Hannah's Cookies

I have discovered, and I am sure that you have realized by now, that I enjoy reading a silly, light murder mystery. In fact, I really can't get enough of them. One I just found is the Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke, and lucky for me, it is part of a series...can't get enough of those either! 

Well, the Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder is a story about Hannah, a cookie baker in small Town America who accidentally becomes a detective after discovering the body of her dairy delivery man in the alley behind her shop. Not only has he got her famous Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookies scattered all around him at the crime scene (maybe not the best for business), but her brother-in-law, a police man, is looking for a promotion to detective and Hannah wants to do anything to help him. So Hannah sets out to find the killer and the sleuthing begins. But as always, I am really looking for a new recipe and this book has them.

Hannah is an exceptional baker and does a number of catering jobs for people in the town and lucky for us, she gives us the recipes throughout the novel. She has a recipe for every occasion. There are recipes for Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookies (her sister's favourite), Regency Ginger Cookies (for the historical society), Black and Whites (to promote the new police cars), Chocolate-Covered Cherry Delights (that can just fix any problem), Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies (you just must have a good sugar cookie recipe) and last but certainly not least, Lovely Lemon Bar Cookies (perfect for a promotion celebration party!). 

I tried the Crunch recipe and I fell in love. Who wouldn't be intrigued by a cookie recipe with cornflakes in it! Certainly takes a classic to a new level. The recipe is below and you just must try them.

Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookies

Ingredients: 

1 cup butter (2 sticks, melted)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt 
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 beaten eggs (fork beaten is fine)
2 1/2 cups flour (not sifted)
2 cups crushed corn flakes (just crush them up with your hands)
1-2 cups chocolate chips

Method: 

• Preheat oven to 375F, rack in the middle position. 

• Melt butter, add the sugars and stir. Add soda, salt, vanilla and beaten eggs. Then add flour and stir it in. Add crushed corn flakes and chocolate chips and mix it all thoroughly. 

• Form dough into walnut-sized balls with your fingers and place on a greased cookie sheet, 12 to a standard sheet. Press them down with a floured or greased fork in a crisscross pattern (the same method as peanut butter cookies). 

• Bake at 375F for 10 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes, them remove to wire rack until they're completely cool. (The rack is important - it makes them crisp.)

Happy Baking!

Tita's Enchilada's

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquirel is the story of Tita, a girl destained for sadness and loneliness. She is the youngest daughter at a ranch in turn-of-the-century Mexico and due to family tradition, is not allowed to marry as she must take care of her mother until her mother's death. Not a destiny I would like. As you can imagine, she finds a man she loves, Pedro. When he is preparing to ask her mother, Elena, for Tita's hand, Elena is furious that Tita wants to break family tradition by marrying and insists that Pedro marry Rosauro, one of Tita's older sisters. Elena enjoys resorting to cruelty to get to Tita to behave in the way Elena deems fit. Tita is understandably heartbroken as she not only has to watch her sister marry the man she loves, she must cook the wedding feast.

 

But this is not the part of the story that I wish to focus on. I want to talk about the food! The book is divided into twelve parts, one for each month and each month has a different recipe. For instance, in January there are Christmas Rolls, February she makes the dreaded Chabela Wedding Cake, in March Tita makes Quail in Rose Petal Sauce, April is Turkey Mole with Almonds and Sesame Seeds and of course the list goes on. The author tells of the life of Tita, while also explaining how to cook each of the recipes she discusses. A very unique and interesting way to tell a story.

 

Tita was born in the ranch kitchen and ever since her birth the kitchen is where she is most comfortable. In fact, under the watchful eye of the ranch cook, Nacha, (who is like a mother to Tita) Tita learns all the traditional recipes and eventually becomes the ranch cook.  Interestingly, her cooking is most magical. When her tears, which are her way of expressing any emotion, fall into the food, they affect the person who eats it. If she is sad, the people become sad, if she is happy, they too become happy. And since Tita has very deep and intense emotions, her food can affect people very strongly. One of the funniest (and I suppose I mean dark funny) instances of this was at Rosaura and Pedro's wedding. While Tita prepared the wedding cake, she felt an intense longing, jealousy and sadness about the wedding and about not being able to be with Pedro. When the wedding guests ate the cake, they too felt incredibly sad and each of the guests became terribly sick. I am not able here to express the level of sickness each of the guests suffered...just think of the worst thing imaginable at a wedding...then double it. How amazing to be able to affect other people's emotions like that with your cooking!

 

Although there were twelve different recipes in Like Water for Chocolate, I am not going to use one of them. Instead, as I am inspired to cook some Mexican food, I will use one of my favourite Mexican recipes, enchiladas, refried beans and Spanish rice. Am I alone in saying that refried beans can be just the yummiest thing ever!?! In August Tita makes Champandongo, a recipe similar to enchiladas...almost a mexican lasagna with layers of tortillas, cheese and beef (and we know how I feel about lasagna!).

 

Enchiladas are corn tortillas rolled around a filing and covered with a chilli pepper sauce (enchilada sauce, yum!). They can be filled with a variety of ingredients, including meat, cheese, beans, potatoes, vegetables or seafood or, frankly, any other combination! They  originated in Mexico, where the practice of rolling tortillas around other food dates at least back to Mayan times (awesome!). Originally they were street food and were just tortillas dipped in chili sauce and eaten without fillings. They have come a long way! I hope you enjoy the recipes below.

 

Chicken Enchiladas

 

Ingredients:

 

2 large onions, chopped
4 medium jalapeño peppers, seeded and chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
2 28oz cans diced tomatoes, drained
2 1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken (rotisserie chicken works great here)
12 corn tortillas
1 cup shredded cheddar or Monterey jack cheese

 

Preparation:

1. Combine in a large skillet the onions, jalapeño peppers, garlic and vegetable oil. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until the onions are translucent and just beginning to brown around the edges, about 7 minutes. 
2. Stir in the chili powder, cumin and ground red pepper and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add the tomatoes and cook for 3 minutes, stirring frequently. 
3. Let cool and thoroughly puree the mixture in a blender or food processor.
4. In a medium bowl, combine the shredded chicken and 1/2 cup of the sauce. 
5. Preheat the oven to 400F. 
6. Pour 1/2 cup of the sauce over the bottom of a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. To make each enchilada, spoon 2 1/2 tablespoons of the chicken mixture down the centre of the tortilla, the roll the tortilla up into a cylinder. Arrange the enchiladas seam-side down in the baking dish. Cover with remaining sauce and the cheese. 
7. Bake until the sauce begins to bubble, about 10 minutes. 
8. Serve with sour cream and green onions. 

Refried Beans (Frijoles Refritos)

 

Ingredients:

 

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 medium onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

4 cups cooked black beans or pinto beans

1 cup reserved bean cooking liquid or water

Salt to taste

Queso fresco, feta or parmesan cheese

 

Preparation:

 

1. Heat in a large skillet over medium-high heat the vegetable oil. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until deep golden brown, about 10 minutes.
2. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minuted.
3. Add the beans, 1 cup at a time, mashing each addition to ca coarse puree with a potato masher or the back of a spoon.
4. Stir in the reserved bean cooking liquid, cooking over medium heat until the beans are a little soupier than you would like them - they will thicken as they sit. The whole mashing process should take 10 to 15 minutes.
5. Season with salt to taste and serve warm with a garnish of queso fresco, feta or parmesan cheese.
   
   
   
   

 

Serve with plain or Spanish rice.

 

!Buen provecho!

Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs & Ham

Who doesn't remember or hasn't read Dr. Seuss' (a.k.a. Theodor Seuss Geisel) Green Eggs and Ham? I think I will be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't read it! Just in case your basement doesn't contain a dusty old copy of Green Eggs and Ham, here is a little about the classic story. A character named "Sam-I-Am" pesters an unnamed character (also the narrater) to taste a dish of Green Eggs and Ham. The unnamed character declines...he claims to dislike Green Eggs and Ham. But the relentless Sam-I-Am will not stop following him around and trying to get him to try the dish. He even suggests different locations...house, box, car, tree, train, etc. with an assortment of different company...a mouse, fox, goat (I would eat Green Eggs and Ham with a goat). Finally the unnamed character tries Green Eggs and Ham and guess what...he likes them!!!! 

Although it isn't a novel, Green Eggs and Ham is certainly a literary masterpiece! It only consists of 50 different words! It was a result of a bet between Seuss and Bennet Cerf (Seuss' publisher) that Seuss (after completing The Cat in the Hat using 225 words) could not complete an entire book using only 50 different words. I see who won that bet!  If you are interested, the 50 words are:

a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.

Would you believe that Green Eggs and Ham would become part of legal history?

Well, a U.S. District Court Judge, Judge James Muirhead, referenced Green Eggs and Ham in a court ruling after receiving an egg in the mail from prisoner Charles Ray Wolff, who was protesting the prison diet. Judge Muirhead ordered the egg to be destroyed...here is what the judgment said:

I do not like eggs in the file.

I do not like them in any style.

I will not take them fried or boiled.

I will not take them poached or broiled.

I will not take them soft or scrambled,

Despite an argument well-rambled.

No fan I am of the egg at hand.

Destroy that egg! Today! Today!

Today I say!

Without delay!

Clever judge.

So...I think you can guess the recipe for today. Green Eggs and Ham, baby!!! Oh yeah! But...I don't love the idea of food colouring, so the following is a recipe with spinach (green!) so I don't have to make the eggs unnaturally green (seems kinda gross to me). Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 large shallots, finely chopped
• 1 (10-ounce) box frozen, chopped spinach, defrosted and liquids drained
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup heavy cream
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• Fresh grate nutmeg, to taste
• 8 slices deli ham or prosciutto di Parma
• 8 eggs

Directions:

1.            Preheat oven to 375 F.

2.            In a medium skillet over medium heat, heat the extra-virgin olive oil and the butter and sweat the shallots a few minutes. Add the spinach and stir in the cream, season with salt and freshly ground pepper and little grated nutmeg. Cook the spinach, stirring occasionally, until the cream has thickened, 5 minutes. Adjust seasonings to your taste.

3.            Fold each slice of ham of prosciutto in half and line the non-stick cups with 1 slice of meat each. Spoon a heaping tablespoon of the cooked spinach mixture into each of the muffin cups. Crack an egg into each. If you are nervous about breaking the yolk, crack the egg into a small dish and then pour it on the muffin cup.  Season tops of eggs with salt and freshly ground pepper and bake in oven until set, about 15 minutes.

4.             Allow the baked eggs to cool in the muffin cups for a couple of minutes before removing them from the pan. Serve immediately.

My name is not Sam-I-Am! I do like green eggs and ham!

I wish you good eating!