Why brownies belong in my bedroom.

One of our lightbulbs in our bedroom burned out the other day, and when we were at the grocery store, I popped over to the lightbulb aisle to get a replacement. I thought about getting one of those fun swirly ones that are allegedly better for the environment (except really not) but this time of year, I really, really hate the fact that it’s so dark out all the time, and so early in the day… I don’t have S.A.D. or anything, but I mean, who isn’t bummed by having it be totally dark out by 4:30pm?

Anyway, this story does have a baking related moral. And that is… I decided to get one of those lightbulbs that is supposed to be more like daylight. It’s pretty great – it’s quite bright and not as yellowy. And then, as I was sitting in bed enjoying a leftover Thanksgiving treat (don’t judge, eating in bed happens sometimes when you’re chronically sick!), I realized that the light in our bedroom is now kind of the next best light for photography besides natural light, which is obviously short supply these days. Long story short, some of my winter food photography may happen in my bedroom.

(And no, that’s totally not an excuse to take a pan of brownies to bed… I swear!)

Coming soon: our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie and a brownie treat you won’t believe.

Sugar Cookie Ice Cream

(There are no cookies in the ice cream… it tastes like a cookie!)

I bought some cream quite a while ago with the intentions of making ice cream.

I never quite got around to it, and today was the last day that the heavy cream was good. (Insert lecture here about using only the freshest ingredients, followed by a caveat about not wasting things whenever possible.)

So tonight, despite a long and tiring day of playing our new Rock Band 3 system, Charlie and I decided to make ice cream. Grocery day is tomorrow, so there’s not a ton in the house to work with in terms of ingredients. We squabbled back and forth about making something fancy (like lavender or somehow incorporating rosemary) or making something simple, like chocolate or vanilla or coffee, which we haven’t… actually tried yet with our ice cream maker, since we jumped straight to advanced flavors like Chai Ice Cream with Shortbread Cookies. We settled on making a really awesome vanilla, but since I can’t ever be simple, I played with the flavors a bit.

And what came out of it was so magical and amazing, Charlie and I both nearly had our tongues’ stuck to the freezer bowl like Flick’s to the telephone pole in A Christmas Story.

The wonderful vanilla, the rich creaminess, the hint of cinnamon, and the undertone of almond all came together… and reminded us of cookies. And thus the ice cream was named.

My only hope is that there’s some left to serve with pie later this week.

This would be incredible with pie.

Ingredients

1/2 pint heavy cream
1 pint light cream
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup natural sugar
1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon rum

Directions

In a small mixing bowl, mix the salt, sugar, cinnamon, and milk together. (They won’t fully blend together — it’s fine.)

Dump the mixture and the remaining ingredients (heavy cream, light cream, almond extract, vanilla bean paste, and rum) into your 2-quart ice cream maker. [The rum is less for flavor than for function - it will keep the ice cream from getting totally frozen and will give it a softer consistency in the freezer.]

Make according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Made my decision…

Well, I finally nailed down what I’m going to order from CSN Stores to review.

It’s not an immersion blender.

And I’m not going to tell you yet, either!

But as soon as it gets here, I’ll get something fabulous cooking and let you know how my new stuff works out.

And the great news is, I kicked NaNoWriMo butt, and I hit the 50,000 word challenge last night! I still have a ways to go in finishing my novel, but I feel a little bit like the pressure is off.

Can you believe Thanksgiving is next week already? I’m going to have to figure out what I’m going to cook…

(Maybe I’ll ask Santa for the immersion blender…)

Earl(y) Grey Oatmeal (Slow Cooker)

Look, it’s oatmeal, it’s the first thing I ate today, and I didn’t do a glamour shot. Sorrrrrry! (I’m even in my pajamas, see!)

Since I wrote just over 3,000 words today for NaNoWriMo (you’re supposed to average 1,667 per day), I think it’s ok for me to take a short break to share something delicious that I’m making.

I love oatmeal.

Not the packaged, instant crap with too much sugar and not enough texture.

The real, homemade kind, with cinnamon, and maybe some cut up chunks of fruit or nuts, like this.

I’ve recently gotten into steel cut oats, and I have one of those lovely little metal cans of McCann’s Irish Oatmeal sitting proudly on our kitchen counter. It’s kind of a hassle to cook it for such a long time, but it’s worth the wait when you can spare the time.

Or… from what I’ve heard… you can cook it in your slow cooker.

So that, my friends, is what I’m attempting to do. Tonight I’m preparing my oatmeal, and tomorrow morning I’ll be gleefully eating it without having done any work in the morning.

I bet you’re like, “Meh, big deal, everyone has a slow cooker oatmeal recipe on the internet.”

This may be true.

But I wanted to share with you the brilliance of one particular Bonzai Aphrodite’s oatmeal brilliance.

She puts tea in her oatmeal.

What?

Let’s go back and review that again.

She prepares her oatmeal with Earl Grey.

I love tea and drink it fanatically. I love the tea drinking experience, but I also love the flavors, and Earl Grey happens to be one of Charlie’s favorites. We have an awesome Earl Grey No. 69 from TeaGschwender that’s heady with bergamot that I love to use for cooking, and I prepared a strong cup to experiment with in this oatmeal. I went easy with the tea flavor this time, but I’ll probably increase it the next time I try it out.

As for the slow cooker recipe, well, I did what I usually do. I looked at a half dozen recipes, closed all the tabs, closed my eyes, and started mixing stuff up. I hope what I get tomorrow turns out delicious. I’ll update this post before I go live with it! [Go to the bottom of the recipe for the results!]

*Someone on a tea community pointed out to me that they don’t really like Earl Grey, and wondered if this would work with another type of tea. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m thinking YES! I fully intend to try this with my favorite Black Currant Tea, a fragrant Jasmine I enjoy, a calming Lavender Green Tea, and I have a tea I got in a bulk bin that’s bursting with lemongrass that I bet would be brilliant in the morning, too. So yeah! Try it out with any kind of tea you like. Let me know how it is.

Ingredients

equipment: slow cooker (I used a 4-Qt Oval from Hamilton Beach, so if you have the same one, your settings will probably match!)

1 cup steel cut oats, uncooked
1 cup whole milk
3 cups boiling water, let cool until the bubbles stop bubbling like crazy
~6 grams loose leaf Earl Grey tea (or about two tea bags) – use more for a more intense flavor
cooking spray
delicious toppings like raisins or walnuts or pears for the morning

Directions

Spray the inside of the slow cooker with the cooking spray. If you’re not into cooking spray, give it a thin coat of butter or oil.

Steep the tea in your preferred tea filter for about 6-7 minutes.

Add the tea, milk, and oats to the slow cooker. Stir.

(Since we weren’t quite ready for bed yet, I let this soak this way for an hour or two before I turned the slow cooker on.)

Cook on low for ~8 hours, depending on your slow cooker. Since Charlie gets up earlier than I do, he’ll switch it to warm for me when he gets up, and I’ll it out a bit later. He’s got a busy morning, so he probably won’t take a picture first unearths it, but the taste is what really matters, right?

Update: The oatmeal formed a bit of a crust on top when I took it off, but I got up more like three hours after Charlie instead of one, since I stayed up late writing last night. I just scooped under the crust, and what I found underneath was delicious. The Earl Grey flavor was definitely present, and the oatmeal was creamy without getting that starchy texture that happens when you cook it too long on the stove. I’ll definitely be making this again! (Our real time cooking: 7hrs on low, 3 hours on warm – since I like my oats to be a little more defined, I may experiment with this a bit… i.e., not stay up writing all night and see if that makes a difference to the texture, put them in right before bed so they don’t soak at all and see if that makes a difference, but all in all, they were awesome.)

Why there aren’t many recipes in November…

Just thought I’d write you lovely readers a little note and let you know why there haven’t been (and won’t be) many recipes posted during the month of November.

The reason is that I will be eating macaroni and cheese from a box (hey, at least it’s Annie’s organic 5-grain with some fresh broccoli thrown in), Chinese food (I found a new place nearby that delivers AND has many, many, many vegetarian options), and things that I ate constantly for meals when I was a bachelor and/or in college, such as a handful of nuts, a piece of fruit, and some crunchy carrots and celery.

But the reason for that is because I’m participating in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, where a whole bunch of people all over the world each try to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in a single month. I tried last year, but my arthritis in my hands was really painful and I had to drop out around halfway. This year, I am totally rockin’ it, and I’m nearly at 26,000 words. I still love my plot and it’s pretty cohesive. Sure, it will need a ton of editing, and yes, it’s getting in the way of me cooking the many winter squashes I have left from our CSA, but luckily, those store well.

So, unfortunately, I’ve told myself that I cannot bake until my novel is done. There will be a few exceptions to this, of course.

When the things I decide on from this post get here, I’m going to break my rule.

When Thanksgiving rolls around, I’m going to definitely break my rule, though I’m really hoping that I’ll be pretty close to being done by then (in order to write the 50,000 words in 30 days, you have to write 1,667 words a day, so today, you should have 15,003 written, and I have 25,822, though I’m fairly certain my novel will be longer than 50,000 words).

And, you know, if I’m craving something really delicious, it might have to happen, but only if I’ve written at least 1,667 words that day! I promise to return in December with some awesome holiday recipes… I can edit while they’re in the oven. *wink*

No, I already have a teapot…

Remember when recently the nice folks from CSNStores gave us a teapot to giveaway? They are so awesome, and they have contacted me again to ask me to review a product from their website.

I figured since this is a food blog, you readers would want me to pick something like a neat cooking gadget, even though they have all kinds of stuff to choose from like contemporary coffee tables and sheets for my bedroom. But, you know, you readers might think it a little bit weird if I was like, “I made these great cupcakes, now look at these beautiful pillowcases on my bed!”

I wonder what I should pick… There are just so many good choices! Should I get a neat bread pan, since whenever I make bread I always double the recipe, and since I only have one pan, I have to either use disposables or make some very oddly shaped loaves.

Or how about an immersion blender? I was so jealous of Bo’s that time he left it here. It made making soups and sauces so easy, and now that I’ve got several winter squashes sitting around, it would be a really good time to have one to make a smooth squash soup.

Once I finally decide and it arrives, I’ll use it with a recipe, and I’ll let you guys know if it’s a product that you probably want in your kitchen.

So… if you had $35 to spend at CSNStores.com, or one of their partner sites like Cookware.com (that’s ALL cooking stuff, *drool*), what would you get?*

*Warning, browsing these sites may cause you to spend hours making holiday wish lists. :)