Doing laundry of course, but also ripping some of my CDs. Not all–that’s too overwhelming of a task, but some of them. So I no longer flip through the CDs going, “Oh! Stevie Ray Vaughan!”

So far today:
Cowboy Junkies
Marty Friedman
Soundgarden
Toadies
XTC
Kevin Ford
Michael Penn

We also brushed Kat. He likes to be brushed right up until he hates it and pitches a hissing snarling fit. Fun.

And I want to finish my book today. But I have a feeling I’m more likely to fall asleep than read. I’ve still pretty damned tired, which is why I’m unable to gauge my depression. Ah well.

ADDENDUM the First:
Now I’ve ripped:
Aine Minogue
Leahy
Taliesin Orchestra
The Mediaeval Baebes
Enya
Dead Can Dance
and finally, Stevie Ray Vaughan

Now I’m making pizza. Mmmm!

Yes, chocolate pudding again. It’s easy to make, and it’s nice and chocolaty, which is all I really want right now.

Funny thing is a never got excited about chocolate pudding as a child. Possibly because the only pudding I ever got was out of a box, which just isn’t inspiring. And Brian like butterscotch pudding, which is nasty. (Second only to butterscotch ice cream.) The problem with butterscotch is that it never tasted like butter rum.

But homemade chocolate pudding is different. I know what ingredients go in it: cocoa, salt, corn starch, sugar, milk, bittersweet chocolate, and vanilla. (I use Mexican vanilla here, not the Madagascar bourbon vanilla).

Yea, I suppose I could be accused of being a food snob, but my feeling is that if I’m going to eat empty calories, then I should be making it worth my while and eat something that tastes really good, instead of sweets for the sake of eating sweets.

But it’s also comforting, and I need comfort right now. Work has been very busy and very tiring, and most days I don’t want to do anything more than collapse and let my brain zone out. Comfort is what I need, and chocolate pudding hits the spot.

The pudding is the consistency of chocolate milk before it’s heated, but even when I don’t see it boiling (because I’m stirring constantly) there is a noticeable shift when it thickens.

Poured into the bowls and waiting to be cooled and eaten.

Mmm…. chocolate pudding.

Farmer’s Market (fresh eggs, Rustic Italian bread, and a tomato)
Grocery shopping
Recycling center (We filled the trunk and the entire back seat, mostly with cardboard and #1 plastic)
Fish market (wild sockeye salmon is in season!)
Lunch

Now off to take Grandmom to the grocery store.

Then, if I’m lucky, reading and a nap later (still re-reading Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch series).

Saturday I wanted chocolate cookies for myself–preferably with nuts–so I needed to make something else Grandmom could eat. (She complains that she eats too many sweets if I make cookies for her, but complains that she makes sweets she can’t eat if I don’t. So I err on the side of making cookies.)

Earlier this year I bought the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book, primarily to try and get more whole grains into Michael’s diet. I’ve tried a couple recipes, and they’re pretty good (though I prefer the unbleached flour sweet rolls), but grandmom really liked the Chewy Oatmeal cookies, so that’s what I made for her.

These cookies are very chewy and almost spice cookies as much as they are oatmeal cookies.
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Needed a dessert, but had multiple limitations placed upon me by Grandmom’s diet (No dairy, no nuts, no chocolate…) so decided on lemon cake. Found a recipe for lemon pound cake with lemon sauce, but then found these lemon pudding cakes and decided to try them instead.

I warning in the recipe would have been nice–the batter is extremely runny, and the egg whites just didn’t want to fold in smoothly. But all in all it tasted pretty good. Will I make it again? Haven’t decided yet.

Lemon Pudding Cake
2 tbsp butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs, separated and at room temperature
2 tbsp lemon zest
2 tbsp flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 fresh lemon juice
1 cup milk
boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease six 6-ounce ramekins. Place the ramekins inside a rectangular baking dish.

Beat egg whites to soft peaks. Set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy (here is where I first ran into difficulty. 2 tbsp of butter is not a lot, esp with 2/3 cup sugar. Fluffy just didn’t happen. Especially since I put the sugar and lemon zest together in the food processor to mince the zest) Add egg yolks and beat. Add flour, (lemon zest), and salt and beat until combined. Add lemon juice and milk and mix well. You’ll need to scrape down the sides of the bowl several times, and the batter is going to be extremely runny.

Using a spatula, fold in the egg whites. Pour batter into ramekins.

Place ramekins in a large baking dish, place the baking bowl in the oven, then add boiling water to the baking dish.

Bake 20 to 35 minutes, until tops are brown. Cakes will still be jiggly.

Remove ramekins from baking disk and allow to cool for 1 1/2 hours. Either run a paring knife along the inside of the dish and invert the cakes onto a plate or just serve them in the ramekins.

Cakes will shrink somewhat.

This was another request. The original recipe called for a cake mix, but I’ll have none of that. If you’re going to make cake, then by all means make cake.

Rum Cake
Cake:
4 eggs (room temperature)
1 cup butter (softened)
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1-3/4 ounce (4-serving size) instant vanilla pudding mix
1 cup cream
1/2 cup Bacardi dark rum
1 cup chopped, toasted pecans or walnuts
Syrup:
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup Bacardi dark rum

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Butter and flour a bundt cake pan or a tube cake pan.

Beat butter until creamy. While butter is being beaten, whisk together dry ingredients. Beat in sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs. Add vanilla and lemon zest. Add half the flour mixture. Mix. Add half the cream. Mix. Add rest of ingredients. Mix.

Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle nuts on top of the batter. (Original recipe called for nuts on top of cake/bottom of pan. I prefer this.)

Bake 60 50 75 minutes.

While cake is baking, make the syrup. Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and carefully stir in rum.

Note: The rum will cause steam. Be careful not to burn yourself.

After cake as cooled for 5 minutes, carefully turn out cake from the pan, then carefully return the cake to the pan. With a bamboo skewer or similar tool, poke holes through the cake. Allow cake to sit for a couple hours, then you can remove the cake from the pan again. Wrap.

This cake freezes extremely well.

I got a request for my recipes for Amaretto cake and Rum cake, and thought: easy posts!

Although I generally dislike cake, I do like these cakes, because they are extremely moist.

Amaretto Cake
Cake:
4 eggs (room temperature)
1 cup butter (softened)
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp lemon zest
1/4 tsp salt
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
Amaretto Syrup:
3 cups sugar
3/4 cups corn syrup
1 1/8 cup water
1 3/4 cup amaretto

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Butter and flour a bundt cake pan or a tube cake pan.

Beat butter until creamy. While butter is being beaten, whisk together dry ingredients. Beat in sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs. Add vanilla and lemon zest. Add half the flour mixture. Mix. Add half the cream. Mix. Add rest of ingredients. Mix.

Bake cake at 350 F for 60 to 75 minutes.

Cool cake for 5 minutes.

While the cake is baking, make the amaretto sauce. Combine sugar, water, and corn syrup in a saucepan. Heat until simmering. Do not stir until syrup is at a full boil. Boil until liquid is clear (sugar id dissolved). Cool for five (5) minutes. Carefully stir in Amaretto.

After cake as cooled for 5 minutes, carefully turn out cake from the pan, then carefully return the cake to the pan. With a bamboo skewer or similar tool, poke holes through the cake. Poke a lot of holes, because there is a lot of syrup. Slowly pour the syrup over the cake. It may take awhile to absorb. Allow cake to sit for a couple hours, then you can remove the cake from the pan again. Wrap.

This cake freezes extremely well.

Since I know not everyone reads my book blog, I thought I’d mention that I recently finished the Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and enjoyed it.

It’s a very good book that you really should read. Though I think Fast Food Nation was better. (I really enjoyed Eric Schlosser’s talk when he came here several years ago.)

This is modified from a recipe I made at Christmas (which I’d already modified from the original). Grandmom can’t eat nuts, and she’s not supposed to have many cranberries, so I had to make some substitutions. I made half the cookies without cranberries, and half with. Or maybe a little bit more than half with. Directions are for with cranberries.

Oatmeal Cookies with Coconut, White Chocolate, and Cranberries
325 F, 12 minutes
3/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 tbsp corn syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg (room temperature)
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2+ cup oats
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup coconut
4 oz white chocolate, in chunks (I take a 4 oz bar and crush it. If you can find white chips those’d be fine.)

Beat the butter until light. Add in the sugars and continue beating until mixture is light and fluffy. Add in corn syrup and vanilla, and beat well. Beat in the egg, then add four, soda and salt.

Mix in the oats, then the coconut, then the white chocolate chunks, then the cranberries.

Scoop onto parchment paper covered cookie sheets.

Bake for 12 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through baking.

Allow cookies to cool on the sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Brian had a conference last week in Reston, VA. On the way home he took a detour through Baltimore and then through Morgantown.

In Reston he picked up a pound of jumbo lumb crab meat so Grandmom could make crab cakes for us. Yum!

In Baltimore he went to Attman’s Jewish Deli on Lombard Street to pick up three pounds of corned beef, and a pound of turkey pastrami for me. Plus fresh rye bread and pickles.

Grandmom was delighted.

Lemon Jumbles

Michael wanted lemon cookies, and the other recipe I love required refrigeration, so I decided to try lemon jumbles again.

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I made nothing new this week, although Monday I made a batch of brownies, and so had warm brownies and vanilla ice cream for dessert.

However, on Saturday I was craving strawberries, so I picked up organic strawberries. As expected, they weren’t very good, because they came all the way from California, but they had the promise of berries to come.

And really, once I added whipped cream, who could notice overly tart berries.

But I have to say, the warm brownies with vanilla ice cream was better.

And I’ve still got more left.

I was going to whine that I haven’t accomplished anything this evening.

Then I remembered I made brownies. So, yay me!

Spring is here! Grocery store had organic raspberries, so I thought they’d go perfectly with whipped cream. And since I had some organic chocolate ice cream on hand…