A casserole called “Hobo’s Delight” has a way of fixing all problems.

I’m not much for baking, but there is one delicacy I make that wins me raves where ever I bring them:  Seven Layer Bars.  I get more compliments on my Seven Layer Bars than I do my….my….well, I can’t really think of much I win raves for, so I’ll stick with Seven Layer Bars.

I whipped up a batch last night to send to Jake in Afghanistan since I figured my soldier will need a taste of home about now.

I will say this:  I can’t believe I’m divulging my secret recipe* since I’m KNOWN for these babies. Like, people are happier to see my Seven Layer Bars than they are me.  Once I give away the recipe, I fear I’ll be like the drug dealer who shows up to the party without the drugs.  No one will want to talk to me.  They’ll be like, who is that lady in the trench coat standing in the corner?  Such are the sacrifices I make for you, dear blog reader.

Anyway, enough about my self-esteem…..

First, preheat the oven to 375.  Spray the bejesus out of a 9 x 13 baking pan with cooking oil.  Press two pieces of parchment (not waxed) paper in the bottom of the pan, one laid horizontally, the other laid vertically — this will make for easy lifting of the bars out of the pan.  Now spray the heck out of the parchment paper again with the cooking oil. Spray tons! Otherwise, the bars will stick to the parchment paper, I’m telling you!  Spray more!  Don’t forget the sides.

Now, drop one stick of unsalted butter on the waxed paper, stick it in the oven and allow it to melt for 6 to 8 minutes.

See what I’m talking about with the parchment paper?  Meanwhile, scatter 1 cup sweetened coconut flakes onto a unrimmed baking sheet, stick it on the second rack in the oven (the pan of melting butter is on the first rack) and allow the coconut to brown for 8 minutes.  Toasting the coconut is crucial for superior Seven Layer Bars.  Most recipes call for untoasted flakes.  Untoasted flakes are moist.  Untoasted flakes make the finished bars that much wetter and soggier.  So if you want Seven Layer Bars with the perfect texture and consistency, you must, must, must toast the coconut flakes first.

Meanwhile, chop 1 cup walnuts with a mallet.  You can also use pre-chopped nuts, but I like taking out my aggressions with a mallet.

Take one package of graham crackers (not a box, but one package, which I think includes 9 crackers total), and place it in a plastic bag. Using your handy mallet, smash the graham crackers into dust.  Add the pulverized graham crackers to the pan with the melted butter, lightly stir to combine.

The buttery graham cracker crust counts as the first layer in your Seven Layer Bars.

Second layer: Add the 1 cup chopped nuts over the graham cracker crust.

Third layer: 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Fourth layer:  Half cup white chocolate chips.

Fifth layer:  Half cup butterscotch chips.

Sixth layer:   The one cup of toasted coconut flakes.

Seventh layer:  One can sweetened condensed milk. 

Pour the condensed milk evenly over the bars.  The gooey milk holds all this nutritious, low fat (ha ha!) goodness together.

Bake at 375 for 25 to 30 minutes.  Allow to cool for at least two hours.  Lift the bars by the parchment paper out of the pan. Carefully peel the paper from the bottom of the bars. Divide into squares.

Behold the beautiful cross section of a perfectly constructed Seven Layer Bar.

Happy Holidays!

* The recipe isn’t much of a secret…mine is adapted from the finest cookbook I own, The New Best Recipe from Cook’s Illustrated.

So how does a cranky, don’t-mess-with-me military wife cheer herself up?  I mean, besides guzzling boxed wine, swaddled in her husband’s oversized fatigues while watching Officer and a Gentleman in slo-mo?

She bakes cookies.  That’s what I did.  I donned one of my many homemade aprons and I baked cookies. Cookies for me and June!  Mommy and me cookies.  And this is how they turned out:

Looks like something I ran over.

The cookies didn’t rise.  When I pulled them from the oven, and saw their battered state, I made a loud, deeply annoyed groaning noise and June, who played nearby, piped in with her own baby version of mommy’s agitated mouth fart: “Aaaurruuugaaa!”

What bugs me the most (aside from hearing certain habits of mine emerge so soon in my daughter) is that I followed the recipe TO THE LETTER.  TO THE LETTER!!!! I used the precise amount of flour, the precise amount of baking soda and baking powder.  I used my fanciest flour!  And chocolate chips!  And precious dried blueberries I had to drive all the way to Costco to get.   And the cookies still looked like couch coasters.

But I can’t seem to throw them out.  They’re pretty good.  Even if every time I open the container they’re kept in both June and I groan with dissatisfaction.

I am the worst when it comes to rolling dough.  I actually avoid it at all costs because my pastry crusts and empanada shells come out looking more like avant garde sculptures than round, flat discs.

While teaching the class at Wade’s Mill artisan flour mill this weekend, I was introduced to this neat dough pouch.  It’s basically a Ziploc bag for dough. A ball of dough is inserted between two pieces of plastic, then sealed.

The dough is rolled without sticking to the rolling pin.  A revelation.

The dough conforms to a nice, round shape.

 I’ve never seen this product before, so I quickly snapped up a few from the mill’s adjoining culinary store.  The pouches were only $5 or so and will make useful stocking stuffers for certain dough-crazed family members.  (Though I guess the cat’s out of the bag now.)

If you’re interested, call or email Wade’s Mill for availability.

Cooking is a trial these days, what with Jake gone and June under the age of two.

On the other hand, I can’t bear the thought of 2 pounds of complimentary wild mushrooms — maitakes, “chanties” and black trumpets — going to waste because I’m too crazed, lazy or burned out to turn on the stove.

I needed a fast, easy recipe….one that called for fancy mushrooms.  That sounds like a contradiction.

I found this tasty gnocchi recipe by New York chef Andrew Carmellini that sounded rich and delicious and easy (as long as I used store bought gnocchi).

I read somewhere that to ensure a good saute when cooking mushrooms, the mushrooms must be completely dry before cooking or else they finish mushy.  So the night before, while staggering around the kitchen wondering why I always make more work for myself when I could just be eating a Hot Pocket, I lightly washed and trimmed each and every shroom, scrubbing away the nascent dirt, then air dried the mushrooms over a perforated grill pan overnight.

The next night, per the recipe’s instructions, I cooked the mushrooms over high heat for 12 long minutes, which seemed like an eternity.  I thought the mushrooms might even burn,  but the extended cooking time is what allows the excess liquid to burn off and concentrate the mushroomy flavor. In fact, mushrooms are only finished sauteeing once they start to look dry.

The finishing touch was broiling the entire pan of mushroomy gnocchi in the oven, which gave it a beautifully burnished top.

It was rich, caramelized and delicious, though I omitted the salt, due to my dining companion’s dietary restrictions.  June and I both loved it….though she was more taken with the gnocchi than with the shrooms.

One of her  chanterelles went airborne (she threw it on the floor), causing me to practically crash to the floor to catch it.  Can you blame me? They only come around once a year.

In case you’re wondering what I was doing in West Virginia over the weekend,  my friend Chin and I attended an annual wild food festival in North Bend State Park right outside the teeny tiny town of Cairo.

Foraging is quite trendy right now and it’s easy (for me, anyway) to forget that wild ingredients like fiddleheads (see pic above), pawpaws and purslane are not, in fact, solely enjoyed by ascetically-minded hipsters, but have been dietary mainstays of mountain people forever.  Foraging “the trend” never came to West Virginia because it never went out of style.

Accordingly, the weekend was a fascinating study in contrasts, a bumpy marriage of the pure and highly processed: Dessert made from wild raspberries….and boxed cake mix.  Wild mushrooms plucked from the forest sauteed in….margarine.  Just gathered purslane used as a garnish for…Ritz Crackers.

During foraging walks, I listened rapt as country women, faces slick with foundation, positively identified random weeds then detail their every last medicinal property.

Platters of wild pheasant garnished with…torn Wonder Bread.

This is squirrel,  battered and fried in corn oil, natch.  Will you think less of me when I tell you I sampled a bite and thought it was tasty?  TLC.  (That’s shorthand for “tasted like chicken.”)

While I can’t say for certain I’ll attend another foraging event of this type, I’m really glad I went. It was a reminder that wild food is — with a little education and know-how — open and accessible to everyone, from Whole Food-ies to the Hee Haw crowd.

June and I take a walk on the wild side in West Virginia. She eats a hickory nut brownie, I slurp wild grape ice cream.

I went to West Virginia over the weekend, and on our way through Charleston, I passed a restaurant I’ve always wanted to go to, but never given the chance: Biscuit World. It’s a regional chain selling hot, buttery biscuits…a world of them, as a matter of fact.

I’ve wanted to go to Biscuit World for at least four years but everytime Jake and I drove through the state, my husband was on a mission to get from point A to point B as efficiently as possible so he always found a way to put me off.

“Next exit, hon, next exit,” he’d say as we whizzed past the third Biscuit World in a row, my finger pointing forlornly in its direction. By the time that next exit came, we’d be in Illinois where things like Biscuit World don’t exist. (Corn world, maybe, but not Biscuit World.)

So. You can bet I skidded into the first Biscuit World I came to over the weekend.

Come to find out, Biscuit World is essentially a breakfast joint selling all configurations of hot biscuit sandwiches featuring delightfully compelling names: The Thundering Herd, the Tootie, the Shaved Ham Melt, Mary B, Peppi, Mickey, and my personal favorite, Ron. Just Ron. Simple. Elegant. RON.

My friend Chin and I went for the classic Mary B — bacon, egg and cheese on a biscuit.

I’m happy to share that Biscuit World lives up to its name. The biscuit was hot and buttery and homemade. The bacon was crispy, the cheese was melted and tangy. My one complaint was the flavor of the egg; there wasn’t any since I’m sure it came from a stressed, factory farm hen. Once you get used to the taste of fresh eggs from the farm, it’s pretty much impossible to go back to anything else.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of Jake’s very own Eggs McHusband, his DIY interpretation of McDonald’s Eggs McMuffin.

In fact, eating the Mary B made me miss Jake even more because unlike the Mary B, Eggs McHusband is made with love.  And fresh eggs.

June loves her some Biscuit World

Damn slugs.

Wow.  Is it already horseradish season?  In honor of the spicy hot root, I canned up some Horseradish Beer Mustard from Tart and Sweet to give away to bratwurst-loving friends during Oktoberfest….only a month away!  I can’t believe fall is practically here!

I’ve posted about this mustard before, but last time I made it, I used jarred horseradish because the fresh stuff wasn’t available.  Fresh horseradish is much more intense than the jarred stuff — grating it can sting your eyes like an onion! This mustard may blow your socks off.

To make it with real horseradish, combine 1/2 cup mustard powder (we like Colmans), 1/2 cup finely grated fresh horseradish, 1/2 cup sweet beer like Negro Modela and 1 tablespoon brown mustard seed in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Whisk to combine.  That’s it! How easy is that? You can either transfer it to an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to a month, or whisk in 1 teaspoon of vinegar and divide it among 3 4 ounce canning jars and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.

I find this mustard really expands during processing. To prevent seepage while the jars are boiling , err on the side of more headspace than less.  I noticed the headspace requirement given in Tart and Sweet calls for 1/4 inch, which is incorrect.  Condiments like mustard should always be 1/2 inch.  I’m not sure how that happened.  Myself or the recipe’s creator Kelly should have caught that.  I apologize to anyone who made it and experienced seepage.  Or maybe (hopefully) it was just me.

This recipe is based on a dish from my friend Lornie, who was hit with an onslaught of squash from her maiden garden this summer. (She might want to consider getting this book or this book or this book next summer.  Who knew there were so many squash cookbooks?)

This is her low calorie, fiber-rich spin on the traditional Greek-inspired grain salad; she substitutes squash for orzo, rice or couscous.

To make, slice one spaghetti squash lengthwise. Drizzle the cut halves with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt pepper. Bake cut side down in a 400 degree for 45 minutes.

Remove the squash halves from the oven, scrape out the seeds.

You can see where spaghetti squash gets it’s name. The inside is stringy. Using a fork, scrape the meat of the squash into a medium size bowl. Break up any chunky bits with the tines.

Saute 1 small minced onion, and 2 cloves of minced garlic in a bit olive oil over medium heat until softened but not brown, stirring occasionally. Add 2 cups chopped grape tomatoes.  Lightly saute until most of the tomato juice has been absorbed.

Add the tomato mixture to the spaghetti squash, and stir in 3/4 cup chopped feta cheese, 1/2 cup of chopped, pitted olives and 2-3 tablespoons chopped basil and mint. (To be honest, I didn’t measure anything when making my own version of the recipe. I threw in whatever looked right, so feel free to play with proportions.) Add salt and pepper and stir.

I was so enamored with Lornie’s salad, I think I prefer it over the usual-starch based varieties.  If you, like Lornie, are hit with squash, give it a try.  Thanks for the inspiration, Lornie!