Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I had a request this week for this particular recipe, so I thought I'd pass it along to everyone instead of just the one person who asked; share the wealth, right?

Ingredients:

1/2 vegetable oil

4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, melted & cooled *(see conversion in Cook's notes)

2 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla

4 eggs

2 cups flour

2 tsps baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c powdered sugar set aside in a bowl

Mix together the oil, chocolate, sugar & vanilla in a large bowl--I use my Kitchen-Aid mixer. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well before adding the next one. Add the dry ingredients and blend well. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least three hours as dough is very sticky.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease your cookie sheets with shortening or cooking spray. Drop teaspoonfuls of dough into the powdered sugar bowl; roll around to coat thoroughly and shape into balls. Place onto cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from sheets and let cool on wire racks.

Cook's notes:

I recommend using unsweetened cocoa powder and doing the conversion; it saves you a messy chocolate bowl and you don't run the risk of your chocolate seizing while it melts. The conversion is on the side of the container but for you, my loyal followers, it's this: for this recipe you'll need *12 level tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder and an additional 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Seriously. Do this.

As for the cocoa powder, I like SACO brand; use what you have or can find (Hershey's, Valhrona), but I definitely recommend that you get Dutched cocoa whatever brand you end up with. Dutched cocoa has undergone an alkali process to give the chocolate a smoother, richer flavor and it makes your baked goods that much yummier.

Your cookie dough will still be sticky, even after refrigeration. Be patient. I use a cookie scoop, like an ice cream scoop that releases the dough and all my cookies are the same size; dip the scoop or your spoon in warm water and it'll help with the stickiness. Also--I really, really, really hate washing cookie sheets and I've yet to buy any Silpat baking sheets, so I line my cookie sheets with a piece of tin foil and spray it with cooking spray. That way, I can just throw away the icky, sticky foil afterwards and it cuts down on my cleanup. It may not be the most environmentally friendly thing to do, but it saves my sanity. Really; my sanity is more important than a ball of tin foil.

Eat well,

Holly

Apple Pie

I realize that it's not technically apple season but as I was driving over to Eastern Washington on Thursday, all the apple trees were in bloom and smelled heavenly. In honor of that, I would like to share with you my apple pie recipe, which I'm thinking of renaming "Miriam's All-Time Favorite Pie Ever" as my sister-in-law has told me that she could eat an entire pie at one go!



Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Apple Pie Filling:



5 or 6 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 TBSP flour



Mix everything together in a large bowl and let it macerate while you make the pie crust.



Pie Crust: for those of you brave enough to try your hand at making your own!
2 cups flour
pinch of salt
1 cup shortening
1/3 cup ICE water



Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut in the shortening til the mixture resembles coarse crumbs then add the ICE water. Work dough together but DO NOT overwork it! You'll probably want to chill the dough for a couple hours before dividing into two equal balls. Roll out one on a floured surface, then place in a pie pan. Place filling in pan, dot the fruit with 2 TBSP of cold butter that have been cut into little pieces and then top with second rolled out disk of pie dough. Crimp edges together and cut vents in the top so steam can escape as it bakes. Don't worry about how it looks, really, as long as the filling's not oozing all over the place.



Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes then lower the oven to 350 degrees and bake an additional 40 minutes or so.



Cook's Notes:



1. I like to use a couple of varieties of apples as you get some different flavors. I love green Granny Smiths because of the tartness; I also like Braeburn, Gala and Fuji.



2. The butter pats on top of the filling will do two things; first, it adds a little richness to the filling and second, as the cold butter melts, the steam helps give a nice lift to the top crust.



3. Pie crust isn't scary! I promise. There are just a couple things to remember; Crisco is less expensive than butter and tastes just fine but chill it first so you'll have a lovely, flaky crust. By all means use butter, but keep in mind that it's quite finicky particularly for beginners and again, expensive. I also capitalized ICE water. The easiest way to do this is to fill a glass measuring cup with ice and water before you begin and then measure out the 1/3 cup of water that you need. The way you get a flaky pie crust is by keeping your shortening and your water COLD and by not overworking your dough. See, as you mix the flour and the fat, you make lots of little layers and when those layers start heating up, the water in the fat releases steam. The steam evaporates and leaves these teeny tiny layers of crust which are nice and flaky. You want that in pastries; not so much in a boyfriend! Or any friend, I should say.



4. Most importantly--your hands come clean. Get in there (with clean hands!) and TOUCH YOUR FOOD. As long as you have proper hygiene, you and your food will be fine, but you need to know what pie dough feels like so that if it's too dry, you can add a touch more water or if it's too wet when you're rolling it out, you throw some more flour on it.



Eat well,
Holly

***the pie pictured is actually strawberry-rhubarb but I included it to show you more or less what your finished product ought to look like.

Great vs Good: Food & Relationships

I was contemplating this Sunday's sermon which was about relationships and my thoughts, as they usually do, turned to food and food analogies. The essence of the message was "what you put into a relationship is what you'll get out of the relationship" and great relationships like great food take time and effort. If you make a conscious effort to eat healthy, it takes time to go to the grocery store, choose the best and freshest and organic ingredients, take them home and prepare them. It's also not cheap, particularly if you hit up Whole Foods, nor is it very convenient time-wise. Think about it; you can either spend $5.47 at Little Caesar's for a "Hot'n'Ready" pizza or spend several times that amount to buy fresh produce and organic meat (and please don't ask how I know the exact price for the pizza--I never claimed to be a gourmet; I'm much closer to a gourmand!). It's simply quantity versus quality. Now, in their defense, more companies and grocery stores have made eating healthy easier with little bags of carrots and celery, apple slices and melon chunks; you can even buy grilled chicken breasts at deli counters, but we still have to make to choice to buy those items and not the fried chicken dinners with the bags of chips.

The other phrase that I jotted down was "The biggest enemy to GREAT is GOOD". We settle for what we're used to, what we think is good enough. I made myself beef pot roast a few weeks back; it was from an actual butcher's shop in Woodinville and they sell only local and organic products. It had been aged a minimum of 21 days and was beautifully marbled with fat...let me just say, I know GREAT beef now. But when you chose to eat healthy, buy organic produce or make the trek to a butcher's shop which, let's face it, is one more stop you just don't have time for...you're making your health a priority. Maybe it means cutting out store-bought coffee and making it at home, or making dessert rather than buying a container of ice cream. It's the same thing with your relationships. What do you need to cut out of your life in order to be available to the people around you? Think about this--what effect do your actions have on those people? What effects do eating better have on you? In both cases, neither one may show immediate results but your efforts will pay off in the end.

I'm going to share something personal here; some of you are more familiar with the story than others and I'm really nutshelling as it's quite complicated, but here goes--I have a friend who I've known for probably six years now, Matt. I knew from one of the first times I met him that he was the man for me, one of those gut feelings at which I always used to sneer. Until just recently, I have made every overture in our friendship--phone calls, encouraging cards, stopping by his place to make sure he was OK. That's a lot of effort, especially when he flat-out told me he wasn't interested in being anything more than friends, and even then it would sometimes be months before I'd be able to get ahold of him or see him. One thing that came out in our conversations in the past couple weeks was how comfortable Matt feels being with me and in sharing personal things (and there's been a turning point with him contacting me much more often). He told me that it's easier to talk to me about these things than his own family because I've been there for him over the past years. I don't share this with you easily; it makes me feel really vulnerable, but I'm really trying to drive home my point--you DO NOT know the effect that you have on someone's life.

That, my dears, is what has been on my mind the past couple days; food and relationships. A huge thanks to Pastor Scott for his excellent message on Sunday which inspired my contemplations and to my readers who allow me to be so open with them.

Eat well,

Holly

Baked Fish with Roasted Tomato Sauce

Well, my dears, I guess I'm defaulting to food today as my journals and notebooks are in my other bag in the car and I really don't feel like slogging through the rain to see what I have scribbled down to share. I will share a simple but yummy fish recipe--and keep in mind that this is coming from someone who doesn't care for seafood! I tried the recipe at the Mediterranean cooking class I took about 10 days ago and it's really flavorful and moist.

Baked Fish with Roasted Tomato Sauce:

Serves 4-5

3 cups tomatoes, sliced into thin wedges

1 1/2 onions, julienned

1 TBSP chopped garlic

1 1/2 TBSP olive oil

1 tsp Italian herbs

pinch of orange zest

1 1/2 to 2 pounds white fish, such as tilapia, sole or halibut

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix all ingredients together except fish and spread evenly in a 9" by 13" glass pan. Roast for 30 to 35 minutes, til the vegetables begin to brown. Remove the pan, arrange the fish fillets in and under the vegetables and return to the oven until fish is done, approximately 15 minutes.

Serve with starch of your choice--rice pilaf with toasted almonds is great and so is risotto and who doesn't like mashed potatoes? Well, I actually know someone who doesn't, but she's the exception!

Cook's notes:

Seriously, people--don't get hung up on measuring things UNLESS YOU ARE BAKING. Then you have to be precise. In cooking, however, eyeball your ingredients. You don't need to dirty up a bunch of measuring cups and spoons. Use about 3 large tomatoes--mix it up with some lovely heirloom tomatoes! The onion? Buy a Walla Walla, the kind that barely fit in your hand. A tablespoon of garlic is a couple cloves and so on. Even the orange zest is easy to do (and don't leave it out as it adds a nice hint of sweetness to counter-balance the acid in the tomatoes); if you don't own a zester, maybe you own a cheese grater with the teeny-tiny holes on one side? Run the orange over it several times and there ya go! If you don't have dried mixed Italian herbs, use what you have--oregano? Savory? Thyme, sage, rosemary, marjoram, basil? Use a pinch of this and that--it's your dish so you can season it the way you want and since tomatoes, onions and olive oil go with just about everything and white fish can take any seasoning, DON'T SWEAT IT. Cooking really isn't scary! And you can always ask me your culinary questions!

Eat well,

Holly

Morning on Lake Tye

"Across the street is a lake and on the lake this gray, rainy morning is a flat-bottomed fishing boat. From my seat in the coffee shop, all I can see of the fishers are one white sweatshirt and one black sweatshirt. I wonder what their relationship is to each other; father and son or long-time friends, the kind of friendship that doesn't require words, particularly between men. I glance away as a group of women bustle into the shop out of the misty damp and when I look back, the boat has drifted out of sight and all I see are a pair of ducks dropping in their barely controlled dives to the silvery water."

Easy No-Bake Cheesecake with Easy Fruit Topping

Hello, my fellow foodies! This recipe is, I realize, a tad late for Easter, but since you will be stealing your children's chocolate and jellybeans, you don't really need the sugar, right? Right. So--I found the recipe on a website and tested it out on my meal clients. It was such a hit, it was even requested that I make it for a family dinner to which I was invited.

Ingredients:

1 graham cracker pie crust

8 oz softened cream cheese

1/3 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream

8 oz Cool Whip, slightly thawed

Beat the cream cheese til smooth; add the vanilla, sugar and sour cream and mix well. Fold in the Cool Whip and spoon into the crust. Chill for at least 4 hours.

Easy Fruit Topping:

A package of your favorite frozen fruit or berries or mix of fruit and berries

Some sugar

Dump frozen fruit/berries in a saucepan and heat over medium heat. Add about 1/2 cup of sugar and let cook down for a bit. Taste after a while and add more sugar if you want it sweeter. Keep cooking and stirring til it reaches the consistency you like. Let cool. Serve over slices of the cheesecake.

Cook's notes:

1. Seriously, buy a pre-made pie crust. It's not worth the hassle of crunching up graham crackers and forcing them to stick together with butter in a pie pan. The pre-made generic brands are less than $2.

2. If you leave the cream cheese on your counter for a couple hours, it should be the right consistency but if you use a stand mixer, like a Kitchen Aid, once you start beating it it will soften up just fine.

3. "Fold" means to GENTLY incorporate an ingredient, usually with a silicone spatula, into an existing base so it remains light and fluffy. I will admit that in this case it's not a big deal and you could just scrape the Cool Whip into the mixer and let'er rip for 30 seconds or so until mixed. This is not a fussy recipe.

4. You will have leftovers. I have no idea who came up with the measurement ratios but they did a lousy job. You can either make two smaller cheesecakes and top them with a LOT of berries or hide the remainder from your family to savor while watching the guilty T.V. show of your choice.

5. Use a hand-held potato masher to break up the fruit as you're cooking it down and try different mixes; I got rave reviews with a Dole tropical fruit mix--and buy the "no sugar added" kind as you're adding your own sugar. Besides, you want to taste the fruit, don't you? A little bit?

Eat well,

Holly

Mushrooms

Today we are going to discuss mushrooms even though April is National Poetry Month. I love mushrooms. I love shopping at Albertson's because I get a discount. Albertson's only has two kinds of mushrooms; white and portobello. And before you say, "Wait! They also have cremini!", let me say that cremini are baby portobellos and are sometimes sold as such. Now, Fred Meyer and Whole Market often carry fresh shiitake and oyster mushrooms; Pike Place fruit stands will usually have a nice selection as well (morels if you're lucky!). If you're feeling really adventurous, hit up Uwajimaya and get some fresh enoki from their produce section. I also know of a produce stand in Snohomish that sells fresh chanterelles in the fall for a great price!

In selecting mushrooms, in general you want to look for ones with closed caps and no exposed gills unless you're buying the big portobellos or mushrooms for stuffing. I prefer paper bags for transport and storage but I also will buy the packaged sliced white mushrooms in the little Styrofoam & cling-wrap containers if they're on sale and if I'm using the flavor for a base. Now, a matter of contention--to wash or not to wash? Let me just say, mushrooms are fungus. Fungus grows in the dark. In manure. Do you really think that the mushroom growers carefully pick and then brush each mushroom as they pack it? No. They don't get paid enough. WASH THEM. Mushrooms absorb an negligible amount of water, and I mean less than an ounce per pound and as long as you pat them dry, store them some place cool and dry, then use them within a few days, they'll be fine and won't melt into a nasty smelling mess in your vegetable drawer.

While mushrooms don't absorb much water, they do soak up an incredible amount of fats--butter and olive oil when sauteing, for example. They can be flavored with any variety of herbs, added to omelets, in cream sauces like chicken Alfredo and baked into quiches. They roast well as in stuffed mushroom caps, hold up on the grill like portobellos, add an nice dimension to stews and stocks and come in all kinds of cool shapes. White or button mushrooms are quite mild as are oyster mushrooms while shiitakes and cremini/portbellos have a deeper, earthier flavor. Other than trimming the ends of the stems, use the entire mushroom--cap and stem. Why not? You paid for it and it all taste like mushroom!

I don't have a particular recipe to share; I have a tendency to use mushrooms the way I use onions--as one of my base flavors in cooking and seasoning. As for the mushrooms I named, these are just a few of the more common ones but there is such a variety that if you love mushrooms, try something different next time you walk through the produce section or go to the fruit stand. Asian stores are a great resource; that's where you're more likely to find enoki, oysters and shiitakes if your local store only carries white and portobellos. While "specialty" mushrooms are more expensive per pound, a little goes a long way. Buy a handful, slice them up, saute them in some butter and see what you think. Or, here's a serving suggestion--mix them with the less expensive white mushrooms. It looks sophisticated, even if you're just sauteing them and serving them with a nice grilled steak.

Enjoy your food,

Holly

**note: pictured are shiitakes on the left and oyster mushrooms to the right.

God's plan

I had someone tell me the other day that she had no idea that I was a writer. Well, I'm not strictly a writer in that I've never had a burning desire to write a novel (and still don't) or publish a poem, nor have I disciplined myself in the past to write on a daily basis. I am finding, however, as I go through my old notebooks and papers how much I've actually jotted down over the years. I suppose if one reads as much as I do, it's bound to express itself somehow; all those words and phrases and ideas percolating for so long. At any rate, today's post was found loose in the bag in which I haul around a bunch of those old notebooks and journals, and like the majority of my scribbling, it's not dated although it's safe to say it was written within the past two years. It's on a piece of lavender paper, a church bulletin insert, as a matter of fact, printed with the words "Who has God been to you recently?" (and then it said to return it to the church office, which I obviously did not do!).

"God is always in control & God is never surprised. No matter what has occurred in my life or in my family's circumstances, God is sovereign & He ordained events from the very beginning. He is not surprised or shocked by what happens to His children because He is the Ancient of Days who holds my life in His hands & who has allowed my life to affect those around me so that I may reflect His glory & His awesome power. 'Then Job replied to the Lord, "I know that You can do all things, no plan of Yours can be thwarted." ' "