Yogurt, a love affair... and a fancy schmancy cake!

I love yogurt. Plain, whole milk yogurt. Local yogurt. Pequea Valley Farm is, hands down, the best. My love, however, goes beyond its creamy texture and tangy flavor as when in a bowl alone or with granola. I find that yogurt is a very versatile ingredient and can be used in any number of cooked items: in curries or soups, in cakes, pancakes, breads (similar to buttermilk), as a replacement for cream or sour cream. Recently, I've been on a real kick, using yogurt in a new quiche recipe, in pumpkin pancakes and, last week, in an amazing chocolate cake recipe. After not posting all month, I finally put up a post at Farm to Philly. Go there to find the pancake and spinach quiche recipe.

Here, however, I'd like to offer pictures and a recipe of the cake I made for a friend's surprise birthday party. My friend generously organized this surprise party for her boyfriend and, with her photoshop talents, created the image that would be placed on the cake (edible paper and ink). I was in charge of baking and frosting. I've never undertaken such a cake before and there's something to be said for beginners luck!

I decided to turn to Smitten Kitchen for the cake recipe and chose a chocolate cake inspired by ding dongs, devil dogs and, in my opinion, whoopie pies (yum): basically a moist chocolate cake with marshmallow (7-minute) frosting. This isn't exactly the most verdant recipe, but the flour, eggs yogurt are all local; the butter, vanilla and evaporated cane sugar organic; the chocolate, coffee and cocoa powder organic and free trade - so not terrible! The adapted recipe will follow.


Chocolate Cake with Marshmallow Frosting
adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Cake: (I made a 9x13 rectangular cake, but this batter can also make two 10" round layers)

3 ounces fine-quality semisweet chocolate
1 and 1/2 cups hot brewed coffee
2 and 1/2 cups sugar (sucanat/evaporated cane juice)
2 and 1/2 cups flour (I used a local PA white pastry flour)
1 and 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 and 1/4 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil (I used organic sunflower)
1 and 1/2 cups whole milk plain yogurt (or buttermilk)
3/4 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 300˚F and grease and dust pan with cocoa powder. Line bottom of 9x13" rectangular cake pan with wax paper and grease paper.

Finely chop chocolate and in a bowl combine with hot coffee. Let mixture stand, stirring occasionally, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth.

Into a large bowl sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another large bowl with an electric mixer beat eggs until thickened slightly and lemon colored (about 3 minutes with a standing mixer or 5 minutes with a hand-held mixer). Slowly add oil, yogurt, vanilla, and melted chocolate mixture to eggs, beating until combined well. Add sugar mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined well.

Pour batter into pan and bake in middle of oven until a tester inserted in center comes out clean, 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Cool completely in pan. Run a thin knife around edges of pan and invert rack (or cake plate). Carefully remove wax paper and cool completely. Cake may be made 1 day ahead and kept, wrapped well in plastic wrap, at room temperature.

Marshmallow Frosting:

4 large egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup simple syrup*
4 tablespoons water
3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Combine frosting ingredients with a pinch of salt in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water and beat with a handheld electric mixer at high speed until frosting is thick and fluffy, 7-8 minutes. Remove bowl from heat and continue to beat until slightly cooled and forms peaks. Mound frosting on top of cake.

*The recipe originally called for corn syrup. I could not buy or use this ingredient. The sugar syrup worked fine. To make bring to boil 1 and 1/4 cup evaporated cane juice and 3/4 cup of water. Boil until the liquid has reduced and when dropped onto cool plate is of a syrupy consistency.

On being an *academic* environmentalist gastronome...

I am noticing a trend. Perhaps you have noticed too? I am not keeping up with my blog very well. There was a moment when I was posting multiple times a week. This is no longer the case. I had thought that I would have much more time to devote to my blog this semester, because I am not teaching. I am not teaching, but I am taking reading-intensive seminars and "preparing" for my first comprehensive exam. Of course, up until this point, "preparation" has consisted mainly of writing lists and finding room on my bookshelves for the books I have commandeered from the library. I continue to cook and go to the farmer's market and enjoy in general my eco- and local food resources, but I just do not seem to manage to sit down and write about it all that often.
This is where the "academic" enters the title of this post. You clever readers might have already noted that this title plays with the subtitle of the blog: "Reflections of an Ecovore - or - On Being an Environmentalist Gastronome." Up until now I might occasionally refer to my studies (or cats), but I mainly wanted to focus on ecofood musings. My being a graduate student has thus far played a role in that I eat as well and as environmentally in tune as I do despite living off of a modest stipend (and don't forget my student loan debt!). However, as my studies continue to impede on my blogging time, I thought I might as well share a little bit about what I do. I recently applied for a "Graduate Certificate in the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality," and for this application I needed to submit a brief statement about my research. Paula graciously edited this statement and I was accepted. This was the first time I tried to sum up my research coherently and attempted to project a general idea of what a future dissertation might possibly look like. It's deliciously vague, and yet hits upon the key points of my interests. I though I'd share this with you (leaving out the final bit where I explain why the certificate and the Women's Studies program will play such a central role in my work). When I am not being an ecovore, this is what I do. Or actually -- I do both at the same time.

I am a second year doctoral student in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. My work focuses on the intersection of epistolarity, spatiality and gender in narratives. Specifically, I study the space created by a letter, embedded in a fictional text, and consider the implications of this space particularly as it pertains to gender. Most recently I considered this space as gender neutral when investigating the function of letters in Dorothea Veit Schlegel’s Romantic novel Florentin (1801). The lack of gender within the epistolary space allowed women to shed the restrictions of gendered stereotypes and expectations when picking up the pen (assuming a phallus?) and allowed them to gain authority. Men too would be able to assume a voice outside of the limitations of their gender as it was understood at the time (the pen/phallus then acting as key and not gendering tool). I continue to work on an article about missives in Arthur Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else (1924) and the effect these have on the development of the plot and more specifically the role they play in Else’s demise. I am currently in the stage of establishing a theoretical foundation in epistolarity and in gender. Tentatively, in my dissertation I hope to establish a gendered theory of the letter as it is portrayed in 20th century German and Austrian fictional narratives.

If you come here for seasonal and eco recipes along with pictures of food, these will continue to appear. I offer a picture of a rather delightful winter vegetable soup (turned purple by red cabbage) as a concession prize. You can find the recipe at Farm to Philly.

Shared Local Meals - even when it's cold!

In the past I have discussed my desire to cook more with others. I love eating and cooking and realize the benefit of sharing this love with others. But I also crave solitude and quiet. In the new year, however, I am trying to find a balance of these two wants, and I think I am doing alright so far! Later in the month I will attend a sustainable foodie potluck in New York, and I hope to recreate the event in Philadelphia sometime in February. Not all local shared meals have to involve large-scale planning. Sometimes it is nice to just share a home cooked meal between two or three people.

Last night I had a dear friend and neighbor over for a festive meal to celebrate her birthday (happy birthday!). It was an excellent opportunity to use up some of my CSA goodies and make a local meal, despite the limited produce of winter. On the menu was tortilla española, a green salad, marinated beets and for dessert crepes with apple butter and lemon.

A tortilla is a great thing to make in the winter: eggs, potatoes, onions. (A lot of) olive oil and some salt go into this dish, which is not necessarily local (though I harvested sea salt from the Jersey shore this past summer!), but the rest is readily available in the winter and for this meal the ingredients came from my organic, local CSA share. It is easy, filling and delicious, if perhaps a little time intensive for all the chopping and slicing, and perfect for entertaining, because tortilla only gets better the longer it sits (and can be eaten, warm, cool or cold!). I recall picnics in Spain of cold tortilla on bread. The very first time I made my own tortilla I discovered that the left overs were even more delicious than the original meal. The salt and onion flavors settle with time.

Phylann, the Keystone farmer, has started growing lettuce in greenhouses, so I was able to offer a local green salad (in the winter!). I dressed it with a simple vinaigrette. The beets were from a previous share as well. I roasted them, chopped them into inch cubes and tossed them in a little olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

The entire meal was reminiscent of Spain with the tapas-like nature of the individual dishes. My friend contributed a carrot, coconut milk soup, made with carrots, onions and garlic from her CSA share (also Keystone Farm).

Dessert too was local! I get Pennsylvania flour from the Four Worlds Bakery, so I was able to make a totally local batter (minus pinch of salt): flour, egg, water, raw milk. The other day I made apple butter from my backlog of CSA apples. The crepes were delicious with a sprinkle of lemon juice and apple butter. I was always intimidated by crepes, but I've been shown the simplicity of the batter and I think I have mastered them! (No pictures of the crepes, but of the apple butter...)
While in California I fully embraced the local avocados (tears flood my eyes as I think of their ripe, green, luscious availability), fawned over the lemon trees lining the streets and marveled over the variety of local produce available in late December. The average Californian probably eats about 100% better than the average East-coaster. In retrospect, however, I realize that eating well is based totally on convenience and not on awareness or a desire to eat in tune with the environment and season. It would be wonderful if healthy, local ingredients were the norm everywhere, but they are not. I imagine that those who unknowingly consume better quality "eco" foods would eat the same non-seasonal, non-local foods that most other less fortunate eaters do were they to leave food paradise. Here in Philly (and beyond) there is a strong locavore and ecovore movement. People are making efforts to inform themselves about food origin and local food resources. Once the puzzle pieces fall into place, eating local is actually not that difficult.

That being said, being committed to local ingredients ALL year requires some dedication and innovation. It is exactly that dedication and innovation, however, that makes me truly appreciate a largely local diet in a place that does not benefit from the growing season of California or the south. With my CSA share I am faced with ingredients that I had never considered buying at a conventional grocery store. For example, I receive turnips ad nauseum. What on earth am I meant to do with turnips? Soups - check! Roasted root vegetables - check! Mashed turnips with roasted garlic - check! This last dish was a first for me. Never had I mashed a turnip or even roasted garlic. I love cooking new things. The apple butter too was a first. And boy is it good. I have extra too!! Making meals that compliment and respect the environment is incredibly rewarding for me, and I hope it could be for others as well.

Tortilla Española

5 small-medium potatoes (yukon gold or red ones) peeled and sliced thin (1/8 inch)
3 small-medium onions, diced
5 eggs
olive oil
salt
pepper (optional)

While preparing potatoes and onions heat (medium-high) enough olive oil in a pan with high sides or pot so that the potatoes might be submerged totally. This is a lot of oil, (1 1/2 - 1 3/4 cup), but you drain it later and can reserve it for future tortillas. Sprinkle sliced potatoes with salt. Test heat of oil by dropping in one slice of potato, if it sizzles without browning, it is ready. Carefully drop sliced potatoes into oil. Stir occasionally with slotted spoon (try not to break potatoes). After about 8 minutes add the diced onion. Stir occasionally. Cook for another 7 minutes, until potatoes or cooked, but not burnt and onions glassy. Poor potatoes and onions into a colander over a bowl. Meanwhile gently beat 5 eggs and a pinch of salt. Add potatoes and onions to egg and mix together. It is OK if some potatoes break. Heat (medium high) 1 tbsp of the oil in a frying pan until very hot (I use 8 1/2 inch, I prefer a fat tortilla, use a larger pan for a thinner tortilla). Carefully pour egg/potato mix into pan and spread. Let cook for 1 minute at higher eat. You should see the sides set nearly immediately. Lower heat to medium low and cook until halfway set in the center (8-10 minutes). Make sure tortilla is not stuck to the sides (should jiggle freely in the pan; if not use a spatula or knife), and flip it. To do this take a flat plat, place it over the pan and (I do this over the sink) flip over onto plate. Then slide flipped tortilla back onto plate, tucking in sides. Cook another 5-6 minutes until a wooden skewer or toothpick comes out clean without any uncooked egg on it. Flip back onto a plate and let cool at least 10 minutes. Trust me, this tortilla tastes better the longer it sets!

p.s. I have double posted this at Farm to Philly! Hope you don't mind!!

German Apple Cake

A couple of months ago a recipe popped up on Smitten Kitchen (SK) which made my mouth water and stomach growl with excitement. The timing was perfect, as apple season was in full bloom and my CSA share was overflowing with crisp, delicious apples. If you haven't yet clicked on the click and the apple-reference wasn't clue enough: apple cake. Smitten Kitchen's mom's apple cake. Jewish apple cake. German apple cake. All one in the same: cinnamon-kissed apples suspended in moist, cakey goodness.

Some of you might be comparing the date of my post and the date of the SK post and commending my self-control. Don't delude yourselves! I have made this cake three times now. A few days after the post I made a perfectly scrumptious cake which looked like it had come into contact with a bomb (not to be insensitive towards recent world events). In my gluttonous exuberance, I pulled the cake out of the oven and turned that tube pan over and attempted to shake the cake out. For some reason, I did not think to let the cake cool down before forcing it out of the pan. Instead of the intact disc you see in SK's picture, I had cake pieces. But oh was it good. And, yes, I ate it all by myself. How could I share such an ugly cake?
A few weeks after that I went apple picking with friends. A portion of these apples were set aside for take two of "German" apple cake baking. This time I carefully cut out some wax paper to fit the bottom of the form and decided to not shake the cake out right away. I was too good at greasing, flouring and lining the pan, because the cake fell right out of the form (again while it was way too hot) when I attempted to let it cool upside down, and it cracked in the middle. Still, it looked a whole lot better, but I think it could have baked a tad bit longer, as it was TOO moist (in my opinion, though others -- yes, I shared it this time! -- claimed it was fine).
So...take three! I mentioned yesterday that today is my last day of teaching for this academic year. I have been teaching an accelerated German language course (2 semesters of elementary German in one) and tomorrow I am treating my students to some breakfast: local multi-grain bread, organic butter, local swiss cheese, homemade plum-honey preserves, local raw honey and a "German" apple cake. Fingers crossed, I managed to finally make a cake that was both tasty and intact! Miraculous.
Now, you might be wondering why I keep putting German in quotations. The original recipe is sweeter than any cake I have ever eaten in Germany. But fruit cakes abound in Germany, and though this recipe definitely comes from the USA, its origins clearly are German. I have tweaked the recipe (reducing sugar, etc), and I think this final version is just right.

On another note: I am up and posting on Farm to Philly now! The first post is strikingly similar to my maiden post here, but I will attempt to avoid overlap with future posts.







A couple of notes to the recipe: I used sucanat (organic) which I ordered in bulk from Four Worlds Bakery. It's darker than some of the organic cane sugars you get in the store, which lent the cake a nice rich, almost chocolaty color. The flour I used was also ordered in bulk from Four Worlds Bakery: local, organic Pennsylvania white pastry flour. Michael Dollich mills all of his own grains in his bakery, so I know that this is the freshest flour I could ever have access to. The eggs and apples were local and organic, as well. The original recipe calls for orange juice. I used to keep orange juice in the fridge for a friend, but, honestly, I never keep it in the house for myself, though I do like it. I had been using local apple cider instead. Today the co-op was out, so instead I juiced a couple of crispin apples myself. I don't know why I hadn't thought to do this for the other two tries; I always have apples and my juicer sits pretty in a corner on the counter.

German Apple Cake
adapted from the Smitten Kitchen recipe

6 apples (I used york apples this time, but any firm, tart baking apples will do!)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
5 tablespoons sucanat (or any other, preferably organic, not too refined sugar)

2 3/4 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
3/4 cup vegetable oil (I used sunflower oil this time, canola and a canola/olive oil mix in the past!)
1 1/4 cups sucanat
1/3-1/2 cup apple juice (start with 1/3, add more if the batter is too too thick)
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a tube pan and dust it with flour. Cut out a piece of wax or parchment paper to fit the bottom of the tube, to ensure the cake doesn't stick (If you have your own tricks for this, go ahead and use them -- I'm clearly no expert here!). Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon and sugar and set aside.

Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, apple juice, sucanat and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, then add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.

Pour half of batter into prepared pan. Spread half of apples over it. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours, or until a tester comes out clean.

Don't be too greedy and allow the cake to cool before shaking it out of the pan, unless you want to eat the cake crumbles by yourself (which is a valid option, of course!).

What's Cooking?

The sun has set on this rainy Sunday and tomorrow it's back to the daily grind of teaching and seminars. Despite the few extra days off, I must admit to not wanting to return to the old routine. I'd love nothing more than to stay at home, cook read and spend some more quality time with my cats. Only one more week, though, and then I will be done teaching and will only need to focus on writing papers.

Since I last posted, however, I did find some nice time to cook a couple of good, local meals. Friday I had a few friends over for whom I made a butternut squash risotto, served with steamed broccoli glazed in lemon and mustard (like the brussel sprouts I prepared the other day) and a cabbage salad with pomegranate seeds and apple. I slowly heated some local apple cider, as well, with cinnamon sticks and cloves, which we mixed up with some bourbon for some tasty hot toddies!
Tonight I returned to the leftover butternut squash (it was a big squash) and made a butternut squash soup following a recipe my friend Elisha just emailed me and along with it a potato-sweet potato-turnip gratin following an Alice Waters' recipe. I feel a cold lurking somewhere deep inside me, so the soup should hopefully help curb that (along with all the tea I've been drinking), and there's nothing more comforting than potatoes! I imagine I'll be feeding myself off of this CSA meal for a few days...

Butternut Squash Soup
variation of Elisha's recipe

1 2lb butternut squash, peeled and chopped into medium dice
1 tablespoon sucanat
3-4 tablespoons butter
1 small onion chopped
1 qt water
1 cinnamon stick
2 ounces raw milk (the recipe calls for cream and Elisha has used both soy milk and soy creamer in the past with great success, so use what you want!)
salt and pepper to taste

In a soup pot sautee the squash, sucanat and some salt in the butter, covered, for 3 mins on a med-low heat. Add onion and sautee for another 10 mins. Add water and the cinnamon stick and simmer covered for 30 mins, or until squash is good and soft. Puree (in batches if necessary) in the blender until smooth (I used my hand blender). Finish with milk/cream/soy milk, salt and pepper to taste.


Potato-Sweet Potato-Turnip Gratin
adapted from Alice Waters' recipe for Potato Gratin in The Art of Simple Food

3 small to medium potatoes (I used red potatoes, but Yukons would be good too)
3 small sweet potatoes
3 small to medium turnips
ca. 1 cup raw milk
3 tbs butter
salt and pepper

Thinly slice potatoes, sweet potatoes and turnips. In a baking dish that has been greased with butter line the various roots in an order you see fit (I had a row of sweet potatoes, then turnip, then potatoes). Overlap the slices like shingles. Salt and pepper this layer, then add another layer. Salt and pepper it and add another layer if you have more slices (you don't want to make more than three layers). Chop the butter into pieces and disperse them over the surface of the gratin. Pour in milk carefully. You want the milk to come to the top of the bottom of the top layer. Adjust milk accordingly. Bake in an oven heated to 35o˚F for 1 hour, or until potatoes are soft and top is golden brown. (yum).


Both recipes could be varied infinitely. I can imagine using coconut milk in the butternut squash soup and perhaps adding a dash of curry. Pure potatoes or any variety of root vegetables could be used in the gratin. I like the combination of the warm, buttery potatoes and how the sweetness of the sweet potatoes is curbed by the spiciness of the turnips.

On another note: What's cooking is that I am going to start contributing posts on the Farm to Philly blog a few times a month! Look for me in the coming days. My bio is being set up, and then I guess I'll start posting. I am very excited to participate in this great Philly blog dedicated to eating local!

Simple Fall Foods

Moments later, another post! I'll try to better disperse posts over multiple days in the future.

Monday I made a couple of extremely simple dishes using the ingredients of my CSA share, which have fed me over the week.

Dish one was a lovely fall/winter slaw. I steamed a quarter head of green cabbage, and added to it grated raw carrot, beet and apple.
To this I added sunflower seeds and a vinaigrette made from white balsamic vinegar, olive oil, sea salt, fresh ground pepper a touch of honey. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it was delicious and the beets added a lovely color!
While I was mixing this up, I had the easiest (no) cream of cauliflower soup ever simmering on the stove. I first sauteed one small diced onion and one minced clove of garlic in a tablespoon of butter until the onion was soft and glassy. To this I added two teaspoons of sea salt, a bay leaf and one cut up head of cauliflower. After sauteing them for maybe five minutes I added approximately 3-4 cups water.
Once the cauliflower was tender, I removed the pot from the stove and carefully pureed the soup with a hand blender. I then added freshly ground pepper and enjoyed this tasty soup with a side of my winter slaw.
Did I mention all ingredients (salt, pepper, oil, vinegar aside) were both local and organic?

Future Eaters

I have other things to do, but I just can't seem to get away from the New York Times and their relentless coverage of issues that interest me. Yesterday's paper featured an article about the victimization of school bake sales in California. I wanted to write about this yesterday, but a bout of something won't allow me to stay awake long enough to actually sit down and write about it. After sleeping 9 hours the last two nights and taking a 2 hour nap this afternoon, I feel I have enough energy to quickly jot down a reaction while my maple-cinnamon-apple rice pudding happily simmers on the stove top.

So, I'll keep this short. Certain friends of mine could attest to my current irritability (sorry!), and I don't care to rant in blog form. I merely want to outline the point of this article (it's short -- feel free to read it yourself), and to explain why California has surprisingly disappointed me. Of course, I mean surprisingly in regards to food; California already disappointed me when they voted yes on 8.
Long heralded as a mecca of eating fresh, local, organic cuisine and to being at the cutting-edge of whole foods and ecovore delights, California skipped a beat when focusing solely on numbers and percentages:

"The old-fashioned school bake sale, once as American as apple pie, is fast becoming obsolete in California, a result of strict new state nutrition standards for public schools that regulate the types of food that can be sold to students. The guidelines were passed by lawmakers in 2005 and took effect in July 2007. They require that snacks sold during the school day contain no more than 35 percent sugar by weight and derive no more than 35 percent of their calories from fat and no more than 10 percent of their calories from saturated fat."

Nutrition is, of course, very important. Raising children to be aware of what they eat leads to healthy eating habits and respect towards ingredients and food origin. But I fear that obsessing over calories and percentage of sugar and fat will lead to yet another generation of yo-yo dieting, calorie-crazed fanatics whose medical issues will put yet more strain on the health system.
I would have had no qualms with this article had it told me that California had passed a law that regulated ingredients of bake-sale items: Bake-sale goods must be a) home made and b) be made of real ingredients (unprocessed flour, free-range eggs, organic milk, unrefined cane sugar, preferably everything organic, even more preferably local). Now others might balk at such a "wacky" idea. Yet isn't it better to involve children in the creation of food and draw their attention to the quality of ingredients than to teach them to freak out about calories? Perhaps a limit should be enforced on the quantity of baked goods bought per individual. Fine. Moderation is a great lesson.
Now the article wasn't all bad:

"In California, bake sales are waning because ingredients cannot be regulated. Sales are banned during school hours but may be held a half-hour before or after school.
The ban on bake sales has not been met with universal enthusiasm. The Piedmont Highlander, the school newspaper, editorialized about “birthday cakes turned into contraband” and homemade goodies snatched from students “by the long arm and hungry mouth of the law.”
Even some nutritionists question whether banishing bake sales is the best approach. “It concerns me we’re not teaching moderation,” said Stephanie Bruce, the president of the California School Nutrition Association, who works in the Ontario-Montclair School District in Ontario, Calif."

Exactly. Regulation of ingredients and teaching moderation. This is good. Praising children to eat anything as long as it has low calories and a low percentage of sugar and fat, regardless as to whether the consumed item is actually food or just some potion of low-cal chemicals, is bad.

Now, speaking of wholesome treats, I mentioned rice pudding. I love rice pudding. It is something I often eat in Germany, and wish I ate more of in the US. Admittedly, I have never made rice pudding. Until this evening, that is. In my under-the-weather, seeking-comfort state, I decided that exactly what I needed for dinner is some of that cozy and soul-soothing pudding. I tweaked the recipe as I went along as I wasn't really satisfied with the initial results, but in the end I think it came out decent, and if made under different milk situations (see below) it could be delicious.

Maple-Cinnamon-Apple Rice Pudding

Combine in a heavy small pot 1/4 cup Arborio rice, 2 cups whole milk (I used my sour raw milk, which might have been fine, but I think at this point it is more whey than anything else, and it might not be ideal for pudding), 1/4 cup maple syrup and 1 cinnamon stick. Heat over medium heat until it begins to bubble. Give it a nice stir. Add 1 diced apple, peeled and cored. Let simmer (bubbling but not boiling) for approximately 30-40 minutes (until thick and at your preferred rice pudding consistency), stirring occasionally to keep from burning on the bottom. You might want to turn heat down as it begins to thicken. Towards end add ca. 1tsp ground cinnamon (to taste) and the zest of half a lemon.
Serve immediately. Garnish with cinnamon. Serves one person in need of much comfort or two more reasonable and moderate eaters (I'm attempting to put away the second serving for a later date!)

Late Night Cupcakes

I woke up this morning to the NPR reporting Barack Obama's landslide victory, winning 349 electoral votes (North Carolina and Missouri were still too close to call). This concrete information provided me with the final bit of proof I desperately needed, confirming that Obama had indeed won. I felt relieved and I dragged myself out of bed, telling myself that I could take a leisurely shower, read the news online and allow myself to be a bit late to the office, because what student would attend 9am office hours the day after such an historic event? Well, when I got to campus at 9:30am, two students were awaiting my German expertise.
It was surreal returning to the daily grind after days of speculation and fear of the election's out turn. But life goes on, my work piles up and November is marching along. So after this post I will attempt to return to musing about the environment, food and how my food relates to my environment.

I wrote last night that I had baked a pumpkin chocolate chip cake and that Alexis had used a paint brush (eyeshadow brush, actually) to apply the chocolate ganache I had made to create Obama's now famous features. Well, a sketch of our president-elect's face does not require much ganache, and I had poured a quart of steaming cream over two bars of organic, free trade extra dark chocolate (roughly chopped). In other words, I have a lot of ganache in the fridge. What to do with this ganache? Eat it; you say? I wouldn't put that beyond me, but despite the organic nature of the chocolate, I'd like to avoid sitting down with a big bowl of heavy cream and chocolate (which I would inevitably eat in one sitting and then feel ill -- surprise surprise).

Nope. I decided to make cupcakes. A colleague has a birthday today and tomorrow we have 9am seminar. What better opportunity to bake, when I can actually give away my baked goods and not eat them all by myself. Also, baking and cooking are for me totally relaxing. Next to yoga and baths, the kitchen provides me with my own (free) therapy and stress relief.
I have yet to master cooking/baking and photo-documenting my work. I always forget to pull out the camera. This means that I will only offer photos of one finished cupcake. But this is probably for the best, as I did about everything wrong (and I don't know if this is because it is now approaching midnight after a long day or if it is because I am not always 100% on top of things). For those who believe that baking must be precise and feel therefore intimidated when tackling a cake recipe, I stand as proof that this is nonsense. My baking is anything but precise, and I have had surprising success.

So here is the recipe for my surprisingly good, despite my best attempts to sabotage them, last-minute, late night cupcakes:
(adopted from Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food "1-2-3-4 Cake")

Whisk together in a bowl

1 1/2 cups Pastry Flour (mine is local PA flour, freshly milled by Michael Dollich of Four Worlds Bakery)
2tsp Baking Powder
1/4tsp Sea Salt.

In another bowl beat with an electric mixer

1 stick (1/2 cup) softened butter (or melted, as I accidentally melted my frozen stick of organic butter when I wanted to soften it in the often. You can also imagine the fun of cleaning up the melted butter on the bottom of the oven).

Mix in to this 1 cup organic evaporated cane juice,
continue mixing and add 1/2tsp Vanilla.

The recipe asks to separate eggs, beating in yolks first and then at the end folding in beaten whites, but I screwed this up too and broke the yolk into the white...)

Add to sugar, butter mixture two eggs (organic, cage free, free range, please!), one at a time.

In my version of this recipe, you forget that milk is involved.

Add flour mixture to egg/sugar/butter mixture in two parts. Mix until smooth.

Then you remember the milk and realize you are out of milk. Luckily, I had a jar with sour raw milk from previous bottles of raw milk that I couldn't use before going sour. So I opened it up, discovered a fascinating thick layer of sour cream on the top, mixed it up, watched it bubble and then....

add 1/2 cup of (sour, raw) milk to the batter and mix.

Luckily, raw milk never goes bad like pasteurized milk does, it just gets sour and oddly bubbly.

Divide batter into 12 large cupcake liners in a muffin/cupcake tin and bake for 20 minutes in an oven preheated to 350˚F (smoking slightly due to spilled, melted butter). They are finished when a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool and frost with ganache!

One frosted cupcake:
One half-eaten cupcake (note how light and fluffy it is...amazing!):

Addendum: I decided to whip the too thin ganache to make more of a frostingy-frosting.