SoupSpoon

Good things come...

Planning ahead for things is typically stressful. Lots of wondering and what-if-ing that ends up having been unnecessary. Planning  meals in advance, on the other hand,  is fantastically dreamy. My closest friends start talking food, and know they have my undivided attention.
Last Sunday we were out with a few friends for an Ale, and the topic of my Christmas Whiskey Cake was brought to the table. There are few menu items that hold the balanced position of being discussed, desired, and prepared at least a month before eating it. This temptress (lovely word choice, Hao) is made at least one month prior to Christmas, and then enjoyed with all the lushness of what Maker's Mark can do. By the end of our conversation Hao had placed his special order.

Yesterday I went to purchase the whiskey, and after being called 'Young Lady' several times by the older gentleman at the ABC store, I was questioning whether he would let me out bottle in hand. "Yes I am over 21...thank you..." Making my way back home, I started the process by soaking the fruit. The bits of figs, cranberries, and raisins where so pretty. After the day went by, my friend Emily and I went for a run and then we talked as I put the cake together. I admit that the recipe is time consuming, but honestly, we are nearly two months before Christmas. This perspective makes it seem practical.
Let me preface the recipe by saying that the word fruitcake falls out of my mouth with a cringe at those Crayola red cherries and bright green bits. (What are those green bits anyway?) This, my friends, is not your average fruitcake. I am not posting a recipe for the next best white elephant gift.
The original recipe that I found when I started making this cake four years ago called for candied cherries. I deleted them and added chopped Turkish figs and dried cranberries. What you have here is an updated twist on the nostalgic, and ok, I admit it, most common Christmas gag gift. This is a rich buttery batter with whiskey soaked figs, cranberries, and raisins. This is a cake soaked in whiskey for a month. This is a cake worth waiting for.

Make the cake at least by Thanksgiving. Wrap it up or seal it in a cake carrier, hide it in the fridge, and wait. Good things come to those who wait.

Christmas Whiskey Cake
8 dried Turkish figs, chopped
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup raisins
2 cups whiskey, separated
1/2 lb unsalted butter (2 sticks)
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 eggs, separated
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground clove
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
2 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 cup chopped pecans, lightly floured

1. soak fruit in 1 cup whiskey at least 8 hours
2. preheat oven to 325. cream butter. Add sugars, and cream with butter.
3. add egg yolks and beat well
4. add baking powder, salt, spices.
5. add fruit liquid and flour. beat. add fruit.
6. beat egg whites until stiff (about 1 1/2 minutes) and fold into cake.
7. add pecans
8. pour batter into greased and floured bundt cake pan.
9. bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes
10. let cool completely. remove from pan. set on the plate that you will be storing it on, and stuff the center of the cake with cheesecloth. soak the cheesecloth with the remaining 1 cup of whiskey. wrap carefully and hide in fridge.

Fish and Chips... lots of chips

I am so in love.
Perfectly golden and satisfying with plenty of cozy factor to keep me coming back for more.
I am writing about my husband, of course.
A mark in the history of my love for Stephen occurred yesterday evening, and I am still giddy from it. As we began the discussion of how to spend the fantastically dreary fall night, he suggested Fish and Chips and a Christmas movie! Honestly, I continue to marvel at the fabulous man I married. Never did I think the day would come when my husband would initiate a Christmas movie, and being that it is not yet Halloween, I have not even been pressuring Christmas spirit! The combination of rain, cold, and early darkness brought out the carol in him; he and Bing sang us through slicing a bag of Yukon Gold potatoes. Yep, I'm still giddy.

aren't they sweet?

A few months back I purchased a frying thermometer, and I must admit the kitchen gadget has been a good investment. Having the oil at a hot enough temp gives a nice crisp texture.  If the oil is not hot enough the fried food will be soggy, and if the oil is too hot it will smoke and give a less then tasty flavor to your food. Without a thermometer, I used to use the end of a wooden chopstick to test the temp. If little bubbles came quickly out of the bottom of the chopstick, the oil was ready. Not exactly science but it worked ok. The thermometer works better, I admit.
Another tip to frying success is the brown bag trick. One of my dearest friends, a kindred soul perhaps, taught me the brown bag trick. This came about during an amazing session of kitchen experimentation last summer. After taking an edible plant class, she called and asked if I would be willing to make Wisteria fritters with her. How easy is it to understand why I love this friend? While we were frying, I mentioned that I did not have any paper towels, and with all her resourceful wit, she grabbed a brown grocery sack to hold the hot fritters. I had never seen that trick before. She said that is the way people cool fried food in the mountains where she was born; another twist on the days of wrapping fish and chips in newspaper. Please do yourself a favor and the next time you fry, use a brown sack to hold the cooling fried goods. The items do not stick and the bag is ultra absorbent. Maybe not the cleanest tool in the kitchen, but that aside, it is quite functional.

Stephen salted as I pulled shiny hot chips from the pot. I pan fried a gorgeous piece of Alaskan Salmon, and we dined like the classiest of commoners.
On top of all that goodness, we watched Elf. I find it amazing how funny a grown man in yellow tights with a maple syrup addiction can be.
In case you would like to fry some chips, this is what I did. These chips are slightly soft. If you want them to be crisp, fry twice like Pomme Frites.

French Fries or Chips across the Pond serves 4
8 small yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled
4 cups of canola or peanut oil for frying
large pot
plenty of sea or kosher salt
black pepper

1. heat oil to 350. slice potatoes into even 1/4 inch strips.
2. drop potatoes strips into hot oil, carefully. I did three batches of frying to avoid over crowding the pan.
3. fry potatoes for 13 minutes or until golden brown and darker brown on the edges.
4. drain on brown sack, of course, and salt and pepper to taste
5. enjoy

Hobbit Ditty

Eating with friends is fantastic. Eating with friends who love to eat with friends is transcendental.
A well made meal  has the power to alter the affections of a moment from mundane to sublime. Friends walk through the door with the weight of the day, and leave with a lighter spirit and heavier belly. Maybe it is magic in its purest cleanest form.
I remember this feeling from when I was a child. Coming home after the excruciating process of school was often the pivotal point for how I categorized the day. Not that I was bullied, but the hum drum of walking single file still has this kind of weighty effect on my spirits. Coming through the door with the whiff of browning butter and the hum of Mom in the kitchen, made it easier to lay down my heavy bag of school. Life seemed entirely victorious.
Now still soothed by the scents of the stove, I understand the addiction that develops from watching people relax in the bask of a meal. I am fed by feeding people, and for that I am eternally grateful for those friends who love to eat. Go ahead, call me selfish with all of those friendly invitations to dinner.
Last Friday our friend J took me up on the invite and the glory of feeding once again filled the kitchen with an apple and sage stuffed pork loin. To our eager palates it was a pinnacle of success. I stuffed the loin and while it was roasting, I then spent 45 minutes stirring the polenta over a hot stove. Those of you who know my kitchen understand the  air circulation that it does not have. I recommend that when your oven is on at 375 for over an hour, have a fan if you plan to stand in front of a steaming pot of polenta for 45 of those minutes. So, I perspired, like a lady of course, until Stephen came home, saved me with a fan, and opened the screen door. Dinner was worth every minute of heat.

We three ate our fill of garlic polenta, sauté radicchio and kale, and pork loin. After supper,  our friend J shared his idea to sing Hobbit Songs set to old Irish Folk tunes. Much to our delight, many of the the lively drinking songs fit the Irish tunes perfectly . The fellas played along on the guitar, and we sang from the worn out pages of The Fellowship of the Ring. This might become a habit... a hobbit habit.

Apple, Raisin, and Sage Stuffed Pork Loin serves 4
1 1/2 lb pork loin roast
1 tbsp butter
1 honey crisp or gala apple
1/2 cup raisins
3 stalks celery
1/2 yellow onion, diced
12 fresh sage leaves or 2 tsp ground sage
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs*
salt and pepper

3 strands of butcher's string

1. Chop apple, celery and onion. Sauté in butter over medium heat until browned.
2. Pour in stock and let simmer until mostly evaporated.
3. Stir in Panko and sage, and remove from heat to cool. Salt and pepper
4. Prepare Pork by trimming most of the fat from the top and slicing along the top from front to back. Slice down until about 1 inch from bottom and then make a sharp right angle cut out to each side so that the pork loin can be opened. Lay out and pound with meat mallet until about 1/2 inch thick. Your piece will probably be  about  4 inches wide and  8 inches long.
5. Heat oven to 375 and line roasting pan or pyrex dish with parchment.
6. Once stuffing is cool, lay an even layer of stuffing down the length of the roast. Roll loin over the stuffing like rolling up a cinnamon roll, and then tie with butcher's string and salt and pepper the loin.
7. Place loin in pan seam side down and pour remaining stuffing into pan around it.
8. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes until heat thermometer comes out at 170. Let rest 10 minutes and then slice across the roll. enjoy.
* Panko is a japanese bread crumb available in international section of grocery store or at an asian market.

Draw Straws

Strawberries in October?
Allow me to defend myself.
Last weekend we spent a lovely three days hiking in Linville Gorge with my in-laws. We made this same trip last spring, and the hiking is gorgeous. Helen, my mother-in-law, and I plan the menus and divvy up the responsibility. The first night we grilled hamburgers and served them with roasted parsnips and acorn squash, homemade apple sauce, and three bean casserole.

The second night we steamed black bean tamales with roasted sweet potatoes. There was plenty of pumpkin pie to finish the evening.  The dinners were wonderful, satisfying, and warm on the chilly mountain nights in the cabin.
I packed fresh apple butter for the breakfast biscuits and sourdough toast, but Allison, my sister-in-law, prefers strawberry preserves over any other fruit. To be attentive to her palate, I purchased a jar of Strawberry Bonne Maman Preserves and tucked it away in the luggage.
Fortunately, it is a fantastic preserve and I am therefore a fantastically attentive sister-in-law. We ate our way through 3 fabulous days of hiking and lounging around a well built fire (cheers, stephen). The weekend was beautiful, delicious, and equally satisfying for every eater.
When we arrived back at our home, and I unpacked the few crumbs remaining from the trip; the half remaining jar of preserves taunted me with its place on the shelf. Nothing against the berry, but shhh, "it is my least favorite one." Beautiful-check, Brilliant-check, sweet- check, but oh not my favorite berry. Bonne Maman knows what they are doing, and being that it is such a lovely product, I could not let it mold in the fridge. What to do? What to do? The following is my train of thought.
Allison likes dessert. Allison likes strawberry preserves. L*Joy likes to bake. L*Joy likes to bake for Allison. And that, my dear readers, is my defense.

Strawberry (or any other berry) Oat Bars

½ cup melted unsalted butter
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup chopped macadamia nuts
1 ½ cup rolled oats
¾ cup all purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
1 cup berry preserves

1. heat oven to 350
2. mix together everything except the preserves
3. press half of the mixture into the bottom of a greased 7x11 inch pan
4. spread a layer of preserves evenly
5. crumble topping over the pan evenly
6. bake for 25 minutes or until brown and a bit bubbly
7. let cool and then slice—they slice even easier if chilled in fridge first
8. enjoy or give them to someone who will

I almost did not post this recipe now for fear that the backlash of out-of-season desserts might squelsh the glory of these homey comfortably crumbly bars. Anyway, you read my defense.

A Second Slice

You are worth it. Yes, you.

Last night after a desperate plea for HTML help, my dear friend E came to console, create, and comfort. I will not pretend to be savvy at the computer side of this project. Like the result of some recipes, the image in my head is not what happens on the screen. C'est la vie; and thanks for reading.

E and I sleuthed our way through one of my design mysteries and then fell into a heaping plate of roasted butternut squash and white potatoes with diced red onion and gobs of fresh parsley, a healthy dose of sauteed broccoli with thai red chilis and garlic, and a gentle over easy egg with a slice of Stephen's sourdough toast. Simple and lovely. We ate and talked about love (or something very close to it).

After two weeks of relishing the perfection of Red Hook's Late Harvest Autumn Ale, last night we enjoyed our first pumpkin ales of the season. Cheers to those fantastically brilliant folks who many moons ago thought to add pumpkin to their beer. Ingenuity demands my applause especially ingenuity involving pumpkins and Ale.
The other brilliant orange vegetable in my life is the glorious sweet potato. My passion for the sweet potato goes beyond a typical attachment to a vegetable. It is a love affair of versatility. There is nothing truly glamorous about the sweet potato's facade, but she molds into the most divine characters. Bisque, cake, biscuits, fries, pie: honestly what can't she do? So humble and patient is the glorious sweet potato.
My dad says the sweet potato is his least favorite vegetable. To the point that the mere mention of it makes him curl his nose like he probably did as a boy. Sigh. He is such a brilliant man too.
It is raining here today and the thought of a cake in the oven is tempting me to abandon this seat and surrender to the kitchen's lure. I think I will after I give you the recipe to do the same thing. Two weeks ago I made this cake for the first time and found it to be sublime. This recipe came from the need to bake a cake, reading Bon Appetite's November 2007 catalog, and a waiting roasted sweet potato. I hope you love it.

Two Layer Sweet Potato Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
2 1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup mashed sweet potatoes
1/2 cup chopped raisins

Cream Cheese Frosting 
4 oz cream cheese4 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salt
3-4 cups confectioners sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350. line 2, 9 inch circle cake pans with Parchment paper and grease sides.
2. Sift flour and then measure 2 1/4 cups. Combine all dry ingredients in one bowl.
3. Cream butter and sugars together. Add vanilla. Add eggs one at a time and beat well in between.
4. Whip potatoes and buttermilk together in another bowl.
5. Alternately add dry ingredients and buttermilk mixture to  butter mixture.  Fold in raisins and pour into cake pans.
6. Bake 35 minutes until golden and springy to the touch. Let cool completely and then frost in between the two layers and on top. Leave sides exposed. This cake is so moist and keeps well in the fridge for one week.

Make a full pot of tea and cut a hefty slice. The kind that stands on its bottom as well as its side.

First Things First

Delight overtakes my thoughts at the mention of candied acorn squash or simmering apple butter in the thick of autumn. My job is to feed people. I am one of those souls whose career is also their passion. There are moments where I realize that I have just had an entire conversation with a friend about the color of my egg's yolk, and they, loving me for it, smile in attempted appreciation. With their muted cheers in my head, I am typing my first post. "do it. do it. do it." Do you hear it?
The sort of appreciation I have for the love of great food makes me day dream of today's perfect plate. honestly, there are the days of disappointment when the sun breaks through the raining clouds and my plans for a steaming chowder are thwarted. With a sigh of acceptance I tighten up my apron and set to work on the next perfect plate.
Compulsive desires to cook, feed, and talk about food has led to the creation of this online feast. For the love of cooking and the joy of sharing, this space is here for your appetite.