Mississippi Market Porridge

Ingredients:

15 c. wheat flakes
12 c. oatmeal
10 c. bran
6 c. cornmeal
5 c. rye flakes
4 c. millet
4 c. cracked wheat cereal
2 c. flax
Bulk ingredients can be found at most co-ops or natural food stores.
Mix together. To keep large quantities fresh, freeze until ready to use.

Cooking instructions:
1 c. salted water
1/3 c. cereal
Boil water. Slowly add cereal while stirring constantly. Cook for 10 mins. Stir occasionally. Add raisins or other fruit if desired. Remove from heat and let stand for 5 mins.

Christmas Candy

My first high school job at the chocolate shop taught me the joy of simple foods with few ingredients, like sugar, corn syrup and heavy cream. This Christmas, as in years past, we made sponge candy, chocolate-covered caramels and candied orange slices.

Red Maple Farm Delights

My stepsister Meghan and her family live on a farm and are busy making too many delights to keep track of. They gave us this amazing basket of wedding goodies, including homemade wine and beer (both delicious!) fresh-pressed cider, and honey from their hive, comb and all. We're ready to invest in a share of Red Maple Farm.

We mixed the crabapple juice with soda water to make these juice spritzers.

Absinthe

During a weekend visit to Madison I made a stop at Vom Fass, a shop that specializes in spirits, liqueurs, flavored oils and vinegars. A table in the middle of the store featured a full set of absinthe accouterments, and I was immediately transfixed by the stunning absinthe spoons. I wonder how many of my culinary exploits are attributable solely to cool equipment...

The salesperson at Vom Fass spent some time with us explaining how to pour the absinthe. When I sampled their pour, I found it to be milder and tastier than those I've tried in the past - an herbal anise taste, to be sure, but not bitter and medicinal. I left the store with my own bottle and, of course, one of the charming spoons.

Here's the recipe as described by one salesman of fine spirits.

The ratio of absinthe to water should be 1:3. I don't have a special absinthe glass with a built-in divot for measurement. I started with one part absinthe in my own cocktail glass.

Position the spoon on top of the glass with a sugar cube and slowly drip ice water over the cube. The absinthe will become cloudy and chartreuse.

Continue to pour two parts ice water. Set spoon aside and drink. The aperitif was tasty with a radish & goat cheese sandwich, for example.

(Recipe: Slice of bread, slather of goat cheese, scallion slices, radish slices. Optional: Chives, basil or ground pepper. Eat open-face or as sandwich. Thanks to Rachel for this recipe!)

Holiday Sweatshop Item #3: Christmas Caramels

Every year I make an edible gift to give to my very large extended family for Christmas. I've given biscotti, pesto, candied oranges and homemade marshmallows. This year: Caramels. Tonight I was invited to a Christmas cookie exchange so I made the caramels as a test-run.

The recipe is simple but requires patience - the caramel has to be 248 degrees exactly to be the correct firmness. I spent a lot of time peering at my thermometer.

And they came out very nicely. I wrapped these in wax paper, but I found cello wrappers and boxes online for the real gifts.

Infusion

Infusing alcohol is so darn easy. Inspired by Martha Stewart, and by Nick and Jess's blog, I tried lavender vodka, cucumber tequila and rhubarb vodka. I let them sit in a cool, dark place for a week, filtered them through coffee filters and they came out great. Margaritas with cucumber tequila are delicious.

The Lavender Drop

aka "The Lemon Eye Pillow," or "The Purple Scurvy-Buster."

Recipe

1 serving

1 1/2 oz. lavender infused vodka*

1 1/2 oz. fresh-squeezed lemon juice

1 Tbsp. (or more) sugar or agave nectar

Add ingredients to shaker with ice. Shake well until ice almost dissolved. Rim martini glass with sugar. Shake. Serve. 

*Lavender infused vodka:

Wash several sprigs of lavender. Place in jar and cover with high-grade vodka. Let stand for 4-7 days. Sample flavor to determine strength of infusion. Remove lavender, filter vodka through a coffee filter into a decorative bottle. Enjoy.

Party Cheesecake

Summer parties deserve luscious desserts. Last night's early summer gathering inspired me to try a lemon cheesecake. It was my first attempt at the dessert - surprisingly easy once I got over how uncooked the cake actually looks when taken out of the oven. Lemon curd is delicious, but might have overpowered the delicate dairy goodness of the cheesecake. Next time I might not use all of the curd. A nice blueberry topping helped offset the cake's lemony tartness. I candied half a lemon leftover after juicing - nice garnish and delicious to eat.

Panettone

December's Gourmet magazine featured a recipe for panettone that, despite being altogether too complicated, I found to be very seductive. I'll include the link as soon as it's published online. Note to self #1: Read the whole recipe before starting, including the part about the recipe taking 2 days start to finish. Note to self #2: If a recipe requires making phone calls to find more than 2 of the ingredients, abort! This recipe required locating: real vanilla beans (not hard and my new favorite way to use vanilla); panettone molds (slightly harder to find); and candied citron (surprisingly difficult - ending with my picking a fight with an employee at a local upscale grocery. I mean come on, try being helpful.)

Note to self #3: A recipe that calls for "heavy duty stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment" needs such a mixer. My puny handheld mixer nearly blew its motor.
This was my favorite part of the recipe: the upside down cooling process. 
The ingredients weren't the right temperature. The dough didn't mix as well as it should have, nor did it rise as much as it should have. The citron was for Grandma's gelatinous fruitcake instead of the delicious citrusy citron that is my favorite part of panettone. I baked it too close to the heat source in my 1960s gas oven, hardening the bottom 10% of the loaf... but the thing turned out pretty darn well.

And then I borrowed a big Kitchen Aid mixer to try... a second loaf. 

This stuff makes delicious french toast too. We tried it with cream cheese mixed with cherry preserves or cream cheese with marmalade. Now that is the way to eat french toast.

Limoncello

My Italian host family used to talk about making Limoncello. They insisted one had to use lemons from Sicily. I used Lemons from the natural foods co-op. They're probably not from Sicily, but they're organic. I gave them a good scrub anyway.

Martha Stewart's recipe is pretty straightforward. I used Prairie organic vodka (since Everclear is illegal in this state). Make sure not to get any of the pith when peeling lemons, it will make the vodka bitter. I steeped the peel + vodka in large jars for several weeks instead of days.

All that soaking produces flecks of schmutz, so I used coffee filters and a small funnel to filter the lemon vodka. By the way, I can't wait to experiment with other infused vodkas. 

I used organic sugar for the sugar solution, which isn't totally white. The result is a duller, cloudier Limoncello, but still delicious.

One of these bottles had to be re-filtered due to rogue flecks. I tried to ship a bottle to my brother in LA and learned the U.S. Postal Service prohibits the shipping of alcohol. Who knew?

Sponge Candy

Sponge candy (or angel food candy, as we call it) has been a Christmas favorite in my family. My grandpa taught me how to make it and, since the process is easiest with two people, I asked if we could make it together this year.

It's basically all sugar, as is the case with any good Christmas candy.

The recipe calls for a tablespoon of vinegar. Once the candy reaches 300 degrees, you add a tablespoon of baking soda. The reaction between the soda and vinegar causes the liquid to start to foam. You have to mix it quickly, thoroughly, and dump it into the buttered pan so it doesn't collapse. This is where two people come in handy: one to hold the hot pan, ready to dump, while the other quickly mixes the soda and scrapes the pan with a spatula.
It heaves and grows in the pan for a while, then hardens as it cools. The result is a hard honeycomb.
Melt chocolate (with a bit of paraffin, of course, to make sure it hardens when cools)
Pure sugar. Pure deliciousness.

Mmmm...Fabric and Bread

So much fabric and so little time! I should have started a new project today but I made challah bread instead. I used a recipe from the Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking book - it's deeelicious!