Emilie Richards's Blog, page 132

Peaches-And-Cream Ice Cream: Have CHU Entered This Month's Giveaway?

I'm amazed at how many silly kitchen gadgets there are.  I had no idea.  This weekend I had the time of my life ordering enough to give away one each month for our CHU winners, along with an autographed paperback of the winner's choice–if available.  This month's winner gets the Joie Mashy Egg Masher, a hit on Amazon.  If you like guacamole, apparently it's just the thing to mash avocados, too.  Can you resist a chance to win?

August's giveaway closes tomorrow at midnight.  Here are the rules, in case you've forgotten.  In a nutshell–eggshell in honor of Mashy–you must make a recipe from a cookbook you haven't used in a year.  Either a new one you haven't tried before, or an old one that's been sitting in a shelf, or worse, in a box.  You don't have to send the recipe, just comment here with the name of the recipe and cookbook, what you did or didn't like about either or both and anything fun you think we'd like to hear.  One entry per comment.  We'll be doing this for the next several months at least, so you still have time to win.

August is a great month for ice cream.  Here in Western New York it's also a fabulous month for fresh peaches.  Years ago I bought an ice cream freezer, not the easy to use countertop variety, but the one that requires rock salt and crushed ice.  Luckily I didn't go further and buy the kind that requires kid power.  There are no kids in residence this month.  So ours requires electricity.  Still, this is surprisingly simple to do, and such fun.  It's also, like many of my cookbooks, in need of more frequent usage.  In honor of CHU I used an old edition of Cooking Light, which I told you about before,  and chose Peaches-and-Cream Ice Cream, which made enough for approximately one million people.  Luckily this is a cottage community and there are always people sitting on front porches ready to eat any dessert a neighbor offers.

The recipe was yummy and surprisingly healthy except for the four egg yolks.  My only problem?  Peaches-and-Cream Ice Cream calls for almond extract, which enhances the peach flavor.  Did you know that extracts now come in plastic bottles?  I didn't.  When I went to measure out the almond extract–foolishly over the container of ice cream–I mistakenly squeezed.  We had VERY almondy peach ice cream.  It wasn't ruined, but it wasn't improved, either. 

Watch these new extract bottles and measure over an empty counter.

So, if it's still warm wherever you are, and you have ripe peaches and an ice cream freezer, this one's for you.

Peaches-and-Cream Ice Cream, adapted from Cooking Light Cookbook, 2000–out of print.

Preparation Time: 45 minutes.  Chill Time: 1 hour.  Freeze Time: 1 hour

5 cups of 1 percent low-fat milk, divided.  I used a combination of milk, non-fat half and half and a little heavy cream, because that's what I had.

4 large egg yolks

4 cups of mashed peeled ripe peaches (approximately 8 peaches)

2 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice

2 Tablespoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon almond extract (watch out!)

2 14 ounce cans of fat-free condensed milk (this provides the sweetness along with the peaches.)

Rock salt and ice for ice cream freezer, if you're doing this the traditional way.

Prepare mix:  Combine 2 1/2 cups of milk and egg yolks in a heavy saucepan and whisk constantly over medium heat.  If you have a thermometer, heat to about 180 degrees, if not, cook until it thickens, perhaps as long as 20 minutes.  Don't let it boil and don't stop whisking.  This is not the time to make a phone call.

Combine slightly cooled egg yolk mixture with remaining ingredients and chill.  You want this nice and cold and of course, you can make it early in the day and freeze it in your ice cream maker later in the afternoon.  Just be sure you allow enough time for an additional hour or so in your refrigerator's freezer, too.

Once chilled, pour into the freezer can of your ice-cream freezer and follow your manufacturer's directions.   You can eat it now, but it will be a soupy soft-serve consistency.  If you prefer a more traditional ice cream, spoon this into a freezer container and freeze in your refrigerator's freezer for about an hour.

This fed my neighborhood, or  more accurately, about 24 1/2 cup servings–a gallon plus.

This may be your final taste of summer.  Enjoy!

Sunday Poetry: Her Worried Summer Look

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.  If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here.

Mother, Summer, I by Philip Larkin, linked here to The Writer's Almanac online, is a "different" look at summer's end.  I've posted it this morning after a magnificent set of thunderstorms rolled in across Chautauqua Lake last night and kept everyone but the most exhausted members of this vibrant community awake in wonder.

Do you, like Larkin, await a time "less bold, less rich, less clear?"  For the same reasons?  This is a wonderful poem to take with us this next week as August rolls to a close, to wonder and worry over and to set us thinking about the seasons we find most troubling or most endearing.

Remember there are no quizzes here, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share.  No dissecting allowed.  Just come along for the "read," and enjoy the experience.    What line or word or thought will you carry along with you this week?  And if you'd like to tell us where the poem took you?  We'll listen.

Summer Vacations, Summer Splendors

I'm taking a week long break from original blogs as I dive deeper into my book and still try to catch some of the most beautiful hours of late summer.  While looking back at some of my older blogs to share with you again, I came across this one written in April 2009.  It struck a chord.  Yes, it's about a sunny spring day and spring blossoms, but the message and the song bear repeating.  I hope you enjoy. 

Late breaking edition: My apologies for the bad timing here, when many of you East Coasters are battening down your hatches for Hurricane Irene.  I scheduled this a week ago.  The joys of nature may seem far in the distance now.  "Earth's lamentation" seems most appropriate though, doesn't it?

What's the payoff for a cold, rainy spring?  A sunny warm day when the world bursts into bloom.  We're having one of those today, and I wanted to share it with you.  Here are some photos quickly taken in my garden along with the words to one of my favorite hymns of praise, written in 1860 by American Baptist minister, Robert Wadsworth Lowrey and later revised by Pete Seeger.  I hope you enjoy.   

My life flows on in endless song 

Above earth's lamentation    

I hear the real, though far off hymn 

That hails the new creation  



 

 Through all the tumult and the strife

I hear the music ringing 

 

It finds an echo in my soul

How can I keep from singing?

    

CHUsday: Old Blogs, Old Faithful Recipes

Summertime and the living is, well, BUSY!!  I just taught two classes and need to focus on my next book, so this week, just like on your TV set, you'll be getting re-runs.  Today and Friday I'm featuring blogs from spring of 2009, when many of you weren't reading here.  In the spirit of CHUsday, here's an old recipe, and looking back, I can't remember making it in the past six months.  So obviously the time has come again.  Rosemary focaccia is an old friend if not a new discovery.  This is a great end of summer bread because it's quick and easy and you have many wonderful things to do besides stand at the stove.  Just don't tell your family how easy it is. 

I first "noticed" focaccia while having dinner at a friend's house.  Jim had baked his own, and I was instantly hooked.  I'm sure I'd had it outside of Italy, but never right out of the oven.  At home I found a recipe and tried it.  Okay, but not as good as Jim's.  The next time I saw him I asked for his secret.  "Make sure the dough is sticky," he told me.  "Don't add too much flour.  As sticky as you can get away with is just right."  

With that in mind I began to work with a recipe I downloaded from Epicurious, a wonderful online source for recipes.  I particularly love the reviews and  suggestions, and usually pay close attention to them.   

The Epicurious version of Rosemary Focaccia had its fans, but some reviewers complained the ratio of flour and water wasn't correct.  After trying it, and taking Jim's advice to heart, I had to agree.  So here's my revised version.  This is a basic recipe, so feel free to experiment with a little whole wheat, ground flax seed, or any number of other additions.

Emilie's Rosemary (and Garlic) Focaccia

1 package of yeast 


4 cups unbleached white flour (plus additional as needed)


1/4 cup good quality olive oil


2 1/2 teaspoons table salt


1 Tablespoon rosemary softened in 3 additional Tablespoons olive oil


2 cloves pressed garlic (optional)

1 t Kosher or coarse sea salt

In the bowl of a standing mixer, add yeast to 1 3/4 cups lukewarm water.  Let stand until creamy.  (If you're using Rapid Rise yeast, you can proceed without waiting.)

Add 4 cups of flour, 1/4 cup of oil, and table salt.  Using the dough hook, beat until smooth and best of all, sticky for 4-5 minutes.  The dough should just barely stick to your mixing bowl.  If it's too sticky, add additional flour one Tablespoon at a time. Stop the mixer and poke with your finger.  If it's not damp enough, turn the mixer back on and add water one Tablespoon at a time until dough is moist to the touch.

Transfer dough to an oiled bowl.  I let mine rise in my oven, but I preheat it for a minute first to warm the interior–make sure you turn it back off!  Cover dough with plastic wrap or a towel, and let it rise for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes–until doubled.

While it's rising, add the rosemary to the 3 Ts of oil and give the rosemary time to infuse the oil with flavor.  Press the optional garlic cloves and add to the oil, as well.

When the dough has doubled, generously spray or oil a jelly roll pan (15″ by 10″ by 2″) and gently stretch and press down the dough to fit.  Allow this to rise another hour until just even or a bit above the lip of your pan.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees, and as it preheats, make gentle indentations in your dough with your thumb.  Fifteen or so.  Don't worry, it won't deflate unless you're in a REALLY bad mood and you're taking it out on your bread.

Brush the rosemary/garlic oil–along with the rosemary and garlic–over the bread, allowing it to pool in the indentations.  Sprinkle with sea/Kosher salt and bake until golden for 20-25 minutes.  If you use the optional pressed garlic, the smell while baking will drive you wild.

Although focaccia is fabulous just as it is in the above photo–with a little olive oil mixed with herbs for dipping–it also makes the most wonderful sandwiches.  Slice a good-sized chunk horizontally, fill with sliced cheese (I like pepper jack for this) and chopped tomatoes.  Brush one interior side with a little light mayonnaise and grill in a panini grill.  Don't have one?  Pull out that old George Foreman grill you haven't used for awhile and use that instead.  That's all I do, and I never get tired of these sandwiches.

Focaccia also makes wonderful appetizers.  Toast, lightly covered with olive oil, mozarella, tomatoes, and the fruits of your imagination.

Enjoy!

Sunday Poetry: Slowing Down for Happiness

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.  If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here.

I've been thinking a lot this summer about the meaning of home.  We'll be moving next year, and right now we're not sure where.  We have a summer cottage, which feels like home to me as does the community that hosts it.  But it's not a place we childhood Floridians could call home in February.  So now my task is to help figure out the other place we can call home and why.

Mary Oliver understands home.  In Coming Home she explores home as well as life and the meanings of both.  Not an unfamiliar theme for a poem or a novel, but always new and evocative under Mary Oliver's pen. 

As always it's not what this poem "means" but what it means to you that matters.  You're reading here to enhance your moment, your day, your life.  There are no quizzes, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share.  No dissecting allowed.  Just come along for the "read," and enjoy the experience.    What line or word or thought will you carry along with you this week?  And if you'd like to tell us where the poem took you?  We'd like to listen.

Finding The Muse Beside the Lake

For the past two weeks I've had the pleasure of teaching two different writing classes here at Chautauqua Institution in Western New York.   Talking about one of my favorite subjects, in one of my favorite places, has been a joy.  In the first class, Plotting a Murder, we did just that.  Together we came up with a sleuth, a victim, and suspects.  We put together the bare bones of a story set right here at the Institution, and plotted our first scene.  Along the way we talked about the basics: characterization, plotting, conflict, strong openings, point of view, dialogue.  And now, this week, in So You've Always Wanted to Write a Novel with a different group of students, and the help of my friend mystery writer Casey Daniels, we've talked about how to start that book the students have been tempted to write but haven't known how to begin. 

What fun.  Teaching is an excuse for me to bone up on the basics again, to make sure I'm doing everything I tell them to, but also to remember how it felt the first time I sat down and said Okay, so what if I fail?  Who's going to know, and more important, who's going to care?  I was in my mid-thirties by the time I  could say that and mean it, and from that moment on, writing became an important part of my life.

My students for the past two weeks have reached that point, too.  Okay, I'm not sure how to go forward, but I want to try, and damn the consequences.  I'm proud of them for this, for sitting down with the writing exercises I've given them and for bringing them back to share with their fellow writers.

But most important?  I am, as I always am, blown away by the creativity, the energy, and enthusiasm, and the wonderful twists my students produce.  No slackers here.  Those who don't want to do the work drop out after the first day.  Those who stay do it and take the leap to share it with others. They become writers of fiction right there in the classroom.

Are you letting your own fears that you're not good enough stop you from doing something you've always wanted to do?  I'm so glad I made that leap and started writing, and this month, I've been so glad to be with people who are making it, too.  Because talented wasted?  That's one of the saddest things I know. 

So what's stopping you if you're not following your own muse?  Take a chance.  Put pen or brush to paper and see where it leads you.  The world needs wonderful art, fabulous books, music that enraptures. We're just waiting for your contribution.

CHUsday, Zucchini Recipes, and Cliches

Zsuzsanna Kilian at stock.xchng

I'm away for the moment, teaching a class in my favorite place in the world, Chautauqua Institution in Western New York.  My good buddy Casey Daniels(aka Kylie Logan with a new series debuting next month) and I are teaching together in the upcoming week.  Casey and I have been friends for a LONG time and she's one of my brainstorming buddies.  In fact Casey's my go-to gal on a daily basis and vice versa.  We listen to each other's feedback and take it into account when making completely different decisions.  But it always helps.

Cooking these days isn't easy, despite my CHUsday pledge.  I bet you have similar excuses.  With classes and many, many other opportunities, it's not easy to find time for anything except fresh sweet corn from the farmer's market, and Greek salads made from cucumbers and tomatoes from our own plants.  I'm also dealing with a kitchen that has more room to prepare food on the washer and dryer than on the one narrow counter.  Kitchen will be updated, but not this year.  This alone requires creativity.

Creativity's needed this time of year for another reason.  It's long and green and shiny, and if you're not careful you'll find baskets of the stuff on your doorstep.  Yep, it's zucchini harvest time.  Have you had enough yet? 

Since I'm teaching fiction classes this month, I can't help but think how similar zucchini is to characters and plots we've seen, and seen, and seen before.  At first we love them, then we tolerate them, then we run screaming into the night.  No!  Not another one!  Please, I'll do anything if you just take it away!

Well, maybe that's an exaggeration.  But still. . .

The good news for those of us who write fiction is that there's always a way of making a familiar character or plot new and different.  Cliches are cliches for a reason.  Readers enjoyed them and found comfort and meaning.  Now, they're tired, but if you find a new, innovative twist, they'll love you and the novel forever.

Zucchini's the same.  This is my very favorite, bar none, all time favorite zucchini recipe.  I wish I could tell you the name of the cookbook it's from, but it came to me through friends who served it at a potluck dinner.  I feel madly in love, lost the recipe and the friends, and rediscovered the latter some years later.  First question out of my mouth:  Please, can you give me your recipe again for the zucchini and eggplant dish with the almond topping? 

So here it is, on this week's menu and lovingly prepared on my washing machine. I haven't made it in more than  a year, so maybe  it qualifies as a CHU recipe.  Whether it does or not, I hope you enjoy.  I always do every time I make it.

PS: As a bonus this week? If you choose a zucchini recipe from an unused or recently unloved cookbook and comment here with details, you'll be entered for TWO chances to win an autographed novel and a silly kitchen gadget. I think you'll deserve it.

Zucchini and Eggplant with Almond Topping

4 slices bacon

½ cup slivered almonds

1 T oil

1 lb zucchini–diced

1 lb eggplant–diced

1 large onion–diced

2T flour

1 16 oz can diced tomatoes

1 t minced garlic

1 ½ t salt

1/4 t coarse pepper

1 t basil

½ lb Swiss cheese

Cut bacon strips in 1 inch pieces. Saute with almonds in a skillet until the bacon has slightly browned–not crisp. Remove both and set aside. Add oil, zucchini, eggplant and onion to skillet and saute for 5 minutes. Stir in flour–add tomatoes, then spices and heat to bubbling.

Pour into a 3 quart casserole. Top the ingredients with Swiss cheese, then sprinkle bacon almond mixture over the top. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until tender.  Enjoy.

Serves 6

Sunday Poetry: It Is the Discovery that Keeps the Fingers Moving

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.  If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here. 

Do you like crafts?  Have you found a particular one that helps you to center, to move past the frustration and anxiety of your life to a different plane?  When I found Whittling: The Last Class by John Stone, I felt an immediate connection to the whittler.  He discovers lessons in the wood, lessons that perhaps you have already discovered in different places. 

What is true, or nearly true, or true enough.

Remember, you're reading here to enhance your moment, your day, your life.  There are no quizzes, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share.  No dissecting allowed here.  Just come along for the "read," and enjoy the experience.  Let the poetry move you wherever it will.  What line or word or thought will you carry along with you this week?  And if you'd like to tell us where the poem took you?  We'd like to listen.

Gone Fishin'

I'll be back by Sunday for Sunday Poetry . . . But breathing deeply here today.  Hope you're doing the same.

Ah. . .

CHUsday, and We're Waiting For You

Last Tuesday I introduced you to a new idea.  If you're like me, you have lots of cookbooks you haven't used in a long time.  You are, in short, a cookbook hoarder, and quite possibly instead of using your old cookbooks, you're still collecting new ones.  It's time to change that.  So I proposed that all who want to participate choose one of their "unused" cookbooks, either an old one or a new one they haven't yet opened, and make a recipe that's new to them from the book.

Are you with me so far? I hope so, because at the end of the month, I'll choose a cook who has commented on any of our CHUsday blogs, and that person will receive an autographed copy of one of my novels and a silly kitchen gadget. And trust me, having said this and done the research I can say there are MANY silly kitchen gadgets to choose from. I have my eye on several.

So all you have to do is:

Choose an unused cookbook from your collection (a new one, or an old one you haven't used in the past year or so–no one's counting).
Choose and make a recipe you have never made before.
Comment on this blog or any CHUsday blog and tell us what you made, the name of the cookbook, and any other details you'd like to share.

Clearly since this was my idea, I had to lead the way.  I'm at my summer cottage, but I brought three cookbooks with me, two that have never been used, one I love and haven't used for a while.  I decided to start with The Healthy Hedonist, by Myra Kornfeld, a recent birthday gift, but between writing and teaching a writing class this week, the recipe I chose was too time-consuming to make in time to write this blog.  I'll make it by next week.

Instead, I broke out an old Cooking Light Cookbook from the year 2000.  This is an old edition, which I hunted down from a rare bookseller (talk about hoarding) because I loved my daughter-in-law's edition.  I also have the newer edition.  (Unused as well, I'm sad to say.)  This afternoon I hunted for something to make that fit into our meal schedule and settled on a Romaine Salad with Tangy Lemon-Dijon Dressing.  I didn't have high hopes.  I chose it because I had all the ingredients and salad went with the "market dinner" sitting in my refrigerator from Wegman's Grocery Store, in nearby Jamestown.

Imagine my surprise when not only did both my husband and I love the entire salad, the dressing went right to the top of our list.  I've never found one with so little fat and so much flavor.  There was plenty left over for another meal, and paired with whole grain croutons I made on my panini grill, the salad was simple and terrific.

So chalk one up for CHU.  If the other recipes in this cookbook are half as yummy, I'll be using it a lot more.  Tonight was proof that cooking new things can be fun and sometimes a roaring success.

So what's your recipe?  How'd it turn out?  Just tell us here by clicking on comment above, and you'll be entered in the giveaway.  Plus, best of all, you may discover a new favorite recipe.  And even if you find that at long last, you're ready to give away a cookbook, isn't that progress.

Have fun and tell us how it goes.