Eating in St. Louis

This weekend my husband and I went to visit friends in St. Louis. Not to bore you with details of my mini-break, I'll simply tell you about a few of the delectable things we ate.

After arriving late (thanks to my blunder not leaving enough time to check our bags and being bumped on standby, twice), our friends D & A took Big N and I to a charming Scottish pub called the Scottish Arms. I had lamb shank with Bubble & Squeek (potatoes), A had the Steak & Stilton Pasty, and Big N, had the Sheppherd's Pie. But by far the winner of the evening was the Cock-a-Leekie pie that D ordered, a take on chicken pot pie with creamy soup, leeks, and puff pastry sealing in all the steamy goodness. It was delicious, and warmed the belly in the 25 degree St. Louis weather.

Night 2 we ate at a hip restaurant called Niche. The chef there is Gerard Craft (voted by Food & Wine this year as a best new chef). We each ordered the tasting menu. Winners on that menu were the scallops with popcorn jous, the "Reuben", which consisted of Rye flavored gnocchi, pickled cabbage, and beef tongue, and the lamb sous-vide with cauliflower puree. For dessert we had a the coconut kulfi, a first for me. I'm told that "kulfi" is a type of ice cream made from sweetened condensed milk. This one had a toasty coconut vanilla flavor. Needless to say it was rich but fantastic. Sweetened condensed milk tastes better than chocolate to me. We all enjoyed every one of the five courses, which were just the right portion size, however it was the sorbet served before the final course that especially caught my attention. The flavor was granny smith apple with rosemary. It was a beautiful shade of frosty green, was nice and thick, and had almost a minty apple quality to it. Wonderful. Both A and I decided to try to duplicate the recipe in our respective kitchens and report back. More on that to come.

Despite the cold, we had a wonderful time in St. Louis. We especially enjoyed D's home made Chai lattes. D made them by adding carefully measured quantities of cinnamon stick, cardamon pods, clove, and black peppercorns and mixed them up in his mortar and pestle. He added the spices to water flavored with fresh ginger, let those boil for a while, and finished it all off with black tea and milk. The chai made my belly warm and soothed my aching lungs. I will be sure to make D's chai concoction in our home this winter.

Thanksgiving: Monday

Last night began my week of Thanskgiving preparations. I came home from a weekend trip to visit friends in St. Louis with bronchitis. Determined not to let my illness and germs affect my Thanksgiving holiday, I hightailed it to my doctor and asked for the heavy meds. I also asked the nurse for a face mask so I can cook without worrying about hacking germs into my bisque. By last night I was feeling better and ready to cook.
Went grocery shopping and picked up all the fixin's. Last night I started things off by making Acorn Squash Bisque, minus the cream, which I will add on T-day. The bisque came out a little chunky, having used just my stick blender, so tonight I will pour it into my blender in batches to try to thin it out, and if that doesn't work I'll press it through my chinois to get it nice and creamy.
Tonight I'll make the ginger-cranberry chutney and buttermilk biscuit rounds to freeze until I can pop them into my oven on T-day. I'll also press my table cloths, polish my silverware, and set up the tables.
One last minute substitution to note. I was planning to make a pumpkin layer cake, but decided that every time I make something for dessert with pumpkin, my family usually neglects it and goes for the store bought cream pies instead. This year I'm giving up all pumpkin pretense and have decided to make triple chocolate cheesecake (with creamy chocolate ganache on top) along with my apple crumb pies for dessert. This year the pumpkin will be implied.

Thanksgiving Preparations

My husband and I invited our families over to see our new home for Thanksgiving. So it'll be the first time we're "entertaining" and I plan to go big. 25 guests, 4,000 blessed calories for each of them is my goal! Typtophan be damned. The best part is I get to do my favorite thing: PLAN!

So here's my Thanksgiving week plan:
Monday: grocery shopping, start thawing my bird (if frozen is the best I can find)
Tuesday: make the Acorn Squash Bisque, set the tables, assign seating, freeze raspberries and mint leaves in adorable fish-shaped ice cube trays from Ikea
Wednesday: start brining the bird, make the pumpkin layer cake, prepare bread and vegetables for stuffing, make the ginger-cranberry chutney, purchase and arrange flowers for center pieces, make fruity ice tea
Thursday: beer-braised brisket in my dutch oven by 9:00 a.m.; complete the stuffing and stuff my bird, place bird with roasting vegetables in the oven by 10:00 a.m., make Dutch Apple pie, make a vegetable (either artichoke heart casserole or cauliflower gratin of some sort), make buttermilk biscuits, heat the Bisque, find time to shower, greet arriving guests, collect the green bean casserole, jello mold, and mashed potatoes from my aunts and step-mother and arrange in serving dishes--lovely, uncork the wine, greet more guests, set up the buffet with my new chafing dishes, and serve the soup garnished with croutons and truffle oil, then wow them with my Thanksgiving extravaganza.
Thursday night- awake from food coma and clean up
Friday: recover, maybe make a Turkey/cranberry sandwich with leftovers, if I can stand to eat any more.

I love the holidays.

Halloween: Caramel Apples

My brother threw a raging Halloween bash this weekend. Mostly it was a ruse to provide him with a means to propose to his lovely girlfriend (now fiance). For my part I decided to bring candied caramel apples.

I went a little crazy loading up on candy including caramel, apples, oreos, butterfingers, toffee, Reese's peanut butter chips, chocolate chips, white and dark chocolate. After covering the apples in thick caramel, I rolled them in crushed candy and cookies in various combinations, then drizzled the apples with melted milk and white chocolate. The result was a coma inducing sugar fest. The Halloweeners were quite pleased, though I have to say they were a bit too chunky.

Notes for future attempts: buy enough caramel to allow for dippage all the way to the stick, and crush the candies in my food processor. Lazy me.

Failed Attempt: Cheesy Churriscaria Rolls

This weekend my cooking adventure was to try to duplicate the delicious cheesy doughy goodness dinner rolls that I've devoured at the local churriscaria. The restaurant itself is so-so, but the cheese dough balls are to die for. I fantasize about having these rolls daily-- opening the flaky crust and digging out the warm gooey center. Heavenly.

So I started with a simple choux (1 cup flour, 4 eggs, 1 cup water), the same kind of dough used for profiteroles. I added fresh thyme and parsley, and grated in pecorino and gruyere, plus salt of course. I baked for 40 minutes at 400 and the result was tasty, but the texture wasn't quite right. The crust was flaky and slightly crunchy, but the inside was too eggy, and not nearly enough doughy goodness. Alas, weekend craziness did not permit another attempt, but I intend to nail these by Thanksgiving.

Churriscaria rolls will be mine to cherish any time I want. I'm determined.