Rox and Roll

The Muffin WIN -- with recipe!

No, I'm not on a blogging hiatus ... I'm on a cooking bender.  I've been taking a few classes and focusing intently on how to feed my family better than what we're eating.  We dine out too much, and, when we don't, we return to the same "safe" foods ... chicken parm, pasta dishes (usually made with quinoa pasta since I'm wheat-allergic), breakfast for dinner ... all healthy, but, for this foodie, quite dull.  We need to spice things up a little around here! 

Last week's cooking class was artisinal breads and soups, from which my family will eat the focaccia (I can't eat it, and it's hella difficult to make the way it was taught, but I'll try making it anyway), and the Guv will eat the fresh corn and chipotle soup (which also has potato and parsnip).  That's about it!  Squash soup: no.  Tomato soup thickened with masa para tortillas?  Probably not.  But it was SO good!  The lesson of that class, taught by the owners of Palo Alto's renowned Oaxacan Kitchen, was not to use stock; bring out the flavors of the soup's ingredients instead.  It's more healthy and usually vegan and gluten-free that way, too, especially with prepared masa (readily available here in CA) as a thickener.  This week, I'm taking Antojitos Oaxacanos, in which I'll learn to make one of Oaxaca's seven famous moles: mole amarillo.  I'm stoked!  My family probably won't eat it, but hey -- it's fun, it's inexpensive, and I'll learn some new tricks that might translate into some dining success at home.

Yet despite the blast I'm having gathering outside intel on the elusive in-home dining menu, some of the best ideas are coming from my cookbook collection.  I read them like novels!  And since I found myself both with half an hour of free time and in the vicinity of a huge Barnes & Noble this weekend, I bought a soy latte and browsed, making the disturbing observation that the baking cookbooks are right across from the self-help eating disorder guides in that store.  Hey B&N?  SHELVING FAIL.

Anyway, I scored two great ones, and both from the clearance rack to boot: The Wagamama cookbook, from one of my favorite restaurants, for $10, and the healthy kids' cookbook pictured at left for $8.  Normally, I don't even look at kids' cookbooks; except for Mollie Katzen's fantastic ones (ok, and "Fanny at Chez Panisse"), they usually really stink.  I don't need a recipe involving how to cut up a hot dog and frozen broccoli and mix it up with Velveeta-based mac-n-cheese!  (And: eeeww!)  But when I started leafing through this one, I found a whole lot of stuff that I hadn't tried making for my family before.  (Believe me, I'm having a cooking renaissance, but I've tried a lot of variety searching for a new hit over the past decades, to little avail.)  And so today, I gathered some ingredients, and tried attempt #1: healthy muffins, also known as "something to put in Dash's lunchbox that he might actually consider eating." 

Aside: his lunch repertoire consists presently of Ritz crackers and Trader Joe's presliced sharp cheddar with a TJ's "squeeze" applesauce that he never eats ... or a whole wheat Whole Foods croissant with a chocolate milk that he rarely drinks ... or a Kraft cheese on sourdough sandwich that he never eats ... or blue-box mac-n-cheese that, at most, he takes two bites of ... are you starting to get a sense for how hard it is to get this kid to eat ANYthing?  I look forward to Thursdays, as it's "bagel day" at recess, so I know he'll eat a nutritionally-void but filling plain bagel -- and to Fridays, where I don't have to pack him a lunch and usually take him out to a place where he can absolutely gorge himself on chicken nuggets, french fries, pizza, etc. -- because, by Fridays, he's starving to death.  Perhaps literally.

So with that, I baked Yam-and-Jam Muffins, and they are a WIN!  He absolutely woofed it down after school (probably because today was one of those two-bite mac-n-cheese days), and he declared it "the healthiest cupcake ever."  Tomorrow, his lunch will be one of these and a Stonyfield "super smoothie."  If he drinks even half of it and eats this muffin, it'll be a blessed miracle.  (P.S. I did not tell him the ingredients, a lesson learned from many years of battling his Stubborn with my Evasive.)

Since it worked so well in our house and since I do think it's pretty healthy, the recipe follows.  I chose to opt out of the frosted top, though it's included in the recipe below, because I think that detracts from the healthfulness; and dusting the top with powdered sugar scratched the itch for it not to scream "VEGGIE MUFFIN!"

Enjoy this Yam and Jam Muffin Recipe:

Set your oven to 400 degrees F first, and lightly grease or line 12 regular-sized muffin cups with paper liners.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 1/4 cup white flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour)

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon apple pie spice or ground cinnamon (I used cinnamon)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 of a 17-ounce can sweet potatoes, drained, about 1 cup (I used one cup of organic sweet potato puree, which is sold canned at Whole Foods)

1 beaten egg

1/2 cup milk (I used fat-free, lactose-free)

1/3 cup fruit jam or preserves (I used all-fruit apricot; other suggestions are strawberry, peach or plum)

1/4 cup cooking oil (I used canola)

1 recipe Jam Icing (follows)

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.  Set aside.

2. In another bowl, mash the drained sweet potatoes with a fork (or dump in prepared puree).  Stir in egg, milk, jam, and oil.

3. Add sweet potato mixture all at once to flour mixture, and stir just until moistened; the batter should be lumpy.

4. Spoon/scoop batter into prepared muffin cups, filling 3/4 full.  Bake at 400 for 18-20 minutes or until golden and a wooden toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean. Cool in muffin cups on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then remove and cool slightly more.

5. Drizzle muffin with jam icing if desired (recipe below) -- or dust with powdered sugar like I did -- and, if desired, top with additional jam or preserves.

Jam Icing: In a small bowl, stir together 3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar, 1 Tablespoon fruit jam or preserves, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, and enough milk (2-3 teaspoons) to make icing of drizzling consistency.  Makes about 1/4 cup.

Nutritional info, per muffin: 215 calories, 6 g total fat (1 g saturated), 19 mg cholesterol, 174 mg sodium, 39 g carbohydrates, 1 g fiber, 3 g protein.  Daily Values: 24% vitamin A, 5% vitamin C, 6% calcium, 8% iron.  Exchanges: 1 Starch, 1 1/2 Other Carbohydrate, 1 Fat.

P.S. This recipe is from page 45 of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook pictured above.

 

BIG Giveaway: Win your own Sony Dash personal internet viewer!

Earlier this fall, CityMama and I hosted a bloggers' demo and luncheon celebrating the release of the Sony Dash personal internet viewer.  And what a thrill that lunch was!  Sony invited the amazingly-talented chef Jennifer Puccio of Marlowe, a super-cool SoMa neighborhood bistro, to provide a cooking demonstration in my kitchen (and lunch) for us busy moms who are often cooking dinner in a dash.  The menu reflected some Marlowe favorites, like succulent spiced prawns with hot-and-boozy cocktail sauce and the unforgettable little gem salad with its mind-blowing mandoline-shaved veggies ... I had to run out in search of padron peppers the next day to blister and top with smoked salt and lemon zest because I couldn't eat enough of them!  What a day, what a treat, and...

What a product!!!

The Sony Dash is an incredibly useful little gadget, one that's made a permanent home in my kitchen, though I could find a use for it in just about any room of our house.  The Dash uses your home's WiFi connection to deliver internet content to viewers.  With over 1000 apps, it's hard to choose!  On my Dash, Pandora radio, weather around the country, Facebook photos, LOLcats, and sports updates are always scrolling -- that is, if the kids aren't playing a game as they join me while I cook.  And often when I cook, I'm using Epicurious from the Dash.  It's like having a little touch-screen laptop stationed in the kitchen, which works out great, as that's where I spend a lot of my day at home.

Now, here's the fun part: I get to share a Sony Dash with one lucky reader!  Retailing for just shy of $200, this device would make your holiday season extra-special!

Here's how you can enter to win: Leave a comment below, and that'll get you one entry.  Tweet this contest with the hashtags #roxandroll #sonydash to win another entry.  Share your favorite "dinner in a dash" idea or recipe for another entry -- and, if your recipe or idea is my personal favorite, I'll gift you with an additional entry.  So really, you can have FOUR chances to win this thing.  It's yours; you can just taste it, can't you?!

You have until Sunday, December 12 at midnight, PST to enter.  The winner will be chosen via random.org whenever I wake up on Monday morning.  That winner will have 48 hours after notification to respond with his/her shipping address, else another winner will be chosen.  This contest is open to those with U.S. shipping addresses only.

GOOD LUCK!

P.S. Regardless of how this contest pans out for you, check out a Dash next time you're at a Sony retailer; and also, if you're heading up to AT&T ballpark to see the Giants play this spring, check out nearby Marlowe.  It's right at the end of the CalTrain line near the ballpark; you can see it across the street from the cab stand!  We just celebrated my sister's 30th birthday there and can't wait to return.  In fact, don't wait for the Giants ... go now, before word spreads and you can't get a seat.  (It's that good.  Thank God I know the chef!)

The fine print: While Sony provided me with a Dash to review and one to give away, I'm receiving no additional compensation for this post and contest; and the opinions I've expressed here are solely my own and represent my honest viewpoint.  I promote Blog With Integrity.

Holiday Gift Guide, Part Three: Gifts of In-Home Experiences

Pssst: Win a Christmas movie!  Enter here at Good Stuff Rox.

What makes for a good in-home experience -- and how do you turn that into a gift?  In this installment of my holiday gift guide for 2010, I'm going to give you some ideas for how to give a gift that will become an experience, which, if you're lucky, will become a tradition leading to memories that will always come back to you, the giver who launched something special.

Whose best memories don't involve food?  Perhaps it's because my huge, extended family gathered a lot and ate traditional foods that a lot of my memories have a flavor.  Eating my great-grandma's potato soup while playing cards, savoring my grandma's all-homemade (even the noodles!) spaghetti and meatballs on a Sunday after church, experiencing my half-Polish husband's native cuisine at a church in Green Point (pierogi I'll never forget!), and even my lemon wedding cake -- these taste experiences flood me with memories of connectedness, togetherness and happy times. 

Beyond cooking- and eating-related gifts, there are home-related gifts like art and home decor that, if you know your recipient well, will become family treasures fast. 

And lastly, during this economy, there are ways to focus on gifts for in-home experiences so that, instead of hearing "we can't afford to go out," the refrain will be "hooray! a night in!"  That's the point of these ideas, shared below, in a bit different format where the experience, rather than the gift, is labelled.

Ahhh, breakfast in bed.  Nothing says "love" to me like the gift of sleeping in and/or being encouraged to stay in bed.  Unfortunately, this is usually only a twice-a-year gift for me: Mother's Day and my birthday.  This year, inspire more breakfasts in bed with the gift of tools to make it more often.  My favorite breakfast delight discovery this year is ebelskiver, little stuffed Danish pancake balls.  With the right pan, mix, and even a cookbook, this can make for a lot of morning fun!  But be forewarned: if you're a husband giving this to a wife, accompany it with the promise to use it to cook for her (rather than the expectation that she delight you!).  If you're making breakfast in bed for the one you love, bring it in with the newspaper, TV remote, a new book, or a stack of drugstore magazines; then take the kids out of the house and let the recipient enjoy!

Lunch?  Who has time for lunch?  I need a work-out!  I'm super-guilty of missing lunch all too often, so, actually, this gift is about the lunch hour.  Especially on days when I can't hit the gym, lunchtime is when I take my bike for a spin, walk around the neighborhood, or even play Wii Fit Plus to get warmed up -- then I always, always, always use my free weights and do my core exercises.  Now, this is tricky, because if you gift weights and exercise videos to your spouse, it won't be well-received -- unless, like 99.8% of American women, she's declared herself a New Year's dieter.  Make sure you preface your gift with a notice: "In support of your New Year's goal, here are some tools to kick off your new regimen..."  Or, better yet, discuss it first and get the okay.  (The Guv has asked me for the go-ahead to buy himself an elliptical trainer for Christmas, so I know how it goes!)  I use these free weights from WalMart (cheap doesn't matter -- they work!), one of my kids' jump ropes sometimes, and my stairs for tricep dips and push-ups.  I stretch to a Trudie Styler Warrior Yoga video, or do mat pilates on my Gaiam mat.  Want to be a real hero?  Give the gift of a gift card or, if you're brave, actual workout clothing from Lululemon.  The Guv likes my Lulu workout clothes so much that I have an "unlimited" budget there (and he never ever uses words like "unlimited!").

What's for dinner?  This year, I've fallen in love with my crockpot all over again.  With soccer four days a week plus at least once on the weekend, I'm often walking in my front door at 7 pm with two famished kids, and dinner has to be instant.  This cookbook -- Make It Fast, Cook It Slow -- revolutionized my use of the crockpot.  I have an inexpensive model, but even All-Clad makes these amazing devices if you want to go high-end.  Want to funk it up?  A foodie friend just ordered this book of Indian slow cooking.  A cookbook and a crockpot is a perfect gift for just about any friend, from the single working woman who likes to cook and eat well to the soccer mom or single dad. 

And how about some dessert?  I seriously don't know if I could live without my ice cream maker.  Pair this gift with ice cream bowls, the perfect scoop, and an ice cream cookbook, and you have a party waiting to happen!  Want to go retro?  There are ice cream balls and old-fashioned crank machines also.  This is a great gift from grandparents to young families.  The bonus of it -- and why I can't live without mine -- is that I can control the ingredients, fat, and sugar content.  My kids love sorbet from this, whereas they'd never order it in an ice cream shop; making it themselves is a big draw.

Gifts for those who love to cook: I confess, I still use one non-stick pan.  It's my "egg" pan, and I can't seem to give it up.  But recently, I've made the commitment to switching over to cast iron, starting with this Made-in-the-USA Lodge wok as well as a couple of cast-iron skillets.  Perhaps Santa will bring me this cookbook, too, so that I can really get into the spirit!  If you know someone who loves to cook but hasn't gone the cast-iron route yet, gifts of these pans and a cookbook might inspire them to go down that path.  Meanwhile, while I'm figuring out what to do with the new pans, I'm going to focus on recreating a little gem salad I enjoy at new-favorite restaurant Marlowe, which requires shaving fennel, carrots, and several types of radish on a mandoline.  This is one of those tools that home cooks often lack but covet.  I have a million more home kitchen tool/gadget ideas, but let me just encourage you to think along these lines: what, and where, does the gift recipient love to eat?  If s/he has a favorite restaurant, does it have a cookbook you can gift?  Any unique ingredients?  How about gourmet salt or spices?  Anyone can give wine, but you could give the experience of a new ingredient -- how cool is that?!

Tableware that's good for the economy: Worried about the American economy?  How about buying American goods?  Like the Lodge cast-iron cookware mentioned above, Fiesta dinnerware is made in America, right down the street from where I grew up in northern West Virginia.  When you buy Fiesta, you're helping to employ folks in an area that's in need of some serious stimulus; and you're also picking up some classic American dishes that evoke timeless elegance on your table.  No matter what your decor, there's a Fiesta color to match; or, do like many WV natives do and mix-and-match these pieces that never go out of style.

Home decor: I have friends who love art, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per painting; and I have friends for whom art is whatever their kids draw and stick to the wall with scotch tape.  For us, it's somewhere in the middle; we're more likely to find a print or another special memento during travels that we can then have framed and hang on the wall, but I also love displaying my kids' drawings.  These kids' art frames are on my wish list this year as a nice-looking, ready-made place in which to display their favorite pieces -- and for me, it's really about their favorite pieces, not what I think looks best.  It's quite an experience for them to have their own "gallery!"  Meanwhile, we're also looking for a canvas to hang over our bed, and I have my eye on this piece called "Reflect" from Modern Digital Canvas.  We have their eye-catching Tokyo piece in our mountain cottage, and it's our most complimented piece of art.  (We have some of these Andy Warhol prints there, too.)  Meanwhile, our favorite art to gift to others are Storypeople prints by Brian Andreas.  We've given a few of these prints as engagement and new home gifts, and we know that they're loved because people have decorated rooms to highlight them!  As with any art, though, you have to know the recipient well; if your friend is into French Country, they may not want to display a Storypeople print.  Most of our friends are into modern decor, into which these fit perfectly.

Monthly deliveries: For the gift recipient who has everything, monthly deliveries of treats might be the way to go.  I've given my parents Peet's "coffee tours" in the past, and they frequently gift my grandparents with Harry and David fruit of the month.  If you're more into the one-hit wonder gifts, try sending a coffee lover a sampling they might not have tried from a first-rate roaster, like Batdorf and Bronson (Dancing Goats), Blue Bottle, or my #1 favorite, Barefoot Roasters.  For older folks, I like to send gift baskets from Wolferman's full of English muffins, breakfast breads, and spreads.  1800baskets.com has some terrific gift baskets; I tasted a lot of their related Popcorn Factory treats at BlogHer this summer and would do just about anything for another popcorn ball right now! 

Next up: Part Four, Gifts of Family Experiences Away from Home (Memberships, Concerts, Tours, Thrills, and More)

Cross-posted on Good Stuff Rox

 

From Left to Write Book Club: "The Earthbound Cook"

For this From Left to Write Book Club we read -- and cooked from! -- "The Earthbound Cook" by Myra Goodman, the co-founder of Earthbound Farm.

I confess: I am a cookbook junkie.  I collect them, and I read them like favorite novels, over and over again.  I try recipes, and, when it comes to dinner, I've had a lot of successes and a few outright bombs -- especially because if you look up "picky eaters" in the dictionary, you'll find pictures of my husband and of my son.  Nevertheless, I keep picking up cookbooks and keep experimenting, increasingly with my 10 y.o. daughter, Petunia, who can make better stir-fry than I can!  My favorite place to find the cookbooks which inspire our experiments is at our local library's monthly used book sale, where I've picked up some of my favorites, like a couple of cookbooks from the renowned vegetarian Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York.  (If you're ever anywhere near there, it's a must-eat!)  Leafing through The Earthbound Cook, I conjured up thoughts of Moosewood a lot.  In both books, there's the same gentle caring for the earth and its resources pervading almost every page, and I really enjoy that, in part because of growing up on my family's farm.  These kinds of earth-friendly cookbooks translate cooking from something necessary to do to feed a family into an act of love for everything going into the meal production, from the farmer who provided the crops through the chemistry of their cooking until the consumption by our loved ones.  I once heard a blogger read a piece (many apologies for forgetting where, when and who!) called something like "I cook because I love."  My family may not always love my cooking, but they never doubt its provinence in my heart.

Since I do find it hard to please everyone at mealtime, oftentimes, I bake and I bake.  I can say with unusual confidence that I can bake anything, and I can modify just about any recipe to make it wheat-free.  But I do love it when I come across recipes that I don't have to modify and that my entire family gobbles up, and that's what happened with the cranberry-walnut granola clusters pictured above.  In fact, I've baked four batches since receiving the book a month ago.  After I baked the first one, my husband ate it all in two days.  Since the man eats very little good-for-you food, the clusters were a big win; and so I doubled the next three batches!  There are a lot of great recipes to love in this cookbook; the yam-squash casserole is going to be on my table for Thanksgiving, as are one of the salads (I have yet to pick) and perhaps another dessert from this book or from its predecessor, "Food to Live By," which I picked up at the Earthbound Farm stand at Green Fest this year.  I haven't read it enough (or experimented enough with its recipes) to know if I enjoy that one as much as "The Earthbound Cook," but it does look quite promising, especially as it includes tales of the start of Earthbound Farm.

So, getting back to that cookbook collection, now expanded by two of Myra Goodman's gems, my recent acquisitions include an Atherton Dames cookbook from 1970 and a Sunset Magazine Dinner party cookbook from 1974.  Both have a lot of recipes for aspic, emphasis on "ick."  I'm always searching for yet earlier ones, but those ones, from right around when I was born (1973) are enjoyable to me because I can get a sense for what was on people's dinner table in that time.  To me, food paints a picture of a place in time and holds so many memories.  What I wouldn't give for another bowl of my great-grandmother Mae's potato soup with riffles!  I can remember where I sat when I ate my last bowl of it over twenty years ago.  Someday, I hope that my kids go through my cookbooks, seeing how I've annotated recipes that worked and ones that didn't, and remember, like the taste of my great-grandma's soup, the taste of love. 

So tell me: what does love taste like to you, and in what cookbook can I find it?

*****

I always add a note on whether or not I'd recommend this book.  Absolutely!  I haven't tried enough of the recipes to promise that it'll change your family's eating lifestyle drastically or anything like that, but I have read it cover to cover a few times and promise that it'll inspire you to think more deeply about the sourcing of your food and also about some pretty magical creations that lie in the pages.  I think it'd make a great gift for someone who enjoys to cook.

Disclaimer: In the From Left to Write book club, we read books together and then write blog posts inspired by them, not reviewing the works but, rather, responding to them with our own writing.  For participation in the club, I receive the books for free but do not receive other compensation nor do I commit to writing favorably about the books.  The opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.