Lemon Bellinis for the Solstice

This year three friends and I celebrated renewal and new beginnings with a lemon themed meal. Introducing a smart young lady to two smart ladies further into their adventures over three courses and conversation.

We had so much fun I forgot to take a single photo, nary a one of any dish. And it all tasted so good, is so simple to prepare I'm going to share the recipes with you anyway...I have complete faith these will turn out perfect for you.

It is hard to go wrong when kicking off any gathering with Bubbly. By using alcohol free champagne and omitting the Limoncello kids can join in the toasts. I hope you enjoy these between now and Epiphany.

Lemon Bellinis

1 bottle of Sparkling Wine - I prefer Gruet or Fre if going alcohol free
1 pint lemon sorbet (see below for a recipe)
Limoncello - I love Paula's of Austin

Place a melon ball scoop of sorbet (1/2" sphere) into the bottom of each flute
Cover with Limoncello
Complete by filling the glass with Champagne


Lemon Sorbet

8 oz water
8 oz lemon juice
5 oz agave syrup
1 tsp Penzey's lemon peel powder

Blend all the ingredients together. Pour into ice cream maker for a cycle. Transfer to storage container and place in freezer until use. Much easier than battling the lines at the grocery store!

Adapted from See Girl Cook: http://seegirlcook.com/2011/03/lemon-sorbet/

Pear Brandy & Apple Brandy

Fruited Brandies are wonderfully simple to make and cost far less than flavored brandies in the liquor store. Unless the funds are available to buy Calvados or other well-known brandies the cheaper varieties can be contaminated with corn alcohol, corn syrup or imitation flavor of unknown origin.



everything necessary to make fruited brandies at home



Crapabble brandy being my absolute favorite, even over peach brandy. The taste is quintessential apple pie packed into a thimble-size glass. Plus crabapples are often free for the picking. This year when the crabapples ripened I was too sick to take advantage of the tree’s bounty. Which means my cupboard is bare of fruited brandies, and winter is coming. This is unacceptable, untenable. So while I was brandy poaching a couple pears I started a pint jar of pear brandy, and another of apple brandy.

Making fruited brandies is one of my favorite uses for old, crystallized honey. I scoop it into the jars first, add the spice, fruits and then top with brandy. With swirling, over the infusion time, the honey dissolves. No waste, and no sticky dribbles down the jar sides.

Follow a vegan diet? Agave works in place of honey. I've used both in different batches with success.

For 2013, wish me good health, so I can return to making gallons of crabapple brandy, apple pie brandy, and plum spiced brandy as Yule Gifts.

Pear Brandy

Ingredients

1 medium sized, ripe pear, such as Bosc or Bartlett

2 cloves
2” cinnamon stick
Pinch of nutmeg
1 oz of honey
Brandy – inexpensive like Korbel

Directions
Stem, core and slice pear into sixths, leaving the peel on. Place in pint mason jar with other ingredients and cover with brandy.

Swirl 2-4xday for the first week, then daily for another week. Let rest in a cool, dark place for another two weeks minimum, two months preferably.

Strain and pour liquid back into the jar. Use in pies, tarts, or as an aperitif. I keep some of the fruit in my freezer to mince and use a dollop of to season those same pies and tarts.

Apple Brandy
Ingredients

1 small, tart apple, such as Granny Smith or Crabapple

1 sliver of lemon zest if using non-crabapples

4 cloves

2” cinnamon stick

¼ tsp mace

Pinch of nutmeg

2 oz of honey

Brandy – inexpensive like Korbel

Directions

Stem, core and slice apple into sixths, leaving the peel on. Place in pint mason jar with other ingredients and cover with brandy. When unable to use crabapples I add a strip of lemon zest to boost the tartness.

Swirl 2-4xday for the first week, then daily for another week. Let rest in a cool, dark place for another two weeks minimum, two months preferably.

Strain and pour liquid back into the jar. Use in pies, tarts, or as an aperitif.

Man Catcher Brownies

There is a long tradition of handy single men doing projects in exchange for food. In my case, specifically of barn roof’s being repaired, paddock fences mended, and hay moved for fresh baked brownies and lemonade. Since my teens the one bowl brownie recipe on the Baker’s© Chocolate was the go-to recipe for an excellent cake-y brownie.

Three Bowls to create Brownie Bliss

Then in 2007 I read a Boulder Daily Valentine’s article on Leigh Lambert and her quest for the perfect brownie, entitled Man Catcher Brownies. Given brownies caught guys for barn repairs and home maintenance tasks, the title had me giggling. Reading the recipe reminded me of my chocolate chip cookie recipe with equal parts sugar and brown sugar, a hefty slug of vanilla, the dash of salt. Then the mixing directions made mental connections…techniques elevate the results, so even so-so ingredients make a better brownie:

Mixing the cocoa into the melted fat releases more of the cocoa polyphenols maximizing the flavor.

Brown sugar enhances the caramel & bourbon notes…substituting vanilla infused bourbon for the vanilla extract is pretty tasty too; as is having a finger of bourbon with a warm brownie!

The large grains of kosher sea salt prevent too-sweet with piquancy in each bite.

Unless you’re buying generic store brand cocoa, higher-grade cocoa isn’t necessarily more expensive cocoa, and makes a tremendous difference. The higher grade will contain more cocoa butter fat, have a deeper color, and more phenols (chocolaty smell.) To a chocolate fiend the bigger, rounder, richer taste experience will be readily apparent. I keep a stock of Mama Ganache (Natural and Dutched), Penzey’s (High Fat), Savory (Midnight), Guittard (Rouge) or Scharffen Berger cocoa’s in my freezer.

Once you bite into these, dirtying three bowls will never seem like too much effort. Hand mixing them is still as simple as the old one-bowl recipe.

moist and dense with a crackle top

Ingredients
8 oz / 227 grams coconut oil or palm shortening
5.86 oz / 167 grams dutched cocoa powder
5 eggs
4 tsp vanilla
9.42 oz / 267 grams light brown sugar
9.42 oz / 267 grams sugar
5.88 oz / 187 grams of Gluten-Free All-Purpose flour
2/3 tsp kosher sea salt



Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a 9x9 pan with parchment paper.
In a small bowl whisk together the flour and salt until no lumps remain.

In a medium bowl heat the coconut oil until just melted. Immediately whisk in cocoa powder until smooth. Let cool. Don’t give into the visual temptation to lick the whisk…straight fat & cocoa will be an unpleasant junior high Home Economics flashback.


In the largest bowl, while the cocoa mixture cools, whisk eggs together and add in sugars. Then whisk in the vanilla. Stir in cooled cocoa mixture. Now the whisk is perfect to swipe a dab from…sticky with sweet, intense chocolaty goodness.

Fold flour and sea salt into wet mixture until just mixed…hand mixing these is the easiest route to not to over-mixing and ending up with rubbery, tough brownies. The dough is thick. It won’t spread while baking, so push it into the pan corners and level all over with the mixing spatula.

Bake 40-45 minutes or until a crust forms and toothpick comes out mostly clean. Completely clean will be an over baked brick.

Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Then it is safe to lift the parchment out of the pan and divvy up warm brownie bliss.

Brandy Poached Pears

I’ve been craving brandy poached pears ever since Grace Burrowes latest heroine reminisced about eating brandy poached pears in childhood. Pears poached in red wine, orange juice and spices are robust; a winter staple, especially served with elk steak with more of the reduced sauce over vanilla ice cream for dessert. Brandy poached are entirely different…delicate and heady, a memory of late summer.



Soft Focus



This week the small, locally owned grocer’s had red Anjou pears on sale…a lovely bin of fat, fragrant pears. Add in a windy, snowy, cold autumn day and these are the results.

 

The only problem…I used the last of my brandy! Will have to run out tomorrow for another bottle so I can have a small snifter with my bowl of poached pears…or open a bottle of Fre non-alocholic bubbly and eat the pears swimming in bubbles…or in reality, Both!

Ingredients
2 big, fat, ripe pears
6oz / 180ml brandy
6 oz / 180ml water

3-4 tbsp honey

1 tsp vanilla
2” length of cinnamon stick (break a longer stick on the counter edge)
4 whole cloves
Nutmeg, freshly grated, 3-4 swipes aka not very much (optional)


Directions
Put the water, brandy, honey, vanilla, cinnamon stick, and cloves into a 1-1 ½ quart sauce pan on low-to-medium heat. I use my smallest burner, 5,000 btu.
While the sauce begins to heat, peel pears, core, quartering each half.
Place in sauce pan so all the slices are in the fluid. They don’t have to be completely covered.


Snifter o'Bliss



Cover pan with lid, or a saucer (darn it, sometimes those wee sauce pans don’t come with lids) and poach for 15 minutes. Halfway through, gently shift the pears so the uncovered part are moved down into the fluid.

 

At 15 minutes, check for tenderness. Pears go from just-right to pear sauce in a blink…I like mine tender yet still solid. Remove the pears with a slotted spoon to serving dish. Turn the heat up to high and reduce the liquids to syrup. Down to about ¼ the volume. Add the bit of fresh nutmeg.

Pour over pears and serve immediately. If storing, cool the syrup in the pan. Once cool, spoon over pears in storage container and place in the fridge. Otherwise the hot syrup will cook the pears a bit more.

Pumpkin Pancakes & Waffles

For me, pumpkin takes pancakes and waffles from being too sweet to just right. Don't get me wrong, I still have a sweet tooth, but after more than a decade of no corn syrup laden food products, my sweet tooth is more of a rich-intense flavors tooth.

Usually I make these waffles all through autumn and winter, freezing the bulk of the batch for quick, hot breakfasts or snacks. Most often I eat them plain. On very cold mornings I'll add a dollop of maple syrup to my plate, then have extra strong tea or coffee to balance out the flavors.

This makes about 16 or so 5" pancakes or individual waffles.

Ingredients
7.4 oz / 210 grams Gluten-Free all purpose flour or brown rice flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp    pumpkin pie spice
4 large  eggs
8 oz      pumpkin puree
3.5 oz / 100 grams brown sugar (plain sugar works too)
2 oz      vegetable oil
1 tsp     vanilla
16 oz    plain soy milk soured with 2 tsp lemon juice

Directions

Whisk together the dry ingredients until blended. In a separate bowl whisk together the wet ingredients. Blend the two sets together until no lumps remain.

Pour 1/3 to 1/2 cup increments onto preheated griddle or into waffle iron. Cook until bubbles break in the center, then gently flip to cook the other side.

Freeze cooled extras between sheets of wax paper. To reheat, pop a pancake or waffle on a plate and microwave for about 45 seconds.

 

 

 

No pumkin pie spice on hand? Here is a quick way to blend your own:

 

2 tsp    cinnamon

1 tsp    ginger

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves 1/8 tsp anise (optional)

Tortilla-less Chicken soup from Paleo Slow Cooking

Paleo Slow Cooking: Gluten Free Recipes Made Simple by Chrissy Gower caught my eye at the library...the Paleo diet is an excellent refuge for allergen free-food. The big, glossy images, clear directions, and generally short ingredient lists induced me to pick it up and try a couple recipes.

Before my food allergies manifested my slow cooker was a favorite kitchen tool, a bit of chopping, turn it on before leaving for work or school and come home to a fragrant home and ready meal. Yet all the recipes relied on condensed soups, cheese, cream, flour. So the big slow cooker was given away, and a small one entered the kitchen to make organic beans affordable again, because even organic canned beans often contain wheat flour, corn starch or "natural flavorings" of unknown origin.

One of the foods I miss in winter is a bowl tortilla soup full of chicken shreds swimming in a thick red sauce. It usually has kernels of corn, strips of tortillas, and corn starch thickener.  So when I flipped to page 94 in the book and read Gower's note on turning this soup into a 20-30 minute stove-top quickie, I had to try it.

Tortilla-less Chicken Soup

1 medium yellow onion
4 celery stalks, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno, diced
16 oz chicken broth
14.5 oz can diced tomatoes (I prefer fire-roasted for this recipe)
14.5 oz can of enchilada sauce (unavailable where I live, substituted a can of tomato sauce, a little can of diced green chilies, and a heaped tsp of Penzey's Taco Seasoning)
1 1/2 tsp each cumin & chili powder
1/2 cup coconut milk

1 rotisserie chicken (Whole Foods has one that is gluten-corn-dairy-soy free)

Directions

In  a dutch oven over medium heat saute the carrots, onion, celery in a bit of olive oil until translucent.
Add the remaining ingredients to the pain, simmer for 20 minutes. While the sauce and veggies simmer, pull the rotisserie chicken apart & drop into the pan.

Ladle into bowls and serve with a sprinkle of cilantro. This makes 6-8 servings. Perfect for freezing a quart, lunch with a friend and then leftovers the next day...or feeding a hungry horde.

To prepare in a slow cooker: Saute the veggies, chunk 3-4 boneless-skinless chicken breasts or thighs, and add everything to the slow cooker. Cook for 8-10 hours on low.

Based on the success of this meal, I'm excited to try more recipes in this book. Highly recommend this book for folks who are new to cooking, don't enjoy cooking or don't have much time to spend cooking.

Torta de Regina de Notte

Alone a chunk of bittersweet chocolate is redolent with night blooming floral scents, of garden paths still warm from the sun's kiss, expressing passions that unfurl only during night's dark embrace. For me citrus fruits grant the ability to taste sunshine. Bursting and bright, it is no wonder humans have long heralded oranges as symbols for the sun's rebirth. The perfect globes contrasting the scant arch of a Northern hemipshere's winter day, especially an overcast, grey day like today.

In this torte the contrasting & complimentary are wedded together by earthy hazelnuts, resulting a sensory experience exceeding the sum of its parts. It tastes better than the recipe reads, better than the gorgeous photo by Helen Dujardin, which is no small feat as her photos are always lush...Queen of the Night fits this torte.

Since citrus isn't in season yet I cheated with a premium organic store-bought marmalade. I always use bittersweet chocolate, not semisweet, use either. The simplicity of baking by weight, not volume means you can grind your own hazelnuts or buy flour/meal at the store. Ditto the chocolate - ground chocolate (not cocoa!) also makes this recipe faster to assemble. Otherwise use the standard grate side of the box grater, it will result in a fine grate chocolated, not chunks or the melted mess the fine side will make (ask me how I know that...) Prepping each ingredient before starting to mix the cake helps maintain the egg-based structure.

 

Each winter one new-to-me cookbook becomes 'the' cookbook of the season. Winter 2012 will be Marmalades Savory & Sweet. In a few months when citrus peaks I'll make a batch and repeat this recipe. May even cheat again so I can dally with this Queen again. Waiting for good citrus to have this cake was not an option. Despite cheating on the citrus marmalade, the cherry marmalade cannot be ignored, especially as twelve ounces of fat Bing cherries in my freezer are chorusing in siren song. By next week there will be a post extolling another pleasure awaiting between the covers of Ellen's delightful book.

Here's how I made the Queen of the Night: it took only one ingredient change to make this safe for me to eat, and I think the coconut oil enhanced the main ingredient floral notes.

Cake Ingredients
7.06 ounces / 200 grams ground hazelnuts, plus half an ounce more to dust the pan
9.52 ounces / 270 grams granulated sugar
8 large eggs, separated
Finely grated zest of 2 oranges
4 ounces orange juice (the juice of 2 oranges)
1 tbsp hazelnut liqueur or vanilla extract
7 ounces / 225 grams semisweet chocolate - ground or finely shaved
pinch of salt

Glaze Ingredients
8 ounces marmalade
1 tablespoon hazelnut liqueur
1-2 tablespoons orange juice

Lightly grease a 9" springform pan with coconut oil. I like to parchment the bottom of the pan then oil the paper & sides. Dust with extra ground nuts.

Combine the egg yolks and sugar, mixing until ribbons form...about 5 minutes with a stand mixer. Add in the orange zest, ground hazelnuts, chocolate, orange juice, hazelnut liqueur and the pinch of salt. Blend until fully incorporated and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees - 325 if you have a convection oven.

Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold 1/4 to 1/3 of the egg whites into the rest of the ingredients. Gently, this is where the cake's crumb and texture comes from. Repeat until all the egg whites are folded in. Pour into the prepared springform and set in the oven.

The book says to bake the cake for 55 minutes, mine was done in 40 minutes. Keep toothpicks handy and pay attention to the baking scents. Once a pick comes out mostly dry, pull the cake and set to cool for 10-15 minutes. Run the back of a knife edge around the outer rim, pop the spring form off and make the glaze.

While the cake baked I cleaned up and made the glaze. If you like the rind in marmalade, just combine the marmalade, liqueur and orange juice, warm in a small pan until runny. I'm not a fan of the rind, so I strained the glaze, let it cool to room temp and then brushed the top and sides, using a silicone brush.

The first sliver was slightly warm when I devoured it. The second  cooler slice was just as good...and the house smells delicious. Whipped topping & chocolate shavings complete the presentation. Coffee or champagne or prosecco are the ideal accompaniment to this rich, yet not too-sweet cake. The book says 8 servings from the 9" round, at my table it is 16 servings/decadent slivers.

If the cake isn't going to be consumed within a day, wrap servings of the completely cooled cake in plastic wrap, and freeze it.

Simplicity

If there is one thing all food allergies seem to have in common is it the loss of simplicity. Simply grabbing a meal from a drive-thru, or a chain restaurant is gone. Chinese delivery - gone. Pizza delivery - gone. Most pre-packaged staples become a distant memory... like that blue box of Mac-n-Cheese. But our desire and need of simple food isn't gone. Whether from lack of time, lack of energy due to health, or a comfort craving, simplicity persists.

The most common question I hear from those newly diagnosed with food allergies is how can they retain basic dishes-recipes-favorite foods. So as I ease back into blogging I'm going to focus on items I keep in my pantry, my freezer, tools that make kitchen life easier, and simple recipes.

Personally, the past eighteen months illness and mending a broken arm & wrist has ruled my life, most notably my kitchen life. If it couldn't be prepped with almost no chopping, stirring, or other effort it didn't happen. The good part is it forced me to focus reclaim nutritious versions of basics. Smoothies, raw nut & dried fruit blends, rice & bean dishes, and pasta. This month in particular I've been craving pasta, and thanks to Tinkyada, Lucini and Applegate Farms, fulfilling my cravings.

There isn't a photo because I ate it all.

Tinkyada makes brown rice pasta that passes for semolina pasta. No added starches or gums, no weird texture, just good pasta in a multitude of shapes.
http://www.tinkyada.com/

Lucini Italia has wonderful pasta sauces in jars and small bags that can be heated in the bag. The Spicy Tuscan is my current favorite. As a singleton I especially enjoy the bagged sauces, sized for three servings it means no jars going stale in the fridge. They are a dedicated gluten-free and vegan producer using BPA free tomatoes.
http://www.lucini.com/shop/sauces

Many sausages contain gluten, corn syrup, casein, and other things that induce anaphylaxis. Applegate Farms is another dedicated gluten free producer. Their Sweet Italian is a natural for tossing together a quick pasta dinner.
http://www.applegate.com/products/dinner-sausage/category

I top mine with a vegan Parmesan recipe I found on the internet about a decade ago. A batch makes a quart size jar. For everyday use I refill a shaker top jar from Penzey's Spice Shop. It requires blending your own seasoning salt, as I've yet to find one that doesn't have a corn-based anti-caking ingredient or some other allergen. The rest of  seasoning salt goes into its own shaker jar.

Vegan Parmesan

Ingredients :

• 3 cups raw cashew pieces
• 2 cups nutritional yeast
• 3 Tblsp seasoning salt
• 3 Tblsp garlic powder (NOT garlic salt)
• 3 Tblsp of onion powder (NOT onion salt)
• 8 Tblsp of arrowroot powder

Directions:

Using a VERY dry food processor, blend the nuts till they are very fine, but not too much or you'll have cashew butter! The end goal is a texture similar to the Parmesan in a pizza shop shaker jar.Then, blend in everything else until thoroughly mixed.

Seasoning Salt

Ingredients :

• 6 tablespoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon marjoram
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 1/4 teaspoons paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/8 teaspoon dill weed
• 1/2 teaspoon celery seed

Put all ingredients into a food processor or small blender container and pulse on low until thoroughly combined. 

Now you're set for tossing together a dish of pasta:

Boil a serving of pasta, brown a sliced sausage, warm a serving of sauce with the sausages for lunch or dinner in 15 minutes. Simple. Enjoy.

Tomato Soup

In my memories tomato soup is as good as the old Campbell's soup commercials imply. Fragrant, creamy, soul-warming, nourishing yet decadent with a diagonally-cut grilled cheese sandwich to dip in a brimming hot mug. As good as grandma's lightly floury hugs, filling but not so much as to not have room for her fresh baked cookies.

It is another simple comfort food that became verboten for too long. Canned soups are full of corn syrup, boxed soups have cream or enough salt to pucker your face off, or worse taste like liquid cardboard. None of which evoke nostalgia or fulfill a craving. Then a couple years ago I stumbled onto a recipe. At the same time I bought my first immersion blender. Over the winter making the recipe mine involved changing proportions, deleting some ingredients and mugs upon mugs of soup.

This recipe is fairly forgiving, if you have two leeks and only half an onion, go ahead and make the soup. Craving garlic, add a bit more. Change up the peppers for roasted and add a dash of cilantro. Have yellow or orange bell peppers moldering in the crisper? Chop'em up and toss them in the pot.

Make a pot after work while enjoying a glass of the white wine or make it on a weekend while enjoying a couple glasses. This soup freezes very well making it as convenient as the old canned stuff.

Tomato Soup

2-3 tablespoons of olive oil

1 leek (chopped)

1 yellow onion (chopped)

2 garlic cloves (chopped)

2 stalks of celery (chopped)

1 red bell pepper (chopped)

3-4 oz white wine, usually a sauvignon blanc

1 15oz can of pumpkin

1 tablespoon of basil (chopped) (or a palm of dried)

1 tablespoon of parsley (chopped) (or a palm of dried)

1 15oz can of diced tomato

1 small can of tomato paste

1 dash white pepper

4 cups of chicken broth, or veggie broth for a vegetarian option

Large pinch of kosher salt

Warm the olive oil in a dutch oven or soup pot. Add the chopped leaks, onion, celery, garlic and bell pepper.

Sauté until the onion is translucent. Add the white wine and simmer.

Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, pumpkin, broth, and seasonings. Simmer for about 30 minutes.

Purée with the immersion blender in the pot or transfer in batches to the blender. Let me know if what memories it evokes for you.

Biscuits and Herbed Margarine

In 2001 a coworker introduced me to a fabulous cookbook: How it All Vegan. By then I'd figured out my dairy allergy, which made vegan recipes very desirable. I could be absolutely certain there wouldn't be even a hint of dairy in a vegan dish. Since I didn't have my own kitchen at that time someone else having already figured out how to make the substitute taste good, hopefully, was imperative.

After having a piece of pie made from the book I bought a copy. Such decadent, amazing pie, there had to be more amazing-ness in there. The next dish I tried were these biscuits, just as delicious and as the name promised, easy. Flaky, fluffy, and dare I say "buttery?" I ate biscuits for a week: plain, slathered in jam, with safflower butter, with gravy from the vegan restaurant around the corner from my office, with cold cuts, rice cheese and mustard. These will absolutely have your guests shocked when they take a bite. Add the margarine and cranberry relish and prepare to sigh with a mouthful of bliss.

I also like that the most of the recipes in 'How it All Vegan' make small batches. If you need more than six biscuits, double or triple the quantities. Do roll them out, the small bit of extra effort is worth it when you easily split one of them open and catch a glimpse of the fragrant steam escaping from the layers.

For the upcoming holiday feast make the biscuits while the bird roasts. With the margarine make it anytime between now and the day before. It is step & time intensive, definitely not a 'day-of' recipe. I'll be making a half batch of it later today. Who knows, I may make a batch of biscuits to taste-test the margarine on!

Easy Biscuits

adapted from "How it All Vegan" by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer

2 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour (I prefer Pamela's)

3 tsp baking powder (Hain is the only one I've found that is gluten-corn-dairy-free)

1 tsp sea salt (Penzey's Kosher-style is currently in my cupboard)

1/4 cup shortening or margarine (palm shortening is free of everything but palm)

1 cup plain So Delicious coconut milk, soured with 1 tsp white vinegar

Preheat the oven to 425 (450 if the oven isn't convection)

Sift together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Cut in the shortening.

Add 3/4 cup of the soured milk. blend until just mixed, adding the other 1/4 cup of milk if the batter is too dry (most likely here in the arid West).

Gently roll out on a floured board, cut with floured biscuit or cookie cutter.

Bake on a parchment lined cookie sheet for 12-18 minutes until lightly golden.

Try not to burn your fingers eating them fresh from the oven...not that I've ever managed to wait long enough to not burn mine.

The herbed margarine recipe I'll be trying for the first time is from the Washington Post:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/recipes/2010/09/29/homemade-herbed-margarine/

Depending on how it turns out I plan on making a batch of biscuits with the margarine instead of palm shortening.

Getting Ready...the menu

With the most food-centric holiday just around the corner many emails, conversations, texts with friends are following suit: food-centric. For me it is also the most difficult holiday of all. Imagine the traditional feast without a butter-basted turkey, creamy mashed potatoes, bread-based stuffing, cream-based pies, rolls, corn, and more. Too many Thanksgiving meals ended with an allergic reaction or ravenous from not being able to eat anything at the table, topped off with a dollop of frustration from being exhorted to "just have a bite" of something allergen laden.

While Thanksgiving isn't a Wiccan/Pagan holiday the traditions are similar: gathering together friends, chosen family, and family to celebrate blessings with good food and drink. Before my food allergies it was my favorite holiday for the same reasons - feasting, blessings and friends - starting the holiday season together.

Tonight while listening to the Avalanche hockey game, I contemplated this year's menu, and roasted sweet spiced pecans in one oven, and balsamic glazed root vegetables in another oven. Pleased with the score, the scents radiating through the house, and the coalescent menu.

I prefer a generally regional menu that allows me to spend most of the day visiting with my guests, or given the vagaries of Colorado weather, out enjoying the day. Just enough leftovers to divvy up between guests, not a fridge full. Add in only having a couple hours of productive energy each day and a feast menu takes a bit of tactical planning.

Each day I'll post a recipe or two for the menu, why I chose each dish, and when to prepare it for maximum flavor, so you can pick and chose between dishes for your own feast. If the holiday is an intimate celebration for 2-4 people some dishes get deleted from the feast. More guests get added last minute, so do more dishes.

The Menu

Spinach salad with pomegranate and pine nuts

Roast pheasant with pan dripping gravy

Grand Marnier whipped sweet potatoes

Smashed Yukon Gold potatoes

Emperor purple rice

Sour milk biscuits

Herbed margarine

Cranberry relish

Pumpkin brulée

Bourbon chocolate pecan pie with bourbon whipped cream

Time to see how the pecans turned out...

Tricky Treats

A Tricky Treat…

My Halloween surprise came as the culmination of an odd combination. Usually I spend Samhain (Sa-wane) evening quietly honoring the people and companion critters in my life who have died. Given the visions of Dutch process cocoa clamoring in my waking and sleeping mind, for days leading up to all Hollow’s, apparently this year my offering would be brownies; dense, dark to the brink of black, moist brownies.

Receiving an email with the latest issue “Living Without” magazine recipe for gluten free brownies and a pending visit from a dieting girlfriend instigated these cocoa visions. We usually talk until 2am over a baked good and tea or wine. The recipe yields a mild, cake-textured brownie that is more similar to a German chocolate cake than my definition of brownie. Nice, and good enough to share but not a brownie.

Said girlfriend took that batch home. Another took a second batch, the product of melding my decades-old standard brownie recipe and the ‘Living Without” concept. So mine are inspired by “Living Without” they are a completely different recipe with double the cocoa, vanilla, brown sugar, and no flour at all.

Making the third batch my Treat.

Being Halloween there must be a Trick to go with the Treat.

Black beans replace most of the fat, all of the flour and reduce the sugar by half. Yielding brownies that are low-fat, anti-oxidant rich, high in fiber, dare I say even, healthy? And still a true, rich, moist, decadent brownie.

The key to these brownies is the black beans need to be hot when pureeing them with the cocoa, so does the small amount of olive oil. The heat releases the cocoa flavonoids allowing it to blend better with the other ingredients prior to baking. The steam wafting up from the food processor will make it all clear…

Also because of the beans this recipe is most easily measured in volume. Two cups of cooked beans actually weighs 10.125 oz, which is a 15oz can of beans drained, plus a third of another can.

Black Bean Brownies

2 cups hot, cooked black (turtle) beans, drained

5 tbsp olive oil, warm as well

1 cup Penzey’s Dutch cocoa, or other high-grade Dutch cocoa

4 tsp vanilla

1 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp kosher sea salt

1 tsp xanthan gum

1 tsp baking powder

3 eggs

¼ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line a 6x8 baking pan with parchment. Don’t have a 6x8 pan? Double the recipe and bake in a 9x13.

Place the beans, cocoa, oil, and vanilla in food processor. Blend to a paste.

Add in sugar, salt, baking powder, and xanthan gum. Pulse until blended. Scrape down the bowl, especially the bottom edge – cocoa will try to cling there and not incorporate.

Pulse in eggs until barely blended, the dough with be very glossy and stiff. Spatula into pan. Sprinkle with semi-sweet chips.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Cool for ten minutes, devour at will.

Snowballs aka "Raspberry Zingers"

After reading an article about the thirty-seven ingredients that make up a Twinkie I was reminded of how positive food allergies can be. By the time gluten, dairy and corn are ruled out of the ingredient list most packaged products don't make the 'safe-edible' list. Pardon the photo, I"ll update it soon. This recipe is a sure-fire packaged cake rescue. Again, don't tell anyone what these don't have, and all they'll taste is the "YUM!"

What really inspired making Snowballs earlier this summer was remembering being about four or five years old. Every Tuesday Dad would get paid by the Rocky Mountain News and we'd get two treats: eating out at Furr's cafeteria in Arvada and going to the Hostess day-old store on Carr Street. The sugary scent lingered in the parking lot, welcoming us into the store. The end caps full of brightly colored packages at my pint-sized eye-level. The store small enough I could linger by myself to ponder which treat to chose over all the others. Fruit pies? Hostess cakes? Lemon Zingers or chocolate? Would Snoopy be on the package this time? Or perhaps the exotic pink zingers coated in tiny pieces of coconut? I often wished for a package that held one of each Zinger flavor, it would solve so many pint-sized dilemmas.

My lemon and chocolate cravings have evolved, but the lure of a lightly red cake covered with fine shred coconut is still alive and well. The cakes themselves are easy to make, like any other muffin or tea cake. Dipping them in the seeded raspberry jam and rolling them through the coconut is messy, but after dipping all the cakes licking the jam off your fingers brings back the joy of being Five!

Preservative, additive and chemical free these get to focus on the soft, creamy flavor of coconut accented by that wee berry nowhere indigenous to the tropics. Using coconut milk and coconut flour creates a cake that manages to be dense and light at the same time.

I hope they become as fond a memory for my coconut crazies (that'd be you Jenna and Jolly!) as Zingers are for me.

Make a batch, pack them in your lunch or your kids and see how lunch hour goes. I bet you'll have to brush up on your trading skills...

Snowballs

¾ c coconut oil
1 ½ c organic sugar
1 c light Coconut milk (I use canned coconut milk to avoid the vegetable gum stabilizers)
1 tbsp Baking Powder (gluten & corn free, I like Hain)
½ tsp Sea Salt
1 tbsp Vanilla
4 Egg Whites
1 Egg
1 ½ c Gluten Free Flour Mix (I like Pamela’s)
½ c Coconut Flour
½ c Potato Starch

Makes about 18 muffins/cakes.

Place coconut oil, sugar, baking powder, sea salt, and vanilla in stand mixer. Beat on medium to medium-high until fluffy, about 5-8 minutes. Occasionally scraping down the bowl.

Sift together coconut flour, gluten free flour mix and potato starch. Set aside.

Scrape down mixer bowl. Add egg whites one at a time, beat on medium high for a minute. Scrap down the bowl and repeat with each egg white. Don’t rush this part, you’re building the cake structure. I use a kitchen timer.

Add in ¼ of the flour and starch mixture, blend on medium-low, alternating with the coconut milk. Scrap down between flour additions. This is a dense, fairly stiff dough.

Spoon into greased tins. Bake in preheated oven to 325 (350 if it isn’t convection), for 24-30 minutes. Turn the pan half way thru baking.

While cakes are baking make the raspberry glaze.

Raspberry Glaze
¾ cup organic raspberry preserves (Trader Joe's reduced sugar organic is my favorite)
2 tbsp water
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp Chambord liqueur

Deseed the preserves by pushing thru a mesh strainer with the back of a spoon into a glass measuring cup. Place cup in sauce pan of hot water to warm. Stir in water and lemon juice to get glaze consistency. Just before dipping cakes stir in Chambord.

Check the cakes with a toothpick for doneness. Should come out just barely clean.

Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then pop cakes out to cool on a wire rack over a shallow pan.

Place 1 ½ cups of unsweetened fine shred coconut in another bowl.

Once cakes are cool, quickly dip them into the raspberry glaze, then roll in the coconut. Place on wire rack to set up.

Enjoy!

Banana Bread French Toast

This weekend treat yourself to an indulgent treat, French Toast made with banana bread or a sandwich made with banana bread, peanut butter, honey and sliced bananas. As a bonus the house will smell divine for hours beyond the bake time.

Banana Bread

Adapted from Fannie Farmer Baking Book by Marion Cunningham

Two 8x4 loaves

2 ½ c flour

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

1 c shortening

2 c sugar (brown will make this bread very dark, moist & even sweeter)

6 ripe bananas (over ripe even better)

4 eggs

1 c walnuts (optional – omit for Jenna!)

Preheat oven to 350

Put bananas, shortening, eggs, and sugar in food processor. Blend until smooth.

Add flour, salt, baking soda and walnuts. Blend until smooth.

Divide between two pans lined with parchment paper.

Bake for 70 minutes or more until toothpick comes out clean. Loaves will be a dark brown. Impatient?Use small loaf pans and make more loaves - shorter baking times, closer to instant gratification.

Cool in pan for 5 minutes then place parchment lined loaves on cooling rack.

Excellent to make banana bread French toast with or banana bread pudding. In Texas I saw sandwiches made with peanut butter & honey. Bacon slices optional.

French Toast

Dip slices in egg batter, cook on teflon grill, enjoy with or without maple syrup.

Banana bread pudding will happen closer to Yule.

Blondies

In the 80s and 90s a favorite gathering spot was the Gemini. An alternative restaurant known for a spiced house tea and daring food options like a curried chicken salad with strawberries. That is, daring for a suburb west of Denver. The house iced tea was easy to drink by the glassful, tucked into a big booth, chatting with girlfriends or doing tarot readings for each other. Wired on caffeine from gallons of house tea, we'd split a Blondie brownie. Each serving decadent, warm, and surely full of butter, chocolate chips, nuts, plus the sweet surprise of chopped dates.

The restaurant is long gone, but the craving for a Blondie happens fairly often. Blondies are a brownie's paler sibling; a bar cookie grown up to be a chocolate chip cookie's bigger, sturdier brother. This winter it was time to recreate this favored treat. Redolent with warm brown sugar, vanilla, and gooey bittersweet chocolate chips these bar cookies are an aroma therapy category all their own. Mixing up in the time it takes the oven to preheat, it is pure bliss to sit in the kitchen with a cup of tea, basking in the scent of them baking. If I'm really lucky the scent lingers in the house, rich and smooth.

One pan makes nine servings that are half-size from what the huge slabs Gemini used to serve. Lately, I've taken to quartering each serving so the pan yields 36 Blondies. What I don't eat or give away the day I bake them get frozen. Popped from freezer to the microwave for 30 seconds they instantly resurrect to gooey decadence.

No stand mixer? No problem! As long as the sugar and palm shortening are thoroughly mixed the rest of the recipe calls for minimal mixing.

Blondies

3 oz or ½ cup shortening
4 oz or ½ c + 2 tbsp light brown sugar
4 oz or ½ c + 2 tsp cane sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
4 oz or 1 cup gluten free flour mix (I use Pamela's)
1 ½ tsp baking powder (corn & gluten free I use Hain)
½ tsp sea salt
2 oz or ½ cup crushed walnuts
2 oz or ½ cup chopped dates
2 ½ oz or ½ cup bitter sweet chocolate chips

Preheat convection oven to 325 (350 if not convection)
Line 9x9 baking pan with parchment paper.

Mix shortening, sugars, and vanilla in stand mixer on medium, occasionally scraping down the bowl, until well creamed, verging on fluffy.
Scrape down the bowl.
Add in eggs, beating on medium-high for 2 minutes. Scraping down the bowl.

In separate bowl whisk together flour mix, baking powder, and sea salt until well incorporated.

Add gluten free flour mix to the bowl, mix on low until just blended.

Detach paddle to hand stir in nuts, dates and chocolate chips until just blended.
Spatula into parchment lined pan, pushing stiff dough into corners.
Garnish with additional nuts, chocolate chips and dates.
Bake for 30 minutes, rotating half way through baking time. May take longer to bake at higher altitudes.

Cool for about 5-10 minutes then devour at will.

Zucchini Risotto

My neighbors are wonderful people. Besides being cool, fun, and nice, this week they've shared their harvest bounty with me: fresh herbs and zucchini! I know, I'm the only person who is thrilled to get zucchini. It is just so versatile. Cakes, bread, soup, stir-fry, and now risotto. Fresh herbs too. My growing space only has an sheltered Eastern exposure where herbs languish, so gifts of herbs and veggies are most welcome.

While standing over a warm stove top for an hour stirring isn't necessarily convenient on a week night after work, risotto makes it well worth the time. With air conditioning and a tall kitchen stool it is much cooler that grilling! Plus if you live at lower altitude the cooking time can go down by a third or more.

Keys to a creamy, lustrous risotto are:

• completely coat and warm the risotto in the oil and onions

• then deglaze with the white wine

• only add a cup of broth at a time and it must be hot, almost boiling when you add it, keeping the temperature in the pot steady.

• Stir, stir, stir

If you are fortunate to have kitchen minions aka kids, they can help stir in shifts, between getting home work done. It isn't unusual when I have girl friends over to enjoy a glass of Crios Torrontes, take turns stirring while catching up. For me it is soothing to be in the moment (or hour) sipping a glass and contemplating what else to make with my neighbor's bounty.

Zucchini Risotto with Lemon Thyme

2-3 tbsp olive oil

½ onion, finely chopped

2 small cloves of garlic, minced

1 c arborio rice (I prefer Lundberg organic)

1 c chilled white wine

6 c hot fluid – either veggie broth, chicken broth or water, your choice

8 oz chopped zucchini

small bunch lemon thyme I used the leaves of six to eight 6” stems

white pepper to taste (Penzey's is my preferred)

sea salt to taste

Warm a 7 quart dutch oven over medium-low heat. Add the chopped onion and saute until the onions are translucent.

Add the garlic, saute for a couple minutes to release the flavor.

Add the arborio rice to the the pot, stirring well to completely coat with the olive oil. While the rice starts to toast, put two cups of the broth in the microwave and heat to the boiling point.

After the rice has toasted for a couple minutes – so the pan is fairly dry and the rice isn't sticking or getting scorch spots – add the cup of white wine to deglaze the pan. This will also help the thick starch coat on the rice break down faster.

Once the wine has absorbed, add in the first two cups of heated broth/liquid. Stir the pot slowly and continuously until the rice absorbs the most of the fluid, about 15-20 minutes.

While stirring, heat the rest of the broth one cup at a time.

Each time the liquid is mostly absorbed, add another cup of the just boiling broth, until all six cups of fluid are incorporated into the pot.

With the sixth cup of broth, add the chopped zucchini to the pot. Continue stirring.

Drain and rinse the beans. Add them to the pot, stir another five minutes to warm the beans.

Ladle into bowls, sprinkling each serving with lemon thyme leaves.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Pina Colada Granita

Today a bonus posting to enjoy while I work on the chocolate zucchini bread:

Anytime I crave coconut I think of Jenna. Add pineapple and I'm thinking of hot summer nights in the 80's - arriving home from exercising my horses or a long hot weekend of showing. I'd have Canadian bacon pineapple pizza delivered and make an alcohol-free pina coloda.

Now I think of Jenna and make granita - a cold, crumbly treat that tastes like a tropical vacation. Yesterday's almost 100 degree heat made granita a top priority. Here's the recipe so you have a secret weapon against the next heat wave.

Ingredients

14 oz can of chunk pineapple
14 oz can of light coconut milk
4 oz light agave
2 oz lime juice
2 oz silver rum (Thanks to Michael & Beth I'm a huge fan of Mount Gay rums)


Toss all the ingredients in the food processor or blender and puree until frothy and smooth. The rum is optional - for friends who abstain I leave it out.

Chill the puree over night, covered with cling-wrap. For sorbet freeze through one cycle of the ice cream maker.

If you can control the craving, grab all the ingredients and place them in the fridge overnight. That way the puree can go directly from the food processor into the ice cream maker.

For a true granita: Place the puree in a 9x9 glass or plain metal pan (Do NOT use a nonstick pan! Teflon shaving make a lousy garnish.) Put the pan in the freezer, then every 30 minutes scrape the mixture with a stiff metal spatula. The texture will be closer to shaved ice, not a smooth sorbet. Will still melt beautifully on your tongue during a hot summer night.

Chocolate Chili Chicken

By southwestern standards this is a ridiculously mild dish, which makes it perfect for serving to younger children. It also highlights the bright, summery flavors of the orange zest and cilantro. Madman zinfandel made a wonderful accompaniment to this dish.

Our Lammas main dish is an adaptation from “Adventures with Chocolate”. While shopping for ingredients I met some challenges, the oranges at the store were scentless, thick skinned and hard, shallots were not to be found. So my many jars from Penzey’s came to the rescue.

This meal was such a joy to share. I don’t have any words to describe making this dish, enjoying it with the boys. Simply make the dish and taste the joy.

May the first bite be as delicious for you and yours!

Chocolate Chili Chicken

Adapted from Paul A. Young’s “Adventures with Chocolate”

8 chicken thighs

olive oil

4 shallots, minced or 2 tbsp Penzey's freeze dried shallots

2 cloves garlic, minced

6 tbsp orange zest or 2 tbsp Penzey's dried orange peel

2 c orange juice

4 red mini bell peppers, diced

6 arbol dried chiles

2 cascabel dried peppers

1 tbsp dark brown sugar

1 tbsp coriander

2 heritage tomatoes of a meaty variety, chopped

5.3 oz 72% dark chocolate, chopped, Sweet Earth Organic

Fresh cilantro

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

In a large dutch oven brown the chicken in a slight amount of olive oil. Place aside.

Add shallots, garlic, zest to pan with a slight amount of orange juice. If using dried shallots, zest, and chiles, rehydrate in orange juice while browning chicken.

Add the diced bell pepper and the rest of the juice and simmer for 10 minutes.

Add coriander, dark brown sugar, the chicken thighs, simmer another 10 minutes.

Add the chopped tomatoes, and put in the oven to bake for 30 minutes.

Remove chicken to serving platter. Reduce the sauce until thickened a bit. Remove the dried peppers and toss. Add the chopped chocolate to the pan ladle over chicken as chocolate begins to soften. Garnish with cilantro leaves.

Next time I make this for my circle, towards Samhain, I'll use hotter chilies and perhaps a Chipotle to add a smoky flavor to reflect the descending darker season. With any dish that features chilies use what suits your mood, your guest's palates, and what you have on hand.