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Top Five Best Spoonie Gifts For The Holidays
Spoonies, or chronically ill people, are all about comfort. Helping a loved one in pain to stay comfortable and stress free is a great way to show your support and concern. These are my top Five suggestions for this holiday season. The prices range from $20 to close to $200. Most items can be found online at Amazon.com.
Chronically ill people can have difficulty keeping their neck warm to avoid tight muscles, tension and migraine headaches. A soft squishy scarf that does not irritate the skin and can be wrapped around the neck twice is a blessing, especially when you wear a scarf to bed to avoid stiff neck muscles. Personally, I’ve learned to wear a scarf all the time. A colorful chic scarf can add a glow to otherwise pale and wan cheeks.
2) Coconut Water.
A case of Coconut Water – I prefer with Pineapple – is a perfect gift for spoonies who need to stay hydrated and need to keep foodstuffs close at hand when bedridden and perhaps alone for many hours. A bit pricey for an individual Tetra box, but by the case – don’t make the spoonie carry it! – it is an affordable and valuable gift. A better choice for natural hydration. Great for IBS sufferers.
3) Kindle.
Books are heavy and cumbersome for people with chronic health issues. A Kindle is a great way for a spoonie to keep up with the world without having to leave the house to get a book or magazine. When you are awake at three am and are looking for a particular style of writing to help you through the pain, the lack of sleep, the loneliness of a sleeping house when you are trying to keep The Birds calm…curling up with the perfect good read is possible with a Kindle. Update: What a difference a year makes. Now the Kindle Fire is available. Regrets…I’ve had a few…
4) Gift cards for Amazon.com, iTunes, etc.
These are a great way to provide hours of distraction from the pain and isolation of chronic illness. The gift of choice is a help to a chronically ill person. To choose movies, books, music or perhaps a therapeutic device or comfort item is a wonderful way to show you care.
5) Soup
Soup is the universal gastric hug. Check with your spoonie for ingredients that should be avoided, but making a batch of soup and freezing it in individual portions in disposable containers will have your spoonie hearing the voices of angels. Not a cook? A box of ready to make vegan soup will be appreciated by any spoonie who needs quick and easy meals.
Don’t forget the caregiver(s): Recognition for a difficult lifestyle can give a boost to a frayed husband/wife/lifepartner/buddy/parents. They didn’t sign on for this. A night out with friends or family for a few hours can invigorate the soul of a caregiver. Laugh. Play games. Take their mind off of the weight of caring for a chronically ill loved one.
“Cookery means…
the knowledge of all herbs and fruits
and balms and spices,
and all that is healing and sweet
in the fields and groves…
It means carefulness and inventiveness
and willingness and readiness…
It means the economy of your grandmothers
and the science of the modern chemist;
…it means thoroughness and…
art and…
hospitality…
…and it means
that you are to be…
…loaf givers.”
Ruskin
Upgrade Cake Bible Buttercream with Vanilla and Less Butter.
If you love to bake cakes then you must have Rose Levy Beranbaum’s The Cake Bible. Beranbaum breaks down the science of cake baking and encourages you to expand your abilities with butter and sugar. To that end I have updated Beranbaum’s Classic Buttercream Recipe by using less butter and the addition of Vanilla Extract. You need a kitchen scale and you need a sugar thermometer, but you don’t need to be intimidated.
I follow The Cake Bible’s directions thoroughly and measure eggs and sugar by weight and I add a dash of Extra Fine Salt. I just reduce the amount of butter – the original recipe calls for one pound – to less than 3 sticks of butter and add 2 Tablespoons of Vanilla Extract. The Vanilla cuts through the cloying butter flavor for a fuller, richer flavor.
I like to serve The Cake Bible’s All Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake with my altered Classic Buttercream and a dollop of warm Apricot Jam on the side to cut the sweetness.
No Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookie Recipe
Not Your Mama’s Recipe!
I have reworked the original recipe that called for 2 cups of sugar. Make these with the best quality ingredients. This recipe contains Peanut Butter.
In a heavy bottomed sauce pan combine and stir together:
1 cup sugar (Update – I am currently using less than 2/3 cup of sugar)
Pinch of salt
3 Tbls. butter
1/2 cup milk
Bring to a boil and cook a minute or so then add:
1 oz. chocolate
1/2 cup Peanut butter
Stir as the chocolate and peanut butter melts.
Bring back to a boil then turn off the heat and add:
1 tsp. Vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups Oatmeal flakes
Stir in quickly until the Oatmeal is fully coated. Drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper and cool. Very hot! Think molten lava! Let them cool and set. Makes 2 dozen.
Castor Sugar
For all my fine baking I use Baker’s Special Superfine Castor Sugar from King Arthur Flour in Norwich, Vermont.
This sugar is quick dissolving and can be used just like regular granulated sugar.
This is a ‘must have’ in my pantry.
Butter Cream Frosting Recipe
Butter. Sugar. Cream. Vanilla…How can it get any better? By using the freshest, best quality ingredients available. If you are going to all the effort to make a cake, then cover it with the best tasting frosting. Guests will be eyeing a second piece of cake before they have finished the first!
I get ingredients from King Arthur Flour. Glazing Sugar. Vanilla. Check them out!
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 pound (1 bag or 4 cups) Glazing sugar
1 Tbl. Vanilla extract
1 Tbl. Cream
Pinch of salt (preferably Fleur de Sel)
Beat all the ingredients on low in your mixer, slowly increasing the speed to medium. Beat until light and fluffy, scraping the bowl a couple of times. Do not over beat.
This is great on the Feathery Fudge Cake.
Coleslaw Recipe
Coleslaw is a side dish common here in the Northeast, but generally they aren’t very good. This is my go-to recipe that is quick and easy, and stands the test of time.
4 cups shredded cabbage
1/2 cup shredded carrot
2 Tbls. minced onion
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 Tbl. vinegar
1 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. celery seed (optional)
In a large bowl combine the cabbage, carrot and onion.
Prepare the dressing from the remaining ingredients, and mix well into the vegetables.
Cover and chill.
Glazing Sugar – powdered sugar without starch
As a home baker I like to use the very best ingredients available. Fresh eggs, fresh butter, King Arthur flour… and when I need to use powdered sugar I only use Glazing Sugar. Supermarket confectioners’ sugar has starch which leaves a grittiness to frostings and glazes that I will not tolerate. Glazing Sugar is available in one pound bags from King Arthur Flour.
Feathery Fudge Cake Recipe
This recipe is from my go-to cookbook from 1981, Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. I haven’t changed the recipe but I do use a kitchen scale to weigh the batter in the cake pans to make sure they are equal.
Grease and flour two 8″ cake pans. I also use a round of parchment in the bottom of the pan, then grease and flour it again. This greatly reduces the chance of having the cake stick to the pan.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine and set aside:
2 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda ( sift to remove lumps)
1/2 tsp. salt.
Prepare 3 oz. unsweetened chocolate by melting and cooling (or 9 Tbls. unsweetened Cocoa plus 3 Tbls. water).
In a mixer bowl beat:
2/3 cup butter, softened. Beat for 30 seconds.
Add 1 3/4 cups sugar and
1 tsp. Vanilla.
Beat until well combined.
Add 2 eggs, one at a time, beating one minute after each.
Add the chocolate and beat.
Add the flour mixture alternating with 1 1/4 cups cold water, beating after each addition.
Turn into the prepared pans. To weigh the batter, tare the scale with each prepared cake pan and add the batter in equal amounts to both pans.
Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick remains clean when poked in the center. Remove while the cake is still against the side of the pan. (The cake is overdone if it has shrunk from the side of the pan while still in the oven).
Cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack, then turn the cakes out of the pans and cool on the wire racks.
