9 Winter Recipes

The quandary of cook-through food blogging: what is more important, cooking the recipes, or blogging about them? When I have to choose one or the other due to time constraints, cooking always wins. Not the best scenario for you, dear reader, but luckily I don't have any scruples about combining many dishes into one post.

So here for your reading pleasure is a catch-up post on what's been happening in the Palladino kitchen over the last few months.

Herbed Lima Bean Hummus

When I was a kid, if you asked me if I hated any foods I would have promptly said "hot dogs and lima beans". But now I see that it's all in the preparation (although I'm sorry to say the only thing you can do to improve hot dogs is drown out their taste with the spiciest chili imaginable).

After you've cooked limas with an onion and some garlic, you whiz them up in a food processor with herbs, spices, lemon juice and olive oil. If you're squeamish about spending the bucks for all those fresh herbs in the market (because this calls for fresh cilantro, parsley, dill AND mint) wait for summer when they're abundant and free if you know the right gardeners.

This recipe is a win. I could eat it every day.

Ham and Black-Eyed Pea Soup with Collard Greens

Of the many bean-based soups in the book, this one has got to be the fastest. A few cans of black-eyed peas, a slab of ham, diced, a little chicken broth and some collards and hey presto--you've got soup. Very satisfying and if you sweat your onions instead of sauteing them you've got a good spring dieting soup too. Please note that's not my photo--thanks to iamglutenfree.blogspot.com for the swipe (at least I think that's what the script says).

Chicory Salad with Orange and Red Onion

I'm always a little nervous about using bitter greens in salad but I guess they have their place in the universe. One place they occupy nicely is as a counterpoint to a rich entree, like the Shrimp in Coconut Milk, seen here all snuggled up on the same plate.

This salad was pretty good though it called for vast and amazing amounts of chicory to be trimmed away (the dark green outer leaves--good for soups, says the book). If your chicory is like my chicory you can't wash it enough--it must be grown primarily in sand so take heed and wash wash wash. The best way to do it I think is to put the leaves in a big pot or bowl of cold water and let the sand sink to the bottom.

Would I make this salad again? Maybe!

Red Lentil and Tofu Dal

Again, not my photo, and not fully accurate--imagine cubes of creamy white tofu mixed in. Thanks to Recipes for a Postmodern Planet for the swipe.

This recipe was beyond fantastic because of the spices. If you like Indian food in general, you'll swoon over this. It calls for Garam Masala which you can make but also now (thanks to McCormick's ever-adventuresome spice offerings) buy pre-mixed in the supermarket. Vegetarians, this one's for you.

Cauliflower with Ginger and Mustard Seeds

Cauliflower is not the first vegetable I turn to in the produce section when I'm grabbing stuff for dinner. It's not even the second one, and actually not the third one. In fact it might be somewhere down the list with broccoli rabe. Why? It's a perfectly innocuous vegetable but it seems sort of boring and also it's white which makes it seem somehow less healthy than green and orange things which of course is nonsense.

If you too feel uninspired by cauliflower look no further than this dish to create a little excitement with flavors that really pop and an ingredient that actually literally pops--mustard seeds, when heated in a skillet, will pop right out of the pan. So be careful. And enjoy this one--it's a nice way to mix up your weekday veggie repertoire.

Swiss Chard and Chickpeas

Trying to eat less meat? This is a quick week-day supper that will give you veggies, protein and fiber all in one fell swoop and it's also super fast and great for lunch the next day. Sometimes that's all you really need so if this is one of those times, go for it.

Sweet Potato Pie with Bourbon Cream

Aw, just when you thought I was getting all healthy on you with all these veggies and beans--no way, brothers and sisters. My dedication to butterfat remains as constant as ever. I am also pretty close to finishing the Pie chapter so I took the opportunity at our last book group (Serena by Ron Rash in case you're wondering) to make this pie.

What's different about this pie? Frankly I was amazed at how many of my fellow book groupies had never had sweet potato pie so that's different--might be a new experience for your diners. Two, the sweets potatoes are roasted, not boiled. Pretty subtle. Other than that it's just a good old sweet potato pie made with bourbon, and topped with heavy cream flavored with more bourbon. Can you really go wrong here? I think not.

Lemon Pound Cake

With this cake done, I can now count the remaining cake recipes on one hand. Five left, people!!

I made this for my writer's group and it was pretty easy to put together (if you don't mind zesting a gazillion lemons)--my only problem with it was that it just wouldn't finish baking in the middle. See that crack up there? I baked this pound cake for well over an hour and that one spot just wouldn't bake. Weird and vexing but it was still delicious (if slightly, er, moist in that center part). The book suggests serving with strawberries and I did.

Hmm, maybe I'll make that Passover Sponge Cake for my writer's group tonight.....

Coeurs a la Creme with Blackberries

This is one of the recipes I thought I would never get around to making. For one thing it calls for a special mold and for another it seems fantastically complicated. But, somewhere around Valentine's Day I found myself having a dinner party and since we inherited some heart-shaped molds from our neighbor Marjorie

it seemed like the obvious dessert choice.

Make no mistake--this dessert is kind of a pain. Anything that asks you to force a solid through a fine sieve is going to be irritating. Ditto for lining the little molds--individually--with damp cheesecloth. But what a pay-off! A sweet little dessert that will melt the hearts of your friends and loved ones, and the portion size is just right for a tasty but not too filling treat. Anybody local who wants to try this I'm happy to lend you these molds.

So that's the wrap-up, folks! Thanks for being patient, and I'll see you back here soon.

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Gluten-Free recipes in this post: Herbed Lima Bean Hummus, Ham and Black-Eyed Pea Soup with Collard Greens, Chicory Salad with Orange and Red Onion, Red Lentil and Tofu Dal, Swiss Chard and Chickpeas, Cauliflower with Ginger and Mustard Seeds, Coeurs a la Creme with Blackberries

Low-Carb recipes in this post: Chicory Salad with Orange and Red Onion, Red Lentil and Tofu Dal, Cauliflower with Ginger and Mustard Seeds, Swiss Chard and Chickpeas

Low-Fat recipes in this post: Swiss Chard and Chickpeas, Red Lentil and Tofu Dal, Cauliflower with Ginger and Mustard Seeds

Paleolithic recipes in this post: Cauliflower with Ginger and Mustard Seeds

Recipe WINs in this post: Herbed Lima Bean Hummus, Red Lentil and Tofu Dal

Chocolate Bread Pudding and Key Lime Pie

You might think, readers, that the desserts remaining to be made in The Gourmet Cookbook are overly complicated, and thus the wait.

Actually, not so! Well, not so for ALL of them--there are a few that I look over from time-to-time (like oh for example Individual Chocolate Raspberry Baked Alaskas) and I get tired just looking at them. Someday, Baked Alaskas...but not today.

But! There are some recipes I just hadn't gotten around to that are delightfully uncomplicated (with spectacular results). These are two of them.

Chocolate Bread Pudding

This is not my photo--I was too busy hostessing to snap a pic. Thank you, Nothing But Love!

Like many bread puddings, this calls for day-old bread and if you're a savvy shopper (or just too disorganized to plan ahead) you'll remember that your local supermarket sells day-old bread for next to nothing.

Bring cream and milk to a simmer, and pour it over chopped up unsweetened chocolate. You know, the stuff that's definitely in your cupboard because no matter how desperate you get for chocolate, you can't bring yourself to eat it. While that's melting, toss bread cubes with melted butter and put them in a square casserole dish. Whisk a few eggs into the milk and melted chocolate, add sugar and a little vanilla and salt, let it all soak together in a the casserole dish for an hour and then throw that baby in the oven.

That's it! 45 minutes, and done! Serve to your grateful chocolate-loving guests with some fresh whipped cream and feel the love.

Key Lime Pie

The headnotes for this recipe promise that once you make this dessert you'll understand why it's on so many restaurant menus--great dessert for very little effort. And yes, I've made key lime pie before, but technically not THIS recipe, which might not be different from whatever recipe I've used before, who can remember these things?

Anyway, couldn't be simpler. Toss graham cracker crumbs with melted butter and bake in a pie plate for 10 minutes. While it's baking, whisk together 4 egg yolks with a can of sweetened condensed milk and 6 tablespoons of lime juice. I squeezed my own limes, and not key limes either--just plain old limes from the supermarket. Pour this into the pie shell, and bake for 15 minutes. Chill for 8 hours, the recipe says, but mine was perfectly set in 2.

Top with fresh whipped cream and man, is this a good dessert! We had it after Baja-style fish tacos...perfect for a Mexican themed meal.

Melissa Feeds the World Part IV: Her Bookgroup & Exciting Cook-Through Blogger News!!

Exciting News first! Folks who follow the Gourmet cook-through blogs may have noticed that two of us live pretty close to each other here in Massachusetts: Adam from Gourmet All The Way is just down the road in Methuen.



Well, I recently received an email from Adam, inviting me to be his guest at a luncheon demonstration where he works as an attorney. Wait, a roomful of attorneys? Does this mean I could get sued if they don’t like the food? Ha ha, just kidding. Kind of.

We’ll talk about cook-through blogging, and whip up some tasty food that doesn’t require oodles of time and equipment (Adam has picked two tapenade recipes) but best of all we’ll get to meet each other in Three Dimensions. I had a blast meeting Teena from The Gourmet Project last summer, and I look forward to a good time here as well.

Watch this space for a full report!



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On to my bookgroup, which if you’re a regular reader you know that means I’m talking about DESSERT.

For the past few months I’ve been trying out various puddings on my bookgroup, and January’s group was no exception. For the discussion of Suite Francaise, I chose Toasted Bread and Butter Pudding. Part of my reasoning is that I can’t get anybody else in my life to eat bread pudding, but the other part is that it calls for challah, which was connected to the subject matter of our book.

I also remembered that Adam had made this recipe, and liked how it got crispy on top but was pudding-y on the bottom.

Now, this recipe says that you can use challah or firm white sandwich bread. Challah is not typically found for sale around here except during Jewish holidays so the EASY thing for me to do would be to use white bread, but what would be the fun of that?

The Gourmet Cookbook actually has a great recipe for challah, and so I made challah. I love making challah. It’s so satisfying.



If you are on the fence about bread pudding because you don’t like the slimy texture, this might be the recipe for you to try. The egg mixture doesn’t fully engulf the bread, so part of it bakes on top, and it does get nice and crispy, as Adam noted.

But unfortunately I had to cover and transport the pudding, so the crispy bread on top got steamed…by the time we were ready to serve it I actually thought it was sort of rubbery and it seemed more like French toast than bread pudding.

But the caramel sauce saved the day! That’s the great thing about sauces—they hide a multitude of errors. And my book group is a loving and appreciative audience, and that’s why I keep making desserts for them.

This is not my pudding, but it's made from the same recipe...




For February’s group, I made Coffee Almond Ice Cream Cake with Dark Chocolate Sauce.

I don’t know why I’m intimidated by this chapter--Frozen Desserts and Sweet Sauces. Maybe part of it is because I still don’t have an ice cream maker that is easy to use. Or maybe it’s because many, if not most of these recipes are incredibly complex—requiring multiple components and a lot of time. You think I’m kidding? Check out Watermelon Sorbet with Chocolate Seeds—a trompe l’oeil that has you filling a frozen watermelon shell with watermelon sorbet and chocolate “seeds”. It uses the phrase “working quickly” at least twice, which makes me nervous just reading it.

But I was determined to try something other than pudding this month, and so I browsed around here trying to find something that would feed a lot of people (three new members—yay!) and wouldn’t take three days to make.

Enter Coffee Almond Ice Cream Cake, which very nicely calls for store-bought coffee ice cream. All you have to do, really, is layer it in a springform pan.

I expanded the recipe by half to fit a larger springform—a 10 inch, and then I got busy.

First a layer of chocolate cookie crumbs mixed with melted butter, which you freeze for a while, then the softened coffee ice cream.

Then you spread whipped heavy cream that’s been folded with crushed almond cookies, and sprinkle the whole thing with toasted almonds.

Done. Well, you have to freeze it for four hours, but then you’re done.

And—another recipe that calls for sauce!! This one called for Dark Chocolate Sauce, and mmmmmmmm, can there possibly be anything better? No, I don’t think so.



I would like to personally recognize Don Rittenburg, who artfully sauced these as they were going out of the kitchen. It was important to him to get it right, and he did.

Melissa Feeds the World Part III: Her Elders

Well technically, almost everybody I've mentioned here recently is older than I am, because I'm celebrating my fifth annual 39th birthday soon and my peers are just getting older and older while I remain as fresh as a daisy.

No, you don't buy that? Damn.

OK, well here when I say my elders I'm thinking specifically of the two lovely ladies I cook for in my two lovely jobs, plus one slightly younger than them but still far older than me gentleman who has sadly since passed away from cancer.

And the reason I'm putting them together in one post is because older people sometimes have special eating needs that can make cooking for them challenging.

Need #1: soft food

One of my lovely ladies--let's call her Mrs. H.--is keen on veggies but they have to be soft. One of her favorite cooking tricks for green beans and broccoli (and asparagus and brussel sprouts) is to have me boil them in water with 1 tsp of baking soda for two minutes, then boiling salted water for 6-8 minutes. They keep their bright green color yet are amazingly soft (and salty). Sort of (well exactly) like...canned beans!

So in expanding on this base of just-like-canned veggies, I turned to The Gourmet Cookbook to see what they could offer us, and came up with Maple Squash Puree, and Asparagus with Tarragon Sherry Vinaigrette, along with a few others that I've already talked about here.

(Let me just digress here to say that I really appreciate the veggie section of this cookbook. SO MANY people see vegetables as an afterthought, something to make that dinner plate look healthy, and don't know how to honor them in all their earth-bound glory. This chapter is eye-opening, even for somebody who was a vegetarian for 12 years. Will I ever find purslane, though? Stay tuned.)

Maple Squash Puree is easy-peasy. Boil squash, and puree with butter and maple syrup. That's it. What's not to like?



Asparagus with Tarragon Sherry Vinaigrette is slightly more complicated because it involves shocking the asparagus, which does not mean exposing their virgin ears to Christian Bale's rant on YouTube, it means stopping the cooking by plunging them into a bowl of ice water.

(Oh, I caught your attention with Christian Bale, but you don't want to listen to three minutes and fifty-two seconds of swearing? Try the dance mix instead.)

But getting back to asparagus--this gets topped with a simple shallot/mustard/tarragon vinaigrette, which I make even simpler by putting everything in a glass measuring cup and blending with a hand mixer. Fast and easier on those forearm muscles.

Mrs. H. LOVES this, hot or cold. The picture below shows some grated egg on top, which I don't bother with. What's the deal with cold asparagus and hard-boiled egg? Thanks to Romulo Yanes for making such a pretty photo:




Need #2: fat-free food

If you've ever cooked for or worked with older folks (or maybe you are one) you'll know that sometimes the world revolves around the digestive tract. OK, not sometimes. It just does. Medications don't help--some of them make you constipated, some of them give you the trots--it's a tricky balancing act that seems to need adjusting constantly.

So at one of my lovely jobs, we are often asked to make food that is intended to have a certain, shall we say, digestive effect. We never know exactly what it is--more roughage or less, dairy ok or not, bring on the butter or strictly fat-free.

Fat-free dinners that are also interesting pose a particular challenge, and it's one that I solved on one occasion with Fish en Papillote with Tomatoes and Olives.

Food in packets isn't a new concept--I seem to recall there was a little flurry of popularity with this technique in the eighties, and I'm sure it has a long pedigree with other things besides parchment paper.

The idea is you put the fish in the middle of parchment paper and pile on the goodies--in this case sliced tomatoes, olives, orange zest and fresh herbs--wrap them up and bake for ten minutes or so in a hot oven (500). This isn't a picture of my fish but it will give you the idea:



Other cook-through bloggers might be saying, hey, what about the butter? Well, it's true there's some butter in this recipe but I just left it out. That's what's nice about this particular recipe--you don't need it.

It's a great way to cook fish--I should remember it more often. If you're on a diet (or trying to recover from, ummm, digestive troubles), check it out.


Need #3: something soothing for the chemo patient

Well, this is a hard one to write about, because this particular person meant a lot to me and others who work at the craft of writing. Forgive me for erring on the side of discretion--I won't mention his name, but please know that it was an honor to give something back, if only briefly.

And let's have a little discussion about cancer, and chemo--something I'm learning more and more about from the cooking end of things. Chemo makes you hate food. It makes all food taste like sh*t, and you throw up, and lose a lot of weight. So oddly, one of the things that cancer patients need is MORE flavor (you would think spices would be upsetting) but in super small quantities. And it needs to be caloric.

Bringing my guaranteed weight-gaining High Calorie, High Nutrient Shake was easy, and helped with a weight gain of eight pounds--yay!

But what else? What flavor was he craving?

Lemon, he said. He loved lemon sorbet, but it wasn't that caloric.

Mister, I can make ANYTHING high calorie, and off I went to do my research.

I looked over the recipe for Lemon Parfait in The Gourmet Cookbook. Where lemon sorbet has just sugar, this puppy has both eggs AND heavy cream. Bingo.

Kevin, thanks for letting me steal your photo. I'm bad today.



He loved it, but even the best food can't stop death when it's marching in your direction.

RIP

Melissa Feeds the World, Starting with Her Parents

Usually, I sponge off my parents when it comes to dinner, one of the many advantages of living 15 minutes down the road from them. I'm only waiting for the day when they get demented enough that I can extract pocket money from them, but by that point I'll probably be helping them wipe the drool off their chin and they won't have any to give because it will all be sucked into some giant pool of nursing home fees. (sigh) So much for my big plans.

But every once in a while I can lure them out of their cozy home to our cozy (but second floor) home with the promise of a nice, gourmet dinner, and during this most recent dinner I made two stunningly delightful recipes from The Gourmet Cookbook.

It's possible that I was so thrilled with the first because I thought it would suck. And here's why:

I hate chicory.




So when Don came home with a head of chicory ("I was just craving it!" he said. Crazeeeee.) I grumpily looked it up and found a little note on it (strip the leaves, it says, the stems are the bitter part) and one lonely recipe for Chicory Salad with Oranges and Red Onions.

Even while I was making it, and tasting the stripped chicory leaves, I thought it would be way too bitter. Blech!!

But the combination of parboiled, vinegared red onions and sweet navel oranges did something magical to the chicory leaves, and this salad was the perfect counterpart to marinated steak tips and Creamy Parmesan Polenta.

Not bitter. Not at all. Refreshing and seriously yummy.

Hooray!

And I took advantage of this dinner party to make a rare dessert for me--souffles.

Because of the split-second nature of their debut, souffles just never work out for my cooking jobs. And nothing is sadder than saying, oh, this looked great about 20 minutes ago, when I THOUGHT you'd be done eating dinner, but now it's just a wrinkly, deflated chocolate balloon....

No sir, not for me. I live for external validation in case you haven't figured that out yet and so I need an audience under my control for souffles.

Enter Coffee Souffles with Chocolate Sauce.

It's hard to have an issue with a recipe like this, but have an issue I did, if you can call too much of a good thing an issue--this recipe serves far more than 4. Here I was, with my four little ramekins filled and a heck of a lot more souffle to go...



I finally settled for 6 small ramekins and one big one:



And did I ever mention I really like chocolate?




MMMMARRBLURRGGGGAAHHHHHHHHHHsighhhh

That's me eating the souffle.




Mm mmm good!

Another Food List, or Melissa Can't Keep Up with Her Own Bad Self

Gingerbread houses, figgy pudding, mincemeat pie! GOD, WHEN WILL IT END?!?!?!

Oh. It just did.

I'm kidding, people. I love this time of year, kind of. No, let me be more specific. I love the seasonal uniqueness of certain food items and rituals. I don't like the time compression. When I am Mistress of All Time and Space (I'll be getting my merit badge in that soon) I'll be stretching out this season so we all have a little more time to b r e a t h e.

So last week was my big hors d'oeurvres week (you know, after typing that word fifty times in the last week I can finally spell it without looking it up).

This week was Feed The Hungry Crowd with a Seasonally Appropriate Yet Dietarily Sensitive Menu Week.

In the Feed the Hungry Crowd Dept, I served up (among other things):

Garlic- and Soy-Marinated Pork Roast with Shiitake Mushroom Gravy and
Pineapple Upsidedown Cake.

In the Whee! It's Christmas!! Dept, I served:

Mincemeat Pie and reprised:

Savory Pureed Limas
Figgy Pudding with Rum Butter

I can see that I've been a bad Christmas Elf and have not even mentioned those last two here before EVER even though I've made the Limas about a million and one times and I made the Figgy Pudding for Christmas last year, slyly replacing the traditional Plum Pudding.

So I will discuss them all, complete with more brazenly stolen photos. Again, please please do not sue me. All I can give you if you sue me is a sink full of dirty dishes and you're welcome to those, buddy.


Garlic and Soy Marinated Pork Roast is one of those dishes that is kind to the harried cook, which is to say you throw a big hunk of meat into a bag or a bowl with a marinade, let it soak overnight, then roast it in the oven until it's done. I LOVE these kinds of recipes.



How was it? What do you think? If you like roasted flavorful meat, this should be right up your alley.


I deviated from the Pineapple Upside-down Cake a teeny little bit because I did not, as the recipe directs, make individual cakes in muffin tins. I doubled the recipe and made a big gigantic cake in the traditional format, which is to say rectangular. Maybe the traditional format is square, or maybe it's round, WHO CARES? Anyway my point is I don't get too fussy when there are drooling, slavering people clutching my ankles asking for food.

You know, it's harder than you would think to find a photo of a rectangular or even square pineapple upsidedown cake that doesn't have cherries (which mine didn't)--OK, here's one that has cornmeal which mine didn't but who cares at least it doesn't have those nasty cherries:



This cake was scarfed down in record time. I had to pull my hand back quick.



I've had my eye on the Mincemeat Pie recipe from the beginning. For some mysterious reason, I'm intrigued by beef suet, which this recipe insists adds an "earthy" flavor that one would miss were it not present. Now, every mincemeat pie I've ever tasted (maybe two) had a filling that was horrifyingly sweet and gloppy--some kind of raisin-y brown stuff. Like this:



Yech.

Would this recipe produce something similar? Was beef suet all we were missing to transform this into something worth eating? Inquiring minds want to know, and nothing like Christmas dinner for a little culinary experiment.

Oh and by the way, are you noticing this? How I blithely just cook things I've never ever cooked before by way of experimentation, on the most important (and largest) family holiday dinner of the year?

That's because The Gourmet Cookbook kicks ass. Yay Gourmet Cookbook!

This is a lattice top pie (I love doing lattice top pies--it makes me feel like a competent baker) and the pie crust is straightforward from the back of the book (though I modify it when I'm making sweet pies by adding about 3 tbsp of sugar). The filling is apples diced fine, currants, golden and dark raisins, lemon and orange zest, spices, suet, and my favorite, brandy.

Oh, one thing I didn't do. I didn't let this stuff sit for three days like the recipe asks. I was like oh, I think I'll make the mincemeat pie today, and la la la, reading the recipe and WHAT? THREE DAYS TO SOAK THE FILLING???????

Well since the next day was Christmas, BLEEP THAT but I did let it soak for 24 hours as a concession to the fact that somebody may know something I don't know (imagine that) and contented myself with feeling productive about making the pie dough.

Yeesh!!

OK, and now I can't find a picture of a pie as beautiful as mine was but this one comes close:



And the filling looked liked this:



OK, see how the little pieces of apple and raisins are kind of loose, discreet units? That's what the filling is like in this recipe. Although it must be acknowledged that if I had waited two more days it might have stuck together better (ahem).

And does the beef suet give it an earthy flavor that I'll miss should I ever make it without it? Well, quite frankly I couldn't detect any beefiness, or suet-y-ness, so when it comes right down to it what the suet is adding is fat, and I'll take butter any day in the fat department.

So vegetarians, I think it's safe to say you can make this without the beef suet and you won't ruin it. And I'm sorry I didn't tell all the vegetarians at the dinner that there was beef suet in this pie--I forgot to mention it in all the excitement.


I can't believe I've never mentioned Savory Pureed Limas before because I've made them, like, fifty times. If you don't like limas beans I'll bet you ten dollars you'll like these.

Why? Because I think people who don't like lima beans (ok, I'm one of them) don't like them because of the texture. Who could argue with the taste? It's not really assertive, it's just kind of bland and bean-y. But limas have this gross kind of skin that just bugs me.

So here's what you do. Cook the limas in boiling salted water until they are super soft. Then put them in a food processor, add butter, milk, a little sauteed garlic, nutmeg and pepper, and turn it on. Then WALK AWAY.

The trick to this is letting the machine process away all that yucky skin. Easier when you use baby limas, but it takes a little longer if you use the big ones. Just go empty the dishwasher or something--you can't ruin them now.

What you get is a puree of the most beautiful green...this photo gets the color right but not quite the texture:



Feed this to your kids. Feed it to old people (they'll love it). Feed it to your nutritionally deprived self. I'm serious--it's a crowd pleaser. Limas--who'd a guessed?




As I mentioned way up yonder, I served the Figgy Pudding for two years in a row which is why I had the beef suet in the house. Our big triumph with the figgy pudding was not so much the pudding, frankly, but the fact that we got some seriously flammable rum to set it on fire.

I'm such a chicken about fire that I make one of the grandsons (age 15) carry out the flaming platter. Is that child abuse? He does like to live dangerously.

Anyway, this is the big finale of the meal--the cake gets heated, put on a metal platter with little valleys to hold the flaming rum, and it gets a little sprig of holly on top. Then the whole family sings "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" with special emphasis on "now bring us some figgy pudding" while somebody (not me) carries the fireball through the darkened dining room.

This is the idea:



Just add fire.

This cake, I can take it or leave it, mostly because steaming pudding is a big, fat pain in the ass. Why? Because if you don't have the lid on really tight, water gets inside, which is what happened to me last year--it was a miracle the cake actually tasted good. This year I tied up the mold with kitchen string--it looked like I was ready to fed-ex it somewhere.

And then, to re-heat it, you know what you're supposed to do? Re-steam it for another couple of hours! Forget that, sister. I use the microwave.

You may ask why I even make it in advance--because you can. And because being the crazy little control freak I am, I want to make sure it actually comes out of the mold in one piece so I can rest easy and not be up in the middle of night before Christmas worrying about the figgy pudding.

So PHEW!!! Another big Christmas dinner come and gone.

Oh and by the way, here's why I lovelovelove the home health aides who work in the house. They do the dishes.



Happy Holidays, everyone!

Best Rice Pudding

There are some desserts you swoon over because of their artistry, or complex layering of taste. Fancy tarts. Layered mousse cakes.

And then there are the desserts that take you right back to childhood, and Best Rice Pudding is one of them.

I made it for my book group last night, and David said his mother used to make this for him when he was a child. Elizabeth said, my husband's grandmother used to make reesgylbrkh (well, that's what it sounded like, and translation: rice gruel).

This particular recipe is not on Epicurious, though you can find a million variations, even one that features black rice.

But it's easy enough: cook one cup of long grain white rice with butter and a little lemon zest, then cook the cooked rice with a quart of whole milk, half a vanilla bean, and a cup of raisins. Dust with cinnamon and serve warm. I kept mine in a 175 oven until we were ready, and people, there's nothing quite as comforting as warm rice pudding on a chilly December evening.

I'll note that David is Irish, and Elizabeth's husband's grandmother was Norwegian, so perhaps this is more a European thing since rice pudding was never really a part of my childhood (it was more of a Jell-O and Cool-Whip life for me). But I'm glad to have it be a part of my adulthood.

Burnt Orange Panna Cotta

I've never made panna cotta before, so I was looking forward to trying this recipe out. I'm sorry to say I was a little disappointed in Burnt Orange Panna Cotta, but I haven't given up hope for ALL panna cottas.

I'm not sure what it was about this dessert that just didn't do it for me. Maybe it was that the caramel (yes, another dish with caramel) added a bitter note. Maybe it was that it wasn't quite sweet enough to offset that tiny hint of bitterness. Maybe it just wasn't the right time of year and would have gone over better in the summer when ANYTHING cool and creamy hits the spot.

Dr. and Mrs. S. didn't love it either, although the first time I served it I gussied it up with Grand Marnier and fresh orange slices. I mean, they ate it (and particularly loved the Grand Marnier) but every time I offered it as a dessert option afterwards, they always chose the other dessert, whatever that other dessert happened to be.

Oh well. There are a few other panna cottas in the book, along with some other creamy, eggy, pudding-y recipes, and I'll wait until the weather is warmer.

P.S. That's not my panna cotta, up there on top. Somebody's mum in Melbourne, Australia made it. Looks good, doesn't it?

Old Plymouth Indian Meal Pudding

Gentle Readers, this is the time of year when I can scarcely draw a breath for all of the cooking, shopping, and rushing around that I do. But I would be remiss if I didn't mention Old Plymouth Indian Meal Pudding, which I made for my book group earlier this month.

The above photo only resembles mine in color of pudding and addition of vanilla ice cream. Otherwise it was quite a different creature because this is a dessert that you bake (according to the recipe in the book) for two hours.

That's right. Two hours.

Why, you might be asking, does a pudding have to bake for that long?

I have a theory, and it goes something like this. Did you ever hear the story about the family who always served their Christmas roast with the ends cut off? It was an old family tradition--the grandmother had always made it that way, and so did the mother, and the daughters honored the tradition by likewise making it in the traditional family manner. But one day, a husband spoke up at dinner. "Why," he asked plaintively, "do the ends get cut off? That's the best part!"

So the daughters determined to get to the bottom of the tradition, and they called their grandmother who had retired to sunny Costa Rica. "Grandma," they asked, "how did that family tradition get started--cutting the ends off the Christmas Roast?"

"Oh that!" said the Grandma. "You silly girls--that was so the roast would fit in the pan!"

What does this have to do with baking a pudding for two hours? Well, my idea is that somebody left their pudding in the oven for and hour and a half, and when they realized their mistake, they poured milk on top in hopes of re-adding moisture and baked it for another half hour. The result was not bad, kind of half crusty and half chewy, and somehow it got passed down for generations and ended up in The Gourmet Cookbook.

So that sums up Old Plymouth Indian Meal Pudding. Not bad, kind of half crusty and half chewy. Not surprisingly (at least to me), this recipe is not to be found on Epicurious, so if you're just dying to make it let me know and I will post it here.

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Good news!! I've just received a digital camera for Christmas! If I had more time I would find a photo and show you what it looks like but it's a Sony and it's pink. So now I can be stylish AND clever. Well, the clever part will come after I figure out how to use it. Until then I'll just have to be stylish.

Good luck with your Christmas preparations!

Rosemary Walnuts and Chocolate Souffle

Here's what I loved about Rosemary Walnuts: the combination of rosemary and walnut. Here's what I didn't love: that they were tossed in butter and baked.

Don't get me wrong; I love butter. But when it's coating something, and that something has cooled down to room temperature, that lovely glossy coat cools and congeals. You know what I'm talking about.

So if you're going to try this recipe (and why not, to expand your repertoire of hors d'oeurves?) toss the walnuts in olive oil.

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I wish, I wish, I wish I could tell you that this Chocolate Souffle tastes as good as it looks. Of course, sometimes chocolate in any form is better than no chocolate whatsoever. If you're in that kind of mood, bake away.

The headnotes in The Gourmet Cookbook (but not on Epicurious, though it is of course the same recipe) say that the quality of chocolate makes all the difference here. They suggest Valrhona. I used Nestle Chocolatier 65%, since The Fruitful Basket is closed on Sunday and that's where I get my Valrhona, and sometimes I'm just too stubborn to actually believe what people tell me and have to see for myself.

This recipe IS significantly lower in fat than some other souffle recipes out there--no butter appears in this dessert (I've seen some souffle recipes that call for two sticks) and half the egg yolks are discarded. So dieters, take note!

The overall effect the next day, when it's compressed, is kind of like a lite brownie.

Technical criticism. The recipe asks you to lighten the chocolate by folding some whipped egg whites in, and then folding the lightened chocolate into the remaining egg whites. This is impossible--the chocolate is still far too heavy to fold. You will just have to fold in the egg whites bit by bit--otherwise you'll get clumps of chocolate in your egg whites that will never break up.

The next time I get my hands on some Valrhona I might try this again, because I to dismiss recipes like this, especially in a cookbook that has been so amazingly reliable. So stay tuned.

Raspberry Jam Tart with Almond Crumble, and Snow Eggs with Pistachio Cream and Chocolate Drizzle

Now what, you may be rightly asking, are "snow eggs"?

Before I came to this job I would have been asking the exact same question. But during my job interview I happened to ask Dr. and Mrs. S. what some of their favorite foods were, and Dr. S. wistfully noted that he loved snow pudding but hadn't had it in years.

Of course I got busy with the research right away.

If anybody ever tells YOU that they love snow pudding, I'll tell you that basically it's lemon Jell-O folded into whipped egg whites, set in a mold. This is later unmolded into a plate of custard--your basic creme anglaise. And yes of course I made it and he loved it and it's been mutual admiration ever since.

So I was not surprised to see that Snow Eggs with Pistachio Cream and Chocolate Drizzle is a sophisticated version of snow pudding. The French have a name for it (oeufs a la niege), the Italians have a name for it (scuimmette)but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that neither of their versions involve jello.

Anyway, this dessert is fun to make--a real adventure--and pastry chefs take note! All of these components can be produced separately during the day to be assembled by your wildly competent non-English speaking guest-working dessert station person during the dinner service.

What was new for me about this dish was poaching the meringue "eggs" in sweet milk. Wow, they were so cute! And they puffed up, bumping against each other in the pan. The custard is a gorgeous green thanks to the ground pistachios, and the chocolate makes for dramatic visual contrast.

Here's what it looks like. This photo is from Epicurious but mine looked exactly the same:



Oh, and it tasted fabulous. J. remarked that it was surprisingly filling for something that has such a light mouth-feel. (don't forget that J. is also a chef and that's one of the reasons I made this dish--fun stuff to talk about!)

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I wish I could be as wildly enthusiastic about the Raspberry Jam Tart with Almond Crumble.



Pretty, isn't it? But essentially what you've got is a big sugar cookie with a thin layer of jam. OK, if you like that sort of thing, but I found it to be cloyingly sweet. The Gourmet Cookbook notes that it's a fun recipe to make with kids, and I suspect that they're the only ones who will go for this whole-heartedly--well maybe also the demographic that goes in for sugary cocktails. If you want my opinion don't waste your time.

Old-Fashioned Chocolate Pudding

I can't find quite the right recipe to give you a link, so I'll just describe this to you--it's pretty easy and doesn't even require a candy thermometer (although admittedly it's not quite as easy as ripping open a box of Jell-O chocolate pudding...HOWEVER...it's MUCH MUCH tastier. :-)

Here's the idea. Mix sugar, cocoa powder and cornstarch in a saucepan. Pour in cold whole milk (or whatever your diet will allow you). Boil til thick.

In another bowl, you've whisked an egg, and you pour the hot pudding mix in SLOWLY, whisking, and then you throw in 4 oz. of bittersweet chocolate chips. Whisk til smooth. That's it, baby.

If you can restrain yourself from eating it hot, put it in ramekins and cover with plastic wrap or wax paper. And then love the decadence---really, is there anything more amazingly comforting than chocolate pudding?

Dacquoise and Pecan Pie Bars

What, you may be asking, is a dacquoise? Elementary, my dear!

dac·quoise (d-kwz)
n.
1. A cake made with layers of nut meringue and whipped cream or buttercream.
2. One of the layers of meringue used in this cake.

Here are some photos of dacquoise I did not bake so you can get an idea of what they look like.





Now, I know what you're thinking: No way, Jose. Too complicated. But really that's because you don't know yet how easy it is!

If you've ever whipped eggs whites and made ANYTHING meringue, this is familiar territory. Ditto for making homemade frosting/custard/whipped cream of any sort. You just slap the two together and you've got heaven on earth.

I cannot describe the sensation of biting into a nutty meringue that is layered with rich, coffee buttercream (except thinking, OMG, I wonder how many calories I just consumed?, followed by, f*ck it, I think I'll have some more.)

I need hardly say that this particular dessert was dispatched by five people in less than 24 hours (with a tiny little bit of help from me).

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Pecan Pie Bars are a great way to get into the fall mindset. Ever so slowly I'm moving away from berries and stone fruits, and starting to think about fall ingredients: squash, nuts, apples, pears... Tomatoes and corn are still going strong (as are zucchini), but with these chilly nights and crisp-clear days suddenly soups and stews are taking center stage.

So get in the mood with these babies:




The best thing about them is that they DON'T have the goopy-ness that pecan pie does--just the nuts, bound with caramel, on top of shortbread. I wonder if I could get away with these at Thanksgiving?

Creme Citron

It is tragic that Epicurious doesn't have this recipe for you to look at--this one is a keeper in my opinion and if you want it too let me know and I'll type it in.

The idea is a lemon-white wine custard base--you know, one you have to cook up to 170--cooled and folded in with lemon zest and whipped heavy cream. Then it's layered with raspberries, parfait style.

The result is lemony, not-too-sweet, and light (though not calorically, of course, with the eggs and h. cream) and the white wine adds a nice complexity to the flavor. I know some folks don't like booze in their food, but I'm not one of them.

Hey people, summer is pretty much at an end, so if you haven't done SOMETHING yet with stone fruits or berries, for heaven's sake put some in the freezer while you can still get them cheap (and ripe). You'll thank me in February.

technical difficulties

Dear readers, please bear with me. Our computer has been badly behaved and we are only now getting ourselves sorted out. But since I have last posted, I have made:

Skillet Cornbread
Chocolate Espresso Pot de Creme
Duck and Wild Rice Salad
Parmesan Walnut Salad in Endive Leaves
Smoked Salmon Smorrebrod
Grilled Eggplant Sandwiches with Lemon Aioli, Feta and Mint
Baked Flounder Fillets in Lemon Soy Vinaigrette

Check this space soon--tomorrow even--for my thoughts on these recipes. Thanks for your patience!

Creme Caramel

There is something so comforting, so soothing about creme caramel. It's as bland as vanilla ice cream (and in fact is made from a similar base), and the dark sugar syrup just carries you off into a space where you want to curl up with a blanket and suck your thumb. It's such a basic dish that's it hard not to want to fiddle around with it, to jazz it up.

Witness my search on Epicurious (new readers, please note that The Gourmet Cookbook and Epicurious.com were crafted by the same folks, though Epicurious has recipes from other sources as well). A search for simple creme caramel turns up...maple creme caramel. Lemon creme caramel. Mocha creme caramel. But no plain old creme caramel!

The best thing about this dessert is that the serving of it is a snap, especially if you make it in individual ramekins. You just loosen it and flip it over into a dish and you've got an elegant little dessert that you didn't have to cut or scoop or even heat up. And don't fret (as I did the first time I made these) about the carmelized sugar that will remain in the bottom of the dish--it's not supposed to come out, and it's done its job by liquifying just enough where the creme meets the caramel to give you that nice sauce. And yes, it will come out in the dishwasher.