The Killikellys Are Coming!
One of my very best friends, Jenn, and her husband, Matthew, are coming down for the weekend. What this means is that there will be lots of craft beer….wine for me, thanks….and tons of food coming out of my kitchen. That will all be sprinkled with music, laughter, and dessert. Oh, the dessert. Jenn is an extremely talented baker. She needs to open her own shop.
Update: And true to form, Jenn made a Japanese cheesecake. I gasped. And then I gasped again when I first tasted it. I might have hyperventilated. It’s so delicious that I’m going to have to try one myself. It’s all the flavors of a traditional cheesecake without the heaviness of a cheesecake. And there’s no crust. Perfect! Because that’s my least favorite thing about cheesecake. It’s like a cake, actually. But not. Some of you are probably like yeah, yeah, we know what it is. For me, it was a revelation…an epiphany…a life changing event. In my mouth.
Matthew had to stay home for work, so I invited the Hills and I cooked like my life depended on it since the Killikellys won’t be coming for Friends Giving this year. (booooooo hisssssss) First up was the cauliflower prawn soup. I know, right?! Never have I looked at a cauliflower and thought, “Mmmm, soup.” I made some candied orange peel confit (so it was already weird), chopped some pistachios, and blended some vanilla Jim Beam into some olive oil. What?! Yes. The soup was divine and I’ll be making it a million times again.
Next was the crab rangoons. Ok, for me there is nothing worse than a mouthful of hot cream cheese that faintly tastes like something from the ocean. Gross. So years ago, I made my own filling. More crab, less cream cheese. Way less. I also don’t get fussy with the wrapper…flat triangles are just fine. The purse style pokes the roof of my mouth. We topped them with this crispy garlic chili oil that I found in the Asian market that no one can stop eating.
When the rangoons disappeared, I brought out the Coho salmon, baked in a soy ginger sauce with shitake mushrooms and red bell peppers. This has to be one of my favorite ways to cook and eat salmon when making a whole side of salmon. It’s fresh and light while at the same time being very umami like. It literally takes ten minutes to prepare and twenty minutes to bake, if that.
When that was gone, I finished up with Thai green curry prawns over jasmine rice. My fishmonger turned me on to these monster prawns when I couldn’t find langostinos. They worked well because I used them in the soup and the curry and no one was mad about it. I opted for fresh pineapple in the curry and garnished it with raw green cabbage. I find the cabbage cools down the spicy heat of the curry. I also tossed in some zucchini, green onions, and green bell peppers. Everyone’s mouths were on fire, but we powered through it!
I don’t think anyone left a single morsel of Jenn’s Japanese cheesecake on their plates. I need to get my hands on that recipe. Love you Jenn!
