Oven-Soft Apples and Pears

Dilemma: I made these apples and pears expressly for an ice cream I plan to churn up over the weekend (vanilla, bourbon, crème fraîche… you’ll likely read more about it soon), but then they turned out so unexpectedly delicious on their own, I can’t stop devouring them right off the baking sheet.

These fruit slices, baked with just a suggestion of butter, brown sugar, vanilla, and nutmeg, are cooked low and slow until they’re only partially dried. The results are soft bursts of concentrated flavor, and the occasional crunch from bits of caramelized brown sugar.

It doesn’t matter too much which varieties of apple or pear you use; I tried Bartlett, D’Anjou, and Bosc pears, and all came out well. Do use firm fruit though.

I promise, if you set out a bowl of these at your next holiday party, or bring a tin for the host or hostess, they will disappear quickly. You can also eat them with ice cream or yogurt, with oatmeal or waffles, or as a decorative top to a cake. Read more »

Arugula Salmon Salad with Crisp Fingerlings and Cotija

I present to you this salad, because soon, very soon, we’ll launch without abandon into holiday-ready, cold weather recipes, and I wanted to offer one last breath of sunshine on the plate before we do. (In fact, my next two recipes will be desserts worthy of a Thanksgiving table. Consider this salad a sort of nutricional counter.)

This dish is based on an old menu item from The Madison in Hoboken. Their model included salmon, arugula, red onion, and crispy fingerlings, but also jicama, tomato, and feta, should you like that combination better. (Clearly I haven’t adapted the original too much; what can I say, it was already a really tasty salad.)

I’ve never been much of a, “Oh, I’ll just have the salad for dinner,” kind of orderer, but for this one I always made an exception. It’s satiating, but never heavy. The flavors are clean and the textures balance well. In short, it’s just the ticket before launching into a holiday eating program. Read more »

Sweet Potato “Fries” with Za’atar and Labneh

Inspiration for this recipe comes straight from the pages of Jerusalem, the new cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. As with Ottolenghi’s last book, this volume happily demonstrates how colorful, complete, complex, and satisfying a plate of vegetables can be. (No one is paying me to say that, but for the record, I accept payment in the form of Kitchen Aid Mixers and candied pecans.)

As is my habit with new cookbooks, the first thing I do is flip through the pages and look at the pictures. (Before I delve into the text, I like to imagine what ingredients a given dish might hold; this makes it easier to come up with adaptations and fresh ideas, before I know what I’m ‘really looking at’.)

And so it was that I planned this recipe in my mind-grapes, before I knew what I was really looking at: a plate of roasted butternut squash with red onions, parsley, and toasted pine nuts. What I picked up from the picture alone was the image of bold, orange roasty roots, za’atar, and tahini. Read more »

Sausage with Apples and Garbanzos

I am swimming in apples.

I just can’t get ahead of them. The whole kerfuffle started when a friend went apple picking and brought me home a massive bag. Since then, my CSA has provided a steady supply, and well. My recipe-brain has been stretched this fall, trying to think of more and more creative uses for all my apples.

Most often, I eat them simply: to lend a sweet snap to a ham sandwich. Or alone, with cheese and charcuterie (goat cheese and triple-crème are special favorites). They are nice with soups, as the weather turns, like tomato, carrot, or squash.

You can bake them in a crisp until the apple melts into itself, stirred together with nutmeg and golden sugar. Or bake them as they are until caramelized, with butter and apple cider. Top with ice cream or Greek yogurt. Read more »

October Shepherd’s Pie

This is less a recipe than a concerned effort to use up all the fall CSA vegetables idling in the crisper. And the thyme withering in its sleeve. And the last tiddly-bits of goat cheese camping out in the cheese drawer. (Yes, that’s right. We have a drawer in the fridge entirely devoted to cheese. I would like to blame it entirely on the Frenchman, but that would be a downright lie.)

Feel free to use my base as inspiration for your own seasonal shepherd’s pie. The goal is to find balance: each layer should play off the flavors and textures of the last one. Creamy should give way to crisp. Sweet, spicy, bitter, and salty can all have their moment in the sun. It goes without saying that when you use vegetables at the peak of their season, you’re eating vegetables that taste like their best selves.

This recipe is also an opportunity to use up leftovers. Last night’s vegetables are fair game. Any kind of puree–I’m thinking mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, or any other mashed-up root vegetable–can be spread over the top. This is a good time to use up those last nubbins of cheese. Read more »

How to Make and Use Fruit Syrups

The Frenchman and I recently fled the city to visit a friend who is finishing her PhD on Long Island. For the year, she is renting an impossibly charming cottage with overgrown woods to its back. A crescent stone wall encloses a slate patio, bursting at the seams with fanning dandelion greens. There is space enough to enjoy the working fire pit.

To the front, a covered, wrap around porch gives way to a flagged path, gives way to a gravel drive, gives way to a bay strewn with boats. At low tide, they cant like children napping in the car. The air smells of wet piles, of salt-licked weeds, of secret bivalves buried in the silt.

The house is small, but windowed on all sides, so that even on the rainy day we visited, gossamer light followed us from room to room. Read more »

Duck Breasts with Concord Sauce

Like many Americans, I grew up eating seedless, thin-skinned grapes. It wasn’t until I visited the Frenchman’s family that I tasted my first sour grape, small and green as a jade bead, thoroughly packed with bitter seeds. Neither variety left me particularly inspired.

And then, and then. I received a punnet of Concord grapes in my CSA basket this week. Holy milkshakes. Are these ever game-changing grapes.

First of all, they are very nice to look at: inky in shades of dusty, Prussian blue, their skins lightly variegated like crushed velvet. But what really gets me is how they smell. There is no other way to say it–they smell like candy. They smell like grape Jolly Ranchers in perfume form.

My apartment is small. When I lay them on the kitchen table, I can smell them from almost every corner. I feel like some kind of crazed addict, pulling long, conspicuous sniffs as I go about my writing. Read more »

Pan-Fried Shishito Peppers

Welcome to The Roaming Kitchen’s brand new, very first, Friday mini-post! I’ve decided to share my kitchen exploits with you, lovely readers, more than once a week.

These installations will fall somewhere between actual recipes and photographic inspiration; they are meant to be very simple, and manageable for even the most reluctant cook. Some ingredients will reflect the season, but more often than not, this column will show you how to coax new life into a leftover slice of bread, a nub of cheese, or a vegetable wilting in the crisper.

So, without further ado, Shishito peppers: Read more »

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