Elizabeth is coming over today to do some communal holiday cooking with me. She’s back from Italy, she brought me presents, and it’s good to get back into the groove of working with her. We’re going to be having our seperate family dinners on Thursday…
Sometimes, we find ourselves in the middle of a tough week, unable to even think about the rest of the week, wishing it was a Saturday. Some of us will find comfort in foods that might not be good for us. Personally? My go to…
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!
I had some ground lamb leftover from the hand pie making adventure I embarked on with Amanda a day or two ago. We just ran out of time and never got to the ground lamb! I’m certainly not going to toss it out, either. So…
So Hubs has had this two year long battle with tri-tips. I’m sure it started with me. I tend to criticize over cooked meat. I can’t help myself. Anyway, I’m going to go as far as to say that Hubs has really been working on…
If I had nothing else to do in life, but create amazing multicourse meals every single night, I’d be thrilled. Exhausted, but thrilled. The rest of the time, just like every other household in America….I slap something together. No frills and the less fuss the better. I have a couple of go to casseroles when I realize about 3pm that I forgot to take something out of the freezer. And there’s always meatless dinner options.
Last night, I spatchcocked a small chicken and fried up some zucchini. My favorite way to eat zucchini is fried and dipped in ranch. I had some buttermilk leftover from biscuit making, so I made some ranch dressing. I read somewhere on the internet that panko and shredded parmesan was a good crust. I found it bland. I usually use my own bread crumbs, but I like to try new things. Most of the cheese ended up floating away in the oil, which was annoying. Fine. I have two more zucchini, so I’ll make them with my bread crumbs to get my fix later.
For the chicken, I used a decades old trick I’ve been using since forever. I simply poured Italian salad dressing on it and stuck it in the oven. The end. What ends up happening is the dressing and the chicken juices meld together in the pan. I’ve used a creamy balsamic dressing a few times, but mostly I use an oil and vinegar based salad dressing. Hubs made a fire so we ate in the living room in front of the TV. Netflix night! There’s nothing like pulling juicy chicken off with your fingers and dipping it right into the pan juices. Ok, I might have used a fork. Ignore the blackened wing tips. Who eats those anyway?!
I can’t remember where I got this set, but it sat around awhile, unopened, while I clung to my old habits of doing various things. Like cutting biscuits! I always used a mason jar because that’s what I’ve always used for drinking glasses. Mason jars…
Turkey Day is upon us. I would probably rail against this American tradition, considering it celebrates a not so shining time in American history, because of how badly the Native Americans were treated…if it weren’t for the fact that I like cooking for friends and…
Amanda strikes again. This time…it’s hand pies. So many pies. So little time. You know, as I’ve gotten older, the appeal of hanging out at bars has diminished greatly. Selling craft beer to bars for half a decade really sealed my distaste for the bar scene. It’s very rare that I’ll go hang out in a taproom or a bar and definitely never a club. It can make social times with friends a little challenging. So if you’re into food, and you have friends that are into food, I highly recommend getting together for playing with food in the kitchen days. It’s relaxing and you even get to control the music! Thanks Pandora!
The morning started with me leaping out of bed to get a sugar pumpkin roasting in the oven in time for Amanda’s arrival. Hubs was hot on my heels to clean up the mess in the kitchen left from the night before. There was a flurry of fuss and we were all business for about an hour. Then suddenly, mimosas appeared. And Hubs was getting a little handsy. Amanda arrived to save me from Hubs’s romantic advances just in time! Soon there was chopping and sizzling to accompany the local gossip. “She said what?!” “Well I heard….”
Actually, we don’t gossip all that much. Probably because we’re too busy talking about each other to each other. Ha! But what we do a lot of is eating together. And this day was no different. We took a break for lunch and we let both of our husbands join us. Lucky guys. I experimented with the failed lamb ribs from the night before. More on that later. Hubs tried to fry the soupy grits which was fun to watch. And also tragic at the same time. Which I think made it more fun. I love him so much. And the lamb ribs were much better! Phew!
But the star of the day…..the pumpkin hand pies. Or as Matt calls them….adult pop tarts. And they are. We made empanadas and shepherd’s pie, too, but the pumpkin….good gravy they were good. The husbands kept asking for one, but I was the gaurdian of the hand pies and I had them on lockdown. No amount of angry emojis from Hubs was going to change my mind! Luckily for them, they did an awesome job cleaning, moving, and repairing the chicken coop. Well Hubs did it, but Matt helped with the repairs. So I acquiesced. They could share one….I’m not completely heartless!
The afternoon turned into dinner plans and we invited Rudy and Dawn over, too. Hubs experimented with a slow and low technique on the grill with some tritips, I made some truffle fries, and there were handpies….handpies for everyone! I think we finally polished off the collards. I’m pretty sure all the pumpkin adult pop tarts got eaten. I’ll just have to make more.
Pumpkin Hand Pies
1 whole roasted sugar pumpkin
2 whole eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon Saigon cinnamon
1 pinch cloves
1 teaspoon Amaretto liqueur
Cheesecloth
2 or 3 rounds pie dough
Turbinado sugar
Gold shimmer sugar
Roast the cleaned, halved, and canola oil coated sugar pumpkin in the oven on 350 cavity sides down for about an hour, or until the flesh is very soft and the edges on the roasting pan have started to carmelize. Let it cool, remove the skin, and sqeeze all the water out through the cheesecloth.
Set one egg aside, and combine all the rest of the ingredients, except the Turbinado and shimmer sugars. Cut the pie dough rounds into fourths and beat the other egg in a bowl. Mix an even amount of Turbinado and shimmer sugars in a finger bowl.
Take one fourth of the pie dough round and fold it over making a triangle, pinching together one side. Holding it in your hand like an ice cream cone, spoon the filling in and pinch the opening closed. Place on a parchment covered cookie sheet, brush with beaten egg, and sprinkle with the sugar mixture.
Bake on the center rack in the oven on 375 for about 20 minutes or until the hand pies are slightly deep golden brown. Voila!
Balls people. So many balls. Amanda’s balls to be specific. Cheese balls you dirty birds! I see you out there. It was play time in the kitchen yesterday and we made cheese balls. We like them so much that we’re going to do an array…