Do you have a favorite apple?

With all the tempting varieties showing up at our farmer’s market this week, I would be hard pressed to give an answer. And, some apples are better suited for baking, others for simple out-of-hand eating. Pairing apple types–say, your sweet Jonah Gold with a tart Honeycrisp in a salad or green Granny Smith with an Arkansas Black layered in a Tarte Tatin–adds surprising complexity to a dish. Maybe it’s better to have Favorites, with the notion that the next best ones have yet to be sampled…

Last week I was in Manchester, Tennessee, talking to the ladies of the garden club about Food. That’s broad, I know. And, I can hold forth on any of the myriad aspects: growing and preserving, cooking techniques and recipes, health concerns and education, community…It’s one of our common denominators; a conversation about food can lead anywhere!

We discussed hunger and food security issues, and the importance of supporting our local food producers when and where we can. Being ladies who have long been cultivating beautiful living things, they well understood what it means to eat seasonally.

Maybe that’s when the topic of apples came up. There’s a wonderful orchard not too far from them in Pikeville, Tennessee. (That’s about 140 miles southeast of Nashville, as the crow flies.) Up on Walden Ridge, the Oren Wooden Apple Farm grows 18 varieties, with the Pink Lady Apples–crisp, sweet beauties that are remarkably versatile–being the most prized.

Serendipity! This led to a quick recipe demonstration I had already planned to give, one that would benefit from being prepared with the prized Pink Lady.

This delicious appetizer requires nothing more than the right ingredients, plus a knife and bowl. I used a Gala and a Jonah Gold. Try the recipe with your favorite crisp “eating” apples and a fruity extra-virgin olive oil. Toasted almonds or walnuts work equally well in the recipe–you make the choice. Mild goat cheese creams and coats the apples as you toss the ingredients. Bright green onion, salt and pepper balance the sweetness, give it edge.

In under fifteen minutes, you’ll have a fall appetizer,
ready to enjoy with a glass of Riesling.

Belgian endive leaves provide totally edible support. And, the floral mandala makes a knock-out presentation. Perfect for my garden club friends.

Update! An email from Manchester just alerted me to the coming Pink Lady harvest at Wooden’s. Fantastic! A box of these lovelies could be coming my way soon.

Belgian Endive stuffed with Honeycrisp Apples, Goat Cheese, and Walnuts
4 firm heads of Belgian Endive
2 Apples, (try Honeycrisp, Gala, Pink Lady)washed, cored, diced into small pieces
4 oz. plain Chèvre log, crumbled
3 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon Orange Zest
1 Tablespoon fresh Orange Juice
2 Green Onions, tops included, finely sliced
½ cup Walnuts or Almonds, toasted and coarsely chopped
¼ cup dried cranberries
¼ teaspoon Sea Salt
A few grindings of Black Pepper
Balsamic Vinegar for drizzling

Rinse and dry endives, trim the bottom (root end) to separate leaves. Set aside.
In a bowl, toss diced apples and crumbled goat cheese with extra virgin olive oil and orange juice until lightly coated. Add green onions, nuts, dried cranberries, salt and black pepper. Stir gently until all the ingredients are evenly incorporated in the mixture. The goat cheese will cream slightly and coat the apples. Place a small spoonful at the base of the endive leaf—enough for one bite—and lay the leaf on a plate. Continue, placing each leaf in a circular pattern on the plate. Then, drizzle a small amount of balsamic vinegar onto each mound of apple-goat cheese-nut salad. Serve. Makes about 48 leaves.

Butternut Everything!

Of all the winter squashes, butternut is my favorite. And not for its rich, creamy flavor alone—its pretty fall color, dense, smooth texture, and relative ease of preparation (not as hard an exterior as, say, acorn squash) make it outshine the others.

And, it’s so versatile. There are dozens of delicious ways to make it–in soups, risottos, stuffings, salads….

Gigi had grown quite a bit of butternut in her Wedgewood Urban Gardens, so we wanted to feature it in a special way at our community pot luck last week. She had bundles of leeks waiting to be pulled from the garden, too.

We LOVE leeks, and so I created this lasagna variation to include them. The leek and butternut union became the big hit at our dinner.

What made it unique was the layering of these three components:
roasted butternut squash puree
leek-ricotta bechamel
stewed or roasted yellow tomatoes

What made it simpler was the “no-bake” lasagna that I used. If you’ve never tried it, you’ll be surprised. It really works well, and is not as heavy as the typical thicker, ripple-edged pasta that we all have used many times.

One less pot to deal with, no big wads of broad noodles clumped together, a whole step eliminated!

Both the butternut puree and the bechamel have an earthy sweetness. The yellow tomatoes add a bright, citrusy-acid note in the middle. If you don’t have these, no worries. The dish is still very good without them.

I grated some sharp pecorino-romano over the several layers. If you like, you can garnish the top with some walnuts.

Like most lasagnas, it is not difficult to make–but there are two main steps involved before you can assemble the layers.

Roasted Butternut Squash
2 Butternut Squash–medium size
Olive oil
Salt and Black Pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut butternuts in half. Scoop out seeds. Brush both sides with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place skin side up onto a baking pan and roast uncovered for 30-40 minutes. The outside skin will brown and blister slightly, and the whole squash will soften and collapse. When this occurs, remove from the oven and allow to cool.

When cooled, the skin will peel away from the meat of the squash.
Where it doesn’t peel away, scoop out the meat with a spoon.
Place all roasted squash into a food processor fitted with the swivel blade and puree. Season to taste with salt and pepper. The mixture will be fairly thick and creamy. If it’s too thick (as in too difficult to spread with a spatula over lasagna) thin with a little half-and-half.

Leek-Ricotta Bechamel
4 Leeks, cleaned well and chopped–use white and green parts
3 Tablespoons Butter
3 Tablespoons Flour (all-purpose)
1 1/2 cups Half-and-Half
1 cup Ricotta
Salt and Black Pepper–to taste

In a 3 qt. saucepan, melt butter on medium heat and add leeks. Sauté for 5-7 minutes, stirring often, until leeks soften and separate.
Sprinkle in flour, and stir rapidly, so that the leeks are well coated. When the flour has absorbed all liquid/butter, and cooked onto the leeks, pour in the half-and-half. Keep stirring. Soon, the sauce will bubble and thicken. Add the ricotta and stir well. Season with salt and black pepper. The sauce will be rich tasting and somewhat sweet from the leeks.

The Assembly
1 box No Bake Lasagna
Leek-Ricotta Bechamel
Butternut Squash Puree
1 cup cooked Yellow Tomatoes
1 handful fresh Sage leaves, chopped
Pecorino-Romano cheese to grate

Lightly coat a 9×13 deep-dish style baking pan or casserole with olive oil. Then, cover the bottom of the casserole with a layer of leek bechamel. Place lasagna on top. Spread a layer of butternut over that. Sprinkle chopped sage over the butternut, and spoon over with bechamel. Add your 2nd lasagna layer, then the yellow tomatoes. Grate some pecorino-romano over the tomatoes, dot with bechamel and add 3rd lasagna layer. Spread butternut over the lasagna, sprinkle with chopped sage, and cover with 4th (and final) lasagna. Cover the top with remaining bechamel. Grate romano over the top.

At this point, you can refrigerate it and bake it the next day, if you like. Otherwise, seal with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. (This helps the casserole to steam up as it bakes, cooking the pasta.) Uncover and bake for another 10 minutes. Serves 8-10 generously.

There’s an old large pear tree on Maggie’s property that produces abundantly—-we don’t know its proper name—Maggie says she just known it as a country pear, or canning pear. The skin is tough, a bit mottled, blemished; the interior firm, large-celled—very open to accepting and marrying other flavors.

Last fall, which was Maggie’s first year to experience the pear harvest, was (like many fruit harvests of 2008) overwhelming. Pears everywhere! A preponderance of pears.

I went totally overboard, bringing home a hundred and some odd—-making pear butter, pear vinegar, pear coffeecake, pear pie, pear chutney—-and still having pears to spare. They took over the kitchen!

This year, I have vowed to be more balanced. For my first pick, I brought home 20 pears. Now, that’s manageable! These country pears are most amenable to poaching; you can take them in any flavor profile direction you’d like. Try fresh ginger, brown sugar, and star anise. Or red wine, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Or vanilla beans and rum.

I had some local wildflower honey that was intensely floral; I was convinced it would add something unique to a pear dish. It went into my poaching liquid, along with a little white wine and orange zest.

A pleasing result—still very “peary” but with subtle layers of citrus and lavender.

These poached pear slices melded nicely in a brown sugar-walnut-ricotta layered tart using phyllo dough. Simple, crisp, and not-too-sweet—the sort of treat that you can throw together, in a trice, and enjoy with a cup of coffee.

But these same poached pears would be rather elegantly partnered on the savory end, served with roast chicken or pork:all good food for the season.

More pear recipes to come……

peeling pears in Maggie’s kitchen

Honey Poached Pears
4 cups sliced pears
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup wildflower honey
zest and juice of 1 Orange
2 t. Vanilla

These are “shallow poached.” Place all ingredients into a large skillet, stirring and tossing so that everything is well mixed. Cook on medium heat, covered, stirring occasionally for 40 minutes. Pears and zest will soften. Uncover and reduce heat, allowing liquid to thicken, and poach for another 15 minutes.

Poached Pear-Ricotta-Phyllo Tart
2-3 cups Poached Pears
1 cup Ricotta, whipped until very smooth (immersion blender or food processor)
1 cup ground walnuts
1 stick melted butter
2 T. brown sugar
Phyllo Dough–thawed, so that it is maleable
pastry brush
8×8 baking pan

In a small bowl, mix ground walnuts, brown sugar and melted butter together. Open up roll of phyllo dough and brush it with this butter-walnut mixture and place it into the baking pan. Repeat with successive layerings, about 8 times, until a frilly crust is formed. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look even or pretty.
Layer in smooth ricotta.
Top with poached pears.
Garnish with walnut pieces.
Bake in 325 degree oven for 25-30 minutes, until phyllo crust is golden brown.
Serve warm or room temperature.

With its layers of phyllo, and ground walnuts with brown sugar, it is vaguely reminiscent of baklava. The ricotta adds a nice bridging layer between the crisp phyllo and the fruit.

Yellow Dinner
(with optional bright green chives, for contrast!)

There are times, like this rainy-gray fall day, when the simplicity of a monochromatic one-plate meal is just right.

Consider a poached farm egg–so pure–
nestled a top a mound of creamy polenta.
Now, spoon on some roasted yellow pepper sauce
for sweetness.
Then, sprinkle shreds of parmesan
for bite.

Grab your spoon, to scoop up all the comfort.
Get a blanket and huddle on the couch with your dinner bowl,
grateful that you are warm inside.

It’s the sauce that unifies this dish, bringing that caramel-vegetal
balance to the protein and the carb.

I roasted the sweet bell peppers in much the same way that I roast
tomatoes—brushed with olive oil, dusted with sea salt. I used yellow bell peppers—that’s what I grew—but you can use sweet red or orange bell peppers too.

Here, I included hunks of onion, a few garlic cloves, a handful of sungold cherry tomatoes, and one overripe “Mr. Stripey” yellow tomato–all which caramelized in harmony with the peppers.

Post-peeling, all the mixture needs is a puree in the food processor.
If you want to make it super-rich, puree this with heavy cream.
Whoa!
That added dairy is unnecessary, however.

While this dish has full flavors and richness, it does not have a lot of fat.

The polenta, seasoned simply with salt and black pepper, is boiled in water to desired thickness. (follow the directions on the bag or box–typically it’s a ratio of 1 to 3, corn meal to water.

The peppers are roasted in olive oil. The eggs are soft-poached. (so that the runny yolk will get sopped up by the polenta.)

A few nut-like shards of parmegiano-regianno are the only dairy.

The whole ensemble is divine.

Roasted Sweet Yellow Pepper Sauce
2 large ripe Yellow Bell Peppers
1 ripe Yellow Tomato
1/2 large Yellow Onion
2-3 cloves of Garlic
Sea Salt
Black Pepper
olive oil

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Cut peppers in half lengthwise and remove seeds and pod. Place onto baking sheetpan, top up.
Core tomato, cut in half. Place on baking sheetpan.
Cut onion into medium sized hunks. Place among, and underneath the peppers. Place garlic cloves under the peppers as well.
Brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Place in oven to roast for 20-25 minutes: skins will blacken and blister.
Allow to cool, and remove peels. (they should slip right off.)
Puree in a food processor fitted with the swivel blade.