Chicken Tikka, a Few Months Late

2015 has not been a banner year for blogging. It has, however, been a banner year for cooking and eating – and this particular evening has been noteworthy for the multiple power outages (and lost documents)(so if this recipe gets posted with no introduction it will be because I’m tired of typing this over and over... and also because there's a lot of Pinot Noir involved in this evening, thank you Katie and Brian!)

I’ve been lucky enough to land a few cooking gigs this year, which has simultaneously (1) made me happy that I get to cook for people and (2) made me glad I don’t do this full-time/for a living. The apex of my personal cooking year is always the church service auction in November, an annual descent into madness wherein I cook a LOT of food for a LOT of people. This year’s theme was India Bazaar; and when I went to lunch with my friend Kristi shortly afterwards, she remarked that she adored chicken tikka masala and was going to order it and wouldn’t it be a great thing to know how to make? Naturally I offered to share my chicken tikka recipe, and naturally it has taken me 2 months to actually get around to posting it.

This particular recipe was served as an appetizer, but I imagine you could make a fine main dish of it, whether or not you get around to rustling up some masala sauce. Because I don’t recall where I found the recipe or how much chicken was involved, there’s a bit of guesswork involved here.  The other lesson I’ve learned this year is that it’s OK to trust my – your – instincts – so however you improvise or adjust, I’m sure this is going to be just delicious. Do be sure to plan in advance, as there's a lot of sitting around in marinade involved. 

Chicken Tikka

Boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch chunks – I believe this amount of marinade ingredients will accommodate a couple of pounds of meat
2 tsp paprika
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt

**

1 cup plain yogurt
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp salt
4 tbsp ginger paste
4 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp garam masala
2 tbsp canola or other neutral oil

**

4 tbsp butter, melted
½ tsp chaat masala

For the first marinade:

Combine the paprika, lemon juice, and salt with the chicken. Marinate 1-4 hours.

For the second marinade:

Combine the remaining ingredients EXCEPT the butter and chaat masala. Let marinate 4-6 hours.

Remove the chicken from the marinade and thread onto skewers (if you’re using wooden ones, make sure you’ve soaked them for at least half an hour). Rest the ends of the skewers on a baking dish and cook the chicken at 400 for 10-12 minutes.

Baste the chicken with the melted butter and cook 2 minutes more.

Remove the chicken from the skewers, sprinkle with the chaat masala, and serve with sliced onions and lemon wedges. 

Apple, Peach, and Apricot Chutney; and Why Thankgiving Dinner for 16 Feels Totally Mellow This Year

When most people think of cooking for a crowd in November, Thanksgiving springs immediately to mind - the holiday with all your loved ones gathered around the table, oohing and aahing over a perfectly bronzed turkey (which somehow you're holding on a big damn platter with apparent ease, without straining anything, and plenty of room on the table for said platter - oh, those deceitful magazine photo spreads!). I love Thanksgiving. I love cooking for my family, bronzed turkey, strained back, etc. etc. But my annual Big Damn Dinner is part of a fundraiser for 120 of my nearest and dearest at church, and this year I made Indian food.

Back when I started cooking in earnest it was the showy and high-maintenance foodie 90s, during which time I was led to believe that black truffle oil was as essential as fresh garlic, and that every dinner party had to be an overdone masterpiece, guaranteed to awe my guests and put me in the poorhouse. (My apologies to people that survived those years. Give me another chance and I swear it'll be so much more chill.) I've mostly gotten over this, but Indian recipes are usually full of things that I don't recognize and sometimes I just can't resist the allure of an entire meal of hard-to-find and hard-to-pronounce ingredients.

Naturally, making a meal like this for 120 people seemed a fine idea.

Here's what we had:
Minced lamb with peas
Potato and eggplant curry
Cauliflower with mustard and fennel
Spicy green beans
Red lentil dal
Steamed rice
Chutney
Yogurt with cucumber and mint
Coriander chutney
Pickled onions
Tomato, onion, and parsley relish

Never mind that scaling a recipe up by 15 makes it about 18,000 times more complicated. Nobody went hungry, nobody died, and nobody complained to my face, so I'm going to call this year's event a success. The most popular item was the samosas - an appetizer which I didn't make, because I'm not a glutton for that much punishment - but the chutney was also a big hit. As I doubt you need a gallon of it, here's the original recipe; it's wonderful with plain steamed rice and dal and poppadums, which is what we're going to live on until I regain enough energy to cook again. Adapted very slightly from Madhur Jaffrey's very wonderful and approachable Indian Cooking, which was my very first Indian cookbook.

Apple, Peach, and Apricot Chutney 

1 1/4 lbs. Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
4 oz. dried peaches, cut into 4-6 pieces depending on how big they are
4 oz. dried apricots, cut into quarters
2 oz. raisins
6 cloves garlic, mashed into a pulp, or the equivalent amount of jarred garlic paste
2-inch cube fresh ginger, peeled and grated, or the equivalent amount of jarred ginger paste
14 oz. white wine vinegar
14 oz. granulated sugar
2 teaspoons salt

Put all the ingredients in a large heavy pot and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and cook until it has a thick, jam-like consistency (anywhere from 30-90 minutes). Stir it fairly often so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan or you'll be scrubbing the pan forever.

When the chutney cools it will thicken up a bit more. Store it in a canning jar in the fridge. where it will last for much longer than it will possibly take you to eat it.

My Michigan Wine Tasting Party, Part 4: Pomegranate and Orange-Glazed Pork

Out of all the food I made for the wine tasting, this is the only one that made me think, “Wow, this is kind of fussy.” Looking at it again – it’s so clearly NOT (perhaps the fact that I was cooking 7 dishes skewed my perspective a bit…?). With a little advance planning, this makes a fantastic grilled dinner, nice enough for company but easy enough for a weeknight. The key is to remember to start the marinade the night before; you can also make the basting sauce in advance and keep it in the fridge until you need it.

A word about pomegranate molasses: This is pomegranate juice which has been reduced to a thick, molasses-like consistency. You can find it in the ethnic food section of some grocery stores, though we get ours from the local Middle Eastern market. This is such a great ingredient to have on hand – it makes its way into all sorts of sauces and salad dressings and marinades. We also mix it with a little simple syrup and add some sparkling water for a tart iced drink, and add it to lemonade for extra color and a pop of flavor. I blogged a recipe from the marvelous Tori Avey a couple of years ago with roasted Brussels sprouts drizzled with pomegranate molasses. Honestly, it’s so good – go buy some. You’ll use it everywhere.

This is another recipe from Perfect Pairings, which is one of the very few cookbooks that’s made me want to cook every single recipe in it. I’ve modified it slightly to make more basting sauce, since the original recipe didn’t have nearly enough to suit me. I also didn’t include cooking times, since it’s going to depend on whether you have a pork roast or pork tenderloins (and yes, this would also be brilliant on pork chops, which will cook even faster).

We tried a couple of different wines with this and they were all very good, so I feel like you can really go with whatever makes you happy. In love with a Riesling right now? It would be very good. Have a nice lighter Pinot Noir itching to make an appearance? Bust it out. In the end I went with my I-can’t-decide-what-to-pour/go-to wine: a rose, specifically Chateau deLeelanau Cabernet Franc Rose, which I think is the most perfect springtime wine ever. Here's a picture of me at work, posed with it. I didn't see it for sale on CDL's website, so you'll just have to come visit me at work and buy some there if you'd like to try it. 

Pomegranate and Orange-Glazed Pork

MARINADE
½ cup orange juice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons fresh grated ginger
2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
2 tablespoons hot mustard
Grated zest of 1 orange
2 teaspoons finely minced garlic 

BASTING SAUCE
1 cup fresh orange juice
6 tablespoons honey
6 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons reserved marinade 

1 3-lb pork roast or 2  1 ½ pound pork tenderloins

Combine the marinade ingredients and reserve 4 tablespoons to add to the sauce. Coat the meat with the marinade (a large Ziploc is perfect for this) and refrigerate overnight. Let the meat come to room temperature for 30 minutes before you start cooking.

Whisk together the basting sauce ingredients. Set aside ¼ cup of the sauce.

Grill or broil the pork loin, turning and basting frequently, until the internal temperature reaches 140. Obviously the time for this is going to vary quite a bit depending on what kind of meat you’re using, but it took less than 15 minutes to do the tenderloins under the broiler.

When the meat is done, transfer it to a cutting board and let it rest for 10 minutes. While the meat is resting, put the reserved basting sauce into a small saucepan; bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer until the sauce is reduced by half and is a nice syrupy consistency (you can also do this in advance and just heat it a little bit before serving, but at this point you're probably in the kitchen finishing up your side dishes anyway).

Slice the meat thickly and spoon the reduced sauce over it. 

My Michigan Wine Tasting Party, Part 3: Chinese Chicken Salad in Wonton Cups

Posting the recipes from this event is going to take waaay longer than locating and cooking said recipes, what with the travelling and the beginning of the end-of-the-school-year madness and people at work getting sick so I’m working extra shifts and the weather sometimes getting nicer so I feel obligated to clean things in my house. The world is full of distractions these days.

It's surprisingly hard to take attractive pictures of food

This recipe is basically for a salad dressing, because it’s delicious and what you do with it is entirely up to you. I suspect a jar of this is going to live in our refrigerator for a while. I used it on chicken, chopped up and mixed with a little cucumber, green onion, and cilantro and served in wonton cups garnished with some black sesame seeds. The original recipe calls for lettuce and chopped veggies in addition to the chicken, making it an actual salad. It’s a hearty enough dressing that I can see using it on a flank steak on the grill, too.

It’s a pretty intense dressing, so less is more when you’re using it. Tweak the amounts to suit your own taste. The original recipe is from Perfect Pairings: A Master Sommelier's Practical Advice for Pairing Wine with Food by Evan Goldstein and Joyce Goldstein. As the name implies, it's a very straightforward look at food and wine pairings - and the recipes are just fantastic. Highly recommended reading. 

Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing

1 teaspoon finely minced garlic
3 tablespoons finely minced fresh peeled ginger (yes, use the stuff in jars, it’s a million times easier)
2 tablespoons hot mustard (I used Chinese hot mustard because it was in my fridge, but you could also swap out some dry mustard and add a little water)
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons white or rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sesame oil (the dark kind)
Salt to taste

Put everything in a Mason jar and shake to combine. I imagine it'll keep for a week or so in the fridge, but I found myself putting it on everything so it didn't make it that long. 

Wonton cups? Easiest thing ever (but not, alas, gluten-free. If you find GF wonton wrappers somewhere please let me know!).

Photo courtesy of Peninsula Cellars

Brush 2 wonton wrappers very (very, very) lightly with canola or peanut oil (any neutral oil will do). If you have a sprayer that actually sprays instead of dribbling, by all means use it – it’s easy to go overboard with the oil and then your cups will be chewy instead of crispy. Stack the wrappers, turning the top one a little so you get a nifty 8-pointed star, and press into a mini-muffin pan. You can press the corners down a little if you want a more flower-like shape, which means that you’ll only end up using every other cup in the muffin pan. Bake at 350 for 6-7 minutes or until they’re just a little golden brown; these can overcook really quickly so keep an eye on them. Put them on a rack to cool and store in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

I served this with Peninsula Cellars Manigold Vineyard Gewurztraminer, which more people would probably drink if they weren’t afraid of pronouncing it wrong. It turns out that Gewurztraminer is excellent with Asian food; it’s acidic enough to cut through the richness of the sesame oil and soy sauce, and it has a little spicy kick at the end that goes really well with the ginger. Gewurz tends to be very floral-smelling but that’s not to be confused with sweetness in the wine itself; I’ve been trying a lot of them lately and some are definitely sweeter than I prefer, but I’d definitely look for some drier Gewurz if you’re wondering what to serve with Asian food. 

My Michigan Wine Tasting Party, Part 2: Goat Cheese and Avocado Crostini

We have an avocado problem in our house.

Seriously?! Does this really happen?

David makes ridiculously good guacamole and we can easily eat an entire bowl of it while waiting for the rest of dinner to cook (of course, we have to make more to go with dinner…) We put avocado on salads. It goes in tacos. And don’t even get me started on my new obsession, avocado toast. (Since when is this a thing? How did I miss it? Where were all my foodie so-called friends when recipes were being posted everywhere?)

This is a less avocado-centric recipe, although that can vary quite a bit based on your personal preference. If you can find a GF baguette, all the better; but this is equally delicious on crackers or used as a dip for veggies. Use the very mildest goat cheese you can find – otherwise you might as well just call this Green Goat Cheese, because it’s all you’ll taste. (If you can bear to pay for it, Zingerman’s City Goat is perfect but it almost seems a shame to add anything else to cheese that good.)

This was the second course of the wine tasting, and I paired it with 2013 Pinot Blanc from Verterra Winery in Leland (the tasting room is across from the Bluebird, should you be inclined to visit). I liked how the dryness contrasted with the rich creaminess of the dip, and the food really brought out some mineral notes I’d never noticed in the wine when it was served on its own.

The recipe comes from Diva Cooking by Victoria Blashford-Snell and Jennifer Joyce, which is surprisingly practical given the name. It’s the first recipe I’ve tried from this cookbook, which I’m likely to reach for the next time I want a recipe that makes me look impressive but is actually very manageable.

Avocado and Goat Cheese Crostini with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

1 baguette, sliced into ½ -inch pieces
Olive oil
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 large ripe avocado
5 oz. fresh goat cheese
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic, peeled
2 shakes hot sauce of your choice
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 300. Toss the tomatoes with the balsamic vinegar and a drizzle of olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast for 25-30 minutes.

Turn to oven up to 350. Place the bread slices on a baking sheet and brush with olive oil. Bake until crispy and lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

Put the avocado, cheese, lemon zest and juice, garlic, and hot sauce in the food processor and puree until smooth. Salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, put a teaspoon or so of the puree on the crostini (how much you use depends on how big your crostini are) and top with a tomato half. If you’re feeling fancy, you can chop up some chives for garnish.

My Michigan Wine Tasting Party, Part 1: Crab Salad in Endive

Every year we donate a couple of food-related events to our church’s annual fundraiser auction. It’s a good excuse to pull out the china and go all-out on a dinner party, which we had pretty much given up after having kids. This year I did something a little different and offered a multi-course Michigan wine tasting paired with small plates; now that I’m working at a wine tasting room it seemed like a pretty logical choice. It’s now possibly my favorite event EVER because I didn’t have to clean my house in addition to making the food, and I didn’t even ask about food intolerances.

It’s either very comforting or very depressing to realize that no matter how much you know about food and wine, a lot of people know a lot more; no matter how much you learn, there’s always more to learn; and if you somehow managed to learn it all, it would all change again when the next year’s vintages were released. It justifies my “enthusiastic amateur” status and means that I don’t feel stupid when I ask questions.

The first course in this particular event was a crab salad in endive. I used a recipe from the excellent (excellent!) book Perfect Pairings – and it was just fine – but I have a recipe I love even more so I’m sharing that one with you instead. It’s from the Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, which is about to move back into heavy rotation now that the weather is getting warmer. I usually think of crab salad as being sort of gloppy and uninteresting – the Jell-o salad of the seafood world – but this one is light and bright and lemony, and I like the tarragon more than the usual chives or parsley.

Photo from the L Mawby website

This one, too

There was some debate (via text messaging, while I stood in the wine department) as to which sparkling wine went best. When in doubt about which wine to buy the answer should be "Yes!" Which is why I ended up with 2 bottles from L. Mawby, a Michigan winery that makes only sparkling wines. Both the Blanc de Blancs and Blanc de Noirs were excellent, and I let the audience vote on which one they liked best (and they were both excellent so you could really try either one. Or both. We won’t judge.)

Lee Brothers Crab Dip

6 ounces picked crabmeat (it’s worth the bother to get the fresh stuff – if you get canned, please buy the absolute best quality you can)
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons lime juice
3 tablespoons finely diced red onion
1 ½ teaspoons minced fresh tarragon
¼ teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste
¼ teaspoon or more freshly ground black pepper

Endive, for serving (or crackers. Or a fork - see below)

Mix everything together and taste it to see if the salt and pepper are right. Realize you can’t actually decide this without a cracker. Pile the cracker with crab dip to test your theory. Eat the rest of the crab dip with a fork and go to the store for more crab. Repeat Step 1.

I'm Trying Not to Hate Winter: Beef Stew with Cinnamon and Rice Noodles

I’m trying not to be a person who hates winter. Comfort food is an important part of that plan, and the vast majority of foods I find comforting are off-limits as written. Sure, you can skip an ingredient here or there – really, when’s the last time you really noticed the paprika? – and we’re very savvy about substitutions. But there’s a point at which you just can’t leave things out anymore, and beef stew has been a casualty of the nightshade intolerance.

Certain foods are simply supposed to be made certain ways, and beef stew without tomatoes and potatoes Just Isn’t The Same no matter how many times David tries to convince me that rutabagas are just like Yukon Gold potatoes (they’re not). Rice milk isn’t really a substitute for heavy cream any more than carob tastes just like chocolate and Tofutti tastes just like ice cream (it tastes like evil, in case you’re wondering), and the whole time I’m eating I’m going to be thinking about all the ways in which rutabagas, rice milk, Tofutti, and all the other substituted ingredients aren’t quite right. I’d rather skip it entirely, like ‘no-bake cheesecake.’

Beef stew is one of the quintessential winter comfort foods, so I kept looking for a version that didn't use tomatoes or potatoes or a flour-based roux and didn't make me notice the difference. This recipe fit the bill perfectly. It’s meant to be watery, like a soup, but there’s so much flavor packed into it – you can load it up with noodles or pour it over rice or eat it like a soup and it will be equally delicious and satisfying.

The recipe comes from the All-New Complete Cooking Light Cookbook. Cooking Light magazine was a favorite of ours for years; I still get the annual cookbook, which always includes some excellent menu ideas. 

Beef Stew with Cinnamon

2 teaspoons canola oil

2 lb stew beef

5 cups water

1 ½ cups sake

¾ cup GF soy sauce

¼ cup sugar

1 bunch green onions, cut into 1-inch pieces

6 cloves garlic, crushed

2 cinnamon sticks

1 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

1 package baby spinach

Cut the stew beef into small pieces (about 1-1 ½ inches; the pieces you get from the meat counter are too big). Heath the oil in a Dutch oven and brown the meat in batches.

When all the meat is browned, put it back in the Dutch oven and add the rest of the ingredients (except the spinach). Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce the heat. Simmer 2 hours or until the beef is very tender.

Remove the cinnamon sticks and ginger (if you can find it – I often leave it in). Stir in the spinach and cook another few minutes. Serve over rice noodles or rice. 

A Taste of VietNom-Nom: Sweet potato and shrimp fritters

Cold, cloudy, gloomy winter weekends are a wonderful time to browse through cookbooks and dream about all the things I’d cook if only I had the time and energy. Invariably these browsing sessions make me so hungry that I end up tearing my way through whatever is most convenient to hand, and then I’m too full to want to cook whatever ambitious dish I had in mind. It only took two weeks for me to get around the making this, which is something of a record; and now I’m going to keep shrimp and sweet potatoes around all the time because these are fantastic. The hardest part was finding our rarely-used deep fryer – and you can certainly make these with a regular pan instead (we used the deep fryer and it turned out to be a tremendous enabler. We’ve eaten more fried food in the last 2 weeks than we have in last 2 years.)

It’s only fair to tell you that we all burned our mouths eating these because we couldn’t wait for them to cool down. Even The Hater liked them – he hates both sweet potatoes and shrimp, as well as anything else that I make for dinner that isn’t ginger chicken – and the extra sauce was delicious poured over the beef and cinnamon stew we had as a main dish. Most of the work for this can be done earlier in the day and you can deal with the egg whites while the oil is heating up. The first couple of batches will hold nicely in the oven while you’re making the rest – or you can go all in, and burn your mouth eating them as soon as they come out. We won’t judge you.

This comes from One Potato, Two Potato, which I rarely get to use anymore since David doesn’t eat potatoes. It’s chock-full of interesting information and some of the best comfort food recipes ever, just right for cold wintry days when you don’t want to venture out to the grocery store and want to make something cozy with ingredients on hand.

Sweet potato and shrimp fritters 

1/3 cup fish sauce

1/3 cup fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons sugar

1 small habanero, cut into thin rings (optional)

¾ lb sweet potato, peeled and grated (this was one large potato, in case you’re wondering)

½ lb shrimp, peeled and deveined and chopped into ½-inch pieces

3 whole scallions, chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated (we use the jarred kind)

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup cornstarch

3 large egg whites

Make the sauce: Dissolve the sugar in ¼ cup warm water, then add the fish sauce and juice (and pepper, if you’re using it). Set aside.

Heat at least 3 inches of oil to 350 degrees in a pan or deep fryer. Heat the oven to 250 if you’re planning to hold the first couple of batches and serve them all at once.

Combine the potatoes, shrimp, scallions, ginger, garlic, and salt in a bowl. Sift the cornstarch over the top and stir to combine thoroughly.

Put the egg whites in a bowl with 2 tablespoons warm water and beat until they’re a soft foam. You shouldn’t have any liquid remaining at the bottom of the bowl. Stir the egg whites into the sweet potato mixture.

Scoop up a generous tablespoon of the mixture, flatten it a little with the back of a spoon, and slide it into the hot oil. Add a few more tablespoons as space permits; don’t crowd the pan or the oil will cool too much and your fritters will be heavy and greasy. Fry, turning a few times, until the entire thing is browned and crisp (about 5 minutes in our deep fryer). Put fritters in the oven to keep warm while you cook the rest.

Serve with the dipping sauce. The original recipe calls for wrapping these in a leaf of lettuce and garnishing with chopped fresh mint and cilantro, which is about the only thing I can imagine that would make them even more delicious. 

Breakfast Debate Redux: Oven-Baked Pancakes with Fruit Topping

If you read about the ongoing saga of our holidaybreakfasts, you may recall that I’ve gone through many, many recipes in an effort to please everyone - and poison no-one - on Christmas morning. Mostly I’ve given up. Now my main goal is to avoid anyone feeling the need to cry during breakfast. We were feeling a little hashed-out (and John really, really hates sweet potatoes right now) so it was back to square one this year, with a cookbook that I acquired at some point in the distant past which contains nothing except breakfast recipes. It seemed like a reasonable starting point; surely, with "Hundreds of divine recipes to take you to breakfast paradise!" even we could find something that would make everyone happy. Also, I can't resist cookbook hyperbole.

The recent availability of a wider assortment of GF flour blends on the grocery store shelves has made me a little giddy. Granted, we can’t eat most of them – but we can eat some, and the presence of a Costco-sized bag of Namaste brand GF flour blend in my pantry has been a big incentive to try baking again. (Most of these recent experiments could be used to prop open a heavy door, but I continue to sally forth undaunted....) Our favorite local bakery has also started selling their rice flour blend by the pound, so this seemed like a good year to dive back into flour-based breakfast recipes. 

We ended up with the usual sparkling juice and fruit and Canadian bacon (“Is it ham? Is it bacon? It’s….hacon!” announced John), plus these ridiculously easy baked pancakes, which might possibly be realistic for an organized weekday morning though I'm making no promises out loud. Don’t skip the fruit topping, which is utterly fantastic on this (and waffles and buckwheat pancakes - with a little whipped cream – OMG, really so, so good). I had to make a second batch and we all ate until we were too full to move. And nobody cried until we watched “Frozen.” Breakfast success! 

Oven-Baked Pancakes with Fruit Topping

3 eggs

½ cup of your favorite GF flour mix (or flour, if you're so inclined)

½ cup of your favorite non-dairy milk substitute (or, you know, milk)

2 tbsp non-dairy fake margarine scary stuff, melted. (If you can use butter instead, do!)

Generous pinch of salt

Finely grated zest of half a lemon

Powdered sugar, for serving

Preheat the oven to 400. Spray 2 9-inch pie pans with cooking spray.

Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and frothy. Add the flour, a couple of tablespoons at a time, and mix well after each addition. Beat in the remaining ingredients.

Pour the batter into the pie pans, dividing it evenly, and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 and bake for another 5 minutes.

Remove the pans from the oven, sprinkle with powdered sugar even though you’re about to put fruit on top of this, and serve immediately. It's not overkill if it's Christmas. 

Peach-Raspberry Compote

1 cup raspberries

3-4 fresh peaches, pitted and chopped

½ cup sugar

1 cinnamon stick

Grated zest and juice of 1 orange

2 tbsp ruby port

1 tsp vanilla extract

Put the fruit, sugar, cinnamon, zest, and juice into a medium saucepan. Add enough water to mostly cover the fruit and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and cook until the fruit is very soft and the water is mostly gone (the raspberries will pretty much disintegrate and the peaches will break down).

When the sauce is reduced, remove the cinnamon stick and stir in the port and vanilla. This is good served warm or cold, but I don’t recommend taste-testing as soon as you take it off the stove because you’ll burn your tongue and set a bad example for your kids.

Keeps for a week in the fridge if you hide the leftovers from the rest of the family.