Sweet and spicy

I have a couple of different gingerbread cookie recipes. One makes quite possibly the best gingerbread cookies I've ever eaten (and yes, it's from my cooking Bible). The other, which I'll post today, makes a drier but still tasty and extremely sturdy cookie - it's excellent for making gingerbread houses.

Gingerbread house, Christmas 2005

Several years ago - I think it must have been 2002, because Chuck and I weren't married yet - my in-laws received a lovely, lavishly-decorated little gingerbread house from one of my father-in-law's clients. Pat, my mother-in-law, displayed it atop their entertainment center, much to the chagrin of my diabetic father-in-law, because Ken wanted nothing more than to tear into it and consume every last crumb.

With Pat's blessing, I set about constructing a small gingerbread house for Ken for Christmas. I substituted in Splenda for the sugar in the recipe, to make it slightly more diabetic-friendly, and I used sugar-free candy to decorate it. Though a little lopsided, it was an unmitigated success as far as Ken was concerned. I privately decided to turn it into a yearly tradition.

I don't know what got into me the following year, but I decided to make a gingerbread outhouse for Ken, complete with gingerbread toilet and a moon carved into the door. He roared over it when he opened the box, and ate every bit of it - even the toilet.

In 2004, I crafted a gingerbread representation of Ken giving a performance on stage at the theater - chewing up the scenery, as usual. Before opening it, he joked, "What is it this year? A leach field?" Little did he know that I tucked that comment away in the back of my head for the following year.

We bought our house in 2005, so I decided that year to make a replica of it in gingerbread, as shown up at the beginning of this post. However, I first presented Ken with a flat sheet of gingerbread with a mini candy cane sticking up out of it (all wrapped up in what he thought was the gingerbread house box).

He was nonplussed, until I explained that it was his leach field. When he finished laughing, I gave him his real house.

Unfortunately, Ken called a halt to the tradition last year, as even the gingerbread made with Splenda and decorated with very little sugar-free candy was sweet enough to throw his blood sugar a little too out-of-whack. I'm considering making one this year, just for fun...though I've a feeling it won't last long, in my house.

Here's the recipe for the gingerbread and the icing.

Gingerbread Dough

This dough bakes into a firm, sturdy cookie, making it appropriate for gingerbread houses, large cookies or ornaments. This recipe makes enough dough for one small house plus accessories.

Ingredients:
5 1/2 cups unsifted flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cloves
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup molasses
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation: In a large bowl, thoroughly blend shortening and sugar. Add molasses, egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. In another bowl, sift dry ingredients. Gradually stir dry ingredients into molasses mixture. When mixture becomes too stiff to stir with spoon, work dough with hands until completely blended. Separate dough into 4 balls. Wrap each in plastic wrap and chill a minimum of one hour. Dough can be refrigerated for up to two weeks.

Baking & Construction Techniques: You may build your house in stages over a few days or a few weeks time. Bake pieces one day, attach pieces for construction at another time, and add decorations even later. Place a disk of chilled dough directly on aluminum foil cut to fit your baking sheet. Cover dough with plastic wrap and roll to 1/4" thickness.

For gingerbread house dimensions, cut patterns from waxed or parchment paper that include 2 pieces of the following: side walls which are 7" wide and 4" high, end walls which are pointed are 51/2" wide and 8" high at the point, roof panels which are 81/2" wide and 6" high.

Remove plastic wrap, place pattern pieces for house (which you have cut from waxed or parchment paper), directly on dough, leaving at least 1/2" border around pieces. Using a small sharp knife, cut around edges of pattern. Using your fingers or a small knife, remove scrap pieces of dough, leaving cut pieces intact on foil. Cut out doors and windows. Remove paper pattern pieces and place foil directly on a flat baking sheet. Bake at 325 degrees, 10 - 25 minutes, depending on size of pieces. Gingerbread will darken, especially around edges, and feel firm to the touch. Remove sheet from oven and allow gingerbread pieces to cool on sheet. Gently peel gingerbread from foil. You may store pieces lying flat in a cool dry place or freeze in an appropriate container.

When ready to construct the house, spread icing directly on a strong piece of cardboard, plywood, or a flat unbreakable tray to cover area where house will be built. Spread or pipe icing on edges of each piece which will attach to one another. Press pieces firmly together and hold to form neat angles. You may release your hold when pieces are self-standing. (This should only take a minute or two.) Allow sections of the house to dry before applying the roof or candy decorations.

When house is thoroughly dry, you may begin attaching candy, cookies, nuts, etc., to the house or "grounds" using the icing as glue. Store house in a cool dry place for up to four weeks.

The Icing

The icing is used as "cement" to put the house together, attach decorations, and make icicles and decorative trim. You will need 2 - 3 batches to complete one house. Make each batch separately. Any fat substance will inhibit the whites from beating so separate the yolks carefully and keep all utensils grease-free.

Ingredients:
3 large egg whites, room temperature
4 3/4 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

Preparation: Place egg whites in bowl. Add cream of tartar. Sift sugar directly onto egg whites. Beat 4 minutes with electric mixer on high speed. The mixture will thicken as you beat it and when finished should be the consistency of mashed potatoes. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly over icing while using to prevent air from drying it. If storing for use at another time, store icing in an airtight plastic container in the refrigerator. If icing becomes too firm, simply beat a little water into it.

Decorations: Select candy according to size and desired color; the sky's the limit!

Giving Thanks

Thursday was quite lovely.  We hosted our sixth Thanksgiving dinner. My mum and my brother, Chuck's parents and uncle, and my cousin and her three-year-old (our godson) joined us around the table. The nine of us fit quite comfortably into our dining room, a first for Thanksgiving dinner at our house; the past two years we've been at folding tables in our family room.

I am particularly grateful that Jess (my cousin) and Jake (her son) were able to join us. Jess' husband, JD, is in the Army, and is currently stationed in Korea. It might've been a very lonely Thanksgiving for them at home in Virginia, but they were able to fly up to be with us for a few days.

We missed having Chuck's sister, brother-in-law, and two nieces with us this year; they were with her in-laws.  We also missed our dear friend Al Corona, who passed away in August.  He was a family friend who always spent the holidays with us; Thanksgiving wasn't quite the same without him.

As per usual with Thanksgiving dinner, getting everything onto the table left me in my last-minute holiday-meal frenzy, and I wasn't really able to enjoy my meal until I was about halfway through it.  One of these years, I'll figure it out (maybe if I ever get that double wall oven...).  I was musing about how my grandmother used to do it, and realized that my mom and aunts were always in there helping her, and she usually had a willing army of grandkids to run the dishes out to the table.  

Our menu included:
Turkey
Mashed potatoes
Stuffing
Gravy
Roasted beets
Green beans amandine
Butternut squash puree with shallots
Cat's cranberry sauce

Jellied cranberry sauce

Rolls

(The following are more notes to myself for next year, but feel free to read.  I know at least one person will.)

The squash and the cranberry sauce I made ahead of time; I just threw the squash in the oven to reheat.  The squash should be pureed in slightly smaller batches, to avoid lumps.  Also, 6 pounds of squash was more than adequate; maybe 4 pounds for this many.  The cranberry sauce was perfection (I even ate some on vanilla ice cream as my second dessert).  I went a little heavy on the ginger, cinnamon and cloves, but made a second batch, plain, and combined them.

Unfortunately, I burnt the almonds for the green beans as I was slicing the turkey, so had to start over again.  I think I'll try making the sauce for them ahead of time next year, so I can zap it in the microwave and add it to the hot green beans.

The roasted beets were a huge hit, but I need to find a method that isn't so labor-intensive immediately before the meal.  I washed them, trimmed the ends, wrapped them in foil, and roasted them for about an hour.  When I took them out, the skins peeled off effortlessly, but it was a lot of work to peel and slice them as I was trying to get everything else done.  Maybe peeling and quartering before roasting?

Two pounds of green beans is a lot of green beans for nine people, if you have so many other side dishes.

Keep an eye on the stuffing. (Yes, I know, it's technically dressing, because I don't cook it in the bird.  I call it stuffing anyways.  Deal with it.)  I baked it at 400F, as suggested, and the edges were a little...uh...crispy.  Okay, they were burnt, I admit it.  Next year, lower temp.  The unburnt part tasted great, though, and I kept notes.  The recipe made a 9x13" pan of stuffi....dressing.  :P

The turkey (a fresh bird from Raymond's Turkey Farm in Methuen, MA) was perfection, if I do say so myself.  325F for about 4 hours for a 21.5 pounder, which is far shorter than almost any cookbook or website will recommend, but I checked the temp, and it was DONE.

The gravy was also good: the flavor was great, though it was a little greasy.  I need to look up gravy separators and get a better one.

The open-faced turkey sandwiches that Jessie and I had for lunch yesterday were better than Thanksgiving dinner.  Consider this option for next year.

Five pounds of potatoes would've been more than enough.  We went a little crazy with those.

Seeking your design input

We are going to be doing some kitchen renovations (Hallelujah!) in the not-too-distant future.

Here's our current kitchen, just after we moved in a couple of years ago:


Please note the striking (they really are painful) orange/coral counters and backsplash, circa 1975, and the pale peach cabinets. Bleargh. You can't really see any walls in this photo, but they're a bland, flat vanilla.

We have a basic layout figured out, but I'm looking for some input on color schemes. The plan is to replace the counters/backsplash, and we'll paint the cabinets (maybe replace the doors), because as much as we'd love new cherry cabinetry, it's just not in our budget. Depending on what a friend can do for us, we may potentially have new plywood carcasses built, and get new doors. We'll see.

Color-wise, my inclination is towards mocha walls (Ralph Lauren "Thunder Bay," if you want to go looking for it) with cream cabinets. I've also considered doing the reverse, as well as sort of earthy green walls (Benjamin Moore's "Wethersfield Moss") with cream cabinets (or the reverse).

The kitchen is wide open to the family room, which is grey-green (Benjamin Moore's "Nantucket Grey"), and also opens to the dining room (Benjamin Moore's "Moroccan Red"), and the hallway (Benjamin Moore's "Dunmore Cream"), hence my leaning more towards a neutral mocha instead of the green.

Give me your thoughts! There's a poll in the right side-bar, or leave your comments here.

Good gravy!

Gravy was always sort of a hit-or-miss affair when I was growing up. It always tasted good, but it might be lumpy, it might be thick, it might be thin. If it was too pale, Mum helped it along in the color department with a little "Kitchen Bouquet."

Five Thanksgivings ago, my friends Annette and Jon joined us for dinner, and Annette made the gravy (as well as an absolutely amazing butternut squash/apple dish). The gravy was a revelation: dark, smooth, and delicious. I've made it every year since. Another bonus: the base can be made up to eight hours ahead, then just finished off at the end.

This recipe assumes you're roasting a 14-15 pound stuffed turkey. I usually cook mine without stuffing, so I add the juices from the cavity of the bird to the pan juices.

Turkey Gravy

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter, cut into pieces

5 cups canned low-salt chicken broth

3 tablespoons minced fresh herbs (such as parsley, sage, savory and/or thyme)

Toast flour in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat until pale golden (about the color of peanuts), stirring constantly, about seven minutes. Remove from heat. Add butter and whisk until butter melts and mixture is smooth (mixture will become very dark). Gradually whisk in broth. Bring to boil over medium heat, whisking frequently. Reduce heat; simmer until gravy is reduced to 2 1/2 cups, about 30 minutes. (Can be made 8 hours ahead; cover and chill.)

While roasting turkey: At outset, pour 1/2 cup broth into roasting pan, and add 1/2 cup broth every 30 minutes, over a roasting time of approximately three hours.

After turkey is roasted, scrape pan juices and any browned bits from roasting pan into 2-cup measuring cup. Spoon off and discard fat from surface of juices. Add juices to gravy. Add herbs and bring to simmer. Season gravy with salt and pepper.

Cranberry Bread

Much like her mother, Bonnie, my mother has her own special nickname. When I was in high school, if Mum knew my friends were calling, she would gleefully answer the phone, "Fred's Pizza!" My friends Mark and Andrea and I started calling her "Fred," and it's stuck.

Though I've shamelessly edited or abandoned some of my mother's recipes over the years, her cranberry bread is a classic that requires no modification. It is one of my favorite baked goods. It needn't be relegated to November and December, but to me it just tastes like the holidays.

This bread is moist, has the perfect blend of flavors, and it has plenty of chunks of cranberries and nuts. I've had many a cranberry-orange muffin or bread in my day, and too often they're drier than the Sahara, or there's not enough orange flavor, or the cranberries are chopped into tiny bits.

The original calls for walnuts, though I'm sure you could swap them with pecans, if you prefer them. Unfortunately, most of the people in my life don't care for (or are allergic to) nuts, so I have to omit them entirely.

Fred's Cranberry Bread

Preheat oven to 350F.

2 cups flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
approximately 3/4 cup orange juice
1 egg, well beaten
2 cups fresh cranberries, washed, picked over, and halved (not chopped)
1/2 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

Sift together flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.
Combine oil with enough orange juice to make 3/4 cup.
Stir egg into juice mixture and pour into dry ingredients. Mix just enough to dampen. Gently fold in cranberries and walnuts.
Spoon into greased loaf pan, spreading sides slightly higher than center.
Bake at 350F for 50-60 minutes. Turn out of pan to cool on rack.

Why you should always have cocktail sauce on hand

I alluded to this in a previous post.  Here's the story.

One of our easy, almost-never-fail hors d'oeuvres is shrimp cocktail.  A couple of bags of shrimp from Trader Joe's, crushed ice, a little cocktail sauce - voila!  Very little prep, which is always particularly good when one is busily concocting a feast of gargantuan proportions.

You might note that I said ALMOST never-fail.  It's not fool-proof.

I think it was the first Thanksgiving dinner we hosted.  I had everything under control...or so I thought.  Six guests, plus the two of us, no problem.

Rule Number One of planning (a party or otherwise): 

Never, ever say "no problem."  It'll getcha every time.

I don't think I'd even gotten the turkey into the oven when I discovered that our meal for eight needed to be turned into a meal for eleven.  That, however, was not the problem.  The problem was that we had plenty of shrimp, and no cocktail sauce.  Nor did we have any horseradish to make some cocktail sauce.

As I mulled over the situation, I opened the cabinet to get out some spices for something else, and there it was: powdered wasabi!  Horseradish!  Okay, Japanese horseradish, but so what? It was obviously the answer to my prayers!  I mixed it into some ketchup and blithely threw the bowl of "cocktail sauce" on the platter with the shrimp.

Let's just say it was a lesson learned.  Since that day, I always, ALWAYS keep an extra bottle of cocktail sauce on hand.

Thanksgiving: Butternut squash

Winter squash, especially butternut and acorn, are definitely on my list of comfort foods. I grew up on butternut squash that was simmered 'til soft, then mashed, and then given the ol' nutmeg-and-brown sugar treatment. It was soupy almost every time because of the cooking water - you could never drain it enough - and generally a bit lumpy.

Because I grew up seeing it prepared that way, it's also how I cooked it...until last Thanksgiving. This squash is rich and velvety and so, so good. I also love it because you can prepare it ahead of time - as in, a couple of days ahead of time - and just reheat for dinner.

Roast Butternut Squash Puree
(from Real Simple, November 2006)

Serves 8-12

3 butternut squash (2 pounds each)
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
6 small shallots, halved
4 tablespoons honey
6 sprigs fresh thyme (I used dried)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 400F.

Trim stem ends from squash, then halve lengthwise, discarding the seeds. Transfer the squash, cut-side up, to a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment or foil. (If you're using cookie sheets, you'll probably need two.) Season with salt and pepper and top with shallots, honey, thyme, and butter.

Cover the squash with foil. Roast until softened, about 45-60 minutes. (Roasting for longer is better than not long enough, I discovered one year; not long enough, and you won't get that velvety-textured squash. A thin-bladed paring knife should cut through the squash "like buttah.") Uncover and set aside until cool enough to handle. Working in batches, scoop some of the softened squash and shallots from the peels into a food processor.

Puree the squash mixture until smooth. Transfer to a serving bowl. Repeat with the remaining squash and shallots. Serve warm.

You can cover and refrigerate the puree for up to 48 hours. To rewarm, heat in a covered saucepan over low heat for 10 minutes.

Let the games begin - Thanksgiving is 10 days away!

I'll be posting some of my favorite Thanksgiving/holiday recipes over the next few days.  Hope you enjoy them!

What a mess

So there I was, after a late dinner, making the Flan de Queso (Cheesecake Flan) that one of my students had requested as her birthday treat.

It was 9:00 already, but it's a fairly simple recipe; I figured I could whip it up, throw it in the oven, clean up the kitchen, and still be in bed by 11:00.

Ha bloody ha.

Here's the recipe in a nutshell: Caramelize sugar, and pour into baking dish. Throw the rest of the ingredients into blender, mix, pour into caramelized dish, and bake in water bath for an hour. Simple enough. I've made it before, no problem.

Two important words (which I ignored): candy thermometer. Helps with the caramelizing.

So, there I was, watching the sugar turn a lovely deep golden brown, tra-la. We don't need no steenkin' candy thermometer. I then went to pour it into the baking dish, and it was awfully...sluggish. I got it into the dish, and tried to spread it evenly...and it wouldn't budge.

Oh dear.

I grabbed the spoon out of the pan, and there was a loud "CRACK." It was the sugar, BREAKING. Picture, if you will, the insides of my saucepan - and now, the bottom of my glass baking dish - coated with a nice thick layer of lollipop, or a layer of peanut brittle, sans peanuts. You know those fancy desserts that are served in a sort of a cage of brittle spun sugar? This would've been PERFECT for that.

Cussing ensued, as well as snapping at my dear husband, who didn't at all deserve it. (He'd even gone out to the store for me to get an ingredient I'd forgotten.)

An hour and much hot/boiling water later (plus more cussing), I was back to square one. I dug out the candy thermometer this time, and things seemed to proceed much more smoothly. The proof is in the pudding, as they say - in this case, the flan - so I won't know for sure 'til tomorrow, but I think we're in business.

Anyhoo. Please don't let the above culinary disaster scare you off from making and trying this delicious dessert (though I'm sure Linda will tell me she'd rather I make it for her). This is my friend Vanessa's recipe for Flan de Queso; it's a hybrid of cheesecake and flan, and it's delicious.

Flan de Queso

Ingredients:
4 eggs
8 ounces cream cheese (I use low-fat, aka Neufchatel)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 can evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup sugar

You'll need:
A blender
a small saucepan or small skillet
a baking dish - 8x8" square works well
a roasting pan that the baking dish will fit into

Preheat the oven to 350F.

First, you need to caramelize the sugar. Oh, come on, you can do it. It's not as bad as I made it sound. Put the cup of sugar into the saucepan or skillet, and heat until it melts and becomes a lovely golden brown. As I mentioned, you do have to watch this step carefully, or you'll end up with a pan of burnt sugar, which really isn't what we're going for here. Take it off the heat, and pour the caramelized sugar into the baking dish. Swirl around so the bottom of the pan is covered, as well as about an inch up the sides. Set aside.

Put all of the other ingredients into the blender, and blend thoroughly. Make sure you don't have any lumps of cream cheese left in the blender.

Pour blended ingredients into prepared baking dish.

Put roasting pan onto the middle rack of the oven, and fill with an inch or so of water. (It can't be too high, or it will overflow when you put the baking dish into it.) Carefully put the baking dish into the roasting pan, and close the oven door. Bake for one hour. Remove flan from oven, allow to cool, and refrigerate before serving.

T-minus three weeks and counting

The "T," in this case, stands for Thanksgiving. Three weeks from today is turkey day. Are you ready? I sure as heck am not, at least not as far as getting things in order, though our turkey is ordered. However, a recipe request from a friend and co-worker and loyal reader of Throwing Spoons *waves to Colleen* is spurring me into action.

We're hosting Thanksgiving this year. This is not big news to our families. Chuck and I (and Süss) have hosted Thanksgiving every year since we got engaged (2002), so this is our sixth one. We've learned a few things along the way. Among them:

• Tinkering a little bit with the menu is acceptable. (I grew up with a fairly set-in-stone Thanksgiving day dinner, so this was real growth on my part.)
  
• Always plan for more than you think you need. (We learned this our first year, when our guest list of eight suddenly became eleven, on Thanksgiving morning.)
  
• It doesn't matter if you're eating at the dining room table or at folding tables from Staples in the family room - what's important is who's at the tables.
  

I'll list some more in another post. If I forget to tell you, ask me why it's crucial to always have a back-up bottle of cocktail sauce on hand.

Now, on to Colleen's request for a homemade cranberry sauce. I stole this from my friend Charles last year, and it was delicious. I tweaked it a bit for my own purposes; click here for Charles' original recipe, which includes a variation to turn some of it into cranberry mustard. One of the nice things about cranberry sauce is that you can make it up to a week ahead of time and let it mellow in the fridge; it just gets better and better, and saves you the headache of making it Thanksgiving morning.

Cat's Cranberry Sauce

1 bag cranberries, rinsed and picked over
1 cup granulated sugar

The juice and grated rind of 1 orange

1/4 cup water

Optional:

ground ginger, to taste

ground cloves, to taste

Combine the berries, sugar, orange juice and water in a saucepan and cook, covered, over medium heat for 10 minutes, until the berries have all popped open. (This can also be done in the microwave, but be sure to keep it covered or you'll have a big mess to clean up.) Stir in the orange zest. Cool and then transfer to refrigerator containers until using. This will keep at least a week.