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Posts from the ‘Toppings/Fillings/Jams/Jellies’ Category

Apr 16

Think Thin Tuesday: Getting Moussed on the Elkohol!

Girls like pretty things.  Guys stop asking me why girls like silly, pretty things.  Sometimes a rose is just a rose – and seeing something innocent, simple and beautiful can incredibly life affirming.  There are things girls love to think about and do purely because of the beauty of it.  I know you guys understand these fantasies more than you want to let on.  Barney Stinson and the popularity of Mad Men have proven that to me.  True your desires are a bit…smarmier than ours but regardless you are romanticizing those fantasies.  Why else would two of the most iconic womanizers of the decade be brandy swirling, suit wearing debonair dudes?  Admit it you kind of like getting dressed up once in a while too.

With summer finally starting to peek its head around the corner it’s time to start thinking about planning those wonderful summer cocktail parties.  Or at least in my imaginative world where I’m a Manhatten socialite I’m planning those parties.  You know the kind.  Music.  Women in summer dresses.  Men in linen suits.  China twinkling.  The sort of Audrey Hepburn fairytale life that a lot of silly girls like to daydream about.  I swear I never was one to imagine the details of my wedding but boy did I ever day dream about my ideal apartment and social gatherings in some upper-east side version of paradise.

I’d really love to have a place to host some sort of garden top party this summer.  It would just feel like the ultimate bucket list item.  OF course the problem is that I need money.  I need friends.  I need a life.  All of these things are kind of essential to this desire of mine.  I think if I were planning on for LA it would be easier since I know more people there who might enjoy an exercise in dressing up and getting all pretty just for the hell of it.

Only problem is that I don’t live in LA and I certainly wouldn’t be able to cater the affair which is half the fun of it for me.  Making appetizers and hors d’oeuvres is a lot of fun.  I love recipes like this one.  They are dainty, delicious and unfortunately oftentimes quite fattening too.  That’s why you have such little portions.  Hey we’ve gotta be able to fit in those fancy clothes we wear!  If the buttons are popping off and clothes exploding open it quickly becomes a different kind of party no?  And those little bites are pretty easy to start gulping down as the evening goes on…especially if you get the “drunchies” aka the drunken munchies. Since we all know the best garden party is a champagne fueled brunch at 11AM on a sunny Sunday…drunchies are sure to abound.

So if you are thinking of hosting any sort of party this summer—a wedding, a brunch for friends, a fundraiser with all your wealthy single bachelors for puppies (and hey invite me would you?) this is a great light recipe to whisk around on those serving platters or serve up as a dessert after a lavish dinner party.  Go ahead and “gazelle” it down because this recipe is deliciously, drunkenly de-lite-ful.  I have made this mousse several times over the last few summers and I don’t even really like melon all that much.  It’s sweet, it’s light and refreshing and hands down one of my FAVORITE drunken recipes.  The mousse itself is totally gluten free as well so if you have any celiac intolerant folks in the group you can just serve it in cups instead of pastry shells.  They will LOVE this…and then they’ll eat enough that they will “like oh my god you guys, you are the most awesome people ever and I really, really fucking love you.  Okay?  Let’s make this moment last forever okay?”  You know what I’m talking about.

Musk Melon Mousse Bites

Adapted from “The Boozy Baker”

  • ½ cup Muscat Wine
  • 3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
  • 1 honeydew melon, sliced into chunks
  • ½ cup sugar, divided
  • ¼ cup lemon juice, divided
  • 2/3 cup fat free plain yogurt
  • 24 phyllo pastry shells
  • Sliced strawberries for topping

Pour the Muscat Sec into a small saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin on top.  Let it soften for about 2 minutes and then cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the gelatin is dissolved.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

In a blend puree half the melon with ¼ cup of the sugar and 2 Tbsp of lemon juice.  With the blender running, slowly pour in half of the Muscat mixture.  Transfer the melon mixture to a large metal bowl set in a pan of ice water.  Repeat with the remaining melon, sugar, lemon juice and Muscat mixture and then add the second half of the melon mixture to the metal bowl.

Stir the melon mixture for 3 to 5 minutes, or until it begins to thicken slightly (its texture should be similar to that of maple syrup or raw egg whites.)  Remove the bowl from the ice water and stir in the yogurt.

Pour the mousse into a large glass bowl and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.  Serve scoop spoonfuls into your pastry shells and top with some sliced strawberries.

Nutrition info per pastry shell: 66 calories | 14g carbohydrates (9g sugar) | 1 g fat | 2g protein

1 serving of 3 shells is still less than 200 calories.  Not a bad dessert.

Mar 21

Why dough mistakes send me pinwheeling?

 “Why do we fall Bruce?  So we can pick ourselves back up again.” – Batman Begins

I need to remind myself of that sometimes when I’m in the depths of despair after some seriously stupid blundering.  My personality is such that when I make a mistake I take it as a black stain upon my very soul.  For a lot of people, making mistakes is embarrassing.  For me it is an eternal etching on a stone tablet housed in the corner recesses of my mind.  Some people might have a mental dry erase board but I take a sharpie to mine.  No.  Really.  I still remember things I got in trouble for from kindergarten.  I just don’t take it lightly.  I place so much emphasis and pressure on myself to perform—and if my friends think I expect a lot of them I hope they know that it pales in comparison to the expectations I have for myself.  This is why I really, really hate making mistakes.  Especially when I don’t get a chance to rectify the situation immediately.

I get tunnel vision when something goes wrong until it gets fixed.  I am literally incapable of focusing on anything else until I’ve fixed that problem.  I become consumed by it.  This can be incredibly frustrating to people close to me as I don’t compartmentalize well.  It tends to make me a bit manic at the best and explosive at my worst.  Thankfully the explosive behavior has toned down a lot over the years.  At one point in my life I would become essentially paralyzed by these problems and that fed into some nasty anxiety and depression.  Now I’m at least able to function day to day without falling to pieces.   Yet again another thing I attribute to…Bikram yoga.  I know I know I promise this post isn’t about that AGAIN.  But I do have to say that it’s the one thing that’s helped me learn how to better manage these situations.  After all you have to learn how to refocus when you are trying to balance on your tip toes in a room that hot.

Despite this improvement though I still get a wee bit overwhelmed when things go wrong.  I’ve learned that the absolute best way for me to manage is to take time to stop and develop a battle plan.  Even if the plan doesn’t generate an immediate solution, if I have goals and an idea of what I can do to fix my mistake, I feel an immense sense of relief.  One of the few things I do miss about working in a lab was that my mistakes were usually mechanical.  I’d mix up a reagent or realize something was contaminated—I’d have made a mistake but I’d always be able to go to my boss and say this.   “Well the bad news is that this isn’t ready yet but the good news is I know why it went wrong.”  That’s the hardest thing about laboratory research, because something always goes wrong, but a good researcher is able to figure out what/why and fix it moving forward.  I was always exceptionally good at that since I am relentless about cleaning up mistakes that are my fault.  I would keep a list in my notebook of mistakes I made to remind myself not to do them again.  Things like “double check that the heat block is ON before going away for an hour” and “LABEL YOUR SHIT.”    Unfortunately in my new field I don’t always get that immediate opportunity to rectify a mistake if and when I make one.  I feel antsy until I finally get a chance to redeem myself.

Now you might want to say “But Olivia, everyone makes mistakes.”  Great.  That’s supposed to make me feel better?  It doesn’t.  I know it helps some people but that kind of thinking isn’t how I operate.  I don’t find consolation in knowing that even the most brilliant minds of our species have made mistakes.  If anything that just proves even more that as humans we aren’t infallible and guarantee that my current mistake, if I have one to clean up, is only a precursor to the next one.  I’m also not prone to measuring my successes against others.  I define my goals, whether or not I succeed, purely based off my own personal expectations rather than measuring them against what others have done.  Worst of all if OTHER people are making mistakes that just means I have to be even more diligent not to let those errors mess me up.  So no, it’s not a particularly comforting thought to me.

You’d think that with this level of intense pressure I’d be a total wreck and miserable all the time.  Ah but there is one thing I console myself with about screwing things up: it is only through making errors that we are given the opportunity to prove our worth by fixing them.  I recognize that as impressive as it is to walk the line and perform perfectly, it is that crucial time after falling that I get to really prove I have worth.  Strength, resilience, ingenuity…these are all tested and best demonstrated in the recovery phase.  As human beings we are defined as being imperfect, and errors are inevitable, the only way to really measure someone’s fortitude is to see what they do after they fall.  I only hope I continue to rise.  Like bread dough.  Hey speaking of mistakes and rising….

I made these pastries the other day and they came out less than perfect.  Upside was that the dough rose just fine.  Downside was after that I screwed up, I admit it.  I shouldn’t have stretched the dough so much.  As a result my Pinwheels pulled back and lost their centers during the baking process.  In fact next time I might chill them a bit first. *Sigh* So they look far less pretty than I’d intended.  More like starfish pastries than pinwheels.  Thankfully the flavor was at least spot on.  I know because I ate five or six of them.

 

Cranberry Curd Pinwheel Danishes Read more

Mar 1

1 Comment

SciFriday: Something like a recipe, Bacon-bits and my creation!

From my heart and from my hand, why don’t people understand, my intention?

What’s this? What’s this?

Last Saturday one of my favorite authors was at a local SciFi bookstore – and holy crap did you know entire bookstores dedicated JUST to that genre existed? Anyway so this author, Seanan McGuire (aka Mira Grant from my Zombie-back ribs) performed a reading of her short story that is part of a larger anthology titled “The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination: Original Short Fiction for the Modern Evil Genius”

I know right?!

Book Signing!

Book Signing!

It’s a fantastically awesome anthology theme and the stories most certainly support it.  I can’t say I’m totally impartial about which one is my favorite so I’m not going to dive into that too much but rather speak about the event which focused quite a bit on the field of “Mad” Science.  As a scientist in a highly disputed field, biotechnology, I often would have debates with people both in and outside the science world about this one question: if we can do it, should we?  It seems to me that quite often in both stories, and real life, when the scientist ignores the second part of that question is when things get a bit “mad.”  Sometimes it’s a deliberate ignoring of consequences and sometimes it seems to be that the brilliant mind is so divested from reality, he or she can’t see that what is happening is wrong.  In those situations the scientist is so convinced that their intentions are noble, that the ends are so important, the means hardly matter.  In my tiny little opinion that’s where the “mad” part of mad science creeps in.  It’s almost like a fever that takes over and clouds the ability to make sound judgment calls.

While it’s highly exaggerated in fictional form, there are a lot of real world scary “mad” science things we could be doing today that are prevented only by morality.  We could, for example, clone a human being.  Today.  We have the technology.  The implications of such an act are what keeps scientists from doing it.  Rumors have emerged from time to time that China has done it – you choose to believe what you want there—but I don’t doubt that someday, someone somewhere, will toss consequences over his/her shoulder and actually make it happen.  Which leads to another interesting question about this kind of “fringe” science: if we can do it, shouldn’t we do it since someone else will and at least doing it first means we can control what happens?  Oh another delicious, delectable moral qualm that makes for amazing pieces of speculative fiction.  I wonder how often this was discussed by the members of the Manhattan project.  I really need to read more about that…. Damn it goodreads list, why do you keep growing??

My biggest frustration though with “mad” science is how often things get labeled as “Frankenscience” when the truth is so few people really understand the science they fear.  Oh god.  See right there?  That can definitely be the refrain of someone who is “going mad” can’t it?  But it has some truth to it.  Like I said I majored in the field of Biotechnology and get very frustrated with people who hold strong opinions on the subject of genetically engineered food yet understand almost nothing about it.  These individuals would most certainly call me a mad scientist for supporting certain applications of the technology—or for my personal desire to develop luminescent trees to line streetwalks with.  Aside from how freaking pretty that would be, it’s like the ultimate form of green energy.  Oh and yes  I THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE SEEING AVATAR OKAY?  Ironically enough, while we could clone a human being today, developing these trees is still outside our realm as I currently understand it.  Many people are familiar with GFP, green fluorescent protein, which could work but requires a black light to be seen.  From what I’m aware of, experiments that utilize luciferase (the protein that lets fireflies light up) have failed to produce enough protein to make any impact without overloading the cell machinery and killing the plants.  Again though I haven’t looked into this in a few years and I really should read up on it.

Okay new mad science project: time machine for the purposes of reading.

But back to the book, it’s fantastic and it’s certainly been helping me cope with a lack of good mad science-y television since Fringe left me.  There’s nothing remotely close now on regular programming to scratch that itch.  I feel like the show left the table without asking to be excused and so, much like a beloved scene, I demand Fringe return to the table.  Why?  I made some Peanut Butter Bacon Sandwiches damn it.  Now there’s some REAL mad science

WALTER: Megif avagin frim dim Tish.

LINCOLN: Excuse me?

WALTER: It’s Yiddish. It means “May I please be excused from the table?” No, you may not.

LINCOLN: Why not?

WALTER: Because I have just made some peanut butter and bacon sandwiches.

Not to be an underachiever I didn’t simply fry up some bacon and slap it onto a sandwich.  Oh no.  I decided that this application should be far more like peanut butter and jelly.  So what did I do?  I made Bacon Jam.  Why?  BECAUSE I CAN.

Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.  This stuff can be slathered on anything.  It can go in frittatas.  It can be eaten straight with a spoon.  I do really love it with some chunky peanut butter in the end; it’s just so damn tasty.

Olivia’s Mad Bacon Jam

An Olivia Original Read more

Feb 14

3 Comments

My Bloody Valentine

Alright it’s Valentine ’s Day and the inevitable talk about relationships, being single etc etc has come round.  Sure enough I have a number of people who have asked me about my “dating life” as the holiday approached and to all of them I say “nope, not dating and I’m good with that.”  As usual some people don’t believe me.  Some people try to convince me I’m wrong.  Some people warn me that time is a ticking away.  Some people tell me I’m being silly when I say I don’t have the time for a relationship.  Some people think I’m in some lonely girl denial when I say I’m happy on my own.

But the truth of it is: I AM sincerely happy on my own.  I AM too busy for dating.  I AM too involved in my own plans, thoughts, needs, dreams, desires to be able to expend energy on someone else’s plans, thoughts, needs, dreams and desires.   There is no case of “doth protest too much” when I say these things.  I am however getting really damn sick and tired of saying them.  I am getting really annoyed by the shocked “you aren’t dating someone?” when my response to the inquiry about my Valentine ’s Day plans is that I’m spending them with my mom.  Especially since even if I were dating I’d be spending the day with my mom.  Valentine’s Day has always kind of been more about mommy/daughter time over the years and when I think of the holiday that is what I associate with it.

I’m not going to rant about it being a Hallmark card holiday like some bitter old cat lady.  True it’s kind of frivolous and silly but a day about celebrating love—no I’m not going to object to that like some sour cherry on the fruit stand.  I think it’s a perfectly wonderful excuse to celebrate if you happen to be with a special someone and regardless of the origins of the holiday, the point is that it’s a day set aside each year to make you slow down and reconnect with your lover.  The restaurants might have crazy markups and the expectation that you shower the object of your affection with gifts—those aren’t things I’m crazy about.  However that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to have one day a year that serves as a placeholder where you push aside work, stress, trivialities and try to remember to spend time with a cherished loved one.

Okay so has that demonstrated that I’m not just a bag of mostly-water with a dusty vagina?  Can I rant now about how ANNOYING it is to be confronted by people who think it’s absurd that I’m happy in a single state?  It ain’t that strange folks.  I was in a relationship at this time a year ago and looking back on it, I’m in a much happier and balanced place now than I was then.  Coupledom does not automatically confer upon its participants a golden ticket to the chocolate factory.

Admittedly part of this is that I burnt out on my last relationship.  I gave a lot of myself and got very little in return.  I was trying to remember what I did for Valentine’s Day last year and to be honest…I can’t remember.  I remember what I baked and I remember that because of the distance and my job I wasn’t able to spend the actual day with the ex-boyfriend anyway.  I remember secretly hoping he’d have the kind of initiative to send me something at work or at home, because like all women what I really wanted was some sign that he went out of his way to let me know I mattered even if it was something as simple as a postcard in the mail with the words “I love you.”  I let it go since we were going to celebrate the following weekend but if I’m remembering correctly, and I may have blocked some of this out or be mis-remembering because to be honest I still don’t want to think about the unbalanced energy I spent on my last relationship, but if I’m remembering correctly I got mostly misplaced for a Magic the Gathering tournament that weekend.  But I don’t blame my ex for any sort of burn out I have experienced.  The truth is that I knew almost the entire time I was in that relationship that I gave more than I got, and I kept doing it the whole time knowing better.  “I give myself such very good advice…but I very seldom follow it.”

It’s kind of a relief for me right now to be able to be completely selfish and focus on what I want.  Like completing a 30 day yoga challenge (which I’ve almost made it through!!) or to work late and not have to worry that I’m short-changing a boyfriend when I do so.  I’m going to be taking some classes again soon, training for my first 10k as well, and so to be honest, the idea of having someone to care about is just exhausting.  The mere thought of it makes me tired.  When I do, or rather if I do, because I’m still not sure I’ll ever get sick of this bachelorette lifestyle, start dating again I have decided I will settle for nothing less than perfect.  Now if cupid wants to plop Joseph Gordon Levitt on my doorstep today, I’ll eat my words here today, but since I don’t see that happening anytime soon I’ll eat this tangy blood orange tart instead.

 

Blood Orange Tart

Modified from Dorie Greenspan’s Orange Tart recipe in “Baking from my home to yours” Read more

Jan 25

2 Comments

Scifriday: Farewell Fringe

Dr. Walter Bishop: Peter, hold on to these tight. Anti-gravity osmium bullets. Shoot Observers with these and watch them float away like balloons.
Peter Bishop: If we shoot ‘em they’re dead. Why’d we want ‘em to float away?

I love this show so much, I wear it on my head!

I love this show so much, I wear it on my head!

Dr. Walter Bishop: …Because it’s cool.
Peter Bishop: That makes sense Walter.

Fringe has ended and my heart has broken into a million, red-viney pieces knowing that the last bastion of good scifi tv goes with it.  Especially because this show was so damn good and not just because I got to hear Joshua Jackson lovingly say “Olivia” on a weekly basis.  (I’ve had a crush on him since the days of the Flying V) It really was an excellently written, shot and acted show—while there were rough spots and bad episodes, it was an original and fun series to watch.  Not familiar with this show?  Where have you been for the last 5 years!

Okay so Fringe is a show with a simple scifi premise: a specialized FBI team examines a series of events, ranging from the fantastical to the grotesque, and discovers that these events are linked to the existence of a parallel universe with which “our side” is unknowingly at war.   Intriguing no?  I was hesitant at first when the series began and like any show that is more storyline based, the first season ran slowly.  The initial few episodes were weaker because the show was laying foundations for a spectacular underlying storyline that played out over several seasons and 100 episodes.  What begins with the standard “freak of the week” rapidly becomes far more complicated as the story starts to craft connections between bizarre events and develop the real backstory to our main characters.

This show was essentially like an X-files for the 21st century—and in my humble opinion, had many one-ups that came from learning what worked and what didn’t work on the previous paranormal series.  Where the X-files underlying theme was the existence of extra-terrestrial life, Fringe followed the concept of the multi-verse i.e. alternate realities.  While simultaneously embracing some of the harder elements of sci-fi it also was a show about a much simpler concept: love.   While there is a romantic relationship between the pretty people on the show (Joshua Jackon’s Peter Bishop and Anna Torv’s Olivia Dunham) the real examination of love is actually that of a Father and Son.  It’s a beautiful story that begins with the estranged Dr. Walter Bishop and his son Peter Bishop…and it resolved in a serious tear jerker end.

The skills of the actors were especially highlighted through the use of the multiverse concept.  Anna Torv and John Noble played not one, not two but 4 different versions of the same character.  These two managed to capture both the big and subtle changes caused by altered timeline events with real aplomb.  John Noble as Dr. Walter Bishop is easily the fan favorite—he is a villain, a hero, comedic relief and the heart of the show all rolled into one.  Still I think the most beautiful character manipulation was in the version of “our side” Olivia Dunham in a world where Peter Bishop remained dead as a child.  Yes remained dead—take that as you will.  I will never forget the scene where this very quietly harder version of Olivia reveals what the driving distinction is: in this universe she killed her abusive father.  It was a quiet but jaw dropping moment in understanding this version of her character and Anna Torv played it beautifully.

Walter Bishop’s character also explores a concept in science fiction that I find particularly of interest: the question of what can and should be done in the name of science.  Dr. Bishop has a dark past—he has done many questionable things in the name of science with a variety of motivations behind them.  As you explore his character over the series, you still can’t help but love him and fear him and then love him again in spite of some of the awful things he’d done—including using children as subjects in some seriously damaging experiments.

Dr. Walter Bishop : It’s one of the inherent pitfalls of being a scientist – trying to maintain that distinction… between God’s domain and our own. Sometimes, I forget myself.

I hesitate to give much a way in this farewell fringe blog post because I really want to encourage those of you who haven’t seen the show, or who maybe only just discovered it, to watch and love all 100 episodes like I did.  I’ve noticed in general that a lot of shows seem to get picked up by viewers at the end.  It must be something about series end hype.  I know that I only just picked up Breaking Bad in its last season and wow, talk about juxtaposition to Fringe.  Fringe exposes the weaknesses and flaws of its characters but resolves ultimately leaving you loving almost all of them.  B.B. has done the exact opposite—I hate or pity pretty much everyone, but that’s a post for another day.

As if I need another reason to explain why I love Fringe so much there is a foodie element to the series as well.  Dr. Bishop’s many idiosyncrasies extend well into his stomach and we are treated to a reference to some craving of his in every episode of the series.  They range from the everyday, like rootbeer floats and blueberry pancakes, to the highly imaginative like bacon berry frosting and parmesan ice cream.  One food item is mentioned and shown with such frequency that I’m surprised it didn’t get a line in the credits: RED VINES.  Have I ever told you how much I freaking love red vines?  Have I ever told you that during finals weeks when I’d be cramming for microbiology and trying to memorize my amino acid structures for Orgo (organic chemistry) my diet would subsist mainly of diet redbulls, pizza and red vines?  It’s little wonder that I would wind up sick as a dog after finals…I wasn’t exactly taking care of my diet during those high stress times.  Still it thrills me that my favorite scientist was weekly eating the same “brain food” I devoured in college.  So of course when I said goodbye to the show this past week I had to make something featuring this uncredited cast member.  This season one of Walter’s food choices was a 25 year old jelly doughnut he made that he consumed with an almost crazed glee.  And so from there my abominable recipe was born: Red Vine Jelly Doughnuts.

Red Vine Jelly Doughnuts

An Olivia Original inspired by Walter Bishop on “Fringe” Read more

Oct 3

5 Comments

Dulce de Le-huh?

Dulce de leche.  Delicious to eat and almost impossible to say.  I feel like no matter how I pronounce it, no matter who tells me how to say it, I’m always saying it wrong!    I’ve heard several native latin speakers say it with slightly different affectations and maybe that’s because it is a common dish not to just one latin country but the entire region of South America.   Then the French have their own version called confiture de lait but that one at least I’m comfortable with.  Don’t even get me started on the Norwegian and Polish varieties.

Here’s what I can tell you: Dulce de leche is a caramelized milk sugar.  It can be soft and creamy so that it spreads with a knife.  It can be processed further to make chewy caramels that when slightly melted over a campfire become a Girl Scout troop leader’s best friend known as the “Shutter Upper.”

Dulce de leche is unique from more traditional caramel.  Caramel at it’s most basic form is nothing more than sugar which has been chemically transformed using heat (pyrolysis) wherein chemicals are released at high temperature transforming the sugar into a browned, nutty delicious sticky goo. The sugar used for caramel is sucrose (a disaccharide of glucose-fructose) whereas milk has lactose sugars (galactose-glucose) which partially accounts for the different flavor as well.

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful caramel….

While the sugars differ, the source of the more complex flavor in this latin milk candy stems from the presence of Proteins.  Since Dulce de leche is made from milk and milk contains proteins (typically you use skim milk so the fat is almost entirely removed) you get a distinctive flavor.   Whenever kitchen chemistry involves sugar + protein + heat the resulting chemical reaction known is known as the Maillard Reaction.  In the presence of heat the sugar groups get intimate with freed amino acids and form any of hundreds of flavors — and these will vary based off the amino acids present.  This reaction occurs in browned meats, french fries, roasted nuts, beer malting, toasted breads…and while all these foods do share a basic, similar roasted flavor you know they all manifest in different ways–because they all have different amino acid profiles.

I can’t turn water into wine but I can turn milk into DELICIOUS

Making dulce de leche is simple but time consuming.  It requires literally only one ingredient to make it–milk.  It also requires time and we’re talking hours. There’s a number of ways to actually cook the milk and some are much more passive than others (I go the lazy girl route personally) but all require diligence of observation.  Traditionally it is made on top of the stove where the milk is cooked over medium heat and whisked until it transforms and thickens.  Thanks but no thanks.  You can cook the milk in the oven, opening the door to whisk occasionally but I still feel that runs too much a risk of burning and I hate going in and out of the oven over and over again.  There’s a microwave method but again that requires a lot of starting, stopping, whisking and watching.  No the easiest method, though also the most dangerous, involves little more than a can of milk and some boiling water.

Boiled Dulce de Leche

  • 1 can of sweetened, condensed milk

Yup.  1 ingredient!  Never thought I could do it did ya?  Well BAM!  Read how behind the cut. Read more

Aug 29

1 Comment

Jamming up the works

How do you share friends after a breakup?  It’s hardly a new question and it’s hardly an easy answer.  Obviously it’s primarily a case-by-case basis sort of thing.  Some relationships end pretty well, or so I’m told, and little more than a light breeze ruffles the feathers of those involved.  Other times it’s like a hurricane that leaves lovers separated on different islands and friends littered between them on land and shore.  I’ve definitely been through that breakup experience many a time both as one of the exes and one of the friends.  It’s a common sitcom joke “Who gets the kids when you split up?” and sadly that joke is a reality far too often.

This is on my mind because of my semi-recent split and some attempts to stay in contact with shared friends.  Honestly?  It’s not going well.  I don’t think I’ll ever go back to my old comic book store…it’s too haunted by emotional ghosts for me.  I’m sad about that.  I liked the place and there were some nice kids I enjoyed seeing from time to time but I just can’t inflict those reminders of hurts and good moments on myself.  There’s a shop closer to home that I can go to.  It’s nice but it lacks the community of the old place.  C’est la vie.

Sadder still to discover there are people I’m just not able to be around.  I can’t see this one particular friend without a small amount of anger bubbling up inside me.  I get angry at the reminder of my ex, angry at the elephant in the room and angry that since they will be roommates come fall, I can’t go to anything at this friend’s house.  Ever.  Again.  It’s not like I’m forbidden but it would at best a painfully awkward experience and I’m just so angry that this is the case.

I have my fair share of talents and abilities.  Training in the art of Kolinahr?  Not among them.

It’s not the fault of the friend.  I’m sure anyone reading this has been in that position at least once.  Even when you have two friends who are both happy about the split, it’s still hard to maintain friendships with them.  If you invite person A to this party then you can’t invite person B…so you try to hang out with person B more on another day to make up for the guilt you feel over not inviting them.  It just goes on indefinitely until ultimately you wind up losing one, or both, to the awkwardness of it all.  I have yet to ever see a group that didn’t fracture after this sort of thing.  That’s where a lot of sitcoms seem to get it wrong.  Then of course you never know what to say because the things you aren’t talking about get in the way of the things you do.

This was the case during what I can only describe as a tense Brunch this past weekend.  How was it tense?  Well it was that nasty “exchanging of the other person’s stuff via neutral channels” thing.  That alone didn’t perturb me though.  See I handed off a bunch of crumpled, but clean, clothing.  In the bundle were some boxers and upon seeing them the mutual friend made a face, said Ew and rubbed the mess in my face.  It was supposed to be funny I guess.  That childish “ew underpants!” kind of reaction.  I mean I’ve definitely flung dirty socks at my kid brother even shoved them in his mouth on occasion when he was being annoying.  But having my ex’s unmentionables literally rubbed across my face?  It was for whatever reason an exceptionally upsetting moment to me.  I exploded a bit and huffed off needing to find a way to calm down.  I can only sum up how I felt as a combination of embarrassment and degrading.  Humiliating.  That might be the word.

Thus I’m sad to say I just probably won’t see the handful of shared friends much more in the future.  It makes sense really.  I don’t actually live in Davis anymore and I’m not going to be spending every weekend there.  I still drive up for Yoga once a week because I LOVE the Bikram studio there and I have yet to find anything close to my beloved Co-Op in Fairfield.  Regardless….

Why keep jamming up the works when I’ve got them running so smoothly the rest of the time?

I had been feeling so good too that morning after finishing a 9AM class at my old Bikram studio.  To clear my head I went over to the Co-Op.  Shopping for groceries is pretty cathartic for me.  I love looking at the the produce aisle imaging new dishes or surreptitiously sampling a cherry here and there.  Since I was looking to calm myself and not turn into Mt. Vesuvius, I veered to the bulk aisle and picked up a bunch of dried lavender flowers.  I’ve been wanting to try my hand at cooking with this ingredient.  I have a lavender honey that I absolutely adore in Earl Grey tea.  When I make a cup I can’t help but feel like I’m summoning my inner Jean Luc Picard and feel steady enough to retake the helm of my emotions.

My CSA farm boxes have been plentiful with plums the last few weeks.  You’ll notice I’ve used them in two recipes recently.  This time I just said to hell with it.  It’s time to make some Jam but of course I can’t do anything without some twist, so in went the lavender.  It’s quite the nice compliment and smells just divine.  Smeared on some toasted bread and a nice cuppa?  Ahhh yes.  Make it so.

Lavender Plum Jam
an Olivia Original with only 5 ingredients!
Read more

Aug 15

5 Comments

Julia Child’s Birthday & Lemon Meringue Pie Day

“I think every woman should have a blowtorch.”
― Julia Child

Happy 100th Birthday Julia Child! It’s not only your birthday but National Lemon Meringue Pie day and so I made some hybrid cupcakes and put that blowtorch to good use in your honor. Well your honor and my stomach’s insistence that I feed it something using the 4 pints of meyer lemon curd I made recently ;-)

With it being lemon meringue pie day I hope you’ll find these cupcakes an acceptable stand in. I do have an older post that contains the more traditional pie recipe. It was delicious even if the meringue did separate a bit from the pie itself. A common problem actually. See meringue is well, it’s tricky. It’s a foam that is constantly trying to undo itself and has a tendency to terrify experienced and amateur chefs alike. I certainly got a bit aggravated with how mine turned out on these cupcakes because I over whipped the stuff and knew it wasn’t going to spread in the creamy manner I’d managed with that ol’ pie recipe. Still I soldiered ahead with my blow torch.

“Upon reflection, I decided I had three main weaknesses: I was confused (evidenced by a lack of facts, an inability to coordinate my thoughts, and an inability to verbalize my ideas); I had a lack of confidence, which cause me to back down from forcefully stated positions; and I was overly emotional at the expense of careful, ‘scientific’ thought. I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.”
― Julia Child, My Life in France

Meringue at its most basic level is a whipped egg white. That’s it. There are a number of additives and I’ll get to those in a minute, but essentially the first meringues came out of the mid-17th century with the invention of straw whisks. Anytime I think I’m challenged, I remind myself that the person who first found this didn’t have the benefit of a kitchen aid and I shut up for a moment at least. Straw?! When you consider that what you are doing is taking water and and separating it into bubbles by displaying it with air and a thin strand of protein…that’s kind of miraculous on a molecular level. The proteins in egg whites get thinned out into the most tendril like strands as you whip them; physical agitation causes them to unfold. As the proteins unfold you expose their hydrophilic and hydrophobic ends water present in the egg whites and air. As the proteins rebond to one another, the hydrophobic (repelled by water) ends will want to bond together and capture pockets of air as they so creating bubbles and as bubbles accumulate, you get foam. Unfortunately these bubbles can’t last forever. The protein structure eventually collapses due to weight of the water and tightening of protein bonds causing water “seepage”. It’s up to the kitchen warrior to find a way to combat these pressures to keep that precious foam aloft.

What are the tricks to keeping your meringue from falling apart?

  1. Heat. When you cook your meringue you get extra support from a protein called ovalbumin. This is the strongest protein present in egg whites but it remains unphased by whisking. Heat is the only way to get it to unfold and restructure. Keep in mind that overheating causes the proteins to tighten together even stronger which squeezes out water from your droplets and creates seepage into air pockets causing deflation. Wah wah wah.
  2. Thickeners: agents like sugar, flour, gelatin can all be added into the egg whites to provide extra backbone structure for the air bubbles. Unfortunately they can also work against you if the ratio is off and they inhibit the same height your foam would get as unadulterated egg white. Sugar is the ingredient you’ll add most often, especially for meringue, because it lends a crispness and you need sugar in conjunction with protein and heat to get that caramelized flavor that only comes from a Maillard Reaction. Sugar reduces how quickly you can form foam and lowers the volume you can achieve because it interferes with the proteins. On the other hand it will thicken your meringue and slow down evaporation of water during the baking process. Why would you want to keep the water around longer? It helps provide structure upon which the protein lattice over you ovalbumins can harden. Powdered and super fine sugar is best as granulated sugar will leave your mixture kind of grainy since it doesn’t completely dissolve in water
  3. Copper Bowls: did your mother ever tell you to use a copper bowl when you bake meringue? Well there’s a reason for that! Proteins have 4 levels of structure. The first two are comprised of amino acids and hydrogen bonding between them.  Think of it like a string of beads.  Once you hit the third level, this string starts to fold over on itself, twist and compact into a tight ball.  Each bead could be thought of as slightly magenetic so they all stick together in a jumbled mess.  This globule is formed by sulfur to sulfur bonds. The fourth level is where individual “globs” bind to other “globs” also in part from sulfur-sulfur bonding. As I said before, when proteins bind too tightly to themselves it squeezes out the water.  Your goal is to unwind the original protein globs and then encourage them to reform in a looser structure that captures pockets of air and water.  If they compact tightly then you just wind up with a mess of protein and no bubbles!  Copper interferes with these sulfur bonds.*****Interesting side note: your hair texture, which is composed of a protein called keratin, is determined by these same sulfur bonds. Chemical treatments like perms use substances like ammonium thioglycolate to disrupt the sulfur bonds and then additional chemicals are used to restructure the hair as desired. Just throwing that out there for any Elle Woods fans
  4. Acids: copper bowls are EXPENSIVE. A great alternative to use to disrupt disulfide bridges are acids. Free hydrogen will bond to exposed sulfur and reduce the number bonds that form. A pinch of cream of tartar or some lemon juice does the trick nicely.
  5. Finally the style of beating itself is important. You want to operate on a Hypocycloidal style i.e. a beater rotating on its head that also moves around the bowl. Think of it like how a planet both rotates on its own axis AND on route around the sun.Most stand mixers do this for you. Sadly unless you are a double jointed circus performer, it is much harder to achieve this effect by hand.

“The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.”
― Julia Child

This post got long awfully fast! I have much more meringue advice to give but I suppose I’ll save that for another day. Ultimately though take a lesson from Julia here and just go for it with gusto. You’re gonna get seepage, over mix, deflate…it’s all going to happen at some point or another due to a stupid mistake or bad kitchen conditions. I knew once I ran my blowtorch over the too-clumpy meringue, it would be less noticeable. They aren’t as pretty as I like and I hesitated sharing because as I blogged earlier in the week, I’m a perfectionist to my core. Still I think for Julia I can manage to embarrass myself a little.

Happy Birthday Julia Child! I hope they’ve got pie in heaven’s skies today for you. (Please note :I am 100% agnostic and not insinuating I actually believe in heaven. It’s just a nice thought of the great French Chef standing over me. End of Disclaimer)

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes Read more

Jul 29

4 Comments

Lemonships ala Tart

You will never have a healthy relationship with another human being so long as you don’t have one with yourself.  I’ve told this to countless friends, and myself, time and time again.  Being in love doesn’t mean finding someone who completes you, it means finding someone who co-pilots with you.  *Cue the Wash is my co-pilot cry* So many friends over my lifetime, yes mostly ladies, make this mistake.  They want to find someone who makes them feel whole when they haven’t finished growing into the person they should be yet.  Hell I’m guilty of it too.  I mean the first relationship any of us ever has in life is going to be an example of this mistake.  Not only because typically we’re stupid teenagers, but because you can’t learn about who you are until you’ve been through at least one relationship and breakup…probably two.

There is another side of this too of course that I’m not touching on.  In my tarty opinion, a successful human being never stops growing or changing.  This is the cause of so many long relationships that fall apart.  You have to be able to grow together in the same direction and at a relatively similar pace in order to preserve a relationship.  If one person grows too fast, they’ll block the sun from the other.  If one person grows and other doesn’t that will cause a problem too.  That’s why I like the idea of the person being a co-pilot.  Oh god this is corny: you are driving a relation-ship.  First you need the training to fly it and then you need to find someone who wants to head in the same direction you do.  The ship houses both of you, but you have to agree on where to point it and continue to agree.  Damn I’m lame.  Okay let’s try another relationship analogy.  A food one this time!

Buffy: I’m cookie dough….I’m not done baking yet. I’m not finished becoming whoever the hell it is I’m gonna turn out to be. I’ve been looking for someone to make me feel whole, and maybe I just need to be whole. I make it through this, and the next thing, and the next… maybe one day I turn around and realize I’m ready. I’m cookies. And then if I want someone to eat m — or, to enjoy warm delicious cookie-me, then that’s fine. That’ll be then. When I’m done.

Perhaps one of the better known quotes on Buffy relationships and while not Shakespeare, it definitely has a certain Shel Silverstenian quality to it.  It’s also delicious and while I’m not knocking Joss’ writing here, not the best food analogy for relationships…because cookie dough is frakking delicious.  I mean really who wants to wait for the cookies to bake?  Okay I get how that could work, we’re impatient and we eat up the cookie dough before the cookies come out but we eat up the dough because it’s BETTER than the cookies.  Seriously does anyone out there not prefer a giant tub of dough to the cookies?  Hell it’s why we have that diabolical creation known as cookie dough ice cream.  In fact hold on real quick, I’mma be right back.

*five pounds later*

Okay that’s better.  Where was I?  Right – food as a relationship analogy.   If you don’t mind my getting all food science-y on you here, I think a better food for this line of thinking would be something in the citrus family.  For the sake of my recipe I’m going to run with a lemon though an orange would probably be better since we tend not to eat lemons.  Whatever just go with it.

Lemons are very tart and inedible in their young stages of growth.  The aroma and flavor we love forms in oils in the skin – the attractive qualities of the surface layer.  Below that is the bitter pith which thins out over ripening and is meant to protect the fruit inside.

Finally we come to the meat of the fruit.  In lemons it is known for a high level of tartness that is unpleasant to eat.  Did you know though that lemons are often picked far too soon?  A properly ripened lemon, especially Meyer lemons like the ones I use for my tart here, are much sweeter and pleasant to the tongue if left to properly vine ripen.  This is because citrus, unlike say bananas, are non-climacteric fruits.  That means they don’t ripen once plucked.

Lemons don’t contain starches and so they can’t continue to break down into sugar off the vine.  If you take a lemon when it’s still somewhat green or unripe, it will remain that way.  It has to stay growing on that tree until the very moment it has developed fully in order to capture all the sugars it can hold.  A starchy fruit will get sweet off the vine because those starches break down into sugar.  That’s why green bananas are fine to sit on a counter and ripen whereas a green lemon is essentially useless.

Thus if you pick a lemon too soon, it will be tart and unpleasant.  A properly ripened meyer lemon?  That’s something you can actually enjoy and suck on.  If you are lucky enough to have a tree on your lot, a fully ripe lemon can be delicious when thinly sliced and added to salads or fish.  I especially love a sushi roll at a local joint that tops tuna with thin, sliced and ripe lemons.  I’ll eat those slices with the fish—peel and all.  It’s like biting into sunshine.

That’s how it should go with a relationship; you have to give yourself a chance to fully ripen.  In my first relationship or two, I’m certain I wasn’t fully sweetened yet.  These days?  I think I know who I am, where I stand and what I need in life.  I am happy on my own and that’s a big test of whether you are ready to be involved with someone else.  Still if I learned anything the last month or so, it’s that even if I as a person am ready, my situation also needs to be.  Right now I’m not happy where I am.  I don’t feel like I have real job stability/future and while I know the path I want to be on, I still need to fully align to it.  That’s going to take a lot of effort and time on my part.  If I’m lucky I’ll find someone who can fly that ship with me but trying to fly it with someone who wants to dock in a different port?  Well that’s going to lead to failure.

Damn it.  I switched back from the lemon to the ship again.  LEMONSHIP.  I mean it’s lemons and the tart is round and kind of flying saucer looking so…let’s combine the analogies into a lemonship!  That works…right?  Whatever.  This is delicious and with just the right balance of tartness and insanely delicious sweetness.

Dreamiest, Creamiest Lemon Tart

from Dorie Greenspan “Baking from my home to yours” Read more

Apr 2

Muffin Monday: National Peanut Butter and Jelly-time

Happy Peanut Butter and Jelly Day! Did you know that it’s estimated the average American child will eat 1,500 PB&J sandwiches before graduating high school? It’s such a childhood staple and yet a fairly recent one in the grand scheme of things. Sliced bread and peanut butter weren’t really available until early 1900 and no mention of PB&J exists before 1940. It seems that most attribute the creation of the sandwich to World War II as a result of food rationing or a creation of cheap, high fat and protein meals for soldiers abroad. A far cry from childhood lunchboxes I think. Still even adults love having one of these occasionally and who can blame them? It’s delicious! I decided to dress up the childhood classic as a Monday Muffin that even a grown up can enjoy without feeling stuck back in a grade school cafeteria.

Since the topic today is things we still love from childhood, can I talk a little bit about Once Upon a Time last night? I know the BIG deal in television last night was the return of Game of Thrones, which was amazing btw, but can I complain a bit about this other show instead?

Just like my muffins, there are a lot of things adults love to revamp and “grow up” from childhood. Why else would a show based on fairy tales like Grimm or Once Upon a Time make it on tv? Unfortunately I feel that Once Upon a Time falls short of its true potential much of the timel. It has some good, even amazing moments, like any scene with Robert Carlyle, but the major storyline feels very cliche and meandering to me lately. It doesn’t help that I’m comparing it to some amazing fairy tale adaptations like Fables.

My major complaint at the moment is the direction the story went last night. I’m not upset by the idea that Regina’s mother tried to force her daughter into a marriage for status. It’s a pretty standard/overplayed story but I can handle that. Some things are classics for a reason. What bothers me is that Regina is played up to be fairly intelligent, highly manipulative and clever—all necessary qualities for a truly sinister, evil queen. Still would a woman that smart have a calm conversation with her mother who just KILLED the man she loved in front of her while plotting to kill the child who was manipulated by the same woman? Come on.

Frankly I’m a little disappointed that this is just about Regina’s true love being murdered and the blame falling quite loosely on Snow. I would have been much happier to see a deeper story in work here, something that helps develop why Regina adopted Henry. I kept thinking that somehow we’d find out Snow was responsible for a miscarriage or the death of Regina’s own child. I couldn’t help thinking this is how I would have changed last night’s episode to make it a bit more interesting AND make Regina’s adoption of Henry make a little more sense.

Regina’s mother kills the love of her life in front of her and Snow, and while Regina is angry Snow revealed her secret, she can see that her mother manipulated the situation. A child can’t be held responsible for being unable to handle her mother’s head games. Regina proceeds with the marriage and spends years learning magic from her mother (obviously what happens next in the show) purely to find a way to get revenge against mommy dearest. Through a decade or so of study Regina discovers that there is a powerful form on blood magic that can let you sacrifice a life to bring back another when the sacrifice is the murderer of the latter individual. It requires the heart of the murderer.

So Regina kills mom, brings back boyfriend etc etc but at this point she’s gotten used to being Queen and doesn’t want to give it up. The years of magic and act of the murder changed her and Regina definitely wants power. Instead of running away with the man she loves, she tries to keep him around and have a secret affair. Regina winds up pregnant and is passing the child off as the King’s. That is until one day when Snow finds Regina and the Stable Boy again.

Only Snow is aware the Stable Boy died and freaks out when she walks in on them. She threatens to tell her father and also questions Regina how she could have brought Stable Boy back from the dead. Regina attacks Snow and the Stable Boy, finally seeing the evil that has blossomed in Regina, is disgusted and tells her he doesn’t love her. She isn’t the woman he originally fell for and walks away. Snow then rushes off to tell her father, leaving an emotionally and magically charged Regina to have a miscarriage and lose the child of the man she loves. The queen gets brought in before Snow has a chance to tell her father the truth, and feeling partially responsible, Snow decides to keep the secret this time to spare Regina further agony but they are by no means on good terms. The Stable Boy makes one last appearance and tells Regina he doesn’t love her and now without their child, there is nothing to bind him to her and that he wants to start his life anew and not to look for him.

This time Regina DOES blame Snow and since she believes Snow to be responsible for the murder of her unborn child, the hunt to get her heart to bring it back from the dead begins…. (This could all take place shortly before the story line with Mr. Glass whom Regina uses to free herself from her husband.)

Of course the attempt to get her heart fails and you can have a whole plot line surrounding Regina discovering that the magic won’t work to revive her unborn child (perhaps because Snow didn’t directly kill her baby) so she has to devise an alternate method of revenge against Snow. This would also tie in nicely to Regina desiring to have a child and perhaps make her adoption of Henry seem a little more human/sympathetic. There could also be an element where part of the curse was that Snow would lose her child to Regina, but that because the closet manage to shield Emma from the curse, it was transferred to HER child which is why Regina wound up with Henry out of any child in the world.

Sorry guys, somehow my recipe for the epic childhood favorite PB&J turned into a fanfic outline. WHOOPS. Anyway here’s my original recipe for some yummy muffins. They aren’t too sweet so if you want more of a sweet/cupcake vibe add extra sugar and some peanut butter baking chips. <3 O
Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffin-time
Recipe from my kitchen Read more

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