Cranberry-Orange Muffins

I'm not sure what I love most about the pre-baby maternity leave that I'm currently enjoying. Is it the fact that I can go run errands around 10am, when there is no traffic, and no line at the grocery store?  Is it the daily baking?  The freedom to see friends for two-hour lunches, and to take naps?  The couple of hours a day spent knitting and watching TV? The fact that I have energy at the end of the day to make a nice dinner and eat with my husband? I don't know, it's all been lovely. Absolutely lovely.



I started baking treats because I loved the idea of bringing a little edible gift to the nurses in the maternity ward at the hospital - a little bribe for quality care can't hurt, right? And then I thought, why stop there? So after I had a dozen chocolate chip cookies and eight cheesecake-marbled brownies chilling out in the freezer, I just kept going! I had a couple of past-prime bananas on the counter, so I made crackly banana bread, and stashed most of it in the freezer pre-sliced. Then some everything cookies, which I just realized I've never told you about. I will, I promise. Then on to roasted pear and chocolate chunk scones, frozen unbaked for a warm breakfast treat in December or January. I have elaborate visions of myself all calm, holding my newborn baby girl, pouring coffee and pulling freshly baked scones out of the oven for a friend who came over for breakfast. Who knows if that's anywhere close to reality, but I have high hopes. And I just made it a million times easier for myself, since the only thing I'll actually have to do is turn on the oven and put the scones in. Perfect!



I've also been doing what I can to prepare for life after baby. There's only so much you can read about childbirth, breastfeeding, and newborn care before the words start swimming before your eyes and you worry about how you're ever going to remember it all, so yesterday I headed over to the library and picked up some fiction. I've also been thinking about how isolated new moms (actually, moms in general) can become in our culture, and seeking out ways to prevent myself from feeling that way all winter long. There used to be so much community for raising babies; women banded together and all pitched in where they could. In a city this size, I know that feelings of isolation are easy to come by, but with so many people so close, there's really no reason for that. Enter the "village" of the 21st century, Meetup.com. I've already found 2 or 3 promising communities of women with small kids who I'm really excited to connect with. They host playdates and book clubs, meet for coffee and walks, and from what I can tell, generally support each other.  I look forward to meeting some new friends.



I love it when fresh cranberries reappear at the supermarket; it feels like the holiday season has arrived! Here are some other ways I love to use them:

Roasted Cranberry-Apple Sauce
Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Cranberries

Cranberry Orange Muffins

adapted from the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups plain whole milk yogurt
1 pound bag fresh whole cranberries, rinsed and picked over for mushy ones
zest of 1 orange
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray two standard muffin tins with nonstick cooking spray. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar together on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the yogurt and dry ingredients in 3 alternating additions, ending with yogurt, mixing on low until combined. Use a spatula to fold in cranberries, orange zest, and pecans. Scoop generous amounts of batter into each muffin cup (you have to really fill them for them to get that rounded, puffy muffin top). Sprinkle the tops with a bit of sugar, if desired, and bake about 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pans for a minute or two, and then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Yield: about 18-20 standard-size muffins, or half as many jumbo muffins, or a mix of the two (I got 12 standard and 4 jumbo from my batch).

Pumpkin Bread with Maple-Walnut Streusel

Nesting is funny. It seems to take different forms for different people. A friend of mine dusted all the baseboards in their house. Deb from Smitten Kitchen made brownies. My mom decided it was high time she move an entire giant pile of firewood from one side of the garage to the other. So far, I have been knitting up a storm, getting a jump on Christmas gifts (WHAT?! You think I should wait until I have a tiny human who depends on me for her every need to start making and buying gifts?), finishing up the painting projects in our new condo (apparently I can't imagine bringing my baby home to a bedroom without a purple accent wall), and listening to Christmas music (I know, I know). I've also noticed that every time I go to the grocery store, I wander around looking for things to stock up on, you know, in case this is the last time I ever get to go to the grocery store.

I had thought that I would be extremely annoyed to have the presidential election coincide with the end of my pregnancy, but it turns out it's a pretty entertaining race (did you see the debate last night? I thought they were going to start throwing punches!), and it's not too shabby to have them tell me on the news every morning exactly how many more days there are until my due date, which is one day after the election. I plan on voting unless I am in labor - luckily I only have to walk (waddle?) half a block to my polling place.

This recipe is oh-so-similar to the one I posted last year, but with enough of a difference that I wanted to post it here anyway. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Bread with Maple-Walnut Streusel

1 1/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2/3 cup melted butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, slightly beaten
2/3 cup milk
1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree

For the streusel:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup brown sugar
dash of salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 tablespoons melted butter
3 tablespoons real maple syrup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and grease and flour two standard loaf pans.  Stir together dry ingredients in a large bowl.  In another bowl, stir together butter, sugar, eggs, milk, pumpkin puree, dates and walnuts.  Add to dry ingredients and fold together, taking care not to over mix.  Divide evenly between loaf pans. Toss the streusel ingredients together in a small bowl with a fork and sprinkle evenly over both loaves. Bake 50-65 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.  Allow to cool in pans for 5 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool completely.

Yield: two loaves

Potato Leek Soup

It is a magical day today! 10.11.12! I'm not sure why these days feel so exciting to me - I suspect it is because we made 6.7.08 our wedding day, so the sequential dates feel important and fun and full of promise. We are also having the most beautiful fall weather imaginable; blue skies that could only be possible in October, spectacular sunrises, eye-popping color on the trees, and cool, crisp temperatures. It is an absolutely LOVELY time of year.  I hope you are enjoying it as well!

We haven't turned the heat on in our home yet this year, and I think my husband is suffering.  Here's a snippet of conversation from earlier this week:

Him: How are you doing, temperature-wise?
Me: Great! I'm very comfortable.
Him: Oh ok. That's good then.
Me: Why, are you cold?
Him: Well, it's 65 degrees in here.

Poor guy. When they say you've got a bun in the oven, you tend to focus on the "bun" part, and not so much on the "oven." Let me tell you, I am an oven. I try to make up for the lack of heat by roasting chickens and making soup! We'll be warm from the inside out.



Potato Leek Soup
adapted from Twelve Months of Monastery Soups

4 tablespoons butter
3 large leeks, rinsed well and thinly sliced
4 potatoes, diced
1 carrot, peeled and sliced
1 rib celery, diced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock (or water)
1 cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large soup pot. Add the leeks and cook over medium heat for a few minutes, until slightly softened.  Add potatoes, carrots, and celery and saute about 5 more minutes. Season with thyme, and add the stock or water. Bring to a simmer and lower the heat to medium-low.  Continue simmering about 45 minutes, until potatoes and carrots are tender.  Puree about half the soup in a blender and return to the pot. Add the milk, stir, and heat through. Taste the soup and add salt and pepper to taste.

Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts with Brown Butter Glaze

A couple of Saturdays ago, we found ourselves facing a crisp fall day that had absolutely nothing planned in it! Days like these have been pretty much nonexistent in our lives lately, so I decided this would be the perfect day to find an orchard and go apple-picking! The problem with wanting to do such a quintessential fall activity is, if you happen to live in the middle of a big city, you might have to drive a couple of hours each way to get your u-pick fix. Unfortunately, we still haven't completely recovered from our travel marathon month of August (we drove over 2,000 miles), so we decided to strip the experience down to bare bones: fresh apples, of course, and (almost) more importantly, warm doughnuts.



For this recipe, you will need a special doughnut pan. You can usually snag one in the kitchen section of TJ Maxx, or you can order one online. Alternatively, you could definitely bake these in muffin tins (or mini muffin tins!), but then... they wouldn't be doughnuts, now would they? And let's just be real, please: a baked doughnut would never beat a fried one in a contest, but it's a lot less hassle (and a lot less blatantly indulgent).

Happy fall!!

Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts
adapted from shutterbean.com

makes 6

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup pureed pumpkin
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

for the glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons butter
3-4 tablespoons milk
1/4-1/2 teaspoon mace (or a little more nutmeg)
1/2 cup pecan halves (optional)

Coat a doughnut pan with non-stick cooking spray.  Preheat oven to 325. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt. In a liquid measuring cup or small bowl, whisk together pumpkin, brown sugar, egg, vegetable oil, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and whisk to combine.

Scoop the batter into a large freezer bag, snip off a corner of the bag, and pipe the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 13-16 minutes, until donuts spring back when lightly touched.  Cool in the pan for 3 minutes, and then turn onto a rack to cool completely.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and cook, swirling constantly to keep from burning, until it turns golden and smells toasty and amazing. Add the butter to a small bowl with the powdered sugar, mace or nutmeg, and milk, and whisk together, adding more milk if necessary to achieve the right consistency. Toast the pecan halves in a dry skillet over medium heat, tossing frequently, until fragrant. Chop roughly.

When the doughnuts are completely cooled, dip each one into the glaze, allowing it to drip off, and sprinkle toasted pecans on top. Enjoy!

7 Quick Takes Friday!

I have one very important thing to share with you today, and several small, unimportant things. Read on. :-)

1. Rough Draft Farmstead Fundraiser

A couple of years ago, I worked for several months at Whole Foods in Lincoln Park, where I met Hannah (holding flowers in the photo above). That was around the time when I first started learning about honeybees (and how amazing they are), and Hannah fueled my interest! It was her dream to become a beekeeper someday. Shortly before I left, Hannah moved to Kentucky to work and live on Bugtussle Farm, where she met her husband Jesse. They decided to start their own farm last year, and have been chronicling their adventures on their blog. They had a hiccup and ended up having to start over, and right now they are trying to raise some money with which to build a little off-the-grid cabin. Please head to their site to learn more about them (they are very inspiring!), and most importantly, head to their fundraising page and make a small (or large!) donation to their building project! They have such a reasonable budget, and such honorable life goals - they are people worth supporting. Support them and spread the word to others who might also be interested! Thank you!

2. Pumpkin Spice on a Budget

 

Do you look forward to the coming of the pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks? I love them. But at like $3.50 for a tall, that is not something I can do more than once or twice. Enter the new Pumpkin Spice VIA packets. I have not been a fan of the VIA packets in other situations, preferring my coffee to be brewed from freshly ground beans in a French press, but this is an exception. One of these packets + 8 ounces of hot milk = pumpkin spice latte at home. For a fraction of the price. And it's delicious! Put a little whipped cream on top, and a little nutmeg, and you are golden.

3. Um, my shoes don't fit.

I've heard this might be a permanent pregnancy-induced change. I am not a fan.

4. Just Add Spinach!

I posted this recipe for stuffed shells last September. Last night, I made it again, but with the addition of a small box of (extremely well-drained) frozen spinach to the cheese filling. It was delicious. I encourage you to try it - it really bumps up the nutritional profile of that meal.

5. HOMEMADE ICE CREAM... Coming SOON!

Photo from aplumbyanyothername.blogspot.com

Back when it was so hot that I could hardly move (and by that I mean the entire summer), I saw this recipe (and the photo above... so lovely) for black raspberry ice cream. I just happened to be setting up a baby registry at the time, and I thought... well, the baby would eat ice cream if I made it... And so I half-jokingly put the KitchenAid ice cream attachment, and this book that I've been drooling over for months, on the registry (that is one of the beautiful things about registering on Amazon). At the beginning of August, my sweet sister bought me... the cookbook. Which was great, except that now I had hot weather, awesome ice cream recipes... and no ice cream maker. This week, that all changed. Some dear friends of ours (who we got to see briefly over Labor Day weekend) sent us the ice cream maker! I could not care less that summer is over. We are going to have ice cream all winter. Flavors I can't wait to try: pumpkin, apple pie, and ginger, which I had in Maine last fall and haven't been able to find since. I. Am. So. Excited.

6. Smitten Kitchen Book Tour

Deb is coming to Chicago (well, the burbs at least) on Monday, November 19. The estimated due date for the baby is November 7. I can imagine myself going with a week-old baby, and I can imagine myself going if I'm still pregnant. I just hope I'm not in labor that day, ok? Ok, baby girl? Can we make a deal? I want to go have Deb sign my Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. Please arrange your travel plans accordingly. 

7. Make this salad, while the tomatoes are still at the farmers' market.

Trust me.

Have a great weekend, and go see Grace for more quick takes!

New Series: Fresh and Frugal!

It's back to school time! We can all stand to learn a little something new, and this fall I would like to introduce a new series in the Coppertop Kitchen called Fresh and Frugal. The purpose of these posts is to share practical ways to make it easy to eat well on a budget. Eating well can be thought of from a lot of different angles, from good health and nutrition, to mindfulness about the environment, to supporting local economies. We should be able to accomplish all of this without sacrificing pleasure or breaking the bank, and that is what these posts will aim to explore. Let me know if there's a specific food or topic you'd like me to talk about!

You may have heard a story in the news over the past couple of days regarding a study that was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, regarding the nutritional differences between organic and conventional produce. Headlines in many major news outlets said things like, "Why Organic Food May Not Be Healthier For You," (NPR) and "Organic Food Adds No Vitamins For Extra Cost" (Bloomberg Business Week). These headlines made me laugh a little to myself, and when I read the articles I was surprised that anyone would be duped into thinking they contained anything that might be thought of as "news." Most conscious consumers of organic food would tell you they were never under the impression that there were more vitamins in something just because it bears the "organic" label. And mostly, that's not the point. Organic farming practices are vastly better for the environment, using methods of fertilization and pest control that actually improve the quality of the soil, rather than dumping chemicals which run off into water sources and kill beneficial insects and bacteria. There's also the matter of pesticide residue, the effects of which we still don't know (and I'm sorry, but a two-year study is not quite long enough to convince me).

For me, "organic" is not the most important descriptor of good food. For one thing, organic certification is expensive, and many small farms that employ organic farming practices simply can't afford it. "Local" is much more important to me. I like being able to support my local economy by buying peaches from the same farmer week after week. It makes me feel connected. And get this! The produce I buy at my local farmers' market is probably more nutritious because it was more likely to have been picked when ripe, and didn't have to travel for days over thousands of miles to get to me. Something that was living on a tree yesterday and is in my belly today gives me more vitamins than something that was living on a tree a week ago, and was picked before it was ripe so that it could more easily be shipped without damage.

Other adjectives that get me excited:

• Free-Range: Meat and eggs from free-range chickens are higher in beta carotene, protein, and hello, flavor. Be careful about this label, though, and buy from a producer you know if you can. Free-range technically means that the birds have access to the outdoors, not necessarily that they go out there and get exercise and peck in the grass.
• Grass-Fed: Beef from cows that grazed on grass for all of most of their lives is leaner, higher in omega-3 fatty acids, and less likely to have been serially treated with antibiotics. It tastes different, and because it's leaner it cooks differently, but it is delicious. Dairy from pastured cows is better, too! Healthier cows produce healthier foods for us, and since cows aren't naturally adapted to eat grain (which is fed to them because it's cheaper), it makes them sick, which makes them need antibiotics. Sad cows. This is another example, though, of where the "organic" label can lead you astray. Organic milk likely just comes from cows that were fed organic grain, not allowed to graze on pasture. Read the labels!
• Wild, Line-Caught, Pole-Caught: There's fishing and then there's fishing. Farmed salmon is fed (you guessed it) grain. Because its diet is less varied and nutritious, the meat from it is less nutritious. (For more about that, read this post.) Pole- or line-caught refers to the method of catching fish; catching fish with nets is much less sustainable, and causes all kinds of problems. The Monterey Bay Aquarium publishes handy pocket guides to help you choose sustainable seafood.

Adjectives I couldn't care less about:

• All-Natural: Oh, this one is a doozy. All this means is that nothing in it is blatantly artificial. It is not an FDA-regulated label, so pretty much anyone can put it on pretty much anything. 
• Low-fat, Non-fat, Fat-free: Get with the program, people. Fat is good for you. Your body needs it. Stop buying into the outdated idea that fat causes Type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc. The low-fat craze did absolutely nothing to curb the spread of these lifestyle diseases. Plus, whoever said that fat = flavor was right on the money.

The bottom line is that there are a lot of factors that go into each food decision we make. I try to do the best I can while considering budget, sustainability, and nutrition, and I try to be sensible. Above all, I don't beat myself up if once in a while I buy conventionally-grown strawberries or a double cheeseburger at Mickey D's. It's all about balance and moderation.

Peach Cobbler

It seems that every region has their produce pride on during the summer - the best, most flavorful (fill in the blank) can only be found in MY hometown. The only (apples, cherries, peaches) worth eating are from MY state, MY region. I kind of love it! It feels old-timey and sweet that people so fiercely defend their perfect fruits and veggies. The South Carolina peach! The Washington apple! The Maine blueberry! The Traverse City cherry! It puts me in mind of state fairs and blue ribbon heirloom tomatoes, and I like that.



I have had the good fortune of tasting peaches from the Midwest, Southeast, and Southwest this summer, due to summer travel and generous, peach-toting friends. I must say that every peach is a poem in itself, and I usually just stuff my face full of as many as possible, not pausing to criticize. Juice dripping all over my hands and face, I am happy. And because they're so insanely delicious totally naked, I tend to do as little as possible when cooking with them. Such is the case with this cobbler: a touch of sugar and cornstarch, a simple drop biscuit on top, a bit of loosely whipped cream, and I am in peach heaven.



Peach Cobbler

about 4 pounds fresh peaches, pitted and sliced into 1/4- to 1/2-inch wedges
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Topping:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss peaches, sugar, and cornstarch together in a 9x13 baking dish, and bake for 10 minutes. In the meantime, prepare the topping. Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Using your fingers, work the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles fresh bread crumbs. Pour the boiling water in, and working quickly with a wooden spoon, stir together until it forms a soft dough. Scatter pieces of dough over the hot peaches, sprinkle the top with more sugar, and bake until golden and bubbling, about 25 minutes. Serve warm.