Make the Bread, Buy the Butter - Jennifer Reese [56]
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
10 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped fine (use a good-quality chocolate, like Scharffen Berger)
2 tablespoons liqueur (Grand Marnier is delicious; so is amaretto)
Cocoa powder, for rolling
1. In a small saucepan over moderate heat, warm the cream until it is on the verge of a boil. Remove from the heat.
2. Stir in the butter and chocolate until they melt. Stir in the liqueur.
3. Scoop into a bowl and put in the refrigerator until the chocolate is firm, about 4 hours.
4. With a teaspoon, scoop the chocolate into small balls. Roll in the cocoa. Store tightly covered in the refrigerator.
Makes 36 truffles, about 18 ounces
RICE KRISPIE TREATS
Invented in the 1930s during the Great Depression, the Rice Krispie Treat could not be easier to make or more delicious. In a saucepan you combine two nutritionally empty packaged foods with melted fat to create, within minutes, a third nutritionally empty food that, when spread in a pan and cut into squares, is outrageously and improbably irresistible. For decades, this was how American children, including me, first acquired an interest in “baking.”
Then, in 1995, Kellogg decided to spare us even the trivial effort required to mix the treats and began to market individually wrapped, prepared Rice Krispie Treats. You will pay three times as much to buy your stale-tasting treats premade.
Make it or buy it? Make it.
Hassle: Supervised first graders can make these, though they probably won’t scrub the pot.
Cost comparison: Store-bought treats cost three and a half times as much as homemade.
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
10 ounces marshmallows—though homemade are wasted here
Pinch of kosher salt
6 cups Rice Krispies
1. Generously butter a 9 by 13-inch baking pan.
2. Melt the 3 tablespoons butter in a large saucepan, then add the marshmallows and salt and stir until the marshmallows are creamy and melted. Stir in the cereal.
3. Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula or pat down flat with clean hands. Let it rest for 20 minutes until cool and completely set.
4. Cut into 2-inch squares with a very sharp knife. Store in a cookie tin at room temperature, though this is seldom necessary with Rice Krispie Treats.
Makes 24 treats
CHAPTER 8
DINNER
My mother openly and proudly hated to cook and, when I was a child, she rolled out the same sensible meals every week, a never-ending rotation of roasted chicken, bunless hamburgers, steamed broccoli, brown rice, and green salads. I respect people who can do something they dislike that much, every day, year after year. I’m not sure I have it in me. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t make veal piccata, sloppy joes, cheese soufflé, cannelloni, or nasi goreng. All the fascinating foods I saw when I flipped through cookbooks, as I constantly did starting at the age of seven. If she could make anything for dinner—and why couldn’t she?—why wouldn’t she?
And here’s the thing: I still don’t understand. I’ve struggled with the work-life balance, the time issues, and the kids who won’t eat the dal or the vichyssoise or the oxtail stew, but I’ve never let it stop me. Making something interesting and delectable for dinner is the highlight of my day—if no one else’s. I have paid for this small pleasure by enduring much screaming, many tantrums, and dark looks from my spouse. It was worth it, I think.
But, like everyone, there are dishes I’ve made again and again.
ROASTED CHICKEN
When my daughter, Isabel, was small and I worked full-time at an office, I used to pick her up at day care and rush to get home, where, if I put her in front of Dragon Tales and ran straight to the kitchen, I could get the chicken into the oven within fifteen minutes. Then I scrubbed my hands like a surgeon,