Zucchini con Olio e Aceto

The next pickled vegetable in our line-up is zucchini – I suppose they’re slightly more pickle-y because they are more like cucumbers. It’s too bad it’s so cold out, because I would love to be pickling zucchini from my own garden. Oh well, maybe next time.

Zucchini con Olio e Aceto/ Pickled Zucchini

3 to 4 zucchini

3 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp olive oil

2 cloves garlic, quartered

½ tsp oregano

¼ tsp salt

1 bay leaf

White vinegar

Wash and trim ends from zucchini, then cut into ¼ in. slices. Heat olive oil in skillet and cook zucchini slowly until browned, then drain.

While zucchini cool, mix remaining ingredients (except vinegar) together, then mix in zucchini and put in 1 pint jar. FYI, I must have picked monster zucchini or something, because I had closer to 2 pints of zucchini, but who’s complaining?

Cover zucchini with white vinegar. Close jar and store in refrigerator at least 24 hours. Serve cold. Again, just like with the mushrooms, I recommend giving your zucchini pickles a few shakes to keep the olive oil from congealing.

The zucchini pickles were a little more refreshing for me than the mushrooms. They still have a good crunch to them, and the vinegar flavor is less prominent. There is a subtle flavor from the herbs in the background, but I think if I make these again I will increase the amount of Italian herbs I add to the pickling liquid.

Have a question or a request? Put it in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond. Fröhe essen!

Funghi con Olio e Aceto

If you’re still on a diet kick (like us), after all of those Valentine’s Day sweets you might be craving some veggies. I know I was, so I returned to The Italian Cookbook for three refreshing pickled vegetable recipes from the Antipasto section.

Funghi con Olio e Aceto/Pickled Mushrooms

1 lbs mushrooms

White vinegar

Hot water

¼ C olive oil

2 tsp salt

2 tsp whole peppercorns

2 cloves garlic, quartered

1 tsp mace

The book says to clean the mushrooms but to leave them whole – the only mushrooms I could find in the grocery store today were sliced, so I’ll just deal with it. I also had no idea what mace was, and I didn’t have any living in my spice cabinet, so I went on an excursion to the spice aisle and discovered a very interesting red powder that is both sweet and spicy – good for savory dishes and some desserts!

Place mushrooms in saucepan and cover with equal amounts of vinegar and hot water. Bring mixture to boiling and cook for 5 minutes. Drain liquid from mushrooms. While mushrooms cool, mix together remaining ingredients, then combine with mushrooms and pack into 1 pint jar.

Cover mushrooms with white vinegar. Close jar and store in refrigerator for at least 2 days. Serve cold.

It seemed like a lot of vinegar to me, and the resulting pickles are a little too sour for my liking (remember, I’m German!), but not so tart that I won’t eat them. I’ve always liked preserving because of how the jars look, and this recipe doesn’t disappoint. However, I should warn you that giving your jar of mushrooms a shake twice a day will help to keep a layer of congealed olive oil from forming on the top of the mixture (I don’t think the olive oil was necessary at all, but hey, Italy). The mushrooms were slightly sweet/spicy because of the mace, which I liked a lot.

Have a question or a request? Put it in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond. Fröhe essen!

Special Offer!!!

Good morning! I know it's not a Monday/Wednesday/Friday, but I have something amazing to share with all of you! (or at least, those of you in a geographic area relatively close to mine)

With the opening of The Dessert Lovers' Handbook, I may have released a monster. As I said, I now own an astounding number of dessert recipes, and my tiny little family of 2 cannot possibly consume all of them on our own. What's the problem with too much dessert, you may ask. Of course, I love dessert, but I'm afraid that our under-consumption of desserts could adversely affect the consistency with which I post blog entries with the dis-proportionate number of desserts to entrees.

Basically, I'm asking for your help. Yes, YOU. This is your call to action (and dessert)! Since The Dessert Lovers' Handbook focuses on recipes including sweetened condensed milk as an ingredient, your challenge is simple. All you have to do is buy a can of sweetened condensed milk (brand doesn't matter) and give it to me. I will allow you to pick your recipe from the book, then I will make the dessert for you using YOUR can of sweetened condensed milk! This is truly a win-win, because YOU get free dessert and you get featured in Essen Girl, plus I get to keep cooking delicious things and writing about them! Yay!

Thank you SO much to JR and JL for this great idea - you girls get first pick of desserts!

Magic Chocolate French Fudge

I may or may not have mentioned that I have a sweet tooth… I probably did. In any case, it’s a fact, albeit often an inconvenient one. Still, dessert is the spice of life.

I know that I definitely have not yet mentioned another inconvenient fact: of the 55 or so antique cookbooks my mother-in-law gifted to me, a large group of them are devoted solely to desserts (cakes, pies, candies, chocolate, frozen treats, variety books), plus several of the others that primarily focus on entrees (like the ethnic cookbooks) ALSO feature entries for dessert recipes. Given this very sweet but very dismal outlook for our diet, I’m stymied as to continue on this blog adventure without this project deteriorating into just dessert after dessert. However, that is the sweet and silky cross I must bear.

In the meantime, it’s almost Valentine’s Day! If you’re looking for a sweet treat to make for a special someone, look no further. This recipe comes from a cookbook audaciously calling itself The Dessert Lovers' Handbook, and is devoted solely to recipes that include sweetened condensed milk as an ingredient.

Magic Chocolate French Fudge

I’m not really sure what makes this French… and I’m not really sure about the “magic,” either, except maybe that it refers to how easy this is (this fudge doesn’t require a candy thermometer).

3 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Pinch of salt

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

½ C ground nuts OPTIONAL

Since I’m not a huge fan of nuts, especially in desserts, I opted out on this one (although I did add something special on top for my sweetie).

Melt chocolate, stirring occasionally. Most recipes recommend using a double boiler, but I’ve kind of given up on that. Melting works just find in a small saucepan, as long as you keep an eye on what’s happening, and it means you don’t have to worry about steam sneaking in and breaking your chocolate. Remove from heat. Add milk, salt, vanilla, and nuts if used. Stir only until smooth and incorporated. Turn into wax paper-lined 8-in. square pan. Spread fudge evenly and smooth surface. This is, of course, easier said than done. Unless you tape down your paper, it’s going to shift, and the fudge is so thick it will be difficult to spread. But, since one of the appeals of homemade candy is that it looks rustic, I wouldn’t sweat it if I were you. 

Refrigerate 2 hours or until firm. Turn candy out onto cutting board. Peel off paper. With a sharp knife, cut fudge into serving-sized pieces. Store in airtight container.

If you want to make mocha fudge, the recipe recommends omitting the vanilla and substituting in 1 ½ tbsp dry instant coffee. For my own personal variation, I sprinkled the top with crushed mint candies.

There it is. Nothing special, but there’s something pleasant about the smooth simplicity of chocolate fudge. With that ratio of chocolate to milk, this is definitely rich – I recommend one piece per serving – that way it lasts longer, and you won’t feel overwhelmed! As I said above, I have a lot of books with dessert recipes, so at some point in the future we will do more fudge, but I think this is enough for one sweet holiday.

Have a question or a request? Put it in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond. Fröhe essen!

1000 VIEWS - THANK YOU!!!

Wow, Essen Girl viewers, thank you so much for all of the support and love! 7 months in, and we have hit 1,000 views! I am so grateful for everyone who has subscribed to this blog, read this blog casually, and even unintentionally stumbled upon it on the internet - you're all helping me grow and improve!

I promise, for the next 1,000 views, to give you even more delicious, fun, my-kitchen-tested antique recipes. Additionally, I would like to extend another contest offer to all of you. From now until the end of March, submissions will be open: simply comment on ANY Essen Girl post with a picture of the best thing you have ever cooked (one of the Essen Girl recipes is great, but anything will work). I will judge all of the pictures and pick 1 WINNER to join me in my kitchen to be a guest star for an Essen Girl post - get cooking!

Sesame Bars

From The 17^th Annual Bake-Off comes another cookie/bar recipe. I like Asian-inspired dishes, so these cookie bars featuring sesame seeds caught my eye. Even though I knew that this was a heavily Americanized use of sesame seeds from the 1960s, I decided to try it anyway.

Sesame Bars

½ C butter

1 C sesame seeds

1 ¼ C flour

15 oz can sweetened condensed milk

½ C evaporated or regular milk

1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter in heavy skillet over medium heat. Add sesame seeds, stirring until golden brown, or about 5 minutes. Add flour; continue stirring until all is golden brown. Remove from heat. Add remaining ingredients, stirring quickly until incorporated. Return to medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture is glossy and leaves sides of pan, or about 3 minutes.

Pat into 8-in. pan. Notice nowhere in here does it say to grease the pan – I’m glad I used parchment paper, because these things are STICKY!

Cool, then refrigerate. Cut into bars, squares, or triangles.

As I cut these to serve, I noticed that they smelled a lot like peanut butter. The bars have a very interesting flavor, not necessarily sesame, but nice. They get very sticky and soft if you leave them at room temperature, so I recommend storing them in the fridge or freezer (although fresh out of the freezer they’re very hard and chewy). Not sure if I would make these again, but my guests for game night seemed to like them, so no big deal.

Have a question or a request? Put it in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond. Fröhe essen!

Candy Bar In-Betweens

So, how did he do? Did you like his style? How about the cake - pretty snazzy, huh? I promise, if I ask him to 'guest star' on here again, I'll pick a less frustrating recipe!

Now, back to business as usual.

This might seem odd, but I’m sure I’m not alone when I say there was leftover Halloween candy hanging around my house and I needed something to do with it. Those fun-sized candy bars? Yeah, they went in these cookies from The 18^th Annual Bake-Off, and I think it was the best thing for everyone involved.

Candy Bar In-Betweens

2 C confectioner’s sugar

1 C butter, softened

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp almond extract

3 C flour

1 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

12 (7/8 oz) candy bars

Cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla and almond extract, beating until well blended. Mix in dry ingredients slowly. Cover and chill for 1 hour.

Roll out dough on a floured surface into an 18”x11” rectangle. Cut dough into 9 11”x2” strips. Place 2 candy bars, end-to-end, on a long strip of dough, cover with a second strip, place 2 more candy bars, and cover with a final strip of dough.

Round and seal edges of dough layers to create a log. Repeat with remaining candy bars and strips of dough. Cut logs into ½” slices (I recommend a very sharp, very heavy knife) and place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375^oF for 10 to 12 minutes.

As far as preparation, layering the cookies and cutting the slices was a little tricky, especially because when cutting the candy bars tended to slip through the dough, but the end result was a batch of tasty, crispy cookies with a hint of chocolate inside. Definitely an ideal way to dispense with extra Halloween candy bars!

Have a question or a request? Put it in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond. Fröhe essen!

Fluffy White Frosting

Fluffy White Frosting

¾ C sugar

¼ C water

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp corn syrup

2 egg whites, stiffly beaten

1 tsp vanilla

Heat first four ingredients slowly to boiling and cook (without stirring) to 242° F, or until a small amount dripped from tip of spoon spins a long thread. Pour syrup slowly onto stiffly beaten egg whites, beating constantly. Beat until cool and thick enough to spread. Add vanilla. Will frost 1 (9X9) cake.

This recipe was difficult for me. After confiding in a work friend of how much trouble this was she admitted to doing a similar frosting and swearing to never do it again either. That being said, this frosting is fun to eat and teaches you a bit about sugar chemistry.

There are potential pitfalls. My first attempt at the egg whites ended with throwing out all of them. I thought I did a good job separating but some bit of yolk must have slipped by because they would not stiffen. In case you didn’t know, the proteins in egg yolks will break down the egg white structures as fast as you whip them if you don’t get rid of every little bit. There are only two eggs in this batch but if you have more I suggest using the hand method to separate them into a cup. Inspect and throw out (or make a scramble for breakfast) any white that even has a speck of yellow. This way you cannot accidentally drop yolk into a big batch of whites and ruin the whole batch.

I also recommend starting off with a medium heat and carefully watching the temperature. My first batch I heated too quickly and it soared past 242° F leading to a “hard crack” candy texture with an unpleasant hint of caramel. When folded into the whites it turned into sharp points. If you get any color change in the sugar, start over. If you go beyond the temperature, turn it off, let it cool well below and heat up slowly again. If you get it right you get a VERY fluffy sweet icing that is reminiscent of marshmallows. When combined with the Blitz Torte’s crumbly, fluffy texture and the silky smooth custard it makes for a textural journey.

Custard Filling

Custard Filling

3 tbsp flour

1/3 C sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 C milk

1 egg, beaten

½ tsp vanilla

1 tbsp butter

Combine dry ingredients very thoroughly. Add milk and egg. Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly, until thickened. Add vanilla and butter. Cool. Filling for two layers.

Very simple, quick custard filling. Good amount of vanilla and an easy recipe to play around with and add flavors to.

Blitz Torte

This week, since it was my birthday, I will be featuring my first guest on Essen Girl: my hubby! He made a wonderful cake for me (even if there was a fair bit of swearing coming from the kitchen). I now turn it over to him (I'll be back next week).

These recipes came out of 250 Cake Recipes.

Blitz Torte

1 C sifted cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

½ C shortening

1 ¼ C sugar

4 eggs, separated

1 tsp vanilla

3 tbsp milk

½ C sliced blanched almonds

1 tbsp sugar

½ tsp cinnamon

Sift flour, baking soda and salt together.  Cream shortening with ½ cup sugar until fluffy.  Add well-beaten egg yolks, vanilla, milk and sifted dry ingredients.  Spread mixture in two greased pans.

Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry, add remaining sugar (3/4 C) gradually and beat until eggs hold a sharp peak.

Spread over unbaked mixture in both pans. Sprinkle with almonds, 1 tablespoon sugar and cinnamon and bake in moderate oven (350° F) about 30 minutes.

Cool and spread custard filling between layers.  Makes 2 (9-inch) layers.

Great recipe, but a lot of work. Read through it and heed my warnings! First, as a general recommendation, look for shortening with no trans-fats. It is a bit more expensive but it is healthier and substituting butter in this recipe just won’t work, it won’t hold the body and will deflate. Besides, a lot of them have a faintly coconut flavor that is very nice! Second, use a spring form pan if you’ve got it and parchment paper even if you don’t. I mean it, go run to the store and pick up some up. This cake will stick to the bottom like nothing else and the meringue will stick to the sides like glue. Using paper will also allow you to bring the meringue all the way up to the sides and smooth it out nicely. It will not spread on its own. The shape you put in the oven is what you will get out in the end and the meringue will be delicate and delicious. Get it right and you are in for a treat. Also, electric mixers are a blessing for these recipes. Hand-held is great but a stand mixer will make for a wonderful and fulfilling life. It may not be as important as a 401-k or a pacemaker but you’ll think fondly of it more often. I also really like the addition of a bit of cinnamon. You can substitute cocoa powder but it is a bit refreshing to get cinnamon in a non-spice cake. If I make this again I think I will add more cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg.

Also, fun note: 1/8 teaspoon is more technically a pinch of salt and is fine to measure it as the amount that you can hold between your thumb and forefinger. Some people refer to 1/8 as a dash and 1/16nth as a pinch with 1/32 as a smidgen… This is a new definition and really doesn’t make a huge difference. If you need to be that exact, get a scale. For almost all recipes, a little here and there won’t matter and you can feel free to vary proportions of spices and salt (be a bit more careful with leavening ingredients like baking soda, baking powder, or Sal Ammoniac). We combined this cake with the Custard Filling and Fluffy White Icing. The result was a pretty cake with a pretty generic taste profile of vanilla and sweet (with a dash of cinnamon!) but a textural treat that I have never had before in cake. Enjoy!