Christmas cooking

Christmas, as well as several days at home in a row, always encourages a lot of cooking. At least for me. I find this is the best time to try out recipes that I've been wanting to try. This Christmas has been no exception, and I hope the trend continues since I've still got a few more days of home-time with which to begin to clear out the fridge.

Pre-Christmas cooking. With two parties in mind to attend for xmas, I made a huge pot of gumbo with all the typical ingredients: shrimp, duck, andouille, and a ton of okra. For my base, I used dark chicken stock, crab stock, and two large containers of lobster stock. All went well until the heat raised a bit, scorching some of the gumbo. It actually adds a taste that arguably could be smokiness. I'm not a fan of smokiness actually, but I'm also very disappointed to have scorched such a huge pot of gumbo. A debate ensued in which I couldn't decide if I should allow the gumbo to leave the house or not. J felt that it was. And so, if you got one of my gumbos and felt it was crappy well, tell me to keep it at home next time.

I also made a chocolate cake. The last time I made one of these, we were only able to eat about 1/4 of it. I hoped to unload half of it on E&K, but they had to cancel their xmas party (sadness). So I may just drop half of it off anyway. We were enjoying the cake, with our homemade whipped cream, until our milk ran out. Sadness.

I also bought some tasty proscuitto to eat as antipasti (along with assorted cheese, salumi, olives, and marinated artichokes). Since I'm not really sure how long proscuitto will safely keep, I put the leftovers into a nice proscuitto and sweet butter sammich on ciabatta.



Christmas morning, I made buttermilk pancakes from The Gift of Southern Cooking. Since it was Christmas, I actually used the butter recommended as the cooking fat. They were pretty tasty, I have to admit. We also had a nice side of bacon. J and I have a lively debate on how bacon should be served. Since I typically cook the bacon, I get to choose how it's cooked though, and this is how I like it: thick and crispy. None of that flaccid bacon for me.

Multiple servings of bacon over the holidays does increase our collection of stored bacon fat. We use it for sauteing brussel sprouts, cooking cornbread, or as a base in chili, etc.




Christmas is also time for a grand addition to my culinary collection and this year was no exception. The largest of the gifts is certainly the shiny orange Mario Batali 6-quart enameled cast iron pot. Our dutch oven up til now has been a 4.5 qt all metal pot. Respectable, but not really the size or weight of what I wanted. I had had my eye on a nice 6 qt Le Creuset enameled cast iron pot, but if you keep up with these things, you know that the pots cost over $200 even if they do last forever. The MB pot I received has gotten good feedback on Amazon, certainly the mark of a good pot if you ask me.

I also received subscriptions to Bon Appetit and Food & Wine as well as The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion, The Cheese Plate, and Charcuterie

The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion came highly recommended to me by JQ, who now bakes a lot of the bread for his family. In fact, he is even thinking about milling his own grain! J, not to worry, I am not considering also milling my own grain.

The Cheese Plate is an awesome book about cheese, how to select, store, taste... well, everything you could ever know about cheese! Heather at Star Provisions recommended it to me, and it's great!

Lastly, I got Charcuterie. I've been eagerly anticipating the addition of this book to my collection. I plan to make some bacon and pancetta to keep on hand. My only dilemma is how do you cut bacon once it's ready?

Christmas dinner was a fine affair. Our xmas splurge at Star Provisions was prime ribeye, a nice fat 1 1/2" steak. I was excited to try this, since typically we get regular or aged ribeye and it's always awesome. However, we typically get bone-in ribeye, and there was none to be had when we arrived at the market Saturday afternoon.

Frankly, I was disappointed at the taste (not as rich) and the marbling (more gristle than marbling). I think we will stick to our normal ribeye from now on.

We picked up some organic turnips at the Local Farmstand, so I chopped them up and tossed them into a pan with chopped sweet potatoes, whole shallots, and unpeeled garlic cloves and tossed them into the oven with s+p, olive oil, and a handful of minced rosemary. They turned out very well. I love roasted vegetables. I think we should have them all the time!

We also had some of our favorite brussel sprouts, parboiled and then sauteed in bacon fat and topped with parmesan cheese.

Here's a sad story. The last time we bought parmigiano-reggiano, we bought way too much. This means that we've been using the same tired old piece for over a year. I see my sister cringing. Well, I finally decided I had had enough. I've reserved the remaining bit of it for minestrone, and we bought a new chunk. What a difference it makes! Not just the taste, as you can imagine, but the smooth and quick way that it grates! Well, it's amazing. We won't be making that mistake again.

I also made some white beans with the intention of making a white bean puree. However, I decided at the last second to serve them whole and loosely followed a recipe by Michael Chiarello that called for simmering the beans with onion, celery, and carrot. It was very tasty, but the beans were still too al dente by the time dinner came around.

I left the beans to simmer most of the night so that they were nice and soft. I deliberately made extra with the intention of making a white bean soup. The first and only time I've had this soup was at my sister's place when she was living in Brooklyn. I was staying with her that summer and one night when I came home, she handed me a steaming bowl of soup. It was delicious! However, though I've wanted to replicate the soup, I had never really had a chance. So I took my beans and made a recipe from Biba Caggiano's A Taste of Italy which includes the addition of tomato sauce with minced onions, garlic, and pancetta. I pureed the white beans, but not completely to keep that "country style" mouth feel that J likes. In hindsight, that was a mistake. I feel it left the soup more as a bean dip with too much bite. And the taste was good, but ... well, my sister's was better.

To go along with my soup, I also made a simple tomato and basil bruschetta. Well, those were very tasty indeed!