Christmastime is here!

Just some assorted holiday pics, which for some confounded reason I was not able to add to my last post.

Thanks to all, I don't know, ten of you who keep coming back to the site for updates. With New Years' on the horizon, I have lots of good ideas for making this into a much more playful and experimental place as I test out new recipes and try to come up with my own creations. For those of you who are both regular readers and Chefties, I'm always eager to hear what you're up to in the kitchen, so don't be afraid of leaving a note whenever you're inspired. If I can't have all my pals here in the kitchen with me, blog chat is the next best thing. :)

Onto the slideshow....

Eggnog & Christmas tree. Homemade eggnog is not exactly trivial to make--at least, it isn't when you have limited counterspace, but it's well worth it.


Christmas morning. Here's the tree, with a closeup of my paperback angel. She's a bit worse for wear, but a little glue and some fresh silver spraypaint should be just the thing to get her ready for next year.





And last but not least, Bing. Just another day for him. I believe he's up here on the table because the Christmas tree has temporarily displaced his top-of-the-bookcase perch. I did not make a Christmas goose this year, but it appears that he could fill in for that job, just based on plumpness alone. Mwah-ha-ha-ha....

Cookie monster.

Behold this year's cookie-making!



First, the classic peanut butter blossom. MMM.

Then, butter cookies laced with cardamom and cinnamon, drizzled with an espresso glaze and melted chocolate. I think I enjoyed this one the most. The espresso was a great match for the spicy cookie.

And on the right, what Gourmet called a pine-nut tassie*, to which I added chopped dates and a little orange zest.

Someday when I have my own little bakery, all of these will make it on the holiday menu.

Until then, Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

xoxo
Chefty


*tassie: noun, Chiefly Scot.
1. a cup or small goblet, esp. an ornamental one.
2. the contents of a cup or goblet; a small draught, as of liquor.

Jump in the mouth

Did you know that's what saltimbocca means? I discovered this over the weekend when I prepared saltimbocca for dinner. I love how vivid a description it is. And accurate--proscuitto gives the veal a nice salty bite but the sage makes for a pretty velvety taste. Mmm. I'm now on a quest to find more fun food idioms like this one, so stay tuned...

My cooking of late has been a bit herky-jerky. I've not yet baked a single holiday cookie, but I expect I'll be making some butter cookies over the weekend that sound pretty good. They have a lot of spice--cardamom particularly--in the dry mix, and you finish them with a drizzle of both bittersweet chocolate and an espresso-chocolate glaze. Other notable feasts (in reverse chronology) include...

• The aforementioned saltimbocca, served with spinach & ricotta dumplings (tasty but structurally unsound).
• Panettone bread pudding with a cinnamon-orange caramel sauce. This is a surefire hit and very easy to make. Recipe to follow (courtesy of Gourmet & Chow.com for inspiration) tonight.
  
• Chicken fricassee with plum tomatoes and white beans. Anything braised is a winner in my book.
• Roast prime rib with horseradish & garlic. I think this may have been my first time having prime rib. It's a lot more tender than I expected. I surprised myself by cooking it to a perfect medium-rare--in the past my beef cookery has been a bit hit-or-miss.
  

On the menu for Christmas? I'm inclined to make my aunt Marguerite's delicious meatballs, but a nomination has been cast for ham. We shall see...

Leftover Chronicles #1

I fired up the kitchen this weekend and dealt with the most of my holiday leftovers. The turkey, bones and all, found its way rather predictably into a soup, to which I added barley, cranberry beans, and carrots. Tasty, but it took forever to make the soup stock. Soup is definitely a project you should begin at least in late morning if you want to eat before 10:00PM.

The leftover stuffing seemed to me the perfect filling for a wonton. At first, I planned to make turkey soup with stuffing wontons. I thought the wontons might also be good by themselves, pan- fried and served with some kind of dip made from the leftover cranberry sauce. Unfortunately a whole lot of other people in Seattle decided to involve wontons in their leftover creations, because there was not a package to be found at my grocery store on Sunday. I'll head back tonight and see if they've restocked. The filling is ready, though it doesn't taste quite as good as I thought it might.

I still have some leftover pumpkin puree, though I dispatched most of it in two loaves of pumpkin-pecan bread. Here's the thing I've found about pumpkin: it has a really distinctive flavor before you bake it into something, but that flavor doesn't really carry through to the end product. I used a mix of canned pumpkin and puree I had made myself. The canned pumpkin does seem to have more concentrated flavor--I used just canned puree in the ice cream I made, and it retained that tangy flavor. Perhaps homemade pumpkin is best in its pure form and used as a filling for pasta or base for soup. Someday when I have enough counter space to make pumpkin ravioli, I'll let you know.