Dinner Plans #5
Guess who's coming to dinner!
APÉRITIF:
I’m in Maine, or Vacationland as the license plates say. Before I got here, I had plans to drive (and by that I mean have someone with those Vacationland plates and an actual driver’s license drive my license-less self) to an orchard covered in orange leaves and fallen apples. I was going to shake more apples off of trees, eat hot donuts and walk away with bags and bags of crunchy, bake-able fruit. But then we arrived, and discovered the house was an orchard. There were red apples, green apples, lumpy apples, rotten apples, tiny apples, cooked apples. Apples on the kitchen counter, apples in the backyard, apples on the front lawn, apples on trees, apples under a golden lattice crust. There were (and still are) apples everywhere. So instead of driving to an orchard, I’ll be eating and cooking with the backyard apples (they’re called Paradise apples) and giving you ideas for what to make with your own abundance of apples.
We’re also trying something new on Sifted. Rebecca Firsker, a writer, recipe developer and friend, is sharing her Dinner Plans this week. So with that, we’ll let you take it from her.
ON THE MENU THIS WEEK:
REBECCA FIRSKER’S (COVID-FRIENDLY) DINNER PLANS
All I want is for it to be mid-February again, the last time I had friends over for dinner. We scooped dip from the same bowl and squeezed 8 people onto the couch, not a bottle of hand sanitizer in sight. How blissfully ignorant we were! Alas, reality: dinner parties I’m attending these days are 100% outside, limited to 5 people, and properly distanced. I’m so fun!!!
Here’s what I’m making for my dream outdoor dinner party:
Vegetarian Chili: How I love to eat beans and vegetables for dinner (see: earlier, where I pointed out how fun I am.) But honestly, guys. Beans for president. While you can catch me bragging about my 2 year-long Rancho Gordo Bean Club membership status when goaded, I have quite literally nothing against canned beans. In fact, they’re usually what I use when making chili, one of my favorite dinners to make for a group. And among my good friends, there are a couple who are vegetarian, one Celiac, several dairy-free and two, including me, who eat everything — vegetarian chili, like this squash, quinoa, and bean number from the First Mess, one of the best food blogs out there, or this crispy bean-topped(!!!), minimal ingredient-requiring one, are suitable to all aforementioned eating styles. Chili is filling, affordable, and just waiting to be topped with cheese/avocado/scallions/sour cream/smashed corn chips/etc.
Cornbread: Just call me Hallie Parker, because in my eyes, no meal is more perfect than cornbread and chili. I discovered one of the best cornbread recipes last year for a meeting of my cookbook club (miss you, cookbook club friends!!): this cheddar, feta, and jalapeño bread from Ottolenghi Simple. However, if you want a classique cornbread, that is not it; I’d recommend this one (with sugar) or this one (without).
A Chocolate Chip Cookie: I don’t really think you need anything more for a great dinner picnic than cornbread, chili, and wine (I drank this baby the other night and she was excellent), but if you want dessert, *shameless self-plug* I developed a recipe for a giant chocolate chip cookie you can make in a slow-cooker that is very good. Note: I would not recommend serving it as I suggested in my 2019 naiveté, warm with “a pile of spoons,” and instead fully cooled and cut into bars for pandemic-friendly food-handling. -RF
SO YOU LEFT THE ORCHARD WITH TEN POUNDS OF MEDIOCRE APPLES
Crisp & Tart: (Granny Smith, Braeburn, any super crunchy but tart apple from your haul) Make this custardy, crunchy apple cake. It eats up five to six apples per full batch, so you can make a nice dent in your haul. Naturally, we have a few notes, the first of which is that this is a big ass cake. Like, feed-your-family-for-days big. Luckily, the next note is that it tastes even better the next day. Some other things: melted butter works in place of oil and lemon juice is a fine replacement for the orange juice. You can also halve the recipe and bake it in a regular round cake pan, add a bit of bourbon and/or a bunch of chopped candied pecans you have laying around to the batter. (Yes, I did do all of these things the last time I made it.) Another show-stopping, easier-than-it-looks dessert that will also use up about six or seven apples is a simple, classic tarte tatin. This recipe from James Beard has you make your own pastry, but subbing store-bought puff pastry is fine.
Sweet & Mushy: (Indiscriminate “insert-color Delicious,” other less than perfect apples) Applesauce is a sweet little first thought, but we like taking it (and a lot of other things) a step further and cooking our apples even longer, until the sugars in the apple are deeply caramelized and syrupy for apple butter. If you have a slow-cooker or another kind of multi-cooker hiding on your highest shelf, now’s the time to fetch a ladder. The butter cooks all day long, i.e. your home will smell like a big, buttery, brown sugar-y apple for hours, and it keeps in the fridge for a few weeks. Use it warm as a vanilla or cinnamon-ish ice cream topping, or room temp for dipping bites of these crispy, breaded pork chops in.
Crisp & Sweet: (Honeycrisp, Fuji, Gala) Acknowledge how rare it is to pick such perfect apples, feel proud of yourself for doing it, and start slicing and eating them. We love pairing these crispy apples with nut butters like this spicy ginger almond butter or salty, nutty cheeses. My personal fave is a ridiculously sharp cheddar (anything from Cabot will do) or the Unexpected Cheddar from Trader Joes (think sharp cheddar + the crunchy crystals in parm). I also love an aged gouda or hard goat like the wine-washed Drunken Goat.
Where we’re at.
TAKEOUT:
Few things feel as blissful as picking up warm, crunchy-crusted, chewy-crumbed loaves of bread from Carla, the baker behind Apt. 2 Bread. You can pre-order a loaf or two on her site, or sign up for a weekly or biweekly subscription so your kitchen counter is never sourdough-less.
An Apt. 2 special: olive-studded sourdough.
As my Great Road Trip across America continues, I’d like to take a moment to recognize the beauty that is the Chicago Hot Dog, specifically the institution that is Wieners Circle. The audacity to put relish and a full pickle on top of the dog? Pure American ingenuity.
Two very gorgeous hot dogs that are decidedly not sandwiches.
If you’re also planning a road trip anytime soon, might I suggest referencing this incredible resource of compiled DDD locations across America. Any town can be Flavortown when you go with Guy. We’ll leave you with that, and this:
