Squash and Apple Compote

Squash and Apple Compote

Adapted from Kim Boyce’s Good to the Grain by My Little Blue Heron

Cold weather is settling in: Time to get your compote on. This gorgeous compote can accompany a main dish, veggies, grains, poultry, veal or can be part of breakfast, topping pancakes, waffles or hot cereal.

I chose an organic butternut squash and a variety of apples. If you don't do dairy, you can sub vegan butter (I like “Myokos” brand, and if brown sugar isn’t your jam, try some coconut sugar.

The flavors are pure, and you won’t need cinnamon unless you absolutely must and can’t do without. A rarity, I don’t add spices to this recipe.

You'll have to stay with this one. It requires "being there", being with it. Think of it as a meditation!

This recipe will make a few cups. It’s best served warm or at room temperature. Keep it in the fridge for up to a week. This will be a great addition to the usual accompaniments at your next gathering. And this is a great dish to bring to a pot luck!

Sending love,

jane

Squash and Apple Compote

Equipment: 12 inch sauté pan, kitchen scale, measuring spoons and cups

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp. unsalted butter (or for dairy-free, “Myokos” brand vegan butter)

15 oz. peeled and cut into ½-3/4” pieces, butternut squash (preferably organic)

½ tsp. scant kosher salt

1 ½ lb. peeled and cut into same sized as squash (1/2-3/4”) pieces apples, tart or

of your preference, (preferably organic or local)

6 Tbsp. dark brown sugar (or substitute coconut sugar)

3 Tbsp. (or to taste) apple cider vinegar

Procedure:

Melt butter in 12-inch sauté pan over med-high heat

Add squash and salt and toss to coat with butter and let cook without stirring for a few minutes.

Toss and let cook for another few minutes without stirring until you see the squash is beginning to brown. If it’s not, the heat isn’t high enough. If the butter is browning, the heat is too high. Make adjustments.

Add apples and sugar and toss to coat. Let sit for a minute and then reduce heat to medium-low. Cook for about 10 minutes. Apples will release liquid.

Increase heat again to medium high and cook, stirring every couple of minutes for about 20 minutes. If it's drying out, add water, 1 Tbsp. at a time, as needed. Salt to taste.

The apples and squash should become dark and look caramelized.

Add apple cider vinegar, the final elixir that lifts the flavor from the butter. Beautiful.

Serve warm or at room temperature. 

Pizzelle, Gluten Free, Anise with Chocolate Variation

Gluten Free Pizzelle Cookies 

(Anise with Chocolate variation)

Adapted from Nick Malgieri by My Little Blue Heron

Pizzelle (pronounced: "peetsellay") are some of the older cookies around - like me. They're wafer cookies, traditionally made on the stovetop using an iron (think thin waffles). These are so easy to whip up and make - particularly in our modern times, since you can crank them out with ease, using an electric iron. I've tested out several electric devices, including the (classic) Palmer, as well as the Chef's Choice, but my fave , by far, is the simplest model that Cuisinart makes. It's compact, non-stick, quick, accurate, and reasonably priced. The manual iron, or stove top, is harder to locate.  I had one but gave it away. 

Traditionally, Pizzelle cookies can lay flat or can be rolled or curved (like tuilles cookies - French for tiles .. the clay ones that are on roofs). They can be dipped, filled, or dusted with sugar. 

You can fool around with flavors! Swap out anise for vanilla or lemon. Try adding some espresso powder (I love King Arthur Flour's) to the chocolate variation. 

Due to the absence of gluten (stretchy protein), manipulating these cookies is a little challenging. I stuck with flat - and that's what I recommend you do, too. King Arthur Flour's All Purpose Gluten Free Flour is excellent and worth the price. Look for sales. Wegman's (it's in NYC now!) is always competitive in its pricing. I don't recommend using  their (or any) "Measure for Measure" flour. My faux of choice is guar gum. For me (and I've read that this is true for others) it doesn't cause stomach upset, and it produces a finer, gentler product. You'll read that you shouldn't use guar gum when baking, but I say guar for it. You may have to alter (increase slightly) quantity with guar - but just a smidge. If you're serious about learning about xanthan v. guar, you can read up on it. Laurent Dran, a genius GF baker, exclusively uses guar gum in his recipes. Xanthan gum is a mold that grows on corn. (His books are in French, so should you decide to purchase, here's an instant translation tool that I found really easy and convenient.) (And it's possible that xanthan isn't available in France, but I kinda doubt it.) And to play it from the opposite corner: other chefs (read about it in Larsen's "Gluten-Free Baking at Home", tout xanthan gum as the binder of choice because it's not from a bean source and it won't cause stomach upset. You'll find convincing arguments for either. I suggest you experiment with both and decide what's best for you.

I adapted these Pizzelle recipes from Nick Malgieri's "Cookies Unlimited" book. You can find a used copy for about $6. If you live in NYC, you can often find used copies at good bookstores like The Strand (which is fun to visit when it's not during Christmas time).

What's impizzellitive is that you WEIGH ingredients for these recipes). PLEASE buy a kitchen scale. Here's Wirecutter Deal's budget pick, which .. if you ACT NOW is at an unbelievable low of ... $9.47 U.S.

MLBH truc: If you have star anise: Please take a glass jar: fill it with some granulated sugar, throw in some star anise, pour in more sugar, repeat. Let sit for several days to several weeks. This sugar will make your pizzelle do the tighten up: 

peace and love,
jane

🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊

Gluten Free Pizzelle Cookies (Anise with Chocolate variation)

Adapted from Nick Malgieri by My Little Blue Heron

Equipment:

An electric pizzelle iron. A kitchen scale.

Ingredients:

314 g. King Arthur all purpose gluten free flour (NOT WITH XANTHAN GUM)

2 g. guar gum

pinch of kosher salt

9 g. baking powder (gluten and aluminum free)

2 eggs, size large, room temperature

1 large egg yolk

2 Tbsp. anisette (or use anise extract, but much less)

160 g, granulated sugar (may be infused with star anise (see MLBH truc above and then see note below)

8 Tbsp./4 oz. unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

vegetable or palm oil for greasing the iron

Note: If you have anise seeds, you can grind them and throw in a Tbsp. or more, to taste – this is up to you and how much you adore anise. 

Procedure:

1.    In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. (You can place the bowl on the scale, taring after each addition and then remove from scale to whisk.)

2.    In a different bowl, whisk together the eggs, anisette, melted butter and sugar.

3.    Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mixture will be somewhat stiff.

4.    Heat the pizzelle iron to desired temperature. You’re going to have to experiment with this because every iron is different. Coat the iron lightly with vegetable or palm oil once. You won’t have to do this again unless the cookies begin to stick.

5.   Drop rounded spoonfuls of batter (my iron came with a measured spoon) onto the center of the iron, close the iron and they are usually ready when they stop steaming. The Cuisinart can be adjusted to different settings, and a light tells you when they’re baked. (I turn mine to pretty well done - almost the highest.) Easy!

6.    Remove immediately and place on a cooling rack. Repeat. Repeat .. until all batter is used. You can try rolling them while they’re still warm. Try using a French rolling pin or any cylinder as a mold. You can roll them into cones, dip them in chocolate and fill them with whipped cream!

7.  When cooled, store them in an airtight container. You can dust them with some powdered sugar – pretty.

Chocolate Variation:

1.    Remove 20 grams of gluten free flour

2.    Add 20 gram of unsweetened, dark cocoa powder

3.    Whisk flour and cocoa together well.

You may like the combo of Anise and Chocolate, or you may opt for vanilla extract (1 tsp. or ¼ tsp. Gluten Free vanilla powder made by Authentic Foods), and you could add a chocolate, hazelnut, orange or coffee liquor or extract.

Take care that you don’t overbake chocolate pizzelle cookies. Chocolate becomes bitter when burnt.

Macaroons For All

Macaroons for All!

Vegan, Gluten Free, Paleo

Adapted from beamingbaker.com by My Little Blue Heron Kitchen

These are the simplest and most delicious macaroons I’ve made. If you don’t have these ingredients, run and get them! Neither gummy nor cloying, these macaroons are so satisfyingly chewy and light, you’ll donate those awful cans of gooey lumps and make these your holiday and every day macaroons. Keep them between layers of wax paper or parchment, airtight, at room temperature for a week. Freeze them for months. 

You’ll need five ingredients (you can get away with four if you omit the vanilla extract.)

If you don’t have refined coconut oil, please buy this. For baking, refined coconut oil is preferred because the taste of coconut is undiscernible. I use it all the time, even in these coconut/almond cookies because I want to taste the ingredients, not the fat. Try Nutiva brand, 

Buy SHREDDED and unsweetened coconut. I like this brand. You can buy it in some stores or online at you know where. Bob's Red Mill is good, too. Whatever brand you buy, organic is always a great choice. Finely shredded isn't optional, it's a requirement. The same for blanched almond flour. Don’t use the ‘natural’ flour or meal with skins. Almond flour is different than almond meal. Almond meal is good for breading things. 

I just bought a large bag at Costco.  

 No need to use your best maple syrup for baking. I always use the darkest syrup I can find. Grade “b” is no longer a permissible “grade”, so look for “formerly grade b” or “dark amber” descriptions.

My vanilla extract is from Baldwin’s in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It’s a fortune. There’s also some sugar in it, so if you’re a strict paleo human, you won’t use this. If you’re strictly GF, add ¼ tsp. Authentic Foods, certified GF vanilla powder.  If you want vanilla flavor without sugar, if you’re feeling solvent, buy some vanilla beans. You can scrape the seeds from a vanilla bean into the batter (1/2 a bean will do). Throw the empty bean into some bourbon and vodka (keep throwing them in and hide them in the dark in a glass jar, sealed.) Eventually, you’ll have sugar-free vanilla extract!

With the Mueller report and all, I think I’ll ➖➖➖and then nickname these Redactaroons. I can market them in ➖➖ and in ➖and I'll send a batch over to ➖ ➖and see if they'd like me to do some food shows.

Spring is a season of renewal, rebirth and hope. Please try not to lose hope. Get out and breathe. Stay in and breathe. Check out the app Headspace (in the app store), or at headspace.com. You can explore this great resource on your own time and share it with your children, too. Find a local sangha. If you’re in NYC, head over to one of three MNDFL meditation studios, two in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn. Check it out! Vipassanistas: Head for NY Insight another great place with wonderful people, with sanghas all over the tri-state area. 

Enjoy these macaroons. Be happy, healthy, safe and may your life feel easy.

peace, love, hope and truth,

jane

Macaroons (with chocolate variation)

Equipment: Baking sheet, parchment paper, food processor, measuring cups and spoons, spatula, small 1” cookie scoop, cooling rack

Ingredients: 

1¼ c. unsweetened, shredded coconut, preferably organic

¼ c. finely ground blanched almond flour

3 Tbsp. refined coconut oil (SOLID, not melted!)

¼ c. maple syrup

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Procedure:

1.  Preheat oven to 350º F. and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

2.  Measure ingredients and put all into your food processor.

3.  Pulse until batter comes together.

4.  Using a spatula, remove from food processor bowl into another bowl. There will be some liquid under the blade. Scrape the liquid into the new bowl and mix together.

5.  Using a cookie scoop, place mounds on parchment lined cookie sheet, leaving 1 1/2 inches between mounds (they will spread just slightly).

6.  Bake until golden, about 12-15 minutes. 

7.  Cool completely before removing/optionally decorating/storing.

Yield: approximately 16 cookies and more for chocolate (about 22)

Chocolate variation: reduce almond flour to 3 Tbsp. + ½  tsp., add ¼ cup cacao or dark cocoa and 1½ additional Tbsp. maple syrup. DON’T OVERBAKE! 

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