It's Sour Cream Twist Roll Time!

This is my family's favorite and most unique Christmas cookie. My grandma found the recipe when she was young and we've made it ever since! (I'll try to remember pictures after I make them.)


Sour Cream Twists

Mix 3.5 c white flour and 1 t salt. Cut in 1 c butter (like making pie crust). 
Dissolve 2.5 t dry yeast in 1/4 c warm water (90-100 degrees). Beat 1 egg and 2 egg yolks with 1.5 t vanilla. Add 3/4 c sour cream and dissolved yeast and mix all. 
Add wet ingredients to dry and mix all together with hands. 
Cover and refrigerate 2 hours to overnight. 


Divide dough into halves. Preheat oven to 375. 


For each half:

1/2 c sugar on board. (You use the sugar to roll out the dough and it is incorporated as you go so by the end the sugar is about gone)
Roll dough to 8x6" Flip to sugar on both sides.
Fold ends to middle, overlap, turn over (e.g. fold in thirds)
Roll to 8x6 again. Do this a total of 3 times (counting the 1st)
Roll to large rectangle 1/4" thick
Cut dough into 1x4" strips. Twist each one a full turn
Bake on parchment paper covered sheets, 375 degrees, 13-15 minutes, rotate sheets part way through if more than one in oven at a time

Happy National Rural Health Day

Things to do with Pumpkin

Yay fall! Yay pumpkin! Really that's Yay squash! because even Libby's canned pumpkin isn't made from the big round orange pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo). It's made from a variety that's smooth and tan in the same species as butternut squash (Cucurbita moschata) called the Dickinson's Select Pumpkin.

But I know more that Libby's, or at least I'm willing to work harder, so I successfully turned my free big orange pumpkin from Safeway ("Free. All pumpkins must go.") into pumpkin puree for baking. It was just a matter of cracking it open by dropping on the floor (yes it had a really hard skin...I would not have wanted to carve this one!), scraping out the seeds (to toast) and microwaving the sections to soften the flesh. After I scraped the flesh out of the skin I had to boil it a while longer in a pot to fully soften. Then I pureed the flesh in the food processor and boiled down the remaining liquid before mixing it all back together. You have to do this with C. pepo varieties because their flesh is more watery and less strongly flavored compared to the ones we call squash. Once I did all that it made great pumpkin puree and I've been baking with it for the bake sale next week.

Then I had to mix up some pumpkin pie spice. I modified this recipe.

Update: Oh my god! Cardamom is the best thing ever in pumpkin pie spice. I used this in the pumpkin pie cobbler and wanted to eat the pumpkin batter with a spoon. This is hereby christened:

Sarah's Pumpkin Symphony Pie Spice

2 T ground cinnamon
2 t ground ginger
1 t freshly grated nutmeg (not really measured of course)
3/4 t ground cloves
1/2 t ground mace
1/2 t fresh ground cardamom (grind the seeds in a mortar and measure after grinding)

Brownies gone wild: I mashed up recipes from Smitten Kitchen and David Lebovitz and made "Pumpkin-Chocolate Brownie Cake Bars with Cheesecake Swirl topped with hazelnuts and spiked with Cinnamon and Cayenne." It was definitely over the top...good thing it's for the bake sale! I'm not posting the recipe yet because I want to tweak it to be less cake-y and more brownie-y and make a real pumpkin blondie. I think the original Martha Stewart recipe Deb used has way too much flour to be a brownie (or blondie) so I'll try cutting that way back. It would be easier to beat the eggs with a stand mixer though.

Batter layer number one.

The chocolate layer.

With cream cheese swirl.

Out of the oven.

Close up!

I still have two more pumpkins in waiting...

Next is an effort at pumpkin cobbler...

Fun in November

Happy Armistice Day! (I think that's a cooler name than Veterans Day.) We had super lovely weather in DC today. There is a crazy big concert going on on the Mall...glad they aren't freezing people out! It think it was lucky all around because the freezing air currently snowing on Minnesota is scheduled to hit us the end of the week.

Elizabeth and I went on a bike ride to Glen Echo and Bethesda.

The C&O Canal path and the Capitol Crescent Trail (the paved one)

I love crunchy leaves!

There's Elizabeth by the bikes.

Sky view

Cyclist selfie

Here's the Spanish Ballroom from the outside.

 So Glen Echo is where I like to go for swing dances. Here's what that looked like last week at the WWII Canteen Dance with the Eric Felten Jazz Orchestra.

And I got some great views on my way home from the ECRI conference on complex patients. 

Makes DC awesome: the Washington Monument from the Constitution Garden pool. 

I'm having a Popcorn Ball

There may not be dancing but I'm having a popcorn ball making party on Saturday. Really this post is just to save the recipe though so I can find it easily.

Bessie's Popcorn Balls

2 c sugar
1 c Karo syrup
1/2 c butter
pinch of salt

Cook all together 5 minutes, boiling hard.  (Crackly in cold water)
Enough for 4 batches of popcorn with air popper.  Use large dishpan. 
Store in airtight container or wrap in plastic wrap. Mom thinks they look best wrapped in wax paper (twisted on the sides Jolly Rancher style)  but they don't stay crisp like that. 

I'll try to get some pictures from the party. 

Civilization at last! (or how to vote properly)

I did it. I registered as a permanent absentee voter. 

After a couple of elections dealing with the craziness of DC voting machines and polling places (they tell you you can't take a picture of yourself while standing in the ridiculously long line! Seriously?) I am not going to do it again. I'm getting back to the civilized way I was raise: fill out your paper mail-in at the kitchen table while drinking a cup of cocoa. You can take your time and fill it out gradually over a couple of days while you think about different races. I can either mail it in by November 4 or turn it in to any polling place on election day. So I can still visit a polling place if I want to but I won't have to stand in line. 

Here's my new ballot:

Now that's what an election should look like! Not this (from the Washington Post):

The early voting line was almost 2 blocks long in downtown Silver Spring thirty minutes before the close on November 2, 2012. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)

New tuna salad

I made this recipe to take to a potluck at work last week. Except I initially skimmed the ingredients and thought it said black olives instead of black pepper. When I went back to make it I still felt olives sounded really good so I diced up a few oil cured black olives and mixed them in. This was a great variation on the traditional American tuna salad with mayonnaise. (not that there's anything wrong with that, I like tuna with mayo and pickles too) I served it on crispy romaine lettuce leaves rather than bread. With everyone eating low carb these days that's popular and I actually like tuna better on lettuce--nice and crunchy and the flavors come through.

So here's a recipe for tuna with roasted red peppers and black olives:

2 cans of tuna packed in water, well drained (10-12 oz depending on can size)
1/3 cup roasted sweet red peppers, diced
2 T diced oil cured black olives
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil (or a bit more)
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar 

Mix it all together and season to taste. Serve immediately or keep refrigerated up to 24 hours. Makes both sandwiches and tuna salad on lettuce. 

Austin, Texas

Last week I flew to Austin, Texas, for a site visit with the Texas State Office of Rural Health. Yes, it was for work. I manged to take a few fun pictures while I was there though.

The bats are really cool--so many you can hear them.

Some really cute Craftsman (I think!) style houses in Austin.

It's a famous mural.

Lorena, Megan, and Julie

Awesome agave plant.

Looking for the bats from the bridge.

The Congress Avenue Bridge is the summer home of a million Mexican free-tailed bats!

The boat is pretty with lights reflecting in the water. 

People in the park are easier to see than bats.

There are bats in this picture. Lots of bats. 

Sunrise view of the state capitol from my hotel room!

Here's the full panorama.

Looking up the Texas Capitol dome.

And down at the rotunda floor.

Unlike Congress you can take pictures in their House Chamber. 

The brass hinges are the coolest thing!

It's a beautiful building and (counting the statute) 13 feet taller than the U.S. Capitol. 

Home again to National Airport. This is the view from the Metro platform. 

Gluten-free Nectarine Cobbler

I'm certainly not going gluten free but sometimes it's nice to share dessert with friends who are. Also the challenge of making it work without flour is fun. I really liked how the coconut flour performed. I'll have to try some of it in the crazy cake variations.

GF Cobbler Topping
8" square baking dish, 400 degree oven
(liberally adapted from Bob's Red Mill Vanilla Almond Sugar Cookies)
1/2 c brown rice flour
1/2 c coconut flour
2 T tapioca starch
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda (scant)
1/2 t salt
1/3 c sugar (1/4 c would be plenty)
Cut in 6 T butter until pea-size and smaller lumps
Beat 1 egg in a measuring cup and add milk to make 1/2 c liquid
Fold liquid with dry until just blended
Let sit in refrigerator at least 30 minutes and up to a couple hours (the hydration trick from America's Test Kitchen)

Fruit
Meanwhile, chop up 4 large nectarines (or peaches but you should peel them) and toss fruit with 1/4 c sugar and 1 T fresh lemon juice. Save the rest of the juice from the lemon to add later. Let sit 15 minutes then let drip in a strainer over a bowl for a while. You'll collect 1/2 c or more of juice (save it). Peel and shred an apple and mix into nectarines (the pectin in the apple helps it set up too, another ATK trick). Mix fruit with 2 T tapioca starch. Add the rest of the juice from the lemon. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Pour fruit into 8" square baking dish. Put fruit in oven to warm up. Reduce the reserved juice to syrup and pour it into the fruit. You do this to keep it from being watery. Stir gently once or twice while it is heating. It will take at least 15 minutes, probably 30 to get the fruit hot through and starting to bubble around the edges.

Nut crust
While the fruit is heating mix:
1/2 c chopped almonds (however you like but I thought fairly fine worked best)
1 t cornstarch (or more or less?)
1 to 2 t cinnamon, to taste
dash salt
2 to 3 T powdered sugar
Pour on some liquid to moisten but not make too soupy. I used about 3 T cream because I had it. Milk would be fine too.
Stir to blend and set aside.

Assemble
Remove hot fruit from oven and stir gently.
Distribute topping over the surface in scattered lumps. Spread and flatten slightly but don't push down into the fruit too much.
Spoon the nut crust in small bits over the topping.
Put rack in middle of oven and bake at 400 degrees until bubbling through and browning nicely on top, 30 - 60 minutes. No I'm not sure how long it cooked for, I clearly need to test the recipe again!

Let cool slightly before taking it downstairs to share with Liz and Patrick.

Verdict: really good! The nuts add texture to the otherwise soft top. The rest period helps the gritty rice flour in the topping absorb water and smooth out. You don't need xanthan gum for this one. Will make again but try to reduce the sugar further. The topping makes a good GF sugar cookie too.

What have I cooked lately?

Gallo Pinto

With black beans, brown rice, and green peppers

Smothered Okra

Maybe I will put shrimp in it next time.

If you ever thought prices in the U.S. health care delivery system made sense then look at this chart

Hospital price variation in California from The Incidental Economist (originally from this study).

And that's just the 5th to 95th percentile. The full range of prices for a comprehensive metabolic panel was was $35 to $7303. Yep, that's a 209-fold difference. Where else can you be charged 209 times more for the same test at different facilities? Even auto mechanics don't vary that much!

The authors conclude: These findings demonstrate the seemingly arbitrary nature of the charge setting process, making it difficult for patients to act as true consumers in this era of ‘consumer-directed healthcare.’

Musing on government policy and swing dancing (no they're not related)

The way government policy can make things weird: fixed rate mortgages for houses are really unusual in a global context because it is a big transfer of risk from both the borrower and the lender to the government. And Canada and Australia actually have higher homeownership rates than we do here in the US, without fixed rate mortgages or the hidden subsidy of the mortgage interest tax deduction!

There is hope for American Chestnuts with new strains that are highly resistant to chestnut blight. I hope I get a chance to plant one soon!

Swing dance photography from Mark Simonson. I'm not in the pictures but you can get the flavor of the Battle of the Bands dance on May 24. It was really fun. (No I'm not nearly as good as the folks in these photos!)

And I turned a giant pile of lambsquarter from the garden into cooked and chopped greens last night. I can freeze it then use it later like spinach in pasta and soup.

Here's a couple of shots from swing dancing at Dupont Circle Sunday afternoon.

Popsicle dancers!

Happy May Day

Here's some flowers for May Day. (although they are mostly from the early morning cherry walk with Kristie, Christy, and Jen on April 11)

Well, Nina is a pretty as a flower!

Street cherries

Picture taking

Sunrise at Jefferson

Up a tree

Tidal Basin walk

Rosslyn buildings behind the MKL Memorial

It's not too crowded at 6 AM

Washington Monument

Another view of Jefferson

Hi Mom!