put it in my mouth

After being harvested from the bog, cranberries are transported to a processing facility where, among other things, they are separated into three quality grades—first grade, second grade, and unacceptable. If you drop a good cranberry on the floor, it will bounce higher than a medium-good cranberry, which itself will bounce higher than a bad cranberry. So to determine quality, the berries are dropped from a separator onto a downward-sloping bounce board with a hurdle at the end. If the cranberry clears the hurdle, it goes on to the good berries section. If not, it drops down to a second bounce board and has another chance. If it fails to jump over a few hurdles, its quality grade drops. This process continues until the berry either is assigned a quality grade or is considered unacceptable and trashed.

So this is why, as I was making cranberry pistachio wedding cakes tonight, I thought to myself, if I drop these on the floor instead of putting them in the oven, will I be able to tell which one is going to be the most delicious?

Recipe here. Most obviously, cranberries replace the cherries.

For lunch: soba noodles in broth with spinach and a poached egg and a little bit of ginger and inordinate amounts of Sriracha.

Tricks to poaching: not letting the water actually reach a boil, adding a splash of white or rice vinegar.

These cookies will fill the void you never even knew you had. This recipe for les scourtins aux olives nyons—olive shortbread cookies—came from Jean-Pierre Autrand of Les Vieux Moulins in Nyons by way of Susan Hermann Loomis. Make them once and I promise you will make them again (and then also again).

9 T. unsalted butter, softened
¾ c. powdered sugar, sifted
1 T. olive oil
1 ¼ c. all-purpose flour
½ c. cured olives, pitted and coarsely chopped

Cream the butter in an electric mixer until it is soft and pale. Mix in the sugar, then the olive oil. Gently mix in flour until the dough is smooth, then add the olives and mix until incorporated. Put a piece of wax paper on the countertop, and roll the dough into a log about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap it in the wax paper and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Take out the hardened dough and cut off rounds that are about ¼ inch thick. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the cookies are golden. Cool on wire racks.

Today, I put the yogurt back in the freezer rather than the fridge. (It has been that kind of day.) And now, I can definitively say that freezing yogurt is not the way you make frozen yogurt.

The other night, I wanted yet another cup of coffee but didn’t think I could handle the additional caffeine. And because putting decaf grounds in a regular espresso kettle seemed tantamount to drinking regular coffee, I decided that coffee brewing needed to happen the old-fashioned way: hand-held filtering. Observe:

Then, the filter started sinking with a quickness into the cup. So! Filter becomes tricked-out tea bag. Observe:

And then, here I am, feeling like a total genius, because, hey, I just made coffee the same way they must have in the fifteenth century and adapted in the face of a challenge and even pulled it together to take some photos on my phone and man this coffee looked delicious! Then I proceeded to break the filter and all of the grounds collapsed into the cup. This was devastating.

I was equally as devastated when I went to dump things into my sink, only to observe:

I hadn’t done dishes in days, and my dishes consisted solely of coffee cups and their associated spoons. This seemed pathetic. It was. I hadn’t cooked in weeks, and this was because I was subsisting on pizza, the occasional sandwich, whiskey sodas, and, well, coffee.

So, the only way to fix the problem, obviously, was to cook. A lot. All at once.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND APPLE SOUP

1 large butternut squash
2 apples (I used Cameo)
4 carrots
1 potato
1 onion
1 ½ T. ground ginger
6 c. vegetable or chicken stock
also: salt, pepper, olive oil

*requires a blender

Peel and chop all the vegetables (with the exception of the onion—no peeling there!). Heat a stock pot over medium heat and heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil to the bottom. Add the onions, cook until translucent. Add the rest of the vegetables and the ginger to the pot, and stir so they’re coated in the remaining oil. Add stock and bring to a boil. Simmer until vegetables are soft, about 20 or 30 minutes. Blend soup with an immersion blender. Salt and pepper to taste.

CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP WITH SO MANY VEGETABLES

1 whole chicken
4 carrots
4 celery stalks
2 onions
1 large bunch of spinach
8 cloves garlic
½ lb. whole wheat pasta
Bay leaf
Few springs of thyme
4 c. chicken stock
also: salt, pepper, olive oil

Note: This makes a lot of soup.

Note again: My approach to stock here is pretty bastardized, but (I think) pretty dank. The whole production of real stock—cheesecloth, bones, blah blah blah—seems like too much and takes far too long, so I’ve used a few cups of regular stock, and then pureed some of the vegetables to make it thicker and tastier. Onward!

Wash the chicken and remove the gizzards if they haven’t been removed by the butcher already. Place in a very large stock pot. Add the stock, and then add water until the bird is covered. Add one carrot (unpeeled), one celery stalk, half an onion, the garlic cloves, the bay leaf and the thyme. Cover and bring to a boil. Simmer until chicken is completely cooked, about 30 to 45 minutes. Remove the chicken, and place it on a cutting board or in a colander to cool. Take out the vegetables and a few of the garlic cloves, and puree in a blender with some of the stock. Return the mixture to the pot.

Remove the meat from the chicken. Discard bones and skin, chop up meat and put it back in the pot. Peel the remaining carrots. Chop the rest of the vegetables and add them to the pot. Bring the stock back to a boil and cook until the vegetables are soft (another 15 minutes). Add the pasta and cook per directions, adding the spinach about halfway through. Salt and pepper to taste.

ASPARAGUS BROCCOLI SOUP

My friend Andrew lives across the street from me, and he’d recently told me about a very good soup he had at an Italian restaurant a few blocks away from us. Asparagus and broccoli soup, he said, with no notable seasonings. This was my attempt at a soup involving broccoli and asparagus. It’s not great. I don’t know if this means I’m a poor cook or if it means that any cook who’s relegated to the Upper West Side restaurant circuit doesn’t have a knack for pairing vegetables. I will leave that to you to decide.

1 bunch asparagus
1 large head broccoli
1 large onion
2 stalks celery
2 cloves garlic
1 lemon
4 c. stock
also: salt, pepper, olive oil

*requires a blender

Chop up all the vegetables. Heat a stock pot over a medium heat, and add olive oil, the onion and the garlic. Sauté until the onions are translucent. Add the rest of the vegetables and the stock. Bring to a boil, and simmer until the vegetables are soft. Juice the lemon into the pot (after removing the seeds). Blend the soup with an immersion blender. Salt and pepper to taste.

When it comes to chocolate chip cookies, I’m pretty much of the opinion that the recipe printed on the back of the Nestle’s chocolate chip bag cannot be improved upon. That said, every once in a while, you have to do something different (if for no other reason, perhaps, than to remind yourself of the perfection of the original). When you feel so compelled, I would recommend substituting 1 ½ t. almond extract for the 1 t. vanilla that is called for. I don’t think the variation’s better, but it does make your regular chocolate chip cookie taste just a little bit like marzipan and that can be pretty neat.

So, here I was, with almost a quart of buttermilk leftover in my fridge, and I had no idea what to do with it—or even, really, what it was.

There were two things that I learned quickly:

1. Buttermilk does not taste very good if you try to drink it like milk.

2. Despite the name, buttermilk has fewer calories and less fat than milk. While this could seem like a factor in the taste department, I don’t think there’s any relation.

Then, I thought, what does taste good if you try to drink it like milk? Jack Daniels. This is how I came up with Whiskey Buttermilk Cookies.

Even if I’m not sure what buttermilk is, I know what it means—it means down-hominess, and comfort, and grandmothers. In 1952, the New York Times published an article about baking with buttermilk, with a headline that read “Buttermilk Good for Baking; Modern Cooks Urged to Master Technique of Grandma’s Day.” I like to think that generations of women have been looking backwards for inspiration, and then have looked to buttermilk.

I guess that’s why I wanted to find a recipe from the grand dame of Southern cooking, Edna Lewis. This woman wrote the gospel, as far as pretty much anyone is concerned, and her tea cakes testify to this. The recipe below is actually an updated version of the recipe from Gourmet in 2008, which they’ve called “buttermilk cookies”; Lewis’s original tea cake recipe can be found in The Gift of Southern Cooking, which she coauthored with Scott Peacock.

Part of me feels like my addition of whiskey icing is a corruption of something that is otherwise pure and perfect, but everyone liked the results. Plus, it makes more of a splash when you bring a dessert to a potluck if you can be, like, “Hey, you guys, these cookies will get you WASTED.”

For the cookies:

3 c. flour
1 t. grated lemon zest
½ t. baking soda
½ t. salt
1½ sticks unsalted butter
1½ c. sugar
2 large eggs
1 t. vanilla
2/3 c. buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Beat together the sugar and the butter. Once this is light and fluffy, beat in the eggs one at a time, then beat in the vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, zest, baking soda, and salt. Add a bit of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix slowly until incorporated; add a bit of the buttermilk and mix until incorporated. Continue alternating between adding the flour mixture and the buttermilk until both are used up.

Drop tablespoons of dough onto cookie sheets with parchment paper. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the edges are golden, and cool on a cookie rack.

For the icing:

3 c. confectioners sugar
3 t. buttermilk
3 t. Jack Daniels whiskey

Whisk together all the ingredients. You can adjust the amounts of each, depending on taste and desired thickness. Spoon glaze over cookies and let them cool until the glaze is set.

For a second, I thought, “Oh dear! I have not blogged in so long!” Then I realized that this blog is not read by anyone other than maybe Lauren Bans, and really it is only meant to be a repository of things I have baked or soups I have made—so my worrying was for naught, natch. But I have been baking a little recently, and it is high time that I posted the results. Among other things, I think I have discovered the best peanut butter cookie recipe in the world. For reals!

First, though: Baking* with bacon. So delicious! I sort of feel embarrassed about jumping on the whole bacon-and-sweet-things bandwagon, particularly because that wagon left the station like at least five months ago. But these little babies are so worth it. The recipe comes, again, from Screen Doors and Sweet Tea, which I recommend investing in for certain.

1 c. granulated sugar
½ c. packed light brown sugar
½ c. buttermilk
1 T. light corn syrup
½ t. baking soda
¼ t. kosher salt
4 T. (½ stick) unsalted butter
1 c. chopped pecans
½ t. grated orange zest
4 sliced bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled**

Combine the first six ingredients in a deep saucepan, and cook slowly over medium heat until the mixture hits 235 degrees on a candy thermometer.

I made these without a candy thermometer—something that, while doable, I would not recommend; the lack of total precision meant that my first batch was a little chalky-colored, even though they still tasted delicious. If you’re without a candy thermometer, you can drop a spoonful of the stuff into a cup of ice water. If this turns into a pliable ball (something that should happen about 20 minutes in), it’s ready to be removed from the heat.

Once you’ve removed the saucepan from the stove, add the butter, vanilla, pecans, zest, and bacon. Beat the mixture like crazy with a wooden spoon until smooth and creamy. Drop teaspoonfuls onto parchment paper and let cool until firm.

*Yeah, I know this actually involves baking not at all!

**Next go-around, I would up the bacon to at least 6 slices—maybe even 8 if I’m feeling particularly wild! Seriously, though, I do think this could use more bacon.

Some people will tell you that soup is only for the winter. Do not believe them. They are wrong. (And this is not a segue into a post about gazpacho.)

Zucchini spinach soup

2 onions
3 cloves garlic
4 medium-sized zucchinis
1 T. garam masala
1 Idaho potato
8 oz. spinach (frozen is fine)
4 c. stock
1 T. lemon juice
also: olive oil, salt, pepper

*this requires a blender

Chop the onions and the zucchini. Heat a stock pot over high heat, and pour a healthy glug of olive oil into the bottom. Add the onion and zucchini, and lower the heat to medium. Press the garlic into the pot and add the garam masala. Sauté for about 8 minutes, or until the onion is translucent. Meanwhile, peel the potato and chop into small chunks. Add the potato and the stock. Bring the soup to a boil, and then add the spinach. Once it returns to a boil, reduce to a simmer until the potatoes are soft.

Blend the soup, either with an immersion blender or in batches with a regular blender. Add lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste.

White bean, chicken, and tomatillo soup

1 onion
4 cloves garlic
2 carrots, peeled
1 28-oz. can of whole tomatillos
3 15-oz. cans of white beans
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
4 c. stock
Chipotles in adobo sauce (1 7-oz. can will do just fine)
also: olive oil, salt

Chop the onion and the carrot. Heat a stock pot over high heat, and pour a healthy glug of olive oil into the bottom. Throw in the onion and carrot, and turn the heat down to medium. Press the garlic and add, sautéing for about 8 minutes, or until the onion is translucent. Add the tomatillos, and with a fork or a potato masher, mash the tomatillos until they’re on their way to being pureed but still a little chunky. Drain the white beans and then add to the pot. Add enough of the stock to cover the mixture, and bring to a boil. Let simmer until the chicken is cooked through.

Now, if I may digress for just a moment, let me tell you about how much I love chipotles in adobo sauce. I’m pretty shocked that this ingredient has only recently become a staple in my pantry. This is probably because, as usual, I am late to the party. But this stuff deserves a party: it’s seriously spicy, and it lends a dish a certain smokiness, one that I’ve been searching for—for years, in vain. Hello, adobo!

Once you open the can, the obvious route is to chop up the chipotles and then add in some of the sauce, as you see fit. I’ve been pureeing the chipotles and the sauce together, which also allows you to freeze the leftovers in an ice cube tray for instadobo later.

Back to the soup: add in as much chopped chipotles and sauce (or puree, if you’re rolling that way) to the soup as the chicken is cooking. Either way, be careful to add slowly and deliberately; the chipotles and the sauce both pack a lot of heat, and you won’t want to use the whole can. Once the chicken is cooked and the adobo is added, let the soup continue to simmer for a while more—maybe twenty minutes, less if you’re hungry or people are waiting. Salt to taste.

As they say, these are trying times. Marketers everywhere are offering two for one deals in the hopes of luring customers back (either that, or they’re just slyly robbing you of ice cream!). In the spirit of said economic zeitgeist, I now offer you two recipes for the price of one. Or something like that? Really, this is because I’m kinda lazy. I am sorry. I have been busy, but these recipes are actually pretty good, and dare I say it, economical.

Sweet potato and corn soup

2 medium-sized sweet potatoes
1 onion
2 carrots
2 serrano chilies
1 red pepper
4 c. stock
16-oz. bag of frozen corn
1/2 c. milk
also: olive oil, salt, pepper

Peel the carrots and the sweet potatoes. Dice those, along with the onion and the chilies. Heat a soup pot over medium heat, heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil in the bottom, and then add the onion, sweet potato, chili, and carrot. Saute until the onions are translucent.

Add in the stock and bring to a boil. Chop the red pepper and add that along with the frozen corn. Once the soup returns to a boil, lower the heat a tad so that it slowly simmers for another 20 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are soft. At this point — either with an immersion blender if you have one and care to bother, or with a large fork or a potato masher — mash up or blend just a bit of the soup. This step isn’t totally necessary, but it does make for a thicker broth, which is nice. Add in the milk and heat until the soup returns to a slow boil. Salt and pepper to taste.

Soba with eggplant and edamame

2 small eggplants
1/2 package of soba noodles
1 c. frozen edamame
3 cloves garlic
2 or 3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons of Srirachi hot sauce
also: sesame oil, salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Chop the eggplant into cubes of about equal size. Place them in a big mixing bowl, and toss with salt and some sesame oil. Once the salt and oil is equally distributed, put the eggplant on a baking sheet and pop the baking sheet in the oven. The eggplant will need to cook for about 25 minutes, and you’ll want to take the pan out once in the middle and push around the eggplant, to make sure it cooks evenly and doesn’t stick to the pan.

While this is happening, boil water (with salt and a bit of sesame oil). Once the water reaches a boil, add the soba noodles. Cook for precisely 8 minutes. As the package cautions, please do not overcook!

Defrost the frozen edamame by placing in a colander under hot water. You can leave the colander in the sink, and when the soba is done, drain in the same colander and run cold water over it the soba’s cooled off a bit. Drain and put back in the mixing bowl. Add the roasted eggplant to the bowl.

In a small cup, mix together the three cloves of garlic (pressed), the Srirachi, the soy sauce, and about a tablespoon of sesame oil. Pour over the noodles and toss until mixed.