December 2022 – A Musician's Travels

The days are short and the late afternoon sun slips quickly into darkness. I have a break from teaching with just enough time to take a walk at nearby Kite Hill in Ancram, New York. The light is beautiful with rich shades of brown and dark blue clouds; the cold air is brisk and invigorating.

All to soon, the light starts to fade. I anticipate returning home after teaching to make a fire in the wood stove and sit with a cup of hot tea while I think about what to make for a quick dinner. Comfort food comes to mind- maybe baked double stuffed potatoes. This could turn into one of my favorite dinners that we call “German Night”; assembled with whatever ingredients are in the freezer or refrigerator. This evening’s feast includes sauteed apples spiced with cinnamon, cardamom and allspice, stone ground German mustard with organic chicken/mushroom sausages, Hosta Hill spicy Crimson Sauerkraut and twice baked potatoes.

Potatoes are baked in a hot oven until the skin is crisp and the insides are soft. I scoop out middle of the potatoes and usually mash the mixture with butter and milk. I decided to try a less rich method using extra virgin olive oil, kefir and plenty of salt and pepper. This gave the mixture a tangy rich taste. Topped off with grated parmesan cheese and baked until the cheese is melted and browned, they are the perfect comfort food to eat in front of a hot fire!

Baked Double Stuffed Potatoes

This really is a no-recipe dish. I usually make 2 potatoes, but you can make as many as you want.

Pre heat the oven to 375 Degrees.

Rinse off potatoes and make a few slashes with a sharp paring knife in each potato.

Bake about an hour until the skin is crisp and the inside of the potatoes are very soft.

Cut around the circumference of the potatoes, scoop out the middles and place in a medium pot. Pour in a few glugs of olive oil and enough kefir so that when you mash the mixture you get a soft filling. You could also use yogurt or buttermilk. You can’t go wrong here- any amount of oil or kefir will make a delicious filling. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper. Place filling into potato shells and sprinkle tops with plenty of grated parmesan. Bake in oven about 30-35 minutes. The potatoes should be steaming hot and the parmesan will be brown and crispy. ENJOY!!

At this time of the year, I often take stock of how fortunate we are in our neck of the woods and I am so grateful that music and art is such an important part of my life. When I look at the sweet earnest faces of the members of my Recorder Ensemble from Hofstra University before a recent concert, all of this is brought home to me!

AND: Here is the “Tree of the Week”

*“I may have eaten too many baked stuffed potatoes!”*

Best Wishes for Happy and Safe Holiday Season!

What a pleasure it was to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with our daughter Alicia, her partner Katie and both of our families! We spent a few magical days gathered around a large table, as we shared Thanksgiving dinner and other meals together. We enjoyed leisurely conversations filled with family stories and collective memories.

Katie’s grandparents owned a dairy farm in New Jersey and I loved hearing stories about the taste of the rich milk that the cows produced and this led to a conversation about making clabbered milk; naturally fermented raw milk that her great grandfather enjoyed every day. He attested that this habit was part of his remarkable longevity, he lived until almost 102 years! The word “clabber” comes from the Irish language, and it means “to thicken.” If clabbered milk is allowed to thicken long enough, it becomes clotted cream, a popular spread for scones in many parts of the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Alicia cooked an incredible meal with the most delicious turkey ever that she spatchcocked (the backbone is removed to make the turkey lay flat), brined and rubbed with an herb mixture of parsley, rosemary, thyme, onion, lemon juice and olive oil. Roasted quickly in a hot oven, the turkey had crispy burnished skin and incredibly tender flavorful meat. I made a large chicken with this same method the other night and I will never make a chicken or turkey any other way ever again. The recipe will appear shortly in another blog post!

As always after a Thanksgiving feast, we were happily full and contented, but after a few hours we could start to think about dessert. We had a quite a lineup that included a beautifully decorated key lime cheesecake and apple cranberry pie made by Alicia.

I made a sugar free apple pie and oft requested Kabocha Squash Pie; the recipe will also appear in another post! The recipe comes from the NYT Book of Desserts by the dessert chef Pichet Ong.

The next morning, we gathered for brunch with smoked salmon and bagels from Zabars in New York. Katie’s father, Mark who is a wonderfully talented baker and cook decided we could use some of his dried fruit scones and we all happily agreed!

Quite simply, these are the best scones I have ever tasted. They have a delicate texture with a crispy sugary top and irresistible flavor. I asked Mark for the recipe and here you go. He said that the most important thing is to use heavy cream; don’t be tempted to use anything lighter. The cream is used instead of butter in the recipe and is what makes the scones so light.

Dried Fruit Cream Scones

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup dried apricots, chopped
1 1/4 cups heavy cream

Glaze:
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Use an ungreased baking sheet.

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a bowl, stirring with a fork to mix well. Add the dried apricots. Still using a fork, stir in the cream and mix until the dough holds together in a rough mass (the dough will be quite sticky).

Lightly flour a board and transfer the dough to it. Knead the dough 8 or 9 times. Pat into 2 circles about 6 inches round. For the glaze, spread the butter over the top and side of the circle of dough and sprinkle the sugar on top. Cut each circle into 8 wedges and place each piece on the baking sheet, allowing about an inch between pieces.

Bake for about 11 minutes, or until golden brown

Yield: 12 scones

We had more than enough leftovers for the next day and plenty of desserts! At one point , the conversation turned to summer fruit and Alicia lamented that for the last several years, she had missed the short sour cherry season. She wistfully talked about making sour cherry pie. Somehow, even with extra desserts on hand, it was suggested that if we could find a good source of frozen sour cherries, that maybe Alicia would like to make a cherry pie! Katie’s mother Kathy looked up sour cherries online at the venerable grocery store Wegmans and the parents in the group made the executive decision that cherry pie should be made; if Alicia was willing! Mark, Paul and I headed off to Wegmans on a mission to find sour cherries. Mark had a Wegman’s app on his phone; we quickly located the frozen fruit section and purchased flash frozen sour cherries that came from Wolcott, New York near Lake Ontario.

We got 2 bags, so Alicia would have come cherries for another time. The pie was delicious; the bright red sour cherries had been picked at their peek and were packed full of flavor. The pastry crust was buttery and tender with a beautiful pattern that Alicia had created; served with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream, it topped off a perfect holiday; with stomachs and most importantly, our spirits full!