(Belated) Split Pea Soup and Pancakes which actually is a THING

1. This was ostensibly a completely random culinary pairing, comprised of the two things I just happened to make last weekend. I made pancakes for Pancake Day, and Split Pea Soup because I felt like it.
2. HOWEVER. There is something called "Pea Soup Thursday" in Finland and Sweden that is mentioned frequently in Beatrice's cookbooks, and when I looked it up, I discovered that it is, actually, TOTALLY A THING. Historically, pea soup was served on Thursdays during the pre-Reformation era in preparation for the fast-day on Fridays.*
3. What I FURTHER found was that, since WWII, pea soup and pancakes are served EVERY THURSDAY to the Finnish Defense Forces AND the Swedish Armed Forces.
4. I feel retroactively vindicated.

*For the record, we did not fast the next day. Quite the opposite actually.

5. This post is late late late because it is hiring season amongst the independent schools of the United States, dear reader, which, delightfully, means that I spend quite a bit of time interviewing via Skype and, as was the case this past weekend, going on school visits. This post is a belated one because I was in the delightful state of Vermont being shown around a very lovely school, meeting awesome teenagers / potential future students, chilling in the faculty lounge with some truly cool people, and (no pressure, Beetle) teaching a sophomore English class. (Incidentally, I had them transpose Animal Farm onto Winnie The Pooh. Hilarity and awesomeness resulted. NOT THAT I DON'T LOVE THE TWELVE PEOPLE THAT READ THIS, but that kind of took precedence. I hope you understand.

And now. To business.

PEA SOUP AND PANCAKE THURSDAY / FRIDAY / ANY DAY YOU LIKE DAY

So. Split Pea Soup is delicious. I can totally understand why you would want it for dinner when you were planning on fasting the next day. It is filling, nourishing, and incredibly satisfying. It's also very, very, easy, and apart from maybe 10 minutes of initial cooking, really just makes itself over a low simmer on the stove, leaving you, the Finnish housewife, free to go dry a reindeer hide or make ice fishing hooks out of bone or something.


Obviously the traditional prep for Split Pea Soup is . . . um . . . HAM. Or . . . BACON. Which is . . . yeah, no. It makes perfect culinary sense, though, because that pork saltiness is an ideal accompaniment to the earthiness of peas and the sharpness of onions, and when you let it slow cook over the course of a few hours, the entire pot absorbs the taste and it really is completely and utterly divine. I've had plain pea soup a million times, and I will be the first one to admit that it is just NOT the same thing.

HOWEVER. Thanks to the magic of soy protein, food colouring, and spices, I bring you . . .

VEGGIE BACON!!!!!!!!!!

I realise many of you may not be as exclamation pointy as I am about veggie bacon. All I have to say is: your points are valid and I respect your food choices. You go ahead and put just as much actual bacon / actual ham in your pea soup as you want, I absolutely support that. But veggie bacon really is delicious. And see? They made it look like real bacon! All pink and cut up into strips! Can't hardly tell the difference, can you?

Anyway.

Regardless of the day of serving or whether you have pancakes or not immediately following, Pea Soup remains a quintessential winter dish. Onions, split peas, veggie broth, VEGGIE BACON, and any other vegetables or potatoes you feel like throwing in there, and the result is soup that fills you up, warms you up, and makes you not only warm and fuzzy inside, but also optimistic about pretty much everything in your life forever after.

And whilst it's cooking and making itself awesome,YOU, dear reader, are able to go change the sheets on the beds, disinfect the bathrooms, and refold and reorganise all the towels because SOMEONE doesn't understand that they all have to be facing the same direction and also stacked according to pattern, texture, and colour. And by the time you're done with that, then done with explaining WHY it is INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT that this rule be followed at all times, then done with the inevitable fallout where you are accused of being both Obsessive Compulsive AND a Fascist, hey, guess what?

SOUP'S DONE.

And now for some pancakes.

*BEETLE WARNING*

IF YOU ARE EITHER VEGAN OR LACTOSE INTOLERANT, LOOKING AT THE FOLLOWING PHOTOGRAPHS MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR PSYCHE AND / OR YOUR HEALTH. PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION. 

So the reason that you make Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday is, duh, because during Lent you give up everything fun and yummy (or at least "one" does . . . we are heathens and therefore do not) and pancakes are a good way to use up any butter, milk, cream, or eggs you have in your kitchen.

The reason these are so good in particular, and the reason why I ate my weight in them every other weekend as a child, is that they are completely insane. They basically involve putting every single cow-derived-dairy-product into a bowl with a little bit of flour and sugar, and then FRYING THEM IN BUTTER UNTIL THEY ARE BROWN AND GOLDEN AND DELICIOUS. 

Every time I make these, I am reminded of how much BETTER my grandmother does it. Granted, at 96 and going strong, she's made several million more pancakes than I have, but still. She got them SO perfect and light, and also managed to do it without getting a single stray drop of butter on the stovetop. I, on the other hand, still spend half an hour cleaning a ten-foot radius around the pan, muttering how the hell did it get over here??? 

Like so.

However, I'd like to think that I get a bit better at them each attempt. This time, for instance, I turned a corner with the batter consistency. Instead of adding the butter and THEN the eggs to the flour, I melted the butter in a Pyrex measuring cup, then beat the eggs into that. What resulted was a thick, creamy paste that blended into the flour mixture without creating a SINGLE lump, something I'd always run into in past batches. I was incredibly pleased with myself. 

See? Smooth and creamy. 

From this angle, you can't see the stove top. Nobody should have to see that. 

On the morning of Pancake Day:

Me: You know what the best part of not giving up anything for Lent is?
Mum (through pancakes): What?
Me: You get to eat pancakes tomorrow too.
Mum (through pancakes): Suckers. Pass the Lingonberry Jam.

So, dear reader. Happy Belated Pancake Day, Happy Belated Pea Soup Thursday, and please keep your fingers and toes crossed that soon, very soon, I will have a happy "Beetle is Now a Teacher" post.

Now, if you'll excuse me dear reader, in preparation for the ANIME MOVIE PARTY OF AWESOMENESS that the library is hosting on Wednesday, I have to go draw SPARKLE FROSTING KITTEN FACES IN VARIOUS EMOTIONAL AND EXISTENTIAL STATES OF BEING on approximately 300 sugar cookies.

I will of course report back.

Biscuits, Butter, and an Optimistic Cake

SCENE: Wednesday morning; the Library; coffee and newspapers and vague sporadic conversation

Mum: Oh, there was something in the Dining Section of the Times this morning that looked good.
Me: What was it?
Mum: . . . I can't remember.
Me: Well it must have been incredible then.
Mum: Shut up. I'll find it. I wanted you to make it.
Me: Yes, apparently so much that you've forgotten what it was.
Mum: Shut up. I'm finding it.
[rustle of paper for a long, long, long time]
Mum: Um . . . oooh biscuits.
Me: Biscuits? I make biscuits all the time.
Mum: No, it wasn't biscuits, but you know you haven't made them in a while and I really do like them . . .
Me: Focus. What did you see?
Mum: I'm finding it, I'm finding it. I really do like biscuits, you know.
[rustle of paper for another long, long time]
Mum: It had potatoes in it . . .

It was actually quite appropriate that the dish under discussion (Meat and Potato Gratin, incidentally, minus the meat, so Potato Gratin, hey she got the potato part right at least, baby steps) was in the Dining Section of the Times, since the recipe I'd been hoping to make this week was one of Melissa Clark's, featured two weeks ago: Orange Marmalade Cake.

My reasons behind this at the present time are threefold:
1. As a monarchist and reluctant American, I can never resist a baked good that screams "God Save the Queen."
2. I thought it would be nice to make a cake that looked and smelled like sunshine. I'M BAKING OPTIMISTICALLY, YOU GUYS. IT HAS TO GET WARMER EVENTUALLY.
3. The amount of marmalade in the pantry is approaching Doomsday Prepper-levels of hoarding. If we had the same volume in, say, MRE's of Spaghetti Bolognese, we could probably make it about three years into a total societal meltdown / nuclear winter.
     3a. This is totally on Mum. Normally I'm the one backup buying (I like to be prepared and, hey, you never know when Hannafords is going to run out of instant oatmeal, tofu dogs, or dried seaweed. You never know), but she has a marmalade-buying-compulsion thing. And it was getting slightly out of control.
     3b. For the record, AFTER the baking of this cake, a marmalade stock-take in our house reveals FOUR unopened jars of marmalade and THREE opened jars in the fridge. I'm. Just. Saying.

After the biscuit discussion, because they are easy and happy, I made those in addition to the cake, plus (also sourced from the Times) Salted Honey Butter as an accompaniment. It has been a "New York Times Kitchen" kind of day. And I'm doing pretty well in the running for "Daughter of the Year" award. Come to think of it, I should probably borrow the Amex and do a bit of light shopping whilst the iron is hot . . .

ORANGE MARMALADE CAKE 

As I said, this is Melissa Clark's recipe, adapted from Nigel Slater's of the same name from The Guardian. Under normal circumstances, I would most definitely revert to Nigel Slater, as he is my secret kitchen husband. However, after comparing the two, and noting that Melissa's was denser and had considerably more marmalade in it, I went with that.

Let it never be said that Americans (even reluctant ones) are incapable of resisting an opportunity to go bigger and better.

INGREDIENTS

• 215 grams coarse-cut orange marmalade (2/3 cup), divided
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus 1/2 tablespoon for glaze, and more for greasing pan
• 150 grams granulated sugar (3/4 cup)
• 2 teaspoons grated lime zest
• 1/2 teaspoon grated orange zest
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
• 190 grams all-purpose flour (1 1/2 cups)
• 7 grams baking powder (1 1/2 teaspoons)
• 3 grams fine sea salt (3/4 teaspoon)
• 30 grams confectioners’ sugar (4 tablespoons)

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together softened butter, sugar, and orange zest until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until incorporated. Beat in 1/3 cup marmalade and the orange juice.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Fold dry ingredients into wet until just combined.

Scrape batter into a non stick or greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees until the sides are brown and starting to pull away and it passes the toothpick test, 50 to 55 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer pan to a wire rack. Cool 10 minutes, then turn it out of the pan and let it cool a bit more on a wire rack.

Heat remaining 1/3 cup marmalade in a small pot over low heat until melted. Add confectioners’ sugar and 1/2 tablespoon butter and stir until smooth. Spoon the glaze over the top of the cake, covering it evenly, and letting it drip down the sides. I had a bit left over so I just saved it for future extra-glazing-whilst-eating purposes.*

*Daughter of the year. Just saying.

BEETLE NOTES

I used orange extract instead of Orange Zest because, um, I didn't have an orange. And I just used Tropicana OJ instead of the juice of said nonexistent orange. LAME AND HILLBILLY I KNOW.

Ditto for the lime, but also because I just don't like lime, even if I'm not eating whatever I'm putting lime in. Totally random. Just don't like 'em.

Other than that, this was one of those rare recipes that I actually followed to the letter. Take a picture, dear reader. It'll probably be a while before that happens again.

I also didn't, as Melissa Clark indicated, chop up the larger bits of orange peel in the marmalade. Because I think if you're going to bother to make a orange marmalade cake, and you're going to bother to make an orange marmalade cake with coarse cut orange marmalade, then your previously mentioned orange marmalade cake with coarse cut orange marmalade should contain pieces of coarse cut orange marmalade.

Call me crazy.

I will wait for final judgement from the LL's, but this was guinea-pigged this morning and apparently makes a delightful breakfast. And I can tell from the way it slices that it's tender and dense like a pound cake should be. And it smells very bright and sunshine-y. It also, as you can see below, packs very well for transport.

Or, should it be required, for hoarding in your bunker, waiting out a zombie invasion.

And now on to biscuits . . .

BAKING POWDER BISCUITS WITH SALTED HONEY BUTTER

Old school things like biscuits require the Yankee Housewife Bible, aka my falling-apart-at-the-binding-covered-in-generations-of-stains-of-questionable-origin-passed-down-from-I-think-Great-Grandmother-Georgiana The New American Cookbook. This is the one that includes several preparations of possum, muskrat, and squirrel, as well as as many ways as you could ever want of preserving things in aspic.

It's a classic for a reason, though. 

Plus you get to be all housewife-y and use a big bowl and wooden spoon.

These can be made with regular milk or buttermilk, both work nicely. Buttermilk will give you a slightly flakier biscuit, with a more mellow taste, but either version works quite well. The big switch out is the sub of butter for shortening.

I . . . just  . . . no. Even if we DID have it in the house, I just couldn't. I know, I know, I know, everyone who has ever REALLY written about biscuits or pie crusts, everyone who really is a PROPER COOK will say that if you're not going to use shortening, don't even bother, it's just not the same thing. And you know what, I agree. I bow to your superior knowledge, and were you ever to come to dinner or tea, I would never serve you anything in which the offending swap had taken place. But that doesn't mean I'm going to use it. I'm sorry. Hate me, disparage me, mock me. I equate it with congealed industrial waste, and not even Julia Child herself could convince me otherwise. Haters gonna hate, but I'm using butter for the forseeable future.

And speaking of butter . . .

My personal salty/sweet taste cravings are fulfilled by large mouthfuls of dry instant oatmeal and dates, so I have nothing to say personally about this, but thankfully Mum's dairy-digesting abilities are stellar, and she has pronounced it delicious. I mean, how could it not be?

INGREDIENTS

• 1 stick unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
• 2 1/2 tablespoons honey, preferably raw wildflower
• 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt

Soften the butter slightly in the microwave. Using a whisk or spoon, blend in the honey and the salt. Serve at room temperature, and refrigerate the rest.*

*If you are in the Beetle Kitchen, refrigerating becomes more of a courtesy than anything else.

However, it was still soft and warm when I made Mum guinea pig them.

The following exchange ensued:

Mum: Those are for me, right? The cake is for the library?
Me: Yes.
Mum: Those are mine? I finished the bread this morning I don't have any left, so those are my biscuits?
Me: Mum. Yes.
Mum: I mean there aren't really that many . . .
Me: MUMMY. THEY ARE YOURS. CALM DOWN. AND I CAN MAKE ANOTHER BATCH RIGHT NOW IF YOU REALLY NEED ME TOO IT'S GOING TO BE FINE WE ARE NOT OPERATING UNDER A BISCUIT RATION HERE.
Mum: Ok, ok, don't get excited. I just wanted clarification. Pass the butter.

And now, dear reader, if you'll excuse me, my BarnesandNoble.com shopping cart is in dire need of attention . . .

Snow Day Cookies

When I say "Snow Day Cookies" let's just clarify that that appellation could easily be used for, oh, I don't know, ABOUT 59 OF THE LAST 60 DAYS.

Because, dear reader, I live in Narnia.

Now, you may think to yourself, educated dear reader that you are, "Oh, Beetle has inserted into this post one of the beautiful Pauline Baynes illustrations from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe."

When in reality, that's the picture of the end of our driveway that I took this morning.

You think I'm making that up?

Welcome to Lantern Waste! Fur coats can be found on your left and right. Please direct all wardrobe-related directional inquires to Miss W. Beetle. And watch out for the trees . . . they're always listening. 

SNOW DAY COOKIES
or
BROWN BUTTER TEFF COOKIES

This is a Brown Butter cookie recipe that I made last year with great success. At the time, I was attempting to demonstrate to Mum that she DID in fact like Pumpkin Seeds. I was successful. And I only gloated for a little bit.

Let's chalk this Beetle Tweak up to excess snow, several days of following Mum around with a Kleenex box and Vitamin C (she's a sicko right now, bless her, the dear little mouthbreather), and having reorganised yet again the baking section of the top pantry shelf, committing to cooking with either Teff OR Amaranth OR Quinoa OR Hazlenut Flours.

I'd like to say it was a scientifically reached decision, but really it was the above combined with a casual shrug and an "eh, teff is brown, brown butter is brown, works for me." 

BROWN BUTTER TEFF COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

• 2 sticks butter
• 1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar (you can use light but I did dark) 
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups teff flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves

In a small saucepan, melt and cook the butter until it starts to brown and get all those glorious bits in it. It will smell amazing, bubble like a crazy thing, and just generally be awesome. Burnt butter is one of the top 10 best smells in the universe, in my opinion.

From this . . . 

 . . . to this. In the time it took for Kim Yu Na to skate a truly breathtaking Short Programme.

Whilst that cools, measure out the flour, baking soda, salt, and cloves in a small bowl and whisk it together. 

Beat the sugar and eggs in a mixmaster until light and fluffy. Add the browned butter and mix again. Add the flour mixture in two bits, combining after each one.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and drop spoonfuls of dough (I used a rounded teaspoon, incidentally) about 2 inches apart.

The dough here was a strange midway-viscosity of being too sticky to form rounded balls by hand, but too dry to produce the classic "drop cookie" shape on the sheet. I tried to make them as uniform as possible with the teaspoon. They did even out in cooking and produce relatively equal sized circles.

Side Beetle Note: if you are using regular flour, or even whole wheat instead of white, space them out a bit more as they will spread considerably farther on the sheet. When I made this recipe with regular flour a few months ago they flattened almost totally and I needed a good three inches between each one. 

Side Beetle Note on that: IF, for some reason, your cookies smoosh together during baking and you have to spatula them apart when you take them off the sheet, THAT IS TOTALLY OK AND NOT IN ANY WAY THE END OF THE WORLD OR IN ANY WAY A REFLECTION OF FAILURE AT BAKING OR LIFE IN GENERAL. The cookie will still taste exactly the same (aka delicious). I just want to make that abundantly clear. Smooshy cookies are still cookies.

An example of a Spatula Cookie. Sometimes, even Beetles make spacing judgement errors. 

Bake at 375 degrees for 12 minutes, until slightly brown on the edges, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

BEETLE NOTES

A WORD ABOUT TEFF

For those of you who don't know (and for those who do, feel free to space out over the next paragraph or so) Teff is one of those "ancient grains" that are en vogue at the moment. It comes from Ethiopia and Eritrea, and is a very hardy, flourishes-in-difficult-climates grain. If you've ever heard about the Ethiopian flatbread called "injera", THAT's teff.

SUPER FUN NERDY FACT: the grain itself is very small, so small in fact that the name "teff" is from Ethio-Semitic root of the word "tff" which means "lost." (thank you, Wikipedia, I love you)


HEALTH BENEFITS OF TEFF

• High in calcium, iron, and Vitamin C
• High in the kind of dietary fiber that is good for blood sugar, weight control, and colon health
• It is estimated that Ethiopians get up to two thirds of their dietary protein from teff

RANDOM AWESOME FACT (from www.teffco.com)

• One pound of teff can produce up to one ton of grain in only 12 weeks. This amount is hundreds of times smaller than that required for planting wheat. This productive potential and minimal time and seed requirements have protected the Ethiopians from hunger when their food supply was under attack from numerous invaders in the past.

When these came out of the oven they were very squishy. And having the darkness of Teff, it was harder to see whether or not the edges were appropriately browned and golden. So I pulled them out at 12 minutes exactly rather than leave them in until it was too late. Upon cooling however, they became very, VERY crispy, and very, VERY light. 

Because there's no gluten in them, there's very little rising and expansion of the dough, so there's no puffing up of the cookies as they cook. And when you take that away, you take away the chewiness and "softness" that a regular flour would have given you. 

The fun part is that teff "flour" is actually just teff grains - the grain itself is so tiny they don't actually have to grind it up, they just pour it in a bag and call it a day. And because you're then eating whole teff grains instead of ground up wheat, you get crunch, and a lot of it. 

It tastes distinctly of "health", even when combined with 2 sticks of butter. It's very earthy and nutty and dark and dense and oh-so-interesting. 

The LL's approve of this experiment, incidentally, as does Mum. (Teff, taken in equal measures with cough syrup, is the best way to beat a cold, I'm sure.) Somehow these got to them through a snowstorm, and now rain, and now (projected by STORM FORCE for later tonight) an impending thunderstorm. 

If anything comes of this experiment in cooking and guinea-pigging my Lovely Librarians, dear reader, it will be this: I am learning how to pump the brakes instead of slamming them on when I go into a skid in front of a snow plow.