Sunday Dinner

Earlier today, I made sweet tea and lemonade. It's funny that my dinner is so fall-themed. In terms of fresh stuff, I had apples, kale and a sweet potato in the house.  Add packaged gnocchi. Sounds like a plan!

It all started with the sweet potato and apple. Cut 'em chunky. Season with salt,  pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon and rosemary. Throw in a couple of pinches of sugar to help with the browning. I added about a teaspoon of unsalted butter.

Toss and throw everything into a screaming hot pan. Roast in a 400 oven.  I would have used cast iron, but there's no way I'm hand washing dishes on a Sunday night. Tri-ply All-Clad works nicely.

You're looking for some deep caramelizing. Turn the pieces over so they can brown on the other side.

Once done, transfer the food from the pan. Put the pan on the stove top. Drizzle in some olive oil and add a pat of butter.  Add the gnocchi and toss to coat.

 Don't forget to season. I used some ground sage this time.

Once these are done on one side, grab another pan for the brown butter. I use cold butter on heat.

Watch the butter carefully. See it's just starting to change color at the top of the pan. This happens after the foaming starts to subside.

Add the roasted stuff to the gnocchi to make sure everything is warm.

 Slowly. Slowly.

 When the solids turn the color of toast, you're good.

 Add some of the brown butter to the pan and toss.

Plate, drizzle with more brown butter and add a little cheese. The apply added surprisingly bright flavor -- very unexpected.

This is really missing some green. Fresh rosemary and sage would have been perfect. I also could have sauteed some kale. I was concerned about how kale, rosemary and sage would go together.

Tools of the Trade

• All-Clad 8" Fry Pan
• All-Clad Petite Braiser

Thanksgiving 2009: The Pies Have It

It's a good thing that I'm still working on the Thanksgiving posts because I'm not cooking Christmas dinner this year. I'll be tackling hobby number two, sewing. I will certainly be in the kitchen New Year's Day, maybe New Year's Eve. Anyhoo. I tried to complete this post earlier this week, only to realize that I'd uploaded the pictures to the other blog's library. Grrr.

So here it is:

Again my sister-in-law's sweet potato pie ain't no joke. It really is the best sweet potato pie you'll ever taste (even without my secret ingredient). I've blogged about this before, but I'm holding to my promise to blog about everything I made for this year's meal.

Here are the sweet potatoes. These are hot from the oven. Yes, oven. Repeat with me, "Roasting intensifies flavors and brings out the natural sugars." Remember that the next time you are getting ready to boil a vegetable ...

Beat these with the paddle attachment. Add your butter a tablespoon at a time.

Add the sweetened condensed milk and sugar. Yes, this pie uses both!

Hook it up with spices and flavoring.

I add the eggs last. As usual, I lightly beat the eggs first.

Pre-made crusts this year :-( Not at all what I planned, but I found myself taking many a nap when I should have been cooking.

No shots of the finished pie. Know that it was delicious!

Pie number two was Cook's Illustrated's Apple-Cranberry Pie. I first made this in 2007. This year's was not as good as that one, but it was still good enough for me to compulsively eat pie for breakfast. That's really sad, I know. Santa is bringing me a new workout game for my Wii as punishment.

Start with cranberries, cinnamon, sugar and orange juice.

Heat it until it's the proper consistency. I didn't let mine cook long enough.

Next up? Apples!

Peel, core and slice. I sliced these a tad too thin. Toss with cornstarch, sugar and cinnamon and microwave. Yep, you microwave these before putting them into the pie. It keeps you from getting that big gap between the top crust and the filling when the pie is done.

Here's my little helper, Livvy.

Let's assemble, shall we?

Now for the apples.

Now for the top crust. There are a few steps here. First, how are you going to vent the pie? I let Livvy go to town with my pie crust cutters. The design below is her artistic brilliance. After you get the crust on, brush with egg white and sprinkle with sugar.

See all the leftover cutouts? We put those on foil and put them in the oven for a snack. I forgot they were in there. By the time the timer went off to rotate the pie, they looked like chocolate cookies!

Here's the pie:

Tools of the trade:



-Maybe I'll have this filled in by the end of January!

Eat Your Veggies

Okay. I'm back. The posts have been few and far between because I was sick Christmas and I think New Year's Day.  Most importantly, I was without a garbage disposal. Hey, I'm an old-school cook who has to have modern conveniences.  That got fixed last week, so I'm back in business.

Given the degree of laziness to which I sometimes own up to, there are nights when I do veggies only. This meal was one.  It was cold and I wanted some good fall/winter flavors.  Enter sweet potatoes and apples.

Wash, peel and cut your sweet potatoes into coins. Season with kosher salt, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg and black pepper.  Drizzle with olive oil and toss everything together.

Heat a skillet and add the potatoes.  Cook until brown.  Place these in a casserole dish.  

Thinly slice an apple. Season with the same stuff you used for the potatoes.  

Place the apple on top of the sweet potato. I had some apple cider concentrate, so I drizzled a little of that on top.  

Bake, covered, until everything is tender.  Add fresh sage and rosemary and give it a quick toss.

Pair this with some sauteed corn and a left over "stuffin' muffin" from Christmas and you got a veggie meal! (Stuffin' muffins are easy to make. Just portion part of your next batch of dressing into a muffin tin, par bake and freeze. Bam! You have individual servings of dressing ready for baking. Rachel Ray was on it with this idea!)

Tools of the trade

• Glass Mixing Bowl
• Shun Santoku
• Totally Bamboo Butcher Block
• All-Clad 10" Fry Pan
• All-Clad 7" Oval Baker