Playing with my new toy!

We stuffed ourselves silly last night at the Japanese restaurant. They serve sushi and have the hibachi-style grills, so we did both only no one kept track of who was ordering what kind of sushi and we ended up ordering almost a meal's worth in sushi rolls alone! We may have saved ourselves the effort of cooking and cleaning, but we didn't save ourselves from over-eating!

I'm still feeling blah today - nasty sore throat and congestion that just doesn't let me get a good night's sleep. I don't really feel all that terrible, but lack of sleep is definitely wearing me down. My dad was convinced it was the stress of having guests and although I definitely don't agree - my parents and brother are very easy to have around - it probably will be easier to lounge around and get a little more sleep now that it's just the four of us again.

But on to my new toy, the Griddler. I tried it out the other morning and was very disappointed when I couldn't turn out a decent pancake. The pancakes were limp, lifeless and pasty looking - ugh. I couldn't decide if it was the pancakes or the griddle. There are some design elements of the Griddler that could be better, but, no way could it be a complete flop - the trusted folks over at the CLBB would never steer me wrong!

To prove it was a bad batch of pancakes and not a failing of my eagerly-awaited new toy, I decided I would make another batch of pancakes this morning. It took me a while to find a recipe that did not call for buttermilk, but I finally found one. (I did not want to use the milk and vinegar method because so far, that's not turned out very well for me - and it may well have been the reason the last batch failed.) Anyway, I finally found a very basic recipe that called for milk alone and woohoo - success! One of the keys is to heat the Griddler to at least 400º, maybe even 425º, not 350º like the booklet claims. The pancakes were light and fluffy and very good. I tend to prefer a whole grain or heartier type of pancake, but sometimes a plain old, no-frills pancake just hits the spot. No pictures though - they were gobbled up too quickly for that!

Basic Pancakes

As I mentioned before, The Griddler does have a few things that could be improved upon. First, the heating element runs only along the outer edges of the plate, causing somewhat uneven heating. Snaking the coil back and forth across the area under the plates would have been a better way to go, IMO. I also think that the plates could have a little more heft to them - this would help them retain the heat better. As you use the Griddler, the plates tend to lose heat pretty quickly and take a while to come back to optimum temp. Still, now that I've had a successful run, I think these are things I can work around. The cleanup is really simple - one of my main reasons for putting the Griddler on my Christmas list.

The next test for the Griddler was grilling chicken and making panini. Making sandwiches for dinner not only allowed me to take a bit of a break from cooking, but it also allowed me to play a little more. Eventually I'll get around to trying new recipes, but for tonight, I stuck with a tried and true, the chicken, goat cheese and bacon sandwich that I modeled after a sandwich I had always enjoyed from Biaggi's. First I grilled the chicken on the Griddler, closing the griddle so as to grill on both sides at once. The chicken breasts cooked up in about 6 or 7 minutes (they were huge) and were nice and moist. I was tempted to try the bacon on the Griddler too, but decided it would be too messy, so I did that in the microwave.

Checking on the panini as they get nice and toasty............

Next I assembled the sandwiches, brushing the outsides of the bread with a bit of EVOO. I put them on the Griddler, closed the lid and minutes later - about 5 - delicious, toasty panini. Wow, I really liked the results. Grilling the bread like this gives it a great texture and I love the way pressing gently on the lid for a few seconds smooshes the sandwich down, making it much easier to eat. Doing these on the griddler was much easier than trying to toast them in a pan - flipping them without losing any of the filling was quite a challenge and they take twice as long to cook - in a regular pan, you're only cooking one side at a time. I can tell we'll be making good use of the Griddler for panini.........yum!

Mmmmm....panini.....

Next up, appetizers! When we're home for New Year's, we like to make a variety of appetizers to munch on all day - DH and I enjoying some wine and later on, champagne, the kids enjoying some sparkling cider. The hardest part? Deciding what to make!

All cooked out......

It's official. I'm all cooked out. And my sinuses are all clogged up and making me feel muddle-headed.

Last night we had our very scaled-back version of the Feast of the Seven Fishes. More like Feast of the Four Fishes. Some year I may get brave enough to try 7 fishes, but instead of 7 different courses, I'd be more likely to combine one or more fish into one dish.

The food all turned out quite well, but it was a hard meal to get to the table - very little could be made in advance. Frying and sauteeing the calamari and crab cakes is a last minute thing, as is the risotto. We just plugged away at each course, stopping to eat and then getting back to the cooking. It was also hard to spend much time on the photography, so I did the best I could and just hoped that everything was in focus (sometimes it looks in focus on my LCD screen, only to be completely blurry when I upload it to the computer).

Crab Cakes

First up were DH's "famous" crab cakes and the calamari. The crab cakes are only famous in our family, but they are better than just about any crab cake we've ever had. Our take on any crab dish is to let the crab shine through which, for crab cakes, means very little filler. I don't have the recipe posted yet as I need to get DH to write out exactly what he does, but I hope to have it posted soon. The recipe is based on one by Martha Stewart, but he's evolved it over the years and I'm not sure how much it really resembles the original recipe.

Fried Calamari

Along with the crab cakes, we served up some fried calamari. I was able to find a nice package of rings and tentacles in the frozen section at Wegmans, otherwise I probably would not tried it. I've never cooked calamari before and I very, very rarely fry, so this was definitely a stab in the dark. I had read several recipes that called for simply dregging the calamari in rice flour and then frying at about 350º. I realized after I plunged the calamari in the hot oil, that I hadn't taken notice of how long to fry! I just winged it and they turned out pretty well. Such small pieces - I knew that all I really needed to do was cook long enough for the coating to crisp - which was about 5 minutes or so. After frying, I drained them on a paper towel, shook on some salt and pepper and that was it. The only problem was that I fried them in a very shallow pool of oil - this caused the loose, overly-browned pieces of flour at the bottom of the pan to get all over the fresh pieces. Next time I'd have to buy a tool for removing the bits of flour or use a deeper pool of oil. I served this with some homemade marinara.

Lobster Bisque
(no photo)

Our next course was the Lobster Bisque. I went with a recipe from Epicurious that sounded yummy. The original recipe calls for cooking live lobsters and then making a stock with the lobster shells. Um, I don't do live lobsters and lucky for me, Wegmans had frozen lobster tail meat, already out of the shell. This is very convenient, but it meant that I had no shells to help add flavor to the stock, so I used the tails (only tails because I get the peeled, deveined shrimp from Sam's Club) from the shrimp I thawed for the risotto.

This bisque was delicious. Rich, but not all that fattening considering there was only 1/2 cup of cream and we served small portions to 7 people. This bisque is reminiscent of a Lobster Newburg with the tomato paste, brandy and sherry. Sorry, no picture. I was running out of time and it also was not a soup that would photograph well anyway.

Mixed Greens with Goat Cheese and Candied Almonds
Orange-Lemon Poppyseed Dressing

Shrimp Risotto

I had planned to serve the salad next, followed by the risotto and roasted asparagus. Unfortunately I forgot to buy the asparagus, so we served the salad as the vegetable. The salad is an old favorite, but I tried it with a slightly different dressing, based on a different poppyseed dressing we've also enjoyed. I'll post the dressing recipe soon.

For the risotto, I scoured the internet for recipes, got a few ideas and then just made it up as I went along. I think that once you get the basics and mechanics for risotto down, it's a pretty easy dish to wing - you cook it slowly which gives you plenty of time to make adjustments. I was quite pleased with the results. It's a subtle risotto - the flavors complement but do not overpower the shrimp and it's one of the first risottos I've made that had no cheese at all, but the risotto is so creamy, that you don't even miss the cheese. To give this dish a slightly different twist, instead of a dash of truffle oil to help boost flavor, I think that a touch of lemon would be a nice addition.

All in all it was a lot of work, but well worth it. Today, however, I'm worn out and have a cold that keeps getting a little worse instead of better. Mom has graciously offered to take us out to dinner for a break and we're happily taking her up on the offer, so it's Japanese and sushi for us tonight.

Next up, hopefully some panini so I can play with my new Griddler!

Kitchen goodies under the tree!

As always, Santa left some great kitchen items under my tree this year.

As I made my list of favorite gadgets, cookware and small appliances for my sidebar, I realized that I have a acquired quite a few nice kitchen items. Then I realized that almost every single one of them has been given to me by either my mother or my MIL. Every year they ask for a birthday list and a Christmas list and every year, my lists are filled with kitchen stuff. No matter how much stuff I have, I always seem to be able to find more things to put on the list and this year was no different.

Under the tree this year I found:
A Cuisinart Griddler! I decided that I'm sick of our hard anodized double burner griddle. I've never liked that thing - stuff always sticks to it, it's hard to clean and now it doesn't center well on our ceramic cooktop (because of a lip around the cooktop), causing everything to cook unevenly - that was the last straw. I asked for advice over at the CLBB and, as always, they came through with a great idea. A griddle that can also be used as a grill and a panini-maker! It looks easy to clean - the plates are removable and dishwasher safe - and I should not have any problems with even heating. It also folds for easy storage.
A stainless steel All-Clad 3-quart saucier. I wanted something for making risotto. Not sure if this will be quite big enough, but even so, I'm sure I can come up with other uses for this great pan.
A large silicone baking/pastry mat. This will be great for rolling out cookies, pie crust, making candies, etc.

The King Arthur Whole Grain Baking cookbook. I looked through it briefly last night and quite a few things caught my eye. I think this one will keep me quite busy for a while! My plan is to move away from cookies and maybe start trying some whole grain yeast breads. However, there are many sweet temptations in this book, so I don't know how long I'll be able to hold off!

DH usually gets the wine gifts. We both enjoy wine, but he takes more time to learn about them, select them, etc. This year he got a bottle of Taylor Fladgate 10-Year Tawny Port and a gift certificate to a great wine store in Delaware - Total Wine and More. Think grocery aisles where one whole side of the aisle is devoted to one varietal. It's actually quite overwhelming! And the prices are great and better yet, they have regular wine and beer tastings. After visiting their site, I see they also have stores in New Jersey, Virginia, Florida and the Carolinas. Check to see if there's one in your area - you won't be disappointed!

He also got two great new bar gadgets:


A champagne opener. I had no idea how this was going to work and wasn't sure it would be all that useful. I was wrong - it's very cool! You place the entire unit over the cork and bottle, depress the lever and POP - you're done! No pulling and straining to get the cork out and the cork is prevented from flying off and injuring and/or breaking something. It's only $25-$30 too.
A new wine opener. We have tried quite a few different wine openers over the years, but DH had a favorite. It was very easy to use, but unfortunately, it broke and we decided that it was something that would likely break again, so we didn't buy another one. We have two now that work okay, one in the rabbit design (this one requires a bit too much strength to make it really easy) and one that isn't fancy, but makes easy work of opening bottles. This new one, however, may be destined to become a favorite. DH tried it out last night and it worked beautifully. Only time will tell whether or not it holds up. It's only $20, so not expensive at all! We only opened one bottle last night, but I was tempted to open another just so I could try it out! Maybe tonight............

So, thanks Mom and MIL for helping us have such a well-equipped kitchen (and bar)!

Not sure yet what we're doing today in the kitchen, but coming tomorrow.....our take on the Feast of the Seven Fishes. Only we'll be doing 4 fishes.............

Merry Christmas!

Thought I'd sneak in a quick post while everyone is off napping, showering or playing their new video games.

We've always been amazed that our kids have never really been early risers on Christmas Day and this year was no exception. While DH likes to sleep in until someone forces him to get out of bed, I don't like to miss any of the Christmas action, so I tend to wake up frequently, listening to see if the boys are up. As usual, I was waking up every hour or so and even though I hadn't heard a peep, I finally got up around 7 only to find that I was the first one up! The boys must have heard me, because they soon followed.

As per our tradition, they are allowed to open their stockings first - whether or not anyone else is up - but after that, they have to wait for everyone else to come down before opening any presents. After DH - always the last one up - finally made his appearance (with a lot of help and encouragement from an impatient DS#2), the boys were allowed to start on their pile of presents under the tree. Next, grownups tackled their stocking and then presents.

After the gifts were open, it was on to brunch. We had:

Mimosas - a Christmas day tradition!

Hash Brown Quiche and Fruit Salad

Cranberry Upside-Down Coffee Cake

The "quiche" was good, but I discovered that I definitely prefer the shredded potatoes over the diced potatoes, but diced was all they had at the store.

And of course the mimosas were lovely - I like mine very light on the orange juice - it's really just a filler - something added to justify drinking alcohol so early in the day. One of these days I'll get around to trying something more fun, like a cranberry-orange mimosa, or maybe something with pomegranate juice.......

As for the Cranberry Upside-Down Cake - mine was more like a Cranberry Upside-Down and Inside-Out Cake. The topping stuck to the bottom of the pan, so I had to scrape it out and try to put it back on top. By the time I was done trying to salvage it, I was too mad at it to try to ice it, so I skipped the icing. Perhaps that was a mistake - the icing probably would have helped hide what a mess it was! I knew we had plenty of food, so that part didn't upset me, but this coffee cake was pretty time consuming, so it was frustrating to have spent that much time on something that didn't turn out very well. In any case, it was still pretty tasty, but I think I would have preferred it without the dates. I don't have the recipe posted yet, but I did link to it on the Cooking Light site.

Tonight I was planning to have the Italian Sausage Soup, only I forgot the spinach! I do have some arugula though, so I might try throwing that in and see if it works or I might try something different. We're all so stuffed right now, that I'm sure it doesn't really matter............

One more thing.........we've been stashing all of the cookies we've been baking in the freezer and DS volunteered to plate them for last night's dessert. He asked me to take a picture and share it here on the blog:

One thing we discovered was that although the powdered sugar survived quite well on the Chocolate Crackles, it did not survive with the Russian Tea Cakes or the Pfeffernusse. In the future, I'd wait to roll them in powdered sugar AFTER they come out of the freezer. They still tasted wonderful, they just didn't have that festive, snowy coating.

I lied - I still have one more thing. Dinner last night was beef and chicken fondue with Dijon Dressing, Curry Mayo, Finger-Licking Peanut Sauce and horseradish sauce (which I hope to post one of these days). We served it with the Onion and Fontina Beer Batter Bread, whole grain rice and a salad.

Whew, well I think that gets us all caught up on what's been going on in the kitchen so far. Tomorrow I'll be back with some of the kitchen-themed goodies we got for Christmas and a few wine gadgets too.

Wishing everyone Peace and Joy this holiday season!

Christmas Cookie #9: Sugar Cookies

The boys took over most of the baking yesterday. I did decide to take advantage of the kids still wanting to decorate cookies at Christmas, so I whipped up some dough yesterday for us to make cookies today. I was set to spend a nice, cozy day inside, baking with the boys, but it turned out to be sunny and in the 50s! Is it Christmas or Easter? Don't get me wrong, I love the mild weather - especially for what it does for keeping our heating bills down - but it just doesn't feel like Christmas! Still, it's great to not have to fight with bad weather when people are traveling over the holidays - as I'm sure all those poor people stuck in Denver would agree. Since it was so nice out, we put off baking until after dinner.

First we rolled out the dough and cut out the shapes.

This recipe, from Martha Stewart, is a very tasty sugar cookie recipe, but it doesn't hold its shape really well, so it's best for cut outs without a lot of detail. And for some reason, last night they just didn't bake up right. I've made this recipe quite a few times and never had a problem, but last night, the cookies were puffing up and then totally collapsing. Some collapsing usually occurs when you remove them from the oven, but these were buckling and wrinkling before they even made it out of the oven, turning out kind of thin and crunchy instead of nicely puffed and a bit soft. They still taste good, but I can't figure out what happened to make them act like this! I wonder if I did something really dumb and forgot the eggs or something? Ah well, no matter, the boys had fun and that's the whole point.

Now, the fun part - decorating!

Ready for the oven!

One year or two, we went all out and did the fancy icing cookies a la Martha Stewart, but I found those to be too much work and the boys were really just as happy with the sprinkles and sugars. What's more, I found that I really didn't care much for the taste of the iced cookies - the icing tends to overwhelm the nice buttery cookie - and the icing definitely changed the texture of the cookies after a day or so. So sprinkles and colored sugars it is!

A few samples of their artwork.....

Sugar Cookies

Now that it's Christmas Eve and Mom and Dad will be arriving later on today, that really will be the last of the cookies for this year. I don't know how much time I'll have to post over the next week or so, but I'll at least try to keep up with the photos so that I can post what we made and ate afterwards.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year.

A Savory Quick Bread

We are having fondue tomorrow night for our Christmas Eve dinner and I wanted a bread to help round out the meal. Initially I was thinking of trying a yeast bread and remembered a yummy-sounding beer batter bread from Cooking Light that Joe had posted fairly recently. This was, however, not a yeast bread at all, but a quick bread. Even easier!

Unlike Joe, we, ahem, have no problem with finishing any leftover beer and pretty much always have some on hand. As luck would have it, DH had just stocked us up with some Yuengling Lager for our guests (we usually buy the cheaper stuff when it's just us) - a great ambler ale that was perfect for using with this bread.

Onion and Fontina Beer Batter Bread

I prepared the bread pretty much as written and I cannot believe that this is supposedly low-fat. One cup of cheese, 1 tablespoon of oil and 4 tablespoons of butter? I ended up using only about 3 tablespoons of butter which was pleny - I think you could easily cut this down to 2, maybe even 1. I didn't want to cut it too much though - a buttery crust on bread is sooooooo good.

This was quick, easy and delicious. A great bread to make if you get a last-minute invitation and would like to bring a contribution to the meal.

I'll be back tomorrow morning to post Christmas Cookie #9.................

Christmas Cookie #8: Chocolate-Orange Espresso Thins

Whew. This could well be our last cookie of the Christmas season. If I don't get called to sub tomorrow, there is a possibility that I'll make some sugar cookie dough to decorate with the kids this weekend, but time is running out and there are so many other things that need to be done. Still, the boys are getting older and soon enough they won't want to do that anymore, so I should probably take advantage of it while I can!

Chocolate-Orange Espresso Thins

Anyway, today's cookie was selected by DH - another cookie by Martha Stewart (definitely one of my favorite sources for cookies). Last year, I didn't get around to making his Christmas Cookie pick until March 25!!! I didn't want him to feel neglected this year, but his cookie was last again - this time due to a little trouble getting the correct espresso powder. At least I still got it done before Christmas!

This is yet another shortbread-type cookie. You get just a hint of the espresso, just enough to boost and enhance the chocolate, all with a hint of orange coming through. A very nice cookie that would be great with coffee or a nice cookie to serve with a brunch. Since it is a shortbread type, I expect that the flavors will improve as it sits.

Breakfast for Dinner

Mmmm...breakfast for dinner.

This strata from Cooking Light has been on my "to try" list for quite a while. I don't often make low-fat stratas because they are usually lacking in taste, but the caramelized onions in this one intrigued me as low-fat ingredient that might make up for the usual lack of flavor. As it turns out, the onions in this dish are key, but there may be a few too many. Most bites were a good balance, but some bites were a bit much - I would consider cutting back the onion from 5 cups to 4. Speaking of lack of flavor, I'm not at all a fan of egg substitute, so I used 4 large eggs instead, but that's the only thing I modified.

Bacon, Onion and Fontina Strata

It's not as good as a full-fat breakfast casserole or strata, say with full-fat sausage and lots of cheese, but the bacon and caramlized onion help to compensate where most dishes rely on fat for flavor. However, the fontina, a fairly mild cheese, was lost in this dish - if you're only going to use a cup of cheese in a dish like this, you're better off using a cheese with a little more oomph - perhaps a gruyere. This dish is good, but it needs a little work to kick up the flavors a bit. Still, if you want to eat comfort food without all the fat, this dish works pretty well.

Christmas Cookie #7: Orange Sablé Cookies

The cookie countdown is beginning to wind down here at The Savory Notebook. I had hoped to get to several more, but I'm running out of time, so I think there may be only one more after this one. I felt like I was going to have plenty of time and felt I had gotten a pretty good head start, but there are always little details that I forget about that need attention. And it's not as if we don't have plenty of cookies already! Although some went to an exchange and a pan of brownies went to a band function, the rest of the cookies are in the freezer, waiting to be served to my family during their Christmas visit. With all of these cookies, I will not have to make desserts, that's for certain.

Orange Sablé Cookies

These are a small, shortbread-type cookie with a citrus zip and a bit of crunch from the almonds and sanding sugar. I used regular almonds that we already had on hand instead of buying blanched almonds. I wish I had roasted the almonds first - they don't really come through with this cookie as much as I would like.

I noticed on the Martha Stewart website that she uses this basic dough for a couple of different cookies: Orange Ginger Rounds which call for rolling the dough in crystallized ginger and Orange Poppy Seed Spirals in which poppyseeds are sprinkled over the dough before rolling and slicing. In her holiday cookbook, she also suggests rolling the dough in chopped nuts, cocoa or candied fruit as alternatives to the sanding sugar. Maybe next year I'll try the ginger variation, only with roasted almonds this time!

Barley and Mushrooms

Another quick post tonight. I did get called to sub in the library and oh my, what an experience. This library is quite disorganized and in desparate need of some TLC. I think I see a volunteer opportunity! In any case, I kept quite busy all day and didn't have much time for anything to do with cooking or blogging tonight.

I did manage to squeeze in a dinner. This barley-mushroom dish has been on my "to-try" list for a while now. I had intended to fix it as a main dish, but I couldn't figure out what to serve with it, so I fixed a couple of chicken breasts in teriyaki sauce, sliced up some apple and called it a meal.

Baked Barely with Shiitake Mushrooms and Caramelized Onions

This dish is pretty easy to prepare, but the slow baking makes for a long cooking time, so it's a dish you really need to start ahead of time. I got impatient and was running late, so after about 45 mintues of baking, I pulled it out of the oven and finished it up on the stove. It's a very pleasing blend of flavors and textures and everyone seemed to like it very well. I can see this one going on our regular rotation.

Ack. I really don't have time for photography these days. If I get a day off tomorrow, I may try again. But I afraid that my blogging will be a bit rushed until the holidays are over.............it's just a busy, busy time. As if any of you need to be told that! Edited to add - I did get a chance to update this mushroom photo - that's much better!

Christmas Cookie #6: Chocolate Crackles

It's been a busy weekend and it almost got away without me posting, but I'm going to slip a quick one in tonight. I'll be working on a better photograph tomorrow, but this will have to do for now..........

Chocolate Crackles

One of the ladies in our neighborhood hosted a cookie/ornament exchange tonight. I decided to go with a tried and true that I had not made in a while, Chocolate Crackle Cookies (sometimes called Chocolate Crinkles). This is a rich, brownie-like cookie that is rolled in powdered sugar before you bake it. As the cookie spreads, the powdered sugar surface splits and cracks, leaving bits of rich, brown cookie peaking through the snowy, festive sugar. It's definitely a favorite here and one that will probably make the annual cookie list.

I'm not quite sure how much more baking I'm going to do - it depends on whether or not I get called to sub this week. There will definitely be at least one more cookie as I have not yet made DH's cookie pick - I'm having some technical difficulty with one of the ingredients.............

Christmas Cookie #5: Cranberry Chocolate Chippers

Well, I think we've hit the first non-repeater cookie for us this year. I've been staying away from my usual drop cookie since I tend to bake those throughout the year, but this one uses fresh cranberries, so they felt festive. This cookie, posted by a member of the CLBB, has orange zest, chocolate chips, walnuts and fresh cranberries, which sounded like a winning combination.

Cranberry Chocolate Chippers

Indeed they do taste very good, but I'm not crazy about the texture. As you might expect, the cranberries make them a bit too moist. While that can be desirable in a muffin, I don't find it desirable in drop cookie. Still, it was worth a try - the thought of a cookie using fresh cranberries was definitely intriguing - but next time I'll stick with dried cranberries.

Christmas Cookie #4: Lemon Squares

We seem to be having technical difficulties with bar cookies. Nothing major, just minor annoyances. Funny - when I start out to make a bar cookie it seems like a great idea - baking them all at once, not having to scoop them out one at time - seems like they'd be a lot easier than a drop cookie, right? Not always. Sometimes it takes more effort to cut them and get them out of the pan than to just scoop and drop. That certainly was the case here.

DS presses the flour/butter mixture into a 9x13-inch glass baking dish.

Lemon squares was the pick of my youngest son. These are your typical lemon squares, nothing fancy - the usual butter, flour and sugar crust with a tangy lemon filling on top. We had an strange problem with these - the crust acted oddly. After baking the crust, it looked a little "bubbly" on top. When I poured the filling over the hot crust, as per instructions, a portion of the crust in the middle rose to the top. I wonder if I should have pricked the crust with a fork before baking? In any case, it was a small spot and didn't ruin the squares by any means, but it was a little frustrating considering this is such a straight-foward recipe.

Lemon Squares

This recipe calls for shredding frozen butter with a cheese grater. I grudgingly tried this, but as I suspected, it was a pain the neck. Instead, I opted to put the butter and flour mixture in the food processor and pulse - my preferred method for making a pie crust. The shreds of butter seemed as though they were going to all clump together which seemed to be counterproductive if the point in a good crust is to evenly distribute the butter throughout the flour, without compacting it.

The recipe also calls for lining the baking dish with waxed paper, but it doesn't say anything about an overhang. However, later on in the recipe, it calls for lifting the lemon squares out of the pan - as if you had left an overhang to do so. I'm not sure what they're after here - but if you're going to leave an overhang in order to lift them out, I wouldn't use waxed paper, I'd use parchment paper. Not knowing there supposed to be any lifting, I just lined the bottom of the pan with waxed paper. I wouldn't recommend it - seemed like they were harder to get out this way. Parchment, with or without an overhang, is the way to go - why did I think otherwise? Note to self: trust your instincts, even if it is Martha Stewart!

These bars were good - lemon filling and a butter crust - can't really go wrong - but I've tasted better and would try a different recipe next time. There were just too many errors and problems in how they wrote this recipe that I'd rather try a whole new one.

I've been concentrating on decorating and finishing up other holiday errands, but I hope to get back to baking today or tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be posting Cookie #5 soon!

A Menu for Hope III

Now the fun and the giving begin.

I recently posted about this year's A Menu for Hope fundraiser. Well, the prizes have been gathered and posted and now it's time for us to start buying raffle tickets. Some of the prizes look amazing! Remember, all monies raised will go to benefit the UN World Food Programme.

Oh my, there are too many prizes to list! There are foods, wines, gift baskets, meals at fantastic restaurants and much, much more. For the complete list of prizes, visit Chez Pim. Each picture is a link to a prize(s). You can bid up until Friday, December 22 at 6 p.m. PST. I think it will take that long just to browse all the goodies!

Kalyn's Kitchen is the host blog for the central US and there are some great looking prizes from our part of the country. Food bloggers, check out that Photo Studio in a Box. Or maybe that iPod!

Want to get involved? Here's how you can help:

1. Go to the donation page at (http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhopeIII)

2. Make a donation, each $10 will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Please specify which prize or prizes you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your donation. Do tell us how many tickets per prize, and please use
the prize code -for example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for UW01 and 3 for UW02.

3. If your company matches your charity donation, please remember to check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

4. Please also check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

5. Check back on Chez Pim on January 15 when we announce the result of the raffle. (The drawing will be done electronically. Our friend the code wizard Derrick at Obsession with Food is responsible for the wicked application that will do the job.)

Please take some time to open up your heart and your wallet for a good cause. As I am writing this, they have already raised $8, 850! Wow!

Using up potatoes and things around the house...

Well darn, no baking today. After working half days on Thursday and Friday, I was kind of hoping to not get a call to sub today. As I sat at my computer this morning, casually sipping my tea, I thought I was home free. Nope - I got a late call to come in and sub for a librarian who went home sick. I'm glad to have the work, but I didn't get much done around the house and definitely no baking.

Not much time to plan dinner either. I was dividing up a big package of ground beef from Sam's Club to put in the freezer when I remembered a cheeseburger soup mentioned on the CLBB. I searched a bit and as I thought, it's a recipe from Cate over at Sweetnicks. The soup became even more appealing when I realized that it would help me use up some potatoes and a bit of sour cream I had lying around.

Cheeseburger Soup

As usual, I had to make several modifications to accomodate the ingredients we had available. All in all it was a hearty, yummy soup that we all enjoyed - including the boys who gobbled up every bite in their bowls. I'm sure it would have tasted a lot more like a cheeseburger had we used Velveeta, but regular cheddar was all we had on hand. Perhaps I have an excuse to buy some Velveeta, something I don't usually buy, but something I have to admit can be pretty darned tasty.

I have another cookie recipe from Sunday to share, but I haven't had a chance to take a decent picture. Back tomorrow with that.............unless I get another call...............

Christmas Cookie #3: Rocky Ledge Bars

Number three on our list is a cookie selected by my oldest son. These are chock-full of all kinds of goodies and can easily be tweaked to your own tastes and preferences. DS wanted to do the recipe as written, so we stuck to what was already listed. Personally, I'm not crazy about white or butterscotch chips, I probably would have used peanut butter chips and toffee chips instead, but these were for DS, so I kept my preferences to myself.

DS did most of the work on these himself and did a great job. There was one alarming moment, however, when he asked, "Mom, do you measure baking powder like you measure flour?". As in, spooning it in the cup and leveling with a knife. I asked, "How much baking powder does it call for?????!". "2 1/4 cups." "Uh, honey, you might want to double check, I think it's probably teaspoons, not cups!" He got a giggle out of that and then asked what would have happened had he used that much baking powder. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure they would have been very, very salty and probably inedible!

Rocky Ledge Bars

These are as gooey and as sweet as you might expect. Very tasty, definitely on the sweet side, pretty messy and somewhat difficult to cut. Turns out that I should have baked these at 325º. At 350º, they started to brown too fast and the caramel got quite hard (which is why they were difficult to cut) - I think lowering the oven temperature might solve both of these problems. The recipe says it makes 16 bars, but that's a very big bar for such a rich treat, so we cut ours into about 24 squares. I'd much rather snack on smaller pieces than have one great big bar, so I almost never make giant cookies or cut bars into big pieces.

Coming up soon..........Lemon Squares and Orange-Sable Cookies..............

Christmas Cookies #2: Pfeffernüssen

Two more cookies came out of the kitchen today, but I will be posting these one at a time for now. First, Pfeffernüsse. Martha calls them Pfeffernüssen - maybe that's pural? I have no idea. The more searching I did about these cookies the more confused I got! Seems like most all of the recipes had one thing in common - a blend of spices, including pepper - thus the name Pfeffernüsse which translates to "Peppernuts". Quite a few recipes I found, like this one, called for rolling the cookies in powdered sugar while others called for icing. Some called for a touch of citrus and/or nuts and a few recipes called for soaking them in rum.

Whatever Pfeffernüsse is really supposed to be, this particular recipe produced a cookie that was somewhat soft and cake-like on the inside, while slightly crispy on the outside and spiced much like a typical spice cookies. The powdery, sugary coating is a nice contrast to the dark brown insides both in taste and in appearance. I like these quite well, but whereas the Russian Tea Cakes are likely to become a holiday tradition, the jury is still out on whether the Pfeffernüsse will make that list or not.

Pfeffernüssen

Stay tuned for Cookie #3 - an ooey-gooey bar cookie filled with all kinds of goodies.......

Ragout and a new green.

No cookies today. I worked this morning and then hit Sam's Club and the grocery store. I decided it would be better to cook dinner than to bake cookies. Hmmmm..........

This recipe was on my "to try" list from the December Cooking Light issue and uses an ingredient I've never cooked with before - escarole. I'm sure I've had it in a mixed greens salad before, but I've never bought it or prepared it myself.

Sausage, Escarole and White Bean Ragout

This dish was fairly easy to put together, but washing the escarole is a bit time-consuming - it's quite sandy. It wasn't a WOW dish, but it was hearty and tasty. I used hot Italian turkey sausage, so I did get more zing than if I had used sweet Italian sausage and if I made this again, I'd do the same. I don't think I expected to be bowled over by this dish - it was just something a little different than what I've made in the past - allowing me to explore a different way of putting together ingredients. Even if I don't make this exact dish again, I now know that I can make a pretty tasty dish with similar items that I often have hanging around the fridge or pantry.

Stay tuned tomorrow - I hope to get to at least two different cookies inbetween basketball, decorating and other tasks and errands.

Oh - and I just noticed that I finally have the option to switch to the new version of Blogger. I'll probably do that tonight or sometime this weekend. I'm sure it will be fine and I'm looking forward to having labels as an option, but nevertheless, it makes me nervous!

Christmas Cookie #1: Russian Tea Cakes

Let the baking begin!

But first, raise your hand if your camera getting gummed up with butter and powdered sugar! I'm sure that if you analyzed the scrapings from my camera, you could tell exactly what I've been baking without even reading this blog.

I got called in at the last minute to sub at school this morning, so I didn't get to bake much, but I managed to knock out a quick one tonight after my son's Christmas concert at school. It's been a long day and this cookie is probably familiar to just about everyone, so I'll be keeping this post pretty brief.

Russian Tea Cakes

Tonight I made Russian Tea Cakes, also known as Mexican Wedding Cakes or as I liked to call them as a child, Snow Balls. Normally I heavily favor a chewy cookie, but coming in a close second is just about any type of shortbread. The delicate crumb and the rich, buttery taste - delicious! Shortbread-type cookies also keep very well and tend to taste better with age - you can't say that about most types of cookies.

I'm having a hard time narrowing down the different cookies I'd like to make - several of them are quite similar to the Russian Tea Cake, but different enough to be worth trying. They are quite easy to throw together, so I may find the time to do them all, we'll see. And of course I must honor the 3 cookies the boys and DH picked out - I hope to get those made this weekend inbetween getting the decorations up inside the house.

Yawn..............I'm so used to not working, that even a half day has me wiped out. I'm subbing again tomorrow morning and then need to head to Sam's Club for some groceries, so I'm not sure what, if anything, I'll have time to bake tomorrow, but I'm sure going to try to get something in the oven. In the meantime, it's time for bed.................

I'd rather be baking.....

I'm really itching to get baking, but I just bought all (or at least most) of my ingredients yesterday and I have to do some errands first. Today I ran to the mall and was able to finish up quite a bit of my Christmas shopping. Tomorrow, I have to run to Sam's Club for more Christmas shopping and groceries. Come Friday, I should be able to get full-swing into baking. I'm not sure how much I'll actually get to, but my list of cookies and goodies is pretty long!

Beef Stroganoff

For now, though, I'll have to be satisfied with sharing a savory recipe with you. Tonight we had beef stroganoff. Stroganoff, with or without beef, is one of my favorite comfort-food dishes. Sometimes I make it with just mushrooms, but we really prefer it with a little beef. The recipe I tried calls for 2 pounds of beef, but I only used one. For one thing it's healthier to use less beef and for another it's more economical. The only problem was that I didn't plan on using less beef and didn't buy enough mushrooms to compensate. Still, the sauce over noodles is yummy in and of itself, so it still worked.

This particular recipe is a well-regarded by the members of the CLBB and was shared by one of them. We liked it quite well, but I was not crazy about the addition of tomato. This could have been my own fault. The original recipe calls for using catsup. I decided to use tomato paste. In the end, the tomato was a bit more dominant than I would have liked. I wonder if using catsup, which is quite high in vinegar, would have been better. For some reason, I thought tomato paste would work better. Live and learn. All things considered, I'd probably just leave out the tomato altogether. Stroganoff is just one of those things that doesn't seem to need tomato products of any kind - I don't want anything to interefere with the sour cream.

I don't know that there will be anything to share tomorrow.......it will be a day of errands, tuna melts and tomato soup for dinner and then a choral concert for my youngest. Stay tuned for what will hopefully be my first holiday baking post on Friday...........

A Menu for Hope

It's that time of year again - the time for giving. Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen recently emailed me with information for something called A Menu for Hope, a fundraiser reaching out to food bloggers and food blog readers to help raise money for those in need. In the past, A Menu for Hope, sponored by Chez Pim, has raised funds for victims of the tsumani in Southeast Asia in 2004 and victims of the India-Pakistan earthquake in 2005. This year, the money raised will be going to the United Nations World Food Programme.

A Menu of Hope is a big raffle with lots of great prizes - just look at some of the great things offered last year. Check out this link to get a better idea of how it works. You can participate by either donating a prize, bidding on a prize or even just helping to spread the word. If you have something you'd like to offer up for the raffle, time may be running out, but contact the appropriate blogger below according to where you live to see if they are still willing to accept prizes. Kalyn is accepting prizes for the Central U.S. up until December 9th.

US West Coast: Sam of Becks and Posh
US East Coast: Adam of Amateur Gourmet
US (the rest): Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen
Canada: Jasmine of Cardamom Addict
Europe and UK: David Lebovitz of Davidlebovitz.com
Latin America: Melissa de Leon of the Cooking Diva
Asia Pacific: Helen of Grab Your Fork
And, last but not least, a special wine host for wine blogs: Alder Yarrow of Vinography.

This year I'll just be bidding, but next year I'd love to offer a prize. Now that I know all about A Menu for Hope, I'll have a whole year to think of something...........

Sweet Rolls on Sunday

Or more like it, sweet little hockey pucks on Sunday.

Yesterday was not a banner day in the kitchen for me, but that's okay - you win some, you lose some. Still it's frustrating, especially since I wasn't even trying something new.

I seem to be having a major problem with yeast lately. I've tried fast rising and regular on both pizza dough and other doughs and I'm not having much luck. I just can't get the dough to rise! Now sometimes I have found that dough will take longer to rise than the recipe states, but these are recipes I've tried before - recipes that worked the way the recipe said it should. It's not like I'm new to yeast either - I don't use it all that often, but I've made plenty of pizza crusts and those tried and trues aren't even working all that well.

The failed sticky buns - they should be about twice the size they are -
still tasted pretty good with all that gooey topping.

I've checked the yeast - it's not expired or old. I've checked the water temp - usually around 110º. I give it a nice, warm environment to rise in - I turn the oven on briefly, let it cool down a bit, and put the dough in to rise. It's draft-free - covered in plastic wrap with a kitchen towel on top.

This happened last week when I made the pumpkin rolls, but I baked them anyway and they rose very nicely during baking, just not when they were supposed to. No such luck this time - these buns did not rise much when I baked them, so no last-minute reprieve for these rolls.

Unfortunately with the holidays fast-approaching and a very long list of baked goods I'd like to make, I'll probably have to put my yeast problem on the back burner for now. We'll see......

Fortunately the soup that DH made for dinner was NOT a failure. He whipped up a chicken soup using chicken thighs, corn, peas, rice, barley, wild rice and a few other odds and ends. Very tasty.

Weekly Recap

For whatever reason, I find it interesting to see what everyone cooks up in their kitchens on a daily/nightly basis. I'm always curious as to how often people cook, what kinds of sides they pair with what dish, etc., etc. Over on the CLBB, people often share their menus for the upcoming week. I used to love to do this, but I found that I rarely followed the plan - something always happens to throw off the menu - so I figured that telling you what I DID make would be much easier and more accurate than telling you what I plan to make.

I share the new recipes here on the blog, but that doesn't account for the other things we throw on the table during the week that don't get included here on the blog - either because they are repeats or because they are not very exciting or because they really don't constitute "cooking" at all.

Our weeks are usually a combination of very easy and quick dishes, along with hopefully a few new or at least more exciting dishes. The boys both have activities on Tuesday and Thursday nights, so those are the nights where you're most likely to see something like grilled cheese and tomato soup. I also tend to keep sides very, very simple unless the main dish itself is very simple.

Since I find it fun to get a peek into what others do each night, I thought I'd start doing a weekly recap of our weekly dinners and anything else of note that was baked or cooked in the kitchen.

Sunday:

• Pumpkin-Cinnamon Streusel Buns
• Vietnamese-Spiced Pork Chops
• roasted sweet potatoes with garlic, ginger, and soy sauce
• roasted mixed vegetables: red pepper, mushrooms, red onion, zucchini

Monday:

• Roasted vegetable omelet - using up roasted veggies from Monday night
• Chicken Quesadillas - chicken, black beans, bell peppers, onion, cumin, lime, chipotle powder
• apple and pear

Tuesday:

• Wegmans ravioli with Marinara
• salad

Wednesday:

• Chicken Tikka Masala
• Peela Gobi

Thursday:

• Lemon Lentil Soup with Spinach
• leftover Peela Gobi
  
• Sliced apple
  

Friday: Leftovers!

Saturday:

• Farfalle with Creamy Wild Mushroom Sauce
• mustard greens sauteed in olive oil, garlic and lemon juice (these did not turn out well at all, thus no recipe sharing or photo)

Not much baking this week - but I did experiment with a few things that didn't make it onto the blog. With the holidays approaching rapidly, I'm predicting that this week will yield quite a bit more baking.

Farfalle and Mushrooms

Tonight's dinner was supposed to be last night's dinner, but the boys and I started playing Scattergories and I completely forgot all about dinner. Although I've chosen not to make dinner plenty of times, I don't know that I've actually ever forgotten. But we were having fun - missing dinner because you're having fun with your family is definitely not a bad thing.

Farfalle with Creamy Wild Mushroom Sauce

This is one of the recipes in the December issue of Cooking Light that caught my eye. Pasta, mushrooms, cream and cheese - a no-fail combination. This recipe went far beyond no-fail. I almost didn't try it because although it sounded delicious, it seemed so oridinary - something anyone could make up on their own. It ended up being one of those dishes where the sum is greater than the parts. The key is to stick to the ingredient list. If you try to make a low-fat substitution for the cream or try to use a lesser quality Parmesan cheese, you will most likely be disappointed and think this dish nothing special. Had I made it on my own, I probably would have chickened out and skipped the cream, using half & half instead. Seeing cream as an ingredient in Cooking Light, however, made me feel as though I had permission to go all out.

How do they get a recipe with cream and Parmigianno-Regianno to be a low-fat dish (low-fat meaning that about 30% of the calories come from fat)? Lots of pasta. Too much pasta, if you ask me. I ended up adding about 3/4 the amount of pasta the recipe calls for because I could tell that adding the entire pound would result in too little sauce. Less pasta means that the overall percentage of fat ended up being higher than 31%. Personally, I'd rather have a higher fat percentage and a little more flavor.

This dish will likely be come a regular - it's easy, fairly quick, and oh-so-good. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.............