Margaret’s Muesli
Margaret’s Muesli
Makes about 2½ cups
This healthy cereal originated in Europe, and I enjoyed it mornings when I lived in Austria. Some variations have more sugar in them than I like. If this version isn’t sweet enough for you, add the optional sweetening. I like muesli stirred into yogurt, but it is also delicious with milk or apple juice.
1 cup toasted oats
3 tablespoons toasted wheat germ
3 tablespoons ground flax seeds
½ cup dried fruit, cut into small pieces: raisins, apricots, or prunes
½ cup lightly toasted nuts: hazelnuts, walnuts, or almonds
Yogurt, milk, or apple juice
Maple syrup, honey, or brown sugar
Mix together everything except the sweetening, adding as desired.
Spread rolled oats in a thin layer in a baking pan. Bake at 350°F for about 15 minutes, until lightly toasted. Stir once or twice while baking.
It really helps to have an ability for
“mental” tasting. Musicians can look at a score and hear the music in their heads. It’s the same way with recipes for me. I look at the list of ingredients and can reflect on whether this flavor will go with that flavor, and how it will all taste. (I think I developed this skill because there were always so many cookbooks around our house when I was a kid, and I used to read them for pleasure, imagining how things would taste.)
Mental tasting used to come into play in real life when I went into the walk-in refrigerator at the restaurant. Faced with the challenge of 147 potential ingredients, I would think, “Oh, there are tomatoes, and there’s some feta, and there are some olives, and some cilantro—what else sounds good? Lemons. Grated lemon peel, perhaps, for zing. What about the capers? No, too much.” And suddenly there was an omelette filling.
Birchard Soaked Oats
Makes 1 serving
No one can eat rich or rich-tasting food all the time. I observed that Cafe Beaujolais customers who came in four or five or six days (or meals) in a row would, somewhere along the way, switch to a lighter food choice such as waffles with fruit, or granola, or these wholesome oats soaked in apple juice. Perhaps to cleanse the palate for another round of high living?
Mendocino residents and recipe contributors John and Barbara Birchard (he a former woodworker turned professional photographer; she a respected acupressure practitioner) had been restaurant regulars since the early days. One foggy morning they came in for breakfast with their baby. The place was empty except for the four of us, and I remember performing my “leaping frog” imitation (hopping around on the dining room floor), which none of the Birchards has held against me all these years.
⅓ cup uncooked rolled oats
¼ cup apple juice
2 generous tablespoons yogurt, flavor of your choice
1 drop vanilla extract
1 tablespoon oat bran
1 heaping tablespoon coarsely chopped toasted almonds
1 heaping tablespoon raisins, or other similarly sized dried fruit
Fresh fruit, as desired: bananas, berries, or peaches
Soak the oats in the juice for 15 minutes, then add the remaining ingredients.
Emily’s Northeastern Breakfast Treat
Makes 1 serving
When my younger sister Emily and I were little, we read a story about an unhappy girl who was sent to live with her strict grandparents in New England. One of her few pleasures was pouring hot, freshly boiled maple syrup onto the snow and eating it as a sticky candy, officially known in those parts as Sugar on Snow. To Californians born-and-raised, who had not yet traveled much, tales of maple syrup actually coming from sap out of trees seemed wondrous indeed.
My sister lives all too far away on the East Coast in Western Massachusetts, where she has actually participated in the following exotic event. She assures me that the finished dish is not sickeningly sweet but rather subtly so, because pre-boiled sap has the substance of water with but a whisper of sweetness. Did you know that 40 gallons of sap boil down to 1 gallon of maple syrup? I realize that many readers will not be able to make this dish because of geographical limitations, but now you have something splendid to look forward to, as do I.
1 maple tree with sap rising
1 friend who taps maple trees
Oats, cracked wheat, or other favorite cereal
Butter
Milk
Wait until late winter or early spring.
Tap your maple tree and obtain 1 quart of fresh sap. Use as the liquid to cook the grain cereal of your choice. According to Emily, “… the resulting flavor, a rich blend of nutty grain and subtle sweetness, is extremely satisfying and requires nothing more than a little butter or milk. This is what Maypo would like to be when it grows up.”
Caramelized Applesauce
Makes 4 to 5 cups
Once I had the pleasure of working with Gaston LeNôtre, perhaps France’s premier pastry chef, at the Great Chefs of France Cooking School, held at the Robert Mondavi Winery. Everything Gaston did had a touch of magic about it. My chunky applesauce is inspired by his. It is delicious as a topping for blintzes or crêpes or rice pudding, or stirred into yogurt or cottage cheese.
About 4½ pounds cooking apples (I use Granny Smith)
1⅓ cups water
Juice of half a lemon
2 cups sugar
½ vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise
Peel and core the apples, and place peels and cores in a saucepan. Add water, bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Cut each apple into 6 wedges, place in a bowl, and toss with lemon juice, coating every surface of each wedge.
Strain the cooking liquid from the peels and cores through a sieve over a large pan, pressing hard to extract as much liquid as possible. Add sugar to the liquid in the pan and bring slowly to a boil, stirring gently with a wooden spoon until the sugar melts. If any sugar sticks to the sides of the pan, remove it with a moistened pastry brush.
When the syrup comes to a boil, raise the heat and boil rapidly for 10 minutes until it reaches 313°F, stirring occasionally. As soon as the syrup begins to turn a caramel color, carefully add the apples and vanilla bean. Be very careful to avoid splattering syrup as it is incredibly hot.
Cook for 5 minutes, then lower the heat and cook at a slow boil for about 20 minutes, or until the apples begin to fall apart. The finished sauce should be chunky, not smooth. Please don’t stir the apples; instead, simply shake the pan gently.
Fried Bananas
Makes 1 serving or, conceivably, 2
A recipe straight from the headquarters of Lily-Gilders, Inc. (My mother and I are officers of this organization whose mission is to make every meal, no matter how good, just a little bit better.) You start with one basic banana and, by the time you are done, you have something that looks spectacular and tastes divine. There is no limit to the amount of gilding you are hereby given permission to do on this particular banana-lily. The only caution is to move quickly while you are making it.
Fried Bananas are delicious on their own, on ice cream, or as a wonderful topping for pancakes and waffles.
1 medium banana, green-tipped
1 tablespoon butter
2 to 3 teaspoons lemon or lime juice
1 tablespoon brown sugar, maple syrup, or honey
2 tablespoons dark rum or brandy
Optional lily-gilding extras: cinnamon, nutmeg, toasted walnuts, sesame seeds, coconut, yogurt, sour cream, and/or ice cream
Peel the banana and cut it lengthwise, then crosswise, making 4 pieces. Melt the butter in a small frying pan and brown the banana pieces quickly on both sides, about 2 minutes at most. Mix together the juice and sweetening and pour over bananas. Turn the bananas to coat both sides as the syrup bubbles and thickens. Heat the rum or brandy, pour it over bananas, and present it all on fire. Serve with a wide spatula. Pour the possibly-still-flaming sauce over. Garnish with any or all of the optional ingredients.
Past-Its-Prime Poached Fruit à la Mom
Makes 4 to 6 servings
At one time or another, we’ve all bought fruit that looks perfect in the store, only to get home, take a bite of it, and say, “Blecchhh.” When this happened to my frugal mom, she devised this recipe, which is a clever way of making something end up much better than one might have expected at the start. Although she is normally a recipe-oriented cook, this preparation can be quite spontaneous, so I hovered at her elbow, paper and pen in hand, as she tossed “a little of this” and “a little of that” into the pan.
Of course, the recipe works perfectly well with fruit that’s in season, but it’s hardly needed. You could use cotton balls, and it would probably turn out swell. If you use more than one type of fruit, you may wish to re-title the recipe Poached Fruit Mélange. Use only fruit that has stones or pits or seeds: apples, peaches, pears, apricot, plums. It doesn’t work with soft fruits, such as strawberries, bananas, or pineapples.
The perfumed light syrup created during cooking demands fresh, whole spices. Don’t let your fragile spices sit in the cupboard for years and years as the flavor will slowly disappear and your dishes will end up tasteless.
You might experiment with other wines, as well. Gewürztraminer makes this equally delicious, but quite different. Mom has even used jug wine. Whatever you use, you’ll almost certainly come out with something that is better than the sum of its parts.
1 cup vermouth or dry white wine
1 cup water
½ cup white sugar
1 cinnamon stick, about 3 inches long
6 whole cloves
15 cardamom seeds, removed from their whitish pods
Juice of half a lemon, about 2 tablespoons
Fruit past-its-prime: 4 pears, cored and peeled if you wish, and cut into quarters or slices, or an equivalent quantity of peaches, apples, apricots, or plums
Place all the ingredients, except the fruit, into a large pot and simmer, uncovered, for about 5 minutes. Slice the fruit any way you wish. Twelve slices for each pear make an attractive presentation. Add fruit, bring to a boil, cover, and reduce the heat. Simmer for about 3 to 5 minutes, or until fruit is tender. Cooking time depends on ripe-ness and the size of the fruit slices, so check the fruit with a sharp knife to see if it is tender. When done, remove from heat and let cool.
Refrigerate for at least 8 hours before serving. Sometimes my mom adds 1 cup of blueberries or other berries after the fruit is removed from the heat.
Poached Apples & Pears with Crème Fraîche
Makes 4 to 6 servings
Here is a fresh fruit compote that you can make pretty much all year round, or at least as long as pears are available. You can make it the day before, and refrigerate it overnight. It can be served as an appetizer, or as the fruit accompaniment to an egg dish. Served over cottage cheese, it becomes the main event of the meal.
I feel that cutting back on sugar is more important to the diet than many other so-called healthy things we do. And the natural sweetness of the fruit and the honey make this dish plenty sweet enough. It doesn’t need to be quite this rich; in fact, the crème fraîche can be replaced with drained yogurt, if you prefer.
The white wine is a nice addition because it balances all the flavors and refreshes your palate. Food that is entirely sweet or entirely tart is boring. I eat two bites and suddenly I’ve had enough of that.
Pears out of season may seem to be too hard, but no worries—poaching will render them pleasantly juicy.
3 apples
3 pears, preferably ripe, but not mushy
1 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons honey
1 cinnamon stick
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
Zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange, finely chopped
¼ teaspoon powdered cinnamon
Peel and core the apples and slice each into about 10 pieces. Peel and core the pears and slice each into about 8 pieces.
Put the apple juice, wine, honey, cinnamon stick, and nutmeg in a large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the apple slices and citrus zest and simmer for about 5 minutes, until apples are almost tender. Add the pear slices and poach for 3 minutes.
Pour into a bowl, cover, and refrigerate overnight. Serve with a dollop of crème fraîche and a dusting of powdered cinnamon.
Rhubarb Glop
Makes about 1 quart
I think rhubarb is one of America’s great underrated fruits or vegetables or weeds or whatever it is. Poor rhubarb has led a tortured life: most of us, if we do anything at all with it, stew it with half a ton of sugar. Believe me, it deserves a better fate.
My mom did the definitive research to demonstrate that rhubarb does not require immense amounts of sugar. One summer, she made batch after batch of stewed rhubarb, each one with a little less sugar than the last. By August, very little sugar was required. Of course it was tart, but in quite a pleasant way.
This particular glop isn’t exactly light on sugar, but one doesn’t serve a whole lot of glop at one time. It appears, for instance, as a relish for the Smoked Turkey Salad Sandwich. And it becomes the base of the Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie, which has no added sugar at all. I wouldn’t want to eat this all by itself, but I have eaten it as a stand-alone dish, supplemented with plain yogurt, which mellows it nicely. It will keep in the refrigerator for up to six weeks, and it freezes well.
3 pounds rhubarb
2¼ cups sugar
3 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
6 tablespoons lemon juice
Remove the rhubarb leaves and wash the stalks. Cut the rhubarb into ½-inch chunks. In a large bowl, mix with sugar and cover with plastic wrap. Place in the refrigerator overnight.
Stir the mixture well, scraping the bowl to incorporate any undissolved sugar, then place in a colander and drain directly into a saucepan. Place the rhubarb back in the bowl and bring the syrup in the pan to a boil. When all the sugar is dissolved, pour the syrup back over the rhubarb, stir, and let sit 15 minutes.
Drain through a sieve. Measure 1 cup of the syrup and return to a pot large enough to hold all the rhubarb too. (Save the rest of the syrup to make
Rhubarb Syrup.)
Add the rhubarb, ginger, and lemon juice, stir, and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the rhubarb is soft, but not mushy. Let cool, and refrigerate.
Sausage-Stuffed Baked Apples
Makes 4 servings
Someone was recounting a recipe for baked apples and said, “Of course, you cover the apples up, because you know how ugly they are.” I replied that baked apples aren’t ugly, they’re homely. The wait staff at Cafe Beaujolais sometimes asked “Oh, what happened to those apples?” Nothing happened, darn it. That’s the way they’re supposed to look.
This recipe is both homely and unusual because it combines sweet and savory flavors. It can be a meal in itself or an accompaniment to waffles, pancakes, eggs, or French toast, the usual breakfast suspects. The sweetness comes from the apple and the apple juice concentrate.
Use chicken-apple sausage that is light and delicate, preferably something you can obtain freshly made. Note: The apple is not merely cored; it is hollowed out to create a larger space to hold the filling.
4 baking apples, similar in size (I use Rome Beauty or Golden Delicious)
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup minced yellow onions
⅓ cup finely chopped celery
¼ cup currants
2 teaspoons freshly and finely grated ginger
⅔ cup undiluted apple juice concentrate, straight from the can
4 ounces chicken-apple sausage
Preheat the oven to 275°F.
Core the apples, leaving the bottom stem intact to allow the apple to hold the filling securely. Enlarge the hole with a small knife to create a space about 2 inches deep and 2 inches across. Be sure the apple “wall” is at least half an inch thick. Peel the outside of each apple about halfway down. Chop up the apple “insides” and set aside.
Melt the butter over medium heat in a large skillet and add the onions. Sauté for about 5 minutes, then add the celery and apple insides and continue cooking for another 5 minutes until soft. Add the currants, ginger, and ¼ cup of the apple juice concentrate, and bring to a boil. Cook over high heat for about 30 seconds, until the liquid starts to thicken. Set aside.
Sauté the sliced or crumbled sausage until browned and add to apple mixture. Stir to combine.
Divide mixture among the four apples and place them in an 8- by 8-inch pan. Mix the remaining apple juice concentrate with 2 cups water and pour in the bottom of the pan.
Bake for about 1 to 1½ hours. Baste the apples generously with the liquid several times during baking. If the tops start to brown, cover them with foil. Test apples with a knife. When it goes in easily (no crunch), they’re done. Let sit at room temperature until warm, then serve. Or let cool, then refrigerate. Cover the whole apple in foil and reheat to serve.
