Oatmeal Molasses Bread

This is a very slightly modified version of the Oatmeal Molasses Bread in the Joy of Cooking (the updated one from the late 90s). I just wanted it a little softer so I subbed in some milk and an egg where the original uses only water.

total prep/rise/bake time: 4 1/2 to 5 hours (mostly hands off rising time)

makes 2 loaves (or a lot of rolls, if you want)

Combine and allow to come to room temperature:

1/2 c milk

1/3 c molasses

1 egg

In a medium saucepan, combine:

1 1/4 c oatmeal

1 3/4 c water

1 tbsp butter

3/4 tsp salt

bring to a boil, and cook on low for about 20 minutes until it's super thick and dense. Get it out of the pan, and onto a plate to cool to about 115 degrees (if you don't have an instant read thermometer, 115 feels just pleasantly warm, not hot). Incidentally, if you ever have about 2 cups of leftover cooked oatmeal (it might happen...), you could just use that, adding the melted butter and salt separately.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine:

2 tbsp room temperature sourdough starter (optional)

1/4 c warm (115 degree) water

2 tsp yeast (if you don't use any starter, use 2 1/2 tsp yeast total)

let it stand for 5-10 minutes, till it's bubbly. When the oatmeal is cool enough to touch (115 degrees), add it, along with the milk/molasses/egg mixture to the yeast/starter mixture and combine thoroughly. Add:

2 c bread flour

2 c whole wheat flour

Using the dough hook, mix on low until thoroughly combined (or stir with a spoon by hand until it mostly comes together and then turn it out onto a board to continue kneading). Continue to add up to 1 extra cup of flour, until you have a dough that's moist but not sticky. If you're using a mixer, let it knead the dough for 10-15 minutes. I would recommend pulling it out to knead in a bit more flour on your countertop to make sure the dough is cohesive.

Plop the dough into an oiled bowl, turning it to coat it all over with oil, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it somewhere warm to rise, 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until doubled (I put it on my radiator). Punch down the dough (or just sort of knead the air out of it, really) and divide the dough into two pieces (at this point I cut out an extra 30 minutes of "resting" time and saw no ill effects... if you have a lot of time on your hands you can add that in here).

Now you have a couple of options for forming the loaves. The original recipe is for two 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 bread pans, which you could do; but I only have one 9 by 5 bread pan - so instead of dividing the dough in equal halves, I separated it 2/3 (for the 9 by 5 pan) and 1/3 (for a free form loaf I baked on a sheet pan) (by the way I totally recommend getting a scale so you can weigh out your dough, mine was only about $15 and I use it all the time for baking and it's great); however you divide it, if you use loaf pans, grease them up really throughly, and if you want to make free form loaves, bake them on parchment lined (or cornmeal sprinkled) sheet pans.

Shape the loaves (I did a batard for my free form one, which is like a big fat baguette); put them in/on the pans, cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place (on top of your preheating oven, for example) again until doubled, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

During the rising time, preheat your oven to 375. Bake the loaves for about 40 minutes, or until they're deep golden brown, and they sound hollow when you tap them on the bottom.

Cool on a rack for about 30 minutes before cutting into it, if you can stand to wait that long. Actually we couldn't stand to wait that long, and it was fine. In fact, it was awesome, because the butter totally melted right onto that delicious hot bread and it was soooo goooooooooood.

Very special thanks to my crack team of photographers and lighting experts, who put in a lot of work at 2 in the morning to make these photos happen - big ups, Reba, Josh and Axel F!

Kale and Sausage Fry

This is a quick and easy (and very filling and satisfying) wintery dinner.

Kale and Sausage Fry

serves 4

8 small waxy-type potatoes, scrubbed clean, skins left on

olive oil

4-6 sweet or hot italian pork sausage,* whole

2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled, crushed and chopped

crushed red pepper

2 lbs kale, washed, stemmed and chopped

1 cup stock (any kind) or water

salt and pepper

Pre-cook the potatoes, either for 3 minutes in the microwave, or by parboiling (whole) in plenty of water, until just barely tender. Cut into quarters and set aside.

In a large heavy bottomed frying pan, heat some olive oil and add the sausages, turning occasionally to brown them nice and dark on all sides (don't worry about cooking them all the way through right now). Remove them to a plate.

Add a little more oil to the pan if it looks dry (if you have nice pork-fatty sausages this might not be necessary, but you want a fair amount of fat in the pan, a tbsp or so) and then add the potato chunks - leave them with one of their cut sides down until it gets some golden color, then toss them around and let them brown a little more, seasoning with salt and pepper. Remove them to the plate with the sausages.

Add a little more oil to the pan, turn the heat up to high and then add the garlic and crushed red pepper flakes. Fry briefly until the garlic becomes fragrant, and then add the chopped kale. Salt and pepper generously to taste, and toss it all around until the kale darkens and starts to wilt down. Add the cup of stock or water (eyeball it, add more if you think it needs it), add back the sausage and potatoes, stir it all up (scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan) and cover.

Let it cook over medium heat for 5-7 minutes, until the kale is tender and the sausages are cooked through** and the potatoes fall easily back to the pan when you pierce them with a knife and attempt to lift them. Uncover and turn the heat up to high to cook off any remaining stock or water.

Serve with a drizzle of sriracha if desired. It could also be really good with some parmigiano grated on top, or some toasted breadcrumbs for crunch.

*We had some beautiful italian sausages from our meat CSA that were quite large (no comment) and one was plenty for each of us. I've noticed that supermarket italian sausages seem to be about half the size of ours, and you might want more than one per person, depending on your appetite and the appetites of your dining companions. Of course you can use any kind of sausage here - linguica would be intense but yummy (maybe fewer than one per person in that case), Trader Joe's makes a really delicious turkey kielbasa that would be good, brats would be fun, if you like them, etc. Even veggie sausages would work, I've had a fake italian sausage that was actually quite delicious considering it lacked pork.

**I just check to see if they're done by cutting into one. Not very scientific. If you opt for a precooked sausage like linguica, kielbasa or vegetarian sausage, wait to add the sausages till the very end - just add the potatoes at this point, and cover to cook them through, then add the sausage to re-warm as you cook off the stock.

Roasted Cauliflower with Parmesan, Nuts and Parsley

I went to Via Matta, an Italian restaurant here in Boston on Saturday night and had some really delicious cauliflower. Really delicious CAULIFLOWER, you ask? Yes, really, really delicious. It was roasted and encrusted in parmesan and it was delightful. Today I realized I had a cauliflower languishing the refrigerator and what better way to use it than to try to reproduce Via Matta's version. I would say that I almost succeeded, mine wasn't quite right, but it was very good - theirs had breadcrumbs, I didn't have any bread so I improvised with some ground nuts. Here's how I did it...

Ingredients:

1 head cauliflower

1/2 cup nuts (I used a combo of walnuts and pecans, but I imagine almonds would be perfect)

2 cloves garlic

Olive oil

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/4 cup chopped parsley

s&p

Pre-heat oven to 350. Break down your cauliflower - easiest way to do it? Just slice the entire head into 1" slices and from there you can remove the core and cut the florets into smaller pieces if you want. Put the cauliflower on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper and place in your pre-heated oven for 25 minutes. At the 25 minute mark raise your heat to 400 and roast for an additional 10 minutes until the cauliflower is cooked through and a beautiful golden brown. Grate about 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese over the cauliflower and return to the oven for just a few minutes to let the cheese melt.

While the cauliflower cooks, combine nuts and garlic in a food processor until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. See what I did there? FAKE breadcrumbs. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a small pan and add your nut/garlic mixture to toast the nuts and cook the garlic. Remove from the heat and add the remaining 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese.

When the cauliflower is cooked through, transfer it to your serving dish and top with garlicky nut "breadcrumbs" and chopped parsley. Easy and delicious.

Note: I ended up with quite a bit extra nut mixture, so, super! I have it for later. But, either feel free to use it all, or make less, whichever you prefer.

Chicken Cacciatore!

Several events happily conspired to the creation of this meal - Top Chef's Fabio Viviani made chicken cacciatore on the show the same week that I saw Anne Burrell make her version of it on her show. Then we got a whole chicken in our CSA and Bon Appetit magazine had a tutorial on how to break down a whole chicken into pieces. So the stars aligned and I knew this is what I wanted to do with the pretty bird you see below.

I have to say, I've always been a little unsure of exactly how to cut a whole chicken into pieces so I generally don't do it - hey, a whole roasted chicken has always been just fine for me! But, it was actually really easy and I'm glad I know how.

Chicken Cacciatore

adapted from recipes by Fabio Viviani and Anne Burrell

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken cut into 8 pieces

1/2 cup flour for dredging

s&p

olive oil

1 red onion, diced

5 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

1 tsp red pepper flakes

10 oz. cremini mushrooms, sliced

1 red pepper, diced

1 yellow pepper, diced

1 1/2 cups red wine

1 cup chicken stock

3 springs rosemary, chopped

1 tsp dried oregano

1 28 oz can plum tomatoes, diced

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Salt and pepper your chicken. Put flour in a shallow dish, season with salt and pepper and dredge your chicken pieces in flour, shaking off all the excess. Heat olive oil in an oven proof pot and brown your chicken. You want to get it nice and seared on the outside, but you don't need to cook it all the way through as it will cook the rest of the way in the oven. Remove chicken from pan.

Add a little more olive oil to the pan, if needed, and sautee your garlic, red pepper flakes, onions and mushrooms, scraping up all those delicious chicken bits. Season with s&p. Once your onions and mushrooms have cooked down and are slightly caramelized, add your diced peppers and cook until soft. Turn up the heat and add the wine, stock and herbs. Bring to a boil and let cook for about 15 minutes. In the meantime, dice up your tomatoes and then add them and their juice to the pot. Add the chicken back to the sauce, cover and put in the oven for 45 minutes. When my 45 minutes was up, I have to admit, my sauce was really soupy, a lot soupier than I wanted. I put it on the stove top and brought it to a boil in the hopes of reducing it a bit more. But everyone was hungry and it tasted really good already (like, REALLY GOOD) so we just decided to eat it as it was. It did thicken up as it cooled.

While the chicken is in the oven, make your polenta. You can also serve it over egg noodles, but when there is creamy, cheesy delicious polenta as an option, I don't know why you would.

Polenta:

2 cups heavy cream

2 cups water

2 bay leaves

Salt

1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal

2 tbs butter

2 cups grated parmesan cheese

Add cream, water and bay leaves to a pot and bring to a boil. When at a boil add the salt. Chef Anne says you should salt it almost to the point of over-salting it. Interesting! I guess, like pasta, it is your only chance to flavor the corn itself. Sprinkle in the cornmeal (I forgot about the sprinkling and dumped it in, so mine was just a little lumpy) and stir, stir, stir until the polenta is done about 45 minutes. I did end up adding water a few times.

I have to admit some confusion about polenta - is it supposed to stay creamy? Because mine pretty much seized up as soon as it cooled a little. It tasted delicious, but I'm unsure of my consistency. In Bill Buford's great book Heat, he discusses this very situation and finally comes to the realization (wish I had remembered this when I was cooking the polenta) that you should add water to the polenta until it "behave[s] as though it...quenched its thirst." In other words, you should just keep adding liquid until it doesn't immediately soak it up anymore and then cook until it is done. I don't know - either way, mine tasted good and was a great base for the cacciatore sauce. Steeping the bay leaf in the liquid while bringing it up to a boil is a genius move and adds great flavor.

I was hoping this would be delicious, but I actually knocked my own socks off, and Elaine said it was good too, and she really knows what she's talking about. The chicken was so tender and the sauce was absolutely lip-smackingly delicious. I think Axel F had two servings. Boom.

Elaine AGAIN made a really unique and delicious dessert, which I have no doubt she will share soon.

Creme Tangerine

Here's the agreeably weird dessert I made the other night to go with Jenean's incredibly delicious Pasta Puttanesca (and the insanely good cheesy bread OMG so good). I had seen something similar to the tangerine part of it in a martha stewart as a quick dessert (just sliced clementines steeped in a cinnamon simple syrup). I made some additions and adjustments (including star anise, which turns out to give sweet things an unusual and very wonderful flavor), adding a creamy component inspired by a dessert I had when I was in Paris (frommage blanc and rhubarb compote, which was similarly weird, in that it was unlike any dessert I had ever eaten, and also sort of addictively good, creamy and tart and refreshing). I'm calling it Creme Tangerine in honor of the Beatles song (Savoy Truffle), written by my favorite Beatle, George.

Creme Tangerine

serves 6

6 to 8 tangerines (or clementines)

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

2 cinnamon sticks

4-6 cardamom pods

1 star anise

1 16 oz tub of cottage cheese*

In a medium saucepan combine the sugar, water, cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods and star anise. Bring to a boil, and simmer for at least 10 minutes.

While the simple syrup simmers, peel the tangerines, break into 4 quarters** and cut into slices about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Place the tangerine pieces in a dish that will allow the syrup to submerge and soak all of them equally. Pour the hot syrup over the tangerine pieces and leave them to marinate for about an hour.

In a food processor or blender, whip up the cottage cheese until very creamy and smooth - it will take on a beautiful silky texture.

To serve, spoon out the cottage cheese cream equally among 6 bowls, and top with tangerine pieces and plenty of the delicious syrup.

*The cottage cheese was wonderful, and a little salty, in a really pleasant way combined with the tart and spicy tangerines and syrup, and I recommend trying it that way, considering it was so cheap and uncomplicated. However I'm thinking the next time I try this I might do half cottage cheese and half mascarpone, which seems like it would have to be awesome; or 2 parts cottage cheese to one part yogurt, which I read is a way of imitating fromage blanc. ACTUALLY I just found this recipe for making fromage blanc at home (which looks a lot like a great Michael Chiarello recipe I've used for homemade ricotta)... which I'll do when I want to turn this fast and easy recipe into a bigger project, because it sounds delicious.

**As you see in the picture, I just sliced the tangerines whole, across the sections, into rounds. It's very beautiful looking, but we all agreed it was a little hard to eat, which is why I suggest breaking it into quarters before slicing. If you love the look of the rounds, go for it that way - it wasn't THAT hard to eat, honestly.

Fast and Easy Pasta Puttanesca, If You Know What I Mean

Elaine and Axel F came over last Saturday for dinner and a viewing of Inception, so I'm not even sure if we really ate this meal or if it was all in someone's mind. I made pasta with a tuna puttanesca sauce which really was the stuff of dreams (lamest joke ever? possibly). I've seen several people do this and I think its just delicious - the tuna makes it a heartier dish and puttanesca is one of my favorites with all the brininess of the olives and capers which just seem to go so well with a seafood component.

Ingredients:

1 lb pasta (I used spaghetti, you can use whatever you want)

salt

olive oil

6 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp red pepper flakes

2 cans good tuna (really, do yourself a favor, at least for this dish and get some good tuna packed in oil)

1/2 cup chopped kalamata olives (I don't have to tell you to take the pits out, right?)

3 tbs capers

1/2 cup white wine (I used a delicious South African Sauvignon Blanc, which was perfect for drinking with dinner as well - wish I remembered the name of it, sorry!)

1 can tomatoes (mine were whole plum, but you could certainly used diced as well; but again, get the good stuff)

flat leaf parsley

zest of one lemon

s&p

reserved pasta water

Put a pot of water over high heat and bring to a boil. Season generously with salt, bring back to the boil and add pasta. Cook until al dente. Reserve about a cup of pasta water before you chuck it all down the drain! But, remember that you want to take this water out of the pot near the end of the cooking time so that its nice and starchy.

While the pasta is cooking, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and add minced garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook for a couple of minutes just until you can smell the garlic and then add the tuna, breaking it down with your spoon. Add the olives and capers, cook for a few minutes and then add white wine. (You may want to turn the heat up a little before you add the wine, so you don't lose too much heat off the pan.) Let reduce slightly, about a minute and then add your tomatoes and their juice. If you've opted for whole ones, you will need to break them up with your cooking utensil. Add the chopped parsley, lemon zest and pepper to taste. Depending on the consistency of your sauce at this point, this is where you want to add the pasta water - you want it saucy with enough liquid to coat all your pasta, but not soupy. Best way to do it is to add your pasta to the sauce, stir to coat and then judge if you want to put the pasta water in. I like to undercook my pasta just the tiniest bit, add it to the sauce with some pasta water and let it finish cooking in the sauce, so that some of the deliciousness cooks into the pasta. If you've added too much liquid, this method will allow the pasta to soak some of that up as it finishes cooking. You shouldn't need to add salt because of the olives, capers and salty pasta water, but taste your sauce at this point to make sure.

I served this dish with slices of crusty bread, slathered in garlic oil, topped with asiago and toasted in the oven for a few minutes.

Elaine made a surprising, refreshing and absolutely delicious dessert that I hope she'll tell you all about really soon.

Salmon Cakes (Burgers?)

Choose whichever name sounds more appetizing to you. Cakes make me think of crab cakes, which are always awesome. Burgers make me think of... burgers, which are almost always awesome. But I didn't have any rolls to put them on, so I think we can't call them burgers in this case (you can though, if you want! Get some rolls, but get good ones, ok? Also make some yummy seasoned mayo to put on them, and some good crunchy lettuce maybe?)

This is another pantry recipe, using a can of salmon I bought in the tuna aisle out of curiosity, and I will say to begin with that when I first opened the can I was VERY AFRAID. It's as though they chop whole fish into chunks and throw them into the cans to get cooked, and... I'm going to level with you: there's skin and bones in there. But it was all I had to make dinner with, and Jenean was over and F was on the way home, and we just had to go ahead with it. And they turned out great! I removed the skin because it seemed irredeemably gross, but the bones, due to the in-can cooking process, are completely edible (they basically pulverize at the slightest pressure), so except for removing what appeared to be the spine [shudder], I left in all the other bones, which broke up and disappeared when we mixed things up, and according to an article I read... somewhere, bones from canned fish are an excellent, absorb-able source of calcium! Better than calcium pills!

Salmon Cakes/Burgers

Serves 3-4

1 14.75 oz can salmon, drained, large bones and skin removed

8 scallions (all the white and half of the green), finely minced

1 egg

2 slices of bread, ground fine in the food processor

salt and pepper

hot sauce (optional)

rolls (optional, if you want to call them burgers*)

In a medium bowl combine salmon, chopped scallions (ok to sub in onion), egg, and about two thirds of the fresh breadcrumbs (some finely chopped parsley might be good in there too if you had it**). Add salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste. Mix, breaking up the fish as you go, until it's thoroughly combined. Use a knife or your fingers to divide the mix evenly into 3 or 4 sections (size depending on how hungry you are I guess) and form into cakes/burgers (patties??). Coat heavily on each side with the remaining fresh breadcrumbs, and allow to sit briefly (10-30 minutes) to let the crumbs adhere. Fry in olive oil over medium high heat until deep brown on both sides.

We had them with new-to-me barley risotto, not-very-carefully following this recipe from smitten kitchen (and leaving out the greens and beans, though that does sound yummy), and a version of raw kale salad like my friend Sylvie told me about (finely chopped raw kale, tossed with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, the tiniest bit of lemon juice, dried cranberries, and in this case, instead of toasted pine nuts, I tossed in some leftover garlicky toasted breadcrumbs and grated parmesan cheese - you let all that sit together for a while, and the kale begins to wilt just a little, but it's still crunchy, and it's so good).

*What am I, the name police? Call them whatever you want, serve em however you want. Have fun.

**I feel like adding cilantro, and seasoning it up with soy sauce or fish sauce, and sriracha, would make a yummy asian-influenced variation. Maybe some minced green chiles, too, and chopped garlic? ginger? Use panko bread crumbs instead of fresh? If you try it this way, let us know!