use real butter

We have returned from the Land of Hot, that being New Mexico. Mind you, it’s a dry heat. And despite everyone who rolls their eyes when someone discusses dry heat, 100 is definitely tolerable dry than humid. Jeremy, being a native son of New Mexico, used to wax nostalgic for his homelands all the time. But these days I think the romance has faded just a little for him. I think Colorado is what puts an extra spring in his step, not to mention the immensely long ski season. There is something to be said for coming home to 58 degrees in the mountains to have the rich smell of pine forest fill your nostrils as you hose the dog down for a bath.

It was a bit of a mental shock to go from Grandma Darling’s lack of short term memory and endless repeat of the same 7 stories (at least it was 7 and not 1) to fully engaged discussions with my aunt. I’m lucky to have her in my closest circle of friends. We talk about food, relationships, professional issues, politics, gardening, more food, our family, raising children, raising pets, cultural issues, diversity, all sorts of stuff.

Elena and family have lived in Los Alamos for almost 5 years now. We drove down 2 years ago when they were in the midst of overhauling the backyard. It used to be a bit of a mess from the previous owners and Elena had a master plan. The woman has impeccable taste - classy, elegant, unique, beautiful. It shows in her art, her clothes, her house, her garden. In two years, I’ve let my yard grow more weeds. In two years, she transformed a dirt and grass yard into this:

just half of the the fabulous garden at elena’s house

They planted a lot of natives that will do well in the Los Alamos sun and elevation. It’s so fucking gorgeous it almost makes me want to start a garden of my own! Almost… It doesn’t hurt that she is partial to the same hues that I am partial to: greens, blues, purples. However, she does have large areas of splashy deep reds, pinks, yellows. I did a couple of shots under the pergola just for fun. The flagstone path has creeping thyme growing between the stones leading up to the center of the pergola and it looks like the perfect place for an outdoor wedding. They really ought to rent it out it’s so bloody gorgeous. It will be even more fabulous when the wisteria fill in. Oh, to have a growing season.

the family with eska, trusted shepherd

elena’s not preggers, just in a goofy pose

Whenever we visit one another there are never enough meals in the visit to share all of the awesome recipes we have discovered since the last time. Elena is a marvelous cook, serving food as beautiful and delicious as one would expect from someone with such discriminating taste and abundance of talent. Needless to say, I won’t need to eat anything for the next couple of days. When we arrived Sunday, Dave pulled out some champagne glasses to celebrate. Celebrate what? I asked. Oh, just celebrate everything! my degree, Jeremy’s grant, Jeremy’s job, Dave’s lofty promotion, Elena’s consulting. Coming back to the west has been good for all of us.

the chemist at play: champagne and cassis

We had a lot of fun, but as usual, it was too short. Our requisite trip to Trader Joes nabbed us 24 jars of our favorite salsa in addition to embarrassingly large quantities of other food items we horde. By the time we hit the road though, I felt ready to get our pup and go home. Too much travel makes me a homebody despite how much I love to get out of town. Elena did allow us (me) to pick three of her clayboard pieces.

I should just learn to accept that it is okay to purchase a cake. But not yet.

It’s really hard for me to bake in someone else’s house, mainly because their kitchen isn’t outfitted the way mine is, but also because I need to dominate in the kitchen - no room for yackity yack, please get out of my way.

Today’s endeavor involved two cakes that will be traveling with us. The first: lemon lemon with lemon cake. The second: chocolate with chocolate and chocolate cake. If the second cake was not for Jeremy’s grandma, I might have gotten a lot more interesting with the flavors, but the Darlings like their chocolate straight up. Not the most sophisticated, but certainly doable.

The recipe I have for the lemon cake base makes a lot because I only have 9×2 pans. I like the 9×3’s they have at school. So we had enough batter for a mini 6-inch. I made all of the components for the cake and then packed them up since it makes more sense to assemble it at Elena’s place. I wanted to test it out though in mini form, so I made the 6-inch version with limoncello simple syrup, lemon curd, and lemon buttercream. It’s cute.

mini lemony lemon cake

I decorated the top with orange and lemon zest, candied lemon slices, and some spun lemon sugar. Jeremy got to try the first bite when he got home and gave it a thumbs up. I love lemon curd and the recipe I have is nice and tart! *pucker*

in cross-section

The second cake was a little uninspired, just because I find chocolate to be a tad dull. But Jeremy assured me that Grandma would go nuts over this. It’s chocolate base with Grand Marnier simple syrup, dark chocolate ganache, and chocolate buttercream.

ganache layer #3

crumb coat

I assembled it at home because there won’t be time when we arrive.

little chocolate flowers and chocolate twigs

I hope it transports well.

And finally, neat little trick I read about and tried tonight. In making those two (three) cakes, I used 55 eggs and 44 of those were egg whites. What do you do with 44 egg yolks? I could have tried making those nifty egg yolk raviolis that Kell made for her dad’s birthday, but I had neither the pasta maker nor the time. I beat them with a little sugar and then divvied them up in ice cube trays and froze them. They’re a sticky gooey mess, but when I pried each one out, I set it on a baking sheet and refroze them.

each cube is one egg yolk

Next I popped them all into a ziploc and stored them in the freezer. Egg storage is a big deal in pastries because so many recipes require uneven amounts of whites and yolks. I hate to waste food. In class, we store all yolks or all whites in large tupperwares for the next class to use because classes are always going on in that classroom. We measure eggs in weight too. Whites will freeze, no problem. Yolks are a problem because they become spongy. So the solution is to add a little sugar or salt - depending on if you intend to use them for sweet or savory recipes - and then beat the yolks and freeze. Usually 1 tablespoon is equal to one large egg yolk. They say 1.5 tsp of sugar for every 4 yolks, or 1/8 tsp salt for every 4 yolks. Nifty!

For Ro, I’ll post about my bbq beef brisket in the crock pot experiment. Typically bbq beef brisket is slow cooked/smoked over coals for 10-12 hours. I have no interest in keeping an eye on something that could burn my house and my neighborhood down for that long, so I had the choice between the oven and the crock pot. Oven is out of the question with the latest heat wave, and the winner is: crock pot.

I picked up a 2.5 pound beef brisket, which ended up being about a half pound of fat. Clever little butchers wrap the meat up so you can’t see the fat… You’ll want to remove as much fat as possible, which is a tedious, but sort of fun task. At least I take a sort of OCD pleasure in doing so with my very very sharp knife. Once the brisket is ready, pop it into the crock pot. You can cut it up if the shape results in appendages protruding unceremoniously above the liquid. What liquid? I’m getting to that.

I found a recipe that calls for a cup of water, 1/4 cup Worcestershire, a tbsp of vinegar, 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1/4 tsp ground cayenne, 1 tbsp brown (or any) mustard, 2 minced cloves of garlic, 1 cube of beef bouillon (I use a bouillon paste). Mix all of that together and toss it into the crock pot. Add more water to cover the brisket. I set it on high for 5 hours. At 5 hours, it was still pretty cohesive, so I set it for 6 more hours on low. By morning, it was at easy pull apart, although I suspect if I let it go another 3 hours, I could have had it falling apart - dunno.

Ro’s question was how to serve brisket. When I’ve had the Best Beef Brisket Ever, we always sliced it up and ate it with bbq sauce and all of the other delicious sides from Hogly Wogly’s.

you can slice up the brisket

But I actually like brisket pulled, whether it is served as is with some bbq sauce (here I use more of the Mutha Sauce from my Dinosaur Barbecue cookbook) or on bread. Actually, I require bread with bbq.

top it off with mutha sauce or any bbq sauce recipe you fancy

serve with soft, fluffy bread

However, the title of Domestic Goddess cannot be bestowed without the following recipe in one’s arsenal: Roast Chicken. Talk about bang for the buck, so to speak. This is incredibly easy and incredibly delicious. For people who embrace leftovers and like to plan, you can double the recipe (that means roast TWO birds).

Roast Chicken
Fine Cooking - don’t recall which issue

1 whole chicken (about 4 pounds)
1 lemon
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 tbsp + 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter
other herbs (optional)

Pat the chicken dry and remove the neck and giblets (reserve for later). Grate zest of lemon into a bowl. Combine with 1 tbsp salt and black pepper (and optional herbs). Rub the mixture over the chicken and inside the cavity. Be sure to get under the skin of the breast and rub some of the seasoning there. Cut the lemon in half and stuff half of it in the cavity. Set chicken on a wire rack on a plate or sheet and refrigerate uncovered for at least 4 hours and up to 24 hours. A half hour before you are ready to roast, remove the chicken from the refrigerator, set the oven rack to middle, and preheat to 425F (higher if at elevation). Brush melted butter over the skin and sprinkle with 1/2 tsp of salt. Truss the bird and set it breast side up on a rack in a roasting pan. (If you have vegetables to roast, you can toss them with some salt, pepper, a little olive oil, and chuck them in the bottom of the pan). Roast until breast is nicely browned, about 40 minutes. Then remove from oven and flip the bird over and continue to roast until thickest part of thigh registers 165-170F (about 20 minutes more). Let rest for 5 minutes before carving.

*Note: If you save the carcass and other bones, you can dump them in a pot of water with the reserved neck and giblets to make chicken broth.