Turkey Day Plans

Have I mentioned that Thanksgiving is my very most favorite holiday? Above Christmas Eve, Christmas Day (although they run a close 3rd and 2nd, respectively), New Year's Eve and even my birthday, Thanksgiving Day is simply the best.

This year, The Husband and I will be celebrating together and, even though it will be an intimate supper for two, you betcha this gal has got a plan of attack. Any excuse to draw up menus and timelines and serving plans, right?

I think we'll start the morning off with these Easy Cheese Danishes, a la Ina Garten. This was going to be a surprise for The Husband, but he reads this blog, soooo... (hi, hubby!)

The rest of the menu is part-traditional, part-let's-use-what's-in-the-fridge-and-avoid-the-crazies-at-the-grocery.

Roasted chicken (in lieu of turkey)

Stuffing (yes, I stuff, not dress, and I don't care to hear one word about it)

Gravy
Mashed po-tah-toes

Sauteed spinach (in lieu of green beans)

Cranberry sauce (from the can, yes)

Pecan walnut pie (a new recipe to attempt)

Wine (very necessary)

Speaking of wine, my mom has (had?) an apron, which I loved to wear while testing my baking skills in the kitchen as a youngster. It said "A Day Without Wine is Like A Day Without Sunshine." So. Mystery solved, I think. Also, Mom? I can haz that apron now, yes? Pretty please?

What are your plans for the big day? Big family celebration? Small dinner with your significant other?

Whatever they may be, I hope you have a wonderful and very Happy Thanksgiving.

In which I lose... to a corn pancake...

Last night I made my first attempt at cachapas. Cachapas are a Venezuelan corn pancake, basically. The dish is so popular it even has its own wikipedia page: See?

Now, the cachapas that I've met and loved look like this:



Gorgeous, no?

They are sweet, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, and tasty and typically filled with a cheese (queso guayanes) that it similar in texture to fresh mozzarella, but a bit saltier and stretchable.

I should have known that this was not going to be simple when the following things occurred:
1) I could not find queso guayanes locally,
2) I could not find queso guayanes on le intertubes for less than $40, and
3) My brother-in-law laughed his butt off when I said I was going to make cachapas from scratch.

However, once I decide I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it come hell or high-water. It's part of my charm, this stubbornness. You can thank my father. Or my mother. I'm not sure which deserves the most credit, honestly.

Anyway. Last night, after prepping the batter, a decent dozen attempts at the very simple process of making pancakes and the better part of an hour, I ran out of batter for cachapas.

The result? 4 kinda-sorta-maybe passable cachapas (albeit with mozzarella cheese as a stand-in), 6 piles of cooked/scrambled cachapa batter and 2 oh-my-word-is-that-burned-baby-food-?, uh, things.

::sigh:: I'm not giving up, though. No sir. I will triumph over cachapas. After all, I'm nothing if not stubborn. ;-)

Venezuelan Cachapas
Ingredients
3 1/4 c fresh sweet corn kernels
1/2 c sugar
3/4 tsp salt
3 egg whites
3-4 tbs arepa mix

1) In a food processor, blend the corn until it is a light yellow, milky mixture
2) Add sugar, salt and egg whites and blend
3) If mixture is too thin, add arepa mix until proper consistency is achieved (it should look like pancake batter)
4) Oil or butter a pan and heat until droplets of water sizzle
5) Make a pancake using the cachapa batter and let cook until golden brown on bottom
6) Flip and cook other side
7) Remove from pan, add cheese and fold in half
8) Serve and enjoy!

Cocktails for the weekend!

Full disclosure: The Husband and I belong to Domaine Chandon's wine club, so every month we get two of their wines delivered to our door. No, it's not free, but I am totally biased in favor of pretty much all their wines. Just sos yous knows.

A couple days ago, the Chandon Club on Twitter sent me a little link featuring some new cocktail recipes that I hadn't seen yet. Coooool, huh?

Well, I asked them if I could share and they said yes, so here it is! Just for y'all. ;-)

Domaine Chandon's Cocktail Party Drink Recipes

Now get out there and kick off your weekend in style!

Lemon mimosas

French 75 from Commander's Palace, aka: the *real* motivation behind last weekend's party.

The Husband and I were so lucky to be able to enjoy brunch at Commander's Palace when we visited New Orleans last month. It was there that I discovered this delish little drink. So delish, in fact, that I then and there declared my drink for the rest of the summer. The French 75. Champagne + lemon simple syrup + gin = perfection. Who knew?

When we planned our little Splash, Sip & See! party (are you tired of hearing about it yet? No? Good. lol.), I wanted to have this drink and figured that we could also serve regular boring mimosas, too.

However. We are not gin drinkers. Amongst the rum, vodka, scotch, wines, bourbon and lord knows what else, there's a serious gin deficiency in our liquor cabinent.

So, I attempted a French 76, which is the vodka version, and so very not the same.

And thus, the lemon mimosa was born. I'm sure it has a real name. Alas, I do not know it.

Lemon Mimosa
One regular, run of the mill ice cube of lemon simple syrup
One glass of champagne/sparkling wine

1. Pour one flute of champagne/sparkling wine, leave a little room at the top
2. Add cube of lemon simple syrup, wait for it to melt (don't worry, your wine will still stay cold)
3. Enjoy!

Lemon Simple Syrup
2 1/2 cups water
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel
1 1/4 cups lemon juice (about 7 large lemons)

1. In a medium saucepan, heat and stir water and sugar over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat; cool 20 minutes.
2. Add citrus peel and juice to sugar mixture. Pour into a jar; cover and chill up to 3 days. Or, pour into ice cube trays (one batch will fill about 2.5 trays) and freeze. Pop cubes into ziplocs and enjoy single serve lemonade or lemon mimosas whenever you like!

**** Wanna make a whole pitcher of lemon mimosas? Just up the number of cubes to about 8 per bottle of champagne/sparkling wine. ****

Lemon Cupcakes

Score one for another not-so-fab photo. ::le sigh::

Anyway, I made these cupcakes from a cake recipe in a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook my mom sent me. I've been on a bit of a lemon/citrus kick lately and these just called to me. The cake part is a smidge dry and the cream cheese frosting not as lemon-y as I wanted (difficult to please, much? no?) but the cupcakes disappeared from the party almost as quickly as the easy cheese danishes, so...

One note: at one point the batter will look like your eggs curdled in it. Yipes! If I hadn't known about this from Ina's coconut cake recipe, I probably would have cried and tossed it out to start over. Don't! It'll thicken up properly after you add the flour mixture.

One more note: I modified the recipe into cupcakes, the original cake recipe is what appears here. I can't really vouch for anything related to the lemon curd or layering, just FYI.

Triple-Layer Lemon Cake
1 cup butter, softened
4 eggs
2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons finely shredded lemon peel
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 cup buttermilk or sour milk
1 cup lemon curd
Cream cheese frosting

1. Allow butter and eggs to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, grease and lightly flour three 9x1 1/2 inch round cake pans. (Alternatively, place paper liners in cupcake pans.) In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

2. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, lemon peel and lemon juice; beat until well combined. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk/sour milk to egg mixture, beating on low speed after each addition until just combined. (Easiest way to do this? Add half the flour mixture, then all the buttermilk/sour milk, and finish with rest of flour mixture.) Pour into prepared pans.

3. Bake in 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near centers comes out clean. Cool cake layers in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Remove cake layers from pans. Cool thoroughly on racks.

4. To assemble, place a cake layer on a cake plate. Spread half of the lemon curd. Top with the second cake layer, spread with remaining lemon curd. Top with the third cake layer. Frost top and sides with cream cheese frosting. Cover and store in refrigerator for up to 3 days. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving.

Garbanzo Bean Salad: featuring the worst food picture ever!

I am admittedly terrible at recording my recipes. When any of my friends ask me for a copy of the recipe I used for X, Y, Z the response is usually this: "I... uh... well, I think I used... no. That's not right. Huh. What did I put in there?"

On the off chance I actually remember the ingredients, I'll be hard pressed to remember the amounts of them. Ooops.

However! When prepping for our little "Splash, Sip & See!" party, I needed to gather the ingredients for my garbanzo bean salad, thus, for the first time ever, writing down all the ingredients for a recipe that I made up! Hizzah! Progress!

This salad is best made a couple days before you plan to serve it and is so very perfect for a hot summer day. It doesn't last in our house very long, either, because someone (me) eats it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Garbanzo Bean Salad:
2 cans of garbanzo beans/chickpeas (unsalted, preferred)
1 can of artichoke hearts
1 jar of roasted red peppers
1/2 jar of garlic stuffed green olives
Cherry tomatoes (as many or as few as you like)
Extra virgin olive oil
Squeeze of lemon juice (to taste)
Salt and pepper (to taste)

1. Rinse the garbanzo beans and place in a medium sized bowl (you want enough room to stir/mix the ingredients)
2. Quarter the artichoke hearts and add to the garbanzo beans
3. Rinse the roasted red peppers, and cut/slice into 1.5 inch pieces. Add to the bowl.
4. Cut the olives: first in half and then slice. Add to bowl.
5. Cut the cherry tomatoes to whatever size you like. I like them halved then sliced like the olives. Add to bowl.
6. Add a generous turn or two of olive oil around the bowl.
7. A squeeze of lemon to taste.
8. Salt and pepper to taste.
9. Stir, chill for at least a few hours, and
10. Enjoy!












Sorry for the terrible photo. It tastes waaaaay better than this picture looks!

Easy Cheese Danish

Originally from The Barefoot Contessa

Ingredients:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
2 extra-large egg yolks, at room temperature Ashley-cita says: 2 large egg yolks are fine
2 tablespoons ricotta cheese
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest: about 2 lemons Ashley-cita says: I did one large lemon and one small mandarin orange
2 sheets (1 box) frozen puff pastry, defrosted
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash

(not pictured: the salt. Oh well.)
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

Place the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and cream them together on low speed until smooth.
With the mixer still on low, add the egg yolks, ricotta, vanilla, salt, and lemon zest and mix until just combined. Don't whip!

Unfold 1 sheet of puff pastry onto a lightly floured board and roll it slightly with a floured rolling pin until it's a 10 by 10-inch square. Cut the sheet into quarters with a sharp knife. Ashley-cita says: After making ginormous danishes this way, I tried cutting the sheet into nine even squares. This worked much better, in my opinion... Sorry, Ina!

Place a heaping tablespoon of cheese filling into the middle of each of the four nine squares.

Brush the border of each pastry with egg wash and fold 2 opposite corners to the center, brushing and overlapping the corners of each pastry so they firmly stick together.

Brush the top of the pastries with egg wash.

Place the pastries on the prepared sheet pan. Repeat with the second sheet of puff pastry and refrigerate the filled Danish for 15 minutes. Ashley-cita says: Uh, yeah, I totally skipped the refrigeration part. Didn't seem to harm them at all.

Bake the pastries for about 20 minutes, rotating the pan once during baking, until puffed and brown. Ashley-cita says: Rotate... uh... right. Didn't do that either.

Serve warm.
Ashley-cita says: Yuummmmmm!

Coconut Cake

This was the cake I chose to make for our party to kickoff the holidays and to celebrate my birthday. Yes, I made my own birthday cake. Yes, it was totally worth it.

As anyone who's made an Ina Garten recipe knows, this cake required a lot of butter, eggs and sugar. Ah, and whole milk. I guess we should be thankful that she didn't go with heavy cream again. She must be in competition with Paula Deen. LOL. Recipe here.

The cake really was not that difficult and was absolutely delicious. The only edit I made to her recipe was with the cream cheese frosting. Ina uses a pound of confectioner's sugar and I used much less than that. We like our cream cheese frosting to be more tangy than sweet, thank you very much.

Wild mushroom and stilton galette

Originally done by Deb at Smitten Kitchen.

I love Smitten Kitchen. On any given day, she has many recipes and photos to drool over, but one of my favorites is a roasted butternut squash and caramelized onion galette which I make every chance I get during fall. So, when I made this challenge to myself to attempt 15 new recipes, this mushroom and stilton galette was at the top of my list because of its similarity to that squash-onion tart.

People. I am not in love with this recipe. In fact, I'm incredibly underwhelmed. It's missing something, or several somethings, so I'll have to give it another go. So far, I'm thinking a bit more garlic and blue cheese, and maybe some pancetta.

On a positive note, this crust is fantastic. I don't know that I'd use it for sweet tarts, but for savory ones, I think this is my new staple. Very easy and very forgiving while you're rolling it out.

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Mushroom and Stilton Galette

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Seasonal Celebration Series, Autumn, by Joanne Weir
For the pastry:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp. salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut intopieces

1/4 cup sour cream

2 tsp. fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup ice water

For the filling:

1/4 oz. dried wild mushrooms, such aschanterelles, porcini or shiitakes

1 cup boiling water

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

3/4 cup sliced green onions

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary

1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

1/2 lb. assorted fresh wild mushrooms, such aschanterelles, porcini and shiitakes, brushedclean and large mushrooms thinly sliced

1/2 lb. fresh button mushrooms, brushed cleanand thinly sliced

5 oz. Stilton or other good-quality blue cheese

1. To make the pastry, in a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Place the butter in another bowl. Place both bowls in the freezer for 1 hour. Remove the bowls from the freezer and make a well in the center of the flour. Add the butter to the well and, using a pastry blender, cut it in until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Make another well in the center. In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream, lemon juice and water and add half of this mixture to the well. With your fingertips, mix in the liquid until large lumps form. Remove the large lumps and repeat with the remaining liquid and flour-butter mixture. Pat the lumps into a ball; do not overwork the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

2. Meanwhile, make the filling: Place the dried mushrooms in a small bowl and add the boiling water. Let stand for 30 minutes until softened. Drain the mushrooms and mince finely.

3. Preheat an oven to 400 degrees.

4. In a large fry pan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the green onions and saute, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, rosemary and thyme and continue to cook, stirring, for 1 minute more. Increase the heat to high, add the fresh and rehydrated mushrooms, and saute until the mushrooms are tender and the liquid they released has completely evaporated, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a plate and let cool.

5. On a floured work surface, roll out the dough into a 12-inch round. Transfer to an ungreased baking sheet. Crumble the blue cheese into a bowl, add the cooled mushrooms and stir well. Spread the mixture over the dough, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border. Fold the border over the mushrooms and cheese, pleating the edge to make it fit. The center will be open.

6. Bake until golden brown, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from the oven, let stand for 5 minutes, then slide the galette onto a serving plate. Cut into wedges and serve hot, warm or at room temperature. Serves 6.