Recipe: Rustic Onion Soup

All things end. But I don’t have to like it.

That’s what I wrote the day it became clear that my Cousin Helen’s cancer was both terminal, and progressing quickly. She was just short of eighty;  she lived with humor, grace, passion, and an undercurrent of strength.

My best friend called me last week to say her Dad is dying. I’m never ready for this news, always brought short by the inadequacy of words.

I took to the kitchen for my own comfort.  This soup is one to make on dark, cold days – be that the external or internal forecast. It’s not fast, but you can cry as you slice the massive amount of onions, and then, as they roast in the oven for two hours, you’ll start to pull it together as their earthy aroma permeates the house.

There’s a horrible rhythm to how these kinds of terminal illnesses go; be the time span short or long. I know it well – and I’m so lucky that Helen was there in the beginning to help me the find my footing, learn the language, and guide me through the maze.

This isn’t French onion soup. It’s got the onions, it’s got the croutons, and of course it has the cheese. But most of the onions are red. There are chilies, sage, and the base? Its turkey stock – but just use whatever you have on hand. According to Michael Ruhlman, you might even be better off with water.

I couldn’t care less about the authenticity of my recipe. I like the stock. And it’s even better if you have some leftover gravy to add to the mix, as I did this week. I like to add the roasted onions to the stock and then take a brisk walk in the cold, preferably with a happy canine companion, before I put the soup under the broiler with the croutons and cheese.

Helen taught me to stand my ground, to look death in face. Give all that you can, and recognize it’s not about you. Yet.

So, I’m off to be with my friend next week. I’ll certainly make this Rustic Onion Soup and some of the other rich, simple foods in repertoire.  My hope is to help sustain her strength, and make her laugh, to help her give all she can to her Dad.

Helen’s been gone three years, today. I can’t say how much I miss her. Or how grateful I am that she taught me that you can provide comfort, even at those thresholds where things change, forever.

“You get what anybody gets…you get a lifetime” – Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes

Sometimes, it takes chocolate to turn things around.  A brownie recipe labeled as the ‘Best-Ever’ should have that game-changing power.  And I needed these brownies, the subject of today’s Tuesdays with Dorie challenge to lift me out of a black mood.

The day started at 5 a.m. when I managed to break a spindle on the stairway. Later, I realized, at the half-way point, that I lacked the most important ingredient in an expensive recipe- an ingredient that can only be ordered online. Then I walked to the ATM machine to find it out of order, locked myself out of the house, and burnt my arm reaching in the oven. And I lost one of my favorite earrings.

It’s fair to say I was skeptical that these brownies would be the best ever.  But I had enough faith in Dorie to give them a try.

Rick Katz was the pastry chef in charge of the prep kitchen during the production of the PBS series Baking with Julia. Even though he never appeared on camera, Dorie Greenspan included Katz’s brownies in the series companion book, and in her own Baking: From My Home to Yours, and again in the baking lessons she gave to New York Times contributor Emily Weinstein, in 2010.

Clearly, the recipe is one of her favorites.  And if you like your brownies, dense, dark and intense, this is the recipe for you. It’s certainly the one for me. If they aren’t the best ever, they certainly are one of the best.

I did make a few changes, substituting in whole wheat pastry flour, cutting the sugar, upping the salt, adding toasted walnuts, and using the highest quality chocolate I had on hand. But it’s the mixing technique that really sets these brownies apart – check out the recipe at the blog of our host this week, Monica of A Beautiful Mess – you whip half the eggs to an meringue-like consistency, and then fold them gently into the batter.

I deliberately under-baked the brownies in a pan lined with parchment paper (a trick that makes life, much, much easier), and let them cool in the freezer for four hours (this really should be a part of the recipe – you can’t cut these brownies until they are completely cool) before I put them to the test.  And I may have had a glass of wine during that interval as well. There’s nothing wrong with setting yourself up for success, right?

Katz, whose resume recalls many Boston favorites (Harvest, Legal Seafoods, Biba) today owns his own highly acclaimed pizzeria, called Picco.  And the first item on his dessert menu is a Dark Chocolate Brownie Sundae. I’m positive no one who orders it ever walks out in a bad mood.

From My Bookshelves is an occasional book review series – featuring my cookbook collection. A few years ago, I pared my burgeoning cookbook shelves back to just the essentials. It had to happen. No one likes a hoarder. If I recommend a book, it’s because I’ve cooked from it and love it – not because someone’s given me a free copy.  Occasionally, I may review other types of food writing too.

Recipe: Bitter Greens with Spiced Almonds

Want to be a hero among your friends? Always volunteer to bring the salad. Much of the time, green salads are an afterthought – but they can be so much more.  Salad opens the palate at the beginning of a meal, or provides a refreshing respite at the end.

My go-to salad evolved from a recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks.

My friend Lisa gave me Matthew Kenney’s Mediterranean Cooking for Christmas back in 1997, the year it was published. The book focuses on the flavors of the Mediterranean rim – in addition to recipes from Spain and Italy, the countries represented here include Morocco, Egypt and Turkey. Kenney states in the introduction that his recipes aren’t necessarily traditional in technique, or even ingredients. His goal is to bring traditional Mediterranean rim flavor profiles to American home cooks. And how did he succeed, at least in my kitchen.

This book taught me that lemon, olives and chicken belong together, (Lemon Chicken with Pine Nuts and Green Olives), that cooked carrots (Moroccan Spiced Carrots) can be lyrical, and that peeling fava beans is a task worth doing, (Shrimp Paella with Clams and Fava beans), and that fennel in dessert (Fennel Seed Cake with Candied Figs) is a good idea.

But my two favorite recipes in the collection are salad dressings. The Cilantro Dressing with orange juice and cumin is perfect harmony of sweet and acidity. And it’s every bit as tasty on pakoras or fresh corn, as it on the crab cakes it once adorned in Kenney’s restaurant. The walnut oil dressing that brings together the Bitter Greens with Spiced Almonds has never failed me.  If you make it, try the leftover vinaigrette as a marinade for roasted beets. Serve the beets at room temperature after a few hours rest in the dressing, and sprinkle those spiced almonds (or spiced walnuts) on top. There’s an easy Thanksgiving side dish.

The book isn’t perfect.  Fifteen years on from when I first cracked its spine, I find a few of the recipes a little too sweet for my taste, and I have learned that pine nuts don’t need to be quite so ubiquitous. When I made the fennel seed cake last week, it was a little dryer than I remembered. Next time, I’ll incorporate the roasted figs right into the cake.

These days, Kenney is raw food guru, with restaurants in Santa Monica, Chicago and Oklahoma City. (Think about that: a successful raw food restaurant in Oklahoma.)I’m kind of skeptical of the raw food movement, but, with his talent behind the concept, I’m not in the least bit surprised by the success of his restaurants, classes, and many raw food books. And I’d love to try out one of his restaurants; for now, though, I’ll happily keep cooking from this book.

Recipe:Rosemary Caramel Apple Pie

Every year, beginning in August, my CSA starts inundating me with apples. It’s November now, and they are still coming; apples of every shape color and kind.  And, I’ve got an apple tree in my back yard, which drops its fruit long before fall officially arrives. So along with making apple sauce, apple jam, and apple crisp, I’ve been working on a new apple pie for Thanksgiving. A pie based on the idea that apples, salted caramel and rosemary have to lead somewhere good.

A quick web search will lead you to believe that Kraft invented the caramel apple in the 1950s. I don’t buy it. I’m not even buying Slashfood’s take it on it, that caramel apples originated in the late 1800s. Humans have been caramelizing sugar for thousands of years. Surely someone dunked an apple in the stuff, long, long ago.  Just because they didn’t do market research doesn’t mean they didn’t recognize a good thing when they tasted it.

I spent my college summers selling and making caramel; at an amusement park, in the Pike Place Market, and on the Seattle waterfront. I knew the recipe for caramel by heart – though it took me a long time to learn to stir the copper kettle, and smile at the customers, without splashing caramel on my arms at the same time. The burns hurt, but in food service, unlike show business, the show really does always go on. You can get some aloe and ice later, but you can’t walk away from boiling sugar.

That caramel all ended up enrobing apples; Red Delicious and Granny Smith, with or without peanuts, and with or without chocolate on top of that. There must have been a tray labeling system that to help us keep track of what kind of apple lurked underneath all those layers. I don’t remember, but I still have a strong preference for tart apples and I still know the recipe. It’s at the heart of every caramel I’ve ever made – even though I don’t have a copper cauldron and I very seldom want the temperature to reach 232° F.

Ideally, it takes two days to make this Rosemary Caramel Apple Pie. Infuse the sugar with rosemary and make the crust on the first day, and caramelize the apples and bake the pie on the second. You can do it in one day, but it builds more stress into an activity that just doesn’t need it.  After all, it’s just a pie; a big messy one that I think you’ll love. I know I do.

Recipe: Pineapple Chicken with Kale and Barley

It’s cold this morning. Today was my first dog walk wearing a heavy coat and gloves. And how nice it was to return to a warm, dry house, electricity, plumbing, and privacy; all the comforts of middle class infrastructure.

Just a few of the things that many of those hit hardest by Sandy last week are still doing without. When Barbara at Creative Culinary and Jenn at Jenn Cuisine sent out a call last week for the food blogging community to step up for Sandy’s victims, donate to the Red Cross, and to blog about comfort food, I knew I had to be a part of it.  Join us – read the posts, follow the hashtag #FBS4Sandy on twitter, and most importantly of all, please give to the Red Cross.  Last night a nor’easter rolled into the tri-state area. It wasn’t as severe as originally predicted, thankfully, but imagine facing a winter storm a week after your home and life washed away. Or even just without power.

You’d need something warm to eat. Something that reminds you of the power of love.

For me, that something is Pineapple Chicken with Kale and Barley. The dish itself descends from a recipe printed on the back of a box of Minute Rice (Polynesian Chicken) probably printed in the ‘60s. I’ve been eating it for as long as I can remember. It’s the thing I make for myself both in times of stress, and sometimes, just because I want to taste it.  A dinner my mother made just to please me. It’s what she left out for me the night she plunged into a dark place in her mind for a few weeks when I was 11, where she couldn’t ever remember she had a daughter. And it was one of the first things she made when she was well again.

It’s different now of course – now it’s my own recipe and a way I share myself with the people in my life. It seemed like the perfect dish for the aftermath of superstorm Sandy. I’ve only been on Staten Island once – to visit the Tibetian Museum there as a college student.  But I can’t get the image of those suburban streets, inundated with water, and tragedy out of my head. And all the echos of Katrina, and Hati, and so many other recent storms.

Global warming isn’t a threat anymore – it’s a consequence which we, and those who follow us are going to have to learn to live with. Or not. Our planet has changed, and it is time to own up to that change. Read Bill Mckibben’s book Eaarth. It’s going to take more than driving and flying less, more than fixing our food system, to tackle this problem. It’s going to take policy change – hard change that can’t be dictated from the top, but that must come from the ground up. We need to be willing to step up for each other, in politics and policy, every day, not just when the worst happens.

Today, let’s all give to the Red Cross and help the victims of Sandy. But let’s also think about what we can do now, before the next superstorm.  It’s coming.

Mervyn Bunter: Oh yes, my lord. My old mother always used to say that facts are like cows. If you stare them in the face hard enough, and they generally run away.
Lord Peter Wimsey: By Jove, that’s courageous, Bunter. What a splendid person she must be.
Mervyn Bunter: I think so, my lord.” – Dorothy L. Sayers, Clouds of Witness.

I almost skipped today’s Tuesdays with Dorie challenge. Buttermilk crumb muffins just don’t sound that enticing to me – especially since I still have a half dozen pumpkin muffins stored in the freezer.

Also, a plain muffin, with a trace of cinnamon and nutmeg for flavor, made from vegetable shorting and buttermilk? Not so much. But I really want to get back on the Tuesday with Dorie bandwagon, so when I saw the first harvest of cranberries at the market last week, inspiration finally took hold.

This recipe found its way into Baking with Julia courtesy of Marion Cunningham, who demonstrated it on the TV show. I wrote about Marion last winter when the TWD group baked her Irish Soda bread. Marion passed away in June, her long struggle with Alzheimer’s finally done. That alone, is reason enough to try her muffins.

It’s a pretty simple formula – you can see the recipe at easier than pie, the blog of our challenge host, Alisa. The trick with this recipe is to see it as a blank canvas. I replaced the shortening – something long since banished from my cooking, with coconut oil. Even if the verdict isn’t completely in on the healthy qualities of this fat, it it’s still a lot better for you than shortening. And, instead of buttermilk, I went with a half a cup of yogurt mixed with a half a cup of orange juice.

But the three additions that really elevated these muffins were fresh cranberries, orange zest and grated ginger. Mine are mini-muffin sized, perfect with coffee or tea. I am delighted to report the coconut oil worked beautifully. For this recipe, you blend together small pieces of the fat with the flour – just as you would for a pie. And just as for pie crust, imperfectly blended chunks of fat are an asset. As Marion said, “that’s what makes them tender.”

Tender they are – and the cranberries provide a sour note, unexpected, but lovely. The recipe is an important reminder that nearly ever recipe is an adaptation of another. In baking as in cooking, and in many other of life’s pursuits, we are lucky to stand on the shoulders of others. Like Dorie, Julia, and Marion.

Be sure to visit the main site for Tuesdays with Dorie, where you can see all the treats these simple muffins inspired.

Recipe: Pecan Caramel Popcorn Balls

It’s not too late to make a special treat for Halloween. I know homemade goodies are off limits for traditional trick-or-treaters, but, popcorn balls are always welcomed by anyone on door duty, and you can offer them to the neighbors you know when they ring your bell.

I love Halloween; the only holiday where we celebrate the kindness and generosity of strangers.  The history of trick-or-treating is  predictably, a marketing primer – even I can remember the days back in the ‘70s when not every house gave away candy, but it was a mix of treats and the kind of toys we all think of as party favors now.

But, those houses were disappointing to me as a kid. On Halloween, you want to walk away with a bag full of candy, not trading cards or a spider ring.  I recently read Sweet Tooth, by Kate Hopkins, and it reminded me what a thrill a Hershey bar, or a Snickers once was. ( I’d rather have hand-made salted-caramel today, but it turns out I am still a total sucker for Heath bars.)

Halloween is also a day we celebrate, and encourage odd behavior – which in the right doses and circumstances, is a very good thing. I’m not the kind of adult who dresses in costume, but I am also not above putting an animatronic spider and a really creepy clown out on my front porch, or carving a pumpkin. And I have never forgotten that the first time I rode the subway in New York City, on Halloween, I sat next to Death. It was awesome.

If you’ve never popped corn in a pan, this recipe is a great reason to give it a try.  Use a pot with high sides. Heat up 4 tablespoons of olive oil, with a few popcorn kernels, and the lid on the pot. When the first kernels pop, slide the pan off the heat, and add a cup of un-popped kernels. Back on the flame, shake the pot ( but you really don’t have to do it constantly) over medium high heat, holding the lid almost, but not quite closed (let the steam escape), till the popping stops.

The whole process, including popping the corn, and rolling the balls takes all of a half an hour. The taste of caramel corn, in a portable serving-sized ball. What more can you ask for?

It’s getting dark out early here this afternoon. It’s time to switch on that spider.

Recipe: Blueberry Pumpkin Muffins

I’m not going to make excuses for my blogging hiatus. Well, okay one. We had eighty days of pretty much straight sunshine here in Seattle. Really. Hardly any rain fell from mid-July through to the second week of October. Friends visited, trails were hiked, kayaks were paddled, day-trips were taken. And, I cooked of course – this year I really took my canning seriously – tomatoes, pickled peppers, creamed corn, and ketchup.

And I am, still delighted to be home. Delighted by everything I already take for granted in the is house, again, from the morning light, the 10 minute walk to Kerry Park, and the swing on the porch to the duel fuel stove.

So, for the last few months I haven’t spent much time at the computer. I’ve missed it – processing the photos, planning my posts, testing recipes, and most of all taking the time to write.  It’s good to be back – even if the sun is out this afternoon. It’s time that feels like an indulgence.

I came home from a farm buy pickup this weekend loaded down with squash, onions, beets and sugar pumpkins. Two of those pumpkins went into the oven to roast before I’d even taken my coat off.

My roasting process is pretty simple. Cut off the stem end – like opening up a jack-o-lantern, and leave the pumpkin in a 375°F degree oven, for an hour or so – depending on the size. Then turn off the heat, and leave the pumpkin in the oven till it is fully cooled. At that point, just scrape out the seeds, easily peel off the skins, and smash up the flesh with a fork. Use it, or freeze it into recipe-sized (can-sized) portions. It’s incredible to cook with fresh roasted pumpkin in January.

But it may be even better in October. While the pumpkins were roasting I started thinking of muffins – Pumpkin combined with apples, warm spices, and some frozen blueberries from the freezer stash. Early fall, with just a touch of late summer.  I made these muffins with a crumb topping, but you could easily leave it off, and with a swirl of cream cheese frosting, pass them off as cupcakes.

Roast a pumpkin. There’s really no better way to welcome autumn into your kitchen.

I should be packing. We’re a few days away from moving home. In spite of boxes and painting projects, all the endless detail arrangements, I still don’t really believe. But every so often, I get close. Like the day I took the dogs over to play in the backyard and saw sheer joy in their body language.

Or when I realized that this week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe, for Blueberry Nectarine pie, was contributed to the book and TV show by Leslie Mackie. It’s not only that Mackie is based here in Seattle, but her bakery is four blocks from my house. Macrina’s second location opened on McGraw Street in 2001. K.M. and I moved into the neighborhood in 2003.

For seven years, I bought Mackie’s bread, tarts and cakes, (and her book) because they are some of the best in my city and because the bakery itself is a wonderful neighbor. And this last year and a half during which I studiously avoided our neighborhood, except when necessary – to check on the storm drains or authorize some service for our tenants, inevitably I ended up with coffee and a morning roll from Macrina bakery. And a loaf of rye bread.

I was surprised to find that Mackie was featured on the Baking With Julia episode featuring tarts (part 1 and part 2) – not because her pastries aren’t something special – but rather because her specialty is bread. She opened Macrina after spending years baking at Grand Central – another pioneering bread bakery here in Seattle. I’m a sucker for nearly every variety of bread she bakes.

But I think I could get hooked on this pie too. I make my pie dough by hand (thanks to Kate McDermott), and I’m an all butter kinda girl. But I loved Mackie’s technique for pre-cooking the filling. The original recipie was for a blueberry nectarine pie, but since my CSA came through with blackberries and apricots last week, that’s what I used.

The filling held together beautifully – even though blackberry pie is notoriously runny, this one wasn’t.  I hope I get to try a slice of the original at Macrina one day.

I can’t help but feel as if this week’s Tuesday with Dorie selection was meant to be; an inevitable part of my homecoming. This pie is the last thing I’ll bake in our dark kitchen here in West Seattle. I’ll miss the proximity to the beach, but more how much more have I missed the light.

Don’t miss out on Mackie’s recipe, posted by our gracious hosts for the week, Hilary of Manchegos Kitchen and Liz, who blogs at That Skinny Chick Can Bake. And you can find out what all the other participating bakers did with this challenge at Tuesdays With Dorie.

When did biscotti become invisible? All the rage in the early ’90s, there is still a jar of these twice-baked Italian delights in nearly every coffee shop —some good, some bad, but nearly all just fine after a few seconds in a shot of espresso. But until this week’s Tuesday with Dorie challenge, Hazelnut Biscotti, I hadn’t tasted one in years.

I’m never going to let that happen again. If you leave the hazelnuts out of the equation, biscotti are easy to make. Make the dough – shape it into logs, bake it, cool it (I refrigerated mine overnight), slice it and bake again. The hands-on-time is way less than the average chocolate chip cookie, I promise.

But, once you factor the hazelnuts back in, things change.

Watching Alice Medrich (the baker who contributed this recipe to Baking with Julia) make the biscotti the whole process looks easy. It’s not.

Her method for skinning hazelnuts—boiling them for 5 minutes with baking soda, rinsing them in cold water and then slipping the skins off one at a time, is the best process I’ve ever found for getting this job done. But it’s still tedious and time consuming. Each nut must be individually skinned. On the show, Medrich makes this look like an instant process. But I knew, going into the recipe that it would take me at least a half an hour to skin a cup of filberts. And my guess was right on.

It’s a damn good thing hazelnuts taste so good. I love pecans and walnuts, but sometimes nothing but a hazelnut will do the job. Every time I skin a batch I promise myself I will never, ever do it again. But, inevitably, I do.

Many people know Alice Medrich as the First Lady of Chocolate. She founded (1976) Cocolat – a legendary Berkley chocolate shop (eventually a set of seven stores), after a chocolate epiphany in France. She is a pioneer of artesian chocolate in the United States. If it weren’t for Medrich, none of us would know about caco percentages, or realize that Hershey bars suck. If you haven’t read her books, (Cocolat and Bittersweet in particular), put them on your list, immediately.

I scaled the recipe up and added dark and white chocolate chunks. As Medrich says on the show, there’s no point in making a small amount of biscotti. There’s also no point in not adding chocolate.

You can find the recipe for Alice Medrich’s Hazelnut Biscotti on the blogs of our Tuesdays with Dorie hosts: Jodie of Homemade and Wholesome, and Katrina, of Baking and Boys. And you can see what all the participating bakers did with the recipe at Tuesdays with Dorie.