The last two days have been so full of cooking, friendship, adoration, and music I can barely see straight. This story really begins a long time ago but if we shorten it to the appropriate length, it goes back to about four weeks ago. I had just completed my last day of employment at the old job and out at happy hour with the girls and others, we (the ladies) decided that we really needed to have a small holiday party. When I was reminded that we’d agreed to this, I was particularly enthusiastic to host and to try out a few new recipes from the William Sonoma Holiday Favorites cookbook that was swiped from my mom’s house at Halloween. So we picked the date (12/20/11) and the time was a bit fuzzy but the company was my three former work ladies, who are real friends of course - JD, Bindy, and MC!
So I spent some time deciding upon the menu, and the grocery list. Then I stopped over on Saturday morning to everyone’s favorite Reading Terminal Market for some grocery shopping, which is probably my new favorite thing EVER. I was able to get all my produce at Reading Terminal but I ended up having to make stops at Superfresh and Wholefoods too before I was done, regardless the ingredients and the menu were set.
Due to a busy and family filled weekend, Monday was the first cooking day. I got home from work and set about to work on the first menu surprise. As Tuesday was the first day of Hanukkah and at least one of my ladies is Jewish, I decided to make some Challah.
Challah – from William Sonoma Holiday Favorites cookbook
Ingredients:
- 5 cups flour – check
- ¼ cup sugar – check
- 1 tbs active dry yeast – check
- 1 tsp salt - check
- 1/8 tsp powdered saffron – check, but do you have any idea how difficult this is to find?
- 1 ¼ cups warm water - check
- 6 tablespoons butter at room temperature - check
- 3 eggs - check
- 1 tbs milk - check
- 1 tbs sesame seeds – check, thank you deep love of Asian food for already having this ingredient!
Step 1: In a bowl or heavy duty mixture combine 1 ½ cups flour, sugar, yeast, salt and saffron.
Step 2: Add warm water and beat on medium high until well mixed; or use a wooden spoon until well mixed if you’re me and don’t want to assemble your Cuisinart
Step 3: Beat in the butter and 2 eggs
Step 4: Beat in about 3 cups of flour, or enough until the dough is no longer sticky
Step 5: Knead the dough; surprisingly most recipes tell you to knead your dough on a lightly floured surface; I prefer to knead my dough in the bowl in which I mixed it, it makes for less of a mess and is just as effective.
Step 6: Form the dough into a ball, lightly oil the ball, and leave in a bowl covered to rise about 1 1/2hrs, or the duration of one Philly Orchestra Concert (with my girl JD no less).
Step 7: Punch down the dough and knead until smooth
Step 8: Cut the dough into three pieces and roll out into rope lengths. This technique is also exactly how you’d roll out pretzels before forming them into pretzels.
Step 9: On a greased cookie sheet braid the ropes together using the hair braiding skills you learned as a young child and tuck the ends under each end.
Step 10: Allow the dough to rise until it has doubled in size; about the amount of time it will take you to make cupcakes or roughly an hour.
Step 11: Combine the last egg and the milk until blended, then brush onto the braid unless you realize you don’t have a brush then use a spatula or something similar to spread it. Sprinkle the sesame seeds on top.
Step 12: Bake at 350F until golden brown and hollow sounding: about 55 minutes.
Step 13: Makes one GIANT loaf of Challah that should be cooled on a wire rack.
Challah is frankly, awesome. If I ever make it again, I would half the recipe or invite an army to come eat it. Sometimes I forget that 1 large loaf actually means Jabba the Loaf of Challah. The dough was awesome, when I surprised the ladies with it, they were more than happy to edibilize the thing. +5 for taste, +5 for easy cleanup, -2 for the giant size.
Jabba the Loaf of Challah
While the Challah was undergoing rise-a-thon part duex I started on the first of the two treats that actually made an appearance at the dinner party (as opposed to the 4 items that I had intended to make)
Devil’s Food Cupcakes – from William Sonoma Holiday Favorite Cookbook (I halved the recipe as it called for 24 cupcakes and for 4 people I figured 12 was more than enough; the ingredients that follow are the quantities I used)
Ingredients:
- 1 beet – check, that gives Devils Food it’s red coloring
- 1 cup flour - check
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder - check
- ½ tsp baking soda - check
- 3/8 cup unsalted butter - check
- ¾ cups sugar - check
- 1 egg - check
- ½ tsp vanilla extract - check
- ½ cup hot water - check
Step 1: Bring the beet to boil (in water that just covers the beet) and boil until tender when pierced (30min); peel the beet; grate the beet until you have approximately 3/8 cup of grated beets, or one grated beet. That’s too many different measurements in my opinion. They will stain your hands; and clothes so that is normal.
Step 2: In a large bowl combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
Step 3: In a larger bowl beat together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy, or not sticky, or not trying to fly up at your face. My electric mixer tends to make things fly around…or maybe it’s the shape of my bowls.
Step 4: Add the egg and beat well; beat in the beet and vanilla; beat in the flour mixture in two batches, with the hot water in the middle. Maybe this makes the cupcakes fluffier in the end.
Step 5: Spoon the batter into the cupcake baking pan. William Sonoma reminds you to use cupcake paper liners; I’d like to remind you to use FESTIVE paper liners.
Step 6: Bake at 350F for about 20 min, or until when you poke one with your finger it pops back into place. The toothpick trick works too, but then you have a hole in your cupcake. Your choice I guess.
Step 7: After the cupcakes are cool, ice them with Buttercream Frosting that you already made, or Bittersweet Chocolate Gnache, but I did Buttercream.
So I suppose before evaluating this foodsperiment I should add the recipe for
Buttercream Frosting – also from William Sonoma Holiday Favorites (also halved)
Ingredients:
- 2 egg YOLKS (I accidentally started with whites, I was wrong to do that so I fixed it) - check
- 1/6 cup sugar - check
- 1 tbs brandy – check
- 3/8 cup butter - check
- ¼ tsp vanilla - check
Step 1: In a double boiler, or a bowl set above but not touching simmering water combine the egg yolks, sugar, and brandy. Wisk until thick and pale, roughly 4 minutes. If you start to feel woozy from the brandy smell, you’re probably going to be fine. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. This is best done when putting in a new batch of cupcakes to bake.
Step 2: Combine the butter and vanilla and beat until very soft and fluffy.
Step 3: Gradually beat in the cooled egg yolk mixture.
Step 4: Let mixture stand at room temperature until spreadable; stir occasionally.
Step 5: Spread; refridge to use later; or freeze up to a month to use later.
So once I combined the cooled cupcakes and the frosting, life was pretty great. I decided to bring three into work on Tuesday to use my new co-workers as guinea pigs. They loved them so I was reasonably sure that on Tuesday evening the ladies would adore them as well. I was right. +7 for taste, +5 for scoring me points with the new co-workers, +5 for teaching me a bit about beets.
Devil's Food Cupcake with Buttercream Icing - definately tastes better than it looks
As the buttercream and cupcakes cooled, I created the second dessert, and the easiest and final concoction of Monday night.
Espresso, White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Bark – William Sonoma Holiday Favorites (also halved)
Ingredients:
- 5oz white chocolate – actually I used 6oz, go ahead and tell on me to my mother. She’ll say I was right.
- 4 oz bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate - check
- 5/8 unsalted macadamia nuts - check
- 1 tsp finely ground espresso - check
Step 1: Chop the nuts and set them to toasting; in other words put them in a pan and set the pan on some heat. No need to do anything else. Take them off the heat before they burn.
Step 2: Finely chop the chocolate into two separate and not very equal (there’s more white chocolate in this recipe) bowls; finely chop also means mostly shave into pieces.
Step 3: Bring two separate and also not equal pots of water to boil; such that you can nestle the bowls into the pots above but not touching the simmering water; also take the macadamia nuts off the heat if you haven’t done that already.
Step 4: Prepare a jelly roll pan by lining it with wax paper.
Step 5: Put the chocolates in the bowls to melt over the simmering water, stir constantly otherwise your chocolate will burn and everyone in the world will dislike you.
Step 6: Mix the espresso with the dark chocolate.
Step 7: Mix some of the macadamia nuts into the dark chocolate, mix MORE of the macadamia nuts into the white chocolate. You can save some nuts to sprinkle later, but I didn’t, and I wouldn’t want to do that.
Step 8: Pour the white chocolate mix into the jelly roll pan; Pour the dark chocolate on top of the jelly roll pan; sift the pan until it’s relatively smooth; use a knife, or a spoon to swirl the chocolates together in a marble pattern.
Step 9: Put in the fridge for at least an hour; or overnight if you’re tired already; and when it has cooled sufficiently, use the wax paper and not your fingers to break apart the pieces into irregular shapes.
This was probably my favorite thing item of the dinner soiree. As in, I will 100% be making more. It was so simple, so easy, and surprisingly amazing tasting. Talk about melt in your mouth, and actually also in your hand. The ladies absolutely adored these too! I give the bark a +10 for taste, +5 for simplicity, +10 for chocolate.
Espresso, White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Bark - melts in your mouth and in your hand
With my Monday night cooking done I went off to bed and work, ready to come home and cook real dinner for the ladies.
Tuesday night arrived and I was very excited to start cooking. I got home and right to work.
Cider-Glazed Turkey Cutlets with Cider-Shallot Gravy – William Sonoma Holiday Favorites (I didn’t halve this recipe, but I should have, because now I have frozen glaze and gravy in my fridge which I’ll have to figure out what to do with those things) I also had to deviate substantially from the original…
Ingredients:
- 3 cups apple cider – check
- ¾ cup butter - check
- 2 tsp dried thyme - check
- 1 turkey – or 4 turkey cutlets from Reading Terminal; check
- Salt & Pepper for taste (or not) - check
Step 1: In a saucepan over high heat, bring the cider to boil and boil until reduced sufficiently to your desires (should be one cup). If your cider boils over and extinguishes your pilot light, then go ahead and remove everything from your countertop and relight your pilot light, you’re going to need that.
Step 2: When you realize you have time constraints and that you’re supposed to have things “hard” or “not liquid” go ahead and don’t reduce the cider the whole way. Also stop to let in MC because she brought the wine.
Step 3: Set aside ½ cup of cider and mix the butter and thyme into the remaining ½ cup (or 2 cups, you know because you probably didn’t read the recipe well enough or reduce it the whole way either); then freeze that concoction (or if you do it right just refrigerate it until hardened).
Step 4: Cut everything else that you have to use for dinner and place them in bowls while JD and Bindy show up and you chime into the conversation that’s going on in the living room while you’re still cooking.
Step 5: Put the Turkey Cutlets into a pan (I used my good old 9x9 Pyrex) and cover with the still clearly liquidy butter/cider/thyme mixture and put in the oven at 325F.
Step 6: Make everything else. Continue to baste.
Step 7: Remember that JD has to catch a flight because work is not cool and last minute made her fly to VA for ONE DAY…and turn up the heat. Continue to baste.
Step 8: Watch JD leave without any turkey and sit and consume the rest of dinner with MC and Bindy while the turkey keeps cooking.
Step 9: Finally take out the turkey, and enjoy. Save the remainders for later.
This one was definitely a love hate, mostly a mad at myself for being such a moron to think that a FULL BLOWN TURKEY recipe would easily turn into a turkey cutlet recipe, without halving any of the fixings, or reading the recipe well enough before to notice that there were things that needed to cool in order for the cooking to be done. +5 for taste, +5 for the contributions to the gravy, and -6 for my own stupidity.
Cider Glazed Turkey Cutlets
While the turkey was in the oven I set up the remaining dishes.
Mashed Potatoes – from my braincells
Ingredients:
- 3 Idaho potatoes - check
- Spoonful of low fat sour cream - check
- Couple tbs butter - check
- Splash of milk - check
- Salt - check
- Water - check
Step 1: Peel and quarter the potatoes; put them in a pot that they fit into.
Step 2: Fill the pot with water until just above the potatoes; Add salt.
Step 3: Bring potatoes to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are tender, aka when you stick them with a fork it goes through easily.
Step 4: Drain potatoes then put them back into the pot.
Step 5: Add a spoonful-ish of sour cream, butter, splash of milk, and pinch of salt.
Step 6: Use a masher or a mixer and mix your potatoes until fluffy or chunky fluffy or however you like your potatoes. This batch was a chunky fluffy.
Mashed Potatoes are seriously my favorite food. They always have been, and this batch was no exception. The ladies loved them too! Especially with the gravy! So +8 for a recipe that comes straight from my mom and my brain, +10 for taste, and +5 for using one pot for everything!
Mashed Potatoes - favorite and best
Roasted Fennel with Red Peppers – from Atkins Holiday Recipes cookbook (this is a recipe I halved also)
Ingredients:
- 1 fennel bulb - check
- 1 red bell pepper - check
- 1 tbs extra virgin olive oil – sure? Or vegetable oil, for those of us living in a budget world
- ½ tsp dried oregano - check
- ½ tsp salt - check
- Pinch of pepper – check
Step 1: Do the smart thing and prep the red bell pepper in advance, and mix with some green bell pepper too if you like that kind of thing.
Step 2: Check YouTube to find out how to cut fennel because you’ve never cooked with it before. Then cut into ¼ inch thick wedges, or in a mostly wedge-like manner.
Step 3: Combine ALL INGREDIENTS in a bowl and toss well to coat with everything.
Step 4: Put all ingredients on a lightly oiled and rimmed baking sheet (I used a different Pyrex that I just discovered I had); roast in oven (425F or whatever temp your turkey is cooking at) until tender and lightly browned, roughly 40minutes
This one was a FOR SURE WINNER! Bindy, MC, and even JD LOVED IT (aka JD actually got to try some before she had to jet to the airport). +8 for taste, +5 for ease of creation and cleanup.
Roasted Fennel with Red and Green Bell Pepper
Brussels Sprouts with Orange Butter and Hazelnuts – William Sonoma Holiday Favorites (halved)
Ingredients:
- 1 ¼ lbs Brussels sprouts - check
- 3 tbs butter - check
- 2 tsp grated orange zest - check
- Salt and Pepper - check
- ¼ cup hazelnuts – oops I used macadamia nuts instead
Step 1: Prep the brussels sprouts ahead of time (a day or two) by trimming and halving.
Step 2: Set the nuts to toast (just throw them in a pan and put the pan on heat).
Step 3: Zest the orange.
Step 4: Take the nuts off heat and use your grinder thing to chop…well on second thought figure out a different way to chop them since a grinder…grinds it into dustier things and you want to have that crunch!
Step 5: Bring a pot of water to boil; add the brussels sprouts and boil until tender (piercable with a fork).
Step 6: In a large saucepan, set the butter to melt; add the orange zest.
Step 7: Drain the brussels sprouts and add them to the butter and zest mixture; stir until the sprouts are heated through .
Step 8: Transfer to a large bowl and sprinkle nuts over the sprouts, mix and serve.
This one was another delight! Bindy said it was only the second time she’d had sprouts (I haven’t been a huge fan of them either before) but that she LOVED THEM. MC who loves sprouts also enjoyed them. JD who had a few before she ran out of my apartment didn’t say anything nasty about them. +6 for taste, +5 for my first brussels sprout foodsperiment!
Brussels Sprouts and Orange Butter with Macadamia Nuts
Finally I was able to make the
Cider Shallot Gravy:
Ingredients:
- 6 tbs butter – check
- 3 oz shallots – shallots means onions so onions yes
- 2 tsp dried thyme - check
- 6 tbs flour - check
- 4 ½ cups turkey stock - check
- 3 tbs brandy – check
- Salt and pepper – check
Step 1: Melt the butter in a sauce pan.
Step 2: Add the “shallots” or regular people onions, and thyme. Sauté until the onions are golden brown, or reasonably opaque.
Step 3: Add the flour and cook until browned, roughly 5 minutes (or less if you are feeling hasty and want to get to the tasty cheeses that Bindy brought).
Step 4: This part is where the recipe said “add enough stock to the pan juices to…” and I read “add stock” and besides the turkey was still cooking, although I did throw some pan juices approximately one baste-ful. Anyway, add the stock (or pan juices plus stock) with a gradual whisk.
Step 5: Mix in reduced cider (from Turkey recipe above) and boil until thickened. This is the step I stopped reading at; again in my haste to get everything on the table…it was delicious regardless.
Step 6 (if you actually follow directions): Mix in brandy and return to a boil, then season with salt and pepper to taste.
Full disclosure: After dinner during clean-up I actually put the pan juices back into the remaining gravy and put in the brandy. I plan to try it with the leftovers…since a brief taste test showed a yum.
Anyway for the gravy, +5 for taste, -3 for my stupidity and not reading or fully following the recipe. Woops. Anyway, MC and Bindy raved over it so I’m going to assume it was still a hit!
Overall the foodsperiment holiday party was a great success! Other than my timing being off, and JD not getting to enjoy the full course meal, it was great! It was really special to get to hang out with and host my ladies (even if half the time I was chattering from the kitchen) they have been significant sources of sanity for the past few years and I’m going to keep them in that role for as long as I can. Now that we don’t work together it’s slightly different but you can’t change friendship, it changes you. The clean-up was…I wish I had a dishwasher but MC and Bindy helped and regardless I had an amazing time and the food was splendid and the company even better. I sent MC and Bindy home with doggie bags but I’ll still be eating the leftovers for lunch and dinner all week. Overall I give this foodsperiment…priceless. Happy Holidays!
