Cider Time

Most New Englanders see early November as a time for winding down from summer and harvest activities. The leaves dwindle, the air takes on a distinct chill, and farm stands begin closing their doors.

For cider lovers, however, this season is a highlight of the year.

Here in Franklin County, Massachusetts, we are lucky to have a weekend devoted to the joys of apples and cider, a weekend that seems to become richer each year.

Today and tomorrow mark the 17th annual occurrence of Cider Days, a celebration founded by Judith Maloney of West County Cider and her late husband Terry in 1994.

This year the festivities include a pancake breakfast, programs and sales at various locations throughout the county, canning classes, a home orchard workshop, tastings galore, and a special cider dinner.

Several local eateries will feature apple and cider items on their menus that weekend, including my beloved Green Emporium, where apple-cheddar pizza and appletinis are just the beginning of the apple madness.

This morning the Green Emporium featured cooking demonstrations by its chef, Michael Collins, and by Amy Traverso of Yankee magazine, the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook.

Amy also signed copies of her book, which was published in September by W.W. Norton. Norton sent me a copy of the book to review for a local paper. The book is a real find—a treasure trove of apple information (Amy has unearthed apple varieties completely new to me), stories of trips to orchards, and tempting recipes.

Amy has come to Cider Days several times although this is her first public appearance there. “Cider Days is something that my whole family looks forward to every year,” she told me.

“It’s just lovely to drive around rural Massachusetts for a day and taste apples! We may not live in wine country, but we certainly do live in cider country. I want to see New Englanders really embrace our cider heritage, and I’m so grateful to the Maloney family for helping put this drink [hard cider] back on the map. The festival seems to draw bigger crowds every year, so that’s really encouraging.”

I’m sorry that I didn’t post this in time to allow you to come to her signing—I’ve been having SERIOUS blog issues, just resolved thanks to my current hero (and always friend) Henry. Luckily, there are more events still to come this weekend.

>For a full schedule of activities visit this link. For a couple of apple and cider recipes (I’m posting this a little late so we have two today!), read on…

Farm Share Coleslaw

My mother’s darling nurse Pam Gerry told me months ago about her favorite coleslaw, which incorporates dill and apple with the cabbage.

I had to wait until fall to have the fresh ingredients with which to make it, however!

In early October our farm share turned up a small head of cabbage a couple of weeks ago—and we had apples on our trees and a small amount of dill still in the herb garden. The carrot was left over from a previous week’s farm share, and of course the cider vinegar was from Apex Orchards nearby.

Of course, you may tinker with the recipe and substitute something more conventionally coleslawy (maybe caraway seeds?) for the dill. I loved the fresh flavor it gave to the salad, however.

A generous friend sent me some REAL kosher corned beef and rye bread from New York City so I was able to make one of my favorite childhood sandwiches, corned beef with mustard and slaw. We got our cold cuts at a kosher deli where cheese was never mixed with corned beef so I never became a Reuben fan. But I adore coleslaw with my corned beef so between them Pam and Peter send me to heaven!

Ingredients:

1/2 small cabbage (about 3 cups when chopped), cored and loosely chopped or grated
1 small carrot, peeled and grated
1 small apple, cored and grated (remove skin if you like)
1/3 cup mayonnaise (plus or minus to taste)
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
2 teaspoons fresh dill leaves or a teaspoons dried dill weed (more or less to taste)
salt and pepper to taste (I used about 1/2 teaspoon salt and five turns of the pepper grinder)

Instructions:

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl. Stir and adjust seasonings to taste.

If you have time, let the mixture sit in the refrigerator for a while to maximize flavor. Be sure to stir it before serving.

Makes about 2 cups.

Sherry Hager’s Cider Doughnuts

My friend Cynthia O’Connor asked me more than a year ago if I had a recipe for Cider Doughnuts. It took me a while, but I finally got one!

Hager’s Farm Market in Shelburne, Massachusetts, will offer a plethora of apple products for this year’s Cider Days, plus the market’s signature fried dough with maple cream. I persuaded Sherry Hager and her daughter Kim to part with the recipe for Sherry’s cider doughnuts, pastries that are particularly light and crispy thanks to the cider and buttermilk in their dough … and to the Hagers’ deep-frying skills.

Ingredients:

3-1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
4 tablespoons butter at room temperature (I used unsalted)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/ 2 cup apple cider
1/2 cup buttermilk
canola oil as needed for frying

Instructions:

In a bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg.

In another bowl beat the butter and sugar together with electric mixer. Mix in the eggs until they are thoroughly incorporated. Mix in the cider and buttermilk.

Dump in the dry ingredients and stir.

“Our secret is we let it refrigerate overnight,” says Kim of the dough.

The next day preheat the oil to 350 degrees in a large pan or fryer.

Roll the out dough on a floured surface; cut it with a doughnut cutter. This can be a little tricky even after refrigeration as the dough is sticky. As you can see from the photo, I gave up on doughnuts and formed my dough into freeform crullers.

Cook the doughnuts a few at a time until they are brown on each side, a minute or two per side.

Makes about 18 doughnuts and 18 holes.

Apple-Cheddar Pie

Strangely, I’m not a major fan of pies, particularly apple pies. (I hope this doesn’t make me un-American.)

Nevertheless, every once in a while … particularly at this time of year … I feel impelled to bake an apple pie.

Yesterday was gray, and I was expecting company for supper. I hadn’t gotten very far in my menu planning. I knew we were having meatloaf; it was definitely a meatloaf kind of day. I also knew I needed to come up with some vegetables and a dessert.

One of my guests emailed me to say she would be happy to take care of the vegetables. So I was down to dessert.

I looked out the window for inspiration and was greeted by our apple trees, bursting with fruit.

The trees have been here much longer than we have. Most years they are purely decorative, bearing just a few mealy, wormy apples. I add them to applesauce out of habit but don’t eat or cook them much other than that.

Every three years or so, however, the fruit fates smile upon us and we suddenly find ourselves with enough apples to use multiple times. It turns out that 2011 is one of those years.

I took Truffle out for a quick walk, and in no time at all we had enough apples in our basket for a pie.

I was given this recipe many years ago by its creator, Rose-Ann Harder, who used to own a bakery in Greenfield, Massachusetts, called Rose-Ann’s. Her apple pie was one of her signature desserts. Somehow I never ended up trying it out until yesterday.

Knowing that many people accompany apple pie with a wedge of cheddar cheese, Rose-Ann incorporated cheese into her pie crust.

The cheese made the crust a little hard to roll out—at least for me, never the most deft of rollers. The difficulty was exacerbated by my lack of pastry flour. I substituted all-purpose flour, which may have made the crust more difficult to handle.

By the time the pie baked, however, the crust looked charmingly homespun rather than ragged. And it tasted perfectly autumnal, adding its savory flavor to the sweet filling.

Rose-Ann's Apple-Cheddar Pie

Ingredients:

for the pastry:

2/3 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups pastry flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
ice-cold water as needed

for the filling:

6 cups apples, sliced
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 tablespoons flour, plus a bit more if the apples are very juicy
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

Cut the shortening, flour, and salt together with a pastry blender until they form nice crumbs. Add the cheese, then add cold water a bit at a time until the dough cleans the bowl. Roll the dough into two 9-inch crusts, and place the first crust in a pie pan.

Combine the filling ingredients, and place them in the pie pan. Cover with the other crust, and pierce air holes in the top. (Rose-Ann likes to draw a little apple on top, but that's beyond my skill.) Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour, until the apples are tender and bubbling out through the air holes. Serves 6 to 8.

Ready to Eat

This post will be a little different from most since I’m not sharing a recipe. I promise to be back soon with something to cook. I always find apple time irresistible!

I’m simply describing an eating experience I encountered courtesy of Hurricane Irene.

As readers of my blog about caring for my mother know, my hometown of Hawley, Massachusetts, was hard hit by Irene … despite the fact that she had supposedly been downgraded to a Tropical Storm by the time she reached our community.

The roads in Hawley hew to the tradition of roads in many small communities—particularly hilly small communities. Our byways are built alongside brooks and rivers. Most of the time, this is a great idea. Why carve a road down a hill when you can just follow a stream around the hill?

During a hurricane, however, having one’s roads follow a river seems a lot less smart. Large parts of Hawley (including my own area, Pudding Hollow) were cut off during and after the hurricane by washed-out roads.

As a result, Hawley had its first ever (to my knowledge, at any rate) visit from FEMA. Federal and state officials helicoptered in to plan road repairs, bring medical help to a neighbor in need, and share food and water.

The food in question was a group of MREs—the ready-to-eat meals favored (or at any rate consumed) by our armed forces in the field.

Naturally, as a food person, I was fascinated by these. My mother and I really had no need for food. (Please don’t tell FEMA; this might be some sort of fraud!) Nevertheless, I asked for three of the meals.

The one I actually tried sounded intriguing. One somehow doesn’t expect to find Thai Chicken in MRE form.

A friend reminded me that Hawley is a bit far from Thailand. Even New York, where the MREs originate, is far from Thailand. So I’m not sure why I expected the food to be good. I guess I hoped it would be for the sake of the troops.

It took me a while to read the (very small, very obtuse) directions for heating the MRE with its “flameless heater,” a chemical pad that reacts to create heat when one adds a little water to its bag and then puts the bag in a box.



Even after I managed to decipher the directions, I didn’t quite heat the food correctly. I put both the chicken and its accompanying rice pilaf in the heater bag. Only the one closer to the little pad actually got warm. I resorted to my microwave for the other—not an option open to soldiers in the field.

The chicken and rice proved sadly bland … even when I added a little hot sauce from the enclosed miniature bottle (a nice touch). The dishes’ consistency was off putting as well; both were gummy.

The rest of the meal was pretty darn odd but designed, I guess, to put protein into soldiers. It consisted of vegetable crackers (today’s hard tack) with peanut butter, a peanut/raisin mixture, instant coffee (a tea bag provided an alternative), and chewing gum.

My friend Brett informs me that he and his fellow members of the 379th Engineers subsisted on these meals for weeks at a time overseas.

The whole thing gave me a renewed appreciation for our men and women in uniform. Risking their lives and leaving their families are bad enough. Having to eat bland, boring food … now, that’s too great a sacrifice.

When I learned that National Guard troops and other officials were working on the roads out of town it occurred to me that these men might be subsisting on MREs. I hastened to bake them some butterscotch brownies, and my neighbor Alice and I drove down to the road-construction site (very carefully) to distribute the treats.

I wish I could do the same for our troops everywhere.

Meanwhile, if you would like to help with hurricane relief in our area, please consider contributing relief supplies to the drive at our local elementary school, Hawlemont School in Charlemont. Coordinator Beth Bandy is asking for bottled water, nonperishable foods, cleaning supplies, baby food/formula, pet food, clothing, and anything else that might be helpful. She is also looking for drivers with hardy cars to deliver the supplies. For more information on the drive, call Beth at 413-337-4291.

Beth has also set up a Facebook page for her efforts.

And if you’d like to hear an abridged audio version of my blog post about our own hurricane experience, here’s the link for my commentary on WFCR-FM.

Easier Than Pie: Lily's Salsa Verde Chicken

The phrase “easy as pie” sometimes bothers me. I don’t think pie is super difficult to prepare. It does take some time, however, to make, chill, and roll out a pie crust. So I don’t think pie should be the standard for ease.

And I do love ease. As readers who follow other my blog, Pulling Taffy, know, most of my time these days is taken up with care for my elderly mother, who suffers from dementia.

One of Taffy’s quirks at this point in her life is that she really HATES to be alone, even for a few minutes. So my dinner-prep time is limited.

This chicken casserole suits me perfectly. I can chop the onion while chatting with her. The only time I have to be in the kitchen is the five minutes or so it takes to brown the chicken, a task I try to accomplish while my mother naps.

The recipe was suggested by a vendor I met at the farmer’s market near me in Alexandria, Virginia, last week. Lily Castaño is the creator of Salsa Las Glorias, a range of salsas that are in indeed glorious. I bought way too many of them!

Perhaps I should feel guilty about cooking with a pre-made product. When tomatillos come into season, I can always make my own salsa verde as I did in a previous recipe for Salsa Verde Pie.

Meanwhile, Lily’s super-fresh salsa is a far cry from a can of soup. And her chicken idea (roughly translated by me) is delicately flavored yet satisfying. The sour cream adds just a little extra smoothness.

The dish is highly flexible. Use leftover chicken if you like, and/or make it with unboned unskinned chicken for extra moisture. (Just make sure you cook the chicken through!) I seem to remember Lily sometimes used herbes de Provence; I might try a little cumin next time. And when I heated up leftovers the other day I threw in some ripe olives, which added color (yes, black is a color!) and flavor.

Please note that although this recipe served my mother and me plus our dog you may want to add more chicken. Only you know whether your family members routinely eat a whole or a half chicken breast for dinner.

Lily’s Salsa Verde Chicken

Ingredients:

1 boned, skinned chicken breast
a small amount of olive oil for browning
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup salsa verde
1/2 medium onion (a sweet onion is particularly nice in this), chopped
sour cream as needed

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Slice the chicken breast in half along the vertical edge so that you have two thin cutlets with the same shape as the original breast.

In a medium pan over a medium-high flame heat the oil until it shimmers. Brown the cutlets briefly on both sides, adding a light amount of salt and pepper.

Transfer the cutlets to a baking dish. Cover with the salsa and then the onion pieces.

Cover the baking dish and bake for 45 minutes. Serve over rice and garnish with sour cream. Serves 1 to 2.

Spicy Jam Cake

My friend Peter from New York and Massachusetts came to visit my mother and me in Virginia this week. His dogs Lucca and Marco enjoyed a joyous reunion with my own Truffle.

We wanted to celebrate the visit—and to mark Peter’s birthday, which took place last week.

We tried barbecue from not one but two different local venues here in Fairfax County. It left a sweet and tangy taste in our mouths, the perfect preview for the cake I whipped up for the occasion.

Peter is NOT a standard birthday-cake boy. He esc hews your basic chocolate and white cakes.

In the past, I have made him other recipes on this blog, including Teri’s Pumpkin Cake (probably his all-time favorite in my repertoire) and Rhubarb Baked Alaska.

So I thought this spicy jam cake would suite him well—and it did. The spices predominate. The jam barely makes a statement, but it does make the cake delightfully moist.

I adapted the recipe from the Treasury of Tennessee Treats, an elderly but useful community cookbook sent to me recently by my friend Kelly Boyd, a native of Athens, Tennessee.

Jam and Spice Cake

Ingredients:

3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) sweet butter
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in 1/4 cup buttermilk
2 cups flour
13 ounces (weight—1 very generous cup in volume) jam (I used raspberry)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt pan.

Cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, followed by the spices and dissolved baking soda.

Stir in the flour, followed by the jam.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan (the batter will be a rather sad-looking color—sort of a grayish mud--but it will turn a lovely brown in the oven) and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. In my so-so electric oven this took 30 to 35 minutes.

Let the cake cool in its pan on a rack for 10 minutes; then invert and remove it and let it finish cooling. Ice with cream-cheese frosting.

Serves 12.