Ch-ch-ch-cherry Cobbler

This is a mixture of two cobbler recipes, "cobbled" together. Hee. The crust is superb... try it with different fruits. I bet it's amazing with blueberries.

Ingredients:
2 cans Oregon tart pie cherries
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 cup sugar, or to taste
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
1 1/3 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
8 tbsps (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut in small bits
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For cherries: drain one can of juice, and put the all the cherries with one can still having juice over low heat. Using a small bit of cold water, dissolve a tbsp of cornstarch separately. Once fully dissolved, add to cherries, stirring gently but constantly with a wooden spoon. Add 1/4 tsp almond extract and 1/2 cup sugar and stir until thick.

Preheat oven to 375.

Grease a 8"x8"x3" glass or earthenware casserole with butter; put cherries at the bottom and set aside.

For dough: whisk dry ingredients including the remaining 1/2 cup of the sugar. Add the 8 tbsp of butter in small bits. Cut the butter in until it's party mixed. Get out your electric mixer and mix in the eggs and vanilla extract until it's all damp. Don't worry about it being all smooth and perfect. That's really against the whole spirit of a cobbler.

Spoon the dough by tablespoonfuls; leave little bits of cherry peeking through. Bake about 35 min until golden yellow and just starting to get brown.

Soooo good. Serve it up hot with vanilla ice cream.

Lawyer, Store Owner, Housewife?

"The Christmas Wife." No, it's not the title of a Lifetime Original Movie. It's me. It's what I was thinking I would call a TV show or movie based on what I've been doing lately. Now that I'm not a "lawyer," and the idea of saying I'm a "writer" just seems ridiculous given how much time I actually spend writing as compared to cooking, I'm not really sure what my identity is. But "wife" will do for now, I suppose. How about "baker"?

My 2009 resolution was to make a perfect cream-based pie. I have to find a new resolution because I did it. It wasn't that hard. Just follow the recipe in Joy of Cooking exactly. That means where it says whole milk, you use whole milk, not skim (who knew milk fats were so important?). Where it says bring to a bare simmer, you don't let that bad boy boil. And for God's sake, where it says to toast the shredded coconut at 300, don't just throw it in the oven at 400 because you already have a freaking lasagna in there and you just figure you can get away with it if you watch it really closely. Nope. Do it EXACTLY like Joy says.

Now, I wish some people actually read this freaking blog, for instance, people who make Red Velvet cakes. Or people who just really know their cake and want to contribute their favorite Red Velvet cake recipe. Because unfortunately, Joy doesn't have a recipe for Red Velvet cake, and I made the one posted by Sara Moulton on the Food Network site. What a terrible disappointment. The icing was great (how can you go wrong with an entire POUND of creamcheese, and the cake was indeed very, very red. It was unfortunately dry, not as tall as I would've liked, and flavorless. I don't think I overbeat the cake, but even if I did, that wouldn't explain the flavorlessness.... I think the recipe just isn't that great. Quantities seem off. You'd be better off buying a Betty Crocker white cake and adding 2 tbsps of red food coloring and a quarter cup of cocoa than making this recipe. But by all means, make the frosting! Just put it on a more worthy cake.

Other recent firsts: first pork chops, first lasagna, first many different types of cookies. Not lemon bars though. Those I've been making for years.

Advice for cooking holiday favorites: play Christmas music really loudly. It makes you feel like you're in this fabulous holiday musical. Wear a holiday apron. Sing along to the music, even the really cheesy songs you don't like. Talk to your pets! You'll feel like Snow White meets It's a Wonderful Life.

Holiday stuff I did lately: a seemingly endless pile of Christmas cards. It took hours; enough to watch the Woody Allen movie Love and Death (very funny send up of Russian lit), two episodes of Emeril Green's cooking show (Cajun cooking was the topic of one. Can't remember the other.), two episodes of Wife Swap (horrifically entertaining), and one episode of a show called the First 48 Hours (unrepentantly grim with major gleams of bleakness). So, like five hours. And I already worked on it a few hours in the preceeding days. Wow. If you didn't get a Christmas card from me, then here's your big "Merry Christmas, Love Heather & Alex." Hope that'll do, because I'm not doing any more.

Previously: Shopping. I'm almost 100% done. Luckily I did it almost all ahead of time. That really, really helps make Christmas more fun. However, I do still have to brave the stores for one last gift. For those of you who haven't begun your shopping yet, all I can say is that I've been there too, and may the Lord have mercy on your souls.

Tomorrow: I have to stamp and mail the freaking cards, wrap the Christmas presents for faraway family, and ship them off. I can't stand packing the presents in boxes... way too much spacial reasoning for my pleasure. Boringly enough, I also have to do some menial chores: laundry, dishes, cleaning. But then there's the thing I really want to do, which is to make a gingerbread house. Guess which one I'm prioritizing? Gingerbread house, I'm gonna make you. I don't care if you're difficult and not all that tasty. A house made out of candy just sounds too sweet not to make.

Tomorrow is pretty typical of my days these days. Is it wrong that I actually kind of like it? I wonder if I should feel guilty that I'm "just" a housewife. Truth is, if there was no money worry attached, it would be a pretty greaqt gig. However, money is an object, and I do wonder if eventually I'd feel unfulfilled or regret leaving the workforce (though never will I regret leaving the public defender office).

So what to do next: I'm thinking of opening a clothing shop. That might be more interesting than being a lawyer. My worries about that are that we might not stay in Tacoma. It wouldn't make sense to start a shop here if we're moving back to Seattle (or elsewhere). But I have a lot of experience with retail and I do love clothes, and I love business, and it would be a great thing to be my own boss. But then there's that worrying voice in my head that says, "What about the economy? Are you seriously considering starting a small business during this terrible economic downturn?" and "You could make so much more money being a lawyer!"

Oh, and in case you've been reading long enough to know that I have been considering starting a wedding planning business, I still think it's a great idea, but my location is not ideal for it. I don't have many contacts in Tacoma yet, and I'm just a leetel to far for it to make sense to commute to my clients and vendors up in Seattle. Plus the economy thing again... who is seriously going to pay to have their wedding planned if they're worried about losing their jobs? So that idea's on the backburner for now to dust off for later.

There are some interesting law job prospects that I'm seriously considering. I am definitely not completely tossing out that possibility. It will be fascinating for me to see what the new year brings.

Cook or Baker?

"Baking has the reputation of being more difficult than cooking -- the specter of chemistry frightens some people. And baking is different from cooking. A great cook may create dishes intuitively, almost casually, working with what is in the larder and refrigerator, tasting and correcting the work in progress. A great cake baker is attentive to technique, details, and timing. Unable to taste, correct, and create along the way, the baker is a stickler for measurements, insistent on proper pan sizes, and fussy about the temperature of everything from the oven to the butter. Because the same ingredients combined in a different order, mixed differently, or even used at different temperatures result in quite different cakes (or failures), good bakers are dedicated to the small things that produce beautiful cakes that taste heavenly." Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer et al.

I’m a baker. I love that if you follow the directions it will make something beautiful, like magic. Cooking is unwieldy and uncertain. My sister is one of those geniuses that can take random things from the fridge and turn then into dinner, never following a recipe -- just making it up as she goes along. That’s like hell for me. Give me a fantastic recipe, and I’ll make you a fantastic loaf of bread, dreamy pie, or beautiful birthday cake.

It’s been busy lately, but the kitchen has been calling. I made a beautiful key lime pie for a dinner party recently, and then I made a shoofly pie (a delicious, Pennsylvania Dutch molasses-based pie), a childhood favorite of mine. I cooked recently too, but that’s less interesting. I think I might make something today.... what should I make?

So, are you a cook or a baker? Or neither? What’s the last thing you made?