A few readers have noticed my blogging drought of late, so I figured it was time to write about where I’ve been these last couple weeks!

Other than working on the new house, I’ve picked up a couple of new interests… new time-consuming interests, I should say.  So the posting has taken a hit.  I will try to do better from now on, though.

As a sidenote, I’ve recently been having difficultly with what I should be posting here, because I seem to be throwing in a little of everything and I’m told that is BAD when it comes to blogging.  Perhaps not all my readers want to hear about family life, or about cooking, or about home improvement and maintenance.  But I can’t seem to commit to just one topic, so I’ve been stalling on writing until I could decide what to do.  My conclusion has been, though, that I’m a better writer when I’m writing about what’s on my mind than when I’m forcing myself to write about something I don’t care about at the moment.  So it seems this blog is destined to remain a hodge-podge of my thoughts.

Glad I got that off my chest!

My friend Tiffany is a very cool chick.  She taught me to knit last year, basically over the internet, with decent success.  And now this year she has managed to give me all the information I needed to start canning.

Canning = preserving food.  I didn’t really know that until I started looking into the concept more deeply.  It totally sounds like something your grandma might know about, but not something you, yourself, would actually take an interest in, right?  That’s what I thought anyway!  But then I started hearing Tiffany talk about making her own jams, and pie fillings, and canning them for use at times of the year when good-quality fruits aren’t as plentiful.  So I got curious.  Then I stumbled on this great blog called Food In Jars, and I was officially bit by the canning bug: I had to learn how to do this.

First I went out and purchase all the necessary canning equipment:

1 Water-Bath Canner with Rack

1 Home Canning Set

Ball Deluxe Quilted Jelly Canning Jars

1 Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

I thought about cheaping out and not getting the canning kit, but that would have been a stupid move and I’m really glad Tiffany talked me out of being a dumb cheapskate.  My experience has been that you really do need every single thing in that kit.

Then I found out about this great pick-your-own farm near our town, and I dragged my family to stock up on things like peaches and raspberries and other good stuff I thought I might want to preserve.  Truth be told: we ate a lot of the stuff before I could think up a way to can it.  However, I did manage to make 1 large jar of peach jam and 3 small jars of bumbleberry preserves (raspberry and blueberry mixed together) in the last 2 weeks!  I haven’t tasted the finished products yet, so I’m not going to share the recipes or how-to’s right now.  This weekend I’m thinking about trying my hand at blueberry butter, and if that comes out well I will probably start sharing recipes.

I’ve also started to bake my own bread… yeast and all… which I will save for an upcoming post because I had a bumpy start to this new hobby. 

© 2010, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

Not too long ago, I asked my readers to help me out with a relationship dilemma of sorts: do I cede territory in the kitchen to Alex from time to time, or don’t I?  The verdict was a resounding “let the man cook,” so last Thursday night I turned over my chef’s knife, in spite of my apprehensions.

Let me just tell you all… it was HARD.  Really hard.  It took every ounce of my self-control to not hover, or supervise, or check on him when I heard banging that made me cringe (banging that turned out to be Alex pounding the chicken tenders).  I squirmed in my chair in the living room.  I tried to distract myself by doing laundry.  When that didn’t work I decided perhaps we ought to open a bottle of wine with dinner.  IT WAS REALLY, REALLY HARD TO STAY OUT OF THAT KITCHEN.

But, it was also important that I let Alex do his own thing, and make what he wanted to make for me, without giving the impression that I had my doubts.  And after the fifth time I reminded myself of this, a miraculous thing happened: I started to smell what he was cooking.  It smelled good!

Alex, as it turns out, was making chicken stir fry with rice and salad, a meal I would be perfectly happy for him to make again from time to time.  Here are a few pictures of the finished product:

Thanks for all your input – you all really helped on this issue!

© 2010, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

I’m a control freak.  I don’t know if this has ever come up before here, but it’s true.

My need to control things doesn’t usually cause major problems in my life.  I like to have things planned out, and I hate surprises, but most of the time it’s not so bad. At least, it was not so bad until Alex and I moved in together almost a year ago, and it started to manifest itself in the most bizarre way ever: in the kitchen.

Just so everyone has some background, there are 3 things you should know about me and my kitchen:

1. It is MY kitchen.  It has been ever since I left college and immediately moved into my own apartment.  I set it up the way  that works for me to cook and bake, and if someone moves something it makes me really cranky.
2. I can get really anal about how my kitchen equipment gets cleaned.  To the point where I don’t want anyone except me to clean that room.
3. I dabbled in catering for a few years before going to graduate school for science, and I worked in a restaurant kitchen for a stint as a prep chef.  This experience gave me some very specific ideas about what does and what does not constitute a decent meal.

When Alex and I were dating, my need to control things in the kitchen wasn’t much of a problem.  I cooked things for him, and I cleaned them up, and he enjoyed it (except for the time I made an herb salad that consisted primarily of parsley… that he didn’t enjoy.  Maybe I will write a post about that one day soon.).  But when we moved in together and got engaged, Alex started to make more noise about my kitchen control issues.

Why would he do that? you might ask.  It’s a good question, and I didn’t really understand it at first, either.  After all, why would any guy question being served home-cooked meals on a regular basis?

The answer, revealed after several disagreements over dinner, is this: Alex likes to cook sometimes.  And he doesn’t like they I don’t really LET him cook.  Oh, he heats up Spaghettio’s occasionally, and he makes a mean slice of toast, but touch my chef’s knife?  I DON’T THINK SO!  He made me dinner on my last birthday, and I ultimately made the poor guy so nervous that he wound up serving me slightly pink chicken.  He has not picked up a pot or pan since.

The fact that I do all the cooking, not because he can’t cook but because I don’t WANT him to cook has been the topic of conversation with some of our friends and family recently.  Bottom line: Alex would like to cook sometimes, but  I simply can’t get past my need to have control over the kitchen all the time.  It’s an impasse.  My mom has suggested I let him cook 1 night per week, but I am so scared I will be served Lipton noodles with chickpeas (an inside joke, sorry), that so far I’ve had trouble stomaching the concept of turning over my apron for an evening.  It’s also been suggested that I could regret discouraging him from cooking down the road, when we have kids running around every day and I don’t have the time/energy to cook a meal.  That one got filed away under “noted.”

So I am taking this quirk to my readers!  Do any of you have a suggestion for how a control freak such as myself can come to terms with “allowing” my future husband to make an occasional dinner or two?  Should he just be thankful I am making dinner at all and let it go?  Is there a middle ground?

Thank you in advance for you help!

© 2010, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

Not to disappoint anyone, but I have decided that my cookie-making spree has come to an end.  Last night I was putting together some cookie trays for upcoming events and I realized that between all the cookies and chocolates and cake balls, I’m pretty well set.  To be honest, I am also tired of baking, so that is a contributing factor to my decision to stop all the baking craziness.

If you want to see the previous 9 days of cookie making, see here.

For Day 10 of the series, then, I am going to show you all pictures of the little cranberry breads I made as back-up gifts this year.  I got this idea from my mom, who used to make loads of mini breads and freeze them, so she would have readily available items to defrost and give if she had to go somewhere during the holidays that would require bringing a hostess gift, or if she forgot about a teacher or a bus driver.  I chose to make cranberry bread because it seems the most festive.  Each one is 3×5 inches, so each bread batter batch gives you 3 loaves of bread.

I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading about my holiday baking adventures as much as I’ve enjoyed writing about them! Happy Holidays!!

© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

Has anyone ever seen the episode of Friends where Phoebe wants to give Monica her grandmother’s recipe for “the best chocolate chip cookies” as an engagement present?  They spend the entire episode trying to work out what the recipe actually was, the original having been lost in a fire.  In the end, the recipe ends up being the Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip cookie recipe – you know, the one that you can find on the back of the chocolate chip bag.  Phoebe’s grandmother had been pretending it was her very own, special recipe for all those years.

I don’t want to brag, but I’ve been told a few times that I make the best chocolate chip cookies ever.  (Did you just roll your eyes and contemplate not reading any further?!)  It’s always possible the people who have said this to me were trying to get me to help them with something at the time, but I choose to believe the comments came from the heart and were true.

I’m going to let you all in on a little secret: the recipe I use to make my chocolate chip cookies is the same recipe Phoebe’s grandmother passed off as her own – the Nestle Tollhouse recipe on the back of the bag of chocolate chips!  My only adjustment is putting parchment paper on the cookie sheets, and I’m not sure I’m convinced this makes a huge difference in the taste of the cookies… I use the parchment paper because it makes it easier to clean the cookie sheets.

Day 9 in my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies series is (drum roll please): Chocolate Chip Cookies.  If you’d like to see the previous 8 days in my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies series, please click here.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups (1 12-oz package) Nestle chocolate chips

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 375° F.  Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Here is the photo log of the dough being made – it’s very straightforward, and I had no hiccups to share with you all, thankfully.

I got exactly 36 cookies out of this recipe, but I did donate one to Alex and E because they were so good about staying out of my way in the kitchen while I was baking.

© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

To see the previous 7 Days in my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies series, click here.

Day 8′s cookie is the only one for which I really have no recipe to share with you.  I have a good reason (I think): I had planned to let E help make these cookies, because they are Gingerbread Men.  I figured it would be less mess, with fewer chances for a disaster, if I used cookie mix from a bag and only had to add an egg, butter, and water with E.

It went pretty well.  I used the Betty Crocker gingerbread cookie mix, which is as easy as they come.  E and I followed the directions on the bag, and then rolled the cookie dough out on the table:

Then it was time to shape the gingerbread men… women… people…

Now it was time to decorate.  I was worried that icing might be messier than a 2-year-old can handle, so we just used holiday-colored sprinkles.  E was doing a great job, until he realized the sprinkles were edible, “like on ice cream.”  Then it became one for the cookies, five for E.  I didn’t see this coming!  I don’t remember trying to eat the sprinkle decorations when I was little and helping my mom!

At any rate, the cookies came out looking fine, and they tasted good.  E was very proud that he got to tell people he made the “men cookies.”

© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

I recently “discovered” a very cool website called Bakerella.  They have loads of cool things to make on there, but the one that picqued my interest the most was an item called cake balls.  I had actually heard of cake balls before seeing them on Bakerella, because my mom had purchased cake balls from a bakery in Connecticut when we were looking for a place to purchase a cake for our engagement party.  They looked hard to make, so I didn’t think much about trying to make them myself… until I saw the recipe on Bakerella, which looked 100% doable!  So for Day 7 of my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies series (you can view the first 6 days here), I present you with Cake Balls, based on a recipe on Bakerella’s website.

Cake Balls

1 package of store-bought cake mix

Ingredients required to make cake from the box

1 package frosting (16 oz)

1 package chocolate bark (regular or white)

wax paper

Make the cake in a 13×9 inch pan and allow the cake to cool completely.  Once cooled, crumble the cake into a large mixing bowl, then mix in the can of frosting.  Combine the cake and the frosting until the cake is thoroughly moistened.  Roll quarter-sized balls of cake and place on a cookie sheet (you should get at least 40 balls).  Chill the balls for a few hours.  When the balls are cooled, melt the chocolate according to the package instructions.  Melting a little at a time is best, since the chocolate will cool rapidly and it’s best to work with it when it’s hot.  Roll the balls in the melted chocolate with a spoon, then place the chocolate-covered cake balls on wax paper to cool.

I decided to make chocolate cake balls, so I bought chocolate cake mix and milk chocolate frosting.  I followed the directions for making a 13×9 inch cake on the box and let it cool.

Once the cake was cooled, I crumbled it up and into a large bowl.  Then I spooned the chocolate frosting onto the crumbled cake and mixed it together.  The Bakerella website said using your hands would be best, but messy, so I used my hands to mix.  They were right – very effective, but very messy!

The cake balls cooled in the refrigerator for about 4 hours.  Then it was time to finish them off with the chocolate.  I used Ghirardelli chocolate chips, because I’ve found that they melt the best and have the most gourmet taste.  This part was much easier than I thought it would be.  The directions on the bag of chocolate chips for melting worked perfectly, and using a spoon to roll the cake balls in the chocolate made the whole thing go quite smoothly.  The chocolate did cool quickly – the first one was hardened by the time I had gotten only a quarter of the way through all the balls!

I served these to some friends on Saturday night, and everyone said they were great!  They were very moist and rich, and they DO look pretty fancy on a tray full of cookies.

Stay tuned for Day 8 in the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies series: Gingerbread Men (with the aide of a little helper!).

© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

I don’t usually make sugar cookies.  I usually leave that to my mother.  I don’t have the patience for rolling out the dough and cutting out shapes or any of the other fun stuff you have to do when you make sugar cookies.  But then I found this recipe for Chocolate Hazelnut Sandwiches in the December issue of Real Simple magazine and I decided the sugar cookie boycott had come to an end.  How could I NOT make cookies that involved Nutella?!

Chocolate Hazelnut Sugar Cookie Sandwiches

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling cookies

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)

3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups Nutella spread

confectioner’s sugar for sprinkling

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.  Using an electric mixer, beat together butter and sugar until smooth.  Add the egg and beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Beat in the vanilla.  With the mixer on low, gradually add in the flour mixture.  Shape into a disk and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, wrapped.  Remove from the wrap and roll the dough out to 1/4-inch thickness and cut into your desired shape with a cookie cutter.  Bake 12-15 minutes at 350 degrees F on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets.  Allow the cookies to cool, then spoon Nutella into the middle of one cookie and place another on top to form a sandwich.  Sprinkle sandwiched cookies with confectioner’s sugar.

I followed the recipe exactly to make the dough, then refrigerated my wrapped ball for around 2 hours.

When it was ready, I rolled the dough out and used my holiday cookie cutters to shape the cookies.  Make sure you make an even number of shapes so you have 2 sides for each sandwich!

Then the cookies went into the oven and cooked until golden brown – for the most part.  Because I’m not a very accomplished dough-roller, some of the cookies were thinner than others, and those ones got a little browner than the others.  Nothing burned though.

Then it was time for the fun part – adding the Nutella.  I used a teaspoon to put about a teaspoon full of the spread into the center of each cookies.  Then I pressed a second cookie on top of the Nutella to form the cookie sandwich.  When the cookies were done I dusted them with confectioner’s sugar to make them look festive.

If you’ve missed the first 5 days of my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies series, you can click here to check out the other posts.  Stayed tuned for Day 6: CAKE BALLS!

© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

First things first: I know I am posting 2 “cookie days” today.  It’s because I fell a day behind and I’m trying to make up for it so all the recipes have made their way to you by Christmas.  If you’ve missed the previous 4 days, you can check them out here.

Day 5 was a rather ambitious recipe for me: Chocolate Truffles.  I think I read through at LEAST ten truffle recipes before I settled on this one, by Ina Garten, and felt it MIGHT be doable.  Recipes that involve nothing but chocolate have not been my friend in the past.  I know my barks (Day 1 and 2 of this project) came out nicely, but as far as I know that could have been the world’s biggest fluke!  Here’s the thing: I’ve tried my hand at making fudge for my brother 3 times in the last few years.  It NEVER works.  I have no idea what I’m doing wrong, so I like to blame it on the fact that I don’t own a candy thermometer, but it could just as easily be my lack of patience for chocolate baking.  Anyway, point of the story = me making chocolate truffles had the potential to be a complete disaster.

Chocolate Truffles

1/2 lb good bittersweet chocolate

1/2 lb good semisweet chocolate

1 cup heavy cream

1 tbsp prepared coffee

1/2 tsp good vanilla extract

confectioner’s sugar (for dusting)

cocoa powder (for dusting)

Chop the chocolate finely and place in a heat-proof mixing bowl.  Heat the cream in a small saucepan until it just boils.  Turn off the heat and allow the cream to sit for 20 seconds.  Pour the cream through a fine-meshed sieve into the bowl with the chocolate.  With a wire whisk, slowly stir the cream and chocolate together until the chocolate is completely melted.  Whisk in the coffee and vanilla.  Set the bowl aside at room temperature for 1 hour.

With 2 teaspoons, spoon round balls of chocolate mixture onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Roll each ball of chocolate in your hands to roughly make it round.  Roll in the confectioner’s sugar, cocoa powder, or both.  Store the truffles in the refrigerator, but serve them at room temperature.

The first few steps of this recipe went great.  Brought the cream to”just” boiling, poured it over the chocolate – oh, right, I once again used chocolate chips because I am lazy and avoid chopping chocolate at all costs.  I did, however, use GOOD chocolate chips (Ghirardelli) instead of a more common brand.

Melting the chocolate and mixing everything together went well, too.

Then I set it aside for an hour to set.  This is the part where I began to have issues.  After the hour went by, I got my spoons and started trying to make balls.  This did not go well at all.  The chocolate was still quite soft, and it made a mess, and nothing resembling balls of chocolate.  I dropped a few balls on the cookie sheet, became convinced the chocolate wasn’t ready yet, and stuck the bowl in the freezer.

After a few minutes, I took the bowl of chocolate out of the freezer and tried again.  That’s when I noticed the few balls I had already dropped onto my cookie sheet were firm now, and really easy to shape into balls.  A lightbulb went on over my head (I swear!).  The recipe meant to drop the chocolate on the sheet, then GO BACK and shape the balls.  Doing it this way worked well, although it was pretty messy.

When all the truffles were shaped, I rolled half of them around in a bowl of cocoa powder.  The other half got rolled around in confectioner’s sugar.  I imagine you can roll them in anything – nuts, granulated sugar, sprinkles.  Had I not been so nervous about this recipe I probably would have been more adventurous.

I’m happy with the finished truffles.  I might even be over my fear of cooking with chocolate!

© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

Every year at Christmas, I make cookies to give away to my family and friends. Usually it’s on a small scale – a couple of kinds of cookies or cupcakes. This year, though, I have a lot more people to incorporate into my giving. Initially this freaked me out, because I had no idea how I’d get it all done. Then I realized this was an opportunity to have fun with the baking, and I began to see it as a challenge. So… I have decided to make 15 types of cookies/candy and 3 kinds of bread in the next 12 days. I will give away almost all of what I make to family and friends (I suspect some of it will disappear mysteriously overnight when little elves in my apartment get hungry). With any luck, the next 12 days will chronicle my attempt at making this happen – or else it’s going to document my horrible failure!

Christmas cookies are a tradition in my family. Every year since I can remember, my mom would start baking at least a week before Christmas, and she would make us all help her.  I learned a lot about baking from her – and I also learned a lot about how NOT to bake from her.  I remember this one time I put the sugar in with the flour and OH BOY was that the wrong thing to do.  It took a whole year for her to let me help again.

I digress.

One type of cookie that is an absolute staple in our family is the peanut butter cookie.  They are simple and delicious, and I don’t think there has ever been a holiday season without peanut butter cookies.  So it’s only natural that I include this recipe in my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies series.  If you’ve missed the first 3 days, you can check out Day One, Day Two, and Day Three when you have time!

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup sugar, plus extra for rolling

1 stick of butter, at room temperature

1 egg

1 cup smooth peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 cups flour

Hershey Kisses, out of the foil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Grease a cookie sheet.  In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar.  Beat in the egg.  Mix in the peanut butter and vanilla until smooth and creamy.  Stir in salt, baking soda, and flour until well combined.  Roll dough into 1 inch balls and then roll in sugar.  Place on cookie sheet and flatten with a fork.  Bake for 12-15 minutes.  If desired, press a Hershey Kiss into the center of cookie while it is still warm.  Allow cookies to cool before storing.

First, one of the things this recipe (from Food Network’s website) does not tell you to do that I always do is combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, and salt) in a bowl before adding them to the wet ingredients.  That looks something like this:

That said, it’s a pretty straight-forward recipe. Make sure the butter is at room temperature, or you will have major problems with creaming it!

Once the dough is ready, you roll it into balls, then roll the balls around in a bowl or sugar.  You place the rolled cookies on the cookie sheet, then press them down with a fork.  I make crosses with the fork on the cookies, but you can press them down however you like.  You can also make the balls whatever size you like, but you will have to adjust the baking time accordingly.

Once the cookies come out of the oven, you should stick your Hershey Kisses on right away, to ensure they stay put once everything cools.  I don’t like putting the Kisses on every cookie I make, because I often find I don’t actually WANT the Hershey Kiss when I want a peanut butter cookie.

The recipe above will make about 24 cookies if you make them the size I did.  Hopefully the little elves in my house will keep their hands out of the cookie jar until we get a bit closer to Christmas so I don’t have to make more!

© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.