Living While Gray

Age is Just a Number

Baking Bread or How I Spent My Quarantine

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spent my quarantine

Image courtesy of Couleur from Pixabay

OK, so I didn’t bake these lovely loaves of bread but, if you want to know how I spent my quarantine, baking bread was a big part of killing time waiting for life to begin again. Mine just don’t come out as pretty but they taste pretty awesome.

It looks like a lot of you also spent your quarantine baking bread. According to the Atlantic, the shortage of flour and yeast now replaced earlier shortages of toilet paper and hand sanitizer during the pandemic. The hand sanitizer I get, the rest, is still a mystery.

Sourdough seems to reign supreme right now. I’m not quite sure why, although I love a little sourdough whenever I can get it, so send your extras on over.

Baking bread

bread flour

Sourdough, for those of you not infected with the bread baking bug, is the most challenging of all bread baking and takes serious commitment. I might wake up today and decide I’d like a nice fresh loaf. I add flour, water, yeast, maybe some sugar, and butter with a dash of salt ad 4 hours later, I have a nice loaf of bread. Yummy.

If I want sourdough, I needed to start yesterday or the day before because sourdough bread requires a starter of fermented yeast to sit out until it sours — where did you think it got its name??? And, while I love sourdough bread, I can’t stand the smell of sourdough. I guess that’s because I used to work with yeast back in my days working on my masters in biology. The smell literally turns my stomach. Plus, I’m an instant gratification kinda gal and 4 hours is my limit on waiting to eat fresh bread. If I want sourdough, I’ll add it to my curbside pickup (LOL).

If I haven’t turned you off on sourdough or you want to try some other types of bread, here’s my advice:

  1. Spend the extra money on bread flour. It’s a finer grind that rises better and results in a fluffy texture rather than a course bread.
  2. Ensure everything is at room temperature before you start. Remember, yeast is a living thing. How would you feel if someone threw cold water and eggs on your head? And, while that won’t kill you, just piss you off, it kills your yeast. No living yeast, no nice bubbles, and you now have flat bread.
  3. Proof your yeast to make sure it’s ALIVE (whenever I think of that I’m reminded of the line from Young Frankenstein, “it’s alive” — OK, maybe it’s just me). Just like every other living thing, yeast needs to eat and drink. So, adding yeast to a mixture of flour and water, with a little sugar mixed in because yeast never has diabetes. A cup works for this. Add everything in a small bowl, tuck your yeast in nice and warm, and wait 10 minutes. If you come back to a bubbly mixture, your yeast is good. If not, throw the mess out and order yeast the next time you find it — there’s also a serious shortage of yeast. Some local bakers will sell you a small quantity if you ask real nice.
  4. You’re gonna get dirty so don’t expect to use a machine to do everything for you. Even if you mix in a machine or with a mixer, you need your hands. They’re already clean from all the hand washing and sanitizer, so that’s taken care of. BTW, using a mixer results in a mess as the dough gets sucked up into the blades to the mixer. And, a bread machine is good, but baking in one results in weird-shaped bread that doesn’t brown right — IMHO. At a minimum, you need to knead your bread — I just love saying that!. To knead, push the bread away from you on a floured counter, fold over then repeat – for about 5 minutes or more.
  5. Don’t rush. It takes time for the bread to rise — at least 2 hours.
  6. That’s it, you’re now a master baker — LOL

Why I spent my quarantine baking bread

It’s cheaper than therapy and safer in a pandemic.

I’m not a psychologist, but as a marketing professor, a lot of my coursework involved psychology. A wise professor once taught that marketing has 2 parents — economics and psychology and she was right. My pop psychology answer to why we, as a collective group, are obsessed with baking bread is that it’s something creative. In a world where we can’t make anything, our jobs that consumed many of our waking hours disappeared, and just about everything in our routine changed instantly, we could still make something happen, even if it was only making a ball of flour rise up to triple its size then turning it golden brown to feed our families. Baking bread made us feel productive in a way that the pandemic took from us.

In fact, we’re all cooking up a storm and many of us learned how to turn on the stove for the first time. There are Tik Tok videos on cooking, new cooks are teaching as they’re learning how to cook, and even children are getting in the game. There’s just something awesome about feeding people that gives us a sense of self-worth.

Maybe there’s also a little control in there, as well. The pandemic took away any sense of control we had — we no longer determine what we do, who we see, and, for many of us, how to pay rent. But the laws of biology are finite and dependable. Once we add yeast (a living organism in dried form) to water and flour, the little buggers start churning out carbon dioxide that forces the ball of flour to expand. Baking the mixture, fixes the solid elements leaving little holes where the gas escaped and creating a texture we find pleasing. Control.

I think the whole kneading thing also helps work out frustration. If I had to guess, I’d say this is the real reason why everyone is going crazy baking bread. For 5 minutes, or more, you get to punch a blob of dough and no one’s gonna send you to therapy or call 911. You have the perfect excuse to punch something other than your partner’s head, which is what you really want to do after watching the way he ________ (fill in the blank, chews, brushes his teeth, leaves his socks all over … ), even though he knows it irritates you. A little tip here, it’s possible to overwork your dough so if you’re really frustrated, divide your dough into smaller segments, and beat each segment for 5 minutes or so. If you run out of dough, just make another batch.

OK, enough for today. Enjoy your baking.

Be sure to check out Living While Gray on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram. If you have ideas or would like to write for us, you can reach me through the comments. And, if you make this, post your pictures on Instagram using the hashtag #livingwhilegray.

See you back here soon.

 

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake with Caramel

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Tell, me. What could be better than cheesecake? Well, it’s chocolate chip cheesecake. Now, add some caramel and you have the most delicious dessert imaginable. Top with your favorite fruit, if you want, although I think you’ll love this one naked. I will say, I don’t see any way to make this vegan, but maybe one of my vegan friends has an idea.

chocolate chip cheesecake
Now, before we get to the recipe, which you’re gonna absolutely love, a little warning about the pan. Yes, you need a special pan for your cheesecake since there’s no way to get this perfection out of a traditional cake plate.

springform pan

Springform pan

This pan, called a springform, has a bottom and sides that fit snuggly against the bottom for cooking then open up after the cake cools so you just pull the sides free and leave the cake on the base. These pans vary in price depending on the material and other factors, but range from a couple of bucks and up. The non-stick version of the pan pictured here is from Amazon and is under $15.

Now, the warning. Be sure the bottom tightly fits into the grove in the sides or you’ll leak butter onto your oven. Not only is this a bear to clean up (and feel free to replace bear with another b-word), but a fire hazard. I was baking a couple of these lovelies for a party when I was about 8 months pregnant with my first child. The oven flamed and if anyone had seen me trying to bend over my large belly to blow out the fire, they probably would have peed themselves laughing. But, I didn’t want to sprinkle salt on the flames because I didn’t want to ruin my cakes. BTW, this isn’t a cheap cake. You’ll likely spend $20 or so on the ingredients and it takes some time to do this right.

The recipe

Now, for the recipe for chocolate chip cheesecake that combines the best of several recipes into 1 delicious masterpiece.

1 box vanilla wafers

16 oz caramel pieces

1 small can of evaporated milk

1/2 C mini chocolate chips

1 C chopped nuts (pecans are the best)

3 packages of cream cheese

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 C sugar

1 stick butter, melted (you can substitute margarine, but I wouldn’t)

The cheesecake is made in layers with the crust on the bottom, then caramel, then chocolate chips, and finally the cheesecake. The cheesecake is the gooey kind rather than the firmer NY cheesecake. I sometimes double up on the cheesecake part because I really love that part the best.

To make the crust, crush the vanilla wafers and mix with melted butter. Press into the bottom and sides of the springform pan. Bake for 15 minutes at 350°

Melt the caramels over a double boiler along with the milk. I use the kind you have to unwrap individually, so I get the milk hot and add them as I unwrap them. Stir periodically to keep the caramels from burning on the bottom. There’s nothing worse than the smell of burned caramel. When your caramels are melted, pour the mixture over your baked crust. Next, add a layer of chopped nuts.

Now, you mix the remaining ingredients and carefully pour the mixture over your base to ensure you don’t push all the nuts into one side. Bake at 350° for 40 minutes. Note that the cheesecake won’t pass the cake test. Cooking much longer than 40 minutes results in a tough, dry cheesecake, which doesn’t really work for me.

Wait until the cake has cooled for about 20 minutes before opening the spring and removing the sides.

Serving your chocolate chip cheesecake

Now, I’ll warn you that cutting this beauty isn’t easy. You need a warn knife, a bowl of warm water, and a cake server. The warm knife helps you cut more easily while rinsing the knife in warm water keeps it clean and warm for the next slice. If you’re taking this cake to a party, consider pre-slicing it to avoid mess when it’s served.

To make the cake even more special for an event, you can add a thin layer of chocolate icing on top (especially since the cake tends to crack on top as it cools) then decorate with flowers or anything else you wish. My dad always had cheesecake instead of a regular birthday cake we decorated it accordingly.

OK, enough for today.

Be sure to check out Living While Gray on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram. If you have ideas or would like to write for us, you can reach me through the comments. And, if you make this, post your pictures on Instagram using the hashtag #livingwhilegray.

See you back here soon.



Cooking for 1: Meal Prepping for the Week

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As women of a certain age, we find we’re increasingly cooking for 2 or even 1 after decades of cooking for a full house. We not only had our own kids but their friends, study groups, and even roommates from college. We also hosted dinner parties for our friends and colleagues. Now, we face the unenviable task of cooking for our diminished household, which may be just us. After years struggling with how to cook for 1, I decided to follow the newest trend in cook — meal prepping.

meal prepping
Meal prepping isn’t really that new — people meal prepped for hundreds of years. Rather than combining leftovers or preservation techniques like pickling, canning, etc, meal prepping involves a conscious effort at portion control, while offering sustainability to your cooking because you eliminate leftovers while saving time and money. Likely, the meal prep fad (and, it officially qualifies as a fad now), traces its roots to restaurant kitchens that routinely prep food to ensure prompt service once a guest orders their food. The same practices work in your home kitchen and, with the pandemic, what else do we have to do besides cook?

Leftovers versus meal prep

I grew up in a household where leftovers were the norm. Since my mom’s cooking wasn’t great the first time around, the thought of eating leftovers left me pretty cold (LOL). Seriously, I grew to hate leftovers and I still have a hard time consuming them. I also can’t stand eating the same thing more than a couple of days, with the exception of Thanksgiving dinner, which I could eat for a solid week. Probably because I only get roasted turkey once a year and turkey stuffing is one of my all-time favs.

So, the thought of making an entire week’s worth of meals at one time wasn’t something in my realm of possibilities.

Until I realized I was spending a fortune on take-out from local restaurants and that meal kits (and I tried a bunch of them) tasted more like the cardboard they were shipped in than real food. But taking hours to prepare a meal I would finish in 20 minutes, then dealing with the leftovers wasn’t my idea of a fun time.

Enter meal prep.

Now, instead of preparing fresh meals every day or, more likely hitting up Grubhub for delivery, I just prep meals once a week, then freeze them in handy containers I bought on sale from Amazon with depressions for an entre and two sides.

Meal prepping enchiladas

My family loves my chicken enchiladas. After spending nearly a decade along the US/ Mexican border, Mexican food is a family favorite. My recipe makes enough for a family of 6 and, as I said, there’s just me. So I make the dish, then plate individual enchiladas with some corn and some refried beans then pop them in the freezer where they stay fresh for weeks (or months). By alternating my favorites, such as baked mac n’ cheese, veggie chili, and a few others, I have a freezer full of food and I can alternate between meals, eating whatever strikes my fancy on a particular evening.

Chicken enchiladas recipe

This is a recipe I developed over the years by combining ingredients from several other recipes.

chicken enchiladas

 

Filling

  • 2 lbs of chicken parts
  • olive oil
  • 1 can chopped chilis or 6 oz of fresh
  • green onion (scallions)
  • 2 T fresh or processed jalapeno peppers (to taste)
  • 1 T ground chili powder
  • 1 T garlic (optional)
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 large can mushrooms
  • tortillas, burrito size
  • salt and pepper to taste

Sauce

  • 1 1/2 C sour cream
  • 12 oz pepper jack cheese
  • milk, as needed

Make the filling by browning the chicken parts (I use boneless, skinless thighs or breasts) in a little olive oil (or any other type of oil) with the greens of the scallions. After the chicken is cooked, add the remaining ingredients and warm.

Fill tortillas with a couple of tablespoons of the chicken mixture. Fold in the bottom and sides, then place with the seam down in a large lasagne-type pan. If your tortillas are cold, pop them in a microwave a few seconds so they don’t break as you fold them. If find flour tortillas work best if you want your tortilla intact at the end of the process. Corn, for my money, breaks too easily.

Don’t worry about overstuffing them. The more the merrier.

Using the same pan you used to make the filling (don’t worry about cleaning it or scraping out any remaining filling) stir together the sour cream and pepper jack cheese until melted. You might add a little milk to reach the consistency you want — a nice, firm pancake batter

fill the tortillas

Filled tortillas

consistency is what you want.

Pour over the filled tortillas and top with whatever floats your boat — scallions, chili powder, diced jalapenos, even hot sauce. Bake for 20 minutes in a 350º oven. My family likes the enchiladas crispy and brown on top, so I bake them a little longer. You’re just going for something warm.

Meal prepping

I eat what I want, usually, one enchilada then let the rest of the pan cool since the chances of getting an entire enchilada out of the pan intact are greater if they’re cold. Place a single serving in your freeze-safe container along with some corn smothered in butter and refried beans (I use canned beans mixed with some spicy salsa). Pop in the freezer. When you’re ready to eat them, I find the flavor is better if heated in the oven for about 40 minutes versus microwaving the meal.

Vegan alternatives

This recipe is easily adapted for other preferences. My daughter is vegan so I substitute tofu for the chicken and I use vegan cheese, cream, and cashew milk. You could even eliminate the tofu and just increase the amount and variety of veggies included in the enchilada.

The sauce is optional if you prefer or add a nice green sauce made by combining jalapenos, cilantro, tomatoes, and lime juice in a blender.

OK, enough for today.

Be sure to check out Living While Gray on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram. If you have ideas or would like to write for us, you can reach me through the comments.

See you back here soon.

 

Gardening While Gray: Does This Mean I’m Old?

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gardening while gray
OK, this gives you a clear picture of my garden and, as an added bonus, you get to meet my pup, Pearl. Yes, she’s a Pitbull, no, she isn’t dangerous. In fact, she’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen unless you’re a male dog (she’s a rescue from a puppy mill and was a breeder, but that’s a tale for another time). I’m gardening while gray, but I have to say, I didn’t wait to go gray.

As you can probably see, I crammed in as many vegetable plants as would physically fit into my small raised bed–I just moved into the house in May, so give me a little time and the garden plot will grow. I’m not sure my planting style meets with gardening standards, but I’m greedy enough to try anything for a vast bounty of fresh veggies. I figure if I give the garden some extra water and fertilizer, I’ll be OK. It’s worked in the past, so heck, give it a whirl.

Gardening while gray

I have a confession, I’m a 3rd generation gardener, at least that’s as far back as I can attest to. I grew up with stories of my great-grandparents who owned a vineyard back in the old country, Greece, and my mother’s family were farmers who trace their lineage back to Danial Boone. So, my obsession with gardening is something I’ve had since I could walk. In fact, there are pictures of me on a horse with my cousins on their farm. From the picture, it looks like I wasn’t even old enough to walk and, if I find the pic, I’ll share it with you.

My cousin and I used to go outside in the summer when I visited the farm for a week, and pick tomatoes off the vines. We’d stand their pouring salt and pepper on the warm fruit, and there’s still a strong debate over whether a tomato is a fruit or veggie, and eat them with the juice running down our chins until we had our fill.

My dad always had a large garden where he fed mostly the neighborhood deer and other wild animals, but we usually got a few tomatoes and maybe some beans for the table. And, my grandfather raised veggies in the backyard of his home outside Pittsburgh, where the food sustained the family through the depths of the depression (along with some baby chicks raised in the basement. Until he died, my dad refused to eat chicken).

Being a girl, I never did much with the garden but started one of my own as soon as I had my own place.

Women and gardening

My daughter is a history teacher and she knows women always did the gardening. While the men took care of planting a cash crop, women grew kitchen gardens to feed the family. The also handed down recipes for how to turn excess produce into great soups, pies, and other good things to eat now or preserved them for times when you couldn’t get fresh veggies from the garden.

But, in my lifetime, women didn’t really do anything in the garden. They tended the roses and such.

landscaping

My landscaping looks great, mostly because the previous owners did a great job. I mainly tend veggies and roses. I guess I’ll have to deal with the other landscaping in the spring.

The rise of women gardeners

Victory gardens were popular during WWII, at least that’s what I learned in school — I’m not that old! The pandemic seems to bring out the gardener in lots of folks. Maybe they just don’t have anything else to do or maybe they’re gardening while gray to avoid the grocery store and the virus.

Even before the pandemic, women left their corporate jobs to start farms. And, unlike Victory Gardens or my little kitchen garden, they’re doing it big-time — commercial farms. Who knows why the trend started. Maybe women just got tired of being bossed around and passed over for promotion. Maybe they figured they knew the secret to make a small plot of land payoff, like growing high-value produce, like berries, rather than corn that sells for less than a buck in season.

OK, enough for today.

Be sure to check out Living While Gray on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram. If you have ideas or would like to write for us, you can reach me through the comments.

See you back here soon.