Tuesdays with Dorie: Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies

The strangest thing has happened: when I try to connect to Tuesdays with Dorie, I am not able to access any of the regular pages. Therefore, I'll have to link in to the person who chose the sugar cookie recipe after the links work for me. Here are the December recipes: the Sugar Cookie pick is from Ulrike of Kuechenlatein.

This is a different sort of baking month. Because December is so busy, we have been given all 4 of the recipes and we can post them any time before the end of the month and in any order. I have chosen to make the sugar cookies first and next week I will attempt the Linzer Sables chosen by Noskos at Living the Life.

I made these cookies with high expectations: my older daughter was sorely disappointed in the last pie and she has been asking me for cookies. So we made the dough together and while it was chilling she got to lick the beaters and scrape the bowl.

Then we rolled them out and made some stars: I put colored sugar on them. When I cooked them, at 170C, I set the timer for 5 minutes, rotated them and baked for another 5 minutes. I immediately took them off the cookie sheet because they were already browned and the recipe said that they shouldn't show color.

I found them dry and relatively unappealing. I tried another batch that I smeared jam on and a few set with Cape gooseberries, which tasted slightly better due to the added moisture, but still, these were a disappointment. I need to have my mother send me the Betty Crocker recipe because it is far superior to this one. I wonder if I should have added an extra egg, as the recipe called for large eggs and I think that all European eggs are actually small? Could the recipe have been negatively impacted because I doubled it (I was really expecting a great sugar cookie)?

Anyone have better results?

(edit: I made another batch today with my girls-- I still have two more balls of dough in the refrigerator-- I rolled the dough a bit thicker, I lowered the heat to 165C, and changed the time to 5minutes, turn, 4 minutes. The cookies were very pale but tasted better. Still dry though, and not a sugar cookie recipe I will return to.)

My daughter is an English mother-tongue speaker!

It's strange to think that while I was posting every day last month I didn't have time to write about all the things that were happening. Time just seems to fly. Back on the 25th we had our English test at the "other International School".

What a difference. Thing1 was so fussy and unhappy in the morning that we almost canceled, but I just couldn't take another week of keeping her out of school and forcing her to speak in English with me, watch only English DVDs and TV (hard to do with power cable after power cable blowing out on me).

She settled down when we (the German stayed home for the appointment) walked to the U-Bahn and then she skipped through the snow--- she really loves spending time with us and without Thing2. We were early for the test and ran up and down the halls a bit: the office staff was extremely friendly. We were the first test of the day and the two testers, also British, brought all three of us into the room. One spoke to us about our background while the other spoke to Thing1, showing her a class pet and a photobook about its adventures and just making her feel secure and comfortable. This is opposed to the other school, where the woman took my daughter away without even speaking to us (except to snap that I was not allowed to follow). I asked the teacher not to start speaking to her in German, explaining that once Thing1 thinks German is the language to speak to someone that she won't revert to English and the teacher laughed and said that the test was for English: they wouldn't be speaking any German.

When we left the room, Thing1 was already engaged in an animated conversation with the young women. She apparently had so much fun that they needed to call us in to inveigle her out while they discussed her results. After they called us back in, the lead teacher told us that Thing1 had PASSED! Yeah!

She carefully explained that this does not ensure an admittance and talked a bit about the process and then we said good-bye: it was a bit difficult getting Thing1 to relinquish the stuffed rabbit (probably reminds her of her of her own stuffed rabbit lovey) but then we wandered a bit around the school, showing Thing1 the play area and then out. Across the street was a charming and traditional shop which sells penny (and plus) candy, fresh baked goods, etc, so we stopped in. The German and Thing1 had hot cocoa and I had a milchkaffee. (It turned out to be an early school closing day- teacher enrichment- and there was a constant and adorable stream of children and parents coming in and getting pastry and candy and leaving.)

We were all very happy.(see photo above)

Then the German went off to a meeting at the office and Thing1 and I went home and we watched Dornroeschen (in English). It was a great day.

The last day of NaBloPoMo.

I was wandering through my reader when I reached CairoTypeO's "End of NaBloPoMo's post" on Wandering the World.

I am also very grateful to reach the end of this time. Although I wound up posting 57 (will be 58) times, I had an easy subject. With the election at the beginning of the month and then the aftermath (and afterglow, etc), I found it easy to post things that I found of interest and wanted to share.
I do think that I learned more about the bloggers that I read through the daily requirement, and perhaps the folks who read me learned more about me through the pressure. Although I never ran out of things to say (there are still all those posts I owe myself- this blog is sort of an open diary for me), I must say that I have lost a desire to continue to push my typing skills (or lack thereof) on a daily basis and I am looking forward to a "What I haven't been blogging about" post or two.

My newest passion is a soup.

A tomato soup, to be exact. I was wandering through Foodgawker (my secret addiction is food porn) and I saw this soup at Lucullian Delights, a lovely ex-pat blog focused on Italian cooking. I have stopped by here before, but I just happened to have all the ingredients for this wonderful soup in my fridge, so I threw it together yesterday. Then, after finishing it off this evening, I made aother pot that is bubbling away on the stove ready for lunch tomorrow.

I have changed the soup a bit from her, I am sure more authentic: Minestra di Pomodori, Patate, Aglio e Timo.

Ingredients:

A bunch of potatoes, peeled and sliced relatively thinly, cross wise if large.
500 g. tomato passierte
about two cups of water
lots of garlic cloves, diced
4-6 large tomatoes that actually smell like tomatoes, diced (I use a super dicer that makes it a joy)
a punnet of white mushrooms, sliced moderately thinly.
sea salt
black pepper
fresh thyme or dried thyme that is still strong (should smell strongly or discard and repurchase)
oregano
parsley
extra virgin olive oil

Instructions:

In a large low pot, place potatoes and garlic with olive oil to allow easy sauteeing without burning. Generously salt and pepper. Sautee until the garlic smells great and potatoes appear a bit cooked. Add mushrooms, toss until coted with olive oil (add more as needed), salt and pepper again. Cook until mushrooms appear a bit wilted.

Add passierte tomatoes (basically, boxed pureed tomatoes) and water, add 2T (or more to taste) of thyme, 1T oregano, some parsley. Simmer for 30-40 minutes.

Serve, salt and pepper as needed. Yum!

What I've been reading in links recently.

An interview with Terry Pratchett

Senseless murders in Mumbai

And thank goodness that we actually got out of the house and went to see something. I'll write up our touristing tomorrow, after the serious shopping I hope to do with our rental: I don't often have the opportunity to load up on non-perishables and I can't wait (the rental is a mini-van, so we have lots of space)!

Hatred in Action

I have had a couple of recent posts about racism and anti-semitism (and how easy it is to forget). The blowback has been that the disagreement some feel with Israel's policies doesn't indicate anti-semitism. I disagree in so many ways, because I have never seen a discussion of Israel's policies outside of the US (where people do disagree and yet manage not to be Jew haters while doing so) which did not have one side veer into vitriolic anti-semitism.

But this hideous murder of a young Rabbi and his wife, who have absolutely nothing to do with Israel's policies, who simply held a community center whose only purpose is openness and outreach, who worked for nothing but good within the Mumbai community!

The choice to take, violently, the Jewish Community Center of Mumbai and there to commit murder: what purpose did that serve except Jew hatred?

The same purpose served when my children's kindergarten here has swastikas painted on it, or rocks thrown though the window, or threats made agains it and the community center. This is not disagreement with  Israel's policies. This is an outspringing of the disease known as Jew hatred, taught in the madrassas as cartoon Jews murder bootlegged Mickey Mouses to help infants learn to hate Jews, and taught in Europe through comments, made openly at political dinners by French ambassadors, such as "Dirty little Jews- they are always starting wars" or cartoons such as these pieces of filth:--- Strange how Jews and Israelis have not issued fatwahs or murdered people over these, isn't it? And my heart goes out to the poor people, of all races and religions, who have been terrorized and murdered because of the horrible and disgusting practices of religious psychotics. May they one day come to realize that their own religion condemns them and their actions.



Al-Wifaq, February 6, 2006 (Iran)

Translation: The Jewish\Israeli devil is saying: "I don't admit the limits of freedom of speech except the Holocaust."

Web Site of the Arab European League (February 2, 2006)

Al-Watan, February 3, 2004 (Oman)
Translation:
On left - Feast of the Immolation
On right - The Islamic World's Attitude?


Tishrin, Apirl 21, 2002 (Syria)
The book in the left hand of the Jewish stereotype is the Torah

Because I need a lift: Rick-rolling at the Macy's Parade

credit to NewYorkology

I'm jus too tired to blog tonight.

It's not that I have hit the wall in NaBloPoMo, it's that I am really tired. I still need to post about what happened at the restaurant on Friday, about the boorishness we faced at the Thanksgiving dinner and benefit concert on Saturday and Thing1's experience at her English test on Tuesday: all of these are going to await tomorrow (a non-holiday here in Germany, a favorite holiday in the US) and my being awake.

Tuesdays with Dorie- Twofer Pie.

This week's Tuesday with Dorie was chosen by Vibi from La Casserole Caree. She has the recipe here. (I tried to use the Google translator, but it failed for me. I will try again, but she has very kindly run a translation for her Anglophone readers.)

For me, this was a very difficult recipe. To start with, Germany doesn't have canned pumpkin nor does it have what we in the US would consider "ordinary" pumpkin: sugar pumpkin. So I baked the above pumpkin to prepare the equivalent of a can of pumpkin puree (a can would be 15 oz, I wound up using the entire amount at 16 oz.)

Europe also does not have (either to my knowledge or to easy acquisition): corn syrup, brown sugar, pecans, shortening, vanilla extract, or pie pans.

Luckily, I brought the brown sugar, pie pans and vanilla extract with me (and will make the latter when I run out). So I made the pie crust with all butter (the recipe calls for a bit of shortening as well). I have always previously made my dough with Crisco and I now know that I don't like pie crust made with fat. I do now understand why I have always preferred my mother's pie crust to any that I have eaten out: there is a taste to a butter crust, and a texture, that I now recognize and I prefer Crisco to that.
On the other hand, considering that I used a pastry cutter (I don't have a food processor here), the actual dough preparation and roll ou went very well. Because butter here has such a high fat content that it remains soft even in the refrigerator, I froze a 250 g bar. I then weighed out 10 oz, cut it into a small dice, and cut the ingredients together. After looking at everyone else's comments, I decided not to pre-bake the shell (and I changed the temperature to 220C for 15 minutes with a foil cover, then 45 minutes at 185C).I had given up on the "pecan brittle"-style mixture that should be poured on top of the pumpkin pie mixture but in the spirit of the Twofer, I studded the top with walnuts. I also used some of the extra dough (and there was almost enough for a whole extra crust) to add some leaf cut-outs to the top.
Here is the pie cooked: it looked great and my daughter was mad to eat it. It baked up well, but I didn't love it: a mixture of not caring very much for the taste and texture of the crust and not loving the taste of this German pumpkin. I don't think I will make it again, although my husband will probably finish it off. I also think I need to run along to the KaDeWe and find me some Crisco. My daughter was sadly disappointed in the taste as well. I think she will be far more appreciative of the next TwD, the Linzer Sables.

(Edit: We liked this pie much more the day after, chilled in the refrigerator. Still couldn't pique Thing1's interest, but the Ger,an and I finished it over the next several days. So, all's well that ends well.)

What I've been reading recently in links...

"Kosher" Anti-Semitism

"Anyone who tars Israel with the Nazi brush by drawing obscene analogies between Israeli policies on the West Bank and the Warsaw Ghetto is wandering into very questionable territory and is legitimately open to strong criticism," Rosenfeld told the Post.

His essay, "'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism," which has been translated into German, asserts that vicious anti-Israeli statements and books from a number of British and American Jews are contributing to modern anti-Semitism.

Further commenting on Hecht-Galinski, Rosenfeld cited
the US State Department report "Contemporary Global anti-Semitism," which defines "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" as anti-Semitic.

On this side of the Atlantic, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, formerly known as the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, issued a "working definition of Anti-Semitism" that defines "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" as a manifestation of anti-Semitism.

Citigroup Bailout

Once the nation’s largest and mightiest financial company, Citigroup lost half its value in the stock market last week as the bank confronted a crisis of confidence. Although Citigroup executives maintain the bank is sound, investors worry that its finances are deteriorating. Citigroup has suffered staggering losses for a year now, and few analysts think the pain is over. Many investors worry that it needs more capital.

With more than $2 trillion in assets and operations in more than 100 countries, Citigroup is so large and interconnected that its troubles could spill over into other institutions. Citigroup is widely viewed, both in Washington and on Wall Street, as too big to be allowed to fail.

Job Centers see crush of people in need...

...in the last three months, 36,000 people have come looking for jobs through the one-stop system, an increase of 60 percent over last year, while the number of jobs posted has declined by more than a third.

The number of families receiving public assistance has also jumped by 40 percent.