On Popcorn

Popcorn's a pretty neat thing.  Whodathunk that drying out corn kernels would reveal such an amazing canvas for so much creativity when it comes to butter + accoutrements... 

Did you ever read Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder?  Do you remember when he and his family are still back east and they are inside one evening, listening to their mother read?  Do you remember the popcorn?

Hot, crunchy, salty, and perfectly buttery, melting in his mouth.  I remember Almanzo wanted to finish off his popcorn with a tall glass of fresh, cold milk, but the cream was collecting on the top of the pail and his mother would be furious if he disturbed it... popcorn: serious business, folks.

So, this might seem silly to you, but I'm sort of a connoisseur of popcorn.  It's a big thing in our house.  We won't have air popped, thankyouverymuch--it has to be oil popped, preferably with olive oil, and preferably in a whirly pop, though I've used a skillet and snug fitting lid in a pinch.

The corn doesn't have to be buttered, necessarily (though I do prefer it that way), but it has to be salted.  Even just plain popped corn and salt is a great treat.  (I confess, sometimes when Taylor is out for the evening, I have popcorn for dinner...)

If it's buttered, though, the butter has to sizzle just a bit while I'm heating it.  Butter that's just barely melted isn't quite perky enough.  And you have to put it on the corn evenly!  Getting a butter-soaked piece is a nice surprise, but when the rest of the bowl is just dry unsalted corn, it's no good.  To get it evenly coated, you have to add the butter little by little, and shake the bowl to stir the pieces.  Pour, salt, shake.  Repeat until you're out of butter.  And add a little more salt for good measure (go ahead--lots of it falls to the bottom of the bowl anyway).

Winter-Fresh

We don't shop for fruit.

Or vegetables.

In fact, I never know what I'm going to get each week in our CSA produce share.  But I like it that way.  It adds more adventure to my kitchen-life.

In fact, it's been so long since I had any stickers on my apples that I sliced right through a sticker on an apple from work and nearly ate it up.. oh, to have produce straight from the source.

During the winter, the CSA share we have is gathered from only the east coast (during the spring/summer/early fall it's all New England goodies).  This isn't "dogmatically" local, of course, but we much prefer getting our greens and fruit from, say, Virginia or Florida during the winter, rather than from California or Mexico.

Now, naturally we have a lot of citrus coming in our shares during the winter.  Hey, if I was a box of food from Florida, I'd probably contain a lot of citrus too!  Grapefruit is very common--which is great for me, having been born in Florida myself.  I've always liked grapefruit--at least, I liked it enough to douse it in sugar and cut the wedges out with Momma's grapefruit spoons--and the plethora of these citrus in my boxes has forced me to be a bit more creative. After all, I can only handle so much sugar (anymore).  And I don't have any serrated grapefruit spoons anyway :(

So it's forced me to get creative.  We sometimes get four or six a week, which is more than even T and I can eat for breakfast.  Then I had an idea..

Nantucket Cranberry Relish

As promised, here's my favorite recipe for Thanksgiving cranberry-ness .

• there's no cooking involved
• you can make it several days (even weeks) ahead of time--the longer it sits the better
• since there's no cooking, all the natural enzymes of the fruit are intact and help you digest all that turkey
• it's way tasty

The Baker In Me

I've always loved to bake.  I get it from my mother.  My earliest memories of her in the kitchen, especially around the holidays, were her baking.  She probably made something of everything over her lifetime.  Cakes, cookies, candy, baked decorations.. it was wonderful to see how she loved to make.

Her mother loved it too.  As Thanksgiving approached, Big Mom (that's what we called my maternal grandmother--she was, after all, from Texas) would start to bake sugar cookies. Batches of them! She carefully sorted through her two or three suitcases of cookie cutters, picking which ones she wanted to use that year, and she'd mix, chill, roll, cut, bake, and store the cookies for days on end. Then she would put her kids to work frosting them.  There were plain cookies and imprinted cookies and all shapes and sizes (we have a tree cookie cutter from her stash that's nearly a foot tall), turkeys, pumpkins, santas, stockings, even full nativity set figures.

Torn

Ok, fellow eaters of the world. Here it is, less than two weeks from Thanksgiving, and I have yet to nail down which recipes I definitely want to do.  I have quite an arsenal at the ready, but I don't know what to do.

The turkey, for a brief moment, was hovering between a maple-butter turkey which Momma made for Viv's birthday dinner one year (which was. delicious.) and a boned turkey a la Julia Child.  I still really want to try a boned turkey, but with 10 people coming to dinner chez Black, I think I'll stick with something I know this time 'round.  I was settled on the maple turkey, herbs and all (and more patience and planning this time).  And then... (oh, that infamous little word), I found this turkey from Joanne Chang.

Now, it may not look like much to the un-initiated eye, but really, this woman is the ultimate in amazingly tasty foods.  You've heard me talk about Myers + Chang before, and you've heard me rave about Flour Bakery + Cafe.  And I'm only now discovering she does Thanksgiving?!  I think I would eat anything this woman cooks.

But then I love this stuffing and these sweet potatoes and I'd love to do a soup like this (especially for Vivers), and there will be mashed potatoes and gravy and the Nantucket cranberry relish I made last year (though this one from Joanne looks amazing, too).  I'm even thinking of adding other-than-starch vegetables this year :-o  Like this salad, and then I saw her carrots and her pickles.  I don't know what to do!

Thoughts? Suggestions?  Do you think a soy-sauce turkey will conflict too much with other, more traditional flavors on the table?  If I did Joanne's turkey, what other of her recipes do you think I should definitely make? What ones of my more traditional ones?  Dare I ask what your favorite recipes for Thanksgiving are?

I realize I'm only be acerbating the problem with more recipes, but I'm a recipe junkie. What can I say? :)

Beet It

When I was a kid I had never tasted beet anything.  I'd seen cans of them in Momma's emergency food pantry (we were in earthquake country--had to be prepared!), but the picture on the front didn't exactly look appealing.

Then I met Taylor, a true Hobbit in his love of all things root-ish.  If it grows in the ground, he'll eat it (alright, he'll eat almost anything, but especially roots).  One day when he went to the farmer's market with me, he proudly showed me a large bunch of well-endowed beets, greens included, and said, "Look, Annie! Beets!! Let's get some."

We boiled those, that night, and they were tasty. In fact, I was plainly surprised that the beets had a taste at all, since I couldn't imagine what purple vegetables should taste like.  I was hooked. I wanted more beets (and, admittedly, the first time I saw beet pee I was momentarily shocked. But that passes.)

Next time I did beets, I had them in a beet salad (from this salad book--so delicious!), roasted.  That was the end for me, folks :) I won't have my beets any way but roasted now (unless it's in a soup, but really? why give up all that lovely texture by blending beets into a soup?).  They are perfect roasted, keeping all the integrity of their flavor: perky, tender, and juicy all in one mouthful. I love gently pressing my knife into these sensuous vegetables and drawing out a bright magenta blade. There are such lovely colors in food.

And, later on, I even discovered a good way to take care of the greens! You can make pesto with oodles of basil leaves or garlic scapes.  But, when I realized you can make a pesto-ish sauce out of anything, why not beet greens?

I haven't decided what to call this yet. "Beet Paste" sounds.. weird.

1 bunch beets
oil of choice
1-2 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste

Separate beets from the stalks. Wash the beets and greens and stalks thoroughly in the sink, making sure to wash off all the dirt.

Lay beet greens around the bottom of a dutch oven.  Drizzle with a bit of olive oil (just for moisture in the cooking process), and lay the beets on top of the greens.


Roast at 350 degrees for 30 minutes to an hour, or until the beets are tender. (Smaller beets will not take very long.)

Place beets aside (and chop them up, toss with butter and salt, and have a lovely, warm side dish with your dinner!) and transfer beet greens to a food processor and pulse the heck out of them, adding oil as necessary to get a nice consistency.  Add garlic and salt and pepper, pulsing to mix, and tasting as you go along.

This spread goes great with sourdough toast! And what a great way to use up beet greens, huh?

How To Eat a Whole Head of Kale

(from this post)

1. Preheat oven to broil.

2. Remove the stiff stalks from the kale leaves and tear each leaf into small pieces (like you would for a salad). 

3. In a large bowl, toss the kale leaves with olive oil, salt, pepper, and any other spices you like (garlic is a nice touch), making sure the kale is coated evenly with oil.

4. Spread the kale evenly on a parchment lined baking sheet and place under the broiler. Watch it closely! In a minute or two, the kale will start to brown just a tad. Take it out and stir it around, turning it over so it can crisp on the other side. Place under the broiler again.

5. When the kale is evenly crispy, pile it in a bowl and gobble it up. Taylor and I can polish off a whole head between the two of us, easily. So tasty :) 

Perfect Potato Soup

One of the most comforting things in the cold and windy winters of my childhood was Momma's potato soup.  I remember watching her make it, standing on a stool by the warm stove.  She always used gigantic russet potatoes, thoroughly peeling them (for her squeamish children who didn't like "funny brown stuff" in their soup), chopping them, and plop-plop-plopping the chunks into the hot water in the pot.  She never added onions, I guess because we also didn't like those.  But she did add celery. And cream. And salt and pepper. And butter. 

That was it. That was her soup.  She'd serve us each a big bowl, to which I would promptly add another large pat of butter, letting the golden goodness melt and swirl into the soup.  You didn't stir it in completely, though--that spoiled the delight of crafting each spoonful with the right amount of soup, salt, and melted butter. 

Over the years, as I've made the soup myself, I've changed a few things.  For one (and I really don't know what was wrong with me as a kid), I love onion now, and add it to preeetty much everything I make.  For another thing, I like to add herbs and substitute coconut milk for the cream.  I also tend to use red or golden potatoes instead of russet. I think it makes it creamer :) 

In any case, I still stick with that generous pat of butter, letting it happily melt in my bowl.  And, despite my seemingly dramatic shifts from the way I preferred the soup as a child, it remains a strong comforting meal to soothe the wet and windy winter cold away, even in the earliest days of fall. 

Perfect Potato Soup

a bunch of potatoes, roughly chopped (seriously, I never measure--maybe 8 or 10 round red spuds for a good 2 quarts of soup)

some water (you can use stock, but I don't recommend boiling the potatoes in the stock, since you'll drain most of the water)

2-3 stalks celery, coarsely chopped

cream (or coconut milk)

optional:

1 or 2 onions, chopped

herbs of choice

a few tablespoons flour (to thicken the soup further)

In a medium pot, bring a couple quarts of salted water to a boil.  While the water is heating up, coarsely chop the potatoes (no need to peel them, but you certainly can if you like) and the celery.  Add both vegetables to the water and cook until fork-tender.  

Optional: While the potatoes are cooking, chop the onions and saute them until they just start to caramelize. Turn off the heat.  Add to the onions the herbs of choice, flour, and any additional seasoning you can think of (I like some cayenne pepper in my soup during flu season).  Mix the herbs and flour into the onions until there are no dry lumps and it's all evenly distributed.  Set aside. 

When the potatoes and celery are tender, drain most of the water but keep it in a bowl or a pitcher.  Add the onions to the drained potatoes and stir well.  Blend the soup with a stick blender adding water as necessary to get  the right consistency (if you want to use stock, add stock to thin the soup instead of the water).  

Taste and check seasoning, adding salt and pepper to taste. 

Serve in your favorite big bowl with a big spoonful of butter and some warm toast. Maybe with some cheese on top.  

On My Table

What would you like for dinner tonight?

One perfect tomato, please.

Slice it up, if you don't mind, so I can share it with my best friend.  We'll each have two quarters, I think. With just a little salt.

And can I get a delicious summer vegetable salad to go underneath it?  That would be perfect, Thank You :)

Summer Vegetable Salad

1 head romaine lettuce, made bite-sized
1 small yellow squash, sliced in coins
1 small zuccini, sliced in matchsticks
1/4 yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 green pepper, sliced bite-sized
3/4 c grated cheese of choice
1 handful meaty bits (bacon bits, chopped salami, prosciutto slices, etc)
3 T garlic scape pesto
1/4 - 1/2 c olive oil
1-2 T red wine vinegar (to taste)
salt and pepper to taste
One Perfect Tomato

Wash, dry, and chop vegetables and lettuce and put in salad bowl with grated cheese and meat pieces.

In a small jar, combine pesto, olive oil, vinegar.  Screw on lid and shake vigorously to combine.  Add salt and pepper to taste, adding more vinegar if needed. Shake again to mix in spices.

Pour salad dressing in salad bowl and toss well to combine all ingredients.  


Top with one perfect tomato and serve.

Nero Wolfe's Corn

My mother loved mysteries.
Especially murder mysteries.  I don't know why, specifically, but she loved to read (and re-read) her mystery books.  There were whole summers where I can only remember her sitting on the couch with two stacks of books nearby, one shrinking, one growing.  She loved to pick apart the mystery in her head as she read along.  My guess: she probably  knew who did it as soon as the author did.

She was a smart cookie :)

These weren't any mysteries either--she definitely had her favorite authors.  She loved the Judge Dee stories by Robert van Gulik.  She would check out the books-on-tape from the library and we would listen to them in the car on long drives.  Sometimes they were kind of intense for us kids, but they were still great stories.  And hey--they kept us quiet, mostly. 

I don't recall any books by Agatha Christie on her thickly populated paperback shelves, but I know she also loved the A&E Poirot series with David Suchet, and we would watch them while doing all sorts of things--Christmas baking, spring cleaning, painting, sewing, decorating for a party or baby shower or dinner.  Oftentimes, it would happen that those who hadn't seen the episode before, or hadn't seen it several times (i.e., most of us), would end up sitting down to watch the thing through while Momma worked.  It's hard to follow a detective story while doing something else if you don't know the ending, after all :) She didn't mind, I think.  Listening to the movies helped her work. 

Her other favorite detective was Nero Wolfe, an overweight eccentric who lives in mid-century Manhattan. With him in his 4-story brownstone live his cheeky, handsome, and rascally assistant, Archie Goodwin, a Swiss chef named Fritz ("Freetz"), an entire floor devoted to his orchids, and a full-time assistant orchid tender, Theodore.  Wolfe loves fabulous food, good beer, Iranian saffron, and great books, and hates onions, anchovies without heads, boiled corn, Spanish saffron, and women-in-general.  Eccentric is an understatement ;)


When I "got into" reading a bit more (sometime in high school), I decided to try one of her murder mystery books, just to see what it was like.  I picked Rex Stout's Some Buried Caesar.  For those of you who know Wolfe and Archie, Some Buried Caesar is the book where Archie meets Miss Lily Rowan :)  I was hooked. I love Stout's quick-moving writing style and the bits of himself that he cast into both Wolfe and Archie (mostly Archie).

As I read more and more books, I began to realize (to myself, of course) that Momma reminded me a lot of Nero Wolfe.  At least, she reminded me of him in some ways.  She hated onions, too, and she liked whole anchovies.  She didn't have a particular affinity to orchids, but she was very particular in other ways, and was never afraid to let you know exactly what she thought.  I miss her.

"But," you're thinking, "What does all this have to do with Wolfe's corn?"  And you are right to ask. I promise this post has a point.  A&E also made a series for the Wolfe mysteries and Momma and I both bought the full collection.  Just like Momma, when I need to get some good work done, I put on my mysteries to listen to as I putter around the house cleaning, cooking, tidying, and folding.  For some reason, they keep me on task.

In one of the episodes, centered around a delivery of not fresh summer corn, Wolfe rails against the evil of boiling corn on the cob in water on the stove.  While Inspector Cramer just wants to find the murderer, Wolfe goes on about the perfect way to prepare corn.


Here, then, is Wolfe's recipe as taken from the episode.  I have to admit, he's absolutely right.  This is the best way to prepare fresh summer corn on the cob:

"Boiled in water, sweet corn is.. edible, and nutritious.  But roasted in an oven, at the hottest possible temperature for 40 minutes. Shucked at the table. Buttered. Salted. Nothing else! Ambrosia."

Pretty simple, right? :)



First, though, I trim off all the corn-silk scragglies so they don't smoke up my oven too much (warning: your kitchen will smell like roasting corn husk).


I roast them at about 500 degrees, put 'em right on the rack, and set the timer for 40 minutes. That's it. No tending, no turning.  Just let them roast contentedly.

Unlike Wolfe, and probably because I just have a smaller dining space that he does, I don't shuck the corn at the table.  But I do shuck it in the kitchen, right before we all sit down to eat, and I let each diner butter and salt it for himself.

It's quite a treat, this summer corn thing :)

What Did YOU Do This Weekend?

We were busy.  We had four of our dear friend stay with us--the Camachos (who were married last year) and the van Versendaals (who were married last month).  It's true, in our one bedroom apartment, that things were a tad.. squished, but all the merrier with good friends, right? :)

They arrived Friday evening, which was a good thing because I've found it difficult to keep my house clean this summer!  It's in a fairly consistent state of tidy-ness, but the cleanliness is a variable factor.  I don't want my guests to have a clear but mucky floor to sleep on, after all. So when I got off work early on Friday it was the perfect opportunity to tidy and clean the house thoroughly enough for our friends.  It calms me, too, y'know, to know I've done a nice cleaning before people come over and that my house is just as ready as I am to welcome them with warm (or, this time of year, cool) arms.

We had home-made sushi for dinner that night--with (nearly) everyone jumping in to make a roll. And we wives were in a prime spot in the kitchen because (you see) when one is still learning how to properly roll up the sushi, there are always pieces that aren't.. presentable :) and must be disposed of! Also, I am happy to report that the sushi-grade tuna I got from my fish lady was a success!  It was tasty, perfect texture, plenty of it, and we're all still alive and healthy, which is really the deal-breaker. Exciting!

I made a spiced fig upside-down cake for dessert, which (seriously) was totally delicious.  I didn't even have anything planned for the figs when I bought them on Thursday, since I didn't have a chicken in my freezer, but they were there, all lonely and they seemed to be calling to me: Annie! bring us home! So I did. And they seemed quite happy in their cooked-soon-to-be-gobbled state :)

Saturday was another affair entirely.  The Camachos had brunch with their sister, but the van's stayed home with us for oatmeal, leftover fig cake (!), and Taylor-made coffee.  We had a lovely chat, hearing all about their (amazing!) pilgrimage-honeymoon on the Way of St. James, and leisurely made our way to Harvard square to meet up with the Camachos for the afternoon.  Strolling around Harvard was hot business, but (to make it feel cooler outside) I got a delicious dry cappuccino at Crema Cafe.  The theory is that if my insides are hotter than the outside temperature, stepping outside will feel cool.. ish.  Sort of :) Eh, it was a great capp regardless!

We stopped at Trader Joe's for some provisions for the evening and headed home.  T and I hosted a pizza party for our wonderful guests, so that lots of their Boston friends could see them all at once.  I made eight pizza crusts, set them all out on the counter to rise (it's very warm in my kitchen this time of year), and put my stone in the oven.  It was a bit of a rush to get the house straightened up and the pizza prepped, but T is a great helper and it was a screaming success.

Pizzas we made (two of each): 

Salami with chunky tomatoes and Parmesan cheese

Wilted arugula with crumbled sausage, olive oil, and fresh Parmesan cheese

Garlic Scape pesto with peppers, zuccini and onions

Onion pizza with prosciutto, fresh sage, pepper, and olive oil

Deliciousness.

Sunday... T and I headed to Plum Island beach with a big group of friends.  We brought bread from Clear Flour, truffle salami, fresh fruit, veggies and hummus, homemade pickles, and I made a tuna salad (with artichokes and capers) for sammiches.  We had lots of water, happy beach towels, and much fun with our friends.  I went in the water (all the way in!) three times!  You see, I grew up surrounded by swimming pools, where you can always see the bottom and where there are no large living things in the water.  I was quite impressed with myself.  I had loads of fun.  We're totally going again this summer. Maybe every weekend :)

Plum Tuckered Out

And that was our weekend.. Our guests left Monday morning and T and I went to work.  Now I'm spending the week recovering from all the fun I had :) It's a good exhaustion! 

Flipped!

I made this cake for dessert last Friday, because figs are in season, and I have to have them!

We had two dear couples over to stay with us for the weekend and we made sushi together.  This cake wasn't quite a traditional finish to a sushi dinner, but it sure was tasty :) I totally flipped for it!




Spiced Fig Upside Down Cake
adapted from this document

Ingredients:
2 T coconut oil, melted
3 T brown sugar
10 medium fresh Black Mission figs, halved

1 1/2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp salt
1/3 c butter, softened
1/2 c brown sugar (not packed)
1/2 c light molasses
2 large eggs, white separated
1/2 c milk
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9" round cake pan with cooking spray and coat bottom of pan with melted butter.  Sprinkle 3 T brown sugar evenly over butter.  Arrange fig halves, cut side down, in the pan. Set aside.

Batter  Sift dry ingredients together in mixing bowl. In separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Add molasses and egg yolks and beat well.  Add milk and vanilla until incorporated.  Add wet to dry, gently mixing until just combined.

Beat egg whites in separate bowl until stiff peaks form.  Gently fold egg whites into batter. Spoon batter evenly over figs  in cake pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool cake for 15 minutes on wire rack (very important! If you don't let the cake cool, it will fall apart when you try to take it out.  But don't let it cool too long or the brown sugar on the bottom might stick too much).

Loosen cake from sides of pan with spatula.  Place serving plate upside down on top of cake pan.  Holding cake plan and plate together with both hands, flip it all upside down.  The cake pan might need some tapping to get the cake to come all the way out.

Serves 10.

Also, side note: this cake is really easy to make vegan!  I used Ener-G Egg Replacer no problem (following the instructions on the box for egg yolks and whites respectively) and I used shortening instead of butter--but a margarine substitute would work as well.  Super tasty!

RIP

We picked up our produce share yesterday.  This was a particularly exciting box, since Enterprise Farm just harvested their summer corn, and we were looking forward to it!

Sadly, though, our little box of fresh raspberries, inside the big box with all those heavier vegetables, got jostled too much :( Rather than shiny, plumb, pinkish-red berries, we ended up with:

Raspberries In Pieces

Not to be discouraged, since they were still very fresh, I made a tart :)

minted raspberry tart

Really, there are few things better than a berry tart. It's a little like a pie--with that lovely flaky crust--but without so much of that gooey overly-sweet filling (can you guess what part of the pie is my favorite?) :)

This is also a good time to share with you my favorite pie crust recipe.  There are probably thousands of pie crust recipes online these days, and most of them are fabulous. Some of them are perfection--if you have the time, patience, and skill to work with the recipe.

I do not possess such virtues.  Neither did my mother.

At least, not when pie dough is concerned.

So here is Merel William's pie crust recipe.  It's the one my grandmother used and the one Momma always used.  This is the crust she raved about whenever I made her a pie.  She always told me she ate pies for the crust, not the filling.  Like mother like daughter, they say :)

This is the dough I use when I need a crust that won't give me any trouble. It's great for pot pies and fruit pies and tarts and quiches and.. anything you need a super-quick-and-easy crust for :) It's even worked in my warm kitchen this summer--totally fool- (and humidity-) proof!

One more note: yes, it uses vegetable shortening.  This is why it's so easy--because you use hot water to melt the shortening into the flour and you don't have to worry about refrigerating it or freezing it or keeping it cool as you work with it. Take it or leave it, but it's still my favorite.

makes enough for one 8" pie pan with lattice top

2 c all purpose flour (I use white spelt flour and it comes out well every time)
1 tsp salt
3/4 c crisco
1/4 c hot water (nearly boiling is best)
1 T milk (or cream)

Combine flour and salt with fork.  If you want to add herbs or spices to the crust, incorporate them now.  Plop the crisco right on top of the flour and poor hot water directly over shortening.  Stir with a fork until combined, adding milk as necessary to reach pie-dough-ness.

On a floured surface (preferably unfinished wood/cutting board--formica counters and varnished tables don't work well at all), roll out half of dough to 1/8" thick (but not more than 1/4"--the thinner the flakier!).  Using a long spatula or cake froster, gently loosen dough from rolling surface and fold in quarters. Make sure there is enough flour on the top of the crust that it won't stick to itself when folded over.

Place folded dough in the pie pan (no need to grease the pan) so that dough lays properly in the pan when unfolded. Unfold. Presto pie crust!

Ease the crust into all the corners of the pan, leaving the overhang around the edges.  Add filling. Repeat process with other half of dough for the top of the crust. Lay the crust on top of the filling and pinch the top and bottom together. This woman knows what's she's talking about :) and she has more pictures.

Or, if you're super lazy (like I am), do a tart! Make half a recipe of crust, roll your rolling pin on top of the edges of the pie pan to cut the edges off the crust, add the filling, and bake.

Filling for Minted RIP Tart
1 1/2 c strawberry lemonade
2 T flour
1 c fresh raspberries
10-15 mint leaves, finely chopped
1 T honey
sugar

In small saucepan on the stove, combine lemonade and flour and whisk until combined. Heat until mixture begins to thicken (this is an improvised jam--if you have jam you want to use, do it!).  Add raspberries and mint and mash with fork or whisk until mixed into the gravy/jam/stuff.  Remove from heat.  Add honey.  Pour into crust.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.  If desired, sprinkle about 1 T sugar on top of filling and broil to get a nice glaze on top.

Serve with ice cream :)

Summer's Roasted Vegetables

Someday, when I have my own garden, I want to carry heavy laden baskets full of fresh vegetables into my kitchen, to be prepared that night and gobbled up by eager mouths.  Someday, I want to know which foods go best for what season, which foods are most practical, so that I can eat in line with what the earth can give me.

We will have fresh fruit and ripe squash all summer and into the fall, and we will have hearty root soups and whole grain breads in the winter.  In the spring, we will enjoy the precious tidbits of little delicacies that only Spring in her perfect weather can provide.  Each season will have its own favorite dishes and menus, and each dish will conjure up memories of the seasons.  Hand in hand. They go together like sisters.

or cousins :) 

My sister Summer was named after my Daddy's first crush, Princess Summerfall Winterspring from the Howdy Doody show.  These weren't my sister's vegetables.  And it's not her recipe, either.  But all these veggies tend to make their appearance in my kitchen around summertime, especially the garlic scapes and zucchini, and it feels distinctly summer-ish to me. So, it seems fitting that the recipe belongs at least to the season, if not to my sister, and the Princess :)

In any case, it's also quite variable, and very simple.  I've written out what I used below, but you can substitute any of your own favorite vegetables and seasonings.

Serves 4

Ingredients
olive oil
1 medium onion
1/4 small red cabbage
about 8 whole basil leaves
4 medium to large whole beets
1 large zucchini
about 1 c garlic scape pesto
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
salt and pepper to taste

In a medium dutch oven (mine's 6 quarts and I had plenty of extra room), layer vegetables as follows:

sliced onions
cabbage, thinly sliced
basil leaves (laid evenly over the cabbage)
drizzle of olive oil
chopped beets (mine were big chunks--they don't have to be bite-sized--and I didn't even peel them)
pesto (spread as evenly as possible over the beets)
zucchini (halved and sliced)
another drizzle olive oil
sprinkle of thyme leaves
salt and pepper

Cover the vegetables and bake in a 350 degree oven for about an hour, or until the beets are tender. Serve it up as a side dish if you like, but we served it as an entree, with quinoa and a honey-dressed salad to go with it.

Delicious!

Substitution Ideas


Instead of red cabbage, basil, beets, and zucchini: green cabbage, potatoes, and/or turnips, mustard sauce, and carrots/parsnips on top (St. Patty's day in a pot!)

Instead of onions, substitute leeks, sliced in dollars, layered thickly on the bottom.

Rather than zucchini, use eggplant, sliced in rounds or chunked.

Instead of garlic scape pesto, use basil pesto. But make sure it's nice and garlicky! The acidic garlic is a nice complement to the beets and cabbage.

Use butter instead of olive oil.

Add Herbes de Provence instead of thyme and/or basil.

As you can see, the possibilities are endless :) Enjoy!

Me Too!

My friend Renee made some granola the other day.  I had to try it--it looked so good. Besides, I can imagine hobbits eating granola--it seems so hearty and simple and delicious that it just fits.  What could be more hobbit-y than abundant deliciousness?

I used cashew butter + white chocolate instead of the peanut butter chips and melted the goods on the stove.  I think I over-did it just a bit, since my granola didn't come out shiny.  Next time ;)

But it sure was tasty. How can anything with pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, pecans, sunflower seeds, flaked coconut (another addition of mine), and oats not be tasty?  I've already made a second batch, since this one was devoured in a matter of days :)

Verdict: awesome

You should make some :)

An Anniversary Dessert

Using the dump and stir chocolate cake recipe from Not Without Salt, I made little individual little cakes for our anniversary.  One recipe filled four molds (which was good, because I only had four).



[tip: to successfully get your cakes out of the molds, use the grease-and-flour method outlined here]


Chop seasonal berries and mix them with 1/2 to 1 cup coconut milk, adding sweetener of choice to taste.

Drizzle creamed berries on top of cake. 

Stuff into mouth. 

Lick the plate :)

Sourdough Pizza

In hopes of eating allergen-free baked goods, I have delved into the delightful and exciting realm of sourdough cultures and starters and doughs.  I am a novice, at best. But I believe I have found a method that is practical and dumbed-down enough for sourdough-challenged me.

So I did a little bit of looking around and found a sourdough pizza crust recipe that seemed do-able to me.  And.. I did it!  I made pizza without yeast, and the crust was not a dense, flat, unevenly cooked mess of flour and water.. which is all I really put into it :)  (well, that and a pinch of salt and oil for kneading).  Who knew the air was so full of little yeasty bugs?

This pizza was particularly exciting because I got to use the pizza stone that T's family got us for our anniversary :) I can't wait to bake a nice sourdough bole on it.. someday, when my starter is more mature and bubble-icious!

If I had been able to roll the dough a little bit thinner, I wouldn't have had to bake it as long.  As it was, the bottom of the pizza was just a tad too hard for my taste, but it was still delicious.  And now I have to make it again--to see if i can get it right :)

Topped with one can of diced tomatoes (drained well), chopped marinated artichokes, and a nice thick layer of leftover anniversary-salami, this pizza was pretty darn good!

Birthday Cake with a Kick

Yesterday was Taylor's birthday.  One of his law friends also had her birthday yesterday and hosted a double-birthday party at her house.  Tacos were on the menu, but no one had specified anything about dessert.  So... I thought I'd use some of the strawberries we received in our vegetable share this week to spice up a layer cake.

But, speaking of spices, and thinking of tacos, I said to myself, "Why not give this sweet, chocolatey, coffee-y cake a hearty kick?"  So, to each cake I made, I added a nice dash of cayenne pepper.  It was just the thing.  Have you ever had a [South American Country] mocha latte?  It's along the same lines. A tiny bit of some sort of pepper is added to the chocolate and it gives the already-hot drink a delicious warmth to it.

Which, as it turns out, is fabulous with strawberries.

To keep the cake moist (thanks, Smitten Kitchen!), I mixed some (unsweetened) strawberry jam with a bit of water and a tsp of vanilla and brushed it on each layer before placing the strawberries.  It helped the berries stay on, too, which helped the whole cake stay together (a good thing since this cake had several blocks to be driven, on Boston roads, by my, um, enthusiastic husband (really, though, he was very gentle with the cake. Thanks, Love!)).

I even added a layer of strawberries to the tip-top of the cake, since I had extras, and proceeded to dollop the frosting on.  I used a basic (vegan) buttercream frosting and added about a tablespoon of finely ground coffee.  I decreased the sugar by half and added a bit more butter, whipping it up longer in the mixer, since I didn't want a super sweet frosting (I will eat the cake and leave the icing if it's too sweet!), and I figured the coffee would mellow out the sugar.

Looks kinda vanilla-bean-y, huh?

It was a big hit!  Everyone kept checking with me: "Is the cake supposed to taste like this?"  "Is there... some sort of.. pepper in this?"  I reassured them that I had indeed intended such a taste, and they told me it was great!  The birthday kids also really loved it, which was all a baker could want. I guess it made their night, in a way (I mean, really, a three-layer chocolate-cayenne-coffee-strawberry buttercream-coffee-frosting cake would make any night for me).

We had a good time at the party. Taylor made sangria (quite well, as a matter of fact--new party feature chez Black, methinks) and we had margaritas. The tacos were tasty and loaded with fixings. The company was in good cheer, despite the approach of doom (i.e., 1L finals), and we all enjoyed the chance to relax a bit. Hooray for good friends and fun parties and delicious food.  And praise the Lord for my wonderful quarter-of-a-century-old Husband :)  I love you about a guh-zillion (and a half).

Enjoy the pictures :)

Mo & Taylor's Birthday

Lamb Cake

Every year at Easter, we have lamb cake.  When I was first introduced to lamb cake, through my in-laws, all I heard for weeks before Easter was how tasty lamb cake was and how everyone couldn't wait to take a slice.  Most people would think I'd have caught on and realized it was not a cake made out of lamb.  Most people would have guessed that a regular vanilla white cake shaped like a lamb would make more sense. Not me :)

But I soon learned for myself how tasty lamb cake is.  It's not that there is a special specific recipe that makes it tasty.  Perhaps it's all the fasting from sweets so often characteristic of our Lent.  Perhaps it's that you are so hungry by the time you get to slice the back end of this little guy that it makes it extra good. Perhaps the necessarily-dense cake soaks up all the sweet moisture from the frosting "just rightly."  Maybe it's the soft curly coconut pressed into the frosting as fleece.

Whatever it is, Easter is now not complete for me without it. It is a staple (along with lots of meat and cheese and lamb (shaped) butter and Pascha bread!).

Here is the recipe I use, taken from the Joy of Cooking (1970s edition), specifically for molded cakes.

White Cake II

1 c sugar

1/3 - 1/2 c butter

2 c cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt
3/4 c milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 egg whites (beaten stiff, but not dry)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  While oven is pre-heating, prepare your mold.  I am not one to diligently grease anything that I don't have to, but with this cake, it makes your life so much easier.  Spread a thin layer of solid shortening (I think butter would work, but I usually use a vegetable shortening) on any part of the mold that cake batter will touch.  Make sure the layer is consistent and relatively thin (you don't want globs of shortening messing up the form of your cake).  


Next (this is important) coat the shortening with flour [btw, if you're doing a chocolate cake, use cocoa powder instead of flour].  My method is to sprinkle a tablespoon or so of flour in the mold and shake it and bang it around until it's all coated.  Shake out any excess (and use it for the other half of the mold, if it's a two-part).  Set the molds aside (not on the stove--the shortening will melt) until ready to use. 


On to the cake. Cream sugar and butter in a mixing bowl until well-combined.  Sift remaining dry ingredients together.  Combine milk and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients in thirds to sugar mixture, alternating with thirds of the milk mixture until the batter is smooth and uniform (it will be relatively thick--great for a mold cake).

When the egg whites are sufficiently whipped, gently fold them into the batter until just combined.

If you're using a two-part mold, one half will have a hole in it.  This half is the lid of the mold. Pour the cake batter into the bottom part, evening it out in all partitions, and put it on a cookie sheet with the "lid" on the mold.  Bake for 25 minutes.  To check for done-ness, insert a toothpick through the steam hole in the lid.  Bake till it's done--soggy insides make for slouchy lambs :)

Be sure to check out these 10 handy Cake Tips at Smitten Kitchen (btw, super-fabulous site if you haven't heard of it before!) for good "handling" ideas on making/decorating this lamb cake.

Buttermilk Oatmeal "Icebox" Muffins

I've had this recipe in the "drafts" section of my blog for months now.  I keep meaning to make it, take pictures, and post a nice version, but it hasn't happened yet.  Also, I haven't experimented with it using egg replacer, so I'm not sure how it will turn out for egg-free me :P

BUT! here is the original recipe. It's fabulous because you make the batter and store it in the fridge for up to 6 weeks.  Why is that fabulous? Because you can make as many or as few muffins as you want, whenever you want to make them.  Just preheat the oven, plop the batter in, and presto: delicious homemade muffins in 15 minutes.  Warm breakfast in a pinch? no problem.  Company coming and no fresh bread to serve with dinner? simple. And tasty :)

I remember these muffins so well growing up. Momma would make a huge recipe of batter and keep it in the fridge.  We would have them with potato soup (with a big dollop of butter melting bit by bit in the hot bowl of soup) or pea soup or we'd have them with skillet hash or stuffed green peppers.  Sometimes, we'd just have them as a treat, home from school, warm out of the oven.  Nothing beats warm homemade bread with butter. Nothing.

"Icebox" Oatmeal Muffins
Makes 11 c batter
cream together:

1 c (+ 2T) solid shortening (use at least part shortening, if you want to use butter)
2 c sugar (play with the amount. They don't need to be as sweet)
4 eggs

combine:
4 c oatmeal
1 T salt
5 tsp baking soda
5 c flour

add wet to dry alternating with 4 c buttermilk [did you know you can "fake" buttermilk? add 1 tsp vinegar to each cup of milk to mimic buttermilk's sour taste].

Fill muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Serve warm with butter.
or homemade grape jelly?...

Store any remaining batter in fridge (in non-reacting leftover container) for up to 6 weeks.  In my experience, the top "layer" of batter tends to gray a little bit. I think this is fine--just oxidation.  Probably preventable by layering plastic wrap over the surface of the batter.