Dessert Is Food, Too: Baked Apple with Nutmeg and Greek Yogurt

If you’re like me, you’ve been trying to avoid all signs of processed sweets since being buried under a mound of sugar cookies, toffee bars, pumpkin pies, chocolate coins, and wines nearly every night for the six weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years. But you’re also leaving every meal these days pining for that extra touch of sweetness to close the dining ceremonies. Enter Dessert Is Food, Too–my experiments in somewhat healthy post-meal treats designed to revitalize one of the more important food groups, and make January a more fulfilling month of sweets.

Baked Apple with Nutmeg and Greek Yogurt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Core one apple, leaving the round structure of the fruit intact, and set in a small pan. Fill the hollowed core with one pat of butter and a tablespoon of maple syrup. Cover the pan with tin foil, and bake for 20-30 minutes. When the apple is tender, pull out of the oven and cut in half. Serve halves with a dollop of Greek yogurt, sprinkled with nutmeg.

Butternut-Squash Bisque Redux

If, like mine, your Sunday religious routine consists of brunches, farmer’s markets, and the New York Times Magazine, you’ve probably already seen Sam Sifton’s article on Eleven Madison Park, a fancy shmancy modernist restaurant in New York City whose recipes often incorporate foams and liquid nitrogen. Sifton picked two of the most reasonable recipes to print yesterday, and I went straight to work making both of them last night. The granola, with its pistachios, coconut, and sour cherries, is some of the best I’ve ever made. And the butternut-squash soup, or at least the version I whipped up inspired by this recipe, is superb. Because I avoid bacon and wasn’t in the mood for fish stock or creme fraiche, I decided to substitute in some coconut milk instead, which turned out pretty rockin.

For the original recipes, see “Liquid Nitrogen Optional,” by Sam Sifton.

Butternut-Squash Bisque (Redux)

  • 3 T butter
  • 1 butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 1/2 cup sliced fennel
  • 1 T thinly sliced ginger
  • 2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
  • 6 cups veggie stock
  • 1 pod star anise
  • 6 pods green cardamom
  • 1 can light coconut milk
  • 1 T salt
  • lime slices
  • pinch of cayenne
  • 1/4 cup roasted pumpkin seeds

Melt butter in a large saucepan until it foams. Add cubes of squash, chopped fennel, ginger, and garlic and simmer for about 15 minutes, until squash is soft. Add half of the broth and cook for 5 more minutes. Let cool a little, in preparation for blending.

Meanwhile, put the rest of the broth, the anise, and the cardamom pods into a pot on medium heat, and let simmer.

Blend squash and fennel mixture until smooth. Add to the pot of simmering broth, and stir in the coconut milk and salt. Heat together.

Garnish with cayenne pepper, lime slices, and toasted pumpkin seeds.

Carrot Juice Floats and Other Unique Desserts

I’ve had the pleasure recently of being fed some pretty unique treats (my friends know how to stay on my good side). The carrot float idea reached my friend Alice through a coworker, who said he had tried the dessert in Iran, where it’s a delicacy. Wikpedia tells me this is called havij bastani. Alice took the whole idea up a notch with her inclusion of some fresh squeezed ginger juice, adding a bit of heat to the refreshingly sweet carrot and creamy vanilla flavors.

Havij Bastani (Carrot Juice Float)

courtesy Alice Howell

  • 1 cup fresh carrot juice (per serving)
  • 1 T fresh ginger juice
  • one scoop vanilla ice cream (or Vanilla Coconut Bliss)
  • cinnamon, nutmeg, or cardamom sprinkled on top
Mix juices and then pour over the scoop of very frozen ice cream. Serve in the most gobletesque vessel available.

Strawberry Almond Cake

courtesy Kelly Heath, who drew inspiration from the food blog Roost  

  • three cups almond flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tsp almond extract
  • 1/2 cup coconut oil
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1 cup sliced strawberries (or pitted cherries)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry and wet ingredients separately and then combine. Place halved strawberries on the bottom of a greased bundt pan. Pour batter on top, and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool for at least 30 minutes, and then flip over to serve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More on Tomatoes

Why do I always feel like Mark Bittman and I can read each other’s minds? Well, OK, Mark probably doesn’t know I exist (yet), but still, it’s uncanny how often he writes about the exact ingredient on my mind. Considering we’re in the midst of summer, I guess writing about tomatoes isn’t all that original. But I’ll stick with my belief that Bittman and I have some major ESP. To follow up my post last week on new tastes for tomatoes, here’s the New York Times‘ writer’s ideas on ways to dress up your heirlooms.

How to Taste Tomatoes

Behold: the tomato! The true emblem of summer, pride of gardeners, most vegetable of fruits. I’ll admit I’m nowhere near the tomato devotee as many I know, but even I wait patiently through spring, biding my time and ignoring out-of-season supermarket mush in favor of relishing the first Early Girl tomato of the season. Because every true tomato fan knows, the only time to eat tomatoes is summer.

Last weekend, my friend Andrew hosted an impromptu mid-summer Mexican feast. This guy puts your friends to shame, let me tell you. Homemade corn tortillas, gourmet carnitas, calabacitas with fresh corn and poblanos, black beans simmered slowly in a clay pot, crumbled queso fresco. Best of all, three homemade salsas that really showed off what a ripe tomato will do for your evening. The pico de gallo and smoky salsas were superb, but what really stood out was a tomatillo guacamole recipe he culled from the magazine Saveur (see recipe 3). The tomatillos added a tart pick-me-up to a normally creamy and subtle sauce. I’ve officially found my new favorite taco topping.

Tomatillos aren’t even closely related to tomatoes; instead, they belong to the same family as the gooseberry. But in Mexico, the word “tomate” refers to tomatillos, and to request a conventional red tomato you’re going to have to ask for a “gitomate.” There’s no real reason to include a tomatillo recipe in a post about tomatoes, so I’ll just go with this tenuous etymological link.

Back to the subject at hand: summer’s triumphant red offering. I’m not someone who can devour tomatoes whole. I find the flavor too overwhelming, too sweet and watery and acidic, and would rather pair the fruit with other spices and foods. Here are three recipes that allow you to sample and savor this season’s harvest, and not feel totally submerged.

1. Quick and Spicy Gazpacho

From Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything

Pre-Blended Gazpacho

  • 2 pounds tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 peeled cucumber
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1 serrano chile (or 2 if you like more of a kick), seeded and chopped
  • 3 scallions, chopped
  • 1 clove garlic
  • some lemon to taste
  • salt and pepper
Put all ingredients in a cuisinart or blender. I pulsed mine so that it didn’t get blended too fully; it’s nice to leave some texture and crunch. Serve cold with lemon or lime to taste. This gets better over time, so refrigerate leftovers and enjoy all week.

2. The Vegetarian’s BLT
Passed on to me through the Sylva family, this recipe is one you’re going to initially wrinkle your nose at. But trust me; it’s worth a shot. Combine the following ingredients in sandwich format:
  • Crusty baguette, sliced long ways
  • Peanut or almond butter
  • Mayonnaise (I prefer Vegannaise)
  • Romaine lettuce
  • Ripe tomato slices
3. Guacamole Taquero
 Adapted from a recipe first published  in Saveur
  • 4 tomatillos, husked, rinsed and chopped
  • A handful of cilantro
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1/2 a lime, juiced
  • 2 serrano chiles, seeded and chopped
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 ripe avocado, pitted and sliced
  • 1/4 a white onion, chopped
Mix everything in a food processor, and combine until creamy. Use as a dip, or to top carnitas, calabacitas, roasted poblanos, mashed potatoes, and/or of course, tacos.

Greens, Beans, and Rhubarb Crisp

Early summer has to be one of my favorite feelings; anticipation is at its peak, evening light the longest, green has truly taken over. The farmer’s market stands overflow with vivid strawberries, tempting radishes, plump peas, luscious leaves. Everyone has on sunglasses and sandals, reminding me of beaches and bonfires even amidst my urban neighborhood. This time of year, produce is best raw and unadorned. But in case you are heading to a barbecue and want something a notch above the ordinary, three recipes to satiate your friends and pay tribute to the long days of June.

Salad of the Gods

The key to perfectly dressing the salad is to make the dressing first, directly in the salad bowl. Take about a tablespoon’s worth of avocado and chop into tiny pieces. Add:

  • 2 T tahini
  • Half a lemon
  • one clove garlic, chopped and crushed
  • salt and pepper
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
Whisk in the bowl until all ingredients are emulsified. Then add:
  • 5 radishes, thinly sliced
  • little gem lettuce
  • snap peas, chopped
  • 1 avocado, sliced
  • a head of fresh carrots, chopped
Spicy Black Bean Burgers
Based off a recipe by Mark Bittman, New York Times
In a food processor, mix:
  • 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained well (leave 1/4th of the can out of the food processor)
  • 1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
  • 1/2 cup rolled oats
  • 1 T chili powder
  • 1 T cumin
  • 1 t oregano
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 egg
Puree everything and then add the rest of the beans for texture and chopped cilantro. Add the juice of one lime, mix and if too dry, add two tablespoons of yogurt. If too wet, add more oats or some bread crumbs.
Form this mixture into about 4 patties. Heat vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet until it’s pretty hot, and drop burgers into pan. Cook for 5 minutes on one side, then flip and cook 3-4 minutes until both sides are brown.
Serve on a brioche bun with fresh salsa, avocado, melted cheddar or jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, ketchup, and mustard.

Rhubarb Crisp
Oatman family recipe
In one 8×8 pan, layer:
  • 7 stalks of rhubarb, chopped into cubes
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 stick butter, sliced into pieces and scattered over the rhubarb
For the topping, combine:
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 stick butter
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 cup oats
Pour on top of the rhubarb in the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about one hour (check at 45 minutes to see if it’s brown on top and bubbling yet). Serve hot with vanilla bean ice cream.

More Great Food Moments in Literature

Photo: flickr/Troy Holden

Flavorpill has a round-up of mouth-watering food moments in literature. In Moby Dick, for instance, Melville dedicates pages on the perfect clam chowder: “It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits and salted pork cut up into little flakes! the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt.”

And who can forget Willy Wonka’s sweets? “Marshmallows that taste of violets, and rich caramels that change colour every ten seconds as you suck them, and little feathery sweets that melt away deliciously the moment you put them between your lips.”

Of course, Flavorpill’s list doesn’t begin to encompass all the great food scenes in literature, and if it was an attempt at the top ten, it didn’t quite make it. Here are a few more scenes that are worthy of consideration:

  • The Book of Salt, by Monique Truong: “Quinces are ripe, GertrudeStein, when they are yellow of canary wings in midflight. They are ripe when their scent teases you with the snap of green apples and the perfumed embrace of coral roses. But even then quinces remain fruit, hard and obstinate–useless, GertrudeStein, until they are simmered, coddled for hours above a low, steady flame. Add honey and water and watch their dry, bone-colored flesh soak up the heat, coating itself in an opulent orange, not of the sunrises that you never see by of the insides of tree-ripened papayas, a color you can taste. To answer your question, GertrudeStein, love is not a bowl of quinces yellowing in a blue and white china bowl, seen but untouched.”
  • Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie: “On the thali of victory: samosas, pakoras, rice, dal, puris; and green chutney. Yes, a little aluminum bowl of chutney, green, my God, green as grasshoppers…and before long the puri was in my hand; and chutney was on the puri; and then I had tasted it, and almost imitated the fainting act of Picture Singh, because it had carried me back to a day when I emerged nine-fingered from a hospital and went into exile at the home of Hanif Aziz, and was given the best chutney in the world…the taste of chutney was more than just an echo of that long-ago taste–it was the old taste itself, the very same, with the power of bringing back the past as if it had never been away…in a frenzy of excitement, I grabbed the blind waitress by the arm, scarcely able to contain myself, I blurted out: ‘The chutney! Who made it?”
  • Feast scenes in Redwall, by Brian Jacques: “The table linen was spread upon the orchard grass, with pretty blossom arrangements decking the fruit trees. Lanterns hung, ready to be lit by evening. Casks of strawberry fizz, October Ale, dandelion and burdock cordial and jugs of mint tea or pennycloud brew were placed in the tree shade. Scones, tarts, pies and pasties were there in abundance, alongside trifles, broths, oven-baked breads and delicate almond wafers.”

Oh, and the chocolate cake scene in Matilda? Makes you want to go find a rich chocolate torte to bury your head in.

What are your favorite food scenes in literature? Post as a comment.

Poached Pear Pomegranate (Guest Blog)

Guest blogger (and my dad) Peter Oatman presents a dessert that combines pears with the crunchy, brilliant punch of  pomegranate seeds:

It is sometimes difficult to enjoy fruit in the winter months but here is a way to savor succulent pears with this colorful dessert.

Poached Pear Pomegranate

  • Two firm DeAnjou Pears
  • 1.5 cups white wine
  • 1 medium pomegranate
  • 4 Tablespoons real maple syrup
  • 2 Tablespoons salted butter
  • 2 oz Grand Marnier
  • Orange milk chocolate slices

Peal and core pears and cut in half. In 2 quart sauce pan, poach pears in white wine and keep covered for 5 to 10 minutes until cooked but still firm. Set aside to keep warm in wine. Cut pomegranate in quarters and squeeze juice and seeds into saute pan removing white skin as needed. Add butter and maple syrup and boil until slightly thickened. Put warm pear halves on plate. Add Grand Marnier to sauce and flambé, pouring over pears while flaming. Add chocolate slices to plate and serve. Serves 4.