A Christmas Breadmaking Miracle

The husband's inability to follow simple instructions continues to astound me.

--The Faudie
Inspired by The Faudie's recent success baking cinnamon bread without the assistance of a machine, I thought I'd attempt to make my own handmade bread. King Arthur's savory Christmas cheese bread* seemed to be a good recipe for a beginner such as myself--a pure quick bread requiring no yeast should be simple to prepare, shouldn't it?

Yeah, right.

Here's the recipe, copied-and-pasted directly from King Arthur's website, not hastily scribbled on a scrap of paper as I did on Christmas morning (an important plot point we'll return to later):

Savory Christmas Cheese Bread

3 C unbleached all-purpose flour
2 t baking powder
1 1/4 t salt
1 C fresh-grated Parmesan cheese
1 C shredded sharp cheddar, mozzarella or the cheese of your choice
4 T softened butter
4 large eggs
1/2 C whole milk or half-and-half
3 large garlic cloves, crushed (optional)
1/2 C finely chopped scallion tops or chives, lightly packed; or green bell peppers
1/2 C finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes, lightly packed; or diced red bell peppers, or diced pimientos
1 teaspoon pizza seasoning (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9" round cake pan or 9" round casserole.
2. Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, cheeses and softened butter until well combined and crumbly.
3. Mix in the garlic, scallion tops and sun-dried tomatoes.
4. Whisk together the eggs and milk (or half-and-half). Set aside 1 tablespoon of the mixture to brush on the top of the loaf.
5. Add the remaining egg mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring just until everything is thoroughly moistened.
6. Turn the stiff batter into the prepared pan. Using your wet fingers, smooth it to the edges of the pan. Make it slightly concave, so the edges are slightly higher than the center.
7. Brush the top of the loaf with the reserved egg mixture. Sprinkle with pizza seasoning, if desired.
8. Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes, until it's a light golden brown on top and a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
9. Remove the loaf from the oven and run a heatproof spatula or table knife around the edge of the pan, to loosen the sides. Turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool.

Yield: 1 9" round loaf

Nutritional Info
Not provided.

The Husband's Futzings
The recipe offers some flexibility with the ingredients, so I used a hot pepper jack cheese in place of the cheddar or mozzarella, and I used red bell peppers and green onions as the red and green ingredients.

The recipe does not, however, suggest using anything but half of a cup of milk or (in this case) half-and-half. Somehow, though, in my aforementioned handwritten copy of the recipe, I wrote down that I needed one-and-a-half cups of half-and-half, not half a cup. I've never been great at math, but even I know that's three times more half-and-half than I needed. The result, I discovered, was a very wet mixture that was clearly not going to bake properly. (For one thing, it wasn't even going to fit in that single 9" round cake pan.)

It's moments like that when I'm really, really grateful for my significant other. I'm not always the best at swallowing my pride and asking for help when I need it, but in this instance, I sooooooooooooooo needed The Faudie to come to my rescue.

With her guidance, I added three-quarters of a cup of white whole wheat flour and a full cup of additional pepper jack to help thicken the gooey mess I'd made. Crossing my fingers (figuratively, of course, as it's hard to cook with your fingers actually crossed), I poured the mixture into two 9" cake pans, put 'em into the oven and waited to see what would happen next.

Okay, okay, maybe calling the result a Christmas miracle is a bit of hyperbole. But still. Against all my expectations, the two loaves came out looking perfect. I even have the photo to prove it:

Merry Christmas to me!

The bread tastes good too, though not exactly the way I'd expected. I think the flavor of the cheese and the bell peppers and the green onions gets overpowered by the taste of the eggs. I can't complain, though--I'll happily take a fine egg bread over the disaster I thought I had on my hands. And it was a perfect accompaniment to our holiday lunch of jambalaya and the 598th showing of A Christmas Story on TBS.

*Honestly, I'm not sure exactly what this bread has to do with Christmas other than the fact that it's red, yellow and green. Don't worry, though--if you want to make it on some day other than December 25th, you could always call it "savory traffic light cheese bread." Sounds yummy, doesn't it?

Evidence That Something's Wrong With the Midwest

I present to you, Gentle Reader, the True Wisconsin Bloody Mary.

I've heard of Bloody Mary drinks. I've heard of shrimp cocktail appetizers. This monstrosity is...an hors d'oeuvre you drink? An apertif that doubles as finger food? What the hell is this abomination, and what is going on in Wisconsin that led to its creation?

Remind me never to visit Wisconsin.

I Make Bread From Scratch Without a Machine!

The King Arthur Baker's Catalog is really good at making a person think she can work wonders in the kitchen with baked goods. And why not? At your fingertips are most of the tools and ingredients you need, not to mention a few recipes to get your juices flowing.

Of course, what King Arthur doesn't sell in its Baker's Catalog is competence. Competence doesn't come cheap either, especially if you're working your way toward competency with King Arthur's tools and ingredients. But to tell you the truth, Gentle Reader, sometimes the expense is worth it because using quality ingredients improves your chances of success and thus improves your likelihood of achieving competence. You can also trust the recipes from King Arthur because the company has its own test kitchen with bakers and cooks who are committed to keeping King Arthur's good name intact.

So despite my sad history of massive failures when it comes to working with yeasty baked goods without the assistance of a bread machine, I endeavored to make the Easy Cinnamon Bread featured in the Winter 2010 Baker's Catalog because the husband seemed so excited by it. Yeah, I know, Gentle Reader, every now and then I can be kind.

Easy Cinnamon Bread3 C (12.75 oz.) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 C (3.5 oz.) sugar
2 t instant yeast
1 t cinnamon
1 t NaCl
1 t baking powder
1 C (8 oz.) warm milk
1/4 C (1/2 stick, 4 oz.) butter, melted
1 large egg
1 C (6 oz.) cinnamon chips
Cinnamon-sugar blend (optional)

1. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, yeast, cinnamon, NaCl and baking powder.
   
2. In a second bowl, whisk together the milk, butter and egg.
   
3. Combine the liquid and dry ingredients, beating until smooth.
   
4. Stir in cinnamon chips.
   
5. Cover and let the batter rest at room temperature for 1 hr.
   
6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
   
7. Prep an 8.5" x 4.5" loaf pan.
   
8. Stir the batter down, and then spoon it into the loaf pan.
   
9. Optionally, sprinkle the top of the loaf with the cinnamon-sugar blend.
   
10. Bake the bread for 35-40 min. or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
    
11. Remove the bread from the oven and let it rest in the pan for 5 min.
    
12. Transfer the bread from the pan to a wire rack to cool completely. Do not attempt to slice the bread while it's hot.

Yield: 1 loaf with an unknown number of servings.

Nutritional Info
While King Arthur does provide nutritional info for the recipes it publishes in The Baking Sheet, it doesn't do the same for recipes in its catalog.

The Faudie's Futzings
Never try to prepare a "quickbread" recipe while also making risotto and sauting chicken, especially when you decide to take on the brand-new bread recipe at the last minute. Rapidly bringing to room temperature flour, an egg, yeast and cinnamon chips isn't fun. It's also a tricky thing to warm milk in the microwave without accidentally scorching it while also trying to keep risotto cooking with a combo of milk and water from scorching on the stove. Multitasking has its limits, Gentle Reader!

Despite my lack of more active preparation, I muddled through somehow:

• I did my best to measure the dry ingredients by weight rather than volume. I've got a kitchen scale, so I might as well use the damn thing.
  
• I ran out of unbleached white flour, so I had to add about half an ounce of white whole wheat flour, which I didn't bother bringing to room temperature. Always make sure you really have enough of the ingredients before you start the recipe, Gentle Reader.
  
• The recipe doesn't specify what type of milk to use, but I only have skim (aka, fat-free) milk in my home--and only for special purposes such as this one. I don't know if the lack of fat affected the finished product the way liquid egg whites can make runny messes of cookies that need full eggs to hold them together. These are mysteries I'll leave to other people to explore.
  
• The bread needed 50 minutes to get to the point of yielding a clean toothpick poked in the center. After a first check at 35 minutes, the center was still gooey. At 40 minutes, the center was still gooey. Throwing caution to the wind and risking a burned mess (burnt cinnamon smells terrible and is totally inedible, in my highly esteemed opinion), I let the loaf bake 10 more minutes...and got a baked-through center.

I'm not sure if the longer baking time was necessary because of the cool, dry weather, because the ingredients weren't all at room temperature before I started the recipe or because I screwed up somewhere so that the dough didn't rise at all during its resting hour. Yeah, that's right--the dough didn't do squat. Obviously it's supposed to since step 8 instructs you to stir the batter down, implying that the dough should have risen some because of the yeast. That didn't happen for me, but I didn't get my faudie panties in a bunch. I just...well, chalked it up to my string of failures with yeast breads not made with a bread machine. I must not have fed the yeast the right kind of food or not mixed the yeast and the food in the right way for the feasting and growth and rising to take place. I gradually added the dry ingredients to the liquid ones, believing that's the way Christopher Kimball says is the way to do it to yield fluffier cookies and breads. My memory could be faulty on that point, but I also reasoned that when I put ingredients in the bread machine pan, I put the liquid in first and then add the flour, the salt in one corner, the sugar in another and then the yeast on top, thus adding the dry to the liquid would sort of follow that scheme. Eh, maybe I was wrong.

I followed the cooling instructions as best I could, but I have to confess, Gentle Reader, that I'm a sucker for warm carbs. The loaf could be a total disaster, but if it's warm I have an incredibly difficult time keeping myself from devouring the whole damn loaf. And that's what happened last night: I pretty much devoured half the loaf. The husband had three-fourths of the half I didn't eat, which meant he got to enjoy a smidge of it this morning for breakfast...

...and reported the bread was much better warm. That's not to say the taste was off, but the experience of eating the bread--the emotional fulfillment and culinary satisfaction of eating the loaf was diminished by its lack of warmth. So if you plan to make this one, Gentle Reader, take that whole "Don't slice the bread until it's completely cool!" advice with a large grain of salt.

Final Countdown, Day 5

I promise, Gentle Reader, I'll be putting up a post about something I cooked really soon. I swear!

Until then, enjoy Day 5 of the Lego Advent calendar.

Dig the boy's beanie. He's hip, yo.

The boy, a one-time inspiring drummer, loved the little drum kit. Naturally, he put it immediately to good use.

She's a little bit country. He's a little bit rock 'n roll.

Final Countdown, Day 4

Two countdown posts in the same day, Gentle Reader. Aren't you lucky?

Today's Lego creation is a miniature crane. It takes me back to when the boy was a toddler and obsessed with construction equipment.

Now he's just a goofball obsessed with Legos.

Final Countdown, Day 3

Yes, again this is late, Gentle Reader. Don't get your panties in a wad.

Anywho, remember Thrasher magazine? Remember Vision Streetwear? Yeah, those were my middle school years.... Good to know skateboarding's still big in Legoland.

Get that boy a Psycho Stick!

This Is So Very, Very Wrong

Mexican Wontons.

Final Countdown, Day 2

Yes, Gentle Reader, I know I'm a day late with this one. Yesterday was a rough day, so deal with it.

I'm not sure exactly what this little guy is supposed to be. He came with two baseball caps and three swords, so read into that whatever you want, Gentle Reader. Maybe he's to battle it out for holiday supremacy with the snowman revealed from December 1. That could be a fun duel.

The Final Countdown

Yup, Gentle Reader, it's December 1. Totally crazed yet? Totally sick of the holiday nonsense? Yeah, me too.

The boy, however, is still young and not entirely cynical and weary of the world, thus he can totally be excited about the Lego City Advent calendar his auntie and uncle sent him.

Remember when Christmas or a birthday was something that seemed so very far away and the anticipation and wait seemed interminable so that a countdown or an Advent calendar was just the neatest thing to help you keep track of the days to go? Yeah, those were the days....

All I Want for Pancha Ganapati...

...are my two front teeth!

Royal Treat

For about a year now, we've been receiving The Baking Sheet, the bimonthly baking publication from King Arthur. While each issue has been filled with temptations galore, the husband and I have tried only one recipe from its pages--and I absented myself from that task, aside from prepping the mise en place for the husband's nuts.

Until today. I had some time on my hands, and the cooler weather had me itching to bake something. We'd already targeted the peanut butter squares in the Holiday 2010 issue as something the husband and I both would love to try, and I had gathered most of the ingredients I didn't already have over the past few weeks. When I found I didn't even have to turn on the oven to make these squares, I was sold.

Peanut Butter Squares1 C (9.5 oz.) peanut butter, crunchy or smooth
3/4 C (1 1/5 sticks, 6 oz.) butter
1 t vanilla extract
2 C (7 oz.) graham cracker crumbs
3 C (12 oz.) confectioners' sugar
2 C (12 oz.) chocolate chips
2 T (0.75 oz.) vegetable shortening
Sugar decorations (optional)

1. Melt the peanut butter and butter together. If you have a large microwave-safe bowl, use it and save yourself some dishes.
   
2. Stir in the vanilla.
   
3. Add the crumbs and sugar, mixing until evenly combined.
   
4. Press the mixture into a 9" x 13" pan (lining it with parchment can make removal of the bars easier).
5. In a 2-cup microwave-safe liquid measuring cup, melt together the chocolate chips and shortening at medium power in the microwave, then stir until smooth.
   
6. Spread the chocolate over the peanut butter layer.
   
7. Place or sprinkle the decorations atop the chocolate before it sets.

Yield: 8 dozen 1-inch squares.

Nutritional Info
Calories: 75
Fat: 6 g
Sat fat: 1 g
Protein: 1 g
Carbs: 6 g
Na: 25 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
As I mentioned earlier, I already had on hand some of the ingredients for this recipe:

• While the recipe doesn't specifically call for milk chocolate chips, that's what I used--Ghiradelli ones, to be precise, which have less fat and cholesterol but a smidge more sugar than the Guitard I like.
  
• The graham crackers I had squirreled away in the deep freezer turned out to be low-fat cinnamon grahams. Did that deter me? Hell no!
  
• I have both hormone-free regular stick butter and light stick margarine on hand, and I opted to use the light stuff. I know its higher water content can make a mockery of many dessert recipes, but in this case, I was hoping the higher water content might help me out if I found the peanut butter-butter melted mixture not willing to absorb both 3 cups of powdered sugar and 2 cups of graham cracker crumbs.

The recipe could not have been easier to put together. I suspect a less-fastidious person who isn't obsessed with getting every last speck and every last crumb and every last droplet incorporated could do it in less time than I took, so I highly recommend this recipe should you need a quick treat for some event, Gentle Reader.

As for the tastiness of the final product, the boys and I both heartily endorse these squares. The cinnamon grahams gave the bars a nice surprise, the husband and I thought. The boy was a bit skeptical at first when he saw me cutting into the big chunk, but when I told him basically I'd made a big-ass Reese's peanut butter cup, he was game. He took one bite and was sold. The Faudie scores a hit!

I suspect my use of the light margarine not only gave the peanut butter layer a slightly oily texture (not a heavy, oil, greasy feeling, mind you) but also didn't give the base layer enough "glue" to stick together forever, for when I started cutting into the product, several hours after I'd made the squares and after it had had maybe 30 minutes to warm up a tad after spending most of the day in the 'fridge, they didn't cut cleanly so much. To be fair, even the topping split and fissured like the crust of California during the earthquake in Superman. Did that dampen our enjoyment of the squares? Hell no. I majorly blew my commitment to tightly constraining my daily calorie intake once I had my first bite of these squares. So if you are anything like me, Gentle Reader, and trying to maintain a certain health regimen, perhaps you might not want to make these squares.

Nastiness on a Bun

Sloppy Joes with corn. Not corn on the side, Gentle Reader, but corn mixed into the meat.

Yeah, insert your own scatalogical joke here.

Nuts

The husband took over the kitchen Sunday morning. Here's his report on the morning's activities.

--The Faudie
As you may have noticed, daylight saving time ended last weekend. Circadian rhythms were disrupted, clocks were adjusted, nightfall now begins depressingly early in the evening and people on the Internet got something new to complain about. (My favorite take on the whole thing comes courtesy NPR: "How Bush Ruined Daylight Savings." Surprise, surprise: He changed it in such a way that it helped no one except big business interests.)

Personally, I think we should ditch DST altogether and let nature be nature, but no one really cares what I think of DST. I must admit, however, that this year's "fall back" and the resultant extra hour weren't entirely unappreciated. We'd received the Autumn 2010 issue of The Baking Sheet quite a few weeks ago. I'd been wanting to make the recipe pictured on the cover but never really had the time--at least, I never had the time until DST ended. A 25-hour Sunday may defy all laws of nature and time and space, but it's convenient if you want to bake something.

The recipe was appropriately seasonal and perfect for marking the end of DST:

Butterscotch Acorns

Dough
1 C unsalted butter, melted
3/4 C brown sugar
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 C pecan meal or finely chopped pecans
2 3/4 C King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt

Topping
2 C butterscotch chips
1 1/4 C finely chopped pistachio nuts
1/2 C extra butterscotch chips, unmelted

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Combine melted butter, sugar, vanilla and pecans.
3. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; add to the butter mixture, mixing until combined.
4. Scoop batter by the teaspoon and place flat-side-down on greased baking sheets. Pinch tops to a point to resemble an acorn.
5. Bake for 15 minutes.
6. Melt two cups of butterscotch chips.
7. Use a dab of the melted chips to "glue" a whole chip on the flat end of the cooled cookies.
8. When chip has set, dip the flat end (tops) of the cookies into the melted chips, let the excess run off, then coat with the chopped nuts.

Yield: 60 cookies (serving size: 1 cookie)

Nutritional Info
Calories: 104
Fat: 6 g
Carbs: 11 g
Cholesterol: 8 mg
Sodium: 40 mg
Protein: 1 g

The Husband's Futzings
I don't have any significant changes to the ingredients to report, but the method of preparation...well, I found The Baking Sheet's instructions to be a little nuts, if you'll pardon the expression.

The cookie part of the acorns (steps 1 - 5) came together without major incident. I do think the guidance to use only a teaspoon's worth of dough for each cookie is an underestimate; the boy and I found that by using more than this amount, we were better able to shape appropriately acorn-ish acorns. And even with the larger acorns, we were able to make some 72 cookies by the kiddo's somewhat shaky count. The real fun, though, came when it was time to make the acorn "caps."

In my world, butterscotch is a flavoring, not an adhesive. I don't think melted chips can do what the recipe says they can do. I had zero luck using the melted chips to "glue" a whole chip to the flat end of the cookie. (Which just begged the question: exacly what purpose was that glued-on chip supposed to serve? Neither The Faudie nor I could figure that one out. I suppose it was supposed to help form the cap of the acorn, but I would have appreciated it if the recipe had been more clear on this point.) Also, I had zero luck dipping the cookies in the melted chips and then getting the chopped pistachio nuts to stick. So instead, I futzed.

Recalling our near-fiasco with the midnight mice, in which we were forced to hand-coat each cookie to obtain the desired effect, I combined the melted butterscotch chips with the pistachio pieces, resulting in a compound I could use like modeling clay. Each acorn cookie received a carefully sculpted cap...or maybe a not-so-carefully sculpted cap as my patience started to wear thin after the first 50 or so cookies. Suffice to say, some of the cookies came out looking a lot more like acorns than the others.

We made 72 cookies, and these were the only ones that actually looked like acorns.

To be fair, the cookies on the cover of The Baking Sheet didn't bear that strong of a resemblance to real acorns either, so I don't feel too bad about the way mine turned out. Appearance, after all, is second to taste, and these acorns taste pretty good. They're similar to pecan sandies (or, as The Faudie pointed out, besan ladoos), albeit with a funky butterscotch-pistachio topping.

Switching back and forth from DST still sucks, but at least I was able to do something productive with the extra time!

Autumn Surprise

Yesterday I returned from my noontime swim to find all waiting on the kitchen for me to feed them Momma, Bootsy, Felix, Keeko Jr.--and a fuzzy widdle gray striped kitten! The kitten was trying to nurse off Momma, but Momma wasn't having any of it. The catlets, who Momma presented to us this spring, didn't quite know what to make of Junior and were keeping their distance. I managed to snap a few quick pictures before Junior hid between the storage chest and the exterior wall of the house.

Excited and intrigued by the appearance of this new kitten, I dialed up the husband and shared the news. Later during the late afternoon, the husband spied Junior out once again with Momma and the catlets, and he took some more photos to document that Momma was now more hospitable to the new arrival, thus making the relationship between the two more clear. Yup, Momma managed to get herself knocked up again after her spring brood was born. Good going, Momma. We'll start calling you Britney Spears.

The appearance of just one kitten is a bit of a puzzler, but I didn't want to linger on what might have happened to any other kittens. Of course, I need not have wondered to long, for before the husband and I went to bed, we looked out on the kitchen patio--and Momma's new brood had doubled in size. This second new arrival is a dark little thing--a blend of Felix's classic black cat and Calli, who was born in the spring of 2009--and was thus difficult to photograph at 8:45 p.m. at night.

(Yes, Gentle Reader, we're typically in bed by 9. Hey, I get up at 4 a.m. Do you seriously expect me to stay up all night?)

This morning, the newbies were out once again, following Momma happily and starting to get a feel for our yard and their siblings. The catlets are still trying to figure out what to do with the kittens, since they still have a lot of their pouncy kittenish playfulness. At one point this morning, the newbies were stalking each other around the tree, and Keeko Jr. was watching nearby. After a brief discussion of the new kittens' physical attributes, the husband and I have temporarily named the gray tabby Tank since it reminds me so much of Tank the Armadillo of Beanie Baby fame. The Felix-Calli cross we're thinking of dubbing either Smudge or Splotch since its calico markings are sort of smudged on its black coat or look like splotches on its black coat.

While having new kittens to watch grow up is mildly entertaining, I do honestly not look forward to having to tear the boy away from kitten gazing so that he can do his homework or help set the table or get to bed on time. Of course, two new kittens means two more mouths to feed for several months, and our band of moochers is really getting out of hand. I wonder if there's a way to slip all of them some sort of tranquilizer in the food so we can take them en masse to the vet to be relieved of their reproductive organs. Think we could qualify for some sort of group discount?

Happy Run-iversary to Me!

If I remember things correctly (which is highly doubtful), three years ago today I started running. I started running because I was home to help my dad recover from his knee replacement surgery, was out for a walk while waiting for him and Mum to arrive home from the hospital in OKC and found I needed to go faster when "Given to Fly" was playing on my trusty iPod.

Do I blame Pearl Jam? Do I blame my dad's bum knee? Do I blame my impatience?How about all three of 'em?

I had no idea then that I'd become addicted. I've had setbacks and injuries, and I've had my share of moments when the last thing I wanted to do was get on the damn treadmill and run. I've even allowed myself a few times of cutting my run short because I just didn't feel right or I just had too much going on in my head to "let loose" while running. Unlike a lot of events in my life, I don't let myself linger on those moments. I focus instead on doing what I need to do now so that I can keep running and celebrate more run-iversaries.

That said, I do wish my body and my mental disposition were in such shape that would allow me to celebrate my run-iversaries with some kind of running challenge. But once you've done a half-marathon, a full marathon really seems to be the next big challenge, and not too many marathons happen in Austin in November (the one in San Antonio is just too expensive). And since the 'ol body isn't quite what it used to be in terms of allowing me to run a long distance, I've had to switch to challenging myself with longer and longer bike rides, and that's fine with me.

So this weekend, the bike and I celebrated our respective milestones (the bike's 1-year anniversary and my 3-year run-iversary) by taking part in The Wurst Ride in Texas. We traveled together 64-point-some-odd miles from south Austin to New Braunfels, totaling a metric century. I started off a few minutes after 8 a.m. and proudly crossed the finish line at 12:05 p.u. Not too shabby considering I stopped at two of the five rest stops for roughly 5 minutes each stop.

The ride was a great one, all things considered. Sure, the start temperature of 41 degrees wasn't pleasant, but I had enough thermal gear on to largely protect me. Sure, the constantly running nose got to be a drag, but that's why a person wears sleeves, right? Yes, I ran into (almost literally) my fair share of cyclists whose concept of "Share the road" means riding on the left side of the lane and cyclists whose concept of "Ride single file" means to ride two or three abreast while gossiping. I could have done without the bicycle-built-for-two folks, the mountain bikers and the folks who obviously spent a few thousand dollars on their bikes and accessories but obviously didn't ride those bikes terribly often. And even though the wind had shifted from the north-northwest breeze that had been blowing for the previous 2 or 3 days to a Gulf breeze out of the south-southeast, it was not really a factor at all. All in all, November 6, 2010, was a frickin' perfect day to ride a bike.

After a shower, an attempt at a nap that lasted about 2 hours and a failed attempt to put my contacts back in my eyeballs, which were all bloodshot and irritated from the cold air, I suppose, the boys and I headed to Gyros+ to celebrate with a lamb gyro (stuffed to the gills with yummy lamb), a grilled chicken gyro (tasty), falafel (falafel rocks) and a plate of hummus and warm, lightly toasted pitas. These gyros were my first, as was the falafel, and I have to admit that I'm now addicted to falafel. Are chickpeas just the best thing in the world to eat or what, Gentle Reader?

Happy run-iversary to me!

Need to Kill Your Thanksgiving Guests?

I think this masterpiece ought to do it.


I think the sprinkles atop the buttercream frosting are the perfecting touch to this monstrosity. Can you say, "Blorf!" Gentle Reader?

Happy Halloween!

I wish I could report some fabulous Halloween meal or dessert yummy I made to honor this most fabulous of holidays, Gentle Reader, but I didn't do that. The boys feasted on blorfilicious 50-cent corndogs at Sonic for supper and had leftovers for lunch. Yep, we did this holiday up right!

Then again, we had to converse our energy for the costumed affair. Looking this good takes a lot of effort!

Happy Halloween Eve

Is your costume all ready, Gentle Reader? Have the 15 pounds of candy purchased for the sugar-seeking hordes of all ages?

If you're not all abuzz with Halloween goodness, need some last-minute costume ideas or just want to coo over some photos of an adorable kid, then sit back and enjoy the show.

Eat Your Heart Out, Papa Murphy's

About the only time I see "normal" broadcast television programming is when I'm running at the gym between those family-friendly hours of 7 and 10 a.m. The national morning news/infotainment programs of the former Big 3 are as incredibly inane as ever, nor have the commercials really changed since the time I was a kid. "Convenience" is the label they give so many of the products advertised, and now that no one apparently cooks from scratch, the morning commercials love to flog the latest in convenience, "almost homemade!" meals.

Thus we get from Papa Murphy's the jack-o-lantern pizza for the low, low price of $6.99. (At least that's the price in the Central Texas market.) Nothing says Halloween like a crappy pizza with oily cheese, oily pepperoni and a token pair of black olives. Woo-woo.

Yeah, I figured the boys would love it.

But there's no way I'm paying $6.99 for something anyone with a few functional brain cells can do. Someone with a whole lot of functional brain cells and a penchant for getting crafty can really improve on this concept. See what I mean:

Now that's a pumpkin pie!

Seriously, when I get this crafty, I kind of make myself sick. And with pepperoni of all things....

I have to admit that I'm rather impressed my improvised pita stem browned nicely in the oven to look even more like a stem. I didn't expect the cheese to run everywhere since it's low-fat cheese and typically doesn't do that, but I was nevertheless pleased that Pumpkin Face didn't come out looking like Pizza the Hut:

Squashed

Although our unseasonable fall-like weather has been replaced by the higher temperatures and higher humidity we're more accustomed to in October, I've found myself enchanted by the fruits of the fall harvest. Seeing all those apples on display at HEB and Sprouts is such a delight, and the price for eggplants has come down. Autumn's so much more colorful and so much more appetizing.

Out of sheer curiosity, fond remembrances of a soup I had while at a yoga teacher training retreat 7 years ago (yegods, has it really been 7 years?) and a growing desire to try using my tagine on the stove top along with the diffuser plate I'd bought for that express purpose, I bought a butternut squash. Not only are butternut squash chocked full of all kinds of healthful benefits, but their unique shape just begs for all sorts of off-color jokes about phalli. Would this innocent-looking squash be my undoing? I honestly didn't know.

With the butternut squash purchased, I obviously had to figure out how to prepare it for use in the chicken-butternut tagine recipe I planned to use it in. I'd seen an acorn squash prepared--with the use of a cleaver and hammer--on America's Test Kitchen some time before, but my little squash only weighed about a pound and a half. It was no behemoth and certainly, I hoped, wouldn't not require me to use implements we keep in the garage in the toolbox.

Instead of turning to one of my Cook's Illustrated references, I turned instead to Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. Ms. Jaffrey straightforward guidance filled me with confidence that I wouldn't be reaching for a sledgehammer or be putting my much-hated country blue kitchen countertops at risk in the preparation of the squash. Armed with just my beloved Victorinox chef's knife and a cutting board, I got down to business.

Although pumpkins and butternut squash are in the same family, so to speak, carving up my butternut was a whole lot easier than carving up a pumpkin for a jack-o-lantern. Or at least the specimen I had to work with was, for it hardly had many seeds and not a lot of that stringy, sticky, fibrous "guts" to scoop out. Peeling it was a breeze too: I used a combination of a basic veggie peeler and my chef's knife.

Given that this task was brand new to me, I was quite proud to have the squash halved vertically, cleaned, cut into portions, peeled and then cubed and parceled out into an appropriate amount for the tagine and into two freezer bags of similar portions for later use all within 30 minutes or so. Well, at least I don't think that's too bad for a first-timer.

With the big prep task out of the way, I moved on to the actual making 'o the tagine.

Chicken-butternut Tagine1 T olive oil
2 C chopped onion
2 t ground cumin
1 t paprika
1 t ground turmeric
1/4 t salt
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 C fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
8 oz. peeled, cubed butternut squash
1/3 C halved pitted picholine olives (about 3 oz.)
8 pitted dried plums, chopped
Fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves (optional)

1. Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat.
   
2. Add the onion and cook 8 min. or until golden, stirring occasionally.
   
3. Stir in cumin, paprika, turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, salt, garlic and chicken, and then cook 1 min., stirring constantly.
   
4. Stir in broth, squash, olives and dried plums.
   
5. Bring the mixture to a boil, cover, reduce heat to medium-low and then simmer 10 min. or until squash is tender.
   
6. Garnish with parsley, if desired.

Yield: 4 servings of 1 1/4 C each

Nutritional Info
Calories: 309
Fat: 8.8 g
Sat fat: 0.9 g
Protein: 29.8 g
Carbs: 29.7 g
Fiber: 5.2 g
Cholesterol: 66 mg
Sodium: 782 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
I'll say this right off, Gentle Reader: I got way too wrapped up in preparing the squash right. How ridiculous is it that I was so worried about that? Well, I did. So much so that I made some goofs with the recipe. Oh well.

• I failed to remember the salt until well after I'd added the broth and squash. D'oh!
  
• I failed to remember the turmeric until today when I was transcribing the recipe. Sheesh, that's really pathetic.
  
• I didn't use that tablespoon of olive oil called for by the recipe. Maybe a teaspoon and a half did the trick.
  
• I don't do olives. Even the smell of them turns my stomach, thus I have to give a wide berth to the olive bars at various grocery stores around Austin lest I ralph right then and there.
  
• While I do have prunes, I didn't feel this recipe would be served well by them. I've made a Moroccan dish or two with them, and they impart an interesting taste that...well, it's not terribly satisfying for me. I instead used dried cranberries, tossing an amount that I thought was equivalent to the prunes and the olives.
  
• Because I didn't have enough squash to for three 8-ounce freezer bags, I tossed in an extra 3 ounces or so. Did that lead to overcrowding? I don't think so.
  
• I used my tagine to prepare the dish rather than Chive the Dutchie because the recipe's called a tagine.
  
• I doubled the simmering time on the advice of some of the recipe reviews so that the squash would indeed be tender.

My nerves were a bit overwrought not just from working with the squash but also from using the tagine on the stovetop for the first time. It performs beautifully in the oven, but I had my doubts about the diffuser's ability to evenly and adequately heat the bottom bowl of the tagine. I'm not sure if those doubts were well-founded or not because it seemed to take forever for the olive oil to heat up. In fact, it wasn't anywhere near warm enough when I tossed in the onions to brown. I had to keep the burner heat turned up fairly high for most of the cooking time, which I really didn't like. That strikes me as inefficient. That said, though, I did have to turn down the heat substantially about 10 minutes into the simmering time because liquid was starting to bubble out from beneath the chimney lid, which isn't as tight-fitting as a traditional pot lid.

The finished tagine dish was quite tasty, although I wonder now what it would be like if I'd remembered the turmeric.
The squash did come out quite tender, and I tried to induce the boy into eating it by letting him know it tasted very close to potatoes. (He had maybe two or three cubes and that was it.) I served the finished yumminess atop pistachio couscous, but I think it would have been better served with plain couscous or with a side of pita with which to sop up the liquid. That's not a knock against either the pistachio couscous or the finished tagine; The wonderful flavor and aroma of the couscous was lost, buried under the flavors of the tagine.