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Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

These are straight from Martha, and yes I know everyone in the food blogging world made them already. I had them at a friend’s halloween party, though, and thought they were too unbelievably delicious not to make and post for longevity. They are really, really, really good, and very easy.

Cookie Ingredients

3 c flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbs cinnamon
1 tbs ground ginger
1 tbs ground cloves
2 c dark brown sugar
1 c vegetable oil
3 c pumpkin puree, chilled
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Filling Ingredients

3 c confectioners’ sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preparation

Make the cookies: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or wax paper.

Process

Cookies: In a regular bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together brown sugar and oil until well combined. Add pumpkin puree and whisk until combined. Add eggs and vanilla and whisk until well combined. Sprinkle flour mixture over pumpkin mixture and whisk until fully incorporated.

Drop heaping tablespoons (martha suggests an ice cream scoop; it makes much more perfect cookies but I don’t have one) of dough onto prepared baking sheets, about 1 inch apart. Bake about 15 minutes, until cookies are just starting to crack on top and a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely on the pan.

Filling: Beat butter until smooth. Add cream cheese and beat until combined. Add confectioners’ sugar and vanilla, beat just until smooth.

Assemble.

Also in this photo: Caramel-dipped apple eighths, chocolate cups (made on the underside of a muffin tin) with pumpkin mousse (the pumpkin mousse recipe, found on the food network site, was atrocious).

Halloween 2009

For halloween this year I was Link from Zelda. But I also worked on a few other costumes. Here’s some of the documentation:

Tunic: Simple green velour with trimming of green patterened silk. Trimming is easier than it looks: just cut your trimming material to strips 3 times as wide as you’d like the trim to be, then iron it in half lengthwise, then fold the cut edges in towards the middle, then iron them down. You’ll have strips that are incredibly easy to machine-sew onto the borders of your main fabric. I put grommets in these at strategic locations, such as up the sides, at the neck, etc., and laced with leather thong.

Hat: The wig was the “surfer dude” wig from the Garment District in Cambridge.  The hat is a simple sewing job whereby you measure, pin conservatively large, sew, then try it on, identify loose areas, and turn it inside out again to sew a little further in on those spots.

Boots: I scrapped the idea of full boots because I had a halloween alleycat race to ride and needed my shoes. Instead, I sewed what were essentially legwarmers out of a faux leather fabric. There’s no great way to fit your legs without some trial and error, same as with the hat: make them generally right but a bit too large, then turn them inside out and sew a little smaller on any loose areas.

Accessories: I bought two cheap, wide, brown leather belts at k-mart, sewed a few rings onto one to help sheath the sword. The sword I got on ebay for about $30 — it was the only one whose dimensions I liked, but it came a ridiculous blue, so I painted it with metallic silver paint and it looks great (it looks like someone’s manufacturing much better looking ones now than they were when I bought it). For the necklace I just went to a bead store. The pouch was a simple inside out sewing job. I nixed the idea of ears because I’m terrible at stage makeup.

Undergarments: American Apparel thermals all the way. You could go cheaper but the army/navy stuff tends to be off-white and just doesn’t look as good.

I also helped with a few other costumes this year. Helena wanted to be a stick figure, so I got her some EL Tape and inverters and we did that. Here are a couple videos a friend shot of her dancing at Love in the west village:

If I had this to re-do, I’d have gone with EL wire instead of tape. I’ve used it plenty before and wanted to try tape because of the brightness, which I thought she’d need out in new york, but in retrospect the extra power consumption and the fact that it only has one glowing face (as opposed to cylindrical wire) makes it just not worth it.

Lastly, Nick wanted to be Scorpion, so I also sewed his costume. We used some shiny synthetic blend for the gold, thick black trimming ribbon on the edges, and some lightly padded black lining fabric underneath to give it some structure (like you’d find on the insides of most jackets). I just used a couple of velcro strips to hold the belt on. Nick did a great job with the other components, somehow managing to dig up the perfect wrist, shin, and mouth pieces. Most impressive.

And of course, Zack wore my old Ghostbusters costume. It gets use every year with one friend or another.

Tom Yum Soup

This is a simple and really delicious recipe for Thai tom yum soup. It’s incredibly quick to make, although it’ll cost most people a trip to Chinatown for the lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves if nothing else (but come on — $3.50 a pound for shitakes?). Makes two large bowls. Also in this picture: Chinese broccoli cut to two-inch segments, blanched, then stir-fried quickly with slices of garlic, oyster sauce, salt, and pepper.

Ingredients

fresh lemongrass
3 kaffir lime leaves
2 thai chiles
1/2 lb shitake mushrooms
1/2 lb shrimp
1 small-to-medium onion
2 limes
2 tbs fish sauce
fresh cilantro
~4 c water

Process

Peel and thoroughly wash the shrimp. Slice the shitakes. You can slice and reserve the stems too if you want; I usually don’t. peels several strips from a stalk of lemongrass and slice them into long, thin pieces. Tie all those pieces into a big knot to keep them manageable. Pound the knot firmly but not violently (like you’d muddle mint for a mojito) with something hard (maybe the bottom of a pint glass or whatever) to release some of the flavor.

Bring water to a boil, and then add the lemongrass and let it boil for five minutes. Slice the thai chiles and chop the onion into eighths and quarter the limes. Put the juice of 1 lime (reserving the other wedges), the fish sauce, and the chiles into each of your bowls. When the lemongrass has boiled for 5 minutes, add the kaffir lime leaves and mushrooms and give it a stir, then turn off the burner add the onions and the shrimp. If you’re going to use the shitake stems, give them an extra minute in the boiling water before you add everything else — they’re substantially harder than the caps. Garnish with cilantro and the rest of the lime wedgesServe while hot. The shrimp will be cooked by the time anyone gets to it and will be overcooked and tough if you put it in while the water is still boiling.

Wallet Making How-To

I make, give as presents, and occasionally sell artsy wallets. When the wallet I’d had for a decade was stolen at a concert a few years ago, I decided to make my own rather than buy another. I figured out a simple technique that everyone loves. It’s quite easy. The wallets look beautiful and last for 8-15 months depending on how well put together they are, and then you make a different one to switch things up. For your reference and mine, here is how:

this is my current wallet; it's been in use about 8 months and still in pretty good shape

Find an image and clip it. Unless I stumble upon something randomly awesome, I typically use magazine clippings, particularly from art mags like high fructose and juxtapoz and regular mags with great design like Wired. You will need to cut your image to 7.5” x 6” or 6.5”. The 7.5” will leave a little bit of a margin on the sides to account for shape when folded. The 6” will be folded in half to create the pocket, so 6” will give you a wallet not much deeper than your cards and bills, while 6.5” will give you a deeper wallet. Find an image you’re sure will be big enough. When necessary I have combined images with breaks at the magazine fold and used completely separate images for the inside and outside (being 3” to 3.25” tall each), but be aware that these will likely create small cosmetic imperfections. When you’ve picked an image, cut it carefully. Always measure twice and leave a margin rather than cutting too small.

coated in contact paper, the image we're working with here is of a mermaid kissing a diver

Use clear contact paper to coat the image. This is important for strength, appearance, and durability. Regular laminate would be too hard, while I’ve found that clear contact paper that comes on rolls has major imperfections that really wind up looking like ugly blotches. I use Avery contact paper which I have bought in large packages but which you can buy in two-sheet packs at a CVS.

Use clear vinyl to make the shell and pocket. I use heavy shower curtain from a regular store like Bed Bath & Beyond; cheap shower curtains won’t work. You can get clear vinyl elsewhere, though, if you look around. I have been meaning to experiment with mylar sheets sold at art supply stores for a long time but haven’t gotten around to it. Depending on what you buy you may want to iron (on a low setting and with some cotton fabric like a t-shirt between the vinyl and the iron) and/or wipe it free of dust first (shower curtains come ridiculously dusty; I don’t understand why).

follow the folded vinyl; the pocket is on the left

The vinyl ought to be in pieces about 10 x 18. Carefully crease your image in half the long way so that its folded dimensions are roughly 7.5” x 3”. Make sure to crease so that the outside of the wallet is facing out, and so that the crease is well pressed and not going anywhere. wrap the vinyl the long way starting at the inside of the main pocket, wrapping around the inside face of the wallet, to the outside face, then around to the inside of the main pocket again. But! To make the pocket for your cards, you need to leave a card-sized flap hanging down 2.25” from the bottom of the wallet, which you will fold up on the inside and which will become the pocket. The ends of the vinyl that will be on the inside of the main wallet pocket ought to go most of the way to the bottom of the pocket, but they don’t need to be at all perfect; just trim any extra off. It IS important that the card pocket be pretty perfect, though; it’s a pain to get cards out of pockets if they’re too tall or uneven, and obviously too short causes problems. Try some cards in it to check. Once you’ve got the vinyl tightly wound around the wallet, fold it in half (like it was in your pocket) and put it under something heavy for a while to shape it up. I actually tend to put them under the hottest corner of my laptop; I think the heat helps ease them into the right shape (weird but it works).

sewing up the middle, and later closing off the thread on the side

Sew the wallet together, starting in the middle. Start by folding the wallet in half like it’ll be when it’s in your pocket. Make sure the vinyl is tight everywhere. First sew on the inside and in the middle, sewing just up to where the pocket is. Then get some cards out of your own wallet, put them in the pocket, and sew the edges up one at a time so that the vinyl is relatively (but not terribly) tight around them. To close it off I like to just loop through the thread on the sides over and over, tying a single knot each time.

Trim excess vinyl and image material. Carefully trim off any excess vinyl as well as any of the inside part of the wallet that can be seen from the outside. Don’t trim too close to the thread!
Voila!

I Don’t Want To Get Over You

The Magnetic Fields

[G] I don’t want to get [C] over [G] you
I guess I could take a [C] sleeping [G] pill
And [C] sleep at [G] will
And not have to go [D] through
What I go through
[G] I guess I should take [C] Prozac, [G] right,
And just [C] smile all [G] night
At somebody [D] new
Somebody [Am] not too bright
But [C] sweet and [D] kind
Who would [Am] try to get
You [C] off my [D] mind
I could [Am] leave this
a - [C] gony [D] behind
Which is [C] just what I’d [D] do
If [C] I wanted [D] to
But I don’t want to get [C] over [G] you

Cause I don’t want to get [C] over [G] love
I could listen to my [C] thera - [G] pist,
Pretend you [C] don’t [G] exist,
And not have to dream [D] of
What I dream of
[G] I could listen to [C] all my [G] friends
And go [C] out [G] again
And pretend it’s [D] enough
Or I could [Am] make a career
Out of [C] being [D] blue
I could [Am] dress in black
And [C] read [D] Camus
Smoke [Am] clove cigarettes
And [C] drink [D] vermouth
Like I [C] was [D] 17
That [C] would be a [D] scream
But I don’t want to get [C] over [G] you

Best Homemade Pizza Recipe Ever

Do you have the same problem as me? That your homemade pizza always seems to need a fork to be eaten properly? To me that’s not pizza, that’s just lame dough and some mashed up ingredients. Nick was looking around for pizza recipes one day and found this one—the top-rated recipe on allrecipes.com—and it works beautifully. It works beautifully in my lousy apartment oven. It works beautifully in the oven in my mom’s tiny sailboat kitchen.** The recipe below should make two cookie sheet-sized pizzas like the one pictured (which, by the way, is pesto, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, and gorgonzola).

Ingredients

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 tsp brown sugar
1 1/2 c warm water
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
2 1/2 c all-purpose flour, plus 1 c reserved for additional flouring

Process

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water, and let sit for 10 minutes.
Stir the salt and oil into the yeast solution. Mix in 2 1/2 cups of the flour.

Turn dough out onto a clean, well-floured surface, and knead in more flour liberally until the dough is no longer sticky. Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise until double; this should take about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 425°.

Punch down the dough, and form a tight ball. Allow the dough to relax for a minute before rolling out. Roll the dough thin, and get rid of any extra rather than trying to cram it onto your baking surface; making this too thick will make it bad. If you’re baking your pizza in a pan, lightly oil the pan, and let the dough rise for 15 or 20 minutes before topping and baking it. If you’re baking the dough on a pizza stone, simply top and bake immediately. Bake until crust is golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.

**my mom sold her house and moved onto a boat

Amy’s Sesame Noodle Salad

I have no idea where my ex-girlfriend got this delicious recipe from, but it’s one of my favorites, and is actually very close to a pork-containing version my mother made frequently when I was growing up. I lack an alluring picture right now, but this cold noodle dish is easy and fast to make and well worth the trip to Chinatown for the couple things you can’t find in a regular store. It actually gets better the longer it’s been sitting in the fridge (to a point, I suppose). I almost always double it.

Ingredients

2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp sesame oil
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin (rice wine)
1 1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tbsp sesame paste
1 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp chili paste
pinch of five spices powder
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped coarsely
8 ounces soba or linguini
3 scallions
unsalted peanuts

Prep

You’ll probably need to hit an asian grocer for your five spices powder, chili paste, mirin, and sesame paste. I usually just use regular linguini, although I suppose soba is probably a bit healthier.

Process

Mix everything except the noodles, scallions, cilantro, and peanuts in a small saucepan over medium heat for a couple minutes, stirring frequently just to homogenize. Boil the noodles and mix your sauce in immediately to prevent sticking. Put them in the fridge (or even the freezer, for a short time) to start them cooling. Pick the cilantro leaves and chop them just a bit. Put a bunch of peanuts in a plastic bag and use a rolling pin to crush them thoroughly. Slice the scallions at a diagonal into roughly one-inch-long pieces. Toss the cilantro, half the scallions, and half the peanuts into the salad, and then sprinkle the rest of the scallions and peanuts on top. You can eat immediately if you want, but it’s best when thoroughly cooled or even left in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight.

Crystallized Ginger

There are a million ways to do this, and most of them supposedly take days. I don’t have time for that kind of stuff. Here’s my crystallized ginger recipe (I’ve sadly long since lost any attribution I might be able to make), it makes delicious, potent crystallized ginger slices that are admittedly nowhere near as pretty as what you can buy in stores, but hey, I’m okay with that. As an additional plus, the waste product of this recipe is amazing ginger-fied sugar that you must save and use in some other recipe (e.g. cookies) to really spice it up.

Ingredients

20 oz fresh ginger (see purchase tips below)
2 c sugar

Prep

Buy the biggest, smoothest ginger possible. The pieces will shrink and curl and generally end up smaller than they started, so big is important. You’re also going to have to skin it, so pieces with lots of bumps and offshoots are difficult.

Process

Skin the ginger and get all the biggest pieces you can. Cut them into coins about 1/4th an inch thick. Go thicker rather than thinner if you need to. Feel free to cut diagonally across the ginger (like you might with french bread or a cucumber) rather than just straight across the diameter, so you can get larger coins. Try to keep the pieces consistent, but because of the root-y nature of ginger you’re going to end up with at least a few ugly pieces.

Cook this in a wok or large frying pan. First, toss the ginger and the sugar together. Then, put in enough water to completely cover the ginger, admitting that some will float up so you won’t actually be able to cover it. Bring to a boil and stir frequently. Most or all the sugar should dissolve, if it hasn’t, add a bit more water to make sure it does. When it boils, turn the heat down a bit to just simmer, and stir fairly frequently while the water gradually cooks off and the sugar is absorbed into the ginger.

Eventually, you’ll reach a point where you’ve basically run out of water and the small bubbles you see are simply liquid sugar. Take it off heat and do your best to spread the ginger out over a cookie sheet, separating the pieces to minimize the number that stick together. It will cool and solidify very quickly, so just try to pull sticking pieces apart until it hardens. Now the ginge will mostly look like it has carmalized sugar all over the outside. Soften it up some and get rid of extra sugar by putting a bit at a time into a container you can shake vigorously. Shake shake shake.

Again, don’t forget to save the extra sugar. It is an amazing addition to other recipes; I like to use it in things like oatmeal cookies or carrot cake.

Jordan Marsh Muffins

Way back in the day, there were these things called department stores where you could find basically anything (a lot like malls or, y’know, the Internet).

Sarcasm aside, bakeries were a critical part of the department store experience—or so I’m told, although the only place I know of left to observe this phenomen is Harrod’s—and like the infamous Neiman Marcus cookies, Jordan Marsh muffins were renowned far and wide.¹ Yes, they’re really that good.

The original recipe is for blueberry muffins, but I think the best addition by far is peaches. This makes at least a dozen muffins.

Ingredients

1/2 c butter
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c milk
a whole bunch of your preferred fruit
cinnamon or brown sugar for sprinkling

Prep

Preheat the oven to 375
Grease muffin tin cups

Process

Cream together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time and stir in the vanilla. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt, and add to the wet mixture alternating with the milk. If the fruit is damp (i.e. chopped peaches or frozen blueberries) flour it lightly. Fold in the fruit, then spoon the batter into the tin. Sprinkle the tops generously with the brown sugar or cinnamon. Bake for 30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool a few minutes before removing from the tin.

¹ Jordan Marsh was a large Boston-based department store chain that merged with Macy’s in the 90s and lost the internal corporate brand war to the Macy’s name; many of the Macy’s around the country were originally Jordan Marshes, including the enormous Boston location, formerly Jordan Marsh’s flagship, and where my mom—who gave me this recipe—had her first JM muffin.

Why Don’t You Love Me (Like You Used To Do)

Hank Williams, Sr.

[G] Well, why don’t you love me like you [D] used to do
[G] How come you treat me like a [D] worn out shoe
[G] My hair’s still curly and my [C] eyes are still blue
So [G] why don’t you love me like you [D7] used to [G] do

[G] Why don’t you spark me like you [D] used to do
[G] And say sweet nothin’s like you [D] used to coo
[G] I’m the same old trouble that you’ve [C] always been through
So [G] why don’t you love me like you [D7] used to [G] do

Ain’t had no [C] lovin’ like a huggin’ and a kissin’ in a [D7] long, long [G] while
We don’t get [C] nearer or further or closer than a country [D7] mile

[G] Well, why don’t you be just like you [D] used to be
[G] How come you find so many [D] faults with me
[G] Somebody’s changed so let me [C] give you a clue
So [G] why don’t you love me like you [D7] used to [G] do

Ain’t had no [C] lovin’ like a huggin’ and a kissin’ in a [D7] long, long [G] while
We don’t get [C] nearer or further or closer than a country [D7] mile

[G] Why don’t you say the things you [D] used to say
[G] How come you treat me like a [D] piece of clay
[G] My hair’s still curly and my [C] eyes are still blue
So [G] why don’t you love me like you [D7] used to [G] do

Nobody’s Lonesome for Me

Hank WIlliams, Sr.

[G] Everybody’s lonesome for somebody else
But nobody’s lonesome for [D7] me
Everybody’s thinkin’ ’bout somebody else
But nobody thinks about [G] me
When the [C] time rolls around for me to [G] lay down and die
I bet [D7] I’ll have to go and hire me [A7] someone to [D] cry
[G] Everybody’s lonesome for somebody else
[D7] nobody is lonesome for [G] me.

[G] Everybody’s longin’ for somebody else
But nobody’s longin’ for [D7] me
Everybody’s dreamin’ about somebody else
But nobody dreams about [G] me
All I [C] need is a bride who want’s a [G] big-hearted groom
I [D7] wouldn’t care if she come ridin’ [A7] in on a [D] broom
[G] Everybody’s lonesome for somebody else
[D7] Nobody’s lonesome for [G] me

[G] Everybody’s pinin’ for somebody else
But nobody’s pinin’ for [D7] me
Everybody’s crazy ’bout somebody else
But nobody’s crazy ’bout [G] me
Oh, I [C] shined up my shoes and then I [G] slicked down my hair
Put [D7] on my Sunday best, but I ain’t [A7] goin’ [D] nowhere
[G] Everybody’s lonesome for somebody else
[D7] But nobody’s lonesome for [G] me

[G] Everybody’s yearnin’ for somebody else
But nobody’s yearnin’ for [D7] me
Everybody’s fallin’ for somebody else
But nobody’s fallin’ for [G] me
Now I [C] ain’t had a kiss since I fell [G] out of my crib
It [D7] looks to me like I been cheated [A7] out of my [D] rib
[G] Everybody’s lonesome for somebody else
[D7] Nobody’s lonesome for [G] me

Fish Tacos + Salsa Verde

Fish tacos are amazing, but there’s no good way to make ‘em yourself without fresh salsa verde for a topping. These make for a ridiculously healthy and fresh meal.

Ingredients

salsa verde

1 1/2 lbs tomatillos
1/2 large white onion, chopped
1/2 cup cilantro leaves, apprx 1 bundle
2 serrano peppers stemmed, seeded, and chopped
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
2 tbsp cumin
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

fish tacos

filleted catfish
red cabbage
flour tortillas
cumin
Optional: mozzarella cheese

Salsa Verde

If you haven’t worked with tomatillos before, don’t worry, it’s easy: simply peel off the husks, and don’t be afraid to use running water liberally because they’re often sticky underneath. make sure to remove the stems but don’t cut them. Put them in a pot of boiling water for 5-7 minutes or until soft. Remove them with a slotted spoon and put them in a blender with the rest of the salsa verde ingredients. Blend until there are no large chunks, but not to homogeneity.

Fish Tacos

The fish tacos themselves are super easy: cut fine shavings from the cabbage, and sautee them on medium-high dry heat for 1-2 minutes to soften them, then set aside. Cut the catfish into thin strips and place them in the pan when the cabbage is done. Sprinkle them lightly with cumin and sautee about 3 minutes on each side, and when done, shred them using a spatula. While the fish is cooking, microwave the tortillas for 30-40 seconds each to warm them. Then make your tacos.