Weekly Dish

Well, hello 2010. I am happy to see you.

My good friend Kathryn, who used to feed my family regularly when she lived just blocks away but now lives in the lovely mountains of North Carolina, wrote me and some of her other friends on the first day of this New Year. She asked for recipes and ideas for getting inspired in the kitchen. Inspiration, I find, can sometimes be a tricky thing to conjure up. The New Year often works people into an inspiration frenzy: trying to get inspired to get to the gym or back on Weight Watchers or to finish that dissertation (ahem). Those are all fine and lovely goals for which inspiration certainly comes in handy. But, like Kathryn, when I get into the groove of feeling inspired in my kitchen, I start to find inspiration in other areas of life too. I’m more likely to be productive at work, to invite people over for dinner, to watch a movie with my husband, to spend time playing with my rambunctious two-year-old, when dinner is planned, groceries are bought, and I feel excited about whatever it is I get to cook for dinner.

Now, don’t let me fool you with my New Year’s exuberance. 2009 was not a year that was full of this kind of inspiration. In fact, one of the reasons I have shown up here so infrequently is because we managed to eat the same meals over and over and over, and many weeks, I cooked very few of them. Nothing much to write home about (but thank goodness David knows his way around a recipe). There are seasons for this kind of utilitarian cooking, to be sure, and we have been in one of those. But I’m really, really tired of it.

So, starting during my holiday break, I baked. A lot.

That may sound like a perfectly insane way to get oneself back into the rhythm of inspired dinner-making. But while I do not always love to make dinner, I always love to bake. For me, there is no more surefire way to have a successful hour in the kitchen than to make cookies. No one will starve if the cookies are terrible, the house usually smells fantastic when I finish, and if the cookies are good, we have exciting snacks for a whole week or two, or fun treats to give away. Perhaps this makes me a crazy lady, but if I’m really serious about dinner, I whip up a batch of cookies, make a pot of coffee, and only then do I sit down with a blank notebook, my computer, and some cookbooks.

How’s that for rationalization? (and eventually, inspiration to get myself to a gym, whether I want it or not)

These little darlings were my favorites of the lot I baked over the holidays. Fancy enough to box up and give away as gifts, not all that difficult to make, and positively delicious to eat, I loved them so much that I made them again when we got home from our holiday travels. They’re sort of like traditional thumbprint cookies, but filled with a delectably rich caramel rather than jam, and flecked with nuttiness. It’s exactly the kind of dessert I love: a perfect marriage of salty and sweet, and goes perfectly with a cup of hazelnut coffee.

As a bonus, it provided a whole two notebook pages full of dinner ideas to boot. At least that’s what I told myself when I started the second batch.

Peace and joy for 2010 to all of you who still wander upon this little blog every now and again!

Pecan Polvorones with Muscovado Filling

–from Alice Medrich’s recipe in her lovely book, Pure Dessert

Notes: I tried these cookies both with muscovado sugar (which is available at my neighborhood grocery store, but may be harder to come by at a large chain store) and regular dark brown sugar. If you can find the muscovado, please buy it; the flavor makes for a darker, more complex and intense caramel (almost toffee-like), and it’s really the highlight here. If you can’t, dark brown sugar is a fine substitute, but next time, I might add a teaspoon or so of molasses to give the plain brown sugar filling a bit more depth. You could also add butter and up the salt for more of a butterscotch flavor. I also used pecan meal, rather than grinding the pecans myself, because I had it on hand. I can imagine other nuts would work just as well here too.

For the cookie dough:
1 1/2 cups pecans
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 t. salt
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, cubed
2 t. vanilla
2 c. all-purpose flour
For the filling:
2/3 cup firmly packed muscovado sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/8 t. coarse salt

First, make the cookies:  In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, pulse the nuts until finely ground. It’s okay if there are a few little pieces, but for the most part, you want a gritty powder. Dump out the ground nuts and set aside.

Next, pulse together the sugar and salt a few times, and then add the butter and vanilla and pulse until the mixture is smooth (softening your butter will help this to happen quickly). Alternately, you can cream the butter, vanilla, and sugar and salt in an electric mixer with the paddle attachment (I only have a very small food processor, so that’s what I did, and it turned out fine). Dump in the flour and pulse (or mix) until the dough starts to come together; then, add the nuts. Pulse a few more times, until the nuts are thoroughly incorporated. You can knead with your hands at this point to make sure the dough is fully mixed, just flour them well first.

Now, you will form the cookies, but you can line them up really close together because they have to chill before baking. On a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat, place little balls of dough (about an inch in diameter) very close together. With your finger, make a deep hollow in each ball of dough, pressing in until you almost reach the surface of the baking sheet. Slide the baking sheet into the refrigerator and chill the dough for at least two hours, or overnight (I tried it both ways and couldn’t tell a difference).

When you’re ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 325. Line another baking sheet with parchment and take the cookies out of the refrigerator. On each baking sheet, place the cookies about an inch apart. They will spread a little, so give them some space. Bake each batch for 10-12 minutes, turning the sheets half-way through. The cookies should be lightly tanned on the tops and golden on the bottom.

While the oven is preheating, make the filling: Combine the brown sugar, cream, and salt in a small saucepan. Whisk, cooking over medium heat, until the mixture reaches a gentle boil and the sugar is fully dissolved. Boil for about 2-3 minutes without stirring.

Cool the sauce and the cookies briefly, and then, with a spoon, carefully pour the caramel to fill each cookie’s indentation. After filled, let the cookies cool completely before handling. The filling will set as it cools. Medrich says the recipe makes about 48 cookies, but I must have made mine too big; I came out with 36 the first time and 30 the second. If you are lucky enough to have any filling leftover, it is fabulous over vanilla ice cream, even in cold weather.

From all of us here in the Weekly Dish kitchen, may your holiday be full of joyful celebration and delicious food. I, for one, am especially grateful this holiday season to have such kind readers. Thank you for visiting, for commenting, for listening to my stories and sometimes making use of my recipes. Without you, I’d never keep this up.

After a short trip to celebrate with family and friends, we’ll be back soon after the New Year. Merry, merry to all!

By nature, I am not a baker. Bakers, see, are precise. And organized. And neat. Rule-followers, usually. I am a cook. Intuitive, messy, and definitely a spirit-of-the-recipe kind of girl.

But, oh how I love to bake. Yes, this seeming paradox sometimes manifests itself in a great big doughy mess — cakes, especially, sometimes go terribly, terribly wrong under my erratic hand. Sometimes, though, every so often, a recipe for a baked good just feels right. As if I could do it little harm, even if I tried. These are the sorts of recipes that fall into my kitchen routine quietly, and before I know it, I’ve made the same kind of cookie or muffin or bready item a dozen times, and by some happy accident, they have turned out deliciously every time.

I first made these sandy butter cookies last holiday baking season, after I read about them on Orangette. Molly is right — this is quite an unassuming cookie, nothing much to look at. But it is exactly the sort of cookie that you can pile high on a plate, and before you know it, the plate has only tiny little crumbs to show for all your baking work. Left out, these cookies just get eaten, that is all there is to it.

I made these a number of times through the course of citrus season last year — I love them with Meyer lemon zest, as the original recipe calls for, but as you know, I have a supply of orange zest needing to be used. Orange zest marries so marvelously with plain old butter and sugar, I thought it would land happily in these simple little cookies.

Everyone has her own form of procrastination, and mine happens to be baking. So last week, when I should have been working on the semester’s final projects, I decided to make cookies for my students to eat while they took their final exam. David thought this recipe was an odd choice — he says these cookies are too sophisticated for college students’ palates. Perhaps he’s right, but as happens when they’re at our house, the platter piled high with cookies sat empty as my last student turned in her stapled stack of papers. As she walked out the door and wished me happy holidays, she turned around and said, “Oh, by the way, those cookies are good.”

Indeed they are. Simple, yes. But the separate flavors — orange here, a kick of sugar crystal there, finished with a bite of salt — come together after the crumbly texture has dissolved to make you want to take just one more bite.

Before you know it, you’ll be itching to make them again. Perhaps, like they have done with me, these cookies will work their way into your holiday baking ritual, and before you know it, you’ll have made them a dozen times. Happily they make great gifts. Or so I tell myself when I’m trying to remember what happened to all those little buttery disks.

Citrus Sables

–Amanda Hesser, via Orangette

Molly says you can bake and freeze them to give away, and that would be a lovely thing to do if you could keep from eating them all. That hasn’t happened around here yet, but I’m planning to wrap up the next batch to send with a couple of holiday care packages. They might not mail terribly well — they crumble a lot — but maybe if wrapped really well, they’ll do okay. I have frozen the wrapped cylinders of batter with good success; in fact, for a while, I kept at least one log of dough in the freezer for good measure — just in case a rainy cookie day appeared out of the cold, clear blue sky.

I usually hate recipes that call for only egg yolks or whites. Once I tried these, though, and kept making them, I had to think of something to do with all those whites, as I can’t stand to throw them out. Hang onto yours and stay tuned — a 4-egg-white recipe is coming your way shortly.

Other than that, the recipe is pretty straightforward, and I haven’t changed it much. I used demerara sugar in place of the turbinado, (Do you know demerara sugar? It is a lovely, lovely molasses-esque coarse sugar that I have grown to adore. They have it at my local grocer’s, and if you come across some, buy it. You’ll be happy you did.) and substituted orange zest for the Meyer lemon.

One urging — don’t skimp on the salt, and whatever you do, don’t use plain old table salt. What happens when you stir the coarse salt in at the end is that the granules hold their shape rather than dissolving into the batter, so the flavor is concentrated in tiny little bursts (rather than making the cookies salty). If you’re skeptical, at least try it with the full 3/4 teaspoon. It will look like a lot, but once you bite into a cookie, I think you’ll be glad you did.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 t. baking powder
2 T. orange zest, grated (or other citrus zest)
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 t. coarse sea salt
4 large egg yolks
1/3 cup coarse sugar, like demerara

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.

In a small bowl, combine the baking powder and flour. Toss in the orange zest and stir until it’s coated with the flour mixture.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugars with the paddle attachment until smooth and creamy. With the mixer running, add the egg yolks. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if you need to to make sure the egg is fully incorporated into the creamed butter and sugar.

Turn the mixer down to low and add the flour mixture, a little at a time, just until the flour is no longer noticeable. Stir in the salt.

Divide the dough into 4 equal portions. Drop each portion onto a piece of plastic wrap, and using the wrap to work the dough, form it into a long, slender log. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Now the cookies are ready to slice and bake; I’ve left them in the fridge for as long as a week, or you can freeze the logs of dough by wrapping them in foil or dropping them into a plastic freezer bag.

When you’re ready to bake, spread the coarse sugar onto a plate. Roll each log of dough in the sugar, pressing with your fingers to make sure it sticks. Slice disks of equal thickness (about 1/4 inch) and place on the baking sheet. They will spread out a little bit, so leave a little space between them. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the bottoms take on just a hint of color and the edges are beginning to turn golden. Makes somewhere between 6 and 7 dozen cookies, depending on the size of your slices.

A few weeks ago, I was catching up on my food blog reading, and I came across this post on What We’re Eating in which Amanda put out a call to other bloggers to join her in Paying It Forward. Since I happen to love giving gifts so much, and since it is that time of year, after all, I couldn’t resist joining in the fun. I love the thought of packaging up some homemade goodies to send out to some of you people out there who stop by here to spend some time in my virtual kitchen. (Plus, now Amanda has to send me a present too — everyone wins!)

So, here’s how it works: I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this Pay It Forward exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, which is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

So, if you have a blog and you like the idea of giving away stuff you’ve made to folks who read your blog, then leave me a comment and I’ll start dreaming up what to make you. Just make sure you leave an email address so I can get in touch with you about how to get said gift in your possession.

I love the holidays!

I like Thanksgiving just fine — a holiday celebration that is all about food is one I can’t complain about too much. But, to be honest, I could do without it. Oh, yes, I love the food. But it’s rushed and harried and there’s never enough time to prepare and then it comes and it’s wonderful to share a nice meal with people you love, and then, whoosh!, it’s Monday again, and wow, are you tired. Especially when you live under the academic calendar, Thanksgiving holiday is just a big tease. The two weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks are perhaps my least favorite time to be in the college classroom — my students are stressed and tired, and all they really want is to be done. And I am also stressed and tired and all I really want is to be at home in my fuzzy slippers baking something. So, together, my students and I go through the motions of talking about the last book of the semester, but I can tell, our hearts aren’t really in it.

So, Thanksgiving? Take it or leave it, but I wish we could end the school calendar there. Because where my heart really is, come November, is not in turkey and dressing. It’s looking toward Christmas.

Because I love Christmas. I love it because, unlike so many other occasions, Christmas still warrants its own season, a building up to the actual day that brings weeks of festivity. For nearly a whole month, I get to actually prepare. Which, if I’m really honest, is where I do a lot of my celebrating: in the list-making, decorating, baking, partying, and, of course, shopping. Now, I am not the kind of girl who ordinarily loves to shop; in fact, when I’m shopping for myself (especially for clothes, bleh), I often loathe the experience.

Oh, but how I love to give gifts. I love all parts of it, from making my list of who to buy for, to thinking through what to buy for whom, to wrapping and ribbon-tying and card-writing. And so Christmas is the one time of year when I actually enjoy shopping. It’s purposeful and rewarding and brings me great joy. But I know there are those of you out there who do not share my zeal for holiday shopping. It can be a lot of pressure, especially if you’re trying to come up with just the right thing, and then there are the frenzied crowds, which can make shopping stressful. So, for those of you who do not share my love of gift-buying but need to do so anyway, just in case you have food-lovers to buy for, I thought I’d make you a little list.

For the culinary enthusiasts on your shopping list, here are some suggestions for how to make their holiday happy and bright:

Cute mixing bowls are always a good gift — useful for cooking and serving, the sets that come in a variety of sizes are particularly handy. (I would love to find some that have lids, but it seems that the sets I’ve found are more practical than attractive. If you find cute bowls with lids, please, leave a comment and tell me where!) Tie on a wooden spoon and a ribbon, and this gift is ready to give.

For the baker. I don’t have a cookie press, but I gave one as a gift to a co-worker who made cookies all the time, and she loved it. This one got pretty good reviews on Amazon (and my friend really liked it), but there are also stainless steel options (for a little more money). Cake decorating kits might also be a good choice for one inclined to make pretty baked goods.

For the hostess, versatile serving ware works well. Especially if you’re buying for someone whose taste you aren’t certain about, go with simple and white. These inexpensive pieces from Target would go with most anything, and for someone who entertains a lot, they would get a lot of use.

Kitchen tools make fun stocking stuffers or gift tie-ons for cooks, and these are some of my favorites. I use my microplane zester (a gift from my sister-in-law) all the time, for citrus, for cheese, for nutmeg; it’s a handy thing to have around. Heat-proof tongs also are an essential in my kitchen, and good silicone spatulas have been on my wish list for some time (and aren’t the glittery ones pretty?)

Cookbooks are such great gifts, but there are so many, how do you decide? Here are a few of my picks for different kinds of cooks:

• Sara Foster’s Casual Cooking is perfect for the busy home cook. Her recipes are a little fancier than just your run-of-the-mill dinner, but the book is full of fast and easy preparations for weeknight meals. One thing I like about this book particularly is that it’s also inspirational; in addition to recipes, Foster gives you lists of possible variations on quesadillas, egg dishes, uses for sausage, etc. When I need a dinner idea, this is the book I turn to.
• I don’t have Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours, but everyone I know who does swears by it. It’s been very popular among foodbloggers as well. If you know a baker, this book comes highly recommended by folks of the baking persuasion.
• Adam Roberts was one of the first foodbloggers I started reading before I started my own site. I have looked through his book (and read lots of reviews), and I think The Amateur Gourmet would be a great choice for anyone with a sense of humor (he’s hilarious), but also for people you know who are just getting into cooking.
• Shauna James Ahern is also a blogger I’ve been reading since before Weekly Dish, and when I first looked at her site, I thought, “Oh, this is about gluten-free cooking. The recipes won’t be useful for me.” I kept going back, though, first and foremost for the writing — I love her voice — and then for the food. I can’t wait to read the whole book, but from the reviews I’ve read (and from what I’ve learned on her site), Gluten-Free Girl is about living life joyfully by embracing the happiness food can bring; rather than focusing on what she can’t have, she makes the most of what she can, which translates into lots of creatively delicious ideas. This would be a great gift for anyone who’s struggled with food allergies, but I also think other food enthusiasts would find a welcome story in Shauna’s.

Often I want to buy kitchen gadgets for someone, but I don’t know what they have or don’t have. If that’s the case, then foodie t-shirts might be a good option. I like these from Cafe Press and this one from Threadless, but there are tons of options with food-related content. If you go with Cafe Press, some of the designs can also be printed on aprons. Which leads me to…

A girl who loves to be in the kitchen can never have enough aprons, and there are so many cute ones out there. I particularly like those with character; the one on the far left is made from a vintage tablecloth (the seller has a few of them available). Anthropologie has an adorable collection, and Jessie Steele’s super-girly ones are available at Amazon.
Coordinating kitchen towels and oven mitts are also available if you want to add something extra to this fashionable gift.

For the cook who has everything, get consumables. Package a bundle of vanilla beans (do a search on ebay; most folks like the ones from The Organic Vanilla Company) with a pretty bottle, some inexpensive vodka, and a print-out of Melissa’s instructions for making your own vanilla, and you’ll make some project-minded cook very happy. Salt may seem like a silly gift to many, many people. But for cooks who love to use the best ingredients, good salt is expensive and will be most appreciated (and used, which is the best part of giving a consumable gift.) Spices from Penzey’s will also be appreciated by cooks who like unique ingredients. Some suggestions: an assortment of different kinds of cinnamon, whole nutmeg with a tiny little grater, or a gift box with a variety of spices. And, of course, there’s chocolate. I am no chocolate expert, so if you want to buy nice chocolate for someone you love, here’s a look into the favorites of chocolate connoisseur, David Lebovitz.

For the philanthropist, donate in his name. Every year, food bloggers around the world collaborate to raise money for a good cause. This year, the proceeds will go towards a school food program in Lesotho, a tiny country entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa, where one out of twelve kids die before the age of five and 56% of the population live on less than $2 per day. You can buy a raffle ticket (or several) in the name of someone else, and if they win the prize, yay!, and if not, you’ve given money in their name towards a worthy cause. Check here on Monday, December 10, for more information about how to participate.

Well, clearly, I could go on and on (can you tell I like to think about what would make the perfect gift?), but that should be sufficient for now. Happy holiday preparations everyone!

Clearly, I have been cooking a lot of sweet potatoes lately. My love for the orange tubers has never been a secret on this site, but lately, it has gotten ridiculous. We tend to eat a lot of them anyway, but since Josie has started her first solid food in the last few weeks, it seems like there is always mashed sweet potato in the fridge.

Inspired by these pumpkin waffles and these whole wheat pumpkin pancakes, I made use of a leftover sweet potato in these whole wheat waffles last weekend. Coincidentally, it happened to be the day after I made the holiday cranberries, so that’s what went on top. With a side of sausage, it made a fabulous fall breakfast. So good, in fact, that I mixed up a batch of waffle batter to take with us on the road. If there happens to be leftover cranberry sauce, it will make a perfect post-Thanksgiving brunch, but if not, these are good with maple syrup too.

I hope your Thanksgiving is filled with the blessings of good food and folks you love. That’s how we’re planning to spend ours, and I can’t wait. I’ll be back after the holiday!

Whole Wheat Sweet Potato Waffles

1 - 1 1/2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potato
1 cup buttermilk
3 eggs
1/2 t. vanilla
4 T. butter, melted
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 T. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda
1 T. orange zest
1/2 t. grated nutmeg
2 T. brown sugar

Mix the mashed sweet potato, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, and melted butter together in a small bowl. Sift together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Dump the wet ingredients into the center of the dry ones all at once and fold until just incorporated. Cook according to your waffle iron instructions and serve immediately. Makes 8-10 standard-sized waffles.

Cranberry sauce has been one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving dinner for as long as I can remember. And by “cranberry sauce,” I mean the dark burgundy, vibrantly tart-sweet condiment made by cooking fresh cranberries with sugar. I do not mean the lump of pink, wiggly, high-fructose corn syrup-saturated, nutritionally vacant, pale imitation of cranberry sauce that comes in a can. My mom always made fresh cranberry sauce for our Thanksgivings, so thankfully, my taste buds never acclimated to that cloyingly sweet jellied variety. Cranberry sauce, from this opinionated cook’s perspective, should be tart because cranberries are tart. Period.

My mom’s, as far as I remember anyway, is super simple — cranberries and sugar, and that’s about it. Which I love so much that I often served myself what some people might consider a condiment in side dish proportions (and can still be found guilty of eating it by itself). But when I started making my own a few years ago, I wanted to tinker a bit, to dress up the traditional just a smidgen. Not enough to interfere with the pronounced cranberry flavor — cinnamon and cloves, I found, were too strong for my taste, as was ginger — but enough to make cranberries that were decidedly my own. I found Scott Peacock and Edna Lewis’s version fit the bill (from the fabulous book, The Gift of Southern Cooking), so what you’ll find below is a slight adaptation of their recipe. There are many, many, many varieties of cranberry sauce out there, so find one that suits your taste. I like this one because it’s sweet enough, but true to the tart flavor of the berries, which are enhanced by the wine and orange zest but not overpowered.

If you’ve never made your own cranberry sauce, let me begin my saying how easy it is. Really. You put the berries, a little liquid, and a bit of sugar in a pot, and cook, stirring, until the berries begin to burst and the sugar dissolves. The natural pectin in the berries will give you the chunky, jam-like texture, and the whole process takes about 10 or 15 minutes. All that is required of you is to stir and taste to make sure you’ve achieved the sweet-sour ratio you like.

If you still need convincing, look at how pretty it is in a cut-glass dish. See? Don’t you want that on your table? Even if your dining companions just look at it, you’ll be glad you made it.

Holiday Cranberries
–Adapted from The Gift of Southern Cooking by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock

The original recipe calls for port instead of marsala, and I tried that last year. To be honest, I made the substitution because I had marsala in my pantry (left over from this meal) and no port, but, as it turns out, I like it this way better. Marsala is a little sweeter, so I was able to reduce the sugar, and the wine’s subtle flavor slips under the berries quite nicely (the port is a little more robust). But, by all means, use what you have; I imagine any sweet fortified wine would do the trick.

12 ounces fresh cranberries (or about 3 cups)
1/2 cup marsala wine
2/3 cup sugar
zest from 1 large orange (about a tablespoon)

Rinse the berries, carefully picking through them and discarding any that have shriveled or burst. In a saucepan, bring the wine just to a boil over medium-high heat, and add the berries. Cook, stirring continuously, until the berries begin to pop (David loves this part), about 5 minutes. Pour in the sugar and orange zest, and continue to stir constantly until the sugar dissolves, about another 5 minutes. The mixture should be thick like jam. Remove from the heat until completely cool; cover and refrigerate. Before serving, allow the sauce to come to room temperature.

Is it Thanksgiving already? Are you sure? Well. I’d better get busy. It’s the first Thanksgiving for the little one, and I’d hate for her to look back through the Weekly Dish archives the year of her birth and see that I posted not one holiday recipe for her first food-obsessed holiday. Not that I’ll be cooking for her exactly, as her repertoire of food experiences includes only avocado, sweet potato, and banana so far. But I am planning to make a butternut squash pudding, reserving some of the roasted flesh for her to sample, so that counts for something. Her first Thanksgiving vegetable perhaps.

I guess with a baby around, it’s inevitable that a person becomes obsessed with firsts. Nearly everything is a first for Josie — just in the last month, she’s grown her first teeth, sat up by herself for the first time, tasted her first solid food. I know, I know, all of you who don’t have a baby are rolling your eyes right now. I know because I used to do the same thing — who wants to hear about someone else’s baby’s first teeth, anyway? It happens. Babies get teeth. And they have to sit up some time, so there inevitably must be a first time. Yawn. I swore I wouldn’t be one of those moms who oohed and aahed over her kid’s various universal — and therefore terribly mundane — developmental accomplishments to folks who could care less, so I won’t bore you with the details.

And yet. I have to just say that it is incredibly amazing to watch a tiny little person discover something utterly new. Do you remember the last time you discovered something really, truly new to you? It doesn’t happen that often in our adult lives, but for infants, virtually everything is a miraculous introduction to the world from a new vantage point. Even just the sound of her own voice takes on monumentally delightful proportions when she learns how to vary the pitch, volume, or use of spit to make new squeals, sputters, or growls.

Partly because of the sheer delight she takes in all things new and partly because I am particularly fond of the holidays, I am trying to make a special effort to establish celebratory traditions for our family this year. And, of course, a good deal of what makes a celebratory tradition in my definition of the term is food.

I know my posting this last year has been sporadic, but over the coming week, I hope to share with you the food I am making for Thanksgiving. (Maybe even every day, but I won’t make any promises.) Some recipes will be old, some will be new, some will be a combination. We are traveling to Mississippi to celebrate the holiday with our family, so I have plans to spend the next several days preparing my culinary contributions, recording them here as I go.

As I get my Thanksgiving dishes ready, of course I’ll need something to snack on as I cook. I’ve made this dip for a couple of years now around this time of year, and for whatever reason, I’m just now getting around to sharing it. Probably because it’s one of those things I seem to make at the last minute, when we need an appetizer to take to a Halloween party or a neighborhood art show or to a last-minute fall dinner with friends, and I never quite seem to get proportions written down or photos taken. Finally, though, I’ve tinkered with the recipe and taken exact measurements (and even a photo!). If you are buying canned pumpkin for a pie or some other Thanksgiving dish, I highly recommend saving one for this snack — it’s easy, tasty, and looks pretty on the table. Plus, it’s nicely suited to stand up equally well to a platter of carrot sticks and radish slices as it is just plain-Jane crackers. Or, if you’re feeling especially holiday-decadent, David likes it with the hottest variety of Zapp’s potato chips (but don’t you dare take that shiny metallic chip bag to Thanksgiving dinner; I do not want to be blamed for treading on what may be the most sacrosant of all food-related occasions, at least in this country. Turkey every, single year? That, my friends, is one heck of a stubborn tradition.)

So, here we go, kicking off Josie’s first-ever week-before Thanksgiving cooking extravaganza. She may not understand exactly what’s going on, and experts say that she won’t really remember. But just in case, I want the scents and sounds and sights of the holidays to be forever tinted with a joyful flurry of kitchen activity. From the very beginning.

Since I missed posting on her first Halloween, here’s a photo to make up for it. She was a happy pink leopard who growled at all the other trick-or-treaters. And we took this dip to the Gatewoods’, our dear friends, for a pre-trick-or-treating cook out. It was almost as big a hit as the pink leopard.

Spiced Pumpkin Dip

This is a highly adaptable recipe, one in which the proportions can be varied widely. I have made it with twice as much cream cheese and half as much pumpkin, and vice versa, mostly depending on how much leftover pumpkin I had on hand. After several tries, this is my favorite ratio, both for flavor and texture, but if you have a crowd to feed with this dip, you can certainly increase the cream cheese to use a whole package. I also like it to have quite a punch in terms of spices, but if the amounts of paprika and cumin seem like a lot to you, start with one teaspoon of each and add as you see fit.

1 head of garlic
olive oil
1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree
4 ounces cream cheese
2 t. ground cumin
2 t. Hungarian paprika
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
2 t. coarse salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and set your cream cheese on the counter to soften. Slice off the top of the garlic head and remove the loosest layers of the papery skin (you don’t need to peel it entirely — just get rid of the stuff that comes off easily). Place the whole head on a square of aluminum foil and bring the edges up all around to make a little pouch. Before twisting the top to seal it closed, drizzle the garlic with a little olive oil (about a teaspoon). Roast for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and open the foil pouch to let the garlic cool.

When cool enough to handle, squeeze the cloves from their skins into the bowl of a food processor. Add the remaining ingredients and process until very smooth. Taste for salt and spice — you may need to add a little extra. Sprinkle the finished dip with extra paprika for garnish. Serve with crudites, pita chips, or crackers. Or, if you’re feeling especially indulgent, Zapp’s potato chips.

March is a month of many celebrations in our little family. David and I were married on the 10th, and his birthday falls on the 25th. It’s also, in this part of the world, the beginning of my favorite season: spring.

This March felt especially monumental in our lives: David turned 30, and we celebrated 6 years of marriage, the last one where it will be just the two of us living in our house. It’s funny how the expectation surrounding the birth of a child makes everything seem like such a big deal; maybe it’s just the hormones, but I have felt a sense of urgency to mark occasions by celebrating with more fervor than usual (and anyone who knows me will tell you that I am even in my non-pregnant state an occasion kind of girl).

David was not thrilled about the prospect of turning 30, so I put that celebration on the backburner for a while and concentrated on our anniversary. Usually, I cook a romantic dinner and wear my wedding dress for the evening. Silly, I know, and not very possible this year due to this person protruding from the front of my body. And, I didn’t feel much like spending such a beautiful weekend inside cooking either, so we came up with a new plan. David orchestrated an afternoon picnic and afterwards, we decided to head out to see a movie (neither of us could remember the last time we actually watched one in the theater).

My only job was to come up with a dessert we could have when we got back home with our take-out, and it I knew it had to be an occasion-worthy one — one of the traditional gifts for six years of marriage is sugar, after all.

Over the Christmas holidays, we had the chance to meet and visit with our good friend Tee’s brother, Griff, who also loves to cook. Over Sunday lunch, we got on the topic of cookbooks. When I told him I had just been given Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, he immediately recommended her recipe for a dessert called a diplomatico. The suggestion stuck with me, and when I wanted something special to make for David, Hazan’s recipe is where I turned first. I altered it a little, adding a pronounced hazelnut flavor in with the chocolate, but I stuck with her basic formula.

The end result was both lovely and delicious; the chocolate filling is light in texture but heavy on flavor (especially if you use really good chocolate) and the cake turns velvety soft under the influence of its coffee-liqueur bath. You could make a fancy chocolate frosting to go on top, but a simple layer of whipped cream was all it needed, in my opinion. After you have the cake made and cooled, the dessert comes together very quickly; the set-up time it needs makes it the perfect thing to make the day before you need it.
In fact, it was so good that after it served as a celebratory sign of the six years I’ve been married to the love of my life, I convinced David to let me throw a small party in honor of the thirty years he has been alive. He agreed, as long as I promised to make this cake again, a sure sign that this was a dessert worthy of both occasions.

Chocolate Hazelnut Diplomatico

7 t. sugar, divided
4 eggs
6 ounces good, semisweet chocolate (extra, for garnish)
2/3 of a baked pound cake
1/3 cup frangelico (hazelnut liqueur)
1 1/4 cups very strong coffee (I used hazelnut flavored coffee)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
Toasted hazelnuts, for garnish

First, make the chocolate filling. Separate the eggs, and beat the yolks with 1 t. of the sugar until pale yellow. Melt the chocolate in the top of a double boiler. Pour the chocolate very slowly into the yolks, whisking constantly until thoroughly incorporated. Beat the whites on high until stiff peaks form. Stir a couple of spoonfuls of the whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten; then, fold the remaining whites in with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon very gently, being careful not to stir the air out of them. Set aside.

Next, line a baking dish or deep bowl with a damp dishcloth or cheesecloth, letting the edges hang over. Mix the coffee, frangelico, and 5 t. of the sugar in another shallow dish. Slice the pound cake thinly, and dip each slice quickly into the coffee mixture. Line the cloth-lined dish with a layer of cake slices, making sure to fill in all gaps (the wet cake smooshes well, so don’t be afraid to press small pieces into any holes). Spread a layer of the chocolate mixture on top of the cake. Repeat with remaining cake and chocolate, finishing with cake. How many layers you get will depend on the size of your container. I used a 4-quart round bowl and had 4 layers of cake (3 layers of filling). Cover the top of the dessert with the cloth and refrigerate for at least a few hours, preferably overnight.

Just before serving, whip the cream with a teaspoon of sugar until soft peaks form. Turn the cake out of the container onto a platter or cake stand. Frost the sides and top with whipped cream; garnish with chopped nuts and shaved chocolate.

–Adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

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!