I have waxed rhapsodic on this blog about my love of a traditional Christmas fruitcake, a classic holiday dessert, but my love of fruitcake extends beyond the Dickensian Christmas cake. During my first year of law school, my parents spent the year living in Florence, Italy, and the Christmas I spent with them that year was the only Christmas I have spent away from home (whether home was in California or New York.) What I remember from that Christmas was the cold, damp air, the lights everywhere, but most of all the food. We went to the Mercato San Lorenzo and loaded up on Prosciutto, Grissini, Pecorino, and even, memorably, whole black truffles that we shaved over pasta for New Year’s Eve. But what I loved the most were the sweets. Panettone in every bakery, and even better, panforte, a fruitcake like confection which may be the best thing I’ve ever tasted.

Panforte, a specialty of Siena, a hill town near Florence, dates back to the middle ages, when it was paid as a tax to monks and nuns, and was reportedly carried by Crusaders on the crusades. A combination of fruits and nuts, honey and sugar and spices, it is a cross between a caramel based candy and a cake. It is also utterly addictive, with a satisfying chew from the fruits and the caramel, and a crunch from the nuts.
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© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: cake, candy, Christmas, holiday

My father didn’t just love tradition, he loved ritual. He wouldn’t just visit the same city over and over again, he would stay at the same hotel, visit the same restaurant, and order the same dishes off the menu. He was especially particular about holidays: not just turkey gravy and stuffing — GIBLET gravy and this bread stuffing. (Although he called it dressing, even though he also insisted on stuffing the turkey with it.) If we were eating Thanksgiving dinner at someone else’s house, my mom always had to roast her own turkey (usually for charity) so we could make giblet gravy and bread stuffing. The man was obsessed.

Thanksgiving morning would see our family gathering around the kitchen table. My father and I would each have a cutting board and a knife — my mother would be standing at the stove, presiding over a large pan of sauteeing vegetables. Dad and I divided up the chopping duties — I took celery and onions, he cubed the loaves of white bread. The kitchen smelled of sage and onions, and we would snitch bits of stuffing — a crust of bread, a cube dipped in the oniony, celery sage butter, before it was ceremoniously added to the turkey, when the smell of poultry and sage would sneak out from the kitchen and fill the whole house.

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© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: dressing, holiday, stuffing, Thanksgiving

Holiday dinners, holiday parties, intimate gatherings with family and friends — cooking is key, but you have to decorate too. You could buy the obligatory bunch of grocery store flowers and stick them in the vase that those roses came in last Valentine’s Day, or you could exercise a little thought and creativity and come up with a simple centerpiece on a budget.

I’m no whiz at floral arranging, but I have a few tips on designing your own centerpieces:

• Keep it low. The last thing you want at a dinner party is to discourage conversation by plopping a giant arrangement in the middle of the table! Let your guests see each others’ smiling faces!
• Forget the flowers. Flowers can be great, but they’re also a little expected. There are all sorts of other interesting items you can use in an arrangement. See below for some ideas.
• Move away from the mixed bouquets. If you do use flowers, avoid those bouquets of 10 different types.  Either they cost a fortune or they scream “grocery store!”  Stick to one or two types of flowers with interesting colors and textures.
• Go crazy with your container. There’s a place for a simple glass vase, but other containers can also lend some pizzazz to a plain arrangement.

Below are ideas for five simple centerpieces you can recreate at home or adapt using the materials you have:

1. A pumpkin we will go

A hollowed pumpkin makes a great vase that lends any arrangement a seasonal air.  Here, I combined tiny yellow mums (from the grocery store) with purple Mexican sage (which is taking over my garden).  These are combined in a glass jar that’s placed inside a hollowed-out pie pumpkin. 

2.  A study in scarlet

Seasonal fruits are beautiful and always appetizing on a table.  Here I’ve arranged a few pomegranates — one of my favorite, striking fruits — on a bed of cranberries, with their deep red shine.  To give this an extra holiday flair, I’ve used a green dish.

3.  Chestnuts roasting and an open fire

I always think chestnuts are beautiful and seasonal, and I want to buy them but I don’t want to peel them.   Using them for decoration solves this problem.  Here, I’ve arranged several chestnuts on a low white tray and placed tealights among them.

4.  Citrus Shine

A large bowl of fruit is beautiful and seasonal, and guests may be tempted to help themselves after dinner is finished!  I always associate clementines and their scent with the Christmas holidays, and the bright color is welcome on a dark day. I think a simple silver bowl sets off the shining orange beautifully.

5. Christmas Classic 

Most arrangements have all the color up top in a rather plain container.  Placing cranberries in a glass vase and arranging greens in the berries (here, sprigs of rosemary, which offer a lovely piney scent and also grow like a weed in my garden)  inverts expectations and provides holiday colors and fragrance. 

All of these took less than five minutes to put together, and would add to any holiday table.  What are your favorite holiday centerpieces?

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: Centerpieces, Decor, Entertaining, holiday

The holidays are so much more than a single day. They’re an excuse for gatherings of friends and family, shared stories, and shared meals. A cook during the holidays is always looking for recipes to feed a crowd — for dinners, buffets, lunches, brunches, cocktail parties. Turkey is an obvious choice, roast beef a luxe one, but another great (and economical) dish that will feed a crowd with a lot of payoff for a little effort is a baked ham.

Farmer John is a name practically synonymous with hams, but what I didn’t know is that they are based right here in Los Angeles, and have been for 80 years. I love supporting local businesses and industry — one of the things I love about living in Los Angeles is how economically diverse the region is. Furthermore, Farmer John really emphasizes their local ties and origins. When they approached me to develop a recipe using Farmer John ham and local ingredients, I was happy to work with them.

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Read the rest of Pomegranate Glazed Ham and Giveaway {Sponsored Post} (642 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags:

I like Halloween, I do. Costumes and candy and creepy crawlies are all lovely. But when the calendar turns to November, my heart starts to beat a little faster. We’re into my favorite time of year — the Holidays, Thanksgiving and Hanukah and Advent and Christmas and New Year. A time when my kitchen is filled with warmth and laughter and the smell of wonderful foods cooking and baking. And a time when our focus turns on gathering — with friends and with family, to warm up this dark time of the year.

With all the holiday entertaining, it’s nice to have a couple of good appetizers up your sleeve — something that can be served to guests or brought along to a party. Something that can liven up a meal of leftovers, or even make for lunch on the day when a festive dinner is taking up your attention. This chicken liver mousse is one of my absolute favorites. It can (should) be made ahead, is just decadent enough, and is cheap to make. I buy organic, air-chilled chicken livers at Whole Foods (because they always have them) and they cost $1.50 for the whole recipe’s worth.

I wish I could take credit for this recipe, but it 100% belongs to Michel Richard, who is one of those great chefs (at least based on this recipe, my favorite from his cookbook). The technique is a little eyebrow-lifting — pureeing raw livers is probably more worthy of Halloween than the Holidays, but the absolutely smooth and creamy results are worth it. Richard calls this “faux-gras” because the texture and richness is reminiscent of foie gras, and he’s right on the money. Foie Gras for the 99%, for Californians after the ban takes effect. Try it — I suspect it will become a mainstay for you, too.

Recipe
Chicken Liver Mousse
The surface of the mousse turns a funky gray color when you cook it. Richard includes a recipe for a parsley gelee to top it with, but I never get around to making it, and nobody really cares about it. Baking it in a cute jar, instead of a ramekin, aids in presentation. I like to serve this with baguette, apples slices and cornichons.

1/2 c. finely chopped onions
1 stick butter, divided
1/4 c. cream
pinch salt
1/2 lb chicken livers

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

In a small saucepan over low heat, saute the onions in 1 T of the butter until the onions are translucent. Add the cream, cover, and simmer over low heat until the onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Add the remaining 7 T butter, and return to the heat until the butter is melted. Let the mixture cool to warm. This mixture will make your kitchen smell like heaven, and also will taste divine. Try to leave some for the mousse.

In a food processor or blender, combine the butter onion mixture and the raw chicken livers, and process until smooth. For ultra smoothness, strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a 16 oz. ramekin or canning jar (I often skip the straining because I’m lazy like that).

If using a ramekin, cover tigthtly with foil, and if using a jar, seal the lid, and place into a baking dish. Add boiling water to half way up the container, then place in the hot oven and bake for 30 minutes. Let cool, and chill in the refrigerator until serving.

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: appetizer, chicken, Entertaining, Hors D'oeuvre, make ahead, offal

Early fall kicks off birthday season in my family. Somewhere in there, my darling girl turned FOUR. When I started this blog, she was not yet two, a round cheeked, lisping toddler, and now she is a full blown kid, with opinions and ideas and a personality all her own. Also in there, I turn, well, let’s just say considerably older than four, and leave it at that.

I am of the school of thought (and trust me, the Nuni shares this with me) that in order to properly celebrate a birthday, you need cake. Not pie, not pudding, and not even cupcakes. But an old fashioned, frosted layer cake. And it’s nice to have a simple one you can whip out of your oven for just such occasions.

This is the easiest, most foolproof chocolate cake recipe I’ve ever made. I remembered an old internet acquaintance who happened to be one of the best bakers I’ve ever “met” making an offhand comment that her go-to chocolate cake recipe was a Black Magic cake. It was invented by Hershey’s, requires no fussy chocolate melting, or butter creaming. It’s just wet ingredients, dry ingredients, mix, pour into pans, and boom, you’re left with a meltingly moist cake. The cocoa powder and the coffee add that deep dark chocolate flavor, and the cocoa, coffee, oil and buttermilk all make it wonderfully moist. This is the cake to make for anyone’s last minute birthdays.

And because every cake deserves to be tarted up with frosting, I made this intensely flavored roasted pistachio buttercream frosting. The color is real, not artificial, from eight ounces of pistachio nuts. The frosting is very soft and fluffy at room temperature, but firms up nicely in the refrigerator, so plan accordingly, depending on how firm you like your frosting. The key to getting the frosting really smooth is to grind the nuts in the food processor for a good long time. I used olive oil in the frosting, because I thought the green color and peppery flavor would add a nice kick to the frosting.

Recipe
Foolproof Moist Chocolate Layer Cake
(Thanks to Hersheys)
2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder (not dutch processed)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup strong black coffee
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour (I used Baker’s Joy or an equivalent product) 2 9-inch cake pans.

In a large mixing bowl (or the bowl of your stand mixer), combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt, and whisk to combine.

Add eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil and vanilla, beat for about 2 minutes. The batter will be thin. Divide evenly between the pans (if you’re bad at eyeballing, a kitchen scale helps admirably with this) and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean (or with a few crumbs, no batter).

Cool the cake layers in their pans for about 10 minutes, then turn them out and cool thoroughly before frosting and assembling.

Pistachio Buttercream Frosting
8 oz. roasted unsalted pistachio nuts (I buy them shelled from, you guessed it, Trader Joe’s)
2 T granulated sugar
6 T powdered sugar, divided
1 tsp olive oil
3 T honey
1 cup unsalted butter
Pinch of salt, to taste

In a large food processor, process the pistachios and the granulated sugar until very fine. Take out a few tablespoons of the ground pistachios to decorate the cake, and set aside.

Add 2 T powdered sugar and the olive oil, continue processing until the nuts are smooth. Add the honey, and continue to process until the paste is smooth to taste, and not grainy. Add the butter and the remaining powdered sugar and beat until combined. Chill.

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: birthday, cake, chocolate, layer cake

Before Mother’s Day, the web abounds with recipes for Mother’s Day breakfast in bed and Mother’s Day brunch. Apparently, the morning belongs to the women, because you don’t see nearly as many Father’s Day breakfast recipes. But in my mind, weekend breakfasts — the kind that kids delight in, with pancakes and waffles and sugary anythings — are a dad thing. My mom is not a big breakfast eater, and is of the insanely practical frame of mind that breakfast should consist of proteins and whole grains, like scrambled eggs and oatmeal. My dad wasn’t a big breakfast eater either as a regular rule, but on weekends we used to hit the best breakfast places in town – the restaurantswith the best steak and eggs, or the really good blueberry pancakes, or the giant, gooey cinnamon rolls. When I spent the night at my friend Stacey’s house, her dad would make all the girls coffee ice cream milkshakes for breakfast. Lisa’s dad was always good for Belgian waffles with whipped cream and strawberries.

The point is, mother’s day may be the traditional day for breakfast in bed, but in my experience, when it comes to indulgent breakfasts, it’s all about Dad. So why not indulge your dad this father’s day with a sugary, gooey breakfast of his own?

When I saw this maple syrup dumpling recipe in Saveur, I was instantly intrigued. We always keep a bottle of maple syrup on hand (Grade B, natch, for maximum flavor) but we usually pour it over the french toast, waffles or pancakes. These dumplings are cooked in the maple syrup, which gives them an intense maple flavor and gooey texture that’s perfect for a sweet and not at all sensible weekend breakfast.

For me, there’s the added bonus that these, like my father, are French Canadian, and the French name for them is Grands-Peres, or “Grandfathers.” I couldn’t resist offering them up for Father’s Day, since I won’t be able to share breakfast with my dad this year.
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Read the rest of Father’s Day Grands-Peres – Maple Syrup Dumplings (203 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: breakfast, brunch, holiday, maple, sweets

I used to be afraid of pie. The rules about cold hands and precise handling, the rolling and the cracking and the patching and the shrinking – it all gave me hives. But now? I’m over it. I can honestly say that I make a pretty darn good pie crust. What changed?

1. My tools. I swear by my French Tapered Rolling Pin, for fuss free rolling.

2. My techniques. I roll out between sheets of parchment or plastic wrap. I use this method for making pie crusts in the food processor, but it’s even better if I keep back about a third of the butter and mix it in by hand before I add the water, rubbing it in with my fingertips, flattening globs of butter into flakes. Then I add the water by hand, too.

3. My ingredients. I get better results if I use European butter — my favorite is Kerrygold Irish butter. It has a higher fat content than most American butter, and a better butter flavor. Shortening and oil may yield a more tender crust, but what you’re giving up in the butter flavor is, IMO, not worth it.

4. My attitude. This is the most important piece. Pie crust doesn’t intimidate me any more. I just make it, chill it, roll it. If it cracks, I patch it. If it shrinks, I shrug it off. Pies don’t have to be perfect. In fact, they’re better if they’re not. And nobody refuses homemade pie.

This rice pie is a creamy pie that’s part of the traditional Easter meal in parts of Italy. And it could be an Easter dessert for you. The ingredients are easy to find and relatively inexpensive. It slices beautifully, and travels well, and tastes best after chilling and then about an hour out of the refrigerator. Best of all, it’s glorious homemade pie with homemade pie crust, and you really can’t go wrong with that.

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: Easter, holiday, pie, pie crust

The Christmas season is an exciting time for mail. Instead of the usual bills and solicitations (though there are plenty of those), each day’s post brings cards from friends, and my guilty pleasure — Christmas catalogs. I love poring over each one, looking at the Christmas decorations and the Christmas food. Oh the food. I imagine a life where I’m ordering a $200 beef roast and $40 biscuits for Christmas dinner. And then I laugh and recycle the catalogs because WHO BUYS THIS STUFF? When you can make it yourself (and make it better) for less money?

Take peppermint bark. I don’t know who invented it, but for a mere $27 (plus shipping) you can buy it for a loved one for Christmas. Or, for the price of a few ingredients and literally two minutes of your time, you can make it yourself. And you can add pretzels, which elevate your standard, run of the mill pepppermint bark to a whole new level of salty sweet goodness.

You can’t believe how easy this is. Microwave a package of chocolate chips for about a minute, stirring every 15-20 seconds. Mix in a handful of pretzels, spread onto a baking sheet, and pop in the freezer. About 15 minutes later, microwave a package of white chocolate chips, same method. Spread it on top of the hardened pretzel chocolate mixture. Stick a few candy canes in a ziploc bag, whack them a few times with a rolling pin to break them up, sprinkle over the white chocolate, and let the whole thing harden. THAT’S IT. No baking, no candy thermometers. You saved $27 and added some pretzel goodness to boot.

Merry Christmas, says I. Go forth and cook.

Recipe
Peppermint Pretzel Bark

1 12 oz. package chocolate chips
1/2 tsp. peppermint extract (optional)
1.5 cups small salted pretzels
1 12 oz. package white chocolate chips (make sure they have cocoa butter in the ingredients)
1.5 oz. candy canes, broken into small pieces

In a microwave proof bowl, microwave the chocolate chips for 30 seconds, stir, and then microwave in 15 second intervals, stirring between each bout, until the chips are melted. Mix in pretzels, spread as thinly as possible onto a baking sheet lined with parchment and pop in the freezer for 15-30 minutes or until firm.

Repeat the microwaving process with the white chocolate chips. Quickly spread the white chocolate on top of the hardened chocolate pretzel mixture, and sprinkle candy canes on top. Let cool until firm, and using a sharp knife, break into pieces.

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2010. | Permalink |
Post tags: candy, Christmas, cookies, holiday

First, a little note – if you’re in the LA area, please tune in to KCRW’s Good Food (89.9) at 11 am tomorrow (12/11) to hear yours truly yammering about fruitcake.  (I think you can also listen to a live stream on kcrw.com)  If you’re not in LA, the broadcast should be up on the web after it airs — I’ll post the link next week.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you may have gathered that when it comes to Christmas food, I’m a traditionalist.  We’ve had the same meal for Christmas dinner every year of my life (even the year I spent Christmas in Florence, Italy), and the same meal for Christmas morning breakfast every year but one (hard to find turkey gravy in Italy).  My Christmas baking tends towards either classic Americana, like Sugar Cookies or Bourbon Balls, or classic English Christmas, in the form of Christmas Cake or Mince Pies. And I feel very strongly about the necessity of waking up on Sunday morning and baking Christmas cookies, still in your pajamas.

But sometimes I encounter a newfangled holiday treat that’s so tempting (or addictive) that it becomes a new holiday tradition.  If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time  you may have realized that I have a deep and abiding love for Trader Joe’s, and never more than at holiday time, when the crack, er, Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s are available.  If you’ve never had a Candy Cane Joe-Joe, it’s basically an oreo with crushed up candy canes in the filling.  Sounds basic, right?  But the sum is so much more than it’s parts.  The bits of candy cane stay crunchy in an entirely different way than the cookies stay crunchy.  And the whole thing just begs to be dipped in a glass of milk and eaten.  In vast quantities.

Never one to leave a good thing well enough alone, I decided to make a homemade version.  With the addictive candy cane crunch of the original, plus a rounder flavor and crumblier texture on the chocolate cookie, these Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s/Jojos/Fauxjos/Oreos/Fauxreos are sure to be a new tradition for the Christmas season.

Recipe
Candy Cane Faux-Joe’s
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies

For the chocolate cookies:
1 1/4 c flour
1/2 c unsweetened Dutch process cocoa (I used a very dark Callebaut cocoa)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 c. sugar
10 Tablespoons (1 stick + 2 T) salted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
1/4 c. salted butter (1/2 a stick)
1/4 c. vegetable shortening (measure it by filling a pyrex cup to 3/4 cup with water, then adding shortening until the water level reaches 1 cup)
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. peppermint extract
1.5 ounces candy canes

In a food processor, combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Add the butter and pulse until it’s incorporated, then add the egg. Preheat the oven to 375. Chill the dough for a few minutes in the refrigerator while your oven is preheating.

Take rounded teaspoons of the batter and form them into balls, placed evenly on a parchment lined cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Because these are sandwich cookies, it’s important to make the balls as evenly sized and shaped as possible — I found a melon baller to be useful. With the heel of your hand, flatten each ball slightly — you want them to look like chubby disks.

Bake for 9 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool.

Crush the candy canes — you want there to be recognizable shards, but nothing too big. I found the best way to do this was to put the canes (I used mini) in a ziploc bag, bang them with a rolling pin until they were in small pieces, then roll them with said rolling pin until I had candy cane dust/powder.

To make the filling, combine the butter and shortening in a mixing bowl, and add until combined. Slowly beat in the powdered sugar until incorporated. Add the extract, beat until combined, then add your candy cane “dust” and stir until just combined.

To assemble the cookies, try to match up your cookies with a pair of roughly equal size and shape. Place the filling in a pastry bag and, using a 1/2 inch pastry tip, pipe a small blob of filling right in the center of one of your cookies. Using the other half of the sandwich, press the halves together until the filling has spread to the edge, or nearly. Repeat for the remaining sandwiches.

Try to restrain yourself.

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2010. | Permalink |
Post tags: chocolate, Christmas, cookies, Copycat