Santa was good to me this year!

I got an awesome camera for Christmas! Ryan went way overboard - I think he was trying to make up for never getting around to buying me a birthday present, hehe. He bought me a Canon Digital Rebel XTi, and a couple lenses, filters, carrying case, tripod, etc. I played around with it a bit yesterday, and we're going to Wildlights at the Zoo tonight so I can try taking night-time pictures. I think I'll mostly be sticking to the various auto modes for a while until I really get used to the manual modes. I did take a photography class in high school, but it's been like 7 years so I'll have to refresh my memory with all the info and try to not get frustrated as I'm prone to do when things don't work the first time.

Christmas dinner went well. I was a bit worried, because I forgot to remind Ryan to take the lamb out of the freezer this weekend, so it didn't have time to thaw all the way. I really didn't want to defrost it in the microwave, especially because the only thing still frozen was the center. I ended up cooking it at a little lower temperature for a longer time and took it out when the meat thermometer stuck in the middle was the right temperature for rare. That way, most of the meat was medium rare, and the middle was at least cooked. But we ended up only eating about half anyway, so I'm marinating the undercooked part right now to make gyros tonight.

Here's picture of the roasted leg of lamb, green beans with caramelized shallots and crispy pancetta, and goat cheese and garlic potato gratin. It was deeeelicious, especially with the Malbec we had with dinner! (Let's not mention the additional bottle we drank after that, I think it will bring back my headache.)

Christmas breakfast

In my family, we've done this casserole for breakfast since my dad was with his second wife, which was 10 years ago (I think). I still wanted to do a brunch for me and Ryan this year, and even though I found some tasty sound recipes for a "classier" meal, when my dad sent the recipe to my sister and me, I decided to stick with the old stand by.

So we'll be having this breakfast casserole with fresh fruit on the side, for Christmas morning brunch after opening gifts.

Sausage and Cheese Breakfast Casserole
(courtesy of my ex-stepmom's family via my dad)
serves 4-6

1 lb link sausage, sliced and browned
6 slices white bread, cubed (we've tried using a multigrain, which we eat usually, and it just doesn't work; the texture is too strange)
1/2 lb cheddar cheese, shredded or cut into small cubes
1/4 c. melted butter and margarine
1/2 tsp dry mustard
3-4 eggs
2 c milk
salt and pepper

1. Arrange sausage, bread, and cheese in several layers in a greased casserole pan.
2. Pour melted butter/margarine over mixture
3. Beat eggs with mustard, milk, and salt and pepper; pour over mixture
4. Let stand in refrigerator, covered, for 3 hrs to (preferably) overnight
5. Bake, covered, at 350 deg for about 1 hr

So simple, so tasty!

Christmas dinner

I'm just going to skip right over a weekly meal plan because there isn't one. I'm going to eat whatever I can find in the house because I'm still cooking solo.

BUT I have planned my Christmas dinner. This is the first year I will be spending the actual holiday without my family; Ryan and I decided we wanted it to just be the two of us this year (I saw family this last weekend, and will the next two weekends as well, so I'm not really missing out on that). So even though I'm happy to have the alone time together, especially since he will have just gotten back from this crappy business trip, I'm a little sad to not be with my family for a major holiday. I'm doing my best to start our own new traditions, though, because this sure won't be the last holiday I spend away from my family now that I'm a "real grown up" and all.

So back to the dinner. It's not really traditional, but it's fancier than usual. We only need to feed two people, so a ham or turkey or roast wasn't really necessary.

pancetta-wrapped roasted leg of lamb (probably omitting the anchovies if I can find something else to "glue" the pancetta to the lamb, because neither of us care for them)
potato gratin
green beans with shallots and pancetta
cannelini beans with garlic

There will probably not be any dessert, as neither of us has a big sweet tooth. Also, there's that whole I'm hypoglycemic thing and with all the holiday parties lately, I ended up feeling like I had a weeklong hangover last week. Not good. I've been pretty careful about how much sugar I eat lately, I need to get back to that.

I'll post about Christmas brunch and our Christmas Eve dinner tradition later in the week. Hope your holiday shopping/cooking/baking is going well!

yummy wintertime treat

I mentioned in my post of recipes for the Christmas party that we had peppermint hot chocolate. This was such a hit, and we had so much leftover (I bought enough hot chocolate to make 2 gallons, and we had fifths of the liquor, when you don't use much per drink), that I have been having one a couple nights a week when I finally get time to settle down. The key is to know how much of the liquor to put it so that the schnaaps doesn't overwhelm the chocolate. This is what we've found works:

6-8 oz hot water
3 heaping spoonfuls of hot cocoa mix
3/4-1 shot of chocolate liqueur
1/2 shot peppermint schnaaps

ahhh! so cozy and tasty!

single cooking

The boy is out of town this week and most of next, which means I have a hard time getting myself to cook. I am trying to use up veggies and stuff that will go bad, though. This week's meals so far:

Monday: veggie and cheddar omelet
Tuesday: chicken and veggie stirfry
Wednesday: roast beef, brie, and crackers leftover from the party

Tonight, I think I'm going to make one of my all-time favorite childhood comfort meals. I very rarely make it, because it's really not that great, and Ryan HATES both the smell and taste, so it's one of the few things I'm forbidden from making when he's around. But my mom used to make this for us alllll the time when I was growing up, and I've been feeling rundown (and lonely!) this week, so I'm making it, dammit. What is this culinary atrocity?

Why, tuna noodle casserole of course! Sometimes, there's just nothing like that processed mixture of pasta, a can of cream of celery, canned tuna, season salt, pepper, garlic powder, and maybe a bread crumb topping to dress it up a little. haha!

This is an example of why I don't bake

For the Christmas party last night, I decided to make these pretty cookies that should have looked like this (photo from epicurious.com):

However, I am not really a baker. I can do drop cookies, muffins, things that are easy and don't take patience and perfection. Things that went wrong include the fact that I don't have a rolling pin and my attempt at substitutes just ripped up the dough, no matter how much I floured them up. My dough also got really soft and sticky within minutes of removing it from the fridge after being there overnight, so using the cookie cutter was out of the question. Wanna see what my kitchen looked like mid-attempt? Sure you do!

I ended up just rolling little balls and smushing them flat. This is how my cookies turned out:

I suppose in the end, they still tasted great. I usually don't care too much about presentation anyway, but since it was for a party (and because I'm going to start trying to do pictures here), I wish they could have turned out prettier.

Here's a prettier picture of the chocolate peppermint cookies, as well as a shot of the white chocolate cranberry cookies, which I thought were AMAZING. They had tangy sweetness from the cranberries and a mellow sweetness from the white chocolate, and the dough wasn't too sweet so it was a nice complement.

So this was my first attempt at using photos on the blog ... It's hard when I just have an old Canon Powershot, and when it's dark by the time I'm cooking so the whole not using a flash thing is difficult with this camera. Hopefully, someone's heard me talk constantly about wanting a canon rebel and it'll be under the tree for Christmas! If not, you'll have to bear with me while I mess around and figure out ways to make this work.

christmas time!

I really love the holidays. I don't think I'm obnoxious about it. I do decorate around the condo, but it's tasteful. And I do a lot of shopping and extra cooking and love (almost) every minute of it. This year, the boy and my family mostly asked for DVD boxed sets, books, electronics and the like, so I was able to get a lot of my shopping done on Amazon and eBay. Which means there was more time for cooking. And I wanted to do something for all my friends here in Ohio, without getting them all gifts. So I'm throwing a big Christmas cocktail party tonight.

I am making hors d'oeuvres and some "festive" holiday drinks. We're going for a little classier feel than our usual get togethers. I think it'll be great, with the tree lit and our decorations up and Christmas music playing! Here's a few of the recipes (it's fairly food network heavy this time around), and maybe I'll post some pictures afterward, if I have time to stop in the middle of all the baking and cooking and my old camera does anything decent (it's been dropped at bars so many times, i really need a new, and better, one for doing non-going-out shots!):

stuffed mushrooms
chorizo and potato spanish tortillas
roast beef and horseradish finger sandwiches
creamy roasted red pepper dip w/ veggies and crackers
baked brie w/crackers

white chocolate and cranberry cookies
chocolate peppermint stars

rum and spiced cider
peppermint schnaaps hot chocolate
cranberry bog punch

experimenting

Last night I started baking for the party on Friday, so I ended up not feeling like making what I had planned (pork and squash - for whatever reason, this meal keeps getting pushed back. I love it in the fall, but i must not be in the mood anymore!). Mostly, it was because I would have to roast the squash, cook the rice, saute the veggies, brown the meat and then put it in the oven along with the stuffed squash. It would take close to an hour and a half to do all that. And I had already been in the kitchen that long making cookies! Along with the fact that I don't have much oven or kitchen space to do both at once with all the pots and pans the baking and cooking would take up.

So, I decided to do something quick. I bought Penzey's hot curry spice mix a while ago but hadn't yet used it. I threw together a sort of quasi-curry. It tasted great, even though it wasn't really authentic Indian food. Just the right amount of heat, with lots of hints of flavor floating around in the background. I didn't really measure a whole lot, but here's what I did:

Quasi Chicken Curry (makes 2 generous servings)
1/2 lb chopped chicken tenders
1 medium onion, diced
3 roma tomatoes, diced
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup unsalted tomato sauce
1/4 cup buttermilk (curry should use coconut milk, but I don't keep that around; this was an alright subsitute)
Penzey's hot curry spice mix to taste
ground mustard seed (i used a few shakes worth)
2 pinches saffron (not necessary, i just have it on hand and want to use it before it gets old)
salt & pepper to taste

1. season chicken with salt & pepper and a bit of curry seasoning; brown in medium saucepan
2. add onions and garlic, saute until onions are clear
3. add remaining ingredients and spices, bring to a boil and then let simmer while finishing cookies.

I served it with basmati rice and roasted broccoli dusted with the curry powder. Like I said, deeelish, especially for a meal thrown together at the last minute!

Around the World

This weekend was Ryan's work formal, and man, did we eat! The food for the actual sit-down dinner part was pretty eeehh, but that's how it usually works when food is being cooked en masse for a banquet-style meal, right? He works for Honda R&D, and they seriously put down a serious chunk of change on their end-of-year shindig.

This year's theme was Around the World, so different rooms were different countries, with the accompanying food, drinks, and music.

We probably spent the most time in the Irish pub, which had live Irish music, Guinness, chicken fingers, cheddar ale soup, and thick cut chips with garlic sauce. Classy, right?

The Japanese room had a master sushi chef taking individual orders as well as plenty of pre-made california rolls, etc., and Sapporo beer. I really wish I liked sushi, because it looked amazing.

The Caribbean room was a club, with dj's, bright decorations, bouncer, fruity drinks, and such.

And the French cafe had a coffee bar and an acoustic guitarist switching off with a jazz trio, as well as a super cute setup that was supposed to be a sort of outdoor bistro with a view of the Eiffel tower.

The main dining area was supposed to be Italy on one side, France on the other, and a casino in Monaco in the center area. It was pretty weak, like I said. I made the mistake of ordering the prime rib, which was of course overcooked and hard to cut using the butter knife we were given. The exception was the desserts, which were fantastic. And there was a creepy guy dressed as a statue walking around and freezing at the tables while we ate.

But overall, I can't complain. My work's holiday party? A free cafeteria lunch accompanied by local high school choirs/string groups.

quick post

It's been very busy lately, meaning I've been very tired, so there hasn't been quite as much cookng as usual. Hopefully this week will be better - although I'm hosting a Christmas cocktail party this Friday, which means extra cooking/baking most nights this week.

This week's meal plan is looking like this:

Monday - coq au vin
Tuesday - pork loin chops and stuffed acorn squash
Wednesday - falafel pitas
Thursday - homemade pizza
Friday - cocktail party (i'm sure there'll be a post with all those recipes)

you'll notice a couple of those are carry overs from last week. I ended up making stirfry one night and Ryan picked up Chipotle the other because I was wiped out and in no mood for cooking.

Also, I've started playing around with taking pictures using my crappy digital camera. Once I get around to messing with them in Photoshop, I may actually start posting them. Even though they aren't that great. Gotta start somewhere, right?