Quick!

When you have children--any children, not necessarily a particular number of children--it can be very challenging to execute a reicpe.

It goes something like this:

Me: "Let's see...a quarter of a cup of flour..."

Child 1: "Mama, can I have a cereal bar?"

Me: "Wait, a cup of flour...and two teaspoons of baking powder..."

Child 2: "Mommy, where's my DS?"

Me: "No, two of soda, only one of powder..."

Child 3: "Mama, can I have some juice?"

Me : "And three quarters of a cup of..."

Child 4: "Mama, is it my turn to choose [what gets watched on TV]?"

Me: "Three quarters..."

Child 1: "Mommy, no! It's my turn!"

Me: "Three..."

Child 3: "Mama, are we going to the pool?"

Me: "Where's the white wine??"

And that was at 10 a.m.

So you can see that a recipe that contains a minimum number of ingredients, and spends most of it's time in a "hands off" state is practically a necessity. If what it delivers is also fun and tasty, well, bonus.

The recipe for "flapjack" in the March Bon Appetit magazine is just such a recipe. Flapjack, it would seem, is a British specialty, a sort of chewy oat bar. I checked my British cookbooks (of which I have three) and found no mention of it. No matter, I made it anyway. Five ingredients, a few minutes on the stove, into a pan in the oven, and 20 minutes later, a lovely little snack. I made it the first time and it was so quick and easy I was able to make it again a couple of nights later to take as a treat for my friends on the ferry. We often have these little morning nibbles, usually when it's someone's birthday. I figured we'd celebrate Tuesday with flapjack.

I made a couple of small changes and presented them to overwhelming approval. And so, because I also have a job, and need to get back to said job, I offer without further ado, my adapted recipe for flapjack.

This was the last bit of it left--I had to snap a picture quickly before it disappeared. Which it did about 12 seconds later.

Flapjack
adapted from Bon Appetit magazine
makes 16 triangles

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar

1/4 cup Lyle's golden syrup (available at specialty stores and some grocery stores--it's with the maple syrup in mine)

2 cups quick-cooking oats (not instant or old-fashioned--they say "Cooks in 1 Minute!" on the label)

1/3 cup hazelnut meal (finely ground hazelnuts--I use Bob's Red Mill brand; you could also use almond meal)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 and spray an 8" square pan with cooking spray. Combine first three ingredients in a pan over medium heat. Heat stirring until butter is melted, sugar dissolves, and mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and add oats and hazelnut meal, cinnamon and salt. Stir until well combined. Pat oat mixture into the prepared pan.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, until outside edges are golden and crisp. Remove from oven and use a knife to loosen the mixture from the sides of the pan, and carefully cut it into four squares, and cut each square into four triangles. Do NOT attempt to remove the flapjack from the pan. It needs to cool completely in the pan. Once cool, it goes perfectly with tea.

Funky: Chocolate Toffee Cake

I’ve been trying, really I have. I’ve gotten a couple of new cookbooks, looked through some old ones, and generally tried to motivate myself to get excited about cooking. But I just can’t. I’m in one of my occasional funks, and I can’t get pumped up to cook anything. I read blogs and magazines, talk to fellow food devotees about food, but nothing is working. It’s a sort of depression that comes over me now and again, but confined to the food aspect of my life. It’s a feeling that if I could just cook something, I’d feel better, but I can’t think of anything to cook.

However, this past weekend I had to make a birthday cake for my husband, with the assistance of my children. They helped with both the cakes and the frosting, and the result was fine, but honestly, it wasn’t amazing. The kids adored it, of course, and I was glad to see them enjoying what they’d produced, even if I wasn’t. The one comment I got from my older son was that he’d prefer the cake without the candy.

The cake was a chocolate cake with chocolate icing that had toffee bar bits in it. The recipe is from Bon Appétit from March of 2000, which I found in my copy of the Bon Appétit cookbook. I flipped through a number of books looking for a cake for Alex’s 40th birthday that the kids could help me make, marked a few and presented them, and he chose that one. We had a bag of toffee bits in the pantry, so it seemed like a fine idea.

My reaction: meh. It was a lot of work, and it just didn’t have that sparkle. Also, I’m starting to think there’s something wrong with me, because all of my cakes seem to be lopsided in one way or another. No, I don’t trim them, so no doubt that’s what it is. If I evened them out after they cooled by leveling them, I’d probably end up with something a bit more finished looking.

The cake was easy enough, but in the frosting, I met my Waterloo. I tried to make it with the kids on Saturday afternoon and it flopped miserably. In fact, it flopped so badly that flopped is too mild a word to use. It just utterly, disappointingly, scrape-every-bit-of-it-down-the-drain-and-go-out-for-more-ingredients failed.

The only bit of happiness I was able to salvage from it was that Matthew stood by my side the whole time, watching it not succeed with me. Time and again I stopped the mixer, scraped down the sides, and started it up again with the hopeful comment, “Maybe this time it will work.” And each time he would nod solemnly and wordlessly hold out his little hand for the spatula to lick (hey, it was a cake for the family only—we all share the same cooties; besides, that batch of frosting went down the drain).

After a half an hour (half an hour) of whipping on the highest speed of my mixer, I decided that we were done, and that if I whipped it any longer, we’d soon have a very strange chocolate butter.

Sunday morning I gave it another go, and this time I was more careful during the cooling-and-whisking portion of the recipe. My error, I realized, was that I didn’t let it cool down and thicken up enough, nor did I whisk it. It was still quite liquid—about the consistency of chocolate syrup—when I started whipping it with the mixer the first time, and I used a spatula to stir it around in the ice bath. It was much closer to solid the second time; so much closer, in fact, that it was quite hard to whisk (and indeed, I used an actual whisk). Aha.

So we assembled the cake, scattering the toffee bits over the middle and, just for laughs, over the top (we skipped the shaved milk chocolate that the recipe calls for). The toffee bits were, I think, what actually detracted from this cake, and really put the “eh” in “meh.” They were, you see, somewhat, ah…aged. I think we actually moved them from East coast to West, which means that at a conservative estimate they were at least two and a half years old. And that estimate assumes I bought them the day we moved, which I can assure you I did not. So let’s say three years old, just for laughs.

They tasted dusty. Not something you really look for, or even expect, in a candy. And yet, that’s how they tasted, in spite of having been in a factory-sealed bag the whole time. I should have gone out and bought fresh Skor bars and used those. In fact, I was going to, but the Birthday Boy urged me to use what we had in the pantry, and so I sort of feel like he got what he deserved.

Given a little less frosting frustration, and a little more current candy bars, this cake has potential. But with my funk, I’m just grubby about everything, even chocolate cake. And when you’re grubby about chocolate cake, boy, you’re pretty darned grubby. I’ll try to snap out of it.



Chocolate-toffee Crunch Layer Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting
from The Bon Appetit Cookbook
serves 10 to 12 people, assuming none of them is in a cooking-induced funk

Cake
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup hot water
1 3/4 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup whole milk

Frosting
1 1/4 cups whipping cream
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 pound milk chocolate, chopped

Assembly
4 1.4-ounce chocolate-covered English toffee bars (such as Heath Bars or Skor), cut into 1/4-inch dice
7 ounces milk chocolate (such as one Hershey's bar or two 3- to 3.5-ounce milk chocolate bars)

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 1 3/4-inch-high sides. Line bottoms of pans with waxed paper; butter paper. Dust pans with flour; tap out excess. Combine chocolate and 1/2 cup hot water in small saucepan. Stir over low heat until melted and smooth. Cool to lukewarm, stirring often.

Whisk flour, baking soda and salt in medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually beat in sugar. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, then vanilla extract. Beat in chocolate mixture. Add flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with milk in 2 additions, beating just to blend after each addition. Divide batter equally beween pans. Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean and cake just begins to pull away from sides of pan, about 35 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on racks 5 minutes. Cut around pan sides. Turn cakes out onto racks; peel off waxed paper. Cool cakes completely.

Combine cream, corn syrup and butter in heavy large saucepan. Whisk over medium heat until mixture begins to simmer. Add chopped chocolate. Reduce heat to low and whisk until frosting is smooth, about 1 minute; transfer to large bowl.

Fill another large bowl with ice. Set bottom of bowl with frosting atop ice. Whisk until frosting is cool and begins to thicken, about 8 minutes. Place bowl of frosting on work surface. Using electric mixer, beat until color lightens and just until frosting becomes thick enough to hold peaks when beaters are lifted, about 2 minutes (frosting will continue to thicken as it stands).

Place 1 cake layer, flat side up, on 8-inch-diameter tart pan bottom or cardboard round. If desired, place pan bottom with cake atop 8-inch-diameter cake pan to make simple decorating stand. Top layer with 1 1/2 cups frosting, spreading to edge. Sprinkle evenly with diced toffee. Top with second cake layer, flat side down; press slightly to adhere. Spread thin layer of frosting over top and sides of cake to seal and set crumbs. Spread remaining frosting over top and sides of cake (if frosting becomes stiff, stir gently with spatula to loosen).

Stand chocolate bar on 1 short end. Using vegetable peeler and starting at top edge of 1 side, run peeler down length of bar (chocolate will come away from side of chocolate bar in curls). Pile chocolate curls atop cake. Chill at least 2 hours. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover with cake dome and keep chilled. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour before serving.)

Breaking Things: Oven Roasted Tomatoes with Blue Cheese

I have trouble with breakfast. All the things I like are either elaborate, not very portable, or reheat poorly in a microwave (or in some cases, all three). The things that I like that are both simple and portable get kind of old after awhile. English muffins with peanut butter, a hard boiled egg, yogurt. My ideal breakfast consists of something like toast made of thick sliced rustic bread, spread with ricotta cheese, topped with sautéed mushrooms and served with a little salad of baby arugula. You can see how that wouldn’t be the easiest thing to make at the office with the basic tools that are available there (in my case a microwave and a single-slice toaster).

However, I have found something that’s reasonably portable and downright tasty into the bargain. Oven roasted tomatoes with blue cheese melted in them. I know this sounds like an odd breakfast, but really, what is breakfast? I’m not a member of that camp that says, “Eat pizza or chicken noodle soup for breakfast! What’s important is to eat something!” necessarily, but I do have somewhat traditional (or call them hidebound) ideas of what breakfast is, and these are mere self-imposed boundaries. I need to break through my own boundaries and enter into a world where breakfast is what we make of it.

While I eat these tomatoes for breakfast, they also make a great side dish with a roast or chicken, which is how I made the recipe in the first place. I had a whole menu from Bon Appetit that I made for a Christmas dinner a few years back, and one of the side dishes was Roasted Tomatoes with Stilton. I made them and loved them, and in an iconoclastic moment, I decided to eat them for breakfast.

The tomatoes start out looking like any old tomato, but they roast for an eternity to turn into something slumpy, herby and wonderful. While the original recipe called for Stilton (it was a Christmas recipe, after all), I have since switched over to the most amazing, flavorful, incredible blue cheese on the planet. It’s a French cheese called St Augr, and my husband and I now consume it by the pound. It melts down into a pool of semi-soft cream, a little white puddle inside the red, red tomato flecked with herbs.

I roast up a batch of these on the weekend, and then take them for lunch all week long. I reheat them and melt the cheese in the microwave for about 45 seconds. Since the tomatoes have already been cooked to mush, there’s nothing more the microwave can do to them. They heat up, the cheese melts, and I ascend to heaven.

The original recipe calls for draining the tomatoes, then marinating them in the herb/olive oil mixture, and then roasting them. I skip the marinating step, because I haven’t noticed a significant difference in flavor one way or the other, but the draining step is key, especially if your tomatoes are on the watery side. I also go back and forth between including a couple of cloves of chopped garlic, and leaving it out because I’m too lazy to chop both garlic and rosemary. If you’re making these as a side dish for a dinner, I think the garlic is more important than if you’re planning to eat them for breakfast, as I do. Garlic is more of a lunch/dinner component. Breakfast, unless you’re troubled with vampire infestations, can be garlic-free without the sneaking feeling that what you’re eating needs “a little something more.”

There’s some flexibility here as well. You could change these up and make them more Italian in character—use chopped basil and oregano, and top them with fresh mozzarella. Or try fresh thyme and something like grated Gruyere. I haven’t gone this route—it’s the hidebound traditionalist in me, I guess—but you could.

These are a nice transitional dish for the Spring when really great tomatoes aren’t ready yet. Plum tomatoes are fairly reliable all year long, and roasting them turns them into something soft and comforting, while the blue cheese and rosemary add a little zing. With such a delightful set of contradictions, they’re a great way to end a day, or to begin one.

Oven Roasted Tomatoes with Blue Cheese
adapted from Bon Appetit, December 2006
serves 4 as a side dish, or one person four days in a row for breakfast

12 plum tomatoes, halved
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste
3-4 ounces soft blue cheese

Preheat oven to 425.

Using a teaspoon, scoop out insides of tomatoes and discard. Allow tomato halves to drain on a plate for approximately 30 minutes. Spray a large roasting pan with cooking spray, and set tomatoes cut side up in the pan.

Drizzle oil over tomato halves (you may want to use a little more olive oil—I really just pour right out of my olive oil bottle, but you want at least a half a teaspoon of oil drizzled over each half; if you’re a careful measuring type, use a half teaspoon measure to do this, then determine if more is needed. If you’re a carefree devil-may-care type, just drizzle away until the tomatoes look happily bathed in oil). Scatter tomatoes with rosemary, then sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Roast for about an hour, or until tomatoes slump and the juices start to brown up.

If serving immediately, remove from oven and tuck about a half an ounce of blue cheese into each tomato half. Return to oven for 5-10 minutes, or until cheese melts.

When taking them for breakfast, I cool the tomatoes to room temperature, store them in the refrigerator for three or four days, and take them in my lunch bag, along with a separate chunk of cheese. When I’m ready to eat them, I cut the cheese up into small pieces (about the size of a marble), and microwave tomatoes and cheese on plate for about 45 seconds.

Eating In, Eating Out

I came across this (which is Grub Street’s critique of Bon Appetit’s attempt to court younger readers by changing its logo, and an overall assessment that BA was boring, dated, and for old farts) by way of this (which is Adam Roberts’ spin on the subject, discussing restaurant review blogs versus cooking or recipe blogs) today, and just have to toss my own two cents into the blogsphere.

I love eating in. I actually prefer it to eating out. Josh Ozersky says that magazines like Bon Appetit are intended for people who “have big houses and plenty of time on their hands.” I completely disagree. Bon Appetit (and its brethren) is for people who like to cook and eat. People who like to invite guests for dinner. You don’t have to have a ton of time on your hands (lord knows I don’t), or a big house (ditto), in order to appreciate food magazines like Bon Appetit.

How boring would the world be if everyone entertained in restaurants? How dull would gatherings be if they always took place on neutral ground? Half the fun of inviting people over is welcoming them into your personal space, the other half is feeding them. Food magazines provide ideas for interesting ways to do the latter.

Studies have shown that right after 9/11 people began eating out less and spending more time at home. I still do this, not out of fear, but out of love for my family, my home, and my friends. One of the happiest weekend days I’ve spent recently was a Sunday on which we ran a couple of errands in the morning, then had some friends and their twin daughters over for lunch. The kids ran around and played, while the grownups drank Mimosas, ate a goat cheese and caramelized onion tart, and a green salad. I can’t wait to get moved into my new house so I can do even more of that.

Houses today are even designed for people who want to be able to cook and entertain at the same time. Look at the open kitchen, the kitchen-great room combo that allows the cook to interact with the guests in the great room. Hell, look at kitchens that are big enough to entertain in. While I’m sure there are plenty of highly reflective appliances that never see a drop of grease, I know there are plenty that do.

Adam Roberts defends both positions (the eating out and the cooking in) by saying that while eating in may be warmer and more, well, homey, it doesn’t involve the potential excitement of eating out. While eating out, he says, you may have some really neat unexpected experience (he cites a case in which he saw Maggie Gyllenhaal having lunch with her mom). I’ll give you that, but that assumes that you care about watching celebrities eat soup. I confess I do not. Which isn’t to say that I don’t like eating out, but my reasons for eating out are that I don’t want to do dishes, not that I care about who I might see, or by whom I might be seen. I don’t mean to slam Adam—I agree with him that there’s something be said for both perspectives.

But really, given the choice, I’d far rather eat in. I think it’s much more satisfying. You get exactly what you want to eat, seasoned exactly the right way. You can take as much time as you want; no waiter will ever give you the feeling that s/he wishes you would leave so they can turn your table. The noise level can be whatever you want it to be; if you’re into loud music, no problem. If you want a quiet conversation, it’s easy to arrange. And I love food magazines that bring me a monthly array of choices suited to the season—ethnic, fast, elaborate, basic.

When I read a recipe, I can get a pretty good idea if I’m going to like it or not. If I don’t think I will, I won’t make it, obviously. While I’m cooking, I can then taste as I go along—does it need more salt? More oregano? The end result is what I want to eat, seasoned the way I want it. I’m in control of the ingredients. And if I’m serving it to someone, it’s so much more personal than buying them dinner. The time I’ve taken to prepare them a meal shows that I care—we’re all busy. We all struggle to find time to get things done. If someone uses some of their free time to cook for me, that’s very special. Picking a restaurant is thoughtful, of course—you’re taking the other person’s tastes into consideration and trying to find something they’ll enjoy—but it’s not the same as devoting your own time to preparing a meal for them; thinking about what they'd like, choosing the ingredients, preparing the recipe, then serving it personally and watching their reaction.

Which brings us back to magazines like Bon Appetit. They give me ideas for different things to make for any occasion, and the recipes are tested so I’m fairly confident they’ll work (human error is always a possibility—just look at my muffins). My brother-in-law and his wife are coming for Christmas this year, and I’ve been planning the menu for three months now. This is a food lover’s dream—guests for multiple meals! People who also enjoy food! Bring on the magazines so I can pick fun, new things for us to try!