EllenFork

Champagne for Everyday Living

Champagne is a magical, bubbly drink that is typically drunk on festive occasions (kind of like me). We get along, Champagne and I. I will take any opportunity to swan about with a flute of bubbly, pretending I'm the Queen of France (or better), and I don't think it should have to take a marriage, funeral or holiday to break out this sweet nectar. 

That's why, on a recent, dismal winter afternoon, Champagne Sunday was instituted. On one of those rare days when you are not running all over town doing menial errands, working yourself sick or otherwise busying yourself with the everyday chores of living, you should try it too. It's very simple, really.

Here is the recipe for Champagne Sunday:

Friends (as many as needed)
Champagne (as much as needed)
Some Fabulous Juice (fresh squeezed)

I added blood orange juice, by simply squeezing some of these alarmingly colored fruits with a handheld citrus juicer and pouring it into my bubbly. I used Cristalino Cava because of my fondness for all things Spanish and most things inexpensive.

So, while I understand that not every day can be Champagne Sunday, I still strongly recommend it as a way to instill some glamour in your everyday life.

Enjoy!

For Butter or Worse

Firstly, I'd like to apologize for my compulsive use of puns. I've really tried to control it within the confines of this blog, and for the most part I feel I've been pure. Hopefully this time it won't freak you out too much to read about what this post is about...COOKIES.

Secondly, regarding desserts, I do not have much of a sweet tooth. Don't get me wrong, I like desserts, but I don't have the craving or necessity for sweet things the way many people do. I am no chocoholic. I much prefer savory treats, so a SWEET and savory treat is right up my alley. Something like salted caramels, or ROSEMARY BUTTER COOKIES.

This is a Martha Stewart recipe. I love her, ok? You might not, but let's all be honest- that lady gets things done. Naturally I looked to her wisdom for a relatively foolproof cookie recipe. And it turned out deliciously! Here is how I did it:

Rosemary Butter Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 1 egg white, beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 cup fine sanding sugar

Put butter and granulated sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in whole egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour, rosemary, and salt, and mix until combined.

Halve dough; shape each half into a log. Place each log on a 12-by-16-inch sheet of parchment. Roll in parchment to 1 1/2 inches in diameter, pressing a ruler along edge of parchment at each turn to narrow log. Transfer to paper-towel tubes to hold shape, and freeze until firm, about 1 hour. The point here is to get a really round, evenly shaped log of dough. Also, these are small cookies, don't be scared of their size.

Preheat oven to 375. Brush each log with egg white; roll in sanding sugar. I used red, which was very cute. Cut into 1/4-inch-thick rounds. Space 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment. Bake until edges are golden, 18 to 20 minutes. Make sure that you do not let them burn! I left mine in 45 seconds too long and they got too brown, seriously. Because they're so thin, they will cook quickly.

 Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Store in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

Enjoy these savory and sweet holiday treats!

Babysit Your Breakfast

I have soooo many issues of Bon Appetit, Food and Wine and Cooking Light sitting around. Don't get me wrong, I love and adore them and have promised to keep them for better or worse 'til moving do we part, but I have more than I can handle. So when I take the time to actually rustle through the mountain of mags and find a recipe, it's like finding buried treasure.

I hit paydirt with the August 2008 issue of Cooking Light, which featured a German Apple Pancake, known in many circles as a "Dutch Baby". It is basically a large, eggy pancake covered in fruit and sugar. As breakfast goes, that hits the spot in my opinion...actually it hit the spot so much it really should be classified as a toddler. I will say that some people might not enjoy the eggy flavor of this dish- in that case, I recommend using 3/4 the amount of eggs and a little bit more flour. Don't forget I'm not actually a very good baker, so feel free to ignore that. Oh, and since this is Cooking Light, this recipe uses fat-free milk and egg substitute...use whatever you like best.

Big Ol' Dutch Toddler (aka Dutch Baby, or German Apple Pancake)

Ingredients

Batter:

1/2  cup  all-purpose flour (about 2 1/4 ounces)
1/2  teaspoon  baking powder
 1  tablespoon  granulated sugar
 1/8  teaspoon  salt
 1/8  teaspoon  grated whole nutmeg
 1  cup  egg substitute (or 4 large eggs)
 1  cup  fat-free milk
 2  tablespoons  butter, melted
 1  teaspoon  vanilla extract

Apple mixture:

Cooking spray
1/2  cup  granulated sugar, divided
1/2  teaspoon  ground cinnamon
1/2  teaspoon  grated whole nutmeg
1  cup  thinly sliced Granny Smith apples (or other baking variety)

Add-on:

1  tablespoon  powdered sugar

Spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, 1 tablespoon granulated sugar, salt, and 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Combine egg substitute, milk, butter, and vanilla in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add egg substitute mixture to flour mixture, stirring with a whisk. Let stand 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 425°.

Now coat bottom and sides of a 10-inch ovenproof skillet with cooking spray. Make SURE this is ovenproof...it's going to be hot in there and anything with plastic will melt. Plastic is not delicious or good for you.

Combine 1/4 cup granulated sugar, cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg; sprinkle evenly over bottom and sides of pan. Arrange apple in an even spokelike layer in pan. Sprinkle apple with remaining 1/4 cup granulated sugar. Cook over medium heat 8 minutes or until mixture bubbles. Slowly pour batter over apple mixture.

Bake at 425° for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375° (do not remove pancake from oven); bake an additional 13 minutes or until center is set. Carefully loosen pancake with a spatula. Gently slide pancake onto a serving platter. Sift powdered sugar over top, generously.

Enjoy your breakfast!

PS- These mugs are my two favorite mugs in the world. The flowery one is Van Gogh's "Branches of an Almond Tree in Blossom", which I scored at the Van Gogh Musem in Amsterdam (a wondrous trip). The other is from home, Nashville, TN. My sister gave these out to out-of-town guests, and me, at her wedding. It's from my favorite coffee shop in Nashville, Fido. Fido used to be Jones' Pet Shop, where I bought goldfish as a child, and now it's a coffee shop. Warms the heart, doesn't it?

Gonna Butter Your Biscuits...

Hey, y'all. It's biscuit time.

Any good southerner worth their salt has sampled many biscuits in their day, topped with gravy, preserves, jam, honey, ham, sausage, eggs, bacon or maybe even just butter. The biscuit is a mighty vehicle for items both savory and sweet! And remarkably easy to "fix". You probably have all these ingredients in your pantry RIGHT THIS SECOND! Except maybe buttermilk. The whole reason I decided to make these biscuits is the half carton of buttermilk that was languishing in my fridge (the other half met its demise in a vat of mashed potatoes- an honorable death).

This recipe is from the book Slow Food Nation's Come to the Table: The Slow Food Way of Living edited by Katrina Heron. It's a fantastic book about small farms in California. Accounts of daily existence, raison d'etre and some of their finest fresh food recipes are part of why this book is so wonderful...not to mention a foreword by my personal hero, Alice Waters (more on her later!).

Before I share this recipe, let me just say that I am not a very good baker. I am bad at math, and I season all my dishes by taste (which is why I have trouble translating the ones I make up into recipes...a dash is not very precise...), and I have learned through trial and error that baking does not operate the same way. That being said, these biscuits arrived hot and delicious with little to no crying or cursing on my part. Because I did not have baking soda, I subbed extra baking powder (which is an acceptable remedy, according to some cookbooks) and they were not extremely fluffy, but very yummy.

Now that I've confessed, here is the recipe:

Paul's Best Biscuit Recipe from Come to the Table
Sweet Home Ranch

2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup unsalted butter, frozen
1 1/4 cup buttermilk (with 2% butterfat)

Ok, first preheat the oven to a blistering 450 degrees. Blend flour, b. powder, b. soda and salt. Cut the frozen butter into little pieces and blend into the four mixture with a pastry cutter (which I do not have) or two sharp knives (which I do have). Add b. milk and mix.

Now, on a surface that you have liberally sprinkled with flour, flatten dough to about 1" thick and fold in half. Do this about three times quickly, but no more than that. Flatten dough to 3/4" thick. Use a jar or other vessel with a small mouthed opening to cut into rounds. Clean any dough from the mouth of whatever you are using and coat with flour before cutting more rounds. Otherwise it will stick and cause unsightly, malformed biscuit rounds. Horrors.

Use up all the dough in this way. Bake until golden, Paul recommends 10 min. Serve hot, with jam and a smile. 

This makes about 12 biscuits, so share!

A Feast Fit for a Bunch of Twenty-Somethings in New York City

 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I am finally back in DC, cozied up and ready to remember this past weekend. I arrived Wednesday night to an apartment filled with tantalizing food smells, as my sister Alice had already begun preparations for the next day's feast for 14 people. Since it took the bf and I about 6.5  hours to drive in hideous traffic up the NJ Turnpike (it usually takes 4.5), we quickly soothed our pain with some fancy drinks and breakfast sandwiches. This did not bode well for prep work, which was realized in the next day's frenzied cook-a-thon. This is ALSO why there are not as many fabulous food pictures as I may have promised...however, all the dishes were very, very delicious and I am prepared to share all available recipes!

Everyone who came brought something so tasty, fun and heartfelt. AND they were all willing to put in some time chopping pears, peeling lemons or otherwise assisting some crazed Twins in the kitchen.

So I'll cut to the chase...here is what we dined upon!

The Menu de la Casa (what we made):
Salted Roast Turkey with Herbs and Shallot-Dijon Gravy
Sweet Potato and Apple Puree
Lemon Roasted Green Beans with Marcona Almonds
Goat Cheese, Walnut and Pear Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette
Quick Cranberry Relish
Quick Pickles
Brie slathered with Fig Jam
Algonquin Bar Punch


From Los Amigos (what friends brought- if you read this, please post your recipe in a comment!):
Herb-Rubbed Roasted Leg of Lamb from Kevin
Mashed Potatoes from Kevin
Corn, Cream Cheese and Green Chile Casserole from Sarah
Delicious Cookies from Robert
Various Tarts from Leslie
Banana-Pumpkin Mousse Tart from Becca
Turkey Treats from Renée
Lots of Wine and Prosecco


I think the two stars of the meal were the Lamb and the Turkey.

I am impressed with both Alice and Kevin's ability to just hack apart these various proteins.
Here is Alice in action:

My predictable but delicious salad:

What it was like to finally sit down:

Ah, I can't believe we ate the whole thing....

The fabulous desserts. Please note the Turkey Treats, which involved Oreo cookies with fudge icing, red hots, cherry cordials (I think) and candy corn. I like how these Turkeys look like they are about to escape from the confines of that tray...only to be gobbled up by guests on a rampage.

Again, apologies for photography- as the day progressed, the level of punch in the punch bowl dropped...not all my photographers maintained their photographic standards (and that mostly applies to me).

And finally, Alice's beautiful rendering of her turkey, before she met him. Brown paper tablecloths + colored sharpies + feast = artistic skillz...

All in all it was a wonderful day that included a ferocious dance party, some kind of game that resembled charades, watching Wall-E and a football game (GO TITANS!) and meeting some new friends. And in my humble opinion, that is what being thankful is all about.