Fee, Fie, Foe, Friday: The Jelly Bellys are Gone But Mine Isn't

I ate the last Jelly Belly from Easter today. I started with a pound of mixed flavors, and because I'm somewhere between one and crazy, I've eaten them color by color. If you love Jelly Belly jelly beans, you'll understand that each color has a distinct flavor. My current favorite is the Buttered Popcorn.  But I digress.

My issue here is that in less than a week, I've eaten a pound of jelly beans, and there is still good French  dark chocolate to be eaten. I STILL need to lose ten pounds, and with my favorite candies around, that isn't going to happen. I have no willpower. All I need is one jelly bean, and all bets are off.

My cousin Donna and I "Lented" on things we love. She does it for religious reasons, I assume, and I do it because I think its good for me. She went off of chocolate, and I have a feeling she didn't gorge herself on it at Easter. She has amazing willpower. I gave up sugar; and like a racehorse out of the gate, I ran for the Jelly Bellys on Easter morning. And I've had some every day until they were gone. They have them by flavor in bulk at Wegman's, but at least I didn't buy MORE.  Sad, aren't I?

Now, during my sugar abstention, I didn't lose much more weight than I normally do when I watch what I eat,  but at least I didn't gain. This week I have an extra half-pound. It's all going in the wrong direction. Sugar is the devil.

Guess I'll just have to pretend it's Lent again...just as soon as those two big French chocolate bunnies are gone.

The scale is not my friend.

Fee, Fie, Foe, Friday: The Coffee Sweetener Dilemma

What the heck can I stir into my coffee in the morning that won't rot my teeth, raise my blood sugar, make me fat, or give me some dread disease somewhere down the road? And doesn't taste weird?

This is probably over-thinking this, but I think I am a sugar addict. My husband says I'm crazy, but I find when I eat a sugar-sweetened dessert, or a piece of candy, I have to have MORE. I can never seem to stop at one serving. Always two and sometimes three. Which is why I try to avoid sugar as much as I can, without turning into a food hermit. According to what I've read from Gary Taubes, I'm probably right about the addictiveness.

I'm guessing I'm not alone, in wanting a little something to sweeten my day, considering how many sugar substitutes I can buy in a single supermarket on a single shopping trip. Aside from plain old cane sugar, there is a plethora of natural and artificial sugar substitutes and the sheer number boggles the mind. Back when I was an online member of Weight Watchers, and frequenting their community boards, there would be outright battles over what to use in place of the demon sugar. No one ever won.

Problem is, I still like my coffee sweetened, or some sort of a decent-tasting  dessert. I've got an arsenal of various sugar substitutes from the generally considered fake artificial, like the saccharine in the pink packets, the aspartame in the blue ones, and the sucralose in the yellow ones. Those are shoved way back in a corner.

Then there are the "alternative" sugars like the sugar alcohols erythritol, xylitol, and the polydextrose (yep, have them, too) and finally the herbal extract, stevia. I'm not even going to discuss the "natural" sugars like raw cane, turbinado, coconut, honey, molasses, and date. Which I also have some of each. What you see here is just from ONE partial sweetener shelf in my pantry. Oy. 

All are good, none are perfect for everything. Sigh.

My current leanings are to evict the artificial ones from their space, and stick to the more naturally occurring products. The problem is, no single sweetener is good for all purposes. I think stevia is revolting in coffee, but fine in smoothies and baking. Xylitol is good for baking and frostings, but can give a digestive upset in quantity. Erythritol is ok in coffee, doesn't give digestive problems, but can be grainy and has a cooling effect in some dishes. No one-size-fits-all here, no matter how much I wish it.

Maybe I'll just start drinking my coffee black.

Madeleine Cookies: Cat Hair is NOT a Seasoning

Just for the record, I've never considered myself a cat-person. I've had one cat, or rather, she had me. I'm a dog person. Cats like me because they know that I'm a sucker for any small, dependent animal. Sadly, a family member passed away recently, leaving behind a cat named Madeline, who is about 9 or 10. I've been looking after her during her Mom's illness, and since the person originally designated as the cat-step-Mom can't take her, Chuck and I, and the dog are all trying to accommodate a cat who's never seen a dog or been out of her old home since she was a few weeks old.

Madeleine, aka Maddy or Madeline, is a bit mad.
No female wants her picture taken on a bad hair day.

The animals are having a Mexican Standoff. This is only my second cat, and the first one (also inherited) one liked to be outside most of the time. I, having forgotten that cats are mostly nocturnal, am not accustomed to having a cat jump on my head at 4 AM. Or cat singing. Nor am I accustomed to having an animal that can jump on to my kitchen counters or the range. I now have a spray bottle of water at hand in the kitchen at all times to  (hopefully) deter her from those places. Eeeeew. Cat hair, in my book, is NOT a seasoning. My dog doesn't shed. Madeline does. A lot.

Since the poor furry thing has come to a household where a real Francophile runs the kitchen, Madeline is now be known as Madeleine, because she really is a sweet little cookie. I started making Madeleines about a million years ago from a recipe in Marion Cunningham's " The Fannie Farmer Baking Book" for the delicate shell-shaped cookies and I still consider this recipe among the best. The do NOT have any cat hair in them, but lots of good butter, eggs and sugar. I wonder if Marcel Proust had a cat? Welcome to your new home, Madeleine!


Madeleines
Adapted from Marion Cunningham's "The Fannie Farmer Baking Book"
Makes 24


You will need to buy or borrow some Madeleine pans or molds with shell shaped indents, two would be good, since each holds 12, so you don't have to wait between batches for the pan to cool. The texture of the cookie changes as the batter stands, and the second batch will be cakier, and less crispy unless you can bake in two pans at once. If you only use one pan, let the pan cool after the first batch, wipe it out thoroughly, butter well and repeat.


2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. lemon zest, or 2 tsp. orange zest
1 tsp. vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1 cup sifted AP flour
8 T (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
4 T softened butter

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Smear about 1/2 teas. of the softened butter over the inside of each shell indent in each form, no bare spots, please. Combine the eggs, sugar and lemon in a big, heat proof bowl, and set the bowl over simmering water and stir until the mixture is warm to the touch. Remove from the heat and beat with a mixer on high speed until pale and fluffy, nearly tripled in volume. May take  3-4 minutes. Add the vanilla and salt.

Sift half of the flour over the egg mixture and fold in gently Pour in the melted butter and sift the rest of the flour over the butter. Fold in until it all is just mixed. Spoon a heaping tablespoon into each shell indent, but don't level, they'll self-level in the oven. Bake about 10 minutes, until the edges are golden brown. Lift each cookie from the mold with the tines of a fork or the tip of a knife and let cook. Serve with powdered sugar sifted over them if you like. Serve the same day as baked or wrap tightly and freeze.

Condimentally Speaking: Natural Homemade Ketchup No Added Sugar

Delicious, Addicting, Homemade Ketchup!

The spices smell wonderful as they steep!

I’ve been trying to cut as much of the “hidden” sugar from my daily meals as much as possible. So I can eat UN-hidden sugar, like those wonderful little buttercream filled Belgian chocolate bars from Trader Joe’s. I’m trying to at least be conscious of it, and so many condiments are loaded with it. Honey mustard, salad dressing, even some commercial soups are a significant source. I’m not even talking about the evil High Fructose Corn Syrup, just plain old sugar.

The biggest offender, in my fridge, is ketchup, and while I don’t use it on many things, when I do use it, I slather it on. If I could limit myself to the serving size on the bottle, it would be all well and good. But I use a lot when I do. There IS commercial ketchup that’s no-sugar-added from the company that makes America’s favorite ketchup, but that’s sweetened with artificial sweetener. The bottled natural versions without sugar are so expensive that I’d need to take out a mortgage to get enough for a couple of meals of burgers and fries. 

This is a fairly straightforward recipe for homemade ketchup. It doesn't taste like the one you find in bottles at  most burger joints. It tastes fresh, and both sweet and spicy. If you want it closer in flavor, add more sweetener, and use something other than stevia. I have used stevia, since I have quite a bit of it, and so far have found no health issues associated with it,  but you can use other sweeteners, like sugar, honey or even Splenda® equal to 3 Tablespoons. I like to use whole spices and strain them out as the powdered products make a muddy looking ketchup. 

This ketchup is really good, and while I can't wean my husband off his old, familiar bottled stuff, I'd rather have this any day. It's really addicting.

Natural No Added Sugar  Homemade Ketchup

1T whole coriander seed

1 broken cinnamon stick

10 whole black peppercorns

3 whole cloves

2 bay leaves

1 T kosher salt

Stevia equivalent to 3 T+ of sugar

2 T dried onion flakes

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1-1/2 cups dry white wine

1 6 oz. can tomato paste

2T rice wine vinegar

1/2 tsp. hot sauce

water as needed

In a small covered sauce pan, place all the ingredients up to and including the white wine. Bring to a simmer and cook until it's reduced to about 1 cup of liquid. Cover and remove from the heat and let steep for 15 to 30 minutes.

Carefully strain the liquid into a bowl,stir in the tomato paste, then whisk in the vinegar and hot sauce. Taste for seasoning and add more stevia (sweetener,  vinegar  or salt as needed to get a good balanced product. Place the mixture back in the saucepan, and add as much water as needed to get a ketchup that will mound on your spoon. This will depend on how thick your tomato paste was, as brands vary. Bring to a quick boil, remove from the heat and let cool. Store in a covered jar in the fridge for up to two weeks. If it lasts that long.