Parsnips Anyone?

I just couldn't resist Garrett's and Cheryl's cupcake challenge. They are both master cupcake makers with delicious and original flavor combinations. This particular challenge involved turning traditional flavors on their head. I am a sucker for deconstructed/updated desserts so I wanted to come up with an idea post haste.

A's, my business partner/fake boyfriend, birthday was earlier this month and I wanted to bring a treat to school for his special day. On my home from work, I mentally reviewed what was in my larder and I hit upon the idea of a traditional carrot cake, but mine would be in cupcake form and with parsnips instead. Parsnips are one of my favorite veg and I indulge in them as often as I can during the fall. I tweaked a recipe I found online and while I had to make a lot of adjustments, because I wasn't as well-stocked as I thought, the final product turned out well. The birthday boy liked it and that's what really counts, right?

Parsnip-Apple Cupcakes, adapted from Bon Appetit

1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups finely grated peeled parsnips
1/4 cup grated apple

4 oz cream cheese, room temp
2 oz neufachatel cheese, room temp
1 TB butter, room temp
1/4 cup powdered sugar
zest of 1/2 lemon, and its juice

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray cupcake tin with non-stick spray, or use liners. Mix together first 7 ingredients into a medium bowl. Beat together sugar, oil and eggs in a large bowl until well blended. Add dry ingredients to wet in 2 additions, beating until well blended after each addition. Mix in parsnips and apple. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling each 3/4 full.

Bake cupcakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Turn cupcakes out onto racks and cool completely.

Using an electric mixer cream together cream cheese through lemon in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Decorate your cupcakes with frosting. I used a pastry bag without a tip to get the large concentric circles in the pic. Enjoy!

Makes 12 cupcakes

By Request: Halloween in February

This is a very belated request from the fantastic and forgiving(I hope?) Miss N.


Ever since M. Pants and I have been sharing accomodations, we have thrown pumpkin carving parties around the time of All Hallows' Eve. The first one was a fluke, but we've continued to carry out the now-tradition ever since. While I have since tweaked the menu a bit, one thing has never changed, the pumpkin black bean soup. Not only are the colors fitting for the holiday and it's ridiculously easy to make, but it's also nice have a little something to warm you up during a late fall afternoon. We made this recently again after looking in our cupboards and finding them a tad bare. It's good to know that the soup is delicious in the winter time too.

Pumpkin-Black Bean Soup

You can vary this however you like. I like to think of it as having a Carribbean flavor, but what I know about Carribbean food couldn't fill an ant's tea cup. You can add more cumin, cinnamon and corriander for a more Mexican flavor or you can add more curry, ginger and some garam masala for a more Indian flair. It's also possible to omit the dry spices all together for some Thai curry paste... For our party, we like to serve the soup with corn bread.

1 16 oz. can pure pumpkin
1 16 oz can light coconut milk
16 oz vegetable stock
curry powder, to taste
ground cumin, to taste
ground ginger, to taste
ground corriander to taste
ground cinnamon to taste
garam masala to taste
2 16 oz cans of black beans, rinsed and drained

Garnishes:
chopped cilantro
green onion, sliced thinly
wedges of lime
avocado, diced
sour cream or non-fat plain yogurt (my preference)

Combine all ingredients except beans in a large pot and stir well. Taste for spices, salt and pepper. Add black beans and heat through. Serve and let people garnish their own.

And The Feasting Continues...

It's nice being able to spend time with the fam and this extended weekend, I got a triple dose. Along with T-day, my newly parental cousins were in town and took the partner and me wine tasting with them. Then last night, I do what I always do for almost any celebration, make dinner. They brought their teeny-tiny one with them and, gosh darn it, she's cute. She is by far, my favorite first cousin, once-removed.

For dinner, we started with smoked trout mixed with creme fraiche, horse radish, shallots, dill and lemon in endive "spoons". There was mystery squash soup with fried sage leaves (mystery because the vendor said it was Mexican squash and just seemed like a butternut with a few bumps and more seeds.). The main was stuffed cabbage, hippie-style and then, believe it or not, I finally made a recipe out of this book that turned out well. I slavishly followed the directions and my prune-Armagnac bread pudding came out so well that all though everyone said they were full, we polished the whole thing off.

This takes a while to make. There are quite a few parts and will dirty perhaps all of your dishes, but if you get somewhat organized and have a fantastic kitchen assistant who makes you laugh and a great martini, you're good to go.

P.S. This can be made vegan, by using egg substitute or 1/3 cup mashed tofu for the egg and by omitting the cheese.

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls with Sweet and Sour Tomato Sauce, adapted from Vegetarian Suppers by Deborah Madison

1/2 cup bulgur
1/2 oz dried mushrooms
2 TB olive oil
2 onions, chopped
8 oz mushrooms, chopped
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 tsp tamari or soy sauce
4 TB chopped parsley
4 TB chopped dill
1 egg
1/4 cup grated Parmesan, more or less
1/2 cup bread crumbs

1 whole head savoy cabbage, 12 leaves separated and removed whole

1 TB olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 TB tomato paste
1/4 tsp allspice
1/2 cup wine, red or white
1 28 oz can of tomatoes
1-2 TB brown sugar, to taste
1-2 TB red wine vinegar to taste

2 TB olive oil
flour, for dredging


For the rolls:

In a medium bowl, combine bulgur and dried mushrooms. Pour 1 cup hot water over and let sit until almost all of the liquid is absorbed, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, prep your veg.

Heat 1 TB oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add onions. Saute just until onions begin to turn brown in spots, about 3-4 minutes. Add fresh mushrooms and walnuts. Let cook until mushrooms throw off their liquid and re-absorb it, about 10 minutes. Add tamari/soy and salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat.

In a food processor, combine bulgur mixture, sauteed veg mixture, herbs, egg, cheese, bread crumbs, salt and pepper. Pulse until mixture resembles ground meat.

In the same large skillet, heat 1 TB oil over medium heat. Add bulgur mixture and pat down into a smooth layer, as much a possible. You're cooking the egg and browning your "meat". Saute a few minutes, until mixture is cooked and browned. Set aside.

Steam cabbage leaves a few minutes, to make pliable. Try not to overcook them or they will have that characteristic cabbage-y smell. Yuck.

Fill the center of each leaf with about 2 TB filling. Roll up carefully, trying not to tear the leaf, and dredge in flour. Set rolls aside.

For the sauce:

In a sauce pot, heat 1 TB oil over medium-low heat. Add onion and tomato paste and mix together. Cook until onion is slightly brown, about 10 minutes. Add allspice, canned tomatoes with juices, wine and brown sugar. Let simmer about 15-20 minutes to meld flavors.

Meanwhile, heat 2 TB oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add rolls, with the seams face down, to the pan. Let cook until slightly brown, about 4-5 minutes per side. Back to the tomato sauce, right before serving, stir in the vinegar to taste. To plate, place a few spoonfuls of sauce down and place rolls on top.

Makes 12 rolls, enough for 4-6 people.

Gobble, Gobble

Happy T-Day everyone! Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. I hope this holiday season brings us all much love, peace and happiness.

Quickie Cranberry Sauce (no picture because I accidently deleted it. It was red and chunky.)

8 oz frozen cranberries
1/2 seedless tangerine, rind and all
sugar, to taste
fresh chili pepper, to taste, I used a manzano but a floral habenero would be good too
1-2 TB Triple Sec

Throw everything in a blender/food processor. Blend until it reaches desired texture; I like mine chunky. Taste for sugar. Serve! A caveat, this doesn't make very good leftovers becase the oil from the tangerine rind starts to take over. This makes enough for about 3-4 servings. Multiply or divide as needed.

Practice Makes Perfect, Thrice Over

Whereas, I have a knife skills exam this day and whereas I had a soup making class in which my instructor wanted us to hone our soup-making skills and whereas I promised to bring something to my cousins' baby-naming lunch and was assigned soup... Do you see where this is going?

After spending 45 minutes practicing dicing, julienning and brunoise-ing carrots and parsnips I had a big pile of differently shaped and not very evenly dissected root vegetables. I didn't really measure anything out so the below is an approximation of what actually happened. A few things: I wanted a more traditional autumn soup but I bet some Indian spices (I'm thinking ginger, cinnamon, cumin, cardamom, or even a jarred curry powder or garam masala) would be excellent. Also I think that a bit of reduced cream would round it out very well. As it is, it needs a little something something to make it really pop.

For the uninitiated, parsnips are what carrots who've been good and gone to heaven taste and look like. Though you might be tempted to buy the really big roots, don't if you can avoid it. The cores tend to be very woody. I highly recommend that you try them, if not in this soup, cook them with potatoes and mash with some whole milk (or if you are feeling particularly decadent, a mix of milk and cream), salt and pepper. You won't be sorry.

Fall Carrot and Parsnip Soup, from my brain

2 TB butter (or oil)
1 leek, sliced thinly (and evenly)
2 stalks celery, diced evenly
3/4 lb carrots, peeled and cut evenly, one hopes
3/4 lb parsnips, peeled...
4 cups water
2 pinches ground ginger
2 pinches ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1 pinch cayenne
salt, to taste

Melt butter in a pot over a medium-high flame. When heated, sweat leek and celery but don't let the veg color, about 4-7 minutes. Add carrots, parsnips and water. Let mixture come to a boil and reduce heat to low. Cover and let cook until parsnips are soft, about 30 minutes, depending on the size of the pieces.

Remove pot from heat, and in batches so that it is never more than half full, puree in a blender until smooth. Return soup to the pot and add the spices and salt. If you choose to add cream, now would be a good time. Gently heat soup until warmed through.

Serves 4?

A Birthday and a Confession

This is what I made for my friend's birthday dinner last night:


C's Birthday Dinner Menu:

Red Butter Lettuce Salad with a Pomegranate Vinegar-Olive Oil Dressing and Pomegranate Seeds and Chevre
Pork Stew with Butternut Squash and Fennel over Soft Polenta
Apple Slices Sauteed in Browned Butter and Brown Sugar over Cinnamon Ice Cream from here
and lots of sparkling wine (Jacob's Creek Chardonnay-Pinot Noir Cuvee NV; which we both enjoyed and highly recommend)

C is gluten-intolerant so we had the stew over polenta instead of noodles as the recipe suggests. I actually preferred it that way. The polenta soaked up the liquid far better than noodles and was heartier. I am looking forward to leftovers today.

Pork Stew with Butternut Squash and Fennel over Soft Polenta, adapted from Bon Appetit

1 1/2 lbs 2-inch pieces trimmed pork shoulder (Boston butt)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp dried rubbed sage
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 TB olive oil
1/2 cup chopped pancetta or bacon (not smoked) about 2 oz
1 cup chopped onions
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes in juice
1 cup broth (I used veg because it was in my cupboard, but the recipe calls for chicken)
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 large fresh fennel bulb; cut into 1-inch cubes, reserve fronds
15 1 1/2-inch cubes peeled butternut squash

Place pork in a bowl. Mix next 6 ingredients in small bowl; sprinkle over pork, turning pork to coat evenly. Let stand 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F. Heat oil in oven-proof pot (that has a lid) over medium-high heat. Add pancetta/bacon and saute until beginning to brown, about 3 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer pancetta to medium bowl. Add enough pork to pot to just cover in a single layer, you may have to do this a few times; saute until brown, about 8 minutes. COOKING SCHOOL TIP: Do not move or turn meat until you can easily pick it up off the pot. If it sticks to the bottom, it means that the Maillard reaction (browning) has not finished. Wait until it has, your stew will be more flavorful this way. Using slotted spoon, transfer pork to bowl with pancetta. Repeat with remaining pork. Add onions and garlic to pot, saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes with juices, broth, wine, and pork mixture. Bring to boil, scraping up browned bits (the fond).

Cover pot; place in oven. Cook 1 hour. Add fennel and squash to stew. Cover and cook in oven until pork and vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes. At this point, my meat wasn't quite done but the squash was. I ended up fishing out the squash because I didn't want to end up with puree and returned the stew to the oven for another half hour. The I returned the squash to the stew. My stew was a little to thick, so I added a bit more liquid. The original recipe recommends that you thicken the liquid by removing the solids and cooking down the liquid, but I didn't need to. Your results, as always, may vary. Taste for salt and pepper. Serve over egg noodles or polenta. Garnish with reserved chopped fronds.

Serves 4

Easy Slow Cooked Soft Polenta

1 cup coarse cornmeal, preferably stone-ground
5 cups liquid (water, stock, or broth)
3 TB butter
Freshly grated Parmesan, to taste.

Preheat oven to 350F. Or if you are lucky enough to have an oven big enough for both the stew and the polenta cook simultaneously. I am not. Grease oven-safe pot. In pot, stir together cornmeal and liquid until there are no lumps. Add 1 TB butter. Bake in oven for 80 minutes. Remove from oven and stir in remaining butter, cheese and salt and pepper to taste. Easy, no? If you prefer your polenta softer, add more liquid. Firmer? Add less.

The Confession: I think I need to give up the ghost and admit I am now firmly re-entrenched in the omnivore category of human diets. The partner is still a pescatarian, so most recipe posts here will continue to be vegetarian and all though I am eating some meat in no way will it be everyday. I prefer a more flexible diet but I can't imagine making meat the center of most meals. Not only is it pretty selfish for humane, environmental and sustainability reasons, it's also boring and I enjoy meatless meals and like the challenge of creating them. For these reasons, any meat I do purchase needs to be humanely raised and organic. Yes, it is more expensive but since it's not something I am going to indulge in too often, it's do-able. And I do believe that meat ought to be an indulgence, not a requirement. What do you think about that? I'm planning on the reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, has anyone out there read it yet? What did you think about it? If you eat meat, how do you explain why? If you don't, why don't you? I'm all ears.

How to Not Make Apple Pie

Part Two in an unfortunately occasional series. Part One is here.

1. Don't weigh the apples, guesstimate!
2. Don't peel the apples.
3. The dough isn't coming together as it ought. Solution: overwork it!
4. Continue to work with the pie dough that doesn't look quite right
5. Forget that your oven is small and make the pie too tall with the too many apples so that the half hour that you spent piling apples artfully (which is probably why the crust was soggy) is wasted when the top of pie scrapes along the top of the oven creating a serious architectural disaster.
6. Also forget that your oven runs hot.
7. Take the pie out of the oven when the timer dings even though it looks like it could use a bit more time because the excess apples take longer to cook.
8. End up with something that doesn't look so good (obviously) tastes all right (but you know that it could have been awesome) but sort of has a weird texture from the uncooked apples and serve it to your ravenous partner and friend who biked 32 miles that day and don't care about any of the above.
9. Eat leftovers for breakfast.

If you do not follow the above instructions (except maybe #9) you will be rewarded with a damn good pie. It will seem incredibly huge when it is filled with apples but the fruit will cook down and everything will turn out all right.

Cinnamon Crumble Apple Pie, adapted from Bon Appetit

Your favorite pie dough (I don't trust this one)
3 1/4 lbs Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced 1/4"inch thick
1/2 cup sugar
2 TB flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp Chinese Five Spice powder, if you have any
2 TB butter, melted

3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup ground toasted walnuts
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp Chinese Five Spice powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 TB butter, cut into 1/2"inch cubes

Preheat oven to 400F. Roll out pie dough on a lightly floured surface to 12-inch round. Transfer to a 9-inch diameter pie plate. Trim excess dough to 1/2 inch overhang and crimp. Return to fridge.

Combine apples and next 5 ingredients together in a large bowl. Toss to combine.

In a food processor, combine flour and the next 5 ingredients. Add butter and process until mixture resembles wet sand. Alternatively, if you do not have a processor, combine dry ingredients well and pour out onto a large sheet pan. Melt the butter and pour it over the dry ingredients. Working quickly, mix until combined.

Toss filling. Fill pie shell, mounding in the center. It seems like it is a monster pie now but the fruit will cook down. Pack topping over and and around apples. Be careful or your apple tower might collapse. Bake pie on a baking sheet until topping is golden, about 40 minutes. Then, reduce oven temperature to 350F. Bake pie until apples in center are tender when pierced and filling bubbles thickly at edges, about 45 minutes more. Cool until warm and eat with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Rosh Hashannah and Fall Celebration Dinner

Rosh Hashannah (Head of the Year) begins on Friday, the 22, this year. Rosh Hashannah also marks for me the beginning of fall. I love this time of year, not only does it include my two most favorite holidays, Thanksgiving and Halloween, but it is the world's last burst of energy before it goes to sleep for winter. I've always felt that fall is a much more reasonable time to begin a new year. People go back to school, the season is changing and we are embracing the riches that earth has to give us. It makes way more sense to me than starting over in the middle of winter. My pagan friends will tell you that the new year in winter marks welcoming the return of the sun. Reading about fall is making me very excited particularly when it is that eloquent.

A tradition for Rosh Hashannah is to eat apples with honey for a sweet new year. One is also encouraged to combine the sweet with savory for the same reason. I like including typical autumn fare to celebrate the harvest. Without further ado, here is my menu plan for my Autumnal appreciation meal:

Caramelized Onion Challah (recipe soon here)
Apples and Honey
Three Beet Caviar with Endive and Goat Cheese, from Local Flavors
Poulet au Normandy, from Chez Panisse Fruit
Chard with Lemon Oil, from Zuni Cafe
Flageolet Gratin (really cannellini beans because flageolets are bloody
expensive) from Sunday Suppers at Lucques
Buckwheat-Walnut Cake with Poached Apples and Caramel Sauce
adapted from Ripe for Dessert

P.S Other celebrations are also in order for the engagement of my Hebrew school partner in crime, A, and his lovely fiance, P. And for my brand spanking new cousin A and her newly minted parents G and E. I'm so happy for all of you, I could just burst!