Happy Pi Day!

First of all, in case you didn't know, we're kind of nerdy in our household. Clint's a computer guy, I'm a biochemist. He goes on and on about computer stuff and coding and scheduling, and I get all excited by protein-protein interactions and diagrams of such. In the grand scheme of things, that's pretty nerdy.

And we both have an intense love of pie. Apple pie, blueberry pie, chicken pot pie, lemon meringue pie... we love it all.

So it's not surprising that we both freaked out for awesomeness when we saw this picture

First of all, HOW DID WE NEVER NOTICE THIS BEFORE?!? I love this, I'm still laughing over it now, a day after I first saw it.

So in our extreme nerdiness and love of food, we had pie for pi day. I always intend to make pie for pi day, but in the past it's just never happened. So this year I made up for lost time with three pies.
Chicken pot pie with biscuit crust (blogged previously here), apple pie and blueberry pie.

This chicken pie is one of my new favorite dinner recipes. This may be its last hurrah before fall returns, because it's great for a chilly night. It's the perfect way to use up leftover chicken- a week ago, I boiled up 2 split breasts and 4 bone-in thighs to make chicken stock. We made pizza and tacos with the chicken, but still had quite a bit left, so I tossed it all in here. And used the chicken stock for the gravy!

I don't use recipes for my fruit pies. It always causes a little trouble when people ask for a pie recipe- honestly all a fruit pie is is pie crust lining a pie dish, filled with your choice of fruit tossed with some sugar and spices of your choice, and baked. If you're using wet fruit (like frozen berries with a lot of ice crystals on them, or fresh peaches), I also toss the fruit in flour or cornstarch to soak up the liquid. I like tossing apples with cinnamon and cardamom, and blueberries with allspice.

The one exception to my "no recipe" pie rule is my infamous Lime-Peach Pie. The pie I worked so hard on, combining the delicious flavors of fresh peaches and fresh limes, inspired by a peach margarita... and when I entered it in the Cornish Fair, the judges ruled that it had "overwhelming citrus flavor". Which was the WHOLE POINT OF THE PIE. But I'm not bitter- more pie for me!

Did you enjoy pie for pi day?

What's Baking? October: Fall Flavors

I missed last month's What's Baking (family favorites), which was sad. So I was determined to do this month's, but I unfortunately haven't had time
to blog about it until the very last minute!

I went apple picking a few weeks ago, as I try to do every year. I picked a 1/2 bushel of apples, and I really think I need to get over there again before they close for the season and get another half bushel! One more apple pie or crisp and they'll all be gone. For this reason, I made something that would use fewer apples for What's Baking?.

Joy The Baker made a lovely apple coffee cake ring earlier this month. It has a yeasty dough and is filled with apples- kind of like cinnamon rolls with apples in a ring form. It looked lovely. And it tastes lovely! I used half whole wheat flour to be a little more whole-grainy, and instead of her streusel topping, I made a cream cheese icing. It's a great breakfast bread, it's appley and cinnamony but not overly sweet (unless you smother it in the icing, of course). One recipe makes two, and we've thoroughly enjoyed having this one around for twice as long ;)

The dough is a very different dough than I've worked with before- it's kind of like a cross between a yeast bread and a cake. It tastes like a bread, though!

Apple Coffee Cake Ring
recipe from Joy the Baker

For the dough:
1T active dry yeast
1/4cup warm water
6T sugar
1 and 1/2 stick butter, softened to room temperature
1t cardamom
1/2t salt
3 eggs
4.5 to 5 cups flour (I used half WW and half AP)
1 cup warm milk

In a small bowl, stir the yeast into the warm water and add a pinch of sugar. Let sit for 10-15 min for the yeast to wake up.
In a larger bowl (of your stand mixer, preferably), beat the butter, sugar, cardamom and salt together til creamy, about 3 min. Beat in the 3 eggs and 1 cup of flour. Stir til well combined, about 1-2 min. Add 2 more cups of flour, the warm milk and the yeast mixture, beat for another minute. Then add the rest of the flour and mix until you had a sticky dough. Knead for about 10 minutes (I kneaded with the mixer). Cover with plastic wrap or a dish towel and let rise in a warm place til doubled, about 1.5-2 hours.

Filling
2 apples, peeled, cored and diced into small pieces
2t lemon juice (optional, good for flavor and prevents apples from turning brown)
2T brown sugar
1t cinnamon
1/2t nutmeg
pinch of salt
1t cornstarch

To make the filling, mix all ingredients together. Set aside.

Back to the dough: it's risen now, so punch it down and divide in half. Spread out one half on your floured board and roll/stretch to a 10x14in (approx) rectangle. Sprinkle half of the filling mixture over the dough, and begin to roll the long side. Form into a horseshoe, and then using a sharp knife (or even scissors), cut the dough about 2/3 of the way through the roll. Do this every 2-3inches or so, and then spread the slices out to make the horseshoe into a circle. Place this on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, cover with a dishtowel and let rise for about 45min. Repeat with the other half of the dough. You can either bake the 2nd half or wrap the long roll in plastic wrap and freeze. If you freeze, let the cylinder thaw, then cut as for the first half, let rise, and bake.

Bake at 375F for about 40 min.

When cool, drizzle with cream cheese icing: 1T softened cream cheese, 1T milk and 1 cup powdered sugar.

Yum! Take this to the next brunch or tea party you're invited to.

German-inspired dinner

For some reason, pork chops (except for stuffed pork chops) kind of remind me of German food. Perhaps because once upon a time, I hated pork and I didn't really like German food? Also, German restaurants were once almost the only place I ever saw pork- but we're talking back in the '80s, when food and restaurants were rather different than the are now.

Fortunately, by now I've had good German food (a matter of both going to different restaurants and one restaurant just being better), and I learned how to cook my own pork chops so they're not dry and leathery. And I therefore like to eat a lot of each.

We were trying to use up the pork in our freezer, so I was looking for pork recipes. Martha Stewart has these great themed slideshows, and I found the pork one. So many delicious-looking pork recipes! Because we had apples that needed to be used up, the pork chops with apple chutney immediately caught my eye. And wonder of wonders, it was pretty quick and easy.

You'd think that while being a housewife, "quick and easy" isn't really necessary anymore, but I have other things to take up my time... I'll share more info soon ;)
(most boring plating ever, right? I wish I'd at least put this on the blue plate)

Pork Chops with Apple Chutney
recipe from Martha Stewart

For the pork chops:
2T olive oil
salt and pepper for seasoning
4 boneless center-cut pork chops (1 1/4 pounds), cut 3/4 inch thick

For the apple chutney:
1T olive oil
1 onion, coarsely diced
4 green apples, peeled, cored, and diced
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup golden raisins
1t ground ginger
1/4t dry mustard
Pinch of cayenne pepper

Preheat the oven to 400F. Season the pork chops with salt and pepper on both sides. In a large oven-safe skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Sear the pork, about 5min on each side. Then transfer to the oven and cook til the meat is 155F, about 5-8 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the chutney. In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat the oil and add the onion. Cook, stirring often, until it begins to turn translucent, about 5 min. Add the diced apple and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often. Stir in the vinegar, raisin, ginger, mustard and cayenne pepper, and cook for another 4-5 minutes.

Plate the pork chops and pour the chutney on top. Delicious with spaetzle!

Spaetzle. Oh god, I love spaetzle. Like, lovvvvvve. I think mostly because they have nutmeg and are sauteed in butter. Seriously, where can you go wrong sauteing anything in butter?!

I'm not sure where this recipe came from, I've been using it for years.

Spaetzle
serves 2

1/2 cup flour (AP or whole wheat, whichever)
1/2t salt
1/2t nutmeg
2T milk
1 egg
1t butter
thyme or chives, optional

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and nutmeg and make a well in the middle. In a separate small bowl, whisk together with a fork the milk and egg. Pour into the flour well and stir around with a fork, gradually incorporating everything. Let the dough rest for 15min.

Heat a large or medium saucepan of water to boil, then place the dough in a potato ricer or colander with large holes, and extrude the dough into the boiling water through whichever device you're using. Stir so the individual spaetzles don't clump up, and boil for about 4 minutes. Strain, rinse with cold water, and then heat the butter in a frying pan/skillet over medium-high heat and add the spaetzle. Saute for a few minutes, until it turns golden brown on the edges. Sprinkle in some herbs, if desired.


Honestly, you can't have pork chops without spaetzle. That's just plain silly.

Spiced Poached Apples

Tonight's dessert is brought to you by Dorie Greenspan.

I made dinner one night instead of going out. At the time, we didn't have much in the way of desserts, aside from leftover Easter candy (somehow, sitting at the dining table after slaving away to make dinner, and eating half a hollow chocolate bunny didn't seem to fit), so I decided to flip through the dessert section of Around my French Table.

This poached apple recipe was pretty easy, and as desserts go, pretty healthy. Yes, it's full of sugar, but there's no fat at all, and the start is a piece of fruit. I dressed it up by adding 1/2lb of kumquats I'd purchase a few weeks ago and had no idea how to use- since we were going away a few days after this, I decided I'd better use them up now rather than risk letting them go back while I was gone.

Clint said this was too sweet for him, but I really enjoyed it. I can't decide if I like it better hot or cold, though- which means it might be a nice dessert for a hot summer evening.

Dorie's Poached Apples
from Around my French Table, page 396

1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup sugar (maybe reduce this to 3T)
3 cups water
zest and juice from 1/2 orange (cut the zest into long strips)
zest and juice from 1/2 lemon (cut the zest into long strips)
3 pieces star anise
1 cinnamon stick (2in long)
vanilla bean (I used 1/2t vanilla paste)
3 medium apples or pears, peeled, cored and cut in half

In a medium saucepan, combine the honey, sugar, water, orange, lemon, anise and cinnamon. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and then reduce to medium-low and cook for 5 minutes. Add the apples and bring to a simmer. Cook for 10-15 min, until the fruit can be pierced easily with a knife- check its progress as it goes, different varieties of apples/pears may cook more quickly.

Remove the fruit once it's done, and boil the syrup for 10 min more. Pour the syrup over the fruit and let cool. Serve warm, at room temperature or cold.

I think I'd love this with a small slice of spiced pound cake or angel food cake.

Souper Bowl: Soup for Charity

A couple weeks ago, I heard about a blogger making soup to benefit animals. Branny Boils Over pledged to donate $1 to the ASPCA for every soup recipe submitted to her. I love this idea! I'm dedicating this soup to Pansy, who, as usual, hung out with us in the kitchen while we cooked, and sat with us while she ate.

(here she is with the catnip heart I just made her)

Want do make a charity soup? Just make a soup recipe, blog about it by January 30th, dedicate it to your favorite animal, and email it to Branny. Details and her email are on her blog. Don't like soup? Donate directly to the ASPCA.

This soup had the bonus of making a "going back for seconds" meal- this only happens about every other month. I rate how "good" a meal is by whether my husband goes for seconds. And with this meal, he had seconds... and then thirds.

I made stew and bread. It's been chilly, and I'm kind of in a soup mood. We had some pork in the freezer, and who really makes soup/stew with pork? Well, I found a recipe for pork stew and because it was so unexpected, I had to bookmark it. Good move. It was surprisingly good (i.e., I thought it'd be pretty good, but it was more like "wow... this is good!"). It was also easy- about 20 minutes to assemble everything, then I had a 30 minute work out while it simmered, and then we ate. It would have been a great weeknight meal.

To go with our stew, I made Dorie Greenspan's fougasse. Have you ever had fougasse? She describes it in "Around My French Table" as the provencal cousin of focaccia- honestly, I think it's better than focaccia (although it's possible I've never had real focaccia). The first time I ever saw fougasse was when I was in grad school and made it a point to visit the bakery at King Arthur Flour on a weekly basis. My friend Molly and I would go every Friday and buy a loaf of either rosemary (her) or olive (me) fougasse. Molly was a serious runner, so she'd eat the entire thing in one sitting, but I'd make mine last through Sunday (it's definitely best eaten the day it's baked). KAF didn't keep fougasse on the weekly rotation for very long, which was sad for my mouth, happy for my hips. It's a really simple bread, but something about it has a beautifully pure flavor, it's hard to describe. It's composed of olive oil, flour, yeast, water, salt, rosemary and olives (I omitted the lemon zest, more or less accidentally), and I think some combination of the salty, acidic olives with the blank palate of the rest of the ingredients does something magical. As Clint forcefully stated, "this bread is stupid-good".

Oh, and perhaps the pork stew and olive fougasse aren't the best pairings (sweet potatoes and olives? kinda weird), but it worked pretty darn well at for us. Next time I may make sage fougasse and have it with this soup, or maybe the olive fougasse with minestrone.

Pork, Sweet Potato and Apple Stew
adapted from Our Life in the Kitchen

1-1.5lbs pork (original recipe said pork stew meat, I used a pork tenderoin), cut into chunks
2 large or 3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
2-3 apples, peeled or not peeled (we peeled) and cut into large chunks
2 leeks, cut into 1 inch chunks (or 1-2 onions, roughly chopped)

2-3T olive oil or butter
1t cumin
1t dried sage or rosemary
black pepper, to taste
1/3 cup flour
6-8 cups chicken stock (or a mix of chicken stock and water)

In a large pot/dutch oven over medium heat, heat the oil. Add the pork and brown for a few minutes. Add the leeks and cook for 2 minutes, then add the cumin, sage and black pepper and cook a few minutes until fragrant. Sprinkle in the flour and stir until it soaks up the fat in the pan, and add the stock, sweet potatoes and apples. Simmer over medium-low or low heat for about 30 minutes.

Note that there's no salt in this: surprisingly, we didn't need any. I used 1.5 cups of homemade salt-free chicken stock, 1.5 cups of canned low sodium chicken broth, and 4 cups of water, and we didn't need to add salt at all. Of course, salt your own to taste before serving.


Olive Fougasse
from Dorie Greenspan's "Around My French Table" (if look it up on amazon.com, you can read the recipe page 48) on "look inside this book")

Note: Dorie recommends letting the dough sit in the fridge overnight before baking. I'm sure it'll be delicious if you just let it sit a few hours, though, but I haven't tried that yet (I will this week, I'll report back).

2/3 cup warm water (in my opinion, 95-100F)
2t yeast
1t sugar

4T (1/4 cup) olive oil (I used extra light, but EVOO would be the normal one)
1 cup warm water

4 cups AP flour
1.5t salt

1T fresh, chopped rosemary
1 cup pitted, chopped dates (I used kalamata)
zest of 1 lemon or orange

1T olive oil
2t water
salt

Combine the 2/3 cup water with yeast and sugar, stir and let sit for about 10 minutes, until the yeast wakes up and is frothy.

Stir in the 1/4 cup olive oil and 1 cup of water. Meanwhile, in the bowl of your stand mixer, whisk together the flour and salt. Pour in the liquids, and stir to combine with your dough hook for a few minutes on low. Knead in medium for 10 minutes. This dough is very soft and sticky, so my KA could handle 10 minutes on medium.

Now add in the olives, rosemary and zest and stir to combine (I kneaded with my hands for this part). Let the dough sit in a cool spot/refrigerator (I left it in the mudroom area, which we've recently discovered is uninsulated and averages about 50-55F) at least 6 hours, preferably overnight, or up to 3 days. I left it overnight.

On the day of baking, divide the dough in half (I left one half in the bowl to bake the next day). Roll out the dough to a flat-ish oval, and with a sharp knife, cut slashes in the dough, kind of in a leaf shape (traditional) or another shape you like. Let rest about 15 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 450F.

A few minutes before baking, whisk together the 1T oil and 2t water and brush over the top of the dough. Sprinkle with salt. Bake on the medium or lower rack in your oven for 10 minutes, then rotate and bake another 8-10, until lightly golden. (If you bake 2 loaves at once, put one on the medium rack and one on the low, and swap them after the first 10 min of baking).

Best eaten fresh from the oven, and accompaniments are totally unnecessary, this is a bread worth eating completely plain.


I only ever post recipes I think are worth sharing (unless there's some hilarious story or lesson to be learned from a fail), but I think these two recipes are more worth trying than other things I've shared. I'm telling you: go make these. And then make them again. I'm baking the second loaf of fougasse today, and then making more to bake later this week, and I think I'll be bringing this stew to our ski weekend in VT in March.

November What's Baking?

I hosted our What's Baking bake-along this month, and since I knew everyone would be busy baking goodies for Thanksgiving, I chose Thanksgiving as our theme. I love the variety in what everyone chose!

Amanda from Our Italian Kitchen made an Edible Cornucopia. What a cute idea, it's both a centerpiece and simple snack for later!
Dunne' from With a Cherry on Top made apple pecan cheesecake, a nice change from the traditional apple pie!

Cara from The Boys Made Me Do it made a rustic apple crostata, an easy twist on apple pie.

Jen, the Beantown Baker, made pumpkin cranberry pecan upside down cake- I can't wait to try this one!Ange from the Tiny Tyrant's Kitchen made The Pie That Won't Die (aka pumpkin cream pie). Who can resist trying a recipe with a name like that?

Heather Lynne from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks made cranberry apple mini pies. So cute!

Carrie from Carrie's Sweet Life takes a break from pies and cakes with a sweet potato trifle.

Jey of The Jey of Cooking really mixed things up with a bacon and cheddar apple pie.
Lindsey from Our Share of the Harvest made a beautiful pumpkin roll with cream cheese filling.

And I made Pilgrim Bread.
I love the variety we got this month, and I can't wait to try all of these delicious looking recipes!


Stephanie will host next, and she has chosen that December's What's Baking? theme will be Holiday Colors! (such as red and green for Christmas, etc). Happy baking!

Thanksgiving Round up!

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all had tasty Thanksgiving dinners. I actually had two: on Thanksgiving Day, we all went to my grandma's house for the traditional dinner, but my parents had bought a turkey, so we had TG part 2 the next day with just the four of us.
I photographed part 1, but when I went to photograph the different dishes we had at part 2, I found this...

!!!

This morning when I got out of bed, I knocked Clint's iphone off the table and it fell on top of my purse. On the very top of my open purse was my camera, so I believe the corner of the iphone landed on the lcd screen. The camera still works, but obviously you can't use the lcd screen anymore... I've hijacked my parents' old camera, and it looks like I'll put a new camera on my Christmas list. But seriously, a food blogger without a camera? Disaster. The loaner camera is only 4 megapixels, as opposed to 6 (not great, but still). Sigh. However, I did splatter peach jam all over my camera this summer, so the lens cover doesn't always completely close, so I did actually need a new one.

Anyway, Thanksgiving.

In my family, we're pretty standard. Turkey, not cooked in any special way (the deep fried turkey year, while not quite a disaster, was not anything to remember), mashed turnip, mashed butternut squash, mashed potato, boiled onions, two types of stuffing, cranberry walnut bread, and everyone's favorite, chicken pie. Back in the day, grandma's house was a working farm (originally tobacco, I'm not sure what they grew in her day) with a fully-stocked chicken coop. They'd expect at least 40 people for Thanksgiving, so they'd get a single turkey and gather up the chickens to bake into a chicken pie. Each person got a small piece of turkey and a healthy helping of chicken pie, and the pie is rather delicious. My uncle makes it now, and I really need to get his recipe.
But we obviously specialize in desserts.

Clockwise from the right: apple crisp, apple pie, pumpkin pie, hubbard squash pie, maple pumpkin pie, Turkey ginger cookies, Roly Poly (or perhaps that's just the name of the bakery- a layered cake of vanilla cake, vanilla custard, fruit and orange jello), vanilla sponge cake with coffee cream glaze, Marlborough pudding pie, apple cranberry ginger pie.

I can tell you more about the maple pumpkin pie, Marlborough pudding pie, and the apple cranberry ginger pie.

Marlborough Pudding Pie was this year's new addition from my kitchen. There was an article in my parents' newspaper the week before Thanksgiving, and my mom was so intrigued she sent me the recipe. I was equally intrigued, so I made it. It's basically an apple sauce and custard pie, and I like the idea. Unfortunately, my take on it, while well-received by everyone else, was not to my liking. I did an alcohol substitution that made it incredibly strong- and if you like bourbon (like everyone else in my family), it's great.

Marlborough Pudding Pie
from the Hartford Courant, recipe originally from the Publick House, Sturbridge, MA (incidentally, one of my favorite restaurants)

1 apple, peeled and cut into thin wedges and 1-2T apple cider (or water) (or use 3/4 cup of applesauce as a shortcut)
1/2 cup whole milk or cream
3/4 cup cooking sherry or white port (**here was my error- I used 1/4 cup Maker's Mark bourbon and 1/2 cup ginger brandy)
6T butter, melted (I think this is too much- it all separates out of the custard, anyway. I will do 3-4T next time)
4 eggs
1/2t salt
1/4t nutmeg
1 pie crust

First, stew the apples (or just use applesauce). Dump the apple wedges in a medium saucepan with a good splash of apple cider (or water) and cook on low for 15 minutes, flipping the apples occasionally. They'll get really soft, so be careful. You can puree them, but I like the effect of whole apple wedges.

Preheat your oven to 400F. Line a pie dish with the pie crust.

In a medium bowl, stir together the milk, sugar and alcohol. Stir in the apples or applesauce, then beat the eggs separately and add them. Stir in the spices and salt. Pour apple custard mixture into the pie crust, and bake at 15min at 400F, then turn to 350F and bake for 45 min more, or until the custard is just set (it'll still be wobbly). Serve at any temperature you like.

Our old favorite is apple ginger cranberry pie. I first found this recipe in 2001, my senior year of college, and I've made it every year since. It's just a simple apple pie, but with cranberries and minced crystallized ginger added, and it's really delicious.

Apple Cranberry Ginger pie
from Williams Sonoma

2 pie crusts
4-5lbs apples (I like a mix, this time I used cortlands, macs and some random eating apples (braeburn and honeycrisp) we had lying around)
1/2 cup sugar (or more or less as you prefer)
1/2 cup minced crystallized ginger
1.5 cups fresh or frozen cranberries

Peel and cut the apples (chunks or wedges). Toss with sugar, ginger and cranberries. Line a pie dish with one crust, dump the apple mixture in, and add the top crust. Bake at 400F for 20 min, then turn temp down to 375 and bake for about 45-50 min more, until the crust is nicely browned. Optional, but pretty: brush top crust with an egg, egg white or milk/cream to make it shiny.

Pumpkin maple pie: a new addition this year! Normally I make Martha's standard pumpkin pie, but I came across this one and liked the sound of it. It uses maple syrup instead of sugar, which goes great with pumpkin and the standard pumpkin pie spices.

Pumpkin Maple Pie
from Fake Ginger

2 cups pumpkin (or 1 15oz can- I used a mixture of orange and white pumpkins that I roasted, pureed and drained myself)
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup fat free 1/2&1/2 (or really, use 1 cup of whatever dairy you like)
1/2 cup maple syrup (the real stuff!)
2 eggs
3/4t cinnamon
1/4t ginger
pinch of cloves
pinch of salt
1 pie crust

Beat the eggs and pumpkin together, add the dairy, maple syrup and spices. Line a pie dish with the crust, then pour the pumpkin mixture into the dish. Bake for 20 min at 400F, then turn the temp down to 375 and bake for another 50-60 minutes, until the custard is just set.

Note: for all these pies, I used Martha Stewart's standard pate brisee, it's what I almost always use (unless I make a cornmeal crust or pate sucree). This year I made the crust 2 days ahead and kept them wrapped, all in disks that made 1 pie crust, in plastic wrap in the fridge.

Overall, I think the Marlborough pie was the most liked, but that was because no one had ever heard of it (except those that'd also read the article in the paper). I loved the apple cranberry ginger just as much as ever, but I've now found a new favorite pumpkin pie recipe. Also, I plan to try the Marlborough again, with the proper alcohol... or maybe I'll use apple cider or something.

Pumpkin party: Main dishes, part 2

Part the second of our pumpkin party main dishes! This post will tell about the popular main dishes, both were found browsing tastespotting.
Pumpkin, Spinach and Leek Quiche
adapted from The Little Teochow, originally from Homestyle Vegetarian by Murdoch Books
1/2 small pumpkin pie (sugar) pumpkin
2 leeks
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed but otherwise left whole
4 eggs, beaten
2/3 cup fat free 1/2&1/2
2/3 cup milk
1T parsley
1T cilantro
1t wholegrain mustard
6-9 sheets filo pastry, depending on how big your pie dish is
2 cups fresh spinach, blanched and drained
freshly grated parmesean cheese

Turn your oven to 350F. Slice the pumpkin into 1 inch thick slices (leave the skin on for now), and arrange on a baking sheet, along with the leeks (each leek cut into 3 or 4 pieces) and garlic. Roast for 1 hour. When they're all cool, mince (or press) the garlic, chop the leeks into small pieces, and peel the skin off the pumpkin.

Meanwhile, brush each piece of filo with olive oil, then arrange them in a greased pie dish- do the sheets one at a time (brush with oil, then lay in dish, then get the next sheet out). Arrange them so they're 6 layers deep, I had a few layers with more than one sheet in the layer, just to fit the pie dish.


Arrange the pumpkin in the pie dish, like so.
Arrange the spinach on top.
Beat the eggs, milk, 1/2&1/2, mustard and herbs together, and pour over the veggies, pressing the spinach in to get everything coated in the custard. Top with the grated parmesean, and bake at 357F for 40-45 min.


Ok, now the pizza! This pizza is really easy, and we've made it several times since the party. It's full of good, simple fall flavors, and it just tastes fresh and not heavy at all, like some pizzas can be.

Pumpkin, Apple and Ricotta Pizza
from Straight from the Farm
(picture soon, I forgot to take it off my camera)

pizza dough (your choice, I used my favorite pumpkin pizza dough, to increase the pumpkin usage for the party, and because I have a ton of it in the freezer, ready to go at a moment's notice!)
1/2-2/3 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 of a small pumpkin pie (sugar) pumpkin, peeled and sliced thinly (as thin as you can, slicing a pumpkin isn't easy)
1 apple, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch thick pieces
1T fresh sage, chopped
small handful of freshly grated parmesean

Roll out the pizza dough. Spread with ricotta cheese. Arrange apple and pumpkin slices, sprinkle with safe and parmesean. Bake at 450F for about 15-20 minutes (depending on the thickness of the dough). I sprinkled with a little kosher salt before serving.

What's Baking? Round 1

Well, it's finally happened- I joined a baking bloggers group! It's a small group, I believe there are 15 of us, and therefore it seems much less daunting than figuring out how to get into all the other big groups out there, like Tuesdays with Dorie (I don't even own any of Dorie Greenspan's cookbooks, anyway) or Barefoot Bloggers. And really, a bake along every week? Lately I'm lucky if I can make dinner every week.
One day, a nestie posted, asking if anyone was interested in a baking group. I jumped right in! We are What's Baking? and at the end of each month, I'll tell you what I chosen to bake from our assigned theme.

October: Fall-themed cupcakes
A year ago (fortunately, I never delete an email!) Bird emailed me this recipe for caramel apple cupcakes, looking for my opinion on her idea to bake them for a bake sale. Ok, really: apple cupcakes, caramel instead of frosting, how could this not be a hit?! She ended up making what turned into her famous whoopie pies (they're really Martha's, but they're Bird's specialty now), and I filed this recipe away to make myself a bit later.

A year later... after the What's Baking girls all agreed on fall cupcakes, I started looking around. I was about to embark on a big pumpkin cooking/baking spree, so I kind of want to not use pumpkins. What else would say fall? Candy corn would be good (Alison Ladman had another good recipe in the paper last weekend, candy corn cupcakes this time- I'll probably make those in the near future). Apples would be really good, but since there are 15 of us, I wanted something more than a standard apple spice cupcake with cream cheese or cinnamon frosting.

Did I mention how much I love caramel?

Caramel Apple cupcakes,
taken from chockylit.
For the cupcakes:
3-4 medium-sized apples (I used a mix of random seconds from Tougas, some golden delicious, a pink lady, and a mac)
1 1/3 cup flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1t ginger
1t cinnamon
1/2t nutmeg
1t baking soda
heavy pinch of salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola/veggie oil
1/4 cup apple cider (or juice)
1t vanilla

1. Core the apples. Place them on a baking sheet and bake at 350F for about an hour, until they're nice and mushy. Allow to cool, then scoop out apple mush and mash it well with a fork. Measure out 1cup, and eat the rest (eat the skins, too, they'll have apple mush clinging and are tasty)

2. Whisk together all the dry ingredients, set aside.

3. Beat the eggs, then add the oil, cider and vanilla, mix, then add the apple mush. Finally, add the dry ingredients, stir til just combined.

4. Fill muffin tins (greased or lined with cupcake wrappers- I used my silicone cupcake wrappers again) about 2/3 full with batter. Bake at 350F for 22-25 minutes. Makes about 15 cupcakes

Note: this recipe included a cream cheese frosting filling, which I did not do, mostly because I'm lazy, but we can pretend it was solely because I didn't want those extra calories.

Caramel "frosting"
(i.e. best frosting ever)

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk (I used fat free)
1T cream (I used fat free 1/2&1/2)
dash of vanilla
pinch of salt
Note: You'll need a candy thermometer

1. Combine butter, brown sugar, corn syrup and SC milk in a medium saucepan. Stir over medium-high heat while the butter dissolves. Once it has started to boil, add the 1T cream/1/2&1/2.

2. Continue cooking, stirring constantly, until the mixture reaches 248F on your candy thermometer (don't have one? another, less good, caramel recipe follows- but really, get a candy thermometer, they're cheap and available at the grocery store). This took me about 12 minutes, but the original recipe said 20 minutes.

3. Once it's reached temperature (and it will be boiling nicely and be really gooey and neat-looking by now), remove the saucepan from heat and add the vanilla and salt. Keep stirring for a few minutes while the mixture cools.

4. Cool about 15 minutes more, and then using a small offset spatula, spread the caramel mixture over the cupcakes.
5. Once you've finished frosting the cupcakes, you'll still have more than 1 cup of caramel left. Cut some apples wedges (a nice tart apple, like a Mutsu or Granny Smith) and dip in the caramel. The caramel will harden, zap it in the microwave until it's just starting to be soft- the next day, once it was completely at room temperature, it needed about 40 seconds in the microwave.

Alternate Caramel recipe
Caramel Sauce,
from epicurious.com

1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter
1/2 cup cream (fat free 1/2&1/2 again)

In a medium saucepan over medium/medium-high heat, melt the butter and brown sugar. Once the butter's completely melted, stir in the cream/1/2&1/2. Cook, whisking constantly, for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat, let cool until it's gooey (it's pretty liquid while hot), and drizzle over the cupcakes.
I actually used this caramel sauce recipe to go with the pumpkin bread pudding epicurious intends it for (ooh sneak peek above!) But it's delicious and a nice easier alternative (although honestly, I prefer the first recipe). Oh another bonus: this recipe won't pull your fillings out. I'm a little nervous the first recipe will.

Adding to my apple reportoire

I had apples. I had butter, I had sugar. I had an urge to do something I'd never done before.

So obviously, I made an apple tarte tatin.

It came out pretty good. I had some issues (I burned the apples in the middle of the pan, and as a result, it didn't come out prettily when I flipped the pan over), but even so, this is seriously one of the best apple dishes I've made.

I originally planned to make it for the same small dinner party I made the pork with roasted grapes for- but I decided it's better to make a tried and true recipe for dessert when your dinner is something new. So I saved this for when we had friends over for dessert, immediately following going out to a restaurant. This worked very nicely, although I'm still kicking myself for forgetting to serve the ice cream. I always forget the ice cream!
Apple Tarte Tatin,
from a guest post on Smitten Kitchen

Crust:
note: I followed the instructions exactly (this is rare for me), and used a food processor. I combined the dry ingredients in the food processor, then stuck the whole thing (not the electronic base, of course, just the bowl, blade and flour/etc) in the freezer for almost an hour. I diced the butter and froze that, and I use the chilled water that comes out of our fridge. It's important to keep everything cold, so that you get a nice, flaky crust.

1 1/2 cup AP flour
1.5T sugar
dash of salt
5oz (10T) butter
3-6T ice water

In the bowl of your food processor, whizz the dry ingredients briefly. Put the bowl and blade, with the flour still in there, in the freezer. Chop the butter into smallish pieces, freeze those. Chill the water. Leave it all for about 45 minutes.

Bring it all out, and add the butter to the flour mixture. Whizz until it's crumbly, then slowly add the water. I actually used the full 6T of water, and it was a little wetter than I thought it should be, but it was still good. It should come together, but not quite form a ball.

Turn the dough out on a floured or plastic wrap-lined surface, and pat into a dish. Don't handle it too much, you don't want it to get too warm. Roll into a circle big enough to cover your skillet, about 11 inches for me. Chill in the fridge while you make the apples (I rolled it up with the plastic wrap and laid it carefully on top of the egg carton to keep it from flopping or tearing.)

Apple filling:
7-9 apples, peeled and cut into wedges
1 stick butter
1 cup sugar

In a large skillet, about 8inch across on the bottom and 11 inches on the top (I used my Le Creuset braiser), melt butter over high heat. Once it's melted, remove from heat and whisk in the sugar, until it's dissolved. Spread around with a wooden spoon to make sure it's evenly distributed, then arrange the apple wedges all around, packing them in fairly tightly. You don't want to use all the apples you've already sliced, so don't crowd them all, or else cut another apple, as needed.

Return the skillet to medium-high heat. Let the apples cook for 10-12 minutes, and just leave them be! After 10-12 minutes, remove from heat and turn each of the apples over. Since they'll cook down, add in your extra apple wedges as needed. I added about 5 more wedges.

While that's cooking, preheat your oven to 375F.

Return the pan to medium-high heat and cook for another 5 minutes. Here I kind of poked around to make sure nothing burned, because, well, it did burn (I cooked over high, this is why I've changed it to medium high).

Now remove from heat, and take your crust and carefully place it over the pan. Be very careful to center it properly (approximately, you don't have to be exact), because the crust will kind of melt once it hits the hot pan, and you can't really adjust it.

Pop in the oven, uncovered, and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the crust looks done. Let cool for about 30 minutes, then carefully invert the pan over your serving platter. If your apples stick to the pan (like mine did), just pry them out and try to arrange. It won't be pretty, since they'll be so mushy and stuck, but it'll still taste good.
Another option? Cook up the apples as above, and use a storebought, frozen puff pastry. That's what Joy the Baker did, and since the star of the dish is the caramelized apples, I think it's a great short cut.

Apple Crisp, 2 ways

Our favorite desserts involve apples. Crisp, pie, tart tatine (can't wait to tell you about that one), or even a simple baked apple, sprinkled with brown sugar. They're all delicious.

Crisp is generally our go-to dessert in the fall, when we're practically guaranteed to have a giant bowl of apples somewhere in the house (we stock up at the orchards... my parents even buy a couple bushels at the end of the season at the orchard down the street from their house and give us half- so I really mean we're guaranteed to have apples). And over the years, since I first loved apple crisp, way back in middle school, the year grandma broke our oven and we were stuck cooking only with burners and a microwave while the kitchen renovation got going and finished (it was actually good timing, we needed a new range at the same time as my parents had been considering remodeling the kitchen). So starting then, and all through the rest of my childhood and young adulthood, I made apple crisp in the microwave. It was good. It was super fast. But when I moved out, I inherited great-aunt so-and-so's ancient microwave that could barely soften butter, not to mention it couldn't even fit a dinner plate. I needed a new apple crisp.

And thus began the search. I found a few that weren't really what I'd call a "crisp", they were more of a cobbler- with a cake or biscuit topping. My apple "crisp" has a topping of flour, brown sugar, oats and butter. I finally found a good-looking recipe on the food network website, which also called for tossing/soaking the apples in apple cider (bonus), but every time I baked that one, all the fruit was just soaking in butter, and that's not my ideal food.

But finally, I found the perfect crisp. I picked up the September 2010 issue of the Food Network magazine. I was offered a special subscription rate, but due to poor opinion by other foodies and food bloggers, i passed it up. But I was still curious- so when we were at BJ's one day, where all the magazines are discounted, I grabbed it. And honestly, I thought it was a nice magazine. I'm not sure why it's so unpopular.

Anyway. The magazine had a mix and match fruit "crumble" article- I gather the different between a crumble and a crisp is that the crumble has nuts added. That's cool with me! I followed their topping suggestions with my own fruit filling, and...

perfection. This is what I've been looking for.

Apple Crumble,
taken from Food Network Magazine, Sept 2010

Topping:
3/8 cup (1/2 cup minus 2T) chopped nuts: I like hazelnuts or walnuts, but FN also recommends pistachios, pecans or almonds
1/4 cup oats
1/4 cup brown sugar
3/8 cup (3oz) AP or WW flour
dash of salt
1/2 t cinnamon, or play with other spices you like
3T softened butter

Whisk everything but the butter together, then work in the butter with your fingers or a fork, until the mixture is crumbly and well-combined.

Filling:
fruit- apples, peaches, berries, pears, plums... play around!

In an 8x8 dish, place the fruit of your choice (apples, of course). I peeled and chopped about 5-6 apples, enough so that they were slightly mounded.

Top fruit with the topping, spread evenly around. The topping layer won't be all that thick, that's ok.

Bake at 375F for 40-50 minutes. Enjoy straight from the baking dish, or be more civilized and put it on a plate, with ice cream.

You'll note that I haven't added anything to the apples- no sugar, no spices. This is how I like my apple crisps and pies, just pure apples. By all means, add 2-4T sugar to your apples, some cinnamon and/or nutmeg, or follow the suggestions on the FN site, linked above. They have some good ideas. I also really enjoyed this crisp made with 2lbs of prune plums and 4 apples- normally I prefer my plums cooked alone, to enjoy them completely, but there simply weren't enough plums for this, and I didn't want to bake a single serving crisp/crumble at the time.


Apple Crisp, the 2nd way

This is a fun little single serving dessert- it's great if you want apple crisp, but there aren't enough people to require an 8x8 or 9x13 dish of dessert, and/or you're really not in the mood to peel and dice all those apples. I found it on taste spotting, and it just looked so cute I had to file the idea away.

Single Apple Crisp
taken from Jamie at My Baking Addiction

2 apples, washed and cored. Note: don't fully core the apple, just cut down far enough to get the seeds, and leave the bottom part intact. Make a well, not a hole. (if you accidentally make a full hole, that's ok- it's just easier if you don't. I have yet to remember not to make a hole. Do as I say, not as I do.)

Filling:
1/4 cup oats
1T butter, softened
1.5T brown sugar
1/2 t apple pie or pumpkin pie spice, or some cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger

Whisk dry ingredients together, then add butter. Mix with a fork or fingers until crumbly.

Stuff filling inside of apples- don't pack too tightly, the filling might expand as it bakes.

Place the stuffed apples on a baking sheet and bake for about 30 min at 350F. Drizzle apples with maple syrup or caramel sauce before serving.

Let's bake some pumpkin!

It's fall! The massive quantities of tomatoes I've had all summer are tapering off, but we've started getting all sorts of squash! And last week when I went to the grocery store, I saw one of my favorite sights: lovely, round orange pumpkins lining the front of the store! So I bought some. Then I bought some more, and then... well, they are heavy, you can't buy all these at once. (And I haven't even photographed all our squash yet)

Above are some cans of pumpkin (apparently very precious, we're still in a pumpkin shortage. And because everyone always trades this info, I bought these 4 cans at my regular grocery store, here in central MA, for $2.25 (small cans) and $3.19 (large cans). I got one white pumpkin, which I assume (but don't know definitely) is a cooking pumpkin. 4 sugar, or pie pumpkins, 2-4lbs each. These are much more flavorful than carving pumpkins, which are mostly bred for their size. So, if you carve a pumpkin and feel guilty about not eating it, don't. You wouldn't want to eat it anyway. Finally, I bought a jaradale (I think) pumpkin at Davidian Bros this past weekend, just because it was there, and it looked cool.

To use for cooking, the fresh pumpkins will be quartered, seeded (seeds saved and roasted/toasted) and then the flesh will be roasted, then cooled, pureed and drained. I'll freeze that to use later. The cans will be opened (much easier, and also, cheaper- I've read that from 4 small pie pumpkins (about 8 lbs) you get 2 cups of puree. At my store, 4 pie pumpkins are $7.96, and 1 can of pumpkin is $2.15, for 1.5 cups. But using fresh pumpkin is more fun.)

For my first pumpkin recipe of the season, I opened a can. it was easiest, and I hadn't planned to bake anything, really.

What happened was like when I made that pork posole a few weekends ago: I opened the Sunday paper to the food section, and a recipe caught my eye. This time it was "Fall Harvest Muffins," muffin with pumpkin, apple and all the good spices in pumpkin pie. And a streusel topping.
Fall Harvest Muffins
from the Worcester Telegram and Telegraph, it appears to be an original recipe by Alison Ladman

Ingredients:
for the muffins:
1 cup AP flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1.5 t baking powder
0.25 t baking soda
0.5 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1 t ginger (I would love to try crystallized ginger in this recipe)
0.5 t allspice
0.5 t cardamom
0.25 t cloves
10T butter (original called for 12 T)
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 cup pumpkin
3/4 cup apples, grated (2 small apples)
1/2 cup chopped, toasted nuts (I used hazelnuts)
1/2 cup dried cranberries (or raisins)

Whisk together the dry ingredients (flours, baking powder/soda, spices, salt).

Beat together butter and sugar. Add eggs, then vanilla and pumpkin. Combine well. Add the dry ingredients, stir til just combined. Add apple, then nuts and cranberries.

Scoop batter into 18 greased (or cupcake wrapper-lined) muffin tins (the original recipe said it made 12 muffins, but their muffins must have been enormous). Top with streusel topping, recipe follows- just spoon a bit of streusel onto each muffin, and press in gently.

Bake at 375F for 20-25 minutes.

Streusel Topping:
2T butter, melted
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup oats
1/2 t cinnamon

Whisk dry ingredients together, stir in butter, and press with fingers or a fork until combined. (Note: I used far less streusel topping than this for my 18 muffins)

We found these muffins to be rather delicious. The apple flavor is kind of hidden, but I love the combination of these spices. They do have a lovely pumpkin flavor, perfect for a chilly October morning. The only drawback is that the streusel topping gets soggy after a few days.

Good news: I finally discovered a nutritional info calculator for recipes (yes, I'm pretty oblivious). Per muffin: about 245 calories, 10.2 g fat, 43g carbs, 2.5g fiber, 3.5g protein.