Fresh Pasta

I am notorious for saying things like "uhh, I don't know" or "I haven't even thought about it" or "hmmm, let me think about it" when asked what I want for Christmas, my birthday, etc. Well, this year, I had a break-through.  When my mom asked, I had an answer!  Where did this come from?  The dark recesses of my mind had opened but how, why? My answer:  "I want the pasta machine attachment for my standing mixer."

There, I said it.

So you may ask, "Wow, where did that come from?"  For years, I've read a gazillion recipes calling for fresh pasta, if available. I've also read countless articles about how fresh pasta just can't be beat for lasagna, ravioli, you name it.  You may have come across recipes that describe to you how you can roll pasta dough out by hand and then cut into the shapes you want.  Yes, I suppose that is possible.  But rest assured, to roll pasta to true pasta thickness would take you about 2 hours of rolling pin work.  No thanks. You need a pasta machine.

As I'm sure you've surmised, mom and dad came through with the Kitchenaid attachment. I was elated!  As soon as I got it home I had to try it out.  Here's the coolest part of this story: it is insanely easy to make pasta. I made a basic egg pasta dough, then used my machine to create fresh spaghetti.  If you have a Kitchenaid mixer, you simply mix up the dough in the mixer.  Let it rest for about 20 minutes, then attach the pasta roller to the front.  You effortlessly roll the pasta to the right thickness, then switch to one of the cutter attachments (I have spaghetti and fettucine) and viola! you have pasta.  

I bagged some up for mom and dad then cooked up some for the three of us to try.  Vivi wanted hers plain.  Neil and I had it with a basic red sauce.  The noodles were so tender!  Store bought noodles never have this subtle tenderness.  Right out of the pot, they taste good from the simple salted water.  Since making the initial batch, I whipped up a little lunch for Neil using the fresh spaghetti, some cooked chicken I had in the fridge, leftover asparagus, parmesan and olive oil. He left not one noodle in that bowl!

My next attempt is going to be lasagna.  This is one of my mom's favorite dishes and I can't wait to make one with fresh pasta sheets.  We'll start with traditional but then I want to try out a recipe in one of my Williams-Sonoma cookbooks for duck lasagna with a cabernet sauce.  Oh yeah...

Merry Christmas to Me!

I invited my parents to come to our house for Christmas Eve this year.  I can't remember the last time I had them come over for dinner, much less dinner for a special occasion.  I contemplated various menus and ideas.  One thing I knew was that I wanted to go all out and make it a special dinner. After all, we're talking about Christmas.

As most of you are aware, I truly love to cook.  More than cooking for the sake of cooking, I really love to cook for others.  I'm fortunate that I have Neil and Vivian who are very appreciative and adventurous eaters here at my disposal. But, when other people get in the mix, it really gets me going.  Having mom and dad coming for dinner got my heart pumping, my brain whirring and my cookbooks flying.  This, for me, was the ultimate Christmas present.  To cook for my family and to cook something special.

After much deliberation, I came up with this menu:

• She-crab soup (no roe, you know, since we can't get it anymore)
• Prime rib (I've never cooked this before; maiden voyage)
• Roasted asparagus
• Syracuse salt potatoes 
• Creme brulee 

She-crab is one of my favorite foods on Earth. I've never made it at home, so I was super excited about this.  I used a recipe that I found here. The one change I made was that I finely diced celery and sauteed that with the onion.  Some of my favorite she-crabs I've ever had have that little bit of veggie texture.  I know, I know.  I am a life-long hater of celery.  But, I know enough to know its place when cooked to softness. This is the real deal she-crab.  Since it was Christmas, I made it as written.  In the future, on regular days, I'll be lightening it up for sure.  But, Dave, whoever you are, I salute you!  My parents thought this soup was better than any restaurant version they've ever had.

Seasoned & ready for the oven

The prime rib was ridiculously easy.  I followed a basic "recipe" mainly just to know temperatures and times.  I got the oven up to 475, put the roast in then immediately reduced the heat to 325.  Cooked for about 2.5 hours.  Then, rested for about 20 minutes.  I did this without a meat thermometer, seein' as how I didn't have one. (Next day, I got a fancy electronic, remote control one from my parents!)  Regardless, the steak was perfect.  When Neil sliced it up, we all exclaimed that it looked like a restaurant prime rib.  Cooked perfectly, if I do say so myself! I accompanied this with simple roasted asparagus and Syracuse salt potatoes. 

My dad isn't a big sweet eater, like myself.  However, we both can appreciate subtle sweetness like a simple creme brulee.  And, the Vivver likes it too.  So, again, super easy. I served this for dessert with coffee, Kahlua, champagne or whatever stuck each person's fancy. 

My family was generous with the compliments, which is always great to hear, of course.  However, for me, the real pleasure was simply having them here and creating a special meal for us to enjoy together.  Cooking for people you care about is one of the most special activites in which a cook can engage.  And the fact that all my dishes worked was certainly a big plus! Now, I must apologize for not having any final result photos for you.  We pretty much hit the table with full steam and didn't stop for a photo shoot. 

**I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!**

Easy, yet yummy after Christmas breakfast treat

Having a child makes Christmas a much more fun, magical and exciting time of year.  Our daughter is 6, which made this year particularly special because she's now old enough to really know what she wants.  She's blossoming every instant into a more and more amazing little lady every day.  This year was just a blast with her.  She had a list of what toys/wishes were important to her, she sat through the Christmas Eve candlelight service like a big girl, she reveled in the meal of corn chowder with shrimp, crab casserole and pan-roasted lobster, and she exclaimed more than once (ok, more than a dozen) times, "This is the best Christmas ever!"

Today is the day after.  Much to our amazement, she slept in.  Like really in.  Like almost 10:00.  I was awake around 8:30, but forced myself to go back to sleep so I wouldn't miss one single second of this great gift.  A Christmas miracle, indeed.  

Once we were all up and around, my sweet little one was happily moving from her new basketball and goal, to the Nintendo 3DS, to the new Barbies and their furniture and sports car.  I decided this was a perfect day to whip up a special (and simple) morning treat.  I did.  It was well received, indeed.  Cherry pastries.  I am notorious for not remembering my own birthday and when asked what I'd like to have for any holiday, I can never think of a damn thing.  Well, this year, I remembered something I've wanted forever.  A Silpat.  My sister came through for me and gave me two!  I christened them with this quicky breakfast and it was awesome!

So, back to the pastries.  You can keep the ingredients on hand and whenever the mood strikes, pop these babies out of the oven and make your family think they are at a French patisserie.  Well, almost. Kinda sorta.

 

Here's what I did:

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed, rolled into a 10" square
canned (yes, canned) cherry pie filling
cream cheese
1 egg

Now, pay attention.  This is tough.  Roll the pastry out and cut into quarters.  Spread a little cream cheese down the center, top with cherry filling.  Brush two opposite tips of pastry with egg wash and fold them over the center.  Press them together to seal.  

My new SILPAT!

Place on a baking mat or parchment paper and brush tops with egg wash.  Bake at 400 for about 18 minutes, until golden.  Serve warm or can be cooled and served at room temp (like at the bakery).

Fresh out of the oven

The "ingreeds"

Yes, I did not make the filling.  Yes, it's puff pastry from the freezer section.  Do you know what's involved in making homemade puff pastry?  (nightmare) And, guess what?  I whipped up a fancy looking and great tasting special breakfast that worked wonderfully on the day after Christmas, as we all played with and explored our great gifts.  Simple, affordable, and even with special guests or occasions, you can pull this off and it will seem like you did much more!   

My idea of a great day-after-Christmas breakast: pastry and coffee!

 

Christmas Cracker Jacks

I am not a sweet freak.  Don't get me wrong...I appreciate a good cake, pie, candy or other confection when I taste it, but I don't seek it out.  I'm more of a savory, cheesy, hearty kinda girl.  That being said, there is definitely a time and place for sweets.  Christmas is one of those times.

Come to think of it, about the only times of the year when sweets really enter my consciousness are Halloween and Christmas.  Halloween because everyone needs one chocolate chapter in his/her year.  And at Christmas, there's just something traditional, comforting, and welcoming about sugary little goodies.  We give them as gifts.  We enjoy receiving them as gifts.  We appreciate the fact that someone took some time (in many cases, a LOT of time) to create these little delights just to show us that they care about us.  However, my biggest dilemma is this:  I hate with a capital 'H' even attempting/wasting my time with rolled-out Christmas sugar cookies.  If you really wanna know why, ask my friend Eugenie about our Christmas-cookie-from-Hell experience back in the mid-90's.  I just can't even speak about it.  I also have a problem with pie crust.  It is my nemesis.  It kicks my a$% every time and just laughs in my face.  And, I learned last year that gingerbread men really aren't that sweet.  In fact, they are incredibly difficult little sons-o-gingerbreadmen.

So, this year, I wanted to make something sweet, easy and that could be made in large batches.  After much contemplation, I decided on caramel corn.  It's perfect!  I can bag it in pretty little bags for the teachers, I can give batches to friends, the mailman, my Publix bakery man, you get the idea.  And, I confess, I love popcorn of all descriptions, even sweet, buttery, caramel corn!

 I used this recipe that I found on www.AllRecipes.com.  I followed it as written except I added peanuts to mine. It couldn't have been easier and it's super economical too!  You can make just a few batches and have plenty to share with everyone you know.  Maybe I should go on www.OrientalTrading.com to get little prizes to put inside...then it really would be just like the Cracker Jacks we all loved as kids!

Merry Christmas my friends!

Better Not Quit My Day Job

I've baked off and on my whole life.  But, in recent years, things haven't been going so well.  I've concluded that I would flunk out of pastry chef school on the first day.  If I had to roll out dough for a living, I'd be living without any dough ($).  Is it this annoying rolling pin that always sticks no matter what I do?  Is it the temperature in my house?  Is it bad luck?  Is it just me?

The wunderkind decided that this year, Santa needed gingerbread men instead of a traditional cookie.  I have been nervous about this project.  Hey!  Maybe that's it; psyching myself into failure?  Last night, I dreamed about having to roll gingerbread dough.  So, bright and early I got my gingerbread baker hat on.  Needless to say, it's been a stressful and trying endeavor. Just like I thought it would be.

I chilled the dough for 2 hours, just like the recipe said.  Time to roll it out and then freeze it...this dough is sticky, soft, not really like a cookie dough at all.  Then, there's my <bleep> rolling pin with gingerbread goo stuck all over it.  I improvise with a plastic cylinder sprayed with Pam.  I got it rolled out into a thin sheet, but it wasn't pretty.  Then, after the 20  minutes in the freezer, separating it from the parchment paper was quite a feat.  Took me and Neil together.  And, as we all know, the purpose of parchment is that stuff doesn't stick to it. 

So, we managed to get 4 gingerbread men into the oven.  They look like they are supposed to; a Christmas miracle!  

Yeah, we decorate cookies in our bikinis...what of it?

R) my cookie  L) Viv's Santa cookie

The Miraculous Gingerbread Men

But, the remainder of the dough in the fridge is weighing heavy on my mind.  Should I bolster myself to fight with this dough again and crank out as many little men as possible?  Or, assume that Santa doesn't need more than 4 gingerbread men and just call it a day?  And, before someone tells me that Martha Stewart has a good, easy recipe let me say this:  I officially loathe M.S.  but I DID go to her site and used this recipe.  Damn, maybe it IS just me.  

Merry Christmas everyone!

Just in the (St.) Nick of time!

This past Saturday was my Sunday school class party.  As usual, I pondered for a couple weeks what would be my dish of choice.  I tend to be a last minute kinda girl.  I always know that I'll have a great idea, whip it up that day and take it along.  Only this Saturday, I miscalculated.  Big time.

I was working a special event at K.D.'s Treehouse.  Santa was there.  There was a jump castle, face painting, book signings, arts and crafts and of course, shopping in the store.  All of a sudden, it dawned on me that I had failed to make a decision and hit the grocery store that morning, as I had planned.  So, my mind went into overtime/panic/oh crap! mode.  Then it hit me.  An easy as pie little hors d'oeuvres that my parents taught me many years ago.

So, I grabbed the red phone and made an emergency call to Neil.  I gave him the list.  Told him "Go, go, go!  Meet me at home.  And hurry, man!"  

I beat him home, so I got a giant pot of water on the stove.  Just finished changing clothes when he arrived.  Placed two bags of tiny red potatoes in the boiling water.  Cooled with cold water.  Waited a little bit; had a glass of wine.  Then, the assembly line started.  I was actually pretty proud of how efficient the two of us were in cranking out our little hors d'oeuvres. 

**So what am I talking about?** 

What the heck are those things?

New potatoes with a shallow hollow made in the middle, sour cream and topped with black caviar.  Inexpensive, easy to make and (thank goodness) can be made REALLY quick.  We managed to get all this done and still get to the party on time.  So, next challenge is this:  what if everyone hates them?  Well, one friend told me that she'd never had caviar before but tried it and liked it.  Interestingly, her major obstacle was the sour cream, but she determined that she actually liked it combined with the salty roe.  At the end of the evening, she told me she'd eaten 8 of them.  I had a few other people tell me that they hadn't had caviar before either.  They were amazed to know that you can buy it at Publix and it's not expensive. At the end of the night all we brought home was an empty platter.

BTW:  this is a fantastic accompaniment to a whole smoked salmon (or whatever smoked fish you prefer.)  Try it!  You'll like it!  

When Life Gives you Lemons...

...you thank the citrus gods!  While in Florida, we scored big.  And I mean BIG.  Aunt Kathy has a friend who keeps her flush with fresh produce.  Including about 4 buckets of fresh lemons that I spied in her mud room.  Here's me:  "Hey Aunt Kathy, whatcha gonna do with all those lemons?" I said innocently.  Well, you guessed it.  A bucket of lemons made the trip back to SC.

But, don't be fooled my friends.  Don't feel all blase about my lemon score. You guys haven't seen lemons like these.  They are monsters!  But, in a good way.  Check this out:

I am lemonator...you are tiny golf girlie man

As a teenager, I came across a recipe for lemon squares.  From that point forward, my family expected me to make these for every Christmas, every party, etc.  I loved doing it because I loved the fact that they all loved my lemon squares. Then, I went away to college and kind of forgot about my sweet little yellow babies.  Yet, here I am today staring at these enormous Florida lemons and it all came rushing back to me.

You can surely guess what ensued.  The funny thing is that the lemon square needs 2 Tbs of lemon zest, which most recipes will tell you will require about 2 lemons.  Also, you need 1/2 cup of juice, which most recipes will tell you requires about 6 lemons.  Not so Chez Akre. I needed but ONE of Aunt Kathy's to satisfy both of these ingredient needs.  I'm tellin' ya... these are some damn big lemons people! 

In cooling mode

Finished product with a dusting of powdered sugar

And, to make matters even better, I still have more lemons.  Even so, I'm thinking of calling Kathy to see if she can FedEx me some more.  I can make lemon squares for gifts!  Homemade lemon curd.  Lemon meringue pie.  Lemon sorbet.  And, oh yes, if life gives me lemons, I can make lemonade.

Christmas Eve Plans

Every year, I start imagining all the Thanksgiving/Christmas get-togethers and what kind of menu we should have, what look, what time to eat, etc.  I sometimes have a theme, sometimes it's an elegant candlelit affair, occasionally I envision a Norman Rockwell painting.  The thing is, no matter what ideas or scenarios that I come up with, it usually plays out like our holidays have played out my whole life.  And, that's ok.

We have never been the night-time, dress up in velvet, candlelit formal holiday dinner types.  I see the articles in Food & Wine and Bon Appetit with all the shimmery decorations, formal china and crystal, fancy dresses and coats and ties and it looks great.  I love an elegant event as much as, maybe even more than most people.  But, holidays in the Webber-Wilson-Akre-Ballard clan have always been pretty casual, homey, pot-lucky and what I consider to be "normal."  We make a plan: who's making a turkey, who's  bringing ham,  how about Uncle John's smoked corned beef this time?  Aunt Jennie is always asked to make her dressing & sweet potatoes.  I've probably told y'all before that without her sweet potatoes for at least one of the holiday dinners, the Earth will fall off its axis.  My sister and I are usually the ones who will throw in a new experiment or some hors d'oeuvres.  We all pitch in, plan on eating a mid to late lunch, drink wine.  You know.


So, Christmas is upon us and I'm thinking about Christmas Eve in particular.  At Thanksgiving, I said to my Dad, "What about doing a beef tenderloin on Christmas Eve after church and having the traditional stuff for lunch on Christmas Day?"  We both agreed this would be a great plan.  I think I suggest the tenderloin every year; it usually happens about every 7 years.  What usually ends up happening is what will happen this year too.  We all gravitate back to "pick up food."  Not take-out, but hors d'oeuvres, snacks, casual dishes like gumbo, antipasto.  Sounds great to me: I could live off finger food.  Remember how Rachel served her kids their meals in Mermaids? 

 I want to throw in a cheese fondue this year.  Vivian hasn't experienced fondue and at 4 1/2 years old, I think she'll really think it's cool.  And, I want to do the real thing: the emmenthaler, kirsch, garlic, good bread...the whole nine yards.  We have tons of crab in the freezer, so I think crab cakes go without saying.  I'm looking at some other recipes like roast beef & horseradish crostini for example.  That's as far as I've gotten so far.  I'm sure Mom has some great ideas floating around in her head as well.

Ok, that does it...I want fondue NOW!

So, as is pretty typical for us, we'll have a yummy, casual Christmas Eve grazing.  Katherine is bringing a ham, we'll make Aunt Jennie's sweet potatoes, maybe a broccoli casserole, so Christmas Day will be pretty traditional. OUR Traditional anyway.  And that's ok!