Spinach and Artichoke Dip on bread. Dip in bowl. Dip da dip dip dippity do

Ohhhh my goodness. I am finally done with the season of Girls on GIRLS. Although we will be rolling out cocktail-making segments soon.
And in between doing a bunch of live shows that ran the gamut from improv to sketch to contortion for comedy, I decided to pull out some of the posts I had had in my drafts for a while. This is one of them. A recipe I’ve enjoyed enough to make more than once. That’s a big compliment from me because having to vet new cookbooks leaves little time for old favorites. The genius work of Joy the Baker keeps me coming back.

Here’s the deal:
I LOVE a sandwich. I cannot dislike anything involving ample carbohydrates.

Here’s the other deal with a sandwich though:
I only love it if I can eat it on a plate with a knife and fork so I can deconstruct and reconstruct as I like. Here, a bite of the whole sandwich, there, a forkful of filling. Then a leftover bit of bread from where I swiped the filling. That I may butter.

The third and final deal with a sandwich is that I rarely actually eat things that are supposed to be served on carbs ON the said carbs. I devour bowls of spicy salsa with a spoon pretty much daily. It is not so different from gazpacho right? Then I butter the chips.
And I rarely eat the cheese on cheese plates atop the slices of baguette that come with it. I nibble each bit of fromage individually. The better to really taste the cheese, my dear. Then I butter the baguette.

So I made this dip and enjoyed deconstructing a sandwich made with it, and still had leftover dip to gobble from a bowl. And at some point I ran out of bread but I always keep back-up butter.

Take home lesson from this blog post is this: ALWAYS HAVE BACKUP BUTTER.

Spicy Spinach and Artichoke Dip/Spread adapted from this recipe by Joy the Baker
Olive oil spray
1/2 tsp. chopped garlic
A few handfuls if baby spinach
2 pieces of whole wheat bread
1 Tbsp. cream cheese
2 oz. Swiss cheese, shredded
3/4 c. Chopped artichoke hearts
Pinch of fleur de sel
1 heaping Tbsp. Cottage cheese, mashed with a fork until relatively smooth
1 1/2 tsp. Sriracha
Butter
Spray a pan with the oil and sauté the garlic a bit then add the spinach, an cook just until wilted. Take off heat. Spread the bread slices with the cream cheese. Stir together the spinach mixture, Swiss cheese, artichoke hearts, fleur de sel, cottage cheese, and Sriracha. Heap as much as you want on top of cream cheese on one piece of bread, (save the rest for another sandwich, or if you are like me, eating out of a bowl) and top with other slice of bread, cream cheese side down. Spread outside of sandwich with butter and cook Ina skillet on each side until browned to your liking. Because it is all about you.

Triple Your Everything

Except nipples. Stick with two. If you have three, that’s all well and okay, but I’d only pierce the principle two.

Just to clear up any confusion I only have two nipples. And piercings.

So I’ve been pretty busy. My improv team has been booking more gigs outside of our weekly performance.

Auditions are back up and running.

I’m harloting around to casting director workshops like crazy in the name of ye olde pilot season.

Still reading and writing like a maniac for Hello Giggles.

AND most importantly Alice and I are planning our next pie party and boy is the theme of it this time a doozy. Let’s just say that my inner goth cook is hard at work.

So I’m busy. Ergo I am presenting you with a simple sandwich. I have a lot of random thoughts about/inspired by this recipe:

I’m not sure if it is an amazing recipe so much as fun. Maybe not amazing but WORTH IT.

I think everything is better with butter.

There are people who like grape jelly and people who like strawberry.
Of course I prefer blackberry or raspberry because I am persnickety. But will always take grape over strawberry. I think what you are raised with will always be the preference.

I was skeptical as to whether a slice of toast would do much for a sandwich, but then remembered how Bill Cosby used to put potato chips in his sandwiches, so I thought maybe crunch would be good.

It was. But I wanted to double the creamy to play against the crunch. So I did. Double the amount of PB and J initially called for. I adore the looks of this sandwich. It is so…architectural.

PBJ Triple from the allrecipes app
1 piece of bread toasted and cooled
2 slices untoasted bread
4 Tbsp. Peanut butter
4 Tbsp jam
Spread jam on one side of untoasted bread. Spread pb on either side of toasted. Make a sandwich. I hope you are capable of figuring it out.

I confirm the subscription of this blog to the Paperblog service under the username ellenclifford

It is not pudding: part one

It is not pudding. It is a pudding. In the British pudding-as-generic-word-for-dessert way.
Pudding is to British as coke is to some areas of the USA. The South?

If you say “coke” for all soda types tell me and let me know where you are from. Seriously lurkers. Do.

Anthropologist, linguist, and actor. That’s me.

I first made this for a very important reason:
Because it is pretty. And I like soggy bread.

Really.

I make it a lot now every summer because it’s friggin’ Delicious.

No, I am not against the word “Delicious” in my writing.
I know blogsnobs shun Delicious as unoriginal.
I, however have no huge need to prove my vocabular worth here. At least in this blog entry. Please excuse the fact that The Gruel page has a section devoted to Brain Food.

I tried really hard to pimp out the cute factor on this pretty pudding but had some difficulty. I’m really not a very good photographer. Still, the image at the top of the post is better than my first shot:

No?
For those of you nervous about a molded dessert, this is not hard. But there will be an easier version of this coming at you this weekend. Hold yer horses.

Berry Pudding(adapted from this Bon Appetit recipe)

1 cup blueberries
2 cups raspberries
1/4 cup sugar
About 6 slices bread(gluten-free folks use your bread of choice)
2 tbsp. butter

Line a bowl with plastic wrap leaving enough overhang to be able to fold over the top. I used my 4-cup measuring cup. Why use a rounded bowl, I like an architectural dessert.
Butter your bread.
Cook and stir the berries, sugar, and a tablespoon or so of water over medium heat, letting sugar dissolve.
Stir and mash berries a little bit whilst heating. Then bring to a boil and let cook until thickened, between 5 and 10 minutes.
Use bread to line the measuring cup, butter side up. Pour in berry mixture, then top that with any remaining bread, butter side down.
Fold overhanging plastic over bread. Put a plate on top and a can on that to weight it.
Chill at least 12 hours until your bread is good and purple, then un-mold.
Delight in the splendor of purple buttery bread.

You get a B

I don’t get B’s. I’m anal, dammit.
That’s anal with an A.
I get A’s.

In high school, the teacher of my A-earning, type-A calculus class gave us all “mid-semester grades” supposedly to tell us how we were doing. I think it was B+’s he gave us.

We all flipped the fuck out for the next 24 hours. Next day in class he told us he did that because we were all so neurotic and stressed and he hoped we would realize there are more important things in life.

Weirdo.

It didn’t work. We just badgered him to assure us we were not in fact getting B+’s.

I will give you B’s you want. Four B’s in fact, because I am a generous soul.

I giving you Banana Bread and Beer Bread.

But this blog entry BETTER get an A.

I made the banana bread for a friend’s birthday. Lucky him.
Banana bread(slightly adapted from Cook’s Illustrated)
1 1/2 c. Flour
1/2 c. Wheat bran
10 Tbsp. Sugar
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3 mashed bananas
1/4 c. Plain yogurt(I used Greek)
2 eggs beaten a little
3 Tbsp. melted butter, cooled
3 heaping Tbsp. applesauce
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/2 oz. dark chocolate, grated(I used a Dove bar)
Put oven rack in lower-middle and preheat to 350. Line a 9×5 pan with nonstick foil and spray.
Mix flour, bran, baking soda and salt. Mix in chocolate.
In another bowl mix everything else. Fold mixtures together but don’t over-mix! Lest thy bread be squat and whatever the opposite of tender is. Blanking on the word I want.
Put it in yer pan and bake until the venerable kitchen toothpick comes out clean. Depending in your oven this may take more or less time.

Now loaf deux:

I made Beer Bread because my improv amigos left a ton of beer in my fridge. I hate beer. No one brought wine, alas. So bread seemed like a good way to get rid of at least one bottle…at least there were no PBR’s.

I didn’t love this, honestly because it was a bit too beer-y. I put butter on it and it grew on me. And if you do like beer, you’ll like this…
Beer Bread(from 75th Anniversary edition of The Joy of Cooking by Irma S Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
2 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups beer( I used Sam Adams Octoberfest-Joy specifies not using a stout), room temp(Joy says cold or room temp, just not flat)
Heat up yer oven. 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Mix everything but the beer. If you like beer sneak a sip or two first. If you don’t, hold your nose and hope the nasty beery-ness cooks off. Sip wine instead.
Fold in beer until moistened but don’t overstir. Put in a greased 8×4 pan and bake until you can stick a toothpick in the center and it comes out clean, 30-ish minutes.

What’s your favorite quick bread?

Waffle Week Day 4: housewife waffles

Today we are waffling French toast! It’s like the ultimate lazy person’s way to waffle.
Or the harried housewife’s genius, clever way to impress her husband. Her children who will compliment her cooking then go brush their teeth without having to be told to, whilst the hubby tells her she’s perfect and he’s going to give her a little extra pin money this week. Go out with the girls and have a malted, honey.
At least, this is the sort of scenario I imagine reading vintage cookbooks.
Sounds goddawful.

I made this from the General Foods Kitchens Cookbook

Written by The Women of General Foods Kitchens.

Because the Men of the Kitchens were busy dicking off.

This cookbook is a 1959 treasure, it is. A 50’s housewife cookbook. I love these because occasionally when stressed I have the fantasy that I’d be perfectly content to stay home and look pretty and cook meals for a man. But really, I wouldn’t. I’d get bored.

Although I do like to cook for the men in my life.

Incidentally, that is a bit of limoncello in the shot glass in the picture. To be sipped, not shot.

I’m ladeeeee!

Mad Men waffles, anyone? Good lord, if only I was making these for Jon Hamm. Not even as his wife, but as his fellow St. Louis native turned actor buddy. That sounds good…

Bread n’ Butter Waffles(adapted from The General Food’s Kitchens Cookbook)bread(duh)
Butter(ditto that)
3/4 cup almond milk
dash of salt
1 egg, slightly beaten
Butter your bread and mix the remaining ingredients. Dip bread in mixture then cook on waffle iron. Awesomeness abounds.