cranberry sauce

There's only one recipe that I make exactly the same every Thanksgiving, the cranberry sauce. I wish I was motivated to cook more things with which I can eat it. I think I got this recipe from my first food friend, Michelle, who was one of the first to inspire me to cook more challenging and interesting things. People always ask for the recipe so here it is.

Cranberry Relish
Yield: About 2 cups

12 oz cranberries
1 cup sugar
1 orange, zest and juiced
1 large pear, chopped
1 large apple, chopped
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
pinch of nutmeg

1. In medium saucepan, place cranberries and 2 cups water.
2. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes or until berries begin to pop.
3. Add orange zest and juice, pear, and apple, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.
4. Simmer 15 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
5. Optional: drain extra liquid to desired consistency.

You can make a couple days ahead of time, stored in fridge until ready to use, or can it.

raw milk does a body good

For the past year, a couple of my friends have been praising the benefits of raw milk. This blurb from www.realmilk.com explains it quite nicely:

Like most foods, the nutritional quality of milk suffers considerably during processing. Homogenized fat becomes inaccessible, and we need the fat in milk to absorb calcium. Pasteurizing milk kills bacteria essential for its digestion, converts lactose to an indigestible form, interferes with calcium absorption, and destroys vitamins A, C, and B complex. (Child Health Guide, Randall Neustaedter, OMD)

And according to raw milk advocates, raw milk is actually very safe despite the heavy marketing to the contrary. In the US, it's basically illegal, though various communities have found ways (like buying a share in a cow) to still get some. Want to know more? http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/

Anyway, I finally decided to try some, motivated by the benefit of using reusable glass bottles instead of recycling or throwing away seven bottles a week. The Kilchberg farm near my house has a self-serve raw milk dispenser, at 1.50sfr/liter. You just put in some coins, push start, and milk pours into the bottle. The first time I went, they were just bringing a new barrel of milk straight from the barn, so the milk was still warm and so sweet and delicious.It makes me happy to do it, feeling close to the earth and all that silly stuff. I especially love how the cream separates after a day. But since I have a grocery one block from my house where I can get delicious organic, albeit pasteurized, milk, I can't motivate myself to drive out to the farm very often. But every time I'm in the neighborhood, I make a point of stopping by to get a couple liters. Now if they would only deliver : )


just like water machines but somehow much more fun


the Kilchberg farm where we get the milk

Local farms with raw milk:
Kilchberg farm - Stockenstrasse 88, Kilchberg
Adliswil farm - Tüfistrasse 18, Adliswil

I'm thankful for pie

it's nice sometimes feeling as american as apple pie

This is a gratutious posting about pie. Nothing fancy, just traditional pie. I went to a Thanksgiving dinner hosted by my church and, of course, I brought pie. Here's my apple pie with my new favorite pie dough. The key to super yumminess is to macerate the apples in the recipe's sugar for 30+mins, drain off the liquid, boil it down to a syrup, then add back to the pie filling (thanks Ms. Beranbaum!).



And here's my pumpkin pie. Despite its extra luscious, nowhere-near-curdled, perfectly smooth texture, it still cracked (usually a sign of overbaking). No fear - I just baked up some dough scraps into little leaves and hid the unsightliness. The secret to this pie's yumminess is simmering the canned pumpkin with the spices before making the custard. It awakens the pumpkin flavor and gets rid of any canniness. I could use fresh, but both Cook's and Ms. Beranbaum embrace this shortcut, so I feel justified.



I was so pleased that the knife designs survived baking.



Finally pecan pie, um, I mean tart. I only have two pie pans so my tart pan had to pinch hit. But I was so pleased with the result that I do believe all future pecan pies will call this pan home. This is my husband's and my friend Julie's favorite pie so I have lots of excuses to make this pie over and over. Yay!



Per request, I'm posting the pecan pie recipe, for which I take no credit. I'm just good at following directions. You may be tempted to use whole pecan pieces, which are prettier. But don't do it - it makes it too hard to cut the pie and results in sloppy pieces. And don't skip the pecan toasting! It awakens the real nut flavor. Just throw them on a baking sheet in a 350F oven for 8-10mins. Check them frequently to make sure they don't burn. And don't use any nuts if they burn, even slightly - seriously, throw them out and start over - you know who you are : )

Perfect Pecan Pie
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated. For more detailed instructions and illustrations, including a pie crust recipe, see the Cook's website (account password required).

1 batch of your favorite pie dough, rolled out, placed in pie pan, and prebaked (usually 20 mins at 375F) - don't forget your pie weights!

6 tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon table salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups whole pecans (8 ounces), toasted and chopped into small pieces

Preheat oven to 275F. Place pie shell in oven if not still warm.

Melt butter in double boiler (heatproof bowl set over pan with water maintained at just below simmer). Remove butter bowl from heat; mix in sugar and salt with wooden spoon until butter is absorbed. Beat in eggs, then corn syrup and vanilla. Return bowl to double boiler and stir until mixture is shiny and warm to the touch, about 130 degrees. Remove from heat; stir in pecans.

Pour mixture into warm shell; bake until center feels set yet soft, like gelatin, when gently pressed, 50 to 60 minutes. If your pie crust is overbrowning, cut a ring out of aluminum foil and place over the crust edges to protect them. Transfer pie to rack; let cool completely, at least 4 hours. Serve pie at room temperature or warm, with lightly sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Serves 8.

***If you don't have access to corn syrup or brown sugar (that means you, Zürichers!), there's another version of this pie that uses maple syrup (pricey but at least available in Zürich) and no brown sugar. I can't vouch for it but it's worth a try.

truffle madness

handmade truffles are easy but take absolutely forever to make!

I took a little chocolate-making class and got the fool idea to make a bunch of handmade truffles for Christmas gifts. So I ordered 256 truffle shells for myself and three friends. It was fun and festive at first, but after about three hours of hard chocolatier labor, I lost all energy and couldn't even look at those stupid things. They taste great, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort.



The madness began the night before when I made four different fillings: milk chocolate ganache, dark chocolate ganache, and milk/dark/caramel ganache (my favorite), and pure caramel (or as my friend Megan called it, pure Christmas). We planned to roll the different types differently (some in chocolate, some in coconut, some in cocoa powder, etc.) so we could tell them apart. But after about 20 truffles, we got impatient and starting throwing handfuls of truffles in every and any bowl of toppings that were available. So truly, "you never know what you're gonna get," though most of us agreed that the ones rolled in coconut were the best, regardless of the filling.





Above, we are filling the truffle shells with ganache. Then, an hour or so later, after the ganache had chilled and set, we topped the shells with melted chocolate. Then another hour or so later, we rolled the shells in melted chocolate (below) and rolled them around on the special truffle rack (like a waffled cooling rack) to create the signature truffle texture.



This step took the longest by far and nearly drove us all to insanity. We started dipping the truffles one by one, letting the excess chocolate drip off and carefully rolled them around before transferring to the wax paper. Very quickly we started rolling five at a time and after an hour, my friend Julie threw twenty at a time into the chocolate and simply dumped the whole bowl onto the rack. Our kids had fun helping out, mostly by licking chocolate off any and all surfaces.



They turned out quite pretty despite our sloppy technique. I ate and gave away most of my truffles before I got around to taking a pic of them en mass, so luckily my friend Julie took the above pic of our finished product. We each took home 64 truffles and here's my stash after giving away the prettiest ones and eating the ugliest.





Of course, truffles taste even better when they come in a pretty package. I had saved a few Sprungli truffle boxes from previous indulgences, so I repurposed them for my own handiwork. I only wish I had time to print up a cute label. If I ever do this again, I'll make my own boxes to accompany the treats to add an extra personal touch.