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Day 5, Orange-Scented Rice Pudding

2012 Advent Calendar, Day 5

It’s a real joy to reach into the fridge for prepared ingredients and pull together a new dish in no time flat. If you’ve been following along, you’ll know I made extra rice for the smoked turkey gumbo on Day 2 and was left with orange sugar syrup from yesterday’s candied orange peels, so I added just a few staples and came up with this quick, elegant rice pudding.

2012 Advent Calendar, Day 5

The orange flavor wasn’t assertive at all, but the scent was divine. To send it over the top, add a little orange flower water.

2012 Advent Calendar, Day 5

Garnish individual cups with a sprinkle of cinnamon, add a few candied orange peels, and you could serve this to guests who’d never know they were eating leftovers. Hah!

2012 Advent Calendar, Day 5

The beet and the coconut

It’s not unusual to plan a meal around one ingredient, I think. You find a beautiful cut of grass-fed beef or see a flat of ruby red strawberries and the wheels start spinning as you think about the best way to highlight their natural beauty. This sort of thinking influenced a couple of our meals this week.

Usually when I buy beets, both root and green are destined for a salad inspired by an episode of Lidia’s Family Table — roasted beets, boiled greens, and sliced green apple are tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, topped with hard goat cheese, and seasoned only with salt & pepper. It’s simple and delicious, especially when the produce is at its freshest and most vibrant.

But wanting something different last weekend and thinking (incorrectly) I was prepared to deal with a certain amount of frustration, I decided on a beet tart adapted from this one. The process involved me buying my first tart pan from a store that fascinates and repels me in equal measure — New York Cake & Baking Distribution, conveniently located across the street […]

My own cure

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I’ve been following Apartment Therapy’s Kitchn Cure for the past few weeks, thinking what a great idea it would be to do one of their assignments in our house someday. Of course something always seems to come up — travel, dog adoption, and chronic laziness being the three obstacles lately — but I did find inspiration in this week’s assignment to clean out the fridge and pantry, tossing processed foods and things that contain high fructose corn syrup. I’ve been on the anti-HFCS bandwagon from a taste perspective for years, so we don’t have much of that stuff around here, but I did toss an old bottle of ketchup which I’ve replaced with the organic stuff from Trader Joe’s. (Haven’t tried it yet, but I’ll let you know how it compares to the Heinz gold standard.)

While I was in there, I took note of anything that was nearing its expiration date and should be used ASAP, which is a roundabout way of saying that this meal was brought to you by cleaning out the fridge. Appetizing, yes? What lurked in the inky depths were leftover chopped tomatoes in juice, a […]

Pork & peaches, and some healthy stuff, too

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Though I hesitate to call it a resolution, we are trying to eat a bit healthier now that the holidays are over. I’m not going to extremes, of course, but I am trying to incorporate more whole grains, fruits, and vegetables into my cooking, so our crisper drawer is full and I’m working my way through it faithfully.

But getting back into the old routine takes time, so I started the weekend completely unprepared for our dining needs. Flipping through the pages of Cooking Light for inspiration, I ran across a wild rice salad that looked completely scrumptious and sounded like it’d be perfect with a little pork. As luck would have it, our freezer is stocked with obscene amounts of pork (and beef. and chicken) thanks to Gil’s company’s annual holiday gift of Omaha Steaks. There was also a jar of peach sauce from our last Trader Joe’s run, so all I needed was a recipe to tie things together. Inspiration for the pork came from the Epicurious website, where I found a recipe for pork with brandied peaches that called to me. I did change the recipe […]

Advent Calendar, Day 23

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Star of wonder
Not quite a disco Christmas, but close.

We’re off to Louisiana bright and early this morning. Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it, and Happy Long Weekend to those of you who don’t!

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recipe after the jump

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Advent Calendar, Day 22

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There’s no place like home for the holidays
A glimpse of my parents’ tree.

For all Advent Calendar posts, click here.

recipe after the jump

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