Fun Food Saturdays!!

When football season rolls around, we start planning for Fun Food Saturdays. It’s a tradition that goes back to our years in Gainesville – we have wonderful dishes we rotate throughout every fall. One week it might be French Onion Quiches and Caprase, or Pigs in a Blanket and Three Cheese Fondue with all kinds of dippers, or Swedish Meatballs and Chicken Pesto Crostinos. You get it. It is so fun to work our way through all the dozens of options each fall, finding the best dishes that match the weather (i.e., you can’t have Swedish Meatballs if the weather is too hot or Caprese if the tomatoes are out of season!). 

It kind of takes me back to our fall Saturdays in Gainesville when we would host a big party at the house around a Gator road game – and where I’d make all the food and Larry would oversee the bar. I’d like to think it was an invitation a lot of people looked forward to receiving – there would be a mix of really cool people – politicians (city and county commissioners, state attorneys’ folks, state senators), UF people (athletics and others throughout the university), local business people, and our close neighbors. Still remember the year I made gazpacho and had small plastic cups and spoons, but everyone thought it was salsa without the chips – lol). Still, I loved making all the dishes and welcoming dozens of friends and colleagues to enjoy the game and good food. Here are a few of the great dishes.

French Onion Quiches

15-oz. Package Pillsbury All-ready Pie Crusts (will be two crusts in the package)

Filling:

¼ c. margarine or butter (1/2 stick)

1 ½ cups finely chopped onions

1 tablespoon flour

1 cup half-and-half

3 eggs, slightly beaten

½ teasoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Remove pie crusts from box.  Let stand at room temperature 15-20 minutes while preparing filling.

In medium saucepan, melt margarine on medium heat.  Saute onion until light golden brown (5-7 minutes).  Remove from heat.  Stir in flour until mixed.  Add half-and-half, eggs, sat and pepper.  Blend well.

Unfold pie crusts and using glass or some other circle, cut circles (approximately 12-15 per pie crust sheet.  Note:  Measure across a single muffin cup and have a circle slightly larger than that circle).  Press each circle into ungreased miniature muffin cup.  Fill about 2/3 full with filling.  Sprinkle about a teaspoon of the grated parmesan on each muffin.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes (if it starts to get too brown, loosely cover with aluminum foil).  Cool slightly in muffin tin.  Then remove.  Serve warm.

Should make about 24-30 appetizers.

Chicken Crostinis

1 rotisserie chicken of your liking

1-2 baguettes (depending on how many people you want to serve – there will be plenty of chicken for 2 baguettes – if that’s the case can make one batch early and another later in the party)
Prepared pesto
One of the shredded cheese mixes (Mexican or Italian (don’t get one with spices).

Take roasted chicken and remove meat and shred (use your fingers, it’s a lot faster). If doing ahead of time, store in Tupperware container until serving.  Bring to room temperature before assembling crostinis. 

Take baguettes and slice on a diagonal (also can be done ahead and stored at room temperature in Ziploc bag.  Spread pesto on each baguette, top with chicken and sprinkle with cheese.  Heat on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until cheese is melted.  Watch to make certain they don’t burn.

Classic Swiss Three Cheese Fondue

1 garlic clove, peeled

1 cup dry white wine

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

8 ounces Gruyere cheese, rind trimmed and discarded, and shredded (about 2 1/2 cups)

8 ounces Emmentaler cheese, rind trimmed and discarded, and shredded (about 2 1/2 cups)

3 ounces Appenzeller cheese, cut into cubes (about 1/2 cup)

4 teaspoons cornstarch

1 tablespoon kirsch

A few gratings of fresh nutmeg

Freshly ground pepper, to taste

What to dip: crusty mixed grain bread, French or Italian bread, cut into bite-sized cubes (leave a piece of crust on each cube); Cooked chicken breast, skin and bone removed, cut into bite-sized cubes; cooked garlic sausage or knockwurst, cut into bite-sized wedges; boiled new potatoes; asparagus spears, broccoli florets or cauliflower florets prepared for dipping.

Rub the inside of a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan with the garlic; discard the garlic. Add the wine and lemon juice and bring to a bare simmer over medium heat.z

In a medium bowl, toss the Gruyere, Emmentaler, and Appenzeller cheeses with the cornstarch. A handful at a time, stir the cheese mixture into the wine, stirring the first batch until it is almost completely melted before adding another. The fondue can bubble gently, but do not boil. Stir in the kirsch and season with the nutmeg and pepper.

Transfer to a cheese fondue pot and keep warm over a fondue burner. Serve immediately with dipping ingredients

 

Summer doldrums cooking

I’m sure a lot of people enter August with summer doldrums where you absolutely don’t want to cook anything because it’s hot, you’re bored with pretty much everything you usually make when it’s this warm, and you’ve made enough summer dinner salads and gazpachos. I’ve been there for several weeks.

So, this weekend I decided to do something about that. For me, that means tackling something – or two somethings – that I’ve never made before.

The first thing I worked on this weekend is recreating my Mommy’s amazing peach ice cream. I grew up with her hand-cranking an old-fashioned ice cream maker with the ice and rock salt – what a mess - and decided that was way too much like work for me. I broke down a couple of months ago and got a tabletop Cuisinart ice cream maker and set out to see if I could recreate her amazing ice cream concoctions. I’ve gone slowly – starting with the New York Times’ “master ice cream recipe” which gives so many options to add different ingredients to make different versions. I started with French vanilla (the second time I added Heath toffee bits – omg, so good) and strawberry. 

Today, I decided to try to make Mommy’s best: peach ice cream. The NY Times recipe is delicious – it makes twice as much as my Cuisinart can make in one serving – so tomorrow I’ll have to freeze the rest! It calls to cook the peaches and then puree. I think next time I’ll keep some of the peaches in small pieces and not puree all of them. Still delicious – and will keep working on making the recipe mine!

My second recipe for this weekend was something I’ve never tried in all my years of cooking: focaccia. Kneading and using yeast absolutely terrify me – so I found a Bon Appetit recipe for No-Knead Focaccia. 

I started the dough yesterday – and this morning took it out of the fridge to rise. It worked!! It was a super easy recipe for someone who’s never tried anything like it. It was a huge success. 

We ate some, kept a few pieces back for tomorrow, and froze the rest. I kept it simple and didn’t add any herbs – but now that I know I can do it, there are so many options I can try next time!

It was fun to take a weekend when I’ve been so OVER cooking and try a couple of new things. Looking forward to fall – my favorite time of the year to cook! I have a ham bone in the freezer just waiting for cooked beans with ham!

 

I miss writing so let's get this going again

I've been thinking recently that I really miss writing for fun. I write everyday for my job at Barnard College, but I realize I have so much to write about - not only what's happening in our lives today, but also about the original point of this blog - how we got to where we are today and where we're going next. So, I'm going to start up this blog again. I have a lot to say.

I've been thinking a lot about cooking recently and how proud I am that over the years I've taught myself to make a variety of dishes including Bolognese with Pici, Chinese Cashew Shrimp and Chicken, Branzino Picatta, and a seriously-seared, medium rare Filet Mignon with Scalloped Asiago Potatoes.

But my cooking roots are a lot different. I learned to cook when I was 13, because my Mommy started nursing school after earning her GED, and my Dad, who was a coal miner in Western Kentucky and worked the 3-11 shift, needed a substantial lunch for his main meal before leaving for work (the leftovers would be put into a thermos for him to eat for dinner). We didn't have a lot of money, so the meals I prepared didn't cost a lot - a can of salmon made into salmon patties, ground beef made into a meat loaf, fried Spam, fried chicken.

The sides - which I also learned to make and time to be done at the same time as the entree - were from our garden: boiled potatoes cooked in a pressure cooker, green beans, gorgeous tomatoes, sweet corn to die for, butter beans. You get it. In teaching me, my Mom at first would prep the meals so that all I had to do was cook the entree and sides. Then, the next time that I'd make that entree, she'd do one less step and give me directions for how to do that step before cooking, and then, over time, I did all the prep for each dish before cooking. It was such an easy way to learn.

When I'm missing my Dad and Mom, who've been gone 21 and eight years respectively, I make salmon patties (which I did tonight). I make one of my favorite sides (today it was Three Cheese Cauliflower) instead of boiled potatoes, and think of those years learning to cook in a little Kentucky kitchen.