It has been on purpose that, up to now, I have neglected to post a dessert recipe. It’s a kind of risk avoidance. Since New Year’s, I have been trying to focus on Not eating heavy-but-empty calories. Sweet things.
All in all, I have done pretty well.
Up to now.

This first month of 2009 has been a rocket; hardly one week ago, Bill and I—along with 2 million others—had braved crowd, cold, and lengthy wait to stand, shoulder to shoulder, (body to body!) and witness this momentous, glorious transfer of power in front of our nation’s capitol. Despite all physical discomfort, there was so much joy. At times electric, we could sense it in the air, feel it in waves moving through the mall. Palpable joy.

Today, freezing rain has left its lacy handiwork on barren trees in my yard. I’m alone in my kitchen, miles and days and bodies removed from that extraordinary moment. I’m in a pensive mood: but not in a melancholy way. I’m ready to savor the sweet. I’ve got assorted berries in the freezer, the other basics in my pantry and fridge. I’m ready to bake. And, I’m thinking about that joy.

No, it doesn’t equate to this berry bundt. But there’s an arc to joy that I like to think lands in contentment. My friend Maggie is on to that: when she took her first bite, she closed her eyes, leaned back her head, and said, “Yep. A cup of coffee and a slice of this cake fits my idea of how to take in a winter afternoon.”

Mixed Berry Bundt Cake
½ cup unsalted Butter
1 ½ cups Sugar
1 ½ cups Sour Cream
2 Eggs
1 Tablespoon Orange Zest
2 teaspoons Vanilla
1 ½ cups all purpose Flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon Baking Soda

3 cups mixed Blueberries, Blackberries, Raspberries
(frozen ones are fine, and there’s no need to thaw them out.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a bundt pan with baking spray.
In a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the eggs, sour cream, vanilla, and zest.
Add the flour and soda, mixing until well incorporated, but don’t overbeat.
Cover the bottom of the bundt pan with half the berry mixture. Spoon in half the batter.
Sprinkle the remaining berries over the layer of batter and then carefully spoon the rest of the batter on top.
Bake in the center of the oven for 60 minutes. Allow to cool on rack before unmolding.
Dust with a little confectioners sugar and garnish with whole berries.
Serves 12-15, with contentment.

I call this dish Lime Rickey Shrimp,
not just because I like rhythm of the words as they roll off my lips,
Gonna make some lime-rickey-shrimp lickety-split,
or that it has intrigue:
like the name of a sketchy operative in a British spy novel, but for the cocktail-like combination of fresh lime and vodka that I use to splash onto shrimp as it cooks.

Now, before you say, not my Ketel One!
I must point out, it takes only 4 Tablespoons for the recipe.

Then, why even bother with the vodka?

Well, it acts as a good vehicle for expanding the flavor of the lime, and leaves a clean finish on the shrimp. Unlike cooking with a sauterne or sauvignon blanc, which adds its own more complex “winey” overlay to a dish, the vodka seems to intensify the other flavors at hand—in this case, shrimp, leeks, and lime—before it vanishes in the quick saute. In just minutes, briny shrimp sauce up with sweet leek and lime.
And, you’ll detect a trace of something mineraly, something alcoholic, left behind; that’s intriguing.
Cheers!

Lime Rickey Shrimp
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 teaspoon Lime zest
½ lb. large (26-31ct.) raw Shrimp, peeled and deveined
Salt and Black Pepper to taste
1 Tablespoon Butter
1 cup chopped Leeks
4 Tablespoons Lime Juice (1 lime should do the trick)
4 Tablespoons Vodka
2 Tablespoons chopped Italian Parsley

1 cup cooked jasmine rice

In a small bowl, add olive oil and zest. Add a little salt and a few grindings of black pepper, and stir. Add the shrimp and gently toss so that the olive oil and zest coats each piece.
In a separate bowl, measure in the lime juice (one entire lime will yield 4+ Tablespoons.)
Scrape any residual pulp into the bowl. Add the vodka and stir together: here’s the rickey.
Melt butter in a skillet under medium heat and sauté leeks until soft, about 3 minutes. Push leeks to the side of the skillet, and increase heat. Add shrimp and quickly sauté—about a minute and a half—then flip them and repeat. Shrimp will be a bright pink.
Do not crowd the shrimp in the pan.
Pour in the rickey. Stir and shake it all around the shrimp and leeks, coating, glazing, browning, reducing. This, too, is done with speed—another minute. Add the chopped Italian Parsley and pour over a bed of rice.
Serves 2 generously

In the summer, basil tends to be my preferred herb pairing with tomatoes; there’s nothing like a quick, raw sauce of the two, coarsely chopped, drenched in olive oil and tossed over some capellini to make me happy. But, on this gray January day, the containers of once-lush basil abandoned on my backyard wall hold bare stalks: my stark zen reminder to practice patience. It will be a good six months before I can get my fresh basil-homegrown tomato fix.

Thank goodness that off-season, there are alternatives: thicker, winter red sauces, and the heartier fare they help create. For that reason, canned tomato products prove indispensable. And, they’re good; I try to keep a few cans handy in my pantry. Something about having a pot of this sauce on the stove to fiddle with helps to ease my wait, banish any winter blues.

There are countless variations of red sauce theme and everybody has her tried-and-true methods and ingredients: Whole or diced tomatoes; crushed, paste, or puree; red wine, white wine, dried herbs or fresh. My sister swears by a scoop of sugar in her sauce—which I resist. I like the sweetness that a little balsamic vinegar adds.

Recently I’ve taken to adding fresh rosemary; it’s got a rustic, woody element that melds well in the sauce and seems right for this time of year. I have a large bush that has long thrived through winters in its front porch spot, so I enjoy snipping a sprig to plunge into the sauce as it simmers. Once the rosemary has done its job, just pluck it out, like you would with bay leaf.

Winter Red Sauce
3 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 medium onion, small diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 28 oz can whole plum tomatoes
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
½ cup red wine
a couple of glugs of balsamic vinegar
1 sprig fresh rosemary
salt and black pepper to taste

In a 3 qt. saucepan, heat olive oil. Add onion and sauté for 3-4 minutes, then add garlic. Stir and cook another minute.
Open can of whole tomatoes, pour off juice and reserve. Chop tomatoes and add to saucepan. Season with salt and pepper and cook for 10 minutes.
Add reserved tomato juice, crushed tomatoes, red wine, and balsamic. Stir well.
Add fresh rosemary sprig and simmer for an hour. Stir occasionally.
Taste and adjust seasonings. Remove rosemary and use.

Hearty, but not over-the-top heavy, these shells are stuffed with a blend of lowfat cheeses and fresh spinach and baked in a blanket of Winter Red.

Stuffed Shells Florentine
1 box Jumbo Shells (there are about 42 shells in a box)
8 oz. fresh young spinach (sometimes called “baby spoon”)
2 lb.tub part-skim ricotta
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon granulated garlic
2 eggs
1 ½ cups shredded mozzarella
1 ½ cups shredded parmesan
1 batch “Winter Red Sauce”

Cook shells according to box directions; drain and set aside to cool.
Coat 2 9×13 (or size thereabouts) casserole dishes with a little olive oil.
In a food processor outfitted with the swivel blade, pulse the spinach until it’s chopped. Scrape into a mixing bowl and return the work bowl to the processor. Refit with swivel blade.
Add ricotta, eggs, salt, black pepper, and garlic and processor until well blended.
Stir the ricotta mixture into the spinach. Fold in 1 ¼ cup each mozzarella and parmesan.
Cover the bottom of the casserole dishes with a few ladles of Winter Red Sauce.
Fill each shell with spinach-ricotta mixture and place in the pool of sauce
Spoon some more sauce over the shells and top with remaining shredded cheeses.
Bake uncovered for 35 minutes in a 325 degree preheated oven. Serves 8-10

What a line up, eh?

Presenting, from left to right, we’ve got sweet Golden Delicious, tart Granny Smith, festive newcomer Pinata, bold Virginia Gold, and spicy Arkansas Black. Such beauties, and but a fraction of the 2500 varieties grown in the United States. (7,500 worldwide!) So, you could eat a different apple every day for the next eighteen, no nineteen years…well, you can do the math.

Before we got caught up in all the holiday hooplah of parties and feasts, Mark and I gave a healthy foods workshop at Glencliff High School to a group of their culinary arts students, as part of their Live It! program. Our presentation was all about Apples. We brought in a dozen varieties from our farmer’s market for the students to sample and rate. An Apple Tasting!

When brushing up on my apple facts, I realized I hadn’t given apples the full appreciation they are due. They’re packed with powerful anti-oxidants, rich with vitamins C and K, and there’s not a trace of sodium, fat, or cholesterol to boot. Eating just 2 a week reduces the risk of asthma and type 2 diabetes. Plus, so many cooking possibilities with all the varieties.

Now that I’m in the post-holiday-whoa-too-much-was-consumed mode, I know it’s time to heed my own lesson. Here’s the recipe that we did with the kids: it’s a healthy redux of waldorf that’s as easy to make as it is satisfying to eat.

HEALTHY WALDORF SALAD
1 cup Plain Lowfat Yogurt
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Honey
Pinch salt
A few grindings of Black Pepper
1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)
4 Apples—use an assortment, if you like—chopped medium size
2 stalks Celery, finely chopped
1 Carrot, shredded
½ cup toasted chopped Walnuts
½ cup Raisins

In a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt, lemon juice, honey, salt, pepper, and zest. In a separate bowl, toss the apples, celery, carrots, walnuts, and raisins together. Coat with yogurt dressing. Chill and serve on a bed of lettuce greens. Serves 6-8

Ambrosia, nectar of the gods, made a misstep some time in the mid-twentieth century when it took miniature marshmallows and canned fruit sections into its company. Thereafter, one might find it in malformed snowball mounds on the dessert table at a church supper or in a watery bowl, floating limp and pallid, on a cafeteria line.

For a dish that conferred immortality, it seemed, well, tragic. Olympian ambrosia of yore had been forgotten.

But one New Year’s morning a few years ago, when my friend Lou was also my next-door neighbor, I awoke to find her rapping at my front door, she and her partner, double-fisted, brandishing gifts: antique champagne glasses brimming with what appeared to be authentic ambrosia.

Luscious and heady: she had macerated the fruit in brandied orange liqueur. Happy New Year!
We gleefully ate— imbibed, really—and woozy, conked out.

I wanted to greet this New Year morning in a similar way, but I didn’t want to send my houseguests reeling back to bed. I had pineapple and a variety of citrus in the fridge, some shredded unsweetened coconut in the pantry—and a couple of other items that could make ambrosia anew.

Ginger chips—intense air-dried bits of sweet-pungent heat—are delicious layered in with the coconut and fruit. Silky walnut oil whisked in with the juices and zest, a little cracked black pepper elevate this to the celestial.

Of course, add a splash of Grand Marnier, if you don’t mind a little extra spirit.

A New Year Ambrosia

1 Ruby Grapefruit
1 Navel Orange
1 Tangerine
½ Pineapple
½ Lime (for both juice and zest)
½ cup Toasted Coconut
¼ cup Ginger Chips (found at Trader Joe’s)
4 Tablespoons Walnut Oil
pinch sea salt
a few grindings of cracked black pepper

1. Using a microplane, get ½ teaspoon of zest from each of the citrus fruits.
2. Cut citrus fruits into thin sections. Peel, core, and slice pineapple into thin slices.
3. Squeeze juice from rinds into mixing bowl. Squeeze lime into same bowl. Add orange and grapefruit zest. (reserve lime zest for garnish.) Add a pinch of sea salt and a few grindings of black pepper. Whisk in 4 Tablespoons Walnut oil.
4. Layer slices into saucer style champagne glasses (or martini glasses or glass bowls). Sprinkle with toasted coconut and a few broken ginger chips. Repeat layering, topping with coconut and ginger chips. Drizzle citrus-walnut oil mixture over each. Garnish with lime zest and serve.
Serves 4-6.

Here’s a little addendum to my response to Madeleine’s Hoppin’ John request in the previous post.

1. Adding a little diced celery, carrot, and sweet red pepper to the initial sauté of onions
and garlic brings extra flavor and flecks of color.
2. After the rice is steamed up in the Hoppin’ John pot, it’s fine to add a little liquid to “loosen things”
and allow the creaminess of the peas come out.
3. It is always one’s Good Fortune to eat such a tasty bowl. Don’t save it for New Year’s Day alone.
4. Good Fortune is increased when you top with fresh braised kale!

It’s brilliant: one bowl contains perfect food elements: fragrant rice, sweet peas, salt and heat
and a little earthy bitter green.
I used beautiful Red Russian Kale, grown by Allison and Matthew Neal
Braised Kale
2 T. olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
3 scallions, chopped (use the whole scallion-white and green)
1 bunch fresh kale, washed, torn into pieces
salt and red pepper flakes–to taste

In a skillet with medium heat, add olive oil. Add garlic and scallions and sauté for a minute or two.
Add kale and stir to coat the leaves. Season with a little salt and red pepper flakes.
Continue sautéing. The leaves will collapse and sweat. After about 5 minutes, pour a cup of water over the kale. Stir and cover to gently braise for another 5 minutes. Uncover and allow any excess liquid to cook down–but not totally evaporate. Leaves will be tender.

Serves 4