Holiday Eats in Review (Plus: Mayhem at the Gingerbread House!)
For the first time in my personal history, and inverse to tradition, I actually lost a few pounds over the winter holidays. Perplexing ’cause I was often to be found bustling around one kitchen or another trying my hand at creating some new treat or another (and compulsively dipping it in the batter…) To review:
•The ravioli stuffed with creamy yammy goodness and the tortelloni stuffed with shiitakes (locally harvested!) were a great success. Those delectable shiitakes saw this cham-piggy-non making wild declarations about running off to live in the forest and subsist on shrooms– all shrooms, all the time! The sesame shoyu spinach wontons I made with the leftover pastry wraps weren’t too shabby either.
•New passion inflamed for mushrooms, and thanks to Scott’s brilliant recipe, for pumpkin pie too. From a real pumpkin. Oh, so fine.
•The holidays saw me killing a lot of apples, but while they mostly baked into yum, they certainly lacked in presentation. My pie was runny (as in “Would you like a straw with that?”) and my dumplings were just plain ugly. Will have to sacrifice many more apples in the name of practice.
•Scott cooked up the most fabulous potato leek soup that has pretty much spoiled whatever prior tolerance I had for the canned crap.
•My first try at amaretti yielded the chewy variety. I won’t rest until I produce a crisp meringue shell with a chewy center. And since I’m rather fond of popping them while tossing down shots of espresso, I probaby won’t rest even then.
•My first try at a chocolate almond budino, on the other hand, was an unqualified disaster. Of Hindenburg proportions, people. The budino is apparently a pudding-ish cakey-type treat, but I wouldn’t know, because mine was a heap of burnt goop that ended in the garbage. Thanks for nothing, 365 Easy Italian Recipes! I want my pound of fair-trade cocoa back!
•We smeared Maseca-brand masa on corn husks, topped it with black beans, chiles, and Jack, rolled them carefully into gorgeous little tamale packages, and then Scott tucked them lovingly and skillfully into the steam pot. You could almost hear them coo in their sauna. No, wait. That was me in state of rhapsody.
•A massive quantity of gingerbread was made from two different recipes and shaped gingerly into cookies (many of which I ate in their vulnerable scrap-dough form) and… a doghouse. The moated castle, the Pantheon in gingerbread– maybe next time?
Doesn’t sound like much of a weight loss program, until you consider, perhaps, the impact of selling my car this autumn and pedaling or legging it everywhere this winter (something I wholeheartedly endorse) or the result of totally missing out on my family’s traditional caramel sweetrolls and frosted sugar cookies and chocolate peanut butter buckeyes and giant meringue shells topped with peppermint ice cream and chocolate syrup (something I can’t recommend)…
Now, without further ado, I would like to welcome you into my Gallery to witness yesterday’s mayhem at the gingerbread house. May you experience as much amusement as we did catharsis!
January 17th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
I’ll be twirling that gingerbread doghouse business around in my brain for a while… Disturbing? Perhaps! Delightful? Perhaps! Silly as hell? Oh, yeah!
Doesn’t sound like you lacked for any culinary inspiration over the holidays. On our way back from Christmas vacation I got a wild hair of a breakfast idea that I unleashed on the family last weekend, to rave reviews– I call it Eggs Cozzalio (named after my beloved cosa nostra uncle, Gio “Eggs” Cozzalio). It’s basically Eggs Florentine, but instead of an English muffin, I grilled up some polenta cakes (seasoned Italian style, of course), then laid down a nice bed of steamed spinach, on top of which I put some crumbled pork fat (you can skip this part, of course, or replace it with a similarly textured tofu-derived substitute, if you wish), just a touch of marinara (I like mine on the sassy side, but sweet would work too), and topped with two poached eggs, done up freestyle in a pot, with a touch of vinegar in the boiling water, four minutes and 15 seconds each, for that excellent gooey, yet not too runny, yolk consistency which, if properly condimentized (a little salt, a generous crush of black peppercorn) will make you forget all about the devil’s concoction, Hollandiase sauce. Of course, the keen thing about this recipe is its infinite possibilities, which is the way I like to cook. I rarely do anything the same way twice (witness the parade of meat loafs I’ve unleashed around here lately, and still no one dead). Anyway, try Eggs Cozzalio sometime. And I hope you like it, lest I have to inform the other Eggs about my unappreciative audience up in Corvallis, at which point I can no longer be held responsible…!
January 17th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
Oh, Patty says, come back! We miss you! You can make gingerbread doghouses down here, you know! Also, I meant to tell you that I’m going to respond to your e-mail, and I didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you– it’s just been a trifle crazy lately, and I wanted to give it the attention it deserves. But to solve one mystery, the thing I assumed I could thank you for was a bumper sticker that arrived in the mail at my house a month or so back, from an Internet mail order house, which said, “I blog, therefore I am.” Ha! Who else, I thought, would think to send this? Well, I guess I don’t know now! But it made me think of you out of the blue, so I’m grateful for that, whoever sent it! Working on an Oregon visit– I’ll keep you apprised.
January 18th, 2006 at 6:19 am
OK, you two are definitely related to the Hydes, except instead of being merely eccentric, you may be certifiable! I hope the Gordomeister and the Maddie-girl didn’t ingest too much of the gingerbread and candy! Doesn’t look dog friendly to me. I have to admit that the house is absolutely kickin’ (Dave Hyde would approve of the construction!) and the Attack of the Iguana was worthy of comparison to the newest Wallace and Gromit! Wow! As an obsessive photographer, you have my admiration. And guess what? My computer has learned your web address, so now if I type in “ped” on my web bar, you come up without me having to search my aol favorites for the listing (re my previous comment about blogs). So an old dog can learn new tricks! The last photo of Scott is phenomenal! KT looks great in all of them, no particular favorites. Give the babies some loving from me!
January 18th, 2006 at 8:27 am
Wow. Twisted minds attract other twisted minds…hey, how did I get here?! Who bookmarked this site to my browser?
January 20th, 2006 at 7:31 am
Very creative and fun. Your gingerbread mayhem is even making Peter Jackson jealous. (He does seem to have this thing for creatures attacking big structures.) Let me know when you sell the screen rights . . .
January 20th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
All I gotta say to the little kitchen chemist is, Who’s yo Mama????
January 21st, 2006 at 9:27 am
That was a sweet gingerbread house! I also loved the short “Attack of the Space Iguana.” That was a really good idea to take all those nice pictures and then quickly slideshow them. Awesome!
January 22nd, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Hey, thanks for all your comments, everybody!
Man, Dennis, I want to be Italian! Eggs Cozzalio sounds incredible, except for that bit about the pork fat - Ew! How about some mindblowingly scrumptious fresh mushrooms instead? Love the freestyle egg poaching. Will have to try it sometime when I’m feeling fearless. Any chance you know mafioso methods for making un bel budino?
Thanks for the props, Mary and Steve. Apparently hyperbole runs in our family too! And thanks, James, for stopping by! I had a lot of spontaneous fun with the doghouse. Put me in the mood to watch your Muskegon Tatooine adventure movie again. Too bad I don’t have a VCR anymore… When’s it come out on DVD?
For the record, Gordon got away with a single piece of candy corn, and Maddy had that one bite of gingerbread, so no harm to their fragile little doggie digestive systems.