Grape Crisp

We at A Book of Cookrye, always up for getting produce in bulk, often find that we have squishy fruit in the refrigerator. It's still perfectly good to eat, but would you want to eat grapes that look like this?

I know it's a very first-world-problems sort of lament: "Oh no, my grapes that were flown from a farm across the planet are slightly squishy!" But we at A Book of Cookrye see produce past its prime as an opportunity to experiment. We're not allowing anything to go in the trash, but since these grapes were no longer all that good anyway, why not create something with them?

Grape Crisp 1½ c grapes ⅓ c brown sugar ¼ tsp salt Spices to taste (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, etc)*     Topping: 1 c granola crumbs 2 tbsp sugar 2 or 3 tbsp butter Pinch salt Cut the grapes in half. Mix with the brown sugar, salt, and spices. Put in a closed container and refrigerate for a day. Heat oven to 350° when ready to bake. To make the topping, mix together the sugar, salt, and butter. Add the granola and work it all together. It will be very dry. Grease an individual-sized baking pan. Put in the grapes, along with all the juices that have come out of them. Sprinkle the topping evenly over them. Bake about 40 minutes. Note: The filling will probably thicken better if you stir in a tablespoon or two of cornstarch. *We just used a couple quick shakes of pumpkin pie spice.

Have you ever noticed that almost no one bakes with grapes? Flip through the fruit pies in any cookbook, and it is extremely unlikely that any recipe has grapes in it, whether on their own or as a part of a mix of fruits. I've seen a few recipes, mostly from the 1970s, that put grapes in meat recipes- usually chicken or pork. Why not try using grapes in that favorite way of using up squishy bruised fruit: Fruit crisp?

We used a third-cup of sugar purely because it seems like so much baking is quarter- and half-cups. We felt that the third cup was tragically underused.

The last time we baked grapes, they didn't exude much juice in baking. And that's part of what we like about fruit crisp- all the flavorful juices that come bubbling out of the fruit as it bakes. So, we figured we would extract the grape juices before baking. We coated the grapes in brown sugar and spices, and put them in the refrigerator overnight so the sugar would draw out the juice. We also cut them in half so the juice would draw out faster.

As you can see, the grapes gave out so much juice that they were swimming in it. You would think they'd be a lot softer and deflated, but when we ate one, we could barely notice any difference. The juice tasted a little bit like grapes, but mostly like brown sugar and spices. As much as I like brown sugar and spice, I was hoping there'd be a lot more grape flavor- like adding a few shakes of pumpkin pie spice to a jar of grape jelly.
But, what does one put on top of these grapes? Every fruit crisp needs... well... a crispy top. Since this small-scale adventure started off with avoiding waste, we decided to continue making pantry dregs into new creations.
Do you eat granola? If so, do you find (as we do) that you eat all the big pieces early on and then have a bag full of crumbs that just aren't as nice?

Again, there's nothing bad about this granola. It's just the sand and dregs that remain after everyone's eaten the good bits. It's even made of the same things, but just as more people want to eat cake slices than cake crumbs, no one really gets excited about putting pulverized granola sand on their yogurt. 

And so, we added the last of a stick of butter that no one was using (now this recipe has cleaned out the fridge, the fruit basket, and the pantry) and a handful of sugar to make some vague approximation of fruit crisp topping.

The result was dry and sandy. One might think that we're going to have horrible, powdery, crumbly sand on top of the fruit after we bake it, but I was thinking it was perfectly poised to absorb all the juice underneath it and turn into something magical. Besides, since it's mostly granola it's healthy-- as we all know, granola is totally healthy and not at all a sugary calorie bomb dressed up as diet food. Also, our fruit crisp topping was now cohesive enough to stay in lumps when you squeezed it in your fist. I took this as a sign that things were going right. I don't know why I thought its integrity when pressed together mattered, but it seemed auspicious anyway.
Incidentally, I used white sugar in the topping because I figured we already had brown sugar in the fruit. I actually like the granola that we're dumping on top of this pan, so I wanted to let it taste like itself instead of like brown sugar.

As aforementioned, the fact that it was so dry you needed a whole glass of water just after checking for taste didn't bother me, because it was going on top of all this drippy sugary mess of fruit.

When you spread the grapes out in the pan, it looked like the contents of a can of prefabricated fruit pie filling. It still tasted mostly like brown sugar and spices, not like brown sugar and spices and grapes. I was slightly disappointed, and planning to purchase more flavorful fruits in the future. That way I get more thrilling results when they approach their expiration and must be incorporated into recipes lest my grocery money literally moulder away.

The grapes look slightly puckered, but not nearly as much as one might expect given how much juice has been extracted from them.

The top of this looked a lot drier than anything else I've ever put on a fruit crisp. I started to have my doubts that the bubbling juice would keep it from turning into a tooth-breaking top layer. But (and this is my cooking classes kicking in) I figured that there'd a lot of steam coming up from the bubbling juice regardless of whether the granola crumbs actually sank in. Either that, or the top would dry out and burn, which would mean my attempt to make a lovely creation out of unwanted kitchen things was merely be a time-wasting detour on their way from the shelf to the trash.
Fortunately, when we removed it, we didn't have a desiccated pan of failure. We didn't have a pan of crisp either- the granola sand had softened and melded into a single cohesive layer of almost-bread-ish stuff.

 

We decided to pretend this was a casserole and bake until bubbly. Actually, we baked it a lot longer, hoping that the juices in the pan would reduce and be a lot less runny.  When the various fruit geysers at the corners seemed to be sputtering up syrup instead of water, we figured it must be done.

But when you're making fruit crisp, you never know what you're getting until you dig through the top and scoop out what lies beneath.

Looks pretty good, doesn't it? Though it seems that even the extremely long baking time didn't prevent this from having a lot of watery stuff all over the pan. I was hoping it'd at least turn syrupy- especially since I definitely added enough sugar that it could have.

Perhaps because I never bake grapes, I couldn't get used to seeing them reduced to tiny discs of fruit. But as you can see, our sandy granola has somehow turned into a surprisingly cohesive top crust. I was expecting a lot of crumbly bits that would fall all over the place, and instead got... this.

It didn't taste like grapes at all. Oddly enough, the grapes, once baked, just tasted like a generic idea of fruit. If you were to just imagine the taste of "fruit" without getting any more specific, you probably can get pretty close to what we had made.
The taste was a lot fainter than I would have liked, though this did not surprise me since the grape flavor had been barely detectable the whole time. I will probably add grapes to my next cobbler or crisp if I want to add a more fruity flavor, but I wouldn't make another one with grapes by themselves. With that said, soaking them overnight in sugar to draw out the juices worked really well, and I would totally do that again.

The Magic of Garlic Bread

One should always be careful when allowing us near garlic. We often end up saying things like "The recipe calls for one garlic clove, so I only used six."
Garlic is magical. It tastes like pungent happiness. We actually make garlic bread as a relationship test. If someone can't handle his garlic, it will never work.
Which brings us to.... more garlic bread! This also involves vintage cooking appliances.

We have previously shared our special technique for garlic bread. This also led to someone personally writing in (with pictures!) to endorse it. Now we are going to terrify everyone within smelling distance of the kitchen, because we are cooking together with someone who loves garlic as much as we.

All of this. On one bread loaf.

We had a bit of an issue operating the food processor. It simply would not turn on, no matter how many times we tried putting the blades on at different angles, removing the canister and putting it back on again, or otherwise futzing with it. Then we realized that there's an extra flap that goes into this one slot right here. It then presses on some button in there, which acts as a safety interlock. It took us a while to figure this out because we didn't think we were supposed to shove parts of the lid into the motor housing.

And now, instead of tediously mincing two bulbs' worth of garlic cloves, we can pulverize them the modern way!

This is why we can't be trusted around modern labor-saving devices. Without a food processor, we would have had to either squeeze all of this garlic through a press or hand-chop it. This would have limited the amount of garlic we were willing to use. But here in modern times, we can use garlic in terrifyingly expressive ways, unfettered by any tedious drudgery. True, we had to peel them, but after that, the garlic bread just flew together. We didn't even have to soften the butter first.

And now, we are almost ready to simultaneously make dinner and fumigate away vampires!

You are looking at one bulb of garlic per side of bread.

Incidentally, we decided that we could not just waste the last of the garlic spread clinging to the sides of the food processor. So we wiped it off with a bread slice which would then go into the oven along with the fiery and pungent main attraction.

As you may know, we at A Book of Cookrye slow-roast our garlic bread. It spends up to an hour in the oven, which we have set to a much lower temperature than anyone ever uses for baking. This transforms the fiery garlic into sweet and mellow roasted garlic. However, this also turned this puny little sandwich slice into something sad and burnt. We passed it over to someone else at table, who bit into it and said "It's actually still good!"

Garlic truly can save anything.

Anyway, we unveiled this bread about an hour after we had first introduced it into the oven. The top had taken on a striking resemblance to peanut butter, and the hot air venting out of the oven brought tears to the eyes.

This was the strongest garlic bread we've ever made- it was like garlic wasabi. However, we had no leftovers. Interestingly, people noted that you couldn't eat this bread and drink soda. One person took a single sip and yelped "It's like battery acid on my tongue!" Another person, too intrigued to resist, tried for himself and confirmed that mixing high-intensity garlic bread and soda causes acute pain.
As a final note, we have achieved a new allium achievement: the oven smelled powerfully like garlic when we fired it up the next day.

Don't forget the groceries!

Today, we at A Book of Cookrye would like to salute the noble act of getting groceries! This makes it possible for us to make so many delightful and delovely creations. But what happens if no one's made the trip to the grocery store? Or at least, didn't actually think much about what to obtain?
We have accompanied friends on an excursion to the mountains in Tennessee. Rather than cram five people into one motel room as was done in my childhood, they rented what the promotional literature unironically called a cabin. We at A Book of Cookrye will assert that it's not a cabin if it has a 2-story living room and an open kitchen that looks like this.

No amount of wood in the ceiling and other slapped-on rustic detailing will make this anything other than a McMansion in the woods. But enough of that- it turns out people were hungry in the dead of night. Many groceries had been obtained for a dinner the next night, but no one had thought much about what we might eat before then. We didn't even have bread to make sandwiches.
And so, we at A Book of Cookrye took this as a challenge. Being in possession of a nearly-finished cooking school degree, we couldn't permit ourselves failure just because we had barely any actual food. First of all, it would mean we've totally abandoned our beginnings as someone who baked Elizabethan chickens in saucepans and baked pies in casserole lids.
Working in our favor, the kitchen had all the basic implements, and a few oddly-specific kitchen gadgets that we assume previous visitors used once and left there. Anyway, between the various drinks in the refrigerator we found jelly and oranges. A pancake mix turned up in the cabinet.The way forward grew clearer, especially after we found an abandoned portion scoop in the drawer.

I guess some previous tourists had decided they really needed to properly portion out cookie dough the professional way. I will admit that after a day running myself ragged chasing a good time, I might decide cookies were better than getting my money's worth of museum visits. Though I wouldn't go out of my way to buy expensive dough scoopers I'd only use once. Then again, I'm not the one paying to rent a 6-bedroom "cabin" for a weekend.

Fortunately, these oranges actually tasted pretty good.

Some of the oranges scooped out so neatly, others got reduced to a sad pulp after a lot of spoon-gouging.

We at A Book of Cookrye don't tend to like the just-add-water mixes, but they do have a way of being there when all other ingredients forsake you. To add some extra flavor, we added the juice that had dribbled out of the oranges.

You may wonder why we're making these in orange peels.  We first only found a flat baking sheet, and the orange peels were the only way to contain the batter long enough to bake it.Then they kept tipping over. We started excavating the cabinets hoping for a cupcake pan, and one miraculously appeared.

They may be simple and unimpressive, but no one was hungry afterward.

I'd imagined that the orange peels might imbue them with a subtle flavor, and in that respect I was mistaken. In the ones where the orange came neatly out, there was no flavor difference. However, the ones where there was still membranes and other remnants were really bitter where batter met rind. For those of you who think these look really cute and perfect for a Christmas table, be sure to get the rind nicely cleaned out on the inside.

If you're already making a fruit salad or something else that involves a lot of wasted orange peels, consider making the muffin or cupcake recipe of your choice and baking it in them! It's really cute. Also of note, the orange rind took the shape of the pan while they baked.

I'm contemplating the possibilities of a straight-sided upside down orange peel as a presentational gimmick. Though in full disclosure, we should note that we did not entirely succeed in our attempts to avoid washing pans. The oranges exuded some sort of oil as they baked.

Fortunately, as those of you who carefully scrutinized the kitchen photo will already know, we were provided with a dishwasher. Had there not been one, we very likely wouldn't have volunteered to do any cooking at all. Need we mention again how much a working dishwasher will change your life at home?

Nearly destroying my friend's grandmother's waffle iron

We at A Book of Cookrye have been helping friends with housecleaning. We have previously seen their electronics lab here when we were tutored through reviving a vintage stereo.
Let me tell you, you find out a lot about people when you're cleaning their house. And you may soon know better than they do where things are in their own domicile. Which brings us to... this!

Note the dishwasher reflected in it. Need we mention again our deep love of dishwashers?

This is a fricken huge waffle iron! We pulled this out and were informed "I think that was my grandmother's." Apparently, in addition to having a near-bulletproof pink sewing machine, his grandmother really liked making waffles because this thing makes a lot of them. Here's the inside of it with bananas for scale.

In addition to being huge, this one is a lot fancier than our waffle iron. It has an adjustable scale like a toaster.

Anyway, we at A Book of Cookrye, when presented with appliances old enough to have witnessed 10 US Presidents, tend to just plug them in and figure that we probably won't die or burn the house down. However, in the presence of people more cautious than we, this was tested for short circuits before we had a chance to plug it in and find out if it had one by trial and accident.

That reading of 0 means that electricity cannot go from the power cord (black clamp) to the beautifully polished chrome exterior (red clamp), and therefore we will not electrocute ourselves if we touch it while it's plugged in.

And so, we were to make waffles! Or so we thought. As the requisite ingredients were not in the kitchen (as tends to happen when one visits people who never bake), this was obtained instead.

Yes, it's a bag of synthetic muffin mix, but you know it's the classy version because the blueberries came in a separate can that you have to open for yourself.

Doesn't this look... er... edible? The trick is to barely stir in the berries, so the juice makes enticing swirls instead of turning the batter a uniform gray.

We knew this waffle iron was huge, but we did not expect a complete batch of muffin mix to fit on it all at once.

Anyway, we got the waffle iron plugged in, and it turns out there's a little light bulb in it! And it's not even a tiny little red LED, but a genuine incandescent bulb.

Anyway, we probably should have held off ever-so-slightly on the batter because there was just a bit of spillage. But there wasn't the oozing hot waterfall one might expect from dumping an entire batch of batter on a waffle iron all at once.

We'd wondered how we'd know the waffles had reached their desired degree of doneness. Did this thing also have a little bell in there? Then the little light bulb turned off, which we took for a sign to lift the lid and reveal... this!

At least it matches the degree of doneness we set the little dial to.

I must have used half a can of cooking spray on this thing, and still I am betrayed! We attempted to gently prise some of this failure off of the lid. We found ourselves apologizing to our friend's deceased relatives for what we did to their kitchen appliances.

"Sorry, Annie, but I ruined your waffle iron!"

We gamely attempted to actually serve up this travesty.

And so, we spent more time gouging crumbs out of the wreckage of the waffle iron than we spent on making and eating waffles combined.

Most people might decide to let the waffle iron go back to resting deep in a forgotten shelf, but we at A Book of Cookrye are already scheming about what to cook on it next time.

Second-Stab Saturday: We're all happy losers on Thanksgiving Day

Happy weekend after Thanksgiving! We at A Book of Cookrye, to our surprise and ever-so-slight disappointment, have noticed that while the Christmas shopping ads started right on schedule in September (as they have since, like, the 1880's), the annual spike of crusty crankypantses on TV screaming about the War On Christmas has somehow not happened. In fact, for the first time in at least five years, no one has gotten on the news to rant about how the Starbucks holiday cups are nonsectarian instead of covered with swarms of baby Jesuses. Anyway, now that the shopping season is in its inevitable full swing, let's talk about Thanksgiving!
Well, this Thanksgiving everyone was on a diet. We are usually responsible for desserts, which really restricted our recipe choices. When told we should do diet recipes, we were like "Oh, I'll do diet recipes for you. I got your diet recipes RIGHT HERE!"
Remember when we signed up for the Pieathlon and got a 1970s diet pie?

We had thought, after making that recipe, that it had unrealized potential. That it was almost but not quite good. The biggest fault, of course, was the presence of whole pillow mints which froze into pillow rocks. Those we struck right out. But by adding a wee bit more sugar (because of course we did) and adding a pinch of vanilla and a tiny bit of salt, we arrived at... this!

Cool Mint Ice Cream 2 egg whites* ½ c nonfat powdered milk ½ c iced or refrigerated water ⅛ tsp salt 1 tsp lemon juice ⅓ cup sugar ¼ tsp peppermint extract 1½ tsp vanilla 5 drops green food coloring Select a bigger mixing bowl than you may think- this will whip up and expand a lot. Beat egg whites, milk, water, and salt on high speed for 3 minutes. Add the lemon juice and beat one minute more. Beat in the sugar, about one tablespoon at a time. When adding the sugar, scatter it over the top rather than dumping it in one spot, lest the weight deflate what you've been whipping. Continue beating until thick and fluffy, about two minutes. Beat in the extracts and food coloring until well mixed, about 15 seconds. Pour into the container of your choice and freeze. Keep it in the freezer right until you serve it- it melts quickly. You may also freeze the bowls you want to serve it in. *If raw egg whites concern you, use ⅓ cup egg whites from the carton. Remember to vigorously shake the carton right before you measure it, or else they may be too thin and watery to whip up. adapted from Betty Crocker's Step-by-Step Recipes, 1975

This is not the first time we have foisted recipes from frightful times in culinary history on our unsuspecting family at Thanksgiving. Remember when we let everyone taste British Depression-era cuisine?
Well anyway, we decided that if everyone is on a diet, they can have a taste of what it's like to diet in the 1970s. Although we took issue with trying to serve this as a pie. Dumping your whipped green glop into an empty pie pan does not a make it a pie. We decided to serve this in individual portions. It was easier than figuring out how to serve up ice cream on Thanksgiving day. It's not like you can just leave it out on the table all day so everyone can help themselves. Especially this recipe, which (as we discovered) melts immediately.

Also of note, this recipe is definitely easy. How do we know? We actually didn't make it! We handed it off to our brother (well, one of them anyway). Despite not having ever cooked whipped and frothy fripperies, he made it without any problems on the first attempt.
This then brought us to the matter of packing it in individual servings. Were this at home, I would have put it in heavy glasses which would have insulated it for a bit when removed from the freezer. However, we were taking these to a gathering, and absolutely did not want to spend the latter half of it chasing down glasses to bring back. A disposable option was needed.

We're stacking the cups in the hope of adding air pockets of insulation. Styrofoam was considered, but I objected from an environmental standpoint. Our Brother of Cookrye saw the freezer full of tiny paper cups and said it looked like we were saving urine samples.
As for the frozen minty stuff itself...

It tastes like minty Cool Whip. If you like mint and if you like Cool Whip, you should definitely make this! Given its provenance as a 1970s diet recipe, I am very surprised to say that it is as good as the many diet ice creams that have conquered the freezer aisles of late.