My ever-lovin’ Mama sent me this recipe and I have to say: it’s simply divine. On the scale of easy-to-execute vs. satisfying-to-eat-and-share this recipe is almost as perfect as the one for my favorite almond cake. Especially in this late-fall-holiday time there’s something to be said for a sweet indulgence that hits all of the nom-nom-nom flavor necessities of the season, without requiring you to make crust from scratch or procure leaf lard or go to anywhere fancier than a Piggly Wiggly for the ingredients. We’ll leave that to Christmas.
Ingredients
1 cup pumpkin, canned
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 spice cake mix
1-2 teaspoons Pumpkin Pie Spice (I didn’t have this store-bought, so I just used cinnamon, nutmeg, and a tiny bit of cardamom… but anything in that profile will do)
2 eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup milk
Cream Cheese Caramel Filling
3 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup caramel ice cream topping
1-2 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a cookie sheet with non stick cooking spray
Cream together the pumpkin and butter
Add cake mix, pumpkin pie spice, eggs and milk
Beat just until blended
Drop by cookie dough scoop or tablespoon
Bake about 10-12 minutes until cookies are slightly firm
Cream Cheese Caramel Filling
Beat together cream cheese and butter until fluffy
Add the caramel topping and mix well
Gradually add the powdered sugar until desired consistency
This makes enough to share- maybe 20-24 or so pies depending on how large you make the uppers and lowers. Eat your heart out Oreo.
My mama was in town all last week and we had a time. When we weren’t covered in paint or dust we were covered in flour and wine and good long hugs. Just as things should be. You’ll have to wait a minute for the before/after of all the projects we tackled… but first! I must tell about the Kitchen Garden Cooking School. This was the theoretical “excuse” of her visit, that she would come up and we would meet our dear old friends (a mother and daughter just as prone to nesting and cocktails as we, of course) and take a short class on Lebanese cooking. Glorious. The air was gilded, the kitchen was warm and bright, and the lions share of the ingredients came directly from the garden. Things I didn’t know about before: sumac (a deep red powder that lends a lemony sprinkle), pomegranate molasses (deep, dark, tart, sweet, the best new discovery since Maggi Seasoning, and available at Sahadi’s on Atlantic avenue), and, of course, how to make pitas from scratch:We left with full bellies and a packet of recipes- some that will become favorites, some that may never be attempted again- my favorite? Muhammara. This roasted red pepper dip is not only a total revelation of deliciousness, it’s made from ingredients that can simply lie in wait in the pantry, ready to ambush a blitzkrieg of unexpected dinner guests.
Muhammara
2 roasted red peppers (from the jar is just fine)
1 cup walnuts
½ cup fine bread crumbs, crackers or panko
1 T lemon juice
2 T pomegranate molasses
1 tsp dried Aleppo pepper or hot paprika
¼ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp sugar
2 T olive oil
In a food processor, puree all of the ingredients except the olive oil until completely combined and creamy. Add the olive oil in a thin stream. Serve at room temperature. Marvel at the skill and ease with which you entertain.
(from Sheila McDuffie and the Kitchen Garden Cooking School)
ps. don’t all New Yorkers wish their kitchen felt like this? O! The Open Shelves! O! The TWO sinks! O me O my!
Such a grey and rainy mournful Brooklyn day, what’s a girl to do? Why, obviously, make a bunch of coffee, put on some Gershwin, and do a little light nesting and bake some deep, dark, subtley spicy Mexican Chocolate Cookies (and then eat them for breakfast). Here’s the simple recipe (cut out from Cooking Light in 2009 and found this morning stuck in the back of my recipe book, never made). I only had the tail-end of a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips (and gawd knows I’m not going out in the rain until it’s utterly necessary/time to go play music over at John and Janelle’s), but due to sweetheart’s sweet tooth there was half a fancy pantsy bar of Theo Dark Chocolate with Spicy Chile on hand, which, quite frankly, was utterly perfect. I dusted with powdered sugar and cocoa, but- if you didn’t have any bougie chile chocolate on hand, adding a little bit the ground red pepper to the sugar/cocoa would be awesome. Anyway, rainy day vanquished, nest nested!
It started in 2007. Ann Marie and I had moved to E.7th street in the winter and it was our first warm weather in our 6th floor walkup. And by warm weather I mean it was hot as blue blazes. She worked from home (inexplicably, marvelously, and exclusively by fax), I was bartending and it was an amazing time of long, jort filled days. We had taken to drinking whole pots of espresso in highly sugared three-quarter-tasse cups during our first New York Februaries but now that the clothes were coming off and the air conditioners had not yet been delivered to deliver us from July evils we needed something different. Enter New Orleans Cold Brew Coffee. The superbly easy, utterly delicious, and super cheap wiles of coffee concentrate suited us like ugly on a monkey. Deep, dark and smooth, not at all bitter, inky and mellow, a little milk, lots of ice, it was perfect. One by one, like bad girls, we got everyone we knew hooked on it. Our mothers bought toddys and perfected the 8’oclock cheap brew, Molly downed it by the mason jar, Andrew drinks it hand over tervis-tumbler-fist, it put Sara back on caffeine, and McKay discovered it abroad (and sent back the picture above).
A Missive from the West Coast: Stumptown has started selling Cold Brew Shorties:The Verdict? From Ann Marie: Not as good as ours. Its the chicory. Chicory= crucial.
The Recipe that Started it All:
1 pound dark roast coffee and chicory, medium ground
10 cups cold water
Ice
Milk.
1. Put coffee in a nonreactive container, like a stainless-steel stockpot. Add 2 cups water, stirring gently to wet the grounds, then add remaining 8 cups water, agitating the grounds as little as possible. Cover and let steep at room temperature for 12 hours.
2. Strain coffee concentrate through a medium sieve, then again through a fine-mesh sieve.
3. To make iced coffee, fill a glass with ice, add ¼ cup coffee concentrate and 3/4 to 1 cup milk, then stir. (Concentrate will keep in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.)
I went home to Virginia last weekend for a dear friend’s wedding and to deliver my mother some Ramps and Sunchokes from the Union Square farmers market (I’ve been obsessed with this pairing for the past three weeks and can’t believe that there are still ramps available- I read this my first spring living in New York and have made the yearly appearance of ramps at the market a New-York-specific-ritual for myself… but I digress).
I was getting ready to go to this wedding with my mama in what, now that I try to put it into words for the first time, is not just a bathroom but a full on dressing room with a chaise lounge (I have not realized the import of this until this second- I have always just called it “Mama’s bathroom”… well it does have a tub). Getting ready and being in here is always awesome, since I was little snooping around in her stuff has always been the best.thing.ever- the only difference is that now, if I am very nice, she will actually let me wear some of her jewelry.
So, my father comes in and we’re just lounging around looking at old photographs and talking about hair-stuff and he hands me a tiny parcel with this inside:
Immediately the stories come out- first thing you need to know: we are from Williamsburg, Virginia, as in Colonial Williamsburg. So, when my father was a small boy he and his two brothers went down to the CW silversmith and picked out this brooch for my grandmother for Mother’s Day. My grandmother is an amazing lady, a horticulturist and philanthropist, a mover and a shaker, and the grandest possessor of hats, scarves, and jewels I have ever had the good fortune to meet. She, at some point, loses this brooch and secretly goes and replaces it without telling her sons. Then FIFTEEN years later she finds it again out in the garden by the woodpile (because, of course, she’s the kind of lady to wear fancy jewelry out by the woodpile). By this time, my parents are married and now Gramma has two brooches- so she gives the replacement pin to my mother. By this time in the conversation, my mother has pulled hers out. Apparently, they don’t make them anymore, but Daddy has found one somewhere (perhaps out by the woodpile) and thinks that since Gramma and Mama both have them, Nan should too. How divinely amazing!!
As you can see, I filled my tiny vase-pin with water, went right out and cut a peony from the garden, and went along to the nuptials feeling fine, like a classic Virginia lady (albeit in an Abigail Lorick dress), and most importantly- very loved.
Here are some modern options (if you don’t have a southern woodpile that keeps birthing brooches on the world):
Brass boutinier pins from calliopevintageThis is made from the handle of a knife from an old silver pattern from thefashionedgeGlass pin from the Opulent Poppy
I love this from Aled Lewis. Usually I feel like the bunny, but sometimes I feel like the fox. Today is one of those days. Watch out, Spring Saturday Night!
ps. bought a satchel of newcomer Momofuku Milk compost cookies from the flea for Njoki’s birthday, fulfilling my duty/destiny to see and be seen wearing funny shoes/glasses (baby/dog optional).
Yunhee Kim for The New York Times. Food stylist, Maggie Ruggiero; prop stylist, Deborah Williams.
THE VEGETABLE SOUP MATRIX: You choose the green bean and the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. Take the red lentil, you stay in Wonderland, and get shown what the rabbit’s eating down deep in its hole. This divine little article explores the recipe-less free-wheeling cousins of bisque. Just like I like alphabetizing my condiments and labeling my leotards, the idea of pushing a vast category of wild foodstuffs into Four Simple designations (CREAMY, EARTHY, HEARTY, BROTHY) is like a Punnet Square of sustainable eating on the cheap. We’d better get (pepper) cracking if we’re going to make any of these delicious bottom-of-the-barrell greenmarket scrapers before we’re back to rhubarb and tomatoes. I will gladly celebrate the end of butternut squash, kill the kale, and im-peach the beet, all with toasted baguettes and crème fraîche.
Ahh, it’s been one of those weekends. This week justified doing absolutely nothing* all day Saturday and then deciding, oh hell, let’s do absolutely nothing again today. Well… no matter how busy my week was, if I’m not going to go see (what looks like the most amazing) Norman Rockwell photography exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum or Snape/Shine at BAM or all the myriad things one should do on a rainy day off in Brooklyn. I always feel at least the need to fluff around my apartment and feather it a little bit. Enter: my favorite recipe- which I have never named and is simply: Almond Cake. It is SO ridiculously easy, but ends up quite special and sophisticated.
I like this recipe so much (and make it so frequently) that instead of living with the rest of the recipes, I transcribed it onto the back of the awesome Alpine Accordion Band postcard I got in the Hague and it lives on the fridge, edges curling with repeated Kirschings, in easy in-case-of-reference reach:
Almond Cake (for company or solitude celebrations)**
1 cup almonds, raw
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. almond extract
3 eggs
1 stick butter (softened, cut up)
1 tsp. Kirsch (if you have)
1/3 cup flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
powdered sugar (in truth, optional… but just you wait!)
– Oven to 350 degrees please.
– Place almonds, sugar, salt and almond extract in food processor, pulverize.
– Add eggs, butter, kirsch and blend thoroughly.
– Add flour and baking powder, mix until just blended.
– butter/oil/pam/crisco/lard/whatever and flour pan (standard cake pan, torte pan, whatever)
– Scrape batter into prepared pan, smooth.
(at this point Sweetheart comes in dripping wet in the middle of it– heading from teaching a children’s music class in Chelsea on his way to Bed-Stuy to lead a rock band of eight year olds– bearing champagne and bacon. le swoon.)
– enlist sweetheart’s help to lick spatula and everything with even a smidge of almond mixture on it clean (optional, encouraged…if you are afraid of raw eggs, then… I am very sorry for you. Egg nog, Southsides, Hollandaise, all other -aises, and sweet batters are some of the best treats around).
– Put un-cake in oven for 30-45 minutes until it turns golden brown and becomes cake.
– Let cool completely, then run a fine knife around the edge and invert on a plate. There is a surprisingly good little drawing of how to do this on my recipe card:
NOW- you are effectively done. BUT- if you’d like to take it a step further, then the easiest and most lovely thing to do next is to decorate it with a powdered sugar relief. Again, if you like making cheap things look expensive (like I do) and easy things look impressive (me too) then this is the kind of next level thing you’ll love.
Cut whatever you’d like out of plain paper– if you are artistically inclined you can get totally crazy, but simple shapes work just as well***– I chose a rainstorm-brings-spring-blooms thing because it’s so wet and nasty out today, but it must be paving the way for crocuses and daffodils like.any.second. Place your cutouts on your lovely almond cake:
Then dust a light sprinkling of powdered sugar over the cutouts using a fine sieve or flour sifter if you’re super fancy:
Then carefully take off the paper cutouts (I used tweezers for this one because the flower stems were as bendy as real flower stems and I didn’t want to color inside the lines by accident).
Et voilà:
This is the perfect way to make “a rainy day where you could have gone to see Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts but decided to nap” into “a triumph of home and sweetness, and now let’s have people over to eat it for dessert”.
* Saturday I actually spent in the thrall of a Colum McCann book… I loved his newest and “supported my local bookstore” by buying this one and recommend devoting a Saturday to it wholeheartedly. Lovely and bittersweet and occasionally staggeringly beautiful. Slivovitz and words that taste like wheat and sky.
**The recipe calls for a large food processor, but until Sweetheart’s mama gave us a “Robot Culinaire” for Christmas/Hannukah/New Years, I made it just fine on multiple occasions without (chop the almonds fine fine fine and melt and stir the butter, instead of cubing it- no prob).
*** Other cakes we’ve made in the past month include:
Heart Cake for Valentine's Day"Bubb's Cake" in honor of "The Wire" season IV Finale
If you make one Please send in a picture (we’ll keep adding on!).
My ever-lovin’ Mama sent me this recipe and I have to say: it’s simply divine. On the scale of easy-to-execute vs. satisfying-to-eat-and-share this recipe is almost as perfect as the one for my favorite almond cake. Especially in this late-fall-holiday time there’s something to be said for a sweet indulgence that hits all of the nom-nom-nom flavor necessities of the season, without requiring you to make crust from scratch or procure leaf lard or go to anywhere fancier than a Piggly Wiggly for the ingredients. We’ll leave that to Christmas.
Feather By Feather 
