Mouth Wide Open ... for Bagna Cauda

A little something about a traditional Italian peasant dish that is perfect for cold weather ... from John Thorne's Mouth Wide Open at Forgotten Classics podcast.

As well as a couple of Christmas podcast highlights.

Enjoy!

Granola

From The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham, this is the simplest and most delicious granola I have ever made, or indeed, eaten. It has wowed those who have sampled it. The kicker is that it is fairly inexpensive to make. Unlike those store-bought granolas!

If you don't have easy access to mixed flakes, just use regular rolled oats (don't use quick oats though).

I have changed the flavoring around in various ways. The nutmeg seemed too perfumey to me so I switched to cinnamon. Equal parts of ginger and cinnamon have been quite tasty.

I always add the nuts with the flakes, just making sure to stir enough so they don't burn and they haven't yet. I've tried almonds, walnuts, and pecans. Almonds are my favorite nuts for this granola.

Granola
(about 5 cups)

4 cups mixed flakes (oats, rye, barley, wheat, rice)
Salt to taste (I never use any)
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 cup roughly chopped walnuts

Put the flakes in a large bowl and sprinkle with a little salt and the nutmeg. In a small bowl, stir the honey into the butter and blend well. Pour the honey syrup over the flakes and toss until they are well coated.

Spread the mixture on foil in a single layer on a baking sheet with edges. (I don't bother with the foil.) Bake in a preheated 300 degree oven for about 20 to 30 minutes, or until the flakes begin to look golden, turning the cereal every 10 minutes with a spatula or spoon. Be careful not to over bake. The flakes will seem a little sticky when done, but they will crisp up as they cool. (I stir occasionally while it is cooling to keep it from sticking.) Store in plastic bags or an airtight container. Use within a month or store in the freezer.

A Happy Hour Duo: Garnet and X.Y.Z. Cocktails

Actually we had these separately. The Garnet cocktail was tried out last Saturday with Hannah and a friend who came home to attend a wedding. The X.Y.Z. Cocktail was the one thing about watching the Cowboys' game last Sunday that we found enjoyable.

The Garnet lived up to its name as pomegranate juice lent it a ruddy hue. It was one of those drinks that you have to be careful about. The alcohol is not very obvious perhaps until one has had one too many.

The X.Y.Z. is a classic seeming "sour" cocktail and, as such, would naturally be one that Tom and I would really enjoy.

Garnet

1-1/2 ounces gin
3/4 ounce Triple Sec
1 ounce pomegranate juice
1 ounce grapefruit juice

Shake with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a flamed orange peel.

X.Y.Z. Cocktail

1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 ounce Triple Sec
1 ounce light rum

Shake with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Amarcord: Marcella Remembers ... the good, the boring, and the bad

It is really too bad that Ms. Hazan didn't have a talented grandnephew to write Amarcord as did Julia Child in her fantastic memoir, My Life in France. As with Child's memoir, when Hazan focuses on the big picture, not just the food, it is very interesting. I didn't expect Hazan's many fascinating memories of survival in Italy during World War II, first from Allied bombings and then from authorities who suspected them of assisting the resistance. Hazan's reminiscence of school and her mother's survival cooking took us to a different world than now exists. Likewise, after Hazan has married her American-born husband and moves to New York City as a non-English speaker, we are still interested in her immigrant experience.

The bad news is that once Hazan has a food-oriented career, the big picture melts away and only food becomes the focus. As well, she tends to focus on the celebrities she has met and I found most of those stories to be fairly boring. I was especially put off by the way she justified her final break with Knopf by entering her book that compiled old recipes into an awards program designed to honor new books over the publisher's protests. She seemed to think that the fact that her cookbook won was justification enough when all it proved was that her celebrity made others overlook what the publisher very properly recognized: it was an old cookbook in new format. This perhaps typifies my biggest problem with the last half to third of the book which is that Hazan takes on a slightly complaining tone about most things which I found annoying.

This is not to say that Marcella Hazan fans will not love the book, and she does indeed have many fans. To be fair, I did not come to this book with strong feelings one way or the other about Marcella Hazan. I have her Essentials of Italian Cooking as who does not who was buying cookbooks in the 1990s. It never inspired me to do much Italian cooking although the recipes I used from it were uniformly excellent. I like a bit more personality with my cookbooks and I think that is part of my problem with this book. Hazan didn't have the advantage of a talented writer to back her up as I mentioned earlier that Julia Child did. It is hard to fault her for not being a riveting autobiography writer. However, as we can see from the beginning of the book, it is possible for her to write interestingly when she has the material. Perhaps the fault here is in the eyes of the editors who did not redirect Hazan so that her reflections about her career were not as myopic as they seemed to me.

Recommended with the caveat that one is a Marcella Hazan fan.

If one is not a Hazen fan, I can definitely recommend the first half of the book. As for the second half, that depends upon the taste of each reader, I have a feeling.

This review was made after reading a copy provided by the publisher.

Rum Daisy

Another addition to the very pleasant surprise from the first sip category ... the Rum Daisy. The grenadine makes this a gorgeous pink which would be a nice offering for a holiday drink now that I think of it!

The only thing I changed was that Daisy drinks are traditionally served in a beer mug or metal cup. I couldn't bear to do that so went with a traditional cocktail glass. And without the ice cube.

Rum Daisy
1/2 ounce lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon superfine sugar or simple syrup
1 teaspoon grenadine
2 ounces light rum

Shake with ice and strain into chilled beer mug or metal cup. Add one large ice cube and garnish with fruit.

Bee's Kiss Cocktail

Something else to be thankful for ... perhaps when sipping it as an after dinner drink? Simply delicious and very simple.

It is creamy, rich and powerful with a feel possibly reminiscent of Bailey's Irish Cream or a well-dosed eggnog.

Bee's Kiss

1-1/2 ounce White Rum
1 ounce heavy cream
3/4 ounce Honey Syrup*

Shake and strain into a champagne flute. (which I chilled quickly in the freezer while assembling)

* To make Honey Syrup: Mix equal part of honey and warm water. Stir well until dissolved, and then chill.

Looking Good Enough to Eat

Black Grapes
By James Neil Hollingsworth

Best. Canned. Tuna. Ever.

I am not kidding.

As my family knows, I am darned picky about tuna. Years ago, there was a brand usually sold to restaurants that I was able to get over the internet.

Mothers routinely would call or corner me and ask what I did to make tuna salad that their kids loved and mentioned to their mothers. "Easy," I said. "Just use albacore and real mayonnaise."

You would not believe how many faces of disgust I saw at the mention of real mayo. Our country is so messed up.

However, I digress. My beloved tuna was discontinued, at least for public purchase. Sadness ensued. Accompanied by a quest to replace it.

I have been able to do so to varying degrees, finally settling for a kind sold at the Central Market. For $6 per can.

It was worth it. Just believe me. Not equal to my restaurant tuna but close enough. Then, of course, The Central Market discontinued carrying it in favor of their own brand which, you should excuse me, is something my cat would enjoy but not something I care to eat myself.

Yes, HEB, just take it. Your tuna is not all that.

Back to the internet I went. Where I found Lazio tuna ... which I completely bought myself. (Hark! Can you hear the angels singing?) Oh. my. goodness.

I didn't know canned tuna could taste so very, very good.

I bought the oil-pack ... just to be an anti-politically-correct-American. As I said, the angels sang.

A canned filet with none of that weird stuff in the bottom of the can. A flavor where you can tell it actually came from a tuna ... while still being distinctively canned tuna. Delicately salted but enough that you can tell there is salt. And packed in oil. Like when I was a kid! Although that wasn't olive oil when I was a kid. I think it was ... soybean oil? However, I digress again. Just believe me that this is a glorious products.

Go get yourself a sample.

Lemon Ginger Muffins

This recipe, originally Bridge Creek Fresh Ginger Muffins, is from The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham. I served these for a book club meeting and was greeted with cries of delight mingled with demands for the recipe. Indeed, one friend's mother loved them so that she is being applied to daily for the recipe, where is that recipe!

Now that surely warms the cockles of any baker's heart.

Rather than type it in, which I have been trying to find time to do since that meeting three weeks ago, I found it at Williams Sonoma where it looks as if they slightly adapted it for one of their cookbooks, such as more than doubling the amount of ginger called for. I changed it back to Cunningham's amount. You can find a wonderful photo of the muffins here.

Update: I now have had a chance to compare Cunningham's original recipe with that from Williams-Sonoma and they tinkered with more than the ginger amount. I have restored the recipe to its original state.

These are fresh tasting and I agree with Cunningham who comments in the recipe that you can hardly ever have too much fresh ginger. My two-ounce measure went over the 1/4 cup measure mentioned below so I didn't worry.

Bridge Creek Fresh Ginger Muffins
(sixteen muffins)

1 2-ounce piece unpeeled fresh ginger

3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar [divided use]

2 tablespoons lemon zest (from 2 lemons), with some white pith

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
======================
Preheat an oven to 350ºF. Grease muffin tins.

Cut the unpeeled ginger into large chunks. If you have a food processor, process the ginger until it is in tiny pieces; or hand chop into fine pieces. (You should have about 1/4 cup. It is better to have too much ginger than too little.)

Put the ginger and 1/4 cup sugar in a small skillet or pan and cook over medium heat until the sugar has melted and the mixture is hot. Don't walk away from the pan -- this cooking takes only a couple of minutes. Remove from the stove and let the ginger mixture cool [which also happens fairly quickly].

Put the lemon zest and 3 tablespoons sugar in the food processor and process until the lemon peel is in small bits; or chop the lemon zest and pith by hand and then add the sugar. Add the lemon mixture to the ginger mixture. Stir and set aside.

Put the butter in a mixing bowl and beat a second or two, add the remaining 1/2 cup sugar, and beat until smooth.

Add the eggs and beat well.

Add the buttermilk and mix until blended.

Add the flour, salt and baking soda. Beat until smooth.

Add the ginger-lemon mixture and mix well.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins so that each cup is three-quarters full. Bake 15-20 minutes [until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean]. Serve warm. [I served them a day old and they were delicious.]

Looking Good Enough to Eat

Believe it or not, these are each 150 sheets of note paper, though the stem is made with a real twig. They are detailed right down to the seeds, as you can see below. As you may well imagine they are very expensive. (Via The Food Section)

Recipe for a Happy Hour ... Heck, For a Couple of Happy Hours!

Tom and I suddenly found that we have slid into having our very own little happy hour every Saturday and Sunday evening before dinner.

This began when Hannah turned 21, became enamored with cocktails, and I bought her a Mr. Boston Official Bartender's Guide. I liked it so much that I bought one for us also.

We've never been cocktail drinkers before but how boring things would be if we always did the same thing all the time. About 5:00 or 5:30 in the afternoon, we settle down with a new cocktail to sample, listening to music and either reading, knitting (yes, that would be me), or just chatting. Without meaning to, it has become a routine that we have realized we both anticipate with pleasure. Just a little time to stop the day, slow down, and mark the progression into the evening.

We tend to play jazz or other music that could be classified, perhaps, as happy hour music. For those who are not sure what that would be, do go over to The Happy Hour Lounge where Andrew and Jeremy host a delightful podcast that gives wonderful samples of that musical category.

(I must confess that, although we confine ourselves to a single cocktail each, I am a real lightweight. I have begun planning evening meals that are largely done ahead or don't require much work afterward when I've got a little buzz going. Although I am sure the lighthearted singing along with the music forms a delightful background to the rest of the household. I repeat: I am sure of it!)

Enjoying experimenting with different ingredients and recipes, thus far we have found that we are the biggest fans of that category of drink known as "sours." Considering that our favorite cocktail before now has always been the margarita, this is no surprise.

Thus far our favorites have been the Chelsea Sidecar and the Daiquiri, which I realized that I'd never had as a plain drink without a lot of strawberries in it. Coming in third has been the Maiden's Blush. Great name isn't it? And it is a pretty shade of pink as one would expect.

The recipes for all three follow ... and may all your hours, be happy hours!

(For the uninitiated, as we were, a cocktail glass is what most people call a martini glass.)

Daiquiri
1 oz. lime juice
1 tsp. superfine sugar or simple syrup*
1-1/2 oz. light rum

Shake with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Chelsea Sidecar
1/2 oz. lemon juice
3/4 oz. Triple Sec (we have Cointreau on hand and use that)
3/4 oz. gin

Shake with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Maiden's Blush Cocktail
1/4 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. Triple Sec
1 tsp. Grenadine
1-1/2 oz. gin

Shake with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass.

*Simple Syrup
Equal parts water and granulated sugar, heated over a flame, and then cooled and stored in refrigerator until needed. Keeps indefinitely refrigerated in a scrupulously clean container.