A few of my favorite cookbooks along with some pumpkin peanut butter bread

Open my cookbook cupboard with caution. If you move too quickly, you’ll be deluged with recipe clippings. Because though I have a good many cookbooks, I’m always hungry to try something new.

My mother had a similar cupboard stuffed full of both cookbooks and loose clippings. An enthusiastic cook with a large family to feed, she loved supplementing favorite recipes from the red-and-white checked cooking bible of her era: The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.

My go-to cookbook–The Fanny Farmer Cookbook–was the first gift I ever gave my then future husband. He’d learned to cook from a paperback edition found in a drawer of a Korean apartment he lived in as a young Mormon missionary. Valentine’s Day came around a few months into our courtship and not wanting to play my hand too broadly, I figured a cookbook he’d mentioned with fond feelings might convey just enough interest in heating up our relationship.

After our marriage, Fanny was joined by other staples of the ‘80s – Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins’ The Silver Palate Cookbooks, Martha Stewart’s Entertaining and Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts.

Cookbooks by celebrated local chef/authors like Alice Waters, Deborah Madison and Marion Cunningham (who would revise Fanny) would eventually fill up my cookbook cupboard.

I also added clippings from the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times. Reading their weekly food sections was a treat I looked forward to consuming.

As a new college graduate and young bride, I worked as a receptionist in the management office of the neo-Gothic Russ Building in downtown San Francisco. Across the hall from my office was a spacious “Ladies Lounge” filled with couches and chairs left over from the Mad Men era. Secretaries would retreat there during their lunch hours to nibble on sack lunches and read paperback novels.

I remember devouring a range of literary pleasures there—Pride & Prejudice and The Far Pavilions are two titles that come to mind. But every Wednesday, I would buy the Times at the lobby newsstand and quickly turn to its food section, having already read the Chronicle’s on my morning commute.

One of the recipes that I clipped during that period is still a fall favorite. Its ingredients are as varied as my reading tastes—pumpkin and peanut butter chips. But the result is surprisingly good—like a mix of classic literature and contemporary romance.

I wish I still had the original clipping so I could credit the contributor and discover this quick bread’s origin, but alas, all I have is my own handwritten notes that attribute it to the Chronicle without a date. Seems I wasn’t as devoted to historical accuracy then as I am now.

Over this pandemic year, I developed an increased appetite for newspaper recipes. The New York Times temporarily replaced its Sunday Travel section with a new section called “At Home.” Each week it featured five simple recipes to help us all survive sheltering in place. Once things opened up this summer, the section closed down. I miss that weekly feast.

However, a regular diet of newspaper clippings over the pandemic didn’t keep me from indulging in a few new cookbooks –Joanne Chang’s Pastry Love and Claire Saffitz’s Dessert Person are favorites. They came to my attention through reviews and sample recipes in newspaper food sections. Which is why I’ll keep clipping and you should be careful if you ever open my cookbook cupboard.

PUMPKIN BREAD WITH PEANUT BUTTER CHIPS

3 1/2 c. unsifted all-purpose flour

3 c. sugar

2 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

2 c. cooked or canned pumpkin

2/3 c. water

1 c. vegetable oil

4 eggs

2 c. (12 oz pkg) peanut butter chips

1 c. chopped nuts

1 c. raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2-inch loaf pans (or two larger pans.) Blend dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. In a large bowl blend pumpkin, oil, water and eggs.

Gradually add dry ingredients until well blended. Stir in peanut butter chips, nuts and raisins. Pour into greased and floured pans. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.  Cool in pan ten minutes and remove from pan to cool completely.

Note: My husband and several of my kids prefer this without raisins. Go figure. It’s still good. Especially toasted and slathered with butter. Peanut butter chips can sometimes be hard to find. Do not be tempted to substitute butterscotch chips—they’re too sweet.

This essay originally appeared on paperlanternwriters.com

A confident and experienced cook, I was baffled that pie crusts Would Not Cooperate. I played by the rules—chilling the butter or shortening (depending on the recipe), cutting it into the flour until it was the recommended consistency of peas, sometimes by hand, sometimes with a food processor (again, depending on the recipe) and sprinkling just enough ice water over the dry ingredients to bind everything together.

Invariably, when I would attempt to roll out the chilled dough ball, it would crumble into a mass of broken bits on my well-floured surface. I tried different rolling pins and surfaces—but to no avail. Instead of a single, malleable blanket of pie dough I always ended up with a Frankenstein patchwork that barely held together.  Thank goodness by the time dessert rolled around the guests were all too full and sleepy to care that the pie crusts were homemade but ho-hum.

Then two things happened.  First, I cut the shortening/butter in finer—to the consistency of coarse sand, not peas.  And, second, I found the Just Right Pie Crust recipe.   Using a mix of butter and shortening blended in a food processor, the recipe is basic but reliable. Meant for a strawberry-rhubarb pie, it still plays nicely with pumpkin and pecan and cranberry fillings.  So, friends, on this Thanksgiving Eve, I give you my favorite pie crust recipe.  Go forth and conquer your pie-making and remember that your crusts should still look a little misshapen.  Because who would want a perfect pie crust? That’s available in any supermarket freezer.

Just Right Pie Crust

(adapted from a Bon Appetit recipe for Lattice-Topped Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie April 1997–makes enough dough for two 9″ pies)

3 cups all purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup chilled solid vegetable shortening, cut into pieces

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces

10 tablespoons (about) ice water

Combine flour sugar and salt in processor.  Using on/off turns, cut in shortening and butter until coarse meal forms.  Blend in enough ice water 2 tablespoons at a time to form moist clumps.  Gather dough into ball; cut in half.  Flatten each half into disk.  Wrap separately in plastic; refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.*  (Can be made 1 day ahead.  Keep chilled.  Let dough soften slightly at room temperature before rolling.)

* When you’ve successfully, happily, easily put those pie dough balls into the freezer to chill, take a moment to chill yourself and read this smart essay on how to be a good host (surprise–it’s not about the food!)

On the day my keys went missing I tried out two hearty fall recipes.  The first was a savory panade made from layers of buttered cabbage and rye bread and gruyere cheese.  It’s a dish meant for Swiss peasant farmers or snowboarders or anyone coming in from the cold.  The second was a bread pudding made with a baguette and some pumpkin-infused custard.  It’s meant for everyone.

Serve this menu as a Thanksgiving teaser.  Your dinner table companions will be very grateful.

Cabbage Panade (from Deborah Madison’s “Vegetable Literacy”)

Serves 4-6

1 clover garlic and butter, for the gratin dish

3 tablespoons butter

1 onion, thinly sliced

1/2 teaspoon juniper berries, crushed

2 tablespoons coarsely chopped sage leaves

About 2 pounds Savoy or smooth green cabbage, quartered and cut into ribbons 1/2 inch wide

3 to 4 cups garlic stock*

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

4 slices strong-textured dark or light rye bread

1 cup grated Swiss, Gruyere, or more delicate Teleme cheese

*To make garlic stock – simmer 5 cups water with 6 cloves garlic,

12 fresh sage leaves, and 1 bay leaf for 25 minutes, then strain.

Melt the 3 tablespoons butter in a wide skillet over medium heat.  Add the onion, juniper, and sage and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion begins to brown, about 10 minutes.  Add the cabbage and 1/2 cup of the stock, season with 1 teaspoon salt, and cook until the cabbage is tender, about 20 minutes.  When it is done, taste for salt and season with pepper.

Place half of the cabbage in the prepared dish.  Cover it with the bread and the cheese, then with the remaining cabbage.  Pour over the remaining stock.

Bake until bubbling and the edges of the cabbage leaves are attractively browned, about 45 minutes.  Spoon the bread and cabbage into soup plates, then pour any juices remaining in the gratin dish around each serving.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding (from Gourmet Today, edited by Ruth Reichl)

Serves 6

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup whole milk

3/4 canned solid-pack pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 large egg yolk

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

Pinch of ground cloves

5 cups cubed (1 inch day-old baguette or crusty bread

3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted

Put a rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk together cream, milk, pumpkin, sugar, eggs, yolk, salt, and spices in a bowl.

Toss bread cubes with butter in a large bowl, then add pumpkin mixture and toss to coat.  Spread in an ungreased 8-inch square baking dish and bake until custard is set, 25 to 30 minutes.

Serve warm or at room temperature.