[Talking about making eggnog from scratch.]
Shaun: “I’ll make eggnog for our Christmas party.”
Maura: “We’re having a Christmas party?”
Shaun: “Sure.”
Maura: “Who are we inviting?”
Shaun: “No one. Just us.”
Ha! We had our Christmas “party” this past Saturday. As a dish often associated with Christmas, we decided to try our hands at making tamales from scratch, using a black bean filling. (We even cooked the black beans from dry. Nuts, I know!)
First problem: no dried corn husks or banana leaves to be found. Even Whole Foods let me down. Parchment paper stood in with good results.
Second problem: the recipe only made about a dozen, and they’re already gone!
I love peppermint ice cream. So, for our Christmas party* last night, I made some. I chose this recipe from Simply Recipes, and I halved it since two people don’t need that much ice cream.
You’ll want to be careful and add the peppermint extract to taste. I think I could have done more crushed candy canes, but of course that is also a matter of taste. This is definitely on the list for things I am making for Christmas.
*I’ll tell you more about this later.
One of my resolutions in 2009 was to start liking Swiss cheese. I’ll call this a success, because I do not avoid it like the plague like I used to. There are some I even enjoyed.
You may not know this, but I used to be a really picky eater. At some point I just decided I was going to like food. And look at me now! I love it.
So, my foodie resolution for 2010 is start liking runny egg yolks.
I pretty much only like my eggs scrambled until practically dry. I still think light and fluffy, not wet scrambled eggs are a totally valid way to go. But something like a poached egg, with the egg yolk running down over toast (see these lovely photos from Smitten Kitchen)…ewww gross. Carbonara? I may be sick.
But…I’m going to work on it.
I have a little Christmas tree.
But it’s cute.
Okay, here is the last thing I made for Thanksgiving: pumpkin ice cream.
What should you know? This recipe was good, and I’d make it again. People seemed to like it at the Thanksgiving dessert party we went to, which was the day I churned it, but it was a little icy and less creamy the next day. So, just plan to eat it all right away.
Recipe: Pumpkin ice cream from Williams-Sonoma.
I saved the best Thanksgiving treat for second-to-last. I have another one I will tell you about tomorrow.
For the past few years, my family has done a deep-fried turkey for Thanksgiving. For some reason, it never occurred to us until this year to use the already hot oil to deep fry other things.
Enter the metric ton of stuffing my Mom made, and you get…stuffing fritters.
They don’t look like much, but they tasted great! I briefly considered rolling the balls in flour or cornmeal before frying, but the beauty was the stuffing was both the filling and the coating. Starch-tastic.
I predict this will take the Thanksgiving world by storm.
As Thanksgiving approached, I kept seeing recipes for making cranberry sauce. It never really occurred to me to make cranberry sauce myself, but upon seeing how easy it was I wanted to give it a go.
So what you want to do is throw a package of fresh cranberries, a cup or so of sugar and optional flavorings in a saucepan and cook until it looks like, well, sauce. I’d use a bit less than a cup of sugar next time, but not too much less (cranberries are tart!). You can also add a little alcohol (Jack Daniel’s perhaps, or some bourbon) and/or water to get the mixture moving. Orange is a natural with cranberries, and you could add zest, juice or a little concentrate (as I did). Cinnamon would work here, too, but I actually used no spices at all. So easy. So delicious.
I did make a pecan pie for Thanksgiving! And, as Chris suggested, I went with the Paula Deen recipe: Bourbon Pecan Pie.
This was my special Thanksgiving dessert just for me. Oh, and I shared a little with my family.
The past few Mondays at the new office I’ve been bringing in a treat of some kind, to fulfill my insatiable desire to bake this time of year. I started thinking that a coffee cake would be good, with a seasonal cranberry filling. I found this recipe from the King Arthur Flour website: yogurt-cranberry coffeecake. I liked a few things about this recipe. First, they said they liked it with white whole wheat flour. Second, the cranberry filling is actually a can of whole-berry cranberry sauce, which I thought was kind of cute.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find this recipe to be a winner. First, it was a little dry, which I actually owe to the fact that I had to cook it longer than called for because the knife wasn’t coming out clean. Second, it called for a cup of cranberry sauce, and if you ask me to cook with something in a can and call for less than the whole can, I pretty much hate you. Interestingly, I used the whole can anyway and thought it could have used more. I still love the idea of cranberry coffee cake, so I’ll try this or something like it again sometime.
I am thankful for FOOD. I am lucky to have access to and can afford good food, and I’m lucky I like to cook and can make my own. I have been to a great many restaurants and made a great many recipes at home. I love food!