Let the baking orgy begin!

I made three pounds of spiced nuts tonight. There will be six more pounds made, at least, by the time Christmas rolls around.



I combined two recipes, one from Smitten Kitten, and one from America's Test Kitchen, and made three pounds of almonds at once. I chose to make almonds, because even though I like pecans, not everyone does.

So, here is my finagled recipe for...

Sweet and salty rum spiced nuts

1/3 cup light brown sugar
2/3 cup granulated white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 egg white
1 tablespoon dark rum (can be substituted with water)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pound whole raw almonds, unsalted

Preheat oven to 300, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper

Mix the ingredients from the brown sugar to the allspice in a medium bowl, breaking up any clumps

Beat the egg white, run and vanilla together in a large bowl with a whisk until frothy.

Add the almonds to the egg white mixture and toss until coated. Dump the sugar mixture into the almonds and mix until evenly coated. Spread the nuts on the baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool on the baking sheet, breaking apart any nuts that are stuck together as they cool.

Yum.

Dark Chocolate ice cream recipe

This is for Picky, since he wants to eat this more often than I want to make it. He is buying the half and half and asking me for the recipe.

2 cups half and half
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup Hershey's Dark Cocoa powder (not hot cocoa mix)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 oz. finely chopped high quality high cacao content chocolate (I used Ghiradelli Bittersweet)

1. Heat the half and half and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat until it reaches 170 degrees, mixing occasionally. The mixture will form small bubbles along the edges, and will coat the back of a wooden spoon even if you try to scrape it off. (You can steep a vanilla bean at this point instead of using vanilla extract later).

2. Add powdered cocoa and whisk until combined. Let sit for 10 minutes to cool. (Remove vanilla bean if used, scrape seeds out and return seeds to mixture, saving or discarding bean).

3. Add chopped chocolate and vanilla extract and whisk until smooth.

4. Cool, then put in ice cream maker, and follow instructions.

Optional addition:
1/2 teaspoon orange zest or instant espresso powder in step one.

Edited to add:

OK, Picky couldn't wait for me to post this, so he added 2 cups of sugar by mistake. So, we added another pint of half and half and a pint of whole milk, and we are tripling all the other ingredients. Sheesh.

Behold, this is how much chocolate goes into a tripled version of this recipe:

Superbowl / Beatles Rock Band party menu planning!

I am menu planning for my Beatles Rock Band (Super Bowl) party. On the online invite, I called it "Football in the Front, Rock Band in the Rear". I am going to be playing rock band, but the cuisine is going to be New Orleans themed.

Here is what is on the menu:

Beignets and French Press coffee with chicory. I just got a new French press. Picky broke the four cup one, so I replaced it with a twelve cup one. Love. I am drinking more coffee lately.

Shrimp and chorizo tapas, but I am going to use Andouille sausage instead of chorizo.

Crab cake appetizers. These are from a box (gasp! no, really) My mom left them in my freezer when she came to another dinner party at my house, and I was nervous I wouldn't have enough to serve. I didn't use them then, and my mom swears they're delicious.

Dirty rice, based on a recipe from Cook's Country. I add extra pork, and am going to use pepperdew peppers in it instead of bell peppers. I am also going to use pepperdews (my new obsession) in vegetarian red beans and rice.

White salad and a broccoli cole slaw with homemade dressing

Pulled pork sammiches. I think I am going to add the liquid smoke I am buying for the vegetarian red beans and rice. I have never used it before, but I have heard good things about it.

And, last but not least, I wanted to make some chicken wings. I was racking my brain for a chicken recipe to fit the New Orleans theme, but I couldn't. Then, duh, it hit me! I will be altering this Bourbon style chicken recipe for wings.

I can't wait!!

Maintaining the white / yolk balance

I made macaroons for a favorite aunt:



(They're more attractive than what the bad photo shows)

I recently got a shipment of food from a local-ish farm. Their egg yolks are gorgeous, firm, and richly golden. I couldn't waste them, and didn't want to freeze them. As much as I love Hollandaise sauce, I am going to be alone over the next few days (yes. for real. amazing!) and would have to make a double batch to use all the yolks. I don't even think I could manage to eat that much Hollandaise sauce, and it's best fresh.

So, I used the handy interwebs search engines, and found this recipe for egg yolk cookies.

I didn't have orange or lemon extract. My mother in law makes spice cookies with cardamom and orange juice, and it's a tasty combination. I substituted a few things, added some turbinado sugar to the top, and came up with a sinfully rich, scrumptious cookie.

Cardamom egg yolk cookies:



Ingredients
• 1 cup butter (or shortening for cookies that won't spread quite as much)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 6 egg yolks (or 3 whole eggs)
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
• 1/2 teaspoon orange extract
Directions
1. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
2. Separately, beat egg yolks and add extracts.
3. Add beaten egg yolk mixture to creamed butter and sugar.
4. Blend well.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together dry ingredients (flour, baking soda and cream of tartar).
6. Add dry ingredients to creamed butter, sugar and egg mixture, mixing until well blended.
7. Form into balls about the size of a walnut.
8. Roll balls in sugar, place on greased cookie sheet or parchment lined cookie sheet, and slightly flatten.
9. Bake at 350 degrees F for 8 to 10 minutes, depending on desired softness/crispness.

My adaptation: omit lemon and orange extract. Add 1 teaspoon almond extract, 1 teaspoon dried orange peel to egg yolks in step 2, and 1 teaspoon of cardamom to the dry ingredients in step 5. In step 8, sprinkle each cookie with turbinado sugar, and then gently press the sugar into the flattened cookie.

*****

Next time, I will be making Avgolemono.

New Year's Eve!

I am party planning, again! New Year's Eve!

We will be having a three course fondue meal with the kids and Picky's folks.

First course: Monterrey Jack cheese with chorizo and poblano peppers, with corona mixed in. Dippers: homemade tortilla chips, celery, apples

Second course: a Court Bouillon broth, mojo style. I am making the broth custom now:



For both of these courses, I am going to be rubbing down the fondue pot with a sliced garlic clove or two. To simmer in the broth, we will have filet mignon, chicken breast, shrimp and mushroom caps. I will be making some sauces: teriyaki (store bought), a curry sauce, and chimichurri. Maybe some drawn butter for the shrimp, since I love drawn butter.

And, the of course course, the dessert: chocolate. I am using Ghiradhelli bittersweet chocolate, heavy cream, and maybe a dash of Godiva liqueur. Dippers: pound cake, strawberries, bananas, and fingers!

Thanksgiving!!!!!!

Woo hoo! The best day of the year is here!

OK, forcing myself to post. I was so disappointed when I saw I didn't post at all last year.

The location for the event: my mom's newly (finally!) redecorated house.

The attendees: Everyone! My mom, both brothers, both their wives, one of their sons, one of their sets of in laws, my husband and two kids, and my in laws. Oh, and me! By last count, that's 14.

The meal: I am making the brunt of it, with help from my lovely sister in law, and presumably my mom, but she prefers to wander off and play with the grandkids most days. Which is fine, since I have serious cooking to do and can't be expected to do any serious kid wrangling!

The prep:

We have two 13 pound turkeys in my mom's fridge. I went yesterday and dry salted one of them. The other wasn't fully defrosted, so I did a wet brine with salt and sugar. My mom was supposed to drain, rinse, and pat dry that one this morning, and put it back in the fridge to try to dry out the skin a little.

The turkeys will be made in my mom's fancy new Viking stove. Even though she has the fresh new set up, I like my tools and my kitchen. Her kitchen is sparkly new and remarkably free of basic pantry items and useful hardware. So, I tried to do a lot of the prep yesterday. And, it'll save me stress over certain items that tend to be a pain the day of: namely, desserts.

So, last night I made this lovely looking English toffee pecan pie. If it got a blue ribbon from Martha, it's got to be good, amirite? It wasn't the Martha vote that got me, actually. My mom loves toffee and pecan pie, so I kind of had to make it once I stumbled across the recipe.

I prepped and chilled the pumpkin creme brulee to be. I hate it when I am rushed to chill it adequately, and end up juggling things in the freezer on a special occasion, desperately trying to chill it so the brulee-ing process doesn't heat it up again.

I made kale and pancetta. We will also be having green beans with persimmons and pancetta, and one of the turkeys will have salt pork draped over it for some of the cooking. So, definitely not a kosher or vegetarian friendly meal!

Oh, and speaking of more pork, I browned the sage sausage, and used the drippings to cook a B-52's Chrysler load of celery and onions for the stuffings. I also sliced the bread and let it get stale.

Chocolate zucchini muffins

I am praying my zucchini, which has languished in my fridge for a week while I started my new fellowship, is still good. I am making chocolate zucchini muffins. This recipe is fantastic and I have used it before. I am so happy I found it again! I think it's almost healthy, since it has equal amounts of zucchini and sugar.

In fact, if I ever had a food business or a cooking show, I would call it "Almost Healthy." Somehow, I don't think that would work for a medical practice.

Since we've been back

I made a great spread on the spot when my sister in law and her friend came over with their kids to swim in our pool. I love cooking informal food for a group like this. So much less pressure than dinner, to me.

I made some delicious mojo chicken wing drummettes and sliced mild Italian chicken sausage on my new panini grill pan. (Thanks MIL! It worked great. Works well for bacon, too! Now I just have to make paninis...) We also had shrimp skewers, mostly for S, who has been asking for them.

Dessert was also for S. Mango shortcakes, with homemade vanilla whipped cream. I followed the Cook's Ill Best Recipe recipe for strawberry shortcake. But, Z is allergic to strawberries (which he feels the need to tell me every time we eat) and S loves mangoes. I picked up four beautiful mangoes from Robert is Here farmer's market on the way back from the Keys, and they were taunting me. They turned out so good, even Picky, who normally doesn't like fruity desserts, scarfed his down.

I actually think this is a good photo. Am I crazy? Am I improving? Look back at the photos of the frittata and the boar...not bad, right? (Ignore the biscuits and gravy and the cheesecake...)

Father's Day dinner was good, but suspiciously similar to last year's. Ribs, peppers, shells and white sauce (instead of mac and cheese), chocolate brownies.

Where to begin?

Just because I haven't put up any posts on here in a little while, it doesn't mean that I haven't been cooking. Like a fiend. I went to Sugarloaf Key to stay with my in laws and cooked the entire time.

Most of the stuff came from Paula Deen's new all chocolate special edition cooking magazine. Why did I buy it?

Here are some of the highlights.

This is the flourless dark chocolate cake. I thought it looked so pretty puffed up out of the oven. It is supposed to fall, however.

I served it with a white chocolate sauce (recommended in by Paula) and with a dark chocolate sauce, in homage to the Two Chefs restaurant in Miami. That is how they serve their chocolate souffle. I thought it was much better without the sauce, it was so sweet. Next time I make it it will be sauceless, maybe with whipped cream or berries, and I may reduce the sugar a bit.

This is an awful photo of the malted chocolate cheesecake. It was excellent. The crust (which contained a box of whoppers, chocolate graham crackers, and butter, was way too hard. But, I used a 9" springform pan instead of a 10", and probably didn't reduce the amount of crust material enough. Or, whoppers could make hard candy like crusts no matter what, who knows. I will have to get a 10" springform pan and find out! Bummer! *adding to Christmas list*

I also made creme brulee, but that is so old hat I don't even take pictures anymore. I have perfected the art of not scorching the tops as much. Yum! The other stuff was normal breakfast and dinner stuff. I made tilapia with a recipe that Picky's mom supplied. It was very similar to my tilapia and greens recipe, but instead of the greens on top, it called for a crust with breadcrumbs, parmesan and potato chips. It was tasty. Picky's mom made johnnycakes, like her mom used to, in that kitchen, every time she made fish.

Picky took camera phone pictures of our fancy lunch out. I will post those later.

Must...stop...cooking...

I have been cooking like crazy since I got out of school for the summer. Even during the weekend right after, when Picky's folks were here and we went out for every meal, I managed to drag everyone back here afterwards for crème brûlée.

I made chicken soup yesterday with broth from scratch, and chocolate chip pumpkin loaves. I baked a loaf of almost no knead bread today and can't stop munching on it. I need to save the rest for sandwiches for tomorrow's lunches.

I made a scrumptious wheatberry salad today, with sauteed red onions and wild mushrooms. I have had three servings already, and it was supposed to last the rest of the week. I am taking a break for dinner since I am so full from munching all day, and Picky had a luncheon after work.

Berry nice dinner

I cannot resist rhubarb.

I am supposed to be studying. Finals are coming up. I am two weeks from being done with my first year of med school!

But, when I was at the grocery store yesterday, they had rhubarb. I couldn't make it with strawberries, because Z is allergic. I love the raspberry rhubarb preserves from Robert is Here, Florida's quirkiest fruit stand. So, inspired by those, I decided to buy raspberries to go with the rhubarb. I had already grabbed some blackberries because they were a good price and looked delicious.

Tonight we had a wilted spinach salad with red onions, pomegranate balsamic dressing, toasted slivered almonds, goat cheese and the blackberries. After a fish with brown butter course, we are going to have these tarts. I threw in some blackberries, too. The constant chilling steps were annoying. Let's hope it is worth it. Pictures to come.

ETA: Picture up! Hey, my photo isn't half bad this time. Random!

Rrrrrg stinkin pie

I had noooooo pie plans. None. I am not a dessert maker in general, and tend to shy away from baking or anything that takes too much precision. But, my mom handed over about 6 pounds of apples and some refrigerated pie dough made by a chef for an event at her school that fell through.

I have been wrestling with the pie. Rolling it out between two sheets of parchment paper was a dream. I mastered this clockwise 1/4 movement that my cookbook recommends. Then, just as I tried to wrap it around the rolling pin, Z, the 3 year old, senses the horrible timing and comes in to "help mommy" by grabbing the pin. Well, the dough fell apart, and as annoyed as I would like to be at Zach, I think some of it had to do with it being at least 10 degrees warmer in my kitchen in South Florida with the windows open than it is in most kitchens. So, I am chilling my rolled out dough before trying the transfer. Wish me luck!

Now to go tell Coach Stu to corral Z...

Mini molten chocolate cakes with mocha sauce

Served with French vanilla ice cream. Mmmm mmmmm.

Picky's Father's Day Menu

Salad with fresh tomatoes and red onions and cheddar cheese and my salad dressing (Even my no veggie eatin' brother asked for seconds on salad. Seriously)

Buffalo wings made with my roasted hot sauce (Oops, forgot to buy the wings when I went to the store. We had tons of food, anyway).


Sweet mini pepper "poppers" with roasted hot sauce and cheese

Corn (Red and white sweet corn. It was delish)

Smoked BBQ baby ribs with a dry rub, homemade BBQ sauce on the side (Killer)

Mac n cheese (I used Paula Dean's recipe. Ehhhhh, too eggy)

Brownies a la mode with hot fudge and mini M n Ms (No one wanted the M n M's. I made the brownies with new Hershey's Special Dark cocoa. They were the best I have EVER had, I am serious).

Oh, yeah.

Pictures now posted!

Mexican party with Crème Brûlée!

I finally earned my foodie wings! No, not because I hosted a dinner party that went off without a major hitch. I have done that before, quite a few times. But last night, I served crème brûlée. My younger brother gave me a kitchen torch for Christmas. I guess he asked someone what every foodie (and closet pyro) wants but won't buy for herself. I decided it was about time to whip that sucker out and scorch some stuff!

I made the crème brûlée recipe found in my The New Best Recipe cookbook. (Thanks, Mama Jackie!) It involved twelve egg yolks, fresh vanilla, and a small argument between Picky and me as we tried to get the pan in the oven. Next time I will read the directions more closely and pour the boiling water for the water bath after the ramekins and baking sheet are on the oven rack. It still came out delicious, and I will be making it again.

The rest of the buffet:

Soft and hard taco shells
Refried beans (Also from the cookbook - Neither Picky nor S will eat beans, so I rarely cook them and need a recipe)
Ground beef
Chicken breast with mojo sauce
Roasted corn and roasted garlic salsa with fresh garden tomatoes and lime
Fresh guacamole with roasted garlic, fresh tomatoes and lime
Condiments: Shredded lettuce, sour cream, chopped plain garden tomatoes, homemade roasted hot sauce
Rice
Sweet mini peppers with roasted hot sauce, roasted garlic and melted colby jack