Essentials of a Dutch Baby

Apples, sauteed in butter, start to relax at the bottom of my cast-iron pan.

Nothing inspires me more than a handful of shiny apples lying forlornly at the bottom of their formerly full bushel box. What to do, I wondered. I decided last week that I should highlight a few of the cookbooks I rely on regularly to bake or cook away the doldrums of a gloomy, midwestern fall once the leaves are all raked up. I found it easiest to combine the two projects: apples and cookbook.

The Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking book is one I opened on Christmas, wrapped in laughing santas with a note from my mother. I'd just begun to fling handfuls of flour recklessly about my Colorado kitchen, with mixed results. Altitude, I quickly learned, was not the friend of handwritten recipe cards from middle America. Initially my favorite thing about the cookbook was a handy chart in the introductory section that described your problem and told you what part of the recipe you screwed up. I rapidly grew more confidant. Later my favorite thing became that everything turned out perfectly, but that was after I figured out how to follow the yeasty (and sometimes lengthy) directions.

Pour the egg-y batter over the apples in pre-heated skillet.

The very first and simplest bread I started baking was an olive bread. It turned out golden and crusty outside with pillowy soft guts, dotted with olives aplenty. The walnut variation of this bread is one I make monthly even now, baking and freezing in smaller loaves sized for a two-person dinner. From there, the sourdough called to me, then baguettes, foccacia, oatmeal molasses, cinnamon rolls, all in quick turn. And, growing braver, I turned to pastries. Months after receiving it, I could whip up a batch of danish to make George's father proud. Then came the croissants, bagels, a plum and almond frangipane tart, pizza dough, angel food cake, eclairs, cheesecake. I'm so brave now that I've taken to writing in the margins, little notes about how things turned out or how to make them better.

Six years later this is still my most-used cookbook, though now I've handwritten some of my bread staples onto recipe cards to prolong the book's spine. It's given me the confidance to branch out into tricky, multi-paged recipes, to know when it'll be better to chill the dough even when another cookbook skips it, to read a recipe and sense when the measurements are off — like one Martha Stewart recipe that calls for two tablespoons of salt when it should be teaspoons. If you need just one baking guide to get started, I highly recommend Essentials of Baking.

This week I made the Apple Oven Pancake (called a Dutch baby when you do it in cast iron) and I wrote " halved recipe to bake in cast iron but doubled apples — sank right away, still good tho." It would've turned out fine if I hadn't adjusted the fruit content. Still, are there leftovers? No. Which, really, says it all.

Just before falling, my dutch baby billows nicely.

Olive & Sun-dried Tomato Fougasse with Baked White Beans

Two cooling layers of finished fougasse. Yum.

I might as well admit it. I am always looking for bread recipes. I had to stop flagging interesting items in my last two baking books when I realized there were notes on every other page. Each recipe ran two pages long. And so, yes, maybe I do keep 12 pounds of butter in the refrigerator at all times. What of it? Everyone has their weakness, and mine is bakery. Period.

Another fault I have: I'm disloyal. Always looking for the greener green; swapping sides for the chewier crust, the flakiest crumb. I have another recipe for fougasse marked in my cookbook library (two, actually), but when I saw that Dorie's was loaded with olives and sun-dried tomatoes I forgot all about them.

Dorie Greenspan's recipe for Olive and Sun-dried Tomato Fougasse, printed in the November 2009 issue of Bon Appetit magazine, isn't difficult, just long. You'll have to wait overnight to test out your breads, which doesn't seem fair. But if you work from home, like I do, you'll find it's easy to run downstairs and peek at your breads throughout the day, perhaps even baking up half of the recipe over your lunch break. Unfairly, yes, but your hard work should be rewarded.

Not quite as prettily leaf-shaped as Greenspan's version, but it'll do.

The good news is that the bread bakes up fast — 20 minutes! — with a chewy crust and a puffy, light, tearable center. It was fabulous for dipping into the roasting juices from the pan of baked white beans I made (more on that below). I'm not as great at recreating the leaf shape, but, hey, it's my first attempt. This is a bread you'll quickly add to your dinner repertoire.

Pre-baking, the beans are mixed with loads of garden
fresh tomatoes, sauteed onions and fresh parsley.

Now for the beans. Every once in a while, usually once per season, George allows me to make beans for dinner. He permits their anytime use as an ingredient or side item, but serving them as the main course is mostly nixed. But these white beans, inspired by Heidi Swanson's Chipotle White Beans recipe were the beginning of something great for me. Namely, beans are a permissible main course. Me being me, I have not made either Heidi's or the original Food&Wine magazine recipe that inspired it exactly, but a weird hybrid of the ideas in both of them with things I like and have on hand. It was the weekend, so we let this sucker cook all day long. The flavors married well and the whole thing got thick and gooey, a perfect match for the bread.

Our beans featured giant dried limas that I soaked and cooked in water, flavored with garlic, bay, and a handful of fresh oregano. While they cooked, I chopped up eight tomatoes and sauteed an onion, then I mixed the two things, adding a bit of the bean cooking water to the baking dish. I also added basil salt, which I've sprinkled over everything since August. I baked them at 250º for two hours with a lid on the pan, then drained some of the liquid. I added a tablespoon of butter, dotted across the top, and then spooned over 4 tablespoons of homemade basil pesto frozen from my summer crop. Over this I grated 1/4 cup of parmesan, then I replaced the lid and let it all marry for another three hours, stirring it up a little every hour. When we were starting to starve, I took the beans out and turned the oven up to 450º to bake the bread. I cut 3 T of butter into 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs with a pinch of salt and another 1/4 cup of parmesan. I poured the crumb mixture over the top of the beans and let it crisp in the oven (no lid) for 20 minutes, until the bread was finished too.


Best meal I've had in a long time, which is great because it truly did take the whole day. I'm sure I could have put the beans into the crock pot and just finished them in the oven, but, heck, it's the weekend. Why dirty more dishes?

A Mess of Apple Coffee Cake Tatin

The real problem was that I didn't have anything to snack on that went with my tea. See, I found this maple-y, lemony tea that's delicious any time of day, only sort of naked without a munchy counterpart. I should have stuck with cookies. But what did I have? Apples. Still. A glut of lovely, crunchy, farm-fresh apples. I thought of coffee cake. I thought of tatin. I thought of marrying the two in a gooey, soft, rich concoction that I could eat throughout the day without too, too much guilt. It was a fabulous idea that went wrong right at the end.


I arranged fat apple wedges, doused in lemon juice, cinnamon and brown sugar, into a parchment lined pie pan over 2 tablespoons of cut up butter pieces. Over that I spooned a thick, vanilla-flavored sour cream batter and then some walnuts, er. . . wait! Here's where things went wrong. In the freezer I had a small tupperware of what I thought was leftover muffin crumb topping — you know, flour, cinnamon, sugar and butter. I make a batch and then freeze the rest because it keeps forever. Unfortunately, this particular batch was unlabelled and I sprinkled it liberally everywhere, thinking the topping would add a nice crunch to the cake and it would be funny that the top was the bottom. Ha ha I'm so clever. Joke's on me. The 'topping' was actually almond croissant filling, a grind of thick almonds with almond flavoring and sugar. Much as I tried to scoop off the big chunks, it was too late. The heavy, frozen pieces sunk deep into the batter.

Oy vey. What to do. I baked it up until it got all golden and caramel at the edges, just as I expected it would. When flipped, the apples were deeply colored and cinnamon wafted through the kitchen. The whole thing looked amazing, but smelled a bit confusing. Almonds, vanilla, apples, cinnamon, it all sounds okay. George thought it was fine, good, even. So whether I was just upset over the mistake and exaggerating it, I swear I could still taste an odd cherry flavor in my apple mess. Deeply unsettling. When I get up the nerve, I'll try this one again. She has promise.

We'll try 'er again without the mixup, because, honestly, it still looked great.

Burn Notice, Food Network version

Did I mention the panini press earlier? I'm not sure how it slipped through the cracks of my rambling commentary. Several months ago I had a gift certificate for Crate&Barrel, something I'd been hoarding since the holidays. Once I lured George and his wallet into the store, I ditched him for the kitchen tools. I've been weighing the pros and cons of another electrical kitchen appliance. It's been either a panini grill or a waffle iron in head-to-head combat inside my head. But when I saw this gorgeous, red Mario Batali panini press, I thought, "It's multipurpose AND saves me counter space." Add in a sale price alongside my gift card, and I only had to ask George two times if she could come home with me.

Which leads me to the downside: I cannot use this thing. I've followed all of the directions, I swear. I preheat every time for the appropriate amount of time. It's starting to get a nice luster of oily residue from my attempts at friendship. Yet. Yesterday when I started grilled cheese — crisp apples and aged white cheddar on a lovely beer bread I'd reserved for exactly this sandwich — I burned the shit out of everything. Repeatedly. Oh I should say I burned only one side of three different sandwiches, still had to flip them to make a mark on side B.

Evidence of my amateur operation.

What am I doing wrong? Help. Someone. Please.

Apple-Cinnamon Scones

Maybe by now you're thinking: enough scones already! But maybe you, like me, can never have enough scones. Especially hot, cinnamon-y, fruity ones with a crusty sugar top. Well, I had company for the weekend, and that means I get to bake something yummy. (I use every excuse.) These scones need no butter or jam, just a cup of hot tea and a plate to catch your crumbs.

Apple-Cinnamon Scones
Makes 8

1/4 cup sugar
1 T baking powder
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
zest of one lemon (or 1/2 tsp dried zest)
6 T butter, cold

1 cup whipping cream + 1 T
1 cup diced apple (with or without peel, your choice)

Topping
3 T raw sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Heat oven to 425º and line a baking sheet with parchment. Mix the 3 T raw sugar with the cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside. Wash and dry the apples, about 3 medium or 2 large, and cut into pieces. Slice thinly, no larger than 1/4" thick, and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and lemon zest. Cut the butter into the flour mixture using a pastry cutter or fork, working until the butter pieces are no larger than small pebbles. Pour in the cup of cream and use the pastry cutter to incorporate most of it, then add in the apples. Use your hands to gather the batter together, kneading it lightly until it comes together, about 6 times. Pat the dough onto the countertop in a circle, working until it's no more than 1" high and round. Use a knife to slice into eight pieces and transfer to the baking sheet, spaced evenly. Brush each scone with the extra tablespoon of cream. Sprinkle the scones generously with the raw sugar and cinnamon mix.

Bake 15 minutes, then turn the baking sheet around. Bake another 8-10 minutes, until golden brown on top.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi for Real

Finally the promised Sweet Potato Gnocchi is delivered to our tabletop drenched in sage browned butter and topped with toasted pecans. Fresh from the freezer, the gnocchi minutes to cook and still ended up feather light as the recipe promised. I have to admit, I was relieved. After years of terrible, store-bought gnocchi, I'd finally worked up the nerve to make it myself just a few years ago. But nerve is only a small part of successful gnocchi, I found. The second, and perhaps more important part, is a great recipe.

Gourmet's Sweet Potato Gnocchi recipe is lovely, even in color. Let's not discuss how my shapes are never quite right or even alike in nature, as I've never claimed to be a professional that way. Instead, we'll focus on the concentrated, nutty flavors working together — browned butter and pecans! sweet potato and parmesan! — inside soft little pasta pillows the color of autumn oak leaves. One bite and I was hooked. The very best part of all is that I only used half of my frozen stash, meaning I'll reap a second meal from one evening's hard work!

Changes? Substitutions? Yes and yes. You'll notice I used pecans instead of chestnuts, but that's merely for availability. And, no, I didn't fry my sage leaves, just browned them in the butter. But my major change was using only sweet potatoes in this recipe, rather than adding a russet. I'm sure to have sacrified a bit of fluffiness, but the vibrant colors and flavor of pure sweet potato more than made up for it.

Poblanos with Eggs & Rice

I happen to have planted poblano peppers this year. Not in the garden, but alongside the house, where the plant grew in fits and starts until, late in September, it finally bloomed a few tiny, shiny peppers. Fearing frost over the weekend, I picked them, each a handful, not quite two-thirds of the large poblanos I'd buy in the store. Still, they were cute and spicy, watering my eyes when I sliced into them, carving out the tops and chopping the extra bits to fry up with onions. I didn't have enough of them for a main dish, just six small ones, so I made a spicy tomato soup with toasted tortilla strips to go alongside.

The fixings: Fried pepper tops and a shallot in a teaspoon of oil.
Three eggs slowly scrambled with some milk in a fat nub of butter,
then seasoned with parsley, cumin, salt, pepper.

One cup of pre-cooked brown rice mixed into the eggs,
plus two ounces of aged white cheddar, cubed.
Scooped inside each pepper shell.

Another ounce of cubes cheese sprinkled over top,
then slowly baking at 300º for an hour under aluminum foil.
Removing the foil, taking another 15 minutes at 400º until gooey, golden.

A lovely weeknight dinner: eating toasty, spicy stuffed peppers alongside a warm tomato soup, everything garden fresh and delicious. Wishing there were more peppers. . . .

Sweet Potato Gnocchi (Teaser)

Do you ever start making dinner far, far too late for it to be feasible that you'll be eating it that day? I do. This is what happened to me on Friday. Oh it all started out okay. My recipe, a torn page ripped from Gourmet's October issue, started out with roasting sweet potatoes. In a horrible twist of fate, the two fat potatoes I procured took more than 90 minutes to cook through, rather than the 45 minutes I was counting on. I was starved. Then my husband came home, starved. The potatoes were only halfway cooked and still needed to cool completely before I could work with them properly. We ordered Chinese.

Once my belly was full and the potatoes were finally cool, I proceeded with the recipe, adding parmesan, egg, flour, salt, nutmeg, and (my own twist) cardamom, pepper. Thirty minutes later, I now have a tub filled with frozen gnocchi awaiting another day's dinner. They smelled delicious, and I could just imagine them with browned butter, sage and toasted walnuts. I hope they taste good, whenever I get around to making them.

Curry Roasted Cauliflower

We're headed for that part of the year when vegetables are wintery pale. Using what George calls my "fancy spices," I've decided to drum up some excitement in advance with this cauliflower recipe. My husband, George, is a cauliflower hater, also a curry hater. But there's something about golden brown, tiny, florets that makes this cauliflower seem a whole different vegetable. Honestly, it is still not his favorite, but I also don't have to goad George into eating large spoonfuls when I cook it this way. On the other hand, I have to remind myself not to consume the entire remaining portion — it's THAT good. Delicately spiced with yellow curry, smoked paprika, and cumin, this is a flexible side dish that will have you licking the pan clean.

Curry Roasted Cauliflower
Serves 4 as a side

1 head of cauliflower, washed and left to dry
2 T olive oil or vegetable oil
1-2 tsp yellow curry powder, use more if you like curry and spice (my husband doesn't)
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp smoked paprika, optional
generous sprinkle of salt & pepper

Heat your oven to 450º while your cauliflower air dries. Thinly slice the cauliflower heads, using up to 2" of the stems if you like, until the pieces are no more than 1" in diameter and about one-eighth to one-quarter inches thick. The tinier, the better. Those minute, crumbly pieces will be the best bits. Pour your florest onto a large rimmed baking sheet and add the oil and seasonings onto the tray. Use your hands to toss everything together and spread the cauliflower evenly in the pan. Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the cauliflower and bake another 10 minutes. It's done when the floret edges go a caramelly, golden brown. Sprinkle the whole pan with salt and pepper, then toss one last time. Eat while it's hot!

You'll want the raw cauliflower florets to be tiny,
no more than 1" in diameter and 1/4" thick

Variations

• Simple salt and pepper works well if your eaters like cauliflower already.
• You can also roast the florets with salt and pepper only and then drizzle with browned butter and sprinkle with fresh sage leaves for an entirely divine treat.
• For a mexican variation, use 1 tsp cumin + 1 tsp coriander with a dash of garlic or onion powder instead of the curry and paprika.
  
• Leftover curried cauliflower mixes well with a hearty lentil soup.

Cheater Mushroom Soup

It's not the prettiest girl in school, but when cool weather blows around I'm grateful for Cream of Mushroom Soup nonetheless. Especially my cheater variety, which couples freshly sauteed mushrooms and onions in a homemade broth with a can of the Campbell's true and tried variety. This makes the process much quicker, since I don't have to wait around for hours waiting for the soup to slowly thicken after I add the cream. It seems being cold and hungry scares off my patience. Anyway, if you like the richness of creamy soup with chunky, earthy, fresh mushrooms, you'll enjoy this recipe (and the fact that it comes together in under 30 minutes).

Cheater Mushroom Soup
Makes 2 big servings

2 tsp olive oil
1 T butter, cut into small pieces
6 oz baby bella or cremini mushrooms, cleaned and sliced thinly
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
6 fresh sage leaves, minced
1/4 cup white wine
1 dried bay leaf
4 cups water + salt-free vegetable bouillion (or low-salt vegetable broth)
1 can Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup
salt and pepper to taste

In a wide-bottomed pan with a lid, let the olive oil and butter melt together over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute for 2 minutes, until it starts to go translucent. Add the mushrooms, a large handful at a time, stirring to coat with the oil-butter mix. Once a batch starts to color, move it around the pan and add another handful until all the mushrooms are in the pan. Toss the sage leaves in and add the white wine, stirring to clear the bottom of the pan. When the wine evaporates, add the water and your vegetable bouillion (or vegetable broth) plus the bay leaf. Turn the heat up to high and let the soup boil until reduced by a third, about 15 minutes. Fish out your bay leaf. Lower the heat, stir in the Campbell's and season to taste. Let bubble together on the stove 5 minutes to heat through. Ladle into bowls and serve. Best eaten with a buttered baguette for dipping.

Caramel Apple Bars

A few weeks ago, I wrote "These Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Bars from Picky Palate are what I'm bringing to the football watching event this coming Sunday. Easy, yes, and filled with terrible-for-you ingredients that come together droolingly. I can't wait."

So I made them, excitedly, with a few modifications for a slightly healthier version (sorry!). Really, I just stretched the recipe to fill an 11x13" pan, rather than the 9" square one. While the base recipe is delicious, I think I'll modify it a bit more in the next iteration. I'd like to balance the sweetness next time around and want to try it with fresh apples, cinnamon and lemon juice. It would also be great with an oatmeal cookie crust rather than the granola bars smashed with cookie dough. If you refer to the original recipe Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Bars from Picky Palate and her beautiful pictures, I'll just tell you what I did differently. Fully informed, you can make whatever version strikes your fancy.

All of my ingredients, prepped and ready. I mixed a pinch of cinnamon into
the apple filling because it just felt like the right thing to do.

The baked crust, smeared with cream cheese and layered with apple
filling (the whole can), a smashed granola bar and chunks of the
remaining sugar cookie dough.

Mmm, all done baking.

After cooling a few hours, I drizzled the whole thing with 4 oz of caramels that
I melted in 2 T of milk. The whole thing was still extremely sweet.

Onion and Potato Tart

The newly chilled air inspired me to make something warm with these farmers market potatoes. It uses nearly all I can buy fresh, vegetable-wise, at the markets these days: potatoes, fall herbs and onions. Plus I love any excuse to use Musser's Artisan Cheese in a dish. It melts beautifully and goes particularly well with potatoes, like a cheddar.

Onion and Potato Tart
Serves 4 as a main, 6 as a side

For the filling:
1 large red onion, peeled and sliced
6 medium red potatoes, washed and dried, peels on
10 large sage leaves
4 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 oz cheese, cut in a small dice (use cheddar or gruyere, anything bold-flavored that will melt)
2 oz cheese, thinly sliced (use cheddar or gruyere, anything bold-flavored that will melt)
salt and pepper

For the crust:
4 oz filo dough, about 10 sheets, thawed
3-4 T butter, melted

Slice the potatoes very thinly and set aside. Prep the cheese too,
so it's ready to go. Heat your oven to 400º.

Whisk the eggs with the milk, adding a pinch of
salt and pepper. Add your potatoes to this
mixture to keep them from browning.
Stir in the sage and the cubed cheese.

Spray or lightly oil a frying pan on medium heat.
Let the onions cook slowly, growing dark and
carmelly but not crisp. While they cook, make
the filo crust.

I have a lot of respect for filo, so I try to have everything
ready to go before I start this part. Butter a 9" square pan
very well, then unroll your filo to cover the bottom and sides.
Alternate draping the rectangle one way and then the
other to make the edge even, folding the sides back
down and buttering each paper-thin layer of filo before
adding another. Once you have about six solid layers of filo,
spread the cooked onions over the bottom. Pour the filling into
the pan, spreading potato slices by hand to even them out.
Drape the slices of cheese across the top and
drizzle with any remaining butter.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the center is puffed and the
top and sides are golden brown. Let rest for 10 minutes before slicing
and any thick slices of potato will continue to cook through.
For a complete meal, serve warm with a spinach and apple salad.

Home Cannery

So lovely to see the Caramel Apple Jelly and Apple-Pear Jam stacking up.

I've been shirking my web updates, but, I assure you, not my home cookery. This season, I decided to test out a recipe that's pretty common here in Kansas, the apple jelly. I've never made it before, and I won't presume to tell you how to proceed — I'm pretty new to canning and prefer to keep the directions handy and my mom on speed-dial. But I will tell you that I'm pleased with the results. It's like I was born on the prairie.

Next time, I will keep an eye out for apples that are larger, as peeling hundreds of the tiny ones took up the majority of my time. Thank you to Pome on the Range, a neighboring farmers market vendor, for the gorgeous apples. If you're in the area, they also have scads of the best Honey Crisp apples around for sale at their store.

It looks pretty neat right now, which is how you can tell I'm between things.

A full day's work for me, though the magazines seemed to think it takes only
two hours to produce eight jars of jam. I am clearly a beginner.

The remainder of my bushel of apples after 12 jars of jam and jelly,
myriad caramel apples, and eight quarts of applesauce. Oy vey.

Aside from the apples, I canned pizza sauce and tomato soup using tomatoes from my garden. They turned out lovely — we had a soup test run because it smelled amazing —, and I'm excited to have fresh, yummy things any time I want. Also ready to go this winter, butternut squash puree and creamed corn, thanks to the end of this year's farmers market freeing up some of my freezer space, though I still plan to cram the rest of it with bread. Mmmm, fall.