Reading Rainbow Bars

Butterfly in the sky!  I can go twice as high! Take a look, it's in a book - Reading Rainbow!  Okay, how many of you immediately started singing that song when you saw the lyrics?  I knew it wasn't just me.

I was thinking about Reading Rainbow the other day, and all the awesome stories I remember because of it.  Perfect the Pig, Imogene's Antlers, Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain, Sam the Sea Cow... I get so excited when I hear a line from those books because I remember the first time I heard them, and the voice I heard them read in.  (Say it with me, now! "A feather... that would change the weather.")

So, for the few people out there who have never experienced Reading Rainbow, please let me explain.  It was a television show that was produced from 1983 until 2006, hosted by LeVar Burton (who was also the executive producer), dedicated to promoting the love of reading for kids.  Each episode would have Mr. Burton talking about a specific topic, such as teamwork, or experiencing rites of passage (like losing a tooth), or being different (having to wear glasses), or.... well, anything.  And then a story that works within the theme would be read, usually by a celebrity - including, by the way, such awesome names as Bill Cosby, Gilda Radner, Julia Child, and Jerry Orbach.

[Edit because I forgot to include...] And then at the end of each episode, Mr. Burton would say that there were lots of other great books out there - "But you don't have to take my word for it!" and three lucky kids got to tell about a book they liked that could be found at your local library.  I used to want to be one of those kids SO BAD.  I'm not exactly sure why, but it seemed glamorous and exciting.

I love this show.  I loved it long after it was socially acceptable for me to be watching children's television or reading picture books, and if it was on right now, I'd be watching it as I write this.  I'm going to have to start saving my pennies, because I just looked it up on Amazon to find that episodes are available on DVD!  I even started watching Star Trek TNG because LeVar Burton was on there.  (Well... plus, it's an awesome show.  But I didn't know that at the time.)

Anything that can inspire such a love of reading deserves an entire freakin' cookbook, but as my time is limited, I am going to give you one very awesome recipe instead.  This is my mother's recipe for Rainbow Bars - I'm pretty sure it came out of a magazine or off the can of condensed milk, but don't be fooled by its humble beginnings.  This is an awesome cookie bar, and I can't think of anything that would better deserve it.

Reading Rainbow Bars
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 stick butter
1 can (14 oz.) condensed milk
1 1/2 cups flaked coconut
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups M&Ms

1. Preheat the oven to 350.  Melt the butter in the microwave and pour it into the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.  Pour in the graham cracker crumbs and mix with the butter until well-blended.  Then press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan to make a solid layer of crust.
2. Pour the condensed milk over the crust and spread as evenly as possible.  Top with the coconut, chocolate chips, and M&Ms, in that order.
3. Press the toppings into the condensed milk with your palms.  The tighter you make this, the less likely it will be that the finished product will fall apart when eating, which is the #1 complaint I've heard about Rainbow Bars - don't skip this step!  It will make your hands messy for a minute, but it'll make things easier to eat in the end.
4. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes.  The coconut will be lightly browned, and the condensed milk will be bubbling right up between the chocolate and all that yumminess will just melt right togehter.
5. This is the hardest part of the whole recipe - wait for the bars to cool completely before cutting, or you run the risk of them breaking apart and being a big gloppy mess.  A delicious gloppy mess, but still.  As you can see from the photo, I didn't wait until they were completely cool - mostly, but not completely, so the edges are ragged.

There are lots of variations to this recipe - substitute butterscotch chips for the M&Ms, and they are Magic Bars or Magic Cookie Bars.  Adding walnuts to Magic Bars makes them 7-Layer Bars.  I've also used peanut butter chips or some combination of the above... but Rainbow Bars are my favorite, perfect for my favorite tv show.

So, tell me!  What's your favorite episode?

Poky Little Puppy Strawberry Shortcake

The Poky Little Puppy was written by Janette Sebring Lowrey in 1942, and illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren.  It was one of the first Little Golden Books ever published and was, as of 2001, the best-selling children's book of all time.  (Incidentally, somewhere around here I have a copy of the list as of 2001 and the list as of a few years later - Harry Potter really shook some things up!)  It is also a personal favorite of mine.

Anyhow.  For those of you who are unfamilair, or who haven't heard the story in years and years, this is the tale of five puppy siblings, who disobey their mother and go digging under the fence to see what's in the wide, wide world beyond their home.  Off they run, "roly-poly, pell-mell, tumble-bumble," toward adventure.  But one of these puppies - the Poky Little Puppy - lags behind his siblings because he's so curious and distracted by everything.  He is also the last one to get back under the fence at the end of the night, which is lucky for him, because his siblings have all been sent to bed without dessert for being naughty, and he gets all of the rice pudding for himself.

The next day, the same thing happens - off they run, "roly-poly, pell-mell, tumble-bumble," into the wide, wide world.  Their mother is again very disappointed in her offspring, and the puppies are again sent to bed without any dessert.  All, that is, except for Poky (which I always assumed was his name, even though I realize now that it's a descriptor and not necessarily a name at all - but you never know.  After all, how many cats have I met named Brownie?).  Poky comes home after the rest of the puppies have gone to bed, and eats all the chocolate custard by himself.

On the third day, the puppies again venture out into the wide, wide world beyond the fence and run, "roly-poly, pell-mell, tumble-bumble," and have a grand old time.  When they get home and see their mother disappointed, though, they fill in the hole they dug and get to share the dessert she's made - strawberry shortcake.  All, that is, except for the Poky Little Puppy.  He not only gets home too late for dessert, but he has to squeeze through the slats of the fence, because the hole has been filled in.

Now... I don't know exactly why, but I've always felt bad for Poky.  I shouldn't, really.  He disobeyed and couldn't keep up with his siblings, and he ate 10 servings of dessert over the past two days, but the lack of strawberry shortcake always made me sad.  The book even tells you that he was "feeling very sorry for himself" at the end of it all, and maybe that made him a better puppy, but he was just curious, right?  Poor guy.  Maybe because I love strawberry shortcake so much, but it just seemed like a cruel punishment.  An injustice that needs to be rectified.

So, it may be late by 68 years, but here, Poky, is your shortcake.  I hope it was worth the wait.

Poky Little Puppy Strawberry Shortcake
1 pint of strawberries
2 tbsp. of sugar
Whipped cream
Biscuits**

**NOTE** Biscuits are the traditional foundation for strawberry shortcake (well... besides shortcake), so that's what I've used here, but angel food cake is also a nice foundation.  The foaminess sucks up the strawberry juice quite nicely.

1. Prepare biscuits according to recipe or package directions.  I used Bisquik to make mine, though Pillsbury does make some great ones in a tube if you're in a hurry.  For the traditionalists out there, Alton Brown has an awesome recipe listed here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/southern-biscuits-recipe/index.html .  I have been wanting to make this recipe for a while now, but finals week is not the time to dive into something like a new biscuit recipe.  (If you are using angel food cake, I would recommend waiting until it's time to serve and then slicing it into good-sized chunks, to avoid getting crusty edges.)
2. Wash and hull the strawberries, and slice into a bowl.  Add the sugar and stir; let this mixture sit at least an hour or until it's time for dessert.  Fun fact - the sugar will draw out the strawberries' natural pectin, which will make a syrup as this mixture sits. This will take about an hour, but you can make it a few hours ahead of time, if you like.  If you're short on time or haven't read ahead in the recipe, please remember that strawberries are quite awesome without any syrup at all, so you're in luck.
3.  To assemble, cut a biscuit in half horizontally.  Place one half of the biscuit in a bowl, and top with the strawberry mixture and whipped cream.  Repeat with the remaining half of the biscuit, more strawberries, and more whipped cream.  Top with a berry for garnish, if desired.

Fabulous.  I love it.  I could eat this every day of my life and not get bored.

I usually cheat and make biscuits a la Pillsbury, but this time I made them a la Bisquik - admittedly, not the same as homemade, but they look homemade, don't they?  And they are pretty tasty.

Mmmmm.... I know they're done, because the bottoms are golden brown and delicious.  Plus, the house smells awesome.

As a final quick note... I need to stop apologizing for not writing, but I am sorry, really.  Perhaps I shouldn't have taken on this project while I'm still in school... but for some things, you just don't want to wait to get started.

Francine's Bat Wing Brownies

Arthur the Aardvark is one of the most fun kid lit characters I can think of.  He's a little bit of a goody-two-shoes, but for a picture book character, he's a lot of fun, and definitely not boring.  And because the series of books was out for about two decades before the television series started, I think I can use these on the blog.  I will not, however, be doing anything with Dora the Explorer.

Anyhow.  Arthur's Halloween, written and illustrated by Marc Brown, is the story of Arthur, an aardvark who is afraid of Halloween.  He doesn't recognize anybody in his class - even the teacher has been replaced by a giant robot! - and nothing is the way it should be.  And why on Earth would anybody want to touch eyeballs, even if they are just peeled grapes?  Arthur doesn't even want to go trick-or-treating, because it's too scary. 

It all turns out okay in the end when Arthur and his sister meet a "witch" and find out that she's really just an older woman whose house is in disrepair because she can't take care of it easily.  He's such a nice aardvark, he even promised to come help her around the house on the weekend.  I love a happy ending.

Before all this, though, while they're at school, Arthur's friend Francine brings in a special treat, that Arthur is too nervous to enjoy - Bat Wing Brownies and Blood Punch!  The Blood Punch in this photo is just cherry Kool-Aid, but the brownies... now, those are special.

Francine's Bat Wing Brownies
1/2 cup of butter, melted
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350.  Grease an 8x8 or 9x9 pan.  If you want to make a larger pan of brownies, you will need to double the recipe; this isn't one of those where they say to use a small pan but it can fit in a big pan and be thinner, as they aren't that thick to begin with.
2. Mix together the melted butter and white sugar.  Add the eggs and beat well.  Add the rest of the ingredients, and mix that together.  Pour into the prepared baking pan.
3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the edges are firm. 

To make them into bat wings, I contemplated a cookie cutter to get a real bat wing shape, but I figured that Francine's poor hard-working parents would have enough to do without cutting brownies into individual bat shapes, so I found another way.  I cut the brownies into rectangles and then bisected the rectangles to get two right triangles.  I then put a dot of decorator's gel on the inner points for spooky red bat eyes.  Serve with Blood Punch and you're all set!

Ice Cream For Samantha

When I told some friends that I was going to be writing this blog, the one of the first responses I got was, "Are you going to write about the American Girl books?" As a kid, I loved the American Girls - four books to a series, each series highlighting a girl from somewhere in the United States at some point during its history. They were interesting, and fun, and those of us who grew up with them, love them.

When I started reading them, the girls were Samantha (from 1904), Molly (from 1944) and Kirsten (from 1854). Then Felicity came out (from 1774), and it was a huge deal. (Well, to me, it was.) My sisters and I had several of the books, and we got the catalog that had the dolls in it, even though we never had the dolls.  The company has now grown exponentially, and there are books about the friends of the original girls, books about girls I've never even heard of, and books about modern girls, and dolls you can customize, and self-help for pre-teens, and... gah! So much! American Girl, I love you, but how am I supposed to catch up?

Anyway. In several of the books, the authors mention cooking; Molly makes Boston brown bread, Kirsten makes St. Lucia buns, and so on. In Happy Birthday Samantha, our title character has a birthday party with pink peppermint ice cream. It shows up at the beginning of the story, at the party, but the batch is ruined by the annoying neighbor-boy, Eddie. Samantha goes to visit family in New York City, though, and she finally gets her ice cream there - again, pink peppermint. It's her favorite.

So, in honor of Samantha's birthday (which is in the spring in the book, but let's not be too picky, here), I made some pink peppermint ice cream. This recipe is adapted from the French Vanilla ice cream in the Ben & Jerry's cookbook.

Pink Peppermint Ice Cream
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy or whipping cream
1 cup milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 drops red food coloring
Enough crushed-up peppermints to make about two cups

1. Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes.
2. Whisk in the sugar, a little bit at a time, and then continue for about a minute after all the sugar is added.
3. Pour in the vanilla, cream, milk, and food coloring, and whisk that together until everything is blended.
4. Transfer into an ice cream maker and freeze according to your manufacturer's instructions.
5. About half-way into the freezing time, add  the peppermints.  If you crushed them like I did (in a zip-top bag, with a hammer), you'll have pieces of all different sizes and a fair amount of peppermint dust that should blend right in.

Samantha has her ice cream frozen into molds, but there wasn't room in the freezer for a bunch of molds, and I wasn't sure how it would take to a mold made for jell-o, besides my being lazy, so I just put it in a large tupperware and scooped it out as needed.  Judging by the trouble I had getting a good photo, that's probably a good thing - this is a very soft ice cream due to the high sugar content. 

I am lucky enough to have family who not only indulges my odd quirks of needing to randomly cook something from a story, but also has the fun kitchen tools I need to make things like ice cream on the spur of the moment. If you don't have an ice cream freezer, run a Google search on: "how to make ice cream" and you will find methods that don't need the ice cream freezer, such by using two zip-top bags or two empty coffee cans.

And yes, I will make both St. Lucia Bread and Boston Brown Bread at some point in the future. And just about anything else. If anybody has any requests or comments, please feel free to leave a comment, or send me an email at katcooksthebooks@gmail.com.

And lastly, thanks to my aunt, who crushed the peppermints with the hammer for me while I was whisking the rest of the ingredients together.  You're the best.