to top the professionals

The following article first appeared in the Daily News Record on September 11, 2012.

*** 

A few weeks ago, on the way home from one of our last visits to the pool, the kids and I stopped by a local pizza shop to claim our free orders of cinnamon breadsticks, courtesy of the library’s summer reading program. When I exited the store with the four large boxes, the kids nearly bounced out of their seats with excitement.

“We’ll eat them at home, not in the car,” I said firmly. I’d borrowed  my brother’s car and wasn’t about to let them sticky it all up.

My husband arrived home the same time we did and joined us at the kitchen table. I poured glasses of milk and passed out napkins.

“Everybody has to give up one of their sticks,” I announced. “Three for your papa and one for me.”

I was acting all cool and aloof, but inside I was nearly as excited as the children. Soft bread! Sugar! Icing!

I took one bite and promptly deflated. The sticks were tough, and the icing, oh my. It tasted like melted plastic spoons. The children were doggedly munching away, scattering sugar hither and yon, but they didn’t seem quite as excited as before. I noticed my younger daughter scraping off the icing. Oh, so it wasn’t just me!

“I should go into business,” I huffed to my husband. I was talking off the top of my head. “To think that people pay good money for this stuff. It’s crazy!” 

“But you don’t make these,” he pointed out.

“Well, I could.” I already had a breadstick recipe I was in love with. The switch from savory to sweet wouldn’t be all that difficult, I thought.

The night before my baking experiment, I was so excited I had trouble sleeping. In the morning, the thought of butter and cinnamon propelled me out of bed.

It was nearly lunchtime when I pulled the breadsticks from the oven. The kids watched impatiently while I sampled one. Then I felt guilty for eating in front of them and gave them each a half. Their cries of delight were loud and unceasing.

“What do you think? Are these any good?” I asked.

“Yes, yes!” they cried, their mouths stuffed full with the sugary bread, their hands sticky.

After lunch, I let them eat their fill. They scarfed down every last one. They even, when they thought I wasn’t looking, polished the plates with their tongues like a pack of motherless waifs.

Cinnamon Sugar Breadsticks

2½ teaspoons yeast
1 cup warm water
3 cups bread flour
3 packed tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup oil
4 tablespoons butter, melted
½ cup white sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted
½ teaspoon vanilla
milk or half-and-half

In a small bowl, combine the yeast and warm water. Set aside for five minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, and salt. Stir in yeast and oil. Knead until satiny smooth. Flour the bowl. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with a cloth, and let rise until doubled.

Grease a large, sided baking tray. Roll/press the dough so that it covers the bottom of the pan. Cut the dough down the middle lengthwise and then crosswise about 11 times, aiming for about 24 sticks. Cover the dough and let rise for 30-60 minutes.

Bake the breadsticks at 375 degrees for about 12 minutes. Brush the hot breadsticks with the melted butter and sprinkle generously with the cinnamon sugar (you will have some leftover).

Combine the confectioner’s sugar, vanilla, and enough milk to make a runny icing. Drizzle it over the breadsticks. Serve warm.

a sauce to talk about

The following article first appeared in the Daily News Record on August 29, 2012.

*** 

The words for my next newspaper column weren’t falling into place. Tired of getting nowhere, I finally called up my mom. “I’m trying to write about a pizza sauce recipe, but I’m not sure what my point is.”

“Didn’t you just write about that in the last column?”

“No, that was a spaghetti sauce.”

“Pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, what’s the difference?” my mom asked.

“It’s totally different,” I said. “The spaghetti sauce was made with canned tomatoes. This pizza sauce is made with roasted tomatoes. Roasted garlic, too. A whole head. And it’s fast.”

“There’s nothing fast about roasting tomatoes. It takes hours!”

“No, no! These get roasted for just one hour!”

“Oh, really?” She was listening now.

“Yeah, they caramelize and get blistered black in places.”

“What? You put in black tomatoes?”

“When they’re blended up, they make the sauce look speckled. It’s gorgeous! And really, it couldn’t be easier.”

“Okay, okay,” Mom laughed. “You go to all this trouble and here I am just picking my jars of sauce off the grocery store shelves. I won’t get the mushroom kind and I try to choose something chunky—if you ask me, that’s easy. But your sauce does sound good.”

“It’s incredible!” I gushed. “So flavorful and rich. I get all sorts of traffic on my blog over that recipe—”

“All right,” she interrupted. “You have your column now.”

“Wha—?” I asked, bewildered.

“This phone conversation. Just write it down. That’s your column.”

“Mom, you duped me!” I shrieked. “You did this on purpose!”

“No, I did not! But now you have your column. Go write it.”

Roasted Tomato and Garlic Pizza Sauce
This recipe first appeared on Simple Bites.

12 pounds paste tomatoes, such as Roma
½ cup olive oil, plus extra as needed
salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 head garlic
3/4 cup green pepper, rough dice
1 cup onion, rough dice
1 jalapeño, rough mince
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon each, dried basil and dried oregano
citric acid, bottled lemon juice, or vinegar

Cut off the top of the head of garlic, making sure that the tippy-top of each clove has been removed. Set the garlic, cut side up, on a piece of foil, drizzle it with a bit of olive oil, and wrap tightly.

Wash and core the tomatoes. Cut them in half lengthwise and toss with ½ cup olive oil, 2 teaspoons salt, and the black pepper. Divide the tomatoes between two large, sided trays (put the foil-wrapped garlic on one of the trays) and roast at 400 degrees for 60-90 minutes, rotating as necessary. The tomatoes will blister and blacken a bit—this is good.

While the tomatoes are roasting, sauté the peppers and onion in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil until very soft.

Dump the roasted tomatoes into a large stockpot and add the sauteed veggies. Squeeze the garlic pulp out of the skins and add to the vegetables. Puree the mixture. Stir in the sugar, dried herbs, and more salt to taste—2 to 3 teaspoons.

Ladle the sauce into pint jars. To each jar add 1/4 teaspoon citric acid or 1 tablespoon lemon juice or 1 tablespoon vinegar. Screw on the lids and process the jars in a hot water bath for 20 minutes at a gentle rolling boil.

Yield: approximately 5 pints.

with complete abandon

The following article first appeared in the Daily News Record on August 15, 2012. 
 

*** 

A few weeks ago, I ran down to the basement to take stock of my canning shelves. Among the sea of empty glass jars, I found a few of salsa, some of tomato juice and roasted tomato sauce, and a whole bunch of pints of chopped Roma tomatoes, some of which were from as long ago as 2007. The jars were caked with dust, the edges fuzzy with mold. I felt slightly embarrassed.

I contemplated tossing the Romas, but the seals were still firm so I crossed my fingers and decided to put them in a sauce. I had found a spaghetti sauce recipe that specifically called for canned tomatoes—it’d be perfect for using up my antiques. But could their age prove deadly?

All my life, my mother has obsessively worried about botulism and salmonella, and even though I am much more pragmatic (no one I know has ever gotten sick from eating home-canned food, and besides, acidic tomatoes are not botulism prone), at moments like these, her death and doom speeches return to haunt me.

“Let’s hope I don’t kill us all,” I thought to myself as I lugged the armful of jars upstairs.

I scrubbed the jars in hot soapy water, popped off the lids, and dumped the tomato chunks into my Dutch oven. They looked and smelled perfectly fine. “See, Mom?” I thought. “There’s no problem!”

One of my son’s visiting friend’s eyes lit up when he saw what we were having for supper. “Spaghetti, yes!” he cheered.

“Hold up your plate,” I said to the boy after we had finished our silent mealtime prayer. He positively glowed with excitement—almost giddy, was he—as I mounded the spaghetti high.

I was slightly anxious that he might turn up his nose at my sauce since it was sure to be different from what he was used to, but I needn’t have worried. He rapidly polished off three servings, maybe even four. By the time he swallowed his last bite, he was groaning.

“Did you see how much he ate?” my stunned husband whispered to me as we cleared the table. “That last serving alone would’ve been enough for an entire lunch for me!”

“That’s how spaghetti is supposed to be eaten—with complete abandon,” I gloated.

But the best part? No one died.

Garlicky Spaghetti Sauce
Inspired by a recipe found in the August 2012 issue of “Food and Wine” magazine.

Despite the emphasis on garlic, the sauce is not overly pungent. The long cooking softens the bite considerably.

3 quarts canned tomatoes
½ - 3/4 cup (1-3 heads) peeled garlic cloves
2/3 cup olive oil
salt
black pepper
1 pound thin spaghetti
lots of freshly torn basil
freshly grated Parmesan cheese

For the sauce:
Bring the tomatoes to a simmer in a large pot.

Measure the oil into a smaller pot and add the garlic. Bring to a gentle boil and cook unlidded for about thirty minutes, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is golden brown and very tender.

Add the garlic and oil to the tomatoes. Using an immersion or regular blender, blend until smooth. Simmer for about an hour until the sauce has thickened a bit. Add plenty of salt and black pepper.

Set aside half of the sauce to freeze for a later batch of spaghetti or to use as pizza sauce.

For the spaghetti:
Cook one pound of spaghetti to al dente. Drain and return to the pot. Add two cups of the remaining hot sauce and cook for another minute. Serve the spaghetti, ladling more sauce over each portion. Garnish with basil and Parmesan cheese.

cake for an applesauce party

The following article first appeared in the Daily News Record on August 1, 2012. 
 

*** 

This year, we skipped church to make applesauce. The whole day stretched open in front of us, and with the promise of unlimited amounts of warm, sweet applesauce at the end, it felt like a holiday.

Before we started on the actual sauce making, we had to set up the assembly line. My husband cleaned off the porch, attached a utility sink to the porch deck railing, and brought the outdoor cookstove over from the barn. I scrubbed washbasket loads of jars, sorted jar lids (we reuse the undamaged ones), and measured the dry ingredients for the gingerbread, a traditional applesauce-day treat.

Turning four bushels of Summer Rambos into sauce is not an everyday challenge, and the kids were quick to get caught up in the festive atmosphere. They clamored for the best jobs, pretty much any task that involved fire, water, sharp blades, or motors.

They were excited to wash the apples and cut them. It’s always a great deal of fun to use my husband’s whippy-fast apple-cutting system. But then the system broke down due to a faulty handheld apple corer and we had to change tactics. My husband laid a long piece of pine on the picnic table, and I handed the kids a bunch of knives and told them to have at it. They chopped most of the apples themselves. We got out the Band-Aids only three times, I think.

The most coveted task of all, however, was the cranking of the apples through the mill. My husband has rigged up a special bit for his drill so the mill can be run with an easy squeeze of the drill’s trigger—I call the method “Drilling for Sauce”—and each time he ladled more mushy, spitting-hot apples into the mill, the eager-beaver kids crowded round, vying to be first.

Late morning, as the first batches of applesauce streamed from the mill, I finished mixing up the gingerbread and popped it into the oven. Soon the scent of peppery molasses was wafting around our heads, too, along with the fragrant smell of tangy-sweet apples.

To serve the cake, I put the pieces on dessert plates and spooned the warm sauce around each square of gingerbread, like spicy castles surrounded by steamy, pale-green moats. I handed out spoons and told everyone to eat all they wanted. It was, after all, an applesauce party.

Gingerbread
Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook

For a gentler cake, omit the fresh ginger.

3/4 cup strong, dark beer such as Guinness
½ teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cup molasses
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup flavorless oil such as canola
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger, optional
1½ cups flour
2 tablespoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon each, baking powder and salt
1/4 teaspoon each, cinnamon and black pepper

Bring the beer to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from the heat and stir in the baking soda. Pour into a large bowl and whisk in the molasses and sugars. Add the eggs, oil, and fresh ginger.

In another bowl, combine the flour, ground ginger, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and black pepper. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in three parts, whisking until smooth after each addition.

Pour the batter into a greased 8x8-inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes. Serve with fresh applesauce or a dollop of whipped cream.

come-and-get-it mint tea

The following article first appeared in the Daily News Record on July 18, 2012.

*** 

Earlier this summer, I made a batch of tea concentrate, decimating the patch of mint growing out by the water pump. Thanks to the record temps, we guzzled most of our stash faster than I expected.

Where to get more mint? I wondered. Probably, there were lots of people with rampant mint patches who would be delighted to let me have some if they only knew I needed it, but I didn’t know who those people were. So I did the only logical thing. I turned to Facebook.

I am a reluctant Facebook user. Back in the beginning, I used it sporadically—on several different occasions Facebook sent me messages checking to see if I was still alive—but gradually, I got hooked.

While I find the commentary and pictures entertaining (though sometimes overwhelming), I especially appreciate Facebook’s power to yield tangible results. Once I whined in my status update that I couldn’t find a brown shirt anywhere, and the next Sunday, a woman from church handed me a new one. Also, I’ve asked for and received movie recommendations, advice on recipes and Broadway shows, and empty laundry detergent bottles for my homemade laundry soap.

So while I might not be the biggest Facebook enthusiast, I’m not stupid. A shortage of mint meant it was time for a new status update.

“Anybody have a boatload of mint they want to get rid of?” I wrote. “I'd take a half bushel, loosely packed.”

Almost immediately, I got a “Come and get it!” response. I barely knew this person but that didn’t stop her from graciously giving me directions to her house. The next evening, my husband and I stopped by.

“Are you sure you don’t want this?” I asked, worried that I was taking advantage of her hospitality.

“No, no! Take it all! It will grow back.”

Maybe she truly wanted to get rid of the mint, but a part of me wondered if she was hesitant to tell a scissors-brandishing strange woman to lay off the aggressive snipping. In any case, I decided to take her words at face value. I filled my brown grocery bag and said thank you.

Back home, as I poured the boiling sugar-water syrup over the sprigs, the heady smell of fresh mint filled the sultry, summer-night air. The next morning, I would strain the tea, add the lemon juice, and ladle the concentrate into pint jars. We would have enough mint tea to last us at least another month or so.

And all because of Facebook.

Mint Tea Concentrate

There are many types of mint—apple, lemon, chocolate, peppermint, and spearmint, and smooth-leafed or fuzzy—all of which can be used for the tea. Keep in mind that mint harvested later in the summer is more potent than the early mint.

enough mint (roughly 2½ pounds) to fill a 12-16 quart kettle
2½ to 3 pounds sugar
1 gallon water
the juice of 3 or 4 lemons

Gently wash the mint and cut off the brown leaves and any flowering tops. Pack the mint—both the stems and the leaves—into a 16-quart kettle.

Combine the water and sugar in a large kettle and bring to a gentle boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Pour the syrup over the mint, weigh the mint down with a glass pie plate, and lid the kettle. Let steep overnight, about 12 hours.

Strain the tea. I first pour it through a sieve and then, to get out any little remaining bits, through a cheesecloth. Stir in the lemon juice. Freeze in 1½ cup portions.

To serve, thaw one jar of concentrate and add enough water to make a half gallon. Pour the tea into frosty, ice-filled glasses and garnish with a sprig of mint and several frozen red raspberries.

eating: a French education

The following article first appeared in the Daily News Record on July 3, 2012.

*** 

When I called my dear children to lunch, my younger son trotted into the kitchen, took one look at his plate with its minuscule mound of salad, and went off like a fire siren. “This is revolting! I hate—.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I yelled. “Start over! You come to the table and sit down quietly! And no fussing!”

I had nearly finished my latest read, Bringing Up Bébé by American mother Pamela Druckerman, who compares French and American parenting styles. According to Druckerman, the French intentionally teach their children to relish all sorts of exotic foods. They accomplish this by serving meals in courses (there is no snacking between meals), with vegetables being the first course when the children are the hungriest; expecting children to try everything; and actively engaging the children in conversation about what they are eating.

Perhaps I had bought into the belief that kids have more sensitive palates than adults? Could it be that my children might actually enjoy more complex flavors if I merely raised my expectations and spent time educating them?

To test the French methods, I had divvied onto several small plates the lunch I had planned for myself—a salad of red beet greens, quinoa, and zucchini—all foods that my children claim to abhor.

Dropping my voice to normal levels (because yelling at the table is not exactly good French etiquette), I laid out the plan. “We will be having lunch in three courses. First, this salad.”

I listed all the components, detailing ingredients that I previously would have skipped over for fear of an uprising. I even mentioned the lemon and garlic vinaigrette as though I was announcing their favorite ice cream flavor.

“Do we have to eat it all?” my daughter asked, her voice tense.

“No. But you do have to try everything. Now, tell me what you think of the zucchini,” I said, ignoring their ew-grosses and spearing a coin with my fork. “Is it crunchy or soft? Grandmommy gave them to us, you know. They’re sweet, I think, and I can taste the butter and salt. But what do you think?”

My daughter nibbled a piece of zucchini and then boldly popped the whole thing into her mouth and grinned at me.

As I chattered on about the flavor differences between spinach and beet greens, the kids happily poked their salads, tasting a grain of quinoa (“It tastes like pasta!”), a chunk of feta, a bit of the greens. My son gagged on a beet root, but instead of the normal crying jag, he busted up laughing. When I gathered up the plates, the kids were still bubbling with observations and comments.

I had no idea that a simple, no-pressure conversation about food would result in such curious little tasters. No doubt about it, more French-style meals are in my family’s future. Bon appétit!

Zucchini Coins

Put a pat of butter and drizzle of olive oil in a skillet set on medium-high heat. Thinly slice several small zucchinis into coins. Arrange a single layer of the coins in the sizzling fat and sprinkle with salt. Let the zucchini cook, undisturbed, until the bottoms are nicely blistered. Flip and cook on the other side.  Repeat the process with the remaining zucchinis. For a fancier version: add oregano, sliced tomatoes, feta cheese, and black pepper.

Lemon Garlic Vinaigrette
(with thanks to my girlfriend MAC)

In a mortar and pestle, pound a couple thin slices of fresh garlic with some salt into a creamy paste. Add the juice of one lemon, a glug of olive oil, and some freshly ground black pepper. Mix well and taste to correct seasonings.

inspired salad

The following article first appeared in the Daily News Record on June 20, 2012.

*** 

Last week I got an email from my pastor.

“I’m just now eating something so delicious that I had to tell someone,” she wrote. “Who would that be? Well, someone who loves food enough to write about it.” 

And then she proceeded to tell me all about her lunch.

She had noticed her cilantro was going to seed, so she’d harvested it all in one fell swoop and then had to figure out what to do with it.

“I had earlier pulled four pink beets—how can they be so huge already?—and set them to boiling in their skins,” she wrote. “Ultimately, I minced the cilantro, diced the cooled beets, and dressed the salad with olive oil, lime juice and a dash of salt. That’s it, but wow! It’s good two days later and looks pretty to boot.”

My pastor doesn’t usually tell me about her lunches. In fact, I think this may have been the first time. So I did the only logical thing I could do in such a situation. I walked over to the fridge where my grocery list resides and scrawled “cilantro” and “beets.”

Two days later, I went to the farmer’s market and bought some striped beets and a big bunch of cilantro. Back home, I called my pastor at the office (interrupting her sermon writing, no doubt)  to double check on the proportions. However, it wasn’t until the following Monday morning that I actually got around to making the salad.

And then I devoured the whole entire thing right then and there. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

I didn’t intend to consume the salad all in one go. I had planned to make it, taste it, and then save it for later. But once I started eating the sweet, juicy beets and pungent, earthy greens, I couldn’t stop. I shoveled it into my mouth via the serving spoon, in great enormous heaps.

The initial feeding frenzy over, I started experimenting with what was left. I added some cooked quinoa that was hanging out in the fridge, and then I tumbled in some crumbled feta cheese. Both additions were lovely, and before I knew it, I had sampled the salad into oblivion.

There’s a moral to the story, of course, and it’s this: if your pastor emails you a recipe, make it. It’s probably inspired.

Cilantro Beet Salad
Inspired by my pastor, Jennifer Davis Sensenig

This is more a formula than a recipe. It seems like a crazy amount of cilantro, and it is, but it’s all good. Trust me.

1 cup roasted (or boiled) beets, cooled and diced
½ to 1 cup chopped cilantro, stems and leaves
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and black pepper to taste
cooked quinoa, optional
feta cheese, optional

Toss together and taste to correct seasonings.

How to Roast Beets
Trim off the stems and leaves. Scrub the beets. Put the whole beets in a baking dish and drizzle with olive oil. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 60-90 minutes or until the beets are fork tender. Cool slightly before peeling. Eat warm, with butter and salt, or refrigerate for later use.

How to Cook Quinoa
Cover 1 cup of quinoa with hot (not boiling) water and let soak for 5 minutes. Rinse and drain the quinoa several times. Both the hot soak and the rinsing help to reduce the bitterness.

Put the quinoa in a saucepan and add 1 ½ (scant) cups of water or chicken broth. Simmer, uncovered, for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until all the liquid has been absorbed and the grains are tender.