Wednesday, October 28, 2009

An Amazing Recipe Search Site


Here's an amazing website I ran across.  It contains recipes, photos and articles from most food magazines, cookbooks, newspapers, tv shows.

You can search by recipe, or by source.  I think I can safely dispose of my stacks of magazines!

http://www.projectfoodie.com/

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Severed Fingers by Martha


How about serving up a bowl full of severed fingers for your Halloween guests?  These cookies were actually pretty easy to make, were delicious and made quite a presentation.  The following recipe makes about 30 cookies.

For the finger nails:

Take about 20 blanched almonds and split them in half.  This was actually the most time consuming part of the recipe.  Soak them in a bowl with about 1 tsp. of food coloring ... your choice of color.  I used green and the almonds actually turned out pretty black.  I think a light shade of blue might be fun too.  When they reached the shade I was looking for, I spread them on a piece of parchment and dried them for about 10 minutes in the oven.  I had the oven set at about 250 for the shrunken heads.  You don't want to toast the almonds, just dry the food coloring.)

For the severed fingers:

1 teaspoon food coloring
20 blanched almonds
2 large eggs
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
½ cup butter, at room temperature
½ cup confectioners' sugar
5 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 pinch salt
1 ⅔ cups all-purpose flour

1. Heat oven to 350°. Line two baking sheets with Silpats (French nonstick baking mats) or parchment paper, and set aside.
2. Separate 1 egg. Set aside the white. In a small bowl, whisk together yolk, remaining egg, and vanilla. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine butter, confectioners' sugar, granulated sugar, and salt. Beat on medium speed until well combined. Add egg mixture, and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the flour, and mix on low speed just until incorporated. Wrap the dough in plastic, and chill until firm, 20 to 30 minutes.
4. Divide the dough in half. Work with one piece at a time, keeping remaining dough covered with plastic wrap and chilled. Divide the first half into fifteen pieces. On a lightly floured surface, roll each piece back and forth with palms into finger shapes, 3 to 4 inches long. Pinch dough in two places to form knuckles. Score each knuckle lightly with the back of a small knife. Transfer fingers to prepared baking sheets. Repeat with remaining dough. (Hint: this dough spreads dramatically, so be sure to roll the fingers extra skinny. I actually baked one to make sure I had the right size. I think if you eyeball the dough and use about 1 tablespoon of dough for each finger, that should be just about right.)
5. When all fingers are formed, whisk the egg white until foamy and brush the fingers lightly with egg white. Position almond nails; push into dough to attach.
6. Place the sheet pan in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes to firm up the dough.
7. Bake until lightly browned, about 12 minutes. Cool completely.

For presentation:

I bought a bag of long grain white rice and poured it, obviously uncooked, into a bowl to resemble maggots.  (How charming!) and then just stood the severed fingers in the rice.  The next time I make these, (and I will) I'm going to add another realistic touch.  Once they have cooled I plan to splatter them with red food coloring to resemble blood and also brush some red on the severed end of the finger.  It's almost icky how realistic these are, but they taste so good and are really fun ....

Monday, October 26, 2009

Shrunken Heads by Martha



If you're making a Halloween punch or even soup, here's a decoration that's really fun and easy to make.  It's from Martha Stewart, but this Martha's added some useful information of my own.

Use nice round apples.  Peel them and cut in half.  Remove the seeds with a melon baller.  (This is important.)  Rub the surface with lemon juice.  Take a paring knife, or use your melon baller to cut in eyes, noses and mouths.  Make the cut-outs larger that you'd expect.  (Everything shrinks!)

Place the apples cut-side down on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a sillipat.  Bake at 250 degrees.  (Now Stewart says to bake them for two hours.  I kept mine in the oven about 8 hours before I thought they looked right.)  I have a dehydrator in my convection oven and that worked great.  Also, every once in a while, I'd take one or two out of the oven and squish them gently with my hands to distort the faces.  Finally, when they are done, insert whole cloves for the eyes.

These can also be strung up and hung as decorations.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Ingrid Has Lunch With Ingrid! The Edible Island Conference, Deer Isle, ME

During my recent visit to our home on Lookout Point in Maine, I decided to attend the first Edible Island Conference on Deer Isle, one of my favorite places in Maine. The conference offered several presentations from the leaders in the local food movement, a wonderful fresh mussel or onion soup and salad farm lunch using only fresh local ingredients, and excursions to local primary producers.

The presentation that was the most fascinating was by Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch, the owners of Four Season Farm, a year-round market garden on Cape Rosier. Eliot has over 40 years of experience in organic farming and has published extensively on the subject. You may recognize Barbara’s name from her weekly column in the “Home” section of the Washington Post called “A Cook’s Garden”. She is also the author of several gardening books. Both are internationally recognized as leading authorities in the field.

Inspired by trips to France, Eliot and later his wife Barbara, began a journey that has led their farm to become a model for small-scale sustainable agriculture. I am still in awe that they are able to farm year around (all that snow!) and produce absolutely breathtaking produce. They are creative and continually improve their farming practices. They started by planting crops in cold frames located in greenhouses. Today they no longer use the costly and labor intensive cold frames, but rely on protective plant covers. They have also redesigned the greenhouses so that they shed snow and are movable. It should be noted that their greenhouses are, generally, without any supplemental heat. To make this all work, they choose the best and most suitable varieties of winter crops, practice succession planting, and have designed a complete system of garden tools and equipment specific to the needs of organic farming. Compost along with other improvements such as crab shells ensure far better than average soil composition. For more information, please refer to their website: www.FourSeasonFarm.com.

Sustainable seafood was another topic that was explored. Aaron Dority heads the Downeast Groundfish Initiative, a major campaign to rebuild a sustainable groundfish fishery in eastern Maine (www.penobscoteast.org). Ginny and Blaine Olsen, owners of Oceanville Seafood, have been focusing the last five years on organizing conservation efforts for the local shellfish industry. This has resulted in progress in restoring depleted local and historical clam populations. Terry-Anya Hayes, a wild foods educator, spoke about the local, edible landscape (www.terryanya.com).

Now, what about Ingrid? I had the privilege of meeting and having lunch with Ingrid Bengis-Palei, who has been a Stonington author and seafood distributor for 25 years. Working only with local fishermen from Stonington and Penobscot Bay, she services some of America’s premier restaurants, including Jean Georges, the French Laundry, Chez Panisse, Spago and Le Bernardin. She is a primary force behind the Island Culinary and Ecological Center (ICEC), a non-profit organization of people who love to cook. They focus on cooking with regional products while supporting a sustainable environment. They also aim to inspire others and encourage young people in the culinary and hospitality arts. Ingrid and the ICEC organized the conference as well as the special fundraising dinner with renowned chefs Jean-George Vongerichten, Melissa Kelly, Michael Leviton and Lawrence Klang, who donated their services. I unfortunately was unable to attend, but it was an overwhelming success. Check out their website: www.edibleisland.org.

Oh, and by the way, if you recently saw someone with a rather large box trying to negotiate the New York subway from the airport, that was Ingrid hand carrying fresh Atlantic halibut for a dinner by Jean George for President Obama, the Clintons, and other friends. If she does this again and you happen to see her, please do offer to lend her a hand!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Carla on the NBC website


Nice item about Carla on the NBC website .... check it out! Link to Carla Hall's Secrets of the Kitchen!

There's also a great little 1/4 page item in this month's issue of Food and Wine.

Today's Washington Post carried an item from Tom Sietsema about Ris LaCoste's restaurant in the West End opening s.o.o.n.  Tom says, "I see pigs flying!"  I see a great meal coming!

Monday, October 12, 2009

Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake



My neice, Beth, mentioned today that she was looking for a good recipe for Pumpkin Cheesecake.  I have a really nice recipe and thought I'd share it with all since it is the season .... I'd also think about adding a 1/2 tsp. of cinnamon and a touch of nutmeg to the crust.

PUMPKIN SWIRL CHEESECAKE

2 C vanilla wafer crumbs
½ C melted margarine
2 8 oz. packages light cream cheese, softened
¾ C sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
4 eggs
1 C canned pumpkin
¾ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. ground nutmeg
Combine crumbs and margarine. Press onto bottom and sides of 9" springform pan. Combine cheese, ½ C sugar and vanilla, mixing at medium speed on electric mixer until well blended. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Reserve 1 C cheese mixture; add pumpkin, remaining sugar and spices to remaining cheese mixture. Mix well. Layer half of pumpkin mixture and half of cheese mixture over crust; repeat layers. Cut through batter with knife several times for marble effect. Bake at 350o for 55 minutes. Loosen cake from rim of pan; cool before removing rim of pan. Chill.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Scott in Town

I got the following note from Scott via Facebook and told him I'd pass it along to see if anyone is available ....

"I will be in town Oct 10-14 and was wondering if you and some of the ol' gang would be interested in getting together at all for drinks or dinner out. I've tried to contact Carla several times, but I haven't heard from her at all. Even after TC I've been trying to reach her, but to no avail.


I really would like to see all of you and catch up. Well I hope we can put something together. Let me know.

Hope you are well...."