How many daunting New Year’s resolutions have you started to tote up? Are you going to be neater, kinder, thriftier and more punctual? Taller, blonder and thinner? Are you going to learn to manage time better? That is my new mantra.
I had plans to bake a towering and complicated chocolate layer cake for my visiting friend’s birthday on New Year’s Day. But push came to shove, and in the end, I made a batch of brownies that we ate with a single birthday candle and some homemade whipped cream. There simply wasn’t enough time for the multi-layered Brooklyn Blackout Cake – but I am keeping the recipe close at hand for a special February birthday celebration. I doubt if we will be tearing around the kitchen with lobsters then.
My mother, who never used cake mixes, swore that ours was an old family brownie recipe. “One Bowl Brownies.” She had carefully transcribed the measurements and directions in blue ballpoint on a lined index card, and pulled it out of the little oak recipe box a few times a year. The card was dog-eared, gritty with flour and lightly flecked with brownie batter. I bought her attribution hook, line and sinker. Until I went to college. Where I learned it was a little more expensive to bake homemade (instead of falling for the siren song of a Duncan Hines mix) and well worth the effort, especially when the amazingly simple recipe for “One Bowl Brownies” was printed in bold 12-point type on the side of the Baker’s Secret box of unsweetened chocolate. Shocking!
Helen Roberta Foley’s One Bowl Brownies (by way of Baker’s Secret, a Kraft Company)
1 package (4 ounces) Baker’s Unsweetened Chocolate
¾ cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans (This is pure heresy – we NEVER add nuts!)
HEAT oven to 350°F.
LINE brownie pan with parchment paper
MELT the chocolate and the butter in a small saucepan – carefully – it is easy to scorch the chocolate. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Add flour and nuts; mix well. Pour into prepared pan.
BAKE 30 to 35 min. or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool. Whip some cream. Feed the masses. Acknowledge applause.
We did a lot of cooking over the holidays and last night was our first dinner without friends and/or children. Instead of keeping up the holiday merriment of beef tenderloins and steamed Maine lobsters and fancy wines and frou-frou cocktails, we made grilled cheese sandwiches and cracked open a can of Campbell’s tomato soup. Perfect for a simple winter supper. It has been exhausting trying to be bright and innovative for every meal, especially when the dishwasher has to be emptied at least once a day. When it is just the two of us we can stack dirty dishes for three or four days before the dishwasher fills up. Having the Tall One home has kept us busy. He requires a clean glass for every cup of water and a new plate for each hourly snack. I think we also went through three pounds of bacon during Christmas week alone!
Which got me to thinking about simplifying breakfasts. This is a nifty “Genius Idea” from the bright folks at Food52 (https://food52.com/), one of my favorite food resources. I commend them heartily for all their brilliance, and love of simplicity. They are working parents who understand why it is necessary to sometimes sit down with a book at the kitchen table – to just slow down, have a glass of wine and appreciate the nice, spanking clean New Year. And instead of Friday Night Pizza, we are going to enjoy a simple plate of fried eggs. If there is any bacon left over that is. We will sizzle up a few crispy slices for ourselves. Slow down. It will all catch up with us soon enough!
Happy New Year!
Roger Vergé’s Fried Eggs with Wine Vinegar
Serves 2
• 4 large brown eggs (6 if you enjoy them as much as Vergé does)
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons good wine vinegar
• Salt, pepper
1. Break 2 or 3 eggs, according to your appetite, into a bowl, taking care not to break the yolks. Heat half the butter in a 6-inch frying pan, and when it turns golden, slip in the eggs very carefully. Cook, puncturing any air bubbles which form in the egg whites with a fork. Don’t worry if the eggs go crisp and golden round the edge. When they are cooked the way your like them, season with salt and freshly ground pepper and slide onto a heated plate. Pour 2 tablespoons of wine vinegar into the pan. Allow to reduce by half and pour over the eggs.
2. Wipe out the pan with a cloth or paper towel and repeat the process with the remaining eggs.
3. From Vergé: This is a controversial recipe. Some people swear that the butter should not be allowed to colour; others cook the whites first on their own and then slide the yolks on top (having first salted the whites to prevent the yolks from being marked). Each way has its point, but in this book I have given the recipe I make for myself and my friends. Fried eggs cooked in this way are, incidentally, among the most irresistible of all dishes. Many is the time that I have suddenly had a longing for three fried eggs — usually after midnight, when I am among friends, and guests who have finished dinner and are mulling away the evening with a liqueur. The sight of the eggs cooking is too much for them all, and they always end up by joining me. I know few dishes so powerful!
“Self-pity is the hens’ besetting sin,” remarked Mr. Payton. “Foolish fowl. How they came to achieve anything as perfect as the egg I do not know! I cannot fathom.”
― Elizabeth Enright, Gone-Away Lake
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