ArtChix

Last night I had a good dose of art and culture. Joe's aunt Barbara founded the ArtChix. A sort of book club geared to art. She presented a wonderful slide show with works of art from the Victorian Era. Then we headed to the Dallas Museum of Art, where we enjoyed painting and photography from the mid 1800's. It was very interesting to see a painting right next to it's photograph counterpart. The artist would simply leave out things they didn't like. For some reason it never occurred to me, that they would do that. And have always silently wondered where they found these wonderful empty landscapes. Silly me.

We all shared some of our favorite foods, mine being Monica's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Everybody was raving about them (which is not surprising), and asking for the recipe. So I got it from Monica's blog, so everyone can make these fabuless cookies.

Oatmeal Chocolate Cookies (makes about 4 dozen)

2 1/2 c. blended Oatmeal (measure after it's blended)
1 c. Butter
1 c. Brown Sugar
1 c. Granulated Sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
2 c Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tsp Baking Powder
12 oz Chocolate Chips
4 oz grated Hershey bars (or white, butterscotch, M&M's or any other chocolaty goodness)
1 1/2 c. Chopped nuts

1. Blend oatmeal in a blender, making 2 1/2 cups of fine powder.
2. Mix the Butter and both Sugars until creamy.
3. Add eggs and vanilla, and blend.
4. Mix the Flour, Baking Soda, Salt, and Baking Powder, and add to the above. Mix quickly. Don't over mix.
5. Fold in Chocolate Chips, Hershey bars, and Nuts.
6. Place cookie dough balls 2 inches apart on cookie sheet.
7. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes, or until golden brown around the edges.

If you don't want to bake all of the cookies, make a dough "log", and freeze it. Then, when you want quick cookies, slice off 1/2" slices, and bake for about 15-17 minutes.

I just love how you get the nuttiness of the oatmeal, without having to chew on big chunks of it. Plus, these are very crunchy (they remind me of those super expensive cookies you can get at grocery stores, like Pepperidge farm)

Thanks again for the recipe, Monica! These are my favorite chocolate chip cookies of all time.

Oliebollen

New Years eve brings more Dutch traditions. I think I've mentioned before that New Years Eve is a big deal in Holland. Everybody celebrates it in a big way. Parties, Fireworks, and also clubbing all night are common place. I've tried to carry on these tradition, except maybe the clubbing part. This house has been very condusive to great parties. Living out in the country means we can build huge bonfires, set off fireworks, and make as much noise as we want. What a blessing.

Tonights party planning and prep is in full swing. Oliebollen are a traditional Dutch New Year's eve treat. They are kind of like a scone with raisins and apples. They can also be made without the raisins, but I prefer to have them included. Last night I put the raisins in water to soak. As soon as I got up this morning, I started chopping apples, warming milk, sifting flour. But it's not all idealic. I didn't add enought liquid to the flour right from the start, so the dough got too thick, which made the additional milk spill right out of the side of my mixer. I sure hope people will eat my oliebollen a lot more than previous years, because it seems I am usually the only one.

Hosting a party also brings the obligation (in my mind) to clean my whole house. Luckily I've got 3 good helpers these days!

If you plan on doing any substantial amount of baking, you should really invest in a good food scale. One that can measure both pounds and grams. Most Dutch recipes use gram measurement, which are much more acurate than cups/volume measurements.

Oliebollen Recipe (makes about 48)

1 kg all purpose flour (1000 grams)

1 liter milk (1000 ml)

4 granny smith apples

250 gram White raisins

250 gram regular Raisins

2 tsp Salt

24 gram Instant Yeast

2 tsp Sugar

4 Eggs

Vegetable oil and 1 cup shortening for frying

The night before you plan to make oliebollen, wash the raisins. Then let them soak in water overnight.

It's important that all of your recipes are at room temperature.

• Peel and chop apples into small pieces
• Drain the raisins, and blot them dry with a paper towel.
• Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl (I use the mixing bowl of my Bosch)
• In a seperate bowl, slightly whisk the eggs, so the yolk and eggwhite are mixed together.
• If you don't have instant yeast, combine yeast, sugar, and 1/2 cup of lukewarm milk, and let it sit for about 10 minutes (this will activate the yeast)
• Warm up the milk until lukewarm.
• Make sure your eggs are room temperature
• Add Yeast, eggs, and half of the milk to your flour. Mix well, until all lumps are gone
• Slowly add remaining milk. Mix until well blended.
• Carefully fold in raisins and apples.
• Cover the dough with a damp rag, in a warm environment (I heat up my oven to 100, and let it rise in there). Until double in size -- about 2 hours

About 15 minutes before you are ready to start frying, you can heat up your vegetable oil. The oil needs to be about 350 degrees Fahrenheit (or 180 Celcius). The way to know if it's hot enough, is to drop a piece of bread into it. It's ready when it turns brown quickly. If it's too hot, the outside will get brown too fast, and the inside won't cook. If it's not hot enough, the oliebol will soak up way too much oil.

Use an ice cream scoop (or 2 regular spoons) and drop balls of dough into the oil. Make sure you don't put too many in at the same time, because they need room to "swim". Fry them until brown and done on one side, then flip. If it's ready to be flipped, it should be very easy to flip, and sometimes it flips itself. After they're done, place on a paper towel, to blot off extra fat. Serve warm, covered with powdered sugar.

Baking Bug

I've had the baking bug for the past few weeks. Any dutch treats with Speculaaskruiden sound expecially good to me right now. I've made several things, most of which were flops. It's hard to find good recipes online. Of course I have the advantage of being able to look for Dutch recipes too, but that doesn't make it much easier. My first try at "taai taai" was a total flop. It's supposed to be chewy and cakey, but instead it was crispy and hard. That went to Piggy smalls. My next experiment was speculaas. That turned out a little better, but it didn't taste quite right either. My pepernoten taste right, but were hard as rocks. All of these were baked last week. Maybe this week is a better week.

So I tried again with the pepernoten. This time, I found a recipe for kruidnoten. The dough felt a lot better than last week's recipe. The little balls were easy to make, as the dough was nice and soft.

Here's the recipe for today's Pepernoten: (about 35 cookies)

100 grams Flour

1 heaping tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

50 grams Brown Sugar

45 grams cold Butter

1 tsp Speculaaskruiden (see below)

2 Tbsp Milk

Heat the oven to 300. Place parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Mix all the ingredients. Use 2 knifes to cut the butter into small pieces. Quickly knead into a thick dough. If the dough gets too soft, place in the fridge for about 30 minutes. Roll marble sized balls from the dough, and place on the cookie sheet. Bake for 2o minutes. Cool completely.

A lot of Dutch snacks associated with Sinterklaas (St Nicolas) have "speculaaskruiden" in them. These spices are widely available in Holland, but not here. Turns out, you can just make your own! All these spices should be available in your neighborhood's grocery store

Mix the following spices:

25 grams ground Cinnamon

10 grams ground Nutmeg

5 grams ground Cloves

dash ground Kardemom (I didn't have this, so left it out)

Store your spekulaas spices in an airtight jar. Some recipes that call for this include: Taai Taai, pepernoten, and spekulaas. Once I find good recipes for the taai taai and spekulaas, I'll post those too.

Enjoy your pepernoten with a glass of milk. Or, if you want to really celebrate Sinterklaas' birthday on December 5th, have Piet throw them in the door, and let the kids scramble to gather them.

Random Recipes

For the past 2 nights, our dinner has consisted mostly of home grown items. Last night, Joe made some really yummy goat tacos, with red pepper, and onions in corn tortillas. Tonight I made a stew, which honestly didn't look too appetizing, but that turned out to be delicious! Just in case you ever have a garden with eggplant, red pepper, onions, and rosemary, try out this recipe:

3 med. green peppers (1 lb.)
1 med. eggplant (1 lb.)
5 tbsp. salad oil
1 c. thinly sliced onion
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 (2 lb. 3 oz.) can tomatoes
2 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. dried rosemary leaves
1 bay leaf
:
1 flank steak (2 1/2 lb.)
1 tbsp. salad oil
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tbsp. chopped parsley

1. Prepare peppers and eggplant; wash peppers. Halve; remove seeds and ribs. Cut lengthwise into 1/2 inch wide strips.

2. Wash eggplant. Do not peel. Cut lengthwise into quarters. Slice crosswise into 1/4 inch thick slices.

3. In 3 tablespoons hot oil in 5 quart Dutch oven or kettle, saute green peppers, onion, and 1 clove garlic until vegetables are soft, about 10 minutes. Remove to medium bowl.

4. In same kettle, saute eggplant in 2 tablespoons oil, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes. Return pepper mixture to kettle. Add undrained tomatoes, 2 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, rosemary, and bay leaf; simmer, covered, 30 minutes.

5. Trim excess fat from steak. Wipe steak with damp paper towels. Combine oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and garlic.

6. Place steak on broiler rack; brush with half of oil mixture. Broil, 4 inches from heat, 5 minutes. Turn; brush with remaining oil mixture. Broil 4 to 5 minutes longer.

7. Slice very thinly on the diagonal and across the grain. Add to vegetable mixture. Sprinkle with parsley. Makes 8 servings.

Note: If desired, prepare peppers and eggplant day before; refrigerate. Reheat to bubbling just before adding meat.

Whenever I have some random ingredients that I want to use in my dinner, I just go to cooks.com, and do a search. For example: tonight I wanted to use steak (which I had to defrost because we're trying to fix our icemaker), red peppers from the garden, and 2 eggplants from the garden. So my search was simply: steak, eggplant, pepper. Several recipes came up, so I just browsed through them, and picked one that looked good. I have never cooked with eggplant before, and just bought the plant on a whim back in April. When I cut it open, I didn't even know what to look for, to see if it was ripe. So I just assumed it was, and went ahead with cooking. This type of cooking (with the help of online recipe searches), has been very rewarding. Only once or twice have we ended up with a meal that was less than satisfactory. But the majority of the time, we discover a yummy recipe that I'll make over and over again.

Eggs and Eierkoeken

It has become my ongoing quest to make good use of our new blessing of a dozen eggs per day. So far I have come up with the following solutions:

• If the church has a potluck, I automatically make an eggs dish. One month it was deviled eggs, this month it was an egg casserole
• We ate quiche for dinner last night
• I plan to freeze some eggs, so we'll have plenty in the lean months
• Anyone that lives closeby, gets eggs for their birthday
• I even sold some to my grandma's friends
• We eat "juicy eggs" for lunch almost every day. Juicy eggs are simply overeasy eggs, but the kids came up with this word, and that's what we use around here
  

This morning, still having 6 dozen eggs in my fridge, got me to thinking what else I could do with them. Since I think it's wrong to "egg" other people's cars (which, by the way, I got egged a few weeks ago at Joe's parents house!), I turned to the internet for more recipes, that use lots of eggs. Just in case you are blessed with many, many eggs as well, here's a few ideas:

• Mayonnaise: who knew you could make your own mayo? It's really easy too. There's only 4 ingredients: Eggs, Oil, salt, and mustard. I made some yesterday to go into our quiche
• Quiche (see above)
• Egg salad
• deviled eggs
• Flan - I might make this for desert some evening this week
  
• Creme Brulee
• custard
• angel food cake
• souffles
• eggs benedict
• madellines
• breakfast casserole
• eggnog
• omelets
• egg noodles
• hollandaise sauce
• eierkoeken-A Dutch type of cake/cookie that are scrumptious - I have one batch of those in the oven right now - recipe to follow

Eierkoeken (makes 16-20)
1.5 cups Sugar
8 Eggs
3.25 cups Flour
8 tsp Baking Powder

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Whip egg whites and sugar with a handmixer, until fluffy
3. Add egg yolks, one by one.
4. In separate bowl, mix flour and baking powder
5. Sift flour into eggs mixture, a little bit at a time. Use a wooden spoon to mix instead of mixture, to keep the air in the dough
6. Let the dough rest for about 5 minutes
7. Using a tablespoon, place heaps of dough on pre-greased cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart
8. Bake at 350 for 13-15 minutes, or until golden brown

Serve cold with some butter. These are a great snack, or can be part of a sandwich lunch.
Verdict: I cooked mine a little too long, and they turned out a little bit crunchy (they're supposed to be soft). But the taste is fantastic!

Credit: I found the recipe Here

Wheat Bread Recipe

This recipe is from my old RS president in Boise. She would make this bread for everyone in the ward. It's pretty fast, and very moist and fluffy. I used fresh ground wheat flour, but you can also use store bought wheat flour.

5 cups Hot Water
2/3 cups Oil
2/3 cups Honey (use same measuring cup as oil, so the honey comes out easily)
2 cups White Flour
12-13 Whole Wheat Flour
2 Tbsp SAF Instant Yeast (kind of hard to find, you might need to order it online. there's a store in Boise that sells it, but here in Texas I couldn't find it)
1 Tbsp Salt
4 Tbsp "Blue Chip Baker" Dough Enhancer *this is the secret to this recipe*

• Preheat oven to 200 (or lowest temperature available)
• Mix Water, Oil, Honey, White flour, 4 cups of Wheat Flour, and Yeast very well
• Let rest 10 minutes
• Add Salt and Dough Enhancer, mix well
• Add the rest of the Wheat Flour 1 cup at a time, 8-9 cups total.
• The dough will pull away completely from the side of the mixer when enough flour is added (it will still be sticky)
• After the dough is mixed, leave the machine on and knead 3-5 minutes
• Place dough on greased surface and divide into 4-5 loaves
• Put the loaves into greased bread pans and let rise in warm oven for 20-30 minutes
• Turn oven on to 350 and bake 30 minutes

This bread is best when hot, but keeps very well in the freezer. And you can prepare a lesson while it's baking!!