Sass & Veracity

The very last issue of Gourmet sits in a stack along with the most recent issues of Saveur, Bon Appetit, and Food & Wine — all barely touched.  Holiday catalogs I’d rather not receive lay scattered in the mix as well reminding me that I should probably pay attention.  How can it be the end of November?  The month has flown by and with it my favorite season of the year, leaving only a few days to think about recipes I’d like to try this year for Thanksgiving.  Outside of making a simple list of traditional dishes and leaving it to sit on the kitchen counter, I’m still not prepared.

I’ve accepted that this just won’t be the year to try yet another way to mash and flavor potatoes with the likes of parsnips or roasted garlic, white truffle oil or black truffle shavings.  I won’t have to wonder why a stuffing recipe calls for freshly made cornbread that has to sit on the counter for a day before it can be cubed and tossed with other ingredients to make an herby stuffing.  And I’ve decided that deep-frying a ton of microscopically thin onion rings to flavor a new spin on the classic green bean casserole won’t be happening, either, even though it was quite a fabulous recipe.  No, we’re going to be relatively conservative this year which is why I was able to spend some time in the kitchen today trying a new recipe with some of my favorite flavors:  apples, pecans, and cinnamon with a hint of orange.

David Guas’ Spiced Upside-Down Apple Bundt Cake was perfect from the moment I saw it in Food & Wine’s “Last Bite.”  Even though I’ve never owned a bundt pan, it was the least of my worries because the recipe calls for buttermilk.  Whenever I buy buttermilk,  it gets pushed to the back of the fridge and is forgotten until long after the date stamped on it, then ends up down the drain.  Not this time!   I found it with a day to spare — not that I could tell given its characteristic pungent smell.

How does one tell whether buttermilk is sour when it always smells badly?  It’s a very good thing that it works so nicely as a cooking ingredient, don’t you think?

Continue reading Spiced Upside-Down Apple Cake

We’ve been eating quite a bit of soup and salad lately.  With the business of our lives, it often seems to be the only way to make sure we don’t fall into the take-out habit, or worse, microwaved frozen food.  Call me a food snob — or better yet, consider that it’s not challenging to make a healthy meal that doesn’t take a lot of time and goes easy on the wallet.

Picture this:  my husband and I pass through the house each morning getting ready for work and I begin to think about any excuse not to have to stop at the market on the way home.  I mull over the contents of the veggie bin while I’m brushing my teeth, and search my fuzzy memory for ingredients  that may be languishing in the pantry.

“There are carrots I could make some soup with,” I begin staring into my mirror.

“That would be good,” he mutters, peering into his mirror,  busy with his own routine.

“And there are those apples you forget to eat on a regular basis.  I saw a recipe for a salad I want to try — but I’m not quite sure what condition the celery is in.  Do we have lemons?”  I call from the closet as I’m trying to figure out what to squeeze myself into for the day.

“Anything you make will be good,” he says from his side of the closet, “and I have been eating an apple a day.”

I head down the stairs, give a quick look in the fridge, and grab my coffee before running out the door and calling my goodbyes feigning success in the accomplishment of a dinner plan.

Jump ahead 11 hours.  It’s about 6PM and we’re both home.  Our son has come downstairs to graciously share himself with us, then flops on the couch to figure out what we’ll watch that evening.  My husband and I start peeling and chopping, sauteeing and blending.  On most days within an hour of arriving home — give or take a half hour for diversions — we’re all in the family room  talking about the day, slurping soup, eating salad and enjoying a DVRd show one of us has lobbied for.

On one such night, we tried a new spin on an old classic:  Waldorf Salad.  When I think of why I’ve never liked it, the mayonnaise would be the reason.  As much as I enjoy most salads, slathering a fatty dressing on one has never appealed to me.  If you’re like me or at least interested in something seasonal, but more healthy, try this.  It will be a part of our Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Continue reading Waldorf Salad sans Mayo

I’m never out of garlic, and yet yesterday when I wondered about what would go in the potato leek soup we made for dinner, I found I had only the shriveled remnants of my normally plump reserve.  There were no shallots, and I couldn’t find an onion, either.  Cooking just isn’t the same for me without these flavors.  I roast garlic and smear it on crostini, flavor oil with it to drizzle over roasted vegetables, saute it with almost everything, smash it and sprinkle on some sea salt to make a paste, mince it, cook whole heads in their papery skin, and wince when I find I’m out.

Have you had your garlic today?

A friend of mine gave me a bag of small, crisp red apples the last time she came for dinner and somehow, I’d lost track of them.  I should have known they’d been sitting in the fridge, waiting for me to get around to making something with Fall written all over it.  Would it be apple nut muffins, a new take on a Waldorf salad, or perhaps an apple butternut squash soup?  I couldn’t decide until last weekend when I knew I’d be in the kitchen making macarons and decided to treat the menfolk to breakfast.  I’m not the one who normally makes breakfast on Sunday, so my offer was met with surprise and instant nods of, “Yes, please!”  Neither my husband or son would turn down pancakes even if they had a healthier twist than those my husband usually makes.  Besides, I knew I’d get to experiment a bit and it’s always fun to find out just how a particular recipe will end up.

If you have a jar of dulce de leche sitting around, it’s amazing what a little bit of it can do to a nice stack of hot ones on a cool Fall morning.  Initially, it was to have ended up filling the macarons, but it didn’t make it past the pancakes.

Who knew?

Continue reading Apple Walnut Pancakes

I’ve tried to remember the first time I saw a macaron, but honestly, I can’t.  It surely wasn’t until I started writing here, more and more frequently crossing paths with amazing people who bake amazing desserts at home with little or no formal training.  I’d not heard of Pierre Herme, either.  No, I was caught up in the the world of savory dishes with only an occasional dessert made for a special occasion coming from my kitchen rather than the circular, often brightly colored sweet sandwiches that comically remind me of tiny hamburgers — or perhaps moon pies.

Even after I’d begun to realize that macarons were a fascination for many and saw them in every imaginable color and flavor, it wasn’t until a year ago that I tasted my first:  antique rose in color, delicately crisp, and oh so sweet, it tasted of rose as well.  For someone used to sinking her teeth into a nice bran muffin, I was a bit perplexed and beginning to understand what all the fuss was about.  There didn’t appear to be much to the tiny thing, and yet I knew it was quite the opposite.  A paradox.

I’ve wanted to make macarons for quite a while now, and yet I’ve procrastinated.  Instead of delving into the endless recipe variations, comparing quantities of ingredients, and analyzing techinque, I’ve gazed at the beautiful the colors and admired perfect the shapes.  Finally, I was forced to consider not only how a macaron is made, but to make them along with countless other bakers this month.  The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

After a few days of reading everything I could find about macarons and sifting through the forum comments and advice at The Daring Kitchen, I decided to devote a Sunday to the task.  Not a frilly person by nature, I skipped the gorgeous pinks and bright greens and headed straight for the sturdy, practical flavors of chocolate and peanut butter.

In a house full of men, what would you expect?

Continue reading Chocolate Macarons with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Buttercream

You’re wondering what peposo is, right?  Or perhaps you know what peposo is and you’ve already wondered how it ended up in a sandwich.  If you’re like me, you may even just want to take a big bite of it right now because it’s dinnertime and it would be much easier to have a savory Italian sandwich magically appear instead of needing to make dinner.  Oh, how I wish that might be so tonight.

This sandwich has quite a long story behind it, so I’ll share it soon — along with the recipe for the peposo, the roasted pepper salad, and the focaccia.  But it’s Wednesday, and I’m supposed to be wordless — or nearly so.