GG's Tea Party - Nov 23, 2012

Chicken Mandarin Orange Spread Sandwiches

This is slightly out of order, but since I'm still playing catch up from two months ago, I'm not too worried about it.  These pictures are from a birthday party for Nick's Grandma, known affectionately as GG, held the day after Thanksgiving.  GG turned 90 this year and we celebrated in style.

Cucumber-Salmon-Watercress Sandwiches

Specifically, we had an afternoon tea party where hats, of any kind, were required.  Nick and I were in charge of organizing the finger sandwiches for the party.  Nan wanted four different kinds, one of them being a pimento cheese sandwich, because it's not a Southern tea party without the pimento cheese sandwiches.

Pimento Cheese Sandwiches

Nick and I picked out three other recipes from this list.  A grocery list was compiled between Nick and me in Minnesota, and Chip and Nan in South Carolina.  Some math was required, but Nick and Chip are good guys to have on your team when that happens.  We got the numbers figured out without incident.  Nick's parents did the shopping, plus pimento cheese making, and Nick and I did the prep work (making the chicken and salmon salads, plus the compound butter for the ham sandwiches) Thursday evening, once the Thanksgiving feast had been cleared from the kitchen.

Party Ham Sandwiches

Then, bright and early Friday morning, a whole crew of family and friends gathered around the kitchen island. Uncles worked next to nephews, sisters worked next to brothers, fathers-in-law worked next to cousins, nieces worked next to girlfriends, and everybody pitched in to make hundreds of tiny tea sandwiches in record time.  We had so much help, in fact, that I had nothing to do besides answer the random question and stand back and admire the flurry of activity, as inside jokes and friendly barbs flew back and forth across the counter.  The rookies were included into the fold as though they had always been there, and the whole, wild and crazy assortment of family members became a happy, and quite efficient, team.   It was my favorite moment of the whole weekend.

Roasted Poblano "Hot Dish" - Oct 22, 2012

This is what Nick and I did with those Poblano peppers that didn't go into our roasted peppers and onions dinner.  I am having trouble remembering where I found the recipe, but I know there was a recipe.  This did not come out of my brain.  Perhaps I will need to ruminate on my source a bit more and update this when my memory starts behaving again.

What I do remember about this dish is that I roasted the Poblanos over the flames from our gas stove and then sliced them into wide, flat halves.  These were layered into a loaf pan with chopped, canned tomatoes and Cotija cheese, like a lasagna.  The last layer is crumbled corn tortilla chips.  This baked until the cheese melted, which didn't take long.  We topped our servings with sour cream and served it alongside some of the cornbread I made for another dinner.

The dish had great flavor, with a little heat from the peppers, but it was a bit soggy.  If I repeat this, I may layer in some additional tortillas to help absorb some of the liquid from the tomatoes and peppers.

Book Review: "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter" - April 3, 2012

Hello, my name is Jaime and I am a cookbook addict. I have never been able to resist the lure of a new cookbook, especially one that has such a compelling premise as Jennifer Reese's Make the Bread, Buy the Butter. After unexpectedly losing her job, she started filling her free time with recipe experiments in order to determine what you should and should not cook from scratch. I enjoyed reading about her chronicles, while privately seething in jealousy of her California yard large enough to accomodate a variety of farm animals and the financial security that apparently allowed her to become a full time blogger/homemaker. I fantasize about being able to chuck it all, strap on apron, and step out my backdoor with a bucket full of chicken feed. Then reality hits and I wake up in our DC-area townhouse to the sound of the nearby Metro train and head off on another business trip... with one of my "back-to-the-land" library books for reading on the airplane (above photo taken aboard one such plane...).

Reese's narrative and concept are excellent, but unfortunately I found some of her recipes to be a bit too imprecise. For example, in her directions for making ricotta she says to just bring the milk to "near boiling." I'd previously used Smitten Kitchen's technique, which calls for an exact 190 degrees. I figured Reese probably knew what she was talking about, so I left the thermometer in the drawer. The result was utter disaster. The milk never got nearly hot enough and only a few little curds formed. Rather than throw out one entire gallon of organic whole milk, I pulled the thermometer out and started over. 

Ricotta, made by bring the milk to 190 degrees, then adding acid and letting it sit for 30 minutes before draining.

Whey draining from the ricotta cheese.

I also didn't care for her English muffin recipe. I've experimented with a few different recipes and found that the only ones that come close to the factory-produced ideal of nooks and crannies are the batter-type recipes that you "bake" like a pancake. I've been particularly pleased with Michael Ruhlman's version, which I prefer to the Alton Brown recipe just because I'd rather use real milk than the powdered stuff which I don't trust to be corn-free.

In the end, I'm glad I read the book (borrowed from the library - the only way I can keep my cookbook addiction from breaking the bank) and plan to try some of the other recipes in it eventually (cream cheese, Canadian bacon, to name a couple). But my chicken and goat raising will have to remain just a fantasy.