Happy Halloween!

Sweet treats are all but required on Halloween, no?  These are chocolate cupcakes with a simple vanilla frosting.  The cupcakes are moist with sour cream and buttermilk, while the frosting is light and fluffy.

Cinco de Mayo

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, I put together a taco bar for dinner tonight. Warm cornmeal tortillas were topped with pulled chicken, black beans, fresh guacamole, crumbled queso fresco, chipotle cream, grated carrots, cilantro, and peach-mango salsa. I also made a grilled corn-red cabbage slaw that added more crunch and flavor.


Dessert was fresh, local strawberries dipped in sour cream and then brown sugar. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Chocolate-Guinness Cake

Continuing the Guinness theme, I made a chocolate cake with it for St. Patrick's Day. The cake was rich and moist but light at the same time. The frosting, not the one paired with the cake recipe, was incredibly dark and chocolatey. I actually added a bit more sugar because it was too dark at first. And because I didn't have a pot of gold handy, I caramelized some hazelnuts and added them as a simple decoration around the base of the cake.





Dinner was more like brunch, and it wasn't overwhelmingly Irish. It was good, though: baked tomatoes with breadcrumbs and herbs, soft scrambled eggs, and asparagus. 



Mushrooms sautéed in Guinness


Cheesy baked hash browns

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Merry Christmas 2010!

Merry Christmas! Our holiday this year was cold but lovely and filled with family, friends, and good food. We kept it fairly simple--but not boring--and had for dinner a big, cheesy lasagna and salad. For dessert, we had a creamy peppermint bark cheesecake. The cake includes peppermint bark both inside and on top as well as peppermint whipped cream.  The recipe is pretty simple.  For the base cake, I made a variation on the Barefoot Contessa cheesecake (which, yes, makes a lot), but I used one less egg yolk, no lemon zest, and about 2 tsp of vanilla.  I also added 8-10 oz of broken up peppermint bark (this is a guess--use enough so you can see it mixed in, though it will sink down when baking.)  Once baked and chilled, I topped the cake with fresh whipped cream mixed with a few drops of peppermint extract (it's strong stuff, so go slowly ... I didn't want a ton of peppermint in the cream) and then decorated with crushed candy canes and more peppermint bark.

Just a slice ...


Just another slice ...

Christmas Cookies 2010

The holidays are here, and I am done with my baking! Well, at least the immediate baking -- I've been told I missed a few key kinds of cookies and that we're at risk of running out. Not likely. This year I made, triple peanut butter cookies, gingersnaps, chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons, pecan divines, and almond buttercrunch, which is pictured above.

                                                                    Spicy gingersnaps


                                                           Chewy, nutty pecan divines


                                                    Chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons


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Thanksgiving 2010

Happy Thanksgiving! Our table was very full and happy this year, with lots of family, friends and food. The main meal is pretty traditional, including roast turkey, Mom's famous stuffing, mountains of mashed potatoes, roasted butternut squash, and homemade cranberry-orange sauce. However, my focus was on making the desserts. We had four desserts this year--and sadly, now only slivers of these remain.

Cheddar-apple pie, with lots of cheddar cheese mixed into the crust

 

Salted caramel banana pudding tart

 

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

 

Pumpkin chiffon pie

Rosh Hoshanah

Happy New Year! This year, with a mid-week Rosh Hoshanah, I kept things fairly simple, though still very flavorful. We had chicken roasted with honey and wine, rosemary potatoes, and honey-glazed carrots. For dessert, I baked an apple layer cake -- I made it like a carrot cake but with apples and a slightly cinnamony cream cheese frosting. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Easter KISS*

Easter this year was full of eating--and thankfully no jellybean taste tests like last year. There was, however, a rather unnecessary level of cooking on my part--big plans, tasty plans, but more work than needed. We started the day with a brunch that included a cheese soufflé, almond buttermilk scones, bacon, strawberries and blackberries, and various cheeses. I could have stopped there, we were all so full.

But in my mind I saw gnocchi, lovingly handmade and then lightly covered with a tomato-porcini sauce. So I made these, and they were good--though much more time-intensive than I'd meant them to be. We also had asparagus and green beans. Also in my mind I could practically taste the limoncello tiramisu recipe I'd come across months ago. It was also good--though not great--and cutting the recipe down to serve the four of us made more work, not less (just less leftovers, which was the point.) *keep it simple stupid -- something I need to remind myself of every so often. :) - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake

Tonight marks the beginning of Passover, and thus it also means no flour in my cooking. For the seder we go to, usually I bring something along the lines of a cheesecake or fruit tart--lighter flavors, at least, after a big meal--made with a nut or matzoh crust. But this year I couldn't resist the lure of this recipe, originally from Cook's Illustrated. The base is a dark, rich flourless mousse cake, which is topped with a semisweet mousse and then a white chocolate mousse. And for everyone out there who thinks they don't like white chocolate, I have two points: a) the white chocolate mousse here is a lighter counterpoint to all the chocolatey richness underneath it, and b) get the good stuff--it makes a huge difference. I topped the cake with chocolate shards, raspberries and blackberries. It's hard, and not entirely appropriate to take pictures of your own food during a dinner party, but I wanted to show the inside of this cake, too. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Chocolate-Irish Cream Mousse

To top off our meal, I made dark chocolate mousse with Baileys Irish Cream. Barring a pot of gold, this is what I want to find at the end of the rainbow. And for those who only want a taste ... I present mini chocolate-Irish Cream shots, in thimble-sized dark chocolate cups.

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Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Not being particularly Irish, and being surrounded by vegetarians and people who don't like corned beef, I skipped the traditional boiled dinner tonight. However, I did make boxty, which I served along with homemade applesauce, Nova smoked salmon, and a big green salad. Boxty are Irish potato pancakes that combine both mashed and grated potatoes. The mashed potato gives them a bit more body than, say, latkes, which are all grated, and overall boxty are less greasy, which definitely recommend them.

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Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone! As has become our usual, and combined with the overcast, rainy day outside, our schedule was verrry relaxed--and full of good food. Brunch featured my mom's Christmas bread, or stollen, which she makes every year. We also had fresh scones (lemon-poppy seed and orange-cranberry choc. chip), creamy scrambled eggs, a variety of fruit (raspberries, strawberries, and pineapple), oven-baked bacon, and three kinds of cheese (Gouda, Manchego, and Jarlsberg). Needless to say, we were very well fed--sustenance for opening all the presents under the tree, perhaps? Many hours, and a few snacks, later we had dinner, including a small beef tenderloin, scalloped potatoes, baked tofu loaf for the vegetarians, asparagus, and a big salad. For dessert I made a tiramisu, which was creamy and coffee-y and delicious.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We had 10 people at our table for Thanksgiving this year--and, of course, enough food for many, many more. I'm only just recovering from the food coma that was Thursday, though a long walk around the zoo today helped. We cover the traditionals at our holiday meal--there are no theme Thanksgivings around here--and it was all very, very good. We had turkey with gravy, apple-pecan stuffing, mashed potatoes, butternut squash, asparagus, cranberry-0range sauce, and more. Not surprisingly, dessert was my focus, and with four (yes, 4) options, I think we covered all the bases. The above picture is of a caramel-apple cheesecake tart, a great recipe I found at Annie's Eats, that essentially combined pecan pie, apple pie, and a cheesecake all in one. The sides: mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy The big three: turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing Broad beans, olives, asparagus with a lemon vinaigrette, cranberry sauce, gravy Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and pecans Homemade toasted coconut-macaroon ice cream with dark chocolate chunks, made with the effort and inspiration of SwimmerGirl The final round-up: (from the top) carrot cake, caramel-apple cheesecake tart, and pumpkin chiffon pie

Halloween Treats: Pumpkin Whoopie Pies and Caramel Apples

Happy Halloween! Because the ghouls and goblins are on the march this weekend, I spent the afternoon cooking up some bribes, er, treats for the little critters. So far I've made caramel apples dipped in peanuts and chocolate chips, pumpkin whoopie pies, and peanut brittle. There really was caramel on the sides of the apples--they were dipped twice, actually--but the peanuts and chocolate chips slid down to the bottoms, and I got tired of fussing with them. Still tasted good, though.