Ugly Betty

My mom gave me her very old Betty Crocker cook book maybe a year ago. You know the one, like a big orange binder? Well, I may have taken it from her house. . . with some later permission to do so, but anyway, it had been in my possession for a while now and I hadn't used it, until recently.

Of course I wanted the book because of the cake recipes. Old recipes are usually good ones, right? They're classic. They're the ones you want to keep around for a while and share with others (or maybe not, depending on who your crowd is!) I figured if anyone was going to teach me how to make a great cake it would be Betty Crocker. And in my seemingly endless search for a moist yellow cake recipe, that I was convinced needed oil instead of butter, Betty had my back.

I found a lot of recipes in this great book that called for shortening. I think that's just plain gross, so those recipes were out. I mean, for decorator's frosting or even pie crust that's one thing, but otherwise, that's nasty. I kept looking and found Betty's recipe for Two Egg Chiffon Cake. By definition, I've now learned that a chiffon cake uses oil instead of butter. That's what I was looking for! What was also part of the process was separating the eggs. I whipped the whites to a meringue to be folded in later, which makes the cake light and fluffy. So we have moist. . . light. . . fluffy. . . all good things. I was excited!

After some minor issues whipping up the egg whites (humidity. . . ) the cake came out of the oven and luckily looked perfectly fine. The recipe recommended using a Pineapple Butter Frosting to top it off, so I did. It was just butter, confectioner's sugar, and drained, crushed pineapple. It's pretty hard to drain crushed pineapple completely though, so the liquid left in there is why I didn't need any milk. Other than being sweet, the frosting was really good! With the cake though, the whole thing tasted GREAT! Of course with the pieces of crushed pineapple throughout the frosting, I wasn't able to smooth it over and have it look anything close to even semi-professional. . . so I present you with "Ugly Betty. "

The Tofu Chronicles, Part 1

I'm calling this Part 1, not because there are currently more parts to the story, but because I'm hoping that the future will hold more exciting tofu chronicles for me to share with you. . . so stay tuned.

Once in a while, I get inspired to experiment with tofu. I did so recently, for Jenni! :) My usual attempts don't often pan out very well, typically asking myself why I didn't order takeout instead, letting the professionals cook it for me. This attempt however was pretty good, so here you go.

I've tried marinating, baking, and stir frying tofu. No matter what, it still tastes like tofu. . . which isn't really a GOOD taste, but when mixed with other vegetables, seems to suffice and definitely make me happy because I'm getting a little protein -- so I suck it up and eat. This time, I decided to pretend the tofu was a vegetable.

I bought extra firm tofu, pressed it with a bunch of paper towels to get some of the water out, then cut it up in the thin-ish pieces you see in the picture. I then heated up a medium frying pan with a little bit of EVOO (the more flavor the better when it comes to tofu, right?) and then added the tofu, which I sprinkled rather generously with salt and pepper. I let this sit in the bubbling oil (almost enough to cover the pan completely, but lightly) for a while. . . not sure how long. When it got this nice golden color, I flipped each one (that was fun -- I ended up using tongs after getting frustrated with my spatula) and then added more salt and pepper, letting the other side golden up as well. Once done, I took them out and let them sit on paper towels to drain a bit. It was an interesting texture. . . somewhat crisp on the outside yet not the gushy ickiness tofu typically has on the inside. It was. . . cooked? It tasted okay on its own too. But it was MUCH BETTER tossed in a simple garden salad of mixed greens, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocado. I drizzled my favorite dressing on top (365 Balsamic Vinaigrette, the one sold in the refrigerated section -- there are two actually). It was a good dinner!

The I-have-no-food-but-I-want-soup Soup

Let me first apologize on behalf of ALL of us for being completely MIA for what, a month and a half now? That's just awful! It's time to get back into the swing of things.

You know when you need to eat, have no food, and don't want to go get groceries? I'm guessing this happens to all three of us here at BIFL (that's funny) and maybe to some of you readers -- all two of you. Here's what I came up with for dinner tonight. . .

I knew I wanted soup, but I didn't have much around the house. I had two medium tomatoes from a neighbor's garden that were getting a little soft, so putting them in a salad wasn't really going to happen. They had to be used, so here's what I did. I heated a little olive oil in a frying pan, cut the tomatoes up, and sauted them with salt and pepper. I let them go for maybe five or ten minutes, then started to crush the tomatoes with the back of my wooden spoon. I then added a big clove of chopped garlic and let it cook for a couple more minutes. At this point, it was more of a simmer because of all the tomato juice. I then pureed it in my mini food processor. (You could just use this as a delicious pasta sauce and maybe just add some basil and/or oregano!)

In a medium-large-ish saucepan (I started with a 3-quart but then it wasn't big enough and I had to transfer) I sauteed half of a large red onion in some olive oil. I let it go for five minutes or so, then added two cloves of chopped garlic. I then added about eight cups of hot water, the tomato mixture, and brought it to a boil. While waiting for it to boil, I added six teaspoons of Better Than Bullion vegetable paste (and two teaspoons of BTB mushroom paste because I ran out of the vegetable) and a bunch of dried basil. Looking at the onions float around, I decided they were lonely and needed another vegetable to keep them company. So I added some frozen peas to the now boiling soup, because you know I have tons of those in my freezer. That brought the temperature of the soup down for a bit, so when it came back to a boil again, I added some of that tiny star-shaped pasta. (I bought that as a mistake because someone decided to put it right behind a crumbled box of orzo at Shaws). I cooked the soup for another five minutes, and it was good. . . but a little salty. I luckily had some milk in the fridge, so I added a bunch of that, and the problem was seemingly fixed. So there you go.

I heart soup.

It's my turn to ask the question...

What is your favorite kitchen utensil?
Please note, I've said UTENSIL and not APPLIANCE. There's a difference. While it was my avocado slicer that prompted this post, it's my egg separator that prompted me to photograph it in action.

Pool Day fun

This post is over a month coming - but I promised to post pictures of the (mis)adventure, and I'm not one to disappoint. Back in June I threw a pool party here for my friends, and a conversation with Mel prompted me to want to make this masterpiece! I had a few days to prepare and accumulate the candy needed for the project, and a hunt for chicklets successfully ended when Mel found this great candy store in Austin for me (complete with Willy Wonka character 8-foot-tall salesman). My initial plan was to make this as a checkerboard cake, which is a three layer cake. My first attempt with this was riddled with mistakes. First, I did not cook them quite long enough, the chocolate cake was not fully cooked, but the white cake was and I didn't want to over do it. When I pulled them out one of the layers collapsed a LOT in the middle. I freaked out initially, but realized I could use this as the top layer of the pool cake, which would need the center cut out anyway. When I had this revelation I rushed to fix the cake, and cut out the center of it. While it was still in the pan. And not cooled. (anyone spot my mistakes here?) Now imagine trying to get the outer ring of the cake out of the pan in one piece. IMPOSSIBLE. I was struck with the brilliant idea of "pasting" it all together with frosting. Let's just say, this cake quickly landed in the trash and I began again, more slowly, attempting a two layer solid chocolate cake.

I made the two layers, cooled them, removed them from the pans and put them in the fridge for a few hours. Then I attempted to cut the hole in the center of one layer. I filled and stacked them, got on a thin crumb coat layer of frosting, and then I let it stand in the fridge overnight. This was probably my best decision, the fridge overnight allowed it to all firm up and gave it some support. Things looked MUCH better in the morning when I pulled it out to start again.See, that looks solid and sturdy - and pretty straight if I don't say so myself. Now I mixed up some very white frosting, and put on the final coat, and laid the tile (chicklet) border. I also poured the blue colored hard candy circle that would become the pool water. The original recipe called for Jell-O, but I didn't think the Jell-O could withstand the Texas heat, so I opted for some hard candy instead. When the pool water candy had sufficiently hardened I attempted to put it inside the pool - but I had made one more misstep. I hadn't made the circle of pool water precisely the same size as I had made the hole in the cake. In retrospect I wish I had made the pool water BEFORE layering the cakes, and just made it larger than the pool hole, and placed it under the top layer. So, I resorted to breaking the pieces and forcing them in a somewhat mosaic pattern. I was unhappy with this oversight, and it nearly ruined the whole cake for me.But, I kept on. Now for all the decorative touches. I used teddy grahams and colored twizzlers and gummy life savers and fruit stripe gum and starbursts and peach rings. I mixed a small amount of frosting with various colors and used a tooth pick for the bathing suits - those were the hardest, but I couldn't let these guys go naked, now could I?Now it was just the simple task of setting these guys all around the cake - a little bit of frosting to "glue" them down - and then quickly get the cake back in the fridge so it wouldn't melt away! In general, I am happy with the way it came out, my friends seemed to like it (and more than one person appreciated my attention to multi-cultural detail), but with all the mistakes I made along the way I was a little less than impressed. The next one will be better!!

I heart Oat Bran Muffins

I never make muffins, really. Muffins are kind of like cake. You've got your flour, sugar, butter/oil, eggs, etc. Muffins aren't generally healthy -- at all. THESE muffins however are very healthy, and much to my surprise, quite delicious.

I wanted to make some sort of healthy muffin, as I'll be away this week and will need a quick, energy-packed breakfast. This recipe simply came from the back of my package of Oat Bran. And get this, Michelle, NO PROCESSED SUGAR! That's right. So unlike you're typical cake/muffin, these use honey, no flour, oat bran of course, egg whites, salt, baking powder, a very small amount of oil, and optional raisins and nuts (I used both).

If you don't have this brand of oat bran around, let me know, and I can post the recipe. I highly recommend checking them out!

Blueberry Muffins

So I went to my local Farmer's Market this past week with Diane and Lyle. It actually just started this past week too. It was pretty small, but I was able to find some key items. I got some delicious corn on the cob, swiss chard, cucumbers, and BLUEBERRIES! :)

Scott saw the blueberries in the fridge and said, "I like blueberry muffins." I wasn't even planning on making blueberry muffins, but I looked around for a recipe, found one with the ingredients I actually had (who keeps buttermilk in their fridge on a regular basis? I ask you. I certainly don't.) and there you go. And you know what? They were pretty damn good. . . not healthy at ALL, but certainly yummy.

The recipe came from my beloved Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. Jenni, if you decide to make these (because I know you have at least one copy of the cookbook. . .) I highly recommend either waiting until they're completely cooled to take them out of the pan OR taking Martha's advice to grease and flour the pan. I used Baker's Joy instead, which is wonderful as you know, but the muffins were just really delicate and didn't come out of the pan very easily.

Isn't summer fruit just wonderful?!