Totally Grown-Up Halloween Candy Brownies

We don’t mess around here when it comes to over-the-top desserts. When faced with the curious problem of too much leftover trick-or-treat candy, I don’t just rip open a brownie mix and throw in handfuls of Twizzlers and Smarties. There has to be a method to the madness.

My method came about after our town’s untimely October 25 trick-or-treat night. We’d purchased an extra-large bag of candy, because we now live in a neighborhood that’s quite popular for commuting trick-or-treaters. Come the big night, though, we were all having so much fun meandering around from house to house with our friends and their kids that, by the time we got back home, the streets were empty; we didn’t hand out one piece of our trick-or-treat candy. “Give it to people who don’t have enough food!” Frances suggested. The concept of donating candy to a food pantry makes sense to a 4-year-old, but to me there’s something amiss with it to me, like dropping off moldy Reader's Digest Condensed Classics at a charity booksale.

So much effing candy.

For a few nights I nibbled an assortment after Frances went to bed: a Snickers bar, then a Twix, then a little pack of M & M’s. I should have been satisfied, but my hands kept creeping back to the candy bowl.  

As an adult, I find most candy too sweet and one-dimensional. Halloween candy does not hit the spot like it used to. Really, why do I bother eating it at all?

My husband started nibbling at the corner before these got a chance to cool. I like them better the next day, after they've set.

There’s another reason I should keep my distance from those little sugar-bombs in their shiny wrappers. I wrestled with an eating disorder for many years, and junk-food sweets were always my undoing. That’s why I never have that kind of stuff around the house. Just seeing a bowl of candy makes me feel compromised, distracted, and weak. It’s difficult to write about not because I’m ashamed, but because it’s challenging to articulate to anyone who hasn’t gone through something similar. People wouldn’t leave festive crack pipes and dime bags out in front of recovering drug addicts, but those of us who came out of disordered eating to have healthy, balanced relationships with food have to deal with this bullshit every year. It begins with Halloween and tapers off after New Year’s, when everyone freaks out about their holiday indulgences.

So this year, I decided to be the candy’s boss and make it into something worth eating—something so worth eating one or two amazing bites would do it. Taking a cue from Maida Heatter’s brownies layered with baked-in peppermint patties, I dug out my favorite brownie recipe, some fantastic raw ingredients, and a sharp and pointy knife. I unwrapped twenty Fun Size candy bars and chopped those fuckers up. I dropped them onto the brownie batter, shoved them into a hot oven, and told them to go to hell. Once they cooled, I cut them into tiny squares and ate one. A few hours later, I ate a second one. And then I was done, because I’d taken something shitty and made it into something awesome.

These witch and pumpkin picks are so cool. My mom saved them from the 1970s.

Totally Grown-Up Halloween Candy Brownies

Makes 36 small brownies

This is essentially candy bars bound with brownie batter, a baked confection. The batter itself is intense and bittersweet, something to offset the cloying candy. Cut them into tiny squares, like truffles.  

• 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
• ½ cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs, straight from the refrigerator
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract, optional
• ½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 12 ounces Snickers and Milky Way bars, sliced crosswise into sections about ½-inch thick (this is 20 Fun Size bars)
• ½ cup chopped roasted peanuts (salted ones are nice, but unsalted will work, too)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. 

Melt the butter in a medium high-sided skillet over medium heat, keeping an eye on the pan so the butter does not burn. When the butter is quite hot (you may hear it sizzling or popping a bit), remove the pan from the heat and add the chopped chocolate. Stir once with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula and set aside to finish melting while you prepare the pan.

Line an 8 x 8-inch pan with foil or parchment paper, letting several inches hang over two opposite sides to create handles. Grease the pan and foil and set aside.

Now stir the chocolate and butter mixture until is smooth and the chocolate is completely melted. Beat in the sugar and salt, then beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the vanilla, if using. Beat in the flour until the batter is smooth and shiny and a little tacky.

Spread half of the batter in the prepared pan. Lay the ¾ of the candy bar pieces on top of the batter in a mosaic fashion. Drop the remaining batter on top and smooth as best you can (it does not have to look perfect). Lay the remaining candy bars pieces on top, and then scatter the chopped peanuts over them.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the pan comes out with moist crumbs, not raw batter (about 30 minutes, but this can be hard to gauge, since the caramel and melted chocolate will be gooey). Cool on a rack or place in the freezer until the brownies are cool and set. Using the parchment or foil handles, life the brownies out of the pan. Invert on a cutting board and peel off the foil or parchment. Place another cutting board on top and invert again, so that the brownies are nutty-side-up. Cut into squares (I prefer smaller ones, a little over an inch across) and serve. To me, these taste best the day after they were baked; when still hot from the oven, they’re impossible to cut nicely, and they’re so gooey all of the flavors run together.

This Crappy Kitchen: Kelly in Elkins, WV

Crappy kitchens. We've all had them (and if you haven't, sweetheart, then props to you). Nearly every lifestyle magazine or website glorifies the concept of a fully-loaded deluxe kitchen; we see profiles of famous chefs or writers or designers and their glorious, airy kitchens with top-end appliances and cookbooks arranged just so. Inevitably, these chefs and writers and designers have more resources to pull from in creating their dream kitchens than we mere humans. 

The argument is that glossy magazine spreads appeal to our own dreams--if we can't enjoy a clean, spacious kitchen of our own, at least we can do it vicariously--but I don't buy it. I want tips on living with the kitchen I have now, not ideas on how to set up the kitchen I'll never get. 

Earlier this week, food writer Debbie Koenig came clean in a blog post that went a little viral. In it, she points out that food writers, by projecting a buffed-and-polished version of their lives, let readers down by delivering something unreasonable and unattainable. "I don’t think we’re ashamed of these parts of our lives, necessarily, just that in order to capture attention, we chase a notion of unrealistic beauty," she writes. "That leads to cookbooks and food blogs as staged and Photoshopped as the models in Vogue."

I'm sick of Vogue model kitchens. So, with that in mind, I invite us--you!--to share your crappy kitchens with others who likewise cope with crappy kitchens. I hope this occasional series of short videos will inspire you to embrace what is real, and vent about what is crappy. First up: my lifelong friend Kelly. Back in February, I stayed at her rental house in Elkins, WV. Kelly is usually a very expressive, energetic person, and that she's somewhat subdued here is quite telling. She hated that kitchen. The video quality here is not great, perhaps in keeping with the theme, but you'll get the idea.

Kelly shares her crappy rental house kitchen.

Happy ending: Kelly married her boyfriend, and they now live in a house way out in the woods. Their kitchen is still not ideal, but it's warm and welcoming, and its few cabinets are easily accessible. My heart goes out to the occupants of Kelly's old place, which is a cute little house, if you eat exclusively instant ramen and instant oatmeal.

Please share your crappy kitchen woes below. And maybe we'll feature your kitchen next on This Crappy Kitchen! 

One Pound, Eight Ounces of Parsnips

The parsnip seeds were about three dollars, purchased from a bulk bin at the hardware store. I’d bought them, along with some carrot and kale seeds, late in the summer for a second planting in the garden I shared with my dad. He spent hours tilling it, and then—with a little help from me, but not much--erecting a tall and sturdy fence to keep out the deer that gleefully munch at any blooming plant, decorative or not.

Dad and I share the garden because, here at my house across town, there’s not much of a yard, and I wanted more planting space than our small raised bed afforded us. Dad planted black-eyed peas and onions; I planted a ton of greens, along with peas and beans. The collards did well, as did the black-eyes, but nothing else thrived. In years past, my parents had multiple plots, in the largest size available, in a Columbus, Ohio community garden. They enjoyed bumper crops, which my mother canned in between nursing me and making healthful snacks for my older brother, who was a toddler at the time.

Decades later, I had spotty luck in my own past gardens prior to moving back here to Ohio, but I always got enough to feel it was worth my time and effort. I’m not sure what happened, but I do know we will do a soil test well before planting next spring.

The aforementioned parsnip seeds did nothing last year. This spring, I planted the remainder of the seeds in a row with the carrot seeds, to Mom and Dad’s objections. Why waste valuable garden space on pedestrian root vegetables? But I love parsnips, and at an average of $1.99 a pound at the grocery store, I don’t make a practice of buying them. I dreamed of the culinary possibilities of growing lots and lots of parsnips, which I would roast or puree. Parsnips to add to a white mirepoix, parsnips to grate and fry in non-conformist latkes, parsnips to add to simmering pots of braising meats. They are curious vegetables, at once mellow and sharp, at once creamy and fibrous. This dual nature amuses me. I enjoy how they keep me on my toes.

Lo and behold, both the parsnips and carrots grew. The carrots I harvested in August—they were petite things, and it took about half an hour for me to liberate them from the firm clay of Southeast Ohio gardens—but the parsnips I kept in the ground, imagining them growing into hearty, club-shaped things.

This weekend I dug them up. All one and a half pounds of them, and they had the willowy builds of runway models rather than the sturdier, more robust figures I’d been dreaming of. Smaller parsnips tend to taper off dramatically at their tips, quite unlike carrots, and so it’s challenging to get a consistent cut on them (important especially when roasting, for those narrow pieces tend to burn and shrivel rather than brown and crisp.) It took me about half an hour to wash, peel, and chop them into the 2-inch sticks I was planning to serve alongside our pot roast.

And a few of the parsnips I had to toss altogether, because they had a noticeable petroleum smell; most parsnips have a hint of this, but in older ones it’s especially prevalent. And parsnips often have woody cores running through their centers, so it’s best to cut those out and discard them. My yield from the initial 1.5 pounds was a generous handful of prepped root veg.

After roasting them at 400 degrees F for about 20 minutes, I pulled them out of the oven and chewed a sample. And chewed and chewed. It seems I’d made parsnip jerky. Gamely, I still heaped them on our dinner plates—I’d have been better off simmering the roots with the lovely red wine and onion broth that bathed out delicious pot roast—and I masticated through a few roasted parsnips batons.

My gardening know-how is low, mostly because I approach it in a very impulsive, slapdash manner. This is the way many people cook, so I can’t hold it against them. I don’t imagine I’ll have the time or drive to become a master gardener, or even a fluent one, but I’ll keep on trying, because it’s fun to see things grow…when they actually do. The parsnips were more like pets or amusements than anything else. Some people knit, some play Worlds of Warcraft, some go to NASCAR races. I grow edible plants, and badly at that. But I may even plant parsnips again, just to see if I can do better next year. The goal? Harvesting two pounds.

Pawpaw Pudding

First, get some pawpaws. Hurry, you only have a few weeks left. This article I wrote for Serious Eats explains how to do that. It's awesome and you should read it right now.

Next, make this pudding. It’s homey and custardy, with intriguing caramel notes and an undeniable pawpaw kick. Using a food processor, it takes only minutes to blitz that batter together. (Note: estimated minutes blitzing batter excludes gathering of pawpaws. It took me about 40 minutes to haul home ten pounds. Call it your exercise for the day.)

Pawpaw Pudding

Serves 6 to 12

• nonstick cooking spray, to grease the dish
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 2/3 to ¾ cup sugar (I prefer a less-sweet pudding)
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 cup pawpaw pulp
• ½ cup buttermilk, preferably not low-fat
• ¼ cup half-and-half
• 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste OR vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and position a rack in the middle. Grease a 9-by-9 inch baking dish, preferably glass or ceramic, with nonstick cooking spray.

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda to combine.

In a large glass measuring cup or medium bowl, combine the pawpaw, buttermilk, half-and-half, and vanilla bean paste. With the machine running, add the pawpaw-buttermilk  mixture through the feed tube. Turn off the machine, scrape down the sides, and add the butter with the machine running. Your batter should have the consistency of pancake batter.

Pour the batter into the greased dish. Bake until the center is set but still jiggly (like a pumpkin pie), about 30 to 45 minutes. The sides of the pudding will rise up and brown, while the interior will be flat, shiny, and amber-colored. Let cool to room temperature and serve with crème fraiche or whipped cream (I like this for breakfast with a big dollop of Greek yogurt, but I could say that about most any dessert.)

The pudding will keep 2-3 days at room temperature. I suppose you could refrigerate it, but I like it better when it’s not cold.

Pawpaws Behind the Shopping Center

Look closely. Do you see them? The pawpaws are back. This native North American fruit grows in deciduous forests all through the eastern United States, even though hardly anyone knows about them. From those who do, I hear a lot of “oh, I remember that pawpaw song.” It’s a goofy old folk song. Myself, I don’t remember it, but it goes like this:

Pick up a pawpaw and put it in your pocket…

Right now I will tell you not to put a ripe pawpaw in your pocket. Also, most of the pawpaws you find on the ground are bruised and just a hair or two past ripe. There’s something cloying and bad-funky about them. A perfectly ripe pawpaw will fall off the tree, but you probably can’t be there to catch it when it does. The next best thing is to harvest the pawpaws that separate from the branch with no resistance. They yield to your nudge.

The pawpaws in the bag surprised me. I went to scout out a nearby spot rumored to have lots of fruits, and the rumor was true. Those suckers were ready, and when a pawpaw is ready, it will not wait. You have to pick it right then. So I did.

This is my pawpaw anniversary. I’d never tasted one until this time last year. It was purely an accident, just me walking in the woods and running across this goofy fruit a few friends had told me about. I wound up succumbing to a manic pawpaw state. It’s not just about fruit. It's about total immersion in one moment. Gathering pawpaws, I don’t think about what music to listen to or what I should make for dinner or the people I need to send follow-up emails. I just think about getting more pawpaws. Pawpaws are around for a few short weeks, and then they are gone. After that, most of the leaves have fallen from the trees, and it’s cold and the skies are grey and the grass turns brown and everything’s a giant bummer until late March. I feel like pawpaws are summer’s last hurrah.

Pawpaws are homely little fruits with a distinctive tropical flavor. A longtime sucker for misfits, I fell for them hard. Last year I decided I should write a pawpaw cookbook, which lends this pawpaw season an even greater sense of urgency. At times, I’ve wondered why I’m so compelled to write a pawpaw cookbook, when other, more normal people write cookbooks about gluten-free brownies or Paleo salads. And then I realize I’m the normal one.

These pawpaws came from the woods behind a shopping center I’ve always hated. There's a grocery store and a DMV and a laundromat, and past those a compact network of hiking and biking trails. The trees back there are crawling with pawpaws. At first you don’t notice them, but once you do, you spy them everywhere. It’s like earning a set of pawpaw goggles. I got all scratched up from rummaging through multiflora rose and poison ivy to get to the pawpaws. It’s prudent to wear pants, not shorts. Next time, I will. And the time after that. Having the fruit is only half the point. Getting it is the real treat.

The Unknown Recent History of the Tomato

I have a fun little article up on Modern Farmer about the secret history of America's favorite summer vegetable. Toxicity rumors! Suspicion of outsiders! Clarification about the meaning of the term "heirloom"! Check it out now. 

Tomato and Summer Squash Chutney

Our glorious summer tomato days are waning. I want to eat as many tomato-centric sandwiches as possible, and I feel those opportunities slipping away as the calendar marches on. I ate sliced of the last ripe red tomato in the house yesterday, on a sandwich smeared with squash-tomato chutney made a few days ago from many of its tomato siblings. How delightfully perverse to ingest multiple forms of tomato carnage in one petite sandwich.

This time in the season, a lot of us have a pile of not-quite ripe tomatoes, and another pile of outright green ones. You can cook them all up in this sticky, sweet-tart sandwich spread. The tomatoes melt into a gel, suspending cubes of squash that are nearly candied. I use it all year long. It’s the best thing to put on a grilled cheese sandwich, and it has also eclipsed ketchup here as a topping for hamburgers.

This is a fine entry-level preserving recipe, and makes a significant dent in the bulbous summer squash that seemingly spontaneously generate during hot months. The key to chutney working as a sandwich spread is the dice of the squash and peppers; if too large, they sit clumsily on the bread. The correct dice is ½ to ¼ inch, and it will require a decent investment of knife work. Put on your favorite podcast and look at is as therapeutic.  

Yellow Summer Squash and Tomato Chutney

Makes about 7 to 8 half-pint jars 

This is a great way to use up those homegrown summer squash the size of a human’s femur. Yellow squash makes the prettiest chutney, but you can add green zucchini, too. I also like to use patty pan squash. If I have a particularly femur-esque specimen, I cut off about ¾ from four sides and pitch the elongated cube of mealy interior. This might mess with your yield, so if you are using older or bigger squash, make sure to weight it post-cutting.

• 2 pounds summer squash, preferably yellow, diced between ½ and ¼ inch
• 1 pound onions, finely diced
• 1-1/2 pounds ripe tomatoes, cored and chopped
• Up to ½ pound not-too-spicy gypsy or wax peppers, seeded and diced ½ inch, optional
• 3-1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 2-1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
• ½ teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
• 1/8 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1 teaspoon table salt

Combine all of the ingredients in a large (about 5 quart) non-reactive pot, such as stainless steel or enameled cast iron. Stir to combine, cover, and bring to a boil over high heat.

Uncover and continue to cook (in a well-vented room if you don’t want to wipe everyone out with vinegar fumes) over high heat. For the first 20 minutes or so, you probably won’t need to stir very often; there will be plenty of liquid. If you see any scum rise to the surface, skim it off, but there won’t be anywhere near as much as, say, a batch of strawberry jam might produce.

Once the chutney starts to thicken, stir it with a wooden spoon every now and then. Gradually reduce the heat. When the chutney starts getting glossy and the bubbles get smaller and make little snapping noises, it’s very close to ready. You should feel a decent amount of resistance when you stir. It will take between 45 minutes to over an hour for the chutney to cook, depending on many factors: the intensity of the flame, the liquid content of the veggies, the particular character of the day.

Pack the chutney in warm sterilized jars (I prefer half-pint), leaving ¼ inch headspace. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. The chutney isn’t too bad at all right after you make it, but it gets better if you allow the jars to age a month or so before opening. Store any jars that didn’t seal properly in the refrigerator for up to one month.