My grandmother owned a red sauce Italian restaurant when I was growing up. I don't mean the chain restaurant here in Massachusetts, Red Sauce, I mean a good, old fashioned Italian-American restaurant with those rough translations from southern Italian cuisine to the mid-twentieth century American idea of Italian food. And I loved it. To judge from the crowds in her restaurant, a lot of other people did as well. She served the best chicken parm, stuffies (it's a Rhode Island thing, you'll need to get your arse up here and try some to understand), clams casino, and, of course, red sauce. Her sauce was smooth and even a little thin, but it was perfection on the side of ziti that came with my inevitable chicken parm.
As I grew older, my understanding of regional Italian food grew, and I began to understand that the Italian food of my youth wasn't "authentic" Italian food, though it is no less a part of the Italian-American experience, and is still rather beloved here in the States, even with our more sophisticated twenty-first century palates. My grandmother passed away when I was fifteen, but her husband, my step-grandfather, kept the restaurant going strong until just a couple of years ago. Before my step-grandfather retired, any time I had a need for the comfort of chicken parm, JR and I would head to "the restaurant", as we called it. And long before JR arrived on the scene, all family events were celebrated there. My surprise sixteenth birthday party was held there, as was every subsequent birthday with the exception of those I was away at college, up through my mid-twenties. It was a home-away-from-home, and even if JR and I were just dropping in for take-out, the bartender, Kenny, who strongly resembled Rod Stewart - yes, the hair-do as well - would drop everything he was doing (sorry, bar patrons) to greet us, kiss my hand, and run around frantically to retrieve our food, as though we were royalty who might be angered by a wait.
Nowadays, my preference really is for regional Italian cuisine, but I am still comforted by the taste of chicken parm, the occasional meatball, and, of course, red sauce, though the version I make at home is chunky rather than smooth and clings to the pasta rather than coating it as though it were a salad dressing as did my Nana's. My meatballs are an interpretation of my mother's meatballs, which are - and I don't say this lightly - the world's best meatballs; super-moist and chock full of real bread - no bread crumbs for us, no-sir-ee. I do apologize for taking away props from your mothers' and Nanas' meatballs, but you'll have to make these and then tell me you're not convinced.
An Interpretation of Jan's Meatballs - and, you know what? I can't believe I'm giving this secret recipe up this easily. I must really like you guys. And be forewarned: there's an awful lot of commentary in this recipe. It's Italian-American, after all, and as you can't see my arms waving around, I have to actually write rather than gesticulate.
Ingredients:
1 small onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound ground meat - Jan uses beef. I use a blend of pork, veal, and beef. Go ahead and try turkey if you don't do red meat.
5-6 slices white Italian bread - you want a soft bread for this, so supermarket varieties are fine. This is old-school Italian-American after all.
1/2 cup milk (or less - you're using this to soak the bread, so you'll only need to use enough to douse the slices you use)
1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano - yes, I will forgive you if you use already grated cheese, but please don't use the green jar of cheese if you don't have to.
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
2 large eggs - this is the big secret. Which really shouldn't be a secret because you cook, so you know eggs add moisture. But I will share with you anyway: the extra egg renders the finished meatballs extremely moist.
pepper
salt
Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat; add the diced onion and minced garlic and saute until onion is just translucent approximately 3 minutes, being careful not to burn the garlic. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, press the ground meat around the bottom of the bowl making a flat little plateau for the bread to lay upon. Lay 2-3 pieces of bread over top (as many as you are able given the size of your mixing bowl) and drizzle milk over bread until bread is soaked through. Mash soaked bread into meat with a fork or your hands. Don't be afraid to get dirty. That's part of the fun. Maybe play some Pavarotti loudly and let your kids mash the meat up with their hands (washing them before and after, of course). Repeat with 2-3 additional pieces of bread. Add parsley and parmigiano and mix into meat mixture with a fork or your hands. Add the onion and garlic, combining well, then add the two eggs, one at a time. Pepper to taste. You will have a very wet mixture on your hands. This is what you want, trust me.
Lightly oil a large baking sheet. We don't fry meatballs at my house. We bake the bad boys.
Using your hands, form the mixture into rounds that fit comfortably in your palms. They'll be between two and three ounces - a perfect serving size - or a half a serving size, depending upon how you look at it. Place them in rows of three across the baking sheet - you should have between 12 and 15 meatballs when all is done.
Bake meatballs on the middle rack for 35-40 minutes, or until meatballs are lightly browned. Sprinkle a bit of salt over top of the meatballs and either drop them into the sauce for a couple of minutes (not all of them, though - you aren't making enough sauce for 15 meatballs unless you double the recipe. You'll see.), place them atop the spaghetti and top both with sauce, or keep them for some other meatballish use. There's no way you won't love them. I promise.
Not My Nana's Red Sauce:
Ingredients:
2-3 tablespoons olive oil, or enough to coat the bottom of your sauce pan
1 small onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 medium carrot, diced or grated using a box grater
2 whole garlic cloves, peeled
2 tablespoons thyme
2 tablespoons oregano
1 tablespoon anchovy paste (available in the Italian section of the market, or nearby the canned tomatoes or jarred tomato sauce)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
(1) 28-ounce can of crushed fire-roasted tomatoes (such as Muir Glen, or use a good-quality regular tomato, such as San Marzanos)
salt and pepper
Heat oil in a large sauce pan over medium-low heat. Add onion, celery, carrot, and garlic and cook slowly to meld the flavors. This could take between twenty and thirty minutes - you want to have the vegetables combine such that their colors begin to blend together - this is a version of what Italians call "soffritto".
Once your soffritto is sufficiently orange-y (this is the color it most resembles when cooked down. I will get you a picture of it soon, I promise), add the thyme and oregano, and stir to combine. Next, add the anchovy paste (we discussed this yesterday - don't go getting all wiggy on me, you can't taste anchovy in the finished product) and tomato paste. Stir to combine.
Add the tomato, stir well, and let sauce simmer for about twenty minutes on medium heat. Salt and pepper to taste, drop some meatballs in if you so desire and let simmer a few minutes more, then dole it all out over whatever maccheroni (that's Italian for macaroni, ok?) you choose, though I recommend spaghetti for this classic. Top your mountain of meatballs, sauce, and pasta with some additional grated parmigiano, and set it down on a red and white checkered tablecloth in your dining room, crank up the Pavarotti, and there you are in an Italian restaurant circa 1978. Buon appetito!
Dinner tonight: Baked Rigatoni with Untraditional Bolognese Sauce. Estimated cost for two: $3.65. The Bolognese was $8.29 for 8 servings. We've had 4 servings so far, so that leaves half, for which we round up the half-cent and call $4.15. The rigatoni was $1.79 for a one-pound box, and we're using all of that. The mozzarella cheese was $4.11 for the portion being used tonight, and we get at least 6 servings out of it. I'm going to use some of the last-day-of-the-garden lettuce for a simple salad, so that's an additional 30-cents based on the cost of the plants when I bought them. We haven't any dessert hanging around, but I do have one sad looking banana, which I will make into something resembling Bananas Foster using butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar and some dark rum which has been hanging around in my liquor cabinet/dustbin for over five years since we hosted our friends' Caribbean-themed wedding shower. Clearly, we're big rum lovers. Clearly. But we do need to go over Bananas Foster sometime soon because it is so easy and is a good alternate use of bananas which would otherwise be destined for bread. I'm thinking you don't need to use rum only, and I didn't flambe the version I made the other night, yet it was still scrumptious. And far less dangerous than with flame. I'd be frightened of me flambe-ing, let me tell you!
Today is the last day for my garden. It's going to be 28 degrees here overnight, and 20 degrees overnight on Wednesday, so this afternoon, I marched out to what's left of the garden with scissors in hand and harvested the remainder of the lettuce - which yielded me an entire plastic shopping bag of greens (and sorry about the plastic bag - I had forgotten my reusables on that run to the store) - then I chopped out enough parsley for tonight's meatballs, and proceeded to extract the leeks from the ground. Extract is, I think, the appropriate word. They had developed such a large sprawling root system that my initial tug lifted up an entire clump of 20 or more leeks and four inches of soil, not to mention some wayward worms who were certainly horrified to see daylight and my chickens just beyond the fence. I wasn't properly dressed for gardening tasks, but I still placed one fancy-shoe-clad foot down atop the pad of roots and soil, and, spilling dark damp soil into said shoes, managed to wrest the leeks free. I did have to give one gaggle of leeks a haircut to remove roots, dirt, and worms even after my efforts, but did succeed in gathering all of the leeks, which, I have to add, are quite a bit larger in number than I had anticipated, and I think that much of tonight will be spent looking for recipes appropriate for fifty leeks. Chicken with fifty stalks of leeks? Leek lasagna? Roasted leeks with boiled leeks with braised leeks? If you happen to be in the neighborhood and have a hankering for leeks, please, do stop by. I can help.
As it gets colder out, and nearly dark now, at 4:30 in the afternoon, we're all craving comfort food. For JR and me, this tends to mean Italian cuisine, so over the weekend, I made an untraditional Bolognese sauce, which should probably be called a meat ragu, but I'm hoping you'll forgive the technicality and help me lend my sauce some credibility. Of course, a proper Ragu Bolognese, or meat ragu in the style of Bologna, has all manner of credibility, right down to its ingredients and preparation being specified in a recipe held at the Chamber of Commerce in Bologna, Italy. My "Bolognese" would not pass muster if held to the standard of that recipe, but JR and I both look forward to having it each winter, and it makes pasta night seem just a little bit special.
Untraditional Bolognese Sauce:
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, cut into a fine dice
2 stalks celery, cut into a fine dice
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into a fine dice
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons thyme
pepper
1 tablespoon anchovy paste
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 pound ground meat - preferably a blend of pork, veal, and beef, but all beef would work as well, or ground turkey.
1 cup dry red wine
1 cup milk
(1) 14.5 ounce can fire-roasted crushed tomatoes (I use Muir Glen, but you can use regular, unroasted tomatoes if you like)
salt and pepper to taste
In a large sauce pot over medium-low heat, warm the oil, and then add the onion, celery, carrot and garlic cloves and cook until the onion, celery, and carrot seem less distinguishable from one another, such that they are all nearly the same color. This part of the process takes a while, because the intent is to cook the vegetables extremely slowly to release their flavors and to meld them together. In Italian, this is called soffritto, and it usually involves pancetta and some herbs in addition to the onion, carrot, and celery, but the important thing to remember here is that the cooking is slow, slow, slow, and may take as long as twenty minutes to a half-hour. Be patient. It's worth it. As is the way with much in life that requires a wait. With the exception of the bus while you stand outside in a wind-whipped snow storm, of course.
Once the soffritto is one amalgamated-seeming ingredient, add the thyme, pepper to your liking, and stir well. Then add the anchovy paste (and do not turn up your nose at it, it is here to bring your sauce depth of flavor, and no one, not even you, will know it's there when you serve it forth) and tomato paste, and stir to combine.
Increase heat to medium. Add the ground meat, breaking it up with a wooden spoon and pushing it down to the bottom of the pan, turning it over itself to insure that it cooks evenly.
Once the meat is cooked through, add the wine, stirring to combine, then add the milk, which also must be stirred in to what? Yes. To combine. Or incorporate. Or unify, mix, merge, or marry. Whichever synonym you prefer.
Now, if you want to keep it real, or at least closer to real, you can stop here and just let the sauce simmer for about twenty minutes to let the flavors meld together. Or, you can be completely unorthodox and do what I do. Add those darned tomatoes. An authentic Bolognese sauce does not have any tomato save for the tomato paste, and the redness of the sauce comes from that very tomato paste, but also from the wine and the carrots in the soffritto. However, at my house, we like tomatoes with our meat ragu, so I add them, darn it. Once tomatoes are incorporated, let simmer on medium-low heat for twenty minutes or more and serve over tagliatelle or paparadelle if you've just hit up the Italian market for fresh pasta, but if not, regular old linguine will work just fine. Shave a little pricey parmigiano-reggiano over top, perhaps drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil over top, and ecco, there you have it (ecco means "lo and behold" in colloquial Italian. This is an Italian menu, so ecco it is.). Two days from now, you can make a baked ziti with the leftover sauce and some mozzarella cheese, or you can freeze it up for another time. This recipe will yield approximately 8 cups, so plenty for at least two meals for four people. And it will warm your belly and your heart each time.
Dinner tonight: meatballs and red sauce over linguine. Estimated cost for two: $5.27. The meatballs consist of 20 ounces of ground meat from the same batch used to make the Untraditional Bolognese; cost per pound was $3.79, so the total for the meat is $4.73. The milk is 25-cents (one cup at $1.99 for 8 cups), the bread was $2.29 for 18 or so slices, and I am going to use 6 slices, so 76-cents. The eggs are also 50-cents, and the parmigiano-reggiano is about $5.62 because I splurged and got the good stuff last week. The sauce is going to be $2.00 for a 24 ounce can of fire-roasted crushed tomatoes, plus around a dollar-fifty for carrot, onion, celery, and garlic, and we'll throw in 50-cents for anchovy paste and tomato paste. So the meatballs cost $11.86, and I'll get fifteen two-ouncers out of this batch; JR and I will have 3 between the two of us, I'm sure, so $2.37 for those. The tomato sauce costs $4.00, and I'll get four servings out of that. The pasta is $1.79 per box, and we'll use about half of that. As with the Untraditional Bolognese, both the meatballs and sauce will freeze well if they aren't able to be polished off within the week.
I keep getting distracted from this wine post, and it is a great injustice to the wine, let me tell you. Yesterday it was the savory pie crust, which, I assure you, you cannot live without. Today it's been espresso that's kept me from the blog. I've been out of my favorite espresso for about a month and have been subsisting on some long-since stale espresso that has actually clumped onto itself such that I have to chisel it apart to get it into the espresso maker. Like sugar that sits around for too long and accumulates moisture and then forms those sugar rocks. You know the ones. So I've been contending with the stale espresso-rock coffee for about a month, and then I found a coupon to my favorite Italian market in Providence, which gave me just the reason to head down there and purchase some items for a meat ragu, as well as some mortadella (boy, do I love that stuff), and my favorite espresso, Danesi. Danesi has a bit of a mocha taste, which perhaps makes me an espresso wimp, but it is so smooth that I don't care if you do call me a wimp.
As soon as I got home, I poured the contents of the bag into my coffee jar, and then stood sniffing the bag while waiting for my long-anticipated Danesi espresso to brew. It was so good - both the actual drink and the smell of the bag - I almost couldn't tear myself away long enough to get to the computer and tell you about Putney Mountain Winery's Apple Maple wine, but guilt and the realization that you really do need to know about their wines got the better of me, so here I am. One last thing about the Danesi - and then I'll talk wine, I promise - for just over the cost of one latte in a store, I get a bag of espresso that lasts about three weeks, having two cappuccino-sized cups per day. It cost $4.19, and I save whatever hot espresso I don't drink (refrigerated, of course) and will have iced latte when I don't have time to brew hot. Don't get me wrong, I like the convenience of Dunkie's, but when I make coffee at home, I am always guaranteed that it will be exactly the way I like it. And that's important when one is starting out her day.
Now, let's start out the wine portion of this post, shall we? JR and I had previously sampled Putney Mountain Winery's Apple Maple and Cranberry wines at the Dorset, Vermont Farmers Market. They were surprising in that they weren't cloying, and I didn't immediately dismiss them with my wine snob nose up, as I have been wont to do with other non-grape fruit wines. JR and I decided that on our next trip to Vermont, we would stop at the winery and pick up a few bottles to sample and so we did just that this past weekend.
Grapes seem all but created for the purpose of producing wine. Within each grape are all of the basic components necessary for fermenting into a balanced alcoholic beverage, with tannins in the skin and the seeds, sugars in the pulp that will ferment into alcohol, and yeasts on the skin that assist in the fermentation. Other fruits do not have the advantage of being a mini-fermenting machine that will produce balanced flavors as does the grape, and, in the European Union, at least, wine is defined legally as a beverage made solely from grapes.
Putney Mountain Winery's winemaker, Charles Dodge, has done a remarkable job, then, in creating a smooth and balanced Apple Maple wine. This is a wine that each time I sipped it, I exclaimed, "No - really, I really like this wine!" It was almost as though I couldn't believe that I would enjoy a fruit wine to this degree (she says, with her wine snob nose down now). It is light, refreshing, and though it smells like apple juice (or to be fancy, "has a nose of apple juice"), and then apple pie (which we know I love), it does not at all taste like apple juice. Nor apple pie, for that matter. At one point, I said, still somewhat surprised, "I feel like a jackass even saying it again, but this is really good." And it is. It's just acidic enough, it's bright and refreshing, and I really do think it's a perfect Thanksgiving wine. Particularly with the low alcohol level - 11% - and the fact that it is semi-dry. Which is to say, semi-sweet. So it will cut through the richness of the dinner, which you know you need. Now, I am a red wine lover. And I have had pinot noirs, dolcettos, and the like at Thanksgiving, but I do think it's time for me to accept that a white wine - and an apple wine at that - is the drink of choice for the bird and its accoutrement.
In this month's Wine Spectator, columnist Matt Kramer discusses "rich" wines. Rich wines are wines that are semi-dry, and Kramer speculates that because Americans don't have a means by which to communicate what "rich" means in terms of wine, we don't understand it as a concept (he backs this hypothesis up with a study of the vocabulary of a tribe in the Amazon, conducted by a Columbia University psychology professor, and, if I may be honest, I don't feel qualified to dispute these claims). Let's just say that a rich wine has a certain je ne sais quoi that might not be suited to our everyday American taste, but for a holiday meal where so many flavors are competing for the attention of your palette, I think it's a good bet. And you and your American taste may find yourself surprised as I was and find yourself longing for this very same semi-dry wine on a more regular basis. Who can know if you don't try?
I realize that earlier this week, I promised a review of the Cranberry wine as well as the Cassis wine, but, as you know, I do not spit my wine, and there is only so much wine drinking a gal can accomplish in a week - particularly one during which she didn't feel so great to start out. However, JR and I did have a few sips of the Cassis wine, and it is also quite good, though it is most definitely a dessert wine. The wine is a ruby red color and smells like berry jam. We drank it relatively cold, and I would recommend letting it warm up a bit once you take it out of the refrigerator - maybe take it out a half-hour before you intend to drink it so that the flavors aren't stifled. It has a very concentrated berry flavor, and Dodge has amended it by adding blueberry and raspberry to the black currant to give it more oomph, which it certainly has. It reminded me a bit of Sweet Tarts (first Jolly Ranchers on Tuesday, now Sweet Tarts on Friday - I must have a penny candy jones brewing up here), with a slight tang in the finish, and I found it a bit tannic. JR and I both agreed that it would be excellent drizzled over vanilla ice cream, and I am planning to test it out heated to lukewarm and poured over vanilla ice cream in an effort to create an affogato di cassis, which I think will be fabulous. It would also be great in a pan sauce for game meats, in addition, of course, to its primary purpose as a dessert wine.
Putney Mountain Winery does ship UPS, and there is enough time if you order in the next week or so (provided you live in New England or the Tri-state area) to receive your wine in time for Thanksgiving. I'll be calling my brother-in-law in Vermont tonight to ask him to pick up a few more bottles of the Apple Maple wine so that we have enough for all of the turkey-in-a-hole-in-the-ground Thanksgiving revelers. The Apple Maple wine is $14.99 a 750ml bottle - this is a holiday we're talking about, people, you can do it - and the Cassis is $16.99 for 375ml. If you'd like to order the wine, you will have to call the winery (contact information below), and if you think you can't possibly need enough to have it shipped, consider roping a few friends into the action and splitting the order. JR and I received a 5% discount on six bottles of wine, and the winery offers 10% off a full case (12 bottles), so ordering in bulk could be well worth your - and your friends' - while.
Putney Mountain Winery
71 Holland Hill Rd.
Putney, Vermont 05346
802 387-4610
putneywine@aol.com
Dinner tonight: So so so excited - it must be the prospect of red meat, even ground red meat - that has me so looking forward to dinner! Meat ragu with pasta and a salad of garden romaine (the romaine should be pretty much dead by the middle of this upcoming week with the cold we have on the way, so we're going to enjoy it now). The meat ragu is basically a bolognese sauce, but we like tomato, so I add tomato to the mix, which is not traditional for bolognese. I was going to make homemade tagliatelle, but I have to pick my battles, so we will probably have store-bought pasta, and I am going to make a skillet apple pie as well. Next week, I take on the pandowdy, so I'm working my way up the apple dessert challenge ladder. In any event the estimated cost for two for the meal tonight is: $5.28, excluding dessert. The ground meat was $3.79 per pound at Venda Ravioli, the carrot, celery, and onion for the soffrito (which is the slowly simmered base of the sauce) were about $1.00, the tomatoes were $2.00, and the amount of milk I'll use in the sauce will be about 50-cents. I'm also using anchovy paste and a bit of tomato paste, so let's call those $1.00, to be generous about it. And don't go all nose-scrunchy on me about the anchovy paste. The purpose of the anchovy paste is to add a depth of flavor to the sauce that is indistinguishable as anchovy, but instead, adds to the savory quality of the sauce. The total cost of the sauce is $8.29 for approximately 8 servings, so $1.04 per person for that. The pasta was $1.79 for the box, and we'll use half of the box. We will not mess around, however, and will use parmigiano-reggiano cheese, which was not on sale, and so that is about $2.00 for the amount we'll use and the type I splurged upon (Red Cow is the splurge variety - I'm living large today, let me tell you!). The lettuce is from my garden, we like to call it 30-cents because that's what I paid per plant when I bought the lettuce-starts, as they are known.
I interrupt the normally scheduled Thursday wine post to bring you this very important recipe. Very important. People, we need to talk about savory pie crust. And I have to tell you, I'm rather excited about the Putney Mountain Winery Apple Maple wine that was scheduled for this posting, but it is far more important that you know about savory pie crust immédiatement, as the French who perfected and shared it with us (by way of Julia Child) would say.
Let's just say you have some leftovers - perhaps a beef stew, perhaps some chicken in, oh, I don't know, mushroom gravy - and you're thinking, "boring! I can't possibly eat that again." Well, my friends, should this happen to you, get thee to your pantry and whip up a savory pie crust, and in about a half an hour, you will be placing into your oven a dish worthy of company. I kid you not. And if you happen to be company at my house during the winter months, please do not be so gauche as to ask if the meat and gravy part of the pie are leftovers. They most assuredly are. And yet, you will be overwhelmed with the transcendent buttery flakiness of the crust, and will not care that I am serving you leftovers, my dear guest.
So here's the thing: you must not be afraid of making the crust. The crust is your friend. It will work with you. However, should you be quivering now just reading about savory pie crust, I can relate. I feel your pain. I, too, was once afraid. Very afraid. And then, one Valentine's Day, I came home from work, and there was JR with a four-course meal underway. A four-course meal that included a from-scratch pie crust. I don't think I need to tell you that I do most - and by most, I mean all but this one Valentine's Day I am currently describing - of the cooking in my house. And yet, I came home to find JR making pie crust. Now, you might think that I would be agape upon finding him making this incredible meal, and - oh, let me assure you, I was - but more than anything else, I could not get over that he had made a pie crust from scratch. As I ate the roasted squab (I kid you not) and the country pâté, I could not for the life of me stop the little Amy in my head (oh yes, I'm scared of her too) from saying, "he made pie crust from scratch. He made pie crust from scratch. He made pie crust from scratch." Ok. You get the idea. I'll stop with that. You see, unlike you and me, he didn't know that he was supposed to be afraid to make pie dough, and so he just made the pie dough. And it was perfect. And yours will be too. So just forget that you've read anything that implies that pie dough is challenging to craft, and get thee to thy pantry, gather up the flour and butter and vegetable shortening, and let's make a savory pie crust, shall we?
Savory Pie Crust:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup very cold vegetable shortening
1 stick very cold unsalted butter
1/2 to 3/4 cup ice water
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon milk (any type)
Now, you do not need a food processor for this, but I will provide instruction to make this in the food processor if you are so inclined. My personal feeling is that you can do this with just a mixing bowl and your fingers, or a pastry blender, which is a hand-held tool, and avoid all that washing of the food processor.
The a mano (by hand) method:
Combine flour, salt, and baking powder in a large mixing bowl. Stir to blend.
Cut the very cold vegetable shortening and the very cold butter into 1/2 inch, or close to 1/2 inch, cubes and add to flour mixture. Using the tips of your fingers, which are the coldest part of your hands (I probably don't need to tell you this, and yet, here I am), blend the butter and shortening into the flour. What this means is, you plunge your fingers into the flour, coating the fats (butter and shortening) with flour, while breaking up the fats until they are roughly pea-sized. It is perfectly ok for some of them to be larger than pea-sized, you just don't want them to be close to the same size as the cubes you initially placed into the flour. Remove your fingers from the flour and fats mixture. Get yourself a fork. Pour 1/2 cup very cold, which is redundant, but I am trying to make a point, ice water into the flour and fats mixture and blend water into the dough with the fork. You are trying to moisten the the dough just enough that it holds together, so if there is still dry mix in your bowl, and I'm pretty certain there will be, add very cold, oh, absolutely frigid, ice water to the dough 1 tablespoon at a time, blending in gently, until the dough is just holding together. As you are adding the frigid, gelid, extremely cold ice water, I recommend that you do use a measuring spoon or one of those very handy OXO liquid measuring cups. On a lightly floured surface, form the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Now, let's just say that you're making a chicken with mushroom gravy pot pie from scratch, but let's also say that you decided to use a rotisserie chicken which you had picked up from the grocery store on your way home, and you're going to make a quick mushroom gravy on the stove top. You could pick the chicken clean and make the gravy in about the amount of time it takes for the savory pie dough to firm up in the refrigerator. Now, let's pretend that your grocery store sells rotisserie chicken for $7.99 each. And that your mushrooms cost $3.90. And that the broth you use costs around $2.19. And that the wine you use is from one of those four-packs of wine that are so convenient for cooking, so it costs around $1.25. And you use a shallot, which costs you about 50-cents. And there's such a small amount of flour involved in the gravy that we throw that cost into the pie crust fee. And that the pie crust costs roughly $2.50 to make. And that the pie serves six. Now, how much does that cost us? That's right, people. It costs us $18.33 for the whole thing. $3.05 per serving. With purchased rotisserie chicken.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
So now your gravy is done; it and the chicken are in the pie pan, and you need only to get the savory pie dough out of the refrigerator and, on a lightly floured surface, roll it out to approximately 1/4 inch thickness in some approximation of a circle (or a rectangle, or a square; whatever shape baking dish you're using). As soon as the dough is rolled out, gently lift it and place it atop your baking dish. Push the dough down the sides of the dish to firmly cover the filling as though you're tucking someone you love into a toasty bed, allowing for an inch or so of dough overhanging the edges of the baking dish. Crimp the overhanging dough over itself to create a thicker crust edge. Blend the egg yolk and tablespoon of milk together and brush over top of the crust. Cut five one-inch slits in the dough over the filling - be decorative with it if you like - and place your masterpiece into the oven. Bake for approximately 40 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. I advise you to put the baking dish on a foil-lined baking sheet in order to prevent spillage on the bottom of the oven, which might result in copious amounts of smoke in your kitchen, and might require you to set the oven to clean the next day. Ahem. Not that this is happening now at my house, or anything.
The number of dishes that can be fancied up with this dough is practically limitless. Ok, so you're a vegetarian. How about a vegetable stew, or a lentil and carrot stew? You there, Ms. Carnivore, let's make a chili con carne and top it off with a layer of shredded pepper jack cheese and then the crust. Or maybe a lamb and carrot stew would be more to your liking. Why not add a bit of goat cheese under the crust for that dish? You see what I mean? Practically limitless.
Now, not to scare you about the dough, because we all know now that the dough is your friend and is infinitely useful, but the reason why the very cold items are very cold is because you need the fats not to be fully blended into the dough in order to achieve flakiness. It is the little bits of fat that create flakiness and give you that buttery crust which we all hold so dear. This is also why you should use your fingers, the cold part of your hands, and not your palms, which are the warm part of your hands. If it makes your life easier, you can put the butter and shortening into the freezer for 5-10 minutes to assure that they are both very cold.
Now, I promised a food processor version of the recipe, so here goes:
In a food processor fitted with the metal blade, add the flour, salt, and baking powder. Then add the cubed very cold butter and cubed very cold vegetable shortening to the flour, and pulse until fats are pea-sized. With the motor running, add 1/2 cup of very cold water to the dough. If the dough does not come together completely, add very cold water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until it does. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, being very careful of the metal blade - that thing is sharp - and knead quickly and gently into a ball. Cover in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
This recipe is quite easy either by hand or by machine. It must be due to the fact that I have to hand wash my dishes (that's right. I have no newfangled dishwashing machine at my house.) that I'm not fully embracing the food processor method, but, as you are probably now aware from reading my other posts, I enjoy working with dough a mano. It's soothing, and also gratifying to know your two warm palms and ten cold fingers put it all together.
Dinner tonight: leftover chicken-mushroom pie. We had the option of having leftover butternut squash lasagna, which is also quite scrumptious, but both JR and I voted for the chicken-mushroom pie. I have to revise my math from yesterday's post, however, because it turns out that I was able to make 6 servings from the ingredients listed. The savory short crust actually cost $2.50, rather than the $1.55 I had estimated. I was off by a cup of flour and a little for both the butter and the shortening. The chicken is leftover from the chicken and mushroom meal on Tuesday and this portion cost $2.53. The mushroom gravy is still being considered free for this meal. So, now, the total for SIX servings is $5.03. And like I wrote earlier in the post, even if you did this from scratch with a rotisserie chicken, it's still only $3.05 per serving. That is NUTS. You can't deny it. And if you are invited for dinner at my house, know that you will be eating this. I made it with love for you, so don't be despondent over the relative lack of monetary expense. Oh, and I sure do hope you bring a nice wine to go with it.
Around two o'clock yesterday afternoon, I realized that we were out of bread. If you've been reading this blog since its start, you are aware that I am charged with making a yeast bread per week. Last week's effort was a disaster, so I was filled with trepidation at fulfilling my yeast bread obligation for this week. I was thinking, something simple, something, well, what's another word for simple? Right. Easy. Yes, easy would be good. And The Joy of Cooking was there to accommodate me with this white sandwich bread which not only fulfills the easy requirement that I was looking for - and that I needed to bolster my bread-baking confidence - it also has a solid, crunchy crust that makes movie-perfect crumbs and a chewy interior tasting ever-so-slightly of butter and milk. Perfect for sandwiches or toast, and as of today, in a statistical dead-heat with oatmeal raisin bread for the title of Best Bread at my house. Definitely not boring or soulless at all.
White Bread, adapted from The Joy of Cooking:
Ingredients:
1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) yeast
3 tablespoons warm water (105-115 degrees)
1 cup lukewarm whole milk (105-115 degrees)
5 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
3 tablespoons sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 to 2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons melted butter for brushing over top of loaf
In a mixing bowl, combine yeast and warm water. If using active dry yeast, allow yeast to dissolve, approximately 5 minutes, before adding other ingredients.
Add lukewarm milk, melted butter, sugar, egg, and salt to the mixing bowl, and mix by hand to blend all ingredients before adding flour.
Add 1/2 cup of bread flour at a time, mixing on low speed until incorporated before adding the next half-cup. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
Once all bread flour has been incorporated, add all-purpose flour in 1/2 cup increments, until 1 1/2 cups have been added. If the dough is still sticky, add all-purpose flour by the tablespoon (you can use a regular spoon for this - literally a spoon from the table) until dough is moist but does not stick to your fingers.
Knead by hand or on low speed in the mixer for about ten minutes or until the dough is smooth and silken.
Place dough in oiled bowl, turning to coat all sides of the dough, then cover with plastic wrap or a dishtowel and let sit in a warm area for an hour to an hour and a half, or until the dough is doubled in size.
Punch dough down and knead for about a minute. Return dough to bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Grease an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pan. Fold the dough over itself in thirds as though you were folding a business letter, tucking short ends under. Place in the loaf pan and cover with greased plastic wrap. Return dough to warm area, and allow to rise for an hour to and hour and a half, until doubled in size.
Just before the end of the second rising, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Before baking, brush the top of the loaf with melted butter, and bake on the middle rack for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the top crust is golden brown and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.
Allow to cool on a rack, and serve warm with butter, or let cool completely and make tomorrow's sandwich with a slice or two. I, for one, am looking forward to having White Bread French Toast this weekend.
Dinner tonight: chicken and mushroom pie, made from last night's leftovers with the addition of a pastry crust. Estimated cost for two: $4.08. The short crust will cost $1.55 between the flour, butter, and shortening (salt and sugar are negligible, and water is free), and the half of the chicken from last night's meal cost $2.53. The mushroom gravy was all tallied up last night, so I deem it free for this meal. We have just enough apple cake to have dessert tonight (and for JR to have a slice in his lunch), so tomorrow I must decide: are we dessert-free for a couple of days, or do I make that skillet apple pie that is next on the list of apple-cinnamon desserts for me to make? Hmmmmmm. I'll be sure to fill you in.
It sounds like a crazy 1800's mystery title, doesn't it? Stop the presses! Ashmead's Kernel Found in Vermont! Ah, don't get too excited, I didn't find a priceless gold nugget (which wouldn't be called "kernel", now then, would it?) nor a lone, obscure popping corn kernel in Vermont. What I did find was an amazing heirloom variety apple. Yes. Ashmead's Kernel (that's it on the left in the photo above).
Now, before I get into how you absolutely, positively MUST buy and eat an Ashmead's Kernel apple should you ever chance upon one, I have to tell you a little bit about how the weekend unfolded. At just about the same time my sister was being introduced to Tom Brady - yes, that Tom Brady - at an event in Boston, I was sitting in the, now, what would we call that? Middle gun? Not shotgun, that's for sure. And not in the driver's seat either. No, I was sitting in the middle "seat" of JR's pickup truck between he and his brother; both of whom are 6' 2". Hey, how tall is Tom Brady? Oh, right, 6' 4". Thank goodness he wasn't in the truck, too. That would be way too crowded. So I spent Friday night sitting as upright as if I had a ruler taped to my spine in the middle seat with my knees all but in the dash and my feet perpendicular to my knees for the entire five hour ride to Vermont.
People, this is not normally a five hour ride, but on Friday night, we sat in traffic as we waited to get by an accident in the right lane of 495 (no accident visible) and then a car fire one hundred feet in front of our exit (car fire quite visible). We had been on the road over two hours when we finally exited 495, and when we arrived at my brother-in-law's house in Vermont, I was quite happy that I had pre-roasted the butternut squash for the squash and sausage pasta meal. We ate around 10:30pm, drank copiously, and arose the next morning, unrested and a bit hungover, but ready to get to the tasks at hand: turkey hole digging and fruit wine purchasing.
With coffee helping to roust us from our stupor, JR and I took a ride to Putney to visit the Putney Mountain Winery. We tasted a sampling of their production and then purchased their Apple Maple, Cranberry, and Cassis wines in the name of this blog. I will be diligent in my efforts to taste each and every one and report back to you with notes. I'm doing this for you, you know.
Upon leaving the winery, we drove through Saxtons River, and stopped at the Saxtons River General Store for lunch items. We picked up some Grafton Cheddar, a Jack Cheese from West River Creamery of Londonderry, Vermont; and pepperoni and summer sausage from Vermont Smoke and Cure. About a month ago, I wrote about Vermont Smoke and Cure's bacon, which JR characterizes as "tasting like maple syrup". I, for one, am a dip-the-bacon-in-the-maple-syrup kind of gal myself, so this is a rousing endorsement for bacon as far as I'm concerned. In fact, I am planning to make a Vermont Smoke and Cure bacon ice cream (yes. for real.) the next time I get my hands on some. In the meantime, if you ever find yourself face-to-face with any Vermont Smoke and Cure product, you must buy it. The pepperoni was chewy and just hot enough, and the summer sausage was like bologna for adults. I don't mean mortadella, which is in a class unto itself, I mean the bologna of your youth, but such that you would actually eat it as an adult. Those Vermont Smoke and Cure people really know what they're doing with that smoking and curing business.
We had gathered up all of these items, and were about to cash out when I spotted a dull-skinned, dark purplish looking apple, Black Oxford, which, I later learned is a cold-climate apple that seems to have originated in Maine. It's highly recommended as an overwinter apple (meaning it will keep well in cold storage), and has a very balanced sweet and tart flavor, which, according to my source, improves the longer it is kept.
In a box next to the Black Oxfords was a box of Ashmead's Kernel apples. There was a description of the apple taped above the box, with a brief history (originated in England), a seeming apology for its physical appearance (long before shiny apples were in vogue, there was Ashmead's Kernel) and the line that piqued my curiosity was, "this is not an apple for everyone. Even once it mellows, it has a distinctly tart taste." I grabbed one of the Ashmead's Kernel and one of the Black Oxford and tossed them into the pile of meat and cheese at the cash register.
As he picked up the Ashmead's Kernel, the man at the register said, "oh, this one's been selling like crazy. I have to get more. In fact, I just had somebody buy one and then come right back in for 3 more."
Back at my brother-in-law's, we unpacked and devoured the cheese and meat snacks, leaving these two dull apples neglected as JR and Trip were about to go outside to dig the hole for our turkey-in-a-hole-in-the-ground Thanksgiving. "Hey," I said to JR, "don't you want to try the apples?" He's rather used to humoring me, so he stayed behind for a minute while I cut into the Black Oxford. It was well-balanced, with a thick skin, but it wasn't terribly exciting, as apples go. Then I doled out a few slices of the Ashmead's Kernel. Holy smokes, people, if you were a fan of Jolly Rancher candies in your youth, you really must seek out this apple. It starts out sweet and then quickly becomes extremely tart. Your taste buds will be so startled that if you had this for breakfast, you might not require a coffee. I know, a bold statement, and one I feel confident making. But be warned, if you don't like tart, you will not like this apple. JR took one bite and put it down, "Nope. Nope. Not doing it for me," he said.
"It's too tart, right?"
"Yep."
He then proceeded to go outside to Trip's studio and nearly cut off the top of his thumb with a band saw while making me Vermont soapstone ice cubes like the ones I had seen in this month's La Cucina Italiana.
Trip dug the turkey hole by himself, JR got bandaged up, and on Sunday, we all rode back together with me in the Middle gun. By the time we were back home, I had picked up JR's cold, my back was jammed up, JR's thumb was throbbing, and Trip's back and arms were killing him from all that digging. I did manage to make apple cake and a butternut squash lasagna after arriving home, however, even sickly and contorted as I was. Tomorrow, I will share the recipe for said lasagna with you - it's a great make-ahead meal, and, of course, is not very expensive at all.
Finding Ashmead's Kernel:
http://www.redtomato.org/heirlooms.html - they supply to Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Harvest Co-op and others in the greater Boston area, around New England, and into New York. You may want to request your grocery store to order Ashmead's Kernel for you.
http://www.champlainorchards.com/ContactUs.htm - these folks have a mail order service, so if I've convinced you that you will LOVE Ashmead's Kernel you can order a peck or two, though you may also order from the other 24 apple varieties they grow.
http://www.povertylaneorchards.com/farmstand.htm - I have to love the name of the farm, and so they are included as a New Hampshire source for Ashmead's Kernel.
If all else fails, you could grow your own: http://www.southmeadowfruitgardens.com/FruitTreeOrder.html
Dinner tonight: chicken with mushroom gravy and mashed potatoes. Estimated cost for two: $7.51. I still have one 99-cent per pound whole chicken, which cost $5.05. The mushrooms cost $3.90 for two packages. I'll use one cup of onion, let's call that 50-cents (not Fiddy-cent). Broth is $2.19, the wine I'm using is leftover from when my friends Anne and Mike visited. That's like a donation to my dinner cause as far as I'm concerned. I'll use two slices of bacon, which we'll call $1.00, and the thyme is free from the garden. That covers the chicken and gravy, which, if you are feeding more than four - unless a few of the more-than-four are wee people - you'll need to add additional chicken, so I'm saying that this dish costs $12.64 for 4 servings. To get to our grand total, add the mashed potatoes, which consists of potatoes for 57 cents and butter for 62 cents (I use potato cooking water, rather than milk, to moisten the mash), now you're at $7.51 for two. Tomorrow, I'll take the leftovers and make an actual pastry dough (rather than a mashed potato topping) and make a chicken-mushroom pie.
Ok, I have to run now, my sandwich bread dough is done with its 30-minute refrigeration stage and has to be formed and moved into a greased loaf pan for its final rise so that I can get it baked and a couple slices made into a sandwich for JR's lunch before I go to bed.
I have flour in my flip flops. If I were a professional chef, I wouldn't be wearing beach attire in the kitchen (really, it's only the flip flops. The rest of me is in regular street clothing, I swear.), but I like to cling onto the summer footwear for as long as possible into the fall. One year, I wore my Birkenstocks until the weekend after Thanksgiving, which gave me great joy, even if my toes would have protested had they had their own brains (and mouths).
So here I am on November 7th, hoping to still be wearing flip flops in 4 more weeks, and I have flour in said flip flops because of the rustic olive rolls I made last night. The recipe requires that you rub flour into a dishtowel and use that as a mold for the rolls. Sadly, JR apparently did not notice the copious amounts of flour on, and embedded into, the dishtowel while it was on the baking sheet, and my leaving it crumpled up, flour side tucked in, on the counter next to the sink turned out to be a bad idea. The kitchen was a bit of a disaster with mixing bowls strewn about, the stand mixer taking up most of my already very limited counter space, and baking sheets tucked into corners. Being the nice guy that he is, JR tried to help me tidy up the mess. Only he couldn't see that there was about a half cup of flour inside the dishtowel, so he lifted it up really quickly, and - viola - a dusting of powder all over the kitchen floor. Our Golden Retriever, Miele, seemed quite thrilled at this gift of starch from the sky, and proceeded to lick up as much as she could before being sent outside.
This morning, I brought the dishtowel outside for a final shaking out of the flour, and surprisingly, there was still enough to form a small cloud, most of which was blown onto my ever-present black pants, onto my feet, and all over my flip flops. It was quite a mess, and a continuation of a mess, at that. Worst of all, I did not love the rustic olive rolls. They had a texture that was very close to store-bought scali bread, but I had quite wrongly envisioned the olive rolls of my dreams, which would be the roll version of Seven Stars Bakery's olive baguette. Now there's a tasty bread.
I know now that the rustic olive rolls recipe will never get me there, but I will try again to see if I can get a better texture, one with more air pockets within the roll. Nonetheless, we will have these rolls with dinner tonight, which will be exactly the same dinner as last night. We are heading to Vermont with a pickup truckload of wood and a pair of shovels in order to start the preparations for our eleventh annual turkey-in-a-hole-in-the-ground Thanksgiving celebration, and last night's dinner will be quick and easy to prepare when we arrive in Vermont around 8pm. As you read the recipe, you may say, "what the heck do you mean, quick and easy?" Well, I've already roasted the butternut squash and have fried the sage, so the remaining ingredients will come together quickly. If you want to make it easier, simply omit the sage, and use leftover roasted butternut from another meal. The sweet and savory combination is well worth the effort, however.
Rigatoni with Roasted Butternut Squash, Sweet Italian Sausage, and Fried Sage:
Ingredients:
12-15 fresh sage leaves
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch dice (approximately 3 1/2 cups)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup onion, diced (or shallot, or leeks)
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 pound sweet Italian sausage (go ahead - use hot Italian sausage if you like a kick. That would be good, too.)
1/2 pound rigatoni
Salt and pepper
Parmigiano-Reggiano for shaving
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Toss cubed butternut squash with 2 tablespoons olive oil and transfer to rimmed baking sheet. Bake in the oven until soft and some browning has occurred, approximately 30 minutes. This step may be done ahead of time; transfer squash to an airtight container and refrigerate until ready to use.
While the butternut roasts, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a medium frying pan over medium-high heat until the oil shimmers. Working in small batches, add the sage leaves to the pan and fry until crisp, approximately 1-2 minutes. Remove sage leaves to a plate lined with a paper towel to allow oil to drain. Likewise, fried sage may be stored in an airtight container until ready to use.
Preheat the broiler or light the grill. Bring pasta water to a boil.
Broil or grill sausage until browned. Transfer to a plate and slice into rounds.
Once pasta water is at a boil, add salt, then rigatoni. Cook rigatoni until al dente (slightly firm to the bite). The pasta will continue to cook while you incorporate all of the ingredients in the saute pan called for in the next step.
Heat 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add onions, and saute until translucent. Add butternut squash, cooked rigatoni, approximately 1 1/2 cups pasta cooking water, and the sausage. Stir to combine and cook for 2 minutes more. Salt and pepper to taste, then crumble fried sage leaves over top. Serve immediately with shaved parmigiano-reggiano cheese and a drizzle of olive oil if you so desire. Yield: 3-4 servings.
The pasta water is used to add moisture to the sauce, and the glutens transferred from the pasta to the cooking water help thicken the sauce. You don't need to go overboard with it, so use your best judgment when adding it to the saute pan and don't feel that you need to measure out 1 1/2 cups. You can ladle it out from the pasta pot, or pour it directly from the pot. I generally try to have about an inch of pasta water in the pan when I first add it.
Dinner tonight: You already know the answer. This same dish, only with more sausage and more pasta because I'm feeding an additional large man. That large man being JR's brother. Estimated cost for 3 (gotcha!): $6.91. The pasta I'm using tonight was $2.79 for the box, and, yes, I think we'll use all of that. I'm going to pick up Italian sausage at my local butcher shop which is less expensive than Whole Foods (whose delicious sweet Italian sausage I used last night). I'm estimating $4.00 for one pound of sausage. The butternut is the other half of the butternut I used yesterday, so 12.5 cents, and the sage is still free. I neglected to factor in the parmigiano, which was on sale at Whole Foods and cost $4.98 for a half-pound. I'd estimate we use well under an ounce, so let's tack on 62 cents (calling it an ounce), and the total is $7.53.
The Castello Monaci website has such a wonderful introduction page, I have to admit that after viewing it, I had already developed a positive outlook on their Primitivo which I had yet to open. In doing these wine reviews, my aim is to avoid polluting my perception of the wine with any "official" information on the wine prior to drinking it, but I had a few extra minutes yesterday afternoon, and thought I'd take a look at their website, though I did manage to restrain myself from reading their marketing blurb on the wine. The song in the intro held my attention, and I was also drawn in by the view to the ocean in their photomontage, which, whether it is or is not actually off of the heel of the boot, is as such in my mind. I think, "maybe I can see Greece from here". In the picture. Not in my studio. I know I can't see Greece from my studio.
In addition to other areas of Italy, the Greeks had settled in the heel of the boot, the region of Puglia where Castello Monaci is located, during the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., bringing their more advanced viticultural techniques with them. Prior to the arrival of the Greeks, the Pugliese (the people of Puglia) had been producing wine as early as 2000 B.C. (yes, 4008 years ago. Your eyes did not deceive you.). With the addition of Greek winemaking expertise, Puglia developed a reputation for high quality wines in the ancient world.
In the 19th century, there was an epidemic of phylloxera, a tiny root-destroying insect that is related to aphids, throughout Europe. This infestation wiped out enormous swaths of vineyards, nearly destroying the European wine industry at the time; by some estimates more than two-thirds and as many as nine-tenths of all European vineyards were wiped out. Following the replanting of vineyards in Puglia, winemaking was focused on quantity, rather than quality. This has recently changed and there are a number of good winemakers working in Puglia.
The wine we had last night is Castello Monaci's Piluna Primitivo. Castello Monaci is the vineyard, which is well-regarded with awards from Gambero Rosso and DueMilaVini for many of their wines. Piluna is the name of this particular bottling, and means "tufa pot" in Greek (tufa is a type of volcanic stone which is prevalent in Italy). The grape is Primitivo. Primitivo is a very ancient grape, and is the same grape as Zinfandel in California. The California Zinfandel likely found its way from Europe to California with settlers who had brought vines with them from Austro-Hungarian root stock during the 1820's. During the 1970's, scientists discovered similarities between Zinfandel and Primitivo, which they later confirmed were the same grape. The Primitivo of Italy likely arrived from Croatia, where it is known as Crljenak Kastelanski. I think we'll look at Crljenak Kastelanski down the line to see how terroir impacts winemaking - despite the fact that I am unable to pronounce said grape name - but for now, our history lesson on Primitivo is complete.
The Piluna Primitivo had much going on in its aroma. My first whiff smelled of blackberries, toast, and butter. I could smell something else which I just couldn't place - a common issue in wine smelling and tasting, I've found, unless, of course, you're Robert Parker, but, alas, I am not. While I had my nose buried in the glass in an effort to figure out what that smell was, darn it, my mouth began to water, and there was a little sting in my nose from the alcohol. Before you get a picture of me drooling and coughing, the mouth watering was completely under control and was merely a reaction to the sense that the wine was going to be quite good. I'd say that the sting in my nose was from the alcohol, which at 13.5 percent is a bit strong. In order to prevent the embarrassment of drooling (for whom, I'm not sure, but prevent it I did), I took a hearty sip. The wine was smooth. Immediately smooth. That doesn't always happen with high-alcohol wines, particularly not with ones that sting your nose upon smelling, I suspect, so this was a pleasant surprise.
I went back to the aroma. Now I was picking up a sweet sulfur smell, as though someone had lit a sugary match and quickly put it out. Next, I smelled honey, and then baked bread. JR smelled caramel. The wine was very pleasant tasting, but, for having so many different smells in its aroma, I could only discern blackberry when tasting it. It's probably me. Like I've said, I'm no Robert Parker. It was extremely pleasant and drinkable, with soft tannins and a lush mouthfeel. Well worth the $10.99 it cost me at Gasbarro's in Providence.
I did read up on the flavor profile of Zinfandel/Primitivo/Crljenak Kastelanski, and according to Ray Isle of Food and Wine magazine, its characteristic flavors are raspberry, blackberry, and pepper. JR thought there was something smoky in the taste - perhaps that was the pepper? No matter. This is a good wine and one which you could certainly serve guests or, hey, yourself. On, say, a Wednesday night. Or, how about a Thursday? There's still time to get a bottle for Thursday, you know.
Dinner tonight: Rigatoni with roasted butternut squash, sausage, and fried sage leaves. Estimated cost for two: $4.89 with leftovers. The rigatoni was $1.79 for a one-pound box. We'll use about half of that. The Italian pork sausage was $3.74. We'll eat all of that. Ahhhh, Primitivo would be good with sausage! The butternut squash cost 25-cents for two pounds at my neighbor's farm stand, and the sage is free from the garden. I'm also about to make Rustic Olive Rolls, so I'll get a cost on those for tomorrow's post.
I really do love fall - at least the flavors - and, today, the weather. It's a balmy sixty degrees or so, and perfect weather for ice cream. Well, actually, any day is a perfect day for ice cream, and in fall, why not have ice cream that utilizes some of those traditional autumn tastes? In that spirit, I've resolved to remake the caramel ice cream that wouldn't freeze, but I became sidetracked from that mission on Sunday when I found this recipe, which is very close in flavor to the caramel disaster. I did learn in my reading about ice cream (look, I have a lot going on. Reading about ice cream. Reading about bread. Reading about Apple Pandowdy. Were you aware that "dowdying" is the act of pushing cooked dough into the cooked fruit juices in an effort to moisten the dough? No. I didn't think so. But while you're all working, I am busy finding out these things for you.) that too much sugar can cause ice cream not to freeze properly, so I will take that into consideration the next time I whip up a batch of caramel-walnut ice cream. In the meantime, here is the recipe for Pecan Praline ice cream, which perfectly complements baked pears.
Pecan Praline Ice Cream adapted from Ice Creams and Sorbets by Lou Siebert Pappas:
Ingredients:
Pecan Praline:
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon packed dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon water
1/4 tablespoon ground cardamom
1 cup pecans
1 teaspoon unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing foil-lined baking sheet
Ice Cream:
3 cups heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the Pecan Praline:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and grease lightly with butter.
In a small saucepan, combine the honey, brown sugar, water, and cardamom, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for approximately 2 minutes. Add the pecans, stirring to coat. Remove from heat. Transfer to foil-lined baking sheet and bake until toasted, approximately 8-10 minutes. Remove from foil and toss with the butter in a small bowl. Let cool and place in an airtight container until you're ready to incorporate them into the ice cream. You can also make the praline while the ice cream cools for 2-3 hours. No rush.
For the ice cream:
Combine the egg yolks and sugar in a non-reactive mixing bowl, whisking until sugar and yolks are well-blended.
In a medium sauce pan, warm the cream over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it is steaming, or a thermometer reads between 90-100 degrees. Seibert Pappas uses a double boiler for this process and the custard-cooking process, but I find that so long as you're careful and attentive - and stirring constantly - direct heat is fine.
Working in small batches, slowly add the hot cream to the egg mixture, stirring continuously until approximately half of the cream has been combined with the egg mixture. You already know from the vanilla ice cream recipe that you are doing this to avoid the eggs cooking and therefore spoiling the custard you're creating.
Return the saucepan to medium heat, and slowly pour the egg and cream mixture (the custard) into the pan, stirring continuously.
Continue with all that stirring until the mixture thickens such that it coats the back of a silicone spoon or spatula, approximately 10-12 minutes. At this point, remove the pan from the heat, pour the mixture into a non-reactive bowl (stainless or glass), and add the vanilla extract, stirring well to combine. Chill for 2-3 hours until custard is cold throughout. You may speed this process up by placing the non-reactive bowl into an ice water bath before refrigerating it if you'd like.
Once the custard is completely chilled, freeze it in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's directions, adding the pecan praline at the end of the freezing process, churning into the ice cream for approximately 15 seconds once the praline is added, or until well-distributed.
Transfer ice cream to an airtight container and freeze until set, 2-3 hours. Serve over baked pears, OR, if you like a little jolt of coffee before bed, have pecan praline ice cream affogato al caffe:
affogato al caffe
Place a scoop of ice cream in a small bowl. Add a small amount of warm espresso to the bowl, and eat immediately. Yum.
Whoops. Seems I ate all the affogato.
Dinner tonight: Roasted chicken with orange-honey beets and polenta. Estimated cost for two: $6.63. The chicken was $3.52, and we'll eat less than half of it (even with JR feeling better), so that's $1.76. The beets were $2.50. The polenta is around $1.75, the butter is 62 cents, and the broth is leftover from the chicken soup, so that is free for this meal. We're still eating baked pears, and I do still have some of this batch of pecan praline ice cream remaining, though I might have had a little more affogato (which means "drowned" in Italian - and you thought I was swearing in the title of this post!) than I had intended in the course of shooting today. Shhhh. Don't tell JR.
That "good for colds" thing may just be an old wives' tale, but it seemed to work out for JR last night. I have only a minute, but wanted to share with you the recipe for the cold-slaying (well, we hope cold-slaying after today, anyway) chicken soup.
Chicken Soup with pasta - made with homemade chicken stock:
Chicken Stock:
Ingredients:
(1) 4-5 pound whole chicken, pieced into 6 pieces (legs, wings, breasts)
1 yellow onion, cut in half, unpeeled
1 head of garlic, cut in half, unpeeled
2 large carrots, cut into 4 pieces each, washed and unpeeled
2 ribs of celery, cut into 4 pieces each, well-washed, with leafy tops still on
2 tablespoons black peppercorns
10 stalks parsley
12-15 stalks fresh thyme
3 stalks fresh sage
16 cups cold water. If you don't like the taste of your tap water, use bottled water instead.
Tie a piece of kitchen twine around the herbs to make it easier to remove them when the stock is finished.
Place chicken, vegetables, pepper and herbs in a large stock pot. Pour water over being certain that all ingredients are under the water. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cover and simmer gently for 2 hours. Allow stock to cool for about an hour. Remove chicken to a plate and discard all other ingredients, straining through a fine mesh strainer into a large bowl or stockpot to remove all solids.
Reserve 12 cups of stock for the chicken soup. Transfer remaining 4 cups to an airtight container and refrigerate or freeze for future use.
Chicken soup:
Ingredients:
12 cups homemade chicken stock
Cooked chicken removed from bones of chicken used in making of stock
6 large carrots, peeled and sliced
6 stalks of celery, sliced
8 ounces frozen sweet corn
1 1/2 cups orzo or other small pasta
2 tablespoons thyme
salt and pepper
The biggest bear in the whole process is removing the chicken from the bones. If you'd prefer to make the soup with a rotisserie chicken and purchased stock, that's all good, however, the simmering to make the stock results in chicken that pulls apart from itself, giving that characteristic shredded chicken effect in the final product. Your choice.
Add the stock to a large stock pot. Heat over medium heat and add the carrots and celery, the chicken, orzo, and corn. Simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the orzo is cooked through, about 20 minutes. Add thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. Yield: 6-8 generous servings. Of course, you can also add any other vegetables you'd like to the mix. I added what I had on hand, and it was the perfect antidote to JR's cold. For him, anyway.
Dinner tonight: JR is still not feeling well, so more chicken soup for us. Hopefully this will do the trick and rid him of that nasty cough. Estimated cost for two: $3.79. We might sneak in a bit of bread, and if so, the total skyrockets to $4.89.
IF YOU HAVEN'T VOTED, THERE'S STILL TIME. GET OUT AND VOTE!
Pears bruise so easily. They entice me into buying them with their pretty colors - jewel tone reds, soft new-grass greens, mottled sunset pink - and then, within a day of having them in my house, they look like they've been in a barroom brawl, all bruised skin and mushy flesh. So disappointing. But, it turns out, this is exactly when to turn these formerly-gorgeous-now-nasty little bruisers into something not quite as addictive as say, apple crumble, but still in that autumnal theme: baked pears. I have to say, I think this is an undervalued dessert item. First, you're upping your daily recommended count of fruits in a completely surreptitious fashion. These bad boys are decadent enough that you might even forget you're eating within the USDA Food Pyramid for your after-dinner treat. Secondly, they are super-easy to make. I searched around for a recipe to reference, which I frequently do when I'm not completely sure of the technique, read through a couple, and then decided to use what I had on hand in my pantry.
Cider-baked Pears:
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups apple cider
1/3 cup brown sugar or honey
1/3 cup currants (or raisins)
1/3 cup dried cranberries
3-4 pears, unpeeled, sliced in half and cored (a spoon or a melon-baller will do the trick)
2-3 tablespoons cinnamon sugar.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a small sauce pan, heat the cider and sugar or honey until it is dissolved. Simmer over medium heat until reduced slightly, about 5 minutes. Add the currants and dried cranberries. Simmer for about 2 minutes more, until currants and dried cranberries are softened, stirring occasionally. Remove currants and dried cranberries with a slotted spoon. Remove cider-sugar mixture from heat.
In a shallow baking pan (a lasagna pan or similar), arrange the pears cut side up. Pour cider-sugar mixture over the pears, then fill the cavity of each pear with the currants and dried cranberries. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over top of the pears. Cover the dish tightly with foil and bake until pears are soft and are easily pierced with a fork, about 45 minutes. Check mid-way through the cooking time and add additional cider if necessary. You don't want the liquid to bake off completely.
Serve either warm or at room temperature, drizzling reduced cooking liquid over top of the pears. Serving size: 1 pear half per person.
Now, to add to the ridiculousness, and to further take my mind off of the Food Pyramid, I made a toffee sauce to go with the pears:
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
Combine ingredients in a medium sauce pan and cook over medium heat, stirring continuously, until sugar is dissolved and mixture is reduced and thickens to caramel sauce consistency, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat and serve warm or at room temperature. The sauce will keep for about a week in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Yield: about 1 1/2 cups. A little goes a long way.
If the toffee sauce doesn't take care of your dairy group recommendation for the day, don't forget the whipped cream, and you, the USDA, and their darned Pyramid should be all set until tomorrow.
Dinner tonight: chicken soup with oatmeal raisin bread toast. Estimated cost for two: $4.89. JR isn't feeling well, so I'm making a chicken-orzo soup with the most basic of ingredients. I've already made the stock, which consists of one whole 99-cent per pound chicken at $4.62, carrots, onions, and celery for both the stock and the soup: $3.26, corn is 85 cents, garlic was a quarter, the orzo is about $2.40. The thyme, sage, and parsley are from the garden and seeing as they lived through last night's frost, they are a gift and are therefore absolutely, 100% free. The total cost for the soup, which I estimate to provide around 6 servings, is $11.38. The bread costs about $3.69 per loaf, and I figure we'll get ten slices out of it (I'm sure you're supposed to get more like 12 or 16, but let's be real, ok?), so that's 37 cents a slice - JR will have two, I will have one, and that's a grand total of $1.10 in bread. And then we will have baked pears with toffee sauce - oh, and I made pecan ice cream, so we might have that, oh, but if not, we'll have whipped cream, and JR won't be able to taste any of it, but I sure will!
DON'T FORGET TO VOTE TOMORROW. (Sorry. I don't mean to yell, but it's really important that you vote.)
I know that I admitted to having a cooked-fruit-with-crumb-topping addiction nearly two weeks ago - a near-eternity in the blogosphere - and an admission which you most likely have forgotten by now or of which you were never aware. So let me say it again. I have a problem. But now I think the problem is not just fruit crumble. No. Now I believe that the problem truly is that perfect duo of the harvest season, apple and cinnamon. Holy smokes, is that shiznit good together. I am trying to come to terms with this spiral downward into my apple dessert addiction - one has to wonder when and how I will hit rock bottom. Will it be at the hands of an apple pandowdy? Or maybe it's less complex; a simple baked cinnamon apple will take me down and force me into Apple-Cinnamon Anonymous. In any event, this is the dessert (which also happens to double magnificently as a coffee cake, I must tell you) that forced me to face the depth of my problem. Oh, demon Cinnamon-Apple Cake, why must you do this to me?
Cinnamon-Apple Cake adapted from Cooking Light (don't be looking for low-fat ingredients - I said "adapted", darn it all.):
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
6 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
3 cups sliced peeled apples (I used 3 large + one little wee one, which probably put me over the 3 cups called for here.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease a 9-inch springform pan
Combine flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl and mix well.
Combine cinnamon and 1/4 cup sugar. Take 2 tablespoons of the cinnamon-sugar mixture and add it to the sliced, peeled apples, stirring to distribute cinnamon-sugar throughout. Reserve remaining cinnamon-sugar mixture.
Mix sugar and butter in mixing bowl until well-blended. Add cream cheese and vanilla extract and blend on medium-low speed until well-combined. The mixture will resemble a grainy frosting. You're trying to introduce air into the batter so that it will be light and fluffy during this part of the process.
Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture and blend on low speed until well blended. Fold apples into batter.
Pour batter into springform pan, sprinkling remaining cinnamon-sugar over the top of the cake. Bake for approximately 1 hour 10 minutes or until the cake begins to separate from the side of the pan.
Cool completely on a rack. Because the cake is so moist, use a serrated knife to cut.
Servings: 10-12
Serve with the homemade vanilla ice cream posted yesterday, and just watch as you sink deeper and deeper into an apple-cinnamon addiction. I must warn you, this cake is not dense like your average coffee cake. It is light and ethereal and is, as JR said so eloquently, chock-a-block of appleness and cinnamony-ness. Oh, and on day three, the vanilla ice cream had only improved in flavor.
Dinner tonight: A-ha! OUT for dinner! Imagine? We're going to my favorite restaurant, Trattoria della Nonna. One cannot live on frugality alone. Not on apple-cinnamon desserts alone, either, in fact. Shocking, I realize, but true.
p.s. This morning, I bought another two-dollar and fifty-cent bag of apples (5+ pounds!) from my neighbors, specifically for cooking, though I haven't finished off the first bag I bought two weeks ago. She said they still have about 30 bushels left to pick. I should be sufficiently sated with even a small percentage of 30 bushels, right? Oh boy, I really do hope so.
