Prepping our cookies for the party.
“Ode to Molly Ringwald” Pink Cookies – oh, how I love gold dragees.
Eastman’s “Abe Froman Pancetta Shortbread with Maple Glaze”
Category Archives: eating
Holiday Party Planning for a Cookie Exchange
I honestly try to enjoy Fall for what it is – the transitioning into winter, the falling leaves, late gardening, the colors, pumpkins, costumes, giving thanks. I LOVE Fall, which is probably also why I make myself feel guilty for even slightly thinking about Christmas and winter. This is the time of year I get myself mentally, physically and emotionally charged up for the barrage of Christmas and holiday events including the ones we host here at the Tiu homestead.
Cream Cheese Mango pinwheels
For the last nine years (minus the one when we were building the house) we’ve invited close friends mainly from high school and college to a cookie exchange. It started out innocently, as most things do: Six households probably no more than 12 people. Last year we hosted about 60 people including children, 20 households. It marks the Christmas season for us as we open our home to friends, and it’s the most incredible display of cookie baking, not to mention cameraderie and even a little friendly competition. Each home brought 6 dozen cookies to share and went home with just about the same amount. This Facebook album link is a doorway to our cookie madness that we love so dearly.
One more thing I’d like to share as a free download. It’s my trusty party planning spreadsheet. You type in the date of your party and the spreadsheet fills with start and end dates for different tasks. There’s also a worksheet that will calculate food quantities. It’s in MSExcel for Windows, and you can use it for other types of parties. I’ve used it for bridal showers, dinner parties, brunches, simple gatherings. But, this one is written with our holiday cookie exchange in mind.
Country Style Pork Ribs with Asian style marinade
I think I got this marinade down, finally. It made delicious gravy for the kids to spoon all over their short grain white rice. We served sauteed spinach with garlic on the side. Sorry, no pictures. We ate just about everything, and the leftover wasn’t worth taking a picture. I would think this might work well in a slow cooker, too, but haven’t tried that yet.
Prep time: 15-20 min. / Cook time: 2 hours / Serves 4-6
Marinade
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
- 3 tbsp. Chinese cooking wine or sherry
- 2 tsp. sesame oil
- 2 tsp. minced garlic (I went heavy on the garlic)
- 2 tsp. minced ginger (or 1 tsp. ground ginger)
- 1 tsp. five-spice powder
- 1 tsp. ground white pepper
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 2 lbs. country style pork ribs (boneless or with bone)
Mix all the marinade ingredients and pour over ribs in the baking dish or pan you will cook it in. May need to flip over once. Keep in the refrigerator for at least 4 hrs. I made it in the morning and let it sit all day.
Take meat out of refrigerator 30 min. before cooking. Preheat oven to 300 deg. F. Cover pan tightly with aluminum foil and place in oven for two hours. No peeking. Remove from oven and let rest for 10 min before serving.
Butternut Squash recipes, anyone?
I love this time of year minus some of the unseasonably cold weather. The leaves changing color, falling, autumn harvests, apples… what’s not to like?
So, I looked around for some squash recipes to maybe tantalize my kids into eating some of it. Growing up, my mom would cook up a stew with green beans, squash, onions, garlic and pork. Sometimes ground pork, but usually pork chops without bones and cut into strips. It’d be seasoned with patis (pronounced “pah-teece”), also known as Nam Pla (fish sauce also used in Thai cuisine), and we’d eat it with white, short grain, sticky rice. Mmm. I wonder now what that dish is named. Mom never called it by a name. But, I grew up eating and enjoying squash from an early age, but unfortunately, my family does not. I think my husband tolerates it now.
One time, I tried adding pureed squash into a grilled cheese sandwich as described in Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook. Sorry, that was a big mistake. My kids looked at me like I was out of my mind. I tried it, and it was edible by my standards. Just not the buttery, melty grilled cheese that my kids know. The other night, I peeled it, cut the squash into strips, tossed the strips in a bowl with some olive oil, salt and pepper, then baked them for some “squash fries”. Even at 425 degrees F, in an convection oven, I didn’t quite get the crispness I thought I would. It was still good, and all that was left was enough for one person the next day.
I’d love to hear from others about their squash recipes. I’ve done soup, roasted, pureed, etc. But, until I hear from others, I’ll just keep trolling the sites for more. I’m sure Martha Stewart has something cooking in her (test) kitchens!
Dining at Café Touché
I was so excited that Café Touché, a French bistro, opened nearby. Not that I’m a French food expert by any means, but I do enjoy the cuisine. What was interesting was their inclusion of an Étoufée (Creole or Cajun cuisine) on the specials menu on the evening we went. So, they scored points with me. The restaurant itself made me feel more like I was in the French Quarter with the decor: dark wood, artwork.
We ordered the Steak Tartare which came with chips and toast. Steak Tartare is beef, raw and finely chopped. I was a little hesitant at first, but hey, I eat sashimi and sushi. How far off could this be? It was delicious. Smooth, cold, lightly seasoned. And, no, no one got a tummyache, thank you.
I went for the Salad Frisee Lyonnaise and Etouffee Touche (chicken, andouille sausage and shrimp) for my meal. Eastman went with the Pouillon Paillard which was perfect because I was eyeing that too. Sometimes, my eyes are just too big for my stomach. Really, I could be so overweight?! But that’s another story for another time. The poached egg on my salad was perfect – something I haven’t quite mastered at home. And, my etouffee came deconstructed. If you haven’t had etouffee, it’s like stew. Comfort foodish. It was mouthwatering-yummy, andouille had just enough heat.
As we were finishing up our dinner, a couple came by in their vintage car. I’m terrible at identification, so someone else will have to tell me about this cool looking car. Hope that couple enjoyed their dinner as much as we did.
Making homemade potstickers
As a person living in an Asian household and cooking Asian food, there are some must-haves in the kitchen like a rice cooker with a steamer attachment, a hefty bag of short grain rice (in our case we have three different kinds), a wok, soy sauce, you get the picture. But egg roll wrappers or dumpling wrappers, we usually buy those from the Asian market. Until one day… we got the itch to roll out our own wrappers after watching Anita Lo (Top Chef Masters) make some. It’s only water, flour and salt. Oh, correction, HOT water. We used cornstarch to dust the rolling pins, surface and our hands.
Abby thought it’d be fun to help. Thank goodness Ollie was napping. (Yeah, look at my man’s guns there.)
Anita Lo makes it look so easy on television! I didn’t feel so bad, though, when Bobby Flay tried making some on one of his “Throwdown” shows (dumpling recipe here).
Note the “store bought” skins in the background. That was for insurance in case we totally botched up the recipe. As it was, it turned out pretty well. We have to work on our technique, but we did use the ready made skins for the extra meat filling we had leftover.
I’d share our filling recipe, except we don’t have one that’s completely documented or consistent, yet. Just know that we use ground pork, napa cabbage, sesame oil, salt and pepper. I’m sure I’ll update this with a proper recipe sooner or later.
