A Favourite Cookbook

Today I decided to make an old favourite of mine...refrigerator sugar cookies. They are the perfect treat with a cup of tea, thin and crispy, but not too sweet. The recipe comes from my mom's old Joy of Cooking cookbook. It is well-loved as the spine is split in three places and is currently held together with a red elastic band. You can see from the photo that my dad gave it to my mom, complete with an affectionate message, on Christmas 34 years ago. The "Joan and Bruce Show", as I like to call their marriage, has been going strong for over 53 years!

This book was originally published in 1931 and is an excellent resource when you need a classic recipe. I have used it to learn many classics, from creme caramel (flan) to waffles.
These cookies go together quickly and can be frozen in the "log" state and baked later. I usually decrease the amount of sugar, double the recipe, bake one "log" and freeze the other one for later use.


Butterscotch Refrigerator Cookies
(adapted from the Joy of Cooking - revised 1973)

1 cup butter, softened
1 3/4 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 to 3 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder

*Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla, then mix in the salt, baking powder and flour. Start with 2 1/2 cups of flour and if the dough is still sticky add the extra flour.
Tear off a generous piece of plastic wrap and put half of the finished dough in the middle. Gently shape the dough into a log shape with a diameter of about 5 cm. Wrap and chill in the freezer for about 30 minutes, so that it is easier to cut. (You may leave the dough in the freezer at this point.) Cut the dough into thin slices and bake at 400F for 8-10 minutes (watch them as they can burn easily).

Birthday Cupcakes

For my son Max's birthday this year, I decided to make brownie cupcakes instead of the usual birthday cake. I used a recipe I found a few years ago in Woman's Day magazine. After the first attempt 5 years ago, I wrote on the recipe, "very good. Dean gave me a hug they were so good!"

I like this recipe because it uses semi-sweet chocolate. Many brownie recipes use unsweetened baking chocolate. So you can always use semi-sweet chocolate chips if you don't have baking chocolate squares on hand. As you can see in the photo, we indulged in chocolate whipped cream on top...it was a special occasion after all.

Brownie Cupcakes (from Woman's Day, September 1, 2003)

1/2 cup butter

4 squares semi-sweet baking chocolate

3/4 cup sugar (the original recipe calls for 1 cup)

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 eggs

2/3 cup flour

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

* In a saucepan on medium heat, melt the butter and chocolate. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar, vanilla and eggs. Add the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder and stir until just blended. Divide batter among 12 muffin cups lined with muffin papers. Bake at 325F for 25-30 minutes.

Thanksgiving 2008

Thanksgiving is a great excuse to bake more than one pie. After all we are celebrating the harvest and being grateful for our families and food...

This year we went to my parents' house for dinner. My mother, as usual, did a fantastic job and brought together all the favourites - roast turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing (our tradition is to use bagels in the stuffing so it doesn't get soggy), mashed potatoes, green and yellow beans, and mashed turnip (a nod to my mother's Nova Scotian heritage). A truly Herculean effort on her part. Only when I started to be responsible for the large family dinners did I realize just how much work it was. Mom always made it seem so easy. I provided the pumpkin and apple pies for dessert. Oh yes and there was some whipped cream too (do calories count on Thanksgiving?)

When I was young teenager, we lived in a house around Bayview and York Mills in North Toronto. We had the distinction of having a working wood stove fitted into our basement. My Dad installed it in the seventies as a reaction to the "energy crisis" of that time. He attached it to our heating duct system so it provided not only heat but also a place to cook. During that time I recall on Sundays (and of course Thanksgiving) my mom cooking roasts and baking in the oven. She was able to teach me how to use the wood stove to cook and bake since she grew up with a wood stove in her house in rural Nova Scotia. I helped when I could since most of my weekend time in those days was spent doing homework and studying. Then, as now, I loved to bake and it's interesting for me to reflect on my honing my baking skills in those days with my mom's help and the wood stove in the city.

My dad (who loves jokes that manipulate language) enjoyed my comment that my making two homemade pies today, I was like a pioneer ("pie"-oneer).

My mom generously gave me the remains of the turkey to make soup. That is my project for today - homemade turkey, vegetable and rice soup. Some people throw the bones etc. away but I was taught to use up their goodness by making delicious soup - I guess I do have a bit of pioneer inside me.

Homemade Bread and Butter

Today was one of my favourite teaching days. The time when we celebrate Thanksgiving together is a wonderful time to talk about what we are thankful for, to create bread, butter and vegetable soup from scratch and to share our good fortune with teachers and staff.

The students always love the taste of this homemade bread. Of course it tastes even better with homemade butter.

I have managed to find a way to bake bread without an oven. This is a necessity in a classroom where you do not have easy access to a stove. One year when I baked bread in a school, I set off the fire alarm and the whole school was evacuated! You see I didn't realize at that time that the ovens in staff rooms may not have been cleaned regularly...

This is a Welsh bread recipe that is designed to be baked in a frying pan on an open fire. I use an electric frying pan in school and a regular frying pan on an electric stove when baking this at home. I have adapted the recipe to use the "quick-rise" style of yeast, which reduces the usual two rising times to just one and replaced lard with vegetable oil.

Welsh "Planc" Bread (from The Book of Bread by Judith and Evan Jones - 1982)

3/4 cup recently boiled water
3/4 cup milk (not skim)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 packages "quick-rise" style yeast
2 teaspoons salt
3 1/2 to 4 cups all purpose flour

* In a large bowl put the water, milk, oil and salt and mix together. Add one cup of flour and stir. Add both packages of yeast and mix in. Stir in 2 1/2 cups of flour - at this point you will have to start mixing with your hands. Keep adding in flour and kneading with your hands until the dough pulls together into a ball and is dry to the touch - about 5-8 minutes. Put a clean tea towel over the top of the bowl and let rise, in a warm place, for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Punch down the dough and put on a lightly greased frying pan (no heat) and let rise for about 20 minutes. Put the heat on med-low and make a "tent" of foil. Leave the bread to bake for 15-20 minutes and check the bottom of the bread. If there is a nice brown crust, turn it over, replace the foil "tent" and bake an additional 20 minutes. Remove the bread to a cooling rack. Cut into slices and serve with butter. This bread also makes excellent toast.

Homemade Butter in a Jar

500 ml whipping cream (regular is good but organic is really good)
1 tsp salt
1 glass jar (I use a clean empty jar of "Classico" spaghetti sauce)

*Pour the salt and cream into the jar. Shake the jar vigorously for 15-20 minutes. The cream will get thicker and thicker and all of a sudden - KERPLONK- the butterfat separates from the whey and you have a large lump of butter in the jar. Pour off the whey and spoon out the butter into a dish. You may have to "squeeze" the fresh butter with the back of a spoon to release the remaining liquid.

Broccoli and Cheese Soup

One of my favourite cookbook authors is Nigella Lawson. Her recent book is a collection of recipes that are very fast and inexpensive to create. I also manage to get a good result even though I don't always have the exact ingredients on hand.

I tried this soup recipe last weekend when my parents came over for dinner and lo and behold both my children actually ate it...and one even said (without prompting) "this is good". Now, there was a liberal scattering of grated mozzerella and cheddar cheese (children) or Stilton cheese (adults) to enhance the taste.

I used my food processor to grate a block of mozzerella cheese and a block of "old" cheddar cheese. Then I used it to blend the soup.

Broccoli and Cheese Soup (inspired by Broccoli and Stilton Soup from Nigella Express - 2007)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

I clove garlic, chopped

1 tsp dried thyme

1 kg bag frozen broccoli

4 cups vegetable stock (I used a stock cube)

salt and pepper to taste

250 g cheese (Stilton - crumbled; Mozz/Cheddar - grated)

* In a large pot saute the garlic and onion in the oil. Cook about 5-7 minutes. Add the frozen broccoli and vegetable stock, cover and cook for 10 minutes or until the broccoli is tender. Use an immersion blender or a food processor to blend the soup. Return to the pot, season to taste with salt and pepper and reheat slightly. Serve soup with a generous sprinkle of cheese on top.