Merry January

Sharing a recipe for an edible Christmas gift in January is sort of like continuing to plug in the twinkle lights on your house long after the holidays are over. But I'm doing it anyway. I realized last night while making my way through my neighborhood, where plenty of houses are still colorfully lit, that I'm all for keeping the lights glowing. After all the cider and hot chocolate is sipped, the presents are opened and the anticipation (for me, the best part) is deflated, we're left in January with a surplus of cold night air. We should at least make it sparkle.

And what does a sweet bite do but add sparkle? Besides, caramel corn with salted peanuts isn't necessarily December-specific. It's not peppermint-flavored or chestnut-studded or clove-scented, so a handful tastes right any time of year. Go make some now!

Before I decided on the caramel popcorn, I'd planned a collection of cookies for Christmas gifts:

• Butter cookies with pretty swirly icing

• Chocolate dulce de leche bars with sea salt caramel

• Triple peanut oatmeal cookies

• Trios cookies with three kinds of jam

• Spumoni chunk cookies with chocolate, pistachio and dried cherries

• Chocolate marshmallow cookies

I'd make multiple batches of each to give out for Christmas, assorted sets in little tins. I did the same thing last year with five other recipes, this one being my favorite. This involved a staggering grocery list of combined ingredients. 15 sticks of butter, 12 cups of sugar. But then I realized that's crazy. I didn't have time this year for that much baking, as much as I'd love to. Even without all those cookie recipes, my kitchen table already looked like this pre-holiday:

In a way — beyond the simplicity — the popcorn was a relief to make. Or, I should say, to make successfully. My only other experience in candying was my attempt to make cashew brittle for my dad's birthday last year, and that turned out tasting plainly chemical — with the main flavor being the baking soda added at the end. I learned the hard way how crucial a candy thermometer can be.

And, I have to say, I'm pretty proud of clearing the hurdle of microwavelessness to make this. It's the first question people ask when they hear about this deficiency: "But what about popcorn?" Well, usually, I just don't eat it. But now I know how fantastically easy it is to pop on top of the stove. A few nights before Christmas, Sara and I put our ears near my biggest lidded pot, wondering if the first burst would go off like gunfire. We fretted over the high pressure that might be building inside, then moved our faces away just to be safe. We imagined how alarming the world's very first (surely unplanned, don't you think?) popping of corn must have been.

Then a kernel popped with a muffled noise no louder than a whisper. Kind of a letdown, but at least we'd had the anticipation. And the fun of caramelizing, coating and sampling afterward more than made up for it.

Caramel Corn with Salted Peanuts

Via Orangette, where it was adapted from DamGoodSweet, by David Guas and Raquel Pelzel

The first two ingredients will make 10 cups of popcorn, and it's best to do it in two batches.

6 Tbsp. oil

2/3 cup popcorn

1 cup lightly salted peanuts, roughly chopped

1 cup packed light brown sugar

¼ cup light corn syrup

6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

¼ tsp. salt

½ tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 250°F and prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a large lidded pot over medium-high heat, then pour in 1/3 cup of kernels, cover and shake around to coat. Listen for the thrill of that first little explosion. You'll know it's ready when the fusillade seems to have died down – and before anything burns. Spray nonstick cooking spray into your largest mixing bowl and pour in the popped popcorn, picking out and discarding any unpopped kernels. Repeat the popping step for the second batch, add that and the peanuts to the bowl, then lightly salt everything.

In a saucepan, whisk the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter, salt and 2 tablespoons of water and bring the mixture to a simmer over medium-high heat. Keep whisking and simmering until it hits 250°F on a candy thermometer. Take the pan off the heat and whisk in the baking soda and vanilla. Now is the time to be quick: tip the caramel over the popcorn and stir with a rubber spatula. It's a little tough to be as thorough as you'd like, but try to get some color on each piece. Spread this mixture to the baking sheet and bake for 1 hour, pausing every 20 minutes to stir the popcorn with a spatula — this is another chance to get things evenly coated.

When the time is up, leave it on a cooling rack for 20 minutes. Eat right away or divide into jars for gifts. I made this twice and filled about 10 Mason jars.

Oh right, about those pies...

Well, I did it. I made two Thanksgiving pies lined with real crust transformed from flour and butter entirely by me, with the Pillsbury Doughboy nowhere in sight. I had a few fraught moments of calling out, "I'm facing a fear here!" and "AHHH! What if I'm overworking the dough?!" The pies, however, exited the oven and sat cooling on the rack with poise, as if they'd never doubted their perfection.

One was made with a M.Martinez-recommended recipe for pecan pie without corn syrup, and the other recipe came right off the back of a can of pumpkin puree, a filling so healthy someone made these graphics to prove it.

Besides my uncertainty over making dough, I felt another pang of alarm when I ran out of nuts for the top of the pecan pie. Because it lacked the usual solid topping, the filling puffed up in the gaps between pecan halves when baked and ended up looking sort of like meringue. I'm pretty sure that's what lead to this unnerving moment of dialogue on Thanksgiving Day:

"What kind of pie is this one with pecans?"

"It's pecan."

That didn't do much to help my pie-related fears, which took root about five years ago, the first time I'd tried my hand at pie-making. I'd eaten a slice of pecan pie with Jack Daniel's and chocolate chips at the Gristmill in Gruene, and it was so good that I recreated it at home — unwisely from a sketchy Web site of restaurant copycat recipes — and invited a bunch of folks over. My friends were too kind to say it, but forks were of no use with that gloppy mess. Since then, I've referred to that disaster as the Swamp In A Dish.

On the other hand, my panic over creating pie dough came from lack of experience. I'd never witnessed that moment when dry ingredients plus fat plus water spring to life as pastry; I was afraid I wouldn't know when it was ready. Making this kind of dough seems to have lots of variables ("It says the butter should be pebbly. Is this pebbly? Because I'd say it's more like large gravel."), and everything has to stay cold, then there's that period of adding water by the spoonful, which takes a bit of instinct. I didn't have that instinct going in. My mom's dessert-making involved dipping mini Ritz peanut butter sandwiches or gelled orange candies into melted chocolate, and people on cooking shows always seem to use a food processor. I was starting from scratch. (Har har.)

But, as it turned out, I had nothing to worry about. It wasn't so hard, and they turned out tasting great. It's just that I was overly anxious about 16 people trying my very first all-homemade pies on a holiday that might as well be called Everyone Expects Good Pie Day. Now that I've done it, I'm thinking that should be every day.

Pate brisee (pie dough)

Pep talk from The Awl, with real measurements from Martha Stewart

Makes one double-crust or two single-crust 9- to 10-inch pies.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces

1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Combine flour, salt and sugar. Add butter and smush with your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse meal or just butter blobs held together by paste. That worked for me. Add a 1/4 cup of ice water and do some more smushing. Timidly add more cold water one tablespoon at a time until the dough no longer crumbles. It should hold together without being wet or sticky. Divide dough into two equal balls. Flatten each ball into a disc and wrap in plastic. Transfer to the refrigerator and chill at least one hour. Dough may be stored, frozen, up to one month.

Sprinkle a heavy dusting of flour onto your table and the rolling pin (owned by boyfriend who doesn't cook much, but uses it to make killer tortillas when so inclined). Roll the dough into an odd unknown-continent shape until it's large enough to fit in a pie plate. Unstick it from the table and roll it like a scroll around the rolling pin to transfer it to the buttered pie plate. Yell out with glee. You did it!

Corn-syrup-free pecan pie

From someone named Elaine at allrecipes.com via BAKIN' LOVE

1 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 eggs

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chopped pecans

More pecan halves for decorating.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Butter pie plate and fill it with dough, as outlined above.

In a large bowl, beat eggs until foamy and stir in melted butter. Stir in the brown sugar, white sugar and the flour; mix well. Add the milk, vanilla and chopped pecans.

Pour into an unbaked 9-inch pie shell. Place pecan halves on top in whatever type of pattern you can manage. Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees, then reduce temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until done.

40 degrees feels very cold

Northeasterly wind, temperatures near freezing and precipitation from someplace or other came together this morning to create perfect conditions for snow in Austin: meaning I saw about 18 flakes hit my windshield. Then they disappeared and left us all with just a plain cold day, one without the rare and exciting prospect of real snowfall.

This is Austin, though, so a few schools did close for a snow day. We here are fanatical in our fear of weather that's cold and wet at the same time.

Flurries or not, the chill was enough to make me want something hot for lunch. So I went home and made this French-style warm lentil salad from Orangette, proving that it is possible to make something other than quesadillas during an hourlong lunch break. Of course, that's provided you live a barely plural 1.1 miles from work (as I do) and are willing to take some recipe shortcuts. If you chew quickly, you might even have a second to spare for a photo. Another time saver: I never even took my coat off. Conditions are just that arctic.

Lentils for lunch

Very loosely adapted from Orangette for the sake of speed

• ½ cup French green lentils

• 1½ cups water

• 1 bay leaf (Mine was Mediterranean, not Turkish, as called for. This was OK.)

• salt

• a dab of oil

• half of a fat shallot, minced as small as you have time for

• leftover cucumber end (about a quarter of a largish one)

• what's left of a 10-ounce bag of carrot "matchstix." (But hey, the package also says "French-cut cooking carrots." Very fancy.)

• 1 clove garlic, chopped smallish

• sprinkling of dried thyme

• Drew's All Natural Rosemary Balsamic dressing, or whatever ready-made vinaigrette you have

Drive home, walk into the house and immediately put lentils, water and bay leaf into a pot and turn the heat to medium-high. Bring them to a boil. Do some slapdash but reasonably careful chopping. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until almost tender, about 15 minutes. Sprinkle in some salt, then simmer, covered, for another 3 to 5 minutes, until tender. My lentils needed slightly longer, so make sure to taste them for doneness.

About halfway through the lentil cooking time, warm the oil in a skillet over medium-low and heat the shallot, carrots, cucumber, garlic, thyme and some salt. Stir every now and then for the next 7 to 9 minutes. Drain the lentils in a sieve and pick out the bay leaf. Dump the lentils into the skillet with the vegetables, add the vinaigrette and stir to combine everything.

You could relocate things to a new bowl, but you're in a hurry and no one else is around, so don't worry about this step too much. (I did, and all it got me was another dish to wash.) Pack up and rush back to work, thinking about how you'll come home to a disorderly kitchen, but eating something warm and homemade on a cold day was worth it.

Servantless, but not without helpful and hungry friends

This is my final Julia Child-related post, I swear. But I have to say, you know you've made a successful dinner when people clean their plates and even go back for seconds while sitting at a table in the same room as an oven that's been blazing at 350 degrees for more than two hours.

And the air conditioner can't catch up because the temperature outside has been over 100 all afternoon.

And sweat is running down the backs of knees and necks.

Still, we reached for more. More boiled potatoes topped with rib-sticking boeuf bourguignon made from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." More caesar salad. More roasted green beans. More gâteau reine de saba (Queen of Sheba cake!). It was that good.

The secret, as we found, is a team of three who know their way around a kitchen. Our team:

Sara — An epicure whose 10 years in France afforded us proper pronunciations of the food before us.

Melissa — Another world traveler with a keen ability for pastry creation and frosting.

Me — Well, it was my kitchen. Someone had to point to where the tongs are kept.

Being servantless, and also otherwise engaged during business hours, we baked the cake the night before. Along the way, we discovered that what they say about beating egg whites in a completely dry, clean bowl is absolutely true. Do not try to get around this. The egg whites can tell, and they will refuse to become foamy or peaked and certainly not stiff.

I don't know about the rest of our dinner party of five, but my favorite part of the boeuf bourguignon by far was the onions. A little extra love before dumping them in with the rest of the stew really paid off.

And speaking of love, we coddled the egg for the caesar dressing as called for by the recipe and as called for by our own understanding of coddling. This additional step was crucial to its flavor, I'm sure.

After all this affection and effort for our dinner in an overheated kitchen/dining room, there was nothing to do but leave the house and hope for a breeze as we walked down the block to 7-Eleven for Slurpees. Then, of course, we were ready for cake.

Reine de Saba

Adapted from Julia Child's "The Way to Cook" as reprinted in The Boston Globe, who you'd expect to spell "Sheba" correctly

FOR THE CAKE

3 ounces sweet baking chocolate, chopped

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, chopped

2 tablespoons strong coffee

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened

1/2 cup sugar

3 large egg yolks

3 egg whites

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Pinch of salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1/3 cup blanched almonds pulverized with 2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 cup plain bleached cake flour, in a sifter set on wax paper

Set the oven at 325 degrees. Set the rack in the lower middle level. Butter and flour an 8-inch by 1 1/2-inch round cake pan.

In a double boiler or bowl set over a pan of 2 or 3 inches of water, combine the sweet and unsweetened chocolates with the coffee. Bring water to a simmer, cover and let chocolate melt, stirring until smooth. Turn off the heat.

In a 3-quart mixing bowl, use a hand-held electric mixer to cream the butter until soft and fluffy, then add the 1/2 cup sugar. Beat 1 minute, then beat in the yolks.

In another mixing bowl, beat the whites until foaming, beat in the cream of tartar and salt and continue beating until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the 2 tablespoons of sugar and continue beating until stiff, shining peaks form.

Blend the warm melted chocolate into the yolk mixture, then blend in the almonds and almond extract. Stir a quarter of the egg whites into the chocolate to lighten it. Scoop the rest of the whites over the chocolate and, alternating with sprinkles of the flour, rapidly and delicately fold in the whites.

Immediately turn the batter into the prepared pan, tilting it in all directions to run it up to the rim, and set it in the oven.

Bake for 25 minutes or until the cake has puffed to the top of the pan and a toothpick plunged into it 2 and 3 inches from the edges comes out clean. (The center should move slightly when the pan is gently shaken.)

Remove the pan to a rack and let it cool for 15 minutes, then unmold onto the rack. Let it cool completely, at least 2 hours, before storing or icing.

FOR THE SOFT CHOCOLATE ICING

2 ounces sweet chocolate, chopped

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, chopped

1 1/2 tablespoons rum or strong coffee

Pinch of salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

In a double boiler or bowl set over a pan of 2 or 3 inches of water, combine both chocolates with the rum or coffee, bring water to a simmer, cover and let chocolate melt, stirring until smooth. Turn off the heat.

Using an electric hand mixer, beat the salt into the melted chocolate, then beat in the butter 1 tablespoon at a time. Continue beating over cold water until icing is firm enough to spread. Turn the icing onto the top of the cake and spread it evenly over the top and sides.

Adorn with toasted sliced almonds.

Frito pie in the Hill Country

Looks like I'm straying from my theme pretty quickly. I won't even try to stretch a connection between building community through food in Austin and eating a snack on my own in Luckenbach. But it's worth mentioning because it was my first Frito pie served in the chip bag.

I've never met a Frito pie I didn't love. I've made it with super salty canned chili in lean times (though there's nothing lean about it) and I've recreated Spiderhouse's vegetarian Frito pie at home since it's been demoted to an infrequent menu special. I've also cleaned my plate of the fancypants version with goat cheese at Lambert's. But it wasn't until I traveled to the Hill Country for a freelance assignment this weekend that I had it in its authentic form, Little League-style. It completely hit the spot.

The town of Luckenbach (pop. 3) is a creekside spot with a dancehall, a rickety general store/post office/bar, a stage and a dirt parking lot filled with trucks. Things move slowly here. Oak trees and crops of cactus grow side by side, looking a bit like the visiting city folks sharing picnic tables with old ranchers you just know have sipped Lone Star there every weekend for decades. While I stirred my bag of cheesy, corny goodness with a plastic fork, this guy walked by:

Just as I saw him, I heard a mom hollering from the next picnic table over: "Your daddy didn't spend $6 on that so you could feed it to a damn rooster!"

So maybe there is a story of community here — little girls communing with roosters by sharing their fried mozzarella sticks. Really though, it's not hard to squint past the motorcycle dudes and the ATM machine and feel connected with old-time, backroads Texas and all the folks who have come here looking for a place to slow down and take a spin on the dance floor.

It would be a real shame to drive down U.S. 290 in June and not stop for roadside peaches, which are absolutely everywhere right now. Everywhere, that is, except the stand I stopped at that had already sold out of their Fredericksburg beauties. So I got some blackberries and moved on down the road to a place that sold me about a dozen juicy plums for one dollar. And I got my peaches. The plums I'm eating straight, but some of the blackberries and peaches have a different fate.

Peach ice cream

From The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

about 4 large peaches

1/2 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

a few drops freshly squeezed lemon juice

Peel the peaches, slice them in half and remove the pits. Cut the peaches into chunks and cook them with the water in a medium, nonreactive saucepan over medium heat, covered, stirring once or twice, until soft and cooked through, about 10 minutes.

Remove from the heat, stir in the sugar, then cool to room temperature.

Puree the cooked peaches and their liquid in a blender or food processor with the sour cream, heavy cream, vanilla and lemon juice until almost smooth but slightly chunky.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker.