Spring Break, Part 2 – Surprises and Traditions

So I promised you a story about a really unplanned event during break. And, boy, was this unplanned and … interesting. 

My brother was sick at the beginning of break. Standard for my family. We have a tendency to get sick at the most inconvenient times – school breaks, vacations and holidays (we tend to take turns for the holidays because, you know, sharing is a good thing). 

Anyways, my bro was sick. We still have a mercury thermometer because it’s more accurate. We used to have two, but one broke a year or so back. But that’s neither here nor there. 

We broke another over spring break, so my mom and I got to clean it up. Good news? We didn’t get mercury poisoning. Bad news? It can take a long time to clean up. 

Even though there were some surprises, my family also has some traditions for breaks. In particular, my sister and I always make some time for board games or puzzles together. This break – Lord of the Rings Risk. 

We’ve played LotR Risk before, but it’s always interesting because my sister and I have very different (but also eerily similar) strategies. Some things are always the same when we play. I’m the black orcs. She’s the golden elves. I get Mordor. She gets Gondor. 

And then we start actually playing the game. My brother gets really frustrated watching us play because our strategies are so different. My view is that it’s a game, it’s war and her little plastic elves are going down. She tends to favor the approach of loading up her territories, defend them and not really attack me. She’ll attack the neutral army but not necessarily mine. 

I’d love to tell you how it ended, but we only got about halfway through the game. We were working on her strategy, so at the moment we’re pretty evenly matched. I suppose we’ll find out in May who wins unless the game gets cleaned up before then!

Spring Break, Part 1 – Sickness, Sleeping and Cannons, Oh My!

Breaks are always interesting at my house. There’s the standard things that happen, such as there’s always something different at home. Sometimes it’s a new lamp, minor redecorating or semi-major rearrangement of the kitchen. This break was no different. New small benches at the game table, puzzle piece photo frames on the wall – that’s cool. 

Sometimes eventful things happen (planned or unplanned), and sometimes eventful things don’t. But hey, that’s break. Sometimes, it’s just something small, but other times, it’s not. We seem to have a tradition in my house for someone to get sick on holidays, and now that’s expanded to college breaks also. But that’s just life. (It feels like I’m the one that’s sick on holidays and breaks a lot, but that might just be my view.)

This break was one where the unplanned eventful things happen. 

So, standard break. Sick? Check. Hanging out with family? Check. Watching an excessive amount of Netflix/catching up on all the shows I don’t have time to watch at school? Check. Finding a counted cross stitch project that I started as a Christmas project about four years ago for my mom and still haven’t finished? Check. Going to the mall with my family? Check. Helping my mom clean the house and cook? Check. 

But even in these “standard” things, something always happens to spice life up. Trip to the mall? Originally, it was just to find my sister a dress to wear to prom this year. And we did that. And we walked around the mall some. That’s when we found something odd. 

A cannon. Yes, you read that correctly – a cannon. There is a legitimate cannon in the mall, right outside New York & Company. It wasn’t there just a couple months ago, and I’m not entirely sure why it’s there now. But it is. It makes a lot of sense because of the area where I live (yay historical sites from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars!), but still. Cool? Yes. 

And then there’s also the really unplanned eventful things. But we'll save those for the next post.

'Chocolate' 'Cheese'cake?

The first carob experiment went well, so I tried another – "chocolate" "cheese"cake. But this recipe had neither chocolate nor cheese in it, and it was easy to make!

Cheesecake is one of my favorite desserts – especially New York cheesecake. I love tangy cheesecake with the sour cream layer. So when you suddenly can't eat one of your favorites, you look for a substitute. Enter this carob dessert.

Chocolate substitute? Easy – carob. Cream cheese substitute? It's a little different – tofu. I know that sounds weird, but please bear with me. This dessert is greater than the sum of its parts.

The tofu in this is different from what most people think of when they imagine tofu. The first picture that comes to my mind is the firm tofu strips that come in my hot and sour soup from my favorite Chinese restaurant. 

But how can that be turned into cheesecake? Well, it can't, as far as I can tell. There are different kinds of tofu. There's that firm (or extra-firm) tofu used as a protein replacement in savory dishes, and then there's also silken tofu used to make custards or as part of a smoothie base.

Thanks to the internet, I found this recipe for carob tofu "cheesecake." I made some adjustments to the original recipe because I am not gluten-free and I still eat sugar. 

Without further ado, the recipe!

Carob Tofu "Cheesecake"

Crust

⅓ c. butter/coconut oil, melted (I used half butter, half coconut oil)
[Note: Yes, I do know that butter does have dairy in it. I'm fine with eating that little bit in butter, so I still use it in my recipes. If you can't have any dairy, replace the butter with dairy-free margarine, coconut oil or any other fat of your choice.]

1 ¼ c. graham cracker crumbs

¼ c. sugar

Filling

3 c. tofu

½ c. honey

2 bananas

½ - 1 c. carob powder (use as much or as little as you want to get it to the desired taste!)

1 T lemon juice

1 ½ t vanilla extract

⅓ c. powdered coconut milk (optional, this makes the “cheesecake” filling firmer)

Crush graham crackers in a gallon zip bag into oblivion (until they turn into crumbs). Add sugar and melted butter and coconut oil and squish until combined. Dump mixture out of bag into baking dishes (I used a small 4" springform pan and four custard cups). Tamp down mixture in baking dishes and bake at 300 degrees until golden brown. For me, the custard cups took about seven minutes, and the springform pan ten. Let cool while making the filling. (This crust is vital to the recipe. The dessert would not be worth eating without it.)

Dump tofu, honey, sliced bananas, carob, lemon juice, vanilla and coconut milk powder if using into food processor. Pulse until thoroughly blended, scraping down sides of bowl if needed.

Pour into baking dishes and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Freeze for at least two hours. Pull the desserts out of the freezer a half hour before you want to eat them. Seriously - this is the difference between a carob tofusicle and a carob cheesecake/pudding. 

This is a good option for a dessert – it’s edible, but I wouldn’t want to eat this all the time. It’s definitely not cheesecake (especially since the last cheesecake I had was authentic New York cheesecake, this doesn’t even come close to that). It is a viable dessert option as long as you’re not expecting the same texture and flavor as cheesecake made with cream cheese. I wouldn't liken this to a cheesecake, but it's only the first in a long line of my experiments to perfect a "cheesecake." 

Overall assessment: edible, definitely not cheesecake, not really my cup of tea (or slice of cheesecake), and a good start to find a decent cheesecake replacement. But this is not that cheesecake replacement.

'Spring’ Break and ‘Chocolate’ Chips

I think the seasons got a little confused. I thought I left winter
in Ohio. Apparently not.

When your backyard looks like this over spring break, there’s only one thing to do – stay inside cooking in the kitchen. 

Armed with a laptop, iPhone, pencil, paper and oodles of recipes, I began my cooking extravaganza. I didn’t make a ton of food, but I was able to try out two new recipes, both of them totally chocolate-, dairy-, corn- and tomato-free!

Now, for both of these recipes, tomato didn’t really matter - the original “normal” recipes wouldn’t have tomatoes anyways. Seriously. Who would put tomatoes in either chocolate chips or chocolate cheesecake?

Let’s start on the “chocolate” chips. I could just buy chocolate substitute chips, but they still have milk in them - in the form of nonfat milk powder and whey. So those are out of the picture. 

But, thanks to the internet, I found recipes to make them myself. My mom and I gathered the ingredients last weekend, and I set to making carob chips on Monday. 

Carob comes from the pod of a tree that grows by the Mediterranean Sea. The fiber from the pod is scraped out, dried and ground into powder. Carob powder functions just like cocoa powder, but they have different flavors. Carob also does not contain caffeine, and it is naturally sweeter than cocoa.

Carob Chunks

1 c. carob powder

¼ c. + 1 T sugar

1 c. coconut oil (I used unrefined, cold pressed, organic, extra virgin coconut oil)

½ T espresso powder

1 t vanilla extract

peppermint extract (optional)

Melt coconut oil in small saucepan on stove. Coconut oil has a very low smoke point, so it won’t take long. Remove from heat and whisk in carob powder, sugar, espresso powder and vanilla. The mixture will be a little gritty. (If you want mint carob chips, add your peppermint extract here. I only added the mint to between a third and half of the mixture, so I only used a half teaspoon. Use just a little – you can always add more. Seriously, you don't want your carob chunks tasting like toothpaste.)

Line baking dish with nonstick aluminum foil and pour in carob mixture. Refrigerate until hard, then unmold your carob and chop into chunks.

My carob is still chilling in the fridge, mostly because I need to remelt then remold mine. I didn’t line my dishes with foil, so currenlty it's a little difficult to get my carob out. But hopefully I’ll be baking carob chip cookies later on this week!

Next post: "Chocolate" "Cheese"cake

Radio Dramas and Audiobooks, Part 2 - 'Cabin Pressure'

Last post, I talked about several of the radio dramas and audiobooks that I listen to. Today’s post is about my favorite radio show - a British radio sitcom called “Cabin Pressure.”

This past Thanksgiving break, I introduced my riders for the trip to my favorite radio sitcom, “Cabin Pressure.” (Thankfully, they liked it. We only listened to it for about 11 hours...)

“Cabin Pressure” was written by John Finnemore and relates the struggles of a small charter airline trying to stay afloat. However, MJN Air’s owner Carolyn Knapp-Shappey (Stephanie Cole) will undoubtedly assure you that she does not run an airline, she runs an airdot. (In order to have an airline, you must have more than one plane. You cannot put one plane in a line. Since she only owns one plane, she has an airdot.)

Carolyn has a small crew with such clashing personalities that you wonder how they possibly get along. But somehow it all works.

Her captain, Martin Crieff (Benedict Cumberbatch), is nervous and meek, with his most desperate wish being that people will finally realize that he actually is the captain of the aircraft.

But most people always assume that the first officer, Douglas Richardson (Roger Allam), is the captain, mostly because Douglas is a self-assured, smooth-talking, sarcastic ex-pilot. Douglas’ favorite pastime is to drive Martin up the wall with ridiculous games or snarky comments (and is there really a better time to annoy someone that much than when stuck in the cockpit of an airplane with them?).

And finally, every airplane needs a steward, and Carolyn’s son, Arthur, fills that role. Arthur is the most simple-minded of the crew, but that combined with his enthusiasm for his job just makes him very endearing.

The characters are so well-written that the audience gets drawn into the story and truly cares about what happens. Will MJN survive all their ups and downs? Has someone finally done something stupid enough to lose their customers? Will the four crew members be able to eat 400 quiches? How will they get a piano to Ottery St. Mary from Fitton when everything comes crashing down around them? How long can a cat survive in an unheated cargo hold at 34,000 feet? How many Hitchcock references can Douglas fit in a cabin address?

Finnemore’s comedic genius comes through his scripts and through his performance as Arthur. This shows highlights many different tones of humor – the sarcastic, the dry, the ignorant and the truly hilarious, just to name a few. All of the episodes are high-quality productions. Finnemore’s brilliance and style have never wavered throughout the existing 25 episodes, and I expect the series finale will be as strong an episode as the others. Finnemore’s brilliance stretches to the episode names. So far, the show has gone from “Abu Dhabi” to “Yverdon-les-Bains,” with the final episode titled “Zurich.”Yes, Finnemore created a 26-episode long sitcom with titles running in (mostly) alphabetical order. 

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. The final episode of “Cabin Pressure” was recorded on Feb. 23 to be aired sometime this year (and it can’t come soon enough for me!).