The Parent Trap: Gam's Tea Cookies

Every Christmas my family throws a party, sort of a welcome home for me, my brother, and our friends. And one of the things my, my brother, and our friends look forward to (besides the good company) are the bazillion cookies my mom whips up. While I feel like most of these cookies will eventually work their way into the blog in some shape or form (oh just wait until I unleash the wonder that is my mom's English toffee), the first post goes to my grandmother's delicate little tea cookies.

I don't think my grandma cooked much, but every Christmas we would get a little tin in the mail filled to the brim with cookies. When I was younger I was more partial to her sugar cookies, cut out into Santas, angels, and Christmas trees and decorated with multicolored sugar crystals and those little edible metal balls. The tea cookies, tucked underneath, generally went to my parents, but now that I'm older (wiser?), I've come to appreciate their wafer-thin layers stacked between powdery sugar. Sweet without being overbearing, they are delicious enough to eat 5 at a time, and perfect to nibble on with a cup of tea (shockingly, I skew more towards the former).

The cookies are exceptionally easy to make, being essentially sugar cookies covered in powdered sugar. When my mom and grandma make them, they chill the batter overnight. Although this is more because of the convenience of prepping batter before you bake, it also produces a more uniform and smoother cookie. To cut them out, use a glass, not a cookie cutter. The wider lip of the glass will give the cookie a rounder edge, rather than the sharper and more distinct edge you'd get from using a cookie cutter. It's a small detail, but makes a difference (at least, to me). Also, if you brush it with beaten egg, it will give the surface of the cookie a shinier finish. I like my cookies matte and so I usually leave the egg out (it also picks up more sugar that way).

A note about butter: butter is very, very important to good cookies. It must be soft, but not liquidy (tried to make cookies one time with completely melted butter. No good. Repeat: nooo gooood). The best thing to do is take the butter out of the fridge either the day before or in the morning and just let it sit on the countertop, covered (it won't go bad, promise). If you forget and your butter is icy solid from sitting in a freezer, stick it into the microwave for 5-7 seconds 2-3 times (check between each time). The butter should feel soft, but if you see any yellow liquid, remove it from the microwave immediately. Drain the liquid and mash the butter (it will still likely be pretty hard).

GAM'S TEA COOKIES
INGREDIENTS
2 1/4 cup sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 cup softened butter
1 egg
2 tablespoons vanilla
finely chopped nuts (optional, almonds work well)

DIRECTIONS
Sift together flour, salt, and sugar
Mix in butter until smooth
Beat the egg and add vanilla, and nuts, if using
Pour in liquid ingredients, blend well
Form into a ball and chill overnight, wrapped in plastic
Heat oven to 400 degrees
Roll out 1/3 dough to 1/8 inch thick
Cut into small disks using a glass
Place on ungreased baking sheets
Brush with egg (optional)
Bake for 5-7 minutes
While still hot, roll both sides in confectioners' sugar
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The Parent Trap: Spiced Muffins

One of the nice things about going home, aside from getting most of my meals made for me, is that I get to experience what home cooking could be like if I had the time, patience, and money to actually make something good. I think my mom is a good cook, and if anything the level of her cooking has only gotten better, maybe either because now she sticks to such a healthy diet for herself, she doesn't mind making tastier things for the rest of us, or possibly because when she has a child in the house, she gets to show off and make fancier stuff. Either way, I'm happy.

Certainly, for example, growing up I never tromped down to the kitchen on Sunday mornings to be awakened to the dreamy smells of frying bacon, fresh bread, coffee, tea, and muffins in the oven (we also had eggs, which were good, but don't really have a terribly discernible smell). Most days it was like "Here pour the last bit of broken and stale cereal into a plastic baggie so we can go." And yet! Last weekend Dave and I enjoyed a breakfast so delicious we had to hold ourselves back so that we could save room for the New Jersey Border Cafe, where we were planning to have lunch (a mistake. i wish i had gorged on those muffins...).


I don't really like to do fancy stuff for breakfast, as breakfast, while it might be the most important meal of the day, is important to me only for how easily I can shove food into my half-comatose mouth (Disclosure: my breakfasts are usually provided by my office, and generally either entail toast and peanut butter, cereal, or crackers with peanut butter and honey. Every now in then I bring in some of my dinner rolls. But it's spartan.). So it's nice to go home and enjoy my mom's home-cooked goodies. She usually only makes them for special occasions, like the cinnamon rolls we have at Christmas, or the waffles we'd used to have after sleepovers, but, as mentioned above, now it's like every time I came home it's a party! (it actually literally was a party, since we were celebrating me bein born 23-some-odd years ago)

Last Sunday, she made her wonderful spiced muffins, which are actually just the best muffins I've ever had in my life. To be fair, muffins are a hard food. They are almost always disgusting unless just out of a oven or heated up in a toaster, and they are too often sold at pretentious coffee stores that think it's ok to charge $6 for a dried-out, crumbly, and chalky pastry. When I make muffins, I usually use Jiffy, a box of which costs something like 49 cents. The muffins are very good, and in fact for a while in high school I would make a batch every week, the muffins getting progressively more unpalatable by Friday. Still, they're nice and simple, good for experimenting (my cinnamon-cocoa muffins got great acclaim), and at such a decent price, they're the most cost-effective breakfast out there.

My mom's muffins though, are so absurdly delicious. Spicy and soft, with whole pecans in them, they have an unusual, but fragrant, taste, the pecans adding texture and complexity. I love them with butter, although they are so light and delicious that it's almost unnecessary. And while muffins are not quite health food, these substitute most of their sugar for applesauce, making it ok to have more than just one. Dave and I both left dreaming of more muffins (although we were distracted by my totally awesome ice cream birthday cake, which we ended up finishing on the train), and I emailed my mom for the recipe. Turns out, with my dad visiting my grandma this week, my mom is swimming in leftover muffins, more than she knows what to do with! (this is very near my fantasy...)


SPICED MUFFINS
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup applesauce
½ cup oil
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 5/8 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
½ cup raisins or nuts (optional) (pecans work best but any nuts may be used)

DIRECTIONS:
Mix applesauce with oil, sugar, and egg.
In another bowl, mix dry ingredients thoroughly (sifting is good, though not necessary).
Stir first mixture with dry mixture. Then stir in nuts or raisins.
Grease muffin pan or line with paper muffin cups. (Spraying muffin pan is good.)
Fill about 2/3 full. Sprinkle extra nuts on top of muffins.
Bake at 400° for 20 minutes, until muffins are brown. (Don’t overcook.) Makes 12 large muffins or 18 medium muffins.
Can also be baked in a greased loaf pan at 350° for 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Image of Jose the Muffin. Plans are in order to buy myself a new camera for my birthday, as soon as Andrew gets off his butt and tells me what kind of camera to buy.
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The Parent Trap: Manhattan Clam Chowder

I'm at home! I mean, I'm in New Jersey, in my parents' house, since home could also mean my little Astoria apartment or even, in a pinch, Boston.

I like going home every once in a while, since it gives me an opportunity to sleep for unhealthily long periods of time (14 hours suckas!) and eat good food without spending money or time. Pretty nice! Last night, at 7:30, before I went to bed, my mom asked if there was anything we should make to take home on Sunday (home, in this case, being Astoria. I know, it's confusing. Keep up people), and I said, like one of those creepy serious horror movie children, "Why yes, Mother. Clam chowder." So, we're making it!


My mom's clam chowder is the kind of food that makes you wish for blizzards. When you eat it you can sort of imagine being locked inside your house for long periods of time, but it's ok, because hey, clam chowder! It is so absurdly delicious, and so absurdly filled with veggies. My mom, healthy food connoisseur, eats with gusto, which is enough proof for me to down three bowl fulls without guilt. She usually fills up a few plastic bottles with the soup for me to take back on NJTransit. They haven't exploded yet, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. When I get back to Astoria, I usually whip up some of my rolls to go with it, since my parents are not so much with the copious amounts of baked goods. It's amazing--the perfect winter meal.

It's also Manhattan Clam Chowder, not New England, which is a very important detail (Manhattan--tomatoes, New England--cream). Having lived in Boston for well on 4 years, it's impossible not to form an opinion about chowda. Off the top of my head, I can name at least 5 places within two blocks of my campus that made clam chowder. I am a fan of New England chowder, but always sort of suspicious of it outside of Boston, since it's this incredibly opaque stew that anyone can put anything in (whatever, I've watched Fight Club too many times and I'm paranoid...). Inside of Boston, though, it's sacred, and also amazing.

My mom got her Manhattan clam chowder recipe from The New McCall's Cookbook, where "New" means, no joke, 1973 (yeah my mom is not a cookbook person...). Although, let's be serious people, it's still my mom's clam chowder. It's pretty easy to prepare, mostly requiring lots of chopped vegetables, and not too expensive, mostly requiring lots of chopped vegetables. For the clams--I have no idea where you would get them or how much. The recipe calls for 2 jars, which I thought sounded suspicious, but my mom said it tastes fine and is cheaper and easier, so she uses it (um, like mother like daughter?). The recipe says to use water, my mom substitutes either clam broth or Clamato (which is mixed clam broth and tomato juice. It's disgusting, but is delicious in chowder.). I've made a slight change in the recipe, which says to add the potatoes after the broth has simmered for 45 minutes. My family likes our potatoes sort of on the mushy side, so we put them in from the start.


MANHATTAN CLAM CHOWDER
INGREDIENTS:
4 bacon slices, diced
1 cup sliced onions (about 4)
1 cup diced carrots (about 4)
1 cup diced celery
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 can (1 pound or 12oz) tomatoes
2 jars (11 1/2oz size) clams
2 teaspoons salt
4 whole black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme leaves
3 1/2 cups pared and diced potatoes (about 3)
Water, Clamato, or clam broth

DIRECTIONS:
Cook bacon until almost crisp
Transfer bacon to a large pot, add onion, cook for about 5 minutes until tender
Add carrots, celery, and parsley, cook over low heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally
Drain tomatoes, keeping the liquid
Add tomatoes to the pot
Drain clams, keeping the liquid
Add clams to the pot
In a separate bowl, mix the tomato and clam liquid, and add water, Clamato, or clam broth until you have 1 1/2 quarts (6 cups)
Add liquid to pot
Add salt, peppercorns, bay leaves, and thyme
Add potatoes
Bring to boiling, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour
Chop clams, add to chowder, simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes
Serve hot.


Image from Ulterior Epicure
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