Adventures in Cooking

Saffron Wreath Bread with Prosciutto Gruyere and Pesto

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 16:56:10 GMT

Today is Christmas Eve, and with all the festivities in the air I wanted to share one more holiday recipe with you. It might be too late to make it for Christmas proper, but there’s no reason why you can’t make this wreath bread on New Year’s Eve to celebrate waving a giant goodbye to the emotional rollercoaster that was the year 2020. I know I will most definitely be celebrating in the form of excess baked goods. ????

As for this bread, I’ve always been in love with the shape of traditional French bread-style wreath bread, but I am also pretty obsessed with stuffed breads, (as is evidenced here, here, and here), so I figured out a way to combine the shape of the first with the flavor of the second, and ended up with this savory little number.

The flavors here draw very deeply from the Mediterranean, where at least one instance of saffron, cured pork, olives, or pistachios can be found at every dinner table. The wreath tastes like the smell of a Spanish market—where delicious salty pork, aged cheese, aromatic saffron, and briny olives abound. It’s been 4 years since I’ve been to Spain, but the amazing flavors within its borders have been seared into my taste-memory, and I doubt they’ll ever fade because they’re so darn good.

To make the bread a bit easier to prepare, I have an overnight rise so that the process is broken up into two days. So on day 1, you make the basic bread dough, cover it, and chill it in the fridge. And you make the caramelized onions so that they’re all cooled down and ready for layering the next day. You can also make the cilantro olive pistachio pesto on day 1, or you can do it on day 2—it’s up to you how much you feel like doing on the second day vs the first.

As for baking the wreath bread, I highly recommend using a baking stone. It will make sure the bread rises properly in the oven, since the heat coming from the bottom of the stone will help bake and cook through the bottom of the bread and make it nice and crisp on the bottom. If you don’t have one, you can use a baking sheet, but it may take longer to bake than the time described in the recipe below.

I have two recommendations to make it easier to keep the lovely shape of the wreath. One is to use a 5-inch cake pan placed in the center to hold the perfect circular shape of the middle of the wreath. It’s fine if you don’t have one, the circle just won’t be as perfectly round when it baked up. And the second is to create the wreath shape on a piece of parchment paper, that you then slide onto the baking stone. Sliding the parchment paper onto the baking stone makes it SO much safer and easier to move the dough onto the baking stone without damaging the shape of the wreath.

Saffron Wreath Bread with Prosciutto, Gruyere, and Cilantro Olive Pesto

Servings Slices

Ingredients

Dough

1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons water lukewarm
1/4 teaspoon saffron threads
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon whole milk lukewarm
2 teaspoons instant yeast
3 cups flour
1 egg room temperature
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Caramelized Onions

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 pound yellow onions diced
1/2 teaspoon salt

Pesto

1/4 cup shelled pistachios
1 cup chopped cilantro leaves and stems
1/2 cup chopped pitted Spanish green olives
4 large cloves garlic minced
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

Additional Fillings

4 ounces gruyere cheese grated
4 ounces thinly shaved prosciutto
1 egg whisked with 1 teaspoon water egg wash
Flour for dusting

Instructions

Dough

Mix together the saffron threads and the water in a small bowl and allow to rest for 5 minutes. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the saffron water, milk, yeast, and 1 cup of the flour at low speed until just combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula if necessary to incorporate the flour. Cover and set aside to rest for 20 minutes.
Switch to the dough hook attachment, and add the remaining 2 cups flour, the egg, the olive oil, and the salt. Mix at low speed until a smooth dough forms around the hook, about 3 to 5 minutes. The dough should bounce back when poked when the gluten is developed enough. Lightly grease a mixing bowl with olive oil, form the dough into a ball and place it in the bowl. Cover and refrigerate overnight (for about 12 hours).

Caramelized Onions

Heat olive oil in large frying pan over medium low heat. Add onions and salt and stir to coat. Cook, uncovered, until the onions soften and are transparent, about 8 minutes, stirring every 2 minutes or so. Reduce heat to low and continue cooking until the onions turn golden brown, about 30 to 40 more minutes, stirring every 5 to 10 minutes in the beginning and then more frequently towards the end of the cooking process to prevent burning. When the onions are golden and fragrant, remove and set aside to cool to room temperature.

Pesto

Pulse the ingredients together in a food processor until a thick and grainy paste forms— the texture should resemble very coarse hummus. Cover and set aside.

Assembly

In a small bowl, stir together the caramelized onions and pesto and set it aside. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow to come to room temp for 30 minutes. On a clean large and very lightly floured working surface, roll out the dough into a long rectangle measuring 25 x 8 inches.
Use a rubber spatula to spread the pesto-onion mixture over the surface of the dough, leaving a 1-inch border around the shorter ends and one of the long ends, but going up to the edge on one of the long ends.
Evenly sprinkle the grated cheese over the dough, and repeat with the prosciutto slices, evenly covering the dough with 1 layer of thinly shaved prosciutto, leaving leaving a 1-inch border around the shorter ends and one of the long ends, but going up to the edge on one of the long ends.
Starting at the end with the filling right up to the edge, beginning rolling up the dough to form one long cylinder. Leave the seam at the bottom of the cylinder, and press down gently on the dough to seal it. Roll the cylinder gently until it reaches 26 inches in length.
Dip your finger in water and brush around one end of the roll cylinder. Insert that end into the other end, and compress to seal, forming a circle. Transfer the circle to a large piece of parchment paper. Grease the exterior of a 5-inch cake pan and place it in center to hold the circle shape. Cover and allow the dough to rise at room temperature for 45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit with a large baking stone inside. Lightly brush the exposed dough with the egg wash, then dust with flour.
Hold a pair of kitchen scissors at a 45-degree angle to the parchment paper and cut deep slits in the dough about 2 inches apart, pulling the points of the slice slightly away from the wreath as you cut them to expose more of the interior of each slice. Rotate the parchment paper as you're cutting to keep the same 45-degree cutting angle. Cover loosely and allow to rise at room temperature for 30 minutes.
To transfer the wreath bread onto the baking stone, keep the bread on the parchment paper and put it on a flat surface like a large cutting board. Open the oven, partially pull out the rack the baking stone is on, and hold the cutting board next to the baking stone, using your other hand to pull the parchment paper off the cutting board and onto the baking stone (you can also have someone else hold the cutting board to make it easier for you to pull the parchment paper + bread onto the stone).
Close the oven and bake until the crust is deeply golden and a thermometer inserted into the densest part fo the dough reads 190 degrees Fahrenheit, about 25 to 35 minutes. If the dough is browning too quickly but isn't cooked through yet, cover it with foil. Remove form the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Lemon Pistachio Shortbread Cookies

Sat, 19 Dec 2020 16:56:42 GMT

Continuing on my pistachio kick this winter, I decided to try my hand at some tasty little pistachio shortbread cookies. This recipe has a simple shortbread cookie dough studded with finely chopped pistachios, plus a little lemon juice, lemon zest, amaretto liqueur, and vanilla extract for some citrus and aromatic zing. I love the combination of lemon and pistachio together—there’s something very delicate and almost floral about the two of them combined, and it makes for one helluva cookie when combined with a lot of creamy butter. ????

I iced these pistachio shortbread cookies with a simple royal icing, and used a few sets of snowflake cookie cutters that you can see here and here to cut out all the shapes. It’s nice having staggered sizes of the same pattern, because then you can variate the size of the border and cut-out center bits if you want to make the cookies hollow like I did. So you get a lot of variation between the shapes of the cookies, and then with the decorative icing options, you end up with cookies where no two are exactly the same, just like with real snowflakes ????

I kept some extra chopped pistachio bits and put them on the royal icing on top of the pistachio shortbread cookies as a decorative element, too, and I love how they ended up looking like little gold-green gems on them. And if you’re wondering how and why I’ve been using SO many pistachios the past month, it’s because my family in Greece has a pistachio farm on the island that my dad is from, Aegina. They grow the most delicious pistachios in the entire world, no exaggeration. Their imported to Paris and all the big European cities because their quality and flavor is something really special—you can tell it’s an Aegina pistachio because the skin on the outside of the nut is flecked with magenta. it’s pretty wild! I have a close-up photo of them all chopped up below so you can see the colors, they’re my absolute favorite. Of course you can use any pistachios for this recipe, though (they don’t have to be Greek).

I’m going to try and share *one* more recipe before Christmas, so stay tuned for that one! And I know, I’ve been sharing a lot on here lately—I’ve just felt especially inspired by the holidays this year. I think part of it is being home for the holidays and feeling really cozy and calm, which then makes me feel much more creatively inspired because I’m not stressed or rushed, and I can take things at my own pace, recipe-test as much as I’d like, etc. This past year has made me realize how much traveling, as much as I loved it and loved exploring new places, stressed the bajezus out of me. I feel more relaxed than I have in a long, long time, and I think being rooted at home for an extended period is a big part of that. Aaaanyhow, I hope you enjoy these cookies, and I’ll talk to you again soon my friend!

Lemon and Pistachio Shortbread Cookies

Course Dessert

Cuisine Greek

Keyword shortbread

Servings cookies

Calories 153kcal

Ingredients

Pistachio Lemon Shortbread Cookies

3 1/4 cups flour
1 2/3 cups finely chopped raw pistachios
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
12 ounces unsalted butter softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon amaretto liqueur
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Royal Icing

3 cups powdered sugar
4 tablespoons warm water
3 tablespoons meringue powder

Instructions

Pistachio Lemon Shortbread Cookies

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, pistachios, salt, cardamom, and cinnamon until combined. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and sugar at medium low speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add the lemon juice, amaretto liqueur, lemon zest, and vanilla extract and mix until combined. Reduce the speed to low, and add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in 3 increments, pausing to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as-needed, until a thick dough forms. Divide the dough into two equal portions, pat each into a rough circle shape, cover with beeswrap, foil , or plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove one of the dough portions, unwrap it, and roll it out on a clean + lightly floured working surface until it's 1/4-inch thick. Cut out shapes with your desired cookie cutter and place them on a lipped baking sheet lined with parchment paper, leaving 1-inch of space between the cookies. The cooler the temperature of your room and work surface is, the easier it will be to handle the dough.
Place the pan in the oven and bake until the edge of the cookies *just* get the palest tint of gold, you don't want them to the edges to turn deep gold. The time depends on the size of the cookies, I found that the larger snowflake cookies took about 11 minutes, and the smaller cookies and the ones with very thin edges baked in about 7 to 8 minutes.
Repeat the above process with the remaining dough while the first batch of cookies are baking. When the cookies are done baking, allow them to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Royal Icing

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the powdered sugar, warm water, and meringue powder at low speed for 8 minutes. Allow to rest for 15 minutes for any air bubbles to rise out of the icing. Transfer the icing to a piping bag fitted with a small round tip, and begin icing your cookies (the cookies MUST be completely cool before icing).
If you want a thicker royal icing to create 3-dimensional effects, add more powdered sugar to the icing. If you want it thinner, add a little bit more water to the icing.
Depending on the water content of your icing and how dry/humid your environment is, the icing can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours to dry after it's been applied to the cookies. Once it's dry, it's safe to stack them (i.e. in a cookie box) for storage without destroying the decorative icing.

Nutrition

winter

Gingerbread Loaf Cake with Brandy Soaked Cherries

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 00:08:52 GMT

It doesn’t feel quite like the holidays until I’m hit with the smell and taste of fresh gingerbread. Sweet, spiced, and earthy—the classic gingerbread flavor as we know it today comes from a special combination of gooey molasses, piquant fresh ginger, and warming spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. And this particular gingerbread loaf cake-rendition is a celebration of Christmas in the Pacific northwest: the dried dark sweet cherries leftover from summer, a snifter of brandy warmed in my hands by the fire, the smell of douglas fir, and dark rainy evenings spent knitting by the light of the Christmas tree.

I always enjoy a little extra booze in my baked goods this time of year, and as such, the cherries are simmered in a bath of brandy until the liquid is absorbed and the dried cherry bits become plump and juicy. These are then folded into the gingerbread loaf cake batter, making for a moist and delicious gingerbread loaf cake with a kick! It is very important, though, to follow the instructions in the below recipe and make sure that you chop up the dried cherries into small pieces, otherwise the cherry bits will be too heavy and they’ll all sink to the bottom of the pan when the cake is baking. And if you’re using a decorative molded loaf pan, then those big pieces mean that your loaf won’t unmold properly and keep its design. Long story short—smaller is better when it comes to dried cherry chopping.

And for a little sweet and creamy contrast to the warm and boozy cake, there’s a cream cheese glaze that goes on top. Consistency-wise, I’d rate this glaze as medium-thickness, but if you prefer your glaze thinner or thicker, just add more or less milk accordingly and stir until smooth. I also really love the contrast in flavor and color that fresh red fruits bring to the mix, so I have some raspberries and pomegranate jewels on top. There’s also some raw cranberry—but that’s really just there for decoration (you don’t want to eat them raw…they’re pretty intense uncooked). I hope you enjoy this simple and flavorful little cake, and that it brings as much holiday cheer into your home as it brought into mine ????

Gingerbread Loaf Cake with Brandy-Soaked Cherries and Cream Cheese Glaze

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword gingerbread

Prep Time 45 minutes

Cook Time 55 minutes

Cooling Time 1 hour

Total Time 2 hours 50 minutes

Servings people

Calories 483kcal

Ingredients

Brandy Soaked Cherries

1/2 cup finely chopped dried cherries
1/2 cup brandy
1/3 cup water
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Gingerbread Loaf Cake

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg at room temperature
3 tablespoons molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk room temperature
3- inch piece of fresh ginger finely grated
Brandy-soaked cherries

Cream Cheese Glaze + Fruit Garnish

1 cup powdered sugar sifted
2/3 cup cream cheese at room temperature
1/4 cup milk at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup fresh raspberries
1/4 cup pomegranate jewels

Instructions

Brandy Soaked Cherries

Bring the chopped dried cherries, brandy, water, and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the liquid is absorbed by the cherry pieces/evaporated from the pan, stirring every 5 minutes or so. Remove from heat and set aside to cool to room temperature.

Gingerbread Loaf Cake

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and lightly flour a small 6-cup capacity loaf or bundt pan (if you have nut flour (i.e. almond, hazelnut, etc) handy, use this to lightly flour the pan—it helps prevent sticking even better than gluten-based flour). Set it aside.
In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and salt until combined. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and brown sugar at medium-low speed until smooth and fluffy, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the egg and mix until combined. Add the molasses and vanilla extract and mix until smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as-needed.
Reduce the mixer's speed to low, and alternate between adding the flour mixture and the milk in four increments until the flour is *just* incorporated. Fold in the grated ginger and the brandy-soaked cherries until evenly distributed through the thick batter. If you're using a decorative molded loaf or bundt pan, spoon in the batter to prevent air bubbles from forming within the edges of the mold. If you're using a regular loaf pan, just dump the batter in there like normal. Smooth the surface with a spatula, and place the pan in the oven.
Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 40 to 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing the cake from the mold and allowing it to cool completely on a wire rack.

Cream Cheese Glaze + Fruit Garnish

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the powdered sugar and cream cheese at low speed until smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as-needed. Add the milk and vanilla and mix until a smooth glaze forms. Drizzle the cake with the glaze, and top with the fresh raspberries and pomegranate jewels. For an extra-wintery look, you can dust the raspberries with powdered sugar before placing them on top of the cake. Serve and enjoy!

Nutrition

Panettone with Mascarpone Glaze

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 00:13:53 GMT

When the fresh fruits of summer are long gone, it’s time to soak up every bit of flavor from their dried counterparts by embedding them into a decadent holiday panettone. Every culture seems to have its own dried fruit-based sweet bread, from the julekake of Norway (my mother-in-law’s recipe is amazing! I’ll make it for the blog next year) to the stollen of Germany to the panettone of Italy—they’re all delicious and slightly unique in their chosen flavor combinations and forms. Panettone is a wonderful way to make use of dried local fruits, and spend some time in the kitchen soaking up all the incredible smells that this recipe will bring into your oven and your home.

I worked on this recipe for a few days to get the texture, rise, and flavor of the dough juuust right, and it’s certainly a special one (this isn’t your grandma’s panettone! Unless your grandma really likes orange liqueur—in which case give her a high-five from me.) There’s a couple things you need to know before diving into this recipe, and the first is that it takes two days to make, because the dough requires an overnight rise in the refrigerator. So make sure to read through the whole recipe before you get started, so you know how to pace things out.

The second is that you need a paper panettone mold, I used these ones and they worked great! You can just place it on a lipped baking sheet to make it easy to take it in and out of the oven as the panettone bakes. If you want to use something else, I can’t really speak to that, since I’ve only made it with the paper molds. If you want to make sure it comes out right, it’s worth nabbing a paper panettone mold, in my humble opinion.

As far as what you can expect from this panettone, it’s got a really wonderful citrus zing to it thanks to the fresh orange juice and zest in the dough, and the orange liqueur that the dried fruits are poached in. The boozy dried fruits are incorporated into the dough after the overnight rise, as well as some chopped pistachios for extra floral and Mediterranean flavor. It makes for a really light and fluffy panettone that tastes wonderfully bright and citrusy!

There’s also a mascarpone glaze that goes on top to sweeten the whole thing up a bit, and if you *really* want to take the citrus flavors up a notch, you can make the very optional (I know this recipe is a kinda complex one in the first place) candied clementine twists in the recipe below. I put those on top of the panettone along with whole peeled mini-clementines for some additional citrus flavor and a bright and festive pop of color and texture. But you know what? This thing tastes good either way, so it’s really your call if you want to make them or not.

And I know folks like to bake a lot of cookies this time of year (I’ve got a recipe for them coming in a couple weeks!), so if you’ve got cookies on the brain I’ve got some recommendations for you! Namely these Greek butter cookies, these cinnamon roll cookies, and these melomakarona (an old traditional Greek Christmas cookie from deeeeep in the blog archives, this recipe makes enough cookies for a large Greek household, so probably cut it in half unless you’re craving a few dozen cookies). Enjoy my friends!!

Panettone with Mascarpone Glaze and Candied Clementines

Course Dessert

Cuisine Italian

Total Time 2 days

Servings people

Calories 456kcal

Ingredients

Starter

1/2 cup luke warm water
1 tablespoon instant or active dry yeast
1 cup flour

Panettone Dough

1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 1/4 cups flour
10 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature

Fruit and Nut Filling

1 1/2 cups mixed dried fruit cut into 1/2-inch cubes such as dried apricots, dried currants, dates, and/or raisins
1/2 cup orange-flavored liqueur such as Cointreau or Grand Marnier
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup coarsely chopped shelled raw or roasted pistachios
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Candied Clementine Twists (OPTIONAL GARNISH)

1 1/2 cups water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup honey
5 mini clementines

Baking the Panettone

1/2 tablespoon cold butter
1 paper panettone mold (4.8-Inches Height x 6.75-Inches Width)

Mascarpone Glaze

2/3 cup mascarpone at room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon milk at room temperature
1 pinch of salt

Instructions

Starter

In a small bowl, gently stir together the water and yeast. Allow to rest for 5 minutes until bubbles form on top. Mix in the flour, cover, and rise at room temperature until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.

Panettone

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the starter, sugar, orange juice, orange zest, and vanilla extract, and mix together over low speed until combined and a wet dough forms, about 1 minute, stopping to scrape down the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula halfway through. Add the eggs 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the salt and 2 cups of flour, then mix at low speed until roughly combined.
Switch to the dough hook attachment, and mix at low speed for 8 minutes to develop the gluten. Add 1/2 cup of the flour and mix until incorporated. Then add the butter in 4 increments, alternating with the remaining 3/4 cups flour. Mix until all the butter and flour are incorporated and a smooth dough forms around the dough hook. Lightly grease a bowl with oil, place the dough in the bowl, and cover and refrigerate overnight.

Fruit and Nut Filling

The same day that you begin making the dough, place the dried fruit, liqueur, and water in a small pot over medium heat and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until the liquid is absorbed and the fruit has softened, about 8 to 12 minutes, stirring every 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature, then cover and leave at room temperature overnight.
Coarsely chop the pistachios and mix with the cinnamon. Store in an airtight container overnight.

Candied Clementine Twists (OPTIONAL GARNISH)

The same day that you begin making the dough, slice the clementines as instructed in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYjfNosujSk (this will allow you to create the twist shape later on). Bring the water, sugar, and honey to a boil in a small pot over medium high heat. Add the sliced mini clementines and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 1 hour, spooning off and discarding any foam that forms on top, and flipping the slices every 15 minutes. Remove from heat, and use tongs to remove the slices and place them on a wire rack to cool, with a paper towel underneath to catch any dripping syrup. Once they're warm and no longer super hot, form the twist shape and place them back on the rack to continue cooling and firming up overnight.

Filling + Baking the Panettone

The next day, take the bowl of dough out of the refrigerator and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes to soften it slightly (this will make it easier to roll out).
On a *lightly* floured surface, roll out the dough into a 12 x 15-inch rectangle. Evenly distribute half of the dried fruit over the rectangle, pressing each piece gently but firmly into the dough to embed it slightly when you place it. Sprinkle half of the pistachios over the rectangle, and gently pat them into the dough with flat hands.
Fold the dough up like a letter (i.e. in thirds), pressing down to get the folded dough to stick together. Roll out this dough into a 12 x 15-inch rectangle again, and evenly distribute the remaining half of the dried fruit over the rectangle, pressing each piece gently but firmly into the dough to embed it slightly when you place it. Sprinkle the remaining half of the pistachios over the rectangle, and gently pat them into the dough with flat hands.
Fold the dough up like a letter again (i.e. in thirds), pressing down to get the folded dough to stick together. Now fold the rectangle in half to form a square, and press down on it to get the fold to stick together. Gather up the four corners of the square and pull them together to form a dome on the opposite side. Flip it upside down and placed the gathered corners facing down in the panettone mold, so that the dome is facing up.
Cover with lightly greased foil, beeswrap, or plastic wrap and allow to rise at room temperature out of direct sunlight until the panettone dough dome rises over the top of the mold, about 2 to 3 hours. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit during the last 30 minutes of proofing.
Place the panettone on a lipped baking sheet. Remove the foil/beeswrap/plastic wrap. Using a sharp paring knife, cut a 4-inch X into the top of the dough (this will help stabilize the rise in the oven while it bakes), and place the cold pat of butter on the center of the X. Place the pan in the lowest rack of the oven and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the pan from the oven, gently cover the top of the panettone with foil, place it back in the oven, and reduce the oven's temperature to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Continue baking until a thermometer inserted into the center of the panettone reads 190 degrees Fahrenheit (it's worth poking the end of the thermometer in at a few different angles and depths to make sure the bread is completely cooked through before removing it from the oven), about 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes more. Remove the panettone from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool to room temperature.

Mascarpone Glaze

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the mascarpone and powdered sugar at low speed until combined. Add the milk and salt and mix *just* until smooth, pausing to scrape down the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Be VERY care NOT to over-beat, mascarpone over-beats *very easily* and the glaze will separate if this happens. If the mascarpone and the milk are not at room temperature, this can also cause the glaze to separate.

Assembly

When the Panettone is completely cool, you can remove and discard the paper mold. Drizzle the top of the panettone with the mascarpone glaze, and top with the candied clementine twists. If you have more clementines, you can peel them and place them whole on top of the panettone as well for some eye candy. Serve and enjoy!

Nutrition

Pear and Pistachio Pie

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 14:07:16 GMT

This is hands down the best pie I’ve ever made or had. No exaggeration, my friends. The combination of the fragrant cardamom-stewed pears on top and the creamy pistachio paste at the bottom, all encased in a buttery flaky and perfect crust studded with *even more* pistachios is just absolute pastry heaven. I’m not trying to toot my own ‘pear and pistachio pie’ horn—just calling a spade a spade. I’ve baked a lot of pies in my day, some good, some great, some mediocre, and none even come close to comparing with this heavenly gem.

I think the pistachio is one of the most under-utilized nuts in cooking, if I’m being honest. When you puree pistachios into a paste, it frees up the oils in the nut, and there’s something almost floral that comes out of it. A truly shockingly delicate flavor, it’s strong enough to hold up to the heat of the oven and yet still taste like a sweet, nutty blossom afterwards. My favorite pesto recipe uses pistachios instead of walnuts, and this new-favorite pie uses their nearly magical flavoring powers instead of the more traditional domineering pecans and almonds of the pastry world.

But the pistachio doesn’t give itself away willy nilly. No, no. It makes you work for it. By shelling each little nut, one at a time. Of course, you can buy them already shelled, but it will cost you quite a bit more. And besides, I recommend buying pistachios shell-on anyway, (unless you’re planning on eating them all within a week), since the shell helps protect them and keeps them at optimum freshness longer. Plus, I feel like I always appreciate something more when I’ve had to work for it. My first car (which is still running all these years later), our house, the approval of my parents (kidding!…kind of.) It just feels all the more satisfying when you get it after you’ve put some elbow grease into it. This pear and pistachio pie is kind of like that—the reward is in the journey.

Eh, who am I kidding, the reward is most definitely in eating the pie, but I will say that the journey certainly helps enhance that experience. So, if you’re ready to roll up your sleeves, throw on a podcast, and do a modest amount of pistachio-shelling, you’re in for a real treat. Oh! And if you’re really into the pattern on the top of the pie, I used this pie cut-out to create it. It didn’t actually cut cleanly through the crust, so I had to go over the imprinted design with a paring knife to really cut cleanly through the crust, but it still looked really lovely.

And one more important thing to note—because there is no added sugar in the stewed pear mixture, it’s of the upmost importance that you use ripe pears. It will make a HUGE difference in the flavor of the pear filling. Ripe pears should have a little give to the skin when you squeeze them, and should be *very* fragrant when you give them a sniff. Best of luck!

Pear and Pistachio Pie with Cardamom

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword pear pistachio pie

Prep Time 2 hours

Cook Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Cooling Time 1 hour

Total Time 4 hours 30 minutes

Servings people

Ingredients

Cardamom Stewed Pear Filling

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 pounds ripe pears peeled, cored, and chopped into roughly 3/4-inch cubes
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon salt

Crust

1/4 cup raw shelled pistachios
3 cups King Arthur Baking Company All-Purpose Flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
8 ounces plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter cold and hard
10 to 14 tablespoons ice water

Pistachio Filling

1 1/4 cups shelled raw pistachios
1 egg
1/2 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt

Sliced Pear Filling

1 large ripe pear peeled
3 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Egg Wash

1 egg
1 teaspoon milk

Instructions

Cardamom Stewed Pear Filling

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the pears and seasonings and stir to combine. Reduce heat to medium low, and cook the mixture until the moisture is released and the pears have softened, about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool completely.

Pistachio Filling

Pulse the pistachios in a food processor until coarsely chopped. Add the egg, sugar, butter, cardamom, vanilla, and salt and puree until a thick puree forms, similar to grainy hummus in consistency. Set aside.

Pistachio Crust

Grease a 9-inch pie pan and set it aside. Pulse the pistachios in a blender or food processor until finely chopped, but *not* a paste. Set aside.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, salt, cardamom and chopped pistachios until combined. Using a box grater, grate the butter using the large hole setting of the grater above the bowl, stopping to stir and coat the butter bits in the flour mixture every 10 seconds or so. When all the butter is in, pinch the mixture together with your fingertips until it resembles the texture of damp sand. Add the water, a tablespoon at a time, mixing it with a fork, until the dough just holds together when you squeeze a fistful of it in your hand.
Divide the dough into two portions, one slightly larger than the other (about 1/3 vs 2/3). Pat the smaller portion into a rough circle shape, cover it, and place it in the refrigerator. Roll out the larger quantity of dough until it is 1/4-inch thick and transfer it to the greased pie pan. Press the crust into the pan, trim off the excess leaving a 1-inch overhang. Fold the 1-inch overhang under the edge of the crust all the way around. Cover and place the pan in the refrigerator.
Roll out the smaller quantity of dough until it is 1/4-inch thick, and use cookie cutters, pie cutters, or a pie top pastry cutter to cut decorative shapes out of the top of the pie, taking care to keep the cut-outs in the center of the pie crust, and not along the edges. Cover and set aside for a moment.

Sliced Pear Filling + Assembly

Cut the stem off the pear. Using a *very* sharp knife, cut the pear vertically into the thinnest slices you possibly can (this can be made easier if you have a mandolin and cut the pear vertically in half, and then start cutting off of the cut side on the mandolin to get very thin slices).
Now you can start assembling the pie (yay!) Take the pie pan out of the refrigerator and uncover it. Spread the pistachio paste in an even layer on the bottom of the pan. Distribute the stewed pears in an even layer on top of the pistachios. Sprinkle the flour, sugar, and cinnamon evenly over the stewed pears. Place the thinly sliced pears on top of that, fanning them out in a circle so they overlap slightly and cover the top of the stewed pears.
In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and the milk. Lightly brush the exposed crust on the pan with the egg wash. Now transfer the decorative top crust onto the pie, and press together on the edges of the top and bottom crusts to secure them together (if you're using an un-ruffled pie dish, you can pinch the edges for a more decorative look). Brush the exposed crust with the egg wash, cover, and place in the freezer for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the pie pan on a baking sheet (this makes it easier to get the pan in and out of the oven without accidentally damaging the crust), and place it in the oven. Bake until the center crust is lightly golden, about 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, covering the edges with tin foil if needed to keep them from over-browning (the crust edges will brown faster than the center crust). Allow to cool for 30 minutes before slicing and serving.

Chocolate Chess Pie

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 20:57:00 GMT

This was a dusty old post from the archives that I wrote nearly 9 years ago, and darn it this pie is so good that I wanted to give it a refresh and truly do it justice in a second go-round. If you’ve never had or heard of chess pie before, it hails from the southern states and its main characteristics are that it’s 1) a baked custard, and 2) has corn meal as the thickening agent in the custard instead of flour. Over the years of making this chocolate chess pie, I’ve started pulsing the corn meal in a blender or food processor to get it nice and fine, since most of the cornmeal you find at the store is coarsely ground and more geared towards polenta or heavy-crumbed cornbreads. Those few minutes of pulsing that corn meal into a fine powder have made all the difference in upping the silkiness factor of this custard base, and I highly recommend taking the few seconds to do so.

I’m a bit obsessed with salted chocolate, so I sprinkled some flakey sea salt over the pie once it was done, and the nice salted crunch against the sweet chocolate filling was very, very good. It’s a very small step that makes all the difference in terms of flavor and texture. And you probably noticed, but I dressed up the top a bit by making a crescent shape out of some extra pie crust dough. I have all the details on how to do this in the recipe below, and don’t worry, it’s a lot easier than it looks (don’t you just love things that look fancy but aren’t actually that difficult? I know I do!)

I hope you enjoy the recipe, my friends, and that it gives you something cozy and comforting to enjoy during the cold months ahead. Oh! And one more thing. The original post has a verrrrrry old giveaway in it for a set of cookbooks, and one of the entry requirements was to leave a comment about your favorite cookbook. So if you scroll down to the comments section, there’s LOADS of amazing cookbook recommendations for your viewing pleasure (maybe you can find some Christmas gift ideas in there, too!)

Chocolate Chess Pie

Prep Time 25 minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes

Cooling Time 20 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes

Author Eva Kosmas Flores

Ingredients

Chocolate Chess Pie Filling

2 Eggs beaten
5 ounces Evaporated Milk
1 Cup White Sugar
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup Cocoa Powder
1/4 Cup Butter melted
2 Tablespoons Finely Ground Corn Meal (Can pulse normal corn meal in a blender or food processor to make it extra fine)
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 Teaspoons Flake sea salt, such as maldon salt

Pie Crust

2 3/4 Cups Flour
2 Tablespoons Granulated Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
8 ounces Unsalted Butter very cold
9 to 12 Tablespoons of Ice Water
1 egg
1 teaspoon milk

Instructions

Pie Crust

Grease the pie pan, place it upside down on top of a piece of paper, and trace the circumference of the pan. Then nudge the pan a few inches to the side to reveal a crescent shape in the tracing. Trace the edge of the pan to create the crescent shape. Place the pan right side up again and set it aside.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, and salt until combined. Using a box grater, grate the butter using the large hole setting of the grater above the bowl, stopping to stir and coat the butter bits in the flour mixture every 10 seconds or so. When all the butter is in, pinch the mixture together with your fingertips until it resembles the texture of damp sand. Add the water, a tablespoon at a time, mixing it with a fork, until the dough just holds together when you squeeze a fistful of it in your hand.
Divide the dough into two portions, one slightly larger than the other (about 1/3 vs 2/3). Roll out the larger quantity of dough until it is 1 cm thick and transfer it to the greased pie pan. Press the crust into the pan, trim off the excess leaving a 1-inch overhang. Fold the 1-inch overhang under the edge of the crust all the way around and pinch the edges. Cover and place the pan in the freezer for 30 minutes.
Roll out the smaller dough until it's 1 cm thick. Cut out the traced crescent and place it over the dough. Use a pizza cutter, pastry cutter, or sharp paring knife to cut out the crescent shape. Discard the paper. Use cookie cutters or pie cutters to cut out more decorative shapes, or you can cut them out of the dough by hand with a knife.
In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and milk to create the egg wash. Place a piece of parchment paper on a small baking sheet and place the crescent on top of it. Brush it lightly with the egg wash, and brush any decorative cut-outs with the egg wash. Arrange the decorative cut-outs on the crescent, and place the pan in the freezer for 45 minutes.

Chocolate Chess Pie

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the granulated sugar, brown sugar, cornmeal, and cocoa powder at low speed. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until fully incorporated. Then mix in the evaporated milk, butter, and vanilla extract until completely combined.
For the top decoration, place the baking sheet with the crescent on it in the oven and bake at 350 degrees until golden, about 30 minutes (it can be in the oven at the same time as the pie that follows). Allow the crescent to cool to room temperature.
Pour the filling into the prepared pie crust and bake on the second lowest rack of the oven until the filling is set around the edges and the center has a *very* small wiggle to it, about 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes. (If the crust is browning too quickly, cover the edges with tin foil but don't let the tin foil touch the filling). Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 30 minutes before sprinkling with the flake sea salt, garnishing the top with the crescent, slicing the pie, and serving.

Cheddar Garlic and Rosemary Biscuits

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 14:30:25 GMT

There’s nothing like the smell of homemade biscuits. Just breathing it in feels like you’re being hugged (at least it does for me). And when you add Cabot cheddar, garden-fresh rosemary, and piquant garlic to the mix, you’ve got a very aromatic and flavorful biscuit, indeed. I used Cabot’s 1 Year Naturally Aged Cheddar both inside and on top of the biscuits; using an aged cheddar like this adds a much deeper, richer, and more savory flavor to them than a younger un-aged cheddar. Plus, when you enjoy Cabot cheese you know you’re also supporting the 800 families that make up Cabot’s dairy co-op, and their passion for making and sharing natural, award-winning cheese here in the US. Cabot is also a certified B-Corp, and were the first dairy co-op to do so. I love that with Cabot I not only get to enjoy delicious cheese, but also know that I’m supporting a small business that’s rooted in sustainable practices.

The base of this biscuit is a traditional buttermilk, butter, and flour pastry dough. It’s important to keep all the non-dry ingredients cold, because the butter needs to stay firm and chilled until it bakes, otherwise the flaky layers of the biscuit won’t form correctly. When all the ingredients are incorporated into the dough, I like to roll it out into a rough rectangle, then fold it up in thirds (like a letter) to create even more flaky layers. Then I roll out this folded up dough and cut the little biscuit shapes out of it, I recommend using a 2.5-inch round cookie cutter for this.

Once it’s all baked up, the grated Cabot cheddar bits give you salty little flavor bursts between the flaky and buttery layers of buttermilk-based dough, and combined with the herbal rosemary and umami garlic, it makes for a deeply flavorful biscuit that I know will be a new holiday staple for you, as it is in our house. Oh! And to find some delicious cabot cheese near you, you can use this nifty ‘where to buy’ locator on Cabot’s site. Enjoy it, my friends!

Cheddar Garlic and Rosemary Biscuits

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Keyword biscuit

Servings people

Ingredients

3 cups flour
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter cold and hard
4 ounces Cabot 1 Year Naturally Aged Cheddar Cheese grated
6 cloves garlic very finely chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 cup plus 2 to 4 tablespoons buttermilk plus an extra tablespoon for brushing

Instructions

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Grate the butter in the large hole-setting of a grater above the bowl, stopping to stir and coat the butter bits in the flour mixture every 10 seconds. Pinch the mixture together with your fingertips until crumbly, like damp sand. Set aside 2 tablespoons of the grated Cabbot cheddar cheese, and add the remaining Cabot cheddar, garlic, and rosemary to the flour mixture and stir gently to evenly distribute throughout.
Add 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of the buttermilk, breaking the additions into 4 increments, stirring gently for 10 seconds after each addition with a fork. If needed, add 2 additional tablespoons of buttermilk to help dough come together (the amount of buttermilk depends on how humid or dry your cooking environment is). The dough should *just* hold together when you squeeze it in your hand.
Gently roll the dough into a rough rectangle that's 1-inch thick, then fold the rectangle up like a letter (see process photos below). Pat down on the folded dough, rotate it so that it's lengthwise facing away from you (this will make it easier to roll out) and roll it until it's 3/4 inch thick. Use a 2 1/2-inch round cookie cutter to cut the biscuits. Pat any remaining dough into rough rectangle shape, then roll out until it's 3/4 inch thick and cut it with the biscuit cutter again to get as many biscuits out of the remaining dough as you can. You should end up with 12 to 14 biscuits.
Flip the biscuits over (the bottom is usually flatter and more attractive) and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, spaced about 1/2-inch apart. Cover them and place them in the freezer for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly brush the top of each biscuit with buttermilk and sprinkle with a small pinch of the remaining grated Cabot cheddar cheese. Place in the oven and bake until the tops of the biscuits are golden brown, about 17 to 20 minutes.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Italian Meringue and Candied Rosemary Pecans

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 14:20:43 GMT

The holiday season is nearly upon us, and soon after that we’ll be starting fresh with an entirely new year. To ring in the season of giving with something fun and comforting, I made a free downloadable Adventures in Cooking calendar for you to print out and hang up on the wall. I printed mine out in the comfort of my own home with my Canon PIXMA TR450 printer and matte Canon paper, hole-punched a hole in the top middle of each page, and threaded a bit of string through it to make a handy and beautiful little wall calendar. I love that all the colors of each season came through vibrant and bright, and that the contrast in the photos came out perfectly crisp and sharp with every print.

I’d definitely recommend using it for your holiday season crafts, too! Like making your own fun recipe cards with cherished family recipes to give out, or family photos printed onto Canon’s magnetic photo “paper”, or homemade printed holiday cards…there’s a lot of fun, crafty, and affordable at-home options to spread holiday cheer with the Canon PIXMA TR450 printer ???? And for all your holiday season recipe inspiration, Canon has put together an e-book full of delicious recipes from myself and other delightful bloggers from around the corners of the internet! You can download it for free here ????

And speaking of recipes, today I’m sharing with you the mother of all Thanksgiving sweet potato recipes. Think of this as an elevated version of sweet potatoes with marshmallow fluff, with more flavor, nuance, and real, whole ingredients. While it looks kinda fancy, the preparation is SUPER easy. Sweet potatoes are whole roasted in their skin, then allowed to cool for 3 hours, at which point the skin is loosened and you can peel it right off with your fingers.

While they’re cooling, you toast some pecans in a pan with butter, sugar, rosemary, and salt—which takes all of 5 minutes. The most “intense” thing is making the Italian meringue, which involves heating up a water-sugar syrup and drizzling it into fluffy egg whites into your stand mixer while it’s beating the whites. I know, “Italian meringue” sounds a little intimidating, but trust me, it’s very easy to do and homemade meringue is SOOOO light and flavorful and just melts in your mouth like a sugar cloud. It’s worth the minimal effort, I promise!

Then, just cut the sweet potatoes into 1.5-inch thick rounds, brush them with some salty butter and maple syrup, put a dollop of meringue on each one, toast them in the oven until the meringue is brown, sprinkle with the nuts, and serve! The pecans are toasted and warm and salty sweet, and the salty butter maple drizzle on the sweet potatoes is absolute heaven, not to mention the marshmallow-esque toasted meringue on top. It all comes together for a pretty insanely delicious holiday side dish.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and that you grab yourself a Canon PIXMA printer to get your holiday craft on! I partnered with the wonderful folks at Canon for this post, and when you help support my partners, you’re helping to support me + all the recipes and seasonal goodness I bring you, too ????

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Italian Meringue and Candied Rosemary Pecans

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Keyword swete potatoes

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 2 hours

Servings people

Ingredients

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

4 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes

Candied Rosemary Pecans

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 cup raw pecans coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 teaspoon flake sea salt
parchment paper

Italian Meringue

2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons water
3 egg whites
1 pinch cream of tartar

Maple Butter Drizzle

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

Instructions

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the sweet potatoes on a lipped baking sheet, leaving at least 1 inch of space between the potatoes, and roast them whole, skin on, until soft when pierced with a skewer, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Set aside and allow to cool for 3 hours. At this point, the skins will have loosened a bit, and you can peel the skin off in pieces with your fingers.
Peel the sweet potatoes completely, cut them into 1.5-inch thick rounds, and place them on a large casserole dish or lipped baking sheet, cut side facing up. Try to keep the tops of the sweet potatoes cut flat across, because if they're at an angle the meringue may slide off the top while they're toasting in the oven. Cover and set aside.

Candied Rosemary Pecans

While the potatoes are cooling, prepare the nuts. Melt the butter and sugar in a medium-sized frying pan over medium heat, stirring to incorporate the sugar. Once the sugar has melted smooth and is no longer granular, add the nuts and stir to coat them in the mixture. Let them sit in the pan for a couple minutes until they start smelling slightly toasty, then stir it up again. Repeat this process until most of the nuts are lightly browned and toasted on part of their surface and the pan is very aromatic with the smell of toasted nuts. Be careful NOT to burn them, and turn down the heat immediately if the pan begins smoking.
Remove the pan from the heat and empty the mixture onto a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Smooth it out so the nuts are in one layer, then immediately sprinkle the salt and rosemary over the nuts (it's important to do this while the syrup is still hot and sticky). Let them cool to room temperature, then break any clumps of nuts apart with your hands and set them aside.

Italian Meringue + Final Assembly

Once the nuts have been prepared, and the sweet potatoes are cooled, peeled, and cut into rounds, you can start getting the Italian Meringue prepared.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat the sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium low heat until dissolved. Raise the heat to high and wait until the syrup reaches 235 degrees Fahrenheit, making sure to NOT stir the mixture.
While the syrup is boiling, beat the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment at medium high speed until there's little bubbles at the top of the egg white mixture. Add the cream of tartar, then continue beating at medium high speed until soft peaks form. Stop the mixer until the syrup has reached the right temperature.
When the syrup is ready, turn the mixer on medium high speed and begin adding the syrup to the egg white mixture in a thin steady stream. Continue beating until the meringue is glossy and holds a stiff peak.
In a small pot, make the maple butter drizzle by heating the butter with the maple syrup and salt until the butter is melted. Quickly and lightly brush the sweet potatoes with half the mixture, then use a spoon to top each sweet potato round with a dollop of the meringue. (For a more decorative meringue application like the one pictured, use a pastry bag with a large round pastry tip to pipe out the meringue onto the tops of the sweet potato rounds).
Place the pan in the oven and toast until the meringue is lightly golden, keeping a very close eye so as not to burn them, about 4 to 7 minutes. (You can also toast the meringue with a culinary torch, if you have one). Remove from the oven, drizzle with the remaining maple butter mixture, sprinkle with the candied rosemary pecans, and serve.

Pumpkin Meringue Pie with a Hazelnut Graham Cracker Crust

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 22:54:18 GMT

Sometimes it seems like time passes by more quickly than others. I made this recipe last year around this time, but never managed to get it all written up and edited to share with you before autumn was over, so here I am sharing it when it’s seasonally appropriate once again. It is pumpkin season, after all, and there’s no better way to soak up all it’s glory than in pie-form with this creamy pumpkin meringue pie, and a buttery crisp graham cracker crust.

This summer felt especially long and hot with all the fires and smoke, so I’ve been particularly enamored with the autumnal turn the weather and garden have taken. The path on my morning run is blanketed with a lattice of gold and red leaves, the air is cold and crisp, and the squash at the market are in full-form in every shape, size, and color imaginable. I’ve been slowing down to soak up and enjoy every moment of it, but there’s lots of projects on the horizon due to the upcoming holiday season, so I’m going to have to get back up to full speed pretty soon, unfortunately.

I feel like this happens every fall, where the start of it feels so wonderfully slow and relaxed, and then work starts up again the closer the holidays get. I guess you just have to appreciate those slow moments when you can. Working in the food realm means that the late fall is the busiest time of year, since that’s when everyone is cooking and a lot of companies need photos + recipes developed, so I’ll probably always have a busy fall towards the middle and end. But at least I got to slow down and enjoy the beginning ???? And heaven knows I’ll be slowly down and savoring this pumpkin meringue pie again when Thanksgiving comes ’round. And if you’ve got pumpkin pie on the brain, I have another, more caramel-y, pumpkin pie recipe for you, too.

Pumpkin Meringue Pie with a Hazelnut Graham Cracker Crust

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword pumpkin pie

Servings servings

Ingredients

Hazelnut and Graham Cracker Pie Crust

1 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup hazelnut meal
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter cold and hard
1 egg whisked
3 tablespoons ice water

Pumpkin Pie Filling

1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons flour sifted
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon flake sea salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
3 eggs at room temperature
2/3 cup creme fraiche at room temperature
2 1/2 cups pumpkin puree
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
4 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Italian Meringue

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
4 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Hazelnut and Graham Cracker Pie Crust

Mix together the graham cracker crumbs, flour, hazelnut meal, sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl until combined. Cut the butter into small pea-sized pieces above the bowl, stopping to stir and coat the butter bits in the flour mixture every few minutes.
Pinch the mixture together with your fingertips until it resembles the texture of damp sand. Add the egg and stir, and add the water, a tablespoon at a time, mixing it with a fork, until the dough just holds together when you squeeze a fistful of it in your hand. Press the dough into a deep-dish 10-inch wide and 1.75-inch deep tart shell or a 9-inch wide 2-inch deep pie pan to form the crust. Poke the bottom with a fork and place the pan in the freezer for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the interior of the tart crust with foil, place the pan on a lipped baking sheet, and par-bake for 15 minutes.

Pumpkin Pie Filling

In a medium bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, and cloves and set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the eggs and creme fraiche at medium-low speed until smooth. Add the pumpkin puree and mix until combined, then add the maple syrup, butter, and vanilla and mix until smooth. Reduce the speed to low, add the dry ingredients, and mix until combined, stopping to scrape down the inside of the bowl as needed.
After par-baking the crust, remove the foil from the crust and pour in the filling. Place the pan on the lipped baking sheet in the lowest rack of the oven and bake until the edges are set but the center is still a bit wobbly, about 35 to 45 minutes. Do not over-bake or the pumpkin custard will crack. Remove the pie from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature (the center of the pie will continue to cook as it cools).

Italian Meringue

Heat the sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium low heat until the sugar dissolves. Raise the heat to high and wait until the syrup reaches 235 degrees Fahrenheit, making sure to NOT stir the mixture.
While the syrup is boiling, beat the egg whites in the very clean bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment at medium high speed until there's little bubbles at the top of the egg white mixture. Add the cream of tartar, then continue beating at medium high speed until soft peaks form. Stop the mixer until the syrup has reached the right temperature.
When the syrup is ready, turn the mixer on medium high speed and begin adding the syrup to the egg white mixture in a thin steady stream. Add the vanilla extract and continue beating until the meringue is glossy and holds a stiff peak.

Assembly

Spread the meringue on top of the pumpkin pie, and use a kitchen torch to brown the meringue. Or you can turn the oven on the broil setting, then place the pan in the oven and toast until the meringue is lightly golden, just a few minutes, keeping a **very** close eye so as not to burn them.

Braised Chicken with Mushrooms and White Wine

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 22:50:00 GMT

There are some days where you crave the simple and the good. Something that you know will go well together, is easy to make, and requires the smallest amount of clean-up afterwards. And on those days, I like to stick to one-pot cooking. All the flavors slowly melding together in a single container, bubbling away over an open flame. With this type of cooking, I’ve found that often times the simpler the ingredients, the better. You get more depth to each flavor without too many spices, fruits, and vegetables muddling the overall taste of the dish. And when your main ingredients are chicken, mushrooms, and white wine, you know the end result will be quite good, indeed.

The recipe is very straightforward, coat the chicken cutlets in a bit of flour, brown them in butter, add the mushrooms, thyme, and wine to the mix and voila! Dinner is served. The earthiness of the mushrooms pares down the acidity of the dry white wine, and the rich and savory flavor that comes from the chicken and butter provides the perfect compliment to the other two. As far as the flour goes, it helps to thicken up the sauce a bit, but if you wanted to go gluten-free you could easily substitute cornstarch as an alternative thickening agent.

There’s no better way to enjoy the season of the humble and magical mushroom, and if you’re looking for more savory dishes that put this fungi to good use, I recommend this simple mushroom and egg toast for breakfast, or if you’re on the lookout for a slightly elevated savory breakfast dish, this creamy mushroom Dutch baby. And for a comforting soup that tastes just as good the second day as it did the first, this lentil and mushroom soup is a fall staple at our house. It’s also very healthy, and is a wonderful yin to the yang of this chicken. Wishing you a very beautiful and delicious autumn from Portland <3

Braised Chicken with Sautéed Mushrooms and White Wine

Course Dinner

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Servings people

Calories 498kcal

Author Eva Kosmas Flores

Ingredients

4 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs (about 2 1/4 pounds)
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
1/2 cup flour
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound mushrooms cut into 1/4-inch thick slices
3 cloves garlic minced
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves

Instructions

Rub the chicken thighs with the salt and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.
Empty the flour into a shallow dish. Season the chicken with the pepper and then dredge the chicken in the flour until lightly coated. Set aside.
Heat the butter in a large pot over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken until browned on both sides, about 5 minutes per side. Place browned chicken on a plate or platter and cover loosely with aluminum foil to keep warm. Set aside.
Reduce the heat to medium-low and add the mushrooms and garlic, stirring to coat in the butter. Cook until the mushrooms have released their water, shrunk, and darkened in color, about 15 minutes, stirring every 3 minutes or so.
Add the wine, broth, soy sauce, thyme leaves, and the browned chicken and raise the heat to medium, bringing the mixture to a boil. Ladle the pan juices over the chicken. Place the pid partially covering the pot, keeping it a bit open for the steam to escape.
Once the chicken is cooked all the way through (a thermometer inserted towards the bone reads 165 degrees Fahrenheit and the juices of the chicken run clear), taste the mushrooms and add additional salt and pepper as desired. Garnish with fresh parsley and serve.

Nutrition

Garlic Shrimp Bruschetta with Slow Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

Mon, 05 Oct 2020 19:58:41 GMT

This recipe is my farewell to the summer—cherry tomatoes are usually the only fruits small enough to still ripen when the sun starts to wane and the cool nights of autumn re-introduce themselves into the garden. They’re the last breath of summer’s harvest. To extract every ounce of sweet tannic flavor from each juicy little flavor bomb, I recommend slow-roasting them. This keeps the bottom of the tomato from charring and blackening (as will often happen if you roast for a short amount of time at a high temperature), and helps preserve the delicate bright flavors of juicy summer tomatoes.

Once you’ve roasted them, you’ve got some options. You can throw some in a container in the refrigerator, where they’ll keep for a few weeks, or you can freeze them on a baking sheet, and then pick the frozen ones off and place them in a plastic bag in the freezer, to make for easier storage and more customizable portion sizes (since you can easily grab a couple of them rather than having to thaw an entire jar to use at once). And you can set some freshly roasted ones aside to use for a delicious and simple garlic shrimp bruschetta.

If you’re unfamiliar with bruschetta, it’s an Italian dish that consists of toasted slices of bread, rubbed with raw garlic, and topped with olive oil, salt, fresh tomato, and basil. You can add other goodness to it, too, but these toppings are the mainstays. For this recipe, I top my bruschetta with the slow roasted cherry tomatoes and some shrimp sautéed with a generous amount of garlic. And there’s fresh basil, salt, and olive oil in the mix as well, of course. This makes for a delicious and simple meal that’s as nourishing for the body as it is for the spirit, whether it’s enjoyed as a lunch, an appetizer amongst a group of friends, or a dinner between a couple. It’s my favorite way to use up those last juicy little summer gems, and goes very well with a glass of red wine and good company. Enjoy, my friends ????

Garlic Shrimp Bruschetta

Course Appetizer

Cuisine Italian

Keyword bruschetta

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 2 hours

Servings bruschetta

Calories 136kcal

Ingredients

Slow Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

1 lb 2 ounces cherry tomatoes
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper

Garlic Basil Shrimp Bruschetta

6 cloves garlic minced
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
1 pound shrimp peeled and deveined
1 baguette cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
Juice from 1 lemon
2 cloves of garlic cut in half
1/4 cup small whole basil leaves
3 tablespoons freshly grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

Slow Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Cut the tomatoes in half and place on lipped baking sheet, cut side facing up. Lightly brush the cut sides with the olive oil, and then sprinkle them with the salt and pepper.
Place the pan in the oven and roast until the tomatoes have shrunk considerably, are nice and wrinkly around the edges, but still have a touch of juicy shine to the centers, about 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes depending on the size, shape, and juiciness of your cherry tomatoes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature.

Garlic Basil Shrimp Bruschetta

Mix together the minced garlic, 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, chopped basil, salt, and black pepper in a small bowl. Allow the mixture to infuse for 15 minutes. In a large bowl, toss the shrimp with the garlic mixture and allow to infuse in the refrigerator for another 15 minutes.
While they're infusing, lightly brush the baguette slices with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a large frying pan, and toast the slices until golden, working in batches as needed. Set the slices aside.
Heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the shrimp mixture and sauté until the shrimp are pink and cooked through. Remove from heat, add the lemon juice, and stir to coat the shrimp.

Assembly

Rub the toasted baguette slices with the cut half of the raw garlic, then evenly distribute the shrimp, roasted cherry tomatoes, small basil leaves, and parmesan cheese. Serve immediately. Makes about 16 bruschetta.

Nutrition

Stuffed Tomatoes with Rice, Basil, and Parmesan + Downloadable Art Prints

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 13:43:38 GMT

We’ve made it to that funny in-between season in the midst of the tail-end of summer and the first wisps of fall. This time of year always feels like a bit of a transitional period, but with all that’s happening right now with school starting up again and workplaces shifting routines, that transitional feeling is even more present. Many of us are schooling and working from home at the moment (my household included), and have established new routines that revolve staying home and inside a lot more than we normally would. One thing that’s really helped make this new routine easier is making my home feel like a really warm, cozy, and joyful place to be, and part of that has been printing out my favorite photographs with my Canon PIXMA TR4520 and hanging them up on the walls. The vibrant colors, calming scenes, and crisp matte prints make me happy and soothed every time I look at them, and I’ve included a free download for 6 of my favorite photo prints for you here!

Having high-quality physical prints that print true-to-color is deeply important to me, especially when I’m looking at them everyday on the walls of my home. And with the Canon PIXMA TR4520, I get a crisp, colorful, and perfectly contrasted print every time. Plus they have an incredible selection of fun photo papers, ranging from magnetic ones (so you can place your favorite photos on your refrigerator or anything you’ve painted with magnetic paint), to professional quality matte photo paper (which is what I use to print out my photographs). If you’re looking for an affordable at-home printer that gives you bonkers-amazing quality prints, I’d highly recommend it (especially for all the holiday greeting printing coming up!) Plus, you guys know that when you support my partners, you’re also helping me be able to continue bringing you flavorful seasonal recipes + garden goodness on the regular ????

And along with the free photo print download, Canon is also sharing a free e-book with the recipe for these stuffed tomatoes + loads of delicious other recipes from fellow food bloggers, and you can download it here! I’d love to see you making these stuffed tomatoes or any other dish from the e-book, so make sure to mark them with the #CanonInTheKitchen hashtag so I can see your creations!

About these stuffed tomatoes, they’re based on a recipe my mom made for us every summer growing up. As soon as the garden started popping out tomatoes, she’d start scooping out their juicy goodness, mixing it with rice and ground meat and garlic and herbs, and stuff it back in before roasting it all up together. Every time I eat this it reminds me of those hot summer evenings as a kid, all sitting around our dinner table, enjoying the sweet and savory flavor of summer’s parting gift. I hope you enjoy it, too!

Stuffed Tomatoes with Rice, Basil, and Parmesan

Course Dinner

Cuisine Greek

Keyword stuffed tomatoes

Prep Time 45 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour 20 minutes

Servings people

Calories 423kcal

Ingredients

Stuffed Tomatoes

6 large tomatoes
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil plus a bit extra for brushing
1 medium yellow onion chopped
3 cloves garlic minced
1 small eggplant about 3 ounces, chopped
1 pound ground beef or lamb
3 cups cooked rice
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup broth chicken, beef or vegetable all work fine

Breadcrumb Mixture

1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions

Stuffed Tomatoes

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Cut the *very* tops off of each of the tomatoes and use a spoon to scoop out the soft juicy pulp, while leaving the walls of the tomatoes intact. Place the tomato pulp in a bowl and set it aside, and set the hollowed out tomatoes aside and their caps/tops as well.
For the filling, heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until softened and transparent, about 8 to 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Add the garlic and allow to cook until the garlic is softened and fragrant, about 5 minutes more, stirring every minute or so. Add the eggplant and cook until it's softened a bit, about 5 to 7 minutes. Push the vegetables to the sides of the pan, leaving the center empty. Then add the ground beef or lamb to the empty center space, and sauté until cooked through, breaking the meat apart into small pieces with the end of your wooden spoon as it cooks.
Remove from heat and empty into a large heat-proof bowl (like a metal, glass, or ceramic one). Measure out two cups of the tomato pulp mixture and add it to the meat mixture. Add the rice, parmesan, basil, parsley, salt, and pepper and stir to combine.

Breadcrumb Mixture

In a small bowl, stir together the breadcrumbs, salt, garlic powder, and thyme. Drizzle with the olive oil and stir it up with a fork to lightly coat the breadcrumbs in the oil. Set it aside.

Assembly

Evenly spread out 1/4 of the meat mixture on the bottom of a greased 9 x 13-inch casserole or baking pan. Place the six hollowed out tomatoes in the pan, and fill them with the meat mixture. Place any remaining meat mixture between the outside of tomatoes in the pan, filling up any crevices and gaps between the stuffed tomatoes. Pour the chicken stock into the pan.
Sprinkle the breadcrumb mixture over the filling in each of the tomatoes, and sprinkle it on the filling between the tomatoes in the pan. Place the caps on the tomatoes and, using a pastry brush, lightly brush the tops of the caps and any exposed skin of the stuffed tomatoes with some olive oil. Place the pan in the oven and bake until the tomato caps get golden patches and the filling is bubbling and fragrant, about 45 to 55 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve.

Nutrition

Grape Custard Tart + a Free Lighting Masterclass

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 20:59:45 GMT

I have some exciting news to share today—I’m hosting a free class all about natural lighting, and you can read more + sign up for it here! As you can probably tell from the images I share here, lighting makes *such* a huge impact on photo quality, and I am so incredibly excited to share my go-to lighting techniques with you in the class ???? And as for this grape custard tart, well…my grape vine didn’t produce as much fruit this year as I’d hoped, but I was able to gather enough of them to whip up this delicious almond custard base with a sweet homemade grape jello layer on top!

Now, I know grape jello and custard might sound strange, but trust me when I say that this cool, creamy, and fruity flavor combination is absolutely bonkers good together. Plus, this isn’t the same as that boxed grape jello from the store. Nope, this is homemade grape concentrate, made with fresh, sweet, juicy grapes, a touch of sugar and water, and a pinch of gelatin. It’s concentrating down all that tannic sweet summer grape goodness into a single vibrant layer on top of the classic almond custard, and it makes for quite the end-of-summer treat.

There are longer steps in this recipe (like soaking the almonds for the custard, and freezing the crust for an hour), so make sure to read through the whole recipe before you make it so that you can pace it out accordingly. It’s not difficult to make, there’s just a lot of down time while you wait for things to cool, basically. As for the garnish on top of the grape custard tart, I stuck to the same color palette as the grape concentrate and went with fresh purple figs, thinly sliced plums, and some fresh grapes for good measure. But you can feel free to use whatever fresh fruits you have on hand ????

Grape Custard Tart with Fresh Fruit

Course Dessert

Keyword grape

Prep Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes

Resting/Cooling Time 1 day

Servings people

Calories 419kcal

Ingredients

Almond Crust

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups almond meal
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter cold and hard
8 to 12 tablespoons ice water

Almond Custard

1 cup blanched slivered almonds soaked for 3 to 8 hours in filtered water
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup sour cream
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 egg yolks whisked
3 tablespoons flour

Grape Gel

6 ounces purple grapes de-stemmed
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon powdered gelatin

Garnish

2 cups fresh fruit such as figs, sliced plums, and grapes

Instructions

Crust & Custard

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, almond meal, sugar, cinnamon, and salt until combined. Grate the butter in the large hole of the grater above the bowl, stopping to stir and coat the butter bits in the flour mixture every 30 seconds.
Pinch the mixture together with your fingertips until it resembles the texture of damp sand. Add the water, a tablespoon at a time, mixing it with a fork, until the dough just holds together when you squeeze a fistful of it in your hand.
Roll out the dough into a circle until it is 1/4-inch thick, and transfer it to a 9-inch deep-dish tart pan. Press the crust into the pan, and trim off the excess overhang.
Poke it all over with fork and place it in freezer for 1 hour.
For the custard, strain the almonds and discard the soaking liquid. Puree the soaked almonds with the milk, sour cream, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, vanilla extract, and salt at high speed until completely smooth. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a piece of tin foil and press the greased side into the crust in the pan and par-bake for 25 minutes.
While the crust is par-baking, you can finish preparing the custard. Empty the almond mixture into small saucepan and place over medium low heat, stirring every 3 minutes. Once the mixture is hot but not boiling, remove it from the heat and ladle some of the milk mixture into a medium bowl with the egg yolks, whisking them together rapidly. Continue until you’ve added about half the hot milk mixture to the yolks, then empty the yolk mixture back into the saucepan and place it back over medium low heat. Sprinkle in the flour and whisk vigorously until smooth. Continue cooking until the custard has thickened slightly, about 4 minutes, stirring constantly.
Once the 25 minutes of par-baking for the crust are up, remove the foil from the crust and pat down any air bubbles that have risen up. Place a casserole dish half-full of hot water on the bottom rack of the oven. Pour the custard filling into the tart crust and place the pan back in the oven on the center rack. Bake until the edges of the custard are set but the middle is slightly jiggly, about 15 minutes. Turn off the oven and open the oven door. Allow the tart to cool completely in the oven (allowing it to cool slowly will prevent cracking of the custard). Then remove the tart from the pan.

Grape Gel

Heat the grapes, 1/4 cup of the water, and the sugar over medium heat in a small saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil and break apart the grapes with the end of a wooden spoon, releasing their juices. When all the grapes have burst (about 5 minutes), remove the pot from heat and strain the mixture through a metal mesh sieve or colander, reserving the grape juice, and pressing on the grape skins to extract as much liquid as possible. Compost the skins and reserve the liquid. You should have about 3/4 cup grape concentrate.
In a very small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over the 2 tablespoons of cold water and allow to rest for 5 minutes.
While the grape juice is still very hot, whisk in the gelatin mixture and continue stirring until the gelatin has dissolved. Use an ice bath to cool the grape juice down to room temperature.
If you don't know what that means, get a large bowl and add a few cups of ice cubes to it. Get another bowl that's small enough to nest inside the large bowl and set it inside. Pour a bit of cold water into the larger bowl, taking care not to over-fill it—you DON'T want water to get into the center bowl. Pour the grape gelatin mixture into the center bowl and whisk it. It will cool down very quickly.
Once the grape mixture has cooled to room temperature, remove the center bowl from the ice bath and *gently* pour the grape mixture on top of the custard in the tart. Place the tart in the refrigerator and chill for 4 hours to solidify the grape gel. Before serving, garnish with fresh fruit. Serve chilled.

Nutrition

Fig and Hop Simple Syrup + Voting

Thu, 10 Sep 2020 23:27:34 GMT

I’m writing this with a chest full of smoke, sitting at home in front of my desk. The wildfires are the worst they have ever been in Oregon’s recorded history, and our neighborhood is on the border of Level 1 evacuation. The sky is blotted out with smoke, and it has seeped through the cracks of our old home and the smell of fire has permeated everything. As someone whose life is deeply tied to nature, it breaks my heart to see the damage that climate change is doing to my beautiful home state, and all the incredible rural plains and forested landscapes that make this place so special, literally going up in smoke and turning to ash before my eyes.

60% of Oregon is in a severe drought, and things will only get worse if the United States doesn’t course-correct very soon. There are so many things we could do to slow down the effects of climate change, nurture the earth, and restore the balance that’s been lost. But because of the inherent greed (both individual and corporate) within capitalism, and the lack of meaningful legal environmental protections from our government, we are on a path set towards the increasing destruction of our natural world.

We need to elect leaders who truly care about the landscape and the environmental culture within our borders, and will be brave enough to stand up for it and make big and bold changes. Please, register to vote. It takes less than two minutes, and it is more important than ever that you cast your ballot for someone who will make the world better for future generations. 83% of states are allowing mail-in ballots this year, too, but some of them require you to apply for it in advance starting now. You can read a breakdown of the different mail-in ballot + voting options by state here. Definitely google your state’s name and “mail-in ballots” to see what you have to do to make that happen. And remember that the deadline to mail in your ballots is October 28th.

I definitely don’t feel safer or happier than I did 4 years ago, and I doubt many folks do. I know it’s unpopular to get even slightly political on a site about food, but it’s hard to ignore it when it’s literally choking me in my own home. I don’t have the luxury of putting my head in the sand and pretending that everything is just dandy. Because it very much isn’t. Ahem!

So, if you find yourself incredibly wound up and stressed about the world at this late summer season, I have a very simple + soothingly aromatic recipe for this fig and hop simple syrup below. You can buy dried hops very easily online, but if you have them fresh from the vine that works great too. Hops are an herbal flower that has a calming effect on the human body, and they’re often used to brew + flavor IPA beers. But their uses extend much beyond just beer brewing, and include herbal teas and soothing bath salt mixtures. When you combine hops’ herbal floral flavor with fresh juicy figs, it creates an insanely fruit-forward simple syrup that tastes like honeydew melon concentrate. For real, it’s absolutely wild! I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you take action against climate change with your vote this autumn. <3

Fig and Hop Simple Syrup

Course Drinks

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes

Resting Time 2 days

Servings ounces

Ingredients

1 cup hops dried or fresh
5 ounces fresh figs quartered
16 oz mason jar
1 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar

Instructions

Place the hops and fresh quartered figs in the mason jar and set aside. Heat the water and sugar in a small pot over medium high heat, stirring a few times to help the sugar dissolve.
Once the mixture comes to a boil and the sugar has dissolved, pour the hot syrup into the mason jar with the figs and hops. Allow to cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate for 48 hours.
Strain the syrup, setting aside the figs and hops. Keep the syrup in a mason jar in the refrigerator. You can eat the figs, but they will be very sweet since they've been steeping in syrup. Compost the hops.
The syrup is wonderful in cocktails, in a quick lemonade with some lemon juice and ice water, in iced tea, and iced matcha lattes. It has a delicious honeydew melon flavor to it!

Fig Cheesecake Tart with Honey and Pistachios

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 18:19:46 GMT

There’s so much good produce in the summertime—it’s hard to pick favorites. But if I were pressed to, a ripe juicy fig would definitely be in my top three. I love this fig cheesecake because it lets the fresh figs be and allows you to enjoy them in all their raw and decadent glory, simply quartered and adorned atop the cheesecake tart. And with a little extra drizzle of honey and pinch of crunchy pistachios over the top, it makes for a wonderful mix of textures and flavors.

I made this tart for a special project I’m working on with my dear friend Bea Lubas, and I’ll be sharing more about that later in the fall (you can sign up for my email list to find out the details asap once released!) Also, her book all about food photography just came out and it’s absolutely incredible—highly recommend it! For the project, I wanted to make something beautiful and delicious, and I knew I had the best of both worlds when I spotted these plump green figs at the farmer’s market. I’m not quite sure what variety they are (it was simply labeled ‘figs’ at the farm stand) but goodness were they good. So sweet and syrupy inside, and the skin was so thin you could eat them whole with no problem.

I drew a bit from my Greek food heritage for the other components, using goat’s cheese and honey in the fig cheesecake filling, almond in the crust, and pistachios sprinkled on top. You really can’t go wrong with flavor combinations that have stood the test of time for thousands of years ???? The same goes for this fresh fig, grape, and ricotta salad I whipped up last summer (if you’re looking for more fresh fig recipe inspiration!) There’s some salty proscuitto and tangy balsamic in that one, too, which makes for an out of this world summery salad! I hope you enjoy this tart as much as I did, and are soaking up this last bit of summer. I’ll be back again next week with one more fig-centric recipe for the season!

Fig Cheesecake Tart with Honey and Pistachios

Course Dessert

Cuisine Greek

Keyword fig

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 40 minutes

Chilling Time 5 hours

Servings people

Calories 301kcal

Ingredients

Almond Crust

1 cup almond flour
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
5 ounces butter cold and hard
8 to 12 tablespoons ice water

Chevre Cheesecake Filling

8 ounces plain goats cheese at room temperature
1/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs whisked, at room temperature
1/4 cup whole milk at room temperature

Toppings

6 to 8 figs quartered
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons chopped pistachios

Instructions

Almond Crust

In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, and cinnamon until blended. Cut the butter into pea sized pieces over the bowl, stopping to stir every few minutes to coat the butter pieces in the flour mixture.
Use your fingertips to pinch the butter pieces in the flour until the mixture resembles the texture of damp sand. Add the water and stir to combine, then knead the dough with your hands until it comes together, about 10 to 30 seconds. If the dough sticks together when you grab it and squeeze it in your hand, it's fine. If it falls apart, add another tablespoon or two of water.
Transfer the dough to a clean surface, pat it into a circle, cover it, and place it in the freezer for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll out the dough into a roughly 12-inch circle and transfer it to a greased 9-inch tart pan, trimming off any excess edges. Use a fork to poke holes all over it and place it in the freezer for 4 hours or overnight.

Chevre Cheesecake Filling

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the goat cheese, honey, and vanilla extract until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, and mix until combined. With the stand mixer mixing at low speed, add the milk in a thin steady stream. Mix until incorporated and smooth. Set aside.
Place the tart shell on a baking sheet. Line the inside of the tart shell with a piece of tin foil and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and remove and discard the aluminum foil. Press down any areas of the crust where air bubbles have formed. Add the cheesecake filling and bake until edges are set but the center is still very slightly wobbly, about 15 to 20 more minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature before removing the sides of the pan. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour to help firm up the filling.
Top with the quartered figs, creating concentric circles of the fig slices on the top of the tart. Drizzle with the honey and sprinkle with the chopped pistachios and serve immediately.

Nutrition

Blackberry Pavlova with Cardamom

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 01:35:21 GMT

I originally made this blackberry pavlova for a blog post waaaaay back in 2012 as a part of a larger dinner party post with a few other old recipes. Like many of the posts I created back then, the food was good, but the recipe writing needed improvement, and the images weren’t what I’d call my best work. But, I like having some of those old images around because they show how far anyone can come at any task (given lots of practice), so I have a few of them at the bottom of this post (Brace yourselves!) ????

Originally, I’d made this as a multi-layered pavlova rather than a single one. But since pavlova’s meringue base makes them a bit fragile, I didn’t like the idea of the weight of the toppings crushing all the beautiful meringue. Part of the joy of a pavlova is having that satisfying ‘CRUNCH’ of the outer crisp shell break away to reveal the marshmallow-like soft pillow of meringue inside—and when the weight of the layers has already crushed that shell, you kind of miss out on all that magic. So, I updated it to be a nice big solid single layer of pavlova goodness.

Aside from some quantity adjustments, the blackberry pavlova recipe held up *very* well and was just as insanely delicious as I’d remembered it being. Something about that sweet tannic blackberry flavor paired with the spiced, almost floral, flavor of ground cardamom creates an unforgettable duo. It’s encouraging my mind to go all a-flutter with more ways to incorporate cardamom and blackberry together…from pastry swirl buns to fruity crumble bars, it looks like I have quite the blackberry season ahead of me!

Blackberry Pavlova with Cardamom

Servings people

Ingredients

Blackberry Jam

1/2 pound blackberries fresh or frozen
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

Cardamom Pavlova

5 egg whites
1 1/2 cups superfine sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cardamom

Blackberry Whipped Cream

8 ounces heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon lemon zest
2 teaspoons blackberry reduction
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Garnish

3/4 cup fresh blackberries
3/4 cup fresh blueberries
2 tablespoons honey

Instructions

Blackberry Jam

Heat the blackberries in a medium-sized pot over medium heat, stirring every few minutes until they break apart. Lower the heat and allow the mixture to simmer for 15 minutes. Remove 2 teaspoons of the blackberry reduction mixture and set it aside. Stir in the sugar and honey and allow the blackberry jam mixture to continue simmering over low heat for 45 minutes, stirring every 8 minutes or so. Remove from heat, stir in the lemon juice, zest, and cardamom, and allow to cool to room temperature then refrigerate.

Cardamom Pavlova

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Gradually beat in the sugar, about 1/4 cup at a time. Continue beating on high speed until the egg whites are shiny, thick, and hold stiff peaks, then fold in the vanilla extract and the ground cardamom.
Trace a 9-inch circle on a piece of parchment paper, then flip it upside down and place it on a baking sheet down so the traced side won't touch the meringue. Lift up each corner of the parchment paper and dab a small teaspoon-sized blob of meringue on the corner of a large baking sheet, then press the parchment paper back down firmly onto the bit of meringue (doing this on each of the four corners of the baking sheet will keep the parchment paper from sliding around while you spread your pavlova shape).
Using a rubber spatula, spread the remaining meringue into a 9-inch circle shape using the tracing to guide you. Try to make the edges of the pavlova slightly higher than the center to allow space for the toppings later on. Use an offset spatula to make vertical lines around the edge of the pavlova, starting your offset spatula at the bottom of the pavlova and then lifting straight up, and repeating all the way around the edges of the pavlova (optional).
Place the pan in the oven and bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the meringue is crisp on the outside and easily lifts off the parchment. Turn off the oven and allow the pavlova to cool to room temperature over several hours. Pavlovas will deflate and collapse if cooled too quickly. Once cooled, remove the pavlova from the oven.
If your pavlova has cracks, do not fret. If any part looks like it may crack off after cooling, just gently press it back into place (the toppings will help hide any large cracks on the top).

Blackberry Whipped Cream

To make the whipped cream, beat whipping cream, sugar and cardamom until lightly fluffy and smooth and holds soft peaks. Then add lemon zest, blackberry reduction and vanilla and beat on low speed until it's combined thoroughly but be careful to not over beat!

Assembly

To assemble the pavlova, place the pavlova on a serving plate. Spread the blackberry whipped cream on top of it, then the blackberry jam. To garnish, arrange some of the fresh blackberries and blueberries on top and drizzle with the honey. Serve immediately and enjoy!

This Recipe was Based on a post from 2012, You Can See the Original Image Below!

No one starts being an expert at anything from the get-go ???? If you want to learn all about photography, styling, + branding to take your photos from that ↓ to this ↑, check out my online photography + styling courses!

Peaches and Cream Strudel

Wed, 19 Aug 2020 20:38:00 GMT

A couple weeks ago I felt an intense itch to get out of the house, so Jeremy and I headed east to our friend Trina’s farm, Mountain View Orchards, to soak up the views, wide open spaces, and pick up some fruit from their luscious peach trees. The orchard is set right against the foot of Mount Hood, so the views from the farm are as striking as those in the alps. We sat for a bit at a sunny table in the grass and enjoyed some of the cool crisp cider they brew in-house with their own apples. It felt good to sit outside someplace outside of our own yard. Really, really good. After enjoying the tickle of the cider’s bubbles on my lips, my glass eventually emptied and we made our way over to the peach groves. After a nice long walk through the fruit-studded trees, we took home a pleasantly heavy bundle of tender peaches, and I put them to use in this sweet and summery peaches and cream strudel.

In this dessert, buttery layers of filo dough encase a peachy honey custard. There’s sliced peaches on the bottom of the strudel, there’s chopped peaches mixed into the custard, plus there’s *super* thinly sliced peaches nestled into the filo dough on top. Oh! And there’s peaches cooked into the syrup that you pour over the strudel, too. It’s pretty much a creamy custardy celebration of all the flavorful magic encased in their fuzzy, tender skin. An ode to a peach, if you will.

Instead of making strudel dough from scratch, I like to keep things simple and use ready-made filo dough. As the child of a Greek immigrant, I have had a lot of experience working with filo dough and have summarized all my tips about it further down in this post. Definitely make sure to read through all of them before making this recipe. I know that filo dough can be intimidating, but I promise it’s not that bad! As long as you follow the advice I’m sharing with you, your filo experience (and your peaches and cream strudel) will be totally fine.

I will say, though, that this peaches and cream strudel isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s based off of a traditional Greek baked custard, galaktoboureko, which is one of my favorite desserts of all time, but was also created with the expectation that you were a stay-at-home mom whose sole job it was to cook for a minimum of 6 children, and would be totally okay with spending several hours tediously hunched over the counter, stovetop, and oven to create one dessert. Luckily, having ready-made filo dough saves a LOT of time, but there are still a lot of important little steps in this recipe, and a lot of nuance that goes into making it. That being said, even if your filo dough topper sinks in the custard or your peach slices are too thick and not flexible, it will still taste damn good, and in the end that’s all that really matters. ????

Working with Filo Dough

Thaw it Overnight in the Refrigerator — You can find ready-made filo dough frozen (usually right next to the frozen pie crusts) at your grocery store, but you need to defrost it in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours before using it. DO NOT defrost it at room temperature. If you try and defrost it at room temperature, moisture will condense within the package and the sheets *will* stick together, making it almost impossible to use the filo dough.

Keep it Covered, Keep it Safe — Once you’ve opened the package, the filo dough is now exposed to air and will begin drying out. I recommend keeping the pile of filo dough sheets covered with a kitchen towel while you’re working to keep them flexible and prevent them from drying out and crumbling.

Lightly Brush with Butter — Brushing the filo sheet you’re actively working with with melted butter helps keep it moist and flexible. I tell you when to brush it in the recipe below, but it’s worth mentioning here, too. I recommend using a bristled pastry brush, I feel like the silicone ones can hold onto too much butter sometimes, whereas the bristled ones distribute the butter more evenly.

Peaches and Cream Strudel

Course Dessert

Cuisine Greek

Keyword peach

Servings people

Ingredients

Strudel

12 filo dough sheets (about 1/2 pound) thawed for at least 24 hours in the refrigerator if purchased frozen
1/2 cup unsalted butter or margarine melted
3 large peaches
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Peaches and Cream Custard Filling

2 cups whole milk or full-fat coconut milk
1/3 cup semolina flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs well-beaten
1 tablespoon unsalted butter or margarine
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 large peach chopped

Peach Honey Syrup

1/4 cup honey
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 peach chopped
1 cinnamon stick

Instructions

Peach Honey Syrup

Begin by making the syrup. Combine all the ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat. When the mixture comes to a boil, reduce heat to medium low and continue to simmer for 10 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so. Strain the mixture, pressing to get all the juicy syrup out of the peaches, keeping the syrup. Cool the syrup down in an ice bath and put in the fridge.

Strudel

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and lightly flour an 8-inch springform cake pan that's about 2 to 2 1/2 inches deep, and set it aside on a lipped baking sheet (this will catch any butter that may leak out of the bottom of your springform pan as it bakes).
On a clean work surface, lay out your filo dough sheets in a pile and cover it with a linen or cotton towel to keep them from dying out. As you pull filo sheets from this pile, make sure to place the fabric back over the pile each time.
Pull a sheet of filo and lay it on your surface. Brush it lightly with the melted butter, then grab another sheet of filo and place it on top of the first sheet, and lightly brush it with butter as well. Fold the two sheets of filo dough in half width-wise to make almost a square-shape. Place them over the cake pan and press them into the sides of the pan (there will be empty spots, thats okay), and any overhang is okay too.
Repeat the previous step again, and this time place the folded filo dough in the alternate area of the pan to form a criss-cross, so that any empty spaces on the sides and bottom of the pan are covered by the filo.
Cut two of the peaches into twelfths and place the slices on the bottom of the pan. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.
We will use the filo again later, so just roll it up, cover it, and place it in the refrigerator to keep it cool and prevent it from drying out while the filo shell bakes.

Peaches and Cream Custard Filling

While it's baking, you can begin the custard. Heat the milk in a medium saucepan over low heat until warm, stirring every minute or two. Add the semolina, sugar, and the butter. Continue to cook over low heat until the mixture thickens to coat the back of the spoon, whisking every few minutes.
In a separate bowl, whisk 1 cup of the hot milk mixture with the beaten eggs, adding the hot milk mixture in a thin steady stream while whisking. Pour the egg mixture into the saucepan and whisk constantly until it thickens a bit more, about another 3 to 5 minutes. (It should be thick enough to support the weight of the filo dough spiral we'll make without the filo dough sinking into the custard.) Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice, lemon zest, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and chopped peach until combined. Set aside.

Continuing Assembly with the Strudel

When the shell of the strudel has baked for 20 minutes, remove it from the oven and fill it with the custard. Take your filo out of the refrigerator and unroll it on a clean working surface.
Take one sheet of filo and lay it out on the work surface and brush it lightly with the melted butter. Take another sheet of filo and place it on top of the first and brush it lightly with butter. Repeat this once more so that you have three sheets of filo layered on top of each other lightly brushed with melted butter.
Scrunch up the filo length-wise to create a long ridged piece of filo (see the in-process photo below). Take one end of the filo and twist it to create a slight spiral shape, and set it to the side of the work surface.
Take one sheet of filo and lay it out on the work surface and brush it lightly with the melted butter. Take another sheet of filo and place it on top of the first and brush it lightly with butter. Repeat this once more so that you have three sheets of filo layered on top of each other lightly brushed with melted butter. Scrunch up the filo length-wise to create a long ridged piece of filo. Now place the end of this filo at the end of the first piece, and twist it around the original spiral to continue the spiral shape outwards.
Take one sheet of filo and lay it out on the work surface and brush it lightly with the melted butter. Take another sheet of filo and place it on top of the first and brush it lightly with butter. You should have two sheets layered on top of each other lightly brushed with butter. Scrunch up the filo length-wise to create a long ridged piece of filo. Now place the end of this filo at the end of the first piece, and twist it around the original spiral to continue the spiral shape outwards. You should have a round spiral of filo measuring about 8 inches across. Pick this up and place/nestle it on top of the custard in the pan (it helps if you have a large pancake spatula or plate you can use to slide the spiral off of and onto the top of the custard).
Cut the remaining peach into *very* thin slices (the thinner they are, the more flexible they will be). Tuck them into the wrinkles of the filo spiral to give the impression of flower petals. Generously brush the top of the spiral with butter, sprinkle with the tablespoon of sugar, and place it in the oven to bake until the filo spiral is lightly golden and the custard is set, about 50 to 60 more minutes. (It's okay if the top tips of the filo shell get too dark, you can always break off any dark bits before serving).
When ready, remove the pan from the oven and immediately drizzle with the cold syrup. Allow the custard to cool and absorb the syrup for 1 hour. Break off any dark edges of the filo shell, unclasp the springform pan, and slice and serve.

Stuffed Summer Squash with Dill and Feta

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 01:34:52 GMT

The garden’s been in a tizzy these days. It’s popping out summer squash like there’s no tomorrow, and I’ve been having a hard time keeping up with the sheer quantity of squash heading into the kitchen. I have a great recipe for summer squash fritters in my cookbook, and we’ve definitely been making a ton of those lately, but I wanted to whip up something that involved less grating and frying, and a memory popped into my head of the stuffed summer squash my parents would make in the summer when I was a kid.

My dad used to grow these comically huge zucchini (he’s since stopped growing them because they “took up too much space in the garden”), and my poor mother was left to figure out how to cook and make use of these vegetable monoliths. She realized they could be easily hollowed out and stuffed with all sorts of other good stuff from the garden, like diced tomatoes, oregano, onions, garlic, raisins, and rice among other equally tasty tidbits. After that realization, stuffed zucchini was a summer staple for the Kosmas household of yesteryear. And this year, I brought the stuffed summer squash back from retirement and introduced it to the Kosmas-Flores household, where it was very much appreciated and enjoyed.

You can use any kind of summer squash for this dish, whether it’s patty pan, rond de nice, or a plain old zucchini. Zucchini tends to have the most innard space for stuffing though. I recommend using medium-sized summer squash, so that you can get a decent amount of filling in them, but not such a huge squash that it won’t easily fit in a casserole baking dish. This recipe makes enough filling to go inside the squash, plus some to put in the pan, nestled around the squash, to keep everything in place and prevent any zucchini from tipping over and spilling out their precious contents. To keep the filling in the pan from drying out, I recommend adding a splash of broth or stock to the pan to keep it nice and moist as it roasts.

Oh! And I used ground turkey in the stuffed summer squash filling, but you can feel free to substitute your preferred ground meat, or swap it for cooked lentils if you’d like to keep things vegetarian. My biggest recommendation, though, is fo make sure to sprinkle it with more fresh dill and feta right when it comes out of the oven before you serve it. There’s something about the contrast of the fresh, wet, salty feta with the bright herbaceous dill and the soft steaming summer squash that’s just heavenly. Hope you enjoy it, my friend!

Roasted Stuffed Summer Squash with Dill and Feta

Course Dinner

Cuisine Greek

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes

Servings people

Ingredients

5 medium-sized summer squash
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 yellow onion chopped
6 cloves of garlic minced
3 fresh cayenne peppers thinly sliced, (can substitute any fresh hot pepper, such as jalapeno, adjusting quantity to your heat-liking)
2 pounds ground turkey
4 ounces tomatoes chopped
2 cups cooked rice
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
1/3 cup chopped fresh dill
8 ounces feta cheese crumbled
1/2 cup chicken stock

Instructions

For round summer squash, such as 'rond de nice' and 'patty pan', cut the top 1/4 off the squash and use a metal spoon to scoop out and compost the soft seedy pulp. For long summer squash like zucchini, lay the zucchini on it's side and cut the top 1/3 off length-wise. Use the previous instructions to scoop out and discard the seedy pulp. Set the squash aside in a medium casserole baking dish, and preheat the oven to 375 degree Fahrenheit.
Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until softened and transparent, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and stir to coat, and continue sautéing until the garlic is very fragrant. Add the cayenne peppers and stir to combine. Cook until the peppers softened, about 5 minutes more, then add the ground turkey and cook until it's nearly cooked through, breaking it apart with the end of your wooden stirring spoon as it cooks. Add the tomatoes, rice, paprika, salt, garlic powder, black pepper, the basil, and half of the dill and stir to combine. Add 6 ounces of the feta (3/4 of it) and stir until *just* evenly mixed throughout.
Spoon the filling into the squash in the pan, and then spoon any additional filling into the pan around the squash, creating a little nest of filling around each squash. Add the chicken stock to the pan, place the pan in the oven, and bake until the squash is tender when pierced with a fork and the skin is very slightly wrinkled, about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven, sprinkle with the remaining dill and feta, and serve immediately.

Berry Mojito + Printable Recipe Cards

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 13:49:37 GMT

I’m so happy that summer is here in full swing, and nothing tastes quite as refreshing on a balmy July afternoon as a minty berry mojito. I love having mojitos when we’re grilling out on the deck, it makes waiting around for the chicken to finish cooking through much more pleasant! On that note, I’m sharing 6 recipe cards with my favorite summer recipes (including my grilled chicken with plum sauce) with you for free! I printed them out here at home with my amazing Canon PIXMA TR4520 Printer and you can download the PDFs here to print them at home ????

As a photographer, print quality is incredibly important to me, and as you can see from the photos, the way the Canon PIXMA TR4520 captures the true colors of my photos is absolutely *mind-blowing* (even more so considering it’s an affordable at-home printer!) I also love that the wireless connectivity of the printer means I can print fun impromptu photos directly from my phone without needing to transfer them to the computer, but it still gives me the option to print from the computer wirelessly for my more polished food photos that I want to hang around the house.

And I love that the printing tray fits a huge variety of different photo paper sizes, like classic 8 x 10-inch or even fun square 5 x 5-inch ones! But it also can be switched to normal document printing when you’re not doing photo prints, too, which is super handy. Truly my friend, if you’re looking to upgrade your home printer, I *highly* recommend this one. Plus, you guys know that when you support my partners, you’re also helping support me to keep bringing you flavorful seasonal recipes + garden peeks on the regular ???? And for even more amazing summer recipes, make sure to download this free printable #CanonInTheKitchen Recipe e-Book with summer recipes from myself + many other talented food bloggers!

Also, a note on mojitos, if you’ve never had them before, they’re traditionally a mixture of vibrant lime juice, simple syrup, mint leaves, rum, and a touch of club soda. I always add berries to my simple syrup for them, though, because it adds just the right amount of bright summer berry flavor, and it pairs so perfectly with the lime and the mint! I also like using a mix of honey and sugar in the simple syrup, because I find the honey adds the most wonderful floral taste to the drink. Take note that this recipe makes a big batch for entertaining, so if you want to make a smaller amount feel free to halve or even quarter the recipe. Enjoy it + stay cool, my friends!

Berry Mojito

Berry Syrup

2 cups water
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup honey
3 1/2 cups berries (fresh or frozen)

Berry Mojito

2 cups rum
24 mint leaves (ounces or cups)
6 cups lime juice
4 cups berry syrup
2 cups club soda
3 fresh limes (thinly sliced)
Ice

Berry Syrup

Mix all ingredients together in a medium saucepan over medium high hear. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer until the berries disintegrate, about 15 minutes, stirring every 4 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool to warm.
Place a mesh metal colander over a large bowl, and strain the mixture, pressing on the berry pulp that remains in the mesh colander to get out all the remaining berry juices. Discard the pulp, and pour the syrup into airtight containers (like mason jars). Allow to cool to room temperature uncovered, then cover and refrigerate. Will keep for 1 month in the refrigerator. Makes about 4 cups of berry syrup.

Berry Mojito

Place half of the mint leaves in the bottom of a large pitcher. Use a muddler or the end of a wooden spoon to press gently all over the mint for about 30 seconds (this helps the mint release its tasty essential oils). Add the remaining fresh mint, the rum, lime juice, berry syrup, club soda, and stir to combine. Add the lime slices and ice and serve immediately. Makes 12 servings.
PS: The color of your berry mojito will vary depending on the berries you use. I used mostly raspberries with a few blackberries and blueberries.

Disclosure: I partnered with Canon for this post, and all opinions shared here are my own, per usual!

Berry Curd Tart with a Deep Dish Almond Crust

Mon, 20 Jul 2020 13:17:29 GMT

It’s prime berry season here in the Pacific northwest, and between the raspberry patch in the garden and the native blackberries and black cap berries at the homestead, I’m eyes-deep in berry heaven. My love affair with berries started a long time ago, though, and it began like this. When I was a little girl, my best friend lived in a house in the woods. We’d run around in the forest creating our own little adventures, which ranged from pretending we were fairies to explorers to mermaids (typical child fare). In the summer, there were patches of wild blackberries scattered about the sunny breaks in the forest canopy, and we’d spend hours carefully plucking them from the thorn-studded canes and savoring them one by one, later emerging from the brush with cheerfully stained fingers and mouths.

I’m always reminded of those wonderful memories during this time of year, and it brings me a lot of joy to think back on them as I carry my berry-picking torch deep into my adulthood. And while I don’t play imaginary games anymore, I hope that someday when we have a family of our own they can have a similar experience out in the garden that I did in the forest. Connecting with nature and the earth and getting such pure and profound joy from it.

But enough about my memories, let’s talk about this berry curd tart! This recipe calls for a deep-dish tart pan, so that you can get a nice and generous amount of berry filling inside. If you don’t have one and don’t want to buy one, a shallow pie pan will also work. There’s also two kinds of filling here—the bottom one is a nice jammy mixture of stewed berries, sugar, and cinnamon, and the top one is a creamy and silky mixed berry curd. These are layered on top of a deliciously nutty almond and flour crust, whose buttery crumbles compliment the bright tannic berries perfectly.

The filling for the berry curd tart is also no-bake, you just make it all on the stovetop to keep it simple. The crust needs to be par-baked in the oven, but I have instructions on how to do that properly in the recipe below. You can also feel free to use whatever kinds of berries you’d like in the filling, anything from strawberries to blackberries to cherries and so on. If it’s sweet and tannic, it’s fair game. The tart also keeps well, too, so you can make it the day before you plan on serving it and just keep it refrigerated. And if you want a smaller berry tart, you can check out this regular-depth one from last year around this time. I hope you enjoy it and savor every little bite of these gifts from summer.

Berry Curd Tart with a Deep Dish Almond Crust

Almond Crust

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups almond meal
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter cold and hard
8 to 12 tablespoons ice water

Berry Jam Filling

4 cups mixed berries (fresh or frozen)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Berry Curd Filling

1 1/2 cups mixed berries (fresh or frozen)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup lime or lemon juice
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon quality balsamic vinegar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons corn starch
6 tablespoons butter (cut into individual tablespoons)

Garnish

1 cup berries (fresh)

Almond Crust

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, almond meal, sugar, cinnamon, and salt until combined. Grate the butter in the large hole of the grater above the bowl, stopping to stir and coat the butter bits in the flour mixture every 30 seconds.
Pinch the mixture together with your fingertips until it resembles the texture of damp sand. Add the water, a tablespoon at a time, mixing it with a fork, until the dough just holds together when you squeeze a fistful of it in your hand.
Roll out the dough into a circle until it is 1/4-inch thick, and transfer it to a 9-inch deep-dish tart pan. Press the crust into the pan, and trim off the excess overhang.
Poke it all over with fork and place it in freezer for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a piece of tin foil and press the greased side into the crust in the pan. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove foil, pat down any bubbling parts, and bake until edges are lightly gold, about 15 minutes more. Pat down any additional bubbling parts and allow crust to cool completely on a wire rack. Then remove the crust from the pan.

Berry Jam Filling

Mix together all of the ingredients in a medium-sized saucepan. Place over medium heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and continue to simmer the mixture until the berries have softened and begun releasing their juice. Add the cornstarch and stir. Continue cooking until the mixture has thickened slightly and has a jammier texture, about 9 to 12 minutes, stirring every 3 minutes or so. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Berry Curd Filling

Heat the berries and 1/2 cup sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat until softened and *just* beginning to release their juice, stirring frequently. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool to warm. Press the berries through a metal mesh sieve to extract the juice. Discard the pulp, reserving the juice.
In the top of a double boiler that is boiling over medium heat, whisk together the berry juice, lemon juice, water, balsamic vinegar, egg, egg yolks, and remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Continue whisking while the mixture thickens very slightly, about 5 minutes.
Whisk in the cornstarch, then the butter, one tablespoon a time. Continue whisking until the mixture thickens to coat the back of a spoon, about 7 to 12 minutes more. Remove from heat and place the top of the double boiler in an ace bath. Continue whisking until the curd cools to room temperature, then remove from the ice bath and set it aside.

Assembly

Pour the berry jam into the tart crust and spread evenly across the bottom. Pour the berry curd over the jam and use a spatula to spread it evenly over the jam. Garnish the top with fresh berries and refrigerate for at least 3 hours before serving.