It's like clockwork.

Last week we received some more of this:






So I made some of these (recipe to come this week):



I've seen more snow this winter than we've had in all the 10 years of living in North Carolina. Apparently we're getting some more this week and I'll admit to being a wimp. I don't think that even with the addition of snow tires, snow plows, blowers and heavy duty coats I would ever be inspired to take out my crew on a daily basis anywhere in winter. That's why we wimps end up in the pseudo north I guess. Somebody tell my father in law he needs to come down from Buffalo and take his snow back home.

His and Hers Sewing

For Mr. Maricucu a rice pack for his eyes. A couple of weeks ago his ophthalmologist mentioned that in order to rid himself of dry eyes he should apply warm compresses to his eyes which should help unplug his eye ducts. Poor guy was doing warm, wet washcloths which would get cool after a while and I imagine kind of clammy. I told him I could sew him up a rice sock and I fashioned this one from tracing an eye mask of his, extending the ends a bit to fit his eyes. Filled it about 3/4 full of rice to make it firm but also flexible (so that the rice contours around his eyes and nose area) and after testing it once myself I'm pretty pleased with it. He nukes it for a few minutes and then goes to town.




For me an almost finished fingerless glove. I'm taking a progress picture because I've already gotten this far before and had to rip the whole thing out due to sizing. This time the fit is much better and I'm about two inches away from finishing then moving on to the second glove. I'm hoping that being fingerless, I'll be more prone to wear them out and about as well as in the evenings while knitting/crafting/sewing.

Do you like hummus?

Hummus can definitely be a love or hate thing. Seems that people are pretty passionate about the humble chickpea dip. I'd never tried hummus until eating it at a local Lebanese deli and have loved it since. My own recipe is loosely based on Alton Brown's method but I've since discarded his recipe for that awful, awful phrase of "doing it by eye". That's what my mom has always told me when I would ask her for a recipe with measurements, "oh I just do it by eye" or "el ojo porciento" which translates to the "eye percentage". As a beginning cook what it translated to was frustration when things didn't turn out for me the first go around. Now I'm doing it to others - ah, the circle of life.




Really though, hummus couldn't be more simple and adaptable. A friend of mine told me her husband made his with half pinto beans and it was extremely creamy. Quite good actually. I do admit that I'm a tad particular about my hummus. I'll eat the storebought stuff just fine but at home I avoid adding heavy spices or making super thick, gloppy dip. Instead I prefer a homemade hummus that is impeccably smooth with just the right balance of lemon juice and plenty of fruity olive oil for a spread that should squish out the sides of a pita should you make a sandwich. Mmmmm.

Note: You'll notice I don't include tahini (sesame seed paste) in my hummus. First, with nut allergies in our home I can't guarantee that there's no cross contamination in the manufacturing process and second, ever since leaving it out I don't miss it. Alton Brown uses peanut butter instead and I could technically add sunflower seed butter but like I said, I don't miss it.

Hummus

1 large clove of garlic
1 (15oz) can garbanzo beans (or chickpeas, however they're known in your neck of the woods) - drained but reserve the liquid
2 tablespoons of lemon juice - this is where the "by eye" comes into play
kosher salt to taste
about 1/3 cup of olive oil - again by eye and to taste. I like my hummus a bit loose.


With the food processor running, chuck in your garlic clove. It should mince as it hits the blade and you won't be frustrated wondering why your fancy brick of a food processor can't chop a measly clove of garlic. Not that I've done that. I will say reading your manual is a good thing.




Dump in the garbanzos. I'm making a double batch as usual since my kids love this stuff as much as I do. If you like hummus I suggest you do the same.




Grind the garbanzos but you'll notice that no matter how much you process them, they will still be quite course.






This is where the bean juice comes in handy. Now I know, some people avoid using the bean juice because they think that it will give them gas. Actually most people who are accustomed to eating beans do just fine with adding the bean liquid.




Add about half the reserved bean liquid into the food processor and continue processing until the beans are very smooth. Add more liquid if necessary. See what a difference a little bean juice can make? Don't fear the bean juice. Okay I'll stop saying those words.




Add the salt and lemon juice and process again. Taste at this point since beans can be pretty bland. I use a good bit of kosher salt to taste.




Now, with the food processor running, drizzle in the olive oil. No I didn't measure, I just pour straight from the bottle until I get the right consistency then taste again for salt.




The hummus should now be creamy and rich yet balanced.




Oh yeah. I like mine slathered on pita bread maybe with some red bell pepper. My kids love to dip carrots sticks, pretzels, their fingers. This is good stuff.

The original cool science guy.

Well at least for me. Before Bill Nye and his frenetic energy busted on the scene for me there was only Mr. Wizard. I'm going to sound like an old fogie now but back in the day when Nickelodeon had better content like You Can't Do That On Television and Mr. Wizard's World, my sister and I would watch Don Herbert in awe at his experiments and dead pan explanations which were not condescending despite his younger audience. When he passed away a couple of years ago I was surprised to learn he'd been doing the Mr. Wizard gig for quite a while. Here he is explaining siphons to a young girl.

A little reality

Last year a friend of mine mentioned she was making a king cake to share with her kids. I thought it was a wonderful idea and one my children would definitely enjoy so I bookmarked what looked like a good recipe and forgot. Until last Monday. Tuesday we went to the library (which included a book on mardi gras) and got home way too late to make any kind of dent on the king cake process.




So on Tuesday night I threw together the recipe in the food processor (my cheat to bread dough in 2 minutes) and then let it rise overnight in the fridge. The next day was a little busy and being distracted I glossed over the instructions and went straight to the ingredients list for the filling. When I saw 4 cups of powdered sugar and cream cheese listed together I knew what to do, so I had my oldest mix that together. I threw it in the dough, formed my ring and let it rise. As it was baking I tackled the icing - but oh the horror. The instructions read, "use remaining 3 cups of powdered sugar to make icing". That's right folks, I was only supposed to use one cup of sugar in the filling. Being too late for regrets I kept plugging away. As my king cake oozed cream cheese frosting in the oven I mixed the icing. I threw it on, added the colored sugar and then tasted. Wayyyyy too sweet. The kids liked it but even aside from the super sweet filling I was not impressed with the dough. Sure it was fragrant with lemon zest and nutmeg, rich with egg yolks, milk and butter but man alive I'm sure there's a reason most good Cajun families buy their king cakes from a bakery. Too much work for what basically stiffens up from one night's sitting. I also didn't put the bean in fearing one of us (me!) would forget and end up needing dental work.




I've been itching to knit something again so I cast on a little something something for myself to use up this unplied yarn. It's very soft and a joy to work.




Next up - hummus! See you around.

White Chocolate & Coconut Cookies.

One thing I've noticed about the South is that it is unabashedly sweet. The people, the traditions and most of all the food, tooth achingly sweet. Some people are put off by that, I find most of it quite endearing. I guess that's good since I live here (and no cracks about North Carolina not technically being south enough).




But back to that sweet food. Many of the food traditions in the South are very sweet and definitely an acquired or you-had-to-have-grown-up-with-it taste. Ambrosia, jello salads, tea cakes, pecan pie (that's PEE-can pie for you non-southerners), coconut cake drenched in syrup AND spackled with sweetened coconut, sweet tea, need I go on? I mean the sweet tea alone is enough to leave an unaccustomed drinker hopped up on sugar going into next week.

Well meet this cookie. Although not technically an authentic southern dessert the components certainly are. Back when Mr. Maricucu and I had been dating I wanted to send him a little something for Valentine's Day. I ruled out flowers since he's a pretty practical guy but I did enlist a local gift basket store to put together a basket full of some yummy goodies like rum cake and some snack salty things. To the basket I added a few geeky office toys and finally a supersized two fisted mug full of these cookies. I had seen the recipe in a magazine but the original used a refrigerated cookie dough. Did he like them? He ate them all and loved them.

Then I dropped the ball and never made them again in the almost ten years we've been married. Doh! So this past January I began to scheme of recreating these with a homemade sugar cookie base to surprise my pragmatic Valentine. I'll warn you though, this is a sugar cookie base which is quite delicious on its own but sweet nonetheless. Add white chocolate chips and dried sweetened coconut and you may as well not mention these to your hygienist. If you enjoy sweet then these pay off but if you want to make the sugar cookies au naturale go for it.

White Chocolate Chip and Coconut Cookies

2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups white chocolate chips - 1, 12 oz package. If you can, find the chips that actually have cocoa butter listed as one of the first ingredients.
3 cups sweetened, dried coconut

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix flour, baking powder and salt then set aside.




Cream sugar and butter until pale and fluffy - about 3 minutes.






Add the egg and vanilla.




Then dump in all the dry ingredients. Stir those in scraping down the bowl about halfway through.




Finally add the white chocolate chips . . .




. . . and the coconut. Stir them in but don't overmix.




If you're the dough eating type this one will be hard to resist. I mean, vanilla, butter and sugar? Come on!




Drop by spoonfuls about 1 1/2" apart onto a parchment lined baking sheet. I've mentioned it before but I heart my cookie scoop. It has a 2 teaspoon capacity and is as great for scooping out consistent cookies as it is for meatballs. If you don't have a cookie scoop I'd say spoon out 1 1/2" balls of dough.




Bake for 10-11 minutes or until the edges are slightly golden brown. There will be a dime sized spot in the middle that doesn't look set but that will finish cooking as the cookies cool.




Mmmm. These are pretty yummy even for me the coconut-I-can-take-it-or-leave-it person. What was the verdict from my husband? Oh he loved them too but did not have a clue about the original batch and inspiration. Either way he's requested we keep this in the repertoire and possibly ditch the white chips (but remember he's my non-chocolate person).

This is my brain with no caffeine.

All over the place much like my active daughter.









My ADD is beginning to pull my blog posting schedule a little to the non-daily side. Hang in there while I figure out new ways to cope that don't include coca cola. That or I might have to take up coffee. We'll see.

Mfffmmmmmfmghmmm.

Or what it sounds like when you take a first bite of fudgy brownie. I'm not going to get into what makes the perfect brownie. I have no loyalty when it comes to brownies much like my obsession with pastelitos. When my mom frets over bringing me cuban pastelitos from the inferior bakery I just remind her that to me, there's no such thing as a bad pastelito, some are just better than others.

Although I do have a particular fondness for this recipe from Alton Brown. First, because it uses cocoa vs. chocolate and second because of the authentic shiny top as as well as pure chocolate flavor. There is a trick to getting that shiny, thin top I learned from the folks at King Arthur Flour which means I ignored Alton Brown's instructions (a first for me). I also changed the baking pans twice. I've admitted before to rushing things along when it comes to cooling and eating a finished product and brownies are no exception. I typically bake brownies in a mini muffin tin using liners (or greasing well) because it means I can eat a hot/warm brownie without making the rest of the pan look like a chocolate massacre. Instead I can pop out a morsel, eat it warm and the only thing I've messed up is my mouth. For the second batch I did end up using a baking pan but I switched from his 8x8 recommendation to a 9x13x2 and boy was I glad. With the amount of batter this recipe makes using an 8x8 pan would have made for a monstrously thick brownie that would have taken forever to bake and likely been a bit dry around the edges.

See that batter? Shiny batter = shiny top.




Cocoa Brownies
adapted from Alton Brown

2 sticks of butter - 8 ounces
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 cups cocoa
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup all purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees and then prep your mold. If using a large pan, line with foil and then butter the foil. If you prefer the instant-eat mini muffin size then set out your liners or butter the tin. Then grab yourself a helper of the six year old variety.




Place the butter in a microwave safe bowl and microwave until melted.




Add the sugars to the melted butter and mix.




This is what the butter/sugar mixture looks like right after the initial mix. Smooth but still thick and a bit grainy.




Microwave the butter/sugar mixture for 2-3 minutes to dissolve the sugar. This is the step that will give you a shiny top and also a fudgy texture. After microwaving, the mixture will be much more smooth and a bit thinner.




Add the cocoa and stir well to combine.




Oh yeah, getting closer now.




Mix in the eggs one at a time.




Then the salt and vanilla.




Finally add the flour.




Pour into your prepared mold and bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with moist crumbs but no wet batter. The mini muffins will take less (about 25 minutes) so keep an eye on them.





Then pay the piper.




Shiny, crackly top? Check.






Now if you used a large pan you'll have to do the virtuous thing and allow them to cool before cutting but if you used the mini muffin pan you can dig in right away.







Once the larger pan is cool use the parchment paper or foil to lift out the whole pan of brownies out. Then cut with your favorite tool (I've found a pizza cutter to be a good tool).




Mfffmmmmmfmghmmm.