Weekly Dish

Well, hello 2010. I am happy to see you.

My good friend Kathryn, who used to feed my family regularly when she lived just blocks away but now lives in the lovely mountains of North Carolina, wrote me and some of her other friends on the first day of this New Year. She asked for recipes and ideas for getting inspired in the kitchen. Inspiration, I find, can sometimes be a tricky thing to conjure up. The New Year often works people into an inspiration frenzy: trying to get inspired to get to the gym or back on Weight Watchers or to finish that dissertation (ahem). Those are all fine and lovely goals for which inspiration certainly comes in handy. But, like Kathryn, when I get into the groove of feeling inspired in my kitchen, I start to find inspiration in other areas of life too. I’m more likely to be productive at work, to invite people over for dinner, to watch a movie with my husband, to spend time playing with my rambunctious two-year-old, when dinner is planned, groceries are bought, and I feel excited about whatever it is I get to cook for dinner.

Now, don’t let me fool you with my New Year’s exuberance. 2009 was not a year that was full of this kind of inspiration. In fact, one of the reasons I have shown up here so infrequently is because we managed to eat the same meals over and over and over, and many weeks, I cooked very few of them. Nothing much to write home about (but thank goodness David knows his way around a recipe). There are seasons for this kind of utilitarian cooking, to be sure, and we have been in one of those. But I’m really, really tired of it.

So, starting during my holiday break, I baked. A lot.

That may sound like a perfectly insane way to get oneself back into the rhythm of inspired dinner-making. But while I do not always love to make dinner, I always love to bake. For me, there is no more surefire way to have a successful hour in the kitchen than to make cookies. No one will starve if the cookies are terrible, the house usually smells fantastic when I finish, and if the cookies are good, we have exciting snacks for a whole week or two, or fun treats to give away. Perhaps this makes me a crazy lady, but if I’m really serious about dinner, I whip up a batch of cookies, make a pot of coffee, and only then do I sit down with a blank notebook, my computer, and some cookbooks.

How’s that for rationalization? (and eventually, inspiration to get myself to a gym, whether I want it or not)

These little darlings were my favorites of the lot I baked over the holidays. Fancy enough to box up and give away as gifts, not all that difficult to make, and positively delicious to eat, I loved them so much that I made them again when we got home from our holiday travels. They’re sort of like traditional thumbprint cookies, but filled with a delectably rich caramel rather than jam, and flecked with nuttiness. It’s exactly the kind of dessert I love: a perfect marriage of salty and sweet, and goes perfectly with a cup of hazelnut coffee.

As a bonus, it provided a whole two notebook pages full of dinner ideas to boot. At least that’s what I told myself when I started the second batch.

Peace and joy for 2010 to all of you who still wander upon this little blog every now and again!

Pecan Polvorones with Muscovado Filling

–from Alice Medrich’s recipe in her lovely book, Pure Dessert

Notes: I tried these cookies both with muscovado sugar (which is available at my neighborhood grocery store, but may be harder to come by at a large chain store) and regular dark brown sugar. If you can find the muscovado, please buy it; the flavor makes for a darker, more complex and intense caramel (almost toffee-like), and it’s really the highlight here. If you can’t, dark brown sugar is a fine substitute, but next time, I might add a teaspoon or so of molasses to give the plain brown sugar filling a bit more depth. You could also add butter and up the salt for more of a butterscotch flavor. I also used pecan meal, rather than grinding the pecans myself, because I had it on hand. I can imagine other nuts would work just as well here too.

For the cookie dough:
1 1/2 cups pecans
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 t. salt
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, cubed
2 t. vanilla
2 c. all-purpose flour
For the filling:
2/3 cup firmly packed muscovado sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/8 t. coarse salt

First, make the cookies:  In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, pulse the nuts until finely ground. It’s okay if there are a few little pieces, but for the most part, you want a gritty powder. Dump out the ground nuts and set aside.

Next, pulse together the sugar and salt a few times, and then add the butter and vanilla and pulse until the mixture is smooth (softening your butter will help this to happen quickly). Alternately, you can cream the butter, vanilla, and sugar and salt in an electric mixer with the paddle attachment (I only have a very small food processor, so that’s what I did, and it turned out fine). Dump in the flour and pulse (or mix) until the dough starts to come together; then, add the nuts. Pulse a few more times, until the nuts are thoroughly incorporated. You can knead with your hands at this point to make sure the dough is fully mixed, just flour them well first.

Now, you will form the cookies, but you can line them up really close together because they have to chill before baking. On a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat, place little balls of dough (about an inch in diameter) very close together. With your finger, make a deep hollow in each ball of dough, pressing in until you almost reach the surface of the baking sheet. Slide the baking sheet into the refrigerator and chill the dough for at least two hours, or overnight (I tried it both ways and couldn’t tell a difference).

When you’re ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 325. Line another baking sheet with parchment and take the cookies out of the refrigerator. On each baking sheet, place the cookies about an inch apart. They will spread a little, so give them some space. Bake each batch for 10-12 minutes, turning the sheets half-way through. The cookies should be lightly tanned on the tops and golden on the bottom.

While the oven is preheating, make the filling: Combine the brown sugar, cream, and salt in a small saucepan. Whisk, cooking over medium heat, until the mixture reaches a gentle boil and the sugar is fully dissolved. Boil for about 2-3 minutes without stirring.

Cool the sauce and the cookies briefly, and then, with a spoon, carefully pour the caramel to fill each cookie’s indentation. After filled, let the cookies cool completely before handling. The filling will set as it cools. Medrich says the recipe makes about 48 cookies, but I must have made mine too big; I came out with 36 the first time and 30 the second. If you are lucky enough to have any filling leftover, it is fabulous over vanilla ice cream, even in cold weather.

make granita! That’s what we’ve been doing at our house, anyway, and it’s keeping the end-of-summer doldrums at bay. For now, anyway. It isn’t that we’re sad to see the change in weather, or the start of school, or new work routines; beginnings are usually exciting to all of us. But they also inevitably mean the endings to other things, and summer, for our little family, is a season we are sad to leave. It affords us the time and space to be together that just isn’t possible during the busy schoolyear, and we relish the long days and later-than-usual nights spent at the park, the water fountain downtown, or just walking in our neighborhood.

We will also be sad when the watermelons are no longer lined up in neat rows beside Mr. Buddy’s Plantation Pecan table at the Farmer’s Market. Josie loves to bend down and touch each round green fruit, until she finds just the right one for us to take home. A whole watermelon goes a long way for just three people, and sometimes, despite our best intentions, we end up with a tupperware container full of cubes that have lost their freshness.

I am happy to report, however, that we do not have to say goodbye to the mushy watermelon when it’s no longer fit for eating plain; this recipe is just the thing to transform past-its-prime mush into summer deliciousness. It also does a number on a melon that, even fresh, is just so-so (which happens sometimes when you let a two-year-old pick the one you take home).

The granita is so simple — just watermelon, lime juice, mint, and a little sugar — but it is a really fun thing to have stashed in the freezer. The mint and lime boost the watermelon flavor with a hint of contrast, and you can add as much or as little sugar as the melon needs, or to suit your taste. You could freeze the mixture in popsicle molds if you have them, but plain old ice trays and a metal baking pan worked just fine too.

We try not to keep junk food in the house, and we often have plain, fresh fruit for dessert, which usually suits us all just fine (well, except for David, who really needs chocolate after dinner to thrive). It is so nice to have a special treat, though, especially for those two-year-old moments, the ones where she’s demanding something completely absurd with all of the drama she can muster (you know, like, “Go go library RIGHT NOW,” when the library, is in fact, closed). Watermelon popsicles make a nice bartering chip. And, a bonus? The ice cubes are also heavenly when placed in a glass with club soda and coconut rum. You know, in case you need to barter with someone older than two.

I can’t believe it, but this week marks the four-year anniversary of this little site. I also can’t believe that I started this blog the exact same week I began a Ph.D. program (did I really think I would need to find something else to do?!) At any rate, I’m grateful to have this record of our time here and a little history of how I’ve grown as a cook. Most of all, though, I’m thankful that this space has brought so many friends, old and new, together over these last years. Many, many thanks to all of you who’ve visited, commented, and cooked from the recipes here; it has brought me much joy to have fellow food-lovers to share my cooking adventures with. When life gives you mushy or mediocre watermelon, may you always find a way to make granita. In our household, we think that can make all the difference.

Watermelon-Lime Granita

Half a medium-sized seedless watermelon, flesh cut into chunks (about 12 cups of loosely packed chunks, yielded about 8 cups of juice)
Juice of 3 limes
handful of mint
about a 1/2 cup sugar (this completely depends on the flavor of the melon)
Dash of salt

In a blender, puree the watermelon chunks in batches. As you finish one blender-full, pour the juice into a 9 x 13 metal baking pan. On the last go-round, add the lime juice, mint, sugar (start with about 1/3 cup), and salt. Stir this batch thoroughly into the pan of juice. Taste. If you need more sugar or lime, transfer a little juice back to the blender to adjust. Continue until it tastes like you’d like to drink it straight, on the rocks (which I highly recommend, especially if you happen to have coconut rum to add). Once you’ve got the taste as you like it, pour off enough juice so that the baking pan is no more than 2/3 full, less if you want it to freeze more quickly.* Place in the freezer, uncovered. Stir every half-hour or so for the first couple of hours, then freeze solid (this takes about 3 hours, but we never make it that long; ours is always a little slushy). Scrape out with a spoon to serve.

*The extras make fun popsicles if you have some spare small plastic or paper cups: just fill, cover with foil, and poke a wooden stick in the center. I made tiny ones for Josie in a plain old ice cube tray (without the sticks).

My best friend, maid of honor, and college roommate is having a baby boy in a month or so. Christy is one of those friends who has been in my life for so long that even though we haven’t lived in the same state, much less the same dorm room, for years, being with her feels as easy and comfortable as putting on my oldest pair of tennis shoes. Here she is at Christmas:

Isn’t she adorable? This is her first baby, and I cannot wait to meet him. To celebrate, friends of hers gave a shower last weekend. If we lived nearer to one another, I would have loved to have the shower at my house, but instead, I volunteered to make the cake. There are a million reasons why this was a foolish thing for me to do: she requested chocolate with cream cheese frosting (I asked), I’ve never made a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting; the time that I have to experiment with baking is exactly zero; and, well, I’m really not that good at cake-baking.

Oh, I love to do it, don’t get me wrong. But patience, precision, and neatness are far from my strongest qualities, in the kitchen or otherwise. This list might have made a more reasonable person hesitate before assembling a recipe that can best be described as experimental, but, inspired by the possibilities of this cake at Smitten Kitchen, the combination of raspberry filling, chocolate, and cream cheese sounded so good that I spent the better part of a Sunday making the cake and praying the rest would come together when the party arrived.

My plan was to bake the cake in three pans, two to freeze and use for the actual event, and one to test with the filling and frosting to make sure the flavors worked. But, that third layer was lying around when we had dinner guests, and I couldn’t help but serve it: it looked so velvety and rich, and we had raspberry jam and whipping cream in the fridge: that would be a close enough approximation, right? The “test” version got rave reviews, but when I split the cake to spread the jam over it, I realized how moist and crumbly it was. This meant great flavor — it is a delicious, darkly chocolate cake, but I was apprehensive about assembly for the party. What if it fell apart when I put it together? Oh well, I had another month to worry about it, so I put the layers in the freezer and assumed I would have another chance to do a real trial run.

Fast forward to last week, the week of the party, and you can see how this story ends: the best laid plans and all of that. But, I am happy to report that the flavor of this cake happily makes up for the imperfectness of its appearance. No one will suspect that it came from a bakery, but that’s a good thing: it looks and tastes completely homemade. As long as you’re prepared to embrace that fact, rather than hide it beneath perfectly smooth frosting, I hope you’ll be as happy as I am to have this recipe in your stash when you need a special, celebratory cake. I decorated it with blue pansies from my mom’s yard: the P is for Pierce, the lemon leaves and pansies around the bottom are to cover up the places where the frosting rubbed off in the car, and the raspberries are to hide the places where I accidentally knocked off an edge when I removed the cake cover. I told you I wasn’t very good at this, but if I can do it, you can too. It’s so yummy, I think you’ll be glad you did.

Deep Dark Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Filling and Cream Cheese Frosting
–adapted from Gourmet, March 1999; Smitten Kitchen; and Bon Appetit, June 1999

A word about this recipe: I pulled together this cake from several sources and made a few changes. The cake recipe calls for the batter to be baked in two 10-inch pans. I have 9-inch pans, so I baked three cakes, but I only used two for the one you see in the picture. The cake freezes nicely, so next time I make it, I’ll keep the extra layer in the freezer to use another time. Once defrosted, the cakes are very moist and prone to tearing; be very careful when assembling them (or feel free to re-assemble any layers that fall apart as I did. Just don’t tell anyone). The raspberry filling makes more than enough to fill a four-layer cake, so be generous, and you’ll probably still wind up with leftovers. It’s fabulous on toast, ice cream, or stirred into yogurt. And the frosting makes a lot too, but since I am terribly messy when it comes to that step in the process, it’s always better for me to have more than I need. I  take a small container of frosting with me to fix any blemishes that occur on the journey.

For the cake:
3 ounces good-quality semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 cups hot brewed coffee
3 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup butter, melted (1 1/2 sticks)
1 1/2 cups well-shaken buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Line three 9-inch round cake pans with parchment paper; spray with cooking spray or grease with butter. Preheat oven to 300 degrees (F). In a small bowl, stir the chopped chocolate into the hot coffee until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.

Sift the dry ingredients together into a large bowl:sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Then, in the bowl of your electric mixer, beat the eggs until thickened and pale yellow, about 3-5 minutes. With the mixer running, slowly pour in the melted butter, buttermilk, vanilla, and coffee-chocolate mixture. Beat until well-combined.

With the mixer on very low speed, add the dry mixture. Turn the mixer up to medium and beat just until you can no longer see any trace of the dry ingredients.

Divide the cake batter evenly between the three cake pans. Bake at 300 degrees until a knife inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean, about an hour (I set my timer for 50 minutes and checked all three cakes every 5 minutes after that — the cake on the bottom rack finished quicker than the two on the top).

Cool the cakes completely in their pans. Run a knife around the edge and invert the layers onto racks (or parchment paper if, like me, you don’t have racks). When the cakes are completely cooled, peel off the parchment, and either, set them aside for assembly (instructions follow), or wrap tightly in plastic and foil to chill or freeze. They can be made ahead of time and chilled in the refrigerator for a couple of days, or the freezer for a couple of months with good results.

For the raspberry filling:
2 10-ounce bags frozen raspberries
1/2 cup sugar
1 T. cornstarch, sifted
Squeeze of lemon

Puree the raspberries in a blender or food processor; then press through a fine mesh sieve with a wooden spoon to remove seeds. This takes a while, so be prepared (this is a good job to do while the cakes are baking). In a small saucepan, stir the berries and sugar together, and sift in the cornstarch (or else you could end up with lumps). Stir in a squeeze of lemon, and bring the mixture to a boil. Cook and stir until the mixture thickens, about 3 minutes. Set aside to cool completely. The raspberry filling can also be made ahead and chilled or frozen.

For the frosting:
4 8-oz packages cream cheese, softened
10 T. butter (1 stick plus 2 T.), softened
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 t. vanilla

Whip the cream cheese and butter in an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until smooth and creamy. Beat in the vanilla and the sugar. Chill until the mixture is a spreadable consistency (not too hard, but not too soft).

To assemble the cake:
If the cakes are frozen, defrost overnight in the refrigerator. Split two of the cakes to get four thin layers. Lay the sturdiest one on a flat surface (either on the cake plate you’ll be serving it on or on a sturdy transferable plate), and spread with a light layer of cream cheese frosting, just enough to coat (I dollop small spoonfuls and then spread). Ladle a generous amount of the raspberry filling on top, spreading to within 1/4″ from the edge. Top with the next layer, and continue this pattern until the last layer remains. Place it on top and frost the cake all over with the cream cheese frosting. Refrigerate until time to serve.

Towards the end of February, I get a little antsy. Some might call it cabin fever, but that isn’t really accurate; I get out of the house often enough. No, my end-of-winter jitters stem from the kitchen end of things. I look in the fridge, especially at the end of the week, and I try hard to get excited about finding a creative use for the bunch of carrots languishing in the crisper or the bag of sweet potatoes that seems to never end.

But sometimes I just can’t do it.

And, so, sometimes, instead of concentrating my energies on making a healthful dinner out of the seasonal ingredients I’m desperately trying to still adore (but am secretly wishing to bid goodbye for a time), I make dessert instead.

Please don’t tell anyone.

It’s just that dinner can get a bit routine come March. We eat lots and lots of broccoli: simply steamed and tossed with sauteed garlic, dressed up a little more with cashews and soy sauce, tossed in pasta, folded into an omelet with caramelized onions, pureed with chicken broth and cheddar cheese for soup. And while I love all of these meals — truly, I am thankful that farm-fresh broccoli bears only the slightest resemblance to its tough-stemmed bland cousin carried in supermarkets, and I happily toss the tender, earthy-tasting florets and stalks into all manner of meals. These quick dinners get us through the winter without breaking our budget or sending us calling for take-out.

Yet, at the end of the day, especially fickle, neither winter nor Spring days, I find myself staring into the recesses of my tiny pantry hankering to do something more with my culinary energy. Something with a little more fanfare than broccoli, again.

Last week, when this urge struck, I found a bag of Meyer lemons calling out to me, as they so often do to waken me from my winter slumber, and they asked, quite emphatically, to be made into a simple cake.

Because I grew up in the South, heiress to a whole host of vintage recipes calling for ingredients that I don’t normally buy now that I’m a little fussier about things like chemical additives and artificial sweetners, I particularly love the idea of taking an old recipe and revamping it. I heard about this one, for lemon-lime ice box cake, on NPR’s lovely segment, Kitchen Window, some time in the fall, and when I saw those Meyer lemons, I knew this cake was the one for me.

I wasn’t so concerned with the green that make the original recipe lemon-lime, — I like the striations of yellow, personally — so I stuck with lemons for all of the citrus flavor and left out the food coloring. And, while I’m sure run-of-the-mill lemons would work perfectly fine, if the season has left you any Meyers, their tempered tartness and hints of sweet florals make this cake truly irresistible.

So irresistible, in fact, that it might just get me from broccoli to asparagus. Maybe even, come fall, I’ll be wishing for winter days and the lemons they bring. That, my friends, would be a powerful cake.

Happy Easter to one and all!

Lemon Icebox Cake
Just a single layer, topped with a simple whipped cream topping, this cake’s humble appearance belies its big flavor. Which, to my mind, makes it an even better candidate for taking to an event, like an Easter dinner — no one will expect the buttery, lemony explosion as they take the first bite, and you, the humble baker will get all the praise. Not that that’s why you bake for others, of course, but just in case it’s an added bonus you appreciate.

A couple of ingredient notes: I find measurements that suggest how many lemons you need for the amounts of juice and zest to vary so widely that they are unhelpful; I measured the quantities of both as I used them, but especially for the zest, it’s okay to estimate. Fresh lemon juice is absolutely essential; yes, it takes time to zest and squeeze all of those lemons, but the result is well worth the effort.

As for the curd, a high-quality store-bought version would probably be fine; the original recipe calls for stirring it with a little water, so that it’s the right consistency to pour over the cake. I found that the texture of homemade curd, especially just after it’s made, worked perfectly.

Lemon Ice Box Cake

For the cake:

3 cups cake flour
3 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1 cup butter, at room temp
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup buttermilk (whole milk works too)
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
2 t. grated lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Stir together the flour, salt, and baking powder in a small bowl and set aside.

In an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and continue to beat until the mixture has doubled in volume.

Remove the bowl from the mixer, and with a rubber spatula, fold in the flour mixture and the buttermilk, alternating by thirds, until both have been incorporated. Stir in the juice and zest.

Pour the batter into a greased cake pan, and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until just moist (not wet) in the center. Turn the cake onto a rack to cool.

For the curd:

1 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1 T. grated lemon zest
4 large eggs, beaten
2 T. butter, diced

Whisk together the juice, sugar, zest, and eggs in a small saucepan. Stir constantly over medium-low heat, until the mixture thickens and coats a spoon. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter. When the cake has cooled slightly (it’s fine if it’s still warm, just not oven-hot), poke holes all over it with the bottom of a wooden spoon. I like to poke holes of varying depths — for some, go all the way through to the bottom, for others, just a prick in the top, and then, some in between. Pour the curd over the punctured cake, allowing it to seep into the holes. I had about 3/4 cup of curd left over. Let the cake stand while you whip the topping.

For the topping:

8 ounces mascarpone cheese, at room temp
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 t. grated lemon zest
4 T. lemon juice

Whip the cream on high until soft peaks form. Add the powdered sugar, zest, and mascarpone; beat on medium-low until just combined. With the mixer running, slowly pour in the lemon juice. Spread the topping over the whole cake.

If you beat the mixture too long, the mascarpone will curdle, but that’s okay; it will smooth out some when you spread it on. And if it gets really lumpy and ugly, it will still taste good, but if you’re concerned about the appearance, whip some extra cream by itself to spread on top (like I did).

You can serve it warm — straight from the pan — or refrigerate and serve it cold. We liked it equally well both ways. It cuts into neater pieces once it’s been chilled.

–Adapted from April Fulton’s adapted recipe on NPR’s Kitchen Window 

Hey everybody. Happy New Year. Really, I mean that; I hope you won’t interpret my post title as an anti-New Year sentiment.

Because I actually love the idea of starting off the first day of the first month of a new year by looking ahead, thinking through goals I’d like to accomplish, dreaming about possible plans I’d like to make, anticipating what the future holds with ambition and hope and optimism.

But, for me, the looking back is more important, if only because it colors the lenses through which I see my future with a tint of needed realism. Glancing back over the past 12 months to see where I’ve been, what I’ve done, and how I’ve spent my time reveals that if I learned anything in 2007, it is that I absolutely cannot predict what my life will look like under any given circumstance.

For instance, everyone says that having a baby changes everything. But, I found, until you have one yourself, living under your roof, occupying space in your routine, working her way into every second of every one of your days, you absolutely cannot imagine how those changes will affect you personally. Yes, it is a universal truth that babies change your life. So many people told me that. But I think it might also be true that how a baby changes each person’s life is remarkably different, uniquely tailored to each individual parent and each individual baby. And no one told me that part. For, in January of 2007, when I looked ahead to May and tried to picture our life with a baby, I could not possibly have imagined the reality of Josie in all her Josie-ness. Perhaps that’s why we are almost forced to speak of parenting in cliches, because the experience, with its ever-nuanced individualism, evades articulation.

And still, here I am, trying to articulate what it has meant to be a mom, or more precisely, what it has meant for me to be a mother to this one little baby girl named Josie.

And that is perhaps the most surprising thing to me of all: that in the midst of the busiest I have ever been, I feel compelled to carve out at least a few moments here and there to get into my kitchen and make something and to return to this little space and write about it. Mostly about the food, but also, as it is impossible for me to separate food from how I understand myself, about how I am making sense of my life in these busy days. I may not be the most regular of bloggers, (here is where I am not promising to do better because who knows if that will be possible or not?), or the most consistent of commenters on other blogs (here is where I tell you that I would so, so like to promise to do better because I really do read lots and lots of your blogs when I find the time, but almost always it is after the commenting conversations are long over), or the most reliable of responders to the very nice comments left here (and here I am having to use every ounce of self-control I can muster not to promise, but just to say that I am making a concerted effort to do better on this front, to jump into the comment conversation, even if a few days late, even if just to say, “Hey Everybody, thanks for saying you were here. It really does mean a lot, and it is rude of me not to say so.”). But I am so very grateful for every one of you who take the time to read the words I put out there, to try the recipes I bring you, and especially to communicate with me about what you’ve read or tried.

My gratitude is really all I feel capable of promising at the beginning of this year, as I hate the thought of making promises I won’t be able to keep. We all have to start somewhere, though, and one could do worse than committing to feel thankful.

Now, it seems I promised you an egg white recipe.

If you made the orange butter cookies, you will find yourself with 4 lonely egg whites with nowhere to go. I hate to see much of anything go to waste, but especially egg whites, because it is so easy to whip them into something lovely. Like a meringue. If you have a pie to top, you can certainly make meringue for that purpose, but I like to make little meringue shells to have an easy dessert on hand for dinner guests. Once the meringues are baked, slice some strawberries, or top with a dollop of lemon curd or bittersweet chocolate, and you have a gorgeous presentation in a snap. They look like little pillows of cloud or piles of snow, and they crunch with the bite of sugar without any heaviness — almost like sweetened air, concentrated into a crispy white case. They won’t be the most complicated dessert on the table, but with the right filling, they can be quite pretty (unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of a filled one because all of mine got eaten.) At least you’ll have turned leftover egg whites into something pretty and sweet, a sort of blank canvas to fill as you like. Sort of like a new year. I won’t make any promises about what yours will turn out to be like, but here’s hoping it’s filled with many good things. Happy 2008, everyone!

Meringue Shells

–adapted from The All New Joy of Cooking

The one rule for making meringues is not to step away from the mixer. The texture changes quickly, and you don’t want to miss the right time to add the sugar or stop beating. I also have had better luck with the crispy texture I like on cold, dry days, which is perhaps why I always end up making meringues in winter. They will keep in an airtight container for about a week before they lose their crunch. My favorite way to serve them is by filling the cavity with sliced strawberries, drizzling a little strawberry jam on top, and finishing with a spoonful of plain whipped cream, but fill with whatever strikes your fancy. They are versatile enough to handle a lot of variations, just be careful with overly sweet fillings — the meringues themselves provide most of the sweetener you’ll need.

1/2 cup egg whites (the 4 whites from my 4 large eggs measured exactly 1/2 cup)
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup granulated sugar, whirred in the food processor for a couple of minutes
Preheat your oven to 225 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar on medium speed, until soft peaks form and the whites are all foamy, like this:

Now, turn your mixer to high, and sprinkle in the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, very gradually, until the mixture holds stiff peaks and becomes very shiny, like this:

Now, spoon out puffs of meringue onto the baking sheet, carving out a hollow with the back of your spoon, so the shells look like this:

Bake for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, depending on how you like the texture. David likes his to be soft in the center still, sort of marshmallowy, so I tend to take them out after 1 1/2 hours. If you want them very crispy all the way through, leave them for the full 2 hours. You can also turn the oven off and leave them in there to cool and dry out even more. This recipe will make about a dozen fist-sized shells. They will keep in an airtight container for at least a week, longer if it’s cold and dry outside (at least in my experience).

By nature, I am not a baker. Bakers, see, are precise. And organized. And neat. Rule-followers, usually. I am a cook. Intuitive, messy, and definitely a spirit-of-the-recipe kind of girl.

But, oh how I love to bake. Yes, this seeming paradox sometimes manifests itself in a great big doughy mess — cakes, especially, sometimes go terribly, terribly wrong under my erratic hand. Sometimes, though, every so often, a recipe for a baked good just feels right. As if I could do it little harm, even if I tried. These are the sorts of recipes that fall into my kitchen routine quietly, and before I know it, I’ve made the same kind of cookie or muffin or bready item a dozen times, and by some happy accident, they have turned out deliciously every time.

I first made these sandy butter cookies last holiday baking season, after I read about them on Orangette. Molly is right — this is quite an unassuming cookie, nothing much to look at. But it is exactly the sort of cookie that you can pile high on a plate, and before you know it, the plate has only tiny little crumbs to show for all your baking work. Left out, these cookies just get eaten, that is all there is to it.

I made these a number of times through the course of citrus season last year — I love them with Meyer lemon zest, as the original recipe calls for, but as you know, I have a supply of orange zest needing to be used. Orange zest marries so marvelously with plain old butter and sugar, I thought it would land happily in these simple little cookies.

Everyone has her own form of procrastination, and mine happens to be baking. So last week, when I should have been working on the semester’s final projects, I decided to make cookies for my students to eat while they took their final exam. David thought this recipe was an odd choice — he says these cookies are too sophisticated for college students’ palates. Perhaps he’s right, but as happens when they’re at our house, the platter piled high with cookies sat empty as my last student turned in her stapled stack of papers. As she walked out the door and wished me happy holidays, she turned around and said, “Oh, by the way, those cookies are good.”

Indeed they are. Simple, yes. But the separate flavors — orange here, a kick of sugar crystal there, finished with a bite of salt — come together after the crumbly texture has dissolved to make you want to take just one more bite.

Before you know it, you’ll be itching to make them again. Perhaps, like they have done with me, these cookies will work their way into your holiday baking ritual, and before you know it, you’ll have made them a dozen times. Happily they make great gifts. Or so I tell myself when I’m trying to remember what happened to all those little buttery disks.

Citrus Sables

–Amanda Hesser, via Orangette

Molly says you can bake and freeze them to give away, and that would be a lovely thing to do if you could keep from eating them all. That hasn’t happened around here yet, but I’m planning to wrap up the next batch to send with a couple of holiday care packages. They might not mail terribly well — they crumble a lot — but maybe if wrapped really well, they’ll do okay. I have frozen the wrapped cylinders of batter with good success; in fact, for a while, I kept at least one log of dough in the freezer for good measure — just in case a rainy cookie day appeared out of the cold, clear blue sky.

I usually hate recipes that call for only egg yolks or whites. Once I tried these, though, and kept making them, I had to think of something to do with all those whites, as I can’t stand to throw them out. Hang onto yours and stay tuned — a 4-egg-white recipe is coming your way shortly.

Other than that, the recipe is pretty straightforward, and I haven’t changed it much. I used demerara sugar in place of the turbinado, (Do you know demerara sugar? It is a lovely, lovely molasses-esque coarse sugar that I have grown to adore. They have it at my local grocer’s, and if you come across some, buy it. You’ll be happy you did.) and substituted orange zest for the Meyer lemon.

One urging — don’t skimp on the salt, and whatever you do, don’t use plain old table salt. What happens when you stir the coarse salt in at the end is that the granules hold their shape rather than dissolving into the batter, so the flavor is concentrated in tiny little bursts (rather than making the cookies salty). If you’re skeptical, at least try it with the full 3/4 teaspoon. It will look like a lot, but once you bite into a cookie, I think you’ll be glad you did.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 t. baking powder
2 T. orange zest, grated (or other citrus zest)
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 t. coarse sea salt
4 large egg yolks
1/3 cup coarse sugar, like demerara

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.

In a small bowl, combine the baking powder and flour. Toss in the orange zest and stir until it’s coated with the flour mixture.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugars with the paddle attachment until smooth and creamy. With the mixer running, add the egg yolks. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if you need to to make sure the egg is fully incorporated into the creamed butter and sugar.

Turn the mixer down to low and add the flour mixture, a little at a time, just until the flour is no longer noticeable. Stir in the salt.

Divide the dough into 4 equal portions. Drop each portion onto a piece of plastic wrap, and using the wrap to work the dough, form it into a long, slender log. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Now the cookies are ready to slice and bake; I’ve left them in the fridge for as long as a week, or you can freeze the logs of dough by wrapping them in foil or dropping them into a plastic freezer bag.

When you’re ready to bake, spread the coarse sugar onto a plate. Roll each log of dough in the sugar, pressing with your fingers to make sure it sticks. Slice disks of equal thickness (about 1/4 inch) and place on the baking sheet. They will spread out a little bit, so leave a little space between them. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the bottoms take on just a hint of color and the edges are beginning to turn golden. Makes somewhere between 6 and 7 dozen cookies, depending on the size of your slices.

Last fall, David and I bought an orange tree to plant in our yard, next to the Meyer lemon tree he bought for the first birthday I celebrated in Baton Rouge, right under our bedroom windows. We’d just found out that I was pregnant with Josie, and the tree planting felt symbolic somehow, a visible reminder of the life I was busy growing inside of me. Oh, I know, I’m such an English teacher — my students would tell you that I find everything symbolic. Still, the orange tree meant something. Something important, even if just to me.

When we bought it, the man at the nursery told us that citrus trees are generally safe to plant here because it only freezes in southern Louisiana about once every ten years. Citrus trees don’t like to be frozen.

The winter after we bought our orange tree (and many other non-freeze-tolerating plants), only the second winter we’d lived here, it froze. Twice. The hibiscus leaves shriveled, the elephant ears bowed their heads to the ground, and the basil finally kicked the bucket. But the citrus trees, especially the orange tree, I was determined to protect. During the week of the freeze, David would scamper outside before we went to bed, and stake up bedsheets to cover the little still-green shrubs. Every morning, I’d wake up and look out the windows to see if I could tell if they were still alive. And every morning, they were.

So, when they blossomed in the spring, basking our backyard in a sweet, flowery aroma, just weeks before my due date, my attachment grew stronger. I photographed them and talked to them and breathed in their heady scent with a sentimentality that is probably particular to women in the third trimester of pregnancy.

And, as the rules of nature dictate, the flowers eventually gave way to tiny round green globes, and Josie made her way from inside my belly out into the big bright world.

Once the oranges were there, hanging from the branches, they didn’t do much deserving of notice. They were growing, to be sure, and every so often, I’d glance out the window and think, “Wow, those are really getting bigger.” Unlike the care they required to keep them alive during the freeze, or the showy way their flowers demanded attention with their unmistakable scent, the little green oranges grew inconspicuously, day by day, drinking up the sunlight and water they needed to ripen.

Until, one day a few weeks ago, they seemed ready to be picked. I took my basket outside, gathered the small, orange orbs, and brought them into my kitchen. I ate a couple of them just as they were, but they don’t have the most exciting flavor. They are sweet, but subtly so, and not very acidic. The scent of the zest, however, is overpoweringly orange-y, so I grated it all, and started trying to decide what to do with it.

David went through a scone phase over the summer — he tends to bake in frenzied sprees: first, there were muffins, then cookies and biscuits and bread, and, for a while, scones. I remembered that he made the orange chocolate chip ones from Once Upon a Tart…, and they were good, but we agreed that the chocolate overwhelmed the delicate orange flavor, and made them quite rich for breakfast.

So, with the zest and juice from our newly harvested oranges, we made scones, buttery, soft scones with a lovely whisper of orange in every bite. As we sat on our deck this past Saturday, nibbling scones made from our first oranges and watching our giggly baby, now almost seven months old, I was reminded that the emergence of life is at once the most ordinary and the most remarkable event, no matter how expected or natural or commonplace.

And so it is with food, it seems, as our daily existence requires that we fuel our bodies with what the earth produces, or some variant of it, but that act, the act of feeding ourselves and each other, however everyday and routine, can possess great magic. Perhaps I am imbuing a simple scone with more meaning that it deserves, but I have to tell you, as I sat with people I love, eating food that my hands had made from ingredients our little patch of earth had grown, I felt a sense of connectedness and joy that I don’t find in many other areas of life. As the busy, harried holiday season is gaining speed, I hope that you will find a way to share a little food magic with people you love. And, if you happen to want that magic to come in the form of a scone, I highly recommend this one.

It is, after all, the season for both citrus and sharing. Happy magic-making to all!

Orange Scones

4 cups all-purpose flour
4 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 t. freshly grated nutmeg
3 sticks butter, diced
4 large eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. almond extract
1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice*
1/4 cup orange zest (loosely packed strips)*
2 T. orange marmalade (optional)**

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, and nutmeg until well-mixed. Add the butter and work it into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender. Be careful not to over-mix; you just want to blend until there aren’t visible traces of the butter and the mixture looks like little round crumbs. (Jerome and Frank say to do this in a food processor, but we don’t have one big enough.)

Toss the orange zest with the flour and butter (I use my hands; you just want the zest to get evenly distributed).

In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, and then stir in the vanillla, almond extract, orange juice, and the marmalade, if using. Pour this mixture on top of the buttery crumbs, and fold, just until the dough sticks together and the flour has disappeared. (Jerome and Frank recommend a wooden spoon for this job; I like to use a sturdy spatula). Watch carefully to prevent over-mixing. As my friend Tee will tell you, over-mixing makes for a tough baked good. (And just in case you’re put in charge of mixing in his kitchen, be very careful! He hates to see anything over-mixed, much to the amusement of his wife, Kathryn, who probably over-mixes just to annoy him.)

Spoon the dough onto the parchment-lined baking sheets in scant 1/2-cup rounds (about a palmful of dough from my hands). Make sure to leave space between the scones, as they will spread as they bake. You may have to bake in batches, depending on the size of your baking sheets. Bake for 18-24 minutes, or until the tops are golden and the edges are beginning to brown. Serve immediately. Baked scones are only good for the next couple of days, but the batter will keep in the fridge for at least a week. We usually bake 4 at a time until the batter is gone. It will make about 12 scones.

*You’ll need about 3 medium-sized oranges or 2 large ones for the zest and juice; I use the long strips of zest you get from using a claw zester.

**We’ve made the scones with the marmalade and without (it’s not something I keep in my fridge), and I can’t really tell a difference, so I’ll leave it out from now on.

–Adapted from Once Upon a Tart… by Frank Mentesana and Jerome Audureau

Finally, air I can breathe.

This has been a cool week for September in Louisiana: nothing drastic, mind you, but a hint, an ever-so-slight breeze, whispering the promise of seasonal change. And a hint is all I need to breathe deeply on my walks through campus, filling my lungs with air that is lightened by the chill it carries, leaving behind that old, saggy heaviness of late, damp summer. At least for a time, and a time I plan to enjoy.

That’s the thing I both love and hate about weather in the Deep South: it is always likely to change. People around here often say that if you don’t like the weather today, just wait around for a week or so. That seems especially apt advice during this in-between season, the space in the calendar when summer can’t really decide whether she’s ready to give up her time yet, and autumn is gently edging her way in, one tiny, cool breath at a time, as if waking slowly from a long, sweet dream. For the next several weeks, it will likely be hot, hot, and then cooler in the mornings, rainy some afternoons, hot again, and then cooler still, until, one morning, I’ll wake up, and there will be leaves covering my front walk, and I’ll grab a jacket on my way out the door.

Perhaps it’s because of the seasons that change comes so slow to this part of the world, this sometimes-sleepy bastion of a certain staunch resistance to tomorrow looking too different from today. Autumn had best ease her way in without too much fuss; otherwise, folks might start to get nervous. There are good and bad things about this quality, of course, but being a person who thrives in the middle ground — I may be labeled many things, but an extremist is not likely to be one of them — I particularly like the gradual approach of a new season. It gives me time to anticipate, time to say goodbye to the last of the long, hot days, time to reflect on just how lovely it is to feel that extra spring in my step that a cool nip in the air brings with it.

It also gives me time to make the most of the last of the summer harvest, little signals to remind me that the produce at the market will come in different hues and shapes in the coming weeks, and I’d better enjoy what’s here now, while it lasts.

Some people, I know, have that exact complaint against eating locally and seasonally: because we, in this country especially, are so used to having what we want when we want it, we don’t much care for being told that we can’t have tomatoes in January. And so, our supermarkets ship in tasteless, mealy, pinkish shadows of fruit to meet their consumer demand, losing any connection to the rhythms of an earth that produces in cycles, that figures time in spirals, rather than in one, straight continuous line.

I am as guilty of this mentality as anyone else when it comes to certain things; I’d have to make some serious adjustments to my cooking if I had to do without, say, lemons, or avocados for any extended period of time. But when it comes to what’s available at my local farmer’s market, I’m pretty committed to buying what’s in season while it lasts and then going without until its season returns. If this sounds like a big sacrifice, it really isn’t: after feasting on summer-ripe tomatoes, my tastebuds would refuse the supermarket variety anyway — seasonal, local principles or no.

One of my favorite things to savor while it makes its brief appearance at the market are sweet, fresh figs. For me, figs are one of those lovely seasonal surprises: when the heat around here becomes nearly too much to bear, on those Saturday mornings when I look out at the already-blazing sun and hesitate to venture out for our weekly market trip, I remember those baskets piled high with luscious fruit that only comes around once a year. Most of the time, I ration them throughout the week, slicing up a few here and there to eat with only a tiny dribble of cream, or to top a simple salad with arugula, pecans and blue cheese, and I time myself to run out just as Saturday rolls around again. But, for the last batch or two, as the summer tinges towards twilight and the light begins to carry flecks of autumn’s amber hues, I treat my figs just a little more decadently.

This time around, the lovely Ivonne at Cream Puffs in Venice called for fig desserts just as the last of the fresh figs were appearing at my market, giving me ample reason to cloak these late summer jewels in a heady syrup of balsamic vinegar and sweet vermouth. To balance their deep, dark flavor, I whipped up a feathery pile of mascarpone cheese lightly scented with vanilla and honey. This recipe makes just enough for two, and since I am the only fig-lover in our house, I savored the whole batch, right down to the last drop of syrup (not in one sitting, of course).

Savor is also what I plan to do with these in-between days: Josie and I are enjoying late afternoons in the hammock, mornings in the swing, and midday walks around the neighborhood. The best and worst thing about these days — like the figs I love so much — is that they won’t last forever, so there’s nothing to do but drink in as much of the blue, blue expanse of twilight before it fades to night. The best news of all, though, is that if you miss your chance to dwell in the in-between, to savor the last of the seasonal fruit before its time is up, the season will return.

If figs are any indication, it will taste sweeter for the waiting.

This simple little dessert is my entry for this month’s Sugar High Friday, hosted by my fellow fig-lover, Ivonne.

Glazed Figs with Honey-Vanilla Mascarpone

This is the perfect dessert to serve after dinner: whip up the mascarpone and cook the figs and syrup before you serve the meal, and by the time you’re ready for something sweet, the figs will have cooled and the syrup will have thickened considerably. You can serve this hot, but I liked it better at room temperature.

10-12 figs, stemmed and halved
1 T. butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 T. balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup vermouth, port, or other sweet wine
1/4 cup mascarpone cheese
1/2 t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. honey

In a heavy-bottomed skillet, melt the butter over medium heat until it bubbles (but don’t let it brown). Add the figs, cut side down, and sprinkle with the sugar. Let it cook for a minute or two, shaking the pan to evenly distribute the sugar. Take care not to agitate the figs too much to make sure they keep their shape. Pour the vinegar and wine on top and cook for 7-10 minutes more, swirling the pan often, until the mixture is reduced by half. Remove from the heat and let the figs and syrup rest (the mixture will continue to thicken as it sits).

Meanwhile, mix the mascarpone, vanilla, and honey in a small bowl until thoroughly incorporated. To serve, place a scoop of the mascarpone in the center of a plate. Surround with figs and syrup. Serves 2.

–Adapted from Sara Foster, Fresh Every Day.

In my adult life, I have had to learn to like many foods I snubbed as a child. Vegetables of all kinds, wheat bread, and eggs, just to name a few. I was a very picky eater.

One kind of food I never turned down, however, is fruit. My mom kept a bowl of apples, oranges, and bananas, and one of her favorite snacks was a ripe banana, sliced and covered with ice-cold milk. To this day, that is still the basic treatment most fruits in my house receive — I still love bananas and milk; strawberries and figs get a splash of cream; and tropical fruits like mango and pineapple, a drizzle of coconut milk. But my favorite fruit and fat combination is peaches and cream.

Perhaps it’s because peaches remind me so much of summer — after mornings at the pool, Mom would often drive us over to Landrum’s produce stand to buy the freshest ones our small town had to offer. It could also be that a version of peaches and cream has been my standard birthday dessert for as many years as I can remember. Whatever the reason, my passion for peaches has not wavered over the years, and one of the most welcome signs of summer here in Louisiana for me are the peaches that appear on Mr. Buddy Miller’s table at our Saturday farmer’s market.

Oh, sure, I occasionally throw them into a hot dessert, a crisp or a cobbler, and recently, I made them into preserves. But, truth be told, the freshest summer peaches at the height of their season should not be cooked. My mom said once that it hurts her feelings to see a fresh peach exposed to heat, and although I’ve been known to do it, I have to say that I agree.

Mom loves fruit as much as I do — that’s probably where I learned it — so when I started thinking of an appropriate birthday dessert to finish the dinner my siblings and I made to celebrate my parents’ lives last weekend, I had peaches on my mind. Because my parents were born only nine days apart, we almost always celebrate their birthdays together. This year, we volunteered to cook Sunday lunch, a job they have done joyfully for all our lives. And, I wanted to end our meal with birthday desserts both Mom and Dad would enjoy.

When it comes to sweets, Dad is easy: chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. In fact, last weekend, when my sister got out all of the ingredients to make his cake, she discovered that he’d eaten two squares of her baking chocolate. We had to substitute chocolate chips. Mom, on the other hand, is not so easy to pin down. She won’t come out and tell you what she wants because she doesn’t want you to go to any trouble on her behalf. Elizabeth did manage to get out of her that she might like something fruity, and this time of year in this part of the country, that means peaches.

I wanted something simple, a dessert designed to showcase the summer-fresh flavor of the fruit, and a way to pair it with a creamy texture. I ended up with a tart, a crumbly butter crust that fell apart, a layer of this creamy filling, and layers of fresh, sweet peaches. It tasted heavenly, but because the crust didn’t hold up, it wasn’t very pretty to look at after we cut it. The surprise sta of the show, though, was this simple creamy concoction — nothing fancy, but when paired with the bright, sunny sweetness of the peaches, it does its job: it brings out the best of the peach flavor. It’s so simple to mix up that I’ve been keeping some in my fridge for afternoon snacks. A bit decadent, perhaps, but summer won’t last for ever. Though, to be outside in Louisiana right now, you’d never know it; the heat is abysmally oppressive. So, if I indulge in an afternoon of cold peaches and cream now and again to try to combat that heat, I’ll call it enjoying what’s left of my summer. Which, as school starts next week, is quickly coming to a close. At least I have some peaches left to ease the transition.

Johanna, of The Passionate Cook, asked for local or regional specialties for this month’s edition of Sugar High Friday. This peach cream makes the best use of local peaches and is a tribute to the way we ate fruit in my house growing up. Call peaches and cream the local specialty of my childhood home.

Peach Cream

8 oz. sour cream
2 T. peach jam
2 T. brown sugar
1/2 t. vanilla

Whisk all ingredients together. Serve over fresh peaches, or spread in a baked pie shell with sliced fresh peaches on top.

One true thing about having a baby: you spend a lot of your waking hours feeding your little one. Which, for nursing moms, means a good portion of the day in a stationary position with little else to do but sit still. Oh, of course, there are the times when I just stare at her ears and her faintly receding hairline and long eyelashes like her dad’s and her chubby toes. But there’s only so much staring a girl can do in a day’s time, especially when the days stretch into weeks and weeks into months, and, well, you get the picture.

Lucky for me, I happened to time my child’s birth with the publishing of the last Harry Potter book. I read the first one ages ago, but since then, my husband has been the fan in the family. He’s read all 6 of the series, while it seems like I started the second one and never quite finished it. So, I decided now would be a good time to finish the second one and read straight on through to this last one. In case you’ve never held a hardback copy of one of the books in your hands, let me tell you, that’s a lot of pages.

As luck would have it, it happens that I’ve had some idle time on my hands, perfect for catching up on the workings of the magical world. Because I’ve read them consecutively and in such a short span of time, I’ve been working up to serious anxiety about the last book. You see, I am an ending kind of girl. Not that every story has to end in a happily ever after, mind you, but it must end properly, the right way, with closure and finality. Investing so much time in Harry and his friends has meant that I could be setting myself up to be disappointed. What if the series ends badly or in the wrong way or, worse yet, with things still up in the air?

Like good books and movies, meals should have satisfactory ends as well. Not every meal needs a big finale, of course, but on occasion, a sweet finish makes even the best main course even more satisfying. Most importantly, dessert signals that the eating is over: a sweet something tells your taste buds the eating is over. Closure for your mouth and your stomach, so to speak. Since I have not the time to spend all day baking nor do I need whole cakes, pies, or other large desserts lurking in my kitchen to tempt me, my meal closure has to come in small, easy-to-make portions.

These tiny fruit crumbles are just such a dessert. As long as you have good fruit, the method couldn’t be simpler: toss it with a bit of flour and sugar, top with a crumbly mixture of butter, sugar, and nuts or oats if you like, and pop it into the oven. You really can’t go wrong, and you can make two or ten, depending on your crowd (or your appetite).

I made these peach and blueberry ones at the end of a long week of feeding Josie and building up to the final Harry Potter. And, well, without spoiling anything for those of you who aren’t finished (or who haven’t started), let me just say that both the dessert and the Deathly Hallows were immensely satisfying.

They even worked well together, with a nice cup of coffee, a comfy chair, and a hungry baby — a perfectly happy ending to these summer days of baby care. So happy, in fact, that I’m thinking of starting the books over, just so I can enjoy the ending all over again. With a proper dessert, of course.

Tiny Crumbles

2 oven-proof ramekins
Fruit to fill each ramekin 3/4 full (I used peaches and blueberries)
Zest of an orange or a lemon
1 t. + 2 T. flour
1 t. + 1 T. brown sugar
1 T. butter
2 T. chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss the fruit in each ramekin with 1/2 t. each of flour and brown sugar and equal portions of the fruit zest. Mix the butter, nuts, 2 T. of flour and 1 T. of brown sugar until it’s crumbly; sprinkle evenly over each ramekin. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until the top is brown and the filling bubbly around the edges.

Serve with coffee, ice cream, or a big, heavy book. Just make sure you choose one that ends well.