In today’s face paced lifestyle the slow cooker has gained enormous popularity because of its remarkable convenience.  But, not everyone wants to prepare recipes that serve 6-8 people as most slow cooker recipes do. Fortunately, Beth Hensperger has the solution.  “Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Recipes for Two” provides tasty, imaginative, and exiting recipes specifically for a 1½- to 3½-quart slow cooker.  While these recipes are targeted for cooking on a small scale they are nonetheless fabulous such as today’s recipe “Turkey Breast Cutlets with Sweet Potatoes”.  “Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Recipes for Two” provides easy to prepare recipes for two people without skimping on flavor or creativity.

Turkey Breast Cutlets with Sweet Potatoes

From “Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Recipes for Two” by Beth Hensperger, Harvard Common Press.

I wanted to combine turkey and sweet potatoes in a new way. My mother gave me a recipe for meatballs and a cranberry brown gravy from Marcus Samuelson, lauded chef at the restaurant Aquavit in New York City. So there were the pre-packaged turkey breast cutlets in the fresh poultry section, just begging to be included into some slow cooker recipe. Well here is that incredibly easy gravy over turkey cutlets and sweet potatoes. It is excellent and a complete meal.

Recommended Size: 3 quart cooker
Machine Setting: Low
Cook Time: 6 to 7 hours
Serves 2

•    One 1.2-ounce package turkey gravy mix (I use Knorr)
•    1/2 cup water
•    1/3 cup dry white wine
•    3/4 cup whole cranberry sauce
•    2 tablespoons cream
•    1/4 cup dried cranberries
•    2 medium sweet potatoes or Garnet yams, peeled and cut into 1/3-inch slices
•    4 ounces green beans, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
•    1 large shallot, sliced
•    1 pound turkey breast cutlets (2)
  

In a small saucepan, combine the dry gravy mix, water, wine, and cranberry sauce and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and whisk until thickened and the cranberry sauce has melted. Stir in the cream and dried cranberries. Set aside.

Spray the cooker with an olive oil or butter-flavored nonstick cooking spray. Arrange the sweet potato slices in the bottom of cooker. Then add the layer of green beans tossed with the shallot.  Roll up each cutlet and place in a layer on top of the vegetables. Pour the warm Cranberry Brown Gravy over the cutlets and vegetables. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 7 hours, until turkey and the sweet potatoes are tender. Remove a slice or two of turkey to a dinner plate with an oversized spoon. Spoon over the vegetables and gravy. Serve with hot biscuits.

About “Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Recipes for Two”

Today, 58 per cent of American households consist of only one or two people, yet most cookbooks still contain recipes designed to serve 6-8. In this follow-up to the bestselling Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook, Beth Hensperger offers 125 new recipes specifically designed for the increasingly popular 1½- to 3½-quart slow cooker. “Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Recipes for Two ” is the perfect book for busy singles and small families who want the convenience of a small slow-cooker-made meal without sacrificing wholesomeness and flavor.  Beth Hensperger is also the author of the James Beard Book Award winner “The Bread Bible ”  as well as many other cookbooks including the best-selling “Bread Lovers Bread Machine Cookbook”.

Get Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two: For the Small Slow Cooker at:

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Photo by Maren Caruso

Lavender Vanilla Ganache

From "Chocolate Obsession: Confections and Treats to Create and Savor" by Michael Recchiuti, and Fran Gage, photography by Maren Caruso. Stewart, Tabori and Chang Publishers September 2005.

The strong floral tones of the lavender stand up to the full-bodied chocolates. If you want to showcase the lavender flavor even more, top each piece of finished chocolate with a lavender flower. Michael makes this ganache with Lavandula augustifolia "Grosso," a variety that dries without losing its fragrance.

If you are lucky enough to have abundant "Grosso" lavender plants in your garden, you can harvest the flowers and dry them yourself. Cut the flowers in the early morning, divide them into bunches of no more than 100 stems each, and secure each with a rubber band. Hang them in a dark, well ventilated place until no moisture remains.

About 50 dipped squares or round truffles

• ¾ cup (6 ounces) heavy whipping cream
• ½ cup plus 2 teaspoon (3 ¾ ounces by weight) invert sugar (stir before measuring)
• ½ Tahitian vanilla bean, split horizontally
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon dried lavender flowers
• 10 ¾ ounces 61% to 70% chocolate, finely chopped
• 6 tablespoons (3 ounces) unsalted butter with 82% butterfat, very soft (75ºF) About ¼ cup melted untempered 41% milk chocolate if dipping squares
• Tempered 41% milk chocolate for dipping squares or unsweetened natural cocoa powder for rolling truffles

Make the ganache

Line the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan with plastic wrap.

Stir the cream and invert sugar together in a small saucepan. Scrape the vanilla seeds from the bean into the pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, remove from the heat, and stir in the lavender flowers. Cover the top of the pan with plastic and let steep for 20 minutes.

While the cream is steeping, put the chocolate in a medium stainless-steel bowl and set the bowl over a pot of simmering water. Heat, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate melts and registers 115ºF on an instant-read thermometer. Lift the bowl from the pot.

Strain the cream through a sieve lined with cheesecloth into a 2-cup liquid measure. When  the liquid has run through, pick up the cheesecloth and squeeze the remaining drops into the sieve. If necessary, add cream or discard some of the liquid to bring the volume to 8 ½ ounces. Check to make sure the temperature is at 115ºF and adjust if necessary.

Pour the chocolate and cream into 1-quart vessel. Blend with an immersion blender using a stirring motion and making sure to go to the bottom of the vessel.  The ganache will thicken,
Become slightly less shiny, and develop a pudding-like consistency. Add butter and incorporate it with the immersion blender.

Pour the ganache into lined pan. Spread it out as evenly as possible with a small offset spatula. Allow the ganache to cool at room temperature until it has set, 2 to 4 hours. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate until you are ready to dip squares or roll truffles.

Dip the ganache squares in chocolate or make truffles  

See instructions for tempering chocolate, dipping chocolate, and making truffles.

Lift the square of ganache from the pan, turn it over onto a work surface, and remove the plastic wrap.  If you are dipping squares, apply a thin coat of melted untempered (112ºF) 41% milk chocolate to one side of the ganache square with a small offset spatula. (If you are making truffles, don't apply the chocolate coating.) Let the chocolate harden. Turn the ganache square over and trim the edges. Cut the ganache into 1-inch squares with a knife dipped in hot water and wiped dry before each cut and wiped clean after each cut.

If you are dipping squares, temper the chocolate and then dip the squares. Store the dipped chocolates in a cool, dry place, not in the refrigerator.

If you are making truffles, dust your palms with cocoa powder, roll the ganache squares into balls, and then coat with cocoa powder to keep them from sticking together. Store in the refrigerator, but remove 30 minutes before serving.

About Chocolate Obsession

Known as the "Picasso of chocolatiers," Michael Recchiuti creates confections that are every bit as daring and original as any of his namesake's artworks. But unlike the painter, the chocolate maker has made it possible for even the amateur to achieve his artistry. In Chocolate Obsession Recchiuti, owner of the famed artisanal chocolate company, Recchiuti Confections,  in San Francisco, divulges his professional secrets and techniques, allowing home cooks to reproduce his exquisite confections in their own kitchens. Opening with a complete discussion of chocolate from bean to bar, the book goes on to offer detailed instructions for dipped chocolates, truffles, and molded chocolates. With more than 60 recipes in all, this book will satisfy even the most obsessive chocolate lovers among us.  Have even more sugar cravings? Check out Fran Gage's other books Bread and Chocolate and A Sweet Quartet. 

Get Chocolate Obsession: Confections and Treats to Create and Savor at:

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Photography by Teri Sandison

Roast Halibut with Intense Fruit Glaze  

From “Fast Fish” by Hugh Carpenter and Teri Sandison, Ten Speed Press 2005.

Serves 4 

• 1 cup dried apricots
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup dried bing cherries
• 1 and 1 / 2 cups white wine
• 3 tablespoons minced ginger
• 1 cup slightly chopped mint leaves
• 4, 6-ounce pieces fresh halibut fillets (or seabass or salmon fillets)
• salt and crushed red pepper (or black pepper)
• 1 lemon

In a microwave-safe container, combine the dried fruit, 1 cup wine, ginger, and half the mint.  Cover and cook at full power in the microwave oven for 2 minutes.  Can be done 8 hours before cooking with all food refrigerated.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place fish flat side down on a baking pan, then sprinkle with salt and red pepper or ground black pepper.  Add all the fruit both around and on top of the fish.  Add the remaining wine around the sides of the fish.  Place in the oven, and roast uncovered until the fish just begins to flake, about 12 minutes.  Transfer to dinner plates.  Squeeze lemon juice on fish.  Garnish with remaining mint.  Serve.

Reprinted with permission from Fast Fish by Hugh Carpenter and Teri Sandison. Photography by Teri Sandison. Copyright © 2005.  Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, California.

About Fast Fish

Fast Fish by Hugh Carpenter and Teri Sandison includes short ingredient lists, easy instructions, and simple menu suggestions. It focuses on the nine most popular fish sold in the United States, but also offers other varieties that can be substituted. It also offers 100 simple, flavor-intense recipes that will turn even the fish skeptic into a fish lover—dishes such as Tex-Mex Barbecued Halibut Steaks, Tea-Poached Salmon with Mint, and Steamed Snapper with Spicy Pesto.

Get Fast Fish at:

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What makes a recipe more than just a recipe?  How about when a cooking school instructor incorporates her vast knowledge into the recipe?  This is exactly what Linca Carucci provides in “Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks”.  Linda presents details on every aspect of preparing the recipe combined with ingredient definitions, cooking term definitions, pronunciations, related background information, preparation tips and menu ideas.  The result is not only amazing recipes, such as “Red Pepper Bisque”, but the knowledge needed to prepare those recipes flawlessly without needing to attend culinary school!  

Red Pepper Bisque

From “Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks” by Linda Carucci. Chronicle Books

For the past several years, this has been the workhorse recipe I use in my Cooking Basics classes to teach the concept of seasoning to taste. It's a fairly simple recipe for beginner cooks to replicate at home. A bisque (pronounced bisk) is a smooth, puréed soup, often made with seafood, and usually enriched with cream. When made with lobster or shrimp, a bisque is sometimes thickened, or enriched, by adding a tablespoon or so of raw white rice when the stock is added. The rice disintegrates as the soup cooks, releasing its starch and thickening the soup in the process. Given the texture of peppers or mushrooms, it's not necessary to add rice to a bisque made with either of these vegetables, but a little cream goes a long way to enhance the "mouth-feel" of a bell pepper or mushroom bisque. To enhance the satisfying sensation of umami (see page 38), this vegetable bisque is prepared with chicken stock. But, if you prefer a vegetarian soup, simply substitute commercial or homemade vegetable broth for the chicken stock. The amount of salt you’ll need when seasoning to taste depends on the saltiness of your stock.

Secrets

• This recipe calls for 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper. The smaller amount will simply add a note of complexity without the heat. More makes the soup spicy.
• If you double a recipe that calls for spicy-hot ingredients such as cayenne pepper, don’t double the spicy ingredients. The capsaicin (pronounced cap-SAY-ih-sin), which gives cayenne and other hot spices their heat, increases exponentially as you add more of the spice. Start with "one times" the cayenne, and, if desired, add more when you season the soup at the end.
• Dairy products such as cream and yogurt mitigate spicy heat. As an eye-catching counterpoint to the cayenne, garnish this soup with a drizzle of crème fraîche (pronounced crem fresh) or a dollop of sour cream. For homemade crème fraîche, see the recipe at the end.
• As with most soups, this bisque tastes better the next day. If you prepare it a day ahead, season with salt and pepper, but don’t add the cream until you reheat the soup.

Serves 4 to 6

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
• 1 medium yellow onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 stalk celery, chopped (if you don’t plan to strain the soup, peel celery before chopping)
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 4 medium red bell peppers (about 1 3/4 pounds), stemmed, seeded, and chopped into 1-inch pieces
• About 4 cups chicken stock, homemade or low-sodium, if canned
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• About 2/3 cup crème fraîche or sour cream, stirred to a smooth consistency, for garnish

Place a heavy 4-quart pot over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil. When oil is hot enough to sizzle a piece of carrot, add the carrots, onions, and celery. Sauté until carrots turn bright orange and onions become translucent, about 8 minutes. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon of the cayenne pepper and add the bell peppers. When the peppers start to soften, after about 5 minutes, add enough stock to just cover the vegetables and bring to a rolling boil. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, until carrots and peppers are soft, about 30 minutes. 

In a stand blender, purée soup in batches until very smooth: Blend just 2 cups at a time and hold down the blender lid as you slowly increase and decrease the speed. Alternatively, purée with an immersion blender. If desired, strain puréed soup through a medium-mesh strainer into a clean pot. As you strain the soup, extract as much pulp as possible from the solids by pressing on them with the bottom of a ladle.

Stir in heavy cream and season to taste with kosher salt and black pepper, as well as additional cayenne pepper, if desired. If necessary, reheat soup over low heat, stirring constantly. Ladle soup into warm bowls and drizzle with crème fraîche or garnish with a dollop of sour cream.

Variation: Substitute unseasoned Roasted Peppers--red, yellow or green--for the raw bell peppers. If you plan to strain the soup, you needn't peel the peppers after roasting them.

Recipe Testers' Comments: "Very easy soup to make and quick: 35 minutes from start to finish. …You can't mess up this recipe…I discovered that what I own is a fine-mesh strainer, and just as you predicted, it separated out too much of the pulp. So I ended up putting some of the pulp back in because I liked that texture better…I used a blender and didn't strain (I like the slight pulpiness)…I served a quesadilla with this and they went well together."

Homemade Crème Fraiche

Crème fraîche (pronounced crem fresh) is rich tasting, thick, European-style sour cream that's used to garnish everything from hors d'oeuvre to soups to desserts. In her well-documented book Nourishing Traditions, nutrition researcher Sally Fallon cites a variety of health benefits from eating cultured dairy products such as crème fraîche. Look for crème fraîche in the dairy case of well-stocked supermarkets. Or, it's quite simple—and inexpensive—to make your own. Just be sure to plan ahead, as homemade crème fraîche  can take up to 48 hours to thicken sufficiently. 

Combine 1 cup pure (with no additives and preferably not ultra-pasteurized) heavy cream with 2 tablespoons cultured, whole-milk buttermilk in a clean crock or glass jar. Stir, cover, and let sit at room temperature for 24 to 48 hours, until mixture is no longer runny. It should be thick enough to fall from a spoon in a clump rather than in a ribbon. Refrigerate crème fraîche for up to 2 weeks.

Copyright Linda Carucci, 2006.

About Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks

In “Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks” Linda Carucci, a cooking instructor with more than 20 years of food industry experience, reveals the indispensable everyday secrets and shortcuts that professional chefs use constantly in their cooking.“Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks” contains more than 100 recipes including soups and salads, pasta and risotto, main courses and side dishes, and indulgent desserts.  Each recipe offers truly useful guidelines and tips combined with illustrations demonstrating techniques, user-friendly charts, menus, and other resources that will educate any new cook—as well as the not-so-new ones.

Available at Amazon.com

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