Apple Butter

Apple butter is like applesauce intensified. Because, really, that's what it is.

What I though was interesting about this recipe from Farm Fork Food by Eric Skokan was the lack of sugar. While many recipes for applesauce are loaded with sugar, this apple butter suggests adding it as seasoning at the end of cooking.

Which makes perfect sense. Some apples are sweeter than others, so you might want more or less sugar to compensate. And some people like more or less sweetness.

Personally, I like tart flavors, so I only used about a teaspoon of sugar for the apple butter, and I was really glad it was optional.

The apple butter is actually half of a recipe - the other half is farmer's cheese, which is intended to be eaten with the apple butter along with some grilled sourdough bread. But I decided to just make the apple butter - I had plenty of cheese to pair it with.

Apple Butter
Adapted from Farm Fork Food by Eric Skokan

1 pound apples
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cinnamon stick (optional)
Sugar

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

In a large Dutch oven over high heat, bring the apples, water and salt to a boil.

NOTE: The book didn't specify whether the apples should be peeled or not, but I didn't want peels and seeds in my apple butter, so I peeled and cored and cut the apples into chunks before cooking them. I suppose you could cook them whole, but it seems that it would take a lot of pureeing to get the mixture smooth.


Reduce the heat to medium ad coop until the apples are very soft and the water has evaporated, about 45 minutes.

Puree the apples in a blender until smooth (I used my stick blender right in the pot.)

Return the puree to the pot (I didn't need to do that, which is another good reason for using a stick blender).

Add the cinnamon stick if you're using it, and place the pot in the oven in the oven.

Cook at 300 degrees, stirring every 30 minutes, until the mixture is very thick - about 3 hours total.

Season the apple butter with sugar (I only used about a teaspoon),

Remove the cinnamon stick and transfer to a storage container (a small canning jar was perfect - it reduces a lot).

Keep refrigerated.

I received this book from the publisher at no cost to me.

Yum

Caramel Pudding from Johnny Iuzzini's Sugar Rush

Woot Woot! I love cookbooks about desserts, so I was pretty excited to get my flour-covered mitts on a copy of Sugar Rush by Johnny Iuzzini. If the name sounds familiar, it might be because he was the head judge for Top Chef: Just Desserts.

Or you might know him from somewhere else.

Anyway, the book is mostly sweets, but a few savory recipes snuck in, like zucchini and roasted corn muffins. And focaccia. And crepes and brioche..But it's definitely not all baking. Nope, there are flans and pastry creams, and ... caramel pudding.

I love pudding. It's such a comfort food. I usually make chocolate, but when I saw the recipe for caramel pudding, I had to give it a try.

Caramel is sort of magical - it starts off as just white sugar that's nothing but sweet, but then it becomes something else that has a heck of a lot more flavor.

This recipe is actually pretty simple ... but I had a slight problem. After it was cool, the pudding was way too thick. Like, ridiculously thick. To be honest, I'm not sure if there was a problem with the recipe, or if it was yet another high-altitude bizarreness. You see, liquids evaporate much faster here, so I'm betting that the mixture reduced too much.

But it wasn't a big deal. I reheated the pudding and added more half-and-half to thin it out, and it was just fine.

I'd love for someone else to make this recipe and let me know if it comes out right at sea level. Let me know!

Caramel Pudding
Adapted from Sugar Rush by Johnnie Iuzzini

For the caramel

1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

For the pudding:
2 cups half-and-half
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut in chunks

Have an ice bath standing by that is large enough to hold the bowl where you'll store the finished pudding.

To make the caramel:
Put all of the caramel ingredients into a medium saucepan and stir with your finger until the sugar is all wet. I suppose you could stir with a spoon, too.

Put the pan on medium heat and cook without stirring until the sugar is melted.

Meanwhile, get started on the pudding: Put the half-and-half, sugar, and cornstarch in another medium saucepan and whisk to combine. Heat on low until warmed.

Back to the caramel:
Brush the sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in water to get rid of any sugar crystals clinging to the sides of the pan.

Continue cooking, swirling the pan for even heating, until the mixture is a dark mahogany brown and it gives off white smoke.

Reduce the heat to medium low and slowly add the milk mixture - it will bubble a lot, so be careful. Whisk until the mixture is smooth. Let it come to a boil, and cook for 2 minutes at a slow boil. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter.

Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve to remove and lumps. Discard the vanilla bean or rinse and dry it for another use (you can store it in sugar to make vanilla sugar). Lay a sheet of plastic wrap directly on top of the warm pudding to keep it from forming a skin. Put the bowl in the ice bath, making sure it's not so deep that water gets into the pudding bowl.

When the pudding is cool, refrigerate at least 2 hours, until thoroughly chilled, before serving.

I received this book from the publisher at no cost to me.

Yum

Meatless Bigos

When I was a kid, my mother made a cabbage dish that had no name. It was basically cabbage with tomatoes, and it was typically served with cooked potatoes mixed in.

Weird, huh?

Sometimes the dish had tiny shreds of pork, but often it was just the cabbage and potatoes. Because it was nameless, I called it "good cabbage." I could eat vats of it. Seriously. Big, giant bowls of cabbage.

I think I've mentioned before that I was a weird kid, right? If you needed more proof, there it is.

The history of that particular recipe was never revealed. I don't know if it's something my mother threw together out of desperation - I mean, it's pretty cheap and filling - or whether she got it from someone else.

But then I was introduced to a Polish dish called Bigos, or Hunter's Stew. It's a pork-and-cabbage dish with tomato, but the proportions are completely different that mom's pork and cabbage and tomato dish.

Bigos, depending on who is making it, can have more pork than cabbage. And there's not as much tomato. But it's the same three primary ingredients. The only thing I can think of is that mom started off with a bigos recipe, but cut back on the pork over time until it was almost gone. Or entirely gone.

Funny thing was that although I liked pork in other dishes, I really didn't care for the little shreds of pork in mom's ... whatever dish. So I eliminated it entirely when I started making it. Now, if it's hunter's stew, it's either the result of an unsuccessful hunt, or maybe the hunters were just armed with cameras.

And, since this version used olive oil (sometimes I use butter) it's actually vegan. What's weirder than a vegan hunter's stew, huh?

This is a rustic, homestyle, family dish. It doesn't require precise knife skills. You can hack the cabbage up with a machete if you want. I'm serious. It doesn't need to be even at all. It's great if it's bite-sized pieces, because this isn't something you'd want to cut up with a knife. But otherwise, it's all up to you.

This also isn't a recipe where mise en place is required, either. The onion can be demolished while the oil gently heats, and the cabbage can be added as you chop. This recipe really was born in poor farmhouses, and I see no reason to fancy it up.

You might notice that there aren't any herbs or spices here besides the simple salt and pepper. To be honest, I can't think of one that I would add to this. Maybe chives, but this already has onions for that flavor.

Meat-Free Bigos

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion

1/2 half large head of cabbage (or 1 small)

1 15-ounce can tomato sauce

1 14.5 ounce can stewed tomatoes

1 14.5 ounce can petite diced tomatoes

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

1/2 teaspoon ground pepper (or to taste)

Heat the olive oil gently in a large, heavy-bottomed pot or a Dutch oven.

Chop the onion into bite-size pieces. I usually cut in in half through the root end, then cut the halves into four pieces, then slice those. A large dice would be fine, if you prefer.

Put the onions into the pot and stir. Let them cook slowly while you start chopping the cabbage. You're looking for them to sweat rather than brown.

Chop the cabbage into fork-sized, bite-sized pieces. Add the cabbage to the pot a hand full at a time, stirring as you add the cabbage. When all the cabbage is in the pot, add the tomatoes, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Stir.

Continue cooking at simmer, stirring as needed, until the cabbage is cooked through and has taken on a red color from the tomatoes. You'll see the difference, You'll start off with white and pale green cabbage in a tomato sauce, and then you'll have red-colored cabbage that has absorbed the tomato flavor.

Taste for flavoring and add more salt, pepper, or vinegar, as needed.

Figure that it will take about an hour for the cabbage to cook through, maybe a little longer. When it's done, the liquid should be mostly gone, but the cabbage should be moist.

Serve warm. I like it served with boiled potatoes to mix in at the table.

Yum