To begin this whole rustic cooking affair, the pre-Thanksgiving feast, Daniel and I started by assembling the pie. *Ahem, the apple-blackberry pie. A divine combination.

Start with a bowl full o’ apples. My recipe called for tossing the apples with sugar, lemon, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, and a pinch of salt. I’ve noticed that many apple pie recipes call for Granny Smith apples alone, but I used two kinds for a sweet-tart flavor: Granny Smith and Marigold.

Once the pie filling was tossed, I rolled out the pie dough I’d whipped up and refrigerated the night before—letting it thaw for perhaps 15 minutes before rolling it out.

As you can see, lots of flour and beer are essential to this process. Don’t forget to look surprised when the dough actually rolls out perfectly, despite your prior whining about how difficult the pie dough was to make…

The trickiest part of assembling any pie, for me, is getting the dough arranged in the pan. It helps to roll it onto the rolling pin, then unroll it directly over the pie plate. Once the bottom crust is tucked into the pie plate, scoop in the filling, dot with butter, and you’re all set. This pie uses a double crust, so we rolled out the lid, transferred it to cover the filling, and folded the edges together with a bit of decorative crimping. I marked that baby with an ‘A’ for apple, cut a few vents into the lid, and slid it in the oven.

While the pie was baking, we worked on prepping the chicken. Daniel stuffed the chicken with a whole lemon sliced in half, which made the bird incredibly moist and tender, onion, and rosemary pilfered from the Gardens at Lake Merritt (thanks, Oakland!). He also placed whole garlic cloves under the skin then tied the legs closed and secured the wings to the breast. We surrounded the chicken with potatoes, shallots, more whole garlic cloves and onion, and seasoned all this business with olive oil, salt and pepper, thyme, and a little lavender.

The chicken roasts slowly in the oven for about an hour and a half, and the result is juicy, tender, and saturated with flavor. This meal was such a treat—many thanks to my cooking companion! And now I’m quite excited thinking about what I’ll make for Thanksgiving with my family next week. Maybe a sweet potato pie. What are you all cookin’ up?

 

Okay, gang, since when is making pie dough so dang difficult? I don’t remember it being this tough. I either did something terribly wrong tonight, or I block it out after each pie making experience how inept I feel while judging how crumbly the dough should be…We’ll see how it turns out tomorrow.

I haven’t tried this recipe before—it’s one I clipped from the SF Chronicle over the summer to accompany their recipe for a peach-blueberry pie. But tomorrow I’m making a classic double-crust apple pie. Oh, heaven on a plate.

Here’s the Chronicle’s recipe:

2 3/4 cups flour
2 tbs. granulated sugar
Pinch of kosher salt
16 tbs. (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
About 5 tbs. ice water
Flour, for rolling out the dough

Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and butter in a food processor, and pulse the mixture until the butter is the size of small peas. Add 5 tablespoons ice water, then pulse until the dough is crumbly.

Press the dough into two flat 1-inch-thick disks. One disk should use two-thirds of the dough for the crust, the other disk should use the remaining one-third for the lid. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour or up to two days.

It’s going to be a wonderful meal: roasted chicken for dinner and sweet apple pie for dessert. More blogging to come!

Pineapple and pumpkins…with all that sweet alliteration, it’s like the two were made for each other. For my birthday, an old Jamaican friend from San Luis Obispo sent me a bottle of rum straight from the heartland. So I mixed myself a cocktail that went a little like, 1 part rum, 2 parts juice, a splash of old champagne in the fridge (I think that wasn’t a great idea, actually), a few more splashes of sparkling water, and a few ice cubes just for the sake of clinking in the glass. I like that sound.

So off I went with my pineapple-rum cocktail to carve my Halloween pumpkin. I cheated and printed a stencil I found online—the design was easy and entirely appropriate for my home a’filled with two cats. Carving was no trouble at all, and the pumpkin looked great on my stoop.

Afterwards, I rinsed the pumpkin seeds, tossed them with olive oil, salt and pepper, ground cumin, and a little cinnamon, then I toasted them on a baking sheet at 350˚ F for about 30 minutes. A savory, crunchy snack.

Happy All Hallows!

Straight from the pages of Real Simple magazine, go here to read the full recipe. Despite the cream, the corn, leek, and arugula make this feel like a lighter dish—possibly better suited to spring than fall. But who am I kidding? I love a rich pasta. Carbonara is also one of my favorites.

To start, sauté the leeks and garlic in a shallow pan, then add the corn, wine, and heavy cream. Simmer a few minutes and your sauce is done! Cook the fettuccine until tender and add to the pan—toss.

And what’s the best part of any cooking experience?

Also, just because she’s crass and cute as heck: My Drunk Kitchen.

Cheesy and easy. Ha, ha. I just came up with that. This quesadilla was inspired by a beautiful and enormous butternut squash I took home from Trader Joe’s at a steal for only $1.89. (Update: And I proceeded to make this quesadilla almost every night for a week…)

Poblano chile would have made this quesadilla even better, but bemoaning another trip to the store I added what I had on hand: black beans, grilled onions and peppers, mushrooms, pepperjack cheese, and a little goat cheese for a different texture.

I started by sautéing my butternut squash slices until soft, seasoning with salt and pepper. Then I grilled my onions and bell peppers and set aside. Next I tossed a tortilla in the pan, spread out a bottom layer of cheese, some squash, pepper and onion, and black beans. I added the mushrooms, more cheese and flipped the top of the tortilla over.

I let the tortilla get pretty crispy on one side before flipping and then I heated the other side for several minutes as well.

Serve with salsa, avocado, and, for an alternative to sour cream, greek yogurt. Please disregard my greasy stove and lackluster plating.

This is a recipe for incredibly simple granola, which I live off of during the work week. I think the original recipe was taken from the pages of Real Simple magazine, and I’ve tweaked it for my own purposes. Granola, like the simple salad, is what you make of it. (And like that saying…life is what you make of it, no?) Add your favorite dried fruits, nuts, etc. I’m a fan of adding shredded coconut, and I adore slivered almonds. Usually I pick up a bag of mixed dried fruits at the farmers market and toss that in after the baking is done.

This takes all of five minutes to mix and makes a big batch. Enjoy!

4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup sliced almonds or walnuts
1/2 cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds or shelled sunflower seeds
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup dried fruit (cranberries, raisins, mango, cherries—you name it)

Heat oven to 350˚F. On a baking sheet, toss the oats, nuts, coconut, and pumpkin seeds with the maple syrup, oil, and salt.

Bake, tossing once while baking, until golden and crisp, 25-30 minutes.

Add the dried fruit and toss to combine. Let cool.

My salad inspirations come from my mother. Every meal on the table when I was growing up included a salad and they were never boring. In the early years it was always iceburg lettuce, eventually replaced by mixed greens or spinach. There was always avocado or tomatoes from her garden, green onions (which I’ve learned to love), often there were radishes or artichoke hearts. Simple greens provide a blank palette for inspiration—you can add whatever you friggin’ want. During my years at Mills I got together once a week with friends Erin and Alyson for a potluck dinner and poetry critique/gabfest/winefest, and Alyson taught me that adding nuts and cheese is another way to make a salad heartier.

These days my favorite salad toppings include sunflower seeds, goat cheese, some kind of bean—garbanzo, or black if I’m making a taco salad—artichoke hearts, peppers, and avocado. Adding peach or strawberries is wonderful in the summer, and herbs like cilantro or dill add surprising flavor.

I whipped up this particular salad for a dinner in Temescal with some former and current neighbors, and tossed in pumpkin seeds, peach, avocado, carrot, bell pepper, heirloom tomato and . . . eh, some other stuff too.

When my dear friend Erin and I meandered over to the Jack London Square farmers market last weekend I picked up some beautiful summer squash (I think, they’re definitely not acorn squash), and she told me in the fall she often stuffs squash and bakes them in the oven. It sounded delicious, so I investigated a recipe this weekend but didn’t find anything that included the ingredients I wanted to use. So I improvised. That’s the great thing about this—I have a feeling you can throw in whatever you want.

I transferred the mixture to a bowl to cool, added some chopped mushrooms and sage leaves, garlic, and salt and pepper. I also added bread crumbs and parmesan cheese—mix it all together.

Preheat the oven to 375˚F, scoop the mixture into the squash shells and arrange them in a baking dish with 1/4” water on the bottom. Bake for 40 minutes.

The result was an incredible fall dish—savory, nutty, and a little spicy thanks to the sausage. Definitely a great comfort food. Another upside: hardly any dishes!