kayb

I'll enjoy Christmas dinner with my best friend from college, who is my children's godmother, while the kids all hie off to their respective father/inlaws events. She's the cook, I sous-chef for her and will probably contribute a dessert, some apps, or whatever else she tells me. I do day-after-Christmas brunch for my throng, which includes one gluten-intolerant eater who will also be about 8 months pregnant at that point. I'm thinking: -- Ouefs en cocotte, made with medium or small eggs, in muffin tins, with a "crust" of corn tortillas and a bottom layer of cheese grits. -- While I'm about it, since the gluten-intolerant one loves grits, a cheese grits casserole with caramelized onion. Maybe even with shrimp on the side. -- Andouille or chorizo tortilla. -- Fruit salad -- just cut-up, fresh fruit, whatever's available and looks good, with sweetened creme fraiche as a dressing on the side. -- Ham "sliders" on dinner rolls. Or I might get ambitious and make mini-Cubanos. -- Roasted asparagus with hollandaise. -- French toast casserole -- cubed bread, custard made of eggs, cream and maple syrup poured over, baked, served with a berry sauce of some kind (Strawberry jam heated and thinned a bit with simple syrup works well, if I don't take time to make something from scratch). -- Cranberry salad, because two of the three girls would rise up in rebellion if I did not have it. -- And I'm thinking about adding Scotch eggs this year, because I made them for the first time last night (with homemade chicken apple sausage), and they were Pretty Good!

Certainly, it's very simple to do: I used a standard cream and bittersweet chocolate truffle recipe, but added a pinch of organically grown tobacco shreds to the cream before heating it over an extremely low flame in a very heavy pot (it took about half an hour for bubbles to start appearing around the edges of the pot). Once I took the pot off the heat, I let the tobacco steep for about 2 minutes longer in the hot cream, then strained the cream to remove the tobacco shreds, and proceeded as usual for truffles. The tobacco was noticeable, but very subtle; I feel that it enahanced a note which is present in some chocolates. The effect was very elegant and smooth, not at all harsh. My research on tobaccos's toxicity, in case you're interested: I found this monograph: Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph No. 9: Chemistry and Toxicology. Nicotine was my primary concern, owing to its immediate toxicity (as opposed to the cumulative/long-term effects of other compounds), but nicotine appears to comprise between 0.6 and 2.9% of the dry weight of tobacco (p. 7 of the monograph), which means that an entire 40g (1.4 oz) packet of the brand of tobacco I used would contain between 0.24g and 1.16g nicotine, well below the median lethal dose, even for children (that would be 10g; no children ate these, but it seemed a good idea to use as stringent a standard as possible: (IPCS: Nicotine). I'm not certain how much the pinch weighed--my scale doesn't measure under a gram/fractions of grams--but it was certainly under a gram, meaning that, on the outside, there were 0.03g of nicotine present in the entire batch of truffles. Fascinating! What kind of tobacco did you use? I would guess a pipe tobacco?

Mjx -- I'm intrigued by tobacco truffles. Can you elaborate on that one? I'll do pralines, fudge, chocolate covered cherries, spiced and candied pecans. And then I'll do savories -- cheddar cheese shortbreads (they do better than biscuits in gift tins) and crocks of bacon jam; blue cheese savories with fig jam (think savory thumbprint cookies). Maybe spiced and toasted chickpeas.

One word. Posole. Chris Amirault's mother-in-law's recipe, from the eGullet posole cookoff thread. If there's any posole out there any better, I don't want to know about it.

I can handle the oriental chicken salad. And a baked potato. The chili is horrible, and the burgers leave much to be desired. Of course, the only fast-food burgers I can tolerate are In n Out, on the rare occasions I'm out West; Back Yard Burgers (not nearly as good as they once were), and about once a year when I HAVE to have them, Krystal (the Mid-South equivalent of White Castle). Best burger I ever had in my life was one at the Dairy Freeze in Hiawasse, AR. I will brag and note that I enjoyed it at a table with not-yet-then-President Bill Clinton in 1989, and he thought his (all the way; mine was hold the onions) was excellent, too. It's on my list to go back there someday and see if (a) it's still there and (b) the burgers are as good as they once were.

Weighing in on Howard's side here....he'll eat more Brussels sprouts (it's no accident their acronym is BS) than I will. Only way I've ever had 'em that I could deal with 'em was raw, shredded, in a cole-slaw type preparation. Add my admiration to the smoked brisket adventure. I tried it once. The deli does a better job than I can. Won't go there again.

No photos...but I had dinner at my favorite Hot Springs restaurant tonight -- Central Park Fusion -- a 6-oz filet topped with Boursin butter, atop a bed of truffle-oil flavored polenta with roasted corn and a side of wilted greens (which I did not eat, because, well, greens, and I'm squicky about that). Pretty marvelous. I'm so grateful to have a restaurant of that quality within a 20-minute drive (and that far only because I live way out on the lake...)

Three new ones recently: Amanda Hesser's Essential New York Times Cookbook; Ruth Reichl's Gourmet Today; and Kathy Sparks' Sparks in the Kitchen.

I have to laugh at that one! Sounds like something I'd do! Enjoying the blog; particularly interested in the GF stuff, as one of my daughters is gluten-intolerant.

dcarch, I think perhaps that quail is my favorite of all your stunning plates you've presented. Gorgeous!

I don't know, but I want a slice of that.

Clam chowder and a salad, the daily lunch special today at Culinary District, the Surfas store here in Hot Springs. No photos; didn't have a camera with me. Damn fine!

Oh, and Jack Daniels is not a bourbon; it is a sour mash whiskey. Very different animal. Makers Mark is a good all-purpose bourbon, as is Knob Creek. You need a good Scotch (well, maybe not until winter; it's a cold-weather drink, in my book), plenty of vodka (my bar workhourse) and dark and light rum. And I always try to keep a couple of good bottles of port.

Our receptionist is Australian, so in addition to the delight of calling the front desk because we love to hear her talk, we learn about all kinds of cool Aussie things...like Vegemite. Her mother sent her a care package that had a couple of jars, and she had to bring one so all of us could sample. She was in heaven with that taste of home. I didn't think it was at all bad, myself -- but yes, I see how it would HAVE to be used with a light hand! Enjoying your blog! Anxious to hear about the 'roo!

So, if I were to maybe cook some asparagus for you tonight...? Ohhhh.....you're hitting my weak spot. (One of several!)

Looking forward to the week....and I can mourn my lack of fresh local veggies and fruit while I read all about yours!

I cooked the grits first, with cheese, and layered them in the bottom of the ramekin; cracked the eggs into a small bowl and gently slid on top; drizzled with a couple of tablespoons of cream and sprinkled with bacon. There was enough salt in the grits and bacon that I didn't salt the eggs. I didn't do veggies this time, but I have in the past (zucchini and/or yellow squash, asparagus, peas, most any spring veggie are good). Have also used scrambled up sausage or diced ham in place of bacon. Baked at 350 in a bain marie for 15 minutes. Snadra, looking forward to reading yours this week!

And here we are...at the end of a week of food blogging (and heavy-duty cooking). It hasn't been a typical week for me -- I generally don't cook this much, this heavily, this often, but a combination of holiday, days off, house guests and wanting to share as many favorites as I could resulted in a pretty heavy kitchen week for me. I'll probably eat fast food most of this coming week to make up! You've had a lot of traditional Southern food from me this week,so today, it's a completely non-traditional day. Well, we'll start with last night, a pizza with caramelized onions, figs, goat cheese and bacon: This morning, it was ouefs en cocotte. Mine differ from the traditional in that they have a layer of cheese grits on the bottom. We had them with toasted and buttered pumpkin bread. Dinner, served midafternoon so my house guest could start home, was possibly the best thing I've eaten all day. I had some country stylel ribs -- boneless cuts -- and I braised them with onions, apple juice, cranberry and caraway seed. It was pretty wonderful. I served it with braised red cabbage and German potato salad. It's been fun. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. I'm looking forward to reading the next one!

Breakfast this morning was country sausage patties, along with what was going to be rosti, from a recipe that called for baking them in the bottom of muffin tins and turning out perfect, crunchy rosti. They stuck. So I had hash browns. Tasted good, though. Accompanied by some of Thursday's curried fruit, with the last of the creme fraiche on top. Oh, and we had leftover cinnamon rolls from yesterday, of which I had failed to post the photo: Lunch was at Maddie's Place in Little Rock with my daughter and son-in-law and his parents, who were en route back home after a holiday trip to visit some of his family. The owner/chef at Maddie's is a former chef at NOLA, who moved home with his Little Rock-born wife to raise their children, post-Katrina. It's a great Cajun/Creole place; they make their own Andouille sausage, and make a chicken-Andouille gumbo that is outstanding, as well as shrimp and grits in an Andouille reduction that's just wonderful, if tremendously rich. The best thing I've ever had there -- and it's way too much for a midday meal -- is a pork cutlet, pounded thin, breaded and flash-fried (reminds me of a tonkatsu), over cornbread pudding -- sort of like dressing, but different -- and accompanied by homemade Worcestershire sauce. It's marvelous. I passed on that until the next chance I have to eat dinner there, in favor of a cup of gumbo and the small order of shrimp and grits. That sort of kicked out my idea of braising country style ribs in a German style cranberry/apple sauce tonight; that's way too heavy for me tonight. So I'm thinking it's pizza -- I have a crust in the freezer -- with whatever I can find in the fridge to put on it. Can you put sweet potatos on pizza, I wonder???

Kim -- If you'll google "saveur" and "cheddar cheese biscuits," that should get you there. Or just go to the Saveur site and look. Snadra, it's honey. I love honey with cheese. This honey comes from the same farm where one of the cheese is made (a sheep's milk) and the two go marvelously together; I wonder if it has something to do with the sheep and the bees dining at the same buffet....

Odds and ends from today (after my early shopping expedition, we napped, watched football and basketball, read and were generally lazy all day). The pumpkin pie from yesterday: The steamed pudding: Lunch was the noshes planned for last night -- cheese, pate, fig-and-olive tapenade. And a glass of cabernet sauvignon. Dinner was turkey enchiladas with arepas.

I'm thinking turkey enchiladas. Or maybe pasta with an alfredo sauce and turkey. I'm about to eat sweet potatos and cranberry salad for breakfast, though.

Back from Black Friday shopping....and I forgot to take homemade cinnamon rolls out of the freezer before I left, so they're defrosting and will rise in a warmed oven and hopefully it won't take too awfully long. I made rolls yesterday and my recipe makes two dozen...didn't need that many, so I used half the dough to make cinnamon rolls for this morning. Update on the steamed molasses and cranberry pudding -- astounding! Recipe is here: http://www.food52.com/recipes/7558_cranberrymolasses_pudding_with_vanilla_hard_sauce This will be a new standard at my house for holiday meals (albeit I'll know to steam it longer). The pudding itself is just barely sweet, with the tart pops of cranberry. They both play beautifully off the silky, rich, buttery sauce, which is not a traditional hard sauce but is the perfect accompaniment for the pudding. I cooked mine in a Bundt pan, and steamed it in a big enamelware roasting pan. The pumpkin pie wasn't bad, either. I did get back to a small sliver of that before bedtime. Photos of both to come later; I was so glazed over last night I forgot to photograph either one. Snadra, my dressing is pretty minimalist. I make a pan of cornbread (a 9-inch iron skillet or cake pan) a day or so before, break it up in big chunks, and let it get stale. The morning of, I crumble it roughly into a big bowl, pour about 2 1/2 to 3 cups of chicken stock over it, and go off and let it soak. I use my potato masher to break up remaining lumps, add three beaten eggs, onion (caramelized, this year, but I've used onions just sweated until they're limp), rubbed sage, and black pepper. The only way I can tell if it's seasoned correctly is to taste it; you want to taste the sage, but you don't want it overpowering everything else. It goes into my 9 x 13 baking dish and into a 350 oven for an hour. Most people put celery in their dressing. I don't like celery, so I don't. The sweet potatos -- three large ones, baked the day before -- are peeled and mashed with about a half-cup sugar, a half-stick of melted butter, a beaten egg and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. The topping is the other half-stick of butter, melted, a half-cup brown sugar, a quarter-cup flour, and a half-cup (or maybe more, I don't measure) of chopped pecans. It bakes about 40 minutes at 350. And come on to dinner any time! Kim, the recipe for bacon jam is here: http://www.evilshenanigans.com/2010/05/bourbon-bacon-jam/. And it is To Die For. I can't wait to put it on a grilled hamburger, with some smoky Provolone cheese! The biscuits/scones are from Saveur: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Cheddar-Cheese-Biscuits. I rolled my dough a bit thin, and I think I just handled it too much. Didn't hurt the flavor, though, and the crumb was still pretty light. I suspect I may have the single left-over one this morning to go with my cinnamon roll; a good carb-fueled breakfast! Lunch is in Little Rock today (edit: Ooops, that's tomorrow! Lunch will be leftovers.), meeting my daughter and her husband, who are on their way back from his grandmother's Thanksgiving and birthday celebration. Dinner will be some iteration of leftovers, perhaps turkey tetrazzini....or turkey enchiladas....we shall see. Also have to strip and break down the turkey carcass, and boil it for stock. And watch Alabama and Auburn tonight!

Oh. My. Goodness. I have eaten entirely too much. And I feel a nap coming on. But perhaps I can get a post out there first. The spread: Clockwise from 6 o'clock: Turkey, dressing, curried fruit; mac and cheese, with a Parmesan/panko/pimenton dulce topping, in the blue oval cassesrole; behind that, praline sweet potatos; green bean casserole; barley pilaf; rolls and cranberry salad. We skipped the pre-dinner apps (pate and fig-and-olive tapenade, with assorted cheese and crostini and crackers) because we were still full from breakfast: cheddar cheese scones and bacon jam. Whoever invented the idea of bacon jam is a genius. This version has bacon, caramelized onions, maple syrup, cider vinegar, and other stuff I don't remember at this moment. But it's wonderful on cheddar cheese scone, which was intended to be a cheddar cheese biscuit but for some cause did not rise. So I called it a scone. Dessert has been placed on hold as none of us are capable of eating. We'll get back to pumpkin pie and molasses-cranberry steamed pudding after while. Maybe. As the overall photo shorts some of the dishes, here are some individual shots. The dressing: The green bean casserole, ready to go in the oven. I made a mushroom veloute with button and cremini mushrooms, and added in the beans I'd cooked earlier, put caramelized onions on top, added bread crumbs. Much better than the Campbells' soup and Durkees FF onions version. Sweet potatos, ready to cook: These are baked, mashed with some sugar, an egg and some vanilla, then topped with a crumble of brown sugar, flour, pecans and melted butter. They are to die for. The pudding, steaming: This was the one "Huh?" of the meal. Recipe called for an hour and 15 minutes' steaming. I gave it that, carefully unwrapped it -- and it did not look as though it had cooked at all. Fortunately, we were all full and had no real interest in dessert, so I wrapped it back up and it's steaming again as we speak; I'm about to check it. We uncorked a Grayson Cellars pinot noir, which went wonderfully. The turkey was not a particularly pretty bird, but was perhaps the most moist and juicy and tasty one I've ever cooked. I did not brine. I put a handful of caramelized onions, a stick of butter, and a handful of fresh sage leaves in the cavity, and I rubbed the skin with olive oil, sprinkled with kosher salt and black pepper. He was a 10-pounder, as there were only four of us, and he roasted for a bit over three hours. He was perhaps the most moist and juicy bird I've ever cooked. Someone asked about the curried fruit; it's canned peach and pear halves, pineapple chunks, and tart pie cherries, drained and arranged in a baking dish, topped with a mixture of melted butter, brown sugar and curry powder, and baked until it creates a nice syrup. It's a dish I picked up from my former mother-in-law, God bless her, who will be 101 in February and is still going strong. I'll detail the pumpkin pie and pudding later. Right now, I feel a nap coming on.

Bourbon chicken liver pate, from the Epicurious website (old Gourmet recipe). Put it in a pretty crock on a plate, surround with crostini. A platter of crostini arranged around a trio of dishes -- one with ricotta or chevre, one with fig and olive tapenade,one with a tomato, garlic and basil topping marinated in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.