The Joy of Leftovers

So, I was somewhat tempted to make a post of helpful hints.  However, I feel that the "hints" in question will make you think what I thought when I read the recipes for some of the classic French sauces in one of my cookbooks: "You've got to be kidding me; I mean, really, who has the time for that?"  On a side note, I feel that the British speak pattern of endless run-on sentences is superlative for complaints or criticisms.  Take the above example-- while adequately punctuated, it contains no less than three separate items of complaint.  Masterful.  Why all this fuss about French sauces?  Because a lot of those sauces are made from another sauce, which is made from yet a third sauce, or at the very least requires fresh homemade meat stock, which may as well be a sauce since it takes another three hours to prepare it.  I mean, honestly, really, what is the point?  So I won't pretend that my "hints" are expedient, but I will mention them since they were both pleasant surprises to me.

Hint # 1
"I am trying to eat more healthily but have a secret craving for that "Cream of Mushroom Soup" flavor for my casseroles."  Solution: make creamy mushroom risotto.  Put it in your casserole instead of boil-in-bag rice and Cream of Mushroom.  Tastes the same.  100% less badness.

Hint # 2
"I am trying to eat more healthily, or more low-meatily, but I miss the flavor of beefy delicious casseroles."  Solution: make my recipe for Rich Weekday Pasta e Fagioli and let it sit until the pasta soaks up the rest of the broth.  Put it on the bottom layer of your traditionally beefy casserole instead of ground beef.  This would obviously be best suited to a meat-and-tomato type dish.  Seriously.  It's yummy.

I discovered both of these through the joy of leftover eating.  Which just goes to show that doing so is not only cheap, but also educational.  I actually read a recent newspaper article that said that Italians in Italy are suddenly going back to eating leftovers instead of, I guess, just throwing them away.  I would judge, but I know Americans are no better.  I feel like I need to start an outreach program for people who were not brought up to actually make good use of their money.  Maybe that's what this blog is.

Polenta Gangnam Style

Yes, I just went there.  Ever since I saw the music video which [spoiler alert] features Psy on the toilet [end spoiler], "Gangnam Style" has been my version of "Like a boss".  Which, I guess, was the point.  It's true.  I go around the house at times sounding like a bad impersonation of Kim Jong Il.  Returning to the subject, polenta is my new favorite meat substitute.  In order of likelihood, I will address your violent protests.  "But it doesn't hardly have any protein!"  Please.  When was the last time you chowed down on some plain tofu with salt and pepper for the sheer protein quality?  Thank you.  I would posit that the majority of the protein in a typical low-meat diet comes from: eggs, cheese, and beans.  And, according to some, kale.  But not me.  You will not find me "on the kale trail", as I once heard someone put it.  Ok, that's really the only protest I could think up.  But hear me out: it takes on the flavor of whatever you put it in, much like tofu, while itself having a pleasing texture and taste (especially if you make it with a savory broth), unlike tofu.  It also holds its shape remarkably well, also like tofu.  And, completely unlike tofu, it is both cheap and easy to make in your own kitchen in a short amount of time.  With all that being said, I present to you my tutorial of how to make polenta.  I offer it as a recipe AND tutorial because the recipe I used was somewhat vague and, at the time, I was totally unsure if I was over- or undercooking my polenta.  (I wasn't.  It turned out delicate and firm at the same time, unlike polenta I have had in the past that was dense and grainy.)  So here we go:

Polenta Gangnam Style

1-1/2 C. yellow corn meal (extra style points if it's non-GMO)
5 C. water or broth
1 tsp. salt
1-2 TB. cooking oil
more water

First: put your broth or water on the stove (aka the five cups-worth) and turn the unit on high so it will come to a rapid boil.  Then, whisk together your salt and cornmeal, then two cups of water (aka the "more water").  When the water or broth on the stove comes to a boil, dump all your water/cornmeal mixture into it in one go and whisk it rapidly while it's boiling to eliminate and also prevent any lumps.  Next, turn the heat on the stove down to medium, or even medium low.  You don't want to evaporate the water too fast.  Because that, my friends, is purpose A of the cooking of polenta: evaporating off the excess water.  Purpose B is to denature the corn proteins so that your finished product "sets".  Kind of like jello, which is made from animal proteins.  Geddit?  So, your role, once you've turned the stove Bwn, is to stand in front of your pot wearing your thickest skin or long sleeves and prepare to try not to get splattered by boiling hot proto-polenta while you stir it continuously (stir always in the same direction because that will help you not get splattered as much, especially as the polenta gets closer to being finished) for thirty minutes OR UNTIL DONE. 

Yes, I threw down the "until done" card.  I already broke one rule and mentioned organic chemistry in this post with the protein denaturing, so I might as well go all out.  Organic chemistry and "until done" do kind of go together, maybe because food is made mainly of organic compounds.  Unlike non-organic chemistry, which tend to happen on a predictable and invariable schedule, organic reactions happen as a law unto themselves.  So it is with cooking.  Sometimes "done" might be shorter than thirty minutes, sometimes it might be longer.  You just kind of have to eyeball it. 

So, what does "until done" look like, since eyeballing it is your best bet?  Well, first of all, you will have reduced the volume in your pot to about half what you started with.  But that's not all, because that will happen considerably before your polenta is really done.  But when that happens, it's time to really watch while you're stirring.  So basically, as you stir and stir you will notice that the surface of the polenta will start to become glossy.  Also, you will notice that, as you stir, instead of the bubbles that form popping and splattering, they will rupture and deflate without splashing and with the majority of the bubble remaining intact.  At this point, I leave it up to you.  When you feel that your polenta is nice and thick and creamy, pour it into a greased pan and let it set, which will take around 15-20 minutes.  At this point you'll be able to slice it.  Enjoy!

How to Keep Salad Fresh / Once Upon a Time

Ok, this isn't really a recipe, but it is one of my favorite discoveries of recent times.  And it has to do with me not liking salad all that much.  Salad is, as we all probably know, a "healthy" food.  Unless you live somewhere with less-than-sanitary growing conditions.  Then it is a green, leafy deathtrap.  However, I like my food cooked.  Well cooked.  Not to say overcooked.  Just not raw.  Or even close to raw.  This also applies to the meat products that I ever more-infrequently eat.  Beef Tartar: three words: musky slimy sickly-sweet.  FYI I also don't care for sushi.  Maybe I would like it in Japan.  I've been told western sushi is like the pale, facebooking half-cousin of the footballer real sushi.  With that in mind, I also freely admit to a passion for deep-fried sushi.  Yum.  Throw in some cream cheese and spicy mayo sauce and I am in xenophobic sushi heaven.  Anyway, despite the fact that I do not, on the balance, prefer salad, I occasionally have some in the house because I know it's a filling and nutritious way to get some vitamins and fiber in my diet and, honestly, the grocery store sells salad greens in pesky whole heads.  However, remember that I was brought up in part by Grandmom.  So I can't abide eating one or two bowls of it over the course of almost a month and watching the rest of it turn into mush in my refrigerator.  What, oh what, is a girl to do?  Nothing, at least, nothing intentionally.  (Intentionally, I have been known to neglect things I don't want to eat in the refrigerator until they spoil because then I have to throw them away.)  I will now pass on to you my accidentally-discovered miracle way of keeping salad fresh in the refrigerator for almost a month.

Forever Fresh Salad Greens
You will need:
1 glass bowl (I don't know if this is a factor, but it's what I always use so I'm just throwing it out there in case it's actually a critical element)
1 large square of cheesecloth.

That's it.  Wash your greens really well in the sink.  By "really well," I mean tear all the leaves off the core of your lettuce, then putting them in the sink and filling it up partway with water, then dabbling them around like you're washing lacy fragile underwear.  For the men out there, wash it like you're washing your balls.  There.  I said it.  Basically what this means is swooshing the water around in the sink but not really handling the lettuce much, per se, although you do want to turn each leaf fully over at least once.  If necessary (if there's a some stubborn earth, for example), you may need to pick up an individual leaf partly out of the water, sort of rub the dirt off, and then splash the leaf around until the remainder of the dirt comes off.

Once your greens are all washed, chop or tear the leaves into bite-sized pieces.  Why all the fuss about swooshing the lettuce when you're only going to tear it?  Because each tear is inevitable, but also relatively clean and neat.  If you create bruising in the body of the leaves, it will allow slime-making bacteria points of entrance, thus making your lettuce go bad faster.  Line your glass bowl with the cheesecloth, making sure there is ample cheesecloth hanging over the sides (there's a purpose for this).  Put your pieces of lettuce in the bowl.  (I usually tear them right out of the sink and put them directly in the bowl.)  The cheesecloth will absorb any excess water.  And here is where I think the magic happens.  Once you put all of your lettuce in the bowl, fold the excess cheesecloth over the top, covering all of the lettuce.  And put your bowl in the fridge.  It's my impression that the cheesecloth continuously wicks away moisture from your greens, thus preventing a large amount of bacterial growth and spoilage.  Whatever it is, your lettuce will remain crisp, unbrowned, unslimed, and tasty for far longer than you would have thought possible.  I haven't timed it, but I know regularly prepared lettuce lasts tastily about a week, maybe a week and a half for me, but if I do it this way it's about twice as long.
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I am about to share one of my favorite family stories.  However, it does not involve Grandmom.  (Sorry Grandmom!)  It's from the other side of the family, and does not even concern family members, but close friends of the family.

Once upon a time, there was World War Two.  There was also a young couple in love.  The man enlisted as an officer, and went off to training before being deployed.  On one of his leaves, the young couple married.  Then, the officer was deployed.  The wife was destraught.  She missed her beloved husband, and she knew that wherever he was, he was getting shot at and maybe even killed.  She couldn't stand it.  She couldn't stand the tension between getting to see him on leaves and not knowing if it was the last time she ever did.

So she enlisted in the Women's Air Service Program.  Yes, she became a WASP.  Her reasoning was that she couldn't keep her husband getting killed, but she could fight Hitler too, and if her husband did get killed, she could take it out of Hitler one pound of flesh at a time.  So she learned to fly a plane, and became one of the many women pilots who shipped supplies and equipment from factories to the places where they would be picked up and transported to the point of battle.

So now it was the two of them who had to coordinate leave schedules to meet.  The Missus, being a pilot, had the luxury of being able to occasionally borrow planes and fly home.  And here comes my favorite part:

On one such meeting, her husband arrived earlier than she did in their hometown.  (By automobile.)  He waited for her in the field that that she was supposed to land in.  He saw her plane approaching, and then, the unthinkable happened: something went wrong with the plane.  It began a long and desperate descent, ending in a spectacular crash in the middle of the field.  He was horrified.  It was any devoted husband's worst nightmare.  He ran over to the plane.  The Missus emerged, mostly unscathed.  Of course, he asked the question most people would ask first: "Are you alright?"  And she answered: "Yes, but that sonofabitch isn't ever going to fly again."

Why is that my favorite part?  It exemplifies, I think, one of the most useful skills anyone can learn in life: how to go down in flames.  (I don't know if there were literal flames in this case.)  Did she panic?  Did she freeze?  Did she go into some form of suicidal denial?  No.  She crashed that sonofabitch in the middle of the field, climbed out of the wreckage, and went on a date with her husband.  Going down in flames is something that few of us, if anyone, can prevent occuring in our lives.  But being able to handle it not gracefully (explain to me how grace is going to assist in landing a damaged aircraft) but effectively is what makes the difference between being a statistic and being a survivor, and the difference between being a survivor and being someone who had something bad happen to them one time, but went on to experience things that defined them far more.
 

Oven-Roasted Potatoes, Ketchup Variations / Fire, Fire, Fire

Something I learned in the American-Style Chop Suey Incident is that Italian Seasoning makes things better.  Typically I am not a big promoter of spice blends, because personally I like to be able to add what I want to add in the quantities that I want to add them in, rather than have my dish's flavor dictated by Knorr or McKormick.  However, I have added Italian Seasoning to my short list of exceptions.  It's good for making a dish somehow zippier.  Just to be clear, it doesn't make it taste more Italian, at least not in my opinion, but it's still good.  I especially recommend it on roasted potatoes, like in the recipe below, and in sautees and sauces that you want to be indefinably meatier without actually adding any meat.

Oven-Roasted Potatoes

3-4 medium potatoes, washed but not peeled
enough Italian Seasoning to generously sprinkle over the potatoes
salt to taste
oil of your choice

Preheat the oven to 425F.  Chop your potatoes thusly: cut them in fourths longways (ie hold them up on one long side and slice off each end, then slice the remaining middle in half).  You should now have four slabs of potato about the size of a deck of cards each.  (The ends will probably be smaller.)  Take each slab and slice it into 3-4 strips, then turn the cut slab as a whole shortways and cut the strips into 1 to 1-1/2 inch chunks.  Put your chunks in a glass baking dish and drizzle them with the oil.  Then sprinkle on your salt and Italian Seasoning.  Bake them in the oven with a tinfoil lid for about 45 minutes, or until they are tender in the middle.  If you like them crispy on the outside, take the tinfoil off for the last 15 minutes or so.  If you like your potatoes softer but not crispy, leave the tinfoil on the whole time.

Additionally: Interesting Things to Do With Ketchup

Mix 1/4 C. ketchup with: 1/2 tsp. curry powder
                                       : 2-3 TB. honey
                                       : 2-3 TB. soy sauce
                                       : 1 tsp. Korean BBQ sauce 
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An interesting note: oil in the oven can catch on fire.  Surprisingly, so can many other things, especially if the oven is on too hot.  Do not turn on the oven too hot.  "Too hot" is defined as anything besides broiling meat put in on the "broil" setting, or 100 degrees or more higher than the stated cooking temperature.  Do not leave things in the oven too long.  "Too long" is defined as at least 15 minutes after you first smelled something starting to burn and though "Oh, I should go do something about that," and then promptly forgot about it. 

Follow proper procedure for kitchen fires if something in your oven catches fire.  "Proper procedure" is NOT defined as opening the oven door, having flames shoot out, saying "OH DEAR!" and slamming the oven door shut.  I promise none of these happened to me while preparing the Oven-Roasted Potatoes.  But that is as far as I am willing to commit in the promise-making department.

It might also possibly be true that I once told my lab partner that I almost set my last lab partner on fire and then immediately got a beaker vacuum-sealed to my hand.  Both of my lab partners developed a fine sense of hyperalertness.  But they didn't trade lab partners!  Even lab partner number one, who not only almost got set on fire as a general concept, but who almost got his genitals set on fire in specific.  Moral of the story: do not try to light your Bunsen burner unless you are absolutely certain which tap is the gas tap.

Independence Pancakes / On Being American

These pancakes are free of animal products! So I guess that makes them cruelty-free, too. They are also cholesterol-free, and, if you leave out the oil and add more almond milk, fat-free. Leave out the white sugar and they're sugar-free. Besides all that, the batter is an excellent consistency for adding patriotic-themed fruit. Here's a tip, BTW: Pour your pancake batter into the hot pan, spread it around a little with the spoon you used to put it in there, and then put your fruit pieces in one at a time until you've got a nice pizza-pie effect going on. Let the pancake cook like normal, then flip it. Shazaam, each pancake has the perfect amount of fruit and is also cooked to perfection on both sides. Grandmom taught me that trick.

Independence Pancakes

1 C. applesauce
1/4 C. oil + extra for frying the pancakes
1 C. whole wheat flour
1 C. white all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
2 TB. white sugar (optional)
1/3-1/2 C. almond milk as needed for consistency (it should be a thick but pourable batter)

Whisk together your dry ingredients.  Add in your wet ingredients one at a time, putting in the almond milk last.  Let rest a couple of minutes.  (The batter actually will stay good in the refrigerator with a piece of plastic wrap covering the surface for over a week, so you can do that too if you don't want to make all 12 or so pancakes at once.)  In the meantime, heat about 2 tsp. of oil in a fry pan over medium heat until a drop of water tossed in sizzles and pops.  Drop in about 1/4 C. batter per pancake, spacing them out adequately so you have room to turn them.  Put in the fruit (or other additions) now if you want to have them in your pancakes.  Let the pancakes cook until they have dry bubbles around the edges and wet bubbles popping up in the center.  Then flip them, and let them cook until the pancakes rise and are firm and not squishy when you stroke them with the spatula.  (That's the best way I can describe it.)  If you're uncertain and you don't care how your pancakes look, use the sharp edge of the spatula to make a small cut in the center of your pancakes-- when they're done the middle will look cakey and shouldn't be gooey or wet-looking at all.  You know your stove temperature is right when your pancakes are a nice golden brown on both sides and they're done in the middle.  If your stove is too hot, they'll be burned on the outside and gooey inside.  Too cold and they'll be lightly tanned on the outside and tough on the inside.  Anyway, once your pancakes are definitively done, remove them to a serving plate and eat them as soon as possible, with whatever toppings you prefer.  I like the traditional maple syrup and butter combo, but pancakes are almost always tasty with applesauce on top, and sometimes sour cream.  And who knows what else.
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The other day, I went to visit my cousin who's about to enter seminary.  We had a great visit, we talked about all kinds of things, and I learned something about my family: we are all rebels.

Only in my family would becoming a minister be a rebellious act, but it was.  If my cousin had, for example, decided to go to a state college in pursuit of a bachelor's degree, he would be unexceptional for us.  If he discovered while there that he was incredibly talented at, say, engineering, everyone would be applauding him right now.  But instead, he decided to become a priest.  A priest!  A Catholic priest!  If he had announced that he wanted to grow antlers and run away to the forest he would have been met with less resistance. 

But he didn't want to grow antlers, he wanted to be a Catholic priest.  And so he faced the flack, the flat-out, no-holds-barred, intrafamily gossiping, the subtle hints that his sexual libido would eventually grow into a One-Eyed, One-Horned, Giant Purple People Eater with dire consequences if he continued on his chosen path. 

And that's what I mean when I say, "We are all rebels."  My mom loves business.  What did I do?  I got a fine arts degree.  Her mom was a housewife, member of the garden club, and proud supporter of the DAR.  What did my mom do?  Become the manager two steps down from the CEO of any company she works at.  It's like some sort of Call of the Wild.  Tell one of us what we should do and...hey, what are you doing?  What?  WHAT?!  Yes, that person is now doing the exact opposite. 

So, in the spirit of the upcoming Independence Day holiday, I have to mention that this uncontrollable personality trait may have been shared by the gentlemen who felt it would be appropriate to throw a whole boatload of very expensive tea in the ocean and set the boat on fire.  Let freedom ring!  And I love you, James!  I'm so glad that you're my cousin.

Okra & Potatoes

Okra & Potatoes

1 large potato, cut into fairly small cubes*
1 lb of fresh okra, sliced fairly thinly into rounds
1/4 C.-ish of cornmeal (not cornmeal mix, just plain yellow, or, as my southern relatives would say "yella" cornmeal)
salt to taste
2-3 TB. oil for frying

Toss the sliced okra in the cornmeal, discarding any extra.  (Or just tossing exactly the right amount.  It's a knack that you acquire after you acquire the deep-seated loathing of throwing food away.  NO THROW AWAY!  MUST NOT WASTE!  Sorry, I'm turning into my Grandmom.)  Heat the oil in a large skillet or fry pan over medium-high heat.  Add in the potatoes and okra all together.  Cook longer than you think you ought to, until the potatoes are cooked through and browning. on the side nearest the pan.  (About 10 minutes.)  During this process, you can push the okra and potatoes around in the pan if you're afraid they'll burn.  It doesn't really do a whole lot, but it makes for peace of mind.  And cooking is supposed to be peaceful and relaxing, right?  When done, salt them in the pan and then remove them from the pan and drain them on paper towels or disposable napkins.

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Ever think, "Wow, I might love/like okra more/hate okra less if it weren't so slimy"?  Well, this recipe is the answer.  Somehow the combination of potatoes and cornmeal causes the okra to be crisp without being sunk into a Fry Daddy covered in fish fry breading.  It's nummy.  (Not that I'm biased or anything.)  Also, feel free to experiment with your okra : potato ratio.  My version is pretty heavy on the potatoes, being slightly more than half potatoes, because, you know, I love potatoes.  But I love okra too, and I've had this dish with way more okra and it was still good.

*How to Make Small Potato Cubes:
1)  Wash but do not peel the potato.  (It's not really necessary, as most of the potato cubes will be from the interior of the potato anyway and therefore naturally will be skin-free.  Plus the skin on the pieces that do have it will be relatively small and also make those pieces prone to extra-crispiness.) 

2)  Slice your potato longways into 4-5 slices.  How I do this is hold the potato awkward-side up.  That's the best way I can describe it.  The side that the potato wants to roll down onto to lay flat.  That's the side you want pointing up.  Now make slices that are about 1/2-inch (1 cm) thick.

3)  Cut each slice into strips about 1/2-inch thick. (Like thick-cut french fries.)

4)  Cut each strip into cubes 1/2-inch square.  The easy way to do this is to keep all the strips together after you slice each section from step 2, turn them as a unit like you would a deck of cards (aka still keeping the slippery little boogers all together) and then slice them into cubes end-on.  I'm obviously not a perfectionist.  Who cares if you have a few triangular pieces that are not exactly the same size or shape as the others?  They'll all fry up pretty much the same.

Some Italian Mystery Ingredients, Revealed

This is not a recipe post as such, but a suggestion post.  I recently tried some recipes out of The Northend Italian Cookbook, which Grandmom gave me with high recommendations, and they were delicious.  Now, that cookbook is relatively current, and I feel bad about potentially defrauding the author, Maria DeMino Buonopane, who looks like a very nice woman based on her author photograph on the back.  So, I'm not going to include those exact recipes here.  However, I did discover by trying out those recipes the answers to some culinary mysteries and, since I have been eating those culinary mysteries from Grandmom's kitchen my whole life I don't feel that it's unethical to reproduce those here.

Mystery #1: Why does Grandmom's tomato sauce taste so good, and so different from, jarred sauce?

The first thing that jumps to your mind (as it did to mine) was a matter of freshness, seasoning, and ingredient choice.  However, the ingredients used (and not used) in the pasta sauce I buy are almost identical (as far as I knew) to the homemade variety.  In addition, jarred sauce avoids the metalic taste from traditional canning.  Still, it just wasn't the same.  Through happy accident, I discovered mystery ingredient number 1, and The Northend Italian Cookbook revealed the second mystery ingredient.

Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #1: rendered meat fat.

If you brown your sausages, meatballs, porkchops (yes, porkchops) or whatever meat you plan on putting in your tomato sauce in your sauce pot first, set them aside, and then proceed to make the sauce, your sauce will have this delicious meaty quality.  (You will still need to add some olive oil after you remove the meat from the pan so you can saute your onions and garlic-- just not as much.)  After you've got the sauce looking like a sauce, add the meat back in and cook everything all together the way you would a meat-free sauce-- about 1 hour on a low simmer. 

Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #2: fresh mint!

I haven't tried this in a meat sauce like the one I describe above,  but in a meat-free red sauce, the fresh mint in delicious.  Instead of the pepperiness of fresh basil (also good) you get a milder zip, as well as the sweetening qualities of mint.  I think this is why commercial tomato sauce typically has added sugar.  But it just can't compare.

Mystery #2: When I saute garlic for a dish, it just doesn't have as much garlicky goodness as when Grandmom does it.

Mystery Step: Frizzle the garlic in a ton of oil.  Half-burn it.  We're cooking Italian, right?  If you want less garlic, go eat a taco.  For a sauce I don't know if I would recommend doing it this way.  However, for something that has garlic as a main flavor (for example the broccoli rabe recipe I posted recently), don't be shy on the number of cloves you use, and once you've minced your garlic, heat about 3-5 TB. oil in a pan until it's hot!!!! and then throw in your garlic.  Push it around in the pan a few times to keep it from actually burning, but it should turn a deep golden brown and even puff up a little.  Basically you're deep-frying garlic on a very small scale.  But the result is an oil full of a bold, nutty garlic flavor, perfect for dipping bread in, pouring over fresh cooked greens, or tossing into pasta with some parmesan cheese.

Oven Baked Chicken

The Simplest Chicken Recipe Ever

1 roaster chicken
potatoes, washed and peeled, and cut into large chunks (at least 1potato per person)
garlic powder
oregano
salt

Put the potatoes in the bottom of your baking dish, which is preferably a deep but not necessarily large or wide glass dish or casserole.  Rinse the chicken in the sink.  If you're buying your chicken in the US, take out the bag of organs stuffed, aptly, in the chicken's body cavity.*  Season it all over with the garlic powder, oregano, and salt, all to taste, but make sure to rub all of these well into the chicken's skin.  Place the seasoned bird on top of the potatoes in your dish, and then bake it at 350-400F for about 1 hour, or until fully cooked.**
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*In the Canduci family, you don't throw the guts away, you save them and make something else out of them at a later time.  Like gravy.  But people tend to have strong feelings about organ meat, so I'm not going to try to sell them on anybody in this post.

**I don't buy into that BS about "until the chicken reaches 160F internally."  A) Even if you have a meat thermometer, you have to be a meat thermometer pro not to stick it in some part of the relatively small chicken that is going to give you an inaccurate picture of how hot your chicken is.  B) Meat (and most other things) continue cooking after they're removed from the source of heat (this is why you should run your hand under cool water for about 10 minutes after your burn it), so waiting until the chicken is, thermally speaking, "cooked" to remove it from the oven pretty much guarantees it will be over-cooked by the time you eat it, unless you're in the habit of plunging your chicken in an icewater bath immediately after you take it out of the oven.  There is a better way than getting salmonella or taking your chicken on a polar bear swim.  Cook the chicken at the oven temperature the recipe recommends for 30 minutes per pound of chicken.  After that time, take it out, make a slice into the breast, and inspect the color of the meat and juice.  If the meat is light pink or white and the juice is clear, your chicken is, for all practical purposes, done with its time in the oven.  If the meat is dark pink, or if the juice is pink or bloody, put the chicken back in for at least another 15 minutes and then check it again.  (More like 30 minutes if the meat is a pretty dark pink, and if it looks "rare", well, you've got 45 minutes looking at you between now and dinner.  Sorry, just sayin'.)  After it's done according to the above guidelines, remove it from the oven and let it sit out on the counter, covered in a little tinfoil tent for about 5-10 minutes.  If you feel crafty you can even stick your meat thermometer in the appropriate place on the chicken (or leave it in there, if you were using it all along) and watch the temperature of the chicken continue to rise as it sits on the counter.

Ridiculously Easy Pie Crust

1/4 C. vegetable shortening, lard, or butter
3/4 C. to 1 C. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 C. water, or more if necessary for consistency

Combine the dry ingredients. Blend in the fat. Add in the water, very lightly kneading to combine. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Pat into a ball. Roll out with a floured rolling pin until uniformly about 1/4-inch (6mm) thick, being careful to alternate the direction you roll (N-S to E-W) and flipping the dough top to bottom at least once to ensure you end up with a round that is about the same thickness and isn't stuck onto the countertop. Fold the dough into a semicircle, then again to make a triangle with a rounded bottom. Transfer to your pie pan with the point of the triangle in the exact middle of your pan. Unfold. Shazam.
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I call this "Ridiculously Easy" because it is.  There is a wide-held, long-standing belief that making a good pie crust is similar to being able to do backflips in a leotard.  IE, that it takes years of practice and coaching and that only the truly gifted will ultimately be able to accomplish it.  This belief, as far as I can ascertain, arose out of the butter and lard rationing of the World War II era, prior to the invention of vegetable lard (or "shortening").  You will notice that this recipe has, by weight, three main ingredients.  I can see how it would be nearly impossible to make it if you had to eliminate one of them.  You can tell a true WWII-era pastry recipe if it requires combinations of whole eggs and separated eggs, vinegar, solitary confinement in the refrigerator or freezer, and more than five steps.  I have had some of those finished crusts, and they can be good if executed well.  But they can also be very, very bad.  Kind of like when the girl in the leotard misses the balance beam and gets the wedgie of a lifetime.  So, if you have access to any kind of fat, any kind at all, I recommend you steer clear of the WWII recipes and stick to the basics.  It'll be a walk in the park.

Homemade Toothpaste

Additional Thoughts on The Toothpaste Experiment

This post is still one of my most popular posts, even though it is not Italian, or Traditional, or Edible.  It defies my imagination.  In addition, I just reread it and I am personally astounded by my need at the time to pimp my Intro. Chemistry knowledge with the chemical formula for baking soda.  I mean, what was I trying to prove?  I'm not really sure, and it wasn't that long ago.  Since this post continues to be popular, here is a compilation of all of the homemade hygiene products posts from about the same time.

For what it's worth:

Faux-'Poo or Low 'Poo, Just Not No 'Poo

The titles speak for themselves:
A Word of Explanation -or- My Vendetta Against the Coconut

Coconut & Me: BFFs FOUR-EVER

Conclusions

Apparently the homemade toothpaste has been a more popular item than I anticipated.  So, I'm going to provide some more info on the subject in general, as well as reiterate some of what I've said about it in other posts.

A) This version is pretty soapy tasting.  I used it for about 3 days before I discovered that I am not super-allergic to coconut (eg SLS, etc) and ran out to buy regular toothpaste again.  It didn't bother me a ton because the flavor disappeared (much like regular toothpaste) after I ate or drank something else.

B) It sort of formed odd chunks in the tube overnight after the first day.  I think it separated.  Also, my used toothpaste tube had some old commercial toothpaste adhearing to the inside (no more than that-- I use my toothpaste down to the last squeeze) so it may have reacted with it, or possibly it would have separated regardless.

C) Baking soda is Sodium Bicarbonate, which is a salt.  So if you're on a sodium-restricted diet, I would do some more research before brushing your teeth with it every morning.  Also, I didn't use it long enough to worry about the possible enamel wear, but if I had I would have done some more investigation into whether or not Na2(H2CO3) is overly wearing on your teeth.

All that being said, my teeth DID feel clean, which I was surprised by.  So, in conclusion, if you're determined to make your own toothpaste, my recipe may not be the best one for you, but it did apparently work!

The Actual Recipe

Toothpaste
4 ounces homemade castile soap (see the homemade shampoo post)
2 TB. baking soda
6-7 drops peppermint oil, or essential oil of your choice
3 tsp. sucralose powder*
1 TB. water
1 TB. almond oil**

Container***
An old toothpaste tube
scissors
duct tape

In a small dish, put the castile soap in.  Add in each of the other ingredients, in whatever order you prefer, but one at a time to enable complete blending of each ingredient.  To make your container, put the cap on your old toothpaste tube and, if possible (depending on the product packaging) stand it on end.  Cut the very end of the tube off (not the cap end, the back end).  Carefully spoon your homemade toothpaste into the empty tube, stopping when you have about 2 inches left empty.  (I didn't even wash mine out.  I'm not afraid of my commercial toothpaste.)   Wipe clean and thoroughly dry the top 3 inches of your tube.  Cut a strip of duct tape about 2-1/2 inches wide.  Cut into the short edges about 3/4ths of an inch, making your each cut at approximately halfway along a short edge.  Place the strip of tape along the open end of the toothpaste tube such that you can fold it over and have an equal amount of tape on the other side.  Wrap one side of the cut short edge of the duct tape around the other side of the tube.  Pinch the open edge of the toothpaste tube closed and old the tape over the top.  Wrap the other end of the cut short edge of your tape around.  Repeat with another piece of tape if you feel it's necessary.  (I did.  This toothpaste is looser than traditional toothpaste.)
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*I made up this recipe (and taste-tested it) out of a compilation of homemade or all-natural toothpaste recipes I found on other blogs and websites.  Gotta love the internet.  I am hoping to avoid the cost of regular toothpaste and some of its more questionable ingredients, but am not so committed to all-natural ingredients that I want to either have salty toothpaste (from the baking soda) or put pure cane sugar in toothpaste.  I think the sucralose does a pretty good job of avoiding saltiness AND tooth decay caused by my toothpaste, and I don't personally object to having a small quantity in my mouth for the amount of time it takes me to brush my teeth.  Let's be honest here: I drink diet sodas and I chew sugar-free gum.  Whether you put artificial sweetener in your own homemade toothpaste is for you to decide.

**A couple of different recipes called for a neutral oil like olive oil or coconut oil, I'm guessing as an emulsifier.  I have a personal dispute with coconut oil that has nothing to do with environmental causes or cost concerns, so I put in almond oil because I had it on hand.

***After sitting overnight (also during the period that my toothpaste's consistency changed) the toothpaste wicked out of the duct tape.  It didn't exactly leak, but it formed small waxy/grainy balls wear it seeped out, which was a lot of places.  It didn't really make any mess though, because it was a solid.  I didn't try to wipe it off, applying the principle of "don't mess with success."

Cost Breakdown
homemade castile soap: $0.33
baking soda: $0.08
peppermint oil $0.01
sucralose: $0.07
almond oil: $0.47
Total per tube: $0.96
Savings from Cost of Average Toothpaste Tube (estimated at $3): $2.04 or 68%.

So, there are toothpastes you can buy for $1.  Are they all- (or mostly-) natural?  No.  So it kind of depends on your motivation for making toothpaste.  The pros are you can guarantee that you will always pay less than $1 for toothpaste without turning into one of those "extreme couponing" people who hoard nonperishables in their pantries as if they're expecting an imminent nuclear winter, that you know exactly what goes into your mouth every morning, and that if you're like me and get bored with mint flavor fairly regularly you can customize your own toothpaste flavors.  The cons are that it takes a little more effort than running into the store to buy toothpaste and (so far) that it does NOT taste like regular toothpaste!  But my mouth feels pretty clean, and I ate a few tortilla chips to see if the rest of my day was going to taste like soap and, so far, the answer is "kinda but no."  So I'm cautiously optimistic that I will enjoy my new toothpaste-making abilities.  However, I will definitely be experimenting with flavorings!

Faux-'Poo or Low 'Poo, Just Not No-'Poo

'Poo Update

Click here to read The Surprising Conclusion to the Me versus 'Poo situation:

http://canducifamilyrecipes.blogspot.com/2013/04/poo-update.html

Conclusions

I tried the homemade castile shampoo for about a month, and I eventually ended up with a serious amount of build-up on my hair.  Now, possibly you could integrate some other natural product into your routine and avoid the build-up, but once I realized I was free from my supposed coconut allergy I skipped straight back to the store and bought some cheap shampoo. 

However, the homemade castile soap is fabulous as just plain soap and is mild enough to use for a facial soap even for me, with my ridiculously sensitive (just not to coconuts) skin.  I'm sure it has some useful applications in the household as well.

Faux-'Poo/ Low 'Poo
Ok, so this is another non-food-related post on what is technically a cooking blog, but I feel like the information is relatively valuable.

I refuse to go "No 'Poo" or "shampoo-free", and specifically by the method of cleaning one's hair with baking soda and vinegar.  Yes, it's all-natural.  Yes, according to its proponents it makes one's hair shimmer with the magical light of algal phosphoresences upon a tropical sea.  Yes, it is less damaging to the environment.  I'm sorry, but any beauty regimen that involves a 1-6 month "adjustment period" in which said beauty appears to be making a serious backslide is not for me.  However: there is an alternative.

The Recipe

Step 1) Find your favorite store-bought all-natural soap.  (See?  I've already eliminated the step where you cause yourself disfiguring burns trying to learn how to use lye to make soap.)

Step 2) Shave it with a paring knife into small pieces/shreds.

Step 3) Put those shreds with approximately 3-5 C. (720-1200mL) water (less for a smallish bar, more for a larger bar).  Plain tap water, distilled water, well water, whatever floats your boat.

Step 4) Stir it a few times, but mostly just leave it alone, for 48 whole hours.  2 days.  At the end, your goal is to have no more recognizable pieces of soap and instead a (thick, goopy) liquid.  So it's somewhat subjective.

Shazam, all-natural shampoo that, in addition, you can dilute to the strength that is appropriate for your hair texture.  I am not kidding when I say I hardly need conditioner anymore because my shampoo no longer strips the life out of my hair.  What I use when I do is a whole other story that involves far more grief than the "making my own shampoo" process.

Apricot Cookies

2 sticks of butter or margarine, softened
6 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 C. flour
Jar of apricot preserves
powdered sugar for dusting

Mix together the butter or margarine, flour, and cream cheese.  (I usually combine the butter and cream cheese, then do the flour.)  Knead it Italian-style.  IE get your hands dirty.  So dirty.  And sticky.  It's part of the process, I swear.  Scrape your hands off and lay your dough on a floured surface.  Knead it a little further if necessary to get it to a workable consistency, adding additional flour if needed.  Roll the dough to 1/4th to 1/8th inch thick.  Cut into 2-inch squares.*  Place 1/4 tsp. preserves in the center of each.**  Fold two opposite points inward to make a roll with points for ends.  Bake at 350F for 12 minutes or until golden.  Remove from the oven and dust liberally with powdered sugar.
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*The way Grandmom does this is to use what is popularly known as a pizza cutter but which actually is meant to cut pastry.  You know, the wheel-shaped blade with a handle.  It works like a dream, whatever you want to call it.  I don't own one, so I use a sharp knife, which works almost as well.

**I know this sounds like an infinitesimally small  amount of jelly, and to be honest I do not personally get out a 1/4 tsp. measuring spoon to do the job, but you really do NOT want to put too much jelly in a cookie.  The reason is this: ovens are hot, and when jelly gets hot, it will run all over the place like a merry little flood of sugar.  Sometimes it's so pleased with itself that it actually catches on fire.  I know.  Don't we all wish we could be alight with joy.  But countertops are cold, and the jelly, now coating your pan, returns to its original lugubrious or new blackened state.  (Hey, it takes a lot of energy to be on fire.)  I will satisfy your curiosity right now: it is a B*%#@ to clean up burnt-on jelly.  So when you're filling your cookies, use a regular teaspoon and get just enough jelly to be a little tiny dab on the very tip.  Scrape that off into the center of your cookie.  There.  Perfect.

Fresh Ricotta Cheese--makes about 2 cups

8 C. whole milk
1 tsp. salt
3 TB. lemon juice (fresh tastes best, of course, which would be the equivalent of the juice of 1 whole lemon)

Bring the milk and salt to a boil in a heavy and deep saucepan over medium-high heat.  Stir in the lemon juice and reduce the heat so that the mixture is simmering.  Let simmer until curds form, 1-2 minutes.  Scoop the curds out of the pan and place in a colander lined with 4 layers of cheesecloth.  Place colander over the sink (or a pan if you want to keep the whey for its protein content to use in baked goods) and let it drain about a minute.  Transfer curds to a storage container and use within a week.

Raisin Nut Rolls

Dough
1 C. butter, softened
1/2 C. sugar
1 egg
2/3 C. flour + extra if needed*
1 tsp. baking powder
8 oz. sour cream
Confectioner's Sugar for kneading and dusting**

Filling
1/2 C. raisins
2 C. chopped pecans
1-1/2 C. apricot jelly
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 C. sugar

Cream together the butter and sugar.  Add in the egg.  Add in the dry ingredients and sour cream in alternation.  The dough will be sticky and loose.  Divide into two or three portions, wrap each portion in waxed paper, and chill them overnight in the refrigerator.  The day of baking, combine all the filling ingredients in a bowl.  Take one portion at a time out of the refrigerator and roll on a work surface sprinkled with confectioner's sugar until about 1/4-inch thick.  Cut the dough into 2 inch squares.  Place a small amount of filling in the center of each square and roll it up like a rolled thing.  (A burrito, a newspaper, a handmade cigarette, whatever image works for you.)  Place the rolls on an ungreased baking sheet and bake at 350F for 15 minutes.  (They should be flaky when done, but they will not really turn brown, much like the walnut snowballs.)  Let cool slightly, then dust liberally with confectioner's sugar.
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*I always end up needing to add more flour to this recipe, and I have never written down exactly how much that is.  Basically, the consistency of the dough should be extremely soft and gooey, but should hold a shape for at least half a minute after released.  Ergo, if you shmursh it (I made that word up) into a round shape, it should immediately start to ooze somewhat back into its natural shapelessness, but it shouldn't ooze and gush all around your fingers while you're still trying to make it be round.  IE, it should be more solid than liquid.  This is a dough that, because of its high fat content, is very tender.  It pretty much has to be chilled to be workable at all.  So, to sum it all up, you probably will need to add about 1/2 C. to 3/4 C. more flour.  I wish I could be more specific!

**Confectioner's sugar, XXX sugar, XXXX sugar, 10X sugar, whatever you call it, is needed to the amount of 2 C. total for this recipe.  I'm not saying you'll use all if it, but just have that much on hand.  As for the kneading, a baker trick that works for some cookies (but not all) is to dust your work surface with confectioner's sugar instead of flour.  Instead of making your cookies breadier and less flavorful, it actually makes them better, plus it improves workability nearly as well as flour.

Fried Eggplant

1 large eggplant, cut into rounds or strips 1/2 inch thick
1 C. milk
1 C. flour
1 TB. oil
1 tsp. onion salt
1 egg
some grated parmesan cheese (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
oil for frying
1 C. Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs* (optional)

Mix together the flour, onion salt, salt and pepper in a pie plate.  In a separate pie plate, mix together the egg, milk, and 1 TB. oil.  If you opt for the breadcrumbs, put them in their own pie plate.  Heat the oil for frying in a skillet over medium heat.  The oil is hot enough when a drop of water in the pan sizzles.  Made a row of the pie plates on the counter leading up to the skillet in the following order: flour, egg mixture, breadcrumbs.  Put the eggplant plate before the flour.  Take a fork and pick up a piece of eggplant.  Dip the eggplant in the flour on both sides.  Then dunk it in the egg mixture.  Then dunk it either back in the flour mixture (if you're not using breadcrumbs) or in the breadcrumbs.  Do this to enough eggplant pieces to make a single layer with some wiggle room in the skillet.  Fry until golden and crispy on both sides.  Drain on a plate lined with paper towels.  Repeat until all eggplant is fried.  If you so choose, sprinkle the fried eggplant with parmesan cheese.
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This recipe is for fried eggplant, but you can fry a lot of vegetables this way and come out with a tasty main dish, side dish, or sandwich filling.  Yes, leftover fried eggplant in a good roll with maybe some ketchup is a delicious lunch, in my opinion at least.  Basically, all summer squashes work well, and one time I accidentally fried cucumber this way and it was good too.  (Hey, cucumbers and zucchini look a lot alike.)
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Italian breadcrumbs is a product that you can buy in the store under the same name, but you could also make them pretty easily.  All you'd need is: stale bread, dried parsley, dried oregano, salt, and pepper.  And the will to smash the bread up in a plastic bag with a rolling pin.  Shazam, homemade breadcrumbs!

Stuffed Artichokes (with meat)

2 whole fresh artichokes
1/2 lb ground beef--or--about 1 C. finely crushed italian-seasoned bread crumbs*
8 oz. tomato sauce
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. oregano
1 stalk celery, minced
1/2 of an onion, minced
cooking oil

Preheat oven to 350F.  Clean the artichokes and cut the prickers off the tips of the leaves, then slice the bottoms flat so that they will sit up in the baking dish.  Remove the heart.  In a skillet, saute the celery and onion.  Drain.  Brown the beef.  Add in the remaining ingredients to the skillet, excepting the tomato sauce.  Let the meat mixture cool slightly, then press walnut- (or so) sized portions into the concave portion of each leaf.  Place the artichokes in a greased baking pan, then spoon any remaining meat filling and the tomato sauce over the top.  Place another baking pan half-filled with water into the bottom rack of the oven.  Place the pan with the artichokes on the other oven rack, placed in the middle rung of the oven.  Bake them for 20 minutes, or until the artichokes are tender.
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How to eat a stuffed artichoke:  Each person gets one artichoke.  Pull one leaf at a time off your artichoke and suck the meat filling off the leaf.  Grab the leaf between your teeth and tear off the plant flesh, leaving a fibrous and inedible outer skin behind.  (I don't know how else to describe it.)  Repeat.  I include this information so that the uninformed will not be tempted to think that the artichoke is just a fancy holder for ground beef and not an actual part of the dish.  You're supposed to eat the artichoke too.  It's a process that is messy and involved and possibly requires an adult bib, like when you're eating lobster or just have big boobs and don't want to go through life wearing your lunch on your chest.

The Italian Knead

The Italian Knead is a technique shown to me by Grandmom that is the way that most traditional Italian baked goods and pastas are mixed.  It ensures complete incorporation of your liquid/fat/egg with the flour, without overkneading (which would result in a tough baked good/pasta).  So basically what you do is make a well in your dry ingredients, either in the bowl or on a tabletop, and dump your wet ingredients in there.  (I'm including butter as a wet ingredient.)  Then, stick your (clean, washed) hands in there and squish it like a toddler who isn't sure he's really into eating his food, but likes the way it feels when he squishes it between his fingers.  Seriously.  Squishing it between your clenched fingers is an integral part of this process.  Anyway, squish and squish and squish until your two sets of ingredients now make a homegeous dough that is workable.  At this point use both hands to mush the dough (which should still be a little loose) into a rough ball.  Pick that ball up and, holding it in the palm of one hand, slap it with the palm of your other hand, turning the ball around to present a new surface for slapping every third slap or so.  (It's hard to be a dough no matter which method you use!)  The purpose of this is to force out any air bubbles lurking inside the center of the dough and further blend together the ingredients.  (For anybody who likes to make ceramic pots, this is exactly the same process you use when you are preparing your clay for throwing.)  Now your dough is ready to be shaped and baked!

Walnut Snowballs

1 C. butter, yes butter, only butter, don't even think of substituting
1/2 C. confectioner's sugar, plus plenty for dusting later on
1 tsp. vanilla
2-1/4 C. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 C. finely chopped walnuts (but you could use any tree nut and it would probably be just as good)

Cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and salt.  Using the Italian Knead*, blend together the wet and dry ingredients.  Mix in the nuts.  Form the dough into a ball and let it chill in the refrigerator (not overnight, just a couple of hours until it's a bit firmer).  Preheat the oven to 400F.  Roll walnut-sized balls of dough and place on an ungreased baking sheet.  (They have enough butter in them that they don't really need the sheet to be greased.)  Bake for 10-12 minutes or until set, probably with fine cracks showing in the surface of the balls, but not browned.  (Some of them may get a tiny tiny suntan, but they should basically be the same color as when they went into the oven.  Trust me on this one.)  Remove from the oven and roll in a bowl filled with more powdered sugar.  Let cool slightly, then dust with still more powdered sugar.  Makes about 60 small cookies.
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So, to cap off my baking trials and tribulations of the weekend, I leave you with one decent recipe.  This recipe has been in the family for at least 50 years.  The product is a buttery, sweet, nutty delight that is both crisp and melts in your mouth.  So yes, it's one of my favorite holiday cookies.

Baking Fixes

So, as a result of my Pinza Bertoldese and Liebkuchen debaucle of a few days ago, I now have some wisdom to impart regarding baked goods that do not initially turn out as desired.  (Do not view this as alegorical relationship advice as well: I stand by my original claim that when dating a diabolical boyfriend, the best approach is to quit while you're not too far behind.  Although putting your awful boyfriend in a plastic bag or soaking him in rum might be amusing, it is also morally wrong or at least wildly ineffective.) 

Liebkuchen (cookies that were too hard)
Put the cookies in three layers or so in an airtight container.  A plastic storage container is what I used, but a metal breadbox or a plastic bag that your loaf of bread or something similar would probably also work.  In between the layers put: thinly sliced apple.  Why thinly-sliced?  Well, originally I used apple sections (about 1/8 of an apple) and some of my cookied became a little soggy.  Result?  Not perfection, but definitely edible cookies, which is better than what I had two days ago.

Pinza Bertoldese (cakes that were slightly burnt and not sweet enough)
The original recipe called for a glaze made of warm honey mixed with rum.  Since the cakes were so bad, I decided to go it one better and made a frosting composed solely of confectioner's sugar and rum.   My original frosting was a little thin, being more rum than sugar, so I poured that over the cakes and then made a thicker one, also with rum.  The result?  Apparently everything tastes better soaked in rum.  I would not remake this recipe without gross revisions and then douse it in rum-soaked frosting, but at least now I feel confident enough to gift these cakes without shame, although definitely alongside the other things I made that did NOT turn out awful.

The Kitchen Is for Cooking...and Swearing.

Yesterday I discovered a new swear word while in the kitchen.  How does one discover a new swear?  From my experience, it is like the way a chemist discovers a new element by manipulating raw materials.  When I discovered my Italian fruitcakes from the Talisman cookbook to be little burnt tasteless bricks after half the recommended baking time and a whole lot of expensive ingredients, I broke forth with my new swear.

DAMM DAMMERSON! 

Is a Swedish man who sneaks into your kitchen when you're not looking and f-'s up your baked goods with the real butter, hand-chopped walnuts, and hand-candied fruit.

So I have sung the praises of the Talisman cookbook in two posts now.  While it is true that I have eaten many of the foods named in that tome, the actual recipes provided tend be a hot mess.

The Pinza Bertoldese is a case in point.  What it should have been: light, sweet yeast bread with fruit and nuts and a hint of cocoa.  What the recipe called for: 5 cups of flour and 5 tablespoons of water.  For my metric afficionados, that's 75mL of fluid.  I should have stopped right there.  But oh no!  I'm smart, I thought to myself.  I don't need a guide to tell me how much water to put in bread dough.  What I didn't bargain for, but should have, was that apparently every other measurement in the recipe was similarly flawed.

This morning I had a similar experience with the liebkuchen I was attempting to make out of the original 1950-something Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook.  I don't know if tastes have changed since the 50's, but I can tell you right now that when I think "love cake" (a rough translation from the German), I don't think "a cookie that is simultaneously hard and chewy", also requiring expensive ingredients, an actual baking time half as long as the stated baking time, and, despite the inclusion in the recipe of: molasses, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, lemon peel, honey, and walnuts, NO FLAVOR.

So the lesson for today is "trust your instincts".  If a recipe sounds crappy, it probably is. Don't get lured astray by exotic or toothsome ingredients (which are also probably expensive).  Much like a truly diabolical boyfriend, things always sound better in the beginning.  When you're remixing your cookie dough at 10pm because it still isn't firm enough after being in the refrigerator for 5 hours, or wondering yet again why that guy forgot your birthday but bought you a card for no reason last week, it's time to quit while you're ahead.  Don't go down the aisle of actually bothering to cut out and put those bad boys in the oven.  Just throw the whole batch away and start over.