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Apple Rum Raisin

We made our favorite trip on Sunday to Central Coast Wine Country. We stopped at the Classic Organic Farm & Market and bought some wonderful produce: incredibly aromatic parsley, a basket of red, green, and purple heirloom tomatoes, peppers (which I am going to put in our smoker), a gorgeous spaghetti squash and a huge onion. At Apple Lane on Alamo Pintado, we bought four pounds of freshly picked golden apples. I made today's recipe with some of those apples. We also picked up three trays of strawberries and a cantaloupe from the stand just across from Buttonwood Farm Winery.

I do love Farmers' Markets but I love buying my food directly from the farms even more. Weekend travel plans are often built around trips to farms and orchards, near wineries when possible! We keep a cooler on our backseat, always ready to hold bottles of wine and bags of produce.

Local Harvest is a wonderful site listing farmer's markets, farms, and orchards across the country. Let me know if you visit any of the places listed on the site. Send pix!

I love combining apples and rum. Enjoy!

APPLE RUM RAISIN

1 cup of black raisins
1 cup dark rum
8 golden apples
1 tablespoon vanilla (I used Double Vanilla from Penzey's)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Juice from 1 medium orange
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon golden brown sugar
Sea Salt and pepper to taste (Optional! I used Maldon Sea Salt)

In a small saucepan, warm the rum. Add the raisins and rum to a small mixing bowl and let this sit for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, clean the apples, remove the stem, core, and slice. This is a rustic dish, so slice the apples in any style you choose. In a large mixing bowl, add the apples, rum raisins, vanilla, cinnamon and orange juice.

In a Dutch Oven or non-aluminum saute pan, melt the two tablespoons of butter. Add the golden brown sugar and stir until it is melted into the butter. Add the apple mixture, stir until coated with the brown sugar butter mixture. Saute for about 15 minutes. Don't let the apples get too soft. You want some texture to them. Place in a serving bowl, add a sprinkling of sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Can be served warm or cold.



Serves 6-8

Variations:

If you'd like, you can mix 1/2 cup of mascarpone with two tablespoons of honey. Mix this well. Add a dollop to the top of each serving of the Apple Raisin Rum. Vary the taste by changing the honey. Try any of these: orange blossom, chestnut or lemon.

Use 1/4 cup of either pineapple juice, coconut juice or cherry juice in place of the orange juice.

New Project! New Blog!

Haven't posted to this blog in a while, as I've been developing another project. It's called I Cook the World, which is exactly what I am doing. Going from A to Z, I'll be making dishes from every country in the world. Yes, it will take some time and I'm so excited about this project. You'll find my introduction and recipes from Afghanistan at http://icooktheworld.wordpress.com.

Visit my new blog, try the recipes, send suggestions.

I look forward to your participation and feedback.

Denise

Nail 'em!

Still laughing about the quintessential Julia Child moment I caught on Sunday. Black-and-white French Chef, so one of the very old ones. Julia is attempting to teach us to make an authentic bouillabaisse:

"Now, take the eel, nail its head to the table and skin it."

Just wonder how many cooks on my little Mid-Century street complied!

Goodbye to an old friend.

One of my beloved Howard Holt tomato cups committed suicide today. Literally, jumped off the shelf where it was safely tucked away with its 7 mates and tomato soup tureen. We'll miss you, pal. Gone at 47-years-old. Oh! The times we've had together.

The Amish and Burritos

I bought The Amish Cook at Home cookbook a few months ago and just had the opportunity to sit and read it this morning. I grew up in Pennsylvania and often miss the food from home, including delicious recipes from Amish kitchens. The surprising ingredients included:

Miracle Whip? Hot dogs? Burritos? Bacon-wrapped jalapenos? Cans of cream of mushroom soup? Velveeta?

This is the silliest excuse for a collection of Amish recipes. I get that the authors, both Amish culture experts, may want to lug this style of cooking into the modern, pre-packaged, multi-cultural food bazaar. Since that's their choice, MARKET it that way. Note to authors and publishing company: Nobody needs another recipe for chicken baked in cream of mushroom soup. Ever. Again.

If you'd like this cookbook I'm giving it away to the first one to ask!

Cookbooks

I collect cookbooks. I love the old ones I find with someone's notes written on the pages. It feels like such a personal connection to be reading their suggestions, additions and notes on a recipe. I recently bought a church cookbook from a town in New England, originally published in 1964. Tucked inside were nearly thirty pages of notes made by the original owner. From them I learned she was single and keen to find a husband. She marked a number of the recipes with the words MEN LIKE. In caps. I wonder if any of her recipes did the trick. My money's on her recipe for WACKI PORK and not HELENE'S TAHITIAN DELITE.

I cherish the handwritten recipes handed down to me by my family and friends. I simply love looking at the handwriting, some of it scribbled and some transcribed in beautiful longhand. Just seeing my mother's nearly unreadable scribble tugs at my heart.

We recently moved and though I've made some progress unpacking enough cookbooks to fill one bookcase, I still have six or more boxes of cookbooks to unpack.

Here are some images of the recipe collections I've made over the years. I've written out recipes, clipped and pasted many from magazines and adhered recipes written out by family and friends to their pages. I can barely close the covers. They are wild and unruly and contain far too much information. I love them this way. Each book is a history. They connect me to people and memories I love.