Week 1: Rosemary Apples and Indian Pudding

I think a little bit more of an introduction to the purpose of this blog is in order. I am a recent college graduate, and because I will be living at home for the next few years (I moved back with my parents in order to attend vet school), I want to make sure my cooking skills don’t get rusty. I have been used to making  myself really simple meals while away at school. Think a four-meal rotation of pasta, quesadillas, bagel or pita pizza, and rice with beans. It wasn't bad, but I want to do so much more. I mean, I have to move out someday, right? I want to make sure I can cook more complex things for myself and add some spice to my eating. As a side note, a lot of these recipes will be vegetarian. I am not a vegetarian myself, but I find that a lot of meatless meals are easier, quicker, and more healthful, at least from my own subjective experience. I'm sure you could add your own spin to many of these recipes by adding meat, though. This blog is all about how you can make cooking whatever you like and still fit within your budget and feed yourself well.

That said, let's get cooking!

The rosemary apple recipe comes from the cookbook Kitchen of Light by Norwegian celebrity chef Andreas Viestad. I’ve enjoyed watching his show New Scandinavian Cooking on TPT for some time now. The book itself was an early birthday present from my grandmother. Anyway, I thought I’d start off with a very simple-yet-versatile recipe. These apples are good with salmon or chicken, over a plain breakfast cereal like Cheerios brand, or on top of pancakes or waffles.

Ingredients (for four people):

Four apples of your choice (I used Fuji, but I don’t think it matters the type; whatever you like best will probably be great)

Two tablespoons of butter

One sprig of rosemary

1. Heat the butter and apples on medium-high heat on a stovetop

2. After the butter has melted, stir it into the apples so as to coat them evenly

3. Add the sprig of rosemary

4. Cover and cook for about 5-7 minutes, depending on how tender you want your apples (I like them fairly soft with just a little bit of “bite” to them)—by the way, the lid doesn’t have to be all the way on…it’s good to let some of the water vapor escape so that the apples cook down without being soggy.

That’s pretty much it! I really like these apples because the savory flavor of the rosemary adds a new dimension to the sweetness of the fruit.

The Indian pudding recipe is a little more involved, but I wanted to try it as a challenge. Also, I’ve been eyeballing it for some time on the cooking blog “Simply Recipes.” This awesome woman named Elise Bauer who lives in California has all these great recipes. They seem really accessible, and she always makes the food seasonal, so you know you’ll be using fresh ingredients that are readily available (i.e., not that expensive!). I owe basically everything that I make to her ingenuity.

The recipe that follows is copied almost exactly from “Simply Recipes”: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/indian_pudding/

Ingredients (for 8-10 people, but don’t try to make it smaller because you can’t halve the eggs…):

"6 cups of milk [(your choice…I used 2% because my family likes it, but if you wanted it lighter, I’m sure you could use skim; alternatively, you could use whole milk if you like things extra creamy)]

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1/2 cup yellow cornmeal [(I used polenta; it's basically the same thing)]

1/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup molasses

3 eggs, beaten

1/3 cup of granulated sugar

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of nutmeg

Golden raisins [(if desired, I did not add these the first time because my family doesn’t like them…but I will next time because I do!)]

1. Heat the milk and butter in a large pot on high heat until the mixture is boiling. Thereafter, keep hot on medium heat.

2. Preheat oven to 250°F [(low and slow on this one!)].

3. In a separate bowl, mix cornmeal, flour, and salt; stir in molasses. Thin the mixture with about 1/2 cup of scalded milk, a few tablespoons at a time, then gradually add the mixture back to the large pot of scalded milk. Cook, stirring until thickened.

4. Temper the eggs by slowly adding a half cup of the hot milk cornmeal mixture to the beaten eggs, whisking constantly [the italics are mine]. Add the egg mixture back in with the hot milk cornmeal mixture, stir to combine. Stir in the sugar and spices, until smooth. . . Stir in the raisins (optional). Pour into a 2 1/2 quart shallow casserole dish. Bake for 2 hours at 250°F. 

5. Allow the pudding to cool about an hour to be at its best. It should be reheated to warm temperature if it has been chilled. Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream."

Note: Follow all the directions involving eggs very carefully. Because this is an egg-based dessert, you have to add them slowly with constant mixing to avoid ending up with scrambled eggs in your pudding!! Another thing to watch out for is bubbling. This mixture may “spit up” add you while you are stirring it, so be very cautious not to let the hot liquid burn your skin. I was not as wary as I should have been and ended up with a painful tiny blister on my finger because of it. Be safe!!

This is a really hard recipe to make by yourself because you always have to be watching the milk mixture on the stove. I tried it solo the first time, and everything turned out great, but I would have liked a helping hand to tend the stove when I was thinning the molasses and cornmeal mixture. However, my family (Mom, Dad, and younger brother David) really liked this recipe. I enjoyed it fairly well, but you should really eat this with ice cream because otherwise you will be sad. I think the texture sort of threw me off. If you don’t like custard or pumpkin pie, you probably will not like this pudding. Also, the molasses has a bitter bite to it, so be aware of that. I think I would add vanilla to the pudding next time, just to try to round out the molasses. My first reaction was more sugar, especially since Elise from “Simply Recipes” is known to be pretty sparse with the stuff. I, on the other hand, have a pretty serious sweet tooth. But I think adding vanilla first before trying the sugar would be best. After all, it is baking, so measures must be pretty exact, or the whole thing won’t work. That said, I like the idea of this dessert because it is such a throwback recipe to the time of the pioneers. This is what our American ancestors were eating when they first came to the New World and learning how to cultivate the land using the wisdom of the Native Americans. I think this would be a great dessert to serve at Thanksgiving as an alternative to the traditional pumpkin pie, especially since it makes so much.

The finished product, touched up with some Instagram magic. Enjoy! Photo enhanced by Instagram filtering.

P.S. I apologize about the weirdness with the font changing and all that. I tried to fix it, but it's a no-go. Hopefully the next post will be more uniform.