To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness….

So begins, “To Autumn” which John Keats wrote in 1819. It was published in 1820, the year before he died at age 25 of tuberculosis. Here is the first stanza (you can read the entire poem here).

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cell

Autumn: the season to harvest apples, Italian plums, Bosc pears, juicy Concord grapes. Fruits filled “with ripeness to the core.” The season to make an apple pie or a torte with Italian plums, or to simply take the time to enjoy a cluster of grapes or a perfectly ripened pear.  Just because it’s the season.

For this style of plum torte or cake, make a simple yeast dough with unbleached flour, yeast and water, enriched with egg and a little oil and a bit of sugar or honey if you like. After the first rising, roll out to fit your pan; butter the pan and fit in the dough. Let it rise again for about half an hour.

Cut the plums in quarters, mix them with a tablespoon of sugar, a couple teaspoons of flour and some cinnamon to taste; then, arrange the plum pieces in a sunflower pattern. Sprinkle the top with streusel. Bake at 350 or 375 degrees till the dough is golden, and the plums are juicy and turning a wonderful rose-gold color.

In German it’s called Zwetchgenkuchen. Hard to say, easy to eat. Very nice with a cup of coffee or tea on an afternoon in autumn.

For another post on Zwetchgenkuchen, click here.

November pumpkins, apples and pears

It turned into November here around mid-October, before I even had time to celebrate that wonderful month in this blog (but I have been celebrating the birth of my grandson, Levi, in mid-October!).

Still, even in November, there are the sights and smells and tastes of autumn.

Bread box with squash, Anjou Bakery, Cashmere, Washington

Cool rainy weather inspired me to go back to the old staples. The minestrone soup, the leek-potato soup, the roasted vegetables and baked squash, the mushroom risotto, the slow-rise bread and any-night pizza.

Slow-rise bread with rye, wheat and various seeds

I often keep pizza dough in the fridge so I can make this in a jiffy. Roasted red pepper spread often stands in for pizza sauce.

It’s also still a wonderful time for apples and pears.  At the farmers’ market in Port Townsend, I was thrilled to find Cox’s Orange Pippin apples, a wonderfully flavorful apple that is rarely grown in the U.S.

Cox’s Orange Pippin, apple of choice in the UK

We visited friends in Cashmere, and Maggie and Scott gave us Bosc pears and King David apples (a variety I’d never tasted before — and it is a fantastic apple: crisp and juicy with a delicious tart-sweet flavor).

Bosc pears and King David apples

Four of the pears ripened at once. We ate two of them for dessert last night; then this morning, I peeled and sliced the other two and sauteed them with a touch of sugar and cinnamon, then laid them in a skillet and poured over an egg-y batter to make a Dutch Baby.

Yes, you read that right. It’s a type of pancake that’s cooked in a skillet inside the oven, where it puffs up into a golden wonder, like a giant popover. (The name derived from the German-American immigrants known as Pennsylvania Dutch, “Dutch” being a corruption of the word “Deutsch.” The “baby” part is said to have been coined by a Seattle restaurant in the 40s.)

Dutch Baby with pears

My dad used to make this for a Sunday breakfast or light supper (we always just called it “oven pancake” or “German pancake”).  Not only is it easy to make, but it’s so impressive when it comes out of the oven. Any way you make it –with fruit on the bottom (apples are more traditional) or atop or not at all– it’s a keeper.

Here’s Marion Cunningham’s recipe for Dutch Babies, from The Breakfast Book

• 3 eggs, room temperature
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• Confectioners’ (powdered) sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Butter one 12-inch skillet or four 6-inch small skillets (with ovenproof handles) or pans (you can use small pie pans or cake pans).
2. Break the eggs into a small mixing bowl and beat until thoroughly mixed. Add the milk and blend well.
3. Sift the flour and salt onto a square of waxed paper. Lift the waxed paper up by two corners and let the flour slowly drift into the egg and milk, whisking steadily. Or slowly sift the flour and salt directly into the egg mixture, while whisking to blend and smooth. Add the melted butter and mix briskly so the batter is smooth.
4. Pour the batter into the pan or pans and bake for 15 minutes at 450 degrees. If you are baking small pancakes, they will be done after 15 minutes. If you are baking just one big pancake, reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake another 10 minutes.
5. Sprinkle lemon juice over the pancake (or pancakes) and dust the top(s) with confectioners’ sugar. Serve at once.
   

   It was a little messy and so delicious

An autumn appreciation

I shook off the melancholy of summer’s ending last week with a drive over the mountains to Cashmere and a wonderful time spent with Aviva, both in the kitchen and outdoors. We baked three types of lemon pie and invited friends for a sampling.

Before I left, friends gave me some Bartlett pears, Jonathan apples, cucumbers and tomatoes — and on the way home, I stopped to buy a rustic loaf of German rye from a bakery in Leavenworth, and corn and potatoes sold from the back of a truck.

The leaves were just starting to turn on Steven’s Pass, and with my car piled up with gifts of the harvest, I realized my mood had turned as well. There’s a reason that our harvest festivals are seasons of thanks-giving.

Supper at home was really easy: cucumber salad, tomatoes with basil, corn on the cob (last of the season) and bread, along with delicious smoked wild salmon that Steve bought from our wonderful local fish store, Vis Seafoods.

Lately, one of my favorite meals is a simple beans-and-greens dish with garlic.  I was inspired to start cooking beans again by some very nice looking cannellini beans I found at  Conte di Savoia , an Italian grocery in Chicago. Yes, you could use canned beans, but trust me: these are better.

Beans and greens

The beans: You just soak the beans overnight in plenty of cold water; drain and put them in a large saucepan with fresh cold water to cover (and more), bring the water to a boil and then cook at a low boil for about 30 to 40 minutes or so, until they are tender but not mushy. Turn off the heat and then add some salt to taste.

The greens: Wash a bunch of greens — chard, kale, beet greens, or any other type–and leave some of the water clinging to the greens. Remove the stems, slice the greens into strips, then cut them in half.

The dish: Dice a few garlic cloves (as many as you like); heat some olive oil in a skillet, and fry the garlic until it’s golden and fragrant. Add the chopped greens, and saute until they are tender; then add some of the beans, with a little of their cooking water and cook, stirring the beans and greens together, until it’s hot and the greens are cooked as much as you like. Salt and pepper to taste, adding some red pepper and/or grated Parmesan, Romano or Pecorino cheese if you like. Serve with some crusty bread on the side. (You could also serve with grilled sausages, as Lidia Bastianich suggests with her version of this dish.)

More beans: Of course, if you have leftover beans, they can go in a tuna salad, a soup, or a tomato sauce to serve with pasta.  Or you could  just mash up some beans with lemon juice, olive oil and garlic, and serve as a dip.

Now, about that pie. It really isn’t lemon pie season, and I recommend that you make a dessert with late plums or peaches, or pears, apples, pumpkin–something in season–and wait till winter to make a lemon pie. But I was testing recipes for my book, and it just had to be done now. Fortunately, I had Aviva’s help, and help from the pie-sampling friends as well. Here’s how they looked:

Lemon meringue pie, French lemon tart, Shaker lemon pie

If you love lemons (and rich desserts–lemon desserts are deceptively rich and caloric), you’ll love the French  lemon tart recipe, and I have really easy methods for making both the tart dough and the lemon curd filling.  Shaker lemon pie, with the double crust, had nearly as many votes, and Aviva tried out a traditional pie crust recipe with egg and vinegar.

The lemon meringue pie tasted good; however, it was a stressful baking experience (too many steps, not to mention failures) and collapsed as soon as I cut into it.  I will be sure to remedy both these factors before posting a recipe for you–

An ode to Jonathan (Apple, that is)

The apple is a star (on that wonderful plate by Nell Sanger)

I love Jonathan apples in the fall, when they’re crisp and crunchy, with a tart-sweet flavor that wakes up your mouth. You won’t find a more apple-y apple. (For a good source on apple varieties, check out this Apple Journal.)

Great for eating fresh, terrific for applesauce or pie.

A couple weeks ago,  visiting our orchard friends, I got to pick a big bag of these right off the tree.

In fact, I had so many apples, I started to consider making applesauce. This is also a great thing to make if you have some apples that are starting to lose their crispness.

Since you’re basically just cooking and pureeing apples, not adding any sugar or fat,  it’s a guilt-free cooking experience…..

Skins of Jonathan apples give applesauce a lovely pink color.

If you have a foodmill, you don’t even have to peel or core the apples.  Just wash them, cut them roughly into chunks, and toss them into a pot with about a cup of water.

Put a lid on top and let the apples cook at medium heat until mushy-soft.

The apples will release liquid, but add a little water if need be so they don’t burn.

I found a small food mill at a rummage sale, which is good for my limited kitchen storage.

Taking about a cup or so of the apple pieces and liquid at a time, plop it into the food mill and turn the handle to squish the applesauce through, leaving the skins, seeds, etc. behind.  Remove (and compost if you can) whatever won’t go through the mill before you process the next cup or so of apple chunks.

I like the tangy-sweet flavor of Jonathan apples so much, sometimes I don’t put any spices in at all.  Other times, just a dash of cinnamon.

Result: A bowlful of beautiful and delicious applesauce

Of course, if you don’t have a food mill, or you prefer chunky applesauce, you can peel and core the apples, cook them down and then mash them to whatever texture you like.

I do like the chunky version too, but it seems like a bit too much work for me, so I’m grateful for the foodmill. To be honest, if I didn’t have it, I might never make applesauce!

Yet another great topping for the morning gruel

Jonathan Apple