Second because there are free prints in this post that you can download and print as a little gift from my studio to you; and the third because this is still a list of my favorite things.

This is the time of year for lists, not shopping lists, but lists of virtually everything else – lists of the most important world events, top fashion trends of the year, the biggest storms, the sexiest man, the best movies, the most popular celebrities, the most reviled despots, the biggest disasters, the best selling books, and even a list of  top time-wasters.

Print Winter Tree

With these lists as inspiration, I’ve compiled my top ten list of food favorites for 2010, and in a nod to Mr. Letterman, they are listed in reverse order of delight. To celebrate the New Year, I’ve created four prints that celebrate the seasons of the year. They can be downloaded and printed by clicking on the links below each image.

#10 Butter Poached Rhubarb – Combining the best of Julia Child, butter, and the best of James Beard, cream, I melted a stick of butter in a skillet, sprinkled in one cup of granulated sugar and cooked it for about five minutes. When the sugar had begun to caramelize and turned a light brown, I added four cups of rhubarb, cut in two inch slices, shook the pan vigorously to coat the rhubarb and cooked it until it was starting to fall apart. I took the pan off the heat, stirred in two tablespoons of dark rum, and transferred the rhubarb to a bowl set in an ice bath to stop the cooking. Topped with List Entry #4, whipped, it made a gorgeous dessert. This would be closer to #1 if fresh rhubarb were available from my garden year round and if this recipe were not loaded with sugar, butter and cream.

#9 Carrots – I’ve been eating lots of carrots this year, in soups, salads, in fritters, cakes and muffins. Organic carrots, scrubbed and slow roasted with salt, pepper and olive oil complement most any meal. Any leftovers can be mashed with a bit of mayo and garlic and spread on toast for lunch or a rustic hors d’oeuvre.

Print Spring Tree

#8 Cappuccino – Alas, this is one thing on my list that I don’t make in my kitchen; but, the adventure of searching for a café and finding a perfect cappuccino with just the right amount of foamy milk on top merits a place on my list.

#7 Recipe Police – When I wrote about the absence of fish in my pot of chowder I boldly proclaimed that the recipe police would not come to my kitchen to give me a ticket. Little did I know that a Recipe Policeman, in the form of a phone call from an anonymous reader, would phone me and issue a warning that I had neglected to add thyme to the pot. I got away with a warning but I have been careful to add thyme to chowder since then.

#6 Pasta with Raisins and Pine Nuts – So simple, so quick, so delicious! While I waited for the pasta water to come to a boil, I sauteed one clove of garlic in a large frying pan with one tablespoon of unsalted butter and one tablespoon of olive oil. When the garlic had softened but not browned, I added a quarter of a cup of pine nuts. When the nuts where toasted, and the pasta was al dente, I drained the pasta, reserved a quarter of a cup of pasta water, added the pasta, generous handfuls of chopped flat leaf parsley and raisins, and a splash of the pasta water to the pan. I topped the pasta with the mere suggestion of ground cinnamon. Finito!

#5 Chickpea Flour – I discovered that I could make a crisp flatbread by baking in a 450º oven a batter of one cup of chickpea flour, one and a half cups of water and a teaspoon of salt in a cast iron skillet with three tablespoons of oil. Seasoned with salt and a bit of curry powder, an ho-hum soup and toast dinner was transformed into a praise-worthy meal.

Print Summer Tree

#4 Heavy Cream – My favorite comes from local dairies and is not ultra-pasteurized. I like it on oatmeal with brown sugar, whipped, with no sugar added, as frosting on deep, dark, moist chocolate cake, and as a cold topper for broiled apricots, (a treat I learned from my dear friend Didi).

#3 The Open Air Market in Ortigia, Sicily – Chatting with Angelo Cappucio about fish for dinner, choosing blood oranges, smelling the smoky roasted artichokes, sampling wild strawberries, olives, salami and chocolate from Modica is the best way to figure out “What’s for dinner?”

#2 Making Cheese in Sicily – Near the top of my list is the morning I spent in the cheese shop in Ortigia, making cheese with Andrea Borderi. I was welcomed into the small kitchen in the back of the shop, wrapped in an apron and put to work. I learned how to cut, ladle and knead curds as we made ricotta and mozzarella. I make a simple breakfast of a bowl of ricotta cheese, topped with a drizzle of Vermont honey and slices of orange when I’m wishing I were in Sicily.

Print Fall Tree

#1 Contact from Friends – I am cheered and delighted when I hear from friends, whether old or new, by email, telephone and even snail mail. It doesn’t matter if the message is lavish praise, a complaint, or a correction – you are there, reading what I write, cooking what I cook, improvising, improving recipes and sharing your discoveries. You bring me joy. Thank you and please stay in touch.

My peach extravaganza began by dropping three peaches into boiling water for a minute, then immersing them in cold water, slipping off the peel and slicing them into two bowls. I added a squeeze of lemon juice and a rounded teaspoon of sugar to each bowl and invited Charles to share a mid-afternoon snack in the garden. Perfection!Time to move onto peach pie. The lattice vs. streusel debate had me thinking. I remembered a recipe for a sour cream apple pie with a streusel topping and decided to adapt it. Here’s how I did it:

Sour Cream Peach Pie

I preheated the oven to 400º and lined a nine-inch pie pan with piecrust. I used a whisk to combine two-thirds of a cup of sugar, two tablespoons of all-purpose flour and a pinch of kosher salt in a large mixing bowl. I added one cup of sour cream, one egg, half a teaspoon of vanilla and half a teaspoon of nutmeg. I peeled and sliced six peaches, about two cups, and added the peaches to the sour cream mixture. I poured the fruit mixture into the unbaked piecrust, baked it for ten minutes at 400º, reduced the heat to 350º and baked the pie for thirty minutes more.

While the pie baked, I made streusel topping by combining one third of a cup of sugar, one third of a cup of flour and four tablespoons of unsalted butter.

I took the pie out of the oven, raised the heat to 400º, sprinkled the streusel topping over the pie and baked it for fifteen minutes more.

I did a bit of peach research while I waited for the pie to cool. I learned that Chinese mythology tells of peaches that conferred longevity to all who ate them. One of Japan’s noble heroes was said to have been born from an enormous peach. In Korea, peaches are seen as the fruit of happiness, riches and honor.

Download and print pie recipe with an ingredients list here.

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By doing all the preparation the day before his arrival, the flavors in the berry fool had time to develop and the cookie dough was ready to be sliced and baked when we got back from the airport.We have a tradition of playing word games on car trips. We haven’t been together since our time in Sicily and have lots of catching up to do, but, when we ran out of news and needed a game to help pass the miles, I challenged Matthew and Charles to name the six basic cookie styles. I wondered if either of them had ever heard of icebox cookies? Almond-browned butter cookies will be a great introduction to the icebox cookie category. Here’s how I made the dough:

Almond-Browned Butter Icebox Cookies

I put one cup, two sticks, of unsalted butter into a saucepan over medium heat. The butter melted, foamed up and began to gurgle. I reduced the heat and stirred the simmering butter. After cooking for about eight minutes, the butter was golden and had a mild, nutty scent. I removed the pan from the heat and stirred in two cups of packed, light brown sugar.

I combined three cups of flour, one and a half teaspoons of baking powder and a quarter of a teaspoon of salt on a piece of waxed paper. I used a mini food processor to finely chop one cup of blanched almonds and added them to the flour mixture. I beat two eggs into the butter sugar mixture and then stirred in the flour almond mixture.

I divided the dough into thirds, shaped each third into a log, wrapped each log in plastic wrap and put them into the fridge. The dough will be ready to slice and bake when it has become firm – a minimum of a couple of hours. Since I didn’t bake the cookies till the next day, the dough had a nice, long rest. When we got home, I preheated the oven to 375º, cut one log of dough into quarter-inch slices, and baked the cookies on a lightly greased baking sheet for six minutes, until they were just set. They became crisp as they cooled. Over the next few days, I replenished the cookie jar with freshly baked cookies in less than ten minutes with virtually no mess to clean up.

Download and print cookie recipe with an ingredients list here.

On to the fool! The earliest recipe for fool dates to the seventeenth century and calls for fresh gooseberries but it’s the twenty-first century and I had fresh strawberries and frozen black berries in the fridge so I made berry fool. Here’s how:

 Berry Fool

I used a mini food processor to puree half a cup of sliced fresh strawberries and half a cup of frozen black berries. I combined the berry puree with two tablespoons of sugar and half a cup of sour cream. I beat half a cup of cold, heavy cream until stiff peaks formed, and used a spatula to fold the whipped cream into the berry/sour cream mixture, covered the bowl with foil and put the fool into to the fridge to await Matthew’s arrival. The fool thickened as it rested.

A bowl of berry fool, freshly baked cookies and a wiggling, fuzzy Gracie, our new puppy, made for a homecoming filled with love.

We did play cookie trivia and although Matthew and Charles weren’t able to give the “proper” names for all of the cookie styles, their list was creative – spoon for drop, knife for bar, fork for molded, syringe for pressed and cutter for rolled. Neither of them knew about icebox cookies until I served the still warm cookies with the lovely, pinky–purple berry fool.

Download and print Berry Fool recipe with an ingredients list here.

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No need to worry - Soe is in charge.

We met Michelle and her husband Burmese husband, Soe, at the Cafe Minerva. I invited them to sit with us and in less time that it takes to figure out how many c’s there are in cappuccino, Soe and I were talking about food. We finished our coffees and decided to walk to the market together.Michelle and Charles walked together and talked about the challenges of speaking Italian and as I shopped, Soe talked about what he would cook if he had a kitchen in Ortigia. I had a kitchen. He had a menu in mind. We decided to have dinner together. It would be a Burmese dinner with shrimp, orange salad and green beans and Soe would be in charge.

Red onion, garlic mint & citrus leaves

When Soe and Michelle arrived, he began by trimming and slicing.

Celery leaves, ginger, red chili, citrus & mint leaves

He cooked like a classically trained French chef. I tried to stay out of his way as I watched him assemble a tray of ingredients for each dish.

We made the savory orange salad first. Here’s how we did it:

Orange Onion Salad

I cut the peel and pith from six blood oranges, cut each orange into eight pieces and put the pieces into a shallow bowl. In Burma, this salad would be flavored with fish sauce and kaffir lime leaves. Instead of fish sauce, we used a tablespoon of chopped salted anchovy that had been rinsed and soaked in cold water for ten minutes and then drained. Instead of kaffir lime leaves, we used a tender leaf from a branch of oranges. I stirred in the anchovy and finely minced orange leaf, Soe added a couple of teaspoons of fresh mint leaves, half a small red onion that had been thinly sliced, and poured on three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.  A quick toss and it was ready and we moved on to the green beans.

Download and print orange onion salad recipe with an ingredients list here.

Spicy Green Beans

I blanched the green beans in a large pot of rapidly boiling salt water until they were barely tender, shocked them with cold water and drained them. Soe sauteed the shrimp heads in a tablespoon of olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. After they had cooked for three minutes, he lowered the heat, added a tablespoon of sweet paprika and two tablespoons of white wine and continued cooking it for two more minutes. He poured the mixture into a strainer and used a spoon to force the liquid into a small bowl. He wiped out the pan with a paper towel, put a tablespoon of oil into it and when the oil was hot he added two cloves of thinly sliced garlic and half of a thinly sliced red onion. When the garlic and onion were cooked, he added the pre-cooked green beans, stirred in the paprika-wine sauce and cooked the mixture until the beans were hot and covered with the sauce.

Download and print spicy green bean recipe with an ingredients list here.

It was time to cook the shrimp. Soe had bought a kilo, about two pounds, of large, nearly five inches long, whole shrimp at the market. He cleaned them by removing the heads, splitting the shell with scissors in order to removing the dark vein but he did not remove the shells from the shrimp.

Spicy Burmese Prawns

And then, he turned into a Burmese whirlwind. I couldn’t keep up. I know he used a large, frying pan to stir-fry thinly sliced red onion, garlic, fresh ginger and a few small, dried hot peppers. I think he added a splash of white wine after he added the shrimp.  It seemed as if the shrimp were cooked in less than three minutes. To finish them, he turned off the heat, added a tablespoon of water, (a Burmese technique to keep the shrimp from overcooking and becoming rubbery, he said), added a generous handful of tender celery leaves and there may have been some fresh basil in the mix. Perhaps some mint, maybe orange leaf, I don’t know – I lost track of what he was doing.

Dinner by Soe!

Dinner was amazing, the food was perfect, the conversation non-stop. It was unimaginable serendipity. After Soe and Michelle had gone back to their hotel, I tried to remember how he had cooked the shrimp, I tried Googling Burmese Shrimp but couldn’t find anything that resembled what he had cooked.  I’ll have to invite them to come to Vermont and ask Soe for another cooking lesson.  Even though I can’t tell you how he made the shrimp, I promise that the orange salad recipe works and I hope you will try it. Don’t worry if you don’t have a fresh citrus leaf you can use the zest from one orange instead.

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Abbe Fetel Pears

The other evening, I decided to serve veal cordon blue for a small dinner party and the last pear and a solitary yellow apple sitting on the counter caught my eye. Don’t be impressed by the veal cordon blue, the butcher had done all the work. He had put a slice of cheese and one of prosciutto between thin slices of veal and then breaded it. All I had to do was sauté them in olive oil. But, back to the pear and apple – I decided that a warm pear and apple salad would complement the rich veal entrée. Here’s how I made it:

Warm Pear & Apple Salad

I sauteed the cored and thinly sliced, unpeeled pear and apple in a tablespoon of butter over low heat until the fruit was tender and beginning to brown. That’s it! No salt, no sugar, no spice.

As the fruit cooked, it filled the air with a flowery perfume. When I went back to the market and asked the vendor what kind of pear it was, he said “Italiano,” with a smile and a shrug. I found more information on the Internet. The pear with the pale skin and sweet perfume is an Abbe Fetel pear described as a large fruit, with melting whitish flesh, very juicy and aromatic, that originated in France in 1866. So, it’s not an Italian pear at all, but a pear worthy of a cordon bleu. The Abbe Fetel pear may not be sold in markets at home but many varieties of pears are, and that puts warm pear and apple salad in the can be recreated category.

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My first two meals in Sicily, reminded me that a few simple ingredients carefully combined often result in a sublime meal. Pasta alla Norma, a Sicilian classic, is inspired by Mt. Etna. The chunks of eggplant suggest lava and the creamy white, ricotta salata cheese sprinkled on top represents the snow that I saw as the plane circled the still active volcano just before we landed.

Thursday morning, we set off to reconnect with the vendors at the market. With so many tourists passing through the market each year, I wondered if my return would be noticed. I needn’t have worried; we were warmly welcomed with hugs and smiles, bits of cheese, samples of olives and chunks of bread. The bustle of the shoppers, the raucous calls of the fish vendors and the bright colors of the fruits and vegetables energized the market. Inspired by the meals we had eaten since our arrival and by the limited resources in my Sicilian kitchen, I’ve decided to try to live, cook and eat simply for the next eight weeks.

We would begin with a market breakfast. I chose three pale yellow pears touched with pink blush, red strawberries in a bright blue container, three blood oranges with garnet red splotched flesh and three lemons still sporting green leaves. After we had found a loaf of crusty bread, a jar of orange blossom honey and fresh ricotta and yogurt we headed home for a late morning treat. Here’s how I made it:

 Creamy Ricotta with Fruit

I used a fork to combine a half a cup of ricotta with two tablespoons of vanilla yogurt and a teaspoon of honey. When the cheese mixture was smooth, I made fruit parfaits by alternating the ricotta mixture with layers of diced pear, blood orange and strawberries. Combined with the sunshine, a chunk of bread dripping with honey, the roar of the crashing surf and the warm Mediterranean breeze, breakfast was simply perfect.

Download and print creamy ricotta & fruit recipe with an ingredients list here.

Friday we spent the day deciphering bus routes, schedules and tickets so that we could get to the Super Mercato to buy a small toaster oven to go with our very simple, three burner cook top, the small fridge, and the non-existent electric mixer, toaster, blender and food processor. At the end of a long, wet, rainy afternoon we unpacked the oven and walked to the closest pizzeria for dinner.

Saturday, with a clear head and a lovely sunny day, I was ready to make dinner. Vegetables, cheese, fresh tomato paste made with sundried tomatoes and olive oil, all from the open air market, was all I needed to make pasta primavera. Here’s how I did it:

Pasta Primavera

I began the sauce by knocking clumps of mud from the roots of one very large scallion, discarded the top twenty inches of ragged greens and cut the rest into thin slices. I sauteed it over medium heat in two tablespoons of olive oil, added one clove of garlic, one small zucchini cut in quarter-inch dice, four minced black olives and a handful of flat leaf parsley. When the vegetables were soft, I added two tablespoons of sun dried tomato paste, reduced the heat and cooked it for three more minutes.

I quartered six small plum tomatoes and grated a quarter of a cup of ricotta salata cheese while I waited for the large pot of the water to come to a boil. While half a pound of pasta cooked, I added the tomatoes to the sauce and turned the heat to low. I reserved a cup of the salty pasta water before I drained the al dente spaghetti. I raised the heat to medium, stirred two thirds of a cup of the pasta water into the vegetable mixture and used a wooden spoon to combine the thick tomato paste and vegetables with the water to create a tomato sauce. I added the drained pasta and stirred to coat the noodles with the sauce. Topped with freshly grated ricotta salata, dinner was ready.

This recipe is very forgiving, an exercise in Sicilian simplicity. I used zucchini, but mushrooms, bell pepper, or celery could be substituted. When I don’t have sun dried tomato paste, I use either tomato paste that comes in a tube, like toothpaste, or canned tomato paste, preferably Italian. Pasta water, scooped from the pot just before the noodles are drained, is the secret ingredient. It’s difficult to give an exact quantity.  You need “enough, until it’s just right.” Fiorina, my son Noah’s Italian great-grandmother, said many years ago when I asked, “How much do I add to the pan?” “Look and taste, you will know!” she assured me. So, scoop out a cup of water just before you drain the noodles, add a bit, look and taste and you will know when it is enough. Ciao!

Download and print pasta primavera recipe with an ingredients list here.

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Even though berry season has passed, the wild grapes are gone and any apples still on trees belong to hungry birds or deer it’s possible to make preserves with dried fruits like apricots, peaches, raisins and seasonal fruits like cranberries, oranges, lemons and grapefruit. The addition of spices, herbs, vinegar or liquor makes these gifts from the kitchen special.

Bright, ruby red, cranberry-rosemary jelly is the right color and flavor for the Christmas season. The color comes from the cranberries and the combination of citrus and rosemary makes it compatible with pork, turkey and if a hunter helps supply your larder, with venison and game birds. Here’s how I made it:

Cranberry-Rosemary Jelly

I washed three medium oranges, quartered and sliced them, peel and all, as thinly as possible. I combined the orange slices with four and half cups of water in a medium, stainless steel saucepan, covered it and left it on the counter over night.

The next morning, I brought the mixture to a boil, covered the pot and reduced the heat to medium. After the oranges had simmered for fifteen minutes, I added two cups of cranberries, a third of a cup of fresh rosemary leaves and four whole cloves. I simmered this mixture for an additional twenty minutes, covered, until the cranberries and oranges were very soft.

I lined a colander with two layers of cheesecloth, set it over a large bowl and ladled the fruit mixture into the colander. After a couple of hours most of the juice had dripped into the bowl. I pressed the fruit gently to squeeze out the last few drops but resisted the urge to squeeze the cheesecloth because pulp would make the jelly cloudy.

I measured the juice, put it into a large saucepan and brought it to a boil. I added an equal quantity of sugar, three cups of juice required three cups of granulated sugar, boiled the liquid, skimmed off the foam and cooked it over medium heat until the thermometer read 220º F.

I ladled the hot jelly into small jars that had been washed and sterilized in boiling water. Rather than sealing the jars by processing in boiling water, I sealed each jar with melted paraffin wax. When the wax had hardened and the jelly cooled, I labeled the jars and stored them on a cool shelf in the pantry.

This recipe made four cups of jelly and it can be doubled. It’s best to cook the jelly in small batches; three cup of juice with three cups of sugar is ideal. Many recipes for jelly suggest that it be cooked until ‘sheets’ or passes the ‘jelly test’, but I’ve never succeeded with that method so I use a candy thermometer.

Click here for a link to Jam, Jelly & Conserve labels to down load and print.

I don’t mean the kind that involves a cream pie in the face, champagne sprayed around the table or peas slingshot across the room. I mean friendly, family disagreements about the best cranberry sauce. Should dessert be apple or pumpkin pie? Are creamed onions or a green bean casserole mandatory? Will there be chestnuts in the stuffing? Most picture perfect holiday meals exist only in magazines and movies, with a group of strangers presented as family, dressed by stylists, sitting at a perfectly decorated holiday table. Real holiday meals are an opportunity to share a favorite recipe and no one will complain that the second version of cranberry sauce has spoiled the symmetry of the table.

My favorite cranberry relish was inspired by a recipe from my friend Lynda. I added a chili pepper when I made it last year. Here’s how I did it:

Roasted Cranberry Relish

I sorted, washed and drained one bag of fresh cranberries and then combined the berries with the zest of one lemon, one cup of sugar, two tablespoons of olive oil, one teaspoon of kosher salt, one seeded and diced jalapeno pepper and the crushed seeds from four cardamom pods.

I transferred the mixture to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. After baking for ten minutes in a 450-degree oven, the cranberries released their juice and were ready to be transferred to a bowl. To finish the sauce I stirred in the juice of half an orange and two tablespoons of Marsala wine. I let this sauce sit for an hour before serving so that the flavors could meld.Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Nine months after we moved to Vermont, I saw branches of white blossoms on trees near a deer trail. I mucked across a muddy stream and discovered that our house had come with a long abandoned, five-tree apple orchard. The trees were growing in a hollow, overrun with weed trees, sumac and tall grass. We left our first harvest to the deer whose narrow paths had led me to these trees. The following year we rescued the trees from the weeds. Since then, we share the apples with the deer.

The first step in making anything with apples is harvesting them. I found a small wire fruit picker that looks like a basket with fingers at the hardware store and clamped it to a long pole. It made it possible to harvest the apples without dragging a ladder to the orchard. Apples have a natural, waxy coating that prevents dehydration so I don’t wash them until I’m ready to cook them. After I picked the apples, I made applesauce and apple jelly with the same pot of apples. Here’s how I did it:

Apple Sauce

I scrubbed the apples with a vegetable brush and then quartered them. I cut out bruised spots and kept a lookout for insects, but I didn’t peel, seed or core the apples. The apple pieces went into a large, heavy-bottomed pot and I added cold water until they floated and there was an inch of water beneath them. After the water had come to a boil, it took about fifteen minutes of simmering for the apples to cook through and fall apart.

I used a slotted spoon to transfer the apple pulp from the liquid to a food mill. The applesauce was forced through the food mill into a bowl, and the cores, seeds, peels and stems remained behind. I sealed the unsweetened applesauce in pint jars following the directions that came with the canning jars. On frosty mornings, a bowl of hot applesauce, topped with a generous sprinkle of cinnamon sugar and served with toasted, English muffins is the perfect breakfast. I add sweetener – sugar, maple syrup or honey, and spice – ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon or allspice whenever I serve it as a side dish, and use unsweetened applesauce in cakes, muffins and cookies.

I added sugar to the apple flavored and pectin rich liquid that remained in the pot after I taken out the apple pulp to make the applesauce and boiled it to make apple jelly. Here’s how I did it:

Apple Jelly

I strained the liquid, using a jelly bag suspended on a tall, three-legged stand over a large bowl. I measured it  and added three-quarters of a cup of granulated sugar for each cup of liquid. I’ve found that it’s best to work with four-cup batches of liquid combined with three cups of sugar. I heated the mixture until it came to a rolling boil, skimmed off the foam and reduced the heat to a gentle simmer until the thermometer read 105º C / 220º F.

I steeped two stems of fresh basil leaves in the hot jelly for two minutes before I removed the basil and poured the jelly into four half-pint jars and sealed them.

The remaining half-cup of jelly was delicious smeared on hot, buttered biscuits at dinner. The fresh basil added a mild, minty flavor that went well with the roasted chicken but I don’t always add herbs to apple jelly. Sometimes, I use a stem of fresh mint, rosemary or thyme in place of the basil. Plain apple jelly spread on biscuits still hot from the oven is a lovely way to say “Good Morning.”