Shrimp, scallops, squid, clams, or oysters tempura (p.377)

As I was recently thumbing through TJOC, I noticed a recipe that I found very annoying-- Shrimp, scallops, squid, clams, or oysters tempura (p.377). There is nothing particularly annoying about the recipe itself, just the fact that I regularly make this and didn't know it was a recipe in TJOC.

We don't eat meat on Christmas Eve, leading to a very shellfish heavy meal. The meal usually includes pasta with a crab/lobster/shrimp sauce, stuffed calamari, fried calamari, fried cauliflower, fried shrimp, shrimp scampi, and a couple more dishes. Delicious! Many years ago, all the fried dishes became my duty. Last year I made TJOC's tempura batter for the fried food and it was amazing.

The recipe is simple--the tempura batter is egg and cold water mixed with flour.

The calamari is cleaned (which is gross and my noni's job) and separated into bodies and tentacles. I chopped the bodies into rings. I greatly recommend drying them as much as you can--every bit of water spits and it's really annoying and dangerous. They don't dry well at all.



The calamari were then dredged in the batter and fried in our ancient and scary deep frier.




YUM! My very favorite dish of the holidays! I honestly think I ate at least half of those rings. And I like them cold too, so very few of them ever make it into the leftover pile.



The benefit of Florida is the beautiful view from the kitchen window:




The best part of our ride back? The airplane had a raffle and I won $75! It came in a little shot glass and it was probably one of the best airplane rides I've ever had :)



It was COLD in Florida this year and is even colder in Iowa. Honestly, our highs have been negative three. Without the wind chill! And there IS a wind chill! So cold. I hope it's more temperate for all of you!

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Nutty meringue kisses (p. 771)

After all that candy making, I really wanted some cookies. I know that seems totally bizarre but I don't really like candy (actually, I don't really like cookies either) and I wanted something to snack on. Nutty meringue kisses (p. 771) stood out as a good choice. I made meringue kisses in July and they didn't turn out. I mean, they tasted good, but they weren't "kisses", they were more like "discs". I thought I would give it another go. And almost every dessert is better when you add nuts.

This time, I was really careful about separating the yolks and whites and made absolutely sure there was no yolk. I beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt until the egg whites began to form soft peaks. I then added sugar, vanilla, and almond extract. The only thing that differentiated this recipe from the previous time I made it was adding chopped pecans:




The batter was glossy and delicious-looking:



I felt better about them immediately when I was dishing them out onto the parchment paper. They were kisses!! I used a spoon but they would undoubtedly be more attractive if you used a pastry bag.




They were baked at a low heat for a very long time--I think it's more like drying them out than cooking them:



THEY WERE DELICIOUS! They were so good! I made 36 cookies and ate them ALL within 24 hours, which is not normal for me. The meringue kisses are very light and airy. I think the almond extract really added to the flavor too. I recommend using parchment paper because they peeled right off.

As an aside--I always think of cyanide when I use almond extract because it smells like cherries. Thank you Nancy Drew files for that knowledge!

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Bourbon glaze (p. 583) and Steamed broccoli (p. 260)

My father came to visit for the weekend and was supposed to spend a nice weekend with us (drive in Friday, drive home Monday). He got in late Friday, no problem. Saturday he woke up in excruciating pain. It turns out he was running down the street during a blizzard (why? why would you do that?) and slipped, falling hard on his back. I convinced him that we needed to go to the urgent care center, where we spent the next 5-6 hours. It turned out that he had broken a rib and the muscles between his ribs were seizing.

So instead of a weekend of fooling around Colorado, we had a much more relaxed weekend. In fact, we had such a relaxed weekend that we almost didn't move. Poor dad could barely even eat because he was on two different types of muscle relaxers and painkillers. Even so, I decided to try to make a tempting meal to make him feel better.

I had bought a nice spiral-sliced ham at the grocery store and had a nice bottle of Maker's Mark (from making the bourbon balls), so I decided to make a Bourbon glaze (p. 583). The glaze was simple--red wine, bourbon, brown sugar, garlic, and orange zest.



I used my brand-new garlic press I bought from Ideeli. Ideeli is another of my favorite websites. If you like to shop, it's the perfect website. It has deep discounts from designers, which change every day. I LOVE it. My most recent purchase was the Anolon garlic press and a beautiful pot for much cheaper than I've ever seen them before.

I poured the glaze over the ham. It poured like water.




I was not in love with this glaze. It was so thin, it all dripped off! I wasn't very impressed. How was the flavor? Who knows? It all dripped off! I know that it smelled strongly of red wine and not nearly enough like bourbon. I won't bother with that particular glaze again.

Steamed broccoli (p. 260) is another one of those no-brainer recipes.

Chop broccoli, add to the steamer, and steam until done.

From this:



To this:



Done and delicious! I don't understand how so many people hate broccoli when I love it so much!

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Candy making #2: Fruit jellies (p. 878) , Citrus fruit jellies (p. 878), Cream caramels (p. 864), and Bourbon balls (p. 879)

Of course, in my candy making extravaganza, I made several TJOC recipes. Why didn't I make only candy from TJOC instead of other cookbooks? I don't know, I just saw other recipes that looked terrific and I wanted to try them!

I rather randomly sent candy to friends and family, so I hope they comment on these two blogs about the candies. If you didn't get candy and wanted it, I apologize :) It was probably due to me thinking you didn't like candy or wouldn't be home around the holidays--let me know for next time! And I didn't send the whole compliment of candy to everyone because I didn't make that much .

Josh's good friend Jan mentioned that her kids liked gummies. While leafing through TJOC, I noticed a recipe for Fruit jellies (p. 878) and had a feeling that was as close as I was going to get to gummies. The recipe requires 3 cups of strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, or raspberries. I bought frozen strawberries and blackberries and set them out on the counter to thaw. I was under the impression that the bags would be sealed shut.

The next morning, blackberry juice was ALL over my counter. It looked like someone had been murdered and I've never been so grateful my counter wasn't white. It was a huge mess. I spent the first hour cleaning.

Eventually, I cooked down the blackberries until they "released their juice".



I then mashed the blackberry mixture through my new strainer (thank you uncle Derryl!):



It was at this point that I realized I was an idiot. A major idiot. I HATE straining. And the blackberries took FOREVER. Absolutely FOREVER. Plus I only got the minimum amount of puree that was needed for the jellies.


IMPORTANT TIP! TJOC mentions that you should use 4 envelopes of gelatin to get 3 tablespoons. My envelopes each included 1 tablespoon, so I only needed three envelopes. So look and be careful!

I decided to just mix the gelatin into the cup since that's what I measured the puree in to. It was a big error in judgement because the gelatin clumped WAY too much and had to be cut out of the final project. It was so hard that my kitchen shears almost couldn't cut it. In all future versions I used the medium sized bowl that the recipe called for.



While the gelatin was "softening" I started cooking my sugar/water mixture. It went from opaque:



To clear and bubbly:



The gelatin mixture was then added into sugar mixture and cooked:



Eventually it looked like this:



The next day, I popped the fruit jellies out of the pan, which wasn't easy because the jelly was very sticky:




I cut them with my kitchen shears and rolled them in sugar:



I also made a strawberry version of the jellies:



The strawberries were WWWAAAYYY easier to work with. No problem to strain and I got twice as much juice as I needed, so I made two batches. If I was going to make this again, I would use strawberries and blueberries, which are the easiest to juice.


After making three batches of fruit jellies, I decided to just plow ahead and make Citrus fruit jellies (p. 878), which are essentially just the fruit jellies above with citrus juice.

I mixed orange juice with lemon juice and gelatin.



Like above, I cooked the water/sugar mixture until the soft-ball stage and then added the orange juice:



I stirred until dissolved and then got it back up to the correct heat and poured it into the pan:



I finally cut the jellies and rolled them in sugar. I couldn't' find superfine sugar so I just used my normal sugar which is pretty fine to begin with.



The gummies are incredibly sugary. Inside and out. And I don't think they are going to travel well but I was unwilling to wrap all three thousand of them. So I apologize to people for the crushed candy!

I'm also rather sure the kids won't like them--I know when I was a kid, I usually wanted the store-bought version of food, not the homemade (except for Italian food, which was essentially all my family cooked). For example, I detested my grandmother's homemade macaroni and cheese because I wanted the radioactive orange Kraft version.

I'm not sure what motivated me to make Bourbon balls (p. 879). It certainly wasn't because I had bourbon on hand (because I didn't). I think it was because I was thinking of the rum ball cookies that I like and hoping they would be similar (they weren't). I went to the liquor store and stared at the dozens of choices. I really, really wanted to buy the cheapest one. Unfortunately, I knew that the flavor would really come through and I needed good bourbon. So I bought Maker's Mark (and I like the bottle!).



I sifted powdered sugar and cocoa together using my new sifter:



And I mixed bourbon and corn syrup in another bowl. The recipe says you could use bourbon OR rum, but if you used rum, would they really be bourbon balls?



I mixed the cocoa mixture and the bourbon mixture:



I then smashed some Nilla wafers with a mallet and mixed them with chopped pecans and then I mixed the cocoa mixture with it:



And shaped them into balls:



They didn't shape into balls easily and really wanted to fall apart. I kept adding bourbon, so they were pretty stout. And hard as tiny rocks--although rather good. I'm really interested to know what other people think about them.

I had made chocolate cream caramels (and I did it again this time, although I'm not going to detail it because I did it again). I hadn't made Cream caramels (p. 864). The recipe was pretty similar. I mixed sugar, corn syrup, butter, and heavy cream in a pot and then heated it up until the firm-ball stage. Stirring constantly. It took forever.




Boiling caramel is scary! Use a deep pot so it doesn't boil over:



At the very end, another cup of cream was poured in and the mixture was brought back up to temperature. I poured it into a lined disposable pan. I learned from experience that lining the pans was not necessary (that tip came from Brittles, Barks, and Bonbons and was absolutely true).



And wrapped them up cute!



I was afraid they didn't turn out because they felt so hard but they tasted perfect.



Notes on candy making:
There are two types of people that shouldn't make candy.
1. People who hate to measure. Measuring ingredients and watching the temperature is incredibly important.
2. People who are impatient and think "well, I'll just turn up the temperature" or "it surely doesn't need to be stirred all the time" shouldn't make candy.

Disposable pans are terrific. Candy just pops right out!

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Candy post #1--non-TJOC recipes and a PSA for dog owners

So, several years ago I decided to make cookies for a bunch of my friends. I made dozens and dozens of cookies and sent them all over the country. I was so insane about this that I made cookies and sent them out days before having a rib removed and moving to Colorado at the end of 2006.

But I hate baking in Colorado because of the altitude, so I didn't send any cookies out in 2007 or 2008.

This year I started getting passive-aggressive comments from my friends about the lack of cookies, which were both hilarious and annoying. I didn't want to do the cookies again but I realized that I had a new love that I could make instead...candy!

Candy is actually better in Colorado than the midwest because of the low humidity. I thought they would take approximately the same amount of time as the cookies. That was incredibly wrong. They took me at least ten times as much time.

I made many types of candy, half from TJOC and half from other cookbooks. I went to Barnes and Noble and perused their candy-making section. It was four books. Only four books. I bought two of them. I actually bought fifty percent of their candy section. Not even half the titles--half of the books!

The first book I bought was The Field Guide to Candy. I was excited about this book! It was cute and colorful and had information on approximately every candy ever made! I decide to make several candies out of it! I started by making gumdrops.

This is what I ended up with:



That is not a gumdrop, even if you cut it. And it didn't even taste good. I threw it away. I figured it was my fault and made peppermints. An even bigger disaster that almost ruined my saucepan (I didn't even take a picture). DON'T BUY THIS BOOK UNLESS YOU JUST WANT TO LOOK AT THE PICTURES! I had been really excited about making cherry cordials for my father--I had the cherries soaking in kirsch and everything--and I decided not to try because I was not optimistic that they would turn out.

I had much, much better luck with Brittles, Barks, and Bonbons by Charity Ferreira. I made three recipes from it. I'm not going to do a step-by-step because these aren't TJOC recipes :)

Butter mints! I didn't know these little mints were called butter mints but I always take a handful when I see them out at a resturant. They were easy to make and delicious. They also don't require any cooking so they would be a good starter candy.



Peppermint bark is something that I've never been a huge fan of, but it's really easy to make. Believe it or not, I couldn't find candy canes at the grocery store. I certainly couldn't believe it. It always seems like there are hundreds of candy canes everywhere and I get dozens of them for holidays--and I don't even like them! It took a special candy cane pilgrimage to Walgreens (which has a wide selection of candy canes).



As I said, I don't like peppermint bark, so I have no idea how it tastes. But a coworker who loves the stuff said it was tasty. And it sure was pretty!

Rocky Road!



Personally, I love rocky road. And s'mores. I like chocolatey combos. This rocky road was just chocolate, marshmallows, and pecans and it was aaammmmaaazzzing. The book taught me a great trick--don't worry about tempering the chocolate, just melt the chocolate so slowly that it never falls out of temper.

I also made macadamia nut brittle. Incredibly good if you like macadamia nuts, although rather expensive to make.




PSA--I call my dog a little roomba because she is constantly eating everything that falls on the floor. I dropped macadamia nuts and didn't think anything of it. About ten hours later, I went upstairs to go to bed and called Duchess. She didn't follow me. I kept calling her and looked down the stairs and she was staggering up. I went to get her and her back legs weren't working--they were paralyzed. I immediately figured that she had probably eaten something she shouldn't have and I googled and found out that MACADAMIA NUTS ARE TOXIC FOR DOGS. I called the ER and they said that it should pass in 24 hours, just watch her. She was better in 24 hours but it was terrifying--it actually paralyzed her back legs but the poor dog still was wagging her tail :(


Finally, out of my 1964 TJOC, I made Maple caramels:



First off, the recipe was written in (apparently) 60's lingo. I was supposed to cook the candy over a "quick heat" and then cook the ingredients "slowly". Very vague. It took about an hour to get up to temperature. When I popped them out and cut them, they were extremely fragile and granular--I was sure they were wrong. I gave one to my father (who, unfortunately for him, is on the Atkin's diet and couldn't eat any of the candy) and he told me they were perfect--it was an old-fashioned candy and that was exactly what they were supposed to taste like. I found them extremely addictive--they only had four ingredients--maple syrup (spelled sirup, strangely, and the real stuff--very expensive at Whole Foods), brown sugar, cream, and butter.

The table got incredibly full--and this wasn't even all the candy!



Hooray for candy-making!

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Baked sweet potatoes (p. 301) and Baked winter squash II (p. 308)

There are many foods in TJOC that I regularly make but never take a picture of so I can count them off the index. An example of this is Baked sweet potatoes (p. 301). My father gave me a big bag of sweet potatoes and winter squash. The recipe is almost ridiculously easy--poke a few holes in the sweet potato, put it on a potato lined with foil, and pop it in the oven for 45-60 minutes. Delicious and easy!




Another example is Baked winter squash II (p. 308). I love winter squash. Actually, I just love squash, all squash. Growing up in the land of the overproducing squash plants, I was inundated with it growing up, and it only made me love it more. The recipe is amazingly easy. Cut up a winter squash, remove the seeds and strings (I do this with a spoon), add some water, cover with foil, and cook.



Yum! Sweet and delicious. I tend to scoop it out, mash it down, and add butter.

Since this is a nice short post, I will shill a little for one of my favorite charities, Kiva.org




Kiva is a microlender. Essentially, you microfinance people in developing countries--the idea of teaching someone to fish, rather than giving them a fish. I find it extremely rewarding. I donate almost exclusively to agriculturalists (especially pig farmers) and I feel like I am making a (admittedly small) difference. I have donated many, many times and never had anyone default--Kiva's microlenders have something like less than a one percent default rate. Anyone else have any favorite charities this holiday season?

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