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.