E-lim-i-nate the negative

It's a sad truth that no matter how well the rest of your life is going, you feel compelled to complain. I'm going to ignore that urge today and focus on the positive. Good Lord it gets exhausting. I still don't really think of myself as an optimistic person; the majority of my life has been spent feeling sure that something horrible lurked just around the corner and it's only recently that I've tried to ac-cen-tchu-ate the positive. It certainly takes practice and the songs aren't nearly as good. Right now I'm getting kind of tired of keeping the ol' chin up, but I don't want to slip into the Slough of Despond just at the moment, so let's brainstorm.

The weather is lousy...but nice if you're indoors. The grosser weather becomes, the more fun it is to stay indoors with a cup of tea making playlists and doing homework. (Especially when your professors have a sense of humor and put jokes in your exams.) Today I sacrificed breakfast for 15 extra minutes of sleep, so after Chem when I found myself downtown in the disgusting sloppy rain, I went to Woodstar and got a bagel and hot chocolate. They drew a heart out of cream on my hot chocolate, the bagel was delicious (and I think it was homemade), and if I had had a copy of the Times I would have been completely at peace. All around me were folks having late breakfasts: trim older ladies wearing neutral-toned fleece, twentysomething guys with laptops, one or two fellow Smithies, and several people taking their coffee at a leisurely pace over the morning paper. It was very pleasant. I rarely get to people watch in the morning, and in any case people watching at a college isn't very interesting because people have similar things going on and there isn't much to wonder about. I'm far too cheap to frequent coffee shops, but when I do get to one it's a nice change of pace.

Yesterday, a restaurant downtown that's going out of business held a tag sale, and I got a 10" cake pan (no springform, unfortunately--I was so close, but it was already sold.) and a large saucepan that's completely metal and won't melt in the oven! Before you say anything, family: I'm going to enter the Friedman lottery in my senior year, so these purchases are a lot more practical than they seem at the moment. Plus, restaurant-quality kitchenware isn't something you get for $3 every day. In honor of our new purchases, Alice and I are planning a dinner party a few weeks from now (scheduling is tentative). I'm so excited, partly because we haven't had a dinner party since last year's Emily's-going-on-med-leave shindig, and partly because for the first time ever, we don't have any crazy allergies to work around! We can cook whatever we want! More details to follow; I'd hate to give everything away all at once, but suffice it to say that I'm very excited for how it turns out.

Looking ahead, I have a good day before me. Today is ballet class and Dance in the New Millennium, then in the evening I have hours in which to study forever, alone or with my friends or maybe both. Tomorrow I have an exam that I'm bringing my A game for, Leading Ladies dinner, and a run-through of the first half of the show. I get to sing my song and clown around and generally have fun with nice people. It's a great way to end the day.

There we go, I feel much better now. What do you know, this optimism stuff really works!

Die Babys

I'll certainly miss working at Sunnyside next semester. While I've never really been good at devoting five hours of a day to childcare (it's too much and not enough at the same time. I do best when I can focus my energy on one thing or several things in one day, without making any abrupt shifts. A full day or like two hours would have been better.), working with adorable children has always been great. Today I worked from 8 to 4:30 with the 4 to 5 year olds, the same age group I was with when I started last spring. I've been with slightly younger kids this past semester, and it's amazing what a difference a few years can make. I'd forgotten how articulate the 4 and 5-year-olds are, and how freaking energetic. They reminded me of the kittens, only the kittens don't shout "Come and get me, Monster!!!!!" (I earned that nickname in the context of a game of chase, I'm not some kind of tormentor.) They had so much energy, and I had a great time putting my claws up a la Lady Gaga and leering. They weren't great at tag; I was willing to throw in the towel after they made the snow home base, but they still wanted it so I still delivered. The game lasted hours. One kid, when saying goodbye at noon, actually called after me, "Goodbye, Monster!"

Because I was working all day, I was given a break of indeterminate duration during which to eat lunch. Nobody specified how much time I actually had, but I'm not much of a rebel, so I cantered to King/Scales and ate at turbo speed. The highlight of my lunch was the massive sour dill pickles that were provided with cheeseburgers. Seriously, these pickles were big enough to upstage the entree, but they were just in a bowl! Like they were something pedestrian! If my friends had been with me, I would have opened my mouth really wide with enthusiasm and pointed at the pickles, unable to articulate my excitement, but I was eating alone so I had to keep it together. I spent my lunch happily thinking of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and mulling over the many ethnic slurs I learned from said novel.

If the kids' energetic performance had in any way led me to believe that they would be exhausted after lunch and ready to nap, I was wildly mistaken. I've been spoiled by toddlers who actually sleep during naptime. These kids spent two hours whispering and reading every book on the bookshelf. What's worse, the teachers weren't even around for most of it, and at one point the other assistant left to make snack, so I had to contend with twelve raucous four-year-olds all by myself. Maybe four of them were actually asleep. They were my favorites. Quiet hours are from 1 to 3 in the afternoon, and all the kids in the place are asleep, or they should be. Since the youngest kids are literal babies, quiet is really pretty important, and I had to keep scolding these kids for talking too loudly (of course young children aren't great at modulation, so this was a common problem). The only redeeming aspect of this exasperating situation was the kids who were getting increasingly pissed off when I told them I couldn't read out loud, because it was quiet time.  It was kind of funny actually; one kid tore at his disheveled curls but couldn't say anything because, after all, I had a point. It's rare that I'm in that position (being 100% in the right and there's nothing you can do about it), and it's a testament to my pathetic position in life that I sort of relished the experience. That's right, bub. It is quiet rest time.

Little kids are super cute, and they really do say the damnedest things, but they aren't big readers. The only time I've read to one of the younger kids, it turned out to be a book called Goodbye, Papa about kids dealing with a parent's death. I was really not expecting this, so when the kid who wanted to hear the story seriously didn't get it, I was not prepared for her questions. "Where's the dad, Lily?" "Oh, um...he's not around any more. Do you need to wash your hands? Let's go do that." But slightly older kids will park you at the couch and have you read book after book, without question the best part of the gig. And the cherry on top is that Sunnyside has excellent taste in books. I've read books by William Steig (now there's a good potential HoF nominee), Frances books, Frog and Toad, and just today, Lyle, Lyle Crocodile. That finished off a good day. The kids were finally worn out and, like Jinx and 13, they cuddled up to me and handed me one book after another, until it was time for me to leave.

Hurriposting

Top 5 Recipes: A Wish List (as in, recipes I want to make):

1. Miso Soup
2. Julia Child's Soupe a l'Oignion
3. Baguette (for real this time)
4. Lemon curd. (It's just such a pleasurable experience.)
5. Any kind of gumbo so I can practice making a roux

But as for things I can't stop thinking about eating:

1. Brutti ma Buoni, these amazing Italian cookies my Aunt Grace makes whose name translates to "ugly but good." Italians, you kill it on a regular basis. 
2. Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic as described by Smitten Kitchen

I'm not even hungry, I just keep thinking about roasted chicken, garlic, and those cookies.

So. Not last post but the post before, I told you that there's a book I loved as a child but would not let my own children go near. This statement is not entirely accurate. When I was but a lass, I read these books obsessively (yeah, I know, that doesn't narrow it down. I have an obsessive personality; sue me.) but did not realize, no matter how many times my family told me, that these books were seriously creepy, to the point where I'd be uncomfortable with my child reading them. This is a universe where no one ever dies...even if they've been chopped into tiny pieces with a cleaver or eaten by a dragon. I'm talking about....

I took great pride in having read all fourteen in the series, plus Sea Fairies and The Life and Times of Santa Claus to boot. I didn't have any classmates who had read that many....or any of them, actually. My parents had read them all....I think, at some point, but years and years ago, so I couldn't talk to anybody about these crazy-ass books that I loved so much. 

I'm conflicted about the Oz books because I was not in a great emotional place when I became obsessed with them. When I was nine, I didn't have any friends and my teacher was the first adult I had ever met who did not like me. Do you remember meeting your first adult who didn't like you, or at least didn't like you as much as you were used to being liked? I was used to people loving me, or at least putting up with my weirdness, but Mrs. Lonergan (name burned into my brain via shame and humiliation) did not tolerate a child as silly as I was, and I did not know how to respond to this treatment. So for a full year, I retreated into books (and as I later realized, dance), because I literally did not have anywhere else to go. I was in an emotional state where I didn't see how messed up the Oz books were. I just saw that they were pretty and shiny and the mean guys were punished. 

Apart from the super-creepy "you never die, no matter how hard you try or how much you're suffering" thing that Baum states at least once in every book, the world is pretty awesome! There's a village made of people who are puzzles, there are miniature pigs who do tricks, everyone's pretty much nice all the time, and there's basically no poverty. My favorite of the series has always been The Road to Oz, because it has the most interesting and unusual characters. For example: 

Johnny Doo it, capable of solving any problem ever.

The Shaggy Man, who's basically a hobo, only he possesses the Love Magnet, so everyone loves him and does whatever he wants. He's friends with Johnny Doo it for this reason. He's just irresistible. 

And of course, Polychrome, daughter of the rainbow, who eats things like dew-drops and mist-cakes and whines a lot. But she's hot, so she can get away with it. 

It's a magical world....but still super weird. What do you think? Are the Oz books too creepy to let your kids read? I doubt I could handle reading them to my children. 

Swiss Pumpkin: Reichl disappoints

When I was growing up, I loved reading Ruth Reichl's autobiographical book Tender At the Bone. I identified with a child who grew up in the kitchen, as my parents regarded my sisters and I as really short sous chefs. (Parents, I jest.) I once tried to make a tart that she describes as transcendental, but I found it pretty pedestrian. "Surely," I thought, "surely I must have gotten it wrong!" I tried closing my eyes while eating it, but it was seriously underwhelming.

I'm beginning to think Ruth Reichl is just terrible at recipes (not to mention relationships. Burn!), because yesterday, Alice and I made her recipe for Swiss Pumpkin and it was terrible. We had gotten a free pumpkin at Harvest Fest, and weren't sure what to do with it, so I suggested this recipe that I had read about so many times. Reichl invented it and apparently made it multiple times for lots of people, all of whom received it favorably.

Here's how it works. You hollow out a pumpkin, layer it with French bread and some kind of Swiss cheese, then fill it up with cream and bake it at 300 for 2 hours. Simple enough. I remembered my mother making this for us when I was little, ladling out pumpkin soup straight from the pumpkin. We swapped cream for whole milk because we could get that free from the dining halls and took some cheddar from lunch. I knew it probably wouldn't taste as strong, but figured it would work out fine. For bread we went to Hungry Ghost and got a French batard that had made astounding French toast that day for breakfast. Everything was ready to go.

I first became suspicious when the recipe called for hardly any seasoning. Nutmeg, black pepper, and salt was all that was mentioned. We added some fresh chives from my Mason jar garden, but for some reason the spices were added last, on top of the milk. Then the pumpkin started to leak from the bottom. It was a little leak, but we were worried that all the milk would dribble out and the whole thing would be ruined. Desperate, we stopped up the bottom with extra bread and baked it in a baking dish.

It smelled pretty good. We scooped out some bread and cheese into teacups and took a bite.

It was bland. So bland. It was soggy, milky bread and some chunks of pumpkin. It tasted like high-end baby food, if your baby will only eat food served straight from a gourd. And in that moment, I remembered why my mother only made this recipe once: because it's not delicious.

At least it only cost five bucks to make.

Tastes of Autumn, Part 3: Hot Fudge Pudding Cake

People joke about how autumn online and autumn in real life are completely different, but in the Pioneer Valley, there's no difference. The place is so idyllic I sometimes wonder if I'm living on a movie set.

Yesterday was jacketless weather, so Alice and Rebecca and I went for a walk in residential Northampton and went house-spotting. (There's no point in leaf-spotting when your current town is so ridiculously gorgeous.) I have previously mentioned how I like to imagine my own life in certain houses, and Alice and I share similar tastes. I like a wraparound porch, a screened-in porch in the back or on the side, and I'm very partial to yellow houses. We strolled through the nicest little area with cozy houses that had lazy fat cats and children in abundance and a neighborhood park. It was beautiful and happy and I wanted to pick a house and start having babies right there.

Then on a whim, we went up the hill and the houses suddenly got very swank. People gave us funny looks, and there were three or four cars per driveway. It was simply too fancy. We couldn't take it and left as soon as we could.

This recipe is a relic from 1950's housewife-y cookbooks, but I love it the most. Cooks Illustrated makes a big deal about how its humble appearance doesn't make it any less delicious, but I think it's perfect. Here is an unpretentious dessert that smells and tastes incredible. You get a moist, chewy brownie with fudge sauce on the bottom, perfect with ice cream and a snap to make (although it uses hella dishes, jsyk).

Enjoy!

Hot Fudge Pudding Cake

Source: Baking Illustrated

Ingredients: 

2 tsp instant coffee

1 1/2 c water

2/3 c Dutch-process cocoa* 

1/3 c packed brown sugar

1 c granulated sugar

6 T unsalted butter

2 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

3/4 c unbleached all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 T vanilla 

1/3 c milk

1/4 tsp salt

1 large egg yolk

Directions: 

1. Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Lightly spray an 8-inch glass or ceramic baking dish with nonstick cooking spray**. Stir the instant coffee into the water; set aside to dissolve. Stir together 1/3 c of the cocoa, the brown sugar, and 1/3 c of the granulated sugar in a small bowl, breaking up any large clumps with your fingers. Set aside. Melt the butter, chocolate, and the remaining 1/3 c of cocoa in a small bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water (or in a saucepan set over low heat. Who needs another dish to wash?); whisk until smooth and set aside to cool slightly. Whisk the flour and baking powder in a small bowl to combine; set aside. Whisk the remaining 2/3 c granulated sugar with the vanilla, milk, and salt in a medium bowl until combined; whisk in the yolk. Add the chocolate mixture and whisk to combine. Add the flour mixture and whisk until the batter is evenly moistened. 
2. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and spread evenly to the sides and corners. Sprinkle the cocoa mixture evenly over the batter (the cocoa mixture should cover the entire surface of the batter); pour the coffee mixture gently over the cocoa mixture. It will look super weird but just roll with it. Bake until the cake is puffed and bubbling and just beginning to pull away from the sides of the baking dish, about 45 minutes. (Do not overbake.) Cool the cake in the dish on a wire rack about 25 minutes before serving. 

*The recipe says Dutch-process makes all the difference, but the cake was still mind-blowing with Hershey's. Use what you have. 

**I love parchment paper as much as the next baker, but you want your cake to have direct contact with the pan or it won't bake as thoroughly. 

Tastes of Autumn, Part 2: Mountain Day

Mountain Day Pumpkin Pie

Very slightly adapted from Cooks Illustrated

Ingredients

1 prebaked pie shell, whatever recipe you prefer

2 c plain canned pumpkin puree

1 cup packed light brown sugar (original recipe says dark, but the molasses flavor was a little too overpowering for my taste)

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp grated nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 c heavy cream

2/3 c milk

4 large eggs

Directions:

1. FOR THE PIE SHELL: Partially bake the crust until light golden brown. 
2. FOR THE FILLING: Meanwhile, process the pumpkin puree, brown sugar, spices and salt in a food processor for 1 minute until combined. Transfer the pumpkin mixture to a 3-quart heavy-bottomed saucepan; bring it to a sputtering simmer over medium-high heat. Cook the pumpkin, stirring constantly, until thick and shiny, about 5 minutes. 
3. As soon as the pie shell comes out of the oven, adjust an oven rack to the lowest position and increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees. Whisk the heavy cream and milk into the pumpkin and bring to a bare simmer. Process the eggs in a food processor until the whites and yolks are combined, about 5 seconds. With the motor running, slowly pour about half of the hot pumpkin mixture through the feed tube. Stop the machine and add remaining pumpkin mixture. Process 30 seconds longer. 
4. Immediately pour the warm filling into the hot pie shell. (Ladle any excess filling into the pie after it has baked 5 minutes or so--by this time the filling will have settled.) Bake the pie until the filling is puffed, dry-looking, and lightly cracked around the edges, and the center still wiggles like gelatin when the pie is gently shaken, about 25 minutes. Cool on wire rack for at least 1 hour. 

Tastes of autumn

I am a true Buffalo girl. When the weather is sunny and hot I'm pretty happy, but nothing perks me up like lousy weather. Gray, wet, cold days are wonderful, because they're perfect days for cooking. My favorite meal I prepared this summer was macaroni and cheese, one rainy day when it was stormy and gray and chilly outside and we almost lost power. The kitchen was warm and cozy as Shane made the macaroni and I made garlic broccoli so delicious that all of the campers ate it. We assembled our own parts of the meal independently, and as I broke the broccoli into bite-sized pieces and listened to the entire oeuvre of Neko Case, I felt completely content.

On Thursday, I didn't have much homework, the night was cold, and I was looking for a reason to feel cozy, so I stole a bunch of apples from a dining hall and made applesauce. Applesauce, as my beloved Laurie Colwin says, "is a snap to make as it actually makes itself." I had been daydreaming about applesauce as a companion to this gingerbread cake that I want to make for Christmas (Emily, your thoughts? I know you're not crazy about gingerbread, but this cake......), and such a night almost demanded applesauce.

In case you've never made applesauce before, here's a recipe, in brief. Peel and slice a few McIntosh apples (specified because they turn to mush beautifully, but Granny Smiths just fold their arms and glare when faced with heat), add a bit of water to the pot, cover and cook at low heat. When I say "a few," I used six medium-sized and it made enough for about six teacups of applesauce. The result makes the whole house smell warm and homey and is completely delicious without any added sugar. You can add cinnamon or honey or whatever you want, but I think homemade applesauce is best when unadulterated. Now go make some.

TODAY'S MUSIC: "Bohemian Rhapsody." My friends are cleaning their suite, and I am being their DJ.

Definition of insanity

For years now, I've been making rhubarb pie for family picnics, and I really thought I had it nailed. I made the same recipe over and over: James Beard's rhubarb pie (no strawberries) and Fannie Farmer's pastry recipe. I thought I knew what I was doing.

But I did not! Oh I did not. The pie I made yesterday is to my previous rhubarb pies as an flat balloon is to an inflated one. In some cases, this comparison is literal; yesterday's pastry actually increased in size and puffed up beautifully, and it had enough filling for once. On the flip side, my former end product was half-filled at best, the pastry was flat and tough, and the recipe called for flour to absorb the moisture, so it was usually pretty dry.

I should have stopped making this pie after the first time I made it. At most, I should have attempted it twice, realized that the results were identically uninspiring, and just quit. But I persisted. Why did I insist that I was doing it right?

Technically, I was correct; after all, I followed the recipe to the letter. But the pie was wrong. Why didn't I see it before?

An even more interesting question: Why did I continue using shortening even though Aria (former boss, professional pastry chef) said you get better results with butter? Why??

Who knows, I'm just stubborn. Anyway. All-butter pastry makes all the difference and I'm never going back.

Would you?

Badly lit food porn: true to the genre

Browned butter brownies. Recipe here. 

Oh man, I think I want those brownies now. 

The surprisingly poofy bao dough. My mom and dad set up stations: he divided the dough, she rolled it out, I made the filling, and we all filled the bao. 

My cat oversees the rolling process. 

Aren't these honeys? We got a little overzealous and over-filled a few, but not by much. 

It's a thing of beauty. 

And delicious to boot. 

Cha Sui Bao

I want to preface this recipe by saying that it's a time commitment, but if you manage you time properly it'll take about a full day rather than a full weekend, and the end result is very, very good; my sources tell me that it tastes just like bao you'd get at dim sum. (OK, my parents said that. That sounds a lot less professional than "my sources," though.)

Original recipe is here, but I found it hard to follow, so I'll condense and simplify it for you right here. Metric measurements on original site, as I find the side by side measurements a tad confusing. I also think that a full day's work for only twelve bao is absurd, so double or nothing, my friends!

PHASE ONE: CHA SUI

Ingredients:

2 pork fillets/tenderloins (roughly 2-2.5 pounds)
8 large cloves of garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons (3 gm) ginger, grated
2 tablespoons peanut oil
3 tablespoons maltose (you can substitute honey)
3 tablespoons honey
4 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce (NOTE: I used dark soy sauce only and it came out fine.)
2 teaspoons oyster sauce
2 tablespoons shaoxing cooking wine
1 teaspoon (2 gm) ground white pepper
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon (2 gm) five spice powder
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon pillar box red food colouring (which I didn't use because a. I don't trust food coloring and b. I couldn't find it. It's just an aesthetic thing, though.)

Directions:

1. Trim the pork loin to remove fat and tendon and slice lengthways so you have two long pieces, then cut in half. By cutting the pork in to smaller pieces to marinate you will end up with more flavoursome char sui. If you want to leave the pork in one piece you can do this as well. Place in container that you will be marinating them in. I used a Pyrex baking dish. 
2. Combine all the other ingredients in a bowl and mix well to combine. 
3. Cover pork well with the marinade mixture. Marinate overnight, and remember to flip the pork if not completely covered. Reserve the marinade for basting when cooking the pork. (NOTE: Now, there are several options as to how you can cook the pork. I just popped it in the oven, but the original recipe says barbecue yielded the best results, which I'm inclined to believe. For simplicity's sake, here's the instruction for oven roasted pork, and feel free to poke around and explore other methods.) Pre-heat oven to moderate 350°F. Cover a baking tray with foil or baking paper, and place on top of this a rack on which to cook the pork.
4. Place pork on the rack and place in oven. Bake for approximately 10 minutes, basting and turning.
5. Turn the heat up to 400°F for the final 20 minutes as this will aid the charring. Cook until cooked through. And since it's pork, don't forget to take the internal temperature. Pork is done when its internal temperature is 160 degrees, or 145 if you're feeling frisky and get your pork from a reputable source. 

PHASE TWO: BAKED CHA SUI BAO 

Bao can be baked or steamed, but I'm providing the baked version because that's what I made and it doesn't require any special equipment.

A: Dough
Ingredients:

2½ teaspoons (1 packet) of dried yeast
¼ cup sugar
½ cup warm water
2 cups plain flour
1 egg (medium size - slightly beaten)
3 tablespoons oil
½ teaspoon salt
Egg wash: 1 egg beaten with a dash of water

Directions:

1. Place the sugar and warm water in a bowl, mix until the sugar has dissolved. Add yeast and leave it for 10 - 15 minutes until it becomes all frothy.
2. Sift flour in to a large bowl.
3. Add yeast mixture, egg, oil and salt and stir. Bring the flour mixture together with your hands.
4. Place dough on a well floured surface and knead for approximately 10 minutes.The dough will be very sticky. When you have finished kneading, it should be smooth and slightly elastic.
5. Place in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Leave to rise. Original says wait for the dough to double in size, but I let it rise an extra hour and a half, so it was about three times bigger and beautifully light. But it's your call. This will take from 1 - 2 hours depending on weather conditions and your schedule at that time. 
6. While dough is rising, make the filling, since it needs time to cool. Dough recipe will be continued when you've made your filling. 

B: Filling
Ingredients:

Char sui (finely diced) This is, for all intents and purposes, as much char sui as the recipe above yielded.
4 green onions/spring onions (finely sliced)
2 tablespoons hoisin
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
2 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 cup chicken stock
2 teaspoon corn starch
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Heat the vegetable oil in a wok or pan.
2. Add diced char sui to the wok/pan and stir then add spring onions, cook for 1 minute.
3. Add hoisin, dark soy sauce and sesame oil to the pork mixture, stir fry for one minute.
4. Mix cornflour and stock together and then add to the pork mixture.
5. Stir well and keep cooking until the mixture thickens, 1 or 2 minutes.
6. Remove mixture from wok/pan and place in a bowl to cool. Set aside until ready to use.

Made your filling? Is your dough ready? Beautiful! Let's continue.

Filling your bao:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 
2. Once dough has doubled in size knock back and divide in to 24 portions and shape in to round balls.
3. Use a rolling pin to roll out to approximately 2 inches in diameter. Then pick the piece of dough up and gently pull the edges to enlarge to about 3 inches in diameter. This ensures that your dough is thicker in the center, so your bao don't split down the middle. It's not an attractive look, though it may make a comeback in the spring season. 
4. Place a good sized tablespoon of filling on the dough circle. It will be very tempting to over-fill, but don't you do it, or your bao will explode. Then gather the edges and seal your bun. 
5. Place the bun seal side down on your baking tray. Repeat until all dough rounds have been filled. 
6. Once all buns are complete, brush surface with egg wash.
7. Place your bao in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Best to just eyeball it; when your bao are done you'll definitely be able to tell. I'll be posting pictures in just a few minutes. 

So that's that! Go out to your nearest Asian grocery, get all the esoteric ingredients you need for the filling and marinade, get a pork tenderloin at Price-Rite, and get cooking!

Virtue

I was going to make a Buffalo post about churches and supportive religious communities today when I went downtown to get my permit (yeah, I'm in college and don't have a permit, nbd), but no sooner did I arrive at the bus stop and sit down than I was visited by something out of a cartoon or Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day. I sat on the little bench under the bus shelter, and a car drove through a big puddle of nasty scummy water and splashed it all over me! I made noises of distress and anger, but the culprit was long gone. Clearly, this was a sign from the universe. I was not supposed to go downtown today.

So I went home and took a bath instead.

For dinner, I made the most virtuous meal imaginable: Red lentil cauliflower curry. It's a recipe from the Mennonite cookbook Simply in Season, but I had to find it online because I don't own the book. I think the recipe might have been off somehow: the meal tasted fine, but when I served it up, it was just a big bowl of vegetables and not much sauce. When I had this meal before, this was not the result.

Still, it was healthy.

Browned butter brownies for friends and enemies

Hello, my lovely friends! Tonight, I'd like to share with you one of my favorite recipes: browned butter brownies. They are legendary and browning butter, while time-intensive, is a useful and delicious social skill.  For a very helpful step-by-step tutorial, click here.

Potential uses for these brownies: 

1. If you have a mortal enemy and are looking to bump them off in a kindly fashion,
2. If you need to butter someone up before asking them for a large sum of money (oh snap that just happened),
3. If you're trying to seduce a foodie,
4. If you're trying to seduce someone who has a mouth and likes to put food inside it,
5. If you need a present for a teacher or friend,
6. NOMS.

Brown butter browniesModified from Alice Medrich, published in Bon Appetit, Feb. 2011Makes 16 brownies

• INGREDIENTS
• 2½ sticks of unsalted butter (Don’t freak out! You’ll only really use half of it.)

• 1 cup sugar

• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (you’d be amazed at how much difference there is in cocoa powders; get a good quality one)

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 teaspoons water

• 2 large eggs, cold

• 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

• 1 cup walnuts, lightly toasted

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 325 F.

1. Line an 8×8-inch baking pan with aluminum foil, pressing it into the corners of the pan and leaving a couple inches of overhang. (You’re going to use this to lift the brownies out later. Genius! This is what you get for using recipes written by real professionals.) Rub a little butter over the foil to grease it.

1. Melt and brown butter, as described above.

1. While the butter is still in the early stages of cooking, combine the sugar, cocoa and salt in a fairly heatproof bowl.

1. Have a second heatproof cup or bowl ready. When the milk solids are beautifully browned, either pour or scoop out ½ cup (8 tablespoons) of the butter into that cup, being careful to keep all the browned bits with you in the pan. Then all at once dump the butter from the pan into the bowl with the cocoa mixture. Scrape in all the browned bits stuck to the pan, unless they’re burnt. Add the vanilla and water, and stir to blend. It will come together like rough concrete. The mixture should be fairly hot; let cool for 5 minutes. (You get to keep the extra butter for other uses; store in fridge.)

1. Beat in one of the eggs vigorously. It will look horrible. The butter will probably separate out of the cocoa/sugar mass, and it will start to make you very sad. About now, you will be cursing. Beat in the second egg, though, and watch it all come back together. Egg saves the day!

1. When your mixture looks shiny and uniform, add the flour and stir until blended. The recipe continues: “Beat vigorously 60 strokes.” And seriously, they’re not kidding. As you work it, the gluten will develop in the flour and make it firmer and tougher. Just take a breath, hold on and crank it.

1. Stir in the nuts, and scrape the batter into the baking pan. Bake 25 minutes, or until a toothpick in the center comes out not quite clean (there should be a few moist crumbs sticking to it). Cool the pan on a rack, then lift the brownies out with the foil. Cut into four strips, and quarter those to make 16 brownies.

Pictures to follow. 

Veganing, the Next Generation

I've been feeling really gross for almost a week now. (Physically, that is. We aren't going to continue with the loss of confidence thing from the previous post.) My brain is fuzzy and I can't focus, my mouth feels like an old sock, and I--I--
I've lost interest in food.

I know, it's shocking.

Today in Sci Fi my professor mentioned listening to your gut and being aware of what you're eating and how you're feeling, and I had an epiphany.

I'm going vegan for a few days. Just until my body clears itself up and gets organized. I can't afford to have fuzzy brain during finals, and even one meal without cheese or meat made me feel a little better. I wish I had a blender, because I've been daydreaming about smoothies all day today, but we make do with what we have.

So. Today for lunch I had a big ol' salad. It wasn't vegan because I put hard-boiled eggs in, but I didn't have any meat or cheese, and I think I'm on the road to slightly better.

UPDATE: Yeah I'm not going vegan. But I won't be eating meat for a few days. So... wooo.