Cinnamon Swirly Bread

I have a terrible fear that my house smells bad. I know, gross, right? It’s just that we’ve got these two giant old dogs, and I don’t want to be one of those people who doesn’t realize that her house smells like giant old dog. But I also don’t want to be one of those people who obsessively cleans. It’s a real Catch-22.

Lily Von Lilybuns, stinky dog extraordinaire

Scrappy Von Scrappleheimer, he's happier than he looks.

So, I try to keep things reasonably clean, but I also try to air things out a lot. And I burn a lot of candles, too, but I don’t want to be one of those crazy candle-burning people. So mostly, I try to bake things that give the house a heady cinnamon smell. And when I saw that Megan over at Megan’s Cookin’ made this cinnamon bread, I thought it might be the perfect antidote for my giant-old-dog-stink-phobia. Turns out, not only did it smell great, but it tasted even better.

Tiny Apple Tarts

I just adore tiny tarts.

Whoa, that sounded wrong. I don’t mean like Tila Tequila. *shudder* No, I mean actual desserts. Sometimes, like today, I just crave tiny fruit tarts. Flaky and fruity – they seem like they’re light; like a perfect snack with a cup of tea, or maybe, if I’m really feeling indulgent, with an afternoon cup of decaf. Yes, that’s right, sometimes I like to get fancy and pretend I’m in France. At least, I imagine everyone in France is eating pastries and drinking coffee in the afternoons…

If you keep puff pastry on hand, these are SO easy to make. They take maybe 5 minutes to throw together. Then toss them in the oven while the coffee is brewing, and voila, a lovely snack. Don your beret, put on some accordion music, and you will be utterly transported.

Perfect guacamole, every time

How on earth did we end up with five avocados? Yeesh. I’ve no idea how it happened. No idea at all. It just rained avocados, apparently. And what with all of the holiday foodstuffs going on, I neglected them. I just couldn’t figure out how to work them into my brussels sprouts dish that I brought to our family dinner. Needless to say, they were starting to get a little, er, ripe.

I sliced one onto some green chile last night, which left me with four. What to do, what to do…Well, you know that old saw, “When life hands you avocados, make guacamole.” And since I just happened to have a lime that needed to be used, post-haste, as well as a wrinkly jalapeno, guacamole was what I made. Perfect.

I’ve no idea where I got this recipe, or if it ever even was a recipe. I’ve been making it for at least 15 years, ever since I found out what guacamole was and that it could made much, much better than the paste they served at Chi Chi’s right before the fried ice cream.

Red Pepper & Tomato Soup

Apparently, I owe an apology to my fan! (My sole loyal reader. Thank you, Jerry! Of course he was an English teacher. Note to self: proofread more carefully.) I haven’t written in a while, I know.  Work, I tell you, work has left me no time to write or cook or comb my hair or make sure my socks match each day.

Anyway, I’m finally coming out of my ginger thing. Branching out a little. We’ve had some cold weather and snow, and what goes better with cold weather and snow than soup?

I’ve always been a fan of tomato soup, especially on a cold day, partnered up with a grilled cheese. So, when my mother told me that she’d been making this version of tomato soup, I had to try it. It’s so easy. And the final product is really impressive. In fact, it would make a good Thanksgiving Eve dinner, because it’s pretty light (though it feels substantial as you’re eating it).

Chocolate-ginger cupcakes

If you can’t keep a secret from Martha Stewart, please don’t read this!

During a recent trip to the library, I picked up a copy of Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes. I didn’t think I would actually make any; remember, the Sandwich Hoss family can’t just have a batch of cupcakes around, or we will eat every last one of them in one sitting. But the recipe for ginger cupcakes was just so tempting. (I seem to be going through a ginger “thing.” First those amazing cookies, now these cupcakes.) And I had a snow day. (That’s right, a snow day! In October! If you know anyone who teaches, you know that teachers enjoy snow days much, much more than students do.) Can you just see it? The snow was dumping down. I had soft music tinkling in the background. I was reading a British murder mystery. The ONLY thing that could have rounded it out was a ginger cupcake.

So I decided to mess around with Martha Stewart’s recipe. I know! Who does that?! Oh god, please don’t tell her. I imagine she gets really mad about things like that. She’s a scary lady.

I scaled the recipe back and came up with a recipe that made three cupcakes in a normal cupcake pan. And they were really pretty delicious, especially when topped with my new favorite: yogurt frosting. But I couldn’t just leave it at that. I wanted to make them even better. Besides, three cupcakes is a weird amount. I can’t bake odd numbers of foodstuffs and feel okay about it. It’s… unsettling. So last night I tinkered again and made them chocolatey this time, and filled two custard cups with the batter. So instead of three normal cupcakes, I had two larger ones. (Yes, I realize there’s really no logic behind that. Three normal-sized cupcakes unsettles me, but the same amount of batter in two larger cupcakes is pleasing. I know. I know. If you’re thinking that Mr. Sandwich Hoss must be a real saint to put up with the likes of me, you’re partially right.)

Ginger cookies

What is it about ginger?

Does anyone want gingery foods when they’re NOT feeling sorry for themselves? Or when they’re NOT cold? Or when it’s NOT gloomy out? Or when they’re NOT obsessively listening to their old Thelonius Monk albums? Maybe it’s just me.

I also never want gingery foods in the summer or spring. It’s a fall/winter flavor for me. I dig my corduroys out from the bottom of my dresser; I buy giant chunks of ginger. Gingerbread, ginger-studded granola, ginger-miso soup – It’s a seasonally-influenced MOOD thing, you know?

I bookmarked this recipe last year from the blog Christie’s Corner, and I’ve been going back to it whenever I’m feeling sorry for myself, or when I’m cold, or when it’s gloomy, or when I’m listening to jazz, or, of course, when I’m wearing my corduroys. Finally, this weekend, all of those events converged. A sign, I was sure, that it was time to finally make the darned things.

Can you see the chunk of ginger in this one?

Apple-Pomegranate Crisp

I went to the now-defunct Antioch College. It was located in Yellow Springs, Ohio, a wacky little hippie town in the middle of nowhere. Antioch was a strange place – super small, and packed full of mostly rich, really nutty kids. The school had what they called a cooperative education program, which meant that students alternated quarters on and off campus – studying on campus, working off campus. My first work experience took me to Marin County, California, where I worked as a classroom aide at an alternative elementary school. It wasn’t the best time I’ve ever had. In fact, I think I titled my final project for that internship “Evil Devil Child, Take Me to an Early Grave.”

While I was there, I lived with a family who had a son at the school where I worked. They were all nice enough, though at the time they seemed really foreign. Really California. For instance, one night they passed a platter of artichokes around the table, and everyone took one. They all seemed so… nonchalant about it.  But I’d never eaten a whole artichoke before (only artichoke hearts from a jar). I had nary an idea about how to eat the thing. I had to ask, which threw them into hysterics. That’s right. I was laughed at by a family of Californians. *sigh* A formative moment in my life.

Well, when our produce box arrived this week with two pomegranates in it, I was hearkened back to that day. I knew how to eat pomegranate seeds. Or, at least, I thought I did. I always sort of crunched them to get the juice out, then I’d spit out the hard bit inside. But I wanted to do something  more with them. Something fabulous. I found a recipe for an apple-pomegranate crisp on the website of our produce company. Perfect. Only, I had no idea exactly what part of the pomegranate to add to the dish. It said, “remove skins and white membranes.” But, isn’t that all there is in a pomegranate, aside from the seeds, of course?

I had to Google “how to cook with a pomegranate.” Or something like that. I found out you can actually eat the entire seed. I feel so silly now. Like if a family of Californians were to read this, they’d surely laugh at me. No, really, you can just go ahead and eat the whole darned seed! Just eat it; it’s not a big deal. I think maybe I was afraid to eat the entire seed before because people always told me that eating fruit seeds would make fruit trees grow in my stomach. Wouldn’t that be horrible? I always had a vivid, awful image of that in my head when I was a child.

Tamales: The Ultimate Grandma Food

Ach. It was One of Those Weeks. You know what I’m talking about. Twelve-hour days at work, insomnia, problems with the dog. By Wednesday, I felt as though I couldn’t go on. I wanted to hide under a table somewhere. I wanted to drink heavily. I really, really wanted sleep. But I had to soldier on. Must do my duty for the American Education System.

On Thursday morning, one of my students wandered into my classroom before the day got rolling and informed me that her grandmother would be making tamales, and that 12 of those suckers could be mine for the low, low price of $10. Yes! A reason to LIVE! She returned the next morning, juggling three giant shopping bags of tamales for me and the other teachers on my team. They were still hot. OMG.

The thought of those tamales got me through the day, got me through the couple hours I stayed late at work to get stuff done, and got me through my bike ride home. What a treat. They’re so cute, all tied up like little corn babies. And they’re somehow completely fluffy and completely moist all at once. And the meat, my god, the meat. Spicy and moist, it falls apart in your mouth. Wow. They are literally the best tamales I’ve ever eaten.

Isn’t grandma food the best?

Making tamales is nearly an all-day endeavor. I used this recipe once, and they turned out well (although sort of small and it didn’t make enough to make all the labor worth it.). I recommend buying them from someone’s grandma, instead.

Oatmeal Cake, redux & redone

So, remember that oatmeal cake? You know, the one that tasted pretty good, but was enough to feed an army of dock workers? And it had that disappointing topping. Well, I revisited it yesterday. Scaled it down, changed the topping, and OH MAH GAW, I loved it. The new cakes are simple, unfussy. The kind of cakes you eat after a bowl of something sturdy and frugal, like a stew with potatoes. They might also make a good Sunday breakfast, with a cup of strong coffee.

Bakers are so weird about scaling back recipes. Have you noticed? They’re always like, “Now, now, you can’t just go scaling back a recipe!” But that’s pretty much exactly what I did here, and it worked just fine. I cut it all back by 1/4, thinking it would be just the right size to fill two ramekins. (It seems the years I’ve spent teaching 6th and 7th grade math have finally come in handy. Not to toot my horn, but I can multiply fractions really well. I should enter a fraction-multiplying contest.) Shrinking the recipe by a fourth was perfect. The batter was exactly the right size for two ramekins (I used one round and one oblong. Robert made off with my second oblong ramekin. I haven’t seen it for a week, at least. What on earth could he be doing with it?). The cakes rose nicely, so the ratios of leaveners is correct. They were moist, so the recipe still had the right amount of oatmeal and butter. And the flavor was great, too. Perfect amount of cinnamon.

Butterscotch Bread Pudding

My grandmother taught me how to ride a bike. I was about 6 years old, and I had a Strawberry Shortcake bike with a giant banana seat and streamers dangling from the handlebars. It originally had training wheels, but my grandfather removed them shortly after I got it. My grandmother spent what seemed like hours running up and down the alley behind her house, holding the back of the seat of the bike while I pedaled, helping me balance. Eventually, she let go.

That was a life-changing moment for me. Being able to ride a bike made everything different. When I was a kid, it was a way to get a little freedom and to have some fun. When I was in middle and high school, it was a way to get exercise and to keep my head screwed on straight. When I got older, I spent 8 years as a bike messenger, so it was my livelihood and it also ended up being how I met my husband. Now it’s my main form of transportation, of exercise, of fun, and a great excuse to never, ever have to do my hair.

But back to my grandma. In addition to the bike thing, she was also a pretty great cook and wielded a lot of influence over how I eat. She turned me onto rice pilaf when I was, like, 8. She taught me how amazing mandarin oranges are. She never made me eat mashed potatoes when I went through my “I can’t eat anything mushy” phase.

Maybe it was because she was born and raised in Ireland, but her meals were often a little… different than traditional American meals. For instance, her idea of a proper Thanksgiving dessert wasn’t pumpkin pie. No, it was a trifle. Were we the only family in the US eating a layered concoction of lady fingers, whipped cream (always from scratch, never from a can), fruit, and various other bits and bobs? Let’s just say my friends didn’t seem to be eating trifles for their holiday desserts.

Bread pudding has always sort of been lumped into the same dessert category as trifles in my brain. Something they eat in British mysteries (“Inspector Wickett finished his Stilton and then asked Rutherford for a helping of bread pudding!”). So when I decided to make this dessert, I had my grandma in my mind the whole time. It seemed like it would be a quick dessert, an easy way to use up a couple slices of *ahem* aging bread, and a nice way to round out an autumn day of mountain biking. The recipe (from Small-Batch Baking, of course!) didn’t disappoint. It WAS easy! It was pretty quick. The pudding wasn’t too eggy, and the bread firmed up nicely after baking (I hate the idea of soggy bread.). Oh, and it was also a fun way to christen my new oblong ramekins I got at the thrift store yesterday!