Holiday Recipes

Farmer's Market Holiday Recipes Lunch Recipes Salad

Picnic Potato Salad

written by Ali

By and large I am not a huge fan of potato salad. I have a fairly significant aversion to mayonnaise, though I will use it for tuna or chicken salad. I used to not like hard-boiled eggs, so this may have something to do with it as well. In recent years, I’ve started to experiment more with this type of salad, using a minimal amount of mayonnaise and skipping the eggs all together. I went one step further with this salad and just ditched the mayonnaise, opting instead for a dressing of red wine vinegar, oil and mustard. Even better, I threw in some nicoise salad touches: Kalamata olives, blanched snap peas, and a whole hard boiled egg in each serving.

On a side note, I recently discovered a new red wine vinegar (because generic red wine vinegar just isn’t that thrilling.) Meet the chianti red wine vinegar of my dreams:

Ok – maybe it’s not that exciting and maybe it does taste mostly like red wine vinegar, but still.

This is a great time of year for little potatoes straight out of the garden or from the farm or farmer’s market. The snap peas could certainly be replaced with beans. The dressing made plenty of extra, so save it for a green salad later in the week or to go with roasted chicken and focaccia.

Picnic Potato Salad
Serves 4

10 – 12 small (fingerling size) potatoes
10 – 12 snap peas
10 – 12 Kalamata olives
4 hardboiled eggs
Chianti red wine dressing (below)

Chianti Red Wine Dressing
2/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup chianti red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon grainy mustard
pinch salt
a few grinds fresh pepper

For the dressing: Combine all ingredients in a jar. Cover with a tight lid, shake vigorously and set aside.

For the salad: Fill a medium saucepan halfway with water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add the snap peas and boil for one minute. Put the snap peas in a strainer and rinse with cool water. Set aside. Add the potatoes to the boiling water and boil until tender. Drain, cool and cut into quarters. Combine the potatoes, blanched snap peas and Kalamata olives. Dress with Chianti Red Wine Dressing – all ingredients should be well coated. Chill for at least an hour for flavors to develop. Add the hardboiled eggs on each plate when the dish is served.

June 1, 2016 0 comment

Baked Goods Dessert Holiday Recipes

Wine-y Dark Chocolate Brownies

written by Ali

I suspect if I have a life’s motto, it’s when life is in chaos, eat chocolate and drink wine. This recipe is the best of both worlds, as it incorporates lots of chocolate and a good, robust wine. The addition of dried Bing cherries gives the brownies a bit of chew and compliments the dark chocolate chips.

Wine-y Dark Chocolate Brownies
Makes 40 brownies

¾ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
½ cup cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ cup flour
½ cup milk
½ cup red wine
1 cup dark chocolate chips
½ cup dried cherries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Combine the butter, sugar, and cocoa powder in a medium saucepan over low heat and stir until the butter is melted and the sugar and cocoa powder are combined. Take the mixture off the heat and let cool for about five minutes.

Add the eggs and vanilla to the melted butter/sugar/cocoa mix and stir to thoroughly incorporate the eggs. Add the milk and red wine and stir. Combine the baking powder, baking soda, and flour in a small bowl. Add the dry ingredients slowly to the chocolate mix, stirring after each small addition. The batter will be a bit lumpy. Add the dark chocolate chips and dried cherries and stir until these are incorporated.

Spread the brownie mixture in a well-buttered 11×7 baking dish. Bake for 35 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle of the brownies comes out clean.

February 17, 2016 0 comment

Breakfast Holiday Recipes

Valentine’s Day Granola

written by Ali

I feel a bit like Valentine’s Day the past few years has not treated me kindly. Several years ago, Clay asked me what I wanted for Valentine’s Day and I told him I wanted to go to my favorite winery here in the PNW, Brandborg Winery, to taste wine and to have lunch at Tomaselli’s, both of which are in the tiny town of Elkton in Southern Oregon. That year, I caught a cold right before Valentine’s Day and there was no hope of me tasting anything. Last year, I had to go to Baltimore for a work conference right around Valentine’s Day, which resulted in a harrowing plane ride and taxi ride to get to my conference hotel in the middle of one of the many nasty snowstorms the East coast has had these past few years. This year, I don’t trust my back to make the nearly ninety minute round-trip drive it takes to get to Elkton and back.

I’ll console myself with a Valentine’s Day breakfast of Greek yogurt and this granola. As you can tell, I’m a fan of any granola that includes dark chocolate as one of the ingredients. I also picked up a bottle of agave syrup in the organic aisle at one of our markets this past weekend. I think I like the combination of agave and honey – it doesn’t make the granola overly sweet. And this may be a bit of an obvious hack, but if you pour the olive oil first and then use the same measuring cup to measure out the honey and agave, both pour out very, very easily.

Valentine’s Day Granola
Serves 10

4 cups old fashioned rolled oats
¼ cup dried quinoa
1 cup pecan pieces
1/3 cup olive oil
¼ cup agave syrup
¼ cup honey
½ cup dark chocolate chips or chunks
½ cup dried Bing cherries

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Combine the oats, dried quinoa, pecans, olive oil, agave syrup, and honey in a bowl. Spread the granola mixture onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake at 10-minute intervals for a total of 30 minutes. Stir between each interval.

Remove the granola from the oven and let cool. I sprinkle the chocolate chips and dried cherries over the granola as soon as it’s removed from the oven. However, if you prefer that your chocolate doesn’t melt, wait until the granola is fully cooled to add the chocolate and dried cherries.

Store in an airtight container.

February 11, 2016 1 comment

Baked Goods Holiday Recipes Lunch Recipes

Croissants

written by Ali

Do you ever pause for a moment and really think about food? Often, as I’m eating something, like an artichoke or a hazelnut or mushrooms, I pause and consider how our ancestors first thought to eat this particular food or thought to prepare it in a particular way – or really, even thought to prepare food at all. I think about this when I’m baking bread and when I’m making pasta – about how this combination of simple things – flour, yeast, eggs maybe or just flour and eggs (in the case of pasta) – came to be.

I also think about the memories we attach to food. I can’t think of much else in life, except music, perhaps, that so firmly attaches to a memory as food does. Some foods have a stronger memory association than others, and for me, one of the strongest is croissants. My first association with croissants was chocolate croissants and almond croissants that my mom would buy at a little chain in Colorado called Petite Boulangerie on Green Mountain. It seems to me that the bakery was next to a bookstore, so for me, those two things – pastry and books – are inexorably linked. As an adult, I encountered chocolate croissants in a meaningful way again in New Mexico. A daughter of one of my co-workers sold chocolate croissants, which she’d learned to make in France, at the local farmers market in Tularosa. I would buy six or eight at a time and we would freeze them and then heat them up again on lazy Sunday mornings. Croissants are also closely tied to my honeymoon – my only trip to Paris thus far. We stayed at a small B&B and the proprietress would make us croissants and eggs in the morning, along with some miserable coffee she’d microwave. It was ok – we had fresh croissants, a bit of jam, and some cheese.

For a long time, we had a baker here in my part of the PNW who made chocolate croissants and sold them at our farmers market. Two years ago or so, he left to go start a bakery somewhere in Mexico, and I decided it was time to stop relying on others for croissants – it was time to make my own. And maybe because I have these strong associations with my memories, I was afraid to make these – they seemed so complicated, like a mystical ritual that took a full moon to fully realize or something. One holiday season, I found a recipe online that looked easy enough and dove in. The results were good – flaky, but a bit on the small size. What I discovered in this process was that there was nothing mystical about the croissant – it was basically dough with a hefty amount of butter. The magic comes about in the layering of dough and butter, but even this is not as complex as it looks. I’ve since found that a little devil-may-care attitude seems to work well to get the croissants nice and fluffy.

If you’ve never had a fresh croissant right out of the oven, I strongly encourage you to try these. One note of warning: this is a two-day recipe that takes a fair amount of time on the first day (though most of that time is inactive time waiting for the dough to rest).

What follows below is a step-by-step guide with pictures.

Start by breaking two eggs into a two-cup measure. Fill the measure with warm water and then give the eggs a good stir until they are incorporated with the water. In a medium size bowl, pour the egg and water mixture and then add 2 ¼ teaspoons active yeast. Add to this mixture 3 tablespoons sugar. Combine. Gradually add 5 cups of flour, stirring as you go. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface. Knead for four or five minutes – until the dough is supple and soft, but not overworked. Put the dough back into the bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

While the dough rests, put 4 sticks of butter (a total of 1 lb.) into a one-gallon size freezer or storage bag. The next step is an extraordinary stress reliever: place the bag with the butter on the counter and start whacking it (hard) with a rolling pin.

The goal here is to flatten the butter out into a rectangle that’s about ¼ to ½ inch thick. Once the butter is flattened out and in a rough rectangle, refrigerate until the dough is ready to go.

When the dough is ready to come out, turn it onto a well-floured surface and roll it into a rectangle about 16 x 18. Place the butter rectangle into the middle and fold each corner of the dough toward the middle, over the butter.

From here, flour the surface again and roll out the dough to a 16 x 18 inch rectangle. Once this is complete, fold the dough into thirds (like you might fold a letter). Turn the dough one-quarter turn and roll it out again to a 16 x 18 inch rectangle. This completes two turns (you’ll turn it four times total). Refrigerate for another 30 minutes.

When the dough comes out, roll it out again to a 16 x 18 inch rectangle and then fold by thirds and refrigerate again for 30 minutes. This is the third turn.

Do this one more time – roll the dough into a 16 x 18 inch rectangle and fold into thirds. This time, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, put the dough on a well-floured surface and divide it into two sections. You’ll be able to see the multiple layers of the dough.

Put one section back in the refrigerator and roll the other on a well-floured surface into a 16 x 18 inch rectangle. Divide the dough into 12 more or less evenly divided sections. Place your filling in the middle of each section and fold the dough. Repeat with the second section of dough.

I used two fillings this time around. The first half of the dough was filled with prosciutto and Swiss cheese. The second half of the dough was filled with dark chocolate chips.

At this point, you can do two things: first, you can put the croissants in the oven on a parchment covered baking sheet and bake them for about 20 minutes at 375 degrees. Keep an eye on them – when they are evenly browned on the top and bottom, they are finished.

Second, you can put the croissants on a parchment covered baking sheet and freeze them (once they are frozen, transfer them to a freezer bag). The beauty of uncooked and frozen croissants is that you can pull as many as you need out of the freezer the night before you plan to bake them, put them in the refrigerator and then bake them the next day and they will still puff up just as beautifully as if you had made them fresh.

Croissants (recipe adapted from King Arthur flour)
Makes 24 croissants

2 eggs and enough warm water to fill a two-cup measuring cup over the eggs
3 tablespoons sugar
2 ¼ teaspoons active yeast
1 lb unsalted or salted butter

Prosciutto Croissant Filling
8 or so slices of prosciutto
6 slices of Swiss cheese

Chocolate Croissant Filling
1 package dark chocolate chips

While the dough rests, put 4 sticks of butter (a total of 1 lb.) into a one-gallon size freezer or storage bag. Flatten into a rectangle and refrigerate.

Turn the dough onto a well-floured surface and roll it into a rectangle about 16 x 18. Place the butter rectangle into the middle and fold each corner of the dough toward the middle, over the butter.

When the dough comes out, roll it out again to a 16 x 18 inch rectangle and then fold by thirds and refrigerate again for 30 minutes. This is the third turn.

Do this one more time – roll the dough into a 16 x 18 inch rectangle and fold into thirds. This time, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, put the dough on a well-floured surface and divide it into two sections. Put one section back in the refrigerator and roll the other on a well-floured surface into a 16 x 18 inch rectangle. Divide the dough into 12 more or less evenly divided sections. Place your filling in the middle of each section and fold the dough. Repeat with the second section of dough.

Bake at 375 degrees for twenty minutes. Alternatively, you can freeze the croissants. When you are ready to bake them, take them out of the freezer the night before and then bake the next day at 375 degrees for twenty minutes.

January 25, 2016 0 comment

Holiday Recipes Lunch Recipes Main Dishes

Sonoran Hot Dog

written by Ali

I confess – I love competition-based cooking shows. I’ve been a fan of Top Chef since around season three and love, love, love the Great British Baking Show. A few weeks ago, we discovered that Netflix had several seasons of the Great Food Truck Race, so we serial watched our way through. The episodes and seasons blur a bit, but somewhere in there, one of the cooking challenges was for the teams to make and sell a Sonoran Hot Dog. I’d never heard of such a thing, but Clay was familiar with the concept. All I knew was it involved a bacon wrapped hot dog and chili peppers. I liked the concept, but have been too busy fantasizing about how to make a chicken tikka masala deep dish pizza to think much about this particular recipe.

However, as we wandered around our quirky grocery store today, Clay discovered these:

We stocked up on some bacon, got a few Anaheim peppers, and committed to making bacon-wrapped bratwurst for dinner.

The bacon wrapping was accomplished by wrapping around the bacon and skewering it to keep it in place.

Given that it is January and raining and cold, we cooked these in our cast iron skillet. I would imagine that they would be wonderful grilled, as well.

Sonoran Hot Dog
Serves 4

4 hot dogs, bratwurst or sausage
4 strips of bacon
4 hot dog buns or hoagie rolls
1/2 onion
2 Anaheim peppers

Condiments
Pickle relish
Dijon mustard
Cheese or cheese sauce

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. When oven is at temperature, put the Anaheim chilies on a baking sheet and put them in the oven to roast. This takes around 20 minutes – turn halfway through. When the peppers are nicely charred on both sides, take them out, let them cool, and then peel. Set aside.

Caramelize the onions in a cast iron skillet oiled with a bit of olive oil. Set aside.

Wrap the hot dogs with the bacon. Use a skewer to anchor the bacon at one end of the hot dog and again toward the end of the hot dog. In a well oiled cast iron skillet, cook the hot dogs for about 30 minutes, until the bacon is crisp. Turn periodically so that the bacon crisps on all sides.

When the bacon is crisp, assemble the hotdogs by laying half an Anaheim chili on the base of the hot dog bun, then the hot dog, then the relish, mustard and cheese or cheese sauce.

January 17, 2016 2 comments

Holiday Recipes Salad

Winter Fruit Salad

written by Ali

One of my fondest memories from my childhood is a fruit salad my grandma made for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. The salad was a simple combination of canned fruit cocktail and mini-marshmallows. The salad was super sweet and the marshmallows would marinate in the fruit cocktail syrup and become soft and foamy. I particularly loved the combination of maraschino cherries and marshmallows and would pick these out first.

My grandma, sadly, passed away several years ago, and it’s been a long time since I last had fruit cocktail and marshmallows. My diet, habits and tastes have changed fairly radically since I was a child, and though there is a very strong nostalgia factor for this salad, it’s not something I’ve ever made for myself.

As I thought about what kinds of culinary experimentation I wanted to do this holiday break, I thought about my grandma’s salad, and started wondering if there was a way to replicate some of the flavor, but in a way that favored non-processed, less sugary fruit over the fruit cocktail. I won’t lie and say this version is perfectly healthy (the marshmallows have corn syrup in them) but it is a lightened up, less sugared version. Here’s a testament to how lightened up: as I was taking pictures this afternoon, Clayton, who isn’t a big fan of lots of sugar, hovered around the kitchen, waiting to eat what I was photographing. I’d say that’s a win!

A quick note about the marshmallows and the cherries: the marshmallows are made from a recipe that creates a very small batch. I’ve done further research and have encountered many recipes for marshmallows that don’t require corn syrup, so next go around, I’ll likely use one of those and adapt it for a smaller batch. I also used my hand mixer, and discovered why these are easier to make in a stand mixer. The marshmallow cream was incredibly sticky – I highly recommend using a neutral oil and oiling any utensil you might use to maneuver the marshmallow fluff (including your hands – trust me – I had a moment last night where I thought I might be stuck to the counter top for good).

As far as the cherries go, I suggest using some sort of preserved cherry. I happened to have a can of homemade maraschino cherries floating around the pantry from last summer. I absolutely used to love maraschino cherries that come from the grocery store, until I learned how they are produced. If you don’t know and would like to stay in a state of ignorant bliss, I encourage you not to dig too deeply on this topic. I would think that thawed out frozen cherries could work as well.

Winter Fruit Salad

Makes four servings

1 apple
1 Cara Cara orange (blood oranges, tangerines, or other citrus would work fine)
1 pear
10 – 15 cherries (I used homemade canned maraschino cherries, but I think fresh would be equally good)
5 – 6 homemade marshmallows (Recipe link here), cut into smaller, mini-marshmallow size pieces

Dice the apple and pear. Peel the Cara Cara orange and segment, cutting segments into smaller pieces. Slice the cherries in half. Combine all the fruit and then add the mini-marshmallows and stir. If not served immediately, the apple and pear will brown a bit, but this doesn’t significantly impact the taste.

Happy Holidays!

December 24, 2015 0 comment

Breakfast Holiday Recipes

Gingerbread Granola

written by Ali

I typically make a large batch of granola every other week or so – largely because, though I am always on the search for something for lunch that’s interesting, breakfast throughout the week is one of two things: yogurt and granola or overnight oats. Once upon a time, I used to buy granola, but then realized how much sugar commercially produced granola has in it. Making my own allows me to adjust the amount of sugar, as well as experiment with the kinds of sweeteners I use.

This week’s granola features ginger and pumpkin pie spices, since it is the holidays, after all. It’s got small chunks of candied ginger in it, along with hazelnuts and almonds. I also throw in a bit of uncooked quinoa for some added crunch – feel free to omit if you don’t have this readily on hand.

Gingerbread Granola

Serves 8 – 10

3 cups old fashioned rolled oats (not the quick or instant kind)
¼ cup uncooked quinoa
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon ground ginger
¼ cup maple syrup
¼ cup molasses
½ cup olive oil or coconut oil
½ cup nuts, roughly chopped (I used a combination of hazelnuts and almonds)
6 – 8 chunks of candied ginger, chopped

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Combine oats, quinoa, spices, and nuts in a bowl and stir. Stir in the maple syrup, molasses, and oil until all the dry ingredients are coated.

Spread out the oat mixture on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Cook for 10 minutes at a time, stirring every 10 minutes, for a total of 30 minutes. Let the granola cool. Stir in the candied ginger as you break up the granola and prepare it for storage. I usually keep my granola in an airtight jar in the pantry for several weeks.

December 21, 2015 2 comments

Beverages Holiday Recipes

Winter Fruit Sangria

written by Ali

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this is my favorite time of the year. I’m a fan of sparkly decorations, glittery lights, and everything that a winter wonderland entails. And of course, holiday food, especially when I’m on break from work and have time to experiment in the kitchen (while listening to Pink Martini, Diana Krall, and Nat King Cole’s holiday albums, of course).

Sangria is one of my favorite drinks to make, as it showcases seasonal fruit so well. My local little quirky grocery store stocks kumquats this time of year, so I’m sure to do my best to get my fill. The persimmons grow happily here in my region of the PNW and I had several that had been hanging out from the farmer’s market since Thanksgiving. These are Fuyu persimmons – so can be eaten safely before they are entirely ripe (Hachiya are the other common type of persimmon and are very, very astringent if they aren’t ripe). I also used a bit of the kumquat simple syrup from last week to sweeten the sangria.

Winter Fruit Sangria

1 bottle of red wine (I used a red wine blend from California. I also like to use a fruity Zinfandel or even a Cabernet for sangria)
1/4 cup Brandy
1/8 cup Kumquat simple syrup
1 Fuyu persimmon, sliced
1 Meyer lemon, sliced
½ cup whole cranberries
½ cup whole kumquats
¼ cup pomegranate seeds

Combine ingredients in a pitcher or a quart Mason jar. I usually use a Mason jar, which won’t be large enough for all the wine, and just add the remaining wine after I’ve poured my first glass. Stir and chill. If you are patient enough, it’s best to let the sangria hang out for a while in the fridge – four or so hours lets the flavors develop.

Serve with a bit (or a lot) of the fruit.

December 19, 2015 0 comment

Beverages Holiday Recipes

Kumquat Meyer Lemon Martini

written by Ali

This kumquat Meyer lemon martini is perfect for the holidays. Christmas is hands down my favorite time of year. All the sparkly lights and all the wonderful foods. It’s also usually the time of year when I have an extended period of time off of work and plenty of time to experiment with new recipes and food stuffs. It’s also a great time of year for a sparkly cocktail. That and all the lovely citrus starts showing up in the grocery stores here in the PNW. This little cocktail has a bit of it all: some sparkle, two types of citrus, and a photogenic presence.

I’m especially fond of kumquats this time of year. These bitty citrus look like an elongated mini-orange (and we know how I feel about mini everything!). Kumquats are pretty versatile – they can be eaten as a snack whole, peel and all, as well as salt-preserved (these were the first citrus I ever preserved using the salt technique), candied, and infused in a simple syrup for cocktails, like this one. The kumquats add a nice sweetness to the otherwise sweet/sour of the Meyer lemons.

Yum

Kumquat Meyer Lemon Martini

Ingredients

Kumquat Meyer Lemon Martini

2 ounces vodka
2 ounces Meyer lemon juice
½ ounce kumquat simple syrup (recipe follows)
1 tablespoon sugar
zest from one Meyer lemon
1 or 2 sliced kumquats for garnish

Kumquat Simple Syrup

6 kumquats, sliced
½ cup sugar
½ cup water

Instructions

For the Kumquat Meyer Lemon Martini

Combine the vodka, lemon juice, and kumquat syrup in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Combine the sugar and zest of the Meyer lemon in a shallow dish. Dampen the rim of your martini glass with a bit of water and then dip the rim in the sugar/lemon mixture. Pour the martini into the prepared glass and garnish with the sliced kumquats.

For the kumquat simple syrup

Combine the kumquats, sugar and water in a small saucepan and stir over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Stir occasionally and cook for five or so minutes, pushing on the kumquat slices to release juice. Pour syrup (kumquats included) into a small jar and cool. Keep leftovers in the refrigerator for a few days.

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December 13, 2015 0 comment

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