More ham!

These biscuits used to be one of my cocktail party staples. They're quick and easy, and delicious. But alas, after a while every one of my friends had had them, and while they were still popular, I wanted to branch out.

This past weekend my choir held a wine tasting and silent auction party thing as their annual fundraiser, and as usual, I volunteered to make food. Once the time came to actually make the food, I had way more on my plate than I expected (my final project for my teaching class was due the same day). And since I had all that ham, I pulled out this old favorite- there's nothing like a familiar easy recipe when you're already stretched too thin.

Ham and Cheese biscuits
adapted from Giada

2 cups flour
1T baking powder
1t baking soda
1/2 t salt
6T butter, cold and cut into cubes
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup diced ham
1/2 cup grated cheese (I used swiss, gruyere would be great)

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add in the butter and beat until the mixture resembles a coarse meal (using the food processor for these 2 steps is probably the easiest- but again, I really hate washing my food processor, so I just use my stand mixer). In a bowl (same bowl if you're using your mixer, or switch to a bowl if you've been using your food processor), add in the buttermilk, ham and cheese and mix until just combined-don't overmix!

Roll out dough to 1/2in thick and cut with a round cookie cutter (mine was about 1.5in in diameter). Bake at 425F for 10-12 min, until just golden brown. Best served warm.


So at the choir wine tasting these weren't the most popular thing.... but they were accidentally placed on the dessert table, which may have been part of the problem. I think Clint could have happily eaten the whole plate.

Oh, hi... have some cheesecake

You thought I forgot about you, right? I didn't... I've just had other things going on. Most of them are definitely not as enjoyable as blogging, but the rest of the things have been crafting, so of course they're super fun and I can't wait to get home from work each day so I can craft. Wanna see?

I made some hats
I knit the purple one first, for a swap, and I loved it so much (despite having a hell of a time getting started) that I knit the white one for myself. It fits well and is cute, but is kind of worthless on a windy evening.

I made a pair of gumdrop wreaths for the Wadsworth Tree Festival in Hartford, CT, shown ehere on either side of the large wreath.
That was fun, I made them exactly like last years, but sprayed them with 5-6 coats of acrylic sealant spray (stinky, stinky) and after the final coat, sprinkled them in white Martha Stewart glitter. I'm now making more and more- we'll hang last year's (which didn't last all that well without being sprayed, but are good enough for another month) and I have given and will give more as Christmas gifts.

I made a cheesecake. Little known fact- I hate cheesecake. Like, gag, it's nasty. This is kind of unfortunate, because I used to love it, and it's because of a sad association with an illness. However, I used to spend many, many calories on cheesecake, which I no longer do, so I'm viewing this as a positive diet change. So why did I make a cheesecake?

I have no idea. Plus, it was for a party.

Now, since it was for a party, and at this party I had no camera (this party was the post-concert reception of my choir's Boar's Head Festival, which was rather awesome), so I can't show you how pretty it was. Fortunately, the blogger I got it from has a lovely picture, so just go see hers.

Savory Cheesecake with Onion Pear Compote
taken from Josie at Pink Parsley

3 8oz packages of cream cheese, softened (I used neufchatel cheese)
8oz blue cheese, crumbled
6oz parmesean cheese, grated
4 eggs
1/4 cup cream (I used fat free 1/2&1/2)
1/4t black pepper

Beat the cheeses together until creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then the cream and pepper. Pour mixture into a greased 9inch springform pan wrapped in foil so that the water from the water bath doesn't seep in to the pan, and bake in a water bath for 45-50 minutes at 350F, until the middle is not quite set and the edges are slightly brown.

Chill overnight, then remove the sides of the springform pan and serve on the bottom of the sprinform pan, topping with the compote.

I know there are tricks to get it to not crack, but.... I wouldn't worry too much. You're going to cover it with the following compote, which will cover up any imperfections.

Onion Pear Compote
4 cups onions, chopped
2t olive oil
2 cups pears, peeled and chopped (about 2 pears)
2T vinegar (recipe says pear or raspberry vinegar, but I just used balsamic, which was good)
1 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1/4 t salt
pinch cayenne (I omitted, not knowing the preferences of the guests at the party)

Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onions and cook over medium until softened, then reduce heat and cook until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the pears, vinegar, sugar, salt and cayenne and cook until pears are soft (about 20 min more). Note: here the recipe says to then remove the onions and pears and reduce the liquid in the pan til it's thick, but I didn't actually have any liquid in the pan, so I skipped this.)

I tried some of this, and even though it's savory and lovely and blue cheesey, it's still cheesecake. The compote was good enough to disguise that on my second bite, but... I can't do cheesecake. Everyone else loved it, though!

I know, I know, why did I bring a dish I hate? It caught my eye, that's all I can say.

Pumpkin party: Main dishes, part 2

Part the second of our pumpkin party main dishes! This post will tell about the popular main dishes, both were found browsing tastespotting.
Pumpkin, Spinach and Leek Quiche
adapted from The Little Teochow, originally from Homestyle Vegetarian by Murdoch Books
1/2 small pumpkin pie (sugar) pumpkin
2 leeks
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed but otherwise left whole
4 eggs, beaten
2/3 cup fat free 1/2&1/2
2/3 cup milk
1T parsley
1T cilantro
1t wholegrain mustard
6-9 sheets filo pastry, depending on how big your pie dish is
2 cups fresh spinach, blanched and drained
freshly grated parmesean cheese

Turn your oven to 350F. Slice the pumpkin into 1 inch thick slices (leave the skin on for now), and arrange on a baking sheet, along with the leeks (each leek cut into 3 or 4 pieces) and garlic. Roast for 1 hour. When they're all cool, mince (or press) the garlic, chop the leeks into small pieces, and peel the skin off the pumpkin.

Meanwhile, brush each piece of filo with olive oil, then arrange them in a greased pie dish- do the sheets one at a time (brush with oil, then lay in dish, then get the next sheet out). Arrange them so they're 6 layers deep, I had a few layers with more than one sheet in the layer, just to fit the pie dish.


Arrange the pumpkin in the pie dish, like so.
Arrange the spinach on top.
Beat the eggs, milk, 1/2&1/2, mustard and herbs together, and pour over the veggies, pressing the spinach in to get everything coated in the custard. Top with the grated parmesean, and bake at 357F for 40-45 min.


Ok, now the pizza! This pizza is really easy, and we've made it several times since the party. It's full of good, simple fall flavors, and it just tastes fresh and not heavy at all, like some pizzas can be.

Pumpkin, Apple and Ricotta Pizza
from Straight from the Farm
(picture soon, I forgot to take it off my camera)

pizza dough (your choice, I used my favorite pumpkin pizza dough, to increase the pumpkin usage for the party, and because I have a ton of it in the freezer, ready to go at a moment's notice!)
1/2-2/3 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 of a small pumpkin pie (sugar) pumpkin, peeled and sliced thinly (as thin as you can, slicing a pumpkin isn't easy)
1 apple, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch thick pieces
1T fresh sage, chopped
small handful of freshly grated parmesean

Roll out the pizza dough. Spread with ricotta cheese. Arrange apple and pumpkin slices, sprinkle with safe and parmesean. Bake at 450F for about 15-20 minutes (depending on the thickness of the dough). I sprinkled with a little kosher salt before serving.

Birthdaybirthday!

I recently turned 30. To celebrate/mourn the occasion, I threw a standard Catherine-style posh cocktail party, with a few modifications over the standard hors d'ouerves and finger foods menu.

For one, I converted the pitcher of cosmos concept from a beverage into a cupcake. I also served meat, now that I'm no longer afraid of cooking it. And finally, I came close to providing an appropriate amount of food for the number of guests (the only thing we had unreasonable amounts of leftovers of were the fruit tartlets and old bay biscuits).

Pictured above, clockwise from the veggie platter:

veggies and onion dip

Stacey's naked pita chips

Asparagus tart (using refrigerated crescent rolls instead of puff pastry)

Hummus

Maple kettle corn (I'm not pleased with the recipe- I'm not sure if I should give it to you until I've perfected it)

Sweet and spicy nuts

Sweet and spicy shrimp cocktail

Fennel and melon wrapped in prosciutto (Giada's idea)

Avocado muffins (blocked by the flowers) (and note: you know how avocados always go bad before you eat them? Make this your my-avocados-need-to-get-used-NOW go-to recipe)

Spinach quiches (also blocked by the flowers)

Old bay cheese biscuits (recipe needs work before I share, but it was based on this recipe)

Caramelized onion tart (using cream cheese instead of ricotta)

Tomato basil mozzarella skewers with balsamic fig reduction

Tomato tart (again with crescent rolls instead of puff pastry)

Here are the avocado muffins, quiches and old bay biscuits

the onion tart, tomato tart, skewers, and the veggies again,

and the asparagus tart, kettle corn, nuts and prosciutto-wrapped fennel and melon.

Not pictured: honey cumin chipotle pork tenderloin and peanut teriyaki chicken skewers (taken off the skewers)(fat free 1/2&1/2 instead of heavy cream, please). Both were cooked later, when I was too busy hostessing to photograph.

The dessert table was in the corner

My famous coconut macaroons (ok, Martha's, but I probably make them more)

Cosmo cupcakes (with 1 change: I used the Magnolia Bakery frosting recipe (the one with the cupcakes scared me by the huge butter:sugar ratio, I was worried it made that greasy frosting I hate) and instead of 1/2cup milk, I used a mix of cranberry and lime juices (about 5T cranberry and 3T lime).

Peach raspberry tartlets (crust was Martha's pate sucree recipe, filling was a bunch of peaches diced, a handful of frozen raspberries, a little flour, a little sugar. I followed Smitten Kitchen's construction here, and froze the tartlets a week before baking about an hour at 400F)

And that was just in the dining room!

In the living room were the cheeses.

I bought (from BJ's):

 lemon stilton, Cabot extra sharp cheddar, smoked gouda, iberico (like manchego, delicious) and from Big Y, a small wheel of camembert.

I also served a baguette, some crackers, more spicy nuts, pickled grapes, storebought olive tapenade, homemade olive pistachio tapenade (heavily modified from Anne Burrell, via Smitten Kitchen) and the fabled apricot preserves (delicious with the camembert on a baguette).

The bar was in the kitchen.

Now, minor oopsie on this one- I don't drink beer, only wine, so I wasn't considering what beer we had on hand. I assumed we had some. My husband assumed I was on top of everything (I thought I was). We... had no beer. Like, none. We had sufficient quantities of wine, seltzer, coke and diet coke (which was a feat for us), and the sangria that will go down in family history (2 weeks later, I've made 5 batches of it, that's how popular it is).

Sangria: modified from here. I used the simple syrup left over from the epic candied orange peels (later I used honey). I'd suggest increasing the simple syrup or honey 1.5-2 times over the sugar, especially since I used plain seltzer instead of lemon lime soda (I'd rather have sugar than HFCS).

The best part of the bar was using all the beautiful Simon Pearce pitchers I've bought my husband over the years. He has a real thing for pitchers, but he never used them, and I usually only put flowers in them.

There were 2 items on the table I did not make, both of which were delicious. A made a delicious baked brie (totally rivals mine, hers had the added bonus of not being greasy and messy like mine is), and Bird brought me these adorable and delicious cookies. (I ate the last one on National Wear Lilly Day- is that appropriate or what?)

On baking bread

Again, a Saturday with no daytime plans. So of course, I started baking bread after I made my coffee. After a short bread conversation last week, I started thinking about what really goes into baking bread. I don't find it all that hard, mostly just time-consuming, yet others think it's one of the most challenging things to bake. So yesterday I really tried to see bread-baking from the eyes of someone who's never done it before. Which means, I took a lot more pictures, and tried to photograph each and every step. I hope new bakers might find this helpful.

I browsed a bit for a recipe, and came up with sesame cheese bread, from my King Arthur Flour Cookbook (which they don't seem to have online, unfortunately). I opted for a savory recipe, after getting my fill of nutella all last week.

In a medium-sized bowl, I combined 2 cups of warm water and 1/4 cup white sugar, stirred to dissolve the sugar. I added 2T yeast, stirred, and ignored it for about 30 min while I had breakfast. This is called "proofing", and you're basically waking the yeast up- they've been in the fridge for a long time, they're cold and sleepy. And yes, these are scientific terms. Trust me, I got my PhD in research on yeast (I'm not kidding, you can go to pubmed and search for me). Generally recipes say do this for 5 minutes, but I always end up doing other stuff and forgetting about the yeast. It's totally fine to let it go longer, like I do.

I also toasted 1/2cup of sesame seeds in a frying pan over medium-high heat for 7 min, stirring occasionally, until they started to turn golden brown.

And I ignored it all, like I said, for about half an hour. Maybe closer to 45 min, timing wasn't all that important.


I transferred the yeast mixture to my stand mixer.

And added 2 cups of flour, one cup at a time.

Then I beat 2 eggs and softened 2T butter in the microwave,
and threw that in, along with the toasted sesame seeds and 2cups grated sharp cheddar. I beat this "vigorously" (on medium) for 2 minutes.

Then I added 4 more cups of flour, 1 cup at a time

after 2 cups

after a 3rd cup

after the final cup
until I had a dough stiff enough to knead.

See? So far it's not that hard, there are just a lot of ingredients. I usually like to gather everything while I'm letting the yeast proof at the beginning.

Ok, now kneading. Kneading isn't technically hard, either, it's just a work out. If you have a stand mixer, you can use the dough hook attachment and let it go. If you don't, you can do it by hand, just fold the dough over and over, until it's kind of shiny and elastic (poke it hard, and watch it slowly pop back). I ended up kneading in my mixer for a few minutes and then finishing by hand.

Then, I greased the bowl (with Pam nonstick spray) and rolled the big ball of dough around once to coat, and covered with a damp dishtowel and let it rise.

The recipe said rise 1-1.5 hrs, until doubled, I left it for just over 2 hrs. I again used my radiator to keep the dough warm for the yeast to work.

Before rising

After rising

Then I plopped the dough onto a floured board,

pushed the dough out to about a 15in square, spread an additional cup of cheese on it (I used a blend of asiago, ermentaler and gruyere- I ran out of cheddar),

and rolled up the dough,

and kneaded it for another minute. Then I let it rest for a few minutes while I prepared the baking pans. I sprayed 1 loaf pan, 3 mini loaf pans, and 6 muffin tins (although a 4th mini loaf pan would have been good). I broke off pieces of dough and shaped them into ovals (or balls, for the muffin tin) and dropped them in- a piece that fits inside the pan without touching the edges is good, most of my muffin tin balls were too big after rising. I placed them back on the radiator to rise, and covered them with the dishtowl again.

They rose for 1 hr 15min (recipe suggested 45 minutes)

I popped them into a preheated 375oF oven, the muffin tin for 20 min, and the loaves for about 40 minutes, until the tops were golden brown.

And we ate them.

And we sliced the loaf for toast for breakfast.

And overall, it's really not that hard. Bread involves yeast, but yeast merely means wait, wait and wait. I think it's easier to bake bread if you have a vague idea what you're doing- which maybe now you do.

Oh and by the way, this was the best bread I've ever made. I highly recommend this recipe.

The Wedding Cheese Tasting

Doesn't everyone get excited for this? Tasting cheese varieties to potentially serve at one's wedding. Maybe it's just me.

I'm very pleased to say I now have a dairy guy. A dairier? A dairer? Maybe just a dairy farmer. There's a farm in Granby that makes amazing chevre- readers of this blog may be familiar with my undying love for chevre. This particular farmer (farmers, really, it's a family operation) is more local than the word "local" can describe- the milk and cheese he produces are from cows partially fed on things grown on my grandma's land (since we're definitely not farmers, farming being done outdoors, etc).

We went to visit the farm and bought quite a bit of stuff from their cheese shop... including 3 varieties of flavored chevre as possible wedding cheeses. I've tried cranberry (good), orange honey (kind of bland, but still good) and apricot maple (the current winner). I'm going to place an order from Dorothy for some sort of really fat, 150-person reception-sized block of chevre. I may be more excited about the wedding cheese than about the wedding cake!