tasting memories

Our good friends Justin and Sarah took us to The Bistro at the Cliff House in San Francisco a few years back. It was our first day in San Francisco after a long drive from Wyoming. Great company and a wonderful birthday feast in honor of Sarah's father greeted us. Of all the good food The Bistro served, most memorable were the popovers that came piping hot to the table by the basketfuls. This was the first time I tried popovers. The memory of this event solidified around these light pillows of bread and now every time I make them I remember that day with our friends. Cheers to Sarah and Justin for sharing such a great experience!

Popovers are easy to make. This recipe came from Food and Wine.

Popovers
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons rendered beef fat (from the roast) or melted butter

1. Preheat the oven to 425°. Put a large 12-cup muffin pan in the oven to heat. In a medium bowl, combine the milk with the flour, eggs, salt and 1 tablespoon of the beef fat. Using an electric mixer, beat until very smooth.

2. Remove the hot muffin pan from the oven and add 1/2 teaspoon of the beef fat to each cup.

3. Return the muffin pan to the oven and heat until the fat is very hot, about 5 minutes. Carefully and quickly pour the popover batter into the muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes; don't open the oven door. Reduce the heat to 350° and bake for about 20 minutes, until the popovers are golden brown and puffed. Serve right away.

Makes 12 popovers.

Photo by Scott Bartolomei Edmonds. Plate by Scott Bartolomei Edmonds.
Ripe banans that become spotted and dark often get neglected in our kitchen. These sweet and fully flavored bananas are the perfect base for banana bread.

There is nothing more comforting than curling up in the couch on a Sunday morning, reading the paper, drinking coffee and enjoying a warm slice of banana bread with just a little bit of butter.

This recipe makes a very moist bread that is sweet, but not too sweet. It's very easy to prepare, but you must bake it for close to an hour, so you need to either plan ahead or be very patient.

Banana Bread
1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
3 medium overripe bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Coat a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with oil. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour with the baking powder, cinnamon and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the sugar, eggs and oil and whisk until creamy. Add the mashed bananas and vanilla and blend until smooth. Stir in the dry ingredients until well incorporated.

2. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the middle of the oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the top is springy and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the loaf cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning it out onto a rack to cool.

Makes 1 loaf.

When I was fourteen years old, my mom flew out to Rochester, NY to visit me. She stayed in a hotel near Marketplace Mall, and I was going to stay with her for the weekend. My dad dropped me off after work that night. I still remember getting out of his 1980-something light blue Honda Civic. It was cold and wet and he was bundled up with his golfer's cap and scarf. His work shoes had those rubber covers to protect them from the wet. He got out of the car with me. As I approached the door to the lobby, I could see my beautiful mother there in her gorgeous handmade woolen coat. My dad froze right before we got to the door and said goodbye to me. I was a little confused at the time, but I said goodbye right back and stepped through the glass doors and into the lobby. I looked back as the doors closed. My dad was still standing there. I kept walking and jumped into my mother's arms.

That night, we had dinner at the restaurant in the hotel and we ordered some cornbread. It was fantastic. My mom and I were so enthusiastic about it that she bought a 'cornbread' skillet along with some cornbread mix. Since then, cornbread always reminds me of that awkward reunion and the tender but short moments spent with my mom that winter back in 1986.

The recipe I give you today is one I have enjoyed over many years. I scratched it into brown paper about twelve years ago. Every once in a while I adjust the recipe by adding things like blueberries or cut down on the sugar and add chipotle for a kick. Mostly, I like it just the way it is, served with a little butter and honey. This recipe makes a light and moist cornbread that is on the sweet side.

Corn Bread
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup unbleached flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
3 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
1/2 cup brown sugar (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt the butter over low heat in a 9" cast iron skillet, set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, stir the brown sugar into the buttermilk until any lumps of sugar dissolve. Add the egg and vanilla and lightly stir. Then, stir in the cooled melted butter.

2. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and lightly mix until any lumps of flour disappear. Do not over mix. Pour the batter into the buttered skillet and bake until golden, about 30 minutes.

Makes 1 loaf.

Photo by Scott Bartolomei Edmonds. Plate by Jim Shack.

Ten years have passed since I first came across a recipe for herb and onion pizzettes in Food and Wine Magazine. Since then, I have been carrying a cut-out of this recipe in a folder where I keep all my favorite recipes. It's a bright pink folder with an old rubber band holding all the papers together. Back when I started the folder, my good friend Marcie had sent me a gift in cardboard tube. On it, she scrolled this quote by Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli:

"A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness."

A piece of that tube still survives taped to the folder along with some old stickers of pheasants and squirrels that Angelica added. The folder has grown fatter, torn, and stained as time passes, so, slowly, I am working on transferring these recipes to the web.

I have been faithful to this recipe since it was first published back in 1998. This one is a simple, basic pizza dough recipe yielding a light crust to compliment any topping. Kneading by hand is the way to go, but if you are short on time, simply use the dough hook on your standing mixer at medium speed. I often like to substitute some of the flour with whole wheat flour for a nuttier, heartier crust. Also, you can prepare the dough through step 1, cover and refrigerate overnight for the next day.

Photo by Scott Bartolomei Edmonds.

Pictured here are pizzettes topped with white truffle oil, thinly sliced yukon gold potatoes, onion, rosemary, parsley and a slice of white truffle pecorino. We served these last Saturday as an appetizer for dinner with Tausha, my sister in law, who was visiting us during her trip to New York City.

Pizza Dough
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 cup lukewarm water (105° to 115°)
salt
olive oil
1. In a large bowl, combine 1/4 cup of the flour with the yeast and 1/4 cup of the water. Let stand in a warm place until foamy, about 30 minutes. Stir in 2 1/4 cups of the flour, the remaining 3/4 cup of water and 1 teaspoon of salt to form a soft dough. Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until silky and elastic, about 5 minutes; add just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
2. Punch down the dough, cover and let rise for 30 minutes longer. Turn the dough out onto the work surface and let the dough rest for 10 minutes before shaping it.
3. Meanwhile, set a pizza stone on a rack in the bottom third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 500°.
4. Roll out or stretch dough into desired shape. Set the dough on a lightly floured pizza peel or baking sheet and top with your favorite toppings. Slide the pizza onto a pizza stone in the oven and bake for about 7 minutes, or until golden and crisp.

Makes 1 large pizza pie.

Photo by Marta Bartolomei Edmonds.

Waking up to the smell of fresh baked bran muffins right out of the oven at my grandparents' home jelled my love of baked goods as a young child. My grandfather, Pito, would get up at five in the morning to meditate. He would sometimes follow his ritual by making bran muffins from scratch. The smell would wake me up with a smile and I would walk over to the kitchen where a basket of muffins was waiting for me.

The gesture of making bread from simple, healthy ingredients impresses me even today as a wholesome act of love and care amongst family. These are the things that stay with you as you grow older and I thank my grandfather for sharing them with us.

This bran muffin recipe is wonderfully versatile and easy to make. It makes a moist muffin that is not too sweet. What is great about this recipe is that it makes a rather large batch (24 muffins); you can make the batter ahead of time and it will keep in the refrigerator for up to three days. So you can wake up, scoop the batter into muffin tins and bake for fresh baked muffins every morning.

The recipe was inspired by the Raisin Walnut Bran Muffins served in Bozeman's best coffee bar.

Bran Muffins
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup hot water
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup wheat bran
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups unbleached flour
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
handful of raisins (optional)
handful of toasted walnut (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Coat 24 muffin tins with oil and set aside. Combine the hot water and baking soda in a small bowl and set aside.

2. Whisk oats, bran, wheat flour, unbleached flour, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl to blend. In a separate large bowl, mix oil, brown sugar, buttermilk and eggs lightly. Add the hot water mixture and the flour mixture and stir to incorporate.

3. Divide muffins into 24 muffin tins and bake for 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean. Cool in a rack for five minutes. Serve hot with butter or at room temperature.

Makes 24 muffins.

Photo by Marta Bartolomei Edmonds.

Love of bread goes deep in our family. Abuelo Paco, my grandfather, would take daily early morning walks to the Comercio Bakery in Ponce, PR to get a warm loaf of bread, "pan de agua", fresh out of the oven. He would place the fresh, warm loaf in the pit of his arm and hug the bread as he carried it back home. He believed this preserved the heat. At home, Abuela Sara would serve strong cups of instant Taster's Choice coffee with milk that had been scalded and strained. Abuelo Paco would sit at the breakfast table and proceed to remove the soft core of the bread, roll it up into mounds and set them aside on his place mat to be discarded later. He only ate the crust, slathered in butter and dipped in hot coffee. Glistening pools of melted butter would swim around the surface of his coffee cup. There was something so right about this daily breakfast tradition.

Like Abuelo Paco, I walk to bakeries all over the city in search of good bread. I love rustic, brick oven breads with deep dark crusts and chewy insides with air pockets like swiss cheese. When I first learned about the Sullivan Street Bakery (back when the White Lily Tea Room served their semi di sesamo) I took several trips to Sullivan Street just to sample their breads. They make some of the best bread I have tried in the city.

When I read about Jim Lahey's No-Knead method of bread making in this blog and later in an article by Mark Bittman, I was ecstatic and eager to try it out for myself. Jim Lahey teaches his No-Knead method of bread making at the Sullivan Street Bakery and has posted the recipe on his website.

Since early spring I have been experimenting with the recipe. The results are an airy loaf with a well developed flavor and a crusty dark crust, wonderful every time. The trick is using a heavy pot like a cast iron dutch oven or a heavy clay pot with a lid. The heavy pot creates an environment that simulates the steam conditions necessary to make a crusty bread. This recipe is a super easy way to make bread and I encourage everyone to try it. Below you will find Jim Lahey's original recipe.

Note: The dough will become temperamental if you rise it in a kitchen with a temperature above the range suggested of 65-72°F. You will need to adjust the rising time or move your dough to a cooler room. During these hot summer months I have been rising the dough in a kitchen of over 85° and not adjusting the rising time and the dough becomes soupy and hard to handle. Even when this happens, though, the results are decent.

Photo by Marta Bartolomei Edmonds.

Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread
3 cups (430g) flour
1 1/2 cups (345g or 12oz) water
1/4 teaspoon (1g) yeast
1 1/4 teaspoon (8g) salt
olive oil (for coating)
extra flour, wheat bran, or cornmeal (for dusting)
Equipment:
Two medium mixing bowls
6 to 8 quart pot with lid (Pyrex glass, Le Creuset cast iron, or ceramic)
Wooden Spoon or spatula (optional)
Plastic wrap
Two or three cotton dish towels (not terrycloth)

1. Mix all of the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Add water and incorporate by hand or with a wooden spoon or spatula for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Lightly coat the inside of a second medium bowl with olive oil and place the dough in the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest 12 hours at room temperature (approx. 65-72°F).

2. Remove the dough from the bowl and fold once or twice. Let the dough rest 15 minutes in the bowl or on the work surface. next, shape the dough into ball. Generously coat a cotton towel with flour, wheat bran, or cornmeal; place the dough seam side down on the towel and dust with flour. Cover the dough with a cotton towel and let rise 1-2 hours at room temperature, until more than doubled in size.

3. Preheat oven to 450-500°F. Place the pot in the oven at least 30 minutes prior to baking to preheat. Once the dough has more than doubled in volume, remove the pot from the oven and place the dough in the pot seam side up. Cover with the lid and bake 30 minutes Then remove the lid and bake 15-30 minutes uncovered, until the loaf is nicely browned.

Makes 1 round loaf.

Photo by Marta Bartolomei Edmonds.

It's pumpkin time! My favorite time of the year. Pumpkin is the perfect fall vegetable. Delicious and versatile it lends itself to many applications in anything from breakfast to dessert.

I love to sneak pumpkin into my dishes whenever I can, especially in the fall. Sunday morning I made a batch of pumpkin scones that I wanted to share with you. They are moist, light, with a touch of spice and sweetness. Serve them with a little butter and dark maple syrup.

When you make these, keep in mind that this particular recipe will yield a very wet dough that will likely stick to your hands. Don't get frustrated, the results are worth the mess! If you are new to making scones, take a look at these scone baking tips.

Also, if you love pumpkin as much as I do, try these pumpkin muffins.

Spiced Pumpkin Scones
2 cups flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup pumpkin puree
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground clove
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon turbinado sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 450°. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In a separate bowl, combine the buttermilk, pumpkin, egg, vanilla extract, and spices. Stir the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture with a few swift strokes until a loose wet dough forms.
2. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and gather the dough into a ball. Gently press the dough into a ¾ inch thick disk.
3. Sprinkle the disk with turbinado sugar and cinnamon. Using a knife, cut the disk into 8 wedges.
4. Arrange the wedges ½ inch apart on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake in the middle rack of the oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.

Makes 8 scones.

Photo by Marta Bartolomei Edmonds.

This winter we traveled to Colorado and Wyoming to visit our family. During our visit we were treated to a truly special breakfast with a New York twist: homemade bagels. Our nephew and young chef, Keith, woke up early in the morning and, with his dad's help, prepared us the best homemade bagels we had ever had. We enjoyed an assortment of warm bagels right out of the oven, including asiago cheese, everything, garlic, salt, sesame, poppy seed and chocolate chip. Sharing this breakfast with our talented nephew was one of the highlights of a restful and healing vacation.

Keith uses Emeril Lagasse's Homemade Bagel recipe. The bagels are soft and chewy on the inside and crusty on the outside. Our nine year old nephew impressed us with these fantastic homemade bagels and inspired me to try to make these at home.
According to Keith, they are time consuming, but easy to make.

Emeril's Homemade Bagels
2 cups warm water, about 110 degrees F
2 (1/4-ounce) packets active dry yeast
3 tablespoons granulated sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons yellow cornmeal
Optional Toppings:
1/2 cup lightly toasted chopped onions (2 teaspoons each)
2 tablespoons poppy seeds (about 1/2 teaspoon each)
2 tablespoons sesame seeds (about 1/2 teaspoon each)
1 tablespoon kosher salt (about 1/4 teaspoon each)

1. Combine the water, yeast, and 3 tablespoons of the sugar in the bowl of an upright mixer fitted with a dough hook. Stir and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Gradually add 4 cups of the flour and the salt, and mix until the mixture comes together.

2. Add 1 to 1 1/2 cups additional flour 1/2 cup at a time to make a stiff dough, either stirring with the wooden spoon or working with your hands. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and no longer sticky, about 5 minutes, adding just as much flour as needed. (Dough should be heavier and stiffer than regular yeast bread dough.)

3. Grease a large bowl with 1 teaspoon of the oil. Place the dough in the bowl, turning to coat. Cover and let rise in a warm, draft-free spot until almost doubled, about 1 hour.

4. Remove from the bowl and punch down the dough. Divide into 12 equal pieces, about 2 to 3 ounces each, measuring about 4 inches across. Form each piece of dough into a ball. Roll each ball into a 4 to 6-inch log. Join the ends and place fingers through the hole and roll the ends together. Repeat with the remaining dough. Place on a lightly greased surface, cover with a clean cloth, and let rest until risen but not doubled in a draft-free spot, 20 to 30 minutes.

5. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a baking sheet with the remaining teaspoon of oil.

6. In a large, heavy pot, bring 12 cups of water and the remaining tablespoon of sugar to a boil. In batches, add the bagels to the water and boil, turning, for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Flip bagels onto the prepared sheet pan. Bake for 5 minutes, turn over and cook for another 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Makes 12 bagels