Apple cider-glazed carrots

Ed went and picked a gazillion gallons of apples up in Vermont, and then pressed most of them into cider. This is a good thing, but cider doesn't last, so I've been coming up with ways to use it up. We had carrots the other day, and epicurious has a recipe for cider-glazed carrots, which sounded good. Of course, the recipe calls for two pounds of carrots, and I had 7 carrots, so I sort of had to ignore their proportions and just wing it. The end result was delicious, so I'll definitely be making this again. It got a soaring approval in the Ed-ratings, too.

Cider-glazed carrots
Carrots, of some quantity. Preferably the relatively small ones, because they're prettier and they cook faster.
Apple cider
Cider vinegar
Kosher salt
Butter

Notice the lack of any quantities... you can follow the real recipe if you want quantities, gosh darn it!

Start by chopping the green bits off the carrots. If the carrots are particularly large, cut them into smaller pieces. My carrots were small enough that I just left them whole. If you are leaving them whole, wash them pretty well, or you could peel them, but that seemed like an unnecessary step.

Put the carrots in the pan. Pour in some cider, so that there is maybe 1/2" of depth around the carrots. Drizzle in a little cider vinegar, I used ~1tsp for my small amount of carrots, if you had more carrots and more cider you'd use more vinegar. Sprinkle the whole thing with some kosher salt, about two pinches in my case. Drop in some pats of butter.

Bring the entire thing up to a simmer, and then put a lid on the pot. Let it simmer away for 10-20 minutes, checking and stirring occasionally. Once the carrots are tender enough to poke with a fork (but not all the way through), keep the lid off, and continue to stir around occasionally, reducing the cider. Once the cider has reduced into a thick, caramel-y glaze, you're done. Serve the carrots warm, or I hear they're fine the next day, too. Carrots are pretty forgiving.

Anna's applesauce cake

I can't believe I've never made this, or put it on the blog, yet. Anna Mcloon makes a mean chocolate applesauce cake, and apparently I asked her for the recipe once, back in 2007. It took some digging through old emails to find it, but Ed has been going nuts at making applesauce again this year, so I figured it was the appropriate baked dessert for the day. It also fits the budget pretty well, as I had everything on hand already. Cheap, tasty, sorta-healthy (I mean, it has applesauce, that's a fruit!), and easy to make. Good times! This one's for you, Anna, I'm missing you already.

Chocolate applesauce cake from 1,000 Jewish recipes by Faye Levy, with assorted comments, etc by Anna.

1.5C flour
1/3C unsweetened cocoa
1-1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda
3 tbs vegetable oil
1C sugar
1 large egg
1-1/3C applesauce (unsweetened, 'cause that's what I prefer to eat)

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 9" square baking pan. I used a round one, and I think it was only 8" diameter. Anna mentions that if you use cocoa instead of flour, you don't get the cake all white on the bottom.

Mix all the wet stuff together in one bowl, and all the dry stuff in another bowl. Combine, but don't overmix.

Dump the batter in the pan, and sprinkle some chocolate chips on top. Bake 25-30 minutes or until the tester comes out clean. Lastly, the most important instructions: "Bring to party!" Except we ate it at home. Whatevs, it's still tasty!

Tomato tart

There are a bunch of tomatoes trying to fall onto the ground and rot right now, so I picked them, and some herbs that were hanging out nearby, and figured I'd use them up somehow in a dish for the potluck last Saturday. Inspiration struck in the form of a tomato tart, with caramelized onions and cheese. Can't go wrong with those ingredients. It was utterly delicious, confirmed by pretty much everyone who ate any of it.


Tomato Tart with caramelized onions and swiss cheese
1 recipe of pie dough, for an open tart
~2 fresh tomatoes
fresh basil
fresh thyme
fresh rosemary
~2C shredded swiss cheese (in this case, Jarlsburg)
2 onions
olive oil
kosher salt

The herbs are somewhat optional, but not really, because they tasted delicious. I also wouldn't bother with those tasteless store-bought tomatoes, since they just aren't that tasty. Not being a snob, just being realistic...

You can make your own pie crust, or buy some sort of pre-made thing. I made my own, and it took less than 5min. Here's a recipe.

First, caramelize some onions. I cut them in half, and then cut slices, so you end up with long pieces. It took maybe 1/4C of oil to get them properly caramelized, but it's worth it. Throw some salt on the onions as they cook, that'll help draw out the water. It was a 15-20min process to get them properly brown, but don't be impatient.

Then, blind bake the pie crust for 6 minutes or so, just to get it initially set. From there, I put the onions down first.


Then, I added the herbs.


Then, a layer of cheese, and then tomatoes! Slice them relatively thick.

More cheese, and maybe some little cherry tomatoes on top, because they're pretty.

We ate this the next day, and it was still freakn delicious. Make this.

Hurricane mousse

While Hurricane Irene was hammering New England, I was making mousse at Ali's house. We actually made two kinds of mousse, but I only took a picture of the white chocolate one. It was really good, I liked the texture. It was just chocolate and cream; I don't know if that even counts as mousse, but it was delicious. The recipe was on the back of a chocolate wrapper that I'd gotten in France, intending to give the chocolate away, as a gift. Unfortunately, the chocolate got sampled at some point along the way, making it more difficult to give the chocolate away as a gift. The only action remaining was to make the mousse, obviously, and then eat it.

White chocolate mousse
1 bar white chocolate (one that tastes good to you - this one was Nestlé)
200mL whipping cream. I think we determined that is just about 1 cup, but use the google for exact conversions.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Whip the cream to stiff peaks. Transfer about 1/3 of the whipped cream to the chocolate, and stir it around, just to lighten up the chocolate. Add another third of the whipped cream, and fold to combine. Finally, add the last third and fold it in. Put the mousse into pretty glasses, and refrigerate for >2hrs. The wrapper said overnight, but we found it was firm enough for good eating after two hours.

Enjoy!

Grilled peaches

The western mass renegade O' group was having a post-France dinner, mostly with a French theme, and I was on dessert. Since the French eat a lot of fruit for desserts, peaches seemed like a good idea, but I was torn between grilled peaches and peach melba. Grilled peaches won out, because I'd never grilled fruit before, and it sounded really tasty, and Gail also liked the idea. Phil was disappointed to not be having peach melba, so next time, it'll be that!

This was pretty simple, but I'm guessing it's pretty depending on having some really good peaches, since you aren't cooking them all the way through. I found my at Clarkdale, a farm up in Deerfield, and the taste test revealed that they were pretty awesome peaches. You also need butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and a grill.

6 peaches
2 tbs butter
2 tbs sugar
1tsp cinnamon

Rinse and halve the peaches, leaving the skin on. Heat the grill to medium-hot, oil the grill, and put the peaches flat-side down on the grill. Cook for ~5-6min, and then flip. Meanwhile, melt the butter and mix with the sugar and cinnamon. Once you've flipped the peaches, spoon some of the sugary butter mixture on each one, and let them cook for another 5-6 minutes. I figured they were done once I could insert a fork almost all the way through to the skin.

Take them off the grill, and serve immediately with ice cream. We found that Hagendaas dulche de leche was particularly tasty, but vanilla will work in a pinch. Enjoy!

Lemon-garlic-basil chicken thighs

My favorite salad dressing is this lemon-garlic-basil dressing, from the Stacks cookbook. I think that was my first-ever cookbook. Anyway, I made the dressing (and it fit in that perfectly-sized olive oil bottle!), and decided to use it to marinate some chicken thighs. This worked out really well. I recommend it.

So, first, I slathered the dressing all over the chicken. Then, I stuck them in a pan, and roasted them for about 45min. Occasionally, I basted the skin with the juices. I maybe did that four times during the cooking stage. I tested them for doneness when the skin had crisped up and gotten brown.

Lemon-garlic-basil dressing:
Yielded: about 2/3 cup

3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon salt
zest of one lemon
1/2C fresh basil
3 teaspoons Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Pinch of cayenne
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Combine the garlic, salt, lemon zest, basil, mustard, lemon juice, cayenne, and pepper in a food processor and blend well. Slowly add the oil while the machine is running until the dressing is well blended and thickened. Can be made ahead and refrigerated.


Once the chicken was done, we served it on some green beans. Definitely won the Ed-seal of approval.

Gougères: two ways

Ali just returned from France, where she had gougères for the first time, and she wanted to make some. I was all for this plan, and since she happened to be in Boston, we got to work. Unsure of what recipe to use, we made two different recipes: one from epicurious, because it had ratings, and one from a random French site we'd googled using the french google. This created lots and lots of little cheese puffs, so we had ample opportunities to sample the two options. The end result: the French gougères were far superior. They just had a way better texture, flakier and moister and cheesier. They also used three times the amount of butter. Minor details.

First, the epicurious recipe:
Blue cheese gougères
Made two baking-sheets-worth
1/4C white wine
1/4C water
1/2 stick butter, cut into cubes
1/4tsp salt
2/3C flour
3 eggs, whisked
1/3C blue cheese, crumbled.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Melt the butter and the wine and water in a saucepan, add the salt, and then add all the flour. Stir vigorously for about a minute, until it's smooth and leaves a film on the bottom of the pan. We did this over the heat. Then remove from heat, let it cool a minute, and add the eggs in three installments, vigorously stirring between each. Add the cheese, and stir that in.

Grease a baking sheet. Drop little balls of dough on the sheet. You can brush the tops with egg wash, just to make them pretty, but I'm not sure that adds to the taste. Bake for 25-30 minutes, checking occasionally. I don't think you want to overbake, you don't want dry gougères.

Ali, mélangez vivement!

The other version, from the French website, was much tastier. I highly recommend making it. Totally passed the Ed-test!

Gougères au fromage
Makes lots and lots and lots, but they disappear quickly
1C water
1tsp salt
1.5 sticks unsalted butter
4 eggs
2/3C grated gruyere cheese
1.25C flour

Preheat the oven to 375F. Grease some baking sheets. Melt the butter in the water with the salt, in a saucepan. Add the flour and stir vigorously. For about a minute. Remove from heat, and let it cool a bit. Add the eggs, one at a time, and stir vigorously between. Once the eggs are incorporated, add the cheese, and stir it in. Scoop little balls of dough onto the baking sheet, and bake for 25 minutes. Don't eat them all in one seating...

Scooping the dough onto the pan.