Crock Pot Cassoulet

I am a sucker for a good story, so it was with great enthusiasm that I began reading Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. What a complete let-down. Aside from the fact that this author has the vocabulary of a sailor, I found her whiny, annoying and very uninteresting. Julia Child, however, was everything Julie Powell was not: witty, sympathetic, engaging. I found My Life in France by Child a much more interesting read. Powell's book was given away. Child's book earned a place on my bookshelf. Another book I'd like to add is Child's first book: Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I've been reading it (yes, cover to cover) and have thoroughly enjoyed the foray into the French take on culinary mastery. What does that have to do with recipe in this post? Well, it's French, I suppose. And, with the temperature outside dipping to a very brisk -2 degrees (after factoring in the wind chill), I wanted my family to eat something that would warm them through and through. (So what if my chicken-nugget-loving kids turned their noses up at it. My husband and I loved it.) This is not Julia's recipe. It's actually my use-what-you-got take on a recipe I found online. It's altered enough that I can safely call it my own.

Crock Pot Cassoulet

3 strips bacon, diced
1 tsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1-2 cloves garlic
2 carrots, peeled and sliced into medallions
16 oz. sausage, such as kielbasa or Polish sausage
1-2 chicken breasts, trimmed
1 cup chicken broth1/2 cup red wine
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tsp. sugar
3 bay leaves
3 tbsp parsley, fresh or dried
1/2 thyme, dried
1 can cannellini or navy beans
1/3 cup bread crumbs
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Dice bacon and brown in large skillet until almost crisp. Add onion, garlic and carrots. Cook until onions are soft and begin to color. Empty contents (conserving bacon grease in pan) into crock pot. Turn crock pot on low to medium setting.
2. In same pan, brown sausage. (Add a little olive oil, if necessary, to prevent sticking.) Transfer to crock pot.
3. Pat chicken dry and season with a scant amount of salt and pepper. Cut chicken into large pieces (2-3 inches). Over high heat, sear chicken until just browned. Transfer to pot.
4. Combine chicken broth, wine, sugar, tomatoes, bay leaves, parsley and thyme in pan. Bring to boil. (It will boil quickly.) Pour over contents of crock pot. Stir.
5. Add drained beans to crock pot. Stir.
6. Cover with bread crumbs and cover the pot. Cook covered for 6-8 hours on low to medium heat.
7. Serve over rice or mashed potatoes.

Serves 4.

Substitution Suggestions: I was so excited to try this recipe that I didn't check to see that I had all the ingredients before I started. I was completely out of any kind of white bean. And, black beans would have been wrong on so many levels. So, I used chick peas. They were so tender and flavorful that I may not ever make this recipe with beans.
Don't feel limited to chicken and sausage. Though sausage really is a staple for this dish, you can swap out the chicken for pork chops or duck. Or, go whole hog and use all of it.
Baby carrots work just fine, though as a rule, I think they don't soften quite as much as regular carrots even when cooked for long periods of time.

Lessons Learned: The only really important lesson I re-learned while making this recipe is to make sure the knife is sharp before dicing onions. I had a slight mishap with the chef's knife and my fingertip (but nothing that a small bandage couldn't fix).
The recipe I worked from suggested using sausage with an 85% meat content. I used a light kielbasa sausage, which definitely cut down on the calories. And, I didn't add any extra salt. The sausage had enough that the dish was not noticeably lacking in sodium. I may use a spicy sausage next time for a little extra zing. However, it was not in any way bland the way it was originally prepared. And, the chicken was so tender that it literally fell apart as I scooped it from the pot.
The bread crumbs are meant to thicken the sauce. So, they can be stirred in if you simply must peek under the lid during cooking.
For a more authentic version, it can be cooked in a Dutch oven/le cresuet at 300 degrees for approximately three hours. Remove the lid during the last half hour of cooking to brown the bread crumbs.

Candy Cane Cookies

My mother has a Betty Crocker cookbook that has been falling apart for years. The binding has completely disintegrated and the pages are brittle from years of spills and splashes. It really isn't a very inventive cookbook. It was the type that was around in the 1960s and 70s when that generation was only interested in cooking "the basics." But every year, I think nostalgically of that particular cooking tome. It has three of my all-time favorite recipes in it. I've already shared the recipe for one of them: Crescents. This is another of those favorite recipes (with one minor tweak). They are somewhat labor-intensive in their original iteration, but kids love them (as do the adults who grew up loving them). This recipe doubles very well.

Candy Cane Cookies
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup finely crushed candy cane
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
½ cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp peppermint extract
1 egg
3 ½ cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp red food coloring
2 tbsp finely crushed candy cane
2 tbsp sugar

1. Stir together sugar, 1/4 cup crushed candy cane, butter, milk, vanilla, peppermint extract and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. Divide dough in half. Stir food color into one half. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours.
2. Heat oven to 375.
4. For each candy cane, shape 1 rounded teaspoon dough from each half into 4-inch rope by rolling back and forth on floured surface. Place 1 red and white rope side by side; press together lightly and twist. Place on ungreased cookie sheet; curve top of cookie down to form handle of cane.
5. Bake 9 to 12 minutes or until set and very light brown. While the cookies bake, combine 2 tbsp crushed candy cane and 2 tbsp sugar. Immediately sprinkle candy mixture over cookies when you remove them from the oven. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack before the candy cane mixture melts to the pan. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.

Substitution Suggestions: I would NOT use anything other than peppermint-flavored candy canes for this recipe. You can add a very small splash of almond extract for extra flavor.

Lessons Learned: I am sometimes a lazy baker. If I'm running short on time, I forgo creating the candy cane shape and just create 1-inch balls out of each dough color and then alternate them on my cookie platter for the semi-twisted effect. (You won't run the risk of breaking the canes as you pull them off the pan.) You can also take bits of each dough and gently roll them together to create one ball with both colors.
The original recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar and does not require 1/4 cup crushed candy cane. My mother didn't stock peppermint extract in her pantry, so she substituted by using crushed peppermint in lieu of the extract. I do both for that extra minty flavor, but if you don't have the extract, just use crushed candy canes. In all, you'll need one cup total of the sugar-peppermint blend. Use more sugar than candy cane.

Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cakes/Crescents

Growing up, my mother made a trio of Christmas cookies every year (and yes, they are Christmas cookies, not holiday cookies, not winter solstice cookies --Christmas cookies!). She'd carefully pack them into homemade felt stockings for me and my brothers to give to our teachers. (That was back in the day when you didn't fell obligated to spend $20 on a teacher present.) I loved the aroma of those cookies, but more importantly, I loved being around when she wasn't looking and I could snitch one from the cookie tin on the counter. This is one of those favorite recipes. It goes by many different names. We call them crescents, but I'm now too lazy to shape them into crescents. So, I guess we could call them powdered snowballs.

Crescents

1 lb. butter
4 cups flour
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup finely chopped nuts
1 tsp. vanilla
Powdered sugar

1. Mix ingredients together.
2. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until lightly browned on the bottom.
3. Shake warm cookies in a bag of powdered sugar.
4. When cool shake again in powdered sugar or use a shaker to sprinkle heavily.

Substitution Suggestions: We always used walnuts, but I've also used chopped almonds and pecans. I think I like the pecans best. You can also add in a little almond extract. Whatever you do, don't leave the nuts out. They really add nice texture to this crumbly cookie.

Lessons learned: These cookies freeze well  after they are baked. The powdered sugar will get a little gummy if you shake them immediately as they come out of the oven. So, let them cool about five minutes or so before shaking them in the powdered sugar.

Sherried Lamb Chops

I am pretty traditional when it comes to proteins -- chicken, turkey, pork, beef, fish. I don't like rabbit and I'm not a huge fan of duck. But, a center-cut lamb shank was calling out to me at the grocery store, so I picked it up and figured I could do something with it. If the experiment failed, oh well. It turns out the make-it-up-as-you-go recipe was absolutely delicious. I accepted a little ingredient help from Alton Brown, but the measurements and cooking prep are entirely my own.

Sherried Lamb Chops

2 bone-in lamb chops
olive oil
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground thyme
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup cooking sherry
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp rosemary, crushed

1. In small bowl, combine coriander, thyme, salt, pepper and garlic. Set aside.
2. Blot lamb chops to remove excess moisture. Cover liberally with olive oil on both sides. Coat both sides of chops with spice-garlic mixture.
3. Place seasoned chops in hot skillet. (If the chops don't sizzle when they hit the pan, the pan is not hot enough.) Sear for 2-3 minutes, then turn over for another 2-3 minutes. Before garlic burns, deglaze pan with sherry. Add mustard and rosemary and stir into the pan drippings. Turn the chops over a few times to infuse the sauce. Cover and cook on low heat until desired doneness is achieved, about five minutes.

Substitution Suggestions: I suppose you could experiment with the alcohol used to deglaze the pan, but I like the sweetness of sherry. Fresh is better, obviously, but if you don't have it on hand, dried spices will work just fine.

Lessons Learned: I learned that I should experiment with new meats more often. This recipe was absolutely delicious. I used one large chop (the size of a large hand span), but it's written here for two small chops (the size of two small hands). If you don't think you have enough spice garlic mixture, add to it before you smear it on the chops. I turned the meat over several times to really get the flavor into the meat, then served it with couscous. This is comfort food at its finest.

Not Too Tart Cranberry Sauce

Cranberry sauce from a can may be OK for crock pot recipes, but it is definitely not OK for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Last year's recipe was really random (with balsamic vinegar and jalapenos) and my brother requested straight, plain Jane sauce this year. I can't just do plain Jane, so I went on the hunt for something better than just berries and sugar. I found this recipe and it gets five stars from me. It's not too sweet, not too tart and has lots of extra texture that makes it more interesting than straight mushy berries. It comes courtesy of Wayne Deen, son of Paula Deen, with some tweaking and substitutions by yours truly, which I've written into the version below.

Not Too Tart Cranberry Sauce

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 (16-ounce) bag fresh cranberries
1 cup chopped apple
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup raisins
1 tbsp orange extract
1/2 orange, juiced
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated


1. Combine sugar and water in large saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the cranberries and return to a boil, then lower the heat so that the liquid simmers.
2. Add the apples, pecans, raisins, extract, orange and lemon juices, cinnamon and nutmeg. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let the sauce cool.


Substitution Suggestions: The original recipe called for walnuts. We like pecans. It also called for 1/4 cup Grand Marnier, but since I don't drink, I don't have it in the house. So, I substituted 1 tbsp orange extract for the orange liqueur. Orange juice concentrate would also work. I omitted the raisins, but only because I didn't have any handy.

Lessons Learned: It's a really easy recipe and unless you're serving a big crowd, you will have plenty of leftovers. If you don't include the nuts, you could easily use the leftovers for cranberried pork or cranberried chicken, which is also posted on this blog.
Use sweet apples, not Granny Smith. The cranberries are tart enough that you don't need extra pucker power from Granny Smith apples.

The Perfectly Flaky Pie Crust

There are certain foods that every cook never quite masters. It's different for each person: perfectly smooth creme brulee, non-lumpy gravy, a moist turkey, cookies that stay soft for days. For me, it has been the ever-elusive, perfectly flaky pie crust. Try as I might (and believe me, I've tried), it's always too tough, too soggy, too dry, too bland, too salty, too brown, too pale, too something. Every time. Until now. Thanks to allrecipes.com, I have finally created the perfect pie crust. Perfectly flaky, perfectly browned, perfectly salted, perfectly crispy -- "practically perfect in every way." And now I'm going to share it with you. You can thank me later.

Perfectly Flaky Pie Crust

2 cups flour
1 cup butter-flavored shortening
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup ice-cold water

1. Combine flour and salt in a bowl and stir until combined. Chill for at least 15 minutes. Chill the shortening for at least the same amount of time.
2. Cut shortening into the flour mixture with a fork or pastry cutter until clumps form no larger than the size of your baby fingernail. Do not over mix and do not put your hands in the mix.
3. Add ice-cold water one tablespoon at a time and gently toss until combined. The dough will begin to ball on its own.
4. Separate dough into two balls and wrap each in plastic wrap. Chill in fridge for at least 30 minutes. (At this stage, the dough can be frozen for later use.)
5. Liberally flour large wooden cutting board. Flour rolling pin. Remove one dough ball, unwrap and press down gently onto floured board. Roll into 10-inch circle, turning the dough often to make sure it doesn't stick.
6. Fold in half, then into quarters. Set it into 9-inch pie plate and unfold. Prick bottom and sides. Fill pie.
7. Repeat rolling steps with other dough ball and place on top of pie. Trim edges to about 1/2 inch overhang. Press down to seal top and bottom layers, then fold top crust under bottom crust and crimp. Cut four steam vents in crust.
8. Bake according to pie directions.

Substitution Suggestions: You can use 1/2 cup butter to replace half of the shortening. Just make sure it is very cold.

Lessons Learned: Oh, the lessons I've learned trying to make pie crust. I think the biggest thing is that it really does require that much fat to get the light, crispy, flaky crust. So your arteries might clog thinking about that much cholestrerol, but as long as you keep the portion size down, it's a happy mouth-feel indulgence.
I wouldn't bother with a food processor. This really took no time at all to mix up with a pastry cutter. It helped that the shortening was chilled (15 minutes in the freezer was the perfect timing for me).
I floated a few ice cubes in my water to keep it cold and measured out 8 tablespoons (which equal a half cup) one at a time, tossing it into the flour-shortening mixture.
It is very sticky, and by very, I mean that if you don't use a lot of flour, it will stick to your board, to your rolling pin, to your fingers and anything else it touches. I actually rolled it out between two heavily floured sheets of waxed paper. It stuck a little, but I was able to gently pull it off. I may add an extra quarter cup of flour into the mix next time to see if it reduces the stickiness. Since I can't roll a perfect circle yet, I was able to piece together the areas that needed a little patching.
Just before it goes in the oven, consider brushing it with an egg wash (equal parts water and egg). It'll give the nicely browned crust coveted by bakers. Don't brush the edge, though, because that tends to brown quickly without any extra help.
I baked my filled pie (chicken pot pie) at 425 degrees for about 35 minutes and rotated it at the 20-minute mark since the back of my oven runs a little hot. I could tell as soon as I pulled it out of the oven that I had finally achieved pie crust perfection.

Cauliflower Apple Soup with Apple Cider Reduction

Every year when I turn the calendar to October, I get an insatiable desire to cook. I think I equate fall with cooking. And, since fall is my favorite season of the year and cooking is my favorite hobby, it only makes sense that I spend more of my waking hours in the kitchen than in other seasons.
I clipped this recipe more than a year ago. When I was given the opportunity to make a dish with apples in it for a church function, I knew a variation of this recipe would fit the bill nicely. I followed most of the steps of the original recipe, but found the flavor lacking. A few tweaks here and there and it was perfect. Below is my adaptation. Don't let the number of ingredients intimidate you. Enjoy!

Cauliflower Apple Soup with Apple Cider Reduction
2 cups apple cider
2 tbsp olive oil, divided
2 cups sweet onion, chopped
2 tsp Madras curry powder
1 tsp garlic, chopped
6-7 cups cauliflower florets (about 2 pounds)
5 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 Gala or golden delicious apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1/2 cup half-and-half
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp kosher salt, divided
1/4 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Boil apple cider in a small saucepan. Cook (reduce) until the liquid has reduced to approximately 3/4 cup (about 15 minutes). Set aside and cool completely.

2. In large bowl, toss cauliflower and onion with 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper. Spread on cookie sheet and roast in 400-degree oven until cauliflower begins to brown, approximately 20-25 minutes. Stir partway through cooking and add apples during second half of cooking.
3. In large Dutch oven, heat 1/2 tbsp olive oil over medium-high heat. Add curry powder and garlic and saute for one minute, stirring constantly (to avoid burning garlic). Add cauliflower, onion, apple and broth, then bring to a gentle boil. Cover and reduce heat; simmer 15 minutes or until apples are soft enough to mash and the cauliflower is very tender.
4. Remove pan from heat and let cool for 5 minutes. Puree batches of the cauliflower mixture in a blender (or emulsion blender) until smooth and place in separate bowl. Once the soup is entirely blended, return soup to Dutch oven and add half-and-half. Cook over medium heat for five minutes or until soup is heated (do not boil).
5. Remove from heat. Stir in lemon juice, cinnamon and salt and pepper to taste.
6. To serve, divide soup into eight 1-cup portions. Drizzle 2-3 tsp of cider reduction over each serving.

Substitution Suggestions: Any cooking apple will work here. I prefer something sweeter than the tart Granny Smith. Golden delicious (which are related to red delicious in name only) are sweeter and currently in season, so that's what I used.
If you prefer a vegetarian version, swap out the chicken broth for vegetable or mushroom broth.
If you don't have half-and-half, evaporated or whole milk would also work. I just don't think fat-free milk has the body necessary for this soup, though it is incredibly creamy even without any milk.

Lessons Learned: I used a hot curry and skimped on the measurement a little. It gave the soup just a hint of non-thermal heat without overpowering the dish. The dish felt a little flat until I added the healthy dash of cinnamon. That made all the difference in the world.
Don't let the tiny serving size on the cider reduction fool you. You really need it! Forgoing it would be a big mistake since it packs a lot of flavor in those few teaspoons.
If you are in a hurry, you can ditch the roasting step. Just saute the onions in 1/2 tbsp olive oil before adding the curry and garlic, then proceed as if you had roasted the bulky ingredients.