The Great Houseplant Census of 2010

I am having garden withdrawal symptoms today. I am reading garden blogs to help me get over it, since my garden is covered with 18+ inches of snow. I decide to take part in the Great Houseplant Census of 2010, suggested by Mr. McGregor's Daughter.

I don't do well with houseplants, or with any plants not installed in the ground, really. If I take a potted plant home with the intention of planting it in the near future, it has a 50-50 chance of actually surviving until I get it planted. We call the landing spot for these poor devils "The Patio of Death."

As far as indoor plants, so far this year I have killed (or neglected to the point that my DH took the poor thing and put it out of its misery) a rosemary plant and a poinsettia. This is a story of the Survivors.

I have a pot of amaryllis-- a neat small-scale bloomer in a soft orange color-- that was passed along to us by a friend, who is an old-fashioned gardener with the experience to prove it. It just quit blooming this past week and my DH cut it back and watered it. Not much to look at right now, but a knock-out when it blooms!

I have a Thanksgiving cactus that I keep in the guest room (a room where we keep the heat and light off when nobody is visiting) and water when I think of it. It actually has a few buds on it right now, but they usually fall off before they amount to anything at this time of the year. It is my oldest houseplant-- probably 10 years old at this point.

Two pothos hanging baskets flank the bay window in the living room. This window faces north and is quite cool, and provides a home for most of my indoor plants in the winter. (The rosemary died here.) The pothos are losing a lot of leaves right now, and I'm beginning to worry about them, but for now they are alive.

I have a bay plant that spent the summer on the patio and is still looking good in the bay window. (Oh! Bay plant in a bay window!)

I have a navel orange plant that I hope will become a patio specimen plant at some point is doing pretty well in the bay window. It survived a hail storm on the patio this past year, and deserves to make it! Some of the leaves are a little chopped up, but until I put it back outside I am reluctant to cut off the damaged parts.

And, finally, I have two actual "houseplants" that I bought in a moment of weakness at a garden center owned by some friends. They are a sanseveria cylindrica, an unusual style of "mother-in-law's tongue" that looked like I couldn't kill it, and an unnamed succulent I just liked.

So that makes a grand total of 8 plants that are living indoors with me right now.

Nanaimo Bars: Daring Bakers Challenge for January

Yes, I know I am way late for a January Challenge. DH and I are trying to eat less sweets, you see, and our business is closed, you see, and there is no hungry group of staffers to help us eat them. So I waited to make them until I had a hungry group of friends that I could share them with, at a get-together that happens the first Friday of each month. Foiled again! It snowed 8 inches by the time I was supposed to leave to go to the meeting (and an additional 10 inches since then) and I didn't get to go after all. So now I have 12 more yummy nanaimo bars calling to me from my refrigerator. (Sigh...)

Anyway, to get to the Challenge...

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and http://www.nanaimo.ca/.

The nanaimo bar (pronounced nuh-ny-moh) is a traditional Canadian cookie. (The Daring Bakers chose this bar in honor of the Winter Olympics slated to begin soon in Vancouver.) It is a 3-layer bar cookie built on the first layer which is a combination of butter, sugar, cocoa, egg, graham cracker crumbs, almonds and coconut. But the Daring Bakers never do anything the "easy" way, so the first step is to make the graham crackers. You can find the recipe for the graham crackers here. The recipe called for making gluten free graham crackers, but gave us the option of making them with wheat flour if we wanted. Since unusual flours are hard to come by in my area, I chose to do them with wheat.

For Gluten-Free Graham Wafers

Ingredients

1 cup (138 g) (4.9 ounces) Sweet rice flour (also known as glutinous rice flour)

3/4 cup (100 g) (3.5 ounces) Tapioca Starch/Flour

1/2 cup (65 g) (2.3 ounces) Sorghum Flour

1 cup (200 g) (7.1 ounces) Dark Brown Sugar, Lightly packed

1 teaspoon (5 mL) Baking soda

3/4 teaspoon (4 mL ) Kosher Salt

7 tablespoons (100 g) (3 ½ ounces) Unsalted Butter (Cut into 1-inch cubes and frozen)

1/3 cup (80 mL) Honey, Mild-flavoured such as clover.

5 tablespoons (75 mL) Whole Milk

2 tablespoons (30 mL) Pure Vanilla Extract

If making the graham crackers with wheat, replace the gluten-free flours (tapioca starch, sweet rice flour, and sorghum flour) with 2 ½ cups plus 2 tbsp of all-purpose wheat flour, or wheat pastry flour. Watch the wheat-based graham wafers very closely in the oven, as they bake faster than the gluten-free ones, sometimes only 12 minutes.

Directions:

1. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, combine the flours, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt. Pulse on low to incorporate. Add the butter and pulse on and off, until the mixture is the consistency of a coarse meal. If making by hand, combine aforementioned dry ingredients with a whisk, then cut in butter until you have a coarse meal. No chunks of butter should be visible.

2. In a small bowl or liquid measuring cup, whisk together the honey, milk and vanilla. Add to the flour mixture until the dough barely comes together. It will be very soft and sticky.

3. Turn the dough onto a surface well-floured with sweet rice flour and pat the dough into a rectangle about 1 inch thick. Wrap in plastic and chill until firm, about 2 hours, or overnight.

4. Divide the dough in half and return one half to the refrigerator. Sift an even layer of sweet rice flour onto the work surface and roll the dough into a long rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick. The dough will be quite sticky, so flour as necessary. Cut into 4 by 4 inch squares. Gather the scraps together and set aside. Place wafers on one or two parchment-lined baking sheets. Chill until firm, about 30 to 45 minutes. Repeat with the second batch of dough.

5. Adjust the rack to the upper and lower positions and preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius).

6. Gather the scraps together into a ball, chill until firm, and reroll. Dust the surface with more sweet rice flour and roll out the dough to get a couple more wafers.

7. Prick the wafers with toothpick or fork, not all the way through, in two or more rows.

8. Bake for 25 minutes, until browned and slightly firm to the touch, rotating sheets halfway through to ensure even baking. Might take less, and the starting location of each sheet may determine its required time. The ones that started on the bottom browned faster.

9. When cooled completely, place enough wafers in food processor to make 1 ¼ cups (300 mL) of crumbs. Another way to do this is to place in a large ziplock bag, force all air out and smash with a rolling pin until wafers are crumbs.

I put them a little close together on the baking sheet, and ended up with one giant graham cracker, but I was able to cut them apart where they were "scored" and since I was going to use the crumbs anyway, the shape wasn't really that critical. If you decide to make the graham crackers to eat as cookies, though, you need to put them an inch or so apart on the baking sheets.

After they cooled, I put them in my food processor and ground them into crumbs. Then I proceeded with the nanaimo bar recipe, which you can find here.

For Nanaimo Bars — Bottom Layer

1/2 cup (115 g) (4 ounces) Unsalted Butter

1/4 cup (50 g) (1.8 ounces) Granulated Sugar

5 tablespoons (75 mL) Unsweetened Cocoa

1 Large Egg, Beaten

1 1/4 cups (300 mL) (160 g) (5.6 ounces) Gluten Free Graham Wafer Crumbs (See previous recipe)

1/2 cup (55 g) (1.9 ounces) Almonds (Any type, Finely chopped)

1 cup (130 g) (4.5 ounces) Coconut (Shredded, sweetened or unsweetened)

For Nanaimo Bars — Middle Layer

1/2 cup (115 g) (4 ounces) Unsalted Butter

2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons (40 mL) Heavy Cream

2 tablespoons (30 mL) Vanilla Custard Powder (Such as Bird’s. Vanilla pudding mix may be substituted.)

2 cups (254 g) (8.9 ounces) Confectioners Sugar

For Nanaimo Bars — Top Layer

4 ounces (115 g) Semi-sweet chocolate

2 tablespoons (28 g) (1 ounce) Unsalted Butter

Directions:

1. For bottom Layer: Melt unsalted butter, sugar and cocoa in top of a double boiler. Add egg and stir to cook and thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, nuts and coconut. Press firmly into an ungreased 8 by 8 inch pan.

2. For Middle Layer: Cream butter, cream, custard powder, and icing sugar together well. Beat until light in colour. Spread over bottom layer.

3. For Top Layer: Melt chocolate and unsalted butter over low heat. Cool. Once cool, pour over middle layer and chill.

They turned out to be really good, sweet and rich, as much like a candy as a cookie. Make them as a Winter Olympics Party treat. (You can start with store-bought graham crackers to make it simpler, of course, but where's the "challenge" in that?)

Barefoot Bloggers Creme Brulee- A Little Late

The Early November Challenge from the Barefoot Bloggers was Ina's Creme Brulee from Barefoot In Paris. I was all ready for making it last month, right on schedule, then I found out that my torch (to caramelize the topping) didn't come with any butane. So out we went on a search for butane, finally finding it at a kitchen shop outlet store miles from our house. Then Thanksgiving came, and with it all the cooking craziness, and it got pushed back again.

Today I finally made it. It was a success from the get-go, easy and as good, if not better, than any I've had in any restaurant. You can find the recipe here. Buy the torch (and some butane) and have at it! It is really a great special dessert for a nice dinner, and not that hard. Just leave some time for the cooling and chilling.

It's not a low calorie dessert, though. I figure it at about 900 calories a portion! So save it for a special occasion, or enjoy it on an otherwise low-calorie day.

The Latest Adventures of Chicken Mama!

I have 13 hens in my chicken coop, and on Sunday I got a Grand Slam-- 13 eggs! Organic eggs from happy chickens. Doesn't get much better than that!

Then on Monday I think an alien chicken invaded my coop. In addition to 8 regular sized eggs, I got a mini egg, a little larger than a robin's egg. I don't know how I'll cook it yet, sunny side up? If I scramble it, it would fill a thimble-- maybe. (Grin.)

Daring Bakers French Macaroons

The October Daring Bakers Challenge was French Macarons or Macaroons. French macaroons are very different from what Americans think of as macaroons-- a chewy, mostly coconut cookie. These are a combination of ground almonds, egg whites, sugar and flavorings, sandwiched with a filling of our choice. They are light, like angel kisses.

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

I ground the almonds in my food processor, then added the confectioners sugar and ground them again, to get the "almond flour" as fine as I could. The cookies are baked in two stages-- once at a low temperature for just a few minutes to dry the bottom of the cookie, then at a higher temperature for the remaining time. This results in a "foot" that doesn't rise as much as the rest of the cookie, which creates the distinctive macaroon shape.

I made the cookie recipe with no added flavors (flavors or zests were optional) and filled them with a chocolate almond ganache. The cookies at first were a contrast in textures-- a crispy cookie and a creamy chocolate filling. But as they sat, the cookie softened to a texture that just dissolved in my mouth. Yum!

You can find the recipe and directions for the cookies here.

Ingredients

Confectioners’ sugar: 2 ¼ cups

Almond flour: 2 cups

Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons

Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 200°F.

Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl.

If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.

2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.

3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.

4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip. You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.

5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).

6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F. Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.

7. Cool on a rack before filling.

The ganache recipe follows:

5 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

1/2 Cup heavy cream, scalded

1/4 tsp almond extract

Put the chopped chocolate in a heat-proof bowl. Pour the hot scalded cream over the chocolate and mix until blended. Add the almond extract, and mix to blend. Chill until the ganache is thick enough to spread, then put a liberal amount between each pair of macaroons.

The recipe made about 2 dozen filled cookies for me-- I must have made them larger than the directions called for. But they were delicious nonetheless!

Beatty's Cake, Redux

I was telling a friend about Beatty's cake (that I made for Barefoot Bloggers in September) and she requested that I bring it to our Dirty Dozen Garden Club covered dish get-together tomorrow. So I made it again, and of course it turned out not quite as pretty as the last time. (Things only turn out pretty when I basically just make it for us to eat, not when I'm bringing it somewhere.)



I hope it tastes as good as the last time, since I've been raving about it being the best chocolate cake I've ever tasted. (I find most chocolate cakes to be dry and one-dimensional as far as the flavor is concerned.)



Wish me luck!

Beatty's Chocolate Cake, Barefoot Bloggers September

When we taste most things we try, we say, " this is a keeper" or "not so good." After this cake, we said, "Oooh! This is really good!"

The Barefooot Bloggers late September recipe was Beatty's Chocolate Cake, from Barefoot Contessa At Home. Go here for the recipe.

This was a pretty straightforward recipe for a dark chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream frosting. The thing that makes it different, that makes it "over the top," is the undertone of coffee. This is moist, sweet and delicious! And complex-- lots going on there. This is definitely a keeper.