August 24, 2015

Wind Pudding, or Pineapple Marshmallow Concoction

August 24, 2015/ Blair Cowan

This week marks the six month anniversary of this blog, which is pretty cool. That means I've made 72 dishes from the box including 6 cheesecakes (with another on the way this week!), 2 disasters, and one boozy drink.

I've taken a lot of pictures, learned where the best light in my kitchen is, and found a workable substitute for shortening. I got a job, went on holiday (3 times!), and celebrated both an anniversary and a birthday with key lime pie. I've also barely put a dent in the total recipes in the box, but I'm trying to go easy on myself on that front-- it took Eleanor 40 years to collect 'em, so as long as I get through them faster than that, I'm still winning, right?

In honour of the six-month-iversary (demiversary?) of this blog, here's some potty humour for you: Eleanor was so painfully proper that she referred to bodily functions as 'chi-chi' and 'boo-boo.' Even when she was potty-training her own kids, that's the only way she ever referred to using the bathroom. Before you ask, no, I do not know which one was 'chi-chi,' and I'm pretty sure I'm ok with that.* Anyway, I always thought those were the two dumbest names I had ever heard of for anything related to... you know. But then I moved to Scotland and learned the phrase 'trapped wind,' which means... well, I'll leave it to your imagination and just say that it's not fit conversation for a food blog. A co-worker of Judson's taught it to him one day and ever since it's become the Scottish phrase that most cracks us up, despite how gross it is. If you ever come visit us in Scotland, just know that the word wind has a whole different meaning for us now.

So of course when I found a recipe for Wind Pudding in the box, I was immediately as tickled as an 11-year-old boy, especially when I realised it's literally a 3-ingredient recipe that sounds (and, in fact, is) terrible.

When I made this, it was a miserable failure. Although I'll be the first to admit that I regularly suffer from cooking-related mishaps, I have a hard time believing this one was my fault. I really think that marshmallows in Scotland are just different than their American counterparts. Seriously: I think American marshmallows are mostly vegetarian these days, but the ones here-- which are much more delicious, in my humble opinion-- are still made with beef gelatin, which renders them chewier and stiffer than American ones, and, in this case, less likely to melt in pineapple juice. I think the marshmallows in the recipe were supposed to kind of dissolve in the pineapple, then the whipped cream would have made the entire mixture like a creamy Dole Whip. But instead, the marshmallows just swelled slightly, holding their shape and texture, and just sitting on top of the pineapple, which was now extra-dry because the spongey marshmallows soaked up all the juice. It's also possible that the size of the marshmallows contributed to this problem-- mini marshmallows have not yet been invented in Scotland, apparently, so I had to use regular-sized ones. Although the recipe doesn't specify the marshmallows should be miniature, I can't imagine it would have hurt.

Even Judson turned up his nose at this, and Judson loves marshmallows.

In conclusion, I have no idea what the 'wind' in wind pudding is referring to. Was it a reference to the tropical breezes of Florida and the fact that they carry with them the sweet smells of tropical fruit, like pineapples? Or was it referring to the air in the marshmallows? I don't know, and I failed at this recipe, big time. Don't make this recipe. Please.

*As a kid, my mom made the grave mistake of telling me this, and I've still never passed a bottle of Chi-Chi's salsa without giggling.

The verdict:

1 spoon out of five. This is the dumbest recipe that exists.

The recipe:

Wind Pudding

the directions:

Soak marshmallows in pineapple overnight.
The next day, whip the cream.
Fold whipped cream into pineapple mixture gently.
Take a bite and then immediately wish that you hadn't.

the ingredients:

1 can crushed pineapple
1 cup marshmallows
½ c whipped cream

August 11, 2015

Oops I Totally Forgot Cheesecake, or, Simple, Classic Cheesecake

August 11, 2015/ Blair Cowan

Oops. I am just the worst, you guys. I forgot to post July's cheesecake of the month recipe. This is particularly alarming for me because I have SO MANY cheesecake recipes to get through that if I just run around skipping them all willy-nilly like this I am never going to get through all of them.

So here's the 6th cheesecake recipe I've tested for this blog. That means I've been doing this for almost 6 months, which is a pretty exciting feat in itself (but more on that later). This one made me nervous before I even started cooking it. For one thing, it's way more complicated than the last cheesecake recipe I made (my favourite one to date). And for another thing, Eleanor had written in the upper corner of the recipe card 'Emma's-- heavy cheese, real good.'* What does that even mean?

This recipe is dated from the 1940s, so this is one of her earliest recipes and definitely the earliest dated cheesecake recipe in the box... which is evident when you read the ingredients and the first one is 'pot cheese.' Judson and I have had a blast making hypothetical guesses about what pot cheese could actually refer to-- my favourite guess is that it's actually an abbreviation for 'potato cheese,' though the idea that it's marijuana-infused cheese did, of course, come up in conversation.

Another option for best accidental selfie I've ever taken.

Luckily, my dad came to visit recently and was able to provide us with a good answer. In case you, too, are in the dark about this, pot cheese is a 'dry-curd' cottage cheese, usually distinguished from other cheeses because it has no added salt. Having never seen this at a Scottish grocer or cheesemonger, I asked my dad for comparable products and upon his advice, I decided to use ricotta, fearing that drained cottage cheese would prove too grainy and not smooth enough. Since this recipe includes a bit of flour to help soak up any excess moisture, ricotta seemed to be the best option, though next time I might try mascarpone mixed with drained cottage cheese, just to see how it works.

Like a lot of her favourite recipes in the box, the more she liked a recipe, the fewer details she included on how to make it. I guess this makes sense-- if you make a recipe all the time, you only need the basics and you'll surely remember the rest, but it definitely makes my job interesting to try to figure out her intent. There are no instructions for how to make this-- the only instructions say to strain the cheese 'and cream,' then there is a note to use the crust recipe from the Sunshine graham cracker box, which is helpfully also included in the box (or, at least, the Nabisco pie crust recipe is included, so I used that, with the obvious substitution of digestive biscuits for graham crackers). And also I got nervous about using 1 ½ pounds of cheese, so I cut the recipe in half. So pretty much I broke all of my own rules about making no substitutions and following the directions to the letter, but I think you'll agree it was both necessary and worth it.

*Upon further investigation, it is completely possible that the card actually reads 'Enormous-- Heavy cheese, real good.' If so, I guess it's a good thing I cut the recipe in half.