Darcie B

Amen, sistah! Now I am only homicidal for a few days four times a year... To get back OT: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (Peanut Butter Pumpkins right now). Have to have them. Can'o'cheese and crackers...OK, just the cheese squired straight into my mouth...salted cashews...five batches of cookies (I shared SOME)...

A little late, but thought I would add one more technique I hadn't seen here. It is from Shirley Corriher's Cookwise, called "Flaky Crisp Crust." The technique that differs from others is that you use a rolling pin to flatten cubes of butter as opposed to a mixer, food processor or by hand. Ms. Corriher states "Rolling near-frozen 1/2 inch cubes of butter with flour flattens and coats the butter for a very flaky crust." I had made this a few years ago, when I first got the cookbook, but hadn't made it since. I couldn't remember what kind of result I had so thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try it again. It sounds so promising... Here are the ingredients: 1 3/4 cups bleached all-purpose flour 1/2 cup Wondra flour (note: I used 1/2 & 1/2 cake and unbleached AP flour since I had neither bleached AP flour nor Wondra flour) 1/2 teaspoon salt 12 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter in 1/2 inch cubes 2 tablespoons very cold lard or shortening in tablespoon-size pieces 8 ounces sour cream 1 to 2 tablespoons cold whole milk if needed She instructs you to mix the flour and salt and roll the flour with butter a few times, chill in the freezer, roll it again, this time adding the lard, and chill again. Then add the sour cream and mix, pat into a disk, and chill again. Next, roll into shape and place in pan, then a final 15 minute rest in the freezer before baking. She instructs using graham cracker crumbs on the bottom of the crust to keep it crispy and nicely browned but I omitted that because I was running out of time. When looking at this recipe again it seemed to me that 8 ounces of sour cream seemed like a lot. Should have trusted my instincts. Anyway, Here is what the cold butter and flour looked like after resting 10 minutes in the freezer as instructed. Here is what it looked like after the first go-round with the rolling pin. Gathered it up and rolled two more times. This is the next go-round with the rolling pin, after the 10 minute rest in the freezer. You can see the butter forming large flat pieces (which one would think would make the crust quite flaky indeed). Corriher says the butter/flour mixture should look like peeling paint. This is the last roll, after adding in the lard. Quite flaky-looking. This is what the flour/butter mixture looked like in the bowl right before I added the sour cream. YIKES! This is what it looked like after adding the sour cream. Did it really say 8 ounces! Look how wet this mess is! I decided to proceed with the recipe, hoping against hope that after a sit in the fridge for 30 minutes the moisture would redistribute, leaving me with a better dough. One half of the dough after being in the fridge for about 1 hour. Still very wet. The dough is very, very soft and hard to work with. It wants to stick and tear so I added probably 2-3 tablespoons (maybe more) of flour while rolling to keep it together. It tore when I put it in the pie pan and ended up like so: Whew! I rolled out the other half of the dough, put in my apple pie filling, and popped it into the freezer as instructed. Here it is after 1/2 hour in the freezer, going into the oven. The final product: The crust is pretty flaky but that's a lot of work for a crust that would probably be just about as flaky using a less intensive method. Also, we couldn't wait until the pie was cooled enough, so we had a very runny pie. Tasted good, though! Edit to clarify instructions

I think a bourbon glaze would be good with an apple cider cake. Where I hail from (North Dakota), Kuchen is the German word for cake, but mainly describes a raised sweet dough topped with a pastry cream and fruit. The most traditional fruit used is prunes, but apples and peaches make frequent appearances.

Great post; looking forward to the finished product. We have a few friends in the military and since my husband collects military paraphernalia, we have received quite a few MRE's from said friends. The ones we opened and ate weren't bad; I especially liked the Cherry Nut Cake. Is that still one of the desserts? One more question: How long are they supposed to last? EDIT: nevermind, clicked on the link you provided and answered my own questions. The packaging is required to maintain a minimum shelf life of three years at 80 °F (27 °C) or six months at 100 °F (38 °C); additionally, short-term temperature extremes of −60 °F (−51 °C) to 120 °F (49 °C) must be sustainable. I was hoping they would last longer...we better save the ones we have as collectibles and not try to eat any more of them...I think they date to the first Gulf War.

There are a lot of variables that come into play and I highly recommend getting a basic breadmaking book like Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice to understand it more fully. You can probably check out a copy at your local library if you don't want to invest in a copy (but after reading it you probably will). Keep in mind that I am not a pro, so I might get a few details wrong. Basically in a soft, white sandwich bread the flour is a bleached white flour, and there are added bread conditioners to make it soft and light. These include fats (oil, eggs, butter, shortening) and different liquids (milk), and many unpronounceable chemicals like diacetyltartaric acid esters of monoglycerides (DATEM) and stearoyl lactylates (SSL), mainly used in commercial operations. The conditioners help keep the dough from being overworked, strengthen gluten, and in other ways, like helping the dough to attract moisutre, will work to keep the bread soft. Not overmixing or overworking the dough is key to a soft bread. These breads are also baked at a lower temperature than rustic breads. Changing the type of flour, fats, liquids and other additional ingredients as well as baking temperature and time will change the texture of the bread. For example, a chewy French baguette will contain only flour, water, salt and yeast, will be baked (preferably in a stone oven or at least on a preheated baking stone) at a high temperature, and then you will have a crusty, chewy, more dense bread than a sandwich loaf.

His beefs: I don't throw away expired dairy products (milk especially). In my defense, I use soured milk for chocolate cake! He will ask me before opening anything if it is okay or if it's one of "Darcie's Dead Dairy Delights." I make too much "fru-fru" food. "Can't we just have baloney sandwiches?!" (For Valentine's Day I brought a hot baloney sandwich to him at work.) I lick my fingers when making food. I know it is an awful habit and I am working on it. Now when I lick my fingers I immediately wash my hands. One day I will learn to use utensils, I swear... I'm not "sanitary" enough. This from a man who will eat food that has been sitting out on the counter for days!! He complains that I clean too much (but see above). Arrrrrrggggggghhhhhh! I don't use enough salt. Tis true; I am highly sensitive to salt. I want to taste the food, not the salt! My beefs: The only setting he knows how to use on a cooktop is HIGH. I don't know how many food products AND nonstick skillets he has destroyed. He has started grease fires and ruined many clothes with hot grease splatters. He uses metal utensils on the nonstick cookware. He constantly gives me advice, even if he has never made what I am making. His idea of cleaning up is moving dishes from table to countertop. If he does do dishes, he uses so much soap that the suds start coming up in the opposite side of the sink. And he never cleans up the counters, cooktop, small appliances or knobs. Just yesterday I turned on the stove only to find greasy pot roast leftovers all over the knobs. Blech! He NEVER puts away any ingredients. I wonder how he coped as a bachelor; he claims his place was always neat and clean. Harumph. He piles magazines, bills, tools, parts and more all over the island (the main work surface). I just purchased some lovely baskets to hang on the wall for all the paperwork; we'll see if he uses them. Other than that we get along fine...most of the time. We agree highly on the proper use and care of cast iron, using quality ingredients, and not eating processed foods. We've been together for 12 years, so I guess we're doing something right. One thing for sure, though, if anything happens I am NEVER going to share a kitchen (or for that matter, a house) with another human again. It'll just be the crazy old lady and her cats...

I was having a lot of fun browsing this site until I realized that are business-to-business only. ← I think if you make up a business name and have a credit card, you can order from the site with no problem. When my husband and I were doing a lot of amateur car racing, we would order from B2B sites all the time. We made up a racing enterprise called "Lobux Racing" which existed in name only and never had a problem.

No smart chicken around here (Charleston WV), but I found that a store in North Dakota (home state) carried them, so I thought I would try one when I went home for vacation last week. Drove 1400 miles anticipating the best chicken of my life. Got to the store (which I had to make a special trip for...100 miles from my parent's house)...and they were OUT OF SMART CHICKEN!!! I wasn't going to make that 200 mile roundtrip again, so I will have to wait until the next out of town excursion to pick one up. Damn. Sorry, just had to vent.

Lard rules for pie crusts! I found a butcher here who will basically give me the leaf fat because no one else wants it. Even if it isn't readily available in your supermarket, they may be able to special order it for you. Our local Kroger will order a 50# block of it (@ $1/lb). The butcher there said if I didn't want it all, he would sell me part and make the rest into suet (lucky birds). He is willing to sell me as little as 10#, which would make a fair amount of lard. (luckily it freezes well). If my other, basically free, source dries up I'll do that. But I won't be without good lard again.

For those interested in MAPP gas (one of the most easily obtained small cylinder/trigger types at hardware stores), I found this by googling: MAPP gas is a stable, high energy fuel offering excellent performance for heating, brazing, soldering, metallizing, flame cutting and flame-hardening. MAPP gas is a mixture of various hydrocarbons, principally, methylacetylene and propadiene. It produces a relatively hot flame (2,976°C) with a high heat release in the primary flame (inner cone) (15,445kJ/m 3 ), less than for acetylene (18,890kJm 3 ) but much higher than for propane (10,433kJm 3 ). The secondary flame (outer cone) also gives off a high heat release, similar to propane and natural gas. MAPP is not sensitive to shock and is nonflammable in the absence of oxygen. There is no chance of an explosion if a cylinder is bumped, jarred, or dropped. You can store or transport the cylinders in any position with no danger of forming an explosive gas pocket. As MAPP gas can be used at a higher pressure than acetylene, it can be used for underwater cutting in deep water as it is less likely to dissociate into its components of carbon and hydrogen which are explosive. The MSDS on MAPP gas states that there is no carcinogenicity in any of the components for MAPP gas. View the MSDS here.

My hometown and college town were both too small for Mickey-Ds, so I ended up working at: The Prairie Winds Cafe. I worked first as a dishwasher, then as a waitress, finally as a cook. This was all between the ages of 15-17, evening and weekends. I think waitress pay was like $2.85/hr and I thought I hit the big time as a cook, $5.00/hour (tips really sucked so I made more as a cook, plus I didn't have to put up with customers.) Ate free as long as it was reasonable (i.e. no steaks). During college I was a waitress at Country Kitchen (do they still have those?), worked 5p-3a, dinner and "bar rush" crowds. Lovely time being felt up by all the drunk guys. Lasted two months, then went on to a pizza/sub shop (which closed a couple of months later, not related to my working there, at least I hope not...), then finally to the Pizza Ranch. Even though I would diligently clean, the place was always greasy (we did "broasted" chicken too). Received several interesting scars from the pizza ovens and broaster (deep fryer+pressure cooker). We got to eat and drink free, and leftover buffet food got to go home with us (mmmm, pizza sitting under heat lamps for hours.) Haven't worked food service since I graduated from college...but now my dream is to open a bakery. What's wrong with me?? Edited to correct grammar.

Where in West Virginia were you???? We used to have a place around here called "Eat and Park," which we affectionately named "Eat and Puke."

Not for the faint of heart: we were traveling across country and stopped in a breakfast chain place (I know that should have been our first clue). But we were in a hurry and thought "how can we go wrong with mediocre chain food?" We ordered, everything seemed to be OK, then I went to the bathroom. There was excrement ALL OVER the bathroom. Walls, floor, toilet, sink. Just for fun, I had my DH check out the men's bathroom. It was the same. Kinda lost my appetite...

I realize this is too late, but I have a vegan chocolate pudding recipe close to the one posted earlier but different enough to include, should anyone find the need for a vegan dessert. Chocolate Cardamom Pudding 1 cup coconut milk 3 green cardamom pods 1 box silken tofu (1 lb.) 8 oz. dark chocolate Bring coconut milk to a simmer; add cardamom pods and remove from heat. Let steep 20 minutes, then remove pods. Meanwhile, melt chocolate via whatever method you prefer. Spin tofu in food processor until smooth, add melted chocolate and coconut milk. Chill until set. This is really good even for non-vegans.

Ditto here (except it was a History Channel lover at our house...). Convinced us that it would be exceptional fun to travel to Paris, which believe me is a major accomplishment. I think that the absinthe scene may have been a bit overdone, but overall, great show. No, wait, f***ing great show. We'll tune in again.

I think a blowtorch cookbook would be great. Call up the BernzOmatic folks and get writing! To further enhance your blowtorch experience, might I suggest the following accessory? Flame Spreader. As the name suggests, it allows the flame to spread out so you can torch a wider swath at one time, increasing your efficiency.

I use either the Cuisinart or pastry cutter, depending on how bad my carpal tunnel is acting up. Even after working on my crusts for over a year, I am still frustrated by them as something always seems to be wrong (although my husband tells me to "shut up already, it's great!"). I wondered if anyone has tried the method (forgot where I read about it) wherein you start with frozen butter chunks and roll them into the flour with a rolling pin. Supposed to be the ultimate in flakiness, but it made such a mess the one time I tried it I didn't bother again. I can't even recall if it was extraordinarily flaky or not. Anyone else try it?

Very interesting topic, NulloModo. I grew up in a very small town (pop. 1200) in very rural North Dakota. There were only two restaurants, and the nearest town was 30 miles away. One thing I know is that none of the cooks in those places grew up cooking at their mother's knee or was actually a good cook. I know this because at the tender age of 17 I was hired to be a weekend cook at the better of the two restaurants. I was left alone for the breakfast rush, such as it was, on my second day on the job. Burned the sh** out of my right index finger scraping an egg shell off the griddle (DOH!). Turns out I was one of the better cooks because I could coordinate the disparate orders coming in during the evening dinner rush. Since it was both a steakhouse and cafe (separate sections for each, and I use those terms loosely), a dinner order could include prime rib au jus (I can't remember if the menu said "with au jus" or not...) and an egg salad sandwich. It wasn't too bad since almost everyone ordered their beef medium well or well done, but I was able to get most things plated up at roughly the same time without ruining anything and was therefore considered a good cook. It was/is a job no one wanted, with poor pay. There are no chefs in places like that. With the exception of the prime rib, which was actually pretty good, most of the food was/is pretty godawful. Nearly everything comes of the Sysco/US Foodservice or whatever truck. Boxed scalloped potatoes, canned vegetables, premade frozen beef patties, monochromatic fried things. I go back every year and the food doesn't get better (in fact may be worse or is that my palate changing?). Now there is only one restaurant, with self-service coffee so they don't have to pay for more than one waitress. Part of the problem is the old-timers are very cheap and complained bitterly when coffee went up to more than 50 cents per cup. The median age of the population is probably about 60 so there isn't an impetus to change. Even with all that, I still dream about buying the second restaurant (which I could get, turnkey, for about $20k) and opening up a place that served good food, maybe something a little out of the ordinary, catering to the younger people and hunters, who are coming in more and more frequently to hunt upland wild game. There is also a growing Hispanic population, moving up to work the corporate farms (I think if you offered simple but authentic Mexican fare they would be ecstatic). My dh and I have discussed it a few times but realize it is probably a yellow brick road straight to bankruptcy...yet still I dream... I think it is a neat romantic idea to retire to an idyllic small town, but don't count on being able to find a lot of good food.

I was at a wedding last weekend that reaffirmed my dislike for most boxed cake mixes. I know the woman who made the cake and she firmly believes her boxed mixes with Dream Whip added are superior to scratch cakes. She also uses a shortening only "buttercream" with about 2 tablespoons of almond extract in it and prefers its taste over any other frosting. I guess my taste buds are different than hers because I tried a piece of the lemon cake and nearly gagged. I had to spit it out because of the harsh artificial lemon taste. It was more than just the metallic leavening taste I have experienced with boxed mixes, this tasted like a chemistry experiment. It was yellow and it was tart, but it was not lemon. She (and many guests) loved it but I couldn't stand it. To each their own. However, I got a job making a wedding cake for a friend's daughter because I was the only one willing to make a cake from scratch (and apparently one of the few bakers around who likes to use rolled fondant). Even though I like the taste of scratch cakes better, I admit to envying the consistency of the crumb in boxed mixes. Sometimes my cakes are moist and delicate and sometimes they are a bit crumbly. Guess it's just something I need to work on.

Thanks for the recipe, although I must disagree that any method of describing my day could compare in energy levels to yours. Kudos for an excellent blog.

Chromedome, your blog is awesome. I am sitting at my desk feeling drained just thinking about all the work you do in a day! I am seriously considering a career change of just the sort you did, and reading this blog provides some great insights. Not to add to your workload, but could you share the butter tart recipe? Thanks.

I never even thought of that issue before. Were most of the countertops you have encountered Corian, Formica, or some other material? I have a white electric drop-in cooktop that is surrounded by whiteish Corian. I have cooked pretty seriously on it for two years using cast iron, Le Creuset, and heavy copper pans and haven't noticed anything getting beat up. I'm pretty clumsy, too, and actually expected to break the cooktop by dropping a full dutch oven on it or something. Maybe my cooking isn't as serious as I think, maybe I'm just lucky or maybe tomorrow the whole front lip of the counter will fall off, but I haven't had this problem in my home. Now I'm paranoid (well more paranoid)...

Apple pie. I don't like apples much anyway but apple pie just sucks. Cold sandwiches. Any kind of deli meat with or without cheese, lettuce, mayo, etc. just makes me want to gag. I'm fine with all of the ingredients separately, it's just when you put them together that it turns me off. I do like hot/toasted sandwiches, though, and love a BLT in the summer with juicy raw tomatoes fresh from the garden.

Mine were disheartening this year two. Maybe a nitrogen innoculant (like they allways reccomend on the packages) is the way to go? ←

Two kinds of paste tomatoes (San Marzano and an heirloom of undetermined origin), Brandywine, Yellow Perfection, Orange Strawberry and Oaxacan Pink tomatoes; Ancho, Pasilla, Guajilla, Jalapeno and Rio Grande peppers; haricot vert and Kentucky Blue Lake beans; some variety of sweet corn (which the squirrels will probably eat); leeks; mesclun mix (ready now!), Persian Garden Cress, Bloomsdale Spinach and Bright Lights Swiss Chard; nasturtium; and herbs: basil, Thai basil, flat and curly parsley, dill, rosemary, thyme, chives, greek oregano, lovage (strong celery taste), culantro (cilantro bolts too easily here), sage, red stem mint, Kentucky Colonel mint (THE mint for mint juleps) and some catnip. Garlic will be ready to harvest in about a month. Might do some other things but haven't decided yet. I just wish I had more room (and more time!). My peas as usual did little to nothing (sigh) but there's always next year.