Apple cakes

Today ChaseKBH and I went apple picking, along with my brother who was in town for the weekend.  It's a little early for many of the apples we like best, and today's selection was Galas and Golden Delicious.  Picking was fantastic, and it was a gorgeous day to be outside (with seemingly a third of the County).  ChaseKBH decided we should make apple cakes.  Since my Dad does not care for cinnamon, but loves every sort of apple dessert out there, we started with Dorie Greenspan's French Apple Cake, from Around My French Table, and made some changes.  Individual cakes are baked here in oven-safe ramekins, and should be served hot.

Individual Apple Cakes

Ingredients:

4 heaping cups of apples that have been peeled, cored, and chopped

3/4 cup all purpose flour (do not use cake flour!)

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

2 large eggs, brought to room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled only slightly (if you don't have a four year old assistant, brown it)

1/2 tablespoon vanilla

4 tablespoons brandy

Method:

Preheat oven to 350F - racks at center.

 Place apples in large mixing bowl.

Generously butter six 1 cup capacity ramekins.  Set aside.

Sift or whisk flour, salt, and baking powder.  Set aside.

Using stand mixer or a whisk, beat eggs until very frothy, light yellow, and increased in volume significantly. 

Whisk in sugar slowly.

Drizzle in butter while whisking vigorously.

Add brandy and vanilla, whisk well.

Add flour mixture in thirds, whisk until well combined.

Pour batter over apples.  Gently fold together.

Scoop batter into ramekins, until 2/3 to 3/4 filled.

Bake for 50 minutes (check, may need to bake 1 hour, toothpick should come out clean).

Top with ice cream if desired, and serve hot.

 

 

Salad of random green stuff

The kids and I picked up the CSA today from Gorman Farm.  It's a fun reading, counting, and measuring lesson, though we try to go earlier, so we don't irritate commuters with ChaseKBH's spelling and lack of understanding about what half a pound feels like.  Today we ended up going later than is ideal, but we had a blast picking out our items.  Of great interest was three pounds of cucumbers, which are to become pickles.  ChaseKBH is adamant that we only make cute pickles, not grossie or ugly pickles.  I have no idea why he cares so much about the appearance of the pickles.

There was a bonus table at the CSA today, but we ended up not taking anything, as we are behind having done so much traveling.  We did trade our squash for a second head of lettuce, as squash is just not well enough liked in this house for the quantities of a mid-Atlantic harvest.  We also got a beautiful bounty of garlic that I'm looking forward to using extensively.  

It was way, way too hot to cook for real.  I cheated and microwaved some corn on the cob (the almost-four year old doesn't really care), and pan-sauteed some frozen chicken breasts, and made a big salad with random green stuff.  It seemed to be a hit, though the husband believed the dressing was too acidic.  We're out of olive oil, but the oils used seemed to work well.  The salad might have been a bit overdressed, but eh, proportions are easy to fudge a bit.  As for the verdict, well, the almost-four-year-old ate a bit of chicken, a bite of leaves with nothing on them, some cucumbers, and a lot of corn.  The one year old ate corn, leftover pasta, and some cucumber.  The grownups finished a large bowl of salad.

Random Leaves Salad

I suspect that the same thing could be done with pretty much anything that's green and can be eaten raw.

Ingredients:

1 large head red or green leaf lettuce (we used red), washed and torn into bite sized pieces

2 giant handfuls of basil, stemmed, washed and large leaves torn into bite sized pieces

3 giant handfuls of parsley, stemmed and washed

2 teaspoons salt, divided

1/2 cup oil (I used grapeseed, canola, and about a 1/8 of a cup of truffle oil)

2 cloves of garlic

Juice of one large juicy lemon

1 teaspoon pepper

1 cup roughly torn basil

Method:

- Rinse leaves, dry well (spin in a salad spinner), and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt.  Set aside.

- Add 1/8 cup oil, garlic, lemon, salt, pepper, and basil to a blender.  Pulverize.

- Slowly drizzle in remaining oil until desired consistency is achieved.

- Taste.

- Drizzle in oil and/or lemon as needed to balance.

- Toss leaves with the dressing, set rest aside for another day.

- Top with grilled or pan sauteed protein if desired.

Garlic Scape Pesto Gnocchi

I am a big fan of the garlic scape in the spring and early summer.  A garlic scape is the flower stalk of the hardneck garlic plant - it is removed to concentrate energy in the bulb.  It is also delicious spring eating.  It has a much milder flavor than garlic, but can be used where one uses garlic.  To me, garlic scapes and strawberries are the beginning of the season of local produce in Howard County and the rest of the mid-Atlantic.  

Steamed garlic scapes are almost sweet.  Sauteed garlic scapes remind me of garlic-sauteed green beans.  They can be blanched and tossed into salads. But one of the great joys of garlic scapes is the infinite number of sauce preparations that the simple garlic scape can make sublime.  Tonight, for dinner we had garlic scape "pesto" gnocchi, as well as some steak with garlic scape "pesto" as a lovely condiment.  The color is electric green.  As always, this type of preparation is a make to taste preparation - a guideline, not a recipe.  I use a blender because I can drizzle in oil slowly when the top is off, but a food processor would work just as well.

Gnocchi with Garlic Scape "Pesto"

Ingredients:

1 lb garlic scapes, grassy and woody parts trimmed, cut into 1 inch pieces and then rinsed in cool water

1/4 lb good Parmesan cheese, cut into chunks (please don't use the pre-shredded or pre-ground if you can avoid it)

Juice of 2 small lemons

2 teaspoons salt (or to taste)

2 teaspoons pepper

1/4 cup to 3/4 cup olive oil

Prepared gnocchi, prepare fresh gnocchi according to package instructions

Method:

- Place scape pieces, cheese, lemon juice, salt, and peper into a blender, with the hole in the top lid removed.  - Begin blending together on low.

- Drizzle in olive oil slowly.  

- Increase speed slowly to highest setting, keep drizzling in olive oil.

- Blend until garlic scape pieces and cheese are completely blended in, and sauce has reached desired consistency.

- Place gnocchi, warm, and half a cup of the water it was cooked in in a pan on medium.

- Add enough sauce to cover - roughly one cup.

- Heat until sauce just begins to bubble.

- Remove for heat and seve immediately.

This makes way more than you need.  It was great on steak, it's great on bread, or pretty much anywhere else something garlicky would taste good.  

Gorman Farm CSA 2013

We signed up for a Gorman Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share again this year.  On Wednesdays, ChaseKBH will eat any vegetable on earth.  On every other day, well, that's another story.

So far it's been a lot of salads, a lot of sauteeing with garlic and olive oil.