Fake It

Basil Pesto
The flavor of homemade pesto is amazing, you’ll crave it for days or if you’re like us, forever.
This recipe makes enough for 3-4 portions of pasta, we recommend capellini or angel hair.

4 ounces or so of sweet basil, stems removed (a little stem is okay, don’t go crazy)
4 ounce hunk of hard, salty Italian cheese (Parmigiano is traditional, we also like Pecorino)
2 medium cloves of garlic, peeled
Olive oil
Salt

Pesto can be most easily made in food processor, but a blender works well too. First, throw in your garlic cloves and buzz them until they are finely chopped; add the cheese and pulse until it is about the size of dried lentils. Next add all of the basil leaves and pulse until they are finely chopped. You may have to stop the machine and use a spatula to push some apprehensive leaves down towards the blades. Add two tablespoons of olive oil to start and pulse, add more as needed and pulse until pesto is the desired consistency: you want most of the basil leaves to be very very small and you want to use enough oil so that the pesto hangs together. Season to taste. Use immediately or store with plastic wrap pressed directly to the surface of the pesto. Pesto can also be frozen, ice cube trays work well to make single serving portions.

Winter Cobbler
serves 4

Fruit Base
Some will find the fruit part of this recipe to be infuriatingly vague; but trust yourself. With this sort of thing, the best results come when you make your base according to the fruit you are using.

12 ounces good-quality frozen fruit: cherries, berries, etc. (Cascadian Farms is good)
granulated sugar to taste
lemon juice to taste
cornstarch (optional)

In a saucepan, heat your fruit over medium heat until it’s nice and hot. Gradually stir in sugar (a few tablespoons?) to taste. Squeeze in enough lemon juice (start with half a lemon) to make the flavor bright and a little acidic. At this point, the fruit base will be very juicy. If you want to thicken the juice and make the fruit base a little less soupy, you can do so with a cornstarch slurry. Start with a teaspoon of cornstarch and in a separate bowl dissolve it in a splash of the hot fruit juice. Return the “slurry” to the fruit base, stir and cook for a minute. Check the consistency of the base and repeat with more cornstarch if necessary. Transfer the fruit base to an ovenproof dish (a loaf tin or small cake pan works well) and let cool slightly.

Cobbler Dough
adapted from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course

2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 heaping tablespoon granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 pieces and chilled
less than 1/3 cup heavy cream

Whisk the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder and salt together. Cut the butter* into the flour mixture until the butter is in approximately lentil-sized pieces. SLOWLY add just enough cream so that the dough comes together. Gently and with minimal handling (remember, pastry doughs stay most tender when worked with least) form the dough into four cobbler biscuits. If you wish, brush the tops with cream and sprinkle with granulated or turbinado sugar. Arrange the biscuits atop the fruit base and bake in a preheated 350 F oven until biscuits are golden on top and cooked through; about 40 minutes.

Serve warm, with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

*Cutting in butter literally means cutting up butter in a flour mixture until it is in small, even pieces. You want the butter to stay in individual pieces and not melt, so it is important that it be cold to begin with. Cutting in butter can be done a number of ways: in a bowl with two butter knives, pulsed in a food processor (this recipe fits in one of the mini-sized ones) or in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. All yield good results.