Pasta with Collards and Bacon

Posted on January 26, 2012 by | Leave a comment

When is he going to make another post about collards?

I know, I know — that’s the question that’s been on all of your minds. You can’t resist those broad leathery leaves, dark green in both look and smell. You can’t resist that bitter taste, or that extensive history, or that big shiny 1000 on the ANDI scale.

The answer, of course, is right now. I’m going to make another post about collards right now. And it’s going to be a quick-and-dirty one. Because I’m headed out of town on an academic errand, and I have so very much to do before I leave.

So here it is — pasta with collards and bacon. This is a recipe, dear readers, that takes one of the finest foods ever imagined and … and adds some greens to it.

1 lb Extruded Pasta (I used shells this time, but I’m fond of this with ziti or gemelli, too)
1/2 lb Bacon, diced
2 Bunches of Collards, stemmed and chopped
2 Medium Onions, sliced
1 quart Mushrooms, sliced
5 Cloves of Garlic, minced
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Crushed Red Pepper
1/2 tsp Thyme
1/2 tsp Fennel Seeds
Parmesan Cheese
Pepper
Salt

Fill an 8-quart pot with water, add ample salt, and set it on the stove to boil. Meanwhile, to a sauté pan over medium heat, add the diced bacon and allow to cook, stirring occasionally, until almost crispy. Then remove the bacon with a slotted spoon. To the leftover grease, add the sliced mushrooms, along with a little bit of salt, the thyme, the fennel seeds, and the red pepper flakes, and cook for about 5 minutes, just until the mushrooms start to brown. Then add the onions, along with a little bit more salt, and cook for about 20 minutes, until the onions have mostly softened.

At this point, your pasta water should be boiling. To the sauté pan, add the minced garlic, the dried oregano, pepper to taste (I like about thirty turns of the grinder), and the cooked bacon. Cook for about five minutes, stirring constantly to make sure that the garlic does not burn. Then, add the chopped collard greens to the pan, closing the lid. And add your pasta to the boiling water.

As the greens begin to wilt, you’re going to want to stir occasionally to mix them in with the rest of the ingredients. I have found that a good pair of tongs is best for doing this.

At the end of about ten minutes, when the pasta is al dente and the greens are cooked, drain the pasta (not too well. A little bit of pasta water does wonders for this dish!) and add it to the saute pan. Add the Parmesan cheese and a bit more salt and pepper (to taste), and mix thoroughly. Allow the entire dish to cook together for five more minutes, to allow the flavors to blend. And then serve while hot.

Enjoy!

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Mascarpone Ice Cream

Posted on January 21, 2012 by | Leave a comment

It isn’t crazy that this morning — on the first real snowy morning of the new year, with three inches of snow on the ground, having just come in from shoveling the front steps — I churned two batches of ice cream. It’s not crazy at all. Not in the least. I mean it.

The fact of the matter is that I’ve gotten myself involved in this thing — a winter CSA. During the summer, Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative — the organization from which we get our CSA — offers an excellent vegetable share. We get greens and eggplant, tomatoes, okra, and all manner of other goodies. It’s all very fresh and very healthful. And I’ve talked about this here before.

But there’s a winter option, too, being offered for the first time this year. And because, obviously, they can’t offer quite the array of green vegetables that they do in the summer — because it’s all, by necessity, onions and potatoes and a scattering of hothouse lettuce — they have to do something to make up the difference. So we had a choice about what else we wanted when we signed up for the CSA. And I chose a quart of raw goat’s milk. Every two weeks.

You begin to get the picture about the ice cream, then. Yes?

A quart of raw milk, whatever its animal of origin, is the sort of thing that needs to get used up pretty quickly when it comes into the house. Because it’s not pasturized, or ultra-pasturized, it doesn’t have the shelf-life of grocery store milk. Even refrigerated, it only lasts a week. Tops. It’s oh, so good — so much richer and subtler than grocery store milk. But there’s no way I can drink it all in such a short span. So a couple of servings end up on top of cereal. And the rest has to be preserved. In this case, in the freezer. As ice cream.

Now, I can imagine some of your reactions already: Goat’s milk ice cream? Uck! But seriously, folks. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Goats aren’t like cows. Their milk is less fatty overall, but what fat it has tends to stay in the milk rather than floating to the top as a layer of cream. Which means that it’s richer when you drink it. Sometimes, it’s almost too rich. But that, precisely, is what makes it perfect for ice cream.

So here’s what I did: I made two flavors — mango (from store-bought juice), and mascarpone cheese. The first one, the Mango, is still a bit of a work in progress. It came out well, but there were some technical issues with my ice cream maker, and I don’t want to share the recipe here until I get them worked out.

The second one, though — the Mascarpone — turned out super tasty. With lemon zest and just a hint of vanilla, it’s got sweet, it’s got tangy, it’s got creamy, and it’s got that peculiar richness that makes cheese in ice cream so very good. I’m not going to say that it’s the best cheese ice cream that I’ve ever had. My friend Linda’s homemade ricotta ice cream, made from homemade ricotta, holds that distinction beyond any doubt. But without any eggs, it’s dead simple to do. And served, perhaps, drizzled with some melted Nutella, it’s not a dessert that you or your guests will soon forget.

8 oz Mascarpone Cheese
2 cups Milk
1 cup Heavy Cream
1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Zest of Two Lemons

In a chilled bowl, combine the cheese, cream, and vanilla, and whisk until the mixture is fairly smooth. Then set aside.

In a saucepan over low heat, combine the milk, sugar, and lemon zest, and allow the mixture to come to a simmer (about 190F), stirring occasionally. This should take about half an hour.

Pour the hot milk through a sieve onto the cold cheese-cream mixture. Mix well with a whisk, chill thoroughly, then pour into your ice-cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

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Beef Stew with Figs

Posted on January 17, 2012 by | Leave a comment

I’m sick. Again. For the second time this month. I don’t want to make too much of it, because two colds in a month is hardly a sign that the world is coming to an end. But it means bad sleep, and daytime raggedness, and not wanting to do a whole lot of anything. And I rarely get sick, so when I do — perhaps I’m a little prone to whining.

Please, though — don’t tell Sarah I said that. Her smugness at my admission will be almost as unbearable as this damnable sore throat.

Anyway, just because I am sick, it does not mean that I have been idle. In fact, my impending second illness has snapped me back into cooking mode. I had already planned to make a beef stew sometime this week, but as I felt my sinuses grow raw and my uvula hang just a bit uncomfortably low, I thought to myself: I need something hardy. I need something that will fill me up, fortify me, feel nutritious. And I need something that — after a bit of initial chopping and browning — I don’t have to think about for two or three hours as it bubbles away in the oven.

But while beef stew is always good, it’s sometimes a little bit on the workaday side. It is meat and potatoes, after all. And brown gravy. I like it. A lot. As I like pretty much anything that is braised or stewed. But as I am wont to do, I look at it and think: what else can I do with it, that will preserve the dish’s traditionality, but that might add just a little — I don’t know — oomph?

The answer? Dried fruit!

(This looks like a really long list of ingredients. But it’s not complicated. More or less, you just throw them together and let them cook.)

2 lb Beef Stew Meat, cubed
1 cup Dried Figs, chopped
1 cup Dried Apricots, chopped
.75 lb Yukon Gold Potatoes, cubed
1 pint Mushrooms, stemmed and quartered
1 Onion, sliced thinly
2 Carrots, cubed
4 Cloves of Garlic, Chopped

2 cups Stock (I used chicken, but it would probably be better to use beef)
1 cup Red Wine
6 tbsp Beurre Manié (equal parts flour and unsalted butter, mashed together really well)

3 Bay Leaves
2 Star Anise Pods
1 Whole Clove
2 tsp Ras el Hanout (you may need to find a specialty store for this, but it’s worth it)
1 tsp Cumin Seeds
1 tsp Dried Thyme
1/2 tsp Ground Cayenne Pepper
Cubebs (about 25 turns on a pepper grinder)
Black Pepper (about 25 more turns)
Olive Oil
Salt

Preheat your oven to 275F. Add a little bit of olive oil to a heated dutch oven over a medium flame on your stovetop, and brown the beef cubes on all sides, adding a little bit of salt as they cook. Remove to a plate. Add the onions and carrots, along with a little more olive oil and salt, and cook until the onions just start to brown. Then add the cumin, cayenne, cubeb, black pepper, and garlic, and cook for about five more minutes, stirring to make sure that the garlic doesn’t burn.

Return the browned beef to your dutch oven, then add the rest of the herbs and spices, the dried fruit, the stock and the wine. Stir well, and be sure to scrape the bottom of the pan to dislodge any tasty burned bits. When the mixture comes to a boil, cover your dutch oven with a lid and place it in the oven for one hour.

At the end of the hour, remove from the oven, mix in the mushrooms and potatoes, then put it back in the oven — this time uncovered — and cook for another hour and a half.

Finally, at the end of that time, move the dutch oven to a stove-top burner on medium. Add the beurre manié, and stir thoroughly until it dissolves. Then let it bubble for about 10 minutes, to allow the gravy to thicken and the flour to thoroughly cook.

Serve over brown rice.

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Chicken Stock (From Chicken Feet)

Posted on January 8, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Standing by the counter at Godshall’s Poultry, waiting for my number to be called, I found myself chatting with the woman ahead of me in line. Like me, she had come for stock-making provisions — pieces and parts, cheap bits, to populate her pot. She pointed the poultry man in the direction of the necks and backs, then toward the stripped breast bones. And while he was working on her order, I asked her: Have you tried chicken feet in your stock?

She cringed, and made a little noise of revulsion. Really? Chicken feet? But they’re so — gross.

I told her that they are. A little bit. But that never have I made better stock than when I include a pound or two — or three — in with the rest of my chicken trimmings.

I am a believer that stock should be mostly a matter of leftovers — that one should freeze the carcasses of roasted chickens, then toss them in a pot with mirepoix, herbs, and a tiny bit of salt, and let the whole thing go at a simmer until it’s time for bed. But experience has led me to the conclusion that stock can’t just be from leftovers. The bones of roasted birds past have lots of flavor, but they never have quite enough gelatin left in them to impart the richness — the mouth-feel — that makes using stock in a recipe a step up from water, or wine, or something else. And nothing imparts more gelatin, more richness, than feet.

I chatted with the woman for a while longer, describing to her the Jello-like consistency of my cooled stock, telling her about the wondrous risottos it had made and the squash soup that was just a little ways down the line (this was right before Thanksgiving). And eventually, I guess I wore her down.

Also, she told the poultry man, I’ll have a pound of chicken feet. To try.

She paid for her chicken bits, and turned to go. But before she left, she told me in a most serious tone: Now I’m going to give this a try. And I hope it’s good. Because if it’s bad — I’m holding you responsible.

In all seriousness, though: Chicken feet do look — gross. But they are the world’s best addition to stock. They add body to your liquid without adding too much flavor, which is good, because you want stock to be rich without overwhelming the flavors of whatever you’re cooking. Buying them prevents massive amounts of perfectly serviceable chicken parts from getting thrown away, or processed into McNuggets, or whatever it is they do to the bits that don’t get eaten. And in using them, you are connecting with a culinary tradition that goes back hundreds of years. You are cooking like somebody’s grandmother. And there is nothing inherently cooler than that.

Anyway, here is now you make the stock*

2-3 lbs. Leftover Chicken Carcasses
2-3 lbs. Chicken Feet (you should have about 5 lbs of chicken parts in total, any way you divvy it up)
2 Onions, roughly chopped
2 Carrots, roughly chopped
3 Ribs of Celery, roughly chopped
3 Bay leaves
Fresh Parsley
Dried Thyme
10-20 Whole Black Peppercorns
Salt (just a little; you want to be able to control the seasoning later)

To an eight-quart stock pot, add your chicken parts, onions, carrots, celery, herbs, and salt. Then fill the pot with cold water until it covers all the solids (preferably by an inch or two, though I recognize that that’s not always possible). Heat on the stove on high until the contents of the pot reach about 190F, then turn the stove down to low, and allow to simmer, covered or uncovered, for about six hours.

You may want to stir occasionally, though that isn’t a requirement.

At the end of the six hours, pour your stock through a fine mesh strainer, pressing down on the solids with the back of a ladle to squeeze out any clinging juices. Strain a second time (I do this, but you don’t absolutely have to). Then cool the stock in a water bath and get it into the refrigerator ASAP (important, because bacteria starts growing in chicken stock super quickly).

The next morning, remove the stock from the fridge. The fat should have solidified on the top, and the stock itself should have a gelatinous consistency. Skim off all the fat, then return the stock to the stove, bring it back to a boil, and allow it to reduce until just four cups remain.

Cool the reduced stock (again, in a water bath if you can), then pour into two ice cube trays and freeze. The stock can later be reconstituted for use at a ratio of one cup of water to one cube of stock.

Strictly speaking, reducing and cubing the stock is not absolutely necessary. But it makes having home made stock in the house so convenient that you’ll never want to eat that over-salted store-bought slop again.

Trust me.

* For the record, I am aware that somewhere in the legacy posts I ported over from Livejournal, there is a similar recipe floating around.

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Jamón Ibérico

Posted on January 2, 2012 by | Leave a comment

I have, as you may have guessed about me already, a great deal of sympathy for ham obsession. I have myself, on a number of occasions, made the circuit in Philadelphia from the Reading Terminal Market, to the Di Bruno Brothers, to Claudio’s, looking for just the right crudo to pair with scallops, or melon, or whatever the experiment of the week might be. I have sampled five or six types, then settled on two or three, figuring that the ham I didn’t use would undoubtedly find a good home in some other project. Like my lunch. I wouldn’t say that I am an expert. Hardly. Rather, I would call myself an enthusiast for the cured leg of the pig. Because I am, if nothing else, very enthusiastic.

But enthusiasm can be a relative thing. And I think that I didn’t quite understand ham enthusiasm — ham obsession — until I spent some time in Spain.

Ham obsession is a serving of jamón, along side bacon, as part of a nutritious breakfast. It is a slice of jamón laid across a dry split baguette for lunch — because who needs a condiment? It is a ración of jamón at the top of every menu of every restaurant, tapas bar, and cervecería, often offered in several different sizes and levels of quality, for every occasion and every price point. It is a cab driver in Barcelona exclaiming in horror: “You mean that jamónes in the United States don’t have a hoof? But how can you tell whether they’re the [low-end] white kind, or the [premium] black kind? The black ones are so good!”

That kind of outburst — not from a chef or even a foodie — is what I mean by ham obsession. There is a kind of passion for jamón in Spain — a pain-pleasure thing that straddles the border between religion and sensuality — that I as an outsider can’t wholly understand. It is in part a Catholic thing. Famously, after the expulsion of the Muslims and then the Jews in the Middle Ages, pork consumption became a signifier of religious conformity — a sign, to the Inquisition among others, that I, good Spaniard, am not in need of your cruel ministrations.

But it’s more generalized than that, too. There is a kind of ritual about the consumption of jamón: ordering a ración, laid out on a platter in radiating circles; picking out just enough, held between the finger nails, to lay across a wafer of crusty bread; eating it with slow relish, accompanied by a glass of vino tinto, or sometimes café con leche. And there is a kind of delaying of gratification: the sweet suffering of customers at the deli counter or the bar, watching appreciatively as a skilled knifesman painstakingly hand-cuts slice after razor-thin slice, filling that platter at his own pace. No faster.

We could never love ham like that in the United States. We don’t have the devotion. We don’t know how to wait.

And frankly, we don’t really have the jamón. The fanciest pig parts that show up at Di Bruno’s or Claudio’s are good, more ore less. They have some of the creamy texture, some of the subtle flavor. They have some marbling of fat. But the best — at least Spain’s best — rarely leaves the country. Until 2005, the real jamón Ibérico, made from black Iberian pigs who foraged on acorns, was unavailable in the United States. Today, some comes in, but it is prohibitively expensive, and not the highest quality.

While I was in Madrid, I walked into a quality charcuteria — Julián Becerro, where a large number of the photos in this post were taken — and they made this point abundantly clear. I told them that I love jamón at home, and that I wanted to try something that I can’t get in the United States. And the clerks laughed at me. Pick anything in the store, they told me. There is nothing here that you can get in the United States.

And then a clerk walked me over to a wheel of jamónes, legs radiating out, their hoofs in stirrups, where knifesmen were cutting away. He explained to me in very limited English that each leg on the table was a different variety — fed differently, with a different provenance, flavor, and price point. He cut for me some samples, and I understood.

I ended up buying just a few slices of one variety of jamón bellota — an acorn-fed ham that was unlike anything I had tasted before, and certainly unlike anything I have ever gotten at home. In texture, it is silky, oily, fatty — like the best thin-sliced lox, almost like soft wax in a warm room. In flavor, it’s mild and creamy like other hams, but with an intense nuttiness, both sweet and slightly tannic, layered on top of that. It tasted like acorn, I would suggest, in the same way that really fresh milk tastes like pasture grass.

With our slices in hand, Sarah and I made our way from Julián Becerro, a couple of blocks to Madrid’s Plaza Mayor, where we sat ourselves down, tore open the wrapping, and ate the entire package with our fingers. Was it jamón obsession? I think not. Sarah has expressed that, with only a couple of exceptions, she *was not impressed* by a product that is as often very bad — served in stale, pre-packaged sandwiches in museum cafeterias — as it is very good. And even I, by the end of our journey, was wishing that some of the jamón, a little bit of the jamón, could be replaced by a fresh salad or some nice green kale.

But I would suggest that it is sympathy with ham obsession. After two weeks in Spain, eating jamón every day whether I wanted it or not, I don’t have the feeling that I’d like to go without it for a good long while. I don’t need a separation from ham, or time to remember that when it’s absent, I miss it. I like jamón. I am enthusiastic. And while I learned something about it’s relative quality from my time in Spain, I don’t plan to let that spoil my enthusiasm for ham at home.

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“Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Together”: Sweet Potato Grits

Posted on December 26, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Elizabeth is a folklorist, a teacher, and a culinary experimenter with a low boredom threshold.  She and her partner have recently added a giant puppy to their household; he impedes the experimentation, but she loves him anyway.  They live in a large, old house with a small, old kitchen in upstate New York.  Elizabeth blogs at www.breadandhoneyblog.com.

Somehow, I never got around to grits until this winter.  My mother grew up in the South and she loves them; but my father is from the North and he doesn’t.  So the grits of my childhood were infrequent spoonfuls from Shoney’s breakfast buffets; white and wet and bland and, well, gritty.  Forgettable, if not for the dissonance between my Mama’s evident pleasure and the watery puddle creeping towards my French toast fingers.

As an adult, I became a lover of all porridgy foods: steel-cut oatmeal, risotto, polenta, congee.  But not grits — not until, just a little while ago, I was served cheese grits as a side dish at the White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia.  Heavens!  I don’t remember what unremarked entree they sat beside.  But I vividly recall their puddingy, cheddary goodness.  If ever a food was as comforting as a warm nap (or necessitated a warm nap), this was it.

My first couple of attempts did not, alas, achieve that level of homespun glory.  For one thing, I didn’t know anything about how grits should look in the pan, or how a grits-friendly recipe should be shaped.  Once they came out clumpy.  Once, sticky with cheese.  Once: “You put eggs in this?” a southern friend asked in polite astonishment, tasting a cheese-laced, grits-based casserole.  “You don’t need eggs in cheese grits.”  This perfectly paralleled my rice pudding experience, which culminated in the production of an eggy, gelid, baked rice pudding I found so repulsive that I tipped the whole quivering mess into the bin.

I thought I should simplify my approach to grits.  Start with the basics.  But basic grits, in my experience, were boring.  I set them aside for a while, as a puzzle I hadn’t solved.  I put grits in the mental storage locker where I keep the rice pudding and also pumpkin pasta sauce and pad Thai, all culinary challenges I have yet to overcome.  But grits weren’t quite done with me.

Three times in the last month, I stumbled across the very same recipe for Sweet Potato Grits.  It comes from Virginia Willis’ new cookbook, Basic to Brilliant, Y’all, a Southern-flavored, French-influenced collection of dual recipes: one basic, one tarted up for company.  I suspect that the Sweet Potato Grits recipe — and its fancier-pants companion, a grits-based spoonbread — have been distributed for publicity purposes; they certainly offer an enticing glimpse of the potential inherent in Willis’ approach.

As it happened, I was just about to host a brunch whose guests were all Southerners or celiacs (or both), so grits were an obvious choice.  When I mentioned the recipe to a friend and he said, “Two of my favorite foods!  Together at last!” it seemed fated.  I approached the recipe with some trepidation, given my grits experience (or lack thereof).  But did I make it once the week before to try it out?  Of course not.  I got out my heavy-bottomed saucepan on Sunday morning with a trembling hand.  The recipe calls for a cup of stone-ground grits, but I had plain Quaker old-fashioned grits languishing in the back of the pantry, so I used them.  Preparation was absurdly easy: heat the milk, add the cup of grits, whisking, and then the grated sweet potatoes.  Season and simmer for, oh, about an hour.

Actually it took a little over an hour; I consulted with a guest, who poked the orange mess in my saucepan with a wooden spoon and pronounced them done.  “But you can’t overcook grits,” she said, “So don’t worry.”

We finished with a dollop of butter as the recipe indicated, and then I added a swirl of cream because I am convinced that cream improves almost any dish.

The grits turned out saffron-colored, cinnamon-scented, and remarkably fluffy.  The slight sweetness of the potatoes and the hint of pie-type spiciness were just enough to stand in for the indulgent element at a brunch that lacked coffee cakes or cinnamon rolls or other deliciously indigestible gluten-filled brunchable baked goods.

Clean plates are the best compliment.

I don’t brunch often; indeed, I don’t even cook breakfast most mornings, because I’m so far from being a morning person that I’ve been known to set my bathrobe on fire while boiling water.  But now that brunch season is upon us, ushered in by the holidays, I’m pleased to add a new recipe to my repertoire.  These grits meet my need for ease in any morning cookery, and fulfill my dreams of creamy, fluffy, flavorful comfort food.

Perhaps it’s time to tackle rice pudding again.

Virginia Willis’ Sweet Potato Grits

  • 2 cups of water
  • 2 cups of milk
  • 1 cup of stone-ground grits (I used Quaker Old-Fashioned)
  • 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and grated
  • salt and pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon ginger
  • pinch of cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon butter

Combine the water and milk and bring to a low boil.  Slowly whisk in the grits.  Add the sweet potato and stir.  Season with salt and pepper (and I added the ginger and cinnamon at this point, too).  Lower the heat and simmer, stirring often, until creamy and thick.  (The recipe says 45-60 minutes; your results will depend on how slow your simmer is.)

When the mixture has thickened and the grits and the sweet potato are both tender, add ginger, cinnamon, and butter.  (I added heavy cream, too.)  Taste and adjust for seasoning.  Serve promptly.

Serves 4-6, generously

PS: I ate the leftovers for breakfast this morning, reheated with a bit more cream.  Lovely.

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Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia

Posted on December 24, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Food blogging will recommence shortly, with a new guest post, and with some extensive musings from me about the legs of pigs.  But for now, you may consider this my Christmas card to all of you.

These images are from the interior of the Antoni Gaudí designed Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, in Barcelona.  I have seen many pictures, over the years, from the outside.  But I was entirely unprepared for this.

I only wish that my pictures could do it justice.

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Lonely No More: Veg*n Holiday Cooking & Eating

Posted on December 16, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Sharyn is a professor of English, avid runner, and champion napper. When not teaching, running, or under her beloved Slanket, she bakes vegan treats and greedily reads her friends’ blogs. Originally from Massachusetts, Sharyn has lived in southern Indiana for the past 8 years and earned her PhD in December 2011. (She’s wicked proud of it.)

Being vegan or vegetarian (veg*n) during the holidays can present a set of dietary challenges that may be compounded by the already-stressful nature of packing families, food, and quality time into a few short days at the end of the year. Food takes on a powerful connotation during the holiday season—the act of hosting and feeding others becomes an embodiment of Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward Men. With all of that hanging over the meal, one’s food choices can take on a larger than life significance, as each thing one chooses to not eat disrupts the holiday spirit and leaves you open to accusations of Grinch-like behavior. Despite these potential problems, I’ve found that holidays as a veg*n can still be filled with warmth and fun and lots of sharing; in fact, there may be much more sharing than you ever expected.

Having been vegan for nearly 15 years now, I have had my share of holiday hassles. I’ve heard every joke, every silly question, every criticism of my dietary choices that exists. And often, I hear these comments from people who routinely stop at the McDonald’s drive-through for questionable “food.” By now, fortunately, my family is quite accepting of my lifestyle and choices, and holidays are much less stressful in the food department. Here are some things that have helped make that transition possible:

Learn how to cook or bake, or at least bring someone home with you who can. My husband, Brian, is an excellent cook. So excellent, in fact, that he does all the cooking for the two of us, and it’s all vegan, all the time. I’m the baker, and can put up pretty mean cupcakes and cookies come the holidays. The point is, being able to bring food to the table is a key component of the holiday season—don’t be left out! And it’s better for everyone if you can bring something truly homemade, rather than, say, frozen veggie burgers or something. Trust me, no one will hassle you if you bring them perfectly roasted vegetables or warm mashed potatoes or pecan pie truffles. Those truffles, in particular, are a Sure Thing—be ready to see them disappear, most likely without you even getting one. Which brings me to the next point:

Prepare to Share. Whether it’s out of hunger, politeness, or sheer curiosity, friends and family will want to try your treats. Back in the early days of my veganism, I would often have to say something like, “if you want to taste my dish, fine, but I don’t want to hear any criticism!” That, of course, is not the most friendly or heart-warming introduction to veg*n cooking, so I’ve learned to amend my approach. By bringing enough to share, not only are you participating in the spirit of the holidays, but you are letting others get a taste of veg*n life. Just make sure you get a taste, too!

And getting a taste means not only indulging in your favorite treats, but getting a taste of the holiday cheer, too. So much stress about the holidays comes from having unrealistically high expectations, lots of family and friends in close proximity, and neglecting yourself. Make sure to enjoy your favorite holiday foods and allow others the same courtesy. In other words, beyond introducing folks to the deliciousness of your recipes, save the veg*n evangelizing for another time. No doubt there will be family members teasing, taunting, or questioning, but for the sake of holiday harmony do your best not to take the bait and not to lose your patience. By no means should you shrink from an honest discussion of diet health and ethics, but there’s probably no need to rattle off factory farming statistics to your drunk Uncle Jerry while in the church foyer awaiting the kids’ holiday pageant, for instance. (In fact, that situation might mean problems much bigger than your veg*n diet.) Throughout the years, I’ve found that the sharing and indulgences now go both ways at my family celebrations. My family accommodates my diet now, even getting excited when they find vegan snacks and pastries that I can eat. They also make special requests—this year, I am to make this delectable maple pecan pie for Christmas dessert. (side note: I recommend making and pre-baking Mark Bittman’s pie crust instead of the one in this pie recipe, using 2 TB of Earth Balance shortening and 6 TB of Earth Balance buttery sticks in place of butter. It comes out so perfectly flaky and delicious that no one will realize! Or at least they won’t care!) So, have courage dear veg*ns; the holidays are meant for all to enjoy as they wish, and you are no different. It just means being proactive about your own enjoyment and being prepared with delicious goodies to share.

Remember to be kindly about sharing, as well. Every year I think I might get Brian’s expertly roasted Tofurky all to ourselves; yet sadly, his technique truly makes something special out of what is otherwise an underwhelming meat alternative, and I am always left without seconds. But it’s worth it to see so many happy faces around the dinner table, and to see all of us sharing a meal in the true spirit of the holidays.

Here are Brian’s tips to get the most out of a store-bought Tofurky Roast, should you choose one for your holiday meal:

  • For the glaze, don’t go by the box instructions. Simply use equal parts olive oil, tamari, and orange juice, with a pinch of fresh sage, and brush the roast with it.
  • Surround the roast with lots of fresh veggies—potatoes, carrots, celery, and onions are perfect—in the baking dish.
  • Make sure you keep the roast surrounded with about 1/4 inch of liquid (veggie stock, preferably, but water will do) while it’s in the oven; this way, when you cover the dish with foil, steam will be created, keeping the roast moist as it bakes.
  • When you remove the foil to finish baking the roast, spritz it with olive oil spray before putting back in the oven, uncovered. This helps create a nice, dark, tasty skin.
  • When the roast has finished baking, let it sit for at least 5 minutes before attempting to slice it. This insures the moisture and temperature have a chance to even out.
  • Ignore the stuffing inside the roast—it’s honestly not very good, but a well-baked Tofurky can still be a delicious centerpiece to a holiday meal.

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Orange-Cardamom Shortbread

Posted on December 12, 2011 by | Leave a comment

I can’t say that I’m much of a C. S. Lewis fan. His writing for adults has never much grabbed me. And being neither a Christian, nor someone who read the books as a child, I have a limited appreciation for The Chronicles of Narnia. At best. But I do owe C. S. Lewis one debt of gratitude for Narnia. It names for me a particular attitude that I have held all my life, but that I have never otherwise been able to adequately articulate: I desire, like the White Witch, for it always to be winter, but never to be Christmas.

Or Hanukkah. Or Kwanzaa. Or most of the other mass-marketed gift-giving holidays at the end of the year.

I am not, as you might suspect, a Grinch. I don’t hate Christmas, or any of the rest of the Holiday Season, per se. Despite the fact that I am not myself religious, I don’t hate religion, either. Nor, under most circumstances, do I hate consumer capitalism. (For most of the year, in fact, I like to shop more than I would willingly admit in public).

The issue for me, I think, is that when we combine religion and explosive shopping with a double scoop of good old American optimism, the mixture is so rich, and so saccharine, that my throat closes, and my stomach churns, and all I want to do is find one of those Santas ringing one of those infernal, piercing bells for the Salvation Army, and throw a shoe at him. I want to wipe those fakey smiles off the faces of the store-clerks who chirp Happy Holidays! at me as they take my money. I want to pour bleach into the base of a Christmas tree, and put lumps of coal in children’s stockings.

I guess, maybe, that I do sound like a Grinch. And I guess, maybe, that I have said once or twice, to one or two people, that I “hate” Christmas. But it’s not like that. Really.

I’m actually a big fan of what I have come to think of as traditional Christmas, and what Sarah has come to call, somewhat mockingly, Dickensian Christmas. I am struck with a wave of nostalgia at the thought of drinking mulled wine while gathered around an old-fashioned fireplace — something I have never actually experienced. I roast chestnuts at every opportunity, while they are in season. Perennially, I offer to cook Sarah’s family a Christmas goose, complete with stuffing, and plum pudding for dessert. (And perennially, they turn me down. Flatly.)

I’m not a big fan of the Christmas songs of the baby-boom generation. But I do spend much of the winter humming some of the more traditional music. “Good King Wenceslas” does it for me. As does “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” “I Saw Three Ships,” and even religious music like “Veni, Veni Emmanuel.”

And while I’ve never been quite comfortable with the idea of giving — or receiving — gifts, I do like the idea of reciprocity, of material demonstrations of care for one’s neighbors, of finding opportunities to build tangible community with family, at work, in the neighborhood. I just wish that it actually worked that way.

Which is where, to my mind, Christmas cookies come in. Sarah and I began making Christmas cookies, in bulk, a couple of years ago, as a compromise between my position — no gifts — and her position — wanting to be on speaking terms with our families. Every year now, I make three or four different kinds of cookies. Then Sarah divvies them up, packages them (mostly in take-out containers, re-purposed for the cause), and sends them out to family and friends across the country.

This has a couple of great advantages. On the most practical level, it keeps me out of a situation where I am apt to hit a poor, defenseless mall employee, or challenge kindly Parson Brown to a duel. It keeps us out of the consumerist rat-race — at least a little. And it means one fewer gift that a family member will stick in a closet and only dust off when we come calling. The cookies are consumable, after all.

In a broader sense, though, as you (dear readers!) may have gathered by now, there is little that better captures the essence, for me, of caring for one’s friends and family than cooking for them. It’s why I like to have folks over for Thanksgiving. It’s why my impulse, when we have house guests, is to feed them, continuously and without mercy. If gift-giving is about renewing the bonds of community with people with whom one is close, aren’t home-made consumables orders of magnitude better than something … made of plastic?

Sometimes. Most of the time. Though some people get books, if I’ve found something I think they’ll like.

At any rate, this year, a lot of people got a lot of cookies. I baked about thirty-three dozen, overall: chocolate chip, nutmeg maple butter cookies, speculoos, and orange-cardamom shortbread. Sarah ended up sending out eleven pretty massive packages of them. And if I don’t see another cookie until next December, I must admit, that won’t make me sad.

Nonetheless, I did want to share one of the recipes with all of you here. I can’t share any of the first three — two aren’t mine, and the speculoos are still very much a work in progress. But I did want to offer you the orange-cardamom shortbread. I’ve made it a couple of times, now. It turns out consistently well. And it is, hands-down, my all-time favorite shortbread cookie.

Also, it’s easy. Check it out.

4 cups Unbleached AP White Flour
4 sticks Unsalted Butter at room temperature (the best quality you can manage — it matters)
1 1/2 cup Confectioner’s Sugar (plus a couple of tablespoons of granulated sugar for sprinkling over the cookies)
1 Egg Yolk (plus 1 egg for brushing over the tops of the cookies)
2 tsp Cardamom
1 tsp Orange Flower Extract (or Cointreau)
Zest of 2 Oranges
1 tsp Salt

In your stand mixer (or by hand), cream together the butter and confectioner’s sugar. Add the egg yolk, orange zest, cardamom, and orange water, and mix thoroughly on medium. Add the flour and salt, and mix on low until the dough comes together (you may need to scrape down the sides of the bowl a couple of times). Move the dough into a gallon-sized freezer bag, shape into a log, and chill for about half an hour.

In the mean time, preheat your oven to 350F, position your oven racks near the middle of the oven, and line two cookie sheets with parchment.

At the end of the half hour, remove the dough from the refrigerator, and on a lightly floured pastry board (or clean counter), roll out the dough until it’s about a bit less than a centimeter thick. Using a cookie-cutter, cut the the dough into rounds. Then re-roll, and re-cut, until you’ve used as much of the dough as you can manage. (You might consider rolling the dough out, then folding it up into a rectangle and rolling it again. I find that it adds a nice, flaky, layered-ness to the cookies.)

Arrange the dough rounds evenly on your cookie sheets. Then brush lightly with an egg-wash, sprinkle some granulated sugar over the top, and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown.

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Christmas Cookie Teaser

Posted on December 9, 2011 by | Leave a comment

A full post, including a recipe for Christmas cookies that are not these, will be forthcoming in the next couple of days.

For now, you’ll have to content yourself with this teaser:

Enjoy!

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Posted in Baking, Holidays, Photography, Sweet

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