EUREKA!

I had a wonderful idea yesterday.. and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to follow through with it. As a teaser.. it involves this book:

The latest addition to my ever-expanding cookbook collection...

And Sunday night. Stay tuned…

Happy with Christmas non-Traditions

Of all the normal Christmas “traditions” my family has, we only kept one of them this year. First, let me clarify the idea of “traditions” in my family. I wish we had more traditions, like Christmas pajamas and expected stocking stuffers, but we don’t. Out typical Christmas traditions are as follows:

• Prime rib roast for Christmas Eve dinner
• Opening presents with cousins and aunts on Christmas Eve after dinner
• Midnight mass
• Wake up Christmas morning to open presents with Mom, Dad, Anni and Grandma
• Make french toast for Christmas Day breakfast
• Eat prime rib leftovers for lunch/dinner
• Catch a movie that night

Pretty much the only “tradition” we kept this year was having prime rib for dinner (that’s a Christmas staple!). Everything else was pretty much thrown out the window, which bothered me at first, but eventually turned out for the better. Anni and Morgan were able to spend Christmas Eve at Morgan’s house with his family for their traditional Christmas tacos and enchiladas (now there’s a family very set in the Christmas traditions and sometimes not very flexible about them). Anthony and Nina were actually able to EAT dinner with us instead of showing up for dessert (as they usually do for our family dinners). And my aunt was able to get here BEFORE 6:30PM because she got off work a little earlier on Christmas Day than she did on Christmas Eve… so overall.. it was a good Christmas.

Mom was too tired to go to Mass a Midnight (which was fine by me), so we ended up going to mass Christmas morning. When we got home, Anni made GF chocolate waffles..

chocolate GF waffle batter.. YUM!

Then we opened presents!

The MORNING tree...

Awesome "Italian" presents from Minh and a super comfy, cute scarf from Anni

I spent the rest of the day getting dinner ready, which turned out AMAZING!

The COOKBOOKs used for Christmas Dinner

The Christmas Dinner Menu:

• Ribeye Roast with Roasted Root Veggetables
• Garlicky Green Beans
• Baked Beets
• Rosemary Garlic Mashed Potatoes
• Creamed Corn
• Croissant Chocolate Bread Pudding
• Gluten Free Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Salted Caramel Buttercream

The DELICIOUS ribeye roast... cooked perfectly...

After dinner, we all gathered in the living room to open presents.

The EVENING tree..

Grandma got a BRAND NEW 32″ LCD HDTV, that we all watched Morgan and my uncle mount to the wall.

"What's THIS???"

Didn’t get any shots of everyone else opening presents, but it seemed like everyone like what they got, which is always a good sign.

Finished off the night with Croissant Chocolate Bread Pudding.. DELICIOUS!

Here’s a shot of my Christmas HAUL:

The 2010 Christmas "HAUL"

• From Mom and Dad: Coach make-up bag and a camping light
• From Anni: Hand-knit scarf and three flavored sea salts (Wild Porcini, Hickory Smoked, and Herbes de Provence)
• From Minh: Marcato pasta maker, The Silver Spoon Pasta cookbook, Bialetti Moka 3, Illy coffee (I think it’s a hint that he wants Italian food in our future)
• From Minh’s parents: 14-piece Pyrex round glass container set
• From Anthony and Nina: two bracelets from SEED
• From Di Nhan: $50 giftcard to REI
• From Michele:Fiesta Head Chefs cooking utensils
• From Angie: Cuisinart Electric Fondue Set and Melting Pot cookbook
• From Lampa: Wine from Opera Prima and cheese/crackers/salami
• From work gift exchange: Dexter Season 1
• From Scott and Laurie: Beers of the World

And here are some things I see in my future from other’s presents:

• A pair of homemade socks from Anni’s Sock Looms
• Homemade icecream with Dad’s Cuisinart Icecream Maker
• Beef jerky and dehydrated fruits and veggieswith Mom’s new NESCO Dehydrator
• Home-brewed IPA from Minh’s Beer Making Kit
• Camping food cooked in a CANcooker

Overall.. it was an AWESOME CHRISTMAS!!! and all traditions can get thrown out the window as long as holidays are like this. Now just waiting to close out 2010…

Dad and Minh.. just chillin’, waiting for waffles…

chocolate GF waffle batter.. YUM!

GF Chocolate waffle and maple syrup (from the Christmas penguin)

The MORNING tree…

Anni knit Grandma a nice beanie

Mom opening up her NESCO Dehydrator (with jerky gun)

Dad opening up his Cuisinart Icecream Maker

Anni’s sock looms (from which we are expecting many PAIRS of socks)

Electric bug-zapper racket from Minh… it was this or the extendable fork..

Minh opening up his CANCOOKER

Awesome Beer Making Kit from Anni

Super soft and cute scarf handknit by Anni

Awesome “Italian” presents from Minh and a super comfy, cute scarf from Anni

This is how Minh will look after his first batch of beer

The COOKBOOKs used for Christmas Dinner

Board and knives ready for action

Roast is in the oven, ready to get cooked to perfection..

Food is cooked.. table is set.. Where is EVERYONE?

Anthony and Nina

The DELICIOUS ribeye roast… cooked perfectly…

Baked beets and rosemary garlic mashed potatoes

Creamed corn and garlicky green beans

Mom had the honor of slicing the roast…

… while the rest of us just watched and waited..

My dinner plate… can’t wait to dig in!

The EVENING tree..

That’s a BIG box you got there, Grandma!

“What’s THIS???”

Morgan and Bac Vinh mounting the TV…

… while the rest of us spectate..

Croissant Chocolate Bread Pudding was a HIT, too!!

The 2010 Christmas “HAUL”

Making GF Whoopie!

I recently got my hands on (read: “bought”) a copy of Whoopie Pies by Sarah Billingsley and Amy Treadwell. To be honest.. I don’t think I’ve ever had a whoopie pie before… although the idea of snack-sized cake and frosting is treat that anyone would go for.

One of the Christmas Dinner desserts I made was gluten-free whoopie pies with chocolate cake and salted-caramel buttercream. I followed the cake recipe from the book, but had to take some liberties with the salted-caramel buttercream.

mmmMMMmmmm.. salted caramel...

The chocolate cake turned out different from expected. I was expecting the batter to spread more in the oven and get a bit flatter and smooth out on top. The batter spread a little bit in the oven, but also rose just as much, so I still ended up with rather tall cakes instead of round, flat ones. The cakes also came out rather cracked (like cookies) instead of smooth on the top as whoopie pies should be. This is probably one of the times when a whoopie pie pan would come in handy. We’ll see if the non-GF recipes also result in cracked, semisphere-shaped cakes.

The book doesn’t have a recipe for salted-caramel buttercream. It has a salted caramel recipe and a classic buttercream recipe. So I made both, and then poured the salted caramel (slightly warm still so that it would pour and mix well) into the buttercream frosting (sans vanilla extract and salt). The frosting ended up runnier than it I liked and also very very sweet. So I mixed in another stick of softened butter and then stuck it in the fridge to cool. But then it got hard, so I guess it needs to be room-temperature and runny in order to fill the sandwiches.

The resulting whoopie pie was okay. Not “to die for” delicious, but not horrible either. The cake was a little dryer than I had wanted, but probably because of the GF nature of it. Next time, I’ll substitute oil for butter and hope for a more moist cake (this is what Anni does with her cupcakes). The buttercream was good, although a little on the sweet side. Next time I’ll have to reduce the amount of sugar to account for the extra sweetness of the salted-caramel. All-in-all, a good experiment and I will definitely try it again with some tweaks to the recipe.

Chocolate Chip Cookies – Thomas Keller Style

Fall and winter always seem to be the “baking” seasons. Perhaps because the weather is actually cool enough to stand the oven being on in the house (oven at 400*F + 100+*F summer weather = HEAT STROKE at home). Perhaps it’s the overwhelming desire to give homemade baked goods as gifts rather than store-bought. Whatever the reasons may be, I have developed a HUGE desire to bake. More so than usual, because usually I just ignore it and continue working out. This time… I HAD TO SUCCUMB!!!

I decided on Thomas Keller‘s Chocolate Chip Cookies from the Ad Hoc At Home Cookbook. I figured what better way to kick off “baking” season than with the basic chocolate chip cookie. It’s a crowd pleaser and it’s a good recipe to have in your arsenal. I’m not going to re-print the recipe, but you can find it here.

The Ingredients - Thomas Keller Chocolate Chip Cookies (from Ad Hoc at home)

I was heading over to Michele’s for the new FRIDAY NIGHT DINNERS!!! (second installment) and brought much of the ingredients (ok… ALL) and equipment (stand mixer, rubber spatula, cookie scoop, parchment paper) over there since I knew she didn’t have any of this stuff. Plus, had to bring the cookbook… and myself. I would have brought the hand mixer (smaller and more portable and not heavy) but my sister put it SOMEWHERE (i.e. not a logical place) where it was impossible to find.. so I had to carry over the stand mixer. If I really wanted to go OLD SCHOOL (like pre-electricity old school), we could have mixed it all by hand… but I wasn’t ready for that exercise.

Supplies and equipment packed up to head to Michele's

Soon to become part of some DELICIOUS cookies

The cookie dough is simple enough to put together. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Cream together butter and sugar. Mix in eggs to butter/sugar mixture. Mix in flour. Mix in chocolate. The dough looks heavy on the chocolate chips, but it ended up being the perfect ratio of chocolate to cookie.

Almost wanted to make little balls to freeze for ICECREAM... next time...

I used a 1 1/2″ scoop to make the balls, but I used MOUNDING scoops. The original recipe says it would make 30 cookies… I ended up with 23 (just shy of 2 dozen). I think next time I’l use flattened scoops for more cookies at a smaller size, though these turned out pretty good.

Scooped, placed, and ready to BAKE!

Popped these suckers in the oven for 12 minutes (rotated pans halfway through), and they came out PERFECT and smelled DELICIOUS. I almost wanted to eat one right away, but knew that I’d probably burn ALL the tastebuds in my mouth (and then wouldn’t be able to enjoy anything later).

Chocolate chip cookies.. straight from the oven..

We let them cool on top of the stove for a few minutes before transferring them to our makeshift “cooling rack”…. which ended up being the plastic lid that came with the new cookie sheets she had. Perhaps not the best way to “cool” the cookies since the air isn’t really circulating all around, but it was all we had.

"Cooling" on not a rack.. because we didn't have one on hand..

In the end, the cookies turned out pretty much PERFECT-O! They were soft and gooey in the middle, but had a good crispness on the outside. The cookies were still slightly warm when we ate them, so the chocolate was still all melty…. mmm…

I left some with Michele (only four… she seriously said, “If you leave more, I’ll become diabetic.”.. hahaha) and took the rest home to share with Minh and my family. They were still good in the morning too… still soft and chewy.

A good dozen... saved for later...

The recipe was so simple, I’ll definitely be making these again. I really want to try out chocolate chip cookie brownie bars… wherein you make a brownie mix, but also drop in chocolate chip cookie dough into the pan and bake it all together. Can you even imagine how delicious that would be using Thomas Keller’s recipes???

Wishlist: Hembakat är Bäst

If anyone is going to Sweden anytime soon, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to get my hands on one of these cookbooks from Ikea. Even if I can’t read the recipes, the photos alone would be worth it (via NOTCOT).

Hembakat är Bäst - "Homemade IS Best"

Entitled Hembakat är Bäst, which translates to “Homemade is Best”, this book features 30 recipes for Swedish baked goods, ingredients and finished products beautfilly photographed by Carl Kleiner. Some snippets from his website are included below…

Ingredients for Mandelmussla

Baked Mandelmussla

Ingredients for Schwartzwaldtårta

Baked Schwartzwaldtårta - omg.. it looks so good..