Posts Tagged ‘salty’

Happy Oscar Sunday!

Just a quick post before the festivities start. Here’s a special treat to make for the ceremony tonight, using items I always have in my fridge and pantry. Spicy-salty popcorn you’ll eat handful after handful of, and not even feel that guilty about since I go easy on the oil.

Enjoy the awards tonight – and go “Inglourious Basterds” and Kathryn Bigelow!

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There’s nothing quite like being home and indulging in all those favorites you only eat once a year. (Well, for one week a year…)

We have quite a few culinary traditions in my family for the holidays, and this is probably the most indulgent of them, next to the insane amount of Usinger’s sausage and cheese we eat in the next 2 weeks. I affectionately call this dip “fat and fat and fat and fat with artichokes and spinach” because that’s honestly what it is. In theory, you could make this healthier by using low fat cream cheese, sour cream, mayo, etc, but really… what’s the point? Just embrace the fat here and dip carrots in it if you want to fool yourself into feeling okay about eating it.

The other great (lazy) thing about this recipe is it’s made in the microwave and comes together in about 15 minutes using things you can keep in your fridge and pantry all the time. We like to have this around to dip tortilla chips and Ritz crackers in, and since it makes so much, you can just keep setting it out whenever someone stops by, reheat it, and then put it back in the fridge until next time.

Fat and fat and fat and fat with artichokes and spinach…

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Everyone’s feeling the pressure right now. Your to-do list is a mile long before you have to fly home or plan your holiday party or go to a handful of cookie exchanges. Presents need to be wrapped (or bought – eek), dinners need to be planned, and oh my God is Christmas really less than 2 weeks away? In short, you have no time, but the necessity or urge to have baked goods is still staring you in the face.

Well, fear not! These “turtles” are your savior in their speed, ease, and deliciousness.

I almost balk at calling this a “recipe” because it’s really not – you almost don’t cook anything (it could easily be done in the microwave even) yet it still impresses everyone come dessert time.  My mom gets these every year at her cookie exchange, and although I often giggle at their laziness in comparison to the other froufrou cookies they inevitably are the first thing gone from the tin. Because they’re amazing. Salty and sweet and chocolatey and just perfect. It’s like a chocolate-covered pretzel on crack and every bit as addictive as the analogy says.

Festive wrapping.

All laid out.

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And now to go on the complete flipside of the previous no-fuss dessert post, we have these.  Ditching frozen puff pastry and sliced apples for tempered chocolate and homemade salted caramel, let’s just call the previous post a warm up for more ambitious dessert pursuits!

My coworker and friend Dave is a home beer-brewer with his friend Jon and together they make Layger Brewhaus and annually reveal their beers at an October beer-tasting party. Beer-to-food pairing being one of my favorite gastronomic delights, I asked if I could make something to bring and pair with one of the beers. Dave said yes and naturally I drifted towards the beer that sounded the best to me, the hazelnut amber. And since I love pairing chocolate with beer, I thought the idea of a salty-sweet truffle (kind of like playing off pretzels with beer) paired with a warm, rich beer would be awesome.

And it was.

Making these was a trial. The original recipe I tried to use was just terrible so I ended up using Ina Garten’s method for caramel and then combining the Bite-Sized Dessert recipe with another off of Epicurious. I won’t even detail how many times I had to make the caramel before I got it right (6! I wish I was kidding!) but once I got that out of the way, it really was a breeze and just time consuming more than anything.  Thankfully they were totally worth it because the inner texture is rich and thick like any good truffle, and the outer shell has that perfect semi-hard snap before biting in. Combined with the lightly salty caramel and the few topping grains which melt in your mouth as you devour the truffle, they really are a special treat to be savored. And shared!

Salty, briny, tart, sour, pungent… all these adjectives describe my absolute favorite type of cooking: pickling.  Dill pickles being my favorite food of all time, I also appreciate almost any other vegetable pickled for that matter, and yes, that includes red cabbage, green cabbage, carrots, asparagus, green beans… the list goes on and on.  I’m one of those freaks who eats sauerkraut by the can (and happily enjoys the juice as well) and will never have enough kimchi in my life.  Simply put, I love anything that’s cooked in vinegar, and preferably stays there for quite some time.

This recipe isn’t exactly on the same level as say, making your own sauerkraut at home (someday!), but it’s got the same flavor profiles and ideas behind it.  You take a relatively bland vegetable like cabbage, cook it in tons of vinegar and some spices, then devour.  I made this specifically because I was craving kielbasa with cabbage and mashed potatoes and wanted to try and make a ‘healthy’ version.  I used turkey kielbasa (surprisingly delicious, I was so dubious), mashed cauliflower, and this lovely pickled red cabbage. The whole plate came out at under 450 calories (no joke!) and the flavor profiles are all there – sans the guilt!