Feasts of Christmas: Fennel Gratin and Larson's Kringler

I had a lot to be thankful for and happy about this Christmas.

My brother and his fiancee were home from Nashville. The crazy snowstorm kept my sister's family in town so we had all the little kids with us on Christmas Eve. My dad drew me for gift exchange this year and gave me this amazing collection of herbs and spices - many from his own garden - and a handmade rack that my niece kept calling my "spice ladder." But one of my very favorite parts of my holiday came on Christmas Eve morning when it was just me and some food.

First I got started making Rachel Larson's famed Almond Kringler. It's a three layer job but it's actually very quick to put together and everyone loves it.

Layer One: Shortbread-like crust. Layer Two: Fluffy, eggy, baked custard-y filling.


Layer Three: Simple icing and sprinkle of sliced almonds.


In honor of my friend Siri I baked this whilst listening to Ella's Swingin' Christmas.

Find the full recipe at The Transplanted Baker.

Next, I turned my thoughts to my loving, vegetarian sister. I knew our Christmas spread would be sausage heavy and thought she should not miss out on having something indulgent just because she doesn't groove on the meats. So I sliced up some potatoes and simmered vegetable stock, a bit of heavy cream, and two whole cloves of garlic:


And got to some more layerin'


Potatoes, leeks, and fennel with pecorino romano, the stock/cream mixture and breadcrumbs. I don't think I need to tell you it was delicious.


Fennel Gratin - makes one 9 x 13 pan

Simmer in a heavy pot over low heat:
1 can (12 oz or a little less) vegetable stock
1/2 cup half & half, heavy cream, or 2% milk
Pinch of nutmeg
Fresh black pepper
Two peeled whole cloves of garlic (discard when you remove mixture from heat)

Prepare:
6 large yukon gold or large red potatoes, peeled
1 large leek, cleaned and chopped
1 large bulb of fennel, quartered and sliced
Keep some fennel fronds for garnish

Grate:
Heaping cup of pecorino romano cheese

In a buttered 9 x 13 baking dish layer potatoes (salt and pepper them), then fennel, and sprinkle with leeks. Cover with half of the cream mixture and sprinkle with cheese. Repeat layering and finish with cheese and a handful of breadcrumbs.

Bake covered with foil at 375 for about 45 minutes. Liquid should be nearly completely absorbed. Uncover and bake for another 15 minutes. Garnish with fennel fronds.

To be continued...with Ginger-Beet soup.

This Is The Kind of News I Am Talking About

The kind that puts us just that much closer to monkeys.

It's also the kind that is potentially terrifying.

Kind of like the story I read a couple days ago that contained this gem of news reporting:

"He dropped his pants and there were 10 cans taped to his legs. Each can contained a lizard."

That full story can be found here.

Does this post make you feel like I am trying to force you to have fun with Science?

Considering Tumblr

You guys probably already knew all of this but...
Everything is Terrible
A Unicorn's Unicorn
Sarah Haskins
F U Penguin
Unnecessary Quotes
New York Review of Books Personal Ads
Famous Authors Narrate the Funny Pages
It's my current Best of 'Net.
That last one is because I used to read Fred Basset aloud to my sister, not because I am turning into the kind of person who sends in captions for New Yorker cartoons.

And THAT is an h/t to Liz.

Baba Ghanoush

Challah, HOLLERRRR

I am feeling very robbed of fall.
I look forward to it all year. It is the only thing that makes the living-inside-of-a-mouth feeling of summer and constant inconvenience of winter tolerable. And even though I know it is ALWAYS a fleeting season, this year seems to be an extreme example. No sooner did I purchase fall tights in peacock, mustard, and wine (see my sister's wedding palette ) than did the snow begin to fall. But I can barely call it snow. It is something much worse: WINTRY MIX.

Anyway, in order to get my fill of fall I visited Afton Apple Orchard and smashed it all into a one day event. The day was absolutely perfect and involved hay rides, pumpkin picking, apple donuts, hot cider, and a petting zoo. Some quality time with this llama kind of made up for the rest of the week:


And the apples seemed to be right at their peak:



I had plans to make either apple or pumpkin butter with all the goods I had collected, but after considering how long this process would actually take and weighed it out against the fact that I wanted pumpkin butter RIGHT AWAY I went ahead and purchased some in the delightful country store. It tastes like the very essence of pumpkin pie and on bread right out of the oven it is like the ambrosia of autumn.

So I set to work on baking up a couple of loaves of sweet, eggy challah. It would make more sense if this post had an apple recipe, I know. One will follow to be sure.

Challah Recipe from THE SILVER PALATE COOKBOOK - makes 2 loaves

2 cups milk
1/3 cup white sugar
1 stick plus 1 Tbsp. unsalted butter
2 packages active dry yeast (I but mine in bulk so this equals about 9 Tbsp.)
4 eggs (room temp)
2 tsp salt
6 cups AP flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 Tbsp cold water

Bring milk, sugar, and butter to a boil. Remove mixture from heat and let it come to lukewarm for proofing your yeast. Add yeast to the mixture and wait about ten minutes until it's foamy on the top. Beat three of the eggs with the salt and add that to the milk, sugar, butter, and yeast. Add 5 cups of flour, one at a time and mix thoroughly until a sticky dough forms. Scatter 1 additional cup flour onto your work surface and knead dough until it's smooth and elastic.

Wash and dry your mixing bowl and coat the inside with an even layer of butter before plopping the dough inside. Cover the top with a damp towel and allow the dough to rise in the bowl until it has tripled in size (about 2 hours).

Punch the dough down and divide in half. Cut each half into three equal parts and roll each third into a long snake. Braid each loaf and tuck the ends underneath like so:

Mine were a little bit skinny, but on the second rise they puffed up a bit.

Cover the braided loaves with a damp towel and allow them to rise another hour or so.
Preheat oven to 350 and make an egg wash with water and one egg. Paint each loaf generously with egg wash and sprinkle with poppy seeds if you have them. I did not.
But they still turned out quite nicely:


I have one loaf left for making french toast this weekend and ate the other loaf with some potato leek soup with bacon, which did not photograph well.

Keeping these piefingers crossed for a resurrection of real fall, you know with the leaves and everything...

Congratulations in Order

My sister's wedding was this past weekend and it presented two particular challenges for me:
1. Holding it together during the ceremony (which did NOT happen)
2. Making a vegetarian, gluten-free main dish for the rehearsal dinner
I thought, very briefly, about doing something casserole-y with rice flour or with rice pasta but this was not really the time for experimentation. This was the time for making something pretty.

I sort of fused the recipes found here and here and added an extra layer of cheese for good measure. But you could do this with just about anything in your CSA box as long as you have a springform pan and enough time to let the torte rest and express all the excess water in the veggies.

Roasted Vegetable Torte - Adapted from Gourmet and Ina Garten, serves 6
6 cloves of garlic thinly sliced
1 medium eggplant, cut into rounds
4 bell peppers, any color, sliced in half and seeded
1 large red onion, cut into thick rings
2 yellow squash, cut on the diagonal
2 green zucchini, cut on the diagonal
2 Tbsp. red or balsamic vinegar
Zest of one lemon
About 1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
2 Tbsp. milk
About 1 cup shredded parmigano reggiano
About 1/2 cup finely chopped basil
Good sea salt
Fresh ground pepper
Several Tbsp. very good olive oil (I used some that was infused with porcini mushrooms)

Heat oven to 350 and toss pepper halves with salt, pepper, and olive oil. On a foil covered baking sheet, place peppers cut side down and roast until they are soft and slightly charred (about 40 minutes).

Heat 2 Tbsp. oil over low heat and cook garlic until soft. Turn heat up to medium and add rounds of eggplant in a single layer, turning once, and cooking about 5 minutes total. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Add more oil to the pan if needed (eggplant will absorb the most) and cook yellow squash and zucchini in the same manner.

Turn the heat down to medium low and add slices of onion to the pan with the vinegar. Cook until onions have carmelized and vinegar is evaporated (about 18 minutes)

Mix zest of the lemon with mascarpone cheese and thin with milk until it is a spreadable consistency.

Now it's time for STACKIN'

Spray a 9 inch springform pan (lip side down) with olive oil and place a layer of slightly overlapping eggplant in the bottom. Then cover with a bit of chopped basil and the parm cheese, thusly:

Then the yellow squash, with the cheese and basil:

Then a layer of peppers:

Spread the layer of mascarpone cheese over the pepper layer with a rubber spatula. When the onions have come to room temp, pile those on top. Like so:

And finally the zucchini is the top layer. I arranged mine like a starburst:

Then you cover the whole shebang in plastic wrap and place a plate just inside the springform ring. Place it in a larger, edged baking dish and weight it with three 15 oz. cans of something in the fridge overnight. You may have to drain the liquid at least once to keep it from overflowing.

Release the outside of the springform but keep it on the bottom plate part for serving. It's way too hard to slide off and after all that stacking, you don't want to risk ruining it by doing that. Trust.

Everyone Looks Great in Cakelight