Impromptu Valentine Tea

Some of my family decided to make the 2 hour drive to come over on Valentines Day.  I didn't have much notice but I wanted to make something "valentiney," like tea party food, as the meal would be served mid afternoon.  The menu, clockwise from the top, was Pineapple and strawberries, chilled shrimp with cocktail sauce. smoked turkey and Gruyere mini melts, Star Cakes my daughters made with their Aunt, cream cheese brownies, Mom's homemade fudge, chicken salad puffs, and cucumber radish sandwiches.

For these puffs, I made Pate Choux (cream puff pastry) the night before and stashed it in the fridge right in it's piping bag.  The morning of, it was simple to just pipe them out and bake them.  The salad was rotisserie chicken breasts with toasted pecans, grapes, celery, parsley, and mayo mixed with a little sour cream and Dijon.

These melts were good.  It's just a thick bechamel (white sauce) with chopped deli smoked turkey and shredded Gruyere folded in, spread on sliced baguette and broiled.  A tiny dollop of cranberry sauce on top brightens the flavor and appearance.
Cocktail rye's with chive cream cheese, cuke slices, radish slices, yellow grape tomato slivers and fresh parsley.

The cream cheese brownies were from the Baker's chocolate box.  I like that recipe!

I had the shrimp in my freezer, so the rest was just a matter of cutting and plating.  Easy and quick, but it felt special to graze on all those miniatures!  Sadly, the cakes were not that delicious- from a mix- even the little girls are getting too spoiled for boxed mixes!  I remember as a kid I hated boxed or bakery cakes with their grainy crisco frosting.  Only my grandma's cakes with real butter frosting would do!  

Sort of like chicken Cordon Blue

This is a fast, cheesy yummy dish.  I really needed this to be quick so I bought some frozen roasted potato wedges.  My standards are really starting to slip.  If I ever post about hamburger helper somebody drive over here and stage an intervention!  Anyhow, the package was trying to be kind of upscale with "olive oil" and "organic" and "sea salt" but in any case they were not that bad.  I also quickly sauteed a bag of baby spinach to round out the meal.

First I seasoned boneless skinless chicken breasts with salt and pepper, and dusted them with fine breadcrumbs.  I browned them in a touch of olive oil.  This pan is my All Clad 16" braiser and I love it.  It goes right into the oven or broiler, great heat distribution, and if you get it at just the right temperature, you can use the tiniest bit of oil and foods don't stick.

Then I smeared a little honey mustard on the chicken, draped on a slice of deli ham, and piled on the shredded Swiss.   I poured a teensy splash of white wine into the pan to prevent burning, popped it under the broiler for a few minutes and ...

Voila.  Ooey gooey, smokey, salty with that tangy sweet mustard bite, and ready in about 20 minutes.

Florentine Renaissance Bites (wonkish)

Wonkish- I think- means academic or cerebral or maybe just on and on with the details.  For people who have a deep interest in the subject.

For my January Book Club (at my house) we read The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant, which was set in Florence during the Renaissance.  This was a significant period in culinary arts as well as the other arts.  For one thing, the spice routes were well established so new and exotic ingredients from the East and South were available.  For another thing, Europe was relatively peaceful so trade flourished and people were exposed to different styles and preparations.  The rise of the Merchant middle/upper class meant a greatly expanded demand for fine dining (previously, as I understand it, there was royalty food and peasant subsistance food).  Caterina De Medici, the daughter of the famous family of politicians and patrons of the arts, is often credited with ushering in  the start of modern French cooking when she was wed to the King of France.

So anyway, from an actual medieval recipe in Kaspar's The Splendid Table, I made a sweet capellini pie- a sturdy pastry crust filled with a mixture of cooked angel hair pasta, ground almonds, sugar, butter, and whipped eggs.  The juxtaposition of sweet and savory together was a hallmark of the late medieval/early renaissance periods

 Since chestnut was a staple in Italy at that time, I made a light sponge cake rolled around sweetened chestnut puree:
For a savory, I wanted to utilize some of the exotic spice combinations that were popular at the time.  I chose to make small meat pies using ground turkey, onions, sultanas (yellow raisins), pine nuts, ginger, garlic, cinnamon, and cloves.  I used a touch of Penzeys Garam Masala, too, which contains a nice mix of a bunch of Indian spices like cardamom, fenugreek....

The dough was lightly sweet yeast dough with saffron.  These were baked in the oven.

 Finally I made a thin chickpea flour pancake filled with fresh ricotta and sauteed Swiss Chard.

By the time my guests got to the food these had lost the charms of the crispy hot olive oil-fried edges but in my opinion they were a happy discovery.

Apparently anyone who has spent quality time noshing street food in the French or Italian Mediterranean coast is familiar with Socca or Farinata, which is the name fort these pancakes.  There, they are cooked over an outdoor steel drum griddle and served plain.  In Florence, they are known as cecini, derived from ceci, a name for garbanzos.  The batter of the pancake is simply chickpea flour (Bob's Red Mill makes it) mixed with water to the consistency of heavy cream, and seasoned with salt and plenty of pepper.  Finish the batter off with a bit of extra virgin olive oil, and then fry it, crepe style, in more of the same.  I really liked these.

A few days after book club I had a friend over for lunch and served the Socca filled with a mixture of feta and ricotta, as well as sauteed spinach.  We had a light and healthy Carrot Ginger puree soup as well, and, rather a nonsequiter, those crescent rolls from a tube.  Well, those were bought for the kids, but it's kind of hard to say no when they're piping hot on the table, you know?

Yes, I am still cooking.

I was in a post holiday slump. Yes, still.   We've had lots of comfort food, like-

Spaghetti and meatballs with garlic sauteed rapini. 

Made some "fat mints" (aka chocolate mint cookies) with the girls,

 Yeah, that was fun...for them.

They ate so much of the creamed butter/sugar/eggs and cocoa that the recipe was adversely affected as were their bedtimes.

We've had our share of Chinese take out...

Chicken and biscuits.

Split Pea Soup with cornbread.

Grill- pan seared swordfish with sun dried tomato and olive relish (Stonewall Kitchen), couscous with roasted vegetables, and blanched green beans.

Tandoori marinated chicken thighs with jicama, pepper, and cilantro slaw and a tomato yogurt sauce, served in pita breads.
My blogging kept me cooking healthy foods- when I slipped off with the blogging I also slipped on a few lbs, so I have a few reasons to want to get back to posting!

My little helper

Indulge me for a moment if you please.  Like all mothers I think my children are impossibly adorable.  My 5 year old is brilliant etc.  But my almost 2 year old LOVES to cook and eat- she insists upon helping me in the kitchen.  Here she is making pizza dough...

She actually got the hang (somewhat) of kneading it. 

Here she is with the sauce.  She doesn't talk all that much yet, but she says "mix" and "taste" when she helps.

She peeled this carrot very well.

And a wicked sweet tooth.

Holiday food pics

I suppose there are some people out there who would like to see our Christmas Eve and Christmas dinners, so without further ado:

Christmas Eve must be Swedish food, kind of like my MorMor (mother's mother aka grandma) used to make.  We start out with herring, cheese, smoked salmon, and crispbread.  The main course is ham,

Swedish meatballs, Jansson's temptation (a potato, cream, and onion gratin with...shhhh...anchovies),

Homemade Limpa, which is a rye bread with molasses, caraway, orange zest, and anise seed, 

And braised sweet and sour kale.  Dessert is cookies and rice pudding- oops, no pic.

On to Christmas Day:  a few simple seafood hors d'Oeuvres:

This is terrible but there was a third appetizer, a puff pastry palmier filled with fig jam and prosciutto.  They were on the baking sheet to cool down enough to plate them- that fig jam is like molten lava out of the oven- and people just started eating them right off the pan.  Whatever- one less dish to wash

.
Our first seated course was parsnip and leek puree garnished with a drizzle of heavy cream, chives, and chopped smoked almonds for a little textural pop as well as an interesting additional flavor.  It was quite good and light enough not to cloy the palate.

For the main course, I bought some big-ass pork shoulder roasts, seasoned them up really well the night before with salt, pepper, and Penzey's Bavarian Blend, and then seared them off and roasted the heck out of them.  I believe they were in the oven for about 5 hours at 325'  The awesome thing about pork shoulder for a party, is, well, number one it is super cheap, especially compared to prime rib or goose.  Two, is it simply cannot be overcooked.  These are the cuts they use in real BBQ where the things smoke for upwards of 24 hours.  You can under cook it, but not if you're paying attention!  Third, it's a breeze to slice and serve.  No elaborate and messy carving ritual.  Four, these days pork is so lean, people are really surprised and pleased at the fatty succulence and fall-apart tenderness of the shoulder.  Five (!) leftovers are versatile.  Great for Cuban or shredded bbq sandwiches.

The pork was served with a luscious gravy, spaetzle, braised red cabbage with bacon and nice warm spices, and simple steamed haricots vert and julienned carrots.

To end on a lighter note, a cranberry orange Bavarian.  That's a jellyroll filled with homemade cranberry jam around and over an orange cream filling, with Grand Marnier and juicy orange segments.  This is kind of an old fashioned dessert- it has gelatin in it (not jello- eeeew)-  but I was happy with it because it not only can, it has to be made the day ahead, and it's a refreshing conclusion to a heavy meal, with seasonal flavors.

A handful of cookies...

The traditional Gingerbread house- this year my 5 year old did the decorating all by herself!  It's hard to see but there's a Christmas tree inside.

I honestly didn't go overboard on the cookies this year.  Kind of sad to skip tradition.  Here's peanut brittle, lemon squares (Mom's recipe), and Rose Levy Beranbaum's Chocolate Walnut Chews...a base of oatmeal cookie dough strewn with walnuts and dark chocolate, then blanketed with caramel and melded in the oven to something greater than the sum of its parts.

Close up on the chews...these are good keepers, too.  Good for about 2 weeks.

The brittle.  

Well, guess I didn't get a pic of the decorated cutouts-- but if you ever need a third hand to fill a piping bag with icing, use this trick (it's in a pint glass, before the end is snipped off).

One of my personal favorites are Vanilla Buttercreams.  It's a melt in your mouth (but crisp to the bite) vanilla scented shortbread round, sandwiched with luxurious vanilla scented butter cream filling- kissed with rum.

The dough is:  process, roll, chill, slice, and bake.  Easy peasy!  They don't look like much, but if you like sticking your finger in the bowl after creaming the butter, sugar, and vanilla...these are for you.

The Family Tradition:  Mormor's Swedish Pepperkakor.  They are subtle but everyone loves them.  They have to be thin.  So thin that you seem to have as much dough left after cutting the cookies as before rolling it out.

Baked, with minimal adornment.

They are molasses spice cookies.  So crispy and tender you just shatter them on the roof of your mouth with your tongue.  Goes great with coffee, tea, milk, red wine...  They are the cookie that eats like a chip.

My Aunt Carol gets them even thinner.  Don't ask me how!

Perfect cookie baking weather, eh?