining liquid in the double boiler. Heat, stirring frequently, until the custard thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon. The temperature should be between 170 and 180 degrees F. Remove the bowl from the heat and whisk in the pumpkin and vanilla. Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into another bowl (to remove any stringy bits of pumpkin or eggy bits--it's kind of a pain, but worth it for the final texture).

Refrigerate the custard until well chilled, at least 3 to 4 hours. Churn the mixture into ice cream following the instructions for your ice cream maker. Makes about 3 1/2 cups (slightly less than 1 quart).