Potlikker

eight ways to hack the smoothie

It's summertime, the perfect time for a smoothie. And if you're cultivating a smoothie addiction then you may be at the point where you need a few tips regarding the smoothie life. 

So let me provide a bit of smoothie-laden value to you. A few tips for building a better smoothie and getting the most from your blender's working hours. 

As you build your smoothie place the liquid and/or fresh ingredients in the blender jar first. So this includes soy milk, regular milk, water, oranges, berries, nectarines, kiwis, etc. Placing the liquids and juicy fruits nearest the blade ensures that blade assembly won't whir fruitlessly whilst you waste electricity (green tip). If you place all your frozen items in the jar first (at the bottom), then often your smoothie-making time lengthens (time management & productivity tip) as your blender blade bogs down with burden of frozen items.Then you end up removing the lid, stirring the contents, pushing liquify again, watching more impotent whirring. Repeat. And there you stand, jonesing for your smooothie. Repeat with gnashing of teeth. 

Through trial and error I've found that adding my powdered items second, just after the liquid, helps distribut them throughout the smoothie. Try it and see. So these are protein powders, and ground seeds and nuts you might use like almonds, pistachios, walnuts, etc. Chia and sesame are small enough that I leave them whole. But most blenders won't pulverize nuts, and you can't suck whole nuts through your straw (eighty-six the straw unless it's a reusable stainless-steel--green tip). You need to hand-chop/grind nuts with a knife, spice mill, mortar & pestle or buy them already prepped. I use Bob's Red Mill organic brown flaxseed meal and almond meal (they have hazelnut meal as well). Speaking of other "powders," I add spices to my smoothies such as cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger. 

Freeze your bananas. I know, it's crazy. But fresh bananas don't do well in the blender. Just try it and see. Let me know what your experience with that is. Mine is this: They mush. They chunk. And they don't get small enough to incorporate well within the smoothie. This tip straight from The Body Reset Diet. Chop frozen bananas into coins and then pop them into your blender jar with other frozen fruits for your smoothie.

Let your frozen fruits (and veggies as the case may be) thaw a few minutes before blending. Received this advice straight from KitchenAid after burning through one drive/gasket on my blender. When you let them thaw, your blender's blade has less work to do and this extends the life of your blender. However, I like a thicker smoothie, more along the lines of a "freezie", and I don't necessarily follow this advice. But, if you want to save energy (green tip) and conserve your appliances then this tip is for you.

Take risks with your protein sources. Sure you like bananas, and they're high in protein, but also contain 27.5g of sugar. So incorporating chia seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds, almonds, walnuts, and other sources of protein like avocados into your smoothie for variety and to meet your daily nutritional serving requirements thus keeping your glycemic index intake low is important if your goal with consuming smoothies is health and lifestyle related. Man, that was a long sentence. Sorry.

Experiment with texture/thickness/thinness by adding liquid, ice, or semi-solid ingredients. After you've made a few dozen smoothies you'll figure out your smoothie preferences: whether you like a thin smoothie, a thick smoothie, or one in-between. When you over or under-do, correcting the smoothie is as simple as adding more to your blender jar. When it's too thick, add soy milk or water. When it's too watery, add ice. When it's too thin, add a fibery fruit, skin on.

While glassware is prettiest and shows off your blending-prowess for all to admire, a smoothie in your hand makes the hand cold. Use an insulated double wall plastic tumbler; they're all the rage, especially the BPA-free variety. One of the best things about the smoothie is its portability (time management) thus making it an excellent meal for those people between places.

Clean-up by rinsing your utensils, cutting board, and blender jar and lid immediately after use and drying with a dishcloth (or air-drying) so you don't have to run those items through the dishwasher (green tip) and they're ready for re-use immediately. 

Any questions? Suggestions? Would love your input on how I can make your and my smoothie experiences better. Oh, and hey, why not follow my blog with Bloglovin?

scratch grenadine

Making your own grenadine is simple, really. Jason Wilson convinced me. Was reading his book Boozehound and in the appendix he shared recipes for grenadine, simple syrup (duh), preserved cherries, and orgeat syrup, among others.

Since I plan to make a Clover Club quite soon and had no grenadine on hand, making my own seemed like the best solution. 

His recipe called for three cups of pomegranate juice. I bought the sixteen ounce container of POM at the grocery store. So when I measured that out it fell shy of the three cups. Fortunately, I had on hand the last eight ounce bottle of POM from a case that their rep sent me several months ago. 

I know, I'm terribly remiss about singing the praises of POM. The fact is that I love POM so much that I simply drank the stuff straight down---eight ounce bottle after eight ounce bottle after eight ounce bottle, you get the picture? It was a miracle that this last bottle remained so that I could pull together this grenadine recipe.

This grenadine was meant to be. Lovely how those things work out. But actually, I had planned to use part of the POM in icing for a bachelor button cookie recipe which has proved to be one of my most popular posts ever, according to my site's statistics. I'll get around to that someday. Promise.

And so, to make three cups for this recipe, if you'll need twenty-four ounces (or three cups) of POM juice.

Anyway, if you couldn't read the recipe above in my chicken scratch, here it is:

Scratch Grenadine

3 cups of pomegranate juice (I used POM)
1.5 cups of sugar
1 1/2 ounces of freshly squeezed lemon juice
one whole long strip of orange zest and mind you get none of the pith

Bring the pom juice to a boil in a medium-sized saucepan, then add lemon and sugar, stirring until dissolved/incorporated into the liquid. Add zest. Decrease heat to medium low and cook until reduced by half, about forty-five minutes. Remove peel, or strain via sieve, whichever method works best for you. Let cool before storing in refrigerator. Will keep for two weeks. For longer storage, up to two months, add half an ounce of 151 proof rum. 

 

This recipe is from Jason Wilson's book Boozehound, page 216 if you'd like to see the real thing. He adapted it from Todd Thrasher. The bottles I'm storing my grenadine in are, if you cannot tell, simply oil bottles I bought from Target. Not that I'm shilling for Target now, too. They're just my go-to store, you know? $4 a piece, as I recall. I figured they'd work well in this capacity, but the moment of truth is still to come. Wait for it... when I make this Clover Club.

dubonnet cocktail

Spending a week in New Orleans way back in June revived my taste for the cocktail. I tallied the divine drinks I supped somewhere, I promise, and will recount them, eventually. As the parent of an almost-three year old, making the local bar scene isn't a priority. The kinds of drinks appearing on our drink menus are the uninspired one derided by most folks who are serious about drinking; the ilk who turn up their noses at vodka drinks and the frou-frou direction the martini has taken. Guess I'm in that group as well.

I've always loved gin-based drinks--the gin and tonic is my standard--, and with the reading I've done recently, I've learned that real martinis are made with gin, not vodka.

But this post is about the Dubonnet Cocktail, not the martini, which though much maligned, is not really a favorite drink of mine. And pardon the Dubonnet cocktail in an inappropriate wine glass. My barware is woefully limited to these lovely wineglasses and a matching lo ball-type glass. We've never been much for cocktails, hence the need for cocktail glasses was nil. We've a plethora of shot glasses.

However, after slipping offer to Target to purchase a silver cocktail mixer this afternoon and mixing together equal parts of Dubonnet and Hendrick's Gin, then dressing it up with a lemon rind, methinks I have a new favorite. Luckily I had the Hendrick's on hand. Looked at two liquor stores for Old Tom but neither had it, nor had they heard of it. However, I managed to order a bottle of pisco.

Back to Dubonnet cocktail. When served on the rocks its the cocktail of royalty. Apparently the Queen Mother liked it that way. And its a favorite of Elizabeth II, also, who nip a bit before lunch. Imagine it gives her the pep she needs to play with that passell of corgis.

Dubbonet is a wine-based apertif featuring a touch of quinine. Thus, it combats malaria. Always good in warmer climates, especially the southern states during mosquito season. 

And, Pia Zadora shilled for the brand in the 1970s and 1980s. Who knew? I don't remember those commercials at all. Yet, she was my favorite Love Boat star. I faithfully clipped stories she appeared in from the Star and National Enquirer to paste into my scrapbook. Ah, memories.

Dubonnet Cocktail

1.5 ounces Dubonnet
1.5 ounces Gin
Ice
Lemon Peel

Prepare lemon peel. 

Pour ice into cocktail mixer. Add Dubonnet and gin. Shake, mix, do your thing. Pour contents into glass. 

Rub rim with lemon peel and let it rest on rim's edge decoratively.

Serve and drink.

 

While this recipe is for equal parts Dubbonet and gin, the Queen Mother preferred hers at 30% gin and 70% Dubbonet, so tweak the proportions until you arrive at a mixture that you may call your own.

i say paletas

Nothing refreshes better than a fruity popsicle after waking from a nap. A jolt of sugar erases the fuzziness from my head and revs me up for the next few hours of entertaining Elsa. Even if Elsa doesn't finish her paleta, that's Mexican for popsicle--a popsicle made from fresh fruit, mind you, not made from artificial ingredients like what we find in most grocer's freezer's--and I have to eat it, I know that it's made from basic ingredients and I don't worry about over-indulging.

Fany Gerson's Paletas: Authentic Recipes for Mexican Ice Pops, Shaved Ice, & Aguas de Frescas is awesome. Who knew how simple it was to make fresh fruit popsicles in your own kitchen? So yeah, I'll probably buy an occasional pint of Ben & Jerry's, even though their flavors oddly disappoint me lately, but Gerson's flavor combinations in Paletas has me so excited that I can't wait to whip up batches and batches of paletas and to develop combos of my own.

Ian flipped through the book, too. He liked the pineapple and chile paleta and also inquired about a banana paleta. Gerson includes one, but you bake the banana, or plantain--you can use either--first for the best flavor. The yogurt and blueberry--or maybe it was blackberries (I don't have the book in front of me)--looked awesome, too. So they're not strictly fruit, or acidic based paleta recipes, they're also cream-based as well.

And one of the most intriguing recipes of all is the avocado paleta. Can't wait to do that one.

The first order of business was finding popsicle molds. Gerson suggests using shot glasses or any kind of receptacle you have on hand, and I saw Loaf Pan Popsicles two days ago, so really, you can use almost anything imaginable.

I won't share the recipe here (actually, it's listed at the publisher's website), but the ingredients for the strawberry paletas in Gerson's book were: Strawberries, sugar, water, and lemon. You slice and hull the strawberries, cover them in sugar, let the sugar soak, then cook them on the stove for five minutes, then blend together in a blender or food processor. Next, fill your molds and freeze for four to five hours. So simple. Wow.

And, Elsa helped. Loud noises, thunderstorms, motor-bikes, the vacuum cleaner, and the like bother her, so when I nudged the "blend" button, Elsa stuck her fingers in her ears. Otherwise, she was all over the strawberries--from sprinkling them with sugar to sampling them and helping with each step in the paleta-making process. 

Paleta making is a perfect endeavor for parents to guide their child, or children, in building their kitchen skills. And so, we started with paletas, but have so much more in Gerson's book to discover. Much like her previous book on Mexican sweets, My Sweet Mexico, this one is an excellent resource. Though its scope is limited to icy treats, think iceberg. Think Titanic.

Its design is divine. The photography is charming and perfect and inviting and brings a warmth to an otherwise chilly subject. And, drat, since I don't have the book in front of me, I can't look at the publication credits and list whose responsible for such marvelous work.

In her introduction Gerson spells out the history of paletas, and talks about their role in Mexican street culture. I love learning those chunks of information, as well her personal relationship with paletas and how she established her paleta company La Newyorkina.

Instead of buying one of those ridiculously expensive popsicle machines or ice cream machines this summer, you should grab a copy of Paletas from your public library or buy a copy and make them old school in your old shot glasses with wooden popsicle sticks (I bought a bag of fifty of those so we can experiment with what glasses we have on hand).

the estimable pot

Sometimes publicists working at publishing houses send me unsolicited books. The Pot and How to Use it is one of those books. A first glance at the cover wrinkled my brow. "Roger Ebert?" How many more celebrity cookbooks will I see in my lifetime? Surely it discourages un-celebrity writers from approaching agents and publishers with book proposals.

Anyway, I read it, and I liked it. It was short, to the point, and he repeated the benefits of the pot on and on. Ebert sold me on the pot. I have a rice cooker that I use for rice and sometimes oatmeal. Ebert is the pot guru and suggests that everyone have a pot and cook with it, almost exclusively. The pot appeals to every demographic, forget about those with little space and little means, because Ebert's book and his pot philosophy are applicable to families and those with monstrous kitchens alike.

There are recipes in the back, but the first two-thirds of the book contains short chapters that motivate readers and cooks to buy a pot/rice cooker and experiment. The pumpkin soup intrigues me, as does the smoky split pea soup.Ebert isn't preachy, though he suggests eating a low sodium diet. The knowledge he imparts is common sense, if you think about it.

Cook anything in the pot. Put the things that take longest to cook in first, like beans, carrots, potatoes, then add the meats later. And at the last minute add delicate frozen now peas so that they will be slightly warmed but still crunchy and retain their verdant color. Plus, he encourages readers to make stir fry in the pot, which seems wacky, I know, but apparently works.

And he shared the names of two of his favorite sauces. One is Worchestershire, with which I am long-familiar. The other is Marie Sharp's Exotic Sauce and I shall have to try it. Both are low-sodium. Ebert references the wisdom of his Aunt Mary, who he said had two speeds in the kitchen, cook and serve, and intersperses her authority across chapters. It's rather a "what would Mary do?" type of device.

Apparently, and here I am late to the Ebert party, he has a blog where he expounds on the pot and answers questions about the pot. Included in two long-ish chapters are comments from readers of his blog which relate their experiences with the pot and thank him for promoting the pot because otherwise they would never have known its glories.

Naturally, I think of my pot in a different manner. Sure, I'd love to cook soups in it. Soup is all I want to eat these days. But, well, I guess the trouble with cooking soup on the stove top is that you can't go off and leave it all day to simmer and stew. For safety reasons using the pot makes sense. Wouldn't a crock pot work as well as or better than a rice cooker? And think about how much simpler it was in frontier days when cooks kept a pot of soup/stew hanging in the fireplace--not directly over the fire, of course, but to the side--and so there was always hot meal for all comers.

Thanks be to Roger for his love of the pot and his desire to encourage its love in others.

my gruel disclosure

I've blogged about food for five years next month. And only in the last year have I sought out publicists and asked them for review copies of books published by their companies.

Prior to that, publicists found me, sent me press releases, and offered me copies of the books under their care. Some titles were not subjects I'd normally read. After stumbling through a few of those,  I decided to contact publicists directly so that I could get review copies of books that I have a true interest in reading.

The FTC wants to regulate what bloggers can receive for "advertising" a product on their blogs. It seems specifically aimed at Dooce and mommy bloggers. But that's just my perspective. 

Mothers, especially, have no value in our society, unless they're a celebrity mom or a MILF. And at that level, children of celebrities are commodities, or used for publicity purposes. There is no national paid maternity leave, no paid childcare. Families struggle financially in order to birth and raise children. 

Women become invisible once they become mothers. When I struggle to bring my daughter inside a store, or to exit one, nobody holds a door open, and I live in the "south." As an egalitarian sort, I expect men and women to help each other out in opening doors and offering to carry parcels and the like. 

Many mothers blog to develop a community that they're lacking in real life. If you didn't realize it, motherhood isolates women from our friends, our families. We don't have time or energy to visit. Our attention is preoccupied by the child learning to walk,  eat, drink, poop. Mothers also turn to blogging to share tidbits about their children's development with those distant friends and families; a documentary impulse. Then, another reason for blogging is so that their voices, so often drained by their sacrifices as mothers, are heard.

Arguments are made that if bloggers must disclose whether they've been compensated by a company mentions on their blog, then the same rules need to apply to big media. I agree. Many readers aren't culturally savvy enough to understand the subtleties of product placement in popular magazines. Sure, they recognize a full on advert, but they don't give a second thought to whether the Kitchen Aid mixer featured in the photo was comped.

Ron Hogan points out that we don't see congressional subcommittees formed about the "dispersement of each and every free book the New York Times Book Review receives." And what about all the freebies fashion magazines receive? All the food products that Shape receives then reviews, and promotes in their pages?

Other bloggers have made the point that we are approached by companies who want us to feature their products on our pages. So they want a mention, or they want to send us a sample of jerky, so we can write about it, get the word out. They're outsourcing their publicity work to us. Or maybe they want us to host a "contest" to generate comments about their product, then we're left with the uncompensated administrative work of contest business and mailing and shipping.

They imagine that a review copy of a book, or a sample of detergent is worth the thought, time, and effort it takes to create a blog post? Oh, there are crappy blogs out there, ones that surprisingly attract advertising dollars. The writing is poor. The reviews are laudatory, never critical. And the companies are onto that. They want bloggers to fawn. Bloggers fawn in gratitude for a freebie. And ya'll might think that free is the new black, but 

This blog was always a labor of love. It began as a documentary impulse. It provides information. Sometimes I review restaurants, products, books, etc. But 99 per cent of those are paid for by myself, because I'd still do it if I wasn't paid. Wasn't compensated. For. Five. Years. And I'm still not compensated. I didn't start blogging to make money. But now, when I see how other bloggers are theoretically raking in enough dough to quit their day jobs and being compensated for the swill they produce, well I get a little Oliver Twisty. I want to hold up my empty bowl of gruel and cry:

Please Sir, I want some more.

Making bloggers disclose when they're compensated is rather ridiculous. Seriously, if you have any sense at all, you can tell that the things Heather Armstrong mentions on her blog were sent to her for publicity purposes. Maybe she only blogs about the things she actually likes or uses. I don't know. I don't read her blog. I was mostly interested in her Australian Shepherd.

Is it a problem with credentials? What authority do mothers have? Do bloggers have? There's this sense that everyone blogs because they can and because it's a route to fame and fortune. And sure, it's a platform from which to launch oneself into an industry. Part of it, I'm sure, stems from the notion that that younger generation has that they're all great. Their expectations are not based in reality. 

So we know that 60 per cent of tweeters quit after a month. But what about bloggers? I read somewhere in the last few weeks, that the average blogger quits after four months (this suggests a year). They lose interest, don't develop an audience, or tribe, or don't make money. Only 5 per cent of bloggers stick with it.

Is it sour grapes? Is big media gnashing it's teeth over uncredentialed bloggers who, in their mind, brought traditional newspapers to their end? Nah. I think it's mismanagement. Failure to change and evolve as a business caused papers to fold. 

The other thing that I offer on potlikker/y, when it comes to book reviews, is that I'm a professional. I'm a published book reviewer. Not once. Dozens of times. Published in authoritative, print media. My day job as an academic librarian and my interest in book reviewing and writing have developed my skills in these areas. As the book review editor of my state library association journal, I also solicit review copies from publicists, and I don't get paid for that work, either. It comes under the heading "service," for tenure and promotion purposes.

Asking for review copies of books is different from asking the Ritz to bankroll your next vacation so that you'll give a favorable review on your blog and have all the other sheep who read your blog to baaaaaah baaaaaah baaaaaaah their way to booking their own vacay at the Ritz, too. So the FTC needs to have categories of bloggers whom they'll regulate. Or they need to shut up and attend to something really important. Focusing on mommy bloggers, which, again, is my perspective, is ugly.

Motherhood is impossibly hard work. The only compensation mothers receive is the state of bliss our child's laughter give us. Or learning to see the world again through fresh eyes. Those levels of compensation change as the child grows. And so, someday parents are "compensated" by seeing the fruits of their labors embodied by a full-fledged adult.

The state, the nation, does not compensate mothers for the sacrifices they make. For the workers they produce for the machine. For the soldiers they produce to fight in our dirty little wars. My argument is that corporate American ought to compensate people who make all the purchasing decisions for a household. And they ought to compensate bloggers who shill their products, too. And they ought to fund paid maternity leave, and pay for mothers who work their asses off at home so that there will be "consumers" to buy those products someday.

Cross-posted to my much-neglected personal interests blog, bekka.

i ate jiminy & his five friends--a confession

If you haven't tried crickets, then how do you know you won't like them? Sure, people are opposed to eating animals on ethical grounds, but I'm not one of them. Did vegetarianism. Wasn't for me. It's just too difficult, or was, when last I tried it.

Ironically, I usually order salads or the meat-substitute item on menus: The portabella sandwich, the eggplant, the tofu dish. So it's not that I'm a rabid meat-eater. I'm just an omnivore, as I was biologically determined to be. It's beef I crave; a rare steak or juicy hamburger. And then there's pork. Yum. I leave chicken alone. It's ubiquitious, boring, and usually poorly prepared/seasoned.

Last week we drove to Gatlinburg to take Elsa to Ripley's Aquarium because the Weeki Wachee mermaids were performing in one of the tanks there. I whipped up a mermaid tail for her. We went light on the trypical Gatlinburg fare by splitting a Fannie Farkle corn dog. No funnel cakes. No fudge or candy of any kind. Oh, but wait, they have a Ben & Jerry's there. How random is that? We each had a scoop. Bypassing the Donut Friar was a big deal for us.

There's a new-to-us shop there on the main drag called All Sauced Up. They sell kitchen tools, dips, salsa, gourmet peanut butters, etc. It used to be a knife shop, like of the cutting and gutting type, not the mise en place ilk. We bought utensils, peanut butters, cupcake decorations, etc.

Along the counter "novetly" food items were displayed. I call them novelty because I cannot see that the demographic touring Gatlinburg would actually eat mealworms, crickets, and other insects. I asked the lady at the counter if she'd tasted any. She said the crickets were like potato chips, but went down the throat a bit tough.

I bought a package of salt n vinegar crickets. Ate 'em when we got home. Not so much to speak about, really. They were crunchy and would have been flavorless but for the salt n vinegar. So there. I ate crickets. I'd likely try anything once, because how do you know you don't like it if you've never eaten it? You can get around the idea of eating things. We, as meat-eaters, get around those ideas everytime we devour our mammalian friends.

mustard making 101

While I was pregnant--and at some point, I realize, I will stop making references to that point in my life, but I really wonder when that might be, years from now?--and waiting in doctor's offices I discovered lots of magazines I had not been exposed to before. Most of them were parenting in nature, but one was a recently launched regional women's magazine called Verve. It's Western North Carolina's "smartest magazine for women."

Verve featured a story about a woman who makes mustard. That issue also featured women who BBQ, too, but that's not what this is about.  I read all about Lusty Monk mustard at my OB's office. Kelly Davis is the woman who makes Lusty Monk. She's an historian and bartender who translated a medieval recipe for mustard and started a cottage industry. With Lusty Monk rattling around my brain pan I opened the February Savuer "Home Cook" edition and found Stout Companion and told Ian how easy it would be to make our own mustard.

He was all for it. The trouble was finding enough mustard seed. I had a small bottle in our spice cabinet, but that was not nearly enough. The recipe called for 10 oz. Happenstance, pure luck, it was that I found at least that much at Earthfare. But it was yellow mustard seed, and not the brown. Oh well. We tried it with yellow mustard seed, since that was all that was available.

The fabulous thing was that we used the food processor. I've wanted one for years. Ian bought it for me last year at Christmas. And I used it for the first time just before Christmas this year. I know. I couldn't get it to work. I can't explain it. Really, it was silly. User error. I'm great with computers, terrible with appliances. I christened it with cheese straw dough, and then we made mustard in it a few weeks ago.

Actually, first, you let the Guinness stout, mustard seed, red wine vinegar, kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice sit at room temperature for 1-2 days. This lets everything percolate and lets the mustard seeds soften. Then you process everything and transfer it to a jar. You can keep it refrigerated for up to 6 months. Its flavor mellows as it ages.

When Ian first tasted it, he said it made him feel a little Funky. Or Loopy. Or a little bit high. Like maybe there was still some alcohol content in there. But then that went away. 

I returned to Earthfare for more mustard seeds in the intervening weeks to no avail. And even spoke to one of their people about when they might get more in, but they seemed rather clueless about the whole stocking of mustard seed in bulk problem. Luckily, we stopped in at our locally owned Natural Foods Market for a special medicinal item that Earthfare doesn't stock either, and they have both brown and yellow mustard seeds and so we scored there. Yay!

Ian likes our home brewed mustard it, and eats it regularly. I don't love it, nor do I hate it. I might like it on a nice hot dog. But we've only eaten those nasty fat free hot dogs of late, per our diet. Yuck. So maybe on a real porker of a hot dog it would taste swell. Our next batch, that we bought the last pound of seeds for, we plan to add about a cup, or half cup of honey.

cooking with camera

Anymore I simply cannot cook without grabbing my camera. It's been this way for some time now. The sight of patterns and bumps and glug-glugs in food entrances me and I need to capture the visuals before they disappear into a dish and are never witnessed again. These are shots from Wednesday night's cooking.

scallions rising up to meet the challenge
salad/slaw dressing as the vinegar reacts with sugar
my most favorite thing: nutmeg

another holiday potluck

This is the third year I've blogged about our library holiday party, as well as the third year I've written about the Jbo Progressive Dinner; such a year for threes! The party snuck up on me this year. The people who organized it chose to have it early, on December 6, ostensibly so that the student workers were here and could get their grub on. Or so I imagine. The date arrived way too early for me, because I'm slammed with personal and professional commitments that make doing anything extra a major drag.

After an hour at the grocery store, because, really, I love grocery shopping, and I invariably end up with way more in my cart than I went for, I came home and cooked from 7 p.m. until 11 p.m. Anymore, trips to the grocery store are fun-filled because I run into Doug Burgess, a history professor at ETSU who also lives in the same neighborhood as my parents-in-law. Last week Doug and I almost bumped carts several times at Food City. This week, we rolled by each other like two buggies in the night at Kroger.  Then, there were at least two other folks from the university that I recognized at Kroger as well, but don't know personally.

I mention Doug for two reasons. First, I love being connected to the university and my community to the extent that I run into people I know on a regular basis. Call it the small city effect. And second, the reason Doug is always at the grocery store is that he cooks. He compiled "Doug's So You're Over Forty, Can't Cook, and Can't Get a Date Cookbook," but what he's really known for is the hot sauce he bottles and offers to faculty, staff, and students across campus. I've not tried it, but I should. Ian collects hot sauce every chance he gets, and we have gallons of it, an abundance, and so adding another mason jar to the collection is overkill.

Last night I spent four hours cooking. I loved it, but am still wiped out this afternoon. I started with Nigella's Guinness Chocolate Cake.  Once that was in the oven I sliced my squash and set them to cook on the range. Then I turned to my salad. I had ideas for three or four things to make and bring, but it's not until I'm in the kitchen and I gauge my ingredients and my stamina that I decide what to make.

Originally I'd planned on bleu cheese straws, chocolate cake, and Manchego cheese and walnut stuffed dates. And maybe a Vidalia onion and goat cheese pie. But there were no Vidalia onions at the grocery store. I bought a bag of sweet onions, but I'm sure they're not the same. Also contemplated a cardamom-buttermilk pie, but only had one pie crust left in the fridge and forgot to pick up another set of those pillsbury rolled up pie crusts that are almost as good as scratch.

But since I don't have a food processor (Santa, are you reading?), I quickly ruled out the bleu cheese straws. I had picked up a couple packages of Ramen at the store because I still have cabbage left from the first batch of salad/slaw I made and was ready to try a second batch. This time it came out more how I wanted it to. The difference was a lot more Ramen noodles and the  rice vinegar and peanut oil substitution. Plus, I added ground ginger and one of the roast chicken flavor packets from the noodles. And then there were grated carrots. Its taste is much improved. I made notes of the changes I made to the recipe and shall share those later, along with the original recipe. Also chopped the cabbage instead of grating it, and like the latter texture much better.

Seems like the thing that took the most time was the dates. I had that stuffed date at the Jbo Progressive Dinner and its simplicity amazed me. Luckily I found Mancheno cheese at the grocery. I was also worried about dates. The first ones I ever ate were this summer, or maybe last summer when Kellie brought home a bunch from the Middle East. Yum. I love dates. Who knew!?

But Dole sells dates in re-sealable bags in the fruit/raisin section. And walnut-availability is no biggie. I sliced the cheese into tiny bits and sliced open the dates (they were pitted), and tucked cheese and walnut inside. Easy peasy! So good, too. Surely this is a dish that people rave about. I foisted one on Ian this morning. He got home around 4 a.m., peered inside the fridge and thought the dates were something chocolate. What a disappointment for him. Then he asked me about them later this morning. I told him what it was and brought him one to eat even though he said he hates dates.

The trouble was the cake. Normally I use my larger springform pan, but I tried following Nigella's instructions to use the 9 inch pan instead of the 10 inch. Mistake! There was overflow and a muffin top. And after cooling it a good hour or so, I popped the springform latch, and a lot of the cake came away with the tin. Sad, sad cake. I frosted it anyway and thought I'd keep it at home for me and Ian. But really, we cannot consume an entire cake alone. So I brought it, bugs and all, to work for the party. It may look very homemade, which could be a good thing next to all the store-bought desserts, but one thing I know for sure is that it rocks.

Oh, and then I decided after making the squash casserole that I wouldn't bring it. Heating dishes and keeping the refrigerated is always tricky at the library. And so I wanted to bring things that didn't need either. The top of my squash casserole was rather dark. It looked unpleasant. I didn't want to share it. Then, too, I changed the recipe a bit to incorporate a medium-sized sweet onion (of the not-the-Vidalia-kind) and was afraid the taste might be too oniony.  Eighty percent of the time I'll share a new dish with folks without tasting it myself because I'm confident that it's good. This squash casserole I am still unsure about. Might warm it up for dinner and see how it is.

As for all the other goodies at the holiday party, man, there was too much stuff. I tried corn pudding, beef stroganoff, hot german potato salad, sausage balls, deviled eggs, ratatouille, what else? Oh, there was way too much food. Sadly, I was forced to take a break because I worked the reference desk from 12-1. Had to eat quickly, then assume my position. But, that allows for a good hour's break for my food to settle and process and then I'll have room to sample desserts.

Last year there was some talk about compiling our recipes. One of my co-workers asked me to take on the job, but I didn't follow up. So this year, I think I'm following up. It's a shame not to have all those divine recipes at one's fingertips. Come next year, I may be compiling an in-house cookbook.