Just give me powder for Christmas.

I'm heading to British Columbia tomorrow to celebrate Christmas and do some skiing. I may not post again until the New Year, but who knows, I could get my hands on a machine and post some tidbit. There is dim sum to discuss, and sushi, and Granville Island, and BC wine and more BC wine.

Happy Holidays!

Evelyn

More to stew about.

Being a vegetarian must suck, but I love vegetarian cookbooks, especially any by Mollie Katzen.

Unlike most soups I've had in vegetarian restaurants, the ones I've tried in her books are rich and flavorful. I'm sure that it's all about the stock. It's pretty hard to make a vegetable stock that tastes as deep as homemade chicken or beef stock. Even fish stock is easier. Roasting the vegetables before putting them in the stock pot makes a big difference, as well as using dried mushrooms and wine.

This is my favorite soup recipe in the Moosewood Cookbook, page 22. It's hearty and zesty, and good any time of year. Most of the ingredients are usually kicking around my house anyway.

White Bean and Black Olive Soup

Saute in 3 tablespoons of olive oil, beginning with onions and garlic:

3-4 cloves crushed garlic
1 heaping cup chopped onion
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cop diced carrots
1/2 cup chopped pepper (I used a poblano for some heat)
1 cup zucchini chunks (I like to mix it with yellow summer squash)
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon of marjoram or oregano
1 1/2 teaspoons of basil


Add to:
4 cups of stock or water (I use chicken stock)
3 oz. tomato paste
1/4 cup red wine (I use a cup)
2 cups of white beans, either pea beans of great northern. If not using canned, boil the dry beans for a couple of hours before assembling the soup
1 cup sliced black olives
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice (I use balsamic vinegar if I don't have any lemons on hand)

Simmer, covered over very low heat - about 1/2 hour.
Just before serving, add 1/4 cup chopped parsley. Optional garnish: freshly diced tomato. I garnish mine with grated parmesan cheese.

It's big, it's ugly, it's Christmas. Download it.

The cookie photo filled me with the spirit of giving, so I made a downloadable Christmas card.

Merry Christmas, you fat bastard.

350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Mom's recipe needs more ginger and cinnamon, at least a teaspoon and a half or two of each.

My stalwart dry ingredient mixer is a big Austin Powers fan; as she took these guys out of the oven she noted that they look like Fat Bastard. Too bad I didn't have plaid frosting.

We made too many cookies yesterday, including Pecan shortbread and spicy chocolate cookies from our friend Martha Stewart; peanut butter brownies, oatmeal raisin, sugar cookies filled with fig-orange preserves and hermits from Fannie Farmer; and Nanaimo bars from some prissy museum cookbook. The batch of Nanaimos tastes much better than it looks, and requires practice or perhaps another recipe with firm custard.

Technical notes: I watched Alton Brown and Santa make cookies the other night, and followed Alton's advice about rotating the cookies halfway through baking, as well as switching the sheets from top to bottom oven rack. I used parchment paper to keep the sheets clean since I had umpteen batches to bake. I noticed that the shiny sheets made for a better cookie, and didn't burn the bottoms the way the dark teflon coated sheets did, so I'm getting some more of those. Even when I put a Silicone mat down over the dark sheets, the bottoms still got too brown. Shiny is good. I baked the brownies and the hermits in Pyrex pans, which work ok. I didn't have any cream of tartar for the hermits so I replaced it and the baking soda with baking powder.

Gingerbread Men on Steroids

Just think, if they get cranky or cheat at baseball you can bite their heads off.

This was Nana's recipe for gingerbread men. Back in the day, Mom and I would make 6 batches for the Moultonborough Elementary School Christmas Fair each year and they would sell out instantly. They're very cakey, so use a big cookie cutter. I roll them out to 3/8 inch thickness, and that makes a mighty fat cookie. We would decorate them with buttercream frosting, cinnamon hots and silver dragees. They freeze pretty well. As you can see, Mom didn't write down the oven temperature or baking time since she kept most information in her head, so I'll have to figure that out tomorrow when I make them, and let you know. Until then....

a surfeit of food songs

I have a food song playlist on my ipod. Pathetic.