Holiday Cards

Since I am stuck on the couch, foot up, following surgery*, I figured I may as well use the time to get some work done on my holiday cards… especially considering that Hanukkah is just a week a way (I know, I can’t believe it either). 

Every year, I hand make my holiday cards.  I used to do intricate, hand-cut cards, but once Husband and I became engaged, and our holiday card list for our combined family and friends stretched to over 60, I just didn’t have the time anymore.  Instead, I now screen print my holiday cards using my Gocco. 

Husband and I are Jewish, but we have many friends and some family who are not, so I always go for a generic holiday/Chrismukkah/non-denominational themed cards so as not to offend anyone.

  
2007 Holiday Cards

2008 Holiday Cards

What’s in store for this year?  Well, I’m not entirely sure yet, but Husband suggested a theme which highlights each of our respective cities.  I’m not sure if it’s a fun highlight, or depressing to send everyone a card saying “hey! look! we live in different cities!”, but it’s the first time he’s ever expressed an opinion one way or another about cards, so I think I’m going to go with it.

Since I seem to have so much more contact with many of my blog friends than my real life friends, it only seemed fair to include you on my holiday card list.  So, if you would like to be added to my holiday card list, send me an email (see that “Contact” link up there on the menu bar?  Click away!) with your address, and a card you will receive.

*Outpatient foot surgery, but I have direct orders to keep my foot up and stay off my feet, lest I rip out my deep stitches.  Details to follow.

Cannoli-oli-oli (Daring Bakers)

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

I had mixed feelings about this months DB’s challenge.  On one hand, I looooove cannoli (every time we are in an Italian restaurant or pastry shop, my father and I have to share a cannoli).  On the other hand, I detest frying in my current kitchen.  Don’t get me wrong; I have no fears about frying (Husband’s friends nicknamed me Latke Julie, after all)… but the kitchen in our condo faces the inside of the building, so there are no windows and no proper ventilation system to the outside.  As I know well from my yearly latke-fest, the scent of frying oil lingers in my condo for DAYS, and it takes over the whole place – even my clothes in my closet reek of oil.  It is truly disgusting.

But, since I have already missed my maximum number of passes for DB challenges, I forged ahead.  As I have mentioned before, I have zero room for “kitchen stuff”, so I passed on ordering actual cannoli forms which would require storage somewhere.  Instead, I put my thinking cap on and forraged, eventually cutting apart the handle of an old Swiffer which I needed to replace anyway.  Worked like a charm!

As far as the cannoli, they were delicious, but oh-so-rich.  I went for a banana filling – sliced bananas stuffed in the cannoli, and added banana extract to the filling mixture.  DELICIOUS.  Since I didn’t make enough to feed the entire lab, I wound up eating two and threw away the rest.  My waistline thanks me.  And my condo will be thankful if no more Daring Bakers/Daring Cooks challenges require frying!

Cannoli Shells

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon unsweetened baking cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup wine
• egg white from one large egg
• 2 quarts vegetable oil, for frying

Directions:

1. Using an electric mixer, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, and salt.  Stir in the oil and vinegar, and just enough wine to make a soft dough.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and well blended.  Shape the dough into a ball.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours to overnight.
2. Lightly flour a large cutting or pastry board and roll the dough until very thin, no more than 1/8” thick.  Cut out 3 to 5 inch circles (I used the rim of a glass as I don’t have round cookie cutters).  Roll the cut circle into an oval.
3. Oil the outside of the cannoli forms.  Roll the dough oval from the long side around each form and dab a little egg white on the dough where the edges overlap.  Press well to seal.  Set aside to allow the egg white to dry.
4. In a deep, heavy saucepan, poor 3” of oil.  Heat the oil to 375F with a candy thermometer.
5. Carefully lower a few cannoli tubes into the hot oil.  Do not crowd the pan.  Fry the shells until golden, about 2 minutes, turning them so they will brown evenly.
6. Lift a cannoli form with a slotted spoon out of the oil.  Using tongs, grasp the cannoli form at one end.  Very carefully, remove the cannoli form with the open sides straight up and down so that the oil flows back into the pan.  Place the form on paper towels to drain.  While still hot, grasp the form with a potholder and pull the cannoli off the form with a pair of tongs.  Let the shells cool completely on the paper towels.  Place shells on cooking rack until ready to fill.
7. Repeat making and frying the shells with the remaining dough.  If reusing canoli forms, allow them to cool before re-wrapping with dough.

Cannoli Filling

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds ricotta cheese, drained
• 1 2/3 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon banana extract
• banana slices
• melted chocolate, for shells

Directions:

1. Line a strainer with cheesecloth.  Place the ricotta in the strainer over a bowl and cover with plastic wrap and a towel.  Weigh it down with a heavy can and let the ricotta drain in the refrigerator overnight.
2. In a bowl with an electric mixer, beat the ricotta until smooth and creamy.  Beat in the confectioner’s sugar, vanilla, and banana extracts until smooth.  Chill until firm.
3. Melt chocolate over a double burner.  Dip ends of cannoli in chocolate.
4. Place sliced bananas in the center of the cooled cannoli.  Add filling mixture to a ziploc bag, snip off the corner, and squirt into the tube (or use a pastry bag if you have one).  Drizzle melted chocolate over the cannoli.  ENJOY!

Boston Recommendations

Later this month, I will be heading up to Boston for the AACR Molecular Targets & Cancer Therapeutics meeting.  It’s been quite a while since I’ve been to Boston – the last time was the summer between graduating high school and starting college!  I’ll be in the Back Bay area, so if anyone has any suggestions for things to do in the evening (or during less interesting sessions!) or places I should eat, let me know!

Also, if anyone else is either attending the conference or a permanent resident of Boston, send me an email if you are interested in perhaps trying to meet up while I am there!

French Macarons (Daring Bakers’ Challenge)

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

So, here’s the thing. I don’t really get the macaron craze. Cute little bakeries and pastry shops all over D.C. seem to sell them for an arm and a leg, much like the cupcake craze, and, much like cupcakes, I have no desire to pay an exorbitant price for them. And also much like cupcakes, I don’t even particularly like macarons. But the recipe sounded like a challenge, so I was in.

This was the very first thing I tackled after 3 weeks sick on the couch with swine flu and pneumonia. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t such a good plan; I was still feeling sick and had zero patience. To say I half-assed this recipe would be generous; really, at best, I quarter-assed this. All month, the Daring Bakers’ forum has been full of failed attempts… apparently, macarons are quite the tricky little beasts. And there I was, still not yet fully recovered, throwing my hands in the air and saying.. what the hell? Let’s give this a try.

All sorts of tips and tricks were shared in the forums in order to get this recipe to work. In my illness-induced annoyance state, I ignored all of them. Age your egg whites on the counter for three days, they said! I let mine sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before whipping them up. Be sure to sift your almond flour and sugar together three times so it is smooth! In my matchbox-sized kitchen, there is no room for non-essentials like sifters or mesh sieves, so not only did I not sift mine three times… I didn’t sift mine at all! Oh yes, there were LUMPS. And I narrowed my eyes and glared and told my macarons to suck it up and deal.

And deal they did. Much to my surprise, after reading about failure after failure, mine worked just fine. On the first try. With not-yet room temperature egg whites, non-sifted almond flour, and an oven that is notoriously off by quite a bit (but I don’t own an over thermometer, so I don’t know what that ‘bit’ is). MY biggest problem? Piping them out. I don’t own actual pastry bags (see reference to non-essential items for matchbox-sized kitchen) so I went with the good old snip off a corner of a ziploc bag. Nevermind that I even had circles drawn out underneath my parchment paper, I absolutely, positively, could not get that batter out in a circle… let alone in a same sized oval. Of course, this didn’t affect the quality of the cookie itself, but made sandwiching them up a bit difficult. Knowing my stomach was not yet up to par, I made these with my Husband’s tastes in mind – a simple dark chocolate ganache filling. I was thrilled that they turned out well; he was thrilled to eat them. All in all, a win-win situation!

See that ruffley edge along the base? Those are called macaron “feet” and are the defining characteristic of a macaron. Yeah, I didn’t know that either.

French Macarons

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 2 cups almond flour
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 5 egg whites, room temperature (-ish)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200F.
2. Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl.
3. Beat the egg whites using a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
4. Sift (HA. suckers!) a third of the almond flour into the meringue and fold gently to combine. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Do not overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
5. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (or, for the truly frustrating experience, snip the end off a ziplog bag). Pipe one-inch sized mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
6. Bake the macarons for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375F. Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and back for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Quarantined

My extended absence can be summed up with two words: swine flu.  Those of you who follow me on Twitter caught the real-time play-by-play of my past two weeks: the 104+ fever, the aches, the chills followed by sweating like a pig (very appropriate for the swine flu), the coughing, the vomiting, the vomiting, the even more vomiting, and finally, the very slow road to recovery which started on Friday.I have spent the past two weeks stuck on the couch (aside from two Tuesday’s ago, when I had to go into lab, and this past Monday, when I spent Yom Kippur not in synagogue, but at the doctor’s office discovering that my flu turned into secondary pneumonia), too tired, worn out, and miserable to do anything aside from follow Twitter from my iPhone.  I am totally behind on e-mails, all but my very favorite blogs, the 2043 papers my PI sent to me telling me to read immediately to discuss upon my return (sorry Boss, but I have not looked at a single one), and apparently the drastic change in seasons – before I fell ill, it was warm and summery; rumor has it that it is now in the 60s and the leaves are already starting to change color.

I will be making my triumphant return to society this week (I am only feeling about 50% right now, but I am pretty sure if I don’t show up in lab meeting first thing Monday morning, my PI will drag me off the couch kicking and screaming) and slowly returning to the blogiverse.  Don’t worry, I’ll wash my hands well before leaving comments on any of your blogs.