Bacon Ginger Cookies

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!  My sister-in-law’s aunt was kind enough to open up her home to us this year, since this is the first time we’re celebrating Thanksgiving away from all of our family.  It was difficult not being surrounded by all the traditions Peter and I were used to, but so fun getting to join in someone else’s traditions too.

I was on cookie duty.  I made pumpkin cookies, chocolate chip and cranberry oatmeal cookies, pecan balls, and my new favorite cookie in the world: bacon ginger cookies!

I need to come up with a more clever name for them, since I have decided that these will be a tradition in our household.  It’s a combination of a couple different recipes I’ve seen, and I know it sounds weird.  But the bacon grease gives the cookies a slight smoky flavor.  Needless to say, you’ll need to plan a bit ahead if you want to make these – unless you already happen to save bacon grease, or are planning on cooking about three packages of bacon anytime soon.

Bacon Ginger Cookies:

• 2 1/2 C. all purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp. black pepper
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 6 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
• 6 tbsp. bacon grease, softened (not melted)
• 1/3 C. brown sugar
• 1/3 C. granulated sugar (plus more for rolling)
• 1 large egg yolk, room temperature
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 C. dark molasses
• 1/3 C. candied ginger, finely diced (this is about the contents of a tall jar in the spice aisle.  Don’t worry if it’s a little more or a little less)

Preheat the oven to 375° and line a couple baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, add flour, baking soda, spices, pepper, and salt, whisking to combine.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter, bacon grease, and sugars, and mix on medium speed until they are light and fluffy.  Reduce the speed a bit, and add the egg yolk and vanilla.  Increase the speed and mix until everything is well incorporated.

Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Add the molasses and beat until it is fully incorporated.  Scrape down the sides again, and put mixer on lowest setting.  Add flour mixture and the diced ginger.  Beat until just incorporated.

Get a small bowl and fill it about half-way with more granulated sugar for rolling.  Roll large balls of dough (about 2 in. in diameter), and drop them one at a time in the sugar bowl, rolling them around until covered.  Set the balls on the lined baking sheet, at least 2 in. apart (don’t press the cookies flat).

Place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes, or soon after the tops of the cookies have gotten a crackling effect on top.  Don’t overbake them!  Cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack.  Enjoy warm or cooled, with a cold glass of milk.

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November…

…The pretzels, the ham, and the swiss!

Happy Autumn…

…as of 11:09pm last night!  What’s with that?

It’s pretty hot in our part of the Ozark Plateau right now, and there aren’t very many changing leaves yet.  But I’m still really exciting about making more soup, eating more squash, shifting my color pallet from blues to yellows and oranges, and some day – some day wearing my turtle necks and scarves.

All of the projects I’ve undertaken seem to be autumn-inspired.  We recently got a brand-new printer on Craigslist and needed a little table to put it on.  So we went yard-saling and Goodwilling, and the best we could do was this thing:

One leg wobbles a bit, the legs are that ugly forest green that seemed to be so popular in the mid-nineties, and it still cost me $10!  I feel like I could have found this kinda thing easy for $2 in Maryland.  But it was still much cheaper than a nicer looking (but still cheaply made) table from Wal Mart or somewhere like that.  So I bought a can of black spray paint for $1 (I was gonna do gray, but was afraid it would look too much like blue) and two yards of a butternut squash-colored cotton fabric for around $2.50.

I’m much happier with it now.   I was thinking of putting some yo-yos or something on it, but I think I prefer how simple this is.

And now for cookies:

My mom used to make these awesome pumpkin cookies (she called them Golden Nugget cookies), and I have to make them every Autumn.  They’re really simple and really fluffy, so I can eat about half a batch of them before I feel like I’m gonna go into a coma.

Mom’s Pumpkin Cookies:

Preheat oven to 350°

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups mashed or canned pumpkin
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg
• 1 cup raisins (optional)

Cream together butter and brown sugar in a mixer or by hand in a large bowl.  Add eggs, beat thoroughly.  Mix in pumpkin.

In a separate medium bowl, combine dry ingredients and stir together.  Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well.  If using raisins, add to batter and stir until evenly distributed.  Drop by the spoon-full onto a greased baking sheet and bake until bottom of cookie starts to crisp and brown – 15 to 20 minutes.

Knitted Blackberry Coffee Cake

My sister-in-law Aneysa let me borrow a bread book of hers called Breads: Step-by-Step Techniques (by Sunset Publishing Corporation).  It’s a kinda old book with lots of good recipes in it.  I decided to try the Poppy Seed Coffee Cake – except who wants poppy seeds?  I like them on a bagel, but I can’t imagine chomping down on a bread filled with a gooey poppy seed filling. So I decided to make it a Blackberry Coffee Cake.  Want the recipe?  I haven’t tasted it yet (it’s for church tomorrow), but there’s no way this isn’t amazing.  It smells soooo good, and even I can’t mess up a blackberry filling (fingers crossed).  Now, I’m only recently getting into different forms of bread making, so if any of my methods seem uncouth or (how you say?) stupid, then just do it a better way.  Just don’t tell me that my method is stupid, or I’ll come down from the high I’m on after finally making a pretty bread.  You wouldn’t deny me that high, would you?

Knitted Blackberry Coffee Cake:

Ingredients for cake:

• 1 package active dried yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water (about 110º)
• 1/4 cup warm milk (about 110º)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dustin’
• 1 egg white beaten with 1 teaspoon water (for glazin’)
• a tablespoon or two brown sugar

Ingredients for filling:

• 12 oz. fresh blackberries
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3 tablespoons corn starch

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water, with a teaspoon or so of sugar.  Right as the yeast begins to bloom, blend in the milk, salt, sugar, egg, and butter with a fork.  Gradually beat in the flour with a fork (I did this 1/2 cup of flour at a time).

Now the first fun part: turn the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead it until smooth and satiny (about 5-10 minutes), adding flour as needed to prevent sticking.  Place dough in a greased bowl, and turn the ball over to grease top.  Cover and let rise in a warm place (like in front of a window, away from a vent) until doubled (1 to 1 1/2 hours).  Meanwhile, prepare blackberry filling.  This part is a bit trickier to relay because I kinda free-styled and didn’t necessarily pay tons of attention to measurements.  Just have more cornstarch and a sieve on hand in case the mixture looks too watery.  Here goes:

Dump the blackberries into a small mixing bowl and put in the microwave on high for about 2 minutes (with a paper towel over top).  When done microwaving, mash the berries a bit with a spoon, add sugar and corn starch (plus extra, if needed), and stir until any corn starch lumps are smoothed out.  If the mixture is too watery still, get a medium bowl and a sieve and pour the mixture into the sieve over the bowl, allowing excess liquid to drain out until you have more of a paste or jam than a hot blackberry mess.  It’s ok, the bread needs at least an hour to sit and think anyway.

Ok, the bread is done rising. Dump it onto a lightly-floured surface and punch it down. Knead it briefly (just to release air), lightly shape it into a square (tucking the folds underneath it), and roll it into a rectangle – one that will end up being a couple inches smaller than a standard cookie sheet.  Place the dough on a lightly-buttered baking sheet.  Spread the filling in the center 1/3 of the rolled-out dough.  With a sharp knife, cut an equal number of diagonal strips on each side of the cake, cutting in almost as far as the filling.  Once all the strips are cut – this is the second fun part – begin folding them over the filling, alternating from one side to the other, and tucking the flaps underneath each other (lest, as you probably noticed in the corner of mine, the dough get loose and bake poking out, rather than tucked under).

When finished, brush the dough with the egg/water mixture, and lightly sprinkle with brown sugar (since brown sugar is so dense, it’s best to do this with your fingers, rather than with a spoon).  You can also use sliced almonds as the original recipe called for, rather than brown sugar.  Let the loaf rise in a warm place for about a half hour uncovered, until almost doubled.  Bake in a preheated 350º oven for 25-30 minutes or until richly browned.  Let cool on a rack while gazing at its majesty.

Hospitality and Etiquette

I had absolutely no idea how to cook, bake, or entertain when I first got married.  My brothers are fantastic cooks, but my mother says I never showed any interest in learning myself, so I was consigned to ignorance by my own stubbornness.  When I met Peter, he knew how to cook more than I did – that is, he knew how to make spaghetti and really good salmon.  By this time, I recognized that my ignorance was really something pretty pathetic and I resolved to correct it.  Unfortunately, I sought out women like Martha Stewart in order to do so.  Consequently, I became consumed with perfection in cooking, baking, and entertaining.  Likewise, when I discovered Miss Manners, I became consumed with what she insisted polite society deemed good etiquette while entertaining, or doing anything else.  By saying I was consumed with those things, though, please don’t think I claim to have ever achieved perfection or anything close to it.  It was simply my constant aim.  And when I didn’t, in my own estimation, achieve it, I counted the entire evening an embarrassing loss.  Needless to say, I was usually pretty depressed after having guests over, and tense during their visits.

I don’t have any problem with Martha Stewart, Ina Garten, Miss Manners, or anyone else who insists “you really must do this or that if you are going to please your guests.”  My orange binder is chock full of recipes by the former two ladies, and I have learned some very useful things from Miss Manners.

What I do need to be careful of, however, is that I remember that these ladies are operating from a different worldview.  That may sound silly and legalistic, to those who know neither the definition of legalism nor my point.  My point is that a Christ-centered worldview permeates an entire life.  A saint’s life is going to glorify God in a completely different way than a summer day or a chipmunk.  The summer day and the chipmunk are doing what God created them to do from birth.  A newly-created woman, however, is glorifying God in a more direct way and in saving knowledge of the One directing her day.  It would be incorrect to say, as many people have: “Well, all people and things glorify God in equally important ways because they are all directed by God.  So… carry on.”  I guess what I mean is that a chipmunk is glorifying God in a more basic way by using his little claws to gather nuts, as God gave him instinct to do; the Christian is glorifying God in a more direct way by using her arm to point to the God who saved her.  We are worth more to God than many chipmunks.

Anyway, my point in all of that is that things like hospitality, etiquette, entertaining, and dinner are not indifferent things, as though “whatever you do is going to glorify God, so just do whatever you please.”  Those women I’ve listed above have some very good, very Christian things to say about how one ought to operate in those areas.  However, because there is not a Christian worldview present, it can easily become a strict – and lifeless – set of rules to follow if one wishes to do hospitality correctly, or if one wishes to live by proper etiquette.  Some things we do in the Church go straight against the rules of etiquette: older women approaching younger women in order to train them; Paul requesting compensation for the spiritual leadership he has devoted himself to giving; Christians seeking other Christians for help when they are in need; Christ rebuking Martha (no, the other Martha) for worrying more about entertaining than enjoying her Guest.

Often I see Christian women – myself included – worrying so much about doing hospitality correctly that we end up really only being hospitable a couple times a year, because more than that would be too taxing and expensive.  Often we worry so much about etiquette that we refrain from offering help to someone, because we have always been told that “if the offer may possibly offend the friend, then it is best to not offer,” or “this service must never be rendered by one within the person’s immediate family,” and so on.  We can also be too concerned about etiquette to ask for the help for ourselves or our families. I know I’ve been guilty of that myself. Is that somehow pleasing to God? If not, then how can we refuse to ask for help on the grounds of etiquette, or even worse: roll our eyes at a sister who dares to break those cold lifeless rules herself?

Evelyn Waugh said “It is a curious thing that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.” It is possible to let ourselves become so engrossed with doing these things “correctly” that the originally intended aim of them becomes something terribly undesirable to us. When we find ourselves tightening our shoulders planning a dinner or a shower or anything else whose intention is meant to be to bless someone else and to enjoy that person, we ought to take note of our rude, impolite sister Mary, and remember how Christ praised her for her disregard for the rules of etiquette and hospitality when the Lord over etiquette and hospitality was in her midst.

Plum’n'Apple Chai Pie

Some of the best foods were created when someone needed to empty out the fridge or cupboard, or needed to use up what he had before it spoiled (Old Bay seasoning, dirty rice, &c.).  I found myself with some leftover plums from a tatin I’d made the week earlier.  They were getting wrinkly, and were a little too bitter for me to want to eat them alone.  I also had one single leftover pie crust in the freezer.  I couldn’t make a full-fledged pie out of it, so I threw together this:

The Plum’n'Apple Chai Pie

Ingredients:

• Half a recipe Pate Brisee (found here), or one storebought pie crust
• 1 eggwhite
• 3 large Granny Smith apples, skinned and cut into relatively thin slices
• 5 or 6 plums, sliced
• 2 tbsp. molasses (I didn’t measure, I just drizzled and stirred until the fruit was lightly coated)
• Half a fresh lemon, or a bottle of lemon juice
• 2 heaping tbsp. sugar
• 1 Chai tea bag (you’ll only be using half of it)
• 2 tbsp. cornstarch
• Half a stick of butter, cut into small slices and chilled
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 big handsfull dry oats

Preheat oven to 400.  Flour a clean smooth surface and roll out the pate brisee or storebought crust, being careful to not make it too thin (so it doesn’t burn), and lower into a pie dish.  Using a pastry brush, brush the rim of the pie with the egg white.  Put crust in the freezer until ready to fill (if you don’t freeze it, it will kinda sink down into the pie dish once it’s put in the oven).

In a large bowl, combine fruit, molasses, lemon juice (either half a lemon’s worth, or a few squirts from a bottle), sugar, half the contents of a chai teabag, and cornstarch.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix flour and brown sugar until combined.  Add butter and, using a pastry cutter, cut butter into dry mixture until well combined.  Add oatmeal and briefly mix with hands.  You can also mix flour, brown sugar, and butter in a food processor, transfer it to a bowl, and hand-mix the oats into that.

Take crust out of freezer, dump fruit in, and top with oatmeal mixture.  Place on top of tin foil-lined cookie sheet and put in oven (center rack) for about an hour, or until juice from fruit starts to bubble through the crumble topping.  Let cool before serving.

All American Summer Tarts (via Good Things Catered)

Recipe for these beautiful (and, I’m sure, delicious) All American Summer Tarts over at Good Things Catered. Boy, you guys are gonna have the most delicious Summer with all these amazing recipes!

Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cupcakes (via Annie’s Eats)

There’s an amazing looking Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Copcakes recipe over at Annie’s Eats that I think I need to try outfor the next birthday that rolls around.  Or maybe as a “Thank Uou” gift.  Who wouldn’t want to get these as a “Thank You”?!

How About a Little Pick Me up? (via Demystifying Geng & Chip)

There’s a great tiramisu recipe and picture on Demystifying Geng & Chip.  I was talking with a co-worker the other day about how intimidating tiramisu is.  But I may try making this some time this summer!  Have any of you made tiramisu?  How difficult was it?