Xmas for My Grandparents

12/25/10

Whew! This is it! Since my resolution just over a month ago, I have successfully caught up on my entire year's worth of back posts! Hopefully in 2011 I can keep it simple enough to stay up to date.

For Christmas this year my gift to my grandparents was an "in-home Bed and Breakfast," as I called it. Basically, I went over to their house and cooked them shmancy meals all day. I found all the recipes on epicurious.com, and will link to them all with my modifications. Photos of me were taken by my Grampa.

Smoked Salmon Benedict

Reducing white-wine and shallots for the hollandaise sauce.

Grampa about to bust open the champagne.

English muffins topped with smoked salmon...

topped with poached eggs and hollandaise!

Red Salad

Baked Olives

This recipe leaves the olives whole. If you wanted it to really be a spread, you could easily food process it to a paste, but I just mashed them with a fork after they came out, so it was more like a chunky tapenade.

My Mom got to be a special lunch guest :)

Endive-Brusell Sprout Salad with Toasted Pecans

I couldn't find frisee so I left it out.

Rosemary and Garlic Roasted Potatoes

Provencal Lamb

Boneless was painless.

Cognac-Baked Pears with Mascarpone

I super-simplified this recipe and didn't use any of the fruit called for except for the pears. Also opted-out of the powdered sugar at the end. Pears are sweet enough!

Preppin.

I loved this recipe's tip to use a melon-baller to remove the core from the pears. They look so cute!

Spooning honey-mustard glaze onto the lamb.

Ready for baking with tomatoes, onions, rosemary, and thyme.

Wine toast.

The endive looked like magnolia blossoms and made great scoopers for the brussels and pecans.

Mmmmm. Turned out so good.

Roasted Roots

11/15/10

This is a super easy and delicious meal. You can use whatever root vegetables you want, but for this particular roast I used beets, yams, potatoes, and winter squash (ok, that one's not a root). If you like roasted garlic, you can add a whole clove, just cut off the top first. Toss it all with a little bit of olive oil and salt and pepper and roast at 350 or 400 till the roots are soft, about 45 minutes. Warm your insides and get lots of vitamins and minerals!

Chipotle-Pumpkin Corn Chowder, Roasted Chicken, & Cardamom-Pistachio Ice Cream

11/7/10

OMG- my first ever roast chicken. How exciting. Last dinner club at my house before break.

Rubbed the chicken in salt, pepper, and paprika. Surrounded it with onions and home-dried cherry tomatoes. Said "fuck it" to trussing.

Now here's a tip you may not know. Jessica taught me some time ago to save my garlic skins for making soup stock. It makes a mild, almost slightly sweet broth. In preparation for my soup I boiled down a very full paper bag of skins for several hours with just a little salt and celery.

Chopped up one dried chipotle pepper and two smallish pie pumpkins.

Roasted the pumps in an olive-oiled pan at 350(? 450? 400? Whatever.) till they were fragrant and soft when I poked them with a knife (about 45 minutes).

Sauteed onions and some more of my corn in a little olive oil til they were starting to brown. Added some fresh garlic and ginger.

Cubed up the pumpkin and added it with the broth, chipotle pepper, and some curry powder. Let it cook down till it was mashable but didn't bother with blending. Added some milk.

And voila, first course. If you want a more measurement using recipe, here's the one I used. I put toasted pepitas on top, but cheated and bought pre-hulled ones instead of roasting my own pumpkin seeds. I stuck them in the oven for just a couple minutes till they browned and plumped up. Added a nice nuttiness to the soup.

Wow! Look at that good-lookin' bird!

Served with a flowery beet and mustard greens salad.

Made pistachio-cardamom ice cream for dessert, omggggg! Huge hit with the dinner clubbers. Did everything this recipe says to do except I didn't strain out the ground up pistachios and the cardamom was my add.

Spicy Corn Relish

11/7/10

I hit the jackpot at the farmer's market and got what must have been at least ten pounds of corn for $5. I thought I was still in the clear for corn season, but apparently I was a couple weeks off in my timing. Lucky for me, I found the one vendor who was still pushing the last of his and he gave me the hook-up.


Last year's corn relish was pretty sweet, so this year I added some spicy peppers. By the time I was ladling it into my jars, it still wasn't that spicy, but I'm crossing my fingers that some more kick will come through after several months of sitting. Can't wait for winter cornbread!

Kimchi

10/6/10

Kimchi, like sauerkraut, is a fermented food full of probiotics. It's like sauerkraut's juicier, spicier cousin. The way I make it, as my friend Whitney put it in her food blog entry on kimchi, definitely falls under the "western facsimile" category, but I love it anyway. This is the first kimchi recipe I ever used and I've been referencing it ever since.

This kimchi was super basic, but extremely strong on the spices, good for clearing out the sinuses: cabbage, sweet turnips, ginger, garlic, chili peppers, and brine. When I'm done fermenting and transferring my kimchi into containers for the fridge, I usually strain off the excess brine, but I save it for the next batch, bringing the next round the added spice and flavor of the last.

Romanesco Cauliflower Lemongrass Curry

9/28/10

Woops, this probably should have gone in the hippie food post, but it was made with such a beautiful cauliflower that it's ok, it can have its own.

House-run to the food-bank yielded this prize: A romanesco cauliflower. The guy at the food bank called it a "fractal cauliflower," haha. They are really incredible. I shot this photo on my manual Nikon 35mm.

Curried it up with mushrooms, yams, and lemongrass.

Balsamic-Tomato Egg Breakfast Pizza

9/26/10

Pre-made pizza dough in the fridge in the morning can only mean one thing...

Lil bit a cheese.

Some tomatoes marinated in balsamic vinegar for a few minutes.

Garlic and tarragon.

Sauteed shallots.

Put em all on.

Cracked some eggs on top...

And baked it at 450 (I think, possibly 500) till they were done! 8-10 minutes.

Mimosa toast to victorious breakfast pizza.

Hippie Food: Snapshots

Here's a few things I made in mid-September that basically epitomize my daily subsistence.

Vegetable curry in a sweet yard sale score wok. Looks like there's yams, greens, onions, and beets in here among other things. My basic curry base is coconut oil or olive oil, lots of fresh garlic and ginger, onions, curry powder, turmeric, cayenne pepper, cumin, and coconut milk.

These were quinoa stuffed zucchini boats I made for a birthday potluck using one GIANT zucchini.

I used red quinoa, tomato sauce, garlic, onions, walnuts, looks like some kale, who knows what else... One cheesy topped, one not for the vegan pals!

Chard-squash-potato hash.

Zydeco Green Beans

9/6/10

Spicy pickled green beans are sooooo gooooood. Once you pop the fun don't stop.



Make some.

Benedictine

8/6/10

Here's my first thorough step by step in a while. Benedictine is a KY-original, an addictive cucumber-cream cheese spread, allegedly created by Miss Jennie Benedict.

Here's what you need:

2 pkg. cream cheese (3 oz. size)
Grated pulp of 1 med. peeled cucumber
1 sm. grated onion, or half a big onion
1/4 tsp. salt
Mayonnaise
Dash of Tabasco
2-3 drops green food coloring

1. Peel your cuke.

2. Finely shred the cucumber and the onion. If you've got a food processor, that's the easiest way to do it, but you could also use a cheese grater if you don't.

3. Strain out as much of the juice from the shreds as you can.

4. Mash the cheese into the cucumber/onion pulp with a fork til thoroughly mixed.

Like this.

5. Add the Tabasco, salt, and enough mayo to make a smooth filling, easily spread (approximately a dollop).

6. Lastly, add just a few drops of green food coloring (don't overdo it or it's gonna look freaky).

7. Mix it up.

8. PUT IT ON A SANDWICH.

9. Attain Benedictine Enlightenment.