tips – Jenmenke

So the delay here isn’t the fact that I hadn’t started my holiday baking. The delay is that I can’t seem to find time to write about about it. Indeed.

Indeed?

Indeed.

No excuses. Just the facts.

We are currently snowed in. Blizzard in Minnesota. I finished the panda hat for Morgan.

The panda hat?

Yes, the panda hat.

CHOCOLATE BALLS!

Seriously easy. I submitted the recipe to the Minneapolis Star Tribune for their 2010 cookie contest.

I didn’t win.

Very, very disappointed. Because, you know, I’m used to success.

Except for that damn Fiesta Movement contest.

Nevermind.

Here is the recipe:

Preheat oven to 325. Mix together:

1 box of graham cracker crumbs (or 48 squares crushed to make 3 cups)
1-11.5 oz package of chocolate chips
2-14 oz cans of sweetened condensed milk*

(This mixture all but turns to cement. So, being the lazy lucy that I am, I use the KitchenAid on the lowest speed.)

Pour into a greased 9×13 pan and bake for 25 minutes at 325 degrees. Watch from 20 minutes on so it doesn’t get too crusty on top. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly, about 10 minutes. Stir mixture up in pan completely. Either butter your hands (that works best for me) or coat hands in powdered sugar (original recipe’s directions). Roll into small balls with your hands and then roll in the powdered sugar to coat. Allow to cool completely and store sealed tightly. Makes 3-5 dozen, depending entirely on the size you make the balls.

These are best eaten in the first week, though I hide my stash and enjoy them through Christmas. They just get a little hard, but I still savor every one.

*You can use light sweetened condensed milk if you prefer. But they get harder even faster.

POPCORN BALLS!

I already wrote about these here. Thank goodness I did a search on my blog just to make sure I hadn’t written about them before. And I had! It was only last year, but I had already forgotten. See? I’ve already lightened my load today!

GINGERBREAD HOUSE!

Here are detailed directions to making my pretzel gingerbread house:

Don’t do it.

I’m Serious. Only serious masochists make things like gingerbread houses. Oh, we’ll tell you it’s “so fun!” And, a “wonderful thing to do with your kids.” But that is just a bunch of hooey. If you do embark on this as a family project, don’t expect it to look anything like the beauty shown here. I did this all by myself, baby. (The kids were hiding in the basement I think.) I’ve been making these for, let’s see… 14 years? 13? –Somewhere around the time I was enchanted enough by my daughter to think making a gingerbread house together would be fun.

And you can do that. And of course I did. But I did a lot of yelling, “NO!” and “BE CAREFUL!” and, “Don’t you think THIS might look better?” I think the first couple years I eventually resorted to doing most of it while she napped and let her put the finishing touches on it when she woke up. I’ve blocked out entirely the years Charlie was a toddler…

In later years, I learned to stop being the control freak that I am. (Mostly.) And I let the kids do it all. But let me tell you the problem with that approach:

Kid’s get bored. And then they don’t want to finish. And then you, and all your control-freakishness, are left to work with what can only be called a little gingerbread house of horrors.

I’m exaggerating, of course. It isn’t all that bad. But I’d still tell you to skip it if you have a brain in your head.

And, for all of you who don’t heed that warning and want to while away about five or six hours creating this keepsake memory, I’ve got some tips for you:

This is far and away the BEST dough. It’s soft and easy to roll, gets hard in the oven before it burns, and tastes pretty good, too.
Google free gingerbread house plans. I used “the elf house” for this one, sans the chimney, which I made out of candy.
Invest in Silpat mats. I use them for absolutely everything. The cheapies from Target work just fine.
After years and years of cutting out the windows, I have come to this conclusion: I prefer them created with frosting. Black holes in the sides of the house are just plain ugly. One year we made “stained glass” out of melted hard candy. That was pretty, but also a pain. Frosting windows look better and are easier.
Use squeeze bottles for icing. It’s hard to fill them (use a small funnel), but SO much easier to use for people not good with pastry bags.
And, drumroll please… Decorate the house BEFORE assembly. Unbelievably I never, EVER did this until this year. I simply cannot believe how much easier it was. Truly mind-boggling.
Royal icing is a royal pain in the butt. It takes practice to get it right, but know this: make it too dry and it won’t stick and you’ll strain a tendon trying to squeeze it out. There is nothing you can do except take it out of the container, stir in more water and try again. Make it too runny and you’ve got a mess. All you can do is squeeze it all out, add more powdered sugar and try again. When it’s the right consistency, it is amazingly easy. Here is a good recipe for royal icing. The powdered egg whites (meringue powder) is pretty easy to find these days.
If you are doing it yourself, have a plan and a picture. Google “gingerbread houses” and look at the pictures.
If you are doing it with your kids, forget the plan. Have a glass of wine instead.

This year I used pretzels exclusively. It was tediously and strangely fun. Here is the roof. It took about two hours.

And yes, I was drinking wine.

I used jelly bellies cut in half for the cobblestones.

I used — oh what are they called — burnt peanuts? For some reason I want to call them boston baked beans. Was there a candy like that? They are brick-red pokey round candy-coated peanuts. I cut them in half and made a chimney going up the back of the house.

I’m a terrible frosting decorator. I don’t take my own advice (above) and try to use frosting that is either too runny or too dry. I do it every year. Can’t seem to learn. I used powdered sugar for dusted snow. And then I was done.

And now I’m done. Approximately four hours have passed since I sat down to write this.

Fatty needs another popcorn ball.

Wait! Before you rip those dead plants out of the garden and throw them into the compost/garbage (I seriously hope you aren’t throwing them in the garbage. I just had to tie it in with the title.), ask yourself if you can salvage anything.

Seeds, baby.

In my case, cilantro seeds. All over the internet, in books, in conversations, I hear this: “I just don’t have any luck growing cilantro.” Well, I have the solution.

1) plant some like you normally would, in an area that you won’t care about it going to seed.

2) curse when it bolts and goes to seed way, WAY earlier than you wanted it to.

3) leave it there

4) let it get old and dried out, occasionally running your hands through it and shaking the plants to get some of the seeds to fall to the ground.

5) rip it out and put it someplace dark and dry. Or in my case, stuff it in a bucket and leave it outside for about a month, let it get rained on and throw it into the compost. Then start all over. Actually, don’t do what I do. Do what I say. Same as parenting.

6) save the seeds. You’ll have a lot. Cook with them like I did here (as coriander). And save the rest for planting next year.

6a) Sort the seeds. I use various sized strainers with differs holes and mesh sizes:

7) in the spring, let the cilantro grow from the volunteer seeds that fell on the ground in the area it was planted the year before. Or, in my case, all around the bench where I inadvertently left it and the compost, where I ultimate threw it.

8 ) amend the volunteers in more orderly rows with the seeds you saved a few weeks after the first volunteers emerge.

9) cilantro doesn’t seem to suffer much, if at all, from pests or virus/wilts and therefore can stay in the same spot for many years. If you lighten up a bit, give up the idea of perfect rows and let nature take its course, you should have cilantro all year long. Sometimes in high summer, I will plant a few additional short rows in dappled shade to make sure I’ve got some in August, which is a tough month for cilantro.

10) let it go to seed, let it go to seed, let it go to seed. Even if you decide not to save the seeds. Walk by and rattled the dried plants. Let the seeds fall to the ground. And you will never have a problem growing cilantro again. You will have this constant cycle of new plants growing amidst the old.

This also works for arugula. In fact, I have arugula EVERYWHERE: in the driveway, in the chicken yard, in the prairie, and in the garden.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

(That was a good way to end, but I want to mention one more thing, because I tried this and it seems to work quite well. Everyone says you can’t preserve fresh cilantro. And I agree, for the most part. It isn’t good frozen or dried. People do it, but it just doesn’t taste the same. I tried turning it into cilantro butter and storing it in the freezer, though it will keep in the fridge for a couple weeks and tastes a bit better. It is really good. It doesn’t seem to suffer the same fate as when you try to freeze it by itself. Give it a try!)

I would be remiss not to mention that it also works for chives and various other weeds.

Holiday Baking! (Finally)

CHOCOLATE BALLS!

POPCORN BALLS!

GINGERBREAD HOUSE!

More Uses for Garden Garbage