Sicilian Lemon Loaf

It is lemon season here in my corner of the world, and gracious but do I have lemons! My CSA keeps giving me them, so I had fourteen of them on my counter as of this morning and a half lemon in the fridge. I needed to find a lot of things to do with my lemons. A lot of lemon recipes call for a couple tablespoons of lemon juice, maybe topping out at 1/3 of a cup, but I have Lemons. So. Many. Lemons.

I remembered that my friend does an orange cake with whole oranges, so the search was on: could I find a tasty recipe where I could puree up an entire lemon or two at a time and have something at the end that would freeze well? It turns out that yes, I can! Especially for the Meyer lemons in the midst of the horde. (Yes, horde, not hoard--these are not objects I am collecting but a mass of organisms organizing themselves in my fruit bowl! They have Intent!)

The only thing I lacked for the recipe I found was yogurt, so I thickened some milk with ground flaxseed. I wanted it to turn out with the same moistness that I would get with yogurt, and I do believe that I achieved that. I also added poppy seeds because I ordered poppy seeds in bulk last go 'round. (Why did I think I needed a pound of poppy seeds? Who knows, but I will put them in everything even mildly appropriate now.) Also, Chris likes poppy seeds.

Sicilian Lemon Loaf

adapted from Christina's Cucina

Ingredients

1/3 cup milk

2 Tablespoons ground flaxseed

3 eggs

1 1/2 c (12 oz) sugar

1 3/4 c (~9.625 oz) all purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup butter, softened

2 Tablespoons poppy seeds

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large or 2 medium Meyer lemon(s), about (10.5 oz), washed and cut into pieces (with the rind, but remove the seeds) 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F

2. Prep a loaf pan by either lining with parchment or greasing with oil.

3. Mix the milk and ground flaxseed in a small bowl. Set aside for 15 minutes.

4. In a large mixing bowl, beat together eggs and sugar until fluffy.

5. Sift together flour and baking powder, then add to the mixture in the large bowl along with the softened butter.

6. Mix in milk/flax and vanilla extract.

7. In a food processor, process the whole lemon until it is almost pureed. Add this lemon to the cake mixture and fold in until evenly combined, then put the batter into the prepared loaf pan.

8. Bake for 80-90 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool for about 15 minutes.

Triple-Ginger Cookies

Triple-Ginger Cookies
makes about 40

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
1/2 tablespoon fresh ginger, finely grated
1/2 tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground clove
11-12 ounces (2-1/2 cups) all-purpose flour
1/3 cup crystallized ginger, minced
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
about 1/3 cup white sugar

1. Position a rack in top third and a rack in bottom third of oven; preheat to 350°F.

2. Line 2-3 baking sheets with parchment paper.

3. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar

4. Mix in egg, molasses and fresh & crystallized gingers

5. On top of the wet ingredients (or in separate bowl), whisk together flour, baking soda, salt and ground spices

6. Blend wet and dry ingredients

7. Put the white sugar in a small bowl

8. Measure out 1 tablespoon of dough at a time, roll between palms, roll in sugar, place 1-1/2 to 2 inches apart on the lined cookie sheets

9. Bake about 15 minutes, or until cookies look crackly, but are still slightly soft in the center

Squash Chiffon Cake

Awhile ago, I made the Espresso Chiffon Cake from Smitten Kitchen, and I was really impressed with how it turned out. So when I saw a recipe for Pumpkin Chiffon Cake as I was deciding what dessert to make for Thanksgiving, I knew that I would have to try my hand at that, too.

There were a few tweaks: I halved the recipe, used acorn squash rather than pumpkin, substituted pastry flour, and used the same number of yolks as whites. Oh, and I made up some cream cheese frosting for the cake. Because: Cream Cheese...

It turned out phenomenally. It was certainly denser than the previous chiffon cake I made, but with the squash puree and not cutting some yolks out, that was more than expected. The beaten whites still gave it so much lift and tenderness! I will be doing this again!


Squash Chiffon Cake
adapted from Alice Medrich via Food52
makes 1 - 8" round cake

1/2 cup sugar, divided
4 eggs, divided
1/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup squash puree (I used acorn)
100 grams (~3.5 ounces) pastry flour (cake or rice work, too)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar


1. Line an 8" round cake pan with parchment paper (optionally, grease)

2. Preheat oven to 325°F

3. Set aside 1/8 cup sugar (to stiffen egg whites)

4. In a large mixing bowl, mix remaining sugar with yolks, oil and puree

5. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves

6. Mix flour/spices into the puree/yolks

7. In a separate bowl, whip egg whites until they hold soft peaks; add the sugar that was set aside, then whip eggs until stiff but not dry

8. Fold half of the whites into the batter until no streaks remain, then do the same with the second half

9. Pour into prepared cake pan, set in the bottom third of the oven, bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (30-40 minutes)

10. Cool, then slide a knife around the sides to release from the pan; Peel off the parchment paper



Cream Cheese Frosting

1 - 8 ounce package of cream cheese, room temperature (leave out ≥1 hour)
1/2 to 1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
pinch of salt

1. Once the cream cheese is at room temperature (softened), whip until light and fluffy

2. Whip in a pinch of salt, and the powdered sugar to taste (start with 1/2 cup, add until you like it)

Esquites Con Tostados

Chris and I have gone to Oakland's Eat Real Festival for a few years running now, and naturally they have amazing food. This year, I think the winners (in our eyes, at least) were the lamb poutine and the sweet potato waffle pie (with salted bourbon butterscotch syrup). We ate so much of those that we didn't have room for an old favorite of mine, NIDO's Esquite Placero.

Now, I tried translating "Esquite Placero" (via Google, of course), and apparently it's meaningless drivel. As far as I can figure, it is referencing esquites, which is a roasted corn dish with cotija cheese. NIDO's "Placero" is served up on a plate, unlike (so I read) esquites. But the major points of roasted corn and cotija cheese are definitely met. And it is delicious. What more can you ask for?

My take is certainly a bit different then NIDO's; hitting up the highlights of roasted corn and pepper, toasted pepitas, crumbled cotija, all served over some excellent tortilla chips. I, however, went the route of tomatillo salsa rather than aioli.


Esquites Con Tostados (Roasted Corn with Tortilla Chips)
serves 4

Esquites
2 ears of corn
2 red bell peppers
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

Tomatillo Salsa
1 pound tomatillos
4 jalapenos
4 cloves garlic
handful of cilantro
salt to taste

Cotija cheese
Tortilla chips (I made oven-baked chips: day-old tortillas tossed with canola oil and salt, baked [in a single layer on a cookie sheet] at 350°F for 12 min)


1. De-paper and blend the tomatillos with the rest of the salsa ingredients

2. Broil the bell peppers and the corn*

3. Once charred, remove from the oven and cover the peppers with a damp cloth for a few minutes

4. While the peppers are steaming, turn oven to 350°F and toast the pumpkin seeds (in a single layer in a metal pan with a rim) for 10-15 minutes (if making home-baked chips, you can put them in the oven with the seeds)

5. Cut the corn off the cob

6. Remove the charred skin from the peppers, then mince coarsely

7. Once the pumpkin seeds are toasted, toss together with the corn and the pepper

8. Crumble the cotija

9. On a plate, layer the tortilla chips with the roasted veg & seed mix, the cheese and the salsa

* Note: I just read a suggestion to cut the corn off the cob and fry it up in some oil until pleasantly brown rather than broil it. I'll try this next time.

Korvapuusti (Pulla Rolls)

Chris went to Finland recently and loved some of their breads and pastries. In particular, he was enamored with the various cardamom breads. Among these were korvapuusti, which means "a slap on the ear" or some such (named, I assume, because of how you cut them; they look a like an ear).  Korvapuusti are a rolled pastry with lots of cardamom, both in the dough and in the filling.

Naturally, we decided to try to make these at home. We adapted a recipe from Kinfolk, though they just call the recipe Pulla.

Korvapuusti
makes 8

Ingredients:

For the dough:
1 tablespoon yeast (~10 grams)
8-7/8 ounces of milk (250 grams)
17-1/2 ounces ap flour (500 grams)
5-1/4 ounces sugar (150 grams)
1/2 tablespoon cardamom seeds (I did 3 grams ground cardamom)
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, softened

For the filling:
9 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar (100 grams)
2-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon (7-1/2 grams)
1-1/2 teaspoons cardamom (3 grams)

To top with:
1 egg, beaten
Pearl sugar (or regular if you don't have pearl)

Directions:
1. Warm the milk to about 95°F (warm but still touchable)

2. Add the yeast to the milk and let stand about 5 minutes

3. Mix in the flour, sugar, cardamom and salt

4. Add butter, then knead until smooth, elastic and only slightly sticky, at least 10 minutes by hand

5. Cover and let rise until doubled (1 hour)

6. Mix the sugar and spices for the filling together, then beat into the butter until creamed

7. Lightly flour a surface, if necessary, then turn out the risen dough and roll into a 10" by 16" rectangle (should be ~1/4" in height)

8. Smooth the creamed butter out to the very edges of the dough

9. Beginning with the 10" side of the rectangle, roll the dough into a tight cylinder

10. Position the flap at the top of the roll (you'll be pinching it closed or placing it on bottom in a moment, to make sure it will stay closed during baking), and cut into 8 triangles (scalene at the sides, isosceles in the middle of the roll...and well, mostly triangle I should say, because you want to leave the outer most roll layer attached to itself, so really, a trapezoid with one edge really tiny...)

11. Pinch the top point of the triangle and bring toward the center (the bottom of the triangle ends up on the bottom of the korvapuusti, and the top gets pushed down into the center so that it really quite looks like an ear)

12. Cover a baking tray with parchment paper, and place the korvapuusti ~2" from each other; cover and let rise until dough is doubled

13. During last 15 minutes of rising, preheat oven to 400°F

14. Brush the korvapuusti with egg and sprinkle with sugar

15. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown

Granola Bars

How to Make Homemade Granola Bars
Makes 8 bars
from Emma Christensen at The Kitchn

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup puffed quinoa cereal
1/2 cup chopped nuts, of any variety
1/2 - 1 cup dried fruit(s)
1/2 cup brown rice syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 - 1 teaspoon spices (optional, for making a specialty type bar)
3 tablespoons peanut butter or 1 tablespoon cocoa powder


1. Heat the oven to 325°F. Line an 11"x7" baking pan with parchment, leaving extra parchment to hang over the sides. Lightly coat with nonstick cooking spray or butter. If desired, toast the nuts and grains for 10-15 minutes until toasted and fragrant.

2. Mix the oats, cereal, nuts, and dried fruit together in a mixing bowl.

3. Warm the rice syrup for 10-15 seconds in the microwave or in a small saucepan over medium heat. It should be just warm enough to pour, not to sizzle when salt & spices are added. Mix in the vanilla extract, salt, spices (if using), and peanut butter or cocoa powder.

4. Pour the rice syrup over the dry ingredients. Stir the rice syrup into the dry ingredients until the ingredients are completely coated and start to stick together in clumps.

5. Pour/scrape the mixture into the prepared pan and firmly press the mixture into the pan.

6. Bake the bars for 20-25 minutes for chewy granola bars or 25-30 minutes for crunchy bars. As soon as you remove the bars from the oven, press them again with the back of a lightly oiled spatula. (This will give you more compacted granola bars.)

7. Let the bars cool completely in the pan. They will firm up as they cool. Once cooled, cut into 8 bars in the pan with a very sharp knife, then lift the bars by the flaps of parchment to remove from the pan. Store between layers of wax paper in an airtight container for up to two weeks.

Mint Chocolate Ice Cream

Last weekend at the farmers' market, there was proof of a devious mind. Someone had placed the bundles of mint directly by their register. How could I resist buying some? It was so fragrant and wonderful.

At first, I thought I might use it in a sauce for the lamb we had for Easter dinner, but that didn't happen. Thus comes the second inevitability concerning this bundle of mint: I had to make ice cream. Obviously.

As a trusted source of many frozen desserts, I turned to David Lebovitz's website for a recipe. Needless to say, he had one. I'm about half-way through steeping the leaves right now, but I can't imagine anything going awry. (P.S. Nothing did go awry--it's delicious, though yes, it is more herbal than the store bought mint.) So here it is.

Mint Chocolate Ice Cream
adapted from The Perfect Scoop via David Lebovitz
makes 1 quart

Ingredients

1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream, divided
pinch of salt
2 cups packed fresh mint leaves
5 large egg yolks
5 ounces chocolate

1. In a pot, warm the milk, 1 cup of cream, sugar, salt and mint leaves over medium heat until steaming

2. Remove from heat, cover and let stand for 1 hour

3. Strain the leaves out of the cream and milk, and press out as much liquid from the leaves as possible (try to avoid excessive bruising as cell damage increases the herbaceous flavor and doesn't extract extra menthol)

4. Return the infused liquid back into the pot and rewarm

5. While the infusion is warming, whisk the egg yolks together in a bowl

6. Add a bit of the warmed infusion into the yolks a drizzle at a time, continuing to whisk

7. Once the yolks are warmed, drizzle into the pot of infusion, stirring as you do

8. Stir this custard mixture until it becomes thick enough to coat the spatula, just before it gets steamy (steam point tends to be around 180°F, yolk set point is 177°F)

8b. Optional: Strain the custard base if you think you have any clumps

9. Add the rest of the cream and cool--you can do this over an ice bath--then refrigerate several hours or overnight

10. Churn according to the directions on your ice cream maker

11. While that's churning, melt the chocolate (in a double boiler or the microwave)

12. Toward the end of the churning or as you are putting the ice cream in a container, drizzle the chocolate over the ice cream and stir (or let be churned) a little at a time

13. Freeze until firm

Blueberry Muffins

I love muffin recipes that use yogurt for the dairy component. There's a delicacy to the crumb that is delightful, a thickness to the batter making it easy to work with, an aroma when baking that I find particularly compelling. That said, I do wish this recipe was worked for twelve regular muffins instead of nine to ten, but I'm hesitant to mess with perfection. And, indeed, the original post from Smitten Kitchen is quite right in calling this recipe perfect.

Blueberry Muffins
adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Makes 9 to 10 standard muffins

5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces) sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup (6 ounces) plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon table salt
3/4 cup (3 3/4 ounces) blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, don’t defrost)

1. Preheat oven to 375°F

2. Line or grease and flour ten wells in a standard muffin tin

3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

4. Add egg to creamed butter and mix well

5. Add yogurt and zest to mixture and stir to incorporate

6. In separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt

7. Add the dries to the wets in two steps

8. Fold in the blueberries

9. Divide evenly into prepared wells of the muffin tin

10. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of one of the muffins comes out clean

11. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pan before removing

Haggis

We celebrated Burns' Night a bit early this year so that we could indoctrinate another person to the amusingness that is the holiday that honors Robert Burns. This year, though, we did not do our stand-by of Oat and Neep Stew.

Instead, we used some of the lamb offal we acquired through Garden Variety Cheese to make haggis. Well, haggish. That is to say, we did not have lungs or stomach, only liver and heart in sausage casing. Nonetheless, I'm told that it made a very decent approximation of haggis, and I can say myself that it was delicious. The lamb's liver was so light and tender, and of course the heart was delicious. We used caul fat instead of lard or suet, which I understand is an odd choice but it was a good one as it ended up with just the right fat content we thought.

Anyway, on to the recipe.

Haggis(h)
serves 4
adapted from Rampant Scotland

 1 lamb heart
1/2 of a lamb liver
1 cup fat (lard, suet or caul fat)
1 small onion
1/3 cup steel cut oats
1/3 cup stock
1/2 teaspoon salt
a few grinds of black pepper
1 tablespoon each fresh minced rosemary and thyme

some sausage casing

Directions:
1. Put the heart and liver in a pot and cover with water. Boil until quite tender, at least half an hour.

2. Remove the heart and liver to a bowl, keeping the stock you've just made.

3. After the meat is cool enough to touch, mince (but do not puree!) the meat, onion, herbs and whichever fat you've chosen quite finely.

4. Add all the minced ingredients into a bowl with the oats, stock, salt and pepper; mix well.

5. Stuff the filling into the casing, leaving a fair bit of room for expansion and working out as much air as you can (otherwise the casing will blow apart in the midst of boiling...mine did...). A tip that I thought worked quite well for stuffing the casing without a machine to do it for you is to use a miso soup spoon to assist your endeavors.

6. Tie off the end of the casing.

7. Boil for at least an 1-1/2 hours, and up to 3 hours.

8. Serve with mashed potatoes, turnips and parsnips.

Cocoa Wheat

Ever since I was a child I've like all the "Cream of" hot cereals--particularly rice and wheat. My mother bought the instant varieties that you could do up in the microwave, and I had huge bowls of it every morning. I didn't know though that I was being deprived of something even more amazing: CoCo Wheats. Well, I say more amazing, but really the store bought cereal CoCo Wheats don't hold a candle to the burning inferno that is the amazingness of homemade cocoa wheat. Seriously, it's fantastic. It might be that I have really delicious cocoa powder (definitely part of it), it might be that I don't care for the additives in the branded cereal, it might be a lot of things, but it certainly is heavenly.

Cocoa Wheat
serves 2

2 cups milk
2-1/2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1-1/2 tablespoons honey
1/3 cup farina
(pinch of salt)


1. Whisk the cocoa powder into the milk

2. Heat the milk over medium flame until simmering (I like to stir fairly often so the milk doesn't scorch or bubble over)

3. Add the honey (and salt if using)

4. Add the farina slowly (so as not to clump)

5. Cook the farina (still stirring) until thickened to preference (just a few minutes)

Eggplant Caponata

It's been eggplant season at our CSA farm and I was very much in a rut for recipes. There are only so many times one can do eggplant parmesan and baba ganoush. Fortunately, I stumbled upon a lovely  recipe called eggplant caponata. Now, it's not vastly different from other eggplant recipes, but the olives and vinegar offer a nice touch in what can either be used as a dip or a sandwich topping.

Eggplant Caponata
makes about 5 cups
adapted from The Kitchn

1/3 cup olive oil
1 medium eggplant, peeled and cut into small cubes, about 4 cups total
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1 small onion, diced
4 ounces white mushrooms, chopped (optional, I just used more eggplant)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup black olives, pitted and sliced
1 or 2 medium tomatoes, according to personal preference
3 tablespoons red wine or imitation balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
Oregano, rosemary, thyme, etc. as desired

1. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pot (use a dutch oven if you can) over medium-high heat

2. Add the eggplant, pepper, onion, mushrooms and garlic, stir to coat with oil, and cook until everything is soft (about 10 minutes)

3. Bring down to a low heat,  add the olives, tomatoes, vinegar, sugar and whichever spices you desire (about 1/2 teaspoon if dried, 1/2 tablespoon if fresh), cover and simmer for half an hour, stirring every 5-10 minutes

4. Serve warm as a dip or on an open-faced sandwich and cover with some mozzarella

Baklava

For Labor Day weekend, Chris, Neil and I went for a lovely hike in Ansel Adams Wilderness. As that's in the Sierra Nevadas and we live around SF Bay, we had to go across the Central Valley. And my, even growing up in farmland in the Midwest doesn't prepare you for the farms of Central Valley. Fields and orchards and orchards and fields! So vastly many different crops that you'd never expect to be able to grow right next to each other!

Among other things, we picked up a bag full of roasted pistachios. Seeing as it's been so long since I've had baklava, I knew just what to do with my largess of pistachios, too. After sifting through a few recipes, I found the perfect one for me. I got the oranges fresh from my orange tree, shelled all those pistachios (a bit of an undertaking, best done a cup at a time or with more than one person), and set to. It was heavenly!

Pistachio Baklava with Orange-Cardamom Syrup
adapted from Molly Wizenburg via Bon Appétit

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups plus 1/4 cup sugar, divided
1 1/4 cups fresh orange juice
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom
12 ounces shelled pistachios, toasted (scant 3 cups)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
30-40 13x9-inch sheets phyllo dough (2/3 pound, give or take)

1. If your pistachios aren't already roasted and shelled, it will likely take you about 3 hours to do both

2. Chop your toasted and shelled pistachios until you like the texture (for me, it's rather fine, but some people like a larger nut to bite into in their baklava)

3. Mix the nuts with 1/4 cup sugar and the cinnamon

4. Preheat the oven to 350°F

5. Melt the butter a half stick at a time during this next step, otherwise the last of it will end up quite milky (alternatively, use ghee)

6. Lay out the phyllo dough according to the instructions on the box (usually this entails laying it out flat and covering it with a damp cloth inbetween pulling off sheets) and trim if necessary (I don't as I like a little extra phyllo up the sides of my pan)

7. Butter the bottom of a 13x9-inch baking pan and layer the phyllo dough in, buttering each (or every other) sheet until you have 8 to 14 layers

8. Spread out one half of the nut mixture, then repeat layering in phyllo (be very gentle with the first layer above the nuts as it's easy to poke through)

9. Repeat step 8

10. As you can't cut phyllo after it's baked without crushing it, you'll cut the triangles now, leaving a thin layer on bottom uncut

11. Bake for 1 hour or until golden brown

12. During the latter half hour while the baklava bakes, you'll make the syrup. Bring the juice, 1 1/4 cups sugar and cardamom to a boil and reduce to 1 1/2 cups total liquid (if you add much more than that to the baklava, it will be soggy)

13. Once you pull the baklava from the oven, you'll pour the syrup over it (it will bubble a lot!), then let the baklava cool

Store baklava at room temperature at least overnight so that it can finish soaking up all the syrup. Then put it in an air-tight container and store either at room temperature (can last at least a week I'm told, though mine has never made it that long) or in the fridge.

Massaman Curry, or something like it...

A little while ago, we went out to eat at a Tibetan place and they had a dish called Massaman Curry. Now, I know that the following recipe is definitely different from what they had, and it's not been perfected yet, but it's a start--a delicious one.

The ways that it definitely differs from the one we had in the restaurant are that ours wasn't as creamy (which is why I proposed coconut milk instead of the cashew milk), it had distinctly fewer Maillard reaction byproducts (I needed to brown the lamb rather more than I did, and I think toasting the nuts will also help), and I know the spice ratio was different (but that's mostly personal preference anyway). The first two are easy fixes, though the last is definitely going to be a work in progress. The extra cinnamon and cardamom were certainly in the right direction, but there was something else going on to help the complexity that I couldn't quite figure out.

Nonetheless, the recipe is lovely as it is, and I'll update this as I work on making it more exact, particularly the spices.

Massaman Curry
serves 4-6

1 cup cashews, roasted and then soaked at least 2 hours or overnight
1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
2 inches ginger finger
2-3 potatoes, diced
4-5 dried chiles
garam masala, with extra cinnamon and cardamom, to taste
1 pound chopped lamb
~1 cup chicken broth
juice of 1 lime
salt to taste

1a. Roast the nuts in a single layer on a baking sheet in the oven at 350°F until golden brown. I do not know how long this might take, but if it takes more than 15 minutes, stir them every so often.

1b. Soak the cashews in enough water to cover by at least 1/2 inch for at least 2 hours and up to overnight

2. Puree the nuts, then drain AND reserve the resulting "milk" (the water that the nuts soaked in)

3. Chop the onions, garlic, ginger

4. Brown the meat, then reserve

5. Sauté the onions, garlic, ginger (in either the lamb fat or in oil) until translucent and tender

6. Add the spices and fry until aromatic

7. Add the chicken broth and chiles, then let simmer until the broth is about gone

8. Add the cashew milk (or a can of coconut milk), then puree until smooth

9. Add the potatoes, nut meat, and put the lamb back in, simmer until potatoes are tender and nuts are soft

10. Serve with rice and naan

Apple Cake

A couple of weeks ago, Chris and I bought a bushel of winter apples, which I must say is a fair few apples. However, being not in the mood for apple pie or crisp (sacrilegious, isn't it?) and having accidently made up too much of the dries for a carrot cake a week or so before I thought, why not?


And so I made an apple cake. The wet ingredients are a bit made up (though I did reference a couple of actual apple cake recipes: 1 & 2, neither of which upon baking them I like quite so much as the cobbled together recipe I first made) so the apple sauce and egg amounts are adjustable to your preferred batter consistency (read: I don't remember how much I added as I didn't measure and it was awhile ago).


Apple Cake
makes 1 single-layer cake


Apple Mix:
4 medium apples
1/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon


Dry ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 cup sugar


Wet ingredients:
1/4 to 1/2 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup brandy or rum
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup melted butter
2 to 3 medium eggs


1. Preheat oven to 350°F, grease a 9" cake pan and dust the cake pan with flour


2. Peel and core apples, then cut them into chunks


3. Toss the apples with 1/4 cup sugar and 1-1/2 tsp cinnamon and let sit for 15 minutes


4. Mix all the dry ingredients together


5. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add all wet ingredients except eggs (starting with 1/4 cup apple sauce)


6. Stir that together, adding first two eggs one at a time, and the extra apple sauce and egg as necessary to make a pourable but somewhat thick batter


7. Pour half the batter into the cake pan and smooth to cover the entire bottom


8. Distribute half the apple chunks over the batter, then do a second layer of batter and apples, pouring the juice from the apples over the top layer


9. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until a tester comes out clean from the middle of the cake

Cakes of the Pan, using a variety of flours

This past Christmas, Chris and I received a wonderful, beautiful grain mill. It is a hand-crank grain mill, and I know they're not for everyone as they can be perceived as slow, tedious, and uneven. But I'm in love with mine, so there! But seriously, as long as you're not milling more than a pound of fine flour or a couple pounds of cracked groats, sitting there for a few minutes and reading a magazine while you turn the crank is simple as anything. And freshly milled flour is completely worth it. Period. Full stop. Worth it.

That said, some flours are more worth it than others. Oat flour has had me in raptures, and I've just this morning milled my first batch of buckwheat flour. Buckwheat is such a smooth milling flour, I hardly felt the exertion of turning the crank! It was so beautiful, I knew I had to write about it, though I don't know quite what to say to people that don't know the beauty of a softly simmering cauld--...oh wait, wrong line...a softly turning mill crank. But I think it's totally magical.

Anyway, the pancake recipe, is of course, very typical except for substituting in the different flours. What you will want to do, however, is to reserve half the milk (or buttermilk or yogurt) and add it slowly until you reach your desired consistency.

Buckwheat Pancakes

makes 12 4-inch cakes

3-1/2 ounces (~3/4 cup) buckwheat flour
3-1/2 ounces (~3/4 cup) ap flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons melted butter
1 egg
8 oz (1 cup) yogurt
4 oz (1/2 cup) milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Heat your griddle to 350°F or medium high

2. Mix the flours, sugar, salt and baking soda (mind, this is soda in this recipe because the yogurt is acidic) together

3. Thin your yogurt with the milk, and reserve half

4. Mix the egg with one half the liquid

5. Pour the melted butter over the flour mixture and start stirring

6. Stir in the egg mixture, then slowly add the rest of your milk and yogurt, as well as the vanilla

7. Cook as you would any other pancake, i.e. pour 1/4 cup (or more for fewer, larger pancakes) of batter over the griddle, wait 'til you can see that the edges are done, flip and let cook for another couple of minutes

Oat Pancakes

makes 12 4-inch cakes

3-3/4 ounces (~7/8 cup) oat flour
3-3/4 ounces (~7/8 cup) ap flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 egg
12 ounces (1-1/2 cups) milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Work as above, making sure to note that it is baking powder (not soda) in this recipe because the milk is not acidic. (Also, you can obviously skip the first half of direction 3 as there is nothing to thin.)

Springerles

Last year over the holidays was the first time I had helped to make springerles, and I was amazed that the only anise flavor came from the aniseeds that the cookies lay upon. As I had recently taken up making my own extracts, and both Chris and I wanted more anise-y springerles, I made a lovely anise extract for this year's batch.

Making aniseed extract couldn't be more simple, either: Fill a small jar half way with aniseeds, top with vodka and let it sit for several months before straining. And I must say, this batch of springerles is most excellent. That said, whipping whole eggs 'til light and fluffy is still weird!

Springerles
makes several dozen depending on thickness

Ingredients
3 large eggs
1-2 tablespoons of butter

1-1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon aniseed extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 to 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3 tablespoons aniseeds, or enough to cover your cookie sheet

Directions
1. Beat the whole eggs until light and fluffy and the eggs come off the beaters in ribbons

2. Add butter, sugar, and extract to the eggs and mix

3. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder

4. Add the flour mixture in 1/2 cup increments until you can no longer beat the mixture, then mix in by hand the rest of the flour

5. Roll out the dough so that it's 1/2 inch thick, then press into shapes so that it is at least 1/4 inch thick

6. Cut out the cookies and lay out approximately 3/4 inch apart on top of a cookie sheet that has been lightly covered with aniseeds

7. Leave out at room temperature overnight to 24 hours to dry out

8. Preheat the oven to 325°F and bake the cookies for 13-15 minutes. Do not brown!

Oat and Neep Stew

Once upon a time, when I was looking for Scottish fare to serve on Burns' Day (because I neither could nor wanted to serve haggis), I found a stew that was thickened with rolled oats and called for turnip or rutabaga as the main starch. Of course, I've never found it again, and I've done some adjustments to the proportions of the stew, but the inspiration stands.

The original recipe called for some sort of bean or lentil, I'm sure, but I don't remember exactly what. I have, however, settled on using both beans and lentils, though more of the former, and I particularly like kidney or cannellini beans in this recipe. (By the by, I was looking up the correct spelling of cannellini and randomly found out that in fact "as few as five raw [kidney] beans" can cause poisoning "and symptoms occur within three hours, beginning with nausea, then vomiting, which can be severe and sustained [profuse], followed by diarrhea. Recovery occurs within four or five hours of onset, usually without the need for any medical intervention." [Wikipedia] Of course boiling them for ten minutes takes care of that, but still. How odd.)

I've also tried a few different meats in this stew. Ground lamb is what was in the original recipe, and it is delicious. Chicken (not ground) also works very well, but steer clear of beef as it's too bitter for this stew. And I guess that's all I really have to say about this recipe, so let's get to it.

Oat and Neep Stew

serves 6-8

Ingredients

3/4 cup dry kidney or cannellini beans

1/2 cup dry lentils

4 cups vegetable stock

1 to 1-1/2 pounds of rutabaga or turnip

2 large carrots

1 large onion

2 large cloves garlic

1 pound meat (chicken or ground lamb)

2 sprigs rosemary

3 sprigs thyme

1/2 cup rolled oats

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Soak your beans overnight or for at least 3 hours and discard soaking water. Lentils need to soak at least 1 hour, but can be soaked overnight too, just expect them to fall to mush if you do this. You can skip this step, but do at least rinse the legumes, and know that they will take longer to cook if you haven't soaked them.

2. After discarding the soaking water, put legumes in a pot and cover with water by about 3 inches. Bring this to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and simmer until tender.

3. Meanwhile, cut the carrots and rutabaga into bite-sized pieces; dice the onions; mince the garlic, rosemary and thyme.

4. In a separate pan from the legumes, sear the meat and then sauté the onions and garlic. Set these aside.

5. Drain the bean liquor if you want, if not, you'll have to use a bit more oats to thicken the stew.

6. Add everything to the pot with the legumes; bring it to a boil, reduce again to a simmer and cook until the carrots and rutabaga are tender and the beans are a bit mushy.

Chocolate Beet Cake

My first experience with chocolate beet cake was at a potluck earlier this year when Chris and I went to our CSA farm for a day of cider pressing. It was pretty exquisite, but it was much more a chocolate cake that incidentally had beets in it than a chocolate beet cake. The recipe that I found for making it at home, however, is more the latter. This is a beet cake that has some lovely chocolatey-ness to it, and I love it.

An additional note now that I've made this recipe again: I found that the cake is very different depending on how you make the puree. Boiling gives a much less pronounced beet flavor. This was probably obvious if I had thought on it, but I hadn't until it smacked me in the face. That said, I found boiling to be even easier than roasting and definitely shorter, so it's a bit of a toss up as to which I prefer.

So, without further ado, here's the recipe.

Chocolate Beet Cake
makes a two-layer 9-inch cake
adapted from Tiger in a Jar

Ingredients:
1/2 cup oil (or butter)
1 cup packed light brown sugar
3 large eggs

4 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1 pound (~2 cups) beet puree*
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ounce liquor of choice (I used whiskey)

10 ounces (2 to 2-1/2 cups) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

confectioner's sugar or frosting (optional)


1. Preheat oven to 375°F and grease two 9-inch cake pans

2. In a large mixing bowl, mix together (or cream if using butter) oil and brown sugar; then add eggs and mix well

3. In a medium mixing bowl (or double boiler) melt chocolate and 1/4 cup butter and stir until smooth

4. Cool the chocolate slightly before adding beets, vanilla and liquor

5. Add the beet mix to the butter/sugar/egg mix and blend thoroughly (this apparently may appear separated, but I didn't have such an issue)

6. Sift together flour, soda, and salt before adding to the wet ingredients and stirring until smooth

7. Pour one-half the batter into each cake pan and bake for 20-30 minutes

8. Cool in pan for at least 10 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely

9. Dust with confectioner's sugar or frost and serve

*If you've not made beet puree before, it's very simple. You can either just boil the beets until they're soft, skin them and put them in the blender with a bit of water, or you can skin them, roast them with a bit of water then pour all that in the blend and puree it. It does take about an hour to roast them versus about 30 minutes to boil, but still easy-peasy. And cooked beets (either way) or beet puree freezes just fine.

Guy Fawkes Day Cake

I haven't the slightest idea why Brits traditionally have a ginger cake for Guy Fawkes Day, but when Chris and I were looking at gingerbread recipes, we came across this one and saw that it wasn't too sweet and it had molasses in it (double score!). We even made it almost on time (Guy Fawkes Day was a week ago). Now, we did indeed made it according to the recipe in the book, substituting only lemon vodka (homemade) for the zest and upping the amount of ginger, but we weren't told to absolutely not use just blackstrap molasses. Which you shouldn't, as we found out. We also decided we really did miss the egg. So here's the slightly revised recipe.

Guy Fawkes Day Cake (Parkins Cake)
adapted from Joy of Cooking
1-8" round cake

Ingredients:
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter, melted
2/3 cup molasses (NOT blackstrap); alternatively, 1/3 cup molasses (can be blackstrap) + 1/3 cup honey
1 egg
1 teaspoon lemon vodka or lemon zest

5 ounces (1 cup) flour
2-5/8 ounces (~2/3 cup) rolled oats
1 tablespoon sugar
1 to 2 teaspoons ground ginger (according to personal preference)
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2/3 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and grease an 8-inch cake pan

2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, mix the melted butter and the molasses (and honey, if you're doing half and half), then beat in the egg and lemon zest

3. In a separate, large mixing bowl, mix together the dry ingredients

4. To the dry ingredients, add 1/2 the butter mixture and stir until the mixture is uniformly moist, then add half the milk, stir, the other half of the butter mixture, stir again, and finally the last half of the milk and stir until thoroughly mixed

5. Pour into the greased cake pan, and bake 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean

Cape Gooseberry Jam

I first tasted a cape gooseberry while I was in Germany. It was served as the crowning jewel of a dessert and none of my group knew what it was. Our first thought was that it was a small tomato, but when I bit into it, I knew that wasn't the case. It was such a revelation of flavor. It was a heavenly bite of goodness. I had a new favorite fruit. Of course, it took several people that our server had to consult with to give it an English name: Cape Gooseberry. And when I got back to the US, I looked up this lovely fruit and my what names it is called: husk cherry, tomatillo (but not the type one makes Mexican salsa verde from), ground cherry, and a few others besides.

Well, fortunately for me, my CSA last year gave us so many that I couldn't eat all of them and decided to jam some. Oh, what wonder! Unfortunately, I didn't record my recipe, but I have found another with which I have jammed this year's crop; which this time are some I picked myself, though it was indeed from the farm I have this year's CSA.

Cape Gooseberry Jam
yields 6 cups

2 pounds fruit, husked and washed
2 pounds sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 box pectin

1. Pierce the fruit with a fork and cover with sugar and store in fridge overnight

2. In the morning, blend at least 3/4 of the fruit and sugar into a puree and add back into the pot

3. Add the pectin and lemon juice

4. Bring to a full rolling boil and hold for a minute, or until a thermometer shows at least 220°F (jell point) and/or a drop on a cold plate shows jelling

5. Jar as usual