Okay, we all know that spring is officially here and that means summer is fast approaching, and with it the question for all you eager veggie gardeners: what the @##$%Q#%@ am I going to do with all this #^$&Q@!&^ zucchini????

May I suggest zucchini bread?

‘But Twistie!’, you exclaim, ‘I have made many loaves of zucchini bread and am so burned out I have not the will to try another!’

‘Fear not,’ say I. ‘This is like no zucchini bread you have ever eaten before. I know this because I have baked and eaten umpteen gazillion zucchini breads over the decades and I have never tasted one quite like this.’

You see, most zucchini breads fail for me in one or both of two ways. All too often they are so moist as to become gummy, more like pudding with a crust than actual bread. The other common failing of zucchini bread in my experience is that they are often far more sweet than I prefer. Not that I have anything against sweet, per se, but there are things that I feel ought to be sweeter and ones that ought to be a little less so. Zucchini bread is one of those things where I sometimes feel like a salmon swimming upstream. I want it to be bread, not a sticky cake. I want it to be sweet, but not tooth-rottingly so.

Then one day last week, I walked into my Friendly Local Bookstore, started browsing the cooking section, and discovered something that had been missing from my life and my bookshelves. It’s a delightful tome entitled Good to the Grain: Baking With Whole Grain Flours by Kim Boyce.

Boyce, a former pastry chef at such restaurants as Spago and Campanile has approached her subject from precisely the angle I have been waiting to see for yonks without realizing it. You see, while most books about working with whole grains come from the angle that whole grains are Good For You, and therefore the flavors are of secondary importance, Boyce is all about how good whole grains can taste.

For those of us who honestly love the flavors of such things as barley, rye, whole wheat, etc., this is a real boon. The recipes range from bread to brownies to scones to tarts and all stops in between. They’re broken down not by what you want to bake, but by what flour you want to bake with. This means that if you can get whole wheat flour but not spelt, you can ignore the spelt chapter until you find a source.

Speaking of those sources, she’s got a page of them in the back just in case you don’t have a handy local organic or health food grocery that carries things like aramanth and teff.

Seriously, if you enjoy baking, this book opens up some great new frontiers quickly and painlessly.

And that brings me back to Boyce’s zucchini bread. It’s moist without being gooey. It’s sweet in a subtle way. It’s malty and slightly herbal with a satisfyingly crunchy crust and a delicate crumb. Boyce recommends eating it with melted butter and mint tea, but so far I haven’t been able to bring myself to adulterate it in any way.

It makes me want to plant zucchini just so I’ll have more of an excuse to bake this bread over and over and over again.

Intrigued? Good! Follow the bouncing cut and see how it’s made!

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Okay, now everyone just act natural. We don’t want to make Twistie suspicious. Quick, someone distract her with something with bell sleeves made out of crushed velvet.

Is she gone?

Good.

I’m going to share a recipe. Yeah I know recipes are Twistie’s gig, but she’s not here now, is she? Crap, she’s turned back around, HEY LOOK TWISTS, IS THAT STEVIE NICKS? Phew, okay let’s make this quick.

You know how sometimes you want a pie, but you don’t really have TIME to make a pie (even though there is ALWAYS time for pie, it’s just a matter of priorities) and you were Raised Right so you wouldn’t dream of just glopping something out of a can into a pie shell, since that leads to Bad Pie and because you were Raised Right you know there are very few things worse than Bad Pie.

It’s time for Shameful Pie:

Shameful Pie
1 extra-large lemon (or 1 medium lemon and 1 medium lime) peel on, and quartered
2 c. sugar
4 eggs
1 stick butter, melted
pinch salt
Optional:
small sprig or rosemary if you’re feeling fancy
1 tbs cornmeal if you want to make it a Shameful Chess Pie

Dump everything into a blender and blend the crap out of it for 2 or 3 minutes until everything is bright yellow and smooth and gorgeous. Pour into an 9 inch uncooked pie shell Bake at 350°   until center is set, about 30 minutes protecting the crust if it browns too quickly.

That’s it! Could you die? It’s so good too. Now, I’m not particularly fond of my own mother so the slap-yer-mamma bar is pretty low for me, but this will make you want to do a violence unto even the most beloved of mothers.

It’d probably make pretty good lemon bars too.

You know how every once in a while you just get a hankering for something? For several days, Mr. Twistie had been speaking wistfully of grilled cheese sandwiches. I’m not sure why. I’ve known the man for nearly thirty years and been married to him for nearly seventeen, and in all that time, I think I’d seen him eat a sum total of roughly four grilled cheese sandwiches.

Still, who am I to talk? I’m the one who suddenly needed cocoanut in my life desperately after more or less four decades of being contented when it was offered me, and utterly unconcerned when it wasn’t. Sometimes, as I said, you just get a hankering. I further believe that the best way to handle that hankering (unless it’s obviously and dramatically A Very Bad Idea, such as a sudden desire to eat lug nuts and wash them down with a Big Gulp of battery acid) is to just eat what you want and have done with it. My cocoanut Jones was easily taken care of with a slice of the Pina Colada cake I made last week for a friends’ birthday.

If Mr. Twistie wanted grilled cheese, who was I to say no?

As it happens, I was meandering along in my cookbooks looking for something fun to make as my recipe of the week when I found that Nigella Lawson had provided me with the answer in her fabulous and handy book Nigella Bites.

Flipping through the TV Dinners section of the book, I found a grilled cheese sandwich entitled Mozzarella in Carrozza that seemed just what I was looking for. Lawson describes it as ‘… somewhere between French toast and grilled cheese.’ Just what I needed! Read on after the cut to learn more.

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Darlings, it’s been a long week of non-stop baking here at Casa Twistie. Alas! That isn’t really helping for Recipe of the Week, since the only one that was a new recipe to me was more a case of me slightly altering an old standby…well, something I’d baked before. Mostly I adapted a cocoanut cake into a Pina Colada cake by replacing every instance of cocoanut extract with pineapple extract in a cake that uses cocoanut milk for some of the liquid and fat to begin with. That’s the key. If you start off with a cake that will still taste of cocoanut when you extract the cocoanut extract, replacing the extracted extract with pineapple will do the trick nicely. Oh, and I added a nice smattering of finely chopped candied pineapple for a fun surprise inside. I think I have several new friends based entirely on the hope that they can have more of that cake.

Anyway.

Since I was baking all these cakes (well, two layer cakes and a triple batch of cupcakes) for a milestone birthday party for a friend, I did a lot of old standbys for dinner this week, too. Roast chicken is a fave of mine, since I can then concentrate entirely on side dishes for a day or two after and then make chicken stock.

It’s fun sometimes, though, to spruce up a simple roast chicken with a fun sauce. I decided to give that a go this week, and to go Medieval in honor of our dear, departed Francesca, who loves a good Renaissance Faire as much as I do.

One of my favorite websites is Gode Cookery. It’s a great source for historical recipes from Ancient Rome up to the 17th century. There’s also a smattering of modern recipes that would work well with those more ancient concoctions, but those are clearly marked for those who wish to stay as authentic as possible.

Sauce Gingyuer, the one I chose, dates back to the 15th century, and is pitifully easy:

Take white brede, stepe it with vynegre, and draw it .ij. or .iij. tymes thurgh a straynour; and thanne put ther-to poudre gingere, and serue forthe.

Got that? No? Perhaps the modern translation complete with proportions will be helpful.

Ingredients

1 Cup wine vinegar (I used white, but red would work just fine, too)

1/2 Cup white breadcrumbs, very finely ground (I left them a little coarse because I like the texture, but don’t make them too big or they’ll just soak up the vinegar and leave you with bread lumps rather than sauce)

2 tsp powdered ginger, or to taste (Mr. Twistie and I are both huge ginger fans, so I was a tiny bit generous, keeping in mind that I didn’t want to completely overwhelm the subtle flavors of chicken with too aggressive a sauce)

In a bowl, combine vinegar, crumbs, and ginger. Stir well together and allow to sit for about an hour. Whisk sauce well before serving.

Yields one cup sauce. (I will double this next time, because Mr. Twistie pounced on it like a starving man and I had to fight to get some.)

Note (from website): Some sauces are easier to adapt than others. This is a great sauce and goes well with meat, fish or fowl. In Harlien MS 4016 this sauce is recommended for boiled gunard.

I don’t think they carry gunard at my local market. Hmmm….

It’s been something of a long week at Casa Twistie. Things Happened. Many of them involved plumbing and random electrical equipment going awry. We have been a tidge grumpy about the scatter, including the cat who has been thrown out of the bedroom at night on no less than three occasions this week for playing soccer with his catnip mouse on my feet in the wee hours of the morning. The crust of me wanting to sleep!

In light of all that, I decided that I wanted to try a recipe for something that brings a little joy to my world even when Things Happen. What did I want?

Ice cream.

The thing is, most modern ice cream recipes assume that one has an ice cream maker. I do not possess one. Recipe after recipe informs me that in order to make my own ice cream, it’s as simple as putting together their combination of ingredients and following the manufacturer’s instructions. It became something of a point of very weird honor for me not to follow manufacturer’s instructions in making ice cream. Surely, I thought to myself as I sometimes do, there must be a way to do it sans ice cream making thingamajiggy. After all, Dolley Madison served ice cream at the White House when she was First Lady (or was it when she was acting as the widowed Thomas Jefferson’s official hostess?), and I don’t think they had ice cream makers, per se, back then.

Then I thought of something.

I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but Mr. Twistie loves flea markets and garage sales. Sometimes he brings back things that would give Plummy the vapors, but once in a while he finds a true treasure for yours truly. A couple years ago, he found a huge stack of vintage cooking pamphlets and booklets that someone sold him for pretty much nothing. I pulled them out and found the timeless classic 250 Delectable Desserts, published in 1940. That’s right, 250 recipes for sweet things crammed into 48 pages, complete with dozens of black and white photos of some of the delights contained within.

It was within this slender volume that I found today’s recipe.

Mocha Ice Cream

Ingredients:

2 Cups Milk

4 Tblsp ground coffee (next time I might use a slightly smaller amount of espresso powder instead for a deeper flavor and less grainy texture, as well as to skip a step that was a little messy)

1/3 Cup Corn Sirup (sic)

1/3 Cup sugar

2 Tblsp flour

1/8 tsp salt (call it a dash and be done with it)

2 eggs, separated

1 tsp vanilla

1 Cup heavy cream, whipped.

Heat milk and coffee for 10 minutes in the top of a double boiler (or, if you don’t have one, just simmer some water in a saucepan and place another saucepan of similar size on top. Make sure the water doesn’t actually touch the bottom of the upper saucepan); strain through cheesecloth (Messy). Mix corn sirup (sic), sugar, flour and salt; add scalded coffee milk slowly stirring constantly. Return to double boiler stirring until it thickens (this took a surprisingly long time for me, but it might have something to do with the fact that my stove is rapidly reaching the end of its useful life and getting crochety…or it might have something to do with the fact that this is just the kind of thing that rarely works as well for me in the kitchen as it seems to for some other cooks, because we all have our weak spots); cook 5 minutes longer. Add hot milk mixture slowly to beaten egg yolks (be careful about doing this part slowly or you can accidentally wind up with bits of scrambled egg in your ice cream, which…not the taste treat of the century, or so I’m told) and cook 3 minutes longer. Chill (no, really, that’s all they said here so I guessed and stuck it in the fridge for about an hour, and it seemed to work) and add vanilla. Beat egg whites until stiff; whip cream and fold both into chilled mixture. Freeze in refrigerator tray (or, you know, your handy dandy freezer now that we have such things) until firm. Serves 6.

How did it come out? A little soft and fragile compared to commercial ice creams, a tiny touch grainy because while I made some exciting Jackson Pollock-esque patterns while pouring scalding coffee milk through cheesecloth, I also managed to let a few of the grounds I was trying to remove get through the cloth into my ice cream. Espresso powder for sure, next time. All the same, it was tasty, it had a good coffee flavor, and I would absolutely do this again.

I may not have an ice cream maker, but I’ll definitely be one as the weather heats up.

It is a fact that I love greens. I love spinach and kale and collard greens and mustard greens and…well, most things that are leafy and green.

It is also a fact that I don’t eat as many as I would like. Why? Because Mr. Twistie isn’t wild about them, and most of the time I’m feeding him as well as me. He often finds them bitter and unpleasant. Sigh.

Because of these two facts, I went looking for a recipe that would let me have my green and leafies while pleasing Mr. Twistie’s palate. I found just the thing in my copy of The Savory Way by Deborah Madison. It’s a fantastic vegetarian cookbook that I pull out both when I’m feeding someone who doesn’t eat meat, when I feel like having a good meal sans meat, or when I’m looking for the perfect side dish to go with a great piece of meat. I was going to link to the book on Amazon, but at present it would appear to be more or less a collector’s item over there. The cheapest copy I found was something like seventy-eight bucks for the hardcover. The paperback started well over two hundred smackers. I suggest going to your local second-hand bookstore and seeing if you can find a previously loved copy.

Anyway. The dish is pretty easy (and easier if – unlike me – you get your chopping and dicing out of the way before you start cooking rather than after), requires no specialized equipment, cooks pretty rapidly, and is surprisingly fabulous. It’s also flexible. If you go to the store or your farmer’s market and there are no collard greens or the broccoli rabe is looking limp, just pick up some mustard greens or Swiss chard and have at it. Follow the cut for the recipe.

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As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve spent a lot of my time this week staring at a screen at what’s going on in Vancouver (a lovely city where, incidentally, Mr. Twistie and I honeymooned). That’s meant less time than usual for cooking and more need than usual for the kind of fun, easy to eat snacks that one doesn’t feel so horrible about accidentally strewing about the room on seeing someone do something incredible or seeing one’s personal favorite athlete make the podium (Go Evan Lysacek!).

In addition to that, this happens to coincide with a request from reader JB who apparently read my mind and requested a couple recipes that don’t require an oven, since she is currently without.

I also decided that it was time to take a look at some of the great recipes available for free on the web instead of cookbooks that might or might not fit into the current available budget of some of our readers. There are some fabulous sites out there brimful of great recipes that are fun to make and utterly delicious. Besides, my personal challenge was to use written recipes I’ve never used before, but I never said they had to come out of books!

So it was that I perused the quick and easy snack recipes over at epicurious and found a couple goodies that looked tasty and wouldn’t dislodge me from the hypnotic joys of curling or the drama of short track speed skating (You couldn’t pay me to watch roller derby, but put it on ice skates instead of wheels, and I can’t look away. Go figure.) for too long.

Since the recipes are both available online, I’m just posting links to them and notes about how they worked for me.

First up, Pecan Praline Popcorn Treats. This is what Cracker Jack wants to be when it grows up. Ridiculously simple, quick, and a fabulous combination of crunch, goo, salty and sweet. In short, this is the almost perfect TV watching junk food. The almost? Well, that gooey, sticky factor does eventually make you either go wash your hands or get caramel all over the remote. Keep a couple wipes at hand, so you don’t wind up with a remote that sticks to both the couch and the cat. Enjoy the heck out of this one!

Next, Cheddar Chutney Tea Sandwiches. After all, you’ll need some savory treats as well as sweet. These lovely little bite-and-a-half sized sandwiches are a breeze to make (all you’ll need is a knife, a grater, a spoon, and a bowl, really), delicious, zesty, and satisfying. Watch for drips if you don’t just pop the whole (tiny) sandwich in your mouth. I recommend extra-sharp cheddar for the bite, but it would still be good with a milder cheese. I also substituted a different chutney than Major Grey’s. MG’s is more than fine, but I get an incredible tamarind-based chutney from my local farmer’s market. Play with cheeses and chutneys until you find the combo that makes you smile.

Maybe I’ll have some of both while I watch tonight’s broadcast.