BakedOff

It’s Sprung!! (Spring Green Soup)

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Allison

Spring has finally come to Long Island!! We have daffodils, and cherry blossoms, and all sorts of green things are starting to spring up – both in our gardens and in our markets. Actually, I was lucky enough to be at the Union Square Greenmarket last weekend and I came across one of my favorite harbingers of spring – pea shoots (aka pea sprouts). Pea shoots look like exactly what they are – baby pea plants. They taste delicious – like the most tender raw baby peas, and you can eat them cooked or raw. In their honor, here’s a spring-green pea soup.

SPRING GREEN SOUP

2 leeks
2 yellow potatoes
1 – 2 tablespoons of butter
Salt
7 cups of chicken stock or vegetable stock TIP: If you’re using store-bought stock, I recommend 3 cups of stock mixed with 4 cups of water so you don’t overwhelm the taste of the vegetables. ANOTHER TIP: Keep another cup of stock (or half stock/half water) in reserve in case you want to thin out the soup.
6 cups fresh peas or frozen petite peas
1 tablespoon or more of dried thyme – lemon thyme if you can get it.
Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
A few handfuls of pea sprouts, rinsed and dried
Optional garnishes: chopped fresh mint, lemon, yogurt and/or cream

Make The Soup

Trim the tough, dark green leaves from the leeks, wash them well and roughly chop them. TIP: Leeks are filthy!!! My two favorite ways of washing them are to either split them lengthwise, leaving each half attached at the roots, and rinse them under running water or to fill up a large bowl with water, slice the leeks and swish them around in the water, draining and repeating until there’s no grit in the bottom of the bowl.
Melt the butter in a large saucepan or pot over medium heat.
When the butter finishes foaming, lower the heat a bit and add the leeks and a pinch of salt. Cover the leeks and cook, stirring occassionaly until the leeks are very soft but not browned – it should take about 15 minutes.
While the leeks are cooking, peel and roughly chop the potatoes.
Add the potatoes and cook for a few more minutes, stirring until the potatoes are coated with the butter.
Add the stock and thyme and simmer until the potatoes are soft, about 20 minutes.
Add the peas and cook about 5 minutes until they’ve softened a bit.
Puree the stock with a hand blender. Unless you have incredibly tender peas, or like your soup to have a lot of body, put the soup through a food mill set with a fine blade. TIP: If you’re using a food mill, you can probably skip the hand blender, but I find the process goes quicker if the soup is already pureed before running it through the mill.
Add some more stock to get the soup the consistency you like.

GARNISHES

If using pea sprouts as a garnish, heat the olive oil in a small sautee pan.
Add the garlic and cook until it just starts to color.
Add the the pea sprouts, and saute till they’re wilted, drain them on a paper towel, then chop them up.

If not using pea sprouts, the sweetness of the soup plays really well with mint, some lemon or a dollop of yogurt.

TIP: The soup is best served, either hot or cold, the day it’s made. It will keep for another day, but after that loses flavor.

TIP: If you would like a richer soup, add cream after the soup is pureed and run through the food mill.

YIELD: 2 1/2 quarts of soup.

Posted in First Place Recipes, In The Kitchen, Make Ahead-able, Recipes, Soups, Vegetables | Tagged How to wash leeks, Pea shoots, Pea soup | Comments Off

Stocking Up

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Allison

There are few things a person can do where a minimal input of effort and resources yields an undeservedly fabulous output. Chicken stock is one of those things.

Basic chicken stock only requires some leftover chicken bones and some water – add nothing else and it’s still worlds better than the sodium soaked stuff you can get in a can from the grocery store. Kick in a few veggies and add-ins and you’ve got a stock that will make you kick yourself for not trying it sooner.

NOTE: No matter how you go about it, chicken stock is going to require chicken. A tiny bit of planning ahead here will pay off. When you roast a chicken, save the carcass (and if possible the roasting juices, although more about that later). Throw it all in a resealable plastic bag and toss it in the freezer. Roast another chicken? Throw its carcass in the bag too. You don’t like to cook chicken, but you get rotisserie chicken all the time? No problem. Chicken stock does not discriminate between home cooked bones and store bought ones. You don’t cook a lot but you eat out all the time? I have been known to ask a waiter to pack up the bones so I could make stock, and they have complied without batting an eye.

CHICKEN STOCK 101 – THE ABSOLUTE, BARE-BONES (NO PUN INTENDED) BASICS

Bones from 2 to 3 chickens
Clean, room temperature, water – about 5 to 7 quarts (If your tap water tastes like chemicals or you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it. If necessary, buy some tasty filtered water and use that instead).
A pot
A spoon

Put the bones in a pot and cover them with water. You need enough water to cover the bones by a good few inches. You may also want enough water to top off the stock as it cooks if you need to skim off the top often.
Cook over medium heat until it barely starts to boil. As soon as it starts to bubble, turn it down so that it is barely simmering. You want to see just a few bubbles rise to the surface now and then. NOTE: This is important! If you boil the bones, the soup will look cloudy and won’t have a nice, clean, chicken taste. (I’ve heard it has something to do with the higher heat causing the proteins to bind in an unhelpful way, but don’t quote me on that). That’s also why you start off with cool water instead of hot water.
After half an hour, skim off any scum or fat that’s floated to the top.
Keep the stock at that barely-simmering level and let it cook for a couple of hours, until it tastes like chicken stock. If necessary, skim off the top occasionally.
Strain the stock through a fine mesh strainer and refrigerate.
The next morning, remove any fat that’s congealed on top, and use or freeze the stock.

Yield: About 4 – 5 quarts depending on how much water you start with and how long you cook down the stock.

That’s it – six steps and you have a perfectly delicious chicken stock ready to be used or frozen. If, however, you want to get an even better return on your investment I suggest …

CHICKEN STOCK 102

Carcasses of 3 chickens, or carcass of one chicken and a couple of pounds of chicken wings, or any combination of bones and chicken wings. NOTE: Adding chicken wings will give your stock a fuller flavor and a silky texture from the gelatin in the wings, but you will also have more fat to skim off than if you use bones alone. Don’t forget to rinse the raw chicken wings before adding them to the stock.
5 to 8 quarts of clean, room temperature water
An onion, washed and quartered through the stem end.
A stalk or two of celery, washed, leaves trimmed off, and cut in half
6 cloves of garlic, rinsed but not peeled
A few scallions, washed and cut in half
10 black peppercorns
One strip of lemon zest
Several sprigs of flat-leafed parsley, washed

Put the bones, and wings if you’re using them, in a pot.
Cover bones (and/or wings) with water by several inches.
Barely bring the pot to a boil over medium heat. As soon as it starts bubbling, reduce the heat so it is barely simmering. (See the notes to the Chicken Stock 101 for information about why you want only a low simmer).
After half an hour, skim off any fat or scum that’s risen to the surface. If you took off a lot of the liquid along with the fat or scum, you can add a couple of cups of water.
Add the vegetables, peppercorns and parsley. Why don’t you add the vegetables at the beginning? They’ll bob to the surface and make skimming the soup more difficult. Since most of the scum will rise the surface during the first half hour of simmering, wait until you’ve skimmed it off to add the vegetables.
Bring it back to that very low simmer, and cook the stock a couple of hours. I usually simmer it for between one and a half and two and a half hours.
Let it cool a bit and then strain it through a fine mesh strainer. Many recipes suggest pressing down on the solids so you can get all the flavor out. It’s a good idea, but be aware that it may cause a cloudier stock.
Refrigerate the stock.
The next morning, remove any fat that’s congealed on top of the stock.
Strain the stock again through a fine mesh strainer – if possible line the strainer with dampened cheese cloth. The stock’s ready to use, refrigerate for later, or freeze.

Yield: About 6 quarts of stock, depending on how much water you start with and how long you simmer the stock.

ADD-INS

-When I make stock, I try to make it as simple as possible if I don’t know how I’ll be using it. There are, however, lots of add-ins that are fantastic. For example:

If I cook leeks, I freeze the tough outer leaves instead of discarding them and add them to stock when I cook it.
If I know I’m using the stock for a dish with Asian flavors, I’ll use more scallions and add a slice or two of ginger.
Dried or fresh herbs such as thyme or marjoram help make a delicious stock. Be careful of stronger herbs like rosemary or sage because they can overpower the finished stock.
Other vegetables can be added. Mushrooms (fresh or dried) deepen the flavor of stock and a tomato or two can brighten it up. Lots of people like to add a scrubbed carrot or two.
One of my favorite things to add to stock is the leftover pan juices from roasting the chicken. They add concentrated chicken flavor and a lovely smooth texture to the stock.

-You may notice that I don’t add salt. You’re right – I don’t. I don’t think you need to. First of all, the chickens were probably seasoned with salt when they were originally cooked, so the bones may have some residual salt still on them. Secondly, I may want to reduce the stock later to concentrate its flavor – if I’ve already added salt, the concentrated stock may be too salty. Also, I’ll taste the finished soup, stew or sauce in which I use the stock, and, if necessary, salt it then. If the stock already has salt in it, I lose some control over how much there is in the finished product.

CONTROL THE FLAVOR: Sometimes you want a light stock to provide a subtle background flavor. Other times, you want a stronger, more assertive flavor. If you want a deeply flavored stock, you have a couple of options. The first is to reduce the stock after the final straining by putting it back in the pot and cooking it at a low simmer so that some of the water evaporates. The second method is to roast the bones before putting them in the soup pot. To roast the bones, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Put the bones in a roasting pan that will hold them in a single layer. Roast the bones, checking them and shaking pan to move them around a bit every 10 minutes, until they’re nicely browned. It may take 30 – 45 minutes. When they’re roasted, you place them in the pot and continue with the recipe. You can even deglaze the roasting pan with a little water and add that to the stock as well.

STORING: If you won’t be using the stock right away, you can store it. My own rule of thumb is that if I think I’ll be using it within a week, I’ll store it in a covered container in the fridge. You can also freeze stock for longer storage in ice cube trays or in resealable plastic bags. If you’re freezing in bags, I strongly suggest labeling the bag (including the date) and laying them flat on a cookie sheet in the freezer until they’re frozen solid so that the bags don’t adhere to whatever ice cream you’ve got in there.

Application: So now that you have this fabulous stock, what can you make with it? Add it to sauces or poaching liquids. Cook your rice or your pasta in stock instead of water. Speaking of rice, if you’ve never made risotto with homemade stock you’re in for a treat. Use it as a base for stews or, of course, get out your pots and start making soup. Try substituting stock for water in black bean soup, vegetable soup and butternut squash soup - enjoy!

Posted in First Place Recipes, In The Kitchen, Make Ahead-able, Recipes, Soups | Tagged Basics, Broth, Chicken Soup, Deeply flavored chicken stock, stock | Comments Off

Ice Cubes, Hold The Water

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Allison

Have I mentioned how much I hate my ice maker? My husband likes ice, and his one big request when we were planning kitchen appliances was that the fridge have an automatic ice maker. Words cannot begin to describe the twisted relationship I have with that thing. Every expensive repair that the fridge has required has somehow involved the ice maker. A few months ago, when the digital display showed that fridge temperature was rising, I just turned off the ice maker and voila, the fridge and freezer went back to the correct temperature. It’s stayed off since.

We still need some ice, however, even if it’s just for the occasional glass of ice water, so I dug out my old ice cube trays and started putting them to use. Once they were out, I realized that they were an under-utilized kitchen resource – there are lots of liquids that could be frozen in the trays and come in handy later. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Coffee - I am a die hard coffee fan, so the question often arises of what to do with coffee leftover in the maker after I know I’ve reached my limit. Freeze the leftover as ice cubes and your iced coffee will never be diluted again.

2. Stock – Homemade stock is a wonderful thing to have around the house. The problem is, if you’ve gone to trouble of making a batch of stock and freezing it, you probably don’t want to defrost a whole quart or gallon just to get a few spoonfuls. The solution? Freeze some in ice cube trays and pop them out as needed – you generally won’t need to defrost them, just add them to the pot or pan.

3. Chipotle Chilis in Adobo Sauce – Chipotle chilis are delicious, especially when canned in adobo sauce. Usually, however, I open a can, use a few and have half a can of chilis and sauce left over. Freeze them in trays and you’re ready to go next time you crave that smoky-spiciness.

4. Tomato Paste – Let me state flat out that you should try to get tomato paste in tubes. You squeeze out what you need and the rest stays fresh much longer than in cans or jars because there’s less exposure to air. That said, sometimes you have an open can or jar of tomato paste that you just don’t know what to do with. Freeze the paste in ice cube trays and you’ll have perfect portions ready to go whenever you need them.

5. Herb Pastes – I know I’ve mentioned herb pastes before. If you find yourself with leftover herb paste with no plans to use it in the near future – freeze it in ice cube trays. The portions will be useful for adding to soups, sauces or stews and they’ll stay fresh longer than in the fridge. I mention labeling below, but let me emphasize that you must label herb pastes, otherwise you won’t know if you’re adding mint or parsley.

6. Juice - Anyone else spend some time in the early 1970′s watching Saturday morning TV? Along with the other Schoolhouse Rock classics (I know, now you’re all humming “Conjunction Junction” as you read – sorry), there was “Time for Timer” featuring a little guy who tried to get kids to eat healthy. One of his suggestions was “Sunshine on a Stick” – orange juice, frozen in ice cube trays, with a toothpick added as a handle. Incredibly unsatisfactory. The cube kept spinning around the toothpick and the whole thing started to melt into stickiness before you could finish it. The basic idea is a good one though. Freeze juice in the trays and pop it out when you want flavored ice water, undiluted cold juice or you want to keep a smoothie cold.

7. Leftover lemon juice – Your recipe calls for one tablespoon of fresh lemon juice. No problem, you say, I’ve got a lemon in the fridge. You squeeze it, use it, and you’re left with another tablespoon or more of juice leftover. No problem – freeze it.

8. Leftover wine – What’s leftover wine, you ask? Legend has it that occasionally it has been known for there to be an ounce or two left in the bottle that no one’s up for drinking. No – really – it happens. If it happens to you, freeze it. It will come in handy to brighten up a dish that just needs a little bit of acidity and may keep you from having to make that last minute trip to the liquor store when you realize the chicken dish that you’re making calls for a quarter cup of white wine and you only have red.

THE PROCEDURE

Line the tray with plastic wrap before adding your liquid, and, even more importantly, cover with plastic wrap until frozen. Doing so prevents the cubes from sticking to the trays and limits exposure to air.
Lay the trays flat in the freezer until the liquid is frozen solid.
Pop out the cubes and place in resealable, plastic freezer bags and put them back in the freezer. TIP: Very important – don’t forget to label the bags! Everyone thinks they’ll remember that those are beef stock cubes, but you don’t want to mistake them for coffee cubes and wind up with a nasty glass of iced coffee.

TIP: It’s not strictly necessary if you line the trays, but try to use separate ice cube trays for sweet cubes, savory cubes and for plain water. The flavors can be hard to eradicate and you don’t necessarily wanting your wine cubes tasting like coffee grounds.

Posted in In The Kitchen | Tagged chili tomato paste, Coffee, herb, ice cube trays, juice, stock | Comments Off

Strawberry Pate de Fruit

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Allison

Want to make your family happy? Get a copy of The Culinary Institute of America’s Chocolates and Confections and start playing around. My kids were very encouraging – they were happy to support me by taste testing all the sponge candy, fudge and chocolate t’ings I made.

There was one recipe that I was interested in but hadn’t gotten around to making yet – Fruit de Pate or, to us more homespun types, fruit jellies. The reason I hadn’t tried it yet was simple – one of the ingredients (liquid pectin) wasn’t available at any of the stores I usually go to. I found lots of powdered pectin, but a few searches online led me to believe that substituting one for the other could lead to iffy results.

This week I finally got my hands on some liquid pectin and I decided it was time to try making some pate de fruit. Although you can use most fruits, I set my sights on strawberries. I made a few cups of strawberry puree and got down to business. This dish hit all the high points – relatively few ingredients, relatively easy to make (if you have a candy or instant read thermometer), quite pretty to look at when completed, and delicious. I’m definitely adding it to my regulars.

STRAWBERRY PATE DE FRUIT (based on the pectin jellies in Chocolates and Confections)

2 pounds ripe strawberries
24 ounces (about 3 cups) granulated white sugar (I used vanilla sugar)
6 ounces liquid pectin
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Additional granulated white sugar for dredging the finished jellies

Make The Puree

Clean and trim the strawberries and roughly chop them.
Puree the strawberries in a food processor fit with a steel blade (or a blender).
2 pounds of strawberries yielded me just about 3 cups of puree. Reserve 2 cups of the puree. You can freeze the remainder for another use (like strawberry daiquiris, but I’ll leave that choice up to you).

Get Prepared (Get a few things ready because when you need them later, you’ll need them immediately)

Prepare the pan – Spray a 9 by 9 baking pan with oil, and lay plastic wrap in it – the oil will help it stick to the pan. Make sure there are no air bubbles and that the wrap hugs the corners tightly. Lightly spray the wrap with oil too.
Prepare the pectin – sit the pouches up in a glass and cut them open so that when you hit the right temperature, you can squeeze the pectin in right away.

Make The Pate de Fruit

Mix the 2 cups of puree and 3 cups of sugar in a saucepan that has a volume of least 2 quarts. As the mixture reaches it’s gelling temperature, it bubbles up, and you’ll need a pot that is at least that large to avoid it bubbling over.
Bring the mixture to 238 degrees (F) over medium to high heat, stirring it constantly. In my experience it reaches a temperature of about 220 pretty quickly, and then plateaus for a while before moving up again – be patient and don’t stop stirring.
Stir in the pectin and bring to a boil. Boil for one minute.
Stir in the lemon juice and remove it from the heat.
Pour into the prepared pan. Sprinkle lightly with some of the additional sugar. Don’t move the pan until it has set up a bit or the pate will have some waves on the top.
Let the pan sit for several hours until it fully sets up. I let mine sit overnight in a cold oven.

Finish The Pate de Fruit

When the pate de fruit has fully set, invert the pan onto a cutting board.
Cut the pate into whatever shape you like. I cut squares and triangles, but I can’t see any reason to limit yourself. I’m planning on breaking out my heart-shaped cookie cutters (I must have a thousand of them) and making strawberry hearts for Valentine’s Day.
Put about a cup of white granulated sugar in a small pan.
Dredge the shapes in the sugar until they’re lightly covered all over.
Set the shapes on a cooling rack set over a baking pan or cookie sheet (to catch whatever sugar falls off). Let them set out until they are dry to the touch.

Storage: I stored them at room temperature in air tight containers (tins and zipper-lock bags).

Posted in Desserts, Desserts, Make Ahead-able, Recipes | Comments Off

It’s Not Too Late For Kitchen Resolutions, Is It?

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Allison

I’m taking the position that it’s never too late to make resolutions. Here are some of my kitchen resolutions for 2013 – habits and patterns I’d like to become firmly entrenched.

CLEAR STUFF OUT. After the hurricane and the power outages, we were among the many people tossing everything out of our fridge. When the power came back on and I started restocking it, I noticed what a pleasure it was to be able to actually find things! Taking my cue from that, I’m moving on to the pantry and clearing out the old and dusty. Now the challenge will be to avoid unnecessary stockpiling and keep the food storage clutter free.
LIKE GOES WITH LIKE, AND IN THE RIGHT PLACE. I’m shocked by how much time I spend just looking for stuff that I know I have somewhere. This year, I will organize by function, and keep things near where I use them. Baking ingredients will go with baking ingredients. Coffee will be kept with coffee makers. Flours will live together. I’m also planning on ignoring the pantry space v. storage space distinction – there’s no reason (in my kitchen) why I can’t keep the baking ingredients in or near the baking pans instead of in the pantry next to my pastas and cans of beans.
SEGREGATE THE SINGLE-TASKERS. My kids love ebelskivers (those little puffed pancake balls) so, in a moment of weakness, I got an ebelskiver pan. I only use it a couple of times a year, yet it continues to suck up prime drawer space in the drawer where I keep the pans I use every day. It, along with the roasting pans that I only use when cooking for a crowd and other seldom used cookware, is going to be cleaned, wrapped up, labeled, and stored out of the way. I’ll know where it is when I need it, but in the meantime I won’t have to grapple with my kitchen drawers just to close or open them.
DEVELOP MORE QUICK STAND-BYS. I admit it, between time constraints and trying to cater to everyone’s food preferences, I’m in a rut. One of my resolutions is to push everyone’s envelope a bit and branch out to find some quick weeknight meals that I enjoy making and everyone else can enjoy eating. The last one I tried (fresh bread, hummus, a big salad, and some hard boiled eggs) wound up being a hit. I just have to remember to schedule in trying some new things so I don’t fall back into that rut.
USE THE FREEZER FOR MEALS. My freezer is crammed with all sorts of interesting stuff. Right now, a brief inventory includes flax seed meal, toasted nuts and whole wheat flours (freezing them helps keep them from going rancid), loaves of bread and biscotti in hibernation, homemade stocks and lots of spices. What’s missing are the items that actually would help me get dinner on the table in half an hour on a week night. I want to continue eating good food, but have some quick options. I need some meals cooked almost to completion, and then frozen so I can tweak them a bit and get dinner on the table when time is tight. I’m thinking a few containers of tomato sauce, a ziploc bag or two of meatballs and maybe some beef stew or vegetable soup might be just the ticket.

Now if I could only get up the nerve to make some “unorganized bedroom closet resolutions” I might start getting somewhere …

Posted in In The Kitchen | 1 Comment

Happy New Year (or What I Learned From An Emu Egg)

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Allison

I was walking through my local Whole Foods recently. As I strolled through the produce section, I caught sight of what, at first glance, seemed to be avocados. Then I noticed the sign – ”Emu Eggs”. What the …?

Yes. Emu eggs. The sign also provided the information that one emu egg was the equivalent of about 10 hen eggs, which apparently justified the crazy expensive price. I began to walk away and then I stopped. ”When,” I asked myself “am I going to have another chance to cook an emu egg?” Into the cart went one emu egg.

I brought it home, showed it to my kids and informed them that it was dinner tonight. Their logical next question was “How do you cook an emu egg?” Hunh. I hadn’t really thought about that.

My son briefly lobbied for a giant deviled egg, but I couldn’t imagine how long it would take to hard boil it. A giant Spanish potato tortilla was also suggested, which I nixed. Instead, I decided a plain omelette with a few herbs was the way to go. I figured that, since we wanted to know what it tasted like, the plainer the better was the way to go.

Although I had been treating it with kid gloves, afraid that it would break before we had a chance to cook it, I was surprised about how difficult it was to crack. It took several tries, concluding with me smashing it on the bottom of the bowl, to open it. When we finally cracked it, we were surprised by the size of the yolk (huge) and it’s color (lighter than a hen egg).

I think the listed emu to hen egg ration was just about right. With a salad and some bread, that egg produced an omelette that fed 4 for dinner, with leftovers. If you’re wondering, it got rave reviews. The taste seemed to me to be similar to a chicken egg, but it was, unexpectedly, more delicate.

So what, you may ask, does an emu egg have to do with beginning a new year? Well, thanks to that egg, I plan to incorporate the following into my overall resolutions:

Don’t judge – just because it looks like a duck (or in this case an avocado), doesn’t mean it is one.
Grab onto opportunities, even (or especially) the little ones.
Don’t be overwhelmed by something’s size and don’t confuse size with strength. The flavor of a little hen egg was stronger than that giant emu one.
Keep an eye out for the oddities – they make the routine interesting.
When you do find something interesting share it – eating an emu egg was fun, sharing the experience of trying something outside our normal routine with my family made it memorable.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Maple-Apple Butter

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Allison

In last week’s post about holiday gift giving I mentioned that this year my gift baskets have a jar of apple butter tucked in with the baked goods. I hadn’t originally planned on including apple butter for one reason – although I love eating it, I hate(d) making it. It felt like it took forever. First you peel, core and chop all those apples. Then you carefully tend it for what felt like hours, making sure that it was simmering away so the flavors would meld and the texture would thicken, but stirring it all the time so that the bottom wouldn’t scorch. Then, of course, you had to get down to actually canning the stuff.

All that changed when I finally paid attention to all of the online recipes I’ve been seeing for apple butter that was cooked in a crock pot for 8 hours. I gave some a try and voila, those hours of anxiously tending a hot spluttering pot disappeared. Then I took it a few steps further. First I cooked some up without peeling the apples, I just pureed them after they cooked down. I used apple cider instead of water, and switched out maple sugar for some of the white sugar. So far, so good.

Then I turned my attention towards timing. I didn’t have time to prep the apples, have them cook for eight hours on low, thicken up, and can them in one long stretch. First I tried shortening the initial cooking time by cooking them on a “high” setting for six hours and that worked fine. Lastly, I broke up the time – one day I cooked the apples and let them thicken up. On another day, I reheated the apple butter and canned it. Finally, a tasty apple butter that didn’t seem like drudgery and that fit in my schedule (and just in time to slip in holiday baskets)!

MAPLE-APPLE BUTTER

6 pounds of apples (I used different types, including Jonagold, Fiji and Gala)
2 cups apple cider
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup maple sugar
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 – 1 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 vanilla bean (or 1 tablespoon vanilla extract)

Make The Apple Butter

Put the cider in the crock pot, covered, while you’re chopping up the apples and turn it to “high”.
Core and roughly chop the apples. You want to wind up with about 4 pounds of apples (approximately 16 cups).
Split the vanilla bean pod down the middle lengthwise and use your knife to scrape out the little black seeds from inside the pod. Place the seeds and the pod in the crock pot.
Add the apples and the rest of the ingredients to the crock pot and return the cover to the pot.
You can either set the pot at “high” for six hours or “low” for eight hours.
Let the apples cook down. Stir it two or three times at the most during the cooking period.
After it’s done cooking, the apples should be completely soft. Remove the vanilla bean pod and use an immersion blender to puree the apples. (You can also puree it in a food processor or food mill and return it to the crock pot). If you want a very smooth apple butter, you can put it through a strainer. At this point, you can continue with the recipe or refrigerate the mixture until you’re ready to move on.
Put a small plate in the freezer.
Return the mixture to the crock pot if you’ve taken it out and set the pot to high. Let it cook for another hour or two until it thickens up. You can also put the puree in a pot and move it to the stove and simmer it, uncovered, for an hour or two.
When it’s thickened up and gotten a bit darker, test it by placing a teaspoonful on the cold plate. After 30 seconds tilt the plate a bit. If it’s thickened up enough that it holds its shape instead of running off the plate, you’re ready to can it.
You can either keep the apple butter hot and proceed to canning now, or refrigerate it until you’re ready to can.

Canning The Apple Butter

I can the apple butter using a hot water bath method. What this means, in a nutshell, is that you fill sterilized canning jars (I use Ball half pint or 4 ounce canning jars) with the hot apple butter, seal the jars with their lids and rims, and submerge them in boiling water and process them in it for a period of time. When you remove the jars from the hot water bath and let them cool a bit, the jars should be sealed.

Hot water canning is easy, but you must make sure that your jars are properly processed and sealed to keep your preserves from spoiling or harboring dangerous bacteria. For more information on hot water bath canning, check out Ball’s site or, even better, get one of the Ball Blue Books, fantastic guides for canning and preserving. Mine, from 2003, is a great resource. Although it is not at all difficult to do, I cannot stress too much how important it is that you make sure you’re canning correctly so you don’t make anyone ill. You can contact Jarden Home Brands/Ball directly with canning questions at 800-240-3340. In a very general sense, however, the process is basically:

Your preserves should be hot when you can them. If you’ve previously refrigerated the apple butter, bring it to a simmer before canning it.
Place a rack in the bottom of a large pot, fill it with water and bring it to a boil. Your pot needs to be large and tall enough so that you can place your jars in the pot (on the rack) and be able to keep them covered with boiling water by at least an inch or two.
Clean your canning jars and their rims in hot soapy water.
Sterilize the jars, rims, and lids. Check the Ball guides or your jar manufacturer for appropriate sterilizing methods and times. I also sterilize the funnel I use to put the preserves in the jars.
Fill the jars, leaving an appropriate amount of headspace (space between the preserves and the top of the jar). My Blue Book specifies a 1/4 inch headspace in its apple butter recipe.
Run a clean knife along the inside of the jar to get rid of any air bubbles, and wipe the rims of the jars.
Place the lids on the jars and tighten the rims.
Place the jars on the rack, submerged in the boiling water, and make sure they are covered by 1-2 inches of boiling water. The jars should not touch.
Keep the water at a rolling boil for the appropriate processing time. My Blue Book specifies 10 minutes as an appropriate time for apple butter, but I’ve seen recipes that specify 15 minutes as well. Processing times can change depending on the item processed, your altitude and the type of jar. Check to make sure that this is an appropriate time for your altitude and jar.
After the processing time has finished, I turn off the heat and let the jars sit for 5 minutes or so in the hot water.
Remove the jars from the water and let them sit on a rack to cool. If you are lucky, you will hear a lovely “ping” and the tops of the jars will not move when you press down on them, indicating that the jars have sealed. Before putting them away, remove the rims and check that the lids are in fact sealed to the jars. If they are, you can put the rims back on and put them away. If not, you have to reheat the apple butter, clean and sterilize the jars again, and reprocess the apple butter until you obtain a proper seal.

NOTE: Don’t have a crock pot? No problem. You can cook this on the stove over a low heat, stirring often to break up the apples and keep it from scorching on the bottom.

YIELD: I canned about 52 ounces of Maple-Apple Butter, and still had another few ounces that I refrigerated for us to eat over the next week.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

‘Tis The Season To Be Baking …

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Allison

As you may or may not remember, Halloween and Thanksgiving mark the beginning of Cookie Season. We usually give away a lot of cookies to help celebrate the winter holidays and New Year. This year, I have to admit that the baking bug has been slow to bite. I just haven’t been feeling the cookie urge. We’re all pretty wiped here.

The truth is, however, that the stressed-out/we’ve-all-been-through-a-tough-time feeling is exactly the feeling that Cookie Season is meant to address. Baked-goods gifts perform a very special function. They say “thank you” or “I appreciate what you’ve done” in a way that is personal without violating the recipient’s space or making a big deal out of it. Hopefully, they provide a very needed moment of respite from the stressed-out/we’ve-all-been-through-tough-time blues.

So … with that thought, I’m back in the kitchen baking. Of course there are cookies coming out of the oven that will make their way into cookie plates and baskets, but in order to jump start my baking enthusiasm I’ve come up with a slightly different idea for some of the gifts – I’m giving breakfast baskets.

Why a breakfast basket? Lots of reasons. First, it’s a change from all the holiday cookies that are being passed around. Also, if the recipients aren’t indulging in baked goods themselves (I do recognize that some of us are watching our weight), they have a nice breakfast for family, friends or house guests. There’s also the extra benefit that the breakfast goodies can be easily divvied up among a group of people.

More importantly, what exactly is a breakfast basket? Mine are going to include:

Maple apple butter (look for the recipe in upcoming posts)
Orange marmalade (so far I’ve been making Alton Brown’s Orange Marmalade recipe, but I’m considering branching out)
Scones
Monkey Muffins
Granola
A mini chocolate-walnut snack cake
Fancy tea and/or coffee

Other items are being considered as well. Rock candy stirring sticks for tea or coffee have been suggested. Pumpkin bread and gingerbread loaves are under consideration also. The maple apple butter is a recipe that I’m working on. Keep an eye out for it in an upcoming post, but, until then … happy Cookie (and Breakfast Basket) Season!

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Artichoke Stuffed Bread

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Allison

We’re used to having artichokes stuffed with breadcrumbs, but this week I turned it around and stuffed the bread with artichokes instead. The result was a family hit, and will be sitting on our Thanksgiving table this Thursday. Besides tasting lovely, this recipe has the advantage of being a great make-ahead. The dough and the stuffing can each be made and stored, separately, in the refrigerator for a day or two before assembling and baking. Baked loaves also freeze beautifully.

Feel free to improvise with the stuffing. Although I’m sure that both cheese (grated parmesan, goat and/or feta) and olives would be welcome additions, we have both anti-cheese and anti-olive factions in my house, so you won’t find them in this recipe. I found jars of roasted artichoke hearts in my grocery store and used those, but plain or marinated artichoke hearts would work just as well. Make sure to taste the stuffing before adding the balsamic vinegar – depending on the brand the artichoke hearts may provide all the acid you like.

ARTICHOKE BREAD

DOUGH INGREDIENTS (based on a recipe from Pizza: Any Way You Slice It by Charles & Michele Scicolone)

2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/3 cup water
3 1/2 to 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
Generous 2 tablespoons olive oil
A few grinds of black pepper
1 tablespoon herbes de Provence

FILLING INGREDIENTS

Olive oil
2 large shallots, peeled and finely chopped
6 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
2 cups roasted artichoke hearts, finely chopped (You can also use marinated artichoke hearts or frozen artichoke hearts, thawed.)
1 teaspoon dried oregano, or to taste
1 teaspoon dried thyme, or to taste
A pinch of salt
A few grinds of black pepper
Olive oil
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
1 1/2 teaspoons balsamic vingegar

MAKE THE DOUGH

Put the water in the bowl of an electric mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top.
When the yeast has softened, add the flour, salt, olive oil, herbs and pepper. Mix to combine and then knead until the dough is supple. If you don’t have a mixer, you can mix the ingredients together, then turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead for about 10 minutes.
Coat a large bowl with olive oil and place the dough in the bowl. Turn the dough over a few times so it is coated with oil as well. Cover the bowl and either let it sit out at room temperature until the dough has about doubled in size (about an hour and a half) or put it right into the fridge and let it rise overnight.

MAKE THE FILLING

Coat a large saute pan with olive oil and heat over a medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic and cook, stirring, until they’re translucent.
Add the salt, pepper and herbs and continue cooking until the vegetables just start to brown.
Add the artichokes, cover and turn the heat to low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the artichokes have softened a bit.
Add the pine nuts and balsamic vinegar, and take it off the heat.
Either let the filling cool to room temperature and continue with the recipe, or refrigerate it until you’re ready to assemble the bread.

ASSEMBLE THE BREAD

Now for the fun part. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it in half. Return half the dough to the bowl and cover it up.
On the floured surface, roll out the second half into a rectangle that is about 10 inches by 13.5 inches. The rectangle should be “lying down” with the longer side parallel to the edge of your board or counter closest to you.
Take one half of the filling, and spread it the top 4/5ths of the dough, leaving a margin of about an inch on the top and two vertical sides, and of about two inches on the bottom. (Picture 1)
Starting at the top, begin to roll the dough over onto itself. (Picture 2)
When you reach the two inch margin on the bottom, fold the dough up against the roll. Pinch the seam enough to form a small ridge, then fold that ridge over itself. (Picture 3)
Put the roll, seam side down, on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Pinch the two side edges of the roll and fold each one underneath the roll.
Make several shallow parallel cuts along the top of the roll. Try not to cut all the way through to the filling. These cuts will allow the roll to expand in an even way in the oven. I make mine on the diagonal (think baguette). (Picture 4)
Brush the top and sides of the roll with olive oil.
Repeat with the second half of the dough and the second half of the filling.
Let the rolls sit out at room temperature for 20 minutes to about half an hour while the oven preheats.

Picture 1 - Spread out the filling

Picture 2 - Start rolling up the loaf

Picture 3 - Pinch the seam closed

Picture 4 - Score the bread

BAKING IT OFF

Set racks in the center of the oven and preheat it to 425 degrees, Fahrenheit.
After the rolls have rested for at least 20 minutes, place them in the oven.
Bake for 30 -40 minutes, until they are lightly brown.
If necessary, switch the sheets back to front and top to bottom after 15 minutes.
Let cool before slicing.

YIELD: 2 loaves

Posted in Baking, Bread, First Place Recipes, In The Kitchen, Make Ahead-able, Recipes, Vegetables | Tagged Artichoke, Bread, Stuffed Bread | Comments Off

Some Like It Hot

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Allison

A couple of weeks ago I was at a farmers’ market that had the most gorgeous peppers. It was vegetable infatuation at first sight. There were tons of different types, shapes, sizes and every color of the rainbow. OK, maybe not every color, but there was definitely red, orange, yellow, green, and one that looked mighty close to violet. The hot peppers seemed to be calling to me. I went into a kind of trance and bought a ton. Reality hit when I got home – what the heck was I going to do with them all? Fortunately for me, I had a ready answer – hot sauce. Hot sauce is a snap to whip up, looks gorgeous and, if you know another heat-lover, a very nice hostess (or host) gift.

For anyone interested, here is a scaled-down version, with varieties of peppers you can usually find at the grocery store. Remember, peppers’ heat can vary. Even if you don’t usually find these peppers to be all that hot, you may want to taste them to make sure your batch is what you’re expecting. If you want a milder sauce, remove the seeds and veins of the hot peppers – that’s where their bite lives. If you want it spicier, add some hotter peppers like cayenne, bird’s eye or habanero chilis.

TIP: If you handle hot peppers and then touch your eyes or nose, it will burn! Protect yourself and wear gloves to cut and handle the peppers if possible.

HOT PEPPER SAUCE

4 jalapeno peppers, roughly chopped
1 or 2 serrano peppers, roughly chopped
3 red bell peppers, seeded and roughly chopped
9 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 bunch of scallions, roughly chopped (about 2 cups)
3 cups white vinegar
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 – 3/4 teaspoon sugar (optional)
1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika (optional)

Put the peppers, garlic, scallions, vinegar and salt in a saucepan.
Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat and simmer 20 minutes. Do not stick your head over the pot while it’s cooking – the fumes will get you.
Let the sauce cool for a bit.
Puree the sauce in a food processor fit with a steel blade.
Taste the sauce. If you want it sweeter, add the sugar. If you want some smokiness without extra heat, add the smoked paprika.
Place in a clean container and refrigerate for several days to a week before using in order to let the flavors develop.

YIELD: About 5 cups.

MAKE AHEAD: The sauce can be divided into smaller portions, frozen and defrosted in the refrigerator.

NOTE: This recipe produces a fairly liquid sauce. If you want a thicker sauce, just decrease the amount of vinegar.

NOTE: After the sauce has aged you can also strain it to make a hot pepper vinegar, similar to a tabasco sauce. The vegetables left over after straining can also be used as a hot-pepper condiment.

Posted in In The Kitchen, Make Ahead-able, Recipes, Vegetables | Tagged chili peppers, hot peppers, hot sauce, spice, vinegar | 1 Comment