Apple pie

Sometimes you get old recipes right the first time: you decipher the flowery language, you make the right substitutions, you determine the correct proportions. And sometimes, well, you don't.

This is a story of when I got it wrong.

We begin in apple season. I've been buying apples nonstop at the farmers' market every Saturday, and sometimes my friend asks me to pick up her farm share for the week and I wind up with a dozen more apples besides. A few weeks ago, I found myself with more apples than I knew what to do with. So I decided to make a pie. Easy, right?

I turn to my newest cookbook, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Mrs. Hannah Glasse, originally published in 1747 and updated in 1805. Hot off the presses! Verbatim, here is what she tells me about how to make apple pie:

"Make a good puff paste crust, lay some round the sides of the dish, pare and quarter apples, and take out the cores, lay a row of apples [t]hick, throw in half the sugar you design for your pie, mince a little lemon peel fine, throw over, and squeeze a little lemon over them, then a few cloves, here and there one, then the rest of your apples, and the rest of your sugar. You must sweeten to your palate, and squeeze a little more lemon. Boil the peeling of the apples and the cores in some fair water, with a blade of mace, till it is very good; strain it, and boil the syrup with a little sugar, till there is but very little and good, pour it into your pie, put on your upper-crust and bake it. You may put in a little quince or marmalade, if you please."

This raises several--okay, many--questions. First, I need to find that puff paste recipe. Second, how many apples? What kind? I suppose I can wing the seasonings, but really, how much sugar should I design for my pie? (And why on earth is this recipe so poetic?)

The recipe for puff paste is no help:

"Take a quarter of a peck of flour, rub in a pound of butter very fine, make it up in a light paste with cold water, just stiff enough to work it up; then roll it out about as thick as a crown-piece, put a layer of butter all over, sprinkle on a little flour, double it up and roll it out again; double it, and roll it out seven or eight times; then it is fit for all sorts of pies and tarts that require a puff-paste."

Upon doing a bit of research, I discover that a quarter of a peck of flour is 2 dry quarts of flour, or 8 cups. This tells me several things: First, this will make WAY more puff paste than I possibly need for one pie. Second, this is probably because most women make a lot of pies and tarts at once (on baking day, for example), unlike our silly modern methods of making one pie at a time when we want it. Third, I need to know how thick a crown-piece is.

Happily, I have some help in the form of Fresh from the Past, a collection of modernized recipes from 18th-century London. The book contains recipes very similar to Mrs. Glasse's puff paste and apple pie, so I set to a makeshift sort of preparation, combining and substituting where I see fit. For example, I design 1/4 cup and 2/3 cup sugar for my pie (divided for that layered effect) as recommended by the modern book. The most troubling part is where I make a syrup of the apple peels, water, and sugar. Most likely this is meant to extract some of the pectin to help the pie gel, but my syrup winds up more watery than pectin-y. Nevertheless, I pour it over the apples, cover the whole thing with a top crust, and bake. Thanks to the mace and cloves, the pie smells heavenly.

And it tastes heavenly, too. The problem? The watery syrup turns the whole dish into pie soup. It never gels, perhaps too because I used a mixture of sweet and tart apples rather than sticking entirely to tart Granny Smiths.

Josh makes a lot of fun of the pie, and I vow to redeem myself later with a new pie. (It's semi-successful.) And I settle down to enjoy the tasty pie soup served over Greek yogurt, which I highly recommend should this happen to you.

Spiced, stewed pears

Thank you for all your wonderful comments on our news! It can be scary to put big announcements out into this void of the internet, so it meant a lot to read your good wishes.

We're knee-deep in fall over here in New England. Leaves turning color, crisp and clear afternoons, days growing shorter. Sometimes I think that New England is my favorite place to be come fall. Though the leaves turn brilliant orange and red in Ohio, the days are never as consistently clear and blue, thanks to our moody Lake Erie. Plus, as a history teacher, fall and colonial history seem to go hand-in-hand for me, and there's so much history to be mined here in Rhode Island. Walking by a low stone wall puts me in mind of a colonial homestead, the stones demarcating property lines from faraway neighbors. And teaching colonial history come fall, as I'm doing this year, just feels right. (Maybe it's the Thanksgiving/Pilgrim connection, which is basically ingrained by this point.)

At any rate, I'm going to pursue some colonial studies of my own on this little blog for a while. We've looked at 18th-century Williamsburg before, thanks to the Williamsburg Art of Cookery, but now we're going to get serious. We're hauling out the real, original recipes. Even if the results are less than savory.

Luckily, one of the first recipes I tried turned out beautifully.

Pears are delicious on their own, and oh-so-fall and wintry. Since I was little, some relatives have been sending us a big box of pears and grapefruit for Christmas every year, which my dad would store in the cold cellar of our house. When he felt like topping off a meal with fresh, crisp fruit, he'd trek down to the basement and return with a perfectly-chilled pear, and he'd slice it up for all of us to sample. It's still one of my favorite holiday (and post-holiday) traditions.

But Mrs. Hannah Glasse, writer of one of colonial America's most popular cookbook The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, takes those pears and raises me one. You peel and quarter the pears, then bathe them in a delicious mixture of red wine, cloves, sugar, and lemon peel. Bake until the pears are soft and blushing, and they taste like November straight out of the oven. There's nothing better.


Spiced, Stewed Pears
(adapted from The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy)

3 pears, peeled and quartered
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup red wine
1 tbsp lemon peel
4-6 cloves (varies depending on how much spice you want)

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

In a small bowl, mix the sugar and wine together until sugar dissolves.

Place the pears in a ceramic or glass baking dish and pour the wine mixture over them. Scatter the lemon peel and cloves (more if you like intense spice, less for a milder flavor) over the mixture. Bake for 40 minutes, stirring the pears once halfway through.

Blueberry picking (and muffins)

It's been two weeks since we returned from vacation in Canada, and I can't stop thinking about it. Even though I've since joined my parents for a weekend in upstate New York. Even though Josh and I have entertained and seen friends and gotten thoroughly back into the Providence swing of things. Even though school starts soon (gah!). There's just something about vacation that grabs you tight and doesn't let go.

This year's visit, more than anything, was defined by blueberries. Blueberry bushes run wild over the island, bordering paths and leading into the woods. If we're making pancakes for breakfast, my mom will often step outside to pick a handful of berries from the bushes behind the cabin. We usually go blueberry picking at least once on vacation, hoping to put the produce towards a fresh pie. If we're lucky, we'll pick enough so we don't have to supplement with "store-bought," a phrase that gives my grandfather heart palpitations when we're up at the island.

No such worries this year. My sister, Josh and I picked enough for a pie just from the bushes outside the cabin. Venturing farther afield, the whole family picked enough for a double portion of blueberry cobbler. Then we had berry muffins. Then we picked enough for another pie. We ate blueberry pancakes three times during our two-week visit. And we certainly left enough for the next visitors.

Needless to say, we had a bumper crop.

There's something so peaceful and zen-like about picking blueberries. Cup or pail in hand, you can hike as little or as far as you want until you find a good patch. The best berries are fat and round, like little blue stars, and if you brush them with your fingers they fall right into your hand (or onto the ground, as so often happens). It's easy to work longer than you're expecting; each time you pause or talk about heading back, you'll spy the perfect bush a few feet to the right. "Just one more," you'll think, reaching for the fruit. Sometimes you might mistake a dark huckleberry for a blue, but that doesn't matter, since they're both edible, and you're on vacation, and who's really counting?

blueberries (L) and huckleberries (R)

These muffins are one of the better ways to consume a cupful of fresh blueberries, should you find your lucky self in possession of some. Light and barely sweet, tasting of milk and butter, muffins are a great vehicle for fresh fruit. Especially when you've tried out all the other ways to eat blueberries.

Blueberry Muffins
(adapted from The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer, 1930)

2 cups all-purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 cup milk
2 tbsp melted butter
1 egg
1 cup blueberries, picked over and rinsed

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a muffin tin with liners, or brush with oil or butter. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar, and whisk to mix. In a separate, medium bowl, combine the milk, butter, and egg. Don't worry if the butter clumps when you add it.

Quickly add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir a few times. Before it's fully incorporated, fold in the berries. Stir a few more times until just combined. Drop the batter into the prepared tins and bake at 400 F for 25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Spring cleaning

It's getting to that point where things just feel blah. It's officially spring but not quite warm, the kids are either bonkers or asleep at school, and the crust for my first-ever tart puffs up like a balloon.

Even food is less than inspiring. Josh made a big pot of white bean, kale, and sausage soup at the beginning of the week, and although last time we declared it a delicious keeper, this time something went wrong. The dried beans didn't fully reconstitute, so we had to crunch our way through soup all week. By Wednesday, when I'd eaten soup for two dinners and a lunch, I could barely stand to look at the leftovers.

(I have a tried-and-true abhorrence of leftovers served for more than two nights in a row.)

All of this makes me think that

• I wouldn't have made it as a pioneer, with the relentless winter meals of beans, salt pork, and more beans
• Mrs. Patmore would have thrown me out of the kitchen for my lackluster tart-baking skills
• It's time for spring cleaning

I've written about spring cleaning the apartment before, but today I'm thinking more about getting my taste buds ready for spring. Time to retire heavy stews and rich food for a while--I'm going to embrace fresh vegetables and fruit, with plenty of salads and light meats and fish. Of course, I'll still save space for indulgences like apple charlotte (coming soon) and homemade ice cream, but there's something exciting about freshening up the kitchen pantry for spring. And I can only hope that making fresh changes in one corner of my life will help lend inspiration to other corners, too. (Middle school children, I'm looking at you.)

Short cake, with blueberry topping

Over the long weekend, my sister Lissa came to visit, and one afternoon we drove down to New Haven, CT, to visit our old college. We toured the British Art Gallery and I found time to wander around Yale's campus with my camera, snapping photos of old haunts and sun-drenched architecture.

I don't know how many of you feel this way about your college, but I can never visit Yale without being flooded with memories. There's the window of the suite I lived in freshman year, where my suitemates and I sang songs and threw water balloons. Here's the cathedral-like library, where I huddled away in the stacks and breathed in the smell of old books. This is the route I walked once or twice a week to the literary magazine where I worked for three years. Those are the carillon bells that rang out across campus at 5 each twilight afternoon when my friends and I walked to the dining hall for an early dinner. This is one of countless booths my friends and I colonized during Saturday night pizza outings.

There's a lot of sadness wrapped up in this place for me, because of all the hard things I had to learn in college. And because my friends are now scattered across the country, and we get together once a year (at most) for weddings. People say that college can be some of the best years of your life, but they don't tell you that once it's over, you might need several years to get over the crushing blow of graduation.

But I'm grateful, too, for everything I learned here, both in history lectures and in the echoing corridors of my residential college. In some ways I feel like I'm still a college student, figuring things out for the first time on my own, and in some ways I feel so much older. In a good way, like I'm finally starting to settle into my place.

Lissa and I talked about how in some ways, the student body hadn't changed at all since we were there. We ran into teams decked out in sports apparel, the fashionable girls in skinny jeans and boots, the international students wearing pea coats and college scarves. A lot of other things had stayed the same, too, from the architecture to the restaurants we loved. But we could see changes, too--a frozen yogurt place had taken over an old bookstore, a Shake Shack replaced a restaurant I didn't remember. This place is changing and adapting, and we were, too, though we may not have even realized it at the time.

And I think it's time to make a change around this little blog, too. In the months to come, I'll be expanding the blog to encompass other aspects of building a simple life inspired by history. I'll still chronicle my cooking adventures, but I'll also explore other topics that have been on my mind. In that spirit, here's a biscuit recipe pulled from The "Settlement" Cook Book, with a topping inspired by a much more recent cookbook, All Cakes Considered. Sometimes, a fusion of foods both past and present can be just the flavor you need.

Short Cake with Blueberry Topping
(adapted from The "Settlement" Cook Book)

for the short cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cubed
3/4 cup milk

for the blueberry topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1 cup blueberries

to make the short cake:
Preheat the oven to 425 F. Sift the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. With your fingers, rub the butter into the flour mixture until combined and the mixture resembles the texture of cornmeal. Add the milk and stir until just combined. Turn out onto a floured board and roll to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into rounds with a biscuit cutter or measuring cup. Layer one round on top of another to create a 2-layered biscuit, and place each biscuit in a buttered pan. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

to make the blueberry topping:
Meanwhile, mix the brown sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. When the sugar is completely dissolved, pour the blueberries into the pan and mix well to cover with sugar syrup. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to simmer the mixture, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes. Take the mixture off the heat when most of the blueberries have broken down.

Split each biscuit in two and drizzle blueberry topping on one round, placing the plain round on top. Drizzle more blueberry sauce on top, or sprinkle with sugar.

Dining at Downton: How to serve plum pudding

We had a relatively quiet Christmas here in Ohio, seeing family and telling funny stories and going for long, snowy walks and eating good food. As per tradition, we served plum pudding for dessert on Christmas night, along with a lot of other treats (frosted cookies, red velvet cake, petit fours...). We don't mess around with dessert.

As I mentioned a few days ago, the serving of plum pudding is half the fun. Once you've steamed the pudding so it's nice and hot (2 hours at 350 degrees, back in the mold and the double boiler you set up to cook it the first time), you turn the pudding out into a heat-resistant dish. Heat up a little brandy on the stove, pour it evenly over the pudding, and hold a lit match close to the pudding. The fumes from the brandy should pick the flame right up and set the whole pudding alight. In a darkened room with all the family sitting around a candle-lit table, there's nothing quite like it: blue flames dancing around the dish, creating a magical feeling.

Unfortunately, our evening did not go exactly according to plan.

The brandy we ended up using was just too old, so the flames died out almost immediately. Here is the only picture we could get of bringing the pudding to the table--if you look closely, you might see the blue flames as they dwindled to nothing.

That doesn't mean the pudding wasn't delicious, though! The days it spent ripening in the cold did it good, and the pudding was light and fruity with a citrusy zing. It had a tender, spongy crumb that contrasted well with dabs of rich hard sauce.

If you celebrated the holidays this December, I hope you enjoyed equally delicious food and fun company. (I also hope that your projects went a little more according to plan than mine!)

Previously:

How to make plum pudding

How to steam plum pudding

Dining at Downton: How to steam plum pudding

On Saturday we talked about how to make your own plum pudding, the most classic of British holiday desserts. (Yes, I am still wondering where the plums are in the recipe.) Today we'll discuss the cooking process, which is a rather elaborate steaming method. It requires parchment paper, cooking twine, a water bath, and lots of patience.

My dad was fascinated by the process from start to finish. He's an engineer by trade, and he's the kind of cook who loves the science of the kitchen. He will turn out renditions of his mother's pumpkin pie recipe until he has the ingredient ratio just right (much to my mom's dismay). He will collect recipes for beef bourgignon and combine instructions from each to make the best possible stew. He will then exchange observations on the proper way to brown beef with me over the phone. (He also went to great lengths to find out why the one American manufacturer of plum pudding stopped producing it, which is how I ended up making the pudding in the first place.) Put simply, my dad likes method.

"You should take photos of that!" he said as I removed the steaming pudding from the water bath. "And how did you tie the parchment paper down again?"

As he noted, this is a delicate process. So here are your highly expert instructions, just the way my dad likes them.

Step One
Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Once your pudding is mixed and ready to cook, turn the mixture into a well-greased pudding mold or glass bowl. Remember, a pudding mold looks like a Bundt pan, with a ring in the middle to ensure proper steaming. I got mine at Stock, a lovely little cooking shop that recently opened in Providence.

Step Two
Next, cut a piece of parchment paper to cover the top of the mold. Leave about six inches of overhang on all sides of the mold. Fold the paper twice in the middle to create a slight overlay--this will allow steam to accumulate without tearing the paper.

Step Three
Cover the mold with the parchment paper and use a length of cooking twine to tie the paper to the mold, just below the rim. Trim excess paper.

Step Four
Create a handle for the mold, so you can lift it out of the steam bath. Cut a long length of cooking twine and wrap it around the mold as though wrapping a present, laying the twine flat across the top, bringing it down the sides of the mold and crossing underneath. Bring the twine up to the top again on the empty sides of the mold, and slide the twine underneath the cross line on top of the parchment paper. Tie the ends of the string together to create a looped handle.

Step Five
Pour hot tap water into a large stockpot or Dutch oven (I used the latter) that can accommodate the mold with at least an inch of space on all sides. Fill with water so the oven is about 1/3 full. Place the prepared mold in the Dutch oven and cover the whole thing with the oven lid. Put in the oven to steam for about 3 hours. It will make your house smell like citrus and deliciousness.

Step Six
Periodically check the oven to make sure the water hasn't evaporated completely. You may need to pour in more water. When the pudding pulls away from the sides of the mold (about 3 hours), it's done. Carefully remove from the water bath using the string handle, and lift up the parchment paper to make sure the pudding is ready. Cool in the mold completely before turning out onto a plate.

Step Seven
Now that the pudding has cooked, you can eat it straight away or let it ripen over time. If you choose to let it sit, cover the cooled pudding and store in a cool, dark place (we put it in our 1960s-era bomb shelter) until ready to eat. Pudding will keep for at least five weeks. Be sure to warm it before serving by replacing it in the mold or bowl, then steaming for about 2 hours at 350 F.

The very last segment of this culinary adventure is my favorite: setting the pudding on fire at the table! Check back in a few days for photos of our own flaming pudding. (If you want to serve your own pudding before then, warm a small amount of brandy on the stove, then pour over the warm pudding. Immediately hold a lit match close to the pudding, and the brandy will catch on fire. Bring to the table in a darkened room for maximum effect and applause. Once the flames have died, serve with brandy butter or hard sauce.)

Note: It's possible to steam the pudding with a Crockpot instead of in the oven. See this page for complete instructions.


Works cited: Irish American Mom. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Dining at Downton: How to make plum pudding

This time of year, my family is all about tradition. Previously I wrote about the Brunswick stew we've kept from my mom's side of the family, though I tested out a Williamsburg variation of the recipe. That's still on the menu this year. My sister and I maintain important traditions like decorating the tree while listening to a BBC dramatization of Hercule Poirot's Christmas (because nothing says the holidays like a murder mystery), and she will read the January issue of Vogue on Christmas Eve. Our family is still adjusting to some major changes that took place this year, but we're determined to maintain the key rituals. How else will we know it's Christmas?

Vital to our Christmas Day dinner is the plum pudding. Another hold-over from my mom's side of the family, it draws on our English heritage and recalls the classic Charles Dickens Christmas. If you haven't tried plum pudding before, it's basically a soft cake filled with dried fruit, nuts, and (most importantly) booze. It's so historical that a mention of plum pudding first appeared in 14th-century England. 14th-century! That's 1300. Clearly, England has had plenty of time to perfect the recipe. The "modern" version of plum pudding, complete with dried fruit and suet (beef fat), probably came to England with Prince Albert when he married Queen Victoria in the 19th century.

So the Crawleys definitely would have served this kind of plum pudding at their Christmas feast. Mrs. Patmore would have begun the cooking process five weeks before Christmas, since it's an elaborate pudding (the British term for "dessert") that requires a lot of time and energy. Additionally, it's the kind of dessert that tastes the best when it's been around for a few weeks--that way the dried fruit can absorb the alcohol and the whole pudding gets nice and brandified. The alcohol also gives it a long shelf life, so you just need to let it sit in a cool, dark place. Traditionally, cooks made their puddings on the Sunday right before Advent, known as "Stir Up Sunday." (This is such a tradition that the Telegraph, a U.K. newspaper, published an article a few years ago about how few British citizens make their own puddings now. The horror!)

I am not nearly as well-prepared as Downton's cook, so I made mine on Saturday afternoon. It won't be quite as tasty with only a few days of ripening time, but we'll still enjoy it. You can even make yours the day of. Today you'll read about the preparation process, but I'll save the cooking process for a separate post. (I meant it when I said this was an involved recipe.)

Some notes before we begin:

• You'll need a pudding mold to turn the batter into once it's ready. A pudding mold looks a lot like a Bundt pan, but it's ceramic or glass rather than metal. A Bundt pan, I have been assured, will not work. If you don't have a pudding mold, an oven-safe glass bowl will do the trick.


• I adapted a recipe from a French classic that Mrs. Patmore certainly referred to (what with the Edwardians' obsession with French food). The changes are few but important.


• First, I substituted butter for the suet. I was all set to use actual beef fat, but my mom was hesitant. Butter does just as well.


• Second, I cut the ingredients in half, and it still produced way more batter than I was prepared for. Be sure to have a few glass bowls on hand in case your designated mold is filled too early.

my pudding mold

But don't be scared! Plum pudding just takes some careful preparation, and it's well worth the effort. Think of it as a culinary adventure!


Plum Pudding
(adapted from Escoffier: Le Guide Culinaire)

1 cup + 2 tbsp butter (or chopped beef suet)
1 cup + 2 tbsp breadcrumbs (I used leftover bread)
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup peeled, chopped apple
2/3 cup mixed raisins and sultanas
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tbsp chopped, crystallized orange peel (I used leftover orangettes)
2 tbsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 eggs, beaten
2/3 cup stout (I used Guinness)
1/3 cup brandy
juice and zest of 1/4 lemon and 1/4 orange

First:
Soak the raisins and sultanas in the brandy. You can do this overnight or an hour or two before preparing the mixture.

Second:
Prepare all the other ingredients. If using butter, melt over low heat. If using beef suet, chop it up into small pieces.

Mix the flour, breadcrumbs, brown sugar, and spices together in a large bowl. Then add the apple, crystallized orange peel, and citrus zest. Mix well. Finally, add the citrus juice, butter, eggs, and soaked raisins together with the remaining brandy. Add the stout at the very end, and mix until just incorporated.

Third:
Pour the batter into buttered pudding molds or glass bowls, filling until about 2/3 full. Stay tuned for the next post, where we cook the pudding!


Works cited: The Telegraph.

Dining at Downton: Mulled wine

It's getting to be that time when I start glancing at the calendar to see how many days are left. Not before Christmas (though that's another kind of concern) but before the premiere.

Yes, you know. The U.S. premiere of Downton Abbey Season Three.

January 6! That's less than a month away!

Josh and my sister and I can barely contain our excitement. I will probably need to review the first two seasons before that fated day in order for the story to be completely fresh in my mind. This kind of viewing--leisurely, paced, because I already know what happens--calls for something special to spice it up.

I'm talking mulled wine.

This recipe is particularly appropriate for the Downton Christmas special. I can imagine the Crowleys sipping mugs of spiced, mulled wine by the fire while they discuss the punch-up between Matthew and Sir Richard. Perhaps Mary and Matthew warmed themselves up with a tipple after their mutual declarations of love. It's the perfect thing for a cold, blustery evening, even if your winter's night features only British TV dramas and central heating. (I really do appreciate the modern comforts of home.)

I recently brewed a batch of mulled wine for a holiday party, pulling inspiration from Escoffier: Le Guide Culinaire (a cookbook Mrs. Patmore probably used) as well as from the latest issue of Bon Appetit. The Escoffier recipe is fairly mild, calling for only "zest of 1 lemon, a small piece of cinnamon and mace and 1 clove." I suppose a light hand with the spice makes sense, given the famed Victorian aversion to flavor. Since modern tastes are more adventurous, I added a few more cloves, some tangerines, and orange peel to boot. The result, I think, was well worth the tampering.

Mulled Wine
(adapted heavily from Escoffier: Le Guide Culinaire and Bon Appetit)

2 750-ml bottles of red wine (it doesn't have to be fancy)
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups apple cider
2 cinnamon sticks
2 tangerines
16 - 20 whole cloves
1 tsp dried orange peel
pomegranate seeds for garnish

Pour the red wine over the sugar in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. Add the cider.

While the liquid heats, prepare the tangerines. Press the cloves (by the sharp end) into the tangerines, using about half the cloves for each tangerine. This way you don't have to strain out the cloves later on.

Place the tangerines, cinnamon sticks, and orange peel in the wine mixture. Heat until steaming, then cover and turn the heat down to low. Serve after twenty minutes, garnishing with pomegranate seeds (if using), and keep warm for second (or third!) servings.

Candied orange peel (with chocolate)

Thanksgiving is over. The turkey's been roasted and eaten (or perhaps you tried a duck?), the festive harvest plates have been washed and put away for another year. And now everything in America is telling us it's time for the winter holidays: the pharmacies selling mechanical Santas, the radios playing nothing but Elvis, the twinkle lights and pine garlands draping storefronts.

It's all going a little too fast for me. How is it the holiday season already? We just got into fall! (It doesn't help that my school is rehearsing and producing a play in the three weeks before winter break. December's going to go like lightning.)

I like to move slowly into winter, preferably with something delicious to ease the transition. There's hot chocolate, of course, and mulled wine (more on that soon). But lately I've been craving something tangy, a treat with zip.

This candied orange peel fits the bill. I first learned how to make it a few years ago when my mom decided to bake stollen, a traditional German holiday bread studded with dried and candied fruit. Her grandmother (intimidatingly nicknamed "TuTu") used to bake stollen every winter, and my mom decided that she was ready to take on the baking challenge. So we spent a long, cozy morning cutting up oranges and simmering the peel in a thick syrup, then chopping those candied peels to mix into the bread. It was one of those lovely surprises of the holiday season, when you learn that your parents have these hidden traditions they never told you about.

Personally, I prefer the candied orange peel just as it is, maybe with a bit of chocolate to really make it decadent. The French call these chocolate-dipped gems orangettes, and you can learn more about them from Molly Wizenberg's blog of the same name. They're shockingly easy to make. And they're just the thing to wake up your senses as you settle into a long, cold winter.

Candied Orange Peel (Orange Sticks)
(adapted from The "Settlement" Cook Book)

1 orange, scrubbed
1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp granulated sugar, divided
1/4 cup hot water
optional: 1/4 - 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

To make the orange peel:
Score the orange lengthwise into four sections. Carefully remove the peel from the orange, making sure to keep each section in one piece. You should have four sections of peel. Carefully cut each section into narrow  slices, about 1/4 inch wide.

Place the slices in a medium saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then drain off the water. Repeat process four more times. This will blanch the bitterness from the orange peel.

Set aside the orange peel. In the same saucepan, mix 1/2 cup of sugar and the hot water and cook over low heat, stirring often, until sugar is dissolved. Place the blanched orange peel back in the pan with the simple syrup and stir to coat. Cook over low heat, stirring often, until the syrup is mostly evaporated, about 20 minutes.

Remove the orange peel from the saucepan and drain off the excess syrup (or pour it into your tea, as I did). Sprinkle the remaining tbsp of sugar over a flat surface and carefully roll the orange slices in the sugar, using tongs or a spoon, until coated. Place on a wire rack to cool.

For chocolate dip:
Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler over medium-low heat. When the chocolate is just melted, dip the ends of the orange peel in the chocolate. Let cool on a piece of wax paper. 1/4 cup of chocolate chips will be sufficient for about half the slices.

Canning: Apple butter

We're safe and sound here in Providence. The hurricane swept through yesterday and we stayed snug in the apartment, catching up on schoolwork and relaxing. There were several hours of Diablo III (Josh) and of baking cheesy pull-apart bread (me). There was an evening of catching up on our favorite shows and watching The Adventures of Tin-Tin. And today the weather's clear and sunny, but we're still off from school while Rhode Island pulls itself back together.

Just like last year when Irene stopped by, we were extremely lucky not to lose power or face flooding. These two days off from school have been more like surprise snow days (minus the snow) than anything scary, and I'm thankful for that.

If you're still battening down the hatches to weather out the rest of the storm, or if you're just hankering for a comforting, homey taste of fall, might I suggest some apple butter? Freshly made over the weekend, this apple butter spiced up my morning oatmeal and kept me warm long into the day while the wind screamed outside. It's just what I needed to get ready for the colder months ahead.

I adapted this recipe from Liana Krissoff's excellent Canning for a New Generation, so it's not technically a historical recipe. Krissoff helps you bypass the labor-intensive parts of making apple butter the traditional way, allowing you to slow-cook the butter in the oven instead of stirring it constantly on the stove. Still, the hours spent in the oven imbue this apple butter with a spicy, old-fashioned goodness. Once the apple butter was thick and dark, Nina came over to help pack it up in half-pint jars. (This canning thing is becoming a habit of ours.) We also put up some applesauce she'd made the day before, and we ended up with a pretty decent haul. If we don't hoard our cans all winter long (trust me, it's tempting), we're thinking they'll make excellent gifts come the holidays.

Stay safe, friends, and help yourself to some apple butter.

Do you have any tips for making it through storms and snow days? I'd love to hear.

Apple Butter

(adapted from Canning for a New Generation by Liana Krissoff)

makes between 6 and 10 half-pint jars

6 lbs apples, peeled and cored and chopped into small pieces (I used a combination of Macintosh and Granny Smith)

2 cups apple cider

roughly 1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground allspice

Put the apples in a large saucepan, together with the cider and 4 cups of water. Boil over high heat, stirring occasionally, until the apples are mostly mushy and broken down, about 40 minutes. Puree the mixture in batches in a blender until smooth, and measure before pouring it into a medium Dutch oven. Preheat the oven to 300 F.

Into the apple mixture, stir in 2 tbsp brown sugar per cup of puree (this is why you measured it earlier). Stir in the spices. When the oven is hot, bake the apple mixture for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally, until it's thick and dark and the kitchen smells of spice.

If you'd like to can the apple butter (this recipe makes a lot), set a canning pot full of water to boil on the stove. Wash the jars and lids you'll be using, and set the jars in the canning pot to keep them hot. Put the lids in a heatproof bowl and ladle some of the hot water from the canning pot into the bowl to cover the lids.

Remove the apple butter from the oven and set on the stove over medium heat until it's boiling. Once the canning pot is boiling, remove the jars from the pot with a jar lifter and place them upright on a towel. Remove the jar lids from the bowl and set on a plate.

Working quickly, pour the apple butter into the jars, leaving about 1/2 inch headspace in each jar. Place a lid on top of each jar and lightly screw on the ring, so it holds but is still loose. Use the jar lifter to return the jars to the canning pot, making sure they're upright and covered by at least 1 inch of water. Bring the canning pot to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Remove the jars and place on a towel. Check the lids to make sure they've sealed after 1 hour (when you press the center of the lid, it shouldn't push down or pop back up). If any haven't sealed, refrigerate immediately. Don't move the sealed jars for 12 hours. When they've finally cooled, label and store.

Canning fruit (I)

Last Sunday, over dinner at our local Ethiopian restaurant, my friend Nina said, "When can we can?" And thus began a rather silly and ultimately fruitful (heh) endeavor of canning 40 lbs of tomatoes. And making lots of canning jokes. ("Yes, we can" is Nina's favorite.)

Canning is a fascinating process. Before refrigeration, it was one of the best ways for home cooks to preserve the bounty of their gardens long into the winter. Now that we can easily freeze leftover fruits and veggies, canning has become more of a fun way to preserve food than a necessity. Plus, along the way it's acquired an exotic sort of aura. Not everyone knows how to can, and the uninitiated tend to see it as a complicated art that requires years of practice. The funny thing is that it's pretty easy. It just takes time, patience, and a strict adherence to directions. Sort of like ice cream.

Here are the basics:

• You prepare your fruit for canning (and yes, tomatoes are a fruit). You can do this however you wish; we used a few recipes from Liana Krissoff's excellent Canning for a New Generation.


• Meanwhile, you should heat up a large pot for processing the cans, and wash the jars and lids you'll be using. 


• When the water in the canning pot is hot, you slip the jars in to keep them hot and sterilized until you ladle in the fruit.


• Once you've put the fruit in the jars, you set the jars back into the boiling water of the canning pot to process. This is the part that seals the jars to make them safe for storage.

So it's not such a difficult process. It just takes a lot of pots and pans. And, as we discovered, tomatoes in particular need a lot of time to process. They're finicky fruits, those tomatoes.

Nina and I blithely set out to spend yesterday afternoon putting up tomatoes for the winter. Nina's farmshare gave her an excellent deal on tomatoes, and I picked up a few pounds more to even out the numbers. This meant that we had 40 lbs of tomatoes all together.

this isn't even all of them

40 lbs of tomatoes is a lot of tomatoes, friends. Especially if you've only canned twice before, like me, or never, like Nina. This is the point where we began to worry that the afternoon would resemble an episode of I Love Lucy.

Nevertheless, we soldiered on. We set up our army of pots (my canning pot took up 2 burners alone) and boiling water, and arranged an assembly line to peel the tomatoes and prepare them for cooking. We planned on making tomato sauce, which required 45 minutes of simmering before it could be canned, and crushed tomatoes, which only needed 5 minutes. So naturally we began work on the tomato sauce first.

However, by the time we'd finished peeling and crushing the 24 lbs meant for the sauce, the canning pot was ready for processing (understandably, since it was an hour and a half later). So we decided instead to prepare the crushed tomatoes for efficiency's sake. This took another half an hour of peeling, plus managing which pots would fit on which burners and waiting for the tomatoes to boil. We didn't actually start processing the filled cans until 3 hours into our canning adventure.

And yes, at this point we'd cracked open a couple of beers and I was sighing, "No, we can't."

Would we manage to can all 40 lbs of tomatoes before the end of the afternoon?

Would we lose our minds?

Would we not do it correctly and poison ourselves and everyone we knew with botulism?

Check back tomorrow to find out!

Kitchen garden (III)

Dropped in to share this exciting development in the kitchen garden: three pea pods have appeared, with more on the way! I am half-tempted to name them, but the rational part of me reins in that enthusiasm.

I'd been amazed by the tightly furled white flowers of the pea plant. Now, these flowers have given way to light green pods that wear the dried remnants of the flowers. It's a beautiful reminder of how efficient nature can be.


Other plant news is less exciting, but still encouraging. A few weeks ago I gave in and purchased lettuce and spinach starts, since growing them from seed was a decided failure. The lettuce has settled in nicely, as has one of the spinach plants. I could begin snipping off leaves for an evening salad at this point, I think. But the other spinach plant has been struggling.

Finally, the tomatoes are growing like gangbusters. It's incredible. All three of them have flowered, so I'm waiting impatiently for the fruit.

I'll be back tomorrow for a review of a TV series that's (somewhat) related to kitchen gardens!

Previously:

Kitchen garden (I)

Kitchen garden (II)

Kitchen garden (II)

An update on the garden:

• The tomatoes are flourishing, after being re-potted to deeper pots and staked with bamboo and sisal. (I think it looks rather pretty, don't you?) However, I originally planted three per pot, and since none of them died off, that meant they would eventually compete for light and water. So the other day I had to decide which plant was the weakest link and pull it from the pot. It gave my heart a pang to do it. My dad calls it "playing God." Josh calls it "the Sophie's Choice of gardening." While they're both accurate, I think the latter description captures the pain of it.


• I sprouted some sugar peas and now they're going great guns, which makes Josh happy because he loves peas and I tolerate them. "You're growing peas for boys!" he says. Personally, my favorite part so far is the way they grasp onto the sisal with thin tendrils. They're little but strong, those pea plants.


• My lettuce is by far the weakest link of everything I've planted. First animals dug them up, and now they're thinning out by themselves. I might have to call it and purchase some starts at the farmer's market on Saturday...but I hate admitting defeat.


• The herbs are doing well. Lemon balm is under the grow light, and basil is flourishing on the windowsill. At least there will be flavor this summer!


• Finally, there are strawberries-in-a-bag that I replanted in a regular pot. They sent up one squat sprout, and since then, nothing. Maybe if I move it to a sunnier spot...that sure did the tomatoes wonders.

It's funny, I was never much for gardening before this spring. I dreamed of having a garden one day, but it wasn't until I actually had plants to care for that I found out what all the fuss was about. You think about your plants like they're your children (or your pet dwarf hamsters). You dote on them. You worry about them when you're at work and the sky threatens rain and thunder. Suddenly, you're happy to spend a half hour or more just looking at them, marveling at the way the pea shoots curl around their stakes. How do they know how to do that? It's fascinating.

A few days ago I finished a wonderful YA novel, The Wicked and the Just by J. Anderson Coats. It's set in Wales circa 1294, and tells the story of Cecily, an English girl who's moved to occupied Wales against her will, and Gwenhwyfar, a Welsh girl who's just trying to stay alive now that the English have taken away everything she knew. There's so much to love about this novel, from the strong, distinct voices of the two girls, to the dual narrative that gives you just enough information, to the masterful way the author describes her setting and makes you see, hear, and smell medieval Wales. But one passage in particular gave me pause for thought.

One of the few pleasures Cecily finds in her new home is planting her own kitchen garden, full of tansy and rue and other medieval-sounding plants. Here, when she's sowing her garden afresh after a hard winter, she captures the very feeling I've been experiencing with my own garden:

"But there's something about coaxing life from ground that shrugs at you, that makes you tend it with fish guts and holy water, coddling it as if it's an old sick hound. It matters more. You harvest every blade and seed and grain. You cherish what the earth bestows."

While I coddle my plants with organic plant food and tap water, the feeling's the same: I cherish those plants as if they were beloved pets. It's magical.

If you've planted a garden this spring, how are your plants coming along?

Previously:

Kitchen garden (I)

Huckleberry Pie (a.k.a. Hurricane Pie)

Hello again! I didn't get much historical cooking done this past month, due to a tremendous amount of traveling. Josh and I determined that we spent the equivalent of a weekend in the car driving from state to state (and out of the country), and that my pet hamster is now the most well-traveled hamster in history (since she came with us). And once we got back home, we had a hurricane to contend with. Thanks, Irene.

So on Saturday night we hunkered down for the storm with some new friends, a card game, and pie. Huckleberry pie, to be exact, although I cheated and used blueberries, because Stop & Shop has never heard of huckleberries. Still, Barbara M. Walker writes in her introduction to the recipe that many pioneers also cheated and used blueberries, which are apparently better than huckleberries. So my cheating has historical precedence.

This pie isn't much different than the modern blueberry pie we're used to, but it does have a few changes. First, you make the crust with lard instead of shortening. (Since one of our guests was vegetarian, I just used butter.) Then, once you've lined the pan with the bottom crust, you layer the blueberries and a mixture of brown sugar, flour, and nutmeg in the pan (instead of mixing everything together in a sugary medley beforehand). I laid the top crust on in stripes, so some of the brown sugar crystallized in the oven instead of soaking into the blueberries.

All in all, a pretty good recipe. The crystallized sugar made for a nice crunch, and the blueberries were tender and not too sweet. But I think I prefer the Joy of Cooking method of mixing the sugar in with the berries beforehand--it makes the filling melt together like jam.

Nevertheless, it was a good pie to snack on while getting to know new friends and swapping predictions about the upcoming storm. And it was even better the next morning for breakfast. I had a big slice with coffee and milk while watching the wind whip branches into the street.

We were incredibly lucky with this hurricane; we lost neither electricity nor property. I know it caused great damage further south, and even in other parts of Rhode Island. I'm thinking about all the people without power, or transportation, or perhaps shelter, and I don't know what to say. So I wrote about a pie, and about new friends. Good food and companionship--I wish that for anyone who's been hurt by the hurricane.