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CSA Week 1: the last of the strawberries

June 26, 2013 by shaggerty

Late update, since tomorrow will bring us the Week 2’s CSA  box.

My first 2013 Dennison’s Family Farm CSA box yielded the following:

  • Three onions: red, white and yellow. These have gone in everything from quinoa to chicken fajitas.
  • One leek. Still in the crisper, it’ll probably end up in quinoa.
  • Broccoli rabe. I washed and chopped the greens and buds, and the husband mixed them into ricotta along with spicy Italian sausage to add a little zest to his fabulous homemade calzones. In truth, the sausage overwhelmed the flavor of the rabe, but we tried.
  • Pac Choi: This sits abandoned in my crisper, because I am shamefully bad at using leaf vegetables that have to be cooked.
  • One green squash. I immediately chopped this up and stir-fried it in olive oil with a bit of garlic. Easiest side dish ever.
  • Two quarts of strawberries. Alas, the last two quarts of strawberries I’ll get out of Tennessee this year. I made ice cream with them using my favorite recipe from Ben & Jerry’s (this is the only ice cream recipe book you need to own, BTW). I tossed in a cup of white chocolate chips toward the end for Something Completely Different, but I can’t really taste them. Turns out super sweet strawberries are enough all by themselves.
  • Pistou basil. This is a dwarf basil plant that I need to transplant outside. Last year’s wasn’t very prolific, I have to admit, but I’ll be swimming in fresh basil for the rest of the summer when Dennison’s herbs, along with my emergency back-up plant, start producing.

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As Pictured Below: Almost old enough to vote

June 18, 2013 by shaggerty

Yang turned 17 earlier this month. Not bad for a kitty who received the then-apt nickname of “vomicat” many years ago. A diet of homemade cat food has kept the old-cat ranginess at bay, and he may just be primed to register to vote next summer.

I know we’re lucky to have had such a great cat in the family for so long. (Not that Yin was any slouch in the long-term pet department: 14 years is not the shortest of cat lives, either.)

Animal lovers automatically surround themselves with other animal lovers, and are thus always experiencing the happiness and the tragedies of animal companionship. Just a couple of weeks ago, a friend’s 8-year-old cat died suddenly, and this week another friend is facing an undetermined, yet probably terminal, diagnosis for his family’s cat. He has the additional burden of helping his young sons deal with their grief, too.

If we had any common sense when it came to protecting our emotions, we’d stop turning animals into family members. The joy we would lose if we chose a lesser relationship with our pets, however, is simply unfathomable.

Thus, we choose, again and again, to love these furry little beasts, knowing that they’re going to leave us much too soon.

Totally worth it.

Posted in As Pictured Below, Cats, Photographs | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

The (short)cake is a lie

June 6, 2013 by shaggerty

So it turns out that strawberry shortcake is NOT simply strawberries with pound cake, angel food cake or sponge cake (no, not even those perfectly round little sponge cakes sold in packs of six in your grocery store’s produce section).

The shortcake you likely remember from your childhood? An imposter.

Shortcake is its very own thing. Simply placing strawberries and whipped cream (or, more likely, Cool Whip) on top of any kind of cake does not magically turn it into shortcake. (And while I’m on the subject of Cool Whip, how is it that nobody ever told me how EASY it was to make your own whipped cream?)

Shortcakes are essentially biscuits made with butter instead of shortening, with just a hint of added sugar. They’re supposed to accent the strawberries, after all, not compete for the title of sweetest dessert element.

I’ve made the Cook’s Illustrated version of strawberry shortcake a couple of times, and it’s a winner. The shortcakes are light, but substantial enough to hold the juicy berries without falling apart. The strawberries themselves could probably do with a little less added sugar, especially if you’re lucky enough to get specimens as sweet as I’ve found at the Dennison’s Family Farm strawberry stand this year. The recipe makes way more shortcakes than two people need, but the leftover cakes are good for a couple more days and you can make half, a third or even a quarter of the whipped cream recipe if you like.

Strawberry Shortcake

  • 8 cups (about 2.5 lbs.) strawberries, hulled
  • 6 Tbsp. sugar
  • 2 cups (10 ounces) all-purpose flour (plus more for dusting the work surface and biscuit cutter)
  • 5 Tbsp. sugar
  • 1 Tbsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 stick (8 Tbsp.) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 1 large egg, lightly beaten
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tsp. half-and-half
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg white, lightly beaten
  • 2 cups whipped cream

For the strawberries:
Place 3 cups of the hulled strawberries in a large bowl and crush with a potato masher. Slice the remaining 5 cups berries and stir into the crushed berries along with the sugar. Set the fruit aside to macerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 hours. (Note: Our leftover macerated strawberries were good for three more days.)

For the shortcakes:
Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 425 degrees. In a food processor, pulse the flour, 3 Tbsp. of the sugar, the baking powder, and salt to combine. Scatter the butter pieces on top and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, about fifteen 1-second pulses. Transfer to a medium bowl.

Mix the beaten egg with the half-and-half and vanilla extract in a measuring cup. Pour the egg mixture into the bowl with the flour mixture. Combine with a rubber spatula until large clumps form. Turn the mixture onto a floured work surface and lightly knead until it comes together. (Note: I’m not sure how I avoided screwing this up, given my lack of prowess with bread dough. It was a sticky mess, but I somehow managed to work enough extra flour in to make it work without ruining it. The husband has mad dough-making skills, so I should probably convince him to handle this part.)

Use your fingertips to pat the dough into a 9-by-6-inch rectangle about ¾-inch thick, being careful not to overwork the dough.

Flour a 2¾-inch biscuit cutter and cut out 6 dough rounds. Place the rounds 1 inch apart on a small baking sheet, brush the tops with the beaten egg white, and sprinkle with the remaining 2 Tbsp. sugar. (Dough rounds can be covered and refrigerated for up to 2 hours before baking.) (The recipe notes that you can roll up the leftover dough scraps and make more shortcakes, but warns that they may not be as good as the originals. I detected no difference, so use all of your dough.)

Bake until the shortcakes are golden brown, 12-14 minutes. Place the baking sheet on a wire rack and cool the cakes until warm, about 10 minutes.

To assemble:
When the shortcakes have cooled slightly, split them in half. Place each cake bottom on an individual serving plate, and spoon a portion of the fruit and a dollop of whipped cream over each cake bottom. Cap with the cake top and serve immediately.

Whipped Cream 
Makes about 2 cups

  • 1 cup heavy cream, cold
  • 1 Tbsp. sugar
  • 1 tsp. vanilla

Chill a deep, non-reactive, 1- to 1.5-quart bowl and beaters in the freezer for at least 20 minutes. Put all ingredients in bowl and beat on low until small bubbles form, about 30 seconds. Increase speed to medium and beat until beaters leave a trail through the mixture, approximately 30 seconds more. Beat on high until the whipped cream is smooth, thick and nearly doubled in volume, about 20 to 30 seconds. (Note: Don’t skimp on freezing the bowl and beaters. That’s what makes the magic happen.)

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Impressively spicy ginger ale is made close to home

May 20, 2013 by shaggerty

As a friend of mine would say, Buffalo Rock Ginger Ale is real spicy-like. It’ll also produce a flaming hot soda burp. I mean, probably. Because I wouldn’t really know.

I have a not-very-secret obsession with ginger.  Ginger ale. Ginger beer. Ginger-based cocktails. Ginger cookies. Candied ginger (I like the uncrystallized version from Trader Joe’s because I can eat it at my desk without dropping sugar everywhere).

I like spicy things. I like sweet things. All of my favorite ginger concoctions satisfy both of those likes.

The addition of Earth Fare to Huntsville’s shopping choices made it pretty easy to fill my ginger beer craving. A four-pack of Reed’s Extra Ginger Brew seemed to be the spiciest ginger soda I was going to find around here, and I thought it was the perfect brand for the occasional ginger-based cocktail.

I was wrong, however. It seems I didn’t need to look to all the way to a California company to satisfy this fix. Some of the hottest, spiciest ginger ale I can get my hands on is bottled a mere 100 miles away in Birmingham, Alabama.

Buffalo Rock Ginger Ale – Southern Spice is honestly one of the zestiest blends I’ve ever tasted, challenging the array of international ginger ales that decimate the taste buds of mere mortals at the Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta. (If you ever go there, you should totally mix the spiciest ginger ale you can find with ALL the other soda flavors, no matter how many funny looks you get from your date.)

I discovered this peppery ambrosia at the I Dream of Weenie hot dog van in Nashville, which is another post for another day, I promise.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Buffalo Rock Ginger Ale at my neighborhood Publix, meaning beverages are about to get a lot spicier at Chez Haggerty. Maybe a couple of pimento cheese hot dogs (totally a thing at I Dream of Weenie) are in order, too.

Posted in Eats, Photographs, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Tiny bowls simplify the cooking process

May 6, 2013 by shaggerty

A few years ago, I discovered that cooking is a lot like painting: The more work you put into a project before you start, the smoother everything goes once you begin.

I had always noticed that people on cooking shows had premeasured ingredients at the ready, but I figured they needed to do that so the camera didn’t have to follow the mundaneness of the measuring process. At some point, however, I realized that premeasured additions made a lot of sense. What’s easier: Scooping out various amounts of spices while standing at the stove at the very moment those ingredients need to be added to your concoction, repeatedly glancing back at the recipe, or measuring out all of those ingredients before you start so you can dump them in at the appropriate time, all at once and with no double-checking of the recipe?

A lot of the recipes I frequently use call for tiny amounts of ingredients, meaning it was hard to justify dirtying even my smallest bowls for premeasuring. I had been using wax paper for these smaller measurements, but tearing tiny squares off the roll made for an untidy rectangle when I would finally need a larger piece.

IKEA to the rescue. During my going-away trip to the Atlanta megastore, I stumbled across the BLANDA bowls. At $2.99 for a pack of four, these 2-inch bowls are the perfect size for my small additions of herbs and spices. One bowl will hold approximately four minced garlic cloves (provided, of course, that you haven’t been tricked into buying some monstrous head of garlic with supersized cloves) and maybe 4 teaspoons of herbs and spices.

I almost bought the stainless steel version ($4.99 for four), but I could tell that they were going to scratch easily, since every package I picked up sported at least one bowl that was already pretty roughed up.

So far, the most bowls I’ve used at one time is three. I took the photo above during Cinco de Mayo’s fajita-making festivities; one holds minced garlic, another holds oregano and thyme, and the third holds salt and pepper. All in all, probably not that much to measure out midway through the cooking process, but dumping a tiny bowl of premeasured ingredients into a pan filled with sizzling onions makes me feel like I should have my own cooking show.

Iron Chef Haggerty. I like it.

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Taste of the past: Coca-Cola cake

May 1, 2013 by shaggerty

CokeCake

During the last few weeks of my brief relocation to Atlanta, I craved Coca-Cola cake. Not because I saw it on a menu or because somebody mentioned it, but because you can’t travel an entire block in Atlanta without seeing some sort of reminder that it’s the home of Coke, and my mind heads off in unpredictable directions when it gets a prompt.

Atlanta, the home of Coke, leads to Coca-Cola cake. Why not?

I remember eating Coca-Cola cake on a pretty regular basis when I was a kid. It’s pretty easy to throw together, and since you bake it in and serve it from the same pan, the presentation is simple, too.

I’ve had a copy of Classic Cooking with Coca-Cola for years, apparently always meaning to make this cake, but I got very confused when I tried to look up the recipe. I found three recipes for chocolate cakes containing Coke, but none of them called for the 13-by-9-inch pan that I specifically remembered. Online, Southern Living linked to a recipe that called for a good bit more sugar than the one in my book (not that I’m trying to make a low-sugar cake, because LOL low-sugar cake, but I didn’t want a chocolate cake in which the sugar overwhelmed the chocolate). Finally, I flipped through my copy of The Mississippi Cookbook, figuring that the Southern classic would surely hold the recipe I was looking for. I found that the sugar-cocoa ratio in its version was even more unappealing than the one in the online recipe.

Other than the sugar discrepancy, the online recipe’s ingredient list was nearly identical to one of the recipes in Classic Cooking with Coca-Cola, AND the online recipe gave me instructions for baking in a 13-by-9-inch pan instead of a sheet pan, so I figured my baking time would be about the same. And it was.

As I remembered, the cake was at its best the day after I made it. As the icing sits overnight, it hardens into a fudgy topping — not quote a hard coating, but not a soft frosting, either.

Admittedly, this cake was not the ambrosial concoction I remember from my childhood, but it was quite delicious. I think cake, like sandwiches and salads, is simply one of those treats that always taste better when somebody makes them for you.

One regular can of Coke is enough to make the batter and the icing, provided you don’t drink the leftover soda while the cake is baking. I’m not judging, either way. And seeing as I have NEVER purchased a carton of buttermilk, I always have to use the standard substitution: 1 tbsp. white vinegar or lemon juice to 1 cup milk. I also understand you can use yogurt or buttermilk powder.

Start making the icing a couple of minutes after the cake comes out of the oven. You’ll want to pour it on top of the cake after the cake has cooled off for about 10 minutes. Also, the original recipe indicated that the pecans in the icing were optional, and pecans are SO not optional for this cake. In fact, I might try to work some pecans into the batter AND the icing next time.

Coca-Cola Cake

  • 2 cups plain unsifted flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 sticks butter
  • 3 tbsp. cocoa
  • 1 cup Coca-Cola
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups miniature marshmallows

Grease and flour a 13-by-9-inch pan. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Sift the flour and sugar into a large mixing bowl. (Note: I didn’t sift anything because I kind of hate to sift. I had to mash down a few flour pellets in the batter with my stirring spatula, but that was the only consequence.)

In a saucepan, bring the butter, cocoa and Coca-Cola to a boil. Pour this mixture over the flour and sugar and stir until the batter is mixed thoroughly. Stir in the buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, vanilla and marshmallows; mix well.

The batter will be extremely thin, and the marshmallows will float to the top. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan, and move the floating marshmallows around until they’re spread out reasonably evenly. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. (Note: None of the recipes I consulted tell you how to tell that this cake is done, which was a little scary because the batter is so weirdly thin. The toothpick test worked, though. After 35 minutes, the toothpick came out with a few moist crumbs on it.)

Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes on a wire rack, then pour the icing on top. It should spread itself out pretty evenly over the cake. Let the iced cake sit for at least an hour to let the icing firm up a little before you cut it, or risk scraping icing run-off out of the bottom of the pan with a spoon (which, really, is not such a terrible thing).

Coca-Cola Icing

  • 1 stick butter
  • 3 tbsp. cocoa
  • 6 or 7 tbsp. Coca-Cola
  • 1 box powdered sugar
  • 1 cup chopped pecans

In a saucepan, heat the butter, Coca-Cola and cocoa until everything is melted and mixed together. Pour over the powdered sugar and mix well. (Note: I broke out the mixer for this.)

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On returning to Huntsville with another notch on my resume

April 19, 2013 by shaggerty

So I’m back in Huntsville. Long story short, the Atlanta move just didn’t work out. Short story long, I still can’t decide what I want to be when I grow up.

The problem is that I’ve already been what I wanted to be when I grew up, and that career barely exists anymore.

I had known I wanted to work at a newspaper since I was 10 years old.

When I was in the fifth-grade gifted program, our teacher was determined to expand our little minds beyond the standardized tests that had, presumably, placed us in her class. (I want to think that her name was Mrs. Wilkinson, but let me assure you that if you think you’ll ALWAYS remember the name of everyone in your life who has been important to you at one time or another, you are WRONG. Write it down. Let’s just call her Mrs. W.)

Mrs. W. wanted us to understand practical things, like how banks and the stock market worked. She also allowed us to conduct a deeper exploration of subjects like geology – I spent hours wearing safety goggles and breaking up rocks from the driveway with a hammer to look at the patterns inside. (And still never received my coveted rock tumbler.)

She also tried to inject a little cultural cachet into our group by accompanying us to the opera in New Orleans for a matinee performance. Now, I didn’t exactly take to opera (nine years later, in fact, one of my fellow gifted students would find himself elbowing me awake repeatedly during a production of The Marriage of Figaro at the University of Southern Mississippi), but I remember falling in love with the IDEA of opera, and live performances in general.

Mrs. W.’s greatest contribution to my future, however, was definitely our field trip to the Sun Herald in Gulfport, Miss. Don’t get me wrong: I come from at least two generations of daily newspaper readers, so the concept of print journalism was not foreign to me at all. I grew up understanding that no breakfast table was complete without a newspaper.

The Sun Herald folks gave us a tour of the entire operation, including the pressroom. They gave us copies of the preprinted sections, hot off the press. The moment one of the press guys handed me my section, I realized that it took A LOT of people to get the newspaper out the door every morning, and I was certain that I wanted to be one of those people.

Fast-forward past college: I was a copy editor and staff reporter at the Mobile Press-Register for nearly 10 years. It was the most awesome job ever, and now it’s gone. I got out of the business a few years before it really hit bottom, but last summer, the position I had literally disappeared from the newsroom, along with dozens of others.

The newspaper business is a treacherous place right now. There’s no going back, but I’m still trying to figure out what to do going forward.

I ran into an Internet friend at Earth Fare today – Joe Martin of Huntsville Adventure Boot Camp for Women fame. (It’s always weird to meet Internet friends in real life, but it’s also kind of awesome, especially when said Internet friend is somewhat of a fitness guru and you’re feeling reasonably fit that day and are carrying only bananas and spring-mix lettuce in your basket.)

While explaining my recent return to the Rocket City, I mentioned that my post-newspaper career had been pretty flighty. His response? Something along the lines of, “Imagine how flighty it would be if you had stayed in newspapers.”

What a duh moment for me. I mean, I know that I’m better off having gotten out of the newspaper business before the implosion, but I don’t know that I’ve ever understood that other people, people outside of the industry, understand that, too. And I think I carry a little guilt for not staying until the absolute end, although, as Joe suggested, that would have been a terrible idea.

So here I am. Former newspaper copy editor turned technical writer turned research analyst turned proposal coordinator. Wife, freelance writer, decent weightlifter, mediocre runner, culinary adventurer, cat owner, amateur photographer, blogger.

A little flighty, maybe, but also gifted with the experience that can only come from a multi-pronged career path and the curiosity to wonder what comes next.

Let’s do this.

Posted in Atlanta, Huntsville | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

As Pictured Below: A case of the Easter blues

March 27, 2013 by shaggerty

Easter1977

Easter 1977: The year before we blended flowers and plaid.

The year that at least one of us didn’t want his photo taken in suspender shorts.

Posted in As Pictured Below, Family, Photographs | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The first decade without Dad

March 11, 2013 by shaggerty

Me, dad and Hans.

December marked the 10th anniversary of my father’s death, meaning that I’ve lived a full quarter of my life without him.

I’ve learned that it’s not the big things in life that you really miss talking about when you lose a loved one. I don’t need job advice (OK, I totally need job advice, but from a higher authority than my dad). I don’t need him to answer the Big Questions.

Instead, it’s the funny little topics that make me want to talk to him, the goofy questions that pop into my head with some regularity.

Would his love for horror and sci-fi films from the ’50s and ’60s make him a fan of the current cultural obsession with zombies? (I can tell you with certainty that he would have little tolerance for sparkly vampires.) Just how flawed is the Alien prequel? Why did he like dachshunds so much? Doesn’t he think it’s time for a black actor to play Batman? Doctor Who: Still totally awesome, right? Why are there no Tom Waits albums in his music collection, when it simply BEGS for Tom Waits?

It’s the seemingly forgettable one-off chats that I miss, the perfectly benign conversations over coffee (Diet Pepsi for him), not the big, earth-shattering talks that we all think must be so important.

I also miss the dachshunds.

Posted in Family, Photographs | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments »

As Pictured Below: This little piggy gets around

February 25, 2013 by shaggerty

If I had a nickel for every time I deftly shook all the coins out of this little piggy bank when I was a little girl, I would need a WAY bigger bank for all my nickels.

Like the old glass measuring cup and my grandfather’s blue denim jacket, it’s one of the few items that I simply HAD to have from my grandparents’ house. I seriously played with it for hours at a time when I was younger, shaking out coins, counting them, stacking them and carefully putting them back in again.

It’s made it all the way from Smithdale, Mississippi, to Huntsville, Alabama, and then Atlanta.

It’s still doing its job beautifully, holding the coins fished out of pockets and the bottom of my purse. The only difference is that I don’t really have the urge to shake them out and sort them anymore.

Not much of an urge, that is.

Posted in As Pictured Below, Family, Photographs | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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