Notes on Sugar

A few weeks ago, Alex and I took a brief trip to Alabama to work out a few wedding details: food, church arrangements, flowers, that kind of thing.  And when I say brief, I mean that we touched down in Alabama on a Sunday around noon, and didn’t stop moving until we were back on the plane on Tuesday afternoon.  It was a productive and fun trip, but the breakneck pace of it left me feeling tired and homesick and a little sad.

That’s the breaks when you live in a city about a thousand miles away from your family; the city offers excitement and opportunity and endless fun, but without a private jet or a limitless travel fund, you mostly have to make do with brief, occasional trips, and then rely on phone calls and Facebook and email in order to keep in touch the rest of the time.  (I would say Skype, too, but I’m probably the one millennial on the planet who isn’t exactly sure what Skype is.)

Fortunately, I’ve been able to build my own surrogate family in Boston, composed largely of fellow Southern expatriates, as well as other friends who have joined us along the way.  And a surefire cure for homesickness is our weekly family dinner, where we get together and cook and eat and play games and drink beer (Joe’s homebrew or otherwise) and laugh about the crazy things we’ve experienced during our work weeks.  (Alex, Olivia and I work in various aspects of customer service, Evan is a bartender, Sarah is a teacher, and Joe is a therapist, so we always have plenty of material in that category.)

At a recent family dinner, I was lamenting that, as much as I love to bake cakes, I rarely get the chance to do it, because once you’ve baked a cake, your kitchen contains an entire cake.  Which isn’t exactly a problem, per se, but I do have a wedding dress I need to fit into in a few short months, and I know my power of self control is about zip when it comes to cake and frosting.  But wait!  If a group of hungry family members can’t polish off the better portion of a cake in one sitting, leaving few tempting leftovers, then who can?  Thus, Family Night: Cake Edition was born.

When the opportunity to bake a cake presents itself, my brain immediately downloads about five different cake recipes I’ve logged away, and it becomes my job to choose what kind of cake I’d like to bake from the database.  Joe made it easier by requesting something with blackberries, and I was personally hankering for something with a lot of lemon, but none of the recipes I had quite seemed to fit the bill.  What I ended up with was sort of a hybrid of several different recipes.  The batter was adapted from a Cooking Light cupcake recipe; the frosting was inspired by the Joy the Baker cookbook, and stuffing the layers with berries is just a little thing I do. (Yay, self-referencing!)

Because this particular family dinner took place on a Sunday, a busy day at our house, I made the cake over the course of several hours.  In direct opposition to my theory that cakes misbehave when you’re trying to impress people, these turned out beautifully.

You know you’re in the clear when you see the edges of the cake pulling away from the pan like this:

To help the cake out of the pan, I like to run a thin, flexible spatula along the outside of the cake, and a little bit under the bottom.

And voila! There’s nothing more exciting than seeing a cake come out of the pan in one piece, with that lacy, dark brown crust on the outside.  These cakes also had the added advantage of smelling like lemons and warm vanilla.

After baking the cakes, I had to dart out of the house for a little while, so I left the cakes on cooling racks and wrapped them up in a clean cloth..  I hadn’t yet bought all the ingredients for the frosting, so after a quick trip to Whole Foods, this is what my purse looked like for the following few hours:

Typical.  At least the cream cheese had time to soften while I was out and about.

One church service, lunch, and one concert later, I finally made it back home to whip up the frosting and assemble the cakes.  In order to pack as many berries as possible into a single dessert, I like to stuff them in between layers.  I spread the bottom layer with a good dollop of the frosting (also delightfully lemon-scented), a thin layer of blueberry jam, and then covered the whole thing with a ton of blueberries and raspberries.  It’s a great way to make every bite full of fruit, but be advised that it will result in a bigger gap between the layers of cake, and that you will have to fill that gap with extra frosting.  Again, not exactly a problem– but just make sure you have enough frosting.  I used every last bit of mine to get the job done.

By the time the cake was completely frosted and covered with a crown of berries, we were already about an hour later for dinner than we had originally planned, so instead of carrying the cake across town on the bus– and because I had no cover for the cake– we jumped in a cab. (It’s fun to note here that “across town” is actually only about four miles away, but it’s a minimum half-hour trip via public transit.  Oh, Boston.)  Carrying a cake in a cab is a little nerve-wracking… but probably less so than carrying a cake on a bus that’s stuffed to capacity, and then some.

Of course, when we arrived at dinner, we actually had to eat dinner before digging into the cake.  Not that I’m complaining: this time, dinner was Joe’s famous carnitas and his should-probably-come-with-a-warning-label sangria.  Just look at all of it:

So, naturally, by the time we got around to cake, we were already pretty well stuffed with simmered pork and guacamole, but somehow, it’s hard to say no to this, no matter how full you are:

It’s also hard to say no to another slice.  Oh, just a little sliver.

The cake was deliciously citrusy, with a crumbly, almost muffin-like texture, and the tartness of the fruit filling and the lemon in the cream cheese frosting kept the cake from being overwhelmingly sweet.

While my blink-and-you’ll-miss-it trip to Alabama left me feeling homesick, family night with carnitas and cake cheered me up and reminded me why it’s so nice to live here in Boston.  Sometimes a little cake is all you need to gain a little perspective.

Lemon Buttermilk Cake with Berries

for the cake
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup 1% or 2% milk
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind

for the frosting
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
pinch of salt
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice

for the filling
1/4 cup blueberry jam
about 1/2 pint each of blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries

Preheat oven to 350°F and spray two 8-inch round cake pans with cooking spray.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl.  Combine melted, cooled butter and egg in another large bowl and stir with a whisk.  Add buttermilk, milk, and lemon rind and stir to combine.

Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture, and stir gently until just combined.  Divide batter between prepared cake pans and bake for 30 minutes, or until the edges of the cake are golden brown and pull away from the pan.  Transfer pans to wire rack to cool for 10 minutes, then remove cakes to the rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting, beat cream cheese and butter with an electric mixer until thoroughly combined.  Add the lemon juice and zest and beat until combined.  Turn the mixer to low and add the salt and powdered sugar, followed by the vanilla extract.  Beat until thoroughly combined, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl if necessary.

When the cakes are completely cool, spread about 1/4 cup of frosting over the bottom cake layer; top with 1/4 cup jam and a generous layer of berries.  Place the top cake layer over the berries and frost the rest of the cake.

I have been thinking about Paris a lot lately.  It’s hard not to; Paris-themed books and food and merchandise lurk around every corner these days.  My local bookstore is currently featuring a book chock full of Parisian photos organized by color (spoiler alert: there are lots of pastels).  Macarons appear to be the new cupcakes (although nothing can come as close to perfection as the cake-to-frosting ratio of a cupcake from my favorite bakery, if you ask me).  My favorite food blogger and podcaster wrote a book about her time in Paris that I can’t stop reading and re-reading.  And Midnight in Paris is still my favorite movie I’ve seen in ages, two years later.

At one point, my Francophilia got so bad that I actually bought a book called Parisian Chic, which was all about how American ladies can dress, shop, and live more like their Parisian counterparts.  What??  I quickly came to my senses and returned the dang thing, remembering that I needed the ten bucks much more than I needed the fashion tips.

I did get to visit Paris almost five years ago (wow!), and oddly, I didn’t love it.  Not that I didn’t have a wonderful trip, but I left thinking I’d never go back.  For one thing, it was a school trip, and while that afforded me the opportunity to see multiple cathedrals, thousands of incredible works of art, and all the must-see attractions Paris has to offer, I’ve come to discover that one of the most enjoyable things to do in a big city is to explore it on no official schedule–tough to do when you have limited time and are sticking to a strict itenerary.  And, although I’m now comfortable admitting that I broke this rule with reckless abandon, we weren’t allowed during the trip to go out into the city in groups of any fewer than three.  Psssh.  Alex and I were constantly sneaking off to grab lunch alone, and on our last night there, one of my beloved professors generously pretended not to know anything about our plans to grab one last dinner by ourselves.  All those years of being a top student paid off when it really counted.

But I think the real reason that I didn’t immediately fall in love with Paris was that I was just unprepared for what a real city was like.  I guess I had expected everyone to flounce around in trench coats, high heels, and black berets, with baguettes and wine in tow.  I had expected every corner of Paris to be as picturesque as the Paris we see in the movies.  But the reality is that cities are sometimes dirty; there are cigarette butts on the sidewalk and the subway stations sometimes smell less than fresh.  If you visit a city in the dead of winter, as we did, it will be bitterly cold and probably less photogenic than in, say, mid-May.  It takes at least a few days to adjust to the culture shock of being somewhere other than the suburbs for the first time, and by the time I had begun to assimilate, it was time to leave.  Now, however, having lived for a few years in a city (though one that is admittedly smaller), I think Paris would be a totally different experience.

I may not be able to make a return trip to France for many more years.  But in the meantime, I do still have Cooking French, the untraceable, off-brand cookbook I bought in the airport with my last handful of Euros.  I didn’t eat particularly well during my trip– between the awful exchange rate and my bias at the time against meals that consisted entirely of bread and cheese (what was I thinking??), I found few suitable options at the time– but the cookbook, I think, captures the spirit of the food I could have had if I had been a teensy bit more adventurous.

Hands down, my favorite meal of the day in Paris was breakfast.  We stayed in an adequate hotel in Montmartre, a somewhat seedy area of town, which happened to serve up the most amazing breakfasts I have ever seen to date.  Every morning, there was an array of hot chocolate-filled croissants, thin sliced ham that tasted like warm butter, crusty brown bread spread with thick layers of Nutella, a mysterious, vaguely tropical-tasting concoction named “multi-fruit nectar,” and my favorite, an endless supply of café au lait.  I don’t specifically remember finding any apple pastries at breakfast, but this one would have fit right in.

It may not be Paris, but spending a morning chopping up apples while nursing a hot mug of coffee does have a certain romantic feeling to it.

Lemon zest gets mixed in with the apples, along with some sugar, spices, and golden raisins.  You’ll cook the whole mixture over low heat in a skillet, until the apples soften and absorb the sugar and spice, and the golden raisins plump up a bit.

I’ll go ahead and admit that I cheated a bit and used pre-made puff pastry.  Learning how to make pastry from scratch is on my to-do list, but not for today.

All you have to do to make this pastry is roll out two rectangles of pastry.  Pile the cooked apple mixture on top of one rectangle:

…and top it with the other rectangle, cutting a few slashes through the top.

Brush the top layer with a beaten egg, and pop the pastry in the oven.

Does the house smell like Paris while the pastry bakes?  I’m not really sure.  It certainly conjures up visions of cozy bakeries and warm firesides… but to be honest, while I was in Paris, my sweets of choice were chocolate croissants and anything piled high with pastry cream (helloooo, Paris Brest), so I really couldn’t tell you.  Next time I’m there, I’ll scope out some apple pastries and get back to you.

But the taste?  Nothing reminds me of Paris quite like the flaky, buttery texture and flavor of fresh-from-the oven pastry.  The sweet apple filling is just a bonus.

Of course, I would be remiss if I let an entire Paris-themed post go by without a single mention of Julia Child.  I don’t know how I’ve managed to live for nearly 26 years without ever sneaking a peek at her famous cookbook, but I just borrowed it from the library for the first time ever.  Expect many more Frenchie posts from me in the near future.

Apple Jalousie

1 box frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 pound Pink Lady or Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and cubed
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup golden raisins
1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 425°F and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Melt unsalted butter and brown sugar in a frying pan.  Add apples, lemon zest and lemon juice.  Cook for 10 minutes, stirring, until the apples are cooked and the mixture is thick and syrupy.  Stir in nutmeg, cinnamon, and golden raisins; cool.

On a floured surface, roll out one half of the puff pastry into about a 10×7 inch rectangle.  Spread the fruit mixture over the pastry, leaving a one-inch border.  Brush the borders with beaten egg.  Roll the remaining pastry into a rectangle and place over the fruit; press the edges together and trim extra pastry.  Brush the top with beaten egg and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

First, a disclaimer: I love cow’s milk.  (You might have picked up on that from all my recent cheese talk.)  Skim milk was my absolute favorite thing to drink as a kid, all the way up to college.  I had heard horror stories about the “freshman fifteen”– the weight gain most people experience when they are free to eat whatever they feel like for the first time– and sure enough, I gained mine, at least partly because I thought it was ok to drink an entire gallon of milk every week by myself.  (Also because I hadn’t yet figured out that peanut butter contained nearly 100 calories per tablespoon.)

But, I also love milk substitutes.  I’m pretty sure I discovered this through my friend Joe, who was following a vegan diet when I met him; otherwise, I don’t know what would have possessed me to buy a carton of soymilk for the first time.  But I’ll tell you, it was love at first taste.  By the time I reached junior year, I had developed a strong interest in nutrition and dropped the freshman fifteen, and I started nearly every day with a bowl of bran flakes and sliced bananas topped with vanilla soymilk.  (That’s still one of my very favorite breakfasts.) These days, I’m back to drinking cow’s milk for breakfast every morning, mainly because it’s cheaper than all the fancy milk substitutes.  But I recently spotted a recipe for homemade rice milk on serious eats, and I knew immediately that I had to try it– not only because it looked delicious, but also because I had all the ingredients in my pantry already, and the total hands-on time was about 10 minutes, so why the heck not?

This is the easiest recipe on my entire blog of easy recipes.  All you have to do is pour water and rice in a jar.  Only one caveat: you have to have a blender, food processor, or other pulverizing device to make this.  I happened to use my roommate Sarah’s Magic Bullet.

To make the rice milk, take a little bit of brown rice and toast it to enhance its flavor.  Then put it in a jar, cover it with water, and let it soak for about 12 hours.

The lighting in my kitchen was really strange when I set the rice to soak.

And it looked really cool against the flowers Alex brought home for no particular reason.

After the rice is fully soaked, throw it in the blender with the soaking water, salt, and sweetener, and let ‘er rip.  Blend it for longer than you think you should; the more you blend, the more rice will be incorporated into the final product, and the thicker and creamier the rice milk will be.  I still ended up with a lot of rice… uh… mush?  Paste?  (Is there any non-gross way to describe the solids that are left over after blending the rice and water into rice milk?  I guess not.)  I hear there are ways to bake and cook with the leftover solids, and I’m pretty sure you could make a hippy-dippy facial mask from it… but I wasn’t feeling nearly that crafty, so I just tossed mine out.

After you’re done blending, strain the entire mixture through a fine mesh sieve, and you’ll be left with smooth, creamy rice milk.  If you like using rice in sweet recipes, then this is the beverage for you.  It’s lightly sweet (though you could make it a lot sweeter if you wanted), a little bit creamy, and definitely rice-y.  If you’re looking for extra variety, you can add cocoa powder, cinnamon, coffee… you name it.

So will this replace the typical cow’s milk on my morning cereal?  Will it stand in for the occasional dose of soymilk?  I can never give up on my favorites… but this just might be added to the rotation.

Homemade Rice Milk
from Serious Eats

1/2 cup brown rice
2 cups water
pinch of salt
honey, maple syrup, or other sweetener to taste
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a dry skillet over medium heat, toast rice grains, stirring frequently until fragrant and just starting to color, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a bowl or jar and add 2 cups water. Set aside to soak for 10 hours.

When soaking is complete, pour rice and water into blender, add salt, sweetener, and vanilla, and blend at highest setting until rice grains are no longer visible, about 2 minutes.

Using a fine strainer, drip milk into a clean glass storage jar. Chill rice milk thoroughly before serving. Shake well before each use.

If you have a normal schedule, like a normal person, then you will probably hate me for what I’m about to say.  But here it goes: I love Mondays.

My current work week extends from Tuesday to Saturday, and while it can sometimes be disheartening to spend Saturday hard at work while I watch people flounce down the streets of Beacon Hill without a care in the world, it’s all worth it on Monday morning when I do not have to roll out of bed at the crack of dawn, but can instead wake up at my leisure and spend the morning catching up on last week’s episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report– preferably with a decadent breakfast in hand.

On the rare occasions when Alex also has Monday off, look out.  I’m pulling out the stops for breakfast.  Though he would almost always prefer a savory, bacon-centric breakfast over a sweet one, the boy does have a soft spot for raspberries and the occasional pancake.  Since I would eat pancakes for every meal if I could, I take full advantage of the mornings when Alex’s sweet tooth is awake.

I’ve also been on a bit of a coconut kick lately, so I decided to take the standard pancake in a more tropical direction.  This is a pretty typical pancake recipe, except that it calls for a mixture of skim milk and coconut milk.  The coconut flavor in the pancakes is subtle, so I also scattered coconut chips on top of mine.  Coconut chips probably should not be allowed in my house very often; it took all my willpower to keep from devouring the entire bag in one sitting.

Although I also topped the pancakes with whole raspberries, I always like adding a little fruit to the batter, too.  Raspberries are a little bulky to add whole to the batter, so I sliced them in half.  I had never sliced raspberries before.  They look a little freaky, right?

These pancakes are a real treat: fluffy, fruity, and sweet enough that you could forgo the maple syrup if you wanted (though I never say no to at least a drizzle of maple syrup). They’re perfect for celebrating the warmth that is slowly but surely creeping into the city this month.

Whether you have a normal weekend, a middle-of-the-week weekend, or no weekend to speak of, I hope you’ll take some time one day soon to sit down for breakfast with someone you love, whether your breakfast consists of pancakes, bacon, cereal, or just plain old coffee.

But I hope it’s pancakes.

Raspberry Coconut Pancakes
adapted from Cooking Light

3/4 cup plus 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup light coconut milk
1/4 cup skim milk
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 large egg
1/2 pint raspberries, halved; reserve a few whole berries for topping
coconut chips

Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.  Combine coconut milk, skim milk, oil, and egg in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk.  Add milk mixture to flour mixture and gently fold ingredients together.  Fold in halved raspberries.

Pour about 1/4 cup batter per pancake into a nonstick skillet and cook two minutes, or until bubbles form on top and the edges look cooked.  Flip pancakes and continue cooking for about 2 minutes more.

Top with whole raspberries and coconut chips.

At this point, there’s nothing I can say about the horrible bombings at the Boston Marathon that hasn’t been said already.  Over the last few days, floods of writers have taken to the internet to share their own reflections, and they’ve done so passionately, angrily, and probably more eloquently than I ever could.  I can’t provide an eyewitness account of the carnage, since I spent the entire day safely at home, about three miles away from the finish line.  I can’t speculate on the reason such a terrible thing happened, except to say that no reason could ever be good enough.  And though I wish I could, I can’t say any words that will reach and comfort the victims and their families.  But still, my heart hurts for the people who were not as lucky as I was, whose lives were torn apart in the city I call home.

I don’t want to be overly dramatic by suggesting that this was a close shave for me; there was virtually no chance that I could have been in the area of the explosions, since I make it a point to avoid large crowds in the city whenever possible.  Although I enjoy the marathon, I much prefer to watch it on TV, or on my back porch, which overlooks Beacon Street where the runners pass by.  But on any other day, that section of Boylston Street is exactly where you could expect to find me.  I have been known to plan my work day around the public library’s operating hours so I can swing by and poke through their cookbook collection.  I have studied for exams and written papers at the Boylston Street Starbucks, which has a seating area that resembles cubbyholes– a neat little row of mini-booths where you can sit quietly, type away, and enjoy your coffee.  And just on Sunday, one day before tragedy struck, Alex and I were registering for wedding gifts at the Crate and Barrel which is visible in so many of the photos floating around the web.  The bombs didn’t just hit my city– they hit my favorite stomping grounds.

While I was not in harm’s way on Monday, I will never erase from my mind the pictures that I saw in the minutes and hours following the blasts.  I will never again walk by the library without remembering the sidewalks stained red, the plumes of smoke, the people lying wounded and helpless on the sidewalks, the man whose anguished face was spattered with blood.

After staring at the news for what could have been twenty minutes or two hours– I really couldn’t tell you– I peeled myself away from the horror and went into the kitchen to do the only thing I could think to do: make cookies.  I got as far as putting the butter in a mixing bowl before I realized that I could no more focus on baking than I could erase the events of that afternoon.

I eventually got around to making the cookies, as the photos show.  A coworker’s fiancé was near the scene when the bombs went off, and though unharmed, she was incredibly shaken, so I sent most of the cookies home to her.  Although I’m showing you the pictures of these cookies, I find that I really have nothing to say about them at all.  Instead, I want to leave you with a song that has been bouncing around in my head since Monday, and the prayer from the Book of Common Prayer’s order of worship for Compline which I have read every night since:

“Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.  Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake.  Amen.”

You would think that I’d be sick of cheese by now.

For the past three months, I have been sleeping and breathing cheese (and obviously eating it), not only at my cheesemongering job, but also as an intern at a cheese magazine.  When I’m not selling cheese, I’m writing about cheese.  I’ve got cheese on the brain, and increasingly on the hips.  And yet, given an afternoon alone and a kitchen to myself, what do I decide to eat?  More cheese.

It’s late March in Boston, but Mother Nature still thinks it’s January.  Springing the clocks forward created the visual illusion of springtime– the sun shines brightly on into the evening– but I’m not fooled.  It’s still winter out there, and as much as I would love to feast on springy green salads and fresh pea tendrils, I would rather warm myself up with a comforting, melty cheese sandwich.  Besides, I can’t very well give up my winter food, because I’m already faking spring in the wardrobe department.  Even though I see that there are snow piles everywhere and the Weather Channel is telling me plain as day that it’s in the 30s outside, I WILL wear ballet flats, dangit, because if I have to put on my snow boots ONE MORE TIME, I will scream.

So that’s why I’m feasting on grilled cheese these days.  It’s effortless comfort food, and so easy to adjust based on what’s in your fridge at a moment’s notice.  For this sandwich, I checked out my cheese stash and came up surprisingly short.  I almost always have some leftover scraps of Grafton Village or Shelburne Farms cheddar from the ends of the blocks I break down at work, but this time I only had some Cabot Seriously Sharp which I had bought in a pinch at the grocery around the corner.  Fortunately, Cabot Seriously Sharp also happens to be seriously delicious, if a little lower-brow than the fancy raw-milk types, so I used it happily.

I also love spreading a soft cheese on one of the bread slices when I make grilled cheese.  The creamy, fluffy texture is a nice counterpoint to the oozy, melty cheddar and the crunchy bread.  One of my favorite sandwiches, from the now-defunct Clear Conscience Cafe in Central Square, used Boursin; you could also use a soft goat cheese.  This time my fridge yielded up ricotta– thank you, fridge!

Actually, the fridge was just on a roll, because it also forked this over:

Mmmm… truffle butter is just about the best thing since normal butter.  It’s decadent, earthy, and fragrant, and it added a little extra oomph to the sandwich.  Not enough oomph that I’d suggest you run yourself ragged trying to find it, but if you happen to have easy access to it, using it in a grilled cheese is fun and unexpected.

Everyone knows how to make a grilled cheese, right?  Hot buttered pan + cheese sandwich + flip once = grilled cheese.  Pretty near foolproof.

Where can I even begin with this sandwich?  I love the way the ricotta starts to seep through the holes in the bread, and the way its sweetness contrasts with the saltiness of the cheddar.  I love the crispy, almost-burnt edges of the bread.  I love that it comes together in about ten minutes and with only one pan to wash up.  I love that it warms me up on a stubbornly cold day.  And I love eating it at my desk, with a little fresh fruit and a small, lunch-appropriate glass of leftover white wine.  The only thing that could possibly make it better is a fresh-sliced summer tomato.  Oh, summer– let’s meet in three months in my kitchen.  I’ll bring the bread and cheese; you bring the tomato.

(Say hi to my mom and nephew in the picture frame on the left!)

Cheddar and Ricotta Grilled Cheese

two slices of your favorite bread (I used whole wheat)
several slices of sharp Cheddar cheese (use however much you like, but make sure you cover as much of the bread as possible with cheese)
about 2 tablespoons ricotta cheese
a pat of butter

Arrange cheddar slices on one slice of bread, and spread the ricotta on the other slice.  Sandwich the two pieces of bread together.  Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat; when melted and beginning to sizzle, add the sandwich to the pan.  Cook until the bread browns and the cheese begins to melt; flip the sandwich and continue cooking until the cheese is thoroughly melted.

Academically, I believe that spring is coming.  I sprang my clock forward last night, March equinox is in ten days, and Girl Scouts are hawking their cookies on every corner.  But actually, spring feels as far away as it ever did.  This is my fourth winter in Boston, so I understand– it’s going to snow a lot, and for a lot longer than it feels like it should.  (Twelve inches of snow last Friday + one spectacular slip on the ice on Saturday = I’m sick of snow.)

But even if it doesn’t feel like spring, I can still eat like it’s spring.  Meyer lemons help with that.  This week, we got a fresh shipment of them at the market where I work.  It was the first time I’d ever seen them in store, and I’d been curious about them for a long time.  They’re smaller than standard lemons, with an orangey rind, and I’d always heard that they’re sweeter than the varieties I’m used to (they’re rumored to be a cross between lemons and mandarin oranges).  I tasted one before I started cooking, and they are on the sweeter side, but definitely still a lemon– not nearly as sweet as an orange.  In other words, their sweetness is refreshing, but it would still be really funny to feed one to a baby.

Although there are a ton of tempting Meyer Lemon recipes out there, for my first try, I knew I wanted to use them in lemon curd.  I used my standard curd recipe, but to compensate for the Meyers’ sweetness (and because I like my lemon curd extra lemony), I cut down on the usual amount of sugar.

Making lemon curd is one of the easiest kitchen projects in my playbook.  If you can turn on the stove and stir a pot, you can do it.  Simply mix lemon juice, sugar, a few egg whites, and a pat of butter in a saucepan, then cook over a low flame until the mixture thickens.  I find it easiest to stir the mixture with a rubber spatula; if you use a whisk, you risk overbeating the eggs, and the spatula makes it easy to ensure that none of the curd sticks to the bottom of the pan and burns.

Once the curd is thickened, all you have to do is press it through a strainer to remove any cooked egg bits and let it cool.  The finished product has to be refrigerated, but I love that first taste when it’s still warm from the stove.  So be sure you have some bread on hand when you make this so you can dig in immediately.

This time I had English muffins, but my favorite lemon curd vehicle is a crumpet– sort of a cross between an English muffin and a pancake.  They’re full of little holes that absorb the curd, so every bite is bursting with it.

(The crumpet photo is from Shutterbean, one of my favorite blogs.  Shutterbean appears to share my enthusiasm for crumpets.)

A croissant would also be amazing dipped in lemon curd.  I seriously thought about grabbing one from the bakery around the corner before settling on the English muffin, but the heat in our apartment was out, and I was bundled in two pairs of pajamas, an enormous fleece jacket, and a knit toboggan… and the bakery is entirely too chic for that kind of attire.

Now that I have a fresh batch of curd in the fridge, I think I can weather the last few days of winter.  Even if the last few days turn into a few more weeks.

Meyer Lemon Curd

2/3 cup Meyer lemon juice
1 egg
2 egg whites
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon butter

Combine the lemon juice, eggs, and sugar in a small saucepan.  Add butter and place pan over a low flame; cook, stirring gently but constantly, until the mixture is thick enough that drawing your finger over a coated spoon leaves a mark.

Pour mixture through a fine-mesh strainer and into a small bowl, pressing on the solids.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

I think it’s time for me to admit that I am an overachiever.  This isn’t exactly news; my overachieving and its consequences have a long and well-documented history.  Exhibit A: in second grade I decided to write a report about my favorite bird—the blue-footed booby—just for the heck of it, and my teacher rewarded my studiousness by letting me read the report aloud to the class.  Apparently I was the only one in the room who thought “this report is about boobies” was a perfectly legitimate and not at all funny thing to say to a room full of seven-year-olds.  I still believe my teacher set me up for that one… she was laughing harder than any of my classmates.

The blue-footed-booby debacle, as embarrassing as it was, was just the beginning.  Overachieving has gotten me into some pretty tight spots in more recent years.  The problem isn’t so much that I keep attempting things I can’t achieve; it’s that I routinely say yes to everything, completely disregarding the rules of time.  When an exciting opportunity comes along, I take it, and then I find myself portioning out my time in a completely irrational way in order to accommodate all the things I’m trying to do.  Sure, it is mathematically possible to work a full-time job and also take on an extra 16 volunteer hours every week, and still have some time left over for sleep, but is it wise?  Doesn’t matter.  My brain doesn’t care when it’s in opportunity planning mode.

I should stress that I don’t regret saying yes to any of the projects I’ve taken on.  Everything I’m committed to right now is something I really want to do, and as a friend pointed out recently, you don’t get to complain about how busy you are if you’re busy doing the work you’ve been studying and preparing and longing to do.  (He wasn’t talking about me.  Wait, was he talking about me??)  But still… I’m tired, y’all.  In the words of the immortal Mitch Hedberg, “I’m sick of chasing my dreams, man.  I’m just gonna ask where they’re going and hook up with ‘em later.”

And I’ll tell you, there’s nothing more annoying when you’ve been on your feet at work all day, you’re tired and hungry, and you’ve still got three hours left before you can go home than hearing some pop star with a ukulele and a fat music contract telling you to slow down and live your life.  Oh, really?  I should just forget all my troubles and live in the moment, you say?  Come pull a few 10-hour shifts per week and tell me how fancy-free you feel after that!  (I’m looking at YOU, Jason Mraz!!)

You know what really helps to calm me down in times like this?  Doughnuts.

I should probably point out here that I really don’t advocate stess-eating.  But if you make doughnuts from scratch, it’s about a three-hour process.  The stress relief is in the making of the dough, the rolling and cutting of the doughnuts, and the dunking them in roiling boiling oil.  The actual doughnut at the end is just a bonus… a really delicious deep-fried bonus.

The recipe for these doughnuts came from the book Pure Vanilla, a baking book that really speaks to my heart.  I love, love, love vanilla and will choose it over chocolate almost every time.  But as you might expect, a book all about baking with vanilla goes beyond the use of standard vanilla extract; while some of the recipes call for vanilla ingredients I’d never even heard of (vanilla bean paste??), this one keeps it relatively simple with vanilla beans.  I know vanilla beans are kind of expensive, but a word in their defense: a little really goes a long way, and the beans are quite versatile; you can scrape the seeds out of the beans and use them in recipes, you can steep the beans in milk, coffee, bourbon…butternut squash soup…you name it.  They also smell and taste amazing—much more intensely vanilla than extract—and who can resist little flecks of vanilla beans peeking through white icing?  And, if you happen to live near a World Market (and if you do, you’re probably in the South, in which case—I’m freezing up here dear God take me with you!!!), they sell vanilla beans for a steal in their spice section.  Have I convinced you to give vanilla beans a shot?  Well, whatever, let’s move on to the recipe.

As far as baking with yeast goes, I think from-scratch doughnuts are pretty easy.  My theory is that anything deep fried and coated with frosting is bound to be delicious, so even if your dough isn’t perfect, you’ll still get a killer end result.  Another important point: while doughnuts fall squarely in the sweets category, the actual dough contains very little sugar.  It’ll be sweet and yeasty sort of like pizza dough, but nowhere near cake batter territory.  But not to worry, the glaze will more than satisfy your sweet tooth.

Easily the most fun part of making doughnuts is rolling and cutting the dough.  The dough here should be super soft and stretchy, but not sticky.  When you’re working the dough, don’t be afraid to keep adding flour to keep it from sticking to any and everything; just add it little by little so you’ll be sure not to overdo it.  Once you’ve got your dough rolled out, get to cutting.  If you don’t have round cookie or biscuit cutters, no problem; I used a low-ball glass to cut out the doughnuts, and the coupler from a pastry bag to cut out the holes.  Improvise!

The second-most fun part of making doughnuts?  Frying doughnuts.  If you’re afraid of frying, don’t be.  It can seem intimidating, but as long as you have everything you’ll need within reach and ready to go before you start, and you don’t walk away from your hot oil until you’re done with it (or wave your camera around when you should be tending the stove), you’ll be in good shape.  Also, an apron helps if you’re concerned about splatters.

Fill a sturdy pot with about three inches of cooking oil (I used canola).  Don’t be tempted to skimp on the oil, or the doughnuts will sit too close to the bottom of the pan and burn.  Stick a candy thermometer in the oil and let it heat to 350°, and in the meantime, set up a frying station.  On one side of the frying pot, line a baking sheet with paper towels or paper bags; on the other side of the pot, gather all your doughnuts and holes on another baking sheet.  Then you can assembly-line the whole deal; easy as pie.

Once your oil hits 350°, gently lower a couple of doughnuts at a time into the pot.  They cook fairly quickly–only about 3 minutes per side, or until they’re a gorgeous golden color.  Flip them only once; they’ll get greasy if you move them around too much.  Use a slotted spoon to remove the beautiful golden doughnuts to the lined baking sheet, and repeat until all your dough is fried.  Keep an eye on the thermometer, too; if the oil gets too hot, lower the flame. (You’ll notice that some of mine got a little over-browned.  They were still delicious.)

While your doughnuts are draining and cooling, mix up the glaze.  It’s just a simple mix of powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla bean seeds.  I also steeped a piece of the vanilla bean in my milk.  Spoon the glaze on the doughnuts while they’re still warm.

And, of course, what would doughnuts be without little doughnut holes?  These didn’t survive long enough to be glazed.  Every time I dunked one of them in icing, it just magically made its way into my mouth.  Strange.

I think I have found my go-to stress-relief method.

It’s also worth mentioning that I probably wouldn’t have had this crazy doughnut-making whim in the first place if it weren’t for Union Square Donuts, a brand-new business a friend recently started in Somerville.  I’ve been hearing about her fancy-pants doughnuts for weeks, and since I only cross the river into Somerville when forced (and since her doughnuts apparently sold out within two hours of opening  on the first day), this was the only way to feed the craving.  But if you happen to be in that neck of the woods, check it out!  Maybe I’ll eventually get myself over there, too.

Doughnuts with Vanilla Bean Glaze
from Pure Vanilla

For the doughnuts
1 tablespoon dry active yeast
1/4 cup warm water
3 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
1 cup whole milk, room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
seeds of 1/2 vanilla bean
3 large egg yolks, room temperature
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading
1 1/4 teaspoons salt

For the glaze
1 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar
2 tablespoons whole milk
pinch of salt
seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk yeast, warm water, and 1 tablespoon sugar together and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes.  Whisk in the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, milk, vanilla extract and seeds, egg yolks, and butter.  Begin mixing on low speed.

Add flour and salt and mix for 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Turn out dough onto a floured surface and knead several times, dusting with flour as needed.  Place dough in a large oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap; let rest in a warm place for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until doubled in bulk.

Turn out dough onto a floured work surface and roll to about 1/2 inch thick.  Cut out doughnuts (and holes!), place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, cover with a clean kitchen towel, and let rise for 30-45 minutes, until doughnuts have doubled in size.

Pour about 2 1/2 inches of vegetable or canola oil into a large pot and heat it to 350°F.  Fry doughnuts in batches of no more than 4 until they are golden brown, about 2 minutes per side.  Transfer to paper towels or paper bags to drain.

To make the glaze, whisk together confectioner’s sugar, milk, salt, and vanilla bean seeds until smooth.  Spoon over warm doughnuts and serve immediately.

I have had granola on the brain for the past few weeks.  And, well, if I’m honest, for the past several years.  If I remember correctly, one of Alex’s brothers used to call me “Granola” from time to time– more as a tease than a compliment, but I wore the name proudly.  Granola, after all, is a symbol for all that is good, healthy and earthy.  And I could really use a big dose of healthy in my life.

Thanks to my cheese job, I have been consuming a lot– a lot– of dairy products lately.  Last week, one of our regular customers caught me sneaking a bite of yogurt while crouched down behind my work space and accused me of eating butter with a spoon.  This could have just been a joke, except that this customer had just attended a butter tasting which I’d conducted a couple days before, where I had indeed offered spoons for those who wanted to ignore the hunks of bread and dive on into the butter.  I might have had several mini spoons of butter myself throughout the course of the tasting.  I make no apologies– real, artisan butter is dang tasty– but that comment made me realize that I should probably lay off the dairy just a bit.

Granola always seems like a logical choice when I’m looking for healthy, filling snacks (in this case, a healthy, filling snack to divert my attention from my recent cheese, yogurt, and butter regimen).  Unfortunately, store bought granola almost always disappoints.  First, there’s the granola bar conundrum: the chewy varieties are almost always way too sweet and sticky, while the crunchy ones are typically oat bricks that put you in real danger of chipping a tooth.  Then there’s bagged, loose granola, which just bores the pants off me.  I’ve never tried a prepackaged granola that I really liked.

As is typical with most underwhelming store-bought foods, granola is actually delicious when you take the time to make it yourself.  You have control over what goes in it (you don’t have to pick out dried pineapple chunks if you never put them in in the first place!), and to some degree, how sticky or dry it turns out.  It also happens to be super easy to make; it only takes a few minutes to mix together the ingredients, and after a quick bake, you’re all done.

Also, if you discover while collecting your ingredients that, say, you don’t have any shredded coconut after all, or your wheat germ went stale months ago, it is absolutely not a big deal.  This isn’t the kind of baking that depends on chemistry.  As long as you have the few basic ingredients, you’re good to go.  I decided to leave out the coconut entirely– I’m not a huge fan anyway, and there was zero chance I was leaving the house in 10° weather to buy some– and instead of wheat germ, I just chopped a handful of cashews as finely as I could.

In this recipe, what binds all the dry ingredients is a mixture of peanut butter, honey, and a bit of cooking oil.  I found that the original recipe made a granola that was just a little too oily for my taste, so I cut it down in this batch.  The peanut butter and honey do a perfectly fine job of holding everything together; as far as I can tell, the oil just keeps the granola from being too sticky.

After all the ingredients are combined, the whole mixture gets spread on a parchment-lined baking sheet and popped in the oven for about half an hour.  The granola turns a beautiful golden brown, the oats and nuts get crispy, and your house will smell like heaven itself.  After it cools a bit, you can stir in any fruit, chocolate, or other additions that you don’t want to dry out or melt in the oven, and ta-da, you’re done.

And, of course, it goes without saying that you can use this recipe as a template for whatever kind of granola you want.  While I love tossing in golden raisins and peanuts, you could easily use any kind of filler you like.  Pistachios and dried cherries?  Cranberries and pumpkin seeds?  You could also switch out the peanut butter and honey for almond butter and maple syrup… the possibilities are endless.

I’m happy to say that keeping a bowl of this granola on hand did help me curb my dairy snacking over the past week.  But, I should also admit that my favorite way to enjoy it is still with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt on top.

Peanut Butter Granola
adapted from The Peanut Butter & Co. Cookbook

3 cups rolled oats
1 cup roasted peanuts
1/4 cup finely chopped cashews
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup canola oil
1 cup honey
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup golden raisins

Preheat the oven to 300°F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine the oats, peanuts, cashews, cinnamon, and salt.

In a small saucepan over low heat, combine the canola oil, honey, peanut butter, and vanilla.  Stir until the mixture is completely combined, but do not allow to simmer.  Pour the warm peanut butter mixture into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix until well incorporated.

Spread the granola in the prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.  Allow the granola to cool, then transfer to a bowl and stir in the raisins.

I have a weird relationship with eggplant.  I’ve always wanted to like it, but could never convince myself that it tasted good.  I know– normal people either like a food or don’t, and they don’t spend a lot of time worrying about it one way or another.  But when I encounter a food I don’t like, I instantly begin to worry.  ”But others like this food!  Why don’t I?  What am I missing by not incorporating this into my normal eating habits??”

One good reason that I don’t have a natural affinity for eggplant is probably that I had zero exposure to it growing up.  Whether my parents were anti-eggplant or just uninterested, I don’t know, but I had never even tasted it until college, when it showed up in one of the dining hall’s dubious lunches.  I have since learned not to try an unfamiliar food for the first time in a college dining hall.

I can’t even put my finger on why I disliked it on my first several tries.  It’s entirely possible–nay, probable– that I was preparing it poorly, which certainly had something to do with it, but beyond that, I couldn’t say exactly how it tasted bad.  But I kept on buying it, and kept on trying to make it delicious.  All I knew was that my sources told me that eggplant should be soft, creamy, and delicious, and ding-dang it, I was going to achieve that by any means necessary.

Turns out an excellent way to learn to like a new food is to pair it with one of your favorite foods.  When I spotted a recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks that combined eggplant with lamb, I decided to try it.  I ran the risk of ruining good lamb by adding eggplant to it, I knew, but it was worth a shot.  Besides, the cookbook author, Melissa Clark, has a magical way of making every recipe sound delicious and elegant, and part of my decision to make this recipe was probably due to the fact that I was hypnotized by her writing.

But I’ll tell you what, I think I finally like eggplant.  All this recipe requires is that you douse it in olive oil (good start) and then roast it in a hot oven (good finish).  It does take on a silky, rich texture, just like the experts say it should.  And when it’s tossed with herby ground lamb and whole wheat pasta and topped with a garlicky yogurt sauce, it’s nothing short of perfect.  It also goes without saying that a dish that begins with minced garlic and shallots is probably going to be a hit with me.

I did make a couple of important changes from Melissa Clark’s recipe, which I think make the dish a bit healthier.  One is the whole wheat pasta.  I’m normally not a fan (I do love my simple carbs), but I really like the earthy, nutty flavor of whole wheat with the lamb.  It’s a good match.  The other thing is, I think, absolutely necessary.  The original recipe inexplicably calls for six tablespoons– three quarters of a stick– of melted, browned butter to be poured over the whole shebang before serving.  Under normal circumstances, if I told you to eliminate browned butter from anything, you’d probably need to check me for fever, but in this case, I’m quite serious.  Unless you really do prefer your dinner to swim in a pool of butter, just skip it.  You’ll get plenty of flavor (and, it should be mentioned, fat) from all the other ingredients.

Welcome to my regular cooking rotation, eggplant.

Herbed Lamb and Eggplant with Yogurt Sauce
adapted from In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite

1 large eggplant (about 1 pound), diced into 1/2 inch cubes
5 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 fat garlic cloves, minced
1 large shallot, minced
1 pound ground lamb
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped mint or dill (or a combination)
1/2 pound whole wheat fusilli or other bite-size pasta, cooked according to package directions
2/3 cup plain Greek yogurt

1. Preheat the oven to 450°F.

2. Toss the eggplant with 4 tablespoons of oil and a large pinch of salt.  Spread on a baking dish lined with parchment, leaving room between the pieces, and roast until crisp and brown, 15 to 20 minutes.  Check often to prevent burning.

3. In a large skillet, heat the remaining tablespoon of oil.  Add 2 minced garlic cloves and the shallot and saute for 1 to 2 minutes.  Add the lamb, 1/2 teaspoon salt, red pepper flakes, and black pepper to taste.  Saute until the lamb is no longer pink, about 5 minutes.  Stir in the mint or dill and cook for another 2 minutes.  Stir in the eggplant, taste, and adjust seasonings, if desired.

4. In a small bowl, combine the yogurt, remaining minced garlic clove, and a pinch of salt.

5. In a serving bowl, combine the pasta and the lamb-eggplant mixture.  Serve with dollops of the yogurt sauce.