Today we visited the ca. 1800 era Blennerhassett Mansion, on an island in the Ohio River. The mansion itself was picturesque and the setting beautiful

The fascinating part, for me, was the kitchen. This is where the first person singular story of history came alive. All cooking was done at the giant fireplace, central to the room, over coals or using reflected heat.

The sandstone sink was a luxury for the time, with a drainpipe plumbed out through the side of the house. Copper cooking and food preparation utensils were an expensive luxury for the period.

Water and staples were stored in giant barrels in the kitchen.

A home and a kitchen of this size could not be operated without a substantial staff; a wealthy wife and mother was not a hands-on cook or housekeeper. The docents indicated that the servants’ quarters were larger and better furnished than most standalone homes of the times.

I think, in the future, I’ll pay more attention to the ‘back of the house’ part of the history in the future; it’s really interesting.

(Note: the colors were reportedly authentic to the period and very expensive choices for the time.)

Gingerbread

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose unbleached flour, plus more for dusting pan
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon table salt
3 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
3 tablespoons minced crystallized ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon Dutch-processed cocoa powder
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, then cooled to room temperature
3/4 cup mild molasses
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup milk

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom and sides of 9×9-inch baking pan and dust with flour.

2. Mix together dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and cocoa.
3. Beat butter, molasses, and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until combined. Beat in egg until incorporated. Gradually add buttermilk and milk until combined.
4. Add dry ingredients to liquid; add ginger and beat on medium speed until batter is mostly smooth (ginger will make it slightly lumpy), about 1 minute, scraping down sides of bowl with rubber spatula as needed. Do not overmix. Scrape batter into prepared pan.
5. Bake until top springs back when lightly touched, edges have pulled away from the pan sides, and cake tests done with a toothpick, about 40 minutes. Set pan on cake rack and let cool for at least 10 minutes. Serve warm, or at room temperature. (Gingerbread can be wrapped in plastic, then foil, and refrigerated up to 5 days.)

Recipe notes:

The grated fresh ginger gave it a wonderful kick but was a little overwhelming – I might cut it back to 2 to 2 1/2 tablespoons.

I doubled the recipe and made this in a 9×13 pan. That didn’t work out so well – the cake was too thick and baked too slowly, about 1:05, and by the time it was done it was slightly scorched on the edges and still heavy in the middle. Next time I’ll use two 9×9 pans.

I’d actually like to find a lighter, cakier recipe that’s still very spicy and molasses-y – but this one was yummy.

Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!

When I make apple butter, I make it in volume. The teen boy squad loves both apple and pear butter and consumes a lot of it! Here’s my recipe, adapted slightly this year for a cane-sugar sensitive sister.

30 lbs mixed cooking apples
(I used mixed Macintosh, Jonagold, Yellow Delicious and Granny Smith)
6 cups apple cider
1 cup plus ½ cup apple cider vinegar
5 cups agave syrup
5 tsp cinnamon
3 tsp ginger
1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp allspice
Water

Peel, core and slice the apples. I use a mechanical gadget that works well for all but the biggest or softest apples. Drop the sliced apples into a large bowl partially filled with water and ½ cup apple cider vinegar to prevent browning.

I used three stock pots to simmer the apples. Drain and evenly distribute the apples, the cider, the cup of cider vinegar and the agave syrup. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, then simmer until soft, mushy and saucy.

The traditional method of achieving fine textured apple butter is to press through a sieve. I prefer using a hand held immersion blender instead, it’s easiest. You can also run the apples through a blender or food processor until smooth.

A note on spices – aromatic spices only last about a year in the cupboard before the flavor fades noticeably. It’s a good idea to invest in new for this cooking adventure, especially cinnamon. I like my apple butter a bit spicy and the recipe reflects that – you can adjust to taste.

After blending the apples, add spices and continue to simmer, leaving the pots only partially covered. The goal is to cook the apples down to a thick sauce. Keep the heat relatively low and stir every 30 minutes or so. There will be some caramelization of sugars on the bottom; this is good, it adds color and flavor complexity. Scrape it up and stir it in. You just don’t want it to scorch. (If it does scorch, but the flavor hasn’t permeated the apple butter, it may be salvageable. DON’T scrape it or stir it up, carefully pour the apples off into a different pan to continue cooking.)

You will need to simmer the apples for hours – typically, mine takes about 8 hours to reach the consistency I like. You can also reduce the apples in a large crockpot on low, with the lid tilted off-center, overnight.

Apple butter doesn’t freeze especially well and should be canned or refrigerated. I use traditional hot water bath canning.

We had leftover apples, so the youngest and his friend-who-is-a-girl made a couple of apple crisps.

Yum – I love fall!

Because I’m compulsive and twisted that way, I did some math.

For the next three years I should have some combination of young adults living at home, so they’ll probably forage from my fridge about four nights of seven. I’ll likely have a dinner date with a friend a couple times a month as well. This leaves me with about 420 nights eating dinner on my own during that time period.

After than, I have, conservatively, 28 years left of eating dinner alone. With the same rate of dinner dates a couple times a month, that’s 9,548 solo dinners.

Damn, I’d either better work on my social life, or buy stock in Amy’s Organic.

(Note: black humor, not black depression, was my intention here!)

Ingredients:

1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream, softened
2 shots Bailey’s Irish Cream. Or more.
Crumbled hard cookies to taste

Mash together in a shallow mixing bowl, return to ice cream carton, and hide in the back of the freezer. It will all fit – ice cream has air incorporated into it, which will disappear when you mash it up with the Bailey’s.

She used Pepperidge Farms Brussels cookies, because they’re hard enough to stand up to mashing & immersion in ice cream, plus they contain chocolate, so that’s what I’m using too, but any hard, non-crumbly cookie would work.

You can make this with sugar free ice cream and cookies – and in fact I will, for some of the family – but if you try to use some weird-ass brand of sugar-free Irish cream I don’t want to hear about it.

Enjoy!

Tom publishes the recipe in his Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen cookbook, and it’s been reprinted several places on the web, so I’m sharing it here as well.

Etta’s Cornbread Pudding

Cornbread:

¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus a little extra for buttering pan
1 cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup medium-ground yellow cornmeal
½ cup grated pepper jack cheese
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons honey

Pudding:

1 tablespoon unsalted butter plus a little more for buttering pan
1 cup thinly sliced onions
¾ cup grated dry jack cheese
2 teaspoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
½ teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
½ teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
2 ¼ cups whipping cream or half-and-half
4 large eggs
¾ to 1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. To prepare the cornbread: Heat oven to 425 degrees. Melt ¼ cup butter and set aside to cool slightly. Butter an 8-inch square pan with a little softened butter and set aside.
 
2. Combine the flour, cornmeal, pepper jack cheese, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. In a second bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and honey. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring just until combined. Add the melted butter and stir into the mixture. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 20 minutes. When cool enough to handle, cut into 1-inch cubes.
 
3. To prepare the pudding: Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Put the cornbread cubes in a buttered 9-by-13-inch baking dish.
 
4. Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a sauté pan over low heat and cook the onions very slowly until soft and golden brown, at least 20 minutes; stir occasionally. Remove from the heat. Scatter the onions, cheese and herbs over the cornbread. Whisk together the cream, eggs, salt and pepper in a mixing bowl and pour over the cornbread cubes. Let sit for 10 minutes so the cornbread absorbs some of the custard.

Notes: Dry jack cheese resembles parmesan and is nuttier than regular jack; you could also use parmesan or sharp cheddar but the flavor would change. You can make the cornbread and store it in the freezer, covered tightly in plastic wrap, for a few weeks until you are ready to make the pudding. The onions can be caramelized a day ahead and stored, covered, in the refrigerator. The pudding can be baked a day in advance and stored in the refrigerator, covered – we actually liked it better the second day. Before serving, reheat the pudding, covered with aluminum foil, in a preheated 375-degree oven until warmed through.

     Bittersweet Brownies

I know many of you have tried them. If you have not – and you like dark chocolate – it’s well worth the kitchen time to make a batch!

I can’t share the truly awesome leftovers – but I can share the recipe.

Kahlua Fudge Cheesecake

Crust
2 pkg (2/3 box) chocolate graham crackers
3 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp melted butter

Cheesecake
32 oz cream or neufchatel cheese, softened
1 ½ c sugar
½ c cocoa powder
1 ¾ c semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips (1 12-oz pkg)
6 tbsp kahlua
6 tbsp cream
5 eggs
1 ½ tsp vanilla

Ganache topping
1 ¾ c semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips (1 12-oz pkg)
6 tbsp kahlua
6 tbsp cream

Crust:
Reduce graham crackers to crumbs using either a food processor or a ziplock back and a rolling pin. Toss with sugar and melted butter, press crumb mixture into bottom and halfway up the sides of a 9″ springform cheesecake pan. Preheat oven to 350. Freeze crust for five minutes, then bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.

Cheesecake:
Preheat oven to 400. Beat cream cheese, sugar and cocoa powder together until fluffy. Melt chocolate chips in double boiler or in microwave (place in microwave safe dish, alternating heating 20 seconds full power with stirring until completely smooth). Blend in kahlua and cream until smooth, and mix into cream cheese mixture. Mix in eggs one at a time, then vanilla. Pour mixture carefully over crumb crust. Your cheesecake pan will be very full; this is ok, it will not overflow.

Prepare a water bath; this is a lot of trouble but will greatly improve the quality of your finished cheesecake. Place about 8 cups of water on stovetop or in microwave and bring to a boil. Layer 2 x 18″ squares of aluminum foil on the counter – overlapping 12″ squares WILL NOT work – place cheesecake pan in the center, and carefully wrap foil up sides of cheesecake pan. Don’t cover the top, but trim excess away. Place foil wrapped cheesecake pan in center of larger baking pan – a broiler pan will work – and place broiler pan in center rack of oven. Carefully pour boiling water in broiler pan around cheesecake pan, until 1/3 to ½ way up the side of cheesecake pan.

Bake at 400 for ten minutes, then reduce oven to 275. Bake for 90 minutes before checking cheesecake. Cheesecake may bake for up to 2 hours, depending on starting temperature of your cheesecake and actual heat of your oven. Remove from heat when it is set 2/3 of the way to the center but still slightly wobbly in the middle – it will continue to set after removed from heat.

Let cool for a couple hours at room temperature, then refrigerate overnight.

Ganache topping:
Melt chocolate chips in double boiler or in microwave (place in microwave safe dish, alternating heating 20 seconds full power with stirring until completely smooth). Blend in kahlua and cream until smooth. Mixture will be thick; pour & spread over top of cheesecake. Replace in refrigerator for another couple of hours.

Recipe notes:

• I like a tall cheesecake so this recipe has been adapted x .5 – you can reverse that if you prefer a thinner dessert.
• You can vary the proportions of chocolate to cream cheese – subtracting a cup of chocolate chips and adding 8 oz cream cheese – in the cheesecake portion to make a less intensely chocolate cheesecake if you choose. The recipe above is VERY intensely dark chocolate.
• Why a water bath? Cooking in a water bath improves heat transfer and reduces edge overheating & drying out, making a moist, even-textured cheesecake. The steamy oven also helps prevent a cracked top, although the ganache topping conceals that anyway.
• This recipe serves 16 chocoholics.

One observation on the items: many of the international and ethnic foods are fairly well respected within their culture of origin, e.g. caviar, fried plantain, Kobe beef. Most of the American items on the list, though, were unique to America but total crap, e.g. Hostess pies and McDonald’s Big Macs. Where is the fried chicken, apple pie, rib-eye steak? It makes me wonder about the international perception of American cuisine.

Also, several items on the list were alcoholic beverages. As a teetotaler – it’s a migraine trigger – I crossed those out.

Directions: Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions. Bold all the items you’ve eaten. Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

3/4 c plain yogurt
3/4 c mayonnaise (not miracle whip)
3/4 c crumbled feta cheese
1 minced large garlic clove
1 tbsp dried dill weed or 2 tbsp minced fresh dill
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp cracked black pepper

Mix and let sit 1/2 hr before serving. Works as a dip or salad dressing. I tossed with butter lettuce, cucumbers, red peppers and grape tomatoes; a true Greek salad would include Kalamata olives too.