Grandma Peppler's coconut custard pie

This was one of the first recipes I got from my grandmother when I was in high school and so inexperienced that I didn't realize (and she hadn't thought to tell me) that you have to cook a cornstarch mixture in order for it to jell up. I put it all together, uncooked, and refrigerated it in hopes of a miracle that never occurred.

Lately I had to increase the amount of filling, pie pans are bigger than they used to be.

Grandma Peppler's coconut custard pie 

scant 1/2 cup sugar plus 1/4 cup for meringue
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups milk
1-1/2 tablespoons butter
4 eggs, separated
2 teaspoons vanilla
2-1/2 cups flaked, sweetened coconut
baked pie crust

1. Mix the sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a non-stick saucepan till there are no lumps. Add a tablespoon of the milk and mix it in as well as possible, then add milk just a tiny bit at a time till you have a stiff lumpless gook. Then turn on the heat and add the rest of the milk gradually, stirring constantly. Cook until it thickens.

2. Add the butter and melt it. Then add 1-1/2 cups coconut, give the pot a few good stirs, and turn off the heat.

3. Meanwhile, separate the eggs. Put the yolks in a smallish bowl and whip them smooth with the vanilla.

4. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites stiff, gradually adding 1/4 cup of sugar as you go.

5. Drop a few dollops of the hot custard mixture into the egg yolks and whip them together (this is called tempering) - then add the egg yolk mixture back into the custard mixture and cook a little longer (so the egg yolks cook a bit).

6. My grandma would fold all the egg whites into the custard, but I've taken to folding only half the beaten meringue into the custard. Then I dump the custard-mixed-with-meringue into the cooled (well, supposedly, but actually I never wait and dump it into the baked pie crust when it's still hot) pie crust and spread it evenly.

7. Spread the remaining 1/2 of the meringue on top and cook in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10-14 minutes until the meringue is a bit browned. Please do not eat this pie hot. If you put it in the freezer to hasten the cooling, don't forget you put it in there.

Ozark pudding

I saw this mentioned on twitter and tried it yesterday. It is not a beautiful dish but it's very tasty and best of all, it's incredibly easy and fast to make and you usually have a couple apples around the house. If you need a last-minute potluck dish, this could be it.

Ozark pudding

2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1-1/2 ts baking powder
3/8 ts salt
1-2 apples, diced (no need to peel them) (you could probably use any fruit)
1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans) (optional to toast them first)
1 ts vanilla or lemon juice

Grease a 9" square baking tin. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Beat the eggs and sugar together until foamy. Add everything else. Dump in the baking pan and cook 40-45 minutes.

It's good with whipped cream.

Old fashioned potato knishes

I invited my friend Paul to come over and make knishes with me, I'd never tried them before. We used the following dough recipe which is from Joe the Pastry Guy

Traditional knish dough

2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vinegar
1/2 cup water

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, put wet ingredients into a well in the middle of the dry ones, stir vigorously until melded, knead in the bowl for a minute, cover with saran wrap and let rest for an hour.

Here is the filling we made:

Filling for potato knishes

1-1/2 pounds of potatoes cut in halves or quarters. We did not peel them.
2 onions chopped up in the food processor (next time I will use three)
A big bunch of parsley chopped up in the food processor
1 tablespoon of oil
2 tablespoon of butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
lots of pepper
an egg (or an egg white, or an egg yolk) for glazing

Put water on to boil as you scrub your potatoes and cut them. Put them in the coldish water, bring to a boil, and cook around 20 minutes. Meanwhile, start frying the onions over low heat in the salt, oil and butter. The longer, the better, we cooked ours almost half an hour, stirring constantly, but they could have cooked longer. Towards the end we added the parsley and pepper.

We each had a rolling pin. I divided the dough into four balls, he rolled out two and I rolled out two, as thin as possible, they came out about 18" long and about 4" wide. Along the long side we put a long log of filling about an inch tall, spread some oil on the still exposed part of the dough, and rolled the dough up so it wrapped around the filling almost twice.

Then you mash down on the filling about every 2-1/2 inches with your hand and where you mashed, pick up the end, twist where you mashed (like a sausage casing) and cut where you twisted. You end up with a little pillow twisted closed at both ends. Squish it around and put it with one of the twisted ends down on the baking sheet, then I pushed into the middle top (at the other twist) to make an indentation in mine but Paul didn't do that, so his are the ones that look sort of open at the top.

Beat the egg and glaze the knishes (we used our fingers). Bake for about 25 minutes at 375 degrees. This made about 25 knishes at the size you see in the picture.

Chocolate pretzel toffee bark with toasted almonds on top.

I published this recipe last year but I'm updating it after having made it quite a few times. Also, I wanted to make enough so the entire jelly roll pan of pretzels would be covered with toffee.

It's ridiculously compulsive and time consuming to line all the pretzels up into a grid, but it is equally ridiculously satisfying to be able to snap the toffee into perfect rectangular pieces.

Here is what you have to do before you start heating the mixture:

1. Run very hot water into your sink (to drop the bowl and utensils into immediately after the project)
   
2. Have something to do (so you don't poke the toffee before it cools, which takes HOURS)
   
3. Toast the almonds - I do it in the toaster oven, 350 degrees for 5 or 6 minutes
   
4. Get out your 11x17 cookie sheet and cover it with pretzels (see below). Some people put the chocolate chips right on top of the pretzels and then pour the hot goo over the top of the chips. I didn't do it that way but it might be better.
   

Pretzel Toffee Bark

1/2 of a 12-ounce bag of square pretzels (I used Snyder Butter Snaps)
1-3/8 cups salted butter (2-3/4 sticks)
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1-3/8 cups white sugar
2-1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1-3/4 cup sliced toasted almonds

Melt the butter and add the sugar and corn syrup. Boil to 280 degrees (not quite hard crack), stirring CONSTANTLY. Don't guess, get one of those cheap candy thermometers at the grocery store.

Immediately pour over pretzels spreading as evenly as possible while you pour because you won't have long to spread it. If you insist on spreading the goo absolutely all the way to the wall of the pan it will be hard to get the toffee out. Drop the empty saucepan into the hot water in your sink along with the wooden spoon.

Immediately sprinkle chocolate chips and then the sliced almonds over the pan.

Put in the pre-heated oven for 5 minutes and then mash down on it with a potato ricer or any other flat thing to get the almonds and chocolate to mix together. There will be a lot of melted chocolate with almonds stuck to it on the ricer when you're done. You know what to do.

Cool completely at room temperature. Go off and do the thing you planned to do so you wouldn't poke your toffee. It takes a long time for the chocolate to harden again.

If you put it in the fridge or freezer to get the chocolate to firm up you will RUIN it, as I did last year. In the freezer it rehydrates or something and loses its charm. But people will still eat it.

AFTER the chocolate is solid again, break the toffee into pieces.

How to make a half-size cheesecake

A whole big heavy full-sized cheesecake has so many calories. And face it, if there's half a cheesecake left over and you stick it in the refrigerator, it's going to get eaten.

I didn't find a recipe online for what I wanted - a half-sized cheesecake - so I figured it out for myself and it was perfect.
And very easy.



After I made two half-size cheesecakes in a 1-quart baking dish, I splurged and bought a 7" springform pan. A 6" pan would also work, you would have to cook it a little longer at a little lower heat.

Half-sized cheesecake recipe: the graham-cracker crust

1-1/4 cup of crushed graham crackers (this USED to be one of the three wrapped portions inside a graham-cracker box but now a box of graham crackers weighs only 14.4 oz so you'll have to break into the next portion)
1/4 cup sugar
a dash of salt
6 TB of butter

You don't really need this much crust but in my family people like a lot.

I crush the cookies in my food processor but you can pound them flat inside a gallon-sized ziplock bag too. Don't use low-fat graham crackers, they won't hold together well. Some people add cinnamon but I don't like it in this recipe.

I melted the butter and added the rest of the ingredients and pressed them carefully against the aluminum foil lining of my casserole (and then against the edges of my springform baking tin when I got it yesterday), and pushed them up the sides as far as they would go. It's recommended to chill the crust for half an hour but I didn't bother and it turned out fine.

Small sized cheesecake: the filling
12 ounces of cream cheese (that's one and a half of the big size or three of the small size) you can use non-fat creamcheese and it will turn out fine!
1/2 cup of sugar plus 1 tablespoon which is added to the sourcream topping
2 teaspoons of vanilla
dash of salt
2 eggs
8 ounces of sour cream

They say cheesecakes turn out better if you don't mix them too vigorously - I had all the ingredients at room temperature and first beat the sugar into the cream cheese (with the dash of salt).

Then I mixed in the two eggs and one teaspoon of vanilla by hand and poured it into the casserole.

Shake your cheesecake gently to settle it and then bake it at 330 degrees for about 35 minutes. You want it not all the way cooked - you want it jiggly for about three inches in the center.

Pull the cheesecake out of the oven and let it cool for five minutes. Meanwhile, stir the other teaspoon of vanilla and the one tablespoon of sugar into the sour cream.

Mix the sourcream, vanilla, and sugar and drop by dollops onto the hot cheesecake. spread them into a thin, even layer.



Put it back in the oven for another ten minutes. Then turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake in there for an hour or three before putting it in the refrigerator. These small cheesecakes never crack.

Suvganiyot (Hannukah doughnuts)

This is a repost of our family recipe, which I got from my ex-father-in-law many years ago - he found it in the Jerusalem Post - it's for an Israeli, Sephardi type of Hanukah donut that does not have jelly in it and is not rolled out on a cutting board.

Modestly: this recipe has been honed to perfection. It feeds about four people who are eating nothing else for dinner. Last night I made a triple recipe, but about five people we expected didn't come, so I dumped the left-over donut batter into a greased cake pan and baked it - it became a lovely loaf of orange yeast bread which I cut up and sent home with the guests. No waste! Except for all that oil...

1996 Sufganiyot - BEST EVER

1 tablespoon yeast (fast rise will be safer)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup water
1/4 cup orange juice concentrate (do not dilute)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons oil
1 egg
around 2 cups flour (or a little less)

Mix first four ingredients and stir fifty times to make a "sponge." Let rise in a bowl covered with a kitchen towel for an hour or more (more is better).

Add the rest of the ingredients and beat vigorously. This makes a very wet dough. Do not fear: you will not be rolling it out. Wet is good. Let it rise for another hour or more.

Heat two quarts of cooking oil (have a little more at the ready just in case) to 350 degrees in an electric frying pan or deep-fat fryer. Tear up some brown paper bags on which you'll drain the donuts.

Make cinnamon sugar (about a cup of confectioners sugar and as much cinnamon as your crew likes). Put it in a medium-sized paper bag. If your bag has holes in it you're going to be sorry.

OK, time to begin. With a big spoon dip out some of your gooey dough and drop it into the hot oil. It will behave like spider man, stretching all over the place. Make weird shapes, it's fun. Don't make the doughnuts too big or they won't cook well in the middle. Don't crowd the frying pan or the temperature will get too low.

The doughnuts will soon bob up to the surface and you'll want to turn them over fairly soon, using a slotted spoon or tongs. You'll turn them several times before they're done - which is when they are a pretty dark brown on both sides. Try one and see.

As some get taken out of the pan, put in more. Don't crowd them.

Drain them on the paper bags. When they're somewhat cooled, pop them into the cinnamon sugar bag and shake. Put on a plate or directly into the mouths of the avidly waiting consumers.

Do NOT make these unless you have a lot of people around to eat them - and to help you clean up. Makes 28 doughnuts, enough for four people who are eating nothing else for dinner or 6 people who are only moderately piggy.

My favorite peach cake recipe

I have made seven or so peach cakes this season, trying to get the recipe just the way I wanted it. Here it is, in my opinion it's perfect.

The Best Peach Cake Recipe

3/4 cup butter
7/8 cup sugar (I used half brown sugar and half white sugar)
1/2 teaspoon salt (generous)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs, separated
2 cups flour
3-1/2 cups peaches, c. 3/8" diced

Butter and flour a tube pan (alternately, use two 9" square pans - then it cooks faster)

Cream butter, sugar, salt, spices, soda and powder. Beat in the egg yolks.

Beat the egg whites until stiff.

Put the chopped peaches, flour, and fluffy egg whites in the bowl and fold together well.

Drop into tube pan, smooth. Cook at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes (check carefully as riper peaches cook faster). Don't burn your mouth, let it cool.

Perfect lemon meringue pie

This has been perfected over many years of experimentation.

Lemon Meringue pie

Homemade pie shell, cooked (see below)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
6 more tablespoons sugar for meringue
6 tablespoons of cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
2-2/3 cups water, milk, or a combination
4 eggs, separated - yolks in a small bowl and whites in a larger one
2 tablespoons of butter
1/2 cup lemon juice
grated lemon zest of a lemon (about 2 teaspoons)

Put the first sugar and the cornstarch and salt in a non-stick saucepan and stir together well (eliminating lumps).

Add 1/3 cup of the liquid to the dry ingredients in the saucepan and stir into a very stiff paste. Add another 1/3 cup and stir, and gradually add all the liquid.

Cook over medium heat until it bubbles and then on low heat, stirring constantly, until it's translucent (if you used water) and glossy. Stir in the 2 tablespoons of butter and the lemon zest.

Stir a couple blobs of the hot mixture into your egg yolks and then stir the egg yolks into the mixture. Add lemon juice and stir. Cook for about a minute and turn off the heat.

Let it cool a bit and pour into the baked pie crust, spreading evenly.

Beat the egg whites on high, adding the 6 tablespoons of sugar gradually. When they're high and glossy, pile them onto your pie.

Cook at 350 until browned a bit (probably 10-15 minutes).

Cool for at least half a day or it will be gloppy! It's better the next day.

Perfect one-crust pie shell recipe

1 cup white flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons salted butter
1/4 cup (or a bit more) water

Mix the two flours and salt. Using a carrot grater, grate the butter into the flour and salt. Add water cautiously -- I add about three teaspoons, toss it with the backs of my fingers, add a bit more, and stop when I can collect it into a ball.

I roll it out immediately with my noodle pin (tapered rolling pin) on one of those non-stick canvas pie surfaces. Fit it in your pie pan, flute the edges, and stab some fork holes in the bottom so steam can escape.

If you need to cook the piecrust first (as in the lemon meringue recipe above) you need to put something in the pie shell while cooking it so it doesn't bubble and slump. There are things you can buy at fancy stores - pie weights, etc. - some people use beans or rice in aluminum foil - experiment.

Cook at about 350 degrees for about 12-15 minutes until lightly browned.

Easy to make rugelach

I posted a recipe for rugelekh before, but I made them this week and found the easiest way to make them. When you buy commercial rugelach, they are rarely in the traditional crescent-shape - they have been made in logs which is MUCH faster.

This is a very soft dough which is why you keep putting it back in the refrigerator between steps! Otherwise it will dissolve and stick to everything.

Rugelach
Dough - in the food processor mix until it looks like dough:

1 cup (that's half a pound) salted butter
8-oz package of cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
2-1/2 cups flour
pinch of salt

Divide the soft blob into four balls, put each into a clean plastic grocery bag, and smash them all flat. Chill for an hour.

Meanwhile, for the filling, grind in the food processor:

9 ounces (about 1-1/2 cup) of pitted dates and raisins
1 cup walnuts
3/8 cup sugar
1 ts cinnamon
1/3 ts vanilla

You'll also need:

warmed jam (apricot, peach, rasperry)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

When the dough is chilled, dump the first flattened blob onto floured parchment paper or floured plastic-coated freezer paper. Leave the others in the fridge.

Dust the top with flour and roll it into a 12x8" rectangle. Halfway through, when it starts to stick, dust it again and then flip it over onto another piece of freezer paper. Dust the new top (used to be the bottom) with flour and roll until you make your target size.

Brush the warmed jam onto the whole 12x8" area, then sprinkle 1/4 of your filling mixture evenly over the surface (leave the last inch free of filling so it will seal up better).

With the long side oriented left-right, pull up on the freezer paper and fold an inch of the dough over the filling. Use the freezer paper to help you nudge and roll the dough like a jelly roll, when you get to the end the jam-only part should seal nicely. Tuck the ends in and transfer to a baking dish. Rugelach will stick to your cookie pan so

1. Use a NEW non-stick pan, buttered, or
   
2. Put a piece of parchment paper in the pan, or
   
3. Use a silicone baking mat (that's what I do).

When you've rolled all four logs and put them on the cookie tin, you can brush milk on them and sprinkle coarse sugar on top.

Put the logs in the refrigerator and chill them for another hour.

Now comes the clever part: Use a sharp knife to cut 2/3 of the way through each log at 3/4" intervals. Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes (until golden brown).

Cool them for about half anhour, then transfer the logs to a cutting board and cut the rest of the way through (I use a pizza cutting wheel).

How to make the best latkes

We had family Hanukah last night, I cooked latkes. Every cook thinks she makes the best latkes and I'm no exception... a few nights ago I was part of a Hanukah celebration at a local retirement community and at the dinner following, the ladies at my table were grumbling about the latkes as made by the kitchen staff. I had the wonderful fantasy of the lot of them - more than two dozen Jewish mothers - descending on the kitchen en masse to tell them how to make proper latkes. Of course, this would have degenerated into a free-for-all as they all disagreed with each other. Graters would have been flying.

Latkes

10 medium baking potatoes
2 large onions
2 eggs
1/4 cup flour, bread crumbs, or matsoh meal
salt
lots of oil
sour cream and applesauce for topping

The worst part is grating the potatoes. There have been many bloody knuckles in my past but this year for the first time I used the grating attachment of my food processor. Voila! Salvation.

After you've grated them, salt them liberally, toss them with the salt, and set them in a drainer over a pot for at least half an hour. More is better. They'll turn reddish and a whole lot of watery goo will drip into the pot.

While you're waiting, dice the onions (or chop them in the food processor). Put a couple tablespoons of oil in a big frying pan and saute the onions until soft.

Now take small handfuls of the grated potatoes and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze the rest of the liquid out of them. You will be amazed how much there is! The more you squeeze out the better.

I fire up two large frying pans with enough oil in them to cover the bottom generously. While the oil heats up, mix the sauteed onions, potatoes, eggs, and flour thoroughly.

I use a very large fork to take a golfball-sized blob of the mixture and put it in the oil, mashing it flat. We like the lacy parts around the edges so be sure they're lacy and flat. Fill both pans. You will not have good latkes unless you keep adding oil when the latkes suck it up. Don't even think about skimping. If you are dieting, don't eat latkes.

I cook them on the first side till I see the edges are getting crispy and then flip them. I like them very dark and crispy. Your mileage may vary.

I put a large flat pan in the oven at 300 degrees and lob the latkes onto the pan until people are ready to eat.

The big question is, how many people will this serve? It's always hard to decide how many latkes to make. Last night we counted: we got thirty latkes from this recipe. So that's 3 latkes per potato. Four people ate this recipe almost completely, but maybe they shouldn't have.

Sour cream and applesauce are the traditional toppings but I (a convert) prefer mozzarella cheese. Sshhh.

By the way, some people translate "latke" as "potato pancake" but that makes me shudder. It reminds me of that ghastly Manischewitz latke mix which makes limp flabby pancakes that are like wallpaper paste inside. No, no, nooooo!


.

Chocolate buttermilk pie

Here are two great recipes for chocolate buttermilk pie. The first is the one I made for Mitzvah Day. I made it yesterday because it's firmer on the second day.

Chocolate buttermilk pie

2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1/3 cup cocoa
4 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups milk
1-1/2 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
5 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons butter
cooked pie shell
optional: whipped cream

Stir together cornstarch, cocoa, salt, and sugar in a non-stick pot. Add a little bit of the milk and mix to a thick paste. Gradually add the rest of the milk, stirring constantly. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens completely (this takes quite a while unless you warm the milk before you begin).

Meanwhile, crush the unsweetened chocolate into powder/small chunks(I use a food processor); add it to the pot and keep stirring. When the mixture is beginning to thicken, add the buttermilk gradually. Keep stirring.

Separate four eggs (three would be enough actually). When the cornstarch-chocolate mixture is thick, add a bit of it to the yolks in a smaller bowl, stir, and then stir the yolks into the pot.

Last, add the vanilla and butter and when it's all stirred together, let it cool a bit and then dump it into the cooked pie shell and chill, covered.

Note: you can make meringue from the egg whites and put it on top if you don't have another use for them. I prefer whipped cream, myself.

Here's the other recipe, it's great too.

Chocolate pie #2

2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 egg yolks
2 cups milk 2
1 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate chips
whipped cream
Cooked pie shell

Combine sugar, cornstarch and salt in non-stick pot. Add milk as above (first a little bit to make a paste, then the rest gradually while stirring). When mixture is getting quite hot, add buttermilk gradually, stirring all the while.

Let mixture come to a boil; stir for one more minute. Add butter, vanilla, and chocolate chips; stir until chips are melted and mixture is well blended. Take off heat and cool slightly; dump into pre-baked pie shell. Refrigerate overnight or until chilled and firm. Top with whipped cream.

Menticia and I make Spanish tortilla

Menticia was amused to see how different a Spanish tortilla is from our usual Mexican tortillas. I would recommend making this with a buddy, the way we did - slicing potatoes 1/8" thick is tedious and the frying pan is so heavy with all the slop in it that trying to hold a plate over it with one hand while flipping the pan with the other hand sounds impossible.

It does seem ridiculously extravagant to fry the potatoes (only until they're translucent and soft, you don't want to brown them) in SO MUCH oil, but there you have it, that's how it's done.

This was consumed avidly by all and I'll be able to use the drained-off oil to make another Spanish tortilla this week. It will also be a perfect Hannukah food, another version of a latke.

Spanish Tortilla

2 cups olive oil
2 pounds potatoes sliced 1/8" & tossed with 2 ts salt
1 large onion, chopped
chopped parsley
1/8 teaspoon(s) ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 large eggs, beaten

In large nonstick frying pan, heat 2 cups olive oil over medium-high heat (until a test potato slice sizzles).

Slide in all the potatoes and onion; cook, stirring occasionally, until tender (might be as much as 25 minutes).

Take off heat and drain over a bowl (save oil).

Slide drained, cooked potatoes gently into another bowl. Add parsley, black pepper, and salt. Add eggs. Stir gently.

In 10" non-stick skillet, get 1-2 tablespoons of the oil quite hot. Gently add potato-egg mixture to skillet, spreading evenly and pressing down with spatula.

Reduce heat and cook, covered, until egg on the sides of skillet is slightly brown and mixture starts to set (about 10 minutes).

Flip omelet onto large flat plate. Heat frying pan with a bit more oil, slide the tortilla back into pan. Cook for a few more minutes. Good at room temperature.

Coconut cocoa oatmeal cookies

Ezra made this tonight for us to take to Bob and Barb's house (they made a venison roast from a deer Bob shot on our property). Scrumptious, all of it!!

Fudge Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

1/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup milk
2/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup coconut
1-1/2 cups quick oatmeal
salt to taste
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine first 4 ingredients in large pan, bring to a boil. Boil for a minute, then add all the other ingredients. Stir and drop by spoonfuls on wax paper; chill. Makes about 30.

Baking twice in one day: coconut walnut chocolate bars!

A vestigial feeling for Christmas compels me to bake at this dark time of year. My high-school sophomore friend Menticia and I made these today for her family.

Chocolate coconut walnut bars

10 tablespoons of butter coarsely grated
3 tablespoons sugar
1-1/4 cups flour
2 eggs
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons flour
1-1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 cup toasted walnuts (whole or pieces or chopped)
1 cup (or more) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix first three ingredients to sandy crumbles and press into a lasagna pan. Bake for about 15 minutes until lightly browned.

Meanwhile, mix the eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt very thoroughly. Add baking powder and flour and blend well. Add coconut, walnuts, and chips and blend well.

Pour onto the hot crust and spread evenly. Bake for about 20 minutes.

Today's Molasses Peanut Butter Cookies

Last night as my housemate and I were enjoying being in the warm house while "wintry mix" was occurring outside, I got a call from my son Ezra: after his long shift at work, he'd crossed the howling tundra through the wintry mix, heaved his groceries into the car and plopped into the driver's seat with a sigh, and turned the key and - nothing.

He got a friend to jump his battery - nothing. He called me and what an amazement! Just that very day his new AAA card had arrived - I signed us up on the 2-for-1 plan. How often does that happen? So he called triple A and they came and they installed a new battery and he made it home.

But since he'd never called me after that first call, and his phone was out of juice, I thought he was still out shivering in the cold unable to solve his problem, perhaps with a busted starter or alternator or something.

So I called Bob Vasile, who has become a sort of uncle to Ez, and he pried himself up out of his cozy chair and went out in the wintry mix to save Ez. Who was gone, because he'd solved his own problem.

So, in gratitude, I just cooked these cookies for Bob. I kind of invented the recipe because the one I always use in the "Joy of Cooking" isn't very good, it's dry and crumbly. This one is more interesting. I would make it again.

MOLASSES PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

1/2 c. butter, mostly melted in microwave
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. molasses (not blackstrap)
2/3 c. chunky peanut butter
1 egg
1-1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Beat together the first five ingredients and whip well. Add the rest of the ingredients and whip some more. Cook at 360 degrees for as long as you like. (Bob likes them a little burnt.)

Mrs. Keen's Apple Cake

This is my housemate Mitzi's magnificent 30-year-old adapted low-fat apple cake recipe. We whoofled it up in no time flat although Mitzi says it's great for breakfast, it was mostly gone by then.

Mrs. Keen's Delicious Low-Fat Apple Cake

2-1/2 cups peeled, diced apples
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup oil (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1/4 cup applesauce
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup raisins

Mix apples and brown sugar in a large bowl; let stand for half an hour.
Mix flour, soda, salt, cinnamon in one bowl.
Mix oil, vanilla, and egg in another small bowl.
Dump wet ingredients and dry ingredients into the apple bowl.
Mix, adding nuts and raisins
Bake in an 8-inch square greased pan at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

Our absolutely favorite chocolate cake

I've made a lot of chocolate cakes in my life but have now settled on this one as the very best chocolate cake and - more importantly - the very best chocolate icing. It makes two relatively low 8" layers so you get more frosting per serving! We know this as "good Jeimy cake" after the person I first made it for...

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate
1/3 cup cocoa plus enough to dust the pans
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 stick softened salted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
5/8 cup buttermilk
1 cup cake flour
raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Put an 8" round cake pan on wax paper and trace it with the back of a knife. Cut out the wax paper circle. Butter the bottom of the cake pan. Add the wax paper. Butter the wax paper and sides of the pan. Repeat with other pan. Dust both with cocoa powder.

Melt chocolate in a microwave-safe mixing bowl. Add cocoa, salt, baking powder, butter, vanilla and sugar and cream well. Add eggs separately beating after each. Add buttermilk and flour and mix.

Pour evenly into the two pans and bake for about 15 minutes. Turn out onto a cooling rack and in about five minutes spread raspberry jam on top of each layer. It will sink in to seal the cake and prevent it from drying out.

When the layers are cool, put the thicker one flat side up on your cake plate. Put strips of wax paper under its edges to keep the plate clean while you frost it. Frost the top of the first layer, then put the second layer flat side down on top of the iced bottom layer and frost the rest.

Chocolate Buttermilk Icing

2 squares (2 ounces) unsweetened chocolate
7 tablespoons salted softened butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt
5-6 tablespoons buttermilk (approximate)
3-1/3 cup confectioners sugar (approximate)

Melt chocolate in microwave-proof mixing bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and beat them well. If it's too stiff add more buttermilk. If it's too soft add more confectioners sugar.

Crazy Crust Pizza

I'm cleaning off my desk on this snowy day. Here's a recipe I've been meaning to post. I made it with Menticia the other day and she deemed it delicious. You could make it with other cooked meats and/or vegetables.

CRAZY CRUST PIZZA

1 pound of ground beef, browned and drained
2 onions, sliced and browned (optional) in chili powder or other spices
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk
2 eggs
pizza sauce
mozzarella cheese

Beat the flour, salt, milk, and eggs smooth (like a pancake batter). Pour/spread into a 12" non-stick pizza pan (you might want to grease it or spray it to be sure)

Arrange the meat and onions on top, actually they'll sort of sink in to the batter.

Cook at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Then add pizza sauce and mozzarella and cook for 7-12 more minutes.

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Menticia and I made "sopa seca de tortilla"

Margaret's Cantina, a neighborhood restaurant, serves a great sopa seca special on Tuesdays, cooked in little casseroles. I'm on a cook-real-food campaign and of course roped Menticia into it. We looked at some recipes and she decided she'd rather make the kind that's more like, well, soup. So here's what we did.

Mince (or pulverize in the food processor) three cloves of garlic and two smallish onions; sautee in a dutch oven until soft.

Add 6 cups of chicken broth and the two split halves of a chicken breast. We also added a can of diced tomatoes with mild chiles in it. I also added about a teaspoon of some "Tequila Lime Seasoning" my son bought at Whole Foods.

We cooked the chicken long enough to listen to two Songs of the Week, write little stories, and read two chapters of the Sword and the Stone. Then we pulled the chicken off the bones and returned it to the soup.

We cut about five tortillas into 1/2 inch strips and sauteed them in a large frying pan with a couple teaspoons of oil until they were almost but not quite crispy.

Dish up the soup and add as many tortilla strips as you like. The more tortilla strips, the "drier" the soup. Mmm!

There was enough left over to freeze one serving and also have some for breakfast tomorrow.

A great chocolate mocha espresso sponge cake!

I made this with some of my hens' fine eggs yesterday. Mmmm.

Chocolate coffee sponge cake

5 eggs, separated
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-2 tablespoons freeze dried coffee dissolved in 1/4 cup hot water
7/8 cup flour stirred in with
1/4 teaspoon salt and
1 teaspoon baking powder

Beat the egg yolks until light. Add sugar, cocoa, and vanilla and beat a lot more.

Add coffee dissolved in water, and flour, salt, baking powder, and beat more.

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold in. Ladle into a tube pan and bake for about 40 minutes.