Beach Umbrella Cupcakes

I have so many good recipes to share, but I have been busy grading papers! I'm hoping to get some updates done this weekend.


Ben's preschool had their "water day" yesterday - they wore swimsuits and played with squirt guns. At least, that was Ben's description - I'm sure there was more involved! The parents provided hotdogs, etc. for lunch, and I brought these beach umbrella cupcakes. They are a great choice if you need something for an end-of-the-school-year/welcome-to-summer party. And they're easy, too!


Items Needed

1. Cupcakes and white frosting (I used a great new chocolate recipe that I'll share soon, and no-shortening buttercream)


2. Graham cracker crumbs (process graham crackers in a food processor, or whack them with a rolling pin in a plastic bag until they look like sand)


3. Cocktail drink umbrellas (I got mine at Party City - they were a little big, but I think the kids liked them because they were shiny. I snipped the sharp tip off the bottom.)


4. Fruit gummi tape (I bought this at Fuzziwig's, a candy store. I cut it up to look like beach towels. You could also use Fruit-by-the-Foot, but the stripes on the gummi tape are very cute.)


Frost cupcakes. Put graham cracker crumbs in a bowl, and dip frosted top of cupcake into crumbs. Roll edges to cover.


Attach "beach blanket" with a dot of extra frosting. Stick beach umbrella into cupcake.


I saw Martha Stewart use drink umbrellas for beach umbrellas, and she put these cupcakes on a tray interspersed with blue-frosted cupcakes with a paper shark fin sticking out. I adapted this a bit - I piped blue frosting in a wave pattern and then put a gummi shark on top (also from Fuzziwig's). Ben was more excited about the sharks then the umbrellas!

Homemade Vanilla Yogurt

Update: I still make this yogurt a lot, but now I use about 1/3 cup blue agave and a couple of tablespoons of sugar. I also often drain it in coffee filters to make it thicker - more like Greek yogurt. I keep some plain for use in recipes. I've made it with a full gallon of milk, and that works, too - I just have to let it culture longer once I add the Greek yogurt.

We eat a lot of yogurt at our house - we use it in smoothies and top baked oatmeal with it, in addition to eating it for breakfast and snacks. The boys especially love yogurt. Sometimes I think it's Ben's primary source of protein!

I thought I wanted a yogurt maker, but then I learned yogurt is super easy to make in a slow cooker. I made some last night, and this afternoon the boys ate big bowls of and loved it. Lots of people make plain yogurt, but I though vanilla would be a good base: we can add berries, grated pear or apple, or jam to flavor it.

I'm very excited about the possibilities (frozen yogurt in the summer!), and I'm also happy with the short ingredient list: milk, plain yogurt, sugar, and vanilla. And clearly it's much cheaper and creates less waste than those delicious little 6-ounce cups of Yoplait.

If you decide to make the yogurt, keep scrolling past the recipe for some notes and tips.

Vanilla Yogurt

1 half-gallon whole milk (pasteurized, not ultrapasteurized)

1 container (4 oz. - 6 oz.) plain Greek yogurt (label should show live and active cultures)

3/4 c. sugar (I may use less next time)

2 T. vanilla

Pour milk into slow cooker and cook on low for 2 1/2 hours. Turn off slow cooker and let sit for three hours.

Remove one cup of warm milk from the slow cooker and whisk it with the plain yogurt.

Add yogurt/milk mixture back to the milk. Recover the slow cooker and wrap the whole thing in a warm blanket or put it in your oven with the pilot light on. Leave it overnight or for 8-10 hours.

In the morning, remove one cup of yogurt. It should be very thick, like Greek yogurt or sour cream. Freeze this yogurt; it will be the starter for your next batch and will take the place of the Greek yogurt you used the first time.

Add sugar and vanilla to the yogurt, and chill.

Notes:

It would be best to start the process around 5:00 p.m. That way you won't have to stay up late to wait for the milk to cool.

You can use artificial sweetener if you prefer, or leave the yogurt plain and add honey or jam to taste.

Be sure milk is not ultra-pasteurized and that yogurt has live and active cultures.

From what I've read, it's best to start with whole milk and then try lower-fat versions if you like. Whole milk sets up best. 2% or lower may require a packet of unflavored gelatin to set up; I'll update this post when I try it.

How to Store Ground Beef

I bought some excellent ground beef that the butcher ground from lean sirloin steaks. Here's how I like to store it in the freezer for convenience.

1. Take about 3 lbs. of meat and put it in a freezer ziploc bag. Flatten the meat so it is evenly distributed throughout the bag.

2. Take a chopstick or long spoon and press a 3X3 grid in the meat (outside the bag). Try to go all the way through to the other side.

3. Label and freeze.

The reason this is convenient is you can easily remove just the right amount of meat you need from the freezer. Each square is a little over 5 ounces of beef, which is a good amount for hamburgers. If you need a pound, take out three squares. Also, since there is very little extra air in the bag, you are less likely to get freezer burn.

This technique works for ground chicken, turkey, and pork as well.

Shredded Roast Chicken

Update: you can also cook this chicken at 425 for a shorter time period - just don't let it dry out. Lately I've been seasoning it with Paula Deen's house seasoning, which is four parts salt, 1 part black pepper, and 1 part garlic powder.

The chicken in the picture doesn't look incredibly appetizing, but believe me when I tell you it is delicious. Every couple of weeks I buy some split chicken breasts (bone-in, with skin) and roast them for salads, tacos, soup, sandwiches, casseroles - there are so many uses. I used to poach chicken breast (and I do sometimes still for chicken salad), but I find this method to be the most flavorful. It's also easy, healthy, and frugal: you can often find split chicken breasts on sale for about $.99 - $1.50 per pound. In this picture I have five pounds, which yields about 8-9 cups of shredded chicken.

This technique is the one Ina Garten uses. You'll notice the skin is not appetizing - it will be discarded, of course, but you don't want to brown it too much so the chicken dries out.

Shredded Roast Chicken

5 pounds split chicken breasts
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Spray or rub chicken with a little bit of olive oil. Generously sprinkle salt and pepper on the chicken. Place chicken on a cookie sheet or roasting pan, not touching. Roast for 40-50 minutes (depending on size), until breasts are cooked through. When cool, discard skin and shred chicken. Freeze in 1 or 2 cup portions for future use. You can also save the browned bits on the pan and the bones to make great stock.

Easiest Roast Chicken (with bonus vegetables!)

I love roast chicken - it's delicious, and I like its elegant symmetry: 2 breasts, 2 wings, 2 legs, 2 thighs. I also like how frugal it is: it's roughly a dollar a pound, and a three pound chicken will feed 2 parents and 2 kids (more symmetry!). A slightly bigger one will leave you with more leftover options.

But it's easy to ruin roast chicken. You have the same challenges, though on a smaller scale, that you have with a turkey: relatively lean meat that dries out when overcooked yet needs to be cooked thoroughly to avoid food poisoning. Also, it's a sphere with a hollow core, basically - with legs at one end that need to be cooked longer than the breast at the other. So there are challenges.

Roast chicken may never be truly easy, but this is the easiest way I know to make it. And two out of three Carnes men agree that it makes a wonderful meal!

This post is going to be a long one, so settle in.

Roast Chicken

To make roast chicken, you need a few tools:

1. kitchen shears (scissors)

2. 9X13 pan or small roasting pan

3. cookie cooling rack or rack for roasting pan

4. tongs

5. meat thermometer (highly recommended, but not critical)

And some ingredients:

whole chicken (3-4 lbs.)

kosher salt

carrots

red potatoes or baking potatoes

onion

1. First, you are going to butterfly the chicken. Basically, you are going to cut out the backbone so you can flatten it and it will cook evenly. Take the chicken out of the package and rinse it. Dry it thorough with paper towels so it doesn't steam in the oven. Put it on a cutting board, back side up - you'll see a little heart-shaped nugget of fat at the bottom. Save the neck if included but not the gizzard and heart.

2. Using your kitchen shears, cut up along the backbone on both sides. You'll make cuts about 1 1/2 inches apart. It's a bit tough cutting through the bone, but just move a bit further out if you have too much resistance. Turn it over so it's breast-side up. Push down on the breast or use a meat mallet to sort of even out the thickness of the butterflied chicken. Cut the backbone into 2 inch pieces, and set aside with the neck. (In a future post, I'll explain how to use these pieces to make a pan sauce/gravy since you won't have pan drippings.)

3. Take one tablespoon of kosher salt, and sprinkle it all over the chicken - front and back. If you are sensitive to salt, try 2 teaspoons. (Diamond salt is saltier than Morton's. The reason you need a lot of salt is for flavor and tenderness. I'll explain more when I write about brining in a future post.)

4. Cut up carrots, potatoes, and onions into chunks. Spray roasting pan with cooking spray, and add vegetables - cut up enough to fit in one layer. (If you have lots of layers, the veggies will steam, not roast. The carrots get saltier than the potatoes. Our theory is that their higher water content allows them to absorb more salt. Anyway, you can pepper the vegetables, but don't salt them.)

5. Put the rack on top of the pan. Put the chicken, skin side down, on the rack. Roast at 500 degrees for 10 minutes. Take chicken out of oven and turn over with tongs, skin side up. Put it back in the oven for 20-40 more minutes, depending on how big the chicken is. When it's done, the chicken skin will be brown and blistery. The breast should register 160 degrees, and the legs should register 165 (it's more important to check the legs).

6. Take the chicken off the rack and put it on a cutting board to rest for five minutes - cover it with foil to keep the heat in. Roast the vegetables for 10 minutes until they are browned.

7. There are lots of great instructions for carving the chicken that you can find online. Here's how I do it. I only hope my pictures don't scare you away!

First, pull the leg and thigh away from the body by gently pulling on the leg. Cut through the skin. Repeat on other side.

Separate leg from thigh by cutting where you see my knife. If you meet too much resistance, you aren't in the right place. Move the knife slightly until you can cut through quite easily.

Make vertical cuts on either side of the breast bone. Cut around and underneath the breast to remove. You can cut it in half if you have a larger chicken or you want more choices for each person.

As I mentioned earlier, you have no pan drippings, so you can't automatically make gravy for this meal. The pan drippings are making your vegetables wonderful, though! The chicken will be moist and flavorful enough that you don't have to have a sauce. But if you feel the need, you can always do what Thomas Keller, chef of the famous French Laundry does: slather your chicken with butter. (Whaaat? and also, yum!)

How to Cook Brown Rice

For the most part we try to eat whole grains for non-dessert starches: whole wheat bread, tortillas, Barilla Plus pasta, etc. I bake a lot from King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking, and I often add half white whole wheat or whole wheat flour to quick breads, muffins, and pizza dough. We also eat mostly brown rice. Some meals just go better with white, though!

If you like brown rice, you might be turned off because it takes about an hour to cook. The good news is that you can make a big batch and freeze in individual or family-sized servings. It heats up very well.

This technique for making brown rice came from Saveur magazine, and it's great. Even though there is no fat added, it ends up almost buttery tasting - like popcorn. The boys like it, too - though I usually add a little butter to theirs. This recipe is more like making pasta than rice - you don't want all the water to absorb.

Brown rice doubles in size while cooking. Last night I made 3 cups dried and ending up with 6 cups cooked. We ate two cups, and I froze the rest in two cup portions.

Perfect Brown Rice

Fill a large pot with 12 cups of water and bring to a boil. Using a fine-mesh strainer or a regular strainer lined with paper towels, rinse one cup of brown rice. Add to the water when it is boiling and cook for 30 minutes. Remove rice from water and drain again briefly. Add the rice back to the hot pot, cover, and let steam for 10 minutes. Uncover, fluff with a fork, add salt, and serve.

Note: When I made the rice last night, I filled a stock pot with enough water to cook a pound of spaghetti. I wanted to be sure I'd have enough water so it wouldn't be absorbed.