Thanks to a loosening of the rules just for the summer, I finally had a chance to make the Perfect Party Cake that came up in the rotation a few weeks ago, chosen by Carol of Mix, Mix, Stir, Stir.  This worked in better with my life/entertaining schedule.

I did not split the layers, thinking that they were too thin, but I realized they were thick enough after I cut into the cake.  I used Wild Maine Blueberry Jam from Stonewall Kitchen,and a butter/cream cheese/lemon zest frosting.  I skipped frosting the sides – calories, people, calories.  The result?  My husband thought it was pretty good, although he didn’t rave about it.  As for me, I know this will shock a lot of cake lovers out there, but I did not like this cake – way too sweet for me.  In the end, I was glad that I had only one layer of jam – two more layers would have been too much.  The way I look at it, I like so many of Dorie’s recipes, that a miss every once in a while isn’t so bad!  And to see what others made this week, be sure to check out the blogroll.

I am back in town after a trip, so I’ll have a lot of posts going up this week, as I play catch-up with all my cooking groups!  First up:  Tuesdays with Dorie.

This week, Tommi of Brown Interior selected Honey-Peach Ice Cream on page 437 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.  Except I used mangos (peaches are not yet in season) and passion fruit curd, vanilla bean, and forgot to add the honey.  Master Chow had his with one of his beloved Chipster-Topped Brownies, and declared the entire dessert a success.  Thank you, Tommi, for a great pick.  To see what other group members made, check out the TWD blogroll.

Another figure-friendly entry this week, featuring only three-and-a-half sticks of butter!

This week, Beth of Supplicious decided on Chipster-Topped Brownies on pages 94 and 95 from Baking: From My Home to Yours.  In theory, I should have really liked these, and they were good, but my two layers blended together giving me sort of a chocolate chip cookie bar.  I had a chance to use my Bakers Edge pan, a gift from my in-laws, and I did love the chewy edges that it produced.  In sum, it is not what I had hoped for, but I’m not complaining about chocolate chip cookie bars, if you get my drift.  Ah, the trials and tribulations of baking!  (Update:  my husband LOVED these, and has asked me to put them on the repeat list.  They are better after a day or two in the refrigerator.)

Let me back up a minute.  This recipe consists of two components:  a brownie layer topped by a chocolate chip cookie dough layer.  I mean, really, what’s not to like?  After reading the experiences of others, I knew I was going to want more chocolate chip cookie, so I made the full batch of that, and halved the brownie layer.  I didn’t mess around with the one egg/one yolk thing for the cookies – just used two eggs.  I also added a bit of espresso powder, 1/2 tsp., to ratchet up the chocolate flavor of the brownies.

They were perfectly baked in 50 minutes – the top was golden, not burned, and the brownie layer was not overdone.  And even though the picture shows two distinct layers, the two components blended together, and I really can’t taste the brownie at all. Other bakes had better luck by baking the brownie layer for about 10 minutes, then adding the cookie layer.  One problem I did NOT have was an underdone brownie layer, and I suspect that the pan I used, plus halving the batter amount, had something to do with that.

If you want to givel these a try, I recommend giving the brownie layer a head start in the oven before adding the cookie layer. Be sure to check out the TWD blogroll to see how others faired!

Unless you act now. Meet Congress’s latest nightmare.

If you don’t think this will apply to your small backyard garden (Factcheck.org is dead wrong on this issue), then check out this provision in the bill:

Here is how this bill defines who is included in “Food Production”:

(14) FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY- The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.

The summer roadside vegetable stand appears to be both a Category 3 and 5 “food establishment” since it sells “fresh produce in ready-to-eat raw form” and “stores, holds, or transports food products prior to delivery for retail sale”. The explicit exclusions in Section 3 (13)(B) do not exclude roadside vegetable stands.

Think it stops there?  Another bill, provides for the creation of the National Animal Identification System:

The USDA’s proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS) was originally designed to give the big beef producers help in getting export markets which required disease controls. The idea is that every single livestock animal in the United States will be identified and tagged. All livestock animal movements will be tracked, logged and reported to the government. The benefit is to the big factory farms who probably do need this type of regulation. They get to do single ID’s for large groups of animals. Small farmers, pet owners and homesteaders will have to tag and track every single animal.

There are no exceptions – even small farms that sell direct to local consumers will be required to pay the fees and file all the paper work on all their animals. Even horse, llama and other pet owners will be required to participate in NAIS. Homesteaders who raise their own meat and grandma with her one egg hen will also have to register their homes as ‘farm premises’ and obtain a Premise ID, tag all their animals and submit all the paperwork and fees. Absurd? Yes – There are no exceptions under the current NAIS plan. The USDA has slipped this plan in the back door without any legislation. This is going to be very expensive and guess who is going to pay for it in higher food prices… You!

Get on the phone.  Check out this link and this link for other ways to stop this legislation.  Time is of the essence. Email your senators and congressmen.   BLOG ABOUT IT.  The right to grown our own food is one of the few rights we have left.

*** UPDATE ON MARCH 11, 2009 – WE HAVE A WINNER!!! ikkinlala from Canada!****

Finally, finally, I have my new range, with an oven that works.  A new microwave that cooks, not burns, and has a turntable that turns.  A smaller, sleeker refrigerator, that does not freeze my food.  Now, I’m going to share my “lessons learned” when it comes to appliances.

First, let me say that this week’s TWD pick by Whitney of What’s left on the table? – Caramel Crunch Bars, page 112-113 – is fabulous.  I’m toying with the idea of making them with dulce de leche in the future, in addition to the chocolate and toffee.  I did not use Heath bars; instead, I bought a big tin of English toffee at Trader Joe’s and cut the pieces up.  Considerably more bang for the buck than a bag of Heath bar pieces.  I baked them in a 9×9-inch pan based on the comments by other bakers, because I wanted a thicker cookie than people were getting in a 9×13-inch pan.  I’ll try to get a picture of them up later.  I’m playing catch-up this weekend with TWD (in case you didn’t know, I’ve been out of commission because my range went to that big bakery in the sky), and I’m going to be making the World Peace Cookies, so once I find my camera, I’m going to take a picture of the lot (if there are any cookies left, that is!).

Now, I won’t keep you in suspense any longer.  Here is the giveaway:  The wonderful new book, Baking for All Occasions, by Flo Braker.  The rules:  leave a comment on this post any time between now and midnight, March 10, 2009 EST.  The comment should include one or more of the following:  why you love or hate one of your major appliances, and/or what is your dream appliance and why.  I’ll ship only to the United States and Canada (sorry everybody else!).  Winner will be picked on March 11 using the Random Number Generator, so please be sure to enter your email address (it won’t be made public).

Now, let us turn to the four big Lessons in Appliance Shopping.

First, form follows function.  What that means is, even though you LOVE that 36 inch Viking range, if your kitchen will fit a 30-inch range and you are not going to be doing a major kitchen remodel, focus your research on what will fit. After your budget, that is the most important thing.  So, measure, measure, measure, then measure again.  Once you know what will fit, pick a fuel source (if you don’t have gas, why look at gas ranges?), and only after all that should you pick a finish (stainless, white, etc.).  If you want a dual-fuel range, be sure that your electrical outlet has enough juice (see below_.  Once you’ve hammered out all these details, then you can move on to the consumer research.

Second, do your research.  Read Consumer Reports and message boards on the internet.  Do not focus solely on the “official” reviews – I learned a lot by reading the consumer reviews at Consumer Reports (CR), many of which completely disagreed with CR’s rankings.  For example, I ended up getting the GE Cafe gas range you see pictured above.  It fit in my kitchen.  It was gas, and stainless.  I wanted the dual-fuel range, but since this line comes with a warming oven, I discovered that my electrical outlet did not have the juice to power it.  Of course, I discovered this only after the delivery guys were standing in my kitchen.  The store was very nice about exchanging it, I must say.  Changing the wiring would have involved at least a $500 electrician’s fee, and then I would have had to pay someone to dry-wall and patch the ceiling and bookcases that needed to be torn down to do the electrical work.  So, I went with gas.  Reviewers gave this range much better satisfaction ratings than they gave a comparable Viking, and it was more affordable.

The GE Cafe line came out about 4 years ago, and I discovered that two major consumer complaints were the cheap plastic knobs and overheating of the oven control touchpad when the oven was in use.  Because of this, I was able to ask the right questions.  I learned that GE upgraded the knobs, and fixed the overheating problem by adding more insulation.  I’ve tested out the oven, and this has proved to be true.  Bottom line:  do your research.  Appliances cost a lot of money, and you want to get the most for your dollar.

Third, carefully choose to whom you give your business.  If you are buying new appliances to upgrade the look of your kitchen in order to sell your house, that’s not going to matter.  Look for a great deal.  But, if you plan on staying in your home, you should look beyond that.  I bought my appliances from a small local company that has been in business for decades.  Their prices were competitive, but what made them stand out was that they have their own service department, and will service only the appliances that they sell.  Because I bought three appliances, they gave me a discount on their 5-year warranty package, which covers EVERYTHING, including power surges.  If I never use the warranty, at the end of five years, I have the choice of extending it or another year or applying it toward merchandise credit.  The icing on the cake is that if we move, the warranty is transferable to the new owners.

So, why should this matter?  Folks, one thing I learned is that cost does not always equal quality or satisfaction.  I was astonished at the number of complaints over Sub-Zero’s, Vikings, Thermador, etc., particularly with their customer service.  It’s one thing if you spend $900 on an appliance, it stops working, and then you get lousy service, but it’s an entirely different matter when you spend $4,000 on a refrigerator or $7,000 on a range, and you can’t get anyone out to your house for a month to fix it.

Finally, you may have to compromise. We ended up getting a Fisher and Paykel refrigerator to replace our Maytag.  If I could have, I probably would have gone with a Liebherr, which received great consumer (actual users, not the pundits) reviews, but that would have involved ripping out our maple cabinets, and that wasn’t going to happen.  Oh, and it was $4,000, and that REALLY wasn’t going to happen. We went with the F &P because : (1) it fit, (2) got decent reviews, (3) did NOT have an ice maker or a water dispenser, and (4) came with a 5 year warranty and good service/repair support.  The trade off?  Space.  When I emptied the old fridge, I filled 9 grocery bags to the brim.  This new refrigerator fits only 6.  It has changed my shopping patterns, but we now have more room in the kitchen, and my husband loves it because he can find everything without asking me to hlep him!

If you have any questions about this whole process, just ask me in the comments.  I’ll be sure to answer.

And be sure to check out the other TWD bakers this week!

*** Update**** 2/11/09 Well, not so fast.  They installed my new refrigerator, but the range was the wrong voltage – 220 instead of 110.  Of course, now I have to return to the store and pick out something else, and a microwave that more or less matches the range.  Sigh.  Don’t know when I’ll be baking again, but I hope it’s soon.  I’m going through withdrawals.  But come back next week, because I’ll be posting a giveaway!  I’m going out of town this coming weekend – New York city – so hopefully I’ll have some culinary photos to post.

Master Chow, my honorable husband, and I picked out new appliances this past weekend.  They get delivered tomorrow.  In the next week, I’ll have a big post on what I learned about picking appliances, and I’ll also have a giveaway, so come on back!  In the meantime, please go see how all the other TWD bakers faired with this week’s pick, Floating Islands, courtesy of  Shari from Whisk:  A Food Blog.

Master Chow loves prime rib, and I had never made it, so this past New Year’s Day I decided to cook up a three-rib roast for him, and learn a few things in the process.

First, I found the meat on sale (at Whole Foods, no less!), and aged it for a week in the refrigerator.  Basically, that involved simply wrapping the roast in cheesecloth, and changing the wrapping a couple times.  To prevent the cheese cloth from sticking to the rib, unwrap and rewrap the cheese cloth after the first day. Before applying any seasoning, cut off the discolored exterior fat and meat of the roast.

Master Chow likes to be able to taste the meat he eats, so I decided on a Prime Rib Au Poivre recipe in the December 1998 issue of Bon Appétit.  He tells me that this is the best meal I’ve ever made for him, and he sat there chewing with his eyes closed, and occasionally murmuring that it was “soooo good.”  If you read the comments that accompany the recipe on the Bon Appetit web site, you will see that a lot of people feel the same way.

The one thing I did after I pulled the roast out of the oven was to pick off all of pepper coating – it seemed really, really strong, and looked a bit burned.  The bottom line, though, is that the flavor had permeated the meat, and Master Chow thought it was wonderful.  I served it with really sticky rice, and iceberg lettuce wedges, which is the only way to go according to my husband, because it’s really good at sopping up the gravy.  And the gravy was good, too!

This is my submission for Yvonne’s Magazine Mondays, so be sure to go over to her blog and see what she and others cooked up from their stack of food magazines!  Recipe after the jump.

continue reading "Prime Rib Au Poivre for New Year’s Dinner"

This is Madam Chow, on hiatus in Las Vegas.  No, not a pleasure trip.  Well, except for the buffets, but more on that when I get back home.  What I did manage to do before I left was to bake the TWD challenge: This week, Ulrike of Küchenlatein chose Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies on pages 146-147 (or look for the recipe on Ulrike’s blog).

These are not the soft and chewy sugar cookies of my youth; rather, they are very crispy.  The only thing I tweaked when it came to this recipe was the amount of vanilla extract – I increased the amount to 1-1/2 teaspoons, and I sure could taste it, which is a GOOD thing, as far as I’m concerned! Master Chow, a.k.a. The Cookie Monster, also liked these tasty little morsels.  Little, because I made them rather small, and they did not spread at all in the oven.  I should say that I froze this dough for a few hours, then sliced and baked the cookies straight from the freezer.  Slice and bake cookies are a dream come true for people who are averse to cookie baking, like I am, or who are very busy, also like me.  Oh, and probably all of you TWD bakers out there!

A couple of points on the baking.  First, I thought the cookies were sweet enough without any sprinkled sugar or icing on top.  Second, as I mentioned before, they hardly spread at all, so keep that in mind if you want a specific size.  Finally, Dorie’s baking instructions are perfect – these cookies should not get dark.  Mine turned a light golden color on the bottom and around the edges, but the top stayed pale.

Thanks Ulrike, for a great pick.  I’ll be making these again, and experimenting with different flavorings.  I loved the crisp texture and bright flavor in these cookies.  To see what others did with the recipe, check out the TWD blogroll.

This week, for Tuesdays with Dorie, Dennis of Living the Life chose Linzer Sables on pages 134-135 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.  I decided to make heart-shaped cookies along with some sandwich cookies.

I’m glad that I followed the advice of other bakers on the TWD blog, and rolled the dough for the sandwich cookies a lot thinner than the 1/4-inch that Dorie recommends in the recipe, or they would have been far too thick.  I chose ground almonds for the dough, and cut back the cinnamon to 1 teaspoon because I was used Vietnamese Cassia Cinnamon, which is a lot stronger than the stuff you usually find in the grocery store.  I think one of the key tricks here is not to let the cookies get too dark, or you spoil the pretty effect of the sandwich cookies.  If you rolled out the dough rather unevenly, that may require that you pull some cookies off a baking sheet before the others are quite done.   

The result was a crisp, flavorful but not-too-spicy cookie, that Master Chow, my honorable husband, thought was quite tasty.  I used some Polaner brand Black Cherry jam for the sandwich cookies, and he thought that it was apple butter, so next time I’ll probably try apricot jam.  I thought they were okay on their own, but really good dunked into a cup of hot tea with milk.  Yum.  Be sure to check out the TWD blogroll to see the wonderful creations of about 300 other bakers!

This week, Claudia of Fool for Food chose Chocolate Chunkers, and you can find the recipe for them on her blog, or in Dorie’s book.

I blogged about these cookies earlier this year, and to date, they are my favorite Dorie cookie.  Cookies are not high on my list of things to eat or bake (weird, I know), so when a cookie makes my repeat list, that’s really saying something.  And while other Dorie cookie recipes have been well-received by friends and co-workers, I just don’t see myself making them again.  Except for these.

I didn’t bake them this weekend because I stepped on the scale and screamed.  Since I have a plum cake and creme brulee coming up later this month, my thighs told me they needed a break.  I concur.  I’m also hoarding the pound-plus of chocolate that is needed for these cookies because Christmas baking is looming. To see what other fabulous cookies others have made, be sure to check out the TWD blogroll.