by Caroline on November 7, 2010
Chilly mornings call for hot breakfasts, and with apples lining farmers’ market stalls, I made two versions of baked apples this week. First up: a modified version of granola-stuffed baked apples from Macheesmo.com. With all the ingredients in my pantry (see list below), I threw together a batch in less than five minutes (while William stumbled out of bed and groggily got dressed). The apples baked while we walked Bruno in the cold and were ready—steaming and oozing syrupy goodness—when we got home. Soft apple flesh caved under our forks. Brown sugar and butter made a sweet sauce, and nutty granola from Not Just Rugelach provided textural contrast. I served the apples with plain, whole-milk yogurt and a fat cup of coffee. Our hot breakfast craving was satisfied.
William and I favor savory breakfasts, so apple recipe No. 2 used bread crumbs leftover from my stuffed pumpkin, along with cream cheese, sharp cheddar and cream. The cheesy apples were equally (borderline more) delicious than the granola apples, and with a hint of black pepper they also could work as an autumn side dish. If you like a slice of cheddar with your apple pie and apple-cheddar sandwiches (as I do), this is the breakfast for you.
The methods for both recipes are the nearly the same. Just preheat your oven to 350°. Remove the apples’ cores and scrape out a little extra flesh to leave more room for stuffing. I used a pairing knife-spoon combo to do the work, but an apple corer and melon baller would make an even more effective team. For the granola apples, mix together granola, brown sugar and cinnamon; stuff the apples and top each with a teaspoon of butter. For the cheese apples, combine bread crumbs, cream, cream cheese, cheddar, salt and pepper; pack the stuffing into the apple. Next, pop the apples onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, and bake for 30 minutes. Enjoy!
Granola-stuffed baked apple ingredients
2 medium apples
4 tablespoons granola
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Dash cinnamon and/or powdered ginger
2 teaspoons unsalted butter
Cheddar-stuffed baked apple ingredients
2 medium apples
3 tablespoons fresh bread crumbs
Splash cream or milk
1 tablespoon cream cheese
2 tablespoons shredded cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
by Caroline on November 5, 2010
I did my pumpkin carving the week after Halloween. Rather than waste the sweet flesh on an evil jack-o’-lantern, blog posts from the Kitchn.com and Dorie Greenspan inspired me to to bake a stuffed pumpkin.
Greenspan’s recipe is simple and elegant, requiring little more than a sharp knife, two hours for the pumpkin to bake and a handful of ingredients. Following Greenspan’s lead, I hollowed out a four and a half pound gourd and stuffed it in layers with two-thirds of a loaf of bread, 6 ounces gruyère, a half cup heavy cream, three chopped garlic cloves, a few tablespoons grated onion and salt and pepper to taste.
I baked the pumpkin—cap on—for an hour and a half, then removed the cap to brown the the stuffing, which puffed beautifully from the top of the gourd. I quartered the pumpkin and served it in wedges.
The sweet pumpkin and rich bread stuffing were a hearty, vegetarian delight. I kept the recipe basic for this first attempt, but I’ll revisit the dish with meat and/or herb add-ins. Greenspan added bacon to one of her pumpkins; sausage would also be nice. Herbs like sage and thyme also are classic pumpkin partners.
This orange beauty makes a capable main course but would work as a side dish, too—just as long as your main dish doesn’t have hang-ups about being overshadowed.
by Caroline on November 1, 2010
I have no idea how braising big hunks of beef in red wine can go wrong, but my first attempt at cooking short ribs failed. I used a highly rated recipe from Epicurious.com as a guide, adding carrots, leeks, celery and parsley to the braising liquid to improve the flavor of the sauce. The cabernet-based sauce was indeed delicious, but the meat was not melting-off-the-bone tender as I had anticipated. My dining companions had to use serious knife skills to pry meat from bone and were greeted with a forkful of flavorful but chewy beef.
What happened? Did I get bad beef? Is something wrong with my oven? Did storing the dish overnight in the fridge dry out the meat? All of these scenarios seemed unlikely. Instead of getting to bottom of the mystery (I’ll save that for another day), I got down to the business of getting rid of the inevitable leftovers. My choices were A) fattening up our dog Bruno or B) using the short ribs to make new meals. To Bruno’s disappointment, I decided on the latter.
First up was a three-meat pizza with chopped short ribs, Italian sausage and a bacon-infused tomato leftover from last month’s pasta all’amatriciana. William and I almost always eat vegetarian pizzas so this fat-oozing pie was a special treat. Even better than the pizza was shepherd’s pie with red wine gravy and cheddar mashed potatoes. Up to now, I have always started shepherd’s pie with leftover potatoes. I tend to make a quick and dirty version with ground beef, vegetables and a little stock. Basing the dish on higher-quality beef and vino-infused sauce yielded my best pie to date.
I didn’t go too gourmet with the pie. I simply sauteed carrots and onions in beef fat rendered from the ribs, threw in the beef and some flour, poured in wine, and added sprightly frozen green peas. I smashed yukon gold potatoes with cream, butter, parsley and a handful of sharp cheddar. The pie filling had an intense beef flavor, and the extra cooking time and liquid erased any hint of the ribs’ dryness. Married with cheesy potatoes, this dish is comfort food at its best.
It’s my hope that you won’t have to endure beef failure before you can enjoy this shepherd’s pie. Leftovers from your next pot roast or steak or short ribs will work just as well. But William and I enjoyed our second-chance short rib dinners so much I wouldn’t mind screwing up another batch.
Read on for the recipe.
by Caroline on October 26, 2010
I bought my first bag of Cayuga Pure Organics beans at the farmers’ market last week and made a batch of Black Magic Chili—a vegan mole-like chili I prepared for the first time last winter. At $4 a bag, Cayuga’s black beans are cheaper than any reputable protein, and I’ll pay the premium in the future in favor of going back to Goya.
Cayuga’s fall harvest began in mid-October, and this year they’ll have soy, kidney, navy, pinto, small red, black, Jacobs cattle, adzuki, orca, tiger eye and cannelloni beans for sale. The latter three varieties will be available in the next few weeks in limited quantities.
The fresher dried black beans I used last week required a shorter soaking and cooking time than normal, three hours and one and a half hours respectively, and they maintained a firm texture and distinct flavor in the spice-infused final product. William and I ate the first few servings of Black Magic Chili simply dressed with cilantro and avocado. As the supply dwindled, I used the last of the chili to make the ultimate weeknight dinner: black bean nachos. I fried tortillas and topped them with the chili, sharp cheddar and blistered padron peppers (known as Russian roulette peppers because only one in 20 is spicy). We enjoyed the healthy and not-so-healthy meals this big black pot of local beans provided.
And I’ve been informed by Mr. Nicholson that I have to make a big man pot of meaty chili—and chili cheese fries with the leftovers—in the not-too-distant future. At least the kidney beans will be respectable.
by Caroline on October 7, 2010
Mark and I haven’t been on the same page in a while. His Wednesday Minimalist columns just haven’t tickled my culinary curiosity. And it hurt.
But this week, I’m happy to report, we reconnected through recipe ESP. Last Sunday, I bought a bowl-full of October tomatoes, destined for a pot of pasta all’Amatriciana. And in yesterday’s Minimalist column, Mr. Bittman supplied his readers a simple pasta sauce recipe that makes the most of the season’s last tomatoes. In contrast to his back-to-basics recipe, I augmented my late-season tomato sauce with lots of bacon and onions, but our hearts were in the same place!
Traditionally, pasta all’Amatriciana is prepared with guanciale (an Italian bacon made from pig cheeks), onions, tomatoes, Pecorino Romano cheese, and bucatini (long, thin, tubular pasta). The dish originated in the tiny town of Amatrice outside of Rome. And the latter, larger city is where William and I first sampled the dish on a gut-busting evening at a casual hostaria. William has since requested the dish, but his cries for bacon, tomatoes and onion have been denied until now.
Although I can get guanciale in New York, I Americanized the dish and used thick-cut bacon. If I were making this for a dinner party, I would splurge and get the real thing. For a weeknight meal, I opted for what I had on hand. I also used fresh linguine instead of bucatini—similar shape, no tube. Lastly, recipes for pasta all’Amatriciana call for canned tomatoes (here’s one from Babbo and another from Food and Wine), but using fresh tomatoes lightens the dish and gives it a new sweetness. The tomato flavor is more subtle but it tastes like real tomato—the last gasp of summer that’s been smothered in bacon. Read on for the recipe.