Patriot Stew

For reasons we won't go into, I spent much of the Fourth of July making slow-cooker stews. When the sweat dried a bit, I wrote a bit of a story about it. If I were normal, I'd tell you I hadn't turned the stove on since, but Sunday's rendered lard would give that the lie. Still, I think I sweated out my meat cravings for quite a while.

Every year around the beginning of July, I get the urge to roast a turkey. 98 degree days and beckoning beaches be damned; I hear the siren gobble of rich gamey gravy, sweet potatoes, and tart cranberry sauce. The source of these cravings remains shrouded in mystery, but I’ve always assumed it had some connection to the start of the summer vegetable explosion at the farmer’s market--an immediate urge to celebrate the harvest.

Since I don’t work for a major food magazine (the best excuse to roast turkeys out of season), and don’t own an air conditioner, an actual early Thanksgiving is not an option. This ‘Patriot Stew’ is the perfect answer, a celebration of New World ingredients in slow-cooker style.

Cheap and delicious, bone-in turkey thighs shine in the slow cooker. They cook down tender and flavorful without any risk of drying out. Tart dried cherries stand in for cranberries, and sweet potatoes, poblano chiles, and corn play themselves in their traditional roles. In keeping with the American-born theme, I used Six Point Righteous Ale for the braising liquid, but any assertive ale will work.

Just brown the onions, chop a few vegetables, pour in the beer and you’re free to spend all day at the beach. Have a beer for yourself while you’re at it. It may not be the traditional hot dog, but a bowl of this all-American stew with a tart green salad is a sparkling accompaniment to fireworks in the cool of the evening.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Far Breton and Honey Nut Scones

Rustic pastry bathed in golden light? Oh yes.

As I may have mentioned, Tuesdays with Dorie is finishing up and doubling up recipes to make it to the end by year's end. This week, both recipes were so appealing that I made them in one night.

Above, we have the Far Breton, a high-level example of what the British call nursery food--custardy batter pocked with sweet dried raisins, craisins, and cherries. The Far was a close cousin of some other good friends of mine, the clafoutis, the popover, and the cup custard, and so completely compelling in its eggy-ness that I ate it all in about 24 hours.

With most of my attention focused on the Far Breton, I didn't have a lot of time for the eating of scones, but these honey-walnut ones won my approval by being very plain and simple. Whole-wheat pastry flour was allowed to shine, and they were a perfect jam vehicle.

Speaking of jam vehicles, nursery custard, and the end of the year, I wanted to take a second to float an idea I've been hatching. (Mixed metaphor alert--unless the idea is perhaps a duck.) Having built a pretty decent reputation in the neighborhood as a provider of delicious things, I'd like to launch a little consignment business for the holiday season, providing pies, cookie plates, and other good things upon request. Perfect for your dinner party or host gift dilemma. More on this shortly, and all suggestions welcome.

Making Things Up

I've been making a lot of cake. There is buttercream in my dreams. After three little chocolate cakes in a row, it all started to tasted like Ho-Hos to me. I started to yearn for something white and fluffy, something with jam and creaminess. In a fit of perversity, I thought up the cake below--honey buttercream, rhubarb curd, crabapple jam, and buttery cake. 

All the recipes are based on Rose Levy Beranbaum's, though many are a bit adapted. The honey buttercream, from The Cake Bible, was good but I found it overwhelmingly buttery, and not strong enough on the honey, even after I beat in about a quarter of a cup of extra honey.

I decided that as long as I had all this soft buttercream and not enough sleep, the time was ripe to learn some flower piping techniques. I tried for sweet peas and roses, and...well, got some fluffy piles. Maybe next time I'll go with some stiffer frosting.

Pretty in pink.

Oh, by the way, this week's heavenly cake was the Swedish Pear and Almond Cream bundt, which I made a while ago.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Honey Wheat (Germ) Cookies

 

As Laurie, who hosts TWD, guessed, the snowy weather and simple nature of February's recipes combined to make it a near certainty that all the recipes would be done weeks before posting. In my eagerness, I made nearly all of them before January was even over. These honey-wheat germ cookies, though, although the ones I was most eager to make, had to wait until I could buy bulk wheat germ ($0.19 for a quarter pound!) at Fairway. Luckily, the show I am working on will be performed on a small and wonderful barge about 100 yards from the Red Hook Fairway, and on a recent windy night the production team made a site visit. Following our cozy and delightful conference, full of wood, woodstoves, carpets, and marvelous things, a few of us detoured to grocery shop, and I got my germ.

I have been convulsed with laughter by the general assertion going around some of the TWD blogroll that these cookies  are 'healthy' (with a stick of butter and white sugar and white flour). I know the general connotation of wheat germ, but people, please. It's almost as funny as when people insist that brown sugar is healthier. Just for the record, unless what you have is some fancy cane juice product, brown sugar is white sugar that has had molasses or color re-added. It's delicious, and has more flavor, but healthy? Well, exactly as healthy as white sugar. 

However, I don't have any requirement that my cookies be 'healthy'.  I don't mind if they are, but I don't really care. After all, they're cookies. I guess if healthy is for you the curse word that some of my fellow bakers find it to be...I know, they don't have a problem with 'healthy,' it's the perceived 'crunchy' that's bothering people. While I'm not denying that there are some segments of the brown-rice-lentil-burger world that taste terrible, there are also some segments of the velveeta-hamburger-steak world that suck. Getting all aerated about 'healthy' food can sometimes be as lame as having a fit about food that's meatless, as if it needed to be hysterically highlighted...'this is a vegetarian lasagne...but I had to put some bacon in so my husband didn't whine...' As someone who didn't know that lasagne without meat needed special fanfare until I reached the age of 25 or so, I'm underwhelmed by such statements. 

Healthy or no, these cookies were wonderful, lemony and honeyed and crunchy and soft, and irresistible. Too bad I only made half the recipe. If anyone would like to make a whole batch, and I strongly recommend it, the recipe can be found here.

Bread Baker's Apprentice: Corn Bread

In a brief break from yeast, (it won't be long, tomorrow Dorie brings you Brioche Plum Tart), Peter Reinhardt slips in some corn bread into the BBA lineup. This is northern corn bread, sweet and heavy, loaded with buttermilk and honey and wheat flour, and even a little butter, baked in a pan greased with a little hot turkey fat. I didn't use polenta, just coarse ground local corn meal, so I sped up Reinhardt's method somewhat and skipped the overnight soak, also the bacon.

It was moist, crumbly, and very good, dinner and dessert together.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Honey Peach Ice Cream

This week's challenge was another from the section of the book that I like best--spoon desserts. Although I live a little far north for peaches to be expected within the next two months, I bit my locavore lip and got a few to make this ice cream. For the honey, I used a jar that I've been holding on to from Uganda, strong flavored and made by a collective. The peaches are peeled and chopped, simmered in the honey, and then pureed. This puree is then mixed with a normal custard base, chilled, and frozen. The recipe calls for milk and cream, but I just used some very fancy half and half I'd bought (can't remember why) instead. The recipe makes a lot, nearly double what my ice cream maker could handle, so I churned half on Tuesday and am finishing the other batch now. I threw in a splash of rose wine while it was churning in an attempt to keep the finished product softer, but it still hardens in the freezer and needs a few minutes to thaw before scooping.

I thought this ice cream was ok--not the best texture nor the strongest flavor it could have been, but gentle and good. Now I just have to figure out what to do with with all of it.