Country Comfort Holiday Cooking Course

The recently hosted a Country Comfort Holiday Cooking course, taught by Monica Musetti-Carlin and Mary Elizabeth Roarke.  Musetti-Carlin of Sayville, and Roarke of Blue Point, are the authors of a four book series about cooking traditions.

Each book contains more than 100 recipes and the stories associated with the recipes collected from friends, colleagues and professional chefs. At the event, the duo demonstrated recipes from their first two books, Country Comfort Harvest and Country Comfort Holiday.   A third book about crockpot cooking recipes is slated to be released in the spring.

At the course, audience members learned how to make mango salsa, corn salsa, snowball cookies and applesauce loaves with cream cheese icing. Participants snacked on the just-been-demonstrated salsas (served with chips) during an intermission before they were taught how to make the applesauce loaf.  By that time, the snowball cookies were already cooking in the oven, and audience members said they were more than excited to taste the cookies.
"That's the one thing I cannot resist, diet or no diet," Roarke said of cookies in general.

Numerous audience members noted they regularly attend cooking courses offered at the library. MaryAnn DeDominicas of Blue Point and her sister-in-law Susan Wagner of Bayport often take the cooking courses offered at the library. They also bring their husbands along for the ride, who according to them, enjoy the courses because they get to taste the samples and because the two families will often make what they learned in class at home.  

Wagner said one of the things she learned most from the course was the importance of having good knives. "You need an excellent set of tools for everything to come out," said Wagner.

Though Musetti-Carlin and Roarke require quality knives for their cooking, they differ on the size of knives that they use on their creations.  Musetti-Carlin prefers small knives, while Roarke prefers large knives.  Both feel that they have a better grip and control with their respective knives.

Audience members also learned fun ways to package the items and bring them to family and friends as gifts for the holidays.  For the mango salsa, Musetti-Carlin packaged the freshly made salsa in a jar and cut a small square of pepper-style fabric to seal the top with.  She also added bells for a more festive feel.

For Roarke's demonstration of the snowball cookies, she piled the confectioner sugar-coated cookies on top of one another on a round plate and wrapped the finished tower in cellophane.

Musetti-Carlin said that when she brings food to someone's home or office she always makes it look presentable, whether in an antique dish or jazzed-up with special fabric and her signature bells.

The Country Comfort book series is available for purchase at various Borders bookstores on Long Island.  It can also be purchased on amazon.com and borders.com.

Mango Salsa
Courtesy of Monica Musetti-Carlin 

3 cups fresh-diced cherry or grape tomatoes
Juice of 1 small lime
2 cloves of garlic, finely diced
1 purple onion, finely chopped
1 ripe mango, 1 unripe mango, both skinned and diced
½ cup roasted poblano peppers, finely chopped
2 tablespoons cilantro
Mix all the ingredients. Chill and serve.

Snowball Cookies
Courtesy of Patti De Feo (Metuchen, NJ)
(as demonstrated by Mary Elizabeth Roarke)

¾ cup butter, softened
½ cup sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
6 ounces semisweet chocolate morsels
Confectioner's sugar (approximately ¾ cup)
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat an oven to 350˚F.
Cream the butter, granulated sugar, and vanilla.
Beat in the egg until thoroughly incorporated.
Sift together the flour and salt.
Add the flour and salt to the butter mixture, along with chopped nuts (optional) and semisweet morsels.
Scoop the dough out of the bowl using a small cookie scoop.
Roll into 1-inch balls, place on an ungreased baking sheet, and bake for 15-20 minutes.
Cool slightly (about 5 minutes), put in a baggie with confectioner's sugar (about ¾ cup), and shake.

Applesauce Loaves
(serve with Cream Cheese icing or Maple Walnut Butter)
Courtesy of Monica Musetti-Carlin 

½ cup butter
¾ cups raw sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 ½ cups applesauce
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
2 1/8 tsp. soda
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground cloves
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream butter and sugars, add beaten egg and vanilla, add the rest of the ingredients in the order above. Bake in 3 buttered loaf pans, filling half way for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer comes out dry. (test after 30 minutes as ovens vary)

Applesauce Recipe
10 lbs. of apples, the more varieties the better
 1 cup of water
1/8 to ¼ cup sugar
1/8  to ¼ cup lemon juice, in increments
Sprinkling of cinnamon to flavor, in increments

Wash, core and cut up the first 3 lbs. of  apples. Place apples in a large sauce pot and   Add water barely to cover. Simmer.  As those apples begin to  soften, keep adding more (as many as your large sauce pot will fit;  I use about 15-30 apples depending on the variety or sizes  of the apple). In increments, add more lemon juice and cinnamon, relative to the increased amount of  apples you've  added  to the pot. Once all the apples are soft, this takes about an hour,  they are ready to be made into sauce in your blender.  Immediately use the necessary amount  to bake applesauce cake.  Can or Freeze the remainder for future use in sterilized jars.  Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks or the freezer for up to one year.  (Fill mason jars 1/8 inch from the top so as not to explode.)

Cream Cheese Icing

6 oz          cream cheese, softened

½ cup         butter, softened
2  tbsp       Whole milk
2 tsps.       Vanilla extract
2 cups       confectioner's sugar

Beat the cream cheese with the butter.
Alternately add the confectioner's sugar with the milk and vanilla until the consistency is spreadable.

Maple Walnut Butter
1 stick salted butter
¼ cup maple syrup
½ cup walnuts, finely  chopped

Add maple syrup and walnuts to softened butter.
Keep refrigerated until ready to use

Corn Salsa
Courtesy of Mary Elizabeth Roarke

19 oz can  Black Beans, rinsed and drained
19 oz can  corn, drained or fresh corn
½   red bell pepper,chopped
1 bunch   scallions, chopped
½ bunch  cilantro, chopped
Juice from 1 lime
2 tsp  olive oil
1 tsp ground cumin
1 clove  garlic, chopped
½ tsp  salt
2 rings  jalapeño peppers, chopped

Mix all ingredients in a bowl.

Refrigerate until serving.