It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I skipped the faux bois wrapping paper this year in favor of brown paper packages tied up in...string.

Ribbon counts as "string," I think.

Sugar Cookie Bells

These are a family favorite - my mom has been making them since I can remember, and I think her mom made them before that. This year, I taught my stepmother how to make them. They are great if you're not a frosting person. I'm definitely not a frosting person.

How to make sugar cookie bells:

1. Roll out your sugar cookies like normal and use a bell-shaped cookie cutter.

2. Cut maraschino cherries (aka Sandy's childhood favorite "fruit") into quarters.

3. Place a cherry piece on the "dinger" (ringer? dinger?) of the bell.

4. Brush the whole thing with beaten egg white. 

5. Bake according to your sugar cookie dough recipe. 

Cute, no? I love their '50s feel. 

Merry-almost-Christmas!

Embracing Diversity

There's not a lot of prelude to this post; I'm just going to share with you the meal I ate every Monday for the duration of my formative years. In our house, Monday night was chili night, and in our house chili meant the chili of Cincinnati, my mom's hometown.

We've had this recipe in the family for longer than I've been alive. To call it a staple minimizes its role as a foundation of our family meals. This recipe is an institution. I've tweaked it only the tiniest bit to make it healthier since the first time I made it for our family's dinner "all by myself" in 1991. While I no longer eat it on a weekly basis, I still love it. Simply, this recipe means home to me.

When you've been eating Cincinnati chili for as long as you can remember, the act of eating your chili on spaghetti doesn't faze you. Some people I know get freaked out by this. Those people need to settle down. Other styles of chili have their place, and so does this. There's no one right chili. Embrace diversity, people. Your stomach will thank you.

Empress Chili

Empress Chili was the primary chili parlor in Cincinnati until the 1950s, when an Empress employee left to start the now famous Skyline Chili. We're Empress people. Skyline is ok, but Empress is the best. 


Ingredients
1 pound ground beef (the leanest possible) or 1/2 pound ground beef and 1/2 pound ground turkey
1 yellow onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 15 oz. can tomato sauce
15 oz. water (measure using empty sauce can once the sauce has been added to the pan)
1 dash A-1 sauce (yes, that brand and only that brand)
3/4 tablespoon vinegar
2 dried red peppers or 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
3 tablespoons chili powder
3 medium bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (depending on your heat tolerance)


Spaghetti
Sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained


Directions
1. Heat the pan over medium-high heat. Brown the meat, onion & garlic in the pan. The goal is to break up the meat into fairly small pieces during this process.  

Yes, you really do just dump the meat, onions, and garlic into the pan with no oil. I use the leanest meat I can get and I don't drain it, but if you want to use fattier meat, that's fine - just be sure to drain off the fat before proceeding to step 2.

Now we're browned and ready to go.

2. Once the meat is browned and the onions are translucent, add the remaining ingredients. Stir to combine.

 

3. Simmer for 30 minutes to an hour until thickened.

And we're simmering. I should add: this was the first "nice" pan I ever got. My mom sent it to me when I got my first apartment as a senior in college. It's the same pan she makes chili in at home, but it's incredibly versatile. It's classic Calphalon anodized alumnium and it's now in its twelfth year of use. It still looks nearly new. Consider this the next time you want to plunk down cash for crap cookware. It's not worth it. Get good stuff and you'll keep it forever.

 

4. While the chili is simmering, cook the spaghetti according to package directions. These days I always use whole wheat spaghetti. 

5. Season the thickened chili with salt and pepper. (I find this normally needs at least half a teaspoon of kosher salt, sometimes more depending on whether your tomato sauce is salt-free.) If the sauce gets too thick, you can add more water to thin it and keep cooking it.
 

This is just about done. Thickened but still saucy.

6. Serve the chili over spaghetti with kidney beans and shredded cheddar. This is known as serving it "four-way bean"* but we never called it that. We just called it chili.

For some reason, we always ate our chili on plates, but now I tend to serve it in bowls.

*In Cincinnati, you can get your chili several ways - see below for a guide. Long ago, we cut out all the stuff we didn't like and have always stuck with the beans (because they are good for you) and the cheese (because it's delicious). DO NOT make this without the cheese. I'm serious. The cheese MAKES it.

Two-way: chili and spaghetti
Three-way: chili, spaghetti, cheddar
Four-way: chili, spaghetti, cheddar, chopped white onion
Five-way: chili, spaghetti, cheddar, chopped white onion, kidney beans
Four-way bean: chili, spaghetti, cheddar, kidney beans

All of the above are traditionally served with oyster crackers. We never ate ours with oyster crackers. Never.

Twirl with a fork. Love.

Sharing is Caring

I’m a terrible sharer. Know thyself, right? Well, I really am terrible at sharing.

And honestly, I always have been. I remember this moment in kindergarten, when some kid in my class (who will go unnamed because we’re no doubt Facebook friends now) borrowed my beloved box of Cray-Pas – those awesome waxy pastel crayons, and by far my favorite art supply, ever – and broke half of them and gummed up the other half, by, for example, running the light yellow one over a dark purple. I mean, what kind of uncouth barbarian does that to the colors? Ugh.

  

Sharing is something I’ve really had to work on as an adult…for me, it takes active mindfulness to not be fazed when a friend borrows something and accidentally breaks it…or never returns it. My own personal version of therapy for this problem is part of the reason I got a white sofa. If you’re going to be upset about people spilling on your white sofa, you shouldn’t have one. For me, throwing parties and having a white sofa is a lesson in personal development.

I’m not kidding.

I don’t really know what my problem is. Maybe this is all because I was an only child half the time, and a fussily particular one at that. Maybe it’s because the rest of the time I was an eldest child in a house where my personal items – clothing, jewelry, books etc. – were always under threat of disappearance at the hands of an admiring younger sibling.

But as an adult I have come to understand that there are times for being selfish and times for sharing and when four pounds of cured pork shows up at your doorstep, that is definitely a time for sharing. A Tasty Salted Pig Parts Party was obviously in order.

A while ago, Gilt Taste had a steal of a deal on a bunch of delicious cured pork from La Quercia, an artisanal producer in Iowa. You might not necessarily think of Iowa first when you’re thinking of fine prosciutto or coppa, but then again, you also probably wouldn’t think of Iowa as having any ski hills, and yet, I have downhill skied in Iowa. It’s a very surprising state.

Obviously, given the lardo-lonza-coppa-prosciutto bounty delivered unto me by FedEx (and unpacked by dear Meredith while I was on a business trip to no doubt somewhere in the Midwest), I felt compelled to do a vaguely Tuscan theme for the rest of the food. Here was the final menu lineup for the cocktail party:

 

Piggy Parts // Coppa Piccante, Coppa Americano, Lonza, Prosciutto Piccante

Italian Cheeses // Brigante / Asiago / Aged Provolone

Accompaniments:

Assorted Breads / Crackers / Grissini

Melon / Figs / Grapes

Homemade Tomato Jam / Homemade Cherry Jam / Pumpkin Jam from Eataly

Lardo Spread (Which is literally seasoned lard. And it’s awesome.)

Pickled Items // Spicy Okra / String Beans / Olives (All from Whole Foods. I suck at pickling.)

Stuffed Peppadew Peppers // Boursin

Baby BLTs // butter lettuce / heirloom tomatoes / basil mayo / brioche

Crostini Bar

Sauteed Mushrooms / Fontina

Broccoli Rabe Pesto / Fresh Mozzarella

Honey-Roasted Tomatoes / Ricotta

All, served with Grilled Bread

Tirami su

Mini Peach Pies with Amaretti Topping (adapted from here, with this crust)

Baci

Amarettini

Wine / Italian Beer / Campari & Soda

I loved doing the shopping for this particular party because it gave me an excuse to go to North Beach – the "Italian Neighborhood" in San Francisco – to pick up some authentic grissini, Perugina Baci candies, and of course, the Amaretti di Saronno in a new tin from A. Molinari, an Italian deli that's been around for ages. 

Here are some images of the food. I’ve linked the recipes above and included my very favorite Tirami su recipe even though “Tirami su is so passé” (per Mom). Whatever Mom, it’s delicious.

Setting a Tuscan mood with sunflowers. Ok, ok, not really. In truth, I just wanted an excuse to buy flowers.

Peaches, scored and getting ready for their dip in boiling water before peeling.

Peach filling for the mini pies. Are peaches not the most beautiful fruit, all sunny and blushing at the same time? They remind me of the hybrid tea rose Peace, which we always had in the rose garden at home.

I love these amarettini cookies. The best is after the tin has been open for a couple of weeks and they get a little bit chewy. Yum. For the mini peach pies, I crushed them and added them to both the topping and the filling. I had never done that before, and it was a little risky, but I will definitely do it again.

Campari and soda. My favorite aperitif!

Fruits of the season.

MEAT.

I love the ingredients on the lardo. It's disturbing how delicious it is. Delicious enough to consider eschewing butter forever. And I really love butter.

A bad picture of the remaining BLTs.

More meat!

The mini peach pies.

Part of the crostini bar: (clockwise from upper left) honey roasted cherry tomatoes, broccoli rabe pesto, lardo.  The grilled bread (unforutnately unphotographed) was a major hit and so easy. Brush slices of ciabatta with olive oil and throw on the grill pan until they smoke. Done!

Rosemary crostini, ricotta, sauteed mushrooms with fontina.

What was left of the tirami su.

Yum.

I know! You just have to make this, right? 

Ok, here's the recipe:

Vitullo Tirami Su (adapted from The Italian Baker by Carole Field)
 

1 pound 2 ounces (500 grams) fresh mascarpone (get the latest expiration date you can)
3 cups heavy or whipping cream
1 ½ cups plus 2 tablespoons confectioners sugar
Grand Marnier, approx. ½ cup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Ladyfingers – the soft kind, not the crunchy kind. Either get two packages (you can usually get them in the bakery at any big supermarket) or make them from scratch. I recommend the former.
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
½ ounce bar semi-sweet chocolate (optional)

With a handheld mixer or stand mixer fitted with the whip attachment, beat the mascarpone on medium speed until smooth. (DO NOT OVERBEAT OR IT WILL GET CHUNKY AND GROSS.)
Add the cream, 1 ½ cups confectioners sugar, 3-4 tablespoons of Grand Marnier and the vanilla. Beat on high speed until thickened, smooth and creamy. (It should have the consistency of thick pudding). In a small bowl, combine cocoa powder and 2 tablespoons confectioners sugar with a spoon and set aside.

Put one layer of ladyfingers in a 9x13 pan. Brush the ladyfingers with Grand Marnier. (Don’t soak them in booze. The tops of the ladyfingers should be just dampened.)
Spread half the mascarpone mixture on this layer. Sift half of the cocoa-sugar mixture on the mascarpone layer. Add another layer of ladyfingers, brush with liqueur, and spread the rest of the mascarpone on top. Sift the remaining cocoa-sugar mixture on top. If you want to be fancy, grate the semi-sweet chocolate over the cocoa using a vegetable peeler.

NOTE: This is MUCH better if made at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours in advance.
Another note: You can make this in any size pan you want, but I recommend not doing more than 3 layers of ladyfingers or it gets a little overwhelming.

Truffles and Baci in a little piggy bowl.

Seriously, how cute is this?

The best part of the party was actually that I sliced my right index finger pretty aggressively with a huge serrated knife while slicing some of the coppa, just minutes before guests were due to arrive.  I managed to clean up the trail of blood leading from kitchen through breakfast room to bathroom and grab some gauze for my finger before anyone arrived, but I knew the finger situation was a bit dire…it wouldn’t stop bleeding…

Despite personal injury, here's why it was the best part: part of the reason I absolutely love and adore my friends is that when they showed up, I was able to easily hand over the entire party to them (while I made a quick trip to the ER for wound irrigation and assessment of whether stitches were necessary) without batting an eyelash. When I got back from the ER an hour or so later, the party was in full effect and everyone was having a good time. It was kind of awesome.

Big thanks to Jeff for letting people in the door, and Rayleen, Britta, and Blake for ensuring everyone was welcomed, well fed and wine-d in my absence.  And of course, even more thanks to Meredith for accompanying me to the ER and not making fun of me for flirting shamelessly with Dr. McDreamy…er…McDermott.

It was a good party.

Hey, It Worked for Me When The Subject Was Moby Dick

Can someone please explain to me what the hell happened to the entire month of April?

I can't believe it's May. And not even the beginning of May. Pretty much mid-May. In my head it's still March. I was walking home from work today and for a moment, I actually thought it was March. Concerning.

Sorry, dear readers, about the lack of posts last month. I got a new job, quit my old one, took a vacation, and then started the new job. I've been traveling to glamorous places (Wisconsin! Las Vegas!) each week since I started the new gig.

Despite being busy and out of town a bunch, I actually did a lot of cooking, so I'm going to give you the Cliffs Notes version of April 2011, all in one handy blog post. If it was good enough in high school...

Christine and Kevin hosted a cocktail party competition to determine the signature drink for their wedding.

Many options to choose from!

I'm not much of a cocktail maker, so I volunteered to make the snacks. I read this great recipe in one of my old Martha cookbooks that used muffins as the bread of a sandwich. That lady is so smart! I made muffins in my new-ish muffin pans using a bunch of fresh (oranges from the farm box) and dried (apricots, cranberries) fruit that I had on hand. 

You can't tell from the picture on the Sur La Table site, but the finish on the pans is actually pretty dark. And in my bottom-heated gas oven, by the time the muffins were fully-baked, they were also burned.

Crap. Effing nonstick muffin pans. 

Once I tossed those which most closely resembled Kingsford charcoal briquets, I had a few fewer muffins than I'd hoped for. Luckily, not all of them were inedibly burnt. Some were just, er, medium-well done. This isn't the first time this has happened with these pans. But it is the last. Bye bye muffin pans. Next time I won't cheap out and will suck it up and get those Williams-Sonoma Goldtouch ones. They are supposedly the bees' knees, according to my trusted equipment advisors at America's Test Kitchen.

Despite the charring, the sandwiches actually came out pretty well. I love this idea and am looking forward to making other muffin-and-sandwich-filling combos. I think my cheddar and green onion savory muffins would be delish with turkey and a chipotle spread...

These were little ham sandwiches on orange-apricot-cranberry muffins, with spicy whole grain mustard. They were a huge hit with all my ham-loving friends. HAM!

Mini muffin sandwiches weren't going to cut it in terms of soaking up cocktails, so I also made a caramelized onion and blue cheese rustic tart.

For this, I splurged on some Dufour puff pastry. It is made with real butter and it is incredibly rich and indulgent. The tart ended up being pretty salty but it made a nice counterpoint to the mostly-sweet cocktails. 

For the third and final snack item, I made some roast beef and avocado mini-sandwiches on the Acme Bread herb slab. They were unexpectedly outstanding. The combination of the beef and the super-lemony avocado spread was a hit - everyone gobbled them up (including me). They were so good I was actually craving them afterward and made them again two weekends later for an Easter picnic. They are perfect picnic fare.

But that wasn't all. The cocktail competition was the night before Meredith's birthday so I made an apple cake to celebrate. Why apple cake? In truth, I had a ton of apples in my fridge from various farm boxes over the course of the spring and I needed a way to use them up!

So many apples!

 Because the recipe was kind of like a tarte tatin, it was built in the pan upside down.

First, the brown sugar-butter layer was smoothed across the bottom of the pan.

Apple slices added. 

Batter poured over the top and baked until golden brown.

The pan had to cool for fifteen minutes.

Then we came to the moment of truth.

I put that yellow serving plate upside down over the top of the cake and then flipped the whole thing to invert the cake on the plate. Then I prayed to God that it would unmold in one piece.

And it did! Voila! I am a baking genius! No, seriously, ridiculous arrogance aside, this was a real and true moment of culinary joy for me. Sometimes I find baked goods to be incredibly fickle - especially the first time I'm trying a recipe - and I could not have been happier that this ended up so beautifully. I'm fine with ugly food when it's just for me, but for a birthday-cake-like item, I just think the food should look a little more like a gift and a little less like a pile of slop.

This was adapted from this Bon Appetit recipe. I served it with gingered whipped cream and added extra ginger to the batter as one of the birthday girl's favorite ingredients is ginger. I would absolutely repeat this receipt and am already looking forward to Fall's apple bounty.

I love it when food is this beautiful.

The birthday festivities continued on Sunday with a mango tart, from this Gourmet recipe, because mango and coconut are two more of the birthday girl's favorites.

This doesn't look like much, but it was highly delicious. Another keeper recipe. It's actually really light because the mousse is thickened with unflavored gelatin, making it the perfect brunch dessert. I topped it with diced fresh mango. The crust is coconut, which has a nice crunch. I think this is a perfect special treat for Spring. 

I wasn't kidding about having a lot of apples, either. After that apple cake was done, I made applesauce with even more apples that I had in the fridge. It's so easy, and this is a great basic recipe. (I failed to photograph it but it looked just like normal chunky applesauce so just use your imagination for this one.) Seriously, applesauce is idiot-proof. And tastes 1000% better than the stuff you buy in a store.

Unfortunately, the recipe makes about four cups of applesauce. That's about three and a half cups more than I'd want to eat. A search for recipes using applesauce turned up this gem from Martha (God bless her and her perfect baked good recipes).

I brought the cake into work (my old job) on my second-to-last day as a going away/thank you gift for my lovely co-workers. They were the kind of people who made me laugh hard every day at work, and for that, I thought they at least deserved a little cake. It got fairly well eaten up before I got to snap a picture of it. This recipe is seriously great, with plenty of moisture and a chewy, not-too-dense crumb. It's a fantastic breakfast cake. And if you ask me, there's not enough breakfast cake in life.

Before taking off for Monterey, I hosted a little cocktail party at my place so my Dad and Stepmom could meet my friends. It was a good time, and because we were busy doing touristy things that day, I just pulled together a few oldie-but-goodie recipes to feed the masses.  I didn't even photograph them because you've seen or heard of them before: White Bean Dip, Spicy Spinach Dip, a couple of platters of cheeses and cured meats and fruits, my classic guacamole recipe, some olives, some nuts, and assorted chips and crackers.

Then we took off for Monterey, where this guy greeted us for the happy hour glasses of wine we had while overlooking the water. He reminds me so much of my Sammy the Seagull print from Wayne Pate, and of Scully the Seagull who like to perch outside my kitchen window in Boston.

Easter arrived just days later. Last year I made Easter Bunny Biscotti, which was just as tasty as I remembered from my childhood. This year, I planned to make the biscotti again along with the Easter Lamb Cake that Nana always made.

As you can see, the Easter Lamb got off to a bad start as it got stuck in the mold (despite my buttering and flouring every bit of it). Rats.

I thought I could cement the little lamby together with frosting and toothpicks - like a day camp art project or something - but no dice.

Still life with semi-lamb-shaped coconut cake.

Allow me to provide you with another angle of the carnage.

Massive baking fail. It's hard not to make a sacrificial lamb joke here, but I will dig deep for self control and refrain.

I firmly believe that one of the secrets to success in life is knowing when to cut your losses. And it was not hard to figure out that time had come to lay the lamb cake to rest. And that the bunny biscotti was just not in the cards.

Trying to salvage my last few hours of effort, I decided to just repeat the cake I'd made - in cupcake form. The coconut cake itself was truly delicious - I used Ina's recipe from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook and paired it with the coconut cream cheese frosting that she also uses as a companion to the cake.

I scrapped the lamb (we ate it while dyeing Easter Eggs that night) and baked up some coconut mini cupcakes, which I frosted with either pink or yellow cream cheese frosting and made little green grass nests (sweetened flaked coconut mixed with a few drops of green food coloring), topped with a few "Easter eggs" (Jelly Belly jellybeans). I'm so happy with how they turned out. They tasted fantastic and looked super cute. 

I love this.

 While I worked on the cupcakes, Mer and CC and Nell dyed eggs.

The mugs have dye. We tried to match the tablets to the mugs but the Paas dye tablets are often quite stealthy and appear quite different when dry than when dissolved. So it was a little confusing... We discovered that a chilled, dry rosé was a lovely accompaniment to the process. Definitely a new tradition.

And then it was Easter. And I got sick. Disgustingly snottily sick. I went through three large boxes of Kleenex. In a single day. I sounded awful and looked worse. I was so sick that I missed my first day of work at my new job. I don't think I've had that ugly a cold in at least five years. Such a bummer. So glad it's over!

And that whirlwind, my friends, was April. 

A Tale of Two Appetizers

Charles Dickens is most surely rolling over in his grave at that title.

First, an apology - I know I am way behind on this blogging thing. It's hard to get back in the habit!

It was Maybay's birthday last weekend and she requested I bring an app. I got really excited about the options and brought two. I decided that it would be fun to bring a high-brow dish and a low-brow dish, in honor of the true fabulousness of the event's honoree.

High-Brow: Prosciutto and Fontina Pinwheels from Food and Wine

I love using puff pastry because it is basically idiot-proof. Thanks, Pepperidge Farm.

The first thing you do is roll it out. Actually, the first thing you do is thaw it. Then you roll it out. It helps to have a rolling pin for this. I misplaced mine. Which I discovered after I spread flour all over the place.

Luckily, after searching every cabinet in my kitchen three times, I remembered that maybe Mer had the pin. Success! She did (from Easter - clearly I use this thing a lot) and she was home. Game on!

Rolling out the dough is super easy. Once that's done, you just layer the goods on and roll it up.

I think the recipe lied and in retrospect I think I would put some more prosciutto on them. But they turned out ok.

They looked pretty and tasted good and sometimes that's enough!

*********

Low-Brow: Goop

For the record, this dip was named long before Gwyneth Paltrow started her little blog-newsletter. In fact, I'm pretty sure we have it in print from an employee cookbook made by my Dad's employer in the 80s. Maybe we should sue Gwyneth. Lawyer friends, do we have a case? Any chance I can get my hands on some Coldplay cash?

Frivolous lawsuits aside, this delicious dip has been passed down from my grandmother, Nana (which is pronounced like the start of the song Na-Na-Hey-Hey-Goodbye - it does not rhyme with banana).

I once tried to make Goop with "real" ingredients like fresh chives and fresh garlic because in general I like to use the most authentic ingredients I can find. Guess what? It tasted like crap. And incidentally, that's what Nana would have said had she sampled it. You can't deviate from the ingredients or it just doesn't taste right.

Trust in 60+ years of this recipe. This stuff is freaking delicious - garlicky and addictive. And you would never guess it's made from cottage cheese.  

Goop

Makes about 2 cups.

Ingredients

• 1 - 16 oz carton small curd cottage cheese with chives (Yes, the kind that already has chives in it. Trust in the recipe.) If you use low fat cottage cheese increase the mayo about 2 tsp. If you use large curd cottage cheese, you'll have to beat it harder and longer. That's what she said.)
• 2 heaping Tbsp mayonnaise. Regular or lite is fine. Non-fat is unacceptable.
• 1/4 tsp + 1/8 tsp garlic powder

Directions
Put everything in a bowl and mix with an electric hand mixer on high speed or food processor until all the curds are decimated and it's all very smooth with just teeny tiny curd texture. Chill. (You can scoop it back into the cottage cheese container, which is the traditional storage method for this dip.)

Serve with:
Mandatory: Jays ridged chips (or if you are not in Chicago and can't get Jays, you can use Ruffles)
Optional: dipping vegetables - carrots, celery, broccoli, bell pepper, cucumber

Voila.