GREEN BEAN-MUSHROOM-BACON & CHEESE CASSEROLE

The traditional "green bean casserole" has always intrigued me. I see it mostly during the holidays and I want to enjoy it, although I'm not too fond of the mushroom soup sauce it usually has. This year, I set out to re-invent this holiday casserole and I absolutely love the final results.
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I used fresh green beans, sauteed sweet onions, portobello mushrooms, crisp bacon, a little cheddar cheese and my own white sauce. The resulting "green bean casserole" was delicious and we ate a ton of it. 1 pound of fresh green beans cut into 2" pieces
½ cup chopped sweet onion
½ pound of baby portobello mushrooms sliced
½ pound of bacon fried crisp (drained well & crumbled)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (loosely packed)
1 clove garlic minced finely
3 tablespoons white flour
1 teaspoon salt
scant ½ teaspoon black pepper
2½ cups milk
2 tablespoons butter

In a large frying pan, melt the butter and saute the chopped onions until they smell sweet; add the garlic and saute until it barely turns golden. Add the green beans and mushrooms (mixing well) and saute for a few minutes until they start to wilt just a little (don't cook them all the way through). Remove pan from heat and set aside.
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In a sauce pan, melt 3 tablespoons butter. When butter is hot, add (all at once) the flour, salt & pepper, stirring quickly. Cook on medium for about a minute (to remove any flour taste). Next, you are going to add the milk, a little at a time, whisking like a mad woman while you add the milk (this will eliminate lumps in the sauce). Once the milk and butter-flour mixture are mixed well, cook on medium heat (stirring every once in a while) until it gets nice and thick.

Remove from heat and stir in the cheese & crisp bacon. Add this mixture to the vegetables and stir well (but gently). Place in an lightly greased casserole dish and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until very hot.
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It was really tasty and the leftovers made a mouth watering lunch the next day.

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Around My French Table

Shocked, I am sure you are SHOCKED to find that one of my favorite books of 2010 is a French cookbook. Well, every year there has to be a new French cookbook.

This year it is by Dorie Greenspan. Greenspan is one of those "foodies" that everyone seems to love. Her books are always informative and this one is no different. There is a lot of explanation, but in a friendly, "You can do it" kind of way. There are tips and ideas and lovely photos, so what more could one ask for.

Well, most of these recipes are culled from actual encounters Greenspan has had with people who actually cook. Then she has taken a cookbook writes mind to the recipes and the reader gets an actual French recipe with none of the hassle.

Dorie in the kitchen. We love showing cooks in their kitchens!

Here is a recipe that you might not think about at first glance. We have all seen pumpkins used as soup terrines, but here is a way to really use a pumpkin. (Remember to get a cooking pumpkin and not a big old Jack-O-Lantern pumpkin.)

Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good

1 pumpkin, about 3 pounds
Salt and freshly ground pepper
¼ pound stale bread, thinly sliced and cut into ½-inch chunks
¼ pound cheese, such as Gruyère, Emmenthal, cheddar, or a combination, cut into ½-inch chunks
2–4 garlic cloves (to taste), split, germ removed, and coarsely chopped
4 strips bacon, cooked until crisp, drained, and chopped
About ¼ cup snipped fresh chives or sliced scallions
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme
About 1/3 cup heavy cream
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment, or find a Dutch oven with a diameter that’s just a tiny bit larger than your pumpkin. If you bake the pumpkin in a casserole, it will keep its shape, but it might stick to the casserole, so you’ll have to serve it from the pot — which is an appealingly homey way to serve it. If you bake it on a baking sheet, you can present it freestanding, but maneuvering a heavy stuffed pumpkin with a softened shell isn’t so easy. However, since I love the way the unencumbered pumpkin looks in the center of the table, I’ve always taken my chances with the baked-on-a-sheet method, and so far, I’ve been lucky.

Using a very sturdy knife--and caution--cut a cap out of the top of the pumpkin (think Halloween jack-o’-lantern). It’s easiest to work your knife around the top of the pumpkin at a 45-degree angle. You want to cut off enough of the top to make it easy for you to work inside the pumpkin. Clear away the seeds and strings from the cap and from inside the pumpkin. Season the inside of the pumpkin generously with salt and pepper, and put it on the baking sheet or in the pot.

Toss the bread, cheese, garlic, bacon, and herbs together in a bowl. Season with pepper--you probably have enough salt from the bacon and cheese, but taste to be sure--and pack the mix into the pumpkin. The pumpkin should be well filled--you might have a little too much filling, or you might need to add to it. Stir the cream with the nutmeg and some salt and pepper and pour it into the pumpkin. Again, you might have too much or too little--you don’t want the ingredients to swim in cream, but you do want them nicely moistened. (But it’s hard to go wrong here.)

Put the cap in place and bake the pumpkin for about 2 hours--check after 90 minutes--or until everything inside the pumpkin is bubbling and the flesh of the pumpkin is tender enough to be pierced easily with the tip of a knife. Because the pumpkin will have exuded liquid, I like to remove the cap during the last 20 minutes or so, so that the liquid can bake away and the top of the stuffing can brown a little.

When the pumpkin is ready, carefully, very carefully--it’s heavy, hot, and wobbly--bring it to the table or transfer it to a platter that you’ll bring to the table.

Our Best of 2010:

Around My French Table

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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

from all the reicpes at

Cookbook Of The Day

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Another Best...

One of our favorites this year featured the area of the country we live in -- Appalachia. Joan Aller did a great service in writing, Cider Beans, Wild Greens and Dandelion Jelly.

Here is a recipe for the Mountain Molasses Stack Cake, pictured above. when times were tough, people would bring a single cake layer to a gathering and then they would be put together with an apple sauce filling into a multi-layered cake.

Mountain Molasses Stack Cake

Cake

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 large egg
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Filling

2 cups finely chopped apples
1/2 cup water
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease and flour the outside bottom of two 8-inch round cake pans.

To make the cake, cream together the brown sugar and butter in a large bowl until light. Slowly add the egg and molasses and blend well. Beat in the buttermilk, vanilla, and nutmeg.

In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Slowly add the flour mixture to the molasses mixture and mix until thoroughly incorporated.

Pour half of the batter into each prepared cake pan. Bake for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean. Let the cakes cool on their pans on a wire rack.

While the cakes are cooling, make the filling. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the apples and water. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the apples are tender. Stir in the brown sugar and cinnamon. Bring to a boil and, stirring constantly, cook the mixture until a light syrup forms.

Place one of the cooled cake layers on a serving plate and spread half of the filling on top. Place the second layer on top, and spread the remaining filling over the top.

Get a copy of our favorite:

Cider Beans, Wild Greens and Dandelion Jelly

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The Geometry of Pasta

We have been saving some of our best for last.

So what happens when you combine a graphic novel, 2008's London restaurant of the year, and pasta sauce? You get The Geometry of Pasta. Unlike most cookbooks The Geometry of Pasta began as a visual idea. Noted graphic designer, Caz Hildebrand, is a Creative Partner at Here Design. He envisioned a cookbook that would focus on a common yet varied ingredient -- pasta. Once he conceived of the graphics, he needed an equally creative chef to develop sauces for each of the pastas. He really only had one choice.

Jacob Kenedy is the chef/proprietor of Bocca di Lupo. The often finicky Giles Coren wrote in the The London Times:

"Bocca di Lupo I went to only yesterday, and my tongue is still singing, my lip quivering, my brain dancing. Bocca di Lupo is just bloody marvellous."

I must say I have been quite spoiled with cookbooks featuring full color images, but this stripped down, graphic cookbook is a treasure. It features recipes for my favorite campanelle which means bell-flowers. It is getting harder to find and I am always upset when it is not on the shelf.

Here is the recipe for the famous puttanesca

Puttanesca
Whore’s sauce


200g spaghetti
50ml extra virgin olive oil
180g cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 teaspoon crushed dried chilli flakes
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
40g salted capers, soaked until tolerably salty and drained
120g black olives (Gaeta, if possible), pitted and roughly chopped
4 anchovy fillets, roughly chopped
100ml light tomato sauce (page 15), or tomato passata
3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil or 1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano

What more colourful name could there be than ‘whore’s pasta’? This Neapolitan recipe may have originally been cooked by the proprietor of a brothel for his customers, a quick and cheap substantial dish to give them energy, or been inspired by the lurid colours of the ladies’ biancheria (undergarments). In any case, it is delicious, widespread, and enjoyed by people at every grade of respectability.

A few minutes before the pasta is cooked, heat a wide frying pan until smoking hot. Add the oil, followed immediately by the tomatoes, chilli and garlic. Fry for a minute until the garlic is just starting to colour and the tomatoes soften. Add the capers, olives and anchovy, reduce the heat to medium and fry for a minute more before adding the tomato sauce.

Simmer for a minute or so until the pasta is cooked a touch more al dente than you want it on the plate; drain it and add to the sauce along with the herbs. Stir together for 30 seconds over the heat, adding plenty of black pepper but probably no extra salt. Serve straight away.

Oh my, how good is this book? A favorite of 2010...

The Geometry of Pasta

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Another Fave in 2010

We love getting our quarterly "cookbook" from the girls at Canal House Cooking. Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton do a bang up job. Every time I get a copy in the mail, I just want to drive to New Jersey and move in with them.

Canal House Cooking Volume 5 features a wonderful essay by Gabrielle Hamilton, the chef at Prune (and the sister of Melissa Hamilton). I have been waiting for Gabrielle Hamilton to publish a cookbook forever and FINALLY her book Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, is scheduled to come out in March. No doubt you will read about it here. Till then, read about another 2010 favorite...

Canal House Cooking

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OATMEAL CRANBERRY WALNUT COOKIES

If you are looking for one more easy cookie to round out your holiday baking, try these delicious cookies. They are light, crispy and buttery tasting (not the standard heavy oatmeal cookie).

1 cup butter (room temperature)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon butter extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups quick cooking oats
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups Craisens (sweetened dried cranberries)
1 cup chopped walnuts
Beat butter, sugars, eggs and extracts for FIVE MINUTES (important to the light crispy nature of this cookie).
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In another bowl, mix the flour, oatmeal, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Add this dry mixture to the butter mixture (1 cup at a time) beating well after each addition.
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Stir in the dried cranberries and walnuts. Let this finished cookie dough sit for about 5 minutes.
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Roll the dough into 1" balls (dough will be a little sticky). Place the dough balls on lightly greased cookie sheet, about 2" apart. Bake in 350 preheated oven for 12-14 minutes (my oven took 13 minutes).

NOTE: Before you put the cookie dough balls on the baking sheet, look for the side that shows the most cranberries and put that side up (the prettiest side).

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NOTE: These freeze very well. I drizzled a vanilla glaze on my cookies (for the holidays) but that is not necessary. Makes about 4 dozen?

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Best Of 2010

Well, we haven't liked ANYONE's "Best Of..." lists so we are doing our own. Our first choice (in no particular order)

Baked Explorations

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More Lists

We are very happy with Eater National and their list of six books that are not Noma.

Cookbook Of The Day has three from the list! Read our post on The Frankies Spuntino.

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A David Lebovitz List

Food blogger and chef, David Lebovitz has an interesting list of best of 2010 cookbooks. A few of them might just be 2009, but who is counting. It is also a nice, long list with some of our favorites, including his very own Ready for Dessert. (We totally approve of adding one's own cookbook it a "best of " list. I mean, if you don;t think it is WONDERFUL, why should we?)

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EASY FRUIT LADDER

I've made this fruit ladder a million times. It is super simple, fast, looks impressive on any dinner table and is delicious. The dough works beautifully, is very forgiving and never fails!! You can make this ladder with any pre-cooked fruit filling (home made or commercial).

I have had people tell me this looks hard to make, but trust me, it is not. There is just one little trick: roll the dough out into a rectangle and then move it to your baking sheet BEFORE you try to make the ladder. You can't move the ladder (and keep it's shape) after it is filled. This dough is the real secret to this recipe.

Preheat oven to 350°

1 cup butter softened
1 cup sour cream
2 cups flour

Mix ingredients with an electric mixer (the dough will be a little sticky before it is chilled). Divide dough in half (this recipe makes TWO ladders). Put each ball of dough in some plastic wrap and rough it into a large disk shape…cover well and refrigerate 1 hour (extremely important).

After an hour, remove from fridge and flour your counter top and rolling pin. Roll one of the disks into a rectangle about 15” x 10”. Pick up the crust rectangle (it will not break) and lay it on a lightly greased baking sheet.

Now I could describe, at length how to do this next step, but a picture will describe it much quicker:

 

Find the center of your crust rectangle, and spread your fruit filling in a 3” wide strip, long-wise, right down the center of the rectangle (keep the fruit about an inch away from each end of the ladder). Each ladder will take ½ can of commercial fruit filling.

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Cut the dough, on both sides of the fruit, into equal strips, but be sure you stay about an inch away from the fruit filling. Pull the strips back over the fruit (one at a time) in a criss-cross fashion (the strips just lay on top of each other, don't crimp). The only part that is crimped is the very first strip (on each end of the ladder), it should be pinched together.

 

Bake the fruit ladder for 30-40 minutes (in a preheated 350 degree oven) or until lightly golden. Run a spatula under the ladder to make sure it is loose, and then slide it off onto a serving plate. Drizzle it with a simple powdered sugar glaze and decorate with nuts (I like candied nuts), sprinkles, or any decoration you like.

 

I have tried lots of different fruits, cherry, lemon, raspberry, blueberry, apple strawberry, blackberry, etc. Commercial pie filling works as well as home made.

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Esquire's List

Esquire's Food For Men blog is featuring a "Cookbook of the Day" from now till Christmas.

Their first pick is The New Brooklyn Cookbook. Check it out.

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EASY MICROWAVE CANDY

This is the easiest candy I have ever made and better yet, my picky Hubby gives it two thumbs up!! It is fast to make in the microwave and is pretty enough for Christmas gift giving.

NOTE: Don't be tempted to use all one kind of chocolate. For some (unknown to me) reason, the blend of white chocolate, semi-sweet and milk chocolate produces the BEST chocolate taste EVER!!

12 ounce bag of good quality white chocolate chips

12 ounce bag of good quality semi-sweet chocolate chips

12 ounce bag of good quality milk chocolate chips

3 cups of your favorite whole nuts (see note)

 

Put the chocolate chips in a large, microwave safe glass bowl and microwave for two minutes at 60% power (imperative that you stir every 30 seconds). My microwave took about 2 minutes and 10 seconds.

 

Stir until all of the chocolate is smooth, then stir in 3 cups of your favorite whole nuts. I ended up adding five cups of whole mixed nuts and I'm fairly certain I could have added one more cup. This makes a LOT of candy!!

 

The recipe calls for spooning candies onto waxed paper, but I spooned mine into mini-cupcake size paper liners. Put them in the fridge to "set" for about 15 minutes and they are ready to serve.

 

NOTE: The candy will only be as good as the chocolate you use. I used Ghirardelli chocolate chips. (Note: You do not taste the white chocolate when they are all melted together (I don't like white chocolate), but the blend of the 3 chocolates is delicious.

 

NOTE: I used a mixture of whole roasted nuts (cashews, almonds, peanuts, pecans, Brazil nuts and hazelnuts...delicious.

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The End of an Era...

R.I.P. Elaine Kaufman

Elaine's is one of those places that lingers in the historical memory like The Stork Club or Studio 54. It is a place of fantasy and imagination for most of us, rather than an actual destination. Elaine's became synonymous with insider glamour in New York City. Elaine was never into the "Food Network" type of promotion claiming it was simply a way to sell pots. There was no "Elaine's Cookbook." In the end, the attraction at Elaine's was never really the food, but Elaine herself.


There are plenty of obituaries out there, but in keeping with Elaine's style, here is an interview she gave to Vanity Fair. A much more fitting way to remember her.

In lieu of a cookbook, the famed writer A. E. Hotchner wrote a book of fond remembrances entitled, Everyone Comes to Elaine's.

The good news is, God finally got a table.

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OLD FASHIONED APPLE CRISP

I've been tweaking this apple crisp recipe for most of my married life. I've tried a variety of spices, crusts, topping ingredients, apple types, nuts/no nuts, oats/no oats, baking times, etc. After many years of trial and error, we are happy with this final version. The apples are cut smaller than for a pie (see note) and the topping bakes into a sweet, crispy, nutty perfection.

I like to make this in a 2 piece 10" tart pan because it is very easy to serve and makes a pretty presentation, but any 9" or 10" pie plate would work well also.

(1) 9" or 10" single pie crust, placed into a tart pan (or pie plate) and chilled until the apples are ready.

6 Granny Smith apples (see note)
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar packed
¼ cup all purpose flour
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

TOPPING
2/3 cup light brown sugar packed
2/3 cup all purpose flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 tablespoons butter
½ cup chopped walnuts

Peel and core the apples and slice them very thinly. Blanche the apples in boiling water for one to two minutes (depending on how thin you cut them). Don't cook the apples all the way through, they should still be slightly crunchy.

Drain very well and add the sugars, flour and spices (stir to coat evenly).

Make the topping: mix flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and cut in the cold butter until it is crumbly, stir in nuts. Place apple mixture into chilled crust and spread with topping mixture.

Bake in preheated 375 oven for 40-45 minutes or until the filling looks bubbly. Cool before serving (see note).

NOTE: I like to serve this before it has completely cooled. When it has cooled down enough so that I can hold my hand (without burning it) on the bottom of the pie pan, it is time to eat it. I serve it with vanilla ice cream.

NOTE: I cut the peeled and cored apples into quarters and then cut the quarters in half before I start slicing them. This gives me smaller slices that work well with this crisp recipe.

NOTE: I encourage you to use freshly grated nutmeg if possible, it makes a WORLD of difference (so mellow compared to pre-ground nutmeg).

NOTE: Place your unbaked apple crisp on a cookie sheet before putting it into the oven. The heat from the cookie sheet will help brown the bottom of the pie crust. It will also help with any potential spill-overs.

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