Last week Jessica and I were invited to attend a coffee tasting by our friends at Craft Coffee. Michael Horn, the creator of whatisfresh.com, started craftcoffee.com about a year ago to help spread quality, artisanal coffee. Subscribing members to Craft Coffe receive a tasting selection of coffees every month, handpicked by Horn’s team. As the emphasis on the importance of locality and sustainability grows, we all pay a premium for specialized, local and organic, and artisanal ingredients, and Michael Horn is making coffee one such product.

Despite our high respect for artisanal products and the people who craft them, the craft of making coffee often winds up as an afterthought. In New York, there’s definitely a growing market for quality coffee, but the craft of making coffee is still underrated, especially in many restaurants. In a city where everyone is seeking out craft beers, artisan cheeses and homemade pickles, Horn saw an opportunity to introduce coffee and brewing coffee into that realm of specialty products.

Craft sells all fair-trade coffee that comes from roasters all over the United States. Every month they select several coffees to mail to subscribers. The Craft team’s process for tasting coffee and selecting the beans is extensive and in many ways similar to wine tasting.

At the event last week, Jess and I had the opportunity to taste the three different coffees Craft is offering in their holiday gift boxes. Michael’s team of coffee tasters and brewers had laid out some of the foods that they found notes of in each of the coffees. These included some fruits, nuts and also a peanut butters sandwich. Jess and I didn’t get all of that, but we did love the coffees we tried. Hopefully we’ll both soon develop a more sophisticated coffee palette, but for the time being we were happy to walk away with our gift baskets of fresh coffee beans.

You can check out Craft Coffee’s website at craftcoffee.com to learn more about what Michael and his team are doing all over the country to change the way we consider, brew and drink our daily cup of coffee.

© 2011 Jonathan Meter and Jessica Hertle

It’s been a while since Jonathan and I have posted, and we have really missed BiteSized this past month. It’s been a busy time for us both, but we’re so happy to be back!

Even though we haven’t been posting, we have been doing a lot of cooking. We had some Sunday dinners and made some meals for just the two of us also. The one item present at all these dinners has been cauliflower, and I just can’t get enough of it. Jon used to claim he couldn’t eat it on account of his sensitive stomach, but I legitimately think that was just an excuse he was using to get out of eating a healthy vegetable. Once I roasted it for him in my favorite way, with olive oil, salt and pepper, and red pepper flakes, he started to come around. I like to roast the florets until they are dark and crispy – nicely browned and crunchy, but not burned.

Our oven is about to bite the dust and has only two settings – off, and a raging 550°. So it can be tricky to make sure stuff doesn’t burn, especially when the two of us put something in there and get distracted and totally forget about it. Somehow at work I manage to remember things in the oven consistently without burning them, but the minute I get home it’s like another, less organized, totally scattered brain takes over and makes me forget things on the stove or in the oven like it’s my job. But yesterday we managed to get the roasted cauliflower out of the oven in time, fortunately.

I had the idea to make roast cauliflower soup because it was cold out yesterday and I thought it’d be a nice change from the roast cauliflower we’ve had every week for a month. When we were buying the cauliflower at the market, the fresh herbs were so fragrant and I thought it’d be fun to fry them in a light tempura batter and serve them with the soup, to keep the crunchy factor that I love about the roasted florets.

We roasted the florets for the soup a little less than I do when we are eating them plain, and I used the cauli stems as a base for the soup, along with an onion and some garlic. I lightly battered and fried the herbs we got at the market – sage, rosemary and parsley.

Our soup and fried herbs snack was a fun and super easy recipe, and it looked really pretty together on the plate. It was definitely a nice change from the roasted florets (although we did make and eat some of those two, the cauli head we got at the market was mammoth). I hope you’ll try this soup, or at least the roasted florets!

INGREDIENTS
(Makes 3 very full quarts)

 

For the Soup:

2 quarts of cauliflower florets, roasted
1 quart worth of cauliflower stems, thinly sliced
1 small white onion, thinly sliced
3 heads of garlic, chopped
1 quart of chicken stock
2 cups heavy cream
Water, as needed
Salt and pepper
Red pepper flakes
Olive oil
1 tbsp butter

Process:

 

1. Separate the cauli stems from the head. Break the head of the cauliflower into florets and dress with olive oil, salt and pepper, and red pepper flakes. Roast at 425° until lightly browned.
2. Meanwhile, slice the stem of the cauliflower, slice the onion and chop garlic. Sweat together in a large pot over medium heat in olive oil and butter. Season well with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes.
3. When florets are roasty, add to the pot on the stove and cook together for a few minutes to soften. Add stock, bay and water and simmer for about 45 minutes.
4. Blend soup in food processor (remove bay leaves) and pass through a fine mesh strainer. Serve hot with fried herbs or crusty bread.

For the Fried Herbs:
(Adapted from Bon Appetit)

Herbs of your choice, picked off the stem
1 cup all purpose flour
3 heaping tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking powder
1 ¼ cup ice water
¼ cup cold beer
Salt and pepper

Process:

 

1. Pick herbs, use only the nicest leaves.
2. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, then add the water and beer. Don’t mix the batter too much and don’t worry if it is lumpy.
3. Dip herbs in batter and fry in hot canola oil, just for a few seconds, until crispy.
4. Lay herbs on a paper towel to dry. Serve with cauli soup.

© 2011 Jonathan Meter and Jessica Hertle

 

 

Every fall, the Sedutto ice cream shop on the Upper East Side has pumpkin ice cream, only during October and November. When I was little and first discovered pumpkin ice cream, I was completely enamored with it. Fall has since become my favorite season, and every year I get these really big ideas about all the fall activities I’m going to do. I want to go drive upstate and check out all the fall foliage, go to an orchard to pick apples and make pie, carve pumpkins, make halloween costumes, knit scarves, make stew and soup and chili, wear sweaters – all the corny, seasonal stuff that goes on in autumn. I get super excited every time I feel that first chilly fall air and resent any day after that when the temperature goes above 70 degrees.

Somehow I never wind up doing all of those activities, because of work or whatever else is going on. But the one thing I always stay true to is pumpkins. Every year I carve one, and make at least one pumpkin-related dessert. This year, when Jon and I recently received an ice cream maker as an engagement gift, pumpkin was the obvious first choice of ice cream to make. We had so much extra pumpkin roasted, that I made some pumpkin bread as well and made pumpkin ice cream sandwiches. This little dessert bite is so sweet and a little savory at the same time. Using fresh pumpkin was more work, but  worth the effort over using canned. These sandwiches turned out better than I could have hoped and will definitely become a part of my annual fall traditions.

INGREDIENTS:
(Makes 6 cups ice cream and 2 loaves bread)

For the Pumpkin Ice Cream:

2 cups heavy cream
6 egg yolks
¾ cup dark brown sugar
½ stick butter
1 tsp ground ginger, divided
2 tsp ground cinnamon, divided
1 tsp grated nutmeg, divided
2/3 cup cooked pumpkin purée
1 tsp vanilla
Salt and pepper

Process: 

1. To roast the pumpkin, melt ½ a stick of butter in a small pot along with ¼ cup brown sugar, ½ tsp grated nutmeg, 1 tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp ginger, salt and pepper.
2. Halve the pumpkin and remove the seeds. Brush the insides of the pumpkin with the butter mixture and roast on a baking sheet, face down, at 375º until very soft, about 30 minutes.
3. While the pumpkin is roasting, start the custard for the ice cream. In a small sauce pan, dissolve the remaining ½ cup brown sugar in 1 cup of heavy cream.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and remaining 1 cup heavy cream.
5. When sugar has dissolved, slowly mix ½ the hot cream mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly. This will temper the eggs and prevent them from cooking.
6. Recombine the custard back into the mixture on the stove and stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the custard has thickened and naps the back of a spoon, about 4 minutes. Do not allow the custard to boil.
7. When the pumpkin is fully cooked, remove from the skin and cool completely. Mix the pumpkin into the custard and cool ice cream base for at least 3 hours and up to 24 hours.
8. Mix ice cream according to your mixers instructions. Eat immediately or freeze!