Posts Tagged ‘favorite’

Merry Christmas, everyone!

We celebrate the happiest day of the year with plenty of red meat, traditional English sides, and a froufrou dessert I always like to tackle. Usually I make a cranberry upside down cake, but this year I wanted to try something different so I made a spin on a pear tatin, which was scrumptious to say the least. Plus chruscikis, cookies, hot apple cider, Holiday blend from The Roasterie and plenty of Usinger’s during the day.

Have a holly jolly holiday! I’ll be off in my food coma now, surrounded by DVDs and my family, but here’s a nice large selection of photos from our holiday. Enjoy! (recipes at the bottom if you’d like to scroll past!)

One of my biggest holiday indulgences.

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Here it is. The ultimate. The #1. The quintessential dish that is pure Christmas to me. Chruscikis.

Traditional Polish fried cookies which resemble either a bow-tie or angel’s wings (depending on your heritage/what your grandma says…) which seem simple on the surface, but in the end are some of the messiest, and somewhat labor intensive cookies ever.  Yet they’re worth every drop of splattered oil and puff of powdered sugar that ends up on the floor.

This is probably the oldest recipe we have in our family, which we know goes back to my great-grandma Jean who immigrated to the US when she was about 7 in the late 1800’s, and it probably goes back even farther than that. The ingredients are dead simple (eat your heart out, Martha) and the dough comes together very easily, it’s just all about rolling the dough incredibly thin and working very quickly once you get to the frying part. But they’re just so good warm, I cannot begin to describe it. I mean yes, they are basically fried dough, but come on – we all know how awesome that is.

So Wesolych Swiat! to my fellow Poles, and I hope you all enjoy the  most cherished part of my Polish culinary heritage!

Mommie Dearest on the hunt for the recipe…

Found!

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When I flew out to see my friend Travis in California a few years ago, he picked me up from the airport with his girlfriend and told me flat out: “Okay, we have to stop at In-N-Out before we head home. You need to experience it.” I honestly had no idea what In-N-Out was at the time… and then I was enlightened. And addicted. And lived in the Midwest. If you haven’t heard of the cult of In-N-Out yet, it’s pretty simple: perfect, simple burgers, fries and shakes, done really, really well. I mean… really well.  Like the best fast food burger you’ll ever have well.

I know a lot of people knock fast food and the evils of it and blah blah blah McDonalds breakfast will kill you. But I stand firm when I say it’s all about the production of the product which causes the bad rap. If every restaurant did what In-N-Out does, I think we’d all be singing a different tune. Yes, it’s high in calories and fat because they’re still burgers and fries, but guess what, that organic pizza or locally raised beef you’re eating? Probably has the same calories.

No freezers, no heat lamps, freshly ground beef from their own cattle, hand leafed lettuce, freshly baked buns … I mean the list goes on and on of why this place rocks. And although I now live in Colorado and only get In-N-Out when I’m lucky (oddly enough today is Friday the 13th – go figure), I still make sure to grab an Animal style cheeseburger, fries, and Neapolitan shake whenever I can.

I am so, so excited about this post. I’m practically bouncing in my chair with glee writing this because not only have I been waiting months to finally try this idea out, but it turned out to be an amazing success.

There’s no big story as to where I got the inspiration for this dish. I was musing to Rach in late July that I wanted to get an ice cream maker and play with flavors, and I mentioned the idea of a peanut butter ice cream/concord grape sorbet sundae, like “PB & J” – how fun would that be!? And then because for me it’s over-the-top or nothing, I wanted to go a step further and play with the “sandwich” idea even more, came up with this.  Concord grape sorbet sandwiched between peanut butter cookies.  “PB & J” turned up to 11.

This is one of those desserts where I’m clinging onto summer by my fingernails, refusing to let go.  Ice cream and sorbet will soon be replaced with apple tarts and pumpkin breads, so this is my final hurrah.  The tricky thing here is concord grapes are only in season for about a month – during Sept/October, thus me waiting a few months before I was able to make this. I stubbornly wanted only concord grapes since that’s the classic jelly pairing with a PB & J sandwich.  I had to call around a bit before I found a few pints at a Whole Foods nearby and snatched them up tout de suite. The flavor of the sorbet is so intense, so childhood-reminiscent turned grown-up complex it’s perfect for the beginning of fall and that back-to-school feeling in the air.  Sandwiched between sweet, sugary-rich peanut butter cookies… it’s hard to describe just how awesome it tastes.  You’ll have to try it yourself (now! go!) to find out.