Apple of my eye: Maida Heatter's homemade applesauce

And we're back!

It's funny that after a week of the stomach flu (during with we were sustained only by turkey broth, toast, and Mott's applesauce) I would crave this. But homemade applesauce, like many things, is a completely different animal than the store-bought kind. It's brightened with a touch of lemon and not too much sugar. Chunks of fresh apples have a pleasant texture—a bit of a bite. I used a mixture of local ones from the farmer's market—huge red Romes and some hard green apples whose name I didn't recognize. Today I just used a bit of vanilla extract, but the lovely flecks of real vanilla bean make this superlative. Soon, soon—Shiv and I just made quite a purchase here. (Any suggestions of what sort of trouble we should get into with those? What do you do with a hundred and twenty vanilla beans???)

I copied down this recipe a long time ago from a funny old dessert cookbook my mom has. The pages are yellowed and the spine is broken, so you have to remove a bunch of rubber bands to open the book. I'm not actually sure any of the other recipes still get used, but the applesauce is a staple in my parents' house. I think, though, that tonight's version may be even better than the one I remember from home—perhaps it was the mix of green and red apples, which were particularly flavorful and almost floral in scent. I just ate a second bowl for dessert. (Addition: and a few spoonfuls with cornbread for breakfast.) It's worth making a bunch—applesauce freezes well and is perfect with pork chops or brisket . . . Stay tuned, more to come on that later.


Maida Heatter's Applesauce
12-15 Apples
Juice of one lemon
2 cups water
1/4-1/3 cup sugar
1 each cinnamon stick and vanilla bean
optional pinch nutmeg or mace (I did the nutmeg, not the mace, and added a quick shake of ground cinnamon, too.)

Peel, quarter, and core apples. Place in heavy pot with lemon juice. Slit vanilla bean, scrape, then add pod too. Add cinnamon stick. Add 2 cups water, stir.
Cook covered over medium heat 5-10 minutes until apples begin to soften. Uncover, and with a heavy wooden spatula (or potato masher) stir and break up the apples. Leave some chunks. Continue cooking and mashing until tender but not completely mushy. Add 1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar, stir, taste, add more if needed. Add nutmeg/mace/cinnamon if desired.

Mrs. L's Pumpkin Bread (with Cranberries!): All the Flavors of Fall

I had a wonderful first grade teacher we called Mrs. L. She played guitar and taught us to sing "If I Had A Hammer." We memorized Shel Silverstein and Robert Frost poems and wrote "books" of our own, illustrating them and writing dedications and all (that was my favorite part.) We counted down one hundred days of school and celebrated the hundredth with a hundred-yard dash, one hundred pieces of popcorn, and any number of other countable things in hundred-unit quantities.

At some point during that year (probably exactly this time of year) we baked pumpkin bread in her classroom and brought home a slice with the recipe. My mother—though a bit wary of the snot and dirt that might be incorporated into first grade classroom cooking—saved the recipe, and it's the one I still follow every fall. I know Shiv already recommended a pumpkin bread recipe, but the more the merrier, right? And hey, it's Halloween!


Today I played around a bit, adding tart cranberries and orange zest and substituting a bit of whole-wheat flour, throwing in a sprinkle of cloves and quarter-teaspoon of molasses—I'm not sure the recipe would still be recognizable to Mrs. L. She'd probably still recognize me, though. I don't look that different from how I looked back then.



Pumpkin-Cranberry Bread
Adapted from Susan Lohrer

Sift together in large bowl:
1 1/2 cup flour (I used 1 cup all purpose and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour.)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 C sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda

Mix in small bowl:
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 C cooking oil
2 eggs (whisked)
1/4 teaspoon each cinnamon and nutmeg
zest of one small orange
sprinkle ginger, cloves
1/4 teaspoon molasses (optional)

1 cup fresh cranberries, picked through (frozen is probably fine, don't thaw, just throw them in.)

Combine pumpkin mixture with flour mixture. Do not mix too thoroughly. Stir in cranberries. Pour into a greased loaf dish (original recipe says "well-Pammed." Does anyone use that stuff anymore? Is it bad for the ozone layer?) Bake 50-60 minutes at 350. Loaf is done when a toothpick comes out clean. This recipe makes one loaf. Let cool before serving—the flavors mellow and this really is tastier about half an hour out of the oven.

Notes: If you make mini-loaves or muffins from this, the cooking time is shorter. The cranberries are optional and kind of tart. I like it that way, but this recipe is traditional and great without them.

Also, If you are left with some pumpkin puree and don't know what to do, I highly recommend this recipe for pumpkin orzo with sage.

The Scent of Fall: Pear and Ginger Crumble

Some Sundays are so perfect—nearly to the point of being painful. It was so warm in the morning that we claimed an outside table at a nearbye cafe, took our sweaters off and sat in tank tops and teeshirts, bare arms drinking in the sun—can it be late October?

After the dog parade I couldn't resist the call of the little Sunday greenmarket, choosing a pile of burnished red Anjou pears and some battered looking yellow Bartletts. To my surprise, the scratched up Barletts peeled beautifully, and were ripe and perfumed, while the Anjous were a little crunchier, and less sweet.

Crumble/crisp was one of the first recipes I learned to improvise on, so usually I make these pretty much from memory. But I'd seen this recipe for Pear Crumble with Crystallized Ginger online, so I started from there, adding a few crushed gingersnaps to the topping and a little vanilla to the fruit. I substituted whole wheat flour for half of the topping flour, and made only a 9 x 9 square crisp (cutting the topping quantities in half.)


Sitting in the late afternoon light, reading the paper while the crisp baked, I was hit with a rush of scent. I am not exaggerating, this crisp might be the single best-smelling creation to have ever graced our kitchen. I had to make myself take it out of the oven—I wanted to bake it all evening, if only the scent could keep going. (Of course, then the handle fell off my oven, and then I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get it out...)

A warm scoop of this at the end of the day after a walk in the West Village and a few slices of John's pizza was pretty wonderful. Though a little dulce de leche on top wouldn't hurt. And I might try to add more of an acidic bite next time—replace half the pears with apples, or add cranberries to the mix. Once it cooled off, the pear-and-vanilla combo was a bit too much like the canned pears of childhood memory. But those didn't smell nearly as good.


Pear Crumble with Crystallized Ginger
Adapted from Bon Appetit (Oct 1998)

For topping
1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour (or all white if you prefer)
1/3 cup old-fashioned oats
1/3 cup (packed) muscovado sugar (or brown sugar)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon minced crystallized ginger
5 gingersnaps, crushed
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (I microwaved it a minute to soften it.)

For filling
About 3-4 pounds firm but ripe pears, peeled, cored, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon sugar (we don't like crisp too sweet)
1 tablespoons minced crystallized ginger
1-2 teaspoons unbleached all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter 9 x 9 baking dish. Mix first 8 ingredients in medium bowl. Add butter and rub in with fingertips or a fork until moist clumps form.

Combine pear slices and lemon juice in baking pan. Add remaining ingredients and toss to blend.

Sprinkle topping over. Bake crumble until pears are tender and topping is golden brown and crisp, about 45 minutes. (Start checking at 30 minutes) Cool at least 10 minutes. Serve warm. (Microwave if it's cooled off—this was not as good at room temperature.)

Overcoming a fear of poultry: Chicken marsala with mushrooms

You probably won't believe this, but Maggie and i don't typically compare notes on what we plan to cook until well after the fact, which is why it's tremendously amusing to me when we find ourselves riffing on similar themes (fig week being a perfect example). This week, it seems, we're all about sage. Admittedly, I'm pretty frequently all about sage. It's a star player in my pumpkin risotto, and for some reason always reminds me of home. It also figures pretty prominently on my take on Chicken Marsala; as Maggie pointed out in her pumpkin orzo post, sage is kind of bitter, which makes it an excellent foil for the sweetness of the fortified wine.

This is a recipe I've been kicking around for a while without actually getting the hang of it; mainly because I have spent most of my adult life harboring a fear of cooking poultry (dude, salmonella!) which has resulted in a long and varied history of dry and flavorless chicken dishes. This one was no exception--until now.

I'm not entirely sure what happened; probably something to do with my decision to make it more of a stew than it typically is, as well as the replacement of the boneless, skinless breasts of previous attempts with rich and savory chicken thighs. The decision to cook it all slow and low (a lesson my adventures with pulled pork clearly taught me well) may have helped, too. I won't point to any one factor, but I will say this: whatever it was, it worked, and I found myself with the luscious marsala I'd been chasing all these years.

I think that next time, I might take it a little further and make it into a casserole--a nice, herby biscuit top might be a nice juxtaposition--or perhaps an actual chicken pie, with a nice buttery crust (of course, I have to figure out how to make THAT, too, but what's life without a challenge?)

(and suggestions welcome, of course)



Chicken marsala, fear-of-poultry style

4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch cubes
8 oz shiitake mushrooms (stemmed and sliced)
8 oz baby bella mushrooms (stemmed and sliced)
1 medium-sized onion (halved and sliced)
1 c marsala wine (Note: use real, unsalted marsala. An acceptable cooking vintage is about $5, and vastly superior to the stuff you can get in the grocery store)
1 c chicken broth
2-3 tsp fresh sage, minced
1 tbsp butter (optional)
salt and pepper

1. In a deep skillet, heat up some olive oil and saute the chicken very briefly--just enough to color the outside completely. 2 minutes, tops. Remove from the skillet and set it aside.
2. Heat up more oil! Reduce heat to medium and sauted the onions until they're translucent.
3. Add the mushrooms, and continue to saute until they become soft and juicy.
4. Add the marsala, stirring occasionally until it starts to simmer.
5. add the chicken broth; again, wait for it to start simmering.
   
6. Add the sage, simmer for another minute or two
7. Add the chicken, reduce the heat to low and then cover, cooking until the chicken is cooked through and delicious--somewhere between 10 and 18 minutes, depending on the size of your pot.
8. (This part is optional): If you're feeling really enterprising, when everything is cooked, remove it from the pot using a slotted spoon, and make a great sauce by whisking a little flour and butter into the juices that remain. Mix it back in or just pour it over. Or, serve it on its own as something to sop up with a nice piece of bread.

I served this with yesterday's beet salad and a nice whole wheat bread, but i think it would be equally nice with a green salad or some roasted brussels sprouts.

OH HEY ALSO: did we tell you that we started a flickr pool? if you have pictures of recipes that you'd like to add, join us here!

Give beets a chance: Simple beet salad.

In Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume, all the characters are (in one way or another) having a love affair with the beet. Most of them don't even realize it; they haven't fallen for the humble vegetable's more obvious charms--the silken flesh, the exquisitely agonizing color, the sweet and earthy taste. Instead, they are unwittingly under the spell of the beet's lesser-used and extremely fragrant pollen, which is apparently the great secret of everlasting life.

Much as I'd love to live forever, I think I'll leave the pollen for the characters and stick with the beet itself. Not only do I find myself drawn to the nearly obscene red finery, but i'm a little in love with the names of the different varietals: Burpee's Golden! Will's Improved Blood Turnip! Albina Veradura! Beta Vulgaris! Don't they just sound like a cross between your crazy aunt and her man-eating tentacula plant?



With visions of that strange mental picture dancing in my head, I set about making a simple beet salad for Sunday's supper. Seriously, seriously simple. Three ingredients simple. And perfect for a transitional fall night--tangy, creamy, velvety...and guaranteed to stain anything it comes into contact with, so really and truly: try to have some latex gloves on hand while handling these things. Unless Lizzie Borden is your new fashion statement, that is.

Bingo Pajama would approve.



Seriously simple beet salad

4-5 medium sized beets (about the size of your fist)
Goat's cheese (a nice creamy chevre, ideally. I used what was leftover from the figs)
Balsamic vinegar

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees; wrap your beets firmly and individually in foil. When the oven hits temperature, pop in the beets and roast them for about 45 minutes, or until soft. DO NOT peel them first. Doing so will deprive you of the fun part.
2. When the beets are done, let them cool until they can be handled comfortably. Snap on your latex gloves and rub the skins off. It will look gory. I am not kidding about the gloves.
3. When peeled, cut them into 1-inch chunks (or so), swish them around with some balsamic vinegar (according to your personal taste). Some salt and pepper, too, if you're so inclined. Then, crumble the goat's cheese on top and you're in business!
   

I know beets aren't everyone's cup of tea, but i do encourage you all to try this, at least once.

Dinner for One: Pumpkin Orzo with Sage

Our current domestic arrangement leaves me in New York on my own a few nights a week. This has its downsides, clearly. Things are better when he's around. I have trouble sending myself to bed on time, and there feels like less differentiating my day alone at a desk from my evening in the apartment. On the upside, though, I can watch all the bad television I can handle and eat whatever appeals to me without worrying about another person's preferences. Often, these meals involve eggs (which Matt dislikes) and/or bacon (which he could take or leave.) Carbonara is a favorite. Roasted cauliflower with a fried egg on top got me through last winter. But this one he would have liked.

Like many of you, I've been watching Spain: On the Road Again on PBS, so Mario Batali was on my mind. This recipe was inspired by his Pumpkin Orzo recipe in the Babbo cookbook. Instead of following his instructions, which include making homemade pumpkin or squash purée, cooking orzo in boiling water, cooling it in an ice bath and then letting it dry on a baking sheet (geez!) I decided to simplify. Remembering Clotilde's method for absorbtion pasta, I simply prepared this as if it was risotto. It yielded a velvety pasta that was quite integrated into a thick pumpkiny sauce, almost a pasta pudding, with vibrant savory notes thanks to the balsamic and the sage.


The sage plant on our balcony has spread to fill a huge planter that the previous tenant left behind. Try as I might, it's hard to use that much sage. Sage is strong, even to the point of bitterness, and there are only so many olive-oil fried sage leaves one can eat. (Though those are awesome, like sagey potato chips!) I do think sage is essential in this dish, though Mario did not include it in the Babbo recipe—sage really stands up to the pumpkin flavor, preventing this from becoming another pumpkin dish that could easily fill a pie. After tasting the combination, I found myself out on the balcony tearing out more leaves to rip up and sprinkle onto my plate. Don't skip the sage!

Pumpkin Orzo with Sage
Adapted from Mario Batali
Serves 2

Splash olive oil
1 T butter
2 shallots
1 cup orzo
3 cups chicken stock (or vegetable if you're avoiding meat)
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
2 T honey
2 T balsamic vinegar
4 sage leaves, ripped, plus 10 or so for garnish (don't skip!)
pinch brown sugar
1-2 cups hot water, if necessary
sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Heat chicken stock and wine together until lightly simmering. Saute onions in butter and olive oil in a medium sized pot until soft (I used a six-quart enameled dutch oven, which worked quite well.) Add orzo and 4 sage leaves and stir, cooking 1 minute. Add stock/wine mixture by the ladleful, stirring constantly and pausing to let the stock absorb as you would for risotto. After you've added about half the stock, stir in the pumpkin, honey, balsamic, and sugar. Keep adding stock until it's gone, letting the pasta absorb. After 8-10 minutes, check the progress of the pasta. Add hot water if necessary, ladleful at a time, until pasta is cooked. Sauce will be quite thick. Sprinkle generously with salt and freshly ground pepper. Garnish each serving with ripped sage leaves.

It's fig week! Roasted figs with goat's cheese and prosciutto.

Figs and I have a tempestuous relationship. When it's on, it's ON--I am a slave to the fig's sticky sweetness and hidden depths, and there is nothing that can bar me from its dusky beauty. When it's off, however, the love runs cold, and nary a thought is spared for my dear, figgy friend.

And usually that's fine.

The problem with this strange and mercurial relationship is that far too often when the need descends, fresh figs are nowhere to be found (I blame my inattention; I wouldn't be at my beck and call, either). It happened a few weeks ago, and took me until last Friday to finally source some of the elusive fruit, purchased from a shady vendor on 6th avenue and carefully shepherded through a long evening of whiskey-drinking (except for the part where a crazy dude on 1st avenue tried to trip me with his cane, causing me to lose a few to the east village gutters). It was a challenge, but somehow I managed to get them home and make the salty-sweet treat I'd been planning over the past week: Roasted figs with prosciutto, goat's cheese, and honey.

Let me repeat that: roasted figs with prosciutto, goat's cheese, and honey.



Oh, oh yes.

I'm sure you can understand why I pursued this dream despite the mocking absence of figs; I'm sure many of you can conjure, as I did, the glorious juxtaposition of the syrupy fruit; the creamy, tangy cheese; the salty, chewy prosciutto. You can almost see the honey dripping lasciviously over the top of the snowy peaks, almost smell the irresistible miasma...



...whew, got away from myself for a second there. But if nothing else, that supports my case: if something makes me write like a second-rate Harlequin scribe? It MUST be good.

Roasted figs with prosciutto

12 medium-sized figs, quartered at the top along half the length of the fruit
4 oz chevre
1/4 lb prosciutto, sliced thin
a few tablespoons honey
a few tablespoons balsamic reduction*

The true beauty of this recipe is its simplicity: stuff the figs with the cheese. wrap with prosciutto. drizzle with honey. bake at 400 degrees for ten to fifteen minutes. Drizzle with more honey and balsamic. Share them with a friend for a delicious dinner, or put them on a pretty plate with extra honey to serve as hors d'oeuvres. Or, eat them all yourself. With gusto. And a green salad.

*Balsamic reduction: pour a bottle of balsamic vinegar into a saucepan and boil it until it's reduced by half or more--it will be sweet and decadent, and make everything look super gourmet.

Ta da!

Signs of fall: Pumpkin bread.

This recipe is a shout out to one of our lovely readers, who not long ago asked us for suggestions on how to best use her fabulous homemade pumpkin puree. As a certifiable pumpkin junkie, I have one or two suggestions to offer on this subject, but this delightful pumpkin bread seemed the best place to start: it's easy, it's luscious, it's delicious, AND it's low fat (I mean, if that sort of thing matters much to you). Great for gifts, potlucks, breakfast, afternoon snacks, and mopping up that pesky leftover dulce de leche from the other week.



Also, it has enough spice in it to blow a small country off the map; this is, i assure you, intentional.


pay no attention to the horrible state of my manicure. thanks. Photo courtesy of The Boy, my beloved Thelonious Bench

So without further adieu...

Spicy pumpkin bread

1 ½ c all-purpose flour
1 ¼ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves (equal parts; i don't even measure these anymore, but if i had to guess i'd say at least 2 tsp of each)
15oz of pumpkin puree (if you've not got homemade, that equates to about one can of pumpkin from the store)
1c firmly packed light brown sugar
½ c buttermilk
1 large egg
1x1.5-in knob of ginger, grated with your trusty microplane
seeds of one vanilla pod (squirrel away the husk for future use; when I come up with a good use for it, I will post it. But until then, waste not, want not!)

a handful or two of white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. spray a loaf tin with nonstick spray (or butter it. Whatever.)
2. Mix flour, baking soda, salt, and spices together in a small bowl.
3. In a large bowl, mix pumpkin, sugar, buttermilk, and egg together.
4. Add dry ingredients to wet, mixing just enough to moisten everything (overmixing will make the bread tough). Fold in chips.
5. Pour into prepared loaf tin; bake for one hour. Slather with topping (*cough*dulcedeleche*cough*), or just wolf it down as is.
   

Essentially, what you have here is autumn in loaf form. Use it liberally and wisely.

Hazelnutter (or, Penne al Fiorentino with a dash of nostalgia).

For a brief and shining period after my escape from college, I was the Brunch Queen. What this meant was that on any given weekend, I was the undisputed master of wrangling up to twenty of my nearest and dearest for brunch at a nearby eatery (an endeavor that, as my father would put it, was not entirely unlike herding cats). The food at our favored establishment was, at best, mediocre. But, for $12.95 with bottomless drinks included, we reappeared faithfully, with a rotating cast of boyfriends, girlfriends, and food obsessions.

My perennial favorite was the penne al fiorentino, lush and green and rich with ricotta and spinach.



As the brunch klatch fell apart (some say it was that we grew up; others that the restaurant started watering down the drinks more than was excusable), I found myself patronizing this eatery less and less...but I never forgot the penne. Despite the fact that during the period in which i loved it, my palate was not sophisticated enough to really parse its flavors, I promised myself that I would make it for myself someday...or perhaps even something better.

Fast forward to Tuesday afternoon. I find myself at my desk, mentally inventorying the contents of my fridge in preparation for the evening. Among other things, I come up with: half a container of ricotta cheese, a gorgeous bundle of fresh sage, some hazelnuts and half a bag of baby spinach. I.e., the perfect cast of characters to create my new, improved penne al fiorentino. On the way home I also pick up some portobello mushrooms and some asparagus, because much as i enjoy the nutty give of whole wheat pasta, I always love a little textural variation--and the meaty chewiness of the mushrooms and the sweet green crunch of the asparagus are just what the doctor ordered.



When I get home, I toast the hazelnuts in a skillet, enhancing their nutty richness and making the next step of removing the skins far easier: while still hot, just toss them into a tea towel, twist it closed and sort of massage the hazelnuts. The steam from their toasting will loosen the skins, and the friction of contact will start to pull them off. It's not necessary, but it is neat!

(That is the most complicated part of the recipe, I promise.)

Once the nuts are dealt with, all you have to do is pull out your trusty mini-food processor (best $40 i've spent on my kitchen; I can't recommend getting one of your own highly enough) and toss into the bowl: garlic (mass quantities), ricotta, parmesan, spinach, sage, olive oil, and the hazelnuts. Pulse it until it's a heady, green-flecked, aromatic paste. At this time, you may need to summon up every ounce of your personal willpower to resist just shoving it into your mouth by the spoonful--it smells that good.



Meanwhile, cut up your asparagus into inch-long pieces (mushrooms, too); saute the asparagus until it's crunchy, the mushrooms till they're not. Then throw everything (green goodness included) in with an entire box of cooked whole wheat penne.

I promise I won't say a word if you consume the whole pot. I very nearly did.

The concoction bears only a passing resemblance to the pasta of the brunch days--it's gooey and creamy and green and highly addictive, but far more complex and savory--but my nostalgic heart likes to pretend that this is how good it was, when brunch was the highlight of my week, when I was young and poor and innocent and brave.

Penne al Fiorentino, sort of.

1/2 lb shelled hazelnuts
1c ricotta cheese
4-6 cloves garlic
3 good handfuls of baby spinach
small handful fresh sage, roughly torn
1/2 c shredded parmesan cheese
olive oil
salt
pepper

1 box whole wheat penne, cooked according to directions

1 bunch of asparagus, cut into 1-inch pieces
2-3 portobello mushrooms, also cut into 1-inch pieces.

1. In a large skillet, toast the hazelnuts for 2-3 minutes over medium-high heat. Be careful not to burn them--hazelnuts scorch quickly. When they're brown and aromatic, place them in a kitchen towel; twist the towel closed and massage the hazelnuts together vigorously to remove the skins. Discard the skins.
2. In a food processor, mix together nuts, garlic, ricotta, parmesan, sage, spinach, salt and pepper, moistening with olive oil until it achieves a chunky, paste-like consistency. Tinker with the amounts until it tastes irresistible to you.
3. Meanwhile, saute your asparagus in a little olive oil and salt over medium-high heat until it is bright green and just tender--just a few minutes. Remove them from the skillet and set them aside.
4. Reduce the heat, and in the same skillet, saute your mushrooms until they are meaty and juicy; add a dash of balsamic vinegar if a little extra acidity floats your boat.
5. When everything is juicy and warm and smells so good that you can barely stand it, throw it all together with your freshly cooked and drained pasta--sauce, veg, everything. Garnish it with a little extra parmesan and some chopped hazelnuts. You will not regret it.
   

onions for dinner

They were just so cute, and I'd just seen the recipe for Balsamic Glazed Cippoline on Smitten Kitchen. Since Matt considers vinegar to be an essential food group, I knew I had to try it.

They cooked up nicely (though the peeling took a long while) and the sauce thickened (with the help of half a cup of spaghetti sauce—brilliant!) to a gloriously rich goo. I seared up a little steak, which we served on polenta with the onions and sauce on top.


The reduced vinegar sauce was velvety and delicious. Accenting the steak perfectly, it mixed with the juices and brought out a sweet tang in the dish, reminding me of demiglace or some other high-effort sauce.

By the end of the meal, though, we both were sort of onioned out. It was a lot of onions, no matter how cute and delicate they were. But I would make the sauce again—maybe with a mix of onions and mushrooms? Sweet and sour portobellos? On lamb? Or salmon, even?


Here is the recipe, adapted from Mario Batali by the amazing Deb at Smitten Kitchen.

all the ways

The chili I grew up with is Cleveland chili—not Cincinnati chili, exactly, but a far cry from a Texas Bowl of Red. Cincinnati chili arrived in Ohio from Macedonia and/or Greece; it's a modified stew with warming spices of cinnamon, cloves, and chocolate.


My mom's version was the main course at large gatherings of my father's colleagues and students—the title of the recipe handed down to me is "Lab Party Six-Way Chili."

It's the garnishes—the ways—that make the dish. Cincinnati chili is traditionally served over spaghetti (or a hot dog) but we use macaroni. Kidney beans are non-negotiable for me. Then, cheese on top (cheddar or monterey jack), raw onions, green olives, jalapenos if you want. Sour cream (I don't like it.) Avocado with a little lime juice if you happen to have it around.


Chili is the right thing when the sky is gray, the stock market falling. It's cheap, it multiplies well, it's comforting and filling. It's forgiving and flexible. You can use more beans and less meat, depending on your preference. Other vegetables too: eggplant, maybe, a canned chipotle in adobo. Pile with toppings and sit in front of the tv. My mom visited this weekend, and left again, which always leaves both of us feeling a little bereft. But now I'm armed with chili in the freezer.

Lab Party Chili with All the Ways

1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chipped
2 T olive oil
1 lb ground beef, bison, turkey, or lamb, or some combination
1 large can tomatoes...keep another on hand in case it doesnt seem tomatoey enough to you.
1 cup water (put it in the tomato can to get the leftover juices)
1 green pepper or two cubanelle, sliced small
2 T bottled jalapeno peppers, chopped
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 to 1 1/2 tsp cumin seed
1 bay leaf
1 T chili powder (I increased this a little)
1/4 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 oz grated unsweetened chocolate (I used unsweetened cocoa powder)
2 cans kidney beans

Garnishes:
macaroni
chopped raw onions
shredded cheese
sour cream
sliced olives
jalapenos
avocado with squirt of lime

Brown the onion and garlic in a dutch oven. Add meat and brown (drain fat if meat is not extra lean.) Add remaining ingredients, simmer over low heat for 40 mins or an hour. It's even better if you cook it, cool, refrigerate overnight, and cook another hour the next day.

Serve over macaroni, with garnishes of your choice.

muffins for moving day

Two of our best friends are moving from Manhattan to Astoria this weekend. It's an overwhelming task, coming home from work late on a Thursday and trying to put an entire apartment into moving boxes, arriving Saturday to find out the couch doesn't fit in the new place, and somehow setting up a home before going back to the office Monday.

We're headed over there to help unpack, and I wanted to bring something comforting, so I turned to Smitten Kitchen. Deb's recipe for Jacked Up Banana Bread struck me as a particularly fall-like recipe with its cinnamon and nutmeg, cloves, and bourbon. These are warming flavors, perfect for a rainy morning breakfast as our friends try out their new morning commute. I increased the bourbon, added walnuts, and substituted cornmeal for some of the flour. They're not that corny—you could try shifting more toward the cornbread side. I would also cut the sugar a bit more, especially if your bananas are superripe.


Fall Banana Muffins
(adapted from Smitten Kitchen and Simply Recipes)

Makes 12 muffins

4 small ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted butter
1/2 to 3/4 cup muscovado sugar (light brown sugar would be fine)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoon bourbon
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
1 cup of flour
1/2 cup of cornmeal
1/2 cup walnut pieces plus more for sprinkling on top

Preheat the oven to 350°F. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, vanilla and bourbon, then the spices, baking soda and salt. Add the flour and cornmeal last, mix gently but do not overmix. Add 1/2 cup walnut pieces and fold in gently. Spoon into a lined muffin tray. Sprinkle walnut pieces on top of each muffin. Bake for 20 minutes, allow to cool five minutes in tray before moving to a rack to cool.

miso cod and the triumphant return of the roast potato.

Growing up in Northern California, these things called seasons were more or less a mystery to me. Winter was marked by two weeks of rain; summer by the dry heat that would spring up to the mid-nineties before plummeting back down to the year-round evening average of 45. I didn't own a proper winter coat, and I certainly paid no attention to changes in the offerings in the produce section. The only seasonal markers I had with regards to food came around the holidays, when we would bake about a quarter of a million pounds of lebkuchen, my family's traditional Christmas sweet, and high summer, when my mother's tomato plants would leave us awash in bushels of the divine fruit (and the ants that loved it, and drove mom crazy).



Now that I live on the east coast, i try to take a little more pleasure in the change of the seasons. While i continue to blithely serve asparagus in October and make risotto in deepest July, I do make a bit more of an effort to be a bit more seasonally appropriate; with the first whiff of cool air, I happily trade in my fresh limas and heirloom tomatoes for parsnips and chard (though I will admit to a certain reticence when it comes to giving up my peaches). I also merrily resurrect that old rascal, the roast potato.

Last night marked its reappearance in my culinary bag of tricks; paired with miso-glazed cod and roasted (okay, more like incinerated, but that's how i like it) asparagus, it made a meal that was more than a match for the curious transitional weather we're experiencing here in Gotham City. I branched out a bit, using fingerling potatoes (blue and creamy red), to mixed results--though colorful, they lacked the waxy sweetness i was anticipating; however, the delicious, chewy and salty skins more than made up for it.

When planning this menu, I hemmed and hawed for a bit, wondering if the three components were too different to create a cohesive dish--after all, shouldn't i serve asian-style fish with rice? shouldn't the asparagus be steamed in this context? i thought about it for a solid two minutes before coming to the conclusion that has become my mantra where cookery is concerned: fuck it! If it tastes good, who the hell cares?

Words to live by, if ever.



Miso-glazed cod

1 slab of cod

2 tbsp red miso paste
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp sake
1 tsp brown sugar
drizzle sesame oil
drizzle soy sauce

Preheat your broiler.

Combine all the wet ingredients, plus the sugar. all the amounts are estimated--taste and tinker until you get the amounts you like. Place the cod in a zip-top bag, and pour the marinade over it; toss to coat evenly. Place the bag in a shallow dish and put it in the fridge for as long as you have time.

Place the fish under the broiler for approximately five minutes a side (take it out of the bag first, obvs)--excess glaze in the pan will probably start to scorch a little, which will rather perversely make your kitchen smell divine. delish!