Category Archives: baking

Rose’s Apple Pie

5 December 2009 by local kitchen

It’s a cold, grey drizzly day here in New York. What better time for an old-fashioned apple pie? As you may have noticed, Rose Levy Beranbaum is one of my baking heroes, and she doesn’t disappoint with this classic apple pie. The apples are macerated in sugar to release their juices and the sweetened and spiced apple juice reduced, with butter, to make a thick, caramel-like sauce to coat the apple filling. The pastry crust stays crisp, the apples have […]

Categories: apples, baking, dessert, fall, holiday, pastry, pie, whole wheat flour, winter • Tags: apple pie, baking, cooking, dessert, food, holiday, local, pie, recipes, rose levy beranbaum, whole wheat pastry

Dark Days: Goat Cheese, Chive and Cranberry Scones

29 November 2009 by local kitchen

I had every intention of making a local dinner of Flying Pigs pork cutlets stuffed with CSA frozen arugula, Nettle Meadow chevre and Cranberry Hill organic cranberries. Tai was drooling at the mere thought. However, as the afternoon waned I realized that I was just not in the mood for meat, even though the pork was thawing away on the counter. So I stuck Flying Pigs back in the fridge for tomorrow and made the same basic flavors (and ingredients) into […]

Categories: 100% local, baking, breads, breakfast, cheese, chives, cranberries, Dark Days Local, fall, herbs, quick & easy, whole wheat flour, winter, year round • Tags: baking, cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, whole grain breads

Drunken Cherry & Apple Pie

26 November 2009 by local kitchen

My contribution to the Thanksgiving table: preserved sweet cherries from the summer’s harvest, hand-picked, organically-grown Mutsu and IdaRed apples from Fishkill Farms, and flaky, tender pastry crust. Happy Thanksgiving! Adapted from The Best All-American Apple Pie in The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum ————————————————————– Drunken Cherry & Apple Pie INGREDIENTS double recipe of Rose’s Flaky Cream Cheese Pie Crust (see Options for the cream cheese variation) 2 and 1/2 lbs baking apples 1 and 1/2 tbsp lemon juice 1 tsp lemon […]

Categories: apples, baking, cherries, dessert, fall, pastry, pie, whole wheat flour, winter • Tags: baking, cooking, dessert, food, local, recipes

Use It or Lose It! PB&J Cookies

22 November 2009 by local kitchen

I was rotating stock in the “pantry” the other day (aka “the garage“), separating 2008 home-canned goods from 2009 (Yes, my life is a thrill a minute! Don’t you want to be me?), when I realized that I had a couple of jars of homemade preserves leftover from May and June of ’08. As I try to use these up within about a year (and we’re well past that now) I decided it was high time these came upstairs to the fridge. […]

Categories: baking, dessert, jams, non-local luxuries, nuts, Use it or Lose it!, whole wheat flour, year round • Tags: baking, cooking, dessert, food, local, recipes, thumbprint cookies, using jam

Apple Parmesan Crumble

12 November 2009 by local kitchen

An apple a day keeps the doctor away! If that’s true, then Tai should be a very healthy boy. The apples are still flowing daily at our house; this recipe I’ve made three times now (in smaller, half-sized batches that I bake in a tart dish or small pie pan) and Tai is thoroughly enjoying it. This crumble is simple, relatively quick, and can be easily assembled while you are putting together dinner and popped into the oven in time for […]

Categories: apples, baking, dessert, fall, pie, whole wheat flour, winter • Tags: baking, cooking, dessert, food, local, recipes

Cherry Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies

26 October 2009 by local kitchen

We did a lot of driving on our honeymoon. 4300 kilometers to be exact (about 2700 miles). From Calgary down to Glacier National Park in Montana, back up again to Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park, then west to Revelstoke, Whistler, Squamish & Vancouver. From Vancouver we went further west to Vancouver Island and all the way out to “the end of the road,” Tofino; then worked our way slowly back to Calgary and our flight home. As always when […]

Categories: baking, cherries, chocolate, dessert, fall, nuts, whole wheat flour, winter, year round • Tags: baking, cooking, dessert, food, local, recipes

Goat Cheese & Herb Gougeres

1 September 2009 by local kitchen

“Real” cooking: [reel kook-ing] adj., verb; techniques and skills used in preparing food that should have been learned, at culinary school, at your grandmother’s knee, from a dedicated chef-type friend or a really detailed cookbook, before you tried to wing it, in your usual slapdash fashion, without having a clue what you were doing. So, do you know what a gougere is? I didn’t. Not until some determined Googling informed me that a gougere is a savory puff pastry, made […]

Categories: 100% local, appetizer, baking, breads, cheese, parsley, pastry, year round • Tags: baking, cooking, food, local, recipes

Sausage Bread Redux

14 August 2009 by local kitchen

OK, seriously, I know it’s hard to believe, but this bread tastes better than it looks. Scout’s honor. Spicy Italian sausages, sauteed onions & garlic, sun-dried tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, all wrapped inside herb-filled whole wheat bread. I’m drooling, but I can’t have any yet, because this bread is destined for a Very Special Occasion: my bachelorette party up in the Catskills this weekend. A dozen girls, (at least) a dozen bottles of champagne, a hot tub and sausage bread. And […]

Categories: baking, basil, breads, cheese, herbs, pork, sausage, tarragon, thyme, tomatoes, year round • Tags: baking, bread, cooking, food, local, recipes

Nadine’s Birthday Cake

3 August 2009 by local kitchen

Nadine’s birthday was about a week ago and last week I went over to her place for a little birthday celebration: a few presents, a little play-time with her daughter Kami, and, of course, cake. I’m lousy at decorating cakes. Tai is the trained pastry chef at our house and he is great at it: he breaks out his cake turntable (yes, doesn’t everyone have one?) and makes a beautifully smooth frosting layer, pipes perfect litttle flowers and curlicues, and seems […]

Categories: baking, berries, cake, chocolate, dessert, eggs, summer, year round • Tags: baking, cake, cooking, food, local, recipes

Battle of the Cake Flour Substitutes

23 July 2009 by local kitchen

My friend Nadine’s birthday is tomorrow; I’m going over to her place next week to celebrate, birthday cake in hand. After the Kami Cake Debacle, I decided that I would do a little advance planning, even though 1) the oven is now fixed, 2) I am the proud owner of an oven thermometer, and 3) presumably I can put together a simple butter cake without undue panic. Uh huh. Exactly what I thought. So, I decided to test out my […]

Categories: baking, cake, chocolate, dessert, eggs, year round • Tags: baking, cooking, dessert, food, local, recipes

Black Currant Scones

22 July 2009 by local kitchen

Those of you who have been reading for a while will know that I am practically in love with Rose Levy Beranbaum. So, with the last of Nadine’s CSA currants, I decided to forgo my usual scone recipe and try Rose’s currant scone recipe. This is a somewhat unusal recipe, as scones go; the butter is flattened into flakes and the dough is rolled out and folded, much like making puff pastry. Because you only do four turns (instead of […]

Categories: baking, breakfast, currants, summer, year round • Tags: baking, cooking, currants, food, local, recipes, rose levy beranbaum, scones

Lemon Black Cherry Muffins

16 July 2009 by local kitchen

More sweet cherry-lovin: a moist, lemony whole grain muffin with the pop! of fresh sweet black cherries. My first thought on tasting these muffins was: WOW! A literal taste explosion – this is not a cozy, down-home, Grandma’s apple pie kind of recipe. This is WOW. A wake-up-your-taste-buds, can’t-believe-how-good-it-is, let-me-freeze-half-this-batch-right-now-before-I-eat-the-whole-thing kind of recipe. These muffins are indulgent – what with the lemon zest, lemon juice and lemon extract, you might as well be munching on flatbreads and cherries, lounging under a […]

Categories: baking, breakfast, cherries, citrus, dessert, summer, whole wheat flour, year round • Tags: baking, cherries, cooking, food, local, recipes

Dried Cherry Biscotti

9 July 2009 by local kitchen

I made these biscotti a few days ago, to package up and send off as a housewarming gift for my friends Evan & Kelly, who just moved to a new home in anticipation of their first baby’s arrival this Fall. Mom, Dad and Baby have received their package and the biscotti have received the Whitney Seal of Approval. Even the baby seems to like them, if excessive kicking can be intrepeted as “Mom, send more biscotti this way, please!” […]

Categories: baking, cherries, dessert, whole wheat flour, year round • Tags: baking, cherries, cooking, food, local, recipes

Fresh Strawberry Tart

25 June 2009 by local kitchen

My Mom has been visiting for the last couple of days, in the midst of her annual summer roadtrip from her home in Asheville, NC, up to our hometown of Gloucester, MA. Since I still had about a pound of berries left from last week’s big strawbery haul, I decided to make us a fresh strawberry tart for dessert. This tart came together quite easily as I used frozen pastry dough scraps, strawberry syrup garnered from the frozen/juiced/dried strawberries, and […]

Categories: 100% local, baking, berries, citrus, dessert, fruit, pastry, pie, spring, summer • Tags: cooking, dessert, food, local, recipes, strawberries

Wild Blueberry & Grapefruit Scones

9 June 2009 by local kitchen

I still have some wild blueberries in the freezer, picked last August up in Minnewaska State Park. I also had a couple of pink grapefruits sitting in the fruit drawer, needing to be eaten soon. As my friend Melissa is coming up for a visit tomorrow, I thought it would be nice to have some yummy nibbles on hand, and scones are such a versatile nibble; perfect for breakfast, an afternoon snack with tea, or a meal-on-the-go in the car. […]

Categories: baking, berries, breakfast, citrus, dessert, whole wheat flour, year round • Tags: baking, cooking, food, local, recipes