I am learning — slowly — that while San Francisco doesn’t offer the summer weather I grew up with (and long for) when school lets out each year, there are ways to compensate for that. Here at home it may be 60 degrees, with fog swirling in the street and a wind so strong it picks up our deck umbrella and tosses it into the neighbor’s yard (we only open the umbrella a couple days in the spring and then again not until our real summer in October, so I hardly know why we bother.) But we can drive half an hour north to the swimming pool or half an hour south for a sunny oceanside hike and that gets me in the mood to make summer in the kitchen, too. So when school let out last week and we faced another foggy day, I summoned my sunniest mood and said to the boys, “It’s summertime! What kind of ice cream should we make?” Ben was first to answer: “Honey ice cream!” And Eli was the one to help. Happy summer.
The recipe is from my go-to ice cream book (everyone should have one): Bruce Weinstein’s The Ultimate Ice Cream Book.
1/2 c mild honey
6 large egg yolks*
1 1/2 c milk
1 c heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
In a medium mixing bowl, beat the honey with the egg yolks until thickened and pale yellow. Set aside.
Bring the milk to a simmer in a heavy saucepan. Slowly beat the hot milk into the egg and honey mixture. Pour the entire mixture back into the pan and heat slowly, stirring constantly, until the custard thickens slightly and coats the back of the spoon. Be careful not to let the mixture boil or the eggs will scramble. Take off the heat and pour through a strainer into a large bowl. Cool slightly, then stir in the cream and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate until cold, or overnight.
Stir the chilled custard, then freeze in your ice cream machine according to its directions.
*Tune in next time for a way to use those 6 egg whites.
Do I really need to give you another pancake recipe? We’ve already given you Lisa’s classic griddlecake recipe, and I’ve contributed recipes for quinoa, pumpkin and lemon pancakes. But I am going to give you one more, because this recipe is so easy you can make it in your sleep, which, frankly, is often my state when pancake-making for my children: vertical and sufficiently responsive, but not entirely awake yet.
The recipe comes from Eric Carle’s picture book, Pancakes, Pancakes!, a book I have been reading to my kids for years about a boy named Jack who asks his mother for pancakes. She tells him she’s busy and will need his help, and then proceeds to direct (but not assist) him in each step, from cutting wheat for the miller to grind into flour all the way to milking the cow for milk (and churning some of it into butter) and gathering the wood for a cooking fire. Jack’s quite happy to do all the chores, and at the end he and his mother flip the pancake together, she spreads it with jam, and he tucks into an enormous, strawberry-jam topped pancake. It’s an excellent story — I revere Jack’s mother — but I have never dreamed of actually making the recipe with which the story concludes:
Until one day recently, as we finished reading, Eli said, “Let’s make these pancakes!” and he caught me at a moment when I was in the mood to say yes. I really didn’t think they’d be very good — no sugar, no baking powder — but I couldn’t sneak in any extra ingredients because Eli was determined to do the cooking himself, plus he can read now. He hardly needs my permission or participation at all:
And I have to say, the pancakes are perfectly good. They don’t hold up very well (no snack pancakes here), so eat them while they’re hot, whether they are stacked with jam:
Or poured and sliced into a homage to Giants’ closer Brian Wilson:
I’ll give you the ingredients, but pick up a copy of Pancakes, Pancakes! to get the whole story, read it with your kids, and then make some pancakes.
1 c flour
1 egg
1 c milk
Stir into a batter while your frying pan is heating, melt a bit of butter in the pan, then proceed, one ladleful of batter at a time, to cook your pancakes.
It’s been a couple years now since Lisa wrote about fresh cherries, plain and simple, and that’s how I like them best, too. But this year, having signed up for an all-fruit CSA, we’ve been inundated with cherries, more than anybody wants to eat, so I’ve been exploring cake. It’s not, I know, the traditional direction to go with cherries; why not clafouti, or a pie? Because I felt like cake.
It gets off to a lovely, fragrant start with a caramel-balsamic syrup:
to which you then add the cherries:
At this point, though, I’d recommend switching from this recipe to this one, for an apricot upside-down cake which I have made several times (click here for a picture); the cake for the apricot recipe is less sweet, so I think a nicer contrast to the cherries, and much less fussy, since it doesn’t require that you separate the eggs. Either way you go, though, you’ll wind up with a delicious cake:
ingredients
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, divided
1/4 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
3 cups whole pitted fresh Bing cherries or other dark sweet cherries (about 21 ounces whole, unpitted cherries)
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal (preferably stone-ground medium grind)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, separated
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
preparation
Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 350°F. Combine 1/4 cup butter with brown sugar and vinegar in 10- to 11-inch ovenproof skillet with 2-inch-high sides. Stir over medium heat until butter melts and sugar dissolves, about 2 minutes. Increase heat to high; add cherries and bring to boil. Remove from heat.
Whisk flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat 1/2 cup butter in large bowl. Add sugar; beat until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with milk in 2 additions each, beating just until blended and occasionally scraping down sides of bowl. Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites in another medium bowl until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat until whites are stiff but not dry. Using rubber spatula, fold 1/4 of whites into batter to lighten slightly. Fold in remaining whites in 3 additions (batter will be thick). Spoon batter over cherries in skillet, then spread evenly with offset spatula to cover cherries.
Bake cake until top is golden brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool in skillet on rack 5 minutes. Run spatula around edges of cake to loosen. Place large serving platter upside down atop skillet. Using pot holders or oven mitts, firmly hold platter and skillet together and invert. Leave skillet atop cake 5 minutes. Remove skillet. Stick back any wayward cherries. Let cake cool at least 45 minutes. Cut cake into wedges and serve slightly warm or at room temperature.
Cherry Brown Butter Bars
Adapted from Bon Appetit, via Smitten Kitchen
Crust:
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
Pinch of salt
Filling:
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, diced
1 pound sweet cherries, which will yield 12 ounces of pitted cherries, (alternately, you can use 12 ounces of the berry of your choice)
Make crust: Preheat over to 375°F. Cut two 12-inch lengths of parchment paper and trim each to fit the 8-inch width of an 8×8-inch square baking pan. Press it into the bottom and sides of your pan in one direction, then use the second sheet to line the rest of the pan, perpendicular to the first sheet. Congratulations! You’ve just faked a square tart pan.
Melt the butter in a small saucepan, then add the sugar and vanilla and stir. Add flour and salt and stir until incorporated. Transfer dough to your prepared pan, and use your fingertips to press the dough evenly across the bottom of the pan. Bake the crust until golden, about 18 minutes (it will puff slightly while baking). Transfer crust to rack and cool in pan. Maintain oven temperature.
Make the filling: Cook butter in heavy small saucepan (a lighter-colored one will make it easier to see the color changing, which happens quickly) over medium heat until deep nutty brown (do not burn), stirring often and watching carefully, about six minutes. Immediately pour browned butter into glass measuring cup to cool slightly.
Whisk sugar, eggs, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Add flour and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Gradually whisk browned butter into sugar-egg mixture; whisk until well blended.
Arrange pitted cherries, or the berries of your choice, in bottom of cooled crust. Carefully pour browned butter mixture evenly over the fruit. Bake bars until filling is puffed and golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Cool bars completely in pan on rack.
Use the parchment paper overhang to carefully remove cooled bars from pan and place them on a cutting board and cut them into squares with a very sharp knife.
I’ll make this again, and I’ll vary it, too, by topping this easy pastry with lemon custard, or lemon custard + raspberries, or blueberries… the possibilities are nearly endless.
I tried this recipe because in the middle of cooking a run-of-the-mill dinner for my kids last week, I got a text from a friend with a cooking question. I responded & asked what she was cooking. She told me she was trying to cook like Giada. I responded I wanted to look like Giada. That is not going to happen.
But the chicken did happen, in both our homes, and with good results. These are basically a version of chicken “nuggets” rolled in mixture of polenta and rosemary and sprinkled with lemon rosemary salt. They’re nicely crispy, great at room temperature, and appealing to kids without being too familiar. It’s a fast, good weeknight chicken recipe. Next time, I might experiment with baking these, since frying can be messy & I hate the clean up.
The kids liked it, the book club liked it, and we even liked it leftover as a little side dish of protein for a composed salad (with Boston lettuce, cilantro, cucumber with olive oil and white balsamic)
It was a busy week and I forgot to take a picture, but you can trust me that it’s an appealing looking dish. For the visual, today, in honor of Giada, here’s the closest thing I have a to a glamour shot, taken by the amazing Lisa Johnson, Rock Photographer, in case, you know, one of those glossy magazines comes calling.
But seriously folks, try the chicken. And be sure to make extra salt: it’s great on salads. Or popcorn.
Crispy Chicken with Rosemary-Lemon Salt
Vegetable oil for frying
Salt
1 (6-inch) sprig fresh rosemary
1/4 cup kosher salt
Zest of 1/2 large lemon
Chicken
1 pound chicken tenders, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary leaves
Zest of 1/2 large lemon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup fine cornmeal or instant polenta
For the salt: Heat 1/4-inch of oil in a large, high-sided skillet over medium-high heat (the oil is hot enough when a pinch of cornmeal sizzles when added to the pan). Add the rosemary sprig and fry for 30 seconds until crisp. Using tongs, remove the rosemary sprig and drain on paper towels. Remove the leaves and finely chop to yield 1 tablespoon. Place the rosemary, salt and lemon zest in a small bowl. Mix with a fork until combined. Set aside.
For the chicken: In a medium bowl, mix together the chicken, garlic, chopped rosemary, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Add the cornmeal and toss until the chicken is coated. Add 1/2 of the chicken to the same skillet used to cook the rosemary and fry for 2 to 3 minutes each side until golden and crispy. Drain on paper towels. Repeat with the remaining chicken. Sprinkle with the rosemary-lemon salt and serve.
Last summer, to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary, Tony and I arranged back to back sleepovers for our kids with two different families, and thus managed our first two-night getaway together since Ben was born. We’d each been away longer on our own (or with friends and family), both for work and for pleasure, but never just the two of us. So we drove to Calistoga with a pile of books and magazines and spent our time away sleeping, eating, and reading.
One of the books I read that weekend was Kate Moses’ richly-detailed, quietly moving memoir with recipes, Cakewalk. I read it very slowly, savoring her writing, not wanting it to end, and when it did end, I cried.
Cakewalk was in ways not the happiest choice for my anniversary reading. None of the many marriages she describes in the book are easy, whether she’s writing about her own parents or those of her teenage boyfriend, whose father mutters under his breath to Kate, in his wife’s presence, “Twenty-five years of that woman is enough to choke a horse.” It is in that chapter that Moses offers her brownie recipe, which, with its two versions, is perhaps a good example of how to thrive in a long relationship: stay flexible and always offer options.
One version of the recipe (the one that I prefer) was reprinted in the New York Times and I offer it here; you’ll have to buy the book to get the frosting-covered creamy brownie recipe.
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, plus more for greasing pan
1 1/2 cups walnut halves (optional)
9 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped or broken into small pieces
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour.
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 13-by-9-inch glass baking pan. If using walnuts, spread on a baking sheet and toast in oven until fragrant and lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool.
2. Melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat, add chocolate, and cover pan until chocolate is melted, about 10 minutes. In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, salt, sugar and vanilla just until thick, creamy and beginning to lighten in color.
3. Whisk the butter and chocolate until smooth, then mix into the sugar-egg mixture just until well combined. Using a spatula, fold in the flour, using as few strokes as possible, until it disappears. Fold in the walnuts, if using. Spread the batter evenly in the baking pan.
4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, checking after 22 minutes to avoid over-baking. When the tip of a knife inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs, but not liquid, remove brownies from the oven. Allow to cool to room temperature, then cover and leave in the pan for several hours or overnight before cutting into squares. Store in an airtight container.
