August 15, 2015 by Marios

Plum Torte

I spent yesterday preparing for a friend who’s here visiting us for 10 days and another friend who’s visiting us this weekend and the next. When I was little, we lived in a small two-bedroom house (which became a three-bedroom when my parents split one bedroom into two tiny ones, for me and my sister). When people would come visit and stay overnight, they usually took my and my sister’s beds. We were relegated to the living room where we slept on cots (or “camp beds” as we called them). They were uncomfortable and squeaked when you moved, but I didn’t care. I loved having visitors in our house.

They brought new life to our family, with their funny stories and different ways. And usually they brought gifts too, for me and my sister. My mom always stressed about having guests stay with us and now as an adult I can understand why. Our house was really small, and where we lived, there was no public transportation. We had one car only and my mother didn’t learn to drive until I was a teenager. But she always made sure our visitors (aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins) felt welcome and comfortable. She cooked and baked and often made the “special” desserts that she made only on important occasions.

I’m not as stressed as my mom was when friends or family visit Steve and me. We are lucky to have extra space and people who visit us can usually take care of themselves in New York city. But just like my mother, I make sure nobody leaves our home hungry. I bake for a couple of days to make sure we have many breakfast options. I make at least two different ice creams for a quick dessert and I plan out at least one big, home cooked dinner at our place.

So in anticipation of our friends coming this weekend I made this plum torte. It comes together in 10 minutes and it’s the perfect summer dessert. The plums get covered with the rising batter and they bake slowly, releasing their juices into the buttery cake. I think our friends will be happy at dinner tonight.Plum Torte – Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (note: if you don’t like cinnamon, substitute with 1/2 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest)
1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking powder (the aluminum-free kind, if you can find it)
Large pinch of salt
1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (115 grams or 8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
6-7 black plums or 12 small Italian purple plums, halved and pitted (or use pluots, nectarines, or peaches)
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Directions:

Heat over to 350°F. In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (or 1/2 tablespoon grated lemon zest). Set aside. Sift or whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. In a larger bowl, cream butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until fluffy and light in color, about 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time and scraping down the bowl, then the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Batter will be thick, like frosting.

Spoon batter into an ungreased 9-inch springform pan (you can put parchment paper in bottom for easy removal) and smooth the top. Place the plums, skin side up, all over the batter, covering it. No need to press them into the batter. It will rise and mostly cover them. Sprinkle the top with lemon juice, then with the cinnamon sugar (or lemon zest sugar).

Bake until cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into a center part of the cake comes out free of batter, about 50 to 60 minutes. Cool on rack.

July 25, 2015 by Marios

Peach Pie Braided Bread

One of the things I experienced for the first time in my life when I moved to the U.S. in 1990 was the mall. Growing up, we had heard of malls and seen them in movies, but we never had one where I lived. So there I was in Philadelphia, with just a suitcase and in need of bedding and other basics for my new college dorm room. I was quickly given directions to the Gallery, Philly’s largest mall. I took the subway (another first) and landed at the glass and steel entrance. I pushed through the revolving doors and I was instantly in love.

It’s funny how all the things that over the years I’ve come to hate about malls are the exact ones that made me love them when I first experienced them. There was the clean, almost antiseptic smell, a mix of marble, perfume, and ozone, that made me think clean! and safe! I loved the constant muzak, so calm and innocent, sort of like a glistening snake smoothly gliding towards you in the sunlight. I thought that having all those stores in one place was such a great convenience (no need to walk out in the streets!) and I loved the little stands that dotted the middle of the mall, mimicking actual street stalls. Never mind that what they sold was nothing but gimmicks and AS SEEN ON TV! products.

But my absolute favorite was the food court. Cheap and barely edible Chinese food? Bring it on. Cheesesteaks with four tiny slices of steak under a mountain of processed cheese? I was all in. Pizza with greying ham and canned pineapple? Heaven.

My tastes have obviously changed over the years and I look back at all that food I ate in abject horror. But there’s one thing I can’t help but remember fondly: Cinnabons. You could smell the sugar, cinnamon, and butter about five minutes before you hit the food court. Each bun was the size of a small baby’s head. I would start from the outside layers, like peeling an onion, and work my way to the insanely rich middle. I would devour the whole thing in minutes, making sure to get all the cream cheese frosting that got stuck on the cardboard box. I was still a teenager and eating a whole Cinnabon after two huge slices of “Hawaiian” pizza was not a problem.

This week’s recipe isn’t for a Cinnabon but it’s for its distant cousin, a healthier and more seasonal version. It will fill your kitchen with the aroma of buttery cinnamon sugar but also with the smell of baked peaches. It’s best eaten warm, with your hands, and with no regrets.Peach Pie Braided Bread – Slightly adapted from Joy the Baker

Ingredients:

For the Dough:

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
3/4 cup whole milk, warmed to a warm lukewarm
1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
a bit of oil for greasing the bowl

For the Filling:

1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 ripe peaches, peeled and cut into 1/2″ cubes
1 large egg, beaten for egg wash

Directions:

In a medium bowl stir yeast with sugar. Stir in the lukewarm milk and then add the egg yolk and melted butter. Whisk together until thoroughly combined. Allow mixture to rest for 5 minutes. It should foam and froth.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour and salt.

Make the dough by hand: Pour the milk mixture over the dry ingredients and start kneading it until it pulls away from the edges of the bowl. Place dough on a lightly floured counter and knead by hand for about 10 minutes more. Dough ball should be smooth and damp, without being too sticky. Shape dough into a ball.

Make the dough in a mixer: In a mixer with the dough hook attachment, add the dry ingredients and the milk mixture. Mix at medium speed for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and not too sticky. Shape dough into a ball.

Grease a large bowl with olive oil. Place the dough in the bowl and cover. Allow to rest at warm room temperature for about 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

While the dough rises, whisk together the butter with sugar and cinnamon for the filling. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 375º F. Grease a 10-inch cast iron skillet. Set aside.

After the dough has doubled in size, place it on a lightly floured counter and knead twice. Using a rolling pin to roll the dough to a rectangle of about 18×12 inches.

Spoon the cinnamon filling over top, spreading evenly, leaving a clean 1-inch border around the edges. Sprinkle the peach pieces over the cinnamon filling. Start by rolling the longest side of the dough. The roll will be a bit lumpy because of all the fruit. Using a sharp knife, cut the log in half length-wise leaving 1-inch of the edge uncut.

Start braiding the two pieces, by carefully lifting the left strand over the right strand. Repeat this motion until you reach the bottom of the dough. Press together to seal. Join the two ends, creating a circle with the dough and press together.

Using both hands, transfer the dough ring to the prepared cast iron skillet. Brush the bread with the beaten egg.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and bubbling. Allow to cool for about 30 minutes before slicing and serving.

August 1, 2014 by Marios

Chilled Peach Soup with Fresh Goat Cheese

Last week we spend a long weekend at Cape Cod, at Truro and Provincetown. It’s a summer tradition that for me almost started with a disaster.

It was the fall of 1994. A few months before, at the end of June, I had just told my friend Brad that I was gay. It was the first time I told anyone and during the next few months I was swimming in a mix of exhilaration and loneliness. The freeing sensation of finally acknowledging to someone else that I was gay was an experience like none I had ever experienced (or have since). “You don’t have to come out to your mailman,” Brad joked in that fall of 1994 after I told him how I was on a coming out rampage. I just couldn’t hold it in anymore.

But it was also a time of loneliness. Here I was, freshly out and eager to start my new, my real, life, but I was stuck. I had just finished college and I was living in New Jersey, in a drab and depressing apartment next to a highway, with a straight roommate I had just met who didn’t know I was gay and with absolutely no gay friends or any idea where to find other gay people. My occasional trips to New York to meet with Brad were just not enough. Most of the time I felt trapped and alone.

So, it was during that fall that Brad told me about the vacation he had just taken with some friends. “We went to this amazing place!” he gushed. “It’s a little town at the tip of Cape Cod and its full of gay people! It’s like heaven.” Neither of us had heard of Ptown, as it’s often called, so this was a revelation. For me, it sounded like exactly what I needed.

So, since I couldn’t take time off from work and since I needed some time to plan my trip, I ordered a TripTik from AAA (remember those?) and decided that I would drive up to this magical place called Provincetown…in February. Yes. In February. I had no idea that Ptown in February is bitterly cold, as you’d expect for a tiny village perched on the tip of Cape Cod in the middle of the North Atlantic across from Boston. And I didn’t know that almost everything would be closed and only a few locals who stayed around for the winter would be there. That there would be very few if any gay people and they would be old timers, hunkered down in their homes. This was 1994. There was no web and no other easy way for me to know any of this.

When February came, I kept delaying my trip. March came and I still hadn’t left. And then right when I was gearing up to drive up there, I went to a gay community event in New Jersey where I met a guy named Wayne who went on to become my first boyfriend. And when I told him about my plans he laughed. He explained how Ptown would be nothing like what I expected if I had gone in February and instead we planned a trip there that summer. It turned out to be exactly how Brad described it. So we went back the summer after that and the one after that and the one after that. And for twenty years now, along with peaches, chilled soups, and rosé wine, Ptown has been a summer tradition.

Chilled Peach Soup with Fresh Goat Cheese – Slightly Adapted from Food and Wine

Ingredients:

3 cups sliced peeled peaches (about 4 peaches), plus more for garnish
1/4 cup finely diced peeled seedless cucumber
1/4 cup finely diced yellow bell pepper, plus more for garnish
1/4 cup diced dried apricots
2 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons crumbled fresh goat cheese, plus more for garnish
1/4 cup white balsamic vinegar, plus more for seasoning
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
Kosher salt
1 large garlic clove

Directions:

1. In a bowl, toss the peaches, diced cucumber, yellow pepper and apricots. Add the honey, 3 tablespoons of goat cheese, 1/4 cup of white balsamic vinegar and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Stir in 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt. Add the garlic. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

2. Discard the garlic. Transfer the contents of the bowl to a blender and puree. Add 1/4 cup of water and puree until very smooth and creamy; add more water if the soup seems too thick. Season with salt and white balsamic vinegar. Refrigerate the soup until very cold, about 1 hour.

3. Pour the peach soup into shallow bowls and garnish with the diced peach and bell pepper, and crumbled goat cheese. Drizzle lightly with olive oil and serve.