Rice Socks

These are not edible. Don't try. It's a cheap "recipe" for a hot/cold pack, but I've been using them to stay cooler in bed.

I got a weighted blanket recently, and it helps me sleep so much better, but it's warm--I tend to get night sweats anyway--and I really want to keep using this thing through the summer. I think I'll manage, with some help from some old socks.

Here's the idea: You fill the socks with rice and put them in the freezer. They get cold. When you get hot, you take out one or more and use it to cool off. They stay cool for at least half an hour, probably a bit more--long enough for me to fall asleep, anyway. They're not as cold as ice cubes, so I can use them directly on my skin. They don't get drippy, so I can fall asleep with them under the sheets with me. If I wake up hot, I swap them out for fresh ones.

I think you can also use these for hot packs by microwaving them until they're hot. Don't burn yourself.


Rice Socks

You will need:

• Old socks, with no holes--either crew-height socks or kneesocks. I'm using four socks that are too worn to wear but don't have any visible holes. For the worn toes, I turned the sock inside out and used double-sided fabric tape (sometimes called rescue tape) to tape a piece of a rag on the worn place.



• Rice, the cheapest you can find, about 1 pound per sock. I got 5 pounds for $3.18 at Wal-Mart.



• Space in the freezer. If I can do it, you can. Actually, my shoebox-sized freezer hasn't been freezing food evenly, so I stopped putting food in it--there's a chest freezer I can use in the garage, although it often has auto parts on top of it--so I can use almost all of my shoebox-sized freezer for rice socks. I have four in there so far, and I can probably fit two more. Depending on how recently I've defrosted the freezer, I suppose.

Put the rice in the sock, leaving enough room to tie the top in a knot. Tie the top in a knot and put it in the freezer. Voila!

Nutella Ganache Fudge

We said goodbye this week to a very sweet lady from church who is moving to an out-of-town assisted living place. She's a local legend and it was sad for all of us. I made this recipe to take to the reception we had, and it was a hit, so here it is.

This recipe is actually the filling of the truffles Mom and I made last year. I didn't have time to roll out and dip the truffles, so I just poured it into a glass pan, chilled it, cut it into chunks, and called it fudge.

Nutella Ganache Fudge

Ingredients

9 oz dark chocolate, chopped into small chunks (I suggest Trader Joe's dark chocolate because it's cheap and good)

1/2 cup heavy cream
2 T. butter (unsalted is better)
1 t. light corn syrup (or more if you want it sweeter) -- you could probably substitute honey, but not regular sugar, because it'd get grainy

2-4 T. Nutella (I first had this in France, spread on French bread for breakfast. It's a chocolate hazelnut spread that's absolutely delicious. You used to have to get it at a specialty store, but grocery stores and Walmart carry it now, usually in the PB&J aisle.)

Directions

Have chocolate chunks ready in a bowl. Put cream, butter, and corn syrup in small pot and bring to a boil. Pour hot cream mixture over chocolate but DO NOT STIR YET. Wait 5 minutes, then stir with a whisk (it must be a whisk) until it is combined. If you have any lumps left, you can microwave gently (half power) for a little while and then whisk until lumps are gone. Stir in the Nutella. Pour hot mixture into an 8" x 6" pan. If you like, you can swirl it with a toothpick to make the top look pretty. Cover and chill until hard. I let it chill overnight, but it doesn't have to take that long.

Cutting and prying it out of the pan is a delicate business. I suggest using the thinnest metal utensil you have (like a small metal spatula) along with a sharp, straight-edged knife (like a cleaver). Butter both utensils well (with real butter, not spray) and wipe them often to remove the chocolate that builds up on them. The thin metal utensil may sometimes cut better than the cleaver, and then you can use it to pry the pieces out. Be patient. When you've cut the fudge, return to the fridge until time to serve.

I thought of trying to freeze the fudge for a few minutes before cutting it, but as my freezer is tiny, full, and desperately in need of being defrosted, I decided to give up that idea. If someone else tries it, please let me know how it works.

Audiobook Review: Mothering on Perilous

I don't usually do book reviews, but this one was so good I had to make an exception. I was listening to it on Thursday as I made biscuits, and I was riveted. Besides, the book and audiobook are free online.

The book is called Mothering on Perilous, and it's about a schoolteacher in a very poor area of Kentucky in the early 1900s. She comes to the school to do music and gardening, but she ends up as housemother to a group of wild, unmannered, and belligerent boys. As she tries to mother these boys, she learns about the culture of feuding they come from and struggles with how she should guide them. The author, Lucy Furman, bases the book on her own experience as teacher and housemother at Hindman Settlement School in Kentucky.

It's a great read. I highly recommend it.

In other news, I now have a new rolling pin. I got it for Christmas. It's a wooden rolling pin, heavier than my old one. I'm still getting used to it, but I like it already. It's better suited for heavy-duty rolling, and I seem to do a lot of that--wrestling cracker dough into submission, for example.

Chapatis

Today I tried making chapatis from a recipe in the sequel to the More with Less cookbook. It was a complete failure. They're hard as frisbees.

Anyone want a frisbee?

Truffles!

For five years, I have made Mom hazelnut truffles for Christmas. This year I didn't get a chance to make the truffles, so I made her a truffle kit. I got a shirt box from her, put in all the materials needed for truffles, and padded it with a few of her own towels (the box was too big!). We made the truffles together in the last few days of 2010, and it was so much fun. I've been telling her the stories of the various recipes I've tried and the misadventures I've had. I thought y'all might enjoy hearing some of those stories, too.

I chose hazelnut truffles because Mom really likes hazelnuts, much more than anyone else in the family, and it's a fun and special treat for her. I use dark chocolate because it's much more elegant. And I don't use hazelnut liqueur or coffee (even though I've seen them in some recipes) because I don't like either of them, and truffles are quite good without them, so it's not worth buying those.

The first year, I really panicked because I didn't know what I could put the truffles in when I was finished, but I figured it out before Christmas. If you go to a craft supply store (like Michael's, Joann's, or Hobby Lobby), you'll find the supplies in the cake decorating aisle. For these recipes, you will want three 1/2 lb. candy boxes, a plastic candy dipper (they come in a package of two--one is oval and one looks like a football goal post), and little paper wrappers. I've found, however, that the ones labeled for candy are often too small. Mini-cupcake cups are usually better, though some are too big.

They also sell paper cushions to keep the truffles from rolling around in the box. For these recipes, if you plan to put the truffles in six boxes, you will need cushions. If you cram them into three boxes, like I do, there will be no extra space. You will have to tape the boxes shut. All of these recipes make three very full boxes of chocolates.

 

For chocolate, I recommend Trader Joe's Pound Plus chocolate, because it's good chocolate and you can buy a pound for $4. I use their dark chocolate (brown package) for dark or semisweet chocolate in these recipes. They also have milk chocolate or extra-dark chocolate. If you're looking at other brands, here's an article on what to look for. However, most recipes call for about a pound of chocolate (16 oz), and most bars/boxes of chocolate sold are only 6 oz or less. (In other words, the cost adds up.)

As to the hazelnuts, they are a pain to work with, because you must toast them (for flavor) and remove the skins (because the skins are bitter and they'll ruin the candy). The theory is that if you toast them for the right amount of time, the skins will loosen up and split, and then you can remove them by rubbing the hazelnuts inside a dishtowel. I've not had much success with this. One year the stores I visited were out of regular hazelnuts, and it was the end of a long day and I was frustrated, so I bought chopped hazelnuts at the regular grocery store. The skins didn't split, and I sat on the floor in my room for hours with a dishtowel and a paring knife, chipping the skins off the hazelnuts. Another year, I didn't see the skins splitting, and so I burnt an entire pound of hazelnuts. I had to throw them all out.

This year, for the first time, I saw skinned toasted hazelnuts on sale. They cost $5 for 7 oz (a pound of regular hazelnuts costs $4), but I think it's worth it. Seven ounces is plenty for most recipes. If you do toast and skin the hazelnuts yourself, here's how, and don't toast more than half a pound at a time. (This article also describes another method which I haven't seen before and haven't tried. It looks easier. Maybe next year.)

Hazelnuts are a very hard nut, and they may break your nut chopper, depending on what kind you have. If you're worried, the safest way is to put them in a ziploc bag on the counter (cushion with a towel) and whack them with a meat mallet or rolling pin until they're chopped. (You can also use a hammer, but not on your kitchen counter.) One year I made the ganache-with-hazelnuts late at night, and for some reason I hadn't chopped the hazelnuts beforehand when I had toasted and skinned them. Mom and Dad were upstairs sleeping, and as I got out the meat mallet and ziploc bag, I realized it would be way too loud. So I went outside into the car and sat in the driver's seat with a cutting board on my lap, whacking hazelnuts until the bag started to break. By then they were chopped enough for me to go inside and finish with a knife.

Truffles are made with ganache (hot cream poured over chocolate). I have tips on making ganache here. It's really quite easy. Two very important tips:
1) After you pour hot cream over chocolate (or remove hot cream from heat and add chocolate, depending on the recipe), DO NOT STIR for five minutes.
2) When you stir, you must use a whisk.

Now for the recipes!


Recipe 1: Chocolate-Nutella Ganache dipped in melted chocolate and hazelnuts

The first year I made truffles was 2006. I had come home for Christmas break and was rushing to cross-stitch a Christmas ornament for my sister and bake lots of Christmas cookies. As a result, my back had really been hurting, but I was determined to make truffles anyway. I planned with Dad to take Mom out somewhere and keep her out for at least five hours. I think they went to some-or-other Christmas party, and maybe to a movie. My sister was out and about, too.

Essence of the recipe: Make ganache by pouring hot cream (mixed with butter and corn syrup) over chocolate. Refrigerate ganache until you can roll it into balls. Roll it into balls. Refrigerate. Dip in melted chocolate and crushed hazelnuts. Refrigerate. Makes three full boxes of truffles and a gigantic mess.

Honestly, it was my first year, and I didn't quite know what I was getting myself into. My back was so sore that I had to sit down most of the time. The balls went straight from the melted chocolate to the chopped hazelnuts, and you can imagine what a mess that left. By the time I was finished, there was melted chocolate everywhere, even on the sink faucet, and I was much too sore to clean it up. I put a sign on the front door to my dad and/or my sister, asking whichever one of them got home first to clean up the kitchen and please not let Mom see it. My sister was the first to come home, and she took the sign down and cheerfully set to work. I don't know if she'll read this, but if she does, THANK YOU again!! Now you have a place in the truffle-making legends. :-)

Recipe 2: Chocolate-Hazelnut Ganache dipped in melted chocolate

The next two years, I made these, or some variation of them. They aren't round like most truffles, but they're truffles nonetheless. They also don't make quite so much mess, at least if you're doing it by yourself.

By this point I had learned a few things:
1) It's a good idea to put wax paper on the surface you're working on, especially when you're dipping the truffles.
2) Don't chill the truffle balls on a cookie sheet. They will roll off, or at least they'll try. I like to use a 9 x 13" glass pan lined with parchment paper (tape it in). You may need two pans after dipping, so the truffles aren't crowded.
3) The candy dippers really are necessary (though not for Recipe 1). A spoon just doesn't work--it wastes a lot of chocolate, and the coating doesn't look as good.
4) If extra chocolate drips harden on the parchment paper with the truffles, you can use a small sharp knife (straight, not serrated) to trim the edges of the truffles. Then you get to eat all the scraps.

Essence of the recipe: Make ganache, add chopped hazelnuts, and refrigerate mixture until you can roll it into balls. Roll it into balls. Press a whole hazelnut into the top of each ball. Refrigerate. Dip in melted chocolate. Refrigerate.

Recipe 3: Not-Really-Truffles

By 2009, I wanted to try a new recipe, and I did some more Google searching, but the above two were the only ones that didn't contain coffee or liqueur. I did, however, find a recipe for not-really-truffles that was mostly made of Nutella. Since it didn't need chopped hazelnuts, I figured it would be fun to try.

Essence of the recipe: Mix a jar of Nutella with dark chocolate, honey, and a bit of ghee. Refrigerate until you can roll it into balls. Roll into balls. Refrigerate. Dip in chocolate. Refrigerate.

The recipe called for ghee, which is clarified butter and is often used in India. It's basically butter that has had most of the water cooked off of it (butter is 15% water). The recipe only called for a tablespoon of ghee, and for such a small amount, I didn't want to spend $5 for ghee at a specialty foods store, nor did I want to try to make clarified butter on my own. I substituted unsalted butter instead (after a lot of internet searching to try to determine the proper substitute).

When it came time to roll the truffles into balls, I found that (surprise!) they were too watery. So I took each ball, squeezed out the extra liquid, patted it with a paper towel, and made it hold together (sort of) long enough for me to get it on the parchment paper to chill. I was a bit disappointed, because they didn't have the texture I had hoped for, but of course it's not ganache, so that's understandable. They were still delicious. These are probably the easiest of the bunch, except that it was really hard to get them to hold together. I suppose you really do have to use ghee.

Truffle Kit

As mentioned above, I made Mom a truffle kit this past Christmas. Ingredients: Toasted skinned hazelnuts (7 oz), a pound of dark chocolate, a small jar of Nutella, three 1/2 pound candy boxes, and mini cupcake wrappers.

We had a blast making Recipe 1 (the right way this time, with much less mess) and retelling all the stories. When we dipped the chocolates, we avoided the mess by lining the counter with wax paper and by having two people doing it. Mom used the candy dipper or her fingers to dip the truffle in the melted chocolate, and then she dropped it in the hazelnuts, where I covered it with hazelnuts using a spoon and lifted it out with a spoon or my fingers to put it on the drying sheet. They came out looking very nice, and with two people, we could each keep one clean hand. It was so much easier than I remembered! It also helped that the hazelnuts were pre-skinned and toasted.

 

Storage: After you make the truffles, you should keep them refrigerated. I make an exception for the time they're sitting wrapped under the Christmas tree, but I wrap them at the last minute and make sure they're opened within a few hours so they can go in the fridge. Mom usually puts them in the freezer so that she can have them once in a while for a special treat. Thaw before eating. They don't taste good frozen.

Dog Cookies

 

Here's a recipe for Christmas cookies for dogs. I got it from a newspaper article last year. You can make them year-round, but it's so cute to make them at Christmas time with Christmas cookie cutters. You don't need an electric mixer for these--just a spoon and your hands--so they're easy to do. (You do need a rolling pin and cookie cutters, though, or at least some makeshift substitute.)

I usually use small cookie cutters to yield more cookies. This year Mom asked for some bigger ones, because one of her friends has a really large dog. I reached for the mid-sized Christmas tree, but Mom said, "Don't you want them to eat people?" So I made medium-sized gingerbread men instead.

I was going to mention that our dog doesn't like these cookies, but this year she proved us wrong:

 
 
 

She doesn't really like food, though. She's a terrier mix, and my theory is that she prefers live game, when she can get it. But as for these cookies--all the other dogs in the neighborhood like them, and our dog really does try hard to like them. One of our neighbors actually requested these this year, so it seems they're popular.

These cookies are made with whole wheat flour. DO NOT use any bleached white flour, because dogs' stomachs can't tolerate it. (Most white flour is bleached, unless you buy specially unbleached flour.) If you use bleached white flour, it will probably be on your pastry cloth, so clean it off first, or roll the dough out on something else.

These cookies are healthy for dogs. They have pumpkin, which dogs like (it calms their stomachs), and lots of fiber, and they don't have any sugar or much fat. People can eat these cookies too, if they want to.


Dog Cookies

1 cup canned pumpkin (not pie filling!)
1 cup water
3-4 tablespoons canola or safflower oil
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups oats
1 dash nutmeg
3 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour (the recipe says cake flour, though I'm not sure why. It also says to substitute another flour if the dog is allergic to wheat.)

Combine pumpkin, water, oil, cinnamon, oats and nutmeg in a big bowl. Add enough flour so that you can't stir the dough any more. Turn out the dough onto a pastry cloth heavily floured with whole wheat flour, and knead the dough (adding the rest of the flour as you go) until the dough is able to be rolled. (If it sticks to a floured rolling pin and a floured pastry cloth, you can't roll it out. Keep adding flour and kneading until it's less sticky.)

Roll dough out to 1/4" thick. Cut out with cookie cutters and put on an ungreased cookie sheet. (If you use parchment paper, you won't have to grease the cookie sheet or wash it sheet afterwards.) They don't really expand, so they can be almost touching each other.

Bake 40 minutes at 375 degrees. You can leave them at room temperature for a few days (in a plastic bag or other container.) For longer than that, put them in the fridge for a few days or, beyond that, in the freezer.

Pepparkakor (Swedish Gingerbread)

These are so much fun, especially with children. I have many fond memories of making pepparkakor. Before I share the recipe, here are some things I've learned over the years to make it work well. Some of this is just common sense and some of it is experience. Maybe it'll save you a bit of time, money, and frustration. But feel free to skip to the recipe if you want.

The dough must be cold for you to roll it out. That means you get out your container-the-dough-was-chilled in, take out a lump, and put the container back in the fridge before you roll out your dough. When you've cut out all the cookies you can cut out, put the scraps back in the fridge. If you try to roll them out again, you'll get a sticky mess. Use a freshly chilled lump instead.

Do not try to make a double batch of this dough unless you have an industrial size mixer. You will get a floury mess (and perhaps a broken mixer). A single batch makes plenty of dough, enough to keep you busy for hours.

Also, do not decorate the cookies with the cookie sheets on the stove (unless you have one of those completely flat stoves with no crevices). The sprinkles will get into the crevices on the stove. When you cook dinner on the stove, the sprinkles will melt and you will have a very colorful mess that is nonetheless very difficult to clean up. Put the cookie sheets on an easily cleaned counter or table so that you can wipe all the sprinkles off when you are done. It took us years to learn this, though I'm not quite sure why.

We never decorate our pepparkakor with icing, although you can do that after you bake the cookies. We decorate the cookies before we bake them using colored sugar (Mom's favorite), sprinkles (my favorite), and mini M & Ms (to which nobody objects). My sister likes to use colored sugar to give all the gingerbread boys blue pants and red shirts, and all the Christmas trees get green sugar with a yellow M & M on top for the star. The gingerbread girls get pink dresses, the stars get yellow, and the holly leaves get green. I'm not quite so methodical. I think sprinkles taste better, anyway.

Buy your sprinkles off-season if you can. After the holidays, you can find holiday-themed sprinkles at a steep discount. (After Halloween, I got some chocolate sprinkles, leaves, and orange sugar for 75% off.) You can often find multi-sectioned containers of sprinkles (at reasonable prices) at Ross, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods, in the food aisle. Do not bother getting nonpareils (the little round balls, either white or multi-colored). They don't stick to the cookies. We've tried many times. (But you can press them into the centers of these cookies instead of nuts, and they'll stay there. It's the only use I've found for them yet.)

You will not get all the sugar and sprinkles on the cookies, no matter how hard you try, and some of your sprinkles will roll off. You can, however, reuse sprinkles. Bake your cookies on parchment paper, and after you've taken the cookies off, lift the parchment paper and guide the sprinkles left behind into a small bowl. Now you have multi-colored sugar-sprinkles mix that can be used just like regular sugar or sprinkles. I like putting it on stars and snowflakes, because it's cheery. To make it easier to use your sugar-sprinkles mix, put it into an empty sprinkles container and shake it on from there.

(Note: Parchment paper is a fantastic invention. It's paper that you can put on your cookie sheets instead of greasing them. You can use it over and over again, until it starts looking brown or yellowish around the edges, and you never have to wash your cookie sheets, because the cookies never touch the sheets. You can also lay out your cookies on parchment paper while the cookie sheet is in the oven baking more cookies, but I wouldn't decorate them until they're actually on the cookie sheet, because the sprinkles may fall off as you transfer it.)

I prefer using small cookie cutters. The cookies are very thin, and the smaller the cookies are, the less likely they are to break when you store or transport them. Mom sometimes quarrels with me on this--she still likes using the big cookie cutters sometimes--but she can't deny that the big ones break more easily. So the small cookie cutters are much better.

Get your cookie cutters off-season, too. Last year we found some lovely ones at Michaels a few days after Christmas. I think we got 20 small ones for $2. Joann's also has baking supplies. If you do small cookies, you will want to invest in some cookie cooling sheets that have a cross-hatch pattern (not just lines straight across), so that the cookies don't fall through and break. Michaels and Joann's often have 40% off coupons in their circular.

Since you roll out the dough very thin, some of the unbaked cookies will not transfer well to the cookie sheet. This is inevitable, although it's more likely if the dough is getting warm. Make sure your pastry cloth or work surface is well floured (along with your rolling pin and hands), and dip cookie cutters in flour before cutting out cookies. You can use a small metal spatula to help transfer cookies, but some of the shapes just don't do well--I remember having particular trouble with the dalarna horse and the reindeer, since their legs are so thin. If a cookie fails, put it in a lump to the side and return it to the fridge the next time you get the container out.


Pepparkakor (Swedish Gingerbread)

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses

3 1/2 cups sifted flour (or spooned LOOSELY into measuring cups and leveled with a flat knife. Do not shake measuring cups as you spoon flour in, because this packs it in tighter.)
2 teaspoons soda
1 1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt

In mixer, mix together sugar, shortening, butter, eggs, and molasses. Sift together dry ingredients (or--sorry, Grandma, but I never use a sifter--combine them in a separate bowl using a whisk) and stir into sugar mixture. Cover and chill several hours or overnight.

Heat oven to 375 degrees. On lightly floured board or pastry cloth, roll out a small amount of dough about 1/8 inch thick. (Keep remaining dough refrigerated.) Cut with floured cookie cutters. Place on ungreased baking sheet. Decorate with colored sugar and sprinkles if desired. Bake 6-8 minutes. Caution--they burn easily. (After they cool, you can decorate them with icing if you haven't already decorated them.)