Our Favorite Recipes
Onion and Roasted Pepper Frittata
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Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, soda, and salt together. Cut in the butter and add the lemon peel. Add the egg yolks and the buttermilk, then knead till smooth. Roll or pat out, cut into 3 inch circles, and bake approx 12 minutes at 400 degrees. Check at 10 minutes to see if they are browning too quickly and turn them if they are. |
(Modified from the recipe in Fields of Green, page 351)
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Preheat the oven to 350 F. Plump the raisins in the orange juice. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, soda, and salt together. Cut in the butter and add the raisins with juice, cream and zest. Mix and roll out to about 1/2 inch. Cut into wedges and bake for about 20 minutes at 350F. Check to see if they are getting too done on the bottoms at about 15 mins and turn over if so. |
(Modified from The Northern California Best Places Cookbook, pg. 19)
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Preheat the oven to 400 F. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter. Stir in walnuts and raisins. Stir egg, milk and vanilla together and add to flour mixture. Transfer dough to a slightly floured surface. Pat dough to a 8" round, cut into wedges. Bake for 15 minutes. |
(Modified from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, by Deborah Madison)
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Preheat the oven to 375 F. Melt the butter. Stir the flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt into the butter. Core the apples and cut them into bite sized pieces into a baking dish. Mix in the lemon juice and cinnamon. Spread the butter mixture over the apples. Bake for 45 minutes. |
Melt 6 tbs of butter in a heavy skillet.
Add 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of brown sugar and cook
at high temp till it starts to carmalize.
Add sliced peaches, apples or pears and cook till soft.
Make up pastry dough like:
Fit the pastry over the pan and tuck it down the sides to the bottom.
Bake about 30 mins at 375F till top is brown.
Cool and invert.
Soak the top of the clay pot for 30 minutes. Put a few tbs each olive oil, soy sauce, and red rice wine in the bottom of the pot. Cut into bite sized pieces: beets, carrots and potatoes and place some on the bottom of the pot. Remove chicken extras and place into the stock pot, put chicken into the clay pot. (We use a 5 lb roasting chicken for two people with enough chicken left over for a couple of dishes and a week of lunches.) Stuff if desired with a mixture of mushrooms, stale bread cubes, celery, parsely, garlic, onion, etc. Surround the chicken with the potatoes and a cut up onion. Other vegetables we use sometimes include Jerusalem Artichokes and sweet potatoes. The chicken can be seasoned in any way desired. Cook at 450 F. in an oven that has not been preheated for about 2 hours. This makes enough chicken and potatoes for several more days' meals.
The Stock
The bones, fat, juices and other parts of the chicken are put into the stock pot, with any saved potato water, and saved scrapes of good produce like leek and beet tops, artichoke leftovers, and cabbage cores and simmered for 2 hours. This makes a great stock for soups, risotto, and gravy based sauces.
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3 cups of chicken stock 1/2 onion olive oil 1 cup of arborio rice 1 cup of wine 2 cups vegetables |
Heat up 3 cups of chicken stock to have ready to add to the rice as it cooks. In a heavy sauce pan, saute half an onion in olive oil till it starts to turn brown. Add 1 cup of arborio, or other white short grain rice to the pot and cook until all the oil is absorbed, stirring to keep the rice from burning, about a minute. When the oil is absorbed, add one cup of white wine and stir until that is absorbed. When the wine is absorbed, add a cup of the chicken stock. Add any vegetables you want to the rice at this time, such as fresh or frozen green beans (defrosted), carrots, etc. Keep adding the chicken stock until it is gone. The rice should just about be soft with a slightly firmer kernel. The whole thing takes about 30 minutes. |
This is my Mother's recipe. We make this almost every Thanksgiving and Christmas. Always great. We usually buy a good fresh 15 pound bird and for the last several years it has always taken from 3 to 3 1/2 hrs to cook. We don't put any stuffing in the bird; we cook that separately. We don't prepare it much. It's not frozen, so it doesn't have to defrost. Just rinse it off and put it in a roasting pan with a wire rack under it. Rub it all over with garlic and salt and put 2 cups of stock in the pan to keep any garlic that falls down there from burning.
1/2 cup of Garlic Chopped
1/8 cup salt
Rub the garlic and salt all over the turkey.
Bake at 325 F for 1 1/2 hrs without opening the oven.
Then turn the oven up to 375 F and add the juice of 4 or 5 oranges and 2 cups of chicken stock.
Baste every 15 minutes.
It's done when the thigh is 175 F (160 in the breast).
Take it out of the oven and let it sit for 45 minutes, covered.
As the turkey has to sit for 45 minutes after it comes out before it is carved, that is a good time to bake the stuffings.
There will be juice in the bottom of the pan that can be turned into gravy.
We save all the giblets, neck, whatnot, for the stock and after as much of the meat as can be is carved or pulled from the bones, everything else is put into the stock pot, along with the trimings from vegetables, and in our case, about 2 cups of red rice cooking wine (opt). Add enough liquid to cover the bones, et al. Bring the stock to a boil and then turn down to low and cook for at least 2 hours, longer is better.
(Modified from the recipe in NY Times, Nov 19,2003)
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1) Cook the sausage and chop 2) Saute the fennel, carrot, celery, leek, onion, and garlic for 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper 3) Heat oven to 350 and toast the fennel seeds. 4) Wisk eggs and 2 cups stock. Add bread and coat. Add sausage and vegetables, raisins, sage, fennel seeds and apples. Add stock if too dry. Turn into a 3 quart dish, cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes. |
I usually bake a pound of Salmon, Halibut, Shark or Tuna on a bed of rice and onions for about 20 minutes, or till done. I put a few tablespoons of olive oil and soy sauce in a baking pan, then a sliced onion and mushrooms, perhaps. Then layer cooked brown rice over that, 1.5 or 2 cups, about. Put the fish on top of that, either steak or filet. That's good as is, or put sweet chili sauce on the fish and bake. Or, of late, I've been cutting up a peach or two and covering the fish with the peach or nectarine and putting the fruit pieces in with the rice. Way yummy.
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1/2 lb shrimp meat |
Place ingredients through corn starch in blender and process till smooth. Transfer to bowl and add remaining ingredients. Make small balls about two tbs large and roll, coat, in corn starch. Steam for about 15 minutes. Serve with plum sauce, or whatever. |
Onion and Roasted Pepper Frittata
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2 Tbs Olive Oil |
Preheat oven to 375. Saute onion slowly for about 15 minutes in a skillet that can go into the oven, or transfer to a baking dish. Whisk together eggs, egg whites, cheese, milk, salt and pepper. Pour egg mixture over onions and top with the roasted pepper cut into thin strips and arranged as spokes. Cook for a few minutes till the eggs begin to set, then transfer to the oven. Bake for 15 minutes or until the frittata is set. |
A frittata is usually partially cooked on the stove top till the eggs have mostly set and then transferred to an oven or broiler to cook and brown the top. A crustless quiche has similar ingredients but is cooked completely in the oven. I usually cook this in the oven, so it is really a crustless quiche, imho. It's a very tasty way to use up leftover vegetables and extra eggs.
Preheat oven to 350F.
Saute half an on onion and other vegetables
such as asparagus, eggplant, squash or potatoes
in a frying pan that can be put into the oven.
Beat together 5 eggs, salt and pepper.
Add with 1/2 cup of cheese and sparsely to eggs.
Stir egg mixture into vegetables and put into
the oven for about 30 minutes till the eggs are
set and top is puffy and brown.
(From Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, page 293.)
This is a good recipe for using up leftover vegetables and bread.
Saute 1/2 Onion, 1/4 - 1/2 Eggplant, other vegetables and mushrooms
Mix 4 Eggs with 2 Cups Milk, seasonings
Put layer of Tomato Sauce in the bottom of a 2 quart baking dish
Layer of Bread Cubes
Layer of Vegetables
Layer of Sharp Swiss Cheese
Layer of Bread
Layer of Vegetables
Pour Milk and Eggs over all
Top with cheese and bake at 375 for 1 hour.
I make this in our bread machine on the white bread cycle. Great bread modified from a recipe in Joy of Cooking. I don't know why it takes such little yeast, but it works.
I usually make this in our bread machine on the wheat bread cycle. This is my favorite general use bread so far for the machine.
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Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter a 5X9 loaf pan. Mix the flour, soda, and salt together. Cream butter and sugars together. Add eggs one at a time. Stir in bananas and walnuts. Stir in dry ingrediants. Bake for 60 to 70 min till toothpick comes out clean. |
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4 cups raspberries 3 cups sugar, or slightly less .25 cup of lemon juice |
Stir raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice together and let that stand for several hours. Then boil in a large skillet to about 220 degrees F. Fill jars and process in water bath for about 10 minutes. This can be doubled, but cooking in a large skillet reduces it better than in a large pot. |
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Lots of Orange, tangerine and lemon rinds Sugar 2 Large Cans of Frozen Lemonade |
Put peals through a cuisinart or cut up into small slices. Cover with water and cook for 1 hour. Put in a cool place overnight or 2. Add one half the volume of peals of sugar. Add one and one half large containers of frozen lemonade. Cook till skin turns transparent. To can, process in water bath for 10 minutes. |
Apple pie is a medium for infinite variation. I rarely make two alike, only by accident or, in some case, fortune. My preference for exploration is matched perfectly by my lack of memory. Of course you don't have to remember anything to make apple pie, there are good recipes in any cookbook. The recipe I use most often as a base is from "The Perfect Pie" by Susan G. Purdy, my favorite all around pie and tart cookbook. For a two crust 9-inch pie, what I usually make for Francesca and I and which lasts for several days for just the two of us:
Crust:
Freeze the butter, then you can grate it into the flour. All the butter and shortening is cut into the flour and then add an egg, I just use a whole egg, or if I know I need the egg white later, I use the yolk, which is called for. Put some lemon juice in, if you have some. Then use as little additional liquid as possible to be able to roll out the dough. So you stir in a little liquid just till the dough begins to "come together", make a ball. Recipes generally call for cold water. Milk works better. But what works best is cold carbonated lemon juice, or fizzy water. When this pastry has barely come together, cut it into two pieces, one slightly larger. Pat or roll these out to disks and cool them for a few minutes. Or, if you are in a hurry, don't. Roll or pat one of the halves of pastry into the pie pan. I think I usually end up with pastry about 3/16 's of an inch thick, but that doesn't seem to matter two much. Most apple pie recipes don't call for this, but I would prebake the pie shell for about 10 minutes at 425 degrees F. Apple pie can be very juicy. If you know that your filling is not going to be juicy, then prebaking is not necessary. But if the filling is too juicy, then the bottom pie shell doesn't get done as well as it should.
Filling:
The nine-inch pie I am making this cold rainy winter morning has one granny smith apple, 2 breaburn (sp?) apples, 2 red pears, and 2 bosc pears from the farmer's market yesterday. Ok, it's an apple pear pie. I cut these up into smallish pieces. If it were a tart, then you would slice them so that they looked nice. In a pie with a top crust, you just need them to fill the space best. I don't peel them, but if you are using some apples with tough skins, such as mackintosh, I would. Just core them and cut them up. Then add about a half cup of brown sugar, juice of half a lemon, cinnamon, about two teaspoons, nutmeg, one teaspoon, and mix that up. That's the standard part. After that I recommend dicing up some sugared ginger and adding that, along with a little powered ginger. And I usually add dried cranberries. If you want to try and keep the filling from being too wet, then add a couple tablespoons of flour, and/or oats or granola to help absorb the moisture. Walnuts are good too. Mix all that up and let it sit for 30 or 60 minutes. If you make the filling first, then this sits while you are making the pastry. Juice will accumulate in the bottom of the bowl of apples. Pour that off before you put the fruit in the pie shell. It will be juicy enough.
When the bottom shell is done, just brown around the edges, take it out and add the filling. Don't pour in the liquid on the bottom of the bowl, just put in in random fashion all the fruit coated with the seasonings. Roll out the top crust pretty thin, then put the top crust over the pie filling, which is heaped up in the middle and fills all the pie to the edges. Sometimes I roll out the crust, then loosen it with a long spatula or knife and fold it over and carry that to the pie. It's easier to move around that way. Cut the extra dough from around the sides, fill in any gaps by just pressing more dough on the holes. Connect it as well as possible with the bottom crust, but since that is partially baked, that doesn't join too well. With any extra dough, roll it out and cut it with cookie cutter shapes of animals and place them around the sides of the top of the pie to make a merry-go-round. Or whatever. Cut slots into the top of the pie so the steam can get out, and put it into the oven for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees F. till a fork inserted through one of the slits goes easily through the fruit. If the pie is going to boil over, which they often do, then put a cookie sheet on the rack below it to catch the drippings. I just cleaned our old oven and that is a job. Well, the timer is going off, the pie looks done, I'm not going to tell you how to eat it!
(From Chez Panisse Desserts , slightly modified)
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1 1/4 cups sugar 7 oz almond paste 1 1/4 cups softened unsalted butter 1 tsp vanilla extract 6 eggs, room temperature 1 cup flour 1 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt |
Butter and flour a 9 inch spring form pan. Preheat oven to 325 F. Beat the sugar with the almond paste till the paste is crumbly. Add the butter and vanilla and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together. Add the flour mixture Bake for an hour or a little more until the tester comes out clean. |
(From NY Times April 16, 2003, with minor modifications)
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8 Tbs unsalted butter, softened 8 Ozs bittersweet chocolate, melted 4 eggs separated, 2 whole 1/2 and 1/3 cups sugar 1 tsp vanilla For the topping: 1 cup of heavy whipping cream 1 tsp vanilla 4 Ozs bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled |
Line the bottom of a 9 inch spring form pan with parchment paper. Stir butter into melted chocolate and let cool. Whisk 4 egg whites til foamy, add 1/2 cp sugar and beat till they hold their shape. Whisk 2 whole eggs and the 4 yolks with 1/3 cp sugar. Stir in chocolate to mix. In three additions, fold whites into chocolate. Pour into pan and bake at 350 F till the top is firm and starting to crack, 35 to 40 mins. Cool. The middle will sink and top will crack. Take out of pan. Whip the cream with vanilla till it is firm. Fold in the chocolate. Fill the top of the cake with icing. (Nigella put candy eggs on top for Easter, but this cake is so good that the candy eggs would have to be very special to deserve being on top, IMHO.) |
(From The Il Fornaio Baking Book , with minor modifications)
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1 1/4 cups raw hazelnuts 8 Ozs bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped 1/4 lb (one cube) unsalted butter, room temperature 3/4 cups sugar 3 eggs separated 1/4 cup all-purpose flour For the chocolate glaze: 4 Ozs bittersweet chocolate 1/4 lb unsalted Butter 1 tbs honey |
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter and line the bottom of an 8 inch spring form pan with parchment paper. Roast, skin, and grind the hazelnuts. Melt chocolate Combine butter and 1/2 cup of sugar and beat till light and fluffy, 6 to 8 minutes Continue beating and add egg yolks one at a time. Reduce speed to low and beat in melted chocolate and ground hazelnuts. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Add 1/4 cup of sugar and beat back to soft peaks. Fold half the egg whites into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the flour and the remaining egg whites. Pour the batter into the pan and bake at 350F. until firm, about 35 minutes. For the Chocolate Glaze Melt the chocolate, butter and honey together. Pour the slightly warm glaze over the cake. |
(From Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts, with minor modifications)
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1 1/2 cups Boiling Water 3/4 cup unsweetened Cocoa Powder 2 cups flour 1 1/4 tsp baking soda 1/8 tsp salt 1 cup Butter at room temperature 1 1/3 cups packed brown sugar 2 large eggs 2 tsp vanilla extract
Glaze with a ganache of: 1 cups of heavy cream brought to a simmer. Add 9 ozs of semi-sweet chocolate Take off the heat and stir until the chocolate is melted. Cool till thickened.
Fill with Raspberry Jam. |
Combine the cocoa powder and the hot water, making a paste. Set aside
to cool. Butter and flour 2 9 inch cake pans. Roast, skin, and grind the hazelnuts. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Cream the butter and brown sugar. Continue beating and add eggs one at a time. Add flour alternatively with the cocoa paste. Pour the batter into the 2 pans and bake at 350F. until firm, about
25 minutes. Cool the layers in the pans for about 5 minutes.
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The Crust
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3/4 cups Toasted walnuts 1/4 cup Brown sugar 3/4 Cup Graham cracker crumbs (about 7 crackers) Zest of Lemon 3/4 tbs ground cinnamon 1/8 tsp ground ginger 3/4 tsp salt 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted |
Preheat oven to 325 F. Toast the walnuts for 15 minutes, let cool. Reduce the oven to 300 F. Combine toasted walnuts with brown sugar and pulse a few times till nuts are ground. In a large bowl, whisk nuts with Graham crackers and brown sugar, zest, spices and salt. Pour melted butter over this and mix with fingers. Press evenly into a 10 inch glass pie pan. Bake for about 12 minutes, set aside. |
The Filling
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1 Medium Kabocha squash 10 OZ cream cheese 1 cup brown sugar 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 1 tsp ground ginger 3/4 tsp nutmeg 1/2 tsp salt 1 1/2 tbs Brandy 2 eggs at room temperature |
Cook the squash Take 2 1/2 cups of squash. Blend cream cheese with sugar and spices and salt till light and smooth. Mix in brandy, then eggs, one at a time. Put mixture into pie pan. Bake 1 hour till center is set. Let cool. |
Mix the crackers, sugar and butter together and mash into a 9" pie pan.
Bake at 350F for about 10 minutes.
Cool.
Filling
Mix the milk and egg yolks till the yolks thicken and lighten.
Add lime juice and slowly mix untill thickened.
Pour into crust.
Bake at 350F for 20 min.
(Modified from the recipe in Moosewood Resturant Book of Desserts)
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Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter 10" bundt pan. Cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs and mix welll. Combine flour, cinnamon, nnutmeg and cardamon. Fold the dry ingrediants into the creamed mixture. Fold in vanilla, zucchini, nuts and raisons. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 40 to 45 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan, then invert. |
Updated 12/18/12