Tea

It's a bright, sunny Wednesday morning and we're on the way up to 62 F today, a big change from the sub-zero temps we had not that long ago.

Warm or cold, though, it's always a good time for tea.  Here's a good recipe for a wonderful tea drink that was taught to me by my wife.

Into a saucepan, pour one cup of liquid, 50% milk and 50% water.  Add two Lipton black tea bags.  Add a tablespoon of sugar.  Add a mid-sized pinch of cardamom, and also the same for ginger powder, and then add a light sprinkling of cinnamon.

Heat this up on medium heat or high heat.  You can bring it to a boil or not.  I like to let it slowly heat up so that it has time to blend all the flavors.  Discard the tea bags and pour it into your mug when it's all finished, and enjoy.

That's it.  It's a wonderful drink.

I love to end the day with this.  It's great if you have a headache or are feeling a little stressed.  It's great for a throat that is a little sore, or to help with a little congestion or cough.  But most of all, it tastes great and is very soothing.

That's the final post for January.  Enjoy the warm day, eat well, and enjoy life.

Moods and foods

 

Good morning.  January is almost at an end.  And for a little while, at least, we have some warmer temperatures after a brutal time of very cold weather for the last few weeks.  However, it's still winter, and that means it's good weather to enjoy warm scones, blueberry pancakes, biscuits and gravy.....

Hmmm, those foods all work well no matter the season, but right now a cool morning and a pleasant afternoon make those foods sound especially pleasing to me.

Did you know that yesterday, January 28, was National Blueberry Pancake day?  Just reading that made me feel like making anything with blueberries, not just pancakes.  

It's amazing how the change of weather, or a simple mention of a specific food, or especially our moods all can change what we are craving.

During the brutal cold of our recent sub-zero weather, I was craving hot spicy foods.  On this mild afternoon, I'm craving scones with raspberry jam.  And I feel like making blueberry pancakes or cinnamon blueberry spice cake just because I read about yesterday's national food day.

When I feel happy, I want to drink milk.  When I feel sad, I want to drink chocolate milk.

Everything, it seems, affects our cravings.  

Except for ice cream.  I crave it all the time.

Have a great Monday, everyone, and I'll be back with a more substantial post in a day or two.

Whipped cream and dispensers

Some time ago, actually quite a while ago, I was given a whipped cream dispenser.  It sat on a shelf in my pantry for a long time before I recently pulled it out in order to experiment with it.

The first time I used it (in fact, the first time I had ever used one of these), the end result wasn't what I expected.  It was much too liquidy.  Then I figured out exactly what was meant in the instructions, tinkered a bit with the technique, and, voila, out came what was expected:  a light fluffy airy whipped cream.

It's nice to have this as an option, so my thanks go out to the giver of this gadget.  

That being said, I'm not sure I will use it all that much.  It puts out light fluffy whipped cream, but I know that when I chill my whisk and my mixing bowl, and make a whipped cream myself the old fashioned way, it comes out rich and thick and dense, and I actually like that even more than what comes out of a whipped cream dispenser. 

A velvety smooth, creamy, heavy whipped cream is what I like.  I love the texture.  I love the ways I can easily add things to the cream such as reduced berries.  When I put the old fashioned variety of whipped cream on a slice of pound cake or on a bowl of ice cream, it's just perfect.

I also like to whisk it by hand.  It takes longer and takes of a lot of stamina, but it also comes out so velvety smooth that I could just eat it by itself as a snack.  Is that weird?  LOL.  I don't think so.  I love to take reduced raspberries and incorporate them into a freshly whisked batch of whipped cream and then every so often I will go to the fridge and take a spoonful and smile as I indulge my love of this little snack.

I feel like making some now.  So I am off to the grocery store to get some raspberries!

National Pizza Week

The second Sunday in January is always the beginning of National Pizza Week!

I love making pizzas.  At some point I will add them to the menu.  In the meantime, I make them for home.  I have a special nonstick pizza pan (see photo above) which can take super hot temperatures.  And that's an important thing because most nonstick pans cannot take high heat.  And I have pizza stones on which I place that pan.  These stones absorb the heat from a superhot oven and help to bake the pizza more efficiently and quickly.  

But I don't have a true pizza oven, a stone or brick oven, or a supremely high temperature oven such as you would find in a commercial pizza restaurant.

I'd like to build one sometime, in the backyard.  And then get it going really hot.  That's one of the secrets to a really good pizza.  Very high heat. 

Tonight, my wife and I have already planned to have a delicious frozen pizza.  It's not the same as something from a pizzeria, but it will still be good to have on a cold frigid arctic day as today the high temperature will be lucky to hit 0 F.  

Perhaps I'll even brave the cold and go out for the cheese and other ingredients and decide to make one myself.  Probably not!  It's too darn cold today!

I will settle for the frozen pizza and a movie indoors with my wife.

Have a great Sunday!

Our favorite pans

We all have favorite jackets, and favorite mugs, and favorite .... well, you get the idea.

For those who spend a lot of time in the kitchen, we have favorite utensils, favorite bowls, and favorite pans.  I have a favorite pan that I like to use for one of the brownies that I make.  It's a Twinkie mold pan made by Wilton.  Or it used to be made by Wilton.  I have learned that this pan is no longer available. And my careful and exhaustive research has revealed that no one else makes a pan that is just like this with the same dimensions, the same shape and size.  There are some that are close, but not exactly like the pan that I have.  I have run searches on Ebay hoping to find one.  But so far, no luck. 

I love this pan.  I know exactly how it cooks this particular brownie that is a popular item on my menu.  And I really hope to find another one or two to add to my kitchen equipment.  Then again, perhaps I shouldn't bother since eventually I won't be able to replace my Twinkie pan if it wears out since it's no longer in production.  Perhaps I'm better off finding a similar pan, and tweaking my cooking times, etc., so that I can use it for this Twinkie-shaped brownie that I like to make.

Does it really make that much of a difference?  I think so.  I think almost any experienced chef and/or baker will tell you that specific pans give you subtle differences and when we learn the unique qualities of each pan, it has an effect on the final product.

I will keep looking.  And I will take care of this single pan that I have and hopefully it will last a long long time.

National Shortbread Day

Today is National Shortbread Day.

Shortbread in it's most basic form is a simple ratio of sugar to butter to flour as measured by weight:  1 part sugar to 2 parts butter to 3 parts flour.  This ingredient ratio is what gives shortbread it's distinctive texture and flavor, although both can be altered by the addition of other ingredients such as the chocolate pearls in the picture above.  A few other ingredients may be added in addition to those, such as salt, for example, but the proportions of these other ingredients are very low compared to the main three.

It's important to use a high quality butter.  For me, that means a European style butter which has a higher percentage of butterfat in it than most typical butters found in the United States.

When mixing a shortbread dough, it's a wise thing not to mix too much.  Don't overwork the dough.  But do make sure everything is thoroughly combined.  I know, I know, that sounds contradictory.  But mix on low speed with your mixer, and maybe even mix the last bit of dry ingredients in by hand with a silicone spatula.

When using the term "short" in a dough, we mean a "crumbly" texture.  This comes about because of the high fat content provided by all that butter.  So a shortbread cookie is one that is crumbly in texture, not chewy.

So today I think I might make up a batch of shortbread and enjoy it with some chai or maybe some hot chocolate.  Combined with the chilly grey snowy conditions this weekend, it sounds like a perfect thing to enjoy.

Hot chocolate mix

Happy New Year, everyone!

The first post of the new year is another new item added to the menu:  hot chocolate mix.

When you order this, you will have enough to make about 7 cups of hot chocolate.

I've been tweaking this for quite a while to get it just the way I want it.  

Two different kinds of ground and chopped chocolate, a premium cocoa powder, some carefully chosen spices -- it's a great mix.  Just add 1/4 cup of this mix to a cup of milk in a saucepan.  Heat it up on medium heat until it's quite hot, but not boiling.  Whisk it once in a while to help it combine as the chocolate melts.  There you have it. 

Notice that I said, "but not boiling".  You can boil this if you wish.  But if you boil it, a skin will form on the surface of the hot chocolate, especially after it begins to cool.  Anytime anyone heats milk, the hotter it gets, the more it affects the milk.  Among other things that happens, proteins will separate and coagulate, and this forms the skin.  It's perfectly edible, perfectly drinkable, but you may not want the skin.  I don't. 

So when I'm heating up this mix with milk, I let it heat slowly on medium heat.  I like to take it to where it's just steaming a bit, maybe a little hotter, just at the scalding point which is 181 F.  You don't need to get out a thermometer to measure the temperature, though.  Just heat it up as much as you want.  

It's all good.