November in California
+ a fall-flavored Baked Apple with Butter-Toasted California Golden Raisins recipe. Incredibly easy.
Hello, my dear,
During the fall, my shelves are stacked high with an enticing collection of new cookbooks, all of which I'm eager to delve into for culinary inspiration and delight. So many marvelous baking books (you know where my heart belongs, don’t you?) that I hardly know where to begin!
For my November list, though, I've decided to blend in some titles that were published some time ago alongside the recently published ones, as I believe they're all worth a special mention. AKA wait until you hear the story.
First on the list is Wine Country Table: With Recipes that Celebrate California's Sustainable Harvest by Janet Fletcher. This book was a thoughtful gift from my friends at California Prunes last year. It's a book that not only showcases the culinary wonders (and so much of its agricultural universe) of my beloved Golden State but also reveals that there's a perfect place for every crop here.
You can truly experience this through the recipes featured in the book, which are diverse, colorful, and interesting. As many of our newsletter readers hail from California, I believe that some of you might find this read particularly enjoyable.
The second book, very much in the California theme, still is Flavors of the Temecula Valley Wineries by Martha Culbertson & Rebecca Farnbach. And this one holds a good story!
Barbara, one of my best friends from Brazil from law school, came to visit me two years ago. She then met Felipe, another great friend of mine who lived here, and who madly fell in love with her. She reciprocated the passion and now they're married and living in Oceanside. We get together often; they're my favorite couple in the whole world, and I couldn't be happier about it!
But back to the book! Barbara surprised me when I got back from Brazil with this book, signed by the author and everything because not only did she know I had visited Temecula Valley with CA Grown back in May and loved the place so much, but also because the author of the book was friends with Julia Child!
Barbara, who had just started a new job, had become friends with the author's granddaughter who mentioned her grandmother was publishing a cookbook. Barbara then responded along the lines of “I have a friend who's writing a cookbook!”. The conversation likely continued until she mentioned The Julia Child Challenge, and that's when the whole Julia connection was made.
We all loved this coincidence so much! The author, Martha Culbertson, offered to host us for a night with wine and Julia talk in Temecula, which just makes me want to go back to this place I loved so much even sooner.
Apart from the beautiful history of Temecula as a wine destination that keeps on surprising, the book also encapsulates a rich and diverse collection of recipes from many wineries in the valley and so much information about the wines they produce. It really is a great book!
The third book, Latinísimo: Home Recipes from the Twenty-One Countries of Latin America: A Cookbook by Sandra A. Gutierrez isn't much of a recommendation (yet) as much as it is an invitation.
An encyclopedic cookbook (from Chiles Rellenos and Tostones to Golden Coconut Chicken and Dulce de Leche Tart) celebrating Latin American home cooking—the first to cover the day-to-day home cooking of all twenty-one nations—by one of the most respected authorities on the subject. However, I don't want to give away too much about the book (yet), because I will be in conversation with the author at Now Serving LA this Thursday, November 9th. I'd love to see you there if you're in LA! Come for Latin food knowledge, stay for my hugs.
I've been non-stoppingly cooking from Latinísimo for three weeks and I can't express how much it's a cookable book. Or how much I urge you to get it. But wait until I get my homework for this event done and I promise I'll be back to tell you more!
Meanwhile, I've been writing a cookbook gift guide for the holidays that I'm excited to share, and I've been also baking way more cookies than I should, in the hopes I can get a little cookie recipe collection done in time to go along with the gift guide — I think they make marvelous gifts.
Hope we can talk again soon. Here's a recipe not at all related to this post, but that I think is beyond delicious, and stupidly easy for you to make this week. Tastes like fall!
Merci,
J
Recipe
Baked Apples with Pumpkin Caramel and Butter-Toasted Golden Raisins & Breadcrumbs
Ingredients:
6 Pink Lady apples, cored
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup (1/4 stick) salted butter
1 cup Golden Raisins (I really love CA Golden Raisins)
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin spice
3-4 slices of whole-grain sourdough, crumbled
For the Caramel:
1/2 cup organic pumpkin purée
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup (1/4 stick) salted butter
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Place the cored Pink Lady apples in a tall baking pan.
In a small saucepan, melt 1/4 cup of butter and 1/4 cup of granulated sugar. Once melted, pour this mixture over the apples.
Bake the apples in the preheated oven for 45 minutes or until they are tender and cooked through.
While the apples are baking, make the topping:
In a large skillet over medium heat, melt 1/4 cup of butter.
Add the pumpkin spice to the melted butter and allow it to bloom.
Add the raisins, stirring until they plump and become shiny.
Finally, add the crumbled sourdough and stir continuously until the crumbs absorb the butter and become crispy. Toast them for about 3-4 minutes until they are crunchy and aromatic.
To make the caramel:
In the same small saucepan used for the initial butter-sugar mixture, combine the pumpkin puree, brown sugar, and 1/4 cup of butter.
Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat, stirring continuously for about 10 minutes until it thickens and changes color from orange to dark brown, becoming somewhat translucent. Be cautious as it can bubble and splatter. Can be easy to burn yourself.
When the apples are baked and all components are ready, arrange the apples on a serving plate.
Drizzle the prepared caramel over the apples and sprinkle the butter-toasted raisin and breadcrumb topping.
I also think that adding roasted & salted pepitas is a great idea for extra flavor and crunch!
These baked apples are best served warm and even better if accompanied by a fat scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.