Pecan Pie Bars

This Thanksgiving, Sarah Nejaime surprised us with her delicious pecan pie bars. She said she made them one evening with her school friends, she found the recipe on justataste.com by Kelly Senyei. Totally wonderful!

Ingredients
For the Crust
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the Topping
1 stick (1/2) cup unsalted butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
2 tablespoons heavy cream
2 cups chopped pecans

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a 9x13 inch pan with foil, leaving enough for a 2 inch overhang on all sides.

First make the crust by creaming together the butter and brown sugar until fluffy in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add in the flour and salt and mix until crumbly.
Press the crust into the foil lined pan and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown.

While the crust bakes, prepare the filling by combining the butter, brown sugar, honey and heavy cream in a saucepan and stirring it over medium heat. Simmer the mixture for 1 minute, then stir in the chopped pecans.

Remove the crust from the oven and immediately pour the pecan filling over the hot crust spreading it to cover the entire surface.
Return the pan to the oven and bake an additional 20 minutes.
Remove the pan and allow the bars to fully cool in the pan.

Use the foil overhang to lift out the bars and transfer them to a cutting board. Peel off the foil, slice into bars and serve.

Pork Tenderloin with Pears and Cider

I still have pears left from the huge basket Jocelyne gave me from her garden.
These pears are quite firm and really cook well, they don’t end up mushy or falling apart.
Continuing to search for a savory dish to make with them, I found this recipe is by Laraine Perri from Fine Cooking. It’s quite quick to make and also a delicious fall dish.


Ingredients

1 pork tenderloin
1 teaspoon olive oil
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons butter
3 firm Anjou pears, peeled, cored and cut into 8 wedges
3 shallots chopped
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar (I used champagne vinegar)
2/3 cup apple cider
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 cup sliced cooked mushrooms (optional)

Directions

Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pat the pork dry with a paper towel, rub it with olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper. Heat a heavy-duty skillet over medium-high heat until very hot, then sear the pork on all sides until golden brown, about 6 minutes total. Transfer to a small rimmed baking sheet and roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part registers 140 degrees Fahrenheit, 10 -15 minutes (I checked after 10 minutes and next time, I would roast for 13 minutes). Transfer the pork to a cutting board, tent with foil, and let rest for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt 1 tablespoon butter in the skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pears in a single layer and cook, flipping once, until just tender and lightly browned, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate and keep warm.

Collard Greens with Spiced Pears

This weekend, I was given a beautiful

basket of very large home grown pears. They were quite firm - I thought they would be perfect for cooking. So I made a batch of butternut squash and pear soup.
There were still many pears left over and I began searching around for a savory way to use the pears.  I found this recipe by Mary Ellen Driscoll, posted on Fine Cooking. She uses slivered almonds, lightly toasted to
sprinkle on afterwards, but I chose not to use almonds. The pears are a pleasant addition to collard greens. Mostly when I’ve tried making collards, they seem a bit bitter, but the spiced pears gave the greens just the right balance of not too sweet and not too bitter.

Ingredients

1 bunch of collard greens - trimmed, center stalk removed and cut crosswise into strips
4 pears, peeled, seeded and cut lengthwise into 12 slices
3 shallots
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch of cayenne
pinch of ground cloves
salt and pepper
2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup slivered almonds toasted (optional)

Directions

Melt 3 tablespoons unsalted butter in a skillet and stir in cinnamon, cayenne and cloves. In a medium bowl, gently toss the pears with the spiced butter mixture and add 1/4 teaspoon salt and a shake of pepper.

Place the pears in a layer in the skillet and add 2 shallots chopped. Cook undisturbed over medium-low heat until the pears are golden on one side (about 3 minutes) then gently turn the pears over and cook until pears are golden brown. Transfer the pears and shallots to a plate. Add the remaining chopped shallots to the pan and saute till golden brown, add 1/3 cups water to the pan and stir scraping the bottom of the pan. Transfer the shallots and any liquid to a small bowl. Wipe the skillet clean.

Heat the oil in the skillet over medium heat until shimmering hot. Add half of the collard greens (which you have trimmed, removed the center stalk, and cut the leaves into strips crosswise.)quickly stirring and turning. Once the greens have begun to wilt, after about 30 seconds, add the remaining greens, turning and stirring briefly. Pour the shallots and liquid over the greens. Reduce the heat to a gently simmer and cover with a tight-fitting lid. Braise until the collards are tender, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper and stir in the pears.
Serve with almonds scattered on top (optional)

Amazing Paleo Chocolate Cupcakes (gluten-free, dairy-free)

While searching for a gluten free dairy/ free cake to make at Thanksgiving for our cousin. My daughter found this recipe for me. It was originally a cake recipe, but my granddaughters and I decided to experiment with cupcakes and see how they would taste. We were very doubtful they would be any good.
We had great fun making them and they were indeed amazing. Moist, rich, and delicious. We have decided to stick with cupcakes rather than a cake . . . easier to pick up . . .
The blog we found this recipe on is downshiftology.com by Lisa Bryan. She says she suffered with 4 different autoimmune diseases in her mid thirties and, by changing her diet, especially eliminating gluten, she is pain free and healthy. She has several other recipes, it’s worth visiting this site, her amazing chocolate cake batter is excellent.

Ingredients
Dry Ingredients

3 cups almond flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup coconut flour
2 cups coconut sugar
1 1/2 cups raw cacao
(I used cacao powder)
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon expresso powder
(I used instant ground expresso)
1 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients
4 large eggs (I used egg replacer powder)
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
1 cup water
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Line mini cupcake baking dishes with mini liners
(Or if making a cake, grease three 8 inch cake pans and line the bottom with parchment paper)
Add all of the dry ingredients to a very large mixing bowl and whisk together (note the bowl must be large as it is indeed quite a mountain of dry ingredients!)
In a separate mixing bowl, add all of the wet ingredients and mix well together. Then pour the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk together for one to two minutes to make the batter.
Spoon the batter into the cupcakes and bake in the oven till a toothpick comes out clean. Depending on your oven, 15 - 20 minutes.
If making a cake, bake for 28-30 minutes. If using 2 9-inch pans, bake for 35 minutes.
Let the cupcakes cool frost the cupcakes. I used a store bought vegan organic frosting.
This blog does have a recipe for vegan chocolate buttercream frosting, but I haven’t tried it yet.

Ukrainian Stuffed Sweet Peppers

Cubanelle peppers comes in many colors as they ripen.
A tapered pepper, it is sweet and mild, its thin wall
is especially suitable for quick cooking. Cubanelle

peppers are unique, growing in imperfect shapes and
changing color from green/yellow to shades of orange
and red. Popular in dishes of Spanish, Italian and
Slavic kitchens. I first tasted this made by our cousin,
Natasha, who remembers her mother making it in the
Ukraine. She used ground veal and chopped carrots.
I loved it but used the meat loaf combination of ground
beef, veal and pork mix instead. I used fresh stewed
plum tomatoes instead of canned crushed tomatoes. (see previous recipe for tomato sauce)
I think you can also use Italian sweet peppers as an alternative.

Ingredients

1 lb ground veal (or 1 lb ground beef/pork/veal mix)
6 Sweet Cubanelle Peppers or Italian sweet peppers
1 egg
1/4 cup rice
olive oil
1 large onion finely chopped
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 teasp. paprika                                
1 teasp.salt
1/2 teasp. ground pepper
1 teasp. oregano
2 large cans crushed tomatoes (or fresh stewed plum tomatoes)


Directions

Core the peppers and remove the seeds and membrane.
For the filling, warm 3 tablespoon olive oil in a pan and saute onions until golden brown, add the chopped garlic and keep stirring for 2 minutes.
In a large bowl, beat 1 egg and add the ground meat, 1/4 cup rice, 1 teaspoon paprika, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper. Mix well together. Add the onions and garlic and mix again. Before filling the peppers, add 3 tablespoons of the tomato sauce. The rice tends to swell during cooking and can make the filling quite solid.
Using your hands, stuff the peppers, loosely.Any left over meat mixture, I saute in a pan and add to the tomato sauce.
Add salt, pepper, paprika and oregano to the sauce.Place the stuffed peppers in a saucepan and cover completely with the tomato sauce, if not covered, add a little water.
Simmer for at least 1 1/2 hours, or until the rice is done, check the skin of the pepper desired tenderness (I like the pepper to be slightly crunchy) and cut one pepper in half to make sure the meat is done.
Serve with pasta.
I also added mushrooms and chopped asparagus, both sauteed first to the sauce.
It’s a fabulous dish, either eaten with no additions, or adding other vegetables, could be mushrooms, corn, asparagus, beans etc.

Stuffed peppers uncooked before sauce has been added

Fresh Tomato Sauce

It is late September and the market is full of bushels of ripe, red plum tomatoes. I like to make sauce from these, freeze them for the winter to use in spaghetti sauce, chili, soups, added to stuffed egg plant, lubi..... basically anything you need tomatoes to enhance the taste. Tomato sauce can be substituted by canned plum tomatoes or crushed tomatoes, but nothing reaches the delicious taste of sauce made from fresh plum tomatoes.
I bought a half bushel of plum tomatoes at the farmer’s market.

Directions:
Fill a large saucepan with water and bring it to the boil
Reduce the heat so the water is barely simmering.
Gently drop 6 tomatoes into the water and leave for a minute, then remove and let drain in a colander. Repeat this process till all tomatoes are done.

Next, with a sharp knife, slit the skin lengthways so there are four slits running vertically down the tomato. Then peel off the skin completely, also slicing out the top part.

Chop the tomatoes and place in a saucepan on low heat, start off covered, stirring from time to time, then remove the lid and let the water evaporate.

From this point you can freeze the tomatoes for later use, or make spaghetti sauce, chili, soup. . . . .  Nothing beats it!

Pickled Hungarian Pickles

This is Mary Anne Garofalo's recipe, my wonderful, creative neighbor and dear friend.
I'm writing this on the second week of August, the Hungarian Peppers are ready locally at the farms. I got mine yesterday from Emmi's Farm Stand on Buckley Road, their peppers are always good, nice and crisp . .
I got enough peppers for one jar, maybe a dozen and sliced them first, placed them in the jar and with a measuring cup figured out how much liquid the jar would need. So for one jar, you need 3 cups water and 3 cups white vinegar. The rest of the ingredients are the same.
So for each jar, put one clove garlic, 1 teaspoon pickling salt, 1/2 teaspoon salicylic acid (this keeps the peppers green and crunchy), 1 basil leaf and 1 sprig oregano, also 1 teaspoon sugar if you wish. Once opened keep in fridge.
Mary Anne uses this on top of pizza.
As the peppers go down, I have also added raw cauliflower to the jar, which was most popular among those people who love hot flavors.

Make sure you wear rubber gloves when working with these peppers! After you have sliced the peppers, change the gloves to fill the jars. If the juice by some error gets into your eyes, flush your eye with milk, keep blinking...... The jars can be stored in a cool place, once you have opened the jar, keep in refrigerator.

Ingredients

8  2qt pickling jars
1/2 bushel Hungarian peppers
Pickling salt
salicylic acid
16 cups water
16 cups white vinegar
8 cloves garlic
1 basil leaf (optional)
1 sprig oregano (optional)
1 teasp. sugar (optional, and cuts down on heat)


Directions

Wash 8  2qt. pickling jars in the dishwasher to sterilize.
Slice of each end of pepper, wash thoroughly and slice 1/2 inch thick. Leave seeds in.
In a large pot, bring 16 cups of vinegar and 16 cups water to the boil.

In the bottom of each jar, place a garlic clove sliced in half, 1 tablespoon pickling salt and 1/2 teaspoon salicylic acid. (the basil leaf and oregano sprig may be added also if you choose to use them). Pack the jars with the sliced peppers. Spoon boiling water and vinegar mixture into the jars so the level of liquid is right to the top. Leave to let the bubbles rise, add a little more liquid and place the lid firmly on top, twisting tight. Turn the jar upside down to seal the lid and leave overnight.
Store in a cool place. Does not need to be refrigerated until you have opened the jar.