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Posts Tagged ‘apple’

Roasted butternut, apples and onions.

Posted in Side Dishes, Uncategorized, Vegetables, tagged , , , , on December 2, 2010| 5 Comments »

And we’re back.  Long overdue, with not an absence note in hand, nor a good excuse to be found. Sorry about that. I’m starting out easy, getting back into the rhythm, getting the mojo back. I’ve missed all of you. This is my go to recipe for veggies in the winter. You can make this without thinking about a recipe. The chopping and mixing is soothing, and I find that by the time I pop the tray into the oven, I’ve relaxed, my mind has relaxed and I’m ready to jump into the fray.

You know my fondness for roasted vegetables.  Okay, fondness might be misleading, obsession is closer to the truth.  Now that the cooler temps have arrived this obsessive compulsion has kicked into overdrive.  The morning checklist often starts with coffee….check, feed the cat……check, turn on the oven……check.  Wait, what am I cooking? Oh, right, nothing yet, haven’t made it to the store to buy the next cache of veggies.  Turn off the oven…..check.  There are very few things left in the veggie aisle of the local market that haven’t made their way into my oven.  Well, artichokes haven’t, and radish.  (I did have braised radish this summer, what a revelation!) But every manner of squash, bean, and root have.  Along with fruit.  All kinds of fruit.  Apples of course, and I’m currently in love with roasted citrus.  But this is about roasted butternut, apples and onions.

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Caramelized Apples & Brioche Bread Pudding

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 5, 2010| 4 Comments »

This is where it all starts.  One freshly washed, less than perfect, organic apple.  A Braeburn, I believe.  The humble catalyst that ends with one of the most soul satisfying desserts I know.  Bread pudding.  Guys, I can’t tell you how much I love bread pudding.  It gets made more than several times a year in my house, and if I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, I’d make it every week.  The variations and combinations are endless.  I’ve made bread pudding with cake layers, with pieces of brownies thrown in, out of stale bakery goods of almost any kind (donuts, croissants, danish, and once with kinda stale turnovers that turned out so surprisingly delectable), out of almost any kind of bread, and various combinations of all of the above.  And recently, I’ve been a bit fixated on savory bread puddings, but more on that later.   So this is how it began.  Standing in the kitchen, a bit antsy.  I want to make something, but don’t have a plan in mind.  Quite a few of the things that I’ve been planning for you would require a trip to the store for ingredients I don’t have.  But I’m in my comfortable clothes, it’s really grey and cold out there, and it’s going to snow any second.  Gah, I don’t want to go to the store!  So, I stand in front of the open refrigerator, I stand in front of the open cabinets, I pull out the freezer drawer and peer into its depth for a couple of minutes.  I contemplate the bowls of fruits and veggies on the counter, I pull out the drawers with all the baking pans and doo dads, I stare out at the park and watch the people running who are so bundled up against the cold they look like multi-colored Michelin Men.   As all of what I’ve stared at for the last few minutes swirls around and starts to settle, the mental checklist comes up.  Eggs? Check.  Milk or cream?  Check.  Butter, sugar, vanilla? Check, check, check.  Bread?  Frozen brioche will do nicely, check.  Then my gaze falls on the apples.   And a vision of Tarte Tatin jumps to mind, nah….but, the caramelized apple part sounds good.  So, apples? Check.  That’s how this recipe came together.  Not exactly rocket science, but it all worked out very nicely.

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Apple Dumplings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 8, 2009| 2 Comments »

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Isn’t it amazing how the smell and taste of something can bring you back to a specific time and place?  Many years later and all you have to do is inhale deeply, put a bite in your mouth, close your eyes and you’re there.  Better and faster than “Beam me up, Scotty” or clicking your ruby slippers together. Memories come flooding back, filling you with a bit of the long ago happiness, the touch of a hand on your cheek or the wistful yearning for that distant past. These apple dumpling had me standing at the counter, thinking and feeling a late night many years ago.  The ex and I were coming home from a Grand Prix racing event in Watkins Glen, NY which was a good 5 to 6 hours from our home.  We went up for the weekend, sleeping in the back of the van (we were young..) walking ourselves to death around the track in cold, drizzly rain.  Of course the main event was on Sunday afternoon, making the journey home a long and dark one.  After driving for 3 hours or so, we decided we needed coffee and food, so we took the next exit off the highway into a very small town that was mostly closed and dark.  Just when we were going to turn back and try another exit, we saw a small diner, shining like a cheesy old movie set on the side of the road.  Cars were parked outside, the windows slightly fogged with warmth, the light beckoning us in.  We sat at a scarred and scratched old table, drank coffee and ate burgers.  The waitress came over, asked if we wanted anything else and without waiting for an answer said, “You should have our apple dumplings, we make them everyday, and they’re really good”.  We had one.  Warm, with vanilla ice cream melting down into a puddle around it, pastry shattering under our spoons. Spicy and sweet, we couldn’t scoop it up fast enough, our spoons clicking and pushing each other for the next bite.  Happy, with warm bellies, the rest of the trip didn’t seem as long or as cold.

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Rustic Apple Cake

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 23, 2009| Leave a Comment »

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Another day of rain here in Denver.  Fall has arrived, and not a gloriously colorful, graceful entrance.  Cold, wet, and dreary just plopped down in your lap. What you want to eat and cook changed dramatically in the past few days.  Baking, braising, and generally having the oven on and filling the house with warmth and things that smell good is where most of us want to be.  Apples will be the fruit we’ll be picking up and eating out of hand, filling cakes and pastries with, and slipping in next to onions and roasting.  This cake a great transition piece, easy to make and even easier to eat.  What makes it rustic? Well, there’s nothing pretentious about this cake.  It’s craggy and crumbly, studded with nuts, packed with apple pieces, and warmly fragrant with spices. There’s no frosting, or filling, and nothing dainty and petite about it.  It’s pretty great no matter when you eat it.  Warm and fresh out of the oven or the next day for breakfast (you know I’m the president of the Cake for Breakfast club).  It’s wonderful with tea in the afternoon, or even dolloped with rummy whipped cream.  It would be a wonderful gift for a neighbor or friend although I’m pretty sure you’re not going to want to part with it.  Make two!

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Cardamom Scented Apple Turnovers

Posted in Desserts, tagged , , on June 2, 2009| Leave a Comment »

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I know.  I know that time has passed for apple recipes to come tumbling out.  Fall is just a memory for most of us, and we’re looking for deeply spiced, long cooking, keep us warm through the cold night recipes.  In spite of all that, apple turnovers have no season.  Fragrant and still slightly warm, icing sticking to impatient fingers, the soft crack of flaky layers giving way as you bite down…..these need to stay around.  

These apple turnovers have a faintly exotic spice, a warm scent and taste.  You just might find yourself draping a silk scarf around your shoulders and searching for a Bollywood movie to watch as you enjoy them.  Ok, that might be a stretch, but try them, they are so good.  And easy…so very easy.  Let me show you.

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