December keepers

You may have noticed I didn't post as often this month. December is just crazy. There was a lot more eating out, eating at other people's houses, ordering in, and making meals that were either not worth blogging about or covered keepers I've already filled you in on. Here are the best:


December 1st: Spicy Southwest Pork Tenderloin
December  8th: Sausage, Peppers and Peas
December  11th: Chicken with Roasted Garlic
December  15th: Southwest Salmon and Green Beans Amandine
December 16th: Mochaccino Shakes
December  18th: Hoisin Steak Stir-fry
December  21st-23rd: Lemon Chicken Stew, Candied Pecans, Pecan-Cranberry Granola
December  21st-23rd: Egg Nog, Tangy Maple Meatballs, Beer & 5-Cheese Penne, Frank's Red Hot Wings


Now to January: detoxing and gearing up for the year ahead. Happy 2011!

December 21st-23rd: egg nog, mac & cheese, meatballs, wings

This is retrospective #2 on last week's "best of."


Egg Nog
This is a recipe I've had for a billion years, and it is so good, I must share. (No pic because white drink + white mug = bad photos. I need a new camera.) I made this Tuesday night and drank the leftovers Wednesday morning, re-heated.


1 egg yolk*
2 tbsp sugar
2 cups milk**
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
pinch nutmeg


In a saucepan, whisk sugar into egg yolk. Stir in remaining ingredients and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, till hot.


Makes 2 servings.


*perhaps you want to use the egg white to make Candied Pecans?
**the higher the milk fat percentage, the creamier the egg nog; I used 2%


Tangy Maple Meatballs
A keeper, and served at the Christmas Eve eve party. We had 4 meatballs leftover; don't know why. (No picture, oops, that's what happens when you're busy hosting.)


Meatballs
1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 lb ground pork
1 egg, whisked
2 tbsp parsley, freshly chopped or dried, optional
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste


Sauce
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp vinegar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup finely diced onion


Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine ground meats, egg, parsley, Worcestershire, salt and pepper. Form into 1 1/2" balls. Place in 8" square pan. Bake for 20 minutes.


Meanwhile, combine cornstarch, dry mustard and remaining salt in a small saucepan. Gradually stir in vinegar, maple syrup, water and onion. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Remove from heat.


Drain fat from meatballs and pour sauce over them. Return to oven and bake 20 minutes longer.


Makes 4 servings.


Beer & 5-Cheese Penne (AKA fancy mac & cheese)
This was a gamble, one of the recipes I made for the party without trying it out in advance. It involves gorgonzola, which had Greg worried, as he is not into blue cheese. It was, however, delicious. The blue cheese gets diluted by all the others involved. Definitely not your waist-friendly mac & cheese, but if you're cooking for a crowd, it's all good! (no pic again)


1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 cup (125 mL) flour
1/2 cup (125 mL) amber beer
2 cups (500 mL) half and half cream
1/2 lb (225 g) brie (remove any rind)
16 oz (500 g) cream cheese
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
2 1/2 cups (625 mL) shredded Cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) grated Parmesan cheese, divided
16 oz (500 g) penne pasta, cooked al dente and drained
salt (if necessary) and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup (125 mL) panko or bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In a medium, heavy-bottom pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk in the flour to form a light roux. Slowly whisk in the beer and half and half.

Add the brie and cream cheese to the sauce, stirring until the cheeses are melted and incorporated. Stir in the Gorgonzola, Cheddar and 1 cup (250 mL) Parmesan cheese.

Stir in the pasta, then taste and adjust the seasoning as desired with salt and pepper.

Pour the mixture into a 13 by 9 inch baking dish. Top the mixture by sprinkling over the remaining Parmesan cheese and panko crumbs. Place the dish in the oven and bake until the sauce is bubbly and the toppings are crisp and golden, about 1/2 an hour.

Cool slightly before serving. Makes 12-16 servings.

Frank's Red Hot Wings
The hit of the party, for sure. (These were made late in the night though, when opinions were not the most neutral. However, these really are the best wings I've ever made, and I've made many wings. We make these ones several times a year. Yum.) From the Frank's Red Hot website, with some modifications by moi. If you were to order these in a pub, I believe they would be classified as "medium" heat wings. (no pic)


1 lb split chicken wings, tips removed
1 cup flour
1 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup Frank's original cayenne pepper sauce
1/3 cup salted butter, melted


Preheat oven to 500°F. Combine flour, salt and pepper in a large bag or bowl, and toss chicken wings to coat. Shake off any excess flour and place wings on a parchment-paper lined baking sheet.*


Place in oven and reduce heat to 400°F. Bake 45 minutes, turning wings halfway.


Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine Frank's sauce and melted butter. When wings are cooked, toss in sauce and serve.


Sour cream optional. Napkins necessary.


*The more space the wings have between one another, the crispier they will cook up.

December 21st-23rd: the best of Christmas week cooking

If you can imagine, Christmas week has been on the hectic side, and there's been little time for cooking, let alone posting. Rather, there has been night after night of staying up til midnight prepping: painting, cooking (for later) and a bit of wrapping. With the culmination of the preparations over (AKA Christmas Eve eve party), I can now sit back and relax. Or cook some more, which is more likely.


As a retrospective, I'll just touch on some yummies this week:


Lemon Chicken Stew
From In Erika's Kitchen. I made this on Monday night and we ate it on Tuesday night. This is a simple chicken thigh-based stew and it's a slow cook (2 hours on the stove-top), but the meat falls apart with a fork when it is done. Lovely. It's really strong in lemon flavour, a bit more than I would like (and I love lemon!). I didn't add figs though (pure laziness, and note the above busy-ness of the week) and I didn't have as much meat as the recipe called for; those two items may have cut the sourness. The stew also has olives, which are soft and slip right off the pits. Have I mentioned my child's love for olives? She digs strong flavours. Greg gave her all of his.

Candied Pecans
From Cooking With My Kid. I made this for our Christmas Eve eve party, and received several compliments on them. These are really easy, just a slow cook again (1 hour). I didn't know what baker's sugar is, nor could I find it in the grocery store, so I used half icing sugar and half granulated. Worked out just fine.

Granola
From December 2010's Chatelaine. Pecan-Cranberry Granola. I also made this for our Christmas Eve eve party but had some with yogurt for breakfast for a few days in advance of the party. I don't think many people tried it but that's okay because I loved it and will eat it up myself.

People also loved the prosciutto-wrapped dates and Parmesan.

Top row L-R: salami + olives; salami + tomatoes
Middle row: prosciutto + dates + Parmesan
Bottom row: prosciutto + dates + Parmesan; salami + olives

This is not even close to the amount of food I've cooked this week, but why inundate you when I can highlight the best?


Merry Christmas to all. :)

December 19th: Buttermilk Pumpkin Pancakes

(Breakfast post.) If you're like me and have some pumpkin in your freezer you'd like to use up, I might recommend this pancake recipe from Cooking With My Kid: Buttermilk Pumpkin Pancakes. Olivia and I made these for breakfast this morning and it was a tasty way to start the day, without being too sweet. Full disclosure: I used one cup white flour and one cup whole wheat, although the recipe calls for two of the latter. Bonus: now I have enough pancakes in the freezer to feed Olivia breakfast en route to gymnastics for all of January, and maybe a little longer!

December 18th: Hoisin steak stir-fry

From the keeper book, as I don't have time to expend on unfamiliar recipes this week: from September 2005's Chatelaine: Hoisin steak stir-fry with egg noodles. We've made this one time and again and it's not the most amazing stir-fry ever, but it is consistently good. Go easy on the sauce; it's strong-tasting and you don't need much on the plate.

I used broccoli in place of green beans.

December 16th: Fiesta Chicken Soup and Mocha Milkshakes

Feeding the in laws tonight, so a perfect time to make a big pot of soup. No leftovers, just the way I like it! This one was from the 2009 Milk Calendar: Fiesta Chicken Soup. I made this one last year and we liked it enough to try it again. Not quite good enough to be a keeper, but pretty good. I took the suggestion of adding a can of chilies as well as some hot red pepper flakes to the pot. Topped with Monteray Jack cheese, tomatoes and cilantro, pretty good!


To accompany the soup, which I expected to be spicy (it was, mildly), I made the best milkshake recipe I have ever tried ever: Rachael Ray's Mochaccino Shakes. I came across this one years ago and I would drink it every week if I could! We have it about once a year as a treat. I use Haagen-Dazs ice cream (2 pints = 1 L), and for the coffee, I just use instant coffee mixed with cold water. I don't do the whipped cream or chocolate shavings unless I'm super organized, which I am usually not on Thursday night! I only had enough ice cream to make 2 servings, but had to spread it out for 5 people, so I may just have to treat us to this one again sometime before a year is up.

December 15th: Southwest Salmon & Green Beans Amandine

Keepers! Keepers! Keepers! How I love you! Two keeper recipes tonight for supper: From March 2006's Chatelaine: Salmon goes southwestern and from May 2010's Today's Parent: Green Beans Amandine. Both recipes are heavily flavoured by citrus: lime for the salmon and lemon for the beans. The salmon recipe is written for 1 serving, so simply multiply by the number of people you are serving. Two changes to the bean recipe: I would up the almonds to 1/2 cup and reduce the salt to 1/2 tsp. Other than that, yum yum yum! I served this meal with quinoa on the side.

December 13th: Upside-Down Chicken Pot Pies

It's been two months since I last made pot pie, so it was time again. This one from December 2010's Chatelaine: Upside-Down Chicken Pot Pies. As far as weeknight meals go, this is the quickest pot pie I've made yet. Would have been even quicker if I had turned on the large burner under my large pot rather than the small one. Bloody stupid glass top stove. Again, this one is not as good as our famous keeper recipe, which I haven't shared yet, but it was tasty nonetheless.

Side dish to this meal was Braised red cabbage from in erika's kitchen. The recipe ingredients are almost identical to the Chatelaine one I made Saturday, but the longer cooking time made for more tender cabbage in the end. We liked this version a bit better, but decided we're not super fans of red cabbage. Gorgeous colour though, and I'm assuming chalk full of nutrients and likely local to boot (I didn't check the sign when I bought it).

(Not sure why my links aren't navigating to a new page. Am I writing my HTML code incorrectly? Too tired to figure this one out...)

December 11th: Chicken with Roasted Garlic; Chocolate Chip Ginger Cookies

I wish every night could be Saturday night for oh, so many reasons. Often, the only night of the week I watch TV or a movie. Still a whole day left before worrying about schedules. Hopefully, accomplished something during the day and feeling good about that. And, oh, the food! This Saturday night was a success. From December 2010's Chatelaine: Chicken with Roasted Garlic. I used 21 cloves of garlic to two chicken breasts. We like garlic. This was drink-the-sauce delicious, and really quite simple. To accompany, from the same magazine, I made braised red cabbage wedges, topped with sour cream. This was good, but not keeper good. I'll be making an almost identical recipe again this week, because the three of us can't eat a whole (giant!) red cabbage in one go. I chose this recipe to make up for the lack of colour in the rest of the meal, which was rounded out by some bread (supposed to be homemade, but I was too tired to put in the 5 minutes of work on Friday night after some spontaneous late-night Christmas shopping).

From the same magazine, I also made Chocolate Chip Ginger Cookies. I used chocolate chips instead of chunks (why chop chocolate if you don't have to?). I was disappointed with these. I thought they'd be flavourful power houses; they weren't as strong as I expected. I may actually try them again, and add some candied ginger to the dry mixture; that would up the flavour, I think.

December 9th: Ginger-shrimp brown rice bowl

Okay, this one is just weird. From December 2010's Chatelaine: Ginger-shrimp brown rice bowl. I had doubts about this one, but I was swayed by the "reader comment" saying it was good. No. It was weird. Asian flavours + avocado + feta = not good. I considered not blogging about this one at all, but I did learn one trick tonight to getting Olivia to eat shrimp: honey for dip! She ate 4 large shrimp, a record number for her.

Our good night went downhill from there though: ending in tantrums and me saying "Olivia, you need to relax," and her choking out, "I ... Don't ... Want ... To ... Breathe!" So much for my yoga breathing techniques, which have always worked well in the past. That sentence broke my heart. :(

Now, at 10:10 p.m., here we are, both still awake. Sigh. But at least we've made up.

December 8th: Sausage, peppers and peas + Brussels sprouts and bacon

Crazy Chatelaine had this sausage recipe (from December 2010's Chatelaine: Sausage, peppers and peas) calling for one sausage, but making 4 servings. Granted, it was intended to be a side dish. I wanted it to be my main, so I upped the sausage number to 5 (a whole package), and added half a white onion. I didn't use chorizo, but rather German sausages, which meant the cooking time was a bit extended from what the recipe recommends. With no fat or flavouring other than what the sausages supplied, this was a delicious meal. To accompany, I made one from Epicurious: Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Lemon and Bacon. This was a re-try from some past time (can't remember) and I don't know that I loved it quite as much this time. I do love Brussels sprouts though, so can't say too much against it. I skipped the salt called for in the recipe, as I think the bacon supplies quite enough.

All three of us loved this meal. Is this a weird thing though? I felt unsatisfied by the fact that everything in the meal was pre-chopped. It seemed like toddler food, and I wanted to be a big girl and use a knife. Hmm.

December 6th: Perogies with garlic spinach

We're getting close to Christmas and I've got perogies on my mind. Not just any perogies. Dad's perogies. No joke, my dad makes the best perogies in the whole wide world. I know all you folks of eastern European descent with family recipes are already protesting, but it's true. It's all about the love. Perogies are a Christmas Eve tradition, and therefore, one that I've missed out on for too many years, as I no longer spend Christmas with my family. Let's not go there.

Full disclosure: I hate making perogies. I don't have the patience for the amount of labour they require as compared to the small amount of time they get eaten in. It's a whole production line thing that George and Shannon are good at, and I am not. (I am good at eating them, though.)

So I buy M&M Meat Shops perogies. These are NO WHERE near as good as the real thing, but I make do. Tonight, I made do with the following recipe from December 2010's Chatelaine: Perogies with garlic spinach. This was a pretty tasty meal, and yes, easy to boot. Not quite an entire meal on its own, but with some broccoli on the side, and with me eating part of Olivia's serving (5 perogies are a bit much for her), I was pretty full when all was said and done. I added some salt, pepper and fresh lemon juice to my spinach, as it needed a bit of jazzing up. The perogies don't need anything more than the tasty lemon-yogurt dip.

December 5th: Rosé Penne & Raspberry Vinaigrette

The two items listed in the title were NOT eaten together. The Rosé Penne recipe was from a Philadelphia Cream Cheese ad, and the Raspberry Vinaigrette (eaten on a spinach salad) was from December 2010's Chatelaine. Both were good, and this was a really easy weeknight meal. I might not make either one again, but you would likely enjoy the results if you were to make this meal yourself.

The Raspberry Vinaigrette goes like this: Whisk 1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam with 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil and 2 tsp white-wine vinegar.

However, back in July, Chatelaine had a Raspberry Vinaigrette I liked better. This is the one I would really recommend. Here it is: Whisk 1/4 cup raspberry jam with 2 tbsp water, 2 tbsp red-wine vinegar and lots of pepper. Whisk in 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil.

December 1st: spicy southwest pork tenderloin

From the keeper book, from July 2006's Chatelaine: Spicy southwest pork tenderloin (that's my name for the recipe). I keep it simple and use Tabasco, not chipotle pepper. Mm mm mm.

The sauces in the background are really what the recipe is all about. In our case: L: no cilantro, R: cilantro. I'm such a good wife, I put up with such effrontery in my kitchen (no cilantro, that is). I don't think I boiled my sauce down enough tonight; it was on the runny side. Been awhile since I last made this, so I can't remember.

Yes, I know. It's a barbecue recipe and it's December 1st. We're having freakishly warm weather in Ottawa, my barbecue knobs unfroze, and I took advantage of it. I think you could bake the tenderloin just as easily.

Likely won't be posting for a few days. O is off to the grandparents, and I'm off to Montreal!