Pear Cornmeal Upside-Down Cake (gluten free)

We just celebrated my mother’s birthday. In the last few years, I have begun to host a celebratory dinner for the occasion. This inspires no small amount of stress since my mother sets a rather high bar when it comes to cooking and an even higher one when it comes to baking. Her birthday cakes are not only delicious, but also fantastically beautiful. For my sister and I, there were ball gown shaped cakes encircling barbies; a perfect 7 of hearts playing card for, naturally, my seventh birthday; a delicately piped star fish for an ocean themed party; I even remember on birthday cake for my marina owning grandfather with a meringue sail boat floating on a sea of blueberries.

So, the annual preparation for her birthday has come to involve–I admit–draft cakes. This year, I even solicited feedback from friends and Noah’s classmates. (Admittedly, that may have just been a desperate attempt not to eat three whole cakes in three weeks.) While all this may sound insane, it does mean that this recipe comes to you far more tested than most I post here. While, it is not in the shape of any fantastical creatures, it has been endorsed by my excellent friends and now my mother.

I have had this sprouted kitchen recipe for honey roasted pears bookmarked for ages, so, when I was trying to decide what kind of cake to make, I started dreaming about a honey roasted pear cake. In order to make it gluten-free, I then turned that vision into an upside down cake with a cornmeal base.

Can we pause here to talk about gluten-free upside down cakes? I think this may actually be the key to gluten-free baking. Gluten free cakes are often so dry, but upside down cakes are naturally juicy and whatever is on top infuses the whole cake with the taste of caramelized sugar.

Anyway, it turns out pears and cornmeal go together fantastically. Pears get soft and gentle tasting when baked and cornmeal provides a sturdy backing for them without overwhelming their flavor. The honey and thyme in here make the cake feel like an indulgent desert that would also be at home on a breakfast table, especially, say, the morning after Thanksgiving.

Best of all, this cake is shockingly easy to make. It comes together quickly, especially if you can draft a helper into slicing your pears for you (thanks John!).

Pear Cornmeal Upside-Down Cake (Pears inspired by Sprouted Kitchen, cake adapted from Feed Me Phoebe)

– 2- 3 Bosc Pears

– 2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter

– 1/2 cup honey

– 1 teaspoon vanilla

– 2 tablespoons coconut sugar (brown sugar would work too)

– 1/4 teaspoon thyme

– 2 cups cornmeal (I used 1 1/2 cups finely ground cornmeal and a 1/2 cup polenta to give it a little more crunch)

– 1 1/2 cups almond meal

– 1 teaspoon baking powder

– 4 eggs

– 1 cup sugar

– 2/3s cup olive oil

– 2/3s cup greek yogurt

* Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

* Butter a 9-inch springform cake pan.

* Cut pears in half lengthwise, remove seeds, and then cut into thin slices length wise.

* In a large bowl, mix together cornmeal, almond meal, and baking powder.

* In another bowl, mix together sugar, yogurt, eggs, and olive oil.

* In a small sauce pan, melt butter, add honey, sugar, vanilla, and thyme. Bring to a boil, let boil for one minute and then remove from heat.

* Pour butter-honey mixture into prepared cake pan and spread it to cover the bottom of the pan. Carefully arrange pear slices in a circle that fans out from the middle on top of the honey mixture. (Don’t burn your fingers!)

* Fold yogurt-sugar-egg mixture into cornmeal-almond meal mixture.

* Pour batter on top of pears.

* Place cake pan on baking sheet (this will catch any honey that leaks as it bakes). Bake for about 40 minutes until tester comes out firm and cake is golden brown.

* Let cool for 10 minutes, loosen sides with knife, invert onto serving dish and let cool the rest of the way (at least an hour).

Delicata Squash with Spicy Za’atar Dressing

Noah hates squash. While I generally try to keep Noah’s like and dislikes in mind when I’m cooking, I’m not so nice that I don’t sometimes view his dislikes as challenges rather than prohibitions. I am determined to convert him. Then we will move on to cauliflower.

This recipe did not make Noah an avowed squash lover, but he did ask for seconds. It’s inspired by what I believe is one of the great squash recipes of all time: Smitten Kitchen’s Acorn Squash with Chile-Lime Vinaigrette. If you haven’t made it, you should.

Here, I used delicata squash because it is easier to cook and eat. (I’m actually not convinced we should ever eat any other squash.) I took the dressing in a middle eastern direction, filling it with Parsley, Za’atar, Sumac, Smoked Paprika and a smattering of Cayenne Pepper. The resulting recipe: it’s easy to make, easy to scale up for a dinner party, and makes great leftovers the next day. I have made it twice in the last week and would happily make it two more times next week, I think it is so good. Enjoy!

Rosemary “Frites” with Yogurt Parsley Dip

I have been busy. There have been lots of train rides back and forth to New York and lots of weekends away, tramping up mountains through crunchy leaves and squishing through mud looking for mollusks. There have been too many applications to fill out, and more than a few pages have been written. Meetings to go to and tours to give. There has not been a lot of inspired cooking.

But, if you are looking for a dead simple meal that is satisfying and delicious, this what I recommend. Make Amanda Hesser’s baked eggs. Roast some Brussels sprouts. Cut some potatoes up so that they look like french fries and roast those too, maybe with rosemary and olive oil. Squeeze some lemon juice on the sprouts. Make a yogurt sauce for your potatoes.

Let’s talk more about the potatoes. As many of you know, for many years, New Haven had a fantastic dive bar, Rudy’s, that specialized in Belgian style frites with a long list of sauces. It is, somewhat unfortunately, not an exaggeration to say that I spent at least one night a week eating those frites during my last two years of college. Rudy’s has since upscaled and my metabolism has downscaled. I haven’t actually had any frites since moving back to New Haven. But, when I saw this recipe on Sprouted Kitchen, I decided that I had permission to make a slightly healthier version of Rudy’s frites for dinner.

A yogurt sauce is not the same as samurai sauce, these potatoes are not double fried, but, they are a tasty dinner nonetheless.

Rosemary “Frites” with Yogurt Parsley Dip (inspired by this Sprouted Kitchen recipe) 

– 2 fairly large russet potatoes

– 1 teaspoon Rosemary

– 1/2 cup yogurt

– 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley

– 3 cloves of garlic, smashed

– Olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste

* Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

* Slice potatoes into long and thin strips, french fry sized.

* Drizzle potatoes lightly with olive oil, pinch of salt, and 1 teaspoon Rosemary. Toss to coat. You don’t want the potatoes dripping in oil, just lightly coated.

* Arrange on a baking sheet so that widest, flattest part of each potato slice is against the pan.

* Bake for 30-45 minutes, tossing after about 15 minutes so that all the sides get browned. Remove when potatoes are crispy and brown, but not burnt. (This may take more or less time depending on how thin your potatoes are. Just keep an eye on them.)

* Meanwhile, combine yogurt, parsley, garlic, salt and a teaspoon of olive oil into a dipping sauce for the potatoes.

Enjoy!

Thai Chili Chili

I have a question: In a cooking competition, is spiking a recipe with fish sauce cheating or just savvy? On the one hand, it is pretty much umami distilled; just one small step short of dumping in the MSG and looking the other way as you rack up votes. On the other hand, it’s fish sauce. Thinking to put it in chili required some creativity on my end so I think I’ll just say a gracious thank you for my recent chili cook-off victory and share the recipe.

 

Saturday night, my friends threw their annual fall party complete with apple bobbing, sack racing, and, most importantly, a chili cook-off. A few weeks before, as I contemplated my chili contest entry, I told one of the hosts that I was going to try making a Thai chili chili (puns!). I also predicted I would lose the contest. It’s hard to win the chili cook off with a non-traditional chili.

But, this chili is special.  Fish sauce actually turns out to be kind of perfect in chili because it is smokey and sweet. This chili is both of those things but also spicy and meaty. It has a vinegary kick and is finished with coconut milk and lime juice. It’s turkey based. I used edamame in place of kidney beans and shallots in place of some of the onions.

Wednesday and Thursday: Ice Cream and Cobbler

Misleading title: I actually only had dessert for dinner one night this week. I’m such a grown up.

Wednesday: Second day in New York in a row. After a day of meetings, on the train home I try to eat an adult dinner of seafood spring rolls and seaweed salad purchased in Grand Central, but I’m only a few bites in when I suddenly feel disgusted by my favorite Grand Central meal. Maybe it’s because I ate it yesterday for lunch? Throw it out and demand Noah take me to Ashley’s (New Haven’s local ice cream shop) the minute I get off the train. Grape Nut Ice Cream for dinner. It’s awesome.

Thursday: Noah’s cousin came over for dinner so I made something I’ve had bookmarked all summer: Casa Yellow’s Collard Greens Cobbler. It is as awesome as a savory cobbler sounds. Make it. Immediately, if you can. (I subbed spelt flour for the all purpose flour in the biscuits and used a chicken sausage + red pepper flakes and olive oil in place of fattier Andouille sausage.) On the side, we killed the burrata from Tuesday night with some more tomatoes.

Monday and Tuesday Nights: Tomatoes!

I spent most of the morning wearing slippers and just pulled out a scarf and fleece for the first time, but we still have tomatoes, and I refuse to close our windows.

Monday: Noah was out, but by my friends Andrew and John came over. I made this roasted tomato soup from last October and–since the resident dill hater was out–this carrot, white bean, and dill salad from 101 cookbooks. Definitely a keeper recipe. We learned about the gold standard (literally) and had John’s apple pie and defrosted orange-almond cake that someone brought to this weekend’s break fast potluck for dessert.

Tuesday: Ladies auxiliary night across the street. AKA boyfriends were at a fancy law school dinner so my friend and I pooled farmers market resources (mostly hers) and cooked up a storm. Her contributions: a layered eggplant, mushroom, onion, tomato, and feta bake and pasta with kale, leeks and tomatoes. Mine: tomatoes, the remaining wilting basil, and burrata picked up at the cheese stand in Grand Central as I ran through this afternoon. I definitely did not carry my weight, but burrata masks all kitchen lazy-ness in indulgent, creamy goodness.

What We’re Eating This Week: Sunday Night Vietnamese Tofu Noodle Salad

I’ve decided to try something different this week and post what we have for dinner every night for the week. Some days there will be full recipes, some days links to recipes I used,  some days, like today, a sketch of what I did even though I failed to take notes.

Sunday: On our drive home from a holiday weekend in Boston, I decide I cannot stomach the idea of eating the many pounds of leftovers that have been sent back with us. I’ve already over-eaten all of those dishes. I also remember we have basil wilting in our refrigerator along with Thai chiles and tofu. I decide to make Vietnamese Noodle Salad, which I have never made but is indisputably my favorite thing to eat.

It turns out it’s pretty easy to make, mostly involving a lot of chopping. Here’s what’s in this bowl: Rice Noodles + Quick Pickled Carrots and Cucumbers+ Chopped Lettuce, Mint, Basil, Peanuts + this Mark Bittman Tofu Recipe (w/o onions). It’s all supposed to be tossed with a dressing of lime juice, hot peppers, garlic, and fish sauce, but I realized when I started making the dressing that we didn’t have any fish sauce. A mixture of miso paste, agave, olive oil, and soy sauce made a decent substitute.

For lunch today, I chopped some hardboiled egg over the leftovers since the tofu was mostly gone.

Back-to-School Sesame Plum Muffins

We’re in back-to-school mode here. Even though it is the beginning of my (ugh) 23rd school year, I’m still somehow hoping that school will turn out to be in Deep Valley, Minnesota instead of New York. But, after 23 Septembers, I know the best I can do is make muffins.

For those of you who just went, “huh?”, Deep Valley is the fictional home of the charming Betsy-Tacy books, which trace the idyllic late 19th-century childhood and young-adulthood of Betsy Ray: Every Sunday night friends come over for Betsy’s father’s sandwiches, all high school high jinks involve making fudge, and on the first day of school there are always muffins.

No one in the Betsy-Tacy books decides to do nonsense things like go to law school or get a PhD, but in an effort to bring a little 19th century idealism and simplicity into our skeptical and over-complicated 21st century lives, I baked these muffins to welcome in the school year. Of course, it being the 21st century, they are gluten-free and full of tahini, an ingredient that I would wager Betsy’s devoted cook, Anna, did not have on hand.

Sesame-Plum  Muffins (adapted from this muffin recipe from Sprouted Kitchen)

If you have any muffin-tin liners, I would use them. As you can see from the pictures, these muffins are pretty crumbly, very moist, and stuck to the pan a bit. I was fine without them, but my muffins were, perhaps, a little less pretty than they could have been. Makes 12 muffins. 

– 5 medium plums

– 1 1/2 cups almond meal

– 1/2 cup cornmeal

– 1/2 tsp baking soda

– 1/3 cup maple sugar (You could certainly substitute another sugar of your choice here, although I would avoid brown sugar as these muffins are already pretty juicy.)

– Pinch of salt

– 2 eggs

– 2 tablespoons olive oil

– 2 tablespoons tahini

– 2 tablespoons honey

– 1 teaspoon vanilla

* Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

* Oil or line muffin tin.

* Pit plums and chop into bite size pieces.

* Mix together all dry ingredients.

* Whisk together all wet ingredients.

* Fold wet ingredients into dry and then fold in plums.

* Fill muffin tins close to top, these muffins do not rise much.

* Bake 20 minutes, until tester comes out clean and tops are golden brown.

* Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes and then remove from pan and allow to cool the rest of the way.

Upside-Down Fig Cake (and Home)

Japan–>California–> Paris–>Atlanta–> Colorado–>Philadelphia–> Chicago–> Austin–> Madison–> New York–> Iceland–> D.C. –> Home.

Since last January, I have not spent more than 6 weeks (in New York) anywhere. Before that, there were three months last fall when I commuted to Boston every week.  When I got off the plane from Iceland, it was the first time in 17 months that I didn’t have another flight scheduled.

I’m not complaining (at least not that much). It has been a pretty cool year. I have some amazing photos as well as an unfortunate number of photos of old documents. I have eaten octopus pancakes, shrimp tacos, macaroons, soup (during the unfortunate mono + Atlanta leg), piergoies, breakfast tacos, cheese curds, ice cream, dried cod, pots of langoustine, hakarl (not so bad), lemongrass chicken bun (D.C., sometimes I do miss you), and more broccoli florets than I want to count.

As a kid, I wanted to write an ice cream tour book of the world so the other night I  made a list of all the ice creams I’ve eaten this past year. It went: green tea, yuba, California date shake, marron glace, raspberry sorbet (again, during the unfortunate mono incident, when my relationship with ice cream morphed into something purely medicinal). When I got to Madison, the list took an unfortunate turn into the territory of “too numerous to name” since I’m pretty sure I went for ice cream every night for two weeks. I was in America’s dairyland after all.

But, now I’m home. I’m in New Haven, and I’m going to be here for a while. The thing about having a crazy travel schedule that commences immediately after you move somewhere new is that you never really set up a routine. It’s hard to make friends. Yesterday, someone asked me what I do here, and I had to admit, I have no idea, yet.

But, people, I have a lot of baked goods to share. I need people to eat some of these sweets and come over for dinner. So, calling all recipe tasters. Save me from myself, and save Noah too. I seriously baked through an entire carton of eggs in the last 2 1/2 days. We need help.

Are you in New Haven? No? Do you want to come visit? You are here now? Come on over! I’ve got half a fig cake to share. 

Upside-Down Fig and Rosemary Cake

This recipe is a combination of two recipes. One is this birthday cake from 101 cookbooks, which is an excellent cake in and of itself. I made it for Mother’s Day last year, and it was my mom who actually had the genius idea of using it for an upside-down cake. The choice of fig and rosemary was inspired by this recipe from Food 52, but I couldn’t bring myself to use the amount of butter called for and, our subletters ran off with the brown sugar so things had to be adjusted. Fortunately, I hid the maple sugar before they left so I think the adjustments just made everything better. 

– 12 figs

– 1 stick (8 tablespoons of butter)

– 1 tsp dried rosemary

– 1/2 cup maple sugar (I’m sure brown sugar would be just fine too.

– 14 ounces almond paste (not marzipan)

– 5 large eggs, whisked

– 1/4 cup cornstarch

– Pinch of sea salt

* Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

* Slice the figs in half and take off the ends.

* Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in the bottom of a 9 inch, spring-form cake pan.

* Sprinkle about 2/3s of the maple sugar evenly over the melted butter. Arrange the figs flesh side down on the pan. Sprinkle figs with remaining sugar and rosemary. Set aside.

* Melt the remaining butter in the microwave and allow to cool.

* Crumble the almond paste into a food processor until pebbly in size.

* Add eggs to almond paste and process until smooth. (I think the secret to getting a light cake with this batter is to really whip those eggs until the egg-almond mixture is a pale yellow and almost foamy.)

* Sprinkle cornstarch and salt into batter and pulse.

* Add cooled butter and pulse until smooth.

* Pour batter over figs into cake pan.

* Bake until golden brown and cake tester comes out clean, 50-60 minutes.

* Let cool in pan, loosen with knife, and invert onto serving dish so figs are right side up.

I bet this would be great with whipped cream. Alternatively, you could eat it for breakfast as I did this morning.

Radicchio, Eggs, and Potatoes with Anchovy-Rosemary Aioli

I think this is my new perfect summer meal.

I have long read descriptions of aioli feasts in Provence where the entire meal is boiled vegetables, fish, and eggs with a side of aioli dipping sauce. I’ve always thought that sounded lovely. Once I even tried to make it. But at the end of the day, I don’t love boiled vegetables and I’m very picky about how and where I like my mayonnaise. I still like the principle behind it though.

This weekend, as we were trying to drum up ideas for dinner, I mentioned a recipe I had seen in Saveur for radicchio with a rosemary-anchovy dipping sauce. So many of my favorite ingredients at once! We decided to try and make a meal of it by roasting some potatoes and boiling some eggs.

Since we lack a mortar and pestle I ended up using a blender, which transformed the olive oil and anchovies from the dressing I was imagining into something with the texture of aioli.

We ate it on our roof deck with roast potatoes, radicchio and hardboiled eggs. I wrapped radicchio leaves around some of the eggs before dipping. We washed it all down with wine. It was, indeed, lovely.

Radicchio, Eggs, and Potatoes with Anchovy-Rosemary Aioli: (Lightly adapted from this Saveur article) 

– 4 hardboiled eggs

– 4 yukon gold potatoes

– 1 head of radicchio

– 2 oz tin flat filet anchovies

– Juice of 1 lemon

– 2 tablespoons dried rosemary leaves (fresh would also probably be nice too)

– 1/3-2/3 cups olive oil

* Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

* Slice the potatoes width wise into rounds. Drizzle with olive oil (but do not salt) and arrange on a baking sheet. Bake potatoes until they get crispy and brown, about 30 minutes.

* Roughly quarter and core radicchio and separate the leaves.

* Combine anchovies, lemon, and rosemary in a blender and pulse until roughly chopped. While blending, slowly drizzle in olive oil. We ended up using close to 2/3s cups of olive oil, but taste it after the first third of a cup to see what you think. After the first 1/3 we added oil to make it less strong.

* Serve sauces with potatoes, boiled eggs, and radicchio.