11.29.07
Posted in Dessert, Ice Cream, Leftovers at 9:12 am by julie
It’s time for a fresh installment of Julie vs. The Sweet Potato Puree. To recap:
In Part 1, we tried Sweet Potato Pancakes. Delicious, fluffy, easy to make, they are a good first line of attack in combatting the orange blob. But using up less than a cup of puree per batch, be sure to have a back-up plan.
In Part 2, we made a more concerted effort with a big panful of sweet potato cinnamon rolls. These used only slightly more puree, but were equally delicious and potentially capable of inducing a sugar coma.
Today, in Part 3, I turned to David Lebovitz for guidance, and made a batch of sweet potato ice cream with wet maple pecans.
Fresh from the machine, this ice cream tasted super-sweet from the maple, with a slightly starchy texture from the sweet potatoes that put me off a bit. I had to concentrate on the texture of the pecans to put it out of my mind, so I was glad I decided to make them. Last night, as a break from all the apple and pumpkin, I made us some little sweet potato “pie” parfaits, layering ice cream with whipped cream and our last few pie crust cookies (which turned out to be the ideal garnish). I think that the ice cream was more balanced after it had a chance to cure: less syrup-sweet and less yam-starchy. In any case, it was a highly successful reincarnation of a leftover side, certainly worth making again.
Sweet Potato Ice Cream with Wet Pecans
1 lb leftover Vanilla Sweet Potato Puree (recipe here)
1 C 1% milk
2/3 C packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch salt
A few drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice, to taste
Wet Pecans (see recipe below)
Put all ingredients from puree to salt in a blender and process until very smooth, at least 30 seconds. Add lemon juice to taste, then press through a mesh strainer and chill in the refrigerator. Churn in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer instructions, and add the Wet Pecans and their syrup at the end, stirring through. (My ice cream maker didn’t want to continue churning after I added them.)
Wet Pecans
1/2 C plus 1 T dark amber maple syrup
1 1/2 C pecans, toasted and chopped coarsely
a big pinch of salt
Heat syrup in a small saucepan, just until it reaches a full boil. Add the nuts and bring back to a boil. Stir and cook for 10 seconds, then remove from the heat and cool entirely. The nuts will remain wet and sticky. Prepare shortly before use, as advance preparation can make them lose their crispness.
Source: Adapted for leftover sweet potatoes from The Perfect Scoop
, by David Lebovitz .
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11.28.07
Posted in Dinner, Leftovers, Meats, Nuts, Grains & Legumes, Poultry at 9:48 am by julie
I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get really tired of eating Thanksgiving leftovers for every other meal. Fortunately, after last night’s dinner, we’re down to a serving of mashed potatoes, some gravy, and one more chunk of turkey breast small enough to transfer to a zipped sandwich bag. So bear with me for leftover posts today and tomorrow, and after that we should be able to move on from Thanksgiving (to Christmas cookies! No, I jest… sort of).
Anyway, I used up more turkey and a bunch of turkey stock last night making a turkey barlotto with dried porcini mushrooms. Barlotto is a variation on risotto made with barley instead of rice—in this case, pearl barley. It’s easier to make than risotto, however: you don’t have to stir it much because, unlike arborio rice, barley doesn’t have the starch content to develop that creamy texture. This recipe is cooked more like a pilaf, with shallots sauteed in olive oil and grains quickly toasted, then simmered in broth until the liquid has been absorbed. I improvised with a splash of cream and Parmesan to give it a more risotto-like creaminess, and subbed in reconstituted porcinis for fresh shiitake mushrooms.
Jeremy was really happy with this meal, and didn’t even realize that it wasn’t made with rice until I mentioned it. That impressed me because he isn’t so much a barley guy. He actually liked it well enough that the leftovers (yes, we had more leftovers from the leftovers) will be his lunch today.
Turkey Barlotto with Porcini
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup chopped shallots
1 cup pearl barley
1/2 oz dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted in 1 C hot water (save the liquid!)
2 cups turkey or chicken stock, warmed
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup chopped leftover turkey meat
1/4 C heavy cream
2 T grated Parmesan, and more for garnish
Put half the oil in a medium to large skillet over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, add shallots and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add barley and cook, stirring, for a minute or so, until glossy; add broth, strained liquid from porcini, and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil.
Turn heat down to low, cover and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, until barley is tender (it will not become very soft) and liquid is absorbed. Chop reconstituted porcini and add to barley. Meanwhile, heat remaining oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat; reheat turkey, stirring occasionally, until browned and crisp.
Taste barley, and continue to cook, if necessary, adding a tablespoon or two more liquid if all liquid has been absorbed and barley is not yet tender. Stir in turkey, cream and Parmesan, and continue to cook just until all is hot and combined, then garnish and serve.
Source: Adapted from Mark Bittman, New York Times.
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11.27.07
Posted in Dinner, Lunch, Soups at 8:22 am by julie
This is a personal favorite. I first started experimenting with roasted cauliflower soup about two years ago, with a recipe in the November 2005 Cooking Light. I liked it, but thought it was missing something, and doctoring it up with some grated Parmesan didn’t help much. Still, it was worth pursuing, so I kept tinkering until I ended up with something with a more complex flavor. The wine makes a big difference, but of course this time around I left it out; it didn’t stop me from eating up the leftovers for lunches before the weekend was out.
This is one of those soups that isn’t going to look good in photographs no matter how I try to gussy it up. I considered doing a creme fraiche swirl, but didn’t want to open up a new container just for a garnish. And I had many more Thanksgiving preparations to get on with at the time…so it looks how it looks, and tastes ever so much better.
Roasted Cauliflower Soup
1 head cauliflower
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp minced fresh thyme
1 tsp kosher salt
1 small onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 C white wine
4 C chicken stock
1 C heavy cream or half-and-half
1 small potato, such as Yukon Gold
Preheat oven to 400F. Core the cauliflower and cut it into 1/4″ slices; toss with olive oil and season with salt and thyme. Arrange on a jelly roll pan coated with cooking spray or a silicone mat, and roast for 1 hour or until golden brown, stirring after 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a large stockpot, heat a tablespoon of olive oil and saute onion until soft. Add garlic and saute for 1 or 2 minutes more. Deglaze pan with wine and simmer until reduced by half. Add roasted cauliflower (reserving 1/2 C cauliflower pieces) and chicken stock; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and add the diced potato; let simmer until the potato is soft, about 20 minutes.
With an immersion blender, puree the soup and return to heat. Stir in reserved cauliflower and cream. Heat through, adjust seasonings and serve.
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11.26.07
Posted in Bread, Foodblog Events at 8:23 am by julie
It’s that time of the month again! The Daring Bakers challenge for November was my very first savory challenge since joining up: Tender Potato Bread. I’ve never used this recipe before, but I have made potato bread in the past, from a Nigella Lawson recipe in How to Be a Domestic Goddess. In addition, Jeremy has made the rosemary potato bread from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, so we had a reasonable baseline for comparison. To make things a bit more interesting for myself, I was one of the crazy bunch that decided to make this bread fresh as part of our Thanksgiving meal.
I got my start on the challenge last Wednesday evening, amid a bunch of other Thanksgiving prep activities. I used about 12 oz of russet potatoes for the batch, the equivalent of two rather small peeled potatoes. To save myself a bit of time, I got the dough started on the stand mixer, and finished off kneading by hand. I found that, although the dough was very soft and sticky, it was manageable as long as I kept my hands and the surface well floured. By the time I decided to call it good, I had gotten up to around 8 cups of flour added in total.
The oiled and covered dough was set aside to rise while I went about roasting pumpkin and making pies and boiling apple cider brine and such, so my kitchen was pretty warm for a change. It was a good thing I picked my largest bowl to proof in, because in a few hours, the dough was about ready to bubble over the sides of the bowl. I shaped half of it into a loaf of focaccia and half into rolls, and both got squeezed into the already-bursting fridge to retard overnight.
The next morning, after starting my stuffing and getting my apple pie in the oven, the focaccia dough came out of the fridge for its second proof so that it would be ready to bake by lunchtime. Soon it was pillowy and light again, ready to dimple and drizzle with olive oil. I topped my focaccia with red onion rings, fresh rosemary, and a scattering of feta and fleur de sel.
Then it was a bit of a waiting game, thanks to demands on my oven. Once the apple pie was done, I needed to roast some cauliflower to make soup for lunch. I went ahead and roasted that at 450F instead of the usual 400F, so that the focaccia could join it in the last 10 minutes. I finished off the soup while the bread rested, and we had a lovely light lunch to fortify us against the final Thanksgiving preparations. (The soup recipe will be forthcoming tomorrow.)
We both enjoyed this focaccia, which came out with a tender, fluffy crumb and lots of flavor thanks to the toppings. And, I might add, it paired really nicely with the soup, sliced into rectangles. But there’s no rest for the wicked. While our lunches were still settling, I flung myself into turkey preparations and pulled the muffin pan of cloverleaf rolls from the oven for their second proof.
The rolls were rather more challenging to shape than the foccacia because the dough was still very sticky. Twelve cloverleaf rolls meant 36 little balls of dough that had to be shaped, each of which stuck tenaciously to my hands even with frequent reapplications of bench flour.
When the turkey was done, the rolls (and some green beans and shallots for roasting) went in the oven. Somewhere in between making gravy, mashing potatoes and pureeing yams with vanilla-scented cream, I pulled them out to cool and rubbed their browning tops with a pat of butter. Then we loaded up our plates and dug in. Everything tasted great, but unfortunately the cloverleaf rolls came out more like bread-shaped building blocks than actual bread. I think it may have had something to do with the metal muffin pan, which I don’t use much anymore. The good news was that we had so much other good food to eat, including the remains of the focaccia from lunch, that we didn’t miss the rolls at all.
Because of the way the rolls turned out, I didn’t quite feel that I had done the challenge justice, so yesterday I decided to give it one more shot. This time I made a half batch of dough with 4 oz of potato in order to bake a single loaf. I used bread flour by choice (and because I am fast running out of AP), but accidentally grabbed white whole wheat flour instead of the normal stoneground variety. I kneaded entirely by hand for about 15 minutes, and added about a cup of flour. Again, the dough rose phenomenally well, and when I punched it down to reknead, I added in a tablespoon or so of chopped fresh rosemary, and shaped it into a tight little boule.
When I came back to check on the dough again about an hour later, it was easily more than doubled in size. Visions of The Blob were starting to run through my head, but fortunately it hadn’t quite outgrown the square of parchment paper I proofed it on. I gave it a few slashes and some decorative sprinkles of flour, and slid it from the baking peel onto the hot baking stone. Forty minutes later, it was golden brown and crisp with an internal temperature approaching 200F, and I had a hard time waiting for the allotted half-hour before slicing into it.
As you can see, the loaf had a light, even crumb and a sturdy crust. We sliced it up and taste-tested it with a bowl of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Although it was very pretty and had good texture, I couldn’t help but feel that it was somewhat lacking in flavor; it needed more salt or something. I thought I had added quite a bit of rosemary, but the loaf expanded so much during the second proofing that you could hardly find the specks of herbs in the finished product. Jeremy said it tasted alright, then noted that he should really make some more bread himself—last year he was quite the breadbaker. I totally agree, because I thought his potato rosemary bread was fantastic. Maybe I could even get him to make another loaf of it and write a guest-post here…
This was a relatively straightforward recipe: I had few problems in working with the dough, and no trouble at all in getting it to rise. My dough was a little too soft and sticky to sustain shaping, hence the big flat boule. I’d say this recipe is best suited as a palette for focaccia, and that doesn’t need much in the way of shaping. The other option would be to continue adding flour until I get a different consistency of dough, but that might affect the chew. Make sure to check out the Daring Bakers blogroll to see everyone’s creations. And thanks to Tanna of My Kitchen in Half Cups for choosing a savory challenge this month, since we’ve got desserts to spare around here already! You can find the potato bread recipe on her website here.
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11.25.07
Posted in American, Cuisines, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Pies & Tarts at 10:04 am by julie
The lovely Leslie of Definitely Not Martha chose the perfect theme for a November Sugar High Friday: The Beta Carotene Harvest. The hardest part was just choosing a recipe with so many luscious possibilities! In the end, I decided to go traditional and make the same old paradise pumpkin pie I’ve baked for the last few years on holidays. I did make things a little more interesting for myself by roasting a sugar pumpkin and making my own puree.
There’s not much to it, as it turns out—at least once I got my husband to quarter the very sturdy little pumpkin for me. Once roasted, the pumpkin flesh reminded me of nothing so much as orange hash brown shreds. I forgot to weigh my pumpkin before cleaning it, but it must have weighed around 4 pounds. After roasting and whizzing the pulp in the food processor, I finished with about 2 pounds of puree.
As I mentioned, I’ve made this pie several times. It has a cheesecake layer topped with a pumpkin custard layer, finished off with walnut streusel—very festive, and it strikes a good balance between your traditional pumpkin pie and something a bit more unusual. I’ve never had trouble with the layers marbling in the past, but I make sure the cream cheese layer is as set as possible before pouring on the pumpkin. A short stint in the freezer helps with that. In this case, I think my fresh pumpkin puree had more moisture in it than your standard canned pumpkin, and I’ll drain the remaining puree before using it in other recipes. It made my custard layer loose enough to swirl entirely through the cream cheese and sink below it. It still tasted as good as always, just not especially impressive to look at.
Old Fashioned Paradise Pumpkin Pie
1 (9 inch) pie shell
Cheesecake Layer:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 C sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
Pumpkin Layer:
1 1/4 C pumpkin puree, fresh if possible
1 C evaporated milk
2 eggs
1/4 C sugar
1/4 C packed brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
Streusel Layer:
2 T AP flour
2 T packed brown sugar
2 T butter, softened
1/2 C chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)
Cheesecake Layer: In a medium mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Beat in sugar, then add vanilla and egg. Beat mixture until light and smooth. Chill mixture for 30 minutes, then spread into pastry shell. Place in the freezer for about 20 minutes to firm up (a longer while in the refrigerator would work as well).
Pumpkin Layer: In a large bowl, combine pumpkin puree, evaporated milk, eggs, sugars, spices and salt. Mix until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.
Preheat oven to 350F. Pour pumpkin mixture gently over cream cheese layer. Cover edges of crust with aluminum foil and bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil from edges and bake an additional 25 minutes.
Streusel Layer: While pie is in oven, combine flour and brown sugar in a small bowl. Mix well, then add softened butter and stir until ingredients are combined. Mix in nuts.
After pie has been in oven for 50 minutes, remove and sprinkle streusel evenly over top. Bake for an additional 10-15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Allow to cool, and serve chilled with some sweetened whipped cream.
Source: AllRecipes
And if that’s not enough beta carotene for you, I’ll be writing up a post in another few days about a less conventional dessert I made with a portion of my leftover sweet potato puree: sweet potato-maple pecan ice cream.
Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
As a final side note, I also found the time to clean and roast the seeds from my little sugar pumpkin. I rinsed and boiled them in salted water, then tossed them with a bit of melted butter and alder-smoked salt, and roasted them in a 400F oven until they were golden brown and crunchy. They were a perfect snack to munch on while we waited for Thanksgiving dinner to finish cooking. Guidelines for toasting pumpkinseeds can be found here and here.
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11.24.07
Posted in American, Cuisines, Dessert, Fruits, Pies & Tarts at 9:06 am by julie
I’ve been trying for years to find a good apple pie or crisp recipe, because it’s something Jeremy frequently requests. There have been times when I’ve come close, but either the topping wasn’t crisp enough or thick enough, or the apples were bland and mushy or so wet that the crust turned to goo overnight. But I think, as of yesterday, my search is over.
The apple pie I made yesterday morning fulfills all of our criteria perfectly. The crust was flaky; the apples were soft—not mushy—and redolent of cinnamon; the topping was crunchy and crumbly, but held together when sliced without making a mess; and best of all, look Ma, no lake in the pie plate! Plus, it’s pretty impressive to stick a huge mountain of apples and crumbs in the oven and end up with a normal-sized apple pie. 
Cinnamon Crumble Apple Pie
Filling:
3 1/4 lbs Granny Smith apples (about 6 apples)
2/3 C granulated sugar
2 T AP flour
2 T corn starch
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
2 T unsalted butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla extract
Topping:
1/2 C AP flour
1/2 C oatmeal
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/4 C packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick (8 T) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 disk Combination Crust (see recipe below), or purchased refrigerated pie crust
Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 400°F. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to 12-inch round. Transfer to 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish. Trim overhang to 1/2 inch; turn edge under and crimp decoratively. Refrigerate while preparing filling and topping.
For filling: Peel, core, and slice each apple into 16 wedges. Mix dry ingredients in large bowl, and toss to coat apples. Add vanilla and melted butter and toss thoroughly.
For topping: Blend first 6 ingredients in processor. Add chilled butter cubes; pulse until mixture resembles wet sand.
Toss filling to redistribute juices; transfer to crust, mounding in center. Pack topping over and around apples. Don’t panic if it seems huge; the apples will cook down. Bake pie on baking sheet until topping is golden, about 40 minutes (cover with foil if browning too quickly). Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Bake until apples in center are tender when pierced and filling is bubbling thickly at edges, about 45 minutes longer. Cool until warm, about 1 hour. Serve with vanilla or cinnamon ice cream.
Source: Adapted from Cinnamon Crumble Apple Pie at Epicurious.
The pie crust recipe I used this time was a little difficult to roll out because it tended to crumble, but the result was an incredibly flaky crust. The photo above is a cross-section of a pie crust cookie made with rounds of dough scraps and various sugars (cacao nib, coconut, cinnamon, and demerara). You can see just how flaky even the rerolled scraps came out.
Combination Crust
2 1/2 C AP flour
1 tsp salt
2 T sugar
3/4 C (12 T) unsalted butter, chilled, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1/2 C shortening (8 T)
6-8 T ice water
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
Mix flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Scatter butter pieces over flour mixture, a few at a time. Cut butter into the flour mixture with short pulses. Add shortening a tablespoonful at a time, and cut into mixture with several more short pulses, just until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal with butter bits no bigger than peas. Pour mixture into a mixing bowl.
Mix ice water and vinegar in small measuring cup to blend. Drizzle over flour mixture; stir with fork until moist clumps form, adding more water by teaspoonfuls if dough is dry. Do not overwork dough. Gather dough into two balls; flatten into disks and wrap in plastic; refrigerate at least 30 minutes. Ready to roll! Enough for one double-crust 9-inch or 10-inch pie.
Source: Slightly adapted from the Combination Butter and Shortening Crust (scroll down) at Simply Recipes.
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11.23.07
Posted in American, Cuisines, Dinner, Meats, Poultry, Sides, Veggies at 11:35 am by julie
Thanksgiving for us tends to be a pretty laid-back affair. It’s just the two of us, so we don’t stand on the traditional mid-afternoon meal time (the point of which I have never exactly understood, anyway). For the past few years, I’ve spent Wednesday evenings baking desserts and Thursday mornings prepping for dinner; I make soup with some fresh bread for lunch, and start working on our rather small turkey after that, so we eat Thanksgiving dinner at dinnertime.
This year’s menu was a bit modified because of Jeremy’s flu earlier in the week. He hadn’t eaten a full meal since probably Sunday, so I was afraid he wouldn’t want much for Thanksgiving either. But as it turns out, he did a pretty good job of cleaning his plate, even if he didn’t feel up to being my sous chef this year.
We got a little 8lb free-range turkey from Whole Foods, and I soaked it overnight on Wednesday in a cider brine from this recipe, cut in half for the size of our turkey and the amount of cider we bought. I bought a turkey brining kit at the store that was supposed to contain a bag and a brining solution, but the only thing in the box was the enormous bag, so I had to improvise.
As you can see from the photo above, I ended up rigging the bag with twist ties at the top and both bottom corners, to reduce the space inside. That, plus shoving the turkey, brine and all, into a smallish soup pot, raised the level of the liquid to the top of the turkey, and it spent the night and the following morning in that constrained condition.
Yesterday afternoon, I got Jeremy’s assistance draining and rinsing and thoroughly drying the turkey. The recipe I chose this year, Roast Turkey with Cider Sage Gravy from Epicurious, called for pretty minimal prep: butter under the skin and brushed on top, salt and pepper, clove-stuck onion inside. I did get to make my very first bouquet garni, partially with herbs from my own little bed out back, so that was fun.
I roast my turkeys with a foil cap over the breast meat, that I take off partway through cooking. I probably should have covered the legs a little this time as well, but the turkey still came out just fine. It came out of the oven to rest, and I made the cider gravy using fresh turkey stock: While doing initial prep for some of my sides in the morning, I saved all the veggie trimmings and sauteed them with the turkey’s neck and giblets, along with some whole carrots, smashed garlic, chunks of onion, and fresh herbs. Then I covered them in water and kept the whole mess simmering on the stovetop most of the day. I ended up with about 8 cups of flavorful brown stock after straining out the dross, and have quite a bit leftover even after making gravy. I should note that this gravy thickened up for me faster than it ever has, and I think it must have been because of the instruction to mix the flour with turkey fat before whisking it into the gravy base. I ended up with a few stray lumps, but it was still the most fool-proof gravy I’ve ever made.
As for the rest of the meal, I’ll just point the way to the recipes I used, and a quick mention of how they came out. A few items are worthy of their own posts, so watch for those in the next few days.
I always make Slow Cooker Stuffing for Thanksgiving these days because it frees up my time and oven space. We never cook stuffing in the bird because it makes the whole thing take longer, and there’s the risk of undercooking. It also makes the stuffing too gooey for my taste, and I can think of at least one occasion when we were first married where we forgot to remove the stuffing from the bird altogether. (That would be sacrilege for some, I know!) This year I used roasted garlic bread from Costco as the base of the stuffing, cubed and air-dried overnight and fully dried in a very low oven (about 180F) in the morning. I was planning to try adding chestnuts this year, but I was chatting on the phone with my mother and aunt while making it, and didn’t recall the chestnuts until much later in the day. We’ve always been pleased with how this stuffing recipe tastes. For me, it doesn’t need more than about 2 cups of broth to moisten it, but make sure to check on it periodically through the day, and stir it up to keep it from getting too browned on the bottom.
I made Caramelized Shallot and Sage Mashed Potatoes this year, and they were pretty tasty, but I would probably like it better with my shallots diced than thinly sliced as called for. It’s just a textural thing, but all those little shallot rings made my potatoes appear to be kind of stringy. I made the shallots in advance, so when the potatoes were ready, I could just mix it all together.
Another side dish that has become tradition around here is that Vanilla Sweet Potato Puree I’ve written about before. Heidi, I think my husband will be forever grateful to you for sharing that recipe. I always end up having to double the recipe because when I ask Jeremy to pick out a pound and a half or so of yams, he puts 4 pounds of yams in the cart. More recipes for sweet potato puree leftovers are no doubt in the offing.
When we went to the grocery store last weekend, I filled up a bag of green beans, put it in the cart, and asked Jeremy if he wanted Brussels sprouts for Thanksgiving also. His response was that he wanted only Brussels sprouts and no beans, but it was already too late at that point. I used some of the green beans in my chicken noodle soup earlier in the week, and had planned to roast the sprouts with apples and bacon for the big meal, but with Jeremy sick, I fell back on a less fussy recipe. The green beans weren’t going to last and the sprouts will, so I made Roasted String Beans with Shallots on the understanding that Jeremy wasn’t going to eat any, and will make a pasta dish with the sprouts when we can’t stand the sight of Thanksgiving leftovers for another moment.
The desserts, I think, are worthy of their own posts. Per Jeremy’s (more general) requests, I made a paradise pumpkin pie with fresh pumpkin puree, and a cinnamon apple crumb pie. We only tried out the apple last night, but it was fantastic, and will be detailed tomorrow, once we’ve sampled it again (ahem).
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11.20.07
Posted in American, Cuisines, Dinner, Lunch, Meats, Poultry, Soups at 11:19 am by julie
I love soup. I think I could happily eat soup for lunch every day all winter long and not tire of it. In fact, when Jeremy was going to school in New York, I made soup all the time: tomato cream, roasted cauliflower, asparagus, chicken tortellini, beef stew, split pea, lentil-brown rice, chili, you name it.
Jeremy, on the other hand, tends to snub soups. His typical response to a dinner plan featuring soup is disappointed indifference and a hopeful request for biscuits. But I’ve made a few soups in the past year or so that changed his mind. He liked the white chicken chili I made well enough to request it again a few weeks later; a pot of cream of broccoli won him over when he realized we could use leftovers as a pasta sauce; and he said the wild mushroom bisque I made last Thanksgiving was the best soup he’d ever eaten.
Last night Jeremy wasn’t feeling well, and requested chicken noodle soup for dinner. I sighed a little because he had just talked me into getting a lamb shoulder roast for shepherd’s pie the day before, and the Thanksgiving juggernaut was looming. Still, I rummaged for bone-in chicken thighs and boneless breasts to thaw, and tossed the lamb shoulder in the freezer in their place; it will have to wait now until after the holiday leftovers are gone.
Since I was making soup (and not my particular favorite either, I should note), I decided to do it right and start from scratch. To wit: I topped and tailed some carrots and celery, peeled onions and browned up the chicken thighs. The latter, together with the vegetable trimmings, bay leaves, peppercorns, and branches of fresh rosemary and thyme, were simmered together for an hour or so to make a lovely brown chicken stock. While it perked, I passed the time cubing and sauteeing and slightly cooling breast meat, dicing and sauteeing mirepoix, and snapping a handful of green beans. The nice thing about a request for chicken noodle soup right after you’ve done your Thanksgiving shopping is the ready availability of vegetables and herbs. On the other hand, I may now need to go get more carrots.
The soup came together rather quickly at the end. Once the mirepoix was cooked, I strained my broth into it, reserving the spent chicken thighs to chop up for doggie meal incentives. I chunked the chicken breasts into bite-sized bits and sliced a few small potatoes into the pot. When the latter were getting tender, I added some whole wheat egg noodles (if we’d had eggs on hand, I would have made homemade noodles too; alas, those were being saved for purchase on a quick Costco trip now postponed) and the green beans. The soup needed a bit of skimming and a hefty salt adjustment before it was ready to serve, but it was delicious. Jeremy ate two bowls of it, and I was rather impressed with myself.
Unfortunately, the soup didn’t perform as hoped and make Jeremy feel better. By the middle of the night, it became apparent that we’re dealing with stomach flu, not a cold. It’s a good thing I had a flu shot this year, but I’m crossing my fingers all the same. While I wait to see whether or not I’ll catch the flu just in time for Thanksgiving, I think I’ll have another bowl of soup.
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11.19.07
Posted in American, Breakfast, Cuisines at 3:49 pm by julie
I bought a little jug of Knudsen’s spiced cider on a whim last time we were at the grocery store, and it was a perfect accompaniment for those crisp little buckwheat cookies. Once the cookies vanished, I began considering options for baking with some of my remaining cider instead.
There have been a rash of apple cider doughnut posts in the foodblogging world lately. The recipe that initially made me decide to jump in and make some of my own was this one from JenJen of Milk and Cookies, but I have a hard time justifying mono-use baking equipment like a doughnut baking pan. (I’m this close to talking myself into buying a madeleine pan, though, so I might end up baking my doughnuts one day after all.) Then I remembered seeing Peabody’s gorgeous cider doughnuts, and knew that’s what I had to make.
At the next opportunity—this past Saturday morning—I sprang into action. While Jeremy slept off a late-night WoW session, I reduced cider, soured milk and sifted dry ingredients. The dough came together as he shuffled by to let the pup out back for her morning romp (rain does nothing to dampen her spirits…definitely an Oregon dog!). Because I don’t have a doughnut cutter, I used a 3″ biscuit cutter and removed the holes with an apple corer, a substitution that worked perfectly and felt resonant to me. Then I fried, using my smaller soup pot filled less than halfway up with oil. I was able to do four doughnuts at a time, and just barely had enough oil in the pot to finish the batch—the last three ended up touching the bottom and got slightly scorched. As they came out of the oil, I drained them on paper towels and transferred them to a cooling rack to be anointed with glaze. I think my glazing technique needs work, though, because I had to make a double batch of glaze to make up for the amount that dripped off the doughnuts and puddled on the counter under them.
I think they came out very well, and surprisingly doughnut-like in appearance. I definitely need to get a deep-fry thermometer, however, because the temp was hard to regulate with my little handheld digital, and I think my doughnuts browned more on the outside than they should have, despite my continual fiddling with the heat knobs. Soured milk didn’t seem to do much for the texture; next time I might consider using yogurt or sour cream in its place to try and impart some extra moistness. The other experiment I’d love to try would be getting some buckwheat flour into the dough, which I think would be lovely.
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11.18.07
Posted in Cuisines, Dinner, Meats, Polish & Hungarian, Pork and Ham at 2:01 pm by julie
As picky as I am, there are a few cuisines that have just clicked with my palate right off the bat. The first, as you could easily guess from paging through my blog, is Italian, largely because of its use of clean, simple flavors, unmixed courses, and general lack of heavy spices (I know the food of some Italian port cities rely more heavily on spices, but those aren’t my favorites). The other, which I chalk up to the German-Polish portion of my mishmashed European ancestral heritage, is Northern and Eastern European food, which just screams comfort food to me. Too bad that wasn’t yet the case when I spent a month in Germany at the age of 15 and ended up living primarily on fried potatoes and onions…
There used to be a really great little Hungarian restaurant named Paprika’s in Salem, just a few minutes’ drive from our house. I don’t think there was a single thing there, familiar or not, that I didn’t enjoy trying… well, if you twisted my arm, I’d say that the cold cherry soup would have needed a lot of getting used to. Anyway, it closed a few years back and I was really bummed. In order to get my fix now, there is only Gustav’s in Portland (yummy, reasonably priced German food; the one by Washington Square is far superior to the one in Clackamas) and Novak’s Hungarian restaurant in Albany, which I have yet to convince my husband could be worth the drive to try out.
Thus, every so often, I have an urge to make spätzle and schnitzel, goulash or chicken paprikash, or pierogies. (Actually, all of those are sounding good right about now!) One of the dishes I kept trying to convince myself to make was cabbage rolls, but every time I thought I was feeling up to it, I chickened out. My principal concern was getting the cabbage leaves off the cabbage whole, and I pictured myself ever so carefully removing leaf after leaf only to end up with a pile of shredded leaves I could only use for a sauteed side dish. This time, though, I refused to talk myself out of it.
I read several methods for cabbage leaf removal, including boiling, freezing, and steaming, and ended up going with the latter. As it turns out, removing the leaves whole wasn’t my problem. That would be paring or trimming down the thick part of the stem and the base of the leaf while leaving enough area to wrap a nugget of meat filling. I kept ending up with leaves that were limp in the top half and not flexible enough in the bottom half, even after thinning the stems and cutting a small triangular notch from the base. I ended up having to steam the individual leaves to get more flexibility, and that worked alright, I guess, since I was able to make a dozen or so rather small and lumpy cabbage roll-esque bundles. All I can say is, start with a big cabbage, or use two, because I was getting down to some pretty small leaves for the last few rolls.
As for the recipe itself, I did a modified version of a Wolfgang Puck recipe that I found on the Food Network website. I ground a thawed pork loin and ground that for the filling, and I was very happy to use up the last of a loaf of roasted garlic bread for the crumbs (Jeremy keeps getting multiple loaves of fresh bread from Costco, and it’s very hard to eat them all before they go stale, particularly the savory sort that can’t be used for French toast). I had more filling than cabbage leaves to roll, so I used it for meatballs; they just got tucked in around the rolls, and fared beautifully. Other than that, my main modification was to remove the rolls and meatballs from the pan after cooking and puree the sauce with a good dollop of sour cream, because the sauce looked so thin to me and I had some sour cream on hand to use. It worked out perfectly, and made so much sauce that if I had been thinking straight, I would have saved it to serve as a main course pasta sauce in the next night or two.
So were the cabbage rolls worth all the trouble? I’m not so sure. They tasted great over mashed potatoes, and we both really enjoyed them. But the cabbage leaves and bundling were so time consuming (and not a little frustrating) that I think next time I will just make meatballs of the filling, cooked in the sauce, and served with a side of sauteed cabbage and much less fuss. At least now I can say that I’ve conquered cabbage rolls, though.
Cabbage Rolls with Tomato-Sour Cream Sauce
Stuffed Cabbage Leaves:
9 slices white bread, crusts removed, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 C milk
1 1/2 lb ground pork (or some combination of pork, chicken and lamb)
1 T dried parsley
1 tsp dried sage
1 T finely chopped garlic
1 T sugar
1 1/2 T salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 large green cabbage
Paprika Tomato Sauce:
5 T extra-virgin olive oil
1 C diced onion
1 T finely chopped garlic
1 T tomato paste
4 tsp sweet paprika
2 C chicken stock
1 14-oz can diced tomatoes
2 T balsamic vinegar
1 T sugar
1/2 tsp dried sage
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 C sour cream
Make the filling for the Stuffed Cabbage Leaves: Put the bread cubes in a small mixing bowl, add the milk, and leave the bread to soak until it is completely saturated. Squeeze out the excess milk with your hands; discard the milk and add the soaked bread to a large mixing bowl with the meat, parsley, sage, garlic, sugar, salt, and pepper. Mix well, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate.
Steam the cabbage for 5-10 minutes, until the outermost leaves are pliable. After removing several softened leaves, you will likely need to continue steaming the inner leaves. Peel off at least 12 leaves total. Holding each leaf rib-side up, pare the thick part of the rib to flatten it. If necessary, cut a small triangular notch from the thick base of the stem, or steam the individual leaves for a minute or two more to soften the base. Place a small handful of filling in the center of each cabbage leaf. Fold the sides of the leaf over the filling, overlapping them slightly, and then, starting at the stem end, roll up the leaf into a compact bundle. Set aside.
Meanwhile, make the sauce: Preheat the oven to 400F. Heat a large heatproof saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil, onion, and garlic and saute until the vegetables are translucent. Add the tomato paste and paprika and saute briefly. Then, stir in the chicken stock, tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, sugar, and sage. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes.
Arrange the stuffed cabbage leaves neatly in a single layer in the saucepan. If you had more filling than cabbage leaves to fill, use the rest to make meatballs, and tuck them in around the rolls. Bring the sauce back to a boil. Transfer the pan to the preheated oven and bake until the bundles are cooked through and firm to the touch, 25 to 30 minutes.
Use a large spoon to transfer the rolls to a platter or storage container. With an immersion blender, puree the sauce together with the sour cream. Serve the cabbage rolls with mashed potatoes, rice or spaetzle to sop up the luscious sauce.
Source: Adapted from Food Network.
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