Ah, Choux.

Lewisburg.

Cream puffs? I suppose I'm rather ambivalent. If they're fresh and not too sweet - the downfall of many a dessert - they can be good, but they really seem to scream for something interesting. Something more than ice cream.¹

So I go for savory. With a stack of various winter squash lying around, it only seems like the appropriate thing to do. Sure, you could make bite-size pumpkin pies - I could go for that - but I'd rather make it more of a surprise. There's a potluck later today, and I see no reason to play it low-key.



And thus we have: curried squash cream puffs. Crispy on the outside, creamy in the middle, with a chilli warmth that appears at the tail end and lingers a moment. I swiped one for a taste, and now I half-wish I'd made an attempt to write down the recipe.

It's not as though I don't know what I did, because it's all straightforward, if rather time-consuming. Roasted squash went into the food processor with well-drained, homemade ricotta cheese to make a smooth puree. Then I adjusted the filling to taste with a curry of shallots, coriander, black pepper, cumin and a whole mess of chillis: sanaam, ancho and chipotle.

The puffs were remarkably easy, too. It's a basic pâte à choux - flour, milk, water, butter, salt and eggs - spiked with just enough paprika² and ground mustard to give it some flavor of its own. And since I don't have a set or large pastry bag tips, I used a cookie scoop to dollop out even-sized mounds of pastry, then smoothed them over with a finger dipped in cold water. Slide 'em into the oven, and what look like little mounds of dumpling batter burst into delicate, crispy, air-filled puffs.

Slice the tops and pipe in the filling. You could also puncture the bottoms and pipe it in that way, but I found that I could fill all of the air chambers by lifting the lid. Besides, then it's a bright orange warning on the potluck table. Cream puffs? In a sense.

* * * * *

¹Though everyone's gotta love that scene in Down By Law. "I scream-a. You scream-a. We all scream-a for ice cream-a."

²Yes. More chilli.

Saturday morning oatmeal.

Lewisburg.

Aaaand... it seems as though winter's settling in. The weather forecast is calling for snow showers overnight, with daily highs barely eking above freezing. And, to rub it in that this really is December, we picked up the year's last delivery of fresh, local, organic produce last night. So it's a few more days with good brussels sprouts and some other assorted vegetables before it's back to strategic hunting at the grocery stores.

It's also time to think about things that had been more or less ignored when we could get nigh-endless amounts of fresh food. Particularly anything that requires the oven for extended periods of time. If I'm going to heat the house, why not get a little something on the side?

The latest Penzey's catalog arrived in the mail the other day. Chances are slim that I'll actually order anything - inasmuch as I loaded up on spices in an order a few months ago, supplemented with a bag full of hot chillis while I was in Madison - but the recipes are always worth a look. For a business based on providing a wide range of top-quality spices, there are a few things about their recipes that surprise me.

• They really don't play up the exotic aspect, even though they do a brisk business in spices I've not yet tried. (Ajwain, anyone?) Many of the recipes focus on comfort foods. This issue includes roast turkey and stuffing, for example.
  
  
• The recipes tend to use a minimum of Penzey's spices. In this issue, the Egg and Bacon Casserole only uses a teaspoon of mustard powder. Even I'd be tempted to add some fresh herbs or black pepper.¹ Instead, it gives a definite impression that these are good, basic recipes that a practiced cook could easily modify to taste, rather than a means to sell spices that'll only be used once.²
  
  
• In general, the recipes are pretty damned good. We're still using the Happy Brownies recipe we'd picked up from them years ago, because it's both simple and excellent.³ And honest. There aren't shortcuts like boxed mixes; recipes call for butter, not margarine.

So I was rather excited to spot a recipe for Baked Oatmeal. We're having friends over for brunch next weekend, and it seemed like a good idea - provided it had a test drive.



Yes, it's definitely good enough. Firmer than a traditional stovetop oatmeal, it has a slightly custardy consistency that binds it all together. And since there's no need to worry about sticking to the pan, it's more or less foolproof. Mix everything together, toss it in the oven, and sit back to make the difficult decision of: tea or coffee?

Baked Oatmeal
Serves six to eight
Adapted from Penzey's Spices - Christmas 2007 catalog

Ingredients

• 2-3/4 cups rolled oats
  
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
  
• 3/4 cup raisins or dried cranberries
  
• ½ cup chopped walnuts
  
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
  
• ½ tsp. salt
  
• 3-1/3 cups milk
  
• 3 eggs, beaten
  
• 1 tsp. vegetable oil
  
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, combine the oats, sugar, raisins, walnuts, cinnamon and salt, and mix well. In another bowl, combine the milk, eggs, oil and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until well combined.
   
   
2. Pour the mixture into an 8x8 inch glass baking dish. Bake for 55-60 minutes, or until the center has set and is firm to the touch. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

The only revision I've made was to replace the 4 egg whites in the initial recipe with 3 whole eggs. I'm not sure of it's noticeably richer, but it saves me the trouble of finding something else to make with just yolks. In the future, I'd probably also spice it more like I do granola - some nutmeg and anise in with the cinnamon, and maybe some diced caramelized ginger to replace part of the raisins/dried cranberries. I think the vegetable oil is probably also unnecessary - though replacing it with some melted butter could be a nice touch.

* * * * *

¹Chilli peppers of some sort, too. I'll add them to anything I can get away with, because a little capsaicin makes everything better. Sharon's developing a taste for spicier food these days - intentionally - and there's a reason I keep the red pepper flakes beside the salt and pepper.

²A good number of the sweet baking recipes use cinnamon as the primary flavoring. Who doesn't keep cinnamon around? We tend to swap it out for a mix of spices - sometimes a Penzey's blend, sometimes our own - but even your average grandmother wouldn't be alienated by any of it.

³It's good enough to have made its way into the family recipe book we're giving my brother and his wife as a (belated) wedding gift, alongside cookie recipes that predate my grandparents.