Sweeter Holiday Moments

Are you ready to gear up and make sure you and the family survive the holiday season? Do you miss the sweeter holiday moments? Much of the stress of the Christmas holiday is dealing with the shopping, annoying relatives, and the compromising that comes with being in a relationship and deciding whose family's party is more important. I miss my son during these times. If he lived here, there would be no doubt that he would have been here taking a break from college and his busy work schedule. He has told me he is planning to fly to NYC with a friend in January. I will pick him up and head into Long Island for a belated holiday visit with hubby's family. I have had to learn to survive holidays with little or no family, but I am blessed to have lots of friends!

One of my favorite things about the holiday season is attending and hosting gatherings. An open mic singer/songwriter friend, Phil had told me it was his birthday this past September, and of course I had to ask what kind of cake he might like. When he told me his favorite- Carrot Cake. I decided to make him one since I too love it. I remember how special a person can feel when someone takes the moment to do something thoughtful, or act of random kindness. He was leaving for Saudi Arabia for six weeks, so we set up a date to have him over once he returned. Turned out to be the best thing I could have done for him, since trips to foreign countries can really bring on the "Oh how I miss the food of my homeland" blues.

This past Saturday I had family and friends over to help eat up my big turkey, and a few leftovers. I also made some BBQ ribs with some traditional sauce I bought at the Prairie House in Texas. We picked up some Eland steaks (raised in Texas) I grilled, along with a big pot of collard greens and black eyed peas seasoned with pig jowl bacon and Sambar spice. For dessert we had the bourbon brownie pie, but the highlight was my homemade carrot cake.

That cake was the bomb! To add extra moistness, I added a half cup of apple butter to the recipe. That gave it such a great flavor! There is a confession I am going to make. I have not used pumpkin spice in forever, and I swore by it in my twenties. When I discovered garam masala, I use it in sweet and savory recipes. Yes, my carrot cake has garam masala, and of course loads of carrots. Carrots in the early centuries were used to help sweeten many dishes, and thought to have benefits for eyesight. Oh how I heard that one growing up!

I did not grow up with a love for this variety of cake, or cooked carrots. My choice for most desserts is chocolate, but at some point someone made this cake for me and it was an instant love affair. I began baking them and introduced them to my mom. She quickly shared my sentiments. Her requesting me to make one at least three times a year, I eventually got quite good at making them. Then somewhere along the line I stopped baking, and focused on my cooking career in institutional kitchens. As of late I have been baking like crazy again. Maybe its the empty nest syndrome, or boredom. Pulling out my old carrot cake recipe out and dusting it off was pretty exciting for me. Not to mention sharing all the good food with company. I did make a carrot cake last year for my son in St. Louis, but I just took it off the internet.

Walnut Carrot Cake

2 cups walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped, reserve one for coating outside of cake
3/4 pound raw carrots (about 2 1/2 cups finely grated in food processor)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons garam masala, or cinnamon
3 large eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup vegetable or canola oil
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Add dry ingredients into mixing bowl and then add rest of ingredients. Beat well (I mix by hand with large serving fork). Add 1 cup of walnuts and stir. I never cared for raisins like some recipes call for, so you may add them if you like.

Note: For a moister carrot cake, add 1/2 cup of crushed pineapple
(well drained) or applesauce to the batter when you add the oil and vanilla extract. You may have to bake the cake a few minutes longer. I added 1/4 cup of apple butter.

Pour mixture into two 9 inch cake pans, and bake 350 degrees for about 37 minutes (my oven is electric), but when toothpick comes out clean and browned it is ready. Let cool in pan and transfer to parchment cutout on cake plate and frost.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
8 ounces (227 grams) cream cheese, room temperature
2 cups (230 grams) confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted
1/4 cup regular raw sugar
1 teaspoon (4 grams) pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon (4 grams) lemon juice
finely grated lemon zest of one lemon

In bowl with electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the cream cheese and butter, on low speed, just until blended with no lumps. Gradually add the sifted powdered sugar and beat, on low speed, until fully incorporated and smooth. Beat in the vanilla extract, lemon zest, and juice. Enough for two layer cake (you may cut cake in half and make a four layer, but increase icing recipe by half).

Sharing treats like this make for a sweeter holiday moment when you find the season a little overwhelming...

Carrot's in cooking history-

Carrot cake

According to the food historians, our modern carrot cake most likely descended from Medieval carrot puddings enjoyed by people in this part of Europe. Carrots are an old world food. imported to the Americas by European settlers. In the 20th century carrot cake was re-introduced as a "healthy alternative" to traditional desserts. The first time was due to necessity; the second time was spurred by the popular [though oftimes misguided] wave of health foods. Is today's carrot cake healthy? It can be. It all depends upon the ingredients.

History notes here:

"In the Middle Ages in Europe, when sweeteners were scarce and expensive, carrots were used in sweet cakes and desserts. In Britain...carrot puddings...often appeared in recipe books in the 18th and 19th centuries. Such uses were revived in Britain during the second World War, when the Ministry of Food disseminated recipes for carrot Christmas pudding, carrot cake, and so on and survive in a small way to the present day. Indeed, carrot cakes have enjoyed a revival in Britain in the last quarter of the 20th century. They are perceived as 'healthy' cakes, a perception fortified by the use of brown sugar and wholemeal flour and the inclusion of chopped nuts, and only slightly compromised by the cream cheese and sugar icing whcih appears on some versions."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 141)

Go on over and read this site, as there are some fascinating recipes for carrot pudding, etc...

Fig-Cranberry Cobbler

First Fig-

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

When Nancy, a wine and food loving friend here in Jersey, first asked me if I liked figs, I responded "Yes, I adore them".

Ed, her husband told me they had several fig trees in their garden; then he said they also have more than they ever could eat themselves. Explaining that they usually all begin to ripen at once he asked if I would like some.

Me? Say "No thank you" to food I could use in a new recipe, of course I was available to pull weeds for even just one bite of a fresh off the tree fruit.

Ed told me they would be ready by August.

I only had two months till August arrived; so did I, and now they are history in my Fig-Cranberry Cobbler.






















Figs in New Jersey? Yes, some avid gardeners and farmers have been growing sixteen varieties of fig trees in pots here for years.

[Photo courtesy of Figtreeman]


















I talk about fond memories of food experiences growing up in some of my past writing. Fresh picked tomatoes, concord grapes, as well as many other goodies from my grandmother’s yard, but my first kiss on the lips were from a fig; it will forever ring out in my early teen chapter of my foodie memoirs...

Clifford was an unusual man living next door to us. His wife Peggy left early every morning to go to work, but her husband was always working around their house, the yard, and the garage where he kept a refrigerator full of Pabst beer. Anytime I mention them to old neighborhood acquaintances, they mention that refrigerator. A sign of ingenious we did not recognize as children, our parents could not afford, but a clue to just how eccentric Clifford might be.

To wrap up this sweet tale without a long paper trail... Clifford was in his backyard one hot and boring Texas day. He and the lanky awkward teenager were only separated by a three foot chain link fence. He would speak to me for the very first time. See the neighborhood kids were scared of him. A once marine who wore tattered jean shorts, sandals, and barred many a tattoo; well Clifford Alverson just looked mean. When he spoke I did not understand him clearly. He had lung cancer surgery, and only spoke through a tube in his throat. Was, he speaking to me, and with his hand reaching out across the fence with several small greenish looking objects, or was he trying to poison me? I knew it, he did not like kids.

I walked slowly and carefully over to the fence; making sure plenty of space was still between he and I. His words became clear,"Do you like figs", he asked. I had never had one before, or even seen one. Taking them I am sure he saw me starring at them strangely. Should I peel them I thought. Generally green fruit are either peeled or change color in my food world. I watched as he took one and bite straight into its flesh. You should have seen the joy light up his face, as he devoured a few more, so I took the plunge. Finding them a bit bland at first, but it was soon replaced by sweetness. Downfalls I admit tingly have; an addiction for sugar in my adulthood.

Clifford would find me each summer afterward standing at that fence like a browsing goat; it was like those out of my reach fruit bearing limbs would not yield and bend to my weak teenage mental powers. Only a handful passed from his giving hands to mine, but still allowing me to take in their sweet delight. We became good friends he, Peggy, and I; an unusual foodie relationship before its time. A memory brought on by nostalgia when seeing this fruit, and it has partially melded my passion to try everything that only a fence might now hold back.





















HISTORY/INFORMATION: Figs are believed to be indigenous to western Asia and to have been distributed by man throughout the Mediterranean area. Remnants of figs have been found in excavations of sites traced to at least 5,000 B.C.

In the United States, the major centers for commercial production of cultivated figs are California and Texas. The more popular Californian varieties are packed fresh or dried. Most Texas figs are canned.

Figs were brought to California by the Spanish missionary fathers who first planted them at the San Diego Mission in 1759. Fig trees were then planted at each succeeding mission, going North through California. The Mission fig, Californias leading black fig, takes its name from this history. The popular Calimyrna fig, golden brown in color, is the Smyrna variety that was brought to Californias San Joaquin Valley from Turkey in 1882, and was renamed Calimyrna in honor of its new homeland.

Figs grow on the Ficus tree (Ficus carica), which is a member of the Mulberry family. They are unique in that they have an opening, called the "ostiole" or "eye," which is not connected to the tree, but which helps the fruit's development by increasing its communication with the environment. Figs range dramatically in color and subtly in texture depending upon the variety. The majority of figs are dried, either by exposure to sunlight or through an artificial process, creating a sweet and nutritious dried fruit that can be enjoyed throughout the year.

They are available for picking anywhere from May to June, and through September, but dried varieties are available much of the year. August is the month that figs are available here in New Jersey, and information for doing so is here NJ.com.

Nutritional Facts:

· Figs are fat-free, sodium-free and, like other plant foods, cholesterol-free.

· A small serving of about 1 1/2 dried figs equals one fruit exchange, or 15 grams of carbohydrate, provided in the form of glucose and fructose.

· Figs are high in fiber, providing 20% of the Daily Value --- more dietary fiber per serving than any other common dried or fresh fruit.

· Figs have the highest overall mineral content of all common fruits.
Detailed nutritional information can be found by searching the USDA Nutritional Database . Enter "Fig" (no quotes) as the keyword and select the link and report of interest.

Scientific classification: Figs constitute the genus Ficus, of the family Moraceae. The common commercial fig is classified as Ficus carica.

Information provided by Culinaria Books, and Food Around The World, a guide to global eating text from my culinary studies.





















Fig-Cranberry Cobbler

I have been told that unless you make jam, or dry figs you should use lemon and a tart fruit in baking these delicate fruit into a dessert of sorts, as to offset the overly sweet fruit...

1 lime, juiced
1 cup frozen cranberries (I always buy a few extra at Thanksgiving and freeze for baking)
12 or so sliced figs, rinse and pat dry
1 cup orange juice, no pulp

Place this all in a baking dish, I used an oval ceramic, or you could use what works... Preheat oven to 350 degrees



















Cobbler Crust

I just used one of my mom's old biscuit recipes; added some walnuts and garam masala, and sprinkled on top.

2 cups Flour
1 tsp Salt
2-1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tbs Sugar
1 teaspoons of garam masala powder
1/4 cup Butter, cold
3/4 cup ice cold Milk

Bake until brown and bubbly...

Recommended with ice cream, and it practically turns out like a candied, sticky, gooey sweet mess of goodness!