Pesach

When I think back on the Passovers when I was a kid, I remember dread. Long unending night, too much time sitting at a table without eating, dread at always being the youngest therefore required to ask questions.
As an adult I try and make passover a celebration, a Jewish thanksgiving, and a raucous good time.
Last year I had 8 people altogether, one other of whom was Jewish. So I like to incorporate the traditional elements to a more seamless meal/ experience instead of a series of rituals. Probably completely wrong to many people. For me it gets a large group more involved, more excited, more ready to be involved in telling the story, which captures the point a bit better from my perspective. Albeit unkosher and unorthodox.
Last years meal:
Roasted goat shanks over sweet potatoes and onion in a mole sauce (homemade from scratch, no recipe. I was pleased)
Horseradish was incorporated into sour cream
Charoset of green apples soaked in tequila with cinnamon, cumin, garlic, jalapenos, cilantro and red onion.
I served traditional as well with red apples, red wine, cinnamon, and pecans.
This year its going Mediterranean, so we'll see how it turns out! 7-14 people slated to come and still haven't finalized my menu. Hopefully this year I can take pictures of the food before its all eaten up...

A chrismukkah tradition

The Sacrilege. Its a concoction my brother and I dreamed up independently and then refined over phone calls. After years of discussion and laziness, I finally made it when my mother came to visit for the holidays.

Latkes are the traditional Hannukah fare, eggs Benedict was a Christmas morning tradition on the years we happened to visit my older brother (he's Christian, my other brother and I are Jewish). This recipe is heavily unkosher basically to the point of blasphemy.

To make a perfect latke:

NEVER LISTEN TO A RECIPE THAT USES POTATO FLOUR

1 Russet potato
1/2 large yellow onion or 1 whole small one
1 large egg
Safflower oil (this is a must! The only exception can be Saffola oil which is an acceptable safflower/ canola blend)
1 clove of garlic to season the oil
Salt
(I sometimes add a dash of pepper and a shaking of Lawry's season salt to the mix as well)

Crack an egg into a mixing bowl. Dice the onion. Discard the peel then grate the potato over paper towels or cheesecloth. Squeeze out the excess moisture from the potato. Add shredded potato to the egg, add the diced onion. Mix well. Shake in a smattering of salt and add any other seasonings. Mix again.
Heat the oil in a large frying pan. When hot add slices of garlic. When the garlic starts to turn golden, push it to the side. Add pancake sized dollops of potato mix to the oil. Fry until golden brown, flip, fry some more. Remove to paper towels. Add more salt. Done with the perfect latke!

For the meats:
Heat the oven to 400. layer enough bacon and Canadian bacon to satisfy you. At least 2 pieces of Canadian bacon per latke-eggs-Benedict. Sprinkle with maple sugar, if desired. Cook until nice and crispy.

Poach enough eggs for people being served.

For the hollandaise:
1 egg yolk
1/3 cup of cold butter cut into pieces
juice from about half a lemon
a dash of pepper
(i like to add marjoram as well)

If you have a double boiler use it. I don't so I used a steel mixing bowl over a small sauce pan of water. Get the water to sustain just under a boil. Add the yolk to the mixing bowl, start whisking. While whisking add butter piece by piece until its all incorporated. Slowly add the lemon juice while whisking. Add seasoning.

Assemblage:
lay down your latke
add 2 pieces of canadian bacon
top with poached egg
drizzle with holandaise
top with crumbled regular bacon pieces
top with finely chopped chives or green onions

Serve with blood orange mimosas or in our case spiked apple cider. Best Brunch Ever.

Summer comfort

I've been in a bit of a cooking slump lately with traveling and working and the like. But after a day off and some opening shifts I had enough time to actually buy some groceries. Yay!

Rosemary Potato Bake

As titled, I needed some comfort food. And for me that more often than not means high caloric and/ or starch content. You're welcome.






You'll need:
Bacon
Yukon gold potatoes
Rosemary (I used dried, I had it on hand. I'm sure fresh would be better but...)
Parmesan (I buy a chunk and grate it, its got more flavor to me that way)
Paprika (I prefer to use a combination of regular Hungarian sweet paprika and Spanish smoked paprika for depth)
Salt (I like iodized sea salt)
Black Pepper
Cheddar Cheese, or some such mix
Franks Red Hot Wing Sauce (I'm sure substituting other hot sauces would be fine)
Sour Cream
Green Onions

French onion bowls or some such bake ware depending on the size. I made 2 french onion soup bowls worth...

Preheat oven to 450. Cook bacon until nice and crispy. Reserve 1 Tablespoon bacon grease per bowl or 4 diced potatoes. Scrub and cube the Yukon's. Toss in bacon grease till lightly coated. Shake in about 5 shakes of smoked Paprika, 3 shakes sweet paprika, a light dusting of sea salt, and a light dusting of pepper per dish. Crumble in about 2 teaspoons of rosemary per dish. Add in 1/2 the bacon, finely chopped and a good coating of shredded Parmesan. Toss nicely until evenly coated and dispersed. Put in the oven for 40 minutes or until the potatoes are mostly cooked. Remove from the oven. Switch oven over to broil. Add a swirl of hot sauce/wing sauce and toss. Add a coating of cheddar cheese, or in my case Mexican blend cheddar and jack, an additional swirl of wing sauce. Broil for 10 minutes or so. Remove add a dollop of sour cream, a sprinkling of diced green onions, and a sprinkling of bacon pieces.

I served mine with a summer salad for the guilt and some white wine. Its probably better with a poached egg on top and a bloody Mary as brunch.


Summer Salad

What you'll need
Wild Rocket (or any arugula/ salad blend)
Cherry/pear tomato medley (mine were local from majestic farms, slightly under ripe which helped a bit)
Parmesan
Onion (i used white probably better with red but it doesn't take much so what you have on hand should be fine)
Balsamic vinaigrette

In a bowl rip/ shredded arugula medley into small fork sized bites. Dice the cherry tomatoes and add to the top. Lightly sprinkle with salt and pepper. Eat a few, they taste so good. Finely slice onions into thin rings. Give the thin rings a rough dice. add to the top. Pour on a small circle of balsamic vinaigrette. Top with shredded Parmesan. Chill. Toss everything just before serving.

Like I said, this wasn't the healthiest meal. But it was definitely a hearty/ satisfying one!

Summer Drinks

It had been a long week. Too many hours of work, followed by too few of sleep. My friend's boyfriend called her to say he was having people over. Loud people. Raucous folk. Nice but not so nice when you work at 6am forty minutes away. She called me. And it became a Mamma Mia night.

Mamma Mia nights are nights that I feel bad for those anywhere within our vicinity who have ears that work. Did you know that DVD comes with a sing along version. My neighbors do....

We drink girly drinks, watch a girly movie (often a couple of times), and end up feeling refreshed the way you do with vodka, carefree singing, and good friends who don't judge.


Raspberry Vodka Limeade
Fresh farmer's market Raspberries
Vodka any will do we used Smirnoff
Simply Limeade

Throw a bunch of raspberries in a glass/ about two tablespoons. Add vodka in our case a generous double. Muddle the raspberries with the vodka. Pour limeade over the top. Stir.

We first made these one Mamma Mia night with raspberry vodka instead and after much experimentation that yielded beautiful but bitter concoctions, this one was a delight. I like the farmers market version much better but both are tasty. A home infusion might be next though.


When the limeade ran out we had to move on and so came


Pineapple raspberry sparklers
Farmer's market Raspberries
Pineapple Juice
Sparkling white wine
Grenadine

Two Tablespoons of Raspberries together with a splash of pineapple juice. Muddle. Fill the glass up with about 1/3-1/2 way with pineapple juice. Pour in the grenadine, slowly as not much is needed, around the glass. Top off the glass with the sparkling wine.

They were very refreshing to drink, although the grenadine can be left out if you prefer. We were drunk and the grenadine seemed to go with our fun, girly evening. It really did make for a good night. But not the best photo quality.

The Taste

So today is the last day of The Taste of Chicago. Its a food festival where a lot of Chicago restaurants have booths so you can sample their wares, lots of product promotions occur, and on occasion a vendor or two.

As always I made it out specifically for Vee Vee's African cuisine. They have a curried goat with fried plantains dish that is so tender and delectable that it makes the Taste worth it for me. Sure the Taste has its naysayers citing lots of children, too many people, not great prices, the heat - all of which is valid. But Vee vees....


One of the first times I went to the taste was with my then boyfriend. I was feeling nostalgic for home having just missed an annual summer festival that always celebrated making it through another year. We had vee vees for the first time, had a little shark kabob, enjoyed the summer, the beer, the fancy dining/ famous chef stand thats been done away with in recent years, and made our way to this lone jewelery stand by the Buckingham fountain. The product looked so familiar that I asked the vendor if he ever works festivals in California, he said yes, I asked him about my home summer festival Whole Earth. Sure enough it was the same vendor, Sean's Celtic Creations! He was excited to have someone recognize his product halfway across the country and I was excited for the reminder of home. I left with a ring, courtesy of the then boyfriend. It was a wonderful, carefree, joy of a day.

Later my cat would knock the ring down the sink in the two seconds I left it on the counter then turned back for it. An omen?

The Taste always brings back that summer festival joy and really I just love goat.

Castle Rock

When I was a kid I hated milk and cheese. I would wait for my dad to leave the breakfast table, dump the milk in the sink, and go back to the table pretending I drank it. I eventually figured out I do ok with skim milk and goat cheeses, although I never really minded pizza or lasagna. But it did take years before I would order a cheeseburger. What the hell was I thinking?


Castle Rock Organic Farms in Wisconsin has a cheese that is just so ridiculously good. Its a spinach, leek, garlic raw milk cheese that is absolutely phenomenal. Its packed with flavor and goes great on sandwiches or just with tomatoes. Every bite reminds me that while I probably would have hated every component as a kid, I was just so wrong!!