I wish you could have smelled our house today. Wonderful aromas wafted out of the kitchen for much of the day. The scent of fir, so assertive when we brought our tree home last weekend, faded into the background. The dominant note at the end of the day is yeast; a loaf of Paul’s mixed grain sandwich bread is cooling in the kitchen. Lingering in the air from earlier in the day are hints of citrus, pear, vanilla. If you have a really good nose, you might even catch a whiff of mustard.
This morning, after a chilly, damp trip to the farmers’ market, I candied “fingers” of peel from a Buddha’s hand (aka fingered citron). The peels were blanched, simmered in sugar syrup, air dried, and tossed with crystallized sugar. Though not difficult, the process took several hours, during which the house filled with the slightly floral, lemony scent of citron.
Some evenings I can think of only one thing that I want to cook and eat for dinner. Often, a vegetable or two that I’ve picked up at the farmers’ market is calling my name. If what strikes my fancy isn’t a complete meal, so be it. Tonight, I wanted to cook a fractally romanesco cauliflower. Starting with this recipe, I roasted the sliced florets with butter, olive oil, mustard and lemon juice. Sweet and tender on the inside, crisp, brown, and spicy on the edges; the cauliflower didn’t last half an hour out of the oven.
When the cauliflower came out of the oven, the pears went in. (There may have been only one thing I on my mind for dinner, but it was saving room for dessert.) Sprinkled with lemon juice, dusted with vanilla sugar, and dotted with butter, the just-this-side-of-ripe Comice pears roasted to caramelly tenderness in about an hour. They didn’t really need that small drizzle of cream, but it mixed deliciously with their syrupy juices.
To open the Advent calendar window for Day 15, click here:
Will I dip these in dark chocolate before serving them? Hmmmm…