Fall Feasting: Crab Gnocchi With Arugula

Comfort.

It’s fall here now.

Two weeks ago week it was raining, turning the new-fallen leaves into slick mush on the sidewalks and making everyone who had been bitching about the heat grumpy about the rain. Last week the mercury topped 90, so the rain went away and people complained again about the heat.

Just today, the leaves have begun to unveil a reddish tint, and the weeks ahead look more like the calendar says it should.

Fall means sweaters and boots and jeans and dry weather and in Maryland, most of all, the best crab of the season. Crabs in September and October are fat and packed full. While many rush to crabs as soon as the temperature rises in May, I wait and am rewarded with the fattest, sweetest, and cheapest crabs of the season.

Stretch that crab with some pasta, but not any pasta: gnocchi.

I do not know what it is about gnocchi. It’s like pasta and potatoes had a light and fluffy baby that was fat-cheeked and so adorable it barely needed anything else to make it lovable.

But true confession time: Until this recipe, I had only tried gnocchi once.

It was at a restaurant in Little Italy in Baltimore, a place that shall remain nameless but based on reputation alone should have had someone’s nonna in the back making delicate little puffs of potato.

They certainly charged cash money like they flew Nonna over first class.

Turns out, their gnocchi was less than stellar. They were lukewarm and gummy, served in a quickly-cooling butter sauce with fairly tasteless Parmesan that may have seen the inside of a green can. It was not a good showing, and for years I ignored the presence of this dish in favor of anything else.

Turns out gnocchi is a great pasta dish for those avoiding gluten, and with some practice (see Recipe Notes), it is, indeed, that adorable baby it is supposed to be. Paired here with crab and a bit of arugula that has been gussied up with a light mustard dressing. It slightly resembles a coddie, that unique-to-Baltimore staple of cod and mashed potatoes, deep fried and served with yellow mustard. Delicious summer-into-fall meal when crabs are at their fattest and fall greens are starting to come in. Or fall-into-winter meal when you need something hearty to cheer you up against the waning light. Or really, any time you feel like something warm and comforting and slightly luxurious.

Crab Gnocchi With Arugula

(generously serves four)

Ingredients 

3 large baking potatoes (big’uns. Don’t skimp.)

2 large egg yolks, beaten

Salt

½ cup gluten-free all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting (regular AP works here, too, but see Recipe Notes)

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 teaspoon fresh marjoram, roughly chopped

1 teaspoon fresh thyme, roughly chopped

1/2 pound crabmeat (jumbo lump or lump if you have cash money like that, or backfin if times are tight but not that tight)

Freshly ground black pepper

Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated

Greens dressing

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

2 teaspoons shallots, minced

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup best-quality olive oil

1 pound arugula, washed

Method

Preheat oven to 400°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and dust with flour.

Pierce the potatoes all over with a fork. Bake potatoes for about one hour, until tender.

Cut potatoes in half. Scoop the flesh into a potato ricer and rice them directly onto a clean countertop that has been lightly dusted with flour. Drizzle beaten eggs and one teaspoon of salt over the potatoes. Using two bench scrapers, one in each hand, work the egg yolk and salt through the potatoes with a light sweeping motion. Mix flour and nutmeg and over dough and use bench scrapers until dough begins to come together. Use your hands to knead the dough gently until smooth but slightly sticky.

Cut the dough into four pieces, rolling each into a ¾” thick rope. Cut the ropes into ¾” pieces. Leave them as they are, or, more traditionally, roll each piece across the tines of a fork to make ridges. Place gnocchi on the baking sheet.

When you are ready to eat, bring a large pot of salted water to a simmer. Working with a dozen or so at a time, drop the gnocchi into the water and cook until they float to the surface. Continue to cook for one to two minutes more.

In another large sauté pan, melt the butter. Use a slotted spoon or spider to remove gnocchi from simmering water and add it to the butter. Brown slightly then add fresh crabmeat to the pan to warm. Add fresh marjoram and thyme and cook for one minute.

Season with salt and pepper and cook over medium heat for one minute. Sprinkle with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, if desired, or maybe a little Old Bay if you’re feeling hyperlocal.

Place all dressing ingredients in a small bowl and use a whisk to combine. Pour over greens and toss or serve on the side. Do not overdress greens.

Recipe Notes

  • Gnocchi takes longer than it seems like it should; it can be challenging to roll the ropes without them coming apart. The good news is that this recipe easily doubles and freezes well. You can spend a couple of hours making gnocchi and then pull them out of the freezer when you want. Uncooked gnocchi can be frozen for up to a month (first flat on a sheet pan and then in a resealable freezer bag). Cook in plenty of water, dropping them in just a few at a time. without defrosting. FULL DISCLOSURE: when I cooked them from frozen I did not follow the directions. I dumped them all in together and they became a big mushy mass. I drained them anyway, fried them in butter, and added fresh thyme and parmesan and we feasted royally.
  • As I developed this, I worked the gnocchi more than it seemed I should. If I had used regular gluten-filled all-purpose flour, these would have been gummy and awful. If you are not GF, I highly recommend borrowing some from a friend who is.
  • Using no crab is better than using crab from Indonesia. JM Clayton is my staple crab. Worth every single penny.
  • Also, a wealth of information on marjoram and its cousin, oregano, is available from the Herb Society of America. I found marjoram to be uncommon and was curious. I enjoyed the fact that marjoram is the herb of love, protection, and healing. Seems we could all use that these days. <3

 

DIY All-Purpose Gluten-Free Flour Mix

No fuss. Just gluten-free, all-purpose flour.

This blog is a public service post. I don’t normally do a straight up recipe post because there are way too many of those in the world, but this is different. This recipe for all-purpose, gluten-free flour does not really need gussying up with stories about life or meditations on how things oughta be. This post is brought to you by the utilitarian Getting Things Done Department with some help from Life Hacks University.

It has been two years since I first published my recipe for a cup-for-cup, gluten-free, all-purpose flour mix. This type of mix was a unicorn when I started. The existing gluten-free, all-purpose flour mixes I tried were okay but often used garbanzo bean flour, which imparts a distinct bean-y taste. No thank you.

Other mixes don’t use gums, which is fine for some folks. Some gluten-free people are sensitive to gums, and they cannot use them in any form. But xanthan gum is one of the things that gives gluten-free, all-purpose flour a bit of stretch that gluten would otherwise provide (which is why it works so well for baked goods).

The other issue with gluten-free, all-purpose flour blends in the store is that you must be independently wealthy to buy them. While some brands have come down in price significantly, you are still looking at $3+ a pound for most gluten-free, cup-for-cup, all-purpose flours.

So I solved all of these problems.

This recipe has a good ratio of protein to starch, which lends stability and lift, without using bean flours. The taste is neutral and thus works well for delicate pastry (like pie crust, which does better gluten-free anyway).

Although I can tell the difference when it is missing, the xanthan gum is negligible and can be eliminated from the mix, especially if you are using a recipe that calls for psyllium husk (a non-gum substitute that brings a bit of moisture to baked goods).

And finally, the price. Brown rice flour has been a bit challenging to find decently priced these days, but in general, the amounts below make a five-pound batch of flour for right around $10. I shop at the local Asian and Latino markets for flours (white rice and sweet rice in particular) and utilize the bulk section of my grocery store for the xanthan gum). Granted, that’s not the 50 cents a pound price of regular flour, but $2 a pound is pretty good, especially if you are one of the people who gluten will send to the hospital.

If you don’t feel like making this yourself, get in touch. I can make you a batch or two and send it your way or drop it off if you’re local. Otherwise, hit up Amazon for the ingredients you cannot find in your own town.

Gluten-Free, All-Purpose, Cup-For-Cup Flour

Side note: I have used slightly more or slightly less of each flour (like, 20 ounces of tapioca flour) with only a small noticeable difference, and probably only noticeable to me. Best proportions are below.

Ingredients

24-oz. brown rice flour

24-oz. white rice flour

16-oz sweet rice flour (sold under the Japanese name “mochiko” but also available as “glutinous rice flour”)

15-oz bag of tapioca flour (also at Asian grocery stores, but sometimes in regular stores)

2 tablespoons xanthan gum

Method

Seriously couldn’t be easier. Dump everything in a big bowl, stir together thoroughly. Stir again before using.

Recipe Notes

  • While this gluten-free, all-purpose flour mix makes amazing cookies, cakes, muffins, and pancakes and also works miracles as a breading substitute for fried things, it is not quite enough to make bread. You need more protein-filled flours. HOWEVER. That should not hold you back. This will carry you through the entire holiday baking season, and I am working on the whole bread issue. #StayTuned
  • I have used this flour mix in the same amounts called for in every recipe that calls for regular all-purpose flour without any issues. Seriously. This stuff is amazing.

Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

I like sweet things, and I cannot lie.

Don’t get me wrong; I can cook the hell out of some savory food. Enchiladas, arepas, ramen: I know it doesn’t seem like I ever cook dinner, but I totally do. But I love sweet things. I love to make them and eat them and give them away.

It seems fitting for the last three days of summer to feature just one more ice cream recipe, and this one is a doozy. The Honey-Hopped Ice Cream of last month came about when I got fresh Cascade hops from Redwing Farm in West Virginia. This month’s ice cream is also straight outta the Pacific Northwest. The Kid visited relatives in Washington State last August and came back with contraband: chocolate mint clippings, wrapped in a soggy paper towel and sealed in a Ziploc for the trip. I tossed them in some soil and sort of forgot about them. Fast forward over a year to a lush window box filled with fresh chocolate mint, a little leggy but bursting with chocolatey flavor.

Add a big carton of heavy cream about to turn and some leftover chocolate, and good lord. This ice cream is deeply chocolate, not too sweet, and richly flavored and scented with mint.

Served with Frank’s Holy Bundt, which was quite unnecessary and yet somehow very necessary at the exact same time. A fitting goodbye to a busy summer.

Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Tons of variations here. You can use plain mint. You can vary the type of dairy. You can eliminate the cocoa powder (but reduce the sugar to 3/4 cup). If you cannot find chocolate mint, plain will do just fine.

Ingredients

3 cups heavy cream

1 cup whole milk

1 packed cup fresh chocolate mint leaves

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

6 egg yolks

pinch salt

3/4 cup chopped chocolate (see Recipe Notes)

Method

Heat heavy cream and milk in a saucepan over medium heat until bubble form around the sides. Add fresh mint leaves and cover. Steep for at least 45 minutes.

While the mint is steeping, whisk together sugar, cocoa powder, egg yolks, and salt in a large bowl. It will form a paste (which is fine. Don’t panic.).

Strain mint leaves out of the cream/milk mixture and then back into the saucepan. Heat again until bubbles form. Remove from heat.

Here is the tricky part. Go slowly.

Pour a thin, trickling stream of cream/milk into the egg/sugar/cocoa mixture, whisking constantly as you do. It may be challenging to loosen up the egg/sugar/cocoa paste at first, but continue to go slowly. You don’t want to scramble your eggs.

Once all of the cream/milk is incorporate, place strainer over the saucepan and strain mixture through. This will catch any stray scrambled egg bits if you have them.

Turn heat to low, and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens (about ten minutes). Take this step slowly as well or your eggs will scramble.

Remove from heat and strain once more into a clean bowl. Cover the surface of the mixture with plastic wrap and chill thoroughly, at least four hours (but overnight is fine, too).

Once your mixture is chilled, process according to your ice cream maker’s directions. Add the chopped chocolate in for the last five minutes.

Freeze for a couple of hours, then share with people you love.

Recipe Notes

  • If you eliminate the cocoa, cut the sugar to 3/4 cup as noted above or your final product will be way too sweet.
  • For the chopped chocolate, I used a combination of 3/4 of an old bar of Ikea dark chocolate and a handful of Hershey’s Special Dark Kisses. It’s what was on hand, and I am all about that life.

You Are For Me: Honey Hopped Ice Cream With Salted Almond Toffee

beer ice cream
“Isn’t beer the holy libation of sincerity? The potion that dispels all hypocrisy, any charade of fine manners?” ~Milan Kundera~

I have always felt like I am too much and just not enough at the same time.

Perhaps not best to be writing this on the 11th anniversary of my father’s death, the 12th anniversary of my cousin Teddy’s death, and the day I am driving to a memorial for my uncle Jim who died late last week. Oh, and the last day of my daughter’s high school career (thank god), heading towards the first big milestone her father will miss (graduation).

But there you have it. The words come when they come.

As my friend Corey’s daughter J said to her the other day, “Oh my God, mom. Your feelings. They’re so big and there are so many of them. It’s exhausting.”

It is exhausting. For not only people around me but for me as well.

The constant background understanding that I am taking up too much space.

That my highs and lows are inconvenient and need to be explained away or apologized for.

That I can’t allow these strong feelings to pass through me or be processed out loud in the presence of anyone who might conceivably be offended, so I have to remove myself from people, even when it’s the exact opposite of what I need.

That sometimes I feel crushingly lonely, and the “just not enough” part kicks in to remind me exactly how worthless and unworthy I am in the first place, so what else did I expect?

Jesus. First-world, overprivileged, white-people problems, but goddamn. They still are real to me, daily present, and require constant negotiation and mediation in a brain that is already chock-a-block full of recriminations against its owner.

I have always felt outside of things – my family, my friends, the people I work with – and I don’t expect that to go away anytime soon.

I understand that I am not for everyone. Mostly it’s ok. The people I am for are with me for life. They get it.

This past weekend Khristian and I fled to the hills of West Virginia to our friends at Redwing Farm. I have known these people for nearly three decades. They have seen me through all of my iterations – safe to say they are for me. They were hosting a sleepover for their daughter’s birthday, a previously low-key affair that swelled from two kids to eight kids and potentially 20 adults staying for dinner in the space of just a few hours. One desperate text and 12 hours later, we were cresting the wooded driveway that leads to their house, there to offer moral support and help where we could.

We meant to come back in late summer anyway, not only for the company of Luke, Keveney, and Casey but also to pick the hops that twine their way up their porch railing. It had been a hard summer for the hops; although plentiful, many of them never quite opened. Still, as we left for home less than 24 hours after we arrived, I tucked a grocery bag full of them away in the car to play with at home.

Like me, this ice cream is not for everyone. It’s an unusual mix of flavors, and care must be taken to get the balance right. The first iteration was delicious but so bitter on the finish that it was impossible to eat, but this one manages to be smooth, sweet, and creamy, with a touch of citrus and salt and a definite hoppy vibe.

Honey Hopped Ice Cream With Salted Almond Toffee

Ingredients

Honey Hopped Ice Cream

2 cups whole milk

2 cups heavy cream

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup fresh Cascade hops

6 egg yolks

pinch salt

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Salted Almond Toffee

(Annoying sidebar: you need a candy thermometer for this.)

1 1/2 cups unsalted toasted almonds, roughly chopped

1/2 stick butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon lemon juice

big pinch salt

Method

Make the ice cream: Heat milk, heavy cream, and honey in a heavy saucepan over medium heat until warm (look for small bubbles to appear around the edges of the pan). Remove from heat, add the hops, and cover. Steep for at least 20 minutes (taste. You should be able to taste the hops, but they should not make the back of your throat pucker.).

Strain hops out and return the milk to the saucepan. Bring back to a simmer (not boiling – look for the bubbles again).

Place egg yolks, lemon zest, and salt in a separate bowl and whisk well to combine.

Here is the tricky part, so go slow.

In a thin stream, gradually and slowly add the hot milk mixture to the egg, whisking vigorously. If you add it all at once you will end up with honey hopped scrambled eggs, which is truly disgusting.

Once the milk is added to the egg, place a strainer over the heavy saucepan and pour the mixture back into the saucepan. This catches any stray hop flowers (or scrambled egg).

Over low heat and stirring constantly, cook the mixture until it begins to thicken. You will know it is ready when it coats the back of a spoon (about ten minutes).

Remove from heat and strain again into a clean bowl, covering with plastic wrap that rests on the surface (so no skin forms). You can refrigerate this overnight (which Serious Eats says is best for flavor), or you can just cool it completely (about four hours) before churning according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Make the toffee: While your ice cream custard is chilling, make your salted almond toffee. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Toast your almonds in a pan (or the oven) over low heat (or 350 degrees) until they begin to release their delicious, nutty aroma (between five and seven minutes, ish). Remove from pan (or oven) and allow to cool before chopping them roughly.

Place butter, sugar, water, lemon juice, and salt in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Clip your candy thermometer to the side of the saucepan. DO NOT STIR. Swirl gently as the ingredients melt, then watch carefully as the thermometer climbs to 300 degrees. NO MORE NO LESS.

Do not wander off. You will go from barely bubbling to burnt and bitter within seconds. #AskMeHowIKnow

Once you reach that temperature, remove from heat and add your chopped toasted almonds. Work quickly to combine, then pour onto parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Spread to about 1/4″ thick (or whatever. It doesn’t really matter, but it cools faster when it’s thinner). Allow to cool completely.

Place in a sealed plastic bag and beat the toffee with a rolling pin to break it up into little bits.

PUT THAT SHIT TOGETHER: In the last five minutes of churning, add the salted almond toffee to the ice cream.

Don’t overchurn, and allow to freeze following your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Enjoy with people who TOTALLY GET YOU.

 

 

Neighborhood Slow-Cooked Apple Butter

apples
Ugly apples make the best apple butter. #Trust

Growing up, we had an enchanted orchard on our property.

I grew up on the side of a mountain in western Maryland, about an hour from both Baltimore and DC. Our driveway was an old stagecoach route, and the core of our home – the kitchen, the room above the kitchen (mine, eventually), and the dirt-and-stone basement – was 100 years old when I was little.

My childhood being what it was, I spent a lot of time alone, and some of that outside, wandering around the 11 acres of our (mostly) wooded property with a dog, a lot of ticks, and many copperhead snakes. We had a creek that ran through the property, minor rocky caves, and the above-mentioned orchard.

The orchard wasn’t much to look at. With just two each of neglected apple and pear trees, the harvest was uneven and unpretty. In the way of children, I don’t remember any pruning or care taken for that orchard, and I don’t remember any formal apple picking from that orchard. The apples and pears started out small and gnarly and grew more so as I got older, but if I had to guess at a memory I would say they were probably delicious in the way that only non-hybrid, heirloom, planted 30-years-before dwarf apple and pears can be. I took them for granted, I am sure, but I do remember pies, apple butter, and baked apples – the core hollowed out and stuffed full of nuts, raisins, cinnamon, and brown sugar and baked until the apples softened and combined with the sugar to release a syrupy ambrosia.

I remember dappled light streaming through the overgrown branches, the dampness of moss, and a constant hypervigilant awareness of the possibility of snakes. There was a moss-covered rock I spent time on, dreaming and staring out through the golden green undergrowth into the deepness of the rest of the woods.

Fast forward thirty years to five acres in Marietta in 2010 and a modestly larger group of five apple trees (plus six blueberry bushes and a peach tree that was mostly dead and only ever produced one rock-hard but perfectly delicious peach in our time there). Same unkempt branches. Same unlovely apples, but in abundance this time, weighing the branches so that in the fall I thought perhaps the pruning might take care of itself. These were Macintosh apples, I guessed, and covered with black spots that the interwebs assured me would not hurt me but just weren’t pretty to look at.

The squirrels sure loved the apples. They would sit high in the tree and take one bite, hurling them to the ground, often just as we walked by. If they had better aim things might be different, but as it stood then our orchard was littered through the late summer and early fall with half-eaten and partially rotted apples, bees, and the sickly sweet smell of decay.

Even with the squirrels doing their wasteful best, the apples the first year we moved to that house were abundant. I sent my horse’s hoof trimmer home with bags, and anyone else who wanted some, from the neighbor to the mailman to the UPS driver. And still there were too many.

In our urban environment now, there is no easy abundance of fruit – unless you look for it. Just one alley over there is a peach tree loaded with small, hard, but soon-to-be-delicious peaches. Two blocks away is an apple tree, pruned back hard last fall in anticipation of a house sale but coming back gangbusters with big apples. A sad little peach tree shares that yard as well, and an overloaded crabapple tree is just down the block in a pocket park off an alley.

Last week I nearly missed the apple tree down the block. I meant to go on Sunday morning but couldn’t quite drag myself out of bed, and when I passed it walking home from teaching yoga on Wednesday, nearly all the apples within sidewalk reach were gone. I don’t know what kind of apples these are – their texture is spongy and the flavor is tart apple essence rather than a big, bounding punch in the taste buds. But they might as well be my favorite kind – they have the terroir of Hampden, Baltimore. This could be a positive or negative, depending on your perspective, but for me, in many ways this tree brings me back to that enchanted orchard and makes me feel more connected to this city that I am still trying to love in spite of its trash and corruption and inequality. I can come to this tree in all of its stages – barren limbs, shy little buds, bursting flower, heavy with apples, gently drooping with the coming cold – and it brings me a similar peace that I felt in the glade on the side of the mountain in western Maryland.

This recipe is an easy solution to a beautiful abundance of fruit – apples, peaches, or pears. It couldn’t be easier, and you don’t need a stupid Instant Pot to do it. Allowing it to slow-cook overnight (or during the day while you’re at work) deepens the flavors, caramelizes the sugar, and produces a nuanced fruit butter unlike anything I have ever tasted.

Share it with your neighbors.

Neighborhood Slow-Cooked Apple Butter

(makes about four pints)

Ingredients

A dozen or so apples, about six pounds, peeled, cored, and chopped  (see Recipe Notes)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (freshly ground if you can)

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

hearty pinch of salt

Method

Place all ingredients in your slow cooker and stir to combine.

Let it cook on low for eight hours, or high for four to six. You sort of know when it’s done. Look for completely soft apples, like melted butter almost. If your slow cooker isn’t slow, keep an eye on it and watch for burning. If your apples are not very juicy, you can add a little apple cider (1/4 cup or so).

When the apples are cooked, use an immersion blender (if you have one) to blend until velvety smooth. If your apple butter is not a dark, luscious brown, it needs a little more time. You can let it cook on low for another hour or so.

If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can use a regular blender. Be mindful of lava scalding hot apple butter flying from the blender, though. That shit is deadly.

Recipe Notes

  • Because the neighborhood apples were not as flavorful as I would have liked, about half of my most recent recipe was supplemented by Braeburn apples, which are a good crunchy combination of tart and sweet. Straight up pie apples require more sugar to make a proper apple butter than I would like to use, so go for a mix of sweet and tart. For god’s sakes, don’t use Red or Yellow Delicious.
  • An apple peeler makes life so much easier. I use this one.
  • This recipe can be preserved with canning. The USDA would prefer that you use a pressure canner, but I have canned this by ladling hot apple butter into clean, sterilized pint jars and boiling in a water bath for 15 minutes.  If I don’t hear the pop of the lid, I eat it within two weeks, give it away, or freeze it. Some people add citric acid to deter bacteria, but I like to live on the edge.