Sugar Cone Trees

A variation on the chocolate covered pretzels. I saw a woman make Christmas tree shaped cakes using snowcone cups and an upside down foil roasting pan with holes cut in it to support the cups while they baked in the oven. Cute idea, but way too much work. So I thought about how I could create an edible forest without making cakes.

The solution is to use sugar cones. Dip and roll around in melted chocolate until coated. Embelish with silver dragees for the lights or ornament effect (unless you live in California where some lawyer made it so that dragees are illegal to sell). Silver is poisonous, if you eat five pounds of dragees.

At Cake Art (San Rafael) you can buy all sorts of little embellishments. Dye shredded coconut green with food coloring and make the forest floor by covering a piece of stiff cardboard with foil and scattering the coconut. Place the trees all over the tray to make a forest. I think this is a great idea for a kids' party. You could also use royal icing to stick larger objects to the tree, like a yellow gumball on top for a star. Just break off a bit of the tip to give it a resting place. You could also use icing to glue the "tree" onto a chocolate wafer cookie and fill the insides of the cone with something, like little nonpareils.

Great Camera

I was visiting the marina a few days ago and captured these painterly photos as the sun was setting. I love my little point and shoot Sony.

Chocolate covered pretzels

CHOCOLATE COVERED PRETZELS

You may be thinking, "Chocolate covered pretzels. How hard could it be?" I went through many hours of trial and error after watching a show on the Food Network about a company that makes chocolate covered pretzels. I probably spent $200 and 40 hours before I finally figured out the best combination of ingredients and methods. I want to save you, my friends, hours of agony. Follow this formula. Do not deviate one iota and you will have professional looking and great tasting pretzels.

What you'll need:

• Rold Gold regular, normal pretzel-shaped pretzels. I found the thick pretzels hard to bite into and they overwhelmed the chocolate flavor. About half the pretzels in each bag are broken so take that into account. To make 144 pretzels I needed about six bags. Only I didn't know that so it involved four separate trips to the store from Woodacre to San Anselmo (not a quick trip) because Safeway was the only store that had the right pretzels.
  
• silicone parchment paper, not waxed paper
• tongs
• a glass or ceramic bowl
• dipping chocolate (dark or white only, milk chocolate does not taste or look as good in this case). I get mine at Cake Art in San Rafael, CA
  
• cookie sheet

Once I got everything sorted out the pretzels were much easier than baking cookies and I think they had a more dramatic effect or so I heard since I missed the cookie exchange at Heather's house last year.

OK now this is very important. DO NOT USE A DOUBLE BOILER. I wasted several bags of chocolates. The chocolate would turn white very quickly. I learned that you have to temper chocolate in a double boiler which involves a candy thermometer and turning the heat up and down at regular intervals.

Instead, use a glass or ceramic bowl only. Don't use all of the chocolate at once. Place enough in the bowl to create some depth for dipping. I melted the chocolate in stages to avoid ruining any more expensive chocolate. In between batches I thoroughly washed out the old chocolate and dried the bowl (water ruins chocolate).

Place the bowl of chocolate in the microwave for 30 seconds, remove and stir even if it doesn't look like its melted. Repeat this process for a maximum of three minutes. By then the chocolate should be melted. If not only go in 10 second intervals after the three minute mark to avoid burning the chocolate.

Place one pretzel at a time in the chocolate. Use the tongs to flip it. Once it is thoroughly coated lightly bang the tongs on the edge of the bowl to remove excess chocolate. Place pretzel on parchment. The chocolate should self heal if fluid enough. If it doesn't heal from the tong marks place it back in the microwave for a few seconds. Repeat until tray is full. Place tray in freezer for about ten minutes. If you want to add sprinkles do it while chocolate is soft. For real pizzazz melt a small amount of white chocolate in a small bowl. Place newspapers all over counter and floor. Dip a fork in the white chocolate and flick your wrist in a wide sweeping motion over the whole tray of pretzels to get a nice drizzle effect. Do this step only after the first layer is solid or has been frozen for at least ten minutes.

PRETZEL CANDY

Use the butter flavored waffle pretzels and dip them in white, red or green chocolate and coat them with red or green sprinkles and you will get something very close to candy. People were eating them like popcorn at my house last year. I can't even describe how delicious they were.

QUIZ: How many times did I use the word "chocolate"?

My first Turkey

OK I am really feeling like an idiot. I cooked the most beautiful turkey and I didn't take a picture. I followed Martha Stewart's cheesecloth covered turkey recipe. Oh my gosh, it was the best turkey I have ever had. Even the 2 and 3 year olds had seconds of turkey and whipped cream.

For all these years we have usually spent Thanksgiving with Jerry's brother. I have never had to cook before. I planned and planned and it all came out perfectly. Sometimes, well quite often really, when I cook dinner the entree is finished before the sides or vice versa. Many nights we finish dinner and I realize that I left some important dish in the refrigerator. In other words the kitchen is not my favorite place. So the fact that it all came together and most of the dishes were finished at the same time I attribute to a minor miracle.

So here was the menu:

Stuffed mushrooms which I modified from the previous menu listing. I browned one package Jimmy Dean Sausage with three green onions and a chanticleer pear (I think that's what it was called, it was a super sweet pear about the size and color of a plum) diced small. I then pureed 1/4 cup of cashews in the blender. Stirred the sausage, cream cheese, cashews, scallions and pear all together over low heat and then stuffed the mushrooms. Yummy!

I made the sweet potato puree described in an earlier post. Not a big hit, but it was interesting!

Mashed potatoes using steamed heavy cream instead of milk. So creamy!

Rhodes bake and serve rolls. Much better than I could do on my own.

Brussel sprouts halved and par boiled for eight minutes then sauteed with garlic in olive oil.

homemade cranberry and orange sauce. Tyler Florence's recipe. I would add more sugar than he suggests.

The stuffing and the turkey were the big hits of the day.

For the stuffing I made it up completely. I used four six ounce packages of Mrs. Cubbison's cornbread stuffing or two boxes. One package Jimmy Dean sage sausage browned with six thinly sliced leeks. Yes, you heard right I used six leeks. The flavor was amazing. A couple of people who said they never eat stuffing piled their plates with seconds. Drizzled with about one small can of chicken stock until just damp. I don't like soggy stuffing.

You can find Martha Stewart's turkey recipe several places online. This is the recipe I followed.
http://food.yahoo.com/recipes/martha-stewart/recipe1656/perfect-roast-turkey

Although I don't drink wine I cook with it all the time. In this case it paid off. This was the best turkey ever. One thing I added was fresh chopped sage to the butter I rubbed all over the skin before placing the cheesecloth. You could add any herb whose flavor you like. You could taste the sage in every bite. Delicious!

Whipped Sweet Potatoes

Whipped Sweet Potatoes
(Tyler Florences’ Ultimate)

I am not a sweet potato fan, but this recipe looked so yummy.

Roast several sweet potatoes that have been punctured with a fork at 375° for an hour. For the last twenty minutes add four bananas in their peels to the tray in the oven. Once potatoes are done (soft) remove peels, they should fall off easily. Mash in a bowl with bananas, a few tablespoons of honey and half a stick of butter. Spread in a casserole dish and top with flour, brown sugar and chopped pecan crumble. Bake at 375° until crumble begins to sizzle and brown (abt. 30 minutes).

Men are that they might have joy

While Jerry and I are far from perfect, we have done a few things that have kept us on an even keel. I thought I might share a few of the goofy things we do to stay sane as a couple.

1. We have never gone a single day without saying I LOVE YOU. Even when we don't mean it. Which means that when I want to spit on Jerry for some perceived wrong I say, "I love you" instead. It changes the whole mood of things.

2. We laugh every day. We love quoting Jim Gaffigan, South Park, and Spinal Tap, among other things. For example, last night Jerry asked me how I liked dinner and I replied, "None more." Jerry said, "Do we like Spinal Tap a little too much?" I had completely forgotten we borrowed that phrase from the movie. It is just something we say every day.

3. Jerry walks me out to my car and kisses me goodbye through the open car window every time I leave the house. No exceptions to this ever. He has never waivered, even if we were in the middle of a fight.

4. We try to have joint projects.

5. Just like John Lennon did with Yoko, Jerry includes me in everything he does. He will not take a project which excludes the wives. I am always in the recording studio, albeit not sitting right next to his side. I go to most of his gigs and rehearsals.

6. Jerry never goes out with the guys and I never go out with the girls. We tend to hang out with couples who don't do that either. Basically, if there is a situation which leaves the other person with a pouty lower lip, we don't do that activity. No matter how justified you feel and how irrational you believe your partner to be, what is point of doing any activity that is going to put a grain of resentment into the relationship?

7. We pray together everyday.

8. Something I learned from my sister-in-law. Give 110% even if he is not pulling his weight. Eventually he will rise up to meet you. After all isn't that how Heavenly Father operates. He keeps loving us until we finally see the light.

History Comes to Life

I subscribe to several genealogy email lists and quite often people will inform the list about some new database. Today I learned about a new database for children admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. I went to have a look and on the title page is the story of one little girl who spent several months in the hospital in 1871. In the story it told that she was born and raised at Oatlands Park in Weybridge, Surrey.
<http://www.smallandspecial.org/patients_annie-eastland.html>

Although this little girl is not a relation of mine. We do have a connection. Oatlands Park is where I stay every time I go to England. I just made my reservations for January. Now whenever I am there I will have a real sense of history. A little girl named Annie once roamed the same halls where I will be walking 130 years later. I know I am kind of a geek, but to me it makes the whole experience more meaningful.

Oatlands Park was originally a castle built by Henry VIII for his wife, Anne of Cleves, who never lived in the place. I think we are talking 1538. Eventually it became a royal hunting lodge. Various mansions were erected and knocked down over the years until 1856 when it became a hotel. The first time we stayed there we got the most spectacular room 40' x 40' with 20' ceilings. The bathroom was all white marble. There was a canopy bed, the kind you have to climb onto with a step stool and with drapes to draw shut. I have no idea how we ended up with that room as we were just paying a normal rate, but I really felt like I was in a Jane Austen novel that week.

Thanksgiving Tradition

What kind of family do I come from? There was one dish we had every year without fail. Are you ready for this? Mini marshmallows, fruit cocktail (well drained), and sliced bananas all mixed together in cool whip. Is that so elegant or what? No, I did not grow up in a white trash, redneck home, just your average middle class suburban neighborhood.

I have to admit it is delicious! I hope somebody brings it this year.

Stuffed mushrooms

I wanted an appetizer for Thanksgiving. I know it may be a bit overkill, but I thought it would be nice to have something more than cheese and crackers. I have been channeling Rachael Ray and actually inventing dishes and not measuring (horrors). I have carefully measured and followed recipes to the letter all these years. Rachael Ray has freed me.

STUFFING STUFFED MUSHROOMS

I wanted a variation on stuffing and the stuffing I usually like the best is the one with sage and sausage. I would say this recipe will probably make about 30 mushrooms. I buy the ones that are about 1 inch in diameter. All the ingredients need to be in tiny proportions, because the mushrooms are small.

• One package Jimmie Dean sage or hot sausage
• One box low fat Philadelphia cream cheese
• celery diced very small abt 1/4 C
• Pear diced very finely abt 1/4 C
• Crumbled Gorgonzola or Bleu cheese abt 1/8 C (very strong flavor so adjust to your taste)
• 1 tsp capers chopped finely
• You could also add dried cranberries or walnuts chopped very finely
• You could crumble day old bread and dry it out in the oven and make the filling even more like stuffing

Brown sausage
Add in cream cheese over a low heat to incorporate well
remove from heat and stir in other ingredients

Fill each mushroom cap with a heaping mound of the mixture.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 20-30 minutes in a dish with sides. When the mixture starts to bubble the mushrooms are ready.

Thanksgiving and Christmas

This post is just a foreshadowing of what's to come. I have decided to start sharing some of my ideas, crafts, and recipes for the holidays. Last year when Jerry was traveling up to Utah every week I had a lot of time to think and plan. I found some great things in magazines and on the internet and I also invented a couple of things (as far as I know).

Pure Glass

I had to post this picture of pure glass on Utah Lake. We have been having an official Indian Summer. The days have been warm and sunny and Utah Lake is pure glass. I saw a speed boat bouncing across the lake at 6:30 am yesterday.



Every day I drive one mile to the marina and soak in the stunning beauty. I once looked at an apartment in the Canal in San Rafael. The ad said waterside apartment... An explanation for non-Marinites: the Canal is a pretty seedy area of San Rafael. The woman showing me the apartment said that although it was a bad neighborhood living over the water was great. I decided to pass on the apartment and as I was leaving she said, "If you ever get the chance to live with a view of water, do it. It will change your life." She was right.

Sad Mac - Happy Ending

This is what happens when you drop your laptop onto concrete.



I pulled my briefcase off the car seat, forgetting that I had unzipped it looking for a pencil. My Mac went splat. The nice people at the Apple store fixed it all up for me. Buy Procare if you have a Mac, the $99 membership more than paid for itself with this one. They quoted me $725 for the part and repair, but then they gave me a much nicer price for being a Procare member.

Birdseed gravy

Jerry and I were talking about Thanksgivings past when he said, "The gravy you made two years ago was the best ever." I had to laugh. Nearly every year for at least the past ten years we celebrated Thanksgiving with Jerry's brother, Robin, and his family. A couple of years ago, my sister-in-law Robbin asked me to make the gravy and I asked for a jar to mix the flour and water. The only jar she could find held birdseed at one time, but we washed it a couple of times and proceeded.

The first taste of gravy revealed a hint of birdseed flavor, but Robbin and I just decided to put it on the table and hope for the best. The raves were instant. "This is the best gravy" nearly everyone exclaimed. Someone hit the nail on the head saying, "It has a distinctive nutty flavor." The conversation moved on and Robbin gave me a sly knowing look. The secret to great gravy is to fill a glass jar with birdseed a few months before Thanksgiving.

While my Fiddle Gently Weeps

Jerry was doing a session at SonyTree in Nashville. It was a beautiful studio and the head engineer, Bart, ran a tight ship. His sessions were all efficiency and order. He took really good care of the artists. Interns ran to and fro making sure that the coffee never ran out and that the machines in the control room remained in good working order. In other words a pretty business-like environment, not the kind of place you would expect to cry.

Well, the session musicians were recording several songs a day. The entire ensemble would multi-track, meaning they would all record at once as a band and then individuals would fix any little glitches they made, on their own track. The fiddle player Andrea Zonn was playing a soft pretty passage along with piano to "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." All these tough, seasoned musicians and recording engineers were weepy by the end of the take, it was so profoundly beautiful and perfect.

Andrea popped her head in the door of the control room and in her sweet southern drawl said, "I think I can do it better, ya'll"

p.s. The postscript to this story is that as Andrea was holding out the long, last note a huge clap of thunder can be heard on tape. It was so loud that it was picked up in a soundproof, underground studio. It actually fits perfectly in the song and the producer left it there. Every Christmas when we are listening to that song we kind of chuckle about the perfection of that moment.

Weighing in on politics

You cannot just subscribe to a Bible religion and then call yourself a Christian. You have to behave in a Christ-like manner to truly be Christian. I was reading an article about Mitt Romney’s bid for the White House.
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695223044,00.html

The article details the Southern Baptist belief that members of the LDS Church are not Christians and are cult members. I have a hard time understanding how a religion based on the Bible, as the absolute word of God, has the nerve to spend one minute putting down any one of God’s children, no matter their religion. Don’t they risk incurring God’s wrath for such an act? I believe that when you put yourself above others in any way, shape, or form you have missed the point entirely.

The LDS faithful follow the teachings of Christ (i.e., Are Christians) and we are lucky enough to have the Bible AND the Book of Mormon for further guidance.

That Christian spirit pervaded the 2002 Utah Winter Olympics. I went to the Closing Ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics, along with attending many other sporting events. There was a general hum that those were the most organized, best Olympic games of all time. Mitt Romney is a great leader and he pulled the SLOC from utter shame to Radiant Pride. I wonder what great things he could do for the nation. Heaven knows we need some help after eight years of Bush.

Now for all you Republicans, I was willing to give Bush a chance. On the night he was finally declared President-elect I cried, and hard. Several people said, “What’s the big deal? Bush was the lesser of two evils.” My answer was, “Yes, but Bush is going to pull this country downhill.” And even my ultra-conservative friends tend to concede that Bush could have done a better job.

I do not generally vote Republican, but I will vote for Mitt. He is the most experienced and best leader in the running. Someone sent me a link on youtube titled “George Bush drunk”. It shows a video of Bush Jr. tipsy at a wedding. How is that OK, but being Mormon is just intolerable? Rudy Giuliani’s moral judgment seems lacking. Hilary I am not sure about yet. Obama is just too inexperienced to lead the nation.

This focus on a candidate’s religion goes back to old biases that have been largely overcome by other minorities. Somehow it is still OK to Mormon-bash.