Each Little World

In a Vase on Monday: Yellow Tricyrtis

I clipped more Toad lilies on Friday afternoon before the temperatures took a dive. The foliage on Tricyrtis hirta 'Lemon Twist' was hard hit by drought and heat at the end of the summer and was pretty crisp and brown. I removed most of it, though perhaps one might let it alone to echo the brown speckles on the inside of the flowers. 

The creamy white stems are the flowers of Heucher 'Brownies'.

I have a love/hate relationship with this toad lily because it always seems to have foliage issues by the time the flowers open.

But the flowers are so large and lovely, that last autumn I spread the plants out so I'd have twice as many this year. Worked beautifully: Twice the flowers and twice the crunchy brown leaves!

One stem of Tricyrtis macrantha, yellow bell toad lily, was finally opening so I clipped it and brought it indoors. Then I made Date and Nut Bread from Frances Palmer's just-published book, "Life in the Studio: Inspiration and Lessons on Creativity."

The flower and the slice of bread were both enjoyed by this gardener on a chilly afternoon. 

In a vase on Monday: Soggy September

We had another two inches of rain yesterday morning, so I was not able to go out and cut a bouquet for Mark's bookclub who were meeting at our house. I did, however, manage to make Anna Thomas' "Cheese and Onion Pie" from an old favorite cookbook, "The Vegetarian Epicure."

This morning it was still too wet to do more than cut a few things hanging over the path or fallen onto the ground. This little bouquet has been in my bathroom for a week. This morning I just refreshed the stems of Italian parsley and Toad lilies (Tricyrtis). 

Toad lilies bloom so late that some years we have a killing frost when they are still in the bud stage. This year we are having perfect temperatures for me to be able to enjoy them. 

This is T. formosana which grows with a nice vertical stem that is quite narrow. Though the flowers look like delicate little orchids, this is a workhorse plant and well-worth growing if you are able.  

This arrangement includes a big fuzzy leaf from Bergenia ciliata, a maple-shaped leaf from Kirengeshoma, fallen oak leaves from the driveway and a stem of Cimicifuga whose flowers are going over to seeds. 

Be sure to visit Rambling in the Garden to see what other gardeners have put in a vase today. 

Summer recipes

I've been taking advantage of the summer weather to to try out new recipes, including a few from "Smitten Kitchen Every Day," the latest cookbook by Deb Perelman, of Smitten Kitchen blog fame. These days I am usually thinning cookbooks from my bookshelves but leafing through the pages of this one in A Room of One's Own bookstore, I found recipe after recipe that I wanted to try. 

Then the New York times published an interesting sounding recipe for marinated and grilled flank steak, one of my favorite meals. I bought fresh dill at the Farmers' Market for another recipe but used it first with Alliums for a tabletop bouquet. 

This is Smitten Kitchen's "potato and asparagus gribiche" which became my new favorite potato salad at first bite. The gribiche dressing (with the spoon, below) of mustard, hard boiled eggs, capers and cornichons may not be typical but I found it perfect. This dish is a great way to eat asparagus in season and a good way to enjoy it when it's not local. (Note that all her recipe titles are lower case type, so I followed suit).

I make quick cucumber pickles often in the summer, but Perelman turns hers into a bright new idea: "smashed cucumber salad with salted peanuts and wasabi peas." Another recipe where I fell in love immediately upon tasting. 

If you don't cook flank steak, the NYTimes' recipe for "Grilled Flank Steak with Worcertershire Butter" is a good starting point. Plus I froze the leftover Worcestershire butter so now I have a lovely little treat to make any meat special. 

Alas I did not take any photos of Perelman's "whitefish and pickled cucumber salad' which we ate on thick rye crackers along with "Charred Tomato Soup with Coriander and Cilantro" from the NYTimes. Both were great and they were also excellent paired. The Times suggested this was a good soup for gazpacho lovers, which we are. This soup was tasty and complex and much quicker to make than gazpacho. With fabulous tomatoes at my  local farmers' market, this is going to appear on our table a number of times before winter. 

Cold weather means time to cook

Cold and snow mean only one thing to me and that is cooking. It's the perfect time to try new recipes. Last night we made Ina Garten's Sautéed Shredded Brussels Sprouts. Since we were enjoying a nice meal together we didn't take any photos. The recipe and a video of Ina making this dish can be found here. The sprouts were tasty and the quickest, easiest way I've ever prepared them. I've done a shredded Brussels sprouts slaw now and then, but Mark announced this version was his favorite out of all the ways we've had this veggie over the years. 

We also made Ina's Tuscan Roasted Potatoes and Lemon for the second time in a week or so. This image and copy of the recipe below are all I could find online. We decided that her cooking time was longer than needed in this recipe. Thirty to forty minutes was what we did. The potatoes were crisp on the outside and meltingly smooth on the inside. The flavor was subtle; just a whisper of lemon and rosemary. 

I'm a big fan of Garten but I don't slavishly follow her lead. My rule when cooking most Ina Garten recipes is to cut back on the fats and salt. She is way too liberal with both for my taste and health. Otherwise they're perfect and perfectly delicious.

Corn and tomatoes reign

Our local farmers' markets are bursting with fresh produce that is providing lots of great eating at our house. For as long as possible we will be feasting on sweet corn and tomatoes. I've been roasting and freezing tomatoes, making gazpacho and fresh uncooked tomato sauce for pasta. But my favorite for both flavor and ease is Caprese salad.

According to Epicurious.com Insalata caprese (literally, the salad from Capri) was created in the 1950s at the Trattoria da Vincenzo for folks looking for a light lunch. Its ingredients were tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil and olive oil. I add a splash of balsamic vinegar so mine's not authentic but it's the way we like it.

I don't have enough sun or space to grow my own tomatoes but my garden does offer three kinds of basil. So we vary the salad with the type of basil and tomatoes we use. It may have been created to satisfy lunch-goers, but I am happy eating it as an appetizer, side dish or the whole meal. Not many dishes are so pretty or so flavorful.

We had Caprese salad the other night after an entree of Beaufort Soused Corn and Shrimp. The link takes you to a recipe that is identical to the one I follow from Christopher Idone's coffee table cookbook, "Glorious American Food." We mostly enjoy corn on the cob but I love this recipe that uses it off the cob.

The waters around Beaufort were once plentiful with shrimp who made their way into many dishes, including pies, which is the origin of this dish. Idone ditched the crust and added a lemony vinaigrette instead. I usually only make this once a summer but it's yummy as well as easy. The recipe serves 8. I use a scant pound of shrimp for the two of us which leaves us with enough for dinner the next night. But I make the entire recipe of vinaigrette because I love the flavor and don't want to run short. 

A peach of a cake

I had a brief career as a pastry chef and still have two big bins filled with specialty baking tins and equipment. Going through some old photos I came across a couple of snapshots that brought back memories of those days when I thought nothing of spending an afternoon making a show-stopping dessert at home. I rarely use any of these items but the spring form or tart pans these days, but I haven't as yet been able to bring myself to jettison anything. I keep thinking I will make plum puddings or Yule logs or charlottes or madeleines one of these days and so there they all sit.

Among all these baking items is the mold I used to make "peach' cakes. It's a pan that is intended to be used to make cakes that can be decorated to look like baseballs for a kids' birthday party. You put two cakes together to make a round shape. But I bought this pan with another idea about how to use this curvaceous shape.

I'd clipped an article from Food and Wine magazine where Judith Olney, a creative cook and baker whose books and ideas I love, made a giant peach cake. She baked two big rounded cakes in metal bowls and united them with whipped cream as you can see in the magazine clipping on the left in the image below. But when I saw the baking tin above I thought, why not make cakes that looked like peaches since it was peach season? 

I used a mix for the cakes. After baking, I very lightly brushed the curved side of the cakes with a thinned down apricot jam and then rolled them in pink, yellow and orange sugars. The two halves are "glued" together with cream cheese flavored with honey and orange rind. Mint leaves stand in for the peach leaves.

I put each peach cake into one of the purple paper cupcake-type holders that peaches came in when I bought a hand basket of them the way I always used to do at my local grocery store. I filled my basket when it was empty of real peaches with the peach cakes and brought it to work as a birthday surprise for the grand dame of our office.

At the end of the day I discovered how real my peaches looked when a co-worked mentioned that she didn't like peaches so she didn't have one. She never realized they were cakes and not fruit! This is not the kind of dessert you make more than once or twice in a lifetime, but it's peach season now so it might be the moment to try my hand a some fancy baking again. 

Winter desserts: Apple crostata

Martha Stewart's Apple Crostata is one of my go-to desserts for fall and winer. In a moment of sugary madness I made the crostada and these roasted pears for recent winter party. The crostata is nice because the dough makes enough for two, so I just keep it in the freezer and thus can quickly pull this particular dessert together as long as there are apples in the house. You can find the recipe here.

There is only one thing to remember when you are making this dessert, bake it on a pan with sides to catch any drips. And put a cylinder of rolled up tin foil around the edge to hold it in place till it hardens during baking. The first minutes in a warm oven make the sides want to collapse so you need to figure out a way to keep that from happening. It's too pretty and too delicious a dessert to let that little problem stop you from making it.

Winter desserts: Roasted pears

In my family an assortment of homemade cookies was the traditional dessert for Christmas. My sister Meg's birthday is December 25 so she rarely celebrated with a birthday cake. I remember one year my mom did make her a cake and it felt unnatural to be eating cake instead of cookies on Christmas.

Once I moved away from home after college, I started a new tradition when I began to make Linzer Torte for Christmas Eve, which was father's birthday. It was spicy and wintry and yet still not a cake. Then I made a dozen plum puddings for quite a few years. They were a labor of love but I don't have enough friends who like this dessert as much as I do so it fell out of my repertoire. 

But winter always seems like the time of year for fancy desserts. I make these roasted pears with candied hazelnuts and a nutty Frangelico sauce every few years because it's fairly easy, tastes good and is very dramatic visually. The recipe came from the November 1997 issue of Gourmet Magazine as the finishing touch on "A Pacific Northwest Thanksgiving." 

Though it would be a lovely ending to a holiday dinner, it would work with any winter meal or just invite a few neighbors over for dessert and coffee and wow 'em with this.

. . .

ROASTED PEARS

WITH HAZELNUT SYRUP & CANDIED HAZELNUTS 

 

1 cup water

1 1/4 cups sugar

3/4 cup hazelnuts

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

6 firm-ripe Bosc pears (about 2 1/4 pounds total, one pear per person), stems intact

3 tablespoons hazelnut-flavored liqueur like Frangelico

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, or to taste

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

In a small heavy saucepan simmer water with 1 cup sugar, stirring until sugar is dissolved. (Syrup may be made up to this point 2 days ahead and cooled completely before being chilled, covered.)

Preheat oven to 350° F and lightly butter a shallow baking pan.

Coarsely chop hazelnuts. Stir nuts into syrup and simmer 1 minute. With a slotted spoon transfer nuts to baking pan, arranging in one layer, and reserve syrup. Cut butter into pieces. Bake nuts in middle of oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Immediately add butter to nuts, tossing to coat and separate, and with a spatula transfer nuts to a plate to cool Nuts will crisp as they cool. (Nuts may be candied 2 days ahead and kept in an airtight container in a cool, dry place. Reserved syrup may be kept, covered and chilled, 2 days.)

Lightly butter a shallow ovenproof kettle or casserole dish (about 12 by 2 1/2 inches). With a sharp knife trim a very thin slice from bottom of each pear to enable pears to stand upright. Dip and roll each pear in reserved syrup to coat completely. Transfer pears as coated to kettle, standing them upright, and sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Add liqueur, lemon juice, and vanilla to remaining reserved syrup and pour down side of kettle or casserole.

Roast pears, uncovered, in middle of oven until undersides are tender when pierced with a knife, about 30 minutes.

Arrange pears on a serving platter. Spoon syrup around pears and sprinkle with candied nuts. Serve pears warm or at room temperature.

Note: I think the hardest part of this recipe is figuring out if the pears are ripe enough when they are still firm. The photo shows my version of the dessert so you can see what a pretty presentation it makes.

Noshing in the northern heartland

This sudden slide into unseasonably cold weather has made me want to spend all my time in the kitchen. Pots on the stove, pans in the oven, and hands in soapy dishwater mean I am warm. And that soon I will be seated at a table for a fabulous meal: Burning River chili. Fish Chowder with smoked whitefish, shrimp, scallops and lots of cream and butter. Sauteed Chicken with Parmesan/Panko Crust. I can't stop cooking. 

Sunday I began marinating a nice big rump roast for Sauerbraten with Three Ginger Gravy from one of my favorite cookbooks, the wonderful "Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland," by Beth Dooley and Lucia Watson. It will be ready to go in the oven on Thursday. Not sure what I will serve with it: dumplings and red cabbage, potato pancakes or spaetzle, applesauce, spiced red beets. Too many tasty possibilities. The above photo shows the pot of marinade after its been simmered to meld the flavors of all the spices, onions, garlic, ginger, and cider vinegar.

The book contains lots of cooking and cultural history along with a great group of historic photos. Facing the Sauerbraten recipe is a picture of the members of the Wausau German Men's Choral Society of Sheboygan, Wisconsin in 1913 enjoying themselves in the beer garden (below). Those days of German-Americans celebrating their heritage would come crashing to an end the next year when WWI broke out. On the hundredth anniversary of that conflict, it seems like a good time to resurrect those wonderful dishes from the German side of my family. 

WISCONSIN STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY PHOTOGRAPH

Cold weather = warm kitchen

At the recent wine tasting Mark and I attended, the food was a veritable harvest feast including a number of beautiful and tasty vegetable dishes. I was inspired to hit the west side farmer's market and load up on veggies and apples (and a triple ginger scone from a bakery whose name I forgot to note!). Spent last week trying new recipes and generally feasting on the results.

Monday: Red beet and apple soup (Gourmet magazine, Nov. 2000), Lentils with Fraboni's Italian sausage, roasted carrots and garlicky dressing (my standby combo pictured below), and roasted Acorn squash drizzled with olive oil and late-harvest Riesling vinegar (a suggestion from the great cooks/employees at Orange Tree Imports where I used to work and where I bought the vinegar). Since Mark is not a huge fan of creamy soups or squash, I left the soup chunky and served the squash separately.

Wednesday: A late dinner sitting on the couch in the midst of books and laptops. I filled low soup bowls with more lentils and a salad of Arugula, spiced yellow beets (Donna Hay magazine, pictured at the top), toasted walnuts, Carr Valley blue cheese and balsamic dressing. Love it when you just throw some things together and it looks great and tastes even better.

Ended the week with Fennel-rubbed pork tenderloin with roasted fennel (Gourmet, Feb. 2009), more of the beet salad and roasted sweet potato with onion. The pork and fennel dish was good but not memorable enough to add to my repetoire, unlike both beet dishes. 

On Saturday I made a double batch of my cousin Barbara's granola and Daikon and red radish pickles. I spent the weekend going through old magazines which I gave to friends and donated to the library swap cart. I also pulled out a lot of good sounding recipes so maybe I will continue to do more experimenting this week — or maybe I'll try handing a stack of recipes to Mark and see what happens!