D.I.Y. Delicious: Recipes and Ideas for Simple Food From Scratch by Vanessa Barrington, Sara Remington Read Free Book Online Page A

make this rather impressive and inexpensive cocktail hors d’oeuvre
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    TIME REQUIRED:
10 to 15 minutes active (excluding bread, pork, and jam preparation)
    YIELD:
18 to 20 pieces
    Aboutbaguette, or 5 or 6 slices Half-Wheat Sourdough Bread or Sourdough Cornmeal-Pumpkin Seed Bread
    About ¼ cup olive oil
    1 cup shredded leftover Mustard and Bourbon-Glazed Pork Roast
    About 3 ounces soft, creamy blue cheese, such as Maytag or a locally produced version, at room temperature
    4 ounces Fig-Rosemary Jam or jam of your choice
    Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
    Cut the baguette into ¼-inch slices or cut each slice of homemade bread with a 1-inch biscuit cutter, to make perfect rounds. Arrange the bread slices on a baking sheet in a single layer. Brush with oil. Bake until browned and slightly crisp, about 7 minutes. Let cool slightly.
    Put the pork in a small skillet over medium heat. Add a little bit of leftover Mustard and Bourbon Glaze, if available. If not, add a little oil. Toss the pork around in the hot skillet to heat and crisp it slightly. Set aside.
    Spread each toasted bread piece with blue cheese. Top with a few shreds of hot, crispy pork, distributing it evenly. Top each canapé with about ¾ teaspoon of jam. Serve immediately.
Persimmon-Spice Butter
    I like to serve this spiced butter on wheat or rye toast topped with thin slices of Gruyère. Fuyu persimmons are more widely available than the bitter-until-squishy-ripe Hachiyas. This recipe makes a great gift, so you may want to increase the recipe and process it to make it shelf stable. (Follow the chart in a recently published canning book [see Sources ])
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    TIME REQUIRED:
about 2 hours active
    YIELD:
about 1¾ cups
    2½ pounds Fuyu persimmons, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
    ½ vanilla bean
    cup sugar
    2 tablespoons maple syrup
    Seeds from 1 green cardamom pod, crushed or ground finely
    One 2- to 3-inch-long cinnamon stick
    2 tablespoons white rum
    Zest of 1 lime (about ½ teaspoon)
    In a food processor, puree the persimmons until smooth. You will have about 3 cups of pulp. For a smoother texture, put the pulp through a potato ricer or food mill. If you don’t own one of these implements, don’t worry, as the pulp will break down as it cooks.
    Put the persimmon pulp in a large, wide, heavy-bottomed pot. Enameled cast iron works well. The wider the pot, the shorter the cooking time. Also, the taller the better, as the pulp will splatter.
    Slice the vanilla bean up one side lengthwise, open it up, and scrape the tiny seeds into the pot with the pulp. Add the vanilla bean hull to the pot. Add the sugar, maple syrup, cardamom, and cinnamon. Set the pot over medium-low heat and bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Adjust the heat so the pulp is just barely bubbling and cook, stirring occasionally and checking often to avoid burning and sticking until the pulp thickens and begins to turn dark, about 1 hour.
    Add the rum and cook for another 10 minutes. Add the lime zest and turn off the heat. Let cool, remove the cinnamon stick, transfer to a jar, and refrigerate. The butter will keep for up to 2 weeks.
Apple Galette with Persimmon-Spice Butter
    Tart apples and sweet Persimmon-Spice Butter make a very nice pairing when tucked into a flaky crust. Choose apples with a nice balance of sweet and tart that hold their shape when baked. I usually ask the vendor I’m buying from which ones he or she prefers for baking and then I taste them to see if the flavor seems right. This is the kind of uncomplicated dessert anyone can make. If you’re intimidated by piecrust, don’t worry. The cornmeal makes a sturdy, easy-to-handle dough. The true secret to flaky, tender crust is to keep the ingredients as cold as possible, work quickly, and don’t overmix the dough. Stop when the liquid and the dry ingredients just barely come together
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    TIME REQUIRED:
20 minuted active; 2½ hours passive (excluding persimmon butter preparation)
    YIELD:
makes one 12-inch