Something Lighthearted

It’s been a rough week here in Boston. We’re safe. Everyone we know is safe. We live far from the finish line, but a mile from Watertown. I don’t have anything profound or original to say about the situation, except that last week’s events have put my ongoing series of pressure cooker recipes on hiatus for the time being.

Instead, I’m going to share a story from this summer that always make us chuckle. It happened in August, during my second trimester.

Scene: Preggers Molly, sitting at the dining room table, on the phone. Rich enters, stage kitchen, and overhears Molly’s conversation

MOLLY: “It clearly said on the container “peanut butter explosion,” and I’m telling you, there was no explosion.”

RICH: “Oh my God! Get off the phone! Right now!”

MOLLY (waving him off): “Shh…”

RICH: “You’re a crazy pregnant lady. Please get off the phone.”

MOLLY: “Honey, the ice cream container specifically said that if I had a problem with their product to call the 800 number. I bought this container of ice cream because it promised me a chocolate-peanut-butter explosion, and there was no explosion. There was not enough peanut butter in this ice cream.”

A few weeks later, a coupon arrived in the mail from the ice cream company for a free product of theirs with up to a $7.99 value.

Still, this incident led me to take stock of the outsized role that the chocolate-peanut-butter flavor combination plays in my life. There were other clues: there was the fact that I didn’t hesitate to eat the squished Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup I found in my spring jacket pocket last week. (It was not delicious; we think it was from Halloween.) Another was, when I was sent a cookbook of “homemade versions of your favorite brand-name treats,” I zeroed in on the homemade Nutter Butters’ recipe, but with an important amendment: I would bake them, and then dip each end in ganache. And that’s just what I did. Chocolate Peanut Butter Explosion accomplished. At this rate, I’m never going to shed the rest of this pregnancy weight, but honestly, after this week, it really doesn’t matter.

The cookbook is Classic Snacks Made from Scratch: 70 Homemade Versions of Your Favorite Brand-Name Treats, written by Casey Barber, editor of the online magazine Good.Food.Stories. (www.goodfoodstories.com). It’s full of really great-sounding recipes for things like Nutter Butters, Mint Milanos, Twinkies, Goldfish Crackers, Funyuns, and Klondike Bars. A lot of its stuff was forbidden fruit growing up, first because my parents were more into actual fruit rather than giving us packaged treats, and, second, because a lot of it isn’t kosher.

I’m happy to report that the Nutter Butters were spot-on, and really not a big deal to make. I made these this afternoon. I was able to feed Lilli, change Lilli, dunk a diaper, put Lilli down for a rest, and also have her hanging out with me in the kitchen, in between steps. They weren’t a big deal to make, really, and I’m saying that with a 12-week-old napping nearby.

The ganache is just a basic recipe, although I want to make note that the Ghirardelli chocolate I used was purchased at Ocean State Job Lot for $2 a bar. (I bought four. They’re in the freezer.) I rarely (and by rarely, I mean, never) use Crisco, but was pleased to discover that it is sold in bars, like butter, making measurements very simple.

One Note: If you’d like to join me in donating to help the victims and families of the attack, you can do so at The One Fund.

Nutter Butters

Makes about 2 dozen sandwich cookies.

Special Equipment: Stand mixer.

*Spritz your measuring cups with baking spray to help extract all the peanut butter you’ll be using for this recipe.

Ingredients

Cookies

2 cups (8 ½ oz.) unbleached all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 pinch kosher salt

8 Tablespoons (4 oz.) chilled unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes

1 cup (7 oz.) granulated sugar

1 large egg

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup (4 ¾ oz.) creamy peanut butter

Filling

1 cup (4 oz.) powdered sugar

¼ cup plus 2 Tablespoons (3 ½ oz.) creamy peanut butter

¼ cup (1 5/8 oz.) vegetable shortening

Ganache (my recipe)

1 cup heavy cream

4 oz. bittersweet or semisweet chocolate. (I’m not going to be picky and tell you to use the good stuff. If you only have chips in the house, they’ll work just fine.)

Directions

Make the Cookies:

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl; set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together on medium-high speed for 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and stir in the egg and vanilla on low speed. Add the peanut butter and stir on medium speed for 2 minutes more.

On low speed, stir in the dry ingredients a half cup at a time until just incorporated.

Spread 2 large sheets of plastic wrap on clean surface and divide the dough into 2 equal parts on the sheets. Wrap each piece tightly to form a rough cylinder about 8 inches long and 1 ½ inches in diameter. Place the dough logo in the freezer for 30 minutes.

(Please note: Lilli woke up from her nap at this point, so the peanut butter dough logs were a little more frozen than they should have been. All I needed to do was have the logs rest on the counter for a minute or two until they were a little less freezing.)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpat liners.

Cut the chilled dough into thin (no more than ¼ inch) slices and place on the prepared baking sheets. Put the sheets in the oven for 30 seconds, then remove and form each cookie into a rough peanut shape by squeezing the sides gently in the middle to form grooves.

Return the sheets to the oven and bake for 13 to 16 minutes, until the cookies are dry and no longer shiny on top but not yet browning on the edges. They will seem slightly underbaked, but remove them anyway. Cool the cookies completely on wire racks.

Fill the Cookies:

While the cookies cool, make the filling. Cream the powdered sugar, peanut butter, and shortening together until fluffy, using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or an electric hand mixer – first on low speed until the sugar is incorporated, then on high speed to fluff it up.

Spread the filling evenly on the flat (bottom) side of the half cooled cookies. Top with remaining cookies.

Make the Ganache:

Place chocolate pieces in a heat-proof bowl.

In a small saucepan, gently heat the heavy cream to a boil on a medium-low burner. Remove the heated cream from the stovetop and pour over the bowl of chocolate. Let stand 10 minutes. Whisk the cream and the chocolate, which will be very melted at this point.

Dip one end of each cookie into ganache and lay the cookie on a baking pan or plate. To chill the ganache, place the tray in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes.

Store the cookies at room temperature in an airtight container, with pieces of parchment paper in between the layers of chocolate-covered cookies, for up to a week.

Guess Mother Does Know Best

Well, it’s been six weeks since Lilli Virginia has joined us, and, like I’d learned before but had somehow forgotten, whatever plans I had for my new baby didn’t matter. It would be up to the baby to set the rules. For instance, because I thought that I’d never have a chance to cook, I filled a freezer chest with foods and baked goods. I also thought I’d spend a ton of time wearing my baby and going for long walks along the river. Well, it turns out that I’ve actually been able to cook a few meals, and my baby screams like a banshee when I try and wear her. (You’d think after 41 weeks and 60 hours of labor she’d want to be close to my chest and heartbeat, but apparently not.)

In November, when I told my mom about my plans to cook a month’s worth of meals because I wouldn’t be able to cook, she shook her head. “Pfft. Babies sleep a lot. You’ll see. I promise you’ll be in your kitchen just as soon as you’re physically up to it.” Or, as Aleza put it over a porter (hers) and a chocolate banana milkshake (mine), “you’ll just bring the baby into the kitchen.” Well, it turns out that they were totally right: Babies do sleep a lot, and thanks to the generosity of Lilli’s cousins Jack and Ari, she has a swing, chair and bassinet, all of which I have rolled or carried into the kitchen.

So, I have been able to cook and I’ve actually started baking bread, too. Tuesdays my mother comes in from Western Mass, and on Fridays my mother-in-law comes in from just north of Boston. Neither ever comes empty-handed, but I’d like to focus on the goods my mother packs. Like Mary Poppins, her bag seems to seem endless and full of perfect little things you didn’t know you wanted until they’re in front of you.

One week there was some roasted salmon and briny cucumber salad. Twice she’s brought us cantaloupe that she’s stood at the counter and cleaned for us, storing chunks in one of my leftover yogurt containers that is now part of my Tupperware collection. Another time there were blueberries that I sprinkled over my breakfasts of overnight oatmeal.  A tub of egg salad, whole wheat rolls and an avocado. Two cooked artichokes that Rich and I ate for a Shabbat meal (Lilli had to sit in her bouncy chair for that one; artichoke eating is best done with two hands.)

And Mom’s  not just bringing meals for us, she’s bringing random vegetables that have inspired me to  stand in my kitchen and get back into the groove. A gorgeous green pepper found its way into shakshuka. Green beans were steamed and added to a Nicoise salad. Cabbage slaw that I turned Vietnamese.

 
Last Tuesday, she brought fennel. “Open up one of your cookbooks,” she encouraged me. “Go on, choose a recipe.” I had a recipe in mind from a Lidia cookbook. I’d made it years before, and I remembered how tasty it was. You can see in the photo that I’ve tossed it with farfalle. That way it became an entire meal for us – I said I’m cooking, but not that much. Leftovers, people! (Note: I decided I didn’t like how the finished product photographed, so here are a few photos of Lilli, instead.)

Her Purim costume will fit better by Halloween.

Lidia’s recipe calls for about three pounds of fennel; the one Mom brought came out to a little less than a pound once its stalks and fronds were removed. I scaled the recipe to suit the changes in fennel size, but am keeping the recipe here as it stands in her cookbook. It’s a seriously tasty dish. The sweetness of the fennel really works well with the salty capers.

Skillet Fennel with Capers from Lidia’s Italy

Ingredients
⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 pounds fresh fennel, trimmed and cut into 1-inch chunks
2 ½ cups sliced onions
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt or kosher salt, or to taste
¼ cup small capers, drained
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Recommended Equipment: A heavy-bottomed skillet or saute pan, 12-inch diameter or larger, with a tight-fitting cover
Directions
Pour the olive oil into the skillet, and set it over medium heat. Dump in all the fennel and onions, season with the salt, and stir and toss well.

Cover the pan tightly, and let the vegetables cook and caramelize slowly, stirring occasionally. Adjust the heat as necessary so they’re sizzling, softening, and cooking in their own moisture, but not burning or browning too fast.

After 15 minutes, stir in the capers; if the fennel pieces appear dry, add a few tablespoons of water too. Cook another 15 minutes, tightly covered, stirring now and then, until the fennel is tender and tinged golden brown. If they’re pale, or you want deeper color, cook them uncovered for a few minutes.

Taste, and season with salt if you want; grind on pepper to taste just before serving, nice and hot.

Oh My Darling

People prepare for babies in different ways. Some set up their nurseries and make sure their cribs are positioned for optimal natural light. Others spend the weeks leading up to the big day by pre-washing the little one’s wardrobe. Most everyone has their car seat installed at the local police or fire station.

Unrelated gratuitous baby photo

I faced a dilemma: on the one hand, Jewish tradition frowns on bringing baby things into the house before there is an actual baby; on the other, hand I am an inveterate planner. Perhaps not surprisingly, I found my solution in the kitchen. I spent the weeks leading up to Lilli’s arrival cooking, baking and freezing foods to make the first few months less stressful.

Give the people what they want…

“I need to serve something to our guests that come by for a visit,” I explained to Rich about the added hours I spent in our kitchen. “I’m pretty sure people are supposed to bring you the food, honey,” he replied. And it’s true, a nice meal train has been set up through our synagogue, although it has been somewhat derailed by snowstorms and flu season.

I was vindicated this weekend. We had Lilli’s baby naming on Presidents’ Day (no pressure, Lil). She already had her name, but this was a Jewish ceremony to announce her Hebrew name and explain the origins of her other names. It’s a rough analog of a bris, minus the delicate surgery. If you’re interested, you can watch the video of the service on YouTube:

It was really touching to see all the people who came to celebrate the occasion with us. My guess is around 80 people showed up on Monday morning.

One more, but that’s it for now…

On the day before we hosted some of our out-of-town guests at our house: my Cousin David, his girlfriend Wendy and Brian Levinson, who made the drive up from Queens (commiserating about the Mets the entire way, no doubt), and Sylvie and Miriam who had flown up from DC. Suffice it to say, I was quite pleased with myself because I had defrosted this clementine cardamom pound cake I had baked, weeks in advance, for just such an occasion.

Boxes of clementines are pretty ubiquitous on kitchen counters this time of year. In the late stages of my pregnancy, I’d taken to eaten them to spur Lilli, who was an exceptionally quiet fetus, to give me a reassuring kick or two. It became such a thing that for about a week Clementine was a serious baby name candidate.

Before I ate all of them, I thought it best to bake a cake with some of them. I hunted around the Internet and came up with a Nigella Lawson recipe that called for boiling, grinding and then adding nuts — not unlike this blood orange and pistachio cake Sara and I made last year (although I have a feeling ours was better). Too much work for the ninth month of pregnancy, even for me.

I finally found what I was looking for on Food52. All this recipe called for was zesting and juicing the fruit, and I loved the idea of the cardamom adding a spicy warmth to the cake. Although spices can get expensive, I’ve found bags for very cheap at the Armenian stores in Watertown. Also, one cardamom pod goes a long way, so even if you end up at Whole Foods, in the long run, the price isn’t bad at all.

After I removed this cake out of the oven and it cooled down, I wrapped it in a few sheets of tin foil, labeled it and stuck it in the freezer. It defrosted beautifully in less than an hour just by unwrapping it and setting it out on the counter.

Clementine Cardamom Pound Cake by SavvyJulie on Food52

Ingredients

1 1/2 sticks butter, softened, plus more for the pan

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

3 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1 Tablespoon clementine zest, from about 2 clementines

4 Tablespoons clementine juice, from about 2 clementines

1/4 cup milk

Directions

Heat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour a 9x5x3″ loaf pan.

Cream the butter, olive oil and sugars together until smooth.

Mix in the eggs, one at a time, until completely blended.

Stir in 1 cup of the flour, followed by the salt, vanilla, cardamom, clementine zest and juice.

Add the milk and the rest of the flour. Beat until the batter is smooth and consistent, but do not over-beat!

Scrape the cake batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the edges are browned and just pulling away from the sides of the pan, and a cake tester inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Run a knife or spatula around the edges of the cake to release it from the pan, and flip onto a wire rack to cool completely before slicing and serving.

My Best Recipe Ever

I have something special for you today.

Her name is Lilli Virginia, and she joined us on January 25, 2013 at 6:55am.

She’s our little peanut, weighing in at 6 pounds and 4.6 ounces, and 19.5 inches in length. She’s the spitting image of her daddy, but I’m hoping and wishing for blonde hair.

So sorry for springing this on you so suddenly: Jews are very superstitious when it comes to pregnancies and babies. No baby showers, no nurseries. In fact, we didn’t bring anything for the baby into our house until there was an actual baby.

I’ll be sharing stories and dishes from the past nine months that I’ve held on to. And, for about a month leading up to Lilli’s arrival I baked and cooked an entire freezer full of meals and snacks. I’ll be sure to share some of those recipes with you, too. But for now, all I’m making are lots of baby burritos.

Lilli is the best thing I’ve ever cooked.

He Had a Hat

Let me begin this with a classic Jewish joke: A Jewish grandmother takes her baby grandson to the ocean for the first time. For the occasion, she has dressed him in a smart little sailor outfit. Without warning, a large wave folds over the young boy and swoops him out into the ocean. The grandmother looks up at the sky, “Please God, save my grandson. I will do anything if you return him to me. I will pray daily, I will volunteer weekly. Please God, I will do anything.” In a flash, another wave hits the beach, and the grandson washes up on the sand. The grandmother looks the boy over, then looks up at the sky and says, “He had a hat.”

For Chanukah this year, my parents sent me The Smitten Kitchen cookbook. (My dad in Jerusalem sent me Jerusalem; more on that later.) Deb’s magnum opus really is fantastic. We’ve enjoyed the cranberry crumb bars with mulling spices, and the slow-cooker black bean ragout. And last Friday, I made the gooey cinnamon squares. These really are a revelation. They are part snickerdoodle, part gooey butter cake, with a cinnamon top that’s a bit like crème brûlée. As Deb explains, “The base is slightly more cake than cookie, the topping is a cross between a toasted marshmallow and cinnamon toast, and if you just read that and haven’t shut this book to make this happen in your kitchen immediately, I’ve failed.”

So I made them. They were fantastic. But I have one quibble. The way the recipe is laid out in the cookbook is, well, it’s frustrating. On the first page is Deb’s wonderful story about her love of snickerdoodles, and in a column running alongside the story are the ingredients for two parts of the recipe. But to see what to do with said ingredients, you have to turn the page for the actual recipe directions and the cooking notes. So, I found myself flipping back and forth to make sure I had all the right ingredients for each section.

So yes, these bars are a miracle. But Mr. Cookbook editor, he had a hat.

Notes: If you’re feeling a little queasy at the thought of using corn syrup, or if you’re in England (Hi, Bloom cousins!), both golden syrup and honey work equally well.

Gooey Cinnamon Squares from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman

Ingredients

Soft Cookie Base

8 tablespoons (115 grams or 1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature. Plus more for the pan

1 ½ cups (188 grams) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

½ teaspoon baking soda

(Or, Deb says, substitute 2 teaspoons baking powder for the soda and the cream of tartar.)

¼ teaspoon table salt

¾ cup (150 grams) sugar

1 large egg

¼ cup (60 ml) milk

 Gooey Layer

¼ cup (60 ml) light corn syrup, golden syrup, or honey

¼ cup (60 ml) milk, half-and-half, or heavy cream

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

12 Tablespoons (170 grams or 1 ½ sticks) butter, at room temperature

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (225 grams) sugar

¼ teaspoon table salt

1 large egg

1 ¼ cups (155 grams) all-purpose flour

 Topping

2 Tablespoons (25 grams) sugar

1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch cake pan with at least 2-inch sides with parchment paper and either butter the paper and sides of the pan or coat them with a nonstick spray. Set aside.

Prepare the cookie base

Whisk together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the 8 tablespoons butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and the milk, and beat until combined, scraping down bowl and then beating for 10 seconds more. Beat in dry ingredients until just combined.

Dollop cookie base over the bottom of the prepared pan and spread it into an even layer with a butter knife or offset spatula. Set pan aside.

Prepare the gooey layer

Whisk liquid sweetener, milk and vanilla together in a small bowl and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter, sugar, and salt until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, scrape down the sides of bowl, and mix for 10 seconds more. Add 1/3 of flour and mix, then ½ of vanilla mixture and mix. Repeat again, twice, until all of the flour has been mixed until just combined. Dollop over the cookie base and spread carefully with an offset spatula or butter knife.

Make the topping

Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a tiny dish and sprinkle it over the entire gooey layer. It will be thick but will come out of the oven almost like a crème brûlée lid, i.e.m awesomely.

To bake and serve

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until the cookies have bronzed on top. The gooey layer will rise and fall in the oven but will still be a bit liquidy under the cinnamon crust when the squares are done. Let cool completely on a rack, then cut into 1-inch squares.

These square keep at room temperature for at least a week.

Special Delivery

Jason and Lisa were married last October. It was outdoors, in a state park. But before you start to comment about how cold us guests must have been, Lisa nipped that one in the bud by having greeters pass out warm apple cider when we pulled up. Just charming. Jason is a Southern gentleman, so after the ceremony, as we walked into the reception, each guest was handed a mint julep to sip. Loved that. Oh, and Lisa and her mom had gone to the orchard and made pounds of apple sauce that they’d canned and topped with lace. Another perfectly lovely little detail.

And about six weeks ago, Lisa and Jason had baby Emma. Considering that I may have left the wedding with more than one jar of her applesauce, it was time to pay it forward. I know there’s only so much cooking one can do with a newborn (can you believe that baby Miles is now walking?!?!), so last week I spent a little time in the kitchen making a meal for the new parents. Then we packed up the car and headed over to JP for a visit and snuggle with their little peanut.

Pasta travels well, so I went with a favorite dish of mine from the Zuni Café cookbook. I’m surprised at how many times I’ve made this but hadn’t shared it here. It’s full of things I love, like well-fried broccoli and cauliflower, salty capers, chopped anchovies, and briny olives There’s crushed fennel seeds, though the recipe does suggest using minced fennel bulb if you have it on hand. They also suggest substituting pecorino romano if you don’t feel like bread crumbs, and trading out the black olives for green ones, or even skipping the olives and anchovies. But, they plead, “don’t sacrifice the 8 to 10 minutes of care it takes to cook the vegetables to the delicately frizzled crispiness that gives the dish its great texture and variety. The sautéed vegetables are great by themselves, or a side dish with grilled or roasted poultry or meat.”

I also put together a fennel, orange and beet salad, which Lisa dubbed “the winter salad”, that I packed up in an old yogurt container and snapped a few rubber bands around for the car ride.

Notes: My best advice for the pasta dish is to prep everything beforehand. Mise en place, people. Yes, there are some recipes that you can prep as you go, but it is much easier to have everything good to go for this one. I used whole wheat spaghetti as my pasta, and they say that this one works with all sorts of chewy pasta – penne, spaghetti, orecchiette, or shells.

Pasta with Spicy Broccoli & Cauliflower from The Zuni Café Cookbook

For 4 to 5 servings

Ingredients

About 1 cup fresh, soft bread crumbs (about 2 ounces) made from crustless, slightly stale, chewy, white peasant-style bread (optional)

About ¾ cup mild-tasting olive oil

About 12 ounces broccoli, trimmed, with a few inches of stem intact

About 12 ounces cauliflower, leaves removed and stem end trimmed flush

Salt

1 generous Tablespoon capers, rinsed, pressed dry between towels, and slightly chopped

1 pound penne, spaghetti, orecchiette, fusilli, or medium shells

1 Tablespoon chopped salt-packed anchovy fillets (4 to 6 fillets) (optional)

6 small garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

About ½ teaspoon fennel seeds, lightly pounded in a mortar

4 to 8 pinches dried chili flakes

1 Tablespoon tightly packed, coarsely chopped, fresh flat-leaf parsley

4 to 5 Tablespoons coarsely chopped pitted black olives, such as Nicoise, Gaeta, or Nyons (rinsed first to rid them of excess brine)

Directions

If using bread crumbs, preheat the oven to 425.

Toss the bread crumbs with 2 teaspoons of the oil, spread on a baking sheet, and bake for about 5 minutes, until golden. Keep the crumbs on the stove top until needed.

Slice the broccoli and cauliflower about 1/8 inch thick, and generally length-wise. Most of the slices will break apart as you produce them, yielding a pile of smooth stem pieces, tiny green broccoli buds, loose cauliflower crumbs, and few delicate slabs with stem and flower both. Don’t worry if the slices are of uneven thickness; that will make for more textural variety.

Warm about ¼ cup of the oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium heat. Add most of the sliced broccoli and cauliflower, conveniently leaving the smallest bits behind on the cutting board for the moment. (They’ll burn if you add them to soon.) The oil should sizzle quietly. Swirl the pan, and leave the vegetables to cook until you see the edge bits browning, about 3 minutes. Salt very lightly and toss or stir and fold gently. Add a few more spoonfuls of oil and scrape the remaining bits of broccoli and cauliflower into the pan. Add the capers and swirl gently. Continue cooking over medium heat until the edges begin to brown, another few minutes, then give the pan another stir or toss. Don’t stir too soon or too often, or you will get a homogenous, steamy pile of vegetables instead of a crispy, chewy one. Most of the capers and vegetable crumbs will shrink into crispy confetti-like bits.

Meanwhile, drop the pasta into 6 quarts of rapidly boiling water seasoned with a scant 2 tablespoons  salt (a little more if using kosher salt). Stir, and cook al dente. Set a wide bowl or platter on the stovetop (or in the still-warm oven if you made bread crumbs) to heat.

Once the mass of broccoli and cauliflower has shrunken by about one-third and is largely tender, reduce the heat, add another few spoonfuls of oil, and scatter the chopped anchovy, garlic, fennel, and chili over all. Give the vegetables a stir or toss to distribute. Cook for another few minutes, then add the parsley and olives. Taste – every flavor should be clamoring for dominance. Adjust as needed.

Toss with the well-drained pasta and garnish with the warm, toasted bread crumbs, if desired.

Winter Salad

Notes: For this salad, I used a mandolin to thinly slice the fennel. For the orange prep, using a serrated knife, I sliced off the top and bottom of a navel orange, then sliced the skin off the fruit by following the outside curve. Then I rolled the orange onto its side, and thinly sliced the orange. Each fruit yielded about 8 slices.

I had roasted the beet the day before by preheating the oven to 400, setting the beet in a small baking pan with sides, filling it water about halfway up, adding the beet, and tenting it all with tin foil. It took about an hour to roast. When it was time to peel, I simply ran the beet under cold water and rubbed the skin off into the sink.

My apologies for not measuring out exactly how much cumin I used in the dressing. I grind my cumin seeds in a coffee grinder I use specifically for spices. I was literally taking pinches of cumin for the dressing. The same goes for the brown sugar. My best advice for the dressing is to taste until it tastes right to you. That’s really the best way to handle homemade dressings, anyways.

Ingredients

For the salad:

1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced on a mandolin

2 oranges, sliced thin

1 beet, roasted, peeled and diced into ¼-inch cubes – make sure to prep the beet last, otherwise all your other ingredients will be stained magenta

5 black olives, sliced

Place all salad ingredients in a large bowl or lay out on a platter

For the dressing:

In a small glass jar, shake together:

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

4 tablespoons olive oil

1/8 teaspoon jarred mustard

2 teaspoons brown sugar

2 pinches cumin

Taste-test the salad dressing using a piece of fennel. If it’s to your liking, pour the remaining dressing over the vegetables.

Regifting, Sort of.

Recently, someone on our floor at work went to a far off land and brought back a box of dates. (You’ll remember that the boxes of Turkish Delight are brought directly to my desk.) After watching them go untouched for a few days, I took it upon myself to bring them home for a baking project. The result was a date nut bread, which my boss told me it was “the best one she’d ever had”. The New York Times apparently agreed; the title of the recipe is “An Incredible Date Nut Bread”.

The recipe calls for pouring boiling water over baking soda, and then pouring the mixture onto the pile of chopped dates and raisins. When The Essential New York Times Cookbook editor Amanda Hesser found this recipe, she wrote food scientist Harold McGee to get his take. He replied: “My guess is that the baking soda step is a quick way of hydrating and softening the fruit, and probably turns the date bits into mush, which would help moisten the cake more than discrete pieces.” McGee also thought the baking soda would help make the cake brown, and indeed, as Hesser puts it, “the cake emerges from the oven dark and tawny.” And I can report that it smelled even better than it looked; at one point the scent of the loaf baking in the oven literally stopped me in my tracks.

Over Thanksgiving we had a visit with Sylvie and her wife Miriam at Mir’s parents place up in Maine. I had wanted to bring a loaf up as a thank you to our hosts but Syl is deathly allergic to walnuts. As it turns out, so are half of her in-laws, so I think I made the right move. But Mir’s mom said she loved date nut bread, so, using the rest of the purloined dates, I baked her a loaf and sent it to her for Chanukah. It was only after I took it out of the oven that I noticed the title of the December 1977 article from which the recipe came: “Food Gifts You Can Make at Home.”

Baking Notes: I’ve been experimenting with flours lately, and the loaf I sent to Mir’s parents was made with white whole wheat flour. I was a little nervous it would be too dry, but the feedback I’ve received has been very positive. The flour choice is entirely up to you.

An Incredible Date-Nut Bread

Ingredients

1 cup diced pitted dates

¾ cup raisins

¼ cup golden raisins

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup boiling water

8 Tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 1/3 cup sifted all-purpose flour

¾ cup walnuts, broken into small pieces

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan. Line the bottom with a rectangle of wax paper. Butter the rectangle and sprinkle with flour; shake out the excess flour.
2. Put the dates and raisins in a medium bowl. Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water and pour it over the date mixture.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl. Beat in the vanilla and egg. Add the flour and mix well. Add the date mixture, including the liquid. Add the walnuts.
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Place in the oven and bake for 50 to 70 minutes, or until the top of the cake is dark brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool for about 3 to 5 minutes, then unmold onto a rack, remove the paper, and let cool.