WINTER CLASSICS!!! Photo's..Cobbers don't just repair shoes..they are fantastic sweet and savory casseroles/pies

I love this time of year in Los Angeles, most of the tourists have left, and the weather it's a bit chilly with clear blue skies and sunshine.
There are not many cities in the world where you can go water skiing in the morning and snow skiing in the afternoon..our recent storms have brought us a good "dusting" of snow to our local mountains and ski resorts, and because of the New Moon yesterday there is high swell on the ocean.

Snow on local mountains

There is a cold snap in the air and a lot of the farms just north of Los Angeles are having to cover their crops at night and bring in heat lamps as we have been having frost alerts. This is not something we are used to in this sub-tropical, low desert area.
The high desert, Joshua Tree has had some snow falls too and they are under severe frost alerts this weekend, Palm Springs is only going to be 55f this weekend for a high!

With all this in mind, my clients have chosen some great vegetarian "Winter Warmers"; The menu for Monday is: ( inc. prep. so far)


Soups:
Chunky Potato, sweetcorn & yam....hearty and thick
Butternut squash and apple..light and fruity

The Yam and potato with corn

The butternut  squash and apple soup

The Entrees:
Leek, chickpea and yam cornmeal Cobbler..a southern favorite

The filling for the cobbler

Eggplant and sweet potato casserole finished with coconut milk and yogurt, with steamed "Volcano rice" ( from the fertile fields of Java)

Breads/Desserts are:
A blueberry-apple buttermilk cobbler


"my famous" sour dough, banana-walnut-flax seed whole wheat waffles

The active sour dough starter

California walnut pieces

The completed banana-flax seed-whole wheat batter

These 2 the cooked waffles

The trick when using sweet potato/yam in an entree stew or casserole, is to treat it like tender meat.
To avoid it breaking up and getting lost in the mix, prepare the base and cook it well ( the leeks, carrots, onions and celery with white wine and vegetable stock) then with 20 mins to go, add the chunks of sweet potato/yam and cook slowly to allow the yams to soak up a lot of the stock.



A Cobbler (USA) is any dish topped with a scone like topping, ......and probably came about in the early Pioneer years when people needed bread with their meals, and not everyone had access to yeast or a sour dough starter, or were traveling so they had not enough time to make a bread and wait to prove it etc.
Scones became a 'quick bread" that only contained a shortening, flour ( sometimes cornmeal) and some milk, a raising agent (like buttermilk and baking soda or vinegar).
  Eggs would have been scarce especially in winter.
 Scones are still popular in USA as "biscuits", and many Southern restaurant and catering establishment is judge on the quality of it's own made biscuits.
   The cobbler topping for this dish is going to be cornmeal biscuits.


The cobbler topping for the dessert is a sweetened buttermilk -soft scone-like topping flavored with lemon zest and vanilla.
The base is blueberries with fresh apple, and a little sugar..the finished dish looks expensive and tastes wonderful; yet it is an Old Southern American staple.