• Whoopin’ it up

    March 25, 2010

    I’ve missed writing about food. I’ve been filling all my blog posts with holy, dramatic, competitive, child-based content (or, holy dramatic, competitive child-based content—the wondrous comma, oh how I love it) and neglecting to tell you about any gustatory pleasures. Part of the reason is that I’ve slapped a lid on my culinary creative streak in an effort to empty the freezers, and the other part of the reason is that I’ve been either out-and-about (gardening and meetings) or in-and-reclining (Kinky Boots [I want a pair of bright red, crotch-high boots!], Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Dumbing Us Down, The Endless Steppe).

    All that is about to change.


    I have three new recipes for you. The dessert one comes first, of course, and the other two may or may not follow, depending on how much more gardening and reading I feel pressured to accomplish in the next several days. But first, I must tell you about Mennonite in a Little Black Dress.


    Have you read it, this hit book by Rhoda Janzen? My book club read it last month (except I didn’t start it till after the meeting—I’m all wonky these days), and they did not give it good reviews. I already had some pretty strong biases towards it, even before the group tore it to shreds, so it was with a begrudging, resentful attitude that I finally got around to cracking the spine.


    And then I cracked up, giggled, snorted, and guffawed. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t really like the book (or the author, or something) but not for the same reasons as the book club ladies. And don’t get me wrong—I really like the book (or the author, or something) for some of the reasons the book club ladies don’t. Capiche?


    Rhoda is a non-Mennonite who grew up Mennonite. (Problem number one: the title is a lie.) Her life slams to a halt when her husband leaves her for a guy named Bob, so she heads home to her Russian Mennonite family to recuperate. Leaping ahead so I can get to what I want to talk about: in her book Rhoda recounts the “shame-based” Mennonite foods she was raised with, foods that I, another ethnic Mennonite, have never even tasted. (Problem number two: she portrays her Mennonite culture as The Mennonite culture.) Even as an adult she admits that she is reserved about serving these weird (but delicious! she claims) foods to non-Mennonites. Embarrassed by food? Still? At forty-three? (Problem number three: pervasive immaturity.) All that said, and knowing I’m not done with the book yet, I haven’t found it nearly as offensive as I thought I would. In fact, I find it rather endearing.


    And I happen to find Mennonite food to be endearing too, especially when it involves chocolate and cream. Me, embarrassed by ethnic cooking? No sirree! I’m so cocky-proud about it that I’m liable to fall kersplat on my face if I don’t watch where I’m going.


    I grew up with whoopie pies. They are a classic Mennonite dessert (keep in mind I’m speaking for the East Coast Mennonite groupies), and they were always a huge treat since they take considerably more prep time than, say, brownies. But oh my, there is something delightful about two cookies mortared together with fluffy vanilla frosting. Each whoopie pie comes wrapped in plastic so you get what amounts to a brand-spanking-new dessert—from an unjaded child’s point of view, it’s almost as good as a candy bar! And then there is the two-in-one factor—you’re getting two cookies for the price of one! A veritable boon, this is indeed, one that quickens the heart of frugal Mennonites-in-training.


    Since whoopie pies involve a couple extra steps (icing, joining, and wrapping), I like to make a lot at one time. And when you take into consideration that a dozen cookies will disappear in just one serving (look, I’ll do the math for you: twelve cookies make six whoopies, see?), it’s important to err on the side of too many. Not that that’s ever the case. Keep in mind, the whoopies freeze well. Not that they get a chance to hang out in their chilly box for all that long (in less than twenty-four hours, I’ve already run down to the basement two separate times to fetch me more pies), but we can pretend, right?


    Now, classic whoopie pies call for a fluffy vanilla filling. The main reason that I don’t make whoopies all that often is because I’ve never liked my filling. It called for an egg white, two teaspoons of flour, and an excessive amount of beating; it was picky, finicky, and unpredictable.


    But then I saw Pioneer Woman’s latest frosting—one that reduced her to a gushing, raving, blithering fanatic. I was skeptical. I crossed my arms and thought happy thoughts about chickpeas, but man! that woman is convincing. I held out for about five days before ducking my head obediently and whipping up a bowl of (to die for!) frosting…and putting it on chocolate cupcakes and covering it with sprinkles for my delighted chillens, just like she did. Like I said, she’s convincing.


    Once I realized that the frosting was perfect for a whoopie pie filling, well, I was sold. And that’s the simple truth.


    P.S. I have a little black dress in my closet. Think I ought to write a book?

    Whoopie Pies

    This recipe yields a fair amount of cookies (but it’s not even close to being too much), so if you decide to halve the recipe, simply use one egg yolk in place of the whole egg (Or, you can be bold and employ the old Mennonite egg-cutting trick.)

    Note: Whoopie pies invite variation, and while the chocolate cookie with vanilla cream filling is a classic, I did fill some of my cookies with some leftover peanut butter frosting (because I only made a single batch of the cream fluff frosting and consequently ran out—horrors!). The peanut butter-chocolate combo was really, really, really, reallyreallyreallyreally good.

    1 cup butter
    2 cups sugar
    1 egg
    2 teaspoons vanilla
    1 cup sour milk
    5 tablespoons water
    1 cup cocoa
    4 cups flour
    2 teaspoons baking soda
    ½ teaspoon salt
    double recipe Cream Fluff Frosting (recipe follows)

    Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla and beat some more. Beat in the milk and water.

    Sift together the dry ingredients and add them to the wet. Beat briefly to combine. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill the dough for an hour (or longer, if you’re not yet ready to bake).

    Scoop out the dough (a smallish amount) and drop it on a greased baking sheet, keeping the dough blobs a couple inches apart. If the dough sticks to your fingers, slightly dampen them first.

    Next, dampen a finger tip or two and lightly shape the cookies into smooth circles and press down on the centers a bit. (This keeps the cookies from rising too high and ensures that their tops stay crack-free and smooth.)

    Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 8-12 minutes (depending on the size of your cookies) until the tops hold firm when lightly pressed. Transfer to a baking rack and cool completely.

    To assemble:
    Upturn one of the cookies and spread its bottom with a thick (thick, THICK!) layer of filling. Find a similar shaped cookie and set it on top of the filling. Once all the cookies are filled, wrap them in individual pieces of plastic wrap, set the whoopie pies in a large, airtight container and transfer them to the freezer.

    Cream Fluff Frosting
    From Ree Drumond, The Pioneer Woman

    When I told my mom about my new whoopie pie filling, her comment was, “Oh yes. That’s the recipe for red velvet cake frosting.” She’s always known about this recipe and yet never taught it to me? How could she!

    This icing is delicious and note-worthy, addicting and dangerous. I’m tempted to keep a batch in the fridge at all times. I just know it would be good on anything and everything: muffins, bread, pancakes, scones, pot roast…

    1 cup butter
    1 cup granulated sugar
    1 teaspoon vanilla
    1 cup milk
    5 tablespoons flour

    Put the milk in a small saucepan and whisk in the flour. Cook over medium-high heat, whisking constantly, till the milk thickens. Stir in the vanilla and set aside to cool.

    In the meantime, cream together the butter and sugar in a separate bowl.

    When the milk has cooled to room temperature (set the pan on snow or ice if you’re in a hurry), add it to the creamed mixture and beat it all together till it is light and fluffy and resembles whipped cream. Taste it. Do you detect any sugar crystals? If so, beat some more, tasting frequently as you go. When the mixture is completely smooth, stop mixing. And for crying out loud, stop tasting, too. Or else you’re not going to have any frosting left.

    One batch of frosting will ice a sheet cake or fill a little more than half a recipe of whoopie pies.

    About one year ago: Snickerdoodles, and Happy Birthday, Happy Pappy!

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  • Playing Martha

    March 23, 2010

    Yo-Yo and I were in a little drama this Sunday. He was Matthew and got to put his feet on the table, eat lots of dip, and pal around with Lazarus. I was Martha and I got to tell Matthew to take his feet off the table, screech at various people (a guest, Jesus) to try the dip, and hiss at Lazarus to sit up straight.

    The five minute drama went off without a hitch. Yo-Yo had a great time; he said he only got nervous right before he walked on stage and then he was perfectly fine. I had a grand old time even though I had no idea what I was doing. I learned what “cheating” and “off-book” mean, and I stretched parts of my brain that I didn’t know I had. My lower back ached from the standing, stress, and nerves, and in the couple days leading up to the event, I developed an annoying habit of stomping around the house yelling about muffins, dip, and nard.

    Now, our post-play dinnertime conversation revolves around me tossing out a line and letting the children finish it up. For example:

    Me, “Caleb!” (Martha’s sous chef.)

    The kids, “Yes Martha?”

    The kids, “Where are the muffins?”

    The kids, “Muffins?”

    The kids, “Yes, muffins! Round, crumbs on top, moist, fig-laden muffins! WHERE are the muffins?”

    The Baby Nickel crows, “I’m on it!”

    And so it goes. As you can see, the kids don’t need much prompting. We can make our way through most of the ten page script without too many gaps.

    Acting intrigues me. I’m drawn to it, for more reasons than just the glamour and adulation (though those are nice, too). The challenge of pretending to be someone else, stretching my mind to imagine life differently, using my whole body to express ideas and emotions—this is why acting appeals to me. The only problem is, I’ve never acted.

    Well, that’s not quite true. In college I played an angry lover in a short Spanish play. I sat on a park bench and bickered about negro and blanco. But really, I’ve never auditioned for anything in my life. Auditioning scares me senseless, truth be told. As does acting. I’m not good at ad-libbing or anything impromptu. I’m calculated and methodical. The mere thought of getting up on stage and forgetting my lines makes my bowels quake.

    (A side benefit of acting: weight loss.)

    Volunteering to participate in Sunday’s drama was a big step. It helped that we were working with/under a pro or two, and it helped that the cast was intergenerational and that there were other newbies—I wasn’t the only one staggering into the unknown. But still, I was scared. I was putting myself Out There to be watched, examined, judged. The stage, it turns out, is a vulnerable place to be.

    And I would do it again in a heartbeat.

    Perhaps I should try out for a community play. But there’s the awkward audition and my fragile ego; I don’t know if I could handle being rejected. (Not that they have any reason not to reject me, considering I’ve had no training, no experience, and no idea what I’m doing.) In any case, in order to justify all the evenings spent away from home, I think at least two of the kids would have to also participate. It will be a long time till I have a second kid who wants to act with me and Yo-Yo (he’s already agreed), though—Miss Beccaboo shakes her head vigorously when I ask if she’d like to be in a play, and while Sweetsie has developed a gift for flaring her nostrils and reducing us all to tears of laughter, I don’t see her waltzing around on stage any time soon.

    But never mind. All my life’s a stage, right?

    Now tell me, have you taken any bold, bowel-quaking steps lately? Please share. I covet the company.

    Signed,
    An insecure, vulnerable, hapless dreamer

    P.S. I’ll stop signing off on my blog posts … eventually. Maybe. I think.

    About one year ago: The winner. Oh goodness! Look at that, will you? The spending freeze finished up last year at this time, and this year it’s still going strong. Whee!

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  • Nutty therapy

    March 22, 2010

    “What’s this?” Mr. Handsome asked the other morning when he came into the kitchen and saw me dividing peanuts into four little glasses. “Do we have a bunch of Dumbos around here?”

    “Ha. Very funny,” I smirked. “We just might.”

    Peanuts were my latest attempt at dealing with the bickering, name calling, bad table manners, and poor attitudes that had been cluttering up my home. All the typical techniques—gentle reprimands, scoldings, shrieks, threats and dire consequences—weren’t doing the trick. My throat was raw from yakking/explaining/arguing/laying down the law, and I was exhausted. It was time to pull out the nuts.


    While I’ve been accused (rightly so, I’m afraid) of being a tad bit nutty and my kids are nuts (they get it honestly), I’ve never before parented with nuts. I’ve employed pennies and mini M&Ms in the warfare against bad behavior, but the humble groundnut had, until that morning, largely been ignored.

    The treatment plan is as follows:
    1. Line four glasses up on the counter and place 10 peanuts (or 20 peanut halves) in each glass.
    2. When a child does something wrong (talks back, name calls, disobeys, etc), announce, “I’m eating one of your peanuts,” and calmly walk to the counter and pick a nut out of the appropriate glass. And eat it. (Look at that! You can simultaneously fortify yourself and discipline your children! Three cheers for multitasking!)
    3. When the allotted amount of time is up (see point number four), the kids get to eat their remaining nuts. (The Baby Nickel insists on chopping his few remaining nuts—he’s struggling, the poor kid—into as many pieces as possible so he can have more than the other kids and subsequently not feel so bad about himself.)
    4. For optimum effectiveness, use the treatment for short periods of time. (We do not continue with peanut therapy in the pm; in this house it’s the mornings that are tough.)
    5. For additional fun, include a cup for yourself, name a bad behavior you want to correct, and let the children monitor you.


    So there you have it. After one day of peanut therapy, their behavior was much improved (even Miss Beccaboo’s, and she doesn’t like peanuts). The powerful peanut shocked them into goodness, I guess.

    I wonder how long it will take the psychologists to start utilizing this new treatment plan. The new DSM is coming out in 2012—do you think they’ll make mention of this groundbreaking peanut therapy? Maybe I ought to patent it.

    Yours truly,
    A Dumbo Mom

    P.S. Allergic to nuts? Try raisins.

    About one year ago: Caramelized Onions.

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