Who carved which pumpkin?

Whew! Right in under the 10/31 deadline! Confessions of an Apron Queen is hosting this month’s Weekend Cookbook Challenge and the theme is Fall Vegetables. This is a great theme as far as I am concerned as I do love the Fall vegetables. This recipe is from the Williams Sonoma cookbook, Autumn. I believe I’ve drawn inspiration from it before for WCC.

This Coq au Vin does indeed have Fall vegetables — carrots, rutabaga, purple potatoes, and parsnips. It was also supposed to have a turnip but I was trying to hurry and get dinner ready (hungry!) and I didn’t feel like prepping that one. So sad. However, I think Mr. Turnip will show up in a soup shortly.

This recipe has many parts, many bowls, lots of steps (a lot of ins and outs) but only 1 pot. It’s a good Sunday night meal. Probably not a realistic Tuesday night meal.

I followed the directions from the book mostly, except that I added a diced onion and about 10 chopped cremini mushrooms. Oh and some rosemary. And more thyme. I also roasted my veggies because I like roasted veggies. And I used less chicken stock. And…Well, hell, it’s kind of based on the recipe, I guess.

Coq au Vin with Autumn Vegetables
2 tbsp olive oil
8 cremini mushrooms, sliced
1 small onion, diced
2 slices bacon, cut into small dice
8-10 boneless chicken thighs
1 bottle of red wine (Cotes du Rhone, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc…)
3 cups chicken broth
1 tbsp tomato paste
3 cloves garlic minced
2 bay leaves
4 sprigs fresh thyme
1 sprig rosemary
2 parsnips peeled, and cut into 1″ lengths
2 carrots peeled, and cut into 1″ lengths
2 purple potatoes (or small red skinned potatoes) cut into small wedges
1 rutabaga peeled, and cut into smaller wedges than the other vegetables
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tbsp butter
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a large, heavy pot over medium heat, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil. Add the onion and mushrooms and saute until soft and just starting to color — about 6-7 minutes. Remove and set aside in a large bowl. Return the pan to the heat and add the bacon and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly golden, about 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a plate.

Sprinkle all sides of chicken thighs with salt and pepper. Raise the heat to medium-high and, working in batches, add the chicken pieces to the pot. Cook, turning as necessary, until lightly golden, about 10 minutes. I didn’t work in batches because I was hungry, so my chicken didn’t brown as well as it should have. So, work in batches people!

When all of the chicken is golden, return the all chicken pieces to the pot along. Raise the heat to high and add the wine, broth, tomato paste, garlic, bay leaves, and the leaves from the thyme and rosemary sprigs. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer 20-25 minutes.

Using tongs, transfer the chicken to a large shallow dish and keep warm.

Meanwhile, right after you get the wine into the pot, toss your diced up fall veggies with the remaining tablespoon of oil. Salt and pepper and roast in the oven for about 20-25 minutes (while the chicken is braising), until almost done. You could also just skip this step and cook the veggies in the wine-broth completely. If you do this, give them about 25-30 minutes.

Next, add the almost cooked parsnips, carrots, rutabaga and potato to the wine. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the vegetables are completely tender, about 8-10 minutes.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer the vegetables to the dish holding the chicken. And pour the wine sauce into the bowl holding the sauteed mushrooms and onions.

Melt the butter in your pot and add the flour. Cook for about a minute and then add the hot wine-mushrooms-onions mix back into the pot. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the liquid lightly coats a spoon, 2 to 3 minutes. Mine didn’t seem to thicken all that much but it was still mighty tasty!

To serve, pour the slightly thickened sauce over the bowl holding the chicken and vegetables. Garnish with thyme or rosemary sprigs. Recipe yields (at least) 6 servings. We had this with a big bowl of goat cheese polenta drizzled with a little fancy olive oil. Oh and the crusty bread. You must have crusty bread.

Thanks again to Confessions of an Apron Queen for hosting this month!

This recipe is from The Secret Life of Food by Clare Crespo. I actually saw these this recipe about two years ago but, I kid you not, the last two Halloweens I have had colds. And thus, didn’t really want to bake things. This year? Germ-free, baby!

These are what I made for the Halloween Baking contest at work. Pretty much followed the recipe except I used dots of red tubed frosting for the eyes (instead of red hot candies) and I used a silicone basting brush to coat the cookies with chocolate. So much less wasteful than pouring it, imho. You will also use less chocolate to begin with. I started with a half of a bag of chips and 1 tablespoon of oil, figuring I could always melt more up if I needed more. Also, try to get a larger tub of the chocolate sprinkles. The 10 oz tub size, if you can. You will use at least 6-7 oz. Finally, I used dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate because that’s just how I roll.

Oh and I broke the pretzel sticks in half to make the legs a little shorter. Just as impressive but less delicate when transporting and less tiny little stick to coat with chocolate.

To give you an idea of the time commitment, I started these at 5pm and was completely done about 7:15 pm. I started brushing the melted chocolate on the first batch (I baked them in two batches of 12) about 20 minutes after they came out of the oven. This was also the 2nd time I’ve made these cookies since Sunday, so that probably speeded duh, sped me up a bit.

Cute Spider Cookies to nom-nom-nom
Makes about 2 dozen cookies
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
10 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 bag thin, short pretzel sticks
11.5 oz bag of dark (60% cacao) chocolate chips
2 tbsp vegetable oil
6+ oz Chocolate sprinkles
Small red candies, mini m&ms or a tube of red frosting + pastry tip

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat together the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until well blended.

Gradually add the flour mixture and cocoa powder. Beat to form a smooth, slightly dry looking, dough.

Roll a tablespoon-sized ball of dough, and place it on a baking sheet. Arrange eight pretzel sticks around the ball like spokes on a wheel. Press the tips of the pretzel sticks firmly into the dough ball. Continue with the rest of the pretzels and dough.

Bake until cookies start to brown around edges, about 10-12 minutes.

For comparison, I got 24 cookies from my dough and mine were perfect at 12 minutes. So, scale the cooking time to your cookie size.

Lift the cookies from the baking sheets with a spatula, and place on wire cooling racks. Let cool completely. Place the racks on sheets of aluminum foil or waxed paper.

Melt the chocolate chips with vegetable oil in the microwave, 30 seconds at a time, stirring between each blast. When chocolate is almost melted completely, just stir until it’s all melted. You can do this all at once or do half the bag of chips plus 1 tablespoon of oil at a time. That’s what I did. And then I just melted more chocolate and oil when I needed it. And I did have melted chocolate left over. I’m sure I will think of something to do with it!

Use a pastry or basting brush to coat each spider with melted chocolate.

I did about 4 at a time, then sprinkled down with chocolate sprinkles. If you are pressing the eyes into the spider (red hots, m&ms), do it now, while the chocolate is still soft. If using frosting, let the chocolate firm up a bit first.

You can set the chocolate and sprinkles quicker by putting the cookies in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. Then squirt all te frosting eyes on.

The cookies are very tasty — not just all show.

We ate all the ones I made this weekend as a test (well, jwa brought some into work too) and hopefully, these will go fast at the Halloween Party Wednesday.

Okay, once again it’s time for split pea soup. Although, today (Sunday) it was beautiful here — about 69 degrees and sunny. We had our windows and front door open! Maybe I was a little too quick with putting flannel sheets on the bed last weekend?

Anyway, here’s the soup! It’s from Bon Appétit. Oh, I reduced the original’s 4 slices of bacon to two. Yay me.

I know that I’ve made split pea soup before. It’s just so good I can’t help myself from trying different variations…

Split Pea Soup with Rosemary & Bacon
2 bacon slices, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 medium leek (white and pale green parts only), sliced
1 large carrot, peeled, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 14 1/2-ounce cans 7 cups low-salt chicken broth
1 1/4 cups green split peas, rinsed
2 bay leaves
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
Garnish: Sour cream, crème fraîche or plain yogurt & more rosemary

Sauté bacon in heavy large pot over medium-high heat until crisp and brown. Add onion, leek, carrot and garlic and sauté until vegetables begin to soften, about 6 minutes.

Add broth, peas, bay leaves and rosemary and bring soup to boil.

Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until peas are tender, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour. The peas will fall apart and make a creamy soup.

Season soup to taste with salt and pepper. Top with a dollop of sour cream or other creamy garnish and a little rosemary.

Next up: Halloween treats!

First off, can I just say that I am looking forward (I think!) to Nov 5th? I am getting sick of having to obsessively check wonkette, fivethirtyeight and google news > elections like 50 times per day.

::sigh::

Anywho, this recipe is from Food & Wine, via Bobby Flay, and it was super good. I changed some things so I’m going to say that I adapted it from Bobby Flay. We like the Mahi Mahi as you can find it at Trader Joe’s, frozen, for about $6-something a pound. Woo-hoo! I’ve seen it both plain and marinated in a chimichurri-type marinade. This was that variety — I just wiped off the extra marinade after defrosting it.

If you have leftover pesto it is excellent with pasta, chicken or, uh, a spoon.

Rub
2 tbsp smoked Spanish paprika
1 tbsp chile powder blend
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp dark brown sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

Mahi Mahi
Four 1/2 pound mahi mahi fillets
2 tbsp olive oil

Cilantro Pesto
2 large yellow bell peppers — peeled, seeded and chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1/4 cup walnuts
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
3 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

Make the pesto by placing the peppers, garlic, nuts, cilantro and Parmesan in a food processor and pulse until combined. With the machine on, add the oil and process until emulsified.

Season with the salt and pepper. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Okay, now make the rub. Basically, mix all the rub ingredients together. Done!

Now, heat a pan (a grill pan or regular skillet) over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil. Rub each fillet with the "Barbecue" Rub and cook until a bit of a crust has formed, to 3 minutes. Turn the fish and grill for 3 to 4 minutes longer, or until cooked to medium doneness.

We had this with some cheddar polenta (make polenta, add a bunch of cheddar cheese to it), tomato slices and black beans. And of course the cilantro pesto.

Super good and tasty.

We are having a dessert baking contest thing at work next week (at the Halloween Party) and I am trying to come up with an idea. Well, I have some, but we really haven’t gotten any specifics yet on the contest. So, I’m not sure if it can be any baked item or a specifically Halloween-themed thing. I have two contenders. I will decide this weekend I suppose. After making them each to taste test. Yeah.

This is seriously good cold weather fare. It’s probably best left for a weekend project but it is so worth the two hours or so it takes to pull it off. I have always wanted to make French Onion Soup and am really glad I finally gave it a try. jwa is glad too.

The recipe is from The Way to Cook by Julia Child. The only change I made was adding two thyme sprigs while cooking the onions. It’s also very easily halved for two, which is what I did, as there is only the two of us. Actually, our one cat Chelsea would probably like a bowl, but I can’t image that would end well.

So…two servings it is.

French Onion Soup
Serves 4 as written below
1/2 stick butter
1 tbsp olive oil
8 cups thinly sliced onions (about 4 medium to large onions)
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp flour
8 cups homemade beef stock, or good quality store bought stock
1/4 cup Cognac, or other good brandy (I used Calvados)
1 cup dry white wine
4 (1/2-inch) thick slices of French bread, toasted
3/4 pound coarsely grated Gruyere

Heat a heavy saucepan over medium heat with the butter and oil. When the butter has melted, stir in the onions, cover, and cook slowly until tender and translucent, about 10 minutes.

After about 10 minutes browning time

Blend in the salt and sugar, increase the heat to medium high, and let the onions brown, stirring frequently until they are a dark walnut color, 25 to 30 minutes.

After 25 minutes

Here I regulated the temperature a bit, going between medium and low, depending on the coloring of the onions. You don’t want to burn them, so go slowly and turn it down if it starts to burn at all. I also added in two sprigs of thyme while browning the onions.

Sprinkle the flour and cook slowly, stirring, for another 3 to 4 minutes.

Remove from heat, let cool a moment, then whisk in 2 cups of hot stock. When well blended, bring to the simmer, adding the rest of the stock, Cognac, and wine. Make sure you scrape up all the brown goodness from the bottom of the pot. Use a wooden spoon or a heat-proof rubber spatula.

Cover loosely, and simmer very slowly 1 1/2 hours, adding a little water if the liquid reduces too much. Taste for seasoning (salt and pepper — you will need some). All the little thyme leaves will have fallen off the sprigs by now. Pull the thyme sprigs out.

Divide the soup among 4 ovenproof bowls.

Arrange toast on top of soup and sprinkle generously with grated cheese.

Place bowls on a cookie sheet and place under a preheated broiler until cheese melts and forms a crust over the tops of the bowls.

Serve immediately.

Occasionally, I go to the Whole Foods by my work when I forget lunch. I am sometimes seduced by the hot food bar. “Come to me…” it taunts. “All kinds of cuisines…look, above me, it says Global…” It looks good, it all smells good, but when I get back to work I am almost always disappointed. Except not by the Chicken Marsala. Never by you, Chicken Marsala.

So, when I was at the store the other day and I saw some Marsala wine, I decided to pick it up and make my own Chicken Marsala. And so I did. Oh! So good. And I even decreased the butter that was in the original recipe (6 tablespoons, I believe) and used half and half instead of full on cream. It worked fine with half and half and sure, it would probably have been creamier with the cream, but I didn’t miss it. Just, if you use half and half instead of cream, try to keep it at a simmer (instead of an actual boil) after adding the h&h.

Oh, and I made the recipe with half of the chicken listed below (2 huge breasts, about 1.25 pounds total) and made the full sauce recipe. Good move!

Chicken Marsala
Adapted from a recipe in Gourmet Magazine
1 3/4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth (14 fl oz)
2 tbsp finely chopped shallot (or white onion)
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 big clove garlic, minced
12 oz mushrooms, trimmed and thinly sliced (I used a mix of cremini and shitake)
1 1/2 tsp finely chopped fresh sage
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves (2 lb total — or use 2 breasts for 2 people but make all the sauce)
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons dry Marsala wine
1/2 cup heavy cream (or half and half)
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
More fresh, chopped sage and some chives for garnish

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 200 degrees F. Bring broth to a boil in a 2-quart saucepan over high heat, then boil, uncovered, until reduced to about 3/4 cup, about 15-20 minutes.

Cook the shallot (or diced onion) in 2 tablespoons butter in a big, heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring, until shallot begins to turn golden, about 1 minute. Add mushrooms, garlic, 1 teaspoon of the sage, salt, and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid mushrooms give off is evaporated and mushrooms begin to brown, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from heat and set mushrooms aside in a bowl. You’ll reuse the big skillet to cook the chicken — don’t bother wiping it out.

Put flour in a wide shallow bowl. Gently pound chicken to 1/4 inch thick between 2 sheets of plastic wrap using the flat side of a meat pounder or a rolling pin. Pat chicken dry and season with salt and pepper, then dredge in flour, 1 piece at a time, shaking off excess.

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the skillet over moderately high heat and sauté chicken, (in batches, if needed) turning over once, until golden and just cooked through, about 4-6 minutes total. Transfer cooked chicken to a baking sheet, arranging in 1 layer, then put in the oven to keep warm.

Add 1/2 cup marsala wine to skillet and boil over high heat, stirring and scraping up brown bits, about 30 seconds. Add reduced broth, cream, and mushrooms, then simmer, stirring occasionally, 5 to 6 minutes. Add remaining 2 tablespoons wine and 1/2 teaspoon sage.

Add chicken back to pan to coat in sauce. Serve over pasta, giving it all a quick squirt of lemon juice (about a teaspoon’s worth) before serving. Garnish with fresh sage and chopped chives.

This was really very good. I think we’ll definitely have it again. Mainly because it was so good but also because I have a whole bottle of Marsala wine at home now…

So, jwa and I did the Great Columbia Crossing 10k in Astoria on Sunday. He ran and I walked it. He did the 6.2 miles in 49 minutes and 49 seconds. So awesome! Meanwhile, I walked the 6.2 miles in 1 hour and 40 minutes. Not too bad. My goal was to come in at or under 2 hours. Woo! We figured out that he ran at about 7.7 miles per hour and I was doing about 3.8 miles per hour walking. Not too bad. Especially since this is the first time either of us has done anything like this before.

We drove up there Saturday, scanning the radio, while jwa sang along with a lot of the songs we recognized on the radio in the style of the Decemberists. And that is as fun as it sounds!

After getting out of Portland, I was slightly nervous at the number of McCain/Palin signs on the drive in, but was relieved to see a huge Obama/Biden sign about 20 miles outside of Astoria. Hooray! I try to keep my blog politics-free (hey, we all like to eat), but we cheered at the sight of that one.

Anyway, once in Astoria, we picked up our packets at Astoria High School (tons of Obama bumper stickers in the parking lot) and then continued on to the Hotel Elliott to check in. We had a tasty pasta dinner at Fulios. When you are running/walking six miles the next day, you need to bulk up with some pasta. Yeah!

Veggie antipasto platter — grilled eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes and capers.

Hotel Elliott at night

After this, we went back, got in bed, and watched Hud on TMC.

The view from our hotel window at 6am

jwa, #1, about an hour before the race, in Chinook (Dismal Nitch), Washington. “Hotel Citroen…A Magnificent New Hotel on Colorful Ping Island.”

Me, sleepy, #1003

A heron, riverfront, before the start

More heron

And it starts. So many people. Runners started first. I think there were at least 500+ people there There were actually 700 registered runners there. And there were at least 500-700 walkers. So damn! There were a lot of people doing it this year.

It was about a mile before we hit the bridge.

On the bridge. The runners are way ahead. I was about in the first 1/3 of the walkers.

More bridge.

Entering Oregon. The race starts in Washington and crosses into Oregon on the bridge. This is about 2.5 miles in…It’s a little past here that jwa calls me to tell me that he’s done.

More bridge. I think this is still before the incline.

Looking back. Glad I am up the incline at this point!

Scenic!

From the bridge still, but I’m in the home stretch!

Looking back. Glad I’m only about .75 miles form being done here.

James finished early enough to go back to the room and take a quick shower and then meet me at the finish line. We both had a great time! We’re already looking forward to doing it again next year. I’ll post bigger pictures at flickr…

So, I was listening to the Splendid Table last Sunday night and the first caller asked about green tomatoes and what to do with them. Great question, I thought, as tomato season here is from, uh, September 20th - October 10th. We have a lot of tomatoes that did not turn red. I wore a fleece hat to work today — I think the tomato season is over. We have a number of Romas and Early Girls (small tomatoes) left clinging to our dying vine.

One of the dishes described was for a pasta with ricotta cheese, diced green tomatoes, lemon zest, garlic and pine nuts. That sounds fabulous but, looking in the cabinet, I spied some lasagna noodles and decided to give that a try. Below isn’t an exact recipe, just an overview of what I did. More fiddling is encouraged. I used a 9 X 9 square pan and about 6 no-boil lasagna noodles. My sauce was a concoction of butter, garlic, mushrooms, onion, flour, vegetable broth, cheese and lemon zest.

Green Tomato & Mushroom Lasagna
green tomatoes
lasagna noodles
butter
flour
mushrooms
dried thyme
onion
garlic
a lemon
parmesan cheese
ricotta cheese (park skim)
mozzarella cheese

Slice your tomatoes into rounds. Then start the sauce. I used 2 tablespoons of butter and sauteed a bunch of mushrooms, 1/2 a diced onion, and 2 cloves of minced garlic for a few minutes. Then added some lemon zest. Then 2 tablespoons of flour (cooked for a minute or two) and added heated vegetable broth. It thickened and I added some parmesan cheese for creaminess (I think goat cheese or cream cheese would work well too). A squirt of lemon juice and about a 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme.

Ladle a little sauce in the pan and put two noodles down. Cover with green tomato slices.

More sauce. Two more noodles. Next, ricotta cheese (a whole tub) that I mixed with some salt, pepper, a garlic clove and a handful of parmesan cheese. Then the last layer of tomatoes.

Last two noodles, the rest of the sauce and slices of mozzarella cheese. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes.

When you take it out you will think, “Oh my god. That looks so good. Thank you, lasagna gods. Thank you!”

For optimal slicing, let it cool for a few minutes first.

What else should I do with our remaining green tomatoes?

***
On a completely unrelated note, if you are in the hospitality business, you should not be a raving lunatic of a woman. Just a thought.

Went back to Uwajimaya again and got more wonderful things — like tons of Thai basil and coconut milk (2 cans for $1.50!), assorted frozen dumplings and some white miso paste. Soon we will steam all the dumplings in one sitting and have Janet Reno’s Dance Dumpling Dumpling Dance Party. But for now, there are Spicy Sesame Noodles with tons o’ Thai Basil.

Oh! Also I am entering this contest and I have (I think) perfected my recipe. jwa thinks I should make another test batch though…I think he just wants more chocolate!

Spicy Sesame Noodles with Thai Basil
Adapted from Bon Appétit Magazine
1 tbsp peanut oil
2 tbsp minced peeled fresh ginger
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 tbsp Asian sesame oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
11/2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp hot chili oil
1 tsp salt
12 oz dried noodles (any Asian noodle is fine or even a linguine or spaghetti-type noodle will work)
8 green onions (white and pale green parts only), thinly sliced
1 orange bell pepper, sliced into small strips
1/2 cup coarsely chopped roasted peanuts
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh Thai basil leaves
1 tbsp sesame seeds

Heat peanut oil in small skillet over medium heat. Add ginger and garlic; sauté 1 minute. Transfer to large bowl. Add next 6 ingredients; whisk to blend.

Cook noodles in boiling water. Drain thoroughly and toss with sauce. Add sliced green onions, bell pepper strips and toss to coat noodles.

Let stand at room temperature until noodles have absorbed dressing, tossing occasionally, about 1 hour.

Stir in peanuts and Thai basil; toss again.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve at room temperature.