The April/May 2013 Cook's Country: The Best of All Time

When people ask me to name the greatest issue of Cook's Country magazine ever published, I have one answer: April/May 2013.  Yup, the one with the Chocolate Sugar Cookies on the cover.  Need I say more?

I shall. It has the most recipes that quicken the heart and please the crowd.  One could almost stop at the cover and know all one needs to know.  But that one would be a fool.

There will be those who will say that the charter issue with the Green Apples on the cover (and one has to specify because Cook's Country issued at least three undated issues to try to lure people away from - on the one hand - the black-and-white actuarial frigidity of its cousin Cook's Illustrated - and on the other hand - from the thick and glossy supermarket degradation of Cooking Light), but that is a tent pole issue, held up merely by the transcendent weeknight classic Creamy Shells with Peas and Bacon.  Easy Tortilla Casserole may be easy, but it ain't that great to eat.  I digress.  How does one get children to eat peas?  Hide them inside shells, and cover those shells with ricotta cheese and fleck the whole assemblage with crispy bacon bits.  So props to that recipe.

Others pipe up then and say, "Good sir.  Prithee explain why thou dost not view October/November 2015 as the apex of Cook's Country's studied casual charm?"  To that argument, I must concede that any magazine issue that doth bequeath on the humble home chef recipes for both Wisconsin Butter Burgers and Bourbon Balls is a strong issue indeed.  And while those burgers do call forth the drool and those boozey squishies convey upon one most-favored-party-guest status when one shows up with a tray thereof, O/N '15 (as it is called when it is at home) has the same faults as many an NBA team - only two superstars.  If you start talking about the 2019-2020 Lakers, I shall retreat for the consumption of bourbon straight without the formalities of grinding up the vanilla wafers or even getting out the cocoa powder.  This issue, however, has a long tail of single-instance recipes for our household - corn meal drop biscuits = Alex Caruso.  Better than a punch in the gut, but that's damning with faint praise.  This paragraph brought to you by awkward transitions from the King James to...er...King James.

Overhearing that dismissal, a Jack-come-lately might bring up ol' deep bench itself, June/July 2012. Chicken Caesar Salad Wraps, Nebraska Beef Buns, Macaroni and Cheese Casserole. Dinners to keep a middle-class household going, no doubt, but we haven't made a single dessert out of that issue.  Also, these are solid Monopoly board orange and red recipes.  Not a Boardwalk (or even a North Carolina Avenue) among them.  On a desert island with a well-stocked grocery store and some sheet pans, this would be my runner up.

But thankfully, this is America, even now. 

America has given us A/M '13, featuring six recipes that we have recorded making a total of 21 times.  In truth, because we don't record our desserts as well as our entrees, we've probably made the cover star Chocolate Sugar Cookies more than the recorded nine times.  Anyway, it's quality over quantity here.

• These dark, flavorful cookies combine a delicately crispy sugar topping with a tender but toothsome crumb.  Are they better than a good chocolate chip cookie?  No.  I am no a madman. 
• I defy you to find a crowd that won't be thrilled by Sheet Pan Pizza for a Crowd.  It's been a beach house dinner staple since we discovered it; the dough can be frozen and toted in a cooler.  
• A growing family grow on casseroles like Chicken Noodle and the virtuous-sounding Broccoli Macaroni and Cheese.  
• Pulled BBQ Chicken didn't wow us, apparently, but it's good to have a recipe for everyone's third-favorite pulled meat.

    

Greatest Cook's Country Issues Ever

Recipe	Year	Issue	Instances
Chocolate sugar cookies	2013	Apr/May	9
Sheet pan pizza for a crowd	2013	Apr/May	4
Chicken Noodle Casserole	2013	Apr/May	3
Skillet Broccoli Macaroni & Cheese	2013	Apr/May	2
Slow Cooker Pulled Chicken	2013	Apr/May	2
Crock Pot Pulled BBQ Chicken	2013	Apr/May	1
Creamy Shells with Peas and Bacon	apples	Charter	19
Shanghai Chicken Salad	apples	Charter	2
Easy Tortilla Casserole	apples	Charter	1
Chicken Caesar Salad Wraps	2012	Jun/Jul	6
Easy Summer Vegetable Pasta	2012	Jun/Jul	5
Nebraska Beef Buns	2012	Jun/Jul	4
Macaroni & Cheese Casserole	2012	Jun/Jul	3
Beef & Bean Taquitos	2012	Jun/Jul	2
Creamy Cucumber Salad	2012	Jun/Jul	2
Wisconsin Butter Burgers	2015	Oct/Nov	14
Bourbon Balls	2015	Oct/Nov	8
Roasted Chicken Thighs with Creamed Shallots & Bacon	2015	Oct/Nov	2
Baked Mustard Chicken	2015	Oct/Nov	1
Corn Meal Drop Biscuits	2015	Oct/Nov	1
Penne with Butternut Squash & Browned Butter Sauce	2015	Oct/Nov	1
Pork & Ricotta Meatballs	2015	Oct/Nov	1

HHHHHH: A Measure of Improvement

This post might be better labeled "confession" than "hint."  Longtime readers will know that I am that rare person who uses his bread machine regularly, currently a Zojirushi Home Bakery Supreme.  I still use a recipe from one of my Breadman machines, modfied only with a substitution of 3/4 cup of white whole wheat flour (WWW) for an equal amount of white flour.  No one in our family really likes traditional whole wheat flour, but this small substitution adds a little nutrition and actually lends some nice structure to the basic sandwich bread we use all the time.

I've used the same recipe for years and worked out the ratio of using 3/4 cup WWW in a total amount of 3 cups of flour as the maximum amount of WWW without making the yeast fight to rise the loaf reliably.  For years, when getting out my ingredients and measuring devices, I would get out a one cup measure, a 1/4 cup measure and a 3/4 cup measure.  Now that 3/4 cup measure came from a set we got at the King Arthur Flour store on a pilgrimage to Norwich, VT, a sacred place for bakers.  In addition to the traditional 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 and 1 cup measures, our set includes a 2/3 cup and this 3/4 cup.  One doesn't know one needs those (or a 3/4 teaspoon) measure until one owns them.  Even owning this set for years, I left an opportunity for efficiency on the table (er...counter).  See, I would measure 2 cups of white with my 1 cup measure, then 1/4 cup of white, then 3/4 cup of WWW with that measure.  Any mathematicians shaking their heads yet?  

In the last few months, I figured out that I was replacing one part out of four with WWW.  That means I could do all my flour measuring with one measure - the 3/4.  Now, I fill that one three times with white flour and once with WWW.  There are multiple benefits:

• It's faster to use one measure than three for the actual measuring step.
• It keeps my counter cleaner to not put down two used measures (the other option of plunking them in the sink one by one always made me impatient).
• I wash one cup measure instead of three.

 The strongest hint in this post is to acquire more finely-graded cup measures like this awesome-if-not-cheap set.  The other one we love is a 1/8 cup measure from another set.  While one doesn't see 1/8 cup in recipes much, one sees 2 tablespoons often, and 2 T = 1/8 C.  Boom!  Then, once you've acquired them, pay more attention than I did and find ways to cut down on the number of measures you have to use.

Kitchen Item Review: Pizza Steel

On the final day of Kitchen Item Review Week, I bring you the Pizza Steel.  Like many good things in life, we have King Arthur Flour to thank for this one.  They didn't invent the pizza steel, but they got behind it and have sold it in their catalog.  My Competent Wife gave me a pizza steel as my big birthday present this year.  To hit the basics: yes, it's like a pizza stone, but it's made of heavy gauge 1/4" steel instead.  Also, the people who make it call it a baking steel, but it's highest calling in life is pizza, so that's what I call it.  The guy who created my version works for a garden variety modern company but also really loves pizza and had pursued the perfect crust.  Eccentric and overly-fussy Nathan Myhrvold posited that hot steel would be the best thing to bake pizza on, and our regular Joe went out to the plant to test the theory.

first effort with the steel

We briefly owned a pizza stone, and it impressed me by feeling heavy and cumbersome and fragile all at the same time.  The steel is heavy but feels easier to wield and far less fragile.  I can't think of many things that are less fragile.  Slide this baby in the oven and preheat, and you essentially create the bottom of a pizza oven right there on your rack.  The crust turns out fantastic, but I'm really pleased about the cheese.  I've never been able to get my pizza cheese browned like the pros do, and it turns out what I have been lacking is massive heat from below.  Who knew?  An interesting point for home pizza bakers: traditionally, I've baked pizza as low in my oven as possible.  The Steel instructs you to put it on a high rack, creating a small hot box in which your pizza bakes.  I really do think of it as sectioning off a portion of my oven as a pizza oven.

Competent Wife would like me to inform you that once I got the steel, I also needed a

pizza peel for the first time.  You bake right on this puppy, and it gets mucho hot in a 500-degree oven.  [Parenthetical to Pittsburgh foodies: I bought a peel at In the Kitchen in the Strip before walking down to Pennsylvania Macaroni Company and finding a 90% identical peel for half the price.  I marched right back and returned the more expensive one.  Save yourself the trouble; start at Penn Mac.]  

She would also like me to mention the pizza-specific cutting board I have purchased but not yet used.  [That came off the half-price rack at In the Kitchen.]  These accessory purchases are not as ridiculous as they sound.  I'm fond of the flesh on my fingers and therefore needed the peel.  We've traditionally made pizza on a pan (aluminum, I assume) on which we could cut it.  When you bake right on the steel, the pizza a) is not necessarily completely round - I assemble it on the peel now and b) needs to be cut somewhere.  We don't actually own a cutting board completely big enough, so I bought a cutting board with slicing guide grooves and a nifty rack to keep it off the table.  Completely necessary and sane.  I have not yet used it.

If I have one complaint about the steel, it's that owning one makes me want to own two, so I can bake two pies at a time for my growing family.  But that's insane.  Until my next birthday, anyway.  

My baking assistant

In the kitchen again, making the tongue noise again, this time with a tank top to show off his guns. He gets really into it.