The Dinner Files

My son’s class had a harvest festival yesterday right after the Halloween parade.* I was asked to bring a foodstuff, a dish, a treat, if you will, that both represented the fall harvest and fit the school district’s new food and snack policy which is at once draconian in its ban of cupcakes and probably a good idea based on how many Safeway cupcakes I saw make their way through the school’s door last year.

You know I wasn’t going to bring Safeway cupcakes anyway. I did run through the gamut of fall produce-laden baked goods: pumpkin bread, carrot “muffins” (really just unfrosted carrot cupcakes), squash rolls. persimmon pudding…. And then realized that all the other parents would take that sweeter, more delicious road, and decided to make something in which the fall harvest item was still somewhat obvious instead of mashed up, sweetened, and hidden.

So I seeded and peeled and chopped a fairly large butternut squash (it weighed in at about 3 pounds), tossed it in a mix of 2 tablespoons each soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and brown sugar thinned with 3 tablespoons water. These were then spread on a baking sheet, covered, and baked at 375 for almost 30 minutes; then uncovered and roasted until things got very tender and just a bit glazed, which took another 30 minutes. I transferred them to a platter to bring to the school and drizzled the bits of glaze-y stuff from the pan over the top.

The teachers really liked it.

I’m thinking any winter squash you can peel would work, and sake or white wine could stand in for the vinegar just fine, too. This squash – just a bit sweet but full of fiber and antioxidants and all goods things – would make a good, nutritious base – along with some (brown) rice and stir-fried tofu or chicken or something – before heading out into the night to indulge.

Note: As often is the case, a recipe-style recipe is over at Local Foods.

* The parade was pretty awesome. All the kids were in a circle around the playground and each class took a turn parading around the inside of the giant circle while music played and the principal – dressed as the school mascot, in a full-on monkey suit – danced his pants off (no, not literally!)  in the middle. The kids’ costumes were fun to see, and I was impressed by the sheer number of ninjas who showed up, but the best part was watching the principal really work that monkey costume.

Dinner was pizza at Piccino. We sat outside–yes it’s been just that nice–and watched people arrive for a Halloween party across the street. Pirates seemed to be a very popular costume. We ate out because it was just so lovely out and reports predict an end to this glorious summer weather sometime soon. Every day the prediction is it will all end tomorrow. And yet it doesn’t end. I know I’m not going to get any sympathy for this, but it gets exhausting enjoying the last of the good weather every day…. But I digress. We ate out because of the weather but also because of how I spent the afternoon:

Ernie and I baked cupcakes for the cake walk at a field trip fund raising festival at his school today. And public schools need every cupcake they can get. So we baked four dozen. Then I let him chose how he wanted to decorate them from this awesome book “Hello Cupcake” my aunt gave me. It has fairly easy decorating ideas that use cut up candy and some simple piping. We decided on the spider theme.

It seemed reasonable. Melt some chocolate, draw little spiders a la the template in the book, use M+Ms as the bodies…. And I suppose if Ernie had the use of both hands (his right arm is in a cast from a run-in with some monkey bars), or if it hadn’t been hot enough out to keep the chocolate from re-melting 2 seconds after I took the spiders out of the freezer, or if I’d remembered what a pain in the ass boiled frosting is it might have all gone as expected. Instead we had a lot of broken spider legs, one bored kindergartener, and one mom swearing off all future cake walk contributions.

My solace: Ernie plans to try and win a plate of our cupcakes this afternoon.

My concern: It’s nice again today. Nice enough to melt spiders left in the sun.

I don’t actually know how high the corn is around here this year. What I do know is that my awesome Aunt Nancy made these “corncob” cupcakes for dessert. She takes no credit, saying she got the idea from a book. Either way, we loved them.

I had coffee with a friend yesterday. She, too, is part of the food world–writing away and developing recipes and whatnot. We spent a moment–just a moment, mind you!–bemoaning the fresh, simple, ingredient-driven, Italy/Southern France-inspired cuisine that dominates our fair city of San Francisco. It’s all great, of course, but once in awhile you want someone to dazzle you with something you’ve never seen before, and I don’t mean yet another variety of Mediterranean green. I want something weird. Something not a variety of something else. Something I’ve never dreamed of. Something amazing.

And yet, between the two of us, I don’t think you could find more “simply prepared asparagus and peas” (as she so deftly put it) if you tried.

And after all my yackety-yack, what did I cook? Well, see for yourself:

Yep, those are some late-spring, early-summer vegetables. Simply “braised” in olive oil and water (water! of all things simple!) with some fresh herbs (let’s not get too cliché… oh wait, it’s way too late for that) and served on polenta. What is it? 1985? But you know, it was just right for a Thursday on a sunny day that had turned into a clear-but-windy night in San Francisco. It was also fast. It’s such a crowd-pleaser I already posted the recipe (such as it is) over at local foods.

p.s. The carrot cupcakes were a hit (although they had a bit of that metallic thing chemically-risen baked goods can get–I’ll play with the proportions a bit). Cooking with 16 4- and 5-year olds is insane. They really like to stir. A lot. Next time I’m just bringing bowls of flour and water for them to work on. They also like to stick their fingers in their noses and mouths. A lot. More than once did I say “Calum/Serafina/Shai/Jacob/Vaughn, go wash your hands” and then 30 seconds later look over and say it all over again.

Does that ever happen to you? Once in a moon-so-blue-it’s-turquoise does it happen to me. I ate some stuff–mainly “sportler brot” (“fitness bread”! it says so on the label!) from Ester’s German Bakery via our neighborhood co-op and some goat gouda cheese (remind me to tell you about the time my French exchange family took me to Holland and we went to Gouda–oh, the fun we had!)–but not any dinner. Instead I was busy developing a dairy-free, egg-free carrot cake to turn into cupcakes today with Ernie’s preschool class.

Dairy-free and egg-free because that’s how things roll these days. Between allergies and politics, cooking and other people’s kids is a tricky business.

Carrot cake because they planted and grew carrots in their garden and they’ve already prepared them every other way anyone can think of.

Me because I volunteered to come in and do a baking project because otherwise I am a very bad parent who doesn’t contribute to the school (except, of course, for the substantial check I write them every month) and selfishly pursues her own career during the time I pay other people to keep my child out of traffic–oh, I mean stimulate his mind, enliven his curiosity, smooth over not-fully-socialized-and-thus-painfully-honest peer interactions, and strengthen his body–all day.

These cupcakes are tasty. Basic and tasty. Cream cheese frosting would set them up just right, but I don’t want the teachers to hate me, which I think they might if I left them with a room full of sugar-fueled pre-schoolers just as “quiet time” rolled around….

Dairy-free, egg-free tender carrot spice cupcakes

1 1/2 cup grated carrot
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 cup cold water
5 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare 18 muffin/cupcake cups (spray with oil, butter, or line with paper).

2. In a small bowl, combine carrots, lemon juice, and salt. Set aside (by letting this sit just a bit the acid in the lemon juice and the salt start to break down and soften the carrot).

3. In a large bowl, combine flour, whole wheat pastry flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg. If you’re cooking with kids, let them use a whisk to stir until the mixture looks homogeneous (in kid-speak: all the same)–I’ve found it’s a big hit. Set aside.

4. In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine water, oil, and vanilla. (Have the kid/s smell the vanilla–they’ll love you for it.)

5. Pour oil mixture into flour mixture. Whisk to combine thoroughly (since there isn’t any egg here you don’t need to worry about over-mixing the batter and having tough cupcakes, so let the little monsters/darlings stir away!). Stir in carrot mixture (again, let them revel in the joy of mixing!).

6. Divide mixture evenly among prepared cups. Bake 10 minutes, switch pan positions, bake until puffed, golden, and a clean toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake emerges clean, about 15 minutes. Let sit on a wire rack until cool.

I wish I didn’t need to say it (isn’t it obvious?), but: © 2008 Molly Watson, just like everything else you see here.

Last night we enjoyed the rest of our faux bubble-squeak creation. As you might have guessed, it was even better the second day–everything got a bit browner and crunchier. Along with it we gorged on a cheese plate (Humbolt Fog, Point Reyes Blue, and some French muenster–it had been a long time since I’d had muenster and MAN did it taste good) and this lovely creation:

Recipe by me, cooked by my new lovely intern. I’d been thinking about setting up an internship for awhile (when I finished cooking school it was restaurant internships or nothing, I went with nothing but would have loved to see recipe work and food writing up close and personal) and my broken-hand syndrome forced the issue.

But the real story here happened before dinner, when Ernie baked cupcakes for his preschool to celebrate his birthday, TODAY! He is five. Five, it ends up, is old enough to pretty much bake cupcakes by yourself–as long as you have someone to deal with the oven and even out the batter in the cups. Oh, and read the “instructions” as Ernie calls them. In terms of batter-licking, though, he required absolutely no help whatsoever.

With some direction, he measured and mixed the dry ingredients, poured in the wet, and mixed it up. He also measured and mixed the chocolatey royal icing we used as a glaze to help the sprinkles adhere and, of course, applied the sprinkles: “two kinds, Mama, I want two kinds of sprinkles.” Ask, my son, and you shall receive.

They turned out pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself.

If you want to make some egg- and dairy-free chocolate cupcakes that are super-moist and yummy, use the batter for this Amazon cake (bake them 20-25 minutes). It just may be the easiest cake to make in the world and I get raves every time I serve it. I stopped telling people how easy it is years ago and started just saying “thanks, yeah, isn’t it great?” We mixed up a triple batch and ended up with 45 cupcakes. We could have gotten to 48 with a bit more planning and measuring, but we only needed 42 (38 for school plus 4 for tonight–more on that tomorrow).