Love Passed Down on the Stove

I've always been a daddy's girl but my mom's companion. After I went away to college and subsequently moved to the City, my trips home were spent in a whirlwind of activity, primarily accompanying my mom hither and yon. When I'd go home to visit, I'd see relatively little of my dad, but he was always sure to make me one of two things, often both, over the course of a visit. The first selection was a meal of pan-fried venison steaks with onions, boiled potatoes and canned peas. (Generally made when my mom wasn't home since she couldn't stand the smell of cooking venison.) Extremely basic and dating from the camp fires of his childhood--I remember my lumberjack grandfather making the same meal.

More often (getting mom out of the house without me wasn't easy) I'd wake up on a frosty morning to the scent of cooking apples. He'd take the windfalls from his trees, cut out the bruises, throw them in a pot with a bit of water and cook them down into lumpy sauce loaded with cinnamon and sugar. He wasn't a demonstrative man, he rarely said "I love you," but he'd get up at 5 a.m. so I'd be sure to have hot applesauce with my breakfast before I ran off to visit friends or run errands with my mom. Now that he's gone I make the sauce on cold mornings and every time it's like standing at the stove with my father.

Applesauce
12 apples
water or cider
cinnamon and sugar to taste

Peel and core apples. Cut into quarters. Place in a deep pan with enough water to cover the bottom. Simmer until sauce is desired consistency and season with cinnamon and/or sugar.

I prefer to use a mix of varieties--different flavors, sugar and water content. Today's included granny smiths, macouns, ginger golds, a large gala, a mutsu, and a fortunata. The variety makes for more intense apple flavor, and the different water contents make some of the apples dissolve completely while others (granny smiths in particular) remain very solid and chunky. Today's blend yielded a rather tart sauce; it will hold up well for savory uses.

The sauce is basic and variations are simple. Adding a couple of pears can make the sauce seem even more apple-y. I sometimes use nutmeg or cardamon instead of cinnamon; I also remember my father's mother making pink sauce (I liked pink when I was little) by using red hots instead of cinnamon and sugar.

A Windy Shop

Yesterday was bright beautiful and god-awful windy. But it made for good marketing. My shopping list, heavy on the staples this week, has been somewhat adjusted to cover the need for my now-commuting husband to carry his lunch to work. This means sandwich fixin's.

The List
Eggs - Quattros Game Farm
Heirloom tomatoes (mixed box)
Potatoes, red and yukon gold
Yellow onions
Carrots
Red leaf lettuce
Apples - Terhune Orchards

Not the most exciting of shopping lists, I know, but sometimes you've got to start with the basics.

To Market, to Market

Back from Montreal, where, alas, we didn't make it to any of their fantastic public markets. But now that I'm back, I've got two days of lists for you:

Wednesday's Quickie
Baby onions
Apples (empires, macouns, ginger gold) - Terhune Orchards
Dilled goat cheese - Lynnhaven Dairy

Fantastic breakfast/lunchable: Dilled goat cheese on a bagel with slices of ginger gold apple.

Saturday's Big List:

Celeriac - Gorzynski's
Turnip
Frost Berries

Broccoli - Cherry Lane Farms
Brussels Sprouts

English/Irish Bacon - Violet Hill Farms
Creamline Milk - Ronnybrook Dairy

Shepherd’s Cushion (sheep brie)

Cheese pumpkin

Hiatus

Gone to Montreal for the weekend. When I come back I hope to be able to fill you in on the Atwater market...

Be fruitful...

After last week's cardoon debacle I stuck to the fruits of early fall yesterday. Forgive me, but I blanked out on several of the vendors' names. I've listed them where I can:

The List

Terhune Orchards
seckel pears
bosc pears
empire apples
macoun apples
mutsu apples

Fantasy Fruits
blueberries

other vendors
raspberries
baby spinach
sweet potatoes

Quattros Game Farm
eggs

Heavenly Pastures Cheeses
caraway gouda

Tonje's Dairy
ricotta

Saturday's Brunch Recipes

I must admit, our breakfast yesterday was really fantastic yet very simple. I made a spinach caraway cheese omelette with a fruit and spinach side salad.

Spinach Cheese Omelette for 2
5 eggs
1/4 lb baby spinach
2 oz caraway gouda (shredded or in thin strips)
milk
salt & pepper

Clean the spinach by trimming* and then immersing in a bowl of cold water. (Swish around vigorously and then let the grit settle out.) Drain and pat dry. Beat the eggs with a little milk to thin and pour into a greased heavy skillet over medium-low heat. When eggs have set on the bottom, arrange cheese evenly on top. When cheese is melted, season and arrange spinach and fold eggs in half or by thirds, whatever your omelette style preference. The heat of the eggs will be enough to wilt the spinach and you don't have to worry about the ammonia flavor that sometimes comes of overcooking it. (Although it's unlikely here given the freshness of the greens.) Cut the very large omelette in half and lift onto plates. Seeing the inside makes for a beautiful presentation, and with the salad along side, it was worthy of a magazine cover.

*A note on trimming the spinach: if you buy large leaves with thick stems, be sure to cut the stems out--they can be woody--if you like that, keep 'em in. In my case, I buy baby spinach with the roots still attached (keeps the leaves fresher longer) so I simply clip off the roots with kitchen shears.

Spinach Fruit Salad
1/4 lb baby spinach
1/4 cup blueberries
1/4 cup raspberries
1 seckel pear

Arrange the washed spinach on the plate, sprinkle with berries and tiny slices of pear. One could season this with a little black pepper, or maybe a drizzle of balsamic, but with fresh picked ingredients and the natural contrast of flavors (especially given the relative tartness of late season blueberries) it didn't need embellishment.