The Baking: Sugar Cookies & Royal Icing

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For years, I have been laboring under the assumption that this recipe was my aunt's.  This year, I saw it in my Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook!  Scandalous!  The dough is very fragile, so the chill time is absolutely necessary.  Make sure you have similarly sized cookie cutters so the baking time is consistent.  The thing I like most about these cookies is that they bake up nice and soft, as opposed to a crunchy, shortbread-like cookie.

You can frost these using the royal icing recipe below or you can use baking sugar to decorate them before baking.  The sugar is definitely easier, but the icing is nice if you're looking for an art project.

The Baking: Haystacks

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I make these every Christmas.  The first time people see them, they are usually skeptical, but they taste awesome.  I always make them too big - they're really best if they're a little smaller since they are so rich, but the chow mein noodles cling together, so it's difficult to make them super small.  This is the recipe from the back of the Nestle butterscotch chip bag, omitting the marshmallows and increasing the noodles.

Twelve Beers of Christmas

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Between getting married, buying a place and starting school, the past few years have been chaotic swirl of activity. With everything going on (and the amount of money that flew out of our coffers) buying gifts for our friends was impractical, but we still wanted to do something for everyone. Luckily our friends like beer, and eating what we cook, so out of this the Twelve Beers of Christmas party was born.

Spending time with our friends and slowing down even for an evening was the best way we could think to celebrate the holidays and in its second year it is proving to be a great success.  Clare and I cook a bunch of heavy appetizers and we ask everyone to bring a different beer to share.  Then everyone votes for their favorite brew and the winner gets a prize.

It's Still All About Family

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Since Joel's family and my family live in different states, we split up Christmas and Thanksgiving.  This year we had Thanksgiving with my family, so we will have Christmas with Joel's family and then see my family over New Year's.  Next year, we will have Thanksgiving with Joel's family and Christmas with mine and so on.  We like this set up because it allows us to see everyone, and we're not always going to Thanksgiving or Christmas with the same family.  On the other hand, it is hard to avoid the feeling of homesickness that accompanies a big holiday with someone else's family.  Don't get me wrong, I love my in-laws (and I'm sure Joel would say the same...right?  right?), but everyone's family celebrates holidays slightly differently.

Basic Must-Have Recipes: Hummus

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I didn't start eating hummus until college.  I didn't even know what hummus was until I was at least 20 years old, but once I got into it, there was no stopping me.  We tried a lot of different ways to make it our senior year of dorm living.  My roommate, Cara, was particularly partial to the hummus mix she could get in the "hippie" section of the grocery store for two reasons: it was cheap, and it was really easy to make.  We also tried making it from scratch, but that never really turned out right.  Most of the time, we just bought it in plastic containers like everyone else.  Even now, most people just buy hummus.  I think that's because they don't know how easy or cheap it is to make at home.  It does require a food processor or blender, so that can be a problem if you're working in a limited kitchen. 

This recipe is loosely based on the recipe from the Joy of Cooking.  I have played with it enough to make it my own, and I encourage you to do the same.  The key to good hummus is taste it, taste it, taste it.  Basically every can of garbanzos is different, and every tahini tastes different, and every oil tastes different.  Those three things will make or break your recipe.  Oh, and don't cheap out on the olive oil.  I learned that one the hard way. (recipe after the jump)

A Meatacular Christmas Gift

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Some of the best things about being married to Clare are the gifts that her parents give me (us?) each Christmas.  Ever since our first Christmas together her parents have given me a box of country meats: bacon, sausage and ham.  I look forward to this every year and as luck would have it, my gift arrived a little early this year.

Pretzel Quest 2009

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I’m not sure when it happened, but sometime over the past year or so pretzel buns have become insanely popular on burgers.  The first pretzel bun that I can vividly remember was on a Corner Bakery ham sandwich at work.  I didn’t realize that it was a pretzel bun until after my first bite and then I had a revelation of what a sandwich could truly be.  The saltiness of the crust combining with the buttery chewiness of the interior took that sandwich to another level of deliciousness.  After that I began to see pretzel buns everywhere: Kuma’s, Hannah’s Bretzel, etc.  At this point I knew I had to take a crack at making these savory buns.

I decided to start my quest by making taking a basic pretzel recipe and making rolls from them. As far as research goes the rolls were delicious, but without some kind of baseline it was hard to know which adjustments to make. That's when I decided to make traditional pretzels for our annual Christmas party.

Christmas Recipes: Sausage Balls

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What follows might be the easiest holiday recipe of all time.  It wasn't New Year's or Christmas at our house without sausage balls.  They go especially well with anything bubbly like champagne, beer, or sparkling cider.  I made a batch for our annual beer tasting Christmas Party and they were gone in approximately six seconds.

These are good with regular breakfast sausage from the grocery store, but they are extra-fantastic made with country sausage or homemade breakfast sausage. (recipe after the jump)

It's All About Family

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Today I met Thomas Keller.  Originally, Joel wanted to go to the book signing at the State Street Borders, but alas, work called.  There I was, waiting anxiously with a brand new copy of Ad Hoc at Home sitting on my lap, listening to the people behind me talk about Food Network stars when he appeared as if by magic.  He looks just like he does on television.

Before the signing, Chef Keller talked a little bit about Ad Hoc and about the cookbook.  Keller is a world-renowned chef and culinary rock star, but there he sat on the signing table, telling us how he wrote an April Fool's email a few years ago and suddenly had a successful restaurant. It was surreal, to say the least.

Ad Hoc is all about family style meals.  There is no menu there.  You get what the chefs want to cook and that's that.  There is a freedom in that kind of dining, you know.  It's reminiscent of coming home from school and finding out meatloaf was what you were having, and then being happy about that.  I like that Keller is able to take American cuisine to its highest heights with Michelin stars and all that, and also be able to be real about food and what it means, because for most of us, food means family, and gathering, and sharing time together.

I cannot wait to get started on the recipes in the cookbook.  I know that some of them will be out of my grasp, and I know that others will be similar to things I've made before.  No matter what, I'm excited to think about food as a family occasion and take pleasure in the transformation from raw ingredients to beautiful meals.

I got my cookbook signed, inscribed for Joel.  Chef Keller writes it in a beautifully, curly script with a special pen.  Just like his food, it is beautiful, but the inscription contains a message that would be the same if scribbled in crayon: "It's all about family."

Indeed.

Thanksgiving Week: Cornbread Dressing part 2 - Dressing

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The cornbread is by far the most difficult part of the cornbread dressing.  Once you have that down, it's smooth sailing to Dressing Town.  We never called it stuffing in my family because it never went in the bird.  Every Thanksgiving morning, I would wake up to the smell of celery and onions sweating in a skillet.  Once I got into the kitchen, I would find my dad crumbling up cornbread in our biggest mixing bowl while chicken broth heated on the stove.

I called him to get his recipe for cornbread dressing.  It was surprisingly seat-of-the-pants cooking.  When I asked him how much liquid to add, he told me "just enough until the mixture makes that sucking sound when you mix it."  That is really the crux of family recipes.  They're ways of cooking that you've done and seen done so many times that you don't need to know how many cups.  You just cook it until it tastes good, like you remember it.

The minute I started sweating onions and celery for our early Thanksgiving, I was immediately transported to the kitchen I grew up in.  I also knew exactly what it should taste, look, and smell like each step of the way, since I had seen it done so many times before.  Here's an approximation of the recipe, but my advice to you is to make it like you like it.  Add, take away, and make it your own.  You'll know when it's right.

Thanksgiving Week: Lumpia

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Holidays are not complete for me without lumpia, otherwise known as eggrolls. I can remember running into the kitchen at the first scent of frying oil and waiting impatiently for the first batch to come out. Usually I would burn my tongue but that wouldn’t stop me from inhaling half a dozen of them in my first go. My mom would always yell that there wouldn’t be any more left for our guests. Eventually, she relented and in subsequent years just made more.

Lumpia (along with pancit) is comfort food to me. We had them at every family celebration and this Thanksgiving would be no different since we would be making them ourselves. An exciting part of this process was making the eggrolls with Clare. She had only ever eaten them before and this was her maiden voyage into lumpia making. This year we get two cracks at making lumpia this year because Clare’s family requested it for our Thanksgiving dinner in Atlanta.

Thanksgiving Week: Cornbread Dressing part 1 - Cornbread

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When Joel and I were planning our Thanksgiving feast, I realized that for me it's just not Thanksgiving without the cornbread stuffing, and cornbread stuffing takes cornbread.

Not too long ago, I was watching an episode of Cook's Country featuring southern foods.  Bridget Lancaster, the resident southerner on the show, was expounding about the virtues of a true southern cornbread.  The key ingredients are cornmeal, buttermilk, and a cast iron skillet.  The key missing ingredients are flour, sugar, and any sort of gussying up (jalepenos, creamed corn, tomatoes, and the like).  As I watched her heat up the shortening in the cast iron skillet, and mix together the cornmeal and buttermilk, I was immediately homesick.  I was also immediately determined to make cornbread at home.  Joel and I were in possession of a sweet cast iron skillet, so it was time to start learning how.

Thanksgiving Week: The Turkey

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I'm not sure how we divvied-up responsibilities, but I knew I wanted to take a crack at the turkey.  Why?  Well, turkey is intimidating.  It's the largest carcass we've ever had in our kitchen and when it comes to Thanksgiving, you're not just serving dinner, you're delivering an American icon.  When done well, the cook gets oohs, aahs and adoration from his or her guests.  When done poorly, all the cook can do is hold his head down in shame as the guests try to console him as they try to remember if the White Castle down the street is still open.  In short, there is glory to be had in a well cooked turkey, and I intended to reap it.

Thanksgiving Week

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Thanksgiving. Clare and I got talked into hosting Thanksgiving.  Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes...the whole nine.  Neither of us had  prepared a Thanksgiving dinner before.  Regular dinner party? Sure, but this isn't a regular dinner party.   

So, how did we get talked into hosting Thanksgiving?  Well, in the summer of 2009, Clare and I bought our first place, a condo in Lincoln Square. (Who knew that the American Dream involved so much debt?) We loved having people over for group dinners, but we never had enough seating, so one of the first pieces of furniture that we bought was a gigantic table from Ikea.  With a table this size we were either going to have everyone over for Thanksgiving dinner or start landing planes on it.  Knowing what Mayor Daley did to Meigs Field, we opted for Thanksgiving.

Of course we needed to roast our first turkey, but we also had to make lumpia by ourselves, attempt cranberry sauce, perfect cornbread dressing, and put some finishing touches on our mashed potato recipe.  The next few posts will be all about our very first Thanksgiving Feast.  We hope you enjoy them as much as we did creating them.

What a Grind

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I love burgers. I love them any way that I can get them. Fried, grilled, broiled – slap it on a bun and I’m ready to eat. McDonald’s, Kuma’s Corner or the backyard grill-out – for the most part I don’t care where I get them, as long as I do.

What makes a great burger? With so many different choices out there, this was a harder question to answer than I thought it would be. Patty size, how it’s cooked, cheese, toppings and bun form a mind-boggling number of combinations. In the end though, we focused on the one aspect that transcends every combinations: the patty.

After much thought, consideration and a few burgers we found the perfect patty is…

Kentuckipino

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Kentuckipino is a word blending Kentucky and Filipino, just like Clare and I are blending our lives together. Food is a big part of that and as we make old family favorites or discover new dishes, we will be documenting it here with stories, pictures and recipes.