Gruyere Popovers Are the Ideal Weapon for this Artic Winter

Popovers Warm from the Oven Fill the House with the Most Amazing Smell.

It's cold in Chicago nowadays. Like, really cold. 10 degrees below zero when we wake up cold. Our driveway is an ice rink cold. Walking around without a hat is not an option cold. The only way to fight back with all that ice and snow is with baking and filling the house with the sweet and savory smells of warmth.

On a bitter winter night, when I want to make an average meal something really memorable, I whip up a batch of popovers. These little puffs of cheesy bread just melt in your mouth. They're the ideal complement to a pork roast that's been braising in cider all day long in your slow cooker.

This recipe whips up in less than five minutes with just a quick pulses of your blender. The toughest part is keeping the oven door for the full twenty-two minutes they take to bake. The penalty for peeking is pretty dire. These babies will fall and you'll be having warm cheesy pancakes instead of light and fluffy popovers.

Plunging a knife into the popovers is scary, but it will keep them beautiful and tasty.

Gruyere Popovers
Makes 16 popovers
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 22 minutes
Ingredients:
4 eggs
1 cup of grated Gruyere cheese (I love the sharp nuttiness of gruyere but if you can't find it at your local grocer, substitute Swiss cheese)
3/4 cups of skim milk
3/4 cups of heavy cream (alternatively, you can use 1 1/2 cups of whole milk)
4 Tablespoons of salted butter, melted
1 Tablespoon of Dijon Mustard
1 1/3 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
a little extra butter or pan spray for the pans

1. Take two muffin tins (or popover tins if you have them. I don't and am very happy with these.) and grease them, then place them in your cold oven on the middle shelf.
2. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. IN a blender, combine your eggs, milk, heavy cream, mustard, and melted butter. Pulse a few times to blend and break up the eggs.
4. Add the flour, salt, and gruyere and pulse until just blended.
5. Once your oven has reached its temperature, remove the pans and fill each muffin hole 3/4 of the way, moving as quickly as you can.
6. Return the filled pans to the oven and cook until puffy and golden, between 22 and 25 minutes.
7. Remove the popovers from the oven, pierce each in the middle to let the steam escape and pop them out of their holes with the tip of a knife. Serve them while they are still steaming.
8. Leftover popovers can be kept in a sealed container on the counter for a few days. With 10-15 seconds in the microwave, they make a fantastic stew sandwich for lunch.

The Cheater's Cassoulet

Chefdruck's Tasty Tuesday

Before delving into tonight's Tasty Tuesday recipe, I wanted to report back on my pirate birthday cake. Everyone was impressed with the cake and all of Jack's friends were delighted by all the candy decorating it. Cutting into it was painful but the slices actually looked pretty good too. I was enjoying a slice of my own, filling my mouth with the chocolaty frosting, feeling like the ultimate mom, when I noticed that Jack was not at the table with his friends. He was playing ostrich with his head buried deep into the couch cushions. I walked over to see what the matter was and he whispered, "There's something I want to tell you but I'm scared." I knew before the words were out of his mouth that he didn't like the cake. I wasn't upset, I just felt so bad that he was worrying about it on his birthday. Once I assured him that my feelings were not hurt and that I was not mad, I handed him a new plate with plain cake and lots of swedish fish. He ran back into the party with a big smile, all worries erased. Next year I'll be decorating vanilla icing instead of using chocolate.


Now onto tonight's recipe. French cooking is full of delicious hearty winter stews like Beef Bourguignon. The heartiest of the hearties is Cassoulet. A stick to your ribs white bean stew filled with sausage and duck confit. Cassoulet satisfies the deepest parts of your soul. It's comfort food to the ultimate degree, but it definitely isn't diet food or a quick and easy recipe.

I was a little skeptical when I ran across a Real Simple recipe for cassoulet that seemed relatively easy. I'm generally a purist when it comes to French cooking but I was intrigued. Because this recipe doesn't involve dried beans or duck confit, I actually happened to have the ingredients in my fridge and pantry so I decided to give it a try. I ended up having cassoulet for the rest of the week. And I walked around every day in a deeply happy food coma state.

As the only source of fat in this version is from one pound of Italian sausage, it's also considerably healthier than the real thing.

Winter Cassoulet - adapted from Real Simple Magazine
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes
1 lb of Italian sausage, casings removed
1 1/2 cups of chicken broth
1 small onion, finely chopped
4 carrots, coarsely chopped
3 parsnips, coarsely chopped
1 tomato, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 15-oz cans of white beans (Great Northern, cannelini, or navy beans), drained
1 teaspoon of dried thyme leaves
1 cup of breadcrumbs
1/4 cup of fresh parsley
2 tablespoons of melted butter
1 tablespoon of olive oil

1) In a thick cast iron pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Cook the sausage until browned, breaking it up as it cooks. Remove from the heat and set to rest on paper towels. Remove the extra oil from the pot.
2) Add the vegetables to the pot and cook until softened, stirring frequently to prevent scorching, about five minutes.
3) Add the chicken broth, beans, thyme, and sausage and return to heat. Feel free to salt and pepper according to your tastes too. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for about one hour. Stir occasionally until the mixture is thickened and the vegetables are tender.
4) Heat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit. Combine the breadcrumbs, parsley and butter in a bowl. Sprinkle the bread crumb mixture evenly over the cassoulet and put in the oven. Bake, uncovered, until the crust is golden, about 15 minutes.
5) Serve immediately or enjoy the next day reheated. I reheated mine in the microwave with no problem.