December 26, 2015 by Marios

Pear Vanilla Jam

The weather in New York has been crazy. On Christmas eve, the high was 72°F (22°C). That was hotter than the weather in Cyprus! Because of the unusually warm fall, things have been a little strange around here. The grass outside our building is lush and green. The rose bushes a couple of blocks away are still blooming. So have the trees in the park in our neighborhood. The stores are putting all of their winter clothes on sale. Nothing has sold. Fashionistas are apparently freaking out because they can’t wear this year’s winter clothes. Christmas this year felt like an imposter. When people are walking outside in shorts and t-shirts it doesn’t give you quite that holiday spirit (unless you live in LA or Florida I guess).

It’s hard to even enjoy this nice weather, knowing that it may be a harbinger of more extreme weather, super hurricanes, plagues of locusts, alien invasions, and humanity’s annihilation! So prepare yourselves for the apocalypse by making this pear vanilla jam. The recipe is from my friend JC who has been making it for years and generously shared it with me. The jam is lovely and it will keep you well fed in your doomsday bunker.

Pear Vanilla Jam

Ingredients:

4 lbs (1.8 kg) ripe Bartlett/Williams pears, peeled, cored and diced in small pieces
Sugar, 45% of the weight of chopped pears
Seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod
1/4 cup lemon juice

Directions:

First, peel, core, and dice the pears. Weigh the diced pears. Place them in a large, heavy pot and add 45% of the weight of the pears in sugar (so if your diced pears weighed 1 kg, add 450 g of sugar).

Add the vanilla seeds and the lemon juice. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Continue boiling for about 20 minutes.

Test the jam by placing a little on a plate that you’ve kept in the freezer. Return to the freezer for 2-3 minutes. Push the jam with your index finger. If the liquid part is wrinkling, the jam is done. If not, boil it for another 5 minutes. Don’t boil it for more than 25-30 minutes. Since the jam doesn’t have added pectin it never gets quite as gel-like as other jams but it’s solid enough to be spreadable.

The jam can be canned for long term storage (in your bunker). Alternatively, you can place it in clean jars and freeze it.

December 19, 2015 by Marios

Sweet Potato Cake with Apricots and Raisins

If you were to travel to Cyprus over the Christmas period, expecting to experience some interesting traditions, unique to the Greek population of the south part of the island, you will probably be disappointed. Christmas in Cyprus is pretty much like Christmas everywhere else. There are Christmas trees and Santa Claus (St. Basil, as he’s known in Greek) and Christmas carols (exactly the same but with Greek lyrics) and tons of shopping. The only things that are perhaps somewhat unique are the traditional stuffed turkey served on Christmas day and the two typical types of cookies made for the season: kourambiedes (very similar to mexican wedding cookies) and melomakarona (cookies soaked in a spiced honey syrup).

And then there is Christmas cake, one of the unfortunate leftover traditions from the decades of British rule over the island. It’s a dense, dense, DENSE fruit cake/brick, loaded with dried and candied fruits and nuts, covered with marzipan and then a hard, white icing on top. Before the icing solidifies, the cake is decorated with small Christmas decorations. Almost everyone hated Christmas cakes when I was a kid. And yet, every house would make one or buy one from a patisserie. The only thing we liked as kids was the moment we got to place the tiny decorations over the cake just after my mom iced it, or eating the thin layer of marzipan under that icing.

I guess fruit cakes are just not popular anywhere. In the U.S. they are always the butt of the joke. It’s a shame because a well-made cake with dried fruit and nuts can be wonderful. It doesn’t have to be dark as night or require a hacksaw to cut through it. This recipe is for such a cake. It’s a little boozy and it gets some of its sweetness as well as its tenderness from mashed sweet potatoes. The dried apricots and raisins provide both sweet and tart flavors and the roasted pecans round everything out. The original recipe, from David Lebovitz who adapted it from Alice Medrich, calls for a cream cheese frosting, but I love it just by itself. Perhaps it can become the new and improved Christmas cake.
Sweet Potato Cake with Apricots and Raisins – Slightly adapted from David Lebovitz

Makes 2 8-inch loaf cakes

Ingredients:

1/3 cup (2 ounces, 57g) finely-diced dried apricots, preferably California
1/3 cup (2 ounces, 57g) raisins
1/2 cup (125ml) white vermouth
2 cups (8 oz, 225g) flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
6 tablespoons (75g) unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (90g) packed light or dark brown sugar
zest of 1 lemon
1 large egg and 1 large egg white, at room temperature
1 cup (240g) sweet potato puree
1 cup (125g) toasted pecans, coarsely chopped

Directions:

First, marinate apricot pieces and raisins in vermouth for about 30 minutes. Drain, pressing the apricots gently to extract all the liquid. Reserve the liquid.

Preheat oven to 350ºF (180ºC.) Grease with non-stick spray or butter two 8-inch (20cm) loaf pans.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large mixing bowl using a flexible spatula or spoon, cream the butter with the granulated and brown sugars, and lemon zest, until smooth and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and the egg white and combine thoroughly. If using a stand mixer, stop the mixer and scrape down the side to make sure everything is incorporated. (The mixture may look curdled, which is fine.)

Mix in half of the flour mixture, then the drained vermouth and sweet potato puree, then the rest of the dry ingredients. Stop mixer as soon as they are incorporated (do not overmix). Stir in the nuts and apricots with a spatula.

Divide the batter into the prepared pans, smooth the tops, and bake about 55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool for 15 minutes before removing onto cooling racks and cooling completely.

December 5, 2015 by Marios

Dairy-Free Coconut Passion Fruit Pound Cake

The first time I flew in an airplane, I was a teenager. My parents, my sister and I flew to Athens to visit our relatives. I was so excited to finally fly. I don’t remember much from the flight but I do remember that it was a very turbulent approach to the Athens airport. In my excitement, being a teenager on his first flight, I didn’t care. I kept turning to my dad who was sitting next to me trying to show him all the things I could see from my window seat but he was still as a statue, gripping the arm rests, trying hard not to throw up.

Before that first flight with my family to Athens, I had always loved going to the airport to pick up aunts and uncles visiting us from abroad. It seemed like such a magical place of people appearing, literally, out of thin air. I loved the chimes sound that preceded every announcement and the constant hum of people moving about. My love of airports continued for a while. The second time in my life that I boarded a plane, it was to travel to Philadelphia to begin my life in the U.S., a life that gave me many trips all over the world. For many years, I loved the different airports I got to visit. It wasn’t until much later, especially after 9/11, when airports became synonymous with stress, worry and unhappy crowds for me.

I remember talking with my mom one day after that first family flight to Athens. We were remembering all the things we did on our trip and we were reliving them by retelling them. “This is why I love the idea of traveling,” she said. “Because it means I get to see things I’ve never seen before and eat food I’ve never tasted before.” That last part always stayed with me and still makes me excited about traveling. It meant tasting fresh coconut for the first time in my life. Or curiously slicing into my first ripe passion fruit, wondering if it has gone bad, all wrinkly and hard as leather, and greeted with a bright yellow liquid interior studded with seeds, perfuming the air with its intoxicating scent.
Dairy-Free Coconut and Passion Fruit Pound Cake

Ingredients:

2/3 cup virgin & unrefined coconut oil
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 eggs and 1 egg yolk
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
2/3 cups of passion fruit pulp

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350º F. Lightly grease an 8 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ loaf pan and line with parchment paper leaving extra paper overhanging over both long sides.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a mixer with the paddle attachment, add the coconut oil and mix for 10 seconds at medium speed. While mixer is running, add sugar and mix for another 2 minutes, stopping half way to scrape the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs and yolk and continue mixing until combined, about 10-15 seconds more.

Add half of the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Add passion fruit pulp and mix a few seconds more to incorporate. Add remainder of flour mixture and mix until just combined (do not overmix).

Scrape batter in prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for 70-75 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out mostly clean.

Place pan on rack and let cool for 15 minutes before removing cake from pan and letting it cool completely on the rack before slicing and serving.