Baking and cooking from scratch forces you to slow down.  To put out a successful product, you need to take a breath, be in the moment, and pay attention.  

I know I bang it like a drum every single year, but during the holidays we do need to step back, slow down, regain our composure, and be deliberate in our actions and interactions.

Maybe me, more than any of you, Gentle Reader.

This week, I had a plan.  This would be the week that I shared the annual Christmas cookie recipe.  I was on top of my business.  I was a holiday role model.

Eagle-eyed readers, or indeed anyone with a memory just a tad longer than a hummingbird may have noticed a little flaw in my big plan.

Because, my cookie column ran a few weeks ago.  A.FEW.WEEKS.AGO.

So, this week I offer a totally scratch made pie.  With four components that aren’t dificult, but to be successful, you must be present in your own mind and kitchen.

As for me?

I’ll be busy checking to make sure I paid the light and cable bills.

Thanks for your time, and have the happiest of holidays.

Contact debbie at d@bullcity.mom.

Pecan Caramel Apple Tart

Crust

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup plus ½ of 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar

¾ cup roasted pecans

¾ cup (1 & ½ sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425°.

Mix flour, sugar, and pecans  in food processor until pecans are finely ground. Add butter. Cut in with short pulses until mixture forms clumps.

Prepare 9-inch tart pan by lightly spraying with cooking oil spray. Press dough onto bottom and up sides of pan. Pierce crust all over with fork. Freeze 15 minutes.

Bake crust at 425°(400° if using dark colored or non-stick pan) until golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Transfer crust (leave in tin) to rack and let cool. When crust has cooled, fill.

Apple Filling

¾ cup gran. sugar

¾ tsp. ground cinnamon

12 gratings of nutmeg

½ tsp. salt

4 pounds apples, cored, peeled and sliced

4 Tbs. butter

2 Tbs. cornstarch

2 Tbs. brandy

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup water

Mix sugar, cinnamon, and salt, and nutmeg.  Toss with apples. 

Heat butter in skillet until browned. Add apples, cover and cook until apples soften and release juices.  Uncover and continue to cook until pan is almost dry and fruit’s browned around the edges. 

Meanwhile, whisk liquids and cornstarch together and stir into apple mixture and bring to boil. Remove from heat.  When completely cool, pour into crust.

Caramel Topping

¼ cup milk

12 Kraft caramels

¼ cup chopped toasted pecans

1 teaspoon flaky salt

Combine milk and caramels and heat in microwave until caramels melt, then let cool.  Drizzle cooled caramel mixture over apple filling and top with toasted pecans.  Sprinkle top with sea salt

Cream topping

8 ounces cream cheese , room temperature 

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract  

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt  

2 cups heavy cream  

WHIPPED CREAM: Place cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and salt in bowl of standing mixer fitted with whisk attachment. Whisk at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes, scraping down bowl with rubber spatula as needed. Reduce speed to low and add heavy cream in slow, steady stream; when almost fully combined, increase speed to medium-high and beat until mixture holds stiff peaks, 2 to 2 ½ minutes more, scraping bowl as needed (you should have about 4 ½ cups).

Pipe on top in decorative manner.  Refrigerate for 2 hours before service, and keep refrigerated.  Pop out of tin and place on cake plate for service.

Serves 8-10.

Hi everyone,

I just this minute made a decision.

While the incomprehensible beliefs and opinions of the “Other Side” confuse, sadden, and infuriate me, for the next week, I’m going to be the girl from the snowman movie, and ‘Let It Go’–all of it.

I am forward-facing with love and patience. We are all much more alike than not alike, and that’s what I’m focusing on this week. Everybody loves someone and wants good things for the world.

Please let’s remember this, and just for the next week, let there be peace on earth, and let it begin; right here, right now, with me.

Let the children in the halls of government and the toddlers in media who make money from strife do their thing. But let us remember we all belong to the family of man, and please, let’s act like it.

Merry Christmas, Gentle Reader, and joy to the world!

Now, excuse me, I’ve got some baking to do!

There is a musical instrument called, literally, jingle bells.  It’s a short, thick wooden baton, upon which are fastened bells, each around the size of a kumquat.   This time of year, it’s one of the most overworked instruments.

The name though is kind of weird.  “Jingle” bells—bells jingle, that’s their sound.  That’s like having a toot horn, a pound drum, or a strum guitar.

But nobody asked me, so…

I bring up this onomatopoeia-nstrument, not because of the season, or even the music it makes, but its appearance. 

As you may have guessed from the title, this week’s food is Brussel’s sprouts.  Many people have only seen them as loose little cabbages in a bag or the produce bin.  But, they are sometimes sold on the stalk, which keeps them fresher longer.

On the stalk, Brussels sprouts look exactly like jingle bells, only Brussels sprout-colored.

I love them.  I love them so much, I still love them when they’re overcooked and “aromatic”.  The aroma, mushy texture, and extra bitterness that overcooking imparts is the main reason these poor, maligned veggies are so disliked by so many people.

If you’re not a fan, Gentle Reader, this week I’d like to give you a few reasons to try them one more time.

When you get them home from the store, that’s a good time to prep them.  Then when you want to cook them, almost all of your work is done. 

First, though, how does one pick out good sprouts?

Their color should range from sage green to white.  They should be tight, and neither wilted nor slimy.  The cut end should not have any dark dots.  The leaves should be tight, and they should feel solid in the hand.

So, run out to the store, and pick out a couple pounds of beautiful sprouts. 

Go ahead, I’ll wait…

Brussels Sprouts Prep Procedure

Start by rinsing off each sprout, then cutting off the bottom, and peeling any leaves that are no longer attached.  If you plan on cooking them whole, You’re ready.  But I always cut them in half vertically, so the cut side can get some nice browning.

Then get a very heavily salted pot of water on to boil.  Also, prepare a large bowl of salted ice water.  We’re going to blanch them (quickly boil) and shock (instantly stop the cooking, cool them, and set the color).

When the water boils, put in the sprouts and cook until the color brightens, and you can just start to smell a vegetal aroma (3-5 minutes).  Remove with a slotted spoon and place in ice water until they are cool through, then drain well.

Either go to the next step of cooking, or store in a zip-top bag in fridge for 3 days or freeze for a month. 

There is a third option; slice or shred the veg.  You can do this quickly and easily with the cutting disk on a food processor.  You can also use a mandolin or a very sharp knife.  You can then cook them without blanching and shocking.

Braised and Caramelized Brussel Sprouts

1 ½ pounds cleaned sprouts

1/3 cup white wine

1/3 cup water

4 tablespoons butter, divided

Salt & pepper

Place veg, wine, water, 3 tablespoons butter and a pinch each of salt and pepper into skillet.  Cover and cook on medium until sprouts are tender, but not mushy (6-8 minutes).

Uncover and cook until liquid’s cooked out and sprouts are starting to color.  Flip and let other side brown.

Stir in the other tablespoon of butter to pick up any browning on skillet and give Brussel Sprouts a nice, buttery gloss.  Check for seasoning.

Serves 6-ish.

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at d@bullcity.mom.

“Never say never.”—incomplete sentence.

It should be, “Never say never say never.”

I know life is a funny thing and you don’t know what’s just around the next corner.  I’m the poster child for that statement.  I mean, look at me; last week I had a phone interview with a famous successful fashion designer and this week I’ll be speaking with a comic who’s had multiple TV series.  I am both massively grateful and completely thunderstruck over what my life has morphed into.

But.

But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that I am sure will never happen to me, by me, or with me.  Because, while my life astonishes me, I am not a stranger here.  I know that some things just ain’t gonna happen.

Never will I be the first person to walk on the moon.  It’s already been done, so unless I have some Doctor Who-level technology, nobody at NASA need worry about what size space diaper I take.

I will never circumnavigate the globe on foot and bike and rowboat.  I’m not a complete couch potato, I walk at least fifteen miles a week with my pooch.  But Nellie Bly-ing is way too sweaty and blistery for me.  Besides, I’m not sure there’s a clear path all the way ‘round where an American passport is accepted anymore…

On a smaller scale, I will never do a cartwheel.  I have been trying since I was eight years old.  If it hasn’t happened yet, I can say it will never happen.  I recently gave up trying, when the fear of breaking a hip and emergency room co-pays overcame my optimism and ambition.

I will never be able to reproduce either my mother’s macaroni and cheese, nor her Christmas cookies.  Her mac is perfect—neither too wet or too dry.  The cheddar to the Velveeta ratio is smooth yet just a little sharp.  It’s perfect for eating straight from the fridge in the middle of the night in your nightgown.

But I can’t.  Don’t know why; just can’t.

Her Christmas cookies; I’ve spoken about them before.  Other people can, that’s why I share the recipe every year, but I can’t.  The procedure is some weird biscuit type deal that I can’t figure out, and the secret ingredient is either crack or fairy dust, to which I don’t have access.  So, if she keeps baking them, I’ll keep frosting them, and when she looks away, eating them.

I will never compete on Dancing with the Stars.  First, the prospect of me being famous is slim verging on impossible.  Secondly, even with months of practice, a world-class partner/teacher, and a touch of CGI, I can’t dance.  My hips are less slinky and more erector set.  Honest, nobody wants to see that.

I will never buy a paradox-mobile.  The 2020 Cadilac Escalade Platinum costs $95,000.  That amount of cash would have purchased 190 of my first car, Lancelot.  Luxury SUV is the very definition of paradox.  Nope.  Also, humvees.  I’m running to Costco, not storming the beaches of Normandy.  Nobody needs a ginormous, gas-guzzling, troop transport vehicle.  When I see them on the road, they usually have only one very self-satisfied occupant.

I still have never owned a cell phone (And every day I’m hearing the “cell” part less.  To anybody under the age of 25, it is the phone.  They’ve never had any other kind).  But there will, I am sure, come a day when I will be forced, by the government/big tech global conspiracy to obtain one.

But if you ever see me take a selfie of myself, just bury me, ‘cause I’m already dead.

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at d@bullcity.mom.

So let me ask you, Gentle Reader, does a second helping count as seperate item?

‘Cause if it does, I blew it today.

I think people on other planets are aware that I love, love, love the State Fair.  In the middle of August when I am so over the summer I could swoon or go on a heat-induced rampage, the only thing that keeps me going is the thought that every day is one day closer to the State Fair.

Honestly, there are people walking around not dead because I didn’t want to be on a chain gang during the fair.

For a long time, there was one part of the fair that I couldn’t be a part of; the media preview luncheon.  I’d turn on the news a few days before the fair opened, and happy journalists would wax rhapsodic about all the crazy, wonderful fair food they’d sampled.

 It made me so jealous.  It felt like not only could I not sit at the cool kid’s table, I couldn’t even get into the cafeteria. 

Then I started writing about food and one day, I received an invitation to the lunch.  It was like the opposite of getting a draft notice.  I was over the moon. 

It was a ridiculous, gluttonous dream come true.

Today was the fair preview luncheon for the 2019 North Carolina State Fair—and we got to ride the new mountain-sized Sky Gazer Ferris wheel.

There were almost thirty new foods for sampling.  I wanted to try every single treat and report back, there was a lot of food.  So, I had at least a few bites of almost all of them, and for the first time, gave myself permission to finish my three favorites.  I’ll start my roundup with those.

The first item was a complete surprise; it was the fried Rum Runners from the Gobblin’ Gourmet.  It was like a boozy brown sugar pound cake had been made into cake balls, battered and fried.

I sat there and ate the entire thing.  It was delicious, different, and not as in-your-face-fried-fair-food as many of the others.  They’ll also be serving chicken corn fritters which I’m really eager to try.

The second item I polished off was La Farm’s scratch-made s’mores.  Every component is handcrafted by Chef Lionel and make me, somebody who is at best unenthusiastic about s’mores demolish one in three wolverine-like bites.  The man’s wizard and every year creates a delicious, buzzy treat.  His new offering this year is a Cuban sandwich baked into one of his classic baguettes.  Brilliant and crazy tasty.

Number three is the one I had seconds on.  I’m not alone in my adoration, as today’s attendees named it best new fair food.  It was delicious resplendent, and probably the healthiest food you’ll find on the midway.  It’s a treat found in every Disney park,

It’s Dole Whip (From Tropical Delights).

For the uninitiated, it’s soft-serve pineapple sorbet, if pineapple sorbet was made by angels who love you.  I could eat a gallon of this stuff and look for more.  I cannot recommend it strongly enough. 

This win was the first-ever for a sweet treat.  But I was not even a little surprised it won, because as The Kid said, “It’s Dole Whip”.

Some of the other favorites were the jerk chicken rice bowl from Cool Runnings Jamaican, the deep-fried garlic cheese curds from the Cheese Curd Shack, and the Crack-n-Cheese® stuffed turkey leg from Hickory Tree BBQ.

Summer’s over, the fair’s in town, and there’s Dole Whip.  Really, what more could a girl ask?

I’ll see you at the fair.  WooHoo!

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at d@bullcity.mom.