A Player and a Baker

My How Things Have Changed

2011-05-28T10:45:00.004-04:00

This blog was a fun project. It was pretty and concise and I slaved over it for a time. But these days I don't have the time or energy to keep up this format. So have fun exploring what I put up here, and if you like what you see, check out my new format over at tumblr.

It's still A Player and a Baker. I'm still playing and baking and capturing it for posterity. But now I'm doing it from my iphone.

Check it out here!

Forever Playing,

Meredith

Slow Cooked Polenta

2009-03-19T18:57:00.000-04:00

I've done this before, but I just can't stop raving about the joy of this stuff. This is not quick cooking polenta. This is simply coarsly ground cornmeal that gets to soak up a lot of water.

Also, it goes perfectly with braised short ribs. So I had to write about it again, just so you could experience them together, as it should be.

Heat up a box of stock.

Add a box of water.

This isn't rocket science, people. The stock adds flavor, but we want to stretch out the cooking time with this one, which means we need more liquid. So we add water. I like to fill the empty stock vessel to retrieve any extra flavor that might still be hidden in there.

Get some good polenta.

Stone ground is best. Corn is essential here.

Now I'm just bein' silly.

When the liquids boil stir in one to two cups of polenta, depending on how many people you're feeding. And the size of your saucepan- you need some room to groove here. In the apartment, I'd definitely only do a cup. It expands a lot anyway.

Now, lower to a simmer, whisk occasionally, and add water when it gets thick.

Do this for a long time. Hours. You want those starchy grains to explode into soft globules of deliciousness. This takes a lot of patience.

What should you do while your polenta cooks?

Enjoy the lovely spring weather we're having:

Stop and smell the roses (you know what I mean):

(Thanks Sanne, they were lovely)

Eat some cheese and crackers:

That would be aged gouda with black pepper crackers and currant jelly. It did the trick.

I keep the polenta pretty loose until about thirty or forty minutes before I know we're going to eat. Then I crank the heat up a bit and start stirring more frequently. It's perfectly creamy when it's time to eat.

Which is now.

Enjoy.

Playing,
Meredith

Braised Short Ribs

2009-03-17T12:30:00.000-04:00

This one is a Michael classic.

I've had it a few times, but never actually witnessed its creation. This weekend that was remedied.

It's really a simple idea. Brown the short ribs. Sauté some veggies. Cook everything with wine and stock. But it's nice to see it all broken down, right.

Here are the short ribs. They were cheap- 14 dollars for all that meat. It's a good thing.

The veggies:

Dust the ribs with a little flour, salt and pepper:

Brown on all sides.

I like to call that one "Meathenge".

Heehee.

Open a can of tomato sauce. You just need a bit.

After browning the meat, deglaze with some dry vermouth.

Add the veggies:

About half that little can of tomato sauce.

And when that's all reduced and thick add a cup or two of red wine.

Put the short ribs back in.

Michael got really excited about the design of this new stock box.

When you twist the cap it perforates the aluminum seal, so it's ready to go when you open it. No pesky pull tabs or anything.

Top the short ribs off with some stock:

And some herbs:

Pretty self explanitory...

Simmer for a long time. Simmer for hours and hours if you have the time. You want the meat to fall of the bones and to be incredibly tender.

When it's ready purée the veggies.

We used a food mill, but a blender or food processor would do.

Pour that goodness back into the pot and let it reduce into a nice thick sauce.

You might add a little butter to that, you know, for richness.

Our short ribs needed more time, but we were hungry, so we gave them a sear more like steak.

Serve over polenta, and possibly braised celery.

How do you make perfect polenta?

Well I'll tell you.

Tomorrow.

Playing,
Meredith

Instant Pancake Mix

2009-03-13T10:52:00.001-04:00

This stuff blows the box out of the water.

Not that there's anything wrong with buying a brand name pancake mix. Generally speaking, they don't have too many weird ingredients. The thing is, they taste pretty good. If you want fantastic pancakes, you're just going to have to think outside the box.

This recipe is awesome because you can throw the dry ingredients together in a few seconds, and then any day of the week fresh fabulous pancakes are at your fingertips. Just so you know this is another Alton Brown gem. I can't get enough of that guy lately.

I simply plopped all of the ingredients into this canister and gave it a good shake.

And what is in this mix I speak of?

Sugar, salt baking powder, baking soda, and a mixture of half whole wheat pastry flour and half all purpose flour. (The whole wheat flour would be my addition to this mix- I can't help making things just a little more wholesome.)

Once you've got your mix, you can get going on the wet ingredients.

In one bowl mix together 2 cups of buttermilk with 2 egg whites:

In a separate bowl (or coffee mug) mix together 4 tablespoons of melted butter with the two egg yolks:

Note the use of an Old South coffee cup. Old South is a famous pancake house in my hometown Fort Worth. These mugs are G's.

Mix the butter mixture with the buttermilk mixture:

Throw in 2 cups of your pancake mix.

Be careful not to over mix once you've added the flour mixture.

Now get your griddle nice and hot.

Give it a rub with the butter stick.

And scoop your mix, wait for those bubbles to form and give them a flip.

Note the bacon sizzling on the back burner. I can't have pancakes without some sort of breakfast meat.

Look at this fabulous stack.

The pancakes are hearty yet fluffy. You wouldn't know that there was any whole wheat flour in them if I didn't tell you. I don't think I told G. Do you think she knew?

Serve with melted butter and REAL maple syrup. It's the only way. Real maple syrup is an amazing unrefined sugar that people should eat much more of. It's so much better tasting and better for you than that flavored corn syrup or chemical-laden sugar free stuff.

Instant Pancake Mix
from Alton Brown, adapted by a Player

Ingredients

6 cups all-purpose flour (Or 3 cups AP and 3 cups whole wheat pastry flour)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda (check expiration date first)
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons sugar

Directions

Combine all of the ingredients in a lidded container. Shake
to mix.

Use the mix within 3 months.

Ingredients

"INSTANT" PANCAKES:
2 eggs, separated
2 cups buttermilk
4 tablespoons melted butter
2 cups "Instant" Pancake Mix, recipe above
1 stick butter, for greasing the pan

Heat an electric griddle or frying pan to 350 degrees F. Heat oven to 200 degrees F.
Whisk together the egg whites and the buttermilk in a small bowl. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the melted butter.

Combine the buttermilk mixture with the egg yolk mixture in a large mixing bowl and whisk together until thoroughly combined. Pour the liquid ingredients on top of the pancake mix. Using a whisk, mix the batter just enough to bring it together. Don't try to work all the lumps out.

Check to see that the griddle is hot by placing a few drops of water onto to the griddle. The griddle is ready if the water dances across the surface.

Lightly butter the griddle. Wipe off thoroughly with a paper towel. (No butter should be visible.)
Gently ladle the pancake batter onto the griddle and sprinkle on fruit if desired. When bubbles begin to set around the edges of the pancake and the griddle-side of the cake is golden, gently flip the pancakes. Continue to cook 2 to 3 minutes or until the pancake is set.

Serve immediately or remove to a towel-lined baking sheet and cover with a towel. Hold in a warm place for 20 to 30 minutes.

Yield: 12 pancakes

Make your own pancake mix and become the king of breakfast. Or queen. Whichever you prefer.

I promise...

Playing,
Meredith

Pork with Cream Cheese Gravy

2009-03-12T10:10:00.000-04:00

This is one from my childhood.

It's Brazilian. I know, you totally love it when my South American roots shine through.

First of all, this dish is supposed to be made with "lombo" which is portuguese for pork loin. But when I was at the old Union Square Farmer's Market something caught my eye that I couldn't resist. There is a farm museum in Queens aptly called the Queens Farm Museum. They have recently become an actual working farm and are selling their wares at the greenmarket! Queens is wonderfully amazingly local.

Can you believe that this exists in New York City? It's amazing. And when I saw a sign advertising pork fed with grains from the Brooklyn Brewery, I couldn't say no. So this is a new venture, and they don't have a lot going on. No pork loins, only loin chops. AND when I tried to buy two, which seemed like a reasonable amount, the price came out to over forty bucks. FORTY BUCKS! So I just bought one instead. I figured I'd sear that baby up, finish it in the oven, and slice it up. I mean, you just need a little meat, and since this meal was pork fest, we were getting extra protein with our salad.

Here's our chop:

There was a lot of fat. I cooked it with it on and carved most of it off later.

Here it is when I took it out of the oven:

It rested happily while I made the sauce.

Using the same pan I seared the pork in, I add some sliced mushrooms into the pan.

The pan was a little dry so I added some extra bacon fat from my bacon dressing. You can obviously use butter if you don't have bacon fat.

Add a bunch of sliced scallions and sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of flour into the pan.

When that cooks out pour in water or stock. I used water, since I already had plenty of bacony porky flavor.

Throw in 8 oz. of cream cheese.

Let that melt:

Make sure to add the drippings from the resting meat. You won't regret it.

And serve over the sliced pork and rice.

This is an incredible easy dish. You really should give it a try, either with the traditional loin, or a chop.

I'll go ahead and give you the original recipe modified to my tastes.

Pork Loin with Cream Cheese Gravy
From What's Cooking in Rio, adapted by a Player

Ingredients:

2 lbs pork loin, or loin chops, 1 per 2 people
salt and pepper, and optional sage
1 bunch of scallions, sliced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 Tbs flour
1 c. water or chicken stock
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese (I prefer reduced fat)

Recipe

Rub loin/chops with salt pepper and optional sage. Give the chops or loin a sear and finish cooking in a 350˚ oven. (For the chops, it will be about 15 minutes. For the loin, more like 45 minutes.)

Using the pan drippings sauté the mushrooms until brown, and add the scallions, reserving the green tops for later. When they're soft add the flour and cook briefly. Whisk in the water or stock. Then stir in the cream cheese. Cook until just boiling. Serve over the sliced pork and rice.

Eat it.

Playing with more pork,
Meredith

Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing

2009-03-11T10:59:00.000-04:00

Um, what could be better?

This was part of a wonderful pork-filled meal James, G and I shared Saturday night. It's totally greenmarket-crazy! See! You can be local in March! You just have to eat a lot of pork...

In this particular dish, that would be bacon. They didn't have pre-sliced, so I got to chop it into nice big hunks, or lardons, as the French say.

Thinly sliced red onion:

A few button mushrooms:

Some hard boiled eggs:

Then you make a vinnaigrette with the bacon grease. It's amazing.

I got my inspiration from the fabulous Alton Brown over at Food Network. I highly recommend this salad.

Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing
from Food Network

Ingredients

8 ounces young spinach
2 large eggs
8 pieces thick-sliced bacon, chopped
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 large white mushrooms, sliced
3 ounces red onion (1 small), very thinly sliced

Directions

Remove the stems from the spinach and wash, drain and pat dry thoroughly. Place into a large mixing bowl and set aside.
Place the eggs into an electric kettle and cover with cold water by at least 1-inch. Turn the kettle on. Once the water comes to a boil, the kettle will turn itself off. Leave the eggs in the water for 15 minutes. Remove and peel off the shell. Slice each egg into 8 pieces and set aside.
While the eggs are cooking, fry the bacon and remove to a paper towel to drain, reserving 3 tablespoons of the rendered fat. Crumble the bacon and set aside.
Transfer the fat to a small saucepan set over low heat and whisk in the red wine vinegar, sugar and Dijon mustard. Season with a small pinch each of kosher salt and black pepper.
Add the mushrooms and the sliced onion to the spinach and toss. Add the dressing and bacon and toss to combine. Divide the spinach between 4 plates or bowls and evenly divide the egg among them. Season with pepper, as desired. Serve immediately.

Playing with pork,
Meredith

Cocktail Monday: Mead

2009-03-09T13:40:00.000-04:00

Well I hope you had a wonderful weekend.

I know I did- and I have lot's to tell you about this week. But today, it's all about the cocktail. And well, it's not so much a cocktail as an interesting spirit. I read about this local mead company over at Serious Eats, and after doing a little research I found that Astor Wines carried it! Astor Wines is in my hood, so I knew I had to give it a try.

Mead is wine made out of honey. It tastes kind of like white wine, but it also tastes very uniquely mead-y. It might be impossible to accurately describe, so you'll probably have to go out and try some for yourself.

It tastes best extremely cold. In fact, I wouldn't hold it against you if you put an ice cube or two in your glass.

It actually tastes great with the addition of a frozen strawberry.

Mead is strange, but interesting. And local mead? Well, you know I couldn't say no.

Trying something new is always fun.

Playing,
Meredith

Peter Luger Vegetable Soup

2009-03-04T10:52:00.000-05:00

Okay, it's really just regular vegetable soup, but I used some bones to add flavor, and those bones happened to be from Peter Luger Steakhouse in Brooklyn.

The Peter Luger experience is a quintessential New York one, but I have to say it was not worth the hype. The beefiness of the steak was amazing, but it was overly charred, and that kind of ruined things. The creamed spinach was fantastic though...

We took home the leftovers, including these two t-bones:

They'll definitely give this soup some umph.

The other players:

Veggies. Onion, potato, celery, carrot, and cabbage. (Of course, you can use any combination of veggies you like.)

Sautée the onion, carrot and celery.

I threw in some whole garlic cloves as well.

Add the potatoes and cabbage:

Those fabulous bones. If you don't have leftover steak bones, you could use bones you buy at the butcher counter- just brown them in a hot oven to give them extra flavor.

A splash of vino:

Water to cover:

A can of diced tomatoes:

Here's a nice tip:

Put your herbs and spices in a bit of cheese cloth so they're easier to remove later. I used peppercorns, bay leaf, thyme and parsley.

Tie it up like a little package:

And nestle it into the simmering soup.

Let your soup simmer on low as long as you can. If any scum floats up from those bones, skim it off.

I like to add noodles to my soup.

I cooked them seperately so they wouldn't get too soft.

Place your egg noodles in the bowl:

And top with the soup.

Or, of course, if you're too lazy to cook noodles, there's always sourdough bread.

Make some soup. It'll keep that cold snap at bay.

Playing,
Meredith

Cocktail Monday: Classic Martini

2009-03-02T11:55:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since we've had a Cocktail Monday, and on this snowy day, what could be better than a nice movie and a cocktail.

The movie? The Thinman. A classic detective flick with Bill Powell.

The cocktail? A classic martini.

That's a gin martini, with much more than a spritz of dry vermouth, and orange bitters.

Old Raj is pretty good gin. It's also pretty pricey. Plymouth is a great martini gin as well. The dry vermouth should be Noilly Pratt or Boissiere. The bitters should be orange.

Check out these crazy glasses:

You put ice water in the bottom part and it continues to chill the martini as you sip. It's a little drippy, but fun.

The recipe:

2 ounces gin
1 ounce dry vermouth
2 dashes orange bitters

Stir, don't shake, and strain into your chilled martini glass.

We garnished with olives, but you might prefer a pickled onion, or perhaps a strip of lemon peel.

The movie? Ah yes, a fabulous cocktail flick. This movie makes the casual drinker look like a Baptist. Let's just say he drinks a whole lot.

Rent the whole movie, stir yourself up a martini, and enjoy.

Playing,
Meredith

Half Wheat Sourdough: The Finale

2009-02-27T17:18:00.000-05:00

When last we met, the dough was mixed, kneaded and rising.

Now it's time to get serious.

When the dough has doubled in bulk, plop it onto a clean surface.

You'll want to stretch the dough into a big rectangle, but be careful not to rip the dough.

Now fold it in thirds like an envelope.

Cut that in half and form two rough balls.

Let those balls rest about 20 minutes.

Then you shape the balls into boules by turning them in your hands, stretching the dough to one point at the bottom.

When the ball is nice and tight give that bottom a pinch.

Repeat with the other ball. Place the two balls on parchment paper on seperate dinner plates. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, or after 8 hours, let your loaves rise until at least doubled in bulk (3-4 hours).

Make sure and get your oven screaming hot- 500˚ before your'e ready to bake.

Right before baking, give your loaves a slash with your handy dandy baker's razor. Or a sharp knife.

Note that these half wheat loaves aren't quite as springy as my other ones. We love them anyway.

Give the loaf a spray of H2O:

Pop her in the oven (on the parchment, preferably on a baking stone), and reduce the oven temp to 450˚. Give the loaves two more sprays within the first five minutes of baking.

After that, you can relax, at least for the next twenty minutes or so, until you test their temperature and they register about 210˚.

Let the loaves cool two hours. Or ten minutes, if your me.

Serve with something delicious, like this Peter Luger Vegetable Soup:

I'll tell you all about that another day.

The bread is honestly best eaten warm with lots of sweet butter. The whole wheat is good, but I long for the pure taste of white sourdough. So I'm making more...

Playing and Baking,
Meredith

Half Wheat Sourdough

2009-02-25T11:31:00.000-05:00

This time around, I switched things up and used half whole wheat pastry flour and half bread flour. It has nothing to do with the fact that I ran out of bread flour. I swear. I planned it this way.

Fortuitous accident or planned event, what matters is that this bread is different than I've made before, and you know how I like to switch things up. I'm always growing, always evolving.

Or something like that...

So you've got your refreshed starter. Now it's time to make the sponge. Just so you know, this is the exact same recipe I've used before, with the addition of the whole wheat pastry flour. You can get the printable recipe here.

So you take 4 1/2 ounces or 1/2 cup of your starter. You'll notice I do a lot of weighing as opposed to measuring. Not only is it more accurate, but I don't have to wash as many dishes. It's a win-win situation.

When you weigh your ingredients you can use a coffee mug to warm up your 3-4 ounces of filtered water to 80˚.

5 ounces of flour:

The sponge supposed to resemble thick pancake batter. I ended up adding extra water to get the right consistency. Things are a little dry in New York City these days.

This is about right:

Let that do it's thing wrapped in plastic at room temp until it's doubled in bulk- this will take 2-3 hours.

Now it's dough time.

12 ounces filtered 70˚ water:

12 ounces of bread flour.

That's alll I had, but we made lemonade with these lemons and added 12 ounces of whole wheat pastry flour.

When not using a mixer to do your kneading it's best to add the salt at this stage, as it mixes into the dough a little easier.

Get everything incorporated. Hands are the best tool for this job.

I didn't say baking bread wasn't messy.

Form the dough into a ball and let it rest for 20 minutes.

Then you knead.

I don't know how long to tell you to knead if you're doing it by hand. I just knead until the dough becomes very springy.

And when you poke it

It springs back.

Using the whole wheat flour made the dough not quite as springy as 100% bread flour, but that's just fine.

Now check if your bread has a fever.

No really, if it's over 78˚ you need to place it in a cooler spot. If it's under 78˚ place it in a warmer spot.

My dough was warm, so back onto that cool window sill.

Make sure you spray it with nonstick cooking spray and cover it with plastic. Then let it rise until it doubles in bulk (3-5 hours).

When we meet again, we'll be redistributing the yeast, forming the boules, proofing, slashing, and baking.

Playing,
Meredith

It's Alive!

2009-02-24T10:02:00.000-05:00

My sourdough starter has been living in the bottom of my fridge undisturbed for something like 7 months.

This is not reccommended by the sourdough experts. You can keep your sourdough in your fridge if you feed it periodically. You can keep it in the freezer if you want to take a break. You are not supposed to let your starter sit unfed in your fridge for months on end. It just can't live under those conditions.

Or not.

I had to give it a try. I wanted to celebrate my blogaversary with sourdough. I figured if my starter was dead, I'd go out and buy some yeast and cheat.

And so, I ventured into the cold recesses of my fridge and fished out the tupperware coffin that contained my starter. Would it be moldy? Rotten? Covered in maggots?

Nope.

It was exactly as it should be. The doughy starter below with the "hootch" or alcoholic liquid floating on top. No off-smells. No horrific decay. Just sourdough starter.

Woohoo!

But it could still be dead. It hasn't had any new food in so long. Even though I'm pretty sure my fridge is cold enough to put the yeast into a suspended state, I can't be sure. There's nothing to do but give it a try.

And so, we feed.

Take a cup of the stirred up starter:

Get one cup of bottled or filtered water up to 80˚.

Mix that with your starter:

Get yourself some good bread flour. It's high in gluten, the protein that makes bread awesome.

Mix in a cup and a half of that.

Don't worry too much about lumps.

Set in a cool place.

You might think that the window isn't a cool place, but in New York in February, it's one of the coolest places in the apartment.

I say a cool place because of a conversation I had with a seasoned baker one night in Hudson. He said that sourdough gets the best flavor not in warmth but at about 50˚. I thought I'd heed his words of wisdom.

All I could do at that point was wait. Eight hours, to be exact.

Did it grow? Did it bubble? Has my starter awakened?

Indeed it has!

Glorious day! The sourdough lives. All is well. Repeat the feeding process two more times, and you're ready for the next step. Which I'll tell you about tomorrow.

Playing,
Meredith

Happy Blogaversary!

2009-02-23T09:13:00.000-05:00

It's been a year. Can you believe it?

Exactly 365 days ago I completed the process of creating a sourdough starter from scratch and I just couldn't keep it to myself. It's been a wonderful learning process. I've struggled with dedlines and photoshop. I've dropped my camera in cake batter and it lived to tell the tale. Mostly, I've had a wonderful time getting my unique perspective out into the world.

As a throwback to my roots, I've revived my sourdough for a little reunion of sorts. The loaves are proofing as I write this, so you'll get the whole story soon.

Meanwhile, item one on the agenda is the new layout. Do you like it? I thought it was high time for a change. Blue wasn't the ideal background for my photos. So there you go.

So stay tuned for a week full of fun here at a Player and a Baker!

Playing as always,
Meredith

When's Spring?

2009-02-19T11:24:00.001-05:00

I'm ready for it now!

It was cold and rainy/snowy yesterday. Now the skies are beautiful and blue, but more mixed weather is on the way. I'm getting restless for the bounty of the spring and summer. I want to wear a skirt. I want to leave the house without a coat. But most of all, I want light fresh flavors.

Never fear, my friends. You can get light fresh flavors in the dead of winter, and you don't even have to bend the local rule too much if you're willing to read lots of labels.

This is a light couscous salad. The first time I had this was with my dear friend AC when I was visiting her back in college. It's a simple dish, but the flavors are light and fresh, which tastes really good after a whole lot of winter root veggies.

Chop up some veggies.

I like red onion, cherry tomatoes (grown in a greenhouse in Conneticut!) and not so local yellow bell pepper (nobody's perfect, but Mexico is closer than Isreal, so it could be worse).

Dress your veggies up with the juice of one lemon:

Good extra virgin olive oil:

And season with salt and pepper to taste, of course.

I added a can of chickpeas, drained, to bulk this up into a meal. It would also be a great side to grilled chicken or fish.

Make a cup of couscous according to the package instructions. I like to use whole wheat couscous because you really can't taste the difference.

When the couscous is done, I throw it in the freezer to quickly chill it. You can eat this salad warm if you like but I like it cool.

Mix the veggies with the cooled couscous, top with chopped fresh parsley, and enjoy.

A taste of spring in the dead of winter?

Absolutely.

Playing,
Meredith

A Valentines Treat

2009-02-17T10:03:00.000-05:00

A little late...

What can I say? I'm a lazy blogger. Or a busy blogger. Or an unmotivated blogger.

All of the above.

But that doesn't mean I don't love you. I promise, I will be a better blogger. I mean, I'm coming up on my one year aniversary and I've got all sorts of excitement planned, so I can't bow out now.

But enough of that. Let's get to the good stuff.

Michael and I aren't really Valentines Day people. It's just such a silly fake holiday geared towards buying drugstore chocolates and greeting cards. We don't completely scoff the holiday though. We'll eat a nice meal and Michael might get me a little something. I always make him something good: cookies or candy.

I like to make him something significant to my life. One year I made brigadeiros, a Brazilian chocolate. Sometimes I like to use an ingredient I know he loves, like pecans in the linzer cookies I made him last year. This year I combined both and made a confection of my childhood that happens to have pecans and caramel (a throwback to Michael's favorite pie, pecan).

Pecan pralines are a special Texan treat. In Tex-Mex restaurants, you might get a sopapilla, which is a delicious pillow of fried dough filled with honey. If you don't go that route, at the cashier, there is always a pile of these sugary delights.

This recipe is from my uncle's cookbook "From the Parson's Table." It's always a great resource for recipes of my childhood.

The players:

Butter, milk, corn syrup, sugar, salt and baking soda.

Bring these to a boil:

Chop up a cup of pecans.

Add them to the boiling mixture:

And try really hard not to let the mixture boil over in your too-small saucepan. Note to self: get a larger saucepan...

Heat until the mixture reaches 235˚. It took a long time for me because I had to stir so much, and keep the heat low to avoid boiling over. With an appropriately sized pot, it shouldn't take too long.

Off the heat, stir in the vanilla.

Spoon the mixture onto parchment or wax paper, and let cool.

Because of the humidity, my pralines didn't harden. In the end, I put them in the freezer for a few hours, and that did the trick.

They were delicious. Not exactly the pralines of my childhood, but still very tasty.

The Parson's Pralines

2 c. sugar
1 c. milk
2 Tbs butter (Uncle Dave says margarine, but that's not how we roll)
2 Tbs corn syrup
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1 c. chopped pecans

Mix all ingredients but the pecans and vanilla in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Stir in the pecans and continue to cook to 235˚. Remove from heat and beat in the vanilla as the mixture cools. Spoon out on wax or parchment paper to cool and harden.

By the way, this would be a fantastic end to a homemade Mexican meal. Even better crumbled up over vanilla icecream!

Enjoy!
Playing,
Meredith

Viva!

2009-02-11T11:06:00.082-05:00

I hope you enjoyed my relatively thorough twittering on my Las Vegas trip. It was a fun little experiment, and a fun way to connect with you while I was gone. I'm sorry to say I wasn't as thorough with my photo-documenting. I never was sure if it was appropriate to take pictures of the gambling action, and I was afraid I might jinx the table, so a large part of the trip isn't documented. I do have some pics to show you, though.

Friday night the whole group went to Battista's Hole in the Wall- a kitchy old school Italian restaurant. It was a lot of fun, but not what you'd call a culinary experience. We did enjoy ourselves.

That was Holly with salami eyes. You can also catch a glimpse of the free house wine that comes with every meal. It's not good, but it's free. It's all part of the experience...

Here's one picture in a casino:

All of the casinos were celebrating the Chinese New Year, which made for some great displays. This one at the Bellagio had amazing topiaries including this one of an ox, as this is the year of the ox.

I had so much fun playing craps at a bunch of the casinos. It's my favorite game, because it has so much to do with the energy of the group you're playing with. There's a lot of camraderie.

We stayed at the Planet Hollywood and got upgraded to the "Get Shorty Suite". It was pretty rediculous, but a perfect place to stay when living the life in Vegas. I should have taken pictures, because all of the memerobelia was pretty rediculous, and we had a huge circular tub. But alas, you'll have to use your imagination.

One of the most fun things we did was go to Hofbrauhaus Vegas. There are only three of these in the world- the original in Munich, one in Cincinatti, and Vegas. It's basically a big beer hall with the big steins and music and excellent German food.

Like this awesome pretzel:

It came with 2 mustards and a delicious cheese sauce.

Here was the entertainment guy with this long horn. (You can definitely insert your innapropriate horn jokes here- I know he did.)

There were lot's of contests.

Bryan won the beer holding contest.

Brent and his good friend Steve sat back and enjoyed the show.

I ate sausage and kraut. Have I ever told you that I love sausage and cabbage? Oh, I have. Sorry.

The table full of beer and more delicious food.

Wait a sec. Who is that in the ladie's drinking competition?

That's right, folks. I'm hard core like that. Honestly I just took a look at the other ladies and they looked like sissies. I don't like to compete when I know I don't have a chance.

Oh look- it's Brent and Steve's time to shine in the men's drinking competition.

Ladies first:

Meredith first!

And for the gents:

Steve drank that beer faster than I've ever seen a beer drunk. It was quite a sight.

Soon after we were inspired to stand on the table and sing a song to which we didn't know the words. Those Germans have the amazing ability to inspire people to do things they never thought they'd do. It's a blessing and a curse.

Michael won the iphone beer drinking contest. Yes there's an app for that.

We had a fabulous time. After the Hofbrauhause we hit the casinos again and Michael's brother Steve (not beer drinker extrordinaire Steve) had an amazing streak of luck with the dice.

Vegas is fun, guys. I never thought I'd be the gambling type, and I'm still not one to take huge risks, but I really had a great time.

Playing,
Meredith

Leaving for Las Vegas

2009-02-06T07:57:00.002-05:00

That's right, my friends. I have embarked on my maiden journey to Sin City.

Who knows what will happen?

You will, because I'll be twittering the whole shebang. Simply look right over there to your right to see what's going on in that dessert paradise that is Las Vegas.

In the meantime, watch this. Just pretend I'm Ann Margaret and Michael is Elvis, and that's exactly how this trip's gonna be. I promise...

Playing for keeps,
Meredith

Wings

2009-02-05T10:46:00.104-05:00

Not the show, but the delicious sinful spicy greasy confection.

These wings are different. These wings are special. These wings aren't deep fried. They're baked.

Don't worry though. Baked wings can be good. I daresay they can be great. All you have to do is follow this method.

Cook's Illustrated published a recipe for extra crispy roast chicken about a year ago that caught my eye. You sprinkle a mixture of baking powder and salt on the skin to dry it out. Michael and I were inspired, and thought it would work well for an oven fried buffalo wing. We did it last Super Bowl with great results, so we decided to do it again.

We bought whole chicken wings and cut them into their respective pieces: drumettes and the wing, or flat 2 boned part. It's actually pretty easy to do this with a very sharp paring knife. Just cut off that little wing tip, then separate the two pieces at the joint. I didn't get a good picture of the butchering portion, as chicken juice was all over the place.

Michael mixed up the drying mixture.

The ratio is 1 tablespoon of salt to 1 teaspoon of baking powder. I'm pretty sure he doubled the recipe, as we were making a lot of wings.

Just toss the mixture with the wings:

And lay them out on a sheet pan. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Note: I think these wings were a little crowded, which meant that they weren't as dry as they could have been. Make sure your wings have enough room to really dry out.

Place your wings on a rack over your cookie sheet- this is another key. The wings will stick less and cook more evenly with the even air flow.

Bake the wings at 425˚ until they're brown and crispy, flipping halfway through cooking. It may take up to 45 minutes.

We were taking our wings to a party, so we transported them unsauced in an aluminum pan.

As for the sauce, we went with Cook's Illustrated.

Franks red hot is absolutely the way to go. We could only get extra hot, so we mixed that with some "Crystal" hot sauce, whose flavor was definitely sub par.

Cook's Illustrated's wing sauce also included some brown sugar.

Another note: we had the sauce simmering on low as the wings cooked. I think that was another mistake- the flavors concentrated and the sweetness was amplified resulting in wings that were a little too sweet. I didn't mind it actually but a certain someone called our wings "honey mustard" and that really hurt our feelings. SO don't let your sauce cook any longer than it takes to melt the butter and combine the ingredients, you'll be just fine.

When we got to the party we put the wings under the broiler for a few minutes to crisp them back up and tossed them with the sauce. I loved the really browned ones, so you might want to broil your wings for a minute or too also.

And now for some homemade blue cheese:

I'm pretty sure I was the only one who really enjoyed this, because Michael doesn't like blue cheese at all. He did say this was really good, despite the blue cheese, so it must be excellent blue cheese dressing. It certainly is 1000 times better than the bottled kind.

Mash 3 tablespoons of buttermilk with 2.5 ounces of crumbled blue cheese. They didn't specify, but I bought Danish, because it was on sale.

Mash that up with a fork until it looks like cottage cheese.

Add 3 tablespoons sour cream, 2 tablespoons mayo (must be Hellman's) 2 teaspoons vinegar, and stir to combine.

Serve with the ubiquitous celery and carrot sticks. We just did celery.

We served a little extra sauce on the side, just in case.

I loved these wings. Despite the fact that they weren't as crispy as they could have been and the sauce was a tad too sweet, they still were really great wings. And taking out the deep fat frying made it relatively easy, if not a bit healthier. I mean, just ignore the butter in the sauce, and the crispy chicken skin, and these are practically a health food. I kid. But they could be worse.

Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings
by a Player and her Playa (heheh)
(inspired by Cook's Illustrated)

For the Wings:

Chicken Wings (I'd say about 1 1/2 whole wing per person, or three pieces)
1-2 tablespoons salt (depending on how many wings)
1-2 teaspoons baking powder (see above...)

Toss the butchered and dried wings with the salt and baking powder and place on a cookie sheet in the fridge for at least 2 hours and up to over night.

Bake on a rack over a cookie sheet at 425˚ for about 40-45 minutes, turning once, until the wings are golden brown and crisp.

For the Sauce:

4	tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2	cup hot sauce , preferably Frank's Louisiana Hot Sauce
2	tablespoons Tabasco sauce or other hot sauce, plus more to taste
1	tablespoon dark brown sugar
2	teaspoons cider vinegar

Melt butter in small saucepan over low heat. Whisk in hot sauces, brown sugar, and vinegar until combined. Remove from heat and set aside.

When ready to serve, you can toss the wings with the sauce, or you could broil the wings to reheat them, then toss with the sauce.

Serve with
Creamy Blue Cheese Dressing:

2 1/2	ounces blue cheese , crumbled (about 1/2 cup)
3	tablespoons buttermilk
3	tablespoons sour cream
2	tablespoons mayonnaise
2	teaspoons vinegar

Mash blue cheese and buttermilk in small bowl with fork until mixture resembles cottage cheese with small curds. Stir in remaining ingredients (up to carrot and celery sticks). Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Can be covered and refrigerated up to 4 days.

Make some wings. They're good.

Playing,
Meredith

Boo.

2009-02-03T10:22:00.008-05:00

Hello my readers,

I should be writing a post about crispy baked chicken wings right now. Instead I've got to go to the bank because someone stole my checkcard on the train from DC yesterday. It really curdles my blood to be reminded that there are bad people in the world- essentially vultures. This bad person took 10 short cab rides and spent almost $4000 bucks at Bloomingdale's. Can you believe that???! Thankfully, I'm not responsible, since I don't have that kind of cash available. But alas, you're going to have to be patient and wait for the wings.

See you soon,
Meredith
(Player who got played)

Frito Pie

2009-01-30T09:29:00.065-05:00

Not pie at all.

It's a delicious and savory combination of fritos and chili. It would be an absolutely perfect main event for your superbowl party, I might add.

This is a simple dish, but you know me. There was no opening a can of chili and plopping it on some chips. I made my chili from scratch. I suggest you do the same. I mean, it's so easy, and the result is delicious.

I went to one of my all time favorite recipe sources for this one: Cook's Illustrated. I even paid money to get the online membership. I think it's worth it. I mean, the recipes are always foolproof. You really can't go wrong.

It all starts with the spices:

Chili powder, crushed red pepper, cumin, cayenne, coriander and oregano.

And of course, the main event:

Oh, there's the beef... That would be 2 pounds of 85% lean beef. In this case, organic. 'Cause that's how I roll.

You sauté up some onion and garlic, add the spices to toast those up, then add half the beef. When that's good and brown you add the second pound of beef and let that get browned up.

Then you add two big cans of tomatoes.

Diced and puréed, to be exact.

Kidney beans, 2 cans, drained and rinsed.

Now, some people don't add beans to their chili. That's all well and good, but I love beans, so if I have the option to add them to any recipe, I'm going to do it.

Simmer for an hour covered, and another hour uncovered, stirring occasionally. If the chili starts to stick to the bottom you might want to add a little water. It wasn't necessary for me.

Here we have my chili fixins:

Chopped scallion, cheese, lime wedges and sour cream.

And the star of the event:

Fritos. No substitutions. No homemade chips here. Good old fashioned fritos.

My dad has told me that he used to buy frito pie at football games made directly in a sliced open bag of fritos. I think that's pretty cool, but we had a guest, so I tried to keep it a bit more high brow.

So all you do is pile some fritos in a bowl, and ladle a nice healthy serving of chili on top.

Garnish as desired, and dig in.

Our guest, Luigi brought us some fabulous canolli from Cafe Dante. The were to die for.

A perfect crunchy ending to a crunchy meal.

Simple Beef Chili with Kidney Beans

From Cook's Illustrated

Ingredients

2	tablespoons vegetable oil or corn oil
2	medium onions , chopped fine (about 2 cups)
1	red bell pepper , cut into 1/2-inch cubes
6	medium cloves garlic , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 2 tablespoons)
1/4	cup chili powder
1	tablespoon ground cumin
2	teaspoons ground coriander
1	teaspoon red pepper flakes
1	teaspoon dried oregano
1/2	teaspoon cayenne pepper
2	pounds 85 percent lean ground beef
2	(15-ounce) cans red kidney beans , drained and rinsed
	1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes , with juice
	1 can (28 ounces) tomato puree
	Table salt
2	limes , cut into wedges

Instructions

1. Heat oil in large heavy-bottomed nonreactive Dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering but not smoking, 3 to 4 minutes. Add onions, bell pepper, garlic, chili powder, cumin, coriander, pepper flakes, oregano, and cayenne; cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened and beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high and add half the beef; cook, breaking up pieces with wooden spoon, until no longer pink and just beginning to brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Add remaining beef and cook, breaking up pieces with wooden spoon, until no longer pink, 3 to 4 minutes.

2. Add beans, tomatoes, tomato puree, and 1/2 teaspoon salt; bring to boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour. Remove cover and continue to simmer 1 hour longer, stirring occasionally (if chili begins to stick to bottom of pot, stir in 1/2 cup water and continue to simmer), until beef is tender and chili is dark, rich, and slightly thickened. Adjust seasoning with additional salt.

Serve over fritos for a real treat.

Happy Superbowl!

Playing with pigskin (or not...)

Meredith

Superbowl Ideas

2009-01-29T15:00:00.077-05:00

Since my post earlier this week seemed to fit, I now pronounce this week Superbowl Week here at "Player and a Baker"

There. I said it.

Now, don't get me wrong. I may be a player, but I don't really like sports. I was born with the genetic inability to appreciate all sports. It's a shame my sport-lovin' dad has endured all these years. What I do like are all of the food and beverages that are associated with sports. I like junk food. I like burgers and wings and chips and beer. Who doesn't?

Don't answer that...

Anyway, that's why I don't mind going to sporting events, and it's also why I actually anticipate the great American tradition that is Superbowl Sunday.

None of these recipes were specifically designed for a superbowl party. I'm not that organized. It's just worked out that I made a bunch of superbowl-friendly dishes over the weekend. And guess what? You get to see them before the big day, so you can make them yourselves for your very own superbowl party. It's a nice change from the usual "after-the-fact" reporting I do on events like this.

And so, without further ado, I give you Superbowl Ideas:

Onion Dip:

I had a craving for this creamy concoction, but you know me. I wasn't about to buy a can of processed stuff. I like to make things from scratch. So I found this very easy recipe from Alton Brown.

I deviated from the recipe in that I sliced the onions instead of chopping. I would chop them next time- the thin potato chips can't hold up to the larger sliced onions.

I also added a sprig of thyme, because I love onions and thyme.

This isn't my usual fully detailed post. It's an overview. I'll post the recipes below.

Moving on.

To Pumpkin Fondue!!

Michael, Wenonah and I created this recipe before Thanksgiving, with inspiration from Gourmet Magazine and Animal Vegetable Miracle. Gourmet made almost a bread pudding inside a hollowed out pumpkin. Kingsolver made a soup baked inside a pumpkin. We wanted something thicker than soup and thinner than stuffing. We wanted cheesy pumpkin fondue. So we made it.

Carve the top of the pumpkin off:

Try not to cut off your fingers...

Scoop out the seeds so that you have a nice hollow cavity. Don't carve any eyes or a mouth. That would defeat the purpose of this lovely dish.

Salt the inside of the pumpkin. Then add some grated Gruyere and Emmentaller cheese, maybe 1/4 cup. Then place a few slices of good french bread. Then add more cheese. Then pour in some half and half or cream, depending on how crazy you're feeling. Then add more cheese. And more cream.

Cover with it's little lid and bake on a rimmed cookie sheet at 400˚ for about an hour. Then remove the top and continue to cook until the cheese is bubly and delicious.

Here's the onion dip. It was delicious, if a little difficult to eat.

Pumpkin Fondue:

When it's baked up, you scrape the sides of the pumpkin into the cheese to make it nice and pumpkinny. Serve with warm french bread. It's really good.

Here my dear friend James eats some roasted shrimp cocktail. I got that recipe from the Barefoot Contessa- you roast the shrimp at 400˚ for 6 minutes to ensure maximum flavor and minimum risk for overcooking. They were delish.

Lena dug right in to that onion dip.

So there you have it: four great ideas for Superbowl Week so far:

Sausage Balls
Onion Dip
Pumpkin Fondue
and Roasted Shrimp Cocktail.

And now, some recipes:

Onion Dip from Scratch
from Alton Brown at Good Eats

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups diced onions
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 cups sour cream
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

In a saute pan over medium heat add oil, heat and add onions and salt. Cook the onions until they are caramelized, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. Mix the rest of the ingredients, and then add the cooled onions. Refrigerate and stir again before serving.

Pumpkin Fondue
A Player's Creation, with a little help from my friends.

Ingredients:

One pumpkin or squash, preferably large enough to fill with cheesy goodness.
1 cup grated Gruyere and Emmentaller cheese
1 cup half and half or heavy cream
chicken stock
1 crusty baguette

Preheat the oven to 400˚

Cut off the top of your pumpkin and remove it's seeds. Salt and pepper the cavity. Add about 1/4 cup of the cheese, followed by three slices of the baguette. Add the rest of the cheese, then pour in the cream. If you don't fill the pumpkin, add some chicken stock.

Bake the squash in a rimmed baking sheet, top on for about an hour until a knife easily slides into the flesh of the pumpkin. Remove the lid and bake for another 15-20 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly. Take a spoon and scrape some of the pumpkin flesh from the sides and incorporate with the cheese mixture. Serve with toasted baguette slices.

Make these dishes for any party, and everyone will love you.
Stay tuned for Frito Pie- the ultimate game food.

Playing,
Meredith

Sausage Balls

2009-01-27T09:52:00.105-05:00

From scratch.

Sausage balls are a Southern tradition. Go to any cocktail party, and you're bound to discover this delicious treat. It's so simple. Just throw together some Jimmy Dean sausage, some Bisquick and some cheese, form into balls, bake and serve.

But what if you don't have access to Jimmy Dean or Bisquick? Are sausage balls possible? Do they become so complicated that they become a hassle?

Nope. They're still pretty easy.

I went to the farmer's market shopping for a little appetizer party I was shopping for. In New York City, even in the dead of winter, the farmer's market was relatively hopping. I stopped at Flying Pigs Farm to pick up some breakfast sausage. Only they didn't have any. But they had ground pork, and I happened to know that the Homesick Texan has her very own recipe for breakfast sausage that couldn't be simpler. It's just ground pork, with some herbs and spices mixed in. I mean, that's all bulk sausage is, anyway.

I already knew I didn't want to buy biscuit mix, so I googled "homemade bisquick" and found this recipe. I didn't want to make the full ammount, so I just made what I needed, about 1 1/2 cups.

I know this all sounds complicated, but truly, it isn't. I'll break it down.

First, make your biscuit mix. For about 22 balls, which would serve 4-5 people at a cocktail party, you'll want 1 1/2 cups. Here's what you do:

Mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 heaping teaspoon of baking powder and a pinch of salt. Add 1/4 cup vegetable shortening, cubed, and combine with your fingers or a pastry blender until the shortening is fully incorporated into the flour.

Now, for the sausage. You can go ahead and mix that in the same bowl that has your biscuit mix in it. It's all getting mixed up anyway.

To make about 1/2 pound of sausage you'll mix 1/2 pound of ground pork with 1 teaspoon of sage, 1 teaspoon marjoram (if you've got it- I didn't, so I just left it out) 1/2 teaspoon thyme, 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, a dash of cayenne pepper, a dash of sugar, salt, and a couple grinds of pepper.

Add 1/2 cup shredded cheese- we used gruyere and emmentaller that was left over from another recipe, but cheddar is traditional.

Form into 1 inch balls:

Bake at 375˚ for 18-20 minutes. I served them with a sauce that was equal parts spicy mustard and sour cream.

I couldn't even get a picture before everyone dug in.

A Player's Sausage Balls
with inspiration from Homesick Texan and Paula Dean

(If you want to serve more than 5, see their recipes for larger amounts.)

1 1/2 cups Bisquick OR
1 1/2 cups flour
1 heaping teaspoon of baking powder
pinch of salt
1/4 cup vegetable shortening, cubed

1/2 pound breakfast sausage like Jimmy Dean OR
1/2 pound of ground pork
1 teaspoon of sage
1 teaspoon marjoram
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
dash of cayenne pepper
dash of brown sugar
dash of salt
a couple grinds of pepper

1/2 cup grated cheese (whatever you like- gruyere and emmentaler, cheddar, monterey jack...)

Preheat the oven to 375˚.

Combine the first three ingredients. Add the shortening and combine with your fingers or a pastry blender.

Add the sausage ingredients and cheese. Combine, and roll into one inch balls. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 18-20 minutes, until browned and delicious.

Serve with a mixture of half mustard, half sour cream.

Hey- why don't you make these babies on Superbowl Sunday? Everyone will love you for it.

Playing,
Meredith

I Was There

2009-01-20T09:11:00.000-05:00

I'm not there today, but I was in D.C. on Sunday, and I got to witness a little snippet of history.

Michael and I met our friend Jeanne for a little lunch at Oyamel, an awesome Mexican joint near Chinatown.

They serve small plates, but boy are they packed with flavor. The drinks are also excellent. I had a pomagranate margarita with José Andrés's signature concoction: salt foam:

Who knew that salt foam was the high end answer to a salted rim? It's subtly salty, unlike it's low-brow brother. I loved it. Michael and I will be topping our perfect margarita with it, when we get around to that particular installment of "Cocktail Monday".

Anyway, then we made our way to the Mall, and as close to the Lincoln Memorial we could get, which was a bit closer to the Washington Monument.

You know how I love meta photos of people taking photos. Here Jeanne takes a picture of Michael in front of the Washington Monument:

Porta Potties:

(Very important and plentiful, although we all luckily made it without trying these babies out.)

And here was our view of the Lincoln Memorial for the "We Are One" concert:

Check out my awesome zoom shot:

You can totally see the snipers on top of the building.

This is what was behind us:

We stood waiting a while, but finally the concert begun, with the prayer, and some celeberties speaking, and finally, the Boss:

And James Taylor (a personal favorite):

Other highlights: U2 rocked it so hard I couldn't even pause to get out my camera. Garth Brooks was surprisingly good with a little medley. And then, America's number one rock star:

Obama!

I have to say, I've never felt so patriotic in my life as I felt that day. Okay, that's possibly not counting today, but I'm sitting alone on my couch today, and on Sunday I was with 500,000+ people, every single one of them proud of their incoming president and this country. It was electric. It was exciting.

Yay America! So go, watch the inauguration, and participate in history. It's fun!

Playing with politics,
Meredith

Baba au Rhum

2009-01-15T09:52:00.002-05:00

A quintissentially French confection.

I made this as a finale for the rich and delicious meal that was Cassoulet. Read about that here. And here, here and here (Liz over at Sour Cherry Farm is a blogging pro- you should all read her blog as religiously as you read mine.)

A baba au rhum is essentially a brioche-like cake that is soaked in rum syrup. How bad could that be? (As my muse Ina Garten might say.) I pretty much followed the Contessa's recipe word for word, but I took a tip from Mark Bittman, my favorite minimalist, and baked my baba in a loaf pan instead of buying a unitasking "kugelhopf mold". It turned out very well, if I do say so myself.

Heat 1/2 cup milk to 115˚ and pour it into the bowl of your mixer. If you don't have a thermometer you trust, 115˚ is hot to the touch but wouldn't burn your skin. Add your packet of yeast and 2 tablespoons of sugar and let that sit for 5 minutes.

With your mixer on low, add 2 room temp eggs:

1 2/3 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 4 tablespoons of softened butter. Beat with your paddle attachment on medium high for five minutes.

Give that a good scrape, mix again, and then form into a ball-like blob.

Cover that with a damp towel and let it rise until doubled in bulk, about an hour.

This is when you stir in the 1/3 cup of currants you've been soaking in good dark rum. Did I forget to mention that part? Well, when you follow the recipe, it will tell you to do that. It will also tell you to drain the currants. Why in heaven's name would you want to waste that delicious flavor? I went ahead and threw that in. Call me crazy.

Here's my buttered loaf pan.

Get your dough in there and smooth the top. Then let that baba rise again for another hour. I put mine on the radiator because the Hudson kitchen is pretty cool as far as kitchens go. In Fort Worth I had to fill the washing machine with warm water and set the dough on that to get things to rise.

Hello, baba.

Goodbye, baba. And into the oven, at 375˚. Bake about 30 minutes, or until a toothpic comes out clean.

Now, make your rum syrup, which is just simple syrup with rum. (The recipe is down there.)

Place your baba on a rack over a sheet pan and go ahead and pour your syrup all over the warm cake.

Slice it up:

And serve with whipped cream.

It's light, it's boozy, and it's delicious.

But most importantly, it's really easy.

Make it.

The Barefoot Contessa's Baba au Rhum

Ingredients

1/3 cup dried currants
1 tablespoon good dark rum
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup milk
1 package dry yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Rum Syrup, recipe follows
3/4 cup apricot preserves
1 tablespoon water
Whipped Cream, recipe follows

Directions

Combine the currants and rum in a small bowl and set aside. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter and brush a 5-cup (6 1/2 by 3 1/2-inch) tube pan or kugelhopf mold with the melted butter. Be sure to coat every crevice of the pan. Heat the milk to 115 degrees F and then pour it into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Stir in the yeast and sugar and allow to sit for 5 minutes.

With the mixer on low speed, first add the eggs, then the flour, salt, and remaining 4 tablespoons of butter. Raise the speed to medium-high and beat for 5 minutes. Scrape down the bowl and beater to form the dough into a ball. It will be very soft. Cover the bowl with a damp towel and allow it to rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Drain the currants, fold them into the dough with a spatula, and spoon into the prepared pan. Smooth the top, cover the pan with a damp towel, and allow to rise until the dough reaches the top of the pan, 50 minutes to 1 hour.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and make the rum syrup.
Bake the cake for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, then tap it out of the cake pan onto a baking rack set over a sheet pan. Pour all of the rum syrup very slowly onto the warm cake, allowing it all to soak in thoroughly. Amazingly, the liquid will be absorbed into the cake, so be sure to use all of the syrup.

Heat the preserves with 1 tablespoon of water until runny, press it through a sieve, and brush it on the cake. Serve with whipped cream piped into the middle of the cake plus an extra bowl on the side.

Rum Syrup: 1 cup sugar
2/3 cup good dark rum
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Place the sugar and 1 1/2 cups water in a small saucepan and cook over high heat until the sugar dissolves. Pour into a 4-cup heat-proof measuring cup and allow to cool. Add the rum and vanilla and set aside.

Whipped Cream: 2 cups (1 pint) cold heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Whip the cream in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. When it starts to thicken, add the sugar and vanilla and continue to whip until the cream forms stiff peaks. Don't overbeat, or you'll end up with butter!
Yield: 4 cups

(Just so you know, you don't have to make quite so much whipped cream. 1 cup would be just fine.)

Bake a baba. You won't regret it.

Playing,
Meredith

Jalapeño Thingies

2009-01-13T11:58:00.000-05:00

These babies are good.

Today, we're taking a look back at a recipe I made for the Smart Christmas Party. I've got a bunch of material that I didn't get around to posting during the holiday, but I'd like to show it to you, so while I'll continue to post new stuff, we'll have some old stuff peppering the mix.

I read about these over at Pioneer Woman , and have used them a couple of times now. They are so simple, but so delicious.

You start with jalapeños. I like to use one chile per guest, which seems to work out. For this party we expected 60 people. That's a lot of spice. Slicing and seeding 60 jalapeños could literally burn you. I recommend using gloves, especially if your skin is sensitive to capsaicin like mine is. Believe me, it's worth it. My dad took the seeds and threw them in the yard, and his skin was still burning hours later.

My grandmom was around while I was making these, and she was a great help.

Here she grated the cotija cheese:

Here is my mountain of jalapeños:

I mix cotija into my cream cheese to add an extra salty bite. If you can't find cotija, ricotta salata would be a good substitute. I think I used 3 or 4 packages of cream cheese and 4 ounces of cotija.

Now it's a good time to have helpers. Lis, Grandmom and I set up an assembly line with the jalapeño halves, cheese mixture and bacon slices. PW thirds her bacon. I halved mine. The more bacon the better, I like to say.

Secure the bacon around the cheese filled jalapeño with a toothpic. Bake on a rack in a pan so the grease can escape at 375˚ for 20-25 minutes until the bacon is crisp.

These were spicy, but in a really good way. Even people who are spice shy will brave the heat for these babies. Just so you know, the smaller the pepper, the hotter it is.

Jalapeño Thingies are great party food. They'd be excellent for a Superbowl party, in case you were looking for ideas.

Playing,
Meredith

Cassoulet, Cassoulet

2009-01-10T10:42:00.001-05:00

Think Purple Rain and you'll get the theme song for this time consuming and flavorful New Year's treat.

This is an intimidating post. It's also an intimidating venture. Cassoulet is a French peasant dish that's anything but simple. I suppose if you bought all your ingredients instead of making them from scratch, you might bring the cooking time down to 24 hours. But this is not a dish for the faint of heart. Or the lacking in time and patience.

The main players:

That's meat, and lot's of it. Ham hocks, pancetta, salt pork, sausage (homemade by Liz and Greg over at Sour Cherry Farm, pork skin, pork shoulder, prosciutto and duck confit (also homemade by the farmers). Hard core. I guess back in the day this was a dish made of all the extra bits of stuff at the end of winter when all the fresh meat was used up and the family really needed some hearty fatty goodness.

G helped by chopping up the onion.

We simmered the salt pork and pork skin until the skin was supple (what? I know- it's crazy.)

Hey, check out this duck fat- you can never have too much of this stuff. That's what Liz told me anyway.

Here we have our fresh ham hocks. They were available at the Hudson grocery store, because it's crazy like that. We had to send Greg to get these because the hock that Liz bought at Whole Foods was funky, and not in a good way. We put in way too much time and effort into this thing to let one piece of off meat ruin the whole pot.

We browned the cubed shoulder:

And the hocks:

Then we sweated the veggies and slightly browned the prociutto and pancetta.

At this point I sort of stopped documenting- I'm sure I got distracted. Canellini beans had been soaking. All the meat sans sausage and confit goes in the pot along with the beans and everything is covered in duck stock (obviously made by Liz and Greg). It cooks like that for about an hour and a half. Then it went outside into the cold night to cool down. Don't worry, we weighted it down to avert critters.

The next morning, you skim off the excess fat. Then you let it come up to room temp. About three hours before you want to eat, you seperate all the meat and fat out of the pot. Chop up the meat and add it back to the beans. Slice the pork skin into slices. Then you layer that in the bottom of your dish. Next comes some beans, and then a layer of skinned and deboned confit. Then more beans mixture. You bake that in the oven for a while and start to salivate at the amazing aromas.

Liz was really really excited.

We browned the sausage and cut it into manageable chunks and nestle it into the pot.

Sprinkle on bread crumbs:

And take lots of pictures. Who knows the next time we'll attempt this one.

Like the meta double-blogging pic?

Here's one with my french rolls baking in the background. (My first attempt at baguette that didn't quite turn out. I'll tell you about it some time.)

When the bread crumbs are golden brown and delicious, it's time to eat.

This was a brown meal. No green allowed.

It may not have been the prettiest thing, but it was the most flavorful, rich thing I've ever put in my mouth.

Was it worth it?

Yes.

Would I do it again tomorrow?

Probably not. My arteries would protest.

It was a great time though- a true team effort- G, Michael, Liz, Greg and I all did our parts. It wouldn't have been fun at all to do this alone.

So there you go. Cassoulet. If you ever see it on a menu, you should probably order it. It probably won't be as good as ours, though.

We used two recipes from Paula Wolfort. One from here, and one from her book, The Cooking of Sourthwest France.

You can check out even more over at Sour Cherry Farm which will have a post up soon.

Oh, by the way, Liz- you left your book. And your duck fat. We're holding them hostage until you return to us for another delicious weekend.

Meet us at Five Guys in Kingston and you'll get your baby back.

Playing,
Meredith

Black Eyed Peas and Greens

2009-01-07T09:17:00.000-05:00

Luck and Money.

Something we all need a little more of these days...

It's an old Southern tradition to eat black eyed peas and greens on New Years Day. Up in Hudson, we certainly weren't going to tempt fate. So that's exactly what we ate.

G and I took the train up on New Year's Eve. It was very cold and snowy. Check out the train:

Pretty crazy, huh? It looks like a frozen submarine...

The eve was pretty low key, but fun. We were all anticipating Liz and Greg's arrival.

G took some time to get creative on the chalk board:

Fresh Peas:

Frozen works, but I wouldn't reccomend canned- it is a special day, you know.

We rounded it out with braised greens and cornbread.

It was delightful. I feel lucky already.

Here we have G and Greg gesticulating:

A Player and a G:

G's masterpiece:

There you have it. Stay tuned for a Cassoulet Extravaganza and Baba au Rhum. It's good stuff ya'll.

Playing,
Meredith

Cocktail Monday: Rum Swizzle

2009-01-05T12:22:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you need something light and refreshing to clear the palate for a rich meal.

I had such a meal last week. Our friends Liz and Greg joined Michael, G and I for a joint venture in porky fatty goodness: Cassoulet. It's an amazing and complex French peasant dish. Obviously more on that to come. We had this cocktail before digging into that fantastic meal, and it was a light and delicious palate cleanser.

The ingredients are pretty simple:

Lime juice, confectioners sugar, rum, a dash of bitters and some club soda.

You start out with the juice of one lime:

Add a teaspoon of powdered sugar, 2 ounces of club soda and 2 dashes of bitters and stir.

Pour that over ice in a highball glass:

Add 2 ounces rum (dark in our case):

Top with soda:

And stir. Preferably with a swizzle stick.

Check out these awesome holiday themed ones:

Enjoy as a light refreshing drink.

It was just what we needed before going down the path of the cassoulet.

Playing,
Meredith

Happy New Year's!

2008-12-31T09:12:00.000-05:00

I have a lot to talk about. Christmas feasts, and New Year's treats.

But I also just got back from Texas and am on my way to Hudson, working full days in the meantime. And I can't find my camera cord.

But I didn't want to fully abandon you, my faithful readers in this time of transition and renewal.

So I'll just wish you a Happy New Year,

From A Player

(and A Baker...)

Love,
Meredith

Cocktail Monday: Salty Dog

2008-12-29T08:09:00.000-05:00

You could call this part one of Christmas Redux.

I like my family's Christmas traditions. There are many. The way we've been doing Christmas morning hasn't changed for many years. We get up at about 6 A.M., we check out what Santa left us, then we open presents starting from youngest, going to oldest.

Oooh- look at me go:

Check out my exciting new dustbuster! You know how I love vacuum cleaners and all.

Then we have brunch. It's really breakfast, as it's at about 8 in the morning, but you get the drift.

We always have grapefruit:

And egg casserole.

And sweet rolls. This year I made Pioneer Woman's:

This year with all that extra grapefruit juice hanging around, I couldn't help myself. Mind you, I didn't actually make the drink until after noon, for those of you who are counting (you know who you are).

I went for an old fav- the salty dog. Basically you make yourself a greyhound- simply vodka and grapefruit juice- but you switch it up with a salted rim.

This one's as easy as pie, but with excellent fresh ruby red grapefruits from the Valley in southern Texas, they become extraordinary.

Salt your rim, and fill your glass with ice.

Pour in 1.5 ounces of vodka. That part happened in the bar upstairs, so I didn't get a picture. I didn't want to scare my grandmother with vodka bottles on Christmas.

I added a splash of lime juice because those ruby reds were so sweet they needed a little kick.

Poured in the juice from some supremes I made for a salad later:

Gave it a stir and called it a day.

Christmas day, that is.

It was very merry (but more so for me on account of the salty dog)

Playing,
Meredith

Christmas Gift Extravaganza Part III

2008-12-23T18:15:00.000-05:00

Fleur de Sel Toffee

This is a delicious treat! Now that I've gotten over my fear of boiling sugar, I can do anything- and so can you. Don't fear the candy. Embrace it.

I saw this recipe in Martha Stewart Living and I knew it would be amazing. I love salted caramel. Salted toffee couldn't be bad.

First, prepare your pan. Of course you're supposed to use a rimmed cookie sheet, but I don't have one, as my oven doesn't fit the normal ones. I do have this large pizza pan that I use as a serving tray. It worked fine, but I'm sure the sheet would be ideal.

Spray it with cooking spray:

Add 2 2/3 cups of sugar to your saucepan. Just so you know, this one was only just barely big enough. Any smaller and the caramel would have boiled over.

1/4 cup corn syrup- organic this time. (Take that, Lena dear)

1/3 cup water:

And 1 pound of butter, folks. This is not for the faint of heart. Of course, I use the best most local butter available:

Here we are all in the hot tub. Or rather the room temperature tub that is about to get hot.

Here's the fleur de sel that's going to be sprinkled later. It isn't from France, but I think it's still great.

Now cook. First let everything dissolve, whisking frequently.

Then leave it alone. Don't stir. Don't shake. Just let it do it's thing for about 12 minutes until it reaches 300˚ on your thermometer. Then give it one more whisk and pour it onto your pan.

Wait 30 seconds and sprinkle the top with fleur de sel. (That's how long it took me to take the cap off)

Let it cool in the pan.

Break into pieces:

And put into packages for gifting.

Martha Stewart Living's Fleur de Sel Toffee

Ingredients

Makes about 2 pounds

Vegetable oil cooking spray
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter
2 2/3 cups sugar
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup light corn syrup
Fleur de sel, for sprinkling

Directions

Coat a rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray. Bring butter, sugar, water, and corn syrup to a boil in a large saucepan, whisking frequently until sugar dissolves and butter melts. Cook, undisturbed, until mixture registers 300 degrees on a candy thermometer, about 12 minutes.
Whisk toffee mixture, then immediately pour onto prepared sheet, tilting pan to spread over entire surface. Let stand for 30 seconds, then sprinkle with fleur de sel. Let cool. (Do not move the pan for first 30 minutes.) Break toffee into pieces. Toffee will keep, covered, for up to 1 week.

Don't fear the candy. Embrace the candy.

Playing,
Meredith

Christmas Gift Extravaganza Part II

2008-12-19T08:26:00.003-05:00

When last we met I made homemade cocoa. And I asked a question.

What better to top delicious creamy homemade cocoa then delicious fluffy homemade marshmallows?

Did you think I'd leave you hanging without divulging my secret? Of course not. I never leave you hanging. Okay, sometimes I do, but this is Christmas, people. No abandoning you now in this time of giving, love and peace.

Marshmallows aren't hard to make. They're just messy. And you need a stand mixer, which is why I made these babies in Hudson where we have one. There's no getting around it, a stand mixer is necessary here. So I'm sorry if you won't be able to make this due to lack of equipment. Believe me, I feel your pain most of the time, when I'm not in Hudson and don't have a stand mixer or food processor.

I found a good recipe online, as per usual, searching "homemade marshmallows" and landed on a Martha Stewart recipe on the Oprah site. I don't ask questions. I just make marshmallows. I halved the recipe simply because we didn't want to go to the store and I only had half the gelatin required to make the recipe. I think you should go ahead and make the full amount, as you'll probably be buying the ingredients anyway. It's just as easy to make the full recipe as half, so you might as well.

First you dissolve your gelatin in some cold water in the bowl of your mixer.

Next comes the syrup. Corn syrup (don't get mad corn haters- it's necessary for the candy making process.)

Sugar and salt.

And some water to get things going.

Now once the sugar dissolves raise the heat to high and attach your candy thermometer. Brush the sides of the pan with water to dissolve any crystals that might form, and let that rip till the thermometer reaches 244˚. I didn't trust the thermometer so I used another one. They were over ten degrees different. That's why the thermapen is the best. It's very precise.

Once the syrup is 244˚ turn your mixer on low and very slowly pour it in.

Once it's all in turn the speed up to high and let her rip for 15 minutes. Really. I know it seems like a long time, but you're whipping air into the candy.

While that's going sprinkle a dish with powdered sugar. The recipe said glass, but I used this square metal one since my recipe was halved.

A quick tip: to clean candy or caramel off of your pan simply fill it with water and bring it to a boil. It melts the sugar right off.

After 15 minutes add your vanilla and stir to combine.

And pour it into your baking dish.

This is the messy part. You just have to coax it into the corners. It helps if you sprinkle it with lots of powdered sugar.

Let the marshmallows sit overnight to dry out. Then you can cut them. I used kitchen shears which seemed to work well. Dust the pieces in more powdered sugar and call it a day.

And here we have the finished gift:

The cocoa mix with a bag of little homemade marshmallows.

Homemade Marshmallows

Recipe created by Martha Stewart

Ingredients:

2 1/2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
Confectioners' sugar (for dusting)

Combine gelatin and 1/2 cup cold water in the bowl of an electric mixer with whisk attachment. Let it stand 30 minutes.

Combine granulated sugar, corn syrup, salt and 1/2 cup of water in a small heavy saucepan; place over low heat and stir until sugar has dissolved. Wash down sides of pan with a wet pastry brush to dissolve sugar crystals.

Clip on a candy thermometer; raise heat to high. Cook syrup without stirring until it reaches 244 degrees (firm-ball stage). Immediately remove pan from heat.

With mixer on low speed, slowly and carefully pour syrup into the softened gelatin. Increase speed to high; beat until mixture is very thick and white and has almost tripled in volume, about 15 minutes. Add vanilla; beat to incorporate.

Generously dust an 8 x 12-inch glass baking pan with confectioners' sugar. Pour marshmallow mixture into pan. Dust with confectioners' sugar; let stand overnight, uncovered, to dry out.

Give the gift of creamy delicious warmth this holiday season.

Or something like that...

Playing,

Meredith

Christmas Gift Extravaganza Part I

2008-12-17T21:43:00.000-05:00

Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix

About now, some of you may be getting some of my homemade goodies, so I thought I'd start talking about them.

It's Recession Christmas. Money is tight for all of us. But that doesn't change the fact that a lot of us still have too much stuff. This year, I've made a real point to give gifts that will be consumed. I mean, everyone loves a nice tasty Christmas treat, right? I love making them, so it's definitely a win win situation. Add the fact that they're good for the planet, and you've got a win win win. That's the best kind.

The first gift up on my list is Hot Cocoa Mix. I don't exactly know what inspired me to make cocoa mix from scratch. I guess I wanted to make something chocolatey, but didn't want to repeat the chocolate truffles I made last year. Hot cocoa seemed fun and great for people of all ages.

Googling "homemade hot cocoa mix" brought up a lot of recipes with non-dairy creamer in them. I don't want to judge what you put in your coffee, but I'm trying to make gourmet gifts here! No fake chemicals in my cocoa aloud! Finally I found one by good old Alton Brown over at Food Network. His was amazingly easy, and I have to say, delicious. I don't know why I haven't been making homemade cocoa all my life.

The ingredients:

Powdered Sugar, Powdered Milk, Dutch-process Cocoa, and Corn Starch.

I just mixed them all up in a bowl:

Here's the corn starch. I assume that makes the cocoa thick and creamy.

I love my pink salt because if you look closely you can even see it on white ingredients.

And it reminds you that there was indeed salt in there...

Mix well. A whisk works pretty well.

A dash of cayenne spices things up without any real noticeable heat.

I rolled up a piece of parchment to make a funnel to fill my jars.

And that's it! It couldn't be simpler. But how does it taste?

Inquiring minds want to know. Just fill up your cup with half of the mixture. It seems like a lot, but remember there's a lot of powdered milk in there.

And add the same amount of hot water.

Stir and enjoy. You'll never believe this isn't made with whole milk, it's so rich and creamy.

Alton Brown's Hot Cocoa

Ingredients

2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup cocoa (Dutch-process preferred)
2 1/2 cups powdered milk
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 pinch cayenne pepper, or more to taste
Hot water

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and incorporate evenly. In a small pot, heat 4 to 6 cups of water.
Fill your mug half full with the mixture and pour in hot water. Stir to combine. Seal the rest in an airtight container, keeps indefinitely in the pantry. This also works great with warm milk.

You know what's great with hot cocoa? Marshmallows.

You know what's an incredibly cool gift? Make a little package with your cocoa mix and homemade marshmallows.

Don't know how to make homemade marshmallows?

Well, I'll tell you.

Later.

Heehee.

Playing,
Meredith

Turkey Meatloaf

2008-12-16T11:38:00.000-05:00

Yum.

What do you eat on a chilly lazy Sunday with your closest friends other than cookies?

How about an all-American favorite?

Meatloaf and mashed potatoes. I knew the perfect recipe too. The Barefoot Contessa's. She does comfort food right. This turkey meatloaf is no exception.

Just so you know, the original recipe called for 5 pounds of ground turkey. That's just crazy. There were only three of us- G, Lena and I- no need for 5 pounds of anything.

If you're cooking for a crowd, go ahead and use the full recipe. Or do what I did and cut it down. No need for the ratios to be perfect- this is meatloaf not souffle.

First sweat some chopped onion. This was one large onion, which was way too much. 1/2 would have been fine. I just scooped some of it out before proceeding.

Fresh thyme from the herb garden:

What a lovely hand model Lena is, don't you think?

About a tablespoon of tomato paste:

A splash of Worchestershire sauce:

And a splash of stock. Mix that up and let it cool.

Lena took some initiative (she's such a go-getter) and cracked the egg into the bowl.

We used about a pound of ground turkey. Then add about a quarter cup of bread crumbs. Also, don't forget salt and pepper.

The cooled onion mixture:

And get mixing:

If it's too wet, you might want to add some more bread crumbs.

Form into a loaf:

And bake at 325˚ until it registers 160˚ on a thermometer. It took about an hour.

Next up, potatoes and green beans.

Cut up your potatoes (we leave the skins on) and cover them with cold water. Bring that up to a boil, then add your green beans. The green beans blanch on top as the potatoes cook. Very efficient.

Take out the green beans with tongs when they're crisp but tender. Then let the potatoes finish cooking. When a paring knife goes into one easily, you know you're good. Drain them, add them back to the hot pot, and get mashing:

We added sour cream and cheese to our mash.

Now, we made use of that extra sautéed onion and used it for the beans. I added a clove of garlic through the press:

And added the beans back:

What a perfectly balanced meal.

We'll have to do that again sometime.

Ina Garten's Turkey Meatloaf
(Feel free to follow the measurements above to make a 1 lb loaf)

Ingredients

3 cups chopped yellow onions (2 large onions)
2 tablespoons good olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (1/2 teaspoon dried)
1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
3/4 cup chicken stock
1 1/2 teaspoons tomato paste
5 pounds ground turkey breast
1 1/2 cups plain dry bread crumbs
3 extra-large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup ketchup

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
In a medium saute pan, over medium-low heat, cook the onions, olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme until translucent, but not browned, approximately 15 minutes. Add the Worcestershire sauce, chicken stock, and tomato paste and mix well. Allow to cool to room temperature.
Combine the ground turkey, bread crumbs, eggs, and onion mixture in a large bowl. Mix well and shape into a rectangular loaf on an ungreased sheet pan. Spread the ketchup evenly on top. Bake for 1 1/2 hours until the internal temperature is 160 degrees F. and the meatloaf is cooked through. (A pan of hot water in the oven under the meatloaf will keep the top from cracking.) Serve hot, at room temperature, or cold in a sandwich.

There you go.
Enjoy.

Playing,
Meredith

Grandmom Cookies

2008-12-12T11:23:00.001-05:00

I love my grandmother.

She's a wonderful Texas German woman. She used to bake up a storm: yeast rolls, coke cake, chocolate and coconut cream pies. My favorite thing she baked was oatmeal cookies. These are not your average oatmeal cookie. They aren't soft and chewy with raisins and cinnamon. They are crunchy. This means they stay fresh a long time, which is great, especially all those years in college Grandmom send me cookies by mail. They may have crumbled a bit, but they never lost that sweet crunch that took me back to my childhood.

Grandmom doesn't make many cookies these days, but her memory will live on as the generations after her begin to use her recipes and make them their own.

Case in point: Oatmeal Cookies.

Lena came over the other day just to hang out. We baked, made dinner and watched movies. It was very nice. It's great to bring someone into your kitchen who thinks differently than you. I wanted to make my grandmother's cookies. Lena wanted chocolate. I would have never thought to put chocolate chips in my grandmom's cookies, but it actually worked. So there you go- I learn something every day. Or almost every day, anyway.

You start with sugar- 1/2 cup brown and 1/2 cup regular.

Cream in 1/2 cup shotening. This took a while, because my shortening lives in the fridge. It's always best to bake with room temperature ingredients, but it is possible to work with cold ones.

Add one egg:

Lena added 1 teaspoon of vanilla. She's so helpful.

Now add flour. I did 1/2 cup white flour and 1/2 cup whole spelt, because I'm crazy like that. It would have been great with all whole wheat or spelt, for all you health nuts out there.

Don't forget your 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and soda and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Very important for a good cookie.

Next up: 3/4 cups oats

I mixed in the oats and 1 cup chocolate chips by hand.

Now take about a tablespoon of the cookie dough

And roll it into a ball.

Place on a cookie sheet. You might want to line it with parchment paper.

Bake at 375˚ for 12 to fifteen minutes and let cool on a rack.

I put my rack over the sink because I don't have much counter space.

So there you go. Delicious cookies that remind me of my wonderful grandmom.

Oatmeal Crunchies
from the Parson's Table, adapted by a Player

1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. shortening
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flour (or 1/2 whole wheat or spelt)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 c. oats
1/2 c. chocolate chips or chopped pecans, or heck, why not try both?

Cream together the brown sugar, sugar, and shortening. Add the egg and mix well. Add the dry ingredients. Stir in the oats and chocolate and/or nuts. Form into small balls. Bake at 375˚ 12 to 15 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet.

(The dough can be formed into a log, wrapped in plastic wrap, and frozen for slice and bake cookies later.)

These cookies are simple and delicious. I brought the extras to my scene study class, and they seemed to really enjoy them. Bake something good for the holidays. It will warm your home, and your soul.

Or something like that...
Playing,
Meredith

Where'd She Go?

2008-12-10T21:53:00.000-05:00

Lordy Mercy

I've been typing. And stressing out. And typing some more. Online forms abound. PDF's are my new best friends.

What, you might ask, am I doing?

Why, I'm applying to graduate school. Acting graduate school, if you want to know. This Player wants to play in the big league, folks. And so, all of my technology related energy has been geared in that direction.

But never fear my friends- I have plenty of time tomorrow for a real post. Because I have lot's to talk about- cookies, osso bucco, and meatloaf, Oh my!

I know you can't wait.
I'm going to go soak my hands to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome.

Playing,
Meredith

Cocktail Monday: Spiked Mulled Cider

2008-12-08T11:08:00.001-05:00

It's cold outside.

At least that's what the weather man told me. I've managed not to leave the house for the last 48 hours. All that will change when I leave this afternoon, but I'm enjoying being inside with the radiators.

It's holiday time, and with the holidays come parties and merriment.

What better way to warm up your guests than with a nice steaming mug of mulled cider?

And should you choose, adding a shot of whiskey can make it even more warming. Plus, it raises the merriment quotient quite a bit. Merriment makes for a great party.

This is a simple idea, but you can easily make it your own.

Start by gently warming your favorite apple cider.

I added about 5 cloves and one cinnamon stick, but as you can see I wasn't making that much. For a crowd, you might up that to 15 cloves and 3 cinnamon sticks. It's really all about what you like. Let that simmer on low for at least 15 minutes to let all the flavors meld.

Now for the good part. The booze:

Add about a shot to the bottom of your mug. As you can see, we used Jim Beam. I happen to prefer Maker's Mark, but we didn't have that on hand. You could also use rum, or brandy here. Bourbon works well because of it's smoky caramel notes.

Add in a few ladels of hot cider:

And call it a cocktail.

If this doesn't warm you up, I don't know what will.

Playing,
Meredith

It's All About the Sides

2008-12-04T13:16:00.001-05:00

Turkey is all well and good. But let's not forget about those who stand in the shadows.

They give us creamy. They give us crunchy. They give us salty and sweet.

They are the sides.

Today I'm going to talk specifically about three of the side dishes that I had a hand in.

First up: Creamed Greens

We had two bunches of mustard greens, two bunches of turnip greens, and two large containers of baby spinach.

We all sat down to take the tough stems off the mustards and turnips.

Working as a big group makes a dull repetitive task fun!

Or as fun as it could be...

Give those greens a good wash. Look at us using the huge sink!

Next, blanch all of the greens in boiling water for just a minute or two, then shock them in ice water.

Next, you'll want to squeeze out all the excess water. Michael used his hands, but I recommend using a dish towel.

Then give all those greens a good chop:

Thanks for chopping Sarah!

After chopping, squeeze the water out of the greens one more time.

Melt some butter in a heavy bottomed pan. You could sautée a little onion here. I'm sorry to say I was busy doing other things and I didn't actually see if Michael did. I don't think he did. I didn't taste any onion flavor, but it could have been just a bit.

Anyway, you might like a little oniony goodness. Or you could let the greens speak for themselves.

Add your greens to the butter and stir in some milk. You want to wait till the end to finish with cream. Make sure you season the greens with salt and pepper. Play with it- it's all about the look and feel of it, rather than sticking to a specific recipe.

Next up: Turnip Gratin

This one's from my favorite home-cooker, Pioneer Woman. I saw this one, and knew I had to try it.
I'm not going to go into great detail on this one, as PW has taken care of that over on her site.

Peel up your turnips. My happy helpers Mom and Lis took care of that. We did a bunch, thinking that we needed more to fill up our pan. Turns out P-dub was right- four, maybe five turnips would have done it.

Thinly slice your turnips. If you have one of these babies, it makes quick work of it.

You can also slice them by hand. Heck, that's what I do most of the time anyway.

Melissa was my resident cheese grater. We mixed it up by adding some Emmentaler to the Gruyere.

I mixed my liquids into a measuring cup for ease of use. I used heavy cream thinned down with some milk and chicken stock. Just for fun I added a little grated nutmeg.

Do your layers: Turnips, cream, a little chopped garlic, and then cheese.

Repeat as many times as you can, ending up with cheese on the top.

PW bakes her's at 375˚ for 20 minutes, but that wasn't nearly enough time for ours. Perhaps we did use more than 4 turnips... It took more like 45 minutes, and we ended up turning up the oven at the end to brown it up more.

Last on the list, brussels sprouts.

We browned ours in bacon drippings and then turned them around, adding some stock to help finish cooking.

I wouldn't recommend this method when you're cooking for a lot of people, as it's incredibly time consuming. You can't crowd the pan, so you have to do it in batches.

They were pretty good, but not awesome.

Another simple addition: baked sweet potatoes (simply halved and baked at 425˚).

These sides certainly stood up to Mr. Perfect Turkey, I'll tell ya that much.

Seriously try PW's gratin: you'll foget you said you hated turnips.
The greens are also certainly worth the effort.
Not so much on the brussels sprouts...

Playing,
Meredith

"Where's the Pie?"

2008-12-03T09:35:00.000-05:00

-Lena

"Here's the pie."

-Me

I'm the pie girl in the family. I like making pie. I've had a good deal of practice at this point, and I'm pretty good at it. You all know my famous all-butter pie crust, and I know I've told you about the flavorful addition of lard into the mix. This is another recipe I found over at Cook's Illustrated. It has a very interesting ingredient: vodka.

Now don't go crazy. The vodka cooks out. In fact that's it's very purpose. Using vodka along with a little water helps keep the unbaked pastry nice and moist, but then it evaporates in the oven leaving an extremely tender and flakey crust.

Just for fun, and because I can, I go ahead and swap the vegetable shortning for lard. Because vegetarian pie is so last century.

The first pie I made was pumpkin. Well, I intended it to be pumpkin. I bought a sugar pumpkin, baked it at 350˚, took it out of the oven, only to find something resembling pumpkin leather.

I was on a quest for another sugar pumpkin, hoping that there was just something wrong with that one. I never got the chance to find out, because I couldn't find another pumpkin.

I had to improvise.

I bought a butternut squash, which I've heard is actually in a lot of pumpkin pie mixes anyway. I bought this green squash hoping it would add that extra umph.

And I bought a can of pumpkin purée just in case.

In the end, the butternut squash was delicious and sweet. The green squash was a bit bitter, but had a pumpkinny flavor I liked. I threw all three together to make a super squash purée. Then I just measured out the 2 cups of the recipe and called it a day.

And that's how this pumpkin pie was renamed squash pie.

I had this recipe copied on a piece of paper from last Thanksgiving, so it varied from the original Cook's Illustrated version. I don't mind. I love mine. It works.

Add a cup of brown sugar to your 2 cups of squash.

Then add your spices:

Ginger, cinnamon, and freshly ground nutmeg and cloves.

Roll out your pie crust and put some foil and pie weights in it. Then make sure you refrigerate it for 30 minutes. I didn't and the sides of my pie fell a bit.

Bake the crust at 400˚ for 15 minutes. Then remove the foil and weights and bake another 8 minutes or so to brown it.

Mix together the rest of your pie ingredients: salt, heavy cream, milk and eggs. Cook's Illustrated said to cook the mixture, then add the eggs. I didn't write that part down, and so didn't do it. The filling turned out beautifully, so I'm not too concerned about it.

Pour the filling into the crust and bake about 25 minutes or until the filling is slightly cracked at the edges and the center giggles a bit.

I used the other half of the dough to make pecan pie. It's Aunt Sue's famous recipe, which I've made before, so I didn't think I needed to document that. The pecans were brought up by my parents from Texas, so they were extra good.

We took an hour or two to digest dinner, then sat down for round two: pie.

We had some weekend coffee with our pie. For those of you unninitiated into the world of weekend coffee, it's simply coffee spiked with Bailey's. It's good.

The guys ate their pie in the kitchen. I think they needed full light to enjoy their dessert.

The pies were both a success. The pecan won out, I think, but the squash pie was a close second.

Cook's Illustrated's Foolproof Pie Dough
(Adapted by a Player)

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups (12 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon table salt
2 tablespoons sugar
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch slices
1/2 cup cold vegetable shortening, cut into 4 pieces (Or Leaf Lard cut into little chunks)
1/4 cup cold vodka
1/4 cup cold water

Procedure

1. Process 1 1/2 cups flour, salt, and sugar in food processor until combined, about 2 one-second pulses. Add butter and shortening (or lard) and process until homogeneous dough just starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 15 seconds (dough will resemble cottage cheese curds and there should be no uncoated flour). Scrape bowl with rubber spatula and redistribute dough evenly around processor blade. Add remaining cup flour and pulse until mixture is evenly distributed around bowl and mass of dough has been broken up, 4 to 6 quick pulses. Empty mixture into medium bowl.

2. Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture. With rubber spatula, use folding motion to mix, pressing down on dough until dough is slightly tacky and sticks together. Divide dough into two even balls and flatten each into 4-inch disk. Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.

Cook's Illustrated's Spicy Pumpkin Pie
(Adapted by a Player)

Spicy Pumpkin Filling
2 cups (16 ounces) plain pumpkin puree, canned or fresh (Or try your own mixture of different squashes)
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup milk
4 large eggs

Roll out 1/2 of the dough into a pie pan. Refrigerate for 20 minutes (or freeze for 5 minutes) to firm dough shell. Using a table fork, prick bottom and sides — including where they meet — at 1/2-inch intervals. Flatten a 12-inch square of aluminum foil inside shell, pressing it flush against corners, sides, and over rim. Prick foil bottom in about a dozen places with a fork. Chill shell for at least 30 minutes (preferably an hour or more), to allow dough to relax.

Adjust an oven rack to lowest position, and heat oven to 400 degrees. (Start preparing filling when you put shell into oven.) Bake 15 minutes, pressing down on foil with mitt-protected hands to flatten any puffs. Remove foil and bake shell for 8 to 10 minutes longer, or until interior just begins to color.

For filling, process first 7 ingredients in a food processor fitted with steel blade for 1 minute. Transfer pumpkin mixture to a 3-quart heavy-bottomed saucepan; bring it to a sputtering simmer over medium-high heat. Cook pumpkin, stirring constantly, until thick and shiny, about 5 minutes. As soon as pie shell comes out of oven, whisk heavy cream and milk into pumpkin and bring to a bare simmer. Process eggs in food processor until whites and yolks are mixed, about 5 seconds. With motor running, slowly pour about half of hot pumpkin mixture through feed tube. Stop machine and scrape in remaining pumpkin. Process 30 seconds longer.
Or just mix all of the ingredients together if you're lazy like me

Immediately pour warm filling into hot pie shell. (Ladle any excess filling into pie after it has baked for 5 minutes or so — by this time filling will have settled.) Bake until filling is puffed, dry-looking, and lightly cracked around edges, and center wiggles like gelatin when pie is gently shaken, about 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for at least 1 hour.

Serve with weekend coffee.

Pie. It's what's after dinner.

Playing,
Meredith

Thanksgiving Redux

2008-12-02T12:51:00.001-05:00

I know you're over it, but you know I've got to do it.

Thanksgiving in Hudson: it's the third time we've done it, and I have to say it keeps getting better.

This year it's my family: Mom, Dad, Brendan, Sarah and Melissa.
And Michael's: his mom, Sue, brother Steve, and nephew Brent.

Good food with good people. It's how we roll up here.

I thought I'd do an overview of the event today and post details on my dishes throughout the week.
We kept it pretty casual with a buffet:

First thing's first: Turkey.

As you can see, this one is from Lobel's. It was organic, free-range, and lived a happy but brief life in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania. Last year it was two small heritage birds. It was fun, but I have to say, we missed the white meat of the good old broad breasted whites most of us eat every year. So we went back. And we don't regret it at all, just so you know.

We went incredibly simple. No brining, no stuffing, not even a sliced lemon in the cavity. Just a good rub-down of butter and a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper.

And now things get a little high tech. Our amazing beautiful new Electrolux oven came with a very special feature: The Perfect Turkey Button.

It all starts with a probe. Hee hee.

Get your mind out of the gutter:

It's a temperature probe. It plugs into the oven and regulates the temp.

Tent some foil over the bird so it doesn't brown too quickly:

And our resident Perfect Turkey Button pusher Sue goes to town.

Except that little button was way too perfect. We wanted the internal temp of the bird to finish out at about 170˚. After about 20 minutes of cooking, the bird was nearing 100˚ way too quickly. We had planned for the bird to be cooking at least five hours. At that rate it would be ready in less than two. We ended up turning off the convection feature and leaving the oven at 325˚. That slowed things down enough so that we could cook the rest of the feast before the bird got over-cooked.

Michael's brother Steve was in charge of the Thanksgiving music mix:

Have I mentioned yet that my pal Brent was the resident thanksgiving photographer. He did a great job, and it meant that I could focus on cooking. Thanks!!!

Here's Michael worrying over the turkey. Hey, who knew the turkey would be the quickest thing we made that day?

We left the bird in a warm oven until, well, we needed the oven space. When we took it out the breast was a bit low, but we knew all about carry over cooking. Tent that baby up and let the heat do it's magic. When you use high quality poultry you don't have to be so worried about cooking the bird to death, just so you know.

Sam to the rescue with the dish washing:

There's nothing quite like having my dad around when I cook- it's like I hardly dirty a dish before it's magically clean again!

Here I am dishing up the gravy:

That's some very special gravy. Read about it here.

Michael carved up the turkey as the fams walked the line.

We decorated the table simply with various squashes and gourds.

Here's the plate:

Starting with the turkey and going clock-wise:

Perfect Turkey with Perfect Gravy: probably the best turkey I've ever had, just so ya know.
Creamed Greens: Spinach, Turnip and Mustard.
Sue's Cranberry Sauce: whole cranberries roasted with orange zest.
All-Bran Rolls: a Maness Tradition that the Smarts have come to love.
Sue's Corn Bread Dressing: Simply corn bread, a bit of regular bread, sautéed onion and celery, sage, chicken stock and a beaten egg.
Pan roasted Brussels Sprouts
Turnip Gratin
and Roasted Sweet Potatoes in the center.

Stay tuned for all the juicy details.

Playing,
Meredith

Dinner in Red

2008-11-25T21:54:00.002-05:00

I love a theme dinner.

I haven't done one in a while. Is it possible that I haven't really done one here at "Player"? I think it might be. I'm not speaking of the general "Mexican" theme, or even "Local". I'm talking specific.

In this case the occasion was this:

The theme: Blood.

I know, it's creepy, but that's just the way it is. Vampires love blood. It has it's place in cuisine for sure, but not on a Thursday night after a long day. Luckily blood is red. Red I can deal with.

I walked around the Whole Foods for inspiration. These babies caught my eye for obvious reasons:

A beet gratin, decided. Thinly slice six beets.

Then I saw these babies: blue potatoes. Those would be a perfect addition to my gratin, and they'd soak up that beet red color and keep things nice and dark.

Slice up about an equal amount of potatoes:

Now start your layers in a buttered oven-proof dish.
Note: Make sure your pan fits in the oven. Mine didn't, but I didn't realize that till the dish was assembled, and I had to cook the thing on the stovetop, browning it in the oven with the door slightly ajar. Don't make that mistake. Let's go ahead and pretend I didn't either.

Layer your crazy blue potatoes. Then add some of the beets.

Grated gruyere and emmentaler. They're Swiss.

Give that mixture a sprinkle.

And more beets and potatoes:

And more cheese:

And more beets and potatoes:

Now you'll want to add your moisture. I added a cup and a half of chicken stock:

And about 1/2 cup of half and half. Feel free to experiment- all milk, all stock, cream and stock- any combo would work.

Top everything with cheese, and dot some butter on top. This dish is sinful. Just like vampires.

I served my gratin with paprika marinated boneless skinless chicken thighs. (The marinade is one sliced red onion, a tablespoon paprika, the juice of 1/2 lemon or lime, salt and pepper, and 1/2 cup red wine, or in my case, Marsala) Let that marinate for 20 minutes in the fridge, then bake at 400˚ until the internal temp is 160˚ish. Chicken thighs are higher in fat and therefore more forgiving than breasts.

Bake your gratin at 400˚ for 45 minutes covered, then remove the lid/foil and let the top brown for about 15 minutes.

We served our chicken and gratin with a simple radicchio salad, which fit the palate, but was a bit bitter despite my honey mustard vinaigrette.

It was a delicious meal. The gratin would have been perfect had it not been cooked on the stovetop. The combination of flavors and textures was great.

The midnight showing of Twilight was intense. I think I was the oldest person there who wasn't a chaperone. It was a great experience, though. Sometimes it's fun to be silly.

Playing,
Meredith

Tarte Tatin

2008-11-25T09:46:00.000-05:00

It's pie but better.

For our fabulous enchilada dinner, I wanted to use up the apples we picked back in October, but I didn't want to go the all-American apple pie route. I wanted something caramel based, as it's a very popular flavor in Mexican cooking. I couldn't find a specifically Mexican apple dessert, so I went with the caramel theme and picked tarte tatin. I picked up Alice Waters' book the Art of Simple Food, and found this incredibly simple recipe.

Peel and core 8 or so apples, depending on their size. You'll have to forgive me for being vague, as I didn't write down the recipe and the cookbook is in Hudson. I'll update it if I get anything really wrong.

Make sure you use an apple that's going to hold up for cooking. Mine, being a bit old, were a little soft, and broke down a bit too much during cooking. Granny Smith, Cortland or Empire would be great here.

My usual Hudson sous chef Wenonah cored the apples after I peeled them.

Now it's time to make your caramel. Don't be scared. I know I was, but it really wasn't a big deal. I used a cast iron skillet, which worked quite well. You are going to assemble your tarte in the pan you cook the caramel, so make sure it can go in the oven.

In this cast iron skillet I think there are two tablespoons of butter and six tablespoons of sugar.

Doesn't this look like a 2:6 ratio?

Sure. That seems right.

Now cook that goodness over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon.

Cook and stir, cook and stir. It will start to brown. For this recipe we're going for "dark brown" which is very close to, but not quite "burned". So be careful, and remember that when you turn off the heat, there will be some carry over cooking. Don't be scared, but do keep an eye on it, and take it off the heat when it reaches this very nice color:

Arrange your apples, which have been cut in half, those halves cut in half to make four wedges out of each apple. Make sure your bottom layer is nice and pretty, as that one will be on top. Don't worry so much about the next layer, as long as the apples are pretty much evenly distributed.

Now, you cover it with your pastry. You can use puff pastry, which would be super easy if you plan ahead. Or if you fly by the seat of your pants like me, you can quickly make your own pastry. We used my old standard, the all-butter pie crust, and it worked perfectly.

Roll it out on parchment paper into a round that will definitely cover your skillet.

Place the pastry on your apples:

And tuck in the edges.

Bake at 350˚ or maybe 375˚ (my memory fails me) for 30-45 minutes until the top is golden brown and delicious.

Let that cool for a few minutes (NOT 15 minutes, more like 3) and tip it over onto your serving plate. There are no pictures of that process because it was a group effort including Michael to get the heavy cast iron skillet filled with hot apples and caramel out of the pan. I highly reccomend having a tall dark and handsome man around for tasks like these.

Here's my tarte out of the pan:

I gave it a sprinkle of grey salt to give it some oomph.

Serve with fresh whipped cream or ice cream.

I'm glad to have this one in my repertoire. It really is a nice change from apple pie.

I'll post the real recipe when I get back to Hudson on Wednesday.

Stay tuned for A Player's First Officially Blogged Thanksgiving!

It's gonna be fantastic.

Playing,
Meredith

Enchiladas Verdes

2008-11-21T12:11:00.001-05:00

We have the sauce, and now it's time to put it all together.

You'll need a cooked chicken. We poached ours with onion, a bunch of cilantro and Mexican herbs. I have to say it turned out a bit dry. Barefoot Contessa always roasts the cut up chicken with the bones and skin attached, and it seems to yield moist flavorful chicken (350˚ for 35-40 min). Or you could go the easy way out and buy a rotisserie chicken. That would make this a pretty simple meal to make actually.

Anyway, here's our chicken coming out of the poaching liquid:

Hello my friend, did you have a nice soak?

I know, I'm insane.

Pick and shred that chicken. I moistened ours with a bit of the broth, which really helped things. The dryness of the chicken really had no effect on the final dish.

Now get your little assembly line ready to go. Put some of your salsa verde at the bottom of your baking dish. In a moment of irony, these chicken enchiladas are being baked in a vessel decorated with a rooster. I felt bad for the bird, but it's the best pan for the job.

Heat up a small skillet with canola oil about 1/4 inch deep.

Now take a tortilla and give it a little fry. You don't want these to get brown, this is about softening them up, not making hard tacos. (That's another post...)

Now fill it with some chicken;

And roll it up and put it in your dish.

I had a lovely helper, Wenonah.

When they're ready to go cover them with more salsa and put them in a 400˚ oven for about 20 minutes or until they start to get bubbly.

Then cover them with cheese. We used this cotija which is kind of like unaged Mexican parmesan. Ricotta salata would be a good substitute, or feta. Cotija is the best though.

Pop them back into the oven until they're brown and delicious.

Eat topped with sour cream. It's a must.

Playing,
Meredith

Salsa Verde

2008-11-20T19:52:00.000-05:00

It's green.

This is an all purpose sauce. Okay, I mean all purpose in the Mexican realm. Eat it cold with chips. Use it as a sauce for chicken enchiladas like I did. Top your huevos rancheros with it. It's a salsa- go crazy.

Tomatillos are not green tomatoes. They are their own thing, related to the gooseberry, I think. They have a nice tangy taste that is balanced by roasting as it is in my recipe.

Take off your tomatillos' husks and give them a rinse. I used about 23 or so, but use as many or few as you like, depending on how much salsa you want to make.

Put them on a baking dish and oil and salt them. While your at it throw in a coarsely chopped onion and 1-2 jalapeños, depending on your spice tolerance.

Roast everything at 400˚ until the tomatillos are soft and brown.

Now throw everything into the blender or food processor. Make sure to take the stems off your jalapeños. And de-seed them if you're a wimp.

Let that rip, and make sure you put a cloth on top to prevent scalding explosions and all.

Add the juice of a fresh lime:

And a bit of cilantro:

Give that a whirr, and call it a sauce. Or rather a salsa. Which is just spanish for sauce.

Stay tuned to hear how it all comes together.

Playing,
Meredith

I'm Still Here

2008-11-19T10:02:00.003-05:00

Yikes!

Sometimes life just comes at ya full speed and you have to go along with it. Sometimes I wish I had a desk job so I could secretly blog all day long. Maybe I just need an iphone...

Anyway, with Tal having the day off yesterday and working on a new awesome scene study class I'm in, I just haven't gotten it together to have a completed post ready for you yet. And I'm sorry about that. But I promise, you'll have a new post Thursday and Friday.

Look forward to more beans, enchiladas verdes, and my first attempt at tarte tatin.

Ooooh

Ahhhhhh

You're excited. I can tell.

More soon!

Playing and Procrastinating,
Meredith

Cocktail Monday: The New 1920 Cocktail

2008-11-17T12:23:00.000-05:00

You know you love it.

On Friday, Michael got home to find a lovely gift from is mom, Sue. She sent sorghum molasses, which I can now tell you is the best molasses ever. It's everything that's good about molasses without that bitter tangy element.

I digress. Sue also sent this great book: Cocktail Hour. It has all kinds of cocktails and interesting facts and vintage images. I knew we had to try one for Cocktail Monday.

Which one did we choose? The New 1920 Cocktail.

Rye, sweet vermouth and dry vermouth. Simple as it gets.

Oh, but don't forget the bitters- in this case, orange.

We happen to have three different types of orange bitters. We did a little taste test to see which one we'd use.

The lineup: Regans', The Bitter Truth, and local New York Fee Brothers:

Regans' was very spicy with lot's of clove, but it was very very bitter. Bitter Truth tasted much more like orange. Fee Brothers was the perfect balance between spice and orange flavor.

The winner was Fee Brothers hands down.

Pour 1 1/2 ounces Rye Whiskey, and 3/4 ounces each of sweet and dry vermouth into an ice filled shaker. Carpana Antiqua is the best sweet vermouth out there- remember people, it's all about the quality of ingredients.

Add a dash of those orange bitters:

Shake that up,

If you're feeling fancy you can garnish your chilled glass with a twist of orange peel tied into a knot.

Strain and enjoy.

This cocktail goes down easy. It's like a lighter, fresher Manhattan.

It does a Monday good.

Playing,
Meredith

Creamy Spaghetti Squash

2008-11-14T13:14:00.000-05:00

It's so good you'll forget it's squash.

Spaghetti squash is one of those veggies that we all got familiar with back in the days of no-carb-dom. What's that? You never fell for that silliness? Well, my parents got into it when I was in high school, and it just kinda seeped into my consciousness. It's squash that cooks up a lot like spaghetti. I know! It's crazy! And healthy. And good.

That, obviously is what I care most about these days.

This recipe is from The Kitchn via Serious Eats. Obviously I'm really into cooking the blogs this week. It can be great inspiration sometimes.

Here's my squash. Looking at it you'd never think there was spaghetti inside.

Preheat your oven to 375˚.

Give your squash some good pokes with a fork. I put my squash on some foil on a baking dish for easy cleanup.

Bake it until tender- about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes, until it can be easily pierced with a pairing knife. Let it cool a bit while you get the sauce going.

Take six sage leaves.

Fry them up in a few tablespoons of olive oil until they're crisp.

Trust me, even though they're blurry, they are crisp.

Now measure 3/4 cup part skim ricotta into a large bowl.

Smash a clove of garlic. The instruction wasn't that clear, but this is my interpretation. I crushed a clove of garlic and peeled it. Then I sprinkled it with a little salt.

I gave that a chop chop.

Then I used the knife to smash the garlic into pulp. The salt works as an abrasive to help the process along.

I was left with a garlic paste that will incorporate easily into the cheese. This is a great technique when you aren't going to be cooking the garlic.

Mix the garlic, ricotta and crumbled sage leaves.

Now slice open your squash.

Remove the seeds and pulp:

Now use a fork to seperate the strands of squash.

Add those to the ricotta and mix. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Now toast some walnuts. The recipe actually calls for pine nuts, but those things are really bad for you. At least walnuts have heart healthy oils and such. They have a nice mild flavor that's a good substitute.

Serve the squash sprinkled with the chopped walnuts.

This was a great light lunch, and would make a great side to any simply grilled protein.

Spaghetti Squash With Ricotta, Sage, and Pine Nuts (or Walnuts)

- serves 4 -
From Serious Eats

Adapted from The Kitchn.

Ingredients

1 small spaghetti squash (about 2 pounds)
3/4 cup part skim ricotta
1 clove garlic, mashed
Olive oil (about 1/2 to 1 full tablespoon)
6 to 8 fresh sage leaves
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Pierce the whole squash in several places with a knife or fork, place it in a baking dish, and bake until flesh is tender (easily pierced with a fork), about 60 to 75 minutes.
3. Remove squash from oven and let cool for 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat a little bit of oil in a small pan. Quickly fry sage leaves until crispy but not burnt. Crumble sage leaves into a large bowl and combine with ricotta and garlic. Set aside.
4. Cut squash in half lengthwise and remove seeds. Pull a fork through the flesh to separate and remove the strands from the shell. Add to bowl with ricotta mixture.
5. Combine squash and ricotta mixture and season to taste with salt and pepper.
6. Sprinkle with nuts before serving.

Mmm. Creamy and healthy! I love food.

Playing,
Meredith

Blogging Homesick Texan: Apple Wacky Cake

2008-11-12T09:48:00.001-05:00

The easiest cake in the whole wide world.

I love HT. She's an awesome lady who cooks the kind of food I miss every day: real refried beans and chicken fried steak. I think it's probably good for my health that I live in New York and not Texas...

Some of her recipes are time consuming and intense. And then, every once in a while a recipe comes around that's simple and delicious.

Wacky Cake. Why wacky? Heck if I know.

HT says, "Wacky cake is so named because if you look at the recipe you’ll scratch your head when confronted by the absence of eggs, butter and milk. (At least that is my theory, if you have a better explanation, please, by all means share!)"

I like to think it's wacky because it's actually mixed in the vessel you cook it. I think that's not only wacky but amazing.

HT gives you two options: regular Wacky Cake and Apple Wacky Cake. I went with the apple, as it was a beautiful fall day and I happened to have one in the fridge.

First I prepped the apple. I thought I'd show you how I chop up an apple. It's easier than you think.

First, peel that baby. I like to peel horizontally. I also like to try to get it in one strip. It's a fun game.

Now I just slice off the "cheeks" around the core using four slices, so that you're left with a square core.

Slice those chunks into thinner slices, and then the other way into sticks. Chop the sticks into little cubes:

Does that make sense? It really is very easy. I save the extra clean-up of the corer for when I'm using lots of apples.

If you aren't using the apples right away make sure to toss them with a little citrus juice to keep them from browning.

Oh! And now for a special bonus tip!

Since we've gotten a CSA, the amount of vegetable waste in our household has skyrocketed. The big problem: breaking down a leek or a head of cauliflower leads to very pungent garbage almost immediately. Back in Texas where space isn't an issue, my dad likes to freeze the garbage until trash day, which is a good option if you have an extra freezer. We don't even have a full sized one, so that really isn't an option. The necessity to keep odor at bay is even more important in our century old apartment building where rodents can be attracted to the smells.

The solution? An air tight container (once home to my now slumbering sourdough starter) on the counter to hold vegetable waste:

For a while we were using the container without any liner, which meant we had to wash it all the time. I recently bought some bio-bags, which are biodegradable compost bags for this very purpose. We don't have compost here, but it sure does make it easy to run a full bag to the trash downstairs on our way out.

Any container will do as long as it has a tight lid. You can buy specific compost buckets, but they are pretty expensive and not any more efficient.

We keep ours on the counter, but if you have the cabinet space, under the sink would be a great place as well.

I love walking into the apartment and smelling clean air and not sulfur.

Okay, back to Wacky Cake.

Get your sieve. Place it in your baking dish. You can also use a cast iron skillet, as I did.

Measure your dry ingredients into the sieve.

1 1/2 cups flour:

1 cup sugar:

1 teaspoon baking soda:

1/2 teaspoon salt:

1 teaspoon cinnamon:

and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, of course preferably freshly grated.

Sift those ingredients into your baking dish/cast iron skillet.

Make three little holes in the flour. Why? I don't know, that's what HT said to do.

Pour 5 tablespoons of canola oil into one hole:

Pour 1 tablespoon of cider vinegar in another hole (no action shots- they were too blurry for some reason).

And 1 teaspoon vanilla in the other:

There they all are in their little holes.

Then you wack it up by pouring 1 cup of cold water onto the whole thing.

Mix that up well, then add your one diced apple (and 1/2 cup chopped pecans if you like).

Bake at 350˚ for 45 minutes or less, until done. I only had to cook mine about 40, and then a toothpick came out clean, so I pulled it out of the oven and let it cool.

Cut into squares and remove from the skillet. (Note: it was a bit hard to get out of the pan because the cake was so moist and kind of stuck. I wonder if using a cake pan would have been easier...)

Dust with confectioners sugar:

And serve.

The cake was especially good toasted the next morning and topped with a little cream cheese.

Wacky Cake is fun, easy and delicious. It would be really fun to make with kids.

Wacky Apple Cake
From Homesick Texan

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of nutmeg
5 tablespoons of canola oil
1 cup cold water (not iced)
1 cup of diced Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored (1 medium-sized apple).
1/2 cup of chopped pecans

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Combine dry ingredients in flour sifter and sift into an ungreased 8x8 square or a 9-inch round baking pan. You can also use a 9-inch cast-iron skillet.
3. Poke three holes into the flour mixture. In the first hole, pour the vinegar. In the second hole, pour the vanilla. In the third hole, pour the oil.
4. Then pour one cup of water into the pan and mix very well.
5. Stir in the apples and pecans.
6. Place in the oven and bake for 45 minutes or less, until done.
7. Cut in squares and sprinkle top with powdered sugar.

Make it!

Playing,
Meredith

Remember the Boat Times?

2008-11-10T13:12:00.000-05:00

I know I do.

When Brent asked me if I'd like to go out on a boat on the Chesapeake Bay and eat some crabs and oysters, how could I possibly say no?

So the day after Halloween we all packed into the car and drove to a warehouse to get the boat. I was thinking yacht.

Yacht it was not.

But it was an incredibly fast and powerful floating machine, or so I was told.

We drove some more to the bay. Then we had to get suited up. This is serious boating, folks.

This yellow thing is the special survival container we have to save if we get shipwrecked. It contains useful items, such as a compass, so we can find our way to the shore.

This whole leisurely boating trip is getting a bit intense, don't you think?

Check out Michael- how does he actually make those yellow overalls look good?

Captain Brent readied the boat for departure.

Second Mate Bryan fiddled with some rope.

We made a call to make sure we were accounted for in case of emergency.

And made our way into the blue yonder.

Except we didn't make it far. And our big powerful boat wasn't so powerful, because something was wrong with the cooling element. So we barely made it out of the no wake zone before red lights blared, and we had to stop. Luckily other friends were boating as well. They picked us up, helped us tow back to the docks, and gave us all a ride to the crab place. The ride was indeed beautiful, if a bit intense. My upper body strength was just barely enough to keep me on the boat.

The crabs were awesome, but I could barely taste them because I was so hungry and tired. I do love the messy hands-on experience of the crab boil though, and would definitely do it again.

I think next time maybe we'll just drive.

Remember the boat times?

How could I ever forget?

Playing Pirate,
Meredith

An Election Adventure

2008-11-07T14:45:00.003-05:00

We were two girls with a dream.

That dream was to vote in Manhattan, and then find our way to our Nation's capital to celebrate one of the most important moments of our time: the election of Barack Obama.

Things got started early. And when I say early, I mean really early. G was a bit paranoid about all the poll site hullabaloo. I was pretty sure our site was going to be just fine, as it has all the other times I've voted, but I figured better safe than sorry, so I indulged her. Our compromise was 6:30, though the voting started at 6. Voting took about 15 minutes, which is about 8 minutes longer than usual. Still, 6:30 was really early.

On the plus side, we had plenty of time to get ready for our adventure. We wanted to go to Shopsin's at the Essex Market for breakfast, and it didn't open till nine anyway, so we had some tea and figured out our special Election Day outfits.

Shopsin's is pretty great. There are a plethora of insane people there, including the Grand Puba of Insanity, Kenny Shopsin, who is the large and opinionated chef/owner of the establishment. He's pretty awesome, although he yelled at G for taking pictures. Just so you know, he hates that.

She got a few in before he noticed:

Ooh, amazing photo-journaling G.

There's the menu. It has a gazillion things on it, and I'm pretty sure everything is great.

I had huevos rancheros, which were supposed to be spicy and weren't. G had some crazy combo with eggs and baked beans, and we shared some cheese grits. Except that I ate all the cheese grits...

Then, it was time to high tail it to Penn Station. G had another panic attack about printing our tickets, but everything was just fine. We picked up a few Coors Lights for the ride. You know, American beer for an American day, and everything.

Don't worry. It was almost noon.

We had a great time entertaining ourselves on the train. Check out me with this mad combover:

For craft time, I made a puppet out of a paper bag.

Yeah, that's Obama, in case you were wondering.

Upon arriving in Union Station, we had a hot toddie to soothe my aching throat.

Then it was off to lunch: Ben's Chili Bowl. This place is a D.C. classic.

At Ben's Chili Bowl, you must order a half-smoke, which is a delicious sausage covered in Ben's famous chili.

It's pretty awesome. Also, this was an Obama hotbed, so I felt extra excited. Sausage and Obama together in one establishment: what could be better?

Next up on the whirlwind tour of Americana:

Old Lincoln himself. I cannot tell a lie, it's beautiful. Also, Obama loves Lincoln. So it made perfect sense to make the stop.

Next up, Georgetown. We met Michael for a drink before heading to the viewing party. This is a famous place who's name I cannot recall. Lots of movers and shakers like to come here.

Check out these two:

The party was so cool. It was at a political consulting firm that helped bring you our new president.

UPDATE: SOOOOOO sorry to said political firm, I had no idea about your policies- don't worry- only 12 people read this. I hope I didn't cause any problems.

And then it was eleven, and Obama was officially announced as president.

The waterworks really got going then.

I was just so darned happy, I couldn't possibly contain myself.

The adventure was everything we set out to make it: fun, patriotic, and victorious!

Check out the new administration here.

Playing with politics,
Meredith

Happy Election Day!

2008-11-04T07:51:00.000-05:00

I've voted and now I'm headed back to D.C. to be in the thick of it for election hubbub with G. It's all very exciting. G wants to go to the Lincoln Memorial so she can make parallels between Lincoln and Obama and have a good cry about it. (I don't get it- I'm just there to support her.)

I'm not posting today, but I thought I'd link to this post on Election Day Eats.

It would be pretty fun to use one of the recipes for a viewing party. I'm going to a fancy D.C. election party. I'll tell you all about it when I get back.

Playing with Politics,
Meredith

Halloween!

2008-11-03T13:52:00.002-05:00

Oh how I love a good costume.

This post isn't about food. I know, you're shocked. It's just that costumes are just so much fun. It totally appeals to that part of me that is an actress- I love encompassing another body, being someone else for a night. It's fun.

This year I was in DC, which was great. Michael's nephew twins, Brent and Bryan were in town, along with Bryan's wife Holley. (Brent actually lives with Michael, but I don't see him that often, as I rarely go to DC.)

Guess who?

That amazing pipe gives it away, I think. Holley was a very sassy Sherlock Holmes.

Michael and I were a duo- Bill and Sookie from True Blood.

Haven't seen it? Well here's a little comparison shot to show you how awesome our costumes were:

Michael may have gone a little darker than Bill usually goes, but he can be pretty scary sometimes. If you have HBO you should watch True Blood. It's a pretty awesome show.

Oh no!

I'll definitely have a mark...

Here we have Bryan and Brent around Holley. Bryan was Speed Racer. Or something like that. We drove all over town looking for a white coverall so he could be Evil Knievel, but it just wasn't meant to be. He did have this awesome helmet.

As for Brent, well, I think you're just going to have to watch this:

He was pretty spot on, I think.

It was a lot of fun to watch people react to him. One car pulled up and asked, "What are you?" When Brent answered, "I'm Old Greg!" in the perfect accent, they said, "Oh, and you're drunk!" He wasn't yet- just excited to be Old Greg.

Oh, look. Bill left a mark.

Everyone's going to give me heck at Merlotte's tonight...

Check out Bill's awesome vamp teeth. I bought them for him. Oh wait, I mean he got them when he became a vampire 150 years ago...

Just playin'
Meredith

Bean Fest '08: The Finale

2008-10-30T10:47:00.001-04:00

We soaked, we simmered and we conquered.

It's time to finish up the tale of Good Mother Stallard and all her fixins. When last we met, the cornbread was out of the oven and the beans were simmering away.

You haven't salted your beans yet. It's a rule. I think it's been proven, but I don't question rules. I follow them. It's just the way I am.

So now that your beans are almost done, give them a nice dose of salt. That, of course is up to your tastes. We like it on the salty side. What can I say, I'm my salt-lovin' father's daughter.

In the meantime, we've been doing some extra cooking. We roasted this squash, just to enjoy that glorious thing that is the "Three Sisters": Beans, Corn and Squash. (Not to be confused with the Chekov play...) These Sisters taste pretty darn good together.

We baked this squash cut side down in a 425˚ oven until a paring knife slid easily through the flesh and the edges were brown and crusty. Then Michael melted a little butter in each piece.

Just because we love them, we cooked up some beautiful turnip greens. We used three huge bunches- but they cook way down, so don't be afraid. Just take off the bottom stems and give them a wash. Tear them up into manageable pieces. Then sautée up a few slices of bacon with a cut up onion. Don't worry about the bacon getting crisp- it's a flavoring, not a main player. Fill your pot up with water and bring it up to a simmer. Then add all of those greens- don't worry, they'll fit. Season with salt and pepper. Then just let them cook until tender.

And now, without further ado, the conclusion of Beanfest '08:

Those fabulous heirloom beans, garnished with some raw onion.

Fresh skillet cornbread and roasted squash.

And turnip greens, garnished with a splash of vinegar.

A fine truly American meal, if I've ever seen one. The beans were out of this world. They tasted so incredibly meaty, I could have sworn they were cooked with a ham hock. I've never had beans so good, and I've had a lot of great beans in my lifetime. You must order these beans and give them a try. I promise, you'll never forget them.

Playing,
Meredith

Cornbread

2008-10-29T10:38:00.000-04:00

Hello there,

It's Bean Fest '08 here at a Player and a Baker and I'm excited to continue the tale today with Sue's Cornbread. Sue is Michael's mom, and she's an amazing Southen cook. I think Michael ate this cornbread every day of his young life. He couldn't ever get it perfect until finally we made Sue break it down, step by step. It isn't so much a set recipe. It's all about the feel. We'll get to that later.

For now, things start out innocently enough.

This is the key:

It has to be Aunt Jemima. It has to be self-rising. It has to be white. That's just the way it is. Don't question it. It works.

Measure out about 2 cups of the mix. Mix in 1 teaspoon baking soda. That's necessary when using buttermilk, and well, there's no choice. You must use buttermilk. So extra baking soda it is.

Now, make sure you get your cast iron skillet into a 425˚ oven. Cast iron is not optional here, but I highly recommend you get one. They are awesome.

Scoot the flour to one side of the bowl and break an egg on the other side.

Give that egg a scramble:

Now add in maybe 1 1/2 cups buttermilk. If you're nervous and it's humid, start out with less.

Mix the wet ingredients in their little compartment.

Now here comes the fun part. Mix that together. Then check it out: is it thick? Thin? The consistency must be right. What consistency? Well just for fun, rather than describe it, let's see it in action:

So there you go. Not too thick, not to thin, and dribbly.

In the meantime, when the skillet is hot, put three tablespoons of canola oil in the hot skillet and put it in the oven for at least 5 minutes. When that oil is good and hot, take it out of the oven and carefully pour it into your batter. (Just so you know, if you're feeling particularly naughty, you could definitely use bacon grease or lard. That's how it used to be done, and it's amazing.)

Put that skillet back in the oven and stir that baby up: (Note the nice view of the Hudson Kitchen)

Bake until the edges are nice and brown and the top starts getting a nice golden/brown color: about 20-25 minutes.

Flip out of the skillet and serve immediately.

Skillet cornbread: it's a thing of beauty.

More to come: greens, squash, and the reveal of those heirloom beans.
See you soon!

Playing,
Meredith

Bean Fest '08

2008-10-28T13:18:00.000-04:00

Well folks, I think I've started a new tradition here at Player: Bean Fest!!!

It all started in last month's Food and Wine Magazine. Some beans were featured in a cassoulet recipe. And these were'nt just any beans. These were fabulous and rare heirloom beans brought to you by Rancho Gordo. Michael had to get some. So he immediately ordered them. We got six different varieties, but we started with Steve Sando's (founder of the company) favorite:

Aren't those graphics fabulous?

And the beans- they're so pretty. Good Mother Stallard: not to be confused with Old Mother Hubbard. She gave her dog a bone. This Mother gives us tasty beans.

Wow! I've never seen beans like this. You probably haven't either. That's why they're "heirloom". Just thought I'd spell that out for you.

We start with a rinse and a soak.

Rinse:

Rinse some more:

Check out the use of the spray feature on our beautiful sink! That baby can really squirt.

Next we soak:

Make sure those beans are covered by an inch of water.

And now you wait. Perhaps you might make a "Jack London". Soak for at least 4 hours.

DON'T do the quick soak thing. If you don't have time to soak, just cook the beans. Apparently adding heat starts the cooking process and doesn't actually further along the soaking process. So there you go. We soaked for just over 4 hours, but you can go up to 6.

And now for the cooking. We kept it simple with a mirepoix: diced onion, carrot, celery, and garlic.

As you can see, it's kind of equal parts celery and onion, half that amount of celery, and 2 cloves of garlic. You really want the flavor of the beans to come through here, so be judicious.

Sautée your veggies on medium heat until they're translucent but not brown.

Then add your garlic:

Stir that about until it softens.

Now add the beans and their liquid. That liquid has good stuff in it. We wouldn't want to waste that.

You'll want to make sure the beans are still covered by an inch of water in the pot. Stick in the end of a wooden spoon to be sure.

Here Michael demonstrates the fact that his thumb joint is an inch. Yours is probably pretty close too.

Uh oh- not quite an inch. Add more water, but make sure it's room temperature, and not cold.

Bring those to a boil. Let them boil for five minutes:

Then let them simmer. For hours. Michael spent a lot of time doing this:

Cover them with a little crack of the lid. Let them go for hours. I think ours took maybe three?

Want the end results? Well you'll just have to wait. I've got more to tell you about before these babies are plump and delicious.

Still to come: Turnip Greens and Cornbread, along with fabulous video.

(Especially for my friend Greg)

Playing,

Meredith

Cocktail Monday: The Jack London

2008-10-27T13:32:00.003-04:00

It's that time again. It's Monday. Everyone is back to the grind, and pretty sad about it. And I know how to cheer you up! How about a nice cool cocktail?

This one is an original, brought to you by our resident mixologist Michael. We wanted something with cider and fall flavors. A short trip to the local liquor store and a little experimentation and we had ourselves a mighty fine cocktail.

What better spirit to pair with fresh local cider than applejack? I mean it's made out of apples. Ha, talk about stating the obvious.

Further perusal in the liquor store, Michael found this new thing: Ginger- it's kind of a ginger-flavored fortified wine. We thought it might pair well with the apple theme.

So we have a Jack London. Jack for applejack, London for the Brittish origins of the Ginger, and Jack London for the adventurous feeling the cocktail evokes.

Finally a few things we already had: orange bitters, Punt e Mes (a spicy apertif) and of course, apples.

Chill your martini glasses- this baby is gonna be straight up.

Now mix in your shaker:
A splash of Ginger:

1 1/2 ounces of fresh cider:

1 1/2 ounces Applejack:

1/2 ounce Punt e Mes

A dash of orange bitters if you've got them. You could also add an orange twist and regular bitters.

Fill the shaker with ice and give it a gentle shake.

Strain into the chilled glasses:

Garnish with a slice of fresh apple and serve with aged cheddar.

I promise you, even with the slightly obscure ingredient list, this would be a perfect cocktail for a Fall-themed party.
Slightly spicy, fruity and delicious.

You'll love it.

Playing,
Meredith

The Long Awaited Arancini

2008-10-23T11:48:00.005-04:00

I told you tomorrow but I meant Thursday.

Okay, I meant Tuesday, but I worked a lot this week, and didn't get the photoshopping done, and well, it's an age-old tale. I love blogging. But I love resting and following the election like my life depends on it. So now it's Thursday and I give you the beautiful thing that is Arancini.

These fried risotto balls are an excellent use of leftover risotto. It's too gummy the next day when reheated anyway. These make leftovers into a glorious concoction all it's own.

I used Mario Batali's recipe as a guide, which is a great start if you don't have leftover risotto to begin with, as it walks you through those steps as well.

I took a picture of the cookbook, which is all kinds of illegal, I'm sure, but I'm sure old Mario won't mind.

He calls his "Suppli' al Telefono" or telephone wires, because of the delicious strings of mozzarella that occur when breaking open one of these babies.

(Click on the picture to enlarge the image)

Heat up your oil. Mario says all extra virgin olive oil. I say that's crazy, so I used some olive oil mixed with vegetable. Get that oil nice and hot in a dutch oven or heavy pot.

Dice up your mozzarella.

Mix an egg into your risotto. Mine already had plenty of cheese, but if you're following Mario from the start, you'd mix that in here.

I made my own breadcrumbs by drying out stale bread in a warm oven.

Then I pulverized them in the food processor. Store bought are fine, I just didn't have any on hand.

Take a tablespoon of rice, and put it in the palm of your hand. Make an indentation and add a small ammount of the mozzarella.

Cover the filling with the rice and roll into a ball. Roll in the breadcrumbs and set aside.

Hello my beauties!

Fry a few at a time- don't be afraid to let the oil get really hot- you aren't really cooking anything here, so they can go pretty quickly.

Here they are fresh from the oil. Some were prettier than others. The pretty ones had much hotter oil.

They all tasted delcious. Especially with my delicious sauce.

Cook risotto. Make extra. Then eat this. I promise, you won't regret it.

Playing,
Meredith