An Oldie but Goodie

We've been collecting cookbooks for well over twenty years. And over the years we've gotten rid of some and added others, but this one we kept (along with a few others from the Moosewood Restaurant - all of them excellent).

Yesterday, this book suddenly came to mind and when I picked it up it was like seeing an old friend. I have made so many delicious meals from this. I decided to make a Cauliflower Marranca recipe, which I had not made before, a casserole prepared with mushrooms, onion, cauliflower, garlic, basil, millet and cheese.

When I was at the store, I saw that they had red okra. Now I'm an okra fan to begin with and so it was clear that I would not be able to resist the red variety. When I cut them open, on the inside they look much like the green ones and just as pretty (although I was secretly hoping they'd be red all the way through).

I stewed them with a little bacon, onions, and tomatoes. Yum! A perfect accompaniment to the excellent cauliflower casserole. 

Excuse the foggy photo - steam was rising from the plate and I didn't notice until I downloaded the photos this morning... In the background you can see the inside of the Moosewood Cookbook - it looks handwritten and also reads that way and is interspersed with fun drawings and much humor. Definitely a keeper!!

Since I last wrote, which was quite a while ago, we've been to Atlanta (I'll share a few photos soon) and I also just finished another painting, which I have to photograph today as soon as it gets light out. 

Daniel starts teaching again on Monday and our lives will return to more of a routine, which for me will mean checking in with all of you more often and posting here on a  more regular basis. 

Today is going to be another very hot and humid day, but after that summer is cooling down just a little and finally in October we will start to feel the first cool promise of fall, my favorite season. I cannot wait!! And I have all kinds of creative plans... 

Wishing you a beautiful day!! And if it's fall already where you are, send me some, ok?!

❧ Silke

Yesterday

Yesterday was a cold day! Blustery, gray, rainy and promising to get colder and worse. So Winslow and I headed out to Fort Pulaski knowing that icy conditions would make it impossible for today.

We were the only ones out there and it was beautiful

Winslow loved it! The colder the better.

And I kept having to stop to snap a picture or two.

I love this kind of dormant landscape.

The colors of winter in the South where the green never goes away fully.

By the time we got home, I was windblown and wet from the rain... and fully awake!

Later in the day, I received a used copy of this cookbook in the mail - it is excellent! I've made a few recipes from it (tried it out from the library first) and they were all delicious - and healthy.

I also decided I needed some new colorful dishcloths and knitted those two while sitting by the fire. It was beyond cozy!

I started the fire with pinecones from our yard and tried to get a picture of one of them that still kept it's shape, but was all burnt out and just glowing. I couldn't get it into focus (it was too hot close up), but still like how it came out.

Today, we are expecting sleet and even some snow (very unusual for this part of the country!) for most of the day, which means another cozy day is on the menu chez Powers...

Wishing you much warmth and coziness. Stay warm, everyone!!

❧ Silke

Recipe - Puerto Rican Rice and Chicken Stew

Good morning, everyone! 

I've been one busy girl here, but this morning I am taking a few minutes to share this wonderful recipe with you. It is total comfort food with a little kick! It's delicious if you eat it the same day and even a little better if you make it a day ahead. The recipe looks involved and complicated, but it really isn't at all. Give it a try!

Puerto Rican Rice and Chicken Stew (Asopao de Pollo)
from James McNair's Rice Cookbook

2 tsp minced or pressed garlic
1 tsp crumbled dried oregano
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt or to taste
1 tsp ground pepper or to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
6 boned chicken thighs or breast halves, skinned if desired
3 tbsp good extra virgin olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup finely chopped green pepper (I always use a red pepper instead - we like them better)
4 oz chopped baked ham
1 cup ripe or canned chopped tomatoes, with their juices
2 cups white rice (if you use long grain, it stays a little more soupy; last time I used medium grain to make it a thicker stew)
6 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup fresh or thawed frozen petite green peas
1/4 cup pitted green olives, chopped
1 tbsp drained small capers
Roasted red pepper or canned pimiento, cut in strips, for garnish.

In a small bowl, combine the garlic, oregano, cumin, and salt and pepper. Rub mixture into chicken pieces and let stand, covered, at room temperature for at least 1 hour.

Heat the oil in big stockpot or cast iron dutch oven, add the chicken and sauté until golden on all sides. Remove the chicken and reserve.

Add the onion to remaining oil (add more oil if necessary) and the sweet pepper and saute until soft but not browned, about 5 minutes. Add the ham and tomatoes and saute about 5 minutes longer.

Return the chicken to the pot, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer about 20 minutes. Transfer the chicken pieces to a cutting surface. When cool enough to handle, cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces; reserve.

Wash and drain the rice. Increase heat to medium-high. Add the rice and sauté for two minutes until all grains are well coated, about 2 minutes.

Stir in the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until the rice is tender, but still soupy, about 17 minutes.

Stir in the cheese, peas, olives, and capers and the reserved chicken. Cover and simmer until the cheese melts and the other additions are heated through, about 5 minutes.

Serve in individual bowls garnished with the pimento strips.

Enjoy!!

Warm White Bean Salad

It is COLD here today (well, cold for Georgia, that is), and when it's cold I want to cook! And that's what I've been doing. A lot!

Here is one of my favorite quick recipes from one of my very favorite cookbooks from the Public Radio series The Splendid Table:

Warm White Bean Salad with Garlic and Rosemary
from How to Eat Supper by Lynne Rossetto Kasper
Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1/2 slice whole-grain bread, coarsely ground in a food processor (2 generous tablespoons crumbs) (I grind it in a spice grinder - works just as well)
• 3 T fresh grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• Generous 1/2 t fresh-ground black pepper
• 5 large garlic cloves crushed with 1/2 t salt and coarsely chopped
• 1/4 c good-tasting extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 tight-packed T fresh rosemary leaves, coarsely chopped
• Two 15-ounce cans organic white beans (cannellini or Great Northern), drained and rinsed
• 1 large handful mixed salad greens (frisee and romaine, spring mix, or a blend of baby greens)
• Additional salt and fresh-ground black pepper

Directions

1. In a 12-inch skillet or saute pan over medium heat, toast the bread crumbs until lightly browned, stirring often. Transfer the crumbs to a small bowl to cool. When cooled, stir in the Parmigiano and pepper. Set aside.
2. In the same pan, slowly warm the garlic in the olive oil over low heat for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Stir in the rosemary, blending for another minute or so, taking care not to burn the garlic. It should be fragrant and just beginning to soften.
3. Immediately add the beans and fold them in very gently. Turn the heat to medium. Heat the beans through, about 3 minutes, occasionally lifting and turning them as they heat, as stirring will turn them to mush. Add greens and gently move them around in the pan until they are slightly wilted, 30 second to 1 minute. Turn into a bowl, top with bread-crumb mixture, and season with salt and pepper.

Enjoy!!

❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧

My daily gratitude list:

* delicious soup in the fridge (it's the cold - it makes me food obsessed!!)
* plenty of sunshine and no humidity
* a warm dog snout on my lap
* another few days with Christmas decorations before they get put away

A Delicious Marinade

We have four huge rosemary bushes in the garden and they are thriving here! So every once in a while, Daniel has to cut them back and consequently we have rosemary all over the house. It smells so good!!

On Sunday, we decided to use some of it and grill some chicken. We made this delicious marinade from James McNair's Grill Cookbook. Many years ago, when we lived in California, we collected all of his cookbooks and we still use them all the time!

I thought you might enjoy the marinade recipe as well, which is great for chicken breasts or fish:

Herbed Olive Oil Marinade
from James McNair's Grill Cookbook

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice or white wine vinegar (I use a little more lemon juice, probably 1/4 cup)
1/4 cup minced fresh herbs such a s flat-leaf parsley, oregano, thyme, or rosemary, alone or in combination (I used rosemary and oregano this time around)
2 teaspoons minced or pressed garlic
salt
freshly ground black pepper
ground cayenne pepper (optional)

In a nonreactive bowl, combine all ingredients, including salt and peppers to taste. Blend well.

Makes about 1 1/4 cups.

****************

The smell of the marinade is heavenly and the taste of the grilled chicken was wonderful! I probably let it marinade for four hours or so, but I'm sure you could marinade it all day and it would be even better!

With the chicken, I made a salad and our favorite sweet potato fries. For those, I preheat the oven to 425℉, peel and then cut the sweet potatoes lengthwise into 8 pieces and toss those with some olive oil and salt and pepper (or some spice rub or paprika - whatever sounds good to you). I then bake them in a single layer for about 25 minutes, turning them once after 15 minutes. At the end I turn on the broiler for a couple of minutes to get them nice a crispy.

Delicious!!

P.S. If you have any great recipes for using rosemary, would you consider sharing them? We have so much of it and don't cook with it nearly enough...

Roquefort Grapes

I don't know about you, but for us a big part of the Holidays revolves around food. We love to cook. We love to eat. Need I say more?!

By now, you could probably tip me over and roll me down the street without too much trouble, but it was all worth it! Incidentally, Daniel is reading the book The Tipping Point, but I don't think that's the kind of tipping the author had in mind...

But, I digress. One of the appetizers Daniel and I made was Roquefort Grapes from Martha Stewart's Hors D'Oevres Handbook cookbook. It's a miracle we had any left as an appetizer later on after we tasted the first ones we made. Deeeeeelicious!

Here's the recipe in case you want to try them:

Ingredients:

10 oz. almonds, pecans or walnuts
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
4 oz. Roquefort cheese, at room temperatures
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 lb. (about 48) seedless grapes, red or green (or both!)

Directions:

1. Toast nuts for about 8 to 12 minutes in a 300° oven, then chop coarsely in a food processor or by hand. Spread on a platter.
2. Combine cream cheese, Roquefort and cream in a bowl, and beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Drop clean, dry grapes into the cheese mixture and gently stir with a rubber spatula to coat them. Then roll them in the toasted nuts and put on a tray lined with wax paper.
3. Chill until ready to serve.

We couldn't find Roquefort cheese, but used a strong blue cheese, which was excellent.

Here's to good eating!! Would you believe with our refrigerator still filled with yummy leftovers (we looooove leftovers; don't you?), we are already planning what we might cook for New Years Eve?!

What are some of the favorite foods you made during the Holidays?

Fig Tart

Friday, I made a fig tart that is simply to die for. We had collected quite a few figs from our tree so that we had enough for the tart and still have some left over to simply eat!

This is definitely a great recipe and I thought I'd share it with you all!

✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿

Rosanna Jolis's Fig Tart with Pink Peppercorn Glaze
from The Martha Stewart Cookbook
makes one 11-inch tart

Pastry Cream
1 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 egg yolks, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Glaze
1 cup fig purée (English fig jam)
2 to 3 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon crushed pink peppercorns (we couldn't find any and I just used a little cracked black pepper, less than a teaspoon - I think it's stronger than pink peppercorns)

1 11-inch Pate Brisée tart shell (fine the recipe in this blog post), prebaked and cooled (or simply use your favorite pie crust)
12 ripe fresh figs, quartered (or more if you have small figs like we do)

To make the pastry cream, heat the milk in a heavy saucepan until hot but not boiling. Combine the sugar, flour, and salt in a mixing bowl, and slowly stir in the hot milk. Pour this mixture back into the saucepan and bring to a boil over low heat, stirring constantly. Cook the mixture until smooth and very thick.

Off the heat, beat in the egg yolks, one quarter at a time. Return the mixture to the heat and boil for about a minute, stirring vigorously. Remove from the heat and continue to beat until the mixture cools slightly. Stir in the vanilla and butter, blending thoroughly. Cover the pastry cream with plastic wrap, directly touching its surface and let it cool completely.

To make the glaze, put the fig purée in a saucepan over low heat and add just enough water to reach spreading consistency. Stir in the peppercorns and heat briefly.

To assemble the tart, stir 1 tablespoon of the glaze into the cooled pastry cream, for flavor, and spoon the cream evenly into the bottom of the tart shell. Arrange the quartered figs in concentric circles on top, and drizzle the remaining warm glaze over the figs. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Oh, so very good! 

Blueberry Tart

Do you remember this picture I had shared with you some time ago and promising you the recipe?

Well, I'm finally making good on that promise! We've been baking quite a bit and I'll share all of those recipes with you bit by bit (or should I say bite by bite?). They are all keepers.

This one is from The Martha Stewart Cookbook. It's a little involved, but you can make it all in stages and then just assemble at the end.

The basic recipe we used is for a Blackberry Heart, but we made it in a regular pie shell. The first version we made according to the recipe (but I completely forgot to take pictures). At the end I'll tell you how we modified it for the blueberry version.

✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿

Blackberry Heart
from The Martha Stewart Cookbook
(makes one 7-inch heart-shaped tart)

3/4 cup red currant jelly
2 tablespoons blackberry liqueur

1 cup Crème Pâtissière flavored with 1 tablespoon blackberry liqueur (recipe below)
1 7-inch heart-shaped Pate Brisée tart shell, baked and cooled (recipe below)
2 pints fresh blackberries

Whipped cream for garnish

Melt the red currant jelly with the liqueur over low heat. Strain through a fine sieve and let cool slightly

Spoon the crème pâtissière evenly into the tart shell and arrange the blackberries (reserving 10 of the most perfect ones) carefully and neatly on top. Brush lightly with red currant glaze and top with the reserved berries. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Garnish with softly whipped cream

✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿

Pate Brisee
(Basic Pie Crust)
Makes 2 8- to 10-inch tarts or single-crust pies, or one 8- to 10-inch double-crust pie.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon granulated sugar (optional)
1/2 pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Put the flour, salt and sugar in the bowl of a food processor. Add the pieces of butter and process for approximately 10 seconds, or just until the mixture resembles coarse meal. (To mix by hand, combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. using a pastry blender or two table knives, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal.)

Add ice water, drop by drop, through the feed tube with the machine running, just until the dough holds together without being wet or sticky; do not process more than 30 seconds. Test the dough at this point by squeezing a small amount together. If it is crumbly, add a bit more water.

Turn the dough out onto a large piece of plastic wrap. Grasping the ends of the plastic wrap with your hands, press the dough into a flat circle. This makes rolling easier than if the pastry is chilled as a ball. Wrap the dough in the plastic and chill for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 400℉. Lightly butter or spray with vegetable cooking spray the pie or tart pan you'll be using. On a lightly floured surface, roll out pastry to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Place the pastry in the tart pan or pie plate and press it into the bottom edges and along the sides. Trim the pastry along the upper edge and crimp or decorate the edge if desired.

Carefully line the pastry with aluminum foil, pressing into the corners and edges, and weight with beans, rice, or pie weights. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes. When the pastry begins to color around the edges, remove the foil and weights and continue to bake just until the pastry dries out and turns a nice amber color. Let cool completely on wire rack before filling.

✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿

Crème Pâtissière
(Pastry Cream)
makes approximately 1 cup

1 cup milk
1/2 vanilla bean (I didn't have one and used vanilla extract)
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon unsalted butter

Combine the milk, vanilla bean (I added the extract at the end), and 1/4 cup sugar in a saucepan and heat until the sugar dissolves. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the remaining sugar until thick. Sprinkle the flour and cornstarch into the mixture and continue beating until well mixed.

Remove the vanilla bean from the milk. Beat half the hot milk into the yolk mixture. Return to the remaining hot milk and bring to a boil very quickly, whisking to prevent scorching. Remove from the heat and pour into a bowl to cool. Rub the top of the crème to prevent a skin from forming. Cover with plastic wrap and cool completely.

✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿

For the blueberry variation, we basically replaced the blackberries with fresh blueberries and used an orange-flavored liqueur instead of the blackberry flavored one. One tip - use fresh fruit. We tried it with thawed frozen blackberries and they just had too much liquid. We had to eat the tart from bowls with spoons. It tasted wonderful, but didn't look quite so nice.... (Oh, and because the pie crust recipe makes enough for two tarts, the second tart didn't take at all long to make.)

The recipe seems quite involved, but really you can make all of this in stages ahead of time and then just assemble shortly before serving. It's definitely worth making!!

Delicious!!

P.S. I was thinking just now that if you made this tart with a store bought pie crust, it wouldn't be much work at all and still taste great! 

Two Great Finds!

Yesterday, Daniel and I had to take a quick trip to Decatur (outside of Atlanta) and back, which meant about eight hours in the car. So, we decided to have a fun lunch break there, which for us means good food AND, if possible, a great bookstore as an appetizer! We were not disappointed with either. We had delicious Mediterranean inspired food, but before that Daniel drove us to a fantastic used bookstore!

There we found two great treasures - two cookbooks, which bring back memories and awaken the travel bug in both of us!

Oh, yum, did I find many recipes that are so familiar to me from family meals in this cookbook!! I was starting to drool just looking at the pictures...

And the best thing is that the recipes look very authentic, but have been tailored to American measurements and ingredients I can find here. Perfect!

My mother's family is from the Black Forest, and we lived for many years near Heidelberg before moving further north to Westphalia, so my sister and I grew up with typical meals from all areas.

We were lucky in that our mom was a gifted cook, who enjoyed making traditional recipes and also trying new things. Add to that that my grandmother lived with us and cooked for us for many years, and you know we ate very well!

Don't these recipes look scrumptious?

Because my mother was a French teacher and my family loved France, we spent many family vacations in various parts of that beautiful country.

Plus, a few years ago Daniel got to teach in Provence for a semester and I got to explore the area more with him, which made it even more special!

So, this cookbook brings back many memories for both of us and really makes us want to go back to visit and stay awhile!

Looking at regional recipes always makes us want to travel.

Do you have that same experience?

You can click on any of the photos to see them more clearly, but I'm afraid I wasn't able to eliminate all the glare on the pictures. I still hope you enjoyed this little culinary trip with me to Germany and Provence!

Tomorrow, I'll have a delicious recipe for you (this is all making me very hungry)! I guess these days I'm feeling my creativity more in the kitchen than in my studio...