Christmas Cooking!

 

I haven't been in the studio much, other than to carve a block, hem a couple of napkins and prep the design for the next table... I've been cooking instead. Here's the list since the 18th or so...

• Beef and pork ragu from Marcella Hazan's cookbook (double batch; we had it over pasta twice and I froze the rest). (With a Castello Di Ama Chianti)
• Lamb tagine (with 1991 Xavier Vignon Châteauneuf-du-Pape)

Sourdough sandwich bread

Sourdough discard crackers

Peanut brittle

Carmelized onion quiche, pieced together from a few recipes on the internet, with a nice Schmalz Wachauer Riesling. A+ for the wine pairing.

Cinnamon rolls https://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/best-cinnamon-rolls/. (these are not Mom style rolls... they're the soft pull apart ones. I may have found a recipe for Mom's style https://www.onesarcasticbaker.com/schnecken/). These were great with coffee

Lasagna (home made noodles) with the ragu from earlier on this list. Homemade noodles apparently don't need to be prebaked and have a silky wonderful texture. Why would you ever buy them dried? Wine was a Castello di Ama Chianti, older than the last. 

Chocolate marshmallows from this recipe. I mixed up some of the black cocoa powder K. gave me and it didn't taste good; dumped that and went with regular cocoa powder. The recipe calls for a 9x9 pan but the marshmallows are about 1.5 inches thick! I had to cut them down.  Next time I'd use a flatter pan.  https://www.theflavorbender.com/homemade-chocolate-marshmallows-recipe/

Chicken, sausage, and shrimp gumbo from a Paul Prudhome recipe with cornbread from a Love and Lemons recipe.  We had this with a French white burgundy.

At this point I was a little tired of cooking. Plus the freezer is getting full. So I took a break:  an evening out in the city at Lers Ros (Thai) and some jazz, and the night out with my knitting buddies. 

I didn't mention DH's chocolate disaster... apparently when you get a little water into the chocolate you're tempering, it can seize which is a technical word for it gets a very nasty texture... It's still in the fridge, awaiting my decision on whether or not it can be saved. I'll see if I can use the wisdom of the internet to beat it back into smooth glossiness by adding a bit of cream and heat; if that works, it'll become pots du creme. I'm also planning on making tamales with a red chile pork filling for New Years... more on that later. 

DH also convinced me (after watching me search for a recipe) that I need a recipe log... Here it is!

The cat photo? They've been fighting over this pillow, and had just come to an uneasy truce. A bit later they curled up together and looked very cute indeed.

ETA: The pots du creme were not particularly successful... although tasty, they did not have the creamy texture I was looking for.  For New Years I made a Rustic Tamale from Rick Bayless's cookbook, with red chile pork inside and a tomatillo-chipotle salsa. Rick calls for masa para tamales, then has you beat in lard... Sadly I did not read the masa ingredients, as it already contained lard so the dish was edible but super fatty; we threw out the leftovers. To use up the banana leaves and masa, I made some black bean tamales (no additional lard) and they were darn tasty.  Thus ends the December cooking frenzy! The freezer is pretty full :)