Bread Pudding with Irish Whiskey Sauce

I made this bread pudding last weekend, and let me warn you: it's not something you can take to a work pot luck, or anywhere where someone will be testing your blood alcohol content afterward. Not that it's overwhelmingly boozy, but it's definitely there. In a wonderful, buttery, sugar-and-whiskey sauce sort of way.

I've come to like bread puddings sort of late in life, mostly because of my aversion to anything mushy. Which includes pudding, mousse, whipped potatoes, jello, flan, ice cream and a whole bunch of other things people swear are wonderful but I just don't really have any desire to put into my mouth. It's a texture thing.

The reason I like this bread pudding (and the reason some people might not like it) is that it has texture. Yes, it's creamy and sweet but it also has the texture of raisins and pecans, and was made with a whole-grain baguette to give it some bite. It ended up with some nice crunchy edges, and when complimented with the velvety whiskey sauce was a great contrast of textures.

So here is my bread pudding pudding recipe for people with issues. Adapted from Bon Appetit magazine.


Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce

• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 1/3 cup Irish Whiskey (may also use Brandy or Bourbon)

• 12 ounces fresh French bread, cut into 1-inch pieces (I used a whole grain baguette)

• 1 1/2 cups milk (2% is fine)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup whipping cream or half and half
• 3 large eggs
• 2 large egg yolks
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ cup pecans, chopped

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 6 tablespoons Irish Whiskey
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 egg yolks

Combine raisins and 1/3 cup Whiskey in small bowl. Soak for 30 minutes. 

Preheat oven to 375°F. Place bread in large bowl. Whisk milk, 3/4 cup sugar, cream or half and half, eggs, 2 egg yolks, vanilla, and cinnamon in medium bowl to blend. Pour egg mixture over bread. Add raisins and the soaking liquid and pecans; mix gently to coat bread. Let sit about 5 minutes to let the egg mixture soak into the bread. Transfer mixture to greased 9x5x3-inch glass loaf baking dish. (May cover with plastic or foil at this point, place in the refrigerator and bake later).

Cover baking dish with foil. Bake pudding 40 minutes. Remove foil and bake until top is golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 30 minutes longer. Cool slightly. 

(Now comes the “double boiler” part of the recipe, and don’t get excited about it in the least. If you don’t have a double boiler, all you need is a pot and a glass, ceramic or stainless steel bowl that will fit on top of the pot without falling in. Put water in your pot, bring it up to a simmer so it will fill the pot with steam. Place your bowl over the pot and the steam will gently melt your butter and you can make your sauce without breaking it. How easy is that?)

Melt butter in top of double boiler set over simmering water. Add 6 tablespoons bourbon, 1/2 cup sugar and 2 egg yolks. Whisk until mixture thickens slightly and turns a lemony-yellow color.

Cut hot or warm bread pudding into 8 slices. Transfer to plates. Spoon Whiskey sauce each portion and serve.

Fettuccine Alfredo with a Kick

Fettuccine Alfredo is something I never, ever order in a restaurant.  Unless assured that it is a genuine Mom and Pop, homestyle Italian place that makes things from scratch, what you get is a goopy, starchy mess of white sauce made out of God Knows What that is either a) too salty or b) tastes like kindergarten paste. Same thing with jarred sauces. Blech.

The real stuff, however, is a rich, decadent plate of heaven.  It was created in 1914 in Rome by Alfred Di Lelio, who's wife had just had a baby.  She was exhausted and without an appetite, so he whipped up a dish of egg noodles, extra-rich butter, and the best parmigiano cheese he could find.  His wife felt better -- and really, who wouldn't? -- and he started serving the dish in his restaurant. Because most cooks could not reproduce the richness of the original butter, today the dish almost always contains heavy cream.

True Fettuccine Alfredo has only a few ingredients: butter, cheese, cream and salt and pepper although many cooks have variations: garlic, grilled chicken or shrimp or vegetables.  And although I like doing it old school with this recipe, today I thought I would try a New Mexican twist on it: green chiles.  Not enough to be a punch in the face but enough to say "...is there something different in this?  Because it's really good."

Because it's such a simple recipe, the ingredients are vital.  Real butter (don't even think of any butter-like substance as a substitute) and the best Parmigiano-Reggiano you can get your hands on.  You only need 4 ounces so it's within reach, and totally worth it. I've used both heavy cream and half-and-half and honestly can't tell the difference if I'm using quality cheese. 

Yes, I know it's laden with fat and calories.  But here's the thing: I make it once, maybe twice a year.  Call tomorrow a salad and fruit day and enjoy yourself.  

Fettuccine Alfredo with a Kick

adapted from the Joy of Cooking  

• 1 pound fettuccine, fresh or dry 
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 1 cup heavy cream or half-and-half 
• 1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 2 New Mexican green chiles, roasted, peeled, seeds removed and finely chopped.  
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1. In a large pot, cook the pasta to al dente  in salted water according to directions.

2. Just before the pasta is done, melt butter in a skillet over medium-low heat.  When the butter is melted, add the cream or half-and-half and the green chiles and heat on low.  Do not boil. 

3. Drain the pasta and put it in a serving bowl.  Add half the cheese and toss.  Add the butter/cream and toss. Add the rest of the cheese and salt and pepper to taste.  The sauce will thicken as it is absorbed into the pasta.  Serve immediately.

I called everyone to the table and then mixed it "tableside" and everyone enjoyed watching it come together. 

The green chile was enough to give a little surprise bite but was not overwhelming.  You can choose hot or mild chiles, depending on your preference. 

Would you like a toddy?

It's definitely cold season here.  Even though I've been a nurse for many years and have a strong immune system, I've realized that adult cooties and first-grade cooties are entirely different.  So all the germs that my daughter brings home gets spread around here, and surprisingly I've been catching colds. Which is so not like me.  

Everyone knows that there are no cures for colds, and as we like to say in the medical community, all we can do for them is "supportive care."  Which brings me to today's post. 

My Grandfather was an old-time Irish country doctor.  When he graduated from medical school in 1931, he basically had whiskey and aspirin to treat his patients.  Sulfa and Penicillin?  Not for awhile.  So, needless to say, the phrase "do you need a toddy?" was uttered quite a bit in our household.  (And yes, I know it's the Proddy whiskey I'm using.... just goes to show how far I've fallen).  

So here is a bit of my Irish, and medical, heritage if you will.  The hot toddy, Grandpa Whalen style. 

Hot Toddy

Combine in a cup or mug:

• 1 jigger Irish Whiskey
• 1 jigger fresh lemon juice
• 1 heaping tablespoon honey

Pour boiling water over ingredients and stir.  Adjust honey and lemon to taste, and float a slice of lemon in there. Drink one and go to bed.  It will knock that cold right out of you. 

 

Sláinte!

German Apple Pancake (Pfannekuchen)

It's a perfectly cold and windy fall day here.  Despite the calendar, our chickens continue to give us three eggs a day.  We have plenty of beautiful apples around.  And I've been wanting to make a pfannekuchen, and decided that, having an idle Monday morning, I'd go ahead and experiment with this recipe that looked to be simple and tasty.  

This isn't an American pancake.  Apples are sauteed with butter and cinnamon in a cast-iron pan,  batter is poured over it and it is finished up in the oven.  A squirt of lemon juice, some powdered sugar and you have a rich, eggy, delicious breakfast that is super easy to make. I wish I had tried this recipe when it first came on my radar, about 15 years ago.

Pfannekuchen (adapted from Gourmet magazine)

1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, divided

1 large sweet apple, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/4-inch-wide wedges (I used an organic Fuji apple)

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 TB raw or turbinado sugar

1/2 cup milk (2% is fine)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

4 large eggs

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon salt

Fresh lemon juice and confectioners sugar

1. Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 450°F. 

2. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in skillet over moderate heat. Add apple wedges to skillet and cook, turning over once, until beginning to soften, 3 to 5 minutes.Sprinkle with cinnamon and turbinado sugar.

3.  While apple is cooking, add milk, 2 tablespoons melted butter,  flour, eggs, granulated sugar, vanilla, and salt to blender and blend until smooth. 

4.  Pour batter over apple and transfer skillet to oven. Bake until pancake is puffed and golden, about 15 minutes. Dust with confectioners sugar, squeeze on some fresh lemon juice and serve immediately. 

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

What could be better on an autumn morning than spicy pumpkin muffins?  With all the pumpkin around this time of year, this is the perfect time to make these flavorful, not-too-sweet muffins.

 

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

adapted from epicurious.com

·         1/3 cup golden raisins, soaked in orange liquor or rum for 15 minutes and drained if needed

·         1  ½  cups all-purpose flour

·         ½ cup whole wheat flour

·         2 teaspoon baking powder

·         ¼  teaspoon baking soda

·         1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

·         ¾  teaspoon ground ginger

·         1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

·         1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

·         ½  teaspoon salt

·         1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled

·         ¾  cup packed light brown sugar

·         ¾  cup canned pure pumpkin

·         ¼  cup well-shaken buttermilk

·         2 large eggs

·         1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

·         1/3  cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter muffin pan if not nonstick, or add paper muffin cups. 

Whisk together flours, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt in a large bowl. 

In a separate bowl, whisk together butter, brown sugar, pumpkin, buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla. 

Add to dry ingredients and stir until just combined, then stir in raisins and pecans. 

Divide batter among muffin cups bake until a wooden pick comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool slightly on a rack.

Bacon, Lettuce and (fried green) Tomato sandwich

I've never had fried green tomatoes before.  I've heard of them, of course, but being from the Midwest, and coming from a household where the only thing we ever really "fried" was fresh fish, it has remained on my periphery all these years.  Until this week, when there were green tomatoes in my Los Poblanos produce box.  So I thought I would give them a try in the form of a ramped-up BLT.

I've never gotten a good look at a sliced green tomato and they were beautiful!

Making the fried green tomatoes themselves are pretty easy.  Since I was making bacon anyway, I cooked the bacon and saved the drippings in the pan and cooked the tomatoes in there.  Cooking oil can be used, too, but the bacon fat really added some great flavor to the tomatoes.

Bacon, Lettuce and (fried green) Tomato Sandwich

Green tomatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick
Bacon, cooked and drained
Leaf lettuce, washed and patted dry
Rustic Bread (I used a sourdough loaf)
Herbed mayonaise or dressing (I made a chipotle ranch dressing)

To fry the tomatoes, slice them 1/4 inch thick.  Salt and pepper them lightly.
Set up three shallow bowls with the following ingredients, in order:

1. Flour.  I use Western Star Seasoned Flour for this.
2. Buttermilk with a few generous shakes of hot sauce.
3. A half and half mixture of cornmeal and Panko bread crumbs.

Heat your pan with the bacon fat (or oil, if you prefer) to medium high.  Coat the tomatoes in the flour, buttermilk and crumbs, in order, and fry until golden brown, about 3 minutes each side.  Drain on paper towels and use to assemble your sandwich.

The sandwich was a delightful blend of textures and flavors.  The tartness of the tomatoes was tempered by the saltiness of the bacon, the chipotle ranch added a bit of zing and it was all cooled off a bit by the lettuce. My husband (AKA the test kitchen) gave me one of those looks when I told him we were having green tomato sandwiches for dinner but he was completely sold. I can't wait for more of them to come my way!

fresh fig jam

I get a wonderful box of organic produce each week from Los Poblanos , a local farm that delivers the best locally grown produce, either from their farm or from neighboring farms to the people of Albuquerque.  It's wonderful--a way to eat local and organic, and a way for me to use things I normally wouldn't use.

In this week's box was a pint of figs.  I like figs, fresh from the box but no one else in my family was really eating them up so I thought I would do something different today and decided on a refrigerator jam. The recipes I found were for pounds and pounds of them, so I cut it all down to what I had: a pint of figs.  It weighed a little less than one pound, probably because I had already eaten some.

Fresh Fig Jam

1 pint of figs, stemmed and quartered
1/2 cup sugar
1 TB lemon juice
2 TB Orange Liqueur (I used triple sec)
1 pinch kosher salt

Put all the ingredients in a bowl, stir and let sit for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Put in a nonreactive pot and cook about 25 minutes until the figs are soft.  Adjust the sugar if needed.  Remove from heat and process with an immersion blender (or mash finely by hand) until the skins are finely pureed.

Since it is a small batch, I plan to use is quickly and just put it in a jar in the refrigerator. 

The jam itself is wonderful...bright and deep red, not that brown stuff I was expecting.  Sweet but not overpowering, with the texture of the seeds in it.

Mixed Berry Galette

There are still plenty of great berries out there, so I thought I would try my hand at a galette this week. I had a wonderful mix of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries available and a galette is so much easier than a pie for several reasons: you only have to make one crust, and since it is "rustic" you can get away with having things a little messy.  Which, frankly, it was on a warm afternoon in my kitchen.

It was wonderful, though. Not too sweet, and the berry flavor really came through.  I used a butter crust (I'm usually a lard girl for pastry crust) and it was silky and smooth. Perfect!


 Mixed Berry Galette

Oven: 425 degrees, rack in lower third of oven.

Prepare butter pie dough:
Stir together
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 t. salt

Add:
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut up
2 TB vegetable shortening 

I mix this all in my food processor until all is in pea-sized bits. (You can also do it old-school and cut it in with a pastry blender or use your fingers.  I love doing it in a food processor and find the results to be fantastic.)

Sprinkle with:
3 TB ice water

Blend just until it holds together.  You may need to add another 1 tsp to 1 TB of water to hold ingredients together.  Shape it into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and chill until needed. 

Prepare the berries:

Use any mix of berries you like to equal 3 cups.  Wash and pat dry.  If using larger berries like strawberries, cut them up so they are all approximately the same size.

Mix in a bowl with:
2 TB cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
1 TB lemon zest
1 TB lemon juice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

Take your dough out of the refrigerator and roll out into a 10-12 inch disc. Line a large baking sheet with foil and butter the foil. Put the disc of dough on the pan, then put the berry mix on the dough. Fold the dough up over the berries, forming a rough 1 inch border around the berries.