Holiday Party Planning for a Cookie Exchange

Posted on November 21, 2009 by Juliet Tiu

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.Â 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

Posted on November 11, 2009 by Juliet Tiu

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?

Posted on October 26, 2009 by Juliet Tiu

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?

Squash, we love squash Peeling the Butternut Squash

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.Â 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!

Making homemade potstickers

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Juliet Tiu

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.

Bachelorette Party Cookies

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Juliet Tiu

I was inspired by a friend and thought these would be a great addition to my sister-in-law’s bachelorette party. The first pair are probably my favorites. Black patent leather via gel icing, and the pink one is my attempt at funky lace.

These yellow ones are really fun. Just get creative with royal icing, or ready-made icing and gel icing from the grocery store. I tried to use a few sprinkles here and there, too.

Sisters-in-law partying

Needless to say, they were well received, and they tasted pretty good too!

Finding THE Donut Shop – Dynamo Donut

Posted on September 17, 2009 by Juliet Tiu

We were really thrilled to find Dynamo Donut and Coffee in San Francisco. And it’s all because of the Apple Maple Bacon Donut. I don’t know who was more excited, me or my husband? The kids had fallen asleep while we were driving around half-aimlessly (we had a GPS in the car) in completely unknown territory. I felt like we were in the Pacific Northwest, not sure if it was because of the artsy storefronts, the small kitschy-ness of the vendors in the area. I don’t know. All I know is that I really liked it.

So, we’re driving, and the GPS is beeping at us telling us we were at our destination, and I look around totally confused. Then my husband says something like, “There it is!”

“Where?!”

“There!! The green awning!”

“Cool!” We pull in and then we figure out how many donuts we should buy. How goofball am I for standing out there taking pictures of the facade like a starstruck fan?

As I’m waiting my turn at the counter, I realize they don’t have the bacon donut. All out! Hmm. So I strike up a conversation with the man behind the counter, who is really funny in a subdued sort of way, and he tells me not to hold it against them that they’ve run out. “There are plenty of tasty donuts here still!” and I believed him, of course. What’s not to love about donuts that are made by hand, cut by hand, fried in a small fryer by a person… it’s all good.

I mentioned that we saw them on Food Network (again) and he said, “Oh, man, ever since that airing, it’s been nuts around here, ” and with a grin he says, “Man, I wish people would leave us alone.”

Even though we didn’t get to sample the bacon donut, we did walk away with a green tea and a half dozen donuts: cherry buttermilk, monte cristo (complete with ham bits!), and chocolate rose. I could only imagine what they might have tasted like fresh out of the kitchen, but they were still delicious. Crisp, nice flavors, fluffy on the inside, not too sugary sweet… I’ll definitely be looking for more handmade/homemade donuts around the Chicago area.

So This is Julie

Make | Create | Cook

Tag Archives: cooking