Rumkirschen

Every year  my husband and I go to my parents’ house to help them trim the tree.  This was, of course, the first year without my mom there and we tried to make as much merry as possible, hoping to lift my dad’s spirits as much as our own.  Even though it was still November (we got an early start on the tree this year!), we lit a fire in the fireplace, cued the Ella Fitzgerald Christmas station on Pandora, and Dad made us festive cocktails.

Kona loved playing with the lights

The cocktail Dad made me this year had black-strap rum in it, which I had never had before.  This set off a tiny rum obsession on my part, which has been a lot of fun “researching.”  When my friend Emma gave me a great book for Christmas with a recipe for Rumkirschen in it, I was over the moon.

In case you have never heard of it before, Rumkirschen is an eastern European liqueur made from tart Morello cherries and rum.  I adore Morello cherries, and Trader Joe’s just happens to sell them.  If you don’t have a TJs near you, you can find the cherries at eastern European markets or online.

For the rum, any dark rum will do here (anything but white).  I used a black-strap rum that I really enjoy, and it worked amazingly well for this recipe.  Once you have combined the rum and cherries, simply refrigerate for at least 3 days (though the longer it sits the more the flavors will develop).  The infused cherries are fantastic eaten alone, but the sauce is wonderful too and I like to pour them both over ice cream or pound cake.  You can also cut the liquid with soda water or cola to make a fun, light cocktail.  I like to put a cherry or two, plus about a tsp of the syrup into champagne for a fun twist on a kir royale.  Put into individual jars and sealed, this makes a great unique hostess gift.

Rumkirschen
From Jar It, Pickle It, Cure It

1 20 ounce jar Morello cherries
About 1 cup of amber or dark rum

You’ll need 2 clean, odor-free, wide-mouthed glass jars with tight-fitting lids for the infusion process (you can reuse the jars the cherries came in, if you like).  However, if you plan to give this as a gift or serving it at your next party, consider pouring the infusion into an attractive bottle with a tight-fitting cap.

Drain the cherries into a bowl, reserving the syrup.  Pour the syrup into a measuring cup; you should have about 2 cups.  Pour half the syrup into each of the 2 jars and divide the strained cherries evenly between the jars.  Pour 1/2 cup of rum into each jar.

Cover the jars tightly, label and shake gently to combine.  Refrigerate for at least 3 days, though the flavors develop more fully the longer you let it sit.  Kept refrigerated, the syrup and fruit will last almost indefinitely.

Old-Fashioned Cherry Pie with Lavender

This July I am celebrating eight years of marriage to a pretty fantastic guy.  I won’t go on and on about him here (as he embarrasses easily!), but suffice to say when the marriage fairy was handing out husbands, I got a prince.  Truly.

Paris, April 2009

He also likes to cook.  But, being married to a woman who is fanatical about cooking, he doesn’t get a lot of time in the kitchen.  Or if he does try to cook something, I am usually full of  “helpful” hints that only muck up the process.  And so, over the years, I have become the cook and he has become the dishwasher.  He loves to eat good food, and so doesn’t complain about the demotion, and I love to cook but hate to clean up afterward.  We are a good team.

Lately, he has been taking on more sous chef tasks which he completes with alacrity.  We make our pasta from scratch and he has become the pasta dough master.  Really, his is better than mine and always ends up in nice, silky strands.  It is now his official kitchen job, and I am actually enjoying handing some tasks over to him.

A few years ago, we stopped by Blue Mountain Lavender Farm on our way to a wine weekend in Walla Walla.  They have a lovely property there inspired  by the rolling lavender hills in Provence.  We fell in love, of course, and brought many things back with us, including a great little cookbook and lots of culinary lavender.  I use both of them all the time.

I really love to pair lavender with any fruit.  Right now cherries are bursting forth at the market and I came across a recipe in the Lavender Cookbook that sounded perfect.  I handed the book to husband (with only one or two little “tips”) and sat back and relaxed while he made this pie.  He is just as good with pie dough as he is with pasta dough (I had a feeling that would be the case), and the pie turned out perfectly.

Old-Fashioned Cherry Pie with Lavender
From The Lavender Cookbook

1 cup plus 2 tbs sugar
1/4 cup quick-cooking tapoica
1 tbs dried lavender, finely ground
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
6 cups frozen or fresh cherries (you’ll need about 2 pounds of fresh)
2 tbs vanilla
1 tbs lavender sugar (recipe follows)

Prepare the pie dough (recipe follows) and refrigerate for one hour.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In small bowl, stir together the granulated sugar, tapioca, lavender, salt and cinnamon.

Place cherries in  large saucepan and stir over med-high heat for 5 minutes, or until slightly softened.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer cherries to a large bowl.  Add the sugar mixture to the cherry juices in the pan and simmer, stirring, for 3-5 minutes or until thickened.  Pour over the cherries.  Add the vanilla and stir to mix.  Let cool.

On a lightly floured surface, roll one piece of dough into an 11-inch round.  Fit the dough into a 9-inch pie plate, leaving a 3/4-inch overhang.  Pour in the filling, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and chill.

Roll the remaining dough into an 11-inch round and use a sharp knife or fluted pastry wheel to cut into 1-inch wide strips.  Working on a sheet of parchment paper set on a baking sheet, weave the pastry strips in a close lattice pattern.  Refrigerate or freeze the lattice for 20 minutes, or until firm.

Brush the edges of the filled shell with cold water and slide the lattice off the parchment and onto the pie.  Let stand for 10 minutes to soften the lattice.  Trim the edges flush with the rim of the pie plate and crimp decoratively.  Gently brush the lattice top with cold water and sprinkle with lavender sugar.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 50-60 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and the filling bubbles.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly.  Serve warm.

Lavender dough

Lavender Pie Dough
From The Lavender Cookbook

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbs sugar
1 tbs dried lavender, finely ground
1 tsp salt
1/4 pound cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup shortening, chilled and cut into pieces
1/4 cup cold water

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, lavender, and salt.  Pulse to mix.  Scatter the butter and shortening over the flour and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Do not overprocess.  Add the water and pulse until the dough starts to clump; if the dough is not clumping, add water 1 tsp at a time.  Gather the dough into a ball and divide in half.  Flatten each piece into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for one hour.  (Note: we make our dough by hand with a pastry cutter, and you could do the same with two forks.)

Lavender Sugar
From The Lavender Cookbook

1 tbs dried lavender
2 cups sugar

In a spice grinder or with mortar and pestle, grind the lavender with 1 tbs of sugar until finely ground.  Transfer to a bowl and add remaining sugar.  Transfer to a jar, seal tightly, and let stand for at least three days before using.  (Note: lavender sugar is great in making fresh lemonade or to sweeten iced tea. Try it on the rim of cocktails for something extra special. )

Jungle Cookies

We are a cookie household.  That is to say, there are almost always homemade cookies snugly nestled into a box on the kitchen counter, lid askew (if husband was the last to fetch one).  There is no better accompaniment to coffee in the morning, and lazy afternoons call for tea and (or just) cookies of some kind.  My mom baked cookies all the time, as did my grandmother, so for me, a house just doesn’t smell like home unless cookies have recently been made.

Dough

Because I make cookies so often, I am always playing with recipes to create variations of what we have liked before, and  Jungle cookies came into being one afternoon when I was riffing on traditional oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies.  I love to add dried fruit and nuts to cookies, and this time of year when fresh cherries are just coming into season I can never resist making just one more recipe with them dried.  So I tossed in dried sour cherries, some over-sized Ghiradelli milk chocolate chips (trust me, size does matter), and chopped up the rest of the Brazil nuts in the cupboard.  Voila!  Jungle cookies.

If you can’t find Ghiradelli chips, I suggest buying a block of good chocolate and chopping it into good-sized chunks.  You can really use any kind of chocolate here– semi-sweet would be a delicious counter to the sour cherries and I debated  about which chocolate to use myself.  I don’t recommend using Nestle or most grocery-store brands, because you do want the rich chocolate to shine through here and to avoid the bitter, alkaline taste of most common brands (a result of the fact that most of those brands don’t even use real cacao in their products). If you can find cacao nibs, toss in a handful here.

Lastly, feel free to use any nut that you like in this recipe.  Walnuts would be great, as would cashews or almonds, even hazelnuts.  I like the richness of the Brazil nut as well as the great texture, but anything would be great.  It is kind of hard to go wrong when we are talking about butter, chocolate, fruit and nuts, right?

Jungle Cookies
La Femme Original

2 sticks butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup Ghiradelli large milk chocolate chips
3/4 cup dried sour cherries
1/2 cup – 3/4 cup chopped Brazil nuts

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Cream sugars with butter, then add egg and vanilla.  Stir in flour, baking soda, salt and spice. Mix well.  Add oatmeal.  Once blended, add chocolate chips, nuts and cherries and stir well to combine.  Drop by rounded tablespoon (I use an ice cream scoop) onto cookies sheets.  Bake 10-12 minutes.