Clare's Cooking Blog

This is a Cynthia Lief special - served as a first course to a cold and hungry group on Little Cranberry Island in Maine (otherwise known as the town of Islesford) early in January.  Cynthia and Dan own and manage the sole restaurant on Little Cranberry. It’s down at the dock, and is called, appropriately enough, ‘The Islesford Dock.’ It’s the only restaurant I’ve ever been in that has valet docking rather than valet parking. During the summer season their refrigerator at home is empty, and they are at the restaurant pretty much day and night. But in the winter their own kitchen comes alive, and many grateful friends are the beneficiaries.

Cynthia passed on the recipe to me without precise measures, so I hope I’ve done her, and the soup, justice in specifying quantities …

The quinoa is made separately, and spooned into the bowl before you pour the soup on top.  The soup is partly blended, and partly left chunky.  Sweet potato, onion, carrot, jalapeno and garlic - along with chicken broth and an interesting combination of oregano and coriander, with just a pinch of cayenne.  At the end, chopped cilantro, lemon juice and a little peanut butter whisked in, and more toasted garlic to sprinkle on top of your bowl.  A note to peanut butter skeptics - I’m not myself a lover of peanuts, but the peanut butter in this recipe disappears - lending richness but not a distinct nutty taste.  

Read More →

This recipe was originally on the 101 Cookbooks website, but came to us from Kaitlyn Duggan, a potter and cook on Little Cranberry Island in Maine.  You can see her pottery at http://kaitlynduggan.com.  She and jewelry maker Barbara Fernald, http://barbarasfernald.com, had a holiday bazaar together, with treats to entice us out into the weather, and Miklos fell in love with these crackers.  Lots of crunch, a little oil and salt … what could be better?

Endless possibilities too. To get creative with your crackers you can top them with lots of things before baking: freshly grated cheese, artisan salts, cornmeal, a dusting of your favorite herbs (finely chopped fresh rosemary is hard to beat) or spice blend, seeds (toasted sesame, perhaps), and/or a wash of your favorite flavored or infused oil.

Read More →

We’re having folk over for dinner tonight, and have some good cheeses to start the evening off with, but I didn’t buy crackers, and I’m not about to increase my carbon footprint with another trip to the store for one item.  I DID, however, have fresh rosemary in the bin, and now I have home-baked rosemary crackers to offer - significantly more appetizing than the ones I would have bought!  And they were SO easy to make, I don’t think I’ll be using store-bought any more.

[originally from krissywats on chowhound.com’s Home Cooking Board]

Make these crackers ahead of time, and use them as appetizer – either by themselves or as a base for cheeses, pesto, tapenade, hummus ….  You could easily expand the possibilities by varying the herbs and spices as well.

Read More →

This post belongs with the ones from months ago that talked about developing a rye starter for bread.  To refresh your memory … the basic technique is that for four days in a row you add 25 grams of rye flour and 50 grams of hot (well, very warm) water to a small bowl, stir, and then tuck the bowl, as its contents gradually increase, into a nice warm place (about 80 degrees).  After those four days you’ll have a foamy, fruity and sour smelling starter.  I promised some day to talk about what you could then do with it.  This is that day.

The story of this particular bread comes from Andrew Wiley’s British book, BREAD MATTERS.  He was traveling to conduct a weekend bread seminar, and had neglected to bring with him his whole wheat starter.  Necessity being the mother of invention, he used his rye starter to make a whole wheat loaf - and so liked the results that the recipe memorializes the experience.  

Read More →

This one is for Sam.  It has nothing to do with Christmas - but when I was chasing down the Christmas recipes I found it, and I know it’s one he remembers as perfect winter comfort food.

The difference between Shepherd’s pie and Cottage pie is that Shepherd’s pie uses ground lamb, and Cottage pie ground beef.  For both, the crowning glory is the mashed potato topping, nicely crisped and browned on top.

Read More →

Bread Sauce is to an English Christmas dinner what Cranberry Sauce is to an American Thanksgiving.  It’s a creamy mildly sweet sauce, flavored with onion and clove, the consistency of smooth oatmeal.  It may sound odd, but it’s a wonderful accompaniment to a roast bird with gravy and all the trimmings, and unlike Cranberry Sauce it doesn’t have to be cordoned off from the gravy - or is that just my British squeamishness?

I’ve converted the English measures to American ones in this recipe.

• 1 cup soft white breadcrumbs
• 2 oz butter
• 1 small onion
• 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups milk (preferably whole milk)
• 10 whole cloves (approximately)
• salt and pepper to taste

Peel the onion, and stick the cloves into the bottom half.  Put the onion in a small saucepan, add the milk and other ingredients, and bring the whole mixture slowly to a boil.  Remove from the heat and stand in a warm place for as long as possible to increase the flavor of the sauce.  Just before the meal is ready, remove the onion and heat the sauce gently, beating it with a wooden spoon until smooth.  Adjust seasonings as needed.  Serve warm.

Mincemeat is such a confusing name for this seasonal English ingredient.  Traditionally it’s actually mostly a combination of raisins and chopped candied peels (orange, lemon, citron) together with the spices that combine to be called “mixed spice” in England and “pumpkin spice” in America, and dark rum.  But the original version does use minced beef suet as the glue to hold everything together - so it does have a “meat” component, and of course isn’t then a vegetarian thing.  The original version is also rather heavy.

This variation lightens everything up by using butter instead of suet, dried cranberries instead of raisins, and chopped apple as another fresher ingredient.  This filling is tucked inside very short and sweet pastry tartlets, baked, and served with a nicely tart lemon whipped cream.  The tarts last really well, so you can bake them, put them in a covered container, and then just warm as many as you want to serve when you want to serve them!  

Read More →

This is a moist, succulent version of a Christmas fruit cake - simple and not too dense - courtesy of my mom. There’s really no need to limit it to Christmas, except that it feels traditional.  

• 1 pound Thompson raisins [or you could use 8 oz Thompson and 8 oz golden raisins, for a variation. The English recipe calls for ‘sultanas’ which are, apparently, what we here in the US call Thompson raisins.]
• 4 oz dark soft brown sugar
• 6 oz butter or margarine
• 1 level tablespoon molasses
• 1 level teaspoon baking soda
• 1 level teaspoon pumpkin spice (mixed spice)
• 5 fluid oz (the measure between 1/2 and 3/4 of a cup: 1/4 of an English pint) of inexpensive medium dry sherry
• 4 oz plain flour and 4 oz self raising flour (by real weight: 4 oz is NOT 1/2 cup)
• 4 oz glace cherries, chopped
• 2 large eggs

[self raising flour is just plain flour with a little baking powder and salt built in, so if you don’t have it, use 8 oz of plain flour, and add 3/4 tsp of baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt]

Brush 2 pound loaf tin with melted butter and line base with brushed greaseproof paper.  

Put raisins in pan with sugar, cut-up butter, molasses, baking soda, pumpkin spice and sherry.  Stand pan over a low heat and stir occasionally until all the ingredients have melted together (well, the raisins don’t actually melt, of course). Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 15 minutes, stirring every so often.  Leave to cool.

When the mixture is cool (but not cold - or it will be too solid), stir in the sifted flours with the cherries and eggs to make a soft consistency.  Turn the mixture into the tin.

Bake in a cool oven (300 degrees farenheit, or mark 3) for about two hours or until a warmed skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.  Leave to cool on a wire tray. Once it has cooled quite a bit you can turn it out on to the tray to finish cooling. 

The cake will keep for up to six weeks, even out of the fridge, if you keep it wrapped in foil or in a ziplock bag.  In fact, it gets better as it sits.  A half-inch slice is a good serving size.