Kentucky Blondies

Kentucky Blondies
Adapted from a recipe by the brilliant Thomas McCurdy

1 stick butter, still cool/cold
3/4 C dark brown sugar
3/4 C plain sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla extract
1 3/4 C All purpose flour
1 1/4 t baking powder
3/4 t salt
9 oz white chocolate chips
2 oz bourbon

Cream together the butter and sugars until incorporated, but the butter should still be chunky. Add eggs and vanilla, mix until combined, but with the butter still chunky. Mix in the dry ingredients and the white chocolate, then the bourbon. The only way you can fuck this recipe up is by over-mixing.
Line a 9"x13" baking pan with parchment paper and grease it. Pour the batter into the pan, lightly smush the batter out to the edges of the pan. This isn't too important, as it will spread when baking.
Bake in a 325 degree oven for 15 minutes, then turn the pan and bake for another 15 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for 5-10 minutes, then cut into squares. Gently remove from pan and let cool before eating. 

Ranch Dressing

Ranch Dressing

1 1/2 C plain, whole milk yogurt

1 t dried dill

1 t dried mint

1 t dried oregano

1 t onion powder

1/2 t granulated garlic

1/2 t salt (or more, to taste)

1/2 t ground pepper

2 T water*

Put all the ingredients in a jar, shake like crazy. Shake shake shake shake shake! Eat within 5 or 7 days, or operate common sense about consuming dairy products that have been in your fridge over a week. Shake some more.

*Omit the water if you want a thicker dressing, like dip. With the water it's the perfect consistency for drizzling over green salad.

Most Excellent Crackers

Crackers

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup kamut flour
2 T sugar
1 1/2 t salt
1 T dried dill
1 T granulated garlic (or more)
1 stick cold butter, cut into tablespoon-sized pieces
2/3 C water

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Combine flours, sugar, salt, dill and garlic (you can use any seasonings you like, really, just don't use too much) in large mixing bowl, giving it a quick stir with a whisk. Cut the butter in with a pastry cutter or forks until the butter is in pea-sized bits. Add water and mix/knead until all flour is incorporated, but be careful not to over-knead.

Divide the dough into three equal sized pieces. Cut 3 pieces of parchment about the size of your cookie sheet or jelly roll pan. One piece at a time, roll the dough out on the lightly-floured parchment paper, flouring the dough and rolling pin as necessary. Roll outward from the center of the dough, with the goal that it will fit just inside the parchment paper. It should be no thicker than 1/8". Gently lift the parchment paper, with the rolled dough, onto your baking pan. Cut into squares or whatever shape you like and trim the rough edges as you like.

Bake for 8-12 minutes, until dark golden brown. Baking times will vary by oven. Allow to cool and store in an airtight container.

This will yield several dozen crackers, or, in my house, enough to last 6 hours ;-)

Enjoy!

I Killed Santa

Ok, I'm just being dramatic, obviously I didn't KILL the guy. But, my three year old son has been saying for the last 18 months that he's afraid of Santa. He doesn't want to ride the Polar Express to go meet him (can you blame him?), he doesn't want to go to the mall to meet him, he doesn't want him coming to our house. Go figure, my genius kid has already figured out that this character defies the laws of reality and therefor is afraid of him. So, last night, I told him he had nothing to be scared of, because Santa is not real.

IN MY DEFENSE, I explained that Santa only lives in stories, and that he's really a wonderful thing, because he reminds us of the power and magic of giving. I told him that Christmas is a holiday that began because many people believe it is the day when God gave a wonderful gift of hope to the world. I told him that we celebrate Christmas because we believe that hope and generosity are really important, and so we give each other gifts. I also told him not to tell any of his friends that Santa isn't real, because they might not be afraid of Santa, and they might like to believe that Santa is real. I told him for about the millionth time that every family has different stories and rules and traditions, and we should always respect them. About this point in the conversation, he changed the subject and began explaining to me what trucks do.

Here's the thing: my husband and I work really hard, and I don't want some imaginary fat man getting the credit for the gifts we give to each other. How is that helpful? When he grows up, our little guy is going to want to know why his friends got more gifts than he did, and I want him to know the truth. In our family, the holiday is about GIVING, not receiving. Also, I'd rather spend my hard-earned money on a few fantastic dinner parties than a mountain of toys for a child who really doesn't need them. 

So, my husband is kind of mad at me, but he'll get over it. We're still a young family and we're still trying to figure out our own traditions. We have yet to celebrate Christmas in our own home, and so we've just been doing what the family-at-large does. But Rowan is old enough now that he's starting figure stuff out, and I want to control the information he gets. It's absolutely my right as his mom. So, I'm trying to help him see Santa as a non-scary story character who is vital to happenings of the winter holiday, but not the whole story. We will write our own version, like every family does, and it's really important to me that the story shores up with our beliefs. Christmas isn't about gifts, it's about giving; it's not about a strange fat man in a red suit who defies physical law, it's about family and friends who we can touch and feel and hug and sing with and laugh with and spend months thinking about the perfect gift to give, hopefully making that gift, and knowing "They will see how much I love them when they see how much I thought about this". 

Rest in peace, Santa. I'll take it from here.

Molasses Crinkles

The season for holiday baking is here! To be honest, I started my holiday baking weeks ago and have a freezer full of zucchini bread and oatmeal cookies. I'm starting to dive into the more festive recipes now and trying out what I think of as heritage recipes. My Mom and I used to make tons of Christmas Cookies when I was a kid, and I know my mother-in-law is a big holiday baker, so I am going to be working on gathering up old cookie recipes to bake into my own traditions. 

This is my great grandmother's recipe, apparently exactly as she made them, with just a few interpretations by my Mom and myself. This is old school mid-western baking, and I bet you could substitute the flour and shortening for gluten free and non-hydrogenated alternatives pretty successfully, if that's your bag.

Molasses Crinkles

Sift flour before measuring out 2 1/4 C. Sift with 1/4 t salt, 2 t soda, 1/2 t clove, 1 t cinnamon, 1 t ginger. Set aside.

Cream together 3/4 shortening and 1 C brown sugar. Gradually add 1 beaten egg and 4 T molasses. Mix well. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Chill until hard enough to roll into 1 to 1 1/2 inch balls. Dip tops of balls into sugar, put sugar side up, 3 inches apart, on cookie sheets. Sprinkle each cookie with 2-3 drops of water. Bake at 350 until done." 

Done might be 8 or 10 minutes, depending on how you like them. They'll obviously get crispier if you leave them in longer. I remember them being on the chewy side. I'm going to bake some of these up this afternoon, so I should be able to clarify anything here once I run through it. If you don't have a flour sifter you can use a whisk to achieve about the same effect.

**As usual, t = teaspoon, T = Tablespoon, C = cup**

Two, if by Dinner

We totally scored with dinner tonight.  I am a lucky lady.  Steve got home early enough today to start dinner.  Ladies: You CAN train your man to cook!  He called me when I was on the way to pick up Rowan from daycare and asked if there was anything he could do for dinner.  Good man, right?!  I gave him a big assignment and he executed it, brilliantly.  I told him how to get the local, pasture-raised turkey breast out and into a basic marinade.  I told him how to cook it, and I also told him to boil some potatoes (ehemmm... 1 outta 2 ain't bad, honey...).  When I got home with the little guy, I quickly pulled together
 a salad and boiled some peas, which I dressed with a smidge of butter and local raw honey (and salt and pepper).  Once the turkey was cooked and the potatoes were boiled- about and hour- I tossed the potatoes into the pan with all the turkey juices and smushed them up a bit.  


It was so good!  Everybody loved it!

Cake Love

Ok, so, over two years later, I'm back to the blog. A lot has happened in the last two years, more than I want to get into right now, but I'll just summarize by saying that I had no idea when I started this blog how different my life would be in just a short amount of time. Two years ago today, my boyfriend and I were celebrating his 27th birthday with the new, exciting, surprising and heavy knowledge that we were expecting a baby. I was just beginning to settle into the idea of creating a human in my body, a family in the world, and a relationship with this man. It's been a wild couple of years, but we're all having a pretty good time! Tonight, we put our beautiful, amazing 18 month old son to bed after singing "Happy Birthday" for a lullaby, and then settled into our respective evening rituals, his computer-zone-out-time and my kitchen-zone-out-time. I made sure to get Steve a few useful gifts that only a partner knows one needs (headphones and pajamas), but my favorite gift to him is a treasured family recipe, my mother's Red Velvet Cake.

Nothing says love like food. But the bigger the story that a recipe carries, the more love it delivers. I love the story of my mom's Red Velvet Cake, at least, my take on it, because it's such a wonderful testament to a mother's love. My mom is one of the six living children born to Erma Beery and Philip Owen Waggoner. She was born December 23rd, because, in the classic style of my Grandma, there was no way Erma wasn't bringing her new baby home to her 3 other young children BEFORE Christmas. For her entire life, my mom has had to share her birthday with the Christmas holiday, and, obivously, Baby Jesus gets a bigger party. But my Grandma knew it was important to celebrate each of her children in their own way, especially since she had so many, so she made Mom this beautiful, festive Red Velvet Cake every year for her birthday. It is seasonal, decadent, and a true labor of love (which you can find out for yourself by emailing me a request for the recipe!).

I am especially glad to make it this year in honor of my Grandma, who passed away just before Christmas last year.  I'm such a lucky woman to be able to share her legacy and love.  Happy Birthday, Steve!