My first marathon! (still months off)

Since running cross country in high school, I've wanted to run a marathon, but it's always been a far-off idea, something that I'd do someday, but just not yet. I don't know what made me start thinking of it seriously recently, but I've registered for the Chicago marthon on October 11, 2009. I have just under 200 days to train, but Madison has finally thawed out from winter (with the exception of the 3 inches of snow we got last night), so I've already been running outside. Since the 200-days-till-race mark, I've run 17 miles, 9 of which were on a distance run through the snow and slush this morning. I'm pretty intimidated by whole thing, but also really excited for finally doing something that I've wanted to do for more than ten years.

Mmmmm cookies

I've recently been on a baking kick, brought on by a few dinners over at other people's houses, and my department's Cakes for a Cause, where people baked cakes and cookies, sold them by the slice to other hungry people in the department, and donated the money to a local food pantry. Most people baked geology-themed cakes, but I decided to show a little Wisconsin pride and bake a cheese cake. And by cheese cake I mean a lemon cake made up to look like cheese.


Tomorrow prospective grad students are visiting the department, and then on to dinner at one of the professor's houses. So I baked cookies, showing similar Wisconsin pride:While I can't properly explain how to make the W (or the M for Madison, whichever you like), I can give the recipe for the dough. I made two batches and added two heaping teaspoons of cocoa powder with the flour to one of them for the chocolate part.

Icebox Cookies
from Joy of Cooking

1 1/4 sticks butter (add 1/4 tsp salt if using unsalted butter)
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp orange zest (optional)
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Blend in egg, vanilla, and zest. Mix in flour and baking powder in three portions. Roll the dough into a cylinder, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze for at least two hours, up to a month. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375°. Cut the cylinder of dough (still frozen!) into slices slightly thinner than 1/4 of an inch, and place slices at least and inch apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake about 9 minutes. Makes about 3 dozen cookies roughly 2 inches in diameter.

A quick word about Brussels Sprouts

Try them, they're good. They get a bad wrap, but they're really quite tasty as long as you don't overcook them. I had to try some since they were sold at the farmers' market this fall on the long (about 2-3 feet) stalks that they grow on and they just looked so intriguing. I was able to find someone selling stalks that were only about a foot long, so I bought one, roasted up the sprouts, and loved them. Here's another easy way to do them.

Brussels Sprouts with Balsamic Reduction

Brussels sprouts
~1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tsp brown sugar

Cut the sprouts off if they're on the stalk and discard any leaves that fall off and rinse the sprouts. If the sprouts are small (less than about an inch) leave them whole, otherwise cut them in half through their stems. Heat a pan over medium heat and add the sprouts. Add about 1/4 of an inch of water to the pan and cook. After about 15 or 20 minutes, try one. They should still be bright green with a little of a crunch in the middle, not at all mushy. Set the sprouts aside, lower heat to low and add vinegar and sugar to the pan. Stir until vinegar is reduced to about half or a third in volume, add sprouts back to the pan and stir until they're coated in the vinegar.

Pumpkin Biscotti

Normally I'm not a giant fan of biscotti for the simple reason that it's so hard and I rarely drink coffee, so I can't just dunk it in there. But the great thing about baking your own biscotti is that you can make it as hard or soft as you want. The reason I baked this particular recipe is that it was just after Halloween, I had a pumpkin that I had never carved, and it seemed like a shame to let it rot. So I opened it up and cleaned it out as if I were going to carve it, and instead cut it into large chunks and roasted it at 350° until it became soft. After scooping the flesh out of the skin, I put batches of it into a colander to let it drain. Jack-o-lantern pumpkins aren't the greatest for cooking with since they're much waterier and less flavorful than ones specifically made for eating, so draining it well is crucial. You can of course make this recipe with canned pumpkin and save yourself a lot of work. The recipe is easily halved, but remember that since the biscotti aren't supposed to be too soft, they last for a few weeks.
Pumpkin Biscotti
based on recipes from here and here

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
pinch each of ginger, cloves, salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup roasted & drained or canned pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped or slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine the flour through the spices in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix eggs, pumpkin, vanilla. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry, add the cranberries and almonds and mix again until incorporated. Lightly knead the dough on a floured surface. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper or lightly greast it, and shape the dough on it into a wide, flattish log about 18 inches long and 2 inches wide. Bake for 22-30 minutes, remove logs and lower heat to 300°.

Let the logs cool for about 20 minutes and cut into 3/4 inch thick slices with a serrated knife; the inside of the log will still be soft. Bake the slices again for 15-20 minutes, flipping them halfway to get them uniformly dried, baking longer if you like your biscotti super-hard.

Did you know...

that Wisconsin produces more cranberries than Massachusetts? I thought they were totally a Cape Cod thing, but it turns out that the dairyland brings us more than just dairy. I bought four pounds of them at the farmers' market back in the fall, made delicious cranberry muffins and cranberry sauce with one pound of them, and froze the other three pounds. Some of the remaining three pounds will definitely go toward making more of these muffins.

Cranberry Muffins
based on a recipe from Cooking Light

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1- 1 1/4 cup cranberries, rinsed
2/3 cup milk
2 tsp butter, melted
1 tsp orange zest
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg

Preheat oven to 400°. Combine first four ingredients in a large bowl and stir in cranberries. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry in two batches, stirring in between the batches. Put 12 paper muffin cups into a muffin tin and spoon in batter. Bake for about 18 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove muffins from tin and let cool on a rack.

Note: I substituted 1/4 cup of the flour with cornmeal, which gives a bit more texture and flavor.

More soon...

In the past two months I've done a lot, but been very lazy about writing about it. On the list of things that have taken up my time: going to NY to surprise my parents on Thanksgiving, going to Boston to visit Anthony and see his master's defense, going to San Francisco for AGU, going back to NY for Christmas, and finally coming back to Madison with Anthony. So I promise to finally update this weekend. There will be lots of recipes -- cranberry muffins, gingerbread cookies, mincemeat pie, linzer torte.

Vote!

Go out and do it! I just did. It was the first time I voted in person (I was number 101), and hopefully this will be the first time the candidate I voted for wins.