Elm Creek Quilts [13] The Quilter's Kitchen (6 page)

To make the meatballs:
Using four fingers, take a piece of the meat mixture big enough to fill the palm of your hand, slightly larger than a golf ball. Press your hands together and start to roll the mixture by gently putting some pressure in the middle. It should form a slightly flat meatball 2 inches across. Dredge all sides of the meatballs in the panko mixture.

Have ready a large paper-towel-lined plate. Place a 10-to 12-inch skillet over medium heat and when it is hot, add the olive oil. Place as many meatballs in the pan as you can without crowding them. Sauté until deeply browned on all sides, about 8 minutes in all. Remove the meatballs from the pan with a slotted spatula and place on the prepared plate to drain. Serve immediately.

Italian Garden Salad

Serves 6 to 8

For the dressing:

¼ cup fresh lemon juice

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 small garlic clove, minced

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon anchovy paste

For the salad:

1 bunch arugula, torn

1 bunch frisée, torn

1 head endive, chopped

1 small head radicchio, chopped

1 cup fresh basil leaves, torn

To make the dressing:
Place the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Cover and refrigerate up to 1 week.

To make the salad:
Place the ingredients in a large salad bowl, add 3 to 4 tablespoons of the dressing, and gently mix. Serve immediately.

Panzanella

Serves 4 to 6

2 cups cubed day-old Italian or French bread

2 medium tomatoes, diced

1 English cucumber, halved and thinly sliced

1 red onion, halved and diced

1 red, orange, or yellow bell pepper, diced

¼ cup coarsely chopped fresh basil leaves

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh oregano leaves

½ cup coarsely chopped fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley leaves

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped or put through a press

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Place the bread, vegetables, and herbs in a large mixing bowl.

Place the garlic, vinegar, salt, pepper, and oil in a bowl and mix well. Drizzle over the vegetables, cover, and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours.

Olive Bread

Yield: 2 large rounds

1
²
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₃
cups warm water

1 package active dry yeast (0.25 ounces = 2¼ teaspoons)

1 tablespoon sugar1 tablespoon kosher salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

3¼ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup graham or whole-wheat flour

2 tablespoons cornmeal

2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves

1½ cups very coarsely chopped green or black olives

Place the water, yeast, sugar, salt, and oil in a mixer fitted with a dough hook. While the mixer is running, add the flours. Knead on low speed until the dough starts to come together and then increase the speed until it is firm and smooth, 8 to 10 minutes in all.

Line two baking sheets with parchment or wax paper. Sprinkle with cornmeal.

Divide the dough into 2 pieces, shape into balls, and transfer to the baking sheets. Press the balls down and line each with half the rosemary and half the olives. Re-form the balls into loaf shapes, pressing the olives into the dough. Cover with damp towels and set aside until the loaves have doubled in size, about 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Transfer the baking sheets to the oven and bake until golden brown, about 25 minutes.

Chicken Casserole

Serves 4

7 to 8 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs, trimmed of fat and dried with a paper towel

1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

½ pound button mushrooms, wiped clean and sliced

1 small head fennel, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

1 Spanish onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

2 cups dry white wine

2 cups chicken broth

¼ cup chopped fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley, for garnish

Sprinkle the chicken with the salt and pepper. Place a skillet over medium-high heat and when it is hot, add the thighs, skin side down, and sear until well browned, about 4 minutes per side. Using tongs, remove the chicken, and set aside on a plate.

Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat. Reduce the heat to low, add the mushrooms, fresh fennel, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, thyme, and fennel seeds and cook until the vegetables are soft and golden, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the wine and chicken broth, return the chicken to the skillet, raise the heat to medium high and bring to a low boil. Cook, turning the chicken halfway, until the meat falls away from the bone, about 1 hour.

Cool, then skim off and discard the fat. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Reheat by placing over medium heat and cooking until warmed throughout, about 10 minutes. Serve garnished with the parsley.

Fruit Salad

Serves 6 to 8

1½ cups cantaloupe, cut with a melon baller

1 cup honeydew melon, cut with a melon baller

1 cup seedless green grapes

1 cup hulled fresh strawberries

1 cup fresh blueberries

1 cup diced fresh pineapple

1 cup fresh raspberries

1 banana, thinly sliced

¼ cup fresh mint leaves, left whole

Place all the ingredients in a bowl, toss, and serve immediately.

Sour Cream Cake

Serves 10 to 12

1 cup whole milk

¾ cup poppy seeds

½ cup sour cream or whole-milk yogurt

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1
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/
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cups sugar

3 large eggs, at room temperature

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter a standard Bundt pan.

Place the milk and poppy seeds in a small saucepan and bring to a low boil over medium-high heat. Set aside to cool for 15 minutes. Add the sour cream, vanilla, and lemon juice and mix well.

Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle and beat until light, fluffy, and a pale lemon color, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at time, beating well and scraping down the sides of the bowl before each addition. Add 1 cup of flour and beat well. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add half the reserved poppy seed mixture, continuing to beat.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the baking powder, salt, and the remaining 1 cup of flour and beat well. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again, then add the remaining half of the poppy-seed mixture and mix well. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and pour into the prepared pan.

Transfer to the oven and bake until the top is just golden and a knife inserted comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes.

Pot Luck Punch

Yield: 12 cups

4 cups grapefruit juice

4 cups orange or tangerine juice

2 cups pomegranate juice

2 cups cranberry juice

Pour into a pitcher, stir well, and refrigerate up to 5 days.

Sylvia washed the cut-glass dish and took it to the parlor for safekeeping, unwilling to risk damaging it in the carton with the other glassware or, worse yet, misplacing it in the discard box. When she returned to the kitchen, Anna had finished emptying the cabinet—towels and washcloths that went straight into the trash—and had moved on to the next. It was stuffed full of plastic storage containers, bottoms and lids arranged in no discernable pattern.

“Potlucks were once very popular around here,” Sylvia remarked as she returned to the kitchen with another stack of brown paper for wrapping glassware. “The older generations sometimes called them ‘covered-dish suppers,’ but they’ve always been a part of the social life in the Elm Creek Valley.”

Anna began sorting the plastic containers and lids into piles, determined to recycle any pieces that didn’t have a match. “It sounds like your mother enjoyed potlucks.”

“Not just my mother, but all her friends and neighbors going back generations.” Sylvia examined a dusty champagne flute for flaws, nodded her approval when it passed inspection, and wrapped it carefully in paper. “My Great-Great-Aunt Gerda wrote about an event in Creek’s Crossing called the Harvest Dance.”

“Where’s Creek’s Crossing?” asked Anna.

“Just down the road,” Sylvia said with a teasing smile, then explained, “That was the original name for the town of Waterford, before the Civil War. The annual Harvest Dance was the highlight of their social season. In her memoir Gerda wrote about—oh, I believe it was two such occasions, one in 1857 and another a year later. In mid-November, after the work of the harvest was complete and before winter set in, families from throughout the valley would celebrate with a dance and covered-dish supper in town. Each lady wore her finest dress and brought her tastiest recipe to be sampled and evaluated by nearly everyone of her acquaintance. In addition to the feasting, there was music and dancing for hours and hours. I daresay the ladies were evaluated on the dance floor as well, since the Harvest Dance offered excellent opportunities for courtship.”

Anna sat cross-legged on the floor, her work momentarily forgotten. “How did Gerda measure up?”

Sylvia shrugged and placed the wrapped champagne flute in a small box marked “Fragile” in bold letters. “By her own account, she was an excellent cook and only crumbs remained of any dish she brought to any gathering. Her sister-in-law—my great-grandmother—was a gifted seamstress, so I’m sure Gerda’s dress passed muster as well. However, she was not an elegant dancer by her own admission, and she was plain and rather unlucky in love. Even so, she recorded her memories of those Harvest Dances in great detail, so they clearly made quite an impression on her, even if she didn’t win a young man’s heart on the dance floor.”

Anna imagined the wives and mothers of the Elm Creek Valley coming in horse-drawn wagons with baskets of food to share, the farmers’ bounty seasoned with the flavors of autumn, waiting eagerly or apprehensively to see how their efforts compared to their neighbors’. Recipes were surely exchanged as readily as compliments, just as quilt patterns were passed along from friend to friend at a quilting bee. Long-time rivals would keep a watchful eye on the serving tables to see whose recipe received the most returns for seconds, while young girls would wait anxiously to see if a favorite young man enjoyed her shoofly pie or chose another girl’s spice cake. And after the dancing and celebration had ended, how proud each cook would have been to take home an empty dish at the end of the night, evidence that their recipe had won over the crowd—and how chagrined to take home a pan still half full of a recipe that had failed to impress.

If she had been one of those farm women of long ago, Anna would have prepared her roast duck with raspberry coulis, or if that would have been showing off, she would have made pumpkin soup or German potato salad. As for a dancing partner, she hadn’t dated anyone since breaking up with her last boyfriend several months before. If Summer were still away at graduate school, maybe Anna could ask Jeremy to go, just as friends, of course.

Anna smothered a laugh. Sylvia’s story was so vivid that Anna could easily imagine herself in the midst of a celebration that probably was no longer observed. Unless…“Waterford doesn’t still hold these Harvest Dances, right? I think I would have heard of them.”

“No, the tradition faded out in the 1940s. So many young men were off fighting in the war that it seemed pointless to have a dance, and with the rationing of staples such as sugar and flour, the women of the Elm Creek Valley had enough trouble putting a decent meal on the table for their own families.” Sylvia rested against the counter, her gaze far away. “But every autumn until then, we Bergstroms enjoyed the Harvest Dances tremendously. I remember my mother preparing bratwurst with apples and onions at the contraption that preceded this one—” She gestured to the old oven, shaking her head in disbelief at the thought that it had once been considered an upgrade. “She tried to follow Gerda’s recipe precisely to win the approval of her in-laws, but my father interrupted her every few minutes to dance her around the kitchen. She laughed and protested that he must leave her alone or she would burn the food and become the laughingstock of the Elm Creek Valley, but my father declared that no one would dream of laughing at her, so light and graceful she was on the dance floor, so adored by all who knew her.”

When Sylvia’s expression became wistful, Anna said, “It sounds like your parents loved each other very much.”

“They did, indeed.” Sylvia shook off her reverie, smiled at Anna, and returned to her work. “Most people dream all their lives of finding such a love, but only the fortunate few find it. My parents sowed love in each other’s hearts, and joy was their bountiful harvest, a harvest they shared with all who knew them. Thus their happiness was multiplied a hundredfold.”

Anna watched Sylvia smiling to herself as she worked, and it occurred to her that she had missed the point of the Harvest Dance, a point that Sylvia’s parents had understood implicitly. Naturally, Anna had focused on the competitive element of the event first, for as a professional chef she had a particular incentive to bring the tastiest dish to any friendly gathering. She suspected that unlike her, Sylvia’s mother and most of the other women who had attended the Harvest Dances of years past had been happy simply to share the bounty of the family’s farm with their friends and neighbors, to celebrate the work of the season now behind them, and to come together one last time before long nights and winter storms kept them indoors and apart from their beloved friends.

The Harvest Dance had brought them together for a joyous night of sharing and celebration, with music, laughter, love, and the flavors of autumn filling their hearts with sustenance for the long winter to come.

Pumpkin Soup

Yield: 10 cups

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 Spanish onion, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 tablespoon chopped gingerroot

2 pounds fresh pumpkin, peeled, seeded, and diced (about 5 to 6 cups)

6 cups chicken broth

½ cup orange juice

½ cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon maple syrup

Place a 4-quart soup pot over medium-high heat and when it is hot, add the butter. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and gingerroot and cook until they have softened, about 10 minutes. Add the pumpkin and chicken broth and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce the heat to low and cook until the pumpkin is tender, about 40 minutes. Transfer the solids, in small batches, to a blender and process until smooth; gradually stir in the liquid, orange juice, cream, and maple syrup and serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate in a storage container up to 2 days.

Roast Duck with Raspberry Coulis

Serves 6

1 whole duck (about 7 pounds), excess fat and skin removed from neck and cavity

Kosher salt and black pepper

¼ cup molasses

Juice and rinds from 2 oranges

3 garlic cloves, minced

For the raspberry coulis:

12 ounces fresh or frozen raspberries (if frozen, thawed and drained)

¼ cup sugar

1 tablespoon molasses

1 tablespoon brandy

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.

Using a sharp knife, carefully score the breast of the duck, about four times on each side, cutting through the skin to allow the fat to render. Season generously with salt and pepper.

Place the molasses, orange juice, and garlic in a small bowl and stir to combine. Place the orange rinds inside the cavity of the duck. Place the duck in a small roasting pan or large ovenproof skillet and brush with about one-quarter of the molasses mixture.

Transfer the duck to the oven and roast, basting every hour with the molasses mixture, until very tender and the legs move easily in their joints, about 4 to 5 hours.

Prepare the coulis:
While the duck is cooking, place the raspberries, sugar, molasses, and brandy in a blender or food processor and process until smooth. Press the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Bratwurst with Apples and Onions

Serves 4 to 6

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

8 raw bratwurst

1 large onion, sliced thin

2 medium apples, peeled, cored, and cut into eighths

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon caraway seeds

One 12-ounce bottle lager beer

Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

Place a large skillet over medium-high heat and when it is hot, add 2 tablespoons oil. Add the bratwurst and cook until browned on all sides but not quite cooked through, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer the bratwurst to a plate.

Reheat the skillet to medium high, and when it is hot, add the remaining 2 tablespoons oil. Add the onion and cook until browned and beginning to soften, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the apples and cook until browned on all sides, about 2 minutes. Add the butter and when it has melted, add the flour. Stir to combine. Add the browned bratwurst, caraway seeds, and beer. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until the bratwurst is cooked through and the sauce is thickened, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Chestnut Dressing

Serves 8 to 10

¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter

1 Spanish onion, chopped

1 carrot, diced

2 celery stalks, diced

8 cups packaged herb stuffing, such as Pepperidge Farm

One 16-ounce jar chestnuts, chopped

½ cup chopped fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley

¼ cup vermouth

1 to 2 cups chicken broth

1 teaspoon kosher salt, or more to taste

½ teaspoon black pepper

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly butter a casserole dish.

Place the butter in a large skillet over medium heat and when it has melted, remove all but 1 tablespoon to a small bowl. Set aside. Add the onion, carrot, and celery to the skillet and cook until the vegetables have softened, about 10 minutes. Off the heat, add the stuffing mix, chestnuts, parsley, vermouth, and enough broth to moisten the bread crumbs.

Mix the chestnut-stuffing mixture with the vegetables in the skillet. Transfer to the casserole and drizzle with the reserved butter. Place in the oven and bake until heated through, about 15 minutes.

Apple-Spinach Salad

Serves 6 to 8

For the dressing:

½ cup white wine vinegar

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon dry mustard

1 teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon Tabasco sauce

For the salad:

2 pounds flat-leaf spinach

2 large tart apples, cored and diced

½ cup dried cranberries

¹
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₃
cup thinly sliced scallions

To make the dressing:
Place the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk well.

To make the salad:
Put the salad ingredients in a large bowl, add the dressing, and gently toss. Serve immediately.

German Potato Salad

Serves 6 to 8

2 pounds small new potatoes, halved

¼ to
¹
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pound bacon

1 small red onion, chopped

3 tablespoons wine vinegar

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

¼ cup chopped fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill