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We're having our second major snowstorm in less than two weeks, but luckily it's my weekend and I can stay home and cook. (These are "major" snowstorms by local standards. In Minneapolis, where I used to live, 5 or 6 inches of snow was nothing. But Minneapolis had snowplows and wasn't afraid to use them.)
I'm going to be making turkey soup with black beans and kale, using the leftover turkey in the freezer. And finally making the sweet potato and chile gratin that I didn't make on Thanksgiving, because it turned out that I hadn't sufficiently considered the size of my oven (small) or the number of my pots and pans (also small). I'm starting a loaf of bread today, too, although it won't be ready to bake until tomorrow. This time it's Crusty Yeasted Cornbread with Coarse Salt, from Nancy Baggett's Kneadlessly Simple, from which I eventually want to try almost every recipe. I had actually wanted to make a plain old-fashioned white loaf today, but Baggett's recipe for some reason calls for powdered milk (and it has to be best quality, she says, not the cheap stuff). Another recipe for buttermilk bread calls for buttermilk powder, which I don't think I've ever even seen in a shop. I assume it's because these breads' long rising times might cause real milk and buttermilk to spoil, but then again, some of her other recipes call for actual milk, and buttermilk is fermented and isn't going to spoil during eighteen hours on a cool countertop, in a bread dough where the yeast is driving out bad bacteria, and the whole thing's going to be baked anyway. Strange.
I've been thinking about Christmas dinner, as you do, and I decided I want to do something simple. I don't know whether I'll have Christmas Eve or the day after Christmas off, so I don't want to spend the whole of Christmas Day cooking, and anyway Yuletide will be up. So I think I'll buy some little bits of nice cheese and paté and olives to go with bread, and then just cook a simple stew. One of my cookbooks has a recipe for rabbit stewed in white wine with mushrooms that sounds good. It's special--I hardly ever eat rabbit, or for that matter cook with wine--but pretty effortless. That only leaves dessert, a problem I am tempted to solve by buying myself a box of chocolates. What I actually want is something with chestnuts, but I'm not sure I'll have the time or the ambition for baking. Anybody know of a good, not too difficult dessert involving chestnuts and preferably chocolate?
I'm going to be making turkey soup with black beans and kale, using the leftover turkey in the freezer. And finally making the sweet potato and chile gratin that I didn't make on Thanksgiving, because it turned out that I hadn't sufficiently considered the size of my oven (small) or the number of my pots and pans (also small). I'm starting a loaf of bread today, too, although it won't be ready to bake until tomorrow. This time it's Crusty Yeasted Cornbread with Coarse Salt, from Nancy Baggett's Kneadlessly Simple, from which I eventually want to try almost every recipe. I had actually wanted to make a plain old-fashioned white loaf today, but Baggett's recipe for some reason calls for powdered milk (and it has to be best quality, she says, not the cheap stuff). Another recipe for buttermilk bread calls for buttermilk powder, which I don't think I've ever even seen in a shop. I assume it's because these breads' long rising times might cause real milk and buttermilk to spoil, but then again, some of her other recipes call for actual milk, and buttermilk is fermented and isn't going to spoil during eighteen hours on a cool countertop, in a bread dough where the yeast is driving out bad bacteria, and the whole thing's going to be baked anyway. Strange.
I've been thinking about Christmas dinner, as you do, and I decided I want to do something simple. I don't know whether I'll have Christmas Eve or the day after Christmas off, so I don't want to spend the whole of Christmas Day cooking, and anyway Yuletide will be up. So I think I'll buy some little bits of nice cheese and paté and olives to go with bread, and then just cook a simple stew. One of my cookbooks has a recipe for rabbit stewed in white wine with mushrooms that sounds good. It's special--I hardly ever eat rabbit, or for that matter cook with wine--but pretty effortless. That only leaves dessert, a problem I am tempted to solve by buying myself a box of chocolates. What I actually want is something with chestnuts, but I'm not sure I'll have the time or the ambition for baking. Anybody know of a good, not too difficult dessert involving chestnuts and preferably chocolate?
