Holiday Eats: Cranberry Pie

Thank goodness for bookmarks. I saved this recipe years ago after tripping across it in the wilds of cyberspace. It still took a long while before making it, and I'd be so mad at myself for that if it did any good. Instead, I will just make it as many times as I can to make up for all the missed opportunities!

Called Nantucket Cranberry Pie (original post here), this is texturally more like a cake, but let's not fight over semantics, shall we?

This recipe is dead simple, and simply delicious. You can put it together in mere minutes, and it's a tart and tangy treat to mix it up in a sea of pumpkin and pecan pies.

It's a one-bowl, easy-peasy, satisfying recipe. Chop the cranberries and nuts (I used pecans, though the recipe calls for walnuts), toss them with a 1/2 cup of sugar, and dump them in your pie tin.

Next, add 2 eggs, melted butter, flour, sugar, and almond extract to the same bowl you used to mix your berries & nuts. You'll have a thick, yellow batter ready to pour over the berries.

I made this for a work potluck and it was gone in no time. The tart cranberries and the mellow almond flavor were a great pairing, and more than one person asked me for the recipe. I think it might be on a few tables this Thanksgiving!

It's not the most photogenic dessert when sliced, but everyone will eat it too quickly even to notice! I loved this so much that I made it again 2 days later for company.

This dish has earned a spot in my immediate rotation of recipes. It's easy to prepare, bakes in less than 40 minutes, and goes just as well for dessert (I'll add some orange zest and top with whipped cream next time) as it does for breakfast, next to a steaming hot cup of coffee. I hope you'll give it a whirl!

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Personal Shepherd's Pies

I'd made mini pot pies a while back (for St. Patrick's Day), but I hadn't tried them yet the low-carb way. This dish was one of the few ways my mom could get me to eat vegetables when I was a kid. Now that I'm older and FAR less picky an eater, I find myself making this dish on my own. On a chilly November night, I decided to make a few personal servings of Shepherd's pie, with some tweaks.

I switched out the ground beef for ground turkey, and instead of peas, I used carrots. I'm not a registered dietitian, but I'll take the carbs in some organic carrots over junk food any day. Plus, the carrots looked so bright and colorful in what can be a dreary-looking dish. I also added mushrooms to the mix to sneak in some more veggies.

I boiled some cauliflower for 8 minutes, then put it in my food processor along with some roasted garlic, salt, pepper, and a small knob of cream cheese. I used this as the topping instead of heavier mashed potatoes. Most of the time, when I sub roasted cauliflower instead of white potatoes, no one even notices! Much lower carb count, still delicious!

After 30 minutes in the oven (at 400), they were perfectly browned on the top, and delicious inside! I had some that night for dinner with a good friend, and will be enjoying the leftovers this week for lunch!

Mini Shepherd's Pies:

1 lb ground turkey

1/2 yellow onion, diced

1 cup mushrooms, chopped

3 large carrots, chopped

Worcestershire sauce

1 bag (16 oz) frozen cauliflower

Salt, pepper, roasted garlic cloves, or garlic powder

Sauté the carrots and onions until softened, set aside (I don't like burned onions!)-- Add ground turkey to pan, brown. Once it's almost browned through, add mushrooms. As turkey is almost cooked through, splash a tablespoon or two of Worcestershire sauce and blend. Add a dash of salt & pepper to the meat, set aside.

While browning turkey, boil the frozen cauliflower for about 8 minutes, until softened. Blend in food processor with salt, pepper, a clove or two of roasted garlic (or garlic powder), and an ounce of cream cheese.

To assemble pies: add 1/4 cup of turkey and mushrooms into a ramekin. Add layer of carrots & onions. Top with the pureéd cauliflower, and use a fork to make little peaks in the cauliflower.

Bake in 400 degree oven for 30 minutes, or until the tops are browned. Let ramekin cool 5 minutes, but still use caution when handling the dishes (pot holders are key). This dish gets even better the next day!

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Spicy Carrot Soup

Our office LOVES to eat cook. Every so often, we take on a cooking challenge that focuses on one ingredient. In the past, we've featured lemon, pumpkin, and apple, in sweet and savory forms. This time, the lowly carrot, so often pushed aside as an overlooked, overcooked side, too center stage.

I decided to make a harissa-spiked soup I made years ago for a dinner party. It struck me as something different, a new mix of flavors for our group. And it couldn't be easier!

Okay, there is peeling and chopping to do with those carrots, but I find chopping to be very relaxing. You might disagree, and that's cool. Takes all kinds, right?

It's basically sautéed carrots & leeks, stock, and harissa. So dead simple! Once the carrots of softened, you put half of the soup in a blender and purée it, then add it back to the soup. Adds a nice texture and heft to it.
The original recipe calls for chicken stock, but we have a few vegetarians at work, so I switched to vegetable stock. I've never really used veggie stock before, but it turned out to be just fine. It was a different flavor, but it was still delicious, and some of the vegetarians thought the stock's richness gave the dish a meaty taste, anyway!

Harissa, a spicy pepper sauce popular in Northern African cuisine, is the magic ingredient. But a little goes a long, long way. I ended up adding an extra teaspoon, and it was deemed too spicy for some. I'd stick with just the recommended two!

Carrot hummus!

Carrot ring: EPIC

The next morning, I put the soup in a Thermos and carried it off to our Carrot Gathering. We had a delicious variety of sweet and savory dishes (Carrot ring! Carrot juice! Carrot hummus! Carrot-feta dip! Carrot CAKE!!!), and will be adding some of those recipes to my own repertoire! This outing also solidified this spicy soup as a favorite of mine.
You can put it together in less than 20 minutes, and yet the flavor of this dish is surprisingly complex!
You can get the easy-as-all-getout-recipe here!

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Pumpkin Un-Cocoa

Tired of tea? Can't even consider another cup of cocoa? Or maybe you just want something a little different to warm you up in this cold weather? Here's an easy recipe that takes almost no time at all in the kitchen.

Gothamist featured this un-cocoa a while back-- originally from the Hungry Mouse blog (visit here!), and I made it recently. HOLY goodness. Try it. Takes all of 5 minutes to put together: milk, pumpkin purée, vanilla, spices, and the sweetener of your choice (I used Splenda, the original recipe calls for sugar).

In my world, whipped cream makes everything better (I also lightly sweetened this with a bit of Splenda) and topped with with a dash or two of freshly-shaved nutmeg. The Hungry Mouse author suggests spiced rum as well, but this is also delicious as is. Deeeelicious.

And kitty approved!

Original recipe here at The Hungry Mouse! Follow @Lkpnyc

Hurricane Chicken

You might have heard about this Hurricane Irene chick who came barreling through NYC. While she wreaked havoc, destruction, and sadly, even death in other states, she lost a lot of steam by the time she got to the Empire State. This meant we had a lot of provisions that, well, we didn't really need so badly any more. I decided to take some of the leftovers from my storm supplies and make what I dubbed "Hurricane Chicken."



I had half a bunch of leftover cilantro, some garlic that was starting to sprout, and some fading celery and onions.

I washed and trimmed all the veggies, taking out the bitter green shoot from the otherwise-fine garlic, and arranging everything in a roasting dish.
It doesn't look like much, maybe, but it's worth using, and I always feel better when I don't waste food.

I tossed the garlic, leftover cilantro, and unsalted butter into my mini food processor and made a delicious-smelling compound butter.

I took about 1/3 of it and shmeared it under the chicken skin (I have yet to do this without poking at least one hole in the chicken skin--don't worry--it still comes out just fine). I put the rest of the butter in the fridge for later.

I sprinkled a generous tablespoon of salt over the bird, stuffed a quartered lime in the bird's cavity, poured a cup of leftover white wine in the pan and...um... do you see anything wrong with this picture? I'll explain later..

I cooked the bird at 450 for just over an hour, and tossed some seasoned zucchini in for the last 20 minutes. I didn't baste the bird at all, just let the butter layer do its work.

The chicken was dreamily delicious...no, succulent! The lime and cilantro gave it a nice Caribbean kick, and the butter made the skin nice and crispy. The pan juices? ZOMG.

It wasn't until the next day that I realized I put the chicken in the pan UPSIDE DOWN. Listen--severe weather can be stressful! Regardless, the bird was super juicy and scrumptious, and I nibbled on plenty of chicken as I plated the rest and put it up in the fridge. Oh, lunch this week is going to be great! Chicken sandwiches, chicken soup, chicken salad, chicken quesadillas....

"Hurricane" Chicken

1/2 bunch cilantro (or any leftover fresh herbs)
1 stick butter, softened
3-4 cloves garlic
1 lime, washed, scrubbed & quartered
1 3-4 lb roasting chicken
leftover veggies
1 cup white wine
salt & pepper

Trim veggies and arrange in roasting dish. Mix butter, garlic and herbs in mini food processor. Take 2-3 TBS of the butter and rub it over chicken, underneath skin.
Reserve the rest of the butter (don't touch with the hands that just touched raw chicken!) for later--it's great on warm rolls. Put lime quarters in chicken cavity, sprinkle bird with generous 2 Tbs of salt, fresh cracked pepper, and pop it in the oven for 50-60 minutes, until done (165 on meat therm, or when juices run clear).

Enjoy--and may all your storms bring more hype than harm!

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Balsamic-Strawberry Jam (make this NOW)

Forget the jars, the tongs, the mess. THIS is the jam recipe you need in your life. While relaxing upstate with LP & friends, Laura mentioned an Epicurious recipe that was allegedly dead simple--just a handful of everyday ingredients. And the combo? Irresistible. Strawberries & balsamic vinegar? Yes, please!

We doubled this recipe and had about 4 pounds of strawberries to hull and quarter (our adapted recipe is at the bottom of this post). I found this part very relaxing--we just sat at the table, sang along to some music, and all pitched in on the berries. These were done in no time. Yes, I sampled a few... you know, for 'quality assurance.'

These were so sweet that we dialed back the sugar to about 1 1/4 cups instead of two, also mixing brown/turbinado sugar instead of just white. We added this, 4 teaspoons of freshly-cracked black pepper, and the water and vinegar to the pot, dissolving everything before adding the bright, luscious berries.

A boil turned to a slow, steady simmer, and 30 minutes later we were sampling the delicious result. Wow. Talk about layers o' flavor! First you get the sweet strawberries with a rich undercurrent of the balsamic, and a tickly, tingly heat from the pepper.

We used some jars from the pantry--just old jam jars and whatnot. We didn't bother with boiling the contents and sealing the jars--this was for immediate consumption!

We put this on generous spreads of goat cheese, a topping of fresh mint from the garden, and we had culinary ecstasy! I can also attest to the deliciousness of it atop vanilla ice cream. Trust me, it won't be around long enough to worry about 'preserving!'

Ingredients:

2 cups strawberries (about 1 pint), trimmed and quartered
1 1/4 cups sugar (we used white & turbinado)
6 Tbs balsamic vinegar
6 Tbs water
4 teaspoons cracked black pepper (we ramped up the pepper, and how!)
1 Tbs lemon juice
2 tsp lemon zest

Add everything but the berries to a large saucepan on low heat, stir until sugar dissolves. Add berries and coat completely. Bring mixture to boil, then quickly bring down to steady simmer for at least 30 minutes stirring from time to time. It's ready once it starts to thicken up, but it will still be mostly liquid. Try to avoid scarfing the entire mixture right then and there. I dare you.



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Savoring Summer

Summer is definitely here in NYC, and yesterday I was lucky enough to be invited to a delicious backyard BBQ at Tom & Jen's. They are quite the hosts, and had more food than we could possibly eat, but oh my, did we try!

Tom started us out with his fresh-baked boule, which had Herbes de Provence in it and was delicious all on its own. Isn't that a gorgeous sight??

My contribution was to make the mojitos. First Jen & I went into the backyard garden and harvested fresh handfuls of mint--what an amazing smell.

Mojitos can be labor-intensive if you make them one by one, so I opted to make a big bowl o' mojitos.

It's pretty simple--equal parts white rum & seltzer water, and 1 cup of sugar per liter of rum. I use powdered sugar, since it melts better than granulated. I don't like my mojitos too sweet--just sweet enough. Use granulated sugar, though, to gently muddle the mint leaves, which you let simmer in the bowl for about 30 minutes before serving. We sugared the rims of the cups for an extra bit of sweetness.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story--Tom's delicious cherry rickey, watermelon salad with feta and basil, grilled chicken sausage with feta, quinoa salad with cucumbers, almonds & dried cranberries, kielbasa, quail, chicken skewers marinated in lemongrass and tamarind, succulent grilled salmon...just so much more than we could ever possibly eat. I hope you are having a relaxing Memorial Day weekend, full of delicious food, wonderful company, and good times all around.

Hope your summer is off to a delicious start!!

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London: A Proper (British) Breakfast

I discovered poached eggs in 1996, on my second, wondrous trip to London. I do not exaggerate when I say I ate poached eggs and porridge every. single. day. for 2 weeks! I never got sick of it, and poached eggs remain my favorite still.

I was excited to make my perfectly poached eggs for ABF. On the day of the Royal Wedding, I turned on the television telly and sashayed into the kitchen to get cooking.

We had organic, free-range eggs (courtesy of my new favorite store, Waitrose) that I poached up on his electric (ugh!) stove.

I had to relearn patience as I waited for the pan to heat up with the appropriate amount of bubbles.

The porridge was a simple heat-up move, as ABF makes a big batch every week ahead of time. ABF bought the Waitrose brand, fortified with oat bran for extra fiber and heft (I normally eat the regular, smoother porridge, but this was lovely, too). Zap it for 20 seconds in the microwave and top it with 2 teaspoons of IKEA's orange-elderflower marmalade (must get this for home!!!)

In about 5 minutes I had toasted bread with a poached egg for each of us (normally I would make 2 per person, but we were running low on eggs!), a cup of porridge, and a hot cup of coffee in the French Press.

Mmm...yolky.

What a delicious way to start the day. What's the one thing YOU can eat every day and not get sick of scarfing??

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