Farmer's Market Haul, 12/12/09

VEGGIES
German butterball potatoes
collard greens
red cabbage
leeks
curly mustard greens
red onion
sage
thyme

OTHER
mushrooms (oyster, crimini, shiitake)
fromage blanc and ricotta from Tonjes Farm
eggs
cream
fresh egg noodles

Friday cat blogging, deep thoughts edition

It might look like Oscar is pondering something very weighty, but he's probably just considering whether he's hungry right now.

Friday: Beauty and the Beast

Potato, celeriac and green onion gratin.

For this casserole-type dish, thin slices of celeriac and potato were layered with Jarlsberg cheese, sprinkled with chopped green onion, moistened with sherry and vegetable broth, and baked until everything was soft.

Nobody would accuse celeriac of being an attractive vegetable, but they sure are delicious once they're peeled and cooked:



Proving that looks aren't everything, they mixed it up with these beautiful purple potatoes:

Thursday: Quick and Easy

Sardine-caper toast with carrot-mustard seed salad.

We were pretty tired this evening, so we just threw together two quick and easy dishes. For the salad, grated carrots were doused in mustard seeds that had been popped in oil. In a classic combination, canned sardines were mashed with a little lemon juice and chopped capers (see here for an example).

We usually use nonpareil capers (the little kind), but today we happened to have the larger, nicer caper berries in the fridge:


Caper berries from the Italian market

Special Christmas PSA: Stollen

What is stollen, you ask? You must not have German grandparents. But seriously, stollen is a family Christmas tradition in the vein of panettone or fruitcake. But don't be put off by the mention of fruitcake - stollen is a soft, bready concoction studded with candied fruit, really more akin to challah in taste and texture.

Why only make it once a year? Well, aside from being a Dresden custom, making stollen is a huge pain in the butt(er). Because it needs several cycles of rising to develop its rich flavor, it takes about a day's worth of on-and-off labor to make one big batch. The process is much like that of any yeast bread, with a few extra complications: the batter is mixed, then left to rise and stirred down several times over the course of a few hours, adding butter halfway through. Afterwards even more flour is added to get the dough to its final bulk, followed by a few more cycles of kneading and rising. Some lemon juice, cardamom, vanilla, and almond extract are added for flavor.



The best part, of course, is adding your choice of candied fruits. Half of D4SA (Giselle) doesn't take too kindly to raisins, so we left them out, but traditionally they provide the bulk of the added fruit. We decided to stick with these guys:


Candied clementines, purchased from the Italian market


Green candied citron


Closeup of candied cherries

After some final cycles of kneading and resting, the dough is rolled out, braided into loaves, brushed with beaten egg and sprinkled with slivered almonds, and finally baked. When it comes out warm and shiny the final touch is a sprinkling of powdered sugar.



One day of kitchen craziness is worth it for this much Chrismas cheer.

Tuesday: Comforting Winter Stew

Chestnut-lentil soup with homemade biscuits.

In our pre-blog life, we had purchased chestnuts a few times and had always roasted them and eaten them plain. But this year we've discovered how versatile chestnuts are in cooking. Perhaps chestnuts have faded from the American culinary memory because of the blight, but good recipe ideas can be found in other countries, particularly Italy and Japan.

This thick soup, really more of a stew, combines chestnuts with brown lentils and carrots. The chestnuts and carrots both add a little sweetness and texture to the otherwise fairly standard lentil soup.

Biscuits are surprisingly easy and quick to make from scratch, and they require very few ingredients. You'll probably see them from time to time on this humble blog.

Monday: Squashmas

Pasta with roasted butternut squash and ricotta salata, served with hot mulled apple cider.

We originally got this recipe from the Times, but have made it a few times since then and come to love it. It's quite easy: just cube and roast the squash, then toss with cooked pasta and grated ricotta salata cheese. A little parsley and sage or rosemary go in for flavor and color.

Oh - and as you can see, Christmas has arrived here at D4SA...