New Year's Party Food

What you see here is the beginning of luscious guacamole, which is what I will be bringing to the New Year's Eve party I'm attending. Isn't it beautiful already? If you, too, would like to eat some fresh, tasty guacamole to fight the winter doldrums (and you're not going to the same party I am), see this post for the recipe. Make sure you start with ripe avocadoes!

If you're looking for another good party food, I've listed a few other ideas below. I generally try for something with balance: familiar enough that people will eat it but with a little twist to keep things interesting, simple enough that it doesn't take forever but still looks (and tastes)interesting, and containing some nutritious ingredients but still tasting indulgent. I don't worry too much about cost in these cases, figuring it's hospitality. All of these recipes qualify.

Cranberry Orange Pinwheels--Tasty, fruity cream cheese in tortilla pinwheels

Cream Cheese Fruit Dip--Sweet and rich, accompanied by fresh fruit, always a hit, makes a ton.

Roasted Red Pepper and Garlic Cream Cheese Dip--Amazing. I make a non-vegan variation.

Hope that gives you some ideas, and have a Happy New Year!

New Years Resolutions

So this year I have a new theory on new years resolutions. Anastasia and I were talking about them on Sunday as we were driving back from Missouri, and I decided a more productive strategy would be to come up with things I am resolved to get done by New Years Day. Normally people come up with grand ambitions that they don't follow through on, so instead why not pick a few things that need to get done, that you don't want to do, and that could realistically get done in the next few days. Say, hypothetically, reorganizing your books so that they are not strewn about the living room floor, cleaning out the "junk drawer" so that one could fit a phonebook or two inside of it, and getting the basement utility area clear so that one could actually walk around in it. We will know how this one turned out on January 2.

Perfect spherical pellets

Last Thursday night the weather here was really weird. When we left the library at 9, we were walking through a couple inches of little pellets of ice. I opened my trunk, and they all fell on my groceries and the books I had all over the place in there. I was able to capture the little sphere on camera as a result. They were all perfect spheres of varying sizes. I have never seen anything like it. Mom and Alex called it sleet, but I've never seen such attractive sleet--it reminded me of Dippin Dots, actually. Weather amazes me.

Product review--dinner rolls

This is my new favorite food product--multigrain rolls from Rhodes. You buy a bag in the freezer section, and then throw it in your freezer at home. Whenever you want some buns for sloppy joe, or just some rolls for your meal, you set a few out in the morning. By dinnertime, they've risen and you just pop them in the oven. Voila, fresh-baked rolls (that rose, no less) with almost no effort or dirty dishes. And while they have more ingredients than your home-baked roll, they do have whole grains and are way ahead of most refrigerated or frozen breads/rolls nutritionally speaking.

As for taste, everyone I've served them to has loved them and some even thought I made them myself.

So--taste, nutrition, convenience (including being able to prepare just a couple at a time) all come together in one package. I'm loving it!

Better-than-Panera Salad

Yesterday I shared about our special cheese dinner; today I'll show you what to do with the leftovers--make a salad prettier than anything Panera offers. I use bagged salad, for simplicity and because we can never eat a whole head of lettuce before it goes bad. Then I top it with toasted walnuts for good solid protein, some crumbled or cubed cheese, and finally ring it with slices of apple or pear. I don't use dressing on a salad like this because I think the cheese, nuts, and fruit add enough interest and moisture. (I will say, though, that I am searching for recipes for dressings to go with salads like these, so let me know if you have a good one!) With the leftover bread and a bit of chocolate for dessert, it's a nice light lunch.

Classic Waldorf Salad

I thought I'd better post a recipe here in the middle of Alex's musings on Bibles....

This is more of an ingredient list and reminder of how great simple food can be than a detailed recipe. Waldorf salad tastes especially good at this time of year, I think--fresh, crunchy, sweet. Basically, it consists of chopped apples, celery, and walnuts, with some raisins thrown in. I like to toast the walnuts because toasted nuts always taste better. (I do them in a dry skillet over med-hi until they smell toasty. You can also do them in the microwave or oven.)

The dressing is traditionally simply mayonnaise--enough to coat the salad and make it moist. You might add a bit of lemon juice if you're not going to eat it right away--it will slow down the oxidation (browning) of the apples. Lately though, I've been using plain yogurt and a bit of honey for the dressing--much healthier and quite tasty! In a future post, I'll tell you how to make your own yogurt. Stay tuned!

Wine and cheese at the Tucknesses

Periodically, as a special meal, I like to fix a cheese platter for me and Alex. Our favorite ingredients are: several kinds of cheeses, including both soft and hard (we always have Brie), fruit such as grapes and pears, baguette slices, and chocolate. We also sometimes include olives, roasted garlic, toasted walnuts (especially good with bleu cheese and pears) and of course, wine.

I had brought back a bottle of apple wine from a trip recently and was excited to try it. I wasn't sure if we had a corkscrew, so I took a walk downtown in search of one. Realizing that I had left my credit card in the car and I only had a couple dollars, I didn't go to Cooks', reasoning that I couldn't afford whatever option they would have. So I ended up in the coin collecting place, of all things--he now has a section of the store devoted to making your own wine and beer. For a quarter, I purchased the small black plastic object shown in the bottom right picture.

That evening, we examine our bottle-opening options. We start with the metal corkscrew we found at the back of a drawer. And soon afterward it comes apart.

Moving on, then, to the maroon-colored bottle opener--this doesn't get us anywhere.

Coming to the small black tool, we screw it down into the cork and pull. And pull. And pull. The shopkeeper had said something to the effect of, "That will take quite a bit of finger strength--we call it an emergency corkscrew." Alex's estimation--maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger could get it open this way. Remembering physics and the power of levers, he uses the wooden spoon--with the results also displayed above.

We then take a break and call several friends to see if we could borrow one, but to no avail.

Google finally came to our rescue. We typed in "open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew," and got this helpful video. Thus the handyman tools in the other picture (just need a screw, hammer, and screwdriver). It worked like a charm, and we highly recommend it if you find yourself in the same pickle we did.

Even without the wine, pairing the above foods together makes a great special date meal or easy company hors d'oeuvres!

Oh Christmas Tree

A view of our living room, now that we've successfully gotten the tree up and the new LED lights purchased. The top two show the two main sides of our tree, and how every year we try to balance the felt ornaments of our childhoods with the more contemporary angels and sparkles. The bottom two show the results of my playing around with my camera in an effort to capture how bright these lights really are!

Cleo update

Here's a little photo collage to show what our cat has been up to lately. He gets up late in the morning and then spends most of the day following the sunbeam around our living room. Lately his favorite place has been under the tree (artificial). I think he likes the soft tree skirt, the view outside, and being next to the furnace vent. Good thing we don't have presents under there yet!

Tree trimming

(Picasa has new collage options!)

Tree trimming in Michigan was supposed to be simple this year. Alex's itinerary for the day was 1. Grade some papers. 2. Carry the tree upstairs. 3. Grade more papers.

It was a little more complicated than that. Match the text to the above pictures.

1. Grade papers.

2. Carry tree upstairs.

3. Insert tree branches sorted by wife and her aunt.

4. Steady the tree while wife checks to see why it's crooked. (This was unsuccessful--the tree stayed crooked and then part of it fell on me.)

5. Grade more papers.

6. Visit other relatives.

7. Come back to discover Grandma had bought another tree!

8. Carry tree inside.

9. Unpack it, untie it, and shake it out. (It has lights attached, multicolored LED lights. The blue ones are so bright that Grandma replaced as many as she could with the spare red ones!)

10. Grade more papers.

11. Drive home the next day, and get tree up from basement.

12. Sort and insert branches.

13. Untangle lights, 75% of which no longer work. (How does this happen??)

14. Go to Walmart to purchase white LED lights.

15. Light tree. Wait a week for wife to finish putting ornaments and tree skirt on.

My husband, the Christmas tree hero!

(For the record, Alex did get all his grading done, too!)

Cookbooks are smart, but sometimes Grandmas are smarter!

(imagine a picture of mashed potatoes here--blogger is not cooperating)

For several years, I have made mashed potatoes only at the holidays. I like eating them a lot, but I don't particularly enjoy the multi-step process involved, so we usually have baked potatoes. I do eat them at my folks' house a couple times a month, though.

When I have made them, I've referred to my trusted Bittman cookbook, which has this to say on the subject of mashed potatoes (in part--he actually devotes two text-filled pages to the subject): "If you like yours lumpy, mash them with a fork; if you like them smooth, use a food mill or ricer. But whatever you do, keep them away from mixers, food processors, or blenders, because they will become gummy, and almost no one likes them that way."

Pretty strong words, eh? So over the years I dutifully hand-mashed pounds of potatoes, that ended up heavy and somewhat lumpy. This year I enlisted Alex to mash with a masher and beat with a spoon, and even with his force we were not satisfied with the results.

So on our recent trip to Michigan I had Grandma coach me through using the electric hand mixer to mash the potatoes. Guess what? It took less than two minutes and the results were pronounced fluffy by all, including Alex, who said they were similar to his late grandmother's (reputed to be the best of all by his family).

I am left to conclude that either Bittman's statement that mixers produce gummy potatoes is wrong, or that my entire family and Alex's entire family is in the select group of "almost no one" who "likes them that way." Either way I'll be using a mixer from now on.

And I'll be a bit more skeptical of dogmatic cookbook statements.