Category Archives: Appetizers

Marshmallow Topping for Adults

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To me, there is no better title for this entry than Bittman’s designation.  Sometimes things don’t need to be complicated or alliterated or made cleverer.  Sometimes all they need is a little story to get them started.

For the past five years or so, my family has been driving up to Oregon to spend Thanksgiving at our house.  Since we discovered a recipe for Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes, which melds the flavors of autumn with the heat of adobo sauce, we haven’t needed any additional fixings for our tubers.  This was not always true.  When we used to share Thanksgiving with a very dear set of family friends, L. inevitably made sweet potato casserole.  You know the one.  The sweet potato casserole.  Boiled sweet potatoes, mashed or beaten smooth.  Sweetened – as she was always proud to proclaim – only with orange juice.  Smoothed into a square glass baking dish and then topped until no hint of orange could be seen with a careful and meticulous layer of miniature marshmallows.  Thieving hands were scowled at.  Broil to perfect, swollen, golden-brown puff.

I liked this.  Well, I liked the idea of it.  Mashed sweet potatoes are delicious, and toasted marshmallows are my favorite part about a campfire.  But together, especially next to turkey and dressing and tart wonderful cranberries, it was never my favorite.  Bittman offers a grown-up alternative:

“60. Marshmallow topping for adults: Roast or boil chunks of sweet potato, put them in an oiled baking dish, top with dots of cream cheese, and sprinkle with a mixture of brown sugar, chopped pecans and chopped fresh sage. Broil until lightly browned.”

In my imaginary food dictionary, this would appear under “decadence.”  It just sounds so rich and so perfect, without the chalky powdered sugar edge of marshmallows.  Here’s how it happened:

1 ½ huge sweet potatoes cut into 1 inch chunks (I think I used the kind marked as “garnet yams”)

2/3 cup chopped pecans

Scant ½ cup brown sugar, or perhaps less.  It was a bit sweet.

1 TB finely chopped sage

4 oz. cream cheese

About an hour before you intend to broil this, stow an 8 oz. block of cream cheese in the freezer. This is just enough time to allow it to firm up enough to cut into chunks without mushing all over your hands.

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Toss the sweet potato chunks in olive oil, salt, and pepper, then roast them on a baking sheet for 35 minutes or until soft and slightly caramelized.  While they roast, combine the pecans, brown sugar, and sage in a small bowl and toss together well.

When the sweet potatoes are tender, transfer them to a lightly oiled 9×9 inch glass baking dish.  Remove the cream cheese from the freezer and cut it into small chunks.  Scatter the chunks of cheese evenly across the surface of the sweet potatoes, then crumble the pecan mixture evenly over the beautiful field of orange and white you’ve created.

Broil the whole delectable mess until the sugar caramelizes and begins to melt, and the cream cheese goes a little weak in the knees.  Don’t let it go too long or the sugar will burn.

Eat.

We did just that.  There was very little left over for repeat meals, so I had no excuse to repurpose the leftovers.  But in this case I wouldn’t have needed to, because it was stellar.  A bit on the overly sweet side, perhaps, but that’s what made it such an accurate modernization of the marshmallow madness it mimics.  The cream cheese, broiled to the edge of melting, was a tangier, softer version of the marshmallows from the original, and its form in small chunks just losing their shape made it look similar too.  Pecans and sweet potatoes are great friends, and with the addition of the brown sugar they became the equivalent of that couple on Valentine’s Day.  You know the one I mean.  Except you get to eat this, so it’s much better than intruding within a 20 foot radius of that couple.  The sage was an earthy, herby warmth that I wouldn’t suggest omitting.

My only suggestion about this, aside from perhaps cutting back a bit on the quantity of brown sugar, would be to add a little salt into the topping mix.  It would be a nice extra bite to bring out the pecan flavor, and salt with brown sugar is just so darn tasty.

This was delicious with Brussels sprouts seared in a cast iron pan, but it would be equally good with stuffed pork chops, or roast chicken, or the big Thanksgiving bird itself.  Or just in a big bowl, with a big spoon, and a private table.  And no one looking.  Fanciest take on sweet potato casserole I’ve seen in a while.

If that’s not fancy enough for you, I thought of a way of making it even fancier.  For appetizers, cut the sweet potatoes into rounds instead of chunks.  Roast and mix topping as directed.

Instead of freezing the cream cheese, let it come to room temperature and put it in a piping bag with a star tip.  When the sweet potatoes are roasted and have cooled a bit, pipe the cream cheese in a pretty little whirl atop the sweet potato round, then sprinkle with the topping and broil as before.  Presto!  Brilliance in two little bites.  No marshmallows required.

impromptu

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Friday, by the hours:

8am (or so… you know…): out walking the dog.  By the time I returned home, there was a message in my inbox from S., asking a few folks if they’d be interested in happy hour-ing that afternoon at 5.

9am: RSVPed  Absolutely. Affirmative.

9:05-3pm: The day got away from me a bit.  There was reading to be done, rooms to be tidied, and an unexpected nap to be taken…

3:30pm and I had nothing to bring to happy hour.  I shoved a bottle of wine into the refrigerator and riffled through my pages of Bittman options.  Then I set off to the grocery store to buy sun-dried tomatoes.

“82. Tomato Pinwheels: Soak 1 cup dried tomatoes in hot water, drain and pulse in a food processor with 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme (add water or oil if necessary). Combine 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder and 1 teaspoon baking soda with 4 tablespoons cold butter (use food processor or fingers). Stir in ¾ cup yogurt or buttermilk and gather the dough into a ball. Roll into a large rectangle on a floured surface, spread the tomatoes all over the dough and roll it up lengthwise. Cut the log crosswise into 1-inch slices, put them on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees until puffed and golden, 7 to 10 minutes.”

By 4pm I was back in the kitchen.  With miniscule exceptions, I followed Bittman’s directions exactly. I added a few grinds of black pepper to the tomato mixture in the food processor, I used greek yogurt with a splash of cream to bring the dough together, and I floured my bread board with whole wheat flour, because I hadn’t checked my flour supply before my trek to the store for tomatoes, and as it turned out I had exactly two cups of white flour in the whole house.  I also ended up baking the little pinwheels a bit longer than Bittman directs.

I have a deep and abiding fear of dough.  You know this, because I’ve told you before.  I buy pie crust for every quiche I make.  I routinely tear giant, unfixable holes in the pre-made, refrigerated dough I purchase to make pizza.  I’ve tackled, successfully, a total of one dough+yeast products, which just happens to make focaccia AND pizza, and despite that it comes out a little differently every time.  And yet, when I was in a hurry and hoping for something company-worthy, I picked a brand new recipe based on dough…

As it turns out, this one was pretty unthreatening, minus a terrifying moment when my half-rolled-out-kinda-sorta-rectangle was losing crumbly pieces all over the place.  I tried patching it back together, I tried pinching the corners and kneading, and finally what worked was dropping the bits in the middle of the rectangle of dough and running a rolling pin over them violently a couple of times.  Since my fingers were deeply crusted with sticky, floury bits, no photographs were taken during the rolling-patching-pinching process. I should hire a photographer who promises to only take pictures of the food.

The best thing, though, was spreading the tomato filling over the dough.  It made this beautiful bright textured layer over the dough and it smelled like summer and warmth.  Savory frosting.  Doubting but gleeful, I carefully rolled it into a fat log, encasing the filling safely inside.

You need a sharp knife to slice this log.  A really sharp knife.  Otherwise, the dough tears and the log becomes flat and the tomato filling crumbles out and there is no earthly way of getting it back into the sweet little curlicues it creates.  I spaced them out on a greased cookie sheet and stowed it in the oven with great hope. 

4:45pm: Makeup applied and hair combed, I returned to the kitchen to check my pinwheels.  At ten minutes, they were barely golden and the dough felt a bit squashy.  I gave them two additional minutes while I found a pair of shoes that were a.) not dusted red from the bark trail I walk the dog on, and b.) not grubby flip-flops.  Happy hour is a serious thing, you see.

When I pulled them out the second time, they were gorgeous: puffed, golden, tender, and smelling like a bakery and a garden.  Glamour shots, aluminum foil, and a brief car-ride later, and they were ready for their debut.

5:15pm: These are amazing. The dough was flaky and tender with a suggestion of sourness from the yogurt.  The tomato mixture was tart and sweet and herbaceous, and each pinwheel was a lovely three bite experience of lightness and flavor and the barest crunch.

5:45pm: Plate empty and wine glasses refilled, we were already talking about other things you could do with this foundation.  Tapenade, any kind of pesto (basil, arugula, parsley, kale, spinach), onion jam, whole or mashed cloves of roasted garlic, maybe even cheese… the possibilities loom large.

8pm: This is a strong contender for this year’s Thanksgiving appetizer menu.  And maybe Christmas too.

2010 Thanksgiving Menu

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I get excited about holidays that involve cooking waaaayyyyy earlier than I should (then again, since our Target already has a Christmas section erected, complete with at least six artificial trees, maybe I’m not totally unhealthy).  I even told my mom over the phone this past Sunday that I’d probably go grocery shopping for the holiday late this week or this weekend.  Right, with two weeks to go.  I was already a week ahead of myself and willing to completely skip seven days of reality so I could buy a turkey.

But I love the way food impacts a holiday, and not just because I love eating.  For my family, food has a binding quality.  I love to cook, my mom taught me how and she loves to cook, my sister is developing an enjoyment and adventuresome spirit in the kitchen, and my dad… likes eating the food we make.  But still, it gives us something to talk about, something to share with each other, and something to do together, when we are in the same kitchen.  I feel close to them through the food we create.

At Thanksgiving, my mom and I make most of the dinner, my sister pipes in with seasoning suggestions, my dad carves the turkey, N. tastes things and generally tries to stay out of the way, and Lucy’s nose never stops twitching.  Every hour or so, little click-clacking dog claws tiptoe into the kitchen to take a sniff and clean the floor.

So I’ve already thought through the entire menu.  I know exactly what we’re having.  I’m even contemplating spending my evening tonight making a detailed grocery list for the big shopping trip.  Excessive?  Premature?  Perhaps.  But so delicious.

Here’s the menu for our Thanksgiving this year:

Appetizers: whole heads of roasted garlic with soft goat cheese and toasted baguette, roasted nuts with brown sugar and rosemary, assorted dried fruit.

Dinner: herb roasted turkey with giblet gravy, stuffing, chipotle mashed sweet potatoes,  creamed spinach and artichoke bake, and whole berry cranberry sauce.

Desserts: Mom’s pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and pumpkin cheesecake squares.  My sister doesn’t love pumpkin pie, so this year there will be two desserts.  If the recipe I invent for her works out well, I’ll post it here.

What are you having for Thanksgiving dinner this year?

2009: A Multi-part Christmas

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Christmas 2009 was a multi-part, multi-occasion, multi-meal event.  I suppose when your family expands, and the number of people you love and visit with expands, the great foodie benefit is that you get to cook more and eat more.  I cooked a lot.  I also ate a lot.  I want to share some of the delicious, tipsy triumphs with you, despite the sobering truth that the new term of school begins on Monday morning, bright and early, at 8am.  Really, for me, it will begin at more like 6:30am, but 8 o’clock is when I will greet my new class of freshmen.

But that’s just an excuse for the following excuse: forgive me if the updates do not arrive as thick and fast as the food did at our multi-part Christmas dinner(s).  I will try to keep a schedule of one update a week, but, like Mary Poppins, I try to avoid piecrust promises (easily made, easily broken).  I can only try.  So here goes.

On December 23rd, we had our first Christmas dinner.  This took place at my parents’ house, and featured a series of appetizers.  Here are a few of the highlights:

Spinach dip in a bread bowl, a timeless classic.

Vegetable spring rolls with tofu and mint.

And the feature, which my sister specifically asked me to share: deviled eggs.

Forgive the blurred quality; I blame the mood lighting in our dining room.  Or perhaps my trembling hands, eager for a second round of hors d’oeuvre-age.

Deviled eggs are a party food with almost no exception.  No one seems to want to take the time to make them as a quick lunch, say, not even after Easter when most people have all the necessities available and partially prepped.  When the are made, they are often drenched in mayonnaise, over salted, given curious unneeded additions like pickle relish, hot sauce, strange herb combinations, and then to add insult to injury, so completely covered in paprika like a deserted house gets covered in dust a month after its inhabitants split that you can’t even see the beautiful contrast of yellow and white.  They are like little egg-shaped daisies.  This is why I am not a professed poet.

Anyway, the eggs.  I have finally found a perfect deviled eggs recipe.  It comes from the cookbook put out by Cooks Illustrated magazine, called the “The New Best Recipe,” which, like most of my culinary collection, I received as a wedding gift.  It is simple: just eggs, mayonnaise, whole grain mustard, and a splash each of vinegar and Worcestershire sauce, along with some salt and pepper.  The mayo makes it creamy, the vinegar adds a sharp tang to clear any heaviness you might feel from the combination of fats, and the seeds from the mustard pop in your mouth when you bite down on them, which I find to be a delightful and different sensation.  Texture in food is becoming increasingly important to me, and though the difference between the soft filling and the hard boiled albumen of the egg is there, it is subtle, like the distance between pudding and custard.  The mustard, then, offers new dimension.

Aside from the ingredients, the other strike of genius of this recipe is its recommendation to overstuff the eggs.  Deviled eggs look so much more appetizing when they are mounded (or piped) high with tasty tangy filling, and the way to accomplish this seems clearly to use one extra yolk.  It’s so simple, but I never would have thought of it!

Fortunately for us, the eggs seemed to know my plan.  Observe: twins!

Ingredients:

  • 7 large eggs, hard boiled (tip: if you hard boil them the night before preparing this recipe, they will peel much more easily in the morning!)
  • 3/4 teaspoon whole-grain mustard
  • 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons white or red wine vinegar
  • 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • Salt & Pepper

Directions:

1) Peel the eggs and cut each in half lengthwise. Remove the yolks and place in a small bowl. Discard two of the whites (I usually tear at least one set and am distressed by their loss of aesthetic value: these are the ones to just pop in your mouth right there) and arrange the remaining whites on your serving vessel.

2) Mash the yolks with a fork. Add the mustard, mayonnaise, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and salt & pepper to taste. Stir with a rubber spatula, mashing against the side of the bowl until smooth. This can take a while, and you really have to be dedicated about seeking out and breaking down all the clumps of yolk, or your filling won’t be as pleasing in consistency.  Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking.

3) If you have a piping bag, fill it up with the yolk mixture and pipe into the empty whites, making tall rosettes.  Don’t worry, you will have plenty of filling if you have one more yolk in your mixture than you have pairs of whites to fill.  If you don’t have a piping bag, scrape all the filling into an empty gallon Ziploc bag, keeping it away from one bottom corner.  Seal the bag, trying to eliminate as much air as possible, then snip off one of the bottom corners of the bag with scissors, maybe just big enough for the tip of your pinky finger to fit through.  Presto, instant piping bag!  Fill the whites immediately before serving, so the filling stays fully emulsified.  Exult and enjoy.

Christmas food part 3 – the Christmas dinner anti-tradition

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Though the food in this post, and the topic at large are from Christmas, the need for posting is largely a result of a newly established Ladies’ Spaghetti Night that I recently attended.In true occupatio style, I will say nothing of A.’s marvelous sauce, chunky with sweet, acidic tomatoes and impossibly large slices of button mushrooms.I will not mention how good the bread, delicately seeded and torn in large chunks from the loaf, was when we smashed cloves of roasted garlic over it.No, the reason for this post is one of the people involved in the genesis of this weekly pastafest.Though she was not present at the particular gathering of which I speak, she was in my thoughts because she cannot eat gluten.She also can’t do dairy.This means that when Ph. is in attendance, we have to have gluten-free pasta.It also means that since almost everything I cook involves bread, butter, or cheese in some form, rarely do I make anything that Ph. can eat.

All that changed on Christmas Day (I think, since I haven’t cleared the recipe with her yet).Let me explain.For probably a decade, my family has done Thanksgiving and Christmas with another family who my parents have known since at least the time that I was born.I’m the oldest of the four kids between the two families, so that’s a long time.Three or four years ago at about 5:30pm on December 25th, over a steaming baked brie and a ¾ eaten bread bowl of spinach dip, five of the eight of us decided that we weren’t hungry.We had eaten appetizers with such enjoyment and such gusto that the standing rib roast my dad was asking whether he should carve seemed utterly extraneous.We decided a new plan was in order.Appetizer Christmas.

Since that fateful day, we’ve had a Christmas meal of 100% appetizers – mainly finger food or toothpick-able items that come in cute, single-size servings.Same goes for dessert.We’ve done coconut shrimp, we’ve done tempura, we’ve done Swedish meatballs and stuffed mushrooms and pate.For dessert, truffles, individual espresso chocolate cakes, and tiny cheesecakes made in muffin tins.img_00551

This year, I made spring rolls.Here’s where Ph. comes in, because they were made with rice noodles and rice wraps.No flour.No wheat.No cheese.I found the recipe here: http://www.ivu.org/recipes/chinese/spring-rolls.html and highly recommend it with minimal alterations.

I found that making these in a two person assembly line was really effective.While I jammed small piles of carrot, lettuce, mint, and noodles into each wrapper, my mom dipped and flipped the next wrapper to bat in a wide, shallow Tupperware of warm water until it lost its rigid structure and became elastic.Warm water works the best for this, and we discovered that each rice paper round needs between 30-50 seconds in the water.After a few botched first tries (I’ve never rolled a spring roll before), we settled into the perfect harmony of dipping, rolling, and transferring.It took me exactly the amount of time to stuff and wrap a spring roll as it took for the next wrapper to melt into perfect texture.When we made the sauce, which my sister took charge of, we substituted lime juice for some of the broth and water for the rest, since one of our fellow consumers is vegetarian.It turned out thick and sweet and a perfect accompaniment.

I definitely side with the recipe’s author in calling for mint with no substitutions in this recipe.Since I have an ample crop just poking their little heads up in the backyard amidst the decimation of stalks left over from last fall, this herbal portion is easily reproducible.Pressing and baking the tofu, which I had never done before, gave it a whole new texture that my dad (who is marginally obsessed with the power of soy) and I both really enjoyed.I think others did too, but he and I professed it the most loudly.The compressed slices sucked in the tamari I glugged over them, and smelled so good that I didn’t even mind the burn I got when, too excited to be remotely intelligent, I reached in and grabbed the cookie sheet I was baking the slices on out of the oven without a potholder.The tofu and the skin on my hand both survived.Ah, the magic of Christmas.

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Danke Schoen, Stort tack, Go raibh maith agaibh

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I know it’s early, but I’m already so looking forward to it that today I invite you to review my…

Proposed Thanksgiving Menu:

Appetizers – spicy roasted pumpkin seeds, mini corn and cheese purses

Main – Whole roasted turkey stuffed with winter herbs

Sides – stuffing (thanks, Stouffer’s!), giblet gravy, green bean casserole, Mom’s fresh cranberry sauce, chipotle mashed sweet potatoes, herb and pepper biscuits to help clean off the plate.

Dessert – pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

yum.