We never made it camping this summer, so last weekend we took the smores indoors with a can of chafing fuel. They taste just as good, though I do miss the smell of a campfire!
Category Archives: cooks
Perfect Fall Breakfast
It’s getting chillier and the leaves are changing. Having a warm, spiced breakfast on the weekend makes my whole day wonderful.
Today I was in the mood for pumpkin pancakes with apple compote. Apple compote is versatile and so quick to make. I came back from a yoga class this morning and, ten minutes later, it was done. You’ll find my recipe below. For the pumpkin pancakes, here’s one recipe I’ve used, but I always change up the spices to taste. If anyone has a favorite recipe, leave it in the comments!
Apple Compote
This is my basic recipe as best as I can write it down – I always just throw things together and add more ingredients to taste. Today I even threw in a shot of orange juice! I prefer not to peel the apples, but this is a matter of taste.
- 2 large apples, cored and sliced (one of these makes the job quick)
- 1 tbsp butter or margarine
- 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 cup raisins
- 2 tbs lemon juice
- 1/4 cup nuts, chopped (optional – I used cashews today)
Melt butter in a large skillet with a cover. Add the apples, brown sugar, cinnamon and ginger, and toss to evenly distribute the spices. Cover and cook over high heat, stirring occasionally, for about three minutes. Add the raisins, lemon juice and nuts, cover, reduce heat to medium and cook for another couple minutes. Remove the lid and cook until apples are tender and liquid is syrupy, about three more minutes.
Serve with pancakes, oatmeal, yogurt, or even on a cheese plate.
Baked Sauerkraut with Apples
I wanted to share this great sauerkraut recipe I made for our Oktoberfest party. I’m sure a few of you will stop reading here, but please read on! If you are ambivalent about sauerkraut (I was at one point), this might change your mind. It manages to taste both tangy and buttery, and of course, it’s also a healthy way to get your veggies.
America is in financial turmoil, so I’ll betray my secrets and tell you how I whipped this up on a budget. We bought jars of Kühne organic sauerkraut, made in Germany, from my favorite secret gourmet store. If I was making this for dinner tonight, I would have stopped by the farmers’ market for apples, but since I had 20 pounds of apples on my shopping list and a budget to follow, I headed to Price Rite where I got Ginger Gold apples for only 99 cents a pound.
Baked Sauerkraut with Apples
adapted from Lüchow’s German Cookbook
Oktoberfest
I’m an IT professional, and people constantly ask if I studied Computer Science in college. Nope, I majored in…German. I loved the coursework and my semester abroad in Berlin, and though I can’t say I’ve used my major after college, I still harbor a love for the country’s language and food. My family is German, so I suppose you could say it’s hereditary.
An Oktoberfest party seemed like the perfect idea this year. You might be wondering, why an Oktoberfest party in September? The real Oktoberfest in Munich actually starts during the end of September and continues through the first week of October. But if you still want to throw your own party, I think any time in October is fair game.
We took the planning seriously, testing recipes and tasting beer. We chose Paulaner Oktoberfest for the keg and picked out a number of recipes. For our sausage needs, we took a drive to Karl’s Sausage Kitchen in Saugus, Massachusetts. I especially enjoyed their Weisswurst, which along with Seven Stars multigrain bread, was a tasty breakfast for our friends who came early to help in the kitchen.
Sausage from Karl’s, the beer, prepping for Hasenpfeffer, “Bavarian camouflage”
My favorite recipe source was Luchow’s German Cookbook, a 1950s gem with recipes from the legendary, and now sadly missed, New York restaurant. I also browsed one of my favorite food books, Culinaria Germany, for inspiration. Each book in the Culinaria series is a vivid, comprehensive encyclopedia of a region’s food. The German volume has a chapter for each state, with descriptions of regional specialites and food customs, photos and recipes.
Here’s our final menu:
- Assorted Sausages – Knockwurst, Bauernwurst, 2 types of Bratwurst
- Himmel und Erde – mashed potatoes and apples topped with sliced blood sausage and crispy onions
- Käsespätzle – Spätzle (noodle dumplings) baked with layers of Emmentaler, topped with crispy onions and browned butter
- Goulash – finished up in a crock pot while we made merry
- Hasenpfeffer – a red wine rabbit stew, also finished in a crock pot
- Pretzels – brought freshly baked by Sean and uglyagnes
- Potato Salad – generally, German potato salad is made without mayonnaise
- Cucumber Salad – just like Mom used to make, herbed with dill
- Baked Sauerkraut with Apples
- Red Cabbage
- Assorted Mustards
- Assorted Breads
- German Apple Cake
- Linzer Torte
Weisswurst for breakfast, my red dirndl, the first guests at the table, washing the steins
The day of the party, we filled the iPod with drinking songs, covered the living room in blue and white tablecoths (fortuitously left over from a party my parents had two decades ago!) and cooked all day. Even though more than 30 people came to help us eat and drink, we ended up with plenty of leftovers. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised – my shopping list included 20 pounds of apples and 10 pounds of potatoes!
First Day of Fall
Yesterday was the first day of fall, and as I was leaving my night class, a hint of fireplace scented the nippy air. Fall is my favorite season and I’m always ready for the transition to fall colors, pumpkin stews, Halloween decorations.
I made this Linzer cookie, a first-day-of-fall treat for my sweetheart, with the leftover dough from a torte. I finally own a linzer cookie cutter and I’ve always loved my set of miniature leaf cookie cutters (which are like these
Local Love
Last night’s dinner was delicious! It was inspired by yesterday’s post-work trip to the Wickenden farmers’ market.
First, we started with a caprese salad made with a striped German tomato from White Barn Farm, mozzarella from Narragansett Creamery (also from the market, sold by Wishing Stone Farm) and basil from our garden plot. The tomato was giant and so sweet. I thought we’d have leftovers, but it was impossible to leave any.
Then, Jeremy grilled a chicken breast stuffed with arugula from the garden, spicy dried sausage and hot pepper cheese, both from Tony’s Colonial on Atwells. Meanwhile, I sauteed beet greens, also from White Barn Farm, with some garlic and hot pepper flakes.
What a feast! And what a great city we live in.
If You Can’t Beat It, Eat It
The latest weed that’s taken a hold of my garden plot – even flourishing during an unwatered week of vacation – is purslane. I initially let it be, hoping it would make an attractive groundcover, but quickly realized my mistake as it started to spread.
Uglyagnes told me that one of her plot neighbors has been cooking purslane, so I thought I’d give it a try. I bit off a leaf and found it juicy with a mild citrus flavor – like a tame sorrel. Searching Epicurious revealed a few recipes, some of which, to my amusement, implied that purslane was something that one could only be lucky enough to find at speciality markets.
Salad with Purslane
I was most excited by the recipe for Grilled Zucchini Salad, but I modified it to include lentils and a chopped cucumber. It was the perfect way to use some of my Wickenden Street farmers’ market purchases. The result was quite delicious and a good use of “weeds”!
Asparagus Risotto
I’ve been neglecting my blog this week. It’s not that I don’t think “I need to write about this!” every time I eat a delicious morsel or spy some interesting food item – mostly, it’s that I hesitate to post without a picture, and after a day at work, the lighting in my house can most pleasantly be described as “romantic”. So I’m going to tell you about the pot of risotto I made tonight, but you’ll just have to imagine how beautiful it looks.
No food photo, but check out this asparagus napkin I silkscreened at AS220’s print shop yesterday!
Sometimes I gravitate towards recipes with multiple diced vegetables – I read them slowly, thinking of how therapeutic all that chopping will be (I suspect that visions of the beach do this for most people, but I’ll take what I can get). Last night I was reading Ruth Reichl’s Garlic and Sapphires, and when I got to the Risotto Primavera recipe, I knew it was the perfect fate for my Monday night and the extra bunch of farmers’ market asparagus I’d been saving.
While it doesn’t take that long to prepare, it’s the perfect evening “cooking retreat” – an excuse to turn off the phone, the TV and the computer, and immerse yourself in the acts of chopping vegetables and stirring risotto.
Now for the recipe…
Messes I Have Made
It’s inevitable, when you cook more than 4 courses in a night, to make a total mess.
But I’m happy to see how much smaller that mess looks in my new kitchen! (on the right). We cooked a 5 course dinner for 8 of us this weekend and there was still space left on the counter.
Giant White Corn
Since my post about the Price Rite which opened near me, I’ve returned countless times. I have especially enjoyed exploring new ingredients in the Hispanic foods aisle.
One of my discoveries was Giant White Corn. The dried kernels were definitely giant – about the size of a penny. Inspired by the recipe on the Goya package, I prepared a stew with pork, making a few modifications based on the ingredients I had on hand. The result was delicious and I’ll definitely make it again.
Pork Stew with Giant White Corn
A similar recipe can be found on the Goya site here. The modifications I made were:
- I used the whole package of corn (1 lb) and a bit more pork.
- I didn’t have the spices and the sofrito on hand, so I improvised, replacing some pork broth with water and seasoning with chipotle and cilantro flavor cubes made by Knorr.
- Last, I ate the stew with some hot sauce and liberal amounts of fresh cilantro.