Lazy Boeuf Bourginon

Here is the Boeuf Bourginon recipe I tried tonight forgetting it takes 4 hours. Also, I did a two thirds recipe minus the carrot and minus the braised onions that only had to be cooked 3.5 hours. I also don't own a lid for the Dutch oven, so put in an extra cup of stock. It came out fine, a little bit on the True Grit side, gyddap. Also, I used Cupcake Petite Syrah and it has chocolate notes which makes the stew just a little too rich: I couldn't eat more than about ten bites. But whatever, it will be great with some old baguette tomorrow, and lots of butter.

Caramelized Oranges

This is a recipe I made once in Cincinnati and my friend S. and I kind of went crazy for this. It is a serious amount of sugar, so if your blood sugar can get disrupted by particularly sweet things, seriously, this is not a good idea.

Cheese Grits

So, I'm in California for Thanksgiving, swearing and googling the cheese grits recipes I used this summer for picnics and nothing looks right. I resorted to image googling and found it. Come here first. Just make sure when you make the grits, do it according to package directions, i.e. with salt. Also, garlic salt is not necessary.

Irish Beef Stew

Adapted from Epicurious

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 pounds stew beef, cut into 1-inch pieces, put in a tupperware with flour, shook up, excess flour shaken off
8 large garlic cloves, minced
4 cups water with one large teaspoon of better than bouillon whisked through
2 cups red wine OR stout (this was a good way to use up wine I'd opened months ago and never finished...shhh!)
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (I used Tamari)
2 bay leaves
2 T cornstarch
1 T flour

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 7 cups)
1 large onion, chopped
2 cups 1/2-inch pieces peeled carrots (I used most of a bag of baby carrots chopped into thirds)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 bag Italian sub rolls from Wawa, absolutely nothing organic in it
unsalted butter, room temperature for the Wawa bread

Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add beef and sauté until brown on all sides, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and sauté 1 minute. Add beef stock, tomato paste, sugar, thyme, Worcestershire sauce and bay leaves. Stir to combine. Bring mixture to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, then cover and simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Whisk in cornflour and flour about halfway through the 40 minute boil.

Meanwhile, melt butter in another large pot over medium heat. Add potatoes, onion and carrots. Sauté vegetables until golden, about 20 minutes. Add vegetables to beef stew. Simmer uncovered until vegetables and beef are very tender, about 40 minutes. Discard bay leaves. Tilt pan and spoon off fat (I skipped this). (Can be prepared up to 2 days ahead. Cool slightly. Refrigerate uncovered until cold, then cover and refrigerate. Bring to simmer before serving.) Transfer stew to serving bowl. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

The bright green on the stew is magnificent. I couldn't believe I made this myself. I made the bf go buy the Wawa rolls to sop up the juice and I'm glad I did.

Lemon Creme Fraiche Cake

So ever since I was a kid, I've known what creme fraiche really tastes like and I know that I never see it for under 10000 dollars at the grocery.

Maybe I am exaggerating.

So I just made this Lemon Creme Fraiche Cake with Stonyfield Oikos Greek Yoghurt. Not bad. I put orange zest in the lemon icing. There is not really a nice way to put that glaze on. Pour it on and smooth it with a knife. It's not going to look fancy. It has a moist golden center, gooey baklava like crust, and isn't too too sweet. Easy to eat for breakfast.

Chinese Mongolian Eggplant

This was an impromptu Chinese dinner just for myself: drunk garlic chicken boiled in ginger, chicken stock, salt and sauced with a tamari and garlic sauce; Chinese eggplant, bok choy and brown rice. Grandma King used to boil chicken when I was a kid and put garlic and scallions straight on it. So comforting. The recipe on-line called for you to bring the parts to a boil and then turn the water off, cover, and leave the chicken for an hour. Half way through the hour, I got nervous and re-boiled it for about ten minutes, but that's just me. Mom's reaction to this boiled chicken nostalgia was: That dish is so much work. Work! You boil the chicken. The end! So when I went to China in 2002, I took a plane to Inner Mongolia and somehow by pointing to lines in a Lonely Planet, was taken to a touristic yurt camp way out in the middle of nowhere. Keep in mind that this was about a 45 minute drive away from a tiny village, Hohuhoatua (trainwreck spelling) of a million people. So many bikes! We were taken into tents for lunch and there were many dishes lined up, including a very gristly and grey selection of lamb's meat. The three young men working the lunch hour laughed at my reaction to all the food. This is the dish I loved and wanted to repeat as it really answers the question: what do I do with all these tomatoes from my garden? I think it was the first time I fully enjoyed eggplant. They really did use basil, that's not my idea. One regular or Chinese eggplant 2-3 tomatoes or one beefsteak tomato, diced 2 eggs well beaten, fried in sesame oil, made into an omelet, sliced into strips or pieces 1 T tamari 2t cornstarch 1/2 cup water fresh basil leaves 2-3 cloves garlic crushed and minced sesame oil peanut or olive oil hot sauce Eggplants can be bitter if you don't take the time to do this step: Peel it, slice it into panels as if it went through a giant hard-boiled egg slicer. Get a plate and starting with the biggest panels of eggplant, reconstruct the two halves of the eggplant, salting like crazy between with regular table salt. Put the smaller pieces on top. Cover with a plate and weigh it down with a can of something or a pan. I guess leaving the peel on is more authentic, but it get shiny and slimy and I just don't want it in the food. You decide. Make a slurry of the water and cornstarch. Mix until very well blended, no lumps. Add the tamari and a little sesame oil. Set aside. Someone once said to me he hated Chinese cooking because it's like hours of chopping and five minutes of frying. This dish proves this statement a little bit. Roll up the handful of fresh basil and cut it into ribbons. Set aside. Press the brown bitter liquid out of the eggplant and let it slide off the plate or pan. Rinse if you like, but definitely pat the pieces dry with a clean towel. Dice the eggplant. Set aside. Get a pan really hot before you add anything to it. Really hot. Coat the bottom of the pan in a thin layer of oil and quickly add the eggplant. Let it cook, stirring often, for 5-8 minutes. Add a pinch of salt and a few dashes of tamari. When you get towards the end of the eggplant cooking, add half of the garlic and let it get fragrant for about 45 seconds. Then add the tomatoes, the egg, and the cornstarch slurry all at once. Let this cook together gently for 5 minutes or so until it bubbles and the sauce gets thick and a little glossy, but is still pretty runny. At the end of this, add half the basil ribbons and the rest of the garlic. Let cook until the second influx of garlic is fragrant, a minute or so. Put it on a little bed of basmati brown rice and put a pinch of basil ribbons on top. Add hot sauce if you like, I'd say garlic chili paste might be a great thing here.

Best in the World Gluten Free Peach Pie

I just taught for 12 hours and now I want this pie real bad. I'll make it tomorrow.

8-9 little perfectly ripe Jersey peaches peeled and cut into thin slices
2 T better batter flour
2 t lemon juice
1.5 T brown sugar
dash of nutmeg

Mix all the above in a bowl.

One Better Batter pie crust according to this recipe, minus ice cubes: just stick the liquids +yolk in the freezer while you do the other stuff. Also, I substituted butter for the shortening and I can't say there's any reason to buy shortening. It is horrible for you. Period.

Put the bottom half of the crust into a 9 inch pie plate, Pyrex!, for about 8 minutes at 350. Take it out.

Put the peaches carefully on top of the hot but not baked crust. Put the other raw crust over the top and cut some slits into it.

Bake at 425 for 10 minutes, then cover edges with foil and bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes. Ooooooo.

That crust is really beyond compare with any other gluten free item. Durnit. I wanna pie. Now.

Cauliflower Rice

In Louisville, there's a Middle Eastern restaurant called The Grape Leaf. I've eaten there off and on since about 1993. I've basically been playing around with many lentil rice pilaf recipes since I ate their cauliflower rice which is pretty divine and needs nothing besides some feta cheese. Then I remembered that the local paper, the Courier-Journal, often will hound a restaurant chef for the recipe of a dish that's very popular. I once even saw in that column the recipe for Baptist Hospital East's Meatloaf: soon after, I was standing in line in that very cafeteria and the person in front of me turned around and said, "Is the meatloaf good?" and I said, "The recipe was in the Courier."

Anyway. It just occurred to me tonight: look up "cauliflower rice courier-journal." Well I'll be.

The Grape Leaf's Cauliflower Rice

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and diced
Pinch saffron
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 cup cauliflower florets, separated
1 cup basmati rice
3 cups water
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup raisins

In a pot, heat the oil until shimmery, and add the onion. Cook until onion softens, about 5 minutes. Add the saffron, turmeric, cauliflower and rice. Stir to coat well. Add the water, bring to a boil, partially cover and simmer until rice is done and cauliflower is tender, 17 to 20 minutes. Check at 10 minutes or so, and add more water if too dry. Garnish with the almonds and raisins. Serves 4.

***

I predict: few raisins and feta to boot. Make sure you use basmati rice or this will be kind of a bust.

Stuffed Baby Portobellos

from Vegan Piggy -- these were a big hit on the Fourth of July at my house and I want to make sure I have the recipe stashed somewhere.

1 1/2 lb. Baby Portobellos the bigger the better (or button mushrooms)
1 1/2 c. Fresh Whole Wheat Bread Crumbs
3 T. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Medium Red Onion chopped
1 Garlic Clove pressed
3/4 t. Sea Salt
2 T. Fresh Parsley chopped
1/2 t. Basil

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Process about 2 slices of whole wheat bread in a food processor. You can use prepared bread crumbs, but whenever possible, I'd use fresh for sure. This makes about 1 1/2 cups of bread crumbs. It's also a great way to use up the butts of your loaf bread. Set aside. Remove stems from mushrooms and chop them right up. Brush one of the tablespoons of oil around in a 13 X 9 pan. Heat the rest of the oil in a pan over medium high heat. Add garlic and onions and sauté for 7 minutes. Stir in salt, and then bread crumbs, basil, and parsley. Evenly distribute mixture to mushroom caps. Bake for 30-45 minutes, depending on the size of your mushroom caps. Keep an eye out that they don't get too brown. Serve with a fresh salad, and enjoy!

Poet's Potstickers

A poet gave me his potsticker recipe after I heard him tell Arthur Sze that Neil's recipe is often called, "better than my grandmother's" by his various friends. And after I told him how much I love potstickers. I had not gotten the recipe from my dad for his own potstickers which he made once. We all sat at the round white breakfast table on Meadow Road and he floured the wrappers. I'm pretty sure his filling was chives, Chinese spinach, pork, egg, garlic and soy sauce. But that is something we can never have again. The recipe below, though, is really really good.

Into a food processor with a regular blade put:

1 pound ground pork (we used 1/2 pound fatty ground pork plus two lean chops because we were in the Real Asian Grocery where ground pork is half fat, so don't feel obliged about the pork being lean).
2t garlic powder
1/4 cup plain flour
an egg+ one yolk (save the white for the assembly of the potstickers)
1/4 pound stir fried shrimp*
1 T soy sauce (less if you fear salt)
2 t sesame oil
1 t ketchup
1 t rooster sauce
1 t Better than Bouillon Organic Chicken Base (or powdered cube is fine)
small bundle of fresh chives
quarter cup of water, more if it looks like it needs it
generous crackings of white and black pepper: (We happened to have a grinder of Frontier organic smoked peppercorn blend)
dash of anise powder (optional)
one 16 oz. pack dumpling skins (Wonton Specialist, 317-325 Ten Eyck Street, Brooklyn NY 11206, (718) 418-2911).

*the shrimp are supposed to be pan fried in sesame and peanut oil, garlic chili paste (Lan Chi brand Garlic Chili Paste is what Dad used) and a little ketchup but this didn't happen, so I put the condiments in separately for taste and it was good. I used rooster sauce, which was tasty, but there's a very particular Chinese garlic chili paste you should use).

Blend all this until the dumpling mix is fluffy.

Watch a youtube about how to make potstickers. Use the egg white mixed hard with chopsticks and a teaspoon of water.



Get a non-stick pan or cast iron pot with a tight fitting lid very hot with a generous amount of oil.

Fry dumplings on both sides. Add 1/2 to a cup water and keeping the heat high clamp on lid and let them steam until most of the water is gone. I personally want to pan fry future batches them put them in a bamboo steamer to get the wrappers soft.



Serve with dipping sauce of: soy, vinegar, sesame oil, some chopped chive. (Juliette's roommates had made a more Southeast Asian dipping sauce of lime juice and fish sauce which was also good: then she dumped it in with the Chinese sauce and that DID work).



Juliette made Korean pancakes too and watched an Ozu movie while I watched half of it and dozed. Then we talked until 2:15AM while the rabbits ran under the bed and the cats asked for pats. Girls with some fat luck.

This whole thing makes me think back on my dad eating fermented tofu out of a jar. If a meal was kind of bland or involved a lot of rice (especially a bed of rice with sardines on it), my dad would say, "Get me the bean curd" which he pronounced kind of like "been kirk". It is basically the worst thing I ever ate. I might be more okay with it now that my taste buds have matured, but then again, do an image google of "fermented tofu": on the first page there are three photos of people (two asians, one white guy) looking like they are going to hurl. Ah. You should try it.

Gluten Free Tiramisu Ice Cream Cake

Basically I made this cake but with many tweaks. This is a record of the tweaks in case this turns out okay and I want to make it again.

1. ICE CREAM SUBSTITUTION FOR BUDGETARY REASONS

Instead of 4 pints of ice cream ($14) I used a 1.5 quart box of Breyers Coffee and one pint Hagen Daz Five Coffee flavor ($6.50 total). You might like to have the two flavors, coffee and espresso suggested in the original recipe.

2. Don't use 9 by 9 PAN: USE 10" SPRINGFORM PAN INSTEAD COS IT WON'T FIT (hm, won't drip though in the 9 by 9 pan).

Make a vanilla sponge cake in a 10" springform pan, substituting buckwheat flour when the recipe calls for regular flour. Be careful not to burn. Let cool for ten minutes. Pop open spring-form pan, peel off bottom of pan and parchment paper. Cut round cake in half horizontally so you have two layers. (i.e. don't use a 9 by 9 by 2 pan, it's too small and hard to slice the cake if it's in there).

3. COFFEE SYRUP

Martha Stewart loves it when I correct her.

While the cake is baking, make the coffee syrup. I read in the comments for the original recipe that the syrup didn't quite work, so I made it a little differently:

1 C sugar
2/3 cup water

Get this to a rolling boil for a good ten minutes until it reduces slightly and pours thickly from the spoon, gets a little golden colored.

Brew one cup of unbelievably strong coffee. I used about 3 heaping tablespoons of French Roast grounds. You can buy a little sleeve for 99 cents. I know, you have buckets of coffee grounds, but I don't drink coffee and this was pretty economical.

Put this in with the syrup and let it simmer another 3-4 minutes.

Let cool and add a 50 mL bottle of Kahlua (the tiny airplane size). Stir.


4. ASSEMBLING THE CAKE

Wash spring-form pan. Snap the ring back to the bottom round part. Line it with plastic wrap, two pieces that are big enough to go up the sides (don't put the plastic down before you snap the sides back on -- won't help).

Put the bottom layer of cake back in the pan, fluffy cut side up.

Get a teaspoon and pour little spoonfuls of the coffee syrup evenly on the cake to soak it in until about half the syrup is gone.

Sprinkle 2 T grounds over the first layer.


5. SOFTEN THE ICE CREAM IN A BOWL WITH A BIG SPOON

Put half the soft ice cream on top of the syrup soaked layer. Repeat, adding the next layer of cake, rest of syrup drizzled over it, then coffee grounds, then the rest of the coffee ice cream.

Let this puppy freeze until hard or overnight. Let it thaw a little before you serve it, obv.

Kahlua, the www tells me, is gluten free.

Enjoy!

Lentil Mint Salad

1 1/4 C lentils, rinsed and picked over.
half a yellow pepper, cubed
five radishes, sliced (can be left out)
1/3 C minced mint
20 cherry tomatoes, halved
half a cup of crumbled feta
half a cup of oil
3 T lemon juice
1/3 C minced kalamata olives (can be left out)
salt and pepper

Boil the lentils in plenty of water for 20 minutes. Drain.

Mix everything in a bowl. In the original recipe, you're supposed to saute the yellow pepper in oil first. I have never done this because I prefer to eat things raw if possible and also, who wants to turn on another burner for a summer dish?

Serve room temperature with rye bread and maybe some La Tur. Mmmm.

Serves 6?

Pasta Arrabiata

Okay, it's easy to make this into a vegan pasta dish. I just learned about it this morning and it meets all my insane demands: It's super simple, has a complicated flavor and feels like someone's gramma made it, all at the same time. It means angry pasta, and there are a ton of recipes out there that are excellent, but tonight I made a version consolidated from this Pasta Arrabiata and this Pasta Arrabiata which looks like it requires that you baby the frying garlic cloves and an entire bundle of fresh basil.

1 box Penne Regate De Cecco brand
olive oil
1 box Pomo tomato pieces
1 bay leaf
6-10 slugs of Red Hot (I know, this is not Italian; I couldn't find a red chili in the fancy bodega).
1 t crushed italian seasoning
6 minced garlic cloves
1 t lemon juice, fresh
1 t sugar
salt and pepper

Boil the pasta in salted water. Really salted. Not too salted. Oh, you know. Salted.

While that's happening, get the oil really hot in the bottom of the pan, enough to cover about a hands breadth. Simmer the garlic on medium for a minute, then add the tomatoes, the bay leaf, spices, Red Hot, lemon, sugar, salt and pepper. Put in the pasta when it's truly al dente, then let it soak in the sauce for about 5 minutes. Pick out the bay leaf. Serve with parmesan, or fake parmesan if that's your style. Top with fresh basil. (I did not have fresh basil (all sold out at the fancy bodega) and I lived. Also, no real red chili with the seeds scraped out; Red Hot makes everything better).

I think the second recipe calls for you to gently fry an entire bundle of basil and then stick it back in the sauce towards the end. That has got to be summery and amazing and more distracting flavor-wise.

BEST GLUTEN FREE BROWNIES IN THE WORLD

I have to say, this does not taste like gluten free material. I would eat this and never know the difference. Also, it's based on the most popular brownie recipe on Martha Stewart's site, and you should treat yourself to the comments, because they are hilarious.

Follow Martha and her minions' recipe here and substitute a cup of organic buckwheat flour for the regular flour and add a quarter teaspoon of xanthan gum. Heck, that might not even be necessary.

WARNING. The baking time on this recipe is incorrect. Only cook the brownies for 30 minutes, then let them cool for as long as you can stand it, maybe an hour. A really really big knife is in order for the slicing of these brownies as they are, as the commenters remarked, pretty crumbly.

Heaven and Hell Cake

There are certain things I might have eaten when I was 12 but that I'll probably never eat from here on out. I mean, the Cadbury Creme Egg deep fried in funnel cake batter. Bacon, cheese and sour cream on a baked potato. Something wherein the "soup" is really "melted pork fat" (I tried to let it drain out, but I was being watched).

But this cake, this cake gives me pause. Layers of peanut butter mousse, angel food cake, and devils food cake covered in chocolate ganache. It's more of a concept cake, and I'm pretty down with that most of the time. But it seems to cause a kind of insanity or ruckus. I mean, it's a cake that causes TROUBLE.

***

In other news, I made a gluten free blueberry breakfast cake with garbanzo flour and the batter tasted like a dog's ass. I think I was supposed to roast the flour first. Or it will not have that bitter grassy aftertaste after baking. This is the birthday cake of someone who can't eat wheat. But Lord, I am already thinking about the back-up cake I will bake, and I don't have time for a back-up cake. If I did, it would be gluten free one-bowl chocolate cake. I hate that gluten free baked goods are so freaking sweet. But that chocolate cake recipe describes and links to a home mix of gluten free flour and I feel like if the inventor claims it can be used cup for cup as a substitute for flour, Ima try it.

***

Yesterday, I made Martha Stewart's Jewish Apple Cake. Let's be serious, it was the apple cake recipe of Arthur Schwartz' Jewish Home Baking as passed on by Martha Stewart. It reappeared on a different site as Passover Pareve Apple Cake. To be safe, I'm putting it here. For five minutes I couldn't find it and panicked.

INGREDIENTS

• For the topping
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon, or a combination of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, and ginger
• For the cake
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup matzo cake meal
• 5 medium apples, peeled, cored, halved, and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices (about 5 cups), preferably Golden Delicious, Crispin (Mutzu), or other apples that keep their shape when cooked
• 1/3 cup raisins (optional)

DIRECTIONS

• 1. Position an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Lightly oil an 8-inch-square glass baking dish.
• 2. Mix together the walnuts, sugar, and cinnamon in a small bowl; set aside.
• 3. In a bowl with a hand-held electric mixer, beat the eggs on medium speed until well mixed. Beat in the sugar, about 2 tablespoons at a time, beating until the mixture is thick and foamy. Beat in the oil, adding it in a steady stream. Scrape down the bowl with a rubber spatula. With the spatula, stir in the matzo cake meal, blending well.
• 4. Pour half of the batter mixture into the prepared pan. Sprinkle about half the topping mixture evenly over the batter. Top with half the apples and all the raisins. Scrape the remaining half of the batter over the apples, spreading it out to cover the apples. Arrange the remaining apples on top of the batter. Sprinkle evenly with the remaining topping mixture.
• 5. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the sides of the cake pull away very slightly from the baking dish and the topping has begun to caramelize. (A cake tester is not reliable. It will not come out clean due to the moist richness of this cake.) Let sit in the baking dish for several hours, until completely cool, before cutting into serving portions. This cake is yet another Yiddish food that improves with age. Keep the cake in its dish, covered tightly with plastic, and the next day the topping will have become a moist, candy-like coating.

***

Me: I'm making the apple cake for Passover.
JW: Oh really?
Me: Yes, a Martha Stewart recipe, so you know that it's been tested, that it will work, and that feelings were hurt to get there.
JW: (Wistful) Yes, feelings were definitely hurt.

Also:

Me: Got any plastic wrap?
S.: No. Should we go get some?
Me: No, it's just supposed to be airtight. It'll get better over the course of two days, supposedly.
S.: (Crimping the foil top over the foil pan of cake).
Me: Also, if an intruder breaks into your apartment, you can just hit him with this cake. Seriously. You're more important.
S.: That is a heavy cake.
Me: That's ten apples my friend. (And nine eggs...and I hammered the walnuts while they were in a Ziplock, oh the therapy).

***

Next: garbanzo cassoulet...

Apple Walnut Whiskey Cake

When I was a kid, my mom used to make a German Apple Cake. Our recipes mostly came from neighbors trying to help out a lady from France who could barely speak a lick of English but had two hungry non-stop sons. It was stiff batter with apples, sugar and cinammon on top. It absorbed more milk than a black hole, almost. Dense, plain, you could taste the salt in some bites of the bottom of the cake, and she burnt it sometimes, so it felt like a kind of penance to eat some, save for the apples being still good.

I tried to make a healthy apple cake from Heidi Swanson's blog, but it was too dry and healthy for us, probably because we are not from California or used to cakes so crumby and dry. I mean, 2.5 cups of whole wheat pastry flour! I think she undercooked it, said she undercooked it, and then gave a time for it to bake that was *not* undercooking it. My mistake.

So then I took my standby Martha Stewart Saffron Pear Cake and made some serious adjustments. To avoid confusion, here's the recipe in its entirety:

9 X 13" ceramic or metal pan (aluminum makes a more caramelized topping for some reason -- hotter).

3 apples sliced thin and put in lemon water
a bag of crushed walnut pieces
1 stick of butter
1.5 cups sugar
1 7/8 cup flour
scant 2 t baking powder
3/4 t cinnamon
1/2 t cloves/nutmeg
3/4 t salt
7/8 C buttermilk
1/3 C vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 1/2 t vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1. Let butter be very soft. Mix it with 1/3 C of the sugar, a third of the cinnamon, and dashes of cloves and nutmeg. Mix until fluffy.

2. Put parchment paper in the bottom of the pan. The strip of it can be a little narrower than the pan.

3. Spread this butter mixture evenly over the bottom of the pan.

4. Sprinkle walnuts in a pretty thick layer over the butter and sugar mixture, but leave about an inch free of nuts all the way around the edge of the pan. Move a nut if you have to. If you don't do this, the apples will slop out when you flip the cake: it'll look like a dog got to it.

5. Layer apples thinly over walnuts. Leave that perimeter of butter alone.

6. Mix the rest of the sugar and everything else together. Pour carefully over the nuts and sugar/butter mixture.

7. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Make sure toothpick comes out pretty clean, maybe a little crumb or two on it.

8. Let cake sit for 10 minutes. IMPORTANT.

9. Find a platter big enough to turn the cake over on. Do it. Peel off the parchment.

10. Let this cool.

11. Then, while it's cooling, drizzle some Jim Beam on it somehow. Poke little skewers in it and soak it through or give it a Jim Beam IV. Whatever it takes, maybe even the way they get whiskey into a drunk fruitcake. You wouldn't want it to cook it off either.

I'd serve with plain whipped cream, or if you can't imagine drizzling Jim Beam directly on the cake, put it in the whipping cream where it can be present more subtly.

The top should be between a sugar syrup and a carmelized sauce.

Someone else thought apples and whiskey were a good idea: Butterscotch Whiskey Sauce. Indeed.

Braised Cabbage and Garbanzos

Super cheap vegan budget meal for all your friends. Take out the butter and you've practically got spa food on your hands. Low grocery bill. Oh yes.

Serves 4 hongry people.

Ingredients:

5 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium head of cabbage
2 carrots
2 cans garbanzos
black pepper
salt
cumin
paprika
olive oil
butter (okay, that's not vegan, but you can just substitute more oil if you want it vegan).

Make some brown rice.

You could just buy shredded cabbage, but this way of cutting the cabbage makes the dish seem special, for some reason. And the cabbage cooks in a really delicate way:

Wash the outer leaves of cabbage. Lay several leaves at a time one on top of the other, kind of like a wad of money or measuring cups that sit inside each other. Now roll them together like a cigar. Cut the cabbage into one centimeter strips. Cabbage ribbons. You can keep the thick white middle part of the leaf. Use the whole head. You can chop the heart, just not that really tough stem.

Put this cabbage aside.

Scrape two carrots. Then, take a knife and flick off slivers of carrot in the Italian fashion, i.e. as if you are whittling the carrot into a pencil, except you keep whittling until there is no carrot left. (Sorry, no youtube). Or you can also just julienne them, but that is bow-ring. Not to mention it's supposedly attracts good qi to your food to have irregular shaped pieces. Hey, I said your hippie friends were coming over. Put the carrot slivers aside in their own bowl or dish.

1. Put a Dutch oven on high heat until it's pretty hot, then put half a stick of butter (*whistling*) and about 2T of olive oil. Put in the carrot and saute until a bit soft. Put in two cans of garbanzos, drained-ish*. Sprinkle on about 2t of cumin and a generous sprinkle of paprika. Let this cook on almost high for about 3-4 minutes.

2. Add half the minced garlic and toss the garbanzos until the garlic is fragrant. Pour this out into a bowl.

3. In the same Dutch oven (don't wash it), put in about 2T butter and 2T olive oil (or less if you are worried about these things -- I think less would work just as well). Put in the cabbage and turn it until it is really coated. Let this cook for about 3-4 minutes on high while you stir every so often. Don't go anywhere.

4. Season the cabbage the way you did the garbanzos: lots of black pepper that you've ground further with your fingers, salt, cumin and paprika. Throw in the garlic. Let the cabbage get a little brown here and there.

5. Pour 1/4 cup water into the pan, cover and let the cabbage braise on medium high for about 5 minutes. You should really actually go away and forget about the cabbage for like, 8-10 minutes. Stir once in between there, if you can. The cabbage should have wilted, gone whitish, and gotten browned and started to look caramel colored along some edges. It should not be soft and mushy, just wilted and easy to cut with a fork.

6. Pour in the garbanzos. Check seasoning. Serve on brown rice.

Mmm.

*it'll be good if some of that juice from the can gets into the dish, but get most of it drained off...

Achiote Hot Sauce

Mr. Svalina says this will work. I can't even find the peppers though.

1 cup achiote peppers
1 head of garlic, cloves skinned and cut in two lengthwise
1 head of garlic, cloves skinned and chopped roughly
White vinegar
A bowl
A mortar and pestle
A bottle that closes well, about the size of a hot sauce bottle, or a jar, very clean.

Take about a cup of achiote peppers.
Clean a head of garlic so you have cloves, uncrushed, but cut in two.
Soak the peppers and the garlic in white vinegar for a week.

(Time passes).

Saute a chopped, cleaned head of garlic in olive oil.

Put the achiote peppers, vinegar, and raw garlic plus the sauteed garlic in a blender or mortar and pestle. Grind. Bottle.