Baked Peeps
June 26, 2008
Ingredients:
Peeps Chicks or Bunnies
Preheat oven to 300° F
Place as many Peeps as desired onto cookie sheets, approx. 3 inches apart. Chicks should be upright, Bunnies on their backs
Bake for 4 minutes, or until warm and puffy
Remove from oven and serve immediately.
Julia Child
June 26, 2008
Youth and World War II
Born Julia Carolyn McWilliams to John and Julia Carolyn (”Caro”) McWilliams in the wealthy community of Pasadena, California, she grew up eating traditional New England food prepared by the family maid. She attended Polytechnic School from fourth grade to ninth grade and then The Branson School in Ross, California. After graduating in 1934 from Smith College—where at six feet, two inches (1.88 m) tall she played basketball—with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history, she moved to New York City and worked as a copywriter for the advertising department of upscale home-furnishing firm W. & J. Sloane. After returning to California in 1937, shortly before her mother died, she spent four years at home, writing for local publications and briefly working in advertising again. Civic-minded, she volunteered with the American Red Cross and, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) after being turned down by the United States Navy for being too tall.
She started out at OSS Headquarters in Washington, working directly for General William J. Donovan, the leader of OSS. Working as a research assistant in the Secret Intelligence division, Julia typed up thousands of names on white note cards used to keep track of officers.
For a year, she worked at the OSS Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Section in Washington, D.C., where she was a file clerk and also helped in the development of a shark repellent to ensure that sharks would not explode ordinance targeting German U-boats. In 1944 she was posted to Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where she met her future husband, a high-ranking OSS cartographer, and later to China, where she received the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service as head of the Registry of the OSS Secretariat. [1]
Following the war, she lived in Washington, D.C., where she was married on September 1, 1946 to Paul Cushing Child, a man known for his sophisticated palate[2] who came from a prominent Boston family and who had lived in Paris as an artist and poet. He joined the United States Foreign Service and also introduced his wife to fine cuisine. In 1948, they moved to Paris after the U.S. State Department assigned Paul Child as an exhibits officer with the United States Information Agency in Paris, France. The couple had no children.
Post-war France
Child repeatedly recalled her first meal in Rouen of oysters, sole meunière, and fine wine as a culinary revelation. She described the experience once in The New York Times newspaper as “an opening up of the soul and spirit for me”. In Paris, she attended the famous Le Cordon Bleu cooking school and later studied privately with master chefs like Max Bugnard. She joined the women’s cooking club Cercle des Gourmettes where she met Simone Beck who, with her friend Louisette Bertholle, was writing a French cookbook for Americans and proposed that Mrs. Child work with them to make it appeal to Americans.
In 1951, they began to teach cooking to American women in the Childs’ kitchen, calling their informal school L’Ecole des Trois Gourmandes (The School of the Three Gourmands). For the next decade as the Childs moved around Europe and finally to Cambridge, Massachusetts, the three researched and repeatedly tested recipes and Child translated the French into English, making the recipes detailed, interesting, and practical.
Fame, books, and television series
The three would-be authors initially signed a contract with publisher Houghton Mifflin, which later rejected the manuscript for being too much like an encyclopedia. Finally, when it was first published in 1961 by Alfred A. Knopf, the 734-page Mastering the Art of French Cooking was a best-seller and received critical acclaim that derived in part from the American interest in French culture in the early 1960s. Lauded for its helpful illustrations, precise attention to detail, and for making fine cuisine accessible to the masses, the book is still in print and is considered a seminal culinary work. Following this success, Child wrote magazine articles and a regular column for The Boston Globe newspaper.
A 1962 appearance on a book review show on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) station of Boston, WGBH, led to the inception of her television cooking show after viewers enjoyed her demonstration of how to cook an omelette. The French Chef debuted February 11, 1963 on WGBH and was immediately successful. The show ran nationally for ten years and won Peabody and Emmy Awards, including the very first Emmy award for an Educational program. Though she was not the first television cook, Child was the most widely seen. Her primary “competitor” for viewers was the British “Galloping Gourmet”, another successful cooking show of the time. She attracted the broadest audience with her cheery enthusiasm, distinctively charming warbly voice, and unpatronising and unaffected manner.
Child’s second book, The French Chef Cookbook, was a collection of the recipes she had demonstrated on the show. It was soon followed in 1971 by Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two, again in collaboration with Simone Beck, but not with Louisette Bertholle, with whom they had ended their partnership. Child’s fourth book, From Julia Child’s Kitchen, was illustrated with her husband’s photographs.
In the 1970s and 1980s, she was the star of numerous television programs, including Julia Child & Company and Dinner at Julia’s. She starred in four more series in the 1990s that featured guest chefs: Cooking with Master Chefs, In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs, Baking with Julia, and Julia Child & Jacques Pépin Cooking at Home. She collaborated with Jacques Pépin many times for television programs and cookbooks. All of Child’s books during this time stemmed from the television series of the same names.
Beginning with In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs, the Childs’ home kitchen in Cambridge was fully transformed into a functional set, with TV-quality lights, three cameras positioned to catch all angles in the room, a massive center island with a gas stovetop on one side and an electric stovetop on the other, but leaving the rest of the Childs’ appliances alone, including “my wall oven with its squeaking door.”[3] This kitchen-turned-TV-backdrop hosted nearly all of Mrs. Child’s 90’s era TV series.
Child was a favorite of audiences from the moment of her television debut on public television in 1963 and her personage–a striking hybrid of gravitas and camp–was a familiar part of American culture and the subject of numerous references. In 1966, she was featured on the cover of Time magazine with the heading, “Our Lady of the Ladle”. In a 1978 Saturday Night Live sketch, she was affectionately parodied by Dan Aykroyd, continuing with a cooking show despite profuse bleeding from a cut to the thumb. Jean Stapleton portrayed her in a 1989 musical, Bon Appétit!, based on one of her televised cooking lessons, the title based on her famous sign-off from her televised cooking shows: “This is Julia Child. Bon appétit!”. She was also the inspiration for the character “Julia Grownup” on the Children’s Television Workshop program, The Electric Company (1971-1977), and was portrayed or parodied in many other television and radio programs and skits, including The Cosby Show (1984-1992) by character Heathcliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby) and Garrison Keillor’s radio series A Prairie Home Companion by voice actor Tim Russell.
In 1981, she founded the educational American Institute of Wine and Food in Napa, California with vintners Robert Mondavi and Richard Graff to “advance the understanding, appreciation and quality of wine and food”, a pursuit she had already begun with her books and television appearances.
Retirement
Julia Child’s kitchen as seen on display at the National Museum of American History.
Portrait taken in 1988Her husband, Paul, who was ten years older, died in 1994 after living in a nursing home for five years following a series of strokes in 1989.
In 2001, she moved to a retirement community in Santa Barbara, California, donating her house and office to Smith College. She donated her kitchen, which her husband designed with high counters to accommodate her diminished but still formidable height, and which served as the set for three of her television series, to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, where it is now on display in Washington, D.C.[4]
She received the French Legion of Honor in 2000[5] [6] and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003. Child also received honorary doctorates from Harvard University, her alma mater Smith College, and several other universities.
On August 13, 2004, Child died at her home in Santa Barbara, peacefully in her sleep of kidney failure. Her final meal was French onion soup.[7]
On August 18, 2004, a documentary filmed during her lifetime premiered. The one-hour feature, Julia Child! America’s Favorite Chef, was aired as the first episode of the eighteenth season of the PBS series American Masters. The film only featured archive footage of Julia, but had current footage from many of the people who influenced, and were influenced by, her life and work. The film was produced by WGBH, the Boston public television station.[8]
In March 2008, director-screenwriter Nora Ephron began filming “Julie & Julia”, a film starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child.
COOKING TECHNIQUES
June 26, 2008
“It’s my belief that the best way to become a good cook is to learn these basic cooking techniques.”
Once you learn how to handle these fundamental techniques, you will be able to handle most recipes. Cooking is not just about recipes….it is about how to take ingredients and make them taste as good as possible.
Recipes are great road maps to show us how someone else got there, but one of the joys of cooking is to find your own paths. Knowing these techniques is like taking the car out for a spin in a new location. You’re not sure where you are going to end up, but getting there will be fun.
Saute
learn to sauté properly and you will be able to create hundreds of dishes without a recipe.
Cooking Pasta
quick tips on cooking your favorite pastas
Roasting
who doesn’t love a roasted chicken or Sunday roast beef.
Braising
may be my favorite way of cooking.
Grilling
it’s what us guys do best….at least that’s what we think
Brining
It’s what we should be doing before grilling but don’t
Mise en Place
in my opinion, one of the most important steps in cooking
and one most often not done.
Sauces
How to Make Incredible Sauces at Home?
Pan Roasting
How professional cooks do it. A little pan searing. A little oven roasting.
Stir Fry
quick, easy, nutritious, and a lot of fun
Deglazing
an essential part of learning how to sauté.
How to Cut an Onion
Learn this simple but effective method for cutting an onion that I learned from a professional chef.
How to Buy and Cook Sweet Corn
A quick lesson in buying and cooking sweet corn this summer.
How to Grill Corn
Learn how to grill fresh sweet corn whenever it is available.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
June 26, 2008
1/2 cup margarine
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup soft tofu
1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup chocolate chips
Cream margarine and sugar together. Add tofu and blend very well. Combine flour, salt, and soda; mix with the sugar mixture. Add peanut butter and then chocolate chips. Bake at 375 f for 10-12 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet. This makes about 2 1/2 dozen.
- veganconnect
Chocolate Tofu Mousse Pie
June 26, 2008
1 package of silken tofu (about 12 ounces)
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tsp. vanilla
10 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
fruit (strawberries, kiwi, etc…) (optional)
graham cracker crust
Blend tofu, syrup, and vanilla in food processor (or blender) just until smooth. Melt chips over double boiler. Put chocolate into processor and mix with tofu until creamy. Put into a graham cracker crust. Chill until set (at least 2 hours). Top with fruit.
Delicious!!! No one will believe it contains tofu.
- from veganconnect
Chocolate Chip Cookies
June 26, 2008
Yield: 2 dozen
3/4 cup Margarine
1/2 cup Light brown sugar
2 tsp. Egg replacer mixed with 4 Tbsp. Water
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 cup Whole-wheat pastry flour
1 cup Unbleached white flour
1/2 tsp. Baking soda
1/4 tsp. Salt
1/2 cup Chocolate chips
1/2 cup Chopped walnuts (opt.)
Let margarine stand at room temp. until soft. In large bowl, cream together softened margarine and granulated sugar cane. Whisk or beat egg replacer and water until foamy. Add egg replacer mixture and vanilla to creamed mixture.
In a separate bowl, stir together flours, baking soda, and salt; add to creamed mixture and stir well. Stir in carob chips and nuts if desired.
Drop from a teaspoon 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from cookie sheet and cool on wire rack.
- from veganconnect
Crazy Chocolate Cake
June 26, 2008
Absolutely one of the best cakes I’ve ever had. Use cake flour for best results.
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1/2 cup cocoa
3/4 cup oil
1 t. vanilla
2 T. vinegar
2 cups water
Mix the dry ingredients and then add the wet ones, and mix until smooth. (I beat it for about 1 minute with a mixer.)
Prepare pan(s) by greasing and flouring lightly. Pour into 24 cupcake pans, two 9-inch pans, or one 9X11-inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 20-25 minutes (cupcakes), 30 minutes (9-inch) or 50 minutes (9X11). Test with a toothpick to make sure it is done all the way through. Cool. Ice with favorite frosting.
- from veganconnect
Ultra-Fudgy Fudge Brownies
June 26, 2008
3/4 cup (1/2 of a 10.5-ounce package) lite silken tofu (firm), crumbled
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup unsweetened, roasted carob powder or unsweetened cocoa powder
2 Tablespoons canola oil
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup unbleached cane sugar
1/4 teaspoon non-aluminum baking powder (such as Rumford)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 to 1 cup chopped walnuts (depending on how nutty you like your brownies)
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Farenheit. Mist an 8-inch x 8-inch x 2-inch glass baking pan with non-stick cooking spray and set it aside.
2. Place the tofu, water, maple syrup, carob or cocoa powder, oil, and vanilla extract in a blender, and process until completely smooth.
3. Place the remaining ingredients, except the walnuts in a medium mixing bowl, and stir them together until they are well combined.
4. Pour the blended mixture (from step #2) into the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl, and stir them until they are well combined. Fold in the walnuts.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan. Bake on the center rack of the oven for 40 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Cool the brownies in the pan. Cut and serve.
YIELD: 12 to 16 brownies
Per Serving: Calories: 195, Protein: 3 gm., Carbohydrate: 32 gm., Fat: 6
gm.
- from Joanne Stepaniak’s Vegan Vittles.
Pasta Fagiole
June 26, 2008
Serving Size : 6 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories :
Amount Measure Ingredient — Preparation Method
——– ———— ——————————–
2 tablespoons water
1 onion — minced
1 large garlic clove — minced
1 6 oz can tomato paste
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1 bay leaf
6 cups vegetable broth (fatfree) — or water
3 cups cooked light red or white kidney beans — rinsed and drained
8 ounces elbow macaroni
soy Parmesan
Heat the 2 tbsp water in a large, non-stick pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 5 to 7 minutes or until soft, adding water as necessary to prevent sticking. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute. Reduce heat to low and blend in the tomato paste. Add the oregano, bay leaf, stock, and salt and pepper to taste, and simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes. Stir in the beans. Meanwhile, cook the macaroni in a large pot of salted boiling water, stirring occasionally, until it is just al dente, about 6 to 8 minutes. When the pasta is cooked, drain it and stir it into the bean mixture. Simmer gently for 10 minutes to blend the flavors. Ladle into bowls, passing the soy Parmesan at the table.
Other Pasta Choices: small shells, radiatore
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Per serving: 309 Calories (kcal); 1g Total Fat; (3% calories from fat); 14g Protein; 62g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 849mg Sodium Food Exchanges: 3 Grain(Starch); 1/2 Lean Meat; 1 1/2 Vegetable; 0 Fruit; 0 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates
- Source:
“Pasta For All Seasons”
Pasta Fagiole
June 26, 2008
Serving Size : 6 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories :
Amount Measure Ingredient — Preparation Method
——– ———— ——————————–
2 tablespoons water
1 onion — minced
1 large garlic clove — minced
1 6 oz can tomato paste
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1 bay leaf
6 cups vegetable broth (fatfree) — or water
3 cups cooked light red or white kidney beans — rinsed and drained
8 ounces elbow macaroni
soy Parmesan
Heat the 2 tbsp water in a large, non-stick pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 5 to 7 minutes or until soft, adding water as necessary to prevent sticking. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute. Reduce heat to low and blend in the tomato paste. Add the oregano, bay leaf, stock, and salt and pepper to taste, and simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes. Stir in the beans. Meanwhile, cook the macaroni in a large pot of salted boiling water, stirring occasionally, until it is just al dente, about 6 to 8 minutes. When the pasta is cooked, drain it and stir it into the bean mixture. Simmer gently for 10 minutes to blend the flavors. Ladle into bowls, passing the soy Parmesan at the table.
Other Pasta Choices: small shells, radiatore
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Per serving: 309 Calories (kcal); 1g Total Fat; (3% calories from fat); 14g Protein; 62g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 849mg Sodium Food Exchanges: 3 Grain(Starch); 1/2 Lean Meat; 1 1/2 Vegetable; 0 Fruit; 0 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates
- Source:
“Pasta For All Seasons”
