Lady, Thy name is Whimsy

I decided on a whim to make this traditional Hungarian treat aptly named Női szeszély or Lady's Whim, if you will. It is similar to making some types of Bars, in that the crust is pressed into the pan; it calls for yeast and a half hour rest to help it attain that flaky perfection instead of the dense bars of my childhood, and topped with a vanilla meringue it is transformed into something fancy and angelic.

(Just an idea, use your favorite jam, for us that's raspberry but apricot, strawberry, whatever your little heart desires. Oh, and don't scrimp!)

Női szeszély - Lady's Whim
Hozzávalók: Ingredients:
50 dkg liszt - 500g flour (2c.)
25 dkg vaj - 250g butter (1c.[cold cut in chunks])
2 t.sárgája - 2 egg yolks
6 t.fehérje - 6 egg whites
15 dkg cukor - 150g sugar (3/4c.)
2 dkg élesztő - 11g yeast (2tsp)
1/2 dl tej - 50ml milk (~1/4c.)
kb. 15 dkg málnaíz - about 150 g raspberry jam (3/4c.)
20 dkg vaníliás porcukor - 200g confectioners' sugar (approx. 1c.)
5 dkg mandula
1/2 tsp vanilla

Elkészítés: Instrusctions:
Preheat oven to 350 (175c). Add yeast to milk, let sit 5 minutes. In a medium bowl sift together flour with butter chunks and mix until combined. Add egg yolks, sugar and yeasted milk, mix well. Lest rest 20-30 minutes.





Press into an ungreased cake pan and bake 10 minutes. While baking crust, mix 6 egg whites on high speed adding the confectioners' sugar 1/4c at a time, add vanilla. Mix until stiff peaks form. Be careful not to overmix!
(stiff peaks=good whereas hard peaks=bad.)




Remove pan from oven, lower heat to 300F (150c), spread raspberry jam and slowly pour meringue on top. Spread evenly in pan, smoothing over with a rubber spatula. Bake 20 minutes or until meringue is lightly browned. Allow to completely cool before cutting and serving, several hours if
necessary.



Elkészítési idő: Preparation Time: 60 perc/minutes

it's time for another recipe

So, in honor of my husband garnering another account which affords him the right to buy his own damn laptop already, I'm declaring it an international make your own pizza holiday. Both Zoli and Julia love my homemade pizza, enough that we are forbidden! by law! to order crappy Hungarian pizza (which fyi, usually has green peas, corn, a fried egg, or sour cream on it; if you're really lucky maybe? ALL THREE!) regardless of how tired one is.

Every region/country has their own rules regarding pizza condiments. For the West Coast it is ranch, Mexico has a sauce called chimichurris (so. yum.), Hungary prefers "pizza szósz" read sauce in native speak. Basically, it is just extra pizza sauce. I was all, haha yeah right, give me my ranch until I tasted it. Talk about a good idea. yum.


Pizza Szósz Nicolle-i Modra (Pizza sauce ala Nicolle which coincidentally, is also my standard spaghetti sauce with the exception of twice the sugar.)

500 g (2 cups) tomato sauce (paste, crushed, however your favorite comes)
2 tsp Basil
1.5 tsp Oregano
pinch Thyme
pinch Rosemary
salt
1-2 T Sugar (depending on tom's acidity)

1. Bring all ingredients to boil, reduce heat, simmer 10 minutes to develop flavors, stirring occasionally.



Pizza Dough

1.5 tsp instant yeast
6 T warm water
6 T milk
2 T oil
1/2 tsp salt
~1.75 cups flour

(the next part is super secret confidential info)

1. As long as the yeast and the salt are added in different sections, i.e. yeast first, salt after flour, you don't need to proof yeast. Just a little something I learned at the bakery...
So, add everything together and knead 5 minutes by hand or do it the fast way in your mixer, (am so envious.) Let dough rise for 30-45 minutes in a warm environment.

Pizza Toppings

30dkg. (1.5 cups) mozzarella or nice melty cheese of your choice.
vegetables of choice
meats of choice




Assembly

1. Pre-heat oven to 400-ish F. Punch dough down and let rest 5 minutes. Roll out to desired specs. Lightly oil pan*, place dough on top, and repeatedly stab with a fork.

*Have you ever had a well made piece of foccaccia? You know how the bottom is golden and a little crispy? That's why the oil.



2. Spread desired amount of sauce (for us, I double the dough recipe and use 2/3 of sauce, reserving 1/3 for dipping) on top of dough. Follow with 2/3 of cheese. Place desired toppings meats first on top of cheese. Cover with remaining cheese.






3. Bake 25 minutes or until done. I measure the doneness by gently lifting a corner when crust is golden and verifying goldenness of bottom. If golden, then done. Let rest in pan 5-10 minutes. Slice. Serve.

you know what they say: have a cold, eat soup

Wow. Until today I've felt as though I had taken a break from thinking, a hiatus of the cerebral sort. I got that damn sinus infection (turned brutal head cold with a horse cough finale) and it was all I could do to remember my name.


Last night my husband started feeling woozy, and throwing all germy caution to the wind we decided to have sick sex. Normally this is a big no-no for us, we're weird and like to do it clean and healthy (or ultra clean -no shower, no sex- if you're my husband), but it had to be done lest we forget how. And hey! This morning I woke with a somewhat clear head and it was like a jumpstart. Not only could I actually think about waking up or getting out of bed, I could also perceive leaving the house.

So I did what anyone would do: I made Roasted Garlic and Potato Soup. Mmm. With lots of onion.

8 medium potatoes cubed(washed NOT peeled)
4 small yellow onions
1 head garlic roasted
1 cup stock
water
Oil
bouquet garni
salt to taste
2 Tbls flour
1/2 cup milk

Saute onions in oil until transclucent. Add potatoes and saute 2 minutes. Add stock and water until just covering potatoes, bring to boil. Make bouquet garni and place in pot. Meanwhile, roast garlic in tinfoil with olive oil for 20-30 minutes. Afterwards, remove cheesecloth, add cloves to soup, salt to taste, and puree. Whisk flour into milk and add slowly to soup, pureeing until smooth. Simmer, stirring frequently, until desired thickness is reached.
Enjoy!

This week is the fall equivalent to spring break. There is no school for a week and we have serious friend withdrawals on our hands. The newest object of my daughter's affections is Patrik. He is her "goodest friend who is a boy." They love each other and shared their first kiss last friday as they were leaving preschool. By Tuesday, Julia was freaking out with Patrik withdrawals and wanted to bake himcookies and invite himover to play. It seems oddly timed these infatuations: a boy-friend and true love = terrible.

Shortbread cookies are quite possibly the world's easiest cookie as well as the best. Julia used her Tupperware kid's set which resulted in the tinyest jam cookies ever.

Shortbread Cookies

1 cup Butter
1/2 cup Powdered Sugar
1/2 cup Cornstarch
1 cup Flour

Cream butter and p. sugar. Add cornstarch and flour, mix well. drop spoonfuls onto cookie sheet, press thumb into center of cookie, and fill with jam, hersey's kisses, etc. Bake at 325 for 10 minutes until bottoms are barely golden. Cool on rack (if patience is your virtue) 10 minutes.

See how easy that was. It may actually take longer/be more painful to read this post than to make these little drops of yummy goodness© .

Not quite carrot cake

I've always enjoyed freaking people out with my weirdness. I purposely wore hideous clothes in high school to encite the "normals", I was a vegan for 4 years and lived on a commune in order to shock people, and now in Hungary I shock people every day with my "weird baked goods".

To me, they are the comforts of home but, it gives me great joy to introduce (freak out) people to the American kitchen. I had never really thought about carrot cake as an unusual dessert: it is what it is, it tastes good, and what bake sale is complete without the requisite c.c. muffins?

In my year here, many things have surprised my in-laws but, carrot-y dessert took the cake. (hehe not so punny) They physically cringed when I told them what I was serving but rescinded upon tasting it.

Here is what I consider to be the best carrot cake... (I don't care for nuts but please, feel free to experiment)

Carrot Cake

4 eggs
1.25 cups Safflower oil (veg. oil is fine but I am an oil snob)
2 cups White Sugar
whisk together eggs, oil, and sugar then add:
2 cups Flour
2 tsp. Baking Soda
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
2 tsp. Cinnamon
mix together and then fold in:
2 cups Grated Carrots
2 cups finely Diced Apples
and 1 cup nuts/raisins, etc. if desired

Preheat oven to 350/175
Grease and flour 9X13 pan and bake 40-50 min. or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in the pan and then turn out onto cooling rack.

Now obviously, carrot cake is nothing without cream cheese frosting so here's my recipe for that as well...

8 oz. Cream Cheese
1/2 cup Butter
4 cups Powdered Sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Cream together and frost cake when cool.

I would've posted pictures with it but the husband has gone fishing (again, I know!) and taken the camera with him... anyway, who doesn't know what it looks like.

all(or none?)recipes rant

To the Powers that Be at Online Recipe Database:

Since when is a recipe that calls for 1 bottle Italian dressing or 1 bottle favorite BBQ sauce, a fucking recipe? (If you clicked through, you feel my ire, yes?) Or, for that matter, one that calls for 3 cans refrigerated biscuit dough.... These are not recipes, but rather Items Which Can be Purchased at the Local Grocery; they are the manufacturer's recipe, which I don't believe they care to share publicly. (By the way, monkey bread I is fantastic.)

Just so we're on the same page, yeah, because as I know it a recipe is comprised of ingredients, i.e. 2 C flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1 T Honey, 2 tsp yeast; they are items that are not necessarily edible in and of themselves. Rather, they require work and complementary ingredients to be transformed into food. I turned to your pages in hopes of a recipe which I can *make from scratch*. A bottle of my fav. BBQ sauce can hardly be considered scratch.

Don't get me wrong, before you f'd up the user compatibility by "changing the face", I frequented your site often; I believe there are a lot of excellent recipes waiting to be found. Unfortunately, they seem to be hiding out behind those that call for readily available items.

You should know that I spend obscene amounts of time planning my meals and your site is one that assists in making me a better chef, when I'm not suffering through those that think adding minced garlic to a bottle of sauce constitutes a recipe.

Upholding the ideal of a recipe,
5penny

(Never fear, the humor I derive from perusing your pages guarantees that I will continue. At least until I find a site more ridiculous than yours.)

(haha, karma is swift 'round these parts. No sooner had I begun my diatribe than the 3 shots of palinka kicked in and caused me to trip over the laptop cord, stub my big toe on the metal coffee table leg, rugburn my toe to the point that it bled, and fall on my face trying to get away from said posessed laptop cord.)

(Check out the homemade bandage my husband rigged up to aliviate the swelling. Should I, who is obviously skating the line of white trash, be allowed to bitch so openly about bottled recipes while sporting a wet rag taped to my foot? hmm... I think that is the real question here.)

chocolate sour-cherry upside down cake

I'm sure all have heard by now of this little protest happening in Hungary. It is hopefully going to have a large impact of the level of political corruption here, but I'm not holding my breath. Anyway, politicians are lying, the public is protesting, and I am practicing my own peace process; baking.

I've made this 'cake' three times this week by special request. It is possibly the weirdest set of ingredients but the outcome is phenomenal. The original recipe is from allrecipes.com but I've changed it substantially. I'm not sure if all the ingredients are locatable in all parts, but it is a treasure worth the hunt.

This is the first time that I've allowed Julia to make it and just tell her how much and what; I think she did an awesome job.


**This recipe calls for cold pressed or canned cherries, they can be found in most supermarkets, such as Safeway and friends**

Cocolate Sour Cherry Upside Down Cake...

Dry Ingredients; Mix together in mixing bowl
2.25 C Flour
1.5 C Sugar
3/4 C Chocolate Sprinkles or Chips (both work well)
1 tsp. Baking Soda
3/4 tsp. salt

Wet Ingredients; Mix together in separate bowl
1.5 C Cherry Juice (from the jar of cherries or store bought unsweetened juice or plain water)
1/2 C Vegetable Oil (I know!)
1/4 C Vinegar 5% (The hell?)
1 tsp vanilla extract (or same amount of vanilla sugar mixed with dry ingred.)

Other Ingredients:
~28Oz. Cold pressed Cherries, pitted. Reserve liquid for aforementioned use.

Preheat oven to 350/175 degrees and grease an 11" round. I prefer to use a springform pan but that's just because I'm a bit clumsy at the upside down cake removal... go figure. If cherries are not pitted, pit them. Otherwise, spread evenly in the bottom of the greased pan, making sure to reserve all liquid.

Mix dry ingredients together. Likewise, mix all wet together. I use a 4 cup pyrex mixing cup as I can just measure into it. Saves on washing, and I'm all about the easiest way.
Now pour liquid into dry ingredients and mix gently until just wet, don't overmix. Pour batter into springform pan and place in oven for 40-60 minutes, depending on altitude, oven, the color of your socks, etc. I have finally figured out that I need 47 minutes IF I'm wearing my lucky undies otherwise 50, hehe.

Finally, remove from oven and allow to cool 20 minutes in the pan and then turn out onto cake plate. Or a cutting board if you can't be bothered to find your cake plate. Obviously, I can't.

-----------------

Obligatory Anecdote
Walking home from preschool we happened to pass a garden full of vibrant cornflower blue flowers. Julia was in LOVE. She wanted one and tried to just grab one, but I, mean mother, wouldn't let her. I explained that it was somebody's plant and not free for the taking; we continued down the street. Standing under a tree, waiting to cross the street, Julia asked if the tree was somebody's. I said well, yeah, it's a public tree so it's everybody's. She grabbed two leaves, smelled them, and retorted, "Mmm, smells like public tree."

Homemade Flour Tortilla Chips

Here in Hungary or Magyarorszag if you're local, there isn't alot of international foodstuff to be had. They're pretty proud of Their Way and aren't really receptive to anyone else's way. Which is the nice way of saying that they pretty much hate all other cuisine, lasagne and chili notwithstanding. In an attempt to tease our palates and remind them of the way we used to live in "San Frantastic" (I love me some Mr.Show) I made chips and salsa today. Please understand that I. Made. The. Chips. From scratch.

It was my second time but the first didn't work so well, so we'll just call it this the first.

Flour Tortilla Chips

Ingredients:
3 cups Flour
2tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Salt
4-6 T shortening or lard (I use duck lard, personally)
~1.25C warm Water

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Wow, that was easy, eh?
Now comes the slightly frustrating part... Pinch off little pieces the size of a hazelnut, roll out as thin as possible. Heat Vegetable oil in frying pan until dough sizzles on impact. Float into oil as many as will fit without overlapping and fry until golden. Be sure to flip the chip once halfway through and drain onto paper towels. Salt while hot and enjoy!

I also make my own salsa or pico de gallo. This can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge.

Pico de Gallo

6 medium Tomatoes diced
1 medium onion diced as thinly as possibly
1 jalepeno or other spicy chile
Chopped cilantro (if this is not available as it isn't here, oregano is a nice substitute)
1 lime or 1/2 a lemon juiced
salt to taste
mix all ingredients.


Please take note that I mentioned this and don't hate me if you try this at home; these chips are the rockingest, awesomest, bestest chips in the world. If you become an addict like the 5penny-family has, I am not to blame. Although, I will accept virtual invitations to mexican night at your house and take credit for turning you on to the yummy crispy goodness!

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A little shoutout to Kit: Hey! Hi! How'd the bread turn out? And also I was wondering, is there any way you can allow Others to comment so I can leave a comment or 2? I think you can allow Others and still not allow anonymous comments... Your poem was absolutely gorgeous and made me teary.

Breaking bread - A Poolish Recipe

When I applied to UC Berkeley (the second time as a transfer student because well, you know) my personal paper related the cycle of life to that of a really great bread recipe. I can't do it justice here nor can I find the disk it is saved on but believe you me, it was a beautiful metaphor for life.

I was working as a baker's apprentice at the time and had fallen madly in love with bread. Rustic country bread, whole grain bread, pastries, all of it. It struck me as something so simple and yet so yet complex. Sure it's hard manual labor to actually make bread, especially as a commercial baker, but the result, OMG the result. Such simplicity never tasted so orgasmically.

I have been baking almost daily in my new foray into housewifedom but I haven't really tried baking bread. My oven is kinda, well, clunky and there is no worse feeling than fucking up a loaf of bread. Yesterday, however, after 3 days of intense lower back pain, the sort that requires muscle relaxers and no movement, I thought to myself, "self, you feel like shit, if you mess it up, take another muscle relaxer and let it go." And so, I decided to brave the consequences and make my second loaf of bread in a year.

Country white bread with a poolish for those of you who would like to try it. Spoiler Alert: This particular loaf takes an entire day to accomplish. Do not start it if you have places to be.

Step 1 - The Poolish
1 cup (250g) Flour (Whole wheat or white, your call. W.W. will take longer but is better.)
1 tsp. yeast
1 T honey
2 cups warm water

Dissolve the yeast in 1 cup of the warm water until creamy. ~7 minutes. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix well. It should be soupy. Cover with a dry, clean dishtowel and leave to rise 2.5 to 3.5 hours. It should triple in volume and then begin to fall; when it starts to fall it is ready for step 2.



Step 2 -The Dough
2-3 C Flour (I use whole wheat in the first step and unbleached white in the second. But only because 100% WW takes a loooong time to finally bake off. Again, your call.)
1 T Salt

Mix handful by handful with a wooden spoon until dough can be worked by hand. Unless of course you have a kitchenaid or other such innovation of the 20th century in which case you can let the mixer do the work. It is still advisable to mix handful by handful. When it is stiff enough to work by hand, turn the dough out onto a floured board and knead in flour. Be careful how much flour goes in as you want it to be a sticky dough. Add the salt while kneading it; kneading should proceed until dough is silky yet a little sticky. Return to bowl, cover and let stand another 1.5 - 2 hours or until it has doubled in volume.



Step 3 - Shaping
When dough has at least doubled in volume, turn back out onto a lightly floured surface; flatten and roll into desired shape. I usually do a football shape as it is almost a full kilo (2 lb.) loaf and becomes quite large. Place on floured baking sheet, cover and allow to rise another 1.5 - 2.5 hours, depending on how humid/warm your kitchen is. This is when I turn my oven on (500 degrees) and I generally place a mixing bowl with water on top of the stove and rest the baking sheet on top of that in order to create humidity.




Step 4 - Baking Off
When loaf has again doubled in volume, it is reasy to be baked. I generally score the bread with 3 or 4 slashes when oblong or a tic-tac-toe grid when circular. Place into preheated oven for 45-60 minutes, until tapping it on the bottom (ouch it's hot! where're the mits?) produces a hollow knocking sound. It should be golden brown and slightly burnt looking. I should have allowed more time for my little guy to rise but hell, we wanted bread with dinner not as a midnight snack!



Be sure to allow your loaf ample time to cool before cutting into it as the middle needs to set while cooling. Otherwise, enjoy!

Hey Kit! feel free (assuming you want to try the recipe) to use a mixture of rye, whole wheat and whole grains... I would but, well, you know where I live!

because summer means cobbler

My childhood was filled with the smells of baked goods and it seems that my interpretation of the seasons depend heavily upon which was baked when. Any Cobbler is my most favoritest and signifies that summer is in full swing; cobbler basically meaning cobbled together/up and is simply fruit jam with a chunky shortbread topping. Different recipes call for varying degrees of sweetness, but I like the contrast between the already sweet jam and the not too sweet crust.

I know lots of people change the recipe according to the fruit they use, but I have had great results just altering the sugar and adding cinnamon, etc. if I use apples. Feel free to use frozen fruit or canned fruit. It really is one of the easiest (and tastiest) desserts ever.

CHERRY COBBLER

Jam/Filling

1 1/4 c. (270g) Sugar
3 T Cornstarch
4 c. (1 kilo) fresh tart Cherries (I use sour cherries, but really any flavorful cherry works equally well. Adjust sugar for type, though)

Topping

1 c. (250g) Flour
1 T Sugar
1 1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
3 T Shortening / Butter
1/2 c. (125g) Milk

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Blend 1 1/4 cup sugar and cornstarch in small
pan. Stir in cherries and extract. Cook, stirring constantly until
mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir one minute. Pour into 2 quart
casserole. Stir together flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, baking powder, and
salt. Add shortening and milk. Cut through shortening with fork 6 times,
mix until dough forms a ball. Drop mixture by spoonfuls onto hot fruit.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until top is golden brown. Serve warm with a scoop of ice cream or creme fraiche.

cranberries, butter, flour; SCONES!

Cranberries!

My auntie brought a gigantic bag of Craisins® or as they used to be called before all the marketing: dried cranberries. This is exciting for two very important reasons: I LOVE CRANBERRY anything. They don't have them here. So in tribute to my SIX POUND BAG of deliciousness here is my own recipe for cranberry scones.

Cranberry Scones (also known around here as Yummy Goodness)

1 C (250g) Flour
1/3 C (85g) Sugar
1 tsp. Baking soda
2 tsp. Baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 C Cold butter
1/2-2/3 C Milk or Buttermilk*
1 C dried cranberries
1 egg yolk
*all may not be necessary, use to wet ingredients.

Preheat oven to 350F / 175C. Mix all dry ingredients. Cut in butter with knives or pastry cutter until crumbly. Add cranberries and then milk in 3 parts until wet and sticks together. Be careful not to overmix. Butter should be chunky and dough sticky. Turn out onto floured board (or onto floured plastic wrap, if you're ocd about the mess!) and roll into circle 1/4 inch thick (~.75 cm) cut into triangles, place on baking sheet. Brush with egg yolk andbake 15 min. until golden.

Boring even myself, I am

God, I am a loser. I have free time every moment of my life and I cannot think of anything to post.

Here's some sassypants genius with the words...

Yes sir, mommy. (salute and all)

See, it don't works.

member when were's-a-goin' outside? close your eyes and you can member.

I need a ring-bell for waking time. (an alarm clock)

I'm gonna tell Grandma that you was not letting me to do that.

And now, some Z genius with the words...

Where's the waking up device? (again with the alarm clock)


Recipe link

Holy scrumdilicious! Although I did substitute almonds for the pecans... but holyhell they were awesome! As a child, I thought it was soooo weird that my mom and grandma would read cookbooks?! Well, I am officially old as I too now spend a good portion of my online time reading recipes.

Recipes

Wow.
Impressive.

Prior to yesterday, I had never tried to make Indian food at home. I never needed to; that was the beauty of living in San Francisco, there are Indian restaurants on every corner. Here in Central Europe not so much. Possibly in Budapest but that's not convenient for take-out.

As with my inability to try new Chinese dishes (I only eat sweet and sour pork and chow mein), I only eat Chana Masala when dining on Indian. I searched online yesterday morning for recipes, went to Tesco in search of chick peas and garam masala and was pleasantly surprised to find both. Yea.

As I was re-reading the recipe too excited to wait until the afternoon to justify starting dinner, my husband brought up the subject of naan. Naan! I had completely forgotten about naan, crap. Mad dash through Google lead me to allrecipes. This recipe makes amazing pita-bread-like-naan but beware it is a very large recipe! Anywho, on with the Chana masala.

Chana Masala
1c. Chick Peas
1 medium onion
1 medium tomato
1 green chile
4 garlic cloves
1 inch peeled ginger
3 bay leaves
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp tea (if using canned garbanzos then not needed)
3T vegetable oil
salt to taste

Cut onion, tomato, and green chile into
manageable pieces. Place in food
processor with garlic and ginger, puree to make a paste.
Heat oil on medium high and fry bay leaves for 30 seconds.
Add paste and fry on medium heat until golden brown (the oil starts
to separate).
Add chili powder, turmeric, coriander, garam masala, and
salt. Mix well.
Fry 2-3 minutes.
Add water enough to make thick gravy and
bring to a boil.
Add cooked or canned chick peas. Stir and cook for 5-7
minutes.
Serve while hot with basmati rice.

Jo étvagyát! (lit. good eating!)