More Cheese More Chocolate

I’m a few days late with this, but we made too much good food on New Year’s Day not to share.   Too much food in general, perhaps, but I can’t think of a better way to start the year.  There were waffles, bacon, gougères, filet mignon, lobster tails, and homemade blue cheese dressing. That’s about as far as one can take it and still live to see the following year, no?

For our first breakfast of 2012, we broke out the long longed-for waffle maker that I got for Christmas.  I made yeasted waffles for the inaugural batch, and even though I forgot to add the egg and baking soda to the batter in the morning, they still tasted great.  Should auld eggless waffles be forgot and never brought to mind?  Nah, but you can bet that the eggs will not be forgotten next time.  See what I did there?

Afternoon snack: black-eyed pea dip for luck in the new year (or something like that).

Then the evening came…  I made these gougères and swapped the cheddar for smoked gouda and the fennel for freshly cracked pepper.  So simple, so delicious, and so looking forward to the half of the batch that’s in the freezer and ready to be baked when the mood strikes.

Gougère as a vehicle for taste-testing homemade blue cheese dressing?  Don’t mind if I do.

Wedge salads = a way to eat puddles of blue cheese dressing without feel entirely guilty about it.

Another a good vehicle for getting blue cheese dressing into your mouth: potatoes roasted with generous amounts of parsley, chives, salt, pepper, and olive oil.  They’re also a great device for getting spiced lemon butter into your mouth when you run out of lobster, or so I would imagine…

Matt got all fancy with a couple of lobster tails, which he baked while he cooked the filets on the stove.  I drank wine and ate more gougères.

And then our feast came together and we ate really, really well.  It was the best homemade steak that I’ve ever eaten.  Everything was great, but it was the steak that did it for me.

After dinner I relaxed with my new Nook, looked up some detox-ish recipes, and savored every little bite of a salted caramel macaron courtesy of my friend, Lauren.  I like the way 2012 is going.

Season’s Greetings!

I wish I had time for a lengthy post about Christmas at my parents’ new place in South Dakota, but this selection of photos will have to do for now.  Merry merry. Enjoy.

My uncle’s stained glass creations; birds

Our adorable, drooling kitchen helper

Bacon, cheddar & chive strata

With fruit & good coffee on the side

Black Hills

Vegetable lasagna & bison lasagna

Soupy but delicious

Christmas morning

Santa’s little helper

Lemon-blueberry sour cream pancakes with pomegranate and peppered bacon

Tasting new toys

“Where are all the faces?”

Family photo courtesy of my brother

Hee haw

Custer State Park

My first (very successful!) attempt at making gnocchi, with indentations artfully made by my sister-in-law

Christmas dinner: great grandma’s corn casserole, gnocchi with parmesan and brown butter, porchetta-style pork roast, kale and brussels sprout salad, and Rustica bread – all fantastic!

And for good measure, man leggings and a Santa diaper

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Planning for Thanksgiving 2011 began a few weeks ago when Matt and I decided to stay in Saint Paul for the weekend.  Actually it was in the works prior to that because we’d decided that even if we went to Wisconsin or Iowa to celebrate with our families, we’d cook a second Thanksgiving dinner ourselves.  A little ambitious?  Yes.  Also ambitious: cooking nine dishes for two people.  That’s why I made sweet potato casserole and spinach balls to eat during the week leading up to Thanksgiving, so I’d only have to make seven things for Thanksgiving day.  It’s called being sensible.  Did I mention that I also made two pies for two people?  It’s not Thanksgiving without options, is it?  It’s also not Thanksgiving without a few blunders, which is why I made sure to slice a couple of fingers, burn my arm, burn the last of my pecans that were destined for a last-minute pecan tart, and buy a bag full of moldy chestnuts from Trader Joe’s.  This year I am thankful for generous return policies.  I am also thankful for great food, a boyfriend who insists on taking a bite of turkey heart before consuming the rest of the bird, and a wonderful family a safe distance away.  Just kidding!  We missed you all very much!

To prepare for our feast, I scoured many a cooking magazine, cookbook, and food blog as well as the family recipe collection in search of the perfect menu.  To prevent myself from losing my mind, I made a master list where I kept track of all of the recipes that I planned to use, their sources, and all of the ingredients that they required.  From there, I crossed off the ingredients that I already had and made a grocery list with the rest.  Then I went to about five grocery stores (some of them twice) over the course of a few days, and I was ready to cook.

WEDNESDAY

The first dish: Apple Cider Cream Pie.  Also on the agenda: drying out a few loaves of Rustica bread for stuffing.

Next: Cranberry Jello Salad.

And after taking a musical break, salting the bird.

THURSDAY

Draping the turkey in butter-and-cider-and-sage-soaked cheesecloth just before sticking it in the oven.

Rolls and stuffing in progress, and a smoky porter to keep me going.

The beginning of something delicious.

Fuel.

Stuffing prep.

More stuffing prep.

Basting.

Potato prep.

Turkey!  We did it!

My timing was a bit off on the rolls, so they grew and grew and grew before baking, but they were still fluffy and delicious.

Carving the juicy bird.

Quality control.

The spread.

Recipes:

• Cider-Glazed Turkey with Lager Gravy (Food & Wine, November 2011)
• Cheesy Mashed Potatoes (improvised, with heart)
• Corn Casserole (my great-grandmother’s recipe – coming soon!)
• Chestnut Stuffing (based on a Martha Stewart recipe)
• Cranberry Jello Salad (my grandma’s recipe)
• Kale and Brussels Sprout Salad (Bon Appetit, November 2011 – made with hazelnuts instead of almonds)
• Dinner Rolls (The Bread Baker’s Apprentice)

Dessert:

• Brown Butter Pecan Praline Tart (Bon Appetit, November 2011 – made with walnuts instead of pecans)
• Apple Cider Cream Pie (Food & Wine, November 2011)

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!