Lemon Pudding Cakes

I love America's Test Kitchen, Cook's Illustrated, and Cook's Country. I have a mail subscription to Cook's Illustrated, and I tear out and keep probably three-quarters of the recipes in every issue. But I have an online subscription to Cook's Country - which, as far as I can tell, is the simpler, more down-home relative - and if I need a specific recipe, I go there first. Every one I've tried has turned out great, and they tend to be a little less fussy than the ones in Cook's Illustrated.

I've made this lemon pudding cake once before, exactly the way the recipe's written - baked in a single 8x8-inch pan. It's got a creamy, custard-y bottom, with souffle-like cake on top. A little whipped cream balances the tartness really well.

We've been having friends over to enjoy the deck that Allen built, and I thought that individual - and closeable - containers would make this really easy to set out at a party, and easy for guests to serve themselves. It also makes the recipe way more adorable, which is really important.

Pretty-Good-For-You Apple Crisp

Some otherwise completely sane people believe that every dish presents an opportunity to ruthlessly cut fat, salt, and calories. That's not me. While it would be recklessly dishonest of me to say that I do everything in moderation, I believe that a cook has a duty to aim for the sublime, and if transcendence is achieved with a stick of butter, then try to limit yourself to a few bites.

That being said, I’m always glad to find a healthy recipe that delivers on more than just fiber, and I’ve found that Cook’s Country – the sister publication of Cook’s Illustrated, and published by public TV's America’s Test Kitchen – actually has some pretty great ones.

Most of the excess calories in a fruit pie or cobbler are delivered by a buttery, sugary crust, and it just can't be made healthy. A whole-wheat, low-fat pastry dough is an abomination that none should endeavor to eat. The pastry part of this apple crisp is rolled oats, a few pecans, a sneaky secret ingredient, and a little bit of butter and sugar. It’s delicious and satisfying. (And begs for you to keep in mind that two tablespoons of whipped cream have only 50 calories - a little cream adds a lot to this dessert.)

Edible Holiday Presents

I am living life right now in full-blown Christmas mode. I've spent most of my adult life developing a Christmas playlist that isn’t terrible (Allen would argue with that), and it's playing on a loop. My Christmas presents are wrapped – not because I’m so together, but because few things fill me with glee like a bunch of wrapped packages stacked up in our living room. The only ones left to deal with are those presents that have yet to be made.

Every year, Allen and I make a bunch of edible gifts – pralines, granola bars, four kinds of truffles, and sometimes peanut brittle or marshmallows. The truffles are the most well-loved among their recipients, and the most time-consuming. Every year, I naively look forward to the magical night, a week or so before Christmas, when Allen and I will get home from work, prepare our mise en place, wash our hands, and calmly execute dozens of perfectly spherical, glossy confections. And every year those candies deliver us to the brink of sanity and coat two rooms of our house in a fine layer of Dutch-process cocoa.

But year after year, we soldier on.

Candied Key Lime Slices

Sorry about the inconsistent posting as of late. Allen and I were out of town for quite a while, traveling in Italy and France. It was a great trip. There were little disasters (I lost our train tickets - replacements, in fact, for the train that we'd missed 15 minutes earlier), and minor mistakes (Allen said "Hola!" to nonplussed Italians more than once (note from Allen: Only once.)). But there were little victories, too: I learned a little Italian, and my triumphs include successfully ordering quantities of cheese in a crowded Venetian market while Allen stood behind me and whispered, "Get some salami, too. Salami!" Allen's greatest feat was more dramatic: he cool-headedly jockeyed through Florence traffic in a Fiat while I pushed an imaginary brake pedal and stifled shrieks.

Allen, my awesome husband, was an ideal travel companion. Aside from being generally fun and hilarious, he hauled my giant suitcase around Europe (of course, I offered to tote his reasonable carry-on), while I packed it ever-fuller with jars of honey and olivewood cutting boards. And if I ever got tired of bumbling through Italian greetings, or searching for a French verb that I haven't used in years, Allen was always ready to step in and shout "Hola!" to everyone in the vicinity.



Jessica is presently gallivanting across the eastern seaboard, and me? Well, now it's time to eat and drink and catch up with friends (Jessica among them!) - before the holiday eating and drinking inevitably starts, which is a whole other kind of eating and drinking, and will require commitment and preparation. But we're back in the meantime, however sporadically. Those Christmas dioramas aren't going to decorate themselves.

Now to the project at hand. Our noble little key lime tree, who lives in a pot and had to be moved indoors last night, has given us 10 or 20 little ping-pong-ball sized fruits. In my determined campaign to turn everything healthy and natural into candy or cake, I took those fruits and made gorgeous little stained-glass treats - candy to decorate a cake!



Here are the instructions:

Eatins' of Late

Not everything I make seems quite worthy of posting. Most of the time it's just dinner -- and it's someone else's recipe. Someone who has usually already done a lovely job of writing and photographing the results. But I thought it might be alright to share some of the things I've made and enjoyed -- maybe you'll enjoy them, too. Maybe you've already tried these?

1 Egg Salad, 101cookbooks.com
First off, most of what I make comes from 101cookbooks.com. I could write a post entirely on how important the site and books are to me and the beauty of Heidi's photos. Then I'd write a post entirely on how really, really good everything tastes. I didn't have an opinion about egg salad before this and now I love it and have to try to not over-do it. The link on her site is actually different than the one in her latest book, Super Natural Every Day, which is even simpler: hard boiled eggs, greek yogurt (I used plain, regular yogurt), dill and salt and pepper. She also suggests (and I love) rubbing garlic on your toast.

2 Leek Soup with Dill Oil, 101cookbooks.com
So good. Really. I added a dollop of plain yogurt to mine; I love that tart kick. At lunch today, I also added diced tomatoes. Cooking from Heidi gives me a sense of freedom to explore that I don't get when I'm working from other recipes. 

3 Oatmeal Rasin Cookie Coffee Cake, Always with Butter
I made this to try out my new (old) bundt pan. I should not have poured all of the batter into the pan, which is obviously smaller than typical pans -- but I did. It therefore came out looking much more like a giant muffin, but every bit as tasty.

4 Pear and Almond Frangipane, Tartelette
I made this for my lovely friend Andrew's birthday. I'd never heard of frangipane before. I love almonds and am excited to add this to my mindgrapes! I don't have a gluten alergy so I made a (half batch) regular pie crust, recipe from Martha.

5 Mushroom Tacos, Super Natural Every Day
This recipe is a combo of the book's black bean and mushroom taco recipes. What I like about having these two mixes on hand is that you can also toss them into eggs in the morning. I like to be able to get a variety of meals from ingredients. One person, cooking for one, means a lot of repetitiveness -- I try to avoid it if I can.

Maybe a 101cookbooks.com/Heidi Swanson love post is in order?

Cherry Crunch

We've had some great prices on cherries here lately, and I can't resist them at the grocery store or Farmer's Market. There's a little cafe here in Decatur - Our Way - where my best friend and I used to go almost every day in high school during the period when we were supposed to be working on the yearbook. (Represent.) We were rebels. We'd get the three-veggie plate, sweet tea, and I always got cherry crunch.

I've been trying to approximate their recipe for upwards of a decade, and since the restaurant was closed for several years, I've been doing it from my memory of that wonderful dessert. And I think that if I were willing to add two more sticks of butter to this recipe, I'd have it. But let's just leave it at a cup, shall we? Recipe after the jump.

Muesli

Oh, hi. It's just me - just talking about breakfast again. 85% of the time I have egg on toast for breakfast (in a variety of ways), but it seems I'm posting about the 15% of other things I'll have, like muesli. I used to be a granola girl; I made it every couple of weeks, though I always wanted it to have less sugar. But when you cut down the sweet stickiness that makes granola cluster, well, it's just not granola anymore. I've recently fallen back into muesli (I remember fondly the first time I had it, a $20 bowl in Oxford, England, but it was worth it - it is what I mimic and enjoy now each time) because it's lighter, softer, more complex and less sugary. And in warmer mornings (who am I kidding - I live in New England) I love to let it swim in lots of cold, cold soy milk.

Here is a muesli org chart to tempt you past the jump.

Pimento Cheese

That mushy, bland stuff at the grocery store is awful. But real pimento cheese is a treat, and it's easy and popular fare for parties. All the amounts are approximate, and I've toned down the garlic and spice to make it palatable for normal people. If you really like onion, you can grate a couple of tablespoons and add it in lieu of the onion powder.

Heating the garlic mellows and rounds the flavor a bit, but it's not crucial by any means.

Oatmeal Terrine

Say what? Let's break it down. Oatmeal, a tasty and heart healthy breakfast, especially good on chilly mornings. Terrine, a dish most often used as a mold to shape pulverized meat into a sliceable loaf, served cold. The dish also gives its name to the dish it molds, i.e. Salmon Terrine. Though less common, terrines are not always scary, squished together meat parts -  and thank goodness. There are ones like this Caramel Pear Terrine that I'm waiting on an occasion to make. You can tack terrine onto the end of anything you're essentially using a mold to shape. I grant verbiage freedoms like that.

But back to the oatmeal terrine. A quick Googling reveals that South End Buttery in Boston is the only place in the universe that makes this and inspires others to recreate. This is where I first had one and was wowed by the taste and the idea; eating cooling --not warming-- oatmeal like cake for breakfast! I'm telling you, and I think you'll agree, it's instantly more decadent and more of an experience when you're eating something like cake. This also has a "crust" of flaxseed meal, which is good for you! But also, optional.

And yes, I always adorn my oatmeal terrines with a scattering of fruit and nuts, just so, exactly as shown here.

The how-to after the jump!

collecting - cast iron pans

I bought my first cast-iron skillet as a fledgling baker in high school, looking for a proper vessel for making pineapple upside-down cake. It was actually a completely uneducated buy; I was at the late, lamented Lakewood Antiques Show, saw a wonderful, smooth 9" cast-iron skillet for $18, and talked them down to $12 (it was a Sunday, the last day of the show, after all). I didn't know anything about seasoning the pan, and I bought it in part because, frankly, I didn't know that new cast-iron pans were still manufactured. It's turned out to be well worth its $12 price, and sits permanently on top of our stove, stacked with a number of other cast-iron pans that could double as anti-burglary implements, if it ever came to that.

KING CAKE!

It's Mardi Gras season! Every year (or, the last two, that is) I've had a Mardi Gras party. My best friend is from New Orleans, and we went often to beautiful New Orleans during college - that's how I met King Cake (different than the French Galette des Rois Elizabeth shared last year). This is a traditional cake during the Mardi Gras season; the sweetness does not kid around, and inside is small baby (what's a cake without one, I ask?). The person who gets the slice with the baby has to buy the next cake.

The party gives me a reason to have King Cake at least once a year. And here in Boston, most have never had it before, so I get to introduce others to the tradition. Step-by-step guide on making your own cream cheese-filled (my favorite!) New Orleans King Cake after the jump.

(So many baking posts - what's that about?)

fresh apple cake

Apologies for the onslaught of posts about baking. But seriously, go make this cake right now. It is so easy - the hardest part is peeling the apples - and it is so damn good. Super moist, with some light, crispy caramelization at the edges and top. Perfect for taking to a dinner with friends.

Make sure your oven's the right temp - just invest $3 in an oven thermometer - and follow the instructions to a tee.

Over and out.*

*I've been using a walkie-talkie a lot at work.

honeycomb pie

I received The Pie and Pastry Bible as a gift at Christmas, and I absolutely love it. It reminds me a lot of Bo Friberg's The Professional Pastry Chef - both books cover the basics of nearly every technique or recipe, and then explore the myriad fun variations of each.

The recipe for this apricot and honey chiffon pie came from the book, and it's a good recipe, but the best part is the frivolous, fanciful effect of the "honeycomb" on top. The secret is after the jump.

chocolate babka

Here's the thing about our household. I found this recipe in Martha Stewart's excellent Baking Handbook when all of Atlanta was trapped under snow, making do only with what it already had in its kitchen pantries. The recipe calls for a full two pounds of one type of chocolate, and I thought, "Well, I'm sure we've got that!"

Good thing I made it; this bread sustained us and neighbors through a full three days of offices-closed, grocery-stores-depleted, full-on Deep-South snow freakout.

Feeling Lucky - Happy New Year!

Growing up in central Georgia, we had blackeye peas and collards every New Year's Day. The peas were for good luck and the collards for wealth in the new year. I didn't come into greens until my later years so I usually just ate the peas, which I love, love, love. I was just home for Christmas and luckily I made it back between Atlanta and Boston with just one day's delay. I've played in the snow but my Southern upbringing is still feeling close so I just made myself a batch of peas.

I called my Dad so that I could make them like he did and he acted as if there wasn't much to it but to remember the secret ingredient. I added a few of my owns bits (onion and bay leaf) and so here is my version of my Dad's Hoppin' John.

Hoppin' John 

• 1 lb dry blackeye peas
• 8 oz ham, chopped
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped small
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tablespoon sugar - that's the secret
• water, salt, peper
• butter and chicken stock, optional

Put the dry peas in a pot with about 7-8 cups of warm water. Bring to a boil and boil for about 2 minutes. Let sit for an hour.

Near the end of the hour start to cook up the ham in a frying pan with a little butter. Add the onion and continue to sauté until translucent. I had about 2.5 cups frozen chicken stock so I added it to the frying pan and melted it down then added all to the peas. Return heat to the peas, add sugar, bay leaf and then simmer until tender adding salt and pepper to taste. I added a bit more water at the end, but this too is up to you and your tastes.

Top on rice and get lucky! Oh, and don't forget it's bad luck to do your laundry on New Year's Day, don't even think about it. I suppose this is another Southern old wives tale, but it doesn't take much for me to skip laundry...

**Also, anything with ham and a bay leaf gets me hankerin' for Jambalaya. I'm excited that the new year also means Mardi Gras season is around the corner!

Christmas truffles

These truffles are a pain, okay? They’re not something you’re going to throw together in half an hour, and once you’ve spent $30 on chocolate and your kitchen’s covered in a fine dusting of cocoa powder, you’ll wonder if it would have been easier to let Russell Stover do the job for you. Last night, when Allen and I got to the part where you roll the truffles in chocolate, he turned to me and said, “Get ready for the most stressful part of Christmas.”

But these are beautiful – not flawless, surely, but beautiful by virtue of being handmade, and once you give them to friends and family, you’ll realize you have a hit on your hands. A hit, and several ounces of melted chocolate and butter.

The Busy Days

Let's not get started on how fast the year has flown. It is coming to an end, indeed, and with a busy bang. Elizabeth is on vacation (much deserved!) and I'm in the throes of graduate school applications and going on a trip myself, then home for the holidays. I leave Saturday for Austin - I've never been! I couldn't be more excited; Mexican food, thrift stores, music - oh my! Then I'll be in middle Georgia for the holidays and for a brief moment before I head back to New England, Elizabeth and I will get to see each other! Champagne is chilling as we speak, I am sure.

Now, this is all to say, "Sorry!" I've not been the best poster and maker as of late. I'm hoping to squeeze in some projects for gifts in the time between now and my 6am flight on Saturday - fingers crossed. But I thought I could share a bit about what I've been surviving on as a hermit in my apartment writing statement letters and making a portfolio.

Last week I made myself sick on this fantastic sweet potato hummus. I had more sweet potatoes, so last night I sort of made this sweet potato soup. I say sort of because I didn't have all of the ingredients and didn't wan the fuss, so banking on my knowledge of how little it takes to make a "soup" from my cauliflower experience, I caramelized some onions with a bit of ginger and oil, added broth (I love to buy it in the boxes that way I can freeze the left overs and use for times like this), garlic, salt and peper, and 1 1/2 peeled and chopped sweet potatoes (I took the remaining 1/2 and roasted them in chili powder to have on top of sauteed spinach). Cook for about 20 minutes until soft and blend in a blender. Voila, soup. I made the curried apple bit according to the recipe.

Instead of my normal bi-weekly granola mix I made granola bars from Martha Stewart's fantastic cookie iPad app. They are a little drier than I'd hoped (my fault, I'm sure), but I love that they are held together with dates instead of lots of sugar or oil.

Now, to work I go. I hope everyone has a lovely week and is getting everything done that they need to!

recipe: the New York Times' chocolate chip cookies

I like chocolate chip cookies very much, and I've always thought them pretty fool-proof. The Nestle Toll House recipe is easy, and it always makes a good, serviceable cookie. Frankly, I preferred cookies with a little embellishment, like these peanut butter cookies.

But now I've tried Jacques Torres's cookie recipe (via the New York Times), and I will never go back. These cookies are perfect right out of the oven, perfect a day or two later when they're chewy and substantial, and perfect as raw batter that you're powerless to stop eating. Yes, the recipe is a bit fussy, and you could probably manage without using two different kinds of flour, but I would make it to the letter at least once if I were you - you'll be impressed.

I have adapted this very minimally, first to make measuring the flour a bit easier, and then to decrease the size just a tad - I like my cookies big, but not salad plate big.

I made these cookies to go along with our Halloween costumes, and if Oscar the Grouch didn't like cookies before, he does now.

Cauliflower Soup

I made cauliflower soup. This may not seem particularly post worthy but here's why I wanted to mention it:

• It pretty much has two ingredients - could that be simpler? Easy to pick up on the way home, not a lot of prep!
• Nutritionally it has almost no fat, and a good portion of protein and fiber
• It doesn't make an enormous batch so if you're one person, like me, this means you don't have to eat it for a week. 

The recipe is from Whole Living, a Martha Stewart Magazine that I love. I couldn't find it on the website to link to so here it is:

2 1/2 cups of vegetable broth 

1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets

salt, pepper & olive oil

In a pot bring broth, florets, salt and pepper to a boil and then let simmer, covered, for 20 mins. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Take the small cauliflower leaves and coat with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast until slightly brown. When the broth and florets are done, transfer to a blender and puree until smooth. Voila! Garnish with little leaves. It makes about 4 small servings.

Now, today I bought ingredients to make this soup from 101cookbooks - I suspect I'll be eating it for a fortnight. 

recipe: pumpkin cheesecake

The autumnal months bring out certain obsessions in me – wool blankets, fires on the hearth (sometimes despite 60-degree weather), the relentless pursuit of “coziness” in our household’s furnishings and food. My most specific fall food craving is pumpkin - which works out because it’s basically great in everything. I'm not ashamed to admit that my preferred pumpkin is canned (and I'm not alone in this). I’m all for using fresh ingredients, but I feel about this the way I feel about homemade-versus-store-bought chicken stock – I’ve tried it both ways, and I can’t see enough difference in the taste or the ingredients to go through the trouble of making it from scratch at home.