And Now The Reality...

Millie's first Peep, courtesy of her Grandmother...

There was lots of candy friends.

Lots more than I had planned for that is. I bought just a few things for the girlies' baskets, but then there was the school party and the school Easter egg hunt and the neighborhood Easter egg hunt and the ginormous basket that Bryan's mom gave each of them.

It was sugar-fest 2010...bigger than Halloween...epic even.

So I threw in the towel and let Sunday be a free day. Both girlies had the stomach flu a couple of days earlier, so I was feeling especially lenient (and they were especially hungry), and I just let them go for it, self-regulate. Honestly it wasn't as bad as I would have expected. They mostly wanted to taste everything, one bite and then they pretty much lost interest.

After they were in bed, I, well...(this is wasteful so I hesitate to admit it) discarded a good deal of what they had amassed, saving the best stuff in the treat bowl hidden way up in the pantry.

And then I ate the rest of it. Just kidding, but I did eat a lot, I'm just sayin...it was a bad scene.

I'm banking on the fact that one (incredibly) sugar fueled day won't kill us, right?

Big Chocolate Cake (Or Breaking a Rut)

Valentine’s Day was my “D-Day.”

See as of yesterday, (as you’ve probably surmised from all the posts about snacking and frozen yogurt and whatnot) I still hadn’t fully shaken off my cooking “rut”, otherwise known as my food funk, the stalemate with my kitchen, or my completely culinarily uninspired period of time…

So I drew a line in the proverbial sand and vowed, inspiration be damned, to cook something…anything (ideally somewhat elaborate and perhaps even a bit challenging) for Valentine’s Day. Really pulling out of the funk, dusting off the cookbooks and making something fantastic for Bryan and the girlies, seemed like the ultimate expression of love, no?

I decided first on the dessert -- it was Valentine’s Day after all. Specifically, inspired by Ruth Riechls’ ultimate expression of love through insane baking in her excellent memoir, "Comfort Me With Apples", I decided to make “Big Chocolate Cake”… with Audrey of course. And truthfully the cake killed two birds with one stone, allowing me to cross “make a chocolate cake from scratch” of my “list”, where it’s been sitting stagnate for a year and a half. A win/win all around.

From the name alone, I knew this project might be a bit of a bear, and I had a whole dinner to make too (more on that later), so we started working on the cake early in the day. Which turned out to be a good thing, as we were working slowly (+ sneaking in plenty of Olympics viewing, breaking for Bryan’s famous quesadillas + taking in a tivo’d Project Runway)… Let's just say Audrey placed the final raspberry on the cake at approximately 5:00 pm, right before I started dinner.

Friends, let me warn you, this cake isn’t for the faint of heart. There’s nothing especially “healthy” about this bad boy – case in point, it contains three sticks of butter and six eggs in the batter alone, but I view great desserts the same way I do eating meat lately -- we eat it less of it and make the best we can possibly afford. To that end, we used great chocolate and all organic ingredients.

I can honestly say it was a masterpiece.

Ruth Reichl’s Big Chocolate Cake adapted from "Comfort Me With Apples"

A couple of notes…this recipe makes a big cake and we were only feeding four, so rather than tinker with the amounts, I used ½ the batter for a single layer round cake and used the rest for cupcakes. Since my round cake pan was a little deeper than the sheet pans that the cooking times are intended for, I had to cook it closer to 45-50 minutes and I turned the heat down to 325 for the last 15 minutes.

Ingredients:

For Cake Layers:

• 1 ½ cups boiling water
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
• ¾ cup whole milk
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 3 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 ½ cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
• 6 large eggs

For Frosting:

• 5 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup whipped cream cheese
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 ½ cups confectioners' sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Make Cake Layers:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter two 13-by-9-by-2-inch baking pans and line bottoms of each with wax paper. Butter paper and dust pans with flour, knocking out excess.

Whisk together the boiling water and the cocoa in a bowl until smooth, then whisk in the milk and vanilla. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt.

Beat together the butter and sugars in the large bowl of a standing electric mixer until pale and fluffy, then add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. On low speed, beat in flour and cocoa mixtures alternately in batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture (the batter may look curdled).

Divide batter between pans, smoothing tops. Bake in the middle of the oven until a tester comes out clean and layers begin to pull away from the sides of pans, 25 to 35 minutes. Invert cakes on racks, remove wax paper, and cool completely.

Make Frosting:

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring until melted. Cool to room temperature.

Beat together the butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy.

Add remaining ingredients and beat until well combined.

Assemble Cake:

Put one cake layer, rounded side up, on a cake plate and spread with 11/4 cups frosting. Top with another cake layer, rounded side up, and spread top and sides with remaining frosting.

The Polenta...

This polenta is literally my favorite thing to make of late. It's ridiculously easy (you make it in a slow cooker), but it reads complicated and special (which is really the best combination, no?)

I'd love to be able to report that my girlies love it (or would even try it for that matter) but (because they are clearly nuts) sadly, I can't. But I can attest to some level of kid friendliness, as (sans the mushroom and leek topping) my four-year old friend Gracie lapped it up.

The polenta easily stands alone (it's rich and hearty) but it's great as a side with roasted chicken or tenderloin for a more special meal...

Slow Cooker Polenta with Leeks and Mushrooms (from my friend Lisa Greene)

• 1 cup organic polenta (I like Bob's Red Mill)
• 2 tbs. butter
• 3 cups organic chicken broth
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1 small log goat cheese (room temperature)
• 2 cups sliced baby portabella mushrooms
• 1 medium leek thinly sliced
• a bit of white wine

Coat the inside of your slow cooker with cooking spray, then add the polenta and 1 tsp of the butter. Bring the chicken broth to a boil on the stove and add to the slow cooker, wisk together until slightly thickened.

Add parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Stir well and cover. Set slow cooker to low and the timer for 3 hours.

At the 2.5 hour mark, add the room temperature goat cheese to the slow cooker, stir well and cover.

While the polenta is cooking, heat the remaining butter in a sauté pan and saute the leeks for a few minutes until slightly browned, add the mushrooms and continue cooking over high heat until softened and deeply browned. Deglaze the pan with a splash of white wine. Set mixture aside.

Serve polenta immediately when ready with a generous scoop of the mushroom/leek mixture.

What Do You Cook For Christmas Day?

image via dwell studio

I posed this question over on my other blog last year, as I was seriously torn about what to cook for the big day. After much angst, I eventually decided on a sort of Thanksgiving redux, and I'm pretty sure I'm going there again this year. (I love the Thanksgiving meal so much it seems a shame to only have it once a year.) We'll do a very small bird, + boursin mashed potatoes from the Neiman Marcus cookbook (amazing), green beans sauteed with almonds and fresh cranberry sauce. Simple, yummy...

For Christmas Eve we're planning some sort of meat, this salad + the most amazing goat cheese polenta topped with sauteed mushrooms and leeks. (I had this polenta at my new friend Lisa Green's house and have made it multiple times since. Seriously friends, this polenta recipe will change your life.)

I love hearing about what other people make for their big holiday meal, as rather than following a "prescribed" menu, meals tend to be more a nod to heritage, family traditions and favorite foods... We have friends who do lasagna every year, others that have tamales, and some that do lobster. You get the idea...

So, before I give you that polenta recipe (soon I promise), what do you cook for your Christmas/Holiday meal?

Putting the Meyer Lemons to Work...

Despite the fact that I'm a huge fan of Christmas baking, we're a full week into December and I've yet to turn out a single thing. I even showed up to a cookie exchange party Saturday empty handed (shameful I know, but it was largely due to being stranded in Cincinnati overnight the day before...but that's a whole other story.) So itching to bake and needing to put the two (precious) Meyer Lemons from my little tree to use, Audrey and I cranked up the Christmas tunes last night and set to work...

We decided on Lemon Bars...or more accurately "I" decided to make lemon bars, as she was skeptical* that anything delicious and dessert-like could be made of lemons, but given the fact that she was about to get to crack multiple eggs, she was in, despite her doubts.

* which in turn made me skeptical of the fact that she was actually my child, as I just don't see how someone who came from my womb (sorry to be graphic) could not love lemons with every ounce of their being...but I digress.

We went with this recipe, and the bars were pretty divine, although I think I was a bit heavy handed with the salt and, refusing to taint my backyard lemons with shoddy store-bought ones, I could have used more lemon juice... but otherwise perfection.

I even managed to convince Audrey to take a big bite of one of the bars and she didn't gag, didn't spit it out, and declared them..."pretty good."

Nice.

What do you love to bake during the holidays? I'd love to try something new!

The Divine Leftovers

Suffice to say, I ate a lot of turkey last week. A lot.

Even Audrey partook in the customary bird despite her earlier protests… (I didn’t pressure her, I promise.)

There was of course the big meal, which went quite well for our first time if I do say so myself ;-) but then there were the turkey sandwiches after.

Oh my, the turkey sandwiches.

My go-to was turkey, cranberry sauce, arugula and brie with a smidge of honey mustard on toasted wheat bread. It was incredibly yummy… I ate no less than four of these sandwiches last week and nearly cried when we ran out of leftover turkey. I think I might cook another (much smaller) bird just so I can continue making these sandwiches.

So spill it…what’s your favorite meal from the Thanksgiving leftovers?

It's Almost Time...

We're hosting our first ever Thanksgiving this year, and friends I think I'm ready... I think. We'll have my family + several dear friends for a total of 11 with the kiddos. I've planned the menu, made the shopping list, ordered the turkey, washed the wine glasses, and yes, even "practiced" the table setting (above) -- sad I know... it's my way, it can't be helped.

I love the Thanksgiving meal in ways words can't even describe. In fact, I might go as far as to say it's my favorite meal. I took this pretty far as a child, when I requested "thanksgiving" for my birthday, which happens to fall a mere week and a half after turkey day. My mother is a good, good woman (or I was a bad, bad kid ;-)


My plan this year is to keep things pretty straightforward. My guests are bringing all the appetizers and desserts (although I am planning one simple appetizer of brie stuffed dates wrapped in bacon and baked...incredibly simple and ridiculously tasty) so we're focused on the core meal. Bryan's on turkey, and my mother, sister and I will turn out the stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberries. But to mix things up a bit, I'm going to start with the Alice Waters carrot soup and serve the celery, pecorino "salad" as a side.

I love the ritual of being in the kitchen, cooking together, with the parade on the background. Audrey and I have been talking about it for weeks and I'm so excited to share the experience with her...although she did inform me a few nights ago (while eating chicken for dinner I might add) that she wouldn't be eating the turkey, as it's just too, too sad. I didn't point out the feelings of the chicken she was currently consuming as I'm not ready yet to deal with a full-blown vegetarian.

So, what traditions do you have for the big meal? Do you cook anything special or unusual or just stick to the basics?