I don’t quite understand the people of the states obsession with dominating the Olympics.
I can not count the number of people who have come up to me and said, “ha, ha, the US is kicking Canada’s butt.” Really, the US is kicking Canada’s butt at Summer Olympics? Most people kick Canada’s butt in the Summer Olympics…in case you didn’t know, it’s mostly Winter up their anyway. And I am not sure Winnipeg even gets a true Summer.
I mean our fricking synchronized swimmers Marie-Pier Boudreau-Gagnon and Isabelle Rampling wore SNOWFLAKES on their swimsuits…for the Summer Olympics. Our athletes are just out there, representing their country(doing the best they can do)for the event(Olympics) that is suppose to promote a sense of world togetherness, not world domination.
This “American” attitude sometimes carries over in many aspects of daily life. Canadians(well most) only care about dominating in hockey(as it should be ). My blog for example. I am often amused by people who ask me if I get mad if someone likes another blog more than mine. Or if I get mad because another blogger got a cookbook deal and I don’t  have one. Um, no.
There are far superior(in my opinion) blogs to mine. Far better photography, more beautiful food styling, more gorgeous food. Good for them. They work hard for what they do and that should be celebrated. It makes me have something to strive for. There is always someone prettier than you, richer than you, thinner than you. The same applies to a food blog.
And as for my food blogging friends with cookbook deals I am beyond excited for them. It’s something that they obviously wanted to do. They went for it and they got it. I on the other hand, haven’t even bothered to write a proposal so why I get upset over someone getting a book deal? It’s like being mad at the lottery winner each week…but don’t bother to buy a ticket(which I should probably start doing).
In striving to do my best and representing my blog, I am usually trying to think of new things to try. I love key lime pie as most people know so I thought, there is lemon pie and lime pie but I rarely see me an orange pie. So I set out to make one. It is basically a tweaked key lime pie recipe so it produces the same texture.
I liked this pie, the crust was a good choice, even if I had to make my own cookies for it. I will however next time try to go with tangerine for just a little more tartness. I think it was the tartness I was missing.

Orange Pie

½  cup fresh squeeze orange juice
1 TBSP fresh lemon juice
¼  cup heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup Mascarpone cheese, room temperature
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
1 to 2 teaspoons finely grated orange zest, divided
5 egg yolks
whipped cream, for garnish
1 Citrus Cookie pie shell(recipe follows)

Whisk sweetened condensed milk with the egg yolks. Whisk in Mascarpone cheese. Stir in whipping cream, orange juice and lemon juice. Stir in 1 to 1 ½  teaspoons orange zest. Pour into a prepared crust and bake at 325° for 15 to 20 minutes.

Citrus Cookie Pie Shell

1 1/3 cup citrus cookie crumbs(run through food processor)
¼ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup plus 2 TBSP unsalted butter, melted

Combine all ingredients. Mix well. Press mixture into bottom and sides of a lightly greased 9 inch pie plate. Bake at 375 degrees for 5 minutes. Cool.

My mom keeps cookies and quick breads in her freezer to take out when people stop by unannounced..and people do that a lot in her little town. Every time I am there some one is just stopping in to say “hi”. So when my In-laws and I were there in July my mother-in-law found it to be the strangest thing that my mom just whipped out two types of cookies from the freezer and put them on a plate. Though not strange to me.
Then we got home. We had some down time and cool weather for July and so the baking itch happened. I had wanted to try to make a pie that was similar to key lime but use oranges(recipe coming in the next week) and I wanted the crust to be a butter citrus cookie. Knowing all to well that this cookie did not exist commercially I searched for a recipe to make it. When my mother-in-law asked me what I was making and I told her and told her why…out came the strange look I saw her give my mother. “You make your own cookies to make a crust?” Not always I told her but I am looking for a certain flavor, so yes, I needed to make them special for this.
I so often forget that not everyone is like me. There is a very good reason Sandra Lee(don’t get me started on that woman) is so popular on the Food Network. Or Rachel Ray for that matter(never had a successful recipe from her btw…though after the 3rd on I stopped trying). People want short cuts, not wanting to extend the cooking process. Well, not all people. Some of us crazies are out there.
Now I am not nearly as bad as I used to be. I had a phase there were I was even making my own ricotta cheese to go into my lasagna…with homemade noodles of course. I creamed my own butter…which I must admit I still do to make a couple cake recipes…comes out soooo nice.
So as not to look totally crazy to my mother-in-law I decided to make the full cookie recipe and fill half of them with the buttercream frosting that was suppose to go with them. I actually prefer these cookies without the buttercream to my surprise.
And the good thing is, these freeze nicely so you can have them in your freezer ready for guest to look at you strangely whenever they stop by.

Citrus Sandwich Cookies

Citrus Cookies

2 cups all purpose flour
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
14 TBSP unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
2 tsp finely grated orange zest

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar at medium speed for 3 minutes. Add egg and zest and beat until combined. Reduce to slow speed and add flour mixture just until well blended. Scrape dough onto a work surface and gather it up into a disk. Wrap the disc in plastic warp and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, until firm(up to 3 days).
Position two racks near the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F. Line tow baking sheets with parchment paper or foil.
Place the chilled dough on a lightly floured work surface and sprinkle lightly with flour. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Using a 1 ½  inch round scalloped cookie cutter, cut out as many cookies possible from the dough.
Transfer dough to baking sheets and bake for 9-11 minutes or until lightly browned on the bottom(not the top).
Transfer the cookies to wire racks and cool completely.

Citrus Filling
¼ cup orange juice
1 TBSP lemon juice
6 TBSP unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 TBSP heavy cream
pinch of salt

In a small nonreactive saucepan, bring the orange and lemon juices to a boil over high heat and boil for 3 to 5 minutes, or until reduced to about q TBSP. Let cool completely.
In a bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat the butter, powdered sugar, cream, slat and cooled citrus juices at medium speed until smooth.
Spread about a tsp of the filling onto the bottom of one of the cookies. Top with another cookie. Press the cookies lightly together. Repeat with the remaining cookies and filing. Serve the cookies at room temperature or chilled.

Adapted from The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle

You are probably stopping by to see what I did for TWD this week, well sadly I didn’t do it. I thought I had granola but apparently not. And since I put it off until Monday night(when it cooled down around these parts) it didn’t get done. But if they are anything like the granola cookies I made awhile back I am sure they are great.
Back to school time is here. The aisles at Target are filled with back to school supplies that I must admit I still go through. It’s been 4 years now since I stopped teaching yet the school supplies still keep sucking me in. I am quite sure I do not need the Sharpie markers, the crayons and the Hello Kitty folder that I bought the other day. But I could not resist.
Most of my teaching friends in Arizona are already back and soon to follow are my Washington teacher friends. It’s the time of year that you love and hate all at the same time as a teacher. You are hopeful(especially if you had the class from hell the year before) that you will have a great year. You are excited to do all the things you said you were going to do last year and didn’t. Excited to do the lesson plans you tagged and put in a folder but didn’t find until the Summer when you were going through stuff. Excited to get your classroom in order. Excited to get back to the school cafeteria tater tots(that might have just been me).
But your oh too short Summer has passed. You have to figure out how in the heck am I going to get myself out of bed at 5:45am when I have been sleeping in every day till 11am? You start to panic slightly when you hear that you are getting “the” kid that gave last years teachers daily headaches and a few more gray hairs than the average 20 something should have.
When I was in Portland in April we went to Powell’s Books. It takes up an entire block. We didn’t drive there(a mistake) as the hotel was not too far and I didn’t figure there was a cookbook there that I didn’t have. LOL. Wrong. For though I had most of the current cookbooks that I wanted they had many a used cookbook that I felt I needed. 17 to be exact. Most of them major old school cookbooks, like Good Housekeeping and Fanny Farmer. I love those kind of books. Made for back in the day when people actually entertained and had dinner parties. My poor husband got stuck dragging those books about 12 blocks and grumbled the whole way.
The other day he asked if I had ever made anything from those books. I had. But it got me going through them again. I was looking at quick breads in the Fanny Farmer Cookbook. All the quick bread recipes didn’t have butter which was interesting to me. In fear that my bread(which turned into muffins) would be too dry I did add some Mascarpone cheese to it. I also added more sugar as 1/3 cup was not cutting it for me! Even with the more sugar these were still on the less sweet side and would make a good back to school treat. If you want to add glaze like I did that is simply 1/3 cup seedless blackberry jelly melted in a saucepan and then add 1 cup powdered sugar. Pour over muffins.

For all you teachers(and principals, counselors, teacher aides, school nurses, etc) heading back into the trenches…hope you have a great school year!

Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
¾ cup peanut butter
1/3 cup plus 2 TBSP Mascarpone cheese
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup whole milk
1 egg, well beaten

1 small jar seedless blackberry jelly(or any jelly of your choice), you will have leftovers

Preheat oven to 350F.
Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl.
Add peanut butter and Mascarpone cheese. Mix until well incorporated.
Add the milk, egg and vanilla. Mix until well incorporated.
Grease and flour a standard muffin pan(I used square ones). Fill each muffin tin up 1/3 of the way full. Add a large TBSP of blackberry jelly. Spread it around with your fingers. Cover the jelly with peanut butter dough. They do not rise very much so you can fill the muffins to almost the top of the muffin hole(leave a little room).
Bake for 20-25 minutes. Test to see if done by using a wooden skewer and inserting it in the middle of the muffin. If it comes out clean(there will be jelly on it though) then you are good to go.

Dough recipe adapted from The Fanny Farmer Cookbook, 1951

So one of the best things about going home, other than of course seeing my darling parents(loving you family) ;) , is raiding my mom’s cupboard for all her homemade jam. My mother’s yard is filled with a myriad of fruit from blackberry bushes to cherry trees she does have quite the variety…she even has a pear tree.
My mother and I share a love for so very few things. When my mother shops for me she always tells me that if it physically repulses her she knows it must be something I like. This is how she has shopped for me for years, it is in her defense, a system that seems to work quite well. But when it comes to food we do share a quite a few loves…nutmeg being one of them. Nutmeg is both my mother and I’s favorite spice. I use it in so many things, both savory and sweet. I feel it is highly underused.
So in my mother’s experimenting in jam making she decided to add nutmeg to her pear jam one year, and oh my, was that a good choice. So whenever I am home I either steal(yes, stealing is wrong kids, don’t do it…leave it to Peabody only to steal jam) or beg to get the pear nutmeg jam and the currant jam. Both of which my mother tries to weasel out of not giving me. She plays the guilt card and I play the guilt card right back…resulting in me getting my jam. I left this time with not one, but two jars of pear nutmeg but just one red currant(so that must be savored).
Fall has been on my mind a lot as of late. I did a Fall Foods shoot and every since then I have been wanting all Fall foods. I even went so far to burn my pumpkin candle. Oh Fall, please hurry up.
With Fall on my mind, my mother’s pear-nutmeg jam came out of the cupboard. I saw a blackberry jam cake(which I have already made a version of that) but this one had a caramel sauce, and I thought that sounded perfect for pears. And it was perfect.
I made my caramel on the light side since I added some jam to the glaze as well and wanted those flavors to not be overpowered by the caramel. You can make your caramel darker, especially if you are not adding jam to the glaze.

Pear-Nutmeg Jam Cake with Pear-Nutmeg Caramel Glaze

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp salt
¾ cup buttermilk
¾ tsp baking soda
1 cup unsalted butter, slightly firm
1 cup superfine sugar
½ cup dark brown sugar
3 large eggs
¾ cup pear-nutmeg jam
½ tsp vanilla extract

Pear-Nutmeg Caramel Glaze(recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 325F. Butter and flour a 9-inch Bundt pan(I used mini ones). Set aside.
In a large bowl whisk together the flour, spices, and salt. Set aside.
Combine buttermilk and baking soda and let stand for 7-8 minutes.
Cut butter into 1-inch pieces and place in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed for 2 minutes, until smooth and lightened in color. Add the superfine sugar, 1 to 2 TBSP at a time, taking 3 to 4 minutes, then add the brown sugar, taking 2-3 minutes. Scrape the bowl down.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition, then blend in the preserves and vanilla.
Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk mixture, dividing the flour into three parts and the buttermilk into two parts, beginning and ending with the flour. Mix just until blended after each addition. Scrape down the side of the bowl as needed.
Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, smooth top with the back of a spatula and bake for 1 hour and 15-20 minutes. The mini ones took about 40-45 minutes. The cake will be done when the top is firm and the sides begin to release, and a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack for 20 minutes.
While cake is cooling, prepare the glaze. When ready to glaze cake, invert it onto the rack, gently lift off the pan, and place the rack on a rimmed cookie sheet.
Immediately pour the glaze over the warm cake. Work quickly as glaze begins to harden as soon as it is  poured on the cake.

Pear-Nutmeg Caramel Glaze

¼ cup superfine sugar
¼ tsp lemon juice
¼ cup heavy cream
1 cup strained powdered sugar
1/3 cup pear-nutmeg jam

Have ready a pastry brush and glass of cold water. Combine the superfine sugar and the lemon juice in an 8-inch skillet set over low heat. (Wet the brush and gently brush the sides of the pan occasionally to remove any stray sugar crystals)
Continue to cook the sugar on low heat until it is melted and turns a caramel color(I went for a less darker color). As the edges begin to deepen in color, do not stir the syrup. Instead, carefully tilt the skillet and slowly swirl the syrup around the pan until it is evenly browned. Remove from the heat and add the cream, stirring constantly until the mixture is smooth. Blend in the powdered sugar and jam. Keep warm until ready to use int a skillet filled with 1-inch of hot water.

Adapted from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins and More by Carole Walter 2007