Sayonara, 2007

I mentioned a Buffalo chicken dip in my earlier post; here it is. I don't make this often, because I find it positively addictive. I usually serve it with celery sticks and Melba toast, but any sturdy cracker will do. (Or, alternatively, a spoon. Hee.)

The original recipe calls for a full stick of butter. I halved that, with excellent results. I also use low-fat cream cheese (Neufchatel) in place of regular; no one will know the difference. I'm sure you could also use reduced-fat cheddar on the top of this.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves

8 ounces low-fat cream cheese (Neufchatel), softened

1 cup blue cheese (or ranch) dressing (I recommend Marie's Premium Super Blue Cheese)

3 celery ribs, diced

1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick)

1 cup hot pepper sauce (I recommend Frank's Red Hot or Texas Pete)

8 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 350˚F.

Gently simmer chicken in water or chicken broth until cooked through. Cool slightly, then shred or cut into chunks. Place in a large bowl.

In a small skillet, sauté celery in butter until soft. Mix into chicken.

In a small bowl, mix softened cream cheese and dressing. Stir into the chicken mixture. Add hot sauce and stir well to combine.

Place mixture in a 9x13" baking dish. Sprinkle shredded cheese on top. Bake for 25 minutes or until heated through and cheese is melted.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone!

We'll be spending our New Year's Eve with two other couples, including my cousin and her husband. Wendy's a great cook, and Ted is a chef. Needless to say, we'll be eating well tonight.

I'm contributing some appetizers (and, surprise surprise, Oreo Truffles). They're not fancy apps - they'd be quite at home at a Superbowl party - but they're both yummy. I'll post the buffalo chicken dip later, but here's the recipe for lime-apricot chicken wings.

Because these wings tend to leave a mess to clean up, I definitely recommend making them in disposable foil roasting pans. Watch these carefully so they don't burn - I speak from experience. Blackened chicken has its place, but these should be sticky and mahogany-hued.

Lime, Apricot, and Soy-Sauce Chicken Wings

8 pounds chicken wings
1 cup fresh lime juice (from 8 to 10 limes)
1 cup apricot preserves
1 cup soy sauce
2/3 cup sugar
4 large garlic cloves

Preheat oven to 425°F. Cut off wing tips, reserving for another use, and halve wings at joint. Divide wings between 2 large disposable roasting pans (about 12x16" each), arranging in single layers.

Purée remaining ingredients in a blender and pour mixture over wings, dividing evenly between pans. Bake wings in upper and lower thirds of oven 50 minutes. Turn wings over and switch position of pans in oven, then bake 45 minutes to 1 hour more, or until liquid is thick and sticky (watch carefully so they don't burn).

Serve wings warm or at room temperature.

Spaghetti with what?

We had our first family Christmas party in AGES yesterday.  (This is the seventh Christmas Chuck and I have been together, and this was his first family Christmas party.  Does that put it into context?)  It was so nice to see family at something other than a funeral.  A few people couldn't make it, due to some nasty weather, but we still had over a dozen people here.

I kept the menu pretty simple.  We had shrimp cocktail, chips and salsa, and baked stuffed mushrooms (the last thanks to my cousin Wendy and her husband Ted) for appetizers.  The main meal was ham, green beans, carrots, Aunt Diane's vegetable quiche, bread, and baked spaghetti.  Dessert included Oreo truffles (of course), fruit salad (again thanks to my aunt), Mum's apple pie, ice cream (a necessity at every Crofts gathering, no matter the season), sugar cookies, and some fantastic cranberry pistachio biscotti (another Wendy and Ted item).

The baked spaghetti is my Aunt Diane's recipe, and it was a staple at every family gathering when I was a kid.  My cousin Jeff and my brother Dan used to push each other out of the way in order to get to the dish of baked spaghetti.  They were more civilized about it yesterday, but I made a double batch, just in case.

It's simple - four ingredients (six, if you count the seasonings) - and they're not ingredients you might think to put together, but they combine to make something that I definitely include on my list of comfort foods. I have "slimmed down" the original recipe, which calls for a pound of bacon, which you fry until crisp, and then you cook the onions in the bacon fat. Can you feel your arteries hardening?  I make it with less than half the bacon in the original recipe, and then drain off all but a tablespoon or two of the bacon fat before cooking the onions.  It's still not a particularly healthy dish, but I love it.

Spaghetti with Bacon

Preheat oven to 250˚F

1 pound spaghetti
4 - 6 ounces of bacon (original recipe calls for a pound)
2-3 onions
3-5 cans tomato paste (I usually use 3)
garlic salt, pepper

Cook spaghetti according to package. Drain, rinse in cold water and set aside.
Fry bacon until crisp; drain on paper towels.
While bacon is frying, chop onion. When bacon is cooked, drain off all but 1-2 tablespoons of the fat from the pan. Add onion to remaining bacon fat and and brown onions.
Add tomato paste to frying pan, and mix with onions. After heating mixture, add to cooled spaghetti.
Break bacon into small pieces and add, along with a little garlic salt and pepper, to spaghetti. Spread in a 8” or 9" square pan. Bake 1 1/2 hours at 250˚F.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to my loyal readers!

These are the ornaments nestled together near the bottom of my tree:

O Truffles

The "O" in the title could stand for "Oh my head, these are so good." It might even stand for "Orgasmic." In fact, my friends, it stands for Oreo.

If you've never had these, you might be looking at me strangely right now. "Oreo Truffles? Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?" However, I know that those of you who have had them are nodding in agreement. These are absolutely killer, and while a little labor-intensive, they're not complicated.

The original recipe calls for cream cheese; low-fat (Neufchatel) works just fine. I've recently come across a variation that calls for 14 ounces of sweetened condensed milk in place of the cream cheese, which means that they do not need to be refrigerated. As I was hoping to give these away to my friends at work, I'm going to give them a whirl; I'll keep you posted. (I'm also going to try making a batch with Nutter Butters and replace at least some of the cream cheese with peanut butter.)



Oreo Truffles

Ingredients:
1 pkg. (18-20 oz.) regular Oreos (NOT Double Stuf)
8 oz. cream cheese, softened to room temperature (use lowfat - no one will know the difference)
16 oz. chocolate chips

Directions:
In food processor, or with a rolling pin or meat tenderizer, process Oreos into fine powdery crumbs.

In mixer, or with your hands, combine Oreo crumbs with softened cream cheese. Mix/knead thoroughly (no streaks of cream cheese should be visible!) into a soft dough.

Roll dough into 3/4" balls, and chill for one hour.

Melt chocolate in a double boiler, or in a heatproof bowl set over simmering water. Microwaving the chocolate doesn’t work well for this. Dip chilled truffles into melted chocolate. Remove with slotted spoon or two forks, and let excess chocolate drip off. Place on waxed paper-lined cookie sheet, and chill.

Store in airtight container in refrigerator.

Makes approximately 4-5 dozen truffles.

White Christmas

Home sweet snowy home, originally uploaded by MarthaC.

I mentioned in my last post that we were going to have a white Christmas. This was taken on Friday morning, just after we'd gotten about ten to twelve inches of snow.

I woke up early this morning in order to get to the grocery store before today's storm hit...no such luck. I opened my door at 6:45 to about three more inches on the ground, and it's coming down like crazy out there. Guess we'll have to make do with what's in the house, for today.

Perhaps a recipe post later, but I think most of today will be taken up by making (and addressing?) my Christmas cards and decorating our tree and house.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The weather seems to be cooperating this year as far as giving us the white Christmas I always, even now, hope for. We have our trees (though they're not yet decorated), and I have virtually all of my Christmas shopping done (go, me! I started way early this year). I've been listening to my Christmas CDs for weeks (got a new one today, from my friend Charles), have been making our Christmas cards, and in addition to the aforementioned gingerbread cookies have made a batch of sugar cookies. Which brings us to today's recipe.

Gramma Bonnie's kitchen always had a well-stocked cookie jar for her family of cookie monsters. Sometimes it had Oreos or Vienna Fingers in it, but it often was full of homemade cookies; sugar cookies and Tollhouse were her standards. My sugar cookie recipe is from HER mother, my great-grandmother, Effie May Allison Wilkins.

Effie May Allison Wilkins

This recipe is tried-and-true; can four generations be wrong? One of the best things about this recipe is that you don't have to chill the dough before rolling it out and cutting it, as you do for so many sugar cookie recipes. It also holds its shape very well during baking, so you don't get goofy-looking shapes (unless you use a Goofy cookie cutter, I suppose).

Effie's Sugar Cookies

Preheat oven to 350˚F.

2/3 cup shortening (butter or margarine, softened to room temp, may be substituted - butter may make a softer dough that requires a bit of chilling)
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
milk to mix (about 2 tablespoons)

Cream together shortening and sugar. Add eggs and mix well. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add gradually to first mixture; add vanilla.
Mix to a smooth dough (add milk if necessary to get to a rolling consistency).

On a floured surface, roll to 1/4” thickness (or thinner, depending on your preference) and cut.
Sprinkle with decorative sugar before baking, or leave plain – they're also good frosted, post-baking.
Bake in preheated 350˚F oven for 12-15 minutes. Baking time may vary, depending on thickness of cookies.
Makes about 60 cookies, depending on thickness of dough and size of cookie cutters.

Best Gingerbread Cookies Ever

Per my promise (and a request for the recipe), here's my preferred recipe for gingerbread cookies (from my cooking Bible, of course). These, no joke, are the best gingerbread cookies I've ever eaten. They're chewy and spicy and oh, so good. They're really easy to make with a food processor, but it's not a necessary piece of equipment.

Notes:

If you plan to decorate your gingerbread cookies and make ornaments out of them, follow the alternate directions for Thin, Crisp Gingerbread Cookies.

Because flour is not added during rolling, dough scraps can be rolled and cut as many times as necessary.

Don’t overbake the cookies, or they'll quickly go from chewy to dry.

Store soft gingerbread in a wide, shallow airtight container or tin with a sheet of parchment or waxed paper between the cookie layers. These cookies are best eaten within one week.

Thick and Chewy Gingerbread Cookies

Makes about 20-30 cookies

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces
3/4 cup light or dark molasses
2 tablespoons milk

1. Choose the directions that apply to you:

FOOD PROCESSOR DIRECTIONS:
In a food processor, process the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt until combined, about 10 seconds. Scatter the butter pieces over the flour mixture and process until the mixture is sandy-looking and resembles very fine meal, about 15 seconds. With the machine running, gradually add the molasses and milk; process until the dough is evenly moistened and forms a soft mass, about 10 seconds.

MIXER DIRECTIONS:
Stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt at low speed until combined, about 30 seconds. Stop the mixer and add the butter pieces; mix at medium-low speed until the mixture is sandy looking and resembles fine meal, about 1 1/2 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and, with the mixer running, gradually add the molasses and milk; mix until the dough is evenly moistened, about 20 seconds. Increase the speed to medium and mix until thoroughly combined, about 10 seconds.

2. Scrape the dough onto a work surface; divide it in half. Working with one portion at a time, roll the dough 1/4” thick between two large sheets of parchment paper. Leaving the dough sandwiched between the parchment, stack the dough on a baking sheet and freeze until firm, about 15 to 20 minutes. (Alternatively, refrigerate the rolled dough for 2 hours or overnight.)

3. Adjust the oven racks to the upper- and lower-middle positions and heat the oven to 350F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or spray them with cooking spray.

4. Remove 1 dough sheet from the freezer; place on the work surface. Peel off the top parchment sheet and gently lay it back in place. Flip the dough over; peel off and discard the second parchment sheet. Cut the dough into 5-inch gingerbread people or 3-inch gingerbread cookies, transferring the shapes to the prepared baking sheets with a wide metal spatula and spacing them 3/4 inch apart; set the scraps aside. Repeat with the remaining dough until the baking sheets are full. Bake the cookies until set in the centers and the dough barely retains an imprint when touched very gently with a fingertip, 8-11 minutes, rotating the baking sheets front to back and switching positions from top to bottom halfway through the baking time. Do not overbake. Cool the cookies on the sheets 2 minutes, then remove the cookies with a wide metal spatula to a wire rack; cool to room temperature.

5. Gather the scraps; repeat the rolling, cutting and baking as in steps 2 and 4.

VARIATION: THIN, CRISP GINGERBREAD COOKIES

Makes about 34-54 cookies

These gingersnap-like cookies are sturdy and therefore suitable for making ornaments. If you wish to thread the cookies, snip wooden skewers to 1/2-inch lengths and place them into the cookies just before they go into the oven; remove skewers immediately after baking. Or, use a drinking straw to punch holes in the cookies when they’re just out of the oven and still soft. Store in an airtight container. In dry climates, these cookies should keep about a month.

Follow the recipe for Thick and Chewy Gingerbread Cookies, quartering rather than halving the dough, rolling each dough quarter 1/8 inch thick, reducing the oven temperature to 325F, and baking the cookies until slightly darkened and firm in the center when pressed with a finger, 15-20 minutes.