Chestnut-Apple Dressing

Love the taste of chestnuts in your dressing? It’s easy with Peeled & Steamed Chestnuts! I find them at Gelsons, Bristol Farms, Lazy Acres or you can order them direct from Melissas. Here’s my favorite recipe…

Chestnut-Apple Dressing

1 loaf artisan bread -- cut into cubes, toasted until lightly browned
1 box cornbread mix -- baked and cut into pieces (Trader Joes has an excellent brand)
1 onion -- diced
4 ribs celery -- diced
3 tablespoons minced fresh sage leaves
2 tablespoons minced fresh thyme leaves
1 stick unsalted butter -- (1/2 cup)
1 pound fresh chestnuts -- shelled and peeled, chopped coarse, or 1pkg. vacuum-packed whole chestnuts, chopped
2 small apples (organic) -- golden delicious, cut into 1" pieces with skin
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley leaves
1 egg -- lightly beaten
1 cup turkey stock -- or chicken stock, as needed

Fresh chestnuts in shell:

With a sharp knife cut an X on the round side of each chestnut. Spread the chestnuts in one layer on a baking sheet and bake the chestnuts in a preheated 450 oven for 10 minutes, or until the shells open. Remove the chestnuts, a handful at a time, and shell and peel them while they are still hot.

Preheat the oven to 350°

For dressing:

In a large pan, sauté the onions, celery, sage, thyme in the butter over moderately low heat, stirring, until the vegetables are softened, add apples and the chestnuts, and cook the mixture, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the vegetable mixture to the bread pieces, tossing the mixture well, stir in the parsley and salt and pepper to taste, and let the stuffing cool completely. Add the egg and enough of the stock to just bring the dressing together.

Bake for 20 minutes covered; uncover and continue baking 15 minutes or until lightly toasted on top.

Book Signing & Wine Tasting

11 / 17 / 1511 / 17 / 15

Saturday & Sunday, Nov. 21 ~ 22 Events!

DON’T MISS THIS WEEKEND
IN TEMECULA!
Mary Platis, Author of Cooking Techniques & Recipes with Olive Oil &
Chef Debbi, Author of ‘What’s In Your Pantry’
are teaming up to bring you
Cooking From The Pantry Series!

First stop
Temecula Olive Oil Co.
Temecula tasting Room
Cooking Class Demo-Wine Tasting & Book Signing
Sat. Nov. 21st
12 – 2 $45.00

Menu
Mediterranean Vegetables in Olive Oil
Fresh Tomato Risotto
Baby Beets and Brussels sprouts Salad
Turkey Rollatini with White Wine, Porcini Mushroom Pan Sauce
Pumpkin Olive Oil Cake with Vanilla & Fig Balsamic Compote

For Temecula Reservations please call:
951-693-0607

Second stop

Sunday, Nov 22nd
Book Signing and Wine Tasting 12 ~ 2

Pie Crust

11 / 17 / 1511 / 17 / 15

Nothing beats a great pie, perfectly balanced filling and a tender, flaky piecrust. Piecrusts are easy to do, don’t let them intimidate you! My Grandmother taught me her secrets to a good crust, use good butter (unsalted), keep all of your ingredients very cold and work quickly. So there’s a little more to it than that but remember those three things and you’ll be fine.

This recipe calls for shortening which creates a tender, flaky crust, my Grandmother used lard and if it’s available to you it may be a better choice than shortening (which is another discussion). If you’d rather not use lard or shortening you could use all butter and the pie will be just as delicious.

Another trick that I picked up from King Arthur Flour is instead of just cutting your piecrust in half; cut it in 2/3 and 1/3 discs. The bottom of the pie will take more crust because it will hold the entire filling and the top crust only needs to cover all the ingredients. Well, duh…..why we never thought of that before! (See this is probably why I don’t bake much).

If you’d like to pre-make your pie crust you could freeze it two ways; one freeze the disc or roll the crust out, fit it into the pan and freeze, defrost overnight in the refrigerator and then continue with the recipe.

I cut the butter into the dry ingredients in the food processor, it takes less time, and just pulse it a few times until it looks like peas and you’ll be fine. I like to put the flour/butter ingredients into a bowl and incorporate the ice water using my fingers and tossing the dough until it comes together, that way I make sure I’m not adding too much liquid. I turn it out onto a rolling mat while it’s still very crumbly and bring it all together quickly by rolling and kneading lightly. I add only enough flour to the rolling mat as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the mat; I use a bench or dough scraper to actually fold it all together. Once the water hits the dough you begin developing gluten, which can make the dough tough so work it as little as possible at this stage. Press the dough into discs and refrigerate for at least an hour and then roll out and blind bake as described in the recipe. Blind baking helps keep the crust light and flaky, especially with a wet filling. Protect the edges of the crust if they start to brown by using a pie shield or cover with the edges with foil. Bake up some pies today~ Happy Holidays!

Perfectly Flaky Pie Crust Recipe

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Talisman Designs Adjustable Pie Crust Shield, BPA-free Silcone, Red, Fits 8.5″ – 11.5″ Rimmed Dish

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Holiday Gifts to Make

11 / 5 / 15

Sat. Nov. 7th
10 – 11 a.m. Free

How to Make Gifts from the Garden

Chef Debbi will also have some seasonal spices and holiday botanicals
Pick up a copy of ‘What’s In Your Pantry’ for holiday gift giving
A great hostess gift!

Join us for some conversation and a tasty bite!

The Plant Stand
2972-A Century Place
(In the back)
Costa Mesa, Ca
(714) 966-0797

How to Choose and Sharpen Kitchen Knives

11 / 3 / 1511 / 3 / 15

One of the most important tasks you can do to get ready for any event or holiday is to make sure that your knives are sharp. It’s so much easier to cut yourself with a dull knife (really), and a sharp knife makes chopping a dream. Sharpen your knives when the time changes, this makes it easier to remember to drop your knives at the cutlery store or with the farmers market knife specialist. There are electric knife sharpeners galore or you can learn the old fashioned way with a whetstone and mineral oil. I should also mention here that a knife ‘steel’ does not sharpen your knife. (The steel is the long piece that comes with the knife block that you don’t really need-the knife block, not the steel.) The steel is designed to hone the edge of your knife between sharpening and should be used prior to any use of the knife. Be sure to wipe the edge of the blade carefully after honing.

Here is an excerpt from my book, ‘What’s In Your Pantry‘ about knives.

Photo: chowhound

Forged construction. A forged knife is one that’s been squeezed in a die (a type of mold) with tons of force. This strengthens the knife by aligning the steel molecules, like wood grain, and also makes the steel’s edge more consistent so it will both take and hold a better edge.

Stamped construction. Provided they’re made from good-quality steel, stamped knives (which have been punched from sheet steel, like how you use a cookie cutter) are a good low-cost alternative to forged knives. But given the easy availability of affordable forged knives, I’d say you should bypass stamped knives altogether.

Full-tang designs. A full tang knife is one in which the blade’s steel extends into the handle for its entire length. The myth is that this is necessary for strength. In the kitchen, a full tang is not necessary, although a full tang can help balance a knife.

Hollow-ground designs. It’s become quite fashionable to have little hollows, known as grantons, ground into the sides of the blade. In theory, they minimize blade-to-food friction and prevent sliced foods from sticking to the blade. I’ve found this is true about 10 percent of the time.

Knives

Chef’s Knife:

This is the most important knife in your arsenal, the one you’ll reach for 95 percent of the time. No matter how tight your budget, get yourself a great chef’s knife. If you need to save money, do it with the other knives.

Santoku

This has become a tremendously popular blade style, and for many cooks the Santoku has supplanted the traditional French chef’s knife as their go-to blade. It’s offset, like a French chef’s knife, but tends to be shorter (less versatile). And many have essentially straight cutting edges, without the smooth curve that helps promote a rocking/paper-cutter motion useful for mincing and chopping.

Paring

The paring knife is going to be your second-most-used blade for fine detail work like trimming meats and vegetables, or peeling and de-seeding fruits.

Bread/Serrated Knife

Serrated blades rip through food, so sharpness isn’t that essential. Quality steel is less important than blade length—longer is better (I like 10 inches, don’t settle for less than 8 inches). Offset blades are preferred—otherwise you have to cut near the edge of the cutting board to stop your knuckles from hitting the surface.

Slicing/Carving Knife

Look for a knife that’s not too tall, so it’ll be easier to make curving slices (handy when circumnavigating a turkey rib cage, or the bone in a roast). And be sure it’s at least 10 inches long, so you can slice through with the fewest number of strokes for a smooth surface and clean presentation.

Boning/Filleting Knife

This is a very special-purpose knife, and in this once instance it’s actually preferable to have a stamped blade. Forged blades are stiffer, and a flexible blade follows bones more closely for better yield. Be sure you choose a knife with a textured grip—boning and filleting is a greasy, messy operation, and you don’t one that knife to slip.

Here’s a little Winter Soup recipe for you to practice your knife skills,

Minestrone Soup with Pesto

Buy the Book

Pumpkin Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake

10 / 18 / 1511 / 20 / 15

I served this last night at The Aquarium of the Pacific’s Sea Fare fund raising event and it was declared by the President of the Aquarium ‘the best food at the event’. Now that was very nice of him but there was some really tasty food there from local restaurants. It was a wonderful event with music, food and wine and lots of grateful fishes. Thanks to everyone who came out and those who stopped by my booth, I’m happy you enjoyed the cake! And you can learn how to make this cake and more at my cooking classes here in Seal Beach at Temecula Olive Oil‘s tasting room, click on Nov. for the upcoming menu!

Pumpkin Olive Oil Cake

Try different flavored olive oils for this cake. Orange, lemon or a lightly flavored olive oil, don’t use a big heavy tasting oil as it will overpower the pumpkin and spice in the cake.
You could make this cake into a sheet cake, round cakes or even cupcakes; just remember to adjust the cooking time.

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup olive oil
3 eggs
1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin (or 2 cups freshly roasted sugar pumpkin)
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 package cream cheese, room temperature
1 splash of vanilla, optional

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and cloves.

Combine sugar and oil in a large bowl with a rubber spatula until blended.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add flour mixture to egg mixture alternately with pumpkin in three batches, beating

well after each addition.

Transfer to a greased Bundt cake pan.

Bake 60-65 minutes or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Cool for approximately 10-15 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack.

Remove pan carefully from cake and cool completely.

Easy Cream Cheese Frosting

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, and beat at low speed until sugar is incorporated.

Increase speed to medium high and beat until frosting is light and whipped, about 3 to 4 minutes. Use to top cookies, cupcakes, or cakes

Cooking Class

10 / 18 / 1510 / 18 / 15

Temecula Olive Oil Co., Seal Beach

November Class

Thur. Nov. 12th

6:30-8:30 (approximately)

Smoked Trout Canapés with Pickled Onions and Mascarpone

Pomegranate, Bacon and Brussels Sprouts Salad

Braciole

Italian Stuffed Beef Rolls

Mushroom Bolognese

Chocolate Raspberry Linzertorte

10 – 20% off on all purchases the night of the class

Class Sponsored by

NOW TAKING RESERVATIONS!

Seal Beach Tasting Room By Reservation only, call: 562-296-5421

Classes are $45; Pre Paid Reservations only

Feel free to BYOB

Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

9 / 22 / 159 / 22 / 15

What’s better than fresh hot bread straight from the oven? (Well besides some delicious fresh butter on it!) What’s better is that this is a NO KNEAD recipe, couldn’t be easier. The dough will keep in your refrigerator for up to 2 weeks after mixing and there is nothing to do except pinch off a big piece, let it come to room temperature and bake it. The dough makes wonderful pizza, focaccia and flatbread as well. The authors, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois, use Gold Medal Flour for their bread but I am a die hard King Arthur Flour fan. Read about flour and how to measure and then decide for yourself which to use. I use this dough for bread, flatbread, pizza and rolls, check the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day for other recipes. This is a book you must have on your shelf. Buy it now from Amazon, click here.

I like baking my bread in a Le Crueset Dutch oven and I give directions for that procedure, the Artisan Bread website will guide you in other methods. If you like using a starter for your bread, the authors also give you instructions on how to incorporate that method into your bread making.

If you learn to weigh your flour you’ll have much better results in the end product. Actually weighing ingredients for recipes is really much easier and the recipe comes together much quicker and more efficient.

Watch the video made by King Arthur Flour on how to measure flour here,
I’m posting my edited version of the bread but you can visit the authors website and read the original recipe with updates and tips. Go here for recipe

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Easy Artisan Bread

9 / 22 / 159 / 22 / 15

Debbi's Artisan Bread

3 cups lukewarm water
1½ tablespoons granulated yeast (2 packets)
1½ tablespoons kosher or other coarse salt
6½ cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour

Add yeast and salt to the water in a 5-quart bowl or, preferably, in a resealable, lidded (not airtight) plastic food container or food-grade bucket

Mix in the flour—kneading is unnecessary: Add all of the flour at once.

Mix with a wooden spoon, a high-capacity food processor (14 cups or larger) fitted with the dough attachment, or a heavy-duty stand mixer fitted with the dough hook until the mixture is uniform. If you’re hand-mixing and it becomes too difficult to incorporate all the flour with the spoon, you can reach into your mixing vessel with very wet hands and press the mixture together. Don’t knead! It isn’t necessary. You’re finished when everything is uniformly moist, without dry patches. This step is in a matter of minutes, and will yield a dough that is wet and loose enough to conform to the shape of its container.

(I placed dough onto parchment paper and baked it on parchment in a Dutch oven.)

Cover with a lid (not airtight) or a towel. Do not use screw-topped bottles or Mason jars, which could explode from the trapped gases. Lidded plastic buckets designed for dough storage are readily available. Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse (or at least flattens on the top), approximately 2 hours. Longer rising times, up to about 5 hours, will not harm the result. You can use a portion of the dough any time after this period. Fully refrigerated wet dough is less sticky and is easier to work with than dough at room temperature. So, the first time you try our method, it’s best to refrigerate the dough overnight (or at least 3 hours), before shaping a loaf.

BAKING

Cut a piece of parchment paper a little bigger than a notebook size of paper, dust with a little flour.

Dust the surface of your refrigerated dough with flour. Pull up and cut off a 1-pound (grapefruit-size) piece of dough, using a serrated knife. Hold the mass of dough in your hands and add a little more flour as needed so it won’t stick to your hands. It will be very sticky. Gently stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go. Most of the dusting flour will fall off; it’s not intended to be incorporated into the dough. The bottom of the loaf may appear to be a collection of bunched ends, but it will flatten out and adhere during resting and baking. The correctly shaped final product will be smooth and cohesive. The entire process should take no more than 30 to 60 seconds.

Rest the loaf and let it rise on the parchment. Allow the loaf to rest for about 40 minutes (it doesn’t need to be covered during. the rest period). Depending on the age of the dough, you may not see much rise during this period; more rising will occur during baking (“oven spring”).

Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450°F, with a baking stone placed on the middle rack. Place an empty broiler tray for holding water on any other shelf that won’t interfere with the rising bread.

Debbi's notes: I take a 2 qt. Le Crueset (or any stone-ware or cast iron) Dutch oven and put it in the oven with the lid (make sure if the knob on the lid top is plastic to wrap it in tin foil so it doesn't melt). Let it preheat with the oven. When the oven is hot and the dough is ready pick up the parchment paper and plop it into the hot Dutch oven pan, Put the lid back on and carefully slide it into the oven. Alternatively you could slide the dough, still on the parchment paper, onto a pizza or baking stone that you heated with the oven.

Dust and slash: Unless otherwise indicated in a specific recipe, dust the top of the loaf liberally with flour, which will allow the slashing knife to pass without sticking. Slash a ¼-inch-deep cross, “scallop,” or tic-tac toe pattern into the top, using a serrated bread knife.

Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned and firm to the touch. Because you’ve used wet dough, there is little risk of drying out the interior, despite the dark crust. When you remove the loaf from the oven, it will audibly crackle, or “sing,” when initially exposed to room-temperature air. Allow to cool completely, preferably on a wire cooling rack, for best flavor, texture, and slicing. The perfect crust may initially soften, but will firm up again when cooled.

I found that it may take more than 30 minutes to bake, up to 40 to completely bake the inside. If you can use a hot pad and turn the bread over in your hand, tap the bottom of the loaf with your finger, it should make a hollow sound. If it's still a little soft, return it to the oven for a few minutes.

Store the remaining dough in the refrigerator in your lidded (not airtight) container and use it over the next 14 days: You’ll find that even one day’s storage improves the flavor and texture of your bread. This maturation continues over the 14-day storage period. Refrigerate unused dough in a lidded storage container (again, not airtight). If you mixed your dough in this container, you’ve avoided some cleanup. Cut off and shape more loaves as you need them. We often have several types of dough storing in the refrigerator at once. The dough can also be frozen in 1-pound portions in an airtight container and defrosted overnight in the refrigerator prior to baking day.

FOR PIZZA:

Pinch off a palm sized piece of dough, shape into a round, rectangular or square shape. Dough is sticky so keep some extra flour nearby, dust your hands as necessary to shape the dough. If the dough starts to snap back you should let it rest for a few minutes and then resume shaping.

Place onto parchment paper, a dusted pizza peel or the bottom of a dusted baking sheet. You can use anything you want providing the pizza can slip right off onto the rack.

If you are baking in an oven, preheat your oven to 500° or as high as it will go. Top the dough with anything you like, slid it into the hot oven and bake for 12-14 minutes.

If you are grilling dough, preheat bbq to high. Slide dough onto rack and cook 5-10 minutes on one side. Remove from grill, top the cooked side and return to the grill. Close the lid so the toppings will cook evenly.

Francois, Zoe; Hertzberg, Jeff , MD (2007-11-13). Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking (pp. 26-27). Macmillan. Kindle Edition.

Pan-Seared Scallops with Champagne Grapes and Almonds

7 / 28 / 15

16 large sea scallops, side muscles removed
5 Tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1-1/2 Tablespoons minced shallots
2/3 cup Champagne grapes (4 ounces) or black grapes, halved
1-1/2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/3 cup slivered or sliced almonds, toasted
1-1/2 Tablespoons chopped fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley
Salt and pepper

Melt 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the butter until it is browned, about 2 minutes. Salt and pepper your scallops before adding them to the pan. Cook 2 minutes on each side and transfer to a dish, covering to keep warm.

Melt the remaining 2 Tablespoons of unsalted butter in the same skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallots and grapes; sauce until the shallots are golden brown, about one minute. Stir in fresh lemon juice and any accumulated scallop juice from the plate of cooked scallops. Bring to a boil and season with salt and pepper. Stir in almonds and parsley.

Place scallops on individual plates and spoon the sauce over them. Serve immediately

Brioche-Hurry Up & Wait

7 / 6 / 15

Homemade brioche is really pretty easy with most of the work being done by the dough. Plan ahead as it needs an overnight rise in the refrigerator. This recipe is from King Arthur Flour and they say (correctly I might add) that this recipe should be done only in a stand mixer. The dough is quite wet and sticky and it took 20 minutes to come together using my stand mixer. That was the hard part, well not really, the hard part was waiting overnight before I could bake it but the resulting French Toast was well worth the wait.

After the overnight rise, I cut the dough in half and made 1 small loaf and 3 good sized buns (for burgers). Then you have to play the waiting game again for a few hours before you can bake them. The long overnight rise and the room temperature rise before baking results in a beautiful crumb and delicate taste. The aroma while baking, of course, will drive you wild. The bread turns a rich golden color (don’t be afraid to cover them while baking if they start to brown too quickly) and is a very soft, light bread when it’s finally ready for you to eat.

I’m going to freeze the buns for a future use and perhaps part of the bread for toast and French toast in the near future. I did make a test batch of French Toast with a little butter and real maple syrup and woofed it down. It would have been delightful with some summer fruit but the last of the farmers market fruit was eaten yesterday in a peach-blackberry cobbler.

This is great recipe to try over the weekend. Mangia!

Brioche

From King Arthur Flour:
The inspiration for this recipe comes from our bakery, where brioche buns are among the wide variety of rolls and buns King Arthur Flour bakers produce daily. These particular buns are rich, tender, and pillow-like, similar to our bakery’s, and are the perfect vessel for a big, juicy burger.

2 3/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
¼ cup Baker's Special Dry Milk or nonfat dry milk
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon instant yeast
3 large eggs + 1 large egg yolk, white reserved for wash (below)
1/4 cup lukewarm water
10 tablespoons unsalted butter
Egg Wash
1 large egg white, lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon cold water
seeds of your choice, optional

Mix and knead the dough ingredients — in a mixer or bread machine — to make a smooth, shiny dough. It starts out sticky, and takes 15 to 20 minutes of kneading in a stand mixer to develop, so we don't recommend kneading this by hand.

Form the dough into a ball, place it in a greased bowl, cover, and let it rise for 1 hour.

Refrigerate the covered dough overnight, to slow its rise and make it easier to shape.

The next day, remove the dough from the refrigerator, and divide it into six pieces.

Shape each piece into a flattened ball, and place into the lightly greased cups of an individual pie and burger bun pan. Or place the buns on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving about 2" to 3" between them.

Cover the buns, and let them rise until they're quite puffy. This may take as little as 1 hour; or up to 2 to 3 hours, depending on how warm your rising environment, and how cold the dough. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 375°F.

Brush the buns with egg wash, and bake on the middle rack of the oven for 14 to 18 minutes, tenting with foil after 10 minutes if they appear to be browning too quickly. The finished buns will register at least 190°F on a digital thermometer inserted into the center.

Remove the buns from the oven, and cool on a rack.

Yield: 6 buns or 2 small loaves

King Arthur Flour

The Chef, The Photographer and The Adventure

5 / 26 / 155 / 27 / 15

Meet my friend, Christina Peters, photographer, and experience adventure through her eyes and lens. Christina’s new website, tastyfstops.com, chronicles her adventures through food, farms, travel and more. She began her new adventure in my spring garden and through her lens and my recipes we’ll bring you through one (or more) harvests of my potager (vegetable) garden. Sign up for Christina’s newsletter and follow us through spring and summer into fall and winter. Enjoy.

It’s berry season in the garden and my blackberries and boysenberries are off to an early start. This is one of Christina’s beautiful, succulent shots and here’s a tasty little recipe to get your summer started right! Blackberry Crumb Bars

And speaking of summer, check out the new cooking classes for June, we still have a few seats for this Thursday also. Two summery classes in June, A Summer Picnic Party and an Adult 4th of July menu. We’ll be hosting one more class in July (on the 9th) then I am off for another knee surgery and won’t see you back until the end of summer! So grab a spot while you can.

Mangia!

Debbi