The Urge to Cook

This comes over me in a big way every once in a while, and I don't really know why. Perhaps it's the weather, perhaps it's a way of dealing with stress, possibly I'm trying to avoid doing other things. At any rate, when it hits me I just have to cook.

The last couple of days have been cooking days. I started simple. In the U.S., we have a product called "Bisquick." It's a baking mix that contains flour, shortening, baking powder, sugar, salt and buttermilk. It's easy, because you just add milk and eggs in various proportions and can whip up a batch of biscuits or pancakes.

I made my one recently with a few changes: oil instead of solid shortening, partial whole-wheat flour, non-chemical baking powder, and plopped it into a couple of plastic bags that I keep in the fridge. It takes care of the measuring of a variety of ingredients, so you can whip something up pretty quick.

The first two days of my "binge" I made biscuits with butterscotch chips, then refined it a bit to add slightly more vanilla sugar and used raisins instead of the butterscotch. They took less than five minutes to mix and were done baking in 15.

But, I wasn't satisfied. The next day I came up with a new recipe for a butter cake, really just a simple pound cake, but instead of using all white flour, I put in a cup of corn flour which gave it a nice crunchy crust.

Still, I needed to cook more, so yesterday I pulled out all the stops: first, I decided to make a meatloaf. I had a variety of pieces of beef, pork and veal in the freezer that individually weren't enough for a meal for two, but were perfect when run through the food processor. I made enough for yesterday and today, then froze the rest for another day.

Then, I found this great recipe for a no-knead bread in the New York Times. I just had to try that. It takes practically no effort to make, but it does need to rise for about 18 to 20 hours. So, extreme patience was called for.

After that, I decided I was craving pumpkin. No canned pumpkin here in France, so if you want it, you've got to cook it. The pumpking at the primeur was BIG, so no way could I buy the whole thing. But, Jean-Paul will cut a piece to order, so I got about 4 pounds worth, came home, cleaned out the yucky bits and popped slices into the oven to bake for about an hour. Afterwards, I scooped it out, mashed it and I had about 8 cups of pumpkin, enough for about four recipes of pumpkin pie. I put it into 2 cup containers, froze three and kept one out for baking.

This morning, the urge hadn't gone, so it was back down to the kitchen. First, I needed to do the next step on that bread, and got it ready for baking after lunch.

Next, I came up with a recipe for a Pumpkin Quick Bread, which came out quite well. I mixed that up, got it into the oven and then looked around for something else to cook! Here's the recipe:

Pumpkin Quick Bread Recipe #rz.61729

Pumpkin pie, but in a bread!

by Possumgirl

20

servings

2

l0aves

1 hour 15 min prep

2	cups pumpkin, pureed (fresh or canned)
12	ounces sweetened condensed milk
1	cup sour cream or fromage blanc
1	cup brown sugar
1	teaspoon vanilla
1	teaspoon cinnamon
1/2	teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4	teaspoon ground ginger
1	teaspoon salt
2 1/2	teaspoons baking powder
2 1/2	cups all-purpose flour
1	cup cornflour
2	eggs
1/2	cup raisins
1/2	cup dried cranberries

1. Stir together pumpkin, milk, sour cream, eggs and vanilla until blended.
2. Mix in raisins, cranberries and spices.
3. Add corn flour and blend well.
4. Mix salt and baking powder with all-purpose flour, then blend into the rest of the batter.
5. Stir until all ingredients are moistened.
6. Pour into two lightly greased loaf pans (or silicone pans that have been moistened with a little water) and place in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes or until tester in center comes out dry.
7. If using silicone molds, let cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from the pans.

I still had about 8 of the apples we bought at the Mirepoix apple festival a few weeks ago; they definitely needed to be used soon, so I peeled, cored, sliced added in a couple of absolutely luscious pears and some raisins and made a nice apple compote.

Finally, it was time to bake that bread. I haven't tasted it yet, but I do have to say that it looks astonishing. If it tastes anywhere near as good as it looks, that recipe will become a keeper for sure.

Okay. I guess I'm cooked out for the time being.

Ciao for now.

Randy