Month: December 2015

Revisiting Girlfriends’ Guide…

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When I finished watching the first season of the asinine Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, I swore I would not return for more brain abuse. But then I did. I guess I needed, as I wrote previously, more reasons to roll my eyes. The first season had fleeting moments of poignancy in that it dealt on occasion with the sweeping themes of pain, loss and confusion after breakups. But the majority of the show was frivolous and shallow, and the second season largely continues to dredge the dregs. The attempts at evoking depth also come off as exceedingly shallow, trivializing real problems and emotions.

The only exceptions have been (in this order):

  • The appearance of Retta as Barbara. While her character is framed as a bitter and divorced managing editor, she is the only voice of reason/reality in this twilight zone of non-reality. I’d keep watching the show if it started following her.
  • The breakup confrontation younger-man Will forces once his heart is broken by Lisa Edelstein‘s Abby. While I still find the relationship unrealistic and have no clue, given what we’ve seen, why or how this guy imagined he was in love with the clueless and totally self-involved Abby, his reaction seemed spot on.
  • Finally and repeatedly exposing Abby for the self-involved, “it’s-all-about-me” asshole she is. While all the characters are a bit hollow and narcissistic, very rarely considering that there are consequences to their selfishness (they almost all, in fairness, do realize that there are consequences after the fact – the over-the-top acting always reveals these “shock-hurt” facial expressions when someone confronts them on their selfishness). When Will confronts Abby, and also when close friend, Jo eviscerates Abby more than once for her fair-weather-friend nature, these moments rang true.

But dear god, what a stupid show – redeemed in moments that expose the deeply flawed nature of these people.

 

Back to basics: Brown sugar shortbread

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As I’ve written about before, there are different ways to make the baking world’s most basic baked good: shortbread.

I like my regular shortbread recipe, and it’s pretty basic and easy to bake (press it into a pan and bake – cut into slabs when done).

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But my friend Jane gave me a brown sugar shortbread recipe that has even fewer ingredients and can easily be rolled out and cut into desired shapes. I don’t usually have the patience for the rolling-and-cutting rigmarole, but this year I decided I’d go for a few.

I cut a few trees and a few stars. I used some raspberry jam in small indentations on the trees; I used some lemon curd in small indentations on the stars. These were popular – and they’re nice because they have a very different crisp but not too crispy texture. And they turned out to look very simple and beautiful.

Lemon in all its forms – Think pink: Lemon sandwich cookies with raspberry filling

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When I know I am going to do a big bake, I sometimes ask for requests – everyone has favorites. I got an enthusiastic request for something lemon – anything lemon. And lemon raspberry wouldn’t hurt either (since most lemon lovers are pretty addicted to the crack-like but luscious addictive nature of lemon raspberry bars).

I went to my go-to lemon cookie recipe after looking around and finding a far more complicated lemon cookie recipe. Why not just use what I know?

I baked these up and whipped up some raspberry buttercream to turn the cookies into sandwiches. I had frozen some very decadent cream-laden vanilla frosting and just added a bunch of de-seeded raspberry jam and a dot of red food coloring to make the frosting just slightly pinker.

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Into the pink…

Cuckoo for coconut: Naturally gluten-free baking choices

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I had an ambitious baking plan recently (don’t I always?), and – for once – I was ready, armed with plenty of time and all the needed ingredients. Then southern Sweden was hit by an unusually powerful windstorm, which knocked my power out two days in a row. While the outage only lasted a few hours, it robbed me of my motivation… ambition out the window.

I still managed to bake quite a lot, but not everything that was on my list – and the gluten-free baking options suffered most. I had very much hoped I could make my standard gluten-free paleo brownies (which I did) but also venture into the world of more adventurous gluten-free cookie options. At least in my first round of baking, I did not succeed, and the brownies were the only thing that got made.

On the second round, I still had some lingering hope for gluten-free experimentation, but the only thing I managed to do was make some very basic, simple coconut macaroons. It was a new recipe for me, which I grabbed from Food.com – apparently Ina Garten’s recipe. The final product turned out well, but I actually had to add a lot more coconut than the recipe asks for. I’d suggest adding the amount listed in the recipe and see if you get the right consistency for a “dough” that can hold its form and bake into a cookie but that is not too “wet” from the condensed milk.

Give it a shot.

Coconut macaroons
14 ounces of coconut (4.27 cups or 397 grams)
14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 extra large egg whites
¼ teaspoon salt

Combine coconut, condensed milk and vanilla in one bowl and set aside.

Whip egg whites and salt on high until medium-firm peaks form.

Carefully fold eggs into the coconut mixture.

Drop tablespoons of the mixture onto baking sheets covered in baking paper.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes until golden.