Lake Lure Cottage Kitchen

This is a very simple and moist apple cake with a caramel glaze on top.  I saw the recipe on Pinterest and it appealed to my autumnal senses.  I made it even easier by using a prepared caramel sauce from William Sonoma on the top.

Holes are poked in the top to let the caramel sauce soak in.  My only criticism of the cake is that it is almost too sweet.  But it is my understanding that the original recipe came from Paula Deen, which might explain that.

We have company this weekend and I have been busy cooking.  I’m thinking this will be good with a scoop of ice cream.  We are looking forward to a weekend of riding motorcycles on The Blue Ridge Parkway to enjoy the beauty of the season.  This and a succulent beef brisket will be nice to have when we get home.  More about that beef brisket later.

CARAMEL APPLE CAKE (adapted from The Charm of Home)

2 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups diced apples
1 cup chopped walnuts

Caramel Topping:
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/8 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter and flour a 13×9-inch pan.

Place sugar, eggs, oil and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until mixture is light and fluffy.  Combine flour, cinnamon and salt and slowly add to sugar mixture until well combines.  Stir in apples and walnuts.  Pour batter into baking pan.  Bake for 45 to 60 minutes.  Poke holes in warm cake and pour caramel sauce over top.

Caramel Sauce:  In a saucepan melt butter with brown sugar and milk.  Bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes.  If you are in a hurry you can use a purchased caramel sauce. (About 1 cup).

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The first time I ever had Hachis Parmentier was in a French restaurant that had just opened in our home town in North Carolina.  It was almost twenty years ago.  My love of French cooking was already established but I had never heard of this dish before.  I loved the earthiness of the minced beef filling and the fluffy mashed potatoes flavored with Gruyere cheese.  It was like an amped up version of cottage or shepherd’s pie.

When I bought Dorie Greenspan’s new cookbook, Around My French Table, last year I bookmarked her recipe for this casserole.  What intrigued me about her version of hachis parmentier was the option of using cubed steak instead of chunks of beef.  She also included sausage in the minced meat for the filling.

But the real star of this dish is the mashed potato topping.  The potatoes are lighter than normal because they use more milk and cream.  Also the Emmenthal (French Gruyere) cheese give them such lip-smacking flavor, that I was in danger of devouring the whole dish by myself.

There are a lot of steps to putting the casserole together, but they can be done in stages.  Believe me, it is worth your time.

HACHIS PARMENTIER (Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table)

FOR THE BEEF AND BOUILLON
1 lb cube steak cut into small pieces
1 onion,sliced
1 carrot, cut into 1 inch slices
1 celery stalk cut into 1 inch slices
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
2 sprigs parsley
1 bay leaf
5-7 black peppercorns
1 teaspoon salt
6 cups of water

Add all of the ingredients into a large dutch oven, bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for
about an hour and a half until the meat is tender and the broth is flavorful. Skim off foam in the early stages.  Remove the beef from the broth and set aside. You can also reserve the vegetables if you’d like to use them or discard them.  If you want to use them, cut them into small dice.  Strain the broth through a sieve and reserve for the next step. You will likely have more bouillon than you’ll need.

FILLING
1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 lb of sausage, removed from casing
Beef from the bouillon step, cut into very small pieces by hand plus vegies if using
1 cup of bouillon cooking liquid
1 beef bouillon cube
1 teaspoon tomato paste
Salt and ground pepper to taste

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. When your pan is hot, add the olive oil, followed by the sausage.
Break the sausage up into small pieces as it cooks. As soon as it is just barely cooked through, add in the beef, vegies and the tomato paste and combine. Add in the bouillon and the bouillon cube. Depending on the amount of meat you have you may need a little more or less than a cup. Cook to allow the boullion cube to dissolve.  You want the mixture to be moist and bubbly but not soupy. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer mixture to a casserole dish (see Putting it all Together below). You can also reserve mixture in the fridge until you’re ready to make the final dish.

TOPPING
2 lbs potatoes, peeled and quartered
1/2 cup milk
1/4 half and half
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 cup of Gruyere cheese or Emmenthal cheese
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon of butter to dot on top

Place the potatoes in a cold dutch oven or large soup pot and cover with water by a couple of inches. Add a
generous pinch of salt, then bring to a boil over medium high heat. Keep at a slow boil until the potatoes are soft. Drain and transfer back into the pot (the warm pot will keep your potatoes warm) and mash with a potato masher or run through a food mill. Add in milk, half and half, and butter and mix until the consistency is smooth. A whisk is helpful here. You want your potatoes to be a little more moist than you would for stand-alone mashed potatoes.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Spoon the filling into a 2 qt.casserole dish (Dorrie recommentds a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate).  Press the filling down with the back of the spoon, making it even and flat. Spoon the
mashed potatoes on top of the filling and spread evenly over the whole surface. Make sure to “seal” the edge of the casserole with the potatoes. Sprinkle the cheeses evenly over the top of the potatoes, then dot with the butter. Bake for 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown.  I turned on the broiler at the end of the cooking time to brown the top better.

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Back in early Summer Larry from Big Dude’s Eclectic Ramblings had a giveaway on his blog.  He was giving away his homemade chili powder to 3 lucky winners.  I was one of the winners.  He uses high quality herbs and spices from Penzy’s in his chili blend.  It is made up of chipotle pepper, ancho pepper, garlic powder, ground cumin, Mexican oregano, paprika, onion powder, cilantro, and thyme powder.

All I can tell you is that it is like chili in a jar.  One sniff of it will transport you to visions of a big pot of chili.  Larry asked for feedback on his blend and all I can say is “don’t change a thing”.  This is now the blend I will use in every pot of chili that I make.  I think he should market it.

With Fall in the air I knew it was time to get out my big, deep cast iron pot to make a batch of chili.  My chili has always been made as a whim on my part.  I have made it with chunks of beef, flavored it with chocolate, and made one pot with so many peppers in it that our guests couldn’t eat it.  There has never been a set recipe.  But this pot turned out so well that I am committing it to memory and this post.

I like contrast in a bowl of chili so I used three kinds of beans; black beans, cannellini beans and chili beans (flavored pinto beans).  I wanted a quick chili so I used ground beef.  The sauce was a combination of canned crushed tomatoes and canned marinara sauce.  But what made it really good was Larry’s chili powder blend.

Thanks Larry for a great gift.  When I run out I will gladly pay you for a new supply.

MY FAVORITE CHILI

1 1/3 pounds ground chuck
1 large onion, chopped
3 heaping tablespoons Chili Blend
Salt and pepper to taste
1 28 ounce can crushed, peeled Italian tomatoes
1 1/2 cups Marinara Sauce (I like Rao’s Homemade Sauce)
1 15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 15 ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 15 ounce can Harvest Farms Organic chili beans (not drained)
Cayenne pepper to taste (I did not use it.  The blend was just right for my taste)

Brown ground beef and onion in a pot until cooked through.  Drain off fat.  Return to stove and add chili blend and salt and pepper.  Cook stirring for a few minutes.  Add canned tomatoes and marinara sauce.  Reduce heat to low and cook stirring occasionally for about 30 minutes.  Add beans and continue to cook for an additional 30 minutes on low heat.  Add cayenne pepper if chili is not hot enough for you.

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Financier pans are traditionally rectangular, but other shapes are not uncommon.”  (Wikipedia)

While I was in Paris this June, one of the excursions that was high on my list was a visit to E. Dehillerin, the cooking equipment store that has been supplying restaurants, chefs, and home cooks with the tools of their trade for years.  I was specifically looking for financier pans.  I was hoping to find small individual tin molds that were used in years past to shape these cakes.  E. Dehillerin is a treasure trove of esoteric cooking equipment.

Although I did find the individual tin molds, I opted for a small silicone pan with the traditional rectangular shapes.  It was easy to pack for the trip home.  As it turns out, they are readily available on Amazon.  Oh well, I should have chosen the tin molds.  I put the financier mold in the back of my baking drawer because we have had a busy summer. This was the first chance I have had to pull it out and experiment with financiers.

As stated above, financiers are usually made with almond flour or ground almonds with flour.  They are usually studded with fruit like blackberries, raspberries or blueberries.  But I had seen a recipe on the Food 52 website that intrigued me.  It used ground walnuts instead of almonds and sage leaves were frizzled in the browning butter.  Along with the powdered sugar for sweetness, maple syrup was added to the flavor profile.  It sounded like a lovely Fall interpretation to me.

I think you will agree that these airy cakes are both earthy and sweet.  They would be good with tea or even as a slightly sweet accompaniment to soup.  I am looking forward to making some with a fruit filling.  There are so many possibilities.  If you don’t have a financier pan, they can be baked in muffin tins.  You don’t have to fill the muffin cups.  They are supposed to be thin.

WALNUT AND SAGE FINANCIERS ( recipe courtesy of Sugar Mountain Treats)

Soup season is upon us.  So many of my favorite blogs are featuring delicious concoctions in a pot; everything from Pasta e fagiolo to Indian-spiced lentils and lamb stew.  Everyone has such warming, stick-to-the-ribs recipes.  This chicken gnocchi soup came about because it was what I had in the pantry and fridge.

The night before I made the soup we had a roasted chicken from an organic bird for which I had gladly paid a premium price.  I flavored it with rosemary, tarragon and lemon.  I turned the pan drippings into a light sauce by adding a little more chicken broth thickened with cornstarch and adding more tarragon.  It was delicious with tarragon flavored rice pilaf.  With a half of a chicken leftover and the pan drippings, I knew I wanted to make a soup.  I did not want to waste one iota of that succulent bird.

In my pantry was a package of mini-gnocchi, which you can find on the pasta aisle of your supermarket,  a box of chicken broth, and onions.  The fridge yielded carrots, celery, broccoli  spears and half and half.  I was good to go.

This was a most satisfying soup and it was easy to make.  Some of the components were influenced by the Chicken Gnocchi Soup that is served at Olive Garden.  But basically it was influenced by what I had on hand.

“There is nothing like soup.  It is by nature eccentric: not two are ever alike, unless of course you get your soup in a can.”   Laurie Colwin, Home Cooking (1988).

CHICKEN GNOCCHI SOUP

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion chopped
3 stalks of celery, chopped
2 carrots, shredded
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 teaspoons fresh thyme sprigs
1 pound of cooked, cubed chicken (Or 1/2 of a roasted chicken)
4 cups chicken broth
Drippings or gravy from roasted chicken if you have it
1 16 ounce package mini potato gnocchi
2 cups blanched broccoli florets
2 cups half and half
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in large pot over medium heat.  Add onion, celery, carrots, garlic and thyme and cook until the onion is softened.  Add the chicken cubes and broth and cook over medium heat for 5 to 10 minutes.  Add the gnocchi and cook until dumplings come to the top (about 5 minutes).  Add broccoli and cook over low heat for about 10 minutes.  Stir in half and half and heat until hot but not boiling.  Season with salt and pepper and serve.

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