Pear, Goat Cheese, & Honey Tart

Another fave coworker has flown the coop Last time this happened I sewed a dress in sadness. This time we took personal days together and drove all over town so C. could experience her Boston Bucket List. I feel both are good plans, it’s just a matter of whether you want a garment or a cannoli at the end of the day. The Bucket List included (from top to bottom), the lookout at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Paul Revere in the North End, and Mike’s Pastry for some florentine cannolis. C. has moved to Seattle and made me promise to visit when we go back to Oregon.

For Thanksgiving we stuck around Boston…our third annual friendsgiving. I whipped up this Pear, Goat Cheese, & Honey Tart. I looked at some things online and then just kind of winged it. Nothing quite so delicious as honey whipped into goat cheese.

 

Pear, Goat Cheese, & Honey Tart
by Foxflat

8-10 oz. of plain goat cheese
1/2 cup honey (reserve a few tablespoons for drizzling)
4-5 ripe pears
1 piecrust (I used premade but click here for my go-to homemade recipe)
1 tart pan

Preheat the oven to 375F. Press the crust into the tart pan. Cream the goat cheese and the honey until smooth, then spread to the edges of the piecrust in a thin layer. Peel and slice the pears and arrange on top of the honeyed cheese. Start with the outside ring of pears, and then arrange an inner ring. Drizzle the reserved tablespoons of honey on top. Bake until golden brown (30-40 min). Let cool and remove from the tart pan for serving.

Ombre cake and oreo cakeballs

I destroyed the kitchen yesterday making two new desserts for a friend’s 30th house party. First a four-layer purple ombre cake and then some oreo cakeballs. Both things that had been showing up on pinterest and I wanted to try…

I’ll start with the cakeballs. I used this recipe but with sprinkles (obviously needed!) and Trader Joe’s oreos and lowfat cream cheese. A cakeball is still a cakeball – these are not healthy – but the swaps help a little bit (no hydrogenated oil, etc.) and even more importantly, I don’t think the swaps make a noticeable difference in taste or texture.

As I was packing up the plate to go home a woman ran up and yelled, “OMG did you make those?!” And then when I said yes she gave me a great big bear hug. Haha. Always fun to get unsolicited tipsy hugs from strangers for your party contribution.

Next, the ombre cake. This required:
- 2 boxes of Duncan Hines white cake mix
- a jar of raspberry preserves (to spread between the layers)
-  4 cake pans (I own 3, so I had to bake in two stages)
- one homemade chocolate frosting recipe taken from the back of the cocoa tin

I made the double cake mix in one big bowl, added a couple drops of coloring, stirred, and filled the first pan. Then I added more coloring to the bowl and repeated the process. I had to eyeball how much to pour in each pan…and as you can see not all of the layers are the same height, but at that point I didn’t have enough clean dishes to spread the batter between four bowls.

Here’s the layers all stacked together with raspberry jam in between:

Then the frosting! Someone who likes cake more than me might want to argue about the merits of homemade cake, but me, I can’t really tell the difference between it and the boxed stuff. I don’t think most people can. Homemade frosting, on the other hand, is 100% worth the time. People go bonkers for it.

The birthday girl was soooo excited to see the color layers. She had also had a few gin cocktails by then, but hey, regardless the cake was a hit. I couldn’t do all that work and not have a picture of the layers, so while she kept most of the leftovers I did squirrel one slice home at the end of the night so I could photograph it.

Curried Chicken Rice Salad

I hate packing a lunch in the morning – it seems there’s never time for it no matter how early I get up. As my mom would say, “you get that honest.” Granted my mom was trying to get ready for work with two kids around, but after a certain age that also meant we could help. I remember many mornings with her tethered to the curling iron and shouting, “Katie can you make me a sandwich for lunch?” It was always the same: raisin bagel, ham, and farmers cheese, wrapped in a paper towel. (Mom, if you’re reading, did you like eating the same thing every day?)

Repetition…I must get that honest too. I don’t eat the same thing every day, but I do eat the same thing for a week. The lunch-making solution I’ve come to is cooking up a colossal amount of something over the weekend and separating it into meal-sized pyrex dishes. Each morning I grab a container as I run out the door.

This Curried Chicken Rice Salad is one of my favorite lunches. It has a little bit of everything…sweet, spice, cilantro, carbs, veggies, and protein. It keeps well (the flavors actually get better as they sit) and is interesting enough to eat for a week. I like it with pita bread or crackers. The recipe below makes a lot, so if you’re not going to a potluck, cooking for a crowd, or wanting to eat it for a week, cut it in half.

Curried Chicken Rice Salad - adapted from Kitchen Sense by Mitchell Davis
This is a tangy curried dish best served cold.  I use supermarket rotisserie chicken because it’s quick, affordable, and (let’s be honest) delicious, but cooked chicken breast would work just as well. Once you’ve made the recipe as is, try experimenting with other veggies and proteins. It’s a great way to clean out the fridge and/or use up leftover cooked rice.

2/3 cup cider vinegar
2/3 cup golden raisins
3 tablespoons curry powder
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium white onion, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh minced ginger
1 cooked supermarket rotisserie chicken, with the chicken removed and cubed
3-4 cups cooked rice, cooled to room temperature
4 large carrots, grated
4 scallions, chopped
1 to 2 cups of cooked corn (frozen or fresh, not canned)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
salt and pepper

Combine vinegar and raisins in a small bowl and microwave for 2 minutes, then let sit. Mix curry powder and 3 tablespoons water to make a runny paste, set aside. In a cast-iron or frying pan, heat oil over med/high heat, add onion and chicken, and cook until the onions start to soften. Add the garlic and ginger, then cook a few minutes longer, stirring often. Stir in the curry paste and cook until the water has evaporated and you can smell the spices. Turn off the heat, then pour in the raisin/vinegar mixture and use a wooden spoon to stir it in, scraping the spices off the bottom of the pan. Let this mixture cool to room temperature.

While the chicken mixture cools, start chopping and grating! Mix the rice, carrots, scallions, corn, and cilantro in a large bowl. Once the mixture is cool, pour it into the large bowl and stir. Season with salt and pepper.

Deep Dish Pumpkin Pecan Pie

I don’t like pumpkin pie for the same reason I don’t especially like yogurt, mashed potatoes, pudding, or creamed soups. No textural interest. I don’t think I was ever that keen on smooshy food, but my freshman year of college my jaw was surgically broken and then banded shut for 8 weeks. I got sick of foods that didn’t require chewing. If you served me one of these mushy things at your dinner table, I would eat it. No problem. But I wouldn’t choose it from a buffet line.

Searching recipes for Thanksgiving a couple years ago, I stumbled upon the remedy for pumpkin pie: covering it in a layer of pecan pie. The pecans add punch – sweetness, saltiness, crunch. The pumpkin, which always had a lovely flavor, lends a smooth heartiness.

I concocted a deep dish version of this pie for Thanksgiving this year. It took a loooong time to bake, but was worth the wait.

This was our second Thanksgiving in Boston. Last year our friends from Oregon came to visit, and this year we walked down the street to a classmate’s house. They put together a great “Friendsgiving,” with ham, turkey, all the trimmings, and approximately one pie per person.

I love Friendsgiving.

We finished up our leftover pie for lunch today. You’re probably all pied out after your own Thanksgiving, but bookmark this one for next year….

DEEP DISH PUMPKIN PECAN PIE

• 4 eggs, divided
• 2 cups canned solid pack pumpkin
• 1 cup sugar, divided
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• pinch nutmeg and ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup light or dark corn syrup
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
• (optional) whole pecans for decorating
• 1 prepared deep dish pie crust

Preheat oven to 350°

In a medium bowl, combine: 2  of the eggs, pumpkin, 1/2 cup of the sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Spread in prepared pie crust.

In  a medium bowl, beat remaining 2 eggs slightly. Stir in corn syrup and remaining 1/2 cup sugar, then butter and vanilla. Stir in chopped pecans. Carefully spoon over pumpkin mixture and use spatula to spread evenly.

Place 5 whole pecans on top of the pecan mixture, evenly spaced in a circle at the pie’s center. Continue placing whole pecans in a radial pattern all the way to the edge of the pie.

Bake 70 to 90 minutes or until filling is set around edge. Cool pie completely on wire rack.

Can you re-use container garden soil?

Yesterday we winterized the balcony garden. Here it was in its prime:

Here it is now:

There was a lot of soil to deal with. Can you re-use container garden soil? Most of what I’ve read online advocates for starting fresh each year, but that’s expensive. And I don’t know how we would dispose of this year’s piles (I’m imagining some kind of illegal midnight dirt-dump at the edge of Fresh Pond).

I was encouraged by this chat thread and this website to try recycling our soil. Mixing in new organic matter (manure, compost, etc.) replenishes the minerals and improves the drainage, so I emptied our backyard composter and refilled it with alternating layers of maple leaves and container soil.

The (mostly) composted kitchen scraps from last year got added to the potato box. I sandwiched them between layers of soil and then threw all of the pulled garden plants on top with another layer of maple leaves. We’re going to buy soil amendments next year, but that’s still cheaper than starting from scratch.

The winterizing project left us with a clean porch, dirty hands, and a little container of tiny green tomatoes.

I’ve always wanted to make fried green tomatoes. The film of the same name is one of the first PG13 movies my mom let me watch. Some of the plot points escaped me then…like the fact that Frank was actually turned into BBQ for the whistlestop patrons, or that Ruth and Idgie were in a loving lesbian relationship…but I came away from it loving Jessica Tandy. And wondering what fried green tomatoes tasted like.

Turns out they don’t taste like a heck of a lot. That was our initial impression anyway.

I salted the slices, waited 15 min, then blotted off the extra moisture with a towel. They got a dip in beaten egg, then dry Jiffy cornbread mix (cheap, tasty, and self-rising). I fried them in the iron skillet and laid them out on paper towels to drain.

The cornbread mix gave them a great crunchy texture, it’s just the taste that was under-whelming. They need something to help draw out the tang of the tomatoes. I mixed up a little dip for them that was 1 part plain yogurt and 1 part Tapatio hot sauce. WHA-BAM they came alive! Much, much better.

DIY Easy Italian Giardiniera

One of the first places recommended to us when we moved to Boston was Russo’s – a top grocery destination in Watertown. They have every piece of produce you can think of, as well as homemade breads, local cheeses, and prepared desserts. And the prices are very reasonable.

This spring at Russo’s I picked up a tub of something called Giardiniera because it looked like pickled veggies, and hey, I love anything pickles. This stuff was awesome! Sour and spicy and crisp. A little googling and I found a description:

Giardiniera is an Italian or Italian-American relish of pickled vegetables in vinegar or oil. Italian giardiniera is also called “sotto aceti”, which means “under vinegar”, a common term for pickled foods. It is typically eaten as an antipasto or with salads.

I guess there’s a Chicago version that’s spicier and oilier and used as a sandwich condiment. Read’s tried it and says it’s good. I wanted to make the Russo’s kind though, so I found a recipe for homemade giardiniera on The Parsley Thief.

I changed the recipe slightly by adding more hot peppers and by boiling the vinegar/water/salt solution prior to pouring it into the jars. The pre-boiling is how I make fridge pickles, and I think it helps give the veggies an extra infusion of flavor without sacrificing crispness.

Easy Italian Giardiniera
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 bunch of fresh carrots
1 head of cauliflower
1 onion
2 cucumbers
1 bunch fresh dill
8 cloves garlic
a dozen small dried hot peppers
3 cups white vinegar
3 cups water
6 tablespoons pickling salt

1. Chop up and wash assorted veggies.
2. Wash and dry 8 pint mason jars (I reused a couple Claussen jars too). Drop 1 clove of garlic, a couple sprigs of dill, and 2-3 dried hot peppers into each jar.
3. Pack jars full of chopped veggies.
4. Boil vinegar, water, and salt over the stove. Ladle into jars and seal. Let the jars cool and then store them in the fridge.

We were supposed to wait a week before breaking into the stash, but I only lasted 12 hours. Mmmm this stuff is really tasty! I just eat it out of the jar. I think it would be good alongside something hot and oily like french fries, but then again, I think about everything is good with french fries.

I will sign off here with some furry cuteness. It’s cooled off enough that we can rely on box fans and open windows again. Edith watches the neighbors’ comings and goings from the kitchen.

Garlic Scape Pesto

Today the NYTimes reported that 1,400 heat records were broken across the country. As a kid this would’ve been the kind of week where we played in the basement and then slept on the porch. My coworker said they used to stick their feet in buckets of cold water and go to the movies (not at the same time). What’s your tactic for sticking out a heat wave?

My rule is NO KITCHEN HEAT. Maybe some flame for the morning coffeepot, but definitely no dinnertime stove or oven. This week we got two bunches of garlic scapes in our CSA, and after googling them to find out what they were, I set about finding a heat-less recipe for them.

Pesto seemed to be the big winner. Most recipes called for blending the scapes with basil, and guess what else came in the CSA? Perfect. My pesto is an amalgamation of recipes from Soup Addict, The Hungry Mouse, and SkinnyTaste.

1 bunch of basil, washed and patted dry

12-15 garlic scapes, flower buds cut off and roughly chopped

1/2 cup of olive oil

1/2 cup pine nuts

1/2 – 1 cup shredded parmigiano cheese

salt to taste

The food processor I used isn’t big or powerful, so this is as smooth as I could get. A better processor could provide a creamier consistency. Just blend the basil and scapes until they’re paste-like, slowly add the oil so it emulsifies, then add the pine nuts and cheese and pulse til smooth. Salt to taste.

As we ate I surveyed the heat’s toll on our balcony garden. There’s bad news and good news. I’ll start with the bad news first: I’ve thrown in the towel on the pallet garden. It’s been a long slow demise, and this heat is the final nail in the coffin. I don’t think I made a good soil choice; the plants have remained stunted and the flowers that do emerge wither and die instead of bear fruit. Also – and I’ve complained about this before – it’s very difficult to water. I about have to lay it flat every time I want to give it a good soak. Goodbye pallet garden

The other containers are better. I harvested several bowls full of peas before replacing the plants with a cucumber start and it’s spreading along the railing. Tomatoes are ripening. Basil is getting taller. The potatoes are still going bonkers, but I’m a little nervous because when I dig around in the box I can’t seem to locate any baby potatoes. Am I right to be worried?

Crockpot Apple Butter

Nu-uh, I'm not sharing this time Sam

My extended family has a long love affair with apple butter. Making it is a semi-annual tradition that requires a full day’s work and results in a LOT of final product.  Read and I currently lack the friends, firewood pile, and pantry space to make the recipe I grew up with, so here’s a lazy-apartment-dweller’s variation that I tried last week. It’s quick, easy, and tastes pretty much like the stuff we slow cook over an open fire. Try it!!

Fill your crockpot 3/4 full of peeled, sliced apples. Add 2.5 cups of white sugar, 1 cup of cider, and 1 tsp of cinammon.

Set the crockpot on medium/low, sit back, and relax! This photo was taken after 6 hrs of cooking.

Okay okay, so I understand that this doesn't look incredibly appetizing. But I swear to you, it tastes SO GOOD. After taking the above photo, I cooked the apple butter for about 6 more hours, just to make sure the apples were all broken down and the spread would be nice and thick.

Teddy, newly self-appointed Recycling Bin Captain, watches from his post

To prolong the shelf life of your apple butter, process the jars in a boiling water bath for about 20 minutes. Make sure the jars are hot when you fill them with apple butter from the crockpot.

 

Making Monday morning more manageable…

…with pumpkin cinnamon rolls. BIG ones.

I was setting up a new gmail account using my married name, and in the process was suggested a bunch of blogs for my Reader (thanks Google!). Kitchn (from the same folks as Apartment Therapy) posted a recipe that day for No-Knead Pumpkin Rolls with Brown Sugar Glaze and I just happened to have half a can of pureed pumpkin to use up  (the first half went to pumpkin cookies).

We got this nutmeg grinder as a wedding shower gift. My mom has this unnatural hatred for all things nutmeg and I'd always omitted it from recipes. I thought I hated nutmeg too. But turns out I don't know the difference, which is good because the grinder is cute and fun.

While the dough raised we watched Season 2 of Castle, which Read has helped me cultivate a love for. It took a few episodes for the dough to rise – longer than I thought – even with the trick where you put the bowl in an unheated oven with a pan of hot water. What finally helped was I turned the oven on 250 just long enough for the interior to heat up (10 min).

Wherever there is food prep, there is a Samson

Cutting the rolls with a piece of dental floss

Dough rises under my favorite dishtowel...it's so pretty I refuse to use it for normal kitchen functions.

Sam prepares for bed, while visions of cinammon rolls dance in his head

I didn't have confectionery sugar for the glaze. Next time.

 

Laughing Planet Che Guevara burrito remake

Last week I overhead a coworker confess that, while she’s looking forward to seeing old friends when she returns to New York, she’s secretly most excited about revisiting a favorite restaurant. “I mean, it’ll be great to hang out with them, but I’ve been dreaming about this one sandwich.” She feigned shame until one of us asked her to describe the sandwich. “Oh you don’t even KNOW!! Okay, so it starts with…”

It’s gonna be a while until I share my coworker’s longing-ranking of friends and food** but I can still identify with her excitement. I’ve been daydreaming about Laughing Planet - a quick-serve restaurant in our old neighborhood – and my regular order there.

Toinight we set out to recreate the magic. Here goes…

LAUGHING PLANET’S CHE GUEVARA BURRITO REMAKE

1-2 cups rice (white or brown, doesn’t matter) ** 1-2 sweet potatoes, rinsed, peeled, and cubed ** half an onion, diced ** 1-2 plantains, sliced **1 can black beans, rinsed ** few tablespoons chopped cilantro ** 1 small crown of broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces ** tortillas ** favorite hot sauce ** favorite bbq sauce

Get the rice cooking using your preferred method. Meanwhile, chop the cilantro, rinse the black beans, and set them both aside. Boil a small pot of water and throw in the sweet potato; cook until just tender. Rinse and set aside. Heat a couple tablespoons of oil in a skillet, then add the onion and cook a few minutes. Throw in the plantains and stir. Let the plaintains sit a bit before flipping so that they can brown a little. Add the sweet potato and stir. Heat this mixture until the plantains are tender. Steam the broccoli until just tender. Lay out each of the ingredients assembly-line-style. Stir a healthy dose of hot sauce into a half cup of bbq sauce (I like it hot enough that my nose runs).

Heat the tortillas (I love heating them one by one over the gas burner) and walk down your assembly line. I like putting the sauce on after the rice, because the rice helps hold it in the burrito.

Plantains, sweet potato, and onion

Mixing up jerk bbq sauce

Clockwise from the top: rice, black beans, jerk sauce, broccoli, plantain/onion/sweet potato

MMMMM...you don't even KNOW

** The Oregon food memories all include friends…gardening, trading recipes, dinner parties, sharing lunch leftovers, trying new restaurants. The other day a very kind coworker remarked, “you must miss your friends from Oregon,” and dammit I lingered too long in formulating my response. And then I got choked up…which is always kind of a surprise to this stoic midwesterner. So Oregon friends, if you’re reading this, you have not been eclipsed by a burrito.