A Live One

We did have a lovely Thanksgiving last night, but we're paying for it today...I wasn't kidding when I said that the party broke up after 2am. The bottle count this morning was 11.5...including a bottle of port. That's just shy of two bottles a person, which is just wrong. It was good wine, though. This is what happens when you have two decanters, one on each side of the table.

The final menu was as follows:
- Curried pumpkin seeds, marinated olives, a cheese plate, and melon and prosciutto for appetizers (D and N brought the melon. Was GOOD melon, too. Must eat more melon.)
- Kir royales, champagne, and beaujolais nouveau with the apps
- Fennel and grapefruit salad to start (our own recipe, almost perfect but not quite there yet)
- Turkey
- Ham cooked in Coca-cola, which sadly fell apart and was more brisket than sliceable ham. But it was REALLY tasty.
- Cornbread, pecan, cranberry, sausage stuffing
- Mashed potatoes
- Garlicky green beens
- Butternut squash and creamed spinach gratin
- Cranberry sauce
- Sour cream herb muffins
- Gravy! (a personal triumph)
- Pumpkin pie
- Pecan pie
- Apple-cranberry crumble
- Lots and lots and lots of wine. And then some more wine. And then some espresso, and then some more wine.

It was a lovely evening, relaxed and casual with good friends and good food and good conversation. Lots of leftovers, and everyone went home with food, too, though I barely remember who I gave what to. I barely remember anything after Midnight, but I do remember having the presence of mind to spot bleach and throw the tablecloth in the washer. Heh. I love Thanksgiving.

Photographic proof below.

Posted by jmakunas at 04:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanksgiving is still going on...go away!

Posted by jmakunas at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cranberry sauce has been made. Stuffing (cornbread, pecan, sausage, and cranberry) has been made. Pecan pie is in the oven (no overflows yet...). Once the pecan pie is out, I'll put the curried pumpkin seeds in. I just cannot bring myself to prepare the squash gratin yet, I'll do it tomorrow.

Turkey and ham are sitting out on the porch. We have a LOT of wine.

The bathroom is clean, and Mike's almost dead from the fumes.

The house smells like an odd mixture of sage, brown sugar, and Dettol with bleach.

Thanksgiving! Woo!

Posted by jmakunas at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love Thanksgiving, I just wish I had more time off this year to really do it. No such thing in Britain, so I'm in the middle of planning and executing a dinner for 6 - and maybe 10 - while working non stop. This involves 5 separate food markets, new table linens, potentially new chairs, flowers, 3 days of cooking, and an entire scrub of the house. We're 60% there on most of it, but 0% on the food (the shopping has just begun, and I get up early tomorrow to make cornbread).

Updates will be short, but hopefully the food porn will be good.

Posted by jmakunas at 09:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sorry. Too busy to post. Planning Thanksgiving Dinner.

Why yes, that is an Excel sheet above. How else do you plan your dinners?

Or know what grocery store stocks what, if you have enough cooking and serving dishes, and whether or not you actually have time to make everything?

What???

Posted by jmakunas at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since M and I have been lighting the Shabbat candles with more regularity lately, I've been putting a little more thought into our Friday night dinners. Somehow, Indian food and Challah are a little offputting...not that it doesn't taste good or isn't kosher (we eat kosher meals on Friday nights), but it just seems incongrous to me.

I purchased a Jewish holiday cooking book a few weeks ago (the highly recommended Jewish Holiday Kitchen by Joan Nathan, but haven't tried anything specifically from it yet. There are some wonderful Shabbat recipes, many of which are of Sephardic origin (and hence somewhat foreign to me), and all of which look excellent.

However, yesterday as I contemplated what I was going to do with the rock cod filets that I had taken out of the freezer that morning, I started surfing Epicurious and came upon a recipe for "Braised Cod with Chickpeas" that reminded me of the yummy Sephardic shabbat recipes I had been reading about and could be made with ingredients I already had on hand.

This was definitely one of the better meals we've had lately, even though I can think of some improvements we'd make next time (see notes in recipe). It was spicy (red pepper) and comforting (chickpeas) and a great source of protein. Not to mention that cod is currently one of my favorite meaty white fishes. With some salt on the chickpeas (I wouldn't salt them while they cook) and a sprinkling of cilantro at the end, it looks like we've found another easy comforting dish, and a perfect complement to challah on Friday nights.

Read on for the recipe...

Continue reading "Feel Feel Feel the Heat" »

Posted by jmakunas at 02:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have never been a picky eater.

When asked, I can barely think of a handful of foods that I actively dislike, and it seems that every time I try one of those foods on that list again my opinions change for the better. Lately Nam Pla (Thai fish sauce) and anchovies have moved from the "won't eat" to the "useful and sometimes tasty" category.

However, one of the foods that remains firmly lodged on my dislike list is squash, zucchini particularly (with many apologies to Clotilde), but also summer, acorn, crookneck, yellow...basically every squash except for butternut and spaghetti. And man, do I ever love spaghetti squash.

I was first introduced to spaghetti squash by my fabulous foodie friend (and former roommate) W, who used to cook us one for a quick, light dinner. While many recipes use spaghetti squash in place of actual spaghetti and top it with a tomato sauce or such, W tossed hers with butter and parsley, and that's the way I've always liked the dish, plain and simple.

However, spurred by a newfound love of tarragon, I came upon a combination of spaghetti squash and herbs that I think far surpasses the parsley and is just as simple, by using a mixture of Fines Herbes that complements the sweetness of the squash perfectly.

To wit: cook one spaghetti squash (of any size) in the oven until it's done. Sorry for the terseness, but it's hardly difficult...you can halve it and cook it face down on a baking sheet at about 375 for about 40 minutes, or just throw it in there whole for a longer time, but the timing and temperature depend on the size of the squash, your oven, and your patience (I've heard of cooking it in the microwave, but that's not for me). When the squash innards shred away from the shell in long strands (like spaghetti!), it's done. I actually like mine a little crunchy. Toss with butter (or faux butter, if you like) and a hearty sprinkling of Fines Herbes (I don't know if all mixtures are the same, but mine - from Dean and Deluca - is a blend of chervil, parsley, tarragon, and chives). Salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy a large guilt-free bowl of veggie goodness....

Posted by jmakunas at 07:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

No blogs on fire here, but I think that's largely because I only had to use the broiler for 3 minutes at a time in this recipe. I'm still making friends with my broiler, and it's a bit of a tempestuous relationship at times. Which is why self-cleaning ovens are lovely.

But I digress.

First of all, bravo to Clotilde (as usual) for a creative and inspiring idea. I had so many permutations of tartines running through my head that I had to very sternly limit myself, and thus decided to compose a tartine in true California fashion using only fresh locally grown/made/caught ingredients. This might make my recipe hard to duplicate, and I do apologize, however, I'm sure the idea could be easily transferred to any region.

We're at the tail end of crab season in San Francisco which starts around Thanksgiving every year. In fact, for Thanksgiving this year, I made a crab salad hors d'oeuvre that was met with more enthusiasm than the recipe would have initially suggested. I decided to take that crab salad recipe as the base for my tartine, and play with various other toppings and ingredients in various forms. I'll blog about the various forms, but will offer one recipe which really represents the best permutation.

I started with the following ingredients:

(Clockwise from 10 o'clock): cayenne butter, frisee and sunflower sprout salad, crab salad, tomato slices, Acme Bakery's wonderful Pain au Levain (our answer to pain Poilâne), Appenzeller swiss cheese ('cause it was in our fridge), and a sliced avocado.

I brushed each slice of bread with the cayenne butter, and toasted it under the broiler for a bit, then layered on ingredients in various orders:

(From left to right): 1. crab, salad, avocado and tomato, cheese; 2. salad, crab, avocado; and 3. crab, avocado and tomato, cheese, salad.

I stuck the two with cheese under the broiler to melt the cheese a bit, and then was left with the following three results:

All of which were delicious, but led me to a definitive order of ingredients, a few caveats, and one final recipe...(read on)

Continue reading "Is My Blog Burning? (The Tartine Edition): Tartine San Francisco" »

Posted by jmakunas at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Apologies for the unscheduled interruption in service. Things have been a bit crazy in our household this week (completely un-food-related) and it has severly curtailed my desire or ability to accomplish anything in the kitchen beyond frozen ravioli or takeout burritos. Hopefully the chaos will subside a bit, and I'll have a chance to redeem myself.

My last major food attempt, however, was an unmitigated disaster. I tried to make challah last Friday from an old, old recipe of my grandmother's that I had found when cleaning out her kitchen. The recipe wasn't very clear (literally AND figuratively), and I never remember my grandmother making challah, so I'm not sure as to the origin of this recipe. Maybe it was shunted far back in the cabinet because it sucked? Because my challah sure sucked: hard as a rock, the color of a raw egg yolk, way too crusty, and lacking that lovely lightness and sweetness that an egg dough should have. Breaking off a bit after saying the Motzi was an athletic feat. Sacreligious or not, it went straight in the trash after dinner.

I had been planning on making another attempt today with a better recipe, courtesy of Raptorgirl, but (stemming from the aforementioned chaos) I have a few other more pressing activities to attend to today so it looks like I'll be buying this week's challah and trying again soon.

In the meantime, aside from using a proven recipe, anyone have suggestions about how to make the perfect challah?

Posted by jmakunas at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It has occurred to me lately that in writing about all our culinary adventures it may seem that M and I eat like gourmands every night, spending hours in the kitchen testing new recipes or concocting elaborate dinners. Honestly, nothing could be further from the truth. Most of our cooking experiments are reserved for the weekends when we have time to putter around the market and the kitchen. Maybe I'll try a new recipe during the week, but it better be fast and easy and do-able after yoga class.

In fact, M and I have developed over the years what we call our "stock meals" - meals that we always have on hand, can be purchased inexpensively at Whole Foods, take less than 30 minutes to prepare, and that we never get sick of. In any two week period, I would guess that we eat each of these meals at least once. When I was working the rotation was much, MUCH faster (and I fully expect to fall back on that pattern when I go back to work).

And so, if you peeked through our window on a weeknight (that's not an invitation, by the way) you'd probably see us dining on the following:

Continue reading "A Day in the Life" »

Posted by jmakunas at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So even though I cook a lot, every once in a while I'll make something - either by accident or on purpose - that I'm exceedingly proud of. Last night I threw together a yummy asian-type cabbage salad (of all things!) that was really, really excellent and totally unexpected.

M and I have been eating a pre-made salad from Whole Foods lately called "Cabbage Crunch." I bought a head of cabbage last week because I was planning on making another Nigella recipe but never got around to it and was worried that the cabbage would go bad if I kept it much longer. So I decided to try to make my own "Cabbage Crunch"-type salad and ended up with something far, far better.

Continue reading "Guelah Papyrus" »

Posted by jmakunas at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As a matter of course, M and I try not to keep too many sweets around the house. We always have a pint (or two, or three) of ice cream in the freezer, but don't often buy things like cookies or candy or chocolate. Both of us are usually satisfied with a spoonful or two of ice cream after dinner (and lately have been foregoing the ice cream for a clementine from the lovely box we bought at Whole Foods). However, sometimes my sweet tooth gets the best of me, and I find myself frustratedly rustling through our cabinets, cursing the fact that we don't even have an errant Oreo to satisfy my craving.

Last night was one of those nights and so at about 8:30pm I found myself in the kitchen whipping together a batch of my favorite homemade cookies, Snickerdoodles.

Continue reading "My Sweet One" »

Posted by jmakunas at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I knew that I had really turned a corner with my cooking skills when I could pinpoint exactly where I went wrong in a less-than-perfect recipe attempt and became willing to try to make the dish again instead of just giving up. This awareness of how ingredients interact, how to build flavors and make them cooperate, and how to time both the cooking and serving of a meal has both made me a better freestyle cook and continues to inspire me to attack challenging recipes.

Last night's dinner - another Nigella creation - was hardly challenging, but I was making do with substitute ingredients (one of which I'd never used before) and was in a post-yoga state of starvation while cooking. I had chosen to make "Chicken with Chorizo and Cannellini," a quick dinner of poached chicken breasts atop some blanched kale (see above re: never been cooked in my kitchen before) on a bed of sautéed chopped chorizo and cannellini (little white kidney beans). That's all there is to the recipe. Seriously. That's it. And it was yum-my...except for a few things....

First of all, I couldn't find Spanish chorizo at the new Whole Foods. Spanish chorizo, I believe, is cured and thus more like a dense and spicy pepperoni or salami than a true sausage. I made do with the WF homemade chorizo, which was uncooked and in a traditional sausage casing. First mistake: I tried to chop and sauté this per recipe directions when I should have just squeezed it out of the casing and broken it up into smaller pieces, as it would have cooked a bit faster and been a lot easier. Second mistake: I dumped the beans in with the chorizo about 3 minutes too early (see above re: getting the chorizo to brown faster) and by the time it was done, we were approaching that ever-appetizing beanmush stage (and I wonder why M doesn't adore beans...). Third mistake: I bought and poached the world's biggest chicken breasts ever. I had no choice! They were the only organic free-range breasts at the store! I tried to trim them down, I took off the tenders and I trimmed all the fat, but they were still gigantic. (Sing it with me folks: "And we wonder why Americans are fat!") There's just no way to poach such a large piece of chicken in a reasonable amount of time (again, see above re: ashtanga-induced hunger) and not have it be a bit stringy. Sigh.

But for all that the meal was wonderful, a really excellent mix of flavors with such little effort. I loved that the main carbohydrates in the dish (the beans) were also a great protein source. I appreciated the extra vitamins (and shot of color) that the kale delivered. And anything that uses chorizo (Spanish or otherwise) definitely gets my vote. To top it all off, I got to sprinkle our special sweet, smoky Spanish paprika on top of the chicken, the perfect finishing touch to tie all the pieces together.

Mistakes be damned...I'll cook this one again and again to get it right.

Posted by jmakunas at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So we're back from San Diego where we spent a joyful weekend celebrating the marriage of my best friend Michelle to another of my good friends from college, catching up with old friends and family, eating wonderful food, and enjoying some balmy SoCal weather.

Because Michelle is my best friend and knows me extremely well, she gave me a lovely cookbook gift for helping her with some silly wedding stuff. She's the one who began my Nigella obsession in the first place by giving me How To Eat a few years ago for my birthday. I had never read a cookbook before that fit so perfectly with how I think about and approach food, how I want to cook for my family, and how I want to feed my children someday. I don't think I've ever cooked a bad Nigella recipe, and I'm constantly returning to her books to experiment, tweak, and explore. I've been wanting Nigella Bites for a while, and as we drove up from San Diego yesterday, I devoured the entire book, marking off a week's worth of recipes to try.

I drove straight to the Whole Foods when we got home and last night I made "Double Potato and Halloumi Bake" which is just roasted veggies with some halloumi (greek cheese) melted on top at the very end. You'd think this wouldn't be anything special, since it's just a potato, a sweet potato, an onion, a bit of garlic, a red pepper, and a yellow pepper tossed with oil and pepper, roasted, and then sprinkled with cheese and broiled for about 5 minutes. But this is exactly why I adore Nigella's recipes: it's gorgeously colored, the flavors work perfectly together (the peppers don't overpower, which they have a tendency to do), took all of 20 seconds to prepare, and is going on permanent rotation in my kitchen. M loved it too...always a good sign.

The only thing was that I couldn't find Halloumi (I thought I'd seen it at WF last week, but I could have seen it elsewhere). We substituted Kasseri instead, and it was good, but I'd like to try the original recipe. Eh...it's just an excuse to head over to Berkeley this weekend and stop at The Cheeseboard.

Posted by jmakunas at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My grandmothers were amazing women, and I'm proud to be part of their legacies. They were also amazing cooks, and I have in my repetoire not a few of their recipes that I remember fondly from my childhood and try to repeat as often as possible.

Chief among these is my paternal grandmother's recipe for "crumbs" which originally adorned her crumb cake (which I don't bake enough...hmm...) and which are used in my family most often as topping for fruit crisps (primarily apple, though I prefer peach or mixed berry). I have to say, for a recipe so simple it's criminal, these crumbs are - I think - better than any fancier crisp or crumble or betty or whatever topping that I've ever had. (In fact, a friend of mine who was in cooking school a while ago brought this recipe into her class to do a taste test and it won over a myriad of other interpretations.)

So tonight, as I'm trying to clean the refrigerator of all perishables before we leave for a weekend in San Diego, I notice a pint of beautiful blackberries that will definitely go to waste if we don't eat them now. I pull out my food processor and mix together a stick of butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, and a few shakes of cinnamon until it's clumpy (that's a technical term, folks). I toss the blackberries with a bit of flour and some lemon zest, dump them into a baking dish, and dump about half the crumbs on top (the rest go in the freezer for next time). After dinner, I'll stick it in the oven for 25 minutes or so let it go golden and melty and brown, and then we'll enjoy a dessert that's decidedly more decadent than the recipe suggests.

Thanks Nana!

Posted by jmakunas at 06:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'll admit it. I hate breakfast.

I know for many people that's a shocking and terrible admission. But I've come to accept the fact that I am definitely a dinner person; if it weren't for the fact that I know that it's much healthier from both a metabolic and a nutritional standpoint to start my day with something more than a cup of coffee and a glass of Emergen-c, I would hardly ever eat in the morning.

I've struggled for many years now to find that perfect breakfast food. One that I can stomach each morning, that takes minimum time and fuss, and won't leave me starving around 10am. Though we always have a box of Cheerios around, cereal doesn't do it for me. Every once in a while, I'll crave bacon and eggs or something big and American, but that's a rare occurrence and hardly a daily solution. I almost never crave "sweet" in the morning (no pancakes, muffins, rarely oatmeal), and I usually want something warm (no fruit or yogurt, please). And now America's gone so damn low-carb crazy that mentioning "toast" or "a bagel" to someone will often cause them to stare at you like you have two heads.

My favorite breakfasts growing up were the ones we ate with my German grandparents: sliced rye bread, some salami, a bit of cheese, and calves' liver sausage. In fact, toasted rye bread with butter was often my choice in the morning - grandparents or not. I try to keep some of these items on hand now, but calves' liver sausage has proven impossible to find (Braunschweiger is a good substitute). Also, preparing a full "Nana and Papa Breakfast" (as I dubbed the above repast long ago) is a bit of a hassle.

However, in the past few months I've discovered what I believe is the perfect solution. For some reason, a while ago I bought a box of the Laughing Cow cheese, a creamy French "swiss-flavored" (oy) spreadable cheese (I have a feeling this is probably a kids food in France, or even somewhat low-brow as it's hardly the best example of fabulous French cheese, though it's been on every breakfast buffet in every French hotel I've stayed at). A conveniently-wrapped wedge of Laughing Cow spread on a toasted slice or two of Acme's wonderful Pain au Levain (take THAT, Dr. Atkins!) is the perfect start to my day, takes 30 seconds to prepare, doesn't cause me hunger pangs two hours later, and is sufficiently similar to my beloved Nana and Papa breakfasts to satisfy me on a daily basis.

Problem solved.

Posted by jmakunas at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

First of all, thanks to everyone for the kind birthday wishes. We had a lovely weekend just staying in and ignoring our phone. We did go out to dinner on Friday night, and we finished the last of the Mocha Torte on Saturday, but other than that it was just mellowness and naps galore.

And at some point during the weekend, I got a random craving for curry and lentils. I suppose I could have solved it with some takeout daal, but where's the fun in that? Instead, I decided to concoct a soup, drawing on my general soup-making knowledge and combining a few recipes here and there.

Having just eaten a bowl of the results for lunch (the rest will be served with some sauteed black cod for dinner), I'm unduly pleased and thought I'd share the recipe....

Continue reading "Lively Up Yourself" »

Posted by jmakunas at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I posted a while ago about my excitement over using an old wedding credit to "purchase" a 12 quart multi-pot at Williams-Sonoma for Hanukkah this year. Well today - due to this still-lingering cold and to a large unused chicken sitting in my fridge - I am inaugurating my new stock pot with a large batch of chicken stock/soup.

One of the greatest benefits of my year without a 9 to 5 job has been the ability to cook more often and to spend time making homemade versions of commonly used kitchen goods such as stocks, which have become one of my very favorite things to make.

Stock is definitely Cooking 101, but it gives me pleasure disproportionate to its difficulty. I don't know what it is about making chicken stock at home that's so satisfying. It plays neatly into my domestic goddess aspirations, makes my house smell good, and allows me to freestyle in the kitchen to great success. Afterwards, I get such a silly pleasure out of opening my freezer and seeing stacks of containers of homemade stock. I get an even greater pleasure out of using said containers in more culinary adventures. Over the past year or so, I've truly come to believe that everything that you hear about homemade stock really making a difference in recipes is definitely true. (Thus, you can imagine how excited I am to have a pot large enough to fit a whole chicken (plus some random extra pieces) and all the yummy veggies and spices and such without boiling over and demanding my constant attention.)

So today, bubbling slowly away on my stove we have the following:

- A whole organic chicken, chopped somewhat skillfully into quarters by yours truly and defatted a bit.
- Two extra legs and thighs (there's room!)
- 4 large carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
- a handful of the leafiest celery stalks I could find at the store
- 2 white onions, peeled and cut in quarters
- 2 slices from the middle of a lemon (I used to use an entire lemon half, but I think it makes the stock a bit bitter)
- a big cheesecloth bundle (a "bouquet garni" with additional improvisation) containing fresh parsley, thyme, rosemary, dill, peppercorns, three garlic cloves, a bay leaf or two, and a few big strips of lemon zest
- a little teabag with a scoop of Fines Herbes (parsley, chervil, chive, tarragon) since my little teaball didn't want to stay closed in the stock last time
- salt
- a whole heck of a lot of filtered water

Leeks are a nice addition to stock, but I didn't think to pick them up at the grocery store today. I've made stock with root vegetables before (turnips and parsnips) and it results in a very deep, mellow flavor which is delicious but I think too pronounced to use in most dishes. What I've discovered is the more effort I put into the bouquet garni and the other spices the better; the carrots, onions, and celery are a nice standard base and I really don't need more than that.

You can use the bones from roast chicken or leftovers, and I've done that, but I like to make stock with fresh chicken when I can; I use the chicken for soup afterwards, or make chicken salad. (In fact, I have some homemade mayonnaise in the refrigerator now that would be perfect for chicken salad.) Everything just bubbles away on the stove (bring to a boil, reduce to a low simmer, and simmer uncovered, covered, it really doesn't make that much of a difference, though I prefer uncovered for the water to reduce and the flavors to concentrate) for at least 2 hours. Strain, toss everything but the stock (and the chicken, if you're using fresh), and refrigerate for a bit if you want to defat it.

Enjoy the smell of your house for the rest of the evening.

Posted by jmakunas at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My 28th birthday is this coming Saturday and for some reason I don't want to make a big deal out of it this year. M and I are going out to eat (nowhere super-special) and then we're going to hang out during the weekend, walk around the Haight, cook dinner, screen phone calls, and just veg.

However, despite the "no big dealness" of this birthday, I must - as usual - have my traditional birthday cake which is a secret family recipe and which is probably the homemade culinary high point of my year.

The cake is called a Mocha Torte, and it was developed by both my grandfather's mother (the icing) and by my grandmother (the cake). Or something like that. No one can quite remember where it all comes from and when it was put together in its current form. The origin of the name "mocha torte" is also a mystery, since the cake is not fully a torte (defined as "A rich cake, often made with little or no flour but instead with ground nuts or bread crumbs, eggs, sugar and flavorings. Tortes are often multilayered and filled with buttercream, jams, etc."), nor is it mocha flavored if you think of the modern definition of mocha as the pairing of coffee and chocolate. The icing is just coffee flavored, following a traditional definition of mocha that references "a very fine coffee grown in Arabia and shipped from Yemen's port of Mocha." Most likely, my great-grandparents used "mocha" coffee to make their birthday "torte" (also the German word for "cake") and thus the Mocha Torte was born.

The cake itself is a five-layer concoction with a very dense, not overly-sweet batter and rich coffee icing between each layer. It's only been made for birthdays (with one notable exception), and only then for Swarsen birthdays (with a few "honorary Swarsens" along the way...my maternal grandmother, an old family friend who used to celebrate her birthday with my father's family each year, and once for my mother-in-law). The recipe is a secret, guarded carefully now by my father and his siblings, my brother, and yours truly. In fact, since I'm now married, my family is the first "non Swarsen" family officially sanctioned to carry on the Mocha Torte tradition.

The only time Mocha Torte has been made for a non-birthday was for my wedding, when M and I made a special trip to see my grandfather and ask his permission as the familial patriarch to use the recipe for our wedding cake. Permission was humorously granted, and my parents proceeded to make not only a huge tiered Mocha Torte for show (the bottom tier was real cake, the top two tiers were iced Styrofoam...heh...it was displayed during dinner and used for the traditional cake cutting), but the real cakes that were waiting in the kitchen to be cut and served to our guests. We refused to give the recipe to the caterer (see above re: family secret) and my parents didn’t want to have to engineer a full wedding cake (see above re: Styrofoam). For the record, M and I were exceedingly proud of our slightly ugly taupe-colored wedding cake that the florist put waaaaaay too many flowers on.

Anyway, this year my best friend is in town for a few days and she insisted that I make my Mocha Torte early so she could have some (how she's been my best friend for 10 years and never had a Mocha Torte I'm not sure, but....). Happy to oblige, as I was making the cake last night, I was giving her a running commentary on the cake’s history and its current incarnations. For example, each person who makes it makes it differently (double icing, more coffee, less coffee, different sprinkle colors, candles/no candles etc., etc.) and the few notable Mocha Tortes throughout the years: the year we made it with egg substitute (horrid), the year the icing curdled (ugly, but edible), and the year we (read: my father and his brother) ate the WHOLE CAKE in one sitting (sick-making).

So we're chatting and I'm baking the familiar recipe (I can make a Mocha Torte start to finish in a little over an hour) and after I've prepped everything, made the batter, and put the first three layers in the oven to bake, I realize I've forgotten to add the baking powder to the batter and I don't have the energy (or the cake flour) to start over. Sigh. M's birthday is in two months, so I have a chance to redeem myself soon.

And besides, it's just another addition to Mocha Torte lore: the year I forgot the baking powder (chewier than normal, but still infinitely edible).

Posted by jmakunas at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After our feast on Christmas Eve, it was a bit of a challenge to rally the troops to cook a gourmet meal for Christmas day proper. However, since all we really had to do on Christmas was get ready to leave for Miami, we really didn't have much of an excuse to ignore the call of the kitchen. We had also been opening presents since Hanukkah, so we just opened the gifts from M's parents (they gave me a new cookbook. Yay!!)

The first year we were married, we had a Christmas feast: Creme Fraiche and Caviar on Endive, Roast Duck, Wild Mushroom Saute, Chestnut Puree (which we messed up so badly that we ended up throwing it out), something green that I can't remember, and Coconut Panna Cotta with Mango Coulis. Since we were leaving for Miami the day after Christmas and couldn't afford too many leftovers, our menu this year was a bit more modest: roast duck, garlic green beans, mashed potatoes, homemade cherry applesauce, and a store-bought mini chocolate cheescake.

The only things worth noting were the duck (done according to Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking recipe) and the cherry applesauce. The duck was good, but not quite as good as on previous attempts. I think we overloaded our casserole dish with onions and carrots and didn't give the duck a chance to drip and brown as well as we could have. I'm not a huge fan of duck, so I don't have a pressing need to get this recipe right...M (who will always, always choose duck over any other food) feels a bit differently.

The cherry applesauce was my invention, born from my desire to use my "new" (read: appropriated from my Nana's kitchen after my Papa passed away last year) food mill again, and from my knowledge that cherry and duck is lovely together. I stewed a few handfuls of cherries (de-pitted) and about three Granny Smith apples (my preferred cooking apple, since their tartness means you can control the sweetness of the dish yourself) with the juice of half a lemon, a cinnamon stick, and a bit of water for 20 minutes until it everything was soft. I then added some brandy (I thought about adding Kirsch, which is cherry brandy, but I'm not a huge Kirsch fan, so I stuck with the original) and a bit of brown sugar, cooked it for another minute, and ran it through the food mill. We still have a bit in our fridge, and it has only improved with age. I should think about learning how to officially "put up" preserves and such....

Other than that, Christmas was our day of gathering strength for New Year's week - what we consider the highlight of our year. More to come on that, indeed.

Posted by jmakunas at 08:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The comfort food-fest continues here. After roast beef on Friday night (an ultimate comfort food for me, since my grandmother used to make a roast for almost every Sunday night dinner during the winter), and leftovers last night, we made scallopped potatoes with ham for dinner tonight. We even made the roux with half-and-half, which made for a much thicker, richer dish.

Of course, since we're going to La Folie for dinner on Christmas Eve, I think we're going to be eating soup and salad for the next few days, just to leave room for our five-course extravaganza.

And, in other news, I'm starting to get really, really, really excited for Miami. The first show is one week from tonight!!!!!

Posted by jmakunas at 08:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Happy Hanukkah!!

I'm currently spending my day being a "Hanukkah Housewife," making a somewhat elaborate traditional holiday dinner and cleaning the whole house to boot. Tonight we'll be having latkes, roast beef, asparagus, homemade applesauce, and ice cream for dessert. And challah (not homemade...I'm ambitious, not crazy) because it's Friday.

And after two plus years of marriage, we're finally breaking out our wedding china tonight. We only have 3 settings, so we haven't used it yet, but since it's just going to be us two, we figured we'd live a little. I'll take pictures of our festive table and post them eventually.

Happy weekends to everyone.

Posted by jmakunas at 01:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So....

This isn't a food blog quite yet. We certainly cook enough and eat out enough to fuel a true food blog, but there are people out there who do it much better than I could, and so I'm happy just to share bits and pieces of our culinary adventures from time to time.

Like tonight, for example. Tomorrow is officially our 5th year "dating" anniversary. We don't usually celebrate this anniversary (our wedding anniversary suffices, thanks), but since it's 5 years, we think this one's special. (In fact, since we officially got together at the company Christmas party 5 years ago, we think it's rather funny that tomorrow is also the same company's Christmas party...hence we're celebrating tonight, but I digress....) So tonight we opened up a nice bottle of wine and I cooked something grander than our usual mid-week fare: Spiced Lamb and Onion Couscous from Donna Hay's "New Food Fast."

I don't quite know why we don't cook more often from this book, but we certainly need to in the future. The premise of the recipe is that it takes "30 minutes" (as opposed to 10 or 20 minutes - the other two chapters in the book), which is pretty much right on the money. It's basically a slightly more elaborate version of lamb steaks and couscous: the lamb is covered in cumin, paprika, and chili powder then pan fried; the couscous is tossed with browned onions and thyme, then mixed with fresh arugula before serving. I violated my own rule and messed with the recipe a bit even though it was the first time we made the dish, using clarified butter to saute the onions and to pan-fry the lamb, and adding extra salt to the spices and to the onions, but it was outstanding. And honestly? It took about 30 minutes to make, which is totally do-able on a daily basis.

So YUM. And Happy Anniversary, M. If you want the recipe, give me a shout.

Posted by jmakunas at 08:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)