Archive for the ‘Holiday Foods’ Category

A Salsa for Cinco

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023

I have been celebrating Cinco de Mayo since I was in graduate school in Texas. This holiday commemorates the Mexican victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.

The day is actually more significant culturally here in the United States than it is in most of Mexico. Over the years, it has come to represent a time for celebrating Mexican heritage (and of course Mexican food) in this country.

For some Americans, Cinco de Mayo is primarily a drinking holiday. I’m not much of a drinker, but I am an eater. I like to prepare something Mexican or Tex-Mex on May 5. Sometimes I’m moved to make enchiladas. Other times I’ll just throw together a little guacamole.

This year I’m putting together a salsa based on a recipe from my cousin Mardi. I like to serve it as a sort of salad or side dish; it is satisfying with or without tortilla chips.

The term salsa, as readers may know, means sauce in Spanish. The Aztecs and the Mayans began preparing a type of salsa millennia ago. Their version apparently contained tomatoes, chiles, beans, and squash. The Spanish conquistadores took note of this tasty condiment in the 1500s and gave it its name.

Salsa was not part of mainstream U.S. culture until the mid- to late 20th century. In the 1940s, former college football star David Pace and his wife Margaret opened the first salsa manufacturing plant in Paris, Texas, making what Pace called “picante sauce.” (The Pace company’s salsa is still called this and is still popular.)

I think I would have liked David Pace, who died in 1993 at the age of 79. According to his obituary in “The New York Times,” he was known for more than his picante sauce business, which was sold to Campbell’s after his death for more than $1 billion.

“Mr. Pace also patented an executive chair in 1967 that could be opened flat for taking a nap,” the obituary noted.

My father, who insisted on installing a couch in his office in Rockefeller Center so that he could sleep for a few minutes every afternoon, would have approved. So do I; I have been known to take a cat nap myself.

In the latter part of the 20th century, Mexican foods and salsa in particular found their way into mainstream American cuisine. By the 1980s, salsa was available pretty much everywhere in this country, and in 1991 it surpassed stalwart catsup as Americans’ favorite condiment.

In 1998, it was deemed a vegetable by the U.S. Department of Agriculture so that it could be classified thus in school-lunch programs.

There is much to love in salsa. It’s generally healthy and low in fat yet high in flavor. Unlike ketchup, it is made up of identifiable foods and contains little or no sugar. It’s vegan and tastes fresh even when (as in the salsa below) most of the ingredients come from a can or the freezer.

It is also easy to make at home and infinitely variable. When I think of salsa, tomato comes to mind first and foremost. Nevertheless, I have made salsa by adding cilantro, lime juice, onion, and salt to many different fruits: strawberries, blueberries, peaches, mangoes, and pineapples.

Mardi’s salsa adds a little protein to the mix by mixing in black beans. This type of salsa is often known as confetti salsa. It’s made up of small, discreet, colorful ingredients, just like confetti.

If you try it at home—and I encourage you to do so—think about adding flavors you like or have in the house. Some people throw in part or all of a can of green chiles. Some use a fresh jalapeño or some hot sauce for heat instead of the chipotle. Some eliminate the olives and add more beans. You can’t really go wrong.

One warning: This is the sort of recipe that absolutely depends on individual taste. I started with the amounts I mention in the formula below and then ended up adding quite a bit more cumin, chipotle, and lime juice.

The end product was spicy and citrussy and fabulous. I know not everyone likes spice, however. To employ a phrase I generally dislike but find appropriate when it refers to flavor, “you do you.”

If you don’t get around to making this dish until after May 5, never fear. All of May is National Salsa Month, so designated in 1997 to honor the 50th anniversary of Pace Picante Sauce.

Confetti Salsa

I find that the best way to chop herbs like the cilantro here is to wash and dry them, then place them in a sturdy, narrow container like a juice glass and cut them with clean kitchen shears.

Ingredients:

1 can (15.5 ounces) black beans, rinsed and drained
1-1/2 cups corn kernels (In summer these would be fresh; at this time of year I put frozen kernels in a colander and let them defrost and drain.)
1 4-ounce can pitted ripe olives, drained and cut into little rounds (If all you can find is a 6-ounce can, either save some olives for another occasion or go ahead and use the whole can.)
at least 25 grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1 very small red onion, or part of a larger one, diced
1 handful cilantro, chopped
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
dried chipotle chile powder (Start with 1/4 teaspoon.)
cumin seeds, or ground cumin if that is all you have (Start with 2 teaspoons.)
the juice of 1 to 2 limes (Start with 1 and then add more as needed; I used 1-1/2 most recently.)
1 splash olive oil, plus more as needed
1 avocado, cut into chunks

Instructions:

In a medium bowl, combine the beans, corn, olives, tomatoes, onion pieces, and cilantro. Mix well. Sprinkle the salt, chipotle, and cumin seed on top; then blend in the lime juice and the olive oil. Try the salsa and add more chipotle, cumin, oil, and lime juice to taste.

If you’re eating the salsa soon after you make it, add the avocado chunks along with the other vegetables and fruits. Otherwise, refrigerate the salsa until you’re ready to serve it, and then stir in the avocado. That method avoids discoloration of this delicate fruit.

Serves 4 to 6 as a salad or a small party as a dip.

A Simple Easter (or Passover!) Cake

Friday, April 7th, 2023

Photos by Peter Beck

Holiday cooking is often elaborate. But sometimes it can, and should, be simple.

My friend Peter Beck recently won my heart (as he often does) by sharing a cake that is uncomplicated and relatively healthy … and tastes like spring. If you want something a little dressy but not too gloppy for an Easter dessert, I recommend trying it.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that although this cake contains baking soda, it is still usable for Passover as well, although if you keep kosher you may have to seek out kosher-for-Passover baking soda.

I grew up thinking that leavening agents were forbidden during this eight-day holiday. When the Jews were finally allowed to leave Egypt, according to the Exodus story, they were in such a hurry that their bread didn’t have time to rise. Jews remember this by eating mainly matzo, unleavened bread, at Passover.

Nevertheless, the prohibition is not on leavening agents like baking soda, baking powder, and yeast but actually on the way in which they interact with certain grains, specifically wheat, barley, oats, rye, and spelt. Peter’s almond flour and baking soda are therefore allowable.

Peter didn’t actually design this cake for the spring holidays. He isn’t a baker in general, although I can testify that he is an amazing cook.

He loves to offer a dessert of some kind when he entertains, however. Like me, he lives in Hawley, Massachusetts, which abounds with lovely hills and wildlife but offers absolutely no bakeries. He didn’t want to have to go somewhere to purchase baked goods. He consequently decided to develop a relatively fool-proof cake.

He also liked the idea of a cake that doesn’t have icing. A number of his friends prefer cake to icing, he told me, and he wanted to make them happy. I like icing, but I must admit that I didn’t miss it in this recipe, particularly when Peter dolloped a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side of each slice of cake.

“I’m also considering a combination of cream and mascarpone,” he told me dreamily. “Just a dollop.”

“I wanted [the recipe] as simple as possible,” he said of the recipe’s development. I looked at almond-flour recipes. The egg holds the cake together and gives it some lift.”

He also liked the idea of having a small cake, he told me. This recipe fills an 8-inch cake pan and serves six with good-sized but not scary servings. The almond flour doesn’t make the final product taste like almond extract (not my favorite flavor), just like cake. And the citrus flavors sing of spring.

Peter told me that he first put the recipe together about a month ago and has made it at least 10 times. (He entertains often!)

“It’s just easy to have on hand,” he elaborated. “It’s nice for tea. One of the things that strikes me as kind of similar but I really think if you can nail it it’s great is a scone. Also, it’s such an easy thing, and people like that you’ve made a cake for them.”

I was flattered by Peter’s assertion that my own go-to desserts, fruit crumbles and cobblers, also inspired him to find a dessert recipe that didn’t entail a lot of fuss.

I firmly believe that every cook needs desserts in his or her repertoire that can be assembled quickly in the late afternoon if one learns that unexpected dinner guests are due. This cake is just such a dessert.

“After baking it one or two times, you’ve pretty much memorized it,” Peter said of his recipe. “You can put it together on the spur of the moment.”

He notes that a completely different tasting, but similar to make, cake may be constructed by substituting 1/2 cup cocoa powder for a third of the almond flour. I may try that for Easter. Or for another occasion.

When I ate it at Peter’s house, his cake was served in honor of the 40th wedding anniversary of other neighbors, Maggie Speier and Roy Lewis. Peter is camera shy so I don’t have a photo of him with his cake, but Maggie and Roy were happy to pose.

If you have no almond flour on hand, that ingredient may be purchased at many supermarkets. Peter tells me that Bob’s Red Mill makes an excellent version of this low-carb flour.

Happy Easter and Passover!

Maggie and Roy

Peter’s Almond Cake

Ingredients:

about 1/2 tablespoon butter for greasing the pan
4 large eggs
1/2 cup local honey
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups finely ground blanched almond flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
any flavor profile that appeals. Peter used 1 teaspoon dried orange peel and 1/2 teaspoon orange oil when he served the cake last week. He also likes to throw in a little Fiori di Sicilia, a lovely mixed-citrus extract.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease an 8-inch, non-stick cake pan with butter.

In a large bowl, lightly whisk the eggs. One by one, gradually whisk in the honey, the vanilla, the almond flour, the salt, and the baking soda.

Use a spatula to transfer the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until the cake is fragrant and set, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 22 to 25 minutes.

Cool the cake in the pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes; then invert it onto the cooling rack and let it cool for 20 more minutes before slicing and serving it.

Sprinkle a little confectioner’s sugar on top if you want to. Serves 6 to 8.

Return to Cherry Pudding

Sunday, February 19th, 2023

I actually posted this recipe (well, a slightly different version!) a number of years ago. I’m returning to it because it’s so very satisfying for February (I accidentally almost titled this post “Return to Cheery Pudding”)—and because this year I made a video to show readers how very easy it is. (If you’re following along on the video, however, be kind: I forgot to mention the lemon juice in it!)

Presidents’ Day was placed on the third Monday in February for a reason. That date is always close to the birthday of George Washington on February 22. The day honors all presidents, even the incompetent ones like James Buchanan and the downright dishonest ones like Richard Nixon. But Washington is its star.

Pedants might point out that our first president wasn’t actually born on February 22, 1732, but rather on February 11 as marked on the calendar in use then, the Julian calendar.

The Gregorian calendar was adopted in Britain and its colonies in 1752, and all dates were shifted 11 days to allow the calendar to catch up with the solar year.

Washington himself counted the 22nd as his birthday, however, and I find him an excellent source on this subject.

Some historians believe that Washington was our greatest president. I’m not sure whether I always agree with that assessment. Washington’s ownership of African Americans tarnishes his reputation.

Over his life time he did, however, come to view the institution of slavery as “the only unavoidable subject of regret” he had for the American republic.

Moreover, he arranged to manumit the enslaved people he owned at his home, Mount Vernon, although they were to achieve their freedom only after his widow’s death. He freed only one person during his lifetime. Still, he freed more people than most of his peers among the Founding Fathers.

There’s one way in which he absolutely stands out as a leader. I would argue that Washington’s most celebrated and most impressive achievement as our first president was the grace with which he left the office.

His farewell address from 1796 counseled Americans to remain united against the dangers of partisanship and regionalism. It also argued on behalf of fiscal and international conservatism.

His address was and is a remarkable document. Each year a United States senator reads the address on or near his birthday to the Senate. Senator Tim Kaine of Washington’s home state of Virginia has said, “There’s no other speech that gets that treatment. There’s no other person that gets that treatment.”

Its specialness comes not just from its content, although it is a beautifully crafted document, one the president composed with the help of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Its specialness comes from its originality.

Although Washington was exhausted and ready to retire after decades as a soldier and statesman, many of his supporters wanted him to remain in office, to become a quasi-king.

His relinquishment of the presidency underlined the difference between the United States and most of the other nations in the world. It set an example of the peaceful transfer of power that would endure.

One of my favorite numbers in the musical Hamilton is “One Last Time,” in which Washington drafts the farewell address with his loyal friend and aide, Alexander Hamilton. “[I]f we get this right,” Washington sings, “we’re gonna teach ‘em how to say goodbye.” He got it right, and he delivered that lesson to posterity.

(You can see and hear Christopher Jackson and Lin-Manuel Miranda perform this song at the White House here🙂

It is traditional to make something with cherries to honor Washington’s Birthday, and I’m not one to mess with tradition.

Most Americans now know that the story about his chopping down a cherry tree and confessing the deed to his father because he was incapable of lying was almost certainly made up by Washington’s enterprising biographer, Parson Weems.

Nevertheless, the legend is so strong that Americans still associate Washington with cherries. The gift shop at Mount Vernon even sells souvenirs with cherry themes.

The cherry-tree tale is appealing and apt in its way. Washington was known for his honesty and indeed maintained that “the character of an honest man” was “the most envied of all titles.”

The cherry-tree story can thus be viewed as a metaphor for George Washington’s overall character. In an era when our politicians aren’t always strictly truthful, his forthrightness is refreshing.

Besides, I like cherries! And I’m very fond of Washington. When I was a little girl, my grandmother had a statue of him (marble or alabaster or something!) in a niche at the bottom of her staircase in Rutland, Vermont. We were instructed to salute the statue every time we passed it to honor “General George.”

Cherry Pudding

This recipe uses canned cherries because even in Washington’s home state of Virginia one can’t get fresh local cherries in February.

Ingredients:

1 can (14.5 or 15 ounces) tart cherries (NOT cherry pie filling)
the juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup sugar
4 tablespoons sweet butter at room temperature
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
whipped cream as needed
toasted almonds or pecans (or even candied ones) as needed (optional)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Drain the cherries, reserving their liquid. Combine the drained cherries and the lemon juice, and spread this mixture into a well buttered, 8-inch-square pan or a 1-quart casserole dish.

Cream the sugar with the butter. Sift together the flour, the baking powder, the salt, and the cinnamon, and add them to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk; be sure to begin and end with the flour mixture. Stir in the extract.

Use a spatula to spread the batter over the cherries as well as you can. Sprinkle the brown sugar over all. Pour the cherry juice over the top of the batter. Do not stir it in.

At this point your dish will look pretty messy, and you will begin to doubt yourself. Never fear: the magic of baking (or perhaps the inspiration of George Washington) will rescue your pudding. The cake batter will rise to the top and solidify, although there will be sauce at the bottom and the edges of the pan.

Bake the pudding until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean, 45 minutes to an hour. Be careful not to insert the toothpick too far down in the pan, or it will hit the sauce.

When the pudding is done, dish it onto serving plates, making sure each serving has cake, cherries, and juice. Dollop a little whipped cream on the top, and put a few nuts on the cream if you like. (I tend to skip them, but some people want that crunch.) Serves 8.

Watch me make this dish!

 

A Birthday (or any occasion) Feast

Monday, December 12th, 2022

Dennis’s Dip

My birthday falls next week, just two days before Christmas. In recent years, my family has instituted a birthday tradition for me that I adore. We eat only appetizers and desserts—or rather dessert, since the dessert du jour is always birthday cake for me.

If I didn’t feel that I should worry about my health, I would eschew main courses and eat nothing but appetizers and desserts all the time; I’m not a big fan of main courses. (Or perhaps I wouldn’t. After all, the appeal of this meal is that it isn’t ordinary.)

I got the idea from my neighbors at Singing Brook Farm here in Hawley, Massachusetts, who celebrate “Appy Night” every year the night after Thanksgiving. They know that the Thanksgiving table revolves around the turkey and its accoutrements, and they relish that special meal.

The evening AFTER Thanksgiving, however, they pay tribute to foods that don’t get to star on Thanksgiving and devote themselves to sumptuous appetizers and desserts.

I asked my friends and honorary cousins Molly and Liza Pyle how this tradition began. “It was during the Gam era,” Molly informed me. Gam was Mary Parker, the family’s much beloved (and occasionally much feared) matriarch. She died in 1989 so we calculated that Appy Night was born at least 35 years ago.

Thanksgiving was always the biggest annual holiday in the Singing Brook Farm family. As Gam’s grandchildren grew up and got married, they and their spouses prepared more and more elaborate dishes for the big meal.

One year in the 1980s, they went crazy with appetizers. When it came time to carve the turkey, no one had any appetite for it.

“And Gam was NOT happy,” Liza recalled. I shuddered mentally, remembering all too well that an unhappy Gam made for an unhappy family and an unhappy neighborhood.

The following year Appetizer Night entered the world, giving the family a chance to cook and consume foods that complemented the Thanksgiving board without overwhelming it, i.e. appetizers and desserts.

The practice also extends the holiday to more family members. Liza noted, “Often people arrive who can’t come the day before. It’s an opportunity to have that family connection.”

“And to contribute,” said her husband Dennis Bowen. The family is composed of a lot of active, competitive cooks who live to share their culinary talents.

The evening is relaxed. Not everything has to be served at once since the feast can last for hours. Food can arrive whenever it arrives.

This Year’s Appy Night First Course

I asked the family to identify some memorable dishes they had consumed during Appy Nights in the past. Liza and Molly’s brother David recalled a long-ago dish of baked bacon coated with brown sugar. Everyone was crazy about one sibling’s ex-wife’s rich crab dip. (I’m pursuing that recipe for the future.)

The gang seemed to agree that Dennis’s jalapeño dip was a perennial favorite, however. So that’s the recipe I’m sharing today.

The dip is considerably spicier the day after Dennis makes it, I am told. For some people, this will represent a warning; for others, a promise.

Appy Night usually includes some kind of salad as well as all the goodies, “for sanity’s sake,” Liza informed me. This year she threw together a Caesar salad. And of course there are myriad pies and sometimes other sweets.

The “dish” Singing Brook Farm’s current matriarch, Alice, enjoyed the most at this year’s gathering wasn’t actually edible. It was her newest great grandson, baby Jackson.

Thanksgiving is over for this year—but I encourage readers to try the appetizer-and-dessert model for other holiday parties.

It would work beautifully on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Day … or on one of those evenings during Hanukkah or Kwanzaa when the family doesn’t want a big meal but still wants to celebrate a little. It would also work as a fun pot-luck format for entertaining at any time of the year.

Here is Dennis’s dip. I have a feeling it will appear on my birthday menu. Thanks to Molly Pyle Stejskal for the photos in this post!

And by the way, if you’re searching for a holiday gift, remember a cookbook makes a lasting one. There’s still time to ship them before Christmas! Mine can be purchased here:

https://tinkycooks.com/tinkys-books/

Alice with Little Jackson Santini

Dennis’s Jalapeño Dip

I should note that Liza and Dennis disagree on the proportions in this dip. Liza finds the topping a bit much and would prefer to reduce it by a quarter (to 3/4 cup crumbs, 6 tablespoons cheese, 3 tablespoons melted butter). Dennis likes it just the way it is, however.

Ingredients:

for the dip:
2 8-ounce bricks cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup shredded cheese (a Mexican blend or even a nice sharp cheddar)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 can (4.5 ounces) green chiles, undrained
4 ounces pickled jalapeño peppers, rinsed and finely chopped
1 fresh jalapeño, finely chopped

for the topping:
1 cup panko bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) melted butter

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a pie pan or a medium-size baking dish. Combine the dip ingredients thoroughly; then spoon the mixture into the prepared pan.

In another bowl, combine the topping ingredients until they are well blended. Sprinkle the crumb mixture evenly over the top of the dip. Bake until the dip is bubbly and the top browns, about 20 minutes.

The Singing Brook Farmers served the dip with large wheat crackers and carrot sticks this year. “But whatever!” said Liza. Serves a crowd.

Dennis with His Dip

A Thanksgiving Pie

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2022

I have never been a great fan of pie. I know it is probably heresy to write this in New England, where pie was king in the 19th century and still holds quite a bit of sway. I love fruit, but I don’t see the point in overwhelming it with pastry by putting a crust beneath it—and usually a crust above it as well.

I do embrace pie at Thanksgiving, however. Thanksgiving is about tradition. In my family, as in most, pie is part of that tradition.

So at this time of year I haul out my rolling pin and my family recipe book. I often make apple pie, which my relatives love, or pecan pie, which pleases my Southern sister-in-law. Pumpkin pie is a family favorite, and no one has ever turned down my world-class key-lime pie, with its pleasing combination of sweet and tart.

I’m sure readers have their own special family pies, desserts without which the fourth Thursday in November just wouldn’t feel like Thanksgiving. Leave a comment to let me know what yours is!

This year I’m doubly embracing tradition by preparing my grandmother’s Mock Cherry Pie.

At the turn of the last century, this pie was extremely popular in the United States. Librarians at the University of Michigan wrote in 2014 that they had recipes for Mock Cherry Pie in a number of vintage cookbooks, including the Woman’s Home Receipt Book from 1902 and a 1920 Boston Cooking School Cookbook.

My grandmother may indeed have learned to make this pie at the Boston Cooking School, where she studied with founder Fannie Farmer the summer before her (my grandmother’s, not Fannie Farmer’s) wedding in 1912.

Unlike Mock Apple Pie, which traditionally uses crackers or bread crumbs as a substitute for the apples and thereby removes the last vestige of nutrition from a pie’s combination of sugar and carbohydrates, Mock Cherry Pie substitutes fruit for fruit.

Our cherry season here in New England is brief, maybe a couple of weeks at most. Unless they had enough cherries in their orchard to can them, New Englanders traditionally had no way to find these fruits out of season.

Mock Cherry Pie uses fruits that would have been available at this time of year to cooks in these parts: cranberries and raisins.

I adore cranberries so I would probably call this Cranberry and Raisin Pie. In deference to my grandmother and to Fannie Farmer, however, I am using the original name.

Both my grandmother and Miss Farmer (as she is always called in our home) helped shape the way I cook. They emphasized balanced meals, yet each had a sweet tooth. To my grandmother, Clara, no dinner was complete without a salad and a dessert.

They both enjoyed New England’s bounty but adapted their cooking as the seasons flew by.

I never met Fannie Farmer, and I learned that my grandmother had studied with her only when my grandmother’s dementia had clouded her memory. Unfortunately, then, I couldn’t elicit any stories about the cooking school from her. Nevertheless, Miss Farmer was important in my household as I was growing up.

We had numerous editions of the The Fannie Farmer Cookbook on our cookbook shelf. It is still the cookbook I consult more than any other work. Some cooks grew up with The Joy of Cooking. We owned a copy of that work and did look at it from time to time. Fannie Farmer was our cooking bible, however.

At this time of year when gratitude is emphasized, I am thankful for both of these practical, generous New England cooks, who influenced my approach to food. Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours!

By the way, I’ll be serving gingerbread, reading from my new book, and signing cookbooks this Saturday, November 26, at 12:30 p.m. at the Buckland (MA) Public Library. Please join us if you’re around! And of course if you would like to buy a copy of my book and can’t come, you may do so at my website. I’ll be happy to inscribe it to you or as a gift for someone.

Clara Engel Hallett’s Mock Cherry Pie

 Ingredients:

2 cups cranberries, cut in half
1 cup raisins
1-1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon flour
1 pinch salt
1 double 8-inch pie crust

 Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Combine the filling ingredients and allow them to sit for a few minutes in a bowl. (My grandmother never told me why she did this; my guess is that it was to let the raisins absorb some of the water and plump up.)

Place the mixture in the bottom crust, and cover it with another crust or a lattice top. Prick holes or cut slits in the top crust to let steam escape.

Place the pie on a rimmed cookie sheet; it has a tendency to leak while baking. Bake it for 10 minutes; then reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for another 35 to 45 minutes. Serves 6 to 8.

Watch me make this pie here.