Red red red Salad (Legal Seafood)

One of my favorite salads that I had a few years ago at Legal Seafood in Boston: the red red red salad. Radicchio, dried cranberries and cherry balsamic vinaigrette, with some pecans and goat cheese.

1 head radicchio, cut in thin stripes
2 TB dried cranberries (or black cherries)
1 TB goat cheese, crumbled (or gorgonzola)
1 TB pecans, toasted and/or spiced (or walnuts)
Black cherry balsamic vinaigrette

Prepare salad and ingredients, and serve with vinaigrette.

Black cherry balsamic vinaigrette:
very good olive oil
black cherry balsamic vinegar (available @Fiore, Bar Harbor, ME)
1 garlic clove, grated (microplaned)
1 TS honey
1 TS mustard
salt, pepper

Fill all ingredients in a jar, and shake well.

Belgian Endive with Apple, Pomegranate, Pecans and Goat cheese

Another great winter salad: endives, celery, apple, toasted pecans, pomegranate seeds and goat cheese with a Galeo dressing.

Local artisan cheese in Maine

Local cheeses in Maine, mostly goat cheese. The Appleton Creamery Goat Cheese, of course, is my favorite.

The article in the Maine Mag.

Exhibit by Kathryn Oliver at the Carver Hill Gallery in Rockport

Planing for a trip to Rockland? This is a destination, too. Opening Reception and Performance by Kathryn Oliver at the Carver Hill Gallery in Rockport on Wednesday, November 11th 2009.

Kathryn Oliver - playwrite, visual artist, sculptor and painter - will have paintings, ceramic sculpture, large puppets and mobiles on exhibit at the Carver Hill Gallery from November 11th to December 7th 2009.

For more information, check here.

Beet Stuffed Baked Apples

several apples, washed and cored
1 beet, peeled and cut into sticks
1/2 cup beef stock (or vegetable stock)
1 TB balsamic vinegar
1/2 ts whole cloves

Core apples and place in baking dish. Stuff with beet sticks. Fill the area around the apples with the mix of beef stock, balsamic vinegar and cloves. Bake at 430F for 30 min.

Serve with goat cheese and pinenuts.

Looking for cute aprons ?

A great online and in-state find for gorgeous aprons: 2 Fresh Threads, Portland, ME.

2 fresh threads
po box 3083
portland, maine 04104
p. 207.317.1536
e. info@2freshthreads.com

Vegan Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Sauce

This is not necessarily skinny, but it is vegan (no eggs, no butter, no sugar), so quite light and just a divine rich chocolate taste, and light cake texture.

Ingredients for a small spring form:
1/3 cp whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
1 ts baking powder
1/2 ts baking soda
1/3 cp cocoa powder
1/4 ts salt
1/2 cp soy milk
1/4 cp canola oil
3/4 cp pure organic maple syrup
1/2 ts apple cidre vinegar
1 ts vanilla extract

Raspberry Sauce (for a small cake):
1 cp frozen raspberries, thawed
1/2 ts maple syrup
1/2 ts vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 9 inch springform pan with non stick cooking spray. Sift together flours and baking powder and baking soda. In a saucepan, heat the soymilk on low-medium heat. When it is slightly bubbling, add the cocoa powder and whisk well until it is dissolved. Remove from heat. Combine the other liquid ingredients in a bowl and whisk well. Add the cocoa mixture and combine. Add the wet ingredients to the dry.

Pour batter into prepared pan, bake at 350 F for 25 minutes until a toothpick or butter knife comes out clean. Let cool completely and frost with your favorite frosting.

Vegan Banana Bread

Equipment:
small spring form
Ingredients
1/4 cup splenda brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/4 cups pastry flour
¾ cp whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2-3 TB semi-sweat mini chocolate chips
1/4 cup chopped, toasted pecans
1/4 cup vanilla soy milk, mixed with
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 TB earth balance no-transfat margarine, melted
¼ cp apple sauce, optionally
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 very ripe bananas, mashed well

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 8x4 bread pan with non stick cooking spray, or lightly coat with margarine. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and dry spices. Mix together the soy milk, apple cider vinegar, margarine and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and add the bananas. Mix well. Pour batter into pan. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes.

Spicy Red Kuri Squash Soup

• 1 ts olive oil
• 1/2 red onion, peeled and diced
• 1 hot red chili, diced
  
• 3 garlic cloves finely minced
• 1 small diced and peeled red kuri squash (also known as Japanese squash, orange hokkaido, or uchiki kuri squash)
  
• 1 medium sized peeled sweet potato
• 2 small diced and peeled carrot
• 4 cups water (or 2 cups water and 2 cups chicken stock)
• 2TB ajvar (roasted red pepper paste)
• Salt and pepper
• crème fraiche, to serve
• fresh parsley, chopped, to serve

In a large pot, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil. When warm, add the onion and red chili and soften. (ca. 3 to 4 min). Add the minced garlic and continue to cook for 1/2 minute. Add the rest of the vegetables and cook for 2 minutes, stirring. Cover with the water or stock.

Add the avjar and season with salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft. Purée the soup. Add more stock or water if necessary.

To serve, add a teaspoon of crème fraiche, and parsley.

Simple Apple Pie

• 1 store-bought frozen pie crust, thawed
  
• 2 pound tart apples such as Brock or Spencer, peeled, cored and sliced
• juice of one fresh lemon
• grated lemon zest of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 TB brown sugar
  

Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.

Unroll pie crust. Transfer to an non-greased 17- by 14-inch baking sheet or a pie shaped baking dish.

Toss apples with lemon juice and zest in a large bowl, and sprinkle granulated sugar over apples. Place apple slices on pie crust. Either arrange neatly (or not so neatly), or fold in dough border over apples if making a galette, pleating dough as necessary, to form a 9-inch round, or simply place in the pie form.

Bake pie 30 minutes, then loosely cover with foil and bake until apples are tender and crust is golden, 25 to 30 minutes more. Sprinkle some brown sugar on top of apples, and bake 15 min more.

Cool to warm or room temperature.

The sour grapes of 2009

Yes, there are grapes growing in Maine, and they are even sweet if the summer does not decide to rain out like this year. The harvest (on my house wall) was late this year, but plentiful. It still makes for great fresh pressed grape juice.

Home-made Apple Cider

Fall, the time of apple picking and apple abundance. Cider is readily available, but it is also easy to make at home with the right equipment (e.g. a Breville juicer).

Onion Chutney

Onion chutney requires only a few ingredients - onions of course (any will do, but red onions give the nicest colour and sweet taste), a vinegar - sherry, red wine, raspberry or balsamic are all ideal, and brown sugar, together with some bay leaves, juniper berries and peppercorns for flavour.

Chop 6 large onions as coursely or finely as you like and heat with a small amount of canola oil in a stainless steel pan until they are soft. Add 1 cup of your chosen vinegar (or a mixture of vinegars) and 1 cup of brown sugar, and drop in a couple of bay leaves and 15-20 crushed black peppercorns and 5 juniper berries. Bring the mixture to the boil and then simmer gently for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until the onions have gone translucent and all the liquid has evaporated.

Pour the hot mixture straight into small (200g) sterilized jars, seal, and store somewhere cool and dark or in the fridge. The chutney should keep for at least 6 months. To ensure the chutney can keep even longer (1 year plus), put the sealed jars in boiling water and simmer for 15 minutes. Line metal jar lids with greaseproof paper to protect them from the vinegar in the chutney.

Tartelettes!

Fall reminds me of onion tarts, accompanied with young white wine. Onion, caramelized in balsamic vinegar, baked with ham, cumin seeds, heavy cream, eggs on a pizza dough like crust. But, I was lazy and hungry, so a quick and dirty version had to do. I cut some layers of phyllo dough into round shapes, and lines small tart forms. One was filled with onion chutney, and topped with a mix of ff sour cream and (full fat) grated gruyere with some nutmeg. A second was lined with halved cherry tomatoes, and sprinkled with shredded mozzarella and basil. A third was filled with a mix of eggbeaters, sour cream and spices, and the 4th was filled with peeled sliced tiny picked apples, mixed with some brown sugar, ground cloves and a bit of maple syrup. Baked for 25 min in a 425F preheated oven.


onion tartelette

Common Ground Fair, Unity, ME

It was the time of the year again to slowly say goodbye to summer, store away the umbrellas from the patio, say hello to Fall bringing red leaves to the maple trees, and see what the summer had created on the farms and in the gardens at the annual Common Ground Fair in Unity, ME. The summer threw in one more warm summer day, and the people, young and old, flocked to Unity on Saturday.



The common ground fair feels like a big farmers market, with additional large tents hosting Maine crafts and demonstrations of how to make baskets for your catch of fish or harvesting, make shiny sleek canoes, how to spin your own wool the old fashioned way, make felts or bake maple syrup beans in hot cast iron pots buried in the ground.



At the Rose gate, visitor were greeted by the strong fragrance of Sweet Annie, a herb growing wild in Maine. Wreaths were bound with flowers, and bushels were taken home. Wool was selected for the winter sweaters and the lamas and alpacas producing the wool were petted and talked to (talk about knowing where your materials come from...!). Cold cider was sampled, and bags of macoun apples were carried home. Til next year!