Blackberry-Hazelnut Linzer Cookies

I'm not a huge fan of Valentine's Day (do I really need to list the reasons why?), but this year I felt compelled to celebrate, even if in just some small way.  Perhaps it's because there was a third person this year (who is technically not here yet) and my emotions got the better of me and convinced me that Valentine's Day is in fact important.  The end result was a simple baking project, so it's not as if I went all out, but it definitely meant more to me this year than it has in years past.

Celery Root, Apple, and Fennel Soup

I always make soup for Thanksgiving, and it's usually of the butternut squash or cauliflower variety.  As I mentioned before, this year I was really trying to use as much of my CSA share as possible for my Thanskgiving meal and make only a few supplemental purchases from the Carroll Gardens and Union Square Greenmarkets, which meant I had to be strategic about my menu planning.

My CSA share didn't provide us with cauliflower this year or the last (although though they do grow it at the farm) and I had already planned to make butternut squash ravioli and was making a kabocha squash cheesecake, so I didn't want to overdo it on the squash.  What else could I use for an autumnal soup?  The big celery root staring me in the face answered that question.

Fonduta-Filled Gougeres

And so my Thanksgiving recipes begin.  First up: the gougeres that were the amuse for the meal.

For the past few years, I've made gougeres every year for Thanksgiving as part of the lineup of the snacks before our Thanksgiving feast.  But this year I decided to make them even better by filling them with a rich, gooey, cheesy fonduta.  Sort of like a cream puff, but savory and melty.

Thanksgiving: a little recap

Well.  I hope all of you are recovered from your Thanksgiving.  I think I finally am, after sleeping nearly 12 hours the Friday after and being relatively slothful all weekend.

Ten courses, plus an amuse and bread basket.  Not pictured: sweet little mignardises.

This year, I decided to do something I've wanted to do for a while now, albeit not necessarily for Thanksgiving: prepare and serve a 10 course meal.

Butternut Blondies

I’ve never been a fan of blondies. They’re usually just overly sweet little blobs packed with white chocolate chunks (which I do not at all care for) and maybe some nuts. There’s no real flavor there, at least not in any of the blondies I’ve ever eaten to date, and, as a result, I’ve never been compelled to make my own.

That is, up until last week, when I somehow stumbled upon a recipe for butternut squash blondies. The recipe looked weird, though – strange proportions and the inclusion of those dreaded white chocolate chips – so I took the basic idea and set about crafting my own recipe.

Lavender-Honey Shortbread Cookies

I've been meaning to post the recipe for these cookies for more than a month; that they're going up just a few days before Valentine's Day is purely coincidental.  Well, maybe not, but what better day for heart-shaped cookies than Valentine's Day?

I made these cookies as favors for Matt's brother Doug's wedding in late December.  Doug's wife, Tracy, had gone for a vintage/rustic theme (and well at that - their wedding was just featured on Ruffled, a wedding blog for vintage and DIY weddings) and one of the decor components was lavender: it was used in the place settings and centerpieces as well as in a variety of other places throughout the decor. 

Frosty's Flipped Fruitcake and The Brooklyn Holiday Experiment

Poor fruitcake. It's always the butt of jokes this time of year, and, unfortunately, for good reason: it's usually dense, booze-soaked but somehow dry in texture, and filled with frightening artificially colored candied fruits. But fruitcake doesn't have to be such a disaster. It can be good - even delicious - if it's approached with a fresh perspective.

Photo from Metromix NY

Last week, I reinvented fruitcake for The Brooklyn Holiday Experiment and with great results - the judges awarded it third place.  Redemption for fruitcake! 

Pumpkin Bread Pudding

Last night I was craving something warm and pumpkiny but there was nothing in my fridge to satisfy said craving. This meant that I was going to have to make something, but I didn't want to invest too much energy into it. (Remember that I am remarkably lazy when it comes to cooking for myself.) The solution: bread pudding.

Cranberry, Pear, and Almond Frangipane Tart

So it’s January and I’m still posting my Thanksgiving recipes…..

Anyhow, this one was actually a last minute addition to the Thanksgiving menu. There was a total of 15 of us and I realized that one apple pie and one pumpkin cheesecake would be just enough for everyone, and, of course, just you don’t want just barely enough of anything you’re serving – you want to make sure there’s plenty to go around. I wasn’t quite sure what to make that would be Thanksgiving-y, and it occurred to me that I should use cranberries seeing as how they weren’t on the main menu.

Kabocha Squash (Pumpkin) Cheesecake with Graham-Lime-Walnut Crust

Pumpkin pie: people either love it or hate it. I, as a lover of all things pumpkin, obviously don’t hate it, but I am very picky about it. Most of them have a bad crust and the filling is usually too sweet and cinnamony (I really don’t like cinnamon). But if it’s made well, it’s oh so good.

A number of years ago, I very briefly worked at a fancy Chinese restaurant at which Pichet Ong was the pastry chef. I absolutely loved, and to this day, still do love, his Asian-inspired desserts. About a year after that, the New York Times printed a wonderful recipe of his a few weeks before Thanksgiving for a twist on the classic pumpkin pie: a Kabocha squash pie. Kabocha squash is among the sweetest varieties of squash (see this NYT article if you don’t believe me), so it lends itself perfectly to dessert. My favorite thing about it is its vibrant orange color - it's very Day-Glo-esqsue. Pichet's pie's filling contains the standard pumpkin pie spices, but is heavier on the ginger than the standard. The crust is perhaps the best part – it’s a graham cracker crust that’s perked up with ginger, lime, and walnuts. The addition of nuts make the crust rich and almost candy-like, and the flavor is just outstanding. Overall, it's a nice little Thai twist.

Thanksgiving

This year, Thanksgiving is entirely in my hands. There will be 16 of us in total, so it's going to be quite an undertaking. Luckily, I'm a serious Type A personality, so I wrote up a detailed game plan for tackling the many things I'm making.

Actually, I'm not technically cooking on Thanksgiving - we're having our big gathering on Saturday because not everyone is able to be here on Thursday. My mom will be cooking dinner for 4 on Thursday (although I am, of course, making dessert), and we're pretending like Saturday is Thanksgiving, except we're not really pretending because the whole family will be here, so isn't that really Thanksgiving? I think it is.

Anyway, in case you haven't finalized your Thanksgiving menu yet, here are some things I've made over the past year and a half that would be at home on the Thanksgiving table; the ones that are starred are items I made for last year's Thanksgiving dinner:

Thai curried butternut squash soup
Spiced parsnip and apple soup
Orange cauliflower and Fuji apple soup with sage cream and aged cheddar tuiles*
Honey glazed Bartlett pear, gorgonzola, and walnut salad*
Maple, coriander, and pomegranate glazed acorn squash*
Macadamia lime green beans
Roasted brussels sprouts with soy-sriracha dressing and spiced puffed rice*
Roasted brussels sprouts with pomegranate and hazelnuts*
Spiked apple cider cupcakes
Pumpkin cupcakes with maple-ginger frosting

OK, back I go to finalizing my plan and writing up detailed shopping lists - prep starts tonight!

Mini Key Lime Pies for Pi Day

Today is 3.14 and that means that today is Pi Day! Yes, my recognition of this makes me a nerd, but this is something I have known for a long time and I fully embrace it.

I almost forgot about Pi Day but Kate reminded me. I recently had a conversation with her about Key lime pies (particularly the ones from Steve’s Key Lime Pies in Red Hook, Brooklyn) so I decided that’s what I would make for today’s “holiday.”

Highbrow Meets Lowbrow: Salted Caramel and Dark Chocolate Covered Peeps

In a fit of extreme boredom, my dear friend Kristen challenged me to a food blog throwdown of Jerz (her) vs. Lawnguyland (me). The first challenge: Peeps.

Why Peeps? Because...

• it’s almost Easter and Peeps are everywhere
• I think Peeps are simultaneously disgusting and awesome
• I got an email from Jacques Torres the other day (ok, not really from Jacques himself) advertising chocolate covered Peeps bunnies and I thought “I could totally make those at home, Jacques! Why should I give you my hard-earned cash when I can make mine for mere pennies and use classic Peeps chicks instead of making Cyclops bunnies

Candy Cane Cupcakes

I made these mini cupcakes last week - they were supposed to be taken to my department's holiday party, but I ended up giving them to the bf and his coworkers because I ended up going home due to my not feeling so hot (I''m totally better now, save the for minor congestion).

The cupcakes are simple vanilla cupcakes, recipe courtesy of Amy Sedaris. I don't have the recipes for the frostings with me, but all I did was grind up candy canes in a spice grinder and replace some of the confectioners sugar in the frosting with the candy cane powder (the pink frosting is a vanilla cream cheese frosting, the chocolate frosting is a cocoa frosting made with Ghirardelli cocoa powder). After piping the frosting onto the cupcakes, I topped them off with a sprinkling of crushed candy cane.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with a Soy-Sriracha Dressing and Spiced Puffed Rice

I always serve roasted Brussels sprouts at Thanksgiving, and this year I wanted to change them up from my usual treatment of toasted walnuts and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. I decided to stick with the vaguely Asian theme I had going, so I dressed them up with a spicy and savory Asian dressing, fresh herbs, and toasted puffed rice for crunch instead of nuts. My family loved them (or so they told me!).

Spiked Apple Cider Cupcakes

It’s that time of year when everyone starts pulling out special holiday flavors for their drinks – pumpkin and gingerbread lattes and hot apple cider are practically ubiquitous these days.

One of my favorite holiday drinks is spiced and spiked apple cider. (I love Red Jacket Orchards cider, but I obviously can’t get it down here, so Reid’s Orchards is my very able local substitute.) Good apple cider is wonderful on its own, but one cinnamon stick, a few cloves, a dash of nutmeg, a splash of rum, and a quick trip through the microwave later, it turns into a delicious drink for a cold night. And here it is all dressed up as a cupcake.

Maple, Coriander, and Pomegranate Glazed Acorn Squash

This is another side dish I served for my family’s Thanksgiving dinner. I had a lot of fun with taking traditional Thanksgiving ingredients and putting a twist on them. In this one, acorn squash (which I think is boring) gets a sweet, tart, and smoky glaze: the rich maple syrup keeps things traditional, and the pomegranate molasses and coriander provide a great foil to the sweetness of the syrup.

Thanksgiving

For the past few years, I’ve been in charge of Thanksgiving. It’s not as daunting as it sounds, because I’m only cooking for four (my parents, my brother, and myself). I love that I get to put together a menu that features traditional Thanksgiving ingredients but presents them in a more updated – and completely vegetarian – way. This year I made the following:

• honey glazed bartlett pears, red onion, toasted walnuts, gorgonzola dolce, mixed greens, balsamic dressing
• orange cauliflower and fuji apple soup, sage cream, hawk’s hill creamery cave-aged cheddar tuiles
• roasted brussels sprouts, spicy soy-mint dressing, spiced puffed rice
• pan-seared and baked acorn squash, maple pomegranate coriander glaze
• baked sugar pumpkin, stuffing of seitan, chanterelle and crimini mushrooms, roasted carrots and parsnips, roasted vegetable and red wine sauce
• pumpkin cheesecake pie, lime-walnut graham cracker crust, ginger whipped cream

The recipes for all of these will trickle in over the next week or two while I take a break from the kitchen and feast on all the wonderful food my mom is sending home with me. Who am I kidding, I can’t stay out of the kitchen for more than a day or two, which means that I’ll be doing more baking and less cooking these next few weeks. Any requests?