Concord Grape Sorbet
We find ourselves making quite a few sorbets around the holidays, when heavy meals are inevitable and dessert has the potential to push us into button busting gluttony. This potent fall Concord Grape Sorbet is a refreshing and aromatic end to a meal, and will usually garner a grateful nod from our overstuffed guests (I'm looking at you potato gratin). Concord grapes are a bluish black variety, native to the North-Eastern region of North America. Concords ripen in early fall are are the variety behind the iconic color and flavoring of grape juice and jelly.
Yield: Serves 4
Ingredients:
- 2 pounds concord grapes (use red if concord is unavailable)
- 1/4 cup sugar
Steps:
- Place the grapes, stems, seeds and all, a blender or food processor. Add the sugar and puree until the mixture is liquid. Taste and add additional sugar if you prefer sweeter, we like ours on the tart side and so were quite light with our sweetener.
- Strain the mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a medium bowl. Discard the solids.
- Pour the strained mixture into an ice cream maker and make according to your manufacturer’s instructions.
Roasted Beet Chips
I always associate beets with the Borscht Soup that my Oma used to make in the fall and winter months. At the time, I don't recall being all that enamored with either the soup, or beets. But now I love them both. We have found that beets are not a vegetable that generates a mild response. Whenever we plan to serve them, we like to first test out the waters to see if our guests are beet-friend or -foe. Beets have a strong earthy flavor that needs some assistance. In their unvarnished form, they are a dusty and lumpy root vegetable, with little to commend by their exterior. But peel a beet and you will find a vibrant, sweet and minerally vegetable, happy to lend color and flavor to drab dishes. Beets and their greens are chock full of vitamins, among them A, B1, B2, B6 and C and are high in calcium, iron and magnesium. Beets respond well to many cooking applications and are delicious in everything from hummus to pickles to juice. I first made these roasted beet chips when I was hankering for some root chips (those incredibly overpriced bags of beet and sweet potato chips at the grocery). It occurred to me that I could make them on my own and instead of deep frying, I thought I’d give beet chips in the oven a go. While Paul was skeptical of my oven technique, it worked beautifully and he sneakily polished off the first batch before our guests arrived!
Chocolate Maple Granola with Quinoa and Cranberries
This week I took a stand against the breakfast industrial complex. Sunday for breakfast, I thought I’d go carnivorous, and ate a plate heaped high with Amish summer sausage. In honor of meatless Monday, I thought I’d swing vegetarian, and polished off a bowl of leftover garlicky lentil salad with goat cheese. Tuesday at 6am, I started to worry that I might not be getting my daily serving of fruits and vegetables, and munched away on snow peas, carrots, and bell peppers while I was getting ready for work. Don’t worry, I also ate string cheese for protein! This morning I was out of time and thinking that I might want to dip towards the sweet side, unfortunately things got a bit sticky when I tried to juggle spoonful’s of Nutella while driving. Paul, no stranger to my breakfast rebellions, calmly continued eating his grape nuts. Now that I’ve gotten that all out of system, I am ready for a spiffed-up breakfast classic. So when I got home from work today, I made a big batch of Chocolate Maple Granola with Quinoa and Cranberries. This chocolaty, crunchy granola is somewhere between breakfast and dessert, a good place to be in my mind, and with the combination of nuts, oats, and quinoa, provides a complete protein rich meal that keeps me energized through the whole day.
Persimmon Citrus Salad
“What kind of weird orange tomato is that...” the check-out clerk wondered aloud, as persimmons made their way up the conveyor belt at the grocery store last week. Ten minutes later, there were two mangers involved, a low buzz of grumpy conversation in the line, and toes tapping impatiently. Finally, with the arrival of a third manager, and no persimmon on the produce list, I was told to name my price and take my strange fruit home. Victory! Persimmon Citrus Salad is worth the trouble to track down persimmons in your area, it is a festive and zippy salad, featuring winter's most vibrant colors and textures, bathed in a lime mint vinaigrette.
Persimmons are a fall fruit in season between September and December and there are a number of varieties of this fruit. We prefer the pumpkin orange, tomato shaped Fuyu persimmons, as they can be eaten at all stages of the ripening process, unlike other varieties which are astringent and incredibly bitter until they fully ripen.
Caramelized Cardamom Spiced Apples with Pistachio Cream
It’s a weeknight and you want pie. Unfortunately, you’re husband (and resident crust-maker) is still at school and you are not confident enough (read: too lazy) to make a crust. My solution: Caramelized Cardamom Spiced Apples with Pistachio Cream, essentially an Indian scented pie filling without the bother of a crust. We have had Indian flavors on the mind recently and have served this as an accompaniment to Pork Vindaloo.
Mocha Mascarpone Mousse
We all have our food indulgences. For Paul, it is a perfectly seared steak. For me, it is a custardy coffee dessert. This incredibly easy mousse recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsey, uses mascarpone cheese as a brilliant shortcut to avoid messing with egg whites. Somewhere between a classic mousse and an airy cheesecake, this Mocha Mascarpone Mousse is a crowd favorite. If you find the coffee and chocolate combination stuck on the brain, check out two of our other favorites: Mexican Chocolate Custard Cake & Black Fudge Pudding Cakes.
