Apple Cake

I started making this rustic cake when I was in graduate school and appreciated the fact that it economically includes about half the amount of butter and eggs of other cakes of this size. The recipe makes a seemingly small amount of stiff batter compared to the volume of sliced apples, but once the apples are stirred in and the cake is baked, it works well. I can’t pinpoint the origin of this, but I would bet on an old popular magazine like Woman’s Day.

Apple Cake

¼ c soft butter

1 c sugar

1 egg

1 c all-purpose flour

½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp grated nutmeg

½ tsp ground ginger

Pinch of ground cloves

3 tart apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced into 1/8-inch thick slices

Cream the butter and sugar well, add the egg and continue to beat until light and fluffy. Sift the fry ingredients together and add, stirring until well mixed. Gently stir in the apples. Pour into a buttered 9-inch pie pan, spreading the batter smoothly over the apples. Bake in a pre-heated 350-degree oven for an hour. Serve warm with whipped cream.

Read Full Post »

Play With Your Food: It’s Halloween!

This pasta dish reminds me ever so slightly of those chocolate puddings sprinkled with crushed chocolate cookies and exuding gummy worms, which were clever devices for restaurants to make a lot of money from parents who wanted to placate kids so they could finish their dinners in some tacky “family” restaurant.  Nightmares for soccer moms.

Actually, this is a remarkably good pasta dish, a version of a delicious pairing that I ate in a North Beach restaurants in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. That one involved homemade squid ink pasta with a delectable medley of shellfish in a garlicky wine sauce.  For this one, I lightly cooked orange peppers and calamari (squid) in olive oil and garlic and served them mixed with a premium Italian brand of squid ink farfalle. It may look ghoulish but it sure was delicious.

Read Full Post »

Preserving Herbs Part 4: Drying

Drying herbs for winter use is probably the most prevalent technique among home cooks, but without a dehydrator, I air-dry only a few types. Thyme, savory, and sage are my standbys and I am trying marjoram this year.  In addition to my own pot garden, I have access to a wonderful planting of herbs at our CSA. I typically pick a bunch of thyme every few weeks and air dry it tied with a rubber band. When thoroughly dried, the bunches are stored in an airtight plastic bag. To use, I just have to remove a bunch and squeeze it over a pot to release the thyme leaves. Same with savory.

Thyme, with its woody stems, can be dried standing up in a paper carton, whereas certain other types of thyme, marjoram, oregano and sage do better upside down. I have a series of metal shower curtain hooks attached to a towel bar where I hang the herbs to dry, out of daylight and in a dry environment.

Read Full Post »

Preserving Herbs Part 3: Freezing

A while ago, I posted Parts 1 and 2 of this series on preserving herbs for use year round. The second involved preserving herbs in salt (sage in that case) and the first preserving tender herbs in vinegar, including tarragon, basil and dill. Throughout the year, depending on the season, I also preserve herbs in the freezer. With the first heavy frost soon upon us, I have the urge not to waste the herbs remaining in my garden, although the ones in pots will be moved to the porch and will over-winter until we get severe cold or deep snow.

Some sturdy herbs, like savory and sage, can simply be placed in the freezer whole. This can also work with the tender herbs like marjoram, oregano and basil, separated into individual leaves. Usually I use typical Genovese basil but this year I am trying this with Thai basil, which is hard to find in the market.

Other herbs do best in pesto form, either a full-blown pesto that includes garlic and nuts along with salt and oil, or simply salt and oil. In my freezer,  I have pesto made from marjoram at the height of its glory a month or so ago, basil, dill, fennel fronds, and garlic scapes. While it’s tempting to make neat little cubes, they sometimes crumble. It’s easier (thank you Margaret Roach from A Way to Garden) to make rolls that can be sliced. After covering them in plastic wrap, I roll them in paper, which makes them stiff enough to survive my tendency to overstuff the freezer!

Read Full Post »

Cauliflower Baked with Preserved Lemon

Fresh lemons are not great in my part of the world so when I get good ones, I try to put up some of them by preserving them in salt, Moroccan-style. I find those tangy little pieces to be very versatile in cooking, imparting a depth of character to many dishes, even one as simple as this.

I was checking out Canal House’s latest (and, as always, beautiful) publication online and noticed a recipe for cauliflower baked with preserved lemon. I didn’t record the recipe but the idea was simple enough: separate the cauliflower into florets (or leave whole), sprinkle with olive oil and chopped preserved lemon, and bake at 350 degrees until browned and tender. I stirred the florets a couple of times to make sure they were browning since I skimped on the oil.  This was a delicious combination of fragrant subtle cauliflower sparked with tangy morsels of lemon.

Read Full Post »

Taming the Bitter Greens

The advent of beautiful fall greens – various red and green, straight and curly mustards, tatsoi, mizuna, and arugula in particular but also beet, kohlrabi and turnip greens among others – prompts braising and combination with other ingredients that calm any sharpness and complement the texture and flavor of the base. Our CSA farm offers cuttings called “braising mix” that are the fall equivalent of spring’s mesclun. From the name, it is intended to be cooked, but I often add a few of those raw bitter leaves into a fall salad tossed with fruit and nuts.

Here are two of countless ways of cooking these bitter greens. The first technique, which I’ve typically used with mustard greens, involves onions, garlic, and chopped peppers and tomatoes, the last of the season. Saute chopped onion and garlic in a little olive oil and add the peppers, cooking until softened. Then add chopped tomatoes (a good way to use up the last cherry tomatoes of the season) and cook slightly. Add the washed greens and cook, stirring, over medium heat until the greens are wilted, adding a little water if necessary (not much since it will dilute the taste). Season with salt and pepper and serve hot.

The second uses bacon and cider vinegar. For greens that are to be wilted and eaten raw, I normally cook a small batch of bacon, remove it to crisp, and then sauté onions in the bacon grease, adding cider vinegar to deglaze the pan. With a touch of sugar, this becomes a dressing that is poured over fresh greens. My braising mix was a little strong for a salad, so I added the greens to the mix after the onions had softened a bit and garnished with the reserved bacon. I also added a little pre-cooked rice to make this a more substantial meal.

Read Full Post »

Braised Fennel with Fennel Frond Pesto

The first little fennel bulbs of the season popped up at our CSA farm attached to a humungous (2 foot-long) stalk of beautiful, fresh fronds. Not wanting to waste any of that bounty, I made fennel frond pesto, froze some in a little tube to chop up later, and stirred some into braised fennel.

When freezing fennel frond pesto, I typically go easy on the garlic since I find it doesn’t freeze well. Instead, I just whir the fronds, picked clean from the stalks, in a food processor with salt, olive oil and sometimes some blanched almonds or pine nuts for texture. For using it fresh, I add a little chopped garlic.

To braise fennel, score the bulb and slice it lengthwise into slivers. Sauté them in a saucepan in a little olive oil or butter until it just starts to brown, add water or a chicken or vegetable stock, not quite to cover the vegetables and cook slowly, covering the pan, until tender. Add a squeeze of lemon juice. If there’s a lot of liquid left in the pan, remove the fennel and boil the liquid down to syrup and pour it over the fennel.

Read Full Post »

Last Call for Tomatoes: Sweet Ketchup and a Hot Sauce

Our first frost was late this year so we were harvesting tomatoes well into October, picking them when they just started to turn to pink and letting them ripen to red in the house (out of the sun). By this time I have already done what I call my “big jar” canning, meaning quarts of tomatoes and quarts and pints of tomato sauce and other less seasoned purees that will be the basis for soup, stew, risotto etc. all winter. Of course there were salsas and small jars of my favorite tomato shallot sauce that is nearly as dense as tomato paste.  Now, for the final act, the last plum-sized cherry tomatoes are being roasted slowly in the oven and stored in the freezer, and the remaining paste tomatoes are being turned into two tasty sauces: a sweet tomato ketchup and a fiery hot pepper and tomato sauce.

I didn’t get around to posting the hot sauce for the October series of the Tigress Can Jam that focused on capsicums but it would have been a good candidate since it’s based on New Mexico chile peppers combined with tomatoes, onion and garlic and reduced to a thick paste. The recipe came from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, where it’s titled “Harissa Sauce.” I re-named it since it’s hardly harissa, given the addition of the tomatoes and spices.

For my tomato shallot sauce, and for these two, I lightly salt the peeled, de-seeded and chopped tomatoes and let them drain in a colander for a couple of hours. This has the advantage of removing extra liquid from the tomatoes and allows them to reduce rather quickly to a thick sauce. Of course, I omit any salt from the ultimate recipe. The resulting drained liquid is added to the tomato juice strained from de-seeding and is a delightful drink (which, with the addition of a little lemon juice, can also be water-bath-canned, or frozen as is).

The original tomato ketchup recipe can be found on Tigress’s website, here. I tinkered with it a bit, especially in the preparation but also in the proportions. No matter… it was good. I might consider decreasing the sugar in the future. I certainly cut the salt by at least half.

Tomato Hot Sauce adapted from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

1 ½ lbs plum tomatoes (to yield 2 c chopped)

Salt

1 ¼ – 2 oz dried New Mexico chiles

1 c chopped onions

¼ c plus 1 tbsp brown sugar

½ c cider vinegar

¼ c chopped seeded red bell pepper

2 tsp ground cumin (preferably freshly ground along with the other spices)

¾ tsp ground coriander

2 tbsp minced garlic

1 ½ tsp salt

Bring a pot of water to a boil and put a second pot of ice water in the sink. Plunge the tomatoes, a few at a time, into the boiling water, remove to the ice water. Core and peel them, halve them across the equator, remove the seeds and watery flesh to a sieve, chop the pieces, and place them in a sieve over a bowl. When all of the tomatoes have been prepared, lightly salt them and let them drain for about two hours.

Remove the stems and seeds from the dried hot peppers (being careful to avoid touching them with your flesh, which could disseminate the burning oils) and soak them submerged in hot (boiled) water for about 20 minutes. Puree the mixture in a food processor and set aside.

Place all ingredients in a large, wide saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally to avoid burning on the bottom.  Reduce heat to simmer the mixture and cook for about 20-25 minutes until thick.

Meanwhile, prepare the jars and canning lids for water bath canning. Ladle the hot sauce into the jars, seal them and process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes (assuming you’re using 4 oz or 8 oz jars). Turn off the heat, remove the lid and let the jars settle for 5 minutes before removing to cool undisturbed.

Makes 5-6 four-oz jars.

Read Full Post »

Roots, Stalks and Leaves: Celeriac Soup

Among the items distributed at our CSA farm this week was a pair of small celeriac bulbs (a/ka/ celery root), with the stalks and leaves still attached.  When the bulbs become larger, the stalks become woody but these were still tender. So I made a simple soup, first using the leaves to make a stock, then simmering the chopped-up stalks until tender and finally cooking sliced celeriac and potatoes in the liquid.

I chose the most tender stalks, which were crisp and full of lovely celery flavor. I always like the waste-not-want-not approach to using the whole plant. The pureed root base was delicious, strong but refreshing served with a little cream or milk stirred in and garnished with the reserved stalks and very thin slivers of leaves.  If you don’t have celeriac stalks or leaves, you can use the milder Pascal celery from the grocery store.

Celeriac Soup with Stalks and Leaves

2 small bulbs celeriac with the leaves and stalks

1 small onion or leek

1 quart homemade chicken broth or water

3-4 small potatoes

Additional water

Salt

Heavy cream or milk

Trim the stalks and leaves from the celeriac root. Clean and chop the stems, and chop the leaves. Simmer the leaves with the onion in the chicken stock or water until tender, about 15 minutes. Remove the leaves and discard. Add the chopped stalks to the broth and cook until tender, about 5-7 minutes. Remove the stalks and reserve.

Meanwhile, trim and peel the celeriac bulb and potatoes and slice them thinly. (They discolor if sliced in advance but you can plunge them in cold water with a little lemon to stop the oxidation.)  Bring to a simmer, adding a little water just to cover, lightly salt, and cook until tender, about 10-15 minutes. Puree the celeriac and potatoes and return to the pot. Add cream or milk to thin the soup to taste, adjust the seasoning and add the reserved chopped stalks. Garnish with slivers of the leaves.

Read Full Post »

Sweet ‘n’ Hot Red Pepper Jam

The first batch of this jelly-like jam was sweet and hot, delicious. The second batch was spiced, half with star anise and half with cardamom, tastes and aromas of a holiday season. The third batch – winner! – was laced with a dab of chipotles in adobo sauce. Sweet and hot, and smoky.

 

And that was BEFORE I went to San Francisco for a week, visiting the legendary Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market on a Saturday.  Wow.  I stopped in to the booth of a farm that specializes in chilis, and makes multiple types of pepper jams.  Next time (maybe this coming weekend), I will try cooking a wider variety of peppers, reducing them to a thick sauce with vinegar and sugar (less than used for this jam), adding  powdered pectin (OK, I succumbed) at the very end. Or maybe not if the mixture will become a sauce.

Before California, excited to see that the Tigress’s October Can Jam would focus on capsicums – peppers of all types – I gathered up all of the red ones from our CSA farm, my own little in-town garden, and a couple of varieties of hot ones from a nearby farm stand.  It was a guess as to how hot the jelly should be since pepper seems to calm down after being canned. (I found that out the hard way after I wimped out on some peach salsa earlier this summer.) While I normally look for ways to use homemade pectin when the ingredients don’t have enough of their own, I followed Pam Corbin’s advice (in the American version of her River Cottage Handbook) and added powdered pectin.

This is going to be great during the holidays. I can see it now… spooned over baked brie, spread on homemade crackers with a little cream cheese or ricotta. Or… garnishing a root vegetable soup. One of our guests at a dockside dive in California had a sustainably fished trout for dinner, which was garnished with an almost identical pepper jam from South Carolina… nice counterpoint. This one’s a keeper.

Sweet ‘n’ Hot Red Pepper Jam adapted from Pam Corbin, River Cottage Preserves

1 lb red bell peppers (about 3 peppers)

¼ lb red jalapeno peppers and other red hot chilis (about 3-4 peppers)

1 ½-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled

¾ c cider vinegar

2 ½ c granulated white sugar

1 ½ tsp pectin powder

2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice

½ tsp salt

Prepare the peppers. Remove the seeds and ribs, taking care with the hot peppers not to touch the flesh too much, and certainly don’t touch your eyes after you’ve been handling peppers since the oils will burn you. Wear rubber gloves when handling numerous hot peppers or use a sharp knife and sharp-tined fork, my preferred method.  Cut them into chunks and place them in a bowl of a food processor. Pulse to chop finely but don’t liquify them.

Finely mince the ginger (you can add this to the peppers but cut it finely first since its harder texture will cause it not to chop to the same consistency as the peppers).

Add the chopped peppers and ginger to the vinegar in a large saucepan and slowly bring to a simmer.  Add the sugar, pectin, lime juice and salt and bring to a boil. Boil hard for 6 minutes, then turn off the stove and let the mixture sit for about 20 minutes. (Alternatively, simmer the pepper mixture without the pectin until thickened and add the pectin at the end, cooking hard to develop the gel.)

Prepare jars and lids for canning (I used 4 oz jars but 8 oz/half-pint would be fine). When ready, reheat the jelly/jam to a boil and spoon into the jars.  If the peppers are not well distributed in the liquid, let the mixture sit for a few minutes and stir. Process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes after the water comes to a boil. Remove the lid, turn off the stove and let the jars sit for 5 minutes before removing to rest undisturbed until cool.

Makes up to eight 4 oz jars.

Read Full Post »