Here’s a roundup of DC Christmas Recipes from last year!
Kitchen Tips – Butter
Strawberry Spinach Salad with Yogurt Poppy Seed Dressing
Pumpkin Oatmeal Bites
Blackberry and Apricot Thumbprint Cookies
Mesclun Green Salad with Honey Vinaigrette
Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake
Steel Cut Oats with Apple & Coconut
I am so anxious for my holiday festivities that I am practically counting the hours as they go by. Not only will the time off be greatly appreciated, I’m doing a big family get-together this year. This year, we celebrate in Chicago where the bulk of my mother’s side of the family lives. I’m not looking forward to the cold (or the loooooooong drive), but I am looking forward to seeing family I haven’t seen in quite some time.
Been a while since I’ve done a stir fry, though this one did not go the way I planned. The garlic did not come out as strong as I wanted, though the potatoes and green beens kept a good texture. I’m not sure where I’d take this if I did it again; perhaps asparagus over green beens, maybe some rice wine and more garlic sauce. Still, a good quick meal.
1 russet potato; cut into match sticks
1/2 pound green beans; trimmed and cut in half
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons onion; in half slices
4 garlic cloves; minced
2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons chili garlic sauce (optional)
1/2 cup water
salt and pepper
Par boil the potato and green beans separately in salted water for 3 minutes each. Drain and set aside. Saute your onions in oil under medium high heat until brown; approximately 3-5 minutes. Add garlic and continue until fragrant. Add your potato, green beans and sauce and cook for 5 minutes. Raise the heat, ad the water and cover. Cook until water has mostly boiled away. Enjoy.
Who is getting pumped for Christmas baking?!
So last night I kicked back with Julie & Julia. I’ve been told multiple times to watch it, but I have to say, I didn’t love it!
Meryl Streep is always an amazing actress, but I don’t think even her abilities could save the movie. Were we supposed to feel sympathy for Julie, played by Amy Acker? Mostly I just felt that she was extremely obnoxious. The splices between Julia Childs and Julie just didn’t seem to fit to me.
Also, I expected to be wowed and made hungry by all the food in the movie, but it was no Waitress. Waitress makes you want to go straight from the theater to your kitchen and to start cranking out pies. Maybe pies speak to me personally more than Beef Bourguignon?
Please tell me if I was missing something here. It did make me wish for some more formal training in the kitchen and a larger repertoire for cooking – but do I really need to know how to bone a duck? It’s an interesting question that a lot of food bloggers and modern cooks probably wonder. Do you have to be the Iron Chef, able to make a meal with any sort of flavor and food item that’s thrown at you, in order to be a good cook?
This may seem a bit odd, given my recent rant on meat substitutes, but I made a delicious Tempeh Club Sandwich this weekend thanks to Totally Vegetarian
I browned some slices of tempeh, followed by adding a bit of tamari. Stacked that on bread with lettuce, roasted red bell pepper, red onion, tomato, swiss and a bit of french dressing. Grilled that sucker up and it was delicious. Tempeh is, by far, my favorite meat substitute.
Um… things aren’t going so well!
Baking with a rowdy puppy underfoot is… challenging.
Also I made an impulse buy at the grocery store and have been stuffing my face with Nilla wafers/making banana pudding. It’s not the most picturesque, but it’s pretty delicious! Why have I never bought Nilla wafers before?
I adapted the recipe a little bit because I’m uncomfortable with what they called for with the egg whites. I know some people are a little more liberal with their egg whites(coughEdwincough), but no salmonella for me!
1/2 cup granulated sugar + more for sprinkling
1/3 cup flour
dash salt
3 egg yolks
2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Nilla Wafers
3-4 bananas, sliced
Preheat oven to 350F.
Using a double boiler (or stack pots if you don’t have one), combine 1/2 cup sugar, flour, salt, egg yolks and milk. Stir constantly and cook for 10-12 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
Spread a thin layer of custard in a 1 1/2 quart baking dish. Add a layer of Nilla wafers, then a layer of banana slices, then pour over more custard. Repeat these alternating layers about three times, finishing with custard each time. Sprinkle top with more granulated sugar.
Bake 10-15 minutes. Cool slightly, serve with Cool Whip.
Thinking I’m going to post a step-by-step Christmas cookie today – either apricot thumbprints or rugelach. Stayed tuned!
For me, one of the most affecting scenes from Supersize Me was the comparison of food and drink sizes “then and now” (I had to look away during the surgery scenes. that was a bit too affecting. I will never be a doctor). For those that never saw the movie, Morgan Spurlock compared the sizes of drinks, burgers and other restaurant offerings from now and several years ago. The contrast was both startling and eye opening.
Have you ever wondered how serving sizes are determined? Mental Floss answers that question today along with providing a great summary of some analysis conducted by Divine Caroline on how how serving sizes have changed over the years. From the article:
Well, nationwide food consumption surveys do, but also the NHLBI (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute). So if you’re wondering why a serving of ice cream is usually only a ½-cup (on their Web site the NHLBI says no more than the size of half a baseball), it’s because that’s what they’ve determined is the right amount to stay healthy. Meanwhile, we all know how many baseballs Baskin Robbins scoops into their hot fudge sundaes–enough to fill a small bathtub, right?
I know I’ve never been satisfied with a measly half cup of ice cream (have you seen those really really small ice cream containers sold at the grocery store now? who buys those?). What’s amazing is how dramatic the serving size growth has been. Every comparison given has an increase of at least 50%; most have more than doubled. The photos really drive the point home. Check it out, and think about that next time you’re at your local Cold Stone or getting a caffeine fix. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with the occasional indulgence; but the key is moderation.
Amazing, or just a bit too much?.
It’s that time of year again: the holidays! Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, BAKE-A-THON…. The smell of baked goods is in the air! Few things suck more than taking a fresh batch of cookies out of the oven only to discover, *gasp*, the cookies are burnt! (funny story, my mom use to always burn the biscuits ever so slightly so we called it her Trademark. she did not appreciate that as much as the rest of the family)
The artistic side of burning sadness.
Fear not, loyal readers, DinnerCakes is here for you with today’s Kitchen Tip. All you need to remedy this terrible tragedy is a microplane grater and faith. For cookies that are only slightly burnt or simply over browned you can gently grate away all that bad stuff. This works best with your non-chunky cookies (like sugar), but is always worth a shot.
Ok, these probably can't be saved
There, you are now ready for the all that the holidays can throw at you (ha!). Go forth and bake!
