2007: I made the Mushroom and Chestnut soup from this cookbook. I ended up roasting fresh chestnuts in the oven, peeling them, and then plopping them directly in the soup where they were blended into oblivion. I forgot to take a photo, and while it was memorably delicious, I soon rolled on to greener pastures. A recipe is lucky to be made twice in my world if it doesn’t get blogged.

2010: Fast forward a few years, and I finally found the vacuum-packed chestnuts requested in the recipe. I immediately bought them – if memory serves they were about $4 for a 5 ounce package – and they were promptly relegated to the back of the pantry.

2011: The chestnuts are moved from Pittsburgh to Arlington, Virginia. As they are being packed, I wonder: “Am I ever going to make that soup?” as well as “What’s the chance these things are still good?” and “I can’t believe I’m moving these chestnuts.”

2011, one week later: Upon unpacking the pantry box: “Guess I’ll return these chestnuts to the back of the pantry.”

2012: I hanker for mushroom soup. I remember the chestnuts in the pantry. I open the vacuum-sealed pouch far away from my face, in case Horrible Things have happened in there.

They. Are. Still. Good.

Not bothering to open a cookbook, I reconstruct a mushroom and chestnut soup from memory and instinct. It is thick. It is rich. It is creamy without actual cream.

I think the chestnuts intensify the earthiness of the mushrooms. You don’t taste them – there’s no New-York-street-corner-at-Christmas flavor – but there is a profound depth and warmth that makes it AOK if winter decides to rally once again. It’s also quite thick. I suppose you could water it down when you serve it, or just use more broth, but I’d rather mop it up with bread.

If you want to eat this, you might also like:

• More mushrooms: Roasted Pesto Portabellas
• Another creamy-yet-virtually-creamless soup: Spiced Apple Parsnip Soup
• Mushrooms with actual cream: Mushroom Lasagna Rolls with Sage Bechamel

So thick you could almost sculpt it.

Creamy Mushroom Chestnut Soup
Inspired once upon a time by Small Bites by Jennifer Joyce, but mostly made up at the stove

To keep this soup wholly vegetarian, use a vegetable broth, or better yet, a mushroom broth. If it’s winter and you can find fresh chestnuts, it’s pretty cost effective to roast them yourself, supposing you have the time and inclination. Otherwise, vacuum-packed or jarred chestnuts will do just fine.

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup finely chopped shallot
1/2 cup finely chopped celery (or 1 stalk)
20 ounces white mushrooms, sliced
4 ounces wild mushrooms
1 large clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup port (red wine will do)
4 large sprigs of thyme
6 ounces roasted chestnuts
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups whole milk
2 slices white bread, crusts cut off, torn to pieces

Melt the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add the shallots and celery and cook, stirring, until they begin to soften. Add both kinds of mushrooms. Cook until they release their liquid. (You can add a tablespoon or two of water to the pot if they start to stick when first added.) Boil off the mushroom liquid, then add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds.

Pour the port (or wine, if that’s what you’ve got) into the pan and turn the heat to high. Cook until all the liquid has evaporated, then add the chestnuts, broth and milk. Bring to a low boil, then reduce the heat to low. Add the torn bread and simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Blend the soup in batches, taking care not to explode mushroominess all over your kitchen. Season to taste with salt and pepper. You can add additional broth while blending if it is too thick.

Rich. Creamy. Creamless.

One day I came home after work to a dense cloud of beefy goodness hanging over the Scheidt Haus. Never one to complain about dinner being on the stove when I walk in the door, I eagerly listened to Steve’s description of beef and potatoes with a stout gravy. It smelled divine, and I was starving. The beef was on the table, and Steve was on his way with the gravy.

Fortunately, he tasted it first.

Turns out, if you combine a bit of fat, a can of Murphy’s stout and a cup or two of beef broth and gently simmer them for thirty minutes, you will produce a rich, glossy substance that smells like glorious gravy. The first spoonful is meaty and fills your mouth with umami tingles… and then smacks you with a tongue-scraping aftertaste that will redefine “bitter” in your sense memory.

Every molecule of bitterness in the beer was not only preserved during the reduction, but was fruitful and multiplied in a beef broth bath. It was so acrid that a single spoonful sent each of us running to the sink for something, anything, to dissolve the repugnant throat-coating film. (It was definitely a “This is so gross! You have to try it.” moment.)

We had beef without gravy that night.

Over a year later, I resolved to slay the stout gravy dragon. Of course the Cook’s Illustrated folks showed me the way, even though I do silly things like forget to dry and salt the beef. In this version, the gravy is sweetened with dried plums, which are simmered along with the sauce and then pressed through a fine-mesh sieve to create an intensely beefy, not-bitter-in-any-way Guinness gravy. It tastes like sweet meat redemption.

Not bitter at all! Big, sweet and tender short ribs.

Beef Short Ribs Braised in Guinness
From The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook

For this recipe, you need a large pot with oven-safe handles, like a Dutch oven. The recipe calls for boneless short ribs, which I used, and then replaces the gelatin that would usually come from the bones with gelatin from the store. If you only can find short ribs with bones, get extra and bone them before starting. The dish could have used more carrots than it called for, so feel free to veg up. Serve over lightly buttered egg noodles dusted with parsley.

3 1/2 pounds boneless beef short ribs, excess fat trimmed
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large onions, sliced thin
1 tablespoon tomato paste
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 cup Guinness stout
1 cup beef broth
4 (or more) large carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
6 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup pitted prunes (dried plums)
1/4 cup cold water
1/2 teaspoon unflavored gelatin (like Knox)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Pat the trimmed beef dry with paper towels and season well with salt and pepper.

In a Dutch oven or another large pot with an oven-safe lid, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat. Add half the beef and cook until well-browned, 4-6 minutes per side. Add a little more oil if the pan starts to smoke. Transfer the browned ribs to a dish. Repeat with the remaining meat and oil. Remove all the meat from the pot, but keep the browned bits and any rendered fat.

Reduce the heat to medium. Add the onions and cook until softened and beginning to color. Add a few tablespoons of water to the pot if they stick. Add the tomato paste and stir well to combine. Add the garlic and cook just until fragrant, about 20 seconds. Immediately add the Guinness, broth, carrots, herbs, prunes and beef (along with any juices).  Increase the heat to medium-high, cover the pot and bring it to a simmer. Transfer the pot to the oven and cook until the meat is extremely tender, 2 – 2 1/2 hours, turning occasionally.

Transfer the meat and carrots to a serving platter and cover with foil to keep warm. Pour the cooking liquid through a fine mesh strainer into a large bowl. Make a point to press the cooked prunes through the strainer and extract the thyme stems and bay leaf. Extract all possible liquid, then set it aside for five minutes to separate. Discard the remaining solids.

At this point, sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water in a small dish and set it aside.

Spoon off as much fat as possible from the cooking liquid. Return the liquid to the pot and stir in the gelatin. Cook until reduced somewhat to a sweet, meaty gravy. Pour the gravy over the meat and serve.

My parents used to have a blue-tick Beagle called Cubbie, after the Chicago Cubs, and also Al Qaeda, due to the destruction he wrought upon the household. This animal was entirely driven by his nose. Every day, Cubbie prowled across the lawn, nostrils scanning the earth like a metal detector, until he invariably discovered that something living had passed his way. Then he would turn his bandit-masked face to the sky and bay like the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Such a sense of smell is beyond my comprehension. I’ve heard the beagle’s sense of smell described as a radio, the canine able to tune in to one of the hundreds of chemical “wavelengths” left for his discovery. A herd of deer crossed the yard about 4 hours ago; find out more at 103.7! Tune into 88.5 to find out about what happened to the groundhog from last Tuesday! Learn about changes to the neighbor dog’s diet at 101.3!

Cubbie "Al Qaeda" Roeper (2001 - 2011), intent on exacting revenge against his t-shirt

This ability to parse out an individual scent or flavor impresses me to no end, and I’m not the only one. When I read Molly Wizenberg’s lovely cookbook-cum-memoir A Homemade Life a few years ago, a passage that stuck in my head was her description of the relative palettes of Molly and her husband.

I may be the more orderly of our couple, but next to his palate, mine is a proverbial bull in a china shop, rubbing clumsily against a rabble of spices. I chew and swallow, but he concentrates, teasing apart layers of flavor.

- read more at Orangette

This does a great job of describing Stephen and I. In addition to the palate, Stephen also has a nose like Cubbie. (Thankfully, unlike the erstwhile beagle, Scheidt is disgusted rather than fascinated by nasty smells.) He enjoys figuring out unexpected flavors in restaurant dishes and deciding which seasoning tweaks would best improve a dish at home.

The excerpt above was from an introduction to a chana masala recipe, and I’m pleased to report that the dish is as spot-on as the husband description. It’s good for a tired weeknight, if you cook it at the minimum times below, or for a lazy Sunday afternoon, when you can let it stew on the stove for hours. It requires almost no chopping. It’s delicious served with easy basmati rice and store-bought naan. And it pleases all palates: ones that want to dissect every taste, and ones that just bask in the warm, spicy glow on a dreary winter evening.

Before adding the yogurt

Chana Masala
Adapted from A Homemade Life

I’ve doubled the recipe here as it makes for a fantastic and filling lunch. I’ve also considerably upped the spiciness of the original, which you can undo by halving or even omitting the cayenne pepper. I also found I didn’t need quite as much oil to get things going.

For the spice blend
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon hot curry powder (optional)
6 cardamom pods, crushed with a knife
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper, or to taste
4 garlic cloves, minced

For the rest
2 tablespoons grapeseed or vegetable oil
2 medium onions or 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 28-ounce cans whole peeled tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
4 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup plain full-fat or 2% Greek yogurt

Combine the spices in a small bowl and set aside. Warm the oil in a large Dutch oven set over medium-low heat. Add the onions, cover the pot partially and reduce the heat to low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are brown and beginning to char in spots, 15-30 minutes. (The longer, the better!)

Fill a measuring cup with 1 cup water and set it near the stove. Add the spice blend and cook 30 seconds, stirring well, until the garlic and spices are fragrant and coat the onions evenly. Add about half the water, scraping the bottom of the pan to release any browned bits of onion. Season with salt. Cook until the water is gone.

Raise the heat to medium and add the tomatoes and all of their juices to the pot. Crush the tomatoes with a potato masher until they are loose chunks (uniformity is not an issue) and bring the pot to a low boil. Simmer for 5 minutes until the mixture begins to thicken. Return the heat to low and add the chickpeas and 3/4 of the cilantro. Simmer for 5 minutes, until the mixture begins to thicken again, then add about 1/4 more water. Repeat this process again, adding the rest of the water and simmering afterwards for as long as you like, at least 5 minutes but up to 30. Season to taste with salt.

Just before serving, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the yogurt. It may curdle a bit from the acidity of the tomatoes, but fear not, it will be delicious. Top portions with any remaining cilantro and serve with basmati rice.

Dishes you might also like:

• Another fragrantly spiced vegetarian main dish: Moroccan-Spiced Butternut Couscous
• Curry and vegetables, part 1: Curry-Roasted Cauliflower
• Curry with vegetables, part 2: Curry Carrot Soup

Mostly delicious close up, too

Share this

It’s the New Year, so of course we here at the Scheidt Haus are trying to Eat Healthy and Lose Weight. For me, this is motivated primarily by a desire to not buy new clothes, and secondarily by desire to be with-it and able to walk when I am 90. (Longevity runs in the family.)

My first foot-stamping, pouty-lipped rule of losing weight is No Fake Food. Things that won’t be eaten include I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter (oh yes I can!), turkey bacon and fat-free salad dressing.

Indeed, if I had to sum up my weight loss philosophy in a few more (pouting, foot-stamping) points, it would be this:

1. Don’t eat things that rely on cream and cheese for their entire flavor profile. (Fettucine alfredo, I’m looking at you. From afar. And you still look delicious.)
2. Do not eat crappy baked goods. Only eat truly amazing baked goods. (If it’s not delicious, it’s just not worth the calories.)
3. A half-pound of pasta is not a reasonable serving. Not even on Friday.
4. Beans mean you won’t need a snack later.
5. Vegetables.

I invest my limited powers of will solely in portion control and I use Loseit.com to track calories. I set LoseIt on the “Lose 1/2 pound per week” calorie count and try to simultaneously be diligent about tracking what I eat and not pay too much attention. I’m perfectly comfortable with taking 3 months to go down 5 pounds. I used this method, plus some running and yoga, to lose about 15 pounds last year. It’s definitely not for people who are in imminent health danger from obesity, but if you just need to Get Things Under Control, it’s something you could try.

I sure look diet-y, don't I?

So I’d imagine, now that I’m back in the blog saddle, that our next few recipes here on Burghilicious will be ones that I’m currently eating in Weight Loss Mode.

Such as quiche.

Yes, you heard that right. I eat quiche when on a “diet.”

This quiche, including an all-butter crust, comes in at under 400 calories per serving (1/6 of the pie). Served with large green salad with French vinaigrette, it was an under-500-calorie dinner, oh-so-satifying and not diet-y at all. So I had some wine.

The healthy bits prepare for submersion in eggs and cheese.

Salmon and Leek Quiche
A Burghilcious Original

Use whatever savory tart crust works best for you. I like Clotilde‘s and Dorie‘s. I’ll start from baking the crust in the recipe. As for the salmon, this dish makes a great use of a leftover single filet. We poached the leftover piece from a lovely filet of Alaskan Sockeye that was cut into diet-sized 5-ounce portions. You could also use good-quality canned salmon. Finally, the cheese: if you can’t find quark, a soft German cheese, you could use regular cream cheese. I’ve also made this quiche with 1/2 cup sour cream instead of quark.

One savory tart crust, uncooked
1 tablespoon butter
1 bunch leeks, white and light green parts, sliced thin
5 ounces cooked salmon, flaked
2 eggs, separated
1/2 cup quark cheese, at room temperature
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
1 teaspoon whole grain mustard

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Roll out the tart crust and fit it into a 9-inch tart pan (preferred) or pie plate. In a tart pan, fold the edge to a double layer. run your rolling pin over the top of the pan to make the edge neat. Stab the bottom of the crust several times with a fork.

Lay a piece of foil over the tart shell and press it into the edges. Fill the shell with pie weights, pennies or beans and set the tart pan on a baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes. Carefully remove the foil and weights, then bake the crust for another 3-5 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from oven.

While the crust is parbaking, melt the butter and cook the leeks over medium heat, stirring often, until they begin to caramelize, about 10 minutes. Add the flaked salmon to the pan and stir until combined. Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper, and set aside.

Put the egg whites in a large bowl and mix with a hand mixer on medium-high until they hold soft peaks. Do not overmix! The egg whites can go from soft peaks to overmixed in a flash. Err on the side of undermixing.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and quark. Once combined, add the dill and mustart and season with salt and pepper. Add 1/4 of the egg whites to the egg yolk mixture and fold gently to combine. Then add the egg yolk mixture to the whipped egg whites, folding lightly to keep as much air as possible in the mixture.

When the crust comes out of the oven, first distribute the salmon and leek mixture over the bottom of the crust. Next, spread the egg mixture over the top. It may be a bit thick, but should spread to fill the full shell. Bake for 20 minutes or until the eggs have puffed and turned a deep golden-brown. Remove from oven and let rest for 5 minutes.

Cut into 6 pieces for serving. Serve any leftovers at room temperature or gently reheat in the oven. This crust doesn’t like the microwave.

For ultra-Frenchiness, serve with greens lightly dressed in a mustard vinaigrette.

Perhaps if I publicly engage in self-flagellation, I’ll break a nasty habit: I don’t eat salad the way I should.

I like salad just fine. Just last week Scheidt and I ordered a lovely roasted butternut squash salad at Rustico in nearby Alexandria. And while the squash was delicious, it was the cranberry-balsamic dressing that really caught our attention: bright and ultra-fruity, not sharp, not greasy.

And never fear, I buy lettuce; I just lose all motivation to prepare salad with dinner. And no, it doesn’t matter if the lettuce in question is fully-pedigreed, triple-washed, organic, hand-picked-by-Joel-Salatin-himself Farmer’s Market lettuce. I have good lettuce intentions, but I fail to follow through. Indeed, every time we actually finish a bag of lettuce before it starts to smell funny, high fives are exchanged. This is pathetic.

We can make a decent salad, for the record. We employ a Magic Salad Formula (lettuce + fruit + nuts + cheese) that yields reliably tasty greenery.

And yet, the lettuce goes moldy, and the bags go in the garbage, which makes me feel crappy for 65 different reasons.

All of which is to say that I prefer salads like this one: no lettuce. Indeed, a quick look back through the blog archives yielded exactly one salad based on lettuce, and it’s from the very early days (which I prefer to pretend don’t exist).

Oh, this salad does include some leafy green things – spinach and Belgian endive – but its body, heart and soul is bright, tart Granny Smith apples. Adhering to the Magic Salad Formula, it incorporates nuts and cheese along with the apples and is thus quite predictably delicious.

But the best part, aside from the conspicuous absence of a leafy bed, is the dressing. It’s somewhere between a fruity vinaigrette and a honey mustard, thanks to the pomegranate molasses. The recipe yields a good deal of extra dressing that keeps forever, and dare I say it: it’s awesome on lettuce.

Here are three more not-lettuce salads you might enjoy.

• Pea Salad with Shiitake-Ginger Dressing
• French Green Bean Salad
• Tomato and Red Onion Salad – do not attempt until summer returns!

Blurry picture again, crap. My food blogger creds are going to be revoked.

Apple Salad with Pomegranate Dressing
Adapted from Bobby Flay by way of Food Republic

The first time we made this, we found the mustard flavor overwhelming (we used Trader Joe’s Dijon), so we reduced it this time. I also reduced the amount of oil a bit, for while it’s rich, it’s just not necessary. The apples will stop browning as soon as the salad is dressed, but if you are a slow dicer like me, I suggest making use of one of my favorite kitchen secrets: Fruit Fresh. Just toss the diced apples in a bowl with a few tablespoons of water and a heaping tablespoon of Fruit Fresh, and they will stay white a crisp. As for assembly, the quantities in the salad are really guidelines. I upped the spinach and reduced the blue cheese – even I have limits.

For the dressing:
3 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard (or more to taste)
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

For the salad:
3-4 Granny Smith apples, cored and cut into 1/2 inch dice
5 ounces baby spinach, roughly sliced (one bag)
2 heads Belgian endive, sliced thin into half-moons
4 ounces blue cheese crumbles
1 cup chopped toasted walnuts

To make the dressing, whisk together the pomegranate molasses, vinegar, mustard and honey until well combined. Whisking constantly, start dribbling in the oil. Start with a few drops and work your way up to a light stream, until all the oil is incorporated. Cover and chill.

To assemble the salad, combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Toss in dressing to taste. You’ll probably have leftovers if you like your salad lightly dressed, as I do.

This is one of those recipes that’s been banging around my kitchen for years, but never quite made it to the blog. In fact, it’s about the only one that has been explicitly mentioned and still not posted. At the time, I cried “No photos!” Well, now I can’t say that any more.

This tart brings me back, yet again, to the idea of simplicity in food. It’s about great ingredients and getting out of the way. It’s about restraint and resisting the urge to add just one more thing.

This apple tart has just a few ingredients: butter, flour, sugar, salt, and of course, apples. There’s not any cinnamon, nor indeed spices of any kind at all. You don’t even have to use a pan – we’re talking way simple.

It's rusticky.

With all that simplicity going on, the apples themselves will be front and center, which is why I only make this tart in the fall. This year, I made it once with Jonagold apples and another time with Romes. In any case, you’re looking for a firm apple that lives somewhere between plain sweetness and one-note tartness.

In the spirit of simplicity, I made the crust entirely by hand – no food processor, no Kitchenaid – and I tell you, it was neither scary nor inordinately time-consuming. In fact, getting all touchy-feely with the pastry gave me a better idea of what I’m looking for when I do get the food processor back out. It was akin to the kneading meditation.

And the flavor? Clean, sweet, quintessential apple. And that’s enough.

If this has you drooling, you might also like:

• More simplicity: Richest chocolate ice cream
• More apples: Caramel apple cupcakes
• More tart: Pear and Blue Cheese Tart (I need to make this again).

Dusting with coarse sugar gives the crust a shimmering crunch, visible in even a blurry photo.

Alice Waters’ Apple Tart
Adapted just a bit from Smitten Kitchen, who will someday release a book

Keep your apple halves together as you cut them, and you’ll have an easy time assembling the tart. The original recipe calls for you to save the apple peels and cores and use them to make a syrup to brush over the finished tart. I’ve skipped this step more than once and couldn’t really notice a difference on the finished tart, though you can – if you so choose, and I have – infuse some spices into the syrup if all the simplicity has you itching. I’ve sweetened the crust a bit, and reserved some sugar off of the apples in exchange.

For the pastry:
1 cup flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces, divided
2-4 tablespoons ice water

For the apples:
3-4 sweet, firm apples, peeled, cored and sliced thinly (depends on size)
2 tablespoons regular sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 tablespoon coarse sugar like demerara (or substitute with more regular sugar)

To make the pastry:
Whisk together the flour, sugar and salt in a medium bowl. Add 2 tablespoons butter to the bowl and rub into the flour with your fingers until all the pieces are a bit smaller than rolled oats. Add the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter and continue to rub until no pieces are the size of small peas. Add water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until you can form the dough into a ball. Flatten into a disk and refrigerate for at least an hour, or overnight.

To assemble the tart:
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Let the dough warm on the counter for 10 minutes, then roll it between parchment paper or plastic wrap, until you reach a diameter of 14 inches. The pastry will be very thin.

Arrange the sliced apples in the center of the pastry, leaving at least two inches all around. I try to keep the apple halves together, then just fan them out once everything is in place. Brush most of the melted butter over the apples, then sprinkle with the fine sugar. Fold the pastry up over the edge of the tart, crimping as necessary, and brush the remaining butter over the pastry. Sprinkle the pastry with coarse sugar.

Bake until the crust is golden brown, about 45 minutes, rotating after 30 minutes. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving. Warm is fantastic.

Thanks and Gushing

This summer, Pittsburgh Magazine asked me to put together a little something for you: The Food Lovers’ Guide to Pittsburgh. And I am so, so happy that it finally came out! You can find it on newsstands around the city if you like to hold glossy print magazines in your hands (like me).

Update 10/26/2011: Please, add your additional suggestions to the comments on the Pittsburgh Magazine website! This article is a starting point, not a comprehensive guide. There are many more places that are fantastic.

Burghilicious readers, you’ll be interested to know that the article includes the results of last month’s takeout poll. Thank you for taking me outside of Dormont and Squirrel Hill, because that’s where I would have been stuck without you.

Thanks also to Andrea, Muhammara Ben, Sharon and Zarin Balaporia for ushering me to new places for this project, and to all of the purveyors, producers and farmers who took time out to talk with me.

New around here?

If you’re visiting Burghilicious because you read about it in Pittsburgh Magazine, welcome! For the last four years, I’ve written about food and cooking in Pittsburgh. Mostly, there are a lot of recipes!

Here are some posts that are popular around here:

• Blueberry Scones: The most popular post, ever.
• French Toast Sandwiches: A close second. Your brunch will be happy.
• Autumnal Lasagna: The most complicated thing I’ve ever made.
• Oreo Cookies Killed My Mixer: A tale of woe with milk and cookies at the end.
• Bacon-Wrapped Dates: If you haven’t, you probably should.

Despite having a big smile and loving to talk, I’m an introvert. I do better in small groups than at large parties. I love a long conversation over coffee with just you. I hate, hate, hate rooms of people where I don’t know anyone. (But I’ll still come to your party. I’m an introvert, not a hermit.)

Chalk it up to that introversion: from each phase of my life, I’ve been blessed with an amazing friendship or two. These are the people who saw me go from being a teenager to an adult. They are the ones who know that I get bossy when I’m hungry, and they shove food in my face instead of getting offended. They are the ones with whom a 3-hour conversation is possible even if we haven’t spoken for months. They are the ones with whom an awesome visit can be nothing more than sitting around in sweat pants for a weekend with a cup of coffee. They are the ones I don’t feel like I have to impress, and who impress me every day. They are the ones who share all my best memories.

My amazing friends of the past 20 years, "backstage" before the wedding. What you can almost make out in the background is Jesus riding a unicorn over the fires of hell. I love church murals.

At our wedding, I learned something new: my bestie-bestersons from the last 20 years get along really well. My bridesmaids – Apryl, Becca, Kirsten and Lisa – spent the weekend zipping around in Lisa’s lime green Ford Fiesta with the windows rolled down, shouting “Fiesta!” in the 90-degree Indiana heat. They traipsed through flood-plain mud in snazzy heels and jungle temperatures just so I could get the photo I wanted. And now, post-wedding, when they have no reason to keep in touch, they’re on Facebook keeping up with each others’ children and careers, and generally keeping the fiesta rocking.

Oh, and taunting each other with pumpkin recipes and ideas.

This phenomenon makes me darn happy.

And so, my contribution to the Pumpkin Taunting: this pumpkin black bean soup. It’s deep and rich for fall, with the pumpkin sweetening up hearty spiced beans. It’s easy – only two things to chop! – and takes advantage of canned goods you might already have on hand. And for my girls, it has some Mexican FIESTA! flavors.

Garnish this soup with as much as you want! It has enough flavor to stand up to piles of tasty toppings.

If you want this, you might also like…

• Black bean soup, in case you don’t have pumpkin on hand.
• Pumpkin rigatoni, in case you have a lot of pumpkin on hand.
• Pumpkin scones with maple glaze, in case you want a pumpkin dessert instead.

Pumpkin Black Bean Soup
A Burghilicious Original

If you have an actual pumpkin on hand instead of canned, roast it up (as in this squash soup recipe), then scoop the cooked pumpkin into the broth. You can add more heat with Tabasco or jalapenos if you so desire, but I kept it pretty mild this time around. Like most bean soups, it stores beautifully, but the beans might absorb the broth in the fridge. Just add some water if this happens.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1-2 tablespoons ancho chili powder (or whatever chili powder you have, to taste)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 quart chicken stock
3 15-ounce cans black beans
1 14-ounce can pumpkin purée (not pie filling!)
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes

Optional garnishes: diced fresh tomato, sour cream, shredded cheddar, chopped cilantro, sliced green onions, tortilla chips, whatever!

Heat the olive oil in a large stock pot. Sauté the onions until soft, 5-6 minutes. Add the cumin, chili powder and cayenne pepper and stir until the onions are coated and the spices are fragrant, about one minute. Add the garlic and stir until you can smell it, about 30 seconds. Add the chicken stock, beans, pumpkin and tomatoes. Bring to a bowl and simmer 15 minutes.

If you like a smoother soup as I do: in a blender, purée about half of the soup (in batches if necessary) and add it back to the un-blended soup. Target tomato and onion chunks as you are ladling soup into the blender.

Serve with any of the optional garnishes, or none – it’s good either way.

I warned you back in March that I was going to be quite absent for a while, and I keep my promises. I’ve checked in here and there, but really, there hasn’t been much writing. And frankly, a lot of the eating in that period was unremarkable. Of course, there was some other stuff going on, such as:

• July 13: Stephen gets another year of funding for his DC job.
• July 16: We got married!
• July 21: I get a DC job offer (yes, I took it.)
• July 22: Offer accepted on Pittsburgh house.
• August 12: I moved to Washington, DC.
• August 26: I sold my Pittsburgh house.
• August 30: I started my new job.

It’s true: Burghilicious up and moved away. And many people have asked if that means I’m going to quit the blog. It is, after all, pretty Pittsburgh-y.

In a word, no.

Here’s my Burghilicious resolution.

Whereas, I love this blog; and

Whereas, changing domain names is a hassle; and

Whereas, I can’t bear the idea of someone else getting the @Burghilicious Twitter handle; and

Whereas, mostly what I do around here anyway is post my favorite recipes;

Be it resolved that Burghilicious shall continue! (Albeit with some changes that are to-be-determined.)

You can see the cheese in the middle. Mmmmm.

So: on to more important things, like brunch.

After all, when you’re starting new, it makes sense to begin with a hearty breakfast.

We had our first Pittsburgh friends come to visit this weekend. We spent Saturday tooling around the Our Nation’s Capital, visiting museums and famous landmarks, fueled in part by this delicious breakfast casserole.

I’ve known since childhood that a breakfast cassserole can be prepared before your guests arrive, so you don’t have any messy prep to do while your guests are waiting. You also don’t have to wake up at 7 to have a hearty breakfast at 9. You can even make it way in advance and freeze it unbaked, if you’re as well-prepared as my mother tends to be. (Indeed, a breakfast casserole made an appearance during our wedding festivities for this very reason.)

More importantly, it combines the best of breakfast: eggs, sausage, cheese and bread, all happy together in one baking dish. (Oh, and maple syrup, too.)

This casserole is similar to the one I grew up with, with an important substitution: it uses toasted Eggo waffles instead of day-old bread or croutons. You know that I’m not usually one to rely on store-bought gimmick ingredients, but for this casserole, it made sense: the waffles give the finished casserole additional structure without heaviness. It was a Cook’s Illustrated idea that I just had to try out, and as usual, they were right.

You might also like…

• French Toast Sandwiches are another great dish breakfast dish for houseguests.
• You can freeze a pan of Classic Lasagna ahead of time, too.
• Leek and Goat Cheese Tart takes eggs in a whole different direction.

They don't look like waffles anymore, nor do you notice a waffle-esque flavor, but the casserole texture is light and sturdy.

Maple Breakfast Casserole
Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated

I hate using only a portion of something like a tube of breakfast sausage, so I adapted the recipe to use the full tube. I also have a fix if you can’t find the maple sausage that the original calls for. Other than that, it was a pretty simple recipe that demanded little tweaking. I’ve also added specific instructions for doing it overnight.

8 frozen Eggo Homestyle waffles
16 ounces breakfast sausage (maple if you can find it)
6 large eggs
1 1/4 cups whole milk
1/4 cup maple syrup
2-3 drops maple extract (optional; omit if you have maple sausage)
6 ounces shredded cheddar cheese (about 1 1/2 cups)

The night before…

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter an 8×8 baking dish.

Arrange the still-frozen waffles in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes or until crispy, turning over halfway through.

While the waffles are crisping, cook the sausage in a nonstick skillet. Break it up into crumbles as it cooks, then drain it on a paper-towel-lined plate.

In a large measuring cup or bowl, whisk together the eggs, milke, maple syrup and maple extract (if using). Season liberally with salt and pepper.

When the waffles are ready, cut them in half. Arrange the halves of four waffles in the bottom of the baking dish. You might need to trim them slightly to make them lay flat. Feel free to eat any scraps that result from this trimming. Scatter half of the cooked sausage over the waffles and top with 1/3 of the cheese. Build a second layer on top of the first, following the same pattern. Pour the egg-milk-maple mixture evenly over the dish. Reserve the remaining cheese for the morning.

Next, weight the casserole to force the waffles to absorb as much egg as possible. Cover it with plastic wrap, pressing the plastic onto the surface of the casserole. Set the dish on a baking sheet. Set another 8×8 inch baking dish* on top of the plastic wrap, and fill it with canned goods from the pantry to weight it down.

Put the baking sheet with the weighted casserole in the fridge, and go to bed. (Or, put it in the freezer if it’s not for tomorrow. Yes, weighted. You can take the weights off one it’s frozen.)

In the morning…

Get out of bed momentarily about 90 minutes before you want breakfast. Take the casserole out of the fridge and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Let the casserole stand at room temperature for about 20 minutes. Top it with the remaining shredded cheddar and put it in the oven. Set the timer for 45 minutes and go take a shower, or go back to bed.

Your guests will wake to the heavenly smells of maple-syrup-sausage-egg-cheese and will rouse themselves of their own volition if they have any sense. When it’s cooked, the casserole will puff in the center and around the edges. Cool for five minutes before cutting and serving.

Serves 4-6. Delicious with fruit salad!

*If you don’t have another 8×8 baking dish, you can use a 8″ cake pan. That’s what I did, and while a few shy corners of waffles avoided being submerged in egg, no one died or even noticed. You just want to weight as much of the surface area as you can.

Image: Takeout by kukkurovaca, on Flickr

I’m back! And I have a LOT to tell you, but for the time being I am without a home internet connection, so I’m going to get right to the point before Starbucks tells me I’ve overstayed the welcome that an iced tea can buy.

I’m working on a project with Pittsburgh Magazine, and I need your help. Specifically, I would love to know your favorite take-out joints in our fair city.

Imagine if you will:

Scenario A: It’s Wednesday night, and you didn’t get off work until 7:45. It was a bear of a day, and all you can think about is kicking off your uncomfortable work shoes that were never meant to be worn for 12 hours, crawling into stretchy pants with an elastic waistband, and curling up on the couch with a big, hot meal. Problem: there’s nothing in your fridge but green onions and ketchup, and even if you had all the fixins’, there’s NO WAY you’re cooking tonight. So you call _______, and get your favorite takeout meal, ______, which always makes you feel better.

Scenario B: It’s Saturday, and you’ve been working outside all morning. It’s time for lunch, and you are dirty enough that you have no business preparing food in a kitchen or sitting down at a restaurant (not even Eat’N Park). Plus, you need to save your energy for the rest of your house projects. Obviously, you’re going to make a run down to ____, and pick up some ____. It’s quick, it’s easy, and most of all, it’s delicious.

Got it?

OK, just fill out the form below to send me your ideas! The best ones might get published in an upcoming issue of Pittsburgh Magazine.