The Food Thread

I always forget it's a holiday; New Year's Eve at my house is all about just knowing we don't have to go to work the next day, and perhaps noticing it's past midnight and sharing a quiet, "Oh right.  Happy New Year" while we watch random DVDs.  But this year we're luxuriating in having the house back to ourselves after a long Christmas week of visitors, so I'm going with comfort food.  Tonight's dinner is going to be our favorite easy weekend dinner of pasta with a sausage-filled red sauce.  Tomorrow's lunch will be buttermilk pancakes and a medley of breakfast sausages from a local farm.  And tomorrow's dinner will be a beer-and-mustard-braised pork.  And there will be no leaving the house, and no guests coming into the house, dammit!  I'm wearing pajamas from the instant I get home tonight until I have to go to the gym on Thursday morning!  And when I'm not eating pork products, I'm going to be drinking hot cocoa with homemade peppermint marshmallows!  I can't wait!

For several years now, my mom and I have been hosting a New Year's Day event called "Baconfest". We cook fairly massive amounts of bacon, and serve BLTs, Bloody Marys, and Irish coffees. (We finally figured out that was really all that people wanted when they're hung over). And my mom also makes Hoppin' John, which is supposed to be good luck for the new year.   It's become very popular!

It's supposed to be about 10 degrees here tonight, so I think I'm just going to stay home with my roommate and watch some '60s British television (The Prisoner, The Avengers, etc.), and maybe some Twilight Zone in my pajamas.  But I do have champagne!!

That is how we do things at the Chateau Boo's Up as well. (Having a three-year-old contributes to this as well--because who are you going to get to babysit on New Year's Eve?--but we sometimes stayed in even before we had the kid.) This year we did a double feature of Ocean's Eleven and Beetlejuice. The theme? Comfort movies you have seen a million times so it doesn't matter if you are a little drunk.

But as for food, we have a tradition called DINNER OF SNACKS. It's just, you know, chips and dip, cocktail shrimp, cheese and crackers, some fresh fruit, Jaffa Cakes, etc., but the centerpiece is salami wontons. When you let them sit in the crockpot, by midnight they are super crispy and extra delicious.

(Note that it is best to eat salami wontons, and DINNER OF SNACKS in general, only once or twice a year For Medical Reasons.)

Since I met Lalla, I've had Hoppin' John every year, even though Delaware is not quite the south.

Eve: hors d'oeuvre party. Chicken liver pate is a must.

Morning: bagels and lox. Last year we started drinking weissbier alongside; it's a good addition.

Dinner: When I was a young'un, I proclaimed lasagna to be our holiday meal, and it stuck for a good many years. Now that my brother's married and has a family, he's been trying to move us towards a standing rib roast. He also tried roast chickens for a couple years. That didn't go over well. Since it was just me and my parents in Italy this year, I made a lasagna. It was fabulous.

Chickpea and eggplant tagine over cauliflower "couscous". If you've never done cauliflower couscous before you're in for a treat. Great a head of raw cauliflower, then steam it for about 10 minutes. Mix in seasonings and go to town.

Recent food obsession: Sprouts market sells salt and vinegar toasted almonds. My god.

That's just…the most amazing thing ever.  I wish you had never suggested it. Especially not for breakfast (dies)

Tonight we are staying in to (attempt to) cook a six-course meal. That will include two Omaha steaks "sous vide" and two mini cheesecakes from my birthday, two little lobster tails that were on sale, and some other stuff.

Bought a bunch of seafood (thus, spent alot of money) for Valentine's Meals Saturday night and Sunday, got it home, started prepping, then promptly got walloped by yet another bug our kid in daycare brought home. Four hours later my wife got sick, too, so no cooking that night.
We both felt better yesterday so I cooked some of it last night. Tonight is the rest, including raw oysters, which has me a little nervous, but according to everything I've researched I should be okay having stored them properly.

Sometimes, random ideas for food come into my head. The bad news is they are often desserts that sound totally delicious and fattening.

For instance, I now have the idea in my head to make brown sugar ice cream with cinnamon pecans.

I know it's a thing here... but I just caramalized the fuck out of some onions.

Fried about 5 medium onions with a splash of olive oil, knob of butter. A pinch of dark brown sugar over the top, couple of twists salt and black pepper, tend carefully for 15 minutes on medium heat. Then poured them over a couple of chicken breasts (lightly pan-fried with a drizzle of fig balsamic glaze) and baked for 30 mins at 200 Centigrade. Serve over boiled rice. Onions were meltingly good!

For those of you who rely on How to Cook Everything a lot like I do, there is a whopper of a problem in the lemon meringue pie recipe (I'm a whiz at key lime, but had never made a lemon meringue pie before). For the filling, it tells you to mix boiling water, cornstarch, sugar, and salt. Only thing is, when you mix cornstarch with boiling water, it immediately forms clumps that solidify into gelatinous blobs that will never come undone.

Instead, dissolve the cornstarch in cold water, then heat it to a boil. Much more smooth. Learned it the hard way, and started over, which is how I found myself baking at 1:00AM on a Thursday. YOU LET ME DOWN, BITTMAN. YOU LET ME DOWN.

This was our "meat break" weekend, so Saturday I made Moroccan Red Chicken, couscous, a roasted beet and carrot salad, and a raw fennel and carrot salad.
Last night, in observance of my recent breakup with pork loin,I made a roasted pork shoulder from Molly Stephens' excellent All About Roasting cookbook. This was a farmer's market cut of shoulder, salted overnight, roasted for 2 and a half hours in the oven. Halfway through I dumped in shallots, potatoes, and carrots with herbs de provence on them. I also made some garlicky kale with pickled chilies on the side. Wonderful meal.