Wasn't it just New Year's Eve?

I'm not sure if I have a single New Year's resolution that I haven't broken. Let's see...diet, shot...exercise, avoided...blogging once a week, oops!

I keep coming up with topics and meals I want to write about, but I know I can't do anything until I write about our New Year's Eve dinner.

For the last 6 years, my family has hosted an all night party. It started as 8 adults ( 2 of them pregnant), 2 little girls who wouldn't go to sleep and a baby and has grown to 8 adults, 5 girls, 4 boys and a babysitter. There are the 3 core families who come every year and a 4th family I call the Defense Against The Dark Arts position since it is a revolving position that adds something new to the party each year.

We begin by feeding the kids and then banishing them to the basement with a sitter. After, the adults start eating, drinking and cooking non stop until the clock strikes 12.

After the fourth or fifth year, we realized we should have been keeping a journal of what we ate and drank. We'll just have to start with NYE 2007 and go from there.

First: The food

Just about everything is home made. We all love to cook (and eat) and spend the entire year gathering recipes we want to serve at New Years.

Appetizers

I brought the cheese tray (I am very very sorry that I did not write down which cheeses I purchased, however, they were all obtained at Whole Foods in case you are looking to create a lovely cheese tray of your own).
I also made my super easy and yet totally delicious Stuffed Dates wrapped with Bacon. This year I got the girls to help me stuff the dates before hand. It's so easy, a pre-school er can do it!
The family S made a tuna tapenade, olive tapenade, guacamole, tomatoes stuffed with guacamole, ceviche, bruschetta with Gorgonzola and pear and Grapes encrusted with blue cheese and pistachios (from a recipe they found in a Costco flier). The grapes were outstanding, however they took hours to prepare and we will probably not see them again. The family F brought some spanikopita, which were not home made. However, this was their first year joining us, so we made an exception and devoured them anyway.

Tomatoes stuffed with Guacamole

Grapes encrusted with Blue Cheese and Pistachios


Soup and Salad

For a change, the family Z made a lobster bisque for a first course. Another idea that sounds great but takes so much effort. There was pre-cooking the soup, pre-cooking the lobster, shelling the lobster, re-heating the soup and then serving it to the crowd that had been eating appetizers for 2 1/2 hours. While the creaminess of the soup and the divine taste of perfectly cooked lobster was well received, it was hard to appreciate it on a full stomach. (We have this problem every year!).

Lobster Bisque

Next was a Caesar salad tossed by the family F. A nice refresher before the main course.

Main Course

Mr C (my DH) spends a week or two before New Year's researching recipes on the Net. Usually he has something in mind, based on a good meal eaten during the year at a great restaurant in Chicago. Last year it was prime rib roast. Another year it was pistachio crusted rack of lamb. This year he chose to make beef tenderloin with a roasted shallot sauce accompanied by Parmesan and morel risotto (with a little truffle oil mixed in for good luck :). My next favorite meal is New Year's Day when we eat the leftovers! There was also broccoli with balsamic vinaigrette.

Dessert

This year was a chocolate cake and a huge basket of chocolates that I had received as a holiday gift. I am so happy that I had 18 people help me eat them. Otherwise I would still be nibbling on raspberry bon-bons while avoiding the treadmill.

Next: Drink

We have learned over the years to use wine glass tags since it is hard to keep track of whose is which glass over the course of 6 hours. This year, I wrote down what each bottle was but I am not sure which order we drank them in. The last two are the only ones that we didn't knock off.

Bodega Norton Reserve from Argentina
Malbec 2004

Gloria Ferrer from Sonoma County
Sonoma Brut Sparkling Wine

La Crema from Sonoma Coast
Pinot Noir 2006

Mansfield from Napa Valley
Merlot 2004

Jacquesson France
Cuvee n 731 Champagne Brut 2003 Harvest

Gascon Argentina
Malbec 2006

Chateau St Jean from Kenwood, CA
Merlot 2002

Las Brisas Spain (still in my fridge!)
Blanc 2006

Acacia from Napa Valley (finished the next weekend)
Pinot Noir 2005

That sums up New Year's Eve. If you would like any of the recipes listed above, please post a comment and I will oblige.

New Year's Resolutions?

Besides trying to lose the same 30 lbs I've been carrying around for the last 15 years...my other New Year's Resolution is to post on this blog more. I'll either post the latest book I've just read (I have read 44 books in 2007. I am shooting for 52 books in 2008). Or I'll post my latest attempt at cooking/baking.

Since I haven't been posting on my own blog, these are the ones I've been reading:

The Pioneer Woman Cooks This is a wonderful blog with great step by step pictures. Very helpful for those who might be afraid of cooking.

Smitten Kitchen This site has great recipes that I like to read and usually do not attempt.

Dorie Greenspan Dorie is a modern day Renaissance woman. She writes Cook Books for herself and Cook Books for others. She is on NPR, Serious Eats, Epicurious. This woman gets around. Plus she takes great pictures and knows the coolest people.

FREE BOOK

On the side bar is a link for You can't imagine how proud I am that I successfully got the picture link there. With the limited time I get each week to post, I spend most of it trying to incorporate hyperlinks. This is much harder than I thought it would be. I can't wait until my kids get big enough to help me design my web pages. As you can tell from this post, I still have a lot of learning to do.

So, back to the free book. I've been a member at since July. I just love it. Why, Lorna, why do you love it? Well, I'll tell you why. I am a book junkie. I have a hard time going to any kind of bookstore and walking out without a new book. My two bookshelves at home swell under the weight of all my purchases. Plus, I'm a slow reader. With the 3 kids, I only get to read a few pages here and there and tend to bring a book with me wherever I go (that is why I always carry a big purse). The 3 weeks the public library gives me is not enough time to finish a book.

For years I brought finished books to the Brandeis book fair, which is now the Little City Book Fair. I would drop off 1-2 bags of books and end up buying another 1-2 bags of used books. However, after getting that E-bay bug in me, I have a hard time giving away anything that is in really good condition. The problem with E-bay and Amazon is there are too many internet companies that sell the same retail $10-$25 books at $1.00 just to get their name out there. After fees, I would be making 30-50 cents on the book and couldn't justify the time spent.

So I tried You list your books that are in pretty good shape. No water damage, no dog earred pages, no ripped covers. That's most of my books. Someone chooses one of your books and you mail it to them through media mail (for $2.13). Hey, you say, why would I want to spend my money to send someone my book? Well, because you get a credit for each book sent, so you can pick books to be sent to you. So far I have received 9 books and mailed 8 books. The ones I received are in brand new condition (some are even hard covers). This is so cool!

Back to the free book. I had received Toast by Nigel Slater. It is written by a British cookbook author who relates the foods he grew up with and how they are intertwined with the events in his life. It was a very good book. HOWEVER, I brought it on vacation with me and spilled some pop on it. Now it has (very light) water damage. I can't send it on through So, I offer it to you, my readers.

If you are interested in this book, leave a post on my blog telling me how you like your toast. Personally, I am a butter and strawberry jam person myself. On November 1st I'll randomly pick a person, in the hopes there is anyone to choose from, and I'll send you this book.

Oh, and if you decide to join mention me, cookiemonster71 so I get my 1 credit kick back :)

Oh, and thanks for reading my blog :)

How to make a great crust

This is the recipe I used for making a great crust. I have used this for apple pie and chicken pot pie. It is not sweet and works everywhere.

4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 stick Crisco vegetable shortening (cut into small pieces and chilled)
1 stick unsalted butter (cut into small pieces and chilled)
1 cup ice cold water

Sift the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl. Mix for a minute. Add the butter and Crisco until it looks like little pebbles. While still mixing, slowly add the very cold water. Stop when it has turned into a ball of dough. Divide dough into pieces. Form into discs and keep in plastic wrap in the fridge for an hour to overnight. It is easier to work with when well chilled.

When you go to use it, let it sit out for 5-10 minutes, then work on a floured workspace to roll out.

I had a little dough left over after making pies. I rolled it out, sprinkled some cinnamon on it, spread some chocolate chips down, then rolled it back up into a long tube. Then I baked it at 375 degrees for 20-30 minutes and had a very nice doughy chocolate snack.

And the winner is...

Not me. Don't feel bad for me, I really wasn't expecting to win. I was proud of the fact that I turned in a pie and didn't quit after my 2^nd failed attempt.

After making 4 practice pies and consulting with numerous people, cookbooks and recipes, I am surprised I am not sick of apples or the pies they are baked in. I was just thinking about giving it another try but putting in some tweaks. Sunday, I made my best pie so far for my friend, Audra. This one had a great crust, nicely cut apples (if I say so myself), and a great caramel sauce. I topped it with a yummy crumble and was beaming with pride until I went to take it out of the oven. I ask you, what am I doing wrong? Every pie I make is SOGGY. The apples tend to maintain a nice bite, but swim in a bath of apple juicy caramel (then again, don't most of us want to swim in a bath of apple juicy caramel?). The liquid turns my cup of butter dough into mush. I was thinking I need to add 1-2 tablespoons of flour to the apples before I add them to the crust and pour on the caramel. Please let me know if you have the answer.

Well, here's how the day of the contest went. I didn't go into this thinking I could win. OK, maybe I had a few daydreams of how cool it would be to get 3rd place and offset the cost of all the flour, butter, Crisco, sugar (white and brown), cinnamon and apples. However, positive thinking was not going to save me from the fact that my entry pie had a river of apple juice running through it.

Saturday was a typical day for my family. It was filled with chaos from the moment the first child woke up. I jumped out of bed at 5:15 totally pumped to make a kick ass pie. I had made the crust the day before and it had been chilling in the flimsy disposable foil pan all night. (See how I'm already blaming everything but myself!) I was peeling, coring and slicing my apples (I can almost do it in my sleep at this point), when I heard Squirt wake up. My 22 month old got up at 5:30 and was not happy enough to be with daddy. He was dumped into the kitchen with me, asking/crying "Hey you". That is his very special way of saying "Momma, pick me up now or I will throw a tantrum". Reasoning with him didn't work (not that it ever does). But a pie needed to be made! So, daddy came back and threatened to put Squirt back in his crib it he didn't stop waking up rest of the house and I got back to my pie.

With a pie in the oven (not to be confused with a bun in the oven), I went about to get my family dressed and out the door in time to enter into the contest. And for those of you who think “If she got up at 5:15, sliced up her apples, made a caramel sauce, assembled then baked it for 50 minutes, why does she have to rush out the door at 8:45? Isn't that 3 ½ hours to get everything done?” Well, getting kids ready is very much like herding cats. It never goes as planned and takes way too long.

Finally... To the Farmer's Market!

There were a total of 11 pies entered. All very different. Some with crumble tops, some with no tops, just really cool pastry cut outs. Some with pie crust covers and then mine with the lattice top. It looked very nice (they were judging on appearance). I'm sure I got one or two points for that!

Here's the fun part. Between 9:00-10:00, I had planned on running to the post office, then hurrying back with plenty of time to play in the park with two of my kids before watching the judging and planning an acceptance speech or a really great way of humbly walking away with no prize at all. Diva, my 6 year old was positive I was going to win. She's my #1 fan :)

Yeah, so we get to the post office and my cell phone rings. It is my 4 year old, Blondie. She has called on behalf of her father, who's hands are covered in caulk and he can't figure out how to get it off. He is also unable to get dressed, let alone drive a car, to get her to her morning class. So, Squirt, Diva and I turn around, head home to take Blondie to her class. Then we rush to the park and under much pleading and begging, we go to the market to wait by this open sided tent that has 11 pies, 4 judges and tons of bees. It is 10:15 and they are just cutting into the pies.

While waiting, I learned that two of the pies were made by 8-10 year old sisters who were using their grandmother's recipe. I was torn between thinking how sweet that they did this with their family recipe and then thinking how much it would suck to lose to an 8 year old.

In the end, some very old lady won with her last minute entry. By the time the announced the winner, Diva was having a 5 star pouting/tantrum (academy award winning performance), Squirt wanted a nap and Blondie to try all the pies. My husband did get most of the caulk off his hand after trying soap, rubbing alcohol and nail polish remover. It ends up old fashion elbow grease worked best.
I have told my children that I will continue to try to make a great apple pie so that maybe next year my chances of winner are a little better. Or at least I can kick some 8 year old's butt. Not that I'm bitter.

The dawning of a new Apple Pie

The story of Apple Pie II

I figured out my problem with this Apple Pie from scratch thing...I don't like to follow directions. Baking isn't like cooking, you can't just wing it. There are steps that need to be followed in order to create the anticipated results. I have some wonderful recipes to work with, but I am having problems following them as written, which brings me to Apple Pie II (to further be referred to as APII).

I blame the fairy tale of the wife of yesteryear baking an apple pie and leaving it on the windowsill to cool. Her kids didn't watch tv while she sliced those apples. Didn't she have 10-14 kids anyway and was always pregnant? And the fable never mentions her complaining about all the dishes that needed to be cleaned. In fact, she also cleaned the house, milked the cow, gathered the eggs and then made her own butter while waiting for the pie to bake. I understand she didn't have the distractions of TIVO, the Internet, e-mail, voice mail or some ranting blog she feels she needs to write because maybe someone out there will read it. Yes, her life was a little less complex technology wise. Then again, I have a 2 minute drive to a grocery store with a complete dairy, meat and produce section, so I don't have to take care of any livestock, spend my daylight hours taking care of a kitchen garden or churn until my arms want to fall off. I bet I would have rock solid biceps if I started churning my own butter. Something to look into.

Tying this together...for some reason I thought I could start making an apple pie around 3pm and be done by 6pm and serve it for dessert that night. I guess if I want to make an ok pie with a store bought crust, I can do that. However, to make a 1st place prize winning pie, this will take 1-2 days. Who's got that kinda time?

For APII, I used a different crust recipe. It was very easy. However, it said to chill it before using it. Huh? I think this is going to take planning. Then one needs to go through a series of steps to bake the crust BEFORE even adding the apples. THEN, after the baked crust has totally chilled, the apples can be dealt with (which can take from 1-3 hours). THEN, the apples chill with the baked crust. THEN it bakes together for an hour. THEN you can eat it. I had no idea this could be so time constraining. I do understand why people make many pies at the same time. If you are going through all this effort, you might as well mass produce.



Here we have APII. My opinion is that the crust is much better than the last pie, however the apples are not as good. Two things I didn't like: the apples were sliced too thin and I only used Granny Smith instead of a mix. I started making this pie at 4pm on Monday and took it out of the oven at 9:50pm.

For APIII, I'm going to make the crust the night before, bake the crust in the am, cut up the apples around lunchtime, bake the pie as a whole around 4pm. This way we will get to eat it at dinner time. Also, I might start tinkering with different apples, so I will try making 2 pies at once.

This is the new crust recipe I'm using (super easy). I am weighing the idea of purchasing a leaf stamper to win some presentation points. Will I be able to amortize the cost of this stamper over the next 40 years of pie baking (since I probably won't recoup the cost in this contest!). I tried making leaves for this pie, which only reminded me that I am more analytical than creative.

Apple Pie Version 1.0

Today I made a pie from start to finish. As you can see from the pictures, it wouldn't win any contests (at least not the one's with Gale Gand as the judge). However, 3 out of 4 of my harshest critics said it was wonderful. I can even quote one of my favorite gourmands "Mom, it was fabulous!" With comments like that, I feel I can do no wrong or my kids will say anything to keep those desserts coming.

Yesterday I had a 1 1/2 year old hanging on my leg. Today I had a 4 year old who said she wanted to help me bake but the truth is she just wanted to play Barbies with me. So again I was distracted in my baking and in my opinion did a half assed job.

I used two books (lent from my friend Julie ;) One to make the crust and the other to make the filling. For the crust, I used the Apple Pie - Sweet and Simple recipe from Peggy K Glass' Home-Cooking Sampler: Family Favorites from A to Z. I do not blame Peggy for anything that went wrong. Just as I was measuring that first cup of flour I realized I didn't have enough for the second scoop (that's how organized I am). I ended up using 1/2 a cup of whole wheat flour as a substitute. If I wasn't so honest I could totally spin this and say how I am trying to incorporate more whole wheat fiber rich products into my family's diet. But the truth is I just ran out of bleached flour.

My 4 year old was not happy that I wouldn't let her roll out the very sticky dough I had put in the refrigerator. I forget that she has slightly less baking experience than me and that she didn't think there was anything wrong with the dough sticking to her, me, the rolling pin and the cutting board but not itself. You can't get upset if you have no expectations.

Eventually I smooshed the dough into the pie pan and decided not to even bother with the top layer, this was too hard for someone who should be hanging out in a Barbie penthouse with her afternoon playdate.

The only apples I had left in the house were 2 Granny Smiths and 3 Braeburns. I'm sure those aren't exactly what I'm supposed to use, but that's all I had and after the whole wheat flour experience, I didn't think the wrong apples would make much of a difference in this doomed pie.

For the filling I used The Best All-American Apple Pie recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Pie and Pastry Bible. It was a good recipe, I especially like how she suggests you reduce down the liquid from the apples with butter to create a nice caramel that you add back to the apples. It sounds so nice, I hope next time I can actually execute it properly. I don't have the patience to let something sit and boil without poking at it and messing it up.



Finally, or in the eyes of a 4 year old, after taking FOREVER, I just stuck the pie in the over and went to play. It wasn't until about 30 minutes later when I went to check on my creation that I realized a pie without a top crust might burn the apples. D'oh.

In the end, the apples were yummy even though they tasted a little dried out (no top layer to hold in the moisture). The bottom part of the crust was under cooked (so one can really enjoy that added wheat flour). However the small parts of crust that were on the outside edges were crunchy and tasty.

If I can run to the store in the morning, I will try this again during nap time (and distract the 4 year old in another room so I have no one to blame but myself).

Oh, and because I do try to encourage cooking with kids in the kitchen (yeah, right) this is what my budding chef made for snack. I call it ants on a log. She renamed it grass and the grasshoppers. I have no idea what she's talking about. It is amazing how simple this is and what pride my little girl has in something she created.

All you need is celery sticks, peanut butter and raisins.