Al Dente

Mom's Time-Saving Tools: Cupcake Carriers

Why did I waste all these years without one? I recently got myself a cupcake carrier, one of those caddies that keeps each cupcake beautiful and tidy in its own little spot. After years of decorating cupcakes on a plate, only to have their frosting rub off on each other as well as on the foil or plastic wrap I used to cover them, I realize this thing will save me from the frustration and ugliness that comes with serving these party staples at least tri-annually (there are three kids' birthdays in our house).

The best part is, the one I got, the Carefree Kitchen Party Traveler, comes with a clear cover so the kids can oggle all they want while the cupcakes remain hermetically sealed and germ-free. It also comes with removable trays for veggies and dip, as well as deviled eggs. Though I can't imagine deviled eggs lasting long enough in my house to be displayed much less transported anywhere.

Add a comment below to let me about any time-saving tools you've discovered.

--Martha Snodgrass

Canning Tips: A Lesson from a Canning Expert

I recently met a fellow here in Seattle who bought the house next door, razed it, and planted a 1200 sq. ft. garden. With his urban farm and a state fishing license, he is performing an experiment to see if he can feed his family on the fruits of his labor -- and from the descriptions of the meals he makes, he's doing it tastefully. The economic downturn that has many people out of work and the recent string of health scares in processed foods has more people growing, picking, and canning their own food.

In fact, this new canning wave has sparked the Can-a-Rama, Canning Across America, offering local events to demonstrate canning and help people learn the ins and outs of this ancient tradition. Well, it's not exactly ancient, but according to the American Council on Science and Health, canning was invented when Napoleon offered of a prize for a means of preserving food for his armies.

My first attempt at canning strawberry jam was semi-disastrous so once the raspberries came ripe, I called in the big guns -- Mom. She's been canning for 50 years and has the process down. Here are the best tips I got from her:

1. Gather everything beforehand: And by everything she meant the following:
   1. Sugar
   2. Pectin
   3. Fruit
   4. Pint measuring pitcher (for fruit)
   5. Cup measuring pitcher (for sugar)
   6. Three big pots (one for making jam, one for boiling jars, one for processing) and one small saucepan (for the lids)
   7. Potholders (the pots get hot!)
   8. A ladle with a pouring edge
   9. A canning kit
   10. A canning rack
   11. A lid rack
   12. A candy thermometer (the kind that adheres to the side of the pot)
   13. A kitchen rag soaked in a 1-to-10 bleach-water solution
   14. Enough jars, lids, rings (also called bands) to contain all your jam (here's a converter to help you convert cups to quarts or pints -- the volume will cook down, but to ensure you have enough jars, plan for the amount of volume you put into your jam recipe).
2. Don't scrimp on the above list: Though some things like the canning rack, lid rack, and candy thermometer don't seem mandatory here's how much easier they made things:
   1. Canning rack: Without it you have to pick up each jar with tongs or a jar lifter. Saves time and reduces risk of injury when taking hot clean jars to your counter so you can fill them with jam, and moving processed jars out of the boiling water.
   2. Lid rack: Without it you have to try to separate a lid and pick it up, with tongs, from a horizontal position (not an easy task).
   3. Candy thermometer: The lids should be heated but not boiled. Boiling the lids may cause the sealing compound on the lid to move around, creating an inconsistent seal, causing leaks in the lid seal. Place the candy thermometer on the side of the saucepan and keep the heat below 180 degrees F (boiling).  
3. Follow the recipe: There are recipes for jams, jellies, spreads, preserves, even low-sugar recipes. The important thing is they've all been tested to:
   1. have enough sugar or pectin to preserve the jam without spoilage, 
   2. ensure they jell (in the past I doubled the recipe and it never reached jelly-like consistency),
   3. taste good.
4. Use the canning rack for sanitizing and processing your jars: Put your jars upside-down in the canning rack to sanitize them. You have to add them one at a time to let them fill, then turn them upside-down. When you're ready to fill, lift them out slowly to let the boiling water slowly gush out (make sure you use a pot with high-sides). Turn them over as you remove them from the rack and they're ready to fill. Add jars back to the rack as they are filled with jam. Then they're ready for processing. Saves tons of time, and keeps you from breaking filled jam jars as you add them to the pot for processing.
5. Ladle jam into the jars: I was picking up the pot and pouring jam into the jar -- a picture wrought with peril. My Mom actually screamed when she saw me. She then picked up a hot jar with her gloved hand and held it over the jam pot, placed the funnel on the jar, then very sensibly pulled out a beautiful ladle and nearly filled the jar with one graceful ladle-full. Neat, safe, and easy.
6. Wipe the jam off the edges of jars before you put on the lid: This ensures the lid will seal. Sometimes a little jam spills on the lid when you remove the canning funnel, and a bleach-water solution ensures you don't add any bacteria to the area.
7. Leave the requisite headspace in the top of jar: The rule for jams and jellies is to fill jars up to 1/4-inch from the top. This headspace leaves air in the top of the jar to contract as it cools, and creates a vacuum seal.

Last note: Canvolution Tweeted us to bring our attention to Christine Ferber, the "fairy godmother of preserving," and her book Mes Confitures Jellies. Take a look and let me know what you think.

--Martha Snodgrass

Other articles in this series:

Canning Preparation: Canning Tips and Tools

Canning Do's and Don'ts (but Mostly Don'ts)

For more canning tips and tools check out Amazon's Canning Store.

Easy One-Pot Meals, Part III

Ahh, summer barbecues are the best, except they seem to pop up spontaneously and I always end up scrambling for something to bring. Here's an easy dish that takes minimal prep, cost, and attention.

Beans are healthy, cheap, and versatile. This preparation has some less-than-healthy ingredients, but the points it loses in fat grams it makes up for in flavor. Also, this recipe breaks the true "one-pot-meal" premise by suggesting you transfer some ingredients to a bowl and return them to the pot later. For the purists out there, you can keep all ingredients in the pot, continuing to add ingredients as you go, but this sacrifices a little of the flavor. Using the additional bowl will keep the flavors more distinct.

My 6-year-old loves these beans. He loves the smells as they change with each step in the process. He keeps the timer with him and enjoys interrupting my afternoon chores with "it's time to check the beans!"

Time to get out your big pot.

Ingredients:
1 package bacon, diced
4 green peppers, diced
5 medium or 3 large onions, diced
1 package of pinto beans (dried)
2 small ham hocks or 2 cups ham, diced
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons oregano
2 tablespoons ground cumin
1/2 tablespoon ground pepper
3 cloves of garlic, pressed
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 large tomatoes, diced

Place the bacon in the pot and cook over medium heat until the bacon is crunchy. Add the green peppers and onions. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are clear. Move this mixture to a bowl, set aside and cover. To the pot, add the dried beans and ham. Fill the pot with water until beans are covered with an inch of water. Check beans after 30 minutes to top off with water if beans begin to surface. After one hour, pour off the water. Getting rid of the initial soaking water reduces the flatulence caused by the beans, keeping your barbecue more enjoyable for everyone. Simmer for three more hours until beans are tender. Be sure to peek in the pot every 30 minutes or so and top it off with water if beans begin to surface. Finally, add the bacon, onion, and green pepper mixture, diced tomatoes, salt, oregano, cumin, pepper, garlic, and sugar, and simmer for 20 more minutes. Remove bones of ham hocks. Goes great with cornbread muffins slathered with butter and honey. Yields enough to feed a hungry group of eight adults plus leftovers.

Have fun at the barbecue. Don't forget the sunscreen.

--Martha Snodgrass

Other articles in this series:

Easy One-Pot-Meals, Part I: Corned Beef

Easy One-Pot Meals, Part II: Vegetable Soup

Canning Dos and Don'ts (but Mostly Don'ts)

If you're considering canning for the first time, learn from my mistakes. Here's what I learned in my first attempt at making strawberry jam.

Do's

Get a canning rack. The canning rack would have made it much easier to immerse the cans in the boiling water. Instead I had to pick up each jar and gently drop it in the hot water without letting it hit hard on the bottom of the pot, or fall over once in the water. The plastic coating on the jar lifter provided the grip required to lift heavy jars, but it stuck to the jars a little on release. This caused a few of my jars to tip over in the water, and righting them was a challenge.

Get a candy or deep-frying thermometer, one that clips to the side of the pan. Per the manufacturer's instructions, I needed to keep the lids soaking at 180 F and not allow them to boil. Boiling causes the sealing compound on the lids to set. This is also why you cannot re-use jar lids. I wish I'd had that thermometer -- it's hard to look at water and know when it's just about to boil.

Get a canning kit. Almost everything I needed was in my Presto 7-Function Canning Kit. Not only did I use everything except the jar wrench (which will come in handy when I want to open my finished product) but the cool magnet on the back of the spatula was perfect for moving hot lids from the water bath to the tops of the jars. No added bacteria, no blistered fingers.

Don'ts

Run out of jars. The penalty is jam you'll have to throw out, or freeze and use within the next few months. I wasn't sure how much jam I would have left after reduction, so I just prepared enough jars to contain the volume of pre-cooked ingredients. Here's how that calculates:
2 Qts. strawberries (4 pints) + 3 cups sugar (1.5 pints) + 3 cups honey (1.5 pints) = 7 pints
All the resources I checked warned against cooking up the jam in large batches. They said that for some reason the sugar doesn't get distributed and the mixture won't ever jell.

Go outside the recipe. In an attempt to make healthier jam, I didn't use the sugar (just the honey). Unfortunately this meant the jam had to cook forever to jell, and the beautiful red strawberry color turned to a ruby merlot. It tastes good, possibly tangier than if I'd used all the sugar, but it's more like preserves than jam.

If you have tips you'd like to share or questions you'd like answered, please send them in and I'll address them in my next post.

--Martha Snodgrass

For more canning tips and tools check out Amazon's Canning Store.

Wine in a Box: Can the Flavor Beat the Low-Class Image?

This weekend I noticed something I haven't seen since college -- wine in a box. And yes, someone brought it up in conversation, but not to declare surprise at this display of bad taste but rather the contrary. People were commenting on how good the wine was. I took my last sip of a red wine from a respectible California winery and took a splash from the tap on the box. They were right, it was better.

Well, it seems The next time someone tells you box wine is gauche, you can tell them you drink it for the superior flavor. According to SciGuy at chron.com, scientists published a paper in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry documenting how when they compared bottled wine and boxed wine, wine in the bottle contained more substances that can contaminate the wine's flavor and odor.

So at your next party, display your boxed wine proudly.

-- Martha Snodgrass

Canning Preparation: Canning Tips and Tools

The economy has me looking for ways to save money, and recent world events have me looking for ways to avoid processed foods. I did the math and realized that if I made my own jam this year, I could save as much as $150 (my family eats a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches). The strawberries are almost ready and I'm planning on canning 18 lbs. of strawberries into jam in a few weeks. From my research, here are the tips I'm finding and the tools I'm reading are essential.

• I picked a jam recipe because it requires no pectin. It's just pure fruit and sugar. And 1/2 the sugar can be replaced with natural honey.
• Jam requires no straining of seeds, as jelly does. (Can you tell I'm going for easy?)
• Do NOT try to double the recipe for jam. It turns out it won't cook in the same way as a smaller batch, so the jam may not jell, and then you'd be left with strawberry syrup. This means I'll be cooking my 18 lbs. of strawberries in 2 quart batches. It's going to be a long day.
• The amount of natural pectin (the stuff that makes the jam jell) is higher in fruit that is less ripe, and lower in fruit that is more ripe. Less pectin means I won't have to cook it as long. Let's hope the strawberries aren't overripe.
  
• Strawberry jam is not a low-acid food, so it does not require a pressure cooker. Just 10 minutes of boiling in a water-bath canner will create a secure lid seal. 
• Since jam has no pectin, the cooking time will vary. To gauge when it's done, I will use a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature, and watch for the jam to pass a sheet test (when the jam falls off a cool spoon in a sheet rather than in drops), and a plate test (when a dab of the liquid is jam consistency after cooling on a plate to room temperature). 
• Required tools:
  
  • a food scale to ensure exact measurements (the more exact the measurements the less chance of my jam becoming syrup),
  • measuring cups and pitchers
  • a large saucepot with a thick bottom to keep the sugary-jam mixture from burning, 
  • a slotted spoon or a skimmer to remove any foam from the top of the jam before it's put it in the jars (bubbles can cause spoilage)
  • a canning funnel with a mouth sized to fit the jar you're using (pint, quart, and 1/2 pint are the traditional jar sizes).
  • a spatula (to help all the jam into the jar)
  • a lid lifter (to cleanly lift the lids onto the jars without contamination)
  • a jar lifter (to left hot jars out of the water-bath canner)
  • a water-bath canner

If you have tips you'd like to share or questions you'd like answered, please send them in and I'll address them in my next post.

--Martha Snodgrass

For more canning tips and tools check out Amazon's Canning Store.

Easy One-Pot Meals, Part II

If you're enjoying a nice Memorial Day at home, here's another easy one-pot meal to help you spend more time playing and less time cooking.

This is my favorite vegetable soup that seems simple, but has a very complex flavor. A hint of citrus tones down the richness of the beef broth for an almost light, but incredibly flavorful soup. The recipe comes from my mother's neighbor, a grand dame named Murial Sommers who has several great gastronomic tricks up her sleeve.

When I make this with my 6-year-old, he's in charge of opening cans and keeping track of the timer. When the timer dings he's excited to put the next batch of ingredients into the pot.

The soup starts with one large beef bone. You can usually get one inexpensively at your local grocery store. Just ask the butcher in the meat department. Make sure to request one that will fit in your big pot!

Ingredients:
1 large beef bone
1 pound stew beef
3 quarts water
2 large cans of tomatoes
2 large onions, chopped
3 tablespoons salt
2 thin lemon slices
1/2 red pepper pod
1/2 cup barley
1 cup diced turnips
2 cup diced carrots
1 cup diced celery
1 cup chopped parsley
1 can butter beans
1 can corn

Place the beef bone, stew beef, and water in your large pot and simmer for two hours, then skim off the frothy fat. Add tomatoes, onions, salt, lemon slices, red pepper, and barley and cook for one more hour. Next add turnips, carrots, celery, and parsley and cook for an additional hour. Finally, add butter beans and corn and cook for 15 more minutes. Remove bones and lemon slices. Serve in large bowls accompanied by fresh baguette or crispy French rolls. Yields enough to feed a hungry group of five adults plus some leftovers.

With this recipe, I hope you're able to spend more time playing this Memorial Day.

--Martha Snodgrass

Bacon Maple Bar Saves Part-Time Vegetarian

After a cleansing five-day intense yoga retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs, where the menu is strictly vegetarian, I was feeling clean, strong, healthy, and in desperate need of protein. Figuring I'd be home around dinner time, I planned to continue my healthy streak with some tekka maki from my local sushi restaurant. But as the evening rush hour began to waylay our progress, and my carnivorous hunger began to kick-in, I thought I better sate my need before I started to eat my own fingernails. Fortunately for me, as we cruised through Portland, we happened past VooDoo Doughnuts, the home of the Bacon Maple Bar.

I was a little concerned about what this intense shot of sugar and fats would do to my thoroughly cleansed and hyper-relaxed system after nearly a week of a meat-free, low-fat, zero refined sugar diet. I also had to consider that I still had five non-stop hours in the back of a small car to go (making intestinal distress disastrous).

Once we entered Voodoo Doughnuts, a Pepto-Bismol pink former Denny's restaurant, I searched the display case and there past the Voodoo doughnut dolls (which come complete with frosting-painted grimace and pretzel voodoo pin impaling their little doughy hearts), vegan doughnuts (exactly NOT what I needed), doughnuts covered with Coco Puffs and Captain Crunch, I saw one maple bar topped with two strips of crispy bacon. Hunger and nutritional need drove me to pull out my wallet.

Now, my aesthetic sensibilities started to kick in and I noticed the bacon fat had cooled, congealed, and turned white. Suddenly I lost my appetite. I think it was CJ, the most experimental of our quintet that dove in for the first bite. After seeing the satisfied roll of her eyes, my curiosity overwhelmed my hesitation and I dug in. It was pure syrupy pancake and bacon bliss. This was the breakfast I'd yearned for each morning I'd woken up to tempeh and eggs.

While I wouldn't recommend making a trip cross-country for this doughnut, if you find yourself in Portland, it's definitely worth a five-minute trip out of your way to try it. Also, if you happen to be at breakfast with all the makings nearby, drop a strip of warm bacon on a maple bar and you'll have an even fresher experience than mine.

--Martha Snodgrass

Chocolate Cupcake-Eating Contest Won with the Power of Yoga

Wow, I knew yoga was good for you in lots of ways, but who knew it could help you win an eating contest? Though she wasn't doing any headstands or pretzel-twists during or soon after the contest, according to the Brooklyn Daily News, Nancy Cummings used the discipline and focus she has as a yoga instructor to gobble down 17 cupcakes in 5 minutes.

Dunking each cupcake in a glass of water also helped her slide them down her throat.

Just goes to show you, discipline and focus are the key to diet control whether you're trying to consume as few or as many cupcakes as you can.

(Photo credit: Brooklyn Daily News)

--Martha Snodgrass

Stovetop Espresso 101

After experiencing an average daily coffee from my Francis!Francis!, a few exceptional coffees at small coffee houses, and more Starbuck’s than I’m proud to admit, I’ve found something that’s changed my life. My Bialetti stovetop espresso maker.

Deep down, I was afraid of stovetop espresso. I was particularly concerned that:

1. It would explode in my kitchen.
2. It seemed too complicated yet so low tech, which meant it couldn’t taste as good as my expensive espresso maker.
3. I hear they’re hard to clean.
4. It couldn’t steam milk, so I couldn’t have a latte unless I wanted to heat and froth my milk separately.

Well, I got over my concerns and tested one of these out and I haven’t looked back. Since my last post on this received so many questions and comments, I thought I’d compile the basics of my experience for those of you searching for an alternative to Starbucks and expensive automatic espresso machines. Here’s what I found:

1. It won’t blow up, but it might bubble over: In my first few attempts my coffee boiled over on the stove so I thought I was leaving it on the stove too long. Then I started waiting and watching it to try to catch it before it boiled over. I noticed that the coffee actually tasted better if I pulled it off just before it finished. The Italians just pull it off the heat when it’s about 90% done. At this point, your grounds have exhausted their flavor and the last bit coming through is bad tasting water. Bialetti’s collaborated with Italian coffeemaker Illy, to create the new Cour di Moka which has a patented system that does this for you. It has a decorative silicone heart that rides up the column and blocks the last 10% of the brew from coming out. As Bialletti says, this preserves the “Cour”--the heart and soul and essence of the coffee. I still haven’t seen any stories of one of these things breaking—they’re industrial in their styling and they have proven to stand years of heating and cooling, so I can’t imagine what it would take to break one.
2. It’s not that complicated: There’s three main parts, 1. the top where you find your coffee after the brew is done, 2. the middle section which includes the coffee filter basket, insulator ring, and basket screen, and 3. the base where you put the water. Here’s how easy it is to make the coffee:
   • Fill the base with cold water up to the fill line. It's totally easy to see.
   • Fill the coffee filter basket, insert it into the water base (don’t pack the coffee), then put on your insulator ring and basket screen. Only use “fine” or “very fine” coffee grounds. A touch less fine than ‘espresso’ grind. Also be sure the coffee is freshly roasted.
   • Screw the top onto the base of the espresso machine and place it over a medium heat source. You do need to pay a little extra attention to ensure everything is screwed on right.
   • Pressure builds up in the base and pressure forces the hot water through the coffee grounds up into the top.
   • When there’s almost as much coffee in the top as the amount of water you put in the base, you’re done. Typically it takes about 45 seconds.
   I think it tastes better than my expensive espresso maker. Not only that, it takes about half the work and time to make the espresso, and I never spray my kitchen with grounds when I pack my coffee too tight. The flavor from a stovetop espresso maker isn’t quite as complex as the flavor from an automatic espresso maker, but (now after a few weeks of practice) I always can get a clean coffee flavor with none of the burnt flavor that I get (sometimes) from my automatic machine or (always) from Starbucks.  If I use the perfect grind and get fresh enough coffee, it even sometimes produces a little Crema, the caramel colored coffee foam on top. Here’s what Bialetti says about their Moka Express, “Developed in 1933, the Moka Express is the original aluminum stovetop espresso maker designed by Alfonso Bialetti. It brews an Italian-style coffee on the stovetop with no mechanical or electrical parts. Simple physics, great coffee.” Word.
3. It’s not hard to clean, because you don’t clean it: So I’ve read that stovetop espresso makers get ugly yellow stains and calcium deposits. After doing more research I’ve found the yellow stains actually make the coffee taste better. The older your espresso maker is, the better the coffee tastes. Take pride in that stain--it's coffee coating (maybe penetrating?) the metal, so your coffee tastes like coffee not metal. When you get it new, use it 3 or 4 times before you can judge the flavor. Italians hate to throw them away because it takes so long to season them, and one that’s well used is highly valued. The longer you use it, the better the coffee. Wash it with warm water and a mild cleanser if you have to. For those who can’t stand the discoloration, you can always get a stainless model.
4. I can have my espresso and my latte too: Now Bialetti offers the Mukka Express which lets you actually add milk (or chocolate milk, for a mocha) to the top, which is then steamed by the espresso as it enters the top chamber. It works just like the other stovetop espresso makers that only make coffee. It’s exactly what I wanted and it’s the model I use now daily. I’ve found my true love.

Is stovetop espresso really espresso? This is one last question I wanted to address. True espresso is brewed at a higher pressure, about 13 to 15 bars (or atmospheres), which draws a lot of the oil out of the coffee. Since the stovetop espresso machine relies on the pressure of boiling steam and water which is pressed through the coffee, it doesn’t “technically” qualify as actual espresso. But everybody still calls them “stovetop espresso makers.” For the flavor it delivers, I’m sticking with my stovetop espresso maker, stains and all.

--Martha Snodgrass

Bacon: The Real Economic Stimulus Package

In tough times, people turn to comfort. People are finding comfort in the delicious flavor of bacon, and sales are stimulating the economy. According to the American Farm Bureau, sales were up 10 percent last year to $2.1 billion.

Easy One-Pot Meals, Part I

One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday is start cooking dinner just after lunch. It becomes a creative experience requiring my attention only a few minutes an hour, and fills the house with amazing aromas. The best part is I can cook (and sometimes even serve) the entire meal in one pot, and not overflow my dishwasher.

This series was inspired by the dinner I made yesterday to celebrate St. Patrick's Day: Corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes.

The most important part of a one-pot dinner is the pot. Since I was cooking a Sunday night family dinner for four adults and three kids which needed to be boiled for 2-4 hours, I used a 20-quart stockpot with a clear glass lid. If you're not cooking for a small army, and you want meal prep that's as fool-proof as possible, get something like this extra-thick commercial-grade steel stock pot which has an outer shell that's twice as thick as most pots. (You have to get this sucker red hot to burn anything.)

Here's the recipe for my meal. Though it took over 2-1/2 hours to cook, it took less than 30 minutes of my attention. So I got to do all my other Sunday chores and visit with company while it cooked. And the beauty of boiled beef is that the window for "doneness" is about 20 minutes. This means there's no penalty if you're not totally diligent about checking on it.

Ingredients:
2 2-pound packages of corned beef brisket (packed in brine)
2 small green cabbages
1 2-pound bag of baby Yukon gold potatoes

Here's how easy it was to prepare:

1. Add briskets and brine to pot. Fill pot with water until it covers meat and then place on stove.
2. Bring to a boil then cover. Turn heat down to simmer.
3. After 2 hours, add the potatoes.
4. After 15 more minutes, quarter the cabbages and add them to the pot.
   
5. After 15 more minutes, if the cabbage is beginning to look transparent, remove it from the pot. Also, stick a fork in the meat and the largest of the potatoes. Whatever the fork pierces easily, remove from the pot.
6. Every 3-5 minutes, check whatever isn't completely finished cooking. Remove when done. Serve. I actually did move the meal to a serving dish (the enormous stock pot wouldn't look very nice on the table).

Mmmm, boiled meat and cabbage. Tastes way better than it sounds. I've heard horror stories about the smell of boiled cabbage, but the yummy smell of corned beef brine was the predominant aroma in our house. My 6-year-old picky-eater said, "What's that yummy smell?" And when it came to the table, all the fatty parts that my little ones usually object to had been boiled away. There were no complaints. All seven of us were full, and there were leftovers for this week's lunch.

Please send in your favorite easy one-pot meals, and be sure to include what makes them so easy and fool-proof. I'll post the best ones here.

--Martha Snodgrass

Cooking with Kids: Brownie Bites

Brownies are my weakness. I vowed to stop baking them because the entire pan would always disappear way too fast. But when my kids suggested baking brownies last Saturday afternoon, I felt I must oblige them. Baking was an opportunity for a math lesson, right? And it was the perfect opportunity to break out my new Wilton silicone mini-brownie molds.

They were so excited to read and follow the recipe. My 4-year-old set the oven temperature (the interface of my Jenn-Air oven is so simple a 4-year-old can use it) while my 6-year-old handled the ingredients. He filled a Pyrex measuring pitcher with 1/2 cup oil, 1/2 cup applesauce, and 1/4 cup of water. The applesauce is a healthier replacement for two eggs -- and it ensured my wee little chefs could safely lick their fingers without getting Salmonella.

Since one got to measure the ingredients, the other one got to make a well in the dry ingredients and stir as the wet ingredients were poured. My 4-year-old was so proud to count 50 strokes, and I was amazed that the batter was well blended, requiring only a few folds of a spatula to integrate the last of the dry ingredients off the bottom of the bowl. For flair, I mixed in a handful of mini M&Ms.

I got out my new mini-brownie molds. It seemed like a great way to control portion size (theirs and mine). After they greased the pan with a stick of butter, they each used a child’s-sized spoon to drip the batter in the brownie pan like pros, taking special care to fill them up to the rim. I put the pan in the oven on a cookie sheet (according to the Wilton directions) while they got to do what they’d been waiting to do all along -- lick their fingers.

Checking the brownies with a toothpick, I took them out of the oven in about 35 minutes -- 10 minutes short of the suggested baking time for an 8 x 8 pan. My kids tried their best to inhale these “bites” in one bite, but they actually require at least two polite or three dainty bites.

They’re a smart way to ensure your kids don’t end up with Claim Jumper-sized brownies, and an automatic way to control your own intake. In this tidy form, they’re also easy to bring to a picnic or a meeting. I keep coming up with great reasons to make them (in order to justify making more).

--Martha Snodgrass

Cutting My Coffee Budget: Can A Moka Pot Beat Starbucks?

Coffee is a daily ritual for me -- one shot of espresso with lots of warm milk and extra foam. I've been lazy though, not learning how to make it myself and relying on the chain stores to make it for me. While my palate isn't trained to call out the subtleties of different roasts or coffee origins, I can identify my least favorite trait -- burnt coffee -- with one sip.

In light of the economic times, I tried out a moka pot at home for the first time this weekend. The Bialetti Cuor Di Moka is an adorable little pot that brewed up some great coffee. Now, I’m a latte fan, and this had everything I like in a good latte -- plus it didn't cost me $4! The pot itself yielded a beautiful shot with nice crema. I added it to milk that I had heated and frothed separately, and I had a latte with great coffee taste and none of the bitter or burnt flavor you get at some chain coffee stores.

What gives this little pot the superpower to eliminate any burnt, over-cooked coffee flavor? Bialetti says this pot uses their new patented system called “Controlled Pouring.” They say that compared with a traditional moka pot of the same size, less water passes through the filter -- only the amount necessary for "extracting the best coffee blend, without any extraction dregs. The result is a coffee with excellent organic and flavorful characteristics." From what I gather from the manual, this revolutionary system just stops the coffee from entering the upper chamber when it gets hot enough to burn the coffee. Simple, but effective. You could get the same result if you got really good at gauging when to remove it from the heat. But I guess this new system saves you from having to be quite as diligent.

Starting this little pot on high heat made for very little coffee with almost no crema. When I tried it again following the directions – warming the burner before I started and turning it to medium once I put the pot on – the pot made a full beautiful cup with a nice crema float. Adding this little 5-minute ritual to my regular morning routine sets me well on my way to putting at least $1000 back in my pocket this year. Sorry Starbucks.

I was surprised to find that some moka pot fans on the blogs (self-proclaimed “potheads”) don’t consider the yield from a moka pot to be espresso. I have to admit that I usually don’t make espresso myself so I'm going to risk a dumb question and ask: What’s the difference between my little concentrated shot of moka pot coffee and a shot of espresso? They’re both (as Wikipedia defines espresso) “brewed by forcing steam or hot water under pressure through finely ground coffee.” It would be great if one of the potheads in the blogosphere would fill me in. I hope to hear from you.

--Martha Snodgrass

Chocolate + Heat + Fruit = Love

My partner seeks strangeness in every meal. For example, once he ordered a whole fish which was served elegantly erect and staring at him. He ate the fish – and finished with the eyeballs – because he wondered how they’d taste. So in preparation for Valentine’s Day (the ultimate chocolate holiday) I went searching for crazy chocolate flavors.

In the past we’d enjoyed unconventional chocolate combinations like the amazing Dagoba Lime Bar with macadamia nuts and the Dagoba Mint Bar with rosemary (too fragrant for me, but he liked it). He loved the combination of chocolate and spice in the Vosges Red Fire Exotic Candy Bar -- it sparked with Mexican ancho and chipotle chilies and a hint of Ceylon cinnamon. So when I found the Hachez Strawberry Pepper Bar at our local import shop I brought it home to taste.

Most of the bars we’d tasted in the past only offered one dominant flavor in addition to the chocolate, and if there was a third it was an essence shadowed by the others. When we tasted the Hachez Strawberry Pepper Bar all three flavors distinctly held their own – crazy! Like Willy Wonka's gum that delivered the tastes of a three-course meal, the distinct flavors of silky smooth dark chocolate, zingy fresh strawberries (must be dehydrated strawberry to get that natural flavor – not the syrupy cough-medicine strawberry flavor), and sparky green pepper alternated on my tounge. A fan of spicy flavor, my partner couldn’t help himself. He ate most of it before I returned for a second snap of the bar.

For the perfect Valentine’s Day gift (I’m hoping) I’ve gathered him an assortment of fruit-spice-chocolate bars:

• Hachez Mango and Chili Bar – Dark Chocolate (77% cacao) with mango and red chili
• Vosges Naga Exotic Candy Bar – Milk chocolate (41% cacao), sweet Indian curry and nutty coconut
• Vosges Black Pearl Exotic Candy Bar – Dark chocolate (55% cacao), ginger, black sesame seeds, and wasabi
• Kshocolate White Chocolate with Lemon and Pepper Bar – White chocolate, real lemon, and crushed peppercorns
• Lindt Creation Cherry Chili Chocolate Bar - Dark chocolate (70% cacao) with rich dark chocolate mousse and cherry chili filling

I’m hoping we discover more perfectly balanced fruity and spicy chocolate bars. I’ll report back with the taste test. And if you have another amazing chocolate bar I should try, please add a comment.

--Martha Snodgrass

Electric Wine Opener: Sign of the Apocalypse?

One of the hottest gifts this holiday was the Oster electric wine opener. I have to admit, it was my solution for the folks on my Christmas list in the “Under $50” column. In Wine Spectator, under the headline “Uncorking Made Easy,” one editor determined this electric wine opener was the perfect gift for his mother-in-law. Hard to tell if that's a recommendation.

The reviews at Amazon.com said it is faster and easier than using a manual opener, and makes wine opening easy for the elderly. (Score for the majority of my recipients). The biggest complaint reviewers had was that the opener can split crumbly corks. Well, I went to visit family and got to use it. It was fast and relatively easy. Bottom line, it's great for your synthetic corks, but nothing beats the squeak you get when uncorking (real cork) by hand.

One reviewer received three electric openers this Christmas and took it as a sign of Armageddon. Apocalypse even. She said, “For the sake of the future of the human race, listen to the voice of reason, and resign yourself to manual removal.” While I don’t think manual cork removal is our last link to humanity, I do hope the road to ruin is lined with bottles of Montepulciano, Barolo, Valpolicella, and at least a corkscrew.

--Martha Snodgrass