Maple Pumpkin Dressing

Continuing on in the theme of trying to interject some healthy into a week of gluttony, may I present a delicious fall salad dressing. Finding a new use for my fancy pumpkin seed oil that my very nice mother-in-law brought back from Austria, I made Maple Pumpkin Dressing. Unfortunately, I was expecting a little more maple and the soy sauce was a little overpowering, but overall it was great on a salad of Romaine hearts, mushrooms, green onions, dried cranberries and sunflower seeds.

The recipe is from my Pumpkin cookbook again. The dressing is really good for fall too. It's not all light and summery, and yet it's not super heavy. It pretty much hit the spot.

Maple Pumpkin Dressing

from Pumpkin: A Super Food for All 12 Months of the Year

2 Tbsp cider vinegar

2 Tbsp pure maple syrup

2 Tbsp soy sauce

1 Tbsp minced shallots

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup pumpkin seed oil

Mix the vinegar, maple syrup, soy sauce, shallots, garlic, mustard, and salt together in a small bowl. Slowly drizzle olive oil into the bowl, whisking constantly. Do the same with the pumpkin seed oil. This makes about 1 cup. Store what is left in a glass jar or bottle for several weeks in the refrigerator.

Stew in Fall- What a match!

Today, the sun was shining and everyone on our street was outside raking leaves. It was a beautiful fall day. The kind of day that makes you wish that fall would last for most of the year. Clean, crisp, chilly. The kind of day that when you come inside you want something hearty and warm. A day you appreciate that "stick to your ribs" character of stew. I'm not talking about those days that are so cold the snot inside your nose freezes and you need chili, heavy on the jalapenos, to start to feel human again. Just a nice warming stew in fall.

Being that I've already shared my favorite fall stew here, I decided to try a new stew. This is Moroccan-Style Braised Beef with Carrots and Couscous from Cooking Light. After a week of Ice Cream Terrine and decadent Chocolate Cranberry Cupcakes, I'm really good with something from Cooking Light. I did think it would be more interesting with more vegetables in it and there definitely wasn't enough couscous for the amount of stew. But, the stew itself was good and I even liked the gravy. Normally I'm not such a fan of gravy, but this gravy is rich and thick and has some darn tasty undertones.

Moroccan-Style Braised Beef with Carrots and Couscous

Cooking Light

Beef:

2 tsp olive oil

1 pound lean beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch cubes

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

3 medium onions thinly sliced

4 garlic cloves, chopped

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground turmeric

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp ground ginger

2 (14oz) cans less sodium beef broth

1/4 cup packed dried apricots

1/8 tsp salt

1/8 tsp black pepper

4 large carrots, peeled and cut on the diagonal

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Couscous:

2 tsp olive oil

1 garlic clove, crushed

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground turmeric

1/3 cup less sodium beef broth

1/3 cup water

2/3 cup uncooked whole wheat couscous

1/4 chopped green onions

Remaining Ingredient:

1/4 cup fresh parsley, divided

To prepare beef, heat 2 teaspoons oil in a large saucepan over medium high heat. Sprinkle beef with 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Add beef to pan, and cook 4 minutes or until beef is browned on all sides, turning occasionally. Transfer beef to a bowl.

Add onions to pan; cook 10 minutes longer or until tender, stirring frequently. Add garlic cloves and next 4 ingredients (through ginger); cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add broth; bring to a boil. Add apricots; reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Cover and cook over medium-low heat 30 minutes. Using an immersion blender in pan, puree onion mixture. Stir in 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper.

Return beef to onion mixture; cook over medium-low heat 1 hour or until beef is tender. Add carrot to pan; cover and cook 15 minutes or until carrot is tender. Stir in 1/4 cup chopped parsley.

While beef cooks, prepare couscous. Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add crushed garlic clove, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon turmeric. Stir in 1/3 cup broth and 1/3 cup water; bring to a boil. Gradually stir in couscous. Remove from heat. Cover and let stand 5 minutes; fluff with a fork. Stir in green onions.

Spoon couscous onto plates. Top evenly with beef stew, and sprinkle each serving with parsley.

Yay Pumpkin! Vote for me!

Ah look at those delicious curlicues of pasta coated with creamy pumpkin sauce. So tender. So yummy. But first, a shameless plea for votes, and a teeny rant.

OK, so you remember the super delicious Thanksgiving Ice Cream Terrine? How the flavors meld so deliciously into a medley of fall ice cream flavors? Well, the roundup is up at Running With Tweezers. She's got eleven terrines there. I think they all look pretty spectacular, but there's a prize involved and I'm a sucker for a prize. So I urge you to go there and vote for me! (I'll never go into politics, so this is the only place I'm going to tell people to vote for me. It's a little weird.)

Now on to my teeny rant. I am no longer able to buy ground lamb here. I could buy it last week. But now my local grocery tells me if I want ground lamb I have to buy an entire shoulder and then they'll grind it all and sell it to me. That's a load of hooey. (Meijer doesn't have it either here.) So I called one of the local custom butchers around town and they told me they didn't know where I could buy ground lamb by the pound. They said they would sell me a half a lamb if I found someone else to buy the other half. But I don't have a deep freezer. Shoot. And I seriously don't know anyone out here who wants half a lamb. Where are the Jewish people out here? Or the Hindus? Middle Easterners? Anyone who eats lamb? Well if they're here I don't think they're buying lamb either. How annoying. Maybe next year I'll buy one at the county fair and have it butchered. Or maybe I'll try to convince the Brain's parents to raise one on their property. OK I'm done with my rant

Now the delicious pasta. This was not my original plan for dinner. Originally I had planned a ground lamb and peas Indian dish. But because of the problem with the grocer, I was suddenly planless. I hate being planless. Let's just say I don't function so well planless. SO with no meat thawed and already posting about spaghetti this week I had to scramble for something else to cook. Stoopid Nablopomo. So I took a look around my pantry and cupboards and realized I had some heavy cream, a can of pumpkin, an onion, and fresh sage. My sage plant that I repotted is not looking like it's going to pull through, so harvesting sage is a good idea right now. As an update, the parsley plant however seems to be hanging in there, and the rosemary is smelling up the living room in a good way.

But I digress, in actuality I'm a food hoarder, so I have ridiculous amounts of things like dried beans and canned beans and pasta and tomato sauce and pickles and canned tomatoes, but it sounds better if I say oh look I just happened to only have exactly the ingredients I need on hand! Anyway, this pasta is pretty delicious and creamy.

Creamy Cavatappi, Sausage and Pumpkin
adapted from Pumpkin: A Super Food for All 12 Months of the Year

1 pound bulk sweet Italian sausage
1 medium onion thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic minced
1 bay leaf
2 Tbsp fresh sage, chopped
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 pound Cavatappi
grated Parmesan to sprinkle on top

1) Cook the sausage over medium heat for approximately 5 minutes until it is no longer pink and the remove from the pan.

2) Saute the onions in the fat left from the sausage for 3 minutes or until softened. Add the garlic and cook for another 3 minutes, or until the onion and garlic are soft and beginning to brown.

3) Add the bay leaf, sage, and wine to the pan. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat. Do not cover. Simmer and stir to scrape up the browned bits until the wine is reduced by half, about 5 minutes.

4) Whisk in the broth and pumpkin and bring to a low boil while stirring. Stir in the cream, add the sausage, and cook over low heat for several minutes. Add the nutmeg, salt, and pepper to taste. Adjust the seasonings, if necessary.

5) Meanwhile cook the pasta until al dente. Drain and add the pasta to the skillet. Toss the sauce and pasta together while cooking over low heat for 1 to 2 minutes. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Disclaimer:
OK so I adapted some things here. It is probably better for your heart if you follow the way the recipe originally is written and brown the sausage in olive oil then wipe out the pan after removing the sausage and saute the onion and garlic in more olive oil. But really c'mon people. Does this look like a low calorie, heart smart meal? Puh Lease. This is as fattening as I cook. But like I said in the heretofore mentioned rant, I went with what was in the cupboards.

Chocolate Cranberry Cupcakes

Alright, I'm at it again. Quirky Cupcake has a monthly food event called Cupcake Hero. So every month there's a new theme. This month it's cranberry! Cranberries are actually on my list of fruit that's not too bad. How could I dislike a fruit that the way they figure out the best of the best is by bouncing it?

"At Ocean Spray we take a lot of pride in our cranberries. Only the best make it into our products. But how does one judge a cranberry? Well, we start by judging their color, size and freshness. And, surprisingly enough, by their ability to bounce. That's right. Bounce. You see, an early New Jersey grower, John "Peg-Leg" Webb, first noted this special property of the cranberry. Because of his wooden leg, he couldn't carry his berries down from the loft of his barn where he stored them. Instead, he'd pour them down the steps. He soon noticed that only the firmest and freshest berries bounced down to the bottom; the soft and bruised ones didn't make it. This led to the development of the first cranberry bounce board separator, a device we still use today, to remove damaged or sub-standard berries."

I didn't want to do your standard spice cake type cupcake, and I didn't want to just add dried cranberries to some average cupcake recipe. So I went fancy. The cupcake is chocolate Chambord cake with a cranberry puree filling and frosted with a chocolate ganache. It's rich. It's decadent. It is not the cupcake to eat at 7 o'clock in the morning. The ladies at Catholic Charities who were the happy recipients of a dozen of them gushed. The Brain was annoyed that I left with a dozen and didn't bring them into the office. These are cupcakes that are best served as dessert for dinner with a strong cup of coffee.

Chocolate Cranberry Cupcakes

Cake:
10 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter room temperature
6 large eggs, separated
2 Tbsp Chambord
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pan with paper liners. Stir chocolate in metal bowl set over saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth. Cool slightly. Using electric mixer, beat sugar and butter in large bowl 2 minutes. Beat in egg yolks, Chambord, and vanilla. Stir in cooled chocolate. Add flour and salt; stir to blend. Using clean dry beater, beat egg whites in another large bowl until stiff peaks form. Fold whites into chocolate mixture in 3 additions. Fill cupcakes papers 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry. The centers of the cupcakes will fall while cooling.

Cranberry puree filling

1 cup fresh cranberries
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbsp Chambord

Bring cranberries water and sugar to a boil in saucepan over high heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat to medium; cook until cranberries burst, about 5 minutes. Transfer to blender; puree. Strain puree into bowl; discard seeds. Mix in Chambord. Cover; refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight (sauce will thicken some).

Chocolate Ganache

7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
7 Tbsp butter, cut into 1-inch cubes, room temperature
2/3 cup whipping cream

Place chocolate and butter in medium metal bowl. Bring cream to boil in small saucepan. Pour hot cream over chocolate mixture; stir until mixture is melted and smooth.

To Assemble:

Once the cupcakes are cooled, fill a squirt bottle with cranberry puree. Insert tip of squirt bottle into center of cupcake and squeeze in about a teaspoon of puree. Spoon frosting into divot in center of cupcake and let cupcakes sit for 30 minutes to let ganache set.

Moody me.

Do you ever just have a bad day for no reason? The kind of day where you really just want to come home and eat a bag of potato chips for dinner? Nothing really traumatic happened. My husband is great and helps with the laundry and did the dishes this weekend while I was out of town. My job, although not exactly mentally stimulating, still exposes me to new things and gives me a sense of accomplishment sometimes. But over the course of the day the happy little mood I woke up with went South and left me feeling like Lucy Van Pelt towards dinner time.

It was time to break out some yummy, not quite unhealthy comfort food. Butternut Squash and Orzo with Fresh Sage. This is the side dish (although really it could be a meal all by itself) that showed the Brain that squash isn't just okay, it's really really tasty.

I just happened to have a bunch of squash already peeled and cut in a Ziploc in the fridge so the hard part was done. A little sauteing of onion and garlic, mixing in some white wine (already the day starts to get better) and some chicken broth. By now I'm humming along, loving the smell of butter and wine and broth. Next in goes the squash and the smells are getting even better. As the squash cooks I bring some more broth to a boil and cook the orzo in it. Then drain the orzo, add it to the squash with some Parmesan and chopped up fresh sage. The timer on the baked chicken (we eat a lot of that) goes off and Voila! Even the dogs who are desperately trying to eat my dinner can't bother me.

And maybe today isn't so bad after all...

Butternut Squash with Orzo and Fresh Sage

Bon Appetit

3 Tbsp butter

1 cup chopped onion

1 garlic clove minced

1 2-pound butternut squash, peeled, halved, seeded, and cut into 1/2 inch cubes (about 4 cups)

4 cups low salt chicken broth divided

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 cup orzo

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

2 Tbsp chopped fresh sage

Melt butter in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and saute until softened, about 6 minutes. Add garlic and saute until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add squash cubes and stir to coat. Add 1/2 cup chicken broth and wine. Cover and simmer until squash is just tender and liquid is absorbed, about 10 minutes (if necessary, uncover and simmer until excess liquid evaporates.)

Meanwhile, bring remaining 3 1/2 cups broth to boil in heavy large saucepan. Add orzo. Boil uncovered until orzo is tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Drain orzo if necessary.

Transfer to large bowl. Stir in squash mixture, then Parmesan and sage. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

Sweet Dumpling Squash

I am a giant fan of easy. Sometimes a meal I can come home from work and stick in the oven and be done with it is right up my alley. So, when I was grocery shopping and ran across these cute individual sized sweet dumpling squashes, I was hooked almost instantly. OK, I admit, for about 2 seconds I thought ooooooh how cute would these be filled? But instead, I came home from work, cut off the tops, and scooped out the insides. The only filling these got was a pat of butter and some salt and pepper. I then stuck them in the oven for about 35 minutes at 350 degrees. They were perfect next to simple baked chicken.

I love easy.

Thanksgiving Terrine

The very best thing about my 6am Friday spin class, besides being a nice excuse why I can't do the annual Friday after Thanksgiving shopping trip, is that on Fridays I don't feel nearly as guilty about indulging in ice cream. Ice cream and I have a long and passionate love affair. I even tried the new Haagen Dazs flavor, Caramelized Pear and Toasted Pecan; interestingly pear ice cream is good even though frozen pears still fall into that very large category of fruit I don't really appreciate.

So one of the reasons I started this blog was because this food blogging culture has these food events where everyone posts recipes on the same theme, sort of. And I wanted to try it out. Anyway, Running with Tweezers is sponsoring Hay Hay it's Donna Day -Terrines this month. I thumbed through as many cookbooks as I could get my hands on and although things looked tasty, I couldn't get passed the ultimate looming question: "If the Brain doesn't eat the leftovers, would I want to eat this for a week?" Unfortunately for most of the jellied vegetable terrines the idea didn't really thrill me. And fruit, really I don't think I could do a week of it. I definitely could do a week of a terrine of pate, but then I'd probably have to go to the gym like 3 times a day. Then laying awake in bed trying to think of things I could eat for a week, it came to me. Ice cream.

I just happen to have The Ultimate Ice Cream Book: Over 500 Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, Drinks and More by Bruce Weinstein, and it happens to have a recipe for pumpkin ice cream. I love pumpkin ice cream. The first time I tried it I had just moved to Lenexa, Kansas (suburb of Kansas City) for a job and was spending Thanksgiving very much alone for the first time. For some reason Baskin Robbins 31 flavors was open and I decided on pumpkin ice cream instead of baking myself an entire pumpkin pie.

My favorite store bought member of the ice cream food group is Ciao Bella Blackberry Cabernet sorbet. Wow. Yummy. Seriously. There was no way I was leaving this out. I mean the rules called for layers, so why not fill it full of favorites?

The final layer was the hardest to decide on. I wanted to keep the texture of the terrine on a whole the same, but what went with pumpkin and blackberry? Something subtle, something fallish and good around Thanksgiving. So laying awake on yet another night, I toyed with the idea of a brown sugar ice cream. I consulted with the Brain and he seemed indifferent. Then I thumbed through the ice cream book again and casually mentioned maple. The Brain was far more enthusiastic on that one, so the decision was made.




Interestingly if you look up the word terrine in the dictionary you will also find the definition as a casserole dish made of earthenware. Even more interestingly, I have a terrine. I'm sure you're shocked. I'm shocked anyway. So instead of layering this terrine in a loaf pan or some loaf shaped container that would hold a lot more. I decided to make this terrine in my terrine. HA! (I'm such an overachiever sometimes.) Also this is good because now there are leftovers and on days I don't have Spin class or I'm too lazy to drag myself to the gym I can pull out my melonballer and have a "diet" sized portion of each.


Thanksgiving Ice Cream Terrine
1 cup pumpkin ice cream (can be purchased in fall or recipe follows)
1/2 cup Cia Bella Blackberry Caberney Sorbet
1 cup maple ice cream (recipe follows)

Remove pumpkin ice cream from the freezer and soften. Line terrine with plastic wrap. Place 1 cup pumpkin ice cream in bottom of terrine. Cover terrine and place in the freezer. Once pumkin layer is frozen hard, spread blackberry sorbet over the top of it. Cover terrine and return to freezer. After blackberry layer is as solid as it's going to get, remove maple ice cream from the freezer and soften. Spread 1 cup maple ice cream over the top of the terrine. Cover terrine and place in the freezer until solid. (I did each layer on a different day.)

To unmold: invert terrine onto a plate. Alternate rubbing hands on sides and bottom of terrine and pulling on the plastic wrap. Be gentle and be patient and with a little coaxing the terrine should pop free. Quickly slice and serve.

Pumpkin Ice Cream
The Ultimate Ice Cream Book

1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
5 large egg yolks
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 cup half and half
15oz can solid pack pumpkin
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a medium mixing bowl, beat the brown sugar and corn syrup in the egg yolks until thickened and pale yellow. Beat in the cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Set aside.

Bring the half and half to a simmer in a large, hevy saucepan. Slowly beat the hot half and half into the eggs and sugar. Pour the entire mixture back into the pan and place over low heat. Stir constantly with a whisk or wooden spoon until the custard thickens slightly. Be careful not to let the mixture boil. Remove from the heat and beat in the canned pumpkin. Pour the hot custard through a strainer into a large, clean bowl. Allow the custard to cool slightly, then stir in the cream and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate until cold or overnight.

Stir the chilled custard, then freeze in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions. When finished, the ice cream will be soft and ready to spread in terrine.


Maple Ice Cream
The Ultimate Ice Cream Book

6 large eggs
1 cup pure maple syrup
2 tsp all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup half and half
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

In a medium mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks with the maple syrup, flour and salt. Set aside.

Bring the half and half to a simmer in a heavy medium saucepan. Slowly beat the hot half and half into the eggs and maple syrup. Pour the entire mixture back into the pand and place over low heat. Stir constantly with a whisk or wooder spoon until the custard thickens slightly. Be careful not to let the mixture boil. Remove from the heat and pour the hot maple custard through a strainer into a large, clean bowl. Allow the custard to cool slightly, then stir in the cream and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate until cold or overnight.

Stir the chilled custard, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. When finished the ice cream will be soft and ready to spread in the terrine.

It sounds so good...

There comes a time in every person's life when they need to deal with disappointment. Disappointment happens when results don't meet expectations. Maybe my expectations were to high? I happened across this recipe for Bratwurst in Beer Sauce while thumbing through The Cuisines of Germany by Horst Scharfenberg. I think I picked up the cookbook because of the author's cool name. If I were a boy I'd want to be named something like Horst Scharfenberg. And According to Amazon the cookbook got rave reviews, but this is the only thing I've made out of it. The Bratwurst weren't bad, but they weren't great either. How depressing.

When I find something to be disappointing in the kitchen it usually breaks down to one of two things (here's where evidence of me being analytical and OCD appears). Either 1) I have strayed from the recipe, or 2) the recipe itself isn't so hot. In the first case, I can break that down even further: Either 1) I purposely have varied it thinking that I know better than the recipe when it turns out I don't, or 2) I meant to follow the recipe, but I did it wrong. So what happened here?

Well, Horst's recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of dark beer. I have to admit, I don't really drink that much anymore. Once upon a time I had several different kinds of beer sitting in the fridge and people who came over would have a nice selection to choose from, pilsners, ales, lagers, dark beers, wheat beers, you name it. But then I graduated and got a real job. So when the Brain and I went to the local grocery at 9am on Sunday to get beer, we selected a variety pack of Great Lakes Beer, made in Cleveland. I'm keeping it local. And yes, you can buy beer in Ohio at 9am on a Sunday. Who knew? We do have some beer in the garage fridge, but it's mostly of the Bud Light / Michelob Ultra variety. Crap, we've turned into my parents.

The darkest beer of the variety pack was the Eliot Ness Amber Lager. Clearly the website shows this is supposed to be served with sausages. Don't get me wrong, it smelled great while it was cooking. I was salivating away. I was wishing it was a Saturday afternoon and I could make spatzle too (I have no idea how to add an umlaut in blogger). I made some egg noodles and waited for dinner to be done. So there was this big buildup that I was going to eat this fantastic supper. (out of control expectations might not be a good idea). But then I tasted it. And things fell flat. The initial burst of flavor was great and then whamo in the back of the throat I got a kick. It was like the kick you get when you drink a strong beer after drinking Mich Ultra for the last 3 years intensified by 20. ACK! It was very very lagery.

So what went wrong? Was it me? Was it the recipe? I struggled to get my brain around my defeat. Should I shove this book to the basement stairs bookshelf to gather dust? Here's my hypothesis: The results didn't turn out bad enough for me to say that the recipe itself is bad. The Brain wasn't effusive with praise about it either so it wasn't just me. That said, I got an "it's fine." out of him before he finished off all the leftovers so it couldn't have been that bad.

I know from college and my years of bartending that different styles of beers have different finishes. I believe what happened here was that I strayed from the written recipe in going with the Amber Lager. I believe if I went with a rich and creamy beer like Guinness then it might come out completely better. I may have to steal a Guinness from my mother in law's fridge and try it out all over again. The Elliot Ness, we'll just save for drinking.

I do wonder, if this recipe changes dramatically depending on the finish of the beer, how it would taste made with pumpkin beer? If I could find any pumpkin beer, I might have to try it out too.

Horst (I will have to name a son Horst) prefaces his recipe as follows:

"'Proud Heinrich' is the name by which this dish is generally known in it's native city." The native city would be Berlin.

Bratwurst in Beer Sauce

Stolzer Heinrich

4 Bratwursts or sweet Italian sausage
1-2 Tbsp flour
1-2 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 cups dark beer
3-4 Tbsp gingersnap crumbs
1 Tbsp grated onion
salt and freshly ground pepper
several tablespoons concentrated beef stock *
1-2 Tbsp lemon juice

Poke a few holes in the bratwurst with the tines of a fork to keep them from bursting. dredge them in flour. In a skilletmelt the butter and fry the wurst on both sides. Remove them from the skillet and set aside.

Pour the beer into the skillet and deglaze the skillet (scrape off the browned particles clinging to sides and bottom). Sprinkle in the ginger cookie crumbs and grated onion and cook together for about 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt, pepper, a little beef stock, and lemon juice, and cook for 2 or 3 minutes more. Reduce heat, return the bratwurst to the skillet, and cook until heated through.

Makes 2-4 servings.

* I have no idea where to find concentrated beef stock, so I added 1 cup regular beef stock. By the time the recipe calls for the stock, most of the liquid in mine had cooked down and it was really really thick. I think I won't cook it for the full 10 minutes next time.

Falling Leaves

Have you ever had a best friend that no matter how terrible you've been you just couldn't shake? That the two of you have been through so much that you might as well be sisters? That pretty much you know that unless you killed her husband and ran off with her son you are going to be forgiven and she will continue to be your best friend. Well I'm lucky enough to have a friend like that. We've been friends for a couple decades and then some, and a couple weeks ago tragedy hit her mom and stepdad.

At a loss for anything better to do I made cookies. I also made lasagna and those delicious peanut butter brownies from Smitten Kitchen's blog. (OK so she only got half of the brownies. The Brain and I discovered that we really couldn't have just one.) The cookies at least made her smile.

At the time it was the peak of fall colors and I wanted to capture it and pass it on. Because I am somewhat of a dork, I had picked up leaf and acorn cookie cutters a few weeks earlier simply because I didn't already have them. I also happened to have green, yellow, orange and red colored sugar and chocolate jimmies. It was like a sign from God that I should be making leaf cookies.

So why am I posting about this now? Well, see, I had a moment of new blogger enthusiasm and I joined this group NaBloPoMo. Nanoo Nanoo. To sum up, November is National Blog Posting Month so I signed up and said, "sure, I'll write in my blog every single day." Of course new blogger enthusiasm made me forget that for part of the month we'll be managing two houses and 3 very silly dogs. And while I'm happy to post everyday, and I'm happy to be managing the houses and the dogs, sometimes all the things I'm happy to be doing take more hours in the day than I'm supposed to be awake.


These are Aunt Nicky's Butter cookies. I am almost embarrassed to say, I don't know who Aunt Nicky is. She is either the Brain's aunt, or his mother's. Whoever she is, God Bless her, she made a delicious butter cookie recipe. It's tasty and yet sturdy and that's a hard thing for a cut out cookie to be. These are the cookies that I make into different sized snowflake cookies at Christmas time and ship around the country. Last year hardly any broke.




Aunt Nicky's Butter Cookies

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 egg yolks plus 1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder


Cream together butter, powdered sugar, and eggs. Add to that vanilla, flour and baking powder. Chill for 1-2 hours. Roll out for cutouts. Mix the egg whites left from separating the eggs with a little bit of water. Paint the egg white mixture on raw cookie dough and sprinkle with sprinkles before baking. Bake 12 to 15 minutes in a 325 degree oven.

Come in From the Cold

Fall in a small town means chilly nights watching high school football whether you have kids on the team or not. Being that our local Catholic high school team made the playoffs the Brain and I went last night as they played the team from the neighboring town. Those kids ran and they passed and they kicked and they played their hearts out and beat the crapola out of their opponents.

But up in the stands was where the real interesting action was. We managed to sit behind one of the loudest and most dramatic fans in town. The woman had lungs. Every single play she managed to shout instructions to the players. Every time the opposing quarterback threw the ball she yelled "PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSS!" at the top of her lungs. It was like being in a Saturday Night Live skit or something. Highly amusing. I don't think there's been that much noise in the Big House in Ann Arbor all season.

It was nice to come back home out of the cold and have this Chicken and Squash Stew with Wild Rice waiting for us. I'd made it earlier in the day from the Cleveland Clinic Healthy Heart Lifestyle Guide and Cookbook. It's not the prettiest stew. In fact it looks kind of muddy. But it really is warming and delicious. It's comfort food for the Brain and me.

Chicken and Squash Stew with Wild Rice

8 skinless bone-in chicken thighs (about 2 pound) *

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

4 medium carrots, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

6 celery ribs, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

3 garlic cloves minced

1 onion diced

1 Tbsp dried oregano

2 tsp ground cumin

Kosher salt (optional)

1/2 tsp ground pepper

2 pounds butternut squash, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 cup wild rice

2 quarts fat free reduced sodium chicken broth

1 bunch scallions **

10 sprigs fresh cilantro finely chopped **

1) Remove all visible fat from the chicken. Rinse and pat dry. Set aside.

2) In a Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the carrots, celery, garlic, and onion. Saute until the vegetables soften but do not brown, 5 to 6 minutes. Add the oregano, cumin, salt (if using), and pepper. Cook another 3 to 4 minutes.

3) Add the chicken to the pot along with the squash and rice. Gently stir. Pour in the chicken broth, making sure it covers all the pieces. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover and simmer for about 1 hour, until the vegetables and rice are tender. ***

4) Meanwhile, combine the scallions and cilantro. Place in a small serving bowl

5) Ladle the stew into 8 shallow bowls. Serve, passing the scallion / cilantro mixture to sprinkle over the stew.

6) Freeze any remaining stew.

*I have to admit I buy most of my meat at Costco. So I have all these happy little packets of 5 boneless skinless chicken thighs. I just use those instead of the 8 bone in ones. I know, I know, this makes it less meat. It seems to work though, because the Brain doesn't seem to mind that there's less meat in it. Of course I've never made it for him with more meat.

** Yeah, as I mentioned previously my cilantro was tragically weeded over the summer, and there were no scallions in my fridge. I think I may have (oops) put them in the pumpkin soup. So I just skipped them. Actually, I don't think I've ever put them on top. It just doesn't need it.

***At this point the Brain was itching to go to the football game and we wanted to get there early enough to get a seat. So I turned it off after it had been simmering almost an hour and then we just brought it back up to temperature when we got back and we dug in. We skipped the fancy garnishing steps.

oooooh spicy!

I've been spending the morning trying to get motivated to replant my sage, rosemary and parsley plants out of my herb garden and into pots. It's not cold outside right now. In fact it's nice and bright and sunny and the temperatures are reasonable. But we've been having nightly frosts and if I want to continue to have the luxury of fresh herbs this is something I must do. I know this. I'm good with this.

The motivation trouble comes in when I look at my nice enormous parsley plant (or is it a parsley bush?) and then I think about what happens to plants that are in pots around my house...

Oh the horror!

It's like I'm a cold hard killer of plants.

So yeah now I just have to go to WalMart and get pots big enough to plant a rosemary bush, a sage bush, and a parsley bush. I don't like to support Walmart, but it's all we have in town and I don't feel like driving to another county. So I decided it was time for lunch. Lunch is always a great distracter.

When I first moved here and I was looking for work, I interviewed with Nestle. Nestle is the parent company of Libby's pumpkin. I happen to love pumpkin and all things squash. (It's a superfood you know. It helps protect your skin. yay!) So I didn't get the job, but I did get a little pamphlet for different uses of Libby's pumpkin puree. I made a soup loosely based on the soup in that little pamphlet.

The Brain's parents, who travel extensively, brought us back a bottle of pumpkin seed oil from Austria and I drizzled that on top. Wow. I'm totally impressed with myself. I wasn't sure the peanut butter was all that important to the soup as I'm not a giant fan of peanut butter, but with the pumpkin seed oil it's super yummy! I think it might also do something for the consistency.

Thai - Style Pumpkin Soup

very loosely based off this recipe from Libby's

2 cups chicken broth

1 can (15oz) Libby's 100% Pure Pumpkin

2 cups apple juice

3/4 tsp ground ginger

3 cloves garlic finely chopped

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

2 Tbsp rice vinegar

1 finely chopped green onion

2 Tbsp chopped cilantro

pumpkin seed oil for drizzling

Combine broth, pumpkin, juice, bouillon, ginger, garlic and crushed red pepper in large saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring occaisionally. Reduce heat to low. Stir in peanut butter, vinegar, green onion and cilantro. Cook, stirring occaisionally, for 5 to 8 minutes or until soup returns to a boil. Drizzle with pumpkin seed oil.

Pumpkin Pie With a Twist

There is something inherently good about mixing and stirring and throwing things that taste gross on their own (I mean really, who goes into the cupboard for a hit of flour, or nutmeg for that matter?) and managing to create something so delicious that you attempt not to eat it all in one sitting.

That would be the experience of baking Martha Stewart's Pumpkin Cupcakes topped off with bourbon spiked Easy Meringue Buttercream in little silicone cups my stepmom gave me at our wedding. She thought they were silly and thought of me. So without further ado....

Martha Stewart's Pumpkin Cupcakes

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp coarse salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp allspice

1 cup packed light-brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled*

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 can pumpkin puree

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; set aside.

2) In a large bowl, whisk together, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter and eggs. Add dry ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in pumpkin puree.

3) Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about halfway. Bake until tops spring back when touched, and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pans once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.

*You should be happy to know that paying no attention to the instruction to melt the butter until it is far far too late has no ill effect on the finished product.

Easy Meringue Buttercream

Recipe from The Food Network (Courtesy of Nick Malgieri)

4 large egg whites

1 cup sugar

pinch of salt

12 oz. (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

2 Tbsp. bourbon

Place egg whites, sugar and salt in medium-sized heatproof mixing bowl over a pan of simmering water and whisk gently and constantly until egg whites are hot (about 140 degrees) and sugar is dissolved, about 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from heat and whip by machine until thick and cooled, about 5 minutes. Beat in butter and continue beating until buttercream is smooth and spreadable. Beat in bourbon a little at a time, and continue beating until buttercream is smooth. About 2 minutes.

Well this is something new.

Ok so where to start. My name is Mary and I live in rural Ohio. To be fair we live in the county seat so it's not like I'm surrounded by farmers all the time.

Just some of the time.

How did I get here? Well. I fell in love. I was going through life as a power trading, really really bad triathlete and then I moved to my tiny little town, got married, and now work as my husband's secretary in his law office. As a terrifically type A individual who's mighty resistant to change this has all been a bit overwhelming. So I've been baking. I'm getting downright roly poly to be honest.

In my quest to find new baked things, I've discovered the food blog universe. I sit and ogle those creations of the daring bakers - floating cakes on eggy custards, whipping out softball sized cinnamon buns oozing with caramel. I've drooled over cupcakes and galettes and calamari sauces. Fortunately for my ever expanding rear end, I live in the aforementioned middle of nowhere county and unless I make the trip to the Meijer in the next county, there's not a lot of fancy ingredients to be had here. And although Meijers makes a good stab at it, they just don't have everything.

But they did have tahini. Tahini is a sesame seed paste that is so delicious I would eat tahini sandwiches instead of peanut butter, had it not been for a fateful look at the nutrition label. But I digress. Because Meijer had tahini I can bring you our dinner. Last weekend I was in Michigan for a not very happy event, while there I took advantage of the shopping and picked up two beautiful eggplants from the Westborn market darn cheap. I pulled out my A Taste of Lebanon cookbook (when you're from the Detroit area, Lebanese food is comfort food) and made a big bowl of Baba Ghanouj. I also opened up my new Bon Appetit Cookbook and made Spiced Moroccan chicken with onions and prunes. So it's two recipes for my first posting. And then I'm off to lurk in the shadows again...

By the way, I don't normally eat on these placemats, but they just felt so right for posting about lurking and it is Halloween after all!

Baba Ghanouj

Adapted heavily from A Taste of Lebanon

1 large eggplant

2 cloves garlic (crushed)

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup Sesame Seed Paste (Tahini)

2 Tbsp. water

1/4 cup lemon juice

Set oven to 375 degrees. Wash the eggplant and remove stem. Pierce with a fork 4-6 times. Place in baking dish. Bake for 45 minutes or until tender. Remove from oven and run under cold water. Peel and mash and set aside.

In serving bowl combine garlic, salt and tahini. Gradually add water and lemon juice, beating well. Fold in mashed eggplant.

You can garnish with lemon wedges, finely chopped parsley and a sprinkle of oil. Scoop up eggplant pieces with Pita Bread or serve as a side dish with any meal. I think it also makes a really great midnight snack eaten by the spoonful.

Spiced Moroccan chicken with onions and prunes

from Bon Appetit

4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves

2 tablespoons olive oil*

1 3/4 cups chopped onions

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 Tbsp all purpose flour

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground cumin

2 cups low salt chicken broth

1 cup pitted prunes

3 Tbsp lemon juice

2 Tbsp honey

chopped fresh cilantro**

Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Heat oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken; saute until brown and just cooked through, about 4 minutes per side***. Using tongs, transfer chicken to plate. Add onions and garlic to same skillet. Saute until onions begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Mix in flour, ginger, cinnamon, and cumin; stir 1 minute. Gradually whisk in broth. Add prunes, lemon juice, and honey. Boil until sauce thickens enough to coat spoon, whisking occasionally, about 8 minutes. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. Return chicken to skillet. Simmer until heated through, about 2 minutes.

Transfer chicken and sauce to platter. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve.

Notes:

* We received some fabulous Calphalon Anodized One cookware as a wedding present and I make this without the oil. But I am a lucky girl.

** My Cilantro was the sad victim of an aggressive weeding session in my herb garden. So I just left it out.

*** I hate it when they say the chicken should be cooked all the way through in mere minutes per side. I had food poisoning from undercooked chicken once and I use my little instant read thermometer to check and make sure it hits 140 degrees before I take it off the heat.