Old-Fashioned Apple Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting

Something Wicked This Way Comes…For Now

Halloween has me a little concerned this year. In the past, costume planning started in January. This year serious planning didn’t start until September. Well, except for my daughter; she still started planning in January. She will be going as a hamster. Without the human-sized hamster ball though. She’s totally bummed…and, yes they do make human-sized hamster balls.

The boys were seriously less enthusiastic. Getting them to commit was worse than pulling teeth, and the ideas kept changing from day to day. Scooby Doo and Shaggy were their first options. Frankly, I thought it was an awesome idea, but my opinion may be why it was nixed immediately.

One of the boys wanted to be this blow up ostrich thing—just too weird. (Really? Who comes up with these?) The other one was first thinking about being a caveman, and then the lime green unitard guy…ummmm, no!

The good news? No blood and guts for 2014. Instead we have a Spartan (that in no way resembles Tommy Trojan. I made sure of that. Go Ducks!), a nerd, and of course a hamster named Peanut—complete with a bag of peanuts. (This is an essential part of the costume as is the sign that says: Hi, my name is Peanut. My daughter is nothing, if not thorough.)

All of this semi-drama leads me to believe that it might be the last year for Halloween fun, at least for the boys. This goes way beyond the usual complaining when I take pictures of them in their costumes before school. Next year they hit Middle School and the innocence of the Buzz Lightyear costume morphs into I’m too cool for school. What-evs! And bring on the T.P. mischief.

I’m not ready for it to be over. Next thing you know we will loose Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. Total childhood anarchy. I refuse to accept it. So I have been self-medicating with cake.

I made this one over the weekend. It seemed to help… Read more…

Apple, Onion, and Cheddar Soup

Soup to Nuts…or Nuts for Soup

OK, I admit it. I like soup. I am eating some right now, in fact. There is something about that first day when it actually feels like Fall, (My temperature gauge said it was 48º this morning.) that makes me want a cup of something warm and cozy. It also makes me think about what soup I will be making and freezing this weekend.

Canned soup is okay in a pinch, and there are some great ones available these days, but they don’t hold a candle to homemade. (Cheating by making chicken noodle with store bought broth still counts.) I have found myself grabbing for the frozen soup a lot lately. Especially after football practice or afternoon activity. (World Series anyone?) A little soup and grilled cheese, maybe a salad, and you have the makings of a quick and comforting meal.

I have been trying to branch out a bit with my recipes. I still have my favorites like the one I am eating now, but I can get bored of the same old, same old after a while. So I’ve been on a mission to find the new and interesting, and I think I found one!

I have owned a copy of the New England Soup Company Cookbook for years, but it’s one of those cookbooks that I tend to forget about. Last week I ran across it while looking for something else, and saw this recipe for Apple, Onion and Cheddar Soup. I knew I just had to try it. It’s perfect now that apples are coming into their season.

Apple, Onion, and Cheddar Soup
Adapted from Marjorie Druker
Chef/Co-Owner, New England Soup Factory

This soup is perfect during the cool fall months. It incorporates apples and cheese, which is an old-fashioned pairing for a pie in New England. The soup builds contrasting layers of sweetness, starting with the apple cider in the stock, then the caramelized onions, and finally the green apples add tartness.

Traditional French Cassoulet

When it comes to cooking, I’m always up for a challenge.

The first time it happened, was maybe my sophomore year in high school—or possibly even younger, and I was desperate to make this incredibly difficult chocolate cake that I saw on Great Chefs. It had dark and white chocolate, chocolate ganache, and chocolate shavings.I had no business attempting to make this cake but I did it anyway.

The cake was beautiful. Though it didn’t turn out exactly as it was supposed to, it was still impressive. (So was the mess. Just ask my mother!)

Over the years I have attempted many other considerable challenges. Fresh butternut squash ravioli was one. There were also a couple of dishes from the master, Julia Child. Lately I have found that most recipes from Thomas Keller can be tough to make look “right”. They tasted pretty good, though.

There is one dish I have really wanted to make over the years that isn’t exactly difficult, but does require some time: Traditional French Cassoulet.

The main reason I have put it off is that it usually requires a Confit of Duck that I really don’t have time to make. A few weeks ago, I found a post on Serious Eats, the clouds parted, and the sun shone down. (Cue angelic singing.) J. Kenji López-Alt’s recipe made making a cassoulet so much more approachable, that I just had to try it. So over the weekend, I did.

It still required work and time, but the end result was worth it. The beans were unbelievably tasty and creamy. The chicken was tender. My only complaint was that it was too salty for my tastes (López-Alt warns about this in the post.) The rest of my diners didn’t think so. I include my kids in this—they actually went back for seconds. I think next time I will cut the amount of salt pork in half just to see. And there will be a next time.

This is definitely a Sunday dinner type dish because of the time involved, but the recipe is a keeper and it is the perfect lazy, rainy weekend dinner. Read more…

Double Cut Pork Chops with Garlic Butter

Lucky Thirteen

My husband and I celebrated our thirteenth anniversary over the weekend, and I gotta say while we haven’t really been married that long, the celebrations are a bit different now than they were in the long-ago days—when we first got married, and life was less complicated.

In the beginning there was wine, romance, a great night out, and the rare (very rare) piece of jewelry. These days we’re lucky if we remember it’s happening. We didn’t even remember until it was right on top of us. A gift to each other? We bought a sofa, ‘cause that ripped, dog/kid/cat/gravity stained one had become utterly intolerable.

I know. It’s okay to be jealous. Nothing says love and forever than paying a lot of money for a piece of furniture that in a few years will end up looking like the one we have now. #livinthedream

If we can’t go out and celebrate, I will often make a special dinner for all of us. That didn’t work out this year, so we celebrated with a bowl of ice cream. (Do we know how to party or what?)

If I had been able to make a special dinner, I would have made these pork chops. Recently my husband went cuckoo for cocoa puffs over them. It’s the brine that makes them so good.

Full disclosure; he’s a big fan of pork chops in general so take that with a grain of salt. But these were really good and very easy to do on the grill. Read more…