Thanksgiving in DC

Thanksgiving is usually not my thing. I don't really like turkey, green bean casserole should be banned, and cranberries rate pretty low on my fruits I like list. In fact they're not even on the list. The only part of Thanksgiving I've ever really liked is Lauren's sweet potato souffle. In fact, that was my plan for today. Make sweet potato souffle and eat it while watching whatever was on TV. The arrival of my friend Eva, who needed a place to stay until the Spanish Government gets around to giving her a student visa, meant that it wasn't just me anymore. I've never been happier to have my plans change.

The beginnings of herb butter

Since it was just the two of us (and neither of us like turkey all that much) we decided to make Cornish game hens instead. And while that solved one problem it also brought up another-who was going to touch the hens. We're both ok handling raw meat but the minute you throw in skin...ew. It's just gross.

Um, ew.

I was so happy to discover that the inside bits had been put in a bag. We were really worried that we'd have to fish them out ourselves. To be fair we decided each one of us would do our own hen so we could spread around the fun of touching the ickiness.

Trying to loosen the skin

Several hours before starting we mixed the herb butter to let the flavors meld together. We chopped fresh sage, rosemary, thyme, and garlic and mixed them together with butter. That was the easy part. Then we had to rinse and dry off the hens to flavor them. We both managed to loosen the skin over the breasts enough to slip some butter between skin and meat and then we massaged the hens, completely covering them with herb butter, inside and out, before sprinkling them with salt and pepper.

Eva shoving butter under the skins

It took us forever to figure out if we were supposed to cook them breast up or down. The packing on the hens just said cook for an hour and I almost resorted to calling my mom before Eva's Googling suggested we cook them breast down but turn them occasionally.

It was gross but we managed

After those went into the oven Eva began putting together her chestnut stuffing. We both did some prep work yesterday which for Eva included covering most of the flat surfaces in my kitchen with cubed bread pieces.

Drying out bread 

I also helped her shell chestnuts. I have never before shelled chestnuts and can pretty confidently say that I'm not ever doing that again. There's a blister on my left thumb from doing it! Eva also did all the necessary chopping and sauteing yesterday so today all she had to do was combine everything.

The stock pot was the only pot big enough

The stuffing went in the oven in two batches because her crazy recipe was enough to feed a good two dozen people. While the stuffing was in I started Lauren's sweet potato souffle.

Once again using ingredients off the list

It's amazing that a recipe this simple is so darn good. The original recipe (below) makes a 9x13 pan full but with just two of us, and me leaving tomorrow for a week, it didn't make sense to make so much. I did make a full recipe of the topping though!

I love having a camera person!

We did really pretty well on timing and getting everything into the oven in the correct order. Even after 12 or so years away from my parents I'm still a little flabbergasted as to how people cook with just one oven. Growing up we always had two. And two refrigerators and two deep freezers. One of the deep freezers is dedicated to meat. It's a beautiful thing even if most of the meat is venison.

There was a lot of chopping

In lieu of pumpkin pie I made ice cream for dessert. It was supposed to be a sweet potato ice cream, but I underestimated how many cups of pureed sweet potatoes I needed and didn't quite have enough. So I ended up with a sweet potato/pumpkin ice cream. Which turned out to be a pretty decent idea.

Want to taste?

Like Eva, I did my own prep yesterday for the ice cream. Making ice cream is always at least a two day process for me as I find that the colder the custard is before putting it in the ice cream maker, the better it freezes.

I've never had that happen before

The custard was already really thick when it went into the machine so I let it run extra long, basically until the ice cream maker refused to rotate anymore. I scooped everything into a tupperware and put it all in the freezer until we were ready for dessert.

Digging out the rest of the ice cream

I also pan dry roasted some asparagus, adding a little rough sea salt and black truffle oil at the end. But that only takes about 12 minutes so I did it as we pulled things out of the oven. Until it was time eat we took a nice break to watch TNT's Castle marathon. It doesn't matter that I own all the seasons and have seen every episode multiple times. I love you, Nathan Fillion. We'd be perfect for each other...you're Canadian, I'm...from a state near Canada. Sigh.

Yes I've already decorated. Wanna make something of it?

And because I love the opportunity to use all the crazy stuff I have, I set the table with chargers and cloth napkins and napkin rings.

My table looked pretty

Since we eschewed the traditional turkey we also felt no need to buy a beaujolais regardless of how traditional it may be. Instead we drank one of our favorites, a Ravenswood Old Vine Zinfandel (available at Trader Joes for $8.99!).

Mmmmm

And then we proceeded to do ourselves proud. We both decimated our hens and put a respectable dent in both the stuffing and the sweet potatoes. The asparagus, in addition to being scrummy, also let us pretend that we were being mildly healthy. Never mind that every other dish is full of butter.

It was such a nice, low-key dinner. Thanksgiving usually seems fraught with pressure to make a huge dinner, or impress your family/friends. Eva and I certainly got ahead of the game by prepping so much the day before and she's a good laid back foil to my hyper tendency to panic.

Sweet potato/pumpkin ice cream

After our stomachs returned to a normal size it was time for dessert! I have to say, the flavor for the ice cream was really nice. I was worried that the pumpkin would over power the sweet potato, but not so. The only thing I didn't like...texture. I may have to make this again and see if I can get it smoother. Eva likened it to the texture of a frozen pumpkin pie.

Also to accompany dessert, wine. But not just any wine. Pumpkin wine. That's right!

Clay Ave Cellars pumpkin wine

I found this wine with my mom on a trip to Muskegon, Michigan. Clay Avenue Cellars winery specializes in fruit wines and all the fruit is sourced from local farmers in a 30 mile radius of the winery. We did a tasting at their shop (and I bought a bunch of wines) and they told us they had a heck of a battle with the FDA over the label. Apparently the US Government isn't willing to recognize that pumpkin (like tomatoes and avacados) are a fruit.

The wine didn't go over so well. I think I recall buying less because of any awesomeness and more because I was amused by it. But everything else went well so this one little miss wasn't too upsetting.

Recipes

Eva's Chestnut Stuffing:
(I havlved her recipe here so you should end up with a normal amount)

• 2 onions
• 3-4 stalks celery
• sage
• thyme
• rosemary
• parsley
• 1 loaf thick cut bread (like a country white)
• 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
• 3/4 pound chestnuts
• salt and pepper

Ahead of time, cut bread into cubes and leave out to dry. Eva did hers nearly a full 24 hours in advance. alternatively you could put them in an oven that's on the lowest setting possible to help them dry out. Also ahead of time, carefully cut an X into each chestnut and boil for 20-ish minutes. After draining them let them cool until you can handle them, but not too much because they're far easier to peel when hot. Good luck here.

Finely chop onion and celery and saute until soft. Then finely chop all the herbs and combine the vegetables, herbs, dried bread cubes, and chopped chestnuts. Combine well then  add chicken stock salt and pepper.

Pour into greased pan, at least a 9X13, and cover with tinfoil. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes, remove the tinfoil and bake another 20 minutes uncovered.

Lauren's Sweet Potato Souffle:

• 4 cups cubed sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 t salt
• 4 T softened butter
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 t vanilla

It's up to you if you want to go through peeling and cubing and roasting the sweet potatoes. More power to you if you go that route. I totally cheated and used canned potatoes. So basically, just mix all that together until it's smooth. I used a little less than twice the amount of vanilla and also added 1/4 t ground vanilla bean.

Pour into a greased 9x13 pan.

For the topping:

(I've already doubled this for you. You're welcome)

• 2/3 cup flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1-1 1/3 cup chopped pecans
• 6 T softened butter

Mix well until everything is a little squishy and crumble over the top of the sweet potatoes and bake at 350 for roughly 35-40 minutes.

Sweet Potato Ice Cream:

• 1 cup pureed sweet potato (or 1/2 cup potato and 1/2 cup pumpkin...or all pumpkin I suppose)
• 2 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup milk
• 1 T vanilla
• 5 egg yolks
• 3/4 brown sugar
• cinnamon
• nutmeg
• clove

Heat cream, milk, and sugar until hot. In a separate bowel, whisk the eggs yolks. Once the milk is hot, add about a cup to the eggs and whisk well then return everything to the pan. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring or whisking constantly, until it thickens. This is the part I hate because I'm mad impatient, but it really is important otherwise you run the risk of having the eggs curdle and that's gross.

Once it's thick, or you're fed up with the stirring (Eva and I took turns and I still didn't make it too long), add the puree and spices. Let cool in fridge a few hours to overnight then freeze in ice cream maker.

And so the post ends on an up note...I remembered that the wine makers at Clay Ave Cellars said that if you microwave the pumpkin wine for 30 seconds it tastes like pumpkin pie. So I tried it, why not, right? No. That didn't help. Clay Ave Cellars has a lot of very very good wines though so if you ever find yourself in western Michigan, check them out!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Sriracha Day

Another gift from Lauren, far less traumatic than the napalm caramels, was the Sriracha Cookbook. Yes there is such a thing brought to us by the same genius behind the Sriracha Blog, Randy Clemens. Naturally after I got the cookbook I had to have a Sriracha-themed dinner party!

Perhaps I didn't choose the best weekend for a dinner party with DC being in the upper 80s/low 90s with like a 1,000% humidity. This was yet another realization that while cooking with gas is so much better than electric, cooking with gas in an air conditionless apartment in DC weather is less of a good thing. On the other hand, maybe I sweat off all the calories I was about to put on!

I don't use my food processor often but I love it when I do!

I chose five recipes from the cookbook to try to make: carne asada,  fire-roasted corn chowder, bacon sriracha cornbread, peach sriracha sorbet, and sriracha truffles. The carne asada has quite the marinade which includes tequila and a lot of citrus juice. It always amazes me how lemon and lime juice can find cuts that you didn't even know you had!

I bought the tequila just for this; but we put it to good use later!

I let the meat marinade over night and much the next day, taking it out only when everyone arrived and it was  time to start broiling it. The recipe calls for four pounds of meat, but as a friend of mine rightly pointed out, four pounds is a lot, especially when you have other things. I only ended up broiling about half the meat and I think we ate about half of that.

Mmmm, meat.

Unfortunately my food pictures aren't as good as the ones in the book; but I promise that the carne asada was quite tasty; especially cooled down with a little sour cream and avacado.

Both a little frightening and yet ingenius

The corn chowder was my favorite dish, no contest. Roasting half the corn did, as promised by Clemens, add a smokey depth to chowder that brought it to the next level. Lacking a grill a did as he suggested and roasted the ears over the flame on my gas stove. It was a little scary listening to it sizzle and pop and watching the little mini fires as the silk still clinging to the ears caught fire...but utterly worth it.

I might just start doing this regularly

Yes summer seems an odd time to make a chowder; but it's also when corn is in season so I went for it. It's also a really simple soup to make especially since I inherited an immersion blender from a good friend before she moved across the country. Not having to put the soup through the blender in multiple batches was so nice.

Corn, garlic, red onions, peppers (hiding under the onions)-so simple

I accidentally stabbed myself in the palm of my left hand while I was chopping. No idea how I managed to do that and thankfully it wasn't a mortal wound, but still it made the rest of the chopping and cooking a little awkward.

My kitchen in the midst of the cooking frenzy

The corn bread was equally tasty and easy to put together; especially since I eschewed all the sifting. I get why sifting is a good thing...but partially I'm lazy and largely, in lieu of AC, I had a fan pointed directly at me which would have made sifting flour into some sort of winter wonderland (sans the cold).

Corn bread with BACON!! WIN!

Also corn bread that has bacon? Yes please. Funnily enough, in the carne asada, the sorbet, and the cornbread I forgot the Sriracha! Luckily I remembered just in time each time but I couldn't believe I was forgetting the theme ingredient.

There's bacon grease in each tin. Yes.

Because not all my guests were huge fans of spicy food I slightly lessened the amount of Sriracha in each recipe figuring people could add more as they liked. The one recipe where I didn't do that was the chowder. And wow I think maybe I should have. It is Spicy with a capital S!

Not quite napalm but close!

Do I think I did the awesome job that these recipes deserve? No. I'd certainly change a couple things about how I did the carne asada for round two and put a little less sriracha in the chowder, but overall was I pleased? Sure.

Perfect way to end summer

Would I have thought about making peaches spicy? No. Honestly that never occurred to me. It should have though because it was pretty great. Especially when we'd decided we hadn't drunk nearly enough and mixed the sorbet with tequila and vodka. Not together of course though. Ew. The sorbet had that nice cool, sweet peachyness upfront with a bit of a burn in the back. Not too much of a burn to be intimidating though.

I love my ulu. Any excuse to use it...

Also having just enough burn to be enjoyable were the truffles. Now of course I've put spice with chocolate before; everything from black pepper to cayanne, but I certainly never thought to use sriracha!

Sriracha + chocolate = good

Unfortunately, as I often do, I forgot to take pictures of the finished desserts; we were too busy eating them! The winner for me though was definitely the chocolate. Paired with a nice red wine that held up to the chocolate and all the spices made the truffles a fantastic starter and finish!

Cinnamon & orange zest really added depth to the truffles

Now I'm not going to copy any of the recipes here because that just wouldn't be fair. But I would definitely recommend getting your own copy of the Sriracha Cookbook! Available on Amazon as all good things are!

I Am My Own Damn Hero

Of the couple different ice creams I've already made this summer, I think my favorite so far is the goat cheese ice cream I made for Lauren's birthday. Lauren and I choose words for birthdays and Christmas and buy gifts based on that word. Her word this year was 'twist' so I thought it would be fun to take that to the birthday dessert as well.

6 egg yolks. SIX!!!

Making the custard is my least favorite part of making custard.

As much as I prefer custard based ice creams they are a pain in the summer, on a gas stove. I'm also not good at being patient about slooowly bringing the custard to a simmer and I always end up with bits of cooked egg in the custard. I don't have a strainer so usually I just decide to not care. This time I decided to use what I had on hand a poured the custard through a straining spoon.

Goat cheese is one of the greatest foods ever created.

This would have been good even without running it through the ice cream maker

But freezing it was a good idea

The custard on it's own was, upon first taste, utterly bizarre. But I had to taste it again. And  again. It was weird and addictive and weirdly addictive. It kind of tasted like cheese cake, but goaty. In a good way. So in order to both temper the strong goat flavor and tie in the season, I topped the ice cream with limoncello soaked strawberries.

Viva Italia!

Strawberries and lemon-perfect with summer and goat cheese.

Hero shot

Recipe:
1 1/2 cups whole milk
2/3 cup sugar
8 oz. fresh goat cheese
6 large egg yolks

Whisk egg yolks and sugar until creamy/frothy. Over medium heat, bring the milk to a boil. Remove from heat and whisk a small amount of milk into the egg mixture. Once that's tempered, add the egg mixture to the milk and thicken custard while stirring constantly. Pour hot custard through a strainer over crumbled goat cheese and stir until completely incorporated. Cool the custard thoroughly (I let it sit in the fridge overnight) and freeze per the ice cream maker directions.

Goat cheese; ice cream; summer fruit; limoncello...how could this not be just about the awesomest thing ever?

A Non Traditional Cake ... Really Non Traditional

Happy Birthday Lauren!! Yesterday was Lauren's 32nd and this year she decided to challenge my construction skills, patience, and ability to not eat ice cream the instant it comes out of the machine. I don't know how she found this, but What's Gaby Cooking had a crazy dessert she asked me to make. I've certainly made ice cream cakes before (in fact I think I made that particular one twice last summer) but this was something more.

I started with the brownies. I have to admit that I almost always use box brownies. I just have not found a recipe that makes better tasting brownies than almost any box mix. That is however, the only box mix I use. I poured the brownie batter in three 9" pans and after they cooled I wrapped them in wax paper and cling film. I had a busy week so I needed to make them well in advance and freeze them.

They really freeze very well.

That same night I started ice cream number one, mint chocolate chip. Both ice creams (yes both) were firsts for me. The mint chocolate chip was super easy to make. I have two recipes for it and decided to not use the custard-based recipe, which is usually what I use, but to make what is apparently a Philidelphia style ice cream:

3 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon peppermint extract
green food color

Heat the heavy cream until those small bubbles form around the edges. Do not let it boil. When you see the little bubbles, pull it off the heat and stir in the sugar until it dissolves. After it's cooled to room temp add the peppermint and the food coloring. The food coloring isn't necessary of course, but mint ice cream just isn't the same if it's off-white, is it? I refrigerated the cream overnight and ran it in the ice cream maker the next evening. After it had partially firmed in the maker I added mini chocolate chips. It's always a little iffy adding solids to the ice cream maker. It hiccups a little and makes angry noises but hasn't broken yet.

It was very, very green. Also, I would recommend slightly less than a full tablespoon of peppermint extract. While it blended well with everything else in the dessert, on it's own the ice cream was rather too refreshing.

Then I made the chocolate chip cookies. Sure there are plenty chocolate chip cookie recipes out there; but why look anywhere other than the back of the Toll House bag?

There's just something about cookie dough that begs to be eaten, isn't there? I mean what's better than whipped raw eggs, butter, and sugar?!

Oh yes, when you add chocolate!

Yum! I also used one of my baking secret ingredients for the cookies. I don't use vanilla extract. I haven't since I really started doing a lot of baking. I only ever use real vanilla. It's not that inexpensive but I have been to Mexico a couple times in the last few years and while I do not bring back sombreros or tequila; I do bring home vanilla. Lots.

Also a side note to the makers of baking parchment paper. Love you, great product, but the size is a bit off. Have you ever worked with parchment paper? Sure the wideness is great if you're using it on a cookie sheet or something but when cutting rounds for anything less than a 12 inch cake pan you end up wasting so much. Case in point:

So I'm just saying, think about making a couple different sizes, eh?

Next was ice cream number two. I find it incerdible that after making ice cream for what, three plus years now? this is the first chocolate ice cream I've ever made. How is that even possible? Chocolate is my favorite! I guess it was worth waiting for though because this is seriously the best chocolate ice cream ever. Do you remember Jello Pudding Pops? If not I feel deeply sorry for you. No clue why they were taken off the market since they were some of the best things in the entire world. But if you have this ice cream you'd have an idea of how good they were.

1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon vanilla

Blend the sugar, cocoa and eggs until smooth

Bring milk to a boil in a heavy sauce pan. Unlike with the mint this time you actually boil it. Then slooowly pour it into the sugar/cocoa/egg mixture blending the entire time. My recipe book suggested using a food processor but I was too lazy to get mine down from its spot on the top shelf of the cabinet. And be careful, it will spatter.

Pour everything back into the saucepan and on medium to low heat stir constantly with a wooden spoon or whisk (I prefer whisk) until it thickens. I poured it back into the bowl again right away to help it cool faster. Once it was about room temp I put it in the refrigerator to chill overnight. One thing I like to do before putting these ice creams away to chill is to cover them with cling film; but not just cover like you do normally. I put the cling film directly on the ice cream.

This helps keep that nasty skin cooked milk things get. That's just gross. This one didn't go through the ice cream maker quite so well but I think it's because I hadn't let it freeze long enough.

The night before the birthday it was assembly time!! At this point you should have: 2 different ice creams, 2 9 inch cookies, and 3 9 inch brownies. Oh, you also need craem cheese frosting. Whip 1/2 stick soft butter, 8oz cream cheese, and powdered sugar to taste and ta da!

Step 1: Spread mint chocolate chip ice cream on top of brownie

Step 2: Press cookie gently on top of ice cream and freeze for at least 30 minutes.

Step 3: Spread chocolate ice cream on top of cookie, press brownie gently on top of ice cream, and freeze for at least 30 minutes.

Step 3: Repeat steps 1 and 2. Freeze overnight.

Step 4: Cover with a thin layer of cream cheese frosting.

Step 5: EAT!

I think the above shot is worth repeating but with some handy Photoshop labeling so you can see the various strata.

Hmm...hope you can see that. It's much smaller than when I viewed it in Photoshop. But awesome right? It tasted pretty good too I must say. And I am happy to report that unlike my last post, this cake caused no breakdown or emotional outbursts of any sort.