Winter in the Northeast is not exactly the most exciting time for the locavore blogger. Today's the first time I've been to the Greenmarket in a month, and even then it was too frigid to spend much time browsing around and finding inspiration. I scampered back to my apartment with nothing more than a pint of cream, a jar of raspberry jam and some honey for winter cold-fighting tea with honey and lemon.

On the bright side, though, being cooped up indoors all day inspires a lot of little projects. Last weekend's little project was a collision of two marmalade recipes: Eugenia Bone's Three Citrus Marmalade, but with a smoked salt twist inspired by Anarchy In a Jar's Grapefruit Marmalade with Smoked Salt.

The resulting marmalade is a lovely, bright spread with the sweetness of Meyer lemons, the tartness of grapefruit and a slight bitterness that's balanced by a mild smoke flavor. Neither too bitter nor too sweet, I've been eating this every chance I can get! And I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to make another batch sometime very, very soon. Even though citrus isn't local, it certainly is seasonal, and I want to make sure that I'll have enough of this perfect marmalade to keep my pantry stocked all year long!


And what could possibly make this marmalade better? Homemade buttermilk scones, you say? Well, don't mind if I do!

Three Citrus Marmalade with Smoked Salt
adapted from Well-Preserved by Eugenia Bone

2 grapefruits, pink or red
4 oranges (I used navel)
3 Meyer lemons
4 to 5 cups of sugar
1/2 t. unsalted butter
1/2 t. smoked sea salt

Peel the skin off of one orange and two lemons with a vegetable peeler and use the back of a knife to scrape off as much as you can of the white pith. Cut the cleaned rinds into thin matchsticks, then put them into a saucepan with 3 cups of water and cook over medium heat until tender. (About 20 to 25 minutes.)

Meanwhile, peel the remaining fruits. Cut them in half through the middle to remove seeds, then coarsely chop the oranges and lemons. For the grapefruit, cut supremes by slicing the flesh from between the membranes with a sharp paring knife. Measure the resulting fruit pulp and juice mixture - I had about four cups altogether. You'll want to match the amount of sugar to the amount of pulp; so for four cups of fruit, use four cups of sugar. If your yield is closer to five cups, use five cups of sugar.

Add the pulp, sugar, softened rinds and their cooking water to a large, heavy pot. (I used my IKEA dutch oven.) Cook over medium low heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture reaches 220 degrees on a candy thermometer. (The original recipe suggests that this will take about 30 minutes; I found that it was more like 45 minutes, and required the heat being turned up to medium during the last 15 minutes.)

When the marmalade reaches 220 degrees, remove it from the heat and add the smoked sea salt. Continue to stir for three or four minutes while marmalade cools to insure proper distribution of the peels and pulp.

This recipe yields a little bit more than four half-pints of marmalade. If you're heat processing your marmalade for shelf-stability, jars should be processed for ten minutes. Otherwise, refrigerate cooled marmalade and eat within a week.

The CSA may be over for the season, but the farmer's market is still going strong! Sure, it's a little bit chillier - or, a lot chillier - but the stands are still full of lovely local produce, and it seems extra important to support our local farmers now.

And it's extra extra important for me to be full of lovely local produce now, since I've jumped back on the Weight Watchers bandwagon. WW just revamped their program to put a greater emphasis on the importance of fresh fruits and vegetables for healthy diets, and I'm totally thrilled. Because, you know, I love vegetables!

Unfortunately, I also love cooking vegetables in massive quantities of fat, which is not exactly gonna help my caloric bottom line (or my actual bottom) so I've got to start learning new ways to turn the same old veggies into healthy new recipes. A good place to start? Well... Weight Watchers, apparently.


Remember this post about butternut squash pasta? I came across a WW recipe that was shockingly similar, except with whole wheat pasta instead of regular, part-skim ricotta instead of full-fat and a conservative sprinkle of toasted walnuts and really good Parmesan for flavor. Delicious! I think the changes actually wound up improving the finished dish. Parmesan shavings pump up the umami without being quite as in-your-face as bacon bits, and I liked how the ricotta stayed in creamy little pockets in the casserole. Oh, butternut squash! You're delicious even without a stick of butter. Who knew?


I plated the pasta with a seriously amazing red cabbage and apple stew. My mom used to make this cabbage dish when the weather got cold. The cinnamon and apples make the house smell so warm and cozy, and the cabbage just sort of melts into this soft, tangy purple lusciousness. I couldn't find any red cabbage at the market this week, so I picked it up from the supermarket, but the apples are crispy Granny Smiths from the greenmarket. I snuck a couple of "test slices" while cooking and wished I'd picked up more apples - even this late in the season, they were crunchy and tart.

And red cabbage stew keeps well in the fridge, too! Behold, the red cabbage leftovers topped with chicken apple sausage from Trader Joe's.


Barely any WW Points and barely any cooking? Dinner is done.

RED CABBAGE AND APPLE STEW

1 small head red cabbage, shredded
2 crisp, green apples (Granny Smiths are great) thinly sliced
2 T apple cider vinegar
2 t sugar
1/2 t pumpkin pie spice
1/2 t cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in a medium pot. Cover and cook over low heat, 30 to 45 minutes, until everything is nice and soft. Add water, a splash or two at a time, if the pot starts getting dry. Serves: a lot of folks.

The first cluster dinner party, no one thought to bring a camera. The second one, I brought a camera but forgot to charge my battery. This year, I brought the camera and charged the batteries, then promptly got tipsy and started taking incredibly out of focus pictures. I apologize in advance for my shoddy camera work. Maybe you should go have a few cocktails yourself before you read this entry? Adding some blur to your vision can only help!

Anyway, the dinner party was a great success! It was our most ambitious yet - six courses, eighteen people. But except for leaving the smoked salt at home, which left my brussels sprouts swathed in marmalade but bereft of smokiness, it all went off without a hitch.

The first course was a crowd favorite: chicken liver pate topped with bacon jam and chopped green apples.


I think this might have been my favorite course, too. It's a gorgeous little fat bomb, the rich chicken liver fighting with the smoky sweet bacon jam for unctuous domination, before the crispy and tart green apple comes in and smacks them both down. Booyakasha!

Next up, my dad's super secret turkey garlic minestrone!


Every year after Thanksgiving, my pops simmers the turkey carcass into the richest, most golden turkey broth you can imagine, then freezes it until Christmas morning, when he turns it into a garlicky minestrone, slicked with olive oil and full of escarole. The whole thing is topped generously with shredded Parmesan cheese and served with fresh baked bread. I made Dad's recipe a little less hearty (keeping out the beans and pasta) and skipped the side of bread, but other than under-salting the broth a bit, I think I did it justice.

The third course was leek and dried cranberry bread pudding with a creamy mushroom gravy.


The bread pudding was basically just my adaptation of the leek bread pudding from Ad Hoc at Home, but with cranberries added before baking. The gravy was simple - just crimini mushrooms cooked with butter, olive oil, thyme and white wine then added to a roux of butter, flour, cream and milk.

Fourth course was the piece de resistance: confit turkey leg with mashed parnsips and baby brussels sprouts with marmalade.


Turkey gets such a bad rap, but when it's well-prepared it can be so delicious. Brining helps and so does sous vide cooking, but for those of us without massive immersion circulators, turkey leg confit is definitely the way to go.

I followed this recipe fairly faithfully, save for the overnight salting. (And I replaced vegetable oil with olive oil in the hopes that olive oil would contribute a little extra flavor to the turkey.) After cooking and cooling and de-boning, I popped everything into the fridge with a bit of extra duck fat on top. At the party, I melted the duck fat, chopped the confit into small pieces and re-heated the turkey chunks in the duck fat. So. Freaking. Good.

The parsnips were easy - a quick simmer in chicken stock, then they get drained and mashed with obscene amounts of butter and cream, salt and pepper. Parsnips are so underrated. They're not all that tempting in the grocery store, but once cooked, they have a surprising sweetness without any of the starchy heaviness of mashed potatoes.

And the brussels sprouts were easy, too - I heated some butter and olive oil in a skillet and let the sprouts cook in there for about five minutes. After they're a bit browned, I added half a cup of water and popped a lid on the pan - that way, the sprouts can steam in the middle but still retain some of that caramelized, buttery goodness from the initial saute. After they were tender, I stirred in a few scoops of orange marmalade and a sprinkle of sea salt. (I would have used smoked salt, but I left it at home. Womp womp!)

After this course, people were all, "So, what's for dessert?" and I was like, "one more course before you find out!"


A salad course, that is. Field greens and radicchio in a maple-balsamic dressing, maple-roasted rutabaga, green apples, pumpkin seeds and a sprinkle of truffle salt. All of the important tastes were present: sweet, salty, bitter, tart, earthy. And aren't those colors gorgeous together? I think the finished product was a little bit over-salted, perhaps because of the super-salty pumpkin seeds, but with a lighter hand on the sodium, I think this was one of the best salads I've ever made.

And finally, dessert: a cinnamon meringue with pumpkin mousse and pomegranate seeds. Sort of like a pavlova and a pumpkin pie got into a fight.


I was shocked that the meringues came out as well as they did, since it was raining on both of the days that I was baking them. I attribute their success to the relentlessly dry heat of New York City apartment radiators. Antiquated heating system, I couldn't have done it without you!

And that was the dinner party! At least the food part of it. The best part, if course, wasn't the bacon jam or the parsnip mash - it was the people who came and made it amazing. My colleagues are the best ever, and everyone got up and pitched in at one point or another, pouring wine or collecting dishes. As always, though, Jenny and Danielle were the best "sous chefs" a lady could ask for, chopping veggies and expediting plates. No one can pull this off solo. I'm lucky that my friends are so willing to come together and put in work to make every dinner party we have a truly amazing evening.

Cluster 2, you da best!

I just read Michael Pollan's excellent Food Rules - it's a quick read, and full of the kind of sensible nutrition advice that we should all abide by. One of his "food rules" was: eat all the junk food you want... provided that you cook it for yourself. It takes a lot more time and energy to make a batch of ice cream than it does to dash out to the bodega for a pint of Vermont's finest, so you probably won't be inclined to whip up a batch of mint chocolate chip more than every once in a while. (Which, of course, is about how often one should be eating ice cream.)

While I'm definitely not ready to follow all of Michael Pollan's advice to the letter, I think he has an excellent point with the cook-your-own junk food thing. I've been on a Kraft mac and cheese jag lately, and it's really not good for anyone. (And especially not for anyone who's hoping for leftovers, since I can totally dust one of those boxes by myself with astonishing speed.) Solution? This homemade broccoli mac and cheese, which requires barely more time or effort than opening up a packet of neon orange cheese powder.

I set a small pot of water on the stove, then cooked the shells in the boiling water while the broccoli steamed in the steamer insert. In a separate pot, I whisked together a few teaspoons of butter and a tablespoon of flour to make a roux, then added a few cups of milk, a generous pile of shredded cheddar, four slices of American cheese and some salt and freshly ground pepper. By the time the cheese melted and the sauce came together, the pasta and broccoli were both done. Ta da!

And the best part? This is so satisfying and filling, there were actually leftovers to tuck away in the fridge for a hungry boyfriend. Homemade junk food, more satisfying than the "real" thing? Michael Pollan, I think you're on to something!

A simple weeknight dinner: brussels sprouts cooked in bacon grease and olive oil, topped with shavings of ricotta salata and a runny poached egg. This could also be an awesome brunch dish - I'm pretty sure that Maialino serves a similar dish for breakfast, and it covers all the important brunch bases: eggy, cheese-y and bacon-y.


And another one: homemade chicken fingers, maple-glazed carrots and mashed fingerling taters. These carrots were gorgeous - all purply-orange and bright yellow. The awesome purple color didn't survive the peeling and cooking process, but whatevs - they're still pretty, right?

Where the hell did October go?

It's crazy... one day we're sitting in front of fans and air conditioners, sipping iced tea and eating gigantic, juciy red tomatoes - then, all of a sudden, it's fuzzy blankets, fall jackets and root vegetables as far as the eye can see.

I get really excited about fall vegetables, though. The first cabbage of the year might not inspire quite as much excitement as, say, the first ramps of the year... or the first heirloom tomato... but I really love our fall share. Squash and beets and carrots and yukina savoy... fall veggies have such lovely, intense flavors - and many of them are so versatile. Check out this pasta - just rotini, a bit of ricotta, some mashed butternut squash, a little salt and pepper and dinner's ready. I topped this with some bacon bits, but I think the bacon was actually a little distracting. Next time, I'll leave it off and just enjoy the sweet, creamy squash and ricotta by themselves.


Butternut squash is also delicious just by itself, with a little bit of butter and salt. And oh man, check it out - brussels sprouts! We didn't get any from the CSA this week, so I picked these up at the greenmarket. I tossed them with olive oil, smoked salt and maple syrup and then braised them in the oven with half a cup of water. (For some reason, I find that brussels sprouts come out best when they're cooked with oil and a bit of water - they get tender without becoming waterlogged.)


Ed is responsible for that gorgeous, pink pork roast. You think I could cook meat like that? Ha!


Though I can cook meat like this... a chicken breast, butterflied and dipped in egg and breadcrumb then fried in vegetable oil. I love chicken prepared like this, but it begs for a towering pile of vinegary greens on the side. Seriously. A chicken cutlet without a salad is like a Jersey Shore episode without Snooki.


And on the side, a leek and delicata squash risotto. This amazing recipe for risotto from Cooking Light magazine is always my basis for risotto adaptations. I've made it with tomato sauce and seafood, with mushrooms and truffle oil, with saffron and peas, and it's always spectacular. The recipe replaces some of the rice in a normal risotto recipe with chopped leek, which both lightens up the calorie count and provides a reliable way to use up the lone leek in our CSA delivery. This time, I added two peeled and roasted delicata squash and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. Autumn, hell yeah!


And one final treat... I've been lusting over this Lenox pattern, Chirp, basically ever since it came out. I dig my cheap IKEA plates and all, but... OMG birdies! Flowers! Watercolors!

Lenox is just a bit out of my price range, though... so I figured these plates wouldn't be seeing the inside of my cabinet for a very, very long time. But then the other day, while I was slogging through the chaotic aisles of my local Marshall's, I came across a treasure trove of Chirp plates. Half price! I snatched up a set of two dinner plates and two salad plates and ran for the registers as fast as one can run when one is carrying four pieces of bone china that, together, cost more than her entire current set of dishes, flatware and glasses put together.

But my heart still leaps every time I see them, and would you look at how pretty they make an apple look? Best investment ever.

Thomas Keller's fabulous Ad Hoc at Home is one of my two coffee table books. (The other one is the French Laundry cookbook. Yeah, in case you couldn't tell, I have sort of a thing for Thomas Keller.) Keeping it in the living room, rather than banishing it to Cookbook Alley in the kitchen, serves two purposes: distracting many of my guests (since this cookbook is like foodie crack) and insuring that I flip through it often enough to keep the recipes in the front of my mind.

Looking through it this morning, I noticed a leek bread pudding that would make excellent use of the single leek in my CSA share, as well as the half loaf of white bread leftover from last week's meatloaf dinner and the cup of heavy cream leftover from last night's ice cream sundae craving. (Come on, if you're making a chocolate sundae, you might as well do it right and whip your own cream. Am I right?) Anyway, I didn't have a ton of bread - or a desire to be eating leek bread pudding all week - so I reduced the recipe by about half, and added some caramelized onions and sage to make it nice and Thanksgiving-y. (You could totally get away with serving this instead of stuffing for Thanksgiving dinner. I couldn't get away with that, though, since my mom's corn stuffing makes folks drive across the country just for a single spoonful. It's spectacular, for real.) I also swapped out the Comte cheese for Parmesan, since that's what I had.

Leek Bread Pudding
(adapted from Ad Hoc at Home)

8 slices of white bread, sliced into cubes
1 c. heavy cream
1 c. whole milk
2 eggs
salt and pepper
one leek
half of an onion
2 T butter
2/3 c. grated Parmesan cheese
3 large sage leaves
small bunch of chives

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Slice leek into 1/2 inch rounds. Slice onion lengthwise into strips. Melt butter in a small saucepan, then add onion and leek and cook over medium-low heat until caramelized.
Put the cubed bread into an 8 x 8 baking dish. Add 1/3 c. cheese and the chopped herbs. When onion and leek mixture is done, add it into the dish and mix slightly.
Combine the cream, milk and eggs with salt and pepper in a bowl. Pour this mixture over the bread cubes and let everything soak for about ten minutes. Then add the other 1/3 c. cheese. Pop it into the oven and cook for about an hour. The pudding is done when puffy and golden-brown.


We got the cutest little baby carrots from the CSA this week, which I peeled and cooked with brown sugar, butter and a bit of water until the carrots were tender and glazed. Alongside the leek bread pudding, they made an awesome little early-fall Saturday brunch.


A few weeks ago, we picked up a real bounty of husk cherries from the CSA. I love these little things - they look like miniature tomatillos in their husks, but they taste intriguingly like vanilla and pineapple. I ate tons of them out of hand, but I knew I had more than I could just take down on my couch, so I preserved them in a medium syrup and stuck them in the fridge. They taste super delicious on vanilla ice cream; something about the vanilla and the creaminess really brings out the flavor of the husk cherries. And aren't they pretty?


And finally, a really simple salad: roasted beets, diced apples and crispy bacon in a mustard and herb vinaigrette. Bacon makes everything better. So do beets. And so do these crunchy, tart Greenmarket apples. Apparently we've been having a fabulous year for apple growing - every local apple I've had in the last month has been really uncommonly great.


Sometimes the simplest stuff really is the best.