my fair share

Welcome to 5772. It’s a great year so far and it’s only going to get better. I can feel it. If you didn’t celebrate Rosh Hashanah last week, I still wish you a shana tova u’metuka — a good and sweet new  year.

But, who wants just a sweet new year? As as a slight break with tradition, I also wish you a spicy year with  my favorite butternut squash soup. Sugar and spice and everything nice – that sounds like a great recipe for a new year.

Squash is one of the symbolic foods eaten during Rosh Hashana. So are carrots.

Over the holiday, I cooked and ate my fair share of both.

Squash mash with balsamic onions

I found this recipe in the Williams Sonoma Southwest cookbook when I was planning the menu for a Mexican/Tex-Mex dinner, complete with vegetarian empanadas, guacamole, and salpicon. The original recipe calls for whole squash, but it’s a lot easier with pre-cut and peeled squash chunks. I made enough for 10 as a side dish but this recipe is just a guideline - make as much as you want. If you have an immersion blender, this is the time to take it out. I unfortunately no longer have one: midway through this squash, mine hit its inevitable fate when the motor stripped the internal plastic gear. I had to complete the recipe by hand. And that’s why it’s called a “mash” rather than a purée.

- 3-4 lbs butternut squash chunks or 2 good sized butternut squashes

- 3 heads garlic

- 1 red onion

- 3T + 1T + 3T olive oil

- salt and pepper

- 3 T balsamic vinegar (or to taste)

Prep. Preheat oven to 375ºF. If using whole squashes, cut them in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, drizzle with the first 3T olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and place, cut side up on a parchment-covered cookie sheet . If using pre-cut squash, toss in a big bowl with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Slice the tops off of the garlic, drizzle with 1T olive oil and salt, and wrap in aluminum foil. Also, cut the onion into about 6 chunks and separate the layers. Mix onions with balsamic vinegar and the last 3T olive oil. Set aside.

Roast. Put the squash and garlic in the oven. Roast the squash until soft, about an hour  (sometimes more) for a whole squash and about 45 minutes for squash chunks. The garlic takes about 30-45 minutes. Check both every 15 minutes or so, especially the garlic because it’s pretty easy for it to burn.

Keep roasting. Around the time you take the garlic out of the oven, put the onions on a second parchment-covered cookie sheet and put them in oven. Roast for about 15 minutes until the onions start to brown and crisp up. If you can time it right, they should come out around the same time as the squash. But that’s a big if.

Purée (or mash!). Get your immersion blender ready. If you roasted the squash whole, scoop it out of the skin into a bowl. If you used pre-cut squash, also scoop it into a bowl. Squeeze the roasted garlic from its skin and add it to the squash. Use your immersion blender to purée the squash and garlic. If your immersion blender decides to poop out just before using it, a potato masher works almost as well, but it won’t be as smooth.

Mix it up. Add the onions and any remaining balsamic and stir with the squash.

Eat. Serve warm.

Cumin-roasted carrots

I’m a little embarrassed to call these carrots a recipe,  but they’re just too good to not share. It’s all about the cumin.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Toss baby carrots with olive oil, salt, and cumin. You could also cut regular carrots into diagonal chunks – just be sure to  Be generous with the olive oil. And the cumin. Roast for 30-45 minutes until the carrots turn brown and a little wrinkly. Well, a lot wrinkly.

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say it out loud

It’s apple picking time!Would you believe that I’ve never been? Yup, it’s true. I am an apple picking novice. But no longer.

With a group of friends, some old, some new, I drove about hour outside the city to the North Shore, passing farm stands along the way. It was actually so beautifully sunny that I got a sunburn. These days, I welcome any sunshine and color I can attract.

At the orchard, we forewent the hay ride and took the 15 minute walk (hike?) up to the orchards. On the way, we got in trouble for picking  bosc pears. After I snacked on one and stuck two in my bag.

Ten pounds of apples in a bag, I rushed home to make strudel.

Correction – apfelstrudel. And you have to call it apfelstrudel with a German accent. Roll the Rs in back of your throat. Ap-fel-shtroooodel. Say it out loud.  A few times. It’s fun.

Apfelstrudel with cinnamon caramel

I asked my German friend, Melanie, how she makes apfelstrudel. She laughed. She said she loves it, but have never made it. Even so, she had some important guidelines, er, taste preferences. Luckily our taste buds match up pretty well. Her main recommendation was not to add raisins. Another friend of mine seconded those instructions and, as a frequent strudel maker, gave me a few more tips. Add a little flour to the apples to help thicken the liquids. Cut the apples into larger chunks so they don’t get mushy when they bake. Make sure to stretch the pastry taut over the apple chunks so you can see their shapes through the dough. And use an egg wash over the top before baking. Try adding some toasted pecans or walnuts to the apples. 

This recipe makes 2 apfelstrudels. It’s a great last-minute Rosh Hashanah dessert, but you might have to double this recipe  (you can always have leftovers for breakfast). I held off on the pecans until the next batch.

- 1 box / 2 sheets puff pastry (I generally use Pepperidge Farm)

- 5 large apples – I often use a mix of firm sweet and tart apples – this time I used Jonagold and Granny Smith

- 3 T lemon juice

- 1 C sugar

- 1 T  flour

- 2 T cinnamon

- 1 egg

- confectioners sugar

Thaw. Thaw the puff pastry - don’t unfold it (I find that the pastry can crack at the 2 folds). Thawing takes about 20 minutes at room temperature.

Preheat. Preheat oven to 425º F.

Peel and chop. Peel the apples. Cut them into ~1/2 – 3/4 inch chunks. Not too small.

Mix. Add the apples to a big bowl and toss with the lemon juice. Sprinkle with flour, sugar, and cinnamon and mix.

Roll. Keep the puff pastry folded and place on a floured sheet of parchment paper (the same size as your cookie sheet.  Roll out the puff pastry pretty thin into a rectangle nearly as long as your cookie sheet.

Stretch. Use a slotted spoon to transfer half the apple mixture to the puff pastry in a line a few inches from the long edge. Spread the apples evenly end to end. Try not to get too much liquid onto the pastry – save this liquid in the bowl for later. Take the edge of the pastry and stretch it over the apples. Take the opposite edge of the pastry and stretch it over the apples (this is a little easier than rolling the apples). If you have extra pastry, keep stretching and rolling a until the seam side is down. Tuck the ends under.

Brush. Transfer the parchment with the strudel to a baking sheet. Whisk together the egg and some cold water. Brush the egg wash over the top of the strudel. Using a sharp knife, make a few diagonal slices in the dough. This mostly looks pretty.

Bake. Bake the strudel for about 20-25 minutes until golden brown and shiny. Cool for about 10 minutes before eating.

Boil. In a small saucepan, bring the lemon juice – sugar – cinnamon mixture to a  boil. It will thicken into a loose  caramel.

Serve. Once the strudel has cooled, serve slices dusted with confectioners sugar and a side of cinnamon caramel sauce.

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he grabbed my hand

For the past 3 years, I have walked by my neighbor’s house nearly every day, staring at their carport. No, they don’t have a car that I covet. They have grapes that I covet. Big fat juicy concord grapes. I covet concords.

As I walked by their carport this morning I stared up at the vines normally heavy with grapes, and I saw … stems.

A father-son pair stood beneath those naked vines, hosing down the carport. “Good morning,” I said. “What happened to the grapes?”

“We just harvested them,” replied the father.

“Wanna see?” asked the son.

He grabbed my hand and scampered up the stairs. “We just picked boxes and boxes of them. I’m Noah.”

“I’m Gayle. You must really like grapes.”

Noah nodded.

“Are you gonna eat all of them?”

“No. Grampa makes jelly.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of jelly.”

Noah nodded.

“Do you know what I would do with all these grapes?”

Noah shrugged.

“I would make sorbet – it’s kinda like ice cream.”

Noah licked his lips. “Yum!”

“Would you like me to make some ice cream for you?”

Guess who brought  home a big bag of grapes!

The bunches climbed into a colander and took a few cold showers. The grapes said goodbye to their stems and assorted brethren – the travel weary, the old and wrinkly, the young and green.

The best of the crop took a dunk in the hot tub. A long dunk.

When they started to shed their skins, they knew they were done.

They left their skins and seeds behind, and, without a single glance back, dove right in to join their skinny dipping friends.

They then cozied up to a bar for a few cocktails, picked up some sweeties, and puckered up. (I added to the juice vodka, sugar, and lemon juice.)

Now, now, boys. It’s time to cool off. You’re gonna spend the night in the cooler.

These hooligans clean up nice, don’t they?

There was only one casualty.

I’m not sure there’s gonna be much left for Noah. But don’t feel bad for him. He has jelly.

Concord grape sorbet

I found inspiration for this sorbet in a few places. It seems that Gourmet, New York Magazine, and David Lebovitz all discovered and shared this gorgeous concoction in Autumn 2008 and 2009. I’m two to three years late here, folks. I guess that’s better than four years late. I always add some alcohol to sorbet so it keeps a smooth consistency and doesn’t get icy. I liked the NY Magazine version’s addition of a little lemon juice as well. I suspect you could make this with good pure grape juice (but what’s the fun in that?).

To get a smooth, silky texture that’s not icy, I use alcohol and an immersion blender. The alcohol (vodka here) prevents the sorbet from fully freezing. The immersion blender aerates the sorbet and this incorporated air helps with the texture. I happen to have the canister left over from an old Donvier ice cream maker — I keep it in the freezer to quick chill white wine — so that accelerated the process a bit. If you want the sorbet firmer, use less or no vodka. You can also adjust the suger based on the sweetness of the grape juice – as a general rule, sorbet should be a little bit sweeter than the juice (this is the case of all sorbets).

This recipe made approximately a quart (4 cups) of sorbet.

- 3.5 lbs grapes, straight from the vine, or 2.5 lbs grapes only (rinsed, de-stemmed, and yucky ones removed)

- 1/4 C water

- 1/4 C sugar

- 1/4 C vodka

- 2 T lemon juice

Clean. Rinse grapes in cold water, and then sort through, removing stems and any grapes that are dried, split, or green.

Simmer. In a non-reactive pot (I used hard-anonized), simmer, covered, the cleaned grapes with water until the grapes get soft. By this point, the smell of grape juice will entice you back to the kitchen. Give the grapes a stir a few times to loosen the skins. This whole process took about 20 minutes.

Strain. Pour the grape concoction into a fine-mesh sieve in batches, and push juice out into a bowl beneath, leaving the stems and seeds behind. I used a wooden spoon to press out as much juice as I could. I ended up with about 2.5 cups of pure grape juice.

Mix. Add sugar, vodka, and lemon juice to the grape juice and whir a few times with an immersion blender to dissolve the sugar. You’ll use the immersion blender again later.

Freeze and aerate. Pour the grape mix into a bowl, cake pan, or whatever you want and pop it into the freezer. The flatter the container, the quicker the sorbet will freeze. The more alcohol, the slower the sorbet will freeze. After about 2 hours, check on the sorbet. It should be about half frozen. Use the immersion blender to break up any icy bits. Return the sorbet to the freezer and repeat this every hour or so. If you forget and throw the sorbet in the freezer overnight, no problem – it will just take a few extra whirs with the blender to break up the solid mass the next morning.

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even my dishes have dishes

I’ve got a lot of stuff. I’m convinced it’s hereditary (that way, I have someone else to blame).

My Bubbie used to say, “even my dishes have dishes.”

See her waving there in front of the hutch? She’s the one in the frilly apron. The hutch is that huge piece of furniture piled with three tea and coffee pots. And a pile of mismatched tea cups. Yeah, that’s the one. With all of her dishes and her dishes’ dishes.    And see me having a very important conversation with Poppie? Same hutch of course. Not entirely sure why I’m wearing PJs to dinner.Here I am at Bubbie’s Rosh Hashana table. She really liked napkin rings. At least this time I dressed for the occasion.

Over the past few weeks and under Meira‘s tutelage, I’ve started implementing the “one in one out” rule, starting of course with one out. Well, more like 8 bags of clothing out. 2 bags of shoes out. 2 boxes of dishes out.

Those dishes, they were my Bubbie’s dishes (no, not the good china … the set she received as a gift for opening a bank account). I did keep one teacup and saucer from the set. I think Bubbie would have been proud.

There are some obvious benefits of the purge. Emptying my closet of clothing that no longer fits. Donating the dishes I always hated for their gold painted rims that could never be microwaved. Smiling every time I can reheat a piece of chicken without turning on the oven (except of course for schnitzel - that is best thrown right onto an over rack to crisp back up in about 10 minutes).

I’m already hard at work on one wrap dress in. One pair of python heels in. One set of new dishes in. A second set of new dishes. A black bustle pencil skirt in.

I’m good at the in.

Another benefit was that I unearthed a light-filled corner of my desk, previously covered in piles of files and books, that is a great canvas for photography. No more chasing the sun and hopping around shadows on my big wood table. This is a whole new playing field.

Check it out.

Oh yeah! Notice also, the  all-white, unrimmed plate.

There was one glitch. The other night, some uninvited visitors tried to help, cleaning out my place on their own. All of the photos I have taken since May have disappeared along with my laptop. The one picture I had uploaded only an hour before leaving for dinner is the photo above. I guess we can call these green beans the silver lining.  

At least they didn’t wipe out the fridge.

Green beans with mustard seed vinaigrette

Rachela made this recipe from Gourmet 2001 for dinner a few weeks ago and I just had to replicate it for myself. The steps are a little fussy, but the fuss elevates the green beans beyond the everyday. The most cumbersome step is cooking the mustard seeds which have potential for major mess – they’re squirrely little rascals that roll all over if you drop them and cook very fast, so  you need to keep a close eye on them. Rachela skipped the mustard seeds and used moutard à l’ancienne (a dijon mustard with whole mustard seeds that you can see) for a similar flavor and visual effect. You can make extra vinaigrette and keep it in the refrigerator for the next time you want a few green beans.

- 3 T olive oil, divided

- 2 T mustard seeds

- 1/3 C red wine vinegar

- 1 T sugar

- 1 medium or 1/2 large onion (red or white)

- 1 1/2 lb green beans

Pop. Heat 1 T of the oil in a skillet over moderate heat until hot but not smoking. Add the mustard seeds and stir. Quickly cover the skillet – a glass lid, plate, or splatter screen works great. In less than a minute, the seeds will start to pop. Like popcorn. Really. They will also turn slightly darker. Remove the skillet from the heat after 1-2 minutes. Try not to let the seeds get too dark. Pour seeds and oil into a large bowl.

Simmer. Simmer vinegar and sugar in saucepan stirring, until sugar is dissolved. When heated, the vinegar lets off a strong vapor that may bother your nose and eyes if you catch a whiff – be forewarned not to lean over the pan as the mix is simmering. Let cool 5 minutes in the pan.

Saute. Heat the remaining 2 T oil in the skillet you used for the mustard seeds over moderate high heat until hot but not smoking. Slice onion thinly. Saute the onion, stirring, until golden brown, about 8-10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Mix. Add vinegar mixture to the onions in the skillet. Then add this mix to the large bowl with the mustard seeds and oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Boil. Set a pot of water to boil. Trim ends of beans (if you want to be French, take off the little tails too). When water has boiled, add a generous pinch of salt and add green beans. Prepare a large bowl of ice water. Cook beans for about 5 minutes until they are tender but still crisp. Drain and plunge into ice water to stop cooking. Drain well.

Mix it all up. Toss beans with vinaigrette. Serve at room temperature.

Variation. Throw dressed beans on top of oil-packed tuna for a light lunch.

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and then there were five

First, I invited Alyson over for a very low key shabbat dinner. She just moved into a new apartment and and was waiting for her stovetop to be replaced. She would bring salad.  And she had an extra french roast in her freezer — she gave it to me to braise along with some recipe guidelines.

Then Shoshana invited both of us over – she also has a new apartment. I offered to host because I have a dishwasher. She offered to bake challah.

Then Rachela invited all three of us over for an impromptu shabbat dinner. She was going to make fish. I opted for meat at my place and invited her and her husband Gedalia over as well. They brought 2 side dishes, one green, one carb.

I decided to top everything off with a fruit galette with a few farmers market finds.

No one left hungry.

 French Roast, Middle Eastern style

I used the flavors of Ana Sortun‘s spoon lamb mixed with recommendations for cooking a roast from Alyson and few of my cookbooks. While the lamb recipe and other braising recipes call for first browning the meat, most roast recipes do not. This is one of those recipes where you put everything in a pot and come back in 1.5 hours to find it almost done. Another an hour or two in the fridge, and then 15 minutes on the stove top, and dinner is ready to go.

- 2-3 T canola or grapeseed oil

- 5 lb french roast

- 1T (or more) ground cumin

- 3 cloves garlic, smashed

- 6 carrots, peeled and thickly sliced

- 1 large onion, peeled and quartered

- 2 C dry red wine (I used an Israeli red: Yogev 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon – Shiraz)

- 2 T pomegranate concentrate

- 4T cold unsalted margarine, cut into 2 pieces

- Salt and pepper to taste

- 1 lemon

Preheat. Preheat oven to 325°F.

Braise. Cover bottom of a large (make sure there is enough room for the roast to sit comfortably) dutch/french oven/cocotte with half the oil. Settle roast into the cocotte, rub with remaining oil and cover with garlic and cumin. Surround with the onion and carrots. Pour wine around the roast, adding enough water so liquid comes up 1/2 to 3/4 of the way up the meat. Cover tightly and braise for 1.5 – 2 hours. Use a meat thermometer to check the meat – an internal temperature 130°F for medium, 155°F for well done. Mine came out at ~150°F and was a bit too well done for my taste.

Strain and skim. Remove roast and carrots to a plate. Strain braising liquid through cheesecloth into a bowl. Refrigerate until the fat rises to the surface and can be skimmed off and discarded.

Reduce. In the cocotte, simmer the liquid until reduced by half and thickened (~10 minutes). Remove from heat. Stir in pomegranate concentrate, lemon juice, and margarine. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Reheat. Add the roast and carrots to the sauce and warm over low heat.

Eat. Slice roast against the grain. Serve with all that great sauce.

 

Plum Blueberry Galette

A galette is a free-form tart, similar to a crostada. The crust I use is a pâte sucrée – a regular tart/pie crust (pâte brisée) plus an egg yolk and sugar. Whenever I have extra yolks, I put each one in a small bag in the freezer and then use them to make this pâte. I try to keep an extra crust in the freezer in case galette or pie or tart or tarte tatin inspiration strikes. I used the recipe for a summer fruit galette in Paula Shoyer‘s The Kosher Baker but added yolk and sugar to make a sweeter crust. I also added a sprinkle of almond flour/meal (finely ground almonds) before adding the fruit to keep the crust from getting soggy. It worked really well, but you can skip this step if you want. To keep this recipe parve, I used margarine intead of butter.

For  pâte sucrée crust:

- 1 1/4 C flour

- 2 T confectioner’s sugar

- 1/4 t salt

- 6 T butter/margarine, partially frozen

- 1 egg yolk

- 3T cold water

Pulse. Add flour, sugar, and salt to food processor and mix. Add frozen butter/margarine and pulse ~ 10 times until the consistence of corn meal.

Pulse again.  Add egg yolk and 1T cold water, and pulse ~ 5 times.

Pulse again. Add 1T cold water, and pulse ~5 times.

Get the picture? Add the last 1T cold water, a little at a time, pulsing in between additions, until the dough starts to come together, but is still a bit crumbly.

Wrap. Gather the dough into a ball, flatten out, and wrap in plastic wrap.

Freeze. Freeze for 30 minutes before using. Or freeze until the next time you want to make a galette or pie or tart or tarte tatin – and then defrost for about 30 minutes before using.

  

For galette:

- 1 pâte sucrée crust

- 3C fruit – I used 2 Csmall red and yellow plums and 1 C blueberries

- 1T lemon juice

- 3T sugar

- 2T corn starch

- 1-2 T almond meal/almond flour (optional)

- 1-2T sugar in the raw

Preheat. Preheat oven to 425°F and place place rack on lowest shelf.

Cut and mix. Quarter plums (no reason to peel). Gently mix fruits with lemon juice, sugar, and corn starch until sugar dissolves.

Roll. Remove dough from freezer and sandwich between two large pieces of wax paper. Roll dough out to a 12- to 14-inch round. Trim any rough edges, throw them in the middle, and roll to incorporate. Transfer to a parchment-lined cookie sheet.

Sprinkle. Sprinkle center of crust with almond flour (if using), leaving a 1.5- to 20-inch edge.

Pile on. Pile the fruits onto the crust, leaving at least a 2-inch edge.

Fold. Lift the parchment to help fold edges one at a time towards the center of the galette. Allow edges to overlap, and pinch the overlapping edges together to seal the crust.

Sprinkle again. Brush the crust very lightly with water and sprinkle with sugar in the raw.

Bake. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Transfer galette on parchment to rack to cool for 15 minutes before serving.

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the thunder thunders and the lightening lightens

Earlier this month, I started writing:

“As the thunder thunders and the lightening lightens the red sky, I’m sitting inside with a glass of red on my coffee table next to my propped-up feet, my keyboard perched on my lap.”

And that’s about as far as I got during the tornado that touched down about an hour outside of Boston earlier this month. I was glad to be inside and baking. It feels strange talking about cookies on a night that was so devastating to families nearby. But at the very least, I wanted to share this recipe.

Dark chocolate chip and orange cookies

Makes 4+ dozen cookies

This recipe is a close cousin of these chocolate chip cookies, adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, but with a decidedly more adult palate. Dark chocolate (70%). Orange zest and orange blossom water. Almond flour (if you have it). As I mentioned the last time I made them, these cookies bake up soft and round, so if you like them flatter and crispier, add 1-2T water with the wet ingredients. The picture above is the almond flour variation with an extra 2T of water.

- 1/2 C softened butter or margarine

- 3/4 C white sugar

- 3/4 C brown sugar

- 2 eggs

- 2 t orange blossom water

- zest of 1 orange (~1T)

- 2C flour or 1 C flour + 1C almond flour

- 1/2 t baking soda

- 1/2 t salt

- 1.5C  bittersweet (70%) chocolate chunks (Whole Food sells them, or you can chop up a block of bittersweet chocolate — my favorite is Callebaut)

- 1-2 T water (optional)

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Mix. Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs, orange blossom water, and orange zest, and beat until well blended. Add 1-2 T water if desired to make cookies crisper. Mix flour with baking soda and salt, then add it to the liquid ingredients and mix by hand. Fold in chocolate chunks.

Bake. Drop cookies by level tablespoonful onto a silpat- or parchment-lined baking sheet.  I use a 1T cookie scoop. Bake 10 minutes until lightly browned. Cool for a few minutes before removing from silpat/parchment and transfer to a rack.

I keep my cookies in the freezer and think they are best eaten cold.

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by the truckload

My last lemon dessert was a bit of a cheat.

This time, I’m coming clean. No short cuts. Just pure lemons.

Well, not just any lemons. Meyer lemons plucked from a backyard tree by an adorable little boy who says “um” when he means “yes.”  This is farm-to-table cooking. The first batch of lemons, carted inside in a mini dump truck, became lemonade with a quick squeeze and a whir of the blender and a little help from Joanne. The next batch was supposed to be transformed into dessert. Cookbooks were scoured, but by the time we decided on lemon bars, the salmon and steaks were ready to come off the grill and we lacked the incentive to blind bake a crust and make a lemon curd. The half pound of butter called for did not endear the bars to us either. So, we skipped dessert and I had to pick up some chocolate on the way back to the airport.

But I did dump that truckload of lemons into my computer bag and cart them onto the plane as a carry-on.

Back home, the lemons sat in my fridge for a few days, beckoning me every morning as I peered inside to grab milk for my coffee and yogurt for my bowl. They beckoned me every evening as I foraged for dinner. And finally one evening, I beckoned them. I lifted them from their shelf, enjoyed their heft in my hands. I piled them onto my counter and returned for more, my palms lightly perfumed with the oil from their skins.

Five minutes to press the cornmeal crust into a pan while the oven heated. Twenty minutes to bake while I whipped together the lemon topping. Lower the heat, pour on the topping, another 20 minutes. Voilà – lemon fabulousness. If Joanne and I had known how easy it was, I might not have taken home my souvenir.

Lemon Bars

Adapted from Alice Medrich’s Chocolate and the Art of Low-fat Dessert. The bars are made in two parts – you first make the crust and then pour the topping over the top. You need 1C of sugar, 1C of flour, 3 eggs, and 3-4 lemons. You also need to reduce the oven temperature from 350ºF to 300ºF when you bake the topping. Make sure to place the pan on a cookie sheet so that the bottom of the crust does not burn. The recipe takes about an hour from start to finish.

For the crust:

- 3/4 C sifted flour

- 1/4 C yellow cornmeal

-  pinch salt

- 1/8 t baking soda

- 2 T unsalted butter or margarine (room temperature)

- 1/3 C sugar

- 1 egg yolk

- 1 T light mayonnaise or yogurt

- 1/4 t vanilla extract

For topping:

- 1 egg white

- 2 eggs

- 2/3 C sugar

- 1/2 C strained meyer lemon juice (about 3-4 lemons)

- zest from 1 lemon

- 1/4 C flour

- powdered sugar (optional)

Prepare. Preheat oven to 350ºF and put rack in lower 1/3 of the oven. Grease 8X8 square pan with vegetable oil.

Make crust. Stir together the flour (3/4 C), cornmeal, salt, and baking soda. Beat margarine/butter until creamy. Add the 1/3 C sugar and beat for about a minute. Beat in egg yolk, mayonnaise/yogurt, and vanilla. Add in the dry ingredients and beat on low until just combined. It will be crumbly. Scrape bowl and knead briefly with hands. Press into the pan and prick all over with a fork. Bake on top of a cookie sheet so the bottom doesn’t burn. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the top gets light brown.

Make the topping. While the crust is baking, whip eggs and egg white with 2/3 C sugar until combined. Whisk in lemon juice and zest. And finally, whisk in1/4 C flour. Pour the topping on the hot crust right when you take it out of the oven. Turn oven down to 300º. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the topping just barely jiggles. Cool on rack and then chill in the fridge. Cut into squares or bars when cold. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if you’d like.

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share a little sunshine

The past month has been characterized by two constants – snow and travel. And unfortunately (or fortunately in some cases) the former has been interfering with the latter. I’ve managed to miss both major snowstorms here in Boston, returning to an icy runway and snow piles well above my waist.

Over Christmas, Meira and I went out to San Francisco to visit her brother and sister-in-law. And their two pups. We ate and ate and drank and ate. It was a gluttonous few days including the times when we did cook at home. In the span of 48 hours, we had three different beef dishes — brisket, Micah’s cholent (hopefully the subject of a guest post), and hamburgers. We rounded out shabbat dinner with a few of my old standbys — butternut squash soup and apple cake — and some new favorites that I picked up from Eliana. Before we get to the recipes and as I pack (yet again) to head out of town, I figured I’d share a little sunshine (I hope it still comes through in my experiments with sepia) on this gray gray Boston day.

Roasted Bites

I didn’t grow up eating brussels sprouts and always avoided them based on reputation. But, Eliana showed me how to make them fabulous. And the sweet potatoes were a concoction that I had been dreaming up as a ravioli filling, but I like them so much on their own that I have yet to mash them to fill some pasta.

Brussels Sprouts

Preheat oven to 450ºF (or even higher). Cut sprouts in half or quarters, toss on a cookie sheet, and drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper. 10-20 minutes later, they will brown and crisp up, ready to pop in your mouth.

Sweet Potato Candy

The maple syrup caramelizes but is not too sweet and the cayenne really spices things up.

Again, heat the oven to 450ºF. Peel and cut sweet potatoes into 1-inch cubes.  Toss on a cookie sheet (are you sensing a theme here?), drizzle with maple syrup, a squeeze of lemon, and olive oil. Add your favorite spices – I used turmeric and cayenne. 15-25 minutes later (depending on size of sweet potatoes) they’re ready.

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get the meal started

A few weeks ago, I made my first shabbat dinner in months. Many, many months. I  fretted about the burnt chicken, the apple-pear galette that cracked, the salad poorly dressed. But the one thing I could rely on was the mushroom soup. It’s the absolute essence of mushroom. And the recipe is little more than sautéeing several handfuls of sliced mushrooms with shallots, throwing together a roux to thicken things up a bit, and adding broth and sherry. Then a quick buzz with an immersion blender and voilà — creamy thick mushroom soup. Garnish with a few chives and we’re ready to get the meal started.

Mushroom Soup

Makes a lot, but our party of 5 finished the entire pot. Probably should serve up to 8.

I adapted this from two wild mushroom soups – one from Levana Kirschbaum and one from Carole Sobell. I left out Levana’s soy milk, but added her sherry and used flour instead of Sobell’s cornstarch. I kept her thyme as well, but dropped the saffron. I kept Sobell’s simplicity and her chives turned the soup from good to spectacular with just a hint of bite and sharpness.

- 2 cloves garlic

- 6 shallots

- 3 T margarine

- 2.5 lbs assorted mushrooms (I used a mix of white button and cremini) – about 4-5 cups

- several branches of thyme

- 1/3 C flour

- 5 C vegetable (or chicken) broth

- 1 C dry sherry (I used Tio Pepe Zerez Palomino Fino) or vermouth

- chives

Prep. There’s a lot of chopping going on here. Chop the garlic and shallots fine. Clean and slice the mushrooms any which way you want.

Sauté. Melt the margarine in a big soup pot. Sauté the garlic and shallots over low heat until translucent (try not to let them color). Add the mushrooms and thyme and continue to sauté for another 8-10 minutes or so. Add the flour to the pot and cook for 2-3 minutes, mixing to make sure there are no lumps. Add broth and sherry and simmer for ~15 minutes. Remove the thyme branches, which by now should be bare of leaves. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Blend. Whip the soup with an immersion blender until smooth. You can also pass the soup through a sieve, but I didn’t bother.

Serve. Ladle into bowls and snip a few chives over top.

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and then there was Paris

After Tokyo, I headed off to Paris for 4 days. Life’s tough, right?

But I won’t share with you any pictures of Paris. Because I don’t have any of this culinary city. Crazy, no? Unfortunately I was swamped with work and by the time my meetings were over, I was too bone tired to really enjoy the city. A pity, but at least I know that I’ll be back again soon.

Before I left for my around-the-world-in-two-weeks adventure, a publisher sent me a new cookbook to review. To me! The cookbook is Paula Shoyer’s The Kosher Baker and it contains over 150 parve dessert recipes. It was dog-eared and covered in yellow stickies well  before I stepped on the airplane, and when I came home, I was inspired to try two recipes in as many weeks.

Not surprisingly, I prioritized a few of the more French recipes. First was a batch of madeleines. (The last batch I made was tainted by the silicone pan that I made them in, so a few months ago I bought a new pan.) Next up, almond tuiles. Before we get to the recipes and pictures, I want to share with you a little about the book and its author.

I spoke with Paula 2 weeks ago to learn about her inspiration for the book. Getting her on the phone took a fair bit of effort on both our parts, with her busy book signing and demonstration tour and my own crazy travel and work schedule. We finally caught up on a Thursday night as she was recovering from a cold and I was in a taxi en route to a 9 pm dinner after a long day in my New York office.

Paula lives just a few miles from where I grew up in Maryland and she has quite an affinity for French foods and pastries. While living in Geneva with her husband, she decided to go to culinary school in Paris on a lark and built up a reputation for her desserts in Switzerland and eventually the US. She opened a pastry school and has been teaching French (and other) pastries and desserts ever since.  She spent about 5 years creating and adapting from dairy the parve recipes in her own cookbook. She likens recipe development to science experiments and feels that  baking requires close attention to the details of recipes.

I asked Paula which recipe she turns to most often – and she referred me to “Everyone’s Favorite Chocolate Cake.” We bonded over the merits of an excellent chocolate cake that is so good it doesn’t require frosting. She also said that the scones often frequent her kitchen and table.

The book itself is conversational – it feels like Paula is cooking alongside you, with comments such as “if you use an electric mixer, be careful, the batter might splatter.” I liked the organization of book into three distinct sections based on preparation time (quick and elegant desserts, two-step desserts, and multiple-step desserts and breads) and a fourth section on Passover and low-sugar recipes. The index is complete with the added touch of some specialty ingredients, such as almond flour and orange blossom, being highlighted with recipes that feature them. The pictures are beautiful, but I could do with a few more. And scattered throughout the text are some black and white process pictures (my favorite is the one used to  demonstrate how to make  sablé galettes – essentially French shortbread). Again, I wish there were more.

On whole, I like the cookbook and have already found it a good resource.

So below are the recipes that I made the week I came home from Paris.

And I’m already bookmarking more recipes to try. I’ll soon be making sablé galettes and that chocolate cake.

Madeleines

Makes about 2+ dozen

Adapted from Paula Shoyer’s The Kosher Baker. I followed the recipe, except I missed one step (in the “mix one more time” section).  and used lemon extract instead of zest because I didn’t have any lemons around – and on day 2, the mads seemed a bit too dense. But straight out of the oven, they were fabulous (and that’s how I prefer to eat them anyway). Surprisingly, this recipe did not include a refrigeration step which is normally suggested to help get that little hump on the cakes. Finally and just so you’re prepared, this recipe does need a few bowls – so cleanup is a bit of a pain. But, hey, I really hate doing dishes.

- Spray oil and flour for dusting
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1/2 C (1 stick) parve margarine (though butter would be better if you were making them dairy), melted
- 1 C flour
- 2/3 C sugar
- 2 t vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 t lemon zest from 1 lemon or 1/2 t lemon extract
- 1 T confectioners’ sugar

Prepare. Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease and flour the madeleine molds

Mix. Beat the eggs with a mixer on low for 1 minute. Add sugar slowly, in four batches, while continuing to beat on low. Add vanilla and lemon zest (er, extract) and now beat on high for 5 minutes. The batter becomes thick, creamy, and a light yellow.

Mix  again. In a different bowl, mix flour and melted margarine with a wooden spoon until it becomes a dry paste.

Mix one final time. Add  half the beaten egg/sugar mix to the flour/margarine mix and whisk. Put half this mixture back into the eggs and mix with a spatula. Add the other half of the mixture to the eggs and mix.

Bake. Fill each mold with a spoonful of batter and refrigerate the remainder. Bake for 12 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool. Immediately remove the madeleines from the pan to cool on a wire rack.

Start all over again. Make sure to clean the molds out and then regrease/flour, fill, and bake the next batch.

*****

Almond Tuiles.

Makes about 2+ dozen.

Adapted from Paula Shoyer’s The Parve Baker. These delicate cookies taste great. I had a bit of difficulty shaping them over my rolling pin, so next time I’ll use something with a smaller diameter.

- 2 large egg whites (I froze the yolks for another time)
- 1/2 C sugar
- 2 1/2 T flour
- 2 T parve margarine (or, butter if you want to make dairy), melted
- 1 t orange zest from one orange
- 2/3 C slices almonds

Mix. Whisk together egg whites, sugar and flour. Add the melted margarine and continue to whisk. Add zest and keep whisking. Add almonds and mix gently with a spatula, taking care not to break the nuts.

Wait. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or ideally overnight.

Bake. Preheat oven to 400°F. Cover a cookie sheet with Silpat or parchment. Drop teaspoons of batter on the sheet, about 4 inches apart. Use a fork dipped in water to spread batter and separate the nut slices. You want the circles to be about 3 inches in diameter. Thinner is better. (Cookies, that is.) Bake for 7-8 minutes or until the edges are brown and the center is golden .

Shape and cool. Remove from oven and let cookies cool for about 15 seconds (if you try to take them off too soon, they fall apart). Use a spatula to scape up each cookie and quickly place on a curved mold – I used a rolling pin – so cookies bend on the underside (i.e., bottoms are on the rolling pin) and the almonds are on the outside. Let cool.



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