Here is one of my favorite recipes:
Cranberry Streusel Coffee Cake
Coffee Cake
½ C unsalted butter, room temperature
1 C granulated sugar
2 eggs, large
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 TBS grated orange zest
2 C flour, unbleached, all-purpose
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 C sour cream
2 ½ C whole fresh cranberries
Streusel Topping
¾ C light brown sugar, packed
½ C flour, unbleached, all-purpose flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 TBS unsalted butter
½ C walnuts, coarsely chopped
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter and lightly flour a 13 x 9 baking pan.
2. Prepare the coffee cake: Mix the flour, baking powder, soda, and salt together. Set aside.
3. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla and orange zest.
4. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture alternately with the sour cream to make a smooth, thick batter. Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan. Sprinkle the cranberries over the top.
5. Prepare the topping: toss the brown sugar, flour and cinnamon together in a small mixing bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender until the mixture is crumbly. Stir in the walnuts. Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the cranberries on the coffee cake.
6. Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature, cut into squares.
From the kitchen of:
Bob Frank
For those who love it, cooking is at once child play and adult joy-Craig Claiborne
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Burning Books Column
The 'earth quake' link in the burning books post didn't always work. So please read the column below:
To keep warm, library books sacrificed
By Munir Ahmad
Associated Press
December 12, 2005
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan -- When night fell after the Oct. 8 quake, many survivors burned broken furniture to stay warm. Some, however, stormed the shattered state-run Khursheed National Library, pulling out books and newspapers to make bonfires.
An estimated 10,000 books went up in smoke that night. Three days later, half the library's books--including Korans--had been turned into ashes. The army then stepped in and stopped the burning.
Mohammed Hanif, a clerk at the library for 14 years, "did not believe it" when his brother came rushing to Hanif's home and told him what was happening at the library.
"But when I rushed there, I saw several people taking books to a nearby park where they were staying with their families after their homes were destroyed," Hanif said. "The books are like my children. I wept when they were throwing the books into the fire.
"I tried to stop them, but they started beating me."
After the army halted the looting, Hanif came back and retrieved what was intact, salvaging copies of an American encyclopedia, a Koran, novels and non-fiction works.
The 25,000 books that survived are in two garages guarded by Hanif. They will be sent to a library in Mirpur, another city in the Pakistani part of Kashmir, and returned when the Muzaffarabad library is rebuilt over the next two years.
The 7.6 magnitude quake killed at least 87,000 people and left 3.5 million homeless, mostly in northwest Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir. Aid workers have been racing against time to get aid and suitable shelter to the needy with the arrival of the brutal Himalayan winter and plunging temperatures.
The library housed rare books on Kashmir, handwritten manuscripts hundreds of years old, government records and the works of local poets.
Some of the library's 1,500 members who borrowed books before the earthquake are returning them, Hanif said.
Nazir Durrani, a government official who frequented the library, said he did not believe people realized that copies of the Koran were going into the fire.
"The burning of these books was a tragedy. When I think of those who did it, they would never be forgiven by God," he said.
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
To keep warm, library books sacrificed
By Munir Ahmad
Associated Press
December 12, 2005
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan -- When night fell after the Oct. 8 quake, many survivors burned broken furniture to stay warm. Some, however, stormed the shattered state-run Khursheed National Library, pulling out books and newspapers to make bonfires.
An estimated 10,000 books went up in smoke that night. Three days later, half the library's books--including Korans--had been turned into ashes. The army then stepped in and stopped the burning.
Mohammed Hanif, a clerk at the library for 14 years, "did not believe it" when his brother came rushing to Hanif's home and told him what was happening at the library.
"But when I rushed there, I saw several people taking books to a nearby park where they were staying with their families after their homes were destroyed," Hanif said. "The books are like my children. I wept when they were throwing the books into the fire.
"I tried to stop them, but they started beating me."
After the army halted the looting, Hanif came back and retrieved what was intact, salvaging copies of an American encyclopedia, a Koran, novels and non-fiction works.
The 25,000 books that survived are in two garages guarded by Hanif. They will be sent to a library in Mirpur, another city in the Pakistani part of Kashmir, and returned when the Muzaffarabad library is rebuilt over the next two years.
The 7.6 magnitude quake killed at least 87,000 people and left 3.5 million homeless, mostly in northwest Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir. Aid workers have been racing against time to get aid and suitable shelter to the needy with the arrival of the brutal Himalayan winter and plunging temperatures.
The library housed rare books on Kashmir, handwritten manuscripts hundreds of years old, government records and the works of local poets.
Some of the library's 1,500 members who borrowed books before the earthquake are returning them, Hanif said.
Nazir Durrani, a government official who frequented the library, said he did not believe people realized that copies of the Koran were going into the fire.
"The burning of these books was a tragedy. When I think of those who did it, they would never be forgiven by God," he said.
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Burning Books
So much is lost when books are burned. Culture, ideas that could inspire new and better ways of living, enhancement of one's life are just a few things that are lost when people intentionally burn books.
But when an earth quake strikes people's basic survival needs must be met. If it is cold outside, people need to be warm. My thought was did they have to burn books? What other items were available rather than books? Was the burning done by people who have little or no regard for books?
As these questions continued to come to mind, I was sobered when reading that at least 87,000 people were killed and an estimated 3.5 million left homeless. More will perish as a brutal winter sets in.
Somehow book burning seemed less important.
But when an earth quake strikes people's basic survival needs must be met. If it is cold outside, people need to be warm. My thought was did they have to burn books? What other items were available rather than books? Was the burning done by people who have little or no regard for books?
As these questions continued to come to mind, I was sobered when reading that at least 87,000 people were killed and an estimated 3.5 million left homeless. More will perish as a brutal winter sets in.
Somehow book burning seemed less important.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)