Wise Craft

plum cake

Friday found me at home by myself for most of the day. I looked around me, blank stare... "Where is everybody?" People, this never happens! Working at home, as we do, not only do we bump into each other constantly throughout the day, there are usually other people coming and going. The little person energy gets added in the late afternoon, you get the idea. So to have a little time to myself to do whatever was quite a treat. I immediately decided to bake with all those plums and found the perfect little recipe in Smitten Kitchen's Dimply Plum Cake.

For my version, I chopped the plums into chunks (with skin) and folded them into the batter last thing.

And the best part? I had cake for lunch without someone walking by commenting "you're having cake for lunch?". I don't know exactly when a day will open itself up like that again any time soon, so I took full advantage (like I plugged into hulu.com after I ate my lunch). Truth is though, I love the energy at my house, it keeps me on my toes.

Notice our chair up there in the first photo. I recovered those seat bottoms several weeks ago with Anna Maria Horner's Good Folks laminated fabric. Best and most practical DIY project I think I've ever done. The pattern is pretty and works in our house, and the seats wipe clean! Its great!

One more thing, tonight for dinner, we had one of our favorite dinners, Smoky Beef Tacos from Everyday Food. Something about the smoky taste of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce that I love, this dish will be plenty for leftovers the next day too.

Have a great Monday! Eat cake!

Brownstone Front Cake

You folks are special. You should know that, because I would not give this coveted family recipe to just anyone. All clever, pun-filled catchy blog titles aside, this is a cake worthy of its own post.

First, a tiny bit of personal history about this cake. Most of the bigger family get-togethers we had when I was growing up ("bigger" could mean 40 people at times) often, but not always, included a Brownstone Front Cake on the dessert table, (and lots of card tables for extra seating, and my Dad's favorite chocolate meringue pie, but that a dessert worth its own post too). There would be side mumblings as we arrived at the house, "did you see that there is a Brownstone cake?". It was actually not much to "see" at that point, usually completely covered with aluminum foil, ominously fruitcake-like in its covered state. Some of us would gauge our servings at mealtime specifically to leave adequate room for a big slice of that cake...or two, if you were sneaky, because there was rarely any left.

My sister-in-law's mom, Doris, was the person who introduced these cakes to my family. Over the years Doris has probably made a hundred of these, each with a zillion layers, sandwiching the amazing carmel-y icing. It assures you'll get the best of everything in every single forkful.

The exact origins of this cake are unclear (some history here), and there are many versions of this cake. The name explains the color, and perhaps the endless layers of the version from my childhood, which is where the recipe I'm giving you today comes from. The "icing" can best be described as a form of caramel, in color and taste. The cake batter turns a beautiful tan color from the addition of the 3 tablespoons of cocoa. There are moments when I was creating this cake, for a July 4th gathering, that I thought I was screwing it up, but the next step always proved I was still on track.

The disclaimer ~ I will not deny, this recipe has a ton of butter. Its beyond rich, as I think cake should be. It really is a once a year cake in my opinion. Its memorable, and its worth every minute it takes to stand over the stove and cook the icing (for there was no "frosting" on my childhood cakes, only icing). My version makes 3 standard-sized layers. You could easily make this 6 layers by slicing each one in half, so you choose.

Brownstone Front Cake

3/4 cup warm water                                        1 tsp. vanilla

3 Tbsp. cocoa                                                 1 tsp. baking soda

2 cups sugar                                                   1 cup buttermilk

1/2 lb. of unsalted butter, softened                 3 cups all-purpose flour

3 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put cocoa in warm water and set aside. Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix well with each addition. Add vanilla to cocoa and water and add to mixture. (At this point, my cake batter looked curdled, but don't dismay, it will change.) Add soda to buttermilk. Alternate adding flour and buttermilk mixture to bowl, mixing only to combine with each addition. I ended with buttermilk, made sure all was mixed. At that point I has gorgeously smooth batter a beautiful golden brown color. Pour equal amounts into 3 buttered and floured cake pans. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before icing it.

Icing

3 1/2 cups sugar (I know!)                               12 oz. Carnation evaporated milk

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (!!)                         1 1/4 tsp. vanilla

Cook sugar, butter, and evaporated milk in a heavy bottomed pot on stove top. Bring to a bubbling boil, then lower the heat to a bubbly simmer, stirring often and adjusting heat as necessary. Cook 35 to 40 minutes. Add vanilla, beat mixture in bowl of electric mixture until creamy.*This icing needs to cool down quite a bit before spreading it on the cake, so you could start it while the cake is baking. Spread a generous amount of icing between each of the layers, then spread the remainder of the of the icing over the cake. If icing still seems to be running, put everything in the refrigerator to cool down.

Serve at room temperature.

Enjoy!

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A bit of business, I currently have 10 subscribers through Feedblitz. They are asking me to pay them money each month in order to keep this service and that seems a bit counterintuitive to me. I will not be continuing with Feedblitz and hope that you guys will subscribe to the wise craft feed another way (there are options on the left sidebar and at the top). Sorry for the inconvenience.

a second glance in the pantry

I've been loving Molly's blog these days, I love her style of writing, the way she talks about days with her kids, and life in general. Her grocery challenge post really made me think last week. Our dining habits need overhauling. We are one of those totally city families when it comes to food. We take full advantage of the quick, easy, and good food around us whenever we feel busy or too lazy to cook for ourselves. Which is often these days. Too often. And too expensive. Don't get me wrong, I really do like to cook, but I don't like to cook for picky eaters, and its hard to stay motivated to be creative with our meals. So, we head out to eat, or we grab on the go, yet always feel guilty about the expense and lack of thought put into it.

So, when I read Molly's post about skipping the grocery store for a week, I decided to give it a try...of sorts. My mindset was to let us run out of some things. The idea was to work through our seemingly abundant supply in the pantry and really stop and think about meal prep. Today, when Peter was heading home from the track, he called to asked if he should pick up lunch. "There's stuff here to eat", I suggested. "But I don't think there's anything I want, and I'm starving." The lack of a response on my end of the line was apparently all it took for him to quickly rethink lunch. We figured out within a minute that everything was here for tuna melts. Turns out we had everything on hand for homemade pizza for dinner too, plus watermelon. Pizza is one of those meals that pleases everybody in my house. If I make the dough, I know what's in it (and I can usually get little hands to help me). I gather, chop, grate, and carmelize what's in the fridge, then put it all out for everyone to make their own versions. (My most successful pizza dough recipes are always the ones from The Best Recipe, from the editors of Cook's Illustrated. Tonight I made the fast rise one in my standing mixer. It rises in about 40 minutes with the help of a preheated oven.)

Molly, thank you so much for inspiring me. I am happy we are getting back on track here.

OK, back tomorrow. I made some stuff over the weekend.

B

our bread and butter

I need to start this post with a disclaimer. You see, I, like yourself, try very hard to extol the virtues of whole wheat living on my family (peppered with the occasional "do as I say, not as I do", because, well, I've been waiting my whole life to say that!). I do like it, and my kids come around to it in fits and spurts, which I can live with.

But...

I have those days (and my kids most definitely have them too) where nothings going to be better than white bread and butter. Nothing else will do, honestly...nothing. It will immediately take me back to being a kid, when biscuits were made with every meal. Biscuits aside (we've discussed those here before), we recently got a new bread machine after being without one for over 2 years. I will hold the final verdict on whether or not this machine is a winner. Bread loaf #1 was a too dense, undercooked, flattened pancake. Bleh... I knew I had to change up a few things for loaf #2. I needed to buy new yeast...and I needed to pull out our favorite bread recipe. No more of this let's follow the one in the instruction book business.

I put the ingredients in the machine, made a few adjustments to the settings, pushed go, and left to pick up the kids. "If we're lucky, when we walk in the house its going to smell like fresh bread. If we're lucky."

We were lucky all right. The house smelled heavenly (actual sighs from us when we walked in). The loaf came out beautifully. Light, fluffy, perfect color and texture. I'm now fully convinced that I can't go wrong with this recipe, ever. I've made it for years and the only complaint I had using it in my old machine is that the loaf size was too big. Its a old James Beard recipe, given to me by my friend Sarah, who has no idea how much we love this bread.

Our recipe is for a bread machine, loaf size is a little over 2 lb.

Buttermilk White Bread

recipe from James Beard

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp. melted butter

1-1 1/4 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup warm water

3 1/2 cups unbleached white flour

1 Tbsp granulated sugar

1 Tbsp salt

2 packages dry yeast

(add all to the bread machine in the order it is written, set for Basic mode).

Standby with butter or homemade jam, ready to grab it when its ready.

grilling vegetables

As an adult, probably one of my favorite things about summer is the abundance of super fresh, gorgeous vegetables. Farmers markets literally make the hair on the back of my neck stand up in excitement, and I love opening the kitchen pantry and fridge to see all those beautiful bright colors ready to eat.

We are big grillers here at my house. In my humble opinion, everything tastes better grilled (especially fruit), and its this time of year when grilled vegetables start showing up in literally everything I cook. I do not even begin to think that I am an expert on grilling vegetables, but I wanted to talk about them because of how good and familiar they are to me. Last night, I thought the cupboards were bare and that there was an emergency trip to the market in my future. When l spotted several vegetables that had never made their way onto the table that week, I started up the grill. They were perhaps not at the tippy top peak of their freshness, but grilling takes care of that. Zucchini, shallots, red bell peppers, and eggplant...

I brushed a little olive oil on each side, seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper, then put them the grill (fully pre-heated on high, turned down slightly when I put on the veggies). I have friends who use those special wire grill pans that hold the veggies in it as they grill, but I never have and have never had a problem (cut the pieces large enough so they don't fall through the grill). A few minutes on each side, and you're done. (I prefer to grill the shallots whole, to a dark char on the outside, making them soft and sweet on the inside.)

I found some slivered almonds, which I lightly toasted, then made a salad with radishes and grape tomatoes (no cheese, boo!). The grilled vegetables that were left over will show up wraps, sandwiches, and salads we'll eat over the next few days.

And then it will be time to grill again.

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Oh, and here are the winners of the book giveaway:

Of the Cotton, Wool, Linen book-

Sarah said...

I've just started sewing and I love the idea of trying something from these books with linen.

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Alyssa said...

I'd love to own either of these!

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Of the Patchwork book-

AngieK said...

Ooooh, I just love Japanese craft books!

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Bean said...

yes, please!

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If we have not already exchanged emails, please send me your mailing address at wisecraftblog@gmail.com so you can get your book. Thanks so much to everyone who played along. I really wish everybody could get a book!

our go-to soup to get us through the last days of winter

Is it still winter?

I guess it still feels like winter, so its still winter. sigh.... I think I saw some flowers popping up today, but geez, they must be shivering. Emma tells me we may get snow on Thursday. To that I say "oh great..." but then I think to myself if its gonna be this cold, it might as well snow.

Because it is still very much soup weather in my mind, I wanted to share with you our newest "go-to soup". This would be part of our families "go-to" dinner list (default meals that work when I'm desperate), which we are using quite a bit this week. There is a teensy bit of background here. You see, to know me is to know that I love the tortilla soup at Tacos Guymas here in town. I crave that soup (in my sleep even). The kids and I go there to eat every couple of weeks or so when we're out until dinner, and I talk them into going there, really, just so I can order that soup. Its served to me in a super large bowl, way too big for one meal (so, lucky me, I get to have it the next day too). Its full of shredded chicken, bright green avocados, cilantro, queso cheese, tortilla chips (that somehow never get soggy), just full of flavor and extremely satisfying.

It has been a goal to recreate this soup at home and I think I finally have it. Its simple, and I usually have most of the ingredients on hand. And, depending on how much refuge you take in the kitchen preparing dinner, you can certainly cook the chicken yourself, but I usually opt for the local market's pre-roasted whole chicken for ease. If you plan to do this, keep everything else you add unsalted to compensate for the salt in the roasted chicken.

If you try it let me know.

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Tortilla soup (serves 4-6)

2 tsp. olive oil
1 white or yellow onion, chopped small
2 scallions, chopped small and including 1/3 of the green stem
2 32 oz. boxes of reduced sodium chicken stock
1 large avocado
3/4 cup queso cheese
3 cups of shredded, pre-cooked chicken- white meat only
finely chopped fresh cilantro for garnish
unsalted tortilla strips (recipe below)
freshly ground pepper

1. Heat olive oil over med. high heat in a dutch oven or your favorite soup pot. Add onions and cook to soften (not brown), add scallions, cook for one minute more.

2. Pour in chicken broth, then add in shredded chicken. Heat through for 15 minutes.

3. slice Avocado evenly into bite-sized chunks, add to soup pot. Add some pepper.

4. To serve, ladle soup in bowl, add in queso cheese, then tortilla chips, then cilantro.

*Leftover soup is fine with chicken and avocado in it, but store the tortilla chips, cilantro, and queso cheese separately.

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Tortilla chips

If you don't have unsalted tortilla chips, its easy to make your own with corn tortillas. Heat 1 tsp of olive oil in a pan on med high heat. Cut 4 tortilla into strips, add to a pan, let them brown a tiny bit, turning them occasionally, until they are crispy.

And let me say, I do love my kitchen for many reasons, but there is absolutely no way I can get a great shot of anything in there, the lighting is just not good for it! Drives me nuts. Thank god this isn't a food blog!

And lastly, I leave you with a photo Peter took today, to show me who finally discovered the beanbag-

ginger crinkles and spritz

A plate of cookies for you!

We are the kind of family that are hopelessly devoted to our favorite cookie recipes during the holidays. Sure, we'll dabble in the unknowns of new fangled confection we've never met before, but we tend to stick to our favorites when baking here at home. I'm happy to say I took a chance this year and pulled out an old recipe I was given at a cookie exchange at least 12 years ago and hit a home run. Ian tends to love anything gingerbreadish, and has eaten a fair amount of these since we've been snowed in this week, so he has become our resident expert on the crinkles. They are super easy, have a combined crisp and slightly chewy texture that I just love. And just enough of a ginger bite. Although I think it would be really good to add in crystalized ginger for an extra kick.

I had planned to post these recipes before now, but you may have everything on hand to make them today, so it won't be too late for the holidays!

Ginger Crinkles- makes 4 doz.

12 Tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup dark molasses

1 large egg, lightly beaten

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp ground cloves

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

extra sugar, for rolling

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Blend in molasses and egg. Sift together dry ingredients, add to butter mixture and mix well. Chill dough for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Form dough into 1" balls, roll in sugar. Bake for 8-10 min. Let cool on baking sheet for at least 3 minutes, until cookies are set.

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The other favorite in our family is spritz. It really wouldn't be Christmas without the Stocker family spritz cookies, and I may be completely disowned for sharing this recipe. This is what Peter loves in sweets, all wrapped up into little bite-sized goodness. Plenty of butter, confectioner's sugar (vs. granulated, which is apparently a key to their goodness). We are greeted by tins and tins of spritz cookies at my in-law's house, some like the ones above with a chocolate chip in the middle, some colored into green wreaths or trees, whatever the baker's whim. I have gone through a few cookie presses in my time, and currently using this one, and although I did not have loads of success pressing out cookies this year, I'm not necessarily blaming the press. (Just so you know, you can also press this dough out flat and use cookie cutters as well.)

Stocker Family Spritz- I honestly don't know how many this makes because so much of the dough gets eaten!

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/4 cups confectioner's sugar

1 cup unsalted butter, room temp.

2 egg yolks

1/2 tsp almond extract

1 tsp vanilla extract

food coloring (optional)

sprinkles, chocolate chips, candies for decoration (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together flour and salt, set aside. In bowl of a mixer, sift confectioner's sugar, then add butter and mix until fluffy. Beat in egg yolks, almond and vanilla extract, then slowly add reserved mixture until blended. (If you are adding food coloring to tint, turn dough out and tint by kneading the dough.

Push through cookie press onto unlined baking sheet, add decoration if desired, bake for 9-10 minutes, take out before cookies start to brown on edges.

Enjoy, if you make them let me know. I will now sign off and say farewell until after the holidays, at which time I will finally be able to show you what we handmade this year. Happy holidays and good wishes to everyone. Thank you all for stopping by and reading wise craft, for caring what is said here, and for just being out there. A hug to you all! Blair

soup

When my friend Nancy and I used to work together, she occasionally brought in mom's soup recipes from her days of owning a restaurant. At the time I liked soup, but because I wasn't interested in cooking much, I didn't really think about soup much. But these were good. I remember there was a mushroom barley, one or two others, then there was this soup. Artichoke Soup.

It sold me on the idea of of soup as a meal, because it most definitely is. Full of flavor, just spicy enough, with those things called artichokes which I don't think I'd ever tried before then. Peter and I made it often after I tried Nancy's version. I'm not sure Nancy even knows that this recipe is very much alive in our kitchen.

The other day as I was driving to pick up the kids from school I was listening to Sound Focus. Suddenly, I hear Molly's voice at 2:40pm, telling me how I should be shopping for and cooking baby artichokes right now. And believe me, to hear Molly speak of a baby artichoke is to love a baby artichoke without actually having met one. I am actively seeking out the best picks right now at my favorite local market. I have to try this recipe. But in the meantime, I had to make our old favorite soup (which uses the marinated artichokes, and Molly tells us that although they are good, their taste is quite different, more pickled).

If you are looking for a full bodied cream based soup to dip a hunk of really yummy bread in while you're watching a really good movie (which I can't wait to see), you must try. I've lightened up the cream (I have found it is just as good with 1% milk), but there is some butter involved, so play around with lightening that up and let me know if you do.

Artichoke Soup

2 Tbsp Butter

1/2 cup chopped carrots

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup sliced mushrooms

3 Tbsp butter

1/2 cup flour

2 cups chicken broth

7oz. can 1/4 cut marinated artichokes

1 bay leaf

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp thyme

1/4 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp sage

pinch of paprika

1 cup of milk (I use 1%, original recipe called for heavy cream, whipped until frothy)

Melt 2 Tbsp butter in pot, then add carrots, celery, onion, and mushrooms. Saute 10 min (until soft) and set aside. Melt 3 Tbsp butter in same pot, then add flour and whisk together, simmering for about 5 mins. Add chicken broth, sauted veggies, artichokes (do not drain), and all seasonings. Simmer for 30-40 minutes. Lastly, add in milk, heat through (do not boil), and serve.

Enjoy!

P.S.- I'm kind of obsessing about this scarf!

The Gift of Southern Cooking

My friend Diane sent me a link to a wonderful documentary about southern cooking master Edna Lewis. I had never heard of her, but being from the South myself, this lady had me at hello. There is much I love about the culture of the food of my childhood, and when Miss Lewis (as she was called) talked about southern cooking from her own life, its easy to see how much a love of food and the life lived around it can create traditions that last a lifetime. The Gift of Southern Cooking is now on my kitchen counter. Brunswick Stew, fried chicken, and cornbread...these childhood basics will be revitalized in my kitchen. I want my children to know what all this tastes like, and that it's where I come from.

For a Labor Day cookout with friends, Emma and I made Edna's Fresh Apple Cake with Caramel Glaze (I found the recipe here). Emma is so easy to cook with these days, she measures out the ingredients easily, with surprising precision, and of course, she knows the cook gets to taste everything, just to make sure.

The house smelled amazing, apples and Fall are such a happy combination. The caramel glaze poured on top of this cake seeps down into it through the many holes poked through the top, how can this taste anything but good. The consistency of the cake is a bit pudding-like, full of cooked apples and pecans (a favorite Southern ingredient I grew up with), but not too sweet. To be honest, the kids didn't go nuts for it, I think it was because they thought it would be sweeter (may a scoop of vanilla ice cream would have done the trick). I think that is exactly why this cake is a perfect end to a meal, or even breakfast.

I recently explained to Peter how my childhood Sundays were centered around food. Churches all over town let out by noon (or you and your stomach were counting the minutes if it went past noon) and everyone gathered afterwards for a midday meal. The food was familiar, and the women who cooked it all could have done it blindfolded. Peter couldn't believe how much time this whole affair took. But why not? It seems like we are all in such a hurry, especially on the weekends. No one left the table to hop back on the computer, or even turn on the television (unless a ball game was on). It was much slower, which is probably another reason I remember the food more.

happy food

(tomato mozzarella salad, watermelon, corn on the cob)

"Dinner's ready!"

I have said here before and will say again how much I love the ease of feeding my kids during the summer months. If your kids are like mine, many food rules apply, such as the one where the cook must remember that foods cannot be mixed together at all, and raw veggies are better than cooked. They will try new things, but with mixed results (Ian's newest trick is to try one bite, say "mmmmm!  its pretty good"....then refuse to eat any more of it.  Clever kid...)

I remember eating corn on the cob often as a kid and loving it. What a fun way to eat a vegetable, right? I also remember spending all afternoon shucking corn out in the backyard more than once (for the record, that was not fun mom, and did I ever get money for helping you with that?) Emma has finally discovered my childhood joy of eating corn on the cob after trying it for the first time recently (what's so scary anyway?).  To me, and now to her, its the essence of summertime eating. We combined what you see in that photo above with bunless cheeseburgers, our usual way to eat burgers at home (funny how my kids will probably grow up considering a bun an anomaly).

The end of supper, of course!, comes the dessert. And we discovered the easiest ice cream cake ever in the July issue of Real Simple (the "fake it" recipe).  I found the recipe here online, its so easy and really good. The photo above is ours during the construction. I'm happy to say it did, in the end, turn out almost as pretty as the one in the magazine. The only addition I made was to add a layer of chopped chocolate in the center of the cake, because I love cold chunks of chocolate. The kids loved it, and so did Peter, who really prefers kid food to adult food anyway.

(Greek yogurt, honey, roasted -not salted- almonds, golden raspberries)

Its such a break for the cook during the summer months, to gather food instead of cook food (well, I cooked the corn). I was thinking the other night how so much of what we eat in the summer really is happy food. And so basic. And so so good. 

Thank you summer.

~other news~

I had the honor of picking the newest word assignment for wordplay and everyone has opened the word I sent, cover.  I am dying to see what they come up with, I felt there were just tons of possibilities there.  This is the third round of wordplay, they have done some amazing things with the other words.

Daria and I had the fun assignment of doing the cover projects for Mixtape zine Issue #5, inspired by eight by eight. This issue is the biggest yet, those girls have been busy.  It'll be good reading, just in time to get our late summer creative juices flowing. You can preorder a copy here. (I will admit that summer has slowed me down a little and I'm a wee bit behind on June's project.  I need to finish it.  There....I said it. I haven't done it yet.  I started!  But haven't finished it....  But I will!)

I worked with the folks at Parents Magazine a few months back (a bit thank you to their wonderful lifestyle editor Amanda, you are the greatest!) and created a gold medal craft for kids inspired by the Summer Olympics. It is in the August 2008 issue, the "Make It" section. Be sure and check it out, its an easy craft for kids and what kid doesn't need their own gold medal? My kids have really been into the Olympic Games in the past, I'm sure we will all be watching.

I have done plenty of sewing as of late, and I will share soon.

All shop orders placed Wednesday shipped out yesterday.  There isn't much that's more satisfying than dropping a whole bunch of packages off at the post office. I live for that kind of closure.

Okay, its 3:20 and I just realized my son still hasn't gotten dressed for the day.  I should go!  Have a great weekend.