the honey eater » recipes

Peach Pie

naomi — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:06:09 +0000

At the moment, I’m far away from home, in Stockholm to be exact. The days are long and constantly shift between clouds and blinding sunlight; you’re never quite sure if it’s going to rain or if you’re going to get a sunburn from minute to minute. I’ve been gone for nearly a week and still have another three weeks of traveling ahead of me. I can’t remember when I took a trip that was so long and so relaxing. Vacations like this make being an adult a whole lot of fun.

Because we’re gone so long (I’ll be away for a month in total) we decided to sublet our apartment. This meant that before we left we had to make some headway into the stocks of food cluttering up the refrigerator. Frozen muffins were defrosted, soups were eaten, and a big pot of vegetables was mixed up. I also had a single pie crust that I had to use, leftover from making these. The Saturday before we left I saw piles of beautiful peaches at the market and couldn’t resist buying a bag (or two) to help me use up that extra crust.

I may have mentioned it before, but I love having some pie crust at the ready, it means you can whip up a pie or tart in no time at all and everyone thinks you’re some kind of magic (and who’s to say that you aren’t?). Sunday morning, while Amir was still asleep, I rolled out my crust, peeled and sliced my peaches, tossed them with some sugar and flour and then threw it all in the oven. As I crawled back into bed, less than an hour later, Amir asked me what I had been up to and I said, oh so casually “there’s a peach pie in the oven.” The expression on his face said it all: some kind of magic. Eating peach pie for breakfast is pretty magical, even if you make it yourself (maybe especially when you make it yourself). We ate nearly half the pie that morning.

Peach pie

I was fairly conservative buying fruit because we were leaving and only bought 10 peaches. The pie was good, if a little thin. I’m upping the number of peaches because I believe a pie overflowing with fruit is always best.

I prefer to pre-bake my pie crust just a little so that the bottom gets nice and crispy. If you’re feeling lazy (as I often am) you don’t have to bother.

1 single pie crust

12-16 peaches
3/4 cup brown sugar, very lightly packed
4 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp or so ground nutmeg
dash of vanilla (optional)
milk or water for brushing (optional)
coarse sugar (optional)

Roll out pie crust and place in a buttered 9″ pie dish. Place pie dish in freezer. Gather up the scraps of dough and place them in the freezer as well.

Preheat oven to 425-degrees F.

Peel peaches, if desired, by cutting an “x” in the bottom and placing them in boiling water for about 30 seconds and then transferring the peaches to an ice bath. You can also leave them fuzzy. Slice the peaches about 1/2-1/4″ thick and place in a bowl. Stir in the sugar, flour, nutmeg and vanilla (if using). Set aside.

Your pie crust should be nice and chilled now, line it with aluminum foil, then place your pie weights in the foil and put the crust in the oven. Pre-bake for about 10 minutes, then take out the weights and let bake for another 5. Your crust should be white and might start to brown just a little. Don’t worry if it shrinks a little, that’s normal. If there are cracks, patch them up with some of your scraps, it helps keep the juices from flowing outside the crust and sticking to the bottom of the pan.

In the meantime, roll out the scraps of pie crust and cut out circles (or whatever shapes you prefer).

When the pie crust is ready, take it out of the oven, and using a slotted spoon (or your [very clean] hands) transfer the peach filling to the pie crust. Decorate with your scraps, brush with milk or water and then sprinkle with coarse sugar (totally optional). Cover the edges of your pie crust with a pie shield or aluminum foil. Place in the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the peaches are tender and the filling in bubbling. Serve warm with whipped cream or mascarpone cheese.

*This tea towel of Swedish endearments was given to me by my aunt and uncle shortly after they moved to Sweden. It is my favorite dish towel and only gets used for the most important of tasks, like wrapping still-warm pies.

Banana Pudding

naomi — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:14:18 +0000

Once upon a time, I worked in an office and made money. It’s true, it happened. One day, a swarm of consultants descended upon us and made us take the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator test. When we got the results, (I’m an INTP) I was described as a “mad-scientist”, often distracted with many projects going at the same time. Me? Distracted? Never!

I often feel a bit mad, but rarely like a scientist, except when I’m making caramel. When I make caramel I feel like an alchemist turning base elements into pure gold. That’s certainly what you get when you make the banana caramel that flavors this pudding, pure molten sweet delicious gold.

You don’t have to make the banana pudding, if you go just as far as making the caramel you will be more than happy. It’s delicious mixed into plain yogurt, or blended with milk and frozen into a banana sherbet. I would imagine that it’s also very good sandwiched between a two shortbread or some chocolate cookies. However, if you do make the pudding, oh if you do! it is manna from heaven. I like mine layered with homemade shortbread but do with it what you will. I challenge you not to eat it all in one go.

Banana pudding
Stolen, blatantly, from Francis Lam

If you have never made caramel before, go to Francis Lam’s original recipe for a more thorough description of the process.

For the caramel:

2 very ripe bananas, pureed until they’re the consistency of pancake batter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

Stir together the sugar and water and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer and wait for it to caramelize. Watch it closely and when it starts to turn nice and golden, take it off the heat. It will continue to cook a little. Stir in the pureed bananas, it will probably bubble up like crazy, it’s okay, keep stirring and soon you will have the magical elixir of life, banana caramel. Let it cool and then put it in the fridge, you will have more than you need for the pudding, but you will have no trouble eating it all.

For the pudding:

1-1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream, plus more for whipping
3 tbsp cornstarch
2 eggs
6 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup banana caramel
1-2 bananas
shortbread cookies (or whatever cookies you have on hand)

Mix a few tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch in a large saucepan, make sure all the cornstarch dissolves, set aside.

Heat up the rest of the milk and the cream in a medium saucepan until small bubbles start to form around the edge but the milk is not boiling. While your milk heats up whisk the eggs, sugar and salt into the milk-cornstarch mixture.

Slowly whisk the hot milk into the egg mixture.

Set the pan over medium-low heat and stir constantly, adding the butter a piece at a time. The mixture will begin to thicken and eventually will feel like pudding (if it lumps a little just whisk the lumps out). Once it reaching pudding consistency turn the heat to low and let it cook for another minute or so.

Pour the pudding through a mesh strainer into a bowl. Stir in the banana caramel and the vanilla. Lay a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the pudding’s surface, let cool completely before putting it in the fridge.

When your pudding is cool, try not to eat it all straight from the bowl. You can make one big pudding or (as I like to do) make several individual puddings in little glass dishes. You’ll want to crush some of your cookies and press them into the bottom of your dish. Then you’ll spoon in some of the pudding. Add a layer of cookies and a layer of sliced banana, then more pudding. More cookies, more banana, more pudding. Deck with whipped cream and crushed cookies. Let sit in the fridge for about four hours, to let the cookies soften and the flavors meld. Enjoy!

Blueberry Apricot Mini Pies

naomi — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 03:01:40 +0000

I’m in L.A. for a few days, visiting with my family and relishing the heavenly west coast weather. Cool and grey, it would probably be infuriating if I lived here and were wishing for summer and the beach, but it’s pure bliss coming from the inferno that New York has been this past week. As has been noted by more than one blogger, the east coast (and the midwest) has been suffering from quite a heat wave. It hit 103 on Monday and I steadfastly refused to turn on the oven despite my desire to make summer pies. On Tuesday, I caved.

I just couldn’t help it: I had apricots sitting in a basket on my windowsill, fresh blueberries left over from making soda, and a pie crust languishing in the fridge, before I knew it the oven was on. My handy thermometer told me it was over 95 degrees in our kitchen and I banished Amir, shaking his head at my foolhardiness, to the air conditioned living room/bedroom to save one of us from baking along with our desserts.

Let me tell you, dear readers, it was worth it. For dessert that night we each enjoyed our own little pie with a dollop of whipped cream, the fruit sweet and tart and surrounded by a flaky, buttery crust, a perfect ending to a smoldering day. Even Amir conceded that my baking had been a good idea after all, despite the fact that he thought I was suicidal at the time.

The next morning, while I put off packing, we ate the remaining blueberry apricot pies with a dollop of mascarpone on top; I would brave the most extraordinary weather for such an exemplary breakfast.

Blueberry Apricot Mini Pies

Blueberries and apricots are one of my favorite combinations and the moment apricots were in the market I whipped up the beta version of these pies. That was a few weeks ago but I didn’t measure anything and we ate them so quickly I didn’t have a chance to take any pictures. I made them again, measuring cups and camera in hand, just for you (because we didn’t enjoy them in the slightest).

For the pie crust*:

2-1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
14 tbsp cold butter
4 tbsp leaf lard
4-6 tbsp cold water

Whisk together the flour and salt. Using your hands, mix the butter and lard into the flour until the mixture forms pieces the size of large peas. Still using your hands, mix in the water, 1 tbsp at a time, until the mixture is moistened and just holds together.

Pour the dough onto the counter and push it away from you with the palm of your hand. Form the dough into two disks, wrap in wax paper and place in the refrigerator to cool for at least 30 minutes.

Butter four 1-cup ovenproof dishes. Roll out the dough, place it in your dishes, and place them in the freezer. Preheat oven to 425-degrees.

For the filling:

8 apricots, sliced into eighths
1/2 pint blueberries
1/2 cup sugar (I used demerara sugar, but you can use whatever kind you like)
1 tbsp instant tapioca

Mix together all the ingredients, set aside.

Place pie crusts on a baking sheet and pre-bake for about 8-10 minutes, until the dough begins to color slightly (you can skip this step if you’re feeling lazy, I sometimes do). In the meantime, roll out the top crust and cut into whatever decorative shape you like.

Fill pie shells with filling and cover with top crust.

Bake 30-35 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbling.

Serve at room temperature with a dollop of whipped cream or mascarpone.

*You will only need 1/2 this amount but it is always good to have extra pie crust on hand, so just toss it in the freezer until you’re ready to use it.

You can also substitute butter for the leaf lard.

Pistachio Cake

naomi — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:19:38 +0000

Last year, after I whined about the price of nuts in New York, my mom said she’d see if she could get me some nuts wholesale through one of her suppliers (if you didn’t know, she has a shop in Los Angeles). A month or so later, a guy comes by and delivers a 25-pound box of nuts, half almonds, half pistachios. 25 pounds! I got a bunch of bags and portioned out the nuts and stacked them in the freezer. We made it through the almonds fairly quickly, a short roast in the oven and they made a perfect snack. The pistachios however, lingered. Maybe it’s the shelling, and the fact that we’re lazy, or the mess that we make eating them. I’m not sure why, but a year later we still have the better part of 12-1/2 pounds of lovely bright green pistachios in our freezer. That is about to change. . . .

When we left for our European vacation this winter we asked our komsije (neighbors) if they could check our mail and keep an eye on the apartment. When I came back, not only were there piles of mail of the coffee table, but there were also gifts. This was my gift. It’s a nut grinder our komsinica’s mom sent from Croatia. I had been big-eyeing this cake for a while, but never could make it because I had no way of grinding the pistachios into a flour. You can imagine how happy I was to have that problem solved once and for all. It wasn’t long before this cake was coming out of my oven.

How sad that I had to wait so long! This cake is delicious on it’s own and is perfect with a cup of tea. It tastes like you set out to make a middle eastern pastry, but instead of layering the philo dough and nuts you ground it all together and made a cake. It is very moist, and not too sweet, with a toothsome, nutty crumb and ever so slightly perfumed by the rose water.

Pistachio Cake
Adapted from Breakfast•Lunch•Tea*

Don’t be put off by the large amount of rosewater, it has such a delicate flavor you hardly taste it. If you can’t find rosewater or just really hate it, you can substitute 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.

This is a fairly large cake, next time I might divide it between two pans and freeze one for later. However, we ate it over the course of a week and it was nearly as good on the last day as it was on the first.

for the cake:
250 g (about 2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
225 g (1 cup) sugar
grated zest of 1 lemon
2 tbsp rosewater
4 eggs
100 g (1 cup) ground almonds
100 g (1 cup) ground pistachios
50 g (1/3 cup) all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

for the glaze:
50 g (1/2 cup) pistachios, whole or chopped
50 g (1/4 cup sugar
juice and zest of one lemon

Preheat the oven to 350º F. Butter and flour a 10″ round cake pan.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Mix in the lemon zest and rosewater. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.

fold in the ground almonds, ground pistachios, flour, baking powder and salt.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for about 40 minutes or until a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

To make the glaze, heat the pistachios, sugar, lemon juice and zest in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar has dissolved and pour it over the cake.

*My aunt and uncle gave me this book for my birthday several years ago. I loved the book and visited Rose Bakery when I was in Paris in 2007. It is a very hip place with really good food, and though I’m not a Vegetarian myself, they have a lot of Vegetarian options on the menu, which is nice. A year or two later, an old friend (my roommate in college) moved to Paris for grad school. He sent me an email telling me he’d got a job at this place, the Rose Bakery, did I know it? Did I ever! I had the shortbread from this cookbook in my oven as I typed my response.

Lemon Meringue Pie and a Happy New Year

naomi — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:16:49 +0000

I am sitting here, in a friend’s apartment in Berlin with snow falling outside and fireworks going off, thinking of an appropriate way to sum up the past year. It was hard, it was a struggle, it was difficult and heartbreaking on so many levels for so many different people. In a year of hardship there were also a lot of wonderful things that happened: I started grad school and found a career that I truly love, my boyfriend completed his Masters degree and created a beautiful thesis project and, perhaps best of all, my grandmother survived her hip replacement and a heart attack and is up and walking and laughing again. It only feels appropriate to end this year with something tart, and a little sweet, and hope that next year (and the next decade) will be a better.

Lemon Meringue Pie

I had bought some Meyer lemons in the week before my break, with the full intention of making lemon curd. Of course, between one thing and another the curd was never made and the lemons were left unzested and unjuiced. Because Meyer lemons are so lovely (and so expensive) I did what anyone else would do, I packed them into my carry-on luggage and carried them to California. Yes indeed, to California where citrus fruit is plentiful and there are at least three trees on my parents’ block that are overladen with lemons. Ah well.

Lemon Curd
Adapted from Gourment, January and April 2001

Zest of three lemons (a heaping tablespoon)
1 cup lemon juice
scant 1-1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs
16 tbsp unsalted butter

Whisk together lemon zest, juice, sugar and eggs in a medium saucepan. Stir in butter and cook over low heat, whisking frequently, until the curd has thickened enough to hold the marks of the whisk and bubbles begin to appear on the surface, about 6 minutes. Strain into a bowl through a fine mesh sieve. Cover surface of curd with plastic wrap and let chill.

Meringue

3 egg whites
pinch of cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar

Whisk together the egg whites and cream of tarter until foamy. Slowly whisk in the sugar and continue beating until whites are glossy and form stiff peaks.

Preheat oven to 400º F.

Pour the curd into a cooled, baked 9″ pie shell. Heap the meringue on top, making sure to seal the edges. Use the back of the spoon to swirl the meringue and form peaks. Place in the oven and bake 8-10 minutes until the meringue is golden. Chill until ready to serve. Watch it disappear.

Gingerbread

naomi — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:48:31 +0000

I first made this cookies over ten years ago and I have made them every Christmas since. I usually create a sort of gingerbread UN, with gingerbread men from all around the world: a Scottish guy with a kilt, a Japanese woman wearing an elaborately decorated kimono, a French man with a striped shirt and a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

These are hands-down one of my favorite, and one of my most popular cookies. When my mom’s godson was smaller, we used to make these together and he’d always ask for them when he came to visit. One of my uncles always takes home three or four to eat with coffee. Because of all the molasses and spices, my college roommate used to call these the “bully of the cookie jar.” He meant that in the best of possible ways.

Gingerbread
Adapted from The Betty Crocker Cookbook

The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup cold water to be mixed in with the molasses. For some reason, when I started making these in New York, they felt a little dry so I switched to buttermilk (doesn’t buttermilk make everything better anyway?). If you don’t have buttermilk, use water, it’ll be just fine.

This is the recipe I used to make these.

2 tsps baking soda
3 tbsp cold water
6 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp ginger
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1-1/2 cups dark molasses (one 12 oz. jar Grandma’s Robust Molasses)
1/2 cup buttermilk

Stir the baking soda into the water, set aside.

Sift together the flour, salt, and spices.

Mix together the butter, sugar and molasses until well combined. Stir in the buttermilk.

Mix the flour mixture into the molasses mixture. Stir in the baking soda and water.

Chill for a few hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350° F. Roll out dough very thick (1/2″) (dough is sticky so use plenty of flour.) Bake for 15-18 minutes. Cookies are done when touched lightly with a finger, no imprint remains.

Gingerbread and Cranberry Meringue Tarts

naomi — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:30:39 +0000

As I sit here eating barley soup I would like to focus on what I’m not doing:

I am not writing a research paper
I am not cobbling together a portfolio
I am not getting high on Sharpie fumes while making a picture book
I am not even lesson planning

I am just sitting here enjoying the quiet in my head. And the barley soup.

Last night I had my last class of the year. Our final project was creating a “big book”, essentially a very large picture book (mine was 13″ x 19″), and an accompanying lesson plan. It was so much fun to see the books my classmates had made, they were so beautiful and creative, and some were just awe-inspiring. Everyone also brought in food and drinks to share. I had been wanting to make these tarts even since Ashley wrote about them on Not Without Salt. I’m so glad I did. Warm and spicy, tart and creamy, light and fluffy, they were a wonderful winter treat*. I had one for breakfast this morning.

Gingerbread and Cranberry Meringue Tart
from Not Without Salt

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Using your favorite gingerbread recipe (I will post my standby very soon)- roll the dough out very thin and gently lay it into mini tart pans.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Unmold the tarts and let cool.

Bring the oven up to 400° F.

Fill your gingerbread shells with cranberry curd and top with a dollop of meringue (I would have piped the meringue but I couldn’t find my star tip). Bake for 8-10 mintues, or until meringue has browned.

Cranberry Curd
adapted from Nigella Lawson via Not Without Salt

I believe I only used 1-1/3 cups sugar, but you might want to taste it before taking it off the heat. It was late, I was tired, I kind of lost track.

1 pound (5 cups) cranberries
1 cup plus 2 tbsp water
7 tbsp butter
1-1/3 cups sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
6 eggs, lightly beaten

Put the cranberries and water in a pot and cook over low heat until cranberries are soft and begin to pop.

Push cranberries through a fine sieve or a food mill.

Return the puree to the pan. Whisk in the sugar, butter, salt, vanilla, and eggs. Cook over low heat, whisking frequently, until the curd is thick enough to hold marks of the whisk and the first bubbles appear on the surface.

Transfer curd to a bowl and chill, its surface covered with plastic wrap or waxed paper.

French Meringue

the white of one large egg
1/4 cup sugar

Whisk the egg white until soft peaks form.

Slowly whisk in half of the sugar. Continue whisking until the whites form stiff peaks. Fold in the rest of the sugar.

* No only were they delicious, the tarts were a great way to refresh my apartment: when I came home I was worried that it would still reek of Sharpie marker, but instead it smelled of gingerbread, which was a very pleasant surprise.

Cherry Vanilla Bread Pudding

naomi — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:06:00 +0000

Let me tell you a story:

Once there was this girl who really liked this boy so she thought she’d make him bread pudding. Not just any bread pudding, but a chai bread pudding, where the milk is steeped with spices and tea and the final dish is rich, flavorful and complex. She looked through her cupboards and was happy to discover that she had most of the ingredients on hand, which was good because spices like cardamom can be expensive. She went over to his apartment to make this bread pudding in his (and what is now their) tiny kitchen. She warmed the milk, mixed in the whole spices and tea and let it all steep for an hour. She mixed the milk with eggs, and added the bread and let it soak for a half an hour. She put it in a big pan and put that in an even bigger pan and put all those pans in the oven (along with some hot water to make the bain marie) for fifty minutes. She pulled the bread pudding out of the oven, perfectly browned and beautiful and it tasted. . . . awful. One thing this girl had neglected to do was check her spices (who knew cardamom could go bad! and in such a bad way! especially after it sat in storage in Pittsburgh one hot summer and hadn’t been used for a good three years).

From that day on the boy had a very negative attitude towards bread pudding. It became a running joke, he would say “you can make anything you want, just don’t make bread pudding!” One day, the girl and the pudding decided to plot a comeback. While the boy was away the girl made him bread pudding sans cardamom with two of his favorite flavors, cherry and vanilla. And it worked! He couldn’t believe it was the same recipe, the same pudding just in a new party dress. He loves this bread pudding now and would happily eat it any day of the week.

Moral of the story: always check your spices, especially if they’ve spent an inordinate amount of time in storage during hot and humid months/on high shelves/not being used. And make bread pudding, it’s delicious.

Cherry Vanilla Bread Pudding
adapted from Martha Stewart

This is the most perfect bread pudding recipe. The bread and custard seem to meld into one beautiful, happy whole. It can be customized in a myriad of ways: add spices and use raisins instead of cherries, or go tropical with bananas, coconut and rum. You could add 8 ounces of chocolate to the cream recipe. If you’re brave you might add 1/4 cup black tea, 3 cinnamon sticks, a 2″ piece of peeled ginger, 8 whole cloves, 10 cardamom pods and 1/4 cup sugar to the cream mixture and let steep for an hour. You could possibly then strain said mixture, and mix it into the eggs. You could hypothetically then make a chai bread pudding for yourself, if you like, and if you have fresh spices.

I halved the recipe and made it in little individual cups (as you can see) but I prefer it in one big pan, there seems to be a better custard to bread ratio, so that’s the recipe I’m giving you. However, if you like, you can cut the recipe in half and cook it in 6-8 oz. baking dishes, just reduce the baking time to 40 minutes.

12 ounces brioche or challah, cut into 1″ cubes
2 cups milk
3 cups heavy cream
4 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup dried cherries

Butter a 9″ x 13′ baking dish.

Place the bread in a large bowl.

Whisk together the eggs, yolk, sugar, salt, and vanilla in a medium bowl.

Heat the milk and cream in a medium saucepan until just about to simmer. Slowly pour the cream mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Pour over bread, folding to combine. Let stand 30 minutes, tossing and pressing occasionally to keep the bread submerged.

Preheat oven to 350° F and put a kettle on to boil. Stir cherries into the bread mixture. With a slotted spoon, transfer bread to a buttered dish; pour liquid in bowl over the top. Turn the top layer of bread crust side up.

Set dish in a roasting pan and transfer to over. Pour boiling water into the roasting pan until it reaches about halfway up the sides of the dish. Bake until golden brown, about 50 minutes.

Chestnut and Kale Soup or a cure for holiday over-eating

naomi — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:15:11 +0000

We touched down in Newark at 6:00 Saturday morning and were in our double-wide matchbox of an apartment in Brooklyn by 7:30. After a breakfast of turkey sandwiches we settled in for a long winter’s nap. . . . that lasted two hours.

I went through the rest of the day feeling like I had a hangover without having had any of the fun that usually leads to one (unless a red-eye flight from L.A. to New York is your idea of a good time). Both Amir and I agreed that we were in need of a detox.

I had bookmarked this recipe before we went away because it seemed like a perfect post-thanksgiving meal, and it was. It was worth dragging myself to the market to get kale and a big bottle of chestnuts. It was worth soaking the beans. It was worth chopping the onions that always make me cry. It is surprisingly creamy, tangy, rich, nutty and sweet. It will cure what ails you, even if it’s just too much turkey and too many tacos.

Kale and Chestnut Soup
adapted from Gourmet, December 2003

I am so glad I chose this delightful recipe for the first (!) Gourmet Unbound*. It made three dinners for us and seemed to get better every day. I added a little water when I reheated it, and I added a little leftover rice on the last day, which made a nice addition.

I made some changes, which are reflected below. I cut out the pancetta, because I felt like it, and added butter, because it’s always a good idea. This soup was really perfect, tasty, healthy, and hearty.

1/2 pound dry white beans (I used cannellini), picked over and rinsed
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 (14-15 oz) can whole tomatoes in juice, drained, juice reserved, tomatoes chopped
3-1/2 cups chicken broth
2 cups water
1 piece Parmesan rind (you save your Parmesan rinds don’t you?)
1-1/2 cups (8 oz) roasted, peeled whole chestnuts, cut in half (or smaller, if you like)
1/2 pound kale, stems and center ribs discarded, ripped into bite-sized pieces (they suggest using Tuscan kale, but I used White Russian Kale because it’s what I could find, it worked splendidly)
2 tsp chopped fresh thyme
salt and pepper, to taste
grated Parmesan cheese

Soak the beans overnight or quick soak them. To quick soak beans: place them in a pot and cover with about 2″ of water. Bring to a boil and let boil for two minutes, cover the beans and let soak for one hour. Drain and rinse.

Heat butter and olive oil in a large (and I mean large, all that kale takes up a lot of space) 6-8 qt. stockpot over medium-high heat until butter is melted. Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 8 minutes. Add the beans, tomatoes with juice, broth, water, cheese rind, and salt and pepper, and simmer, uncovered, until the beans are tender, about 45 minutes to an hour. Once beans are tender, remove the cheese rind and stir in the chestnuts.

Transfer two cups of the soup to a blender and purée until smooth, then return to pot. Stir in kale and simmer, uncovered until the kale is tender, about 10-15 minutes. Stir in thyme. Served topped with grated Parmesan.

*I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone else cooked up for the month of December!

Pumpkin Spice Bread

naomi — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:21:08 +0000

There is a place at the farmers market that has the best pumpkin bread. It’s very soft and spicy and the perfect accompaniment to hot apple cider. I’ve wanted to recreate it and after I made pumpkin pancakes a few weeks ago and decided to use the leftover puree to try my old pumpkin bread recipe again.

You know what? It’s pretty good. It’s really good with plum jam. It was good enough to send a mini loaf to a friend for her birthday.

Still, it’s not my ideal bread, so I’m going to keep searching.

Pumpkin Spice Bread

This recipe is scrawled in one of my recipe books and I have no idea where it came from. When putting it down I neither mentioned where I’d found it nor what temperature to bake the bread at. Ah well.

Preheat oven to 325° F

Whisk together:
2 cups flour
5 tsp pumpkin pie spice (I use 2 tsp cinnamon, 2 tsp allspice, 1 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp cloves)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Mix together:

1 cup pumpkin purée
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup apple juice
2 eggs
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

Stir the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture until just moistened. Pour into a greased 9″x5″ loaf pan. Bake for 65-70 minutes.