November party post 5: Miniature quiches (p. 90), Cream cheese dough (p. 666), Miniature tartlet shells or turnovers (p. 90), and Miniature turnovers with caramelized onions and blue cheese (p. 91)

I recommend starting with my November party post 1.  Essentially, I had a big party, cooked a ton of stuff, and need to get the posting on the party finished (especially considering it's nine months later!).

What's better for a party than Miniature quiches (p. 90) made with Miniature tartlet shells or turnovers (p. 90)?  The dough was really easy to make.  I prepared the Cream cheese dough (p. 666). First, I whisked together flour and salt and then added butter and cream cheese.  

It went from this:

To this:

I wrapped the dough in plastic wrap and left it overnight.  This is one of those recipes that you need to think about the night before since the dough takes a night to cure:

The next day I formed some of the dough into little balls (they look like cookies!):

I didn't have a mini muffin pan (I do now but I didn't back then) so these quiches had to be muffin sized (which is still pretty small).  I spread the dough into the cup, which was much more difficult than it seems like it would be:

I baked the shells (as you can see, they got a little overcooked):

I filled the shells with a mixture of eggs, heavy cream, Parmesan, shallot, salt, pepper, and ham.  My thinking was that ham is one of those things that almost everyone likes so it would be a good choice.  I think ham and broccoli would have been even better!

The quiches were popped in the oven:

These were absolutely delicious!  They were also surprisingly filling.  I think these would be a great item to make and eat for breakfast on the go.  Even so, with a lighter hand, these could be interesting and elegant and perfect for any appetizer meal.

I used that same dough to make Miniature turnovers with caramelized onions and blue cheese (p. 91). I love blue cheese but I hate caramelized onions so I thought this would good to make when I had other people to feed.  I sauteed onion, olive oil, and salt in a skillet, and added it to blue cheese, walnuts, and rosemary:

I rolled out the dough and cut it in to circles.  I filled each circle with some of the filling and folded them in half.

After they went through the oven, they looked like this:

These were a HUGE hit.  There is something very fancy about the combination of rosemary, caramelized onions, and blue cheese and the sweetness of the onions cut through the strength of the blue cheese.  These turnovers were actually really easy to make--I really recommend making them.

The dough was tasty, too!  The cream cheese gave the dough a little acidic kick that I really liked and the dough came together much easier than the dough made with only butter.  Has anyone else made both these doughs?  What did you think?

Scallion and mushroom soup (p. 145)

Scallion and mushroom soup (p. 145) is a challenge to write about because it wasn't very interesting.

TI beat butter until it was fluffy and added scallions:

Seemed like a strange step

 I added salt and pepper and cooked it for about ten minutes (so, really, just cooking the scallions in a ton of butter):

I removed the pot from the heat and added flour and chicken stock:

It was simmered for about ten minutes:

I added thinly sliced mushrooms:

I used the immersion blender and blended the whole thing (sooooo much easier than using the sieve that TJOC recommends).  I also added some cream (making it a "cream of" soup).  The soup was not an attractive color:

I added some more of the thinly sliced mushrooms:

It was okay.  It required a TON of salt to bring out the flavors, and, even then, was pretty bland.  I like cream of mushroom soup quite a bit but button mushrooms are not the most delicious and scallions don't really add that much.  Maybe with more black pepper and salt and a ton of garlic, the soup could be improved.  Then again, it's possible that not everybody is as obsessive as I am about soup.  Has anyone else made this recipe?  How do you feel about cream soups?

Vanilla coconut shrimp (p. 388)

Okay, so Vanilla coconut shrimp (p. 388) just sounded horrible but I was optimistic that, with an open mind, it would be surprisingly good.  Also, I can't believe I'm over a year behind on blog posts--that will be rectified and will never happen again!

I sauteed some shallots in olive oil.  Quite a bit of olive oil, actually.  I added white wine and a vanilla bean with the guts scraped out (the guts of the vanilla bean are the little dots you see in vanilla bean ice cream).  I really hoped this was going to be an amazing recipe because vanilla beans are expensive.

The vanilla bean

Shallots, wine, and the bean

Once that concoction was reduced by half, I added chicken stock, coconut milk, fresh ginger, salt, and pepper:

This simmered until it was reduced by half again.  At this point I added the shrimp:

Hmmmm....not looking so delicious:

Why is the coconut milk separating?

 I added some chopped basil to the top and ate it over rice:

Just as horrifying as I expected it to be.  The coconut milk and shrimp are a delicious tried and true combination but the vanilla bean just added a horrible, desserty flavor that I detested.  A total waste of a delicious vanilla bean, although the recipe was ultra-easy.    

Random facts:

• Vanilla comes from a type of orchid (Wikipedia)
• It wasn't until a 12 year old slave figured out how to hand-pollinate the vanilla flower than the spice could be globally cultivated (Wikipedia)
• The word "vanilla" comes from the word vaina from the Latin "vagina".  Yes, that's right.  Now you have a great piece of trivia to dazzle your friends (Wikipedia)

Pita salad (Fattoush) (p. 159)

I had a good feeling about Pita salad (Fattoush) (p. 159) because I really like pita bread.  I'm not a big salad eater.  I want to be.  I really want to love salad.  But I don't.  

I started by tossing cucumber and salt in a colander and leaving it to drain for a half hour:

I also split some pitas and baked them until crisp:

I whisked together olive oil, lemon juice, a crushed garlic clove, salt, and black pepper.  The dressing was good, nicely spiced.  I'm sure I used more garlic than I was supposed to, I always do.

I mixed tomatoes, romaine lettuce, scallions, parsley, cilantro, and mint in a bowl:

And tossed it with the dressing.  The pita chips were added to the top and it was done!

The salad was easy and very tasty.  I like a crunch in a salad (I notice that they really care about texture on the cooking shows but I don't usually pay a whole lot of attention to that--even so, the crunch is nice in salad).  The dressing was perfect, although I would have liked to add some olives or feta or something briny.  I've never had fattoush before this--anyone have any experience with the dish?  Does this seem similar?

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Pizza dough (p. 607) and Focaccia (p. 607)

I'm not sure what motivated me to make Pizza dough (p. 607) other than I wanted to make a bread recipe and pizza sounded good.  I usually just buy my pizza dough at Whole Foods because I hated baking at high altitude.  And Whole Foods has good pizza dough! 

(I know these posts are super late so I'm not going to backdate them.  Look forward to a lot of posts all at once)

I mixed water and yeast:

Yeasty!

I added flour, olive oil, and salt.  I omitted the sugar because I don't like my pizza dough sweet (does anyone?):

I mixed it by hand for a minute:

And started kneading.  TJOC always recommends kneading for what I think is way too long.  I kneaded until it looked good:

At this point I separated the dough into three sections because I was only going to make pizza with part of it, I was going to make Focaccia (p. 607).  I covered all the dough so that it could rise. 

It went from this: 

To this: 

   I punched it down, rolled it into a ball, and let it rise for another 10 minutes.  I flattened the ball, stretched it, brushed it with olive oil, and made a pizza!  I never use pizza stones but some people swear by them.  I would love to know your experiences in the comments....

It was really good although no better than the pizza dough from Whole Foods!  So I don't know if I would bother with it in the future.  You all know my theory--if it's not better or cheaper homemade than I might as well just buy it.  Your time is worth something, right?

I like focaccia but almost never buy it.  I took the pizza dough, rolled it out, and put it in a baking dish.  

Well, actually two dishes.  They were let raise in the pans.

I topped mine with garlic, olives, and spices!

I topped moms with mushrooms, garlic, and tomatoes:

I wish you could have smelled how terrific these were when they were cooked:

Focaccia is totally worth making.  Honestly, it was delicious and easy.  And I'm sure you could make it with store-bought pizza dough if you didn't want to make it from true scratch.  I even think mom froze some of it and ate it later and that totally worked.  Has anyone else made focaccia?  How did it turn out?

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I need your advice!

First of all--I promise I'm not dead and I have a TON of posts backlogged that I still need to post.  They haven't been posted due to a complicated problem caused by my laptop, my external hard drive, and my internet, but I really need to solve the problem.  I haven't been cooking much because I've been depressed and cooking for one is lame but I am feeling so much better and that makes me want to cook!  I'm even thinking of throwing a dinner party.

But my new kitchen and apartment=tiny.  Any hints for cooking in a small space?  I'm not used to it.

And most importantly--how do you like the new look of this blog?  I need comments!  Is it too busy and impersonal?  Is it more attractive?  LET ME KNOW! 

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November party part 4: Tea vodka (p. 58), Joy tea (p. 58), Mai tai (p.61), and Planter's punch (p. 66)

Those of you who know me in real life know how much I like to infuse vodka myself--infused vodka makes the best cocktails.  In fact, I was recently told that if I ever need to write a dating profile, I should lead off with my love of vodka infusion (hopefully I never will have to write a dating profile!).  I always use cheap vodka when I test an infusion out because if it's bad I don't want to waste good vodka (and I have had them go bad before [when I say that something "went bad" I always imagine it in a little leather jacket smoking a cigarette and skipping class]).  So feel free to mock my vodka choice, I won't feel bad.

I love iced tea so I was excited to try to try the Tea vodka (p. 58).

I used good Earl Gray tea and dropped a quarter cup of tea leaves into the bottle:

There were a lot of tea leaves in there:

I left the vodka for a couple of days.  Eventually, after I transferred it into another bottle, it looked like this:

So good.  It was absolutely delicious.  I've made it a couple times since then, with good vodka, and it's incredible.  It's a winner with everyone.  I gave Kristin the leftover tea vodka when I moved and she loved it.    

I mixed the tea vodka with water and sugar syrup to make Joy tea (p. 58).  Imagine a picture of a cocktail here because I forgot to take a picture.  Imagine it with the appropriate garnishes, in the appropriate glass, because I'm sure that's what it looked like (rrriiiggghhhttt).  Soooo good.  I don't even like sweet tea normally but this was awesome.  It's also delicious with fresh mint.

I also made a Mai tai (p.61).  I shook dark rum, light rum, curacao, orgeat, grenadine, and lemon juice with ice and then strained it into a mug (rather than an old fashioned glass.  I can only explain this by saying I was drinking a lot by this point).



What a hideous concoction.  I thought mai tais were white.  Although of course it was muddy when it had dark rum, grenadine, and my blue curacao in it.  It was tasty although I just had a sip because I'm allergic to some rums and it's not worth risking it for anything other than a mojito.  Certainly ugly though.

And onto one of my favorite items off this party.  I know most of you like when I fail at cooking endeavors, so this should make you happy.  There are so many punch recipes in TJOC.  I actually dread most of them because they are so expensive to make but I thought "I'm having several people over, perfect time for punch".  I settled on Planter's punch (p. 66) because I've always liked it in the past.

I mixed pineapple juice, orange juice, and light rum.  So far so good.  Attractively orange.  But...dark rum?  Okay...now it's muddy.  It was at this point that I made an idiotic mistake.  Instead of using nice clear Triple Sec, I added blue curacao.  The planter's punch was vaguely the color of swampwater.  I added the lemon juice and sugar syrup.  And then I added a half cub of grenadine, which didn't improve anything.

Look how hideous this punch is:

 Wow.  Perfect for that swamp party you've been thinking of throwing.  Or a Halloween party.  And maybe St. Patrick's Day.  Not particularly appetizing to me.  Fortunately, most of us didn't particularly care.  It was certainly tasty (nice fruity kick) and not nearly as strong as the delicious champagne punch.  I just wish it hadn't been a dirty green.

Making punch is more rewarding now that I have a punch bowl (it also works as a cake dome).

I think this might be the strangest picture of me ever taken:




I decided to add a hat aspect to the party, not knowing that some of my friends have a TON of hats.  I, wisely, decided on the mangy rabbit ears.  Also, I don't know why my apron wasn't tied, it's not very flattering like that--I would imagine the reason is the drink in my hand.  Fun times!

November Party Part 3: Curried apricot chutney (p. 950) and Chutney cheese spread (p. 76)

Make sure to read the first two posts on the November party!  Sadly, I think I have about four more posts to go on this party--I REALLY cooked a lot of food.

 I made Curried apricot chutney (p. 950) but since I wanted to use it immediately I made a few changes and didn't bother with the canning aspect.  

I simmered water, dried apricots, onion, and sugar for a half hour:

In another pan I cooked cider vinegar, ginger, curry powder (I used up all of my homemade curry powder--I need to make more), and a cinnamon stick.  I didn't bother with the canning salts because I wasn't going to can the chutney--I just added some regular salt:

I removed the cinnamon stick and added the vinegar mixture to the apricot mixture, stirring in golden raisins: 

It was delicious!  And easy.  It didn't have the 5000 ingredients of the tropical chutney.  I wish I had more exciting stuff to say about this dish but I my brain isn't totally powered on.  I would make it again, which I can't say about all recipes.

Chutney cheese spread (p. 76) sounded good.  Instead of mango chutney (which I would be severely allergic to) I used the apricot chutney I had just made.  I mixed chutney with cream cheese:

I sprinkled walnuts on the top and called it a day.  It was delicious.  I love cream cheese spreads and the chutney had a nice sweetness to it.  I really like chutney but I think it's under-appreciated by Americans.  Tell me, do you eat chutney?  Can I work chutney into this paragraph a few more times?  

November party post 2: Waldorf salad (p. 169), Carrot and raisin salad (p. 166), Texas caviar (p. 73), and Rosemary pecan butter (p. 179)

This is the second post in a series so make sure to read Post 1 (especially if you like whipped fish [and who doesn't]!).

I hate Waldorf salad (p. 169). I always have. In fact, I hate it so much that it amazes me that anyone likes it. But people must like it because it's everywhere.

Like all Waldorf salads, I mixed celery, apples, walnuts, and grapes with mayonnaise. *Gag*

Why would anyone voluntarily eat fruit covered in mayonnaise? Look, I like mayonnaise, but that's just going too far. TJOC recommended that you can include marshmallows too--that's horrifying. It tasted just like it looks--crunchy things covered in mayo. If you like Waldorf salad, I would love for you to explain why in the comments. Please.

Texas caviar (p. 73) is one of those items that I had seen on menus before but never ordered. To be honest, I had no idea what was actually in it. It turns out that I don't like real caviar and I don't really like Texas caviar either.

I combined black eyed peas, pimientos, jalapenos, tomatoes, garlic, bell pepper, scallions, parsley, oregano, cilantro, Tabasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, and some vinaigrette:

This recipe makes a TON of food so make sure you have a crowd. I don't really like bean salads but it was a pretty solid salad if you're into that. The vinaigrette really soaked into everything and it was nicely flavored. This is one of those dishes that gets better the longer it sits so if you are going to make it for a party, make it a day or two early.

Carrot and raisin salad (p. 166) is a strange recipe. I combined grated carrots, raisins, pecans, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, and pepper, and tossed that with sour cream and mayonnaise:

It was certainly a simple recipe but, again, I don't understand all the mayonnaise love in the salad chapter of TJOC. I don't really like raisins in savory dishes but that's a personal thing. It was a sweet salad and it would be a good choice if you were going to a potluck and wanted to bring something a little different.

Rosemary pecan butter (p. 179) sounded interesting. I kind of like the idea of savory nut butters (yeah, yeah ::insert innuendo here::) as a spread that's a little different than the norm and I really like rosemary.

I combined toasted pecan pieces, cold butter, rosemary, and brown sugar in my food processor:

Certainly easy. It was good. The rosemary went really well with the pecans. It was particularly tasty on my bagel the next day. I always have trouble with spreads because I can never tell exactly what you are supposed to spread them on--crackers? Bread? Veggies? I think I overthink these things.

There are many more posts coming up about this party so keep checking!