Weekly Dish

Merry Christmas from everyone here at Weekly Dish — Jennifer, David, and Chester Claus (pictured). We’ll be back after a short vacation to visit friends and family. May the peace, hope and joy of the season follow you and your family into the New Year. Happy Holidays!

I love to give gifts. Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I also love to receive them, which is true. But during the holidays, the pure delight for me comes from making my list of what to give and trying to think of creative ways to tell people in my life how much they mean to me. Some people might be inclined to think that being on a limited budget would take some of the fun out of gifting. True, I would love to not have to think about money when I decide what to get, but at the same time, there’s something to be said for the inventiveness required to give thoughtful gifts on a student budget.

Maybe it’s because I enjoy a good challenge, but I love it when I think of ways to give thoughtfully without breaking the bank. One of the easiest ways to do that, of course, is to make things. I used to think I was a craftsy person—and I do still have those impulses—but I’m happier in the kitchen than with a glue gun. I am great on the ideas part of crafts, but not so good on the follow-through. Even as a teenager, I would spend my babysitting money on craft supplies, and then get half-way into the project and tire of it. Maybe I’m not patient enough. Or maybe I like the immediate gratification of cooking—no month-long projects for me.

This season, as I thought of what I could make that would provide some homemade goodies for people in my life, I also wanted to consider buying from my local farmers and making the most of what is in season here. The oranges and Meyer lemons from the market have been a weekly staple at our house since they first appeared in November, so they seemed a logical choice. Then, when my sweet Aunt Prissy brought me the new Barefoot Contessa cookbook and I turned to the marmalade recipe, I knew at least one gift item that would come through my kitchen. I have not canned before, which made me a little nervous, but the process went pretty smoothly, and as you can see from the picture, the marmalade is lovely in its tiny glass jars. I made little pound cakes to give with the marmalade — a yummy holiday breakfast or tea combination.

Packaging is where my craftsy insticts kick in: if I’m going to the trouble of making homemade gifts, then I want to make extra sure that they are packaged well. The tiny jars of marmalade received a striped gross-grain ribbon (part of a surprise gift from a lovely friend) and a colorful tag, and each jar nests inside a Chinese take-out container with a tightly wrapped and ribboned cake. Seal the outside of the box with a festive card and tie on a cute spreader for the marmalade, and I am one happy gift-giver.

I feel a little like I’ve packaged up part of myself in each little box. And who wouldn’t want to open that on Christmas morning?

Well, if the answer is yes, then you have preparations to make, don’t you? While I can’t help with what you should wear, if you happen to have minimal time to whip up something festive to set on the food table, I can share this recipe.

The story of this dip is fairly representative of the way things happen in my kitchen, especially when the food is actually for an event (and not just for us to eat).

First, I spend entirely too much time deciding what to bring. Next, I spend the day of the party doing everything except preparing the dish I’m supposed to bring. Or even deciding what to bring. Then, at the last minute, I run into the kitchen, have an idea, send David dashing to the store, and he comes back with a collection of ingredients that I use to improvise a recipe I should probably be following exactly (since I’ve never made it before and I’m serving it to lots of people).

In this particular case, the idea came from The Barefoot Contessa. I originally planned to make Ina’s sundried tomato dip to take to our department holiday party on Friday. (In this case, “originally planned” means “decided on an hour before the party would start”). I sent David to the store, but I forgot to ask him to bring home cream cheese, and well, the dip is entirely based on cream cheese. And the recipe called for mayonnaise, the sight of which I cannot tolerate these days (so there is none in my fridge). So, I dug through what I did have, and the resulting sour cream, feta cheese, and sundried tomato dip was much better than I can imagine a cream cheese and mayonnaise version tasting.

One key to the flavor of the dip is salt, and how much you use will depend on a few things: first, how salty the feta is; second, what you’re planning to serve with the dip; and third, you’re preference for saltiness. David bought no-salt Zapp’s potato chips, and we had French feta cheese, which tends to be less salty than the American stuff (at least in my grocer’s cheese case) so I added a good bit of sea salt to the dip. With saltier chips and a stronger feta, the dip could have been way too salty. The cayenne pepper also gives it a nice kick, but again, you don’t want the spiciness to be overpowering. My best suggestion is to start with a palmful of salt and a pinch of pepper and then taste the final product with a chip or vegetable you’ll be using for serving; season until it tastes like you might stand there and eat the whole bowl before you leave for the party. (Then, stop, put it in a serving container and wrap tightly with plastic wrap! Hurry, you still have to get dressed!)

This recipe made enough to take in my chip and dip plate to the department party on Friday and to take over to my neighbor this afternoon for her holiday party tonight. Not bad for 10 minutes worth of preparation.

Sundried Tomato and Feta Dip

1 5-ounce jar of sundried tomatoes, packed in oil, drained
2-3 ounces feta cheese
1 cup sour cream
3 green onions, white and green parts, sliced
Sea salt, to taste
A pinch or two of cayenne pepper

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the tomatoes a few times until coarsely chopped. Add the cheese, sour cream, green onions, salt and pepper. Pulse a few more times until thoroughly combined. Garnish with a sprinkle of green onions. Have a great time at the party!

A couple of quick announcements:

First, today is the last day to nominate your favorite food bloggers for this year’s Food Blog Awards over at the Well Fed Network.

Second, the Menu for Hope campaign has raised over $17,000, which is amazing for the first week! You still have until next Friday to bid, and cool prizes are still being announced.

Third, (and I’m sorry this isn’t food related) I just finished my last-ever paper for a graduate course! That’s right, from here on out, the academic work I do is completely up to me (well, except teaching, but I love that part). Scary, but also liberating. To celebrate, David and I have a day of shopping planned (what I’ve wished I was doing for the past two weeks, instead of working on this paper and grading), but when we return, more holiday cooking is in store…Stay tuned!

I’ve been writing lately about yummy things that I like to make and give away recently largely because I love the spirit of giving the holiday season inspires. In the midst of your baking and shopping for those you know and love, I’d like to encourage you to also think about giving to those whom you don’t know, to those who are in need.

Menu for Hope is a fundraising campaign started by Chez Pim and supported by foodbloggers worldwide. This year, proceeds will benefit the United Nations World Food Programme, an organization that works to distribute food to needy populations across the globe.

So, how can you participate? Well, first check the amazing list of food-related prizes over at Chez Pim. Decide what you’d like to bid on, and follow these easy instructions:
1. Go to the donation page at First Giving.

2. Make a donation. Each $10 will give you one raffle ticket towards a prize. Please specify which prize or prizes you’d like in the *Personal Message* section when confirming your donation.

3. If your company matches charity donations, please remember to check the box and fill in the information so A Menu for Hope can claim the corporate match.

4. Please also check the box to allow us to see your e-mail address so we can contact you in case you win.Your e-mail address will not be shared.

5. Check back at Chez Pim on January 15 to see who the winners are.

In other foodblogging news, nominations for this year’s Food Blog Awards are open over at the Well Fed Network. After you’ve made your donation to Menu for Hope, head over to Well Fed to nominate your favorite blogs in a variety of categories!

For this month’s Paper Chef competition, the required ingredients include:

1. Vermouth
2. Cranberries
3. Sparkling drink
4. Something wild

with a celebration theme. Cranberries and a sparkling drink are easy enough, especially this time of year, and although I’ve never actually had vermouth, I understand that the sweet red version is akin to sherry or port, both of which know their way around my kitchen quite well.

The something wild part, however, I was not so sure about.

Wild berries? Not this time of year. Wild animals? My pregnancy-induced aversion to meat says no. Wild…and crazy?

Hmmm. Well, I am not wild and crazy. In fact, anyone who knows me will tell you that I am quite the opposite: pajamas and a movie suit me much better than any night out on the town (especially these days). But, I do know some wild and crazy people. In fact, one of the people who has been in my life the longest who fits that description is also one of the women who taught me a good deal about the pleasures of food and cooking: my Aunt Emily.

Aunt Em is the youngest of five children, the oldest of whom is my father. Many stories circulate about which of them — the oldest and only boy or the youngest girl — got into more trouble as a kid. Apparently, by the time Aunt Em came around, my grandparents were so tired, she did exactly as she pleased. Or so the stories go.

By the time I knew her, she was the cool aunt who invited me up to her farmhouse in the summer, let me eat absolutely whatever I pleased, did flips off of the diving board when we went to the pool, and could waterski as well as any of the teenagers at the lake. Especially compared to my sweet, mild-mannered mother, Aunt Em was the picture of let-your-hair-down wild and crazy fun.

And, man, could she cook.

And so, although I know an actual person cannot be an ingredient, the spirit of Aunt Em is certainly what inspired this creation. One of my favorite desserts that she makes is something she calls Savannah Cake, made by mixing sherry custard and torn-up angel food cake and refrigerating it in a mold. The finished cake is iced with whipped cream and served with raspberry sauce. It is beautiful — the bright red of the berries and the white of the cake — but it is also delicious.

So, for my Aunt Em-inspired Paper Chef entry, I recreated her Savannah Cake, with a few alterations. For starters, I made a champagne cake, a bit denser than angel food, but airy enough to hold the custard well. The champagne flavor of the cake also provided a nice counterpoint to the vermouth in the custard, my second adjustment. And finally, I made a cranberry sauce with lime, instead of the raspberry sauce, usually made with lemon. Truly, a celebratory dessert, it would make a delightfully different birthday cake, or a fitting end to a fancy, celebratory dinner.

I love the custardy texture of this cake, and the flavors of the vermouth and champagne do play nicely together in your mouth. But, for me, the cranberry sauce makes it — the lovely, tart berry puree coats each sweet creamy bite with the perfect tang of contrast. Next time I make it, I won’t sweeten the cream for the icing — it doesn’t need it, and I think the cream could stand alone.

This cake also requires a celebratory spirit in the kitchen — it’s quite a process to make all of the individual parts before assembly, and then you have to wait until the next day to try it! But, when you do, the anticipation will make the celebration that much sweeter. Or, shall we say, wilder?

Wild Aunt Em’s Savannah Cake with Cranberry Sauce

For the cake:
2 3/4 cup cake flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
10 1/2 T. butter
1 1/2 cups sugar, divided
3/4 cup champagne
6 egg whites (set aside the yolks for the custard)

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl. Set aside.

Cream the butter and 1 cup of the sugar. Add the champagne and flour mixture alternately to the creamed butter and sugar, mixing well after each addition (or just leave the motor running on your mixer like I do). Pour this batter (it will be very thick) into a large bowl and set aside.

Wash the mixer, and beat the egg whites with the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar until soft peaks form. Stir a couple of spoonfuls of the egg whites into the batter to lighten; then, fold the whites and batter together. Pour into a greased cake pan and bake for about 40 minutes, or until the edges are light brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Put the cake on a rack to cool.

For the custard:
1 envelope unflavored gelatin, softened in 1/2 cup cold water
6 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup sweet vermouth (or sherry)
1/4 cup water

Beat the egg yolks until light yellow. Add the sugar and continue to beat. Stir in the vermouth and water; add the gelatin. Cook this mixture in the top of a double-boiler over simmering water (the highest temperature you can manage without the water boiling), and stir, until slightly thickened, somewhere around 15-20 minutes. The custard will coat the back of a spoon, but it won’t get terribly thick until it’s chilled. Set aside to cool.
To assemble the cake:
1 pint of whipping cream
1 cup sugar

Whip the cream and sugar together, and divide in half. Stir half of the whipped cream into the cooled custard; cover and refrigerate the rest. Mix the cream and custard well. Tear the cake into pieces and fold the cake into the custard-cream mixture. Pour this into a greased bundt pan and refrigerate overnight. The next day, ice with the remaining whipped cream and pour the cranberry sauce on top so it runs down the sides. Serve slices with more sauce.

Cranberry Sauce

12 ounces of cranberries
1 cup water
Zest and juice of 1 lime
1 cup sugar

Cook the ingredients over medium until the water boils. Then, cook for another 10 minutes, just until the cranberries burst. Force this mixture through a strainer.

One of the most satisfying holiday seasons I’ve had — at least in terms of making things — was the first Christmas after I’d started graduate school. I am a task-oriented person: I get great pleasure out of checking things off of a list, of seeing them finished. Unfortunately, graduate school is a place where many things stay on the to-do list for months and months. Books I want to read linger under the weight of things that have to be read for class, ideas I have for creative writing get lost in the flurry of academic research papers, and even the simple task of figuring out what I want to write about takes a very, very long time.

After a semester of this delayed gratification, I was more than thrilled to get into the kitchen, start a complicated project in the morning, and have it finished by the afternoon. As a matter of fact, if it weren’t for my cooking breaks, I am quite sure I would never, ever have completed a master’s thesis. The ho-hum activity of making dinner took on a new meaning: I would look at a pretty, delicious plate of food as I placed it on the table, and think, “See, I can accomplish something.”

Which is what eventually led me to writing this blog: the delight I gleaned from completed cooking projects I very much wanted from my writing. Now, when I read a finished post that I’ve had at least some time to compose thoughtfully, I feel like I can finish a piece of writing. And that feels good. It even motivates me to get back to work on the 25-page paper waiting on my desktop.

That first Christmas when I learned this about myself, my favorite project to complete were these truffles.

Now, I should warn you: these little gems do not come together in a couple of hours; making truffles is a process. It’s a process I love, especially during the holidays, at the end of a long semester, because you work on them for a bit and then you have an hour break to wrap presents, start another kitchen project, or sit down with a cup of tea and the paper you’ve been working on for weeks before you go on to the next step. And, the finished products are so pretty that by the time I’ve finished a whole batch, I really feel like I’ve accomplished something.

A little box of these makes a great hostess gift if you’re going to a party, or a lovely holiday happy to leave on a co-worker’s desk. I like to wrap them up in parchment paper and place them in a Chinese take-out box: a ribbon and a card, and they’re all set. You don’t want to leave them out if it’s warm, but in colder weather, I’ve found I can leave them in their packaging in my dark, cold laundry room until I’m ready to give them away.

Talk about a sense of accomplishment. When I’m rushing out the door to a holiday function, and I remember that I can open up my laundry room, pull out a gift that I made, and take it with me, I start to feel downright efficient. Unless, of course, I happen to glimpse the piles of laundry at my feet or the mess in the kitchen.

But, hey, a girl can only do so much, and I’ll take my victories when I can get them. Don’t forget to put away at least a few truffles for yourself: a bite of one of these chocolate treats and a hot cup of coffee is sweet victory indeed.

I should have posted these recipes a few weeks ago, when The Passionate Cook hosted a whole event dedicated to truffles, but that was the week of Thanksgiving, and I had too much else going on (but if you want to see a whole host of other truffle recipes, you can check out the round-up here).

This recipe gives endless possibilities: you can flavor the chocolate however you’d like and then proceed with appropriate coatings and decorations. The two versions pictured here, one almond and the other dark chocolate raspberry, get their subtle flavors from almond extract and raspberry liqueur respectively. I also usually make a plain dark chocolate one and coat it with white chocolate, and this year, I’m planning some peppermint ones, flavored with peppermint extract and rolled in crushed peppermint candy.

Chocolate Truffles

24 ounces semisweet chocolate (chocolate chips will work)
6 T. whole milk
6 egg yolks, beaten until pale yellow.
3/4 pound butter (3 sticks)

In the top of a double boiler, combine the chocolate and milk. Stir over medium heat until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove from heat, and add the egg yolks immediately, slowly streaming them into the melted chocolate, stirring constantly to keep the egg from solidifying immediately (you don’t want yellow flecks in your chocolate). Cut the butter into pieces, and stir it in until the mixture is shiny and smooth. At this point, you can divide the mixture into batches if you want to experiment with flavors, or use the whole batch to make the same kind of truffle.

For a flavored truffle, stir in one of the following*:
2 T. raspberry-flavored liqueur, like Framboise (Hershey also makes raspberry-flavored chocolate chips, which make a pretty good truffle)
1 T. almond extract (you can also add a spoonful of Amaretto if you have it)
1 T. peppermint extract
1 T. finely grated orange zest

*Depending on how many times you divide the chocolate, these quantities may need adjusting. Add and then taste to get the strength of flavor you want. 

Refrigerate the batches of chocolate for about an hour (you want the chocolate to be pliable enough to work with, but not so soft that it melts all over your hands). Form the chilled chocolate into small balls and place on wax paper-lined trays or cookie sheets. Now, if you aren’t going to coat the truffles in chocolate or white chocolate coating, you can roll them in crushed nuts, candies, or cocoa powder and be done. If you want the smooth, hard outer coating, you’ll need to refrigerate the formed balls for another half-hour or so.

To coat: melt candy coating in a glass bowl (I do it in the microwave). Dip each ball into the coating quickly with a spoon and place on wax paper to cool and harden. For drizzles, melt a different color coating and drizzle away (I used red food coloring and white chocolate coating to get the pink decoration above).

This recipe makes between 2 and 3 dozen truffles, depending on how big you make them.

. . .that’s exactly what John Folse, famous chef around these parts, said on his radio show this morning. I laughed as I thought about my own kitchen — his description certainly fit. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, I go into baking overdrive. For one thing, our old house is drafty, and keeping the oven on helps me stay warm. More importantly, though, the constant scent of something sweet permeates the house, reminding me and everyone else who enters that this is a season to celebrate.

The holidays were so much fun at my house growing up — my dad would take all of us out to cut an enormous tree, Mom would pull down the decorations, and I would revel in the sheer energy of always having something to celebrate.

As David and I have started our own holiday traditions, making treats to take to parties, to snack on, or to give away later, has become one of the constants. This handy little shortbread recipe has been used over and over during past months of December. I don’t know why I don’t make it during other times of the year, but I started taking it to holiday gatherings some years ago, and for whatever reason, it feels like a holiday recipe.

For one thing, it’s incredibly sweet and rich — not the kind of everyday dessert I usually make. For another, it cuts nicely into cute little squares, and makes an elegant package wrapped in parchment paper and tied with a ribbon. People seem to love it, and one recipe goes a pretty long way (unless you leave it sitting out on your counter for passersby to nibble on.)

This month will be full of recipes like this one. As I prepare for the holidays, dinner is usually the last thing on my mind: the 350-degree oven is usually on and baking something sweet.

I LOVE December. It’s a good thing that I’m such a holiday fanatic because I really don’t care that much for cold weather. The holidays keep my spirits up, even if I am grumbling just a bit about my ever-icy hands and nose. I know, I know, I would never survive in a less temperate climate. Or perhaps I would just bake more.

Caramel Nut Shortbread

For the crust:
2 sticks butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 t. salt
1 t. almond extract
1 egg
2 3/4 cup flour
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a 15×10 jelly roll pan with parchment paper. In a food processor or mixer, combine the butter, sugar, salt, almond extract, egg and flour. Process until the dough starts to come together. Press into the jelly roll pan, halfway up the sides. Cover the dough and refrigerate for an hour. Prick it with a fork and bake for 10 minutes.

For the topping:
2 sticks butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup honey (or a combination of honey and maple syrup or cane syrup)
1/4 cup heavy cream
3-4 cups of nuts (I used half sliced almonds, half pecans this time, but whatever you have on hand will work)
Good salt, like fleur de sel (regular sea salt works too)
In a saucepan, combine the butter, sugar, brown sugar, and honey over medium to medium-low heat. Simmer (but don’t boil) until the sugar dissolves. Once you can’t detect any granules with your spoon, bring the mixture to a boil. Boil for 3 minutes without stirring, remove from the heat, and stir in the cream. Pour the mixture onto the baked crust, and sprinkle the nuts evenly on top. Bake for 10-12 minutes more. The mixture should be bubbly. Dot with a few grains of sea salt (I place them on one at a time. You don’t want the bars to be salty, just to add a hint of contrast every now and then). When cool, cut into small squares.
–adapted from Intercourses by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge