Excalibur Cookies

That stack of seed catalogs is still on my desk. All I have had time to do is thumb through the tomatoes in the Territorial Seed Company catalog and casually ask Dave,

” Should I plant okra again this spring? What about watermelon? Cantaloupe?”

I silently wonder how much of my time this spring might be needed to care for my Mom instead of tending the garden, but with the ever present hope of a dyed in the wool gardener I will likely order the full array of plants and seeds anyway.

I have to admit that seed catalogs are just a small percent of the volumes that arrive in my mailbox. Most go straight to the paper recycling container at our neighborhood grade school but occasionally I find something interesting in one of them such as the cookie recipe in the holiday edition of the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Catalogue. The King Arthur folks describe them as a cross between a cookie and a bar. They call them Lemon Jam Slices. I decided to try them because they looked easy and I could use my homemade jam for the filling. I substituted lemon juice and zest for the lemon powder in the original recipe. I was pleasantly surprised about how quick and easy the recipe is to make. The cookies disappeared quickly too.

The Sands, Taylor, and Wood Co. is the parent company of King Arthur Flour. They have been producing flour and other products since 1790. Excalibur is a retired name for one of their flours. Come to think of it these cookies filled with raspberry jam would be great for Valentine’s Day.

Excalibur Cookies

1 cup (8 oz.) soft butter

1 cup (7 oz.) sugar

¾ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Juice and zest of one lemon

1 large egg yolk

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup raspberry or apricot jam

Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

1 Tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon milk

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or lightly grease them.

Beat together the softened butter, sugar, salt, vanilla extract, and lemon juice until fluffy.
Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl and beat in the egg yolk. Mix in the baking powder and flour until well blended.

Divide the dough into four pieces. Roll each piece into a log about 12” long and 1” in diameter.

Put two logs on each prepared baking sheet, leaving several inches between them. Use the handle of a wooden spoon to make a trough down the center of each log. Fill the trough with jam. I used a spoon but you could go to the trouble of using a pastry bag.

Bake the cookie logs for 18 to 20 minutes, until they are set and lightly browned around the edges. Let them cool about 3 minutes, and then carefully slice them on the diagonal into 1” pieces. I found that I needed to wash my bread knife frequently to get a clean cut because my jam stuck to it as I was slicing.

As the cookies continue to cool, make the glaze:
Sift the sugar into a bowl. Add the lemon juice. Heat the butter and milk together until the butter melts; then add it to the sugar and juice. Beat until smooth. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cookies.

This recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies depending upon how thick you slice them.

Leap of Faith

As the days grow longer the winter grows stronger.

My folks would quote that in German. It rhymes in German too and it is all to true in any language.

For most of the first two weeks of January our thermometer didn’t rise above freezing. The fields were frozen solid and covered with powdery snow. But the past few days have brought us a warm front with the temperature nudging 50 degrees on a few warm afternoons. The smell of wet earth and the muddy footprints on the kitchen floor have turned my thoughts to the tall stack of seed catalogs on my desk. The catalogs started arriving in the mailbox at the end of the lane in early December, each one holding its own promise of distinctive vegetables and fabulous flowers. I have my favorite places to order seeds and plants so I set aside their catalogs. Territorial Seed Company, The Cooks Garden, Select Seeds, Kitchen Garden Seeds, McClure and Zimmerman, White Flower Farm, and Trees of Antiquity are the major sources of the seeds and plants that make up my garden.

Territorial Seed Company is my favorite source for tomato plants, herbs, and supplies including some kitchen equipment. The Cooks Garden has a wide variety of lettuces and salad greens along with other vegetables and flowers. I always order their Spring Mix lettuce. Select Seeds specializes in heirloom flowers and foliage although they offer a few herbs and vegetables. If you are looking for flowers that grew in your grandmother’s garden, look there. Kitchen Garden Seeds has a nice variety of vegetable and flower seeds. McClure and Zimmerman are exactly what they claim on the front of their catalog, quality flowerbulb brokers. They have most every flowering bulb, corm, tuber, and rootstock you could want, heirloom and otherwise. White Flower Farm has a wide variety of annuals, perennials, shrubs, bulbs, and edible crops all of the highest quality. Trees of Antiquity is a new source for me. Last year when my Montmorency cherry tree died I went looking for a source of heirloom fruit trees so I could plant a replacement. I found a huge selection of heirloom fruit trees in Trees of Antiquity’s catalog. Their selection of Apple trees is especially impressive. I ordered my cherry tree and it will likely arrive in March.

Ordering seeds and plants is a leap of faith, a belief in the future, and the promise of honest hard work. I haven’t had time to plan my garden or put in any orders yet, except for the cherry at Trees of Antiquity. My Mom’s declining health has kept me busy just keeping the family comfortable, fed, and clean but somehow I will find the minutes and hours in the days and months to come to plan and plant my garden. The last time I spoke with my mother-in-law, Dorothy, before she passed away last October I promised her I would plant a yellow grape tomato this spring. Territorial Seed Company has just the plant to fill that request.

Somehow I will also find the minutes and hours in what I expect will be trying and emotional days ahead to continue to post to this blog. I may not post as regularly as I would like but I will continue.

Merry Christmas

A week ago tonight I was sitting in the emergency room of our local hospital with my 95 year old Mom who was having trouble breathing. Fortunately the capable staff had her breathing more comfortably pretty quickly and diagnosed a little less quickly. In addition to being 95 and having heart problems she had a bacterial infection. I brought her home from the hospital on Saturday afternoon. She is very slowly gaining strength but I am predicting that it will be weeks before she has bounced back enough to move around the house without needing help from me or someone else.

So my plans to spend December blogging about our German family tradition of baking dozens of different kinds of cookies for Christmas have dashed into the ether faster than Donner and Blitzen.

In the best of all December dreams I will have some spare time to post a recipe or two. There will be other Christmas seasons for me to bake, photograph, and write recipes but I may not get another Christmas to share with my Mom so I am going to dedicate my time to her and my family this December.

If I don’t get another post in before the 25th, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Lemon Meringue

My Meyer lemon tree is blooming. The flowers fill the room with their sweet scent, as though a Gardena blossom was floating in vanilla extract. The tree spent the spring and summer on the deck soaking up the sun and rain and now that I have moved it indoors for the winter it is covered with white blossoms and buds. I can only hope that some of the blossoms will become plump, juicy, thin skinned lemons that I can juice and use in pie.

Lemon meringue pie has been a favorite in my family for as long as I can remember. It often shows up at Thanksgiving, Easter, and birthdays. My Dad and uncles, my maternal grandmother, my aunt, my cousin, and most recently, my husband all counted it as one of their favorite pies. The components of lemon meringue pie – pastry crust, lemon curd, and egg whites whipped with sugar—have all been around for centuries, but it was not until the 19th century that recipes for the pie as we know it today started appearing.

I found this note in my Grandmother Emma’s collection of recipes. I think those ingredients would make one very ‘lean’ lemon custard pie. One of my personal critiques of many lemon pies is that the filling tastes too much like cornstarch. My second problem is keeping the meringue from ‘weeping’ (little tears of syrup form on the surface after baking). After many years of research I have found a filling recipe with which I am happy but I still occasionally get a meringue that weeps. I blame it on our humidity and try to serve the pie as soon after baking as possible.


The Best Lemon Meringue Pie…so far

One 9 inch deep dish pie crust, baked


Filling:

4 large egg yolks

3 large eggs

¾ cup fresh lemon juice

1 cup granulated sugar

2 Tablespoons cornstarch

A pinch of salt

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted chilled butter, cut into small pieces

Combine the eggs and additional yolks in a small non-reactive sauce pan. Stir in the lemon juice. Combine the sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a small bowl. Stir into the yolk and juice mixtures. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Do not allow to boil. Remove from heat. Stir in butter a piece at a time until it is all incorporated. Pour mixture into the crust.


Italian Meringue:

½ cup sugar

2 Tablespoons water

4 large egg whites

½ teaspoon cream of tartar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Put a one cup heatproof liquid measuring cup near the stove.
In a small heavy saucepan combine the sugar and water. Heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves and the syrup is bubbling. Stop stirring and turn the heat down to very low.

Using a stand mixer and the whisk attachment beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and beat until stiff peaks form when the beater is raised.

Increase the heat under the syrup and boil until large bubbles start to break all over the surface. A thermometer will read 236 degrees (soft ball stage). Immediately pour the syrup into the glass measuring cup to stop the cooking.

Pour a small amount of the syrup over the egg whites while the mixer is off. Immediately beat at high speed 5 seconds. Stop the mixer and add more syrup. Beat 5 seconds. Continue with the remaining the syrup scraping out the last with a rubber scraper. Continue beating on high speed for about 2 to 3 minutes until the bowl is no longer hot.

Spread the meringue on top of the filling starting at the outside edge, pushing the meringue into the crust edge and making decorative swirls and peaks.

Bake the pie about 10 minutes until the meringue is golden. Cool to room temperature and serve as soon as possible. Refrigerate leftovers if there are any.

Happy 95th

Last Sunday was my Mom’s ninety-fifth birthday. That was the cake I made for her. The bottom layer was chocolate, the middle layer was vanilla cheesecake, and the top layer was raspberry-- all iced in raspberry buttercream. There is not a crumb left.

She held court at a party for 45 of her relatives and friends.

Her niece, Kay and her grand-niece Emma, surprised her with a carrot cake made to look like a chicken sitting on its nest of eggs. Mom has a fondness for chickens that began when she was a girl as you can see from this photo taken about 1920.

We all wish you much love and many happy returns of the day, Ellen.

Doughnut Traditions

Halloween has always been a bust at my house.
Growing up on a farm with your nearest neighbor about half a mile away put a damper on trick-or-treating. The few times I did dress up and go door to door were with city friends in their neighborhoods. Hay rides were no novelty either. I spent too many hot summer days stacking bales on a wagon to enjoy a ride around the field in the fall very much. Haunted barns, well… I am under the impression I own one, but all the spirits are friendly.

My family’s biggest Halloween tradition comes from my Mom. She insists that Halloween is not celebrated correctly unless someone in the family makes doughnuts from scratch. For the past few years that duty has fallen on my shoulders. This year as I was kneading, rolling, and frying I started wondering how she ever got the idea that doughnuts and Halloween were connected. All Mom remembers is the recipe and that it was a tradition in her very German-American family so I decided to do some research.

Germans do have a doughnut tradition but it is associated with Fasching the equivalent of Mardi Gras. As part of the festivities on Shrove Tuesday and in preparation for a Lenten fast, thrifty Germans use up their eggs, sugar, and fat by making doughnuts called Fastnachts. I was still puzzled about how my family moved this late winter tradition in Germany to Halloween in America until I discovered more about some of the Fasching festivities.

In the parts of Germany from which my ancestors emigrated the carnival atmosphere of celebration included the custom of dressing up as demons, witches, earthly spirits, and dreadful animals to enact symbolic scenes of the expulsion of winter and death so there is room for spring and life. So doughnuts, demons, and witches at Fasching in Germany immigrated to Halloween in America.

These doughnuts warm from the frying pan with a dusting of cinnamon sugar are heavenly. Krispy Kremes are a ghostly shadow in comparison.

Raised Doughnuts

1 Package active dry yeast (1 ½ teaspoons)

¼ cup warm water (about 105 degrees)

1 egg

2 Tablespoons sugar

1/3 cup butter, melted

¾ cup milk, warmed to about 105 degrees

1 teaspoon salt

4 cups bread flour

Sprinkle yeast on warm water and stir. Allow to stand a few minutes until it is bubbly. Combine egg, sugar, butter and warm milk in the bowl of a mixer with the dough hook attachment. Add about half of the flour and combine until smooth then add the rest of the flour and the salt and continue kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic about 7 to 9 minutes. Spray a large bowl with cooking spray and place the dough in it, turning once to coat all sides. Cover and let rise in a warm place, 80 to 85 degrees. I put the dough in the oven of my gas range because the pilot light keeps it warm. Allow the dough to double, about one hour. Roll the dough out on a floured surface to 3/8 of an inch thickness. Cut with a 2 ½ inch round cutter.

Place the doughnuts and holes on a greased cookie sheet. Cover and let rise again until doubled, about half an hour.

Fry a few at a time in vegetable oil, I prefer canola oil, about 2 inches deep at 375 degrees. I also like to fry them in my 12 inch diameter cast iron skillet.

Drain on paper towels. While the doughnuts are still warm shake them in a brown paper bag filled with cinnamon sugar or plain granulated sugar. This recipe makes about two dozen. I usually double the recipe because they freeze well if there are any left after the demons, witches, and dreadful animals have their fill.

Corn

It’s not likely that Woodie Guthrie was thinking of anything like this when he referred to a “golden valley” but this shot brings his song to my mind. I actually took this photo over the top of the hopper on the combine filled to the brim with newly harvested corn. The trees at the edge of the field oddly aligned with the horizon make it surreal.

The crew was in this past weekend harvesting the acres of corn that are the major crop for the farm. I call them the crew because it takes at least three guys; one to drive the large green harvester that chews up the corn stalks eight rows at a time then spits out golden grain, one to drive the tractor pulling the large wagon called a grain cart, and one to drive the truck with the semi-trailer attached that takes the grain to the elevator or storage bin. When working at optimal efficiency the combine unloads the grain into the grain cart as it is harvesting, never having to stop and wait for wagons to unload or trucks to arrive.

I usually hitch a ride on the buddy seat in the cab of the combine for awhile during harvest. After climbing a ladder that puts me 10 feet above ground and going through a glass door I settle in behind the picture-window windshield and watch as the stalks and ears get gobbled up before me while the bin behind me fills with grain. It’s a bit like being in the control room of some sort of ship. In addition to the usual steering wheel, fuel, oil, and temperature read outs there are electronic monitors for yield in bushels per acre, GPS devices, and warning buzzers for I don’t know what. The driver is either my farmer, Fred, or his dad, Dale, the patriarch of their family. I enjoy my chance to catch up on how harvest is going and how their family is faring.

When my grandfather harvested corn he had to cut each stalk with a large knife, carefully stack the stalks into shocks in the field, then go back and remove the ear of corn and shell the grain from the ear. The amount of grain my modern crew harvest in one hour is more than my grandfather could process all winter.

My non-farm friends often ask what the corn is used for after we sell it. There is really no way of knowing what happens to the grain that grew in my field as it is mixed with other local grain at the elevator and sent off by train or barge for destinations unknown. Some of the grain could be animal food, some might become ethanol, some could be tortilla chips, and some could become cornmeal that I use to make bread.

Corn Bread with Bacon

I like to bake this bread in a well seasoned cast iron skillet because it gets a crunchy golden brown crust.

2 strips of bacon, diced

1 cup yellow corn meal

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

6 Tablespoons sweet butter, melted

1 egg, slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Fry the bacon in a 9 inch diameter cast iron skillet until it is crispy. Remove the bacon to a paper towel to drain. Pour all the fat from the pan and set aside.
Stir the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Stir in the buttermilk, bacon, butter and egg. Mix gently until all the dry ingredients are just moist. Pour the batter into the cast iron skillet, set it in the middle of the oven and bake about 25 minutes. The bread is done when the edges start to brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.