Soul food. What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul?
It's fresh in my mind, so it might be causing some bias, but my mom's Christmas dinner last night was probably the highlight. It was pretty great. Standard Christmas fare - Beef Tenderloin, carrots with chive and red pepper, Rosemary Parmesan Potatoes (which are the bomb, and I'm not a big potato guy normally. A cranberry-orange jello salad with a delicious topping and pies for desert.
I helped mom find several of the recipes online using a couple of sites that I know well. We used her new iMac in the kitchen, which I hope she continues to use for such purposes (and even had an Apple touch mouse lesson).
The food was good, clean, American Christmas food.
Since I'm biased about this, the runner up is some of the dishes I cooked using CSA materials. We cooked a lot of new things this year, including pea shoot pesto, which was probably my favorite, and Katie liked it a great deal as well. Our food processor got a good workout this year.
Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Reverb 10 - Day 18 - Try
Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn't go for it?
When I think of try, I tend to think of foods for whatever reason. And really, a lot of the things I want to try probably revolve around cooking lately.
I'm seriously amateur when it comes to cooking. More food then I'd like to admit comes out of a package in our house. Though one of the things we tried in 2010 was joining a CSA. This allowed us to get fresh produce in our house from June until November. We're going to do it again next year because it was largely a success. Katie and I ate better, and while we threw out a fair amount of rotten produce, we did manage to eat quite a bit of it.
The CSA culminates with a delivery right before thanksgiving which became a big chunk of our thanksgiving meal. I had a goal to scratch cook everything for Thanksgiving dinner that we hosted at our house - no stove top or gravy packets or canned cranberries. It was a success. I made sausage stuffing, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes with celery root (good, but I'm going to look for a different recipe next year.)
One of the things I want to try next year is to cook at least one dish with each of the produce we get from the CSA. I was probably on 80-90% this year, but I'm going to make it formal, and I also think it would be worthwhile to write about it here. That's a great idea, in fact.
When I think of try, I tend to think of foods for whatever reason. And really, a lot of the things I want to try probably revolve around cooking lately.
I'm seriously amateur when it comes to cooking. More food then I'd like to admit comes out of a package in our house. Though one of the things we tried in 2010 was joining a CSA. This allowed us to get fresh produce in our house from June until November. We're going to do it again next year because it was largely a success. Katie and I ate better, and while we threw out a fair amount of rotten produce, we did manage to eat quite a bit of it.
The CSA culminates with a delivery right before thanksgiving which became a big chunk of our thanksgiving meal. I had a goal to scratch cook everything for Thanksgiving dinner that we hosted at our house - no stove top or gravy packets or canned cranberries. It was a success. I made sausage stuffing, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes with celery root (good, but I'm going to look for a different recipe next year.)
One of the things I want to try next year is to cook at least one dish with each of the produce we get from the CSA. I was probably on 80-90% this year, but I'm going to make it formal, and I also think it would be worthwhile to write about it here. That's a great idea, in fact.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Reverb 10 - Day 6 - Make
Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?
I'm getting a little behind on these because of work/home requirements.
I made Thanksgiving dinner for my family this year. We made turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy. We made everything from scratch. I'm trying to do more scratch cooking lately because it's better for you and really not that hard. For example, while being a buyer of cranberry in the past, I found it amazingly easy to make the sauce with fresh cranberries. So easy that I wonder why the canned stuff even exists.
We had a 11 pound turkey for 6 people. We used a citrus brine which we started the night before. It was our second attempt at doing a brine and it worked quite well, the only thing I would have done differently is thawed the frozen turkey a little bit more before we put it in the brine (it was straight out of the freezer). We stuffed it with vegetables in lieu of traditional stuffing.
I made a traditional cranberry sauce and stuffing, which both turned out very well (I halved the stuffing recipe but forgot to halve the salt so it was a tidge salty, though nobody complained to my face).
As far as what I aspire to make, I aspire to be a better cook/chef in the kitchen. I've got a lot of the basics down, but I'd like to improve my knife skills and maybe learn a few more basic things. I also want to hang out with my food inclined friends while they cook more in 2011, if I'm able to.
I'm getting a little behind on these because of work/home requirements.
I made Thanksgiving dinner for my family this year. We made turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy. We made everything from scratch. I'm trying to do more scratch cooking lately because it's better for you and really not that hard. For example, while being a buyer of cranberry in the past, I found it amazingly easy to make the sauce with fresh cranberries. So easy that I wonder why the canned stuff even exists.
We had a 11 pound turkey for 6 people. We used a citrus brine which we started the night before. It was our second attempt at doing a brine and it worked quite well, the only thing I would have done differently is thawed the frozen turkey a little bit more before we put it in the brine (it was straight out of the freezer). We stuffed it with vegetables in lieu of traditional stuffing.
I made a traditional cranberry sauce and stuffing, which both turned out very well (I halved the stuffing recipe but forgot to halve the salt so it was a tidge salty, though nobody complained to my face).
As far as what I aspire to make, I aspire to be a better cook/chef in the kitchen. I've got a lot of the basics down, but I'd like to improve my knife skills and maybe learn a few more basic things. I also want to hang out with my food inclined friends while they cook more in 2011, if I'm able to.
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