Forsaking the traditional cinnamon flavoring, this quick bread uses the savory flavors of Browned Butter and Sage for a fresh take on Apple Bread. October is here. I am not sorry to say good-bye to September. My September was pretty eventful: from hurricanes to a wedding to a funeral, it pretty much spanned every type of stress. As a friend put it to me recently, I have been living in a deep end of emotion. Which might explain my obsession with baking these days. Homemade muffins and breads, pies and cookies, cakes and desserts, they all speak to me of comfort and stability. So ...
Baking
APPLE AND FIG BUTTER CAKE: TAKE THAT GREAT BRITISH BAKING SHOW!
A basic yellow butter cake recipe is topped with seasonal apples and figs in this homage to The Great British Baking Show I love the Great British Baking Show. The cakes and desserts they bake remind me of my years in Hong Kong and England. My British and Australian friends would always have a cake or some other home-baked good on hand whenever we got together. “Tea” was a real thing. Many afternoons were spent at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and a slice of something delicious. When it was my turn to host, I would scour my English cookbooks or turn to The Australian Women’s Weekly ...
ADVENTURES OF AN ASHEVILLE COOK IN A HURRICANE
Did you miss me? Did you notice I was gone? It has been two weeks since I posted anything on my blog, the first missed entries in a year and a half. I wish I could say it was on purpose. I wish I had gone on a fabulous vacation and left the cares of the world behind me. But I did not. Instead, the roaring winds of Hurricane Dorian turned its sights on North Carolina, the beach on which my family has a much-loved home, and on Wilmington, the coastal city where my youngest daughter, Abby, was to get married that same week. I arrived in Sunset Beach a week before the wedding with every ...
Tomato Tarts: Summer on a Plate
This has been a wonderful summer. And now it is the middle of August. The mornings are getting cooler and the sun rises later. In the evening the light has a golden tinge which signals the coming Autumn. An even surer sign of summer's end is the sound of children waiting for the school bus. Their laughter is such a pleasant sound to wake to although I am sure they would rather not be headed back! My tomato plants are sagging under the weight of ripening red orbs and I have eaten tomato sandwiches for lunch and dinner with an undiminished joy. But, as the summer harvest continues, even ...
Spiced Tomato Bread
My crazy summer continues. I have been doing a LOT of traveling and really enjoying myself as I explore new cities and places, and their food. I realized that while I have traveled around a lot of the world, it has been a long time since I visited many of the cities in the United States. So it has been a treat for me to do some travelling in the United States. You can follow my travels on Instagram @awomancooks and on this blog in The Adventures of an Asheville Cook. This week I returned from Cincinnati (Graeter's Ice Cream and Montgomery Inn BBQ Ribs) to find a massive number of lovely ...
ZUCCHINI AND FETA GALETTE WITH FRESH THYME
I drove back up the mountains the other night, returning from Charlotte, the airport and another trip. The sky was clear, the light just fading and lightening flashed in the distance. I smelt the clean air and watched the temperature drop and I was happy to be home. Home means my town, my house, my cat, my friends, and my garden. And this year that garden is not going to get away from me! Weeds are not going to take over. Tomatoes will not spread recklessly everywhere, and zucchini will fight back against mold and bugs. In return the garden is gifting me with quantities of produce ...
ALASKA: MOUNTAINS, SEA, ICE AND PASTRY???
I went to Alaska on a culinary tour with Access Culinary knowing I was going to see some beautiful scenery, eat some great food, meet some great chefs and learn some new things but I was not prepared for Laura Cole and her pastry. Laura is the owner and chef of 229 Parks Restaurant and Tavern, just inside Denali National Park in Alaska. It is considered to be the finest restaurant in the state. You may know her better from Season 15 of Bravo’s series, Top Chef . It was day one of our tour and we left Fairbanks early for the two hour drive to Denali and our cooking class ...
HUMMINGBIRD CAKE
We’re planning a wedding at my house and our conversations are full of flowers and ceremonies, dresses and food. Which lead my thoughts to making a Hummingbird Cake. Hummingbird Cake is a Southern tradition. Filled with ripe bananas, sweet pineapple, vanilla, pecans and cream cheese, its sweetness and light texture goes well with the hearts and flowers of a wedding. I started with the original 1978 recipe from Southern Living (contributed to the magazine by Mrs. L.H. Wiggins of Greensboro, North Carolina). This cake calls for ripe bananas and canned pineapple. Being the ...
RETURNING THE FAVOR: LEMON-LIME BARS
Dear Friend, I saw my cookbook in your car and the recipes you had marked. So, when you sent me this amazing bouquet of flowers, I knew what I needed to do, get baking! It was a dreary, rainy Friday—the start of another long weekend of rain. But I turned on all the lights, put on some music and fired up the oven. I lined my pan with foil so I could lift out the finished bars and cut clean edges (and maybe eat some of the bits I cut off). Butter, sugar and flour go into the food processor. Give it a whir until it looks like sand, pour it in the pan and pat it flat. Put ...
CHICKEN POTPIE WITH FRESH PEAS AND TARRAGON
So many things are going on in my life right now. My garden is starting to produce vegetables and fruits and the herbs are green and lush. I have been working with pastry almost on a weekly basis. And I have been meeting potters all over Asheville, talking about their products and how they can be used in baking. It all comes together in a dish that is not something I usually go for, but it just spoke to me: Chicken Potpie with Fresh Peas and Tarragon. Let’s start with the peas and tarragon. My mother used to put fresh mint in with the peas when she made them which is ...
