Tip for perfect crust: Brush with egg white

After a week of holiday cooking, I can think of only one tip to offer today. When making fruit pie, always brush top crust with beaten egg white and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Doesn't that look appetizing? And this recipe for crust can't be beat (double it for a double-crust fruit pie.)

Holiday calls for cranberry-walnut muffins

We have kids arriving tomorrow from Virginia, California, and Pittsburgh for the holiday. I love that they'll be here all weekend, and I'm filling up the house with food before they get here.

I have ham and beans cooking in the slow cooker now, and I just baked up some cranberry-walnut muffins. The kitchen smells so good. For the muffins, I added grated orange peel to the batter, and then stirred in chopped cranberries and chopped walnuts. When the muffins were still warm, I brushed them with butter and dipped them into granulated sugar. I'll freeze them when they cool and pull them out to thaw Thanksgiving morning to serve for breakfast. I can also throw some of these into a basket with dinner rolls when it's time for turkey dinner.

For best results when making muffins, grease and flour your muffin pans, rather than using paper liners.

Cranberry-walnut muffins

2 cups white all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
10 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 and 1/2 cups plain low-fat yogurt
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
1-1/2 cup fresh or frozen cranberries, finely diced in the food processor
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
Shortening and flour for the muffin pans

Heat oven to 375 degrees (350 convection). Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda in medium bowl. Set aside. Cream butter and sugar in mixing bowl until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in half of dry ingredients. Beat in one-third of the yogurt. Add orange peel. Beat in remaining dry ingredients in two batches, alternating with yogurt, until incorporated. Stir in cranberries and walnuts.

Grease muffin pans and dust with flour. Divide batter among cups. Bake until muffins are golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes (20 or so if using convection). Cool muffins in pan five minutes. Remove muffins from pan to cool on wire rack. Brush with melted butter and roll each muffin in granulated sugar to coat the top.

Before Thursday, is it OK to Shake 'n Bake?

Thanksgiving, of course, is a big project for whoever is cooking. Wonderful, but a bit of work. So as we get ready for Thursday, isn't it OK to cut a few corners (or order take-out) once or twice as we prepare dinners in these throw-away days ahead of time?

Yesterday when Dave and I were at the grocery store, as I was cruising the baking aisle for whole wheat flour and packets of yeast, he was somehow drawn to pull a box of "Shake 'N Bake" from the shelf and throw it into our cart. Don't know when I last coated pork chops with Shake 'N Bake crumbs, but you know, it wasn't a bad way to go tonight, after I'd been baking all day. Panko crumbs would have been a better, more contemporary option, but I'd have had to take a few minutes to figure out what to do with those.

No need to share tonight's recipe here. You can find it on the box.

Cut time and apples with food processor

A couple pre-Thanksgiving thoughts on pie: I never buy pre-made pie crusts, but I'm not averse to skipping the work of slicing pie apples. The food processor works perfectly for that.

I did go to the trouble once of making pumpkin pie with fresh pumpkin, and that was not worth the extra effort. Canned pumpkin is dandy stuff. And the pie recipe on any can of pumpkin is pretty much dandy as well, though I always use all brown sugar, no granulated, and I substitute half-and-half instead of using evaporated milk. The results are heavenly, if I do say so myself.

Thanksgiving prep work fills the weekend

We have four children coming for Thanksgiving from three different states. I can't wait to see them. Today we've been cleaning house, checking the inventory of clean sheets and towels, doing a bit of prep work for Thanksgiving dinner. I've made dinner rolls which are now in the freezer; taken stock of what I have on hand (frozen cranberries, cans of pumpkin), and bought a few groceries: leeks and sausage to go into my favorite sweet potato casserole, apples for pie. (I highly recommend this savory sweet potato recipe from Bon Appetit, with thyme and parmesan cheese. You can make it a day ahead of time and then heat it up when your turkey's almost done. )

When it comes to cooking a turkey, I don't understand all the food page stories that come out this time of year, offering advice as if this is a daunting challenge. Roasting a turkey is so easy. First I pull the neck and giblets out and let those simmer in water to make a nice liquid for my gravy. Then I stuff the bird, put it into my big foil-lined roasting pan, rub with a little olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, cover very loosely with foil and roast at 325 degrees according to the package directions. I baste the bird once in awhile, and about 45 minutes before the end of the estimated cooking time, I remove the foil so the skin browns nicely. I like to buy a fresh turkey, so I won't shop for that until Tuesday or so, and I always get one with a pop-up timer. (Is there any other kind?) Those little timers are wonderfully accurate, in my experience.

Here's my simple recipe for pretty basic bread stuffing:

1 large onion, chopped fine
1 cup chopped celery
1 tablespoon dry sage
1/2 stick of butter
6-8 cups unseasoned dry bread crumbs
1 clove garlic, pressed
A cup of raisins or chopped apples, or a combination of both
Chicken broth to moisten (about 1/4 cup)

Melt butter and add onion and garlic. Cook about 5 minutes, until onion is soft. Combine all ingredients except broth in a large bowl. Stir well. Add enough chicken broth to just moisten the bread crumbs.

If you're game to cook some of the stuffing inside the turkey (I always am), set aside about half the stuffing for that purpose. Then butter a baking dish and put the stuffing into the dish. Pour a little extra broth over this. Cover with foil and set aside until the last 45 minutes your turkey is in the oven. Then just bake this with the turkey, on a lower rack. For the stuffing you're going to actually put into the bird, spoon that into the cavity loosely just before you put the bird into the oven. Truss up the cavity and roast as directed.

Shepherd's Pie helps ward off stress

I have a lot going on lately; a mix of drama, busy work and up-in-the-air dynamics that has me feeling a little more stressed than usual. Yesterday I found relief two ways: running 3 and a half miles, and then cooking up a big comfort casserole of Shepherd's Pie for dinner.

Shepherd's Pie is a dish that requires no recipe. Throw just about any combination of meat, vegetables, tomatoes and spices into a pot, cook that up and spread it into an 11-by-13-inch baking dish, top with mashed potatoes and sprinkle with a little bit of sharp cheddar cheese (not too much-- it pays to show respectable restraint with the cheese.)

Here's what I did yesterday: I browned a pound of ground sausage with a chopped sweet onion, three cloves minced garlic, and a good shake of dried Italian seasoning. I then added two 15-ounce cans diced tomatoes, about a cup of chopped carrots, a chopped red bell pepper, two small sliced zucchinis, a bit of red wine. I also threw in about a cup of frozen corn. I let this simmer while I boiled about 10 medium size red potatoes for 10 minutes. Then I mashed the potatoes with about 3/4 cup milk and 4 tablespoons butter. (I used my KitchenAid mixer to mash the potatoes. It's such a useful toy!) At the last minute, I added just a couple tablespoons of flour to my meat and vegetables and stirred that with a wisk to thicken things up a little. I poured the meat mixture into a baking dish and topped with dollops of the potatoes, which I then spread evenly to cover the dish. I sprinkled the top with about 4 ounces of grated cheddar and a little bit of parsley. I baked the casserole for an hour at 350 degrees.

Keep this dish in mind in a couple weeks; it's a great way to use up leftover turkey and mashed potatoes.

Bake ziti with pesto, spinach and sausage

Wichita boasts more than its share of good restaurants, but it's hard to find authentic Italian cuisine here, unless I cook it myself. I miss the great Italian food we enjoyed when we lived in Philly, but I have to say I do OK when I cook basic Italian at home. My mom gave me a copy of The Sopranos Family Cookbook some time back, and it's an entertaining resource that features some really good recipes. And one of my favorite Italian recipes comes from Epicurious.com; it's for baked ziti with pesto, spinach and sausage.

I've made this dish a couple of times for big parties and even more often for smaller get-togethers (most recently last Sunday). The only change I make to the Epicurious directions is using sweet Italian sausage instead of hot. This casserole is like mac and cheese with a whole lot of other excellent stuff thrown in. It's a nice company supper when served with a green salad and crusty bread. (Oh, and here's an important rule I live by: Only buy parmesan cheese by the chunk and grate a fresh supply whenever it's needed.)

Let them eat cake: Easy chocolate torte

I swore off desserts a week ago (just 'til Thanksgiving!) but we invited friends for dinner last night, so I had to backslide a little on this. I made a fudge cake that is easy, and pretty and really delicious. To stay on track diet-wise, I had just one piece, and sent most of this cake home with our guests. This dessert is like a torte; it features a nice dose of finely chopped nuts but not much flour.

Chocolate torte

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour an 8-inch springform pan.

Cream together 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup unsalted butter. Beat in two large egg yokes, 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and slightly cooled. Beat in 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon vanilla. Stir in one cup finely chopped pecans or walnuts. (I suggest grinding these very fine in the food processor.) Whip until stiff but not dry: 2 large egg whites, 1/8 teaspoon salt. Fold gently into the batter. Pour into greased pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes.

Let cool. Carefully remove from springform pan. Top with a dusting of powdered sugar and berry syrup. (Adapted from "The Joy of Cooking.")