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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

September 26, 2012 by 17 Comments

There is nothing like a warm cookie on a cold day. While my husband and I play our annual game of “just how long can we wait to fire up the wood stove”, the days are getting cooler and the nights are colder yet.

We try to eek as many days wood stove-free as we possibly can out of each year and steadfastly refuse to start a fire at least –AT LEAST- until fall has officially started. It’s ridiculous. It’s petty. It’s stupid… we march around in so many layers that we look like the baby brother in ‘A Christmas Story’. We wear gloves in the house. I bake like it’s my job. In a way, I suppose it actually is, considering how many mouths we feed.

Baked potato lunches are had for no reason other than I want to warm the darned place up a bit. Bread is baked for anyone who looks like they might have ever been hungry just because.  The boys check on the progress of whatever is in the oven even more than they usually do because, well, they want to warm up as much as I do. No soufflés this time of year, no sireebob. The oven door is opened too many times for something as delicate as that.

But cookies… Cookies get the most play of everything. Cookies are the almost instant gratification of the baking world. You whip the dough together and then you wait about twelve minutes. Sure, you probably oughta wait at least until they cool down enough not to take the skin off of the roof of your mouth, but let’s not kid each other. I bite into a cookie as soon as it holds together long enough for me to get it to my maw from the pan.

Since we’ve already established my bonafide obsession with all things pumpkin, you probably shouldn’t be surprised that one of my favourite cookies at this, the very cookie-est time of year, is a pumpkin one. It’s not just any pumpkin cookie, though. Oh no. It’s a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. Hallelujah! It’s everything wonderful all at once.

I have to confess, I roast the pumpkins to make the pumpkin puree for these bad boys. I do it for two reasons (one of which I’m sure you’ve already sussed out.)

  1. While the pumpkins are roasting, the house is warming. Heck yes.
  2. I like homemade pumpkin puree better. I just plain do.

Now, if you don’t have access to sugar pumpkins or don’t feel like roasting your own or aren’t as dogged and stubborn as I am and have a plenty warm house, by all means, use canned pumpkin puree. And I like my cookies made with white whole wheat flour (King Arthur, thankyouverymuch), but you’re more than welcome to substitute all-purpose flour in equal amounts if that doesn’t float your boat. Just think, though… pumpkin, whole wheat, oats and chocolate? That’s practically a health tonic. Right? RIGHT?!?

I’m partial to using Nestlé TollHouse SemiSweet Morsels here. Honestly, who doesn’t get excited when they see that yellow bag of sweet goodness? You know it’s going to be good when you see that! Pumpkin and chocolate were meant to be together. Truly.

One more thing, and then I’ll leave you to cookie baking; if you have kids at home, please get them involved in baking these.  Taciturn teenagers (and I am NOT saying mine is one),

Look! A Jedi is making cookies in my kitchen!

silly sweet eight year olds,

Pssst. He’s wearing a pumpkin coloured shirt. We are all obsessed.

and every age in-between and above and below love having a hand in making cookies. If they balk, go all Little Red Hen on them and inform them that they have to make ‘em to eat ‘em. I guarantee they’ll enjoy it once they get started. And when they get to eat the fruits (or the cookies, rather) of their labours, they’ll be so proud.

What I especially love about these cookies is that they have a little bit of an identity crisis. Like me. Hello, I’m the girl who equally loves Downton Abbey, Dr. Who, Tommy Boy, The Godfather, Babette’s Feast, Punk, Gospel Music, Bluegrass, and Classical.  I can’t make up my mind! The cookies almost act like little hand held cakes. But then they’re like oatmeal cookies. And then they’re ever so slightly pumpkin-y. But no! They’re a chocolate chip cookie. Oh geez. Whatever. They’re just wonderful!

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Indulge in this taste of the season -Pumpkin Chocolate Chips Cookies- all you want; they're made with real pumpkin and oats. You'd never know how healthy they were to taste them!

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat (or all purpose) flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 cup chilled butter
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup fresh or canned pumpkin (or butternut or acorn squash) puree
  • 1 3/4 cups rolled or quick oats
  • 1 cup chocolate chips or chocolate chunks, preferably semi-sweet

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Whisk together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and baking soda in a large mixing bowl. Using a pastry cutter or two butterknives, cut in the butter until it the butter is pea-sized or smaller.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin or squash puree and the egg until smooth. Add that into the dry ingredients along with the oats and chocolate chips until the mixture is evenly combined and there are no dry pockets.

Scoop onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet by rounded tablespoons (or with a cookie scoop/disher.) Bake for 12 minutes or until the cookies are set and lightly browned around the edges. These cookies will not flatten as they bake.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/09/26/pumpkin-chocolate-chip-cookies/

 

 
All opinions are -as always- my own.

This post is sponsored by Nestlé®
Toll House® Morsels, the perfect special ingredient for all of
your family’s favorite treats!

Filed Under: Recipes Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Pumpkin Cake with Maple Frosting and Apple Cider Caramel

September 18, 2012 by 23 Comments

Fall.

Autumn.

It’s just around the corner. As in, it’s four days away. Could you pardon me for a moment?

(FALLFALLFALLFALLFALLFALLFALL YAY! WAHOO! WHOOPWHOOPWHOOP! Zippity hippity hoppity doo dah! YEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!AU-TUMN! Uh huh, uh huh, uh huhuhhuhuhhuh. Happy DANCE! )

Um, thank you. I kind of needed to get that out of my system. I wait from February fifteenth (there’s something so romantic about snow on Valentine’s Day) to -oh, say- September twenty first of every year to get to fall. I love pumpkins and apples and squash and brightly coloured leaves and crisp air and apple crisps and oh my gosh… I just love everything about it.

I love drizzly, cold days and grey skies. I love driving down the road and seeing all the pumpkins for sale. I am passionately insane over winter squash. Butternut squash makes me swoon. Pumpkin. Pumpkin makes me flip my lid. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin custard, little bitty pumpkins stuffed with rice and sausage, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin ravioli, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin soup. I’m like the Benjamin Buford Blue (a.k.a.the Bubba in Bubba Gump) of pumpkin.

I could eat pumpkin in just about any form, but my favourite is dessert. There’s something about pumpkin desserts that bridge that savoury/sweet line with such ease. It’s a vegetable so it almost feels like desserts made from it are health food. Hoo-yeah.And this cake I’m about to show you today… It has a vegetable and a fruit. That’s so healthy it’s almost disgusting.

It’s everything autumn; super moist pumpkin spice cake with a maple sugar glaze and apple cider caramel. Rawrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Just look at this.

 

Can you guess how long that cake lasted at our house? I can’t give you an exact time, but I can tell you it was less than twelve hours and probably less than eight. Time is a little fuzzy. We were kind of on a bit of a pumpkin high…

There’s a bonus -as if the cake wasn’t good enough by itself- the apple cider caramel portion of the recipe makes more than enough for the cake. In other words, you have some apple cider caramel leftover. In other other words, EXTRA CARAMEL for more cakes later or for drizzling on oatmeal or stirring into coffee or tea or hot cider or over ice cream or just plain on a spoon.

Oh gosh, I so love fall.

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Pumpkin Cake with Maple Frosting and Apple Cider Caramel

Pumpkin Cake with Maple Frosting and Apple Cider Caramel

Super moist pumpkin spice cake -redolent with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves- topped with a silky smooth maple sugar frosting and drizzled with tangy, sweet apple cider caramel. This is pure fall!

Ingredients

    For the Cake:
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened to room temperature
  • 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 2 large eggs, room temperature
  • 1 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix) or homemade pureed pumpkin
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk, room temperature
    • For the Maple Frosting:
  • *Note: If maple sugar is not available, substitute dark brown sugar for a brown sugar frosting.)
  • 1/2 cup maple sugar
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 3 tablespoons milk (preferably whole milk)
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
    • For the Apple Cider Caramel:
  • 1/2 cup Boiled Cider Syrup also available through Amazon.com or King Arthur Flour
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 4 tablespoons of butter, cut into four pats

Instructions

To Make the Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Grease a bundt pan with oil or non-stick cooking spray then flour the pan. Tap out the excess and set the pan aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the batter blade (or in a bowl with an electric mixer) cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides and add the eggs, one at a time, blending and scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. When the eggs are fully incorporated, blend in the pumpkin and vanilla. It may look curdly and horrid, but that's okay! Keep going!

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour with the rest of the dry ingredients. Add about 1/3 of the flour to the butter mixture and blend until incorporated. Add 1/2 of the buttermilk and blend in completely. Repeat with another 1/3 of the flour and blend. Finish mixing the batter by adding the final 1/2 of buttermilk, mixing, then adding the final 1/3 of flour.

Spoon the cake batter into the prepared bundt pan, gently smooth the top and bake the cake for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick or skewer inserted in the thickest part of the cake comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly with your finger.

Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and let rest for 5 minutes before carefully turning out onto the rack to cool completely. While the cake cools, make the caramel...

To Make the Apple Cider Caramel:

Bring the boiled cider syrup and brown sugar to a boil over medium heat. Boil for 3 minutes. Whisk in the heavy cream and return to a boil. Boil for 2 more minutes then drop the heat to low. Add the butter one pat at a time, whisking it in until it's fully incorporated. When all of the pats of butter have been added and incorporated, pour the hot caramel into a clean pint jar, reserving any excess for drizzling over the cake. Let cool completely before drizzling on the cake.

To Make the Maple Frosting and Assemble the Cake:

Bring the maple sugar, butter, and milk to a boil, whisking constantly. Boil for 1 minute, still whisking constantly. Remove the pan from the heat and add the vanilla extract. Be careful, it will boil up!

Gradually whisk in the powdered sugar. Continue whisking it gently until smooth, cooled slightly and thick, about 3-5 minutes.

Place the cooled cake on a cake plate or serving platter and immediately pour warm maple frosting over the cake. Let the frosting rest for 5 minutes, then drizzle with the apple cider caramel.

Store leftovers, well covered, at room temperature for up to 3 days.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/09/18/pumpkin-cake-with-maple-frosting-and-apple-cider-caramel/

 

Filed Under: Cakes, Desserts, kid food, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Grape Pie Filling and Grape Pie | Make Ahead Mondays

September 17, 2012 by 14 Comments

 

I’ve been blessed to have the chance to move around a little bit in this great country of ours and see a bit of the world. Although I’ve lived in rural Western New York longer than I have anywhere else, I was born a Michigan girl and I believe I’ll always identify myself as a Michigander. There are, however, a few moments where I’m close to claiming that New Yorker moniker.

It probably comes as no surprise that most of those moments are surrounding food; beef on weck, white hots, wings, salt potatoes and grape pie. Grape pie was -perhaps- the biggest revelation of all of those quintessential New York foods. Made of Concord grapes, it retains that highly perfumed, heady scent that fires up instant salivation. It’s the smell that every grape soda and candy in the history of soda and candy has tried and failed to capture. There’s something about those fresh Concord grapes that makes my brain absolutely swim with joy. It is pure autumn.

New York is carpeted with vineyards and u-pick grape farms. If you drive through the right area of the state with your windows down in September you will smell that distinctive aroma. The perfume drifting across the countryside combined with the Crayola-tinged leaves and the brisk air is a clear indicator that the season has turned.

Grape pie is a food I used to wait for every single year. That is until I learned to make and can my own grape pie filling. Why this hasn’t caught on commercially is beyond me. Grape pie is tart and sweet, juicy and velvety, with the soft, simmered grape skins providing body and texture. It’s a little high on the labour side, when you’re used to just tossing berries into a pot with sugar and Clear Jel, but part of the initial joy of the grape pie is the experience of sitting in a circle around two big pots on the front porch slipping the skins from the grapes two at a time. Holding a grape in each hand, we laugh as we gently squeeze the juicy insides into one pot and deposit the grape skins in the other. Maybe it takes us a half an hour? Maybe an hour? Time has a mind of its own with a mug of whatever gets you out of bed in the morning -coffee or tea- wedged between your feet and enjoying that weather and each others’ company so thoroughly.

Into the kitchen with the pots… the grape guts simmer until the seeds come free and then are poured through a colander to filter out the pesky seeds. The remaining pulp and juice go into the pot with the skins and just enough sugar, a little lemon juice or citric acid and some Clear Jeland bubble away ’til boiling and thick. Fill the jars, wipe the rims, add the lids and tenderly lower those jars into the canner. When they’ve processed, wipe them clean, label them and put them on the shelves for mid-winter attacks of grape pie cravings coupled with reminiscences of autumn splendor.

And geez. Don’t feel obliged to make pies only. Grape pie filling transforms into a lovely cake filling or ice cream topping. You wouldn’t be too far amiss spreading it on a sandwich and I certainly wouldn’t judge if you made turnovers or ‘jam’ filled cookies with it.

When it’s time for the fabled pie you ease your favourite crust into a pie plate, open a jar of the royal purple filling and empty it in. Crimp the edges, cut a few vents in whatever style dings your chimes…

The trickiest part of the whole process comes right now. It’s the waiting; waiting for the pie to bake, then waiting for the pie to cool, then waiting that seemingly interminable wait for that wedge of fragrant, sweet, caramelized-sugar dusted crust to be delivered to your hands.

In the end, it is all worth it; it delivers on all of the tantalizing promises of scent and vision. Every second of what sweet torturous anticipation was worth it when your fork drops into a flaky pie crust surrounding thickened, silky grape juice surrounding tender grape skins. Lips and teeth and tongues are stained purple like your finger tips were months earlier when you put up the pie filling. These are the moments that hook you on canning.

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Grape Pie Filling and Grape Pie | Make Ahead Mondays

Grape Pie Filling and Grape Pie | Make Ahead Mondays

This classic autumnal Western New York pie captures the pure perfumed, robust sweet and tart essence of Concord grapes.

Do yourself a favour and serve the pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. The cool, sweet, vanilla is the perfect foil to the tart, sweet grape pie. It's a match made in heaven.

Ingredients

    For the Pie Filling:
  • 22 cups Concord grapes, washed
  • 4 cups granulated sugar
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice (or 1 teaspoon citric acid)
  • 1 cup ClearJel starch (or another brand of the same type of starch)
    • For the Grape Pie:
  • 1 quart of grape pie filling
  • Pie pastry for a double crust
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • raw sugar or granulated sugar for sprinkling over the crust, optional

Instructions

To Prepare and Can Grape Pie Filling:

Working over two pots, take a grape in each hand and gently squeeze it over the first pot. Deposit the grape skins in the second pot. Continue until you have separated all of the grape pulps from the grape skins.

Place the pot with the grape pulps (do not add water!) over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring frequently, allowing it to boil for 5 to 6 minutes. Put the hot pulp through a food mill or pour it through a colander, pressing to get as much pulp through as possible. Pour the hot, sieved pulp over the reserved grape skins.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the sugar and ClearJel (and citric acid, if using.) Sprinkle over the grape pulp mixture and use a big whisk or sturdy spoon to mix in thoroughly. Put the pot over medium heat, and bring to a boil, stirring constantly, until thick. It should thicken quickly, but it does still need to be bubbling before you can put it in jars.

Place a canning funnel -for neatness' sake- over the opening of a clean, sterilized quart jar and ladle in the hot pie filling leaving 1-inch of headspace. For help on learning how to sterilize your jars, click this link Moisten a paper towel and wipe the rims of the jars so they are spotless. Center a new lid on the jar and screw the ring in place until fingertip-tight.

Place the jars in a canning pot, ensure they are completely covered with water, bring to a boil and process for 30 minutes. When the 30 minutes are up, turn off the heat, remove the canner lid and let the jars rest for 5 minutes before carefully transferring to a cooling rack or a towel on the counter. Let cool, undisturbed, overnight before removing rings, wiping clean and labeling. Store the jars in a cool, dark place for up to two years.

To Make the Grape Pie:

Preheat oven to 425°F. Roll out half of the pie pastry and lay it gently in the pie plate so that it covers the whole plate and drapes a little outside of the top, too. Pour the jar of grape pie filling into the crust and spread it with a spatula. Roll out the second crust to just slightly larger than the circumference of the top of the pie plate. Lay it on top of the pie filling and gather the excess pastry, folding it under to form a neat edge. Crimp with a fork or whatever style you prefer, cut a few vent holes in whatever shapes you like.

Brush the pastry with the beaten egg and then sprinkle generously with the sugar, if using. This creates a deeper coloured crust and a little bit of sparkle.

Bake for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350°F and continue baking for another 30-40 minutes, or until the crust is deep brown and the filling is bubbly. If you find the crust is browning too quickly, you can gently crimp foil around the outside edge to protect the edges.

Carefully transfer the pie plate to a cooling rack and let cool completely -if ever you can make yourself wait- before slicing. The filling will still slump out, but may hold together a bit better if you let it cool first.

For the ultimate Western New York experience, serve each slice of pie with a scoop of Perry's Vanilla Ice Cream on top.

Store leftovers tightly covered at room temperature for up to 3 days.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/09/17/grape-pie-filling-and-grape-pie-make-ahead-mondays/

Filed Under: Desserts, Make Ahead Mondays, Rebecca, Recipes Tagged With: , , , ,

Corn Stock plus Roasted Corn and Potato Chowder | Make Ahead Mondays

September 10, 2012 by 9 Comments

Soup and sweater weather…

There simply isn’t any weather I like better than those first days of fall -REAL FALL- where the skies are gunmetal grey and leaves are just starting to turn. It’s a mighty wind, and it’s brisk, and it wants to blow right through you. It makes you understand why those leaves finally give up and flutter around. We, thankfully, have sweaters and comfy socks.

And soup.

First, you may have been around here long enough to know I’m a huge fan of movies. My most favourite movies are usually absurd comedies. Squarely in that category falls the movie  ‘Best In Show’ by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy. It’s a mockumentary where a bizarre group of characters competes to win a national dog show. The entire movie is weird, wonderful and hysterical from start to finish, but there is one exchange that has always stuck with my husband and I.

Jennifer Coolidge’s gold-digging, much younger trophy wife character, Sherri Ann Cabot, is talking about how very in love she is with her MUCH older, senile, immobile, uncommunicative, wealthy husband.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9jxSOxtYHs[/youtube]

“We have so much in common, we both love soup and snow peas, we love the outdoors, and talking and not talking. We could not talk or talk forever and still find things to not talk about.”

In short, since seeing that movie, my husband and I quote that one passage every. single. time. we have soup. Given that we also love soup, that quote gets pretty solid play in our house. And I’ll tell you this, unlike Leslie Ward Cabot, it hasn’t gotten old yet.

Let’s make like Sherri Ann and Leslie and talk about soup for a moment, shall we?

This chowder is not for the low-fat crowd. Not only does it use bacon -and a lot of it!-, not only does it have butter, not only does it have cream cheese, but it has all three in abundance. Glory hallelujah! Don’t spend your days waiting for Guffman, it’s time to bust out the comfort food.

While you can certainly make this chowder with a store-bought chicken or vegetable stock, it really sings up a storm when made with the simplest stock you can ever make; Corn Stock. If you’ve been with me long enough to know I’m a movie nut, you’ll also know that I’m firmly in the waste not/want not camp as well. Corn Stock is what I like to call a three-fer.

  1. You prepare the corn the way you  normally would (I vastly prefer roasting it because it’s easier to do large amounts than boiling.) Cut the corn from the cob and freeze it or use it immediately.
  2. Boil the cobs for stock.
  3. Give the boiled cobs to the chickens who will get whatever is left that is edible and use it as energy to make eggs.

If that isn’t a frugal gal’s dream, I don’t know what is. Most importantly, though, the corn stock gives your chowder something that no other stock can. It gives it an essence of summer sweet corn that simply is not available in any other way mid-autumn or winter. If that doesn’t send a shiver of anticipation up your spine (unlike a spinal tap), then you’ve never lived in the snow belt.

Just imagine a bowl of rich chowder resplendent with roasted corn (that which you cut from the cob and froze, you frugal cook you!), cubes of potato with a hint of red skin still on, and hints of orange carrot in a fragrant broth that smells just like fresh sweet corn and is made thicker and velvety with the addition of cream cheese. Does that warm you up yet?

Don’t just talk about it: slurp that soup like Leslie!

 

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Corn Stock plus Roasted Corn and Potato Chowder | Make Ahead Mondays

Corn Stock plus Roasted Corn and Potato Chowder | Make Ahead Mondays

Make as much of the Corn Stock as you can while corn is still in season. You'll be so glad to have the essence of summery corn available to you in the winter. Use in stews, risottos, and soups.

This luscious, hearty, rich chowder is resplendent with roasted corn (that which you cut from the cob and froze, you frugal cook you!), cubes of potato with a hint of red skin still on, and hints of orange carrot in a fragrant broth that smells just like fresh sweet corn and is made thicker and velvety with the addition of cream cheese.

Ingredients

    For the Corn Stock:
  • 2 dozen ears of corn, roasted and shucked (preferably) or shucked and boiled
  • 2 cooking onions
  • 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
  • 1 handful fresh or frozen parsley stems
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 sprigs fresh time or 2 teaspoons of dried thyme leaves
  • 2 gallons fresh cold water
    • For the Roasted Corn and Potato Chowder:
  • 1 pound of bacon (Omit the bacon and add another 4 tablespoons of butter for a vegetarian version.)
  • 2 tablespoons of butter
  • 2 medium sized cooking onions, peeled and cut into small cubes
  • 1 tablespoon minced or pressed garlic
  • 5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 8 cups corn stock (or chicken stock)
  • 6 medium sized red potatoes, scrubbed and cut into small cubes
  • 1 carrot, peeled and cut into small cubes
  • 4 cups frozen or fresh roasted corn, cut from the cob
  • 8 ounces cream cheese, softened to room temperature
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • sliced green onions and minced fresh parsley, if desired, for serving

Instructions

To Make the Corn Stock:

Stand an ear of corn up on its flat end on a cutting board. Using a gentle sawing motion with a very sharp knife, cut down the ears, removing the kernels from the cobs as you go. Transfer the corn kernels to a parchment lined, rimmed baking sheet and stick in the freezer until solid. Transfer those corn kernels to zipper top freezer bags and store for use in soups or salads.

Put the cleaned cobs along with the remaining stock ingredients into a large stockpot or electric countertop roaster oven. Cover the pot and bring up to a boil. Drop the heat and let it cook at a low simmer for 1-4 hours. Use tongs to remove the boiled cobs from the stock. (I give those to my chickens after they've cooled.) Pour the remaining liquid through a fine mesh sieve over a pitcher or other deep pot. You can use the stock immediately,

~or you can pressure can it (leaving 1-inch of headspace) at 15 pounds of pressure for 75 minutes. The jars can be stored on the shelf for up to two years.

~or you can cool the stock and pour it into zipper top freezer bags in single use portions then freeze it for up to 6 months.

~or you can refrigerate it and use it within 2 weeks.

To Make the Roasted Corn and Potato Chowder:

Cut across the slices of bacon to make 1/2-inch strips. In a soup pot over medium heat, cook the bacon, stirring frequently, until it is crisp. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the crispy bacon to a paper towel lined plate. Set it aside -no snitching!- until the soup is almost done.

Drain all but 1/4 cup of the bacon grease. You can eyeball it: you don't need to be precise. Add the butter to the bacon grease and place the pan over medium low heat. Add the onions and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic in and stir, cooking for an additional minute.

Sprinkle the flour over the onion/garlic/butter mixture and whisk it in thoroughly. Raise the heat to medium and cook for 2 minutse, stirring often. It should be bubbly. Add the corn stock, whisking to combine, then the potatoes and carrots. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer and cook until the potatoes and carrots are super tender.

In a heat-proof bowl, lightly smash the softened cream cheese with a fork. Using a ladle, add a little of the hot corn stock to the cream cheese, working it in with a fork or a whisk until smooth. After you've added enough hot stock to it to create a thick but pourable liquid, add it back into the pan of soup, stirring to combine. Add the corn in and stir, cooking only until the corn is heated all the way through. Taste the broth and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with a handful of sliced green onions and chopped fresh parsley, if desired. Don't forget a big chunk of bread to sop up the irresistible broth!

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/09/10/corn-stock-plus-roasted-corn-and-potato-chowder-make-ahead-mondays/

Filed Under: Comfort Food, Component Foods, Main Dish, Make Ahead Mondays, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Fresh Tomato Salad with Smoked Blue Cheese | Five Minute Recipe

September 4, 2012 by 4 Comments

 

This weekend, my mom embarked on an adventure. She decided to live a little more simply. Okay. A lot more simply. She decided to try giving up running water and most electricity a couple months ago and move into a building on our property where she could do that without committing to a piece of real estate. This weekend was the big move.

My kids have always called her Nana and in the last month we’ve tagged “Free Range” onto the front of that. She is to be known, henceforth, as Free Range Nana. As part of the move, she plundered her own garden at her old rental property and brought down a goodly bowl of beautiful salad tomatoes. In order to properly welcome her to our little corner of paradise, I decided to whip up a salad of epic proportions on the flavour scale but negligible proportions on the effort scale.

Everyone knows that a good tomato doesn’t need much tinkering, and this salad takes advantage of that trait. Free Range Nana loves a good salad. I simply sliced those gorgeous, ruby-red orbs, fanned them out on a platter and hit them with a little nice aged balsamic vinegar, a drizzle of olive oil, and some cracked black pepper and sea salt. Here, however, is where the big bang really happened: I tossed a bunch of crumbled smoked blue cheese and parsley over the whole thing.

Smoked. Blue. Cheese.

Have you had this yet? If you haven’t, and you like regular ole blue cheese, I cannot encourage you to try it strongly enough. Let me ‘splain. My little sister, Jessamine, lived her whole life thinking she didn’t like blue cheese. She came to my house and I exerted my inimitable big sister skills and shamed her into trying my stash of smoked blue cheese. She relented, sprinkled some on her pizza and was instantly and irrevocably hooked. In fact, she was asking me the other day whether I’d be down for splitting an entire wheel of the stuff. (I am down.) It’s true. Ask her!

My favourite comes from Rogue Creamery: Smokey Blue by Rogue Creamery . If you’ve never had this let me explain a little why it’s so transcendent. It’s sharp and creamy blue cheese, that’s for sure, but it’s also cold smoked for sixteen HOURS over Oregon hazelnut shells.

THUD.

That’s me falling to the floor thinking about just how amazing this cheese is.

My second favourite smoked blue cheese (Yes. I have a second favourite.) is Moody Blue from RothKäse, USA. Dear goodness, it’s amazing. This one is smoked over fruit woods.

It’s just that Rogue Smokey Blue. I just can’t. I just.

Just get some.

Then sprinkle it over this tomato salad and sit down with a fork and a knife and a bib and warn everyone that conversation will die when they start eating this salad.

Don’t fret. It’ll pick up as soon as everyone realizes it’s gone. It’ll mostly consist of things like, “My word. That salad.” and “Smoked blue cheese completes me.” or “How late did you say that cheese shoppe was open?”

Whatever you do, make this salad soon. Summer tomatoes are almost gone, and I don’t think I need to tell you that all the smoked blue cheese in the world isn’t going to save a January tomato. Right?

 

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Fresh Tomato Salad with Smoked Blue Cheese | Five Minute Recipe

Fresh Tomato Salad with Smoked Blue Cheese | Five Minute Recipe

This five minute dinner salad is easy enough for every night and elegant enough for company.

Make it while the tomatoes are still magnificent. A great fresh tomato needs nothing more than the simple dressing of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper, and smoked blue cheese.

Ingredients

    Per Serving:
  • 1 medium to large sized salad or beefsteak type tomato
  • 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil
  • kosher or sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
  • 1 tablespoon smoked blue cheese crumbles
  • chopped fresh parsley

Instructions

Core and slice the tomato. Arrange the slices on a plate, fanning them out slightly. Drizzle the balsamic vinegar and olive oil over the tomato slices and then sprinkle them with salt and freshly ground pepper. Scatter the smoked blue cheese crumbles over the top and add chopped parsley, if desired. Serve immediately.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/09/04/fresh-tomato-salad-with-smoked-blue-cheese-five-minute-recipe/

Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Happy Healthy and Wise, Healthy Foods, Party Food, Recipes, Salads, Side Dishes, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , ,

Fire Roasted Red Peppers Preserved in Olive Oil | Make Ahead Mondays

September 3, 2012 by 11 Comments

I hope you’re having a relaxed and happy Labor Day. I’m almost giddy with excitement. I took…

Wait for it…

I took a nap.

I’m serious.

Maybe that doesn’t sound like a big deal to you, but I have to tell you that between one thing and another, I didn’t nap (excluding illnesses) for almost fourteen years. If you’ve been around here for a while, and you’re the astute type, you may have noticed that is quite nearly the age of my eldest son. This is not a coincidence.

I was a napper before children, and my specialty was the power nap. Fifteen or twenty minutes on a couch with a comfortable blanket was all it took to pick me up when I started wilting.

When my eldest was almost a year old, we became pregnant for our second son. That little pink line on the pregnancy test spelled doom for my naps for many years. One kid you can make to take a nap. Two kids? Well, all I can say is good luck if you’re bent on getting your little ones to nap without medication. And I was.

The point is this… My baby is now six years old and will be turning seven this fall. I’m bringing back the power nap. The now twenty to thirty minute power nap (I’m older and tired-er with five kids) is what’s getting me through canning season and the buckets and bushels and boxes of produce I’m putting up like a little old ant for the winter while my grasshopper kids get in their last day of summer vacation.

The nap gets a little assist from recipes like the one I’m sharing today that require almost no special equipment, no canning whatsoever, and so little effort that it almost makes itself. My farmers’ market compatriot and friend, Halle Reed, of Vandermark Farms in Scio, New York provided me with almost a bushel of various bell peppers that couldn’t make it to another market. Almost as valuably, she also told me how she preserved the peppers (and that she already had more than plenty up for the winter.) She said to cut the good pieces away from the core and toss ‘em on the grill. She went on to instruct me to stuff them into canning jars, heat olive oil and pour the olive oil over the peppers, then lid and refrigerate them.

Wow.

And to think all this time all I did was sautee and freeze them. Thank you, Halle!

The beauty of this recipe is multi-faceted:

  1. It takes very little hands on time to prepare this recipe and you don’ t need a canner to do it. (Yes, I have a canner, but it’s nice to let the thing rest for a few hours this time of year.)
  2. You have roasted peppers in the refrigerator to use on a whim. Say hello to roasted red pepper, smoked bleu cheese and garlic stuffed kalamata pizzas, or roasted red pepper pasta, or grilled chicken and roasted bell pepper sandwiches. Hubba hubba.
  3. Yes you have peppers, but look at the medium in which those peppers are swimming. See all that beautiful olive oil? That is a pantry staple in itself. Brush the flavoured oil on pizza crusts, on bread for some pretty spectacular garlic bread, use it to sautee vegetables or drizzle a little over a salad. The possibilities are almost limitless.

I’m not going to give you exact quantities of peppers and olive oil, because honestly? It all depends. I started with almost a bushel of multi-colour peppers. Some of them had parts that needed to be trimmed away, and my final yield was exactly one half-gallon, jar, one quart jar and one pint jar. It took about four cups of olive oil to submerge the roasted peppers. This will vary, though, so be prepared to have more or less.

There are loads of peppers still out there at markets, folks. Go on! Lay your hands on a big old box of them and get a jar of this in your refrigerator. You’ll be so glad you did!

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Roasted Red Peppers Preserved in Olive Oil | Make Ahead Mondays

Roasted Red Peppers Preserved in Olive Oil | Make Ahead Mondays

Use the bounty of bell peppers available at local farmers' markets -or from your own garden- to prepare a jar or two of delectable fire roasted peppers to add to everything from pizza to pasta to salad to pimiento cheese to sandwiches through the cold months. It's like a jar full of summer.

Store in the refrigerator for up to three months or in the freezer for up to a year.

Ingredients

  • Red or multi-colour bell peppers
  • 1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
  • pure olive oil (not extra virgin)

Instructions

Preheat your grill to medium high.

Stand a bell pepper on its bottom on your cutting board. Use a sharp knife to cut slabs of pepper away from the seedy stem and core. Discard the cores and set the pepper pieces in a bowl. Repeat until you've prepared all of your peppers this way.

Lay the pepper pieces, skin side down, on the heated grill. Grill until the skin is blistered and black, flip the pieces and cook for just 1 minute. Transfer the cooked pieces to a 9-inch x 13-inch rimmed baking dish. Cover gently with plastic wrap or foil and let them cool until they are easy to handle, about 20 minutes.

Put a wide-mouthed canning funnel into a large jar, drop the slices of garlic into the jar and set it near your work station on the counter. Slough the blistered, blackened skin off of each pepper slice, then slide the slice into the jar via the funnel. Repeat until you've done all of the pepper slices. Don't cram the peppers in, they will compact themselves sufficiently and you want to leave room for the oil to circulate.

Heat some olive oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat until it registers 200°F on an instant read thermometer. Ladle the olive oil into the canning funnel until the peppers are completely submerged. Use a long chopstick or skewer to slide down the sides of the jar to release air bubbles. Add more oil to keep the peppers covered if necessary. Add a new two-piece lid to the jar and let cool for about an hour before sticking into the refrigerator.

These peppers will keep for 3 months as long as they are properly refrigerated. For longer storage, transfer the peppers and their oil to a zipper top bag and freeze for up to a year.

Note: Close to a bushel of red peppers yielded about 3 quarts of fire roasted peppers.
http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/09/03/roasted-red-peppers-preserved-in-olive-oil-make-ahead-mondays/

Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Canning, Comfort Food, Component Foods, Condiments, Happy Healthy and Wise, Healthy Foods, Make Ahead Mondays, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , ,

Grilled Summer Salad

August 31, 2012 by 2 Comments

 

There are few things I like better on a hot day than a cold salad. If it happens to be one that I was able to whip up when the day was still cool or -better yet- the day before, I’m even happier. When that salad takes advantage of the best parts of summer produce I’m ecstatic.

I am grateful to have something to love about all four seasons. My affection for summer is entirely wrapped up in the fresh vegetables. Well, alright. It is kind of nice not to trip over snow boots in the mudroom for a couple of months. But the produce. Oh, the produce!

While the variety available to us in stores is nothing short of remarkable, there simply is nothing that compares to produce grown nearby and eaten in season. Everyone knows a frozen ear of sweet corn from a grocery store just can’t hold a candle to an ear that was picked from the field earlier that day.

I used to be a corn boiler. Everyone I knew was a corn boiler. It was just how we did things. Then -nearly a decade ago- I picked up the Nero Wolfe detective books by Rex Stout. I identified with Nero’s obsession with food and when -in one book- he  frantically pursues the perfect sweet corn while the police inspector wants him to pursue a killer. I totally got it. I mean really. If you gave me the options of tracking down the perfect sweet corn vs. a cold blooded killer? I’d go with the corn every day. I’m a scaredy cat.

At one point, though, Nero Wolfe said something that made me question my lifelong corn boiling habits:

“Boiled in water, sweet corn is.. edible, and nutritious.  But roasted in an oven, at the hottest possible temperature for 40 minutes. Shucked at the table. Buttered. Salted. Nothing else! Ambrosia.”

Well, shoot. Ambrosia? I had to give that a whirl. The first time I made Nero Wolfe’s corn, I did indeed use my oven. And it was absolutely ambrosia, but the smell of burning husks in the house was less than wonderful and it was bloomin’ hot out to be firing up the oven to the hottest possible temperature. I moved my endeavours outside to the grill, adjusted the heat (because hottest possible temperatures in grills and home ovens are vastly different), and in the process learned what the entire southwest has known for I-don’t-know-how-long: fire roasted corn is incomparably delicious.

 

From that day on, there was simply no other way to cook corn (with one sad foray into cooler corn.)  I almost always deliberately cook more corn than we can possibly eat in one setting. Believe me, that takes work… we can eat a lot of corn.

One of our favourite ways to use the extra grilled corn (with its extra boost of concentrated corn flavour) is in a Grilled Summer Salad. We change the salad up, depending on what is most readily available from our garden or the local farmers’ market, but the backbone of the salad is always grilled corn and zucchini. Everything else is negotiable.

Grilled zucchini is in the same category as grilled corn. It is just plain better. There’s something about the time on that hot grill that turns a vegetable that has a reputation for insipidity into a flavour explosion. I prefer the texture of grilled zucchini, too. There’s nothing complicated about it. Slice the zucchini into half-inch slabs, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper or Montreal Steak Seasoning (my preference) then pop on a hot grill. When they’re marked by the grill, they’re done enough. How simple is that?

I usually fill out the salad with roasted red pepper, garden tomatoes, garlic, parsley and a little squeeze of lemon juice… not too much… just a bit. If I’m feeling particularly peckish, I’ll crumble a little feta cheese in there. With the feta, it’s a stand-alone vegetarian meal in a bowl, but it does do a marvelous job of accompanying grilled meats or fishes. I almost always make as large a batch of this as my refrigerator can accommodate. I have been known to walk past the refrigerator with a fork just to dip into a bowl of this. I suppose that’s not a bad thing. I could be snacking on much, much worse things. (Ahem. Frito habit.)

Get out there and make this while the getting’s still good. Fresh veggies won’t be around that much longer!

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Grilled Summer Salad

Grilled Summer Salad

Summer vegetables take center stage in this seasonal salad that takes advantage of grilling sweet corn and zucchini to bring out the best of both. Serve this at your Labor Day festivities to guarantee praise!

A light lemon dressing and a little feta cheese (optional) round out this refreshing and healthy-habit forming dish that can be a stand-alone vegetarian meal or accompany grilled meats of fishes with equal aplomb.

Ingredients

  • 2 medium to large zucchinis
  • olive oil
  • Montreal Steak Seasoning or salt and pepper
  • 2 large beefsteak type tomatoes
  • 2 ears leftover grilled corn , cut from the cob.
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced or pressed
  • 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
  • a fistful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Instructions

Preheat a clean gas grill to HIGH (or build a hot bed of coals on a charcoal grill.)

Slice the zucchini into 1/2-inch thick slabs. Brush both sides of each slab with olive oil and sprinkle with Montreal Steak Seasoning or kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place the zucchini directly on the grill. With the lid open on the grill, leave the zucchini slices in place until there are grill marks on the zucchini, carefully lifting the corner with tongs to check occasionally. This should not take more than 3 minutes. Flip the zucchini and cook until the other side has grill marks, about 2 minutes. Use tongs or a spatula to transfer the grilled zucchini to a rimmed pan.

Put the rimmed pan, uncovered, in the refrigerator until the zucchini is cool to the touch, about 30 minutes to an hour.

Dice the chilled, grilled zucchini and the tomatoes. Toss them together with the remaining ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Transfer to a container with an airtight lid and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/08/31/grilled-summer-salad/

Filed Under: Breakfast Foods, Comfort Food, Happy Healthy and Wise, Healthy Foods, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Salads, Side Dishes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Greek Salsa

August 24, 2012 by 11 Comments

The little germ of an idea was flitting around in my brain since the first eighty degree day we had this year… I wanted to do a Greek salsa. I knew I wanted it to have lemon juice, feta cheese and kalamata olives. Not just any kalamata olives, mind you, I wanted garlic stuffed kalamata olives.

I have a thing for garlic stuffed kalamata olives. And by a thing, I mean a full-fledged dependency. If these things weren’t $7.99 a pound, I’d slurp them up all day every day and have water retention so severe my ankles would be the same size as my hips which are NOT tiny. Phew.

Sigh.

There is added insurance against my overdosing on the olives in that the closest place to buy them is a forty five minute drive in either direction. I shop at the place about once every month and drive to the store with eager anticipation. I scoop as much into the little container as I can while still being able to fix the lid in place, ask the clerk to double bag it and tie the top because that luscious marinating oil has a tendency to leak. Okay. I also have her double bag it and tie the top because it keeps me from eating them all before I get home.

Once home, I cram the bagged container into the back of the fridge in a vain attempt to hide them from myself and everyone else because I am not the only one here obsessed with the little gems.

I then sit and plot the ways that I’m going to eek them out. The idea for the Greek salsa was near the top of the list for months, but kept getting pushed back when someone or another discovered my hiding spot and made the olives disappear in a feeding frenzy. Alright. It was me. I can’t help myself.

I told you I love those things.

The last time I went to the store, they had BIG containers. It was a happy, happy day. I was able to fill the big container with enough to snack on AND use in recipes.

We snacked, we put them on pizzas (our second favourite thing to do with them after snacking), we finally made this salsa. It was worth the wait.

This is happy food, friends. Fresh, crunchy, flavourful, and filling without being heavy, this Greek inspired salsa is full of cucumbers, fire roasted peppers, red onions, garlic stuffed kalamata olives, crumbled feta, lemon and chopped parsley. I dipped it up with pita chips and I served it as a salad alongside grilled fish. It made me want to yell Opa! and smash plates*. I made batch after batch of this salsa until the olives ran out. It was so good.

*At least it made me want to smash the plates I have that I don’t like. I’ve been gunning to get rid of that Correlle for years.

Here’s the beauty of the recipe, though. While it is most wonderfully suited to summer, it can be made year ’round. I imagine this will fill in some mid-winter cravings for fresh food for me. It’s just that kind of dish.

I know those garlic stuffed kalamatas can be hard to find, so if you can’t lay your hands on them, simply use pitted kalamatas and add a large clove of garlic, peeled and minced, to the recipe.

OPA!!

 

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Greek Salsa

Greek Salsa

This is happy food, friends. Fresh, crunchy, flavourful, and filling without being heavy, this Greek inspired salsa is full of cucumbers, fire roasted peppers, red onions, garlic stuffed kalamata olives, crumbled feta, lemon and chopped parsley. Dip with pita chips or serve as a salad alongside grilled meat or fish. Opa!

I know those garlic stuffed kalamatas can be hard to find, so if you can't lay your hands on them, simply use an equal amount of pitted kalamatas and add a large clove of garlic, peeled and minced, to the recipe.

Ingredients

  • 1 seedless cucumber, also known as an English cucumber, diced finely
  • 1 jarred fire roasted red pepper (or a freshly roasted pepper, peeled and seeded), diced finely
  • 1-inch thick slice from a red onion, minced finely
  • 1/2 cup garlic stuffed kalamata olives, coarsely chopped
  • 1/2 cup feta crumbles
  • 1/4 cup, packed, flat leaf or curly parsley leaves
  • 1 garlic clove, peeled and minced or pressed
  • the juice and zest of 1 lemon

Instructions

Finely mince the parsley leaves and add to a mixing bowl with the remaining ingredients. Refrigerate, tightly covered, or serve immediately with pita chips or alongside grilled chicken or fish.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/08/24/greek-salsa/

Filed Under: Accessible Ethnic, Appetizers & Snacks, Condiments, Happy Healthy and Wise, Healthy Foods, Rebecca, Recipes, Side Dishes, Snacks, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , ,
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