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

Radish, butter, salt

It’s just that simple. Cut radish in half. Spread with butter. Sprinkle with fleur de sel.
In other exciting news, I wrote the America’s Test Kitchen podcast with a question and friggin’ got to talk on the phone to Christopher Kimball and Bridget Lancaster. If they air it I’ll link up that shiznit.
There is also this:

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.

Waffle week day 5: Cause I could

I used leftover egg/milk mixture from my housewife waffles to waffle-ify a cracker. A bran cracker. Oddly good. With butter. Duh.

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.

Butter on French fries

Insane work plus my mom in town lead me not to cook anything new this weekend, and I have some posts ready to go but wanted to share this bit if brilliance that happened last night when the waiter cleared all but fries and butter:
Putting butter in thick cut, not very greasy, salty fries.
Yeah, do it.
Really.
In more important news:
Go Cardinals!

cherry pie. that is all.

Growing up I often made my dad a cherry pie for his late August birthday. He liked that over cake. Birthday pie? Getting edgy there, papa.
Since moving from the midwest to LA I’ve missed this excuse for summer pie making.
As luck would have it both for me and the recipient, I had a request here in LA for cherry pie for an early September birthday. Nice coincidence. Well done, universe.
I decided to get equally daring. You wager birthday pie? I’ll take that and add trying a new recipe to the pot. Read it and weep. Actually hopefully we eat it and both win.
But then again, cooking from Baking Illustrated, by those perfectionist freaks at Cook’s Illustrated is hardly taking a risk.
All the same I was nervous.
Normally I am a shortening pie crust girl. All the way. But the Baking Illustrated crust called for a mix of butter and shortening, salt and…sugar? I put in 1 1/2 tablespoons instead of their 2. One thing I love about baking is that it is part chemistry and part instinct. Normally I ignore instinct and follow Cook’s Illustrated recipes to a T because they are so well tested but I just don’t think pie crust should be sweet.

Don’t get me wrong-if you are a butter pie crust lover this crust is the penultimate. It is balanced, buttery, understated-ly sweet, and A DREAM to roll out. Plus it is lithe, supple, easy-going, not sticky. I’d date this crust.

I think I simply prefer the slightly salty taste of my shortening crusts better. Which is shocking considering butter is like my best friend. Except for being fattier and less talkative.
I want to give butter another chance in crust. In the future I think I’ll try this recipe leaving out the sugar and adding a tad more salt than the teaspoon Cook’s Illustrated calls for.
As for the filling, the one thing they are exacting on, and right about, was going the extra mile to get jarred Morello cherries. Not only are they more beautiful than the canned ones I normally use, they also taste better. This meant having to brave the Silver Lake Trader Joe’s. I want to like TJ’s. Really I do. But their parking, produce, and aisle traffic suck. And I can never find everything I want there. I think I am the only person I know who just can’t get with that store. I am so not hip.
Normally I’ve made cherry pies with tapioca as the thickener but Cook’s Illustrated uses cornstarch. Cornstarch made the pie awfully thick. Maybe it is nostalgia but I think its nice to have a bit of ooze to a fruit pie.
They do use the almond extract in the filling. Gotta have that. But they also use some cinnamon. The plot thickens! I tasted once I mixed it all up and added a dash of the secret ingredient I add to my Thanksgiving pies. You either have to be awesome or named Eleanor for me to give up that secret.
The verdict is that this pie was not bad, but not the best. I’m gonna have to redeem myself as master pie maker…
Questions for you:
What sort of pie crust do you prefer?
Do you like(love?) Trader Joes?
Do you have secret, or trademark ingredients you use?