**sings** It’s the most… wonderful time… of the yeaaar!

Okaaay I know that’s actually a Christmas song but it’s far more appropriate for me to sing it during Halloween. This weekend/day fills me with more joy than almost anything else and I decided to celebrate this year with a nice little shindig in my apt. Not as much of a production as my Oscar party, but still just as fun. I wanted to keep the food simple, seasonal, and a little on the playful side, so I whipped up a delicious cheese ball and some finger foods (not literally), and a deliciously spicy and sinful punch. Everything was pretty easy and left plenty of time to focus on my costume… which was one of the most ambitious things I’ve ever done.

I’m a Lichtenstein painting!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

—

Pumpkin Cheese Ball

Ingredients

• 2 8oz blocks cheddar cheese, shredded
• 2 8oz blocks cream cheese at room temperature
• ¼ cup chopped fresh dill
• ¼ cup chopped fresh chives
• 1 tsp. paprika
• Celery stalks, pepper slices, crackers, etc.

Directions

1.) Mix together cheddar cheese, cream cheese, dill, chives, and paprika in a large bowl. Cover with cling film and refrigerate until firm.

2.) Once ready, form ball into a pumpkin shape. Draw lines on the sides using a butter knife and stick 1 celery stalk (with leaves) into the pumpkin to form the “stem”. Serve with celery stalks, pepper slices, and crackers.

~~

Bacon-Wrapped Squash Bites

Ingredients

• 1 small butternut squash, peeled, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 package center- cut bacon
• Salt & pepper
• Toothpicks

Directions

1.) Preheat oven to 450 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

2.) Lay 1 piece of squash at the end of a piece of bacon. Roll over until bacon eventually overlaps and then trim. Pierce with toothpick and set squash on baking sheet. Don’t worry if the toothpick doesn’t go all the way through – the weight of the squash will keep the bacon down and the whole thing upright. You should get about 2-3 bites per piece of bacon.

3.) Repeat process until you run out of bacon. Season bites with salt and pepper. Bake squash bites 20-25 minutes or until bacon is crisp and squash is tender. Serve warm.

~~

Dark and Stormy Punch

Ingredients

• 2 15oz cans lychees in heavy syrup
• 1 cup sliced fresh ginger
• 1 jar maraschino cherries
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 cup lime juice
• 3 cups dark rum
• 6 bottles ginger beer (or 72 oz)

Directions

1.) Drain lychees, reserving syrup and adding it to a large saucepan. Add ginger to syrup and bring to a low boil. Turn off heat and let steep at least 30 minutes.

2.) Meanwhile, stir together sugar and lime juice until sugar dissolves. Stir in rum and set aside.

3.) While syrup steeps, stuff each lychee with a maraschino cherry to create “bloody eyeballs” and place one lychee per compartment in an ice cube tray. Once syrup is ready, discard ginger and pour syrup over lychees and freeze until completely solid. Pour remaining syrup into rum mixture.

4.) Chill rum mixture until party time. Once it’s time to assemble, pour rum mixture into a large punch bowl. Add ginger beer and lychee eyeball ice cubes.

© Jessica J. for jonesing for..., 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: appetizer, autumn, cheese, cocktail, fall, halloween, holiday

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Do you smell it? Do you feel it? The refreshing, crisp wind. The shutting down of the AC. The first morning where you can see your breath walking to your car.

Autumn is finally arriving after a brutal summer here and with it brings all the glorious weather changes along with some great personal changes for me as well.

I got a new job at a new company (well, old company I used to intern for) as a full-time food stylist last week and things are going very well. I’m still in the same city (thank the heavens a move wasn’t necessary) and now get to spend all my time either in the studio or prepping in the kitchen, which is fantastic for my spirit (but definitely hard on my feet!) I feel so revived and ready for this next step in my life, and combined with this glorious weather, my zest for cooking has returned tenfold.

A friend of mine texted me the other day asking if I knew how to make applesauce. I rattled off a recipe to him and then seeing honeycrisp apples had arrived the next day was instantly inspired. Fall is the time when I feel most alive and excited about life, and it’s food like this that makes me love the season more than any other.

—

Roasted Applesauce 

Based loosely on Ina Garten’s method.

Makes 1 quart

Ingredients

• zest and juice of 1 orange
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• ¼ cup bourbon
• ¼ cup packed brown sugar
• 3 lbs. honey crisp apples, peeled, cored, and quartered
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
• ¼ tsp. ground ginger
• 1 Tbsp. butter

Directions

© Jessica J. for jonesing for..., 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: apples, autumn, fall, sidedish, sweet

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Baby, it’s cold outside.

As I write this my 100-year old iron radiator in the kitchen sounds like a rocket ship about to take off and my feet are nestled in down booties where I hope they stay for the next 3 months. It’s coooold! If there was one thing I didn’t miss about the Midwest it was the harsh (cruel, evil, torturous) winters. I love copious amounts of snow but the brutal sub-zero temperatures are just rough after awhile.

Thankfully, a big Dutch oven full of delicious risotto will take that chill off easily. Now, I’ve never been a huge risotto fan. It’s a texture thing more than anything. Foods where I don’t know whether to chew or swallow kind of irritate me (oatmeal being the exception) and I just never really had a fondness for it. However, a coworker has been developing risotto recipes in the TK recently so after eating them so many times lately I really grew to love it. It’s like listening to a song you dislike – hear it enough and it grows on you.

This dish has one of those stick-to-your-ribs qualities about it (without being over-the-top heavy or calorie laden, which let’s face it, is a welcome thing for weight-gain season). I don’t mind standing at the stove stirring risotto for 30 minutes but jeez, if you can just skip it and get delicious, creamy, wonderfully flavored results without that work, why would you bother?

—

Baked Parmesan “Risotto”

From Ina Garten’s fabulous “How Easy Is That?”

Makes about 4 dinner-sized servings.

Note: I tagged this ‘vegetarian’ knowing I used chicken stock (as I do with all vegetarian recipes on here) since it’s a simple swap of replacing the chicken stock with veggie stock. Swanson’s doesn’t make veggie stock but Kitchen Basics does and it’s wonderful.

Ingredients

• 1½ cups Arborio rice
• 5 cups hot chicken or vegetable stock, divided
• 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• ½ cup dry white wine (such as Chardonnay)
• 3 Tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1½ tsp. kosher salt
• 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup frozen peas
• ½ cup chopped fresh parsley

Directions

1.) Preheat oven to 350° F with rack set in center of oven. Combine the rice and 4 cups chicken stock in a large Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid. Cover and bake 45 minutes or until most of the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender, but slightly firm.

2.) Carefully remove the Dutch oven from the oven and stir in the remaining cup of chicken stock, Parmesan cheese, wine, butter, salt, and pepper. Stir vigorously for a few minutes until rice is thick and flows like lava. Stir in peas and chopped parsley at the very end. Taste for seasoning and serve immediately.

© Jessica J. for jonesing for..., 2010. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: autumn, rice, vegetarian, winter

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I’m tempted to create a tag which reads “Slow Cooker Sunday” since that’s all I seem to be doing lately, but it’s just so perfect for my life (and food cravings) right now, y’all just have to roll with me for awhile.

I know this is far from what a real cassoulet is (mmm pork fat) but let’s just call this a lightened, long-cooked homage to the French classic. You still get the meaty, rich white beans and aromatics with vegetables, but just a whole lot less pork and fat. I’m just on a mad hunt for any slow cooker stews that are figure-friendly but also very filling, and let me tell you, it’s harder than it seems, so this recipe was a delightful surprise.

Be sure to leave your vegetables very chunky and thickly cut for this recipe. If you slice them too thin or small they’ll disintegrate over the long cooking period (same with the sausage, which I just add at the end). If you’re vegetarian, feel free to use meatless Italian sausage or just add more beans to make this a little heartier.

—

Slow Cooker Cassoulet

Makes 6 hearty servings.

Based on the recipe from Allrecipes.

Ingredients

• 3 cups dried Great Northern beans
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1½ cups roughly chopped onion
• 3 large carrots peeled & roughly chopped
• 3 large parsnips peeled & roughly chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1½ tsp. dried thyme
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. black pepper
• 1 dried bay leaf
• 1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 3 links cooked Italian chicken sausage cut into thick pieces
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• ¼ cup dry breadcrumbs
• ¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1.) Place the beans in a colander and rinse very well. Pick out any broken beans or skins you find and place beans in the slow cooker crock. Cover with water and be sure there is at least 2 inches covering the beans. Soak overnight. Once ready, drain the beans and rinse again. Place beans back in the crock pot

2.) Heat olive oil over medium-high in a large skillet and saute onion, carrots, parsnip, garlic, thyme, salt, pepper, and bay leaf until fragrant and tender, about 5 minutes. Add contents of pan to slow cooker along with vegetable stock, and tomatoes. If the liquid still isn’t covering the top add enough water until everything is submerged. Cook on low 8-10 hours (high 6-8 hours) or until beans are tender. Add sausage and heat through.

3.) While the sausage is heating through, melt the butter in a small saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese and stir until lightly browned and fragrant. Toss in parsley with breadcrumb mixture.

4.) Season the cassoulet once more before serving. Once ready to serve, ladle cassoulet into bowls and sprinkle breadcrumb mixture on top. Serve with lots of good crusty bread and white wine.

© Jessica J. for jonesing for..., 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: autumn, beans, crock pot, healthy rethink, soup, vegetables, winter

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Good news, folks! I have a whole new group of people to bake for!

Haha, that’s slightly snarky but still true. I got a 2nd job working part time retail to bring in enough extra income to afford a (very) soon-to-be needed car payment. My dear Volvo, as much as I love it, must be put to sleep soon, and my former “Ooh la la!” France savings has turned into the “Vroom Vroom” account. But a new job outside of the kitchen means new guinea pigs I can try my baking out on, which is great news for me!

I decided to greet my new coworkers during a Sunday evening floorset with these cookies which are deliciously spicy-sweet and perfectly chewy, plus dead easy to throw together. Rearranging everything in the store, dusting, putting up new displays… it’s not so bad when you can chat and chow down on cookies like these.

—

Cranberry Honey Cookies

Based on the recipe form The Kitchn.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

In retrospect I wish I had tossed in a cup of chocolate chips or some chopped walnuts for a little more texture, but alas, it will have to wait for next time.

Ingredients

• 1 cup dried cranberries
• ¾ cup orange blossom honey
• ¼ cup (4 Tbsp.) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 large egg, beaten
• ¼ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. table salt
• Optional (and recommended): 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1.) Preheat oven to 375° F. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

2.) Place the cranberries in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Let them plump up for at least 5 minutes while you prepare the dough.

3.) In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the honey and butter. Beat on low until combined. With the mixer running, add the egg and let combine.

4.) In a separate bowl, whisk together the nutmeg, cinnamon, 1¾ cups flour, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer running on low, add the dry ingredients slowly, letting the dough come together.

5.) Once ready, drain the cranberries and toss with remaining ¼ cup flour. Turn the mixer back on and toss the cranberries in. Let the dough come together (it will be smooth and slightly wet) and turn off the mixer.

6.) Using a ½ ounce scoop (or tablespoon), drop tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto prepared cookie sheet, spacing 2 inches apart. Wet your fingers a bit and press down the tops of the cookies.

7.) Bake 9-13 minutes until edges turn golden. Let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes and then transfer to wire rack for cooling.

© Jessica J. for jonesing for..., 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: autumn, baking, cookie, dried fruit, sweet

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh