Don't Bother Me, I'm on Vacation: April Fools!



Ice Cream Sand Castle by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Oh, girls, guess where we’re going for spring break? The sandy beaches of Florida, where you can dip your toesies in the warm Gulf waters and frolic in the sand. You can build sand castles all day long, instead of staying at home in Georgia, watching the cherry blossoms fall.

April Fools!

Instead of digging our feet into the sand, we'll dig our spoons into a sand castle cake made of ice cream. This cake is fairly simple to make, just molded ice cream coated with sugar. The time-consuming part is two stages in the freezer. If you're making this for a party, be sure to start a day or two ahead of serving time.

Sand Castle Ice Cream Cake

1 gallon light-colored ice cream, such as vanilla

3 cups natural cane sugar (you could also use sifted light brown sugar)

Clean sand pail and castle molds

1. Soften ice cream either at room temperature for about 15 minutes or in the microwave for 30 seconds. Scoop or spoon soft ice cream into sand castle mold. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze until solid, about 3 hours, or overnight.

2. Remove molds from freezer. Fill sink with several inches of hot-as-you-can-stand-it water. Dip mold into water until it releases the ice cream.

3. This is the part where you do as I say rather than as I did: Coat the molded ice cream with sugar, cover with plastic wrap and return to the freezer until ready to serve.

4. At serving time, take ice cream out of the freezer, unwrap and turn out onto sugar bed. Arrange molds attractively. Cover sand castles with additional sugar, if needed, then decorate with small paper flags and candy.

The recipe is adapted from ideas in "The Family Baker" by Susan Purdy and Family Fun magazine. By the way, I have a lot of respect for food stylists - this was a bear to photograph - it looked more like a sand castle before I took the picture on a hot afternoon! Decidedly unprofessional, but certainly delicious according to the kid-tasters!

Text and images copyright Lucy Mercer, 2010.

Indulgent hot chocolate from Valentine's candy

Hot chocolate, the body-and-soul-warming beverage of snowy days, is essentially a liquid candy bar, so what if it were really a liquefied candy bar? The best cup of hot chocolate is traditionally made with chocolate melted and combined with dairy, either cream or milk, and topped with marshmallow. This sounds like a candy bar - chocolate, either dark or milk; sugar; marshmallows. In fact, it sounds just like a 3 Musketeers bar, which makes a stupendous cup of cocoa - the sweet milk chocolate is rich and the melted, toasty nougat dissolves and adds body, that creamy mouth-feel that the food writers go on about. Two ingredients, one cooking vessel, one serving mug, so very easy.


Many years ago my friend Billy gave me this ultimate hot chocolate recipe, and it’s an ideal way to use up leftover holiday candies. Three weeks after Valentine's Day, I still have a stash of pink- and red-wrapped milk chocolate hearts and kisses, plus caramel Rolos and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (known in the South as "Reese-y's" and around my house as "Nature's Most Perfect Food"). At the supermarket, I picked up original 3 Musketeers ("whipped-up fluffy chocolate on chocolate taste") and new-to-me 3 Musketeers Mint with Dark Chocolate ("whipped-up fluffy chocolate on mint taste"), both in the fun size. On a whim, I tossed a box of Junior Mints into the basket. Add a sunny but cold afternoon, and some eager taste testers, and we were ready for a hot chocolate throwdown.

The recipe is pretty much a ratio, approximately 4 ounces of chocolate candy to 8 ounces of milk, beginning with a small amount of chocolate and adding more to taste. I began with milk heated on the stove and mixed up individual servings by placing the chocolate in the bottom of a measuring cup, topping off with milk, then heating in 15 second increments in the microwave.

The results are in: my personal favorite is the 3 Musketeers Dark Chocolate Mint bars. The dark chocolate takes the edge off the sweet and the mint adds a crisp note. There is a pleasant toasty marshmallow taste and the nougat contributes to the texture and body of the beverage. My second place vote goes to the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Rich, chocolaty and peanut buttery, two great tastes that taste great together, as the ditty goes. A slight grittiness from the p.b. is the only detraction there. Rolos are a sentimental favorite - try them with popcorn sometime. They make a sweet, thick cocoa, with a pleasant caramel kick. Aggressive stirring is required to incorporate the caramel into the milk.

The young testers gave thumbs up to the dark horse entry, hot Junior Mint. The deep chocolate color was the most appealing of all the cups and the extra sweetness appealed to the sugar-crazed kids. The preschool tester favored the simple 3 Musketeer version, with additional marshmallows.

Master Recipe for Candy Bar Hot Chocolate

Yield: One 8-ounce cup of hot chocolate

Ingredients:

8 ounces whole milk

3 fun-size 3 Musketeers bars (or 10 small Reese's pb cups or 16 Rolos or 4 oz. Junior Mints or 8 Hershey's Milk Chocolate Kisses or Hearts)

Directions:

Heat milk on stovetop or in microwave, just to scald. Place candy in bottom of mug and pour milk over. Whisk, whisk, whisk until candy is melted. Taste and add more chocolate, if necessary. You may want to place the mug in microwave for 15 seconds at a time to further dissolve the chocolate. Garnish with marshmallows or candy canes, or try this idea from the 3 Musketeers website - shavings from a frozen 3 Musketeers bar!
 
This story is a re-post - I thought it might be a good idea for all those extra Hershey's kisses around the house now that Valentine's is over.
 
What about you? Do you have leftover chocolate and do you have plans for it?

Christmas cut-out cookies

This is the Christmas cookie of my childhood. Somewhere in my mom's kitchen is a mimeographed (if you don't what this is, ask a teacher nearing retirement-on-years) copy of this recipe. It was given to her at a Tupperware party sometime in the 70s and has been baked by either her or me every year since. These cookies have a distinctive aroma and taste that I assume comes from the cream of tartar, an unusual ingredient for cookies, but readily available in most supermarkets. These cookies are buttery and sweet, and the dough, while a bit stiff when cold, rolls and cuts beautifully, without a lot of spread in the oven.

You have to sacrifice your kitchen when you decorate these cookies, but to minimize the damage, be organized before inviting the kids in the room. Wax paper on the counters (cheaper than parchment), lots of bowls of icing and shakers of sprinkles. Let the cookies dry for about an hour before putting them in containers and be sure to layer with wax paper.

Christmas Cut-Out Cookies

3 cups confectioner's sugar

2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 teaspoon almond extract

5 cups flour

2 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1. In a mixer, cream sugar and butter, add eggs and flavorings. Mix in dry ingredients until dough forms. Pack in an airtight container and refrigerate two hours or overnight. I use a rectangular container and "slice" dough when I'm ready to bake.

2. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375. Cut off a 2-cup portion of dough and roll out on floured countertop. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes and place on cookie sheets lined with either a Silpat or parchment paper. Bake each sheet of cookies at 375 for 7 minutes. They will be just brown and delicious. Let cool on wire racks until ready to decorate.

Tips for Success

1. Remember to dip cookie cutters in flour to prevent dough from sticking.

2. Re-roll scraps with scraps, not fresh dough.

3. To quickly cool a baking sheet in order to fill it up with the next batch, remove liner and run pan under cold water. Dry, replace liner, and place cookies on it.


Icing

This is one of those times when you don't really need a recipe: Get a bowl, carefully pour a pound of confectioner's sugar in it. Using a whisk, stir in milk a tablespoon or two at a time until mixture reaches the desired spreadability. I use food coloring to tint small bowls of the icing. Gels will give purer, more intense color. Use a toothpick to swirl little globs of the coloring gel (look for Wilton brand) into the bowls of icing. 

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

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A labor of love: Homemade egg pasta



Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

  Homemade pasta is one of those "many hands make for light work" kitchen projects. Sure, it can be made alone, and it's a pleasant task, and with the sunlight streaming through the window and NPR on the radio, a pasta project can make for a soothing and satisfying afternoon. In my house, though, I pull out the Atlas pasta machine and the girls come running, and crafting linguine becomes "mini hands make for light work."

Part of my motivation for writing about food is to leave a record for my children, so they will have recipes and recorded memories of our family life. I want my daughters to be competent in the kitchen, to know good food and feel comfortable preparing it - that's why I make homemade pasta and let my girls join in.

I wish I could say that I learned to make pasta from a nonna, one of the Italian grandmothers that Carol Field writes about in "In Nonna's Kitchen." My Alabama grandmother was a society lady who wore Italian leather pumps and could make a mean tomato aspic from Campbell's soup. For my own kitchen education, I turn to books, like those of Carol Field and Marcella Hazan. When I first started making pasta, I used the detailed instructions in Marcella’s “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.” I recommend it as the premier primer on homemade egg pasta.

Here is how I make pasta and a tasty clam sauce to accompany. To quell the anti-authentic hue and cry in the comment section, I will state first off that this is how a Scotch-Irish-German girl from Georgia makes pasta. I use a food processor to mix and knead it and I use salt and olive oil in the pasta dough. Marcella doesn’t do this - but my pasta turns out fine, so that’s all I can say. I’ve watched many times while TV chefs make a crater out of flour, crack eggs into it and mix all together with a fork. My experience with this method is a gunky countertop. The processor is super-fast and the clean-up is easy.

Homemade egg pasta for linguine

This is a double recipe of pasta, yielding about 1 ½ pounds. It’s too much for the accompanying clam sauce, unless you’re a serious carbo-phile. Toss noodles lightly in flour and arrange in nests on baking sheet. Let dry for an hour or so, place in plastic container and freeze. When it’s time to cook, frozen pasta can go directly into the boiling pot of pasta water.
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 large eggs, organic if possible

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1. In the bowl of a food processor, place flour and salt and pulse a few times to combine. Add eggs and olive oil and pulse until dough forms into a solid ball. Let knead by running processor for two minutes. The dough should be firm and smooth like a baby's bum.

2. Turn dough ball into an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rest for a half hour. You can also place dough in an oiled plastic bag, squish out the air, seal it and refrigerate for up to a day.

Pasta dough by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

3. When you’re ready to roll, make sure to have plenty of counter space and kitchen helpers. Divide dough into 12 equal-ish pieces and flatten each into a round. Dust your work area with flour and set a willing worker to roll the dough. Have a drying rack ready, or half-sheet pans dusted with flour, ready to receive noodles. Also handy to have around - a damp tea cloth or paper towel to spread over the pasta lumps as each waits its turn at the press.

4. With the pasta roller adjusted to the widest setting, feed the first flattened piece of dough through the pasta roller. Fold the remainder letter style, that is, top third and bottom third over middle. Feed this piece through. Repeat once more, for a total of three passes through the widest setting of the machine. Repeat with remaining 11 dough pieces.

5. Thinning: reduce the setting one notch and feed each piece through, setting each thinned piece on a floured countertop or across the drying rack. When each piece has been thinned, reduce the setting size to the next smallest number and run each piece through again. Repeat: reducing the setting and running a piece through until you reach the thinnest setting. After the final pass, the pasta sheets will be as long as a child’s winter scarf and as thin as a sheet of paper.

Baby girl making pasta. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

6. Attach the cutter to the pasta machine. Feed each sheet through the cutter, watching your child’s face as she sees the noodles take shape. If you do not have a pasta drying rack, you may set nests of the noodles on a lightly floured baking sheet.

Baby girl rolling out pasta. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

7. Let noodles dry while the water in the pasta pot comes to a boil. If you’ve never worked with fresh pasta, you will be amazed at how quickly it cooks - just a minute or two to toothsome noodles. Uncooked noodles may be stored in an airtight container in the freezer. They will cook easily in boiling water, no need to defrost.

Homemade linguine with clam sauce. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 

Clam Sauce

In my house this dish is simply called “clams.” If I use dried pasta, it’s a pantry meal that can be put together in about 30 minutes, while the water is boiling for the pasta. With homemade fresh pasta, it’s worthy of company.

½ medium onion, minced

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 (6 ½ oz.) cans chopped clams, drain and reserve liquid

½ cup dry white wine, or vermouth

A handful of fresh herbs such as oregano, basil and thyme, minced (in winter, start with ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning or a mixture of appropriate dried herbs in your cabinet, to taste)

Freshly ground black pepper

1 pound linguine, dried or fresh, cooked

1. In a skillet over medium heat, saute onion in olive oil until softened. Add garlic and stir for about 30 seconds.

2. Add wine and let cook until reduced by half. Add reserved clam liquid and allow to cook down.

3. Add clams, herbs and freshly ground pepper to taste. It’s tempting to add salt, but be very careful - it’s easy to over-salt this dish.

4. Serve over pasta.

Text and images © 2010, Lucy Mercer.

"In Nonna's Kitchen" by Carol Field, published 1997 by Harper Collins.

 "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking" by Marcella Hazan, published 1992 by Knopf.

Granola and a good friend

Granola by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

When I was a new mom, I knew one thing for sure: I didn't have the first clue what I was doing. So I did what sensible mommies do: I paid someone to teach me how to play with my baby. I confess here that beginning when my daughter was 5 months old and could barely sit up, I drove 45 minutes from my home to the Gymboree play program, where other new mommies took off their shoes, sat in a circle and clapped and sang and learned how to play all over again. My baby daughter didn’t make friends there, absorbing the colors and sounds and trying to avoid the screaming toddlers was consuming enough, but Gymboree was really all about the moms, and I made a keeper of a friend.

Mary Jo is the girl that everyone wants to be friends with, the leader of the nice pack. I tend to shyness in groups, but Mary Jo is the kind of girl who is everyone’s friend, and she became my first new mommy friend by giving me a compliment that I hold dear to my heart - she said I was a little bit granola. She redeemed this odd comment by saying that she was a little bit granola, too. In fact, she was a full-blown seitan-eating vegetarian. I think she said I was “granola” because my husband and I were building our house at the time (really building our house, as in “my husband comes home every afternoon from his office job, puts on his jeans, work boots, and tool belt, and builds our house.”)

Mary Jo and I spent the next couple of years dragging our babies around Atlanta - the zoo, the museums, the parks. She introduced me to her Merry Band, a lively bunch of mommies from the ‘hood, flip-flop and sunglass-wearing girls who talked about stuff I had no clue about - potty training, SUVs vs. minivans, kindergarten. It was my first taste of the mommy network that I’ve relied on ever since, the women who reach into their well of personal experiences and share.

Granola ingredients by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

When our babies grew old enough to start school, we stopped calling each other. This was before long-distance friendship was easy with Facebook. The excuses were many - she lived so far away, about an hour’s drive in dreadful traffic; she had boys (three of them!) and I had girls; her husband played golf and my husband liked to fish. We still exchange Christmas cards, hers with black and white photos of angel-faced boys. But we don’t call each other anymore.

I miss you, Mary Jo, my granola friend. You’re the reason I have a minivan and why I think of you every time I make granola. And if you read this, get on Facebook so I can watch your boys grow up.

Measure granola ingredients directly in batter bowl. By Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Granola

I make this granola every week or two. It comes together very easily in a batter bowl that has marks on the side - no dry measuring cups needed.

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup honey
3 cups old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup roasted sunflower seeds

1. Preheat oven to 325. Measure oil, syrup and honey into a small saucepan and heat to a low boil; remove from heat and let cool.

2. In mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients. Add oil and syrup mixture and stir in to the dry ingredients. Spread granola mixture onto a lined sheet pan. (I use a Silpat, foil or parchment paper would work). Bake at 325 for 25 minutes (I use convection), stirring once halfway through.

3. Remove from oven and let cool. If you like chunky granola, do not stir during the cooling. If you like a crumbly texture, stir several times as it cools. Keeps well in an airtight container at room temperature.

Dried fruit by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

This granola mom likes granola with dried fruit, which should be added after the granola is baked, or the fruit will burn in the oven. A favorite breakfast or dessert is a yogurt parfait with vanilla yogurt (or plain, if you must), dried fruit and a generous handful of granola on top. This is even better in the summer when you can use sweet local blueberries instead of the dried fruit.

Granola Parfait by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 
Text and images copyright Lucy Mercer, 2010.

Treats for the Sweet

A heart full of love: Blondies by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

This recipe is provided by Laura, who is 11 and a fantastic baker. She learned this recipe from her Mimi, who is her grandmother and my mom. I grew up calling them "brown sugar brownies," but they are really blondies and just about the best thing in the world to come home to (other than my sweet girls and husband).

Mimi’s Blondies

Serves 16

Ingredients:

1 ½ sticks of margarine (don't even think of using butter, the blondies won't have the right texture)

1 pound light brown sugar

3 eggs

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

Instructions:

1. Melt margarine and brown sugar together in a pan on the stove. Pour into a mixing bowl.

2. Add eggs, flour, and baking powder in that order. Mix together and pour into a pan.

3. Bake in oven at 350°F for 45 minutes.

4. ENJOY!

This recipe was given to me by my grandma, who taught me and my mother before me to cook. These blondies are a family favorite and are begged and traded for at school! Enjoy! - Laura