Hot Apple Cider Recipes

As I sit sipping some store-bought apple cider—and yes, it’s real and yes, it’s still yummy—I can’t help but pine for the most delicious cup of apple cider I’ve ever had, way back during Christmastime in 2005. My daughter had just been born 3,000 miles from home over a month earlier, so my husband and I were spending Christmas away from home with friends in town. It was actually one of the most special Christmases—and one of the most blessed, since our daughter pulled through her prematurity and came home with us in late January.

At our friends’ house, a catered meal was prepared—something we definitely were not used to!—and the most exquisite, orange-flavored apple cider was served along with the hors d'œuvre. I think it had a stick of cinnamon in it, too—but the floating slice of orange and tangy, zesty flavor of it really made the drink the most heavenly hot beverage I’d ever experienced. (And we experienced a few; our stay in California yielded some of the most exotic and delicious things we’d ever had.)

The thing is, I’ve never been able to replicate the drink—and my friend doesn’t have the recipe, either, as it was catered. I would love for anyone who has a delicious, orangey apple cider recipe to share theirs so I could try to replicate such a tasty fall treat.

In the meantime, I will keep looking—and I as I search, I’ve discovered many different delicious-sounding recipes to be used.

Hot Apple Strudel sounds like an absolutely mouth-watering drink. It combines cider with vodka, cinnamon, sugar, caramel apple sauce, and a fresh apple for a taste that sure to be sweet. I’ll have to make this one during our next bonfire!

Wassail Punch is something I’ve always wanted to try—well, Wassail, anyway—and this recipe looks so scrumptious. It also includes orange juice and ginger, so I might be able to get the citrus zing I’m craving from this recipe.

Oh, this Sparkling Cider recipe is something I may have to make even sooner. It just sounds fabulous—with both orange and tangerine juice as well as grenadine and sparkling cider. Mmm…

Muddled Cider, with cranberry juice, cloves, nutmeg, and maple syrup, sounds like something that will warm your bones, too. I’m a huge cranberry juice fan—if it’s not too tart—and I’ll definitely have to try this recipe.

Bedbugs In Books

Bedbugs are the gross-out du jour.  And unfortunately, it's all true.  By the sounds of it, New York City is creeping gradually closer to 100% infestation rates.  And guess what?  They're on the move.  I found a website with a handy map tool to show you where bedbugs have been reported in your area.

Is that an itch?  Hm?  Maybe feel a little something crawling on your calf?  Or is it just me?   It's probably just me.

At first, the word from the front was obvious: don't take anything from the curb.  Then the line moved to encompass thrift stores.  Is the clothing safe?  Has it been heated to the requisite 135 degrees to kill bedbugs?  Probably not.  Better avoid it. 

Offices, subways, day care, hotels, shopping malls, restaurants, upscale clothing stores, movie theaters.  Anywhere that people gather, people leave behind bedbugs.  Literally nowhere is safe.  Cincinnati, ranked the nation's most infested city, had to call in the Department of Defense to help. 

But bedbugs are on the march.  Our Maginot Line of parasitism keeps getting pushed back, and back again.  The latest casualty in the war: used books.  Books!  Library systems across the country have started falling.  Bedbugs forced the temporary closure of library systems in Maryland, Denver, Manhattan, Long Island, Florida, and Cincinnati. 

This seemed preposterous at first.  Until I remembered how many people read books in bed (I do not), and keep stacks of books beside their bed.  These books, with their narrow cracks in the spine and between the pages, are the perfect hiding place for bedbugs.

You can kill bedbugs by heating the infested item to 140 degrees, either in a dryer or in the oven.  Will a book survive a good baking?  I'm not sure I'm brave enough to try, frankly. 

To de-bedbug a book, you should bake it in the oven at its lowest temperature.  Use a thermometer to check the temperature - it should be between 140 and 170 degrees.  Move your oven rack to the lowest point, and cover it with newspaper.  Then place your books in there, but don't stack them - you need the heat to penetrate thoroughly.

My big concern with this is the glue used in the bindings, and making the pages brittle.  Books were not meant to be baked! 

The elephant in the room, of course, is that you definitely cannot bake library books.  Not with those clear plastic slip covers.  Is it time to abandon the library system AND the used book store?  There is no way I could afford to maintain my reading habit if I have to buy every book brand new.  That's just crazy talk!

Bedbugs can survive up to 18 months without a meal; possibly longer.  You can put your treasured books into a securely sealed Ziplock bag and leave them untouched for two years.  That would do the trick. 

It seems like it would be easier to freeze the bedbugs out, and better for your books.  But this essentially requires long-term access to a commercial freezer, with temperatures around 20 degrees below zero.   A home freezer won't get cold enough to kill the bedbugs off.

My next fear?  Bedbugs in YARN.

Photo credit: Flickr/cdresz

Koreans Suffer as a Result of a Kimchi Shortage

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away-South Korea, I lived in an apartment with multitudes of pots of fermented, (rotting) spicy, salty, fishy cabbage known as kimchi on the roof. In South Korea, kimchi is more than a “national food”, the fermented cabbage is served with every meal, is believed to have mysterious health properties that don’t quite yet seem documented by science, and is the “life blood” of the Korean people who consider themselves to be the “Italians of Asia.” For these reasons, the high cost of kimchi in South Korea as a result of a national cabbage shortage is likely akin to panic of severe proportions for the entire homogenous population.

The NYT reports that the Korean newspapers are calling the current shortage, “a national tragedy” and “a once in a century crisis” and the president of South Korea has generously offered to eat cheaper kimchi in a show of solidarity with the Korean people.

Koreans are notorious for their kimchi addictions; if you are traveling in almost any place that Koreans visit, you will notice busloads of Koreans heading out to Korean restaurants because they have such strong cravings for kimchi. Some ajumas (middle-aged women known for their toughness) even bring kimchi with them on planes, buses, boats, or any kind of transportation imaginable. As you might guess, kimchi tastes better than it smells, so the kimchi-carrying Koreans are often easily “spotted” when they are on their travels.

Given the Koreans’ collective-kimchi addiction, how are they handling the cabbage and kimchi shortage? According to the NYT, some Koreans are handling the shortage much better than others. Usually kimchi in Korea is served with every meal as a free side dish and now Koreans are forced to pay for kimchi with their meals at a number of establishments. Some of those who prefer to make their own kimchi are now forced to buy ready-made kimchi in the stores in order to save money. Others, however, are claiming that the prices have always fluctuated and that the price will eventually go down to more normal levels.

I am honestly having a hard time trying to give non-Koreans an idea of how important kimchi is to the everyday-average Korean- the Koreans won’t necessarily starve without kimchi, so the shortage isn’t like the Potato Famine or a rice shortage, but maybe like a shortage of fast food restaurants for most Americans.


Mmm, Wendy William's Deep Fried Wig

Ok, now this is what I call cooking badly! What the heck was Wendy Williams thinking when she decide to have one of her damn wigs deep fried? I'm sure her wig was tasty, what with all that batter and oil, now all she needs is a nice dipping sauce. I wonder what goes well with fried wig, any ideas? I don't think I want to know.

Will a Twinkie last forever?

Since 1930 Hostess has been making Twinkies and has since then turned them into an American icon. Images of children munching on the sponge cake in the school play yard come to mind with yellow crumbs on their bright, gleaming faces as they lick the delicious white gooey insides…

Now here’s an image of a Twinkie you probably couldn’t imagine… Out in the woods, where your footprints simply retract into a lush, woodsy environment. There is no cell phone reception, dinner is caught riverside and bears populate the area. Perched atop a high branch of a tree, there lays a Hostess Twinkie sponge cake.

My father’s friend conducted an experiment. He unwrapped a Twinkie and placed it on a high branch of a tree near his camp. When he returned two years later, the Hostess Twinkie sponge cake was in exactly the same place as he left it. It appeared as if it had been completely untouched. Not even a squirrel had been desperate enough to eat it, much less a bear.

Steve Ettlinger, author of “Twinkie, Deconstructed” determined there were 39 ingredients in the Hostess Twinkie sponge cake. According to ABC News, Ettlinger said, "It's more than I expected. When I first looked at it, I thought, yeah well, maybe a dozen. Thirty-nine!" It’s those thirty-nine ingredients that allow the illustrious Twinkie to remain intact on a tree branch for two years.

Corn dextrin is one of those thirty-nine ingredients used in the Hostess sponge cake (a type of corn starch, used as thickener) to give the Twinkie its sticky crust. On its own though, corn dextrin takes on the form of a glue-like substance. Corn dextrin is commonly used as the gum seal used on the back of envelopes.

Another ingredient found in the white creamy center of the sponge cake is cellulose gum. This is also a thickener and responsible for the Hostess Twinkie’s “delicious white gooey inside”. "It's a great fat substitute,” [Ettlinger says of cellulose gum], “It's in a lot of low fat salad dressings, ice creams and it's used in rocket fuel to give a slightly gelatinous feel to the rocket fuel. I just love that."

Still unconvinced Twinkies sponge cakes will not decompose because of their ingredients? Take a Hostess Twinkie and throw it in a blender, I guarantee the end result would not look appetizing. There would be nowhere for those thirty-nine ingredients to hide, unless God forbid, in your thighs. Unfortunately, Twinkies are not the only food stuffs that remain flawless after months or years of sitting out: the Mcdonalds Happy Meal.

Fortunately, it is possible to enjoy a Hostess Twinkie sponge cake without a guilty conscience when you make it from scratch.  Check out this cool recipe for vegan Twinkie.

A Mexican Breakfast: Chorizo w/Eggs

 

The cook insisted. It was my turn to make breakfast and I was not allowed to cook my specialty: lumpy pancakes. I asked if I could just make a smoothie instead of a big breakfast. The answer came in the form of an extremely grumpy face.

“No.”

No smoothies, no pancakes. What could I do? I looked in the refrigerator and found eggs, tortillas, red peppers, and chorizo. It was time to make a Mexican breakfast.  I needed assistance in the form of clear instructions- I’ve cooked sausage before, but have never attempted Mexican chorizo.

Step one: Unwrap the chorizo. To perform this arduous task, I used my kitchen scissors to cut the strings between the sausage links and then squeezed the sausage so that the meat would plop out. (Any sexual innuendos you found here are obviously unintended.)

Step two: Put the chorizo in a cast iron skillet on medium high heat with a little oil. I used a metal spatula and took enormous pleasure and a modicum of joy in squishing the meat. A shout from another room alerted me to the possibility that perhaps I might want to put an apron on to avoid grease splashes.

Step three: Chop and saute the red peppers. I sauteed them on medium heat with a little olive oil as the chorizo fried up on the next burner.

Step four: Panic about how to drain the olive oil from the red peppers after they were sauteing.  I took out the peppers, put the hot olive oil in with the chorizo, and started scrambling the eggs.

Step five: Drain the grease from the chorizo. My attempt resulted in all of the grease landing in the sink, and as a special bonus, a tenth of the meat landed there as well. Oops.

Step six: Panic again because the tortillas are not on the tortilla-warmer. I grabbed two tortillas and put them on the back burner.

Step seven: Mix the eggs in with chorizo. Put in the red peppers in with the chorizo. Get bitched out a little for not adding in onions because they, “bring out the flavor of the chorizo.”

Step eight: Microwave a small bowl of pinto beans. No explanation necessary.

Step nine: Run around kitchen hurriedly to set the table and serve the food.

The Verdict: Not without pain, and not without the loss of a little bit of meat, I actually put together a great breakfast for two people on my first attempt. I’ve cooked similar meals before, but the big difference is how the chorizo mixes with the eggs compared to other meats. The eggs are best with some hot sauce.

Pic from Flckr

News Flash: Expensive Food Tastes Good; Is Better For You

A newspaper in St. Louis held an interesting experiment: they took the same menu list to four different stores, then cooked up the results and ran a taste test.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the more expensive food was better, and better for you as well.

The results of this experiment were as predictable as they were depressing. 

The bargain supermarket store's chicken was cheaper, but injected to the bursting point with water and artificial flavors. The end result was a bland, chewy bird. 

The farmer's market chicken cost twice as much, but produced locally, raised and slaughtered humanely, and turned out absolutely delicious.

The only surprise in this article is that it was a surprise to so many people.  It was a surprise to the participants, it was a surprise to many of the article's readers, and it was even a surprise to me.  Despite the fact that I should really know better, because I pay pretty close attention to this kind of thing.

Part of what's going on here is that we have become conditioned to think of everything as being equivalent.  The $200 television at Walmart is the same as the $500 television at Best Buy.  The $5 t-shirt at Target is the same as the $40 t-shirt from American Apparel.  A carrot is a carrot is a carrot.

Problem is, it ain't so.

This belief has been drilled into us mainly by large corporations who keep costs low by offshoring the manufacturing of everything they possibly can, producing shoddy merchandise, and cutting all possible corners. 

Take Walmart, for example.  Walmart exerts a lot of pressure on its suppliers to provide items at a particular price point.  In order to make that price point, the suppliers have no choice but to cut corners.  Electronics manufacturers, for example, will set up a second production line.  They make their regular TVs, and then there's the line where they make their TVs for Walmart.  The Walmart production line gets cheaper components, and much less quality control.

You'd better believe the same thing happens in the food department, too. 

Low income shoppers are, as you might expect, getting screwed in both directions.  If you choose a cheap chicken, you're getting a factory farmed bird that is mostly water, tastes terrible, and is probably far less nutritious.  But if you choose a better bird, you're paying twice as much. 

And let me tell you something, you do not want to be the person standing in line at Whole Foods using food stamps to buy an $8 chicken.  I can't tell you how many times someone has told me, with great outrage, anecdotes about the person they saw at the store paying with food stamps, then loading all those groceries into their Escalade or whatever. 

If you are poor, people judge you.  Some of them will judge you for buying a cheap, crappy chicken.  Others will judge you for buying an expensive, yummy chicken.  It ain't fair, but it's how the world works.


Photo credit: Flickr/Anthony Albright

Agave Nectar

             There is a new sweetener that I am in love with. Agave nectar. For those of you who haven’t heard of or tried this type of sweetener, I highly suggest tasting this yummy product. I first found out about agave nectar while grocery shopping at the local PCC organic store near my house. I intentionally went into the store to buy some bread and jam for breakfast. I passed by the peanut butter aisle, and then saw the agave nectar lying perfectly sweet in front of my large brown eyes. I have heard of agave before, but did not know you could eat it. The agave nectar sweetener instantly caught my attention.

            Two types of agave nectar that was on the store shelves were light or Amber sweetener. Since I do not really like too sweet or strong, I decided to give the light agave nectar sweetener a shot. I drove home and went on my lap top to do a little research on this sweetener. It turns out this delicious sweetener can be added to your hot tea, iced tea, coffee, smoothies, or even protein shakes. I was thinking to myself, “Wow!” I love drinking hot tea and coffee. After my research, I went straight to my kitchen stove to boil some water into the tea kettle to make some yummy green tea. As I was waiting for the water to boil, I took out two tea packets I bought from Whole Foods called Guayaki Organic Yerbe Mate. This tea consists of a rich, balanced, and earthy taste. Once my water was boiling hot, I poured hot water over my coffee cup, placed my tea bags in nicely, and then started pouring the light agave nectar sweetener over my tea. I stirred the tea with a spoon and waited for the tea to be warm. I tasted my green tea and boy was it magnificently delicious! Never have I tasted a sweet tea drink like this before.

            Here is a brief background and description on agave nectar. Agave nectar is also called agave syrup, a sweetener produced in Mexico from several different species of agave. They include the Blue Agave, Salmiana Agave, Green Agave, Grey Agave, Thorny Agave, and Rainbow Agave. Though people may think honey is very sweet, agave nectar is actually in fact sweeter, but less intense in the tasting department. I am not a huge fan of honey, so having a sweetener as a substitute is quite actually yummy and the taste of agave nectar is not too strong or thick.

          Agave nectar is produced from the agave plant by compressing the juice from the core of the plant. This is called the “pina.” The juice from the agave plant is then filtered, and then heated into simple sugars. Then the juice is concentrated into a light syrup-like condensed liquid, ranging in color from light to dark. The coloring from the syrup depends on the degree of processing the liquids. The key ingredients of agave nectar consist of fructose and glucose. Many chefs and cooks use agave nectar into their cooking recipes and dishes for taste. Many vegans use agave nectar into their diet to replace honey. For a 23.5 oz liquid agave nectar bottle at the store ranges about $5-$6. It may seem a bit expensive, but it is worth adding to your kitchen sweetener cabinet in case to whip out the agave nectar for some delicious meals and drinks. Agave nectar comes in many different types of flavors from light, amber, dark, and caramel. This is a very good sweetener I highly suggest as a substitute for honey.  

Creepy Halloween Deserts

Halloween with the family can go much further than costumes and trick-or-treating. This season is so much fun in the kitchen with the kids too. What other time would have an excuse to eat worms and spiders and make mummy pizzas? From creepy deserts to crawly dinners and the spooky drinks and stomach churning snacks, I have found some of the most creative yet simple recipes that you can put together with your kids this Halloween from Disney’s Family Fun. These recipes are a great way to spend time with your little ones and killing the rainy day boredom doing something they will always remember.

Today we’ll start with some creepy but tasty deserts. As the weather starts to get colder teeth seem to get sweeter.  First on the desert list is some Forked Eyeballs. This recipe is super simple and they are served on the fork you use to make them with. Using donut holes, you cover them in white chocolate that you have melted from white chocolate chips, add a regular chocolate chip with the tip cut off for the pupil and then take a tube of red decorating frosting to make squiggly lines for the bulging veins. Leave the fork in the eyeballs, handle side down in a coffee mug while the chocolate firms back up.

How does Frozen Frog Eggs sound? If you love kiwi, then this one is for you. While it is a sweet treat, this one is more on the healthy side of deserts. For this recipe you will need a couple kiwi, some honey and limeade to blend together. Once blended you pour the mixture into eight 3oz cups and place in a casserole dish large enough to hold them all. Then cover it with tinfoil and use Halloween colored popsicle sticks to poke through the tin foil and into each cup. The frozen frog eggs will take about four hours before they are done. To get them out of the cup easily dip them in warm water.

Brain Cupcakes will finish our deserts for the day. This recipe is probably the most simple that I have found to do today. All you have to do is make cupcakes like you normally would or buy a box of mix that’s ready to go. When they are done let them cool and in the mean time throw together some butter cream frosting and yellow and pink food coloring. Mix the colors together until you have your preferred brain color. When ready, put the frosting into a pastry bag with a number 10 tip. Work your way from the middle of the cake out, making squiggly lines until it’s all filled in and your brains are good enough to eat.

 

Christmas in Washington Cookbook

Here in Washington, we're accustomed to thinking of ourselves as being reasonably progressive as far as food goes.  Seattle is one of the hotbeds of cutting edge cuisine, and western Washington is the home of Pan-Asian Fusion cuisine.  (As well as having the nation's highest per-capita number of teriyaki shops.)

But I think it's instructive to remember that for a very long time, and until fairly recently, Washington was extremely… how can I put this.  "Wonder Bread" is the term that comes to mind. 

Christmas in Washington was printed in 1995, from recipes collected primarily from - one gets the feeling - elderly people.  It is an accidental treasury of recipes from the 1950s and even earlier.  Published by Golden West Publishers (which seems to be a vanity press located in Arizona), Christmas in Washington collects "Recipes, Tradition, and Folklore for the Holiday Season."

I always enjoy recipes that come with little stories and introductions, and there are plenty of these to be had here.  Unfortunately the lack of pictures makes it difficult to envision some of the recipes, and occasionally the reader is simply left to their own devices.  For example, I puzzled over Barbecue Cups for several minutes before I could finally wrap my head around what I was reading.  (Basically, it's individual servings of Sloppy Joes, made with Pillsbury biscuit mix in muffin cups.)

Then again, the reader is occasionally grateful for the lack of photographs.  For example, I would prefer not to envision Egg Nog Cranberry Salad, which includes vanilla pudding mix, lemon gelatin mix, raspberry gelatin mix, cranberry sauce, chopped celery, chopped pecans, and "1 env. DESSERT TOPPING mix," whatever that may be. 

Many of the recipes are delightfully bizarre.  For example, White Fruitcake For Christmas involves eight eggs, a pound of butter, a pound of powdered sugar (!!), three cups of flour, and a bunch of chopped candied fruit and nuts.  You are then instructed to line five 1-pound coffee cans with waxed paper, divide the dough evenly, and bake for a staggering 2.5 hours. 

As with so many folk recipes, some of the ingredients can be startling.  Pistachio Dessert calls for 2 cups of Ritz crackers (they are used as a crumb crust for a pistachio pudding topping).  Glazed Turkey Meatballs includes a half cup of shredded tart apples for 1lb ground turkey.  Caramelized Onions calls for 3T butter, 3T brown sugar (most modern cooks make due with the onion's own sugars), and a package of frozen pearl onions.  Candied Cranberries are made by coating cranberries with egg white, tossing them in sugar, and then leaving them to dry (uncooked).

That being said, a lot of these recipes look frankly delicious, and (again, as with so many folk recipes) fairly simple.  If the chef is occasionally left to muddle through on their own devices (as in the recipe for Cream Cheese Muffins which includes the mystifying direction "Combine cream cheese, egg, sugar, and salt; should be very warm") this really only adds to the charm. 

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