Mendolonium

Cathy asked for my chocolate mousse recipe and I realized that it was rather rude of me to post about the magnificent mousse and without sharing the recipe with you all.  This recipe comes from the California School of Culinary Arts and is one of a select few recipes in my repertoire that I have not altered, and that is saying a lot.  It is perfect just as is.

Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Heavy Cream, chilled
• 4 large Egg Yolks
• 4 Tablespoons Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 7 ounces Bittersweet Or Semisweet Chocolate, chopped finely
• pinch Salt

Directions:

1. Heat ¾ cup of the cream in a heavy saucepan until hot (not boiling).  Remove from heat.
2. Whisk together egg yolks, sugar, and the pinch of salt in a metal or glass bowl (not plastic) until well combined.
3. Drizzle the hot cream into the egg yolk mixture in a slow stream while whisking constantly.  The reason for the slow drizzle is to avoid over cooking the eggs.
4. Return the egg and cream mixture to the heat and cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly, until an instant read thermometer registers 160 degrees F.  Alternatively, if you do not have a thermometer, you want to cook to the point that steam is rising from the edges of the mixture.  At no point should the mixture boil.  You must avoid getting the mixture too hot or you will end up with sweetened scrambled egg yolks.  If at any point you see the eggs begin to clump remove from the heat.
5. Place the chopped chocolate in a large bowl.
6. Pour the cooked mixture – now called a custard – through a fine mesh strainer or sieve into the bowl of chopped chocolate.  Discard any solids left in the sieve.
7. Cover the custard-chocolate mixture with plastic wrap or a plate and let sit for 2 – 3 minutes.
8. While the chocolate is melting, beat the remaining 1 ¼ cups cream into stiff peaks.  Note take care not to over beat (when the cream starts separating into butter), especially when using an electric mixer.
9. Stir the custard-chocolate mixture until smooth and homogenous.
10. Gently fold the whipped cream into the custard-chocolate mixture until fully incorporated.
11. Spoon the mousse into cups or glasses (wine and champagne glasses work nicely) and chill for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Option 1:  After step 10 spread the mousse onto a baking sheet that has been lined with plastic wrap.  Chill for 30 minutes.  The mousse can now be used as a filling or frosting on top of or in between cake layers.
Option 2:  Sprinkle holiday themed sprinkles or crushed candy canes on top of (or mixed into the mousse) for extra pizzaz.

Does anyone else have any fabulous recipes they would like to share?

We decided to do something completely different, unconventional, and downright revolutionary this past Thanksgiving and it turned out so well, I think we might make it a tradition.  The crazy thing that we did was to celebrate Thanksgiving by taking the day “off” on Thursday and eating our feast on Friday.  Rather than slaving away in the kitchen all night long and waking early on Thursday morning we prepped food for our feast  and baked pies for the Union Station shelter on Wednesday evening at a relaxed pace.  We slept until the kids woke up on Thursday morning and then I even let Jeff sleep in another two hours.  After dropping off the pies my sister joined us for a morning hike to the waterfall at Eaton Canyon.  Apparently we are not the only unconventional folks and found families, couples, runners, and many dogs on the hike as well.  I particularly enjoyed watching the dogs cavort in and out of the cold stream – they were clearly having the time of their life and I couldn’t help but smile at them.  It was a perfect hike.  The sky was gloriously clean and clear, the stream and the waterfall were running swiftly, and the kids were as comfortable as the dogs in the great outdoors.  Thomas especially impressed me; he navigated most of the dozen stream crossings himself; deftly maneuvering from stone to stone and when he fell a time or two he merely scowled, dusted off his hands, and forged onward insisting on being “the leader”.  Theo, strapped safely against me, murmured happy noises for the hike in and curled up like a puppy into Jeff’s jacket and fell asleep for the hike out. We spent the remainder of the day raking leaves, reading by a roaring fire, prepping more food for Friday, and then making s’mores over said fire; thankful for the respite that the day gave us from our busy lives.

On Friday we had the traditional, albeit turkey-less, feast.  And with plenty of time to prepare the feast was a relaxed affair; I didn’t even fully set the menu beforehand, instead waiting to see what produce was ready in our garden.  In the end, we had butternut squash to use and so I created a vegetarian main dish that pleased nearly everyone at the table.  These little triangles of goodness will make you forget that the turkey is missing.

Thankful Squash Triangles

Ingredients:

• 1 package (2 sheets total) frozen puff pastry (I use the Pepperidge Farm brand)
• 1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeds, removed, and cut into 1 inch chunks (about 3 cups once all is said and done)
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large leek, diced (white and pale green parts only)
• 1/4 cup diced shallots
• 2 cloves garlic, diced
• 8 ounces feta cheese, crumbled into chunks
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped finely
• salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Directions:

1. If frozen, de-thaw the puff pastry sheets in the refrigerator the night before using.
2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
3. Place the squash in a microwave safe container with lid and microwave, covered, for approximately 10 minutes until squash is fork tender.
4. Meanwhile, saute the leeks, shallots, and garlic in the olive oil until translucent and softened.  Remove from heat.
5. Coarsely mash the butternut squash with a potato masher or a fork.
6. Stir the mashed squash, the leek mixture, the cheeses, the parsley, the salt, and the pepper  together.
7. Unroll one puff pastry sheet and cut it into four equally sized squares.
8. Place approximately 1/4 cup of the squash mixture in the center of each pastry square.
9. Fold each pastry square over to make a triangle.
10. Firmly press the edges of each triangle together to seal the pastry.
11. Repeat with the second sheet of pastry and the remaining squash mixture  (Note:  if you have any leftover squash mixture you can use it to toss with pasta.)
12. Place the finished triangles (you should have eight total) on a lightly greased baking sheet.
    Note:  at this step you can cover (With plastic wrap or aluminum foil) the triangles and refrigerate for up to 24 hours before baking.
13. Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 30 minutes – until pastry has “puffed” and is golden brown.

I’ve got plenty of food stored in the house to sustain us (and my sister*) through an earthquake, zombie siege, or comet strike – whatever apocalypse du jour may come, but there are some products that you just can’t store – like cream.  When I went to make some much desired yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting this afternoon I realized that the cream (called for in my frosting recipe) in my fridge was far, far beyond cream at this point.  I contemplated going out to the store, however, organic cream is at a minimum a 1 mile walk + train ride and then back again or a car trip away.  I thought about going without frosting as well, but that just wasn’t going to satisfy my craving.  I didn’t want to waste the time and energy going to the store and I didn’t want to go without.   So I did what we’ll probably all have to do more of in the future – I made do.  Thomas and I got together and came up with a fabulous, creamless  recipe.  Should you ever find yourself without cream, but with a hankering for some chocolate frosting here’s what you can make do:

Ingredients:

• 6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 8 Tablespoons (1 stick) butter, cold
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 Tablespoons milk

Directions:

1. Melt the chocolate using either a microwave set to 50% power (stirring every minute) or a double boiler.  Stir until smooth and then set aside.
2. Mix the butter, sugar, and milk together until light and fluffy.  An electric mixer on a moderate to high speed works best.
3. Slowly pour in the chocolate (while mixing) and mix until frosting is smooth and homogeneous.

Yield:  Enough to spread a thick layer on 16 cupcakes.  If I was going to pipe the frosting on I would likely make a double batch.

Today’s lesson is that in a world of constrained energy and resources I need to remember to make do with what we have more often.  And the bonus is that I came up with a fabulous frosting recipe that I never would have made otherwise.  Sometimes making do is making it better.

*I assume Sara Ann would definitely want to hang out here during the end of days, and besides, we’ll need someone to nanny for the kids while we rebuild a new utopian world.

I aspire to be great.

It’s a rather pretentious thing to say; it is, nonetheless, true.  I am searching for great and meaningful work to do in the world.  I think every day about what it means to be a great mother.  I would like to be a great chef.  Not Alton Brown, Christopher Kimball, TV-star great, but someone who makes consistently delicious, creative, and ethical food.  My problem, of late, is someone is always in the kitchen with Mama. I feel quite competent in the art of basic cooking with children;  I’ve memorized my favorite recipes to avoid having to waste precious time looking them up, I can do almost anything other than dice one-handed, and I have indoctrinated my three-year-old with a love of cooking so fierce he will turn down time outside/Legos/TV in favor of baking a pie.  Following recipes is not enough for me though.  Quite frankly, I couldn’t follow a recipe properly if I tried.  Jeff has shrewdly observed that I use recipes like a compass; simply to point me in the right direction.  So without even thinking I develop new dishes.  I would love nothing more than to spend hours upon hours in the kitchen, perfecting a recipe, feeding batch after batch to a willing army of taste testers, until I got it just right.  These days I am lucky if I get an hour or two a week to myself in the kitchen.  It turns out it is quite challenging to do anything great in an hour.   Even when the kids are asleep there is someone in the kitchen tormenting me, the incessant noise of the baby monitor, flooding the space with it’s staticy white noise until inevitably a baby cries out and I have to go soothe him back to sleep.

It’s a small microcosm of the greater challenge of mothering:  balancing one’s own dreams against one’s needs and desires to be with one’s children.  Right now that balance not in favor of greatness in anything other than mothering.  I tell myself that they’ll be older won’t need me nearly as much in only a few short years.  The baby will sleep soundly through the night just as his brother now does.  I try to to convince myself that living in these joyous sleep-deprived moments is enough for me.  It is true that my world won’t end if my butternut squash soup isn’t quite right.  It is equally true that I stay up late at night smelling the ghosts of flavors melding together, adding and subtracting ingredients in my head in search of the perfect chocolate chip recipe.  I think about the implications of proposed health care legislation for women or carbon emissions reduction as often as I think of creative ways to engage my sons.  Mothering is great; but it isn’t enough for me now nor ever.  I need to find my way back to a path that will lead to more great things.

Today that means I am going to concentrate on one recipe at a time; taking as many one hour chunks of time as I need to get it right.  It means we might eat butternut squash soup once a week for the next two months, but in the end what a great soup it will be.