Baked Potato

I love to simmer things all day and overnight because waking up to the scent of tomato sauce or apple sauce is lovely. Here's a few more ideas for using your slow cooker.Article

Apple Butter

I emptied the fridge drawer of all of the orphaned apples and simmered them (whole) in the slow cooker overnight and then I ran them through the mill in the morning. Apple butter!

Spinach + Arugula

I am not kidding when I say having spinach and arugula makes me feel lucky. They are so good I eat them like popcorn, without any dressing.

Crazy Delicious

My brother-in-law made this, it was excellent. We added spinach too.
Vegetables Wellington at Serious Eats
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The Happy Omnivore

I am a happy omnivore.

An omnivore is an animal that can derive its energy and nutrients from a diet consisting of a variety of food sources that may include plants, animals, algae, fungi and bacteria.

An omnivore is a kind of animal that eats either other animals or plants. Some omnivores will hunt and eat their food, like carnivores, eating herbivores and other omnivores. Some others are scavengers and will eat dead matter. Many will eat eggs from other animals.

Omnivores eat plants, but not all kinds of plants. Unlike herbivores, omnivores can't digest some of the substances in grains or other plants that do not produce fruit. They can eat fruits and vegetables, though. Some of the insect omnivores in this simulation are pollinators, which are very important to the life cycle of some kinds of plants.

Breakfast: Red Onions and Green olives

Arugula, spinach, red onions, green onions, avocado, and leftover stuffing dumped on top. My kind of holiday breakfast!

Almonds Figs Ginger Cranberries

Raw almonds, kalamata figs, candied ginger, dried cranberries.... a delicious dessert eaten in your hand.

36th Year Anniversary

Today is my thirty-six year anniversary of running away from my parents' Larchmont NY home the Sunday night of Thanksgiving weekend 1978. That night I called my friend Jessica Brown who was home from Brown University visiting her parents, and asked her if there was room in the car. I knew she and some others were heading back to Rhode Island that night. I packed my little red backpack with a stack of books (one of which was the poems of Arthur Rimbeau) a few clothes and my toothbrush. Jessica lived on Hope Street in a huge apartment which was the second and third floor of a former rooming house. She shared it with six other Brown University students. I baked bread and washed dishes for the house while looking for jobs and my own apartment. We ate supper every night as a group. I remember having laughing fits during the nightly post-supper tea. I met a bunch of smart wonderful people, some of whom are still close friends. Rhode Island became my home.

Anne Lamott: Give and Give and Give

You are going to have to give and give and give, or there’s no reason for you to be writing. You have to give from the deepest part of yourself, and you are going to have to go on giving, and the giving is going to have to be its own reward. There is no cosmic importance to your getting something published, but there is in learning to be a giver.

And I felt like my heart had been so thoroughly and irreparably broken that there could be no real joy again. . . . Everyone wanted me to get help and rejoin life, pick up the pieces and move on, and I tried to, I wanted to, but I just had to lie in the mud with my arms wrapped around myself, eyes closed, grieving, until I didn’t have to anymore.

— Anne Lamott

Giving up Hope

Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.
- Anne Lamott

Bagels and Lox and Smoked Whitefish on Christmas Morning

This was a tradition in our family.

Best in the Universe: Spinach Pie

Have you ever had Jeanette's Bakery spin pies? Must go on Mondays before 11 AM because they sell out fast.
Located on Branch Avenue in Providence. This is real deal. They use black olives garlic and the best taste in the universe. Get extras.

The Day After: Okra in Stir Fry

Last night I made a stir fry for six hungry eaters. I used okra along with the pea pods, green beans. We made Japanese short grain brown rice.

In the wok I used candied ginger, scallions, water chestnuts, soy sauce, rooster sauce, olive oil, lots of chopped fresh garlic.

I love to mix and match ethnic foods. There's always something to learn.

For an appetizer we had my sourdough millet oat bread....with goat cheese.

Craving Healthy Food

Swimming centers me and I start to dream about kale with olives whole wheat bread red onions and home made yogurt cheese.
Article.

Honey and Peanut Butter Granola Balls

2 tablespoons honey
4 tablespoons all natural peanut butter
2 cups home made granola
2 to 4 tablespoons milk, or as needed

Directions

In a large bowl, mix together the honey and peanut butter. Using a spatula, stir in the granola. Add enough milk to just moisten--you want it to stick together. Form into balls. Chill until ready to serve.

Recipe courtesy Gale Gand and Nancy Russman

Thanksgiving Joke

We are snowed in with the greens from the farmer's market but they were so good we ate them all! What to do tomorrow?

Turnips +Kale are my Friends

I bought three purple turnips and arugula, and green beans at the Farmers Market on my walk. I just sliced the turnips thinly and left their beautiful skins on and sauteed them in my 12 inch cast iron skillet with olive oil and Adobo. Then I chopped fresh kale and added it in and steamed it all by adding some water and covering it. Then when bright green I added kosher salt, soy sauce and W sauce and rooster hot sauce. Delish!

Woodie Guthrie

Left wing, right wing, chicken wing.
― Woody Guthrie

Pill-Box Hat

Make your own from an old sweater....here.

Biscotti di Vino - Wine Biscotti

These are my favorite cookie because they are not too sweet, and perfect with a cup of hot English or tea. Sadly I get migraines from drinking wine but I love to cook with it!

I first found this recipe in my favorite cookbook We Called it Macaroni by Nancy Verde Barr, published by Alfred Knopf. The recipe has also appeared in Gourmet magazine.

In a large bowl combine the 4 cups of the flour, the sugar, the salt, and the baking powder and make a well in the center. Pour in the oil and the wine, combine the mixture, incorporating the flour mixture gradually, until it forms a soft dough, and knead in enough of the remaining 1/2 cup flour to keep the dough from sticking. Divide the dough into 40 pieces, roll each piece into a 5-inch rope, curl the ends and form them into hearts. Bake the hearts slightly apart on baking sheets in preheated 350F oven for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 300F and bake the biscuits for 15 to 20 minutes or until they are golden. Let the biscuits cool on racks and store them in airtight containers. Makes 40 biscotti.

The flavor blooms and develops over the week.

I make these with cheap port, Marsala, or any strong, sweet red wine left at our house.

I like to use corn oil in the recipe, and whole wheat flour. I shape the cookies into hearts or pretzel shapes.

Sometimes rather than shape the dough into ropes I flatten the dough with my rolling pin and, since the dough is very crumbly, I also press down on the dough with my hands. Then I use a small scalloped-shaped cookie cutter to shape the cookies. I transfer them to cast iron skillets and bake them. The heavy iron pans serve as baking stones, regulating the heat.

4½ cups flour
¾ cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt (more if using whole wheat flour)
1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder
1 cup corn oil
1 cup full-bodied red wine or port or Marsala wine

Yogurt Makers

My mother (and several generations of her family) have made homemade yogurt using the technique you mentioned. Indian cooking generally requires a lot of yogurt and she has made large batches at least every 3-4 weeks (4-5 large quart sized containers) for as long as I can remember. The neatest part of this experience is that she keeps a little of the yogurt from the previous batch and uses it as a starter for her next batch, thereby never ever running out of it. After boiling the milk and pouring them into the containers (with a little starter in each), she places them in the oven to keep warm overnight. The next morning, the containers are placed in the fridge for use.
I have yet to find store brought yogurt that even comes close in taste to what my mother makes every month.
- Sheil Makan

My grandmother who lived in Europe did the same thing, she used the culture from previous batch. However, I learned that milk in US is different, I assume they put many enzymes and other fillers that will make different type of yoghurt. What I do is I boil the milk I get from the store, it seems to work better, then I cool it till I feel with my pinkie it is the right temperature, I put the culture, cover it with a blanket and it is ready for tomorrow. If you leave it longer it will make it sour. This is my grandma's recipe.
- Natalie Smith

love to take the thick yogurt and make Lebanese Labneh. mix in a teaspoon of kosher salt to a pound of yogurt. Put a cheesecloth in a colander and sit on the counter, covered, to drain overnight. comes out somewhere close to cream cheese, but more tart and fresh tasting. Mix in a little lemon zest and olive oil. oregano and chopped kalamata olives if you like. serve with pita. YUM!
- Verum Nocet

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We Must Have a Pie

By SAM SIFTON, NYT

“We must have a pie,” David Mamet wrote in “Boston Marriage,” his 1999 play about Victorian women struggling not to talk like Mamet characters. “Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.”

It may well be true. For much of the nation, this is the season of deep winter blues, lake-effect depression, the sad pull of midwinter dismay. There is either too much snow or not nearly enough. The furnace clicks on regardless. Night comes fast.

Introduce an apple pie into the equation, though, and watch what happens — as a result not just of the pie itself, but also of the process of making it. Apple pie is a weekend project to slow the baker’s heart rate and restore belief in happiness. The scent of fruit softening, kissed by cinnamon, of buttery crust, of sugar caramelizing — these can combine into a fragrance of redemption for the cook and everyone else. The taste delivers bliss.

Of all the great pie bakers in New York City, the current champion is probably a young woman named Kierin Baldwin, who runs the pastry department at the Dutch, an American restaurant in SoHo. Baldwin serves properly fancy-dan desserts on her menu — a winter sundae with cranberry-pomegranate sorbet, cinnamon ice cream, maple caramel and brioche currently leads that list. These desserts are quite good.

But for the cognoscenti who think of themselves as Dutchmen and try to eat in the restaurant monthly at least, Baldwin’s chief business is pie. Her crusts neither shatter nor wilt but taste of flake and butter and salt; they encase fillings that are thick without being starchy and intense without being gooey. These are pies to offer the comfort of a family-movie third act. They are intensely delicious.

And for a home cook hoping to step up the pie game, Baldwin is a godsend. “I can get pretty geeky about baking pie,” she said in an interview. “But it’s a mind-set. It’s not difficult.”

Advice from a master, then: Start with a dough made from flour, cold butter and shortening, and scramble an egg yolk into the ice water that will bring it all together. Most pastry recipes advise strongly against “overworking” the dough, lest the crust turn tough. Baldwin tacks left. “You need to work the dough a little so that it will hold its shape,” she said. “You don’t want it so delicate that it won’t hold up to the filling.” The yolk helps a great deal in this regard, even in its tiny measure. So does a good, strong measure of fat.

Baldwin blind-bakes her bottom crusts before she fills the pies, cooking them beneath parchment paper and a layer of Goya beans she bought at the supermarket to use as pie weights. She doesn’t like the texture that otherwise forms below the fruit, she says.

You may well agree. But my experiments suggest a more-than-credible result without the blind baking — and in less time. For the weekend baker struggling only to amaze friends and family, time spent cooking is a crucial distinction. It’s not a kayak we’re building here. It’s pie for dinner. Tonight.

Nevertheless, all should heed Baldwin’s exhortation to precook the apples for the filling. It concentrates their flavor. “Apple pies that have crunchy, raw apples in them are a pet peeve of mine,” she said. Peel and core the fruit, cut it into slices, then macerate them in a plume of sugar. Cook these soft with a splash of acid (like lemon juice or cider vinegar) and a hint of cinnamon and allspice, then add some starch to thicken the whole. Allow the mixture to cool completely before using it in the pie.

(More advice, on apple varieties: “My preference is for straight honeycrisp, or pink ladies,” Baldwin said. “They have nice natural acidity and they don’t break down.” True statement!)

Now assemble the confection: crust below, cool filling above, more crust laid on top of this, the package crimped together artfully with the tines of a fork. Paint the top with an egg wash, cut steam vents and dust with sugar. Slide the result into a hot oven, on top of a hot baking sheet. This can catch any overflow of fruit and sugar, should the seal burst when the fruit gets to bubbling and the crust goes gold in the heat.

Which is when it’s done. Let cool for a couple of hours, ideally somewhere you can smell it. Serves eight, though you can cut it in four, as Yogi Berra famously required. “I don’t think I can eat eight,” he said.

Laura McHugh’s Grandma’s Stuffing

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My grandma passed away just after I graduated from college, and I’ve now lived half of my life without her. That doesn’t seem possible, as she is with me each day in a hundred small ways, and especially in the kitchen: her dented measuring cup; the rolling pin with the broken handle.

Every Thanksgiving we make Grandma’s stuffing, and we do our best to get it right. She never wrote down her recipe, so we work from memory. It is a group effort. My sisters and I hover around the stove like a team of surgeons about to perform a risky operation. Our brothers stand back, requesting status updates and begging us not to screw up. We remind each other to be generous with the sage, to mix in the egg with bare hands. We fret over turkey drippings. We always think we won’t have enough bread and we always end up with too much.

When it comes out of the oven, I take a test bite, hoping that it will transport me back to my grandma’s tiny kitchen in Keokuk, Iowa, where she let us tear the bread and crack the eggs. When the stuffing turns out right, there is nothing better. We serve it with reverence, like communion wafers. We rejoice as though we have done something miraculous. We eat the scraps left on our children’s plates—they don’t quite grasp its importance. When it is right, it is more than stuffing; it is a certain kind of magic, like Grandma is still with us at the table.

Recipe: Grandma’s Stuffing

1 loaf of dried or toasted white bread

1 small onion, chopped

1 stalk of celery, chopped

2 eggs

Turkey drippings

Dried sage

Salt and pepper

Tear the bread into pieces and place in a baking dish (kids love to help with this part!). Sprinkle a generous amount of sage over the bread. Cook onion and celery until tender. In a mixing bowl,combine cooked onion and celery with two beaten eggs, more sage, and a little salt and pepper. Add this to the bread and mix with your hands. Pour turkey drippings over the stuffing, adding enough to make the bread moist, but not soggy. Feel free to sprinkle on some more sage, because Grandma was right, you can never have too much. Bake approximately 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

http://www.weightofblood.com/bios/laura-mchugh

Sundays at the Table

My grandparents Nat and Sophie would drive up from Brighton Beach Brooklyn every Sunday and we would spend the day at the table eating bagels lox whitefish, bialys, smoked salmon 'nova' with cream cheese.

The Bathtub Detective

He's the bathtub detective because most of what he needs to see is out the window, in view from standing on the rim of his tub.