Potato & Kale Frittata

If I told you that there was a dish we’ve been eating almost once a week since, oh, December, you’d probably assume that I’d have already posted about it, yes? Sadly, no. I’ve been meaning to — honestly, I have! — but time has slipped away and here we are, almost April, and I’m just getting to it now.

It’s not a fancy dish. It is, however, homey, quick to prepare, inexpensive, supremely satisfying and very delicious. I started making it this past fall, when it became apparent that we were going to be receiving weekly batches of potatoes and onions in our winter CSA share, and I didn’t have a ton of room to keep storing the ever-expanding pile of them. Thursday evenings were our CSA share pick-up night, but they were also busy days for B and I, which meant that by the time we’d picked up the share, gotten home and unloaded it, I was looking for something quick to make that would taste great and be good for lunch the next day, too. As I saw that we’d be getting weekly potatoes and onions, I started making a Spanish-style tortilla – thinly sliced potatoes cooked in olive oil with thin slivers of onions, then bound together with eggs. Thick wedges of the tortilla were fantastic alongside some roasted root vegetables and some sauteed greens all throughout the winter.

Then, sometime in January when I really began craving greens, I began adding chopped kale to the potato and onion mixture, wilting it briefly before I added the beaten eggs and finished cooking the tortilla. I also started cutting the potatoes into chunks instead of thin slices. And, this is the version that’s stuck. Potatoes and kale are one of my favorite vegetable combinations; combined with the eggs and baked….well, you just can’t get much better than that. Thick wedges are fantastic warm or at room temperature (though since the weather’s been cold, warm has been the way to go.)

An authentic Spanish tortilla starts with a nonstick skillet coated with a generous amount of olive oil (this doesn’t really phase me, but if it does you, never fear — much of it is left in the skillet after the tortilla is done cooking). The potatoes and onions are cooked, then mixed into beaten eggs, and the whole thing is poured back into the skillet. It cooks on one side, then it’s flipped over to finish cooking on the other side in the same skillet, so both surfaces are browned. Most of the time I’m too lazy to do this part, so I just cook the egg mixture on the stovetop until it’s set around the edges and still a little runny in the middle, then finish it under the broiler.  This nuance in cooking technique makes my version more like an Italian frittata than a tortilla.

I’ll actually be a little bit sad when the warmer weather rolls around, because I know my days of potatoes and kale together are drawing to a close until next fall…not that sad, though. I’m looking forward to warmer spring weather — just means I’ll relish our last few wedges.

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view printable recipe

Ingredients
extra-virgin olive oil
about 5 small or 4 medium potatoes, any variety will do, cut into roughly 3/4-inch cubes
1 large onion, halved pole-to-pole and cut into julienne strips (with the grain)
2 cups of kale, stalks removed and leaves torn into bite-size pieces
6-8 eggs (I prefer 8, but have gotten by just fine with 6 when I’ve had to)
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Pour enough olive oil into a non-stick or cast-iron skillet (whatever you use, it should be ovenproof) so that it generously coats the bottom. Heat the olive oil over medium heat until it shimmers, then add the sliced onions and potato chunks. Cook over medium heat until the onions are golden brown and the potatoes are just cooked through when you pierce them with a fork. Add the chopped kale and cook just until the kale is wilted and bright green.

Turn off the heat and season the skillet generously with coarse kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Taste a bit of the mixture; it should taste well-seasoned and delicious.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs. Pour them directly into the skillet, and smooth out the top a little with a spatula (I usually try to make sure the potatoes/onions/kale are fairly evenly distributed throughout the skillet.)

Turn the heat back on to medium, and cook the frittata until the edges are set but the middle is still somewhat runny. Place the pan under the broiler to finish cooking, just until the top is starting to brown a little and the eggs are set.

Remove the pan from the oven and let cool a minute or two before you slice it into wedges.

Serves 4 to 6.

Build a Better Burger: Homemade Ketchup, Homemade Buns! Yum!

Last Friday, I was poking around the Saveur web site, looking for…well, actually, I don’t remember exactly what I was looking for. Because I was sidetracked almost immediately by a link to a slideshow of Homemade Condiment recipes. Now, any of you who have been reading this blog for a little while probably know that I am completely ga-ga for making at home any kind of food you’d otherwise buy (see ricotta, yogurt, mayonnaise, pizza, pasta, pumpkin butter, and cannolis. I made the homemade Nutella in the LA Times a few weeks ago – it was awesome.) And so, here’s a little of how the rest of the weekend unfolded:

1. <clicking through the slideshow> Hello, Spicy Guinness mustard…I must make you! <bookmark> Click, click.

2. Wait…homemade ketchup??

3. Cannot think about anything else except making homemade ketchup. Woke up in the middle of the night and immediately began thinking about homemade ketchup.

4. Saturday afternoon. Made homemade ketchup. Oddly obsessed by this project (as I am not, in general, an enormous ketchup fan, at least like some people I know. My brother went through a phase where he put ketchup on everything — and I mean everything — that my mom cooked for dinner. I used to look incredulously at his plate and say “but there’s a sauce on that, you don’t need ketchup!” Since then, my feelings about ketchup have been kind of pleasantly ambivalent, which is why it was a little odd that I was so struck by the need to make this ketchup. Again, I say, it’s this thing I have for making homemade versions of things you’d otherwise buy.)

5. Taste homemade ketchup. It’s lick-my-lips delicious. Now…wondering what to put said ketchup on.

6.  Five minutes of digging through my freezer yields a pound of frozen pastured ground beef from Kingbird Farm. Jackpot! Burgers it will be.

7. Five more minutes of digging through said freezer reveals that I have no burger buns stashed away. Do not feel like going to store.

8. Still on a high from my homemade ketchup extravaganza, I now decide to make my own burger buns. Trusty Peter Reinhart has a recipe for them in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice (which, by the way, is one of the best cookbooks I have in my collection. If you at all want to learn about baking bread, I can’t recommend the book enough.)

9. Burger bun making and burger bun baking commences. I’m literally dancing around the kitchen because the dough is a dream to work with and the buns, as they come out of the oven, are plump and round and so darn cute! Success.

10. Realize that amount of ketchup I made will not, in fact, be used up by just the burgers alone — even though I did make sliders (mini burgers) and will distribute the ketchup over a greater surface area. Begin to wonder what else I can cook that would be good slathered in ketchup.

11. Open the door of my little jelly cabinet pantry and see our potatoes at the bottom, still left from our CSA share, sprouting shoots like gangbusters. Realize I can kill two birds with one stone: potatoes need to be used, and spicy oven fries will be just the thing to slather with the ketchup.

12. Man, oh man, oh man. Burgers are sah-woon worthy! A little coarse-grain dijon mustard smeared on one side of the bun, topped with lettuce, skillet-browned patties, melted sharp cheddar, caramelized onions, and finished with a swirl of ketchup. B and I spend our Sunday night murmuring “mmmm”, licking the juices that dribble down our hands, and swooping the thick spicy oven fries through drifts of ketchup.

13. Go to bed happy.

A few notes:

• Sue has some really great tips over on Feelgood Eats about building a better burger. I especially like her philosophy of using grass-fed, humanely raised beef (you can taste the difference), handling it minimally, and finishing the burgers ever-so-briefly under the broiler just long enough to melt the cheese (when you’re making the burgers inside vs. a grill.)
• Maybe you don’t have a whole afternoon to make the burger buns, but the ketchup? Seriously folks, it’s super easy. Well worth the short amount of time it takes to make it…and if you’ve looked at the ingredients on some of the more mainstream brands of ketchup, maybe you’re as horrified as I am about the junk that’s included. Homemade’s better.
• And if you do have a few hours around the house, the burger buns are an absolutely delicious project. The dough is enriched with butter and egg, so it’s soft, tender, akin to brioche — delicious! — and you can make a big batch and freeze the ones you don’t use in a ziptop bag for future use. I have over a dozen buns frozen in my freezer now, ready for our next burger adventure.
• One pound of ground beef yields 6 sliders, perfect for two people with good appetites!

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Homemade Ketchup

Adapted from Saveur

Printable recipe

Ingredients
4 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
1 stick cinnamon
1/4 tsp. celery seeds
1/4 tsp. chile flakes
1/4 tsp. whole allspice
2 lbs. tomatoes, roughly chopped [or, you can use a 28-oz. can organic diced tomatoes if tomatoes aren't in season]
1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 cup white vinegar
5 tbsp. brown sugar
1 onion, chopped
1 anaheim chile, chopped [optional - I left this out and the ketchup was still great]
1 clove garlic

Directions

In a 3 or 4 quart saucepan, combine the diced tomatoes with their juices, salt, vinegar, sugar, onion, and chiles (if using.) Smash the garlic and add it to the pot. Wrap the cloves, bay leaf, cinnamon stick, celery seeds, chile flakes, and allspice in a layer of cheesecloth; tie into a bundle and add to the pot. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions and chiles are very soft, about 40 minutes.

Remove the spice bundle, then puree the mixture in the blender until smooth. Strain it back into the saucepan, and return to medium heat. Continue cooking for another 30 minutes or so, until the ketchup thickens and reaches your desired consistency. Taste and adjust the salt or acid as needed.

Let cool and store in a covered glass jar in the refrigerator. Ketchup will keep for 3 weeks in the fridge.

Makes 2 1/2 cups.

Homemade Hamburger Buns

From The Bread Baker’s Apprentice

View printable recipe

Ingredients
4 1/4 cups unbleached bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups buttermilk or milk, at room temperature

sesame seeds for the tops (optional)

Directions

Mix together the flour, salt, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl. Pour in the egg, butter, and buttermilk and mix with a large metal spoon until all the flour is absorbed and the dough forms a shaggy ball. You can trickle in a little water if the dough seems very stiff, until the dough is soft and supple.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured countertop, where you’ll do your kneading. Knead for about 8 minutes, until the dough is soft, supple, and tacky but not sticky. You can test if you’ve kneaded it enough by pulling off a little piece of dough, gently stretching and pulling it with your hands until it’s paper thin, and holding it up to the light: if the dough stretches and holds its shape without breaking, to the point where it’s translucent, it’s done. This is called the windowpane test.

Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl. Roll it around to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a towel and let it rise at room temperature for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until doubled in size (I use an electric heating pad under the bowl, as we keep our house on the cool side.)

Remove the risen dough from the bowl and divide it into eighteen 2-ounce pieces (for slider buns) or twelve 3-ounce pieces (for standard size burger buns.) Shape the pieces of dough into rounds, transfer them to baking sheets lined with Silpats or parchment paper, and cover them with a towel. Let the buns proof at room temperature for 60 to 90 minutes, or until they’re nearly doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Whisk together 1 egg with 1 teaspoon of water, for an egg wash. Brush the tops of the buns with the egg wash, and sprinkle with sesame seeds if you like. Bake the buns for 15 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. Remove them immediately from the pans and cool completely on a wire cooling rack (cool them at least 1 hour before slicing.)

Makes 18 slider buns or 12 regular burger buns.

Goat Cheese & Herb Gougères

When we lived in Boston, I used to occasionally take cooking classes at the Cambridge Culinary Institute. One of my favorite classes was on pâte à choux, the egg-leavened dough used to make “stuff with puff,” like éclairs, cream puffs, profiteroles, and gougères. I remember standing in the kitchen classroom, intensely focused on the pot in front of me. I heated butter and milk together, stirred in flour, and then beat in eggs, one by one, until a smooth, sticky and slightly elastic dough formed: choux paste. It doesn’t look like much in its batter form–just butter, flour, milk and eggs–but I was happily anticipating the dramatic transformation it would undergo in the oven. I made a batch of eclairs, carefully piping the choux paste into plump fingers on a baking sheet. Then I made a batch of Roquefort gougères, mixing crumbled blue cheese with the choux paste before piping it into little spheres. I slid the sheets into the oven, and waited. The transformation always tickles me: it’s a delightful feat of culinary alchemy, the way the eggs in the dough leaven a sticky batter and transform it into gorgeously browned, light, airy puffs of pastry.

My favorite recipe from the class was the Roquefort gougères, and I’ve made them periodically since then for a little snack on the weekend, or for an appetizer. Gougères typically have Gruyere cheese in them (delicious, believe me!) but you can mix in other kinds of cheese as well — blue cheese is terrific, as is goat cheese — and it was the latter option I went with this weekend, along with some herbs that I had leftover from another dish I’d made.

A few notes about the dough: your arms do get a bit of a workout mixing the melted butter, milk, and flour together, but I find it’s not really a big enough deal to warrant a switch over to my electric mixer and paddle attachment. You can make the dough and freeze it directly in a ziptop bag, thawing it thoroughly before you pipe it into rounds. Or, you can fully bake the gougères, let them cool completely and then freeze them in a single layer in a ziptop bag — just reheat for 5-10 minutes in a 400 degree F oven. They’re just about as good as the day you bake them! And definitely do serve them warm: they’re like a hot little cloud of eggy dough with a fleeting taste of cheese and herb…delicious.

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Adapted from the Cambridge Culinary Institute

You could substitute various kinds of cheese in this recipe. The original used crumbled Roquefort, which was absolutely delicious. Cheddar or Gruyere would be quite good, too.

view printable recipe

Ingredients
1 cup milk
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
5 large eggs, divided
1/2 cup crumbled fresh goat cheese; use something local if you can get it
2 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs, such as chives or parsley
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and line two baking sheets with Silpats or parchment paper.

In a medium saucepan,  combine the butter, milk and salt and bring to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat and add the flour all at once. Whisk for a few minutes, then return the pan to the heat and continue whisking to dry the paste out slightly. Remove the heat from the pan again, switch to a wooden spoon, and add 4 of the eggs — one at a time — stirring to make sure each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next. Stir in the goat cheese and chopped fresh herbs.

Pipe the batter onto the baking sheets (or drop by the tablespoonful). Beat the remaining egg, then brush the tops of each puff with it. Sprinkle each with a little grated Parmesan cheese.

Bake each sheet, one at a time, in the 375 degree F oven for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees F and continue cooking for another 5-10 minutes, until the tops are nicely browned and the gougeres are puffed. Serve warm, or let cool completely and freeze in a ziptop bag (you can reheat in an oven on a baking sheet before you’re ready to serve.)

Makes about 2 dozen, plus a few.

Pinto & Black Bean Stew

The guest posts continue…Andrea of Cooking Books invited me to contribute a post to her monthly “Off the Shelf” series, where bloggers write about recipes from some of their favorite cookbooks.  I decided to write about this delicious Pinto & Black Bean Stew, which I’ve made multiple times this year with the dried beans we get occasionally in our CSA. It’s from one of my very favorite cookbooks — Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison’s Kitchen. Head on over to Andrea’s to check out the post and recipe.

I’ll have another new recipe here tomorrow…’till then!

Tour My Kitchen!

happy in my kitchen

Just a quick post today to let you know that Eggs on Sunday headquarters, my kitchen, is one of today’s two featured kitchens over at Use Real Butter’s kitchen tour series! Jen’s doing a great job profiling two food bloggers and their kitchens each Thursday during March and April. Today you can see my kitchen as well as the kitchen of Chuck, who writes Sunday Nite Dinner and Foodgawker!

Pop over and say hello, and a big thanks to Jen for including me in such a fun series.

Meyer Lemon & Thyme Crème Brûlées

Ever since eating at the Still River Cafe last weekend and sampling the rosemary-infused crème brûlée, I’ve had brûlée on the brain. And while Meyer lemons are not local, they’re in season (somewhere, albeit not Ithaca) and I knew I wanted to incorporate their sweet, floral flavor into an early spring version of crème brûlée. Thyme is a natural pairing with lemon, so I decided to infuse the cream mixture with a few sprigs of the herb along with the lemon zest.

mise en place

Crème brûlée is one of the easiest desserts to make, in my opinion, and there’s nothing that compares to how deliciously creamy and light on the tongue it is. Heat the cream, infuse it with your flavorings, temper the warm mixture into a few egg  yolks, pour into ramekins and bake in a water bath (bain-marie) for a little while. Simple simple.

temper the yolks with the warm cream

bake in a water bath

they’re done when they’re set on the edges but still wobbly in the centers

Making these this time made me realize, however, that I need to invest in a small propane torch to caramelize the sugar on top. Putting the custards under the broiler is okay, and it’s what I’ve been doing for the past few years, but the sugar melts unevenly so you can end up with a few little burnt spots. This time, B saw me prepping the dishes to caramelize the sugar and ran down to the basement to get his heavy duty blowtorch. And yes, we tried using this blowtorch on one of the brûlées. Let’s just say there’s a reason the crème brûlée torches are smaller and less powerful — the sugar on the blowtorched brûlée went from raw to burnt in a few seconds! Yikes. A worthy experiment, but not ideal. Luckily, we could scrape it right off and start over, broiler-method style.

luscious, creamy and light with a nice crackly sugar topping (even if there were a few little burnt spots)

So these brûlées are absolutely delicious, creamy, just sweet enough, and pleasantly flavored with a light hint of lemon and thyme. We’ll be making them again and again this spring — I just know it.

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an Eggs on Sunday original

Meyer lemons are sweeter and more floral than regular lemons, but if you can’t find them, regular lemons would be just as delicious.

View printable recipe

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
zest of 1 Meyer lemon (about 1 teaspoon)
2 sprigs thyme
4 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar, plus more for the tops of the custards

Directions

Place 4 ramekins in a deep baking dish and set aside.

Bring the cream, milk, lemon zest and thyme to a boil. Turn off the heat, cover, and let the mixture steep for 30 minutes. After it’s steeped, heat it back up just to a simmer and then strain it into a liquid measuring cup.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and 1/4 cup sugar. Whisking continually, gradually pour in the cream mixture little by little (this will temper the egg yolks.) Once it’s all incorporated, pour the mixture back into the liquid measuring cup. Divide the custard mixture among the 4 ramekins, and pour enough boiling water into the baking dish to reach halfway up the sides of the ramekins.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 40 minutes, until the edges are set but the middles are still wobbly. Remove the pan from the oven, then carefully remove the ramekins from the hot water and place on a cooling rack. Let them cool until they’re almost at room temperature, then cover the ramekins and place them in the refrigerator to cool completely.

When you’re ready to serve them, sprinkle a layer of sugar on top of the brûlées and place the cups under the broiler for a few minutes, until the sugar is melted and caramelized (keep an eye on them so they don’t burn.) Serve immediately.

Serves 4.

March got you out of sorts? Go for comfort.

Are you in the March doldrums as much as I am? What is it with this month? Maybe it has something to do with the progression of months before it. January is all shiny and new and full of anticipation with the New Year. February is all lollipops and rainbows, filled with chocolate and hearts and the i-love-yous of Valentine’s Day. And then March…March lands with a loud THUD. Ka-BOOM (or, maybe more appropriately with all the wet drippy weather, Ker-PLOP.) I feel like a dark cloud hangs over my head after a few days in a row of gray, drippy, dreary, clammy weather (this is unfortunate as Ithaca is known for its gray, drippy, dreary, clammy springs). I gaze despondently out the window and wonder when, oh when, will spring ever come? And then the next day, it’s sunny and 50 degrees and I’m throwing open the windows and letting in the sunshine and bouncing as I walk. And then, the next day, Ker-PLOP all over again. Geez louise, it’s enough to make anyone go crazy. Normally I consider myself a pretty sunshine-y person, but each year March really tests me.

I could try to tell myself it looks like a flower…

Maybe this is why I’ve been turning to comfort-type foods lately; I don’t know. I’ve been making things that are warm and easy and that we can eat for a few days in a row during the week. At first I was hesitant to blog about some of these dishes, but then I reconsidered: if I’m falling for these types of foods, maybe some of you are just as discombobulated by March as I am, and maybe you’re in need of some comfort-in-a-bowl just as much as I am.

cheese makes anything better

especially a cheesy bechamel sauce

Take this baked penne with cauliflower and cheese, for instance. One look at it says “winter casserole.” But actually, I think it’s significantly better than just some run-of-the-mill cold weather casserole; it’s like a cross between grown-up macaroni and cheese and a cauliflower gratin…both of which I need no convincing to eat.

sprinkle, sprinkle

Macaroni and cheese has always been one of my favorite comfort dishes (and I know I’m not alone!) When I was young, my mom (and her mom, who ironically didn’t much enjoy cooking but made a mean mac-and-cheese) used to make baked mac-and-cheese with the real thing: macaroni in a cheddar cheese sauce, topped with sliced tomatoes and breadcrumbs. My brother was so enamored of mac-and-cheese (though in his teenage years, it was the Kraft box kind) that he used to eat it at least once a week. This coincided with a period of a few years when I was taking pottery classes, so I made him a bowl that was big enough to fit an entire box of Kraft mac-and-cheese. He got a lot of use out of it.

crusty and cheesy and delicious

So this is a new twist on one of my old comfort food favorites, spruced up a bit with the addition of cauliflower and a blend of cheeses. Penne and blanched cauliflower are mixed together with a simple bechamel sauce, amped up with Gruyere and Cheddar cheese, and then topped with breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese. Yes, it’s definitely yummy, and definitely comfort food. And, it’s great when you pair it with some greens dressed in lemon vinaigrette.

lemony kale and ricotta salata is  great foil to the creamy pasta and cauliflower

And, it’s a great thing to make on a Sunday and enjoy all week, while you nurse any March doldrums that seem to have settled around you…and remember: spring is just around the corner (that’s been my mantra lately!)

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Baked Penne with Cauliflower and Cheese

Adapted from Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes: Recipes from a Modern Kitchen Garden by Jeanne Kelley

view printable recipe

Ingredients
1 pound whole wheat penne
1 large head cauliflower, florets thinly sliced
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 bay leaf
3 cups milk
8 ounces Gruyere cheese, shredded
8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
freshly ground black pepper
1 cup whole wheat breadcrumbs (or Panko breadcrumbs)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and butter a 9×13 baking dish.

Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large, heavy pot over medium heat, then saute the onion until it’s translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and saute 1 minute, then whisk in the flour and cook 1 more minute, but don’t let the flour brown. Whisk in the milk, then add the bay leaf. Bring the mixture to a boil, whisking occasionally, until it thickens. Add the cheeses and keep stirring until they melt, then stir in the salt, cayenne, nutmeg, and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Set aside (you can make this up to 1 day ahead, cooling it, covering it, and refrigerating it.)

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the penne according to the directions on the package. Four minutes before the penne is done cooking, add the sliced cauliflower florets. Drain very well.

Combine the pasta, cauliflower, and cheese sauce, stir well, then stir in the chopped parsley. Transfer the mixture to the buttered baking dish.

To make the breadcrumb topping, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and combine it with the breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese. Sprinkle evenly over the top of of the baking dish.

Bake for 30 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling and the breadcrumbs are golden brown.

Serves 8.

Worth a Trip: Still River Cafe

Last week, I spent a lovely long weekend down in Connecticut with my family. My mom and I are very close, and it was great to have some “girl time” to talk with her and to spend time with her and my Dad, both of whom I don’t get to see as often as I’d like now that we live 5 hours away in Ithaca.  Time we spend together is usually centered around laughing, eating, and more laughing and eating — not a bad way to spend a visit!

On Friday night, we drove to our current favorite restaurant in the state to have dinner: Still River Café. It’s in Eastford, CT, which is kind of near Storrs, in the northeastern part of the state. It was dark when we arrived, but the drive off of the highway to the restaurant is beautiful; about 15 minutes through thick woods and past old New England farmhouses and stone walls. Those surroundings are one of the things I loved most about growing up in Connecticut.

And there’s a reason the restaurant is currently our favorite: the cuisine is all locally-produced, delicious seasonal food. Yup, you know I’m all about that! And in fact, it doesn’t get much more local — almost all the vegetables are grown right in back of the restaurant, on the 27-acre farm where the restaurant sits. The husband and wife who own it are a great partnership: he does much of the gardening, and she’s the chef!

Spiced Parsnip Pecan Cupcakes

I was having coffee with a friend the other day, and she was raving about a parsnip cake she recently had at a local restaurant. “Parsnip, you say? How delicious! How timely!” I said (or something to that effect.) Because, you see, even though our winter CSA share ended this past week, we have parsnips coming out our ears. And I’m looking for any – any – new way to cook with them. There’s only so many roasted parsnips, glazed parsnips, and parsnip soup you can eat without going a little parsnip bonkers.

shred the parsnips

But parsnips in a cake? Fantastic idea. I decided to make cupcakes, and mixed some chopped toasted pecans into the batter (because I just love the alliteration in “parsnip pecan.”)

lovely spice colors

And if you, like me, enjoy spice cakes, you’ll love these cupcakes. They’re moist with a tender crumb, and similar to carrot cake in that the shredded parsnip moistens the cake.

round and chubby

smooth and tangy

And, just like carrot cake and spice cakes, these cupcakes are perfect topped with a swirl of cream cheese frosting. Lately I’ve been drawn to piping a thick swirl of frosting on the tops of cupcakes (using an Ateco 808 pastry tip) — there’s just something kind of whimsical about the plump curlicue, no?

I’m all about the swirl

cupcakes on parade

A little dusting of cinnamon and a toasted pecan crowned the little cuties, and into my  mouth they marched! Talk about a parsnip salvation.

hello, cutie

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view printable recipe

Ingredients

For the cupcakes (Adapted from Bon Appetit, March 2006)

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour [or, you can do as I did and substitute half whole wheat pastry flour]
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
3/4 teaspoon ground cloves
3 large eggs
1/2 cup canola oil or vegetable oil
1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups (packed) shredded peeled parsnips
1/2 cup pecans, toasted, chopped, plus 12 whole toasted pecans for topping the cupcakes
cinnamon, for dusting

For the cream cheese frosting (From Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.)
8 oz cream cheese (full fat), at room temperature
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 3/4 cups confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Directions

Make the cupcakes:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and line a standard muffin pan with muffin cups.

Whisk together the dry ingredients (flour through cloves) in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla, then pour the liquid mixture over the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Stir in the shredded parsnips and chopped pecans.

Fill each muffin cup with the batter and bake for 23-25 minutes, until the tops spring back when gently pressed (or a tester inserted into the middle of one comes out clean.) Cool the cupcakes 5 minutes in the pan, then remove them to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

Make the frosting:
In the electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth and creamy. Gradually add the sugar and continue beating until the frosting is velvety smooth. Beat in the lemon juice.

Frost the cupcakes however you like. Dust the tops with cinnamon, and top with a toasted pecan.

Makes 12.