Canned Whipped Cream and Other Guilty Pleasures

I have a confession to make.

I love The Bachelorette/Bachelor shows.  Really love them, in all of their cheesy, sexist goodness.

It’s partially because I need some good fluff after a night shift, in order to block out any thoughts about work and patients before I fall asleep.  I call it “numbing my brain.”

But it’s more than that, too. It’s like candy.  TV candy.  I know it’s not good for me, but I can’t resist it.

For the record, I’m rooting for Ben F.  If you’re going to have a failed engagement, at least get a few good bottles of wine and a few vineyard picnics out of it, right?

Anyway, I’ve been baking, finally.

I am big into berries right now, what with it being farmers’ market season and all.

These particular strawberries were not from the farmers’ market, but they were BOGO at the grocery store, so I couldn’t resist.  This Fresh Strawberry Pie was Luke’s idea.  I was less than keen on the idea of cornstarch and sugar poured over perfectly good fresh strawberries.

But I have to admit, this is a great dessert for summer because it is fresh, and you eat it cold.  What more can you ask for?

You could also make it look pretty gorgeous, like they did in Cook’s Illustrated.  I clearly didn’t bother with that.

It would be great with homemade whipped cream and homemade pie crust (like the recipe suggests), but I’ll be honest:  we used canned whipped cream and frozen crust.  It’s summer, after all.

busy.

Oh my…it’s been a while.  I’ve got excuses.  I’ve been busy.

Busy traveling, eating, sailing, swimming…and busy working, cleaning, packing, driving, flying, unpacking.

I’d upload pictures of the former activities, but I can’t without pausing the music I’m listening to (part of the “convenience” of our airport/hard drive, or something), and I’m just not willing to do that right now.  Maybe later.

I’m back now, though.  Today is my 2nd night off in a row, which means that I not only slept last night, I also get to sleep tonight!  Which also means that I have a full day without naps or sleeping of any kind.

Which–getting to the point–means I’ll be baking.

More soon.

Finally Spring Strawberry Shortcake

Let’s pretend that I actually finished my week of tried-and-true recipes.

The truth is, my last recipe failed me.  It was chocolate lava cakes that have always worked well for me, and this time, they were a total flop.  Apparently not so true, after all.

Moving on, spring has finally, finally come to Chicago.  In true form, Chicago took us straight from fleece jacket weather to shorts and a tank top weather in a matter of 36 hours or so.  No 70- or 80-degree days for us!

I’m not complaining though, I’d prefer hot to cold any day.

In spite of the weather, farmers’ market season hasn’t quite arrived, so we’re resigned to the Jewel produce section for a few more weeks, and I couldn’t resist the $5, 3-lb. box of strawberries there the other day.

What better way to celebrate the arrival of spring than with strawberry shortcake?

Day 6 of Tried-and-True: Pumpkin-Banana Bread

It’s 9pm, my apartment smells like banana bread, and I need to go to work in an hour and a half.  How much better would my life be if I worked during the day?

Like the cardamom buns or the almond cake, this pumpkin-banana bread is another frequent holiday meal menu item.

Day 5 (sort of) of Tried-and-True: Mom’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oh boy, this is embarrassing.

Last week really got away from me.

I was a little bit too ambitious with my week of tried-and-true recipes.  I somehow (as usual) expected to have more time than I did, but since I still don’t know how to create time where there is none, it didn’t work out that way.

This weekend we traveled to South Dakota to attend my sister-in-law Britt’s wedding.  Isn’t she beautiful?

Anyhow, between the working, the packing, the driving, the bridesmaiding, and the celebrating, the week of tried-and-true was put on the backburner (although you have to believe that I tried; I baked all the way up to the hour before we got in the car…I just didn’t have the time to write about it).

As an apology, I submit to you my most tried-and-true recipe:  my mother’s chocolate chip cookies, shared with her permission.

Day 4 of Tried-and-True: Chocolate Chip Biscotti

When I choose a new recipe to bake, I am usually motivated by one or both of these things, in this order:

1) the desire to eat the resultant baked good,

and

2) the novelty of baking something I haven’t tried before.

I originally chose to make this biscotti simply because I had never made biscotti before, and thought it sounded fun, and a little fancy.  I wasn’t altogether excited about eating the biscotti.  I just wanted to mix it, cut it, bake it, look at it.

I like the biscotti just fine, but the reason it’s become a staple recipe for me is because other people love it!

I don’t know whether they really love the taste, or if (like me) they are preoccupied by the novelty of homemade biscotti, but for whatever reason, people just rave about this biscotti.  It’s a great bring-in-to-the-office (or nurses’ station, as it were) treat.

Chocolate Chip Biscotti

adapted from Williams-Sonoma The Best of Kitchen Library: Desserts

Yield: approximately 36 biscotti

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for greasing baking sheets

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon instant coffee or espresso powder

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325°.  Grease 2 baking sheets.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

In a large bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and espresso powder on high speed until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs and beat well.  Stir in chocolate chips.

Add flour mixture to wet ingredients and mix just until combined.

Place half of the dough on each baking sheet, using your fingers to form each into a log about 3 inches wide and 3/4 inch high.

Bake the sheets for 25 minutes or more, until firm to the touch.  Remove the baking sheets from the oven, and allow the logs to cool slightly (leaving the oven on).  You may want to move the logs to a work surface-I usually don’t want to risk it, and don’t really mind cutting on my baking sheets, so that’s what I do.

Cut logs on a diagonal into slices 1/2 inch thick.  Turn each slice on its side, and return to the oven for 10 minutes or more, until the tops of the slices are browned.  Remove pans from the oven, turn the slices to the opposite side, and bake again for 10 minutes or until the second side is browned.  Cool on cooling racks.

Day 3 of Tried-and-True: Scandinavian Almond Cake

Yep, I’m Swedish.  Just a little bit.  In fact, I’m a lot more Irish than I am Swedish, but you wouldn’t know that by taking a look at my family’s Christmas table which includes Swedish meatballs, cardamom buns, pepparkakor, and the relatively recent addition of Scandinavian Almond Cake.

It’s a recipe that’s easy to make, and uses ingredients that we almost always have around (it’s practically a state of emergency if we don’t have almond extract in our pantry).

We have a special pan for almond cake, but it’s essentially a pound cake so it could easily be made in loaf pans.

Day 2 of Tried-and-True: Fudgy (and Spicy) Brownies

These brownies are always fudgy.  Whether or not they’re spicy is up to you.  I love them either way.

Day 1 of Tried-and-True: Kanelbullar

For the next week, I’ll be sharing seven of my favorite recipes.

The first is a recipe that I first made while I was studying for a semester in Sweden.  A Swedish friend offered to teach my friend Katie and I how to make them, and they have since become a tradition at my family’s Christmas table.

I love them.  Really love them.  When I made this batch, I gave a few to my neighbors, had Luke bring some in to work, and I still ate about six each day until they were gone.

The trouble with this recipe is that it uses both vanilla sugar and pearl sugar.  These are relatively easy for me to find in Chicago, whether at Ikea or at a Swedish deli in Andersonville, but if you don’t have easy access to these, they may not be so easy to get your hands on.

As far as I can tell there’s no good substitute for pearl sugar, although I suppose in a pinch sanding sugar would do the trick…sort of…

Vanilla sugar can be made at home, too, although it’s not the same type of vanilla sugar you would buy, which is more of a powdered sugar.

Kanelbullar (Cardamom Buns)

Stay tuned…

…good things are coming.

Here’s a sneak preview:

A week of my favorite, tried-and-true recipes.