As Sun Ra says, “May your days be bright, may your troubles be light throughout this wonderful year.”
Day 25, Merry Christmas
Thank you so much for joining me these past 25 days! It’s been an enjoyable, if exhausting, ride.
I wish you all a very merry Christmas (or just a happy December 25th if you’re not of the Christian faith) and the best new year yet! I’ll probably take a few weeks off, but hope to pop in now and then to say hi and share a recipe or two.
xoxo,
Amy
Day 24, Southern-Style Cornbread
It’s a little late to be giving out recipes for homemade gifts, and no doubt your Christmas menu has been planned for a while, so here’s something to keep in mind for New Year’s Day. It’s a naturally gluten-free creamed corn cornbread from none other than Alton Brown, and it’ll be the perfect accompaniment to your black eyed peas and greens, I promise. Like any real southern-style cornbread, it’s not sweet or cakey; instead, it bursts with corn flavor and is quite crumbly. (It’s also wonderful reheated the next morning then crumbled in a small bowl with sugar and milk.)
recipe after the jump
Day 23, Pralines
You didn’t think I’d let Christmas go by without pralines, did you? I’m not capable of such cruelty.
I always tweak the original recipe ever so slightly. This year, I toasted the pecans before adding them to the sugar mixture. That simple step yielded tons of pecan flavor and has earned it a permanent spot in the praline repertoire.
recipe after the jump
Day 22, Alfajores
Hmmmm. These cookies, these cookies, these cookies…
I’ve had alfajores in the back of mind ever since Matt Armendariz first posted about them five years ago. I finally got around to making them this week, but my experience with them was mixed. Oh, they were delicious, as you’d expect from a dessert so dependent on cajeta. And the cookies themselves weren’t especially difficult to make; they didn’t spread at all in the oven, which can’t always be said about gluten-free dough. But the filling kept oozing out of them because I never quite got my cajeta to the perfect consistency despite cooking, cooling, cooking again, and cooling again. I realize this is entirely my fault, which is why I wanted to post about it anyway; you may have better luck than I did, after all. And if I wasn’t taking pictures for this blog, the consistency of the cajeta wouldn’t have been an issue, because who doesn’t love a layer of gooey caramel sandwiched between two cookies?
Day 21, Rosemary Syrup
My friend Kasha came over yesterday to hang out, do a little cooking, and help me with styling a few things, but it was one of those star-crossed days in the kitchen — my chicken was dry, the caramel sauce didn’t set before sundown, and the rosemary syrup didn’t make it entirely into the jar. No worries, though; I like a bit of imperfection in my pictures. Also? That dry chicken is nothing a little BBQ sauce won’t fix, and the caramel finally behaved itself long enough to proceed with the recipe. (More on that later.) It’s all about rolling with the punches in the kitchen, as Julia Child taught us so well with her enthusiastically-flipped potato pancake (not a chicken or duck as urban legend would have us believe).
Be sure to check out Kasha’s blog for a lot of great fresh-from-the-farm recipes and tips for using seasonal produce. She’s also an excellent baker.
recipe after […]
Day 20, Paleo Banana Bread
It’s hard to tell lately, but I’m on the paleo wagon much of the time. Grass-fed/pastured meats, a boatload of vegetables, a lack of grains, and the occasional treat really is an enjoyable way for me to eat, at least until I start craving buttermilk biscuits. But not all treats are verboten. These banana bread mini-loaves are made with almond flour and a minimum of sweetener, so they’re actually pretty good for you, as desserts go. Loaded with protein, they’re satisfying and don’t cause a sugar crash an hour after indulging.
And they package up real purty, too.
They have a dense, moist crumb, which is enhanced by toasting the slices slightly before eating. Adding a schmear of butter is entirely up to you.
recipe after the jump
Day 19, Fig & Blue Cheese Savouries
While it may seem that all we do is consume sugar around here, salty or savory foods are what really do it for me. When I do want a little sugar, though, I’m happiest at the intersection of savory and sweet, which is exactly where today’s treats are located.
A few weeks ago, I was looking over my copy of the new Food52 Cookbook before its launch party when these beauties jumped off the page and demanded to be made. As always, I adapted this stellar recipe with gluten-free flour, but this time it took a little coaxing to get the results of regular flour. Still, this minimal extra work was rewarded with flaky, delicate pastries, so don’t let it scare you off.
(And how’s this for a shameless plug? Be sure to check out my recipe for Short Rib Ragu in the winter chapter of the Food52 Cookbook!)
recipe after the jump
Day 18, Chocolate Chunkers
These chocolate chunkers may not be the most attractive cookies ever to grace a blog, but they surely rank among the most delicious. And why wouldn’t they? Dorie Greenspan developed the recipe. ’nuff said.
I’m a batter eater from way back and honestly had a hard time convincing myself to cook these at all, but after resting for 10 minutes out of the oven they somehow improved upon what I thought was perfection. As we nibbled in the following days, Gil and I took to microwaving the cookies for 15 seconds or so to melt the chocolate a tiny bit, which was a great idea; they’re rich, and one is perfectly satisfying when they’re ever so slightly gooey.
Did you know that you can click on any image and it’ll take you to its flickr page? I only bring that up because, unless you’re using the biggest of monitors, the following behemoth will be tough to view in one window. Sorry ’bout that, but these cookies merited an ingredient shot. Plus, I’d just bought that chocolate spear, which is AWESOME […]
Day 17, Roast Lemon Chicken
When the time comes to roast a chicken, I tend to go one of two ways — Zuni or Thomas Keller — depending on how early I can get my act together. (My act getting-togetherness being what it is, you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that I default to Keller.) They’re both foolproof recipes that yield a moist, juicy bird with a minimum of effort, which I think we all can appreciate. But another reason I roast this way is because neither involves breaking down the bird beforehand. Butchering anything in my kitchen is often met with much sighing and gnashing of teeth, for it rarely turns out well. Not that it stops me. For a while, I thought poultry shears would be my salvation, but my chicken managed to look even more like a crime scene than usual. I tried the cleaver route as well, but things still went awry.
Then, earlier this year, I was invited to take a cooking course at the Institute of Culinary Education […]
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