I KNOW! Just when I thought my rough mash of fall apples couldn’t be improved upon (not that I ever really tried, beyond adding a cinnamon stick or maple syrup or a vanilla bean or swapping apples for pears) – I stumbled upon this. And I know that applesauce is really a good and healthy thing on its own and there’s no need to add butter to it, but the same can be said for vegetables, and look what a dab of butter does to those. And this is made with browned butter, even. It doesn’t make the sauce greasy or heavy, just gives it that element of je ne sais quoi – a richness you’d never think to credit to butter. And the rosemary! Rosemary loves apples. I’m the sort who loves chunky applesauces and cranberry sauces and plum chutneys and the like with my roast chicken, pork and sausages. Grilled pork tenderloin with rosemary browned butter applesauce. It goes as well with thick plain yogurt or leftover turkey or a big soup spoon. Of course it freezes beautifully, so makes a great preserve to put away for the bleak midwinter without requiring canning and jarring.
This sauce has inspired me to get out there with a rake and whack down the last of the apples on the highest, most unreachable points of our tree, even though I inevitably get apples falling great distances and smacking me in the head or whacking me in the eye. This stuff is totally worth it.
Rosemary Browned Butter Applesauce
Although this did begin as a recipe, I didn’t really follow it. The gist is to toss a couple twigs of rosemary into your apples as they simmer, then finish the lot with a bit of browned butter. But here’s a loose guide.
4 lbs apples, cored and cut into chunks
1-2 cups pure apple cider or good-quality juice
2 rosemary sprigs, bashed with the back of a knife to bruise it
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 cup butter
In a large pot, combine the apples, cider, rosemary and cinnamon and bring to a simmer over medium heat; cook until very soft, stirring once in awhile. When the apples are easily mashed with a potato masher or fork, remove the cinnamon stick and rosemary and mash the rest.
Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small saucepan; continue to cook, swirling the pan often, until it turns deep golden and smells nutty. Stir into the applesauce and serve warm.
October 17 2010 | preserves | 18 Comments »
I love recipes named after people, especially when they have names like Floreine Hudspeth. It appeals to that part of me that craves connection not only with the source of our food, but with those who prepare it. (The same appeal that makes Aunt Jemima and Betty Crocker such popular brands.)
Today was like Christmas and W’s birthday all rolled into one. October 15th has been talked about for at least a month around here, it being the release date of How to Train Your Dragon, only the very best thing that has ever happened to a certain 5 year old boy who lives here. And so since there’s no school on Friday afternoons we arranged an impromptu soiree with W’s cousins and a couple BFFs from kindergarten. He asked as he was leaving for school if there might be cupcakes, and I remembered at close to noon that I had yet to produce any.
Instead of flipping through the internet, I pulled The Fannie Farmer Baking Book off the shelf and in the chocolate cake section found Floreine’s recipe (which was actually for a cake, not cupcakes, but they worked swimmingly) – although I have no idea why it was called a hoosier cake, how could I not make it?
Of course I changed it – knocked down the sugar and swapped some canola oil for the butter, and although I am totally making her “Gravy Icing” someday, which oddly contains flour but which Marion Cunningham describes as “the fluffiest frosting imaginable”, I had exactly ten minutes to frost them before running out the door and leaving Mike with the little boy madhouse. You can see speed was the only important factor when ladling the batter into the paper cups.
So I made – seriously, don’t snicker – a quick ganache. Which I swear is infinitely faster than the beaten butter-sugar method – ganache is a word like deglazing, which only means to splash any kind of liquid into a hot pan after you’ve cooked something to get up the browned bits. A ganache is just warmed cream with chocolate stirred in – toss in a handful of chocolate chips and leave it – they’ll melt in the cream after a minute or so – then stir until smooth. I was trying to avoid the inch-thick swirl of buttercream that just gets eaten off the top of a cupcake anyway, and so didn’t even wait for the ganache to cool – I dipped the tops of each into the chocolate and then, wanting to appeal to a room of four to seven-year olds, sprinkled them with green sugar. (I didn’t have any sprinkles.)
The cakes themselves are nice and dense and moist, not too sweet and nicely domed on top. You make a paste out of cocoa and boiling water, which is cool, and as with most of my favourite chocolate cake recipes, there’s coffee – it won’t make them taste like coffee, I promise. If you’re worried about the caffeine, pick up a jar of instant decaf and keep it in your cupboard to use for baking, as you would a bottle of vanilla.
Floreine Hudspeth’s Hoosier Cupcakes
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 cup boiling water
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup cold strong coffee
2 tsp. vanilla
Preheat the oven to 350F. In a large bowl, beat the butter, oil and sugars for a minute, until well blended. Add the eggs and beat for two minutes, until pale and creamy.
Meanwhile, stir together the cocoa and boiling water – it will make a thick paste. Beat it into the butter-sugar mixture. Add half the flour, the baking soda and salt, beating on low just until combined. Add the coffee and vanilla, then the rest of the flour, beating just until blended. Divide among paper-lined muffin tins and bake for 25 minutes, until the tops are springy to the touch. Tilt them on their sides to allow steam to escape and help them cool before frosting. Makes about 1 1/2 dozen cupcakes.
Quick Ganache or Glaze: to make ganache, you just need some cream and chocolate – heat the cream, add the chocolate, stir. For a glossier chocolate glaze, add corn syrup – heat 4 Tbsp. cream and 4 Tbsp. corn syrup, then stir in 4 oz. chopped chocolate or chocolate chips. Really – I’m never that precise with the ratio.
And because it’s World Food Day, I should quickly fill you in on dinner. I spent my Friday evening in a room full of food producers, educators, growers and eaters at Dine & Dialogue – a 150 km supper and chat with like-minded people. We sat at long tables and ate bison, locally grown carrots, beets and lettuces with local pear dressing, elk salami and apple crisp (all for $10!). Wade was there, and Eliese, and Rod and Chad, and Andrew, and almost a hundred others, and my heart actually raced over the conversation about sustainability, security and other food issues.
Backtrack: One day last week after a string of particularly hard days, I emailed to ask my sister how her day at work was going. Her answer – “I got to teach math this morning, which was incredibly relaxing and satisfying.”
I know. How could we possibly be related? It would seem she got all the math genes and I got none. She comes home from her evenings back at University, where she’s taking her masters degree, and compares it to having just had a massage. I repeat: wow. Also? Wow.
But then I went and got all flushed talking about urban gardening and bees and SPIN farming and permaculture and production and affordability and accessibility issues surrounding local food, which I think tends to be the biggest issue and was the best part – people tend to get hung up on farmers’ markets, but there are more direct ways to support local growers, like CSA farms and co-ops. And my wheels wouldn’t stop spinning.
Tomorrow they’re continuing the event with a Harvest Food Fair. Here are the deets:
HARVEST FOOD FAIR
Show off your bounty and enter one of the fair contests! Entries will be accepted in the following categories: Jams, Preserves, Pies, Flower Arrangements, and Photography.
Bring your entries on the day of the fair with a second helping to offer to the Food Bank.
Presentations will be given by local experts on a variety of topics such as permiculture, backyard farming, urban bees and much more. An abundance of opportunities to network and ask lots of questions! Refreshments featuring local apple juice, coffee and tea will be served.
When: Saturday, October 16, 1:00 – 4:00 PM
Where: Unitarian Church, 1703-1st Street NW (free parking at Balmoral School and complimentary Bike Valet service).
If you have any thoughts on any of the above – or would like to share a story, idea or arrangement that works well for you or where you like – I would love to continue the discussion here! Or what you had for dinner on this World Food Day, or really anything else on your mind. I do love reading your comments – I have a bunch of your ideas posted on my fridge to make one of these days. My friend Nik donated a trio of her premium loose leaf teas (creamy Earl Grey – my favourite – white Swiss truffle roiboos and jasmine green tea with flowers) to pass on – not exactly local, but imported using the Ethical Tea Partnership, and all packaging and other business goes down in her living room just a couple blocks away from me. And they take Canadian Tire dollars. For real. (We all live in hundred-year-old houses and do a lot of renos.) She has wonderful tea – I thought of tea as not much more as floor sweepings that produced dingy water until I met her.
And congrats to Cathy and Merry, who won fancy new Crock Pots! Yes, I decided to give away two instead of one. Thanks for playing!
October 16 2010 | cake | 23 Comments »
Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) is one of my new favourite ingredients. It’s gluten-free, high in protein (quinoa contains a complete set of amino acids, making it a complete protein in itself), has a great, light texture (unlike some heavier whole grains) and adds a nutrient boost for our usual morning pancakes when it comes in the form of quinoa flour. (The pumpkin purée doesn’t hurt, either.)
Whitecap put out a beautiful new cookbook all about quinoa – it’s called Quinoa 365: the Every Day Superfood, by sisters Patricia Green and Carolyn Hemming – and besides soups, salads, entrees and desserts, these pancakes are in it. I’ve posted the recipe over at the Family Kitchen.
October 15 2010 | leftovers | 24 Comments »
Like so many, I went to bed last night watching crews rescue trapped miners in Chile. This morning when my alarm clicked on, the first sound that came over the radio was news that half of the men had been successfully extracted. I was inspired to dig up a Chilean recipe – relating in the best way I know by making a stew similar to what those men may be going home to eat with their families, and sitting down to eat it with my own.
Also – I’d like to introduce a new family member, a 4.7 L red braiser I brought home from the Le Creuset store last week. (No, they didn’t give it to me – I wish – I didn’t get a deal nor was I coerced into reporting back here. I just decided that I deserved a Le Creuset, dammit, and I went and bought myself one, right after purchasing the fanciest and most expensive coffee I could find at Phil & Sebastien. I needed a little retail therapy.) If you haven’t heard the news, we now have the only stand-alone Le Creuset store in Canada, in the new part of Chinook mall. It will allow you the experience of being a kid in a candy store all over again. A kid who doesn’t get nearly enough allowance to buy all the mojos she wants.
This stew was a great way to break it in. (I must say though, I’m surprised that the handle can only tolerate temperatures up to 375F. I really don’t want to have to go and replace the handle when I just bought the thing. Staub cookware, also made in France, has handles made of nickled steel or brass that can take temps up to 500F.)
This has slow-cooker potential, but I wanted to do it in a pot, like they would in Chile. I braised the meat in the oven rather than simmer on the stovetop for an hour, as instructed (I’m a bit of a culinary rebel) and used a small roast I had in the freezer from Buffalo Horn Ranch, which I diced and browned and which tasted surprisingly like flank steak, I think. Or perhaps I’m just having flashbacks of the flank steak stew of my childhood.
After braising the meat with the onions and carrots, you add the potatoes and green beans and peas, which you don’t want to cook to death, and finish them off. And top off the lot with a poached egg. Once the egg parts of our dinners were gone, my sister went and got the sour cream and lobbed on some of that, and was it ever a Good Idea. Chilean Hangover Stew, meet Beef Stroganoff.
This is called Hangover Stew because it’s often served on Mondays as a means of using up the leftovers from the Sunday barbecue – it’s a dish served all over Chile. This version is adapted from Saveur, issue #14 – of their adaptation of the version at Raquel Orellana’s Restaurante En Familia in San Fernando, Chile.
Hangover Stew
canola or olive oil, for cooking
2 lb. flank steak, cut across the grain into 2″ strips, or a small beef or bison roast
4-5 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. dried oregano
2 medium onions, peeled and thinly sliced
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
2 cups chicken, beef or vegetable stock
2 thin-skinned potatoes, cut into thick sticks
1/4 lb. string beans, trimmed and cut in 2″ pieces
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
1 Tbsp. coarsely chopped fresh parsley
1 Tbsp. coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
one egg per person (optional)
In a large heavy pot or skillet, heat a drizzle of oil over medium-high heat and brown the meat, in batches if you need to so that it doesn’t crowd the pan, seasoning with salt and pepper as it cooks. Add the garlic and cook for another minute or two, then add the cumin and oregano. Set it aside or transfer to a pot (if you’re braising in a different pot than you’re browning in).
Add the onions and carrot to the pot and cook for about 5 minutes, until starting to turn golden. Return the meat to the pot or transfer the onions and carrots to the pot the meat is in, and add the stock and 2-3 cups water. Cover and bake at 300F for 4 hours.
Add potatoes, beans, peas, parsley and cilantro; cover and return to the oven for another half hour, or until the potatoes are tender.
Meanwhile, poach your eggs in simmering water as if you were going to serve them on toast; ladle the stew into wide bowls and top each with an egg. Serves 6ish.
October 13 2010 | beef and one dish | 14 Comments »
HOW could it be that I’ve not run a recipe for squash soup over the past (almost 3!) years? I’m shocked. Gobsmacked, even.
In one of my recent Swerve stories, executive Chef Giuseppe Di Gennaro of Capo in Inglewood shared his recipe, which captures the essence of fall in a bowl with sage, apples and maple syrup. Having always defaulted to a curried version, I thought his was wonderful, allowing the flavour of the squash to shine through. I was lucky enough to hit the jackpot today in my game of freezer Roulette – the unmarked yogurt container I extracted contained this soup.
Butternut is often used for soups because of its mellow flavour, smooth texture and easy-to-peel exterior, but feel free to experiment with other winter squash. This soup freezes well, so is perfect to make in large batches to stash away for mealtime emergencies. You could swap the heavy cream for half & half, evaporated milk or even plain yogurt – just make sure the lighter creams don’t get too hot, or they tend to separate. Stir it in at the end and it should gently warm through. I spooned some plain Greek yogurt into a zip-lock bag, snipped off a corner and squeezed it overtop – don’t it look purdy? I posted another squash soup recipe over at the Family Kitchen – this one from a new book – The Comfort of Apples, by chefs Philip and Lauren Rubin. It incorporates carrots, and they suggest you put toasted walnuts and soft goat cheese in the bottom of the bowl before ladling the hot soup overtop. Yes please.
Chef Giuseppe Di Gennaro’s Butternut Squash Soup
2 medium butternut squash
1 onion
1 royal gala or pink lady apple
1/4 cup butter
1 900-mL carton chicken broth
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 tsp. dried sage leaves, crumbled
Generous pinches cinnamon and salt
3 Tbsp. maple syrup
Peel squash. (Microwaving one whole squash at a time on high for 2 minutes makes peeling easier.) Cut in half and discard seeds. Chop into small pieces. Finely chop onion. Peel apple, then thinly slice.
In a large saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and apple. Cook, stirring often, until onion begins to soften; about 5 minutes. Add broth, cream, squash, sage, cinnamon and salt. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered and stirring often until squash is very tender, from 20 to 25 min.
Ladle about 1/3 of soup into a blender and whirl until puréed. Pour through a sieve, using the back of a ladle to press soup into a large bowl. Repeat with remaining soup. Pour strained soup back into saucepan and set over medium heat. Stir in maple syrup and add more broth or water if it needs to be thinned. Stir until hot.
Ladle into bowls and top with a generous dollop of whipped cream or sour cream and slivers of apple, if you wish. Soup will keep well, covered and refrigerated, up to 5 days or freeze up to 3 months. Makes about 9 cups.
October 12 2010 | soup | 7 Comments »
