A Little Eyeball Rolling

Since I'm behind in posting the recipes from our Christmas feasts, I thought I might as well take this moment to get on my soapbox just for a minute about an annoying trend in food blogging:  that thing that you all (no doubt) have run across--the recipes where the ingredients list is peppered with words such as free-range, fresh, organic, pesticide-free, unprocessed, from-the-farmer's-market, low carbon footprint, additive free, all-natural, GM-free, kosher, fair-trade, etc. 

I even saw a recipe last night that specified that a liquid ingredient come in a BPA-free can.   I kid you not.

What the heck?

What do any of these things have to do with basic kitchen chemistry?

Seriously.

Sure, some of these things impact taste.  Some impact health.  Some are obviously religious or moral-code preferences.  But creating that same recipe without those specifications in most cases will not impact the general outcome in the slightest. 

Not in the slightest.

So why bring it up at all?

Look.  I've had some fun health problems of my own off and on.  Right now I am using unbromated flour just 'cause.  (Ok... because flouride deficiencies run in the family, and I just don't want to go there with the big, bad related illnesses.)  But I don't put "unbromated" before the word "flour" in any of my recipes because it's unnecessary.  If you are doing the unbromated thing, you will use unbromated flour anyway.  If you don't, it doesn't matter--the pie, cookies, bread, and cakes will still turn out.

And putting those extra specifications in only creates a mess of the ingredient list with many items taking up 2 or more lines when they are compressed into columns--making it hard to scan quickly and use efficiently. 

Here's an example of one such recipe: 

*4 cups homemade chicken or vegetable stock
 *1 1/2 cups organic whole coconut milk and cream (In a BPA-free can.)
*1 wild salmon fillet
 or
* 6-8 oz. free-range/organic chicken breast
 *1 (tightly packed) cup of fresh, organic chopped kale, tough stems removed (or use any other chopped leafy green that you can find at your farmer's market)
*1 cup cubed winter squash or pumpkin, (peeled if not organic)
*2 teaspoons organic brown sugar, coconut sugar, or palm sugar  (do not use white sugar!)
*Freshly squeezed organic lime juice

Can you hear my eyeballs rolling from over here?

Here is how that list could look:
4 C. stock, any flavor
1 1/2 C. whole coconut milk
6-8 oz. salmon or chicken breast
1 C. (tightly packed) chopped kale (or other leafy green), tough stems removed
1 C. cubed winter squash or pumpkin
2 t. sugar (any kind)
lime juice

Isn't that easier to read?  If this was put into columns, only one ingredient would need to wrap onto another line.  

Here's a request from one blogger to another--if you feel passionately about some of those specifications, mention them in the leading paragraphs or make them into an entirely separate post.  Leave them out of the ingredient list.  Keep your list simple and to the point.  Clean, crisp, succinct.  

Please. 

Your readers will thank you.

Scottish Christmas Dinner: Cullen Skink

 Cullen Skink is a traditional part of a St. Andrew's Day menu and is a good starter for a Scottish Christmas dinner.  It is rich and smoky, with just a hint fish.  Traditionally it is made with smoked haddock, but that is next to impossible to procure in Cromar Valley, so we settled for the acceptable substitute of smoked salmon. 

Yes... I know what some of you were thinking, but this soup has absolutely no connection whatsoever to a particular bit of popular young adult romantic fiction set in the Pacific Northwest.  The name actually comes from the coastal town in Scotland named Cullen.  A skink is a soup less hearty than a chowder but more hearty than a bisque.  Regardless of the origins of the name, it is a delicious soup either as a starter or served with a warm, crusty loaf of bread as a meal by itself.

Scottish Christmas Dinner: Beef & Mushroom Pie

The picture really doesn't do this traditional main dish from a Scottish Christmas dinner justice.  It's impossible to capture the incredibly moist and flavorful filling laced with a hint of thyme or the light and flaky crust in a single image.  You'll just have to take my word for it. But I have to warn you.  If you make this just this once, you will have the boys in your family asking that you make it year round.   It really is that good. 

My idea of meat pies growing up were those little frozen pot-pies that were only ever purchased and used when my mom was having a baby or my dad was out of town on a business trip and my mom didn't want to cook.  We had them so rarely that they felt like a treat, even though they were filled with strangely chewy vegetables (from being cooked, frozen, and reheated) and a flat, almost cardboard-like crust.  Marie Callender's raised the bar a bit with better fillings and a flakier crust, but still... nothing ever beats homemade.

Scottish Christmas Dinner: Scotch Eggs

All children seem to be picky eaters in their early years.  Flavors, textures, and colors freak out small children in turns causing temper tantrums (from both children and parents), headaches, and tons of partially eaten meals finally being discarded after day three of the standoff.  (Child 1, Parents 0)  Our middle child has been perhaps our most picky eater.  I could give you some other examples, but frankly, it really doesn't get much more picky than refusing to drink anything but milk for the first six years of your life.  (Because water is disgusting!)  After a dehydration scare on a family hike, I got officially upset enough to dig my heels in and insist that he try new things in spite of the family doctor continually assuring me that there was nothing wrong--in fact, I should be thrilled!--with him only drinking milk.

Scottish Christmas Dinner Menu & Dundee Cake

One of the challenges of having teenagers and young adults in our home now is the constant fracturing and splintering of our family time.  Sports and ballet, homework and after-school activities, church, scouts, jobs, and friends take up a great deal of time that used to be almost exclusively family time.  It's hard to find time when all of us can be together as a family.

I used to think that Christmas vacation was one of those times.  It really should be.  The children are out of school.  The professor husband is out of school.  It is even one of the few times during the year that sports coaches (mostly) respect family time, and the calendar settles down to what should be day after day of doing only what one pleases to do.  A few years ago, though, our local congregation decided to have an extra Christmas activity-- a live nativity, singing, and refreshments--to be held in our neighborhood just a few days before Christmas.  It was a lovely idea, even though we had already had one Christmas party at the church a few weeks earlier.  And then I discovered the little asterisk--the youth had been asked to handle all of the preparations, which actually meant that the mothers of the youth would be handling the preparation.  (Because apparently simply going to the ladies' auxiliary directly to spread out the work amongst all of the women in the congregation was not possible.  Sigh.)  We had four children in the youth program, and each was expected to bring two dozen cookies.  My scoutmaster husband was in charge of a massive amount of cocoa, and three of our teens were in the nativity itself.  I spent an entire day prepping for the evening activity, and found myself too tired, cross, and mildly resentful to even go and enjoy the program.  I sent my family out the door with eight dozen cookies, two giant jugs of cocoa, and three costumes layered underneath with thermals and vowed that the next year would be different.

The next year was different.  We warned our children ahead of time that the two weeks of Christmas break were a stay-cation, therefore we would not be participating in any scheduled activities of any sort.  This worked well, up to a point.  That point was where our children decided that they should be playing with friends who were also home for the holidays during any period longer than an hour when we didn't have something specifically scheduled at home or out with the family.  Saying "no" to friends on some days only resulted in pitched battles.  I longed to be one of those families with relatives close enough or budgets big enough to go somewhere at Christmas time so that for just a couple of weeks a year it would just be... family.

So last year, facing the same dilemma, I decided to schedule two weeks worth of festivities, reasoning that if there was something scheduled every single day, our kids would spend time together--cheerfully, even.  As part of those festivities, I decided to have a special dinner every single evening.  We have ancestors from thirteen different countries (okay... close ancestors.  If you go back further, it's even more, but it's hard to get as excited about your 15th great-grandfather from Russia as it is your grandfather from Syria).  I planned out a feast for each of those countries celebrating with their unique traditions and hoped that it would keep my children around the table as well as giving them a taste of their heritage.  I rounded up recipes from family, friends, and research.  I planned menus, prepared as much as I could ahead of time, and then plowed forward. 

Irish Soda Bread -- It Doesn't Get Easier Than This

Do you want easy?  My Tuesdays with Dorie group decided to make the (appropriately timed) Irish Soda Bread this week--and frankly, for bread, it doesn't get much easier than this recipe.  Seriously--I've been making a different, but also easy--recipe for years.  This is even easier.  Four ingredients.  One bowl.  A bit of stirring and half a minute of kneading/shaping.  Wow.  Busy moms take note--this might just become the new favorite after-school snack.

Irish Scones

Irish soda bread is the usual accompaniment to a traditional St. Patrick's Day Feast.  We've served it for years.  Last year, though, I ran across a recipe for Irish scones, and I was hooked.  Irish scones are rather like buttermilk biscuits--only with eggs inside the batter and a bit of sugar on top.  They are best served warm, but they are also great cold the next day, so I always make a double batch.  They retain their moisture much better than biscuits, and the bit of sugar on top is a nice touch, especially for a holiday dinner.