Cooking the Books – Page 3 – Read. Review. Recipe.

November 14, 2020

That’s amore

It’s been an eventful few weeks around here, and well, around the country.

While so much is so awful, it’s important to celebrate the good things as best we can. So, this Tuesday, to take a moment to enjoy our anniversary, my sweetie and I poured some good wine and I made a very simple, not very classy pizza supreme dip.

We listened to music while it came together in minutes on the stove top, and then while I tried not to over-broil the cheese on top. We enjoyed it with bagel chips, because then you can have pizza anytime.

Chances are good that if this were a normal year, we would have done something similarly simple. However, I think in these circumstances, and after the year we’ve had, it took on an extra significance of enjoying those things we can.

Pizza dip and zinfandel might not be everyone’s ideal anniversary dinner, but it suited us, and it’s part of why we suit each other.

Here’s to our 8 happy years, even in tough times, and here’s hoping for many more.

Here’s what I did, mostly following a Better Homes & Gardens recipe:

Ingredients

8 to 10 oz. bulk Italian sausage (I used fake sausage crumbles that came in a 10 oz. bag)
1 small onion, chopped
1 small green pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 (15 oz.) can pizza sauce
1 c. pepperoni pieces, chopped or sliced
1 small can sliced black olives
1 c. Italian cheese mix, shredded
Bagel chips or baguette-style bread slices, for serving

Directions

Preheat broiler.

In a seasoned or greased 9-inch cast iron skillet, cook the sausage, onion, and green pepper, until sausage is browned. (Since I used fake sausage, I didn’t need to worry about breaking up the meat as it cooked nor draining the fat, but if you use real sausage, you may need to do those things.)

Stir in the pepperoni, pizza sauce, and olives. Continue to cook over medium heat until the mixture is bubbly and warm, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, and sprinkle with the shredded cheese.

Broil the mixture for 2 to 3 minutes about 3 to 4 inches from the broiler, or until the cheese just starts to brown (and looks like a lovely supreme pizza). Let cool very slightly, and enjoy with bagel chips and/or bread!

November 10, 2020

Desperately craving trashy brunch

I have heard the calls on the left warning against simply going back to brunch now that Trump has been defeated. And there is still so much work to do, starting with gains in Georgia and then working to achieve actual progress.

However, we are now approaching eight months of living with the pandemic, and I am really missing going out to eat. Being immunocompromised, and not willing to risk my life for a meal, I don’t dare enter a restaurant. Especially after this week, just for once, it’d be really nice to go out to brunch or, frankly, to a bar and kvetch with friends and loved ones. And a girl’s gotta eat sometimes.

Though delivery is an option (if not the same as seeing friends), there are few options for round-the-clock breakfast items, and eggs and hashbrowns, etc., just don’t keep as well once in a plastic container. On top of that, it takes out the spontaneity of deciding to go out to breakfast when you just really have a craving or really need to grumble over biscuits and gravy.

Thankfully, I found a semi-solution.

One of my favorite foodie sites Serious Eats had a Denver omelet recipe I found recently, and I could finally taste the joy of round-the-clock brunch, straight from the kitchen.

I still think my technique could be improved, and it’s still not the same as being able to wait 20 minutes (I’m a late riser, which considerably cuts down on waiting!) to sit at a booth to get diner food, but boy is it still a comfort in these times.

Not that pretty, but pretty effing tasty.

Here’s what I did, perhaps overdoing it on the meat and veggies and cheese but still enjoying my monstrosity:

Ingredients

5 large eggs
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 oz. shredded pepper jack pepper (I’m sure I used more)
2 T. butter, divided
3 oz. ham slices, cut into ½ in. pieces (I didn’t precisely measure)
½ large bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and diced
½ medium yellow onion, diced
Pinch of smoked paprika

Directions

In a medium bowl, beat together the eggs and add salt and pepper to taste. Whisk until the eggs are homogeneous and frothy. Set aside.

Meanwhile, in a 9- to 10-in. Skillet (cast iron or nonstick) melt half the butter over medium-high heat, swirling until lightly browned. Add the bell pepper and onion, and season with salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and beginning to brown. Add the ham and cook further until the ham slices are browned in spots. Stir in the smoked paprika and some additional ground pepper. Scrape vegetables into a medium bowl (glass, or otherwise heatproof) and add the cheese, stirring to combine.

Wipe out skillet and set over medium heat. Add the remaining half of the butter and cook until melted and lightly browned. Re-whisk the eggs until foamy, and then add to skillet and cook, using a spatula to push the edges toward the center and tilting the pan to spread the uncooked egg underneath. Continue the process around the skillet until the eggs are almost set.
Sprinkle the ham and cheese mixture over half the omelet, remove from heat, and cover, letting the omelet sit until mostly or fully cooked through on the top, about one minute. Use the spatula to loosen the edges and carefully fold the omelet in half to enclose the filling. Split in half and serve, preferably with some hash browns and coffee, and enjoy!

October 30, 2020

It’s my birthday and I’ll geek out if I want to

I recently finished a wonderful YA novel called “Wicked Fox” by Kat Cho. One of my favorite things about it, though, for this foodie at heart, is the descriptions of Seoul food. Thanks to the glossary at the back, I got an even deeper description of each food item and have been making them in the weeks since.

I’m not too proud to admit that the kitchy date night dinner of corn dogs with fried potatoes caught my attention as much as the more traditional fare. Part of the appeal was figuring out exactly how it worked; then, once I knew, another part of the appeal was a whole new way to eat hot dogs surrounded by fried stuff.

There were not many recipes available from my usual sources. Even the (amazing) site I found to make the other traditional South Korean recipes didn’t include this more modern, more urban item. Thankfully, there’s YouTube.

The wonderful Aaron and Claire came through with several recipes, including one that was what I suspected the author was going for based on some additional research.

Now, the first thing to know is that these are not actually made with cornmeal, and that’s important because when the recipe says to roll the fried dough in sugar, it is slightly less unusual than it seems to American tastes. Since the dough more closely resembles bread than the sweeter corn batter, the sugar mostly just makes it taste more like American ideas of corn batter; that said, as a person who’s OK with slightly less sweet things, I tried them both ways and was totally fine without adding sugar.

I also found that I personally liked the way described in the video that skips the fried potatoes and instead uses a mix of panko and dried parsley as a coating. The crunch does it for me, but I also enjoyed the novelty of fried potatoes and “corn” dogs in the same dish.

While I mostly followed the recipes, one concession I did make is that since I wanted to sneak this into my small skillet recipes and recommend Cho’s book (not just for its Korean food items), I didn’t make them on sticks but instead cut the hot dogs and cheese sticks (!!) in half so I could try more variations and have them fit.

Here’s what I did, with the link to the direct Aaron and Claire YouTube video provided because I loved the descriptions:

Ingredients

~6 hot dogs, halved
~4 mozzarella cheese sticks, halved (and preferably frozen for about 10 minutes before cooking)
~1 to 1 ½ c. frozen potato cubes, if assortment preferred
~1 ½ c. panko
2 to 3 T. dried parsley
1 ⅔ c. (400 g) bread flour
½ c. (60 g) sugar, plus more for coating
2 ½ t. (10 g) salt
2 ¼ t. (8 g) active dried yeast
1 ¼ c. (300 ml) warm water
Oil, for frying
Ketchup, for serving
Mustard, for serving

Directions

In a large bowl, mix together the bread flour, sugar, and salt. Stir to combine. In a small bowl, mix together the yeast and warm water, and let sit about 5 minutes, and then pour into the dry mixture until a sticky dough forms, adding more water if necessary.

Let the dough rise in a cool, dry place for about 2 hours.

After the 2 hours passes, mix together the panko and parsley on a plate. If using, place the frozen potatoes on a plate. If using (and recommended), place a little bit (~½ c. additional) of sugar on a small plate to coat the fried food.

Heat up oil in a 9 in. cast iron skillet (or whatever) until it reaches about 275 degrees.

Use your hands (or corn dog sticks, if you have them) to wrap the hot dog pieces and cheese stick halves, individually, in the dough. This is where it really helps to have seen the video to get a good idea of how to wrap the dogs and cheese sticks, but I also feel like after you do it a couple times, there’s not too many ways to catch the dough to wrap it around the meat and cheese.

Once dog/cheese is covered in dough, coat it in the panko or the potato or leave plain to your heart’s desire. Then, fry it for three to five minutes until nice and golden. Place on a paper towel to drain excess oil, and then coat in sugar before serving

Repeat with remaining items, and using the coatings as desired.

Drizzle with ketchup and mustard before serving, or use for dipping, and enjoy!

October 24, 2020

Poverty pie uses on-hand ingredients for delightful dessert

One of the things that my sweetie and I both enjoy is looking at old recipes. Among our favorites are cookbooks collected from a local community; for me, my favorite is one from the church where I believe my grandparents wed (or at least was a one-time hometown for one or both of them).

They offer insights into what’s popular in a given time or given location, and they vary wildly in terms of quality, suggesting uncharitably that maybe not everyone can cook or more charitably that different people have some quite different tastes from me.

In that same vein, we also love discovering recipes that are likely from the Great Depression-era, or maybe just ones stemming from home chefs who have made a little go a long way.

As someone who has been very, very privileged throughout this pandemic to both (so far) keep my job and work from home, I count myself extremely lucky that I do not, and have rarely, *needed* to make a little go a long way. But I am still grateful that these recipes survive to remind me both that poverty doesn’t mean the absence of joy and that cheap doesn’t mean gross.

This week’s recipe, in that sense, was a real revelation.

I knew from looking at its ingredient list that it had to be a poverty pie, born of a need to use what’s on hand to make a simple dessert. However, it wasn’t until I tasted it that I figured out the tricks it used to make its bare-bone ingredients seem like something a little more.

Correctly dubbed a vinegar pie, there’s not much to the insides of this pie, but it does use white vinegar as its most unexpected-in-a-dessert ingredient.

I would have been more skeptical but for two facts: (1) I figured Taste of Home wouldn’t promote a recipe of complete garbage, and (2) my Grandma Crippes’ ditalini pasta salad recipe relies on a very simple dressing of white vinegar, oil, and sugar, and it works delightfully well.

Still, some things about the recipe were confusing, and I doubted it would work well. Until I tried it and realized that everything makes sense once you know that vinegar pie is what happens when you want to make apple pie but cannot get the fresh fruit.

That explained the small strips of dough on the bottom layer, and the use of vinegar to add a citric flavor when lemon juice may not be available, and the extra flour — like in a traditional apple pie — to help make an internal goop while baking.

All in all, it was actually quite a delight and is a reminder that it’s possible, if not ideal (hint: Congress pass a GD bill to help people) to make apple-ish pie out of vinegar. Literally.

It’s not pretty, it’s not fancy, but it’s a good enough, tasty enough pie.

Here’s what I did, following the recipe only making it 9-inch instead of 12 and slightly altering the water level as I found it to be too much for my small skillet:

Ingredients

1 ½ c. sugar
2 ¼ T. all-purpose flour
½ t. ground nutmeg
6 T. butter, cut into cubes
½ c. white vinegar
1 to 1 ½ c. hot water
2 pie crusts (homemade or store-bought)

Directions

Heat oven to 450 degrees.

Whisk together sugar, flour, and nutmeg; set aside.

On a floured surface, roll out one-third to one-half of the pie crusts into a ⅛ in. thick circle. Cut into small 2 in. by 1 in. strips (I was hung up on this idea, but if you imagine the strips are replacements for apple slices, it makes it much easier to envision the size and shape). Layer a 9-inch enamel-coated cast-iron skillet or casserole dish with half the strips. Sprinkle with half the sugar and dot with half the butter. Add the remaining half of strips, and repeat the sugar mixture and butter layers.

Roll out the remaining half to two-thirds of the dough into a ⅛ in. circle. Place over filling and press against the sides of the skillet or casserole. Cut a slit in the top.

Mix together 1 c. of hot water and ½ c. of vinegar. Slowly pour water-vinegar mixture into slit. Liquid may (and almost certainly will) bubble up through the crust. If it’s not completely full, add another ½ to 1 c. hot water (for me, it was full with the original amount).

Since it’s likely to spill over a little, place an oven rack lined with foil or an old cookie sheet below the intended rack to bake the pie. Bake the pie for about 1 hour until the crust is golden brown, perhaps reducing the time or covering edges with foil in the last 15 to 20 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack, and enjoy!

October 19, 2020

Hearty beefy pie for a fall night

Sometimes, you just need an easy homemade dinner. Especially when you already took a week off from blogging. So, when I saw this beef pie recipe used mostly frozen vegetables, saving on chopping, I couldn’t resist.

Plus, the dough — which the recipe says can be store-bought, but after a year of making pies, I just don’t trust any dough but my own — only goes on top so it’s less work and less baking time.

Oh, and did I mention there was beer?! And not just any beer but a Guinness!

The only problem with the recipe was its calling for mushrooms, but that was easily mended by replacing it with carrots, which was the only thing I ended up chopping. And frankly, since the meal nearly overflowed its container as is, even though it called for a 9-inch skillet, the carrot could be skipped.

Otherwise, it was everything that it advertised. Simple. Tasty. Hearty.

Sometimes, you can’t ask for more than that.

“X” marks the spot where there’s a very delicious meat pie filling underneath a yummy buttery crust.

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients

1 T. olive oil
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 carrot, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste
3 T. tomato paste
1 c. frozen pearl onions
2 t. thyme
3 T. all-purpose flour
8 oz. Guinness
1 c. frozen butternut squash pieces
1 c. frozen peas
1 pie crust, store-bought or homemade and chilled
1 large egg, beaten

Directions

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a 9-inch skillet on the stove top over medium heat. Add the beef, carrots, and salt and pepper, to taste, and cook, breaking up the beef with a spoon until browned, about 6 minutes. Add the tomato paste, and cook for another 2 minutes. Stir in the onions, and thyme, and then sprinkle with flour, stirring, for about 30 seconds.

Add the stout and simmer until the liquid has thickened, about 1 minute. Add ½ c. water and bring to a simmer. Add the squash and peas, return to a simmer, and then remove from heat. The dish will be fairly full, but it’ll make a nice hearty pie.

Roll out, or unroll if using store bought, the pastry dough into about a 10- to 12-inch round, and place on top of the still-hot filling, tucking in the remainder of the dough around the edges. Cut an “X” in the middle, and brush with egg.

Bake in the oven for 30 to 35 minutes until the crust is golden. Let rest for about 5 minutes, and then enjoy!

October 4, 2020

The trashiest, tastiest toastie

This week’s recipe partially feels like a cheat. After all, it’s just a grilled cheese sandwich with a few extras.

But it’s been a long year and I needed some comfort food. Besides, it *is* made with a few additions that make it at least a little unlike any grilled cheese I’ve made before, starting with coating the outside in mayonnaise.

Before I get to any additional weirdness, though, I want to explain how I came to make this recipe to begin with. It’s a fun story time, I promise.

I came across a click-baity article a couple months ago that was about the kind of conspiracy theory I can get behind, one that is quite harmless and mostly meaningless. That is, the theory that the Nando’s brand medium peri peri sauce is in fact spicier than its hot variety. I’ve long been a fan of peri peri sauce, as it’s a not-too-hot hot sauce for my tastes and its extremely flavorful beyond just spicy. And Nando’s is the brand I typically buy.

So, I went ahead and bought a bottle of both and conducted a taste test with some quite tasty chicken wings. My sweetie, who had not seen which was which when I placed it on the plate, was fooled into thinking the medium was the hot sauce. While I could not likewise do a blind taste test, I shared his opinion.

The wings, however, did not use up all the sauce and we had two bottles (actually four, because I also sampled some other varieties) in our fridge, looking for an excuse to be used. So, I perused the recipe booklet that came with the bottles and couldn’t resist the toastie (read: grilled cheese) recipe. It had chicken, peri peri, cheese, and then was supposed to be coated in peri peri-based mayonnaise; while I didn’t have the Nando’s brand mayonnaise, I did have some powdered peri peri lying around, so I mixed it together with mayonnaise.

The result was more or less what I expected: spicy grilled cheese with chicken. And a lot of filling for two sammies. Which means, it was a frickin’ delight!

The mayonnaise cooked the outside a little too well, but I should have turned the stove down when the first side came up a bit blackened. Otherwise, though, I loved every unhealthy bite.

Slightly burnt but the tastiest toastie I’ve ever made.

Here’s what I did, following the booklet recipe other than faking the “perinaise”:

Ingredients

1 ½ c. cooked chicken, cubed or shredded
1 ½ c. shredded sharp cheddar
½ c. peri peri sauce (whichever level of spice you prefer, but remember, the medium may be hotter!)
¼ mayonnaise
Peri peri powder, to taste (optional)
4 slices of bread
Vegetable oil

Directions

In a medium bowl, mix together the chicken, cheese, and peri peri sauce. In a small bowl, stir together the mayonnaise and peri peri powder, if using.

Spread the chicken and cheese mixture over two slices of bread. Top with the remaining two slices of bread.

Spread the ½ the mayonnaise mixture on one side of the top of both bread slices.

Heat a 9-inch skillet over medium to medium-low heat. Add a splash of vegetable oil.

Place one sandwich, mayonnaise side down, and spread half the remaining mayonnaise on the top of the bread in the skillet while it cooks. Cook for 2 ½ to 3 minutes until golden, and adjust temperature as needed. Once golden, flip the toastie and cook on the other side for another 2 ½ to 3 minutes until golden and the center is warmed and melty.

Repeat the process with the remaining sandwich, using up the rest of the mayonnaise to coat the last bare slice of bread, and enjoy with a healthy salad to counterbalance this delectable dinner!

September 26, 2020

Herby quinoa makes for quick, tasty dinner

This week’s recipe, I regret to say, sat unused for years in my binder full of recipes. I feel extra bad about that, though I have several unmade recipes ripped from magazines in the binder, because this one came hand-written from my mother.

Even in the era of the Internet where she has shared several recipes with me via email, this one came to me hand-written. I’m not even sure when I got it or why (other than that it’s tasty), or why I never made it.

However, my sweetie recently purchased quinoa for a vegetarian stuffed pepper recipe I mentioned recently, and so we had some extra sitting around, ready to be used. Enter my mom’s herby quinoa recipe.

Her recipe called to be made in a saucepan, but it was a small enough meal, enough for four servings, that it fit easily in my 9-inch Le Creuset.

It was incredibly simple, and incredibly tasty, and I feel incredibly stupid for waiting so long to make it.

While it does have bacon in it, it’s otherwise pretty healthy. Welcome after last week’s indulgence. The grain, herbs, some toasted almonds, with some bacon, and voila, a tasty weeknight meal is made.

Here’s what I did, following Mom’s recipe … though she forgot to specify the amount of broth so I had to wing that part and it took slightly longer to cook than her recipe said:

Ingredients

½ c. slivered almonds
1 t. vegetable oil
4 slices of bacon (her recipe called for two thick pieces, I had thin stuff so I doubled it), ¼ in. dice
1 small shallot, diced
1 c. quinoa, rinsed
2 c. vegetable or chicken broth
2 sage sprigs (hers called for 1, but I am a sucker for herbs)
1 T. minced chives
1 T. chopped parsley
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spread almonds in pie plate and toast in the oven until golden brown. Let cool.

In a 9- to 10-inch skillet, heat oil, add bacon, and cook until fat has rendered, about 2 minutes. Add the shallot and cook stirring a few times, until the shallot has softened but not browned. Add the quinoa, stock, and sage, and bring to a boil.

Cover and cook over low heat until the stock has been absorbed, 20 to 25 minutes.

Remove from heat and let stand, covered, for 5 minutes. Discard the sage stems, fluff the quinoa with a fork. Stir in the chives, parsley, and toasted almonds. Season with salt and pepper, and enjoy!

September 19, 2020

This dip is loaded

Once upon a time, there was this magical world where we could safely gather in large groups and enjoy each other’s company while we shared fancy foods and strong drinks. But then darkness befouled the land, and those visits became virtual.

While I’m not missing the commute to see our friends in the Cedar Valley, I am missing their company and the ability to share tasty treats with them on a semi-regular basis.

Some foods are just better shared with friends, and only partially because having that many calories in the house is a terrible idea. However, this week’s decadent loaded baked potato dip sounded too delicious to wait until we can again share physical space with our friends.

It was pretty easy to make, and honestly, it wasn’t much of a challenge for two people to eat it over a few days, though I’m not sure that was the healthiest move. But it was a tasty choice.

As its name suggests, it’s a mix of potatoes, bacon, cheese, sour cream, and green onions. To make it slightly healthier, I did serve it with sweet pepper wedges and bread, rather than a saltier vessel. Still, you could taste extravagance in every wonderful bite.

Here’s what I did, mostly following a Better Homes & Gardens recipe:

Ingredients

2 ¼ lb. Yukon gold or other small potatoes, quartered
Salt
4 slices bacon
10 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 ½ c. shredded sharp cheddar
½ c. sour cream
2 to 3 green onions, chopped
½ t. garlic powder
Bread and/or sweet peppers, for serving

Directions

Heat oven to 425 degrees.

In a large saucepan, bring a lightly salted pot of water to a boil and then add the potatoes. Cook, covered, for 15 to 20 minutes, until tender, and drain.

Meanwhile in a large skillet, cook the bacon over medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon to drain on paper towels. When cool enough to touch, crumble bacon, reserving about 1 T. for topping.

In a large bowl, mash the still warm potatoes, add the remaining bacon, cream cheese, 1 c. cheddar cheese, the sour cream, green onions, and garlic powder. Stir to combine.

Spoon mixture into a 9- to 10-inch cast iron skillet.
Bake the mixture for 20 to 25 minutes or until heated through. Remove from heat and turn on the broiler.

Top the potato mixture with the remaining ½ c. cheddar cheese and the reserved bacon. Broil 4 to 5 inches from the heat for about 1 to 2 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Serve warm with the bread and/or peppers, and enjoy (even if it’s just you, treat yourself!)!

September 12, 2020

Savoring creamy salmon piccata

The first time I tasted chicken piccata was pretty much life-altering. I can’t say definitively that it was *the* recipe that made me want to up my cooking game, but it was pretty close.

I was living in rural North Dakota — before the oil boom — and there weren’t a lot of restaurant options; plus, I didn’t have a lot of money to eat out all the time (still don’t, in fact!). At the same time, there are only so many times you can cycle through the same handful of items you know how to make before you start looking for something, anything new.

At some point along that journey, I discovered the magical combination of flavors that make up a piccata: tart lemons, salty bursts of capers, a slight creaminess from butter, and the savoriness from a simple sauce mostly made of broth and wine. The plain-ish chicken breasts are just the perfect vehicle to enjoy the rest of the tastes on your tongue.

I like this classic dish so much, I made it into a trashy casserole that I like enough to have made multiple times.

So, as soon as I saw a recipe for a salmon piccata, my interest was piqued.

Unfortunately, the first two, yes TWO, recipes I came across for it had no exact measurements. Now, I’m not a super stickler for precision when I’m making dinner and not, say, a bread, but it helps to know a rough amount to ensure you end up with a sauce and not a soup.

I started Googling and found what turned out to be quite a few salmon piccata recipes. I found one that mostly suited my needs from a blog felicitously named Grateful that seemed similar to a handful of others I found, if not exact, so I mixed and matched a couple other ideas from other blogs to come up with what worked for me.

And well, since it met my tastes, I loved it. I served it with a side of orzo but any grain or pasta would make a great bed for this delicious — and extra creamy — sauce.

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients

2 T. olive oil
12 to 16 oz. skinless salmon filets
½ to 1 c. flour for dredging
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 T. garlic, minced
¾ c. plus 2 T. vegetable or chicken broth, divided
½ c. dry white wine
2 t. cornstarch
½ c. heavy cream
Juice from half a lemon, plus slices for serving
1 T. butter
2 T. minced fresh dill
2 ½ T. capers, rinsed
2 T. minced fresh parsley

Directions

Heat a 9- to 10-inch skillet nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add 1 T. olive oil.

Dab the salmon dry with paper towels. Dredge through the flour, seasoned with salt and pepper, and then place in skillet. Sear until bottom is golden brown, about 4 minutes. Carefully flip the fillets and then continue to cook until cooked through, about 2 to 3 minutes longer.

Transfer the salmon to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm.

Add the remaining olive oil and add garlic, sauteing until just brown, about 20 seconds. Pour in the broth, minus the 2 T., and wine and let simmer until broth is reduced by half, about 4 to 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix the cornstarch with the 2 T. remaining broth, and then pour mixture into the reduced broth mixture and cook until thickened, stirring often, about 1 minute.

Stir in the cream, lemon juice, butter, and dill. Remove from heat and return salmon to the skillet. Spoon the sauce over the salmon fillets, and then sprinkle with capers and parsley. Serve with a small pasta, such as orzo, maybe some white wine, and enjoy!

September 4, 2020

Peaches and bourbon, that’s my jam

Apparently I didn’t have enough of using booze to make food after last week.

This week’s excuse is only that I have been wanting to make this peach and bourbon jam recipe for years and for some reason didn’t think about the fact that although it called for a saucepan that it would almost certainly fit in my little Le Creuset.

Plus, I really like bourbon and peaches. Especially as I both mourn the end of summer and welcome the first hints of autumn.

This wonderful peach bourbon jam offers a good balance of both summer’s sweetness and cooling fall flavors.

I love bourbon pretty much any time of year, but with the cool comes the welcome sensation of a good whiskey burning through my insides. Peaches, of course, are peaking, and I can’t get enough of one of my favorite summer fruits while they’re in season.

The only thing I forgot about is my anxiety when it comes to getting things to an exact temperature.

From the first time I tried to make salt water taffy as a tween to my first personal blog on peanut brittle, I have a long habit of mostly screwing up this type of thing.

While the end result worked great (whew!), it was supposed to get to temperature in 6 minutes … but the recipe also warned to adjust the temp as needed. Me, I read that as turning things down, but I was disappointed when after 10 minutes, I was still about 15 degrees shy of the goal. I turned things back up and voila, I could literally see the change in texture to something that actually resembled a jam.

So, I did cook things down a little bit more than the 2 cup yield, but I got a peachy vanilla-y jam, and that’s just peachy keen for me.

All that’s missing is the peanut butter.

Here’s what I did, following an Epicurious recipe I’ve had saved for years:

Ingredients

½ vanilla bean
1 lb. ripe but firm yellow peaches, pitted and cut into ½-inch pieces
1 c. sugar
½ c. peeled and grated Granny Smith apple
1 c. bourbon
1 T. bottled lemon juice (the recipe specified the bottled for the preservative qualities)

Directions

Place two small plates in the freezer to chill (for testing thickness later).

Cut vanilla bean in half lengthwise, and scrape out seeds into a 9-inch coated cast-iron skillet. Add the rest of the vanilla bean, and then stir in the peaches, sugar, apple, bourbon, and lemon juice. Mix together, cover, and let sit for 20 minutes.

Turn on stovetop to medium-high heat, and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring often. Once sugar is dissolved, reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the peaches are softened, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Remove from heat, and crush the fruit with a potato masher until mostly smooth.

Return mixture to the stovetop, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring often and adjusting heat if necessary, until the mixture reaches 217 to 220 degrees, about 6 to 10 minutes.

To test consistency, place a teaspoon of the jam on the chilled plate, and freeze for 2 minutes. Then, drag your finger through the jam; if your finger leaves a distinct trail, it is ready, but if it’s still runny, continue to simmer the jam for another 1 to 3 minutes, and test again.

Meanwhile, place two 1-cup mason jars, or large mason jar under hot running water until heated through, 1 to 2 minutes, and shake dry. Use a funnel and ladle to portion out the hot jam into the hot jars. Let cool to room temperature, cover, and refrigerate until the jam is set, about 12 to 24 hours later. (Jam can be refrigerated for up to 2 months.) Enjoy with some toast, or use it to make a tasty PB&J sammy.