Running on a Fantasy of French Toast

Dear Reader,

Tomorrow morning I will rise before the sun, don layers of something called "Capilene" and fleece, as well as sneakers, and set off for Central Park where I will run for somewhere around two hours.  It is the Manhattan Half Marathon, and something possessed me to sign up for it.  My goals are twofold:  to finish, and to leave my pants unsoiled in the process.  I've been working my way up to running 13 miles, so I should be able to make it, fueled by thoughts of the massive He Man breakfast I will devour when I'm done.  Think of me tomorrow, as it will be snowing here in NYC and I will surely be freezing.  I just hope I get some sort of medal that I can wear as an everyday accessory, perhaps pinned to the front of a turban.

What feast will be the subject of my race day imagination?  Fitness Test French Toast, of course - great slabs of brioche soaked in a custard of egg, milk, vanilla, and cinnamon, griddled to a golden brown perfection in a butter-laden skillet and topped with apples simmered in more butter (don't give me any Paula Deen crap - I will have run 13.1 miles and I bet Mrs. Deen can't even drive that far without needing a breather) and brown sugar, then anointed with a generous pour of maple syrup.  Oh yeah, and sausage.  There will be sausage.

Wish me luck.

Fancy French Cuisine for Ass Kickers

Dear Reader,

You know how sometimes after the New Year, you think everything's going to be different, everything is going to be better, this is going to be my year goddammit!  And then it's not?  Well that's not going to happen this time, baby!  Because this is your year!  And to celebrate we are going to have something a little fancy, well, maybe not exactly "fancy" but definitely French.  You deserve it for all the ass kicking you're about to do in 2012.  Enjoy.

Fancy French Cuisine for Ass Kickers

You will need:

4 Chicken breasts, cubed, or other proteinish substance
Olive oil
1 onion
Garlic
2 carrots
12 fingerling potatoes, sliced
1/2 pound sliced mushrooms
Pinot Noir
1 Tbs. Herbs de Provence
Tomato Paste
Bay leaf

First thing you need to do is put on some music to suit your awesomeness.  Here's what I suggest, but feel free to use your incredible and vast imagination.

Next, place onions, carrots, potatoes, garlic, herbs, bay leaf, and chicken into a large bowl.  Pour wine over all to marinate for about an hour.  Meanwhile look into the mirror and admire your glowing confidence.  Take a picture while you're at it because friends and family are going to want to see your gorgeous face.  Everything that you want is going to happen for you - and soon!

Strain the chicken and vegetables, saving the marinade.  Heat a large skillet with some olive oil, and toss in the chicken and things, stirring them around until they are brown and as awesome as you.  Add a spoonful of tomato paste, and stir for a minute, then add the wine and mushrooms.  Simmer until the sauce has reduced to a silky goodness.  Season with salt and pepper and then eat either on mashed potatoes, rice, pasta or pureed cauliflower, making sure to share with others so that they will be able to admire your culinary superiority, because you rock.

Mother of the Year Cookies

Dear Reader,

I have told you before about my friend Claire who is a superstar baker.  Recently she told me of a cookie that was so light, so delicious, and so guilt-free - just 1 Weight Watchers point, and that sent me into a complete tizzy, because I've have lost almost twenty pounds on Weight Watchers.  TWENTY POUNDS.  Here are some things that weigh twenty pounds:

Anyhow, I had to have one of Claire's cookies, and I did - for breakfast.  It was a meringue, chocolatey, crunchy, chewy and so damn good that I had to eat while carefully holding my hand under the cookie because I wasn't going to waste a crumb.

Claire's perfect meringue.

Claire told me the recipe is from Giada De Laurentiis, so I looked it up and made them myself.  I couldn't get them quite as chewy inside as Claire who claimed that she used magic to make them.  I was also too lazy to use a pastry bag, so I sort of glopped them on the cookie sheet, and I ran out of vanilla, so used almond extract, but let me tell you, they were delicious.

My gloppy meringues.

I went a little meringue crazy and made peppermint chocolate chip meringues the following day, and for those puppies I did use the pastry bag, as it was absolutely imperative that I dot red food coloring around the meringue so that when it was piped out it looked like a candy cane.  You understand.

If that weren't enough, I made chocolate cookies the day AFTER THAT.  They aren't quite one point, probably three, but they're worth it.  I think I've aptly titled them.  Enjoy.

Mother of the Year Cookies

You will need:

12 oz. chocolate chips
3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
little bit more salt

Melt 2/3 of your chocolate either in a double boiler if you're a masochist, or in the microwave if you're a normal person.  Mix together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.  Pack down that brown sugar (but good!), and beat it with the other sugar and the butter in a larger bowl.  Add the melted chocolate and beat again.  Then mix in the flour stuff on low speed until it's blended.  Stir in the remaining chocolate chips and drop onto a parchment covered baking sheet and sprinkle with just a tiny bit more salt.  It's not necessary to actually count the crystals, but don't add more than, say, ten per cookie.  Bake at 375 for 8 minutes until they are set.

It's My Birthday! Hooray!

Dear Reader,

It's my birthday again which means that we'll all celebrate with the traditional sleeping late, eating of pancakes and drinking of champagne all day. Wait... You don't get the day off for my birthday?  Write to your congressperson or someone!

This morning my kids gave me some lovely birthday letters in which they said both,

"I hope you have a happy birthday, you know why?  Because I love you!!!!" 

AND

"In my opinion, every year you become a better mother, meaning when you were one, you were a terrible mother.  But now, I don't think you could get any better."

This blog is called Eat Your Feelings, and today I feel pretty good, so what will I eat?  Sushi and cake of course.  It's not everyday a girl turns forty.

My birthday gift to you is this collection of songs from the year I was born, written of course, in honor of my birth. Enjoy!

You WILL Please Everyone Perfect Get Stuffed Stuffing

Dear Reader,

Playing host at Thanksgiving is fraught with many challenges, not least of which is stuffing.  Everyone has their own particular idea of what ingredients should be involved in a successful stuffing, and Thanksgiving is really all about the stuffing.  God forbid you leave out the chestnuts, or throw in some diced apples, it will be your head on a platter covered with cranberry sauce.  Better make sure to cover your bases.

You WILL Please Everyone Perfect Get Stuffed Stuffing

You will need:

Bread
Two onions, chopped
Four ribs celery, chopped
1/2 lb crimini mushrooms, sliced
1 Tbs. dried sage
1 1/2 tsp. dried rosemary
1 tsp. dried savory
1/2 cups vegetable stock
1 stick butter
14 oz. jar chestnuts
2 soy sausages, such as Field Roast Apple Sage
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and chopped

Cube the bread.  This is very important, as you absolutely must include some cornbread for Aunt Betsy who is from Iowa and will be mortally offended if there is not corn in every dish on the buffet.  Also use other breads, such as whole wheat, sourdough, french and a touch of pumpernickel for diversity.  Toast the bread in the oven until it is as dried out as Grandma.  You should have six cups of bread cubes.

Melt butter in a large skillet and add onions, celery, mushrooms and herbs.  Remember that your cousin Fred married that girl who mentioned her mother puts oysters in her stuffing, and decide you're okay with her not speaking to you.  Cook vegetables until they are soft and the house smells like Thanksgiving.  Chop the chestnuts into small enough pieces that your brother won't recognize them, but your mother-in-law will wax rhapsodic about her youth in the Lake District.

Mix the vegetables with the bread, and chop and fry your sausage.  It is important to use soy sausage as the stuffing will be pretty much the only thing your sister and her vegetarian family from Vermont will be able to eat.  Do not omit the sausage, as weird Uncle Tommy, who has finally emerged from the basement after all these years, will turn right around if there isn't some porky thing involved here.  Any vegans can suck it.  Saute the apple with the sausage, and then add it to the other things.  Pour on vegetable stock, parsley and mix it all together, trying not to eat it all yourself before your guests arrive.

Spread into a greased 13x9 baking dish, cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes, before dumping it on the buffet and screaming, "THERE YOU GO! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? ARE YOU? OH GOOD.  I'M SO GLAD.  I'M SO THANKFUL THAT YOU'RE HAPPY."  Go to basement and help yourself to Uncle Tommy's secret moonshine stash.  Don't come out until Monday.

Edward Cullen's Pumpkin Pie

Dear Reader,

As I finish the preparations for Thanksgiving, I am of course wondering, what would Edward Cullen enjoy in the way of desserts?  Of course, Edward hasn't eaten anything since 1918, but we are all nostagic for the food of our youth, so I turned to The Century Cookbook, published the very year Edward was born, 1901, to bring you this tasty treat.

Edward Cullen's Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

• 1 pumpkin
• 2 cupfuls of milk
• 1 teaspoonful of salt
• 1 teaspoonful of butter
• 1 teaspoonful of cinnamon
• 1 teaspoonful of ginger
• 1 tablespoonful of molasses
• 2 eggs
• sugar

Instructions

Cut a pumpkin into small pieces; remove the soft part and seeds. Cover and cook it slowly in its own steam until tender; then remove the cover and reduce it almost to dryness, using care that it does not burn. Press it through a colander. To two and one half cupfuls of pulp add the milk, salt, butter, cinnamon, ginger, molasses, eggs, and sugar to taste. Add the beaten eggs last and after the mixture is cold. Pour it into an open crust and bake slowly forty to fifty minutes. Squash pies are made in the same way, but are not the same in flavor, although they are often given the name of pumpkin pies.

You can serve this after Thanksgiving dinner, and nobody has to know that you are fantasizing about Edward Cullen eating your pie.

Caramel Apple Pie For When You've Got Something to Prove

Dear Reader,

A few weeks ago I had dinner at my friend Claire's house.  Claire is an amazing cook, so we were all looking forward to a delicious dinner, which we had.  But then for dessert, she brought out these little caramel cookies.  She had cut them really small so they were almost like petit fours, and I didn't feel at all guilty devouring about six or seven of those bad boys.  I tried to take a picture, but they were gone so quickly - kids hovering over the plate, grownups swatting  away tiny hands - this was all I could manage.

The recipe for those cookies is from Martha Stewart, and if you're going to someone's house for Thanksgiving, you might want to make some of these to bring along.  They are amazing.  Today I have the house to myself and thought I'd get a jump on Thanksgiving and make an apple pie.  Easy enough.  But how about if I incorporated some of Claire's amazing caramel into the pie?  Ooh la la, right?  Claire warned me that making caramel is a tricky business, and I'd never tried it, but I thought I could handle it.  So I put on the Breaking Dawn soundtrack, threw some sugar and butter into a pan, and this happened:

Totally not caramel.

I decided to look around for someone to teach me how to make caramel, and lo and behold, I found Gordon Ramsay!

Elsewhere on the internets, I learned that caramel is best made in a heavy bottomed pan, so I dug out my trusty cast iron skillet, and I sprinkled in some sugar.

One cup of sugar sitting in a pan.

 Starting to melt and turn caramelly.

I went and effed it up.  I could hear Gordon Ramsay's voice in my head, "No! What have you done, you donkey?" I put away my spoon.  Would I have the confidence to let it go really nice and dark?

Yes!

 Now I added some butter - 6 Tbs. Let that melt, then poured in half a cup of cream, which you can see in this photo, at the ready.

Here is my pie crust waiting to happen.  In my food processor I have 2 cups of flour, 10 tbs. butter, 1/3 cup sugar, and the zest of one lemon.  WHIZ! Then add 2 egg yolks and a little water.

Rolled out dough.

If the dough doesn't fit perfectly, nobody will know unless you take photos and put them on the Internets.

I love this little contraption.  Caroline Ingalls would be consumed with jealousy if she saw mine.

I mixed the apples with a little lemon, sugar and then drizzled on the caramel.  I didn't go too crazy with it, figuring that it would lend a nice goo to the pie, and I could serve extra caramel, warmed up over ice cream to go on the side.  That's how I roll.