a little zaftig » Recipes for Fall

Baby Barmbracks with Sherry

Laura — Thu, 10 May 2012 02:30:43 +0000

My Honey Girl and I spent the first week of April together in Ireland. Beneath a cornflower blue sky and tucked into the soft Connemara mountains, celadon in sunlight, black in shadow, we settled into the Cashel House where Mrs. McEvilly and her soft-spoken staff surrounded us with their incomparable care, tucking hot water bottles into our beds on chilly evenings and placing our pajamas on top so they were warm, too, bringing us pots of tea and biscuits, and glasses of champagne, and books to read in comfortable chairs before turf fires, poached rhubarb for our morning porridge, and sandwiches and slices of rhubarb tart when we arrived back too late for dinner. Without an itinerary we set about a proper vacation, that is, a week to do nothing but what suited us in the moment and focused primarily on total relaxation. We took out our battered little rental car to wind through Connemara, north and south, east and west, as interest and whim took us, past wooly sheep doused in the pink and blue dyes used in this part of the world since Adam was a boy, past the blooming gorse, brilliant yellow, past men hunched to cut bricks of peat in the ancient bogs, and Irish gardens in bloom: daffodil and tulip, heather and camellia, crocus and rhododendron and azalea, hyacinth, narcissus, agapanthus, vinca and spring gentian. In fact, I felt all week like a flower myself, with my own personal sunshine, my Honey Girl, beside me, waking from the long, grey dream of winter. Through the windshield: the savage beauty of the landscape (curtsy here to Oscar Wilde), the barren loveliness of the Burren, its limestone softened by wildflower, the sea with all its shades of blue, its rock, its draped grass, thatched cottages walled with stone, and the odd shaggy cow. We slept and hiked and lolled and ate and drank until we were so content we couldn’t wish for more—except perhaps that our time together wouldn’t end.

One of our favorite discoveries of the week was a barmbrack we ate at the Burren Perfumery, a charming spot with an herb garden, tea room, still room, and shop where they sell lovely wild-crafted perfumes and body products. Barmbrack is a fruitcake, a keeping cake, perfect with a cup of strong tea. The recipe I developed is a one-bowl stir-up. I soaked raisins and sultanas and currants overnight in black tea and added homemade candied orange peel, big candied cherries, dark muscovado sugar, and sherry the next day. The cake is dense and moist with pops of cherry and sherry against the earthiness of the tea and spice. I made a big batch so I could share some with my pantry exchange group and the rest with family. If you’re not keen on fruitcake, this one might change your mind. I’m most happy that whenever I bake it or eat it, it will return me to the memory of first sharing it with my Honey Girl in the little oasis of our week together.

Baby Barmbracks with Sherry
Yield: ten mini loaves

Ingredients:
1 c. raisins
2 c. golden raisins
1 ½ c. currants
3 c. strong black tea, preferably Irish
1 c. whole candied cherries
½ c. diced candied orange peel
1 ½ c. muscovado sugar (or substitute dark brown sugar + 2 T molasses)
1 ½ c. sugar
1 c. sherry (I love Lustau East India Solera.)
2 eggs
2 ½ c. all purpose flour (I prefer King Arthur.)
2 ½ c. whole wheat pastry flour (or substitute all purpose flour)
½ t. baking soda
1 t. cinnamon
¼ t. ground cloves
½ t. ginger
½ t. freshly ground nutmeg
½ t. salt

Method:

The night before you wish to bake the cakes, in a large mixing bowl, stir together the raisins, golden raisins, currants, and tea. Cover the bowl and refrigerate it overnight.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Add the cherries, orange peel, sugars, sherry, and egg, and mix until well combined.

Place a sieve over the bowl and add the flours, baking soda, spices, and salt. Shake the ingredients through the sieve and stir the batter gently until it is uniformly mixed. Do not overmix.

Place ten mini loaf pans onto a large jellyroll pan and divide the batter evenly into the pans, about one scant cup of batter per pan.

Bake for 30 minutes. Rotate the pan 180 degrees in your oven. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cake comes out clean or nearly clean, about an additional 30 to 35 minutes.

When they have cooled completely, the cakes may be wrapped tightly in cellophane and then aluminum foil and frozen. They will also keep wrapped this way at room temperature for about one week.

Serve with a nice cup of Irish or other good black tea.

Five-minute Cranberry Schmutz

Laura — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:38:22 +0000

Alongside a Thanksgiving or Christmas turkey or smeared on sandwiches, this five-minute, four-ingredient cranberry schmutz is a little tart, a little sweet, and exactly perfect. I’m putting a little on a pumpkin muffin for breakfast, too. If there were ever a reason to stop sliding that factory cranberry sludge out of a can, this is it.

Five-minute Cranberry Schmutz
Yield: 1 cup

Ingredients:
2 pints fresh cranberries
½ c. sugar
juice of 2 tangerines
1 large cinnamon stick, broken

Method:

In a large pan over medium low heat, stir together the ingredients. Allow them to cook until the cranberries have burst and the sugar has caramelized, about five minutes.

Fish out the cinnamon stick and serve hot, room temperature, or cold.

Seriously Simple Apple Tart with Hot Buttered Rum Raisin Sauce

Laura — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:52:58 +0000

Oh my, this is good. Our Honey Girl’s dear friend from college, Vickie, wrote to me to ask if I could suggest a recipe or two to use up apples that she had picked this fall at an orchard. After a little dance of joy around the kitchen, and with a dorm kitchen and limited supplies in mind, this is the recipe I baked up for her. The tart takes all of ten minutes to mix up and requires very little kitchen equipment or finesse. Four diced apples are tossed together in a single bowl with a handful of ingredients to bind them, and there’s no crust to fuss over. The fruit is the star here, so choose tart apples with great flavor. I made the boozy sauce a week later for my book group as an accompaniment. It’s forgiving, equally simple, and seriously delicious. If you’re not up to the tart, make the sauce. And smear it straight from the refrigerator onto scones or French toast, or rewarm it gently to pour over ice cream.

Simple Apple Tart
Yield: one nine-inch tart

Ingredients:
soft butter for the pan

½ c. sugar
½ c. whole wheat pastry flour (or substitute all purpose flour)
½ t. baking powder (skip it if you have to buy it specially)
good pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
good pinch of ground cloves (optional)
good pinch of salt
1 egg (I use jumbo.)
1 T. spiced or dark rum (or substitute vanilla extract)

4 medium tart apples (such as Haralson), peeled, cored, and diced

Method:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Generously butter a 9″ tart pan (or substitute a pie plate or cake pan).

In a large bowl, stir together all of the ingredients except the apples. The batter will be rather unwieldy, but just give it a good stir until it all comes together.

Add the apples and stir vigorously until the batter loosens and is distributed evenly.

Pour the mixture into the pan and spread it out.

Bake until golden brown, about 30 to 40 minutes.

While it bakes, make the hot buttered rum raisin sauce.

Hot Buttered Rum Raisin Sauce
Yield: enough for the tart, plus a little leftover

Ingredients:
¼ c. spiced or dark rum
1 c. golden or Hunza raisins (or substitute dark raisins)
½ c. salted butter
1 c. sugar
1 c. heavy cream

Method:

In a large saucepan, combine all of the ingredients except the cream.

Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring, until the butter is melted and the sugar, dissolved.

Light the sauce aflame in the pan so that the alcohol burns off, if desired.

Cook, stirring, until the sauce begins to caramelize and darken a bit.

Stir in the cream and warm through. If the sauce is a bit thicker than desired, stir in an additional ¼ c. of cream.

Serve the sauce warm. It may be kept covered in the refrigerator and rewarmed gently. Add a bit of cream if it is a bit too thick.

Cranberry Tart with Cognac-soaked Raisins, Tangerine Zest, and Dark Chocolate

Laura — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 14:00:13 +0000

If you, by chance, bought a couple of pints of fresh cranberries too many, or your market still has a stash, this tart is quite simple, and a lovely way to liven up Thanksgiving Day leftovers. Apart from warming some cognac with star anise in which to soak a handful of raisins, all of the ingredients are tossed in a bowl and spooned into a simple and buttery press-in shortbread crust made with ground almonds and whole wheat pastry flour, no blind baking required. It bakes up beautifully, jewel-like, with sharp, sweet, smoky, and tart notes. And it’s kind of a perfect foil for the creamy richness of all that gravy-laden turkey, stuffing, and potatoes. If you like, gild the lily with whipped cream–plain, spiced, or spiked.

Cranberry Tart with Cognac-soaked Raisins, Tangerine Zest, and Dark Chocolate
based on my friend Michele Byfield Angell’s Classic Cranberry and Walnut Tarte
Yield: one nine-inch tart

Ingredients:
1 recipe whole wheat almond shortbread crust (below)
3 T. cognac
1 star anise
1 ½ c. large raisins (I like Thompson or flame.)
2 c. fresh cranberries
the finely grated zest of 2 tangerines
½ c. good quality bittersweet chocolate chunks or chips
1/3 c. dark brown sugar
¼ c. sugar
¼ t. salt
1 t. vanilla extract
unsalted butter to dot the top of the tart, about 2 T.

Method:

Prepare the shortbread crust and press half of it into a 9-inch tart pan. Chill it in the refrigerator while you make the tart filling.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.

In a small saucepan (or in a small bowl in the microwave), warm the cognac with the star anise. Add the raisins and stir them to coat. Allow them to soak up the cognac while you prepare the rest of the tart filling, giving them a stir now and then.

In a large bowl, mix together the cranberries, tangerine zest, chocolate, brown sugar, sugar, salt, and vanilla.

When the raisins have absorbed nearly all the cognac, remove the star anise and stir them into the cranberry mixture.

Pour the filling into the shortbread crust and distribute it evenly. Dot the top of the tart with little cubes or very thin slices of cold butter.

Place the tart pan onto a baking sheet (to catch anything that might bubble over) and bake it for 10 minutes.

Reduce your oven temperature to 350 degrees F and bake it until the shortbread crust is golden brown and the cranberry filling is bubbling, about an additional 30 minutes.

This tart is nice served with whipped cream—plain, spiced, or spiked.

Whole Wheat Almond Shortbread Crust
Yield: enough for two 9-inch tarts, or one tart and a small batch of cookies

Ingredients:
1 c. unsalted butter, softened a bit but still cool
½ c. sugar
½ t. almond extract
1 c. all purpose flour (I prefer King Arthur.)
½ c. whole wheat pastry flour (or substitute all purpose flour if you don’t have it)
½ c. almond flour (or almonds ground finely in a food processor to equal ½ c.)
a pinch of salt

Method:

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter until it is smooth.

Add the sugar and almond extract and beat to combine. Scrape down the bowl of your mixer.

Add the flours and salt and mix only until incorporated. Do not overmix or your crust will become tough.

Scrape down the mixer and gather the dough. Divide the dough in half. It’s enough for two 9-inch tart shells or one shell and a small batch of cookies.

Press half the dough into the tart pan with your fingers, working it into the corners and up the side of the pan. Trim off any excess dough at the top of the pan with a sharp knife.

To bake the dough into cookies, heat your oven to 350 degrees F. Roll out half the dough to about ¼” thick and cut out shapes with a knife or cookie cutters. Transfer them gently to a baking sheet and bake them until they are pale golden brown at the edges, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Crispy French Toast

Laura — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:53:35 +0000

The house is quiet now—very, very quiet. I return in distracted moments to small things: the view of the bare branches of the trees against the sky from the chair I read in, the deep blue sky beginning to glow just before the sun rises as I drive my Sweet Boy to high school. It’s just the two of us now. I’m beginning to enjoy the good parts of that: dan dan noodles and wrinkled Szechuan green beans and a movie together; dancing in the kitchen; walks, mostly in silence, just the two of us; and time to talk after school and in the evening each day about everything that occupies the mind of a 17-year old boy. These things are gifts in my Dear Husband’s absence. I baked a homey apple cake this weekend and cleaned the house and slept for the first time since mid-August, and I feel a little more alive again. These things are gifts, too. My Sweet Boy and I are going to cook Thanksgiving dinner together this year, but we have a few days before we start dry brining a turkey and rolling out piecrust and tackling our list of sides. In the meantime, I’m going to recreate a crispy French toast we had years ago at a greasy spoon in St. Paul, when we were all together, laughing and mopping up syrup.

Crispy French Toast
Yield: 6 thick slices

Ingredients:
An unsliced loaf of good white bread
3 c. corn flakes cereal
3 eggs
½ c. cream, or half and half, or whole milk
½ t. vanilla extract
Canola oil (or other neutral oil) for the pan
Pure maple syrup (See how it’s made here.)

Method:

Slice the bread with a serrated bread knife into 1 ½” slices.

In a plastic zip-top bag, crush the corn flakes with a rolling pin until they are small pieces and not yet dust. Place them in a shallow bowl large enough to dip a piece of bread, or on a plate.

In a shallow bowl large enough to dip a slice of bread, beat together the eggs, milk, and vanilla.

Heat a griddle or fry pan filled with ¼” of oil over medium heat until it is 312 degrees F, or a small piece of bread sizzles when dropped into the oil.

Line up the bread, the egg mixture, and the corn flakes to the right of your griddle.

Dip a slice of bread into the egg mixture, soak it, and turn it over to soak the other side.

Dip both sides of the bread into the corn flakes and place it gently onto the griddle or frying pan.

Repeat to fill the pan with slices. Do not overcrowd the pan, as your oil temperature will drop too much.

Fry the French toast until it is golden brown and crisp, about three minutes. Then turn each slice gently and fry until golden brown and crisp.

Serve with pure maple syrup.

Rich Blue Cornmeal and Applesauce Pancakes + Lost Things

Laura — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 15:23:43 +0000

The summer is fading now. I know it’s autumn, of course, but it’s been so unseasonably warm in Minnesota these past weeks that, despite the leaves changing color and blowing from the trees, in my mind it’s still summertime. And I wish it were still summer, before everything had changed and I had lost so many things. I haven’t posted for a long time, in part I think because I wanted either to go back or to skip forward, until things were better again, easy and sweet and summery. Loss is hard. And that’s okay. We muster the will or courage to go forward. Or we get out of bed and the day passes until we can, which is its own kind of will and courage. Somehow it gets better. Or I hope it does. No, it does. Even when the losses still feel like the whole big bowl of the sky, small things begin to appear again, babe in woods moments of acute awareness when the wind as I drive or a blue cornmeal pancake roots me in the present for a moment and takes me away from the losses. And moments when a friend understands that there is no making this better, no easy solution, no pat answer, understands that I’m okay and more than just the losses, and that silent support means more than anything else. Then gratitude comes rushing in and eclipses all that seems so hard to bear. And I know that autumn will come, and winter, and spring, and maybe next year by the time summer comes again things really will be better, the losses will seem smaller or more distant and certainly not the whole big bowl of the sky anymore. I’ll hold on for that.

Rich Blue Cornmeal and Applesauce Pancakes
Yield: ten five-inch diameter pancakes

Ingredients:
1 c. all purpose flour (I prefer King Arthur.)
1 c. stone ground blue cornmeal
1 T. baking powder
¼ c. dark brown sugar
a pinch of salt
2 large eggs
3/4 c. natural, unsweetened applesauce
½ c. half and half
1 c. milk
¼ c. (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted
canola or other neutral oil for the griddle

Method:

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, blue cornmeal, baking powder, dark brown sugar, and salt.

In a small bowl, beat the eggs with a fork and stir in the applesauce, half and half, milk, and melted butter.

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients with a fork, mixing only until combined. There will be lumps in the batter. Do not overmix.

Heat a griddle or large frying pan over medium heat. (312 degrees F is ideal.) When it is hot, drizzle in a little oil. When the oil is hot, pour in ½ c. batter per pancake.

Fry the pancakes until bubbles form across the top and the edges look dry.

Flip each pancake and fry on the other side.

Add a bit more oil to the pan with each batch to fry.

Serve hot with butter and maple syrup. (Pure maple syrup is best.)

Cheese and Apple Salad

Laura — Fri, 06 May 2011 14:01:29 +0000

At our house, when you’re the birthday boy or girl, “plan your heart’s wishes, plan your menus, and enjoy” is the rule of the day. Here is our Sweet Boy’s supper menu for his 17^th, which we celebrated Wednesday: filet of beef juicy Lucy (grilled filet stuffed with fresh mozzarella and wrapped in thick bacon), cheese and apple salad, bell pepper salad, dark chocolate cake, milk chocolate ice cream, and grape soda. Hey, you’re only 17 once! Here is the recipe for our cheese and apple salad. I julienne Gruyére cheese and peeled and cored apples, one tart and one sweet, add lemon juice and a just a little mayonnaise, season the lot, and toss it in a serving bowl. Simple and delicious.

Cheese and Apple Salad
Yield: about 10 servings

Ingredients:
1 tart apple (such as Granny Smith)
1 sweet, mild apple (such as Pink Lady)
½ pound Gruyere cheese (or substitute Emmenthaler)
1 lemon
¼ c. mayonnaise
salt and pepper

Method:

Peel and core the apples, cut them into matchsticks, and place them in your serving bowl.

Squeeze the juice of the lemon through your cupped hand and over the apples, catching any pips in the palm of your hand.

Cut the cheese into matchsticks and toss it with the apples.

Season the salad with salt and pepper, just a little of each.

Toss it with the mayonnaise.

Refrigerate the salad until serving time.

This salad may be made well ahead of serving time. It will keep in the refrigerator without browning or wilting for a couple of days.

Roast Pheasant with Pan Gravy

Laura — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 03:26:13 +0000

I am test-driving a pheasant tonight for Christmas Eve dinner at my darling sister Molly’s house. In fact, her husband got twelve pheasants on a recent hunting trip, and, if all goes well, we’ll be feasting on them together Friday night. I haven’t had a pheasant dinner like we’re planning since my dear grandfather passed away in 1985, and roasting the bird has brought back a flood of memories of sitting at their table, so happy to just be there, eating yummy things that he and my grandma had cooked for us, making a little pile of buckshot on my plate, and watching my grandpa dip his flour-dusted roll into the butter and through the pheasant gravy on his plate. How I miss them and time at their table.

Wild pheasant is much gamier than commercially raised, and also considerably leaner. It benefits from barding, but in lieu of such, I opted to just smear my bird liberally with softened butter. Barding the bird is easy enough—you simply place a layer of bacon or slab fat over the breast of the bird—but I prefer to enjoy game birds as my grandpa made them, their nature unadulterated. To test-drive roasting tonight, I kept things ultra simple, but you could stuff pheasants with anything you like: with wild rice, with a proper stuffing made with sausage and cubed bread, or even with clementines or lemon and perhaps some thyme or sage leaves. If you stuff your bird, add five to ten minutes per pound to your roasting time, and stuff the bird just before it goes into the oven.

The bird pictured here arrived skinless, the victim of a very lazy butcher, poor bird. If you hunt for your own birds, pluck them and leave the skin on. Skinless, I’m afraid, they are doomed to dryness, though this little bird was still delicious drizzled with a little pan gravy. With the skin, they will live up to their succulent potential.

Roast Pheasant with Pan Gravy

Ingredients:
One pheasant per two diners
A good knob of softened butter
Salt and pepper
Chicken stock for the pan gravy, perhaps 2 c. (preferably homemade)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

Rinse your bird and pat it dry.

Rub it liberally with softened butter and sprinkle it all over and inside with salt and pepper.

Place it in a roasting pan and into the oven. Immediately turn the oven temperature down to 350 degrees.

Roast the bird for 20 minutes per pound, or until the juices run clear.

Tent the bird with aluminum foil and allow it to rest for ten minutes.

Pan Gravy

Place the roasting pan on the stove over medium heat and add a bit of chicken stock to the pan.

Scrape up the pan juices and any crispy bits with a wooden spoon.

Bring the stock and pan juices to a boil and reduce them until they are a syrupy consistency.

Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

Butternut Squash Soup with Arkansas Black Apples, Cream, & Fresh Marjoram, Thyme, and Sage

Laura — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 12:11:50 +0000

Do you ever walk into the grocery store with a plan and suddenly you’re so seized, so mesmerized by an ingredient, either new or in its most glorious incarnation, that you can’t even remember what you thought you were going to cook? That happened to me today when I saw Arkansas black apples for the first time. What dark beauties they are! Happily, the produce people at my market are as silly-happy about these things as I am, and they don’t look at me with a quizzical look when I approach to gush. In fact, they join right in. I think I was going to make a roast chicken for dinner tonight, which seems very ho hum now since I paired these beautiful apples, dense and sweet with a little zing, with buttnernut squash, onion, fresh marjoram, thyme, and sage, chicken stock, and some rich cream. Fall goodness in a bowl. Now I wish my family would hurry home from work and school so that we could tear into a loaf of dark bread, open some nice wine, and enjoy this soup.

Music for making butternut squash soup with Arkansas black apples:
Alison Krauss’ A Hundred Miles or More

Arkansas Black Apples
Arkansas blacks are an heirloom varietal and the darkest apple cultivar. They are burgundy in color on the tree and continue to darken in storage. The apples are tart and dense when first picked and sweeten and soften a bit with keeping. You may store them in a cool, dark, dry place for up to six months.

Squash and Apple Soup Tips
Here’s the thing. This sounds like a fancy recipe, but it’s just squash and apple soup. You can really use any winter squash and any apple varietal.

Making a soup like this, I think, requires that you follow your instincts rather than a recipe. To start add just enough stock to come up nearly to the top of the squash. When you puree the soup, gradually add more stock, if needed, until you have a silky soup which appeals to you. I keep a little stack of spoons next to me and take a little taste as I go. When the soup is the perfect consistency, you’ll know it.

The beauty of a soup like this, well any soup for that matter, is that you can personalize it. Love thyme? Add a little more. Hate sage? Skip it. Don’t have fresh herbs? Substitute a smaller amount of dried. Hate apples? Use a couple of pears. Cooking for one? Use a small squash, one apple, and decrease the stock and cream.

To prep the squash, cut off the top and the bottom and cut the squash in half. Slice the peel off from top to bottom steadying the squash with your non-dominant hand. Then slice each half open and scrape out any seeds and pulp. Cut the squash into strips and then into cubes about ½ “ in diameter.

Once you have added the cream, do not allow the soup to come to a boil. If you need to reheat it, do so over low heat.

Butternut Squash Soup with Arkansas Black Apples, Cream, & Fresh Marjoram, Thyme and Sage

Ingredients:
1 very large buttnernut squash, cubed
2 Arkansas black apples, or other varietal, cubed
1 medium onion, diced
4 to 8 c. chicken stock, depending on the volume of your squash
1 c. heavy cream (I love Cedar Summit Farms.)
a small handful each of fresh marjoram, thyme, and sage, chopped finely
a little olive oil for the pan
salt and pepper

Method:

Warm a soup pot over medium low heat.

Drizzle in a few turns of olive oil and add the onions. Season them with a little salt and pepper and saute them until they are tender but now brown, about five minutes.

Add the cubed squash and apples, a little salt and peeper, and enough stock to reach nearly the top of the vegetables and fruit.

Bring to a simmer over medium high heat. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer gently until the squash and apples are very tender, about 15 minutes.

Add the herbs and the cream and warm the soup through.

Remove from the heat and using either an immersion blender or a conventional blender, puree the soup until it is silky, gradually adding more stock if necessary.

Taste and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Scatter each serving with fresh herbs if you wish.

Fall Supper: Pork Tenderloin with Autumn Sauce, Butternut Squash & Buttercream Potato Gratin, and Dark Magic Gingerbread with Butterscotch Sauce

Laura — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 03:31:21 +0000

I remember the first day I joined my book group. They had been meeting without additions to the group for about a decade, so I was a bit puzzled about why I had the good luck to be invited. They were smart and well read and covered a wide political and religious spectrum. But most striking was their unconditional support of each other and their honesty. They have taught me a lot over the last three years, but chiefly perhaps that a willingness to be truly honest, to be vulnerable, is a gift. It was my turn to host again today, so I cooked this meal. We laughed and ate and talked and nearly polished off the cake. It is always uplifting to be with friends who, whatever their diverse experiences, set aside time to share.

This menu is wonderfully simple and fairly quick to make. After a quick sear, whole pork tenderloins finish in less than 20 minutes in the oven. Cubes of roasted butternut squash, done in 20 minutes, and boiled buttercream potatoes are mashed together in their serving dish, drizzled with cream, dotted with butter, and topped with Emmenthaler cheese. They bake in the same 400 degree oven for 20 minutes alongside the pork. While the pork and the gratin bake, you stir up a quick pan sauce with the pan drippings, sliced onions, dried fruit, sherry, and a little currant jam and cold butter. It’s all table ready in less than an hour. And the cake and the sauce can be made well in advance. Make it for yourself, for your family, or for a group you love.

Fall Supper:
Pork Tenderloin with Autumn Sauce, (recipe below)
Butternut Squash and Buttercream Potato Gratin, (recipe below)
Dark Magic Gingergbread with Vanilla Ice Cream and Butterscotch Sauce (recipe here)

To make this menu gluten-free, skip the gingerbread and serve the butterscotch sauce over ice cream.

Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients:
2 whole pork tenderloins
salt and pepper
olive oil for the pan

Method:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Pat the pork tenderloins dry and season them with salt and pepper. Dry meat browns better.

Heat a cast iron or other skillet over medium high heat. When it is hot, drizzle in a few turns of olive oil.

When the olive oil is hot, place the pork tenderloins in the pan. Do not lift, move, or disturb them.

When they have taken on a crisp brown exterior, turn them and allow them to brown. Sear all four sides in this manner.

Remove them from the pan and place them on a baking sheet. Do not wash the pan in which you seared them. You will use the pan drippings for the sauce.

Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake the pork tenderloins for 18 minutes.

Remove the tray from the oven, tent the pork tenderloins with aluminum foil, and allow them to rest for 10 minutes.

Slice them thinly and serve them with the sauce.

Autumn Sauce

Ingredients:
1 small onion, sliced thinly
½ c. golden raisins
1 c. prunes, chopped roughly
¾ c. sherry
3 T. currant jelly
3 T. cold butter, cubed
salt and pepper

Method:

Heat the pan in which you seared the pork tenderloins and drizzle a bit of olive oil into it.

Add the onions, sprinkle them with a bit of salt and pepper, and sauté them until they begin to take on a bit of color.

Add the sherry and scrape up the browned bits on the bottom of the pan.

Add the prunes, golden raisins, and currant jelly, and reduce the sauce until it is syrupy.

Add the cold butter a cube at a time and stir the sauce until it is melted for a glossy, rich sauce.

Serve with the pork tenderloin.

Butternut Squash and Buttercream Potato Gratin

Ingredients:
1 large butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed
2 pounds buttercream potatoes
1 c. heavy cream (I love Cedar Summit Farms.)
3 T. butter, cubed
4 ounces Emmanthaler cheese, grated
salt and pepper

Method:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Bring the potatoes to boil in a large pot of water and cook until tender, or until a knife inserted pierces them easily. Drain them in a colander.

Place the buttnernut squash on a sheet pan, drizzle it with olive oil, sprinkle it with salt and pepper, toss it together, and place it in the oven. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the cubes are tender.

Place the squash and the potatoes in an oven-safe serving dish. Mash them a bit with a potato masher and mix them together. Season them with a bit of salt and pepper, drizzle them with the cream, dot them with the butter, and top them with the cheese.

Place them in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until the top is brown and lovely.

Recipes in Concert

To make all of the recipes in concert:

1. Preheat the oven.

2. Sear the pork tenderloin.

3. Boil the potatoes.

4. Cube and roast the squash.

5. Prepare the gratin.

6. Put the pork and the gratin in the oven for 20 minutes.

7. Prepare the sauce.

8. Allow the pork to rest and then slice it.

Pumpkin-shaped Iced Sugar Cookies for Halloween

Laura — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 17:00:58 +0000

Except for the years we lived in Tokyo and didn’t have an oven, my Honey Girl and I have made these cookies together every year for each of her 19 years. The icing has become neater, and the faces more symmetrical over the years. And I sometimes miss those wonky cookies with their messy icing and their haphazard faces. The truth is, I miss my Honey Girl. She’s sleeping as I write, home from college for the weekend, which is rare, and it’s bittersweet having her home since I know she’ll have to leave again so soon. I miss her plopping down every day after school to talk through all the details of her day, miss making a pot of tea together and watching a bit of a Gilmore Girls or an Agatha Christie mystery together before she had to start her homework. I’ve adjusted, but I wish I could go back and start all over again, and when she turned 18 we could cycle back again in an endless loop. I feel the same way about my Sweet Boy. But we can’t, so today I’ll enjoy making these cookies together one more time.

This recipe was given to me by my sister, who got it from a friend. I don’t know who developed it, but if I did I would write that person a thank you note. It is a dream to work with. You can’t overwork it, it’s a breeze to roll out, it peels right off of your counter without changing shape, and it’s delicious, too. You can roll it very thin or as thick as ½“ for equally nice results. We use it many times each year—pumpkins for Halloween, hearts at Valentine’s Day, eggs and chicks at Easter, bells and angels for Christmas, and simple rounds for a tea snack. It couldn’t be easier. I used to cringe a bit at the thought of rollout cookies: time consuming, fussy. Now, I think of them as one of the quickest and most relaxing bakes in our repertoire. I just timed it: cookies out of the oven and kitchen clean in 45 minutes!

This recipe is quite flexible. If you mix it up as directed it produces a stable yet tender cookie which does not rise or spread. If you cut the flour called for in half it produces a more delicate cookie which spreads. I use the standard recipe for cutting out shapes and reduce the flour when I’m making a round cookie. Both are delicious.

Pumpkin-shaped Iced Sugar Cookies for Halloween

Ingredients:
1 c. unsalted butter
¾ c. sugar
1 egg
3 c. flour
a batch of confectioners’ sugar icing (recipe below)
candy for decoration (candy corn, black licorice, etc.)

Method:

Preheat your oven: 350 degrees for convection ovens, 375 degrees for conventional ovens.

In an electric mixer, beat together the butter and the sugar.

Add the egg and beat well.

Add the flour and beat well. The mixture will be rather dry.

Remove from the mixer and give it a good knead on your counter.

Roll the dough out to the desired thickness and cut into shapes using cookie cutters.

Bake 8-20 minutes depending on the size of your shape and the thickness of the dough.

Baking Tips
*I roll this dough up to ½” thick for large shapes and ¼ “ for small shapes. Cookies rolled 1/8” will work, but watch them carefully in the oven so that they do not become too dry.
*Set your timer for ten minutes and begin checking the cookies every couple of minutes. Thick cookies take a bit longer to bake.
*This dough does not brown in the oven. Look for a dry appearance. The cookie should be a bit firm to the touch when it is ready. I prefer a slightly under baked cookie, which remains tender.
*I always make two to four batches of this dough. A double batch yields a dozen enormous, thick pumpkin-shaped cookies.

Confectioners’ Sugar Icing

Ingredients:
½ pound confectioners’ sugar
milk
food coloring

Method:

Sift the powdered sugar into a large bowl.

Add a few drops of food coloring.

Add ¼ c. milk and begin stirring.

Add milk 1 T. at a time until the icing reaches the consistency of Elmer’s glue.

Allow the icing to rest until the air bubbles settle.

To decorate the cookies, hold each cookie by its edges and dunk its top surface into the icing. Allow the excess to run off the cookie and back into the bowl.

Rest the cookies on a baking rack set over a paper bag or waxed paper as you finish icing each one.

While the icing is still wet, decorate the cookies with candy corn, black licorice, or other candy.

Icing Tips
*Just about any liquid is suitable for this recipe. You may use skim, low fat, or full fat milk, or half and half, or heavy cream. Water also works in a pinch, though the flavor of the icing will lack depth.
*You may use extracts such as vanilla, almond, or peppermint to flavor this icing as the seasons and your preferences change. Plain is yummy, too.
*Use the back of your spoon to smooth out any lumps in the icing. You may also run the icing through a fine mesh strainer if you forgot to sift the confectioners’ sugar and you have a lot of lumps.
*You may also spread this icing. I just find dunking quick and easy.