Birthday Cake(s)

So, my birthday is tomorrow, and it falls to me (now that I'm away from my mother cum birthday-cake-baker in college) to bake my birthday cake. Not that I'm excited or anything, but I've recently been scouring marthastewart.com and my cookbooks for inspiration. I think I've settled on two frontrunners:

Flourless Carrot Cake

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/health/nutrition

/11recipehealth.html?scp=1&sq=flourless%20carrot%20cake&st=cse

and

London Cheesecake

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/london-cheesecake-147

Surprisingly, no death by chocolate this year - maybe.

Which one looks better to you?

Stuffed. . . but not to the brim

I've been here in my sister's house for nearly 2 months already, and I've barely eaten the same thing twice. Though I'm at work most of the day, I come home and put on my sous-chef hat. Literally.

As my sister whips up dinner for her family, I chop garlic, cry my way through piles of onions, and "taste test" soups and cake batters. Taste testing is the best part of sous-cheffery, by the way. My sister's daily challenge is to come up with a menu that will tempt her young children but still satiate her husband's and our own more "grown-up" palates. My favorite (so far) of her creations has been cinnamon-laced refried beans and brown rice for Mexican fiesta night. With a little sangria (*ahem*) grown-up grape juice, I'm transported to Mexico for a night worth writing home about.

The Great Milk Debate

Me: Who wants milk with their cereal?

Niece & nephew: Me!

Me: Whole milk for you and you, skim milk for me.

. . .

Nephew: Why is your milk so gloomy?

My sister moves in.

Three months.

Two sisters.

One kitchen.


It's hard to decide what to cook first!

Sugar High

I was recently browsing in my local Indian grocery, looking for out-of-the-ordinary ingredients to spice up my week's lunches. As I passed the melons, a familiar smell wafted toward me. The culprit was jackfruit, a fruit unfamiliar to most of us who are used to apples, oranges, and the like.

I first encountered jackfruit in the Philippines. It's a large fruit, a little larger than a cantaloupe, whose sickly sweet fruit is enrobed in a spiky green rind. The smell of the cut fruit is exactly like, no joke, Laffy Taffy: you can tell you're in for a sweet treat.

Before getting to the treat, however, cutting the fruit out of its rind is rather a process. The lobes of fruit are trapped in strong, sticky fibers which must be cut with a sharp knife. To top it off, the stickiness of the task requires some vigorous hand-scrubbing.

But the reward is worth the work. Tasting is believing.

A Bacon Birthday

In case you haven't noticed, bacon is in. Not that it was ever out, it's just that bacon seems to be popping up everywhere: on burgers, in salads, in chocolates, even in cookies. Like the now-ubiquitous fried egg, anything topped with bacon is worthy of notice.

So it came as no surprise when I was invited recently to a bacon birthday party. Instead of presents, the birthday girl was asking her guests to bring something deliciously bacon-y to share with the rest of the lucky revelers. Not that bacon isn't wonderful in its simplest form, but I did a little hunting and decided to make Breakfast Cookies, which I found on a blog completely devoted to bacon recipes (genius). These cookies are, shall we say, unexpected: they are flavored with oatmeal, brown sugar, and orange juice, not to mention the aforesaid bacon.

These cookies were very well-received by the party-goers, as were the bacon-wrapped dates, the bacon-cinnamon donuts, and the bacon brownies. But be warned: should you bake these bacon cookies for yourself, be prepared for doubters' wary looks when you describe the cookies: tasting is truly believing.

Better than Lays

Now, I'm as much a fan of the potato chip as the next girl, and I always need my salty fix at the end of a hard day (hitting the books hard). Since I usually try to be a little health-conscious, however, I usually stop myself from picking up the ubiquitous potato chips at the grocery store.

This weekend, I was really regretting my decision to be healthy, so I tried a homemade version: baked pita chips. Not only are they not fried like regular potato chips, they also count as health food because I know all, and can pronounce, all the ingredients that went into making these crunchy little tidbits. And because I was going to be enjoying these chips alone, I made free to add plenty of garlic.

Feel free to experiment with the seasonings with these chips. The pita bread takes well to any flavor - next time I want to try cinnamon sugar!

Baked Garlic Pita Chips

-2 cloves garlic, minced

-3 tablespoons olive oil

-kosher salt and pepper

-two pitas, white or whole wheat

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper for easy cleaning.

2. Cut each pita in half, then divide each half in two symmetrical pieces (tearing along the perimeter of the "pocket"). Place all pieces on the baking sheet.

3. Combine garlic, oil, and salt and pepper (to taste) in a small bowl. Using a small pastry brush, brush oil mixture onto pita halves. Try to brush most of the surface area of the pitas, but do not let the chips get soggy! If necessary, add more oil to be sure to cover the chips.

4. With kitchen shears, cut each pita half into four pieces. Make sure each chip has some space on the baking sheet.

5. Bake chips in preheated oven about 10 - 12 minutes, until brown around the edges. Let cool for a few minutes (the oil will be hot!) before digging in.

6. Enjoy these chips by yourself or with someone who loves you very much (even with garlicky breath!).

Please pass the nachos

Some of you may know that we have another sister. She cooks too. I almost always pick up a tip from her when I see her. Well anyway, our other sister was making me hungry for nachos the other day. Read why here.

Maybe if we all ask very, very nicely, she will share her secrets with us. Pretty please, Mrs R?

PB&J, from Karachi

One great thing about going college in a big city is that students descend upon Chicago from everywhere - from Iowa to India and everywhere in between. One of my newest acquaintances is from Karachi, Pakistan. I've never had Pakistani food before, though she tells me it's similar to typical (American-style) Indian food. I think that I'll have to try authentic Pakistani food sometime in the future, after I've significantly improved my spicy-food pain threshold.

A typical Pakistani flatbread, however, is acceptable to all palates, especially those who prefer blander flavors. Like the Indian bread naan, Pakistani chapati bread is the perfect accompaniment to curried dishes and stews, because it can soak up delicious sauces without the addition of competing flavors. Plus, it's very satisfactory to make this bread because it fluffs up in the hot skillet, as impressive to non-bakers as a souffle coming out of the oven.

Unfortunately, the night I set out to make chapati bread I did not have any saucy delicious-ness with which to pair the bread. Luckily, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are internationally delicious! Make up a few pieces of chapati bread (they're best right off the skillet) and mix and match your own (un)orthodox pairings!

Chapati Bread

-3 C chapati flour (or all-purpose flour), plus additional flour for rolling chapati
-1 1/2 teaspoon salt
-1 tablespoon oil or ghee
-1 1/4 C lukewarm water

1. Mix flour and salt in a large bowl with a wooden spoon, then add oil or ghee.
2. Add water all at once and stir together; the dough should form a firm, though not stiff, dough. If there is too much flour, add a little water. If there is too much water, add a little flour until you reach a happy medium.
3. Turn out dough onto a clean, floured workspace. Knead for about ten minutes: the longer you knead, the lighter the bread will be.
4. Form dough into a ball and wrap in cling film. Let stand for at least one hour at room temperature.
5. After it has rested, divide the dough into roughly equal, walnut-sized balls.
6. Heat a large skillet over high heat. While the skillet is warming, roll each ball of dough on a floured surface until it's about the thickness of a crepe, or about the diameter of the skillet.
7. When the skillet is very hot, place one rolled-out chapati on the griddle and let cook about one minute.
8. Using a spatula, flip the chapati on the other side to cook. With a clean kitch towel, gentle press down all around the circumference of the chapati so the middle fluffs up like a balloon.
9. When the other side is golden brown, remove from skillet and place in a plate covered with another clean kitchen towel to keep it warm.

These chapati are delicious, often eaten with ghee (clarified butter), and are best when warm.

Tbilisi-bound

One advantage of living in Chicago is the proximity to Devon Avenue, north of downtown. Devon is a neighborhood crammed with ethnic groceries, restaurants, butcheries, bakeries, clothing stores, etc etc. Even though I've been living in Chicago for nearly three years, I made my first trip to Devon Avenue on a recent sunny Saturday afternoon.

This particular trip was inspired by the need for halal meat for a dinner party at a Georgian friend's apartment. In addition to several halal butcheries, Devon has a wonderful Georgian/Russian bakery, where we bought hinkali. Hinkali are delicious Georgian dumplings with meats, herbs, and a little soup in them - meant to be eaten with freshly cracked black pepper and lots of slurping.

In addition to hinkali, my Georgian friend made a lamb stew and a fried eggplant salad, which turned out to be the most delicious dish of the night. This salad was composed of fried strips of eggplant, pomegranate seeds, and a thick paste of ground walnuts, parsley, onions, and raw garlic. A Pakistani friend who joined us for dinner laughed at me when I said that the raw garlic gave the salad heat - apparently I wouldn't be able to handle the heat of Pakistani food. I'll take her word for it.

My addition to dinner was freshly baked khachapuri, a decadent cheesy, buttery bread which turns up everywhere in Georgia. Though it wasn't as good as I remember having it in a Georgian restaurant, it was still a welcome addition to our meal.

In sum, this taste of Georgian food has me wanting to make Tbilisi my new home, at least for as long as it takes to learn to make a proper khachapuri.

What kind of taster are you?

My five-year-old kid: Why does this oatmeal taste different?

Me: What does it taste like? It tastes normal to me.

Kid: It tastes different. This oatmeal tastes like tacos.

I have no explanation for this. Except maybe that during shopping the oatmeal, walnuts, or raisins, which we buy in bulk at the natural-foods co-op, sat together, however briefly, with a baggie of cumin, or maybe coriander, also bought in bulk.

On her radio show, The Splendid Table, Lynne Rosetto Kasper has talked about people's differing levels of taste -- as in tastebuds. It has to do with the number of tastebuds you have on your tongue, according to Dr. Linda Bartoshuk, whom Kasper interviewed on the show. Foodies are generally "middle tasters." The rest of folks, nontasters and supertasters, are not as interested in food because they either don't taste enough flavor compounds to be excited or they taste so many it becomes overpowering.

To find out what kind of taster you are, Bartoshuk says you can try this simple test: Choose a color of food coloring that will contrast with your tongue, such as blue. Dip a Q-tip in the food coloring and wipe your tongue with it. Now for some counting. Here are the instructions as outlined in The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper: "Take a loose-leaf reinforcement (the hole is 6 millimeters across) and place the edge of the hole on the midline of your tongue. Count the number of pink circles you see inside the hole (you may need a magnifying glass). Thirty or more indicate that you are a supertaster; five and below means you are a nontaster. Mediums are in between."

I think back to kiddo's babyhood, when, by choice, he ate mostly applesauce and rice cereal. As he grew, new foods were suspect, often limited to his outside interests. For instance, he loves fishing, so if you tell him part of his meal used to know how to swim? He will eat it. This is why our little table companion refuses chocolate milk but will eat anchovies and sardines straight from the tin.

I doubt I'm going to be allowed inside my boy's mouth with blue food coloring to do this experiment. But something tells me we have a supertaster on our hands.

No judgments here.

I am not a box-mix person. Now, I am not casting aspersions on those who have cake mixes, powdered dressings, and tubs of frosting lining their shelves. May their courses run smooth. No judgments here. There isn't one pat and simple reason; the box just doesn't do it for me.

This is all to explain why one afternoon last week found me stirring a delicious chocolate concoction in a pot on the stove: chocolate pudding. Yes, pudding from scratch.




I am happy to report that the recipe I used produced a resounding success. More on that later. But. Was it better than the box? And. Wouldn't a box have been easier?

The last question first. A box of instant would have been easier. I was introduced to instant pudding in seventh-grade speech class when a girl named Jaime gave a how-to speech on making pudding. She poured instant pudding powder and milk into an airtight Rubbermaid container and shook vigorously for the remainder of her three-minute speech, which I found fascinating. That is quick pudding. But rather strenuous, one must admit. Still and all, faster and simpler than homemade.

Was homemade better than the box? Well, I think we all know the answer to that silly question. That's like asking which was better, the book or the movie? If you have a little more time, and we are talking 20 minutes, start to finish, homemade pudding -- when made with a reliable recipe, it must be said -- gives the box a run for its money. Its flavor is better. It is fresher tasting. The texture is slightly different, somehow more . . . homey. And to have a bowl of this stuff sitting in your fridge? Worth every stir.

So. No judgments here if the above has simply whetted your appetite for some shaken milk-and-powder. But if you have twenty minutes you wouldn't mind spending doing some mindless (or mindful, if that is your bent) stirring, read on.


Double Chocolate Pudding
Adapted slightly from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. I never buy half-and-half because I almost always have both milk and cream in the fridge, and right there are the fixin's for half-and-half; the recipe proportions are in the name. (Talk about a from-scratch fanatic!)

The strainer-over-the-bowl arrangement is crucial, unless you are an extremely seasoned pudding and custard maker. The eggs go from creamy to curdled almost without notice, and those little curds, whether they appear in every bite or just once in awhile, will not win fans of stovetop pudding. Simply passing the pudding through a sieve on its way to the bowl will solve this problem.

6 oz. bittersweet and/or semi-sweet chocolate, chopped or in chip form
3/4 c. sugar
4 t. cornstarch
1/4 t. salt
2 T. cocoa powder
3-1/2 c. half-and-half, or a mixture of milk and heavy cream
3 egg yolks
1 T. unsalted butter
2 t. vanilla

Melt the chocolate and set aside. Place a mesh strainer over a medium glass or metal mixing bowl and set within reach of the stove.

Combine sugar, cornstarch, cocoa powder and salt in a medium saucepan. Slowly whisk in the half-and-half (or milk-and-cream mixture) and then the yolks.

Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, whisking gently but constantly and scraping the bottom and sides of the pot. (A heat-proof spatula is a good alternative to a whisk, if you prefer.) This will take about 10 minutes, give or take. The pudding will start out soupy and gradually you will notice it is the consistency of thick cream, but you will think it is your imagination because your eyes are going buggy from stirring for 7 minutes straight. Keep stirring. In a minute or two, it will be unmistakably thicker, and you might notice a bubble (if you dare stop stirring). At this point, reduce heat to medium and continue to stir constantly until the pudding is thick and coats the back of a spoon, 1 to 2 minutes.

Pour the pudding through the strainer into the bowl. Stir the butter and vanilla into the pudding until the butter is melted. Press plastic wrap or parchment paper directly on the surface to prevent a skin from forming and refrigerate until set, about 3 hours.

Makes 4 cups, enough for 4 to 6 people. Keeps in the refrigerator for 2 days.

Feast from Persia

A few weeks ago, I had some friends over for a dinner party. To celebrate my receipt of a new cookbook, New Food of Life, we had Persian food.

Persian food is similar to Afghan and other Middle Eastern cuisines. Like many other cultures, a Persian meal with friends is bountiful, with far too much food. Luckily, Persian leftovers are almost as delicious.

The main dish we made together was a khoresh with prunes, ground beef, and butternut squash. The sweet and savory notes in the dish played well together, hints of saffron rising with the steam from our plates. Along with the khoresh, we had kuku, a baked egg dish like a frittata, with sweet peas instead of the more common kuku sabzi, filled with fresh herbs.

For dessert, we shared a platter of deep purple grapes and Persian tea. The tea's scent of cardamom filled my apartment and lasted long after the tea was drunk.

To make an impressive, age-old Persian dish, try a basic khoresh. There are a lot of ingredients, but they blend so well together that it makes all the chopping worth it.

Eggplant Khoresh
(6 servings)

-2 large onions, peeled and thinly sliced
-2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
-2 lbs lamb shanks, or 2 lbs chicken legs with skin removed, cut up
-1/2 C oil
-1 t salt
-1/4 t freshly ground black pepper
-1 t turmeric
-1/2 t ground saffron dissolved in 4 T hot water
-2 C fresh squeezed tomato juice
-1 C unripe grapes
-4 T lime juice
-3 medium eggplants
-1 egg white

1. In a non-stick Dutch oven, brown the onions and garlic with meat in 3 T oil over medium heat. Add salt, pepper, turmeric, and saffron water.
2. Add 2 C water for meat and no water for chicken, tomato juice, unripe grapes, and lime juice. Cover and simmer over low heat for 2 1/2 hrs for meat and 30 min. for chicken.
3. Peel eggplants and cut lengthwise in quarters. Place in a colander, sprinkle both sides with water and 2 T salt, and set aside for 20 min. to remove the bitter taste. Rinse and pat dry.
4. Brush each eggplant on all sides with egg white and brown the eggplant in a non-stick skillet in 3 T oil; set aside.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Transfer the chicken or meat and sauce into a deep ovenproof casserole; arrange the eggplant over the top. Cover and bake for 30 min., then remove cover and bake anotehr 15 min. uncovered or until the eggplant is tender.
6. Serve immediately or keep warm in the oven until ready to serve. Serve with Persian steamed rice.

Though it may have seemed like a backhanded compliment, the one Iranian at the table told me the meal was something like his grandmother, living in a village outside Tehran, would make. I felt like I'd just been granted dual citizenship for the evening.

Noosh-e jan!

Instead of Sausage

I make sausage. But more about that another time. Today is about what happened when my Personal Shopper (and I love him very much) brought home the wrong kind of pork for sausage and I was left, having hauled out my sausage making supplies, holding a lean sirloin roast (all wrong for luscious, fatty sausage) that wanted me to "USE OR FREEZE BY" . . . that very day. I don't know about you, but there are times when I hesitate to freeze because I know my tendency is to let the deep freeze act as a food cemetery. "Good-bye, food that I don't know what to do with but don't want to waste, go away!" I call as I bury it in the icy depths, knowing full well I may exhume it, unrecognizable and inedible, some years down the road. It is so very convenient.

But change is in the wind, because this time, at 4 in the evening, with children at my ankles clamoring for animal crackers, I looked up a way to use this gorgeous, lean roast. And had it on the table by suppertime.

I doled out a few animal crackers in the interim.

Roast Pork Loin
Paraphrased from Roasting, by Barbara Kafka
Barbara Kafka's cookbooks are, in my opinion, not to be missed. They are cooking classes in book form, and every recipe works. In Roasting, she puts forth in encyclopedic form how to roast nearly every food--at high heat. The results are not only fast but arguably more moist and succulent. The One Rule with high-heat roasting, she says, is that the meat must be at room temperature when it goes in the oven. I repeat: The meat must be at room temperature when it goes in the oven.

The recipe below is simple, straightforward, and so good I don't know any pork lover who would complain about eating this once a week. Its main flavoring agent is garlic, in a subtly sweet, cooked form. If you happen to cook for anyone who likes the flavor of garlic but not the smell of garlic cooking (these people are out there), this recipe is for them. The raw garlic slivers get tucked into slits in the pork -- which sounds fussy, but if you set at it you will find it is soon finished -- and are never caught whiff of again, until you taste it infusing the pork you just put in your mouth.

If you like, you can throw peeled and quartered small potatoes, sprinkled with salt, pepper, and olive oil, into the roasting pan 10 minutes into the cooking time. Turn them every 15 minutes, advises Kafka, and they will be done at the same time as the pork. She is right.

1 (2-1/2 to 3-1/2 lb.) pork loin, about 8" across and 4" high, rolled and tied; set out at room temperature for 30 minutes
4 cloves garlic, smashed, peeled, and cut into slivers
Kosher salt
Pepper
Olive oil

Place oven rack in center of oven and preheat oven to 500 degrees F. Allow roast to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. (Do not skip this step or you will be very disappointed in the results.) Without cutting the ties, make 1" slits all over pork with a small knife. Tuck slivers of garlic inside. Salt and pepper roast liberally. Place prepared roast in a roasting pan just large enough to fit it, add a little water, broth, or olive oil just to coat the pan, and place in oven. Roast 45-50 minutes, or until pork reaches an internal temperature of 140 degrees F. The inside of the pork will be moist and just slightly pink. Do not overcook, or roast will become dry.

My Roommate Bakes!

A great thing about living with three other girls is that I get to try lots of different kinds of food. I was reminded of this advantage earlier this week when one roommate made a sweet treat that she remembered from her childhood in Kansas: potato chip cookies.

I'd never heard of potato chip cookies, but I'm all for the combination of sweet and salty (Salted Nut Roll, anyone?), so I tried one. And then another. After all, one should eat dessert first.

For those of you who are also plagued by concurrent cravings for salt and sweet, a couple of these cookies will set you up right. And though this recipe is a great way to get rid of the little crumbs left in the bottom of the chip bag, there's no need to wait until the bag is empty to make a batch.

Potato Chip Cookies
(makes about 5 dozen cookies)

1 lb. butter
1 c. sugar
3 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. crushed potato chips
Nuts, if desired

Mix all ingredients. Roll into small balls; flatten with bottom of glass dipped in sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Lazy Weekend Morning

This Sunday I woke up wanting pastry. This is no uncommon occurrence, mind you, but yesterday I was in a position to do something about it.

I had a friend over for breakfast and a container of whipping cream in the refrigerator just begging to be used, so I pulled out a recipe for cream scones. For Valentine's Day this year, my mom sent me a book filled with recipes for "Students Far Away From Home." This scone recipe, originally from Anne Marie, was included.

I include the tidbit about the breakfast guest because, let's face it, most people these days are impressed by homemade baked goods, especially when they're pulled hot and fresh from the oven. Fortunately, all that impressing required very little effort on my part: this recipe comes together very quickly and has your scones in the oven and yourself sitting at the kitchen table enjoying your coffee and your company in no time at all.

P.S. Chocolate chips really start the morning off right.

Cream Scones

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

-2 C flour
-2 1/2 t baking powder
-1/2 t salt
-1/4 C sugar

2. Whisk until well combined.
3. Add currants or Ghirardelli chocolate, broken up into pieces (4 oz).
4. Mix well.
5. Add 1 1/4 C cream.
6. Mix with wooden spoon until batter holds together. Gather and knead. Pat into a 1" disk. Cut into 8 or 12 wedges. Put on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush tops with cream or milk and sprinkle some sugar on top.
7. Bake until just golden brown.

The Road to Where?!?

I always have such good intentions when I go grocery shopping. Something about the produce section of my local grocery just makes me want to run away and join an organic farming commune. Even though I love bacon, the piles of lettuce, peppers, and eggplant (oh my!) have me considering vegetarianism (ask my sister how her collegiate foray into vegetarianism went).

Though I have still not yet gone the way of Leo Tolstoy and Natalie Portman, I love to buy vegetables. The problem I have with good intentions is not that I don't buy fresh produce, it's that I sometimes don't use it up before it all goes bad. Red peppers are great for snacking, I tell myself, and there's a new recipe I want to try for potato soup. Unfortunately, my eyes are usually bigger than my stomach. And so, I travel down the road that is paved with good intentions.

A Study Break

Seeing as I've just passed the hump of midterms, I've been casting around for a reason to celebrate. Luckily, I have two girlfriends who turned 21 yesterday.

Far from having the typical night of debauchery (it was a Monday night, let's remember), it was a celebration of cupcakes. While I usually don't bake during the week, I decided to pick up a box of devil's food cake on my way home from school.



Whipping up a batch of cupcakes...
and then adding some gooey caramel and whipped cream.


Study break, anyone?

Pancake Day

Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. This day has many names, one of which is Pancake Day, referring to the old habit of using up all animal products, including eggs and milk, in the house before Lenten fasts begin.

Big A, Little A,

This is Pancake Day!

Toss the ball high,

Throw the ball low,

Those that come after

May say, "Heigh-ho!"

Many meals are appropriate for Mardi Gras. To start, I pick the things I'll be giving up for Lent and get some last tastes in, or I aim to use up my stashes of these tempting foodstuffs already on hand. Hence all the chocolate being eaten at our house. Some years I've gone the New Orleans Mardi Gras route and made gumbo. Barbara Kafka includes a delicious recipe in her excellent book, Soup: A Way of Life. Mm, my mouth is watering.

This year my family has put in a request for pancakes: Cottage Cheese Pancakes. These light but satisfying cakes were made for me by my mother, as they were for her by her mother before that. The recipe is inscribed in the notebook that started me off cooking in my first real apartment. Unfortunately, the last time I opened the book to this page, the recipe had been erased by a mysterious clear substance spilled across the Cottage Cheese Pancakes page. Egg white? I don't know, but here is my attempt to put together the pieces so you can celebrate Pancake Day in style. (Note: You may use this recreated recipe with confidence; it has been kitchen tested and no one noticed any differences. Or maybe they were just too busy mm-ing and oo-ing to fit a complaint in between bites of moist, tangy pancake dripping with butter and syrup.)

Cottage Cheese Pancakes

1 c. flour
1/3 c. sugar
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 c. sour cream
1 c. cottage cheese
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla

Combine dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately. Slowly add wet to dry. Stir until ingredients are incorporated, but allow the batter to remain lumpy. Cook as for pancakes, using between 1/4 c. and 1/3 c. per pancake and cooking until both sides are golden brown and pancake still yields when touched in the center. If the pancake is cooked so long it becomes firm, it is still tasty but less cheesy and moist. Serve with butter and top with maple syrup or jam.

Still my favorite brownie

Did you get your fill of chocolate over the weekend? I did. Chocolate truffles for Valentine's Day, and before that, a brownie extravaganza touched off by a few new recipes.

As far as brownie recipes go, I'm always in search of "the one," and every new recipe is measured against the one that's been my go-to since about 2005, which I found in The Gourmet Cookbook, and which was originally published in the pages of that magazine in an article by food writer Laurie Colwin. The recipe is supposed to be the one Katharine Hepburn's family always made, and it produces a confection as classic as you might expect with such a pedigree. In addition to being delicious, these brownies are economical. And, the method is simple. You will dirty exactly one pot making them and they will turn you from brownie mixes forever because they are that easy.

It's been a while since I've tried a new brownie recipe. While those new ones were delicious -- because it would be hard to find a bad brownie recipe -- they weren't any better. They certainly weren't easier. And they cost more. This one's still a keeper.

Katharine Hepburn's Brownies
Adapted slightly from The Gourmet Cookbook

1 stick (8 T.) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 c. sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 t. vanilla extract
1/2 c. all-purpose flour (the original recipe calls for 1/4 c., and if you like an extra fudgy brownie, I'd recommend that amount)
1/4 t. salt

Put a rack in the middle of oven and preheast oven to 325 degrees F. Butter and flour an 8-inch square baking pan, knocking off excess flour.

Melt butter with chocolate in a 2- to 3-quart saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, eggs and vanilla, then beat until well combined. Stir in flour and salt until just combined.

Pour batter into baking pan. Bake until a wooden pick or skewer inserted in center comes out with a few crumbs attached, about 40-45 minutes. Do not overbake.

Cool completely in pan on a rack, then cut into 16 bars.

Distractions

Don't get me wrong: I always pay attention in class. I show up, I take notes, I raise my hand. But sometime between discussions of the travails of North Korean POWs and the carbon sink of Wisconsin, I got distracted.

I find myself obsessively Googling chocolate recipes. Not just any chocolate recipe - molded chocolates. My sister got me interested in making chocolates when she asked me to bring home chocolate molds from a trip to Paris last year. The trip to the kitchen supply store, complete with an entire candy mold section, was a life-changing experience. I got her some little heart molds - perfect for Valentine's Day.

I may blame this lack of concentration on the advent of Valentine's Day, but, as with many of the fairer sex, chocolate is a year-round preoccupation. But just so I can make up for any lost time in classes, I'll be sure to study the Geneva Conventions extra carefully - in between batches des petits bon-bons for my favorite valentines.

On My Own (sort of)

Since Anne Marie left for college when I was six years old, I've been fantasizing about what I'd be able to do when I got to college. I dreamed of eating ice cream for dinner, having Wonder Bread in the pantry, and even buying a microwave (!).

Now that I've moved into my first apartment, my take on good food is a little different. Though most students my age eat one or two meals out every day, I find that I'd rather go home at the end of the day and relax in the comfort of my own kitchen.

Though my sister is the expert in the field of all arts domestic, I'm learning what it means to be "cooking for one" - myself. Luckily, with Anne Marie in on the scheme, we're both in for some delicious meals ahead.

What to do with all that snow

When the novelty of playing, sledding, shoveling and driving in those beautiful flakes wanes, do something new with them. Make winter ice cream!

We tried the recipe from the back of the potholder my five-year-old made for me for Christmas (with help from Grandma), shown below.
The recipe was about as good as any snow ice cream recipe probably is, which is to say that this exercise is more about the process than the result. Nothing wrong with that.

So you collect a big bowl of snow, maybe a quart. [Edited to add: Need I stipulate that this must be immaculately clean snow? Just in case, This Must Be Clean Snow. Now don't say I didn't tell you!] Stick it in the freezer while you whip 1/2 c. heavy cream with 4 T. sugar and 1 T. vanilla extract. You can get all Breyer's fancy and use real vanilla beans, but I recommend you keep this at the preschool level and save those beans for a good rice pudding or for real churned homemade ice cream in the summer. (Have hope; summer will come, someday.)

Then add the whipped cream mixture to your snow, being careful not to splash on any toys that may be strewn about.

Fold the whole mass together until pretty well mixed or you are tired. According to the recipe, the next step is to place the bowl in a snowbank until firm. This sounded too gimmicky for aforementioned five-year-old, or maybe he was just tired from playing out there all afternoon. So we used the freezer.

Serve for dessert to everyone who has eaten a good dinner.

My sister cooks.

This blog came very close to having an excellent name: The Chef and I.

Mary thought of it, sometime after I, at a very late hour indeed, volleyed the idea of a joint cooking blog. I made sure to include several disclaimers in my suggestion so she would have plenty of avenues for backing out. But she ignored these and came back with a great title.

As it turned out, each assumed she herself was the "I" and the other sister was the "Chef."

Apparently Chef Andi thought of a blog first, though. The domain name was already taken.

Back to the drawing board. Truffle Pig? Taken. Truffle Pigs? Nope. My sister cooks?

Done.

And now enough of this jabber and on to the food. Welcome! Here you'll read of two sisters and our kitchen capers, our culinary adventures, and the recipes that have made it into our "Keepers" files. Go ahead, settle in. My sister is cooking, so it's bound to be delicious.