8. GINGERBREAD BOYS

Our army of Gingerbread Boys at GRAM'S FAM Reunion last year.

When the trees have shivered in an autumnal chill, and their leaves have trembled themselves from their branches…when I’ve rolled the casement window knobs and sealed the locks against the blast of wind from the east canyon…when the boiler in our basement grumbles and shakes, and the vents in the floor belch out the dust that has gathered in the temperate weeks of Indian summer…then I search the skies for that swirl of grey and inhale as I step out on my front porch, knowing that this would be the day.  First Snow.  Virgin flakes sift from the heavens, dying like the front lines in a massive battle as they hit the ground. The surface is not yet cold enough to sustain them.  By mid-morning, however,  the grass has taken on a pearly sheen, and I know I must prepare.  By the time school gets out we have a couple inches.  The counter is cleaned off, and the molasses and shortening sit beside the sugars and flours and powdered ginger.  I heft my workhorse AEG mixer over onto the island because the little hands of my little Loves will be measuring and mixing and it is easier if they kneel on the stools over there.

Traditionally, in our house, we make Gingerbread Boys on the first snow of the year.  We hope our schedules cooperate.  My grandchildren, if they are close enough to make the trek, stand in a row while I sort through their aprons and chefs hats.  I tie them to their necks and waists, tuck their hair under their caps, and we all wash our hands with soap.  The youngest ones are strapped into their high chairs with Cheerios and the plastic set of Dwarves to humor them.  The mid range Littles scramble for the closest stools, and the older ones huddle behind them.  We measure, and pour and mix and chill.  We roll and cut and bake and frost.  “Oh goodness…too BAD, (one of us moans).  He broke his arm!”  We all sympathize as we rip appendages from the poor fellow, gobbling him up before he is properly adorned with raisin buttons.

My Gingerbread Boy recipe is hand written, in the lovely script of my mother.  I am ageless when I place that recipe on my counter.  I am thirteen and I am thirty and I am fifty six and I am ninety.  My mother’s long slender fingers press the raisins into her thick buttercream frosting and I imitate her.  And my children imitate me, and their children repeat after them until we form a long eternal chain of deliciousness.

It’s been such a tepid winter here in Utah this year.  Almost no snow since Christmas.  My family and friends back east are envious.  And I must admit it has been lovely to have so much sun.  But there is just as much winter weariness here.  And flu bugs and coughing abounds here.  I think we need a hefty snowstorm to freeze it all off! Come on, Snow, make yourself known!  It is nearly March, and my Littles are waiting!

I have a good supply of these vintage cutters.

GRAM’S GINGERBREAD BOYS

½ cup shortening

½ c soft butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1 cup molasses (look for Grandma’s brand- Mild)

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp. vinegar

7 cups flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. ginger

4 tsp. cinnamon

Cream shortening and butter, add sugar gradually and cream thoroughly. Blend in molasses. Sift 2.5 cups flour with soda, spices, and salt and stir into syrup mixture. Add vinegar and remaining flour, alternating with buttermilk. Chill dough well. Roll out .25 inch thick on a lightly floured board and cut out into shapes. Roll the cookie dough thicker for soft gingerbread and thinner for crisper cookies.
I divide dough in half and put into a plastic food storage bag, sort of flatten it out and stack the bags in the fridge or on the porch in the cold winter.   Chill for even a half hour outside in the winter, each bag separated from the other for quicker chilling. Roll one part of dough at a time on floured board to ¼ to 1/8  inch thick. Cut out gingerbread boys with sharp cookie cutter. Dip cutter into flour before cutting. Place on greased cookie sheets (or use parchment paper) and bake at 375 degrees F about 6  to 10 minutes. Cookies are done when you gently press your finger into a tummy and it sort of springs back up.  Unless you want really crisp cookies, don’t overcook. Cool slightly and remove. Decorate with white buttercream frosting and raisins.

Buttercream Frosting

1 1/2 cubes butter, softened (3/4 c)

2 1/2 c. powdered sugar

1 T pure vanilla

dash of salt

1-3 T milk, cream or warm water (add gradually to get correct consistency.)

Beat well till fluffy.

7. CAPELLINI POMODORO

For Mother’s Day  one year, maybe 5 or 6 years ago, Dave and Johnny built me some grow boxes, conveniently located at the end of our driveway.  I thank them for only building two, because I may dream about being a nature girl with a green thumb but the reality is that I can hardly keep those never-say-die philodendrons alive in my house. 

I plant four items in my grow boxes: tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley and basil.  Lots of basil.  It’s the thing I use most, and most appreciate being able to walk out and snip from my own growing place.

One of my go-to recipes during the growing season, or when I find basil marked down at Smiths or cherry tomatoes on a major discount at the 5 Hour Store, is Pasta Pomodoro. It’s quick, and fresh, and you can stretch it to feed a crowd if you need to.

CAPELLINI POMODORO

1 lb capellini or angel hair pasta (Barilla)

1-3 lb tomatoes

1 bunch of fresh basil

1 cluster of fresh garlic

Olive oil

Butter

Salt and pepper

I prefer to use angel hair pasta or capellini because the thin noodle represents the correct proportion of pasta to sauce for me.  But you can use any kind of pasta.

I’ve cooked  the sauce on the stove top in a heavy fry pan, and I’ve broiled it in the oven.  Both work fine. You can cut fresh tomatoes (Roma are best, but any will work) into small pieces, or you can use small whole tomatoes cut in half. Lately I’ve been using cherry or grape tomatoes in the oven.  Here’s how I do that:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, for the pasta

Meanwhile…

Wash and cut grape tomatoes in half. I use two Tupperware lids or two small plates stacked with the tomatoes between them to cut the tomatoes.  Fill the plate with the tomatoes, place another plate upside down on the tomatoes, then using a long serrated knife, slice horizontally between the plates.  Repeat till the tomatoes are all cut.

Cut grape tomatoes easily by placing them in a tupperware lid.  Put another lid on top and slice between the two lids.

I use this handy tool all the time.  Put garlic clove inside rubber tube and roll.  It comes out clean and ready to cook.

Place ¼ c good olive oil in the bottom of a glass casserole dish.  Toss tomatoes in oil.  Add  cleaned cloves of a cluster of garlic and toss as well.  Wash and tear a bunch of fresh basil, mix with other ingredients.  Sprinkle with sea salt or kosher salt.  Broil close to the element in your oven, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes are cooked and garlic is tender.

Boil pasta until al dente, roughly 6 minutes for angel hair pasta.  Drain pasta and toss into tomato mixture.  Add a tablespoon of butter and toss.

I often serve this with thinly sliced chicken breasts which have also been seared and quickly cooked in olive oil, garlic and butter.

Yum.

6. CABBAGE ROLLS

Around this time of year, when I was a teenager, we Mormons of the Pittsburgh 2^nd Ward opened the doors to our church to massive boxes of inventory papers from the JC Penney Company.  I’m not sure how we got this gig, but it was one of the major ways we were able to build the addition to our chapel.  And it is how we sent missionaries out to the world, when their parents were too poor to pay for their service.  Classrooms were lined with tables, which were lined with papers and finely sharpened pencils. I remember finally being old enough to work, and feeling so accomplished. Those were the days when all inventory accounting was done by hand, before computers took over the world.  My sisters and I walked from TJ High school to the church through the crisp, damp Pennsylvania air each school day of the two week inventory.  If I close my eyes and breathe slowly, I can place myself there.  My cheeks are rosy, my long blonde hair curved around my shoulders under my scarf.  As soon as the large glass door to the church lobby was opened, a waft of warmth flowed out, and upon inhaling we knew Genevieve Deutch and Beno Mann must be there because there was that unmistakable aroma of cabbage rolls escaping into the leafless branches across the Pennsylvania hillsides.  It was not a familiar smell in our household, our mom being a transplanted Idaho girl.  But it is integral to my past and delightful to my senses at this very moment because there is a nice large batch steaming away in my oven.  Before we had a kitchen in the church, the counters in the small library were lined with large electric roasters.  I wonder, if I made a trip back to Pittsburgh now, if I could go into that library and pull some of the old matted pictures out of their cubbies, and in doing so I wonder if there might be some hint of my past infused into the papers and manuals and books.  That lovely, distinct aroma of devotion, created at the hands of faithfully converted Hungarian Saints, nourishing their fellow believers on chilly late winter evenings. 

A few years back Beno came out to Utah for a visit, and I asked her to teach me how to make Cabbage Rolls.  This is how it rolled out:

Cabbage Rolls

(Beno Mann.  aka Helen Katchmark)

Take a large head of green cabbage. Cut the hard middle part out in a sort of cone shape. Place in large pot of boiling water with 1 T vinegar. In a few minutes, as outer leaves soften, remove them one by one with rubber tongs.  Place in cold water.  Keep doing this until you have a pile of soft leaves.  Reserve the cabbage water.

In a large bowl mix together:

1 1/2 pound burger meat (hamburger or ground pork, I use both together)

1 ½ c. cooked rice

2T fresh chopped parsley or 1 T dried parsley

1 small finely chopped onion

3-5 minced garlic cloves (or garlic powder/salt)

½ c crushed tomatoes

2 eggs

salt, pepper 

Mash it all together with your hands.

Cut the heavy vein out of each leaf in a v shape so you have workable leaves. (update- I've been just trimming the thick part of the vein off, which makes a better leaf bed)

Put a couple Tablespoons of  meat mix in center and roll up with sides flapped in so it's sealed. 

Mix 2 c crushed tomatoes, 2 c tomato sauce, and 3 c. or so of reserved cabbage water together. Add salt to taste, maybe a teaspoon or so (these are approximations).  Put about 1 inch of this liquid in bottom of a casserole. 

Lay rolls down in sauce, nice and snug next to each other, then cover with more sauce.  Put bacon on top if you have some, just for the flavor.  Cover and bake at 325 for a few hours.  Keep rolls covered with sauce.  May add water to sauce to stretch it out. Discard bacon before eating. More often than not I make this without the bacon and its still yummy.

5. MEXICAN WEDDING BALLS (IT STARTS WITH BUTTER)

My friend Nadine Wiser spoke at her daughter’s funeral.  No parent should have to do such a thing.  It’s against the natural order of things for us to bury our children.  But Nadine is a wise and joyful soul and she spoke with delight about her daughter, Luana, who died suddenly and unexpectedly in the prime of her life.  Nadine told about the time Luana took them on a tour of the Pepperidge Farm factory where she worked.  That day they were making Milano Cookies. They followed the assemblage of ingredients along the path to perfection.  When they were done there were thousands of delicious Milano cookies being loaded into packages.  As Luana walked her parents to the exit, she remarked,

“You know that’s gotta be some recipe when you start with 400 pounds of butter, add 400 pounds of sugar and end with chocolate chips.”

Luana knew what all good cooks know: it all starts with butter.

One of my sister Libby’s favorite cookies is the Mexican Wedding Ball. We still talk about the unhappy moment after my wedding reception when someone set the large bin of leftover Mexican Wedding Balls on top of the car and drove off, leaving a trail of deliciousness rolling down Old Clairton Road.

Here we have one of the simplest of recipes, full of calories…mostly cuz it is full of…you got it…butter.

MEXICAN WEDDING BALLS

1 
cup butter, softened

1/2
cup powdered sugar

1 
teaspoon vanilla

2 1/4
cups sifted flour

1/4
teaspoon salt

3/4
cup finely chopped pecans or walnuts

powdered sugar(for rolling baked cookies in)

DIRECTIONS

            Cream together butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy; stir in vanilla.

            Whisk together flour and salt; add gradually to butter mixture; stir in chopped nuts.

            Chill dough if it seems too soft.

            Form dough into 1 1/4" balls and place onto parchment-lined or ungreased baking sheets.

            Bake at 400° for 10-12 minutes or just until the cookies start to turn light golden-brown; remove from oven and allow to cool slightly; while cookies are still warm (but NOT hot) remove them from baking sheets and roll, a few at a time, in powdered sugar until evenly coated; cool cookies completely on wire racks.

            Cookies may (optionally) be rolled in powdered sugar a second time once cooled to room temperature.          36-48 cookies

Parker, my grandson, offers culinary advice below:

              

("every good cook knows the best recipes begin with this...BUTTER")