The Fear of Phyllo and All Things Dough

I admit it--one of the reasons I picked the mixed green salad with goat cheese wrapped in phyllo dough (aside from the festive way that goat cheese resembled a little present) was to overcome my fear of phyllo. The last time I attempted to use the dough was disastrous--dough crumbling and breaking all around me. Now I was determined to at least get through the phyllo dough. Even if my goat cheese gifts didn't turn out that pretty, I had to prove to myself that all hope was not lost on phyllo. I very carefully set up my station of wet towels to cover the dough, melted butter, and the other tools advised by all the articles I had read on phyllo. And then I started.

And the result? Not bad, semi-acceptable. I'll take it.

So surely after my encounter with phyllo, I thought the puff pastry for my savory palmiers would be cake. So much so, that apparently I didn't read the recipe very well, and baked the pastry whole instead of slicing them and then baking. Y-eah.

They were a lot greasier as a result, and when I did slice them, I smushed them down. The "puffing" part of the "puff pastry" would have worked much better if I had actually followed the directions.

Pork Shoulder and Potatoes

Without a spice grinder, we mashed up the rub for the pork the best we could--ziplock bag and hammer style. Yet I didn't get the powder I really wanted, so the pork rub had a few chunks of peppercorn and such. Ehh, flavor.

Here's my sister stirring up the garlic paste made from 6 (!) cloves of garlic with the half and half for the sauce to pour over the potatoes. The whole house smelled of roasted garlic--yum.

Off To Houston--Christmas Eve

Every family has their traditions, and in the past few years, I've cooked a formal dinner on Christmas Eve and then a full-on Thanksgiving-style food bonanza on Christmas Day.

This year for Christmas Eve, I chose a slow-cooked pork shoulder from Food & Wineas the main course; a Barefoot Contessa recipe for a mixed green salad with goat cheese wrapped in phyllo dough; another Barefoot Contessa recipe for Savory Elephant Ears as an appetizer; and a potato gratin with roasted garlic and manchego from Food & Wine as a side. I know what you're thinking--this is a lot of food. But, as a said in a previous post, there is a reason I started 2010 8 pounds heavier.

Needless to say, I had my work cut out for me. So I recruited a sous chef, my sister, and we were off.

Fudge for the Office Folks

One of my holiday traditions is to make fudge. I always use the recipe on the back of the Marshmallow Fluff jar. It's called "Never Fail" fudge, but for me, it's "Usually Doesn't Fail" fudge. (I have been known to burn the sugar in the past).

Anyhoo, when I was a kid, every year we would make fudge deliver it in Christmas bags to neighbors, school friends, and teachers. Now I've continued the tradition by making it every year for my coworkers. Each year they hem and haw about being on a diet, but ya know what? At the end of the day, the fudge is all gone. Here are a few fun pics. Note the Mexican vanilla left over from our wedding--good stuff.

Check out that stick of butter...mmm....

Beef Bourguignon for Mom and Aunt Reida

December began with a much-anticipated visit from my mom and my lovely Aunt Reida. As my friend (and fellow dinner guest) Katie proclaimed, nothing beats dinner with some sassy Southern ladies.

Ina Garten's version of Beef Bouguignon is (like most of her recipes), a simplified and amplified version of a classic, Ms. Julia Child's. Let's face the facts here, people--the Barefoot Contessa never fails.

The evening got off to a bit of a rocky start--I'm pretty sure we got the wrong cut of meat (below), and before I knew it, the kitchen was full of hungry people watching my every move and blocking the appliances. Add on top of that a cadre of paparazzi (my husband and mother), and I was fearing the worst.

Eventually the crowd dispersed, and Aunt Reida stuck around to keep me company. Thus she (thankfully) was the only one to bear witness when I nearly set the house on fire lighting the cognac in my Beef Bourguignon. It was impressive. I'm sure I wouldn't have been nearly as impressed if I did ignite the ceiling, but because I didn't, Reida and I share a fond memory of me with a butane lighter following the Barefoot's instructions to "STAND BACK," and then letting 'er rip with a 3 foot flame blazing from the top of the pot. I think our hearts skipped a beat, but it really was fun with fire. The photographers had since left the kitchen, so no photographic evidence exists (they did come running in when we started screaming, though.) Here's the final result.

And then I forgot my tomatoes in the oven. After the success of Julia Child's Tomatoes a la Provencale at my Julie & Julia dinner party, I thought they'd be no brainer home run for this shindig. When I finally remembered to take them out of the oven, they looked sad--saggy, runny, deflated like someone stuck a pin in them and drained out the joie de vivre that my dinner party tomatoes had. Here they are pre-oven (much prettier than the final product).

Luckily I also made the Barefoot Contessa's Garlic Mashed Potatoes, which was the hit of this meal (hello, 1 head of garlic. Garlic, like cheese, is something I can't live without. Seriously, I would put it my survival pack if ever I was banished to a remote desert island.

Here's the final meal on a plate.

Although the food turned out alright, the highlight of the meal was definitely the company. We had too much fun sitting around drinking wine and reminiscing. Here's to the next visit!

Good Gourd!

In my adulthood, I have grown to love squash. I do have memories of my childhood turning my nose up at it and pushing it around on my plate, mashing it with a fork while muttering under my breath "squash the squash." But since then, I have grown to appreciate it's starchiness and versatility. You can do anything with different types of squash--roast them, stuff them, make ravioli. Nothing like a good gourd.

So when I saw some intriguing varieties of autumn squash at the store, I decided to make an all-squash dinner. I made Autumn Squash Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter Sauce with stuffed mirlitons on the side (more on that later). Not sure what variety of squash this is (maybe kabocha?), but when I roasted it with fresh thyme, the kitchen smelled like fall. Delicious.

Here's what it looks like on the inside.

As for the stuffing of the wonton wrappers, I know this is the easiest way to make ravioli (I have tried to make and press pasta dough before--let's just say it will be awhile before I attempt that again). But even with this "ravioli for dummies method" I still manage to make ravioli that explodes in hot water, oozes out the sides, and basically self-destructs once I try to cook it. This attempt was no different. I know I get too excited about the filling and probably put too much in each one. But no one wants a wimpy ravioli with only a little filling, especially when it is roasted squash with vanilla beans and nutmeg. I managed to salvage a few to make the pic look pretty.

Now onto my stuffed mirliton...

Those of you not from New Orleans will know mirliton as chayote squash, but we like to speak a language all our own ("She lives across the neutral ground. When I was making groceries this morning, the clerk gave me an extra loaf of bread as lagniappe." neutral ground = median, making groceries = buying groceries, lagniappe = a little something extra.)

I used a recipe from a New Orleans cookbook I inherited from my grandmother's kitchen called La Bonne Cuisine. I can't find the same exact recipe online, but this one is pretty close. I had to eliminate the shellfish from my version, though, as the husband is allergic (bummer for him).

I'm not known for my dexterity with a knife, so (no shocker here), I destroyed a few of the mirlitons when I attempted to hollow them out to prepare for the stuffing. Oh well. The finished results may not have been as pretty, but were savory and rich (oh, my friend cheddar cheese, how great thou art).

At the end of the day, you don't taste food with your eyes, so if my meal was less than pretty, I'm ok with that. Squash dinner may be a repeat occurrence.

Holiday Highlights...

With December comes insanity, and I haven't had a chance to post on all the cooking I did throughout the month and the holidays. Here are the highs (and a few lows) on the deliciousness of December. (And I wonder why I started 2010 8 pounds heavier--umm, check out one of my fave repeat desserts of Christmas trip--my mom's chocolate cake with Blue Bell Peppermint Ice Cream.)

Sidebar on Blue Bell--it really is "the best ice cream in the country," as they advertise. But, alas, it is not available in the Northeast, so I have no choice but to gorge myself on it when I am in Houston visiting the fam. This is a common theme for me in Texas--getting while the getting is good. I have been known to eat TexMex over several consecutive days, pile up large plates of barbeque brisket, and consume entire gallon tubs of Blue Bell over a 3-day visit (it doesn't travel well, so what are you going to do?).