Camp Cupcake: Strawberry-Jam Teacakes

I can't say I was thrilled to be making this recipe. Of the recipes in the book, it didn't sound very exciting.

However, it turned out to be pretty good, which is a good thing, since I have eaten a lot of them.

I made these on Wednesday night when I got home from work. I woke up on Thursday morning to glaze them before I headed into work, and, magically, Lubbock had turned into a winter wonderland overnight. Here's what happens when it snows in Lubbock:

-Everything is cancelled. Campus closes down. The Health Sciences Center where I work closes down. I think the stores stay open, but I can't really be sure because...

-I stay off the roads as much as possible. I am not a great driver, but that is only part of the reason I try not to drive. The other reason is that, because it doesn't snow here very often, Lubbock doesn't know how to handle it. There is no system for salting and plowing the roads here. Moreover, Lubbock drivers do not know how to drive when it is snowing and icy, so they fall into two camps: crawling along at 2 miles an hour, or trying to take the roads and normal speed and spinning out.

This is not a picture of the storm we just had. It was much worse. However, in my hermit-like state, I forgot to get a picture of it, so I had to settle for this one, which occurred about two years ago and was still enough to make them cancel classes.

So after I made 18 strawberry-jam teacakes with orange glaze, I didn't leave the house for two days. Classes were cancelled. Clients were cancelled. Meetings were cancelled. I ate a couple, but I ran out of milk and didn't want to drive to the store to buy more. I ended up taking them to the temple with me. It turns out that the Lubbock Temple is one of the few places I go all month that does not close, just because the weather is bad. Although, they thought about it.

This was the first time I have ever shared my cupcakes with the people at the temple. Given that I am the youngest person on both of my shifts by at least 20 years, some of the people I work with are beset by health problems, like diabetes, and bringing cupcakes to those people seems kind of cruel. However, I was worried about how much longer they would stay good, and concerned about the problem I have had in the past of baking one recipe before getting rid of all the cupcakes from the previous recipe, so I put them in the break room and didn't say anything to anyone. However, one of the counselors in the temple presidency saw me bring them in, and told me as I was leaving that he ate two of them. The next day, two of the matrons were also raving about them and trying to figure out what was in the recipe.

Wonder no more. Here it is:

Strawberry Jam Teacakes (makes 16)

1 c. unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for tins

3 c. all-purpose flour, plus more for tins

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 c. sugar

2 tsp. finely grated orange zest (I still have not bought a microplane zester, which, thanks to my sister, makes me feel shame).

4 large eggs, separated, room temperature

1/2 c. milk

1 c. strawberry jam or preserves. When I was describing this recipe to my mom, she said, "Oh, you should have used freezer jam." I pointed out that I don't have any, and I just went with the cheapest store-bought jam I could find. I would also like to point out that some members of my family made homemade jam over the summer without me. This is what I would like to blame for my lack of homemade jam.

Preheat oven to 350. Brush standard muffin tins with butter, dust with flour. Or, if you are lazy like me, spray them with Baker's Joy.

Whisk together dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, cream butter, sugar, and zest on high speed until pale and fluffy. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of milk, and beating until just combined after each.

In another bowl, whisk egg whites to soft peaks;

gently fold into batter. Spoon 2 tablespoons batter into each prepared cup. Make an indentation in the middle of each; fill with 1 tablespoon jam. Top with an additional 2 tablespoons batter, covering jam completely.

I use this genius device, which is a small cookie scoop to measure out approximately one tablespoon of batter. It is also the perfect size to measure out batter for mini-cupcakes.

Bake about 30 minutes, rotating tins halfway, if you feel you must. Run an offset spatula around the edges to loosen them, but allow the cupcakes to cool for a few minutes before removing them from the pan. Martha does not say to do this, but I found that if I tried to take them out immediately, molten jam leaked out the bottom of the too-warm cake.

Glaze these with citrus glaze (use orange juice and orange zest). Serve them with tea, if you're into that sort of thing, or milk, if you happen to have remembered to buy some before the blizzard sets in.

I apologize for my bad food photography, once again. Don't let their seeming ugliness deter you from making them the next time you feel like sitting down to tea in your white gloves and floppy hat.

Pie Are Squared: Susan Howell's Banana Coconut Pie

I didn't mention in my previous post that the recipe book I chose has a subtitle: An uncommon collection of womanish observations, with pie. The author of the book collected the recipes from friends and family members, along with recording their stories and memories. Hence, we get a nice taste of Saginaw, Michigan, life in addition to the nice taste of pie. So I'd like to add an excerpt from these womanly observations in each post, if I can:

"My good friend Susan tells me that she cooks every meal as though that particular meal will be the one her boyfriend, Edward, will always remember her for. She says it picks her up when Edward, who's normally not much of an eater asks, "Got any more of that?" Susan says she relishes the compliments she receives for her cooking skills, the way some women like to hear how good they look in their hair and makeup....For some women, cooking for a man is more than just a matter of throwing something together ans saying, 'eat this'; it's about tailoring what they cook to please his palate. It's about pouring a measure of themselves into what they cook--ultimately offering him servings of love and passion on his supper plate.
When you put that kind of ardor into your cooking, it's no more than right to expect the man you're cooking for to show a little appreciation."

The nice things about these observations is that, just when the feminist part of me is ready to discount what she's saying for being too June Cleaver, it comes back with a nice little comment to even things out a bit. If that makes sense. Anyway, on with the pie.

My reason for choosing this pie for my first pie experience was simple: I already had all the ingredients. Because of this pragmatic, if unexciting, thought process, I fully expected this pie to be just okay. The ingredients were simple and few. Banana is not a glamorous ingredient. But the results were super yummy. This is not a cream pie, as you'd typically expect a banana and/or coconut pie to be. It is a custard pie, baked and golden.
But the first obstacle was the crust. I have never made a pie crust I felt I could be proud of.

Until now.

While most other pie crust recipes I've seen call for water to bind the other ingredients together, this one calls for cream. Yummy cream. Also, instead of just using Crisco, I used butter straight from the fridge. The instructions also said to add only enough cream to make it start to stick, erring on the side of dryness. I really thought my crust was too dry, but I decided to trust Ms. Pinner, and she proved trustworthy. Finally, you refrigerate the ball of crust dough for at least 30 minutes.

Then, the rolling. I worried about the rolling, since I have encountered problems here in the past. But with the dry ball of dough and a spice shaker full of flour, I was able to conquer the rolling. Swish.

Then I came up against a problem: I had been following the instructions for a 9-inch pie so closely, I failed to realize that my pie plate is 10 inches. So there was not enough for pretty fluting. Boo. I'll know better next time.

On to the filling: cream butter and sugar.

Add banana, egg, milk, and coconut. Pour into shell.

Bake coconut.

Remove from oven.

Put it all together. Enjoy.
Have your husband use the leftover crust pieces to make a little ginger pear tart.


Ratings:

Flavor: 9-Even though it was cooked, it still tasted like fresh banana! It seriously was better than I expected.

Execution: 7-the crust tasted good and was a good texture, but I measured wrong, so it suffered aesthetically.

Difficulty: Very easy

Overall rating: **** 4 out of 5 stars.

The Emasculated Male bakes "Key Lime Cake"

Not everything we do in this life turns out the way we initially envision. Sometimes the failure comes early, before all the practice and hard work. And so we pick ourselves up and press on in search of a more favorable outcome, but to no avail. This basically sums up my experience with "Key lime cake."

While the picture is certainly attractive and tempting, this cake in reality, was not. (I took this picture. This is my cake) I'm slightly more than positive that this cake exists solely because someone thought, "I like key lime pie, but this is a cake book. I'll make a key lime cake."

I will admit that given the amount of freshly squeezed lime juice in this cake I was very excited for the finished product. As I juiced the key limes and measured out the correct amounts of sugar to make the lime glaze my taste buds were doing a veritable jig of anticipation. But it was all for naught. The cake was dry and crumbly. The parts that soaked up the lime glaze were a little better but bordered on being soggy when compared with the rest. Darn.

So I decided it was my technique and therefore the cake would improve upon my second attempt. Not so. I'll spare all the depressing details, because the second cake turned out no different. If this had been my very first cake-baking experience, I would have been convinced I did not have it in me to bake a decent cake. But after the "man catcher" I knew I had "IT." So I finally concluded this cake just plain sucks. I'll move on. Next week will be better.

Yoganista: Day 2-Where's my freaking gold star?!

As you can see from my two posts in one day, I'm behind. I sort of feel like I started off behind. Sadly, the feelings about my yoga blog are isomorphic to the feelings I have about my dissertation. (Couldn't I just be given a doctorate for knowing and corretly using the term isomorphic? Pretty please :0) I'm already behind, so what's the point? Might as well give up now. That and it takes me a disgusting amount of time to actually complete my blogs b/c my inner perfectionist comes out wielding her mighty mallet. Still working on lesson #1: Being ok with just being.

I was not so chipper getting up for class on the second day. In all honesty, it's not that early, but I'm a late night person and sleep in whenever I'm given the chance. I made it to class on time (early is on time in yogadom, so you can get your props and settle in). We started out focusing on our breathing. We practiced expanding our breaths starting from our stomach up through our ribcage. I got a little dizzy from all that deep breathing, but it was still pretty calming.

We got into our first position: child's pose. This is supposed to be the easiest position and very comfortable. Not so much for moi. I went home after day 1 and tried to practice, but couldn't really figure out how to get comfortable and that was super frustrating for me. Turns out that going into it on day 2 it felt much better, I think partially because I didn't think about it too much (Not to beat a dead horse, but seeing a theme much?).

Today involved more lecture and we spent the majority of our time learning "downward facing dog". We tried different variations of long dog and short dog and focused on how our bodies actually felt in each position.

The feedback our teacher gave us while in the pose was, "ok, not bad". Then she went on to explain that it was probably the highest form of praise we would get from her because she wasn't a big praiser. Other students who had taken classes from her confirmed this. That's when I realized how much I look for praise/constructive criticism to let me know how I'm doing in everything. When she wasn't saying anything to us, I was assuming that I was doing something wrong. Man! This yoga thing is a lot of work. I haven't even worked up a sweat in class yet, but feel like all this insight is draining! I've heard people suggest yoga to therapy clients as a way to help them calm down and center and never totally bought it before now. I'm realizing that there is power in silence.

Take Home Lesson #2: I am my own gold star.

SBD: 0
L&P: 0

Yoganista: Day 1

The night before was all kinds of giddy anticipation, not unlike the night before the first day of school. I showed up to the studio early, kicked off my shoes (love that part) and proceeded to hang out on a couch near the entrance waiting for my friend to show up and class to start. It was still an early hour for me so I wasn't feeling all that chatty, but a nice lady started talking so we bantered back and forth for awhile.

Truth be told I wasn't all that interested in meeting people since I already knew someone in the class. Well that was blown out of the water when my friend never showed (turns out she had a scheduling conflict). I guess I'd have to take part in forming our own yoga community (as our instructor so aptly put it). I realized that as an adult who will soon no longer be in school that classes such as this one are probably the best way to meet new people (outside of church of course). So wherever my next move takes me, I'll have to be creative and brave in joining new things to meet people (ahem, men) who might share in my similar interests. It's a win-win really.

Class started with a round of introductions and our teacher letting us know that she didn't like people who always stayed in the back row. I quickly learned that she liked things organized (2 rows of 6) and that once she was in the room and the door was closed nobody else was let in. I figured that a ringing cellphone probably wouldn't add much to the ambiance of the yoga class so it was on silent out in the front cubbies. Turns out that not everybody thought to plan ahead in this way as lo and behold a few minutes later someone's cellphone trilled. I had to keep from laughing as the teacher said something like, "Is that what I think it is"? Haha! Busted! (I should have learned my lesson that you shouldn't laugh at other people's misfortunes last year as I got my first speeding ticket a few seconds after laughing at the lady getting the sobriety test along the roadside- but alas, I'm a slow learner). Now I'm just waiting for karma to come back and bite me on that one.

The first class consisted of a lot of lecture, learning how to stand in mountain pose, and engaging the different energy loops in your body. The thing that stood out to me the most was the motto of "valuing a beginner's mind". It was interesting to see that there were some people in this beginner's class that had some substantial yoga experience and yet they were going back to better focus on the basics without shame or impatience with the process.

I'm a planner who spends very little time in the now and revel in crossing things off my list. So, not only am I not encouraged to cross things off my list, but I'm starting to feel like in yoga you shouldn't even have a list!

Take Home Lesson Week 1: Work on being ok with just being.

SBD: 0
L&P: 0
(Did I mention that my class is all women? I think this might impact my anal acoustics tally)

Soupa' Slow: Garlic Chicken with Artichokes

I LOVE artichokes, so I felt it worth the three (count them three) grocery stores I had to try to find frozen artichoke hearts. When I finally found them, they came in a little box-like thing, not a bag like most frozen vegetables. Just in case you are ever searching for frozen artichoke hearts.

This was a really easy recipe, although you do have to do some chopping and mincing. Since I was planning on throwing this together Sunday morning before 9 am meetings, I did that part the night before. The strangest ingredient, aside from the frozen artichokes, was tapioca. I'm not even sure what the tapioca did. You could probably make this without it, and it would be fine. And honestly, I actually did pretty much stick to the recipe this time.

Here is the recipe, as found in Better Homes and Gardens Red Checker Cookbook (found on page 239)...

Garlic Chicken with Artichokes
Twelve cloves of garlic may sound like a lot, but garlic's flavor mellows as it slowly cooks. (*I found this to be true*)

Low Fat

Prep: 20 minutes Cook: 6 to 7 hours Makes: 6 servings

12 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped onion (1 medium)
1 tablespoon cooking oil or olive oil
1 8- or 9-ounce package frozen artichoke hearts
1 red sweet pepper, cut into strips
1/2 cup chicken broth (*I used half a cup of water and one bullion cube*)
1 tablespoon quick-cooking tapioca
2 teaspoons dried rosemary, crushed (*I didn't crush it*)
1 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel (*I used lime*)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast, halves or thighs
4 cups hot cooked brown rice (*I made white rice...I was out of brown*)

1. In a small skillet cook garlic and onion in hot oil over medium heat, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes or until tender. In a 3 1/2 or 4- quart crockery cooker combine the garlic mixture, frozen artichoke hearts, sweet pepper, chicken broth, tapioca, rosemary, lemon peel, and black pepper. Add chicken; spoon some of the garlic mixture over chicken.
2. Cover and cook on lo-heat setting for 6 to 7 hours or on high heat setting for 3 to 3 1/2 hours. Serve with rice.

As is happens, by the time this morning rolled around, I had completely forgotten that I needed to put everything into my slow cooker to get dinner going before church, due to a baby who was sick and vomiting at four am. She woke up happy and health at 7:30, so when I decided that we were going to church around 8, I had half an hour to get both of us ready before we had to leave. I remembered dinner only when I opened the fridge to get milk for my cereal and was overpowered by the smell of garlic that I had minced the night before. I literally threw everything together in five minutes. The chicken was still frozen when I put it in, but it turned out just fine, so I might do that every time. this is the only picture I got...sorry I didn't take a delicious looking picture of it over rice on the serving plate like Maria did with her pasta...maybe next time

As for the results, we gave it a 7.5 (on a scale of 1-10). Honestly, the chicken and the artichoke hearts were really good, but I think the rosemary was a little strong. If I make it again, I'll half the rosemary, and unless you are a rosemary fanatic, I would suggest you do the same. Also, as mentioned before, I have no idea why I needed the tapioca. I thought it maybe would help thicken the "sauce", but it wasn't at all thick...it was really like a clear liquid, in fact. So now, I have an entire box (minus a tablespoon) of tapioca that I don't know what to do with. Any ideas? (Not a huge fan of the pudding...)

I did LOVE that dinner made itself, especially once I got my rice cooker going. And that, my friends, is the beauty of the slow cooker!

Shape Shifter: Wk. 1---I huff and I puff...

The Goal: To Run a 5K
This week I started off with a bang and then fizzled out.
Weapon of choice: Elliptical Machine

Monday---MLK holiday...went to the gym when I finally rolled myself out of bed. I completed 30 minutes on the elliptical, doing 'hills'.
Tuesday---Awoke at 5am to head to the gym and completed another 30 minutes on the elliptical, again choosing 'hills' because it made me work the hardest.
Wednesday---Repeat of Tuesday.
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, & Today---nothing, but I still worked out three more days than I did the week before!
I received a running training plan from a friend and will begin it this week. I will walk 4 minutes and run 1 minute...repeating 3 times...and completing 3 times during the week. Goal is to work out 5Xs this week---on the days I am not doing the running plan, I will complete some other form of exercise.
Concerning pictures of my 'finished product'...ummm...a pic of me at 5am, drenched in sweat, face as red as a cherry...not something that will be posted. I don't know everyone, but I surly don't hate you and will not choose to subject you that!