Great Grandma Haller's Lemon Cake

I'm BAAAAAAAACK. (Okay, now reread that sentence, but this time do it like that creepy blonde girl from the movie, Poltergeist.)
So after a ludicrously long absence, I have returned - in all my culinary glory - to the kitchen...right where I belong. I'm in the kitchen; I'm barefoot, but somehow I can't get the pregnancy thing to work out. I'll keep trying though. Good things come to those who never give up. Right? Right!
Let me just get a bit of sad news out of the way. The reason I haven't been baking over the last month or so is because I spent a good majority of my time flying to and from Los Angeles. My grandmother, Veronica McDermott, died at the age of 93. I happen to know she was the coolest lady who every lived AND that she was born in 1917! Do you know what that means?! It means she lived through a lot. A world war. The Civil Rights Act. Vietnam. The Reagan Administration for Christ's sake. Dynasty AND Dallas. She survived both of those shows...not to mention the Pog craze of the early 90s.
In all seriousness, I wanted to think of a way to pay tribute to a woman who loved her family with her entire being. At first it didn't feel possible, but on the day before grandma's funeral, which also happened to be the day before my brother's birthday, we all gathered for a meal and dessert - clearly my favorite part of any meal. We had what we always have for dessert at family gatherings - my great grandmother's lemon cake. DELISH! It occurred to me that the best way for me to keep my grandmother's memory alive, and to share a small part of what she meant to me with the people I love was to share the recipe for this cake which has been the centerpiece for countless family birthdays, weddings, and graduations. This recipe was passed down from my great grandmother to my grandmother and I plan on passing it on to my children (I told you I'm gonna keep trying), and now to all of you. I hope you enjoy it.
If you've still got your grandma, go ahead and giver her a hug. Tell her you think she's great.

Great Grandma Haller's Lemon Cake:

1 lemon cake mix
1 small box of lemon jello
4 eggs
3/4 cup of water
1/2 cup of oil

Mix all ingredients
Pour into greased 13x9x2 pan
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes

While cake is baking, prepare glaze:
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
2 tbsp. of butter (melted)
Juice of 2 lemons

After taking the cake from the oven, while it is still warm, poke holes in the top of the cake with a toothpick and pour the glaze over the cake.

Cool and Enjoy !!

God Save The Queen - or at least feed her

Well friends, I'm back. The check cleared and I was able to purchase chocolate chips, fire up the oven, and bake.

But being the fairly politically conscious person I am, I just couldn't help myself from being moved by a story I saw on the nightly news. Apparently, the Queen of England is beside herself with anxiety. Something has her adult diapers (which I'm sure are Burberry or Hermes) in a twist. What you may ask? Well two things really: First of all, her eldest grandson, the ever-adorable-despite-the-balding, Prince William, has been dating his girlfriend for like a gazillion years and he won't marry her. According to my sources...Extra, Access Hollywood, and the NY local ABC news...the queen has told the prince in no uncertain terms that it's time to get hitched! Well, little Billy prince man refuses to do so.

Aside from that issue, the queen was so overwhelmed by the economic crisis in England she decided, as a sign of solidarity to her people, to take the train - probably to get to the palace. Ya know, if I were currently living in England, struggling to pay my rent and feed my little corgi puppy, I'd be pretty cheesed off (that's Brit for "pissed off") if the queen, who nobody elected and who lives the good life as the result of the money she earns from what is essentially the most incredible welfare system EVER, decided she'd help me by taking the damn train. How about you sell the crown jewels or one of those ridiculous ermine coats you're always parading around in and give the money to a few of your loyal subjects?

Ugh. Now I'm frustrated!

But that's okay because I baked today. My original thought was to bake something for the queen in order to help her calm down. It had to be something British. Unfortunately, the Brits aren't exactly known for their culinary mastery...or their dental care (sorry Brittany, but it's true). After a few hours of concentrated meditation and about 200 episodes of Keeping Up Appearances on PBS, I decided to bake CHOCOLATE CHIP SCONES. They were easy to make and turned out amazingly well! In fact, they taste of all things British - mostly irony and socialized medicine, with a nice chocolaty finish! Delish! Enjoy folks!

Here's the Recipe:
Adapted from Bon Appetit

• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) chilled unsalted butter, diced
• 1 teaspoon (packed) grated lemon peel
• 3/4 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup chilled buttermilk
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Milk (for glaze)

Preparation

Butter and flour baking sheet. Sift 2 cups flour, 1/3 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt into large bowl. Add butter and lemon peel; rub in with fingertips until butter is reduced to size of rice grains. Mix in chocolate chips. Whisk buttermilk, egg yolk and vanilla in small bowl to blend. Add buttermilk mixture to dry ingredients; mix until dough comes together in moist clumps. Gather dough into ball. Press dough out on lightly floured surface to 8-inch round; cut round into 6 wedges. Transfer wedges to prepared baking sheet, spacing 1 inch apart. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Preheat oven to 400°. Brush scones lightly with milk; sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons sugar. Bake until scones are crusty on top and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Serve warm.

Too Broke To Bake

You know what sucks about being broke? Like everything. Everything sucks about being broke. But the most annoying, most frustrating, most sucky thing about it is that you can't do exactly what you want to do whenever you want to do it. Say, for example, that I want to rent a pony, ride sidesaddle down Broadway and parade around Columbus Circle like the Queen of England...well...you can't do that unless you have money. I know. I tried. The people at the Central Park stables laughed me out of the place and I ended up riding the subway down to Columbus Circle like every other bum in NY. Lame. I know.

And so this is why you - my wonderful obsessed blog fans - were unable to bask in my culinary wonder this week. I was just too damn broke. I know you're shocked. I look really wealthy. I live in a new mansion. Well folks, it's all fake. Lies built on a bed of deceit. I couldn't even afford chocolate chips this week! Although truthfully, I wasn't gonna bake with them. I was just gonna sit in the corner of my room and slam them til the hurt went away. No big deal.

Stay tuned though kids. I'm gonna bake next week. I'll just use my credit card. Why pay now when you can pay later? Right Suze Orman? Right! She's so gay.

How To Buy Friends: A guide to baking your way to popularity

Robert started a new job last week. He'll be working as an Assistant Buyer at Saks Fifth Avenue. Exciting right? Definitely. But enough about Robert. This is my self-serving blog, not his. I'm not sure quite why, but for some reason I am determined to be popular with Robert's new office mates - hopefully, more popular than Robert. And I know as well as anybody that the best way to bribe/buy friends (aside from joining a sorority or fraternity. Don't hate. It's the truth.) is to cook for them. Now, today is St. Patrick's Day, but since I really can't stand foods with themes (or board games, which I know have nothing to do with this) I decided to bake my favorite cookies. MOLASSES AND GINGER COOKIES. They're super sweet and spicy (golf claps for that alliteration) just like me. Most importantly, they're easy to make and are sure to win me tons of friends whom I don't know and probably will never meet, but hopefully they'll read my blog and one of them will decide to make me an internet superstar so that I can retire at an inappropriately young age and raise children...well...adopt children and then send them to boarding school until they're 18. Don't judge. We all have our dreams.

Molasses and Ginger Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup margarine, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 tablespoons white sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly.

3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

The Pumpkin That Changed My Life

It rained today in New York - probably because the last few days were warm and sunny and a bunch of overzealous New Yorkers decided to tromp around Central Park wearing awful cargo shorts like it was the middle of summer, and in doing so ruined all hope of an early (and warm) spring. Take it easy, New York. Take it easy! UGH! I am of the opinion that God is mostly spiteful and when he notices we're having too much fun, too early on in the season, he thinks of ways to spoil things. And considering his apparent and much-talked-about omnipotence, a day full of rain must have been easy to cook up. Of course, none of this has anything to do with anything except for that because it rained I decided to do what I always do on rainy days when I don't have to go to my day job and change the lives of kids on the Upper East Side: think about food, cook food, and eat food. Don't worry. I don't digest. As a dancer, I'm totally opposed to digestion - haven't had anything to do with it in years. (Maybe I should have issued a bulimia joke warning before that little zinger. Sorry. Kind of.)

On today's menu were Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. Um...for serious...these changed my life. Don't get confused though: I'm not going to move to some God-forsaken rural town, grow pumpkins, live off the grid, and wear organic cotton BUT I'll definitely be much more aware of the needs of pumpkins everyone. Each One Teach One right Precious? What? Anyway. These cookies are DA BOMB! Yep! Hello 1995! DA BOMB!!! As you may know, since you're obsessed with my blog, my goals in baking/blogging are two-fold: total shameless self-promtion, and becoming the most popular person in Robert's office...including Robert. I'm pretty sure these cookies are going to give me an advantage. They're completely moist and full of flavor. Like me. EW!!!! (Sorry for that one mom.)

p.s. If you're feeling depressed and you tend to eat your feelings like I do, then these are just the ticket!

Here's the recipe:
Adapted from AllRecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2cup brown sugar (just cuz everything tastes better with it)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (used instead of butter to make the cookies incredibly moist)
• 1 egg
• 2 cups whole wheat flour (ya know? To make them healthy)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons buttermilk (yep buttermilk. My favorite compound noun.)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups dark chocolate chips


Directions

1. Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. Dissolve the baking soda with the milk and stir in. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well.

2. Add vanilla, chocolate chips.

3. Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm.

Moving

Moving. I've decided I really hate it for a number of reasons. First of all, the prospect of having to collect everything you own and pack it into a bunch of boxes completely overwhelms me and makes me want to sit in a corner and cry. Besides, not everything fits so neatly in a little box. Packing Robert, for example, proved to be a tremendous challenge. Sure...he may be quite thin, but his height was tough for any standard box to accommodate. Secondly, I've learned I'm a total hoarder. Somebody please send my info to A&E because I think I'm perfect for that show. They could send a camera crew and film me crying as someone attempts to pry my hands away from the newspapers and birthday cards I've been saving since the 80s. (By the way, this is totally true. I have been known to save - and display - old birthday cards.) The conversation I have in my head goes something like this: "Geoff. Seriously, throw away the card. Your ninth birthday was a long time ago." "No. No. No. You might need it one day. Just keep them...all of them. The whole stack. And the other stack. And the other stack. And the other stack" Jesus! I save birthday cards?! Who am I? Susan Boyle? Nightmare! Okay, the other thing I realized I cizz-ant stand about myself/moving is that I found out I'm a total slob. I found dustballs that had substantial weight. Like I could have wrecked my biceps in the gym lifting these disgusting pieces of yesterday's memories. Gross right?

The only redeeming factor in this whole moving nightmare is that the apartment is A-to-the-MAZING!!!!! I'm obsessed with it. It's taken me like three hours two write this entry because I keep getting distracted by the place. Literally, all I want to do is sit in the living room and stare at it. I'm obsessed. Like if this apartment were the movie Single White Female, I would 100% be Jennifer Jason Leigh to it's Bridget Fonda. Does that clear things up? And the kitchen people! The kitchen is truly wonderful. Okay, don't get it twisted. It's not going to be featured in the pages of Martha Stewart Living, BUT it's mine and it's bigger than the old one and has so much cabinet space. I can't even fill it! I'm sure I'll probably have to resist blowing all my money (all tens of it) on appliances I think I need, but really don't - namely, that huge-ass pasta maker that Ina Garten has convinced me is totally normal to own and easy to use and that I can't live without. I think I'll probably sleep in the kitchen tonight, just cuz I feel like it gets lonely when I'm not there.

I've included a bunch of pictures of the new place. It really is a great apartment and I feel lucky to have found it. It's funny: a couple months ago when Robert and I were really getting ready to start looking we used to mention to each other how amazing it was to think that somewhere in New York, there was some apartment - probably occupied - which would one day be ours. And now we have it and we love it.

Don't worry. The baking will continue as soon as I'm done unpacking my belongings - including Robert. Ew. Gross.

This Happened Yesterday. No Joke.

My cookies were too sexy for my oven and they blew the damn thing up! No...for serious...we had an electrical fire the day after I brought you my Chocolate White Chocolate Chip Cookies. Dems was sum good eats!!! Don't worry though, the team of Robert and Geoffrey handled the situation like pros.

It all went down like this:

I called over to Robert who was sleeping soundly in our bed a la Marie Antoinette. "Robert!" I said "The stove is smoking...like a lot!" Robert leapt to his feet. Well first he removed his fitted eye mask, which somehow always ends up dangling on his arm like a pocketbook come morning. THEN he leapt to his feet, ran to the kitchen and removed the lid of the stove. Sidenote: We found a ballpoint pen underneath. That's weird right? Like, how does a pen get under there? Neither of us have thumbs, so we don't bother keeping pens in the house. We wouldn't be able to hold them anyway. Back to the story! Actually, that's kind of it. The things stopped smoking. Oh...then we put the lid back on. It was now a lovely shade of poop brown. So I went to town with a spray bottle of bleach. Robert said that was a bad idea but I'm really brave! And I don't like stains. So...We survived. Thank God. It was touch and go there for a second, but we made it through. The only sad thing is that I'll never get to cook in my little kitchen again. Loretta, our dear sweet super (landlord, for all you west coasters), unplugged the whole unit. She thinks it was never properly installed. But I have a different theory. I think it happened because - and I left this out earlier - this morning, while trying to boil water, I spilled about two cups worth of water on the stove, while the burners were on. And then a cloud of smoke bigger and scarier than the one that is currently kicking ass and taking names on Lost, arose from the depths of the oven. Ooops.

Don't tell Loretta. I mean it.

It appears as though the universe is going to make this blog incredibly easy to fill by sending me minor catastrophes. What's next? How's that for incentive to stay tuned?