A Twelfth Night Celebration

~or~ Happy Christmas Eve to Those of the Orthodox Persuasion

Over the holidays I have been reading a couple of books* about alternative ways of celebrating the seasons. I have been less and less happy with the Christmas/Yule season for a long time now. I feel that there is far too much emphasis put on buying the right thing and spending money. I prefer focusing on the turning of the seasons and on family. One of the ideas I came upon was to extend the holiday by celebrating the smaller days that happen during the season, thus allowing for smaller celebrations to bring your family together around. Now I am planning on adding all sorts of “celebrations” to our year.  

In that vein Rodney and I celebrated a combination of Twelfth Night and Orthodox Christmas Eve by making pistitiso and hot fudge sundaes. We did not really do much more than eat, but still it was fun. Next time I will invite some people for dinner, but I decided to do this a bit too late for that.

Of course there were a lot of dishes I could have picked to make, but I knew that Rodney really likes pistitiso so I wanted to find a recipe. A Google search later and I had a lot of recipes to choose from. In the end I chose the recipe on the Adventures of an Orthodox Mom blog.

I have only had a bite or two or pistitiso before tonight, so I really had no idea how it should turn out. It was really good though! The only change in ingredients that I made was to use Brilla Plus Penne Pasta. I would gladly have use the pasta she recommended, but I just could not find it. I also cut the recipe in half. (And I have to say, I do not know how I would ever have found a vessel big enough to cook a full recipe!)

I had a couple of things not work out quite the way I expected. First, I need to perfect the white sauce. I am not sure I let it get thick enough. Another issue was that I think I might have used too much pasta. The recipe calls for “two boxes”, but it does not say what size of boxes. I used one because I halved the recipe but should it have been 8oz or 15oz? I used 15oz. The last issue was I think it needed to be compacted more. Mine does not seem as “firm” as the ones I see online. I will be making this again, so I will have time to test out other methods!

*The books I read were: Hundred Dollar Holiday & To Dance with God

My layers are not very defined, but the top is such a lovely color!

Look a happy little salad. Okay, a Greek salad would have been more 

appropriate, but I was not thinking about that while out shopping. 

My reward for eating a salad. 

Crafting: Norwegian House Slippers Part IV ~ The Christmas Slippers

I like to get a little something for Rodney on St. Nicholas Day each year. This year I decided that I would make him a pair of Norwegian House Slippers. Little did I know the trials and tribulations the completing of those slippers would be!

As you may know, St. Nicholas Day is on the sixth of December. It is holiday where children put out their shoes and hope for a small gift from St. Nicholas in the night. I like to get Rodney something small and place in or on his shoes the next morning. It is almost always a surprise for him. I always languish over what to get him. Sometimes I get him lottery tickets, sometimes candy, but this year I thought I would just make him a sort of shoe! Not quite what the holiday calls for, but…

So about a week before Thanksgiving I set to work on making the slippers. First I had to find the right yarn. I wanted to make them in Iowa State colors, for he loves all things Iowa State, but I figured if he were to see a bag with yarns of those colors laying around he would know something was up. Instead I used a grey and cream twisted wool yarn from Patons (they call the color Grey Marl). For some strange reason I believed I would only need one skein, so that is all I bought on my first outing.

At first I thought I might knit the slippers, since the original pattern is actually knitted. Well, I started them that way, but I soon ripped them out. I figured that I was way too slow at knitting to get them done in time…this should have been a moment of foreshadowing for my brain, but no, I went on merrily in crochet. The next issue was how big to make them. You need to do a bit of guessing because you do not know how much the yarn is going to felt. I had felted some other projects in the same yarn, so I thought I was good to go.

I started crocheting. I got what I thought was almost one slipper done on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. At this point I realized that I would need two skeins of yarn. I figured I could pick one up the next day, and, even though Rodney would be home Thursday and Friday, I could get the slippers done and felted easily by the end of the next week.

Oh the best laid plans… The next day I did pick up the yarn, but I also got a phone call. By the end of the day I had a job and I would be going to work on the following Monday for what I thought was about twelve weeks. Hmmm….how was I going to get those slippers done now?

The following week I tried to crochet at lunch time, but that was not working. I was able to crochet for about an hour before Rodney came home, but I was not making much progress. About this point I realized I was not going to get the slippers done for St. Nicholas Day. So I had to contemplate what I could get him instead. I also realized that I would need yet another skein of yarn. I was getting worried that Rodney would ask why I needed more yarn when he only saw me working on hats for our niece. (I also thought he might realize something was up because Hawthorne would not leave the bag I was keeping the project in alone. We would be sitting watching TV and all of a sudden Hawthorne would be attacking the bag. I thought for sure Rodney would look to see what was in there that was so fascinating at some point!)

Niece hat #2. (My cellphone seems to have deleted 

pictures of hat #1. I will update the post if I can 

resolve that or get the niece to take a picture of it.)

So on St. Nicholas Day I put a Ritter Sport chocolate bar in Rodney’s lunch bag before I left for work. That day I made sure to eat lunch at my desk and to crochet my heart out. That afternoon I was told that the lady I was filling in for would be returning and that I would be done by Monday (yeah... ten days instead of 12 weeks). Well…at least now I knew I would have time to finish the slippers before Christmas. I possibly did not need to eat at my desk that day, however!

Now you would think that is where this story ends, but no. I finished the second slipper and I was about to sew them together when I realized that I had only crocheted six squares not the eight the pattern needs! So I set about adding to what I had already done. I was merrily crocheting away when I looked at the “L’s” I was making and realized that I was making “V’s”!  I had to rip out the new squares I had added. 

Finally they were done and I sewed them together. I expected them to be large, but not this large!

I think I could fit several feet in there!

I was a bit freaked out by this. What if they were too big? Would I have felt them several times? Would they ever shrink enough?

Well…I should not have worried. This is what they shrunk to:

Only one foot will fit now!

Now I was worried that they would not fit Rodney at all! They were tight on my foot. What could I do? And then an idea came to me. I would put on a pair of my flats and then put the still damp slippers on over them to dry. That worked like a charm! They dried well-formed and did stretch a bit. I was able to get them under the tree the Monday before Christmas.

The slippers are in the package to the right of

the tree that says "Merry Christmas".

Okay, you might think that is the end of the story, and it is sort of.  On Christmas Eve we left for my mom’s house. Rodney packed up the gifts we were taking with us there. It was decided that he would bring one of my gifts from him to open there because I had a gift for him already at my mom’s (it was this shaving set).  Well we got to the opening gifts portion of the night and when Rodney gave me my “gift” I said, “This looks familiar…” Then I noticed that it was actually the slippers. He had grabbed the wrong gift. I was going to make him wait to open it, but I wanted my mom to see the slippers.

Rodney was very surprised and could not figure out how I had got them done. And, you know what? I am not all that sure how I did either!

Happy Earth Day! ~or~ Hankies - Part 1

It is a grey and gloomy Earth Day here in Minneapolis. According to Weather.com we might see a glimpse of the sun for an hour or so this morning, but that my dears will be all we get and then later it is supposed to rain. I am going to try to be out walking during that sliver of sun, but the rest of the day will be spent indoors.

I have a plan, however, to fill those indoor hours: I am going to make hankies from old sheets! Rodney and I have at least two old sheets with holes in them. I have been saving them because I knew I could make something out of them. Well after we went through TEN boxes of Puffs in March, I think I know what we need: Hankies! And lots of them!

My plan is to get a good start on some hankies today. First I will need to rip the elastic out of the sheets and then I will need to cut them to the right size. (Hmmm…I wonder how big a hankie should be? Tissue size? Napkin size?) After I get everything cut comes the really hard part: convincing my sewing machine to sew. It has been being quite stubborn lately.

I will post pictures when I get them done. I am not sure I really need 2-3 sheets worth of hankies. What else could I make with them? Napkins, of course, but I have several cloth napkins. Any ideas out there?

I have to get ready for my walk now, or I will miss my short time window of sun and no rain. Have a great Earth Day! 

Daring Bakers Challenge: Panna Cotta and Florentine Cookies

Valentine's Day Supper ~ Part 4

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

Aren't those candy hearts cute? 

Finally we come to the dessert course of our Valentine’s Day Supper! We had the Panna Cotta and Florentine cookies that were this month’s Daring Bakers challenge.  It was the perfect end to our meal. I did not want to have quite so many sweets in the house, so I cut the recipes in half. The following recipes reflect this change. 

For the Panna Cotta you could choose the vanilla or chocolate version. Since it was Valentine’s Day I made the chocolate version. I have not worked a lot with gelatin, so I made a fairly major mistake when making this. I was only supposed to heat the gelatin for a few seconds or so, I ended up heating it for about a minute or so. That made the panna cotta quite thick. Quite Thick. It was tasty, but it was wrong. Really it is a very easy recipe and I would try it again. I just got carried away.

~~~***~~~

Chocolate Panna Cotta (Adapted from Bon Appétit)

Recipe adapted to serve two.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup whole milk

1/2 tablespoon unflavored powdered gelatin

1 cups whipping cream (30+% butterfat)

1/4 cup sugar

2.5 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Pour milk into a small bowl, sprinkle gelatin over the top, set aside for 2-5 minutes.

Place a medium saucepan over medium heat, stir in cream, sugar and vanilla. Bring to a low boil.

Add chocolate and whisk until melted. Whisk the milk/gelatin mixture into chocolate cream mixture. Whisk until gelatin has dissolved.

Transfer to ramekins, or nice glasses for serving.

Cover and chill at least 8 hours, or overnight

~~~***~~~ 

To go with the panna cotta we were to make Florentine cookies. I have never made or eaten this type of cookie, but the recipe is quite simple. I used light corn syrup because I did not have dark corn syrup in the house and I was not going to buy it when such a small amount was needed, especially since I cut the recipe in half. Also, I decided to use some of the leftover frosting from my niece’s birthday cake as the filling. I thought that it worked quite well as a filling. I think I made the cookies way too big, but they were good and went well with the panna cotta.

~~~***~~~

Florentine Cookies (Adapted from Nestle)

This is a half recipe of the original with my changes noted.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup unsalted butter

1 cups quick oats (I used thick oats and wizzed it in a food processor.)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup plain (all purpose) flour

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1/8 cup whole milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

pinch of salt

2/4 cups dark or milk chocolate (I used a delicious chocolate frosting.)

Directions:

Preheat oven to moderately hot 375°F (190°C) (gas mark 5). Prepare your baking sheet with silpat or parchment paper.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan, then remove from the heat.

To the melted butter add oats, sugar, flour, corn syrup, milk, vanilla, and salt. Mix well. Drop a tablespoon full, three inches (75 mm) apart, onto your prepared baking sheet. Flatten slightly with the back of your tablespoon, or use a spatula.

 

Bake in preheated oven for 6-8 minutes, until cookies are golden brown. Cool completely on the baking sheets.

While the cookies are cooling melt your chocolate until smooth either in the microwave (1 1/2 minutes), or stovetop (in a double boiler, or a bowl that fits atop a saucepan filled with a bit of water, being sure the water doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl).

Peel the cookies from the silpat or parchment and place face down on a wire rack set over a sheet of wax/parchment paper (to keep counters clean).

Spread a tablespoon of chocolate on the bottom/flat side of your cookie, sandwiching another (flat end) cookie atop the chocolate.

This recipe will make about 1 – 1 1/2 dozen sandwiched Florentine cookies. You can also choose not to sandwich yours, in which case, drizzle the tops with chocolate (over your wax paper).

~~~***~~~

French Fridays with Dorie: Short Ribs with Red Wine and Port

Valentine’s Day Supper ~ Part 3

After Christmas I bought Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. Shortly thereafter I found the group French Fridays with Dorie. Each week we cook one recipe from the book. 

This is the third installment of Rodney and me’s Valentine’s Day Supper. Short Ribs with Red Wine and Port was the recipe for this week’s French Fridays with Dorie challenge. I must say that the first challenge of this recipe was finding short ribs! I had no idea they were so hard to find. Rodney and I went to three different stores to find them. They were also quite expensive; while the meat itself was not that much per pound, twelve ribs came out to over 5 lbs. (Yes, I could have cut the recipe down. I think the need for a whole bottle of wine made me think that I couldn’t. I would cut the recipe in the future.)

The next challenge was finding a cooking vessel big enough for the ribs and all of the veggies and stock. It was a very tight squeeze, but I just managed to get them to fit in my largest covered casserole. They did cook beautifully in it once I had it all arranged.

The biggest challenge had nothing to do with the searching for ingredients or the cooking of the recipe. The biggest challenge was eating it. You see, a few weeks back I had the flu. I became quite ill from it as a matter of fact. Ever since that day I have had trouble eating anything similar to what I ate before the illness set in. Unfortunately that illness came after eating at a Vietnamese restaurant. Vietnamese food, as you may well know, is very influenced by French food. About half way through making this dish I realized that this must be the French version of what I ate that day.  I almost had to leave the kitchen and have Rodney finish making it.

Instead I quickly got everything in the oven and told myself that it would be okay. When it came out and I strained the veggies it would not look like that dish anymore. And it didn’t. The problem was that it still smelled like the dish. So sadly I really did not enjoy these short ribs. Rodney really liked them though. I was able to eat two small ones, but the rest became lunches for Rodney. Who knew that the after effects of the flu could last so long?

The short ribs looked great right out of the broiler.

Look at that tight fit! And that was before I added the stock!

This was also the point where I almost needed to go get Rodney.  

This is the first gremolata that I have ever made or eaten! I loved it. 

I would make it with cilantro next time. The hubbly hates cilantro so I used parsley this time. 

Short rib and gremolata united. 

The full Valentine's Day Supper. Dessert is yet to come...

Pavolva: A Story of a Birthday Cake.

My favorite all time cake is a coconut cake with lemon filling and coconut frosting. Sadly my hubbly does not like coconut, not even a little bit. Thus when my birthday rolls along it really does not make sense for me to make a big coconut cake that only I will eat. So this year I thought and thought about what I should do about a birthday sweet. Finally I decided on making a pavlova. I have wanted to make one for a couple of years now, but I have never had the right occasion.

I did a bit of internet research and found that most of the pavlova recipes were about the same. I used the one from Joy of Baking, but any meringue recipe would work. On the Baked Bree Blog I found a recipe with lemon curd in the pavolva so I incorporated that into my concoction. Because I was able to find organic strawberries, I planned to use them on top. I spent quite a bit of time trying to decide if they should be plain or macerated. I really could not decide until I saw an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay where he macerated strawberries with Chambord. Mmmm…Chambord! And I had a bottle in the cupboard. That made my decision for me!

I have not made a lot meringue in my life, so I was not sure when it is done and how to handle it. I think I moved it too soon after it came out of the oven, because it cracked badly. But when I cut it with all the toppings on it the next day it held together nicely.

The whole top basically broke off! 

(This picture refuses to turn left, so I am stuck with it being sideways.)

I thought it was quite pretty all put together. 

See it sliced really well! I was afraid I would need a spoon. 

See the yummy lemon-lime curd?

Yummers! It was the perfect end to my birthday.

Those Chambord macerated strawberries were amazing! I think I might make them next summer, let them macerate and then blend them. The resulting “juice” would be wonderful in a drink. The curd I made was a lemon-lime curd. I did not have enough lemons in the house for just a lemon curd. The great thing about making a curd with a meringue is having a way to use the egg yolks!

I must say it was quite delicious and the hubbly liked it too!

Recipes I used to make this:

Meringue ~ I did not use the whipped cream part of the recipe. Do you really need a recipe for whipped cream? But there is one here if you want one. 

Lemon Curd ~ I made a lemon-lime curd.

Chambord Strawberries ~ Okay, I did not actually follow a recipe and I cannot find a recipe attributed to Bobby Flay, but this one from Martha Stewart should be similar just use Chambord.

Recipe Note: I used homemade vanilla sugar whenever a recipe called for sugar. 

Happy Birthday to Me!

My birthday was on Thursday and it started out well with a free coffee from Dunn Bros. (I did not take a picture of that, but I think you can imagine what a take out coffee looked like.) Then I went with my Mother and Uncle to a restaurant called 3 Squares for lunch. I had never been there before, but I was hoping it would be a place that all of us would like. I was not impressed. I would go back maybe once to see if it was better, but it really was only okay.

I had the Parmesan Crusted Grilled Cheese and a side order of Tempura Green Beans. (I guess I just can’t get enough of green beans this week!) The grilled cheese was really heavy; I could not eat it all. The green beans were not really tempura. They were too heavy to be called tempura and the dipping sauce that came with them was not right. It should be soy-sauce-like not sweet-and-sour-like.  I don’t have a picture of them, but the sweet potato fries were good. Their dipping sauce was also a bit heavy, however. Nevertheless, it was fun eating out with Mom and Uncle.

After lunch they dropped me in Uptown. I wandered around until I needed a snack I went into Lucia’s and had tea and a canalé. It was lovely. It was the perfect thing to tide me over until supper.

For supper Rodney took me to Chino Latino, a fairly trendy restaurant in Uptown Minneapolis. It was very loud and vey dark. I felt a bit too old to be there but after the dink below, I did not care so much!

EL ORGAZMO:

one fresh pineapple blended with Cruzan Pineapple, Don Q Coconut and Bacardi O rums.

We ordered calamari as our appetizer. (We always order calamari the first time we visit a restaurant that has it. Chino Latino does, so we ordered it. It is one of our baseline dishes for new places.) I was not impressed, but it was not bad. Only a few pieces were a bit rubbery, otherwise it was cooked well. Still it did not stand out to me. For our main course we ordered the fish tacos. Now they were really good and fun to eat. A perfect plate to share!

LAMMA ISLAND SALTY SQUID:

crisp fried calamari with a spicy pepper salt from some island in the South China Sea

BAJA BEACH SHACK FISH TACO PLATER

10oz of herb-dusted cod fillets, flash fried and served with crunchy jicama slaw, 

Screamin' Gringo Hot Sauce, guacamole, queso fresco, pico de gallo and fresh corn tortillas

We ended our evening out by going to the play Shirley Valentine at the Jungle Theater. It was really good! I had never seen the original play before. I had seen a version based more on the movie. I enjoyed myself thoroughly!

When I got home I put together a pavlova I had started the day before. It was my “Birthday Cake”.  (I have a long story to share about the pavlova so I will continue it in another post.) It was a great end to a great day!

Okay, I may have had some pavolva issues.

You will have to read the post!

Celebrations: Super Bowl Sunday & Brit’s Birthday

I spent most of my life avoiding the Super Bowl at all costs. I did not care about the commercials and I cared even less for the game itself. Then I met my then-husband-to-be and that changed. His family has a Super Bowl party every year. I can’t say that my opinions have really changed, but I have watched the last five Super Bowls.  Still, for me it all about the food and this year was also about our niece Brit’s birthday.

The party this year actually took place at my BIL & SIL-to-be’s home. Everyone brought a little something. For the game we made pizzas. I made the crust using the crust recipe from Jim Lehey’s Pizza Patate. We use this crust often when making pizza. We have found, however, that if you are not making the potato pizza it is best to par-bake the crust for about 10 minutes before putting toppings on it and baking it again. It is much crispier that way. Rodney was in charge of actually making the pizzas. He made one half cheese/half pepperoni and he made the other one half pepperoni, sausage and mushroom (his favorite)/half sausage, onion and green olive (my favorite). I thought they turned out quite nice.

The pepperonis on top show what side is the pepperoni side. 

After several text messages and Facebook exchanges it was decided that for Brit’s birthday I would make a chocolate cake. The cake part itself was easy; I used the recipe for Dark Chocolate Cake from Food.Com. I made the recipe with no changes. I have never had problems with this recipe and it has a spot in our Tried & Chewed folder. My only suggestion is to use the best quality Dutch-processed cocoa you can find, because the better the quality, the better the cake. 

The frosting was a bit harder. I did not want to use cocoa powder in the frosting. Instead, I had some Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips on hand and I wanted to use those. After a lot of web-surfing I found a great recipe on the Williams-Sonoma site. The recipe called for unsweetened chocolate, but I used the milk chocolate mixed with a bit of Chocolove 77% chocolate. It came out really great. It was all Rodney and I could do to not just eat it out of the bowl! However, as you can see below, I was able to get the cake frosted. The cake and the frosting where a great combination! 

  

There was Neapolitan and Pistachio ice creams to go with the cake. 

The secret to to a tasty cake: 

homemade vanilla made with Calvert Whiskey.

Happy Birthday Brit!!

Today is her actual B-day. She is older than three!

Recipe Links:

Crust Recipe

Cake Recipe

Frosting Recipe