Food runs in my family...

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday yesterday! Ours was lovely. It is interesting to me how much food can bond a group of people together. Everyone in my family enjoys cooking and everyone has a specialty. Yesterday we all did a little dance in and out of my mom's kitchen fixing up our favorite things to share. Even Bekah, my 3 year-old niece served me 5 plates of plastic frogs which alternately doubled as scrambled eggs, scrambled egg soup or oatmeal cookies with surprise chocolate chips inside! What can I say; it's in her genes!

I think I would have to attribute my love of cooking mostly to my mom though. She had me in the kitchen with her at a young age and always gave me freedom to experiment and try new things. Making the Jiffy muffin mix was one of my regular responsibilities. Mixing her meatloaf in the bowl with my bare hands was my favorite responsibility. Even now as an adult, spending a couple hours cooking with her in the kitchen is one of my favorite ways to spend a holiday!



Working on Sweet Potatoes, Wild Rice Stuffing & a new Pumpkin Walnut Pie recipe


My beautiful mom and me


A little cooking secret of mine: When chopping onions, if you put two matches in your mouth, striking end out, you won't cry. It's amazing!

Baked Dark Chocolate Pudding

I have never made homemade pudding before, but now that I have, move over JELLO pudding and "Hello" to some quick and easy and DELICIOUS homemade dark chocolate pudding. My family enjoyed this last night as a little Christmas Eve treat after a lovely church service and my mom's famous Beef Stew. The consistency is more like brownie batter than pudding from a box, which only enhances the feeling that you are indulging in a guilty pleasure! Here is the recipe for your enjoyment:

Baked Dark Chocolate Pudding

10 oz dark or semisweet chocolate (roughly one bag of chocolate chips)
4 egg yolks
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup sugar
1 stick plus 6 Tablespoons of butter

- Preheat the oven to 325 F. Arrange 8 ramekins or small oven-safe bowls in a baking dish. (We used those small Pyrex glass dishes but anything oven-proof would work).
- Melt the chocolate in the microwave by heating for about 2 minutes and stirring every 30 seconds until smooth.
- In a bowl, with the electric mixer, beat the egg yolks, whole eggs, sugar and vanilla for about 4 minutes until pale and thickened.
- In a small saucepan, melt the butter and keep on heat until sizzling, but not brown.
- Wisk the melted chocolate in with the butter until smooth. Add to the egg mixture and beat until smooth.
- Pour in the the ramekins/jars/bowls. Pour boiling water into the baking dish until it reaches 1/2 way up the pudding containers.
- Bake for about 20 minutes until the tops of the puddings are set.
- Cool and top with whipped cream or Cool Whip and ENJOY!

This recipe is supposed to serve 8. I decided to 1/2 it. I served it to 5 adults and a 3 year-old. We probably had as much as we "needed" but not quite as much as we wanted. For future reference, I would probably say the full recipe would serve 5-6 adults nicely. Also, I decided to add the vanilla to the recipe. It was not a part of the original recipe. Next time I might try almond extract, or some mint extract or even a tablespoon or two of Kahlua or Baileys or plain expresso. Pretty much anything that would go with chocolate would be fun to toss in there.

And lastly, just in case you need a little extra convincing to give this a try, watch the video below for the endorsement of a true food expert (aka. My Cutie-Pie niece).

Candied Christmas Pecans

Since I started eating (mostly) gluten-free several years ago, nuts have become a bigger part of my diet. Particularly this time of year when everyone is eating Christmas cookies and I turn green with envy and want something sweet of my own to enjoy. The recipe below has become a favorite of mine over the past year. Hope you enjoy!

Candied Christmas Pecans

3 cups raw pecans
1 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 egg white
1 Tablespoon water
4 Tablespoons melted butter (optional)

- Preheat the oven to 300 F
- Mix sugar, salt, cinnamon & nutmeg in a small bowl
- Wisk egg white and water until foamy. Add to pecans and toss to coat.
- Mix in dry ingredients and butter (if using) and toss again.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Spread out the nuts.
- Bake 20-40 minutes (stirring occasionally) or until nuts are desired crunchiness. (Keep a close eye on them as they burn easily)
- NOTE #1: The first time I made these I forgot the butter and they were still delicious! So you can really go either way.
- NOTE #2: If you are up for trying something new with your Christmas baking, buy the whole nutmeg and grate it with the fine portion of your cheese grater. The fresh nutmeg gives recipes a specatcular flavor!

I Love Beef!

If you have been to my house and spent any time in my kitchen, you have probably seen the little ceramic tile by my stove that says "I love beef." It was the result of a birthday date with an 8 year old at a pottery-painting place and extreme artistic block. I had sat there for an hour while he painted a little toy dog and I must have been hungry because suddenly the phrase, "I love beef" came to mind and I went with it.

Despite the fact that I love red meat, I get a little intimidated when cooking it. I am pretty confident with chicken and fish, but hand me a good old fashioned pot roast and I get the jitters. This past week I got brave and decided to try a new recipe for Horseradish-Crusted Roast Beef. Despite a few glitches, it came out pretty well and the flavors were delicious!

The Recipe:

Horseradish-Crusted Roast Beef

1 6-pound sirloin tip roast
1/2 cup prepared horseradish (not the white creamy one but the one that is the actual root and looks like pureed garlic)
2 Tablespoons salt
2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons finely chopped parsley
1 Tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon sherry vinegar (I didn't have this and used red wine vinegar instead)

- Preheat the oven to 375 F. Set a rack in a large roasting pan and place the roast on the rack.
- In a small bowl, blend all other ingredients
- Slather paste on all sides of the roast (Isn't "slather" a great word?!)
- Roast in the lower 1/3 of the oven for about 2 hours until a meat thermometer in the center of the roast reads 125F.
- Remove the roast from the oven, cover with foil and let sit for 15-20 minutes.
- Slice and enjoy!

The Glitches:

1. Even factoring in the desirability of leftovers, 6 pounds of roast beef for one little single woman seemed ridiculous so I bought myself a small 1.5 pound roast (and cut the rub down to a quarter of the quantities above). This caused me issues in determining how long to cook it. If you cut 2 hours down into quarters that makes only 30 minutes. I found two sources online that said to give a roast 15 minutes per pound. I still couldn't get past the idea that 1/2 an hour was too little, so I cooked it for 45 minutes. I at the end piece and the rest was woefully undercooked and had to be microwaved.

2. I ended up purchasing a Bison roast instead of beef because it was on sale, I was feeling adventurous and it was the size I wanted. The flavor of what I got out of it was DELICIOUS and the the meat was very tender. However, fully 1/2 of the roast was fat that I had to cut away and that disappointed me. Next time I will probably just stick with the good old cow.

If any of you more experienced cooks have tips on how to reduce cooking time when cooking a small piece of meat, I would love the help because I am often trying to convert recipes to serve one person instead of a whole family.

The End.

Happiness in a Cup

I have just one thing to share this morning:

Hot Apple Cider with Butterscotch Schnapps and a cinnamon stick.

Sigh... Warm, cozy, happiness in a cup!

[P.S. I had that at a party last night and not for breakfast this morning :) ]

What TO do if you are not feeling impatient over your hard boiled eggs...

After my last post, some of you may think me unqualified to give advice about how to hard boil an egg, but I actually do have a great method when I take the time to do it. I found this method online a while back and it produces a nice, perfectly cooked, easy to peel egg:

* Put your eggs in a saucepan, cover them with water and bring them to a boil with the lid on.
* Once the pot has reached a boil, let it boil for 1 minute.
* Remove the pot from the heat and let it sit, covered for 10 minutes.
* Place the eggs in a bowl of ice water and let them sit until they have completely cooled.
* Eat or refrigerate

What NOT to do if you are feeling impatient over hard boiled eggs...

I learned a valuable lesson this morning about what not to do if you discover that your hard boiled eggs are undercooked. I was hungry (and therefore cranky) and this lead to impatience which caused me to prematurely remove my hard boiled egg from the boiling water so that I could eat it. I had trouble peeling it and about 1/2 way through realized that it was not cooked at all in the center. I figured that the microwave would be the easiest way to finish cooking it quickly. I put it in for 30 seconds and nothing happened. It was still obviously squishy in the center. I put it in for another 30 seconds, but it never made it. Right about 20 seconds there was a loud "POP" and the microwave shut off. I opened the microwave door and, yes, there were teeny, tiny pieces of egg "guts" splattered everywhere! My little egg had exploded.

So the moral of the story is: Do not try to microwave an undercooked hard boiled egg. And also, if you are hungry and cranky and impatient, just eat an apple or a piece of cheese or something quick and don't mess with hard boiling eggs at all!

Christmas Presents

I get a really strange and ridiculous amount of enjoyment out of making stuff myself. Usually things that would be easier (and sometimes cheaper) to just buy, but it makes me very happy to make it. I used to buy raw milk from a farm out in Ellicot and I felt like a domestic goddess because I would make my own butter with it. All that means is I skimmed off the cream from the top of the jar, poured it into the food processor, let it run for about 5 minutes, poured off the buttermilk and added salt to the butter, but I was giddy for a whole day the first time I did it!

I decided to make some flavored salts for Christmas gifts this year. My sweet coworkers can attest, I was totally preoccupied with salt recipes and where to find cute, inexpensive jars for a whole afternoon last week and kept pestering them for their opinions. However, the salts turned out to be really easy (minus the incident with the chipotle chiles and my sinuses) and I had a lot of fun with them this past weekend. Below are the recipes and picture of the final product.

Homemade Chipotle Chile Salt
1pkg dried chipotle chiles (I found these in the produce section by the dried herbs)
3 cups salt (use whatever kind you want. I did 2 cups regular iodized sea salt and 1 cup coarse salt)
- Wearing gloves, cut the tops off the chiles and scrape out the seeds. Grind as finely as possible and add to the salt. For me it turned out to be about 3 Tablespoons (And really, I would recommend throwing sanity to the wind and wearing a mask of some kind to avoid breathing this stuff in!)

Homemade Citrus Salt
2 Tablespoons Lemon Zest (about 2 lemons)
2 Tablespoons Lime Zest (about 2 limes)
1 Tablespoon Orange zest (about 1 orange)
3 cups salt
- Preheat the oven to 225 F. Mix zest with salt and pour into a glass baking dish. Bake in the oven for 3 hours, stirring about once an hour.

Homemade Garlic Salt (This was my favorite of the 3! It came out with amazing little crunchy pieces of garlic)
I0-12 garlic bulbs
3 cups salt
- Preheat the oven to 225 F. Peel garlic bulbs and mince. (I just put them in the food processor and pulsed it a few times). Mix with the salt using the back of a spoon to sort of "mash" the garlic into the salt. Pour into a glass baking dish. Bake in the oven for 3-4 hours, stirring about once an hour, until the garlic is completely dry and crunchy. WARNING: This will make your house smell intensely of garlic, which I thought was wonderful. But not everyone shares my passion for garlic...

I did not bake the different flavors together. The garlic smell was strong and I was afraid it might contaminate the citrus one. Once everything was cooled off, I poured into little jars and...

TAA-DAA!

I'm a newbie...

Well, I finally broke down and did it... I have about 8 friends who blog and I really enjoy reading their posts about life and family. However, I always thought blogging was for people with adorable kids to brag about or deep thoughts to share. Mostly, I would like to just write about food. I REALLY love to cook and sometimes I just want to tell someone about my adventures in the kitchen. This past year has been full of new food experiences. Last December I baked and iced 23 cakes for a friend's wedding. In the summer I hand-pitted a pound of cherries and made my very first homemade cherry pie from scratch (YUM!). A couple weeks ago I made my first real Thanksgiving turkey. Words cannot really express my pride in that lovely, brown, juicy bird! I felt like I had passed some female domestic rite of passage. This weekend I have been working on some homemade food Christmas gifts. Last night my respiratory system had a little run-in with the dried chipotle chiles that I was trying to grind for these little presents! The result was incredibly comical (sneezing, coughing, crying, etc) and no one was around to appreciate it. So I got up this morning and decided to start a blog. Mostly I am planning on sharing recipes and food ideas but I may squeeze a little bit of my life and thoughts in here. So here goes...