When Life Gives You Tangelos, Make Muffins

I haven't been posting very regularly because there's been a lot of life going on. Some good, some bad, and some complicated. Whichever it is, though, it just needs to be dealt with.

Sometimes my refrigerator is kind of like my life. There are random things lurking in there that need to be dealt with. Various plastic tombs of forgotten bits of frosting, egg whites, and leftovers. Some have gone beyond the point of redemption. Those are pretty easy to deal with - if it's oozy, furry, or a different color from when it went into the refrigerator, I pitch it.

What's troubling are the things that I know are perfectly good, well, somewhat good, and I can't bear to throw them out. Then I have the conundrum of whether to leave it in the refrigerator until it fits the above criteria, or to get creative and figure out a way to use it up.

A recent purge of the fridge brought to light 2 half-used bags of cranberries. I know I bought the cranberries at Thanksgiving time, and it's gross that I still have them in March, but that's life. There were plenty of good berries in there among the shriveled, manky ones, so I couldn't just thrown them away, right?

I found a muffin recipe that calls for cranberries. Perfect! Except it also calls for an orange. I didn't have an orange, I had a tangelo. So that's what I used, figuring that in a muffin no one could tell the difference. Except my husband. He took a bite and asked, "What did you put in this? It tastes different." I explained the orange/tangelo paradigm, leveled him a look and said, "Deal with it." He quietly ate another bite and said, "It's good!" Smart man.

Tangelo Cranberry Muffins
- adapted from Muffins and Other Morning Bakes by Linda Collister

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup pecans, coarsely chopped
grated rind of 1 tangelo (or 1/2 an orange)
1 large egg
1-1/4 cups milk
2 tsp freshly squeezed tangelo (or orange) juice
1/4 cup melted butter or vegetable oil
1-2/3 cups fresh or frozen cranberries (picked over, yucky ones removed)

1- Preheat the oven to 425 deg. F. with a rack in the center of the oven. Grease a deep 12-cup muffin pan.

2- Sift the flours and baking powder into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar, pecans, and grated citrus rind.

3- In another bowl, lightly beat the egg with the milk, orange juice, and melted butter or vegetable oil. Add to the dry ingredients, stirring quickly with a wooden spoon until just mixed. It's OK if there are still traces of flour.

4- Add the cranberries and stir briefly, using as few strokes as possible. Do not overmix or your muffins will be tough.

5- Spoon into the prepared muffin pan, filling each cup about two-thirds full. Bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch. Let cool in the pan for 1 minute, then turn out onto a wire rack. Eat warm or preferably within 24 hours. When cooled all the way, the muffins can be wrapped and frozen for up to 1 month.

Peanut Butter and Nature

My father is a big fan of nature. He cross-country skiis, he organizes and leads senior hikes, and his idea of the perfect weekend is to spend it up to his hips in a freezing cold river, catch and release fly fishing. I don't know how he ended up with me.

My idea of a perfect weekend involves a book, a blanket, a fire place, a mug of hot tea, and a plate of cookies. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like nature, it's just that nature has its place - outdoors. And mine is indoors, where it's warm and there aren't creepy, crawly or slithery things.

My dad really tried to indoctrinate me into the joys of nature. He'd point out fabulous vistas of snow-capped mountains and rushing rivers. Yawn. He'd take a big lungful of fresh, frosty air and say, "Isn't this exhilarating?" Um, yeah, that's one way to describe the feeling of putting on clothes that have spent the night at sub-zero temperatures.

When all else failed, he bribed with food. For long car trips we got hard candies. Maybe it was a treat, maybe it was because he thought that there was less likelihood of bloodshed if our mouths were welded shut with toffees. Either way, I'll always associate a particular brand of toffees with car trips. And I never buy them.

On one especially hot hike, my dad hiked ahead and then rejoined us, telling us some story about spotting kindly nature fairies up ahead. When we came upon a small, burbling stream, with cries of amazement, he showed us the kindly fairies had left candy bars for us in the stream. That trip was almost bearable. Chocolate was involved.

Of course, happy campers cannot live on sugar alone. Main meals must be brought along, too. What does one bring along for a picky eater who will only eat peanut butter and jam sandwiches? Well, peanut butter and jam sandwiches, of course. But my father's too smart to pack in a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly. He had plastic tubes that looked like large toothpaste tubes with a screw-top cap and a removable crimper at the bottom and he'd fill one with peanut butter and one with jam. Then he had the brilliant idea to put both in the same tube, taking up even less space.

The resulting smear looked disgusting, but I fell in love with it. The peanut butter and jam were homogenous, so that no bite was too dry (too much peanut butter) or too slippery (too much jam). It's the way I've made my pb&j's ever since.

When I tried these cookies, I thought they'd be a peanut cookie with jam in between. Instead, it's just like my beloved pb&j. A paste of peanut butter and jam sandwiched between two cookie layers. What could be better? Just so long as they're served indoors by the fire, with the book and the tea.

PB&J Squares
- adapted from Mrs. Field's Best Ever Cookie Book

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter; softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup favorite jam or jelly
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 Tbsp powdered sugar

1- Preheat oven to 325 deg F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking pan.

2- In a medium bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Whisk to blend and set aside.

3- In the bowl of an electric mixer on medium speed, combine the butter and sugar to form a grainy paste. Add egg and vanilla, and mix until smooth. Scrape down sides of bowl. Then add flour mixture and blend at low speed until thoroughly combined. Dough will be firm.

4- Divide dough into 2 pieces; form disks and wrap tightly in plastic wrap or a plastic bag. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

5- Remove one disk from the refrigerator. On a floured board roll out the disk to 9 by 13 inches, about 1/4-inch thick. Place it in the bottom and up the sides of the prepared baking pan. Place the pan back in the refrigerator.

6- In a small bowl, combine the peanut butter and jam, mixing to a smooth consistency. Set aside.

7- Remove the second dough disk from the refrigerator and roll it out to 9 by 13 inches.

8- Remove the pan from the refrigerator and spread the peanut butter and jam mixture over the dough. Sprinkle with the powdered sugar. Place the second dough rectangle on top of the peanut butter layer. Pinch down side edges all around the pan.

9- Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until golden brown and firm to the touch in the center. Cool in pan, then cut into squares.

History - Anyone? Anyone?

In high school I took an advanced placement history class. It was one of the most boring classes I've ever taken. I struggled to stay awake as the teacher droned on and on about battles, land purchases, and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (think Ben Stein in Ferris Buehler's Day Off and you'll get a pretty good idea of how stultifying the class was).

Once a week an essay was due on the material covered. I struggled mightily with those essays. For a competitive A student, it was a blow to my pride to have papers coming back with B's on them. There was a boy in the class whose older sister had taken the class two years previously and his papers came back with A's on them every week. It wasn't until much later that I learned he'd been handing in his sister's essays.

Sidenote: when I took the AP test, my score trounced his. Ha! Take that, M.W!



Not surprisingly, this class killed off any interest I might have had in history and made me break out in a cold sweat at the thought of ever cracking another history textbook. It wasn't until I began teaching my kids that I discovered that history isn't just dates and governmental edicts, it's the story of people and the ways they changed the world in which they lived. History, well told, is as exciting as any fiction novel; perhaps more so because it actually happened.

Recently I was offered the chance to review a book, For All The Tea In China. Normally I only do cookbook reviews, but since this one had tea in the title, I couldn't pass it up. I love tea.

What a wonderful book! If only my history teacher had the story telling skills of Sarah Rose, I might have been a history major in college. For All The Tea In China is the story of how one man, Robert Fortune, undertook a herculean task of corporate espionage, to steal the plants, seeds, and secrets of tea-making from China. First class writing and and a story worthy of a spy novel gave me much to think about as I prepared my morning cup of tea. There's a lot of history in that mug!



Although I drink tea all day long, I think there's something special about that mid-afternoon cuppa. It's a lovely break in the day, a chance to slow down, take a breath, and enjoy a moment of peace. And, of course, if you're having tea, you need a little something to go with it. I like something bready and not too sweet. These dainty muffins are perfect for teatime. Their subtle vanilla perfume blends particularly well with Darjeeling, but they can also match up well with my favorite, Earl Grey.

After you make the muffins and put your feet up for a mid-day break, might I suggest a book to read with your tea? I think you'll enjoy For All The Tea In China. Even if you had a horrible history teacher.

Thank you to the publishers for sending me a copy of the book to review!

Teatime Vanilla Muffins
- adapted from America's Best Recipes
- makes about 3 dozen mini muffins

1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla extract

1- Preheat oven to 400 deg. F. Grease one (or several, if you have them) mini-muffin pan (s).

2- In a medium bowl, combine the sugar and egg. Beat well on medium speed of electric mixer.

3- In a small bowl combine the flour and baking powder and whisk to mix.

4- Add the flour to the sugar mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Stir in the butter and vanilla.

5- Scoop the batter into the prepared mini-muffin pans, filling the cups two-thirds full. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from pan immediately and let cool on a wire rack.

Charm School For Guys

I've come up with an idea that will secure my fortune. I'm going to start a charm school for guys. While girls have equal opportunities to play sports, I think guys need equal opportunities to learn how to function in polite company.

There are a lot of guys out there who would benefit from charm school. Perhaps you know some of them. Some of the basic covered in my charm school for guys would be:

1- Deportment. Perhaps you don't need to learn how to glide into a room, balancing a book on your head, but you won't impress anyone slouched to one side like you've had a blow out.

2- Gentleman skills. Opening doors, pulling out chairs, helping on and off with coats - these are dying skills which need CPR.

3- Dinner table manners. To quote one of my favorite movies, She's The Man, "Chew like you have a secret!" Really, dudes, no woman wants to see what you're eating after it's passed your lips.



4- Dress. No, that doesn't mean you wear a dress! It means you care about how you dress. Perhaps you can't afford to look like James Bond in your wardrobe choices, but you can certainly take it up a notch if your low-riding pants let everyone know what the print-du-jour on your boxers is.

5- Conversation. This is where guys are most desperately in need of guidance. Grunts do not a conversation make. What passes for conversation between a bunch of guys playing video games would make the gorilla house at the zoo sound like The Globe Theatre. I think a whole semester would be spent on the fine art of conversation. How to make introductions, how to reply intelligently to a query, and, most importantly, how to pay sincere compliments.

I'm not sure if it's linked to the y-chromosome or what, but there seems to be an inability with guys to pay sincere compliments. And if circumstances demand a compliment, it is squeezed out, grudgingly, in the negative form.

"Dinner didn't suck." (In response to a 5 course meal that took 3 days to prepare.)

"You're not that bad." (In response to a recital that involved 2 hours of practice per day for months)

or, the exceedingly generous, "No, don't worry, you look fine." Fine? Fine?? For "fine" I just spend 3 hours curling, painting, primping, plucking, cinching, squishing, and gilding?



Guys, here's how it's done. Say it simply. Say it honestly. Say it with enthusiasm. And say something NICE, that will make her glow with happiness.

Let's try those compliments one more time.

"Dinner was fabulous. I know you put a lot of effort into it and it certainly paid off! You're a wonderful cook."

"Wow. That's all I can say. Wow. I never suspected you were that amazingly talented!"

and, for the bonus round, "You are breathtakingly gorgeous. I can't believe that I'm lucky enough to get to go out with you."

Try it guys. Really, it doesn't hurt .And you might even like the results so much that you try it again. And again.

Today's cookies are snickerdoodles, which are basically sugar cookies rolled in cinnamon sugar. Think of the cinnamon sugar as compliments - something sweet which, when liberally applied, makes everything better.

Whole Wheat Snickerdoodles

1-1/2 cups sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 egg plus 1 egg white
1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Topping
2 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

1- Preheat oven to 400 deg. F with racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.

2- In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg and egg white; beat well.

3- In a separate bowl whisk together the flours, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and beat well.

4- In a small, shallow bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon for the topping. Using a cookie dough scoop, or your hands, shape the dough into walnut-sized balls. Roll the dough balls in the cinnamon-sugar and place them 2-inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.

5- Bake for 8-10 minutes. The cookies will puff up and flatten as they bake. For soft cookies, be sure not to overbake. Bake just till the tops are set, then allow the cookies to rest on the baking sheet for 2 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

Note: It's best to prepare and bake this dough the same day. It doesn't work as well if you refrigerate it.

If It Looks Like a Brownie...

Apparently my post about my dog horking up on the carpet struck a chord out there with the canine population. I had several readers tell me that the same day they read the post their dogs did the same thing. One reader even sent pictures!

What is this? Have I become the blog equivalent of a dog whisperer? Did all those dogs out there think that leaving a mound on the carpet was their best shot at being famous - sort of a reality TV thing for dogs?

Whatever the reason, it is with trepidation that I post today's pictures. Again, it's something delicious that looks like....well... what do you think it looks like? If you've ever spent time on a farm, I'm sure you'll be able to come up with an apt simile.



A friend who knew I have a thing for (obsession with) brownies loaned me a brownie cook book to thumb through. She warned me that the times and temperatures for the recipes could not be trusted implicitly, but the ingredients were always spot on.

I made the Bigger Better Brownie Blobs and my husband hasn't stopped raving about them. They are a brownie in a cookie form, but so much more than that. The big chunks of dark chocolate give a smooth, silky, luscious contrast to the toasted nuts, and the brownie base is the perfect balance between cake and fudge. On their own they're amazing, but if you serve one with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream, be prepared to enter a place of mouth happiness rarely experienced. (I would use other descriptors, but that would violate my blog's PG rating.)

Trust me on this. I know what the brownies look like, but they taste phenomenal. Bake them and enjoy. But I refuse to be held responsible for anything you might step in. And if that should occur, please don't send me pictures!

Bigger, Better Brownie Plops Blobs
- adapted from The Brownie Lover's Bible

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup cocoa
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1-1/4 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1Tbsp vanilla extract or Kahlua
6 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 lb 70% bittersweet chocolate, chopped in chunks
9 oz toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped

1- Preheat oven to 350 deg. F. Line 3 cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2- In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter

3- Whisk the cocoa into the butter. Add the bitter chocolate and whisk until melted and completely smooth.

4- Add the brown sugar and whisk until smooth.

5- Remove from the heat and let cool for 10 minutes.

6- In a small bowl, whisk the eggs until blended.

7- Add to the cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until thick and glossy.

8- Add the vanilla.

9- Mix together the flour, salt and baking powder. Add to the chocolate mixture and mix until smooth.

10- Using a rubber spatula, fold in the bittersweet chocolate chunks, then the nuts. Some of the chocolate will melt, which is okay. It gives the cookies a nice streaky appearance.

11- Using a 3 Tbsp ice cream scoop or 1/4 cup measure, scoop out the batter, 6 cookies per baking sheet.

12- Bake for no longer than 10 minutes. Don't overbake!

13 - Cool on the cookie sheet for about 5 minutes until they have firmed up slightly.

14- Remove with a metal spatula and cool on a wire rack. Store in a tightly sealed container, with parchment paper separating the layers, for up to a week.

Makes about 17

You Do The Math

When you say, "It's March!" people have different reactions. Some will run to the grocery store parking lot to stock up on Girl Scout Cookies. Others will get excited and wave team pennants for March Madness. Me? I cringe, shudder, and try to curl up into a small ball in the corner because I have to do taxes.

When I say "do taxes" I'm not even talking about the taxes for the whole family. No, my responsibility is only for the information pertaining to my small business (come by some time and I'll make your skin feel soft and you feel beautiful). Even though I've been doing this for years and have yet to be put on the rack or in the iron maiden, I have a disproportionate dread of the task. I've finally nailed my routine for how to do it.

First of all, I procrastinate for as long as it's physically possible. When my husband's polite questions turn into firm statements like, "I really need your part of the taxes so I can get this done," then I put a date on the calendar. I have to dedicate a day to it without interruption, or I know it won't happen.

Then, on the scheduled day, I procrastinate for as long as possible. This is an excellent day for cleaning the tub, changing sheets, shaving my legs, and getting my workout done.

Finally, when I can put it off no longer, I organize all my paperwork and supplies on the dining room table. Paperwork which I hope is all there, because I'm a little bit sloppy about paperwork. No, I'm actually a lot lazy about paperwork (adding to the stress). And by supplies I mean a pen, a pencil, scratch paper, a calculator, and stress munchies.

And before I embark into the treacherous waters of the 1040 schedule C, I must decide on a carrot. Do I want a new cookbook? Will I treat myself to a video? I hadn't baked cookies in a while, so I decided to bake cookies just for fun as my reward.

I plowed through the onerous task, finished in under 3 hours (probably less, but it felt longer) and still had time to make cookies. I played with a recipe from my archives and came up with a very stiff dough. I wasn't sure how it would bake up, so I pressed it into a square pan. After baking, I debated whether or not to dress it up with glaze, or fancy it up with layers. Laziness won and I just cut into the bars. Good choice.

This is comfort food, pure and simple. The dense dough makes a moist, slightly chewy background for the dark chocolate chunks. I pick up bars, examining the cut sides for the biggest chunks of chocolate. (I know, not polite. But they're my reward, so I can do what I want with them.) Also, I'm not normally a fan of cinnamon with chocolate, but the small amount here works extraordinarily well, giving the flavor a tantalizing complexity.

Perhaps since I sailed through this year's taxes, I'll be much calmer about it next year. Yeah, right. I think I'll keep this recipe handy, just in case I need carb tranquilizing again.

Chocolate Chunk Reward Bars

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1 cup quick-cooking oats*
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
8 oz coarsely chopped dark chocolate (in the 60 to 70% range)

1- Preheat oven to 375 deg. F. Spray an 8x8-inch square baking pan with cooking spray.

2- In the bowl of a mixer, combine the butter, sugars, egg, and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for 1 minute until well blended.

3- Add the flour, oats, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Beat on low speed just until combined. Stir in the chocolate chunks.

4- Put the dough (which should be quite stiff) into the baking pan. Using a rubber spatula, or your hands, press the dough down evenly.

5- Bake 12 - 15 minutes, until the top looks completely set. Allow to cool on a wire rack to room temperature. Slice into bars when cooled all the way.

* If you only have regular rolled oats on hand, you can easily make your own quick-cooking oats. Just toss them into a food processor and pulse it a few times. The only difference between the two kinds of oats is the size of the flakes.

Puppy Love

When I was small I really wanted a dog. My sisters also wanted a dog and together we launched a campaign of whining, pleading, reckless promises, and Bambi eyes that eventually got us a puppy. At six weeks old Max was adorable and all he wanted was to be loved, held, and petted. He'd go to sleep in our laps and was the cutest thing ever.



The person who gave (palmed off) the puppy to my parents told them that the dog's mother was a border collie and the father was unknown. A border collie is a pretty small dog and I'm sure my parents thought that they could handle something the size of a bread box.

As Max grew, it became pretty apparent what his father was and which parent had the more dominant genes. It was German Shepherd all the way, baby. He grew much larger than a bread box, approaching a bread truck in size. And in temperament he was just a huge, leaping, galumphing, slobbering, fiend for fetch, tug-of-war, or any other game that involved showing off his speed and strength.

One of his favorite games was escaping out the front door. When the doorbell rang, he'd bound to the front door, tail wagging eagerly, anticipating the coming contest. The person answering the door had to hold onto his collar and try to gracefully open the door while preventing Max from lunging at the visitor. Woe to both of them if a package was involved, because then Max was released from the restraining hold and would fling himself into the gap, shouldering his way to freedom, and run down the sidewalk in a flash of brown fur and wagging tail. My father had to go retrieve Max from the pound so often that I think he had a frequent stay punch card.

The reckless promises that we made to get a dog involved the usual: walking, feeding, and cleaning up after him. We were actually pretty good about the walking and feeding part, but were abysmal at the cleaning up part. In his frequent sallies on the town he'd ingest who knows what and when he was safely back at home he'd head to his favorite clump of grass in the back yard and raze it like a hungry sheep. Then, at night, when we were all blissfully, ignorantly sleeping upstairs, he'd creep out of the kitchen (any area with carpeting was forbidden territory to him) and hork up a load on the carpet.

I might be misremembering, but he seemed to vastly prefer the carpet for his midnight gullet evacuations. Perhaps because the smell lingered much longer in the carpet and he could savor his freedom memories for weeks. Or, more likely, he didn't want to mess up the kitchen floor because that was where he slept.

My father had a very strict rule about hork mounds: "The one who finds it has to clean it." Well, come on. We became extremely adept at pretending we'd seen nothing, nothing at all, as we sidestepped the pile and quickly dashed into the kitchen. My father would be the one grumbling and cleaning up the mess. There is nothing fun, enticing, or glamorous about a heap of dog vomit.



Which brings me to today's recipe. It was delicious. Really. Chicken with a strong smack of orange, fried, with a tangy sweet-citrus sauce. But honestly, I can't look at the pictures without seeing dog barf. Sorry, but it's the truth. I just don't have the mad hot photography skills to make this look good.

You can go out on a limb and trust me that it tastes and smells good. Try it. Make it, then dim the lights to serve it. Dim them a lot. Then serve a gorgeous dessert.

Orange Peel Chicken

SAUCE

1 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 Tbsp minced garlic
4 green onions sliced
1 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp chili garlic sauce
1 Tbsp soy sauce

CHICKEN

1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 chicken breast fillets
1 egg beaten
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
Peel from 1/4 orange julienned (into 1/8"-thick strips)

1- For the sauce, heat 1 Tbsp of oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and green onions, then quickly, so the garlic doesn't burn, add the tomato sauce and water. Add the sugar, chili garlic sauce and soy sauce and bring to a boil. Simmer until the sauce thickens, about 5 to 6 minutes, then turn off the heat.

2- Heat 1/2 cup oil in a wok over medium heat. Slice the chicken breast fillets into bite-sized pieces.

3- Combine beaten egg with milk in a medium bowl. Pour the flour into another medium bowl. Coat chicken pieces by dropping then into the flour, then dipping in the egg mixture, then dredging in the flour again. Arrange the coated chicken on a plate until all the chicken is coated.

4- When the oil is hot (about 360 deg. F), add about half of the chicken to the oil and cook for a few minutes, until brown on one side, then flip the chicken over. When the chicken is golden brown, remove the pieces to a rack or paper towels to drain. Repeat with remaining chicken. When all of the chicken is cooked, rinse the oil out of the wok and place it back on the stove over medium-high heat.

5- When the wok is hot, add julienned orange peel and chicken. Heat for 20 to 30 seconds or so, stirring gently. Add the sauce to the pan and cook for about 2 minutes. Gently stir the dish a couple of times, being careful not to knock the coating off the chicken. Cook until the sauce thickens, then serve with brown rice on the side.

Serves about 4