Carrots Two Ways

February 10, 2012

Holding rank as true workhorses in both the kitchen and the garden, it is rare to find a carrot that is not at least close to being in season. I may be late to the party on this one, but I only recently realized that at the winter farmers market in Portland, carrots are always being offered, as is the case with the spring, summer, and autumn markets. The more I thought about carrots, the more it became clear to me that, in addition to being a flexible, all-season vegetable, carrots are also a veritable cornucopia of cooking versatility.

It may sound surprising to hear someone wax so rapturously about the common carrot, but it’s only occasionally that one is faced with a vegetable so ready and willing to be roasted, mashed, shaved, boiled, pickled, or braised, and yet also able to be simply delicious and satisfying on its own, freshly pulled from the ground. Carrots are a staple in my home, as I am sure is the case with many other people, and when the seasons change and we begin to set our sights past merely enjoying our carrots crunchy and raw, I begin to think of ways to continue our carrot consumption into the next season.

Roasting any vegetable will bring out the natural sweetness locked within, and carrots hold court as the pride of this tried and true cooking method. Paired up with richly caramelized cloves of garlic and just a hint of woody and aromatic thyme, this intensely savory roasted carrot spread is an undeniable treat that is fit for both sunny picnics and cool winter evenings.

Taking the current pickling trend into consideration, it seems only natural to mention how well carrots take to brine. A crisp carrot made vinegary and tart is a welcome snack during any time of the year, and this Indian-spiced pickle is a quick and refreshing way to dress up a garden’s bounty. Using a cold pickling method to preserve the carrots will result in a pickle that requires being eaten at faster pace than pickles preserved in a hot brine, but I don’t imagine these pickles will be left to languish once word of their spicy, brisk sweetness gets out. Even if you go so far as to make two batches of these pickled carrots—one batch to tell people about, one batch to hoard for yourself—I wouldn’t be too worried about the state of your pickled carrot supply. Rest assured, there will nearly always be more carrots waiting for you and your brine.

Roasted Carrot and Garlic Spread

1 pound carrots, scrubbed, trimmed of ends, and cut into roughly 3-inch chunks
3 large cloves of garlic, unpeeled and very lightly smashed
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
¼ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon sea salt

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. On a heavy baking sheet, combine carrots, garlic, thyme, olive oil, and seasoning. Toss to coat evenly. Roast carrots and garlic for 25 minutes, turning over garlic cloves halfway through, until both carrots and garlic are soft and deeply caramelized. Remove from oven and allow to cool on pan for 5 minutes.
When carrots have cooled slightly, scoop them into the bowl of a food processor, pouring in as much excess olive oil and possible. Remove garlic cloves from their papery skin, and add to the carrots. Blend in the food processor until thick and smooth, stopping every few seconds to scrape down the sides of the bowl, about 1 minute total.

Quick Pickled Indian Carrots

½ pound carrots, peeled and tops removed
1 ½ cups white vinegar
1 ½ cups cold water
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon whole mustard seeds
½ teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1 clove garlic, peeled and smashed
5 paper-thin slices of peeled fresh ginger
4-inch long by 1-inch wide strip of fresh lemon peel, outer part only, with no white pith
4 sprigs of fresh cilantro

In a 1-quart mason jar, combine all ingredients. Tightly screw on the lid of the jar, and shake vigorously until the salt and sugar have dissolved and all of the ingredients have become intermingled. Place in the refrigerator and allow carrots to pickle for at least 5 hours, but preferably overnight, before eating. Pickled carrots will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks, and their flavor only gets better the longer they are allowed to sit in their brine.

About the contributor:

	Elizabeth Miller is a freelance writer who runs Savory Salty Sweet, a food and kitchen appreciation website. She also writes the Melting Pot column here on Indie Fixx, which appears bimonthly on Fridays. Read more about her on the contributors’ page.

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Friday Indian Spiced Rolls

January 09, 2012

Since I am a big fan of cooking and being in the kitchen, I am generally not the type of person you’ll find looking for ways to make every recipe shorter or less labor intensive. I like working in the kitchen, so I am, unfortunately, more inclined to want to try out a ridiculously elaborate recipe than I am inclined to run away from one.

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, and this trait of mine is by no means immune to that general truism. My general downfall when it comes to wanting something straight away, fresh from the kitchen? Sweets. That’s right. When I want a baked good, I want it NOW.

This is generally not a problem when I am craving a cookie or a muffin, but Danish pastries and rolls provide a bit of a problem. Fresh pastries, warm and inviting, are like a siren song to me, but I am often driven to despair by having to wait all day long to produce some fine and tasty pastries, on account of the necessity of waiting for a yeasted dough to rise, get punched down, shaped, rise again, etc. I’ve often thought that there must be a faster, more efficient way to hammer out fresh pastry in under an hour, and, after a bit of perusing my cookbook shelves, it turns out there is.

America’s Test Kitchen saves the day on this one, with a fantastic recipe for no-yeast cinnamon rolls that emerge from the oven as rich and delicious as any standard cinnamon roll that takes several hours longer to produce. I changed some of the proportions of the ingredients, altering them to my current tastes (lately I’ve been desiring my sweets to be a bit less sweet, so I tend to dial back the sugar of every recipe I see) and swapping out plain old cinnamon for a mix of enticing Indian spices, but the genius of the method is all due to ATK.

With this great recipe, you can have soft, fresh, delicious sweet rolls on your plate in fewer than 60 minutes. I hate to admit it, but this recipe might just be the key to making me less patient in the kitchen. Will I ever again enslave myself to the labor of rolling butter into a yeasted dough sponge, then turning and folding for an entire day, just to perfume my kitchen with the magic of fresh pastries? Perhaps. I may have to think about it, though. I’ll get back to you in an hour, after I’ve pulled these rolls from the oven and am sitting down to have a bit of a snack while I think things through.

Indian-Spiced Sweet Rolls

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with a layer of foil that fits all the way across one way, then layer another sheet of foil on top of the first. You want to make a foil sling that will allow the rolls to be removed from the pan with minimal fuss. Spray the prepared foil sling with vegetable oil spray.

Filling

1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
pinch of salt

Dough

2 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups buttermilk or sour milk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

Glaze

3 tablespoons cream cheese
¾ cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
pinch of ground ginger
pinch of cardamom
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of salt

Prepare the filling by mixing all of the ingredients together in a small bowl. Set aside.

Prepare the dough by whisking the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and two tablespoons of the melted butter. Slowly stir the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture until the dough comes together and looks quite shaggy, about 30 seconds. Turn dough out onto a well-floured counter and knead for 30 seconds or so, until the dough has just become smooth and pliable (do not overwork the dough, as it will become quite tough).

Shape the dough into a 12” x 9” rectangle, long side facing you. Brush the dough with the remaining one tablespoon of melted butter, then sprinkle the filling mixture over it, leaving a ½-inch border along the top edge. Gently press the filling into the dough to make it stick a bit better.

Using a bench scraper or metal spatula, gently loosen the dough from the counter. Rolling lengthwise, roll the dough away from you into a tight log. Pinch the seam down and roll the log seam side down. Using a serrated knife, slice the log into 9 evenly sized rolls. Ever-so-slightly flatten each piece of dough to seal the open edges and keep the filling in place.

Arrange the rolls cut side down in the prepared baking pan. Tightly cover the pan with foil and bake for 12 minutes. Carefully remove the foil and bake for an additional 12 to 14 minutes, until the edges of the rolls are golden brown. Do not over bake, as the rolls can dry out fairly quickly.

Flip the rolls out onto a wire rack set over a sheet of parchment paper or foil (for easy cleanup). Remove the foil sling and allow rolls to cool for 5 to 10 minutes before frosting.

To prepare the frosting, whisk together the cream cheese, powdered sugar, milk, spices, and salt. Flip the rolls upright, then frost generously.

About the contributor:

	Elizabeth Miller is a freelance writer who runs Savory Salty Sweet, a food and kitchen appreciation website. She also writes the Melting Pot column here on Indie Fixx, which appears bimonthly on Fridays. Read more about her on the contributors’ page.

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Chunky Roasted Cauliflower Soup

January 06, 2012

It’s been chilly here this week, so I decided to make a pot of Chunky Roasted Cauliflower Soup. Of course, now the temps are back up in the 50s. Oh well, good thing soup is a all weather favorite of mine!

Chunky Roasted Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients:

1 very large head of cauliflower, chopped and broken into florets
3-4 shallots, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
3 tablespoons of oil
1 carrot, chopped
1 parsnip, chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
2 tablespoons of parsley
2 teaspoons of dried chervil
5 cups of vegetable stock
1/2 cups of cashews
1/4 cup of water
salt and pepper to taste

How-to:

Toss cauliflower, garlic, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and salt and pepper in a large casserole dish. Roast at 450 degrees for 30 minutes.
Saute the carrot, parsnip, shallots & celery in 1 tablespoon of oil until softened. Add the parsley and chervil
Add the vegetable stock and the roasted cauliflower once it’s done in the oven.
Cook until the cauliflower is soft.
Meanwhile using food processor chop the cashews until finely chopped. Add the water to make a paste, not unlike runny peanut butter, then add this mixture to the cauliflower soup.
Puree half the soup in a blender and pour back into the pot. Add more vegetable stock if needed. Also, salt and pepper to taste. Please, be careful when blending hot soup.

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Popovers with Braised Leeks

December 16, 2011

As a child, there were few things as thrilling to me as when we were awarded the rare treat of being served breakfast-at-dinner. Is it even possible to think up a variety of dinner choices more likely to send a child into a whirlwind of heart pounding joy? Pancakes for dinner? Waffles for dinner? Are you kidding me? FRENCH TOAST for dinner? Just stop now, before I faint with pleasure.

Alas, as an adult, though I would truly love nothing more than a crisp waffle for dinner, I find that indulging in basic breakfast fare for dinner no longer suits my constitution. Oh, sure, I still want to eat a waffle for dinner, but, in the interest of my well being, I have to choose to look the other way. Fortunately, what resides at the other end of that directional gaze is a big plate of popovers.

The beauty of popovers, hollow and mildly flavored as they are, is that they are literally made to be adorned with whatever you desire. Spoon them full of marmalade, spread them thick with Nutella, or, for the more grown up palette, stuff them with this herby, aromatic filling of leeks that have been gently braised in white wine. The buttery, crisp popovers, so soft on the inside, make the perfect pocket for the delicious filling, and served with a light salad they make an absolutely fantastic dinner that barely hints at their breakfast origins. Paired with something so savory and satisfying, suddenly your popover breakfast-at-dinner starts to seem a bit less unusual, though certainly no less special.

Popovers with Braised Leeks

I don’t own special popover tins, and I really don’t think they are necessary to achieve superbly puffy popovers. I use a muffin tin to bake these, and my experience has shown that, time and time again, they work just fine. Though you may think it an error, you really do start these popovers in a cold oven. Some people swear by pouring popovers into an already heated pan, but I find this method to be easier, yielding more consistent results.

Popovers

2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter, plus more softened butter for greasing the inside of each tin
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups milk
3 large eggs, beaten, at room temperature
pinch of salt

Thoroughly butter the insides of a 12-cup muffin tin, then set aside.

Whisk together the flour and salt, then add the butter, milk, and beaten eggs, and whisk together until just combined. The batter will be relatively thin.

Pour or spoon the batter into the muffin tins, filling each cup about 2/3 to ¾ full.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the popovers in the oven and bake for 15 minutes, while the oven heats up.

After 15 minutes, reduce the oven heat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and bake for an additional 15 minutes. The popovers should be deeply golden and puffed up. If they look a bit pale at this point, continue to bake them an additional 5 minutes.

Immediately remove the popovers from their tins, and gently poke a little hole in the top of each one, allowing the steam trapped inside to escape. This will ensure that your popovers remain crisp as they cool.

Makes 12 popovers

Leeks Braised in White Wine

2 large leeks, thoroughly rinsed with dark green stems removed
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 sprigs fresh thyme
¼ cup white wine
salt and pepper

Slice leeks in half lengthwise, then slice each half into thin half moons. In a large pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the sliced leeks and sauté, stirring frequently, for 7-10 minutes, until the leeks appear soft and lightly darkened at the edges. Carefully pour in the white wine, and stir to combine. Cook for 30 seconds, allowing the white wine to steam and sizzle with the leeks, then cover the pan, reduce the heat to low, and cook for an additional 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve leeks spooned into popovers, garnished with crumbles of crisp bacon (I used turkey bacon, but regular bacon would obviously work fine as well).

About the contributor:

	Elizabeth Miller is a freelance writer who runs Savory Salty Sweet, a food and kitchen appreciation website. She also writes the Melting Pot column here on Indie Fixx, which appears bimonthly on Fridays. Read more about her on the contributors’ page.

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Acornucopia!

December 13, 2011

Here’s a new Valentines tradition for you lovers looking to try something beyond the old dozen roses: place two acorns in a bowl of water and watch to see if they move together or swim apart. If they meet in the middle, your love will be a “Great oak from which little acorns grow,” and if they separate, well, then…you’ll find below some more reliable uses for these nuts! The ancient Brits believed that a woman carrying an acorn would magically prevent aging by mirroring the resilience of the mighty oak. We here in the modern design world seem to believe that our acorns should be kept warm with the rest of us, via the “Acorn Cozy” featured below.

Wool Felted Acorn Ornaments by Angel Dog Designs | Acorn Hanger by Cattails | Acorn Wallflower by Bath and Body Works | Acorn Cozy by Jane Gotts

The squirrel’s teacup, the chipmunk’s cap, the ecochic lady’s locket…is now a sustainable book cover too! I scavenged dozens of acorns from a white oak tree and gave them a life very different from their previous fate of life inside a squirrel’s stash. These 480 “oak-horns” (!) form a blend of organic flora and rugged geometry to create wall art, a pinprickly hand rest, or an extra special book cover for a book yet to be written, as seen here.

To make your own, simply use a sturdy cardboard backing and heavy duty hot glue. Try to gather all your acorns from one tree to get the most uniform size, and then go nuts!

The nut of the oak tree is not just a treat for the squirrels. Acorn flour makes an excellent nut powder high in vitamins A and C and calcium, rich in fiber, and low in gluten. It’s hard to believe that by strolling through the fall leaves we are possibly treading on hundreds of these “ideal foods”, so termed by health junkies. They do hold bitter tannic acid, a kidney-hating particle that should be extracted out before you put that acorn anywhere near your mouth. Once the tannic acid is leached out via a several day process of crushing the acorns and rinsing the nuts in cold water, the resulting mush can be ground into acorn flour which makes a perfectly woodsy pancake, cookie, or bread with a fresh air taste. Just like eating outdoors, but without the frostbite!

For the ambitious, an entire meal can be constructed as an ode to the acorn. And it would be no small affair! On the menu we have: acorn burgers, acorn chili, acorn loaf, acorn jelly (dotorimuk) acorn cookies (and acorn molasses pancakes for breakfast the next day). Bonus points if you eat using reusable cloth napkins dyed with acorn powder that produces rich browns, tans, and blues (see The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes)! This small nut is a robust substitute for starchy, earthy, and nutrient-rich ingredients such as beans, potatoes, oats, and high-fiber grains. Although acorns are not a staple of our modern diet, in the ancient world they were a common food, used in Korean noodle dishes, Greek mushes and salads, and German coffee.

To the indigenous peoples of America, acorns were traditionally a sacred food that symbolized a thriving harvest and communal well-being. Naturally, there is a native song to go along with this prized sentiment towards the acorn:

“And you women, strike out, gather wild onions, wild potatoes! Gather all you can! Gather all you can! Pound acorns, pound acorns, pound acorns! Cook, Cook! Make some bread, make some bread! So we can eat, so we can eat, so we can eat… Make acorn soup so that the people will eat it!… Don’t talk about starvation, because we never have much! Eat acorns! There is nothing to it.”

To revive this old-worldy ingredient in the spirit of food gone wild, I hunted down a sack of acorn powder in a Korean market and set to acorn cake making. No acorns were pounded in the making of these cakes, but there was still a certain nutty satisfaction from baking with something that you find stuck in your shoe when taking a walk. I adapted this recipe to create a new spin on the acorn cake, and now {Tree}Household would like to present a bountiful harvest turned edible:

Acorn Molasses Cakes

1/2 cup acorn flour

1/2 cup cashews, chopped

1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped

1/2 cup raisins or dates

1 cup cooked brown rice

molasses to taste

agave to taste

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ginger

pinch brown sugar or sucanat

Mix all ingredients together in large mixing bowl. Add enough molasses/honey so that concoction clumps together nicely without falling apart. Prepare a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a thin spread of butter, and ball the mixture together into small-ish round cakes. Sprinkle the tops with brown sugar or sucanat. Bake at 325 for 10-15 minutes.

High in fiber, rich in protein, dense, intense and filling, these cakes are best eaten like energy bars as the acorn nutrients will keep you going for hours of power!

From {Tree}Household, a nutty Holiday to everyone! Now go outdoors!

About the contributor:

	Heather Buzzard is a freshly hatched graduate of Emory University, where she studied creative writing, sociology, religion and environmental science. Her time is spent frolicking as a musician in two Atlanta bands, dressing up for silly photoshoots, inventing recipes, and drooling happily over her Indie Fixx work.

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Pear and Pecan Bread

December 09, 2011

In what may be an example of one of my more curious habits, I have recently become convinced that it is unseemly of me to show up at anyone’s house without bringing with me a treat of some sort. Lucky for everyone, I like to make treats, and people like to receive treats, so it’s tough to find a problem with this arrangement. As the holiday season kicks into high gear, so goes the impetus to arrange parties, dinners, and get-togethers of all varieties.

Keeping my current need-to-feed in mind, I have been spending a larger then usual amount of time thinking of the numerous treats I can bring to said get-togethers. Again, as a person who derives great pleasure from spending time curled up with cookbooks and dreaming about future baked goods, this ordinarily poses no problem for me. However, I fear I may be taking a break from discovering new host and hostess gifts for a bit, as lately I have found it nearly impossible to steer my attention away from this pear and pecan bread. At the risk of sounding overly confident, I think this bread just might be the most versatile hostess gift I’ve yet to find.

With just the right amount of sweetness and the most unbelievably tender, moist crumb, this has become my go-to choice for a simple, delicious quick bread. The comfort of spice and the rich, fragrant flavor of baked pears make this a great bread for a light afternoon snack, but the subtle sweetness of the bread also makes it a suitable addition to any breakfast table. Topped with lightly whipped cream or a dab of ice cream, this bread transforms into a modest little cake with the ability to wow any dessert-hungry table.

Conveniently, the flavor of the bread only gets better over time, so if the person to whom you have gifted this bread decides to hold off on eating it for a couple of days, it’s his or her good fortune. The bread also freezes beautifully, retaining its moisture and crumb after being laid to rest in the freezer either sliced or whole. Though it may seem strange to talk about a bread so fine and then immediately discuss ways to prolong the period of time between receiving it and eating it, you have to consider that, during a season so filled with decadence and gifts of goods both sweet and baked, it might behoove us all to save a little of our treats for a later time. When the crush of the holidays has ended and you’d like a little time to sit quietly and relax in solace, you’d find no better company than a slice of this bread, dutifully kept waiting for you until you are ready to grant it your full attention.

Pear and Pecan Bread
Adapted from Joy of Cooking

1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup white sugar
¼ cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1 large egg
½ cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 ½ cups grated ripe pears, with juice
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Arrange an oven rack to the lower-middle position. Grease a 9” x 5” loaf pan and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugars, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg, vegetable oil, vanilla, lemon zest, lemon juice, and grated pears with their juice.

Add the flour mixture to the pear mixture, and gently fold to combine. When the ingredients are mostly moistened, add the chopped pecans and continue to the fold the ingredients until they are completely moistened. Do not overmix.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the top. Bake in the lower third of the oven for 1 hour, until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the bread comes out clean. Allow the bread to cool in its pan for 15 minutes before unmolding onto a rack to cool completely.

About the contributor:

	Elizabeth Miller is a freelance writer who runs Savory Salty Sweet, a food and kitchen appreciation website. She also writes the Melting Pot column here on Indie Fixx, which appears bimonthly on Fridays. Read more about her on the contributors’ page.

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