What do you do when you love to bake, dinner time is a respite and the rare unchanged event from pre-corona days, and you have a 5lb CAN of Abby’s Best Cake Mix? Easy answer: you make cakes. What is this can of cake mix doing in my home? It was delivered to Rose’s Bounty food pantry. It could not be given away, b/c search as we did, no expiration date was to be found. NOTE: you cannot give away food without an expiration date or a passed expiration date at a food pantry. Please, before you give to your local food pantry make sure to check the expiration dates. Truly, we throw out lots of food that has expired. Save us the work and throw it out yourself. Knowing I love to bake and the obvious name in common, I was gifted this can. Last night, Jakob and I put it to good use to make an Upside Down Apple Cake. I wish I could share a picture of this delicious cake, but it was gone before I had a chance to snap a shot. It came out of the oven and immediately was devoured. This is a new crowd pleaser! Cake Ingredients:
Preparation
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The kids in my house (that would be five right now) couldn’t stop eating these. My assistant Jakob said they were one of the best things he’s made in a while. BTW Jakob made my anniversary/wedding cake this September. He knows what he is talking about. Linda, who like me is a hard core Protestant, whose family hails from Scotland, makes these for her neighbor and dear friend Sean every year on St. Patty's day. It's not St. Patty's day you say. Really? It's just COVID-19 season, so all bets are off. We can bake whatever we want! Linda's neighbor, Sean, also happens to be the sexton of our church in West Roxbury. Possessing one of the best Irish brogues and a light up your face smile, Sean, without question, is one of my favorite humans. He makes my days at work so much better with his whistling and friendship. Since his wife passed away last spring, Linda has been taking good care of him. I hope I have been too. One last important side note, my first Guinness I drank with Sean at our annual church staff Christmas party. Under Sean’s tutelage, I discovered how much I love Guinness! Ingredients
FrostingBeat together:
Frost when cupcakes are at room temp. Linda suggests sprinkling these cupcakes with some green sugar! We didn't have any. Eat three or four. Don’t worry, none of the kids got drunk from eating these delights! Some people excel at homeschooling. Others at taking temperatures. My super power is butter. When everyone was stocking up on TP, I was concerned about my butter supply. I only had seven sticks at home. When I finally did get to the grocery store, seven days after it had been raided clean only VERY expensive butter (put some of that in the cart) and cheaper trans free margarine by country crock remained. After nearly five days of isolation, three loaves of bread, bran raisin muffins, and one cake, I found myself itchy to use my country crock margarine. For what? I wasn’t sure. Below is my invention: Covid-19 Cookies or otherwise known as everything Abby decided would be good. Let’s face it I am either going to gain 10 pounds or pickle my liver. I am going with the ten pounds. Ingredients: 2 sticks of country crock-- trans fat free ⅔ cup brown sugar ¼ cup white sugar 1 egg, 1 egg yolk 2 tsp vanilla 2 cups white flour ½ cup cocoa 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda ½ tsp salt 1 ½ cups oats 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes (I suggest Bob Red Mills, nice and fat shavings) 1 to 2 to 3 cups of chocolate chips depending how desperate you are for sugar
Bake Yes bake. Bake in a pan or as individual cookies. Definitely bake at 325. For how long I couldn’t tell you. The cookies should take no more than 15 minutes, but the bars…. 40? Don’t worry. Salmonella is not as dangerous as COVID-19. Eat the batter and skip the baking all together. Sit in front of your mixer like I did and eat enough finger fulls of batter until you feel a bit queasy and realize you are social-isolating-eating. After you are finished, bake and eat them all yourself or share them with the other people you are in seclusion with, especially grumpy teenage boys who might save you from gaining 10 pounds if you feed them first everything you bake. Hoard you butter, no TP! This recipe came to me from Joyce O’Gorman. She was the mom of the five children--Brendan, Katie, Ryan, Brigid, and Connor-- I babysat starting when I was 11 as a mother’s helper. She was also married to our family doctor-- Kevin O’Gorman. Most notably, Joyce in many ways taught me how to be a mother. As the youngest of four, I never watched my mom care for babies and toddlers. From Joyce, I learned how to put a child down for a nap, how to manage the chaos of bedtime and lunch (Ryan liked A-1 on his sandwiches and Katie loved tomatoes). Joyce was also a farmer. I remember visiting Connor two days after he was born. Joyce was in the barn feeding the cows. Connor was tightly swaddled in his basket. As a farmer, mother of five, Dr.’s wife, keeper of the calendar, and CEO of everything, she celebrated every holiday by making her grandma Henry’s cut out cookies-- which her grandma simply called “white cookies.” I remember the first time I tasted her holiday cookies. I was still trick or treating myself. We stopped by their home to find baby Ryan asleep. But his older brother and sister were each a pig in their respective houses of wood and brick. I can’t remember who the wolf was. Joyce invited my mom and me in for cider and cookies. I couldn’t stop eating the frosted ghosts. They were more cake-like than crisp cookie. They’re dense and soft all at the same time and with sweet frosting they’re perfect. Really, I’ve never tasted a cut out cookie like it. By the time I was 13 I learned to make Joyce’s special cut out cookies. I’ll never forget when she lent me the recipe to copy. There was no measurement next to flour, but instead it read, “enough so you can handle.” Joyce explained, “This is what my grandmother told me.” And since then, when anyone asks me for the recipe of my much beloved holiday cut outs I explain the flour measurement is “enough so you can handle.” The recipe dates, I am guessing, from the early 1900’s, when buttermilk was frequently used on farms so as not to waste anything. Buttermilk is basically a fermented dairy drink. Traditionally, it was the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cultured cream. Enjoy these cookies at all and any holiday. Christmas of course is a favorite, but Halloween and Valentine’s day in my mind are a must! And if Christmas passes you by, make a bunch of stars for Epiphany. We did that this year since some child brought home the plague one weekend and I was too sick to orchestrate the much beloved cookie cut out extravaganza with our friends. Please if you share this recipe, don’t give out an exact amount on the flour. :) Ingredients
In your trusty kitchen-aid:
When it's spring and somebody has been through a stressful medical encounter be sure to deliver this rhubarb coffee cake to their home. It goes well with tea while they are reclining on the couch recovering. Or if you have more rhubarb than you know what to do with and you’ve eaten enough Rhubarb pie, here is a great alternative.
My mom made the best Rhubarb coffee cake when I was a kid. She never could find the recipe. I’ve finally perfected it after many tries. My kids fight over the last piece. I was smarter than my children. I just snuck the last piece as a kid! Ingredients:
Crumble Topping
Turnip Sloppy Joes. You did read that correctly. Turnips. Sloppy Joes. What led to the creation of such a recipe is the more interesting part. The recipe itself is surprisingly basic. This Lent, the emergent community I pastor-- Grace Community Boston-- watched the Humane Society’s powerful documentary Eating Mercifully. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-Va6F3iQFc We spent the next three Sunday’s discussing our role as stewards in God’s creation after coming face to face with the horrific practices of the American meat industry. We began to make powerfully disturbing connections between the prevalent violence in our culture and the violence inherent in the meat industry. We as a community have decided to take on the following suggestions offered in the documentary: 1) No meat served at any church gatherings 2) Supporting one another in community as we individually move toward a more plant based diet 3) Continuing education and advocacy around eating mercifully, including supporting small farming organizations that have humane practices. Perhaps this doesn’t sound like a huge leap for a progressive faith community such as Grace. Maybe not, but we love food. We love to gather around food. We love to spend too much money buying delicious and abundant food for our gatherings. So what next? Meat was off the table. The first Sunday, someone hosted a baked potato bar. Oh the toppings….. swoon. The next Sunday, baked ziti with TVP. One person was sure the TVP was real ground beef. The teenagers gobbled it down with abandon. This past Sunday it was my turn. Kathy Hinds, a member of the community, years passed had taught me how to make meatless sloppy joes using TVP. Over the years I have perfected this recipe with whatever vegetables I have on hand, including zucchini, instead of TVP. This past weekend I had an abundance of turnips. Why turnips? Because Rose’s Bounty food pantry was snowed out last Tuesday and we had lots and lots of turnips left. Abundance of Turnips + commitment to humane animal practices + Grace’s love of food at sacred gatherings = Abby’s Turnip Sloppy Joes Step One: In your food processor shred six large turnips. You can also use: carrots, zucchini, potatoes, rutabaga, you name it. Just adjust cooking time accordingly. Step Two: In your trusty dutch oven saute four yellow onions, plus two red onions, plus eight cloves of garlic. About ten minutes until soft. I also added celery but this isn’t necessary. I heart celery. Step Three: Add shredded vegetable of choice to onions. Cook until just soft-- a bit aledente. Step Four: Turn off heat and add the following:
Step Five: Heat and combine for about an hour or so on low….. Or dump in a crock pot and leave on low for four+ hours. Serve on buns with a side salad and lots of chopped fresh tomatoes! Don’t tell anyone what’s in it. They’ll never know. #eatingmercifully I discovered this recipe years ago in the paper. I've been dreaming of real tomatoes lately, not the sawdust tasting things they sell at the grocery store in March. I want to eat fresh things picked right from your garden. Oh, summer. I am done with snow! Everyone who eats this soup can’t get enough of it. I make it in September, when there were more tomatoes in my kitchen than I know what to do with from our CSA. Whatever you do, don’t skip the bacon and the eggs. Ingredients: 5-7 strips of bacon diced 2 cloves of garlic, minced 4 cups of chicken stock 5 ripe tomatoes, cored & chopped 2 tsp soy sauce 2 tbsp sugar 2 large eggs salt & pepper 2 tbsp cornstarch scallions, snipped for garnish 1. Cook bacon and garlic until bacon is crisp 2. In a separate pan heat chicken stock and then add tomatoes 3. Use a slotted spoon and transfer bacon and garlic to chicken stock. Leave as much fat behind as possible (or not!). 4. Add soy sauce & sugar. Stir and make sure soup does not boil. 15-20 mins 5. Using a fork lightly beat the eggs in a cup. Season with pepper & salt. 6. Add eggs to soup while whisking constantly, until well distributed and ribbony. 7. Whisk cornstarch and water to form a small slurry in a bowl. Add to soup. Cook soup until thickens. Or skip the corn starch, depending on how you like your soup. 8. Garnish with scallions. It's his favorite. Hands down. Every year Isaac asks me to make it for his birthday. The first time I made it for him, he looked at me with wide, sparkling eyes on his birthday, after taking his first bite of this cake, and declared this was the best thing I ever made. It began because Isaac was obsessed with baking his own concoctions for about two years. He followed no recipe. He just mixed a little of this and a little bit of that, poured it into a pan, and baked it. The most surprising thing was that 90% of the time his concoctions were very good. He was always pleased as punch as he ate them after dinner. When we would ask him what his secret was he had one consistent response: brown sugar. When I found a recipe for a brown sugar cake, I knew I had to make it for Isaac. I've tweaked it over the years, but it's still the same over the top super sweet brown sugar delight. Enjoy! Cake Ingredients: 2 sticks of salted butter 3 cups flour 2 cups dark brown sugar ½ cup white sugar 6 eggs 1 tbsp vanilla 1 cup of sour cream ½ tsp of baking soda 1. Beat butter and gradually add sugar. When mixture is fluffy add one egg at a time, followed by vanilla. 2. Add baking soda to sour cream and mix. 3. Alternately add flour and sour cream to butter mixture. 4. Divide batter between two buttered and floured 8 inch round pans. 5. Bake until golden for 50 minutes at 325 degrees. 6. Frost with Brown Sugar Frosting! Brown Sugar Frosting 1. In a saucepan place 1 ½ cups of brown sugar, ¼ cup of milk, 2 tbsp of butter over medium heat. 2. Mix until sugar is fully dissolved. You may need to add a tsp or two of water. 3. Remove from heat and add 3tsp of pure maple syrup. If you don’t have maple syrup add vanilla, but really, the maple syrup is worth it! 4. In your trusty kitchen aide mixer whip one stick of butter with a half bag of powdered sugar (you know the bigger bag, b/c who buys it in the small box?) 5. After butter and powdered sugar are well combined gradually add brown sugar mixture. Let cool before frosting cake There is nothing that gives me as much delight as watching my children rave over something I made. Isaac loves brown sugar. He eats it straight when I am not looking. I semi-invented this frosting. J I will stop here to address those who think this feminist rage is unfounded. There have been many moments, especially as a minister, that it has been evident that if I had a penis, I would have been treated much differently and at minimum with a respect I did not receive. Just to be ordained and hired as a 25 year old woman in the church was painfully difficult even though my credentials and recommendations were impeccable. How I was then treated by the church’s old boys' club is a longer and more painful story. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that I am a privileged white woman with an elite education. I started half way up the tower compared to other women. That is clear to me. But it is also clear to me that my male counterparts didn’t have a tower to scale, and if they did there were already toe holds leading the way up. Since our nation elected a man who bragged about sexual assault, since I marched on Washington with thousands of other women and my two sons, I have stepped back from the tower. I’ve noticed how far we've come, how far I’ve come, and how much higher we, and I, must climb. And I am angry. Angry. But nothing has ignited my rage more than revisiting something that happened to myself and others at the private high school I attended. The story is simple. A female student was being raped by a teacher. He had done it many times before. I knew. I sought help on three separate occasions from our dean and headmaster. They did nothing. They covered it up. On one occasion I was explicitly told to be quiet. I was silenced. I never buried this memory. It has always been present, but I packed it away and moved ahead. The trauma of this event has returned to me full force in the last two months. I have grieved for the 17 year old girl I was. I grieve for the many young girls silenced, for the stories of sexual abuse covered up, for the many, many women and girls who are the victims of all sorts of sexual violence. As I look up at the tower, I’m scared that only a superpower will bring this tower down. On most days I push ahead, chipping away at the tower I must climb. I am proud to climb this tower for my daughter and other girls, grateful for the women who have climbed it before me. I feel deep gratitude for how far we’ve come and hope for where we are going. I find strength in the community of women climbing beside me, who offer advice, who climb for me when I grow too weary, or cheer me on when I make noticeable progress. But still, when, o when, will sexual violence end? When, o when, will the old boys' club be kicked off their throne? I don’t want my daughter scaling that tower. Instead I want a super hero power that enables me to scale that horrid tower with the strength of Wonder Woman. I may not have super hero power, but watching a powerful woman bash through mortar on the big screen to reach her goal gave me courage to continue. And maybe, just maybe, my rage will become so intense I will clear a path for my daughter, leaving toe holds for all. Watch out. I might turn into Wonder Woman before your eyes, but I am not as nice as she is. |