Random MomBlog

I remembered reading about baking powder and baking soda, and enjoying this tidbit:

Baking soda causes reddening of cocoa powder when baked, hence the name Devil’s Food Cake.

Now we know how the cake got its name!

(I try to avoid baking powder, even Rumford, as it always tastes metallic to me when the baked good cools, and often before then as well. I’m not the only one, though. I’m going to see if Bakewell is sufficiently less metallic. Making my own baking powder helps.)

I heard that Omar Sharif once said women weren’t frivolous enough to study bridge enough to play world-class bridge. Sandra Landry, a world-class bridge player, thinks men and women play a different game of bridge too.

Landy suggests that the male game is tougher and more aggressive because of testosterone levels. Men, she says, concentrate better, while women are multitasking, unable to give maximum effort to bridge. ‘’Obviously,'’ she says, ‘’women are more balanced and lead less obsessive lives. They play bridge to meet people and to enjoy a stimulating pastime away from home, children and career.'’

For some reason, this also makes me think of cooking. I know a number of people who cook for their families. The men prepare these outstanding meals. Fancy. The women, myself included, aim for fast and healthy. Scoop a one-bowl meal out of the crockpot? Awriiight! It’s a completely different class of cooking. And Sandra’s right, I’m not thinking about just cooking, I’m also thinking about my boys, maybe even thinking about work or about catching up with friends … Impressing anyone with a fancy dinner is not on my radar. And bridge? It’s merely a game. We can skip the cards and just chat, too.

I used Crisco as the classic example of hydrogenation and trans fats to a friend, and she was corrected when she passed that factoid on. What? So I had to look into it, and I don’t even care about Crisco; I’ve never bought the solid stuff.

Crisco was the great-grandaddy of hydrogenation, so I wasn’t making that up. [I especially like that picture of cis versus trans at Wikipedia. You can see that trans is electrically favorable, and straight like saturated fats.]

But I found an article that yeah, it’s true (now) that Crisco has no trans fats. Or at least sort of true … I checked at the grocery store, and Crisco is not reporting that last little 0.5 gram per serving of trans fat.

And don’t forget that trans fats might not be as bad as advertised since the statistical analysis was poor according to JunkScience: the conclusions do not follow from the statistical analysis of the study, so it could be right or wrong.

My approach to dietary fat goes like this:

• vegetable source, no problem (like olive oil or any EFA source)
• animal source, try to limit (for less cholesterol and saturated fat)
• try to reduce overall fat intake
• trans fat: if it’s tasty, I’m not afraid of it; like most fats, I try to reduce intake

But what a world, when Crisco is no longer hydrogenated with (many) trans fats …

Cooking, Health

I don’t like the aftertaste of Biscuik, but I do like the convenience. So I looked at the Buttermilk Pancake recipe (I usually add 2 Tbs wheat germ, and replace some of the white flour with wheat) on the can of Saco buttermilk mix, quadrupled it, left out of the moist ingredients, and put it in a jar. Here’s my mix:

1 cup SACO Buttermilk Blend
3 cups unbleached enriched flour
1 cup white wheat flour
2 Tbs wheat germ
1/4 cup granulated sugar
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Everything I’ve made with this mix has turned out to my liking, but I avoid fussy recipes. Other than making pancakes with this mix, I don’t add the missing shortening or oil of other pre-made biscuit mix recipes. So it seems very easy to me to make fat-free buttermilk bisquik; maybe I’m just picking the right recipes. I’ll post some of them!

Cooking, Recipe

I was up 1.5 hours last night, after everyone else went to bed. I was working on all of the food preparation that I could do in advance: I mixed the dry ingredients, I set out measuring cups for the wet ingredients, I printed the recipes in order of decreasing bake time leaving out the steps I had already done, and I used a highlighter on the steps that Kurtis usually does.

Organizing by decreasing bake time, having the printed just-what-to-do-to-finish steps, and using the highlighter so I didn’t have to answer questions on what to do next was a great idea! Luckily Kurtis thought it was funny (and not bossy … I was worried he might take it the wrong way) that I had marked his contributions with highlighter. I don’t think he read anything else on that page.

I only needed one hour this morning to make tropical fruit crumble, cranberry-raisin muffins, buttermilk biscuits (the egg wash turned out quite golden, but next time I won’t put it on so thick), turkey gravy, cinnamon cream cheese icing for the existing banana cinnamon snacking cake (for our niece’s birthday), and a veggie platter.

Usually I’m not that organized with night-before prep and a printed checklist, so (a) I don’t use his skills or my time as well, then (b) I’m running late, so as a consequence (c) I’m stressed. Yuck!

One of my famous sayings is Never rush to have fun! and I definitely think I’ve discovered a new way to accomplish that. I’ve got to remember this approach for Christmas, and for the baking season next year!

Cooking, Personal, Tips

Last night, I scrubbed for a long time. My maternal grandmother’s Sunbeam Mixmaster (model 12c) had accumulated crust. I brought it home after her funeral, but I didn’t want to use it without a good cleaning. I don’t have the manual, but I have the chrome stand mixer, two glass bowls, and a pair of beaters. Apparently this is considered the last of the classic Sunbeam Mixmasters, introduced in 1957.

Now I’m inspired to bake something using it … too bad I already have tea cake, cupcakes, bread, and casserole in the house! Well, Thanksgiving is coming soon, and that means cooking season.

I had been eyeing the Cooks 5-quart stand mixer, but now I’ll see how the Mixmaster works for me.

Personal

Ever since morning sickness, I’ve had to eat a lot less sodium; if I get too much, I feel like my heart is being squeezed. So I can believe that you can “Cut Heart Risk by Eating Less Salt” because it sure feels that way to me!

Health

I read Cookware for the Weary Cook, and they missed most of the items on my Kitchen Timesaver List.

• microwave
• microwave rice cooker
• food processor
• crockpot
• bread machine

A mixer can be really useful too, but I’m not sure it’s on my timesaver list. (Then you open the list to refrigerator, stove, oven, and so on.)

I think the microwave is an obvious timesaver. My microwave rice cooker (also called a microwave pressure cooker or a vegetable steamer) is wonderful! You can get it in this size, or a conveniently smaller 6-cup size (I have both). It makes perfect rice easily, and I get excellent results micro-steaming frozen veggies for two to four minutes.

When I do a lot of cooking, it often starts with a lot of chopping. That’s when the food processor, especially in two-second bursts so that I don’t end up with too fine of a grind, really saves time.

The crockpot isn’t fast, but since most dishes can cook for eight to ten hours while I go to work, it means dinner is ready in record time once I get home again! So it is a timesaver overall.

I used to make bread by hand, and I didn’t want a bread machine because I was sure it couldn’t be authentic enough. Good bread is the result of knowing the right texture while kneading, so I didn’t think the process could be automated. I’m glad I decided to try one anyway! I think I get better results based on my hand-made bread experience, but I don’t have to watch the clock over three hours for kneading, rising, punching, shaping, rising, and baking. I know to check the texture after 10 minutes of bread machine kneading, and I know how to adjust the water (teaspoon at a time) and the flour (tablespoon at a time). Bread is very fussy, and you have to plan your whole day around making it by hand. Or you can get a bread machine, check that the initial mixing has the right texture from the correct ratio of wet and dry, and walk away until it beeps. Yeah!

Cooking

This recipe is adapted (to reduce fat, and to match what I had) from an old “Kenmore Microwave Cookery” cookbook.

Mix in a 1 quart (or larger) glass container:

Microwave for 5 minutes.

Chop these in the food processor, and then add to the microwave container:

Microwave for 3 minutes.

Now chop these in the food processor, and then add to the microwave container:

Microwave for 2 minutes.

My microwave was set to 100% power, and it’s rated for 1100 to 1500 Watts depending on which label you read. You may need to adjust the times for different microwaves.

Amazingly enough, this tastes exactly like stuffing! (However, I’m not a fan of it. I made this anyway because my dear husband likes stuffing.) I used Tone’s Turkey Gravy Mix.

For storage, it freezes well.

Just so you know that I’m hopeless with recipes, here’s the original.
Mix 1/2 cup butter, 1/3 cup onion, and 1/4 cup celery in a 4-cup glass container and microwave for 10 minutes or until onion is transparent. Add 3 cups dry bread cubes, 1 cup water or chicken broth, 2 tsp parsley flakes, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/8 tsp freshly ground pepper. Makes enough stuffing for a 5 to 6 pound roasting chicken. Can replace 3 cups bread with 2 1/2 cups wild rice, 1/2 cup slivered almonds, and 1 cup sliced mushrooms.

Cooking, Easy, Recipe

It’s important to start with all ingredients refrigerated or soft frozen! Room temperature ingredients cause the pie to melt more than you’d like.

1 crumb pie crust, graham or shortbread
1 quart vanilla ice cream or fat-free vanilla frozen yogurt
2 bananas, refrigerated
1 pint strawberries, refrigerated
dribbles of chocolate syrup
dribbles of caramel syrup

Slice the bananas into 3/8″ coins, and layer on pie crust.
With a large spoon, take shallow scoops out of the vanilla ice cream. (Sometimes ice cream is too hard to scoop easily, and that’s when frozen yogurt shines! It’s always a bit softer, so you can more easily make your own banana split pie or blizzard.) Place a layer of ice cream covering the banana slices.
Slice and layer the strawberries on the pie.
Cover the strawberries with another thin layer of ice cream.
Drizzle chocolate syrup and caramel syrup on top.
Place in the freezer for 15 minutes or more if you started with refrigerated ingredients. Otherwise this pie will need to freeze overnight, and then the strawberries will be frozen solid little bricks. (Strawberries don’t take freezing as well as bananas!)

Simple and tasty!

Cooking, Recipe