Good Garlic

In my current research into happiness, I came across a reference to this study which found that adding garlic bread to a family meal decreased the number of negative interactions by 22.7% and increased the number of pleasant interactions by 7.4%. Apparently it's the garlic, not the bread that has the positive effect, and even the smell of cooked garlic is enough to improve family interactions!

When Louise was about 7, we were living on an organic garlic farm in upstate New York. That's where I learned to roast whole bulbs of garlic. We would slice off the stem end, and place the root end down in a generously oiled roasting dish, rubbing oil over the whole bulb. When roasted until soft and beige (not brown and hard), everyone would get their own head of garlic. We would squeeze each clove out of its skin, the flesh as soft as warm butter. This is delicious spread on bread or mixed in with other roast vegetables as a condiment. Roasted garlic is creamy and mild, without any of the sharpness of raw or lightly cooked cloves.


When I don't know what exactly I'm making for dinner, its usually a safe bet to start by sauteing some chopped onion and garlic, then adding whatever I can find in the fridge. Some of my favourite ways to get the aroma and taste of garlic going include:

• Sliced garlic and chunks of zucchini sauteed in butter or olive oil until the garlic and the corners of the zuccini just start to caramalise and turn brown. Sometimes I'll add tomatoes and fresh basil.
  
• Chopped garlic and sliced mushrooms sauteed slowly in butter or olive oil until the mushrooms are very very soft and the garlic has kind of melted into the mushroom juice. This is good with lots of finely chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon or a dollop of wholegrain mustard.
  
• Chopped garlic and onion sauteed til soft (starting with the onions and adding the garlic towards the end so it doesn't burn and become bitter). Then when the onion/garlic is cooled down I mix in lean minced organic beef, a free range egg, soft bread crumbs and whatever vegetables, herbs and spices I feel like (today it's lots of cumin and and a little cinnamon). I enjoy squooshing the mixture in my hands like playdough, and then shaping into little balls which I bake on a rack in the oven until brown. The cooked meatballs sit in a box in the fridge and get added to spaghetti sauce, cooked vegetables, sandwiches, even salad as I feel like it. When Louise left home and I was only cooking for myself, I stopped cooking very often. This is one of the things I try and make once a week so that I have some proper food to graze on even when I'm not making a whole meal.
  

Jess comes home from work

When we were young children we took it for granted and didn't much notice it. Finally after three years at university, I came home during the summer that I became engaged to read Proust and only then did it strike me how very much in love our parents were. And by then I knew it wasn't the usual way married couples behaved.



One afternoon I was hanging out in the kitchen. Mom had started dinner. I noticed her cheeks were pink, her eyes were sparkling and she had a little smile. She was close to the door when Dad came home from work. He took her in his arms, leaned her backwards, and gave her a long, passionate kiss. Coming out of it, they both were smiling. He took his uniform jacket off, put a large bath towel around his waist and they went into the kitchen togetherto finish dinner in perfect harmony. I realised that was the way he had always come home before we lived in Japan which was a year when everything was different.



Their teamwork was so smooth that there was little room for us. As children we were given tasks like putting the applesauce through the food mill. We set the table and unset it and did the dishes but did little cooking. The cooking they did together was a public demonstration of their love for each other. As well, Dad's need to feed people with delicious food was his most open expression of love for others.



I should now describe the applesauce. Wash unpeeled apples, roughly cut up boil up skin, seeds, cores and all together. Put through a foodmill which lets the applesauce pass through and sieves out the skins, cores, and seeds. Cooked this way the spplesauce is a warm, pinky brown. While it is still warm, flavour the applesauce with sugar, butter,cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg. Strangely this wasn't dessert. It was put on the table with cottage cheese, pickles and olives, bread and butter as a side dish in an ordinary meal in addition to the main components of meat, a green and a yellow vegetable and a starch. Then there was a dessert: cake or pie or pudding. Remember the punch made with Coolaid and fruitjuice. My favourite was grape Coolaid and pineapple juice. Does anyone still make punch the way we used to? I serve the applesauce for dessert with a lttle cream or ice cream.



Now I will tell you why the Kellerman kids happlily ate their spinach when other kids hated it. They never served canned spinach, only fresh or frozen. Boil a couple of eggs. fry up some diced bacon, briefly cook the spinach, drain the liquid, stir through the crspy bacon and a little of the bacon fat, salt and pepper, slice the eggs and arange on the top of the spinach. Very beautiful and tasty too. Not so often we had creamed spinach and it was just as good.

Now I challenge Edwina to post the browned butter carrots and Judy to post the perfect gravey.

Betty and Jessie, Jeannie and Will what were the everyday foods that you liked best? Do you still make them? Did you teach your children?

Give me pies, give me sweet little pies: Fudge Pie (Part 2)

This pie is from the other side of my family - the Southern side. 

 

In both name and location - my sweet Southern aunties have tasty many goodies!!  My auntie Valerie (Southern) Fulkerson shared this recipe with my mom Judy back in 1995.  It has since become a favorite of my brother Jeffrey, my mom and myself as well as my cousin Amy and, well, anyone who tries this pie!  The pie is very tasty and sinful.  It is good "naked" or with a meringue on top.  Whipped cream or ice cream will do in a pinch.  :)  Enjoy!

Fudge Pie

Ingredients:

• 6 tablespoons flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 tablespoons corn starch
• 3 tablespoons cocoa
• 2 cups milk
• 3 egg yolks – beaten
• 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Pastry shell, baked (regular or graham crust)

Directions:

• Mix flour, sugar, cornstarch and cocoa in a medium saucepan.
  
• Gradually stir in milk.  Cook over moderate heat until mixture thickens and boils.  Boil 1 minute.
• Stir half of hot mixture into beaten yolks.  Add the yolk mixture back to the boiling mixture.
• Stirring constantly add butter and vanilla.
• Boil and stir constantly until very thick.  Remove from heat.
• Pour into pre-baked crust
• ENJOY!

(Kimberly & Amy enjoying Auntie Valerie's Fudge Pie, January 2009)

Playing with the Devil

I flew back to New Zealand a few days ago, after nine months of living in Australia. Mostly I was living places where it was impossible, or almost impossible, to bake (which shouldn't lead you to assume that Australia is without ovens, just that I was living a bit rough). Starting this blog was like paying attention to an itch I couldn't scratch, so when I got to Hamilton I asked Martha and Norman if I could bake a cake at their house.

Martha keeps a copy of the Devil's Food Cake recipe on the pantry door

I wanted to try making the Devil's Food Cake with the controversial substitution of buttermilk for sour milk, and mum suggested I make cup cakes to make the result easier to freeze or give away. Given the general lack of enthusiasm for cake eating among most of the people around me in Hamilton (Norman made a face like I was forcing him to eat worms), combined with the chocolate alternatives available everywhere I go (chocolate mousse, chocolate macaroons, chocolate bars etc etc) this seemed like a smart move.



I was very excited to use the big enamel bowl in which the batter is always mixed in Martha's kitchen. It has a groovy '60's sunflower pattern and really high sides so the batter doesn't slop even after you pour in the hot water at the end. As a child I learned to bake using that bowl (which was also our big salad bowl for years and years). It was a wedding present to Martha and Norman in 1965 and is still going as strong as their marriage, if a little chipped and scratched- the bowl, not the marriage!


I can't say I was very impressed with the buttermilk version of the cake, which seems to me a less moist than the sour milk version, possibly with a finer crumb. Also the colour wasn't the rich reddish almost-black brown I remember. So, these buttermilk ones were a bit bland in colour, texture and taste. I'm going back to sour milk for sure next time.

A few years ago, I learned that using less sugar will stop the top of the cake from cracking in the oven, so I always use 1 1/2 cups instead of the 2 called for in the recipe. So these cupcakes have lovely smooth tops.


If you haven't checked back on my original Devil's Food recipe post, Martha added a detailed historical caption to the photo of grandma Ada and there's been a lively debate in the comments section. Worth a look if you are interested.

Kellerman Birthday Cakes

This memory is of a history of birthday cakes but, please,everyone add to this because my memory is not complete. Most of my memories of Kellerman family life end with Japan because that is when I started university and left home and only came back as a visitor.

When we were very small, at Scott Base, and quite young, at Paxton Illinois I remember Ada Ruth making rainbow cakes. There would be yellow, pink and blue layers which she put togeter with filling and then covered the whole cake with fluffy white frosting.* In Paxton we had a drafty old house with a coal furnace. One year the furnace blew up and coal dust sprinkled all over the colored layers cooling on the counter top. We were too poor to make another cake so mom vacuumed the coal dust off and covered it with a thick layer of frosting, No one at the party noticed.


Before Mom started making the Devils food cake, she made a rich chocolate cake which started with creaming the butter and sugar until fluffy. It may have been made with melted cooking chocolate rather than cocoa. I have a tactile memory of creaming the butter and sugar between my fingers squishing away until it was light and fluffy. When mom scraped the gritty mixture off my fingers with a spatula it wasn't such a nice feeling.


Mom got the recipe for devils food cake from her mom, Edna Taylor, in the mid fifties. Grandma Taylor learned to decorate elaborate cakes in California. One cake that I remember is that the cake was baked in a bowl and then turned over and a small doll was inserted to make a skirt and layers of ruffles were piped on. The devils food cake is sturdy and flexible enough for many variations. One birthday variation I remember is that the caked, baked in a sheet, was covered with a layer of marshmellow and a layer of fudge over that. For about a year many of us asked for that one before it seemed too disgustingly sweet.


At Camp Tadmor, where my parents met. and where the family lived after WW II and Jessie was born, later on we learned another recipe from Hulda Thorpe. Cherry Delight, a gooey sweetness made with cans of cherries. Does anyone have this recipe? that was a favourite birthday treat.


Sometimes we asked for marble cake, or angel cake, or golden layer cake. As a teenager, I always wanted lemon meringue pie. (Editor's Note: See the Lemon Meringe Pie post for the recipe!)

Everyone out there, why don't you post your favourite birthday cake?

Give me pie, give me sweet little pies: Lemon Meringue (Part 1)

Amy's recent visit to Kimberly's house inspired a ton of baking and eating.  Amy brought many lemons - so we decided to make lemonaide, lemon meringue pie, avglomeno soup and lemon bars.  Lemon must have been in the air - as Martha decided to post a lemon meringue pie at the same time!  We used the original recipe from the Original Betty Crocker Cookbook, a recipe Ada Ruth used, but had we only had this recipe as well we could have made both versions!!

Lemon Meringue Pie

Prepare a baked pie shell.

Combine in the top of a double boiler:

1 cup sugar

5-6tablesp0ons cornstarch

1/8 teaspoon salt

Add very gradually:

2 cups water or milk

Stir and cook these ingredients over (not in) hot water for about 8 to 12 minutes until the mixture thickens.  Cover and cook for 10 minutes more.  Stir occasionally.  Remove the mixture from the heat.

pour a little of it over

3 beaten egg yolks

Beat this and return it to the mixture in the double boiler. Cook and stir gently, stillover boiling water, ab out 5 minutes more. Remove from heat.

Beat in:

3 Tablespoons butter

1/3 cup lemon juice

2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind

Note: If you want a more lemony flavor add more rind--not more juice. Cool the custard by stirring very, very gently to relase any steam whch might thin the filling. Pour it cool into the cold pie shell

Cover with a meringue made with the 3 egg whites.

Meringue

Preheat oven to 325 -350 degrees

Whip until they are frothy:

3 egg whites

Add:

1/4 cream

Marshmallow Interlude

There is a TV series on the Food Network called "Good Eats."  I really like this show - mostly because it does a great job of describing the science and history behind recipies and how food works.  So....there was a show that inspired me to make a basic pantry staple - something I'd never considered making before - marshmallows!!  I have since talked about them to quite a few people...and shared them with anyone who visits us.  They are goooood.

It wasn't very difficult and the result is VERY tasty.  (It was worth the 15 minutes of noise from the KitchenAide and the strange gelatin smell...) I'm considering a batch with peppermint flavoring for use in hot chocolate...mmmmm.  And when I think about color and cutting out shapes - possibilities are endless!  

Here is the recipe - but if you see above I have linked to the original recipe on Foodtv.com.  I have included my personal modifications below.  Let me know if you try this out!  (It is messy...just be forewarned) Enjoy!

Homemade Marshmallows

3 packages unflavored gelatin 1 cup ice cold water, divided 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 1 cup light corn syrup 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar 1/4 cup cornstarch Nonstick spray

• Place the gelatin into the bowl of a stand mixer along with 1/2 cup of the water. Have the whisk attachment standing by.
  
• In a small saucepan combine the remaining 1/2 cup water, granulated sugar, corn syrup and salt. Place over medium high heat, cover and allow to cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Uncover, clip a candy thermometer onto the side of the pan and continue to cook until the mixture reaches 240 degrees F, approximately 7 to 8 minutes. Once the mixture reaches this temperature, immediately remove from the heat.
  
• Turn the mixer on low speed and, while running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the gelatin mixture. Once you have added all of the syrup, increase the speed to high. Continue to whip until the mixture becomes very thick and is lukewarm, approximately 12 to 15 minutes. Add the vanilla during the last minute of whipping. While the mixture is whipping prepare the pans as follows.
  

For regular marshmallows:

Combine the confectioners' sugar and cornstarch in a small bowl. Lightly spray a 13 by 9-inch metal baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Add the sugar and cornstarch mixture and move around to completely coat the bottom and sides of the pan. Return the remaining mixture to the bowl for later use.When ready, pour the mixture into the prepared pan, spread this mixture with a lightly oiled spatula and spread evenly in the pan (Kimberly's Note: This will be messy and sticky - and I found it easiest to spread as much as I could, then I poured the remaining confectioners' sugar mixture over the marshmellows and spread to the edges.) Dust the top with enough of the remaining sugar and cornstarch mixture to lightly cover. Reserve the rest for later. Allow the marshmallows to sit uncovered for at least 4 hours and up to overnight. (Kimberly's Note: I let this sit for about 6 hours before cutting.)

Turn the marshmallows out onto a cutting board and cut into 1-inch squares using a pizza wheel dusted with the confectioners' sugar mixture. (Kimberly's Note: I made more confectioners' sugar mixture. I put it into a ziploc bag and put cut marshmellows into the bag and shook so the marshmallows wouldn't stick to one another.). Once cut, lightly dust all sides of each marshmallow with the remaining mixture, using additional if necessary. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks.