Archive for October, 2008
Last Minute Treat
A quick photo recipe for you, should you be scrambling for a last minute Halloween treat. While writing the post for Dulce de Leche & Oat Apple Bars, I got to thinking about how long it had been since I’d had a caramel apple. Then I looked once more at the large bushel basket of local apples I have in the basement and decided it was high time I made some of these gooey delights. This really wasn’t meant to be a blog post since the recipe is ridiculously easy, but the apples proved to be so garsh darn photogenic, I couldn’t help snapping a few pictures to share.
To make the caramel apples, begin by washing, drying and removing the stems of 6-8 apples (I like to use smaller ones so you get a better caramel to apple ratio). Pop them in the freezer for an hour to get nice and chilled. Getting the apples cold helps the caramel solidify more quickly. Meanwhile, unwrap all the caramels in a 14 ounce bag. Place in a large bowl with two tablespoons of milk and microwave on high for one minute. Stir and microwave for another minute. Stir vigorously to get any lumps out and let the caramel cool for a few minutes so it’s not so runny.
Pull the apples out of the freezer and push a popsicle stick into the center of each. Place a sheet of wax paper on the counter and spray with non-stick spray. Roll each apple around in the melted caramel and hold above the bowl for a minute to let the excess caramel drip off. If you’d like, use a knife to scrape off the bottom of the apple since it will get plenty more caramel that pools around the bottom while it sets up.
Allow the coated apples to sit for at least three hours before serving or, if you’re in a hurry like me, place them in the fridge until the caramel hardens (about an hour). I like my caramel apples plain and simple but you might like them rolled in nuts, sprinkles, or crushed oreos. Wrap with plastic wrap to store.
Sweet Memories
I woke up this morning to find the ghost and ghouls had moved onto the scene a few days ahead of schedule: whipping cold winds blowing everything off the porch and leaves taking on an eerie life-like stance as they dance above the ground. By golly, I do believe it’s almost Halloween!
I have fond, albeit somewhat unusual, memories of Halloween. My mother, the quintessential crafty homemaker, was an amazing costume designer/maker. Every year, without fail, she spun me and my brother costumes that won the top prize at the elementary school Halloween “parade”. Then we’d take the show on the road on Halloween night, driving around our rural farmland and knocking on doors. The name of the game? Not to get lots of candy, per say, but rather to stump our neighbors as to our true identities. With Mom’s outstanding shark, penguin, and Little Bo’ Peep costumes – to name just a few – we usually left folks scratching their heads.
Then on the weekend, our little country church would do the strangest thing: hold the biggest party of the year for what amounts to a rather pagan holiday. But it was a blast with homemade haunted rooms, bobbing for apples out of big old fashioned metal tubs, elaborate costume contests/ categories, off-the-wall games, sound effect tapes on the speaker system, and massive amounts of fake spider webs. And of course there was food – if the costumes were competitive, the food surely was too even if there weren’t any prizes for it. Everyone brought a dish, and everyone went home on a sugar high to end all sugar highs.
Now where’s that leave us today? At a great recipe for Dulce de Leche & Oat Apple Bars. These decadent bars, made with lucious homemade dulce de leche, are not from memories past. Rather, they are exactly what I would bring to just such a party today. A grown-up rendition of caramel apples in a more kid-friendly (i.e., no sticky faces and fingers) form, you can surely find a use for these tasty little bars as the hallow eve approaches. I’d love to give them out to trick o’ treaters that come knocking on my door, but alas think homemade treats from strangers are a thing of the past. If it’s not vacuum sealed, it’s not “safe”. It’s a shame, don’t you think?
Frosty Figs
We got our first hard frost here this week and the scent of the air changed noticeably to a sharp spice. The mornings are dark when I get up, and I watch the sun rise with my frosty breath on my walk to work. Autumn is in its glory.
The perfection of fall is often fleeting, which is no doubt one of the main reasons why I await it so anxiously each year and throw myself fully into its out-of-doors embrace while it’s here. Equally fleeting and perfect is the season of figs. It too must be emphatically embraced with lots of quick and tasty recipes like Fresh Fig Compote.
A fig tree is relatively easy to grow, but the fruit itself is a bit finicky. Figs often ripen and go past their prime all within a few short days. To make it even trickier, you have to pick figs ripe as they won’t ripen off the tree (unlike a pear that is often best picked a little under-ripe and left to come into its juiciness on the kitchen counter). Is it any wonder most people have never had a fresh fig and producers took to drying them instead?
Fortunately for me, I now have several mature fig trees in my “backyard” at Longwood, and I’ve been religiously checking them to get the figs just as they ripen. Sometimes I cheat and take a few that aren’t quite there yet though…I can’t help myself. If you’ve not had a fresh fig, I’d encourage you to seek them out for their succulent fruity flesh that’s a bit like cross between a berry and a peach (that’s a bit of a stretch comparison but I’m hard pressed to come up with anything better).
But to be real frank with you, this fig compote is not about the figs. The figs are just a vehicle for the outrageously good pairing of coffee, honey and vanilla bean. I would have licked the cat’s water dish clean if it’d had a few drops of this syrup in it. I kid. Um, no, I wouldn’t do that…really…
Herbal Tea Making
Over the growing season, I harvested small bunches of fresh herbs each week and hung them to dry in anticipation of making my own herbal tea when the cooler months got here. I started tea making last year with just anise hyssop, yarrow and lavender. This year I had a much wider palette of herbs growing in my garden, and I’ve been eager to get started with my “recipe” testing.
I converted my closet into a mini drying room, using clothes hangers to hold the herb bunches while they dried with a small fan circulating air inside the closet. The closet was the ideal space since it was dark, warm and dry. Within its confines, I dried mint, anise hyssop, yarrow, lavender, calendula, sweet marjoram, bergamot, chamomile, rosemary, and sage.
Since my time was precious during the busy growing season, I just stored whole dried bunches in air-tight containers until I was ready to process them. Besides running out of room in the closet, leaving the herbs hanging all summer would have left them dusty and a bit “off” when brewed. This week I had the chance to process all those dried bunches, striping the leaves and buds off the brittle stems and sorting them into tupperware.
From here I plan on using a few books and my own tongue to guide the way to some good brews of herbal mixes. The bergamot will be mixed with some bulk black tea to make my own Earl Grey. The sweet marjoram and chamomile might make a nice match with some calendula petals sprinkled in for vibrant orange color. I have also been harvesting rose hips and drying them in the closet. I’ll use those with the yarrow and lavender for a bright floral tincture. As December approaches and I get my tea “recipes” down, I’ll bundle up assorted teas, jars of my bees’ honey, and some cute bees wax candles for holiday gifts again this year.
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