Happy New Year!
December 31, 2009
Seasons greetings! I hope all of you have had a wonderful holiday season, and I wish you many blessings and flavorful eating in 2010. See you online in the new year!
Filed Under Flavor Notes | 4 Comments | Print This Post
Pumpkin Tart with a Graham Cracker Crust
November 25, 2009
What’s a Thanksgiving without sweet potato or pumpkin pie? Pies and tarts are actually quite similar so you can feel good about using this tart recipe as a substitute on your table if you want to add a slight change to your Thanksgiving dessert routine.
The filling for this pumpkin tart is pretty much interchangeable with a pumpkin or sweet potato pie filling. I love the look of tart shells and I especially love graham cracker crusts, so I combined the two for this easy-to-make recipe that I hope you will enjoy.
I’m keeping the writing as short as possible today because I have cooking and baking of my own to do before tomorrow’s day of giving thanks. As always, I’m thankful to all of my readers for your support and comments, and I hope you all have a wonderful and delicious Thanksgiving!
Pumpkin Tart with a Graham Cracker Crust
Graham Cracker Crust
2 cups graham cracker crumbs (see note below)
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted (1 stick)Note: Using about 12 – 13 graham crackers, finely crumble them up in a food processor or place them in a closed zipper plastic bag and smash the bag with a rolling pin to break up the crackers into fine crumbs.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, add all ingredients for the crust and stir well to combine. You should have a wet crumb mixture that looks like wet sand. Evenly sprinkle the crumb mixture into a lightly greased two-piece tart pan.
Using the bottom of a flat-bottom measuring cup or glass, press the crumbs into the tart pan (including up the sides of the pan) to make a tart shell that’s about 1/4″ thick. Bake for 10 minutes and then set aside to cool.
Pumpkin Filling
1 15-oz can of pumpkin puree
2 large eggs
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2-1/4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (see below to make your own)
1/4 teaspoon saltPumpkin Pie Spice
1-1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Dash nutmegIncrease the oven temperature to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl using a handheld electric mixer or just your own strength and a spatula, mix together the pumpkin puree, condensed milk, eggs and sugar along with the spices and salt. Incorporate all ingredients fully.
Pour the filling into the graham cracker crust tart shell and fill to the top (but not overflowing). Set the filled tart pan on a cookie sheet and place it in the oven to bake for 40 – 45 minutes. The tart will be done when it starts to brown lightly around the edges of the filling. Allow tart to cool completely and remove tart pan ring before serving.
Note: The tart will have a slightly glazed look when you pull it out of the oven, but that will set further and diminish later once the tart has cooled. This is a great recipe to make the night before you intend to serve it.
Filed Under Desserts, Vegetarian/Conversions | 2 Comments | Print This Post
Apple-Pecan Cornbread Dressing
November 24, 2009
My Mom’s side of the family makes the best cornbread dressing, hands down – at least according to my taste buds. And yes, we say dressing not stuffing, we’re from the South. It’s so interesting how different regions and families have different food traditions for the same dish. I recently discovered that some folks have only seen dressing served mashed/fluffed or in a mound rather than in squares the way my family and nearly everyone in my parents’ hometown serves it.
So what makes our dressing so good? I believe it’s due to the variety of flavors that come from the sage and various herbs in the poultry seasoning. The sweet cornbread base, as well as the moisture from just the right amount of delicious broth are also key. These are all common, basic ingredients in dressing, but there’s still just something special to me about our dressing!
Perhaps it’s the nostalgia from having that same great consistent taste no matter whether it’s my grandmother’s or great aunt’s dressing, which we devoured several times a day for several days each Thanksgiving and Christmas years ago, or whether it’s from the modern kitchens of my aunts and mother. Overall, I think our memory of how it’s supposed to taste is what allows us to get it right every time.
Despite the culinary tradition our cornbread has in our family, I made the bold move to change it up just a little bit by adding some diced apple and chopped pecans (fall flavors I love). I also made my cornbread base from scratch instead of relying on the ole’ handy Jiffy Mix.
Usually we make our dressing by taste and look alone (no measurements), but as I made my version to share with you, I measured most of the ingredients. Still, you have to rely on your own judgment to get the seasoning just how you like it. That’s the great part about cooking — the flexibility to come up with your own flavor traditions. Enjoy!
Apple-Pecan Cornbread Dressing
1 eight inch square pan of sweet cornbread (recipe below)
3 -4 cups herb-seasoned stuffing mix (regular, not cornbread based)
1 celery stalk, very finely diced
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
3 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted (1 stick)
3/4 cup diced, peeled apple (about 1/2 large apple)
1 cup toasted pecans, roughly chopped
1-1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste
2-1/2 cups turkey or chicken broth (plus more to drizzle)Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Crumble cornbread in a very large bowl. Add stuffing mix, celery, onion, sage, poultry seasoning, diced apple, pecans, salt and pepper; mix well. Add melted butter and broth and mix well again. Taste the dressing mixture for flavor and add additional salt, pepper or poultry seasoning if needed.
Spoon mixture into two lightly greased 8″ square baking pans and smooth evenly. Bake for 45 minutes or until top of dressing is golden brown and an inserted knife comes out clean.
Cornbread
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup whole milk
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooledPreheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8″ square baking pan with butter or cooking spray and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients into dry ingredients and fully combine using a rubber spatula. Pour the batter evenly into the pan and bake for 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
Filed Under Breads, Chicken/Poultry | 3 Comments | Print This Post
Cran-Orange Rum Spritzer
November 23, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving!!!! Okay, not yet, but I definitely hope you have a great one that’s full of joy and delicious food. To help you get prepared and inspired, I’m sharing three recipes this week (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday) that you might want to include on your dinner table on Thursday.
First up is a tasty and easy cocktail to get the spirit flowing among your family and friends. Last Thanksgiving, I shared my recipe for Cranberry Apple Sangria, which was a big hit among my family. Folks were giggling and talking like never before!
After coming across sparkling cranberry juice at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, I thought it would be great to use the bubbly beverage to make a refreshing rum spritzer. If possible, use a sparkling cranberry juice that’s 100 percent juice (I got mine from Trader Joe’s), but if you can’t easily find it you should be able to at least find a Cranberry Italian Soda that’s about 4 – 12 percent juice. Sparkling pomegranate juice/Italian soda is also an option. Enjoy! By the way, what do you plan to make for Thanksgiving?
Cran-Orange Rum Spritzer
Makes one cocktail3 cubes ice
1 oz white rum
1 oz triple sec
Sparkling cranberry juice
1 orange slice, halvedPlace 3 cubes of ice in a short cocktail glass. Add rum, triple sec and top with sparkling cranberry juice until glass is full. Garnish with halved orange slice and a stirrer. Sip and enjoy!
Filed Under Beverages | 3 Comments | Print This Post
Making A Great Sandwich:
Pulled-Chicken Sandwich
November 11, 2009
Last week I served this tasty pulled chicken sandwich along side my bowl of butternut squash soup. With the weather getting cooler and cooler these days, hot soup and warm sandwiches are ideal for weeknight meals and leftovers to take for lunch. So what makes this sandwich or any sandwich for that matter tasty and more than just the standard luncheon meat on bagged sliced bread like the kind I grew up on (think bologna or ham and cheese)? The answer’s very simple … the bread and the extras.
I’ve found that simply making your sandwich with fresh baked bread from a bakery can add a new dimension of flavor to your sandwiches if you’re used to making sandwiches at home with your regular packaged bread. My favorite bakery breads to use for sandwiches include wheatberry, rosemary Italian or foccaccia, sunflower or multi-seed boule (like the one I used for the photos here), or ciabatta. Also, I like to buy the bread whole rather than have it sliced at the bakery. I read the tip somewhere that slicing the bread as you need it allows it to keep longer than if you have it pre-sliced, and I’ve discovered that to be true.
The extras that I speak of, another key to good homemade sandwiches include breaking out of the jar of your simple mayo spread. Instead, add a little extra flavor by using pesto or avocado as a spread on your sandwiches or mixing in seasonings to your mayo. For this pulled chicken sandwich, I added one minced clove of garlic with fresh ground black pepper to my mayonnaise and those additions alone elevated the “deliciousness” of my sandwich. You can also try dried herbs, a splash of lemon juice, or a diced sun-dried tomato. Be creative, and enjoy!
Pulled-Chicken Sandwich with Garlic Mayo
1 loaf fresh baked bread of your choice
2 – 3 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
Pulled chicken from one roasted or rotisserie chicken
Green leaf lettuce
Vine-ripened tomato, sliced
Thin-sliced red onions (optional)
Garlic mayo (see recipe below)Drizzle olive oil over one side of two slices of the fresh bread and lightly toast in the oven under the broiler, remove from oven and set aside. On the untoasted sides of the bread, spread a thin layer of garlic mayonnaise and top one slice with pulled chicken. Then sprinkle chicken with a little pepper. Add lettuce and a few tomato and red onion slices. Top with the other slice of toasted bread and cut sandwich on a diagonal. Serve with hot soup.
Garlic Mayonnaise
1/4 cup quality mayonnaise
1 clove garlic, finely minced (almost to a paste)
2 dashes of fresh ground black pepperMix the finely minced garlic and pepper well into the mayo and use on bread for sandwiches or as a dip for fresh vegetables or (eek!) … fries.
Filed Under Chicken/Poultry, Grains, Rice & Pasta, Light & Tasty, Quick & Easy, Technique | 2 Comments | Print This Post
« go back — keep looking »
Recent Comments
- glynislowry: Tesia, Very nice, can not wait to see how everything turns out. Glynis
- Tesia: lol. Yes Sonya, I had to do what I had to do.
- sonyamac: Love the grillnthesnow
- Molly Fulton: This sounds awesome and similar to (but better than) a pantry favorite of mine: 1 can pumpkin puree, 1...
- Valerie: Thank you for featuring a Haitian dish and bringing attention to the crisis in Haiti. As a Haitian-American,...
RSS Feed
-
-
-
-
-
