happy new year

a good luck feast for the new year, brought to my stomach specially by: dagmar, winter, siri, and jackie jazzyowl.

Happy New Year everybody! Regular and real posting to be resuming again soon.

simple pleasures, to infinity

When your best friend's mom specially prepares food for him to take back home to you. In this case, Brian's mum made some killer stuffed cabbage (and then some) and Brian brought it over to my apartment for us to share. We ate 'til fit to burst and I've never been more pleased.

merry christmas

wishing you all the best in the new year

pumpkin seeds

For the first eight days of this December my entire apartment was filled with old friends. Every morning I would wake up to a living-room battlefield of sleepy bodies and cast-off clothes, their garments and limbs draped lazily across every extraneous surface: couch, table, floor, and chair. The perilous daily crossing to the bathroom was a careful negotiation of careless leg arrangements and upturned wrists flung across pale faces; over soft hair spillings across gold couch cushions and clenched-fist pullings of blankets beneath neatly tucked chins. It was a perfect and entirely consuming practice. I seemed to have no time to do anything but work and return home to these faces, work and return home to them.

It wasn't until I stole home for a weekend that I had a chance to really cook again, and by then all I had it in my heart to do was somehow try and recapture that sense of complete comfort so briefly enjoyed in the presence of my true loves. Much to the ongoing anguish of lonely people everywhere, though, it turns out that almost nothing will serve as a substitute for the earnest and wholesome solace of being with close friends. Almost nothing EXCEPT for the combined scents of cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin. So, having already been thoroughly stuffed with as much pie as one could possibly want in any season, I decided to take pumpkin down a slightly different path and turn it into some butter. Pumpkin butter! It is so delicious to even say it.

This recipe was simple...adapted straight off of allrecipes.com. I was overwhelmingly pleased with the results, but if you have any recommendations for substitutions or changes please, please feel free to share!

This piece from the NY Times Holiday Food section is also a very worthwhile read if you have the chance. It'll make you smile, I promise.

Out Of This Strata

Great things come from small beginnings, big things come in small packages, etc. I'm sure you're all familiar with the standard-issue anecdotes about how it is the littlest things in life that matter the most, but a reminder now and then has never hurt. Especially when we're all still in the lovely rose-colored flush of Thanksgiving consumption after-glow. This dish is the definition of great big things being cultivated from very tiny beginnings, i.e. a mouth-watering Recipe shared via Google Reader as almost an afterthought one afternoon at work. Next thing I knew, Ben Duchac had turned my cast iron fantasy into one hundred percent reality. He is now my personal hero and shall remain so for eternity.

Running a very close second in my ranking of life-time heroes, though, would be the delightful lady behind the always-amazing Our Kitchen Sink for providing me with endless hours of salivary-gland-activating photography and food ideas. Haha. No, I cannot really believe that I just said that, either. Aren't you just amped to eat yourself some strata now?

Care of the Kitchen Sink:

"You Will Need:

4 large eggs
1/2 cup low-fat yogurt
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 large garlic clove, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons finely chopped sage
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
One 16-ounce can diced tomatoes with their juices
Salt and freshly ground pepper
5 ounces whole wheat peasant bread, cut into 1-inch cubes (4 cups)
2 ounces feta cheese, crumble

To Make:

Preheat the oven to 450°. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, then whisk in the yogurt and parsley.

In a 10-inch ovenproof skillet, heat the olive oil. Add the onion, garlic, sage and crushed red pepper and cook over moderately high heat, stirring, until the onion is softened and lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juices, season with salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Stir in the bread and sprinkle with the feta. Pour the egg mixture on top and bake for 20 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool slightly, then serve."

Yum!







Prep stage, bread cubes


Almost there!!





Ready to be devoured!



An ultra-rare-never-before-seen-behind-the-scenes glimpse at me photographing my food! Kidding, kidding.
care (once again) of Ben D.The man can do no wrong!

post-Thanksgiving; stuffed

I like going home again. As few and far between as these visits have become, they are always fairly necessary in maintaining stasis on my sanity. Food isn't the only reason, of course, but it's up there as one of the best. For as many years as I've made the southward trek to have Thanksgiving dinner at my cousin Nick's home, I've been known to indulge in three or four portions too many of our family's patented chestnut stuffing. When I was very much younger, my theakoula would sit around the kitchen table with a few other family members and steam, prick, and peel all the chestnuts by hand on Thanksgiving morning. I remember very well their whispering, their rustling and the scent of nuts, still warm and cracking--their voices as palpable and sticky sweet as the odor, just as rich and full of promise. I'd find myself wandering over on purpose, seeking aimless errands that would take me into the kitchen, just so that I could be around them while they worked.

For some reason it had never occurred to me to ask for the recipe before. I had a reliable resource of it on a yearly basis, plus enough take-home leftovers to kill an ox. Recently, though, I have begun to realize that chestnut stuffing is a dish I'd like to eventually be able to bring to my own table. And I'd like to have spent enough time with it to get it absolutely right, maybe even add a few of my own twists and turns to the mix. So between glazing pears, mashing potatoes, sweating feverishly, and slicing carrots--I leaned over and sneakily asked my cousin Maria if she would be so kind as to relay the recipe to me.





These are exactly, word-for-word, the instructions that she passed down to me. The original recipe calls for both beef and liver, but Maria and Nick have long been making their version vegetarian. (Necessary in order to accommodate the variety in diets bound to be encountered in any gathering numbering above twenty.) Remember: this is a recipe intended for many, you might want to cut it down a bit if you're cooking for less than forty.

You Will Need:

white onions
1 lb. black raisins
1 lb. pine nuts
5 stalks celery
2 sticks butter
3 lbs. chestnuts (to prepare-boil for ten minutes, prick shell with knife, and peel)
1 bunch parsley
40-45 oz. vegetable broth
2 cups cooked rice

To Make:

1. Saute onions in butter. Add celery, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste.
2. Add pine nuts, chestnuts, raisins, and rice.
3. Add broth.
4. Bake in oven at 375 degrees covered with foil for 30-35 minutes.

And don't forget dessert:

fall is my favorite season

I am a simple girl.

You Will Need:

1 bag of cranberries
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
(that's it--seriously)

To Make:

Bring all the ingredients to a boil together in a large pot. Turn heat down to low and let bubble/simmer for about ten minutes--I don't let mine go for that long because I like my sauce pretty chunky and still loaded with lots of whole berries. Remove from the heat and let cool for a time, then transfer contents to a container and refrigerate until thoroughly "gelled". Serve cold and delicious.