Author, Author!

These are my grandparents. While their names are technically Hank and Velma, to me they are Gram and Gramps.

They passed away within months of each other nearly 16 years ago. Gram passed away first, then, shortly after I found out I was pregnant with my first (and only) baby, Gramps passed on himself. I loved them so much……they were not only awesome grandparents, but just really wonderful people all-around. They had great (and many) friends, were very active in their church and were loving and generous. They were always there for my mom, brother and sister and me. We were a tiny family (my mom was an only child) who spent every holiday together – and that includes Mothers' & Father’s Day as well as birthdays and most Sunday dinners. Mmmmm…I still remember the smell of Gram’s fried chicken. And her fruit salad with mini-marshmallows and Miracle Whip in the dressing, yum, yum, yum!

Every summer starting when I was two years old (till I was 17), they took my brother, sister and me to Paulina Lake, a rustic resort of sorts, outside Bend, Oregon. Gramps taught us to fish while Gram kept the home fires burning (literally). Gramps had big hands and huge thumbs…I always wondered how the heck he tied on fish hooks with those things! Gramma taught me how to play Solitaire and my sister to play cribbage. They both let all three of us run around and hike the trails around the lake…..we had freedom that the times allowed back then – freedom that unfortunately, isn’t as ample nowadays what with abductions and such all over the news. Don’t get me wrong, they didn’t let us run rampant….they kept a firm thumb over us. But they let us grow as children need to, all the while teaching us to be good people.

Gram and Gramps may have demanded respect….I don’t actually know about the 'demand' part since I’d have given it willingly anyway. They were the be-all, end-all….the towering patriarch and matriarch of our family. I know I would not be the person I am today without having had them in my life. They were a huge, key part of my life till they passed away when I was 29 and they still influence me today.

I was lucky to have them in my life as long as I did. My second greatest sorrow in losing Gram and Gramps (my first is that I don’t have them here for me anymore – selfish? Yes, quite possibly, but oh well!), is that my daughter never got to meet them. She’s had to get to know them via family photographs and my memories and stories which are plentiful. What is so awesome about that is that I can tell she totally understands that they were two of the best people to have ever lived – and I can tell that she respects their memory and has solid understanding that they were and still are are the single greatest influence on our entire family.

Gram and Gramps….I know you’re out there. If you’re reading this today, I still miss you every day and love you more than ever. I want you to know that I wrote a poem in honor of you shortly after Grampa passed away. I thought I’d like to share my tribute to you with lots of other people, so, I turned the poem into a book and illustrated it myself. It took me a long time to complete - sadly, almost 16 years. I always knew I’d finish it though and never lost sight of my goal to get it published. So….today, finally, I am sending it off to a publisher in hopes turning it into a real book so all people can enjoy the love of wonderful grandparents like you.

To everyone who is reading this – wish me luck! I want this so badly….for my Gram and Gramps :-)

Magical Macarons! Maracons - Part 1...

That’s pronounced, “Mawk-a-rone” ….not “Mack-a-roon” (although lots of people say macaroon anyway) - (and this post will be presented in 4 parts as I found out the HARD way Blogger only accepts so many pics per post!). While a macaroon is a coconut mound of a cookie, a macaron is a delectable, French sandwich cookie that has a light, wafer-crisp shell with a dense, moist and chewy inside and has a creamy filling of salted peanut butter, chocolate ganache, salted caramel or anything else you choose!

Holy cow….if any of you know what macarons are, you know that lots of people avoid attempting them. For having very few ingredients (almond flour, powdered & granulated sugar, cocoa and egg whites), these cookies involve many steps, many particulars and can scare people away. I’ve eaten a macaron only once when a gal at work brought some in that she’d made. I was in love after the first bite and immediately started investigating them. I have to admit, at first I was a little put off – from aging the eggs whites for a few days to possibly having to grind my own nut flour to allowing them to dry before baking not to mention any sort of humidity or missteps could affect their success (or failure) in myraid ways….. Maybe they were too daunting to try – so many blogs described trouble after trouble!

Well, macarons floated in and out of my head over the months since my first tasting and this last week, the ‘floater’ finally stuck. I studied like I never had in school! I read every blog I could find, noting kinks in others attempts. I watched several youtube tutorials – one which was so awesome, featuring a French chef going through the whole process step by step. Now, I don’t speak French, but had read so much about making these little lovelies that it was pretty clear what was being said (special thanks to Javene and friend to translating those couple of key items!). As it turned out – all the things that people are intimidated by can be avoided pretty easily or really aren’t anything worth be scared off by! I can say with surety that I was extremely clear on how to get these beauties to turn out. I was up to the challenge and I had no expectation other than success in mind.

I looked forward to my Sunday baking session like one looks forward to Christmas morning….. I was that excited! So ladies and gents….I present – The Making of Macarons!!

This pic may not be monumental to you – but is was monstrously instrumental to my peace of mind in the initial steps on the macarons and I’m a big ‘prep-girl’ in general. All ingredients (recipe at the very end of this post) in these cookies are measured in grams, not cups and tablespoons etc like here in the good old US of A. So, thanks to my sister who lent me the most awesome digital scale that had metric capabilities, getting exact measurements was a cinch. You can convert the measurements by going to various on-line sites but I was concerned with them being right on since baking is such a science – especially with these babies. Anyway…I did myself the favor of measuring out everything the night before, keeping each group of components stacked together. Oh – the top container closest to the waiter cookie jar has the 7 egg whites in it. I separated the eggs on Friday night (two days prior to baking day). All cold items were kept in the fridge, not on the counter (of course!).

On Sunday (baking day!), I began by combining the almond flour (you can buy it at Fred Meyer in the nutrition center or at Whole Foods – if you don’t buy it, you must grind raw almonds in a blender or food processor until very fine), powdered sugar and cocoa

Once combined, it looks like this – kinda mealy with lotsa lumps.

To get rid of those lumps, sift the mixture into another bowl – about a quarter at a time. I used a bowl scraper to help work it through.

You’ll have little pebbles left over.

Here’s a close-up. You can toss these. I did not try to force them through as they’d have just made tinier lumps – I didn’t want any.

See how fine this looks?! Niiiiice……

Step two….Whip it good! You whip the aged egg whites with granulated sugar – added in two parts.

Whip the whites for 5 full minutes on top speed so they get super high and tight (tightie-whities?!?!)!

Next, fold in the flour mixture – added in three parts – folding until each addition is well incorporated.

Macarons - Part 2.....

After folding in the third installment of the flour mixture, I transferred the whole lot into a large bowl – this is what it looks like after all of the flour mixture has been thoroughly combined with the whipped whites.

Using a bowl scraper (you could use a large wooden spoon), scrape around the sides of the bowl to work the batter into a mound in the middle of the bowl, then smear/swipe the scraper directly through the middle. Repeat this action again and again until it’s smooth and flows off the edge of the scraper like lava. About 10 or 15 passes should do it. Once ‘lava’ has been achieved, fill a large pastry bag fitted with a plain, round tip (a half inch diameter opening is good) with the batter.

Pipe mounds of batter onto silpat and/or double parchment-lined cookies sheets (my silpat was on a sheet pan, parchment on insulated cookie sheets). The mounds should be a little wider than a quarter and about ½ inch high. I’d have taken a picture, but didn’t want to set down my filled pastry bag. The mounds will begin to settle right away, changing to a half-dollar size or so.

Next, hold the baking sheet up with one hand and smack the bottom of it with your other hand – not so hard that you knock the cookies into tomorrow, just gentle-ish smacks to remove any big air bubbles form the cookies. Then set the trays aside for at least ten minutes – this allows the cookies to dry a bit. After ten or fifteen minutes, lightly touch the top of one of the cookies – if it’s dry and your finger comes away clean, they are ready for the oven. I baked one sheet at a time – letting the others sit and simply dry longer. Bake each tray at 300 degrees for 23 minutes. You may investigate other blogs that say 10 minutes or even 15. but here’s what I found…..

I took my first tray out at 10 minutes - the youtube, French chef video that I’d practically memorized had said to bake the cookies 25 minutes, but I have to admit, every other blog/site I’d read had sworn by baking for only 10-15…..so baking 25 scared me. However…I was sorry almost immediately. Within 20 seconds of resting on the cooling rack, the ‘puff’ began to escape my cookies. As you can see above, the very center of each cookie looks a shade darker than the edges. That tells me there is lesser baked batter there. So, even though I’d already put in my second tray, I slid this first batch back in on the upper rack hoping to salvage them.

Well...the came out only okay. Nothing turns out great when you need to put it back in the oven. This first tray resulted in a few great cookies, a few flat cookies and as you can see…a few cracked ones as well. I attribute the cracks to possibly not having dried long enough because as you can see……..

….these next ones came out beautifully!

And so did these! See that crinkly part at the bottom of each cookie? That’s called the ‘foot’ and the foot is a must on macarons! I will tell you that for the parchment-lined sheets of cookies, I did what I’d read on many a site. While the cookies were baking, I took a spare, cool cookie sheet and after wetting a dish towel with water, swiped the wet towel across the cool sheet leaving behind an even coating of ‘droplettes’. They weren’t really ‘drops’ of water as much as just an even smear of water dampness across the entire sheet. Once the hot cookie sheet came out of the oven, I used a pair of tongs to slide the parchment with hot cookies onto the cold, water-dampened sheet. Does that make sense? This helps in removal of the cookies from the parchment (mine did not stick at all. I used my fingers to remove a few, but in general, used a small, off-set spatula.

They were so beautiful I had to get one more shot! Love those pretty feet!

Macarons - Part 3.....

I made a salted caramel sauce for one of the fillings. I began by boiling sugar, corn syrup and water to 330-degrees – added vanilla…..

….then cream and a little salt and once it cooled, whisked in some butter. I will say it never set up enough to fill the cookies with it –

So, after reserving some in a separate mixing bowl, I poured the rest into a plastic container…..

..to save for later. I see vanilla ice cream with caramel topping in someone’s future!

With the sauce that I reserved, I simply whisked in some powdered sugar and made it into more of a creamy frosting. This worked really well. Here are the cookies filled with the salted caramel cream.

I also made salted peanut butter filling. It was super easy and the taste was to die for! There was a little left over and I’m positive it’s a direct match for Reeses peanut butter filling!

Happy, little plops of pb…..

…and ready go to!

Macarons - Part 4....

My last filling was chocolate ganache. I’ve made ganache many times but this seemed thin to me. So, like the caramel sauce, I put some ganache in a bowl and whisked in some powdered sugar and made a creamy icing….(that's the leftover icing in the small container)...

…then filled the cookies…..

…and topped them off!

All three delicate macarons in each flavor - pour picture quality here - they look washed out :-(

After all the cookies had been filled and I'd cleaned up, I just happened to check the ganache and noticed it HAD set up! I couldn’t scrape off the chocolate icing fast enough!

I then put a creamy, chocolaty dollop of ganache on each half……

…and retopped them. SO much better!

Mmmmm…this one is peanut butter. Crisp on the outside, tender, moist and chewy on the inside - and the salted pb….a perfect compliment to the sweet cookie shell.

The final result! Delightful, delectable macarons! I cannot wait to make them again! Scary? Not half as much as blogs can make them seem. Just be prepared, study up and tackle them! They are SO worth it!

Here’s the recipe – all the instructions can be followed as told above. And I’m only giving the peanut butter filling recipe since the ganache and salted caramel didn’t turned out as they should’ve.

Macarons

250 grams of almond powder
450 grams of powdered sugar
40 grams cocoa

200 grams of egg whites

50 grams of white sugar

Salted Peanut Butter Filling

125 grams creamy peanut butter

70 grams powdered sugar

25 grams softened butter

25 grams heavy cream

5 grams vanilla extract

3 grams fine sea salt

Whip all ingredients together and cover (and chill if necessary) till ready to use.

Fun 21.....

There’s really just one type of gift for someone turning 21 – alcohol – for those celebrants who choose to imbibe, that is.

This past weekend was one of my niece’s 21st birthday – well, she’s not really my niece – she’s the daughter of my husband’s aunt (after 20+ years of marriage she’s my aunt too!) – but because she was born rather late in my aunt’s life, she’s very close in age/the same generation of all the other nieces in my family, so, I think of her as a niece. Besides...I really don’t know what she is...one of those cousin kind of relations… Second cousin or something? I dunno – to me she’s my niece – so there! Anyway… My husband and I knew we wanted to get her a bottle of something fun to celebrate her ‘legality’ and since slamming tequila shots has it’s own little, fun ‘process’ we decided on that.

Now, times are kinda tight so we wanted to watch our dollars – but I was able to put together a really fun gift for a nominal fee and got to get creative at the same time – which helped make the gift a little more fun and personal too. I like to make a gift complete – so we put together a whole straight shot ‘kit’. We got a fifth of Jose Cuervo and got a classic, heavy-weight, plain shot glass at the liquor store as well. A lime at the grocery store rounded out the items we purchased and I already had the arts-n-crafts portion of the gift at home. I’d previously bought a plain glass salt-n-pepper shaker so I could use my glass paints on them for a fun art project on some random rainy day. Well…although we’ve had plenty of rain since the time I bought the set, I’d never gotten around to painting them – so this gift gave me the perfect opportunity! I used just one shaker and used some puff paints to decorate it. I woulda used actual glass paint, but I’d taken them on a summer camping trip and inadvertently left them in our trailer. We don’t keep the trailer at our house so….no glass paints. Improvisation makes you test and push yourself to make do with what you have and I gotta tell ya…I think this shaker turned out better with the puff paints than it woulda with the ‘right’ paint! It had dimension and the colors were great – it had a little personality! I wrote ‘Tequila’ on one side, ‘Salt’ on another and painted little lime wedges accented with tiny yellow and orange dots on two other sides. The colors are ‘citrusy’ and seem kinda juicy and fun.

Now….had I known before the birthday party that my niece doesn’t ‘do’ shots, we’da bought some other kind of liquor! However…maybe she can entertain with this fun, little set. With the way some people started downing shots the night of her celebration, I don’t think this kit will sit idol for long. Anyone recognizing themselves here??? ;-)

Thanks for a great evening AD!!! And happy 21st SRS!!!

Looks good enough to eat.....

After I made mini turnovers on Sunday (see a post or two below), I made these! If you haven't figured it out yet, I have a food OBSESSION ;-) I think about food pretty much 24/7, so making tiny foods out of Sculpey/Fimo, is totally up my alley. Clearly, I was thinking about sweets on Sunday as no meat-n-taters was formed from the colorful clay - but I can pretty much bet some pizza slices and s'ketti will be sculpted soon! Food items aren't the only things I like to make....but they are the most fun - everyone likes miniature nibbles! They saturate the marketplace!On a recent birthday, I got a gift certificate to Joann's Super Store from my mom and I quickly went out to buy new clay blocks and a pasta machine for clay work as well. I could hardly wait to get my hands on the fresh, bright, soft blocks so I could get busy molding the images that were in my head. I think this chocolate cake almost looks good enough to eat! Doesn't it look so totally chocolatey?!? Makes me crave a big ol' glass of ice cold milk!

Although I'm not a huge blueberry fan, I had to make this blueberry pie. But dang....that sucker took tons of tiny balls! My fingers were tired! And then to make a cherry pie too?! I was clay-crazy!

I'm not making these tiny treats just for fun - this past spring our neighborhood had a street faire. I sold cookies-n-creme truffles (see recipe post around 11/08) and I'm happy to say they were a hit! As soon as we sold out I knew I wanted to participate in next year's faire but wanted to sell something people could buy and keep - not just eat. I'd made magnets from baking clay before and knew right away I wanted to do so again. It's a great hobby and fun to do while my husband watches football - I like the sound in the background - sounds like fall :-) Anyway...I'll attatch magnets to the backs of these and all the other ones that I create over the coming weekends. It's so fun to have a project to do - especially once the rain comes...makes me feel cozy... I can't wait to see what my hands make next!

The Hubs Can Cook!

Ya gotta give props when props are due..the platter shown above is what my family of three dug into last night for dinner... it was super good!

The Hubs has been out of work for several weeks (this economy sucks!) and besides keeping our lawn looking pristine in these early fall days and folding daily loads of laundry, he's started what might very well be called a TV affair with Ina Garten (above is her spaghetti and meatballs).

When I imagine him watching her show and backing up the DVR as needed to make sure he gets the recipe written down completely, it reminds me of the movie Mr. Mom and the scene where Michael Keaton and other gentlemen waiting for the same job interview begin exchanging recipes amongst each other.

Actually, I love that he's taking the bull by the horns. He dons an apron and guards what he's simmering.... I DO have to admit it's hard for me to give up the reins in the kitchen because not only do I usuakky do about 90% of the cooking, but I totally enjoy it too. I'm a bit of a control freak - I think I've admitted that here before.

Anyway... it's been fun to have him whip up dishes he has taken a liking to and not having to lift a finger once I get home from work is pretty fun! I get to come home, change clothes, get in a workout and sit down to a tasty meal. Having him off work is certainly not the ideal, but a shining dish at dinner time helps to put a positive spin on a less fortunate situation.

Thanks for cookin' Poppy!

Pouches-O-Pleasure....

Light, flaky, slightly sweet… These little gems came out of my kitchen yesterday. They were easy and fun to make. I have to admit I got the idea from another blog I read called Dozen Flours – other blogs are a god source of inspiration and you can put your own spin on things they have done to make them more to your suiting. I made fresh pie dough on Saturday evening, using my food processor for the first time in doing so. I gotta say….it was the fastest and best dough I’ve ever made! I used frozen butter – they say to use very cold butter – and since I was using the processor, I figured I could get away with the coldest...frozen! it seemed to make a difference and it’s the way I’ll make dough from here on out. It took me longer to measure the ingredients that it did to form the actual dough. Way easy-schmeezy. The rest was child’s play….strawberry jam for one flavor of mini turnover, then a brainstormed cinnamon cream cheese version as well. The filling procedure was a tiny bit tricky – can’t put too much in or they’re hard to seal – learned that one the hard way. And some of the filling can bubble out leaving the puffed inside more hollow than I’d have liked. But…they were tender, flaky and a nice change from the everyday. I’d make the strawberry ones again in a flash…the cinnamon cream cheese were the ones that bubbled a but much – might have to work on those J Oh – and a note…get as many rounds cut from the dough on it’s first roll-out. I re-used my dough three times and the last few I cut out weren’t as flaky-tender as the first and second batch. Try some fun mini turnovers soon and use whatever filing curls your toes! They’re sweeet!

I made my dough the night before – chilled it in the fridge over night, the rolled it out and cut 3 ½ “ scalloped rounds…

I laid them on parchment paper for easy baking/removal...

Next came the strawberry jam filling! Yum!

See these? The blobs of jam are a bit too big – make your blobs about half…say, ½ to ¾ of a teaspoon

Next came the cinnamon cream cheese – I just mixed a few tablespoons cream cheese with about a tablespoon of powdered sugared and several shakes of ground cinnamon and mixed it well.

I got these blobs right the first time…..

I brushed all around the edges of the dough circles with beaten egg, then folded them over and pressed down the edges and lightly brushed the tops with more egg.

Then I sprinkled each with large-crystal sugar because it gives a lovely shimmer and teeny, tiny crunch. So good!

Each batch was baked at 350-degrees for 15 to 16 minutes and they came out puffed and golden……Ooooooo…….

Here you see some of the cream cheese that bubbled right out of the tops!

The tiny turnovers were so yummy when warm…but still melt-in-your-mouth once cooled as well. Mini turnovers will be guests in my kitchen often!