Who Wants Some Figgy Pudding!!

Our Holly and Ivy wreath, a part of our Madrigal Dinner Script.

Happy New Year everyone!  I had a blast cooking yesterday after work to get some culinary delights ready for the New Year's Party I was going to, however that will have to wait, as I am jumping back to Christmas Day, but just know I felt like I was bringing in the new year right having so much fun in the kitchen - I will tell you I made wings, fondue, fresh bread, and started some sweet potato nachos all between 5:30 - 8 pm.

Well now back to Christmas Day.  This year I was given the task of making figgy pudding.  We had made this for Christmas another year and I remembered the flaming fig mixture as it burned off the alcohol and truly I was filled with a little trepidation.  I also remember liking it when we made it but in conversation and/or reading I had heard accounts of people trying figgy pudding because of the echoes of "bring us some figgy pudding" from the popular Christmas carol and being disappointed because it "really wasn't all that good".  So as Christmas approached and I was searching for a recipe, I wasn't as excited as I usually was.  One may ask why I was looking for a recipe, when I already had one that we knew we enjoyed, but truthfully, I find that the hunt for the recipe is sometimes almost as fun as the cooking and the eating....something like a perusing a seed catalog in the middle of the winter.  Another reason for a new recipe was Vanilla Bean's diet modifications - the big one in this recipe was - no eggs.  So I searched for eggless figgy pudding and wouldn't you know it, I found one, and boy was it good.  All that trepidation and nervousness disappointed and the joy of the task took over as I prepared to modify the recipe even more, substituting rum for coffee and apple juice for orange juice, some because of Vanilla Bean and some just because, well, I'm me, and if you ask my friends, me and following a recipe exactly just doesn't seem to happen all that often.

And in the end, we had delicious figgy pudding and I had lots of fun.

Mixing the figs into the batter.

All steamed and ready to come out of the pan.

Yum, Yum, Figgy Pudding.

In my opinion, once you have some of this figgy pudding, you will be joining the refrain, "Now bring us some figgy pudding, now bring us some figgy pudding, we won't go until we get some, so bring it right now," with an all new gusto.  However, this figgy pudding is long gone, so you will have to make your own.

In other Christmas day culinary delights. 

Christmas Dinner about to be served.

• Kale from mom's garden,  and a brand new Vanilla Bean original salad recipe for Kale, Brussel Sprout, and Sugared Cranberry Salad.
• Colonel Mustard's cooking up Gorgonzola Boats for mom.
• A Squash, Sweet Potato, and Bacon Soup
• Vanilla Bean utilizing her new apple peeler, slicer, corer to streamline her Roasted Vegetable Prep.
• Tinbugs attempt at literary works to put together the White Family Madrigal Script and a afternoon jaunt for greens to make a holly and ivy wreath.

Vanilla Bean's requested salad.  We gladly ate the entire bowl.  Delicious.

  

Mom's home grown kale.

Kale, Brussel Sprout, and Sugared
Cranberry Salad.

Colonel Mustard enjoying the events of the day.

Checking the recipe.

Crafting the boats.

Gorgonzola Boats

Pureeing the Soup.

Squash (from mom's garden), Sweet Potato, and Bacon Soup with a little creme fraiche. 

Slice the veggies.

Using her new peeler.

All roasted beautifully - potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, turnips, and garlic.

Vanilla Bean safe cheese boats.

Carving up the standing rib roast.

The script for the day.

Holly in the yard, a break before dessert.

Gathering greens for the wreath.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Cooking Over the Fire

Camping is an autumn tradition for my friends and I - and this year was no different.  However, this year I requested to make supper Saturday evening and then I set about finding something to make.  Where should I go first, but to my new cookbook - which of course is not really a camping cookbook, but that hasn't stopped me before and it didn't stop me this time.

I found a recipe for Mima's Risi e Bisi (or Rice and Peas) and adapted it to make in my dutch oven over the fire.

First we fried some onion, garlic, and bacon over the fire, then added the rice and coated it with butter, toasting it a little.  Then we removed it from the dutch oven.  

Then we put some chicken, herbs, onion, carrot, and celery in the dutch oven and covered with water, letting it boil and simmer until the chicken was cooked.  After the chicken was cooked, we removed the chicken, herbs, and veggies, and added the rice mixture, allowing it to cook before deboning the chicken and adding it back in, in smaller chunks.

 







                       



 
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One thing that could have been better was the amount of liquid for the rice.  The original recipe had you add the liquid to the rice as needed, as you cooked it, and we just added the rice to the water and cooked it with the lid on as you typically would do rice - well there was too much liquid, so we had to cook it a while longer to cook the extra liquid off - since we didn't really want soup, but it didn't take too long.  We also added some parmesan and peas, and let every one add their own salt and pepper…. since we forgot.

To finish of the meal, we had Mother Buckle's Raspberry Brûlée Cheesecake - however I missed the line in the recipe that required a kitchen torch and hadn't brought mine, so it wasn't really Brûlée… oh well, will just have to try it again.

Enjoying some time on the beach.

A New Cookbook

Spring travels to Europe, landed me at a restaurant chain in London called Leon.  I had a tasty meal of lamb kadesh and longed to peruse some of the cookbooks they had for sale, but we were out for the day and I had no desire to lug around a heavy cookbook on our adventures.  However, upon returning home, time and again this charming stop and its cookbooks continued to pop up in my thoughts and one day I visited Amazon, and then, in late summer, my new cookbook arrived.

I have begun to enjoy various recipes from my new read and have a lofty goal floating around in my head to cook all the recipes in my new book, or at least most.
I have managed to make a few and one evening joined the Colonel Mustard and a couple other friends to try out a couple recipes.

                                  My lamb kadesh.                                 Leon's


 We made Moroccan Meatballs and Green Pea Curry.

                                                    Ground "lamp" or rather lamb for the Moroccan Meatballs and 
                                                                     fresh basil and mint picked from the garden. 

Moroccan Meatballs.

Green Pea Curry.

Ready to feast.

A Birthday Pie

So, Vanilla Bean, wanted pie for her birthday.  Pretty sure the picture below indicates great success.

Apricot Apple Chocolate Pie

It was enjoyed by all, however, I would have preferred no chocolate, but it was Vanilla Bean's birthday, so who am I to argue.

Corn Muffins with Seasoned Lamb

It's Memorial Day weekend, and since it is the season for fair and picnic foods, I thought  I would experiment a bit with making something "vanillabean safe".  So why corn muffins with lamb? Because I've been seeing hot dogs and corn dogs and their baked modifiers everywhere on the food blogs I follow the past two weeks, and now, I am craving that guilty childhood pleasure a corn dog.  Since making my own hot dogs even before I start in on the corn dogs and then using up all my cooking oil to try my hand at deep frying them seems too much for a leisurely Saturday morning, baked stuffed corn muffins seemed a bit more my speed.  Even these got a bit more time intensive than I intended.

I started out with these three recipes:
Corn Dog Muffins from Alder's Grove  (the original inspiration I think)
Mini Corn Dog Muffins from the Pioneer Woman Cooks
Yellow Corn Muffins from Food.com

And then spun them together with a few substitutions.


Step One: "Hot Dogs"

The hot dog bits became little lamb meatballs seasoned with salt and sage, pan seared to get a nice browned outside, then baked in the oven.










Step Two: Zucchini Milk  ( substitute for the buttermilk in the Yellow Corn Muffins recipe)

This recipe came from the  Wow This is Allergy Free Cookbook.  The actual recipe ratio is

4 cup peeled, chopped zucchini
2/3 c water

Liquefy in the blender.
Heat in a saucepan just until a boil.

Since I didn't have that much zucchini, and my blender did not get the zucchini quite as liquid like as I had imagined... I added a bit more water.

Step Three: Corn Muffins

Substitutions were 1 2/3 c zucchini milk for the 1 cup butermilk; 2 T butter in place of the shortening; canola oil/water  in place of eggs. Mix up the batter. Fill the  muffin tins.

Step Four: Stuff the Corn Muffins with Little Sausages


Bake at 400 for 25 minutes.










While I am sure that any of the three recipes listed above is probably quite a bit tastier than these, they turned out pretty tasty anyway.  Only caveat, if I was serving these to friends, I would substitute pork or beef for the sausage center the lamb comes out pretty strong tasting in this , especially if it is not a flavor you are used to.  Now, if I only had ketchup...