It's Winter: Might as well Bake

The steps out the front door are hidden in snow:

The back isn't any better:

I think I'm going to make some banana bread, or maybe gingerbread.



(Yes, it doesn't take much to make me laugh. I'm trapped in my house until spring...or when I decide to dig myself out, whichever comes first.)

No snow here, but I've got bread in the oven,



and some of the dough was enriched and fruited.

The bread is whole grain spelt with 6 grain rolled grains for texture. I put in more malt than usual. I got the dough a bit too soft, so it spread out instead of rising higher in the oven. Oh, well. Better luck next week.

The fruit was a mixture of dried apricots, 'super berry mix', candied orange peel, (soaked in orange juice and peach/lemon grass liquor) and walnuts. Other than that, I added butter, honey, and an egg to some of the spelt bread dough and enough whole wheat flour to bring it up to the right consistency.

>3 Lyndatrue: I covet your recipe cards. I love handwritten recipe cards that look well used.

>6 lesmel: I wish my handwriting was still as neat and precise as it was then. Those recipes were written down many years ago. I need to get the Danish Pastry ones organized, and saved. They were from a newspaper, from that long ago time when there were cooking columns written by people who actually cooked. Not James Beard types; more like your grandmother.

>7 Lyndatrue: I love randomly searching newspapers.com (I have a subscription) for that exact thing.

I have a banana cake recipe from a newspaper in the 1930s. Best ever. My husband's grandmother cut it out and used it for years.

I love Banana Bread. I have a recipe that I have used for years, but I can't find it. Tomorrow I'm going to get serious, and look through every possible cookbook and recipe collection that I own. I bought a lot of bananas in preparation for the storm, and thought that making a couple of loaves of banana bread to have warm, in the morning, for breakfast, sounded wonderful. It still sounds wonderful. :-{

Yes, I could easily google it, and find something that would suit, but I want the one I've used for (oh, lord, I'm old) nearly 60 years. Tomorrow, I'm going to find it. Either that, or I'll give up and make gingerbread. :-}

The bread looks good! I like to bake and otherwise cook when I'm "stuck" too.

I'm giving up for a bit on finding the banana bread recipe. Here's my gingerbread recipe.

Gingerbread

2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup molasses
1 cup hot water

Cream shortening with sugar; beat in molasses and egg. Stir in dry ingredients, and beat in hot water until smooth. Bake in pan 13" x 9" x 2" at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

If you're new to this sort of recipe, hang tight, for a while, and I'll come back with a better description. I just need to pretend I'm civilized, and get out of my jammies for a while. ;-}

As long as I'm frittering away the day, I wanted to share this marvelous bit of SF history. It's partly an obituary for Jo Clayton, and partly just heartwarming, as it reminds us of how many good people there are in the world. Just skip to the middle if you don't have the patience to read it all, but honestly, it's not that long, and it touches the heart. Even mine.

http://www.sfwa.org/members/jo/obit.htm

Here's another recipe for Ranger Cookies. I laughed when I saw it on an old recipe card, since I know that others have mentioned them.

Ranger Cookies

1 cup flour
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg, well beaten
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or pecans)
1/2 cup chopped dates
1 cup Corn Flakes

Sift dry ingredients to salt; cream butter, add sugar gradually, cream until light. Add well-beaten egg and vanilla; mix thoroughly. Add flour mixture; mix well, then stir in oats, nuts, and dates. Last of all, lightly stir in corn flakes.

With two teaspoons, take small portions of the batter and drop on ungreased cookie sheet about 2" apart, using both spoons to help shape the cookie. Bake in 375 degree oven for 10-12 minutes.

Makes about 3 dozen.

As a side note, I usually substitute raisins (golden raisins, not the black ones) for the dates, and I always use pecans instead of walnuts, for myself. I have not made this recipe in many years, but I'm now tempted to purchase some kind of Flake cereal on my next trip to the grocery store, which may be as soon as tomorrow.

>14 Lyndatrue: A variation on the cookie that wins people over! Mmmmmmmm... This is my usual set up for making these: https://www.librarything.com/topic/301955#6723562

>15 lesmel: You know, I *thought* it was you that had posted it, but I figured I'd post the recipe in any case. The original recipe dates from the fifties, or perhaps earlier. Then again, you only posted fancy pictures. *I* posted actual words. ;-}

I'm *still* searching for my banana bread recipe, and I'm beginning to be discouraged.

I've given up on the banana bread, at least for now. I think I'll make some nice muffins tomorrow, and just eat the bananas that are left. I prefer my bananas to be ripe in any case, so it'll be fine, either way. :-}

Yesterday, a neighbor saw me start to shovel the driveway, and went home, and got her snow shovel. I explained that all I was really doing was clearing a path from the house to where the road was graded, so that I could go get the mail. The driveway wasn't all that bad in any case, because I'd already paid to have it cleared (the road grader built a wall that was close to three feet, and it would have taken me days to break through it).

I told her that if she wanted to be helpful, she could take me to the grocery store. Whoo-hoo! I now have updated provisions. I've been out working on the drive way some more, but I have zero intentions of starting my car for now. They say we'll have a few days rest from the snow, and I'm hoping that I can go out tomorrow, at least to pick up the FedEx delivery that's awaiting me at Walgreen's. We are close to the record for snow, for February, set in 1916, and I'm hoping we don't match it. I should mention that there are winters where we do not see snow. I don't mind a bit of snow, but I'm kind of done for the year.

>17 Lyndatrue: I have friends in Trout Lake. They've posted pictures of the snow. I'll settle for summer visits.

Monday (yesterday) I ventured out on my own for the first time, and I'm glad I did. It was probably the nearest to tolerable weather we've had for a while, and it is headed back into unpleasant, at best. It was pleasant to be out, but I was relieved to be back home. I prefer not to be around large groups of people, and it was, after all, a holiday.

Yesterday evening, while I was fixing dinner, a bulb went out in the light fixture. It has three bulbs, so it was mostly inconvenient, and I planned on changing it today. Then I came downstairs to the computer room, and the same type of light fixture decided to surprise me, and a bulb went out. I need a stepladder to change those bulbs, and even then, it's non-trivial. It's one of the rare times living alone is inconvenient. I wish stepladders had just one more step in them for us short folks. Still, the bulbs got changed (today), and life goes on.

They say more snow is coming. I hope that it's trivial, and doesn't last, but either way, it'll happen. Tomorrow, my only plans are to work on taxes (always non-trivial), and read.

>19 Lyndatrue: In light of this thread, it was inevitable that the question should pop into my head.

How many bakers does it take to change a lightbulb?

One apparently, but I'm not sure where the joke is. :)

>20 MrsLee: For the record, I was just now sipping on my *first* cup of coffee, and managed to put the cup down in time.

It took me most of the day to work up the nerve to change them, but I still managed to do the first one. I got down off the step ladder, cursing it again for not having one more step, and went downstairs, dragged out the same equipment, and changed the other. I mean to live alone, and on my own, forever...even if it means that I have to bring in the ladder from the garage to change a stupid light bulb (not yet, but I can see the day coming).

In other news, I found a recipe in my cookbooks (one from 1954) for Banana Bread. I doubt strongly that I ever made this, and note that it calls for an ingredient that I would never use: shortening. When I see that in a recipe, I *always* substitute butter instead. The list of ingredients in butter is, at most, two. The list of ingredients in Crisco Shortening is horrifying. On the other hand, I found an interesting recipe that had been used as a bookmark, and here it is:

Orange Nut Bread

(I'll come back later and type it in. I have other fish to fry first.)

It's below, in >24 Lyndatrue: and it's kind of interesting. I doubt I'd ever use the banana bread recipe from the book, but the orange nut bread might get made in the next week or so.

>21 Lyndatrue: There's a doohickey I used when I was in retail that has a bulb-shaped claw and a long handle so you can reach the bulbs from the floor. Doesn't work if you have to remove the glass on the fixture, though. Right now I'm blessed with low ceilings and a tall friend in an apt down the hall.

>22 PhaedraB: I'd forgotten about those. I've seen them used, but they would actually be too long to be useful (although perhaps they make them that would telescope into a piece short enough to be useful). I'm afraid that it's not just height that's limiting me here, though. It's fading vision (due to cataracts, which are finally scheduled to be removed next month), and the fact that I'm bent enough that I would not be able to stand properly to do it. It's still a pretty good idea to look around for one, though. I have eight foot ceilings upstairs and nearly that downstairs. Removing the glass is not the hard part, of course. It's replacing it, once through. It always seems to be an insurmountable task, and then I do it, and wonder why I put it off. Downstairs burns out a bulb every several months. Upstairs is perhaps once a year, or even less often. I have a three-way lamp that uses bulbs up faster than I'd expected it to, though. I wonder where I'll get replacements when I run out of them...

For perspective, I prefer incandescent light, and bought a tremendous supply when they were in the process of selling them off. Mostly, I bought 60 Watt GE Bulbs made in Ohio, not China (they tend to last longer), and you have to read the fine print to know where they were made. At least I could afford to do it, and have the storage for them all; I know that not everyone had that choice. I just wish I'd purchased more 3-way bulbs, or at least 150 Watt bulbs, since I only ever use the lamp at the brightest setting.

Even if I make it to 100 (and I hope that I do not; life isn't all that pleasant when everyone you know is gone), I won't run out of light bulbs.

Just in case anyone was wondering about my sanity... :-}

Orange Nut Bread

2 1/4 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup ground orange rind
1 egg, well beaten
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons shortening, melted

Sift dry ingredients together. Add nuts, raisins, orange rind. Combine egg, milk, orange juice. Add to flour mixture with shortening; mix until flour is dampened and fruit and nuts are well distributed. Spoon into greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pan, or two smaller loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 1 hour, or until it tests done. Let cool in pan 10 minutes; turn out and let stand until cold. Wrap in plastic or foil; let stand overnight before slicing.

Please note, I've typed it in nearly verbatim. I don't ever use shortening in food, and would substitute butter in this case. I would probably also cut into it before it had even finished cooling (because fresh, warm bread is wonderful). I think that one decently sized orange would yield 1/4 cup orange rind just using a grater, rather than running it through a grinder. If you did use a grater for the peel, then a reamer would be the best way to extract the juice (heck, a reamer is the easiest way to get juice out of any citrus fruit). I'm tempted to try this recipe out, just out of curiosity.

I'd need to buy an orange or two, and some pecans.

Here's a photograph of a reamer (photo is originally from eBay):

Another nice substitute for shortening is coconut oil, if you like coconut. :) In a fruit bread it is yummy.

I use the recipe for banana bread from Gold Medal Flour. I can post if needed. It calls for buttermilk but I use skim milk because that is what I have.
I am in Minnesota and cannot get out of two of my doors (they are sliding) because the snow is so high.
Leona

>26 mnleona: I'd like very much to have the recipe. When I was a girl, we usually had buttermilk because we'd made butter. Later on, I used a bit of vinegar on 2% milk to sour it, and that worked nearly as well. I don't buy commercial buttermilk from the grocery store, though. It's disgusting, and doesn't taste right.

Thanks very much for the offer of the recipe. It sounds very similar to the one I can no longer find.

:-}

Oh knowledgeable ones, a friend made butter and gifted me with the buttermilk. I used some of it to marinate chicken, but another cup of it has been sitting in my fridge for awhile now. I've got one cornbread recipe that calls for buttermilk for which I usually substitute plain yogurt, but I haven't been in the mood for cornbread.

At any rate, the real question is, how long does it last in the fridge? I don't have much experience with it fresh and none at all with it bad, so how does one tell? I've been eyeing it with suspicion for a week or two.

When I was a girl, when milk went bad we'd just say use it for baking. But honestly I can't remember the last time I did that. I rarely have milk in the house anymore, except for baking.

>28 PhaedraB: You're talking to someone who has never, ever seen buttermilk last longer than a day, perhaps two, at most. You just said you'd had it for a while, and then mentioned (I shudder here at the phrase) a week or two. Ewwwwwwwww........

Seriously, though, unless it smells bad, and seems like it's separated, I'd just use it. It's only good to drink for a day or so after it's made, but you can use it to cook with until it seems spoiled.

Because the interwebs know everything, here's more information than you'll ever want to know.

https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-long-is-buttermilk-good-for-1388303

I agree with most of it, but tell you right now, do NOT freeze your buttermilk. Just throw it away if it looks (or smells) bad.

ETA: Even better (because recipes!), here's a article from the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/just-how-long-will-that-refrigerat...

>27 Lyndatrue: The Google knows all...
https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/gold-medal-flours-best-ever-banana-bread-42...

I was just about to post the recipe on Banana Bread and see it was done. It is the one I use all the time.
Leona

>25 MrsLee: in Australia there’s a shortening called Copha. It’s basically hydrogenated coconut oil. I’ve never seen it used as a general shortening, only as the fat element in the children’s party confection called chocolate crackles.

Since I don't want to find it again, here's the recipe (directly from that link, and thanks to everyone for providing it).

Banana Bread (from the Gold Medal Flour package)

READY IN: 1hr 10mins
SERVES: 32
YIELD: 2 loaves

1 1⁄4 cups sugar
1⁄2 cup butter or 1⁄2 cup margarine, softened
2 eggs
1 1⁄2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3-4 medium)
1⁄2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts, if desired

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottoms only of 2 (8X4 inch) loaf pans. In large bowl, mix sugar and butter. Add eggs, bananas (increase recipe by one banana), buttermilk and vanilla; beat with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda, salt and nuts (if using) just until moistened. Pour batter into pans.

Bake for one hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans to cooling rack. Cool about 1 hour before slicing.

Since they offered the nutritional information, I thought I'd include it here:

The recipe I have for the Banana Bread is one I cut off the flour bag. It is dated 2010. I usually make muffins and I can freeze some.

>32 haydninvienna: I don't use hydrogenated, just cool coconut oil. I've made baking powder biscuits with it before. The problem is that it is so hard, it can be difficult to work into things, so butter is my usual go-to instead of shortening.

>35 MrsLee: The only known use for Copha is in the previously mentioned chocolate crackles, a mixture of melted Copha, cocoa powder, sugar, desiccated coconut and rice bubbles or some similar popped rice cereal, often put up in the little paper cup things used for cupcakes. As you say, hydrogenated coconut oil sets hard. I doubt if chocolate crackles would work with any other fat. There is also a confection called White Christmas, which is pretty much the same idea but without the cocoa and with some mixed fruit. Do I need to explain "mixed fruit"? Just in case--it's used for fruitcakes and the like, basically a mixture of sultanas, currants, mixed candied peel and often some artificial cherries. Can be good or nasty, depending on which brand you buy.

Today, one of my friends came and got me, and we went to lunch. It's pretty awful to be cooped up, but I suppose it'll all be forgotten in another month or so. We've currently broken the record for snowfall in February, set in 1916. I believe it, since most of it is in my back yard.

Normal temperature and weather this time of year is at least 20 or 30 degrees warmer than it's been for the past few weeks. I'll be relieved when I get the cataract surgery over with, and can go back to being completely independent...at least as much as I was before.

Enough whining. For lunch, I had a Reuben, which is more wonderful than it sounds, since the bread is honest Rye, and the sauerkraut is homemade. It was very pleasant to have food that I didn't cook, and to be at lunch with a friend.

>37 Lyndatrue: I love a good Rueben sandwich, and yours sounds delicious.

>37 Lyndatrue: I had to check where you live. We had record snow in February. I have stayed home because of the ice and snow. Good thing I have my books and crocheting. I am in Minnesota and so ready for Spring.
Leona

>39 mnleona: I keep hoping that it's the end of the snow, and the cold weather, and I so long for Spring. It's March. I should be fertilizing my trees, and awaiting the start of irrigation water. I wonder what the folks who grow potatoes and asparagus are doing right now.

I believe that everyone is ready for Spring.

>40 Lyndatrue: My achy bones certainly are. Even though we haven't had snow (at my house, we had a weird pocket of about 18" 15 miles from here), the cold and damp and dark are really wearing my body down. Either that or I have a weird virus that only causes sore joints and aching muscles.

This is good for baking though! I don't like to moan about the cold, because we will be in for months of near or above 100° weather soon. Then I will long for a rainy day. :)

>40 Lyndatrue: Except those of us living in the southern hemispherw and watching the days drawing in!

>42 hfglen: and >41 MrsLee: I believe I'd be less upset if it weren't so abnormal to have it so cold, and to have so much snow. Our normal temperature this time of year is in the fifties. We long ago went past the previous record for February snowfall, and are swiftly closing in on March, since it's very unusual for there to be *any* snow in March. I worry about more than just my own comfort. There are crops planted in February (normal years), and certainly in March. Under all that snow is winter wheat, although I cannot imagine it to be anything but a loss at this point.

I look at all the terrible and heartbreaking damage from the last storm across the southeastern part of the US, and wonder what next year will bring. I heard on the news that two anonymous companies are picking up the tab for the funerals for those who lost their lives. Sad business.

Ah, well. Today is more snow, but just a dusting. Tomorrow is supposed to start a warming trend. I don't think I've ever looked forward more to a day that features highs in the thirties. Ah, well. In a couple of months or so it'll be hot, and I'll forget all about this. Maybe.

Still relatively cool and pleasant here, but in 2 months or so we will be looking at temps in the 30s (that's Celsius).

>44 haydninvienna: Tomorrow's weather forecast is a Berg Wind, with temps in the 30s C.

Funny, no matter how many times I *see* the word Celsius, I still *hear* it as Centigrade. I just found this, which is amusing (and mostly factual).

https://expattutor.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/what-happened-to-centigrade-confusio...

30 Celsius corresponds to 86 Fahrenheit, and I'd be overjoyed to see that right now. Actually, it's a normal temperature here for much of the Spring (certainly April and May, and often June). Currently it is 31 outside. That's in F, not C, which approximates 0. I would like Celsius more if it had a greater range. Having Fahrenheit go from 32 to 200 gives a lot more choices than 0 to 100...

No matter, though. I just want the snow to melt, and soon. The dogwood should be waking up about now, and it's not going to, until it gets a lot warmer. Me, either.

>46 Lyndatrue: Being in the US this is something I never thought about. interesting and thanks for the info.

I'm grateful right now to have LibraryThing as a distraction. I'm in the middle of having cataracts removed, and it's an alien process to go through, with the worst being that just when I'll be good at it, I'll never do it again. Seems wasteful, somehow, to gain such a useless skill.

Just kidding (in case anyone thinks otherwise).

Warning: If you're squeamish, you probably don't want to keep reading.

The first eye (left) was done Wednesday morning. Since sedation wasn't possible, it meant I just had to use my own internal resources to keep calm, and to hold still, while it was going on. The eye was anesthetized (of course), and it was terrifying and fascinating all at the same time. Realizing that the little floaty bits visible in all the other things going on were bits of the lens on my eye was alien, and yet fascinating, all at the same time. I could still see, even after all the cataract was broken up, and removed, and even more strange, I could see the artificial lens as it same across the eye, and was settled into place.

It took me until a full day later to realize that he'd used some sort of fancy razor to *shorten* my eyelashes. I just kept looking in the mirror (after the plastic protector was off), trying to figure out why the eye looked odd. It's because the eyelashes are just short, dammit. It rather reminds me of a Renaissance painting, where the people have no lashes painted on. At least the eyes will match after the next eye is done. It was odd, since (as I look back) I noticed that he was doing *something* with my eyelashes, but I supposed (at the time) that he was just making sure there wasn't anything stuck to them.

I'm not a very good patient (although I'm trying very hard to follow the rules, and to be relatively cooperative). I keep wanting to do things that I then realize are tasks I was specifically told to stay away from. I could use this downtime to clean the carpet on the stairs. Oh, no, no I can't, since that involves close work with a fancy brush, to get all the dust and hair loose. Everything I can think of that would be useful involves stirring up dust, which I'm supposed to stay away from.

I wonder how many people leave that cup thing on their eye. I was supposed to wear it at night to make sure that I didn't rub my eye while I slept. I just told him that I wouldn't rub it, and that I didn't move around when I went to sleep. I don't. It's been fine, so far (okay, okay, it's only the second day, but still).

I'm writing this mostly for myself, because I'll be doing this again on the 27th (for the right eye), and it'll be reassuring to remember that once past all the nonsense of dealing with nursing staff who are, after all, used to handling mostly older people who may or may not have memory issues, everything is fine. I'll be relieved when it's done, and I'm glad it's March, because I won't have tossed out April and May, two of the best months there are (Spring planting, and no snow).

>48 Lyndatrue: Wishing you speedy recovery AND sparkley clear vision!!

It's nice to be able to see the world just as the bare beginnings of Spring are showing.

I baked gingerbread today, and was astonished to realize that it's been nearly a year, far as I recall, since I last made anything other than a few rounds of muffins or biscuits. It took me more time to get started than to actually make, of course. I'd purchased pecans to go into something else, but decided to toss them into the gingerbread instead. Excellent decision. I'll try to take a photograph tomorrow, if I remember.

I'm going to grab a jar of spiced apples and take it upstairs to go with the gingerbread tomorrow morning. Life is good. :-}

I guess this is evidence that gingerbread lasts about a week (there's two pieces left, and it's Sunday). I bought some raspberries and blackberries at the grocery store, and crushed them with sugar. They're an excellent topping for gingerbread. I ought to try a carrot cake next, since I have quite a few. I dunno. We'll see, I suppose.

I'd say that I've spent the past several days just getting used to the fact that there's color in my world again. I don't think I'd realized how different things were until the first cataract was replaced (it was the worst, by far). Today I was reminded of how beautiful the blue sky is, on a day that had just a few clouds floating low, for emphasis. Blue was the first color I started to lose, and I still weep, when I'm by myself, and I look at the sky. The second eye was done last Wednesday, and I'm getting used to just having the world look as it's supposed to, rather than approaching shades of gray.

Life is good.

>52 Lyndatrue: That is a beautiful post. We take so much for granted. Happy for you being able to rediscover your world with fresh vision!