Crepe Roses with Blood Oranges and Cardamom

If you have studied classical French pastry, people often expect you to make frilly fantastical cakes. I, however, tend to turn my nose up at these fancy-for-the-sake-of-being-fancy confections. Not just because they're not my aesthetic taste, (and they're usually not) but more because I think that food, when executed well, can be stunningly beautiful without three layers of fondant and a marzipan bow. So when it is time to make something that needs a spectacular presentation, (a lovely dessert or decadent breakfast for your valentine perhaps?) I like to create ornamental presentations that work with the particular qualities of the food. Then the ornament is part of the dish, not just extra fluff.

I had a hunch that the pretty, irregular edges of crepes might just make a lovely leaf or petal. And I had also ran across a paper art technique that I thought might be useful in food. Put the two together and you get crepe roses! They look complicated, but they're really not difficult to make. And you won't need lots of special equipment, either. If you have a non-stick or cast iron pan, a squeeze bottle (reused ketchup bottles work well), paper coffee filters and a sharp knife, you're in business. The flavors in this dish were inspired by the classic crepes suzette. But my take is a bit lighter and brighter than its gloriously buttery grandparent. And I threw in some cardamom and orange flower water too, just because they are delicious.

Ingredients:

3 small Blood Oranges

Crepes:
1 egg
3/4 c. flour
1 1/4 c. milk
1 T. butter, melted
1 T sugar
pinch salt
the zest from 1 orange
1/2 t. orange flower water (optional)
1/2 t. vanilla extract

Cardamom Blood Orange Sauce:
2/3 c. blood orange juice
3 cardamom pods
1/4 c. sugar
2 T. Butter

Yield: at least a dozen roses, in this case that will serve two people.

Mix crepe batter: Beat the egg together with the milk, sugar,salt, zest and flavorings. Add the flour a little at a time, whisking vigorously to avoid getting any lumps. Once all of the flour is incorporated, whisk in the melted butter. Cover and refrigerate for a minimum of two hours. Overnight is even better.

Cut oranges into supremes: Cut two blood oranges into supremes. Set aside the supremes and the resulting orange juice. You can do this a day or so ahead of time, just store the orange supremes covered in the refrigerator.

Cook orange juice with spices: Crush cardamom pods and remove the seeds from their shells. Add cardamom seeds along with sugar and orange juice to a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil. Continue boiling until the mixture has lost about half of its volume, it should be slightly thickened and syrupy. Remove from heat. Let cardamom sit in the syrup to infuse while you cook the crepes.

Cook crepes: Place a non-stick or cast iron pan or griddle over medium heat. Lightly coat the surface with butter. Pour about half of your crepe batter into a squeeze bottle. It usually takes a few crepes to make sure that the pan is at the right temperature. Squeeze your crepe batter out in a spiral around the pan. I found it easiest to trace around the outside edge of the pan and then just move up and make a little hook in the center of the circle. You want your crepe line to be about an inch wide, but don't worry about making it perfect. The organic shape of the rose comes from these imperfections.

Remove from pan: Use a thin metal spatula to take a peek at the under surface of the crepe to see if the crepe is browning correctly. Ideally, your crepe should be golden in some parts and still pale in others. When your crepe has cooked through, run your metal spatula all the way around the spiral to loosen it form the pan. I found it easiest to fold the crepe in order to lift it out. Because of the shape there isn't a clear-cut folding plan, just fold things over until you can lift it all with your spatula. Immediately transfer to a round paper coffee filter. Once the crepe has cooled enough to handle, carefully unfold it and return to its spiral shape. Place another coffee filter on top of this crepe, so that you can stack the next one on top. Keep going this way until all the crepes are cooked.


Form roses: Take a spiral off of your stack and set it on a flat work surface. Starting at the outside, roll the spiral up toward the middle. Start rolling rather tightly, but loosen up as you go. When you are satisfied with how the rose looks, turn it over onto it's side and cut a flat place for the rose to sit. You can either place the rose exactly where you want to plate it now, or place it in a deep oven dish lined with parchment paper.

Mix sauce: Strain out the cardamom seeds and return your syrup to a saucepan. Rinse out your squeeze bottle. Reheat the orange syrup until boiling. Remove from the heat and throw in the butter. Whisk vigorously until the butter is incorporated. The mixture should turn slightly opaque. Pour the sauce into your squeeze bottle. You can make the syrup portion of this sauce ahead of time, but once the butter has been whisked in it needs to be kept warm.

Plate: Arrange roses and orange supremes on plates. If you like, you can reheat the crepe roses on the plate just before you serve them. Or you can heat them in the oven and transfer them to their plates. Squeeze sauce over the roses, making sure that some of the sauce gets into the petals.

Sangria Jam

It is tricky trying to throw a fabulous party on a thrifty budget. Sangria stretches your most expensive ingredient (wine), but it does it in a sneaky, deliciously fruity way. Yes, sangria is cheaper than your average glass of wine. But it's also festive, bright and delicious enough to avoid the bad rap that stretching recipes sometimes have. Peak citrus season plus inexpensive red plus a little time in the fridge and voila! Sangria-infused party success.

But then there is a slight problem... what to do with all of that leftover fruit? Sure some of the fruit should be attractively ladled into the punch bowl or pitcher, but there's inevitably a big pile of fruit left over. I might be the kind of person who enjoys eating a boozy piece of fruit or two from the bottom of my glass of sangria. So *ahem* I knew this fruit was still good enough to eat. I threw some of the fruit in the punch bowl, but kept most of it in the fridge in the hopes that I could turn it into something useful.

Turns out, this fruit makes a spectacular jam! Boil the fruit until it breaks down then strain out the peels. Add some sugar, pectin and another quick boil and the jam is done. This jam doesn't need any other flavorings to make it interesting-- the combination of fruit and unexpected spicy notes from the wine make this jam tangy, bright and rather addictive. Now you can have your sangria and eat it too.


Sangria

3 bottles of red wine
1/2 c. brandy (optional)
2 lemons
2 oranges
2 apples
1 lime
half of a pineapple (optional)
1/3 c. sugar (adjust to taste)
soda water (optional)

Slice Fruit: Wash all of the fruit thoroughly. Use a vegetable peeler to cut thin strips of peel off one of the lemons. Set these aside in a damp paper towel for garnish. Squeeze the juice of that lemon into your bowl. Slice the rest of the fruit into 1/4" thick slices, leaving the skin on everything except the pineapple. Pour in all of the wine and brandy. Add sugar to taste (start with less than 1/3 c.)

Infuse: Cover your sangria and leave the mixture to infuse in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, up to one day in advance.

Serve: Use a ladle to transfer the sangria to a pitcher or punch bowl. Throw in a ladle or two of fruit, but keep the rest of the fruit for jam. Serve with a lemon peel garnish and a splash of soda water.




Sangria Jam

6 c. leftover sangria fruit
8 c. water
2/3 - 1 c. sugar
1 t. pectin (low sugar type)*
2 t. calcium water (comes with this type of pectin)
Yield: 2 1/4 c. jam

Boil Fruit: Add water to the fruit and bring to a full boil. Boil, partly covered, for 45 minutes, or until the apples and citrus fruits have completely broken down.

Strain off waste: Pour hot liquid through a strainer. Press gently to extract all of the liquid that you can. Discard the fruit pulp (or reserve for compost). Measure the resulting liquid. You want to have 2 c. If you have more liquid, return the liquid to the stovetop and boil until it is concentrated down to 2 c. If you have too little liquid, add water so that your total volume equals two cups.



Cook/Activate pectin: Rinse any remaining fruit pulp out of your stock pot. Mix pectin together with sugar. Add strained fruit puree and calcium water. Bring to a simmer and cook, covered for ten minutes.


Store: Pour into clean jar. Refrigerate.** Keeps several weeks in the refrigerator.


* Pectin is a naturally occurring gelling agent. With just the right conditions (the right concentration of acid and sugar) pectin will gel perfectly. Unfortunately, the right amount of sugar for gelling might not be the same as the right amount of sugar to produce the best taste. If you can get your hands on a low-sugar pectin (such as pomona's), you can bypass this whole problem. This type of pectin, in combination with a calcium salt solution, will gel with much less sugar.

**Since this recipe makes just one jar, I'm giving the easy instructions for making jam, so this jam is not ready to be stored out at room temperature. You certainly could sterilize everything and process it, but personally, I wouldn't go to that trouble for just one jar. And I'm pretty sure you'll want to eat this right away anyhow.

How to Poach An Egg

Poached eggs are a revelation when they're done right, aren't they? (The gorgeous running yolks! The tender whites!) And they seem like they should be a no-brainer -- what protein is more basic, affordable and universally loved than eggs? And what cooking method is easier than boiling? But when things go wrong in the kitchen you can wind up with a heaving pot full of gray foam and not an edible egg in sight. Sadly, there is no one easy fix. But I have battled the quandaries of untidy whites and overcooked yolks, and I think I can offer some salient advice.

First, a disclaimer. There are two schools of thought when it comes to poaching eggs: mold them (to keep them neat, if a little rigid looking) or don't mold them (they look more natural, but it's easier to mess up). Personally, I do not condone the use of molds, not only for aesthetic reasons ( I like the magic of the round poached egg) but also because I kind of think that molds are cheating. Maybe cheating isn't the right word, but I think this method is really more like cottling an egg (which is an equally delicious way to cook an egg, but why would you cottle without adding garlic and/or truffles?) Okay, there! I've said my piece on the matter, but if you want to buy a mold and find that it helps you out, by all means go ahead, but bear in mind the following instructions are geared toward the unmolded poaching school.


Ingredients:
Eggs (the fresher the better!)
2 qts water
2 T salt
2 T white vinegar

Tools:
2-3 qt. saucepan
large slotted spoon
a small bowl (around 1/3 c. capacity is perfect)
kitchen timer
large bowl filled with ice water for ice bath

Assemble you tools: Make sure all of your utensils are within easy reach from the stove.

Prepare your boiling solution: Both salt and vinegar make eggs firm up more quickly. Use a Tablespoon each of salt and white vinegar for every quart of cooking liquid*. If you are poaching just one egg at a time then you should bring no less than 2 quarts of water to a full boil. If you use too little cooking liquid then your egg will cool down the pot too much, spread out over the bottom of the pot and look like a sad, soggy fried egg.

Boil water: Bring the pot to a full boil. In order to have the liquid at the right temperature I like to bring it first to a full boil, then take the pot off the heat and add the egg. This way you know your water is hot enough (it's easy to think that your water is about to boil, when it is not really there yet). While you are waiting for your water to come to a boil, prepare your ice bath. And don't skimp on the ice, use at least a full tray of cubes, then pour in enough water to cover them.





Drop eggs into liquid: Once your water is at the right temperature (just off boiling) you're ready for the vortex! Crack your first egg into a small bowl. Take your wooden spoon and stir in one motion around the outside of your pot. This will create a little whirlpool. The vortex action will help to keep the whites in a round, compact eggy sort of shape. It doesn't need to be whipping around, just a gentle circular current will do the trick. In one steady motion pour the egg straight into the center of the vortex. Now this takes a lot of time to explain, but really it should happen very quickly, like: Crack. Stir the pot. Into the vortex. Done.

Time cooking: Set a timer for three minutes. Do not walk away from the pot. You want to keep the temperature at a simmer (small bubbles rising) but not at a full boil. So fuss with the heat if you need to, but keep it right there. After three minutes, scoop out your egg with the slotted spoon and immediately transfer it to the ice bath. If you have more eggs to poach, turn up the heat and bring the pot back to a full boil to start the next egg.

Reheat before serving: Because nothing (apparently) can be simple here: there are two ways to reheat the chilled poached eggs for serving. Now, I'm on the verge of a rant about modern poultry raising techniques and the silly standards of the FDA, but you just want to know how to poach an egg, not hear all of that so I'll try to restrain myself. In brief, there is one ultra safe method (that requires a thermometer and a little more time) and another method that just about everyone uses, but still carries some risk of salmonella being present. If you get your eggs from a really good source, then the ultra-safe method is probably a bit cautious. Still, if you're cooking for grandmothers, little kiddos or anyone else with a weaker immune system, I'd pick the safe method.

The ultra-safe reheating method: Pour off some of your boiling water and add cold water until the water is exactly 150 F. Then add the eggs that you want to reheat and keep them at 150 F (reheating on the stove, if necessary) for a full 15 minutes. This heat is high enough to kill any salmonella, but will still leave you with runny yolks.

The easy reheating method: Plunge the egg into hot water (just off of boiling) for about 30 seconds and then serve.


*It is worth noting, that you do not have to poach eggs in water. Wine, broth and butter are all (I'm told) good for poaching. But I'm cheap, and so I can't really see buying even a cheap bottle of wine just to pollute with shards of cooked egg white. I'd rather make a wine reduction sauce to serve the egg with.

Black Cake

Ultimately there are only a few ways to save money in your food budget-- eat lots of cheaper foods, eat less expensive foods, don't waste valuable trimmings, make things yourself. Usually my posts fall into the eat cheap foods and DIY categories. But were still in the thick of celebrating the new year, and even with a thrifty food budget, I think there is place for a little decadence. Expensive, rich ingredients feel even more precious when they are eaten sparingly, and with great relish. And for my money, nothing says wintry decadence like dried fruits and nuts soaked in rum. And don't worry if you normally hate fruitcake; unless you grew up in the Caribbean, this is not your grandma's fruitcake. Admittedly I am a teensy bit obsessed with regional variations on fruitcake (and there are so many interesting cakes out there). But even in a field of many wonderful winter fruitcakes, this one is truly unique.

Enter black cake, the amazingly delicious fruitcake of the Caribbean. Black cake is a descendant of the English Christmas pudding which has been infused with Caribbean ingredients, tastes and a certain tropical joie de vivre. I knew that I was going to love this cake before I had tasted it, and not just because of the raves about black cake's mellow-yet-wildly-fruity taste. The techniques and ingredients were interesting and unique enough to push all of my pastry geek buttons. The backbone of black cake is the fruit. Rather than the garish preserved fruits typical of American fruitcake, black cake highlights the unheralded dark dried fruits: dried prunes, currants and raisins. Then sugar (a local ingredient for Caribbean bakers) is untilized in many forms: brown sugar, white sugar cooked to a dark caramel, and finally fermented sugar, or rum, is used to soak the fruit before baking, and the whole cake afterward. The cake bakes at a very low temperature for a long time, which is typical of the English Christmas pudding, and also helps to gently bake all of that dried fruit. Afterward the whole thing is doused in a mixture of rum, brandy and sherry. In the thrifty spirit of using what you have on hand, I think it's fine to use a mix of whatever appropriate dried fruit and liquors that you have.

I adapted this recipe from one given to me by the lovely folks at Uncommon Caribbean. I futzed with the technique a little bit, scaled it down and made a few substitutions for ingredients that might be hard to find in an American grocery store. And I couldn't resist adding the Caribbean specialty, angostura bitters, that some recipes call for. Enjoy, and happy new year!

Yield: (2) 9 1/2" X 4" loaves

Ingredients:

4 c. dark-colored dried fruit (prunes, raisins, sweet cherries and currants)
1 1/3 c. dried sour cherries
1/3 c. candied orange peel
1/3 c. almonds
1 c. dark rum

1/3 c. sugar
1/4 c. water

1 c. butter (2 sticks)
1 c. dark brown sugar
the zest from 2 limes
1 t. Angostura bitters
1/2 t. salt
5 eggs
2 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. cinnamon

1 c. combined rum, sherry and brandy

Soak fruit.

Measure out all of your dried fruit and nuts. Place all of the dried fruit and rum into a sturdy, sealable plastic bag. Try to squeeze out as much air as possible so that the fruit is submerged in rum. Leave out at room temperature for at least two days. Potentially, you could soak your fruit months before baking.

Homemade Pumpkin Taffy

Happy Halloween, everyone! Now let's all make our own candy! Homemade candy can be a fun, interactive alternative to the ubiquitous processed, artificial sweets. While most candy making is not particularly kid-friendly (think dangerous, boiling sugars and the most impossibly messy ingredient of all: melted chocolate). Taffy is a happy exception. Once the tricky boiling part of the equation is over, pulling the taffy is fun and kind of mesmerizing. What starts out as a lump of dark, but clear sugar slowly turns to a shiny, almost metallic mass before finally arriving at the opaque, soft, chewy substance we recognize as taffy.

I wanted this recipe to both taste fantastic and to use natural ingredients for flavoring and coloring. I'll be honest: it took more than a little experimenting to hash out a recipe that lived up to the challenge, but I finally arrived at one I feel great about sharing. Carrot juice provides bright orange color and an earthy-sweet base for the flavor, cinnamon and molasses fill out the flavor to make it convincingly pumpkiny and honey keeps the whole mass soft and pliable. A huge thanks to Jes (photographer extraordinaire) for the title pictures. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
1/2 c. honey (light flavored honey like clover or wildflower)
2/3 c. sugar
1/2 c. carrot juice
2 cinnamon sticks
2 t. molasses
1 T. butter
1/2 t. corn starch

candy making equipment:
candy thermometer
parchment paper or silicone cooking mat
wax paper or cellophane for wrapping candies



Calibrate Your Thermometer: I realize that starting out a recipe with "calibrate your thermometer" may not be the best way to convince you that home candymaking can be accessible. But it can, really! The trick to getting soft, chewy taffy is stopping the cooking at exactly the right temperature, and it is very difficult to know what that temperature is without an accurate thermometer. And, trust me, the extra time you spend calibrating is worth it to avoid the disappointment of a brittle or impossible sticky mass of sugar. So here's how to do it. Place your thermometer in a pot of water and bring it to a boil. When the water is boiling check and see what temperature your thermometer is reading. If you are at sea level your water will boil at 212 F. If you are at a higher altitude, the boiling temperature will be 2 degrees lower for every 1000 feet of elevation. So if I were cooking at my parents house (at a 5500 ft. elevation) my water would boil at 201 F. Make sure that your thermometer is reading an accurate boiling temperature for your altitude. Adjust the thermometer if necessary. If you can't adjust your thermometer and the temperature reading is off, make a note of how many degrees your thermometer is off and adjust the final cooking temperature accordingly.

Cook Sugars: First set aside a sheet pan with a large piece of parchment paper or silicone mat lining it. Put all ingredients in a 2 qt saucepan and place over high heat. You can stir the mixture a few times to dissolve all of the ingredients, but stop stirring once it has come to a boil. The mixture will bubble up quite vigorously. Do not walk away from the stove. I know that the mixture will seem to heat very slowly, and it is normal for the sugar to hover just below the "thread" stage on your thermometer for a long time. But then when it starts to heat up, it goes very quickly and it is essential that you stop cooking immediately. You want to stop cooking right at 245 F (right between soft and firm balls on most candy thermometers). When your sugar finally reaches the correct temperature, pour it in a thin stream onto your parchment or silicone sheet. Pouring slowly helps cool the sugar down and the cooled sugar is not as runny and so you can pour it all onto your sheet without making a mess. Remove and discard the cinnamon sticks.

Cool: Leave candy to cool for about 30 minutes. This should bring the candy down almost to room temperature. * Now is the moment of truth. If you have cooked the candy to the proper temperature it will be soft, but firm enough to handle (though it will be very sticky). If you cooked it too long it will be very firm and possibly even impossible to pull. Now you see why I bother with calibrating the thermometer, right? At this point if your candy is in one of these two categories, you can have a do over. Scrape the candy back into a clean saucepan and add a half cup of water. Bring the whole thing to a boil and stir to dissolve the candy. Once all of the sugar is boiling you will cook the candy as before, making whatever adjustments you need to to get the proper consistency.

Pull: Now you're ready for the fun part! Wash and thoroughly dry your hands. Take a dab of oil or butter and rub it into your hands (just a teeny bit, though). If you have several people pulling the taffy, divide it into the right amount of pieces. Stretch the taffy into long cords and then fold over into halves. Keep pulling the taffy as is cools until it is opaque, light in color and has become difficult to pull (About 15 minutes). It will be very sticky.


Shape: Roll or stretch the taffy into a 1/2" thick rope. Use lightly oiled kitchen scissors to snip the rope into 1" pieces.

Wrap & Store: While the taffy is still soft, wrap each piece in 3"x 2 1/2" wax paper or cellophane rectangles. Taffy keeps best in dry environments. It will keep for quite a while well covered. I suggest wrapping each piece tightly (with as little air as possible) and storing wrapped candies in an airtight container.

*You can prepare this portion of the recipe ahead of time. When sugar mixture has cooled, use the parchment sheet to fold it over into a compact square. Wrap tightly in plastic. You may need to heat up the taffy before you can pull it. Reheat very slowly in a low (200 F) oven or on defrost in the microwave. Check frequently and mix the mass together until it is evenly heated and pliable.

Savory Lentils & Greens

I didn't mean for this dish to be so good. I was really just looking for something serviceable as a vehicle to explain how to cook lentils. But it turned out to be so easy and delicious, I might just be making it all the time. Is two nights in a row too much?

I have organized the instructions to make this as quick of a recipe to prepare as possible. Just to show that cooking dried beans doesn't always require tons of foresight and careful planning. The flavors are very Italian, inspired by the traditional lentil and escarole soups of Italy. But this dish is even simpler, and apart from the greens, you might find everything to make it already in your pantry and fridge.


Yield: 3-4 large servings(as a main course), 5-6 small portions (as a side)

Ingredients:
2 c. lentils, rinsed.
1/2 t. salt
2 1/2 - 3 c. vegetable broth or water
2 T oil, butter or bacon fat
1 small onion
2-3 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
The juice of 1 lemon
1/2 c. grated pecorino or parmesan cheese
two handfuls of greens (escarole, kale, mustard greens, spinach)
olive oil
freshly ground black pepper


Quick-soak lentils: Bring the water or broth to a boil. Rinse the lentils and discard any off-color or strange looking beans (they can have nasty pieces of grit in them). Toss the lentils into the hot liquid and add the salt. Set aside. I know, I know, lentils don't have to be soaked, but since I'm trying to make this dish really quick to prepare, the quick soak in salted water (remember salt helps preserve their shape) will reduce the cooking time. So why not soak while you peel and cut your onions?

Prepare Onion and Garlic: Dice onion and mince Garlic. Place your Butter or oil in a saucepan or skillet over medium high heat. Add onions and saute until translucent. Reduce heat to medium and add garlic. Cook for about a minute until garlic is fragrant, but not browned.

Cook Lentils: Throw the soaked lentils, the garlic and onion and the bay leaf into a saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to maintain a low simmer. Cover and set your timer for 20 minutes. Stir the lentils at least once during cooking and add a little water if necessary so that the lentils stay submerged. After 20 minutes check the lentils often for doneness (they can quickly go from under to overdone). When lentils are tender remove from the heat.

Add Greens and Season: While lentils are cooking wash and coarsely chop your greens. Grate cheese. When lentils are done, throw in greens and stir to combine, allowing the heat from the lentils to cook the greens. Add lemon juice and about a third of the grated cheese. Stir to combine. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Serve: Ladle into bowls , sprinkle liberally with grated cheese and finish with a drizzle of olive oil and some black pepper.

Oatmeal Sanwich Bread

To be perfectly honest, I am really more of an artisanal bread person. I swoon over a chewy yet crisp ciabatta, or a thick slice from a rustic boule. But I'm no bread elitist. I am not blind to the pleasures of American-style sandwich bread. It's soft, moist even crumb is perfect for toasting, and the delicate, yielding texture is ideal for sandwiches (especially those spreadable classics of childhood-- peanut butter, banana, jelly, nutella, honey). And from the occasional baker's perspective, sandwich bread is a great, relatively low-hassle project. It really doesn't need a starter, or a lot of specialized breadmaker's equipment, and the loaves are done in a few hours.

So sandwich bread is cheap enough, right? Why go to the trouble of making your own? I can offer a few reasons: first and foremost is quality. I think this bread is much tastier than the bland grocery store loaves. The second is control of your ingredients-- If you like to use organic ingredients, or want to have a lot of whole grains in your daily intake and don't want the preservatives that come in grocery store loaves, you will do much better to make your own. I used oats as a main ingredient-- I love the soft texture and wholesome oatiness that they give this loaf. I've also added a sponge to the more typical sandwich bread procedure which helps give the bread a more nuanced flavor. (If you're a breadmaking novice, don't worry-- a sponge is just mixing some of the ingredients into a batter and letting it sit out for a while, easy!)

Yield: 2 Loaves (14-16 slices each)

Sponge:
1 1/2 c. water (at room temperature)
1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 T. + 1 t. yeast (do not use instant or fast acting yeast)
1 T. barley malt

Dough:
2 1/2 c. oats
6T. butter
1 1/2 c. boiling water
3/4 c. milk, buttermilk or whey*
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 1/2 t. salt
5c. bread flour
1c. whole wheat flour

Prepare Loaf Pan: Lightly butter two 9" loaf pans and set aside.

Prepare Sponge: Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, making sure that the barley malt has dissolved. Take your butter out of the fridge so that it will be at room temperature by the time you need to mix your dough.

Ferment Sponge: Cover bowl with plastic wrap and leave to ferment at room temperature for one hour. After an hour the sponge should have roughly doubled in size and have lots of bubbles at the surface.

Mix Dough: Bring the 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil. Meanwhile measure your oats and butter into a bowl (or the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook if you are lucky enough to have one). Pour boiling water over the oats and leave them to stand for five minutes. Add the milk or whey and stir (you want to make sure to cool the mixture down before you add the yeast). Add the sponge, brown sugar and salt. Mix. Add the flours all at once and stir until the dough comes together.

Knead Dough: If you are using a stand mixer begin mixing at low speed until the dough comes together. Increase the speed to medium and leave the dough to knead for 8-10 minutes. The dough should pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl. To knead by hand: work dough on a clean surface for 8-10 minutes. The dough should be smooth (apart from the oats) and springy. Try to avoid kneading a lot of extra flour into the dough when kneading on your counter. If the dough is sticking to the counter (it will, at first), use a scraper to gather stray scraps of dough back together. Then lightly dust the surface with flour. After a few minutes the dough should begin to hold together by itself and clean the counter as you knead.

Shape loaves: Divide the dough into two equal portions. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 10 minutes. Stretch and press each piece of dough into a 9"x9" square. Firmly roll the square up into a thick log and pinch the end of the dough to hold the roll together. Place loaves seam side down into the loaf pans. At this point you can brush the top of the loaves with a beaten egg and sprinkle with rolled oats for a completely optional but pretty oat crust.

Proof: Cover loaves loosely so they don't dry out while they rise. I keep a couple of plastic shopping bags for this purpose, just put the whole loaf inside the bag and tuck the handles of the bag under the loaf pan. Leave the loaves out (preferably at a comfortable room temperature) to proof for 1-2 hours until they have puffed up to just fill the loaf pan. When you press one finger gently on the loaf it should feel spongy and leave a depression that slowly springs back into shape.

Bake: Pop the loaves into a 475F oven. Set a timer for 10 minutes and then decrease the temperature to 425F. Bake for an additional 30-40 minutes, rotating the loaves once. Loaves are fully cooked when the crusts are deep brown and make a hollow sound when you tap on them. Place the loaves on a rack to cool.

Store: This bread is at its best when it is fresh. Cut off whatever you think you will use in two days and wrap loosely. Slice the rest of the loaf, wrap well and freeze. When you warm or toast the bread straight from the freezer it will taste like you just baked it.

*If you are addicted to strained yogurt, or have taken up the questionable habit of cheesemaking (future post, I promise!) then you have a lot of extra whey. Whey is great in bread, and it is a fantastic example of how to recover some goodness and nutrition and put it to good use in another dish.

Blood Orange Marmalade

Marmalade is much easier to make than most people presume (particularly made in small batches like this one). There are plenty of recipes dedicated to making jams and jellies with low sugar content. This is not one of those recipes. Marmalade is traditionally a sugar preserve -- so I make no apologies about the sugar content of this recipe. This is a very elemental, traditional use of the naturally occurring pectin present in citrus to turn it into a delicious preserve. That's right: no powdery packets of pectin, no guessing about whether the acid and sugar content will be just right to make the pectin gel. With fruit, sugar and a little time you can make an irresistible marmalade. You can swap out other citrus fruit for the blood oranges to vary the recipe. (Meyer lemons are intoxicating.) It is fantastic swirled into plain yogurt-- a much cheaper alternative to individual flavored yogurts.

My instructions call for just a sharp knife, but if you happen to have a juicer, then by all means use it. Just be sure to grate the peel before juicing. I use a coarse grater to grate my peel -- I love biting into a robust strip of peel. If you prefer a more delicate texture, then you can use a zester.



3 Blood Oranges
3 Lemons
2 c. Sugar
Pinch of salt

Yield: 2 c marmalade

Grate Peel: Using a coarse grater, grate the outer layer of the peel from all of the oranges and lemons. Set Aside.

Cut Fruit: Using a very sharp knife, cut off the top and bottom of each orange and lemon. Set the fruit upright (on the flat surface that you just cut). To remove the rest of the the outer skin and pith, cut strips of the skin away from the fruit, following the curve of the fruit. So start with one strip cut top to bottom. Then follow right behind cutting the peel away in 1/2" strips, until you have worked your way around the entire fruit. Discard the trimmings of pith and skin. Slice the skinned fruit into 1/2" thick rounds.

Cook Fruit: Place the cut fruit and sugar in a large stainless steel stockpot. Place the pot over high heat and stir. Stir vigorously to break up the fruit. At this point you really only care about breaking up the fruit. When the fruit is thoroughly mushy, turn off the heat and pour the fruit and sugar mixture through a sieve. (If you are juicing the fruit, you can skip this step and go straight to cooking the marmalade)

Cook Marmalade: Add the reserved peel to the fruit and juice mixture and pour back into your stock pot. Place over high heat. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally. Once the mixture is boiling, turn the heat down to medium/low. At this point you are essentially waiting for liquid to evaporate. You will need to stir the marmalade frequently to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pan. The mixture will begin to thicken after several minutes of boiling. To test the consistency of the marmalade, drip a little bit off of your spoon onto a cold, ceramic plate. The ceramic will cool down the test very quickly and you will be able to see what texture your marmalade is. Remember that the pectin will continue to firm up for a day or two in the fridge, so you should stop cooking your marmalade while it is still a little runnier than you want the finished marmalade to be.

Store: In the refrigerator for several months. Of course you can sterilize and seal this recipe in jars too, but stored in the refrigerator there is no need for these additional steps.

Potato Skin Crisps

As I have mentioned before, potato skins can be put to good use in making a flavorful batch of broth. But they are also quite tasty cooked all by themselves. Recently I made a huge batch of sunchoke soup (incidentally if you ever have the better part of an afternoon to kill and feel like you need a good, tedious task to calm your nerves, I'd recommend peeling sunchokes. It is one of those interminable, manual cooking tasks -- right up there with skinning chestnuts and cracking almonds. ) In the end I had a wonderful sunchoke soup, and a big pile of peels. So I figured that it was high time for me to figure out the nuances of crisp potato skins (or sunchoke skins, really any root vegetable, but I think that sweet potatoes might be too fibrous to be terribly palatable).

Salted and cooked to a delicate crisp, potato skins are an intoxicating blend of earthy and ethereal. They taste, well, a little bit like dirt -- but the most delicious, wholesome, addictive dirt that you can imagine. Think of them as the strange looking, interesting uncle of the potato chip. You can eat them as an appetizer or snack, or sprinkle them on top of any dish that you'd like to add a little crunch to.

While the procedure is simple enough, I spent a surprisingly long time fussing with it to get these to come out just right. A lot of recipes call for a high cooking temperature and just scattering butter over the skins. This procedure gave me a half batch of charcoal crisps and some undercooked, lackluster skins. I found that a quick saute in butter evenly distributes the butter over the skins. Then cooking at a medium temperature for a longer time gets all of the skins crisp, without burning. If you know you want to make a batch of crisps, you can reserve your peels in a bag in the freezer until you have enough. Take a little more care and cut your skins into long, even strips (about 3"), and they will be the perfect size to serve as an appetizer. Smaller, uneven crisps (like my sunchokes) can be used as an accent to another dish.

Yield: 2-3 servings

3/4 c. Potato Skins (or similar)
1 T. Butter
salt
pepper

Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Saute Skins: Melt the butter. Toss in your skins. If you are using previously frozen skins, make sure to let any excess water that the peels have released steam off at this point. Cook for 1-2 minutes on medium heat, stirring. The skins should be evenly coated with butter and steaming.

Bake: Let the skins cool for a few minutes. Spread them out onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Make sure that you are separating them into one layer. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 15 minutes. Stir the skins, (just to rearrange them on the sheet). Bake for an additional 10-15 minutes until all of the skins are crisp. You won't see them brown very much because of the darker color of the skin. You can snap one or two to test for crispness, remembering that they will continue to crisp as they cool.

Store: Store cooled crisps in an airtight container for up to a week (but I don't think they'll last that long..)

Whole Wheat Crackers

I enjoy all of the little-- shall we say-- particularities of working with pastry doughs. They must be carefully handled. (As one of my dear pastry instructors would say "like children: gentle, but firm.") They must rest, chilled, for the appropriate amount of time, allowing the gluten to relax. Then they must be cut and shaped precisely. Yes, I find all of this terribly endearing, but I also realize that it is not everyone's thing. Especially for something as everyday as crackers. So I wanted to make a recipe for crackers that you could make quickly and easily-- and avoid a lot of those typical, finicky demands of pastry dough. I had a hunch that a technique I have seen used to make tender cakes and pie doughs might work for crackers. And to my great surprise, my first attempt came out stellar: crunchy, wholesome and best of all a very easy, forgiving dough to work with. If you bake them in large sheets and break the crackers into shards you even avoid fussy shaping and trimming. And to my eye, the organic cracker shard-shapes have much more character than squares and triangles. So there you have it: there are no reasons left to not make your own crackers. They will be a fraction of the cost of the packaged supermarket crackers and miles apart in taste.


Yield: Three large sheet trays of crackers

10T. Butter (1 1/2 sticks, preferably at room temperature)
2c. All Purpose Flour
1/2t. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 1/3 c. Whole Wheat Flour
1/3c. Wheat Germ
1T. Barley Malt (typically found near molasses in most health food stores and well-stocked groceries)
2/3 c. Water
Salt, Sugar, Sesame Seeds, Poppy Seeds, Fennel or Rosemary to sprinkle on top.


Mix Flour and Butter: This is the "weird" technique which is likely to go against everything else that you've learned about pastry, but trust me, it works like a charm. This is also the step that gives the dough its unique texture (kind of like play-dough, actually) and allows for it to be rolled out right away.* It is nearly impossible to overmix this dough, so there is no need to be delicate with your mixing and rolling. So, getting down to business... first mix together your all purpose flour, salt and baking powder. Place the flour mixture and room temperature butter in the bowl of a stand mixer** and mix on low for a few minutes until the butter is completely incorporated into the flour. It should look like a moist, homogeneous yellow powder-- think of the texture of slightly damp, clumping sand. As I said, you can't really overmix here.

Mix in Remaining Dry Ingredients: Add whole wheat flour and wheat germ. Mix until thoroughly incorporated.

Mix in Liquids: Dissolve malt in water. Mix liquids into dry ingredients until the dough comes together.

Roll Dough: Divide dough into three portions. Shape each portion into a rectangle .On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out until it is uniformly thin-- your dough should probably be about as big as your sheet tray. In fact you should take note of the size of your sheet tray, and make sure that you are rolling your dough into a shape that will fit easily on it. You ought to be able to see the color of your countertop through the dough. As you are rolling, take a good look and note that you are rolling the center out as thinly as the edges--it is easy to have thin edges and a thick center. This is exactly what you don't want for even baking. The edges warm up before the center in the oven, so if you have thin edges they will overcook before the center is done.

Dock: Use a fork to prick the dough at even intervals. Brush the dough liberally with water and sprinkle with salt and sugar (or other seeds and spices if you want different varieties of cracker)

Bake: Place your sheets of cracker into a 315 F oven, bake for 15-20 minutes, rotating the sheets once during baking. The crackers are done when the edges are just barely beginning to brown, the center will still be puffy and soft, but don't worry. These crackers develop their crunch as they cool. (In this case, I would err on the side of underbaking-- overcooked crackers get an unpleasantly bitter edge.) Let the crackers cool on the sheet tray.

Store: In an airtight container for up to two weeks. The dough can be made ahead of time, tightly wrapped and stored in the refrigerator for a week or in the freezer for up to a month.

* The reason this technique works is that mixing fat first with flour inhibits gluten development. All of the "normal" rules of pastry dough-- letting doughs rest, not overmixing-- work to control gluten development. When you inhibit gluten development from the beginning you are truly working with a different beast.

**If you don't have a stand mixer, you can mix the butter in by hand. Make sure that your butter is softened, and use your hand to break up clumps and incorporate the butter into the flour. Continue mixing until all of the butter has disappeared into the flour, and the mixture is uniformly yellow.

Warm Cabbage and Apple Slaw

The luster of holiday cooking has worn away and the monotony of winter vegetables is starting to sink in. I thought that it seemed time to post another quick, tasty cabbage dish. This one is served warm, which seems apropos given the mind numbing (okay, everything-numbing) cold snap right now . This slaw is so easy to make it almost seems silly to give instructions for preparation-- you just cut things up and then warm them for a few minutes in a saucepan. The cabbage is added last, and not cooked completely through, so you still get a peppy little crunch and bite. It is a great side dish to pair with a hearty main course.

1/2 small head of cabbage cut into 1/4" strips
1 small onion, diced
one apple, diced
a handful of raisins
a pinch of ground allspice
a pinch of ground cloves
apple cider vinegar
olive oil
salt

Yield: 4 servings

Cook Onion: Heat a tablespoon or so of oil in a saucepan. Add onion, reduce heat to low. Cook until the onion begins to turn translucent. Add the allspice, cloves and raisins and apples. Bring the heat up to medium. Cook for a few minutes-- stirring-- until the apples begin to soften.

Cook Cabbage: Add the cabbage all at once. Cook for a few minutes-- stirring frequently. The cabbage should be fully cooked in the floppy, leafy parts of the strips and undercooked in the thicker centers.

Season: Add vinegar, salt and olive oil to taste. Serve warm or tepid. (Leftovers keep well refrigerated.)

Homemade Vanilla Extract

6 whole Whole Vanilla Beans for every
1 c. Liquor (rum, vodka, brandy even tequila)

Select Vanilla Beans: If you read the "ingredients" section in any book with a pastry chef's name on the front, you will likely find a discussion of that chef's preferred vanilla bean, complete with a discussion of its unique and superior qualities. Now let me first state that there is a marked difference between vanilla beans from different regions... but for the home cook, the much larger problem is not "Which of many equally high quality beans should I buy?"-- rather more "Where can I get a decent quality vanilla that will cost less than an introductory life insurance policy?" Many stores carry vanilla beans, but it is often a specialty item that doesn't move quickly-- consequently I've seen a lot of old, dried vanilla on store shelves. The most basic marker of quality is moisture: a good bean should be supple-- yielding just a bit to pressure. An old bean will be dry and brittle. My advice is to check your local providers for cost and freshness-- if none of them look good you might do better to order from an online supplier. If you are lucky enough to have more than one good bean option, I would chose a Madagascar bean for extract. Tahitian vanilla beans (which had at least a moment of being the trendy ingredient-du-jour a few years back) are not, in my mind, ideally suited for extract.


Select a Liquor: Most of the flavor in the extract comes from the vanilla, but you can alter the flavor by using different liquors. Rather obviously, the strength of your extract is affected by the proportion of beans to liquor and the length of time that the beans steep. Less obvious is that the higher proof liquor you use, the more concentrated extract you will achieve. I don't think that it is worth it to go out of your way to find the perfect liquor-- I'd just use whatever you have chaply available. Even if you select a very inexpensive vodka, you can still make a good quality extract.

Steep: Just cover the beans and liquor tightly, store away from light and heat and wait 2 months. At the end of steeping you can remove the vanilla bean and squeeze out the seeds (use in ice cream, custard, or to poach fruit). Then dry out the pod and use to make vanilla powder or sugar.

Store: Stored away from light and heat vanilla extract will keep indefinitely.

Cook/Bake: Now that the tasty compounds that make vanilla taste like vanilla have seeped out into your extract, they are a bit volatile. To get the most flavor from your extract add it at the end of cooking to hot dishes (such as fruit compotes of custards). If you are baking with the extract then cream the extract together with the butter. The fat magically* stabilizes the vanilla flavor and allows it to persevere even after being subjugated to the traumas of baking.


*Okay, not really magic. The volatile aromatic compounds are more soluble in fat than water, so they seep out into the fat before baking. Then they stay there (in the fat in your cookies and cakes) rather than evaporating in a puff of perfumed steam.

Candied Citrus Peel

I first candied citrus peels when I was living in Florence. In fact, I'm not sure that I had even heard of candied citrus peel before. I was amazed to find out that the pithy, spongy white part of the rind could be miraculously transformed into something far better than edible.... I would even say delicious. Do not be put off if you have made the mistake of buying some sticky, mute candied citron and swore that you would never, never again give your support to such an assault on fruit. Citrus peels candied at home are indescribably better. Even candied, the zesty peels have enough kick to pack a serious citrusy bite. Most American pastry chefs seem to like to candy just the zest, but I'm a sucker for the thick slabs of peel cut into chunky little strips.

I wanted to get this post up before Christmas, as candied peels can make a laudable addition to many Christmas goodies. (While in Florence I fell head over heels for Panforte and Panettone-- both traditional Italian Christmas treats- and have made them every Christmas since. Though I am still searching for a recipe for a fabulous christmas cookie I stumbled across--a butter cookie with candied orange peel, hazelnuts, and coriander. Mmm.) You can use candied citrus peel in anything that uses dried fruit-- cake, cookies, muffins, breads. Save your citrus peels in a bag in the freezer until you have accumulated enough to make a full batch. Then , with just a little time and sugar, you can turn your leftover lunchbox scraps into one of my favorite confections. If you are feeling particularly hedonistic, candied peels are exquisite dipped in chocolate.


1 part Citrus Peels (any citrus peel except for lime will work)
1 part sugar (measure your complete volume of peels, and use the same amount of sugar)
1/2 part water
optional seasonings*- cinnamon stick, allspice, star anise, coriander, black pepper, vanilla, a slice of fresh pineapple.


Prepare the Peels: If you are saving peels that have been pulled by hand off of the fruit, you don't need to prepare them any further. If you have cut the peels off of the fruit then it is essential that you scrape off any of the fruit membrane that is remaining, you want only the white spongy interior. ( If there is any fruit left, then you will end up with an impossibly hard, leathery piece of peel.)

Blanch: The whole reason that citrus peel is palatable in this preparation is because of blanching. By boiling the peel in water several times, you dilute some of the bitterness in the peel. Put your peels in a saucepan cover with cold water. Cover the pan and bring it to a boil. As soon as the water comes to a boil, remove the pan from the heat and pour off the fragrant, lightly colored water. Once again cover the peels with fresh, cold water and bring to a boil, then pour off the water. Repeat the process once more-- a total of three times. I have seen some recipes specify blanching as many as five times, but I think the amount of just-slightly-bitter tang after three boils is just right, but you can go ahead and blanch a few more times if you want a milder end product.

Candy: Add the sugar to the drained peels. Then add water (half the volume of the sugar and peels) Cover your pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting that will maintain a simmer. Keep your pan covered and simmer for about an hour. Every so often stir the peels and check to make sure that the syrup hasn't cooked down too much (you want the peels to remain submerged in syrup). If needed, add a little bit of water. Take a close look at the peels-- you want them to be translucent all the way through, even at the thickest parts of the peel. When the peels are fully cooked remove them from the heat and allow them to cool in the syrup.

Dry: Line a baking sheet with plastic wrap. Then place a wire rack on top. Spread out the peels to dry. Let sit at least one day. (I find the oven a convenient place to store the drying peels undisturbed)

Store: At this point the peels can be stored as-is, but I prefer to cut them up into strips. Then they are ready to be measured for any purpose which might arise. If your peels are still moist and sticky, you can toss them in a bit of granulated sugar. Candied peels will keep at room temperature for several weeks-- I keep mine in the freezer where they last indefinitely.


*I only add the optional spices if the peel is to be in a starring role-- if it is just going to be mixed in with a bunch of other dried fruit or nuts, then the subtleties of the spice will be lost. But if you are going to have the peel as a centerpiece I highly recommend the combination of vanilla, pineapple and coriander. Your kitchen will smell more delicious than I can articulate.

Cabbage Stem and Fennel Salad

The stem from one small head of cabbage
one small head of fennel
half of an apple or pear
the juice from one lemon
salt
olive oil

Cut Veggies: Using a grater or a Japanese Mandolin, cut the cabbage stem into paper thin slices. Getting really thin sections of cabbage is a must for this application--it helps to avoid that harsh, raw-cabbagey bite. So if you don't have a mandolin, I'd rather just grate the cabbage. Thinly slice or grate the fennel and apple. Reserve the fennel fronds for serving (as in the photo) or for another purpose.

Season: Mix the sliced or grated cabbage with a half teaspoon of salt and let rest for at least ten minutes and up to an hour. Discard any liquid that the stems give up. Mix the apple and fennel together with the sliced cabbage. Season to taste. (Start with a tablespoon of olive oil and the juice from half of a lemon. Add more salt if necessary.)

Store: In the refrigerator up to a week.

Pumpkin Mousse

This is one of those desserts that brings up the question as to what you mean when you say something is "light". The word light seems to have rather different meanings when applied to food. Sometimes light denotes lower in fat (like a salad) and sometimes it means airy in texture (like this mousse!) Often when it comes to desserts, the two meanings of light are at odds with one another-- mostly because cream, butter and egg yolks can be whipped into all sorts of delectable, airy consistencies. If this dessert is not light in the way that a salad is light (it is dessert, remember) it is spectacularly airy, and doesn't sit heavily in your stomach after a heavy meal. And it's easy, too! If you can whip cream and have made the pumpkin butter ahead of time, you can throw this dessert together in about ten minutes.

This is a recipe that fits into the "budget" side of things more as a way to improvise with what you have (I happened to have a bunch of squash and some cream cheese) rather than being composed of particularly cheap ingredients. Still, pumpkin is cheap and cream cheese and cream are not all that expensive. And if you're looking to make a dessert, you'll probably need to invest in some dairy anyhow and this dessert makes good use of a relatively small amount of dairy. The amount of sugar in this recipe is calibrated to my admittedly not-so-sugary palate. If you like things a bit sweeter, then you can either add more sugar to the pumpkin butter when you cook it, or add a liquid sugar (sugar syrup or maple syrup). I mention this because if you try to add granulated sugar at the end of the whole process, it won't incorporate.


1 c. pumpkin ginger butter
1 c. heavy cream
2/3 c. cream cheese
2t. brandy, rum or whiskey (optional)

to serve (optional):
chopped toasted walnuts
maple syrup
candied ginger

Yield: 4-5 servings

Soften the Cream Cheese: You will have an easier time if you allow the cream cheese to come to room temperature first. Using a spatula or wooden spoon, beat the cream cheese until it is softened and free of (almost) all lumps-- any lumps that you leave in at this point will be there to stay.

Incorporate the Pumpkin Butter: Starting with just a few tablespoons, mix the butter into the cream cheese. After you have worked a little butter in the cream cheese will loosen up and mixing will become easier. Continue mixing until all of the pumpkin butter is incorporated and you have a homogeneous mix. (This is the point that you can taste and adjust the sweetening to your liking.) If you are adding a liquor add it now.

Whip the Cream: Whisk very cold cream in a very cold metal bowl until it reaches soft peak. First your cream will start to look thicker and thicker, eventually leaving visible tracks from the whisk in the cream. When you lift the whisk out of the cream, the whisk should hold a little glob of cream. It can droop a little (this is the soft of soft-peak) but it shouldn't pour off the whisk in streams. When whipping cream sometimes just a few strokes can take your cream from soft peak to stiff peak to butter. So you definitely have to watch your cream carefully. I would err on the side of slightly under-whipping my cream rather than over-whipping. If you do ever find yourself having over-whipped cream (not that I would ever commit such a crime-- okay maybe just once or twice) then just continue whipping it until it looks thoroughly buttery and a watery substance is leaking out into the bottom of your bowl. Put the butter in a colander to drain. After it has drained wrap it and use it as you would any other unsalted butter.

Fold Ingredients Together: Begin by delicately folding in a third of the whipped cream into the pumpkin mixture. Once that is incorporated, fold in the remaining cream.

Serve: Scoop the mousse into bowls or, if you want a more fancy restaurant-style presentation, you can put your mousse into plastic wrap lined molds (bowls, muffin tins) and freeze it. Once the mousse is frozen solid, invert the molds and delicately pull off the plastic wrap. Transfer the mousses to dessert plates and let them sit at room temperature for about twenty minutes before serving. Whichever serving method you use, you can top the finished mousses with chopped toasted nuts, candied ginger pieces, a drizzle of maple syrup, or even just a simple topping of freshly ground nutmeg is lovely-- whatever you have on hand that strikes your fancy.

Pumpkin Ginger Butter

I have to give thanks to Ben for the inspiration for this recipe. I had intended to post it just after Halloween, with the idea that decorative pumpkins could be "reused" as... well, food. But, as is often the case, I was a bit ambitious with my posting and it took a bit longer than I had planned. So it has ended up as a Thanksgiving post, which is not entirely inappropriate given the seasonal pumpkin pie frenzy. Whether you are reclaiming decorative holiday squash or just making good use of this eminently affordable winter vegetable, I think that you will be pleased with the result (you might even like it if you are one of those people who doesn't like pumpkin pie!) The butter is not too sweet, and I think that you'll be pleasantly surprised by how delicious pumpkin is with a simpler, less typical spice treatment (just a dose of spicy ginger rather than the typical pie milieu). The jar in the picture is all gone, now. Whatever had escaped use in a mousse found its way onto hot buttered toast for my breakfast. I know I'll be revisiting this recipe in the long months before spring fruits and vegetables will be back.



2 c. squash- really you can use any combination of winter (hard shelled) squash.
2/3 c. lt. brown sugar
2 T. grated fresh ginger
a pinch of salt
1/2 - 1c. water

Yield: 2 cups

Roast Squash: Cut your squash into quarters, or in smaller pieces if necessary to fit it properly in a baking pan. Cover the pan with foil and poke a few holes in it to let the steam escape. Roast squash in a 375 F oven until a paring knife can easily cut through to the center of the flesh (between 30 and 50 minutes depending on the squash). This step can be done ahead of time, you can also cook more squash than you need for the butter at the same time.

Grate Ginger: I like to keep fresh ginger peeled in a plastic bag in the freezer. Frozen ginger is far easier to grate, and it keeps almost indefinitely. Grate your fresh or frozen ginger finely (I use a microplane grater). If you are using frozen ginger be sure to tamp it down when you measure it as frozen ginger had a crystalline airiness that makes it look like you've grated more than you actually have.

Puree: This step is optional, how you choose to approach it will affect the texture of your finished product. If you skip it all together, you will have a more rustic, textured butter with visible chunks of squash fibers. If you puree your squash in a food processor or press it through a fine mesh strainer, you will end up with a smoother texture.

Cook Butter: Place squash puree along with the rest of the ingredients in a saucepan over medium high heat. You want to add enough water to the mix to allow everything to come together and boil, but after that you are really just trying to get rid of the water, so use as little water as possible to bring all of the ingredients together. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium/low and vigilantly stir the butter as it cooks. (Pay special attention to the corners of the saucepan, where puree likes to stick and burn) Continue cooking and stirring your butter until it is thick enough to be mounded and easily scooped up with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat.

Store: in the refrigerator for up to a month, in the freezer if you need to keep it longer.

Serve: Spread onto buttered toast, swirl into oatmeal or pair with a nice, musty cheese on a cheese plate. Or... turn it into an easy, sumptuous mousse... (look for another post later this week).

Roasted Beet Borscht with Dill Pickled Apples

Sometimes I start working on a recipe with one thing in mind, and then get completely sidetracked by some curiousity that had nothing to do with the original concept. With borscht: it was the color. I really, truly had not started this recipe with the intention of making the most garish soup on the planet.... I just found myself in line at the coop with yellow carrots, purple potatoes and, of course, gorgeously, vividly red beets. Once I realized what a root vegetable rainbow I had, I knew I had to do something to highlight it. Leaving some of the roasted veggies out of the puree worked splendidly. I think it might be the prettiest little soup I've ever made. But don't think this soup is all style and no substance; it's mighty tasty too. Borscht can get a bad rap, but I think if you temper the sweetness (the pitfall of many a borscht) with the right amount of salt and tartness you end up with a complex and lively bowlful. As it gets colder and the price of greens and tomatoes starts to climb, it makes a lot of sense to start to rely more on root vegetables and winter squash. And I found this soup to be just the right thing for a cold, rainy autumn evening.


1 pound of beets
1 small onion
2 large carrots
2 small potatoes
1 c. vegetable or chicken stock
2 cloves garlic
the juice of 2 limes
salt
black pepper

yeild: 5 servings

to serve:
1/2 c. creme fraiche or sour cream
sprigs of fresh dill
sour apple dill pickles

Prep the Vegetables: Wrap your unpeeled beets individually in tin foil. Place beets on a sheet tray. Peel carrots, potatoes and onion, reserve scraps for another use. Cut onions and potatoes into quarters. Place the peeled vegetables in a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover the dish with foil and poke a few holes to let some of the steam escape.

Roast the Vegetables: Preheat your oven to 375 F. Roast both trays of vegetables until they are cooked through -- about 45 min-1 hour (test by inserting a paring knife, you should be able to easily stab through to the center, but still feel some resistance). Test beets and the other veggies separately as they may take different amounts of time to cook. Once the beets have cooled you can peel off their thick skins with a paring knife. You can do your veggie roasting up to a few days ahead of time.

Puree the Soup: Reserve one carrot and one potato. Place the remainder of the roasted carrots and potatoes in a blender along with the beets, stock, garlic and lime juice. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Serve: Place the pureed soup in a saucepan and heat. Add water as needed until the soup is the consistency you'd like it. Slice the reserved potato and carrot into small strips (or even chunks will do quite nicely). Slice the pickled apples. Arrange a small pile of carrots, potatoes and pickled apples in the center of each bowl. Pour the hot soup around the veggies. Add a scoop of sour cream and a sprig of dill.



Sour Apple Dill Pickles:

I was reading different borscht recipes and was intrigued by the many accompaniments suggested. One recipe suggested grated apple, many other suggested chopped pickle or fresh dill. I had a hunch that a tart, dill apple pickle might just be a perfect accompaniment to the sweet, earthy beet base. The resulting pickles were indeed a most satisfying addition to my borscht, just what I was searching for. The apples make a very tart pickle and work best in small doses; either as a contrasting flavor to a more mild base or chopped and mixed in as a tart-dilly seasoning. You can certainly make the borscht and not the pickles, either way I think you'll be glad you made it.


2-3 tart/crisp apples such as Granny Smith or Cortland
scant 1/4 c. white wine vinegar
3/4 t. salt
1 1/2 t. sugar
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/4 tsp black peppercorns
a fistful of fresh dill fronds

Yield: 1 12 oz jar

Prepare the Apples: Peel and core the apples. Slice into 1/8” thick pieces.

Prepare the Brine: Bring vinegar, 1/2 c. water, coriander, pepper salt & sugar to a boil. Turn off the heat. Cover the pot and let the brine steep while you ready the apples in the jar.

Pickle: Arrange the apple slices in a 1/2” thick layer. Then cover the layer with a few sprigs of dill. Continue arranging the apples in layers and alternating with dill until all of the apples are used or your jar is full. Place the jar on a dishcloth. (This precaution slows down heat transfer -- you don’t want to have hot and cold spots in a jar, in the worst case the jar can break.) Slowly pour the brine over the apples. If necessary, add enough water to fill the jar.

Store: Refrigerate the pickles for at least one day before serving (they continue to improve in flavor for at least a week). Taste the pickles, if necessary adjust seasoning (too tart: add a teaspoon or two of sugar, not tart enough: add vinegar). Serve as a side or on sandwiches with a strong cheese.

Labne with Slow Cooked Apples and Honey Caramel

I recently realized that after two months of blogging I have somehow have failed to post any recipes for a bona fide dessert (gasp). So I will do my best to remedy the situation before my pastry credentials are wrested away from me. All of the elements of this dish can be made well in advance, and combined and reused for other dishes. I think that they make a particularly delicious combination all together-- lightly sweetened apples with a velvety smooth texture, simple, creamy-tangy labne and a luscious honey caramel sauce (caramel is actually quite easy to make). Mix and match with whatever you have in your kitchen as you see fit. I think that you won't be disappointed. Yes, this recipe does require some of the rich (and more expensive) trappings of dessert, (cream and butter). But in a sauce these expensive ingredients go a long way. And the majority of the dish (apples and yogurt) is quite affordable indeed. And because each of the elements is so versatile, any leftover components will surely not go to waste.



Slow-Baked Apples:

I adapted this recipe from a Pierre Herme recipe-- I am of the opinion that in cooking, almost everything is stolen, and you will do well to pick carefully who you steal from. As far as I'm concerned if you are a patient and particular pastry person, Mr. Herme is the person to steal from (My understanding is that he adapted/stole the recipe from a colonial cookbook.) Pierre's recipe specifies cooking the apples for ten hours at a very low heat, all the while compressed by a weight. Because I have a gas oven which sometimes behaves erratically, I wasn't about to leave it on all night. So I split the cooking into two shorter segments, and left the apples to cook in the remaining heat (a technique which I was familiar with from poaching pears and leaving them in the hot poaching liquid overnight). What you get from all of this fussing with the cooking temperature is a an unparalleled texture. The flavor will not be that different from a baked apple, but the texture is melt-in-your-mouth smooth, entirely avoiding the mealy and mushy texture of overcooked apples. I do feel compelled to say, though, that if all of this sounds like a bit too much, simply sauteed apples would be delicious with this dish as well. But if you're up for a little kitchen experimenting, then this method puts an interesting spin on cooking something as everyday as apples.

Yield: 4-6 servings

Equipment:
two nesting 9x9" baking pans (or some other improvised situation that will allow you to place weight on the contents of one 9x9 baking pan).
a cast iron skillet or dutch oven
parchment paper

Ingredients:
4-5 Apples suitable for baking (I used some very tasty Mutsus, but there are many varieties that cook nicely)
Sugar
3-4 Strips of Orange or Lemon Peel
2-3 Bay Leaves

Prepare the Apples: Peel and core the apples. Reserve the trimmings in a freezer bag for another use. Slice the apple halves into 1/8" thick sections. Once all of your apples are sliced, arrange them carefully in layers on the base of your baking pan. Start with the slices all stacked together, just as they were when they comprised a whole apple-- then fan the slices out to achieve an evenly spaced covering. Sprinkle each layer with sugar (you make the judgment as to how much sugar the apples need depending on how sweet/tart your apples are). Arrange the next layer in the same manner, but rotate the pan 90 degrees, so the layers will be laying in different directions. Continue layering in this manner until you've used up all of your apples. On top of the last layer toss in a few bay leaves and strips of lemon or orange zest (you can fiddle with the seasonings, of course-- but if you haven't played around with apples without cinnamon, then I highly recommend giving it a try).

First Baking: Preheat your oven to 225 F. Cut a sheet of parchment paper to precisely cover the surface of your apples. Place the second baking pan on top of the parchment and apples. Load the whole assembly into the oven and then place a dutch oven or cast iron skillet on top (the goal is to squish the apples slowly as they bake, I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I'm pretty certain this compression is what prevents them from just turning to mush). Bake at 225 F for one and a half hours. Turn the oven off. Leave the whole assembly in the oven overnight (the apples will continue cooking with the residual heat).

Second Baking: The next morning turn the oven on to 225 F. Let the oven heat for one hour. Turn the oven off and again, leave the apples in the oven to cook in the residual heat.

Serving & Storing: After another six to eight hours the apples will be ready to serve (can you tell that I timed this recipe around my workday?). Remove the bay leaves and zest strips. Use a spoon to delicately scoop out the solid apple mass. Store the apples in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. The apples can be served cold, tepid or warm.



Honey Caramel:

If you haven't ever made a caramel before, then this is the right place to start. This recipe avoids a lot of the big scary things about candy making. You don't need to make a big batch in order for it to cook properly, you don't have to worry about your sugar crystallizing (cooking sugar together with a fat avoids this pitfall) and you don't need a candy thermometer. It's so easy and delicious, you'll never want to buy a caramel again.

Yield 6-8 servings

Ingredients:
Sugar 1/4c.
Butter 1/4c.
Cream 1/3c.
Honey 1/4c.
a generous pinch of Salt

Prepare your ingredients: Toss your butter and sugar and pinch of salt in a saucepan (for one recipe use at least a 1 1/2 qt. saucepan, you'll need a larger pan if you make a double recipe). Measure your cream and have it ready nearby-- the key to cooking a caramel is to cook it to the stage that you want, and stop it. In this case, you will stop the cooking by dumping in your cream, so you need to have it within reach exactly when your caramel is ready.

Cook the Caramel:Heat the butter and sugar over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Once the butter is melted stir vigilantly. As the mixture heats up it will look gritty, then start to come together, then it will separate and look a bit oily. Don't worry about any of these textural changes, the texture will come together at the end. What you do want to look for is the color. After a few minutes, the color will start to darken (once it starts to change it goes quickly). When it reaches the color of peanut butter hold the pan away from you (to avoid dangerous spatters) and pour in all of the cream at once. When the bubbling has subsided enough for you to start stirring, return the pan to the heat and stir until the mixture is homogenous-- you might have to bring it to a boil to incorporate some of the firmer caramel pieces. Once the sauce is smooth, remove from the heat. Stir in the honey.

Serve & Store: Once your sauce has cooled, you can store it in a squeeze bottle in the fridge and reheat it in the microwave or in a bowl of hot water as needed.



Labne:
2c. Yogurt Strained for 2 days will yield 4-6 servings as a dessert.



To serve: Scoop some warm apples into a bowl, add a scoop of labne, and drizzle liberally with warmed caramel honey sauce.