Chocolate Cake

Wasn’t it just New Year’s Eve? Wasn’t it just the new millennium? The new century?

Is everyone’s life going as fast as mine is?

It’s already March. We’ve come through a long, cold, snowy winter where I live, a rainy, blustery, drenching winter elsewhere. I don’t even know if we’re through with all that stuff. But the word March sounds hopeful. At least to me. It’s the beginning of a month that ends with spring, crocuses, warmer temperatures, sunshine.

March 1st is also the start of National Ghost Writer’s Week, paying homage to those who write, often magnificently, for people who can’t, but they don’t get the writing credit. The people who can’t write get all the credit.

I actually know someone who’s a ghost writer. So, in his honor I give you a recipe for Chocolate Cake, one of his favorites.

Btw, if you haven’t seen the movie Ghost Writer, do so. It’s terrific and so is Ewan McGregor, the ghost writer in it.

Chocolate Cake

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1-1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 cups sugar

3/4 cup butter

1-1/2 cups milk

3 large eggs

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 3 9-inch cake pans. Melt the chocolate and set it aside to cool. Place the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer and mix gently to combine them. Add the sugar, butter and half the milk and beat the ingredients at medium speed for 2-3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally, or until well combined and smooth. Add the eggs and beat them in. Add the remaining milk, chocolate and vanilla extract and beat for another 2 minutes or until smooth. Pour equal amounts of the batter into the prepared pans. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes. Invert the layers onto a cake rack to cool completely. 

Chocolate Frosting

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

1 cup unsalted butter

2 cups confectioner’s sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt the chocolate and set it aside to cool. Place the butter and confectioner’s sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat at medium speed for about 2 minutes or until well blended. Add the cooled, melted chocolate and the vanilla extract. Beat until smooth. Enough for one 9-inch chocolate cake

Breast Milk Ice Cream?

My daughter Meredith, who is a post-partum doula and childbirth educator (you can see her website here: www.amotherisborn.com) sent me a post about breast milk ice cream.

You can find that one here: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2K1ZR5/blogs.babble.com/being-pregnant/2011/02/25/baby-gaga-breast-milk-ice-cream-coming-to-a-sweet-shoppe-near-you/

What do you make of this?

Is it okay? Is it for real? Is it kosher?

Is there as safety (USDA type) inspection for lactating women?

Fairway Breast Cancer Event

$$$ for breast cancer research. Just wanted to let Stamford Fairway shoppers know that if you shop at Fairway from now through March 5th and keep your receipts, the store will donate 5% to the American Cancer Society for breast cancer research. Either bring or send the receipts to SpinOdyssey, P.O. #457, Westport, CT 06881-0457.

The 12th annual SpinOdyssey indoor bicycling and fitness event, which supports the American Cancer Society and also Norwalk Hospital’s Whittingham Cancer Center breast cancer research trials. will take place on March 6th, 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., at Intensity Fitness & Tennis Club, 490 Westport Ave., Norwalk. Fairway will provide edible goodies for the event. To learn more about it, go to www.spinodyssey.org. 

Heavenly Hash Popcorn

I’m a sucker for movie popcorn. You can tell me how awful it is and how it isn’t fresh or that it’s terribly fattening or full of fat or salt or hidden ingredients that will make me confess to giving top secret documents to the Soviets (Remember them? I just saw the movie Breach and it reminded me of the olden days when the bad guys in all the movies were the Soviets.)

You can tell me how much more delicious homemade popcorn is and how much better it is for you especially if you use an air popper and no butter.

But I don’t care. I love movie popcorn. And I am a sucker because even though it is way way more than I should eat, I always buy the big tub because it is such a bargain compared with the small bag. If you can call paying over $6 for popcorn a bargain. Also, if I buy the tub at my local theater I can get a free refill, so that I can have stale movie popcorn in my house to nibble on for a few days.

When I was a girl my brother and I went to the movies by ourselves over the weekend. My mother gave us each 10 cents for a treat. That dime got us a box worth of popcorn, though my brother sometimes bought Jujubes or Dots.

We never thought about whether the box of popcorn was large or small. That’s the only size there was. (Today if you have a store like Party City in your neighborhood you can buy those boxes to use for party favors.)

One of the problems I wrestle with these days is that we have Netflix and PPV and DVDs and so on and they come so quickly after a movie is out that we don’t get to the theater as often as we used to. So I’ve been really missing my popcorn recently. 

Home cooked popcorn may not be as wonderful as movie popcorn, however, if you do something else with it, like make it into caramel corn or some other sweet-and-salty goodie, it might make up for the lack. It’s also a good treat for watching the Academy Awards ceremony.

For all you committed movie popcorn lovers, try this:

Heavenly Hash Popcorn

2 quarts plain, popped corn

1 cup packed mini-marshmallows

1/2 cup salted peanuts

7 ounces chocolate (milk or semisweet)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Spread the popcorn out on a large jelly roll pan. Sprinkle the marshmallows and nuts on top. Break up the chocolate into small pieces and scatter the pieces on top. Bake for 5 minutes. Let cool and toss slightly. Makes about 2 quarts

Roasted Half Turkey Breast and Wings with Honey-Pineapple Glaze

My brothers and I always argued over who would get to eat the turkey wings. There were three of us children. The turkey only had two wings. So we had to take turns from one time to another.

Stores didn’t sell turkey parts when I was a kid. My mom roasted a whole bird. She ate the breast meat. My Dad learned to eat the dark meat. The leftovers were used for open face sandwiches with hot gravy (oh yum!)

Fortunately, these days you can go to a supermarket and buy a half turkey or separate thighs, drumsticks, wings — including cut up wings — breasts, even half breasts and even necks. Which is what I did yesterday — I bought a half breast and 2 extra wings because on Academy Awards night my brother is coming and he and I can each have a wing and my husband Ed and sister-in-law Eileen can have the white meat.

Ain’t modern life grand!

Here’s how I’m going to cook the turkey:

Roasted Half Turkey Breast and Wings with Honey-Pineapple Glaze

1-1/2 cups pineapple juice

1/4 cup honey

3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger

2 cloves garlic, chopped

turkey breast half, about 3 pounds

2 small turkey wings, cut into sections

salt to taste

cayenne pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Combine the juice, honey, vinegar, soy sauce, ginger and garlic in a saucepan. Whisk ingredients until smooth and bring to a boil over high heat. Simmer for 10-12 minutes or until thickened and sightly syrupy. Set aside to cool. Rinse and dry the turkey breast and wings and place them in a roasting pan. Sprinkle with salt and cayenne pepper if desired. Place the pan in the oven and immediately reduce the heat to 325 degrees. Roast for 25 minutes. Pour half the juice mixture over the turkey. Roast for another 20 minutes. Pour the remainder of the juice over the turkey; turn the wings. Continue to roast for another 25-35 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast reads 160 degrees and the wings are golden brown. Baste occasionally during cooking. Remove the turkey from the oven and let rest for about 15 minutes before carving the breast. Serve with pan juices. Makes 4-6 servings

Is that a book you got there?

fridayreads:

Well you KNOW we want to hear about it! Reblog this post with a line about what you’re reading this week, and you’ll be automatically entered to win wonderful books and prizes.

This week’s giveaways include 20 book cover t-shirts from Out of Print clothing!

Just started “Middlesex” by Jeffrey Eugenides. It’s a family saga but focuses on gender issues as a young baby girl (Calliope) becomes a man, Cal, later in life. 

Tdaziki

I don’t eat potato chips anymore because they’re a “trigger food” for me. That’s a term I learned from Dr. Stephen Gullo, a psychologist who is also an expert on weight management. I interviewed him once for an article on “how to control your weight during the holiday season.” 

He more or less said that trigger foods are the ones that you eat, and eat and eat and eat and also stimulate you to eat other food in addition to the trigger food, so you wind up eating more than you should or even want to. Trigger foods are different for each person.

For me it’s potato chips. I could eat an entire 7-ounce bag. In fact, I have. 

It’s not totally bad though because I am fussy about brand. I won’t eat just any potato chips. 

When I’m in a supermarket I run down the potato chip aisle so I won’t be tempted. Unfortunately, about a year ago my local Stop&Shop had 7-ounce bags of Lay’s on sale for 10/$10. It was too good to pass up, so I bought 2 bags and well, you know what happened. It’s just my husband and me in the house and he doesn’t eat potato chips.

But this coming Sunday night at my annual Dinner-at-the-Oscars for my brother and sister-in-law, I will not serve chip-and-dip. We get together during the afternoon and they stay until the award ceremony is over. That means some snacking when they come, dinner at 7 o’clock-ish.

This year during the afternoon I’ll be serving Tdaziki, a yogurt dip that I make with Chobani nonfat plain yogurt, which is so thick, rich and delicious that it’s almost hard to believe it really is what it says it is.

Tdaziki has grated cucumbers plus fresh dill and mint, so it is truly refreshing and bursting with flavor, making it the perfect dip for cut up vegetables, chunks of crusty Italian bread, pretzels and (gasp) even potato chips.

The recipe is from my book, Hip Kosher. Try it. You’ll like it. And I know that yogurt dip probably isn’t a bad trigger food for anyone. 

Tdaziki

• 3 cups thick, Greek-style nonfat yogurt
• 3 medium cucumbers
• 1 large clove garlic, mashed
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
• 1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Place a double layer of cheesecloth in a strainer. Spoon the yogurt into the lined strainer and set it over a bowl. Let rest in the refrigerator for 4 hours. Place the yogurt in a bowl (discard the liquid that has accumulated in the bowl). Peel the cucumbers and cut them in half lengthwise. Scoop and discard the seeds. Grate the cucumber in a food processor or by hand. Press the cucumber in a sieve, pressing down to extract as much liquid as possible. When the yogurt is ready, stir in the cucumbers, garlic, mint, dill, salt, lemon juice and olive oil. Stir to blend ingredients thoroughly.

Makes one quart, serving 10-12 people

Chocolate Chip Brownies

School’s out. Make brownies.

If you have a kid or a grandkid, make brownies with the kid or grandkid. That way you get delicious dessert, delicious photos and delicious memories.

This picture shows my granddaughter Nina, almost 4, after making a batch of our favorite chocolate-chip brownies. Her brother and cousins weren’t at my house so she had the beaters, spatula, wooden spoon and bowl all to herself.

Check out the jewelry. She was wearing her finest plastic rubies, sapphires and diamonds.

Here’s the recipe;

Chocolate Chip Brownies

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 large eggs

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8-inch square baking pan. Put the chocolate and butter in the top part of a double boiler over barely simmering water. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate and butter have melted. Stir to blend the ingredients thoroughly. Remove the top part of the double boiler from the bottom pan and set it aside to cool. Combine the eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat them with an electric beater set at medium speed for 2-3 minutes or until thick, light and well-blended. Add the flour, baking powder and salt and blend ingredients thoroughly. Stir in the vanilla extract. Add the chocolate-butter mixture and blend ingredients thoroughly. Stir in the chocolate chips. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 28 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the brownies in the pan. Cut into 16 squares. Makes 16

Cherry Cobbler for a birthday

Today is George Washington’s real birthday. Back in the day, we celebrated it on February 22nd. At school we made 3 cornered hats and colored them black. We learned about Washington, as a general, crossing the Delaware during the American Revolution. 

And of course we heard the same story every year. That George Washington never told a lie and one time he chopped down a cherry tree and then immediately ‘fessed up.

No one really knows if that one is true or not. Nevertheless, Washington’s birthday and cherry desserts were always the “big thing” long long before President’s Day became associated with sales on cars, clothes and mattresses.

So, happy birthday dear first president. I sometimes wonder what you would think about the political climate of the 21st century.

Cherry Cobbler

• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1 large egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 4 cups sour red cherries, drained canned or fresh, pitted
• 2 tablespoons minute tapioca
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

 Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mix the flour, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add 4 tablespoons butter and work into the dry ingredients until the mixture is crumbly. Beat the egg and milk together. Add to the dry ingredients and mix until a soft dough has been formed. In a separate bowl, mix the cherries, remaining 3/4 cup sugar, tapioca and lemon juice. Let stand for 10 minutes. Place the cherry mixture into a baking dish or pie pan. Cut the remaining 2 tablespoons butter into small pieces and scatter on top of the cherries. Roll or press the dough to fit the baking dish or pie pan, crimping the edges to seal the dough to the pan. Make 2-3 slits in the dough. Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes 6 servings

New York City Classes for Pregnant Women, New Moms: How Not To Behave After Pregnancy Loss -- Clue: Don't Blame A Woman for Her Loss. Don't Charge Her With A Felony.

amotherisborn:

Last week Georgia state Representative Bobby Franklin introduced a bill to his state legislature that would make miscarriage a felony unless a woman can prove she wasn’t at fault for causing it. Miscarriages must be reported to the state within 72 hours. If a woman miscarries at home, she…

Georgia State Representative Bobbly Franklin is a monster.

I actually shouldn’t click and send this because I am so furious I am likely to say something I’ll regret. So I’ll keep it short and say that, after suffering two miscarriages, and late ones at that because of what is known as “incompetent cervix,” I still find it difficult to think about the loss and sadness and the feelings of rage, jealousy, guilt and uselessness I felt then.

Report me? Report me? When I needed care and comfort, a loving family. Support. 

Is there something wrong with the drinking water in Georgia?

Georgia state Representative Bobby Franklin is a monster.

I better stop here. But I will email and otherwise let my own legislators know how I feel about this and hope you all do the same. You can do it here: http://www1.legis.ga.gov/legis/2011_12/house/index.htm