And now a bit of self-indulgent braggery...The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. It has pictures.
Here's an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Have I got a present for you: a holiday-worthy dinner made in about an hour.
So wrote Lucinda Scala Quinn in the December issue of Martha Stewart Living. Hello, I thought, for I was hosting eleven for Christmas dinner and needed something wonderful that wouldn't require hours in the kitchen. Well, let me tell you, this menu was amazing. Everything she said was true, it was simple simple simple, and delicious delicious delicious. There were no weird or strange ingredients to hunt down. The tenderloin was a little pricey but what the hell, it's Christmas, right? The article was very clear about what could be made when, and the timing of when everything should go in the oven (which I love because my own nemesis is getting everything to be done and warm at the same time). I preheated the oven at 4:15. We ate at 6:00.
I know we're all suffering food hangover right now, but when you are done with your liver cleanse and are planning a party, do give this a try. Lucinda, I love thee, thank you for a most wonderful present!!
Here's how Christmas Day dinner went down at my house:
Mustard-rubbed beef tenderloin
Shingled roasted potatoes
Mushroom Wellington cups (recipe here)
Steamed green beans (with cranberries, which I left out)
I also omitted her creamy mustard sauce and her parsley-citrus salad because I didn't think it would appeal to any of my guests. My own addition was roasted fennel, beets and Jerusalem artichokes.
Order of operation:
1. Christmas Eve, during the day, I roasted my vegetables. The fennel and Jerusalem artichokes were tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted on their own tray for about 20 minutes at 425. Beets were peeled, cut into wedges, tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper and sprigs of rosemary and oregano. They were wrapped in a foil packet and stayed in the oven at 425 for close to 2 hours. Then all went into the fridge.
2. While the veggies were roasting I made the filling for the Mushroom Cups, and that went into the fridge as well.
3. Christmas Day, around 3:00, I took the vegetables, the filling, 1/2 stick of butter, and the beef tenderloin out of the fridge to come to room temperature.
4. At 4:15, preheat oven to 425. Start with the potatoes:
Scrub as many russet potatoes as you need. Peel one long side of each potato. Thinly slice each crosswise, cutting only three-quarters of the way through, keeping the bottom (unpeeled) portion intact. Brush the sliced sides with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt. They go into the 425 oven for 30 minutes.
5. After potatoes are in, line another baking sheet with parchment paper and prep the beef:
Trim away the fat (a mother is very good for this kind of thing, I don't think she even had taken her coat off before I showed her the beef and handed her the knife). If you have kitchen twine, tie the tenderloin at 2" intervals (I didn't have twine and it was fine). Season all over well with kosher salt and ground pepper.
In a small bowl combine the 1/2 stick of softened butter with 2 tablespoons coarse mustard, and 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard. Coat beef all over with mixture and place on baking sheet.
When timer goes off on the potatoes, slide the baking sheet with the beef into the oven. Set timer for another 40 minutes, or if you have an oven probe, set it for 140 degrees.
6. While beef and potatoes are in, assemble your mushroom cups and move all roasted vegetables into one baking dish and cover with foil.
7. When beef is 140 degrees, remove it and potatoes from oven. Cover separately with foil and allow to rest. Lower oven to 375. Put mushroom cups and vegetables in for 14-16 minutes. Steam your green beans. Set the table, clear away the appetizers, open the wine, make the kids get their drinks now, put on the music, light the candles.
8. Drain beans and toss with a little butter. Slice beef. Lay everything out buffet style.
9. Serve
10. Die
The cups can be made up to one month prior. Assemble in the muffin tin and then pop the whole tin into the freezer for about an hour. When frozen, carefully remove from cups and place in ziplock bags. They can go directly from the freezer into the 375 oven for 16-18 minutes. Likewise just the filling can be made beforehand, and stored in the refrigerator.
I had only 1 pound of mushrooms to hand when I made this, so I supplemented with 2 red onions. Because I like the combination of spinach and mushrooms, I added 1/2 bag of baby spinach. This made enough filling for 12 phyllo cups (the recipe yield as given is for 6)
Mushroom (As You Like It) Cups
4 tbsp unsalted butter, plus 4-6 tbsp unsalted better meltedMelt 4 tbsp butter in a large skillet over high heat.
(I sauted the red onions at this point) Cook mushrooms for 6 minutes. Add garlic. Cook until mushrooms are golden brown, about 1 minute more.
(I added spinach at this point and let it cook down until most of the liquid evaporated) Add wine. Cook, stirring and scraping browned bits from bottom of pan with a wooden spoon, until wine evaporates, about 3 minutes (more if you're using spinach, which releases a lot of liquid).
Sprinkle flour over the mixture, and stir to combine. Add cream. Cook until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper. Let cool for 15 minutes, or refrigerate until time to assemble cups.
Preheat oven to 375. Lay 1 phyllo sheet on a work surface (I covered my regular cutting board with a piece of parchment paper). Lightly brush sheet with melted butter. Top with another sheet. Brush with melted butter. Repeat with remaining 3 sheets of Phyllo, leaving the top sheet unbuttered.
With clean scissors or sharp knife, cut phyllo stack into six 5 1/2" by 6" pieces. Nestle each into a cup of a standard muffin tin (I sprayed mine with Pam first, just to be safe). Spoon 2 heaping tablespoons of mushroom mixture into each.
CUE MONTAGE!!!
Bake until golden, 14 to 16 minutes. Top each cup with a bit of pâté before serving.
pâté
Funny how these things happen. We're hanging around one Christmas Season night and I draw a picture. A fireplace. A Christmas tree. Presents. Hm, a fireplace needs a mantle, and a mantle needs things on it. There must be a mirror over the fireplace. Oh and there should be a cat sleeping on the hearth. This evokes tea-time doesn't it? There should be a table with tea. I'm drawing away, happy, happy. Panda says, "Can you draw me one?" Redman echoes, "Me too." Well I can't recreate this two more times but no problem: I go over everything with a fine-tipped Sharpie and throw it in the scanner to make copies. We color all night, listening to Christmas music. This is the life.
Fast-forward a year, it's Christmas season again, and I want to draw that picture (who knows what became of last year's). Fireplace. Tree. "Don't forget the cat," Panda advises, looking over my shoulder, along with my twin neeces, who are here for the holidays. "We want one, too," they say hopefully. "Me, too," says Redman. Copies all around, and again we sit around the table coloring and listening to music. Again, the life.
And so here we are again in the holidays, and Panda asks, "Are you going to draw the picture?" Of course. I drew it last night and I didn't forget the cat and the tea is on the table.
And I want you to have a copy, too. Click here for your copy. Please download. Please share. Please color.
Because this is the life.
I love buttons. I have kind of a thing for buttons. I buy these mixed bags of them at Michael's and then I sort them by color into little boxes and jars and it's just so...sick, yeah, and I love them. But what to do with them? Especially around the holidays, there have to be some cool decorations or crafts to use up hoarded buttons. There are. I have three for you.
I saw this first on Pinterest (which is ruining my life, thank you very much) and tracked it back to Stephanie Lynn's awesome post at her blog, Under the Table and Dreaming. These were a cinch to make, you just need any kind of glass votive holder, hot glue, and buttons of any color or all colors. I went with all white as I'd seen in the post. Just glue them on, in a single layer to start, and then fill in the gaps. I absolutely love them:
I've had this idea a while of sewing buttons onto gloves, specifically as a gift for my neeces (my neeces, of course, are the daughters of my seester-in-law). I found these at JC Penney, which came in cool colors. Now I just had to sew on the buttons.
So a few pieces of advice. Actually only two. First, keep it simple, stupid. Don't do what I first did and lay out elaborate patterns of buttons. Ambitious, yes, but it would've become too overwhelming. In the end I opted for just a row of buttons up one side of the glove, and a little pattern on the warmers.
Second piece of advice is once you have your design laid out, dab a little Elmer's Glue under each button, avoiding the holes, and let dry. Then the buttons stay put for easier sewing, and it also makes the project transportable. I worked on these during Panda's Nutcracker rehearsals, and got the bonus validation of all the senior girls wanting to try them on.
This is a fast project that you can do in front of the TV, or at ballet rehearsals, or in Starbucks, or even in bed. I've worked on them in all those places. All you need is some 3/4" elastic, needle and thread, and buttons.
Cut the elastic to fit around your wrist with a little overlap. Lap the edges and sew, and then start adding your buttons. Stay towards the edges of the elastic to hide them, and fill in the spaces between large buttons with smaller ones. It's kind of impossible to mess this up however I confess that THREE times I brought up my needle on one side of the elastic, and passed it through on the opposite side, effectively tying a loop around everything that can't be undone without snipping the thread. But literally in half an hour, you have something really cute, and judging by the reaction of Panda and one of her friends, girls dig these.
So go forth and push some buttons.
I dog-eared the page as soon as I saw this recipe for Barley Risotto with Butternut Squash and Spinach in the December issue of Real Simple. Then I promptly lent the magazine to my mother so when I finally wanted to make it, I had to call her and have her dictate it to me. Turns out she had dog-eared it to try as well.
Now file this under "it takes all types" because I made it, and JP and I loved it, even the kids tried some. My mother made it, and she and my Dad thought it was "eh?" and the dog wouldn't touch it. (OK, poetic license—I made that last part up, their dog died years ago, but it sounded good)
So you'll just have to try it yourself and see.
I still don't have the magazine back so this recipe will be a little more prosaic than usual
Preheat oven to 400. In an ovenproof pot or dutch oven, saute the onion and squash in olive oil for about five minutes, season with a pinch of kosher salt and a few grinds of pepper.
Add the pearl barley, stir to combine and get the barley coated with the olive oil, cook 2-3 minutes
Add the white wine, stir well and allow to evaporate
Add chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then cover pot and put in oven.
Bake 35-40 minutes, stirring once halfway through, until broth is absorbed.
Remove from oven, stir in spinach, parmesan cheese, butter and parsley.
Serve.
Decide.
OK, I've never done an actual craft tutorial before. Some of the photos are going to be weird, if not outright bad, because most were taken lefty. Taking pictures of cooking is hard enough. For crafting you definitely need a third arm. I could've called Panda to help but she was reading. Let me repeat that. She was reading. Which never happens. So I left her alone.
Also, I first thought, "Oh my God, before I do this post, I have to vacuum my office floor!" Then I figured you all would appreciate how things truly look around here, so here you go:
That's the state of the floor when I'm in the midst of Christmas card making, in fact this isn't even bad, last week was worse. I don't even attempt to be neat about things, I just let every snippet and scrap fall on the floor and then write my Dyson a check later. Then I have to push all this other shit I'm working on aside:
I know, I have problems. So, ANYWAY, the ornaments....
I discovered these last year and in my usual manner, I made like a thousand. No really. A thousand. Look:
But I love them, they remind me of the onion domes on Russian Orthodox cathedrals. And they really are quite simple to make.
You need:
You can make the ornaments any length you want. The one I'm making here is 3 3/4". If your paper has a definite "order"—such as mine has little holiday sayings in it—you will want to keep the strips of paper in order as you cut them. Likewise if there is a definite "top" and "bottom" to your pattern, you'll want to keep an eye on it.
Start by punching circles from card stock for the discs that go at the top and bottom of the ornament. Here I've layered a 1/2" blue on a 3/4" red on a 1" green. Affix them with glue stick or mono adhesive (I use Tombow) and then punch a 1/16" hole through all layers. Put those aside.
Cut your paper into 18 1/2" strips. Ornaments smaller than 3" will only need about 15 or 16 strips.
Punch a 1/16" hole in each end of each strip. This step is bo-ring. To make sure I'm punching each the same, I made myself a little 1/2" guide out of cardstock. I lay that on top and punch through 4 or 5 strips at a time.
Cut a piece of jewelry wire. Give yourself wiggle room and cut it an inch or two longer than your paper strips. With the pliers, put a loop in the end. Slide on 3 or 4 beads and one of the cardstock discs.
Now start threading on your strips of paper, design side down (facing the table). If your pattern has a "bottom" end, this should be the end you're threading. Now take the last strip you threaded on, curve it up and over and thread it back onto the wire (if you cut your wire extra long you might want to trim some off at this point). Continue threading the strips back on and moving them over to the side, and the ornament begins to take shape.
When the last strip is on, thread on the other cardstock disc, and another 3-4 beads. Slide your fingers down until the ornament is as round or "squished" as you like. Holding it where you want it, trim the wire just above your fingertips. Grab the end with the pliers and loop it around. Voilà. You are a genius.
To make a "double" ornament, you would need an extra, single cardstock disc to put between, and another 15-16 strips in a shorter length. Make the larger ornament as shown above, the slide on a single disc. Then thread on the shorter strips and repeat, finishing with a layered disc and beads.
Careful, these are kind of addictive....
My great-grandmother Teresa Pizzamiglio (Nonna) immigrated to the US in 1913 with her husband, Angelo Danese. She was a superb cook, and a master gardener. What she was not was generous with her recipes and techniques, nor was she patient with teaching either. My grandmother, Lena Danese (Giggi), was not allowed in the kitchen as a young girl, so it's something of a miracle that she ended up as wonderful a cook as she was. To the kitchen, she took the exact opposite approach, letting my mother and her sister experiment wildly and make a mess. She could entertain both lavishly (the family backyard clambakes were renowned) and humbly (serving BLTs for dinner and calling it a night). It is from her that my mother learned to make a festa out of niente, and it is the gift that's been passed down to me.
I remember most holiday feasts being at Giggi's house in Syracuse, and always on Thanksgiving and Christmas was served Nonna's Stuffing. I don't know if Nonna created this dish herself, or copied something that was served in Italy. I don't know how, if she was indeed so parsimonious with her cooking knowledge, Giggi got the recipe out of her. But somehow she did and she made it, and my mother and my aunt made it, and now I make it and my cousins make it. This year, Panda helped me make it. It was very interesting watching her because right up until I was her age, I turned up my nose at Nonna's stuffing. So did my brother and my cousins. It was weird looking. It was green. All the adults raved about it so it had to be awful. But right around 11 or 12 years of age, we started coming around. We would verify that it would be served, "You're making Nonna's stuffing, right?" To which the adult in charge that year would look at us as if we were witless, "Of course!"
This year, Panda was sneaking bites right and left. And so another sheep is brought into the Pizzamiglio-Danese fold, and I will tuck this recipe into her little Hope Chest, and I have dreams of sitting at her table one day when she brings out the pan of Nonna's stuffing with a mixture of pride and trepidation, "I hope it came out right..."
There is no other stuffing but this.
Nonna's Stuffing
I do this all in a particular order and the prep time takes longer than the actual cooking.
First I have to find the recipe which always causes a small panic attack. The past couple years I've been very careful to put it back in the pages of the Martha Stewart Cookbook. The recipe itself, as you can see, has gone through several annotations over the years. I don't like making a clean copy because all those scribbled notes are just so wonderful.
This is made in the 20-million-gallon size Madame Le Creuset pot. Hold your applause.
Prepping the bread is the worst part. I hate it, there's no good way to do it. I get 2 1-lb loaves from the store, tear one apart with my hands, crust and all, and then the other loaf I sort of peel away the crust and then shred up the soft insides. I always stress that there's too much bread so I put some in Madame and then have a separate holding tank. Whatever I don't use goes to the birds.
Prep everything: chop the onions, celery and garlic and have that in one bowl. Chop your herbs and have that ready. Grate the cheese, or get a small child to do it, put that aside.
Squeeze the sausage out of its casings and brown well in the largest skillet you have. Good luck getting a small child to help with the squeezing without making any poop jokes. As the sausage browns, crumble with the side of a wooden spoon. I hate this. I don't know why, but standing by the pan, breaking up clumps of sausage makes me want to scream.
This year I got the brilliant idea of using my pastry cutter to do this job and I will never again use the spoon.
When the sausage is done, dump it into a colandar in the sink to drain well, you can even rinse it if you wish. Do not wipe out the pan.
In the same pan you fried the sausage, with the drippings still there, saute the onion, celery and garlic about five minutes or until translucent. Add the fresh herbs and saute another 2-3 minutes. Scrape all this into the pot with the bread, and put the pan back on the stove and add a little olive oil.
One at a time, saute each bag of baby spinach. I know 6 bags seems like a lot and every year I think it's a lot, it's too much, it's crazy. But every year each bag wilts down into a pathetic lump and then I panic that it's not enough. It's enough, just go with it. As each batch is done, put it in the colander in the sink and press out as much juice as possible, then put into the pot with the bread and vegetables.
Now you can turn off the heat, finally. Add the sausage and cheese to the pot and mix well. Use a big spoon or your hands. Now taste. You can add salt, pepper (I like 1/2 teaspoon of white pepper) and Bell's poultry seasoning as needed. But the best way to really see if you have it right it to take a little stuffing, make a small patty, and fry it up. And then make another because you are the cook. This year during the tasting phase, I found the stuffing had far too many savory notes, something wasn't right. So I chopped up another onion and 2 ribs of celery, sauteed them quick, mixed it in and that did the trick —it needed that extra bit of bright sweetness. Every year it's different.
Pat into your baking dish. I always make a regular 9x13 dish to serve, and then there's another 9x9 pan for my brother. At this point you could wrap the dish in foil and freeze it until show time. Otherwise it goes into a 350 oven for an hour.
Grazie, Nonna.
I've been on a mission to try bok choy for some time now, and a few stir-fry recipes from Fast, Fresh & Green have clinched the deal. But Susie Middleton really threw down the gauntlet when she added as a blithe aside, "these would be good with some oven-roasted boneless pork ribs."
Asian-style boneless pork ribs. In the slow-cooker. Did such a thing exist?
Consult the Oracle. Of course it exists. My searchings led me to the blog Choosy Beggars, and this awesome post about boneless Asian BBQ beef ribs. She used beef, I figured it would work just as well for pork. I'm not going to transpose it here, because hers is so well-written, being both about ribs and about slow cookers in general. Just know I followed the recipe to the letter (and yes, there was a special shopping trip involved for things like oyster sauce, Chinese 5-spice powder, etc), and I'll give you a few impressions here:
1) The recipe calls for a grated onion. I know. You just have to suck it up and do. I've heard all kinds of tricks for keeping tears at bay while working with onions; frankly the only thing that is a surefire thing for me is having my contact lenses in. No such luck so last night I had to try the remedy of chewing gum as I grated. Not much help. It was a sobby business.
2) The sauce smells amazing. I put it all together last night in a tupperware container and the smell lingered around the kitchen for a while.
3) Ribs in cooker. Sauce on top. 10 hours. That's the extent of it. At the end, you will need to skim quite a bit of fat off the top.
4) I didn't love them. I know, bummer, huh? They smelled amazing, they looked divine, they cozied up beautifully to the bok choy over rice, they were thoroughly enjoyable. But I didn't love them. Maybe I'd love them if they were beef ribs but somehow I don't think so.
I did, however LOVE the bok choy. That and the rice I could eat over and over again. So that said, here is the real star of the show...
(I added some halved baby carrots to this recipe just so there would be something for the kiddies to fall back on)
Cut the bok choy lengthwise into quarters. Wash them well by swishing them in a bowl of tepid water, and spin them dry (I shook mine dry, I didn't feel like breaking out the spinner).
In a small bowl, combine the oyster sauce, broth and cornstarch
In a large, non-stick stir fry pan, heat the peanut oil over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the garlic slices and break them up. Cook, stirring, just until fragrant, about 30 seconds (it smells awesome!) Add the bok choy to the pan. Season with the salt and turn the heat up to high. Using tongs, toss the bok choy with the oil to coat and to distribute the garlic slices.
Cook, rotating and turning the bok choy with the tongs and spreading it out so that all of the stems have some contact with the pan as they cook, and so that the garlic doesn't all gather on the bottom of the pan, until all of the bok choy stems are browned in parts (9 to 12 minutes).
Remove the pan from the heat and, using a silicone spatula, immediately stir the sauce as you pour it into the pan. As soon as the sauce thickens and begins to coat the vegetables, transfer to the bok choy and the sauce to a serving dish.
Delicious. The bok choy was crisp and savory, perfect with the sweetness of the carrots, and the sauce is indeed silky. Really loved this dish.
Unless you have exceptional knife skills, you do need a julienne peeler for this recipe from Fast, Fresh & Green. I got mine in a set of 3 peelers from Panda last Christmas, but a single one is not expensive and quite a worthy investment. Consider asking Santa for one.
As usual I was a little short of a few key ingredients: I didn't have any chopped almonds or hazelnuts that were called for, so I went in a more Italian direction by using chopped garlic and adding some halved cherry tomatoes as well. To be honest, I was a little underwhelmed by the finished dish. The recipe cooking time is 2 minutes but both Jeeps and I found it sort of undercooked. I also may have used too much lemon. But I loved the very concept of it, and it will definitely be something I fool around with.
Wash and dry the squash and trim off the ends. Using a julienne peeler, peel the squash lengthwise all the way around, dropping the strips into a bowl. Continue peeling until you reach the seed core. Discard the core and peel the other squash in the same fashion. Give all the strips a little toss in the bowl and separate any that are clumped together.
In a straight-sided saute pan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the almonds and swirl the butter around in the pan. Cook the butter until it reaches a nutty brown color, about 2 minutes. Immediately add the squash and salt. Toss the squash gently with tongs until it is well coated with the butter. Continue cooking just until the squash becomes slightly limp, about 1 minute.
Remove the pan from the heat, stir in half the chopped herbs and a squeeze of lemon. Toss, taste, and add more lemon if desired. Transfer to a serving dish, sprinkle with more of the herbs, and serve.
Again, it was good, but not quite right. This strikes me as a very summery dish. It cozied up fine to a baked potato here, but I began to imagine blanching the julienned squash, just to get the right consistency, then tossing it with a vinaigrette and serving at room temperature with grilled shrimp.
Hmm... Hold that thought.